Table talk
Sir: Though Sir Denis Brogan thinks my letter very funny, he still has to move the targets (Letters, 20 September).
(1) No extra marks to a Rutherglen man for knowing Kilsyth or even Strathaven; but bonus points to most SPECTATOR readers for knowing either.
(2) It is wrong to murder Irish men, women or children at home or abroad (Wishart, Mont- rose's chaplain-historian, is still the single con- temporary recorder of the murders in Methven Wood); but the fact that the Irish were abroad
seems, to me, to weaken Sir Denis's claim that the Covenanters were promoting anything at ICilsyth.
(3) I did not suggest that the. Covenanters" could not afford proper flags or banners (after all, many were weavers by trade); but I did mean to indicate my unbelief that these banners bore slogans like 'Jesus and no quarter' or even `Remember Aberdeen.' The year was 1645 and I doubt if written slogans could mean anything to the majority of soldiers.
Some of my friends and I wonder who is Strathaven's most distinguished son. For my money, the most distinguished Stravonian of recent years wasn't a native, but served, with distinction, for many years as English and history master at the local school. The late John Brown (I don't think he knew Queen Vic- toria) taught that the Covenanters, sometime called Supplicants, were often bigoted and, given the chance, vindictive, but, during the hundred-odd years they figured in history, were more often sinned against than sinning.
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