Bible belonging to Covenanter Hugh McKail

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52387

Title

Detail of the wooden board, leather and animal hide cover of the Bible (Geneva version edition known as the "Breeches Bible") belonging to Covenanter Hugh McKail

Description

Detail of the covers of a copy of the Geneva version of the Bible with wood board and skin (goat or pig) cover. Said to have belonged to Covenanter Hugh McKail. Entries of marriage and birth of McKail family, earliest is Thomas McKail to Janet Ramsay in 1703. Version known as the "Breeches Bible" in reference to the passage in Genesis where Adam and Eve make for themselves "breeches" out of vine leaves. Printed in black Gothic text with some red highlighted text. Woodcuts of maps, charts, diagrams throughout. The earlier section is an "Apparatus", a set of study aids and instructions on how to read the Bible. It includes a section on predestination, a particular tenet of Calvinist and Scottish Presbyterianism.

Type

Book

Accession number

HH712/15

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

Printed at London by Christopher Barker, 1583. This version of the Bible, the "Geneva Bible" was also known as the "Breeches Bible" from the translation in Genesis 3 v.7 :Then the eyes of them both were open and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig tree leaves together and made themselves breeches". The word "Breeches" is translated in the Authorised Version as "aprons". This version was popular among the Presbyterian Scottish church; it was compiled by the Calvinist church in Geneva, and contains sections of particular interest to the Protestant faith. In particular, there is a section dealing with Predestination, a tenet of the reformed church. The belief that salvation for some was pre-ordained gave the Covenanters the energy and confidence to fight for their religion. This Bible belonged to Hugh McKail, who gave his life for the Covenanting cause.

McKail was born in around 1640 at Liberton. He graduated at Edinburgh University. A war raged at the time which had begun as a protest against changes King Charles I was making to the Church in Scotland. By the 1660s, opponents to King Charles II – Covenanters – were being hunted down in what became known as the ‘Killing Time’. A sermon which he preached gave such offence that a party of mounted troops was sent to arrest him. He escaped, however, and went to Holland where he studied for several years. On his return to Scotland he joined the Pentland Rising, a rebellion by Covenanters against the government's attempts to re-introduce episcopalianism. After nine days marching, however, his weak health forced him to leave the insurgents. On his way back to Edinburgh he was arrested and committed to the Tolbooth. After torture with the "Boot", he was hanged at the Mercat Cross, 22nd December 1666 and buried in Greyfriars kirkyard.

Museum records from when the Bible was acquired in the 1910s suggest it was the family Bible of the Mckail family. One page has a handwritten record of the births, deaths and marriages of the family, beginning in 1703 with the marriage of Thomas McKail to Janet Ramsay, through to the birth of Beatrix McKail in July 1911. There is little notation from the 17th century, although some text appears to be 17th century in style.

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