Govt. Authoritarianism & The Church in Scotland 1662-1679

Govt. Authoritarianism & The Church in Scotland 1662-1679

Podcast Transcript

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

In March 2021 a group of church leaders in Scotland legally challenged the Scottish government in the Court of Session, claiming that the Covid restrictions that had been imposed on churches were a breach of their freedom of religion. The judge at that court, Lord Braid agreed, ruling that the government’s regulations (quote) “constitute a disproportionate interference” into people’s freedom to manifest their religious beliefs, and that they “went further than they were lawfully able to do.”  It was an important and landmark ruling that went further than Scotland, and perhaps made the ruling parties in other parts of the British isles, think twice before imposing more restrictions on the Lord’s Church.  Before that case, we had witnessed the strange sight of government edicts imposed upon churches in the interests of ‘safety.’  Churches had been ordered to close, to space out their seating areas, to restrict their numbers, to stop singing, to meet outdoors, to make their people hide their faces behind masks…  Government interference in the affairs of God’s kingdom in England, Ireland and Scotland, requiring churches to deliberately disobey the precepts set out in God’s Word is not entirely unprecedented.  In this history podcast we are travelling back in time to 1662, when the government expelled from the churches, all those ministers who would not conform to their punitive decrees.  1662 became known as the year of ‘The Great Ejectment…’

Podcast airs on 13th January 2022 at 1pm. Here’s the Link2Listen!

In 1662 a new law was passed, (The ‘Middleton’ Act) under which a minister could only serve in a parish if a Bishop or a Patron – for example a local laird – had nominated him, and all ministers were required to swear allegiance to the crown.  In this legislation, King Charles II thought that he could remove the remaining dissenting ministers from the parishes – Presbyterians in Scotland and Congregationalists in England; Protestant dissenters who refused to use the Book of Common Prayer. That, he thought, would allow complete implementation of Episcopalianism, rule by bishops and the liturgical rigidity of the Prayer Book. In fact nearly four hundred ministers left or were forced to leave.  One third of Scotland’s clergy were excluded from their pulpits, to be replaced in most parishes by Episcopalian curates. The ‘outed’ ministers took to the fields, preaching and conducting services of worship in the open air. These field meetings became known as Conventicles.  The response from the government was heavy handed, dispatching squadrons of Dragoons to hunt down the worshippers.  Preachers and pastors became wanted men and many were forced to take to arms for their own protection.

Let’s consider an example: One of the preachers expelled at that time was the minister of New Luce, Rev. Alexander Peden.  Forced to leave the pulpit he loved and was called to, Sandy Peden wept openly in the Kirk as he preached his farewell sermon, based on Paul’s departure from Ephesus in Acts chapter twenty.   Leaving his pulpit for the last time, he banged on its door with his Bible, and said, three times over, “I arrest thee in my Master’s name, that never none enter thee, but such as come in at the door, as I did.”  No minister occupied the pulpit at New Luce until 1693, when William Kyle became the minister.  

A year later, in 1663 a change happened in the government of Scotland. John Middleton who during his time as King’s Commissioner in Scotland implemented the Act of Parliament which ousted the Covenanter ministers from their pulpits, had gone, and he’d been replaced by the Earl of Rothes an illiterate and vulgar debauchee, who was barely able to write, his letters being large and widely separated. His chief advisor was none other than that turncoat from Presbyterianism, Archbishop Sharp of St. Andrews. When the Scottish Parliament ended its session in the autumn of 1663, it was for the last time.  Its members were never recalled, and it was replaced by the Privy Council, a body in which Sharp and Rothes had overall control.

At that time, Sharp was determined to wreck revenge upon the Presbyterians, and he was further enraged by the fact that parishes in the lowlands were refusing to accept the episcopalian curates as their ministers.  It seemed as if the congregations, especially in the west, were more willing to allow the church buildings to fall into disrepair and be forsaken rather than to accept an anglican minister.  Sharp resolved to crush all opposition, and he travelled to London, where he persuaded the king to reinstate the then obsolete Court of High Commission, a body that had arbitrary powers to try and convict all recusants.  Sharp himself was the president of this court, and he sat with nine prelates and thirty-five laymen. The verdicts of this court were final, and often reached without recourse to evidence of any nature. Landowners were fined for allowing conventicles on their land, field preachers were imprisoned or banished, women were flogged, and children were sold as slaves. The grip of the king’s men on the Presbyterians was increasing, and a phase of persecution that would last a quarter of a century was beginning.

Enforcing the eviction of the ministers and pursuing the field preachers was the task of the Dragoons. These soldiers, under the leadership of SIR JAMES TURNER, were sent to ‘dragoon’ the people into the churches, – to literally drive people, physically at pain of death, into the churches where the Anglican services were being preached by the curates. Those who attended the field meetings or conventicles held by the rebellious Presbyterian ministers would be forced to pay fines.  The severity of Turner’s dragoons is legendary, and he took full advantage of the new regulations and laws, passed by the Privy Council to forbid worship, and exacting huge fines, most of which found their way into the pockets of the dragoons themselves. People were beaten and imprisoned in chains; many were detained for months.  A new prison was built on the Bass Rock, just off the east coast, close to Edinburgh, to contain the prisoners.  There was no legal redress, and the royalist nobility often joined in, using enforcement of the religion laws as a pretext to plunder the lands and homes of the Covenanters, further adding to their own wealth.  The rich got richer, the poor were crushed and oppressed by the state, and those who attempted to remain faithful to God and His Word were ruthlessly persecuted, – persecuted to death, in many cases. The Christians were determined to defend themselves against this unfair and unjust government. They armed themselves.

In 1666 the military build up on both sides (government and Covenanters) continued.  The oppressive activities of the dragoons caused anger and resentment among the common people. At Dalry in Galloway, a platoon of soldiers had claimed the corn of an old farmer called Grier in lieu of payment of a fine.  Grier had tried to escape, but the dragoons had caught up with him, and had tied his hands and feet together, intending to sling him on a stick as an animal.  They intended to roast him on a gridiron, a kind of barbecue.  Some Covenanters, including an ousted laird, John McClellan, were at a nearby inn, and seeing the incident as they left the local inn, where they had been eating breakfast, went to the farmer’s aid.  When they challenged the soldiers as to their actions, an argument began, and the soldiers drew their swords. This in turn prompted one of the Covenanters to discharge a pistol. A Corporal called Deanes, was shot by McClelland and injured.   The authorities were enraged, and out of this petty scuffle in a remote village in the Ayrshire hills, sprang an unplanned rebellion.

Meanwhile some one hundred and fifty Covenanters had gathered near Dumfries, determined to do something to lighten the burden of oppression.  The incident at Dalry, they knew, would only serve as an excuse for the government to exact vengeance. They agreed on a bold plan.  James Turner, the Dragoon commander had taken ill, and was lying in a house at Dumfries, and the band of Covenanters, determined that they would take him prisoner. With almost two hundred men, they entered Dumfries, where Turner only had some seventy men quartered, and of these only around twelve were actually in Dumfries at the time. Turner was taken captive and the band of Covenanters left Dumfries and marched to Ayr, then turned east toward Lanark, determined to reach Edinburgh, where, with such a famous hostage to bargain with, they would attempt to petition the government for a relaxation of the laws which regulated worship.

Along the way, the treatment meted out to Turner varied.  At first he was clothed only in his night attire, and was led along on horse, with no saddle, just a halter.  A number of his captors wanted to put him to death but they were overruled. It is said that Turner was more annoyed with the Presbyterian habit of saying grace before and after their meals than he was with the poor quality of their food!  Some of the ministers among the Covenanters would witness to Turner, and plead with him to turn from his sinful ways. Rev. John Welsh himself prayed with him, assuring him that they earnestly sought the salvation of his soul.  Later, Turner would comment that’ “To what they spoke of my conversion I said, it would be hard to turn a Turner!”  General James Wallace joined the insurgents at the Bridge of Doon.  He was a good man and a professional soldier who had fought for Parliament in the civil wars and he moulded the rabble that he found into a good functional platoon. He was courteous to Turner, and soon earned the man’s admiration for his military abilities.

 At Lanark, on 25th November 1666, the marchers crowded around the tollbooth, and published a Declaration, in which they renewed the Covenants, and deplored the burning of the Solemn League and Covenant by the government. They justified their march, by pointing out that episcopacy had been forced upon the people, while fines and imprisonments had been levied on Presbyterian worshippers. The military activities of the dragoons and the judgements of the High Commission were all cited as reason enough for their actions.

The Covenanters marched on from Lanark toward Edinburgh, still with their hostage, but they were plagued with bad weather, and arrived at Bathgate, having tramped across sodden moors, and were unable to find any accommodation.  By midnight they were forced to march on, and when morning found them five miles from Edinburgh they were hardly recognisable as the fighting force, which Wallace had been training at Lanark.  Although militarily, the Covenanters had little hope of success against the armies of the king, the authorities feared an armed insurrection, and placed cannon at the gates of the city.  By the time the band of Covenanters reached Edinburgh their entrance was barred and their request for an audience with the Council was refused.   

The Covenanters retreated to RULLION GREEN on Wednesday 28th November 1666, still under the leadership of General Wallace. Perhaps their intention was simply to rest, thinking that the Council would listen to their requests and be reasonable in their response. But the hapless Covenanters were ambushed by around three thousand government troops, all of them regular troops, and all armed and ready for action.  Around nine hundred men of the Covenant were there, but with only sixty muskets between them, they were facing overwhelming odds. Jock Purves, writing in his classic book, ‘Fair Sunshine’ notes that some of the weaker brethren among the Presbyterians in the march to Edinburgh had to be tied, hand to hand, with their stronger fellows, to enable them to make the journey at all.  Facing them at Rullion Green was a well-fed and nourished army of professional soldiers. The battle raged fiercely, and twice it looked as though the Covenanters would prevail, but the numbers were too much for them.  Ill equipped and exhausted they were  quickly overwhelmed.  Fifty Covenanters were killed, (including two brave Ulster ministers, John Cruikshank and Andrew McCormick) and some seventy or eighty men were taken captive and brought to Edinburgh, where they were hung, drawn and quartered.  Those not captured or killed fled over the hills to freedom.

Sir James Turner had been brought to the battlefield with the Covenanter army, and when it was the government forces had won the day, the Covenanters set him free. Long before the battle, Turner had struck a bargain with his gaolers.  In event of a defeat, they were to go unpunished; on the condition that Turner was not mistreated during his time in captivity.  Turner did stick to the bargain, and at the hour of victory he went, with his captors to the government soldiers, where the two men surrendered. It was in vain, for Turner was over-ruled by the Privy Council in Edinburgh, who had the men in question executed.

Let’s pause for moment in our historical accounts, and turn our thoughts to worship.  The men and women who worshipped God in the fields of Scotland, determined to abide by the principle of worship that were set out in God’s Word would have sung metrical versions of the psalms at their conventicles.  One psalm that spoke directly to their own experiences of persecution is Psalm 124. 

1 If God the LORD had not been on our side—
2 Let Isr’el say—had not the LORD been near
3 When foes attacked us, filling us with fear,
And when their wrath against us reached its height, 
Alive we had been swallowed in their spite.

4 We would have been enveloped by the flood; 
Over our heads the torrent would have gone;
5 The waters would have carried us along.
6 But praise the LORD, for he has set us free
And has not left us to their cruelty.

7 We have escaped—just as a captured bird
Out of the fowler’s net has been set free;
The snare is cut, we are at liberty.
8 Our help is in the name of God the LORD
Who made the earth and heavens by his word.

Along with those taking a stand against authoritarianism was Rev. Hugh McKail, a young minister who had preached against the beliefs, claims and actions of the king, and against the bishops.  Let’s briefly consider his life for a moment, to get a little vignette, a character portrait of one of these determined Christians:-

Hugh McKail was born in 1640, the son of the Rev. Matthew McKail, minister of the Kirk at Bothwell.  A sickly youth, he studied at Edinburgh University, where he lodged with his uncle, also Hugh McKail.  In 1661 young Hugh applied for a license to minister, which was granted.  At the age of twenty-one, he preached his first public sermon at St Giles Church Edinburgh. In this his maiden sermon he made a thinly veiled reference to the church and state leaders as, “A Pharaoh on the throne, a Haman in the state and a Judas in the church,” all of whom, at various time had persecuted God’s church.  Well, obviously, the sermon was never going to be well received by the authorities, and McKail had to flee away from Edinburgh and go into exile in Holland, a country that gave safe haven to many of the Presbyterians and Puritans. While he was there he spent his time preparing for his return to Scotland, determined to rejoin the battle for truth and Christian liberty.

In 1666, when at the age of twenty-five, Hugh McKail rode with the Covenanter band in that march to Edinburgh, as part of the ill-fated uprising which ended with defeat at Rullion Green.  It is said that by this time Hugh McKail was so weak and sick that he actually had to be tied to his horse, to prevent him from slipping off.  At one stage in the journey, he fainted, and was presumed to have died.  Near Cramond Water, McKail realised that he was not going to be physically fit enough to continue in the march, and he turned back, making his way towards the south part of Edinburgh to his father’s home but he was stopped by a party of dragoons and arrested for being in possession of a sword, and on suspicion of having been among the men of the uprising.  Having been arrested and searched, he was taken to Edinburgh and placed in a cell in the tolbooth.

Now that McKail had been formally charged with being a rebel, and with having spoken seditious words at St. Giles, he was brought before Lord Rothes, who had been appointed to interrogate the minister.  Rothes was enraged by McKail’s quiet answers and his patient refusal to reveal the names of others in the uprising.  He ordered the executioner to bring out an implement of torture known as ‘the boot.’  This was a boot-shaped contraption made of cast iron into which was placed a leg of a prisoner.  The torturer would then use a heavy mallet to drive a wedge of cast iron between the ‘boot’ and the knee of the unfortunate victim.  This broke the bones and tore the flesh of the leg, with excruciating agony, leaving the victim unable to stand.  In McKail’s case, the wedge was driven in eleven times before Rothes gave up questioning him and returned him in dreadful agony to the tolbooth. Throughout the torture, McKail continued to remain silent about his fellow Covenanters. When asked by Rothes why he did not just give the required information, McKail said, “I protest solemnly in the sight of God.  I can say no more, though all the joints in my body were in such great anguish as my knee.”

Back in his cell, McKail suffered a terrible inflammatory fever, induced by his pain, but yet he remained faithful to God, and prayed constantly, interceding for those outside who were facing the gallows for the sake of Christ and His gospel.  On 18th December a second trial was held, and this time McKail confirmed that he had been with the Covenanters on the march from Ayr to Edinburgh, and that further he had been in possession of a sword.  On those grounds he was sentenced to death at the Mercat Cross. It is said that at the sentence, McKail was filled with joy, and when being returned to his cell, cried out to the onlookers to trust in God. A friend enquired after his shattered knee. McKail replied with a smile, “The fear of my neck has made me forget my leg!” To another he remarked that he was less in fear of dying, than of preaching a sermon!

The execution took place four days after the sentence, despite last minute pleas from several high-ranking members of the nobility, and a personal plea from his cousin to Archbishop Sharp, who said that he could do nothing.  The cousin, Dr. Matthew McKail, replied, “You mean, you WILL do nothing.” But Sharp remembered the words spoken in St Giles, and was determined to have his revenge.

At the gallows, Hugh McKail read out a testimony of conversion to Christ and declared his continued love for his Saviour. His final speech was recorded in a volume entitled, “Naphtali” written by one James Stewart, and published in 1667, just a year after McKail’s death. It has been said that McKail’s final testimony is among the finest examples of personal faith and courage ever recorded.  The hangman swung open the trap door, and as Hugh McKail’s body writhed and twisted on the rope, his cousin Matthew grabbed his legs and held them together, pulling down on them to make death come all the swifter.

After the execution, McKail’s remains were removed from the gallows and taken to the Magdalen Chapel, where they were dressed for burial. The authorities did not often allow this, but Matthew McKail seems to have exercised considerable influence in the matter.  Hugh was later interred in the criminals’ burying ground in Greyfriars Kirkyard, in the plot where the Martyr’s Memorial monument now stands.  Dr. Matthew McKail had arranged with the hangman to receive Hugh’s black coat following the execution, and he wore this coat constantly for many years as a reminder of his dear, godly, cousin and as a symbol of his own sad mourning.

Other trials and executions took place throughout the lowlands.  A number of local courts were set up, so that men captured at Rullion Green could be tried and executed near their homes, thus deterring others from embarking on similar rebellious activities.  One such court operated at Ayr, where twelve Covenanters were sentenced to die, eight to be hanged at Ayr, two at Irvine and two at Dumfries.  The men to be hanged at Ayr caused some problems for the authorities, as the local hangman refused to hang the men, and fled from the district instead. A highlander, William Sutherland, also a hangman, from Stonehaven, was asked to perform the hanging, but he had been reading his Bible, and nothing would persuade him to do the task either. He was placed in the stocks, threatened with the boot, and preached at by the curate, all to no avail. Eventually the magistrates persuaded one of the condemned men that his life would be spared if he executed the others.  He agreed, on the condition that each of the others would forgive him.  This they agreed to, and the executions were carried out.  The traitor’s name was Cornelius Anderson, and he was later so much overcome with guilt that he suffered extreme depression.  He fled to Ireland, where, his notoriety having preceded him, he was refused food and lodgings.  He was sheltering in a field outside Dublin when he was found dead, his shelter having burnt down, with him still inside.

The death of Hugh McKail brought to the government a realisation that the martyrdoms were not deterring further ‘fanatics’ from taking up the Covenanting cause. They tried a new tactic. The ACTS OF INDULGENCE of 1669 permitted ministers to return to their parishes, provided that they did not attempt to stir any more Covenanting activity. Ministers who accepted those terms became known as ‘Indulged Presbyterians.’ This had the effect of splitting the Covenanting movement.  Many ministers accepted the government’s terms, thinking that they had won a victory, while others would brook no compromise, and remained out in the fields, condemning the Indulged Clergy as traitors who were totally beyond the pale.  The movement was split and on its knees.

It has to be said that many of the ministers who accepted the Indulgence did so for reasons that were pure and honest, if somewhat inconsistent with their earlier professions. Many of these men were not traitors or supporters of the government, they were simple, Godly ministers, who saw the dangers of leaving their flocks without a shepherd and thus at the mercy of the curates and without any gospel preaching.  To many ministers, this was a worse crime than forsaking the principles of Presbyterianism. It also has to be said, that even when a man accepted the indulgence he was not free from government interference and persecution.  For example:-

• Archibald Riddell was one such Indulged Presbyterian, whose ministry was under constant scrutiny by the government.  Although the minister had sworn to accept the king’s rule, he was by nature a Presbyterian, and thus his sermons were monitored for sedition, and his every action recorded.  In 1680 Riddell was arrested and charged with preaching in the fields, an activity he had not been involved in since the Battle of Bothwell Bridge.  His indictment read that he had preached in his own house without the permission of a curate, contrary to the law!  Being found guilty, Riddell was imprisoned on the Bass Rock and later deported to America.  
• Anthony Shaw, an Indulged Presbyterian, was charged and found guilty of holding a field meeting when the crowd attending his sermons grew so large that they couldn’t get into the church and waited outside to receive the ordinance of Communion!  Shaw was jailed, and then released on the bond of friends, wherein he agreed to exercise no further ministerial functions.

The government decided that the situation was now under control, and that the remaining dissident Covenanters could be successfully culled.  On 13th August 1670, an Act of Parliament, (the Act Against Conventicles) passed in the Scottish Parliament, tightened yet again the prohibition on open air preaching. Now those attending such meetings could be fined, imprisoned or deported, and ministers found organising such a meeting would be executed. If a conventicle were held in a house, or on someone’s property, then that person would be fined.  If it were held in a town or borough, then the local magistrates would be fined.

Yet a small group of dedicated men and women remained.  Among them were still some people who had signed the National Covenant.  Men like Alexander Peden, John Blackader and Donald Cargill. The first conventicle to be attended by armed Covenanters seems to have been held at Dunfermline on 18th June 1670. John Blackader officiated with other ministers, and when a platoon of soldiers discovered the meeting, the men who were carrying arms repulsed them.  The soldiers were wise enough to stand off from the meeting and observe those who were in attendance.  Many of these were later arrested and fined; some were even deported.

Many conventicles went uninterrupted and undisturbed.  A huge conventicle is recorded in 1679 in Kircudbrightshire. Six thousand Covenanters gathered to hear John Blackader and others preaching.  On this occasion communion was offered to the attendees, and some three thousand took the sacrament.  Rows of rocks, known as ‘communion stones’, around five hundred in number, were set up at the conventicle site, and the congregation came to these rocks in their turn to receive communion, while at the same time the others listened to various preachers throughout the field.  (These Communion Stones are still on the site of the Conventicle at Skeoch Hill, near Kirkudbright). It was a well planned event, yet despite the thoroughness of the organisers, it was infiltrated by non-adherents, who reported back to their masters,  Attempts were then made to break up the conventicles, but the Covenanters had posted sentries, and were able to disperse into the hills, only to reconvene the next day at a spot about three miles away from the communion stones.  

In 1677 – 78 the law was tightened yet again.  Landowners were made liable under the law to ensure that their tenants did not involve themselves in covenanting activities, or organise meetings in their fields and rumours persisted of armed rebellion. The government, acting in a panic response, in December 1677, brought in troops from the Highlands to root out the Covenanters. Some eight thousand of these highlanders were brought from Stirling down to Ayrshire. These soldiers became known as the Highland Host, and their excesses and abuses of the local people are well documented.  It was the government’s policy to billet the Highlanders in the private homes of anyone who refused to attend Anglican worship. Once billeted, the soldiers would eat the poor people out of house and home, destroy and loot everything they could, and inflict pain, rape and death in the process.  An account exists of how they murdered a pregnant woman by thrusting a knife into her stomach, and of the death of a minister in Kilmarnock, following a beating by the highlanders.  In most areas the highlanders were withdrawn by February 1678, although some areas (notably Annanshire) suffered under them until 1685.

The Covenanters endured terrible persecution under the government between 1662 and 1689.  Legislation forced them out of their churches, into the fields and compelled them to defend themselves against extreme physical force, and even to take up arms.  They were forced out of their homes and farms, tortured and murdered and their dead bodies desecrated and displayed publicly as a warning to others. 

The underlying reason was the obsession, the mania of successive kings to have complete authoritarian control over the population.  The local ministers in the parish churches had a great deal of influence over their flocks.  They taught them and preached to them, and were listened to by the ordinary people.  To control the people required ministers who would preach what the government wanted the people to hear, and that required a chain of control over the churches, and only episcopacy, a hierarchical system of compliant curates, priests, bishops, and archbishops, all answerable up the chain of command, to the king himself, as the supposed earthly head of the church; the government’s messages filtering down to the people, and reports of possible insurrection or disobedience seeping upwards, political dissent being crushed before it could spread. But Christ is the ONLY head of his church, and Presbyterianism – and in England, Congregationalism – where Christ alone rules, where the king’s politic and propaganda had no place, were a threat to the king’s authoritarian system of command and in the mind of the king and the governing classes, had to be ruthlessly controlled and suppressed, even if that meant vicious and cruel tortures.  

How would we fare, living under the diktats of an authoritarian regime; one that wants to control every aspect of our lives, even to tell Christians how and when to worship?  Would we say no, and resist the encroachments of a pagan antichristian government cabal, at whatever cost that may bring us, or would we simply bend the knee to tyranny, leave aside our faith, doctrines and principles to save our own necks and preserve our earthly comforts?  

When the three Hebrew lads, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow to Nebuchanezzar’s golden idol, they were brought before that tyrannical king, and under pain of death, they were ordered to explain their actions. We read their response in Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.  The king ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than normal, and for them to be cast into the flames.  Even then, the Lord was with them, and preserved them for His glory.  The king, looking into the inferno, said, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.  Our Protestant forefathers, worshipping in the fields of Scotland, trusted the same God, endured the same persecution, and stood firm for Christ’s crown and covenant.  May we be just like them!

© Bob McEvoy