John Nisbet

John Nisbet (1627–1685) was a Scottish covenanter who was executed for participating in the insurgency at Bothwell Brig and earlier conflicts and for attending a conventicle. He took an active and prominent part in the struggles, of the Covenanters for civil and religious liberty. He was wounded and left for dead at Pentland in 1666 but lived and fought as a captain at Bothwell Bridge, in 1679. He was subsequently seized and executed as a rebel. He was a descendant of Murdoch Nisbet, a Lollard who translated the Bible into the Scots language. Life He was the son of James Nisbet an Ayrshire tenant farmer at Drakemyre, and his wife, Jane Gibson. He travelled to mainland Europe where he participated in the Thirty Years' War as a professional soldier. He attended the 1650 coronation of Charles II at Scone, where he subscribed the covenant, swearing his allegiance to ‘all the acts of reformation attained to in Scotland from 1638 to 1649’. After returning to the family home at Hardhill, near Loudoun, he married Margaret Law in 1651. In 1664 he incurred the displeasure of the Episcopalian incumbent of his parish, for having had a child baptized by one of the ejected ministers. The curate declared from the pulpit, that he intended to excommunicate him next Lord's day, but was prevented by sudden death.