Alexander Peden

Alexander Peden (1626-26 January 1686) was one of the leading forces in the Covenant movement, was born at Auchincloich Farm near Sorn, Ayrshire, about 1626, and was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was a teacher at Tarbolton and then ordained minister of New Luce in Galloway in 1660.

After the restoration of Charles II, Peden had to leave his parish under Middletons Ejectment Act in 1663. For ten years he wandered far and wide, bringing comfort and succour to his co-religionists, and often very narrowly escaping capture, spending some of his time in Ireland.

In June 1673 while holding a conventicle at Knockdow near Ballantrae, Ayrshire, he was captured by Major William Cockburn, and condemned by the Privy Council to four years and three months imprisonment on the Bass Rock and a further fifteen months in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh.

In December 1678 he, along with sixty others, was sentenced to banishment to the American plantations. They were transported by ship to London, where they were supposed to be transferred to an American ship, however the American captain on hearing the reason for their banishment released them. Peden made his way north again to divide the remaining years of his life between his own country and the north of Ireland. His last days were spent in a cave in the parish of Sorn, near his birthplace and his brother's farm in Auchinleck, and there he died in 1686, worn out by hardship and privation.

He was buried in Auchinleck churchyard. Six weeks later his body was exhumed by troops from Sorn Castle, who planned to hang his corpse from the gallows in Cumnock. However the Earl of Dumfries objected to the hanging, so the troops buried the corpse at the foot of the gallows. In 1891 a monument was erected to mark the spot.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)