Joseph Learmont

Major Joseph Learmont was major in the Scottish Covenanter army. He was a tailor before he began his military career. He was proprietor of the lands of Newholm, near Dolphinton, which lay partly in the shire of Peebles and partly in that of Lanark.

Joseph Learmont
Allegiance
RankMajor
Battles/warsRullion Green[1]
Bothwell Bridge

Battles
Battle of Bothwell Bridge

He was fined £1200 Scots due to Middleton's Act of 1662 for having complied with Cromwell's forces.[2] He was second in command, leading the Covenanters' horse on the left at Rullion Green in 1666.[3] One source says he led the main attack "in which being unsuccessful, a rout ensued, but he managed to escape, along with William Veitch, a preacher, who afterwards wrote an account of the affair, and lived to be minister of Peebles."[4][5][6] He also fought at Bothwell Bridge in 1679. In the year 1667 his whole fortune was forfeited for his being in the Pentland Hills insurrection.[7][8] For the space of sixteen years thereafter, notwithstanding all the efforts made to find him, he remained undiscovered. He is recorded as spending some of the time in hiding in Ireland.[9]

Imprisonment

About the month of February 1682, he was taken prisoner and carried to Edinburgh, where, on 7 April that same year, he was sentenced to be executed. This sentence, however, by the interest of friends, was commuted into perpetual imprisonment in the Bass, to which he was sent on 13 May. He there remained close prisoner for five years.[10]

Release

Through the testimony of physicians that he was in a dying condition, he was liberated by the Council, upon giving bond that as soon as he recovered he would return to that place of confinement. But the Revolution taking place next year freed him from this obligation. He lived at his own house at Newholm some years after that memorable event, and died in peace in the 88th year of his age.[11]

Secret tunnel

A secret tunnel was found at his house.[12]

References
  1. Crocket, W. S. (1900). Biggar: historical, traditional and descriptive. Biggar: J. B. Watson. pp. 64–65. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  2. Gunn, Clement Bryce (1912). The book of the Cross Kirk, Peebles, A.D. 1560-1690 : presbyterianism and episcopacy. Peebles : A. Smith, Neidpath Press. p. 195. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  3. Erskine, Caroline (2009). "Participants in the Pentland rising". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/98249.
  4. Veitch, William; Brysson, George; M'Crie, Thomas (1825). Memoirs of Mr. William Veitch, and George Brysson. Edinburgh; London: W. Blackwood; T. Cadell.
  5. Green, Mary Anne Everett, ed. (1864). Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series of the Reign of Charles 2. Preserved in Her Majestyʼs Public Record Office. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green. p. 295.
  6. Chambers, William (1864). A history of Peeblesshire. Edinburgh, London: W. and R. Chambers. pp. 191–192. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  7. The records of the proceedings of the Justiciary court, Edinburgh, 1661-1678. Vol. 1. Edinburgh, Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society. 1905. p. 238. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  8. Morton, Alexander S. (1914). Galloway and the Covenanters; or, The struggle for religious liberty in the south-west of Scotland. Paisley : A. Gardner. p. 123. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  9. Irving, George Vere (1864). The upper ward of Lanarkshire described and delineated. Vol. 1. Glasgow: T. Murray and son. pp. 370–371. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  10. Fairley, John A. (1915). Extracts from the Records of the Old Tolbooth from The book of the Old Edinburgh Club. Vol. 8. Edinburgh : The Club. p. 125. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  11. M'Crie, Thomas, D.D. the younger (1847). The Bass rock: Its civil and ecclesiastic history. Edinburgh: J. Greig & Son. pp. 367–368. Retrieved 22 December 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. Jardine, Mark (11 September 2014). Covenanter's Secret Tunnel Discovered in Lanarkshire. online: Jardine's Book of Martyrs. Retrieved 15 February 2019.

Attribution: This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "M'Crie, Thomas, D.D. the younger (d.1875)". The Bass rock: Its civil and ecclesiastic history. Edinburgh : J. Greig & Son. 1847

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