20 April 2026

When Samuel Rutherford was minister in Anwoth, he was exiled from his parish because the King imposed Episcopal practices on the Kirk. Rutherford was staunchly Presbyterian. For his refusal he was imprisoned in Aberdeen.

He wrote a book about the law and the King, Lex Rex. He  argued that the king ruled only by the consent of the people. His book was condemned and burned outside St. Mary’s College on South Street  where he was still Principal in 1660.

‘Faith is the better of the free air and the sharp winter storm in its face.’ he wrote. ‘Grace withereth without adversity.’ The hidden God was a familiar theme in his writing. ‘Oh how little a portion of God see we.’ he said. ‘We can all see the hewn stone but not the unbuilt house, the ploughed earth but not the flowering lilies. We can see the earth but not heaven. It doesn’t mean that God is not at work!’

Samuel Rutherford, whose part I played momentarily in the Kate Kennedy Procession fifty years ago, was put under house arrest in St. Andrews and cited to attend Parliament to answer a charge of treason for his book about the King’s right to rule. He was terminally ill and unable to travel to Edinburgh.

‘I have got summons already before a Superior Judge and Judicatory.’ he replied to the citation from the King. ‘And I behove to answer to my first summons, and ere your day come, I will be where few kings and great folks are.’ He died six months later on 29 March 1661.

After a life of challenge, change and conflict, he died in peace. ‘There is nothing now betwixt me and the resurrection.’ he said on his deathbed. ‘It may be you will tell this to others, that the lines are fallen to me in pleasant places, I have a goodly heritage. I bless the Lord that gave me counsel.’