Beginning at the left hand is Johnston of Warriston showing a letter to
the Earl of Argyll, while Lord Eglinton is in the rear. Two ladies come
next—the Marchioness of Hamilton, in widow’s weeds, seated, with Lady
Kenmure standing beside her. The group around the tombstone includes
Lord Rothes in the act of signing the document, Lord Louden, Lord
Lothian, and the Earl of Sutherland; while Montrose is on the near side.
Then there are Hope of Craighall, with the Rev. Samuel Rutherfurd, and
in the foreground, standing on a tombstone, is the Rev. Alexander
Henderson.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Signing of the National Covenant]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Story
of the
SCOTTISH COVENANTS
in Outline
Scotland is pre-eminently the land of the Covenant, and the land is
flowered with martyr graves. When the covenanting cause was in the
ascendant, many were willing to appear on its side who cared little for
it in reality; but when it waned, and, after the Restoration, the time
of trial came, the half-hearted changed sides, or fell away like leaves
in autumn, and the love of many waxed cold. Then it was that the
faithful remnant stood revealed and grew still more faithful.
While they were opposed and oppressed by some of their former
associates, they were, on the other hand, reinforced by the accession of
outstanding men, like Richard Cameron and Thomas Forrester, who, in
their earlier years, had complied with Prelacy; and by others, like
James Renwick, Patrick Walker, and Sergeant Nisbet, who were born after
the persecution had actually commenced. Men, and even women, were found
ready and willing to endure all hardships, and to brave an ignominious
death, rather than relinquish or compromise the principles which they
held so dear, and to which, as they believed, the nation was bound by
solemn covenants.
[Sidenote: Bands or Covenants]
The story of religious covenanting in Scotland covers a long period. The
covenants, or bands as they were frequently called, may be divided into
three classes—public, semi-public, and private—and the influence of each
has been felt at some of the most critical periods in the history of the
country.
[Sidenote: Personal Covenants]
The private or personal covenant, in which the individual Christian gave
up himself, or herself, formally to the service of God, helped many a
one to walk straight in crooked and trying times. These private
transactions were neither less solemn nor less sacred because the
knowledge of them was confined to the covenanter and his Lord.
[Sidenote: A Specimen]
Many specimens of these old personal covenants have been preserved, and
they throw a vivid light on a type of earnest piety, which, it is to be
feared, is rather rare in the present day. One of these came into my
hands twenty years ago, inside a copy of Patrick Gillespie’s well-known
work, “The Ark of the Testament Opened.” The book was printed at London
in 1661, and is still in the original binding, but the old brown calf
had given way at the joints, and so one of the previous owners had it
rebacked. Fortunately, the binder preserved the fly-leaves, on which
there are a number of jottings and dates; and on one of them there is a
genuine personal covenant, written and signed by Francis Wark. He had
written this covenant on that side of the last fly-leaf which was next
to the board, and had then pasted the edges carefully down to the board,
so that no one could see that there was any writing there. After being
hidden for more than a century and a half, it was revealed by the
binder. As it is very short, it may be quoted as an example:—
“I, Francis Wark, doe hereby testifie and declair that I, being
a poor miserable sinner deserving hell and wrath, and that
vengance is my due, and I, not being able to deliver myself from
wrath nor satisfie the justice of God for my guilt, doe this day
betake myself to the righteousnes of Jesws Christ, fulie
renowncing all righteousnes in my self, and betakes me to his
mercy; and likways that I take the true God, who made the heavns
and the earth and gave me a being upon the world, to be my God
and my portion (renowncing the devill the world and the flesh),
and resigns up myself sowll and body to be his in tyme and
through all the ages of endless eternity, even to him who is one
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and I take Jesws Christ for my
Saviour, my Priest, Prophet and King, and engadges to be for him
and his glory, whill I have a being upon the earth: in witnes
quhereof I have subscrived this with my hand, Glasgow the 21 day
of May 1693,
“FRANCIS WARK.”
[Sidenote: God our Portion]
Documents of this kind help one to understand the reply of the
covenanter’s wife when the dragoons were driving away all the cattle in
her husband’s absence. A soldier, who had not altogether lost his
feelings of humanity, turned back to her and said: “Puir woman, I’m
sorry for you.” “Puir!” she exclaimed, “I’m no puir; the Lord is my
portion, and ye canna mak me puir!”
There is still some uncertainty as to the precise date when public or
semi-public religious covenanting was adopted in Scotland.
[Sidenote: Supposed Band of 1556]
In speaking of his own preaching in 1556, Knox tells that, at that time,
most of the gentlemen of the Mearns “refuissed all societie with
idolatrie, and _band thame selfis_, to the uttermost of thare poweris,
to manteane the trew preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ, as God
should offer unto thame preachearis and oportunitie.” Dr M‘Crie
understood this to mean that these gentlemen “entered into a solemn and
mutual bond, in which they renounced the Popish communion, and engaged
to maintain and promote the pure preaching of the Gospel, as Providence
should favour them with opportunities.” In David Laing’s opinion, Knox’s
words do not necessarily imply that the mutual agreement or resolution
referred to actually assumed the form of a written “band” or covenant.
If it did, Knox has not embodied it in his “History,” nor is any copy
known to exist.
[Sidenote: Band of 1557]
But as to the reality, the nature, and the precise date of the band of
1557, there is no room for dubiety. Knox was on the Continent when it
was entered into; but he relates the circumstances which called it
forth, explains the object it was meant to serve, and gives a copy of
the document itself, as well as the names of the principal men who
signed it. The leaders of the Reforming party resolved to persist in
their purpose, to commit themselves and their all into God’s hands,
rather than allow idolatry manifestly to reign, rather than suffer the
subjects of the realm to be defrauded as they had been of the preaching
of Christ’s Evangel. “And that everie ane should be the more assured of
other, a commoun band was maid, and by some subscrived.”
Calderwood derived his copy of the document, and his account of the
circumstances which called it forth, from Knox. Fully forty years ago an
original copy of the band was found, and is now in the National Museum
of Antiquities, Edinburgh. It only bears five signatures, those of
Argyll, Glencairn, Morton, Lorne, and John Erskine. The day of the month
is left blank; but the one which Knox followed is dated “the thrid day
of December.” Knox also says that it was subscribed by many others. The
explanation probably is that (as in 1638) a number of original copies
were made, and signed by the leaders before being sent out for
additional names.
This band of 1557, like those of a later date, is remarkable for the
clearness, the directness, and the vigour of its language, but unlike
them it can hardly be regarded as a public document. To have exhibited
it then to all and sundry would have been to court persecution, perhaps
death. “To those who agreed with them,” says Buchanan, “they presented
bonds for their subscription. These first assumed the name of ‘the
Congregation,’ which those who followed afterward rendered more
celebrated.” Although there are barely two hundred and fifty words in
the band of 1557, the Protestant party is mentioned in it seven times as
the Congregation. It was nearly five months after the date of this band
before Walter Mill was consigned to the flames.
[Sidenote: Bands of 1559]
The year 1559 was rendered notable in Scotland by the return of Knox, by
the open rupture between the Congregation and the Queen Regent, and by
the rapid progress of Protestantism. In the summer of that year the
Reformers deemed it advisable to enter into at least three distinct
covenants, their respective dates being the 31st of May, the 13th of
July, and the 1st of August. None of the originals of these is known to
have survived, but copies of all the three have been preserved. They had
for their general object the advancement of the Reformation, but each
had its own distinctive traits and special end. The first was entered
into at Perth, the second at Edinburgh, and the third at Stirling. The
second was adopted in St Andrews as the “letteris of junctioun to the
Congregatioun,” and as such was taken by more than three hundred
persons.
[Sidenote: Rupture of French Alliance]
Not the least striking result of the Reformation was the complete
bursting up of the ancient alliance between France and Scotland, and the
drawing together of Scotland and England—that England which Scotland had
so long and so recently regarded as its “auld enemy.” The importance of
this result is frankly acknowledged by Teulet, one of the most
competent, careful, and candid of French historical students. He puts
the matter thus: “Scotland, which was for so many ages the devoted ally
of France, the rein, as our ancient kings said, with which they
restrained the encroachments of England, was unwilling to abdicate its
nationality and become a French province. Moreover, the unbridled
excesses of the French troops in Scotland, no less than the shameless
rapacity of the French agents, at last aroused a general spirit of
resistance, and England soon found in the rupture of the ancient
alliance between France and Scotland an ample indemnification for the
loss of Calais.”
[Sidenote: French Excesses]
The enormities of the French in Scotland were so great, that Mary of
Guise, in writing to her brothers, affirmed that the peasantry were in
consequence so reduced to despair that they frequently committed
suicide. Although these unbridled excesses are enough to explain the
revulsion of feeling towards the French, they do not quite account for
the sudden alteration towards the English. The change, indeed, was so
sudden and so unlikely that some Southerns thought, and naturally
thought, it was “a traine to betrappe” their nation.
[Sidenote: Scots and English]
So great had been the Scotch hatred of the English, that, from the
French who came over to help them after Pinkie, they were said to have
bought English prisoners, that they might have the pleasure of putting
them to death, although they could ill afford the price which they paid
ungrudgingly. This hatred, so bitter, so fierce, and so recent, could
not have been wiped out by any French oppression had not the Scots been
now finding themselves ranged on the same side as the English in the
great religious struggle, which was submerging old feuds, breaking up
old compacts, and turning the world upside down.
[Sidenote: Band of 1560]
The oppression by the French, and the help expected from the English
army, are both referred to in the band or covenant entered into on the
27th of April 1560. Knox says that this band was made by “all the
nobilitie, barronis, and gentilmen, professing Chryst Jesus in
Scotland,” and by “dyveris utheris that joynit with us, for expelling of
the Frenche army; amangis quham the Erle of Huntlie was principall.” He
does not name any other person who signed, although he copied the band
itself into his “History”; but the original document was found among the
Hamilton MSS., and it bears about a hundred and fifty signatures of
noblemen and gentlemen, including those of the Duke of Chatelherault,
the Earls of Arran, Huntly, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, and Morton, James
Stewart (afterwards the Regent Murray), and the Abbots of Kinloss,
Coupar, and Kilwinning. All those who adhibited their names did not do
so on the same day. Huntly signed on the 28th of April; Morton and
twenty-seven others on the 6th of May.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Edinburgh]
The French had fortified Leith, but were so hard pressed by the English
and the Scots that they were constrained to make the Treaty of
Edinburgh, with Queen Elizabeth’s representatives, on the 6th of July
1560. It was by that treaty, or rather—to be more strictly accurate—in
virtue of the concessions in the separate “accord” between the French
and the Scots of the same date, and which is referred to in the treaty,
that the Scots were able to throw off for ever the merciless tyranny of
their old allies and the unbearable yoke of the Papacy. These
concessions provided for a meeting of Parliament; and next month that
Parliament repealed the Acts favouring the Church of Rome, abolished the
Pope’s jurisdiction in Scotland, prohibited the celebration of mass
under pain of death for the third conviction, and ratified the
Confession of Faith drawn up by Knox, Wynram, Spottiswoode, Willock,
Douglas, and Row.
Mary Queen of Scots returned from France to her own country in August
1561, and a year later made her first northern progress, in which she
went as far as Inverness. Huntly, notwithstanding his having signed the
band of 1560, was regarded as the lay head of the Papists in Scotland,
and grave doubts were entertained by many of the Protestants as to the
results of this progress of the young Queen.
[Sidenote: Band of 1562]
Knox was then in Ayrshire, and, alarmed by the rumours which reached
him, he prevailed on many of the barons and gentlemen of that county to
enter into another band, or covenant, at Ayr, on the 4th of September
1562, in order to be prepared for any attempt that might be made to put
down Protestantism. It does not appear that it had any influence on the
course of events in the North, but it probably had a considerable,
though indirect, influence in restraining those in the South, who might
have been inclined to help Huntly had there been any prospect of their
being able to do so successfully. Those who took the band were not
called upon to show their faithfulness in the field. Huntly—through
perversity, stupidity, or suspicion—put himself completely out of the
Queen’s graces. His forces were defeated, he died on the field of
battle, one of his sons was executed, and another imprisoned.
[Sidenote: The Queen’s Demission]
On Thursday, the 24th of July 1567, the Queen, then a prisoner in Loch
Leven Castle, was prevailed upon (by threats, she afterwards said) to
demit the government in favour of her infant son, James, then thirteen
months old. The General Assembly had met on the preceding Monday in the
Over Tolbooth of Edinburgh; and on Friday, the 25th, the nobles, barons,
and commissioners of towns, who were present, agreed to and subscribed
certain “articles.”
[Sidenote: Articles of 1567]
These articles really formed a band for subverting the mass, destroying
monuments of idolatry, setting up the true religion through the whole
realm, increasing ministers’ stipends, reforming schools, colleges, and
universities, easing the poor of their teinds, punishing vice, crimes,
and offences, especially the murder of Darnley, defending the young
prince, bringing him up in the fear of God, and obliging future kings
and rulers to promise, before their coronation and inauguration, to
maintain, defend, and set forward, the true religion. The subscribers
also consented and offered “to reforme themselves according to the Booke
of God.” In all they numbered about eighty. Of these, two or three
certainly knew of the plot against Darnley before it was carried out;
and they may have subscribed these articles to avert suspicion.
[Sidenote: St Bartholomew’s Massacre]
[Sidenote: Proposed Band]
[Sidenote: Test Of Loyalty]
The dreadful massacre of the Huguenots, begun in Paris on St
Bartholomew’s day 1572, excited consternation and horror in Scotland.
Believing that all the other Protestants in Europe were to be similarly
dealt with, the Privy Council summoned a convention, to be held at
Edinburgh on the 20th of October, to consider the impending danger and
the means by which it might be averted. Unfortunately for the success of
the convention, the lieges had been summoned to meet at Jedburgh on the
22nd to make a raid upon the border thieves; and the Earl of Mar, then
Regent, was drawing near his end at Stirling. None of the nobles
and few of the lairds attended the convention; but a number of
proposals were agreed to, that they might be sent to the Regent
and the Privy Council. One of these proposals was that a public
humiliation, or fast, should be held throughout the whole of Scotland
during the last eight days of November. Another was that the Protestants
of the realm should enter into a solemn band, that they might be ready
on all occasions to resist the enemy. There is evidence to show that the
fast was observed in Edinburgh; but, if the band was ever drawn up, no
copy of it seems to have survived, nor any record of its having been
entered into. The suggestion, however, was not fruitless. In the
following January, Parliament enacted that no one should be
reputed a loyal subject to the King, but should be punished
as a rebel, who did not profess the true religion; and that
those who had made profession thereof, and yet had departed from their
due obedience to his Majesty, should not be received to his mercy and
favour, until they anew gave confession of their faith; and promised to
continue “in the confessioun of the trew religioun” in time coming, and
to maintain the King’s authority; and also that they would, “at the
uttermest of thair power, fortifie, assist and mantene the trew
preichouris and professouris of Christis religioun,” against all enemies
and gainstanders of the same, of whatever nation, estate, or degree, who
had bound themselves, or assisted, to set forward and execute the cruel
decrees of the Council of Trent, injuriously called, by the adversaries
of God’s truth, “The Haly League.” By this time the “Tulchan Bishops”
had been obtruded on the Church of Scotland.
[Sidenote: The King’s Confession]
All the earlier covenants were eclipsed in interest and importance by
the one drawn up by John Craig, and commonly called “The King’s
Confession,” sometimes “The Second Confession of Faith,” and sometimes
“The Negative Confession.” In it the corruptions of the Papacy are
denounced and renounced in terse language and with refreshing vigour. As
John Row puts it: “This wes the touch-stone to try and discern Papists
from Protestants.” And yet, notwithstanding its searching and solemn
words, it failed in at least one notable instance as a touch-stone. The
original document, signed by James the Sixth and his household on the
28th of January 1580-81, found its way to France, but fortunately was
sent back again to this country—to Scot of Scotstarvit—and is now in the
Advocates’ Library. This covenant was subscribed in 1581 by all ranks
and classes of the people.
Because of “the great dangers which appeared to hang over the kirk and
countrie,” a special meeting of the General Assembly was convened on the
6th of February 1587-8. In the fifteenth session, it was agreed that
ministers should “travell diligentlie with the noblemen, barons, and
gentlemen, to subscribe the Confession of Faith.” In accordance with
this resolution, the Negative Confession was again signed by the King,
and nearly a hundred other persons, including several of the leading
nobles, on the 25th of February, at Holyrood.
[Sidenote: The General Band]
The dread inspired by the approach of the Spanish Armada in 1588 led to
the preparation of another covenant, known as “The General Band.” The
subscribers did “solemnly swear and promise to take a true, effald and
plain parte with his Majestie amongst ourselves, for diverting of the
present danger threatned to the said [true and Christian] religion, and
his Majestie’s estate and standing depending thereupon.” There is record
evidence to show that it was subscribed by the King “and divers of his
Esteatis” before the 27th of July 1588.
[Sidenote: Band of 1589]
This was a time of special bands. At Aberdeen, on the 30th of April
1589, the King and many others subscribed a band, by which they bound
themselves together “for the defens and suretie of the said trew
religioun, his Hienes persone and estate thairwith conjoynit”; and for
the pursuit of “Jesuittis, Papistis of all sortis, thair assistaris and
pairttakaris,” including the Earls of Huntly and Errol, who had “cum to
the feildis with oppin and plane force and displayit baner, for the
persute, ruting-oute and exterminioun of his Majestie, and all uthiris
his gude and loving subjectis, trew professouris of the Evangell.”
[Sidenote: Covenanting in 1590]
On the 6th of March 1589-90, when King James was still beyond the German
Ocean with his bride, the Privy Council, frightened again by the rumours
of a foreign invasion, appointed commissioners to receive the
subscriptions of nobles, barons, gentlemen, and lieges of every degree,
to the King’s Confession of 1580-81, and to the General Band of 1588.
Robert Waldegrave was authorised to print these documents for that
special purpose; and they were issued by him, in 1590, in book form,
with blank pages after the Confession, and also after the General Band,
for signatures. The subscribing at this time is said to have been
universal.
[Sidenote: Band of 1592-3]
The discovery, in December 1592, of the documents known as the Spanish
Blanks, led to another royal expedition to the North in the following
February. While in Aberdeen, the King, several of his nobles, and about
a hundred and fifty of the prominent lairds, entered into another band.
It proceeds on the narrative that, being fully and certainly persuaded
of the treasonable practices and conspiracies of some of his subjects,
against “the estat of the true religioun presentlie professed within
this realme, his Majestie’s person, crowne, and libertie of this our
native countrie,” the subscribers faithfully bind and oblige themselves
“to concurre, and take an effald, leill, and true part with his
Majestie, and each one of us with others, to the maintenance and defence
of the libertie of the said true religioun, crown, and countrie, from
thraldom of conscience, conqueist, and slaverie of strangers, and [in]
resisting, repressing, and pursute of the cheefe authors of the saids
treasonable conspiraceis.”
The precise date of this band is not given, but it must have been
subscribed between the 1st and the 13th of March 1592-3, that is, in
1592 according to the old reckoning by which the year began on the 25th
of March, but in 1593 according to the present reckoning by which the
year begins on the 1st of January.
[Sidenote: Covenanting in 1596]
[Sidenote: Bochim]
In March 1596, the General Assembly, anxious “to see the Kirk and
ministrie purged,” determined to humble itself for the short-comings and
corruptions of the ministry, and resolved that a new covenant should be
made with God, “for a more carefull and reverent discharge of their
ministrie.” Accordingly, on Tuesday the 30th, “foure hundreth persons,
all ministers or choice professors,” met in the Little Kirk of
Edinburgh, and there entered into “a new league with God,” promising “to
walke more warilie in their wayes and more diligentlie in their
charges.” While humbling themselves, “there were suche sighes and sobbs,
with shedding of teares among the most part of all estats that were
present, everie one provoking another by their exemple, and the teacher
himself [John Davidson] by his exemple, that the kirk resounded, so
that the place might worthilie have beene called Bochim; for the
like of that day was never seene in Scotland since the Reformatioun.”
As a great many of the ministers were not present at this action,
it was ordered to be repeated in the synods, and in presbyteries
by those who were absent from their synod. It was likewise taken up in
parishes. In the Presbytery of St Andrews, “for testefeing of a trew
conversioun and change of mynd,” special promises and vows were made.
These referred to religious duties, in private, in the family, and in
public, including “the resisting of all enemies of relligioun, without
fear or favour of anie persone”; and also referred to such ordinary
duties, as taking order with the poor, and repairing bridges.[1]
-----
Footnote 1:
Row and the younger M’Crie are apparently in error in stating that the
covenant of 1580-81 was renewed in 1596. Long before that time,
however, it had been assigned a place in the Book of Laureations of
Edinburgh University, that it might be subscribed by the professors
and students.
[Sidenote: Erection of Episcopacy]
[Sidenote: Articles of Perth]
James the Sixth’s hankering for Prelacy and its ritual continued to
increase after he crossed the Tweed in 1603. By the summer of 1610, “the
restoration of episcopal government and the civil rights of bishops” had
been accomplished; but, according to the best-informed of Scottish
Episcopalian historians, “there was yet wanting that without which, so
far as the Church was concerned, all the rest was comparatively
unimportant.” The Archbishop of Glasgow, and the Bishops of Brechin and
Galloway, were sent up, however, to the English court, and on the 21st
of October “were consecrated according to the form in the English
ordinal.” This qualified them on their return to give “valid ordination”
to the Archbishop of St Andrews (George Gladstanes) and the other
bishops. Gladstanes seems to have felt duly grateful to the King, whom
he addressed as his “earthly creator.” The Court of High Commission had
already been erected; and in 1612 Parliament formally rescinded the Act
of 1592, regarded as the charter of Presbytery. A General Assembly
held at Perth, in August 1618, agreed by a majority to the five
articles, afterwards known as “the Articles of Perth”; and they were
ratified by Parliament in August 1621.[2]
-----
Footnote 2: