Cameronian's Dream, The

DESCRIPTION: "In a dream of the night I was wafted away, To the muirlands of mist, where the martyrs lay; Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen...." The speaker watches the skies open to carry Cameron to heaven
AUTHOR: James Hyslop [Hislop] (1798-1827) (source: Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania and many internet sites)
EARLIEST DATE: 1821 (Edinburgh Magazine)
KEYWORDS: death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jul 22, 1680 - Battle of Ayre-moss/Airds Moss, in which Richard Cameron was killed
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 269-270, "The Cameronian's Dream" (1 text, probably composite or compared with print)
Roud #15005
NOTES [504 words]: I strongly doubt that this was ever sung, but as a poem it is fairly well known. Or, at least, there are lots of copies of it around the Internet. Author James Hyslop is famous enough to have a Wikipedia bio, and an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, so I won't repeat details, but he doesn't seem to have written anything noteworthy except this piece.
Hyslop may have been impressed with Richard Cameron (1648-1680), but I'm not. The word "fanatic" seems almost too weak for him. Keay/Keay, p. 127, say that he was born at Falkland in Fife, and brought up in the Episcopal tradition of what was then the Scottish church; he was educated at St Andrews University. "Field preachers" converted him to an extreme Covenanter viewpoint. He was sent to the Netherlands in 1678, and ordained there the next year.
Magnusson, p. 492, has this to say about the lead-up to his death:
"The divisions in the Covenanting party which had become apparent in the weeks before the Battle of Bothwell Brig [in 1679, for which see "Bothwell Bridge" [Child 206]] had widened even further in defeat. After the battle, Richard Cameron, the spiritual leader of the 'Cameronians,' returned to Scotland from Holland to stir things up. He was implacably opposed to any compromise with the state and to anyone who accepted the government's indulgences."
Eventually Cameron went into open rebellion; on the anniversary of Bothwell Brig, June 22, 1680, he pulled a Luther and nailed a declaration, the "Declaration of Sanquhar," to a cross in that town. In it, he "disown[ed] Charles Stewart," i.e. King Charles II. It was, literally, a declaration of war: "Also we... do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper and hte men of his practices, as enemies to our Lord Jesus Christ, and His cause and covenants" (Keay/Keay, p. 127; Magnusson, p. 493).
It didn't work too well. Cameron didn't spark a popular religious rising; rather, he and his handful of followers were hunted. On July 22, 1680, he and sixty followers were found by about 120 dragoons ((Magnusson, p. 493) set out by General Tam Dalyell (Keay/Keay, p.21) at Airds Moss in Ayrshire. The Cameronians inflicted casualties on the government troops, but seven including Cameron and his brother were killed, and most of the rest captured, tortured, and transported to the colonies. (Magnusson, p. 493; Keay/Keay, p. 127, say that nine Cameronians were killed).
Even after the Church of Scotland got rid of its bishops and most Covenanters rejoined, the Cameronians (originally known as the "Society People" until Cameron's death) refused to reunite; they felt that the Church should be independent of the state and supreme (OxfordCompanion, p. 156). They survived in folklore, and in a small sect, for many years, but as a political movement, they never amounted to much.
A lot of the imagery of this seems to come from the ascension of Elijah in 2 Kings 2:9-13 and the ascension of Jesus in Acts 1:9, but more seems to be just from general prophetic imagery, e.g. Ezekiel. - RBW
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