(1) Kneeling at the Lord’s Supper was approved;
(2) Ministers were to dispense that sacrament in private houses,
to those suffering from infirmity or from long or deadly
sickness;
(3) Ministers were to baptise children in private houses in
cases of great need;
(4) Ministers were, under pain of the bishop’s censure, to
catechise all children of eight years of age, and the children
were to be presented to the bishop for his blessing;
(5) Ministers were ordered to commemorate Christ’s birth,
passion, resurrection, ascension, and the sending down of the
Holy Ghost.
[Sidenote: Revolt of 1637]
When Charles the First ascended the throne, in 1625, he found that the
northern church still lagged behind its southern sister. He resolved to
supply the defects, and the projects which he laid for this purpose had
a considerable influence on the events which subsequently brought him to
the block. Had he shown more caution and less haste, he might possibly
have succeeded in his attempts on the Scottish Church; but in Laud he
had an evil adviser. The storm burst in the High Church (St Giles) of
Edinburgh, when Dean Hanna tried to read the new liturgy, on the 23rd of
July 1637. With this tumult the name of Jenny Geddes has been
associated. The Presbyterian party, so long down-trodden, began to
assert their rights; and, finding that they would be better able to
withstand opposition if closely bound together, they determined to fall
back on the plan of their ancestors by entering into a solemn covenant.
As the basis of this covenant the King’s Confession of 1580-81 was
chosen, and to it two additions were made, the first, prepared by
Archibald Johnston of Warriston, is known as “the legal warrant,” and
the second, drawn up by Alexander Henderson of Leuchars, was the bond
suiting it to the occasion.
[Sidenote: National Covenant]
With these additions it was, and still is, known as “The National
Covenant”; and in that form it was sworn to and subscribed by thousands
of people, in Greyfriars Church and churchyard, on the 28th of February
1638, and by hundreds of ministers and commissioners of burghs next day.
Copies were sent all over the country, and were readily signed in almost
every district. The enthusiasm was unbounded. The King could not prevail
on the swearers to resile from their position, and therefore tried to
sow dissension among them by introducing a rival covenant. For this
purpose he likewise selected the King’s Confession of 1580-81; but
instead of Johnston’s and Henderson’s additions, he substituted the
General Band of 1588; and so the two documents combined in 1590 were
again brought together. This attempt to divide the Covenanters utterly
failed. The people now called the covenant completed by Johnston and
Henderson, “The Noblemen’s Covenant”; and the one sent out by Charles,
“The King’s Covenant.”
[Sidenote: Glasgow Assembly]
The General Assembly which met at Glasgow on the 21st of November 1638
was dissolved by the Royal Commissioner; but Henderson, who was
moderator, pointed to the Commissioner’s zeal for an earthly king as an
incentive to the members to show their devotion to the cause of their
heavenly King; and the Assembly continued to sit until it had condemned
and annulled the six General Assemblies held between 1606 and 1618, and
had made a clean sweep of the bishops, their jurisdiction, and their
ceremonies.
Next summer Charles marched with an English army into Scotland, only to
find a strong force of Covenanters, under Alexander Leslie, encamped on
Duns Law. Deeming discretion the better part of valour, the King entered
into negotiations, and the Treaty of Berwick followed. By it he agreed
that a General Assembly should be held in August, and thereafter a
Parliament to ratify its proceedings. The Assembly met, and by an Act
enjoined all professors and schoolmasters, and all students “at the
passing of their degrees,” to subscribe the Covenant. By another Act it
rejected the service-book, the book of canons, the High Commission,
Prelacy, and the ceremonies. Parliament duly met, but was prevented from
ratifying the Acts of Assembly by the Royal Commissioner, who adjourned
it from time to time, and finally prorogued it until June 1640.
[Sidenote: Assembly of 1639]
As that time drew nigh, the King tried again to postpone or prorogue it;
but it nevertheless met, and in the space of a few days effected a
revolution unexampled in the previous history of Scotland. It set bounds
to the power of the monarch. It ratified the Covenant, enjoining its
subscription “under all civill paines”; it ratified the Act of the
General Assembly of 1639, rejecting the service-book, Prelacy, etc.; it
renewed the Act of Parliament of 1592 in favour of Presbytery, and
annulled the Act of 1612 by which the Act of 1592 had been rescinded.
[Sidenote: Parliament of 1640]
The King had been preparing for the Second Bishops’ War, and the
Covenanters marched into England, Montrose being the first to cross the
Tweed. Again there were negotiations, and an agreement was at length
come to at Westminster in August 1641. Charles now set out for Holyrood,
and in the Scottish Parliament ratified the Westminster Treaty; and so
explicitly, if not cordially, approved of the proceedings of the
Parliament of 1640.
The Scots had now got all that they wanted from their King, although
many of them must have doubted his sincerity, and feared a future
revocation should that ever be in his power. This fear, coupled with a
fellow-feeling for the Puritans, and gratitude for the seasonable
assistance of the English in 1560, accounts for the readiness of the
compliance with the proposal of the Commissioners of the Long Parliament
who arrived in Edinburgh in August 1643.
[Sidenote: The English ask Help]
These Commissioners desired help from the Convention of Estates and from
the General Assembly, and proposed that the two nations should enter
into “a strict union and league,” with the object of bringing them
closer in church government, and eventually extirpating Popery and
Prelacy from the island.
[Sidenote: Solemn League and Covenant]
The suggestion that the league should be religious as well as civil
having been accepted, Henderson drafted the famous Solemn League and
Covenant.[3] It was approved by the Convention of Estates and by the
General Assembly on the 17th of August; and (after several alterations)
by the Westminster Assembly and both Houses of the English Parliament.
-----
Footnote 3:
An international Protestant league was not a new idea. The Convention,
which met at Edinburgh on the 20th of October 1572, had suggested that
a league and confederacy should be made “with our nychtbouris of
Ingland and uther cuntries reformit and professing the trew
religioun,” that we and they be joined together in mutual amity and
society to support each other, when time or occasion shall serve, “for
mantenance of religioun and resisting of the enemies thairof.” In
1585, the Scottish Parliament (understanding that divers princes and
potentates had joined themselves, “under the Pape’s auctoritie, in a
maist unchristiane confederacie, aganis the trew religioun and
professouris thairof, with full intent to prosecute thair ungodlie
resolutioun with all severitie”) authorised the making of a Christian
league with the Queen of England, to be, in matters of religion, both
offensive and defensive, even against “auld freindis and
confederatis.” The league, or treaty, was finally concluded by
commissioners, at Berwick-on-Tweed, on the 5th of July 1586.
[Sidenote: The Covenant enjoined]
In October the Commission of the General Assembly ordered that it should
be forthwith printed, and gave instructions for the swearing and
subscribing, presbyteries being ordered to proceed with the censures of
the kirk “against all such as shall refuse or shift to swear and
subscribe”; and the Commissioners of the Convention ordained that it
should be sworn by all his Majesty’s Scottish subjects under pain of
being “esteemed and punished as enemyes to religioune, his Majestie’s
honour, and peace of thir kingdomes.” In Scotland it evoked more
enthusiasm than in England; and, for a time at least, produced
marvellous unanimity.
[Sidenote: Montrose’s Army]
The Scots took part against the royal army in the battle of Marston Moor
(2nd July 1644); and soon afterwards Montrose, who had not approved of
the Solemn League and Covenant, made his way into Scotland with the
object of creating a diversion in favour of the King. Having raised an
army in the Highlands, which was strengthened by an Irish contingent, he
won a series of brilliant victories over the Covenanters at Tippermuir,
Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearn, Alford, and Kilsyth.
Of Montrose’s army, Patrick Gordon, a royalist, wrote: “When God had
given there enemies into there handes, the Irishes in particulare ware
too cruell; for it was everiewhere observed they did ordinarely kill all
they could be maister of, without any motion of pitie, or any
consideration of humanitie: ney, it seemed to them there was no
distinction betuixt a man and a beast; for they killed men ordinarly
with no more feilling of compassion, and with the same carelesse neglect
that they kill ane henn or capone for ther supper. And they were also,
without all shame, most brutishlie given to uncleannes and filthie lust;
as for excessive drinkeing, when they came where it might be had, there
was no limites to there beastly appetites; as for godlesse avarice, and
mercilesse oppression and plundering or the poore laborer, of those two
cryeing sinnes the Scotes ware alse giltie as they.”
[Sidenote: Retaliation]
The same writer tells how the Irish were repaid for their cruelty by the
victorious army of David Leslie at and after the battle of Philiphaugh
(13th September 1645); and how their sin was then visited, not only upon
themselves, but most brutally and pitilessly upon their wives and
followers.[4]
-----
Footnote 4:
The various accounts of the slaughter are rather contradictory in
their details. It may be noted, too, that—while Patrick Gordon says
that fifty Irishmen were promised safe quarter and yet were killed—it
was urged, in defence of the four prisoners condemned by the Scottish
Parliament, that the quarter they had received was not against the
orders of the Commander-in-Chief at Philiphaugh, as he only forbade
the giving of quarter to the Irish. Nearly a year before (24th October
1644) the English Parliament had declared that “no quarter shall be
given hereafter to any Irishman, nor to any Papist whatever born in
Ireland, which shall be taken in hostility against the Parliament,”
either on the sea or in England or in Wales; and ordained that they
should be excepted “out of all capitulations, agreements or
compositions,” and when taken should be forthwith put to death. The
massacres of 1641-1642 had not been forgotten.
[Sidenote: The Engagement]
On the 26th of December 1647, when the King was in Carisbrooke Castle,
in the Isle of Wight, he entered into an agreement in presence of three
Scottish Commissioners—Loudoun, Lauderdale, and Lanark—in which he
intimated his willingness to confirm the Solemn League and Covenant, by
Act of Parliament in both kingdoms, provided that no one who was
unwilling to take it should be constrained to do so; he was also to
confirm by Act of Parliament in England, for three years, presbyterial
government and the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for Worship,
provided that he and his household should not be hindered from using the
service he had formerly practised; and further, an effectual course was
to be taken by Parliament and otherwise for suppressing the opinions and
practices of Anti-Trinitarians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians,
Familists, Brownists, Separatists, Independents, Libertines, and
Seekers.
On the other hand, Scotland was, in a peaceable way, to endeavour that
the King should be allowed to go to London in safety, honour, and
freedom, there to treat personally with the English Parliament and the
Scottish Commissioners; and should this not be granted, Scotland was to
emit certain declarations, and send an army into England for the
preservation and establishment of religion, for the defence of his
Majesty’s person and authority, for his restoration to power, and for
settling a lasting peace.
This agreement was known as “The Engagement”; and the same name was
applied to the expedition which, in furtherance of its object, the Duke
of Hamilton led into England, only to be crushed by Cromwell at Preston
in August 1648.
[Sidenote: Charles II. proclaimed King]
The Scottish Commissioners in London did what they could to prevent the
execution of Charles the First, and on the 5th of February 1649—six days
after the scene in front of Whitehall—the Parliament of Scotland caused
his son to be proclaimed at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, as King of
Great Britain, France, and Ireland. The Scots were determined that he
should be their King, but they were as determined that he should not
override either the General Assembly or the Parliament.
He did not like their conditions, and the first negotiations were
abortive.
Montrose organised another expedition, which collapsed at Carbisdale on
the 27th of April 1650; and on the 21st of May the gallant Marquis was
ignominiously hanged at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and his
dismembered body buried among malefactors in the Burgh Muir.
[Sidenote: King and Covenants]
The Prince had “already endeavoured to procure assistance from the
Emperour, and the Electours, Princes, and States of the Empire, from the
Kings of Spaine, France, and Denmarke, and most of the Princes and
States of Italy,” and had only obtained “dilatory and generall
answeres.” All his friends, he said, advised him “to make an agreement
upon any termes with our subjects of Scotland”; and he took their advice
as the only means of obtaining this crown and recovering his other
kingdoms. He offered to subscribe and swear the National Covenant, and
the Solemn League and Covenant, before landing at the mouth of the Spey,
and he accordingly did so on the 23rd of June 1650.
On the 16th of August he agreed to the Dunfermline Declaration,
deploring his father’s opposition to the work of reformation, confessing
his mother’s idolatry, professing his own sincerity, declaring that “he
will have no enemies but the enemies of the Covenant, and that he will
have no friends but the friends of the Covenant,” and expressing his
detestation of “all Popery, superstition, and idolatry, together with
Prelacy, and all errors, heresie, schism and profaneness,” which he was
resolved not to tolerate in any part of his dominions.
[Sidenote: Dunbar and Scone]
Notwithstanding Cromwell’s notable victory at Dunbar on the 3rd of
September, and the dissatisfaction of the more rigid Covenanters, now
known as Remonstrants, Charles was crowned at Scone on the 1st of
January 1651, when he again swore and subscribed the National Covenant,
and also the Solemn League and Covenant. The Marquis of Argyll placed
the crown on his head, and Robert Douglas preached the sermon. The
attempt to counteract Cromwell’s power in Scotland by an invasion of
England was unsuccessful. The Committee of the Scottish Estates was
captured at Alyth before the end of August; and Cromwell obtained his
“crowning mercy” at Worcester on the 3rd of September. The young King,
after many adventures and narrow escapes, was glad to find himself again
on the Continent.
[Sidenote: Resolutioners and Protesters]
In December 1650, after obtaining the opinion of the Commissioners of
the General Assembly, the Scottish Parliament had “admitted manie, who
were formerlie excluded, to be imployed in the armie”; and in June 1651
had rescinded the Acts of Classes, by which certain classes of
delinquents had been shut out of places of public trust. Those who were
in favour of admitting these men were known as Resolutioners; and their
opponents, as Protesters. This unfortunate dispute split the
Presbyterians into two sections, and their contentions had not come to
an end when the Restoration of Charles was effected in 1660.
[Sidenote: The Restoration]
That Restoration was mainly brought about by General Monk. When it was
seen to be inevitable, the leading Resolutioners sent James Sharp,
minister of Crail, to London, to look after the interests of the
Scottish Church. He was diplomatic and astute, and, in the opinion of
his brethren, honest and trustworthy. His letters, bristling with
devotional expressions, “seem,” as Hugh Miller puts it, “as if strewed
over with the fragments of broken doxologies.” After it was too late,
they found that he had betrayed his trust, and completely hoodwinked
them.
[Sidenote: The King’s Honour]
The General Assembly had been suppressed under Cromwell’s iron rule, and
the Church of Scotland was otherwise handicapped at this period; but
something effective might have been done to safeguard her rights had the
Resolutioners not been deceived by Sharp, although it would have been
impossible to make Charles the Second safe, either by the renewal of
former or by additional obligations, even if the Scots had been able to
impose these upon him. Such a man could not be tied by oaths. At his
Restoration, those in power trusted to his honour, and of that virtue he
had wondrously little.
His entry into London had been timed to take place on the 29th of May
1660—the thirtieth anniversary of his birthday. Some of the leading
Protesters, fearing the overthrow of Presbytery, met in Edinburgh, on
the 23rd of August, to draw up a supplication to the King. The Committee
of Estates arrested them, and imprisoned them in the castle.
[Sidenote: The Act Rescissory]
A few days afterwards Sharp brought a letter from his Majesty, in which
he said: “We do also resolve to protect and preserve the government of
the Church of Scotland, _as it is settled by law_, without violation.” A
suggestion that this might be understood in two ways, was condemned as
“an intolerable reflection” on the King. The Scottish Parliament, on the
28th of March 1661, rescinded the Parliaments which had been held in and
since 1640, and all the Acts passed by them. Thus all the civil sanction
which had been given to the Second Reformation was swept away at a
stroke. Early next morning, Samuel Rutherfurd—whose stipend had been
confiscated, whose “Lex Rex” had been burned, and who had been cited to
answer a charge of treason—appeared before a court that was higher than
any Parliament, and “where his Judge was his friend.”
A month after this, Sharp professed, in a letter to James Wood, that he
was still hopeful that there would, “through the goodnes of God,” be no
change; and affirmed that, as he had, “through the Lord’s mercy,” done
nothing to the prejudice of the liberties and government of the Church,
so he would not, “by the grace of God,” have any accession to the
wronging of it.
[Sidenote: Duplicity]
He was then on the eve of setting out for London with Glencairn and
Rothes. They returned in the end of August, bringing with them a letter
intimating the King’s determination to interpose his royal authority for
restoring the Church of Scotland “to its right government by bishops as
it was by law before the late troubles”; and justifying his action by
his promise of the previous year. Candid Episcopalians admit that this
dealing shook all confidence in the sincerity of Charles.
[Sidenote: Episcopacy Re-established]
In October Sharp again went to England; in November he was appointed
Archbishop of St Andrews; and in December he was consecrated in
Westminster Abbey, after being privately ordained as a deacon and a
priest. The Scottish Parliament, on the 27th of May 1662, passed the
“Act for the restitution and re-establishment of the antient government
of the church by archbishops and bishops.” The preamble of this Act
acknowledges that “the ordering and disposall of the externall
government and policie of the Church doth propperlie belong unto his
Majestie, as are inherent right of the Croun, by vertew of his royall
prerogative and supremacie in causes ecclesiasticall.” The Oath of
Allegiance, which had been adopted by Parliament on the 1st of January
1661, contained the clause: “I acknowledge my said Soverane only supream
governour of this kingdome over all persons and in all causes.”
[Sidenote: Argyll and Guthrie]
The Solemn League and Covenant had already been burned by the hangman in
London; and the long and bloody persecution in Scotland had already
begun. An example had been made of the Marquis of Argyll, and of James
Guthrie, the minister of Stirling. Both suffered at the Market Cross of
Edinburgh in the same week, Argyll on Monday, the 27th of May, and
Guthrie on Saturday, the 1st of June, 1661. To secure Argyll’s
conviction, Monk was base enough to give up several of his letters
proving his hearty compliance with the Usurper’s government after it was
established. The case for the prosecution was closed before the letters
arrived; but they were nevertheless received and read.
Sir George Mackenzie—later to acquire an unenviable notoriety as the
Bluidy Mackenyie—was one of his advocates, and in his opinion the
Marquis suffered mainly for the good old cause. Guthrie had never
compromised himself in any way with Cromwell, who described him as the
little man who would not bow.
[Sidenote: Ministers Disqualified]
The Parliament of 1662 not only re-established Prelacy, but decreed that
no minister, who had entered after the abolition of patronage in 1649,
should have any right to his stipend unless he obtained presentation
from the patron and collation from the bishop; and that ministers who
did not observe the Act of 1661, appointing the day of the King’s
restoration as an annual holy day unto the Lord, should be incapable of
enjoying any benefice. It also declared that the Covenants were unlawful
oaths, and enacted that no one should be admitted to any public trust or
office until he acknowledged in writing that they were unlawful.
[Sidenote: Ministers Ejected]
These Acts of Parliament were speedily followed up by the Privy Council,
which, in September 1662, ordered all ministers to resort next month to
their respective bishop’s assemblies; and in October commanded all the
ministers entered since 1649, and who had not since received the
patron’s presentation and the bishop’s collation, to quit their
parishes. By this latter Act it has been reckoned that fully three
hundred ministers were turned out of their charges.
[Sidenote: Church-Courts Discharged]
When Prelacy was established in 1610, James the Sixth was much too
politic to close the ecclesiastical courts which had been set up and
carried on by the Presbyterians. “Honest men” continued to maintain in
them “both their right and possession, except in so far as the same were
invaded, and they hindered by the bishops.” But, by command of Charles
the Second, synods, presbyteries, and kirk-sessions had now been (by a
proclamation of 9th January 1662) expressly discharged “until they be
authorized and ordered by the archbishops and bishops upon their
entering unto the government of their respective sees.” At his first
Diocesan Synod, Sharp took care that ruling elders should have no
standing in his presbyteries, or “meetings of the ministers of the
respective bounds”; and he likewise circumscribed the power of these
“meetings.” Instructions were also given that each minister should
“assume and choose a competent number of fitt persons, according to the
bounds of the parish,” to assist in session, etc.
[Sidenote: Court of High Commission]
Early in 1664 the King resolved to re-erect, by virtue of his royal
prerogative, the Court of High Commission, to enforce the Acts “for the
peace and order of the Church, and in behalf of the government thereof
by archbishops and bishops.” The extraordinary power vested in this
court was increased in range by the general clause, authorising the
Commissioners “to do and execute what they shall find necessary and
convenient for his Majesty’s service in the premises.” Any five of the
Commissioners could act, if one of them were an archbishop or bishop. No
provision was made for any appeal from the judgment of this court. Of it
a learned member of the bar has said: “All law and order were
disregarded. The Lord Advocate ceased to act as public prosecutor, and
became a member of this iniquitous tribunal. No indictments were
required; no defences were allowed; no witnesses were necessary. The
accused were dragged before the Commissioners, and compelled to answer
any questions which were put to them, without being told of what they
were suspected.” The court could order ministers “to be censured with
suspension or deposition”; and could punish them and others “by fining,
confining, committing to prison and incarcerating.” For nearly two years
this court harassed and oppressed the Nonconformists of Scotland.
[Sidenote: Origin of Pentland Rising]
Towards the close of 1665, conventicles were, by royal proclamation,
forbidden under severe penalties. The officiating ministers, and those
harbouring them, were threatened with the highest pains due to sedition,
and hearers were subject to fining, confining, and other corporal
punishments.
Such measures could hardly be expected to beget in the people an ardent
love for Prelacy; and when opposition was manifested in the south-west
of Scotland, troops, under Sir James Turner, were sent to suppress it.
[Sidenote: Torture and Execution]
At length the harshness of a handful of soldiers to an old man, at Dalry
in Galloway, led to a scuffle with a few countrymen, and the success of
the latter led to the untimely rising which was suppressed by General
Dalyell at Rullion Green on the 28th of November 1666. In that
engagement the slain and mortally wounded Covenanters numbered over
forty. On the 7th of December ten prisoners—all of whom, save one, had
been promised quarter—were hanged at the Market Cross of Edinburgh. In
less than a month, fully twenty more prisoners had been hanged at
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Irvine, Ayr, and Dumfries. Two of these—Neilson of
Corsack and Hugh M’Kail—were tortured in the boots. Never before had
drums been used in Scotland to drown the voice of a victim dying on the
scaffold. At this time it was introduced at Glasgow.
Had the rising not been so ill-timed, it would probably have been much
better supported. After its suppression, Rothes and Dalyell wrote
gloomily of the condition of Ayrshire; but Dalyell was not the man to
shrink from quelling incipient rebellion by force. Compared with his
measures, those of Sir James Turner were mild, although they had driven
the sufferers to despair. Finding that his own influence was in peril
through the alliance between the military and ecclesiastical party,
Lauderdale broke up this brutal administration.
[Sidenote: The Indulgence]
The first indulgence (granted in the summer of 1669) was fated, as its
successors were, to be a bone of contention among the Covenanters. It
was condemned by the more scrupulous because of its restrictions; and
because, as they held, compliance with it involved the owning of the
royal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. Many refused to hear the
indulged ministers, and some would have nothing to do with those
non-indulged ministers who did not denounce the indulgence. It was also
disliked and resented by Alexander Burnet, Archbishop of Glasgow, and
his diocesan synod, but for very different reasons. They objected to
indulged Presbyterian ministers being exempted from Episcopal
jurisdiction, and objected all the more because, in some districts, the
people would not countenance either doctrine or discipline under
Episcopal administration.
[Sidenote: Conventicles]
The ejection of the ministers, and the filling of their places by the
miserable substitutes then termed “curates,” had led to the keeping of
conventicles, and as the indulgence, like the proclamation of 1665,
failed to put an end to these unauthorised religious services, it was
resolved to put them down with a strong hand. Parliament decreed, in
1670, that non-indulged, outed ministers, or other persons not allowed
by the bishops, who either preached or prayed in any meeting, “except in
ther oune housses and to those of ther oune family,” should be deemed
guilty of keeping conventicles, and should be imprisoned until they
found caution not to do the like again, or bound themselves to leave the
kingdom; and those who conducted, or convocated people to,
field-conventicles, were to be punished by death and confiscation of
their goods, and hearers were to be severely fined. The Act explained
that a house-conventicle became a field-conventicle if there were more
persons present than the house contained, so that some of them were
outside the door.
That this might not be a dead letter, a reward of five hundred merks was
offered to any one who captured a holder of, or convocater to,
field-conventicles; and these captors were not to be punished for any
slaughter that might be committed in apprehending such delinquents. Even
with such a law hanging over their heads, the faithful Covenanters were
not prepared to give up their conventicles. The Word of Life was much
too precious to be thus parted with. They did not intend, however, to
permit the oppressors to drive them or their preachers as lambs to the
slaughter, and so they henceforth carried arms for defence.
[Sidenote: Public Worship]
As no general attempt had been made, since the Restoration, to alter the
services of the Church, save to a very slight degree, the worship of
Conformists and Nonconformists was practically the same. Now, however,
“many Conformists began to dispute for a liturgy and some to preach for
it; but the fox Sharp was not much for it, only because he had no will
to ride the ford where his predecessor drowned.”
[Sidenote: James Mitchell]
An unsuccessful attempt to rid the country of Sharp had been made in
1668 by James Mitchell, who several years afterwards was apprehended;
but no proof could be adduced against him, until, on the Lord
Chancellor’s promise to save his life, he confessed. The Chancellor and
Treasurer-Depute swore that they heard him make his confession before
the committee; Lauderdale and Sharp swore that they heard him own it
before the Privy Council. They denied all knowledge of any promise of
life, although the promise had been duly minuted; and the request of
Mitchell’s advocates, that the Register of the Privy Council should be
produced, or the clerks obliged to give extracts, was rejected; and the
prisoner was sentenced to be hanged.
In Lord Fountainhall’s opinion, this was one of the most solemn criminal
trials that had taken place in Scotland for a hundred years; and it was
generally believed that the law was strained to secure a conviction. He
adds: “It was judged ane argument of a bad deplorat cause that they
summoned and picked out ane assysse [_i.e._, a jury] of souldiers under
the King’s pay, and others who, as they imagined, would be clear to
condemne him.” The Privy Council would have granted a reprieve, but
Sharp would not consent. On him was laid the chief blame of Mitchell’s
torture in 1676 and execution in 1678.
[Sidenote: The Ladies’ Covenant]
According to Dr Hickes, several ladies of great quality, in January
1678, kept a private fast and conventicle in Edinburgh, to ask God to
bring to nought the counsels of men against his people; and before they
parted they all subscribed a paper, wherein they covenanted, to the
utmost of their power, to engage their lords to assist and protect God’s
people against the devices taken to reduce them to order and obedience.
Next month the Highland Host plundered covenanting Ayrshire and
Clydesdale.
[Sidenote: The Cess]
The Scottish Convention of Estates, professedly regarding field
conventicles as “rendezvouses of rebellion” with which the ordinary
military forces could not successfully cope, and desiring that the
“rebellious and schismatick principles may be rooted out by lawfull and
sutable means,” resolved, in July 1678, to offer the King £1,800,000
Scots, for securing the kingdom against foreign invasion and intestine
commotions. The payment was to be spread over five years, and the money
raised by five months’ cess in each of these years. Many Covenanters
denounced the paying of this cess as an active concurring with the
Lord’s enemies in bearing down his work. Some, however, thought it
better to pay than to furnish the unscrupulous collectors with a pretext
for destroying their goods, and extorting more than was due. The cess
thus became a cause of division, as well as an instrument of oppression.
[Sidenote: Sharp’s Death]
The hated Sharp fell into the hands of nine Covenanters at Magus Muir on
the 3rd of May 1679. Seven of the nine had no misgivings as to what they
should do in the circumstances; and they unscientifically butchered him
in presence of his servants and daughter. For that deed none were
responsible save those who were there; but many were afterwards brought
to trouble for it, and not a few, who were perfectly innocent, chose to
suffer rather than brand it as murder.
[Sidenote: Bothwell Bridge]
Some of those who took an active part in the tragedy of Magus Muir were
present at Rutherglen, on Thursday, the 29th of May, when the bonfires
which had been kindled in honour of the King’s birthday were
extinguished, and when the Act Rescissory and other obnoxious Acts were
publicly burned. On Saturday, Claverhouse set out from Glasgow to make
some investigations concerning this outrage, and next morning he
attempted, but in vain, to disperse an armed conventicle at Drumclog. On
this occasion he added nothing to his military reputation; and fled from
the field as fast as his wounded charger could carry him. Three weeks
later (22nd June 1679) the Covenanters, divided in counsel and badly
officered, were slaughtered by hundreds at Bothwell Bridge; and the
thousand and more prisoners who were taken were shut up in Greyfriars
church-yard, Edinburgh. Some of these prisoners were executed; some
escaped; many, after lying for weeks in the open church-yard, were
induced to purchase their release by binding themselves never to carry
arms against the King or his authority; and two hundred, after enduring
sufferings worse than death, were drowned next December off the coast of
Orkney.
[Sidenote: Cameronians]
Donald Cargill and Richard Cameron now became the leaders of the more
thorough-going Covenanters—a small and select party as strong in faith
as weak in numbers. They were sometimes known as “Cargillites,” more
commonly as “Cameronians.” On the first anniversary of Bothwell Bridge,
a score of them rode into Sanquhar, and there emitted a declaration in
which they cast off their allegiance to the King, declared war against
him, and protested against the succession of James, Duke of York.
The Privy Council replied by offering a reward of five thousand merks
for Richard Cameron, dead or alive, and three thousand for his brother
or Cargill. On the 22nd of July, both of the Camerons fell at Ayrsmoss;
and a year later (27th July 1681) Cargill, who had excommunicated the
King and some of the leading persecutors, triumphed over death at the
Market Cross of Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: Effect of Persecution]
Those who could not be charged with the breach of any law were asked if
they owned the King’s authority. If they disowned it, or qualified their
acknowledgment, or declined to give their opinion, they were deemed
guilty of treason. But, as Alexander Sheilds says: “The more they
insisted in this inquisition, the more did the number of witnesses
multiply, with a growing increase of undauntedness, so that the then
shed blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church; and as, by
hearing and seeing them so signally countenanced of the Lord, many were
reclaimed from their courses of complyance, so others were daylie more
and more confirmed in the wayes of the Lord, and so strengthened by his
grace that they choose rather to endure all torture, and embrace death
in its most terrible aspect, than to give the tyrant and his complices
any acknowledgment, yea not so much as to say, _God save the King_,
which was offered as the price of their life.”
[Sidenote: The Test]
On the 31st of August 1681, Parliament passed an “Act anent Religion and
the Test.” By this Act, every person in public trust or office in
Scotland was ordered to take the Test Oath, or be declared incapable of
all public trust, and be further punished by the loss of moveables and
liferent escheat. By the oath, the swearers bound themselves to adhere
to the Confession of Faith of 1560; to disown all principles
inconsistent therewith, whether popish or fanatic; to own the King as
“the only supream governour of this realme, over all persons and in all
causes, as weill ecclesiastical as civill;” to defend all the rights,
prerogatives, and privileges of the King, his heirs, and lawful
successors; never to enter into covenants or leagues, nor to assemble
for consulting or treating in any matter of state, civil or
ecclesiastic, without his Majesty’s special command or express license;
never to take up arms against him or those commissioned by him; never to
decline his power and jurisdiction; and they owned that no obligation
lay on them by the National Covenant, or by the Solemn League and
Covenant, or otherwise, “to endeavour any change or alteration in the
government, either in Church or State, as it is now established by the
laws of this kingdom.” Through the imposing of this complicated Test,
many were brought to trouble, and not a few declined it at all hazards.
[Sidenote: The Children’s Bond]
One of the most curious and suggestive documents of this period is known
as “The Children’s Bond.” In 1683, “when there was no faithful minister
in Scotland,” a number of children in the village of Pentland, who had
formed themselves into a society for devotional purposes, solemnly
entered into a covenant, of which the following is a copy:—
“This is a covenant made between the Lord and us, with our whole
hearts, and to give up ourselves freely to him, without reserve,
soul and body, hearts and affections, to be his children, and
him to be our God and Father, if it please the holy Lord to send
his Gospel to the land again: that we stand to this covenant,
which we have written, between the Lord and us, as we shall
answer at the great day; that we shall never break this covenant
which we have made between the Lord and us: that we shall stand
to this covenant which we have made; and if not, it shall be a
witness against us in the great day, when we shall stand before
the Lord and his holy angels. O Lord, give us real grace in our
hearts to mind Zion’s breaches, that is in such a low case this
day; and make us to mourn with her, for thou hast said, ‘them
that mourn with her in the time of her trouble shall rejoice
when she rejoiceth, when the Lord will come and bring back the
captivity of Zion;’ when he shall deliver her out of her
enemies’ hands, when her King shall come and raise her from the
dust, in spite of all her enemies that will oppose her, either
devils or men. That thus they have banished her King, Christ,
out of the land, yet he will arise and avenge his children’s
blood, at her enemies’ hands, which cruel murderers have shed.”