On 9 March 1649, James Hamilton, the 1st duke of Hamilton and Scottish Royalist soldier, died.
His weak and vacillating leadership of the Royalist cause in Scotland did great damage to Charles I in his northern kingdom. Captured by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston in 1648, he was executed after trying to escape captivity.
On this day in 1907, John Alexander Dowie, the Scottish-born religious leader, died. Dowie, a highly controversial but charismatic faith healer, founded the Christian Catholic Church at Zion, Illinois, where around 5,000 followers created a unique community and followed his teaching. This included a belief in the power of prayer to heal disease. Zion existed without any doctors or pharmacists. Smoking, drinking and the eating of pork were banned. The self-proclaimed apostle "Elijah the Restorer" was expelled from the Church in 1905 after he had become increasingly eccentric, and the community fell into financial ruin.
