Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/31

 that the nation hath been so much troubled with?’

Under examination by the privy council he concealed nothing, and made a favourable impression by his frankness and courage. He was indicted (3 Feb.) on three counts—disowning the king's authority, maintaining the unlawfulness of paying the cess, and the lawfulness of defensive arms. Before his trial his mother and other friends were admitted to see him. On 8 Feb. he was tried by the court of session and a jury of fifteen. The trial was conducted with unusual moderation, but Renwick's answers to interrogatories fully admitted the truth of all three charges, and he was sentenced to be hanged in the Grassmarket on 12 Feb. Subsequently, and contrary to his wishes, he was reprieved to 17 Feb. After sentence his friends were denied access to him, but he was visited by numbers of the clergy, catholic, episcopalian, and presbyterian of the moderate sort. John Paterson [q. v.], archbishop of Glasgow, was frequently with him, trying hard to get him to petition for a further reprieve, which would certainly have been granted, and his life might have been saved. But Renwick was immovable in his determination to suffer for his principles; it became a proverb, ‘Begone, as Mr. Renwick said to the priests.’ On 16 Feb. he penned his dying testimony and a letter to his followers. Even on the morning of his execution he was offered his life if he would sign a petition for pardon. On the scaffold he sang a psalm, read a chapter, and prayed at length. He suffered on 17 Feb. 1688, having just completed his twenty-sixth year. He is celebrated as the last of the martyrs of the covenant, James Guthrie [q. v.] being one of the first. The two are thus commemorated in the inscription upon the ‘martyrs' monument’ in the Greyfriars' churchyard, Edinburgh, the Westminster Abbey of Scotland: Which truths were sealed by famous Guthrie's head, And all along to Master Renwick's blood. The monument marks Renwick's burial-place, being fixed to the wall close to the spot where criminals were interred. An ‘Elegie’ on his death, by Shields, was published in Edinburgh, 1668, 8vo. A monument to his memory has been erected near his birthplace. Renwick seems to have published nothing, but after his death was issued ‘A Choice Collection of very valuable Prefaces, Lectures, and Sermons, preached upon the Mountains and Muirs … transcribed from several Manuscripts,’ &c. To the fourth edition (Glasgow, 1777, 8vo) were added his ‘Form and Order of Ruling Elders,’ and other pieces. It may be noted that ‘prefaces’ are exhortations before prayer. In the John Rylands Library at Manchester is a manuscript volume containing transcripts of letters by Renwick and others, made soon after his death.

[Life, by Shields, reprinted from the edition of 1724, in Biographia Presbyteriana, 1827, vol. ii., abridged in Howie's Scots Worthies (Buchanan), 1862, pp. 612 sq., further abridged in Anderson's Scottish Nation, 1872, ii. 339 sq.; Wodrow's Hist. of the Church of Scotland (Burns), 1828, vol. iv.; Catalogue of Edinburgh Graduates, 1858, p. 117; Grub's Ecclesiastical Hist. of Scotland, 1861, iii. 280 sq.; Irving's Book of Scotsmen, 1881, pp. 430 sq.] 

RENWICK, WILLIAM (1740?–1814), naval surgeon and author, born about 1740, a native of Berwick-on-Tweed, was in August 1760, being then (according to his own statement) nineteen, appointed surgeon's mate of a regiment at Plymouth, through the interest of General John Crawfurd. In that capacity he was abroad on active service, apparently at the reduction of Belleisle (7 June 1761); and after a two years' absence was invalided, having temporarily lost his eyesight. In June 1763, consequent on the peace, he was reduced, and seems to have unsuccessfully endeavoured to form a medical practice in Berwick. In the by-election of January 1765 he was of some use to Sir John Hussey Delaval, who promised him his interest; on the strength of which, and with no more tangible means of subsistence, he married, in June 1765, Abigail, daughter of Arthur Hindmarsh of Berwick. Poverty pursued him, and for seven years (1766–1773) he left his wife, endeavouring to gain a livelihood as ‘journeyman apothecary’ in London, Wokingham, and elsewhere. When he rejoined his wife about 1774 his endeavour to establish a practice in Berwick met with small success; and in despair he published ‘Misplaced Confidence, or Friendship Betrayed’ (3 vols. 12mo, 1777), in which he openly related the story of his sufferings, and attacked his former patron, Delaval.

In October 1778, through the interest of the Earl of Lisburne, a lord of the admiralty, to whom he had been recommended, he was appointed surgeon of the Countess of Scarborough, which, on 23 Sept. 1779, was captured off Flamborough Head by the squadron under John Paul Jones [q. v.] and taken to the Texel. He wrote a magniloquent description of the engagement in heroic verse. On being exchanged Ren-