coronation; an altar was introduced, and some of the rites seemed to
savour of popery. He had Laud and some other English bishops in his
retinue, and the King soon gave evidence of his intention to carry out
the later attempts of his father, to introduce prelacy, with its
subordination to the crown, into Scotland. Now the old bishoprics of the
Catholic Church had never been formally abolished, but the titles had
been held by laymen of mean rank,—whilst the bulk of the emoluments had
gone to certain of the nobles. The nominal bishops were nicknamed
_Tulchans_; a tulchan being a calf-skin stuffed with straw, which was
set up alongside of the mother-cow, to induce her to yield her milk more
freely. The bishop had the title, but my lord had the milk. There was
thus a framework of episcopacy in Scotland, and James had in the last
year of his reign, ordered its re-establishment in full authority;
archbishops and bishops to have under himself the headship of the
Scottish Church.
Charles now confirmed the division of Scotland into dioceses, that of
Edinburgh to include all the country south of the Forth; St. Giles to be
the Cathedral church,—a wall which had been built to partition off the
church into two separate places of worship, to be removed. Four years
later, in 1637, the Kings projects had so far advanced, that a liturgy,
moulded on that of the English church—but where it differed, with a
stronger flavour of Rome—was ordered to be used in St. Giles’s. On the
first Sunday of the innovation, the church was crowded; two archbishops,
several bishops, lords of the privy council, the judges and city
magistrates, being in the congregation. When the dean, in his surplice,
began the service, an old woman—Jenny Geddes,—started up and exclaimed,—
“You false loon, will you rout your black mass in my lugg?” and threw
her stool at the dean’s head. This was a signal for a general uproar, in
the midst of which the dean had his surplice torn off by excited women.
Stones and other missiles were thrown at the bishops: the magistrates
called in the Town Guard to drive the malcontents out of the church; but
these by breaking the windows, battering at the doors, and wild clamour,
drowned the dean’s voice, as he again ventured on his ungracious task.
In the Greyfriars’ church the new liturgy was stopped by popular
clamour.
With the obstinancy of his race, Charles persisted in his designs. He
issued proclamations denouncing as rebellion all obstruction to his
remodelled church, and transferred the seat of government and the courts
of law to Linlithgow. These proclamations were replied to by strong
protests from nearly every Corporation in the Kingdom, and the _Solemn
League and Covenant_, which had in the previous reign been instituted
against popery, was enthusiastically renewed, and subscribed by men and
women in all grades of society.
[Illustration:
JENNY GEDDES’ STOOL.
(_From the Scottish Antiquarian Museum._)
]
Charles sent down the Marquis of Hamilton as his High Commissioner,
empowered to treat with the Covenanters. Hamilton took with him to
Edinburgh a retinue of nobility and gentry, who were supposed to be
friendly to the royal cause. He was met by a great concourse of people,
amongst whom were six thousand ministers in their black Geneva gowns. He
opened his commission, but the presbyterian leaders would hear of no
terms being made, as they said, with Antichrist. So Hamilton went back
to London, and reported his non-success to his master. Again he came to
Edinburgh, this time with some concessions, the king offering to
subscribe to the original form of the Covenant, which contained no
mention of prelacy.
Under the Kings sanction, a General Assembly met in Glasgow, in November
1638. The royal commissioner protested against certain proceedings, and
he formally dissolved and retired from the Assembly: but under its
moderator it continued its sittings, condemning the king’s liturgy and
the imposition of an episcopacy. The reply of Charles was the pouring of
two armies into Scotland, one being under his own command. The
Covenanters, with whose cause Parliament had identified itself, were not
slack in taking up the challenge. They appointed General Leslie, a
veteran from the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, to the command of a hastily
raised army. He seized on all the fortified places; and he fortified
Leith, to defend Edinburgh from the king’s fleet. In view of these
warlike preparations, Charles temporized, and a vague kind of treaty was
negotiated. Another General Assembly met next year in Edinburgh; and
here the Royal Commissioner gave formal sanction to the decisions of the
Glasgow Assembly. This sanction was received with an outburst of
enthusiastic gratitude; and loyalty—never far from a Scotchman’s heart—
was again in the ascendant. But it was a delusion and a snare. The king
repudiated the concessions of his own commissioner, prorogued the
Parliament which met to sanction the proceedings of the assembly, and
prepared for a fresh invasion of Scotland. The Scots anticipated his
purpose by sending their army into England—where many were friendly to
their cause. There was a battle at Newburn, on the Tyne, in which the
royal troops were defeated. The Scots occupied Newcastle—and
negotiations were again opened for peace.
And Charles had by this time embroiled himself with his English
subjects. He had tried to raise money by other means than through
Parliament. A Parliament sitting in 1628, had refused him supplies for
carrying on a war with Spain; it had also challenged his assumed right
to imprison his subjects on his own warrant; and they presented to him
what was called a _Petition of Right_, claiming exemption from arbitrary
taxation and imprisonment. Charles found it expedient for the moment to
sanction this Bill; but soon thereafter he dissolved Parliament, and
obstinately refused to call another. For eleven years, under the
influence and with the aid of Archbishop Laud, and Wentworth, Earl of
Stratford, he played at the dangerous game of _Thorough_. He governed as
an irresponsible autocrat, arbitrarily levying taxes, and imprisoning
obnoxious opponents, in defiance of the Petition of Right. The
_Puritans_, or church reformers, suffered severely. Many were dragged
before a court, unknown to the constitution or common law, called the
Star Chamber, which professed to take cognisance of offences against
religion and the royal prerogative. Men of piety, of learning and worth,
were imprisoned, were scourged through the streets, had their noses
slit, or their ears cropped, for expressing differences of opinion on
even minor matters in the policy of the church or the state.
Who were the Puritans? For answer we must go back to the English reign
of James. There had been considerable intercourse between the Reformers
of the two kingdoms, and the more democratic and anti-Romish
constitution of the Scottish Church, had had many sympathisers in
England. From these a party was formed, which came to be called
Puritans; they were not dissenters,—none such being then recognised in
the country; but were chiefly English clergymen. A petition, signed by
nearly a thousand clergymen, was presented to the King, praying for a
revision of the Book of Common Prayer,—the disuse of the surplice in
reading, of the sign of the cross in baptism, and of bowing at the name
of Jesus; also for a reform in the distribution of patronage, and the
abolition of pluralities. James, in full court, and with a number of
church dignitaries present, received the four professors of divinity in
the universities, who represented the petitioners. The King prided
himself on his polemical powers; he argued dogmatically, browbeat the
professors—asserting his superior knowledge of divinity, and declared
that uniformity should be enforced under severe pains and penalties. And
the lay and ecclesiastical dignitaries present vied with each other in
fulsome adulation. One bishop went on his knees, and thanked God for
having given them a king with such divine inspiration as the world had
not witnessed since Christ! The discomfited Puritans withdrew amidst the
jeers and laughter of the servile court.
But through the later years of James’s reign, and throughout the whole
of his son’s reign, puritanism grew, and threatened to either modify or
to disintegrate the English Church. A calvinistic divine, George Abbot,
was even appointed Archbishop of Canterbury;[3] and many holding church
livings were virtually nonconformists. A system of doctrines, which
denied the divine right of kings to govern as above the law, was hateful
to Charles Stuart. And the Queen, Henrietta Maria of France, was a rigid
Catholic; she detested the Puritans, and had inherited from her father
high notions of absolute rule; and all through Charles’s life she goaded
him on in the dangerous path which issued in his destruction. And Laud,
almost a Catholic in opinion, and as intolerant as any Spanish
inquisitor, directed the affairs of the Church; whilst Strafford was
scheming for royal despotism, and to undermine the privileges of
Parliament. Clergymen preaching absolute obedience were sure of
preferment; the more zealous advocates of _Thorough_ were made bishops.
Footnote 3:
Refusing to licence the publication of some especially slavish
sermons, on the royal prerogatives, Abbot was suspended from office,
and confined to his country-house.
An old levy on the maritime towns and counties, to equip vessels for the
protection of the coasts in time of war, was, in time of peace, and on
the Kings sole authority, extended under the name of ship-money to
inland counties, and applied—not to the equipment of a fleet, but to the
support of a standing army; and, before this army, all constitutional
privileges were to be swept away. In 1637, a Buckinghamshire gentleman,
John Hampden, refused to pay the guinea-and-a-half levied on his estate;
but the Court of Exchequer upheld the tax.
And, hunted and persecuted, dragged before Laud’s High Commission on the
most paltry charges, and by it subjected to fines, to personal injuries
and imprisonment, many Puritans emigrated; some went to Holland, but the
greater number to America: and these became a considerable factor in
shaping the social, political, and religious history of the Greater
Britain beyond the Atlantic. Three men who came to be of special note in
our home history—John Hampden, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell, were on
board, bound for New England, when a government order came to stop the
sailing of the vessel.
When the Scots were threatening Northumberland, the King was at his
wit’s end to raise money to pay his troops, and, as a last resource, he
summoned a parliament. The objects were declared in the opening speech
to be, to put down the Scots by the sword, and to raise money to pay the
costs which had already been incurred in the war. To rouse their
patriotism, the King read an intercepted letter from the Lords of the
Covenant to the French King, asking for assistance, in the name of the
old alliance between the two countries. But the appeal fell flat, the
English Commons looked upon the Scottish insurgents more as allies than
as enemies, and with kindred grievances to be redressed. So they would
grant the King no money until they had settled other matters with him;
and after eighteen days spent in wrangling, he called them to the bar of
the House of Lords, and haughtily dismissed them.
[Illustration: COVENANTERS’ FLAG.]
Meanwhile, the Scots holding Newcastle, commanded the coal supply of
London; and they took possession of Durham, Darlington, and
Northallerton. Every town in which the Blue Bonnets appeared, received
them kindly, and they kept strict discipline, occupying a good deal of
their time in psalm singing and hearing sermons. They professed loyalty
to the king, declaring that they had come only as humble petitioners to
be allowed to retain their Presbyterian Kirk. Against such meek and
harmless invaders, Charles could not raise an effective war-cry; he
found that his troops were lukewarm in his cause; he was strongly urged
to come to terms with them, and he appointed commissioners to arrange a
treaty. The Scots were meantime, from a loan raised by the citizens of
London, to have £40,000 a month for their maintenance.
And for the second time in this year (1640) Charles was obliged to call
a Parliament. It met in November, and—existing for nineteen years—is
known in history as the Long Parliament. Its first session was marked by
the imprisonment of Laud, and the impeachment of Strafford for treason
against the liberties of the people. Strafford defended himself with
great ability, and Pym, who conducted the impeachment, fearing his prey
would escape him, got the Commons to pass a Bill of Attainder—a measure
for the destruction of those for whose real or imputed offences the law
had provided no penalties. Under clamour and tumult the Bill was also
passed by the peers, and waited only confirmation by the king. Charles
hesitated—what conscience he had was pricked at the thought of
sacrificing one whose chief fault had been over-zealous loyalty to
himself, and helping him in his designs. But a letter from Strafford,
asking the king to leave him to his fate, was enough for Charles; he
signed the warrant, and Strafford was, in May 1641, beheaded on Tower
Hill. Laud was for four years detained in prison, and was then executed.
THE CIVIL WAR.
In the early part of 1642, matters between the king and Parliament had
become so strained, that both sides began to make preparations for war.
On January 4th, Charles had in person obtruded into the House of
Commons, and made an abortive attempt to arrest six members, who were
especially obnoxious to him. This overt act of the kings roused the cry
of “privilege,” and in Parliamentary circles excited general alarm and
resentment. Upon a demand made by Parliament for the command of the
army, the king broke off all amicable intercourse, and leaving the
capital, raised his standard at Nottingham, having under him an army of
ten thousand men.
The Parliament raised a larger, but a less disciplined and less ably
officered, army. On October 23rd, at Edgehill, in Warwickshire, for the
first time since the overthrow, by Henry of Lancaster, of Richard the
Third at Bosworth, in 1485, a battle was fought between Englishmen. The
advantage was with the King; and so, generally, was the campaign of the
following year, 1643. He defeated a Parliamentary army at Newbury in
Berkshire, and his dashing nephew, Prince Rupert, took Bristol by
assault; but he failed to take Gloucester, and lost a second battle at
Newbury. Meantime, Cromwell was beginning to take a foremost place as a
military disciplinarian and strategist—holding the rank of general of
cavalry; his will and purpose came to dominate the entire Parliamentary
army.
Charles came to Scotland to try to win over the Covenanters to help him
against his Parliament. He would almost go the length of renouncing
episcopacy, and he ratified the deeds of the Glasgow Assembly. But the
Scots were on good terms with the English Parliament, and were even
sanguine of extending the presbyterian covenant into England, where an
anti-prelatical spirit was, under the now assertive puritanism, rapidly
rising.
On the 1st of July, 1643, an assembly of divines from both countries,
convoked by Parliament, met in Westminster Abbey. It was composed of men
of learning, of zealous piety and strong purpose; but they were also men
of their own time, sharing in its prejudices, its intolerance, and its
admixture of dogmatic theology with the politics and the partizanship of
the day. The grand truths, that God alone is Lord of the conscience, and
that it is as vain to try to fix and arrest opinions as it is to fix the
direction of the winds, or to arrest the tides, had not then come to be
rooted in the minds of men. For four years the Assembly sat, arguing and
discussing all the points in orthodox theology, and the various forms of
church government. The fruits of the “great consult,” are in the form of
documents which are still the recognised standards of presbyterian faith
and worship throughout the world. In August, 1647, the Scottish
commissioners reported the results to the Edinburgh General Assembly,
and these results were received as the basis of uniformity in faith, to
be established throughout the three kingdoms.
In England, the principle of Presbyterian church government was endorsed
by Parliament, and a General Assembly and provincial synods were
nominally appointed. But, on the one hand, the Anglican Church had many
influential supporters; it had now been established for over a century,
and had struck its roots deeply in the land; its supporters were by
their opponents called _Erastians_, from a German doctor Erastus, who
had advocated the subjection of the church to the state. On the other
hand were the Independents, who stood out against enforced uniformity,
and against any established creed or ritual. To allow of unrestrained
latitudinarianism in religious opinions, seemed to the rigid
presbyterians disloyalty to the faith,—servility to antichrist. Loudly
and rancorously did this controversy rage; the more that the principle
of uniformity was pressed, the more did independency branch out into
protests against this principle, in new sects—each one more self-
assertive than its neighbours. The political destinies of England were
now under the arbitrament of the sword, and religious dominancy would be
with supremacy in arms.
In Scotland in 1644-5, blazed like a terrific meteor, the course of
James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. He had been a Covenanter—vehement, as
his nature ever was—but through jealousy of Argyle and other nobles, he
took the King’s side. He raised an army of Irishmen and Highlanders, and
at Perth, Aberdeen, and Inverlochy in Argyleshire, he defeated troops
superior in numbers and discipline, by the fierceness of his onsets, and
rapid strokes of strategy. Pursued by superior forces, he doubled like a
hare, meeting and defeating his enemies in detachments, in Nairnshire,
at Aldearn in Aberdeenshire, and at Kilsyth near Glasgow, thus achieving
six successive victories. At Philiphaugh, near Stirling, he was
surprised and defeated by General Leslie. He fled from Scotland, but
returning in 1650, he was made prisoner, taken to Edinburgh and hanged.
He was able and energetic,—with the genius of a Napoleon for war,—
idolised by his men, but cruel and vindictive to his enemies.
Before Philiphaugh, Charles had been defeated at Naseby, and his cause
on the field was irretrievably lost. After holding Oxford for a time, he
placed himself under the protection of the Scottish Army, which—in the
pay of the English Parliament—was at Newark. He was received with
respect—and attempts were again made to induce him to subscribe to the
Covenant. What the Scots chiefly cared for was the security of their
national church; but Charles was wedded to episcopacy, as that form of
church government which best accorded with his notions of royal
authority; so he diverged from the presbyterians on a point which they
considered of vital importance. The English parliament demanded the
surrender of Charles, promising his safety and respectful treatment,—
expressing indignation at any suspicion of evil designs against him.
And we now come to an event which Scottish historians must ever approach
with hesitation and misgivings. The Scots gave up the King, it is said
by his own desire; and this just as, after long delays, they were being
paid £400,000, the arrears then due of their maintenance money. This has
generally been looked upon as an actual sale of the King to his enemies;
certainly it was a suspicious circumstance, the simultaneous occurrence
of the two transactions. But the one was not made an express condition
for the other; the money was due under agreement; and the Scots were
tired of the King’s presence amongst them; he was rather an unmanageable
guest—obstinate, unreliable, and bringing them into conflict with the
English parliament, and its formidable and now masterful army.
The King was placed in Holdenby Castle, and parliament, in carrying out
their promises to the Scots, opened negotiations for restoring his
authority, under certain restrictions; and having sent the Scottish army
home, they tried to disband the English army. But that army was now
master of the situation—it had Cromwell at its head, and retorted upon
the parliament with a demand for the dismissal of the presbyterian
leaders—and claimed for itself the right of remodelling the government.
Powerless for resistance, the House of Commons had to yield, and the
government of England became a military despotism. A Captain Joyce, with
a troop of horse, acting under secret orders from Cromwell, seized the
King’s person, and took him to Hampton Court. From there, on 11th
November, 1647, he made his escape; he reached the Isle of Wight, in
hopes of being able to cross the Channel; but was obliged to take refuge
in Carisbrook Castle; he was not kept a close prisoner, but was allowed
to ride and walk about the island.
At the neighbouring town of Newport, the Royalists negotiated a treaty
with the Scots, engaging for the King to confirm presbyterianism in
Scotland; the Scots to send an army into England to co-operate with the
Royalists. In the summer of 1648, a Scottish army under Hamilton entered
England, but were defeated by Cromwell at Preston. A strong party in
Scotland had repudiated the Newport treaty; the meeting of the Estates
had removed from office all who had accepted its engagements. At this
time the King and the English Parliament, both confronted by the army,
were approaching each other, and Parliament was about to vote that the
King’s concessions were satisfactory. But Cromwell sent Colonel Pride
with his troopers to surround the House of Commons, and prevent the
entrance of the Presbyterian members. Some two hundred were thus
excluded, and the independent members voted thanks to Cromwell, and gave
his after-proceedings the colour of legality. Within eight weeks
thereafter, the headsman’s axe put an end to Charles’s troubles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scotland under Cromwell.
A Scottish deputation visited the younger Charles at the Hague. After a
good deal of finessing it was agreed that Charles would be accepted as
King of Scotland, conditionally,—on the side of the deputation, that he
subscribed the Covenant; and on his side, that the Scots should furnish
an army to help him in the assertion of his English rights. He signed
the Covenant before landing at the mouth of the Spey, in June, 1650.
Cromwell again proved himself the man of the hour. He had just stamped
out with an iron heel a rebellion in Ireland; and, within a month from
the landing of Charles, he and his Irish army had crossed the Tweed, and
were marching on Edinburgh.
He had as his opponent the cautious old veteran, General Leslie. Leslie
caused the country in the line of Cromwell’s march to be laid waste. The
Ironsides had to contend with an enemy against which their indomitable
charges in the field were of no avail,—famine. Leslie’s tactics were to
avoid a battle; but he hovered menacingly round Cromwell, maintaining
the more favourable positions. The Lord-General saw no way out of his
difficulty, but either surrender or a fool-hardy attack on the strong,
well-posted Scottish army. Hemmed in on the shore near Dunbar, but in
communication with his ships, he was arranging to send off his camp
baggage by sea, and then, by a sudden attack with his horse, to cut his
way through the Scottish army, when the mis-timed zeal of the
Presbyterian preachers solved the difficulty for him. “Go down and smite
your enemies,” these preachers shouted, and Leslie’s safer generalship
was borne down by the clamour. On a stormy morning—the 3rd of September,
1650—the Scots descended to the open plains. Cromwell at the sight
exclaimed, “The Lord hath delivered them into our hands.” The wet and
weary Scots, not allowed time to form in proper order of battle, were
totally routed; thousands falling in the battle and the flight.