TRUE BLUES Ch: 2
Chapter 2
“TRUE BLUES”
Now they were back into Ulster again, what of the future ? The clergymen and theirfellow-travellers soon found that little had changed. Once more the ministers were debarred from preaching in their churches or indeed anywhere in Ulster. After a while each made his way to Scotland. There, all four took part in the organizing and signing of the National Covenant at Edinburgh in 1638, This had for its purpose the uniting of all Presbyterians in resistance to royal, or church insistence on Anglian uniformity of worship, The Covenant was supported to such an extent that Presbyterianism was established in Scotland. Thus came into general use the term, ‘Covenanters, which was to become synonymous ever since with firm adherence to ones beliefs and practices no matter the opposition. Their loyalty too to a Biblical injunction in Numbers (CH15 Verse 38) led to their being regarded as “True blues”
37. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
38. Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:
39. And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:
40. That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God.
41. I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.
Livingston was soon installed as ‘minister in Stranraer, the Scottish port near to Ulster. It is some indication of the love and respect in which he was held, that on at least two occasions about 500 people crossed over from Donaghadee in County Down to attend Communion services at which he officiated at the Scottish church. In addition to this, 28 babies born around the Killinchy district. were taken tor him to baptize. This sea-voyage, in those was far from being the easy one is today.
John Stevenson in his book “Two centuries of life in County Down, relates how people travelled to Donaghadee and braved the risks and annoyance of a passage in the small boats of that, time. Delay at a port could be over a week costs of a journey could be high and not always the same. There were often raids on boats by pirates. In spite of these difficulties many of his former congregation travelled. Many years later because of his consistent defiance of royal edict on church practices Livingston was denounced and finally exiled to Holland. There his great ability to speak in several languages and to translate even more gave him much influence. There he met the young man who was later to become King Charles the second, but it has been recorded that he did not trust the king to be. One result of his being banished to that particular country, and of his being an outstanding linguist, is that his son, Robert, became a very fluent Dutch speaker. This had a surprising result on that young man’s future. In 1674, the young Livingston emigrated to America. He went to Albany near New York, strangely enough Just at the time that the Dutch handed over that colony to tile English.
Almost at once, because of his great knowledge of the Dutch language, he become an outstanding success in 1679 he married Alida Schuyler (pronounced Skyler), the widow of one of the Van Rensselaer sons. His connection thus with two of the leading families in New York led to the establishment of his own future family and their offspring as one of the most influential and honoured in the developing young American country. The influence and achievements of some of the descendants of John Livingston of Killinchy and the “Eagle Wing” were very great indeed both before and following the War of American Independence. It is hoped to discuss some of these later. It would seem there is truth in the old saying: ‘there is a destiny that shapes our ends, Rough – hew them how we will.” So much for the eminent, what of the more humble?
One wonders what became of Seaborn Colvert. If the baby born on the “Eagle Wing” lived for the allotted span, he would certainly have passed through most trying and challenging times. He would have been too young to sense the worry and anger of his parents around the year 1639, when there was an even more determined attempt made to force Presbyterian’s to swear to obey the king without question in all civil and religious matters. It was the total obedience in Church practices to which they objected. Almost all of that persuasion in Ulster as well as in Scotland refused to take, what they termed, the “Black Oath”. Everyone over the age of 16, with the exception of Roman Catholics, was to swear obedience “on their knees” and “upon the Four Evangelists… The clergy had to make a return to all Presbyterian’s in their parishes Those who would not swear were fined and imprisoned. Many were forced to leave the home they had built and the farms they had made so productive. Quite a large number fled to Scotland. “The punishment was often severe.
One example wit illustrate this point A man, his wife. their two daughters, and their servant were taken to court and tied. The man and his wife were each fined £5,000 and the three others £2,000 each. These were all put into prison, until the entire £16,000 was paid, Seaborn would have been old. enough in 1641 to feel some of the fears that beset his parents and all Protestants in Ulster when the Rebellion broke out. This was a determined, ruthless attempt to drive the British out of Ireland, to root out Protestantism and to establish Roman Catholicism. Many of the unarmed settlers were savagely massacred. Fairly reliable administrative estimates put the number at around 15,000. No one was spared… and children and women, as well as men, suffered. 
The attacks were widespread particularly in country areas well away from the towns. It was recorded that in Fermanagh scarcely 20 escaped. The young Killinchy boy would have heard his relatives talking with horror of how Rev. Thomas Murry, then minister in “Killyleagh had been crucified by the rebels. We would be forced to wonder if young Colvert had his parents survived these days of murder and destruction, for the countryside around Killyleagh and Killinchy were largely depopulated. John Livingston who was able to visit his old parish again in the 1650′s and found “not above ten or twelve persons that had been in that parish when I was there,” Perhaps Seaborn was like Willie Hamilton, another young lad from that area, who was pressed into naval service and was wounded fighting against the Dutch navy at the battle of Texel.
However if he remained to live on in that district of County Down, he would have experienced no really settled times. He would still have been a very young boy in 1642, when General Monro arrived in Ulster with detachments of Scottish
soldiers to put down the revolt. The campaign did not really bring much peace and several of the skirmishes were indecisive. He would have been 13 in 1649 when Oliver Cromwell, with an experienced army landed at Dublin and, with ruthlessness, set about subduing rebels. There was to be much killing of civilians as well as troops in the South Ireland. This left much bitterness, and helped to poison the feelings of the People of the South of Ireland generally towards Britain ever since. Cromwell’s rule, and that of his son, Richard, did bring a kind of uneasy peace to Ulster. The Ulster Scots were treated with a mixture of toleration and suspicion. However, during that time almost seventy congregations were established in Ulster, and in these almost 100,000 Presbyterians assembled to worship. With the restoration of Charles, the Second, to the British throne in 1660,Episcopacy also came back into its previous position of dominance.
Almost at once persecution of Ulster Presbyterians began again – and this time with even more severity. Within a year almost all their ministers were expelled from their churches. They were forbidden to preach, baptize, officiate at weddings, or exercise any of their usual functions. If they were bold enough, to participate in any of these, the wedding or baptism would be regarded as illegal, with all the undesirable effects to which that would lead. Seabom would have been in his 20′ s when this happened and his life could have been most unpleasantly effected by these decisions. He would probably have seen the doors of his church closed to prevent worship.
Like any Protestant in his district, he, then in his early 50′s, would have been alarmed in the late 1680′s, when an army from the South of Ireland under Tyrconnel overran Ulster and set out to attack the two remaining strongholds of Protestants at Enniskillen and Londonderry. The former was then called Inniskilling. The concern of those in Seaborn’s district would have been increased when they heard of what became known as the “Comber letter.” This was one addressed to Lord Mount Alexander which was found in the street of the small County Down town about the 3rd December, 1688. In it was asserted that a massacre of Protestants was to begin on 9th December, less than a week away. Rumours of this letter must have been relayed to the people of Londonderry, by the time the enemy arrived. News about the situation in Londonderry and Inniskilling must have been heard around Seabom’s district as time went on.
He may also have heard of the thirteen brave ‘prentice boys’ who closed the gates of the city in the face of Lord Antrim’s “Redshanks”: heard, too, of the dauntlessleadership of the defenders by Adam Murray, Baker, Mitchelburn, and Johnston in the besieged stronghold. Maud Glasgow many years later in her book titled “The Scotch Irish” was to write, “The siege of this little town in Northern Ireland is the most memorable one in the history of the British Isles. No city in the United Kingdom has played such a decisive part in determining the religion ‘Of the British Empire and its throne as the proud ‘Maiden City’, – Londonderry.” Seaborn may have heard, too, of the gallant defenders of Inniskilling under Hamilton, Wolseley, Lloyd, and Tiffin. Theirs was no passive resistance, since they sallied forth on several occasions to harry the troops ‘Of King James and Sarsfield, to advance at one time to Kells within 30 miles from Dublin. They also relieved the pressure on some of their co. religionists at Ballyshannon, and captured many cattle, horses, and sheep. He probably would not have been aware of the combining of several levies of these gallant defenders into what became known as “Tiffins Inniskillings.”
These were so well esteemed as to be brought in as a regular Regiment of the British Army under King William III himself at the Battle of the Boyne, They also fought with distinction at Aughrim and Limerick. The regiment will for all future time be associated with the small town in County Fermanagh, through their military badge which has illustrated on it the ancient Inniskilling castle with the flag of St. George fluttering on its flagpole. This historical regiment later became known as the 27th (or Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot and even later as the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, On June 18th, 1815 they covered themselves with glory again at the Battle of Waterloo, that most decisive battle which was to rid Europe of that day of the “Little Corsican, Napoleon Boneapart. Wellington was to say of them later, “They saved the centre of my line at Waterloo.” Praise indeed from the Iron Duke who thought the whole battle “a close run thing,” Many honours have been won on many battlefields and in the much wider theatres of war by the “Skins”, as well as by the other two Ulster regiments of what is now termed the North Irish Brigade. namely The Royal Ulster Rifles and the Royal Irish Fusiliers, Seaborn Colvert must have been delighted to hear of the relieving of the besieged people of Londonderry, following the breaking of the boom across the river Foyle by the Mountjoy:- The landing the veteran Duke of Schomberg with his force of 10,000 Williamite troops at Groomsport would have been of special interest, since his parents would have told him often of their adventures on the “Eagle Wing” after leaving and returning to the small County Down port. He may have seen some of the army of William of Orange marching through his district on their way to their victory at the river Boyne. This success was to herald, at least, an absence of war. and a feeling of relative security for the Protestant people of Ulster for some years. To the Presbyterians though it was merely to be a short respite from unjust treatment.
