Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

THE ALISON MARTYRS. 23
trial conderaiied and consigned to the prison in Dunottar
Castle. After remaining there for a time, this James Alison
returned to his home and farm in Kerrs of Lochwinnoch.
He is supposed to be the ancestor of a considerable number
of Alisons that still reside in Paisley, Langbank, and Mearns,
in the county of Renfrew.
"The other Alison alluded to, and brother of James, was
Archibald Alison. He, along with a few others, was banished
to Elgin, whilst others were sent to Inverness and other
northern counties. This Archibald Alison and his exiled
companions did not cease to adhere to their adopted principles,
for we find in Crookshank's 'History of the Church of
Scotland '
that Bishop Ross, in whose diocese they lived,
wrote Archbishop Sharpe of St. Andrews to the effect " that
these Covenanting exiles expelled from the south were
doing more harm in the north than they could possibly do
in their own homes, and begged of him to recall them that
the}^ might spread the contagion no further." It was a
daughter of the same Archibald Alison, one Isabel Alison,
that was seized at Perth, when residing at St. Johnston's
there, and was condemned and executed in the Grass Market
of Edinburgh merely for conversing with rebels such as Donald
Cargil and Hackston of Rathillet, and for adhering to the
Solemn League and Covenant. Hence Archibald Alison of
Windyedge, who was taken prisoner at Airsmoss and suffered
martyrdom the same year, was a cousin of Isabel Alison.
And it is not a little remarkable to notice that in the Roll of
four or five
Martyrs still kept in Edinburgh there are only
names between them. They were separated from each other
in life because of their faithful adherence to Christ's crown
and covenant, but in death they were not separate, for they
died at the same place, for the same cause, and in the same
year; and now through union to the same Redeemer they
are together before the throne, where there are neither curses
nor crosses, sins nor sorrows, griefs nor graves, but where
they have met to part no more."
From Elgin, Archibald Alison is supposed to have come
southward to Perth and afterward settled in Forfairshire.
But although there was a scattering of the Alisons of
Cairndiiff during these persecuting times, yet there was a
gradual extension of them in the neighborhood around. For
in the days of the Covenanters that soon followed, we
find in historical reminiscences one in Goslington in the
Parish of Lesmahagow, another in iMuirhead, a farm in Avondale,
County Lanark; a third in Crewburn, in Avondale; a