350 years ago, November 13th 1666: the Pentland Rising began:
http://www.covenanter.org.uk/PentlandRising/
It would be better called the Glenkens Rising, as it began in that part of Eul's Galloway, and involved Covenanters very largely from 'the Northern Forest'.
Scarcely remembered outwith Galloway, ending in wretched failure, yet arguably more significant in its way than the much better-known, more 'romantic' Jacobite risings of the later 17th - mid-18th century. The underlying grievance was that Charles II had reneged on his promise to respect the Presbyterian model of church government in Scotland, and was trying to impose Bishops and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, with vicious fines, dispossession, quartering of troops etc. for those who objected. Whatever view we take of the dour religious beliefs and harsh lifestyles of the Covenanters, their opposition to the 'divine right' of kings and their insistence that sovereigns rule legitimately only if they have the willing consent of their subjects, were a fundamental principle of Scottish constitutional law, and one which directly influenced the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence.
(I was born in Cleveland).
