27 February 2025

When the Scottish Psalter was printed in 1650, chaos followed and the music was not printed. The Scots had sworn allegiance to King Charles II after his father was beheaded in 1649 but Oliver Cromwell was not pleased and marched on Scotland defeating the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar.

It makes me wonder what is happening with the patterns of worship in war torn Ukraine. Attempting to establish new initiatives in peacetime is difficult enough but as the Church of Scotland found out it was very difficult when the country and  its kirks became a battleground.

Within a decade or two, the Scottish Psalter was stained with the blood of the martyrs during what became known as the Killing Times. When the eighteen year old Margaret Wilson was chained  to a stake in the Solway Firth for her Presbyterian beliefs, she drowned singing the metrical Psalm 25:

To thee I lift my soul, O Lord:

My God, I trust in thee:

Let me not be asham’d; let not

my foes triumph o’er me.