4. The Covenanters: days of blood
The Covenanters: days of blood 1. Episcopacy triumphant The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy under Charles II (1660–85) in 1660 was, in Scotland, the work of the Resolutioner party of the Covenanters.23
The leading figures among the Protesters were summoned by parliament to face charges of treason. Among the intended victims were Samuel
Rutherford, the Marquis of Argyll, Archibald Johnston, and James Guthrie.
Rutherford escaped by dying of natural causes, but Argyll, Johnston, and Guthrie were all executed. Poor Johnston was by now a wreck in body and mind, but the new royal regime showed him no mercy. The vanquished men of yesterday died with the courage of their convictions, and were hailed as Christ's martyrs by their fellow-Protesters.
The Resolutioners were, however, deceived in their expectation that Charles II would confirm the Presbyterian constitution of the Kirk. The new government, determined to show the extent of its loyalty to the king, systematically undid everything the Covenanters had worked for since
1637. All members of the Scottish parliament had to swear a new oath of allegiance in which they acknowledged Charles as "supreme governor of this kingdom over all persons and in all causes"—the monarch was master of the Kirk. An act was passed annulling everything that the Covenanting parliaments had done, which destroyed the legal basis on which Presbyterianism existed in Scotland. Synods in southern Scotland objected, especially the synod of Galloway, which was completely dominated by the Protesters.
But Charles ignored these rumblings of discontent and pressed ahead with the re-establishment of Episcopacy. He was persuaded by his leading
English advisor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, that if he permitted Presbyterianism in Scotland, it would undermine the stability of Episcopalian Anglicanism in England. So in September 1661, a royal proclamation was issued for the re-constituting of the Kirk on an Episcopal basis. Only one bishop survived from the pre-Covenanting era, so fresh ones were appointed to the vacant positions. Most of them were
Resolutioner Presbyterians who had made their peace with the new regime.
The new Archbishop of Saint Andrews, the chief bishop of all Scotland, was James Sharp (1618–79), the leading Resolutioner. Oliver Cromwell had summed the man up: "Sharp of that ilk"—in other words, Sharp by name, sharp (cunning and selfish) by practice.
The summoning of a new parliament in 1661 saw, within days, a decree that the National Covenant should be publicly burned, and an act declaring the Solemn League and Covenant illegal. Some Covenanters denounced this act as defiance of God, since no mere parliament could nullify an oath.
Those who took this line were banished, many settling in Rotterdam in the Dutch Republic. Here they set up a strict Covenanting presbytery, which kept up a constant war of words against the government of Charles II. The most important of these exiles was the learned and high-minded John
Brown of Wamphray (c.1610–79), ejected from the ministry for refusing to submit to Episcopal reordination (see below). From his Dutch exile, Brown wrote outstanding doctrinal works on justification by faith and the Sabbath, and also withering condemnations of Charles II's government for its religious policy.
In May 1662, the entire Presbyterian structure of the Kirk was legally abolished, and it was made unlawful for anyone to preach without an Episcopal licence. However, hardly any changes were made to worship; certainly the 1637 Prayer Book was not re-introduced. Although the Westminster Directory was prohibited, and shorter sermons were encouraged by the bishops, there was virtually no outward difference between Covenanter worship and the new Episcopal worship. The crucial difference was in the realm of ecclesiastical government; the new Kirk was totally state-controlled, with the king as supreme governor, and the bishops as the agents of his will. Presbyteries became purely clerical bodies, with a moderator appointed by the bishop. Theoretically there was a national synod; but it could meet only by the king's will, and in fact it never met.
Parliament also declared that all charges to which ministers had been inducted since 1649 were vacant, and that all such ministers must apply to the bishop and the local patron for authorization. The year 1649 was picked on, because a Covenanting parliament in that year had abolished patronage
(the choice of ministers by local landowners) and granted the right of choosing ministers to kirk sessions. Since the new regime had restored patronage, it would not recognize ministers appointed under the kirk session scheme since 1649. In the north and east, ministers generally applied to the
bishop and patron, and were authorized. But in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Dumfries, and Galloway, resistance was almost universal. These more principled Presbyterians regarded parliament's demand as a denial of the legitimacy of their ordination, and they were not prepared to compromise.
The Privy Council decreed that all such ministers must depart from their churches by November 1st 1662. Most did so, and the churches were deserted and closed. In February 1663, 270 of the recalcitrant ministers were officially deposed. Since there were roughly 1,000 Kirk ministers, this meant that over a quarter were ejected. We may compare this with what had happened in England in 1660–62, when some 2,000 ministers (roughly one fifth of all Anglican clergy) had been ejected from the Anglican Church for refusing to conform to the new Episcopal regime. The places of the ejected
Scottish ministers were taken by licentiates, whom the people referred to scornfully as "curates".24 The deposed ministers were forbidden to reside within 20 miles of their former churches. To ensure that the people attended the parish churches under the new ministers, parliament passed an act known as the "Bishops' Drag-Net", which inflicted crippling fines for nonattendance.
2. The Pentland Rising There was widespread popular defiance of the Bishops' Drag-net in Galloway and Ayrshire; people boycotted their parish churches and held meetings of their own. These came to be called "conventicles". Parliament defined a conventicle as any meeting for worship outside the established
Kirk at which more than five people were present. These were deemed illegal. They flourished, however, in Galloway and Ayrshire, as large numbers of Covenanters met in the open air to worship outside the state system. The government responded by sending troops under the command of Sir James Turner (1615–86) to enforce obedience. Turner, a minister's son, had been a faithful royalist throughout the Covenanter wars, and was a very capable strategist and military historian. The harsh behaviour of Turner and his troops, however, provoked resentment and rebellion. On November
13th 1666 in Kirkcudbrightshire, some of Turner's soldiers beat up an old man who could not pay a fine for non-attendance at his parish church. Four
Covenanters intervened, a fight developed, and a soldier was shot and wounded; by the time it was over, others had joined the Covenanters, overpowering and disarming the soldiers. Flushed with victory, they then marched on Dumfries, surprised Turner himself in his bed, and took him prisoner in his dressing gown.
Led by Colonel James Wallace (d.1678), an experienced Presbyterian soldier, the insurgents (now numbering roughly 1,000) marched on Lanark, where they pledged themselves afresh to the Covenants, denied that they were political rebels, protested against oppressive treatment, petitioned for the abolition of Episcopacy and the restoration of Presbyterianism, and affirmed their faithfulness to the crown. Their numbers now swollen to 3,000, they marched on toward Edinburgh to present their grievances.
Fierce rainstorms, however, demoralized them, leading to desertions; when they found the city of Edinburgh closed against them, and no support in the city, they decided to march home, now numbering only some 900. They were, however, met, attacked, and crushed by superior government forces on November 28th at Rullion Green, on the Pentland hills, just outside
Edinburgh. The insurgent leader Wallace managed to escape, and died in exile in the Dutch Republic; but some 50 were killed in the battle. Around
120 survivors were then publicly executed for treason in various places, to instil terror into any other Covenanters contemplating disobedience. The
executions may well have been counter-productive; many people were taken aback by the government's ruthlessness in putting so many obscure, ordinary people to death, and some of the victims made a deep spiritual impression by their dying speeches. The most notable of these was the young preacher Hugh Mackail (1640–66), who famously declared on the scaffold:
Farewell father and mother, friends and relations—farewell the world and all delights—farewell meat and drink—farewell sun, moon, and stars—welcome God and Father—welcome sweet
Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant—welcome blessed spirit of grace, and God of all consolation—welcome glory—welcome eternal life, and welcome death.
So began the government killings of Covenanters in response to perceived Covenanter disloyalty. The total number of Covenanters killed by the government between 1660 and 1690 has traditionally been put as high as 18,000. Most modern historians think the number was probably considerably smaller but still substantial. As well as the deaths, we should also take into account the emigration of Covenanters to Ireland. It was estimated that about 30,000 fled and resettled in Ulster between 1660 and 1690; the government even expressed its concern that many Scottish landlords would have no tenants left!
3. The life and work of Robert Leighton Robert Leighton (1611–84) was Charles II's Bishop of Dunblane. He had, however, not only been a Covenanter—he virtually remained one in doctrine and piety. There is some question about his birthplace; he may have been born in London (some think Edinburgh). He was, however, of Scottish Presbyterian parentage. After studying at Edinburgh University, he spent a decade broadening his mind on the Continent; for example, he befriended some Jansenists in the famous Catholic seminary at Douay in the Spanish Netherlands, and discovered in them a depth of sincere Christian faith and spiritual life he had not thought possible in Roman Catholics. It seems they reminded him of the Christians of the earliest centuries. There was always to be a Jansenist leaven in Leighton's own piety; in particular, he admired monasticism and the celibate life—he himself never married.25
However, Leighton's attachment to key Protestant distinctives remained unshaken, and on returning to Scotland he was appointed minister of Newbattle, near Edinburgh, in 1641. Here he preached the sermons which became the basis for his famous commentary on 1 Peter. According to his friend Gilbert Burnet (a Scot who became Anglican Bishop of Salisbury: see Chapter 4, section 1.4), Leighton's preaching was almost literally outof-this-world:
His preaching had a sublimity both of thought and expression. The grace and gravity of his pronunciation was such that few heard him without sensible [deeply felt] emotion …. His style was rather too fine; but there was a majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impression that I cannot forget the sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago.
In 1653, Leighton became Principal of Edinburgh University, where his Latin lectures attracted crowds who could not even understand Latin—
Leighton's mere manner, it was said, radiated heavenly realities.
Leighton fell into an increasing disenchantment with the Covenanting movement. He perceived a tendency to quarrelsomeness and divisiveness, and a focus on political and ecclesiastical issues instead of eternal truths.
Other Covenanting ministers rebuked him for not "preaching to the times"
(i.e. preaching on current affairs, a favourite Covenanter practice). Leighton famously replied, "If all of my brethren preach to the times, may not one poor brother be suffered to preach on eternity?"
In 1660, with the restoration of the monarchy, Leighton accepted the bishopric of Dunblane, where his Episcopal rule was distinguished by its
tolerance and moderation toward Presbyterian dissenters. In 1667, after the Pentland Rising, he made proposals for reform which he hoped would restore some measure of unity to a divided Kirk. He suggested that the government of the Kirk should again be vested in presbyteries and synods, with the bishops acting as moderators. Ordinations should be carried out by the presbytery, the bishop presiding simply as chief presbyter. Synods of the two dioceses of Glasgow and Saint Andrews should meet every three years, with authority to censure bishops.
Leighton's fellow bishops rejected his proposals, and they fell into complete oblivion when an assassination attempt was made on the life of Archbishop Sharp by an extreme Covenanter. The would-be assassin was
James Mitchell; he escaped, and became the first of the Covenanters to defend in print the right and duty of private individuals to kill "idolaters"
(by which Mitchell meant enemies of the Covenant), especially bishops.
This view, although a minority view among Covenanters, was exploited by the government to portray all Covenanters as murderous fanatics and terrorists.
The government tried a different tactic in 1669; a royal indulgence was issued which allowed the ejected ministers of 1663 to return to their parishes, or be settled in new ones, as long as they had obeyed the law in the meantime. Some 40 of the 270 ejected clergy returned to the Church on these terms. Most of them were settled within the diocese of Glasgow. Its archbishop, Alexander Burnet (not to be confused with Gilbert Burnet), protested at what he saw as government interference, and was summarily deposed. Charles II replaced Burnet with Leighton, who from 1670–4 supervised Glasgow and its churches. At the same time, the Scottish parliament passed a new act asserting in the most forceful and unqualified language the king's absolute supremacy over the Kirk. Leighton worked tirelessly at trying to reconcile Presbyterian ministers and people to the established Kirk, both theologically and in practice, but his best efforts made little headway. His "ecumenism" paradoxically made him an object of suspicion and distaste to staunch Presbyterians, because his godly life and soul-stirring preaching made Episcopalianism seem more attractive! He was also thwarted in his idealism by the hostility of the other bishops, and the persecuting policies of the government.
Where Leighton's methods failed, the king's met with better success: in 1672 a second royal indulgence was issued, and another 50 of the ejected
ministers returned to the Kirk. This, however, was a merely pragmatic solution without theological or spiritual substance, and it formed no part of Leighton's idealistic ecumenism. In 1674, weary of it all, he resigned and was allowed to retire to Broadhurst in the south of England. He refused all inducements to resume active church life, and died of pleurisy in 1684.
Future generations of evangelicals have treasured Leighton's commentary on 1 Peter, his sermons, and his theological lectures, as pristine models of evangelical spirituality.
4. The battle of Bothwell Bridge The king's indulgences introduced serious divisions into the ranks of the Covenanters. Three positions were taken with respect to the indulgences: i. It was lawful for a minister to return to the Kirk through an indulgence. ii. It was not lawful, but Covenanters could still cooperate with indulged ministers and attend their ministry. iii. It was not lawful even to cooperate with an indulged minister or attend his ministry.
This third view hardened into a refusal to cooperate, not only with indulged ministers, but with anyone who had cooperated with them. The vast bulk of Covenanters held position 2 or 3, rejecting the indulgences but dividing over the attitude that should be taken towards the indulged. Position 2 was championed by prominent open-air preachers John Welsh (c.1624–81) and John Blackadder (1615–86), who bent their efforts towards maintaining
Covenanter unity, relegating to a secondary issue the question of indulged ministers. Position 3 was championed by John Brown of Wamphray and the exiles in the Dutch Republic.
In 1674, government policy veered again. The laws against unauthorized religious gatherings were made more severe; the death penalty was decreed against unauthorized preaching; everything just short of death was threatened to anyone who gave shelter to a Presbyterian preacher. Diehard
Presbyterians responded by more open and more frequent defiance of the law. In 1678, the government brought a Highland army of 6,000 into the Covenanting heartland of western Scotland, and "quartered" it on the people (gave the troops the right to commandeer property and take whatever they wished from civilians). This time the response of the most militant Covenanters was more violent; on May 29th 1679, they ambushed and assassinated Archbishop Sharp while he was riding in a carriage on Magus Moor, near Saint Andrews. Sharp, the apostate Covenanter, had always pursued the most repressive policies against his one-time religious confederates, and consequently aroused the most intense fury against himself. He paid with his life on Magus Moor, repeatedly stabbed and shot in the presence of his terrified, sobbing daughter. Strangely, the leader of
the Covenanter band, David Hackston (d.1680), had a change of heart during the ambush and pled unsuccessfully with the others to spare Sharp's life. (Hackston was nonetheless executed in 1680 as an accessory to the murder.) Most Covenanters disowned Sharp's assassination as the work of the fanatical few, but in its wake a serious Covenanter rebellion broke out in the west. A band of 80 Covenanters on horseback rode into Rutherglen, near
Glasgow, and read out a testimony against Episcopacy and the forsaking of the Covenants. James Graham of Claverhouse (1648–89), the viscount of Dundee (the "Bonnie Dundee" of Jacobite lore: "Bloody Clavers" to his opponents), a ruthless professional soldier, was put at the head of a body of government troops, and sent to stamp out the rebellion. He attacked an illegal religious gathering of Covenanters at Drumclog in Lanarkshire, but many of the Covenanters were armed, fought back, and surprisingly routed the government forces—Claverhouse narrowly escaped with his life.
The victorious Covenanters now gathered at Bothwell Bridge, where many flocked to their standard. Numbers hovered between 5,000 and 8,000.
However, with numbers came dissension. The division of opinion over the indulged ministers came to the fore: some were implacably opposed to all who had not subscribed in the strictest terms to the Covenants; others wanted a more broadminded restoration of Presbyterianism, with lenience for indulged ministers and those who cooperated with them. Some were committed to direct military action against a tyrannical government; others argued that it was the place of God's people to suffer, rather than to fight for their own deliverance.
In consequence of these divisions, many Covenanters deserted the camp, leaving an army of some 4,000. On June 22nd, they were crushed by a government force of 10,000 led by Charles II's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth: some 500 Covenanters were killed and 1,200 captured.26 After most of them solemnly promised not to take up arms against the government again, they were released; but 257 of the most dangerous, who refused to give any undertaking not to rebel again, were condemned to slavery in the Barbados Islands. The prison ship carrying them there was wrecked off the Orkneys with the loss of all hands.
Charles now put his Roman Catholic brother James, Duke of York, in charge of Scottish affairs. James' Catholicism was sending waves of alarm across the whole of Britain. In the English parliament, the Whig party, led
by the Earl of Shaftesbury, were pushing the country to the brink of civil war in their attempts to exclude James from succeeding to the throne after Charles' death (Charles had no legitimate children).27 Strangely for Scotland, which had once been a Covenanted nation, its parliament was far more docile and submissive. In 1681 it recognized the unconditional right of James to the Scottish throne regardless of religion. At the same time, to show that its acceptance of James did not mean the abandonment of Protestantism, it passed a Test Act applicable to all office-holders in Kirk and state. The Act required them to maintain the Protestant religion as set forth in the Scots Confession of 1560, to acknowledge the king's supremacy over the Kirk, and to disown the Covenants. A number of clergymen were deposed for refusing to subscribe. The leading Scottish noble, the Earl of Argyll (son of the Covenanting marquis who had been executed at the Restoration), was condemned for treason because he would subscribe to the Test Act only with reservations. Argyll saved his life by fleeing to the Dutch
Republic.
5. The Cameronians Charles II's problems in Scotland had been complicated by an event that had occurred on June 22nd 1680. On that day, the first anniversary of Bothwell Bridge, in the town of Sanquhar in Dumfries-shire, a band of 20
Covenanters gathered and read out a declaration—the "Sanquhar Declaration"—renouncing all allegiance to Charles II as a Covenantbreaking tyrant.
We being under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our Lord Jesus
Christ, and His cause and covenants; and against all such as have strengthened him, sided with, or anywise acknowledged him in his tyranny, civil or ecclesiastic.
The declaration also disowned "that professed papist" James as heir to the throne.
The Sanquhar Covenanters belonged to the hard-line wing of the movement, and were led by a young, idealistic, charismatic, and militant preacher, Richard Cameron (c.1648–80). Those who accepted his leadership were nicknamed Cameronians. They believed in absolute loyalty to the Covenants, the unlawfulness of any Scottish Kirk or government which did not adhere to the Covenants, the complete independence of the Kirk from state control, total noncooperation with indulged ministers or with those who did cooperate with them, and the lawfulness of killing would-be persecutors in self-defence.
Charles regarded the Sanquhar Declaration as an open declaration of civil war, and sent troops into the west to root out and annihilate the Cameronians. James Graham of Claverhouse was one of the troop commanders; his savage conduct earned him an undying notoriety in Scottish folk memory. Richard Cameron was killed in a skirmish at Ayrsmoss in 1680. His last words before the battle, addressed to his brother
Michael, breathe the fiery, battling, almost jihad-like spirit of the Cameronians:
Michael, come, let us fight it out to the last; for this is the day that I have longed for, and the death I have prayed for, to die fighting against our Lord's avowed enemies; and this is the day that we will get the crown.
Cameron's successor Donald Cargill (c.1627–81) was executed in 1681; his successor James Renwick (1662–88) was executed in 1688. Although
the Cameronians were seen as extremists by other Presbyterians, they were nonetheless admired for their heroic loyalty to the Covenants, their courage and integrity under savage persecution, and the purity and sincerity of their
Protestant faith. The government rendered itself hateful by making martyrs of such people.
Along with these Cameronian martyrs, considerable numbers of ordinary people were killed by the government troops, often without trial, merely for their passive sympathy with Cameronian principles. The most famous were the Wigtown Martyrs, Margaret Lauchlison (an elderly widow) and Margaret Wilson (aged 18). In May 1685, the two women were tied to stakes in the sand on the Solway Firth where the incoming tide would drown them. The older Margaret was positioned further out so that she would be drowned first, while government officials tried to persuade the younger Margaret to renounce her Covenanting principles, while she watched her comrade gasping for air as the waters rose above her head. But the younger Margaret rejected all persuasion and said of the older Margaret,
"What do I see but Christ wrestling there?" Both were drowned.
This period of persecution from 1680–88 is the epoch usually designated as the "Killing Times" in Scottish Church history, because of its concentrated anti-Covenanter severity.