author
Alexander Shields
d. 1700
A fierce voice in Scotland’s Covenanting movement, he mixed ministry with resistance and wrote from the middle of imprisonment, exile, and political upheaval. His life reads like a survival story from the late seventeenth century.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Berwickshire in January 1661, Alexander Shields became a Scottish Presbyterian minister, writer, and nonconformist activist during one of the most turbulent periods in British religious history. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, later spent time in Holland, and became closely identified with the Covenanters, who resisted state control over the church.
Shields was repeatedly punished for his beliefs and activities. He was imprisoned in London, in Edinburgh, and on the Bass Rock for attending or supporting private worship outside the established rules. He is best remembered as the author of A Hind Let Loose, a forceful defense of the persecuted church in Scotland and one of the notable books to come out of the Covenanting struggle.
Later in life, he moved toward a more settled role within the post-Revolution Church of Scotland and served as chaplain to the Cameronian Regiment. In 1699 he sailed with the Darien expedition, part of Scotland’s ill-fated colonial venture, and died in 1700 at Port Royal, Jamaica.