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This
is both a chilling, yet gripping, saga of a noble people; warriors in
the fight for Scottish Freedom; and leaders and followers of the
Religious Reformation in
Scotland. They were the Calvinists,
followers of John Knox, determined to institute the reforms flowing from
the Reformation in the 1500’s. They
fought valiantly despite persecution and massacre.
They bravely signed the National Covenant of Scotland, and many became
known as Covenanters. Hunted
down like wild animals, many decided to make the short sea journey of 20
miles across the channel from southwestern Scotland to the Province of
Ulster, Northern Ireland, which had been opened up to English and
Scottish settlers in the early 1600’s.
While the Scottish, English, and some Huguenot settlers flourished in
the Province of Ulster, Northern Ireland, the ‘grin of the wolf’ was
not long in planning a tortuous massacre in order to exterminate all
Protestants in the Province of Ulster, Northern Ireland.
What followed was so horrific as to be scarcely fit for the
printed page. Yet the
Massacres of 1641 and 1688-91 are described in detail.
Finally, with discrimination in their midst, unjust laws legislated
against them, treated as second class citizens, many Scottish, English,
and Huguenot settlers decided a greater destiny lay across the Atlantic
where others seeking religious and civil liberties had preceded them.
Their sojourn in
Ulster,
Northern Ireland
had been a bitter disappointment.
This bitterness against their British landlords carried over to America.
The Scots from
Ulster
became the backbone of the American Revolutionary War.
When
Washington
was in his deepest despair at
Valley Forge, The Ulster Scots were with him. The
story of the Boyd Family begins in
Scotland, carries over to
Northern Ireland, and follows them to the frontier of all the colonies in
America. It could be the story of
thousands of Scots who all experienced the same pilgrimage and endured
the same hardships and sufferings.
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