by Glenn N. Holliman
No, I am not doing a Fed Ex commercial; the truck rolled by as I snapped this picture from my car window in June 2011. I had just left the Dumfries Heritage Center in Scotland, the building to the left of the truck. I was on the trail of anything I could find about the Grierson and Maxwell families.
Inside the centre, several young ladies (photo below) assisted me. The one the left, Joan Stoddard, told me stories of the Convenanter Controversy (a mild term for a religious war) of the middle to late 1600s. Numerous anti-Anglican Griersons were captured and transported to Maryland in 1677.
Many Scottish nationalists and Presbyterians objected to being forced to worship according to Anglican Church ritual. Charles Stuart II had been restored to the throne and, though being born to a Scottish family, he also carried the low I.Q. of the family. He insisted on quasi-Catholic worship practices.
Enough Scots revolted at this that intermittent religious wars, especially in the Dumfries area, continued for several decades. It got nasty and numerous persons died for religious reasons, all Christians. Seems very strange today.
Did James Grierson, my 8th great grand father, suffer from this war and was he transported to Maryland as a result?
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