This address begins: 'IN first place, SIR, we humbly crave, / That You this poor Adress receive: / Do not disdain it, tho its Fashion / Be not like others of the Nation'. The sheet is dated 1689.
When King James VII of Scotland and II of England was deposed in 1689, the Presbyterian church was relieved to have the Catholic king removed. Although King William of Orange (r. 1689-1702) restored Presbyterianism as the Established Church in Scotland in 1690, a section of its fold, followers of Richard Cameron (d.1680), were not happy that the 1638 Covenant had not also been restored. They left to form the Reformed Presbyterian Church, still sometimes referred to today as the Cameronian Church. This satirical broadside anticipates that move.
The National Library of Scotland's online catalogue attributes this piece to Alexander Pennecuik (1652-1722). Known as the 'burgess bard', he had a prolific output in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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Date of publication:
1689 shelfmark: S.302.b.2(042)
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