Still we may remark the ruined chapel almost smothered by the
overturned yew trees that were planted, less, perhaps, to mark the
"route" of the Mass carried in procession (hence "routine," corrupted
into "Rotten Row,") than to furnish the twanging bow for these martial
spirits. That great boulder-stone at the north-eastern end of the
magnificent avenue opposite is, most likely, a Roman landmark, though
it is customary to declare that the Earn once flowed past it. Colonel
Campbell of Lawers was not only a sincere reformer, but John Knox's
history tells us how he commanded a regiment raised to make good the
cause of religious faith and freedom. His second successor was a yet
more staunch and eminent Scotsman, knighted in 1620, and created Earl
of Loudon in 1633. He proved himself a stout opponent of the arbitrary
measures of Charles I. and Laud; was one of the most prominent actors
in the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, and nominated to represent the Church
of Scotland in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. He narrowly
escaped being beheaded in the Tower of London, in spite of a safe
conduct and without trial; but the fiat of the insensate monarch was
recalled, and the warrant torn up by Charles a single day before the
axe was doomed to fall, from fear of the odium and vengeance his death
would have called forth. Not to remain Chancellor of Scotland (as he
was for ten years) would he imperil the interests of religious liberty
and national independence, just then threatened by Stuart absolutism;
and yet he was a man of the type of the great Montrose, as loyal to the
King as he was true to Church and people. Few deserve better to rank
among "The Scots Worthies." He disponed Lawers estate to his brother,
who, fighting against Cromwell at Inverkeithing, was badly beaten, and
had his lands on the north of Loch Earn taken from him by an oppressive
exaction put in force against him by the same Stuart dynasty, whose
cause he had so faithfully championed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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