#Annandale Ground military use

[mysterioushimachal]

Annandale Ground, Shimla – A Historical Landmark Amidst Nature’s Splendor

[didanawisgi]

In the Carruthers Arms, the fleur d-lis takes prominence and there is a suggestion within heraldic circles that the fleur d-lis has religious connotations that depicted Miriam (Virgin Mary) as a symbolism of female virtue, purity and spirituality or,  alternatively the three petals depicting the Holy Trinity. There of course is the matter of the Carruthers family crests, where all are depicting angels or seraphims, suggesting some link or link with a higher religous authority and mirrors the use of the Archangel Michael as the crest of Dumfries itself .   There is of course firm historical evidence that the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitillars were active in Scotland  with a relationship to Carruthers ( Crowdieknowe ) Ancient Chapel , near Dumfries [http://www.skt.org.uk/Templar%20Lands/templar_lands_5.html]. It is stated that 'the conditions on which the Templars held their lands were regarded as a model of the most favourable kind of tenure. The estates thus possessed were scattered over nigh every part of Scotland, from Drumfriesshire and Wigtown north to Forres, Nairn, Inverness and Dingwall.[http://www.electricscotland.com/history/templars_scotland.htm]. The Templers, it seems were eventually absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller who took over their lands and priorys/preceptories This would correspond with James Alexander Carruthers assumptions in his book ‘Carruthers Antholgy Geneology’ that we as a family are linked with the Knights Templars/Hospitillars and their preceptories in Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire, where we had the role as guardians of their religious sites. This is further suppoprted  Robert the Bruce, confirming us as his ‘Stewards ' and Guardians of the Old Kirk Ford at Hoddam’ and Keepers of the Trailtrow Preceptory. Knight Templar and Knight Hospitaller stained glass window Saint Andrew's Church, Temple Grafton, Stratford district, Warwickshire, England.There is further reference to Templer activity in Dumfriesshire listed in the history site: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/dumfries/history21.htm, which mentions the 'temple land of Carruthers'. In addition to the monastic brotherhoods already noticed, two orders of religious knights acquired a settlement in Dumfriesshire – the Templars or Red Friars, and the Knights of St. John. The former, instituted by Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem, took their name from a residence he gave to them near the Temple of that city; the founders of the latter were certain devout Neapolitan merchants, who, trading to the Holy Land, obtained leave to build a church and monastery in Jerusalem, for the reception of pilgrims, to which buildings were added, in 1104, a larger church, with an hospital for the sick, dedicated to St. John: hence the name of the order, and the designation of Knights Hospitallers, by which they are also well known. When the Templars were formed into an order, the Abbé de Verlot, in his History of the Knights of St. John, states that “St. Bernard ordered them, instead of prayers and offices, to say, every day, a certain number of paternosters, which would make one imagine that those warriors, at that time, knew not how to read.” One of the statutes required that the knights should not eat flesh above three times a week. The holy abbot, with regard to their military service, declared that each Templar might have an esquire, or serving brother-at-arms, and three saddle horses; but he forbade all gilding and superfluous ornaments of their equipage. He ordered that their habits should be white; and, as a mark of their profession, Pope Eugene III. added afterwards a red cross placed over the heart.” (Vol. i., pp. 56-7.) De Verlot records that the idea of making the monastic inmates of St. John’s Hospital into a military order, was first mooted by Raimond Dupuy, and characterizes it as “the most noble, and withal extraordinary design, that ever entered into the mind of a monk, tied down by his profession to the service of the poor and sick,” They were divided into three classes – 1. Gentlemen used to arms. 2. Priests and chaplains. 3. Men neither of noble families, nor ecclesiastics, who were termed frères servans (“serving brethren.”). The habit consisted of a black robe, with a pointed mantale of the same colour (called a manteau à bec), upon which was sewn a pointed cowl, and the left side of which displayed an eight-pointed cross of white linen. (Vol. i., pp. 43-4-5.)] Portions of the property that belonged to the Templars in the County bore their name long after they fell into other hands at or before the date of Reformation. Thus we read in old records of the temple-lands of Ingleston in Glencairn; the temple-land in Durisdeer; the five-pound temple-land of Carnsalloch; the temple-land lying beside the Glen of Lag; the temple-lands of Dalgarno; the temple-lands, two in number, near Lochmaben; the temple-lands, also two, beside Lincluden College; the temple-land of Torthorwald; the temple-land of Carruthers, in the old parish so named; the temple-land of Muirfad, near Moffat; and there is a village, in the vicinity of Lochmaben, called Templand, built on ground that was once owned by this opulent fraternity. In the particular register of sasines kept at Dumfries, sasine was registered on the 16th of April, 1636, in favour of Adam Johnstone, brother of Archibald Johnstone of Elshieshields, in the temple-land of Reidhall; and the forty-shilling land called Templands, both in the Stewartry of Annandale. The same register contains an entry of sasine, dated 21st May, 1636, in favour of John Johnstone of Vicarland, and Adam, his son, of the temple-land termed the Chapel of Kirkbride, in Kirkpatrick; and an instrument is recorded whereby the five-pound Carnsalloch temple-land, already mentioned, which belonged to William Maxwell of Carnsalloch, was conveyed to Adam Shortrig, eldest son of John Shortrig, the precept being dated at “The End of the Bridge,” [Or Bridge-end, the name borne by Maxwellton before it was erected into a burgh of barony.] 21st of December, 1619. At Becktoun, Dryfesdale, may still be seen the vestiges of a small religious house that belonged to the order, together with the Chapel-lands, by which it was endowed. [Inquisit Speciales, p. 291.] The Hospitallers had not so much landed property in the Shire as their fellow knights, but they seem to have possessed a large number of foundations. One of their principal houses was a preceptory, at Kirkstyle, about ten miles from Dumfries, in the parish of Ruthwell, the ancient burial-ground of which exhibited, up till a recent period, several memorials of their presence, in the shape of sculptured stones, each containing an ornamented cross, having a sword on the right, a figure resembling the coulter and sock of a plough on the left; but no names of the knights “long gone to dust, and whose swords are rust,” over whom the stones were originally laid. [“These memorials of the dead,” says Dr. Henry Duncan, in his Account of the Parish of Ruthwell, written in 1834, “were found by the present incumbent [himself] lying in the parish burying-ground, whence he removed them; and they now form part of the wall of a summer house attached to the front wall which separates the garden from the churchyard.” In the same garden is placed the celebrated Runie Cross, for the preservation of which memorable monument of Anglo-Saxon times we are also indebted to Dr. Duncan.] One of their establishments stood rather more than a mile southeast of Dumfries, on an estate which bore, in consequence, the name of Spitalfield, till it was bought by the late Mr. John Brown, merchant, Liverpool, who called it Brownhill. On the opposite side of the Kelton Road lies Ladyfield, with its ancient orchard and well, which may have been a pendicle of the Hospital; and we are inclined to think that “Our Lady’s Chapel,” at which King James IV. paid his devotions when visiting Dumfries, was situated on Ladyfield. Above the town of Annan, on the west bank of the river, there was another hospital belonging to the knights of St. John; from which two adjacent hamlets, Howspital and Spitalridding, acquired their designation; and they had a second one in Annandale, at Trailtrow, the cure of which was granted by James IV. to Edward Maxwell, with the land revenues of the same, vacant by the decease of Sir Robert M’Gilhance, the last master of the Hospital. [Privy Seal Register, vol. iv., p. 211.] Their largest hospital in the County, however, grew up under the shadow of Sanquhar Castle, on the northern bank of the Nith. Many ages after all traces of it disappeared, the plough turned up numerous relics of its inmates, the mouldering memorials of a brotherhood who were men of note in their day, though they are now all but forgotten throughout the district – a fate which they share in common with their more distinguished fraters, the military monks of the Temple. [The masters of both orders in Dumfriesshire having submitted to Edward I. in 1296, were confirmed in their possessions by precepts addressed to the Sheriff by the King. – RYMER, pp. 724 – 5.] Both orders fell into decay long before the Papal establishment, of which they formed a singular feature, ceased to flourish; and when abolished at the Reformation, they remaining property was secularized: Ross of Rosile obtaining a considerable share of it; Murray of Cockpool getting what belonged to the Hospitallers in the parish of Ruthwell; Lord Herries their house and lands at Trailtrow [Inquisit, Speciales, p. 291; and Caledonia, vol. iii., p. 154.]; while, as already mentioned, the Spitalfield of Dumfries was acquired before 1666 by the M’Brairs of Almagill.

[newstfionline]

Some Christians are questioning the mix of patriotism and God

By Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, July 1, 2018

Patriotic church services this time of year were so common in the early republic that the Episcopal Church’s national convention in 1786 resolved that “the Fourth of July shall be observed by this church forever, as a day of Thanksgiving to almighty God for the inestimable blessings of Religious and Civil Liberty vouchsafed to the USA,” according to a book about the denomination.

Over the centuries, what it meant to celebrate July 4 in church has changed and been debated. In recent years, the debate has been especially heated, with Christians disagreeing strongly on whether conflating God and country is a right or a heresy.

On this Sunday preceding July 4, many Christians will expect and experience a patriotic bonanza, with flags waving, tributes to political and military leaders, and songs. The evangelical news magazine Christianity Today this week listed the “top patriotic songs sung in churches,” according to Christian Copyright Licensing International. Among the 10 are “America the Beautiful” (#1) and the 1984 country hit “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood (#5).

The story noted that First Baptist Church of Dallas, a megachurch led by Trump adviser Robert Jeffress, has performed “Make America Great Again,” a hymn composed by one of the church’s music ministers and promoted multiple times last July by Trump.

But criticisms of July 4 church events seem to have grown louder in recent years, a reflection of anxiety among younger Christian leaders who think the idea of Christian nationalism is problematic from various angles.

“When you add that patriotic song, display that flag, or invite the politician to offer a special word to your church gathering, you risk working against the Great Commission. Jesus commissioned us to ‘Go into all nations.’ That means he was establishing a people not bound or defined or constrained by this world’s national borders,” Jonathan Leeman, an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church outside Washington, wrote this week on the Gospel Coalition, a blog popular with conservative evangelicals. Leeman also came out with a book this spring about faith, politics and anger.

Last year, the blog’s managing editor, Jonathan Smethurst, tweeted: Pastors, if you’re planning a patriotic worship service tomorrow, you still have 24 hours to change your mind.

Thinking about July 4 church services feels especially fraught these days, Leeman said.

“The culture wars in America today indicate more and more people identify as non-Christian. With that comes the fact that many Christians have to reconcile their own Christian identity with their national identity in ways they didn’t have to before,” he said in an interview.

In the midcentury, when 80 or 90 percent of Americans were Christian, the two identities were perceived as almost interchangeable, Leeman said. “Now Christians are going through a deprogramming process.”

More extensive July 4 church services are more likely to be evangelical or charismatic than Catholic, some experts on Christianity in America said, though it’s not uncommon for Sunday Mass around the holiday to close with a patriotic tune such as “America the Beautiful.”

In 2016, LifeWay Research, an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, found that 61 percent of Protestant pastors agreed that it was “important for July Fourth worship services to incorporate patriotic elements to celebrate America. Fifty-three percent of pastors in that survey agreed that their congregation “sometimes seems to love America more than God.”

John Fea, a U.S. historian from Messiah College who just published a book about Christian nationalism, wrote in June for the History News Network about why activities such as July 4 services are being debated anew:

“Ever since the founding of the republic, a significant number of Americans have supposed that the United States is exceptional because it has a special place in God’s unfolding plan for the world. Since the early 17th century founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony by Puritans, evangelicals have relished their perceived status as God’s new Israel--His chosen people. America, they argued, is in a covenant relationship with God,” he wrote. Today, the anxiety about how to be Christian and American is high because history is being reexamined.

William L. Kynes, longtime senior pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Annandale, Va., said he had not even thought about addressing July 4 this on Sunday until this reporter called.

“I don’t see it as a Christian holiday. I feel the same way about Mother’s Day,” he said with a chuckle.

“There’s nothing wrong with pledging allegiance to the flag as long as it’s not your highest allegiance. I think there is a role for patriotism in the life of the church. We are placed in communities and have loyalties” to those communities. But there is a hierarchy, he said, and “our identity shouldn’t be grounded in lesser things, but in our ultimate allegiance. We try to keep that mind, but it’s not always easy these days.”