Alexander Peden

The Reverend Alexander Peden (1626 – 26 January 1686), also known as "Prophet Peden", was one of the leading figures in the Covenanter movement in Scotland.

Peden was born at Auchincloich Farm near Sorn, Ayrshire, about 1626, and was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was a teacher at Tarbolton and then ordained minister of New Luce in Galloway in 1660.

After the restoration of Charles II, Peden had to leave his parish under Middletons Ejectment Act in 1663. For ten years he wandered far and wide, bringing comfort and succour to his co-religionists, and often very narrowly escaping capture, spending some of his time in Ireland. To hide his identity, Peden took to wearing a cloth mask and wig, which are now on display in Edinburgh's Museum of Scotland.

In June 1673, while holding a conventicle at Knockdow near Ballantrae, Ayrshire, he was captured by Major William Cockburn, and condemned by the Privy Council to four years and three months imprisonment on the Bass Rock and a further fifteen months in the Edinburgh Tolbooth.

In December 1678 he, along with 60 others, was sentenced to banishment to the American plantations. They were transported by ship to London, where they were to be transferred to an American ship. The American captain, however, on hearing the reason for their banishment, released them. Peden made his way north again and divided the remaining years of his life between his own country and the north of Ireland. His last days were spent in a cave on the River Lugar in the parish of Sorn, near his birthplace and his brother's farm in Auchinleck, and there he died in 1686, worn out by hardship and privation.

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