The more research is done into the Covenanters story, the more Ulster connections are being found. Thanks again to Jack Greenald for this one.
Colonel James Wallace was from Auchans, near Dundonald in Ayrshire. A firm Presbyterian and Covenanter, he was a Captain in the Marquis of Argyll's first Covenanter army which he raised in 1639. Wallace's flag was "...azure, an unicorn, arg. and on the other side in grate gold letters these words 'Covenant for Religione, King and Kingdomes""
Wallace was then sent to Ulster with the Scottish army in 1642, and stayed until 1645, returning to Scotland but came back again in 1647. He was appointed Governor of Belfast in 1647, a post which he held until June 1649 when he was dismissed due to his pro-Covenanter leanings. Around this time he married Helen Edmonstone of Redhall, Ballycarry in Country Antrim (her sister Jean was married to Sir Robert Adair of Kilhilt and Ballymena)
Wallace was back in Scotland fighting for the Covenanters against Cromwell in the 1650s, and became a leading elder of the Lowland Congregation.
The persecution and events of November 1666 saw Wallace once again join the fight. Shortly after the Dalry rising where the Covenanters freed an elderly man from Royal troops who were threatening to roast him in a fire, Wallace joined the Covenanter protest march at Ayr, then numbering about 700 people, who were heading for Edinburgh.
At the tolbooth at Lanark, Rev Gabriel Semple and Ulster minister Rev John Crookshanks of Raphoe "preached to them and thereafter read the Covenant, to which they all engaged solemnly, with uplifted hands and great affection..."
The band of what was by then 900 Covenanters were attacked at Rullion Green (in the Pentland Hills outside Edinburgh) by around 2600 Royal troops led by General Thomas Dalzell. Ironically, Dalzell had also been a soldier in Ulster in 1642, and had been the only man to refuse the Covenant at Carrickfergus in April 1644 - from about 1400 people. It's likely that Wallace was there that day - never knowing that 22 years later they would come face to face on the Pentland Hills.
The courage of the Covenanters, and the brutality of the attack, was legendary. In Wallace's own account of the Pentland Rising he wrote "...in the first assault fell, with the first fire, Mr John Crookshanks and Mr Andrew McCormick, two main instruments of the attempt, two Ireland ministers..." 50 of Wallace's men were killed and 80 were taken prisoner. The dead were stripped of their clothing and belongings, their bodies left naked on the hillside. Some of the prisoners were held in a portion of St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh known as Haddow's Hole, before being executed.
Wallace escaped from Rullion Green with another Ulster Covenanter, John Welsh of Irongray (who had been born at Templepatrick in County Antrim - his father Josias Welsh was minister there). Wallace went to Ayrshire and then over to Ulster. When a death sentence was pronounced on him by the Scottish Parliament, he fled to Rotterdam for refuge, where he became an elder in the Scots Kirk. He died there in late 1678.
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Wallace had provided significant financial support during his time at Broadisland (Ballycarry) to the local minister Rev Robert Cunningham (he was minister there from 1646-1697). In July 1655 the presbytery recorded that Wallace had "...given so much satisfaction to Mr Cunningham for his maintenance at Broadisland that the presbytery do not declare him transportable at this time..."
In Steven's History of the Scottish Church (GoogleBooks PDF version here), he wrote of Wallace "...he had lived abroad such an ornament to his profession as he was not more lamented by us (the Scotch ministers) than by all the serious English and Dutch of his acquaintance ... I must say he was the most faithful, feckful, compassionate, diligent, and indefatigable elder in the work of the Lord that ever I knew at home or abroad..."
In Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, he writes about events in 1644 and of "...Captain James Wallace, a truly christian officer, to whom subsequent references will be subsequently made in these pages..." (vol II p 46), and also of the presbytery of Ulster sending "...Captain James Wallace, elder, to the General Assembly of Scotland..." (vol II p 85)
Alexander Smellie's 1901 classic "Men of the Covenant" includes a chapter entitled "How Colonel Wallace Fought at Pentland".
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Further information:
Auchans Castle (home of Col James Wallace)
Auchans Castle (plus Lego reconstructions of how it would have looked in its heyday)
Notices of Colonel James Wallace (GoogleBooks PDF)
Biography on KintyreMag.com
Biography on Electric Scotland
Narrative of the Rising at Pentland by Colonel Wallace (GoogleBooks PDF)
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(Interpretive plaque on the Rullion Green monument below, which refers to Wallace)
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