On 4th April 1644 at Carrickfergus, the Scottish ministers arrived on the instructions of the English Parliament, to administer the Solemn League and Covenant to "...all the officers, soldiers and Protestants of their nation in Ireland..." (J S Reid, p 25).
Among the Scottish officers gathered at Carrickfergus Castle that day was the 29 year old Major Thomas Dalyell. As a portent of what was to come, in the face of about 1400 soldiers and 400 civilians who signed or swore the Covenant on that momentous day, Dalyell refused.
22 years on, at the Pentland Rising, also known as the Battle of Rullion Green on 28 November 1666, it was the same Dalyell who led a murderous force of 2000 soldiers and 600 horse, he attacked a group of about 900 Covenanters - men, women and children - who were walking back from Edinburgh and were at Turnhouse Hill, near what is today Flotterstone Visitor Centre in the Pentland Hills Regional Park near Penicuik. Dalzell and his men took the lives of 50 Covenanters there, including Rev Andrew McCormick of Magherally (Banbridge), and Rev John Crookshanks of Raphoe.
It's interesting to think of how history might have been changed, if that spring day in Carrickfergus had worked out differently for Thomas Dalzell.
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