[1695/5/216]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
At Edinburgh, 17 July 1695, anent the petition given in and presented to his grace his majesty's high commissioner and the estates of parliament by Barbara Lundie, widow of Mr Robert Gillespie, son to the deceased Mr George Gillespie, minister at Edinburgh, showing that where the deceased Mr Robert Gillespie, succeeding to his father in the ministry of the Gospel, did on the account of his continuing in the exercise thereof fall under severe persecution in the late times by being necessitated to flee and abscond, and then, by suffering a long imprisonment at the Bass, and after all constrained to flee to England, where, worn out with labours and infirmities, he died, leaving behind him the petitioner, his poor widow and orphan children under the burden of the debts, which, in his foresaid long affliction, he was necessitated to contract. Whereby the petitioner humbly conceived that she might claim to the provision in the Claim of Right, that all imprisonments, banishments and persecutions be considered, and the persons harmed be redressed. Likewise, it also might be remembered how that Mr George Gillespie, father to the said Mr Robert, did spend himself in the service of this church, both at home and abroad, so that after his death the government thought fit in December 1648, to provide to his widow and children the sum £1,000 sterling, with annualrent thereafter, to be paid out of the money due by the then parliament of England to the kingdom of Scotland, as the acts of the committee and parliament of these times ready to be produced testify, and whereof they never received a farthing. And seeing that by these things his grace and lordships might easily perceive both the merits and sad sufferings of the petitioner's said deceased husband and his said deceased father, with the sad distress whereunto she and her poor children were thereby reduced and, therefore, craving that his grace and lordships, in consideration of the circumstances, and in commiseration of the petitioner's sad condition, would provide some remedy for her distress, at least to recommend her and her poor children to his majesty's bounty, and to such a measure thereof as his grace and lordships should think fit to modify, as the said petition bears. Which being, upon the day and date of this decision, heard and considered by his majesty's high commissioner and the said estates of parliament, they recommended and hereby recommend the said petitioner and her poor children to his royal majesty's bounty.