Stranraer & Regimental Chaplaincy
At the end of May, 1638 he was given the choice of two parishes in Scotland, Stranraer and Straiton in Carrick. He opted for the former in as much it was nearer the port of Portpatrick and so nearer Ireland where his people could travel to meet him more easily. He moved there in July of that year. He was joined there by his family and would remain there for ten years until the harvest of 1648.
By November, 1638 the King, Charles l, was at first pleased to yield to some of the demands of the Covenant and allowed the convening of the first free General Assembly in Glasgow, referring all ecclesiastic matters to it, and civil matters would be dealt with by Parliament.
The following year, 1639 the King branded the Covenanter rebels and set about to crush them by raising an army of under 12,000 men, horse and foot soldiers, and marching with them to set up camp at York. The Civil War was upon them.
30,000 horse and foot soldiers under the leadership of Sir Alexander Leslie advanced soutwards and came to rest at Berwick. Both sides parleyed and reached an amicable agreement with no fighting taking place. The earlier decision to allow ecclesiastic matters to be dealt with by the church and civil matters by Parliament was written into a treaty of disengagement. It was also a condition that both armies be disbanded.
On returning to London the King met with the wrath of the Bishops.and was forced to have the articles of the above treaty burned by the hands of the hangman. Immediately the King was promised the support of the clergy if he would break with the treaty and to set about raising another army to invade Scotland and subdue the rebels. This he agreed to do.
By August, 1640 Charles had entrenched an army near Newburn on the south side of the River Tyne. He had already fortified Edinburgh Castle with a company of English soldiers under General Ruthven.
The Covenanters had been expecting this new venture, and had consequently raised an army in anticipation. This force made its way over the border determined to prevent any incursion onto Scottish soil by the King`s force.
Livingstone was called upon by the Presbytery to accompany the regiment of the Earl of Cassilis when it marched into England in 1640. The regiment camped at a place called Chouslywood and there remained for some weeks to await the rest of the army coming.
A little trench tent was made available to him in which he installed a bed slung between two leaguer chests. For the first few nights he lay with his clothes on, but being wearied from want of sleep, decided one evening to discard them.
The night was very cold, and as he slept, the bedclothes slipped off him. He was chilled. With the help of his man and a baggageman, he got dressed, mounted his horse and rode to Dunce, a nearby settlement, and "lay doun on ane bed, and caused them to give me into bed ane big stoup full of hot water, whereby ane sweat was procured, so that before night I was able to rise and put on my clothes."
When eventually the army caught up there was found to be a dire shortage of powder, bread, and tent materials. This was a setback to the plans for the imminent invasion and thought was given to withdraw. During a meeting in the Castle of Dunce, word came to them that a quantity of powder had been found beneath the house.
This was thought to be part of a plot to blow them all up. After a further search it was concluded that it in fact the store had lain there from the year before and had indeed been forgotten about.
With one part of the deficiency being made up; cloth and food provisions were then procured from Edinburgh within a few days. On 20th August, 1640, the army moved into England and following the skirmish at Newburn, Newcastle surrendered to it. Livingstone was asked by the army Presbytery to draw up a report on its events This he did.
In it he wrote, "...when the troops came to their quarters, there was nothing to be heard throughout the whole army but the singing of psalms and prayer and reading of scripture."
It was further commented on by Livingstone that, "when we came to Newburn, the Generall and some others stepped aside to Haddon on the Wall, where old Mrs Fenwick came out and met us, and burst out saying [and it is so that Jesus Christ will not come to England for reforming of abuses, but with an army of twenty two thousand men at his back?].)
Raising Supplies
On his return to his parish in Stranraer, Livingstone set about raising supplies for the army which he knew it was in dire need of. Many volunteered offerings even from such a small community. One woman, had recently lost her daughter and for whom she had set aside a little dowry.
She donated this with the words, "...whereas the Lord hath pleased by death to take the daughter I had to Himself, I thought I would give Him her portion also."
He attended the General Assembly in the Summer of 1641 when it was held in Edinburgh,
William Livingstone`s Death
On his return from there, he stopped off at Lanark where his father was lying on his deathbed. He remained there until his death and burial.
William was "worn with some of the gravell." On the Sunday before the funeral the following morning, John, himself, was suffering from the same affliction. Off and on he had been bothered with this for the previous five years but with long intermissions.
Concerned that he would be in great pain during the burial, he prayed that he might be spared from it even if it pleased God that it would return later in a more severe form. His pleas was answered, for the pain abated for the duration of the internment and only returned at the day`s end. This continued to affect him for a few more days.
This period was an exceptionally sad one for both him and his wife. As well as the death of his father, two of their three surviving children died within one month of each other.
Bartholomew died on 24th September, 1641 aged two years and Agnes aged 13 months on October 17th. Livingstone never referred to these unhappy events when recording his life twenty years later.
Allowing for the intervening period and the philosphical attitude to child mortality at the time, both he and his wife must surely have been heartbroken at the losses.
