Talk:Holy Willie's Prayer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The original version of this entry failed to note that Holy Willie's complaint against Gavin Hamilton was heard by an organ of the Church of Scotland, "the Kirk," namely, the Presbytery of Ayr. In other words, the Kirk itself ruled against Holy Willie. As Burns, himself note, the "prayer" is overheard after Willie loses his case in that body. I have edited the entry to reflect the historical circumstances and to reflect Presbyterian legal practice. The original article also alleged that there were two appeals against the judgment of the Presbytery. That may have occurred but there is no evidence for this in the poem itself or Burns' own commentary. Nor di the authour of the entry provide any external footnotes to authenticate this part of the story. In any case, an appeal would not have been carried out by the "Kirk" as the first authour alleges. (The Presbytery of Ayr WAS the Kirk in that region.) It would have been brought by the complainants, Fisher and Auld, and heard by a higher court of the Kirk itself, either the Synod or General Assembly.

It is worthy of note that Gavin Hamilton, Holy Willie's enemy, as a member of the Kirk, would have been a Calvinist himself, as would have been the members of the Presbytery of Ayr. The tone of the first version of the article is not sufficiently nuanced concerning Calvinist theology and I have accordingly softened some of its formulations.