John Stewart (minister)

Twenty-five years later, on 30 January 1685, he was libeled before a Committee of Council, which at that time had been sent to meet at Elgin in Murray Shire to prosecute locals guilty of church disorders.

He was charged with keeping "conventicles, withdrawing from the ordinances, preaching seditious doctrine, plotting against the government, supplying and harboring rebels, and other public crimes and irregularities".

When examined on 2 February 1685, he stated under oath that he had not kept his own parish church for eighteen or nineteen years and that he had preached in his own family, and in private houses.

He testified to having conducted a marriage: he "deponed that he married Alexander Campbell, in Calder's-land, with Lilias Dunbar, who had been the Lady Innes's servant before the indemnity.

"[4] For this confession and that he refused to take the oath of allegiance, on 4 February 1685 he was sentenced to banishment from his Majesty's dominions and transported as a prisoner to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh.