After the Battle of Bothwell Bridge on 22 June 1679, about 1200 Covenanters were taken prisoner. Many were held in a makeshift prison at Greyfriars Kirkyard, the place where in 1638 their forefathers had gathered to hear and sign Scotland's National Covenant.
257 of the Covenanters were put onboard the ship the "Crown of London", captained by a William Patterson. She set sail on 27 November, heading for the plantations of Virginia or Barbados, where the prisoners would become slaves. However, after docking at Deersound, Orkney on 10 December due to a heavy storm, she once again set sail, but was wrecked at Scarva Taing, near Deerness.
211 of the Covenanters drowned that night, and 46 survived. Ten of the survivors were known to have then fled to Ulster. They were:
Andrew Clark (from the parish of Lochrutton, Galloway)
John Gardner (from the parish of Monklands, Clydesdale)
John Martin (from the parish of Borgue, Galloway)
Thomas Miller (from the parish of Ceres, Fife)
Hugh Montgomery (from the parish of Falkirk, Stirling)
Andrew Thomson (from the parish of Dundonald, Ayr)
John Thomson (from the parish of Shotts, Clydesdale)
Thomas Thomson (from the parish of St Ninian's, Stirling)
William Waddel (from the parish of Monklands, Clydesdale)
James Young (from the parish of Cavers, Merse & Teviotdale)
There are two Covenanter monuments on Orkney, at Scarva Taing (a large obelisk, erected 1888, pictured below) and at Kirkwall (a fountain on the kirk green, erected in 1891).
The source for the above names is the Diary of Thomas Brown, Notary Public, Kirkwall, Orkney, published by A Francis Stewart, 1898. Brown wrote "...'Dec 10th being Wednesday at 9 in the evening or thrabout the vessel or ship called the Crown wherein was 250 of the wigs or thereby taken at Bothwell Brigge to have been sent to Virginia parroshed at or near by the Moull Head of Deerness...". The same list of names appears in the Annals of Augusta County, Virginia by Joseph Addison Waddell, published 1901.
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