up his voice for the covenants. His head was fixed on the Nether Bow port. The legend runs that, a few weeks later, drops of blood fell from it on to Middleton's coach, making a new cover necessary, as 'all the art of man could not wash out 'the indelible stains. In 1688 Alexander Hamilton, a divinity student (d. 29 Jan. 1738, minister of Stirling), removed the head and buried it. The headless trunk was laid out by 'ladies of quality,' who dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood, George Stirling pouring 'a phial of fragrant ointment' on the corpse; it was interred in the aisle of St. Giles' Church. The Scottish parliament reversed the attainder on 22 July 1690. His name ('famous Guthrie's head') is commemorated in the rude lines on the 'martyrs' monument' in Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh. By his party he was called 'Sickerfoot.' His age at death was 'about 49' (Hew Scott). He married Jane, daughter of Ramsay of Shielhill, who survived him, with an only son, William (who died on the eve of his license for the ministry) and a daughter, Sophia. The widow and daughter after being brought before the privy council on 8 Feb. 1666, on a charge of possessing a treasonable book, and sentenced to banishment, were permitted, 15 Jan. 1669, to return to Edinburgh for a month, in consequence of the son's illness. Guthrie published: 1. ‘The Causes of the Lord's Wrath,’ 1653 (not seen). 2. ‘Protesters no Subverters,’ Edinburgh, 1658, 4to. 3. ‘Some Considerations contributing unto the Discoverie of the Dangers that threaten Religion,’ Edinburgh, 1660, 12mo; reprinted, Glasgow, 1738, 8vo. 4. Sermon (his last) at Stirling (Matt. xiv. 22), 1660 (not seen); reprinted as ‘A Cry from the Dead,’ &c., Glasgow, 1738, 8vo. Posthumous were: 5. ‘Two Speeches … before the Parliament,’ 1661 , 4to. 6. ‘True and Perfect Speech … before his Execution,’ 1661, 4to. 7. ‘A Treatise of Ruling Elders and Deacons,’ Edinburgh, 1699, 24mo. 8. ‘The Great Danger of Backsliding … from Covenanted Reformation-Principles: a Sermon dated 21 April 1660, with Guthrie's speech before Parliament,’ Edinburgh, 1739. 9. ‘Sermons, Edinburgh, 1846, 12mo.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ; Howie's Biographia Scoticana (1775), edition of 1862 (Scots Worthies), pp. 397 sq. (portrait); Roe's Supplement to Life of Blair (1754), edition of 1844, p. 122; Laing's Hist. of Scotland, 1804, iv. 18; Life by Thomson, 1846; Grub's Eccl. Hist. of Scotland, 1861, vol. iii.; Anderson's Ladies of the Covenant, 1862, pp. 44 sq.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, 1872, ii. 388 sq.; Kerr's Sermons in Times of Persecution, 1880, p. 264.]
GUTHRIE, JOHN (d. 1649), bishop of Moray, was eldest son of Patrick Guthrie, a goldsmith of St. Andrews and bailie of the city in 1601-2, by his wife Margaret Rait. The family were connected with the original line through John Guthrie of Hilton, the youngest son of Sir Alexander Guthrie of Guthrie, who fell at Flodden in 1513. John was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he graduated M.A. in 1597. The same year he became reader at Arbroath, and on 27 Aug. 1599 was presented by James VI to the parish of Kinnel, Perthshire, whence in 1603 he was removed to Arbirlot, Forfarshire. He was a member of the Glasgow assembly of June 1610, and on 7 Sept. of the same year was elected clerk to the synod of St. Andrews. In 1617 he was translated to Perth as minister of the second charge. He was a member of the privy conference nominated by the moderator of the Perth assembly in 1618, and composed for the most part of such 'as were already disposed to yield' to the king's proposals for the establishment of a modified episcopacy (Calderwood, vii. 318). In 1621 he became minister of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and at Christmas following, although the ministers of Edinburgh had agreed that there should be no sermon except 'one in the old kirk,' he consented, at the instigation of the provost, to 'teach in the little kirk' (ib. p. 518). In 1623 he was promoted to the bishopric of Moray; and on the occasion of the return, in October 1623, of the prince to England from Spain after the failure of the Spanish marriage project, he was chosen by the ministers of Edinburgh to preach 'in the great kirk' of Edinburgh, that the 'people might convene and give thanks to God' that the project was at an end (ib. p. 580). In 1631 the bishop was appointed one of four commissioners to inquire into the origin of the fire which had destroyed the house of Frendraught (Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles, i. 24). When Charles I was crowned in Edinburgh in 1633, Guthrie was chosen lord eleemosynary, and threw among the crowd in the kirk silver pieces coined for the occasion (ib. p. 36). As lord eleemosynary he rode in the procession beside the Bishop of London. On the following Sunday he caused much scandal among the stricter presbyterians by preaching before the king in 'his rotchet, quhilk wes neuer sein in Sanct Geillis kirk sen the Reformatioun' (ib. p. 39; see also Row, Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 363). After the subscription of the covenant in the towns of the north of Scotland in 1638 the bishop began to furnish his palace of Spynie with men, arms, and provisions, in order to be prepared for a siege (Spalding, p. 88).
