Note 4 — SIGNING OF THE NATIONAL COVENANT IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD 28th February 1638

The various accounts of the slaughter are rather contradictory in their details. It may be noted, too, that—while Patrick Gordon says that fifty Irishmen were promised safe quarter and yet were killed—it was urged, in defence of the four prisoners condemned by the Scottish Parliament, that the quarter they had received was not against the orders of the Commander-in-Chief at Philiphaugh, as he only forbade the giving of quarter to the Irish. Nearly a year before (24th October 1644) the English Parliament had declared that “no quarter shall be given hereafter to any Irishman, nor to any Papist whatever born in Ireland, which shall be taken in hostility against the Parliament,” either on the sea or in England or in Wales; and ordained that they should be excepted “out of all capitulations, agreements or compositions,” and when taken should be forthwith put to death. The massacres of 1641-1642 had not been forgotten.