Richard Cameron (Covenanter)

Richard Cameron (1648? - 1680) was a leader of the Presbyterians who resisted the Stuart monarchs. His followers took his name, the Cameronians, which ultimately formed the nucleus of the modern Scottish regiment of the same name, the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), which was disbanded in 1968.

Born at Falkland, Fife, he was initially a parish school teacher and then a highly successful field preacher of the strict Presbyterian school, a Covenanter. When Charles II demanded that all preachers submit to the Crown's religion (High Church Anglicanism) and accept the king as the head of the church, Cameron spent some years in exile in the Netherlands.

He returned to Scotland in 1680 and along with others such as Donald Cargill issued the Sanquhar Declaration, calling for war against the king, Charles II, and the exclusion of the king's brother from the succession. Cameron was killed later the same year in a skirmish with government troops at Airds Moss near Cumnock during a government attempt to suppress the Covenanters. This period was later given the title of "the Killing Time" because hundreds, if not thousands of Presbyterians were persecuted and martyred for holding Cameronian views.

In 1689 after the accession of William III his followers were pardoned, and incorporated into the British Army as the Cameronian regiment which defeated Jacobite forces at the Battle of Dunkeld in the same year, and was subsequently renamed the 26th (The Cameronian) Regiment of Foot.

Further Reading

Munro, Neil. "Lion of the Covenant." In "Ayrshire Idylls". Edinburgh: FrontList Books, 2004. 19-32. ISBN 1-84350-079-5 First published in 1912, this is a short story based on the killing of Richard Cameron by Royalist troops in 1680.

Grant, Maurice. "The Lion of the Covenant." Darlington, Evangelical Press, 1997. 335 pages.ISBN 0-85234-395-7 A modern biography of Richard Cameron by a Scottish Presbyterian.