John Brown (1627–1685), also known as the Christian Carrier, was a Protestant Covenanter from Priesthill farm, a few miles from Muirkirk in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Among the numerous executions carried out by the government during The Killing Time of the 1680s, the allegations of brutality make this event one of the most controversial illustrations of the character of John Graham of Claverhouse, afterwards Viscount Dundee.

[3] The resulting disappointment with Charles II's religious policy became civil unrest and erupted in violence during the early summer of 1679 with the assassination of Archbishop Sharp, Drumclog and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge.

John Brown lived in a remote farm called Priesthill, in the upland parish of Muirkirk in Kyle, Ayrshire, where he cultivated a small piece of ground and acted as a carrier.

[7] He was shot on the morning of 1 May 1685, in a summary execution instigated by John Graham of Claverhouse under the emergency powers given him by the Privy Council[8] to suppress insurrection in the South West of the country.

Brown refused to swear the oath which was designed to be repugnant to Covenanters and thereby a "sieve, the mesh of which would winnow the loyal from the disloyal".

[10] At the time, failure to take the Oath was a capital offence and thus defying the King was high treason; this was a fact of which Brown was well aware.

[13] A second level of detail was published in the late 19th century by revisionists chiefly concerned with reassessing and redefining Claverhouse's reputation.

[14] Mark Napier's work is an overt paean on the life of his hero Claverhouse, while Charles Sandford Terry takes a more modern approach to the source documents, but expresses his views nevertheless.

The site, on the remote hillside above Muirkirk, is still the destination of visitors to pay their respects and sits on an ancient upland path that runs to Lesmahagow.