Crossroads and Characters

71. A SYNOD SPULZIED.

If Scottish church congregations were known for their disputes over doctrine, it was rarely that things came to blows. However, in June 1652, members of St. Serfs congregation tangled physically with, of all people, members of the church governing body, the Synod.

George Muschet, the highly reputable minister of Dunning, fell afoul of the more zealous members of the Synod for refusing to agree with some extreme doctrinal pronouncements, and they deposed him as minister of St. Serf's. He threw himself on the mercy of his congregation which defied the Synod by agreeing he should continue as minister.

The Synod decided to meet in St. Serf's to discuss the possible disciplining of Mr. Muschet and the Auchterarder minister, Mr. Grahame, who had erred similarly and been deposed. As the Synod members approached the church, they were set upon by a 'tumultuous multitude of women with staves, there being among them some men dressed as women', as the Presbytery reported later. The mob was apparently a collection of Auchterarder and Dunning parishioners determined to defend their ministers.

The mob 'closed the kirk doors and violentlie opposed the brethren's entrie to the church'. Then they attacked Synod members 'by beating, persewing and spulzieing (plundering) of them, and taking from some their cloaks, and from some their horses. The brethren did all, therefore, resolve to transport and adjourn the Synod instantly to Forgandenny.' The first resolve of their Forgandenny meeting was never to hold a Synod in Dunning again. A second resolution, it is said, was that Dunning would be forever accursed. Happily, an eventual outcome was that both ministers were reinstated, to the great satisfaction of the accursed.