and one from the Burghs, requiring our judgement of the Band; the
tenor whereof was read. The reason why they required our declaration
in that matter, was, because they said the Earl of Montrose had
professed, the other night in his examination before the committee,
that however that band was burnt, all the subscribers were yet by oath
obliged to the matter of it; also they read a paper in our audience,
written by Montrose’s hand, after the burning of the band, full of vain
humanities, magnifying to the skies his own courses, and debasing to
hell his opposites. Here great wisdom was requisite. It was remitted
first to the afternoon, and then to Monday. Sundry of the banded Lords
compeared. We feared their stirring. Montrose’s advocate craved to be
heard. A supplication to us, written by his hand, was read, desiring
our good opinion of him, offering to answer all we could lay to his
charge to our full satisfaction. He said, the band was destroyed by the
committee of parliament; that the paper was but a private memorandum
for himself, never to have gone without his charter-chest, had not
my Lord Sinclair been pleased to make it publick: that which was
alledged of his words in the committee was not any written part of his
deposition; that he had only spoken of a common guiltiness of all the
subscribers with him; that he had spoken of their obligation only in
relation to his accusation. Balmerino, moderator of that committee,
spoke very pathetically for the truth of Montrose’s words. The assembly
passed by what concerned Montrose, or any particular person; and, in
answer to the parliament’s question, a committee was appointed for that
end, drew up their wise answer penned by the moderator, making that
band to be unlawful, and not obligatory of any; making those that will
not subscribe censurable, and passing in those who subscribe what is
bygone, and well buried by the committee of parliament. The banders
that were present Kinghorn, Seaforth, Lour, did presently subscribe.
Mr Blair and Pollock were sent up to Montrose to acquaint him with
what was past. He spoke to them with a great deal of respect to the
assembly, seemed to insinuate his willingness to subscribe what the
moderator and clerk would require. Some made the motion, which the
moderator much applauded, that as some from the parliament had been
very happy instruments to take some differences away, which were like
to arise in the assembly; so it were meet to offer to the parliament
the labours of any they thought meet in the assembly, to help to
remove what difference was betwixt the members of parliament. This
motion was from zeal to peace, but not upon consideration of present
circumstances; that the difference was not betwixt any particular men,
but alledged crimes of high treason against the state, which could
not be by counsels, being cited, and they standing to their defence.
Yet D. Strang and Mr Andrew Cant, who were to carry our answer to
the parliament’s question anent the band, were burdened with the
foresaid overtures; the impertinency whereof the parliament miskent,
and passed without an answer. All this passed on Monday before noon.
The other motion, which on Saturday before noon perplexed us, was the
moderator’s petition of liberty to transport from Edinburgh. At the
beginning we took it but for jest; but it proved earnest. He assured
us, his voice was for no church in the town; that continually he was
unhealthy there, and not so any where else: that to keep him there was
to kill him; and that in the act of his transportation from Leuchars,
there was an express clause of liberty for him to transport when the
publick commotions were settled, if he found that town disagreeable
with his health. The city of Edinburgh was extreme averse; beside the
loss of that incomparable man, thought it a dangerous preparative to
have any of their ministers transported by assemblies. They offered
to buy him an house, with good air and yards; to preach only when he
would; to go freely, if his health was not tolerable. They were so
much the more averse, because St Andrew’s sued at that time in a bill
for his transportation to be principal of their college. He pressed
his liberty, shewing his great errand out of England was troublesome.
This reason from the assembly—some imputed his earnestness to some
malecontentment from some of the wives speeches the last year of him
for their well, against their humour in innovating; but he affirmed
health was the only ground of his petition, and if it should not fail,
notwithstanding of his liberty, he should not remove; and if he did, he
would not go to St Andrew’s, but to some quiet landward charge.
After noon there was a long debate for the presbytery of Sky. Glasgow
assembly annexed it to the provincial of Argyle. Upon the petition of
one, Edinburgh had annexed it to the provincial of Ross. They had kept
neither. Argyle pleaded for the renewing the act of Glasgow; Seaforth
for the sealing the act of Edinburgh. After long debating of reasons,
it was referred by the commissioners of the assembly to the parliament
to determine.
Monday the ninth, before noon, besides the things already said, the
presbytery of Newcastle, wrote a letter of complaint, that there was a
great neglect in many presbyteries to supply the armies with mnisters;
it was provided for; The afternoon was our last session. The answers
to the King’s letter to the English letters, and to Durie’s letter,
were read. The drawing up the directions of the Catechism, of the
Confession, of the Form of Government, these were laid on Mr Alexander.
His liberty was voiced, and granted, to the no small miscontent of
Edinburgh. Hence thanks were given to God for his sensible and most
special assistence; 23d psalm sung. Next assembly voiced at St Andrew’s
July 27. Commissioners, to the number of thirty or forty, with some
sixteen elders. Those of a province might serve by turns; so, after the
first meeting, I got leave to go home.
You have here an account of the assembly, so far as my weak memory,
without any notes to count of, can furnish. What I shall hear of the
parliament, of Montrose’s process, of the King’s proceedings, who
came here, to our great joy, on Saturday the 14th, you shall shortly
receive. What information I got from London you have here inclosed; the
evil illegal writ of Sir Thomas Dishintoun contains a journal of that
parliament for some weeks.
ROBERT BAILLIE,
Kilwinning, August 20, 1641.
THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
AT ST ANDREW’S, 1642.
It is not necessary to recapitulate such of the proceedings of the
immediately preceding Assembly as are introduced in the printed Acts.
But a few particulars, not thus recorded, may be slightly adverted to.
Mr John Guthrie, the ousted Bishop of Moray, petitioned that Assembly
that his benefice might be kept vacant for some time; but the Assembly
disregarded his petition, and ordered his charge to be filled up, by
the Presbytery of the bounds, without delay. They, however, reponed
Mr Andrew Logie, who had been deposed by the Presbytery of Aberdeen;
and overtures relative to the Universities (of which, to its credit,
the Presbyterian Church never lost sight) were adopted, and ordered
to be submitted to Parliament. The schism of the preceding year
about private conventicles still continued; and their great patron,
Mr Henry Guthrie, still fanned the flame, to quench which, it was
necessary to “misken” or overlook the Aberdeen Act upon the subject,
and frame a new one against impiety and schism. A case of Conscience,
though for a political purpose, was submitted to the Assembly by a
deputation from Parliament, relative to a Bond into which Montrose
and others had entered, and which was thought inconsistent with the
Covenant. The Assembly not only gave a deliverance suited to the views
of the predominant party in Parliament, but volunteered their advice
and assistance to it, which, however, was declined. In consequence,
probably, of the brotherly communings which had recently taken place
betwixt the Scotch and English nonconformists in London. A number of
the latter wrote an Epistle to the Moderator touching Presbytery and
Independency, and an answer was returned, intimating the unanimous
adherence of the Scottish Church to Presbytery and its aversion to
the other system; and a proposition was also mooted for framing a new
Confession of Faith, Catechism, and Directory for public worship, &c.,
as a platform for an extension of Presbytery to England—a scheme which,
ere long, was matured in the Westminster Assembly, and by the “Solemn
League and Covenant,” of which we shall have to treat on a future
occasion.
Of the minor concerns, we may mention the appointment of a committee
to adjust the state of the churches in Orkney, Zetland, Lochaber, and
the Isles; an application for erecting the Presbytery of Biggar; the
rejection of applications from Aberdeen to translate George Gillespie
and Edward Wright from Glasgow, and an Assistant at Scotscraig—but,
to quiet the murmurs of the applicants, they got John Oswald from
Pencaitland, which made room for David Calderwood, the well-known
chronicler of the Kirk, from Crailing in Teviotdale. Among the other
removes that took place at that Assembly, Mr Andrew Ker was transferred
from Carriden to Linlithgow, William Bennet to Edinburgh, and John
Colins to Glasgow; and Alexander Henderson sought and obtained leave to
retire from Edinburgh to a rural parish, of which permission, however,
he never availed himself. During the sitting of that Assembly, an
awkward occurrence took place in the person of a Mr Thomas Lamb, a
minister in Peebleshire, who, having killed a man on the road betwixt
Leith and Edinburgh, was tried, condemned, and executed for the act.
Many complaints by ministers for want of adequate stipends, were given
in, and referred, as a matter of necessity, to the Parliament—the
Church not having yet discovered any mode of accomplishing that object,
otherwise than by the civil authority, although in these four last
Assemblies it had assumed the prerogative of removing and transplanting
ministers at its pleasure, without consulting either patrons or people,
so far as we have been able to discover. Many matters were left over
unfinished, and remitted to a Commission—the first, it has been
alleged, (erroneously, we think,) in the history of the Church, on whom
such powers were devolved. The Assembly terminated by appointing its
next meeting at St Andrew’s, on the 27th of July, 1642.
As already noticed in a preceding chapter, the treaty of peace betwixt
the two kingdoms was concluded on the 7th of August 1641.[278]
Immediately after, on the 9th, his Majesty left London, and proceeded
to Scotland. He arrived about the middle of that month at Edinburgh,
having, in the course of his journey, interchanged courtesies with the
chief of the Scottish army, which was still in the north of England.
But his reception was far different in the Scottish capital from that
which he had experienced in 1633 on the occasion of his coronation.
The Covenanters were now triumphant in all their pretensions, not
solely by moral, but visibly by the influence of overbearing physical
force. By the terms of the treaty, and its inevitable sequences,
the executive sceptre was wrenched from the hand of the King; the
prerogatives of monarchy were one and all extinguished in Scotland
and assumed by the Estates; and, as he had formerly meditated the
assumption of undue authority, he now tasted a bitter retribution.
Charles, the descendant of above a hundred Scottish Kings, virtually
bowed his “discrowned head” in the palace of his fathers, beneath the
victorious banner of “THE COVENANT.”
The Scottish Estates, which had been continued from time to time,
reassembled on the 15th of July 1641, before the treaty was yet
completed. The convention at first consisted of one hundred and
forty-five members, of whom thirty-nine were of the nobility,
forty-nine barons, and fifty-seven burgesses.[279] Lord Burlie was
chosen President; and it was agreed on that the Estates should sit
till the 17th of August, when the King or his Commissioner was
expected to be present, and should prepare business, but not determine
anything except the most urgent affairs for the public service. This
Parliament was new-modelled, arbitrarily, (as indeed were all its
proceedings from the first,) by the exclusion of the eldest sons of
Peers, who previously had access to it—an exclusion which excited no
little discontent among the rising aristocracy—and the Clergy, the
Lords of Session, the Lord Advocate, and “all disaffected members,”
were debarred from taking any part in its deliberations; and, among
other stretches of its assumed intrinsic power, it ordered Traquair’s
Declaration, as already noticed,[280] at the close of the Assembly
1639, to be delete from the register of Privy Council; as if such a
proceeding could extinguish the document, which still stands on record,
though partially obliterated. In short, it was a packed and arbitrary
convention, having no legal authority, according to the ancient
constitution of Scotland, until after the King had sanctioned its past
and pending proceedings by an _ex post facto_ concurrence, in terms of
the concessions which had been extorted from him by the joint coercion
of the House of Commons in England, and the Scotch Commissioners in
London.
On the 17th of July, Among their preparatory measures, proceedings
against the _incendiaries_ were commenced. These were John Earl of
Traquair, Sir Robert Spottiswood of Dunipace,[281] Sir John Hay,
Clerk-Register, Dr Walter Balcanquell, and John Maxwell, late Bishop of
Ross; and in the list of the proscribed were James Earl of Montrose,
Archibald Lord Napier, Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Sir Lewis
Stewart of Blackball.
It would be foreign to our task were we to enter on the grounds
of imputation against these parties; and it belongs rather to the
biography of the individuals, or the political history of the times,
than to our humble track, to elucidate the nature and extent of their
alleged offences against the compulsory unity prescribed by the
Covenant and its rigid interpreters—armed with supreme and irresistible
power. But we may be permitted to remark, that it is no ways surprising
that good and honourable men, who, either as avowed friends of the
King, or as honest Covenanters, in 1637, had voluntarily adopted,
or from compulsion yielded to a predominant power, discovered good
and sufficient grounds, in the interval of four years of intestine
commotion, intrigue, and factious procedure—more especially after the
invasion of England and the treaty in London—to shrink from following
in the courses of the “Root and Branch” combination which had sprung
up in both kingdoms during the past year. Without at all entering on
the minutiæ, we are not prepared to concur with some enthusiastic
admirers of the Covenanters in condemning those proscribed individuals,
because they deprecated or dissented from the radicalism (a modern
term, but sufficiently intelligible) of the seventeenth century,
being satisfied perhaps, as we believe they were, that it was not
identical either with reform or religion, and that its spirit and its
tendency were inevitably, as they proved to be at no distant period,
subversive alike of a constitutional monarchy, and of the civil and
religious liberties of the land. Betwixt the conclusion of the treaty
of Berwick and that of London, the cause of the Covenant had entirely
changed its character; and if men of the present day will study with
calmness and impartiality the whole progress of these troubles, and
examine carefully the acts of the Scotch Convention, and those of its
negotiators, he cannot fail, we think, to discern, in the authentic
records of Parliament and otherwise, the most conclusive proofs that
that convention exercised an unlawful and despotical authority, and
employed it for the most vindictive and selfish purposes. Let one of
its decrees suffice as a test of the ruling power. The convention
declared, that in the proceedings against the proscribed individuals,
members of the house might be witnesses as well as judges!
But we proceed with the narrative of events. The King arrived at
Holyrood about six o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday the 14th of
August, having but a small attendance. The Palatine, however, with the
Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, and Lord Willoughby, were in
his train. On the Sunday following, he attended divine service in the
Chapel-Royal, where Alexander Henderson officiated. The King, however,
did not return in the afternoon; “but,” says Balfour, “being wearie,
reposed himself in privat;” and Baillie tells us, with his wonted
simplicity, that “being advertised by Mr Alexander, he promised not to
do so again. Mr Alexander in the morning, and evening before supper,
daily says prayers, reads a chapter and sings a psalm, and says prayers
again. The King hears all duly; and we hear none of his complaints
for want of a liturgy or any ceremonies. On Monday, the King came not
abroad.”
Balfour, however, with all the minuteness and circumstance befitting a
“Lord Lion King-at-Arms,” narrates a number of particulars. The King
held a council, where it was discussed, whether there should be a
“ryding” of the Parliament next day; but, as may easily be conceived,
the King had no spirit, in his present humiliating circumstances, to
take part in a hollow-hearted pageant; and it was resolved that he
should hear sermon in the Abbey Church, and then proceed in his coach
to the Parliament. “After Mr Andrew Ramsay’s long sermon,”[282] this
course was adopted; and we cannot better paint the scene than we find
it in Balfour’s Annals:[283]—
“The Marques Hamilton ves ordained to beare the croune, the Earle
Argyle the scepter, and the Earle of Sutherland the suord.
“The Kinges Maᵗⁱᵉ came to the hous about 11 houres, the heraulds
preceiding the honors, and the trumpets them.
“At his Maᵗⁱᵉˢ entrey wnto the hous, the Laird of Langtone, with a
batton in his hand, went befor the honors as grate wsher, and offred to
make ciuill interruptione for mantinence of his right aganist the Earle
of Vigtone. The King reteired to the inner roume in a choler, and ther
subscriued a varrant to put the La: of Langtone in the castle.
“Then did his Maᵗⁱᵉ enter the hous, and sitts him doune in his chaire,
and, after a prayer said by Mr Alexander Hendersone, hes Maᵗⁱᵉ kyndly
saluting the housse, spake thus:—
“‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’
“‘Ther hath beine nothing so displeassing to me, as thosse vnluckie
differences vich of laite haue hapned betuix me and my subiects; and
nothing that I haue more desyred as to see this day, quherin I houpe,
not onlie to setle thesse vnhapey mistakinges, bot rightly to know and
be knowen of my natiue countrey. I neid not tell you (for I think it is
well knouen to most) quhat difficulties I haue passed by and ouercome
to be heir at this tyme; zet this I will say, that if loue to my natiue
countrey had not beine a cheiffe motiue to this iorney; other respects
might easily haue found a shift to doe that by a commissioner, wich I
am come to performe myselue. Al this considered, I cannot doubt bot to
find such reall testimonies of your affections for the mantinance of
that royall pouer wich I doe inioy after a 108 discents, and wiche you
haue so often professed to manteine, and to wich your auen nationall
othe doeth oblidge you, that I shall not thinke my paines ill bestoued.
Nou the end of my coming is shortly this, to perfecte quhatsoeuer I
haue promissed, and withall to queit thosse distractions wich haue and
may fall out amongest you; and this I mynd not superficially, bot
fully and cheirfullv to doe; for I assure you, that I can doe noething
vith more cheerfulnesse then to giue my people content and a generall
satisfactione. Wherefor, not offring to indeere myselue to you in
vords, (wich indeid is not my way,) I desyre, in the first place, to
settle that wich concerns the religione and iust liberties of this my
natiue countrey, befor I proceid to aney wther acte.’
“The Lord Burlie, president of the parliament, in name of the housse,
made a prettey speiche to hes Maᵗⁱᵉ, of thankes for all the former
demonstrationes of his goodnes, and expressiones of loue to his
Maiesties ancient and natiue kingdome.
“And therafter the Earle of Argyle did second the president, with a
short and pithy harraing, comparing this kingdome to a ship tossed in a
tempestuous sea, thir zeires by past; and seing his Majesty had, lyke
a skillfull pilote, in the tymes of most danger, steired her throughe
so maney rockes and shelwes, to saue anchor, he did humbly intreat his
Maᵗⁱᵉ that nou he wold not leaue her, (since that for her saftie lie
had giuen way to cast out some of the naughtiest baggage to lightin
her,) bot be gratiously pleassed to setle her in her secure statione
and harbour againe.
“Hes Maᵗⁱᵉ offred to ratifie the 39 actes of this parl: 22 Junij, 1639
[40] which the housse humbley intreated hes Maiestie to superseid,
till, according to the orders of the housse, they had taken them 24
houres to ther considerations; wich with a declaratione insert in the
recordes of parl: of hes Maᵗⁱᵉˢ villingnes to doe that, and the housses
earnist and humble supplicatione to his Maᵗⁱᵉ for keiping the orders of
the housse; to wich he condescendit.
“The housse did humblie supplicat hes Maᵗⁱᵉ that he wold not comitt
Langtone to the castle, and so dismember ther housse. His Maᵗⁱᵉ
declared, that he [had] not done it for the respecte of aney subiecte,
bot for the affront done to his auen persone, for intruding him in his
seruice without acquantlng hes Maᵗⁱᵉ therwith. After much intretey, his
Maᵗⁱᵉ wes gratiously pleassed onlie to confyne him till to morrow to
his auen chamber. So with a prayer, his Maᵗⁱᵉ returned to his palace of
Holyrudhousse to dinner.
“The croune, scepter, and suord, wer lefte in the parl: housse, in
custodey of the Lordes Constable and Marishall till the last day of the
parl: and ordained by his Maᵗⁱᵉ eurey day to be produced, and by the
Lyone K. of Armes layed one the table befor the throne.”
Baillie’s account is not less significant of the King’s feelings on
this occasion. “He spoke very graceously. The Preses and then Argyle
answered him with cordial harangues of welcome. His Majesty offered
presently, without delay, to put his sceptre to the thirty-nine Acts of
Parliament enjoined in the treaty. He was intreated, according to the
order of the house, to suspend till to-morrow; at which time he pressed
again that he might ratify the Acts. He was intreated to delay till
the return of the Commissioners, who were present at the treaty: at
last he was intreated so to do.” (Vide also Acts, vol. v., p. 362.)
The day following Balmerino was chosen President in place of Burlie—and
the King consented to defer his ratification of the Acts passed on 22d
of June 1640, till the return of the Scotch Commissioners; meanwhile,
all the incendiaries who were tangible were imprisoned in the castle,
and a variety of preparatory steps taken for energetic legislation;
and the Covenant, as a matter of course, was displayed. On the 24th of
August, the Treaty betwixt the Commissioners of both Kingdoms, ratified
in the Parliament of England, was read; and the same day another Act
of the English Parliament for payment of £110,000, of the “brotherly
assistance” at Midsummer 1642, and a similar sum in 1643, was produced.
Orders for disbanding the army, and paying it off were also issued. On
the 25th of August, the King signed the treaty with England in face of
Parliament. Next day, it was ratified as an Act, by touching with the
sceptre, and the royal sign manual—ordered to be exemplified under the
great seal—and delivered to the English Commissioners; and on the 28th,
his Majesty, with consent of the Estates, ordained the Acts, passed
in June 1640, being in number thirty-nine, to be published in his
Majesty’s name, in terms of the treaty.[284]