,:j m f,h II 'i''''\- I. ' '. ,;vVi:,;;ij.-i !■■,,:::;!■ iiii 'I !'-'■' ■i':'ii ii t Mill B,-:-:'- ;|!|||ijP,.,..r|i t :i'' ri; :.' •! ■■ i!.; V " 1 ':. Hi illKiiiii;;:,;;:;;;;; 'li 1' 1, ' 1' '! ■' 1 i|l"wy"'fn'^>"n»"™''i' ; CRITICISMS ' We all owe you a deep debt of gratitude for that wonderful book — The Covenanters.'— hOKH Guthrie, 24th October 1908. ' Dr. Hewison has written a great book, one for which all true Scotsmen will thank him.'— Rev. Dr. Alex.^nuer Smellie in T/ie Guid,\ May 1908. 'This is a monumental viork.'—T/ie Scottish Rez'ie'u; 2nd April 1908. 'The work is eminently readable, being virile and racy. . . . Dr. Hewison's appreciation of James Renwick is very fine.' — Dr. D. H.\Y Fleming, in The British IVeek/y, June 1 1, 1908. 'In reference to facts Dr. Hewison will be recognised as the standard authority.'— r/i£ Athena-um, 30th May 1908. 'It will be long ere sufficient fresh facts will be divulged to admit of any work superseding his in respect of copious and relevant detail.' — The Spectator, 19th September 1908. ' As a work of original research, containing a mass of information, the accumulating and arranging of which could have been no light task, it evokes a tribute of admiration.' — The Scotsman, 26th March 1908. ' It will be a long time, indeed, before any writer has fresh materials to warrant the publication of another history of the Covenanters.' — The Glasgow Herald, 17th March 1908. ' His history is a triumphant vindication of the place which belongs to the Covenanters in the making of Scotland.' — The Expository Times, June 1908. 'Dr. Hewison's is a work which one might almost say is the last word on the subject.'— The U.K. Church Missionary Record. 'We cordially admit the extreme interest and power of his narrative, which must hold the field as the most comprehensive and up-to-date account.' — 7",4« (Glasgow) Evening Neu's, 31st March 1908. THE COVENANTERS PHOTOGRAVURE BY T R ANNAN i SONS OLASOOV.' ALEXANDER HENDERSON THE COVENANTERS A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE REVOLUTION, BY JAMES KING HEWISON M.A., D.D. (eDIN.) : FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND: EDITOR OF THE WORKS OF ABBOT NINIAN WINZET : AUTHOR OF 'THE ISLE OF BUTE IN THE OLDEN TIME,' 'DUMFRIESSHIRE,' ETC. IN TWO \' GLUMES VOLUME I GLASGOW: JOHN SMITH AND SON 1913 Published. tgoS Revised and Corrected Edition, igij Edinburgb : T. and A, CrxsTAKLE, Printers to His Majesty PREFACE TO REVISED AND CORRECTED EDITION Thk first edition of The Covenanters had a gratifying reception from students of Scottish history. The late Mr. Andrew Lang thus characterised it : — ' The truth about the Reformation and about the whole unhappy history of Scotland from 1540 to 1690 is not ce (]uun vain pcuple pense. Dr. Hewison's two lordly volumes on that period, The Covenanters, give only the traditional view expressed with extraordinary vigour and rigour.' Tiie demand, expressed in many quarters, that the general public should acquire this work in a cheaper form, has led to the preparation of this edition. The volumes are substantially the same as their predecessors. It was necessary, however, to make some emenda- tions ; and, as a result of a fresh survey of authorities and the study of recently discovered historical data, to give a new setting to some memorable episodes, as well as to modify the characterisa- tions of some distinguished personages. The publication in 1911 of the Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston has necessitated changes in the account of the first subscription of the 1638 Covenant. A completer list of examples of the Covenants still preserved is furnished in Appendix in and iv. Volume i. Appendix vii, Volume i., has also been rewritten. The book will again have achieved its purpose if other readers c.in homologate the criticism of Professor Herkless {The Glasgow Herald, March 17, 1908). ' The value of this book lies in the fact 207^G51 viii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION that it shows the men of the Covenants and their deeds in such a way that the student of history may calmly judge them, and be assured at the same time that in making his judgment he has before him the available relevant facts.' I shall have been rewarded if I have succeeded in transforming what Professor J. H. Millar, in his Scottish Prose of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, designates ' The Nightmare of the Cove- nant ' into more than a pleasant dream — into a veritable and vital reality for which many Scotsmen still are grateful. Rothesay, Christmas 191 2. ORIGINAL PREFACE Students of History, and readers generally, have long felt the need of an adequate work, stating as concisely as possible the most important facts in the history of the Covenanters, exhibiting the exact terms of their religious and secular bonds and leagues, and tracing the growth of the spirit of freedom in Scotland, as that was affected by the life and work of the National Church from 1560 until 1690. During that era sacred and civil affairs were much intermingled, so that the historian now has great difficulty in marking the boundary between the ecclesiastical and political spheres, and in classifying the various facts which present themselves, as he endeavours faithfully to depict the influential men and women of that time. Certain definite conclusions regarding the Covenanters, as a rigid sect in the Christian Church, and as a restless, rebellious political party in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have been arrived at by many students ; and, as a general rule, a far from favourable estimate of these brave and defensible patriots has been based upon generalisations which will not bear investigation. Perhaps unintentionally Sir Walter Scott, by his marvellous creation of characters, of which the less worthy — as Ruskin pointed out — have influenced the popular judgment, while the more virtuous and delightful have been left out of consideration, helped to defame one of the most extraordinary orders of devotees which the civilised world ever saw. An absolutely impartial account of the Covenanters was therefore a desideratum. Notwithstanding what some authors of repute have written of late regarding the credulity and the unreliability of the Reverend Robert 6 X THE COVENANTERS Wodrow, parish minister of Eastwood — the historian par excellence of the Covenanters — all investigators in this department of his- torical knowledge must continue to acknowledge indebtedness to one whose vast collections of original and transcribed documents, too little consulted, remain an inexhaustible treasure-house of relevant facts and dates. These are easily accessible in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in the Library of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, and in the Library of the University of Glasgow. A careful inspection of these authorities proves that Wodrow was painfully anxious to obtain reliable facts and attested accounts of events. The errors of his printed History of the Sufferings are, after all, comparatively few, and, in many instances, might not ha'^e existed, if his transcribed manuscript entitled Scotia Sub Cruce had been literally adhered to, and his invaluable notes been more utilised by his editor. Dr. Robert Burns, in 1835. When the Scottish History Society publishes an Index to these important papers, and when the Minute-Books of the Justiciary Courts and Privy Council are printed, students will then realise the extraordinary labours of Wodrow in his praiseworthy efforts to secure, in most difficult circumstances, verification for the facts he chronicled. The light thrown upon the period under review, in our own day, has been most definitive, and still more light is now appearing out of unexpected quarters. Discerning the necessity for a thorough search among unpublished papers and rare pamphlets yet hidden in public archives, Town Council and private muniment rooms, and in the repositories of Church papers, I have worked in these sources and obtained some most interesting facts. The yields from various collections of manuscripts in the Advocates' Library (Kirk, Den- mylne, etc.), the Laing MSS. in Edinburgh University Library, the Clarendon MSS. in the Bodleian Library, the MSS. relative to Laud in Lambeth Palace, the Lauderdale MSS. in the British Museum, and the still unpublished State Papers, Warrant Books, and Letters in the Record Office, London, and in the Register House, Edinburgh, are very important. Extracts from the Books of Adjournal can no PREFACE xi longer be overlooked. The production of the Covenant signed by King Charles the Second must awaken a fresh interest in that Covenanter's defections. A pathetic interest is attached to the Minute-Book of the Lords of Justiciary on circuit in 1684 (especially Queensberry, Drumlanrig, and Claverhouse), which assiduous Wodrow could not find. These, and other priceless documents, will abide to rectify the overhasty judgments of recent writers. In my youth it was my privilege to dwell among a peasantry whose ancestors fought and fell for the Covenant. Their vivid traditions, narrated with awe-inspiring reverence around their hearths, in sight of the trusty weapons which once guarded them, are now substantially corroborated from the indestructible records, of whose existence the raconteurs never heard. And it is remarkable how little error had crept into the rural chronicles. I have elsewhere lingered to hear woeful tales from the descendants of the favourers of Episcopacy, who suffered at the hands of the rigid Presbyterians. To be sure of my ground, I have visited scenes hallowed by the memories of Romanist, Reformer, and Rebel, from Orkney to the Water of Blednoch, from Dunnottar to Eilean Gherig, and have obtained photographic memorials, many of which are herein reproduced. The risks of error in dealing with the numerous facts and dates which are embodied in this work are obvious ; but much care has been taken to eliminate inaccuracies and to present the truth without prejudice. The first part of the book I have refrained from loading with references to authorities, since the history of the earlier period has been already fully treated and authenticated by competent writers. Investigations among unpublished documents have produced so many new facts that for the later periods more numerous references have been necessary. I tender my best thanks to Dr. David Hay Fleming for the great privilege of being permitted to consult, in his home and library, his unique collection of valuable books and rare pamphlets, and for much kind help. I record my gratitude for the kindness and forbearance xii THE COVENANTERS shown to me by the keepers of our great libraries : — Mr. J. T. Clark, late Keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, Mr. Stronach, and his assistants ; the Rev. Dr. Christie, Librarian to the General Assembly ; Mr. James Lymburn, late Librarian in Glasgow University, and his successor, Mr. James L. Galbraith ; Mr. Alexander Anderson, Librarian in Edinburgh University ; Mr. J. Maitland Anderson, Librarian in St. Andrews University ; and Mr. Robert Adams, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The Rev. John Anderson, Curator of the Historical Department, H.M. Register House, Edinburgh, has rendered me invaluable assistance. I am also much indebted to the Rev. Dr. R. Menzies Fergusson, Logic, the Rev. Robert Hislop, Thornhill, and Mr. D. J. Knox, Glasgow, for reading the proof-sheets, and for valuable suggestions. The work is enhanced by photographic reproductions of por- traits, pictures, and Covenants, for which I offer my thanks to : — The Most Honourable the Marquis of Tweeddale ; Sir James H. Gibson-Craig of Riccarton, Baronet ; Mrs. Elizabeth Milbank, Melville House; Rev. Thomas Kidd, M.A., Moniaive ; Mr. John C. Montgomerie, Dalmore ; Mr. J. B. Dalzell, Larkhall ; Mr. Alfred G. Millar, Hamilton ; Mr. J. R. Brown, Liverpool ; Mr. Charles Pearson, Alloa; Mr. George N. Hislop, London; Mr. James M'Crone, Rothesay; Messrs. Valentine and Co., Dundee; Messrs. G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen ; Messrs. Drummond Young and Watson, Edinburgh ; Messrs. T. and R. Annan and Sons, Glasgow ; Mr. A. M. Nicolson, Wigtown ; Mr. Malcolm Macfarlane, jun.. Bridge of Allan; Mr. Alexander Whitelaw, Cupar; Rev. J. C. Walker, Kirkinner; Mr. R. Lauder. Glasgow; Colonel Horace Walpole, Heck- field Place, Hants ; Professor C. Sandford Terry, Aberdeen ; and to the possessors and custodiers of the Covenants, mentioned in the Appendix, who have permitted me herein to present these historic bonds in facsimile. JAMES KING HEWISON. The Manse, Rothesay, January 1908. PAGRS CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Historical Beginnings of the Covenanters, 1545-1561 . 1-47 CHAPTER II Mary Queen of Scots and the Romanist Reaction, i 561-1567 . 48-64 CHAPTER III The Establishment of the Church by Law, 1567-1580 . . 65-90 CHAPTER IV The King's Confession, 1580-1582 ..... 91-112 CHAPTER V The Fight for Prerog.\tive, 1582-1603 ..... 113-153 CHAPTER VI Clerical Life and Learning after the Reformation, 1560-1625 . 154-172 CHAPTER VII The Erastian King, 1603-1625 ...... 173-207 CHAPTER VIII The Liturgy Embroglio, 1625-1637 ..... 20S-249 CHAPTER IX The National Covenant, 1637-1638 . . . . , 250-280 CHAPTER X The Glasgow Assembly and the Abolition of Episcopacy, 1638 . 281-316 CHAPTER XI The First Bishops' War, 1639 ...... 3»7-33o XIV THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER XII The Second Bishops' War, 1639-1641 CHAPTER XIII Lex Rex — The Rise of Parliamentary Power, 1641 . CHAPTER XIV The Solemn League and Covenant, 1642-1643 CHAPTER XV The Westminster Standards, 1643-1650 CHAPTER XVI The Great Civil War, 1644-1645 PAGES 331-353 354-369 370-388 389-403 404-433 CHAPTER XVII The Engagement — The Fall of Charles First and of Montrose, 1646-1650 ........ 434-471 APPENDICES L The National Covenant ..... II. A Solemn League and Covenant III. Extant Copies of the Scottish Covenants IV. Extant Copies of the British Solemn League and Covenant V. The Acts of Scottish Parliament relative to the Covenants ■^ I. The Irish Massacres of 1641-2 .... Vn. The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Proofs VIII. Crimes and Suflferings of the Scottish Clergy IX. The Samuel Rutherford Scandal 472 479 481 49° 493 494 494 496 497 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Alexander Henderson ...... From a Portrait at Yester House supposed to be by Vandyke. — By the permission of the late Marquis of Tweeddale. Vignette, Covenanters' Flag, captured at Bothwell Bridge Preserved in Duncrub House. The Covenant of 1557 — 'The Common or Godly Band' The Leith-Edinburgh Covenant of 1560 Preserved in Hamilton Palace. Rulers of Scotland . .• . . Prisons of Reformers and Covenanters The King's Confession, or Covenant of i 580-1 Preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Scottish Reformers and Covenanters Famous Politicians .... King Charles I. . The National Covenant of 1638 Subscribed in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh ; preserved in the Museum of the Corporation of Edinburgh. The Covenant of 163S ...... Preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh. The Covenant of 1638. Subscribed in 1639 Preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Signatures on Solemn League and Covenant Portrait of George Gillespie ..... From a Painting in the New College Hall, Edinburgh. Frontispiece Title-page Facingpage 12 28 48 64 102 164 208 252 264 306 336 360 384 Prisons of the Covenanters 43s LIST OF CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS Page 4, note z,for ' Lethington, 201 ' read ' Lethington, i. 201.' „ 7, line "iifor ' signed ' read ' taken.' „ 24, „ 4,yi?r 'on' r^Oi/'up to.' ,) 24, „ 37,/(7r 'adgoynis' rifarf'adjoinis.' „ 24, note iifor '■Register, 6, 7' read ' Register, Pt. i. 6-10.' „ 52, Iine32,/(7r'(i562)'n'a^'(i56i).' II 59i II 7,yor 'while, etc' r^orf' after the general fast had been observed.' „ 62, „ 22, yi;r 'confessor' rra^/ 'agent.' „ 62, „ 24,yor 'confession' r^orf' profession.' „ 67, note \,for'^ Hist. ii. 772 note' read '■Hist. (Edit. J. P. Lawson), ii. 722, and note 726, 727.' „ 87, line 29, after 'districts called Presbyteries' read 'in accordance with an earlier scheme considered by the Assembly of Glasgow in 1581 and partially adopted then.' Qi. postea, p. 104. „ 103, note I, line '),for ' l8i' read ' 23.' „ 120, „ 3,/<7r ' Rec." «•« .1 I, line is,>r '3i8'7ra^/'3i9.' „ 1 56, line i>,for ' moiety' read ' number.' „ 164, note 2, for ' reprint ' read ' re-issue.' „ 165, line i5, delete 'to enter the second charge at St. Andrews.' 11 I70t 1. 13. r' one day after' r^arf' a few days before'; in rubric, /cr '8th' rmrf ' 1st.' , 244, note I, adii 'in the Advocates' Library.' „ 247, line \l,for ' Restoration ' read ' Revolution.' „ 293, note \,for ' 82 ' read ' 79-82.' II 312, II i,/or'Archdean'r^a/^' Archdeacon.' „ 451, line ig,for ' Earl ' read ' Marquis.' HISTORY OF THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS OF THE COVENANTERS Pre-Reformation writers frequently pictured the Roman Catholic The Roman Church as a stately ship freighted with costliest merchandise. In Scotland in the troublous seas of Scotland its many and perilous voyages were '557- wellnigh over in the year of grace 1559. The day of doom dis- covered it a crazy vessel weltering towards wreck, and, if Mary Stuart's confessor. Abbot Ninian Winzet, is to be credited, sadly ' blekkit [disfigured] with deformities.'' According to this frank reformer within the Church, the officers, long incapable, had become unmanageable, and were ' unworthy the name we are richt sorry to say.' His animadversions are corroborated by Pope Paul iv. When writing to Cardinal Trivulzio, stating how Queen Mary had com- plained of the lax ecclesiastical discipline of the Scots Church dignitaries, the looseness of nuns, and the crimes both of regulars and seculars, the Pope asked him to intervene and have their vices reformed. The report of the prelate who investigated the scandals leaves no doubt as to the shameful depravity within the Church." The old fabric was about to break up through internal decay, and, from what of the wreckage as was suitable, those who left the sinking ship made a new craft, at first rude, but shapely enough and sea- worthy, to carry the Lord's banner which they had saved. That these voyagers too were buffeted long in a raging sea is admitted in ' Winzet, Certain Tractates, i. 43, 44, ed. J. K. Ilcwison, Scot. Text Soc, Edinburgh, 1888. ^ 37th Oct. 1557, Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots, 6, 528, ed. J. H. Pollen, S.J., Scot. Hist. Soc, Edin., 1901. Cf. Robertson, Concilia Scot., ii. 283, 303 note ; ibid.. Dr. U. Patrick's Translation, Scot. Hist. Soc, 1907 ; Kno.x, WorAs, i. 36 (Edin., 1895). THE COVENANTERS Origin of the Protestant Church in Scotland. Pre-Reforma- tion evan- gelicals. their first Scots Confession of Faith (1560), which declares: ' Bot sik hes bene the rage of Sathan against us, and against Chryst Jesus his eternall veritie laitlie borne amangis us, that to this day na tyme hes bene g-rantit unto us to cleir our consciencis for how we have been tossit ane haill yeir past, the maist pairt of Europe (as we suppoise) dois understand.'^ These belligerent reformers of the Church and of the closely allied State in Scotland were not without definite designs in what they designated their 'godlie enterprise.' The quickening doctrines of Wyclif, Huss, Colet, Luther, and Calvin had turned religious thought into new channels ; the old- fashioned scholastic methods discredited by incisive exponents of reason, such as Occam and Peter Ramus, were about to collapse with the advent of Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Newton. Through the wonderful work of the Renaissance, the best intellects in Chris- tendom were on the alert to welcome views of the truth more modern, inspiriting, and comforting than past experience had afforded. Scholars became restless, migratory, and eager to break their mental fetters so as to be freer for original work. Scotland also felt these new influences,- and welcomed the visit or return of students and preachers inspired with evangelicalism acquired in Continental universities. Some of these became martyrs for the faith, and the smoke of their sacrifice was a far-travellinof incense which attracted independent minds to the truth for which these suffered.^ The Bible, long banned and read in secret, was at length printed in England and legally sanctioned, The Gude and Godlie Ballads, and stirring pamphlets from foreign centres of Protestantism circulated with marked effect.* The districts of Kyle and Cunningham, in Ayrshire, with their bold proprietors of Carnell, Kinzeancleuch, ' The Coiifessione of the fayht and doctrin, etc. Imprinted at Edinburgh by Robert Lekprewik. Cum privilegio, 1561 : reprint in Knox, Works, ii. 93-120. ' 'The Lollards in Scotland, etc.,' Knox, Works, i. 494-500. ^ D. Hay Fleming, The Scottish Reformation, 1-2S (Edin., 1904) : a good summary of the facts. * The Bible authorised 'in Inglis or -Scoltis,' 1542, c. 12 ; Act. Pari. Scot., ii. 415 ; prelates dissent, Ai^a; warrant, 425« ; Acts contrary repealed, 1560, c. 3, ii. 535 ; 1567, c. 4, iii. 14, 36a ; certain householders to get Bible, 1579, c. 10, iii. 139 : this ratified, 1581, c. i, iii. 211. 'Ane Compendius Buik of godlie Psalmes and Spirituall Sangis collectit furthe of sindrie HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 3 Ochiltree, Cessnock, Barr, Gadgirth, Teringzean, had long been imbued with Lollardism, and to this fact may be traced the intensity of the regard with which Ayrshire men maintained the National Covenants at all hazards and sacrifices. Montrose, the ports of the Tay, and other centres of the new spiritual life, gave indications that Scotland was ripening for a great moral and intellectual change. None discerned these movements more speedily than the Roman Catholic clergy, who, responsive to the defensive yet reactionary internal spirit of the Council of Trent, tried by means of tracts, conventions, ^^fH^^ and councils to avert the imminent ruin of their Church.^ Their efforts were belated. Between Easter and Whitsunday of 1559, many priests who had performed their sacred duties, without any indication of dissent, were swept into the ranks of the Reformers by the wave of enthusiasm created by the return of John Knox to his native land on 2nd May 1559.^ As far as scanty records enable us to make a calculation, we find that thirty-five preachers, qualified to administer the sacraments. Lack of responded to the call of the Reformers during the first year of the p'^'^^'^**"^- existence of the Church — 1560-1.^ In the second year the parochial ministers increased to sixty, and in 1567 to ninety or more. One half of the latter number were located in the Lothians and Fifeshire, and two-thirds were confined to Middle Scotland. The Highland area and the south-west counties were almost destitute of evangelical preachers. The following presbyteries do not appear to have had, for several years after the Reformation, the services of resident clergy : Dumfries, Annan, Langholm, Lochmaben, Penpont, Kirk- cudbright, Wigtown, Stranraer, Duns, Chirnside, Earlston, Meigle, partes of the Scripture. . . . Imprentit at Edinburgh be Johne [Ross] for Henrie Charteris, MDLXXVin,' contains spiritual songs in circulation between 1542 and 1546, attributed to James, John, and Robert Weddcrburn, Dundee. An earlier edition, 1567, was edited by the late Professor Mitchell for the Scottish Text Society, 1897. The same Society has published in 1 90 1, T/ie New Tes/ameni in Scots, being- Purveys Revision of Wycliffe's version tumeU into Scots hy Mm dock Nisbet—\i\\.\\e.\\.o a manuscript. ' Robertson, Concilia Scot., ii. 81, 118, 146, 147, 288, 296, 297, 299 ; Dempster, Hist. Eccl., 28 et scq. ; Knox, Works, i. 7. » Winzet, i. 53, Scot. Text Soc. edit. ; Knox, Works, i. 291, 318. ' Scott, Fasti, q.v. THE COVENANTERS Reformers not illiterate. Forfar, Arbroath, Fordoun, Kincardine O'Neil, Alford, Garioch, Ellon, Weem, Chanonry (the parish was vacant till 1649), Elgin, Strathbogie, Inveravon, Abernethy, Nairn, Dornoch, Tongue, Caith- ness, Inverness, Kirkwall, Cairston, North Isles, Lerwick, Burravoe. Thirty of the reformed clergy had served as seculars or regulars in the Roman Church, fifteen having been parish priests, nine in the Augustinian Order and the remainder in the following Orders, — Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, Cistercian, and Cluniac.^ A few Anglican preachers and teachers crossed the Borders, and these were supplemented by students from Geneva. The chances of such a small phalanx surrounded by the organised hosts of Romanism were small indeed, had not the laity superadded their weight to every blow of the Reformers." Thus the fomenters of the religious revolution in Scotland were not the illiterate cobblers, tanners, and abject persons whom Nicolaus Floris of Gouda, the Jesuit visitor in Scotland, assured Pope Pius IV. that they were in 1562.^ The demands of the Reformers, formulated in masterly documents, and the practical nature of their successful schemes, indicate a thorough knowledoe of contemporary problems, and a just appreciation of human rights and aspirations. Perplexing land questions, and the not very honour- able relations of the landed proprietors with clerical dignitaries, threw many lords and barons into line with the Reformers.* The ideas crystallised by Knox and his associates in the Con- Refonn ideas, fession of Faith, Book of Discipline, Book of Common Order, Acts o^ General Assemblies, Acts of Parliament, sundry religious and ' Booke of the Universal! Kiyk\ i. 2S0. .Some were learned and distinguished graduates : Lee, Lectures, i. 227-32. - At the time of the Reformation there were 4600 men and women in official positions in the Church in Scotland — 13 bishops, 60 priors and abbots, 500 parsons, 2000 vicars, and iioo monks, friars, and nuns : Skelton, Maitland oj Lethington, 201. In 1572 the Church officials numbered 252 ministers, 157 exhorters, and 508 readers— in all 917 : Keith, History, iii. 56 note ; Register of Ministers, etc., xxii. 98 (Edin., 1830) ; Misc. Wod. Sac, \. 319-95. 3 Stimmen aus Maria-Laach {P. Goudanus am Hofe Maria Stuarts), Yl. xix. i. 96. (Freiburg, 1880.) < N., Cardinal de Sermoneta refers to the unchastity of the Orders in Scotland, and to the illegitimate progeny of the seculars : Pollen, Papal Negotiations, etc., p. 52S. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 5 political agreements, and the Covenants — which last were oaths of allegiance to the doctrines contained in these documents — clearly express the clamant needs of that miserable age, namely, the Gospel to be preached to every citizen by a pure clergy of a free, self- governing Church, and just government by the State, equally free and independent of the Church. Primarily, the movement for reform was opposition to Romanism in its worst political and theological aspects. The masses, downtrodden by clerical and baronial masters, and over-taxed without having any representation in the legislature, saw their dreams of emancipation realised in the daring schemes of the new radical party. So the ' rascall multitude,' as Knox desig- nated those irascible crowds who mistook senseless wrecking for reform, constituted themselves into the first bodyguard of the rebel evangelists. The result of all this was, that the Scottish Reforma- tion ended in the discarding of time-honoured doctrines and ecclesi- astical rites, in the abolition of the territorial hierarchy, and in the destruction of the parasitic establishments of religious devotees. Many able and cultured priests entered into the Reformed Church, and thus ensured the success of its ministry, while a large number of the Regulars, who also threw in their lot with the Reformers, became readers in the churches of the English Bible and of a new form of prayers also introduced therein.^ The fundamental principle of the Reformed Scottish Church, Kundamentai namely, 'The Bible only is the religion of Protestants,' which j^^If^ed"^ made Chillingworth a Latitudinarian, affected the stern Knox very church, differently. Acting on ' God's plain Word,' Knox proclaimed, in 1547, that the Pope was an Antichrist, and not a member of Christ's mystical body. This was no vindictive diatribe of a disaffected priest, but the earnest conviction of a student of the Gospel who was willing to sacrifice himself to uphold his faith. This illiberal theology was popular with the laity, covetous of the wealth of the ' Bookc of the Universall Kirk, i. 280 : ' Seing the most part of the persons who were Channons, Monks, and Friars within this realme have made profession of the true religion, it is therefore thought meet, that it be enjoined to them to pass and serve as rc.iders, etc' — Act of Ass., Aug. 1 573. 6 THE COVENANTERS Purgative Church. It demanded the repression of all doctrine repugnant to thrReformers. the Gospel, the Suppression of idolatry, under which the mass, invoca- tion of the saints, and images were included, and the judicial extir- pation of ' the shaven sort, the beast's marked men,' because Popery had brought confusion into the world, so that virtue was neither commended nor vice punished/ Purgative teaching of this char- acter countenanced the reckless populace, who seemed to take a delight in enforcing the old papal laws for cleansing heresy upon the Papists, now heretics themselves, in wiping out time-hallowed relics and pleasing rites which are not mentioned in Scripture, and even in illustrating Holy Writ itself by affording to the sparrow, nesting in the ruins of abbeys and monasteries, a refuge : — ' Ev'n Thine own altars, where she safe Her young ones forth may bring.' Since the Book of Discipline rigidly homologated a Calvinian interpretation of the Saviour's question, ' Are ye not of more value than many sparrows ? ' these Deformers were in favour of the sparrows. And, meantime, all that the leaders of the people were anxious to save out of the disintegfrated Church was the sacred edifices suitable for preaching, and the patrimony of the Church to sustain the ministry. All the rest might vanish — the Church's once useful organisations overgrown beyond control, the gorgeous symbols of truth, its imposing ceremonies, its dread powers, its vast capacities for beneficence. These passed away, not as by one stroke, but slowly and naturally, on the realisation of more acceptable doctrines and practices by people yearning for more light and culture ; and on the old foundation rose the Scottish Church, Evangelical, Pro- testant, and Presbyterian. Many of the Covenanters were descendants of the Lollards of Standpoint of Kylc. The Standpoint of the Covenanters was identical with that of Knox and his associates. Theirs it was to hold the same field and to maintain against Pope, King, and Parliament the theological ' First Book of Disciplhie, Preamble, chap. i. ; xii. 3, ix. 2. That the clergy neglected their duty is proved by Statutes 195, 240, 274, 275 : Concilia Scot., i. 2SS-9. Covenanters. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 7 and political dogmas of this Reformed Church. The Covenant in its various forms, signed between 1556 and 1689, was simply a defen- sive bond whereby the members of the Church of Scotland, first as individuals and secondly as a corporation, both clergy and laity, bound themselves to conserve, at all hazards, (i) the autonomy of the Church with a form of government sanctioned by ' God's plain Word' ; and (2) the absolute authority on civil matters of the State, acting through a monarch, representative parliament, and constitu- tionally appointed magistrates, all of whom in spiritual concerns were to be amenable to the Church. The first Covenant was thus an inevitable result of the movements for reform in the life, character, and faith of the people, and was the first fruit of the development of that spiritual life which quickened anew the sense of personal responsibility to God. Knowledge of the proper relationship of creature to Creator had, owing to the ineffective teaching and example of the priests, practically become moribund in the sixteenth century.' In the seventeenth century the Covenant was unhappily converted into a powerful political instrument, when, by the fatal mistake of the Stuart kings, whose residence in England had extin- guished their Scottish spirit, and who claimed complete jurisdiction, spiritual as well, over the body politic, the State became involved in conflict with the Church. The history of that momentous and bloody struggle will now be traced through all its varying scenes, till the final victory for the independence of the Church was secured by Acts of Parliament which were the immediate issue of the Revolution of 1688. The Covenanters, as members of a new society for the dissemina- origin of tion of evangelical Protestantism, emerge from obscurity during the ^''^■^°'"'^- latter part of the regency of Mary of Lorraine, widow of James v. They, as Wycliffites, Lollards, Gospellers, New Testamentars, Sacramentars, Heretics, had long held themselves together by ' Cf. the extraordinary account given by Con in a work published at Rome with permis- sion of his superiors. G. Conaeus, De Diifih'ci Statu Religionis apud Scotos, 89-91 : Romae, 1628 ; also cf. Concilia Scot., mult. loc. 8 THE COVENANTERS secret bonds of communion, of which only the faintest traces are left, since it was illegal in Scotland to enter into 'bands,' as these alliances were called.' Offensive and defensive leagues of parties had, for two centuries, been popular and useful, since in 1306 Bruce's three noble comrades — Hay, Campbell, and Seton — entered into a mutual indenture to defend the Bruce 'to the last of their blood and fortune,' and craved the divine sanction of their oath as they partook of the Sacrament in Lindores Abbey. Covenants had scriptural authority. The energy and eloquence of George Wishart, Master of Arts, promoted the Reformation and incited earnest men ^ like Sir George Douglas, brother to the Earl of Angus, Cassillis, Glencairn, and John Erskine of Dun to protect the menaced cause and preachers of Protestantism. At Ormiston House, in 1546, the following of Wishart — the lairds of Ormiston, Longniddry, Brun- stane, and others — entered into a bond for his protection, which the Earl of Bothwell, on apprehending Wishart there, promised also to honour and observe by personally keeping him out of the hands of Cardinal Beaton. He broke that vow. Nothing then could save Wishart and Wishart from the avenging fires of Beaton on the ist March 1546.^ Beaton, 1546. jj^^ ruthless Cardinal and other dignitaries, lolling on cushions within a luxurious chamber, safe inside the castle of St. Andrews, watched the smoke of the sacrifice float away to infect the now truly incensed country. Three months afterwards, 29th May, vengeance claimed a victim, and the slaughtered cardinal was suspended upon the front of the same castle in a white sheet, as if he did penance in death for that revolting crime.^ The avengers, with Knox as their chaplain during part of 1547, held the castle till 29th July of that year, when it was retaken and its inmates, including Knox, were sent prisoners into France.^ Other heretics were hunted into hiding. Although the Scots Reformers were men imbued with the rude notions of ' Act. Par/. Sco/. {1424, c. 5),ii.7: Privy Council Act against 'Sacramentaris,' 2nd June 1543. 2 'The Confession of Faith of the Churches of Switzerland' was translated by Wishart : Wodrow MiscelL, i. 1-23 ; Row, Historic, 10. 3 Knox, Works, i. 171; Dr. Charles Rogers, Life of George IVis/uirf, 7-12 (Edin., 1S76). * Knox, Works, \. 178. ^ Knox joined the rebels in April 1547 : Lang, Knox, 22 ; Knox, Works, i. 1S5, 205. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 9 a warring age, they were not devoid of the finer characteristics of chivalry, and there is no proof that the evangelical party, who yearned for freedom to enjoy a pure Gospel, at first contemplated wresting their rights by the sword. Their defence was based on mental resist- ance of evil, and they were not prepared to break the injunction of their Saviour that when persecuted they were to flee from city to city. Knox approved of the Scots prisoners escaping from Mont St. Michel, but not if they shed the blood of the guard. He was wont to declare that the Divine Spirit would protect them in the propagation of the Gospel, but reckoned it to be no sin to resist, when possible, an enemy of the truth. Bishop Leslie even acknowledges the for- bearance of the nobility : ' yet the clemency of the heretic nobles must not be left unmentioned, since at that time they exiled few Catholics on the score of religion, imprisoned fewer, and put none to death.' ^ John Knox was born at Gifford, near Haddington, about the year John Knox, 151 5," took priest's orders, heard Wishart preach, and embraced the '^'^''^^^" reformed doctrines in 1543.' After Knox was relieved from his captivity in France in 1549 he sought refuge first in England, then passed through France to Geneva. At Frankfort-on-Main and at Geneva he remained some time ministering to other British exiles. A stern believer in Providence, Knox waited like a consecrated prophet to take up his role of spiritual deliverer of his native land. God would call him, he believed. The inward monition was required by God's soldier and Christ's preacher. This man of commanding intellect and kind heart was also endowed with an irrepressible humour.^ There was no sourness in his nature.^ A penetrative mind, varied experience, and positive learning acquired from the most ' Dc Originc, bk. x. ; Leslie's translator, Ualrymple (Leslie's Hist, of Scot.^ part iv. p. 463, Scot. Text, edit., 1894-5), changes the word 'none' into 'very few.' ^ The Bookman., September 1905 ; D. Hay Fleming, citing manuscript of Spottiswood's History. 1505 is the date generally accepted. ' For biography of Knox, cf. M'Crie, Life, van edit.; P. Munie Brown, /<'//« Kno.x : a Biograp/iy {ZiX\n., 1895). ^ C. J. Guthrie, Our Scots Riformers and Covenanters, 13 (Edin., 1902). ' Knox set his co-religionists the example of both enjoying and chronicling many 'a me.iry bourd ' (jest). Cf. Works, i. 40 et seq. B lo THE COVENANTERS cultured foreign teachers made it impossible for him to tolerate a lie tricked out as truth. His terrible earnestness made him the most appropriate leader of good men at this crisis. This powerful generalship well entitled him to be described by Queen Mary as ' the most dangerous man in all the realm.' Beza reckoned him a new apostle. In the autumn of 1555 the growing evangelical party in Scotland, mostly nobles, owners of small estates, persons of means, and men of patriotic spirit, induced Knox to leave Geneva, and return to pray, preach, and plan for the establishment of the reformed faith. At Dun House, between Montrose and Brechin, the seat of John Erskine, at Calder House, West Lothian, the home of Sir James Sandilands, at Finlayston House, Kilmalcolm, a residence of the Earl of Glencairn, at Castle-Campbell, a seat of Argyll, at Ayr, Barr, Gad- girth, Kinzeancleuch, and Ochiltree in Ayrshire, Edinburgh, and other centres, Knox by his eloquence created a marvellous enthusiasm and devotion which gave heart to his co-religionists at this perilous juncture, notably to Alexander Cunningham, fifth Earl of Glencairn, Lord Erskine, afterwards sixth Earl of Mar, Archibald Campbell, afterwards fifth Earl of Argyll, and Lord James Stewart, afterwards Regent Moray. Knox narrates that, in the winter of 1555-6, after preaching at these places, Edinburgh excepted, he went to Dun and The Dun there ministered 'the Table of the Lord Jesus ' to 'gentilmen of the 1556."''" ' IMernse, who, God be praised, to this day constantlie do remane in the same doctrin, which then thei professed, to witt, that thei refuissed all societie with idolatrie and band thame selfis, to the utter- most of thare poweris, to manteane the trew preaching of the Evangel! of Jesus Christ, as God should offer unto thame prechearis and oportunitie.'" The terms of this narrative are explicit enough to warrant the conclusion arrived at by Dr. M'Crie, that this confedera- tion originated the first Covenant.^ The instrument itself was not recorded by Knox, nor is any copy, if it were written, extant. It was a secret guarantee of good faith among the subscribers, and a natural ' Knox, i. 250 ; writer's italics. 2 M'Crie, Knox, i. 181, edit. 1814. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS ii result of the steps which the suspected lay- reformers had to take for self-protection. They could only meet stealthily. Sometimes they mustered in armed escorts to guard threatened opponents of the Mass. Knox, in July 1556, deemed it expedient to retire to Geneva. To other disaffected citizens the idea of a political revolution, as the only remedy for the distressed state of the nation, grew more attractive in their vision of the worldly gains accompanying that desirable consum- mation. In March 1557 Glencairn, Lome, Erskine, and James Stewart wrote to Knox craving his return. Their cause was pro- spering, persecution had abated, they had a ' godly thirst and desire ' for the Gospel, and many of his friends were ' reddy to jeopard lyffis and goodis in the forward setting of the glorie of God.' ^ The tenor of the letter implies that the Dun Covenanters had sounded other opponents of the ecclesiastical system in existence and favourers of change, and had discovered their willingness to promote a revolution, Knox, in reply, incited them to a more public boldness. He knew the influence and armed power of his correspondents, and must have reckoned that if these nobles undertook to defend the evangelical party and cause on a fair field, the Roman Catholic faith would be discarded by his countrymen. They acted on his advice, met in Edinburgh, and there, on the 3rd December, subscribed 'The The Godly Common or Godly Band in 1557.' so 'that everie ane should be the ^^^^j^^ ^^\"^ more assured of other.'- The original document, or a contemporary subscribed copy, is preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh. It is a small sheet of paper measuring 15 J inches by 20 inches, and, in clear calligraphy, preserves the Covenant in these terms : — 'We, persaving how Sathan In his membris, the Antechristes of oure tyme, crewellie dois Raige, seiking to dounetring and to destroye the evangell of Christ and his Congregatioune : awght, according to oure bownden dewtye, to stryve in oure Maisters Cawss, even unto the deth : Being certane of the victorye ' Knox, i. 267, 268. , - Knox, i. 273, 274; vi. 674; Calderwood, i. 326; Keith, i. 154; National MSS. of Scot/and, iii. plate xl., facsimile. For Rev. J.imes Young's account of this Band, rf. Wylie, Tercentenary of the Scottish Reformation, etc. (Edin., i860). 12 THE COVENANTERS Character of the Godly Band. Subscribers to Edinburgh Covenant. in Him : The quhilk our dewtie being weill consydered : We do promis, before the Maiestie of God, and his Congregatioune : that we (be his grace) sail, with all diligence continewallie applie our heill [health], power, substaunce, and oure very lyves, to mentene sett forwarde and establische the Maist Blissed Worde of God, and his Congregatioune : And sail lawboure, at oure possibilitie, to haif faithful ministeres, purelie and trewlie to minister Christes Evangell and Sacramentes to his Peopill : We sail mentene thame, nwrys [nourish] thame, and defende thame the haill Congregatioune of Christ, and everye member therof, at oure haill poweres, and waring of our lyves, against Sathan and all wicked power that dois intend tyrannye or troubill aganis the forsaid Congregatioune. Onto the quhilk holie word and Congregatioune we do Joyne Ws : and also dois forsaik and Renunce the Congregatioune of Sathan with all the superstitioune, abhomina- tioune, and Idolatrie therof: And mareattour sail declare ourselfues Innemies tharto : Be this oure faithful promis, before God, testefyit to his Congregatioune, be oure Subscriptiones at thir presentes. At Edinburgh the — day of December, The Yere of God ane thowsande fyve hundreth fiftie sevin yeres : God callit to wytnes. A. Erie of Ergyl, Glencarne, Mortoun, Ar. Lord of Lome, Jhoiie Erskyne.'^ Probably several copies of this bond were secretly circulated for subscription. Knox states that ' many otheris ' subscribed this public testimony of the faithful, now for the first time designated ' God's Congregation,' and 'the Congregation of Christ.' This instrument is a definite challenge to the Papal System, indicated in the terms 'Satan,' 'Antichrist,' and 'the Congregation of Satan,' and to any 'wicked power' seeking to trouble the true upholders of the Gospel. Knox had already warned the subscribers to obey lawful authority until every legitimate attempt to obtain their just desires had failed. Consequently it is to be noted that this Covenant does not anticipate political complications, and is purely a solemn religious compact binding its acceptors to defend and nourish their own evangelical ministry, and to induce their countrymen to assist them in their aims. The warlike character of its promoters removed any dubiety as to the significance of its warning of ' hands off' These promoters were to become still more notable men in harassed Scotland. All of them were of the Petrine school of disciples, and were expert with the sword. The two Argylls, father ' Knox, vi. 674-5. The dny of the month is not written in, but Knox specified the date, ' the thrid day of December' {ibid., i. 374). A facsimile (reduced) appears in this volume. ■^4^^ :>*.' r* -r t' < o o < \ -: n i*' !*.« A.J'J ft ■ •5 M .9 I HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 13 and son (Archibald, Lord Lome), were men of mettle, and ever ready, when followed by their brown-shanked, red-haired clansmen, to battle lor personal causes, for power, pay, and patriotism, and, probably, from the pure Celtic love of the fray, to lead off the desperate fight for ' Christ's Crown and Covenant.' But death claimed the fourth Earl of Argyll in autumn 1558, before the campaign had begun. His son survived Knox less than a year.^ Archibald, fifth Earl of Argyll, though willing to reform the The Earl of Church and compose the discords of the country, was not devoid of '^ sins himself, and could not make peace in his own home, which required the kindly offices of Knox to settle quarrels there. The latter wrote a characteristic letter to the Earl, telling him that his behaviour to his wife — the half-sister of the Queen — was ' very offensive unto mony godly,' accusing him of 'filthy pleasure,' and forecasting damnation. 'The Lord cometh and sail not tarie,' he prophesied." Glencairn — 'the good Earl' some styled this fifth The Eari of holder of the title — was a man of prayer, of blood and iron too, when ^ "^"^yl'"' needed, not afraid to toy with his two-handed sword when Queen- Regent Mary and Archbishop James Beaton, on being asked to consider the concerns of their expiring Church, preferred ' to read a pasquill ' ; still less afraid, stern iconoclast, to hammer down the idols in Holyrood Chapel ; but probably happiest at Finlayston or where ' Maxwellton braes are bonnie,' when his grey-goose quill was pre- serving his satirical poetry. Morton, James Douglas, the fourth The Ea.i of Earl, was 'a simple and fearful man' according to an English con-^ "cie-'i^Si temporary statesman, but according to his own countrymen ' one not to ride the water with ' ; had the Douglas heart for forward politics rather than for prayers, the Douglas temper for kicking against government, and the Douglas energy for many enterprises, godly and ungodly, for which he forfeited his head in 1581. John Erskine, proprietor of Dun, in Forfarshire, is honourably ' The fifth Earl of Argyll died on 12th September 1573 : Kno.\, i. 290; ii. 25Snote. - IVodro'M MSS. (Glasgow), 'The Life of Mr. John Knox,' App. 27, Letter 7, May 1563; Knox, ii. 377-9. 14 THE COVENANTERS Erskine of Dun, 1508- 1590. Regent Moray IS3I(?)-IS70. entitled to be considered the first Covenanter (1508-90), having entered into all the movements for practical Church reform. A born patriot, a friend of martyred Wishart, Erskine, when on the Continent travelling and studying, had given thought to reform, and at home had done effective work for it by dispatching a priest. He was exactly the kind of lay-leader needed for the crisis, being moderate, scholarly, spiritually-minded, capable, and unflinching. This unique Scot played many parts in his day — soldier, patron of letters. Provost of Montrose, diplomatist, ambassador at Mary's marriage, lay-preacher, exhorter, superintendent of clergy, parish minister, and Moderator of the General Assembly. All parties in the State respected him. Queen Mary Stuart herself declared that ' above all others she would gladly hear the Superintendant of Angus (for he was a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and upright- nesse).'^ With a singular insight, Mary must have perceived in the ' sweet nature ' of Erskine that liberal mind and charitable spirit which the scheming prelatists of a later day utilised for the deforma- tion of presbytery itself It is also satisfactory to learn that among the Covenanters, who are usually covered with much obloquy, the prime mover at least had a ' sweet nature,' and was honest and upright. In Lord James Stewart (1531-70), afterwards Regent Moray, illegitimate son of James v. and Margaret Erskine, daughter of the fifth Earl of Mar, the Covenanters possessed a tower of strength, a wise councillor, and a conciliatory ally. It is probable that he did not approve of the policy of completely sweeping out certain features in the ancient Church which might have been retained after improve- ment, and he probably knew better than the clerical reformers that the new organisations would receive few of the spoils of the old. While a temperate judgment kept him from joining the extremists, his personality and labours were acknowledged by Knox to be a comfort to the Church. The names of the other subscribers are not preserved. Sir ' Knox, ii. 482. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 15 James Sandilands, senior, of Calder, at whose house Knox dispensed the Sacrament, was probably one of these, and among those who waited to choose a definite attitude were Lord Erskine, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Earl Marischal, and the Maitlands of Lethington. The first constructive step of the Congregation, after assuming First Church all the prerogatives and powers of a constituted and organised " Church, was the selection and authorisation of a Confession of Faith and Directory of Worship. They ordained (i) that in all parish churches the Common Prayers of the Second Book of King Edward Sixth, including the lessons from the Old and New Testaments con- tained therein, be read by the curates, or, on their refusal, by the most qualified persons, on Sundays and Holy-days ; (2) that the Scriptures be taught, preached, and interpreted ' privately in quiet houses, without great conventions of the people thereto, till afterward that God move the prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers.'^ A more reasonable and constitutional resolution was not possible. It imposed restraint on too eager lords and barons in the Confederation. Private preachers found shelter in their castles. The influence of their cause became personal, widespread, and deep- rooted, so that happily ' everie man beganne to looke more diligently to his owne salvation.' The Reformers made another step towards organisation by establishing ' The Privy Kirk,' wherein the declared sympathisers of the Protestant cause acknowledged the rule of elders, until preachers were forthcoming to complete a Court of the Church for each congregation. In the absence of a regular ministry, Erskine of Dun, David Forres, Robert Lockhart, Robert Hamilton, and William Harlaw exhorted their associates. The first Reformed Congregation met in Dundee in 1558 under the The first protection of many powerful lairds, Paul Methven being the preacher, cong^ation At first the suave manner and conciliatory policy of the Queen- Regent led the Congregation to expect some redress of their ' Knox, i. 27s, 376. i6 THE COVENANTERS Martyrdom of grievances. But the burning of Walter Mill, a patriarchal preacher ' ' '^^ ■ of eighty-two years of age, at St. Andrews on the 28th April 1558, was the ultimatum of the irreconcilable Church blasting their hopes. Knox, too, was burned in effigy. The doom of Mill, meant to terrorise the dissentients, only roused them against the priesthood, and, according to Spottiswood the historian, brought about ' the very death of Popery,'^ the people binding themselves by oaths, oral and written, to defend the persecuted with arms. The elevation of Elizabeth, a Protestant, to the throne of England, 17th November 1558, gave her northern co-religionists fresh hopes. Petition of The Congregation, now realising that ' there abideth nothing for us but faggot, fire, and sword,' presented to the Queen-Regent and Parliament a remonstrance with a petition craving for reform in Church and State, and for liberty to enjoy the private and public ordinances of religion in the Scots tongue. In reply the Regent consented to the Congregation meeting and worshipping at a distance from Edinburgh, a concession which she soon revoked by a pro- clamation declaring their conventicles illegal. The preachers defied the injunction. They were cited for trial in Stirling on the loth of May. The Congregation gathered in Perth, intending to accompany the accused, but the wily Regent diverted them from their intention, and had the preachers, who did not compear, declared to be rebels, and their sureties fined." Last Council, In the meantime the Provincial General Council met for the last time in Edinburgh, from the ist to the loth of March 1559. Not tealising the temper of the age, far less its needs, it simply emphasised anew the worn-out doctrines, homologated the fruidess policy, and honestly testified to the scandalous rottenness of the Roman Catholic Church by passing reforming Canons far too late.^ On 2nd May 1559 Knox returned to flee no more, to make or ' Spottiswood, Hist., 97 fol. ; Knox, i. 308, 360, 550. - Lang, Knox, Appendix A, p. 275, denies 'Alleged Perfidy of Mary of Guise'; Knox, i. 309 et seq. ^ Koh&x\.soT\, Concilia Scotiae: Ecdesiae Scoticanae Staiuta . . . 1225-1559. 2 vols. Bann. Club, 1S66, q.v. ; Dr. D. Patrick, Stat. 0/ the Scottish Church, Introd., Scot. Hist. Soc, 1907. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 17 mar his fatherland. Proceeding covertly to Dundee and Perth he began to 'thunder,' as the English ambassador graphically described his preaching. The lightning was soon to be seen playing in havoc among the monasteries, nunneries, monuments of idolatry, and other 'popish stuff.' While Erskine's sweet nature was striving to con- ciliate the Regent, Knox was preparing his firebrands. The influence of announcement of the treacherous verdict upon the preachers, issued in Stirling, embittered all the professors of Protestantism and enraged the populace. It is noticeable, notwithstanding what Mr. Buckle wrote to the contrary, how early the masses supported the preachers and politicians in their defiance of their rulers now acting uncon- stitutionally. An inflammatory sermon from Knox on Thursday morning, nth May, and, at the same time, the inopportune chastise- ment of an impudent boy by a priest, whom the imp had irritated as the priest was opening 'ane glorious tabernacle' on the high altar preparatory to the celebration of the Sacrifice, in the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Perth, infuriated first the onlookers and Rising in thereafter the townspeople beyond control. Like a lake which has burst the barriers of its pent-up waters, the mob, if not encouraged, certainly not prevented by the ' brethren,' roared along into the sacred buildings, sweeping down the offending altars, crucifixes, pictures, enrichments, and surged away to carry off the riches of the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carthusians, before their houses were given to the flames.' Knox and the other leaders of the Reform party have been often blamed for not stopping this senseless, widespread devastation. But if the many contemporary accusations that ' the filthie life . . . main- tained amongst that rable of preests, friers, monks, etc. . . . cannot be expressed,' were only half true, it must have been a joy as well as a duty of all good men to watch the flames wiping out those lewd bagnios and scattering their lazy and scandalous tenantry. That every effort was exerted to preserve the churches intact is proved by the subsequent edicts of the General Assembly. ' Knox, i. 321-3 ; Calderwood, Hist., i. 441. C i8 THE COVENANTERS Threats of Hearing of this riot, the angry Regent, relying on her French Queen-Regent. Q^^^^jg^ threatened to turn Perth into a wilderness, sown with salt, and to exterminate the ' professors ' of the new faith. The Guise hatred of the Huguenots was roused. The Reformers retaliated. They, styling themselves ' The Faithfull Congregation of Christ Jesus in Scotland,' on 22nd May addressed to her an ultimatum to the effect that unless her cruelty was stopped they would be compelled to take up arms against those persecuting them for matters of religion and conscience.' They next appealed to the nobility to act, no longer as oppressors, but as arbiters in the cause which they were willing to dispute, Bible in hand. Their final appeal — -it also contained a threat of excommunication — was thus to the highest authority. While they warned the prelates and priests, as murderers, and enemies of God and man, of the doom of the Canaanites, they summoned their own secret sympathisers to arms and prayer. Remonstrances were also addressed to the French officers in the service of the Regent. Their pitiful supplication in this peril is Prayer of recorded in Knox's Liturgy: 'But now, O Lord, the dangers which appeare and the trouble which increaseth by the cruel tyrannic of forsworn straingers compelleth us to complaine before the throne of thy mercy, and to crave of thee protection and defence against their most unjust persecution. That nation, O Lord, for whose pleasure and for defence of whome, we have offended thy majestie, and violated our faith, oft breaking- the leagues of unitie and concorde, which our kings and governors have contracted with our neighbours, that nation, O Lord, for whose Aliance our fathers and predecessors shead their blood, and we (whome now by tyrrannie they oppress) have oft susteined the hasard of battell, that nation, finally to whom always we have bene faithful, now after this long practised deceit, by manifest tyranny, do seke our destruction.' This bitter plaint against France, more like a proclamation than a prayer, ends with calling upon the God that drowned Pharaoh, devoured Amalek, repulsed Sennacherib, and plagued Herod, to protect the Congregation from ' Lang, Knox, 115-16; Knox, i. 326. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 19 those French persecutors. The French troops lay in Auchterarder threatening a descent on Perth on 24th May. The friends of the Congregation in the shires of Perth, Angus, Congregation Mearns, and Fife, took arms and marched to the vicinity of Perth. '""™^' The Ayrshire contingent, under Glencairn, Ochiltree, Boyd, and Campbell, who were accompanied by the preacher, John Willock, hurried to the scene of action. Argyll and Lord James Stewart, who accompanied and had not yet broken with the Queen-Regent, averted the imminent conflict. A truce was agreed on, whereby the Reformers in Perth obtained an amnesty for their recent iconoclasm, and pro- vision was made for the removal of the French soldiers. Before leaving the town, the Regent's envoys appear to have considered that the Regent had broken the terms of the compact, and they publicly associated themselves with the Congregation and their leaders, who subscribed the following- Covenant at the time of the evacuation : — o ' At Perth, the last day of Maij, the yeir of God Jm Vc fiftie nyne yeiris, Perth Cove- the Congregationis of the West Cuntrey, with the Congregationis of Fyfe, Perth, "an'> 3'st Dundie, Anguss, Mearnis, and Munross, being conveaned in the town of Perth, in ^^ '559- the name of Jesus Christ, for furthsetting of his glorie ; understanding nathing mair necessar for the samin than to keep ane constant amitie, unitie, and fellowschipe togidder, according as they ar commanded be God, ar confedcrat, and become bundin [bound] and obleast [obliged] in the presence of God, to concur and assist together in doing all thingis re(juired of God in his Scripture, that may be to his glorie ; and at thair haill [whole] poweris to distroy and away put all thingis that dois dishonour to his name, so that God may be trewlie and puirelie wir- schipped : And in case that any truble beis [be] intended aganis the saidis Con- gregationis, or ony part or member thairof,the haill Congregatioun shall concur, assist, and conveane togidder, to the defence of the samin Congregatioun, or persone trubled ; and shall nocht spair labouris, goodis, substancis, bodyis, and lyves, in manteaning the libertie of the haill Congregatioun, and everie member thairof, aganis whatsomevir power that shall intend the said trubill for caus of religioun, or ony uther caus dependand thairupon, or lay to thair charge under pretence thairof, althocht it happin to be coloured with ony uther outward caus. In witnessing and testimony of the ([uhilkis, the haill Congregationis foirsaidis hes ordayned and appointit the Noblemen and personis underwrittin to subscrive thir presentis. (Sic subscribitur) — ARCH. ERGYLE. GLENCARNE. JAMES STEWART. R. LORD BOYD. MATHOW CAMPBELL of Teringland. UCHILTRIE.'' Knox, i. 344, 345 ; vi. 24 ; Calderwood, Hist.^ i. 458 ; Lany, Knox, 121. Original is lost. 20 THE COVENANTERS Stipulations of This Covenant stipulated (i) to maintain their evangelical con- nant °^^ federation, (2) to do all things required by God in Scripture, (3) to observe pure worship, and (4) to preserve the liberty of the Con- gregation and each member of it. As yet there was no hint of discarding the episcopal polity of the Church. Among the many influential persons who now publicly threw in their lot with these rebellious evangelicals were young Argyll, Lord James Stewart, Robert, fourth Lord Boyd, a masterful man of affairs, Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree, afterwards father-in-law of Knox, and Matthew Campbell of Teringzean, Cumnock, eldest son of Sir Hew Campbell of Loudoun, Sheriff of Ayr. Supporters Argyll and Lord James Stewart joined with the Earl of Ruthven, Congregation, the Earl of Menteith, and the laird of Tullibardine in a mutual bond to defend themselves if interfered with in the exercise of their religion, and to support the Congregation. Their accession gave new heart to the movement. Argyll and Lord James invited Knox and other leaders of the party to meet in consultation at St. Andrews. They responded and brought three thousand men-at-arms with them on 3rd June. Knox came, and, although they were menaced by the Regent and her French Guards in the vicinity, as well as by the bishop and his armed supporters, he still determined to preach in the city.' For four days in the parish church, nth to 14th June, he held his fiery mission. In a jubilant letter dispatched by Knox to Mrs. Anna Lock, among other reasons for satisfaction, he mentions that ' Diverse Channons of Sanct Andrews have given rotable Confessions, and have declared themselves manifest enemies to the Pope, to the Masse, and to all superstition.'- The primatial city fitly became the nursery of the Reformed Church, and the parish church witnessed many priests making renunciation of the old faith and profession of the new doctrines. No fewer than twenty-one ' maisters ' in St. Andrews were mentioned in the first General Assembly as qualified 'in St Androes for ministreing and ' Knox, vi. 25. - Ibid., vi. 26: 'From Sanct Andrewes, the 23d of June 1559.' HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 21 teaching.' ' The populace was stirred and the magistrates yielded to their demand for the destruction of the offending ' monuments of idolatry.' Of them they made a bonfire on the spot where the east wind scattered the ashes of Walter Mill. The houses of the Black and Grey Friars were gutted out. Knox must have been satisfied to find his sermon on Christ's cleansing of the Temple having so practical and salutary effect, and so soon." It was the signal for a religious crusade. Yet no punishment a religious was inflicted upon sayers or hearers of the Mass. The mobs required '^™^'' *^' no hints, and long before the ' Lords of the Congregation' or any official leaders of the Reformation came to countenance the purgation, many churches and religious houses had been robbed and wrecked. The opposition of the Regent led to the mobilisation of her opponents on Cupar Muir and to their capture of Perth. Under their eye the abbeys of Lindores and Scone were reformed, but the irate mob could not be restrained from firing the lovely edifices at Scone. Elsewhere the woeful work proceeded apparently with little restraint, and altars, images, paintings, carvings, screens, relics of saints and martyrs enshrined in gold and adorned with precious stones, vest- ments, books, liturgies, ancient crosses, bells, and even architectural adornments, were smashed in the sacred buildings, stolen, or carried out to bonfires.' The chastest symbols were effaced as out of date and Satanic, as the enemies of liberty and manhood — the 'deckings of eternal ruin.' The sacrilegious mob imagined that they had now ' The Register, p. ii, under date 3rd Feb. 1559, gives the names of eighteen priests who of 'ther auin frc motyve willis' gave this pubhc testimony. Cf. Lee, Lectures, i. 227-32; Dookc of the U. Kirk, i. 4 ; Register, Preface, vii. ' Knox, i. 349. ' In many districts of .Scotland the violence of the Reformers was restrained, and rude hands were only laid on the more oftensive symbols. In the West Highlands, the Celtic Crosses were left unmolested. The beautiful Cross of Ruthwell survived intact till 1642. Images of Christ, .St. Cuthbcrt, and St. Bride (.'') are preserved in Melrose Abbey. The image of the Virgin, 'Our Lady of Aberdeen,' after romantic travels reached Brussels, where it now is [Saint Andrew's Cross, i. 221. With illustrations). In 1613 Lundie parish church still had its ' paintrie.' The internal decorations, screen, etc., of Elgin remained till 1640; those of Leuchars till 1648. Cf. Fasti, iv. 449; v. 151 ; vi. 717; Brodie, Diary, xvii. The head of a statue of Christ was discovered in the excavations of the Priory of St. Andrews : Lang, Knox, 123 ; Trans. Scot. Eccles. Soc, i. pt. iii. 247. 22 THE COVENANTERS reached that advanced stage of intellect and grace when the eternal verities directly inspired them without the aid of symbol, veil, or trapping. But, strange to say, on some churches the lewdest carvings were left intact to be objects for vulgar laughter, or illustrations of an obscenity which defied reform.^ The spoliation nearly equalled the ravages of the armies of Henry viii., which made a cruel tale of ruined churches, abbeys, and religious houses, for whose destruction Knox is unjustly blamed. The Cathedral and other churches of St. Andrews were cleansed but not injured ; Lindores and Balmerino were swept and rummaged ; Scone Abbey and Palace fired ; the monasteries in Stirling destroyed ; Linlithgow Church wrecked, and the monastery of the Carmelites pulled down; Holyrood House, Abbey, and its royal sepulchres rifled; Glasgow Cathedral stripped; and, while four or five churches were cast down, hundreds of parish churches were cleared of their consecrated paraphernalia. It can be easily proved that English soldiery, not Scottish reformers, together with neglect and decay, ruined the noblest edifices in the land.^ Nevertheless, at this time the houses of monks, nuns, hospitallers, and other pious pensioners were gutted by pilfering hands and ruthless flames. The mobs would not be stayed, and for that the Con- gregation is not entirely to be blamed ; for, according to Carlyle, Aim of Knox. ' Knox Wanted no pulling down of stone edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men.' If Knox did not actually say 'the sure way to banish the rookes was to pull down their nests,' he must have approved of the application of the principle to the doomed Church, if his sermons conveyed any meanmg. After proceeding to Edinburgh, whence the Queen-Regent fled on 29th June, the Crusaders came back by Linlithgow to Stirling. The Regent marched and countermarched her French and Scots supporters against the insurgents, but never dared strike even a tentative blow. Her party dwindled while theirs increased. In vain did the ' £■.?•. Roslin Chapel. Robertson, Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals, 88-93 (Aberdeen, 1891). HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 23 Catholic party try every wile to circumvent the Congregation, and Negotiations used every equivocation and promise to dissolve their allegiance to ca,hoiics their sacred cause and to one another. While the Congregation lay '^"^ '^'^ . . Congregation. in Edinburgh watching the turn of affairs, two Commissioners, Wishart of Pittaro and Cunningham of Cunninghamhead, were sent to the Regent to explain the position and demands of the Congregation, while answering her recent damaging proclamation — that they were traitors in rebellion against the Crown. She received the deputation graciously, but desired to treat with others of higher rank in the party, and the Congregation complied by sending Glencairn, Ruthven, Ochiltree, and Wishart on a futile errand. She was parleying to win time. They again defended their compatriots ' compelled to seak the extreme remedie . . . whare thai nather fand fidelitie nor treuth.' ' These conventions, broken off on 12th July, were afterwards resumed at Preston, where a whole day was spent in debating the questions at issue how the Regent could give liberty of religion as she promised while demanding the silence of the Protestant preachers and the maintenance of the Mass. In the Preston conference, Chatelherault, Huntly, Erskine, Sommervell, and other royalists were confronted by Argyll, Lord James Stewart, and the above-mentioned Commissioners. No settlement was arrived at, further than the dispatch of an ulti- matum to the effect that the Congregation were willing to be loyal, provided their preachers were submitted to a proper academic test in presence of the Regent, and themselves were summoned to a lawful parliament eliminated of the bishops — ' the party accused and our plane ennemeis.' The Regent, however, had gained what she aimed at, the dispersal of the armed supporters of the Congregation, who 'war compelled to skaill for lack of expenssis.'" While these negotiations proceeded, the Lords and Barons entered into another defensive Covenant for the maintenance of their Protestant cau.se and the abolition of popery, which was subscribed at Edinburgh on 13th July 1559. Strange to say, Knox, Calderwood, and other con- temporary chroniclers omit this 'band,' which, however, is engrossed in ' Knox, i. 366, 367. ^ Ibid., i. 369. 24 THE COVENANTERS the Register of the Christian Congregation of St. Andrews. There we find it subscribed by the magistrates of St. Andrews — ' Patrick Lermonth of Darsy, Provest ; Maister Alane Lairmonth, Johne Muffatt, bailHes '^ — and 328 men on the 22nd November 1559.' The terms of the Edinburgh Covenant are as follows : — Edinburgh 'THE TENNOUR OF THE LETTRES CONTEYNAND THE NAMES OF ALL THEM THAT Covenant, ARE ADJOYNET TO THE CONGREGATIOUN WITHIN THIS CIETIE. 1 3th July 1559. 'We quhais names ar underwrittin juness us in all thinges conforme to the Generall Band maid betuix the Lordis and Baronis of Congregatioun, at Edinburgh, the xiij day oi Julii, anno, etc. lix, to the Congregatioun and memberis therof, to assist in mutuall support with the said Congregatioun, with our bodies, geir and force, for niaynteyning of the trew religioun of Christe, and downe putting of all superstitioun and idolatrie, conforme to the said Band, quherof the tennour followis and is this : — ' WE QUHAIS names ar underwrittin, quhilkis hes subscrivit thir presentes with our handis, haifand respect to our dewties in setting fordwart the glorie of God, and knawand alswa that we are commandit to June ourselfis togiddir as memberis of ane body, for the furtherance of the samyn, dois, in the name of Christe Jesus, unite ourselfis, that we, in ane mynde and ane spirite, may endivour us, with our haill power and diligence, to walk fordwart in the waiis of the Lord, laboring to destroy and put downe all idolatrie, abhominationess, superstitioness, and quhatsumever thing dois exalte the self against the majestie of our God, and maynteyn and sett up the trew religioun of Christe, his Word and sacramentes, and alswa assist and defend the trew ministeris therof. And as we be sones of ane Father, parttakeris of ane Spirite, and heyris of ane kingdome, swa sail we maist hartlie, faythfuUie and trewlie concur togiddir, nocht onlie in the materis of religioun, bot sail lykewise, at our utter poweris to the waring of our labouris, substance and lyves, assist, defend and maynteyne every ane ane uthir, against quhatsumever that troubles, persewis or invades us, or ony ane of us, in our lyves, landis, gudeis, heretageis, offices, benefices, pensiones, or uthir thinges quhatsumever, praesentlie in our possessioness, or quhilkis justhe we possesset at the begynning of thir praesent trowblis for the religioun, or ony uthir causs praetendit upoun religioun, or persewit under praetenss of the samyn. And, for observing of the premissis, we bind and obliss ourselfis, in the praesence of our God, of his Sone Jesus Christe, calling for the Haly Spirite to strenth us to performe the samyn. At Edinburgh the xiij of Julii, the yeir of God. j" v'= fifty nyne yeris. Quhilk band we approve in all pointtis, and adgoynis ourselfis for mutuall defenss to the haill adheraris therto. ' Register, 6, 7. The Register begins on 27th October 1559. In 1559 Adam Heriot, assisted by many elders and deacons, engaged in the parochial work of reformation in St. Andrews. Cf. D. Hay Fleming's excellent Preface, vii. ; cf, also Knox, vi. 680, 682 ; Maitland Misc., iii. 211. HISTORICAL BEGINNINCxS 25 In all likelihood Knox, who was elected minister of Edinburgh on 7th July, took a part in preparing this document. He was then acting as Secretary to the Lords of the Congregation.* The purgation of 'popish stuff' in the Carse of Stirling went merrily on, and even Cambuskenneth Abbey with its royal tombs was devastated. The national cause had progressed beyond the limits of ' sweet nature.' Unchecked success had developed the ancient, bold, high- minded temper of the days of the Bruce in the multitude, and they, arms in hand, were strung up to such a pitch of excitement that they were ready to defy the Government. Protestantism felt strong enough to ban Romanism. The resolution of the hour was expressed in the Covenant signed at Stirlino- to this effect : — ' We foirseing the craft and slycht of our adversaries, tending all manner of Stirling wayis to circumvene us, and be [by] prevy meanis intendis to assailzie everie ane Covenant, of us particularlie be fair hechtis [offers] and premisses, thairthrow to separat ane ''^' August of us from ane uther, to cure utter rewyne and destructioun : for remedy heirof we faythfullie and trewlie byndis us in the presence of God, and as we tender the mentenance of trew Religioun, that nafie of us sail in tymeis cuming pas to the Queneis Grace Dowriare, to talk or comniun with hir for any letter [or] message send be hir unto us, or yitt to be send, without consent of the rest, and commone consultatioun thairupoun. And quhowsone that ather message or writt sail cum fro hir unto us, with utter diligence we sail notifie the same ane to ane uther ; swa that nathing sail proceid heirin without comune consent of us all. At Striveling the first day of August 1559.'" This Covenant was meant to guard against any perfidious dis- sensions among those now so strongly confederated for the main- tenance of true religion. The Church was anxiously endeavouring to mitigate the grievances complained of, to purge away the vices of its officials, and to win back the disaffected. Their efforts were futile. Preaching, so long punishable by law, was a common occur- rence, and terrible denunciations were hurled against Antichrist — the shaveling prelates, and priests. Scottish blood was afire with the spirit and energy of a Joel. ■ Knox laboured night and day, ' St. Giles, Old or Great Church ; Knox, vi. 43, notes 2, 3 ; Scott, Fasti, i. 3. - Knox, i. 382 ; Calderwood, i. 489. The original is lost. 26 THE COVENANTERS travelling throughout the realm, to rouse, educate, and convert the lieges, and sounding the gospel trumpet. Yet by the autumn of 1559 there were only eight established pastorates, with constituted kirk-sessions probably associated with all of them — in Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Dundee, Perth, Brechin, Montrose, Stirling, and Ayr.^ The intelligent laity welcomed the opportunity for overthrowing the ecclesiastical tyranny which had so long suppressed the popular aspirations for personal freedom and education. The Bible was seen to assure every one of spiritual independence. To get and retain that, the Covenanters buckled swords as well as Bibles to their belts, and put ' pots ' of steel upon their heads as safe symbols of the helmet of salvation. Unhappily, and despite themselves, these pious patriots became associated with a powerful set of mean landgrabbers, whose real aim was to obtain the territorial wealth of the Church, which was diverted from ' pious uses,' without benefiting the spoilers very much. Mar)- Stuart's The last hope of the Romanist party lay in France. The marriage, . . , , ., 155S. marriage of Mary Stuart to the Dauphin, on the 24th April 1558, created in the hearts of her co-religionists at home the devout assurance that the arms of France would extino^uish the northern heresy. A Scots party, headed by Lord James Stewart, leagued themselves against the possible results of this alliance. The death of Mary Tudor, and the accession of the Protestant Elizabeth, completely changed the aspect of English affairs. The Covenanter's arena got a wider, brighter horizon. The personal element in the contest was forgotten in the larger issue of national freedom. A political cry was heard for the displacement of the ' monsieurs,' 'pestilences,' 'cut-throats,' as the Court and their French Guard were called, especially after these troops had issued from the citadel at Leith to butcher women, children, and craven men, some of whose bodies they afterwards dangled over the breastworks, to form what the Regent, with the light heart of her race, termed ' a pleasing ' The Register of the Kirk Session of St. Andrews, part i., 1559-82, edit. D. Hay Fleming, Scot. Hist. Soc, 188S, Preface. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 27 tapestry ' — a bloody fresco to be often avenged, swore the gospellers with the Bibles in their sword-belts. The Congregation made bold to announce their deposition of the Queen-Regent in October. The French troops continued to harass the land. Queen Elizabeth and her Council had dynastic as well as religious Elizabeth's reasons for sending armed support to the Scottish Protestants entering ,560. '^ on civil war. Elizabeth was the dite noire of the Catholics, who looked upon her as ' a tyrant more ferocious than any heathen persecutor.'' It is a commonplace established by the State papers of the day — English, French, Spanish, and Venetian — that the destruction of Scottish Protestantism was to be the prelude to the dethroning of Elizabeth, and the elevation of Mary Stuart to the English throne. By the Treaty of Berwick, 27th February 1560, Elizabeth undertook to preserve the freedom of Scotland, which in return was to aid England if molested by France. The alliance guaranteed Protestantism. The stakes dependent upon that conflict were clearly set forth in a bond agreed upon by the Scots party — Covenanters and political patriots — when the united Protestant troops of England and Scotland lay before Leith besieging the F'rench there in April 1560. This is the first Covenant which combined political resolutions in conjunction with theological and ecclesiastical demands. And it indicates how the northern Reforma- tion was assisted to an earlier consummation by the opportune interference of the alien French on the one hand, and by the counter- balancing intervention of the English on the other. The terms of the Leith Covenant are as follow : — ' Ane Contract of the Lords and Barons to defend the Liberty of the Rvangell Leith Covc- of Christ. "=^"V 27'h 'At Edinburght, the xxvij day of Aprile, the yeir of God ane thousand fyve ^P'''' '^ °- hundreth threescoir yeiris : We, quheis namis ar underwrittin, half promittit and oblist oiire selffis faithfullie in the presens of oure God, and be thir presentis promittis that we altogidder in general!, and euery ane of us in special, be him selff, with oure bodeis, guidis, freyndis, and all that we may do, sail sett fordwurt the Reforiiiatioun of Religioun, according to Goddes word; and procure, be all means possibill, that the treuth of Goddes word may half free passage within this Hallam, Const. Hist., i. 149. 28 THE COVENANTERS Realme, with due administratioun of the sacramentis, and all thingis depending upoun the said word ; And siclik, deiplie weying with cure selfis the misbehavour of the Frenche Ministeris heir; the intolerabill oppressiouns committit be the Frenche men of weir upon the poore subjectis of this Realme, by meyntenance of the Quene Dowager, under cuUour and pretence of authoritie ; the tyrannye of thair Capitanis and leadaris ; and manifest danger of conqueist, in quhilk this countrey presentlie standis, be reasoun of dyverse fortificatiouns upoune the sea- coast; and uther novelties of lait attemptit be thame ; promittis, that We sail, als Weill every ane with uther, as altogidder, with the Quene of Englandis armie, presentlie cumit in for oure delyverance, effectuallie concur and joyne togidder, talking anefald plane pairt, for expulsioun of the said strangeris, oppressouris of oure libertie, furth of this Realme, and recovery of oure ancient fredomis and liberties ; to the end, that in tyme cuming. we may, under the obedience of the Kyng and Quene our Soveranis, be onlie rewllit be the lawis and customeis of the Cuntrey, and borne men of the land : And that never ane of us sail half pryvey intelligence be writting, message, or communicatioun with ony of oure saidis ennemeis or adversareis in this cause, bot be the advise of the rest (at least of fyve) of the Counsale. Attour, that we sail tender the commun cause, as gif it war the cause of everie ane of us now joinit togidder, being leiful and honest, sail be all oure causes in generall : And he that is ennemy to the caussis foirsaid, sail be ennemy to us all : in sa far, that quhatsoever persone will planelie resist thir oure godhe interpryseis, and will not concur as ane guid and trew member of this Common weill, we sail fortifie the auctoritie of the Counsale, to reduce thame to thair dewitie. Lyke as we sail fortifie the auctoritie foirsaid of the Counsale, in all thyngis tending to the furtherance of the saidis causses : And gif ony particular debait, quarrell, or contraversie, sail arryse, for quhatsoever cause, bygane, present or to cum, betwix ony of us (as God forbid,) in that caise, we sail submit our selfis and oure saidis questionis, to the decisioun of the Counsale, or to arbitratouris to be namit be thame. And providing alwayis, that this be not prejudicial! to the ordinarie jurisdictioun of Judgeis, but that men may persew thair actiouns by ordour of law civilie or criminallie, before the Judges Ordinaris gif thai please. ' In wytnes of the quhilk we have subscrivit this present Band with our hands, day, zeir, and place above wryttine. James. James Stewart! James Hammylton. Jhon Monteyt. Huntley. Ruthwen. Ar* Argill. R. Boyd. Glencarn. Ogylwye. Rothes. Vchiltree. Mortoun. Jhon"' Maxvell, A. Gordoun. Patryk Lyndsay. James Stewart [Johnson in Knox], Jhon M[aister] Phorbes. Appara?id of Elphistoun. Lord Somerwell. Patryk Douglas. James Halyburton. Robert Campbell. Ale.x-- Dunbar of Cuvuwk. >7" ^- j.-s,r.„„i.., _v , , ^■\ - ' I ■■'■ .-.v.iY. , ^A. -.,■.«.' •■/.-• . -"^S^ 1 ■ ' /.'• tsm t' 1 ■ ' II* HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 29 Andrew Jhonson. Robyn Car. Jhon Gordon of Finlatter. Alex'' Seton, Younger of Meldrum. Henry Grahame, Yowigar of Morphy. Alex"^ Gordon of Abyrzelde. Drumlaynryk. Faunhaus [Andro Ker of Fau- donside?]. Craynston of that Ilk. Wedderburn. Alexr. Hume. Jhonson. Graytly. ^\™ Douglas of Whyttingeym. George Hwme of Spott. George Nysbyt, with my hand at my pen. Cunnynghaymhyd. Leslye of Bowquhane. Jhon Innes of that Ilk. Arthur Phorbes. W™ Lesley, Youngar of Wardes. Jhon Wishart. Drumloyghie. Cesfuird. Hundhill. Mark Kar.' ' The bond might not be so menacing as the array of signatures made it appear, for Huntly, still the acknowledged chief of the popish party, had also appended his name. Nevertheless, the inspection of this bond opened the eyes of the Queen-Dowager to her perilous position, surrounded as her feeble executive was by such influential opponents. Of the forty-nine powerful laymen and landholders who subscribed this patriotic bond, only a few appear afterwards in the first General Assemblies of the Church, from which we must conclude that the long-suffering laity were now roused, and that their latest bond was the proclamation of a war committee, with more in view than the restoration of a pure gospel. The Leith Covenant pro- Doctrines in mulgated two substantial doctrines, novel in Scotland and irreconcil- n^nt. able with the principles of Hildebrand and the practice of the Church of Rome, namely, (i) that the people are the custodiers of the Word of God; and (2) that the people of Scotland are the rightful con- servators of their own ancient ' freedoms and liberties,' among which is government by native sovereigns and magistrates, according to use, wont, and the will of the governed. The perilous doctrine of governing by majorities was implied, and that of ruling by force was asserted. Altogether it is a remarkable document, evincing the realisation of the principle of personal responsibility, and indicating ' Knox, ii. 64. The original of this Covenant is preserved in the Hamilton archives. Cf. Hist. MSS. Com., XI. vi. 43 (88). A facsimile (reduced) is inserted in this volume. THE COVENANTERS Queen- Dowager dies, loth June 1560. Parliament, August 1560. Confession of Faith, 1560. the growth of a sane patriotism based upon the ' self-respect of race. The trend of affairs was democratic. The masses were against a Crown guarded by foreigners. The French in Leith were in straits. The poHtical position was changed by the unmourned death of the Queen-Dowager on the loth June. The Treaty of Edinburgh, 6th July, ended the French occupation. The wearied combatants found peace on the withdrawal of the alien soldiery in July. The Scots Reform party now found themselves predominant at home, and for ever relieved of the incubus of the papacy and its tyrannical agents. With a discredited Church, defeated foe, dead Regent, and absent sovereign, it was not difficult for the Congregation to have the Reformed Faith legally recognised by the Estates of the Kingdom in Parliament assembled at Edinburgh in July. After adjournment it continued sitting between the first and twenty-fourth day of August. Of the 188 members present, the lay Protestant element predominated, more than two-thirds being country gentry and burgesses, with six pre- lates and twenty-one heads of religious houses. The clerical Reformers, having presented a petition to Parliament craving recognition of their principles and policy, were invited to formulate the doctrines which they, as spiritual leaders of the Congregation, were desirous to have legally sanctioned. This they had in hands, having been charged to prepare a Creed in April, after the signing of the Leith Covenant. Thereupon they proffered ' The Confession of fayth professed and beleved be the protestantis within the Realme of Scotland, publischeit be thame in Parliament, and be the estaitis thairof ratifeit and apprevit, as l;ailsome and sound doctrine groundit vpoun the infallibill trewth of godis word.' ' ' Our confession was publicly read,' wrote Knox, ' first in audience of the Lords of the Articles, and after, in audience of the whole Parliament.' - Not till it was read a second time, article by article, and ■^ Aci. Pari. Scot., ii. 526 ; Knox, ii. 92-122 ; Keith, i. 311-22 ; iii. 4-7 ; Dunlop, A Collection of Confessions, ii. 13 ; Calderwood, ii. 15, 37. 'The Confessione,' printed by R. Lekprewik in 1561, was sold at the Scott Library sale in 1905 for £,\zb, the 1649 Elzevir edition was also sold for ^36. The variations on the title-pages are noteworthy. - Acts of Parliament relative to the Confession of Faith : 1560, Act. Pari. Scot., ii. 526*, ratificatioii ; 1560, ii. 527-34, recorded in full ; 1560, c. 3, ii. 535, acts contrary annulled; 1567, HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 31 voted upon was this standard accepted and formally sanctioned by Par- liament on the 17th August, a few members dissenting. Subsequent diets were occupied in passing disestablishment acts, which abolished every vestige of papal authority. On the 24th of August it was enacted, DiscstaUish- (i) that the jurisdiction and authority of the Bishop of Rome, called the "g"' ^^'^' Pope, as well as of the bishops and prelates commissioned by him, were abolished ; {2) that all former acts directed against the ' professors of the Word,' and now contrary to the Confession of Faith, were revoked ; and (3) that since ' the papistical Kirk ' had abused the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, no person shall say or hear Mass, or without authority publicly administer any sacrament, under the penalty of confiscation of goods and bodily punishment for the first offence, banishment for the second, and execution for the third. The intolerance of this doom of death for religious belief, which seems harsh even for a rude age, is not to be credited to the Reformers, it being a layman's punishment, and the ordinary penalty then for those who shot at wild oeese and other game.* Besides the eager interest in the national situation evinced by the commonalty, as represented by barons and burgesses, the notable feature of this Parliament was the presence of the Primate (Hamilton) and five bishops and other Church dignitaries, whose silence was Bishops assent tantamount to leaving their case to go by default." Although these ment" "^ radical acts never received royal sanction they operated instantane- ously. The pastors, teachers, public officials, loyal to the old regime, were summarily ejected from position and home. Soon the reign of c. 4, iii. 14, 26ad, acts contrary annulled ; 1567, c. 6, § i, iii. 23, 36, gainsayers unchurched 1581, c. I, iii. 2101^, again ratified ; 1640, c. 18, v. 270, to be subscribed by all ; 1649, c. 58 vi. ii. 161, King to accept ratifying acts at coronation (i.e. Westminster Confession); 1649, c. 59, vi. ii. 161, again ratified; 1681, viii. 244*, supp. 441^, officials to accept (1567) Confes sion ; 1690, ix. 117(^-131^, recorded in full; l6go, c. 7, ix. 133, app. I47(5, ratified; 1693, c 38, ix. 303 ; 1702, c. 3, xi. 16 ; 1703, c. 2, xi. 104, ratified ; 1707, c. 6, xi. 402, 413* ; 1693, c 38, ix. 303, ministers to subscribe ; 1690, c. 25, ix. 164a ; 1707, xi. 403«, 414*2 ; 1700, x. app 48^, professors and teachers to subscribe. ' Russell, 'The Scottish Parliament of 1560,' U. F. Church Magazine, June 1906, p. 37, gives a good account of this Parliament ^ The bishops of Galloway, Caithness, and Orkney associated themselves with the Re- form party : .Scot, Apologelical Narration, 4. 32 THE COVENANTERS Romanism was over. Evangelical religion had overthrown its incubus. The new ship took time to get under way. The Church reformed was in reality a new creation. It is commonly asserted that the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, established by law, is identical with the national Roman Catholic Church after the latter had been lopped of its absurd and useless excrescences of doctrine, worship, and Continuity of polity, and can boast of an unbroken continuity. These assertions are not in harmony with historical facts. All that the Congregation received and utilised out of the disestablished Church were the parish churches, in most instances tawdry, seatless, dilapidated, and the questionable title to a share of the ancient patrimony — the latter a mere prospect. Everything else was discarded — Pope, hierarchy, charac- teristic doctrines, official language in Latin, canon law, monastic orders and rules, traditions, symbols, civil powers, honours, ceremonies, festivals, missal, gradual, ordinal, ' pilgrimages, pardons, and other sic baofCTaofe,' as Knox wrote, and also the Vulgate translation of the Bible in Latin. So thorough was this efifacement of the Church and its apparatus of worship in every respect, that it was necessary for nine- teen years to import the English Bible, and care was taken to announce that it was translated out of the original Hebrew and Greek tongues.* Nothing was left of a once grand institution but stone and lime to which clung very mixed traditions. The disuse of the imposition of hands in the ordination of ministers gives irrefragable proof that Knox and his associates put no value upon the alleged virtue of apostolical succession. The continuity of the Church cannot justly be argued from the fact that some priests, discrediting their former pro- fessions, enrolled themselves with Wycliffites, Lutherans, and other anti-Romanist sectaries, with jurists and college professors turned preachers, with laymen, with homeless regulars appointed to be lay- readers of a brand-new prayer-book and psalter, and called themselves and their followers The Church. The Reformers' strongest reason 1 'The Bible and Holy Scriptures, etc. . . . (Bassandyne, 1576) .... Edinburgh be Alexander Arbuthnet 1579.' HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 33 for their revolt was that the Church of Rome was no Church at all, church of inasmuch as it had failed to preach the gospel purely, to administer (.J^||)^^ the sacraments scripturally, and to exercise discipline justly. In con- sequence of this oft-declared opinion, they proceeded to institute a Church de novo, taking for a model the primitive Church of apostolic times. The Encrlish Bible — not the Scots vernacular— was the foundation-stone, and John Knox fitly laid it.^ The manner in which the first General Assembly was convened Birthday of , , . . ^ . . , , . . ^ the Protestant IS not known, but m its first session it took the wise precaution to church, give to its strongest member, Knox, probably the moderator on that occasion, the power to call all subsequent meetings in troublous times." The Assembly of 1563 confirmed this appointment. The right of the Church to indict its own Assemblies was from the first maintained by the Reformers to be organic and inherent in its independent consti- tution ; Knox clearly expressing that principle thus : ' Tack from us the fredome of Assemblies, and tack from us the Evangell : for without Assemblies, how shall good ordour and unitie in doctrine be keapt? '^ That first Assembly fixed the birthday of the Protestant Church as a legislative and administrative Council .and Court of the Scottish realm. The first Assembly, rightly designated by Row 'the first Nationall First General Assemblie,' ' numbering six ministers ■' and thirty-six lay commissioners ,^g^"' ^' from Congregations, met in Edinburgh on the 20th December 1560. The next meeting, of which the sederunt remains 28th June 1562, was attended by sixteen ministers and an equal number of lay commis- sioners, together with five superintendents.*^ They met in ' Mr. Hendrie Land's house ' at Edinburgh. Lay influence was prominent ' The Puritans', People's, Genevan, or Breeches Bible was used in Scotland from 1 560 till after 161 1. The first Scots edition was the Bassandyne-Arbuthnet 1576-9 Edin. edit. - Booke of the U. Kirk, i. 3, 38, 39. ^ Knox, ii. 296. ' Row, History, 13. ' John Knox, minister at Edinburgh (St. Giles) ; Christopher Goodman, St. Andrews ; John Row, Perth ; David Lindesay, Leith ; William Harlaw, St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh ; Wil- liam Christesone, Dundee. " John Spottiswood for Lothian, John Wynram for Fife, John Willock for Glasgow, John Erskine for An^us, John Carswell for Arj,'yll. John Row was afterwards appointed commis- sioner (1570) for Nilhsdale and Galloway. THE COVENANTERS Tolerance ot Church. in the Reformed Church since its commencement, and to the laity the leaders of the Church looked for the maintenance of the Faith. Their sane policy of trusting to a democratic government within the Church, their avowed interest in the temporal and spiritual welfare of every citizen, and the new privileges they had to offer, resulted in what they expected — the goodwill of the people in general. The best illustra- tion of the reoard with which these earnest leaders esteemed their fellows is afforded in the ' Order of Excommunication and of Public Repentance.' ' Knox composed it out of the works of John Alasco. It would not have surprised us to have found therein expressed an intolerant spirit condemnatory of sinners, impious or repentant. In- stead, its appeals, rebukes, and admonitions breathe anxiety and pity for the erring. And the final act, when the minister, elders, and deacons take the reconciled brother by the hand before embracing him in the face of the whole congregation, forms a picture which it is hard to reconcile with the untrue portrait of Knox, as a vulgar, rude, choleric, heartless, irreconcilable fanatic.- So far from Knox being unchristianly violent to his popish opponents, he appears generous at the first General Assembly, when it was enacted : ' That all sik as hes bein in the ministrie of the Pope's Kirk, good and well conditioned persones, that they sail live upon the almes of the Kirk, with the number of the poore.'^ Knox and his covenanting associates main- tained that it was righteous procedure on the part of the State to adopt, and to see that the subjects accepted, a religion. But the difference between the Reformed and the Romanist position was this, that the acceptor in the latter case had to accept and say nothing, in the former, the believer had the right to appeal direcdy to the Holy Writ as the sole authority on matters of faith. This privilege itself contributed to the advancement of a benighted population. It at least assumed their possession of intelligence ; it augured the growth of liberty of thought ; it btoke the keys of Rome. To organise a new institution is more arduous than to deform an 1 Knox, vi. 447-70; Aldis, List, No. 57, edit. 1569. ' Bookc of the U. Kirk, i. 5, 27th Dec. 1560. - Knox, vi. 470. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 35 old. To equip a church or preaching station and a school in each of Needs of new a thousand parishes, to provide stipends for pastors and teachers from ""^ ' tithes already in other hands, to outroot time-hallowed superstitions, to fortify authority, to out-manceuvre undermining Jesuitry, to manage slippery nobles at the head of angry mobs, the Congregation of Christ needed to be entrenched behind the strong bulwarks of the ' Confession of Faith ' and of ' The First Book of Discipline, or the Policie and Discipline of the Church.' ^ These epoch-making treatises were the production of six famous Johns^ — Knox, Spottis- wood, Wynram, Willock, Row, and Douglas. These scholars were men of brains, character, and personal influence. Knox and Spottis- wood had not the academic distinctions of their associates ; Wynram was a doctor of theology ; Willock a doctor of medicine ; Row an advocate and doctor of laws ; and Douglas a schoolman. All of them were mature in age and had held honourable offices in the Church they had abandoned. Spottiswood (1510-85), a graduate of Glasgow, after residing in Spottiswood, England under the patronage of Archbishop Cranmer settled as the '5i°-'5 s- parson of Calder and became the first Superintendent of Lothian and the Eastern Marches. A mild, gentle, and wise disposition made his councils weighty.'- Wynram (1492-1582), a Fifeshire man, also a Wynram, graduate, who lived in the cultured atmosphere of St. Andrews all ''♦^-'^ ^• his days, entered the Augustinian monastery there, became its sub- prior, took part in the assize on the martyrs Wishart and Mill, and became a Protestant in 1560. He was the first Superintendent of Fife, approved of the Leith Convention, assisted in compiling the Second Book of Discipline, inaugurated Douglas as Archbishop of St. Andrews, held on to his priorship of Portmoak, and died in 1582 at the venerable age of ninety. Willock, an Ayrshire man and monk wiiiock, exiled for his reforming opinions from Scotland and England, fled to ""■ '^^^" the Continent, where he practised medicine, returned to Ayrshire in 1558 and proclaimed the new evangel under the protection of the Lollard landlords. He was appointed Superintendent of Glasgow and ' Edin., 1560: Knox, ii. 183-260. "- Cf. Life, prefaced to Spottiswood's History, fol. 36 THE COVENANTERS Row, 1526- 15S0. Douglas, 1494-1574. Confession of Faith, 1560. the West, and was five times Moderator of the General Assembly. He has the unique distinction of being the only English cleric who sat in the Moderator's chair — Willock holding the rectory of Loughborough till his death in 1585. A liberal mind and a spirit less obtrusive than that of Knox made him a more popular disputant with the Catholics. Row of Row, near Stirling (1526-80), another graduate of St. Andrews, first became an advocate, was appointed procurator for the Scots clergy at Rome, obtained a doctorate of laws at Padua, and returned as a papal nuncio to investigate and suggest methods for uprooting the northern heresy. He joined the heretics, was four times appointed their Moderator, became Superintendent of Galloway, helped to compile the Books of Discipline, became minister of Kennoway, and died minister of Perth in 1580. His knowledge of canon and civil law and of the forms of juridical procedure was of great service to the Reform party in the reorganisation of the Church.^ Douglas (1494- 1574), Provost of St. Mary's and Rector of the University of St. Andrews, has often been confounded with another Douglas who was a preacher protected by Argyll. His office was scholastic until Regent Morton appointed him first Protestant Archbishop of St. Andrews. His educational experience was useful in the preparation of the Standards of the Church. Although only two score of earnest preachers and adherents of Protestantism rallied round the flag of the Covenant in the first General Assembly (1560), these six scholars pre-eminently had the qualifications required for the making of the position, creed, practice, and policy of the Church clear, emphatic, logical, and scriptural. They had an admirable pattern in ' The Confession of Faith used in the EnoHsh Conofresation at Geneva : Received and approved by the Church of Scotland in the Beginning of the Reformation.' In four chapters it deals concisely with the doctrines of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Church. - The Confession of Faith and Doctrine, embodied in twenty-five articles, states lucidly the evangelical doctrines current among the ' Cf. Row, The Historic of /he Kirk, etc., Wodrow .Society edit., 1842, Pref., vii-lxii. ' Knox, i. 159 note; vi.547; Uunlop, ^ Collection of Confessions, ii.3; VVodro-w Misc., i. 1-23. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS Z7 Reformed Churches abroad, in sharp definition and in contrast with the dogmas then discarded/ These twenty-five chapters treat of God ; Creation of Man ; Original Sin ; Revelation of the Promise ; the Growth of the Church ; the Incarnation ; the God-Man ; Election; Christ's Mortality ; Resurrection ; Ascension ; Faith in the Holy Ghost ; Good Works ; Works good before God ; Perfect Law and Imperfect Man; The Church ; Immortality; The Church, true and false ; Authority of Scriptures ; General Councils ; Sacraments ; their right administration; their application ; Civil Magistrate; Bequests to Church. This Confession is substantially based upon the Calvinistic Confessions and shows traces of the teaching of Calvin and Alasco. While emphasising the invincible authority of the Old and New Testaments, it promulgates a liberal theology of which the key-note Keynote of is justification by faith and personal sanctification through the Holy Spirit. Infallibility, admitted to belong to the Bible but not to a confessedly fallible Church, is associated, as in the First Book of Discipline, with a clear principle of toleration, thus : ' If any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning to God's Holy Word, if it would please him of his gentleness and for Christian charity's sake to admonish us of the same in writing, and we of our honour and fidelity do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God {i.e. from His Holy Scriptures), or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss."- It differentiates a true Church '^"'^''■'"^■^ "f the Confession. from a ' filthy synagogue,' in that the former preaches the gospel, administers the sacraments, and executes discipline as prescribed in Scripture. The Holy Spirit alone is the infallible interpreter of revelation. Church councils, while expedient, have no power to invent decrees not specified in the Word. It acknowledges ' twa chief Sacramentis onlie ' ; that is. Baptism and the Lord's Supper.'' Denying the doctrine of transubstantiation and discarding the view ' Aldis, List, No. 31 (Lekprewik) ; No. 32 (.Scot.), edit. 1561 ; T/ic Confessioiie, etc.; Knox, ii. 93-121 ; Calderwood, ii. 15-37 ; Dunlop, A Collection 0/ Confessions of Faith, ii. 3, 13 (Edin., 1722). ' Confession, Preface. For the other references, cf. §§ 18-22. ^ Winzet, Tractates, i. 81, Scot. Te.\t boc. edit. 38 THE COVENANTERS of Zwingli as to the merely memorial significance of the bread and wine, the Confession accepts the teaching of Calvin as to the mystical conjunction of the Redeemer and the believer in the communing act. It repudiates the priests as not lawful ministers because they per- mitted women to baptize, had adulterated the sacraments by impure additions, withheld the cup from laymen, and, in offering propitiatory sacrifices for the sins of the quick and the dead, had set themselves up as mediators. It approves of obedience to civil magistrates, who are God's vicegerents, to whom are intrusted the suppression of idolatry and superstition ; but it concedes no sovereignty or headship over the Church to any civil ruler or to any single individual. First Book of The First Book of Discipline is a practical supplement to the iscip inc. Confession, an exhibition of the function of the Church and a manual of Church policy for clergy and laity. It was prepared along with the Confession and in 1 564 was revised by George Buchanan and others.^ It is based on foreign models, Douglas probably shaping its educational sections, and Knox drafting the body of the work with the aid of the ordinances of the Lutheran and the Calvinistic Churches. Unfortu- nately it was not passed into law. The General Assembly met on the 15th January 1561, and two days afterwards the Privy Council, to the number of thirty-two, including Chatelherault, Arran, Argyll, Stewart (Moray), Rothes, Marischal, Morton, Glencairn, the Bishop of Galloway, and others, subscribed the document, with this proviso, that the beneficed clergy who had transferred their allegiance to ' us ' {i.e. the supporters of the Reformation) should enjoy their benefices till death, on their making provision for the new ministry of the gospel. The confusion of ecclesiastical and baronial interests in land-owner- ship made this condition imperative. The General Assembly in May was content with this ratification, since the legislators were not prepared to convert into statute the proposals of the Assembly which referred to questionable charters of land which some proprietors had got after improper marriage alliances.- ' Booke of tJu U. Kirk, i. 41 ; Dunlop, A Collection 0/ Confessions, ii. 515 ; Knox, ii. 183-258. 2 Bookcofthe U. Kirk, i. 8. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 39 The Book of Discipline contains nine articles on Doctrine, Sacra- Book of ments, Idolatry, Ministers and Readers, Stipends and Church ^^'^"^'p''"^- possessions payable for religion and education. Church Patrimony, Discipline, Elders and Deacons, and the Policy of the Church (including marriage, burial, profanity, etc.). This book offers the most comprehensive and statesmanlike scheme for the complete government of the Church, promotion of parochial and university education, and the relief of the poor. One of its most remarkable features is that while it asserts that the Church has unchallenoeable o authority in the spiritual sphere, yet, with Luther, it does not con- template handing over religious offenders to punitive magistrates, but deprives them of Church privileges, isolates them from the well-behaved, causes them to be proclaimed ' infamous ' and held as spiritually dead until they are repentant. Their only privilege reserved was hearing of the gospel. At the same time their opponents — 'the shaven sort, the beast's marked men,' as Catholics were called, being considered enemies of the commonwealth rather than religious adversaries or dissenters — were to be transferred to the magistrates for severe, even capital, punishment, under fear of God's curse. Among the rights it confers are these : ministers and idlers are to go where sent by their respective governments ; congre- gations are to elect their own office-bearers — the elders and deacons annually ; the Church is to appoint ten superintendents instead of the bishops — it does not expressly condemn diocesan bishops, but gives them no place in the new polity ; the preacher must confess an inward call of the Holy Spirit and ask for trial as a minister ; the Church is to judge his qualifications and his hearers his style and acceptability. The Book recognises the scriptural warrant for the ministry, eldership, and diaconate which are permanent offices, and the expediency of having superintendents and readers who were temporary officials. The readers might also be 'exhorters,' exercising the duties of the ministry, without, however, dispensing the sacraments. Readers and exhorters were expected to teach the young. The neglect of these wise provisions resulted in the intolerable infringements of the liberties 40 THE COVENANTERS of the Church and the people, and the subsequent dismemberment of the Church in 1S43. Non-intrusion was a fundamental principle in 1560. Consequently this Book calls upon the civil ruler to free the Church from devourers and oppressors. The question of the State being bound to maintain a pastorate by means of taxation had not emerged, because the Church patrimony was available for stipends. The patrimony then consisted of primitive reclamations of land handed down from time immemorial, special bequests, and legalised tithes. The Reformers rightly demanded the ' godly use ' of the patrimony for the ' poor ' — who were defined to be poor ministers. Provisions of teachers, and needy persons. The compilers of the Discipline, seeing ?°°^. °f that the tithe was not sufficient to maintain the ministers, very Discipline. _ _ _ ^ improperly arranged to divert and utilise the benefactions ' doted to hospitality.' That the exigencies of their case made these Reformers into voluntaries is indicated by the articles, that 'merchants and rich craftsmen in free burghs, having nothing to do with the manuring of the ground, must make some provision in their cities, towns, and dwelling-places, for to support the need of the Kirk,' and that in the larger churches the worshippers should contribute to the repair of the edifices.^ The hearers of the gospel were also expected to maintain the preachers and public readers of it." Other office-bearers were not paid salaries." The grand aim was to make it easy for all to hear the gospel, for every child to be educated, for every clever youth to 1 £00/: of Discipline, chap. viii. §6 ; xv. § i (edit. 1830, in Compe7iditim of the Acts, etc.). 2 Knox, ii. 538 ; Booke of the U. Kirk, i. 46. In 1592, when Edinburgh was divided into -.light parishes, the Kirk and Council ordered the ' godly and honest men ' of the town to provide stipends till they were available out of the Common Good : Bruce, Sermons, 32, Wodrow edit. ■' Stipends : — Superintendent : 6 chalders bare, 9 chalders meal, 3 chalders oats, 500 merks in money. Minister: 40 bolls meal, 26 bolls malt, merks, according to ability of con- gregation. Reader (and Exhorter) : 100 merks. Reader (ordinary') : 40 merks. These quantities are equivalent to ;£296, ^63, £%, us. 3d., and £z, 4s. 5d. sterling respec- tively at the present average prices (1907). Nothing like these salaries was actually paid. Cf. 'Register of Ministers,' Wodro-di Miscell., i. 319-96. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 41 proceed to college, for the honest poor to find bread, and for the magistrates to repress idlers and vicious persons. The magnanimity and Christian sympathy displayed in the Book of Discipline, in its demand for comfort to the poor and elevation of the masses, tempted the Reformers into a practical error in appointing deacons to gather in and account for the profits and rents arising out of the patrimony. To administer poor relief and education was clearly a duty of the civil ruler, and although the Reformers' scheme stands unequalled, it was bound to fail in its application to a poor ministry. However Results of impracticable in many respects, trenching upon vested interests and ^"scipiine. raising delicate questions, the ideas and spirit of this admirable policy soon permeated the life, moulded the character, and reached the heart of the people. It created among a rude populace a healthy interest in themselves, by which, through the instrumentality of the Church, now based on the popular will, they were made into a theocratic nation. The Book of Discipline, in arranging rules for the organisa- tion of the Church, referred to a manual entitled ' The Booke of the Common Order, called "the Order of Geneva.'"' This compilation Book of is a directory of public worship and of religious rites. In its order, remodelled form it is also styled Knox's Liturgy, and was in use as a guide ' for helpe and direction ' till 1645." This Order begins with ' The Confession of Faith used in the Englishe Congregation at Geneva,' and is divided into thirteen sections dealing with Ministers and their election ; Elders ; Deacons ; Weekly Assembly of Ministers, Elders, and Deacons; Superin- tendents ; Order of Discipline ; Order of Excommunication and Tublic Repentance ; Visitation of Sick ; Order of Public Worship (including ' Dunlop, A Collection, ii. 3S3 ; Knox, vi. 275-333, 361S0. '•^ 'The Forme of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc., vsed in the Englislic Congregation at Geneua ; and approued by the famous and godly learned man, John Caluyn.' 8vo. Geneva, 1556; Edin., Lekprewik, 1562. 'The Form, etc., approved and received by the Church of Scotland, whereunto besides that was in the former books are also added sundry other Prayers, with the whole Psalms of David in English Metre'; Edin., 1564. The Book of Common Order, reprint. Dr. Sprott's edit., Edin., 1901. The Assembly of December 1566 approved of the Second Confession of Helvetia, with the exception of Holy Days, Scot, Apol. Narr., 19. For John Carswell's Gaelic Translation, cf. />Oi/eii. 42 THE COVENANTERS thirteen prayers) ; Manner of the Lord's Supper ; Form of Marriage ; Baptism; Fasting (i 565) ; Form of Prayers (twelve in number) for Families. This manual was also of foreign origin, being based upon the forms of divine service used in the reformed churches in Strassburg, Frankfort, and Geneva, and it bears evidences of the skill, taste, and teaching of Farel, Calvin, and Polanus. Prayers relative to Scottish needs were added. It was not till 1564 that the General Assembly enacted that ' everie minister, exhorter, and reader sail have one of the Psalme Bookes latelie printed in Edinburgh, and use the Order con- tained therein in prayers, marriage, and ministration of Sacraments.' The musical notation accompanied the text of the metrical Psalms and made up a compendious directory — The Order and the Psalms. The Psalter. At first the Psalter contained only forty-four of Sternhold and Hopkins's version of the Psalms, augmented to fifty-one by Whit- tingham, then to eighty-seven, to form the Genevan Psalm Book of 1 561. This latter was enlarged to one hundred and fifty by selections from the English Psalter of 1562, and from Paraphrases by the Edinburgh ministers Pont and Craig. To it were added some scriptural canticles or doxologies, the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, Veni Creator, Nunc Dimittis, the Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith, and the Magnificat, all in metre. These metrical songs were excised from the 1564 edition of the complete metrical Psalter.- vvas the Order Authorities still differ as to the exact character and authority of 'turgy |.j^g Order. Principal Story referred to it as ' the National Prayer- Book,' and 'the authorised liturgy of the Scottish Church.'-' Dr. Leishman denies that it was a provisional compilation intended for use only till the day of untrained readers and half-trained ministers was past, leading evidence to show that ' it was accepted then and ' Booke of the U. Kirk, i. 54 : ' Forme of prayers . . . psalnies . . . (The Catechisme).' 8vo. Lekprewik, 1564, also 1565. Some churches had organs : Fleming, Scot. Reform., no. * Dr. Neil Livingston, The Scottish Metrical Psalter, 2-71 (Edin., 1864). ^ Apostolic Ministry, p. 285 (Edin,, 1897); Reformed Ritual in Scotland, p. 13 (Edin., 1886). Dr. D. Laing said it was 'a guide or directory': Knox, vi. 281. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 43 long afterwards as a liturgy.' ' Grub held the opposite view: 'even the form, such as it was, partook more of the character of a directory than of a Hturgy,'" and that the minister was not restricted to the words of the book. Professor Mitchell concluded that there was no reason for maintainingr that it was regarded ' as more than a guide or model, at least to the ordained ministers ... far less was observed as a rigid liturgy, every word of which must be repeated unvaryingly by the officiating minister.' ^ I concur with Dr. Grub and Professor Mitchell. The aim of the Reformers was to obtemper literally the Word of God. The Con- fession repudiates all constitutions and articles invented by men and not 'expressit in His Word,' while it declares that 'ane Polecie and ane Ordour in Ceremonies . . . are bot temporal.'* The Book of Discipline, although it does not mention in this connection the Liturgy, condemns ' as damnable to man's salvation ' any imposition upon the consciences of men, which is not expressly commanded in Scripture.'' The Liturgy rested upon no 'express Commandment.' The Order Knox, who believed that the English Prayer-book was a device 'for"""' ""^' upholding of massing priests,' and 'any jote whereof will I never counsell any man to use,' could not consistently authorise the book for any other purpose than as a guide. The Book of Discipline itself states the object of the Order, it being ' sufficient to instruct the diligent reader,' i.e. not merely the church reader, but any reader.'' The function of the public reader was to read the Common Prayers in church and to teach children reading by means of that lesson-book. When the Book of Discipline indicates what is necessary to retain the church in good order, it includes ' Common prayers publicly made ' — not read; and, in the next paragraph, the danger of oft-repeating '■the Common Prayeris,' that is, out of the Order, is pointed out thus: ' What day the public sermon is, we can neither require nor greatly approve that the Common Prayers be publicly used, lest that we * Leishman, Moulding of Scottish Reformation., p. loo (Edin., 1897). - Hist., ii. 100. 3 Tlu Scottish Reformation, p. 133 (Edin., 1899). ^ Art. 'General Counsallis,' Knox, ii. 112. " First Book of L>isciplini\ chap. i. '' Ibid., chap. v. 5) 5 ; Knox, ii. t86. only a model. 44 THE COVENANTERS should either foster the people in superstition, who come to prayers as they come to the masse.' ^ Its title, The Form, indicates the purpose of the work. The Order The continuous and imperative use of a liturgy was unharmonious with the spirit of the Reformers, who relied upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in prayer. The half-educated substitutes for ministers did require such mental crutches, as the Book of Discipline admitted, ' till they grow to greater perfection.' The intention of the manual was conformity of practice, but not literal conformity. Alexander Henderson of Leuchars, in his Order and Government of the Church of Scotland, refers to the Form of Prayers as that 'to which ministers are to conform themselves, . . . although they be not tied to set forms and words, yet are they not left at randome, but, for testifying their consent and keeping unity, they have their directory and prescribed order.' ^ In similar terms, the well-informed Calderwood the historian states : ' none are tyed to the prayers of that book ; but the prayers are set down as samplers.'^ Still more convincing is his testimony in his famous Altare Damascenum to this effect : ' We also, it is true, have in our Church "Agenda" and an order to be kept in sacred services ; but no one is bound to the prayers or exhortations of our liturgy. They are set forth only as models by which the contents and the forms of prayers or exhortations are as to substantial pointed out, but not that the ministers should be tied to the very words. Never in the thirteen years of my ministry have I, either in the observance of sacraments or other sacred offices, made use of the exhortations or prayers contained in our "Agenda." The same has been the case with very many others, and it is free even to every one to do likewise. Moreover, as it seems to me, it is childish to do otherwise.'* Calvin's The Book of Discipline also enjoined the teaching of children the ' Catechisnie or Manner to Teach Children ... by John Calvin,' which was bound up with the Book of Common Order!' > First Book of Discipline, xi. §g i, 2, edit. 1830. ' Address to Reader, 1641. 3 History, p. 25, edit. 167S. * Edit. 1623, p. 613 ; edit. 1708, p. 453. ^ Knox, ii. 210, 239 ; Dunlop, A Collection, ii. 139 ; Aldis, List, No. 4j, edit, of 1564. Catechism. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 45 Some writers have asserted that Knox and his early associates did not differentiate the presbyter from the diocesan bishop, and, indeed, approved of the diocesan system by appointing superinten- dents of the clergy. One goes so far as to hold that Presbyterianism ' was unknown in Scotland for fully fifteen years after the Reforma- tion.' '■ The answer to this mistake is afforded by Grub, who rightly states that Superintendency ' bore only a faint resemblance to hier- archy. Unordained themselves, the superintendents could not ordain others ; appointed by ministers and people and liable to be deposed by them, they neither possessed nor claimed distinct, independent jurisdiction.'" The form of service used by Knox on his setting apart John Spottiswood to the ' chief care ' of the churches in Lothian, in 1561, reminded him, as a pastor ' subject to the wholesome discipline of the Church ' to ' usurp not dominion, nor tyrannical authority over thy brethren.'^ The First Book of Discipline recognised three functions within the church office- Wa't v Ape Church, namely, the pastorate, eldership, and diaconate, and one with- out, that of the Church schoolmaster.^ The Second Book added the office of the ' Doctor, quha also maybe callit Prophet, Bischop, Elder, Catechizar, that is, teicher of the Catechisme, and rudiments of religione. ' The reader was merely a temporary substitute for a minister.^ The superintendent was a temporary overseer of the Church in the course of organisation — 'most expedient at this time.' His duties made him ' Dunbar, Epochs of Scot. Church Hist., p. 36 (Edin., 1897). ^ (hub, Hist., ii. 99. ^ Order of Geneva, Sprott's reprint, 1901, pp. 20-27. * In the Book of Common Order, in the section ' Of the Deacons,' it is stated, ' wc are not ignorant that the Scriptures make mention of a fourth kind of Ministers left to the Church of Christ, which also are very profitable, where time and place do permit. These Ministers are called "Teachers" or " Doctors," whose office is to instruct, etc' Cf. M'Crie, Knox, ii., notes 281-7, edit. 1814. In November 1596 the reader in I'erth was permitted to baptize on Sabbaths 'betwixt the second and third bell': Kittis, Eicl. Annals of Perth, 116. '' A reader with higher qualifications was permitted to exhort the people. Sometimes the exhorter became an 'expectant,' and, after training, a 'licentiate.' The Assembly in 1576 prohibited readers, 'except sick ashes the words of exhortation,' administering the Sacra- ment : Bookeof the U. Kirk, i. 372. The Assembly in 15S1 abolished the reader. The office, however, long survived this edict, and readers continued discharging their duties : Fergusson, Alexander Hume, 296. 46 THE COVENANTERS Church Courts, a perambulating inspector, and reporter of delinquencies to the local and provincial assemblies of ministers and elders, to whose censure the overseer himself was subject.^ The government of the Church was similar in form to that then obtaining in Calvinistic churches abroad. The General Assembly, or ' The haill Kirk convenit,' met twice annually to exercise jurisdiction over all the congregations in the land. All the clergy and one commissioner from every church formed the membership. The Provincial Synod had jurisdiction over a defined area. The Kirk-Session, composed of a minister, elders, and deacons, had oversight of a parochial congregation and district.- The Presbytery, as a distinct Court, developed out of the Weekly Exercise. This Exercise was a weekly convocation of pastor, elders, and flock, at which any one possessing spiritual gifts was at liberty to edify the brethren by interpreting Scripture and by prayer. Having spoken, he retired. The audience criticised his views, and, on his recall, publicly expressed their opinions upon his services. The Presbytery, representing several congregations, was recognised as a judicatory higher than the Kirk-Session in 1581, but some years elapsed before the whole Church was divided territorially into presbyteries. In this manner and by these agencies, the covenanted Reformers, despite the powers of popes and kings, organised and made into a practical institution, on the primitive model, the Scottish Church. Theoretically it was democratic, because the theocratic ideal upon which it was founded equalised all its members before its sole Divine Head, Jesus Christ. Practically it was democratic and independent of civil rule, because its discipline made all persons alike amenable to the Word of God, its membership embraced all ranks without distinction, its gifts of preaching and teaching were available to all in the land, and its patronage, no longer private, was exercised by the people in their religious congregations. ■ First Bonk of Discipline, v. § 3 ; vi. 3, § g. Visitors or Commissioners had the same function ab superintendents : liookc of the U. Kirk, i. 357. - The Kirk-Session was also called 'the Consistorie of the kirk,' a name still applied to that Court in Geneva. HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS 47 Afterwards reviewing the events of that critical period and the incidents of Saint Johnston, Cupar Moor, and the Craigs of Edin- burgh, where ' in your most extreame daingearis I have been with you,' Knox, in 1563, might well boast: ' Thair is nott one of you against whom was death and destructioun threatned, perished in that danger.' ' ' Knox, ii. 3S4. 48 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER II MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE ROMANIST REACTION Queen Mary Mary Stuart, the widowcd Ouecn of France, a girl of eighteen Stuart, 1561. yg^j.g^ returned from France on the 19th August 1561, to assume the sovereicrnty of perturbed Scotland, and to make Romanist hopes revive.' A strange ' weird ' hung over the beautiful child, whose advent was heralded by a tempest, and whose return was accompanied by a mist as mirk as midnight, which made Knox presage the arrival of 'sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all impietie.' From the first the Covenanters had formed a bad impression of their Queen. Scotland was in close communication with France. The Scots must have known how her glistering, star-like eyes, made only for love (' vos yeux estoilez, deux beaux logis d'amour ') had, the year before, watched the royal sports in Amboise, where the heads of Huguenots rolled off the doomster's block like ruddy apples from a ripened tree. Her boy-husband, Francis, had informed Parliament that no existing punishment was adequate for those sinister ghouls, for whom the Church's doom of death, damnation, and hell created no terror. She came warm from the caresses of ' The Tiger of France ' and of Catherine de Medici, whose career of massacre was to blossom red on St. Bartholomew's day. No ruler ever mounted the Scots throne with such antecedents. Had Mary not been the tool of the Cardinal of Lorraine, said George Buchanan, she would have been ' the fore- most woman of her age.' The young Queen, ' with beautie eneuch to mak a world to dote,' possessed another charm dearer to her dis- credited co-religionists in the unwavering resolution to resuscitate the ' D. Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots, 44, 252, notes (Lond., 1897). James vi. Cromwell Mary, Qiiren of Scots ( h.iilis II. J.^lnc^ II. kUi.KKS oi' sc;ori.ANi) QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 49 faith of her fathers — a holy vow rewarded by the anxious Pope by the coveted gift of 'The Golden Rose.'^ But the contrast between leafy Fontainebleau with its gibbets for Lutheran gospellers, between the sluggish Loire with the black corpses of the Huguenots floating like Edinburgh in buoys on a fisherman's net, and the musty House of Holyrood, stand- ing under the misty crags, close to the evil-smelling streets of the thatched capital, and surrounded by psalm-singing fanatics, by festive burgesses churning out native ditties to the accompaniment of rude instruments, and by armed hordes of fierce clansmen of variegated aspect marshalling to the northern pipes and borderers' drums, was striking, suggestive, and alarming. According to Randolph, the English ambassador, the deeds of her shoeless lieges made her prettily to weep, and so to advance her cause. It was natural that the Catholic Queen should order the dese- crated Church of Holyrood to be garnished again for her worship, and that, as Randolph reported to Cecil, the evangelical party should look askance at this innovation." The staunchest of the Catholic aristo- cracy had rallied round the Court, but Mary soon saw that the Covenanters were of sterner stuff than the Huguenots. On her triumphal entry to the gay capital, the Reformers paraded effigies, depicting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the idolaters, which were afterwards burned in public, and also presented to her a Bible and Psalter, not to indicate their joy at her return but their gladness at the abolition of priests and their masses. Their joy was short- The iioiyrood lived. The altar-lights were rekindled at Holyrood, and became a beacon to guide the banned priests out of many undiscovered re- treats. Mary boldly seized the situation. Before a week had passed the Queen had cast a spell over the Edict of Privy Council and induced them to enact an Edict of Toleration, for- !^,'"^u°"st bidding party recriminations and interference with the worship of her '56'- Court, under pain of death, and announcing that Parliament and the ' Concilia Scot., Pref. clxvi ; M'Crie, Knox, App., note U.U. (Edin., 1884). - Winzet, Tractates, i. 113; Baillie, True Information, 24; Reg. Privy Coiinc, i. 266, 267 ; Cat. State Pap. {For., Eliz.), iv. 296 ; Selections illustrating Reign of Queen Mary, 96 (Malt. Club) ; D. Hay Fleming, Mary CJuecn of Scots, 46, 257. G 50 THE COVENANTERS Nicolaus Floris. The Jesuit policy. English Protestantism. Queen were to consider the state of religion.^ More roused than ever, Knox and his friends assailed this Toleration so extravagantly that the less suspicious flouted their fears as vaporous imaginings. But mysterious messengers flitted about the Court, like fearful birds which migrate only by night ; and a papal agent, disguised as a money-broker's assistant, appeared ostensibly to dun the bankrupt bishops. The tolerance of the Queen was in reality a reactionary movement guided by Jesuits, subsidised by gold from Rome, and unwittingly supported by the Privy Council. The report of the nuncio himself, Nicolaus Floris of Gouda, in 1562, is our authority.'^ He brought to the Queen from Pope Paul iv. a loving letter urging her to purge her realm of heresies, and to let no difficulties deter her, 'for it is the cause of God thou workest.' Nicolaus reported to his Superior that the ancient religion was but partially subverted in Scotland, that a majority still favoured its restoration, and that there was 'good hope that this kingdom may be freed from heretical bondage.' He sneered at the preachers as tradesmen, illiterate, with- out influence, and 'confident in the arms of the English.' This Jesuit sketched out a masterly policy, matrimonial, political, and ecclesiastical. If Mary would marry a Catholic able to coerce the rebels, appoint Catholic advisers, obtain earnest clergy, establish a Catholic college, be guided by papal legates, and be supported by Phflip of Spain, then the Church would rise from its ruins, and flourish again. The Queen, then helpless, could only parley and feign a detest- able tolerance, till what she styled ' the malignity of the time ' vanished, and an opportunity occurred to make the scheme practicable. The English politicians realised that England held the balance of power between contending parties in Europe. Elizabeth held it for Protestantism.* English Protestantism was the o > Reg. Privy Coum:, i. 266, 267 ; J. K. Hewison, ' Queen Mary and the Scots Church," T/ie Scois Magazine, vi. 36, 410 ; vii. 37, 29. - Stimmen aus Maria-Loach, vi. xix. i. 83-108. * Elizabeth wrote 1st July 1561 adjuring the Scots Estates to be true to Protestantism and assuring them of her sympathy : Cal. State Pap. {For., Eliz.), iv. 167. QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 51 natural ally of French Huguenotism, and the latter had many characteristics as well as the name identical with those of the system of the Covenanters.^ The crisis which leagued Mary and the Pope against heretical England allied Elizabeth and the Scots against idolatrous Rome. The influence of Knox and Lord James Stewart, soon to be Earl of Moray, who voiced the peril of the State, and the feuds of jealous nobles, prevented Mary gathering a strong party capable of effecting a co7ip d'dtat.- Moray, at first desirous of national peace, concurred in promoting toleration, probably dreaming that the old faith might be purified and again made popular. Knox was not to be deceived. He steeled himself against Mary's enchant- ments, so that their meetings ended with her tears. His opinions represented those of powerful land-owners, tenantry, squatters on the Church-lands, as well as of many clergy. The uneducated masses had been excited into that expectant condition wherein changes are lightsome, and revolutionary schemes exhilarating and remunerative. The giddy Queen became giddier. The sedate Scot has always The giddy taken pleasure sadly. When 'the mad world,' prophesied by Randolph, appeared at Holyrood, in the form of masses sung and said, fetes, sports, dances, and fooleries practised on Sabbaths, the Covenanters believed that the devil was running loose in the land. Royal cares vanished in frivolity. By day the anxious Queen might hold tearful levees with churlish preachers and rude cavaliers, who clamoured for a settled religion ; by night, she loved to dance, even in male attire, to play the galliard, to sweep through the dark alleys and streets as a masked mummer, and to play cards till break of morn.' One might imagine that Queen Mary sat for the picture of the Flesh, in that Good and Godly Ballad entitled ' The Flesche and the Spirit,' where the Flesh confesses : — ' Huguenots = Eidgcnossen = Covenanters. ^ Lord James had the gift of the earldom on 30th January 1562: Reg. Privy Seal, xxxi. 45 ; created Earl of Mar, 7th February 1 562 : ibid., xxxi. 2. 3 Cal. State Pap. {For., J£tic.),vu. 227, 230, 231, 348; Knox, ii. 368; D. Hay Fleming, Mary Queen 0/ Scots, 275, 276. 52 THE COVENANTERS ' To wacht gude wyne, fresche, cald and brycht, And tak my plesour day and nycht, With singing, playing, and to dance. And set on sax and sevin the chance.' She was not the nervous, timorous girl, cowering at the sight of haggard Knox, as some conclude. Her letters prove that she possessed the courage of the Stewart race, and the invincible fidelity of a Joan of Arc consecrated to a holy mission. From ' France comes her whole counsel,' according to Randolph.^ She played, how- ever, at sixes and sevens with her ' chance.' Few Catholic priests lifted up their voices in the death-struggle of their Church. The discussions, in public and in print, of the questions at issue, by Black, Kennedy, Winzet, Tyrie, Hay, and others had no palpable result. The Queen's French confessor, Rene Uen6 Benoisf. Benoist, an eloquent preacher, entered into the lists with Knox and the preachers in Edinburgh, who assailed Romanism daily. This ■ pastime,' as Randolph wittily described this interlude, soon ended when the Frenchman sought safety at home, leaving the Queen in ' the imminent peril of her situation.' ^ Abbot Quintin Ouintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossraguel in Ayrshire, was a ,j2o"i564 champion capable of restating and defending the principles at stake. A son of the Earl of Cassillis, he had studied at St. Andrews and Paris, and succeeded his brother in the vicarage of Penpont. His scholarship and family influence lent distinction to his efforts for internal reform. In 1558 he published 'Ana Compendius Tractive,' in order to show how a Christian conscience could be established amid the disputes of the age. This work was deemed so important as to require an answer, in 1563, from John Davidson, Principal of the College of Glasgow. Under the protection of the Kennedys, the abbot and the priests of Maybole, Girvan, Kirkoswald, and Dailly, continued the Mass, and came under the threat of the General Assembly in 1560. In an oration (1562), replying to Knox's ' Sermon agains the Mess,' Kennedy warned the congregation ' Randolph to Cecil, 12th October 1561 : Cal. State Pap. {For., Elis.), iv. 296 note. ' A'arr. Scot. Cath., 74. I QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 53 against deception by the preachers, and the sacrilege of destroying sacred buildings and monuments of the Faith.' When Knox was traversing Ayrshire consolidating the Reform party, in order to resist a rumoured coalition in favour of the Queen's projects, in the autumn of 1562, Kennedy challenged Knox. A three-days' disputation took place in Maybole, and was conducted DisputaUonin with perfect good-feeling and dialectic skill. The only practical September" result of the conference was that the abbot remained in his office '562. till his death, two years later.^ Ninian Winzet {1518-92), teacher in Linlithgow, was less fortun- NinianWirzet, ate in the issue of his contendings.^ Like Kennedy, he did not hide '^' ''^^^" the vices of clergy and laity. He wrote three Tractates in 1562, to rectify error, spread truth, appeal for tolerance, and correct Knox. Knox remained silent. Another treatise, afterwards printed, entitled 'The Buke of Four Scoir Thre Questions,' was a dogmatical answer to the * Confession of Faith.' It breathes a fine spirit and is dignified by the honesty of purpose of its genial author, in whom Knox found an opponent difficult to gainsay. When the Magistrates of Edinburgh learned that Scot the printer had in the press, in July, another treatise, ' The Last Blast of the Trumpet of God's Word against the usurpit auctoritie of Johne Knox and his Calviniane Brether/ by Winzet, they tried to seize the author. Winzet, accompanied by the Jesuit, Nicolaus Floris, escaped to Antwerp. Thirty years after- wards, Winzet died. Abbot of Ratisbon.* The Reformed Church leaders now saw it was high time that the I'oiicy of Government carried out the royal proclamation, which forbade any interference with the state of religion existing on the arrival of the Queen, and insisted on the prosecution of forty-eight prominent Catholic offenders. Thereafter Jesuit plots had to be hatched more covertly. One upon whom the Queen on her arrival looked as a main- ' Cal. S/,ile Pap. {For., Eliz.), iv. 539 ; Wodrow MiscelL, i. 89-277. - Knox, ii. 351 ; Leslie, Hist. (Dalryinple's Trans.), bk. x. 469. ^ He records that he 'wes expellit and schott out of that my kindly town, by the minister Kinloquhy, for refusing to subscrive their phantasie and factioun of faith ' : Tractates, i. 49. « Cf. Life in Certain Tractates of N. IV., edit. Hewison (Scot. Text Soc), Edin., 1888. 54 THE COVENANTERS Fight at Corrichie, 2Sth October 1562. Ayr G)Tenant, 4th September 1562. Stay, George Gordon, fourth Earl of Huntly, at heart a CathoHc, had so long coquetted with the contending parties that neither relied on his adherence.^ His vast estates, stretching from Aberdeen to Inverness (including lands granted to his rival Moray), and his Chancellorship made him more like a prince of the blood than a highland chief. To humiliate Huntly, to quell a feud then raging between the Gordons and the Ogilvies, and to establish Moray in his earldom, the Queen undertook a royal progress in the north. Huntly, fearing treachery, openly rebelled, and in trying conclusions with the royal army perished, with many of his clan, on the slopes of Corrichie near Aberdeen. One of Huntly's sons was executed and another sent to prison. The rebels were attainted and their lands reverted to the Crown. While this severe judgment satisfied Pro- testant Churchmen and gratified the Stewart spirit of absolutism, at the same time it was merely the sacrifice of a pawn in the intricate game which the Pope had set Mary to play. The Scots Protestants were suspicious of this royal progress, and while the Queen was in the north, Knox was in the west disputing and thundering upon popish dangers and coming wars. Nearly all the influential men of Ayrshire congregated to his eloquence, and in September 1562 the nobles, gentlemen, and burgesses of that county, to the number of seventy- eight, subscribed the following Covenant : — ' We, whais Names are underwritten, do promesse, in the presence of God, and in the presence of his Sone, our Lord Jesus Christ, that we, and everie ane of us, shall and will manteane and assist the preaching of his holy Evangell, now of his mear mercy, offered unto this Realme ; and also will manteane the ministeris of the same against all personis, power, and authoritie, that will oppone the self to the doctrin proponed, and by us receaved. And farther, with the same solempnitie, we protest and promesse, that every ane of us shall assist otheris ; yea, and the hoill body of the Protestantis within this Realme, in all lauchfull and just actionis, against all personis ; so that whosoever shall hurt, molest, or truble any of our body, shalbe reaputed ennemye to the hoill, except that the offender will be content to submit self to the judgement of the Kirk, now establissed amangis us. And this we do, as we desire to be accepted and favoured of the Lord Jesus, and reaccompted worthy of credyte and honestie in the presence of the godlie. At the Brough of Air, the ferd day of September, the year of God, Jm Vc threscoir twa zeiris. Cal. State Pap. {For., Eliz.\ iv. 91. : in QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 55 ' Subscrivit by all these with thair handis, as followis : M' Michaell Wallace Provest of Air, Glencarne, James Lockart [Lee?], Ro. Boyd [4th Lord], Williame Montgomery, R. Failfurd. Johnne Craufurd of Wolstoun, Matthew Campbell of Lowden, Johne Mure in \Vole, knycht,' and sixty-nine otiiers.^ The other subscribers were the most influential men in Ayrshire, especially of the part imbued with Lollardism, including those of Ochiltree, Gadgirth, Craigie, Stair, Rowallan, Barr, Kersland, Kin- zeancleuch. This bond was, in the first instance, a practical protest against the conduct of the Earls of Eglinton and Cassillis, who were active supporters of the Queen. These Covenanters were not Rising i content with a statement of their intentions, but, ignoring the ^"^^ "^' Toleration, began to purge the hitherto protected churches and religious houses in the south-west. Mary sent for Knox to Loch- leven and appealed to him to curb the rising. Knox accused her of winking at illegal worship and declared that their assumption of magisterial power was the result of her ignoring it. In July 1562 the Assembly petitioned the Government for redress Legislation in of the public wrongs and for stipends to the preachers, who, it was '* '' stated, 'live but a beggar's life.' The first Parliament did pass some ecclesiastical acts which only ridiculed the helplessness of the Church.- Knox thereupon accused the Estates of betraying Christ's cause in agreeing with the Queen ' in the devill,' and in treating the Church as an illegal object. He startled them by publishing the rumour that a Papist would soon be a consort on the throne. At this time royal galliards were sending billets dotix from many quarters. Mary loved marrying. Even the Earl of Bothwell, who had lately escaped from ward in Edinburgh Castle, ugly and beggared as he was — simius in purpura, an ape in purple — was daring to leer from under his shaggy, red eyebrows upon the lovely face of the Queen. This villain had ' Knox, ii. 348-50. Some of their descendants were prominent supporters of the Covenants in the later times of persecution. '^ Act. Pari. Scol., ii. 535. Knox on the situation. The Queen's unalteiable faith. Holyrood riot. 56 THE COVENANTERS only one recommendation — a trivial one : he was a nominal Pro- testant. Knox adjured Parliament that if they acknowledged that 'an infidell shalbe head of your Soveran, ye do so far as in ye lyeth to banishe Christ Jesus from this Real me ; ye bring Goddis vengeance upoun the countrey, a plague upon your self, and perchaunse ye shall do small conforte to your Soverane.' Mary was wroth. She cited Knox to appear and see her tears again. His gentle companion, Erskine of Dun, soothed her with compliments on that beauty which made their Queen so captivating a match. In a break of her 'yowling' (weeping aloud), the immovable Knox justified his policy thus : ' I man [must] sustean (albeit unwillinglie) your Majestie's tearis, rather than I dar hurte my conscience, or betray the Common- wealth through my silence.'^ These bold words indicate that Knox acted as the accredited Head of the new Commonwealth of the Church. He clearly realised that Mary's pretended tolerance was mere subterfuge, and that the Guise policy of sufferance was only a parley to gain time in order to strike a surer blow. In January 1563 the Queen wrote to her uncle, the Cardinal, assuring him that she would rather die than give up her faith or encourage heresy, and that she would concert measures to observe the decrees of the Council of Trent." On the arrival of these decrees she wrote to the persecuting Pope, Pius iv., that she would make her subjects obey them, 'if God, by His Grace, is able to reduce and destroy the heresies.'' In her royal progresses she observed Catholic public worship, thus stultifying her own proclamation. In her absence from Holyrood, her servants, while observing the Catholic rites, were interrupted, and a riot ensued. The Protestant ringleaders were summoned to trial. Knox, reckoning this a menace to the Church, in the exercise of his convenership, called the Covenanters, from far and near, to the capital, to witness their trial on the 24th October. This • Knox, ii. 384-90. ^ Labanofif, Lettres . Stuart, 142. 2 Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, 1524-74. lie Marie Stuart, i. 175-8; vi. 6, 7; Turnbull, Letters of Mary QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 57 is the first instance (after 1560) of the Church assembling to assert its separate jurisdiction as a regality co-equal with the Civil Estate of the realm. Knox was called to account for this alleged act of treason, but despite the efforts of Secretary Maitland, who, priding himself on his dialectic skill and eloquence, tried to involve the Convener in a criminal act, Knox was acquitted by the Privy Council — the Queen and Maitland dissenting.^ William Maitland, younger of Lethington, Secretary of State, was Maniand of chief fugleman to the Queen — a man of useless shifts, m Knox s ,528(?)- 1573. opinion ; as changeful as the chameleon, according to Buchanan ; one of the most unreliable and dano-erous flatterers whom the unfortunate sovereiojn could have confided in. Maitland was an embodiment of subtlety, deceit, and craft ; a temporising schemer, whose winning , ways and acute intellect made him a ready adviser among unscrupu- lous intriguers. Knox's accusation, that Lethington was an atheist, best explains his devious policies and that fearlessness in which, according to the gossip of his contemporaries, he died a suicide. At length Mary chose for her husband her cousin, Henry Stewart, M.-ity manies Lord Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, the useless ' cockerel,' juiy ,565. as the Cardinal of Lorraine described him. Darnley had not yet arrived at his majority, and was an incapable, petulant youth, pos- sessed of no masterful qualities. Pope Pius iv. granted a dispensa- tion for Mary's marriage to Darnley on the promise that they should defend the Roman Catholic religion." His profession of the old faith, and his marriage according to Catholic rites, in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood, on 29th July, were considered menaces to the Protestant cause.^ He also was an heir to the English crown. Panic seized the Lords of the Congregation. The chief Protestants, Chatelherault, Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, Boyd, Ochiltree, Kirkcaldy of Grange, and many others, rose in rebellion as a protest against the alliance. The ministers waged war with their uncon- ' Knox, ii. 393-412. 2 Raynald, Ann. Eal., xv. 544, 545 ; Pollen, Papal Negotiations, 191 -231 ; Scot. Hist. Rev., iv. IS, 241. => Knox, ii. 495 ; Diurnal of Occurrents, 80. H THE COVENANTERS General A^embly, 1565. Maiy deBant. trollable tongues. The Queen, herself in arms at the head of a mobile force, chased the insurgents into England and had them declared outlaws. After this bold step there rallied round the throne an influential Catholic party, under whose wing the banned priests found shelter and worked for the revival of their lost jurisdiction. Christmas Day, 1565, was a sad day for the meeting of the General Assembly. The Lords who had struggled for the Reforma- tion were in exile, and the deliberations of that Supreme Court were furthered by suspicious advisers in the persons of Morton, Mar, and Maitland, who were not averse to the temporising policy of the Crown. The previous Assembly had petitioned for redress and now received the answer out of the mailed hand of the Sovereign, con- scious of her strength. They were emphatically informed that the Queen would not ratify the Act establishing the Protestant Church, nor abjure her own, nor suppress idolatry, nor interfere with the benefices — in a word, she would do nothing to please the beggared pastors. The Congregation now realised the meaning of the Queen's stereotyped phrase — ' the maintenance of the state of religion found on her arrival' Protestantism was in danger. The Assembly en- joined a general fast to be held, and prepared a form of divine service to which was added a pitiful appeal to the faithful to observe the exercise of prayer and abstinence, so as to avert ' God's fearefull threateninges.' An appeal for the prayers of foreign Protestants was also dispatched.^ Fortunately enough for imperilled Protestantism, there were other influences at work which created a third party — it would be difficult to say whether it was a patriotic or a mere Court party — who did not relish the influence, intimacy, and secret understanding of the Italian secretary, ' dowbill Davie ' Rizzio, with the Queen. ^ No unprejudiced reader of relevant State documents and accounts of this juncture can doubt that Darnley had lost his charm, that Rizzio was an able instrument of mischief, and that Bothwell was growing in favour with the Queen. This third party, led by Morton, Lord Ruthven, Lord ' Knox, vi. 391-446 : 'The Ordour and Doctrine,' etc. - Dowbill = treacherous. QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 59 Lindsay, and accompanied by a large following, surrounded Holy- rood on the night of the 9th March 1566, when Rizzio was in the presence of the Queen. The assassins dragged him out and poniarded Rizzio slain, him to death in the palace. From that moment Mary's policy was one of revenge — her fatal mistake. Knox, or his editor, defined the incident as 'a marvellous tragedy,' to which he ascribed the salvation of Scottish Protestantism.^ It occurred while the general fast was being observed. From the manner in which Knox himself described the detestable crime, the reader might almost infer that the author imagined that Providence personally drove those daggers home." The Covenanters had long been standing upon the defensive and had lost influence at Court, while Mary's schemes had so far developed that she had planned a parliamentary coup, in April 1 566, when, by the aid of a restored hierarchy, she would do 'some good anent restoring the old religion,' in accordance with her vow given on her obtaining the dispensation of the Pope permitting her to marry Darnley.^ On 12th May Pius v. wrote congratulating Mary on her constancy and promising her a subsidy.* Angry jealousy inspired the vicious weakling Darnley, who had been refused the crown-matrimonial, with a paroxysm of strength of mind which expended itself in destructive courses. He made over- tures to the exiled Lords of the Congregation, wherein he promised to support their projects and defend their interests, in return for their aid against 'this villain David.' Bonds were exchanged. The safety of the Protestant Faith was one of the articles. Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, Boyd, Ochiltree, and other accomplices of Darnley signed their bond at Newcastle on the 2nd March 1566. The Newcastle stipulation as to religion is as follows : ' As to the religion established "" ' '5 by the Queen's Majesty since her arrival into this Realm, whereupon Proclamations and Edicts were made, that they and every one of them shall fortify and maintain the same at their uttermost power.' On the other part, Darnley agreed : 'As to the said Earls . . . ' Knox, ii. 520-4 ; i. 235. ' Ibid., i. 235. ' Labanoff, Lettrts . . . de M. Stuart, i. 342-50. * Pollen, Papal Negotiations, 237. J 60 THE COVENANTERS their religion, we are contented and consent that they use the same. . . . And after their return upon their adhering and good service to be done to us, we, the said noble prince, shall consent, aid, and assist to the establishing the religion now profest, and concur with them, if any power shall withstand them.'^ This mutual contract indicated how the Lords of the Congregation and the clergy realised the necessity for the royal ratification of the Act establishing the Protestant religion, which was not yet secured and beyond danger from Jesuitical intriguers. Startling events chase each other on the diurnals of the time with extraordinary rapidity. The body of Rizzio was scarcely cold when Moray and his associates came ' soonding through the toon.' It was 1 Knox on a Strange coincidence. Knox was right in calling the last dispatch a 1 Rizzio's death. ,, i a • i tt- i i ii marvellous tragedy. A man so upright, as Knox undoubtedly was, J might not have been accessory to the assassination, of which he after- wards approved, but he must have been singularly obtuse if rumours of the intended removal of Mary's obstructive secretary did not reach his ears, as they did reach others less likely to have heard.^ If he did hear, there must be a presumption that he believed that the warn- ings often given to evil-doers had been sufficient, and to Knox so satisfactory, that he saw no justification for his personal interference in the closure of a reptilious career, when the cause of freedom and morality was to be a gainer through an illegal judgment. Return of The exiles had returned to Edinburgh to stand their trial. In their pockets was the invitation of their would-be king. Instead of :oming to a doom supposed to be settled, they found that Queen Mary at Holyrood was under restraint by the new conspirators, who had threatened to cut her sacred person into ' collops ' if she became unduly demonstrative. With ready observation of scriptural precedent, she welcomed Moray, her half-brother, with a kiss, and, with a practical illustration of biblical precept, by overt love hoodwinked her husband, ' Keith, Nts/., iii. 262, 263, Appendix ; Maitland Club Mtscell., iii. 188-91 ; Bist. MSS. Com. Rep., vi., App. 641. - Randolph to Leicester, 13th February 1566 : D. Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots, 126 and notes, 43, 44, 45 ; P. Hume hvov/n, Jo/in Knox, ii. App. 304-10. QUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 6i and by his aid escaped, almost over the grave of Rizzio, to rally round her a friendly host who marched back and dispersed her adversaries.^ On this unexpected collapse of the Protestant party, Knox, cha- CoUapse of grined to the verge of despair, retired from his charge and from Edin- ,^7,^ M^rch ^' burgh.- The slayers of Rizzio also fled the same day. But, wearied, '566. worried, wanton Mary was not in a condition to follow up her advan- tage. These dangerous enterprises, the birth of Prince James on 19th June, a serious illness, and a desire to await a happier opportunity for executing her fixed design, made the Queen appear now most tolerant, indeed, even careful of and kind to the Church and its pastors, for whose comfort and sustentation the Privy Council passed some practical edicts. Notwithstanding, the tenderest touch could not conceal the cold gauntlet beneath the velvet glove. Had not Mary also joined the infamous Catholic League of the Pope, Emperor, King The Catholic of Spain, Duke of Savoy, and others, for the extirpation of the i.gi*,ru^ry 1566. heretics, said they, and had she not met a temporary check ? ' Darnley too had failed her, and was now a stumbling-block, as well to her as to her antagonists. By both he, having disavowed his former allies, was esteemed a traitor, liar, and mischief-maker. He had not shaped himself into the coercive councillor conceived in the subtle brain of the Jesuit Nicolaus. Therefore he must depart — the next victim of intrigue. The Queen had always protected and encouraged the disconsolate hierarchy, till she gave its primus a fresh inducement to fidelity by restoring the Consistorial Court on 23rd December 1566. A few days later the General Assembly pro- tested against this imperious act, not knowing that this useful judi- catory would soon be needed to confirm Bothwell's divorce. Darnley loved to hunt alone ; Mary, in couples, and preferably now with Bothwell. There could only be one result of Mary's estrangement from her consort. There was little surprise when Darnley was mur- Oamiey's dered on the loth February 1567, and still less, when three months °""^' ' Knox, ii. 523-5. - /ill/., vi. 483, 484 ; Diurnal of Occurrents^ 94. ^ Father Pollen says there e.xist no documents to prove that there was a Catholic League for suppressing Protestantism in 1566 : Papal Negotiations with (2ueen Mary, I'rcf. xxxviii. 62 THE COVENANTERS Mary marries Both well. Scheme of Nicolaus Floris. later, 15th May, the Queen married ' the ape in purple,' the alleged regicide, Bothwell, with a shameless haste.^ Mary had neither heart nor time to mourn. The fixed design survived all departures, till the lovely casket enshrining it rolled from the bloody block at Fotherin- gay. At Darnley's death a shudder of loathing traversed the land and made the very throne to shake. To this feeling we owe the inaccurate tradition that Bothwell was in ugliness a rival to deformed Rizzio, whereas it was his conduct which made him appear bestial to offended Scottish sentiment. This question arises here, Was the well-conceived scheme of Jesuit Nicolaus being worked out, so that the strait-laced heretics might obtain a suitably coercive governor, even although he was a regicide, a nominal Protestant, and a temporary slave of the votive Queen? The Queen explained her abduction by and wedding to Bothwell with ingenious diversity. To her acrid, spinster-cousin, Elizabeth of England, she declared Bothwell to be a paragon, and that 'so fasseous' a people ' wald nocht weill digest a foreyn husband.' To the Holy Father in Rome she wrote that Bothwell was a vile ravisher. To her superstitious subjects, yearning for some indication of her spiritual amendment, she announced that she wished to 'compleit the band of matrimony with the noble and potent Prince, James Duke of Orkney . . . in face of Haly Kirk.' To her confessor she said that, as the handmaid of the Church, she desired to settle religion, and this, read in the light of the scheme of Nicolaus, was probably a true confession." Mary's latest wifely joy was short-lived. The nobility would not brook as their governor the Queen's 'potent prince,' who was their inferior in most respects, and, led by Argyll and Boyd, who became recalcitrant, Atholl, Morton, Mar, Glencairn, they bound themselves to free their sovereign, to protect Prince James, and to extirpate the murderers of Darnley. The fugitive pair were nearly captured by the insurgents. At Gladsmuir, in Haddingtonshire, Mary caused her • Knox, ii. 549-55. - Cone. Scot., clxxiii. vi. 36, 410 ; vii. 37, 29. Hewison, ' Queen Mary and the Scots Church,' in Scots Magazine, OUEEN MARY AND THE ROMANIST REACTION 6 o opponents to be proclaimed traitors, and having gathered 4000 sym- pathisers, marched to Carberry Hill, near Musselburgh. Barring her Carbeny Hiii, way stood a host of enraged lieges, over whom floated a banner de- j^^' ""* pictjng the murdered Darnley, and her helpless infant crying 'Judge, and revenge my caus, O Lord.' At Mary's entreaty, Bothwell, with currish cowardice, gladly took flight, while she calmly marched over to her opponents and surrendered. Clad in a short petticoat all bespattered with mud, more like a Gypsy than a Venus, Mary, again beaten but not broken, afforded a pitiable spectacle. Hooted by the soldiery, and jeered at by the foul- mouthed rabble — far from choice in their epithets descriptive of a lieht-of-skirts — she was led like a criminal to the residence of the Provost in Edinburgh. Thence she was smuggled away to Lochleven Mary, in Castle. In that water-girdled keep, watched by her father's paramour, ^bdkates^ th the Queen of Scots was interned, and her proud spirit harassed ; till, July 1567- at length, broken into ostensible compliance, she demitted crown and office in favour of Prince James, who was to reign through the Regency of Moray.^ Unbounded joy took possession of the Congregation at this 'most miraculous victory and overthrow.' Remembering some clear precedents left by Moses, the more unbending of the Covenanters would have put Mary to death as an adulteress, and as one possessed of the devil. The white heat into which Scotland had been worked can be gauged from the pastoral letter issued in May 1568 to Lothian by the gentle and amiable Superintendent, John Spottiswood, wherein he traced the causes of God's wrath to this unrighteous mercy shown to his Queen: 'If she had suffered, according as God's law com- mandeth murderers and adulterers to die the death . . . the plague should have ceased. . . . For albeit the Devil himself be loosed (as no doubt he was) in the person of that most wicked woman.' " The Covenanters, perceiving that they had escaped by the skin of their teeth, now that Mary ceased from troubling, made haste to have the ' D. Hay rieniing, Mary Queen of Scots, chap. xiii. - Wodrow, Collections, i. 85, 86. 64 THE COVENANTERS Joy of the Church established bylaw. The next General Assembly communi- in 1568. * cated their satisfaction to their faithful associate, Willock, in his English rectory of Loughborough, that the tempest and storm were over, and ' our Ship is receaved, and placed in a most happy and blessed port ; our enemies, praised be God, are dashed ; religion established, sufficient provision made for ministers . . . and above all, a godly magistrate ' appointed. Still, they said, they stood on watch. If it was ' Satanam sicut fulgur de coelo cadentem' whom the joyful Covenanters saw disappearing into the lone prison of Loch- leven, as they said, there he was soon transformed into a Venus in silken chains, whom the stoniest-hearted gaolers could not refrain from pitying, adoring, aiding — her embittered mistress, who too should have been a queen, excepted — so that soon her witcheries purchased freedom for a few more sad and hapless days. It was vain for loyal cavaliers to rally round their ill-fated Queen. Fortune again deserted Mary on the battlefield of Langside, on the 13th May. Battle of She sought safety, and found a prison, in England. The papal plans, MalfiVs '^' °"^ after another, had miscarried. The Church was freed. The Covenanters triumphantly had illustrated their threat : ' He that is enemy to the causes foresaid shall be enemy to us all.'^ ' For an excellent account of the condition of Scotland at this time, cf. Professor P. Hume Brown's Scotland in the Time cf Queen Mary (Lond., 1904). \ i I '^' M^ Blackness Castle Drumlanrig Castle St. Andrews Castle I'"(linbiirgh Castle J^lt-ltAmd Uuiuliartun Castle Morion Castle PRISONS OK RICKORMERS AND COVENANTKRS ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 65 CHAPTER I I I THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW * When the first Parliament of King James the Sixth met in Edinburgh on the 15th December 1567, a National Church of Scotland as such no longer existed. For seven years the Christian religion as interpreted in the Confession of Faith had been estab- lished by Parliament, with the tacit assent of probably a majority of the people, but this unconstitutional agreement had not been ratified, although it had been tolerated by the Queen.^ Under a reign of creed, rather than by the laws of a Church possessing jurisdiction. Establishment the masses were being spiritually governed. The first Assembly at ° "^ '^'°"' Edinburgh of the representatives of the individual Reformed Con- gregations, at which the amalgamation of these churches was agreed to, simply aggregated the Congregations into a Church in Scotland." The Confession of Faith, which was the instrument by which the unification was accomplished, and was the only bond uniting the disjecta membra of the disintegrated Church, makes no reference to a Church t?/ Scotland. Consequently, the indispensable characteristics of a national Church, namely, jurisdiction, active authority, and legal subsidy, all of which requirements had been withheld by the legis- lature, were for seven years non-existent. The beggared ministry were supported from voluntary doles or by the fruits of their own ' Keith, Hist., iii. 211, App. - 'In 1567 there were about 1080 churches under the charge of 257 ordained ministers, 151 exhorters, and 455 readers ; and the places of 12 ministers and 53 readers are marked as being vacant, making in all 924 persons, besides the 5 superintendents': Misc. Wod. Soc, i. 326. Argyle and the Isles are not included in this enumeration. In 1581 these were reduced to 600 churches under 50 presbyteries, 100 receiving 500 marks each, 200 receiving 300, 200 receiving 100 pounds Scots, and 100 receiving 100 marks for stipend annually. I 66 THE COVENANTERS manual labour. The Church could only exercise authority by calling Voiuntaiyism. in the aid of illegally armed supporters.^ Voluntaryism as a practical method was recognised through the constraint of circumstances. The Reformers would not depend upon intermittent benevolence so long as the patrimonial endowments of religion existed. They were held to be inalienable, jure divmo. It is worthy of mention that the first practical effort to relieve the penury of the preachers, originated in December 1561, when the prelates offered to the Queen one fourth of the value of their benefices, and she gave it to the ministers, who, by Acts of the Council, became entitled to stipends of the value of about £\(i sterling each. This provision, however, remained in- operative. What tithes and rents the former Catholic beneficiaries could not retain by means of family influence, the land-grabbing aristocracy meanly seized along with the Church lands. The lay Covenanters paid themselves for their warfare ; their clerical allies had to starve. Lord Herries bitterly recorded that 'the great men gaped after the Church estates, and the commoners were fleshed with the spoils of abbeys and religious houses.' - The change of government gave the leaders of the Church their opportunity. They, finding themselves an influential confederation, demanded parliamentary recognition of the Church as an institution of co-equal standing with the civil government, and acknowledg- ment of the principle of the Headship of Christ over the King in matters of spiritual government. Coronation of Consequently the coronation of the infant King at Stirling on the James VI., igth of J uly 1 567 was both a civil and a religious function. Repre- sentatives of the Church crowned and anointed him.^ Morton, acting as sponsor, laid his hand upon ' The Book of God,' and, in the name of the King, took a very remarkable oath to the effect that the King would serve God, would ' maintain the true religion of Jesus Christ, the preaching of the Holy Word, and due and right ministration of His sacraments now received and practised in this realm, and shall ' Cf. Summons of Gen. Assembly in 1567 : Booke 0/ the U. Kirk, i. 93-5. ' Memoirs, 55. ^ John Erskine, Spottiswood, Adam Bothwell. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 67 abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same . , . and out of my lands and empire I shall be careful to root out all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God that shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God of the foresaid crimes.'^ Knox was the deputed preacher from the Church, but, as a citizen, he asked for a legal document proving the royal contract between the King and his subjects. The clerical inspiration of the oath is unmistakable. The oath was practically homologated by the assenters to the corona- tion — Morton, Atholl, Glencairn, Mar, Menteith, Hume, Lyndsay, Ruthven, Ochiltree, Sempill, Sandilands, Maitland, Erskine of Dun, and other influential men of various factions, who now as ' King's Lords ' joined together to establish a popular Protestant government and Church." The 'Queen's Lords' — Hamiltons, Argyll, Huntly, Herries, and others — held aloof from the regnant party until Moray returned from France. In him the ' King's Lords ' trusted as the one man capable of uniting the distracted parties, settling a lasting peace, and guarding the freedom they had obtained by the sword. Moray Moray Rtgent, accepted the Regency and took the oath to maintain the Reformed I'^y "^^ Church. Ten days after Mary's surrender at Carberry the General Assembly Assembly in met and appointed George Buchanan, then Principal of St. Leonard's 25th june ' College, St. Andrews, to be the Moderator. The design in making '5^7" this appointment of a layman, they explained, was ' for eschewing of confusion in reasoning ' ; and, as the leaders of the Church had determined to leave no loophole for the return of Popery, they chose their ablest jurist to fix the safeguards of the new Establishment. This remarkable meeting in the Nether Tolbooth showed to what extent the laity were the promoters and guardians of the Reformation. Its first business was to submit the proposed articles of listablishment to the Privy Council for approval, and thereafter by letter to issue a special invitation to all friendly landholders and ' other true pro- fessors of all estates and degrees,' convening them to a special ' Keith, Htsi., ii. 773 note. ° Wodrow, Collections. \.z\. 68 THE COVENANTERS Edinburgh Assembly on 20th July to consider the situation, and to take means Assembhes, j-^^. establishing- the liberty of the Church, the maintenance of the June and July o •' 1567. clergy, and the unification of the reformed members against their enemies/ This ecclesiastical missive practically summoned a folk- mote. Argyll would not trust himself to this armed muster and wrote excusing himself, on the ground that this appearance in arms was an innovation." The Assembly itself reckoned all such abstainers to be ' hinderers of this godlie purpose,' ' dissimulat brethren,' and 'unworthie to be esteimit heirafter of Christ's flocke.' The ' Queen's Lords' and other waverers were among the absentees, but the Assembly realising its own strength and influence proceeded on Edinburgh 25th July to ratify and subscribe a series of ten articles which had ^"hTT^' -6 ^^^" prepared by a special committee. This Covenant was signed by the earls, lords, barons, and other commissioners present — Morton, Glencairn, Mar, Hume, Ruthven, Sanquhar, Lindsay, Ochiltree, Drumlanrig, Tullibardine, fifty barons, and sixteen com- missioners of burghs. It expressed approval of the demands of the ministers for the thirds of the benefices, restoration of the patrimony, relief of poor labourers, punishment of crime, especially of the murderers of Darnley, maintenance of the King, appointment of a Protestant coronation-oath, and the annihilation of the Mass and idolatry. The subscribers bound themselves, with ' their power and forces,' to obstruct parliamentary legislation, until 'the faithfull Kirk of Jesus Chryst profest within this realm salbe put in full libertie of the patrimonie of the Kirk . . . the matters of the Kirk forsaid be first considerit, approvit and establischit.' They took a bolder step and agreed to march over the land and obliterate every trace of Popery, while they established ' the true religion ' by planting super- intendents, ministers, and other officials, and also reforming all A holy educational institutions. Theirs was a holy crusade in earnest.^ Yet some of these Covenanters were aware of the plot against 1 Knox, Row, Craig, Erskine of Dun, Spottiswood, and Douglas— the six Johns — signed the missive : Booke of the U. Kirk, i. 94, 95. ^ Ibid., i. loi. ^ Caldenvood, ii. 378-83 ; Booke oj the U. Kirk, i. 106-10. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 69 Darnley. It is also noteworthy that these legislators designated themselves ' this present Assemblie of the Kirk of God.' ^ Of Moray's first Parliament, which met on the 15th December, Moray's so many had subscribed the last Covenant and previous bonds of j ?g^'|""^° ' similar import, that the acceptance of the articles of Establishment was assured." This Parliament began its legislative labours by ratifying Queen Mary's demission, Moray's appointment, and the previous abolition (in 1560) of papal jurisdiction and of the persecut- ing Acts,* This cleared the way for the re-enactment of the Confession of Faith, and for the passing of eleven Acts as follows : On the abolition of the Mass ; on the true Church and Churchmen ; on presentees to churches ; on the coronation-oath ; on public officials ; on thirds of benefices; on schoolmasters; on Church jurisdiction; on bursaries; on benefices ; on privileges of Churchmen. The tenor of these Acts shows the thoroughgoing nature of the Tenor of the revolution which had been accomplished and the foundations on statutes, 1567. which civil and spiritual government was to rest. The ' reformed Churches of this realm ' are declared, in Act 6, ' to be the only true and holy Church of Jesus Christ within this realm ' ; while persons who do not accept the Reformed Confession, subscribe the articles of religion, and take the sacraments, are not members of the Church. The settlement of pastors pertained to the Church only (Act 7). The coronation-oath was made imperative (Act 8). Public officials were to acknowledge the Reformed Church (Act 9). The tenth Act asserts the legal right of the Church to the ' proper patrimony which is the teinds,' and ordains 'the thirds' to be paid to the 'long- defrauded ' ministers. The twelfth Act established the just jurisdiction of the Church—' the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ.' * Parliament, ' Booke of the U.Kirk, i. io6. This Covenant is preserved in Glasgow University Library. Cf. Appendix. - Among the 83 members were i bishop, 2 ex-bishops, 1 titular bishop, 14 lay-abbots, and 30 commissioners of burghs. ' Acts I, 2, 3, 4, James vi., 1567: Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 11-14. ' Jbid., iii. 22-32 ; spelling modernised. /O THE COVENANTERS Church self- organised. Reaction in 1570. not understanding what 'jurisdiction' implied, appointed a committee of jurists to define the province of the Church. Meantime it was acknowledged that the Church possessed organic jurisdiction for authorising preaching of the true Gospel, correction of manners, and administration of sacraments ; 'and that there be no other jurisdiction ecclesiastical acknowledged within this Realm, other than that which is and shall be within the same Church.' The First Book of Discipline was not mentioned in these statutes. In this way Scottish Protestantism had developed, organised itself, and set up its own autonomous government; and, only after it had asserted its freedom to act independently within its own sphere, asked the civil power to recognise its separate existence.^ Magis- terial recognition, indicated by the mutual acceptance of a Creed, obviously limited that independence. Nevertheless, neither King nor Parliament could justly claim to have conferred on the National Church an authority which is inherent, whereas, in England, the jurisdiction of the Church is accepted as a gift from the Crown (Article xxxvii.), while it is held to be of divine appointment at the same time. The Church of Scotland, established by law, began its honourable career with two instruments of power only — the Bible and the Con- fession of Faith. It anxiously began its theocratic reign by casting out 'Satan and his ministers,' settling pastors, collecting and disburs- ing the patrimony, curbing the bishops and other insolent oppressors, and dismissing the whole professoriate of Aberdeen for their defiant nonconformity. The reactionary faction was still lively. Want of opportunity prevented the outlawed Hamiltons, whose influence preponderated in St. Andrews University, and other malcontents, from wrecking the new regime. A conspiracy to remove the Regent Moray was not unharmonious with the temper of the time and with the dissolute character of Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews. The murderous bullet of Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh ended the career of Regent ' Booke oftJte U. Kirk, i. 93, 106. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 71 Moray — the most valuable life in Scotland, on the 23rd January Murder of 1570/ The far-seeing intellect of this prudent and practical states- ^^^^^"^1^^°^*''' man realised the perils menacing his distracted country ; and by 1570- settling the Church as an independent government he fixed the foundations of a freedom which saved the people from the tyranny of Roman and English prelacy and from the worse slavery of the barons. The vindictive hanging of Archbishop Hamilton made poor Hanging of atonement for the national disaster in Moray's death, to which that "^"''"°"' ^'^ -' April 1571. prelate was accessory. Moray's loss was felt still more because the Church was ready with a report upon Jurisdiction, drawn up in six articles by Knox, Pont, and Row, in which Jurisdiction was defined to be the right of the Church to judge religion in every relation — the ministry, morality, ecclesiastical disputes, patrimony, marriage, and divorce.' The inclusion of patrimony is noticeable.' The previous sympathy of Moray had led the Church to expect that it would now be freed from the interference of the civil ruler — an interfer- ence then worst felt in the unjustifiable mismanagement of the patrimony. The fall of Moray was a signal for dissension, pillage, and Distractions prelatic intrigue. Knox, tottering with paralysis, was too feeble '"c, ™ ^" ' to stand in the breach. Two opposing Parliaments fulminated against *each other. The Parliament of August 1571, under the presidency of Regent Mar, was browbeaten by the masterful Morton, whose ready tongue fell like a scourge on the petitioning clergy. 'Proud knaves,' he exclaimed, 'he sould lay their pride, and putt order to them.' John Douglas, a man of base birth, was appointed to the Primate's chair and to his seat in Parliament. John Winram, a determined Presbyterian, inhibited him from acting as a legislator until he had the sanction of the Church. Morton threatened the doubting prelate with a charge of treason if he did not take his position, whatever the Church had to say. This little incident ' Record Office, London, Gen. Ser. {Darberini MSS.\ x.\.\ii. 210, 23 ; M'Crie, Knox, ii. 172 ; Calderwood, Hist., ii. 510; Spottiswood, Hist., 233. - Dooke of the U. Kirk, i. 187. ' The General Assembly in 1576 held patrimony to be '■ ex jure divino' : ibid., 360. 72 THE COVENANTERS indicated that there was a party averse to the aboHtion of the old episcopal dignity, because the hierarchy might condone their 'chopping and changing with benefices,' which were as needful to the aristocracy as to the preachers, and some of the latter were averred to be dying on the street, in a famine-struck land.^ Nor was the example of the regnant party over the borders lost upon Morton. The religious question was by no means settled in England, where two great nonconforming parties existed. Elizabeth, far more concerned for her crown and prerogative (13 Eliz. c. 2) than for the Cross of Christ, used rigorous measures equally against the papists and the other nonconformists to the established form of episcopacy, reckoning the former to be traitors and the latter to be disloyal recalcitrants. In the latter part of her reign the rack in the Tower was rarely idle. INI any Catholics were martyred, and the Puritans were sorely persecuted. English counsellors had advised the northern lay-Reformers to hold by the real estate of the Church, since it was the best guarantee against their opponents, and was an easily realised asset. By scandalous trafficking with the presentees to benefices these lay- impropriators entered into illegal possession of the patrimony, leaving the honour of office to the pastors. In this way Morton was to enjoy the revenues of Archbishop Hamilton, all but a pittance. Ostensibly to settle these distractions, Mar invited a select number, sixty-two in all, of superintendents, commissioners, and pastors, many of whom were favourable to a compromise between episcopacy and LeithConven- presbytery, to meet in Leith on the 12th January 1572.- Some ion, 1372. ^yriters have imagined that the liberal-minded John Erskine had induced his kinsman !Mar to take this retrograde step, but Erskine's opinion is given in a letter to Mar in November to this effect : ' Bishops as such have no office and jurisdiction ... for they enter not by the dore, but by another way, and therefore are not pastors, as saith Christ, but thieves and robbers.' Wodrow was probably ' Buckle, Hist, of Civil., iii. gr ; Knox, ii. 529. 2 M'Crie, Knox, ii. 199; Calderwood, Hist., iii. 168, ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW jz nearer the truth when tracing Mar's move to Patrick Adamson, the protigd and chaplain of Morton.^ This irregular Assembly appointed eight members — -John Erskine, Wynram, Lundie, Hay, Lindsay, Pont, Craig, and Adam Fullerton — to confer with eight nominees of the Regent and Council — Morton, Ruthven, Bishop Bothwell, Pitcairn, MakGill, Bellenden, Lundie, and Glenorchy, and to report to next Assembly in St. Andrews on 6th March. The Andrew Hay referred to above had seen service in the Catholic Church, was Rector of Glasgow University and Minister of Renfrew. He favoured presbytery. David Lindsay, a pre-Reformation student, David Minister of South Leith, six times Moderator of Assembly, after- ,530.7613. wards Bishop of Ross, was a pastor of wide influence and inclined to prelacy. Robert Pont (1524- 1606), jurist, poet. Minister of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, Provost of Trinity College, Senator of the College of Justice, came through the turmoil of the Reformation into influence in the Church of which he was Moderator five times. He was a promoter of the Second Book of Discipline and a thorough Presbyterian. Another Presbyterian was John Craig, the learned, John Craig, tearless colleague of John Knox. Ruthven, afterwards first Earl of' '" Gowrie, notorious for the ' Raid of Ruthven,' a man engaged in many dangerous enterprises, was a Protestant, unreliable and superstitious. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, was one of the four bishops who joined the Reformers. He celebrated the marriage of Mary and Bothwell. MakGill and Bellenden were Lords of Session, and the latter was favourable to Morton's policy. This joint-committee agreed upon a Concordat, on the 1 6th Leith Con- T , ..... f cordai, 1572. January 1572. Its provisions m brief were : — I. That archbishops and bishops have charge of the former dioceses; be chosen from qualified preachers ; not less than tltirty years of age, and ' indewed with the qualities specifeit in the Epistles of Paule to Timothe and Tytus'; exercise the functions of superintendents meantime ; be subject to the Assembly in spiritual matters, to the King in temporal; be consecrated; be elected and assisted by a chapter of pastors ; and resume their benefices and their seats in Parliament. ' Wodrow, Collections^ i. 27. K 74 THE COVENANTERS 2. That conventual houses be maintained; their superiors to be examined before institution by the bishops ; their benefices to be first applied to the local pastors. 3. That benefices, having cure of souls attached, be given to preachers, found to be qualified by bishops or superintendents, after they have subscribed the Confession, taken the oath of fidelity to the Crown, and been ordained. 4. That other benefices be applied to education.^ The gist of this insidious scheme is found in the paragraphs settling 'The maner of creating of a Bishop,' where it provides : ' We [i.e. the Crown] haue thocht gude ... to name and recommend him to you to be chosin to the said bishoprick.' Thus the initiative was with the King. This was not its worst feature. The bishop's oath was : — ' I confesse to have and hald the said bishoprik and possessionis of the same, under God, only of youre Maiestie and Crown Royale . . . and for the saidis possessionis I do my homage presentlie to youre Maiestie . . .' By this old form of fealty, the bishop became the King's man, and the clergy would soon be bishops' men. Never was designed a more impudent illustration of Erastianism than this scheme, which was intended to convert the Church into a department of the State, and the Bride of Christ, robbed of her rich heritage and dowry, into a paramour of the King. The regal jurisdiction was defined very cunningly in the oath to be taken by the bishops : ' Youre Maiestie is the only lauchfuU and supreme Governour of this realme, as well in things temperall, as in the conservatioun and purgatioun of the religion.'" This was a prerogative somewhat less than the ecclesi- astical jurisdiction afterwards claimed. The celerity and apparent harmony with which this remarkable agreement was executed create the suspicion that it embodied terms previously arranged to satisfy the self-aggrandising holders of the Church lands, and that it was agreed to by the clerics in desperation. Viewed in relation to the principles of the Church, the Concordat was retrogressive, but in relation to the patrimony, it was advanta- geous. Who can wonder that the Church in her impecunious and ' Booie of the U. Kirk, i. 207-36. - Ibid., i. 220. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 75 distracted condition accepted the settlement as a foretaste of better times ? A feeble corporation, including not more than two hundred and fifty pastors and six hundred lay-readers and exhorters, had little influence with selfish barons armed to the teeth.^ Almost every minister was in charge of four large parishes. If discord made misery in the Church it also was ruining the State. The Queen's party still held Edinburgh Castle against the King's men, who had fortified their camp in Leith. While lying there, distrust of each other rather than pious feeling constrained them to subscribe another Covenant, on the 2nd July, to this effect : — ' We wha haue subscryvit this vnderwrytin wryting, vnderstanding the grit Leith Cove- mercies of God, vttered and schawin to us sen the plantin of his Evangle within "*"'' -nJ J"'y this realme, and speciallie within the burghe of Edinburgh . . . promittis, bindis, and obleissis us faithfully, that we in all tymes heirefter with our lyves, landis, and guidis, and all that we may make, shall sett fordward, and promote the blessed Evangle of our Lord Jesus Christ professit be us within this realme with his true and faithfull ministeris, preacheris theirof, and menteane with the Kingis Maiestie our Soverane lordis auctoritie, his Regent, and nobilities, assistaris to his Grace. . . . ^ This Covenant also expressed gratitude for the emancipation of the country from anti- Christ and the French soldiers, and signified the intention of the subscribers to submit themselves to the discipline of the covenanted brethren or of the mairistrates of Edinburg-h. It is evident that the Leith Covenanters were anxious until their ill- favoured scheme obtained the ratification of an Assembly. Mean- while, the Church was taking it 'ad avizandum.' An Assembly, convened in Perth, on 6th August, John Erskine being Moderator, Perth interim, accepted the Concordat but discarded the titles of the officials of the Church, in so far as they savoured of Popery, and protested ' that the saids heids and articles aggriet upon be only receivit as ane Interim, untill farder and more perfyte ordour be obtainit at the hands of the King's Majesties Regent and Nobilitie.'* Knox, who had refused to take a part in the enthronisation of Douglas in the see of St. Andrews, sent a letter (enclosing some ' IVodrow Afisccll.,\. n>). - Bannatyne, J/tvwr., 247-9 (H.mn. Club). ' Booie of the U. Kirk, i. 246. Knox, 1572. 76 THE COVENANTERS definite articles) to the Perth Assembly, in which he recommended the appointment of qualified bishops. Knox's acquiescence in the Concordat does not imply that he favoured diocesan episcopacy, because the Concordat defined bishops to be of the primitive Pauline type, with a jurisdiction like that of the superintendents, and an office derivative from the Church. Knox never stultified his own Book of Knox's fina! Discipline.' His letter, cominsf as 'The Last Blast of the Trumpet' blast, 1572. r ■ . . . ... of dying Knox, was a parting rally for the ministry of the primitive type, for a non-intruded pastorate, for a free and self-governing Church in Scotland. Its telling point appeared in this advice : ' Above all things, preserue the Kirk from the bondage of the Universities . . . subject never the pulpit to their Judgment, neither yet exempt them from your Jurisdiction.'" The news of the massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day created the next sensation. Soon afterwards Regent Mar died. The while the enfeebled Kno.x painfully tried to preach, with attenuated voice to produce his now far-distant 'thunder,' and to guide the people with a senile intellect which had begun to play the tricks of forgetfulness upon his enthusiasm. The account of his passing, upon the 24th November, affords details for a picture of the dissolution of humanity when seen in its most worthy aspects, and of the unloosing of a spirit as great as it was lovable. Groups of clerical and political comrades thronged his bedchamber. The sad kirk-session dutifully coming to read from his Liturgy prayers for the sick, found him not morose, but ready to pledge another glass of Death of wine from a newly pierced hogshead, and to make a joyful parting with the presbyters. Then, after confessions, warnings, visions, and sweet memories of old Geneva, listening to the reading by his wife of his favourite chapter where he ' first cast anchor ' — St. John xvii., and the chapter on immortality, in the Epistle to the Corinthians — the Reformer lifted the almost vanished hand that was wont to make ' Hallam {Const. Hist., i. 214 note) quoting Neal, 398, states that the English Puritans did not object to the episcopal office, provided that the bishop was only the head of the presbyters, and acted in conjunction with them. * Booke of the U. Kirk, i. 247. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW ']^ princes and people ' to grew and tremble,' and this was the sign that the bravest man in the city had departed, and the ' brycht licht of Scotland ' had gone out/ Two days later he was laid to rest in the churchyard behind the church of St. Giles, where a small stone, with the letters 'L K. 1572' inlaid in bronze, marks his supposed grave. The national Church had lost its strongest bulwark, and although able ministers, such as Erskine, Spottiswood, Row, Craig, Davidson, Lindsay, Fergusson, and Pont were left, these had not the grasp nor impressive personality of Knox, and were unable to keep the Church out of dangerous courses. Lamenting this incapacity, John Davidson, the witty minister of Prestonpans, in verses which drew on him the wrath of Regent Morton, declared : — ' Had gude John Knox not yit bene deid, It had not cum unto this held.' That day Knox expired, Morton rose to the height of his ambition. Rise of Regent being elected Regent in preference to Glencairn, who was a con- sistent Reformer and a blameless politician. The staggering Church, realising that Morton was no friend, discovered the loss of two leaders. After all it was a trivial compensation that, with masterful energy, Morton soon reduced Edinburgh Castle, executed its gallant defender for Mary — Kirkcaldy of Grange — announced the extinction of the crafty secretary, Maitland, conciliated barons long at feud with each other, and confederated under his own leadership political factions hitherto heterogeneous. The Douglas love of power, rather than piety, urged Morton to force Church and State into subjection to the supreme ruler — himself. With a zeal worthy of Mohammed, Act of Uni- he got a statute passed ordaining uniformity of worship, upon thej°™jj^y ,5^3 direction of archbishops, bishops, superintendents, and other officials of the Church. Another Act was passed entitled ' That the ad- ' M'Crie, Knox, ii. 231 ; Calderwood, Hist., iii. 237 ; Lang, Knox, 273. For last hours of Knox, cf. account by Pierre de la Roque, Amsterdam, 1706, in the Woiirow MSS., 1. 90; Jac. V. I. 14. For portrait, cf. Wodrow MSS., fol. viii. Rob. iii. 2. 8 ; Carlyle, 'The Hero as Priest,' VVorks,\m. 133-41 ; P. Hume lirown, / 393. 397- ' Ibid., i. 397 ; ii. 409. * M'Crie, Melville, 6g. 84 THE COVENANTERS resign in favour of the King and a Council of twelve. Melville had the satisfaction of presiding at the Assembly held in the Mary- Magdalene Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 24th April 1578, when it was ordained that bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries should be addressed by their own names or as ' brethren,' that no more bishops should be elected until next Assembly, and that all persons ' suspect in religion ' should sign the Confession and become communicants in parish churches.' At the same time the Book of Policy was approved of without dissent." Fourteen years elapsed before the Policy obtained the force of statute law in the Act (8, 1592) abolishing 'Acts contrary to the true Religion,' where it is referred to without being specified.' In 1581 it was fully engrossed in the Minutes of Assembly, and presbyteries were ordered to get copies of it.^ Second Book Tliis Sccond Book of Discipline differs so little from the First Book iscip me. ^.j^^j. j^ ^^^y j^^ considered its complement. The characteristics of the Policy are : the acknowledgment of the Bible as the source of the revelation that God hath appointed Christ to be the sole head of the Church and of the State ; the declaration that the Bible is the final court of appeal for the truth ; the assertion that presbyters are the only pastors divinely sanctioned ; and the statement that civil government is an authority founded on the law of God's Word. The exposition of these four dogmas displays a beautiful picture of the Christian commonwealth with the Redeemer at its head — a common- wealth in two inseparable, yet distinct, parts. These parts are a pure Church, founded on revealed truth, and consisting of pastors and people, who are free ' according to the Word ' as found in the English Bible ; and, on the same plane, a free State comprising godly magistrates and the same people — the godly King being the chief magistrate. The ideal is a theocracy — Impcrium cum Itnpej'io ; two independent co-ordinated governments, both of God, having one ' authority, ground, and final cause ' for the purpose of advancing 1 Booke of the U. Kirk, ii. 403-1 1. - Ibid., ii. 408. ^ Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 541 : ' Anent the haill jurisdiction and discipline.' * ' Headis and Conclusionis of the Policie of the Kirk' : Booke of the U. Kirk, part ii. 48S- 512, 24th April 1581, Session 9 ; Dunlop, A Collection, Art. 17. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 85 God's glory and making godly and good subjects. Government is representative. The people, at the command of their invisible Head, Jesus Christ, ' call ' or appoint their own governors, but the Church has no temporal Head. Table Illustrating Relation of Church and State to God. God the Father = Christ the Head. i The Word of God. The Christian Commonwealth. L Church. I. Pastors or Bishops, Ministers, Seniors. f Doctors or Prophets, Teachers, , J Bishops, Elders, Catechisers. t Eiders or Presidents, Governors, = • Deacons. 3. The Masses (K';?g^°''/'''"«^', ■^ |_ Magistrates, People. 'Kings or Princes. i.' Magistrates. ■II. State. [Clergy, i Laity. The Masses-! 3.J the Church. The Second Book of Discipline consists of 209 paragraphs con- tained under 13 heads treating of — Church and Policy compared with Civil Policy, ecclesiastical functionaries, admission to office, pastors and ministers, doctors and schools, elders, assemblies and discipline, deacons, patrimony, magistrate in Church, Church reforms, special heads of Reformation, utility following this Reformation. The Church is defined to be the congregation of ' thamc that Kunctionof professis the Evangell of Jesus Christ,' who subject themselves to spiritual rulers. The State is this identical society governed in civil matters by Christian magistrates, who nourish and defend the Church without trespassing on its spiritual function. Their spheres of action are distinct. Unfortunately no neutral zone was designated, and hence arose the interminable conllicts on the borders between the State and the Church. The Book is confused in the definition of prerogatives. The pastors are to teach the magistrates how civil jurisdiction is to be exercised according to the Scriptures (i. S 2t). The magistrates, on the other hand, are to command the pastors to The ideal clergy. 86 THE COVENANTERS exercise their office according to the same Word (i. § 17.) The magistrate must thus have a spiritual function if he is to judge his own duty by a reference to the Word, and is more than an executor. If he makes laws to benefit the Church, he must be capable of judging when any offender is a person referred to in the law. This last pre- rogative is the crux of the matter. Hildebrand prepared no more powerful lever to elevate the Pope, Cromwell none more effective to abase the King, the Assembly none better calculated to remove itself, than this claim to teach the King and other godly rulers to reverence the voice of every pulpiteer, ' as the majestie of the Sone of God speiking be thame [by them].' The idealists of the Melvinian school contemplated no stupidity in the ministry, and never dreamed that democratic impertinence might obtain a sacred prerogative to be exercised to the hurt of many. The ideal of the pastorate is high : what higher than the living voice of Christ's Majesty ? To save souls the pastor is ' a messenger and herald betwixt God and the people.' There is no hierarchy nor gradation of holy officers. If the pastor should prefer the name of 'bishop,' the choice is indifferent; to the term 'bishop' recollection added no hallowing dignity, faith lent no power, and this Book confers no distinction more than to pastor, minister, or presbyter. Any dis- tinction the preacher has arises from his lawful election, by the people, to be the pastor of one flock only, because ' true bishops should not usurp lordship over their brethren and over the inheritance of Christ.' Intrusion was a sacrilege not to be brooked.^ Every parish was to obtain a treasure in Christ's holy preacher — no hireling, false teacher, dumb dog, idle-belly, nor what savoured worst of all — an ' ambitious titular.' This negrative method of delineatinof the Christ-like character o o renders it doubtful that these stern covenanting logicians rightly appreciated the tender traits of the Good Shepherd, who led, undriven, all His flock, and carried the weakest in His bosom. If jealousy for a pure ministry, on the one hand, prevented a ' Alexander Henderson was passed through a window in Leuchars Church on his intrusion there. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 87 pastor becoming a diocesan bishop, a judge, or, as was wittily said, a Pastors, not ' pantry-man,' that is, any other functionary than the dispenser of the p*""^>'""''^"- Bread and Water of Life to sinners; on the other hand, it also resented uncompromisingly all State-interference with the Church, unless when the magistrate was invited to punish any adversary of the Gospel. In this request was a dangerous acknowledgment of a stronger power which might act with intolerance in other circumstances and never heed the remonstrances of the injured Church. The Book further teaches that the clergy are not the Church, but church are officers of it along with elders, deacons, and doctors. Pastors " "^'* ^' only can preach, administer sacraments, and solemnise marriage. Doctors can teach the Word and help the elders in spiritual govern- ment. Elders (of whom the minister is one) watch diligently over the flock, and admonish those who are bad. Deacons receive and distribute the income of the Church. The superintendent is not mentioned. The patrimony is property lawfully given to the Church, the alienation of which is sacrilege. In 1576 the Assembly declared the patrimony to be ex jure divino — the property of the Church only.' The Assemblies are Universal, National, Provincial, and Parochial Origin of — the latter being the Eldership of one congregation or more, with a ^^^^ ^ ^"^^' moderator to preside over each assembly. The ' Presbytery,' or district assembly, developed out of the meeting of elders attending the weekly ' Exercise ' of one congregation or of several congrega- tions. The 'E.xercise' is not referred to in this Book. This ' Eldership ' was not generally differentiated in two parts, the parochial or sessional and the presbyterial, till, after 1592, the Church, with parliamentary approval, mapped out Scotland into districts called presbyteries. The lesser presbytery remained as the congregational kirk-session, made up of the pastor and the elders of his pastorate; the greater presbytery, or classical assembly, with the name of The Presbytery, had spiritual jurisdiction over a defined area, embracing several parishes. ' Bookeofthc U. Kirk, i. 360. 88 THE COVENANTERS Practical work The Church, in endeavouring to realise the noble office of render- ing the voice of ' the majesty of the Son of God ' audible, welcome, and authoritative, often demeaned its dignity when dealing with adversaries. The accused had no right of immediate reply to the sacred preacher. The securitj' of the pulpit gave intolerant speakers an inquisitional tone. Indeed, ' the quality of mercy ' was more than strained when this Book declared that ' the spiritual ruler judges both inward affections and external action in respect of conscience by the Word.' The clause 'by the Word' does not imply toleration. Though every individual, in disagreement with the Church, could appeal to the Word (in English), and this was an advance from inquisitional methods, yet the Church, in its Assembly, was the final interpreter of that Word. If the magistrate refused to punish a delinquent, the Church utilised the pulpit for fulminating a final verdict on both. There was thus in store for the godly common- wealth the worst of perils — narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and hypocrisy — when thus the herald of the Gospel became an officious detective ferreting out ' inward affections.' The Church government was impartial, since kings, judges, magistrates, nobles, and citizens were all compelled to submit themselves to the one discipline. And it is also to be noticed that neither Book of Discipline places any part of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the power of one individual — king or priest. A book of this character could not afford palatable doctrine to rulers of the type of the Stuart kings, who assumed a Divine right to do what they pleased.* Not only was this code founded on God's Word, it was fortified by the will of the people. It secured the interest of the masses by making ' Christian brethren ' the main factor of power, next to God, appraising them at divine, not royal or baronial value, and commanding them to have their children, as children of God — ' heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ ' — vir- tuously educated. The printing of the Bible in 1576 and 1579 in Edinburgh made the true rule of life a treasured possession in every ' I.e. the sovereigns after Mary S/iinrt, designated Stuarts, in contradistinction to the Stewarts before Mary. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH BY LAW 89 pious home, and gave an irresistible impetus to the covenanted work The Scots of religion in Scotland.' This reproduction of the Genevan English ^'^'^' Bible is a credit to the Scottish press of Alexander Arbuthnet and Thomas Bassandyne. It is a magnificent folio, the Old Testament in 504 pages, the New Testament in 126 pages, the text in double columns adorned with illustrations, and fully interpreted by notes on the edges. A calendar, historical tables, and index complete this very valuable work. The Preface by the General Assembly, dated 10th July 1579, gives King James the credit of publishing this Bible. The New Testament bears the imprint of Bassandyne in 1576, the Old Testament that of A. Arbuthnet in 1579. The annotations are most valuable and original, and display a knowledge of theological science with which the Reformers and Covenanters are not generally credited. It has lono- been a stock argument among geolog^ists that the unscientific Church believed in the creation of the world in six ordinary days. The annotators of this fine Bible drew a distinction between the cosmic day and the twenty-four-hour day and night. The marginal note on the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis states : ' The light was made before either sun or moon was created, therefore we most [must] not attribute that to the creatures that are God's instrument which only apperteineith to God.' Another note on the word 'day,' in the fourteenth verse, is, 'which is the artificial day from the sunne rising to the going down.' On many other points there are notes anticipating modern criticisms of the Bible. The Second Book of Discipline made the principles of the Covenanters intelligible, popular, and uniform." A dreamy day out of Paradise had suddenly dawned upon the rude Personal denizens of the dark wynds and alleys of Edinburgh and other towns, and more especially upon the wilder caterans who lived in leathern jackets or war-tattered kilts, and were ever ready to desert the plough for the sword at the call of imperious barons, when they heard the ' Bassandyne and Arbuthnet's Genevan \'ersion in English, cd. 1576, 1579; Aldis, List, Nos. 145, 154. - .Mitchell, T/tc Scottish Rcfonnation, chap, x., 214-38. M 90 THE COVENANTERS The new Christian common- wealth. new pulpiteers everywhere declaring from this Book, that every man must seek his own salvation, that the monarch, who ruled from Dunedin's castled rock, was, just as any peasant, but a liegeman to the Church — Andrew Melville even designated him " God's sillie [weak] vassal ' — and that every preacher, when in the pulpit, had the right to flout monarch or merry-andrew with his sins, even as Knox had retorted to Queen Mary : ' I am called to a public function within the Church of God, and am appointed by God to rebuke the sins and vices of all.' This view of civil magistracy is identical with the teaching of the contemporary English exponent of Presbyterianism, Thomas Cartwright, the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He stated that the magistrates must CTOvern the Church according: to the Word of God, and ' must submit their sceptres, throw down their crowns before the Church, yea, as the prophet speaketh, lick the dust off the feet of the Church.'^ Things had changed. The commonwealth of Scotland was Christian, in theory at least. This was the truth which, as Melville defiantly told Morton, could not and was not to be exiled from Scotland. ' Hallain, Const. Hist., i. 187, quoting Madox, Vindication . . . against Neal, 122. THE KING'S CONFESSION 91 CHAPTER IV THE KINGS CONFESSION During the last thirty years of the sixteenth century picturesquely Tragedies in ; sixte ntur)'. tragical events followed each other with startling frequency. They centun*^'^" reappear in visions bound with links of ruby hue, and pass, each carried upon a stream of blood. This current, redder than the rest, redder than Rizzio's, Darnley's, Moray's, Hamilton's, Lennox's, Morton's, Ruthven's, than all others, splashing from the headsman's axe, is the blood-royal itself, flowing ' in the auld enemy's land,' and ceasing not till many men and things are tinged with it. Everywhere the distracted cried out of the depths, ' Who will show us any good .'' ' And many found it at the gallows-foot when embracing the execu- tioner, whom they euphemistically called their 'good-man.' In 1580 one sanctuary still unstained was the new-born Church.^ Elsewhere was a smell of blood. Still two parties strained against each other — the Protestant holding sway, the Catholic striving for it. They played a game of chess with living pieces, armed from plume to spur — each party having a King and a Queen, defended by over- reaching knights, obliquely moving bishops, unstable castles, and unfortunate pawns. The Catholic party had the stronger king in the Pope (Gregory xiii., 1572-85, and his successor, Sixtus v., 1585-90) and the weaker Queen in Mary Stuart, who lay in check in an English prison. The Covenanters laid aside their brazen crown and sceptre when the genuine national emblems of power were placed ' The sanjfuinary measures left on tlie statute book were a heritage from the Ruinan Catholic past. The story of the .Scottish Keforniation is unique in being a bloodless record. 92 THE COVENANTERS \ Origin of the National Covenant of 15S0-1. on James's head and were guaranteed by Queen Elizabeth. The political moves were many and engrossing, many the designs balked, many the pieces pushed off the board by stronger Hands than those of the players. The Pope, boasted king of this world, had the King of Kings against him, and found perpetual check. The movements which gave rise to the first National Covenant, that of 1 58 1, were these. The efforts of Rome to undo the Reformation, made by Jesuits, eminent teachers and preachers, carrying out the programme of the Council of Trent, succeeded abroad, so that the Protestants began to see themselves cornered within a very few States in Europe, and being gripped in the tightening grasp of the absolute Pope. The intellectual forces of The Jesuits, the Jesuits — scholarship, diplomacy, and obedience — were more effective in weakening the unconsolidated Reformed Church than the clumsier weapons of the punitive priesthood — sword, fire, and rope. Young Scottish exiles were lovingly subsidised by Queen Mary, at Douay College, and, with English refugees at Rome, under the learned Dr. Allen, were equipped for a Holy Crusade. The dispensations which Ivlary's servants in her prison obtained to hide their creed were procurable by all opponents of heresy. Hence it was difficult to discover the real character of devotees attending meetings of Protestants, the while their hearts sadly damped down an unswerving love for the Pope. A secret Mass was their unsigned Covenant. English society was honeycombed with pious traitors. Little Scotland was better watched. Ireland was still an emerald in the papal crown. The strongholds of the Protestant faith began to give indications of instability. England was the one troublesome spot which the Pope would purge at any price — gold, blood, and life. His design was of the craftiest. With the crowns of Rome, Spain, and France in combination, England might be won. The plan of Jesuit Nicolaus to rescue Mary and marry- her to a coercive husband, like Don John of Austria, or any other Don with sacrificial intentions at Hymen's altar, was ludicrous in its impracticable simplicity. Mary's acrid spinster-cousin, Eliza- THE KING'S CONFESSION 93 beth, with virginal propriety, judged that three times at Hymen's altar were enough for any sinner or saint; and, in 1587, she gave F;i'= of Queen up her lovely rival Queen as a sacrifice to justice on the bloody altar ^'^^' of Fotheringay. In the loyalty of Ireland Pope Gregory xiii. vainly imagined i'm'*' p'''"S' that he possessed a lever to upset England. But this once gay lawyer from the buoyant air of Bologna did not know the sad Celtic pulse. His 'Peter's Pence' affording the sinews of war, in 1579, were thrown away. The arrival of the papal troops in Ireland merely afforded their English destroyers another opportunity for discreditable butchery. The instigators at home grew terrified as the crusaders abroad became bolder, and filled their stirring appeals with recitations of English atrocities. A Catholic triumph appeared imminent, when the doom of Mary startled Europe, as no other fact, save that of St. Bartholomew's Day, had ever done. It steeled Pope Sixtus v. against further apathy or delay. He would crush England with the Spanish soldiers of the Almighty. So Philip the Second's Armada sailed, and sank, in 1588. A storm, with Providence The Armada, directing it, destroyed the crusaders. The Pope had lost the game.^ Such were the leading movements which Andrew Melville, the successor of Knox, and his Covenanting compatriots opposed, in this Reign of Terror. The pastors and religious laymen who had guided the new Church through every danger till now, were eminent and bold exponents of root-principles in politics, sociology, and morality, which were as little practised as understood in those days. At the time when the Church required to be established for Reason fm political reasons, namely, after 1588, the nobles and land-owners '^""'''''''""•'"'" were not so intimately associated with the Church as before, and did not attend its Assemblies. The Church was left to clerical guides. Internecine quarrels sprang up between families, whose chiefs, such as Glencairn and Eglinton, had supported the Reformation, and these the presbyteries were called upon to settle. • For a concise account of the Reformation in Scotland and England, cf. Principal T. M. Lindsay, A History of the Reformation, ii. 274-41S (Edin., 1907). 94 THE COVENANTERS The disagreeable, interfering activity ol the King himself damped the interest of the Presbyterian aristocracy in practical politics, and ultra- Protestants became chary of attendance upon Court and Council. Deaths of John Erskine of Dun died in 1590, before he saw the dream of leaders. ^is youth realised in a securely guarded Establishment.' Nor did his compatriot John Spottiswood see that consummation. It is to be noted that the Principals of the Universities — Arbuthnot of Aberdeen, Smeton of Glasgow, and Rollock of Edinburgh — died in middle age, the former two not seeing the triumph of presbytery. Otherwise, those Church leaders who had strenuously promulgated democracy in opposition to royal absolutism, died ripe in years, when, like Simeon, their eyes had seen the Salvation of Israel ; notably, David Fergusson in 1598, John Durie in 1600, fohn Craig in 1600, John Duncanson in 1601, John Davidson in 1604. David Lindsay in 1613, James Melville in 1614, Andrew Melville in 1622, and Robert Bruce in 1631." These men brought the controversy between Church and State to a clear issue, and the prolonged conflict resulted in the triumph of democracy and presbytery. The four Stuart monarchs were able to harass the Protestant Church for a century, but they could not obliterate the national demand for personal liberty in matters concerning religion and politics, any more than the English Edwards could. The hyper-sensitiveness of Scotsmen regarding freedom and religion has been mainly generated through the action of Engrlish rulers, Anglo-Scottish legislators, and southern teachers, who in vain attempted to reduce the Scots to uniformity in nationality, law, and religion. Well- grounded fears, and sad memories of the failures, sins, and tyrannical crimes of the Catholic dignitaries, stiffened these early leaders against any compromise with Romanism, or any system which was deemed to be its counterfeit. Some, broader-minded or less appre- hensive than the rest, might have given a modified episcopacy a fair trial, yet no one could brook either a titular bishop or an imperious • 22nd March 1590: Misc. Spald. Clii/>, iv., pp. Ixxvii, Ixxviii. - 27th July 1631. Life by Wodrow, prefaced to Sermons (Edin., 1843). \ THE KING'S CONFESSION 95 lordling. Who could expect toleration of the discarded Faith from Toleration men who, having escaped martyrdom by the skin of their own teeth, ""t'°*^''''^- heard still of the torture of heretics abroad by rack, boots, ' turkas ' (flesh-pincers), ' dogs ' (thumbscrews), and fire, and who felt that the oppressors' swords were not far from their own throats?* In these days exhausted combatants parleyed by means of toleration, as cynics now do from mental indifference. Although General Assemblies, before 1580, had levelled bishops to the status of congregational pastors, these dignitaries, considering that they had their honours direct from the Crown, refused to resign their office, their seats in Parliament, and their estates, in exchange for the miserable meal emoluments of the preachers, until they were hunted into humility and equality, as was the persistent Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St. Andrews. King James, on his first appearance in Parliament, on 24th October 1579, ratified the Act (1567) establishing the Church in a statute declaring 'there is na uther face of Kirk, nor uther face of religion.' The six bishops present with the King did not comprehend its import. When, how- ever, on the 1 2th July 1580, the Assembly met in Dundee, James Dundee Lawson being Moderator, Andrew Melville, Professor of Logic, gave ^.^Ig"" ' ^ ' them a lesson in the lost art of reasoning. Through his influence an Act was passed finding the office of bishop to have neither warrant nor hint in Holy Writ, and to be a foolish, corrupt, destructive invention. The bishops were enjoined to demit their function, cease ministerial duties, and seek re-admission as simple pastors, under pain of excommunication." The finishing stroke to diocesan episcopacy was delivered when the Churchmen began to turn the code of the Book of Discipline to practical account, and to designate presbyteries out of the weekly ' Exercises.' Nevertheless, with the King's approval, the royal bishops greedily clung to their posts and patrimony, to the scandal and injury of the Church. ' R. D. Melville, The Use and Forms of Judicial Torture in England and Scotlana, with illustrations; Scol. Hist. Rev., ii. 7, 225. ''■ liooke of the U. Kirk, ii. 453 ; Calderwood, iii. 469 ; .Spottiswood, lol. 311. 96 THE COVENANTERS D'Aubigny, >579- Tenor for Frenchmen. Duke of Lennox. The arrival in Edinburgh of some gay Frenchmen in September 1579 made Churchmen needlessly nervous regarding their visibly active and undermining enemies — the Catholics. The city-ministers, advised by spies in France, gave ' loud and tymous warning ' of the advent from France of Esme Stuart, Monsieur d'Aubigny, to whom the magistrates extended a princely welcome to the capital. Esme was of the Lennox Stuarts, and the King's cousin-once-removed. ' Not removed enough,' cried many, who correctly surmised that he was an agent of the Pope and of the bloody Guises — a man too courtly to be honest, and too brilliant to be genuine. Not credulous, but suspicious, was the time. From Edinburgh, where public opinion was fabricated, there flew to the country the wildest gossip regarding papal gold sent to buy the nobles, concerning the conspirators, whom the modern Antichrist, the Duke of Guise, had conveyed to their ship, and about some dreadful plots. In parish pulpits, round rural hearths, and wherever men met, the blood-curdling memories of St. Bartholomew's Day were recalled with terror, and any traveller who had returned from France, or had witnessed the butchery in Paris, was made to wash his hands of complicity in presence of the worshippers assembled in Church. The gay French visitors, probably made more festive, noisy, and pot-valiant by the northern vin de pays, were eyed askant as those very assassins from Paris. Balcanqual, a preacher, denounced them ' become now so bold as to draw their bloody sword upon the calsey [causeway] of Edinburgh to shed the blood of the professors of religion.' The first to succumb to the new diplomacy was Regent Morton, hated by his peers for his insolence, by the clergy for* contempt of their cause. He sought revenge in intrigues with England, which resulted in his ruin. Into Morton's place stepped D'Aubigny, soon created Duke of Lennox and Lord High Chamberlain. This fasci- nating courtier, some thirty years old, a Catholic of flexible principles and easy morals, whose role, or mission, was to save King James from the perdition of Protestantism, must have appeared in the eyes of THE KING'S CONFESSION 97 the simple boy-monarch as ' Hyperion to a Satyr,' when compared with the rude drill-sergeants of his youth — those sad-visaged Calvinistic expounders of the perfect truth. D'Aubigny had become a Protestant so easily that the stern Covenanters, born again as Christians and as patriots through the painful throes of blood and tribulation, rightly distrusted his sincerity. Captain James Stewart, heir of his uncle, Chatelherault, soon to Eari of Arran. be Earl of Arran, brother-in-law of John Knox, a mercenary and a profligate scoundrel, divided with Lennox the royal favour and the Church's patrimony. The developing corruption of the young King was seen, even by worldlings, to be a peril to Crown, Church, and country, which called for resistance. A still more alarming danger was suspected — probably divulged to the watchful Covenanters — in a Catholic plot to convert or depose the King, and to murder Queen Elizabeth, in which Lennox was believed to be implicated. The pulpit was still the impregnable citadel where 'God's Lieu- I'^werofthe tenant,' the preacher, held sway. Everywhere the preachers stirred ^" '^' ' the people with fears of the loss of freedom. Two fearless shepherds of the capital, Walter Balcanqual and John Durie, in December 1580, made the Church of St. Giles ring with denunciations of Papists, French ruffians, imported diseases, and the iniquities of Sodom generally. Balcanqual declaimed how banished Catholics ' swarm home from all places like locusts,' having access to Court ('the Frenche Court,' he contemptuously styled it), to kirk-sessions, and to Assemblies, and how Parisian quarrels were settled on the streets of Edinburgh. For this outburst the King harassed his critics and dismissed Durie from the •city. The people believed the preachers. The news that St. Andrews University was infected with Catholic ^ , ,. . , , . 1 • 1 7-1 • • 1 blasphemers. Catholicism, and that in rural parishes contemptuous rapists said requiem masses for the decadent ministry, incensed the determined pastors. Doubtless, gossip exaggerated the facts of the case. It was true, however, that when the minister of Lochwinnoch's mare died on the road near Paisley, three blasphemers fronj that town N 98 THE COVENANTERS appeared, offered to the carcase ale and corpse-meats, sang the dirge, and danced round the mare, as the symbol of the Reformed Church.^ Another gleeful Papist, followed by some armed reprobates, entered the churchyard of Neilston, in the same quarter, to the sound of bag- pipes, and while public worship proceeded piped, danced, and screamed for the ' hert-blude ' of the reader, who wisely remained in the sacred building and was safe there— such was the indelible superstition of those profane ruffians. Queen Elizabeth's ambassador at Court kept up the scare till Elizabeth and the Prince of Orange gave James the alarm of con- spiracy. Some dispensations permitting the Catholics to pose as Protestants so long as ' they did use their diligence to advance in secret the Romane Faith' were intercepted." James could no longer be in doubt, especially when he learned that his alleged perversion was subject of common gossip. In 1580 the King converted his household into a regular congregation or pastorate, and ordained that the Church was to have full jurisdiction in his palaces. John John Craig. Craig was appointed one of his chaplains — a remarkable preferment, since Craig was one of the most outspoken of the original leaders. Experience as a monk, travel in Catholic lands, and a grasp of the situation gained through his pastoral work in St. Giles, Montrose, « and Aberdeen, and through his association with the compilers of the Church Standards, made Craig a bulwark of strength. It is con- ceivable that the impressionable King even felt gratitude towards the bold preacher who protested against Mary's marriage to Bothwell, and who stayed in the city when the other pastors fled from her wrath. Craig had the King's confidence, and it does not transpire that the King consulted Council, Parliament, or Assembly, before authorising Craig to draft a Confession of Faith, which would afford • a test of the fidelity of the lieges to Crown and Church. It is not unlikely that, since Lennox and his gay comrades on subscribing this Confession were somewhat relieved of grave suspicion, Lennox may have .suggested the test to James. But historical data do not indicate ' Reg. Privy Counc, iii. 209, 215. - Spottiswood, fol. 308. THE KING'S CONFESSION 99 that the plot to restore Mary and Catholicism was so imminent as the preachers said it was in 1580. On 28th January 1581 the King and his household subscribed The King's the Confession, afterwards designated ' The King's Confession,' ' The '^°"f"='°"' Covenant,' 'The National Covenant,' 'The Second Confession of Faith,' and ' The Negative Confession.' Row aptly describes this Covenant as ' a touchstone to try and discern Papists from Protes- tants.' ^ (i) It affirms that true religion is revealed in the Gospel, is preached by certain ' notable kirks,' chiefly the Kirk of Scotland, and is interpreted in the Confession of Faith confirmed by Acts of Parliament. (2) It abjures all contrary religion, i.e. popish doctrine, law, and ceremonies wherein these are unscriptural. The Liturgy is not mentioned among the things detested and removed, (3) It binds the subscribers to obedience to and defence of the ' doctrine and discipline ' of ' this true Reformed Kirk ' of Scotland. (4) It asserts that this Confession is honest and not a subterfuge. (5) It binds the subscribers to defend the King, himself the Defender of the Church and of the liberties of his people. The particular references to the form of religion established in Scotland in 1581 are found in these terms: ' Kyrk of Scotland'; ' the Confession of owre Fayth, stablished and publictly confirmed by sindrie Actis of Perlamentis, and now of a long tyme hath bene openly professed by the Kingis Maiestie, and whole body of this Realme . . . To the whilk Confession and Forme of Reliofion we willingly agree in owre conscience in all poyntis ' ; ' this true reformed Kyrk ; to the quhilk we joyne owreselues willingly, in doctrine, fayth, religion, discipline, and wse of the holie Sacramcntis.' A remarkable feature of this Confession is the omission of the terms bishop, minister, episcopacy, and presbytery. The Confession asserts ' we abhorre and detest ' the Pope's ' worldly monarchie and ' The oriti'inal document is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Cf. Appendix. A reduced facsimile appears in this volume. roo THE COVENANTERS wicked hierarchic' But if the term 'hierarchic' was selected in order to be ambiguous, so that the idea of government by diocesan bishops might be left an open question, then the later Covenanters at least were not deceived by this ruse. When Charles i. cunningly enjoined his Scottish lieges to subscribe this Confession, 'as it was then (1581) profest within this Kingdom,' the Glasgow Assembly, on 8th December 1638, retaliated by passing ' An Act clearing the meaning of the Confession of the Faith, Anno Dni. 1580, and abjuring and removing Episcopacie.' ^ Scot of Cupar pertinently asserted, 'the Counsell of Trent declared this hierarchie to consist of bishops, presbyters, and deacons. We then professe we detest the degree and superiority of bishops.'" The signature of the King is followed by that of Lennox and that of Morton — by this time a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle. The King's chaplains, Craig and Duncanson (Sub-dean of the Chapel Royal), and the King's preceptor, Peter Young, also signed. On the 2nd March the King commanded all ministers and commissioners to cause all parishioners to subscribe, and enacted that refusers should be Glasgow punished. This course the Glasgow Assembly on the 28th April, 1581" ''' after registering the Second Book of Discipline, approved of; thus, by mistake, putting the imprimatur of the Church upon an Act arising out of the King's absolutism and assumed headship of the Church.^ This easy acquiescence and official declaration of the manifesto to be *ane true and Christian Confessioun' was readily obtained after the King's prom.ised liberality and approval of the erection of presbyteries. Glasgow When the framers of the Covenant in 1638 interpreted the bearing ■^g^l™'''^' of this Confession upon the subject of episcopacy, Robert Baillie, minister of Kilwinning, was the only dissentient from the view that it abjured episcopacy. The Confession of 1581 itself is clear in de- claring the determination of the subscribers to maintain the ' discipline of this Kirk,' and yet there might have remained a loophole for the crafty, inasmuch as the Book of Discipline, though operative, had no ■ Peterkin, Records, 46, 80, 90, 168. ■ Scot, An. Apol. Narr., 47. 3 Booke of the U. Kirk, ii. 477, 512. THE KING'S CONFESSION loi parliamentary sanction for years afterwards. Everywhere this Cove- nant was subscribed with enthusiasm. Printed copies were in circu- lation.^ It was translated into many tongues. One permanent result Result of of the King's alarm expressed in his Confession was the ratifica- tion by Parliament, in November 1581, of the liberty of the Church guaranteed in previous statutes, notably that of 1567. The tenor of the King's Confession is as follows : — (Ane short and general Confessione of the true Christiane Fayth and Religione, The King's according to Godis Vorde, and Actis of our Perlament, subscryued by the Kingis Confession, Maiestie and his Houshold, with sindrie otheris, to the gloria of God, and good example of all men att Edinburght, the 28 day of Januare 1580, and 14 yeare of his Maiesties reigne.) We all, and ewerie one of ws wndervritten, protest, that after long and dew examination of owre Consciences in matteris of true and false religiotin, are now throchly resolued in the trueth, by the Worde and Sprit of God : And therefore we beleue with owre heartis, confesse with owre mouthes, subscrywe with owre handis, and constantly affirme before God and the whole world, That this onely is the true Christiane Fayth and Religion, pleasing God and bringing sana- tion to man, whilk is now, by the mercy of God, reweled to the world by the preach- ing of the blessed Ewangell ; and is receaued, beleued, and defended by manie and sindrie notable Kyrkis and realmes; but chiefly by the Kyrk of Scotland, the Kingis Maiestie, and three Estatis of this Realme, as Godis eternall trueth and onely ground of our Saluation, as more particulerly is expressed in the Confession of owre Fayth, stablished and publictly confirmed by sindrie Actis of Perlamentis, and now of a long tyme hath bene openly professed by the Kingis Maiestie, and whole body of this Realme, both in brught and land : To the whilk Confession and Forme of Religion we willingly agree in owre conscience in all poyntis, as wnto Godis wndoubted trueth and weritie, grounded onely wpon his written Worde : And therefore we abhorre and detest all contrarie religion and doctrine ; but cheifly all kynd of papistrie in generall, and particular headis, ewen as they are now damned and confuted by the Worde of God, and Kirk of Scotland : But in specale we detest and refuse the usurped authoritie of that Romane Antichrist wpon the Scriptures of God, wpon the Kirk, the CiwiU Magistrate and conscience of men : all his tyrranous lawes made wpon indifferent thinges agaynst owre Christiane libertie ; his erroneous doctrine agaynst the sufficiencie of His written Worde, the perfection of the Lawe, the office of Christ and his blessed Ewangell ; his corrupted doctrine concernyng originall synne, owre natural! inabilitie and rebellion to godliness, owre justificatioun by fayth onely, owre imperfect sanctification and obedience to the Law ; the nature number and wse of the holie Sacramentis ; his fywe bastard Sacramentis, with all his ritis, ceremoneis and false doctrine, added to ' Row, //is/., 73, and note: 'At London by Robert Walde^'rave, 1581, small 8vo, and many other editions' ; printed with Craig's Catechism (1581) ; Aidis, List, Nos. 176, 211. I02 THE COVENANTERS The King's the ministration of the true Sacramentis without the Worde of God ; his cruell judge- Confession, ment agaynst infantis deperting without the Sacrament ; his absolute necessitie of '^ '■ baptisme : his blasphemous opinion of transsubstantiation, or reall presence of Christs body in the Elements, and receawing of the same by the wicked, or bodeis of men ; his dispensationeis with solemnes othes, periuries, and degreis of manage forbidden in the Worde ; his crueltie agaynst the innocent deuorced ; his diwilishe Mes ; his blasphemous preisthood ; his prophane sacrifice for the synnes of the dead and the quyck; his canonization of men, calling wpon angelis or sainctis deperted ; worshiping of imageis, reliques and croces ; dedicating of kyrkis, altaris, dayis ; woues [vows] to creatures ; his purgatorie, prayeris for the dead, praying or speaking in a strange langwage ; wth his processioneis and blasphe- mous letanie, and multitude of aduocatis or mediatoreis ; his manifold ordoures ; auricular confession ; his despered and wncertayne repentance ; his generall and doubtsome fayth ; satisfactioneis of men for theyr synnes ; his justification by workes, his opus operatum, workes of supererogation, meritis, pardones, perigrina- tioneis, and stationeis ; his holy water, baptisyng of bellis, cungering of spritis, crocing, saning, anoynting, coniuring, hallowing of Godis good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joyned therewith ; his worldlie monarchie, and wicked hierarchie ; his three solemne woues [vows], with all his shawelingis of syndrie sortes, his erroneous and bloodie decretes made at Trent, with all the subscryweris and approweris of that cruell and bloodie band, coniured agaynst the Kyrk of God. And finally, we detest all his wane allegories, ritis, signes, and traditioneis broght in the Kyrk, without or agaynst the Worde of God, and doctrine of this true reformed Kyrk ; to the quhilk we joyne owreselues willingly, in doctrine, fayth, religion, discipline, and wse of the holie Sacramentis, as lyuely memberis of the same in Christ owre Head : promising and suearing by the great name of the Lord owre God, That we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this Kyrk, and shall defend the same according to owre wocation and pouer, all the dayes of owre lyues, wnder the paines contained in the Law, and danger both of body and saule in the day of Godis fearfull judge- ment. And seing that manie are styrred wp by Satan, and that Romane Anti- christ, to promise sueare, subscryue, and for a tyme wse the holie Sacramentis in the Kyrk deceatfully, agaynst there owne conscience, mynding heireby, fyrst, wnder the externall clok of the Religion, to corrupt and subuert secretly Godis true religion within the Kirk ; and afterward when tyme may serue, to become open enemeis and persecutoris of the same, wnder wane hope of the Papis dispensation diuised agaynst the Vorde of God, to his greater confusion and theyre dowble condemnation in the day of the Lord Jesus : We therefore willing to take away all suspition of hypocrisie, and of syk dowble dealing with God and his Kirk, protest and call the Searcher of all heartis for witnes, that owre myndis and heartis do fullely agree with this owre Confession, promise, othe, and subscription ; so that we are not moved for any worldly respect, bot are perswaded onely in owre conscience, throught the knawledge and loue of Godis true religion, prented in owre heartis by the Holy Sprit, as we shall answer to Him in the day, when the secretis of all heartis shalbe disclosed. And because we perceaue that the quietnes and stabilitie of owre Religion and Kirk depend wpon the sawetie and good behaviour of the ^mf^r.--', '^^hyu -\i»*»Vy. ihc'^frvt- ■•« 'i-i.**/*:'- -^'^ ^ ' • fit A.V *w jp:.-ttJiA . nr." ■er"' P) i^iim 1 I THE KING'S CONFESSION TO- Kyngis Maiestie, as wpon ane comfortable instrument of Codis mercy graunted to this cowntrey, for the maintaining of his Kyrk, and ministration of Justice amongis ws ; We protest and promise solemnetly with oure heartis, vnder the same othe, hand writ and panes, that we shall defend his persona and authoritie with owre geyr, bodyes and lyues, in the defence of Christis Euangell, libertie of owre cowntrey, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquitie, agaynst all enemeis within this realinc or without, as we desyre owre God to be a strong and mercyfull defender to ws, in the day of owre death, and coming of oure Lord Jesus Christ : To whome, with the Father and the Holie Sprit, be all honour and glorie eternally. Amen. James R. M'' Johne Crag. Jhon Duncanson. Michaell Elphinstoun. P. Yowng. Robert Erskyne. James Elphinstoun. S. Borthik vithe hand and hart. Welzame Crag. Jhone Mordo. James Coluill of Est Wemes. George Douglas. Alex' Durem. Walter Steuart Pryore of Blantyre. Villiam Ruthen off Ballandane. Jhon Scrymgeour Yownger off Glaswali. William Morray. Dauid Murray. James Frasser. Lenox. Mortoune. Bothwell. Argyll. Ruthven. Robert Stewart. Seton. R. Dunfermling. P. Mr of Gray. Cat heart. James Halyburtoun. James L. Ogiluy. Allane L. Cathcartt. Villiam Schaw. James Steuart. All'' Seytown. J. Chishle. Richard Heriot. Maister Thomas Hamilton. Waltir Kyer.^ Subscribers to the Confes- sion. When the Covenant of 1581 was being subscribed the administra- tion of Regent Morton had ended, and by the machinations of his rival, Lennox, he lay in prison awaiting trial and a foregone doom. At length, on 2nd June, the head of that detested noble became a ' Corrected from the orisjinal in the Advocates' Library. The parchment is indorsed thus : 'Covenant subscryved be King James of worthie mcniorie and his houshold, 28 Jan. 15S0. Sent frome Somer in France be Monseur ... to my Lord Scottistarvett in August 1641 ' ; Booke of the U. Kirk, ii. 515-18. A copy of this Covenant is recorded in the Aiistruthcr Kirk-.Session Record, with 743 subscriptions of the parishioners of Anstruther, Pittenwecm, and .\bercromby : M'Crie, Melville, 81 note. Lord Scotstarvet restored the original document to llie C.encral Assembly in 1646 and );ot 'an order of thanks': Peterkin, Records, 453. The parchment measures about iS^ inches square. A facsimile appears in Nul. AfSS. of Scotland, iii. Ixx. I04 THE COVENANTERS Fall of Morton. Glasgow Assembly, 1581. grizzly finial on the gable of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, warning every pedlar below of treason and every politician of the ingratitude of autocrats. Had haughty Morton heeded the frenzy of old skipper Lindsay, a shaggy prophet in St. Andrews, who foretold his fate, then the Marian partisans now boldly returning from exile or hiding, jocund Papists like Fernihirst, and the bedizened courtiers crowd- ing the windows of High Street to see him die, would have been less merry in viewing 'The Heart of Midlothian ' that day. But a breezy soothsayer, ' all rough with haire ... a great tufte of haire upon his brows and als great a tufte upon the neb of his nose,' was scarcely the Jeremiah to force conviction upon the baronial instincts of a Douglas.' Although the Covenanters did not grieve at Morton's fate, till they fell upon worse governors, they did not desert their fallen persecutor. The city pastors attended him to the block — the Maiden — and by the application of threat and comfort constrained the criminal to turn his gruesome execution into a satisfying spectacle for faithful professors, who joyfully came to see him in the hysterics of a fearful faith grovelling and leaping about the scaffold, before he rose to peaceably offer his soiled soul to his Redeemer." The Glasgow Assembly, on 25th April 1581, dispo.sed of an ambiguity existing in an Act of Dundee Assembly in 1580 abolishing episcopacy, and declared that ' they meanit haillelie [wholly] to con- demne the estate of Bischops as they are now in Scotland.' The office of reader was also discountenanced.' This Assembly approved of a scheme of ecclesiastical divisions under one Assembly, eighteen synods, fifty presbyteries, and six hundred parishes (instead of the 924 old parishes) ; of graduated annual stipends of one hundred to five hundred merks {i.e. ^5, us. id. to £2^, 15s. 5d.) ; and of the settlement of the patrimony, and of Catholic stipendiaries who were actual or titular officials. ' Calderwood, Hist., iii. 462 ; Melville, Autobiography, 81 (Wodrow Soc). - Bannatyne, Memorialcs, 320-31. He was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, and his grave marked with a stone inscribed with the letters 'J. E. M.' His head was, by the King's orders, removed and buried, 8th Dec. 1582. 3 Bookc of the U. Kirk, 474, 479, 513. 1 THE KING'S CONFESSION 105 Just on the inauguration of these sensible arrangements, as mis- fortune would have it, James Boyd, titular Archbishop of Glasgow, died in June. Lennox saw an opportunity for peculation of the fat revenues of the diocese, and made a successful search for a simoniac among the threadbare clergy. In Robert Montgomery, then minister Archbishop of Stirling, he found a knave willing to dispone the wealth for the ""'somery, throne of a bishop, together with ^83, 6s. 8d., 'some horse-corn and poultry ' thrown in annually — a mere moiety, and yet not a bad bargain after all for a lay-preacher, who during a strange vagabond ministry, since the Reformation, had but ;;^i6 of stipend, or thereby. Montgomery, like Boyd, was an Ayrshire man. In his early days he was a stiff dissenter of the Lollard type, able to preach in 1560, and to fare well on 'horse-corn and poultry.' Court favour, probably episcopal leanings, and elastic principles made him suitable for invitation to the Leith Convention in 1572.^ King James, conforming to the Leith Concordat, conferred the see of Glasgow upon this choice of Lennox — Montgomery. The Glasgow presbyters refused to implement the appointment. The case was remitted to the General Assembly, which met in Edin- burgh on the 17th October. It duly homologated the action of the inferior court and interposed itself, as a party in the case, against the King.- One cannot now doubt that here the Church made an The Mont- initial mistake in forgetting that the Assembly had not the power, ^"""^"^^ "^^' without consent of the other party to the contract, to set aside the Settlement of Leith, and that Consensus facit jus. The same error led to the Ten Years' Conflict and to the ultimate disruption of the Scottish Church in 1843, when irascible, headstrong ecclesiastics ignored the time-honoured maxim of jurisprudence: 'Nemo potest inutare consilium siium in aiterius injuriam.' The subsequent procedure of the Church was proper when the Montgomery menaced Assembly, defying the King, proceeded at the instance of ' "^ *" ' Andrew Melville to libel Montgomery for grotesque teaching, ' 'A stoliJ ,isse and arrogant ' : Scot, AJiol. Narr., 49. - Bookc of the U. Kirk, ii. 522-47. O io6 THE COVENANTERS erroneous doctrine, slander, and some veniaiities, a course which even the King declared to be conform to their jurisdiction.' But so long as the Concordat remained unrepealed, interim though it was, the spiritual courts acted ulira vires in doing anything more than trying Montgomery as a 'qualified pastor,' even although the Act of Assembly, 1580, abolished episcopacy. The refusal of the Church to implement the terms of the Con- cordat brought into play the jus devoluttcm, whereby the King, in April 1582, claimed the disposal of the bishopric and its spiritual office, as well as the right to restrain the ecclesiastical courts from troubling his nominee. On the other hand, the Assembly pro- hibited the bishop-elect from leaving Stirling and intruding himself upon the Glasgow pastorate on pain of excommunication. Now suspended from the ministry, Montgomery, pretending ignorance of these proceedings, continued officiating. Clerical blood was fired. Assembly in Montgomery was summoned to an Assembly in St. Andrews in April, St. Andrews . , . . in April 1582. Andrew Melville presiding.^ The respondent, defiant, left the meeting. Immediately thereafter a messenger-at-arms walked into the reverend court and discharged the brethren from further inter- ference with the prelate, under pain of being proclaimed rebels. Unmoved by this threat, Melville urged the Assembly to execute its decree of deprivation and excommunication, unless the accused submitted. Terrified, Montgomery did submit. But the vicious, bibulous creature, incited by his patrons, proceeded to Glasgow, and, in company of the magistrates, invaded a meeting of pres- bytery, the result of which was the imprisonment of the moderator and a bloody riot of students seeking revenge for this insult. In terms of a remit of the Assembly, the prelate was excommunicated in Liberton Church by Davidson, minister of Prestonpans, on the loth June.^ As a Roland for an Oliver, the King and Council, angry beyond measure at the triumph of clerical rebelliousness, summoned a trio ' Booke of the U. Kirk, ii. 533, et q.v. '^ Ibid., ii. 557-75. ' Scot, Apol. Nan:, 49 ; Row, Hist., 97 ; Melville, Autobiog., 128-31. THE KING'S CONFESSION 107 of city ministers, John Durie, James Lawson, and Walter Balcanqual, to answer for their unpalatable comments on the case in the pulpit. The impressive bodyguard of citizens who accompanied their pastors to the inquiry was a good reason for the dismissal of the trio. But the intrepid Durie, who appears to have been a ' doer bathe with toung and hand,' was ordered out of Edinburgh for an example to the rest. His friend James Melville declared he 'was a verie guid fallow,' but of ' small literature.' ^ Durie had cause to hate prelatic tyranny. In his youth he John Durie, was condemned to be built up in a wall for heresy. Now he was the well-known pastor of St. Giles, one of those commanding leaders of men, difficult to browbeat, who occupied the popular eye and ear as he thundered against the sins and craft of the day. A picturesque character, too, was he, when, with an iron corslet for a cassock and a hagbut (musket) for a pastoral staff, this beau- ideal of the Church militant marched down the Nor' Loch banks in search of small game. When he was silenced, Lindsay of Leith and others stirt-ed the churches with their grievances. The Church taking action against the abettors of Montgomery made matters worse. A General Assembly met in Edinburgh on the 27th June, when An angry Melville, the Moderator, gave an impassioned discourse on the subject : ' We both labour and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God.' He declaimed against the tyrannical inter- ference of the Crown in Church concerns, which he designated the ' bludie gullie ' (bloody knife) of absolute authority, whereby men intended to pull the crown off Christ's head and to wring the sceptre out of His hand.^ But clerical provocation, broken contracts, and misapplied jurisdiction were not entered into the reckoning as a set-off. A strong committee, bearing fourteen complaints, was sent to interview the King and Council. The reply of the Crown on 2nd July was a proclamation at the Cross, instituting Montgomery in the bishopric and declaring his excommunication null. Scotland now witnessed in the most exalted arena a pitiful ' Aulobiog., 78. ' Calderwood, iii. 632. io8 THE COVENANTERS illustration of the love of Christians for each other, as King and clergy contended for spiritual supremacy, and peaceable citizens were thrown into opposing factions. The unhappy creature for whom all this turmoil was raised sneaked about Holyrood House, or ' scooted ' down the darkest alleys of the capital, well pelted with those unsavoury missiles which have been popular with mobs of Scottish freemen from time immemorial, and was banned by the more sedate for being a drunken son of Simon Masfus.^ The deputation of the Assembly, of whom were Erskine of Dun, Craig, Duncanson, Pont, James Lawson, Thomas Smeton, Andrew Hay, David Lindsay, Andrew Polwart, Peter Blackburn, Patrick Galloway, William Christison, David Fergusson, Thomas Buchanan, John Brand, Patrick Gillespie, John Porterfield, James Melville, and Perth Conven- Andrew Melville, repaired to Perth, on 6th July 1582, to a Conven- lon, I 2. ^.^^ ^^ ^^^ King and nobility. They bore a complaint, which was in substance an indictment of the King and Council for interfering with the Church, refusing to execute the laws, and encouraging profligate citizens. Foremost in the Convention was the insolent Earl of Arran, not a whit abashed by his recent seat upon the stool of repentance in church for his carnal conduct. When the complaint was pro- duced, Arran contemptuously inquired : ' Who darre subscrive these treasonable articles.'"' Instantly the Principal of the New College of St. Andrews, Andrew Melville, stepped forward, and taking the quill out of clerk Hay's hand, wrote his signature, the while say- ing with emphasis : ' We darre ; and will subscrive them, and rander our lives in the caus.' - When the Convention saw the whole deputation signing, they imagined that it was no act of temerity, but one of assurance, founded on a warranted strength of armed supporters at hand, and deemed it prudent to dismiss the deputation with a tem- porising reply. Yet at this juncture the Church was not buttressed by the most influential laymen, and had to rely on a strong band of clergy and staunch elders, who made the incoherent sections of the ' Caldenvood, iii. 634. ^ M'Crie, Melville, 85. THE KING'S CONFESSION 109 Church gravitate into one body, compacted for the purpose of pre- serving Presbyterianism and freedom. Any political complications in which the clerical leaders became entangled were of subsidiary import- ance, and were considered obstacles in the way of preventing the ' free reign of Christ.' The close relationship of secular and spiritual matters tended to the entanglement of diverse factions. Consequently the Policy of Covenanters clearly saw that their only hope of peace from Popery and of redress now lay in the elimination of the corrupting elements at the source of power, and in the displacement from office of Lennox, Arran, and other inimical courtiers, who encouraged the inbred wilful- ness, pandered to the King's mean instincts, and acquiesced in the dangerous notions of absolutism already held by him. The ministers made life miserable for Montgomery and his abettors. James Lawson, the colleague of John Durie in Edinburgh, worried Attitude of their characters to destruction, and inflamed an already rude, irascible, Edinburgh. and intolerant crowd to the verge of rebellion. These defiant pietists formed themselves into a bodyguard for the popular city pastors, set posts at their manses at sunset, and, with other rough-throated pilgrims, filled the night-watches with plaintive singing of psalms, as they had done on the advent of Queen Mary. The political opponents of the unsettling Lennox-Arran govern- oowrie Bond ment, consisting of eight nobles, two score of landed proprietors, some J^lli^ven, ,"582. representatives of burghs, and several stiff Presbyterians— nearly all being of the anti-Marian party — entered into a bond to kidnap the King and arrange a new Council.' This was effected by that practised conspirator whose dagger drew Rizzio's blood, the young Ruthven, recently created Earl of Cowrie, who invited the King to Ruthven Casde, near Perth, for the sport of the chase. Next morning, 23rd August 1582, the King found the Castle surrounded by the Earl of Mar, the Master of Glamis, and their armed associates, who appeared with no small effrontery to ask their Sovereign to suppress his 'mervell 1 Wodro7J MSS. (Edin.), xliii. fol. 3, 16, 18, 27 ; Calderwood, iii. 637, 644 ('The Copic of a Band,' etc.) ; Spottisvvood, /list., 320. no THE COVENANTERS Gowiie government. Politics in the Church. Durie returns at this our honest, lawfull, necessary, and most godlie enterprise. This cool manner of illustrating Scottish methods of rectitude was not surpassed by a border-reiver, who swore, under the hempen tow, that of all things in the world he loved nothing more, ' I will daur say it, than honesty.' Gowrie was appointed treasurer and virtually head of the rebel government, which continued directing affairs for ten months, without the aid of Parliament, and keeping hold of the King. Although King James was coerced into publicly approving of his detention, he sulked and endeavoured to escape their thrall, which was not easy with stern guardians like the Master of Glamis, who said, 'better bairns greet [weep] than bearded men.' ^ The leaders of the Church who had already experienced the instability of their position and the uncertain future of the Reformed cause, hailed the raid as a godsend, and the raiders as very deliverers, as they declared themselves to be, both of the country and of the Church of Scotland.^ The raid did more than the new Covenant to extinguish the hopes of the Romanist faction. With that resilience so remarkable among suppressed parties in Scotland, the exulting Covenanters used this opportunity to demonstrate their power and prerogative, and, in so doing, ill-advisedly entangled both in political meshes. The evolution of the Church into a political organisation created its instability, even although it was founded on the will of the people. The exiled Durie was recalled to Edinburgh, and returned, corslet, hagbut, eloquent tongue, and all, more like a laurelled general from victory than a needy gospeller, while two thousand defiant throats made the 1 24th metrical psalm in ' proud swelling waves ' of music roll along the oak-gabled fronts of the old Dutch tenements on the High Street, whose indwellers, craning their necks over every window, bole, and balcony, rang back the grand antiphony : — ' Spottiswood, Hist., 320. ^ Among those who subscribed the Ruthven bond for maintaining themselves, the King, the Reformed religion, and morality generally, were Bothwell, Mar, Glencairn, Gowrie, March, Lords Lindsay and Boyd, Cesfurd, Fadounside, Glamis, etc. : Calderwood, iii. 644, 645. THE KING'S CONFESSION in ' But bless'd be God, who doth us safely keep, And hath not giv'n us for a living prey Unto their teeth, and bloody cruelty.' ' When Lennox, who was in the city, heard this glorious paean of Flight of the redeemed, this triumphant hosanna of Presbytery, rising into the ^rmn." ''" welkin, he rent his beard and ran away. Arran also sought seclusion. The King grew cunning. Notwithstanding the tirades of Craig and other preachers, who made him weep and swear, he assiduously observed the Presbyterian worship, and watched for an opportunity to regain his freedom. The General Assembly met and formally approved of the Ruthven Alarm in Raid and ordained all ministers to explain it favourably and gratefully to rural congregations. Still, peace and felicity were not restored to Zion. There was war in the camp. Montgomery and other titular bishops hung on to the flanks of the vexed Church militant, while an imported enemy appeared on its front. More gay Frenchmen had arrived, and the ambassador from the French Court was thought to be staying too long to have good intentions. Matters were looking ominous when, on Maundy Thursday, these foreign visitors engaged in the harmless piety of feet-washing, a rite scriptural e;nough, but quite unfashionable among the Scots, who had surceased the practical idolatry of water — even in private, generally speaking. Gossip also ran that one Jesuit was netted alive, and that the defiant bishops were still following sinuous ways. Nevertheless, the covenanted Church- men were stayed with the hope that Cowrie's revolutionary Govern- ment would finally establish the Church, as an absolutely independent sovereignty — an Iinperium cum Imperio — when the worst clap of misfortune fell on them. After being ten months under surveillance of the confederated Lords, the wily King, now eighteen years old, escaped the toils, and, on 27th June, was able in the safety of the ' Melville, Autobiog., 134. 112 THE COVENANTERS Castle of St. Andrews, with his own raucous voice, to re-echo the psalm of Durie : — ' Ev'n as a bird out of the fowler's snare Escapes away, so is our soul set free : Broke are their nets, and thus escaped we.' Death of Through death in Edinburgh on 28th September 1582, George •'8th sr"em- Buchanan, in a ripe old age, happily escaped from the' increasing ber 15S2. turmoils of the time, in which he had been so conspicuous a personality.' The products of his incisive intellect, the trenchant Detectio of Queen Mary, the De Jure Regni apud Scotos, the History of Scots affairs, no less than his scathing satire on the Franciscans, were important factors in the moulding of the Scottish Reformation. His practical sagacity, as much as his erudition, made him an influential member of that powerful oligarchy of patriots who were warring for the purer and holier life in Church and State, and who acknowledged his rare gifts by electing Buchanan as the Moderator of the Assembly at a most critical juncture. How the old humanist would have fared with his headstrong pupil, James, can only be conjectured. So persistent has the reputation of Buchanan been that it was only in recent years that it was deemed necessary to erect a monument to him in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, near to the supposed place of his burial. ' Melville, Autobiog., 120, 121 ; P. Hume Brown, George £nc/iatiari, etc. (1890), g.v. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE ii; CHAPTER V THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE The little manhood King James possessed was as apparent in his Character of eighteenth year as in any subsequent period. His emancipation ^'"S James, brought out an unsuspected viriHty of character, petulant but dogged, obstinate but cunning, impulsive but mean, far-seeing but focussed to low levels, which enabled him, at a beck, to bring his newly chosen, unscrupulous advisers — namely, vicious Arran, sickly Argyll, quarrelsome Marischal, and others of similar type^nto harmony with his views. For a ruler James exhibited the meanest James's person, presentment. The Homeric Agamemnon had no counterpart in him. His mother's beauty was to die with her. Like Richard the Third, he was 'scarce half made up.' A squat, ungainly trunk sat ill-balanced on crooked legs. Ill-shapen clothes, to all appearances taken at random from some duddery, yet cunningly designed as defensive armour, and too seldom changed, could not conceal the personal deficiencies of the man. A slobbering tongue and loud voice, too seldom restrained, expressed his palaver, which he esteemed to be divine law. Wonder is that James was not more despicable. The unnatural upbringing of the orphaned boy, nauseated with pedantic instilments, would have spoiled a nobler nature. His education fostered strange dispositions which found vent in splenetic words and unkingly actions. His intellect was strained rather than cultivated by Buchanan, who was a preceptor better fitted to restrain a mob than to teach a hysterical child, and the result of this governance was the conversion of James into a scholarly prig. The moral side, by heredity infirm, was too long fretted with His nature, the joyless restraints of a then necessary Calvinism to be able to p 114 THE COVENANTERS save the liberated King from a rebound into folly, poltroonery, and latterly, intemperance, when opportunity occurred. Discipline developed dissimulation/ A courtier might find the arms of the King around his neck at nig-ht, and in the mornino- those of the hangman, so rapid were the moods of the Scottish Solomon. His spiritual nature displayed the Stuart instinct for the solace of religion of an artistic type, a quality which, however, did not check his enjoyment of the lewd sallies of his debauched associates, and of their vile oaths, which no moss-trooper could dash out so glibly as himself. A sinister superstition warped his mind regard- ing second-sight, devilish possession, and witchcraft. Under this spell he satisfied himself and the law by witnessing the torture, by means abhorrent to nature, of old females suspected of dealing in the black arts. And what remained a mystery to him was the Devil's preference for old crones to buxom wenches. In proximity to peril to himself James quivered like an aspen leaf; a witness of danger to others, he found nerves like whipcords. Fontenay's Monsieur Fontenay, a secret agent of Queen Mary in 1584, gives a description of the King, whom he considered the most learned man in Scotland. ' He dislikes dances and music ... he speaks, eats, dresses, and plays like a boor ... he is prodigiously con- ceited ... is too much given to pleasure . . . and he could do five things at once.'- He was such a man as Shakespeare portrayed : — ' The man that hath no music in himself. Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.' Armed solely with the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, a principle satisfactory enough to case-hardened parasites, this irre- pressible youth was determined to render Scottish citizencraft as defunct as the treatise Dejurc Regni apud Scotos, in which his tutor, Buchanan, proved its divine sanction, and to make his own ' king- ' 'James, however, was all his life rather a bold liar than a good dissembler' : Hallam, Const. Hist, i. 297 note. - Quoted by Froude, Hisi., xi. 664, edit. Lend., 1870. portrait. I THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 115 craft' the palladium of the country. Up to this date the Church was the embodiment of citizencraft. The King's evil genius would not put his idol within the Church, but the Church within the idol. The King had no small pluck to undertake to govern his turbulent Scotland in Scots. The country in 1584 was doleful, harassed, impoverished, and '^ ''• if any national spirit existed, apart from that maintained by the Covenanters, James was not in harmony with it. The royalist factions supporting him were taunted by the popular opposition as ' men of base lineage not born to a footbreadth of ground,' which at least was true of some ' beggarlie fellows re- plenished with all vice,' who tried to extinguish 'the beauty and flowre of the nobilitie ' at Court. The King began with a high hand. The Ruthven raiders, Angus, Mar, Glamis, Hume, Wedderburn, Cesfurd, and others, were expatriated. Their former leader, Gowrie, trusting to a worthless pardon, was as soon as possible to afford at the block another triumph of royal dissimulation. Arran was recalled to his tricks. The Arran recalled, unrestrainable preacher of the capital, Durie, for vindicating the detention of the King, was sent into less influential surroundings in Montrose. Other preachers of Sabbath philippics on Court scandal were ordered outside the capital, and to preserve the unity of the marriage bond, their wives were dispatched after them to gossip else- where. Plague threatened to turn the towns into mortuaries. In Edinburgh there would soon be no clergy left to compose the fearful. At such a critical juncture it would have fared badly for the King Letter from had it been known that, on the 19th February 1584, he had written {f^"^^^ '° ' ' secretly to the Pope, declaring : ' I have as yet deserved nothing at your hands, but it shall not be always thus,' and promising to be advised by his 'dear cousin of Guise,' and to satisfy his ' Holiness in all other things.' ' Even Durie might have been tempted to level his hagbut at royal game. A sinister report spread that Parliament was about to assemble and to enthrone the King, where Christ was wont ' Quoted by Froude, Hist., xi. 638-40, from Simanca MSS. ii6 THE COVENANTERS Archbishop Adamson, 1537-1592. Andrew Melville's case to be, at the head of the Church, to restore the spiritual lords, and thus to undo the Reformation. Having broken with Presbyterianism, James had resolved to institute a pliable clerical order, to limit personal freedom, and to destroy all jurisdictions save his own. With Arran and Archbishops Adamson and Montgomery as his instruments, he imagined himself equipped for upsetting a system which he had sworn to uphold. Patrick Constyne, or Constan, now called Adamson, the Primate, a man of humble origin, a scholar, sharp, unscrupulous, and subservient, seems to have been the draughtsman of the royal plans. The fact that his enemies credited him with trafficking with witches and with keeping one who was actually tried and burned, indicates the subtlety of the King's counsellor. This diplomate had quietly remained in his palace at St. Andrews till he was wanted, the while Andrew Melville imagined that the ' tod [fox] in his hole ' was sufficiently well watched. His opportunity to do mischief had now arrived.^ The first move of the royalists was to silence Melville, Principal of the New College, and thus terrorise the more timid clergy, who would not oppose the new policy." In the pulpit Melville had repeatedly referred with contempt to the ' Frenchified, Italianized, joly gentlemen ' around the throne, and with directness to the King himself A detective soon formulated a case of slander. Melville was summoned to the Privy Council and charged with comparing James to worthless rulers like Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. Over these biblical metaphors the hottest wrangles ensued. Melville, having studied under the most famous jurists in Paris and Geneva, was no tyro in dealing with legal principles. First, the accused took up constitutional ground, the only ground consistent with the status of the established Church as set forth in the Book of Discipline, and he declined the jurisdiction of the civil ruler, because spiritual doctrine was involved in his case, which necessarily fell to be tried first in the ecclesiastical courts. This defence did not imply the pretentious claim of the Roman clergy to be independent of 1 Melville, Autobiog., 137. 2 Melville installed in St. Andrews, December 1580. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 117 all magisterial jurisdiction, as Adamson believed it did, but was the simple assertion of the right of a minister, under the statutes ratifying Church discipline, to be tried by the Church for offences against religion, before he was handed to a punitive judge. Nevertheless, the demand of Melville could not bar the contention of the Crown, Crown pleas, that unwarrantable personalities, shot from pulpit to pew, in this instance against the King, were beyond the sphere of religion and the category of doctrine. The Crown also asserted the absolute authority of the King, as ultwius judex, to deal with any alleged illegality. Melville as proudly answered that the Council ' presumed over boldlie to controll the ambassadors and messengers of a King \i.e. Christ] and Counsell greater nor they and far above them.' This was a relevant reply if the premiss be granted that in an autonomous Church every preacher conscientiously vituperating is the messenger of Christ — a magnifical assumption indeed. The Church claimed the .\ssumptions prerogative to teach the State its duty without acknowledging the ° equal right of the State to define the position of the Church ; and, in consequence, the preachers were possessed of a fatuous imagination that Christ's heralds were inviolable and might use either liberty or licence in the pulpit. The preachers made a blind mistake in demanding alone to interpret the terms of the contract uniting Church and State. They also acted upon the indefensible principle that the Church or Congregation was a court of religion and morality, in which the pastor was established as a spiritual Lord of Justice, and authorised, indeed bound, to utter in the pulpit verdicts on men and events, these often ex parte, which could only be reversed in the higher courts. Presbytery, Synod, and Assembly. This conception grossly failed to recognise the elementary canon of justice, that the accused should first be heard in defence before any public anim- adversion on him should be pronounced. This weak spot the King pointed out. But the obstinate preachers believed that their pro- nouncements, inspired by the Spirit of God, were infallible and final, since they had been called from on High to be exponents of public opinion, the guardians of freedom, and the ' voices of God speaking,' iiS THE COVENANTERS Melville's boldness. Melville's flight to England, 15S4 and that their sacred judgments and decrees were not venal, as those of Parliament and of the College of Justice were. It is difficult to understand how an acute thinker like Melville could have argued 'that it is the duty of ministers to apply examples of divine mercy and judgment to kings, princes, and people, and the nearer the persons are to us, the more applicable is the example.' In the heart of the debate, Melville, to emphasise his contentions, unsluno- his Hebrew Bible from his belt and clanked it down on the o table, exclaiming : ' That ye may see youre weakeness, oversight, and rashnesse, in taking upon you that which nather you ought nor can do, there is my instructions and warrant. Let see which of you can judge them, or controll me therein, that I have past by my injunc- tions.' Thereupon Arran, 'the graceless loon,' as Balcanqual styled him, lifted the book, and noticing the unintelligible characters of the Hebrew text, handed it to the King, remarking, ' Sir, he skornes your Majestie and Counsall.' ' Na, my Lord,' retorted Melville. ' I skorn not, bot with all ernestness, zeall, and gravitie, I stand for the cause of Jesus Chryst and his Kirk.'^ This brag was needless before men who could discover the injunctions of religion from the Church's own authorised translation of the Bible. The King might as theatrically have displayed his Mosaic temper by clanking down the Sword of State as a symbol of his judgeship in Israel. The Council's verdict on Melville was, that for his treason, irreverence, and contempt, he should be put in ward in Blackness Castle. This degradation he escaped by flight into England, on the 17th February 1584." There he joined the Ruthven raiders, who, after a fruitless military diversion, had also sought refuge over the borders. It was now clear that the Kins: believed that he had the power of the keys as well as of the sword, and that, since the Re- formation, he came in place of the Pope, as the jurists of the reign of Charles the Second, such as Sir George Mackenzie, taught. Early in 1584 the Edinburgh pastors had an interlude caused by ' Calderwood, Hist, iv. lo ; M'Crie, Melville, 91-4 ; Melville, Autobiog., 142. - Reg. Privy Counc, iii. 632 ; Calderwood, iv. 3-18 ; J. yi^WxW^, Autobiog., 143-5. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 119 the arrival from Dundee and St. Andrews of a small coterie of Eno^lish sectaries, called Brownists, who had lately come from The Brownisis, Flanders under the guidance of Robert Brown, their founder. For'^ ^' criticising the discipline of the Scottish Church regarding baptism, Brown found himself under the surveillance of the Edinburgh Presbytery, jealous of its honour.^ As soon as Gowrie perished on the block at Stirling, Arran, the Execution of hero of the repentance-stool, became the King's confidant and scourge May'15'84." of the Church. James lost no time in summoning a Parliament to avenge the raid, bridle the clergy, and restrain all other ' master- less and unanswerable men.' The King, eight bishops, thirteen abbots, twenty-five lords, and twenty-three representatives of burghs, sat on the 1 9th and 20th May 1 584, and passed forty-nine Acts.- The The Black first Act authorised the preaching of the True Word according to the'^'^'''° '^ ■*' Confession of Faith. The second Act confirmed the King's power over all estates and persons, and declared those who declined magisterial jurisdiction, such as Melville, to be traitors. The freedom of the pulpit was now at the mercy of the Crown. The third Act re-established the authority of the Three Estates, making it treason to impugn the dignity, or diminish the authority, of any estate. In this simple way the bishops were restored and were guarded from their Presbyterian critics. The fourth Act declared all jurisdictions and judgments not approved by Parliament, and all meetings not convened with the royal licence, to be unlawful. This sweeping Act wiped out the autonomy of the Church, and converted the Church into a department of James's Government, which licensed its assemblies and reviewed its edicts. Thus the axe was laid at the root of the Church, more especially when the next Act provided for the deposition of any pastor for any kind of offence, by the bishop or royal commissioner. Preachers were to confine themselves to their emasculated office and to discuss disputable subjects with caution. On the other hand, the prelates, no longer to be subject to the Assembly, were to act in all ecclesiastical cases, and as patrons ' Calderwood, iv. i. - Ac/. Part. Scot., iii. 290-325. I20 THE COVENANTERS The Scottish pope. Act of Uni- formity, 22nd August 1584. of colleges and benefices (Act 20). The excommunication of Montgomery' was rendered null on the ground that ' it appertenis cheiflie to his [the King's] princelie cair to see that the sam [excommunication] be not abusit to further the indiscrete appetite of ony men under quhat cullour or pretext so euir.'^ The Ruthven raiders were attainted and their lands seized by the Crown. Had Parliament gone one step further and announced that the King was privileged to dispense the Sacraments, to ordain clergy, and to absolve the penitent, Scotland would have had its own pope, native and infallible. Virtually James was pope to a servile hierarchy, who simply relieved him of his public, pontifical, and pastoral cares. It was practically a 'bull' which he gave to Patrick Adamson, authorising him ' to use his archiepiscopal office within the Kirk and his diocese.' More forcible was the only induction service which Rutherford had upon his entering the pastorate of St. Andrews, if this speech of the King be rightly reported : ' Shame fall thee, and the Devill receive thee too, if thou doe it [his duty] not ; goe thy way.' Only one other Act was necessary to humiliate the Church and break the spirits of the pastors. And this statute Parliament framed in the 'Act of Uniformity,' which ordained pastors, readers, and teachers to subscribe these foregoing Acts (then known as ' the Black Acts of 1584'), as well as an oath of obedience to the bishops and King's commissioners, on pain of loss of function and benefice.' A subsequent edict of Council deprived those who would not sub- scribe of all benefit of law.^ Magistrates were commanded to imprison any minister who adversely criticised the Black Acts.' As by magic, the Church of Kno.x; became the mere tool of Arran, Knox's unreformed brother-in-law, afterwards Chancellor of the realm. The effect of this inquisitional policy was electrical. Professors, ' Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 311, 312 ; Calderwood, iv. 64 ; Melville, Autobiog., 237, 241. - Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 347 (Act 2). For terms of oath, cf. Calderwood, iv. 210. 2 Privy Counc. Rec, iii. 712. * Calderwood, iv. 64. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 121 ministers, students, and suspects, panic-struck, tied to England and Ireland. The guileless attempt of David Lindsay, minister of Leith, a man of moderate views, to interview the King at Holyrood before these Acts were published, was rudely repulsed, and he was instantly removed to Blackness. Pastors Lawson and Balcanqual made the usual protest at the Cross of the Capital, as a parting shot, before they hied hurriedly over the Borders, lest Arran should effect his threat : Airan's 'If Lawson's head was as great as a haystacke he would cause it'^"""^' leape from his hawse [neck].' For associating with them, Robert Pont was deprived of his office in the College of Justice. Gradually the ministers, anticipating nothing but persecution, starvation, and ruin, submitted to this tyranny. When stern Covenanters, such as John Craig, John Duncanson, John Brand, Erskine of Dun, and Durie sought peace by subscription, the less violent were easily handled in the toils.' For daring to correspond with his uncle Andrew, James Melville had to flee. A non-subscriber, Nicol Dalgleish, one of the ministers of St. Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh, prayed for the afflicted brethren. ' Afflicted,' said the irate King, ' if they be afflicted I am the afflicter, and so am a persecutor.' To have this puerile syllogism tested, Dalgleish was committed for trial. The Court acquitted Dalgleish of treason, but condemned him for reading the letter of an exile to the exile's own wife. Dalgleish was thrown into the loathsome cell kept for felons awaiting execution, and, at the alleged instigation of Primate Adamson, was immured there a long time in direct view of the gallows, from which he escaped." The Church was paralysed. Since public meetings and signing Paralysis of of Covenants were forbidden, the disaffected held secret conventicles. ' g ""^ ' The Kirk Sessions of Edinburgh dared not meet to disburse alms to the poor until they had a licence signed by the primate and countersigned by the King. Without doubt, the impolitic vitupera- tions of many preachers soured the King and gave him a distaste ' Calderwood, iv. 246. Craig, Duncanson, and lirand,in subscribing allegiance, appended the conscience-clause — 'according to the Word of God.' - Calderwood, iv. 244 ; Melville, Aii/obioj^., 218. Q repressions. 122 THE COVENANTERS to Presbyterian parity. No man, however vulgar, could brook com- parison with an idiot or Jeroboam, and the dubbing of his associates as ' infamous,' ' monsters,' and ' idols.' These were the politest taunts thrown from the pulpit. Queen Elizabeth's correspondents in Scotland reported to her their belief that James was being secretly influenced by his imprisoned mother. 'The Party of the banished Lords,' including some ministers and barons inimical to the Arran regime, waited patiently in London, Newcastle, and other English towns for the turn of the tide. ' They keeped a verie earnest exercise of humiliation, where many teares were poured out before the Lord.' To the faithful in Geneva Andrew Melville unbosomed his disappointed soul. Lawson and Balcanqual wrote to their flocks pious and comforting pastorals which were really acrid indictments of the Government. Primate The Primate's Adamson at this juncture resided in Edinburgh, in order to suppress Presbyterianism at its source. He framed a biting reply, which he forced the doleful flock to sign, in which their ministers were accused as runaways, ' unquiett spirits, yea wolves and not pastors.' Satirical verses flew around on dirty wings. The mettled wives of the ministers bravely retorted in defence of their absent husbands, and styled the Primate an ' envennomed vespe [wasp] ' for daring to leave his ' puddel of corruption ' in order ' to put his huick [hook] into another man's corn,' and for ' scalding his lippes in other men's kaile.' The wives also published the intolerable heresy that there were no more ranks among ministers than amono' bailiffs. Vengreance was swift. These ladies, Jonet Guthrie and Margaret Marjoribanks and John Durie's wife, were compelled to sell off their household effects and quit their manses. To stamp out similar insults the King made the heads of families punishable for the offences of any of their household. A reign of terror had begun. Meanwhile, in a lane off Cheapside, within ' a fierie furnace of affliction,' lay James Lawson, mortally needing the tenderest offices of his heroic, heretical spouse, Jonet Guthrie. The sufferer was still young, but a man stone-broke, as his will confesses, ' after all my THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 123 irksome travells, wherewith I am broken.' Travels many, travails more, had Lawson for freedom and for us. Then came the final ' travell,' the last throw with death, the pilgrim's last ejection from a stranger's home, and with no fearless wife at hand to fend him from the fellest heresiarch of all. Only kind Mistress VanoU will do it for one angel-piece, bequeathed to her as a sad ' memento mori ' ; and some rebel Scots, Balcanqual, Andrew Melville, Carmichael, and Davidson, will do it for poor Scotland's sake. Some curious English, in a neighbourly way, peep in and hear the exile's delirious preach- ings. Never 'more moving,' said former hearers, than in the twilight of his luminosity, this clearing hour before the dawn, was this brilliant herald of the Cross, robed in a white tabard, with sunken eyes piercing a dreamer's heaven, with emaciated hands gesticulating to a vanishing earth, with clarion voice making concord with God and man. He changes his vision with a psalm ; lifts aloft the Hundred and Third canticle, that song of many passing saints, ' My soul give laud unto the Lord,' — lifts it until his voice will no longer carry the old French melody but fades into silence, while his lips sing on noiseless, yet singing in the Spirit, which makes the onlookers audibly continue the psalm. Thus the minister of St. Giles sang himself into Paradise, Lawson dies, leaving behind a heart that broke because his enemies called him ,'^g^ a hireling and prevented him preaching for his true Master ; also bequeathing as a heritage the memory of a man of learning, a preacher of power, and a martyr for the Presbyterian faith.* Scenes like these, and comforting messages from Queen Elizabeth, made the exiles take courage. In Scotland pest and tempest so raged that the saddened, maddened populace viewed these visitations as Divine judgments for the vices of Arran, and clamoured for the return of the ostracised. During the sorrow of his lieges the callous King was merrily clinking verses and composing the ' Essayes of a Premise in the Divine Art of Poesie,' An antipapal league, arranged between England and Scotland, ' Calderwood, iv. 201 ; cf. his last will and testament, ibid. ; Wodrow Miscell., i. 447 ; yitWiWe, Aiitobiog., 219. 124 THE COVENANTERS made the return of the banished Presbyterians of easier accomplish- St. Andrews mcnt. At a Convention of Estates, held in St. Andrews on 31st ^menan, j^j^ 1585, the King introduced the subject and a Covenant entitled ' Band anent the trew Relligion.' Its tenor is : 'We the Nobilitie and esteatis presentlie conuenit Vndirstanding the course of the present procedings in foreyne partis and that diverse princes and potentatis terming thame seliSs Catholikis haue Jonit thame selffis vndir the Pappis auctoritie in a maist vnchristeane confederacie aganis the trew relligioun and professouris thairof with full intent to prosequute that vngodlie resolutioun with all severitie. ... It is necessar that a general league and Christeane confederacie of all princes and staittis sincerlie professing the evangell were opponit to the vngodlie Con- spiracie of the Inemies of Gods treuth and specialie that the twa Crownis of Scotland and England . . . were inseperablie vnited be mair firm and strict leaguue then hes bene heirtofoir ... for the bettir maintenance of the trew auncient and Christeane relligioun quhilk thai now professe.'^ The document proceeds to entrust the King with authority to con- clude the league, while the subscribers promise to ratify the new Covenant in the next Parliament and to maintain it with their lives and estates. Arran was the first subscriber, and was followed by nobility, bishops, and others. Yet on the 30th July Arran was Fall of Arran. incarcerated in the Castle of St. Andrews, charged with 'act and part' in a cruel Border murder. This charge eclipsed his glory and ended his influence. The banished Lords swooped down on Stirling and Capture of King Tames, 1585." captured the King on 4th November 1585.- They treated the coward, whose first stipulation was for his life, with a superfluity of allegiance and mercy which he pharasaically attributed to ' the mighty hand of God.' Had he then received the Cromwellian treatment he deserved, or been relegated like his mother, to a harmless life and meditation on common-sense, these patriots, by this juster treatment, would have saved their country from tears, pain, and blood. Whereas their toleration — a possession much to be wondered at in so inflam- mable an age, and based on that false view of the sacredness of a King's person, which also the later Covenanters down to near the time of the Restoration generally maintained — only increased the ' Act. Pari. Scot., Calderwood, iv. 375. iii. 423, 424; Privy Cotmc. Rec, iii. 760; IVoiirou' MSS., xliii. 31 - Calderwood, iv. 392. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 125 wilful perversity, encouraged the equivocal palaver, and justified the vindictive policy of the stubborn youth. Men whose names as traitors were not erased from the doomster's roll — John, Lord Hamilton, Angus, Mar, Glamis, and others, were appointed to be his compulsory councillors. These favourers of the Ruthven policy saw their every attempt to undo the Arran maladministration largely frustrated by the King, backed by the prelatic element in the Privy Council. The Church, having petitioned Parliament for the repeal of the ' black Acts ' of 1584 in a memorial entitled 'Animadversions of Offences conceived upon the Acts, etc.,' was met by the opposition of the King, who interpreted the Acts with a sophistry so satisfactory to the nobility that they left the Acts on the Statute Book. Archbishop Adamson had been employed to explain their worst features away, but his very partial manifesto made matters worse by claiming absolute power for Adamson's the King, by accusing the Presbyterians of the Popish crime of non- allegiance in spiritual affairs, by defending Prelacy on scriptural grounds, and by declaring the King's intention as to tolerating assemblies and obliterating presbyteries. Andrew Melville's ' Answer' only theoretically pulverised Adamson's declaration. In December 1585 the King answered the 'Animadversions' in a clever, cunning Irenicon, in which he hinted at assembling the whole Church to a Royal choose its polity, at refraining from punishing for spiritual offences, "^"'"'' and at abiding by the Word of God. The King maintained that a bishop was his civil servant whom the Church had the liberty to ordain and install, and that he, the chief magistrate, was the sole judge, whether or not Episcopacy was in accordance with God's Word. The only benefit from Arran's fall was the recall of the exiled ministers and a relaxation of persecution. With a vulgarity scarcely credible, the King personally worried the frank clergy, such as Gibson, Howison, and Watson, before sending them to prison, and even interrupted Walter Balcanqual while preaching by shouting dissents over the loft of St. Giles.' A ' Calderwood, iv. 491. 126 THE COVENANTERS Melville's 'trek.' Adamson's case. Holyrood Assembly, 1586. fierce winter scattered the Parliament-men to their homes, and bit the threadbare clergy severely. Andre-w Melville, ' a sore traiked man,' rested in Glasgow, after a religious ' trek ' over all the country, rousing the people to resist the ' bludie gullie ' which he saw still hanging over the Church. Adamson sat enthroned, an arch-inquisitor, at the source of all the sorrows of the Covenanters, and Melville deemed his displacement imperative. Andrew had a faithful hench- man in his nephew, James Melville, Professor of Oriental Languages in St. Andrews. When the Synod of Fife met in St. Andrews, in April 1586, Professor Melville preached to the Synod from the text: ' Every man that is among you [is] not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,' and Adamson was a hearer.^ With- out a moment's warning he plunged into a practical application, and advised the brethren to act as faithful surgeons, and lop off ' that most corrupt member and monstrous ' — Adamson. The accused replied in vain. The Synod gave him a few days in which to render obedience, which he refused, and thereafter they pronounced him ' an ethnick or publican,' before proceeding to his excommunication. Adamson retaliated by excommunicating the Melvilles and their party. He also appealed to the civil powers. James Melville and Calderwood amusingly narrate how the mock-valiant Archbishop ventured into the Parish Church of St. Andrews to preach, but hearing that a crowd had assembled, and were coming to drag him from the pulpit, he and his jackmen sought safety in the church tower. Meantime a wandering hare fled timorously down 'the High Street,' followed by the amused citizens, who imagined it was the devil's double of the scared prelate.^ Adamson's case reached the Assembly in May 1586.^ The King, itching to meddle in its business, invited the members to convene in the Chapel Royal, Holyrood, and personally proposed as Moderator the quondam traitor and peace-making prisoner of Blackness, Pastor ' Melville, Auiobiog., 245. - Calderwood, iv. 503. Calderwood thus specifies the street. ' Melville, Auiobiog., 247 ; Booke of the U. Ki>k, ii. 655 et seq. ; Calderwood, iv. 548. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 127 Lindsay of Leith.^ The King's aim was to cajole the Assembly into accepting Episcopacy, covered with a mask of popular Presbytery. The intermediary was the flexible Adamson, who submitted to his co-equal brethren, and was reponed as a bishop of the Pauline type. This shift, planned by the King, kept 'the tod in his hole,' and secured stipends to the ministers. The subterfuge was easily discerned. This Assembly mapped out the territorial jurisdictions of sessions, presbyteries, and synods, while the King agreed to license an annual Assembly.^ All this trifling with the fixed principles of Presby- terianism vexed the Melville party. The King executed a clever ruse to rid Adamson of his invincible opponent, Principal Melville, and to place the latter in peril, by commanding Melville to go north and hound the Jesuits into orthodoxy. The avenging Armada of Philip was being prepared. On 8th Execution of February 1587 Mary Queen of Scots was executed as a practical , "5 !f*° "'' rejoinder to Papal threats and plots. True to their idiosyncrasies, the Scots, with the exception of the ultra-Protestants, viewed the bold act of Elizabeth as a national insult. While danger menaced his mother, the King ordered prayers after a set form to be made publicly for her. This form afforded a grievance to the ministers, who, with the exception of the royal chaplains, Craig, Duncanson, and Lindsay, refused to use that prepared prayer, and thus irritated the King. The delirious ecstasy in the pulpit of a probationer named Coupar troubled the Sovereign as much as his mother's death. At the time of his majority in June, a happier state of feeling, however, subsisted between the Crown and clergy, at least for a short period. Successive Assemblies had racy entertainment in baiting Adamson, now for fleecing poor ministers, anon for peculating communion wine, and again for marrying the papist Iluntly, and otherwise using his episcopal office, 'damned in diverse other assemblies.' Once more excommunicated, then recanting, deserted by his ungrate- ' Calderwood, iv. 548. ' Ibid., 555. 128 THE COVENANTERS ful King, fallen into want which was relieved by his fierce accusers, Fate of Adam the Melvillcs, the wretched, friendless primate died in 1592/ The son, 1592. ^^^^ ^^ ^ luckless poet was his ; a fine poet, too, whose subtle spirit shackled itself with earthly bonds instead of trusting to its own native pinions, which would have carried him to a higher throne than that on which man-made bishops sit in purple and fine linen. Similar hardships befell the other bishops. Parliament, The Parliament in 1587 ratified the ' Liberty of the Kirk,' and '^ ^' passed an Act (No. 8) annexing the temporalities of benefices to the Crown, with the exception of teinds, glebes, and manses in every parish, and the mansions of titular dignitaries.^ This radical statute swept away the patrimony, and made the bishops paid officers of the Crown. Poverty was fast lowering the carnal standpoint of the presbyters, and a little more stress upon their Church establishment would have refined it out of existence. Happily, a dogged faith fed on a little oatmeal saved Church and country from the spoliations and absolutism of the King. As a compensation for that ruinous statute the same Parliament passed a Franchise Act which, conferring Parliamentary representation upon the small owners of land, made for greater popular power and freedom. In 1588 Britain anxiously expected the Spanish invasion, and had preachings, fastings, musters, warlike plans innumerable for outwitting the 'myrmidons of Antichrist ' from abroad, and native Jeroboams at home. During this crisis King James had a wise councillor in the Chancellor, Sir John Maitland of Thirlestane, a brother of Queen Mary's Secretary. The Assembly convened in February 1588 pressed the parish ministers to persuade nobles, barons, and gentle- men to subscribe the Confession of Faith. ^ ' A Convention of the maist wacryff and cearfull of the brethren ' ' Calderwood, v. 6, loo, ii8, 124, 147, 753 ; M'Crie, Melville, 146. 2 Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 431. ^ A copy of the Covenant, dated 25th February 1587-8, was preserved by the Maxwells of Pollok. Cf. Collection oj Confessions, ii. 106 (Edin., 1722). Edinburgh University signed the 1581 Covenant in 1585 and 1587-8. The King 'and divers of his Esteatis' subscribed before 27th July 1588 : Fleming, Story of the Scottish Covenant, xxii. I THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 129 met in Edinburgh in January 1589, Andrew Melville being moderator, and his nephew James acting as clerk. Their business was ' the readiest remedies of thir dangers appearand.' At the summons of this General Assembly, the people as a whole and the Universities again accepted the National Covenant of 1581, and about the same time the Estates and also the lieges subscribed another Covenant specially directed against the Holy League. This document, commonly called * The General Band,' is entitled : ' The Band tuiching the Maintenance of the true Religioun, the King's Majestie's person and estat, severallie to be subscribed by all noble men, barons, gentlemen, and others, according to the tenor of the Act of Secreit Counsell (6th March 1590) and Commissions therin conteaned.'^ The tenor of the Covenant is : ' Wee, undersubscriving, considering . . . that detestable conspiracie against Covenant of Christ and his Evangell, called The Holie League . . . and finding in his Majestic i59o- a most honourable and Christian resolution to manifest himself unto the world that zealous and religious prince which he hath hitherto professed . . . with his Majestie's authorizing and allowance . . . sweare and promise to take a true, effald, and plain parte with his Majestic among ourselves for diverting of the present danger threatned to the said religioun and his Majestie's estat and standing depending therupon by whatsoever forces or intestine plotts or preparatiouns . . . and bind and oblige us to others to conveene and assemble ourselves publictlie with our freinds in arms or in quiet maner . . . against . . . Papists and their partakers ... to expone and hazard our lives, lands, and goods ... in the defence of the said true and Christian Religioun and his Majestie's person and estat, against whatsomever Jesuits and Seminarie or mass preests ... to their utter wracke and exterminion. . . .' So earnest were the subscribers that they also agreed to cease feuds and to refer their variances to arbiters selected by the King, so that there might be a united front of power to exterminate the ' condemned enemies to God and his Majestie.' This Covenant was gall to the Catholics so long cherished by the King. Now he, as rogues often do, turned from danger to theology, if not to piety, and compo-sed sermons upon the Book of Revelation and upon the ' Reg. Privy Coutic., iv. 254 note, 467 note ; Calderwood, iv. 672, v. 49 ; Ilooke of the U. Kirk, ii. 759. The original document was formerly preserved in Glasgow University Library : Large Declaration, 143. R ISO THE COVENANTERS Spaniards. In autumn came the joyful news that the Armada had been destroyed, and the country rang with jubilations. To extinguish the Popish abettors of Philip was the King's next enterprise, after which he took leisure to study wedlock, a subject which he mastered in fifteen days without help, as he proudly announced to the citizens. Condition of Scotland in 1588 was in a lamentably vicious condition, according peopeinis . ^^ ^^^ indictments of the Church courts and the processes of the magistracy. Many of the aristocracy were rude ruffians and irascible shedders of blood, attended by retainers barbarous to the verge of heathenism. Thirty years of the Gospel had done nothing more than illuminate the borders of the darkest places. To stop bloody quarrels in churches and graveyards on Sabbaths, Parliament in 1592 passed a statute (Act 12) against resetters of criminals, in which the following almost incredible statement occurs : ' Forsamekle as crueltie and bluidsched is cumit to sik ane heicht within the land that the House of the Lord and His sanctuary is not fre but filthely polluted . . . and deidlie feidis [deadly feuds] is now execute in kirkis and kirkyairdis at the time appoyntit to the service of God . . . quhairby diverse personis for feir of thair lyffes dar not resort to the preaching of the Gospell.' This statement harmonises with the declaration of the Assembly in August 1588, that ' vniversallie throuchout this realme, ther is neither religioun nor discipline with the poore, bot the most part lives in filthie adulterie, [incest], forni- cation, [their] bairnes unbaptisit, and themselves never resorts to Kirk, nor participat [in] the sacraments.'^ Rural districts swarmed with beggars, gipsies, and ' masterless ' vagabonds. INIany parishes - had no ministers ; a few retained their priests ; and very few had public schools. Burghs were better equipped, but civilisation showed itself in drinking and gaming, and justice was not always even- handed. Notwithstanding these facts, the masses behaved well during the absence of the King in Norway and Denmark, no doubt 1 Bookeofthe U. Kirk, ii. 731. ' Ibid., ill. 862. In 1596 'the bounds of Nithesdaill, Annandaill, and Galloway are des- titute of pastors.' THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 131 on account of the masterly arrangements instituted by Chancellor Maitland, and of the oversight of the clergy, notably Robert Bruce of Edinburgh, whom the King specially chose to represent himself. During the King's absence the Privy Council, in view of warlike rumours, on 6th March 1590 appointed Commissioners to obtain subscriptions both to the Confession of 1581 and the Band of 1588. The two Covenants conjoined were specially prepared for the purpose by Waldegrave the printer in 1590.^ At Oslo, in Norway, on the 23rd November 1589, James wedded Marriage of ... James, 1589. Anne, Princess of Denmark, and David Lindsay, sometime ot Black- ness Gaol, officiated.- After a merry winter's wassail 'in the auld manner' — a manner that was not over-nice — the bridegroom grew facetious and wrote genially to pastor Bruce about what he styled his ' new rib ' ; then he turned blasphemous and compared his return home from 'so drunken a country as this is,' to the Second Advent of the Redeemer. To the Queen's coronation in Holyrood, on the 17th May 1590, the Presbyterian ministers were invited, and Bruce, whom James afterwards banished, anointed Queen Anne, then a Lutheran. The Church had received its final honours. Next Sabbath the King rose in the royal pew in St. Giles, and in a harangue to the congregation promised to be 'more stayed.' This was nothing com- pared with the scene in the Assembly in August after James Melville, in the opening sermon, had rasped on the old strings — discipline, freedom, that ' poysonfull and venomous Psyllus . . . hatching a cocka- trice egg .... Mr. Patrick Adamson,' Papists and stipends. Then up rose the Sovereign, with bared head, to exhibit a gracious loquacity. The wily wassailer ' in the auld manner ' outshone himself in dissimula- tion as he thanked God for his birth in Scotland in such a happy time (there was no mention of murders in churches), and for the Presby- terian Church — 'suche a Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in the world.' ' Cf. No. 211, Aldis, /Jsi of Books Printed; cf. 4to examples in libraries of Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh. In Wodrow MSS. (Adv.) Ixiv. 75, is a copy of the General Band, 'signet at Edinburgh the sext of March and of our reigne the 23 year 1589 alias ISQO-' Cf. Appendix iii. ■■' For Anne's admission to Roman Catholic Church in 1601, cf. 153 note. 132 THE COVENANTERS Vows of King Evcn Geneva, with its festivals, was not pure, said he : and as for ' the James, 1590. neighbour kirk in England, it is an evill said masse in English, wanting nothing but the liftings,' that is, the elevation of the host. He then adjured his spellbound listeners, whom he styled 'my good people,' to retain this purity, and by imitating himself to ' mainteane the same against all deidlie.' The Assembly rang loud and long with praises and prayers for such a Majesty.* The harmless doves trusted him. As soon as he crossed the Tweed the deceiver asseverated, ' That bishops ought to be in the Church, I ever maintained as an apostolike institution, and so the ordinance of God ; so was I ever an enemie to the confused anarchie or parity of the Puritans.' The King The Church enjoyed extended privileges during the hymeneal at work. humour of the King, and in 1590 the Assembly ordained that all the ministers should subscribe the Second Book of Discipline.^ The unmitigated conceit of James, who reckoned himself infallible, was a compensation for being born among such malcontents and such exasperating evangelists. While James was abroad, witchcraft and sorcery broke out, so that in the winter of 1590 he was busy seeing these deluded or suspected persons worried, in his intervals of in- specting processions of bloody shirts carried by mourners demanding vengeance for murdered kinsfolk, of scuttling down shady alleys out of street brawls, of heading traitors, of chasing Earl Bothwell guilty of blood and battery, or anon of fleeing from the armed rabble of that maniac, of bridling the ministers, and of doing any despicable business at hand. State of The pulpit became insufferable to him. Every questionable parties, 1592. j^gnie from ' dowbill Davie Rizzio ' (a hint at the King's reputed father) to the 'scumme about Court' was raked up by railing preachers. The royal pair were exhorted to their face in church ; if absent they were criticised ; and stirring themes, such as ' Could the King be excom- municated ? ' enlarged upon. The King found vantage-ground between the opposing parties, each of which had lost its most diplomatic leaders : Adamson no longer out-manoeuvring the Church, and aged ' Bookc of the U. Kirk, ii. 771. > Ibid.^ 773. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 133 Erskine of Dun no longer baffling the Court, both having found surcease to the strife.^ Bewitched Bothwell careered everywhere, keeping in terror the superstitious King, who believed Bothwell was in league with evil spirits. Huntly meanly despatched 'the bonnie Earl of Moray,' on the 7th February 1592. In the midst of all this chaos the bewildered Sovereign, on the advice of astute Maitland, was glad to seek alliance with the leaders of the Church, which now realised its growing influence. Seeing its opportunity, the Assembly of May 1592 demanded the abolition of the ' black acts ' of 1584 ; the restoration of the patrimony, privileges, and powers of the Church ; the removal of titled ecclesiastics from Parliament ; the cleansing of the land from idolatry and bloodshed, and representation by ministers in Parliament. The last demand was a stroke of diplomacy fraught with important issues. The next Parliament was an ecclesiastical one in its results. On Parliament of 5th June the Charter of Freedom was restored to the Church by the eighth statute, entitled ' Act for the abolisheing of the Actis contrary the trew religion.'" On this statute, as ratified by Act 1690, c. 7, and Act 1706-7, c. 6 (which statute is an essential condition of the Union of the two Kingdoms and Parliaments), the Church of Scotland stands established by law with Courts recognised as independent judicatories of the realm. The provisions of Act 1592, c. 8, are these : 1. It ratifies and approves of all the liberties, privileges, and immunities granted to the Church by Acts 1579, c. 6, 7 ; 1581, c. i, and others. 2. It sanctions General Assemblies, convened by the Church, once yearly, or pro re natii, as occasion requires, provided the King or his Commissioners be present at the instant of dissolution to nominate the time and place of the next Assembly. In his absence the Assembly can fix the next meeting. 3. It sanctions synodal, provincial, presbyterial, sessional Assemblies, with the The Church's whole jurisdiction and discipline of the Church. It does not specify 'The M.ignaChaita, Second Book of Discipline,' which the Assembly had made into a test in 'S92« 1590, but this statute quotes the substance of Chapter vu. of the Book on the ' Adamson died on 19th February 1592 ; Erskine, on 22nd March 1590. ' Act. Pari. Scot., iii. 541, 542 : for repeal, cf. 1612, c. I ; ibid., iv. 469 : for revival 1640, c. 7 (Act Rescissorie) j ibid., v. 298. 134 THE COVENANTERS subject of Provincial Assemblies, Presbyteries, and meetings of particular kirks. The statute plainly acknowledges the inherent right of the Church to make ordinances and constitutions for the spiritual sphere, and confines the royal power given in Act 15 84, c. 2, to temporal afiairs. 4. It repeals all Acts favourable to ' the papistical kirk,' and prejudicial to the now true Church, notably the statutes of 1443, 1469, 1483, 1551, 1584; and it authorises presbyteries to take the place of the bishops in receiving and collating in benefices all qualified ministers presented by the King and the lay-patrons. The parochial The Act 1 592, c. 8, thus re-establishcd the Protestant, Presby- sys em. terian, and parochial system of reh'gion in Scotland. Other Acts were passed, one of which gave to presbyteries the right to remove unqualified beneficiaries, and another secured to ministers their manses, and glebes of four acres each in extent, together with an assignation of teinds. The clergy emerged from the national turmoils happy in their prospects of peace and prosperity, but the King and the 'mass-saying contemners of the Kirk,' who were ordered to be prosecuted without delay, were thoroughly dissatisfied with the turn affairs had taken. The King himself issued an 'irrevocable edict' calling upon his subjects to join the Church or emigrate. It was merely an illustra- tion of king-craft. He had already informed Huntly that he was 'moved to dissemble.' He had already exemplified that deceit by sending Lord Maxwell to prison in 1586 for having mass in Lin- cluden Abbey, and then dismissing him soon afterwards. Thus he appears coquetting with the Catholics while the stern presbyteries were hunting them down with vigilance committees ; and he even rated his choicest friends, Bruce and Lindsay, ' for breeding of mutinies and rebellioun in our rude countrie,' because they inter- viewed him regarding a simmering Popish plot. The capture in The 'Spanish Cumbrae of a spy carrying papers, known as the 'Spanish Blanks,' signed by the rebels, led to the unmasking of a conspiracy for an invasion of Western Scotland by the Spanish.^ The Pope had many • Calderwood, v. 192-214 ; Span. State Papers, iv. 603-6. Cf. Aldis, List, p. 8, for A Discouerie . . . Conspirade of Scottish Papists, 1592-3 (Edin., Waldegrave) ; Melville, Autobiog., 306 ci seq. ; Pitcairn, Crim. Trials, i. 310 et seq. ; Law, Collected Essays, 244. Blanks.' Leuchars Church Anwoth Church iirrylii.u> I iiurcli, Mirliii The C.ilhcdi.il, Glasgow I in ' ,aii. >ii,il, M. Aijili. «- Church of St. Giles, Kilinburgh (, . CHURCHES FAMOUS IN TUli COVENANPlNc; ACE THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 135 supporters in the north, in whose treacherous designs Huntly, Angus, Errol, the Master of Gray, Gordon of Auchindoune, and many others were implicated. The alert ministers helped to unravel the plot. In March the King proceeded to Aberdeen, marshalling 162 Aberdeen loyal landholders by the way, who subscribed a defensive league for Covenant, the maintenance of the liberty of religion, crown, and country from 'thraldome of conscience, conqueisch [conquest], and slaverie of strangers,' and for subduing the above-named traitors.^ The tenor of the Aberdeen Covenant was to the effect that the subscribers, among whom were Lennox, Atholl, Mar, Marischal, Lord Lindsay, Lord Inverness, Ochiltree, Tullibardine, the Master of Forbes, and others would not ' ryde, assist, show favour, give counsell, or take part with the saids Erles, Jesuits, nor others forsaids.' The King's luke- warmness and unwarrantable toleration confirmed the suspicion that he dallied with the established faith and was in secret league with the rebels who refused to disarm. The Church leaders, Melville, Rollock, Balcanqual and others, accused the King of causing the national misery and the decay of religion. He waited his time for revenge. The Synod of Fife came to the rescue by excommunicating the conspirators, a judgment which the King tried to make the Assembly set aside by his publishing an Act of Oblivion. That supreme Court was not to be cajoled. Their verdict increased his perversity, perversity of James never respected the parish ministers, except when he asked ^'"""" them to relieve him of monetary embarrassments, to stay his bank- ruptcy, to redeem a pawned jewel, and to place the grace of the Church between him and the persecuting witches. He imagined that the threat of coercion would make them drop this excom- munication. Far otherwise ; the Church promptly commanded all presbyteries to excommunicate all nonconformists and to censure absentees from the Communion table, in accordance with the law. The defeat of Argyll's semi-official army at Glenlivet by the rebels ' Dookc of the U. Kirk, iii. 821, 822 ; it was subscribed between the ist and 13th March. Wodrow MSS., fol. xliii. 43 ; Calderwood, v. 233-5, 773-5- 136 THE COVENANTERS brought the King to his senses ; and leading north a superior force, he dissipated the insurgents and reduced their strongholds. Although the Church had theoretically ' come to her perfection,' as Calderwood euphemistically narrated, the practical efforts of the pastors to spread morality and religion were futile so long as statutes against crime remained inoperative. Many districts still had no churches, ministers, manses, and stipends. Some pastors had only nominal stipends. Many pious men were almost broken-hearted with the paganism of the time, as indicated in the minutes of Assembly.' Sabbath was a day for labour, for marketing in graveyards, open-air Miseryin 1596. plays, pastimes, and local brawls. Even in 1596 the Assembly declared that ' the most part of the parish kirks of Scotland are altogether destituted of all exercise of religion,' and, inasmuch as the terms of fellowship agreed upon by the Church were only ' ane feeling of sin and apprehension of mercy,' the sacred edifices might be crowded, while Christian virtues were of the rarest.^ Opiniona- tive preachers, revelling in unjustifiable personalities, political allusions, and rude reproofs in the pulpit, and spending the week with broken heads, neither mollified the indurate masses, nor soothed the galled King who had determined to muzzle the ministers, among whom John Davidson, that veteran critic and master of invective, and ex- senator Pont, had long been the chief offenders with their tongues. David Black's David Black, appointed minister of St. Andrews in 1593, a student of that city, a favourite of the Melvilles, claimed his manse, then in the occupation of William Balfour, brother of Sir Michael Balfour, laird of Burley, who refused to quit at the minister's bidding : but ' the manse-moungar ' took revenge, and caused ' the King's eares to be filled with calumnious informationes ' regarding Black's comments on Queen Mary and her administration, but without reference to the ' mikle guid ' Black had also spoken. In con- sequence. Black and his patron Andrew Melville were cited to appear before the King and Council. Black, evidently primed, used Melville's plea of no jurisdiction of any Civil Court composed of 1 Dookc of the U. Kirk, iii. 803, 878. * Ibui, 879. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 137 laymen and clergy. As the case proceeded, Andrew Melville, 'schopped at the chamber doore ' and entered/ Addressing King James, he reminded him that ' there were twa kings in Scotland, twa kingdomes, and twa jurisdictiones,' — Christ's and his ; and that if, instead of molesting Black, ' the fathfull messenger of Jesus Chryst,' he only did justice to Michael Balfour, the delator and accuser, traitor, burglar, ravisher, resetter of rebels — meantime, in the torrent of Melville's oratory, Michael Balfour had sunk to his knees as a suppliant for mercy — then Christ would be saved the necessity of bringing a judgment upon the King. Swiftly discomfited, the King was glad to patch up the peace, and with a jest he added that Melville and Balfour ' were bathe litle men and thair hart was at thair mouthe.' But this episode could not be forgotten by a vindictive spirit which bided its time. A melancholy Assembly met in Edinburgh, on the 24th March Edinburgh 1596, and took thirteen sessions to discuss the threatening Spaniards ^^^ ^' and the national corruption.^ It was demonstrated that nobody was good, nothing was right. The penniless King himself compeared and 'granted he was a sinner,' too, but of a mild type. His loving brethren, not to be outdone by this ingenuousness, reminded him of other trivial shortcomings — that he omitted grace at meat, did not go often enough to church, was ' blotted with banning and swearing,' kept bad company, tolerated criminals, and winked at revelries at Court.^ The clergy acknowledged with equal honesty that, while they themselves needed remodelling and cleansing, the laity required thorough purgation, and the judges of the Court of Session, who were 'the worst men advanced,' and were bribed to sell justice, could not be improved and were ripe for deposition. It was pro- posed that, in order to avoid the judgment of God, the suspect landlords should give up their heirs as pledges for their loyalty, the laity should stand to arms in parochial musters monthly, and that the repentant ministers should enter into a New Covenant with God. ' M'Crie, Melville, 174, 175 ; Calderwood, v. 376 el seq. ; Melville, Aulobioi^. 323-325. ' Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 857. ^ Ibid., 872. S 138 THE COVENANTERS John Davidson, who believed that the Devil envied his successful ministry, produced, as requested, ' a particular catalogue of the chief Davidson's offences and corruptions in all estates.' The Assembly well knew that this ' godlie zelus father ' could stir up with ' the mightie force of the Word ' those four hundred ' choice professors,' who listened to his telling oratory and deprecations. The Assembly was moved to tears. Davidson then fervently appealed to his brethren to raise their hands in token of penitence and of a desire to enter into a new covenant with God. Thereafter the versatile orator raised up the choice professors by some staying reflections on the text, ' Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink ' — a bitter morsel to starving men — until, of these four hundred, only one stony heart remained unmelted.^ According to a quaint contemporary, the owner of that hardened organ obtained his just deserts afterwards when he was trailed to death by a horse. The result of all this yearning for self-reformation and national edification was that the Assembly recommended the clergy assembled then, and to be assembled in synods and presbyteries, to humble themselves, enter into another league with God, become diligent, and set up effective kirk sessions to execute the discipline. The vows taken bound the churchmen to encourage Bible instruction, to resist the enemies of religion, to extend the parochial ministry, to reform the NewCovenant administration of public charity, and to frequent public conventions signed. IS96. f^^ ^^^ common weal.2 From a fiscal point of view the country was in a deplorable condition, arising out of the many rebellions which ended in the forfeiture and new infeftments of many landed estates. The law was scarcely strong enough to protect the new, favoured acceptors of the gifts of the Crown. The confused state of the teinds and other Church patrimony also created constant friction with holders and « jSooie of the U. Kirk, 869. ' Melville's Diary (Wod. Soc), 360-368; M'Crie, Melville, 176; Calderwood, v. 408, 433- 437. Row, however, states ' WTierefore, at the Generall Assemblie holden at Edinburgh, March 24, 1595, the beginnings of defection being then espyed this Covenant {i.e. 1581) was renewed.' Hist., 78. I THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 139 tenants of these.^ By the death of Chancellor Maitland, in October The Chan- 1595, the King had lost his trustiest adviser, and in his perplexity "^q^,, '"' began the new year badly by appointing a Commission of eight persons, known as ' The Octavians,' to unravel the complications in the Exchequer. Of these eight judges, parsons, and gentlemen, Alexander Seton — Lord Urquhart — President of the Court of Session, was a Catholic, educated in Rome, became prior of Pluscardyn, and was the agent who arranged the recall of the exiled Popish nobles. The officials and parasites about Court, known as 'The Cubiculars,' Octavians and resenting any intrusion upon their vested interests, and the ministers suspicious of ulterior designs, brought about the dissolution of this necessary Committee, which might have reorganised the finances of Church and State and made both solvent at this period. Now it was whispered that the Popish exiles, trusting to the Falkland King's leniency, had returned. The Covenanters were excited, ^""g*^""""' While a Convention was sitting in Falkland to consider the advis- ability of the recall of these banished traitors, Andrew Melville, being a Commissioner of Assembly for defence of the Church, came to the meeting and severely chided the King for his perilous policy. F"or his pains, he was summarily ejected. From this time onwards a Committee of Assembly, similar to ' The Tables ' of forty years later, which sat permanently in cases of emergency watching the trend of political affairs, is found looking after Church interests. This Committee convened a meeting of ultra-Protestant friends, clerical and lay, in Cupar, sufficiently near Falkland Palace to permit a deputation of their number, consisting of Andrew Melville, James Melville, Patrick Galloway and James Nicolsone, to go and interview the King when in residence there, and to return to the meeting. James Melville, a gentle character, noted for speaking ' substantiuslie and in myld and smothe maner,' was their mouthpiece. Professor James had not well begun his mild address when the testy King interrupted him and proceeded to rate the pastors for ' The Assembly of 1596 considered 'The New and Constant Plat of planting all the Kirks of Scotland' : Bookcoftlic U. Kirk, 878-88. I40 THE COVENANTERS meeting in Cupar without his licence, and for fomenting sedition. The intrepid Andrew interposed in his irresistible way, while ' the king used his authoritie in maist crabbit and colerick maner, yet Mr. Andro bure him down and outtered the Commission as from the Mightie God.' Rightly obsessed with the idea of the Roman peril, Melville's he was not to be silenced. Drawing closer to his Sovereign, whom King James, he Styled ' bot God's sillie vassall [merely God's weak servant], the perfervid orator gripped the sleeve of the King's coat, while through much hot reasoning and many interruptions, he eloquently declared that Christ Jesus reigned freely in the land when the King was in his * swadling-cloutes ' ; that Christ's officers and ministers had stood against all enemies for the welfare of the people and his preservation, and that by devilish counsel the King was hindering Christ's servants — his own best and most faithful subjects. In a manly outburst he thus clearly formulated the prerogatives of the Church and assailed the pretensions of its enslaver : ' Sir, as dyvers tymes before sa now again, I mon tell yow, thair is twa Kings and twa Kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is Chryst Jesus the King, and his kingdome the Kirk, whase subject King James the Saxt is, and of whase King- dome nocht a King, nor a lord, nor a heid, but a member : And they whome Chryst hes callit and commandit to watch over his Kirk, and governe his spirituall Kingdome hes sufficient power of Him, and authoritie sa to do bathe togidder and severaHe : the quhilk na Christian King nor Prince sould controU and discharge, but fortifie and assist, utherwayes nocht fathfull subjects nor members of Chryst.' ' Melville would have been thrown out of doors for his boldness by a less cowardly opponent. Policy made the King to cool, and to trust to his kingcraft to outwit his antagonists. Committee The Committee on Church Interests continued sitting in Edin- j/g's burgh, and drew up complaints which the Crown answered. The Crown demanded that the ministers should leave regal matters alone and attend to their own spiritual business in the pulpit. The King announced that he would convene assemblies when needed, and ratify Church edicts if found agreeable. Durinsf these necjotiations, one of the King's sapient remarks touched the quick in Scotland's ecclesi- astical sore, thus, ' there could be no sfood agreement betwixt the ministers and him till the marches of their jurisdiction were redd 1 Melville, Autobiog., 370 ; M'Crie, Melville, 181 ; Calderwood, v. 439-44I- % THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 141 [i.e. cleared] up.' That is the whole case in a nutshell. The want of boundaries has caused the worst dissensions in the Scottish Church. But the Stuart mode of reddinsf the marches was both treacherous and high-handed, as the gay galliard, Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, said he found before he was hanged at Carlinrigg : ' To seik het water beneith cauld ice, Surelie it is a greit folie. I haue asked grace at a graceless face, But there is nane for my men and me.' The Melville party, and indeed the Covenanters generally, were worse treated than the daring Armstrongs, and received less ' grace at a graceless face,' as the sequel shows. David Black again got into trouble. He was accused, on Black's second slender enough grounds, ostensibly at the instance of the English '^^^^' Ambassador, of having publicly asserted that kings were the children of the devil who was in the Court ; the popish Earls returned with the knowledge and consent of the King ; the Lords of Session were miscreants and bribers ; the nobles were godless enemies of the Church ; the Council were 'athiestis of na religioun, holiglassis, gormorantis (buffoons and cormorants) ' ; and other slanders. Black compeared before the Council on i8th November, and declined the judgment of the King and Council in his case, which was one for ecclesiastical not civil jurisdiction. In his able defence he was assisted by the city pastors, Bruce and Pont, while the Church Committee accepted Black's declinature as a declinature for the whole Church. Not to be baflled, King and Council, on 24th November, banished Black beyond Tay water, discharged the Commission of the Church, ordered the sixteen members of it to their homes, and forbade them meeting in similar conventions.^ Church and State were now in close grips, and soon the King Emcuic in found a pretext for overthrowino- the Melville party and for arrorrat- '-^''"''"fc''' ^'- ° c J ft December ing to himself absolute supremacy. It happened thus. On the 17th 1596. December, after Walter Balcanqual, preaching in St. Giles, had concluded a week-day discourse which was an unfavourable review ' Rcj;. Privy Counc, v. 328, 335, 340, 344-349 ; Calderwood, v. 456 ct seq. 142 THE COVENANTERS of the Black case, he convened in the chancel a meeting of hearers who agreed with his views, to resolve on what steps should be taken. Robert Bruce, his colleague, dilated upon the danger to the Church. They knew that the King was sitting in the Courts of Law but a few yards away, and the meeting determined to send to him a deputation of eight persons, representative of the Three Estates and of the city, who should there and then ask for the dismissal of those who advised the recall of the Popish rebels. Bruce, in his double capacity of preacher and proprietor of Kinnaird, a man of commanding appear- ance, was chosen as spokesman. The King flamed into fury and demanded how they dared meet under his eyes without his liberty, ' Meet,' replied Lord Lindsay, with the brave scorn native in his house, ' we dare do more than that, and will not suffer religion to be overthrown.' A glance might convince the Sovereign that his inter- viewers had no Mosaic views of a Stuart theocracy, and he rushed from the Tolbooth in order to command that the doors of the Court- house should be closed asfainst the intruders. Rumour soon caught and exaggerated the incident. The streets rang with cries 'to arms,' and quickly the burgesses threw themselves into military gear and clanked up the High Street asking what the mad pother meant. Wild with rage, the King magnified the panic into an insurrection, blamed the ministers as ' bounders out ' of a mob seeking his blood, Royal and issued a proclamation declaring the rising treasonable, ordering strangers to their homes, and commanding all officials of the law to leave a city so polluted as to be unfit to be a seat for dispensing justice. King James fled to Linlithgow Palace. Warrants for the arrests of the city pastors Balcanqual, Bruce, Balfour, and Watson were issued. They escaped. Gossip now had it that the King had permitted the Border reavers to march and sack the capital, of which he intended to leave no vestige save a tombstone. The terrified magistrates besought an audience of the King, which was refused until they came as suppliant rebels to grovel at his feet, to be snarled at, and to promise that they would apprehend and expel any preacher at the King's pleasure. The populace, resigned to their fate, pre- pared themselves for the grave with a comforting fast. i Proclamation. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 143 At this unhappy juncture, John Welsh, then minister in Kirkcud- bright, a son-in-law of John Knox, an enthusiast for pure Presbytery, preached in St. Giles. If Spottiswood's account of his sermon is credible, his evangel could not have possessed that gracious flavour which made Samuel Rutherford style Welsh ' that heavenly, pro- phetical, and apostolic man of God.' He 'did pitifully rail against Welsh rails. the King, saying " He was possessed with a Devil ; and one Devil being put out seven worse were entered in place. And that the subjects might lawfully rise and take the sword out of his hand,"' just as the children and servants of a madman might bind him to keep him from violence.^ If the clergy were impolitic in the conduct of their case, the King was resolute in stamping out their freedom. This he proved by the Act of Linlithgow, 21st December 1596 — Linlithgow a test ordaining ministers to subscribe a bond acknowledging the ^^ ' '^^ " King's authority in civil and criminal causes, on pain of loss of stipend.'^ Dreading extermination, the ministers dispatched David Lindsay to woo the King back to his old hymeneal love for the Church. The autocrat was soothed, and re-entered Edinburgh with a strong escort of troops on New Year's Day 1597. The deserted, lifeless streets were as silent as those of Pompeii. Kingcraft had won a notable triumph. The reaction against Presbyterianism was unmis- takable. The King once again appeared in St. Giles, and made a public vow that he meant no alteration of the national religion, and only intended its securer establishment. He, of course, was the sole judge of what religion and its establishment denoted. The Privy Council soon gave legal expression to the royal displeasure by pro- nouncing the petitioners of the Tolbooth to be traitors, by ordaining The Toibooth the ministry to acknowledge the King's jurisdiction, by commanding ™,„'i5i,'ed.''^ magistrates to arrest distasteful preachers, by forbidding assemblies in Edinburgh, and by ostracising four ministers of the capital. The " Spottiswood, 430 : cf. Life and Letters, IVodrow Miscell., i. 543 ; Life, VVodrow, Sch-c/ Bi'og., i. I -61. ' lieg. Privy Counc, v. 352. 144 THE COVENANTERS manses of these pastors were seized on the plea that they were ' scenes of conspiracies,' but, according to some, because their proximity to Parhament and the Courts made them suitable for the King to dine in. For the part the citizens took in the Tolbooth petition, the city was fined 20,000 merks (^11 11, 2s. 2d.), and the unpopular Octavian, Lord Urquhart, was created Provost. The King's The King now acted upon the supposition that the national new^scieme, (^|^^j.j,j^ ^g ^ Corporation might be weaker than its zealots imagined, and that the majority of its preachers and members who did not frequent wrangling assemblies might, for the sake of peace, be more flexible and amenable to his views than the leaders were. As head of the Church, he resolved personally, following the example of early Christian emperors, to convene an effective assembly, in order to clear up the vexed question of spiritual jurisdiction, the manner of applying doctrine, and the policy of the Church. Perth was chosen as a suitable centre, because the northern Scots were still half- converted Catholics and lukewarm Covenanters. Romanism had deepest roots in Highland glens, where the uneducated clans, naturally superstitious and religious, hated progress and change, and yet slavishly obeyed their chiefs, who were more easily brought into reverence of the royal will. Distance from the seat of government kept them ignorant of nice distinctions in jurisprudence, and of those scandals of the Court, which afforded fruitful texts to the railing Perth Assem- ' Popes of Edinburgh.' The Assembly met in Perth, on the last ^' '^^^" day of February, and this action was within the King's right. His edict embraced fifty-five sensible questions, prepared by the King's clever secretary, Lindsay, regarding the points at issue that day. The Covenanting extremists, at the outset, maintained that the meeting was not an assembly properly convened, but this motion was easily defeated, and this adverse vote turned the tide into the channels James had prepared, so that the substance of his thirteen demands was accepted by the Assembly. It was agreed that the King might in General Assembly propose for reform any matter of external government ; that no civil legislation be condemned until THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 145 first constitutional means had been taken for its reform ; that no citizen be publicly rebuked for any supposed offence except proved or notorious crime ; that no General Assemblies should meet, nor pastors in cities be appointed, without the consent of the King. Kingcraft had scored another victory. While the constitutional party held that this Assembly was merely an informal palaver, neither cited nor held properly, being without moderator, clerk, investing prayer, and customary sermon, the King was satisfied with obtaining a basis upon which to build up his own system of Church government which permitted no clerical intrusion in the civil sphere. The Perth meeting forestalled the regular Assembly, indicted at St. Andrews on 27th April, to which few members came. The business was postponed to the King's next convention, summoned to Dundee on loth May, and the interests of the Church were protected by formal protests.^ Robert Rollock, Principal of the newly founded University ofO'imiee Edinburgh, a learned, guileless man, was moderator of the Dundee ',5^7!" '' Assembly which ratified the proceedings at Perth, assoilzied the rebel Earls, and agreed to a new proposal by the King." This was the appointment of nineteen ecclesiastical commissioners — some of them afterwards became bishops — who were to get access to the King for advice, to approach Parliament with schemes of reform, to plant and maintain ministers, and to try cases where the Crown was aggrieved by churchmen : in a word, an Inquisition whose head was King James — a 'Star Chamber' wherein persecution was conceived. Thus dexterously the Church had been inveigled into appointing a perpetual lay-moderator, a civil Pope who graciously declared that he did not enjoy seeing his pastors stand like mendicants at the door of Parliament and outside its deliberations. The constitutional party, on the other hand, were right in stating that this subtle move was 'the verie needle which drew in the threed [thread] of the bishops.' With the reconciled Papists and the bridled clergy, the country ' Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 913. - Cf. Life in Select Works of Rolloik (Wodrow Soc, 1849). 146 THE COVENANTERS obtained a summer of peace.^ That Parliamentary representation which previous Assemblies had requested was now to be given in a way very few expected.'- The Reform Commissioners, doubtless with royal approval, petitioned Parliament for some seats in the legislature for clergy. The Parliament-men, not relishing a pastoral element chosen by the clergy — no doubt having visions of Knox, Melville, Black, and other railers — and knowing the King's favour for the Parliament, discarded prelatic estate, resolved that a voice in Parliament would 1597 "^"^ "^ be conferred on any bishop, abbot, or prelate appointed by the Sovereign. Things looked ominous when Parliament began to belittle the Church and give mere titulars and favourites of the Kingr the positions of the mitred hierarchy of old, and the zealots were no more angry at the fraud than moderate presbyters were. The same Parlia- ment restored the Popish lords — Huntly, Errol, and Angus. The Synod of Fife considered the subject in a lively discussion wherein the two Melvilles fulminated, and the hoary minister of Dunfermline, David Fergusson, whose long life had been a fight for liberty, emitted some of his jocund wit. He it was who dubbed the titulars ' tulchans,' or calf-skin bishops, and now he compared the \ new proposal to the artifice for taking Troy, aptly quoting the line of Virgil : ' Equo ne credite, Teucri.' The less classical but bolder wit, ,; John Davidson, of excommunication fame, invited merriment by ■• describing the clerical Parliament-man thus : ' Busk [dress or adorn] busk, busk him als bonilie as yee can, and bring him in as fairlie as ye will, we see him weill eneugh ; we see the hornes of his m.ytre.' '^ The opportune appearance of an eclipse confirmed both the suspicious and the superstitious in their sinister forebodings that the Prince of Darkness was about to make his advent. Supported by commissioners, who raced with each other for episcopal thrones, King " James had no qualms in silencing fearless pastors like Bruce and Black, in appointing partisans to vacant charges, and in extinguishing clerical meetings. ' Confessing apostasy from the papacy, Angus, Huntly, and Errol subscribed the Con- fession in the Old Kirk of Aberdeen, on 25th June 1597, and got absolution. - Ac/. Pari. Scot., iv. 130. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 147 Andrew Melville had not ceased hurling divine judgments at the Dundee throne, and had been deprived of some of his academic rights and ',^"^1, ^' forbidden to attend assemblies. But before the King could trust an Assembly to meet again in Dundee, in order to accept the Restora- tion Act, he found it necessary to evict Melville. The assembled brethren, on 7th March 1598, accepted the King's proposal that fifty- one ministers representative of the Church should form what was formerly the First Estate and have votes in Parliament, but not without strenuous opposition on the part of the constitutionalists, who had the courage to demand that the Church should have some say as to the nominees and their clerical office, and also to appoint Commis- sioners to discuss these points with the King.^ By a majority of ten, the Highland Host carried the day, the voting having been begun by Mr. Gilbert Body, whom Calderwood the historian designates 'a drunken Orkney asse.'^ An act passed in this Assembly directing the number of Commis- sioners to be sent to every Assembly became of paramount im- portance in the contest with King Charles at the indiction of the Glasgow Assembly in 1638. 'The Tables' directed presbyteries to procure and act upon this law enjoining presbyteries to send three of their number — one layman representative of the barons, and one layman representative of each burgh, to every General Assembly. Every session was enjoined to send a lay-elder to the presbytery to form the elective ' Eldership,' or Presbytery. No scandalous person was to be chosen Commissioner, nor was the Moderator to be chosen a Commissioner without due election. In the event of either of these events occurring, the brethren were to compear and protest at the Assembly. The observance of this statute made the General Assembly in Glasgow the powerful convention it proved itself to be. The debates which took place at F'alkland and Holyrood only Vaikiand demonstrated that the King sought one thing, the Assembly another, ,,„'," no)yr"od and Parliament a third. Yet, after all, the King's scheme was the Conference ' Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 934. ' This minister of Holme, Pomona, was drowned in 1606. 148 THE COVENANTERS most statesmanlike, in so far as it provided clerical assistance in his government ; it was, however, too impracticable in a semi-civilised state, where mobs carried arms and irritable preachers prayed for a peace they could not brook, when it was to be gained by the aid of their representatives in Parliament bearing the tabooed name of bishops. In the manner of its accomplishment, it debauched the conscience of the Reformed Church and angered the haughty nobles, whom it demeaned to the level of the starving preachers. The King's This was only one of many schemes taking shape in the fertile iterarywors. j^jj^j of the King. His literary tastcs also found indulgence in the exciting field of theoretical politics. In early youth he dabbled in poetry. In September 1598 he essayed to answer the Buchanan School of democrats in a treatise, entitled The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, or the Reciprock and Miduall duetie betwixt a free King and his naturall subjects} Herein he published the simple creed of paternal government : The King is father of his subjects, a God upon earth, a ruler by birth, a patron, not a servant of Parliament, an absolute person not bound to obey the laws of his realm, ' but of his good will, and for good example giving to his subjects,' who conse- quently are 'naked of all authority.'" The Presbyterian politicians were not slow in resenting- this dangerous work — which action merely incited the King to illustrate, in 1599, his Draconian philosophy in a more offensive form. BaHiikon ^o Waldcgrave, the King's printer, the royal author had Doron, or entrusted the manuscript of his new work ' BASLVIKON AOPON, or His Maiesties instructions to his dearest sonne, Henry, the Prince,' which was to be privately printed in seven copies.^ Andrew Melville got a glimpse of it, and made some extracts which he forwarded to his nephew James, who persuaded John Dykes, minister of Kilrenny, to bring its teaching before a meeting of the Synod of Fife. Never was such an impolitic and mistimed effusion prepared by any ruler, as ' Aldis, List, No. 309 (W'aldegrave, 1598), 8vo. ^ King James, Works (Winton's edit., 1616), 194-209. ' Ibid., pp. 160-75 (original edit. 1599, Edinburgh); Aldis, List, No. 311 (Waldegrave, 4to) ; Melville, Autobiog., 444 et scq. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 149 this revealing the innermost thoughts and aims of James, and his views of the Covenanters whom he classed with the Puritans. He hated them because, as he said, they had persecuted him four months before he was born.^ In stating his propositions regarding the absolute power of every monarch over his subjects, lay and cleric, the author described the Puritans as ' brain-sicke and headie preachers like Anabaptists in contempt of the civil magistrate,' and advised his son to beware of them as ' verie pestes in the Church and Common- weill of Scotland, whom, by long experience, I have found no desserts can oblish [oblige].' He also declared that they were worse than Highlanders or Borderers ; and, as to the Highlanders, he advised his son to ' thinke no more of them all, than as wolves and wild boares.' With consummate hypocrisy, the King while pretending to be interested in the establishment of Presbytery, counselled the prince to restore Episcopacy, to annul the 'vile act of annexation,' and to banish ' their conceited paritie . . . which can neither stand with the order of the Church, nor the peace of a commonweale and well-ruled monarchie.' This was not all. He was advised to hate James's theory Puritans, call few Parliaments, make laws for himself, know his own " g<'^'e''n"ie"'- craft, and say his own prayers. It is the effect of such teaching upon himself and upon his young family, notably Prince Charles, which must be carefully weighed along with the stern actions of the later Covenanters, who were provoked into being irreconcilables. For although the King, in reprinting this treatise, trimmed its most offensive passages, he published enough to open the eyes of non- conformists to his hatred of their 'conceited paritie.' The Synod of Fife condemned this teaching as seditious and pernicious ; and, as if ignorant of its authorship, sent their judgment to the King for his approval. He proved he was in earnest. He forcibly illustrated his autocratic principles by proroguing the Montrose Assembly from October 1599 to i6th March 1600, without consulting its members, and by compelling the pastors in Edinburgh to apologise for interfering with his licence to a company of English comedians. > iVot/row MSS.,x\\\-. IS- ISO THE COVENANTERS Montrose Assembly, 1600. Pastors in Parliament. Bishops appointed. Melville at Montrose. The Montrose Assembly ratified the propositions discussed in the Conferences at Falkland and Holyrood, to this extent, that repre- sentatives of the Church might sit in Parliament if the King selected them from a number of nominees agreed upon by the Church, that they might not initiate Church business in Parliament, nor act without instructions received from the Assembly, to which Court they were to report their actings and to demit their office annually.^ They might be called 'Commissioners,' would possess no extra power, and would remain pastors subject to the judicatories of the Church. In a word, the new prelate was to be only a clerical reporter in Parliament, whom the King and legislature permitted to vote there. Where the carcase \<^as, there the eagles were also. Vacant sees were promptly filled. That good-humoured Laodicean, Lindsay of Leith, for his elasticity of character, had a speedy reward in the bishopric of Ross, and similar honours fell upon Peter Blackburn of Aberdeen, and George Gledstanes of St. Andrews, who were elevated to Aberdeen and Caithness. A trice elapsed, and these three were the deputies selected from the Church Commissioners to take their seats in the legislature in November. The Sovereign was managing his Divine Rights admirably, and his craft bore many fruits. It is not to be supposed that Andrew Melville permitted the Church to shackle itself without a manly protest. The King had in person frequented the Assembly in Montrose from which Melville was debarred, but the indomitable patriot appeared in town and infused his defiant spirit into the timorous presbyters. When the galled King angrily demanded of Melville why he was so trouble- some, 'The said Andro, laying his hand to his held, said, "Sir, it is this that ve would haiff! Ye sail haiff it! Tak it! Tak it! or [rather than] bereave us of the liberties of Jesus Christ and his Kingdome."'- Every turn of affairs tended to deepen the royal contempt for the Presbyterian cause. The Cowrie conspiracy to kidnap the King in Perth ended in a ' Booke of tlie U. Kirk, iii. 949; Hume, Poeiiis (Scot. Text See), 170, App. C. - Melville, Autobiog., 542. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 151 bloody fiasco on 5th August 1600/ The young Earl of Gowrie and Oowrie plot, a younger brother, sons of the executed raider, Ruthven, in order to ' °°' find opportunity to seize, perchance to dispatch, the King, had wiled him to see a wondrous pot of coined gold. This plot did not belie the instincts of their bloodstained family, yet it was unlike the manners the cultured young Earl should have learned in Beza's home in Geneva, whence he had lately returned. It failed, and these two enthusiasts or avengers paid for their rashness with their lives, not without leaving some doubt as to what their real aim was. The nervous King, however, ordained the pastors in Edinburgh to convene their flocks without delay, and to praise God for his deliver- ance. The magistrates and burgesses lustily rang bells, fired cannon, and lit bonfires, in imagination recalling the vision from Linlithgow, their tombstone, and their epitaph ; but the more critical city shepherds, with graceless incivility, not feeling satisfied that the royal version of the story was canonical enough, delayed obeying the royal mandate in the meantime. Judgment was swift. While the two victims were huddled into i-astors exiled, salt to be pickled for their day of trial — such was the ferocity of old '^"^' Scots justice — the five sceptics, Balcanqual, Hall, Watson, Balfour, and Robert Bruce were ejected from the Capital, and five royalists, including ever-ready Lindsay, were placed in their charges. Bruce, alone of the five, would not purchase his return by submission. He had long lain under the umbrage of his Sovereign, and the Tolbooth interview had widened the gulf between them. The edict of the Perth Assembly (1597), ordaining the imposition of hands upon the ministry — a rite considered by the less ritualistic churchmen to be permissible rather than imperative and essential — may have been intended to strike at the successful lay-ministry of unordained Bruce, persecution rather than to further the later prelatic scheme by which ordination °"^''"'^"-- by bishops was made imperative. The stoppage of a pension Bruce had from a benefice of Arbroath Abbey annexed to the Crown indicated the meanness of the King, who, when Bruce appealed to • jRe^^. Privy Counc, vi., g.v. ; Act. Pari. Scot., iv. 192. 152 THE COVENANTERS the Court of Session and obtained a decision against the Crown, fumed as madly at the uprightness of the judges as at the triumph of his enemy. At last the Gowrie affair gave James the opportunity he longed for to destroy the influence of his Tearless and popular antagonist ; and, despite Bruce's assertion that he did accept the authorised version of the story of the plot, yet only claimed the right, and obeyed the royal behest to keep politics out of the pulpit, the Kinsr had Bruce banished to France on 2nd November 1600. On his return, he was permanently ostracised to his estate in the country, Kinnaird.^ With strange inconsistency, the lay-Pope, who would not countenance a lay-ministry, would enforce his creed that ' obedience to princes, suppose they were wicked, is the word of God.' ^k Doom of the On 15th November Parliament House witnessed a gruesome Ruthvens. spectaclc wheu the salt-pickled bodies of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were produced for trial, and these were formally doomed, and sentenced to be hanged, quartered, and distributed as a terror to traitors and evil-doers. It was also enacted that their names should be obliterated, their lands and possessions forfeited, and a memorial- day appointed to keep alive the story of their treason.^ On 19th November, while this salted sacrifice adorned the market gibbets, and these once fiery heads dropped from the hangman's axe. Prince Birih of Prince Charles was bom in Linlithgow Palace— the gossips said, with a igth'^Novemb r blood-red ring around his neck. Ever-ready Lindsay, the bishop, 1600. had the honour of baptizing the hapless prince — another Basilikon Doron to miserable Scotland. Burntisland Once again the King, on his own initiative, setting aside the feoi™'^'^' Charter of the Church of 1592, convened an Assembly which met in Burntisland on 15th May 1601.^ Its members, while mourning the sins of the age, the paucity of preachers, the presence of Papists, and the loss of the King's regard for Presbytery, practically homologated the recent subversive policy, and waived their own boasted jurisdiction by approving of the enforced translation of the ' Bruce, Life and Sermons, 97, 130 (Wodrow Soc.)- 2 Act. Pari. Scot., iv. 191-204. ' Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 963. THE FIGHT FOR PREROGATIVE 153 exiled pastors of Edinburgh to rural charges. The King himself was present with a tear in his eye, and, before dissolving the meeting, the Head of the Church held up his hand and vowed he would defend religion. A week later this defender of the faith commanded the venerable John Davidson John Davidson, guilty of writing a characteristic letter which the ' ^"^""'^ " King easily construed into treasonable reflections upon his own new regal pontificate, to be confined in Edinburgh Castle. A harsher fate awaited Andrew Melville. The prolonged struggle in un- favourable circumstances was making the once bold ministry — no longer upheld by gallant and pious laymen as Kno.x was — terror- stricken and invertebrate, so that they permitted — what they could scarcely prevent — the intruder on, and conqueror of, their territory to cross the Rubicon and burn his boats while the sun of Presbytery was going down. Queen Anne was now a professed Roman Catholic.^ Another instance of paternal government was afforded in the Hoiyrood summoning by proclamation of the indicted St. Andrews Assembly to i^l"^ '' the Chapel Royal at Hoiyrood, to suit the King, on loth November 1602.- It was in vain that James Melville protested against the conversion of the Assembly into a Privy Council of Religion, since his pliable brethren sat down placidly and approved of the further disintegration of the National Church. It was agreed that visitors should be appointed over sixteen districts, practically dioceses, having inquisitorial powers of examining pastors, presbyteries, and people ; that private chaplains, practically spies, should be billeted on the nobles ; and that the aristocratic youth should be prevented going out of the country for education and travel, until they obtained passports and gave caution. These were the latest efforts of the King to re-establish the First Estate, before he left Scotland for the throne of England. ' Her letter, dated 31st July i6oi, empowering Cardinal Borghese to profess the Catholic Faith in Rome for her, is in the British Museum : Add/. AfSS., 37021, fol. 25. Cf. Ef/g. Hist. Rev., XX. 124-7. - Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 973, 974. U 154 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER VI CLERICAL LIFE AND LEARNING AFTER THE REFORMATION Rudeness after The last forty ycars of the sixteenth century were a period as rude e orma ion. ^^ ^^^ other for Several generations. The Reformation did not compose the perturbed masses as soon as was expected, nor did the introduction of novel doctrines and of a bold worship by clergy, freed from one intellectual bondage to be entangled in another, elevate the people and their leaders with the rapidity which other political and spiritual movements have shown. Literature is the cream of a nation's intellectual life : books are the product of brains fertilised by potent ideas, which are assured of immortality by an inherent law demanding their reproduction. But this period under review pro- duced almost nothing new in the fields of pure literature, theology, poetry and art.' The infusion of the new life upon the moribund stock did not relieve its barrenness, save to start a few insignificant shoots from the undying root. Nor is this to be wondered at. It is generally believed that the men who ascended to the National Zion, in order to sacrifice as well as to cleanse the temple before becoming priests of a reformed order, were all of clean hands and of pure hearts, who had not lifted up their souls unto vanity nor Impious sworn deceitfully. The history of Church possessions and teinds discountenances any supposition that the landowners who seized the patrimony had any regard, far less devotion, for religion and its ministry. The continual pressure of and remonstrances against these rapacious appropriators for seventy years illustrate the sordid motives > According to Mr. H. G. Ps\^\€% List of Books printed in Scotland before 1700 (Edin., 1904), only three hundred and twenty-four printed books, pamphlets, and proclamations printed and published in the sixteenth century in Scotland are extant. CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 155 which underlay the spirit of reform in these lay disestablishers of the ancient Church. An examination into the antecedents of the clergy who flourished Poverty of in the same period reveals some striking facts regarding the dire*^"^' impecuniosity of the beneficed pastors, the difficult and dangerous nature of their sacred office, the ignorance and immorality of many preachers, and the incapacity as well as want of opportunity of the educated to produce literary work. The Protestant bishops them- selves, whom writers such as Buckle supposed to have been gorged with the wealth of the Roman Church, were continually lamenting their sad lot. Parish ministers, too, were often in dire straits. A benefice was not lucrative on account of the difficulty the pastor had in collecting in kind the legal stipend from landlords, farmers, beneficed men, or the collector of the Church's part of the ' thirds.' David Fergusson of Dunfermline had to borrow money to feed his family. John Davidson of Prestonpans preached for years without remuneration, and at his own expense built the church and furnished it with a clock, built the manse and offices, gave a glebe, and bought and endowed a school. Many instances of clerical munificence to schools are recorded. In 1593 there were still one hundred and seven churches vacant or unplanted, because there were' no stipends pro- vided ; and in 1596 over four hundred charges, not including Argyle and the Isles, had no pastors. Many ministers received no stipends.' ' The provision made by statute for the maintenance of the clergy is as follows : In 1560 it was agreed that one-fourth, or, if need be, one-third of the benefices throughout Scotland be uplifted annually for stipends to the ministry {Ac/. Pari. Scot., ii. boTa). This proportion being withheld it was necessary in 1567 to pass another Act (cap. 10, Act. Pari., iii. 24, 37) enjoining payment of the third until the Church had all the teinds restored to it ; and lay impropriators of the benefices were ordered to pay this third. The system worked badly, and new grants of lands, donations, etc., in burghs had to be made for the support of the ministers. Act 15, 1592 {Act. Pari., iii. 545), gives an account of the modes of provision. A commission was then appointed to condescend upon reasonable stipends. In 1 596 stipends were not payable to ministers who had not acknowledged the King's authority. In 1617 (c. 3) stipends were raised to five hundred merks or five chalders, and the maximum was fixed at one thousand merks or ten chalders. In 1627 this quantity was raised to eight chalders ; in 1649 this being paid in three chalders victual and ^5 money (1649, c. 253; Act. Pari. Scot., VI. ii. 287). One hundred merks was equivalent to £fit, 13s. 4d. Scots, or ^5, i is. 1 Jd. sterling. For register, cf. Wodrow Miscell., i. 318 et seq. 156 THE COVENANTERS Some eked out a precarious livelihood from the voluntary offerings of their poor flocks, or from the scanty produce of a few acres of church land, which no one had been sacrilegious enough to seize. Some kept inns, others served as tapsters of wine and ale, still others speculated in grain, lent out money to usury, or became servitors to the nobility and gentry.^ A moiety of them were scions of the nobility — Lindsays, Grahams, Leslies, Douglases, Campbells — or younger sons of the barons and substantial burgesses. These, by reason of their influence, may have fared well, yet none of them could live sumptuously on their stipends, few of which were paid in money. Stipends were often paid in butter, wool, hemp, lint, cheese, fish, wildfowl," lambs, and other live-stock, as well as in the ordinary cereals. Hume the A receipt given by Alexander Hume, the poet, minister of P***' Logie, shows the roundabout method of paying stipend in 1600: ' Received from John Stirling the sum of ^58 for the duty of the tack [lease] of the teind-sheaves of Logie, assigned to him in stipend ; £6 for the price of two bolls of meal, and 50 merks money in name of pension, according to a precept by Patrick Home of Polwarth, tacksman of the teinds, discharging the said John Stirling thereof, and the said Patrick my brother.'^ All this amounted to about ;^8 sterling. Stipends. Stipends averaged less than ;^io sterling, some amounting to £16 sterling, and very few to ;^20 sterling annually. In 1574 the stipend of the combined charges of Alvie, Rothiemurchus, and Kingussie amounted to ^i, 6s. 8d., that of Mordington and Long- formacus £1, 15s., that of Laggan £2, 4s. 3d., that of Inverkip £2, 15s. 6d., and that of Tongland (with five dependent churches) ^5 sterling. The reformers inveighed against the amalgamation of several churches under one parish minister, but the result was no pecuniary benefit to the pastor, who, in the case of Dunbarney, » Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 866. * The minister of North Berwick draws some solan geese from the Bass Rock. ' Dr. R. M. Fergusson, Alexander Hume, 107 note 2 (Paisley, 1S99). CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 157 with six chapels, got only ^12, 6s. 8d., and in the case of Scone, Markinch, and Muthill received £\t, 6s. 8d. In 1560 John Row, in the Old Church, Perth, was paid £\(>, 13s. 4d. and one hundred and sixty stones of oats, while his contemporary, Heriot, in Aber- deen, with the same money stipend, was requited with 'a black gown, coat, doublet, hose, and bonnet,' for the oats. The situation was made worse where ministers had neither manses nor glebes, Miseries of as in Killearnan, Stromness, Walls, Rousay, and other places;"""'^"'' and preachers made that an excuse for being non-resident and not exercising their pastoral function. All were not imbued with the devotion of Bell of Cadder, in 1590, who lived in the steeple for lack of a manse. If the ministers were harassed, the people were ill-treated by the Crown and government, which frittered away the teinds as perquisites to favourites. Andrew Graham, titular bishop of Dunblane (1594), was accused of not preaching, not dis- pensing the communion, and not residing in Dunblane for seven years. The teinds of Farnell were given in 1577 to James Nicolson for five years to permit him to study abroad, and the church was kept vacant till his return. At a later date, the parish of Drainie was neglected for over four years, the benefice having been pre- sented to Alexander Innes, a mere youth. Many Highland charges were given to English-speaking preachers — for example, Killearnan and Laggan ; and, since the pastors were non-resident, the parishioners were bereft of all ghostly counsel. What churches existed were tottering from decay. Beath had no church, and the indwellers, having forgotten there was a Sabbath, used that day for work and sports. Where ministers and presbyteries were power- ful enough to compel heritors to provide churches, manses, and glebes — and many glebes were first provided in the reign of Charles i., seventy-three years after the Reformation — the acquisi- tion was obtained not without local vexation, strife, and even blood, in some instances. In Fordoun the visitation of the Presbytery was stopped by the armed bands of the landowners, and some of the Presbytery were struck with a sword by Sir David Wod of Craig. 158 THE COVENANTERS books. Debts. In such scenes and circumstances it is not surprising that scores of the clergy died in black debt, as the ministers of Kilspindie did, and others had such poverty-stricken homes that their household utensils, sold on their demise, were valued at ^lo Scots only — less than ^^i sterling — as were John Row's in Forgandenny in 1588. This extreme poverty accounts for the rarity of libraries and Librariesand the paucity of books in manses. The Assembly of 1562 directed superintendents to see what books the pastors had ; and, ten years later, the Assembly ordained collectors of the teinds to give poor ministers some books. Not till 1602 did the Assembly make certain books imperative, namely. The Translation of the Old Testament by Tremellius, The New Testament in Greek by Beza, ' with the vulgar Inglis translation,' The Common Places of Melanchthon, The Ecclesi- astical History, published in Basle, The Acts of the Council of Trent, and some unnamed commentaries. This little parcel must have been the whole library of John Wynram, Superintendent of Fife, which was estimated to be worth £\, 13s. 4d. James Melville of Kilrenny had books worth £2 ; David Fergusson of Dunfermline, ;^8, 6s. Sd. ; Buchanan of Ceres, £2^; Scoogie of Flisk, £2,2)^ 6s. 8d. ; and John Durie of Montrose, in 1600, ^8, 6s. 8d. Until the age of the Jacobite bishops, some of whom had large libraries, none of the sixteenth-century ministers had collections of books like that of Archbishop Gledstanes, valued at £\\i, of Bishop Forbes (1634), valued at .^225, or that of James Nairne of Wemyss (167S), who left one thousand seven hundred and forty-three volumes to the University of Edinburgh. To expect that the badly equipped clergy, fighting for daily bread, should have produced works similar to those which appeared in the Elizabethan and Carolan periods, is absurd. The Scottish brain, starved, could not think, could not even get peace to think. The pastoral office was not the serene function it is now, when spiritual leaders trip among their tame, contented flocks, none making them to be afraid. The causes of the Reformation had made religion itself dangerous, especially the public exposition of it, and Religion dantrerous. CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 159 irritable factors connected with it. For example — it was no easy matter to preach to congregations, as fully armed as South Sea Islanders, gaping for any oratorical indiscretion, lying in wait behind the tombstones to be avenged of fancied wrongs, and still half-purged of the old leaven of Roman Catholicism. An assassin tried to shoot Knox. A soldier of Queen Mary Assaults on failed to stab John Craig in church. The Assembly of j ^ 7 7 '"'"'^'"''* witnessed John Anderson, clad in white linen, bending on his knees, craving the forgiveness of the Church for assaulting Robert Boyd, minister of Newtyle, to the effusion of blood. Crimes of that character were common. John Howieson, minister of Cambuslang, was moderator of Glasgow Presbytery when Bishop Montgomery's case came up for consideration. The meeting was invaded by the civil authorities, and the moderator was struck on the face, pulled by the beard, had a tooth beaten out, and was put in the Tolbooth by the provost, Sir Matthew Stewart of Minto, and the bailies with their friends. Another provost of Glasgow, the Earl of Montrose, dragged David Wemis out of the pulpit in the Cathedral, in order to introduce Montgomery ; and three years later the reverend David had to draw his own ' quhingear ' (short sword) and defend himself against David Cunningham and his son, who, armed with sword and pistol, had struck him, and called him a liar. At the nick of time Andrew Hay, parson of Renfrew, arrived and drew his knife, a 'jocktaleg or langkail gully,' and these two good specimens of the Church militant made a noble stand there. The clergy then carried whingers and whittles for self-defence. In this same year, 1587, Sir James Hamilton of Crawfordjohn struck Archibald Normond, minister of Stonehouse, in the performance of his duty; and as Thomas Douglas of Balmerino was retiring from church he was assaulted by a brother of the chief proprietor there. This Thomas must have been a stirring missionary, since he stood accused of the murder of Thomas Crichton. Ministers often invited such castigation. The Ministers absolute disregard shown by preachers for the feelings of the auditors'"^"' "" "^^' brought down vengeance sooner than they expected, as when the i6o THE COVENANTERS Church help- less. Immoral ministers. laird of Craigie threw his whinger at the head of Nathan Inglis, the ugly article falling close to the pulpit, while Inglis (1593) was rebuk- ing the laird and others for Sabbath-breaking. The danger was greater still in districts whose inhabitants retained Popish predilec- tions, so that pastors, as Gilbert Gardin of Cullen in 1595, seldom went to the pulpit without swords. The minister of Monzie, in the same year, had been so evilly treated that, becoming unfit for ministerial duty, he sought a pension from the Crown. Even the gentle minstrel of Logie (Hume) was 'invaded' with a parishioner's stafif, but two days before the sacrament in 1608. A worse fate awaited others. Henry Colville of Orphir was done to death by a servant of the Master of Orkney. What made the misfortunes of these defenders of the faith harder to bear was the inability of the Church to protect them whole, or compensate them when maimed. Insult was even added by the Church to the injury suffered by John Cowper, minister of the Collegiate Church of St. Mungo in Glasgow, whose life was threatened by two men called Bowie, inasmuch as the offenders were ordered to ask forgiveness on their knees, and the accuser was ' admonished to be more fervent in study than he has been heretofore.' Since Cowper's library w'as worth ^60, the latter part of the verdict requires explanation ; but the irony of the situa- tion consisted in the fact that independent pastors were only safe among their books. An appreciable number of the ministers were of unregenerate character and worthless life, having entered the Church to obtain a livelihood, or having backslidden into evil. The Reformed Church had scarcely begun its anxious efforts to purify the people when attention had to be turned to the immoralities of preachers, of whom the ministers of Jedburgh and Kilspindie were deposed for scan- dalous lives. In 1570 John Kello, minister of Spott, executed for strangling his wife, afforded a racy theme for contemporary satirists.^ Ballads such as that by Robert Sempill, entitled The Legend of the Bischop of St. Androis Lyfe, callit Mr. Patrik ' Aldis, List, No. 84, The Confessioun upon the 5ra^o/r -i • men of culture. nanters have tried to nx a stigma upon the Reformation by asserting that the Protestant ministers were of the meanest sort, vile, vicious, ignoble in birth, vulgar in accomplishment, and of menial trades, the opposite is nearer the truth. The allegations regarding the vicious, bewitched lives of Knox and his compatriots are myths not worth recounting. Even although the preceding paragraphs depict the worst aspects of clerical life, it can be satisfactorily maintained that * Satirical Poems of the Time of the Reformation, Scot. Text -See. edit., Part iv. X l62 THE COVENANTERS Reformers. the Reformation was borne to its fruition in true-blue Presbytery by the best blood and quickest intellects in Scotland. A study of the names of the first ministers shows that many Catholic regulars and seculars became Reformers ; and other ministers, not designated as graduates, were laymen of education and apt to teach. Many pastors were of aristocratic origin and formed in a heroic mould, such as that redoubtable Trojan, Erskine of Dun, and the dignified Robert Bruce of Kinnaird. No fewer than eighty per cent, of the ministers during the whole Covenanting period were graduates of universities, and this percentage compares favourably with that of any Church to-day. The exigencies of the case made it imperative for the Church to appoint officials of intelligence and grace, even although, like David Fergusson of Dunfermline, David Spens of Monimail, and other notable men, these had never studied in universities. The Distinguished leaders of the Church indicated practically what they had learned by contact with great minds abroad. Richard INIelville of Craig studied under Melanchthon ; Patrick Cockburn of Haddington was a student of Paris ; Craig, Erskine, Lindsay, Knox, and many others had travelled over Europe. Some were masters of civil and canonical law, and illustrated their expertness in framing the admirable standards and pronouncements of the Church. Alexander Arbuth- not (1538-83), Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, after he was licensed to preach, read civil law for five years in Bourges ; John Row was a doctor of law of Padua ; Willock was a doctor of medicine ; Robert Pont was so qualified that he acted as a senator of the College of Justice ; Adamson was an advocate, as was Hume, the poet-pastor ; and Peter Rollock, who was never a pastor, laid aside a lawyer's gown for that of the Bishop of Dunkeld, 1585. A few illiterates did obtain charges, but as soon as their incapacity was realised their co-presbyters deposed them. In 1585 Patrick Layng of Tulliallan was deposed ' for incapacity to teach and having no solid knowledge of the grounds of religion ' ; and, for a similar reason, Adam Marshall was removed from Glendevon. In 1595 John Rutherford of Kilconquhar was deposed for neglecting his Famous graduates in the ministr)' Illiterate miriisters CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 163 duties, so that his flock spent their Sabbaths in drinking, sports, and other profanities. As far as the relation of the clergy to their flocks was concerned, the parishioners of Corstorphine probably stated the measure of the popular capacity when they petitioned against William Arthur, because he 'was overleirnit a man for thame.' William Gray, minister of Logie-Pert, was an Admirable Crichton in another direction. For, besides his church, he conducted an academy wherein the youth were ' taught to handle the bow for archerie, the club for goff [golf], the batons for fencing, also to rin [run], swoom [swim], warsell [wrestle], and preve pratticks [attempt tricks, or set stratagems].' The historian cannot appraise too highly the efforts of these Schools. Covenanting ministers to resuscitate and to found public schools in every parish, some of them becoming teachers, others building and endowing schools at their own private expense, and still others incit- ing the landowners to implement the provisions of the Book of Discipline and establish a system of national education. In planting- of churches, preparina;- of sermons, peregrinating the No makers ?. .. . ^j-u of books. country, considering politics, and attending to pastoral duties, the majority of the ministers had neither time nor opportunity to study literature or produce works of theology. For two generations few books were written in Scotland. In parishes contiguous to the three Universities, Aberdeen, St. Andrews, and Edinburgh, the output of literary effort was as scanty as in the remotest glens in the west and south. Setting- aside Bishop Carswell's Gaelic translation of Knox's 'Form of . . . Prayers.' Lititrgy, published in 1567,' and one book published in Inverness, no work emanated from the western half of Scotland (the dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway excluded) for a hundred years after 1560. Many presbyteries failed to produce a book for a longer period, and some were so little stirred by all the Covenants as not even to set forth a pamphlet. A strange lethargy had overcome the Scottish brain." Without doubt, the publications which most influenced Scotland, ' Aldis, List, No. 60, Foirm na nurrnvidhcadh, 8vo (Lekprewik, Edin., 1567). '^ Printed vernacular literature was scanty, and apart from the writings of Dunbar, Lindsay, Sempill, and older minstrels, there was little popular literature in circulation. 164 THE COVENANTERS Influential treatises. George Buchanan. Knox's History. and formed for a time the literature occupying the minds of preachers and their hearers, apart from the Bible, spiritual ballads, and Godlie Psalmes, were the Confession of Faith {1560), The Book of Coniinon Order, with Psahn Book, and the two Books of Discipline. The in- fluence of George Buchanan's earlier poems, satires, tragedies, and Paraphrase of the Psalms, which were written in such Latin as won for him the proud merit of being the greatest Latinist of his age, was transmitted by reflection from preachers and politicians upon the masses. His ecclesiastico-political treatises definitely formulated principles and a policy, which the peculiar circumstances of the country had made acceptable to a people who made them practicable. Buchanan's Ane Admonitioun direct to the trew Lordis (1571), Ane Detectioun of the Doingis of Marie Qtcene of Scottis (1572), and De ivre Regni apud Scotos Dialogjis {i^jg), steadied the masses in their resistance to regal tyranny, and confirmed the popular faith in that principle never intelligible to the Stuart kings, that all monarchs rule by consent of their subjects. The influence of Buchanan's posthumous History of Scotland \}2& not instantaneously felt nor widely spread.^ The literary genius and masterful spirit of John Knox, so manifest in the Standards of the Church, are also apparent in his History r which, published after his death, has suffered in volume, tone, and truth through the over-editing of his secretary, Richard Bannatyne, and probably others, as Archbishop Spottiswood, a contemporary scholar likely to know, in his own History of the Church of Scotland twice pointed out.^ In one passage Spottiswood asserts that the History is not the work of Knox, because it is. 'more fitting a comedian than a divine or a minister'; in another, 'A greater injury could not be done to the fame of that worthy man than to father upon him the ridiculous toyes and malicious detractions contained in that work. But this shall serve for his clearing in that particular.' ' Buchanan, Rcruin Scoticarum Historia, 1582 ; Aldis, List, Nos. 99, 107, 156, 1S2, 430. 2 The Historic of the Reformatioiin of Rcligioun iviihin the Realm of Scotland, 8vo (London, 1586); cf. Laing's edition, published by the Wodrow Society; and Works, yio\s. i. and ii., Thin's reprint (Edin., 1895). 5 Spottiswood, Hist., pp. 85, 267 (London), fol. 1655. * Ibid. i George Huchanan kotxri lliuce Arcliibakl Johnston of Warislon Samuil F(iiihi-rfoi(l SCOniSII KKI-ORMKKS AND COVKNANTKRS [aincs tiulliriu CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 165 The influence of Knox was vital, springing from the warm voice out of thoughts that breathed and words that burned into the memories of spellbound hearers. He had the contagiousness of enthusiasm. Knox threw his fire into material which had become inflammable through being no longer moistened by the dews of heavenly grace, and it ignited the dried stock which burned away to let fresh verdure spring over its ashes. And this fiery spiritual life he transmitted through the standards, organisation, and apparatus of worship in the Church. In Christopher Goodman, master of arts and bachelor of divinity, christopiier an English graduate of Brasenose and Christ Church, and afterwards Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Knox had a scholarly and strong collaborateur in the production of The Book of Common Order. He assisted in the translation of Coverdale's Bible, and wrote a commentary upon Amos. Before coming to Scotland to enter the second charge at St. Andrews, Goodman had written in Geneva, in 1558, a little tractate teaching the doctrine of resistance to rulers : 'How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects ; and, wherever they may be lawfully, by God's Word, be disobeyed and resisted.' The work of John Craig (15 1 2-1600) resembled that of Knox, John Craig, inasmuch as his pulpit utterances flew like arrows to their mark, and although the shaft was frequently blunt, the method of delivery robbed its wound of malignancy. He assisted in composing The Second Book of Discipline, drew up TIic Kings Confession in r 581, and in the same year published A short summe of the whole cate- chisme . . . for the greater ease of the Commotine people and children. He issued A form of Examination before the Comimmion, and to this versatile preacher are attributed fifteen psalms in the Metrical Psalter, signed 'J. C John Row wrote a treatise entitled The Signs of the Sacrat)tents. John Row. It is no longer extant. John Davidson, the lively minister of Prestonpans, expressed his Johni^avUison. humour and sarcasm in mediocre verse, with sufficient irritation to 1 66 THE COVENANTERS David Fergusson. Principal Arbuthnot. Thomas Smeton. Patrick Adamson. bring on him the displeasure of the Principal of St. Salvator's College and of Regent Morton, who caused him to be expatriated. The title of his telling satire, published in 1574, was Ane Dialog or Mutuall talking betwix a Clerk and ane Court eour Concerning four Kirks till ane Minister, etc. Davidson also wrote an eulogium upon the Campbells of Kinzeancleuch, staunch Ayrshire Reformers, Ane Brief Coininc7idation of Upriclitness, Some helpes for young Scholears rn Christianity, and, in 1590, an answer to Dr. Bancroft's criticism upon Scots Church Discipline. He is to be distinguished from Principal Davidson of Glasgow, who wrote The Confutatione of Mr. Quintin Kennedy s Papisticall Councels in 1563. Another Reformer who replied to the Catholic polemical writers, was David Fergusson of Dunfermline, who, in 1563, wrote an Answer to Renat Benedict,^ and made a ' Collection of Scots Proverbs.' - John Duncanson, Principal of St. Leonard's, and afterwards Dean of the Chapel Royal, was a Protestant polemic also. In Alexander Arbuthnot, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, formerly minister of Logie-Buchan (1538-83), the Church had a counsellor expert in civil law. His Orationes de Origine et Dig- nitate Jtiris, and his poems Oji Ltive, The Praises of Women, and Miseries of a piire Scholar, exhibit his versatility. Another genius, who died young, was Thomas Smeton (1536-83), who answered a Dialogue written by Archibald Hamilton, and was engaged to write, or translate, in Scots a work entitled Ane Method of Preaching. Among the gifted men of the age was Patrick Adamson, whose ill- balanced judgment prevented him discriminating between things in themselves good and others manifestly inexpedient, so that his life was one of turmoil and disappointment. Unable to settle in his ministry in Ceres, he betook himself to France to study and teach, despite the remonstrances of his fellow-presbyters. He assailed Popery in his De Papistai-um superstitiosis Ineptiis, in 1564. A ' Aldis, List. No. 39, Ane Ansiccr to ane Epistle, etc. (Lekprewik). - First printed in Edinburgh by Bryson in 1641. CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 167 poetical effusion, hailing James at his birth as the future King of France — Gencthliacon Jacobi VI. Carmen (Paris, 1566) — brought him to prison in Paris. His rnyalism made him a favourite at Court and a suspect in Presbytery. His talents were suppressed so long as the clerical censors held sway, until King James had Presbytery under his heel. The extreme Presbyterians fearing his pen, and taking advantage of the Act of Assembly 1563, which required all religious and doctrinal books to be licensed by the superintendent, suppressed his Commentary tipon the Epistles to Timothy, probably because it promulgated unpalatable views on diocesan Episcopacy. In 1573 Adamson issued a Catechismus Latino Sermone reddittts, et in libros quattiior digestns — a Catechism in Latin in four books.' He also translated the Confession of Faith into Latin. Dr. Bancroft was so delighted with treatises on Job and Revelation, which Adamson transmitted to him, that he pressed Adamson to seek service in the Church of England. After his death his son-in-law, Thomas Wilson, edited Adamson's sacred poems — Poe»iata Sacra, a tractate on the pastorate — De sacra pastoris munere Tractatus, and a pamphlet on the Scots Church (1620) — Refutatio Libelli de Regimine Ecclesiae Scoticanae. There is pathos in the fact that the last learned, yet mute, appeal which the discarded, broken Primate of Scotland, in 1590, made to his forgetful patron King James, was through the medium of Latin translations of the books of Jeremiah and Lamenta- tions. The appeal was in vain. Adamson had served the ingrate's purpose, and might die in any ditch. The printing-presses of Lekprewik, Bassandyne, Arbuthnet, rrimers. Charteris, VValdegrave in Edinburgh, and of Scot in St. Andrews, were less powerful agencies than our similar disseminators of public facts and opinions in these days, when we have quick methods of issue and transport to alert, responsive, numerous readers, so that the influence of controversial and educative writings was indirect and .slow of movement. Verse made a readier vehicle for carrying ideas down to the masses. Many ministers wrote vernacular and Laiiii ' Aldis, List, Nos. 42, 122 (St. Andrews, Lekprewik) ; ibitl., 175, 552. 1 68 THE COVENANTERS Scots poels. Andrew MeK-ille. James Melville. Alexander Hume, 1507-1609. poems. Andrew Melville was as expert in Latin as his nephew James was in Scots metres. James Anderson, minister of Collace, wrote in a favourite Scots stanza a poem entitled The Winter Night, which dilates on that mental darkness continuing 'Since Adam first did make the misse, In Paradise that day.' There were also many nameless pasquil and ballad writers. For such a marvellous scholar, the literary productions of Andrew Melville (1545- 1622) were few ; and the observation is proved true — the Muses cannot be wooed when their admirers occupy themselves with public contests in the arena. Melville, always in the fight, only gave the world the intermittent product of a mind hard pressed with preoccupations. His Latin paraphrases of the Song of Moses, of passages {rom Job (1573), and of the Psalms (1609), and his treatises on Free Will [le^gy), Divine Things (1599). and Things Indifferent — The Ceremonies (1622), and other books, had an evanescent influence. Although Melville left many manuscripts of studies in verse and prose, it is clear that he never found the serene spirit and quiet time to devote himself to some great literary work commensurate with his unique talents. James Melville (i 556-1 614) was a poet of grace and feeling, and wrote metrical paraphrases of Scriptural themes and The Black Bastill, or a Lamentation of the Kirk of Scotland (161 1). He is best known as the author of an interesting Autobiography and Diary ^ giving a vivid picture of the age in which he flourished. He also wrote a catechism for his flock in Kilrenny, entitled A Spirittiall Propine '[present^ of a Pastour to his people {i^()^). But Melville's literary influence was limited. Alexander Hume of Logie was a poet and hymnologist of no mean order, inspired with a tender love of Nature, which expressed itself in Horatian delineations of the changeful landscape, and created that unmistakable tone found in the refined poems and paraphrases ' Published by Bannatyne Club and Wodrow Society. I t CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 169 of the hapless bard, John Logan.^ Although happier among the Ochil hills, watching ' The bells and circles on the weills, Through lowping of the trouts,' for which he had deserted the wrangling law-courts, Hume did not neglect ' the weightier matters of the law.' He is credited with writing, in 1594, Ane Treatise of Conscience, a treatise on The Felicity of the World to come, and discourses entitled Praises to God. A posthumous work styled Ane Afold \lionest'\ Admonition to the Ministers of Scotland reveals a conservative regard for Presbytery. His Hyvines or Sacred Songs illustrate the divine principles of love and toleration, and how this admirer of charming nature lived up to his high ideal : ' be benevolent till [to] all men, and patient towards all, suffering everything patiently for Christ's sake and after His example.' Waldegrave printed the hymns in 1599; in the same year he published a work by Patrick Sharp, Principal of the College of Patrick Sharp. Glasgow, entitled Doctrinae Christianae brevis explicatio, which treats of the creation, decalogue, creed, eucharist. It obtained no fame. Few ministers studied themes outside theology. Laymen such as Alexander Hume the grammarian. Master of Edinburgh High School, expounded classical subjects. One exception was Andrew Duncan, minister of Crail, who published, in quick succession, Latinae Grammaticae (1595), Appendix Etytnologiae (1595), and Stiidior2ini Pueriliuni Clavis (1597). Andrew Simson, minister of Gr.^mmarians. Dalkeith, was a Latinist, and published the Rudiments of Grammar in 1587. He was the father of three distinguished authors, William, Archibald, and Patrick, whose work should be afterwards recorded, but the novel character of their works induces their mention here, to emphasise the. fact of the barrenness of the Reformation period in the departments mastered by the Simsons. William Simson, ofxheSimsons. Dumbarton {d. 1620), wrote a learned treatise on Hebrew accents entitled De accentibus Hebraicis breves et perspicuae Regulae (London, ' R. M. Fergusson, Alexander Hume, 1899 ; Alex. Lawson, The Poems of A. Hume, .Scot. Text Soc, 1902. Y 170 THE COVENANTERS \ Robert Pont. Principal RoUock. 1617). Archibald (1564-1624), who succeeded his father in Dalkeith, was a poet, theologian, and historian. He had a love for the sacred number seven, and wrote on Christes Testament , or seven words on the Cross (1620), on the Heptaineron — seven days of creation (162 1), on Samsons Seaven Lockes of H aire (1621), on ^ Sacred Septenarie — seven penitential psalms (1623), and on Hieroglyphica Animalium — animals of the Bible (1622-24), also H. Insectorum; Natatilium ; Volat ilium. He also left in manuscript Historia Ecclesiastica Scotorum, and Annates Ecclesiae Scoticanae. Patrick Simson (1556- 1618), of Stirling, wrote A short Compend of the History of the first Ten Persecutions moved against Christians (161 3- 1 6), and A Treatise on the grotvtli of Heresies, and other Short Compends} Robert Pont (1526- 1606), so frequently mentioned in these pages, tried to solve the mysteries of chronology. Like many of his con- temporaries, Pont published a Parvvs Catechismvs, in Latin iambics (1573). His translation of the Second Helvetic Confession indicated his accurate scholarship. He was appointed an inspector of books proposed for publication, and an editor of the Psalter ; prepared a calendar for the Bible, and published sermons Against Saci'ilege (1599). A newe Treatise on the Right Rcckonitig of yeares a7id ages of the PFo7^/d appeared from the Edinburgh press in 1599, and was followed in 1 604 by De unione Britanniae . , . dialogus. Two works on the Sabbath were published posthumously, De Sabbaticorum annorum periodis (161 9), and Chronologia de Sabbatis [1626). The influence of this able lawyer and scholar was great in his day. Robert Rollock (1555-99), Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was the most voluminous writer of his time." Though only forty-four years old at his death, he had written many com- mentaries : on Ephesians (1590), Daniel (1591), Romans (1594), Thessalonians and Philemon (1598), Seven Psalms (1598), John (1599), Corinthians (1600), Colossians (1600, posthumous), Galatians (1602), Hebrews (1605). He also wrote Questiones . . . de Foedcre ' Life in Wodrow, Select Bipg., i. 63. - Cf. Rollock's IVor/cs, Wodrow Soc. edit. CLERICAL LIFE AFTER THE REFORMATION 171 Dei et de Sacramentis (1596), Tradatus de Vocatione Efficaci, etc. (1597), Certaine Sermons upon . . . Epistles of Patcl (1599), Tract on God's Providence and Excommunication (1602), A Treatise on God's Effectual Calling (translation 1603), Lectures upon the History of Passion, etc. (161 6). Rollock's theology is founded upon the dictum that the Bible is the only rule of faith and morals, because it is ' the lively voice of God.' He refutes the claim of the Catholic Church to have its traditions recognised as authoritative. He quotes with ease the original tongues in which the Bible was written, indicates a knowledge of Syriac, and supports his contentions with numerous references to the Fathers and to Continental theologians. With Carlylean directness, Rollock declared, 'be nature we ar all borne fuillis [fools], bot [but] malitious fuillis, ay rebelling and displeasing God,' there being two sorts of fools : ' sum fuilis are silly daft [insane] fuilis, other fuilis are malitious fuilis.' A beautiful spirit of tolerance and love pervades his writings, wherein the Crucified, who had come to wash away sin by His precious blood, is ever held up for adoration as the only hope of the sinner. So intensely earnest was this evangelist that he was wont to begin so early as seven in the morning to preach about the Love of God on the Cross, thus illustrating what James Melville said of him in a sonnet : ' On Christ thy hart was haillie set and stayit. Of Christ thou ever thocht, thou spak, and wrytc, With Christ thou wissed all thy warkis arrayit, In Christ, in life and deid, was thy delyte.' Although Rollock's amiable nature loved retirement from the irritating controversies of the time, he was a sound teacher of the RoiiocU's cardinal principles of Protestantism. In the homeliest Doric this "'^'^ '"'^' scholar preached to the masses in a manner to have made the critical Buckle merry. Of Damnation he thus wrote : ' Ane man [I say] quhom the Lord will send, he will denunce damnation to ane obstinate and rebellious people ; and he will be bauld [bold] to tak thee, as it were, be the lug [ear], suppois thou were ane king, and leid to that tribunall to heir the sentence of damnation pronounced 172 THE COVENANTERS against thee. . . . Thair is na Lord, bot the Lord Jesus, quha will tramp down all the Lordis in the eirth and tred upon thair craigis [necks] at his pleisure. ... As for kingis, queenes, polictickes in the eirth, all are bot servandis onlie ... of the kirk of Jesus.' He counsels his hearers not to interfere with the God-given jurisdiction of the Church, because no monarch nor man ever prospered who meddled with its jurisdiction : ' Thairfor let everie saul bewar to mell [meddle] with this libertie ; for certainlie that sword that sail be strikkin at hir, scho [she] sail ding back again [strike back], like the hammer aff the studie [off the anvil].' Had the Reformed Church arranged a Calendar of Saints no one would have been better entitled to an honoured place in the hagiology Robert Bruce than Robcrt Brucc, of St. Giles, probably the most eloquent, certainly U5S4' ji ■ ^}.jg most popular, minister in the reign of James. His magnificent person was adorned with a lofty mind and tender heart. It is our misfortune that only a few of his powerful discourses were printed, and their character may be inferred from the title-page of his Sermons (1591), which are there described as 'meet to comfort all sik [such] as are troubled, ather [either] in bodie or mind.' In 1590 he published five Servians upon the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which are as excellent as any to be found, and these breathe a spirit full of love, grace, and truth, which was not uncommon among these early despised Covenanters.^ These highly evangelical discourses prove how thoroughly Bruce understood the ministry of the Holy Spirit in creating a faith to unite the convert spiritually to God through Christ. His own soul's true gentleness is testified to by his earnest appeals to his hearers to love, forgive, and renounce all rancour against their neighbours. Such laudable teaching suffices to prove that all the Covenanting preachers and leaders were not the in- tolerant, irritable, insatiable exponents of a merciless Mosaic code of justice without love, as they have often been wrongly characterised. ' These Sermons have been admirably reprinted, with a biography, and edited by Professor John Laidlaw, in 1901. Sermons by Bruce, Wodrow Soc. edit., 1S43. D. C. Macnicol, Master Robert Bruce, Edin. 1907. THE ERASTIAN KING 173 CHAPTER VI I THE ERASTIAN KING Queen Elizabeth died on 24th March 1603, and on 3rd May King King james in James arrived in London in order to be crowned King of England "S'*"'- and Ireland on the Coronation Stone, the ancient palladium of Scotland and alleged pillow of the patriarch Jacob. It would have been marvellous if this first King of Great Britain had reached this stone of destiny without publicly exhibiting his inbred despotic spirit. On his progress southward he caused a cutpurse to be hanged at Newark without a trial, an act of little moment had it not constituted an insult to the English sense of fairplay. This 'Jeddart justice' drew from Sir John Harrington the sarcastic remark, ' Now if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he hath offended.'*' The King could soon answer that and more difticult questions.' He came to teach, without intending to be blasphemous, that to resist the royal wish was to oppose the Divine will ; and that he was as indisputable as God. England, accustomed to royal progresses and merry-makings, made the journey to London like a triumph through a Paradise adorned by Spring, to a ruler whose experiences had been only of a vulgar populace in a plague-struck land. At first the King was too busy enjoying the novel gaiety of the splendid capital, revelling in the society of a dignified aristocracy, among whom charming men of culture, letters, travel, and wit — Bacon, Cecil, Sidney, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, the Fletchers, and scores of others — were as plentiful as Highland raiders, to trouble himself ' Hallam (quoting Carte), Const. Hist., i. 296 note : ' Ry the time he reached London the admiration of the intelligent was turned into contempt.' 174 THE COVENANTERS English culture. I'uritanism. about the racked province from which good fortune had freed him. He lived in a joyous dream wherein no mailed gaoler strutted on guard, no steel glove gripped his throat, no fanatic gospeller hurled anathemas into the royal pew, no procession of blood-stained shirts tainted the streets, no sulky mobs hurried through alleys into invisi- bility, no urgent demands for swearing vexed his soul, and no despair called for drowning in a Danish wassail. He could boast with Gloster : ' Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings. Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.' The English Puritans and the Covenanters were soon to experience the force of Gloster's wicked boast : ' Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams.' In the north the King scolded assemblies, coerced law-courts, re-wrote decisions, cooked ecclesiastical minutes, overrode Parliament to suit his plans ; in the south pettifogging was impossible where law and religion were observed with stately procedure, and high officials would not be snarled at in the Doric tongue, so that James needed time before, in wrath, he dared to tear the Minutes of the House of Commons into shreds. Besides, the King was intro- duced to a strong, refined, intellectual life, instinct with a fascinating sensuousness which harmonised with his own hereditary taste for the beautiful, and to a courteous and pliable community more likely to accept the doctrine of passive obedience. He would now mend his own political potsherds. By experience he knew the plasticity of bishops whom he might mould into vessels of honour in his Pantheon. His Court soon lapsed into a 'most disgraceful scene of profligacy.' ^ In England Presbyterianism had never flourished, even under the leadership of Thomas Cartwright, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge: on the other hand, Puritanism, which resembled Scottish ' Hallam, Const. Hist., i. 332 note. THE ERASTIAN KING 175 Protestantism, was a strong force not to be dissipated by any designer of uniformity. Roman Catholicism began to increase through the toleration of the new Sovereign, and under the patronage of the Queen, who had become so staunch a Catholic that the Pope specially blessed her at this juncture/ Discovering that the King would not punish Papists merely for their religion, one hundred and fifty priests came into England in 1603; whereas in 1604-5 no fewer than three hundred Puritan clergy were ejected from their homes. On James's accession about one thousand Puritan preachers pre- Hampton sented a petition called the Millenary Petition, craving some reforms ^"^^^"^^ 14th *^' in the ceremonies of the Episcopal Church and in the customs of the January 1604. people, none of them affecting creed or government. The King, anxious for a disputation in which he might shine, arranged the Hampton Court Conference, held in January 1604, to settle the matter. Dean Barlow's fulsome narrative of the Conference recounts how in it the Primate of England, on bended knee, blessed God for setting over his country a King 'so wise, learned, and judicious,' who argued 'by the special assistance of God's Spirit.' This dogma of the new Pope's divine inspiration had already been preceded by the Bishop of London's Annunciation, that James was 'such a king, as since Christ's time, the like he thought had not been.' The Puritan doctors Reynolds, Sparks, Chadderton, and Knewstubs met Arch- bishop Whitgift and Bishops Bancroft, Bilson, and Rudd — the Prelatists, in this theatrical debate. The King repeatedly gave voice. When Dr. Reynolds suggested that the clergy and office-bearers should meet occasionally to interpret the Scripture, and in passing referred to Presbyters, the angry King accused the Puritans of desiring ' a Scottish Presbytery which agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the devil,' and proceeded : ' Stay, I pray you, for one seven years before you demand that of me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken unto you. For let that government be once up, I am sure, I shall be kept in breath, then shall we all of us have work enough, both our hands full.' ' Hallain, Const, Hist., i. 370, 410. 176 THE COVENANTERS Uniformity ordered, 1604. Puritanism left the Conference insulted and crippled, the august referee declaring, ' I shall make them conform themselves, or else do worse.'' A proclamation doling out some trivial amendments was followed by another demanding conformity to the official religion on pain of the utmost penalty of the law. The late upholder of pure Presbytery was now determined to have 'one doctrine, one discipline, one reli- gion, in substance and ceremony,'— in fine. Episcopacy. The liberal theory of Bacon, that unity did not necessarily embrace hierarchy and discipline, was lost on an autocrat who traded on his own old maxim : 'No Bishop, no King.'- The dogma, discredited by the Melville party, that the King was the infallible vicegerent of the Most High, was now to be thrust upon the English subjects. At the ensuing Parliament James asserted that Puritans and Novelists were revolu- tionaries not to be suffered, and among the Novelists were not included the Roman Catholics, who were to be tolerated if they kept quiet. But the ultra-Presbyterians were opposed to Bacon's principle of toleration, as far as Episcopacy was concerned, and would not conform. On the other hand, a Convocation, convened in Canterbury in 1604, formulated a deliverance by which the Church of Scotland was declared to be a member of ' Christ's Holy Catholic Church,' and, at the same time, the Sovereign was declared to be supreme in both jurisdictions, spiritual and civil. Archbishop Scotland now knew what to expect. John Spottiswood, minister 'othTurTeo- °^ Calder, was appointed Archbishop of Glasgow upon the decease of James Beaton, who, though restored to office, never dared to return to enjoy it. Spottiswood, son of the well-known superinten- dent, was a young man of thirty-eight years, learned, courtly, sub- servient, and willing to deform what his father helped to establish.^ Latterly, according to the Marquis of Hamilton and Bishop Burnet,^ • Hallam says James was not decent at this conference {Const. Hist., i. 181). " Neal, History of the Puritans, i. 410 (2nd edit.). " Burnet, Hist., i. 39. ^ When Spottiswood came to visit Bruce at Kinnaird he asked the infirm man if he did not recognise him. Bruce replied, ' Sir, I know you to be a traitor to God, and to the Church of Scotland. I have nothing to do with you : you may begone when you please' : Sermons, 152-3 (Wodrow Soc). The Scots Church. THE ERASTIAN KING 177 he was tainted with an evil life. Among other appointments were Gledstanes to the primacy, George Graham to the see of Dunblane, Alexander Forbes to Caithness, Gavin Hamilton to Galloway, James Law to Orkney, and Andrew Knox to the Isles. Thus within fourteen years after Scotland had obtained its Presbyterian Magna Charta, a Hierarchy complete hierarchy was established. They were for the time being Crown civil servants merely. This anomaly of a secular episcopate the unrestrainable dictator would soon put away. He began by dis- couraging the legal conventions of the ministers and postponed the meetings of Assembly, which crafty breach of faith, upheld by force, proved to the Presbyterians that their legal rights, liberties, and, indeed, the root-principles of the Reformation, were menaced. The ministers determined to meet in a regularly convened Aberdeen Assembly in Aberdeen on 2nd July 1605, but only nineteen members 1605. appeared. The King's Commissioner, Straiton of Lauriston, armed with a letter from the Privy Council prohibiting the meeting and making no provision for another, also came. John Forbes of Alford constituted the meeting before opening the missive, and after they found Straiton obdurate in not nominating another day of Assembly, adjourned proceedings till September.' The Commissioner transmitted a garbled report of the meeting which fixed the King's resolve to exterminate the rebels. Forbes, John Welsh of Ayr, and several stiff Presbyters, were immured first in grim Blackness." To be thorough the King ordained presbyteries and preachers to announce his prerogative, which was none other than the right to break any law he pleased, and ordered the Blackness prisoners to be tried under the ' Black Acts ' for objecting to his jurisdiction. The accused became so popular that the Council, for safety, changed the venue of the trial to Linlithgow. George, Earl of Dunbar, a trusted courtier. Trial at Lin- was sent to obtain the appointed verdict of a packed jury. Armed j'^,|^^'"' ,'(°(; royalists thronged the streets. Hamilton, the Lord Advocate, ' Forbes left an account of the proceedings in Ccrtaine Records, 386 el seq. (Wodrow See.) ; Rooke of the U. Kirk, iii. 1013. * Ibid., 286, 287 ; Forbes, Ccrtaine Records, 4C36 (Wodrow Soc). 178 THE COVENANTERS prosecuted, and Thomas Hope, a sprightly junior of French extrac- tion, afterwards the mainstay of the Covenanters, was counsel for the defence. The question for the jury was, whether or not the defenders had repudiated the jurisdiction of the King. After counsel spoke, Forbes and Welsh justified their action by references to the Bible, Confessions, and Statutes, all accepted by their judges, showing that they only repudiated the right of the civil magistrate to interfere with purely ecclesiastical matters, and prophesied the fate of Saul's family for those who broke the Covenant. Reason and threat were alike Six ministers useless. The six prisoners, Forbes, Welsh, Robert Durie of Anstruther, Andrew Duncan of Crail, John Sharp of Kilmany, and Alexander Strachan of Creich, were imprisoned during his Majesty's pleasure.^ An unexpressed feeling of execration became universal. Tampering with the fountain of justice only made the indomitable spirit of the people more manifest, and created in the Scottish mind the suspicion that all innovations are 'inductions dangerous.' King's designs. Among the spectators of this inquisition was Andrew Melville, who, with many others, came to encourage the persecuted and lovingly go with them from post to pillar. Approving of the Aberdeen Assembly, they petitioned for the prisoners. The King had a rod in pickle for them, and meantime dissembled. He sent down to the synods a question : ' Would the ministers agree to acknowledge his right to summon assemblies and acquiesce in his desire to recognise bishops ? ' The net was too obvious for old politicians like James Melville, who, preaching on Christian liberty (Gal. V. i), declared that ministers who hated pastoral supremacy over pastors worse than Popery, could never turn to drink from Circe's dish and be converted from ' men into swyne ' simply ' at a view of an article from Court.' The artifice having failed, the King next sent a specious letter, indicating anxiety for the weal of the Church, on 21st Clergy invited May 1 6o6, to eight ministers inviting them to London for consultation. 160^°"*^°"' '^^^ unfortunates were the Melvilles, James Balfour, Edinburgh, ' Calderwood, vi. 342-91 ; Spottiswood, Hist., 489; Scot, Apol. A'arr., 149 ef seq. •, Forbes, Certaine Records, 455 et seq. ; Melville, Aiifobioi^., 620. THE ERASTIAN KING 179 William Scot, Cupar, John Carmichael, Kilconquhar, Robert Wallace, Tranent, Adam Colt, Musselburgh, William Watson, Burntisland.' The archbishops, the bishops of Orkney and Galloway, and James Nicolson, minister at Meigle, were also summoned. A greater surprise awaited the Parliament of Perth, in July 1606. The Red Montrose was Commissioner. Eight nobles, eight prelates, eight i^s"""*^"'' barons, eight burgh representatives, and ten officers of State com- posed a royalist sederunt. It was styled ' The Red Parliament.' In all their bravery of silk and velvet the titulars of the Church rode between the nobility and gentry to the meeting. Behind them pressed Andrew Melville into the Convention to make protests. They proceeded to business.- The first statute, ' Act anent the Kingis Maiesties prerogative,' declared James to be a paragon and his jurisdiction to be universal. The second statute, ' Act anent the restitution of the estates of Bischoppis,' re-established the hierarchy 'as the same was before the Act of Annexation (1587).' The seventh statute, which provided against dilapidation of benefices, was one of many which granted privileges to upholders of the royal policy. Notable were the acts creating the temporal lordships out of the Kirk- Temporal lands, which with other bribes were the bait catching the greedy °' '''^' legislators and making them friendly to the restoration of the prelates. The luckiest favourites were Hamilton (lordship of Aberbrothock), Loudoun (Kylismure), Murray (Dundrennan), Scone (Scone), Elphin- stone (Cupar), Balmerino (Balmerino), Mar (Cardross), Lennox (St. Andrews), Lindores (Lindores), Home (Jedburgh), and Bothwell (Holyrood-house). Very little was still required to convert the temporal titulars into Aristocracy spiritual bishops. Never before had the Church witnessed such a""*"^""*"" disfigured Episcopacy as this travesty of it dependent on a regal fiat. ' Ac/. Pari. Scot., iv. 281. ' Calderwood, vi. 559 ct seq. ; Spottiswood, Hist., 497 ; Melville, Aulobiog., 644-83, 688-700, 705-11; M'Crie, Melville, 254. No doubt at this time Archbishop Spottis- wood was the adviser of the King, and in June he informed his sovereign that Andrew Melville 'hath begun 10 raise new stornies with his /Kolic blasts,' but, 'Sir, ye are my Jupiter, and I, under your hienes, Neptune' {Wodrow MSS., xlii. 56; Edinburgh, i9lh June 1606). Such a conjunction of deities had never before guided Scottish affairs. i8o THE COVENANTERS King James had deluded himself into the belief that only a few malicious, despicable, radical pastors disapproved of his wish for uniformity, or affected to ignore the fact that the majority of the upper classes were 'not only Puritans but malcontents,' as a French contemporary observer pointed out. He vainly imagined that, with the restless party of Melville — turbulent opponents of God's vicegerent — spirited away, the affrighted angel of peace might return to bless a unified realm and set the seal of divine approval upon his tyranny over the human conscience. The eight victims arrived in London, and, be it said, were hand- somely treated by the archbishops, who probably had no sinister designs against their sister Reformed Church. Conference at At length the eight ministers were summoned to a grand post- Hampton prandial conference in Hampton Court, on 23rd September.' The King presided over a brilliant scene, with Primate Bancroft on his right hand, Prince Henry on his left, and a crowd of officers of State, English and Scots nobles, prelates, and Commissioners from the General Assembly on all sides. In front were the Scottish arch- bishops, Gledstanes and Spottiswood, with six consenters facing the eight patriots ; behind the door curtains peeped in the bishops, deans, and lesser lights of the Church. Patrick Galloway — chaplain at Holyrood, and afterwards bishop — had a place to report the dazzling proceedings to envious presbyters at home. The King began by asking the Scots bishops and Commissioners their opinion of the Aberdeen Assembly, and got reply : ' We ever damned that Assembly as unlawful.' When Andrew Melville was requested to state his views with delicious raillery he excused himself as a private person, who was prevented meddling with Church matters. He proceeded, with a masterly use of law and gospel, to prove the Assembly legal. James Melville, in a spirited rejoinder, laid the onus of the affair on the presbyteries whose servants the pastors were bound to be. Feigning to be proud of his versatile countrymen the King exclaimed, ' Scot, At! Apologetical NarratioJi, etc., i66 ct seg. Scot was one of the eight summoned. THE ERASTIAN KING i8i 'God be with you, sirs,' and inquired what might pacify the Church, to which the eight replied, ' A free General Assembly.' That night a warrant made them prisoners. The Scots Privy Council next tried xmis of the to make them incriminate themselves, and were flouted by Andrew "^ Melville with being degenerates from the noble men of eld, who hazarded all for country and religion. The eight were stiffened in their resolves by joyful communications they received from the Black- ness prisoners, and, though marched like criminals to hear Anglican sermons, never wavered in their fidelity to Presbytery. St. Michael's festival in the Chapel Royal gave Andrew Melville an opportunity of ridiculing the mummery of the celebrants and the altar, furnished with two clasped books, two unlit candles, and two empty basons, in the following Latin epigram : ' Cur slant clausi Anglis, libri duo, regia in ara, Lumina caeca duo, pollubra sicca duo? Num sensum cultumque Dei tenet Anglia clausum Lumina caeca sua, sorde sepulta sua, Romano an ritu dum regalem instruit aram ? Purpuream pingit religiosa lupam.' i An old translation runs thus : ' Why stand there on the royal altar hie Two closed books, blind lights, two basons dric ? Doth England hold God's mind and worship closs. Blind of her sight, and buried in her dross? Doth she, with Chapel put in Romish dress The purple whore religiously express?' The lines reached the King, who ordered the Privy Council of England to examine the satirist. Bancroft, with foolhardiness, interrogated the irascible Scot, who, after reminding the Council of his nationality, sprang upon Bancroft's past history and called the primate a traitor and enemy to all the Reformed Churches in Europe, as he plucked his lawn sleeves and sneered at them as ' Romish rags.' Melville was first committed to the custody of the Dean of St. Paul's, and afterwards, upon the King's order, to the Tower as a grave ' Melville, Autobiog., 683, 683. l82 THE COVENANTERS Melville's hardships. Melville's death, 1622. Character of Melville — the t)'pical Cove- nanter. offender against the Church. This pitiable fight for Hberty was not lost on the interested English people, who took to heart the object- lesson of spiritual manliness, and they, after forty-three years of patient sufferance of tyranny, saw insulted freedom vindicated in the blood of James's own son, Charles, at Whitehall. The other prisoners were removed to various wards. For four years, from May 1607 till April 161 1, Principal Melville languished in the Tower. Even yet it pains one to think that, while the heartless, unscrupulous, semi-popish Sovereign was amusing himself by cock-fighting, hunting dotterels, writing inept pamphlets, and doing worse, the most finished scholar and brightest intellect of Scotland was caged in a damp, cold, fireless cell during the bitterest of winters, 1607 and 1608, with not even a pen to chase out the weary hours, Melville being forced to engrave his ideas upon the prison walls with the tongue of his shoe-buckle. The base treachery of kidnapping the martyrs was only equalled by the approval of the despicable minions of the Court, who, without a protest, saw Melville so vilely treated. The most dangerous Covenanter was lost to Scotland, but the cause of freedom was not lost. At length Melville was given away, much like a slave, to a French noble, who wished him to teach theology in Sedan, to which town he retired to end his warfare in 1622, aged seventy-seven years.' He could not kick against the pricks for ever. Andrew Melville is the type of the best Scot — a man of perfervid intelligence, positive, self-reliant, and self-respecting ; kind of heart to others, yet not to be coerced ; religious, but obedient to revealed truth only. His whole career illustrates a characteristic of the first Covenanters, namely, their aversion to revolutionary methods, their personal submission to their civil rulers, and their almost fatalistic confidence in the ultimate triumph of Presbyterianism. It is true that Melville intruded himself upon various judicatories in order to publish his views, yet as soon as he was evicted he departed ' M'Crie, Mehnlle, 339 ; Melville, Aulobiog., xxviii., Ivi. His nephew James had also died in exile at Berwick, on 19th January 1614, in his fifty-ninth year. THE ERASTIAN KING 183 quietly, he sought no revenge and meditated no armed reprisals. The reverence of these first Covenanters for a divinely approved magistracy prevented them carrying their principles to a warrantable conclusion in the indictment of their governors for breaking the statutes. Circumstances justified a revolutionary policy, and yet they refrained from embarking upon it. James Melville was ordered to reside in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the other ministers were per- mitted to return and be confined to certain parishes in Scotland. While Melville's comrades wandered about in homeless vagrancy, The Blackness the Blackness convicts were proclaimed to be a ' handfull of the basest and most ignorant "traitors," who held that contemptuous conventicle ' at Aberdeen, and for whom public prayer was forbidden. The doom of expatriation was pronounced against them. By royal orders, one surly night in November, a ship lay in Leith Roads to convey them into exile. The skipper tarried ashore, and they, with their relatives and friends, spent the time in prayer on the sands. The increasing blast drove the ship and the convicts away in search of shelter. At length, at two of the chill morning, the ministers were summoned and huddled into a small boat. Another affecting- prayer arose while the exiles were borne away, and soon the crowd of onlookers heard in the darkness the surging seas swelling to the shore with a sweeter strain which was recognised to be the pastoral psalm, ' He leadeth me the quiet waters by.' The prisoners were making for France. The rest of their compatriots were removed to State prisons or confined to barbarous parts of the Highlands. To complete the history of these martyrs, John Forbes, the moderator, continued his English ministry in Middleburg and Delft, and died in Holland in 1634.' Welsh settled, as a French-speaking pastor, in St. Jean d'Angely, and, on his health breaking, was permitted to return to London with his wife Elizabeth — daughter of John Knox — and their family. To such heroic women, who helped the Covenanters in their warfare, Scotland owes much. • Forbes wrote several works abroad. Cf. his Life prefaced to his Certuiiic Records (Wodrow .Soc). His son Patrick became Bishop of Caithness in 1662. 1 84 THE COVENANTERS Fate of the six. Royal policy unpopular. Linlithgow Convention, i6o5. Constant Moderators. It is narrated that Mrs. Welsh pleaded with the King to permit her pining husband to return and breathe the air of the Scottish hills, to which the paltry tyrant replied : ' He may, if he will conform.' Lifting up the corners of her apron, the heroine declared, with a nobility worthy of her father, ' I will sooner kep [catch] his head there.' And Welsh had to die in exile for conscience sake. Strachan contracted ' Flanders sickness,' and died in Middleburg. Durie settled in Leyden, and preached to the Scots there. Duncan went to Rochelle. Sharp became Professor of Theology in the University of Die, was banished by Richelieu, returned to Edinburgh, where he was appointed Professor of Divinity, and died in 1647. Scot was permitted to return to Scotland in 1607, and died minister of Cupar in 1642.^ The King, having disposed of his opponents, was on the point of accomplishing his evolutionary aim of transforming the Pauline into a Diocesan bishop. In passing, there are two remarkable facts to be noticed : first, that amid the flood of protests, petitions, complaints, and pamphlets issued at this time, there was not a single petition from the people and ministers craving the restoration of the bishops ; and second, the King never dared ask the Assembly to transfer the power of the inferior courts to the bishops. The conclusion is, that Episcopacy was unwelcome among the Scots. Yet James never swerved from his artful plan. He summoned the presbyteries to delegate ministers in sympathy with his policy to a conference with the nobles, barons, and officers of State at Linlithgow, on loth December 1606, ostensibly to discuss Popery, stipends, church-extension, and removal of discords. The real question for settlement was the King's proposal that ' Constant Moderators ' should preside over the fifty-three presbyteries and the synods, the better to counteract Popery and restore peace. Through the diplomacy of Dunbar, the overture, modified so as to make the ' Constant Moderators ' subject to the Church courts, was ' Cf. his Life prefaced to h\% Apologetical Narration {'Wodiro-vi Soc, 1S46). His monu- ment remains in Cupar Churchyard. THE ERASTIAN KING 185 adopted. The Church realised that it was dealing with a trickster, and the report soon ran that the minute of the Convention had been cooked, when it transpired that all the bishops had been appointed ' Constant Moderators ' of those thirteen presbyteries, which sur- rounded their cathedral seats. The meaning of the popular saying — ' the little thief had passed through the window to open the door to the great thiefes outside ' — was apparent. A slight manipulation made the thirteen bishops into Constant Moderators of synods, which were in reality dioceses. Refusal to accept the Moderators was made penal. At first some presbyteries and synods did refuse. The King could now convene assemblies and elect presidents paid out of the bishops' teinds. His next step was to make the Church itself sanction the Episcopal order, rather than appear to be a creator of bishops. The Parliament of 1607 restored the chapter in St. Andrews ; New powers and that of 1609, by restoring the Commissariots, made the prelates judges of all causes. The Parliament of 1609 also invested the King with power to regulate the vestments of all officials.' Personal and national freedom was slowly evaporating. But the slippery Neptune of the troubled seas of Scotland, Spottiswood, was happy on his unstable throne — so happy as to beg leave of his Jupiter to allow him, 'as first of that dead estait quhilk your Majesty hath recreate,' to repair to Court, that 'so unworlhie ane creature might both see, blesse, and thank his Earthly Creator.'^ Such syco- phancy is sickening, although it is quite in keeping with the Primate's subsequent confession that the bishops were his ' Majesty's creatures ... for at your Maiesties nodd we either must stand or fall.'^ To subject the people to the King's spiritual subordinates two Courts of High Commission — one in each archbishopric — were erected, on 15th February 1610.' The Commission sub- ' Act. Pari. Scot., iv. 372, 430-6. '' Spottiswood to King, i ith September 1609, from Stamford : Wodrow MSS., xlii. 62. ' Spottiswood to King, 31st August 1612 : M'oi/ro'w MSS., ibid. Facts like these justified Burnet {Hist., i. 7) in saying that 'the great defect of Spottiswood's History is that he dilates on the rude opposition of the Assemblies to the King, but suppresses the true ground of all the jealousies.' ' Proclamation, March 1610: Bookeojthe U. Kirk, iii. 1078. 2 A i86 THE COVENANTERS sequently met in one Court under the presidency of the Primate, and, though composed of clerical and lay members, developed into a tribunal controlled by the bishops. Its inquisitorial functionaries tried all offenders in life or religion. These fishers of men had a sweeping net of the smallest mesh. A two-edged sword lav upon the table round which they deliberated over every catch. The higher clergy were now numerous and powerful enough to make offences fit the laws. The prelates themselves, however, were uncomfortable till a General Assembly, after it had ceremoniously buried Presbyterianism in the grave of departed liberty and thereby tried to obliterate the fact that the Church was a civil ofiice of the Crown, had sanctioned the Episcopal ascension. As soon as the bishops announced that their clerg)'' were cowed, the King called an Assembly in Glasgow on 8th June 1610. Primate Gled- stanes, acting as procurer, issued invitations only from ' a special note of the names of such as we desire at our [the King's] said meeting.' ' The Angelical Fourteen nobles, thirteen barons, seven commissioners of burghs, Assembly of ^^^ qj^^ hundred and thirty-three ministers attended.- The Royal Glasgow, 8th June 1610. Commissioners — Dunbar and Gledstanes, the Lord Presidertt, and Secretary of State, went to St. Mungo's Cathedral in state. The uninvited stayed at home. Spottiswood was moderator. The letter from the King was read twice, and in it God's Lieutenant mentions himself fourteen times and the Archbishop once, but never alludes to God or Christ, in his promises to the Church of peace, patrimony, and persecution of Papists. As soon as Dunbar began to circulate the royal largess in the form of gold angel-pieces — which significantly bore the impress depicting Michael the Archangel destroying the dragon — the delighted auditors beheld a vision of possibilities more captivating than contentious dogmas sustained on intermittent doles of bad oatmeal, and they considered their happy meeting 'An Angelical Assembly,' as satirists styled it afterwards. Kinsfcraft once more succeeded ; the Sovereigrn was confirmed in his jurisdiction over the Church ; and the bishops were reinstated ■ King's Letter: Boohe of the U. Kirk, iii. 1083. '^ilbid., 1085. THE ERASTIAN KING 187 in authority over the subjects. The other edicts of this packed convention were: the declaring the Aberdeen Assembly unlawful ; Results of acknowledging the right of the Crown to summon yearly assemblies ; \ '° appointing bishops to be moderators of diocesan synods meeting twice a year, and who, being forty years of age, were to ratify all ecclesiastical judgments and patronage, preside over weekly presby- teries, and to be subject to the General Assembly while holding office at the King's will. It was also agreed to impose the 1572 Oath of Allegiance to the King as Head of Church and State, and to the Ordinary as his servant, which oath stated that all benefices were held of the Crown. A final resolution forbade the clergy criticising these decrees and the discarded parity of the brethren. In this ingenious manner the Presbyterian System, established in 1592, was put under the taboo, and Prelacy ruled in its stead. Still the subtle grace of Apostolical Succession was lacking in the Consecration bishops, who were merely Presbyterian pastors and civil servants, bishops^ To weaken the objection raised by the irreconcilable Covenanters that the King assumed a Pope-ship, James himself suggested that three Scots bishops should go to London and receive valid trine consecration, whose potentiality they might transmit to the imperfect hierarchy at home ; and he commanded Spottiswood to bring south two ordinaries with himself. This same mean dignitary Spottiswood, who came prepared to break his vows, ignore the statutes, contemn the national feeling and National Covenant, and barter away the freedom and fame of his country, became squeamish at the thought of the holy touch of the Bishop of York, which might recall the dead controversy regarding English jurisdiction, and indicate that their free Church was but a corner in the greater Vineyard of the South. This obsequious and illogical peacemaker would permit the King to do anything, elect bishops, banish preachers, invent clothing, call or kill Papists, but he hesitated to tamper with the geography of the Church. Ingenious as usual, the King solved the difficulty by setting aside the dangerous suzerains of York and Canterbury, and calling in the Bishops of London, Ely, Rochester, and Worcester. i88 THE COVENANTERS Bancroft's On Sabbath, 21st October 1610, Spottiswood (Glasgow), Gavin ■'°^' Hamilton (Galloway), and Andrew Cant (Brechin), were consecrated in the chapel of London House by that quartette. While amiability reigned everywhere, the northern trinity departed with joy to share their new virtue with their spiritual inferiors, to whom any accession of supernatural grace should have been a godsend. They brought nothing else, probably not even the fragrance of the consecrating unguent, certainly no liturgy, no canons, no ' foolish guyses,' as . obstinate Row styled the imposing rites of the English Church. The happy Primate of England said it was now time to die, for his eyes had seen the salvation of the Gentiles. The case-hardened Scots, however, saw no reason for such grate- ful sacrifices, realising rather that time-servers had sold their country and their Church into slavery and misery. The hierarchy. In May 1611, the Sovereign had the satisfaction of learning that his native land at last had a valid hierarchy attributing its genesis and maintenance to the ' Mighty prince James the Sixth . . . and Crown royal of this realm,' as the oath of their allegiance stated. The Episcopal bench consisted of George Gledstanes, Primate, and Arch- bishop of St Andrews, and John Spottiswood, Archbishop of Glasgow ; and the following ordinaries, Peter Blackburn, Aberdeen ; Andrew Lamb, Brechin ; Alexander Forbes, Caithness ; George Graham, Dunblane ; Alexander Lindsay, Dunkeld ; Alexander Douglas, Moray; James Law, Orkney; David Lindsay, Ross; Neil Campbell, Argyle ; Gavin Hamilton, Galloway ; and Andrew Knox, the Isles. Their honours were complete ; their estates were bankrupt. The remain- ing portion of the patrimony, which the Crown had annexed in 1587, was already given away or farmed out to landlords who would not restore it or its rents. Mr. Buckle made a great mistake, when, following credulous authorities, he declared, ' They [the bishops] accumulated wealth and made an ostentatious display of it ; which was the more disgraceful, as the country was miserably poor, and their fellow-subjects were starving around them.'^ ' Hist, of Civil., iii. 128 (London, 1891). THE ERASTIAN KING 189 The tenure by which landowners and their tenantry possessed the Kirk-lands and enjoyed the rents of the Church, after the Refor- mation, made it impossible for these bishops to reap the same fruits of their benefices as the previous prelates had done. The Crown had little say in the matter, having largely alienated its own interest in the temporal lordships carved out of the Church lands, and winked at the dilapidation of other benefices by those in possession of them. A pittance only fell to a presentee. The extant letters of these Jacobite bishops contain complaints regarding their impoverished I'overty of bishops. estates.' Those land-grabbers who restored any property, on con- sideration of compensation from the Crown, always took a back-bond from the bishops, so that, knowing the King- to be a slow paymaster, they might find their ill-got gold somewhere. So Peter was robbed to pay Paul. Few of the bishops obtained a competency ; some drew no salaries ; and the Primate, at one period, confessed to be so poor that, in the event of his death, ' in what case I should leave my children, if God should visit me. He knows.' The new dignitaries did not long enjoy their honours: Hamilton died in 161 2, Campbell in 1 61 3, Lindsay (from 1560 minister of Leith) in 16 13, Gledstanes in 161 5, and Blackburn in 161 6. Parliament, in October 161 2, ratified the Acts of the Glasgow Assembly, and, repealing the Act of 1592, legalised diocesan Epis- copacy.^ The King, who in 1604 gratified the Puritan disputants in the Hampton Court Conference by agreeing to their request for a new translation of the Scriptures, and commissioned University scholars to undertake the work, accepted their completed labours in the National Bible, which was authorised, in 161 1, to be read in all N-i''on-i' i^'bie. churches. In the preface the translator exalted King James as 'the Sun in his strength,' and praised him for cherishing the teachers of the Word, and for showing himself to be 'a most tender and loving nursing father' in ' caring for the Church.' Neither these laudations nor those radical changes affected the ' Original Letters of the Rciint of James the Sixth (Bann. Club), q.v. '^ Act. Pari. Scot., iv. 469. I90 THE COVENANTERS Masses indifferent. Ogilvie the Jesuit, 1614. Scottish community much. The bishops were not assiduously meddlesome with the masses, who attended at will the routine services of the Church, even to the singing of the old psalter and the recitation of Knox's liturgy; and, pursuant to Act 1609, the people reported themselves to their ordinaries as neither Papists nor excom- municates. They did not vex themselves about the distinction be- tween a Pauline and a Jacobite bishop, and continued sinning after the manner of their fathers. Knox's statesmanlike scheme for national education was still a dead letter, so that the pulpit was the only civilising and educational agency and propaganda of ideas of uni- versal importance. The King's capture of its fearless spokesmen deprived the pulpit of its power and fascination for the populace. Even in 16 14, when the King, in his process for sifting the Papists, commanded all to go to worship on Easter, few, even of the aggrieved, disobeyed the order. He was soon to illustrate the fate of contemners of his authority in a memorable way. John Ogilvie, a Jesuit missionary from Gratz in Austria, was apprehended in Glasgow near the end of 16 14.' His satchel carried the most harmless contents — a catechism for confessors, a form of dispensation, and a tuft of Loyola's hair. The treatment he received from Spottiswood and other citizens was brutal. He confessed coming to save souls. Under torment, weak for lack of sleep, he uttered words which, after he was permitted to sleep, he denied speaking. The King sent a special Commission to try him before a jury for papistry or rebellion, and Spottiswood was active in the prosecution. Ogilvie was even more boldly impolite and indiscreet than Black had been, and, refusing the jurisdiction of the Court, since he was not a subject of their King, and declaring that he valued the Acts of Parliament at 'not a rotten fig,' frankly confessed that he cared no more for the Scots Pope ' than for his old hat.' What more was needed? The Jesuit's own acknow- ' 'A Scottish Martyr — Father Ogilvie' : S(. Andrew's Cross, ii. No. 3, p. S2 ; Caldenvood, vii. 193, 196 ; Spottiswood, Hist., 521 ; 7 orh^s-'Le:\\.\\, Narr. of Scot. Cath., 311, 312 ; Original Letters, ii. 424. THE ERASTIAN KING 191 ledgment that his Pope in Rome was judge of their Pope in Scotland, and the hint that the former might excommunicate and extinguish the latter, was sufficient treason for a jury to make short work of him. The eager Spottiswood came from Edinburgh to see the victim dantrline from the oallows over the white snow of that severe winter day, 28th F"ebruary 161 5, in Glasgow, and to be satisfied that the traitor was duly quartered.' Disclaiming the religious character of Ogilvie's offence, James preferred posterity to know that the Jesuit was merely a martyr for an opinion on civil government, extorted from him by torture, and that the King's subjects must acknowledge that the Sovereign had no superior save God. The doom of Ogilvie, it was to be henceforth understood, was the fiat of God. While James was congratulating himself upon his bla.sphemous Pope blesses success and the irresistibility of his will, poor Ogilvie's Pope was *^"^^"' writing his most cordial benediction on the British Queen for her constancy to the Catholic faith and her kindness to his — the Pope's afflicted subjects." The elevation of the Scottish bishops made them jealous of their prerogative, and they remonstrated with the Chancellor for bringing the papist Huntly from ward, and also with the English bishops for loosing Huntly's excommunication. That jealousy gave pride to their Sovereign, who championed their cause and denied that ' the Church of Scotland was inferior in any sort to that of England.'-^ This jealous zeal soon had disastrous results. The slumbering .\i.erdeen sense of independence among the patient, intelligent laity began ,^'''^'" '*' to awaken when, after the Assembly of Aberdeen, 16 16, churchmen realised that innovations were stealthily introduced to oust the time- honoured practices of the Church without any consultation with the worshippers, and that the northern Church was being slowly con- formed to the model of the southern. Popery again was the bugbear rendering imperative an Assembly at Aberdeen, on 13th August ' The dismemberment was not carried out, according to Grub, Ecci. /-/is/., ii. 302. - Bliss Tra.?iscripts (Record Office), 89-92, 4th May 1616 ; De Statu Cat/ioliconim in Ani^liii, 4th September 161 2. ^ Spottiswood, Hist., 527 fol. I 192 THE COVENANTERS Edicts of Aberdeen Assembly. 1 616.* Spottiswood, fresh from his enthronisation as Primate in St. Andrews, advanced to and occupied the Moderator's chair, without being even nominated, while the Earl of Montrose, the Commissioner, stepped into the King's throne ; the former having been ordained by the King's warrant 'to rule the Clergie,' and the latter.' to order the Laitie ' — a superfine distinction of functions. The Convention was of the usual Jacobite type. It was not represen- tative according to the law and custom of the Church. No com- missions were demanded. Only moderators of presbyteries, who had been invited along with some aristocracy, were expected to be present. Three days were frittered away thrashing at Popery and wearying any irreconcilables into the belief that the business was stale, until, on the i6th August, Montrose pulled from his pocket his instructions, fourteen in number. The Assembly was asked to arrange for the improvement of benefices, planting peaceable pastors in burghs and houses of the nobility, examining children, making a test Confession and a Catechism, seeing that children learned the Catechism entitled ' God and the King,' compiling and enjoining a liturgy and a book of canons, holding communions in towns quarterly, once at Easter, and in rural parishes half-yearly, encouraging students of theology, ordaining all preachers, giving baptism to all if asked for — with a godfather provided — and the keeping of parish registers. The Convention agreed to do as requested, and went a step further by recommending confirmation of children by bishops, an innovation which the King, according to Spottiswood, flouted as a mere ' hotch- potch.'- Patrick Galloway and John Hall, ministers at Edinburgh, and John Adamson, minister at Liberton, were appointed to write a catechism ; Galloway, Adamson, Peter Ewart, and William Erskine were deputed to revise the prayer-book in use ; and James Law, Archbishop of Glasgow, and William Struthers were selected to be a committee to compile the canons. A Confession, in fifty-three P ' Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. i iiC ; Spottiswood, Hist., 528 ; Calderwood, vii. 222-42. - Spottiswood, Hist., 528. THE ERASTIAN KING 193 paragraphs, the production of Hall and Adamson, which had been Aberdeen under consideration for four years, was accepted after revision, ig"^"^'""' This Confession had one new proviso, which was a test approving of the intrusion of Episcopacy, in these words : ' The Kirk of Scotland ... is one of the most pure kirks under heaven this day, both in respect of trueth in doctrine and puritie in worshipe.'^ The legalised Confession and King's Confession were not abro- gated. The King probably intended to annul them after the new Confession had become better known. The slippery Earl of Huntly had the honour of first signing this Confession, to obtain release from excommunication, and to give relief to the jealous feelings of the ultra-patriotic prelates. Curious sidelights are also thrown upon the business at Aberdeen by an Act preventing physicians practising with- out a bishop's permit, and by another establishing grammar schools. The autocratic Kino- now had his team well in hand and antici- o pated no refractory member. He transmitted to the Committee on the Canons, for insertion in their book of canons, five small items of his own devising. These Articles provided for — (i) kneeling at the reception of the Sacrament, instead of sitting The Five which was customary since the Reformation ; (2) private communion to be given to the sick in presence of three or four pious neighbours ; (3) baptism to be not longer deferred than one Sunday, and to be given privately in cases of necessity, the fact being published on the Sunday following ; (4) commemoration of holy days and seasons, with exhortations pertinent to these days, by the pastors ; (5) reform of confirmation — the parish ministers to catechise the young and teach them the Paternoster, Creed, Decalogue, and the bishops to bless with prayer young children brought to them. The timorous Primate, with an accommodating recollection that these innovations had never been seen by clergy in court or con- venticle, persuaded the King to withhold the Articles till, on his pro- ' CalderwoocI, vii. 241 ; Rooke of the U. Kirk, iii. 1125-9. 194 THE COVENANTERS ICing James returns, 1617 Royal entry into Edin- burgh. jected return to Scotland, his royal influence would ensure their acceptance by the scrupulous.^ Never was diplomacy so bitter an acknowledgment of a servile position and of the nascent danger. Priestcraft staved off the peril for a time. Soon the King announced his visit to Scotland, in order to satisfy 'a salmon-like instinct,' 'to do some good,' and 'to have abuses reformed.' He begged a welcome for himself and his English retinue. The people responded loyallv, and burghal poetasters vied in excitement with busy upholsterers, hostelry-keepers, and victuallers, when it was stated that the royal progress was to be through many towns and with much entertainment. Carpenters came from London to set up an organ, renovate the carvings, beautify the interior, and fix up portraits, or gilded wooden statues, of the apostles and evangelists in the Chapel-Roj'al at Holyrood." The cry of popery soon brought the bishops to their senses, and they united to send a remonstrance to the King, who returned a testy rejoinder, marvelling at their ignorance. On Friday, i6th May, James, with his brilliant cavalcade, entered Edinburgh, through a flood of bombastic orations in Latin rhyme and prose. Not the least notable in the gay throng, beside bishops and deans, was the King's chaplain in ordinary, William Laud, then Dean of Gloucester, a little, plump, restless, rosy-cheeked priest in his prime, whose peering, somewhat tender, eyes, were soon to be ranging around in search of true religion and of real churches, and who, having discovered ' no religion ' in these Presbyterian ' dove- cotes,' became a source of torment in Scotland for generations through his unwelcome endeavour to provide what he deemed to be lacking. During the Sovereign's stay, religious services were con- ducted by the English divines, so that the Scottish dignitaries might perceive the influence of sacerdotal culture, the grace of liturgical offices, and the beauty of episcopal millinery in public worship. And who might match Doctor Laud, a tailor's son, for obtaining the correctest mode, and for the most effective show in wearing it ? ' Spottiswood, Hist., 529. - Ibid., 530 ; Original Letters, ii. 496-500 ; Calderwood, vii. 245. THE ERASTIAN KING 195 On 17th June the King and the Estates, with all the honours, rariiamcm of rode from Holyrood to the Tolbooth to meet in Parliament. The ' '''' sederunt was large and influential, but the majority consisted of the more independent classes — the small landholders and burgesses. The Sovereign concluded his address in these words : ' He had long striven to have the barbarities of the country, which they knew to be many, removed and extinct, and in place thereof civility and justice established, and that he would still endeavour to doe his best that way till he might say of Scotland, as one of the Emperours said of Rome, Inveni lateritiain, relinqico niarrnoreavi (I found it brick, I leave it marble)." It was evident that James did not really under- stand his conservative countrymen. There was fire in the air and thunder soon growled out. A refractory spirit evinced itself before the King could get the Lords of Articles — the committee for prepar- ing Acts to be passed, whom he expected to accept his concealed statutes of restoration, which were to be promulgated on the morrow —satisfactorily appointed. Meantime another disturbance was in progress among the clergy I'resbyterian who had assembled in St. Giles once more to discuss the lack Qf''™"*"- stipends, the bishops protesting, although the tenor of the King's restoration bills had leaked out, that there was no other object in the meetings. Robert Bruce, at this crisis, quietly stole into the Capital to counsel and guide the Presbyterian brethren, who rightly suspected trickery. David Calderwood, minister of Crailing, after- wards historian of the Church, a man of forty-two years, together with fifty-four staunch Presbyterians, refusing to be hoodwinked, sent to the King a strong protestation against the interference of the Crown with their free Church." In particular, they protested against the King's proposal, that himself and a committee of bishops and pastors should have power to make Church laws. This proposal the Lords of Articles, to the King's wrath, prevented coming before the ' Spottiswood, Hist., 531 fol. '•' Calderwood, vii. 253-6; cf. Life prefaced to vol. viii. of History^ Wodrow Soc. edit. 1842-9. 196 THE COVENANTERS legislature. The irate head of the Church considered the protesters to be mutineers, and blamed the bishops for their rising and for balking him in his plans. Statutes passed The Parliament of 1617 passed several enactments regarding m 1617. ^j^g Church. A statute, ' Anent the Electioun of Archbishopes and Bischopes,' provided that the Dean of the Chapter, when commanded, shall proceed and choose for a see the person whom his Majesty was pleased to nominate and recommend for their election.^ A licence for his consecration would then be granted. The ecclesiastical and clerical interest in appointments secured by the Leith Settlement, 1572, was thus abolished. The second Act restored to beneficiaries those manses, glebes, and other possessions of the Church over which the Crown retained control, and made arrangements regarding the chapters of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and the Isles. A statute entitled ' Anent the plantation of Kirks ' would have benefited the ministers had it become really operative. It depicted the spiritual barrenness of many districts, where many churches were vacant, pastors were insufficiently paid from teinds, people were ignorant and atheistic, and provided a Commission to rectify matters. These thirty-two Commissioners were a Court of Teinds, and fixed the parochial teinds, and out of them a permanent stipend of not less than five hundred merks {£27, 15s. 6d. sterling, or five chalders of victual for each minister), and of one thousand merks where teind abounded." Caiderwood's The angry King was not done with the mutineers, of whom trial, 1617. Calderwood, Simson, and Ewart were summoned by Spottiswood to appear, on 8th July, before the High Commission at St. Andrews. All three were deprived of their offices and committed to prison. The King was present and seemed to enjoy the miserable baiting of David Calderwood, in a scene of vulgar confusion ; and at the time probably thought, what he afterwards said with his wonted wisdom, that David was ' a refractorie foole ' who could not bear the name of a bishop nor that of the devil. Calderwood was ultimately banished, and finding a refuge in Holland, continued writing his ' Aci. Pari. Scot., iv. 52S. - Ibid., iv. 530. THE ERASTIAN KING 197 powerful defences of Presbyterianism till the death of King James, when he returned to his native land/ Before returning south, James met and rated the hierarchy and Assembly at their party for obstructing his plans by not receiving the Five ^ ■j^jj'^jg*^^^ Articles. The clergy v.ent on their knees before him and agreed to '6'7- meet in an assembly which would obey his behests. This assembly met and delayed coming to a resolution— a safe procedure — which made the King boil with rage." He wrote to the archbishops as if Anger of the they were lackeys, in these terms : 'We will have you know, that we ^'"^" are come to that age, as we will not be content to be fed with broath, as one of your coat was wont to speak, and think this your doing a disgrace no lesse then the Protestation itself His secretary's letter commanding the bishops to preach Christmas sermons was viseed by the surly autocrat with this addition : ' Since your Scottish Church hath so far contemned my clemency, they shall now find what it is to draw the anger of the King upon them.' ^ Another vulgar com- munication declaring ' that the minister's ease and commodious sitting on his taile hath been more lookt to then than kneeling,' was followed by an order depriving of stipend all ministers unfavourable to the five canons. Spottiswood's sympathies were with James in his headstrong policy. The ministers, alarmed at the trend of affairs, petitioned for liberty ivith Asse to hold another assembly, and the King proclaimed the meeting of a 'new convocation' at Perth, on the 25th August 1618.' Three Commissioners, Lords Binning, Scone, and Carnegie, watched the interests of the Crown. When the Primate, after preaching on the acceptability of ceremonies and the Five Articles, entered the Moderator's chair, the ' defenders of the established order ' challenged this step, as well as the presence of members only invited by the Crown, but were overruled. Of the sederunt of 132 — bishops, pres- byters, nobles, barons, and commissioners of burgh.s — the Royalists numbered two-thirds. The Dean of Winchester, Dr. Young, himself ' CalderwootI, vii. 257-79. - Bookc of the U. Kirk, iii. 1140. " Spottiswood, Hist., 535. ^ Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 1143-67. m- bly, I6l8. I9S THE COVENANTERS a Scot, presented the King's letter, whose dictation was unequivocal in calling his bishops to resort to no more shifts, but, with the Assembly, to do his bidding. Dr. Young was asked to address the convocation, and assured his hearers that they had a ' Prince, like Moses, the meekest man upon the earth.' After that, although Spottiswood disclaimed having any hand in bringing the innovations in, one would as soon have expected that Aaron would have refused to take the decalogue from Moses, as that Spottiswood would have rejected the Five Articles. Jupiter ruled Neptune. The meeting agreed to vote upon the articles as a whole. The question was, 'Receive the articles' or 'Disobey the King.' As the Primate himself called the voters' roll, he frequently ejaculated ' Remember the King,' and the result was, as might have been expected, that forty-two (or forty-five) ' rebellious knaves,' as the Anti-Episcopal and old Church party was called, voted against the Articles, and eighty- six 'novelists,' many of them laymen, accepted the demands of their ruler. The tenor of the Articles is : — Penh Articles. j_ 'Seeing we are commanded by God Himself, that, when we come to worship Him, we fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker, and considering withal that there is no part of divine worship more heavenly and spiritual than is the holy receiving of the blessed Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, like as the most humble and reverent gesture of our body in our meditation and the lifting up of our hearts best becometh so divine and sacred an action ; therefore, notwithstanding that our Church hath used since the Reformation of religion to celebrate the Holy Communion to the people sitting, by reason of the great abuse of kneeling used in idolatrous worship of the sacraments of the Papists, yet seeing all memory of by-past superstitions is past, in reverence of God, and in due regard of so divine a mystery, and in remembrance of so mystical an union as we are made partakers of, the Assembly thinketh good that the blessed sacrament be cele- brated hereafter meekly and reverently upon their knees. 3. ' If any good Christian visited with long sickness, and known to the pastor by reason of his present infirmity to be unable to resort to the Church for receiving the Holy Communion, or, being sick, shall declare to his pastor upon his conscience that he thinks his sickness to be deadly, and shall earnest desire to receive the same in his house, the ininister shall not deny him so great a comfort, lawful warning being given to him the night before, and that there be three or four of good religion and conversation, free of all lawful impediments, present with the sick person to communicate with him, who must THE ERASTIAN KING 199 also provide a convenient place in his house, and all things necessary for the reverent administration thereof, according to the order prescribed in the Church. 3. 'The minister shall often admonish the people that they defer not the baptizing of infants any longer than the next Lord's day, after the child be born, unless upon a great and reasonable cause declared to the minister and by him approved, the same be continued. As also they shall warn them that, without great cause, they procure not their children to be baptized at home in their houses ; but where great need shall compel them to baptize in private houses (in which case the minister shall not refuse to do it upon the knowledge of the great need, and being timely required thereto), then baptism shall be administered after the same form as it should have been in the congregation : and the minister shall, the next Lord's day after any such private baptism, declare in the Church that the infant was so baptized, and therefore ought to be received as one of the true flock of Christ's fold. 4. ' Forasmuch as one of the special means for staying the increase of Popery and settling of true religion in the hearts of people is, that a special care be taken of young children, their education, and how they are catechised, which in time of the primitive Church most carefully was attended, as being most profitable to cause young children in their tender years drink in the knowledge of God and his religion, but is now altogether neglected in respect of the great abuse and errors which crept into the Popish Church by making thereof a sacrament of Confirmation ; Therefore, that all superstition built thereupon may be rescinded, and that the matter itself, being most necessary for the education of youth, may be reduced to the primitive integrity, it is thought good that the minister in every parish shall catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make the rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions in the small Catechism used in our Church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found remiss therein ; and the said bishops shall cause the said children to be presented before them, and bless them with prayer for the increase of their knowledge, and the continuance of God's heavenly graces with every one of them. 5. ' As we abhor the superstitious observation of festival days by the Papists, and detest all licentious and profane abuses thereof by the common sort of pro- fessors, so we think thai the inestimable benefits received from God by our Lord Jesus Christ, his Birth, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and sending down of the Holy Ghost, were commendably and godly remembered at certain particular days and times by the whole Church of the world, and may also be now ; therefore, the assembly ordaiiieth that every minister shall upon these days have the commemoration of the foresaid inestimable benefit.s, and make choice of several and pertinent texts of Scripture, and frame their doctrine and exhortations thereto ; and rebuke all superstitious observation and licen- tious profanation thereof.' ' ' Spelling modified: Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 1165; .Spottiswood, His/., 538; David Lindsay, A True Narration of all the Passai^'i-s, ig-72 (Lond., i6ji) ; Row, Hist., 311-17. 200 THE COVENANTERS AttUude of The voting indicates that there was a moderate or lukewarm party, minori y. ^j^^ stood between the irreconcilables of the old reform party and the Prelatists, and were anxious to obey the King in order to obtain peace and plenty. A justifiable sentiment underlay the antipathy to innovations by the protesters, who from childhood had been accus- tomed to venerate the only forms of worship they knew ; and self- respect constrained them to discountenance those changes in their Church, if they were to continue to honour the same King, who, before he became a Prelatist, adjured Scotland to maintain its own, the purest of Churches ; while their nervous hatred of Popery made them suspect and detest all symbols and ceremonies which brought back recol- lections of the wicked tyranny from which they had escaped. Besides, they had constitutional grounds for opposition, based upon the 1592 Magna Charta of the Church, as well as the sanction of the spirit of freedom, which revolted from the implication that the truth was the monopoly of the King. Effect of Perth James, about this time, suggestively illustrated his imperious Articles. determination by sending to Edinburgh to be tried and executed for teaching undesirable political economy and misapplied knowledge of the Bible, an argumentative student of theology in Oxford named Thomas Ross, who had compared the Sovereign and his courtiers to seven lean kine devouring the riches of England. The people did not approve of the Perth Articles now sanctioned by the Privy Council. Ministers preached for and against them.^ In Edinburgh the pews were half empty on festival days, and the magistrates blamed the pastors for this defection. For ignoring the Canons, the High Commission deprived of office Richard Dickson, of the West Kirk, and other pastors. To make the innovations acceptable, four ' novelists ' were appointed to be colleagues of the city pastors. Then Kirk Session meetings became scenes of wrangling, recrimina- tion, and fury, one of the most voluble ringleaders of the elders ' Calderwood wrote A Solution of Dr. Resolutus (Lindsay), 1619. John Erskine of Dun is said to have been the only minister be-north Tay who opposed the Perth Articles : Scott, Fastiy vi. S22. THE ERASTIAN KING 201 against the ritualists being John Mein, a merchant, whose wife, or kinswoman, obtained universal notoriety in 1637 as 'Jenny Geddes' of the Liturgy riots. The King ordered Mein into banishment.' The effective David Calderwood was still lurking about, and the stately Bruce was not far off, to inspire the opposition. At the spring Communion in the Capital only Crown officials and paupers could be induced to take the sacrament in a kneeling posture. Some churches were empty ; in others the simple people followed the new customs, but with tears and prayers laid their confessed sin upon the souls of the celebrants and adjured God to judge their cause. Many left the city to seek comfort in rural churches where the time-hallowed customs were still observed." In Burntisland the spring sacraments of 16 1 7 and 161 8 were attended by 900 communicants, that of 161 9 by 450, and that of 1620 by 425, of whom only some took the elements in a kneeling posture. The aversion of the educated to the canons spread to the laity, Uprising of who held the old rites very dear, and, as John Mein said, ' they had p*^"?^' never been taught anything different, nor yet consulted in this change.' Their opposition became a defence of democratic independence and a claim for the right of individual judgment in spiritual concerns. What strengthened this popular opposition, even more than the incisive pamphlets of David Calderwood ^ and other polemics, was the growing feeling that a monarch who licensed the desecration of the Sabbath by those who, after coming from church, had recourse to Book of games and sports, as his proclamation in England, of date 24th May ^°'^^' ' ' 161 8, did, had sinister designs against the national religion. This pro- clamation declared his detestation of all Puritans and Precisians, and strictly commanded ' that everie person sail resort to his own paroche ' 30th March 1620: Wodrcnu MSS., xliii. 93. ''■ Children were admitted to Communion at twelve years of age and communicants partook fasting in 1613 : Life of Blair, 6. ■' Calderwood, The Altar of Damascus, or the Patern of tlie English Hierarchie, miii Church I'olicie obtrudeil upon the Church of Scotland. Anno 1621. Sm. 8vo, pp. 222 ; orij;inal o( Altare Damasccnum, by Edwardus Didoclavius, 1623. 4to. There were now three classes of Communicants — sitters, kneelcrs, and runners- away. 2C 202 THE COVENANTERS church to heare divine service, and eache paroche by itself to use the said recreation [i.e. dancing, archery, leaping, and sports] efter divine service.' ' Might not his permission to women to decorate the church with rushes lead to the introduction of gilded Apostles, and of even the Scarlet Lady — ^was the Scottish question. Persons justly interested in their own o-overnment arew embittered with the thought that there was neither mandate, nor voiced desire of the lieges, for these impositions. Black Satur- To bring his lifelong scheme to a happy consummation James day, 1621. convened a Parliament in Edinburgh, ist June 1621, to ratify the Perth Articles. The Estates rode to it with all the Honours. The superstitious anticipated a dreadful catastrophe. A comet was seen ; an old house in the Cowcrate took fire ; a sinofing swan soared throug-h the sky ; and, at length, on 4th August, long remembered as ' Black Saturday,' a dismal cloud enshrouded the Capital. That was the day the fatal Articles were, by a substantial majority — seventy-seven to fifty, eleven bishops swelling the number — approved of and passed on for ratification by the King." When the Royal Commissioner, James, Marquis of Hamilton, rose from the throne to touch the statute with the sceptre, as custom was, the sepulchral darkness was made more fear- ful by three successive flashes of lightning each followed by a clap of thunder, while the clouds broke in blasts of hail and deluges of rain which held the legislators as in the blackest dungeon long after their servile work was done. Some bold scoffers declared it resembled that day of fire-storm when on Sinai the Ten Commandments were given. Calderwood in his account of the event re-echoed the popular opinion that ' God appeared angrie at the concluding of the Articles,' a conclusion which was strengthened, in credulous expectants of particular judgments, when the Lammas floods swept away the bridge ' Govett, T/ii" King's Book of Sports, etc., 35-40. - Act. Pari. Scot., 1621, c. 1, iv. 596 ; repealed 1640, v. 277 a. b. Among the dissentients were Rothes, Eglinton, Linlithgow, Kintail, Gray, Ross, Yester, Cathcart, Cowpar, Burleigh, Balmerino, Elphinston, Torphichen, Forbes, — nobles, representatives of Inverness, Fife, Kincardine, Stirling, Haddington, Renfrew, Dumbarton, Ayr,— counties, and Dysert, Haddington, Kirkcaldy, Montrose, Cupar, Anstruther, Inverness, Irvine, Jedburgh, Kirk- cudbright, Pittenweem, Dunfermline, Lanark, Crail, Burntisland, Anstruther W., Dunbar, Kilrenny, North Berwick, Stirling. \ THE ERASTIAN KING 203 at Perth itself.' The statute was deficient in fixing no penalties for disobedience to these canons. The triumphant King next authorised the bishops to exterminate Policy of his opponents on the ground that ' Papistry was a disease of the '^^ ^""""^ minde and puritanisme of the braine,' and commanded all public officials to conform to the canons. At the very time these futile ful- minations were directed against Papists at home, Prince Charles was on his secret mission to Spain to ask the Catholic Infanta in marriage, and the English Catholics were by arrangement actually enjoying ' a good quyett time."' Repugnance to the Perth Articles was spreading. The Madrid negotiations and the promise of King James to relax the penal laws against Catholics, and to procure a statute securing tolera- tion for them are now a matter of history. This vow and the confession of Prince Charles to Gregory xv. that he too was favourably disposed to Rome, seem to indicate that the re-establishment of Popery was a matter of the near future.^ The disaffected, calling themselves ' The Congregation,' sought spiritual comfort at conventicles, which through their frequency became obnoxious to the Government, and were pro- claimed as seditious. Some staunch elders refused to serve at the Communion, and fractious communicants bandied unseemly words over the elements formerly approached with silent, tremulous awe. Persecutor and persecuted were in deadly earnest. Robert Bruce, Sufferings of who still lingered in Edinburgh, was immured in Edinburgh Castle. "^ "^^' Murray of Dunfermline, a nonconformist, was transferred to another pastorate. George Dunbar of Ayr, and David Dickson of Irvine, having discarded the new ceremonies and ignored the authority of the High Commission, were deprived of their ministerial functions and sent to Dumfries and Turriff respectively. Spies were employed to ' Caldcrwood, Hist.^ vii. 488-505. " Bliss Transcripts (Record Ofifice), vol. xc. Letter of Wm. Law, 4th January 1624. (M.SS. from S. Pietro, Perugia.) In a letter of loth February 1623 Law writes that the articles regarding the Infanta's marriage were signed, and she and her household were to be allowed liberty of religion, and all Catholics were to be freed from the penal laws. ' For the leanings of James and Charles at this time, cf. Hardwicke, State I'upers, i. 402, 411, 417 (452, Letter of Charles) ; Clarendon, Stale Papers, ii. 337 ; Hallam, Cotist. Hist., i. 370, 410, citing authorities. 204 THE COVENANTERS entrap the preachers. A regent in Glasgow College was reported to the Crown for having maintained that the people acted rightly in rescuing Jonathan from Saul. The Primate was also pitiless. When Duncan's that Veteran scholar, Andrew Duncan, minister of Crail, after enduring '^^^' much hardship for his irreconcilable Presbyterianism, wrote, in his old age, to Spottiswood craving some consideration and sympathy — doubtless it was a crabbed letter — the Archbishop returned his crave with this snarl, that Duncan might ' feid upon ' his own scrappy petition. One would now like to know what the senile Primate himself after- wards thought on his own deposition in 1638, of the philosophy of the scholar of Crail, who had written : ' Kings' minions are sett up on high skelfes [shelves], but slipperie and dangerous. I have seen one right highe-mounted in your roume and course, and gatt a foule and shamefull fall.' The sight of murdered Beaton hanging in ' whites,' of Hamilton dangling by his neck, and of hapless Adamson begging for bread at Melville's door, one or all, had given conscientious Duncan a nausea at primates. The stewarton During the incumbency in Stewarton of William Castlelaw (1618- reviva,i22. ^3) a wave of Strange religious fervour spread over that parish into Cunningham and Clydesdale, so that numbers were seized by great terrors and awakening of conscience, and found no peace till they gave themselves up to prayer and religious exercises. Their peculiar ecstasy won for them the opprobrious title of ' The daft people of Stewarton,' and for their godly demeanour 'The Stewarton Sickness.' Whether this revival in 1622 was a spontaneous outburst of spiritual power or the effect of the contagious enthusiasm of the gifted David Dickson in the adjoining parish of Irvine is not known, but it had a marvellous effect and served as an antidote to the prelatising influences of the time, which tended to exalt the authority of the Church to the ignoring of personal piety. Their simple faith encouraged and con- firmed preachers, such as Robert Blair, and attracted many visitors to Stewarton and Irvine, where Dickson was instrumental in converting many.' John Livingstone, when itinerating as a preacher, caught from ' Kirkton, 19 ; Row, Biair, 19 ; Wodrow, Seleci Biog., i. 316. THE ERASTIAN KING 205 Dickson and Blair the inspiration which had a marvellous expression on the occasion of the Communion at Shotts, 20th June 1630, where The Shotts he got 'such liberty and melting of heart' that crowds in the church- "^"^"^'^ ' ^ ' yard, confessing their conversion, could not tear themselves away from the musical voice of the fascinating young preacher. He was then chaplain to the Countess of Wigton. He was prevailed upon to preach on Monday — a custom not yet observed. He was carried away in his theme, Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26 — the cleansing of the sinner ; the new heart, and the new spirit — and for two hours and a half held the people spellbound. It was said that no fewer than five hundred converts received the power of God in renewed lives that day.^ In remembrance of it the Church instituted the practice of having a thanksgiving service on the Monday after Communion. " A personal effect of this excitable form of religious exercise was the development in individuals of hysterical ' motions ' and of ex- hausting outbursts of prayer and praise. Livingstone himself left on record an instance in the case of Lady Culross, who, on the evening of the Shotts Communion, when in bed was heard to 'have great motion upon her, although she spake not out,' but on being adjured to .speak, the crooning ceased and ' she continued in prayer, with wonderful! assistance, for large three hours time.' ' Nonconformity increased so much that the King, in 1624, threatened to remove the courts of justice, unless his law-officers Repressive were more diligent in stamping out the rebellion, and personally ""^''^"'■"• showed a good example at Christmas when the sacrament was to be given to all kneeling. A curious instance of the form which this recalcitrancy took arose out of the practice, dating from the Refor- mation, of pastors and members mutually objecting to or approving of each other's conduct before proceeding to receive the Sacrament.^ ' 'Life of Livingstone,' Se/eci Biog., i. 139 ; Wodrow, Analecia, i. 271. Robert Bruce of Kinnaird was also one of the spiritual wrestlers that memorable day : Life, prel'a( ed to Sermons, 140, Wodrow .Soc. Bruce died in August 1631. - Gillies, Hist. Coll., i. 308-11. ^ Select f^idf^., i. 347. * Caklerwood, vii. 596-600. 2o6 THE COVENANTERS An Edinburgh town-bailie and other elders had ventured to criticise the opinions of their learned pastor, Dr., afterwards Bishop Forbes, and to absent themselves from the Communion. Dr. Forbes, losing his temper, poured contempt on his ignorant colleagues. The case fjf reached the royal ears, with the result that the heated anxiety of the Biblical critics was punished by two of them being sent to the Tolbooth, two banished out of the city, and the ringleader. Bailie Rig, confined to his own house at the King's pleasure. The head of the Church considered himself to be the only layman competent to discuss and settle points of theology, and, like Dr. Forbes, he resented the attempt of catechumens to question catechisers. King James Scotland got happy relief from these persecutions when, on 27th March 1625, James vi. was called to another kingdom, and left Episcopacy to mourn its staunchest champion. Burnet recorded : ' It is certain no king could die less lamented or less esteemed than he was.'' At the conclusion of Spottis wood's History of the Church of Scotland appears a doggerel epitaph by Dr. Morley, an Oxford divine, upon 'James, the Peacefull and the Just,' praising ' That head whose working brain alone Wrought all mens quiet but its own.' Dr. Morley promulgated that new Gospel of the English Church which was to make Charles i. a willing martyr : — ' Princes are Gods ; O doe not then Rake in their graves to prove them men.' In the sepulchre of James this labour would be profitless. It is a relief to quit the contemplation of this ostensibly Protestant phenome- non, without one attempt to explain a life of cold-blooded deceit and shameless inconsistency, or to justify the policy of a constitutional ruler who could send to a foreisrn grrave one of the most brilliant ornaments of his country, and a true upholder of his Protestant throne as well — Andrew Melville, while at the same time he was persecuting to the death conscientious Papists. The quality of the ' Hist., i. 23. f THE ERASTIAN KING 207 Protestantism maintained by James is not easily appraised in view of his apparent indifference to the perversion of his own queen, his acquiescence in the demand of Spain that he should barter the Reformed religion of Britain for the Infanta, and his welcome of a French Roman Catholic Princess as the bride of his son Charles. The adaptability of James to environment was a mean result of his notion of kingrcraft. ' The Scottish Solomon ' achieved one thincj great — he made his countrymen feel their fetters, and Scotsmen never long retain their chains. 208 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER VIII THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO Charles I., 1625. England in 1625. In 1625, when Charles i. became king, Scotland received little attention from English courtiers and citizens, its public affairs being too uninteresting to merit mention in the news-letters of the day. The stirring enterprises of Continental powers were of more moment. The Scots were considered to be rude hyperboreans, and designated half-clad ' Scythians' and 'beggarlie Scots.' A satirist declared : ' A Scotchman enters Hell at 's birth, And 'scapes if when he gets to earth, Assured no worse a hell can come Than that which he enjoyed at home.' Charles permitted eight years to elapse before he visited his native land. At hand he had enough to do with domestic broils and foreign wars, with angry Parliament-men presenting undesirable petitions of right and defying the Crown, with fanatical prelates croading him to exterminate dissenters, with the horrible plague, with poor rustics refusing to pay illegal taxes, and with the hubbub of confused affairs of State. The Sovereign was stately of person, courteous in manner, and pure in morals.' Yet under this fair exterior was a crooked nature, guided by a perverse will. Obse- quious flatterers ministered to his vanity and encouraged his obstinacy. His mental power was insufficient to give him strategic control of the currents of political and social life requiring to be kept within the channels of right government, yet he was able, while exercising his father's kingcraft, to conceal the defects of his character under a dig- nified demeanour. Fate was not kind to Charles in not endowing ' Otherwise, Kirklon, Hist., 46; 'not the perfect saint,' Hallam, Const. Hist., i. 374 note. John, lirbl Haron Mauiand of Thirlestan James, tourlh Karl of Morton James, liibl J>ukr of HaTnillon William, third Duke of Hamilton John fiisl Duke of Lauderdale Edward Hyde, tifbt Plail of Clarendon Frnieipai C'arbtares KAMOi:s POM riCIANS Archibald, ninth l-^arl ui Argyll THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 209 him with the sense to learn that he was only a constitutional ruler over a free people. Political affairs beyond Tweed were of little account at first. Charles an Charles, having entered himself heir to his father's policy, was crazed on the subject of royal absolutism and the project for annihilating Puritan and Presbyterian dissent. He had mastered the Basilikon Doron, and accepted the maxim, 'No bishop, no king.'^ The English clergy, approving of the Jacobite Gospel, taught that it was a sin to resist their ruler, who had at his own disposal the person of every subject. This was heresy to Parliament-men who maintained that King and citizens were subject to Parliament. Such antagonism could not last long without creating a rupture between the governor and governed. Charles, being a dutiful son, imagined that it would be an easy matter to fulfil his father's wish regarding the uniformity of worship in his three kingdoms, and to furnish the Church of Scotland with a decent government, discipline, liturgy, and psalter, together with comely vestments and good livings for the 'kirkmen.' A genuine ' kirkman ' was a preacher who taught that the King was God's deputy and the uncontrolled head of Church and State. The dead potentate had arranged the preliminaries, and left a pious executor to see his will carried out — a lesser god fitted by sartorial education to shape old things into new and to drape offensive ideas with visible adornments, so that worshipful minds might be spellbound with unending transfigurations. This was no other than the restless- eyed, irascible enthusiast for sacred things, Dr. Laud, to whom true WiUiam Laud. religion, as yet imknown in Scotland according to this visionary, was a sublime reality possessed by few. Prolonged researches in the depths had made Laud a dreamer of dreams and observer of visions, a medium of delightful second-sight, through which Bitted glorified mitres, cardinals' hats, rods of office, family ghosts, and other personal properties in the grand ecclesiastical spectacle to be opened in comedy and to end in tragedy. He resembled a pagan soothsayer or Uruidic high priest, wlio could, at the pillory, have the ears and noses of the ' Cf. The Large Dcclaraiio?i, l)y tlie King. 2 1) 2IO THE COVENANTERS f enemies of his God sacrificed as if they were an acceptable oblation. King James had discovered William Laud, Dean of Gloucester, President of St. John's College, Oxford, to be the man he was in search of : one of Jacobite whims, a natty artist in apparel, as was his worthy father, the clothier in Reading, providentially sent to fashion neat clothes and new destinies for the Church — by himself, too, unaided by Assembly or Parliament. Laud had absolute faith in himself, and another stiff assurance — he imagined it was grace — which, it surprised him, did not come to others after he had caused their ears to be sheared off, and their limbs to be shattered in iron boots for his own conscience sake. Highly educated, he possessed the dominating idea that the Church of England mio-ht become a Laud's views, holy Community, after some imagined type in apostolical days, in which bishops, ritual, as well as sartorial adornments had a sanctified place — in a word, Rome revived without Rome's errors. He contem- plated a British Patriarchate. The pious schemer never compre- hended, nor took into consideration, the possible spiritual independ- ence of individuals. His aim was, first, the aggrandisement of the Church, and then the establishment of the royal prerogative.^ For him, nominal conformity to established truth was virtue ; personal conviction was less worthy of praise than obedience to law ; observance of authorised rites was as sure to confer salvation as the exercise of faith in love and toleration. When relentless Prynne, of the sheared-off ears, hinted that Laud was a disguised priest who lived mourning some misguided passion, this celibate, cold as an ice- berg, shuddered at the slander. Religion was his love and spring of ecstasy — a religion better suited to primitive Jewry than to en- lightened Christendom. The reproof of the University of Oxford for his maintaining in his exercise for Bachelor of Divinity that there could be no true Church without bishops, was lost on Laud.^ With such views, Laud had no difficulty in concluding that i ' Hallam, Const. Hist., ii. 39. ^ Heylin, TL/)^, 54. Many maintained that he was a Papist in disguise. C(. postea,ip. 2'3,i n.; P. Orleans. Revolution d'Angleterre, iii. 35, quoting Vittorio Siri. I THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 211 Scotland, in 16 17, had no religion so long as the decorative aspects of the faith were lacking, and that Puritanism and Presbyterianism, being ' dangerous positions,' as Primate Bancroft had taught, should be obliterated altogether. According to Hallam,' the system pursued by Bancroft, Neile, and Laud was 'just such as low-born and little- minded men, raised to power by fortune's caprice, are ever found to pursue.' The Scottish parishioners soon grew accustomed to the episcopal Parishioners forms of worship ; and the younger members, only knowing those pastors who had sought ordination from the bishops, many of whom shrunk from coercion, were less averse to the intruded innovations. The ' headiest ' of the covenanted Presbyterian preachers sought peace abroad. Many moderate-minded men conformed, but others, like Alexander Henderson, minister of Leuchars, frequented ' very precious and refreshing' conventicles, in order to pray for happier days, or as George Gillespie phrased it, ' some blessed opportunity to be rid of all such rotten relicks, riven ragges, and rotten remainders of Popery.' The superstitious prophesied an evil time from stars, storms, and stranded whales, which appeared at this time. The legislature for years occupied itself with very commonplace business relative to needy prelates, churchless parishes, criminals, indecent apparel of dandies, and the comely black coats of kirkmen. No General Assembly had met since 161 8. A valid episcopate governed the Church after the model of the Church of England since 1 6 10, when the phantom episcopate vanished ; but, at the same time, the inferior Church Courts met as formerly to spiritually supervise parishes and districts. The only distinct innovation was the use of the Ordinal, printed by royal command in 1620, entitled 'The Forme and Maner of ordaining ministers, and of consecrating of archbishops and bishops, used in the Church of Scotland.' " The Ordinal required Ordinal and no subscription to a Confession, making Scripture the sole rule ot services, faith, but exacted the oath of the King's sovereignty in all causes, I Const. Hist., i. 394. - 4to. 'Edin. : Printed by Tliomas Finlason,' 1620 ; reprinted in Wodrow Misc., i. 591. 212 THE COVENANTERS of canonical obedience, of perpetual residence, of preservation of the patrimony, and against simony. The Book of Common Order was read in the churches, and the English Book of Common Prayer in cathedrals, universities, and Holyrood, but, as far as is known, not in parish churches. The Scots metrical psalter, but no prose psalms, was used in the musical part of the service. The Confession (1560) still commanded allegiance — the Aberdeen Confession (1616) having died a natural death. The severe measures taken by the bishops for depriving ministers who refused to accept the Perth Articles had to be relaxed, and failure to observe the Ordinances came to be winked at, the bishops themselves often neglecting confirmation and catechising. In 1630, Struthers, an Edinburgh pastor of royalist tendencies, wrote to King Charles a remonstrance in friendly terms indicating the Hatred of the pent-up feelings of hatred of the people for the recent policy of the system!* Crown, and averring that 'the bishops are already /m/5/zV/ odii victimce, and borne down with contempt, and that vexation is intolerable. When they depose any brother for nonconformity, they scarcely can find an expectant to fill the place that is empty, and that because they become so odious to the flock, that they can do no good in their ministry, . . . the former schisms have shaken the hearts of the people . . . Popery is increased in the land. . . . Our fire is so great already, that it hath more need of water to quench it than oil to augment it.' Yet in 1634, according to Brereton, the English traveller, ' the discipline is much pressed (by the bishops), and much opposed by many pastors and many of the people. I observed few oriven to drink or swearingr."- The inducements to an edifying worship were woefully deficient, churches being sparse, ruinous, unseated, uncomfortable. Schools were few. The universities were poorly equipped. The life of the majority, rendered irritable by the selfish conduct of the ruling classes and soured by the intolerant aims of unpopular clerical ' Balfour, Annals, ii. 183. ^ Brereton, Travels, no (Chatham Society). THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 213 dignitaries, entirely lacked the sweet undercurrents of Christian love and charitableness. The learned Aberdeen Doctor of Divinity, and stiff opponent of Misery of the Covenant (1638), John Forbes of Corse, left an account of the',g°^''" misery of Scotland at this time/ Ministers were poor. The order of deacons had lapsed. Many parishes were without readers and teachers, so that the illiterate became ' a ready prey to Sathan. I am ashamed to say,' he proceeds, 'but thousands of these wretched creatures seem to have actually dedicated themselves to his service.' In some parts of the Highlands, Christ was scarcely heard of, and some of the ministers were ' the most incapable or degraded of men.' The universities and public schools languished in squalor, and were almost deserted. Scotland was fast becoming a heathen field ripe for foreign missionaries, being absolutely bereft of those institu- tions of charity and culture which characterise a land once won for Christ. Forbes, being of episcopalian predilections, was not likely to overdraw this picture indicating the insignificant influence of the prelatic party. Was regeneration to come from within or without the degraded commonwealth ? After the coronation Charles lost no time in informing Spottis- Charles , , , . , .^ . ^1^1 • 1-1 • marries, 8th wood that he aimed at unitormity. 1 his was laying the axe again to ^ay ,525 the root of the tree. Yet, but one day after the burial of James, Charles by proxy had married Henrietta Maria of France, a devoted Catholic. The Scots anticipated evil days. Soon the Crown officials were instructed to proclaim in Scotland that the revocation of royal grants, a mere form on the demise of the Crown, was on this occasion really meant. Officers of State were to resign and be reappointed. A new Commission to investigate grievances was instituted, and was reckoned a ruthless inquisition by the restive populace. By proclama- tion, a General Revocation of all gifts and privileges from the Crown General was announced, to enable the King to annex (as in 1587) the estates of the Catholic Church, nearly one-third of Scotland, out of which he might rehabilitate the First Estate — the Church — then shorn of power ' Theologiccc Moralis [ibyi) : Kiyhlh Commandment ; subscclioii, .Sacrilege. 214 THE COVENANTERS and glory. By redistributing the lands in feu-farm he might raise money for himself. This scheme struck at many interests. The aristocracy possessed the best lands of the Crown and of the Church, with palaces, castles, parks, and coal-pits ; many held pensions ; others possessed the soil and paid the teinds ; pastors might draw their teind- sheaves off the field. Altogether a complicated system prevailed by which Crown, superiors, vassals, sub-vassals, ladies of terce, conjunct feears, life-renters, feuars, tacksmen, pensioners, pastors, and squatters, all nibbled a provision from the Patrimony. The heirs of those indivi- Aiarm of laity, duals who had assisted the deformers of the ancient Church for the sake of spoil did not relish a dislocation of their connection with this source of profit and pleasure, which meant humiliation and poverty. In anger they contemplated resistance. They held conferences with dudgeon-daggers in their belts. The King spurned their first petition for redress, presented by Rothes, Loudoun, and Linlithgow, considering it too imperious for men whose bodies belonged to him- self This rebuff did not compose the heated blood of the Leslies, Campbells, Livingstones, and their allies. After negotiations for years, the Crown found itself helpless to do anything but com- Revocation promise. To end the matter, referees fixed the rate of teind at ' the compromised, f^f^j^ p^j-j. ^f ^j^g constant rent which each land payeth in stock and teinds where the same are valued jointly.' A register was instituted and influential landowners secured small valuations. Parliament in 1630 and 1633 (Act 17) made this arrangement statutory, and also made provision for the ministry, out of the teinds fixed.^ The Act of Annexation (Act 10) was also passed. One result of this legislation was, that the humbling sight of a parish minister stalking over the stubble in search of the bulkiest sheaves, or scudding through a barn- yard to secure the plumpest roosters, or entering the sheep-fank to peel the thickest fleeces, or scaling the sea-lashed crags to snare the fattest solan geese to ensure his midnight oil, was made an obsolete custom. Deceitful Charles afterwards took credit, in his Large Declaration, for having magnanimously abolished a national griev- ' Act. Pari. Scot., v. 21S, et seq. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 215 ance, while, in reality, he knew he had failed in his first enterprise. He continued to exalt the spiritual order. He conferred upon Spottis- wood the Chancellorship and the highest precedency. In July 1626 he permitted ordinaries to restore exiled pastors who were willing to observe the Perth Articles. With a curious perversity he ordered the ministers to sign a ' common band of conformity,' and commanded that no Papists should be molested. To his credit alone, not Clergy exalted. to that of the Church, he commanded the clergy to plant schools in every parish, to catechise the people weekly, and to make provision for the poor.' His policy, at least, benefi^vid the small landowners, and aided the ministers who were secured in their stipends. In 1629 Charles took up his father's ' pious and princely design ' to give a liturgy to Scotland. Since 1621, when James, alarmed at the opposition occasioned by the Perth Articles, promised that there should be no more innovations, the idea of introducing a liturgy was never mooted until Laud was appointed Bishop of London in 1628. Liturgy At this time England was in an inflammable state, on account of the """^ ^ ' teaching of lay and clerical courtiers, who asserted that the King was the sole foundation of power and justice. Charles was flattered by Laud's conception of government, that the Sovereign was the only refuge from the tyranny of the people, and that Parliament was merely a convocation to promulgate the royal wishes. Charles desired peace and unity. How were these attainable when preachers, like Sibthorpe, maintained that the King was the fountain of law, and no one might refuse the King's demand for money on penalty of damnation ; when Mainwaring declared that disobedience to him English teacii- was damnation ; and when Montague pleaded for an unholy alliance, '"^' ' Do thou defend me with the sword, and I will defend thee with the pen ' ? For refusing to license Sibthorpe's sermon, Abbot, the Primate of England, was, in July 1627, sent a prisoner into the country, and deprived of his jurisdiction, which was exercised by Laud and a Commission.^ This offensive illegality illustrated the ' Balfour, Annals, ii. 144. 2 Hallam, Const. Hist., 1.418 note. visit. I 2i6 THE COVENANTERS new autocracy. Popish services for the Queen and her increasing co-reHgionists were sanctioned. Coronation of When, in 1633, Charles came to Scotland ostensibly to be af es, I 33. (,fQ^j^g(j^ j^g j^g^jj g^lgQ j^ vicw the recovery of Crown lands and taxa- tions, the territorial establishment of Episcopacy at the expense of the land-grabbers, and the unification of the three kingdoms by means of canon law. He began his progress from Whitehall on i ith May, being accompanied by a small army of lay and clerical courtiers and personal attendants, of the latter 908 being servants requiring 1 1 79 horses. Provision at the public expense for such a host made the King's visit to his impoverished fatherland dear, inconvenient, and unwelcome. Roads had to be relaid, streets cleansed, mansions fitted up, lodgings emptied of their residents, offensive sights such as filthy beggars and bleaching gallows-birds removed, transports and victuals commandeered along the route, as if Charles were a Sultan. ■ On Saturday, 15th June, the final stage from Dalkeith to Edinburgh was undertaken. The magistrates placed the capital en fete at a cost of over forty thousand pounds Scots. Never was such a pageant seen. The King, in the van of a gaily caparisoned suite of nobility ^ and prelates, road on a Barbary charger through streets bedizened with Jameson's pictorial devices, and spanned with triumphal arches. The summer sun added a glory to his plumed headpiece, a sparkle to the jewels on his harness, and a distinction to the crimson footcloth which adorned his war-horse. Laud's second He rode between two evil geniuses, Bishop Laud and James, Marquis of Hamilton. Seven times along the route did the poet, Drummond of Hawthornden, make canvas gods — Bacchus, Apollo, the Muses, with vocal planets and other wonders, welcome in music and euphuistic phrase ' The Flower of Princes, honour of his time ' ; and as fountains poured out libations of wine, the cannon on the <§ Castle roared out welcomes from sulphurous throats. The joy was 'f artificial. The real god of that show, the ' deus ex machina,' not made of canvas, probably passed unnoticed in the brilliant retinue. This was Doctor Laud, that very day made a Privy Councillor of I THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 217 Scotland.' It was verbose adulation in the preambles of the statutes to boast of Charles ' extirping of all roots of discord, relieving the oppressed, and with so even and fatherly a hand curing the wounds of this commonwealth as the wisest eye can find no blemish in the temper of all his royal actions.' He had already prepared the apple of discord and Laud had it in his satchel. On Sabbath Charles worshipped in the Chapel- Royal of Holy- rood all fresh bedight. On Monday night he fortified himself in the Castle with dinner and prayer for next day's coronation. Laud, who was master of the ceremonies, had at length got the Laud, Master artist's opportunity of furnishing one Scots church with decorous orna- ° menta — organ, tapestries, altar, kneeling-desks, two clasped books, two unlit candles, alms-dish (all horrors of Melville), and the indispen- sable altar cross— all the harmless vesture clothing divine ideas and often hiding the pearl of great price from searchers for it.^ He had also compiled the ritual, after the Episcopal form, for the coronation, a poor, blundering affair, whose clumsy innovations and parts tending to irreverence so much irritated that master of liturgies, the late Marquess of Bute, that he condemned it as the work of a ' careless ignoramus.' ^ Early on Tuesday morning the King, in the great hall of the Castle, was received by the Estates of Parliament. He wore a slashed red-silk coat, the collar of the Thistle and the Garter, and his crimson velvet train was supported by five heirs of noble houses. The siofnificant custom of invitingr the Sovereign to take the Crown was observed. A strange innovation was introduced. King and Parliament mounted their steeds to ride down Castlehill, High Street, and Canongate — the King's horse adorned with a foot-cloth embroidered with silver and pearls, the seven clerical peers robed in black Genevan gowns, the lay peers carrying their coronets, gay in crimson robes, ' Cal. State Pap., 1633, p. 100. ' A. Stevenson, History of Church (citing Crawford), 132. ^ John, third Marquess of Bute, Scottish Coronations, 122 (Paisley, 1902). 2 E Coronation Ceremonial 2i8 THE COVENANTERS the hereditary bearers of ' The Honours of Scotland,' and other Parliament-men and functionaries.^ At the Chapel door the six prelates selected to officiate — the Primate, Spottiswood of St. Andrews, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Brechin, Ross, and Moray — gorgeous in their violet-silk cassocks, white rochets, and copes of gold, together with the choir of men robed in black and of boys clad in 'sad-coloured coats,' awaited the monarch. The Dean of the Chapel, Bishop Bellenden of Aberdeen, conducted the King within, to a chair near to the western entrance, where he heard Hannay, afterwards the Dean made famous at St. Giles, give an address. The choir then sang an anthem before the King moved The up to the throne. The elaborate ceremonial, with singing inter- spersed, proceeded. The dite of Scotland filled the staged tiers and galleries. Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin, preached on the anointing of Solomon (i Kings i. 39). The Primate and other officials presented Charles as the lawful King- as he sat on the throne. The Kinsf gave an oblation of gold ; took the legal oath on the Bible lying on the communion table ; was anointed ; and was prepared for investiture with the royal robe, sword (on which he swore the persecuting oath), sandals, and spurs. The Primate, old and infirm, placed the crown on his head and the sceptre within his hand. Thereafter the peers touched the crown and swore fealty, the people, at the same time, taking an obligatory oath. Charles next kissed the bishops, who gave him homage. The baronage also gave homage. The Monarch, before partaking of the Eucharist, and the scattering of the corona- tion pieces, then promulgated a pardon. The function, which had lasted eight hours, ended when Charles, in all his regalia, moved through the ranks of his acclaiming subjects into the palace of Holyrood.-' He had got everything save the trust of his people. According to Rushworth, Avhen the keen-eyed Laud perceived how Patrick Lindsay, Archbishop of Glasgow, clad in sober black, made a 1 The seven prelates were Glasgow, Orkney, Isles, Caithness, Argyle, Galloway, and Aberdeen. The Bishop of Moray took his precedence as Lord Almoner. * Bute, Scottish Coronations, Charles I., 63-140. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 219 piebald effect and marred the harmony of colour, also thereby detract- ing from the symbolical significance of the scene, he unceremoniously Laud insults thrust Lindsay from the King's left hand, as he said with a sneer : '" "''■ 'Are you a Churchman and wants the coat of your order?' Into his place the ever-ready Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, was advanced. No other lack of harmony troubled the restless soul of Laud. It con- cerned him little that the brilliant audience, friend and foe, murmured that the gorgeous ritual and genuflections 'smelt of Popery.' On Sunday, 23rd June, the Court worshipped in St. Giles. The old reader, Patrick Henderson, attended, as usual, in his black stuff gown to read the Common Prayers, as they had been recited for three generations. The master of the ceremonies had either forgotten the existence of this quaint ' lover of the truth ' and rebel against the Perth Articles, or, what is more likely, he intended to repay him for refusing to read prayers on the festival days ' by dismissing him with intentional publicity. As Henderson appeared. Bishop Maxwell, formerly preacher in St. Giles, and now fugleman to Laud, descended from the royal gallery, and, ejecting Henderson, filled his desk with two surpliced chaplains, who read the English liturgy. Liturgy read John Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, preached in his 'whites.' Worship ended, and the head of the Church and his giddy train walked round to the banqueting-house, and, obedient to the gospel of the ' Book of Sports,' began junketing with a revelry and uproar so easily heard in St. Giles, that the minister, for decency's sake, had to depart from the customary afternoon service on that Lord's Day. This apparent contempt for Sabbatic reverence and the established Scotland r r , , , , , 1 1 shocked. rites of a free people created a shock and exasperated many, whose grudge was intensified as they realised that neither pastors nor people were beinsf consulted. The Scots never did scorn a beautiful and reverent worship. Their intelligence rightly attributed no redeeming power to any gaudy apparatus of worship invented by pagans to divert the ignorant ; and they would have no veil over their Shechinah, as their teachers declared. ' Act 1 62 1, c. 1, S 5, ^cV. Pari. Scot., iv. 597. 220 THE COVENANTERS What the Covenanters designated baubles and Popish rags, Laud, and his willing convert, the King, maintained to be of the very substance of the faith. The universal fear that innovations were the precursors of Popery — and everything foreign was associated with Rome— and the discontent arising out of these insults, were not St. John's lessened by the events of St. John's Day. John the Baptist was Laud's patron saint. The Court observed his day in the Chapel- Royal with due pomp and piety. One hundred victims of king's- evil knelt and received from Charles his healing touch, and, what probably helped them more, a gold piece, which the pretended miracle-worker presented to each for a charm. This tactless action did not harmonise with a spirit which had outlived such mockery. The liberal distribution of patents of nobility and knighthood among courtiers who afterwards preferred their country's honour to their King's command, little assuaged the unexpressed bitterness of men who always reckoned freedom to be a patent received from the King of Kings, and not to be sold to gratify a regal or clerical autocrat. The political atmosphere of Britain became much perturbed. Events of the most momentous character were about to happen. The Parliament of Scottish Parliament again met upon the i8th June.^ The meeting ' ^^' was large. The King sat on the throne. Missed from the roll were young Montrose, soon to return and champion first the Covenant and then the King, and young Lome, waiting to choose the popular quarrel, his rebel father Argyll being still abroad, in disgrace. The bishops were there in person ; the leading clergy of the Covenant and Presbytery were there in spirit. The nobles, finding themselves in a helpless minority, could not thwart the royal will regarding the Revocation in the bills prepared by the Lords of Articles, but they endeavoured to do so in ecclesiastical matters, in conjunction with the popular representatives of the people. The Lords of Articles consisted of a committee of thirty-two members of each Parliament for preparing bills. The nobles first chose eight bishops, who in turn chose eight nobles. These sixteen ' Act. Pari. Scot., v. 6-165. 4 THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 221 selected eight representatives of counties and eight of burghs. The King had the privilege of including eight officers of State and of appointing the Lord Chancellor to be chairman in the King's absence. It is easily seen how this committee might become a tool of the King. Their draft-bills admitted of no emendation, being either accepted or thrown out by Parliament. In seven days they Ugisiation produced one hundred and sixty-eight bills. Scottish statutes are " ^" laconic. The bills were all accepted. Four were specially offensive. The first Act, ' anent the taxation ' for the maintenance of the Crown, was sure to be felt in that cruel winter fast approaching to kill off nearly all the bestial in the land.^ The Marquis of Hamilton was appointed collector at a ruinous salary. The fourth statute quietly re-established diocesan episcopacy. The ninth statute contained ' The King's General Revocation' of all infeftments, charters, donations, lands, lordships, patronages, teinds, and privileges granted by the Crown.'^ Other Acts treated of schools, ministers, colleges, teinds, and the Clan Gregor. The suspicious activities and ' high carriage ' of Laud, the latest addition to the Privy Council, gave grounds to the aristocracy, now sufficiently aroused, for their expectation of sinister designs. As yet neither laymen nor clerics, saturated with definite Calvinism and averse to the semi-Pelagianism infect- ing the English Church, had discovered what Laud termed 'the beauty of holiness,' in correct symbolic posturing, and in the proper arrangement of sad crucifixes and gaudy green candles on the altar at the eastern wall. To the Scot of 1633, generally speaking, every cope adorned an Antichrist, every surplice covered a Jesuit, and no familiarity with these vestments could banish the imagined horns of Satan from the view of the haters of Popery. This Parliament had before it a bill (Act 3) skilfully drafted to include the Act of 1606, asserting the royal prerogative in all causes, and the Act of 1609, giving power to the King to regulate the clerical The cioricii fashion. When this dual bill came up for discussion, the dissentients, on the motion of the young Earl of Rothes, illogically demanded the ' Ac/. I'arl. Scot., v. 13-16. -' Ibiil.^ JJ. 222 THE COVENANTERS bisection of the bill. The King rightly replied that, as the greater included the less, the two proposals must stand or fall together. With unlimited jurisdiction he himself might ordain any fashion. This was not the first time on which one of these defiant Leslies, whose histor)' is written in blood, crossed the purposes of kings and cardinals at St. Andrews, at Ruthven, and at Perth, where this same jovial John opposed the Five Articles. Jameson, the artist, painted him as a large-eyed, intelligent-looking cavalier, resting his hand significantly upon his sword. Another opponent of man-millinery was Melville, also a noble from Fife, who supported the amendment for the sake of con- sistency, because he had sworn with King James to his Confession, which abjured these innovations. This outspoken remonstrance should have given Charles pause. Instead, he waited impatiently while the votes were taken, with a list in his hand, and meanly and testily observed, as he marked it : ' Your names are here. I shall Act on apparel know to-day who will do me service.' Victory was declared for ^^^ ■ the 'ayes,' the royalist party being double the number of the dis- sentients. The minority insinuated fraud, and the bolder Rothes demanded a scrutiny of the register. Snubbing him, the King offered him a scrutiny at the cost of his life if he could not prove his accusation. Rothes prudently shirked the ordeal. History was repeating itself. When King James tore in pieces the journals of the House of Commons in 162 1, he announced: 'I will govern according to the commonweal, not according to the common will.' His son was also to make the attempt and fail. It need not now be doubted that obsequiousness, not fraud, gave the King the vote he desired. Through it the independence of Parliament would have been obliterated, the freedom of the Church turned into a tradition, and the nation itself added to the English Crown as a rural appanage, had not Rothes, Loudoun, and other masterful spirits been roused to stand up and balk the evil efifects of the royalist policy, and been guided by the calm reason of Alexander Henderson and the clear intellect of young Johnston of Wariston THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 223 to re-establish the constitution of the State and the Church. Another Leaders of Lesh'e, Alexander of Leven, with cold steel was to sever that dual "'^'^°"'^"'^- Act on the battlefield, and give courage to a bolder antagonist to make a final bisection on the block at Whitehall. The Presbyterian ministers of this period have been frequently blamed for encouraging a rebellious spirit in their congregations, whereas the reader must have perceived how deficient in tact the Government was in negotiating any ecclesiastical changes, and how little likely the highly educated nobles were to be constrained by presbyters. Nor must it be overlooked, that if obdurate Presby- terians preferred uninviting Calvinism and a bare worship to a joy- ful humanitarianism and dramatic adoration, poor had been prelatic influence for a generation. We may accept as near the truth theoriijinof conclusion of Sir James Balfour, the annalist, who mingled in the ^'^'^'^"^• best society of his day : ' Not only were the grievances of the ministers suppressed, but likewise all former Acts concerning the complained-of corruptions in the Kirk were ratified. Howbeit it was notoriously known, that most of these Acts had wrought great dis- turbance in this Kirk. And now the Acts of this Parliament laid the foundation of an irreconcilable schism, and proved afterwards the ruin both of King and bishops.'' To this Parliament may be traced the rise of a new constitutional New constitu- party, demanding a reform of the old procedure under the Lords of /g"^ ''" ''' Articles and a full discussion of political affairs. It only needed fresh insults to give it homogeneity and to force it into revolt against all unconstitutional procedure. This anti-Romanist, anti-prelatist, anti-Arminian, anti-beauty-of-holiness party soon cohered over the insults it met. Rothes, and his defeated minority, wished to present a petition explanatory of their action, but their attempt was futile, the King testily dismissing petition and petitioners with a laconic warning to Rothes: 'No more of this, my Lord, I command you.' This rebuke did not cool the Leslie temper. The ministers were also aggrieved, having presented a petition on 14th June, which was ' Balfour, Annals, ii. 216. 224 THE COVENANTERS never acknowledged, craving the abolition of bishops' seats in Parlia- ment, the Perth Articles, and the new tests, also the restoration of the privileges of the Reformed Church, particularly the right to convene General Assemblies. Lord Baimer- Lord Balmerino imagined that, with the aid of a careless lawyer from Dundee, named Dunmure, he might recast the petition of the 'noes,' and make it acceptable. By treachery his document passed into the King's hands, through those of wary Spottiswood, and Balmerino was soon lodged in Edinburgh Castle, charged with libel and treason. He was tried and condemned to death for not reveal- ing the existence of the libel, this verdict being secured by the casting vote of the Earl of Traquair, chancellor of the jury, a crafty diplomat and untrustworthy politician. On the advice of Traquair, whom Charles had raised to an earldom, and through fear of public opinion, Charles, luckily for himself, commuted the sentence passed on Balmerino. One notable result of the mischievous policy of the King was the drawing into public affairs of the greatest literary Drummondof Scot then alive, Drummond of Hawthornden, whose canvas gods den^remons- ^^^ delighted the Sovereign. In 'An Apologetical Letter' he trance. splendidly contended for freedom of speech and writ, boldly declaring that 'no prince, how great so-ever, can abolish pens,' which should be answered by pens and not by axes.^ Tolerance, he said, became princes, who, like shepherds, could never turn rich by peeling the skins of their, own flocks. Charles may not have seen this timeous and noble remonstrance, but he was not long in learning that the Capital was full of armed bands ready to rescue Balmerino and to overthrow the authorities, rather than be robbed of their liberties. Their leaders had precedents for bold courses, to ' take occasion by the hand.' The sullenness that fell upon the people presaged a storm at the point of bursting. King Charles returned to London piqued with memories of Scottish disloyalty ; Laud, on the other hand, rejoiced to think that the pagan North would soon have some religion. Both of them ' 2nd March 1635 : Masson, Drummond, 237-41. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 225 informed the bishops, in so many words, that without a Liturgy there was no salvation. On 6th August 1633 Laud attained to the summit of his ambition, Laud's when, on the death of Abbot, the King greeted Laud with these p"'"^'^^' ' ^^■ words, ' My Lord's Grace of Canterbury, you are very welcome.' His ' Grace of Canterbury' felt that he had the Scottish primate and bishops, whom menaces and flatteries had made docile, in his cassock pocket. England rang with accounts of his cruel crusade against the Puritans. In October the northern ministers were donning their new vestments, and prelates were faithfully executing the Anglican services, simple and choral, in their entirety. Edinburgh was erected into a new bishopric, 1634, under the rule of William Forbes, reputed to have been a learned, leathern-lunged doctor, able to preach well for hours at a stretch, and the minister best suited for the Metropolitan see. But the bitter east winds of ' Auld Reekie ' soon chilled even his leathern lungs and stopped more than his ' modest and pacific considerations.' ' Laud's policy was definite and continuous. Believing that the Laud's policy, masses were a corpus vile to be operated upon, first by the King and '' then by the clergy, he aimed at elevating the latter by making them conform to a standard in creed and ritual, and by restoring to them their lost temporal power. To gain the Crown's protection he supported the Crown against the people. Not knowing the Scots, he began experimenting in Scotland. With Spottiswood elevated to the Chancellorship, bishops taking seats in the Privy Council, and the establishment, in October 1634, of a Court of High Commission, the domination of the hierarchy was almost restored. Every class in and beyond Parliament realised the menace likely to come from the prelatic nominees of the Crown, and it can be argued from the success of the Covenant of 1638, and the action taken by the Glasgow Assembly in 163S, that the majority of the parish ministers and office- bearers were thoroughly opposed to the prelatising and secularising ' Considcrationts modestae ct pacificac Controversiarum dc jus/i/icatione, etc. (Lond., 1658) ; Row, Bisl., 370-4. 2 F 226 THE COVENANTERS policy of the King's English advisers, and were ripening for a revolt. The discontent of the landed classes affected by the regal Acts of Revocation stiffened those who were disaffected by the ecclesiastical policy, so that diverse parties had a common enemy. Had not Charles, the ultimate Court of Appeal, himself settled the exact position of the communion table in church, and robbed the Church of any voice in the matter by ordaining the Dean of the Arches to dismiss, without even considering, any appeal on the subject ? Such submergence of will was neither intelligible nor tolerable to the people of Scotland, whose presbyterial assemblies fostered their innate love of liberty, fraternity, and equality, in matters secular and sacred, and warned the simple when crafty deceivers proffered some fascinating substitute in order to obliterate a divine instinct. The Covenanters meant to be free. The landholders, aggrieved over the land question, determined to be comfortable. King's instruc- On 13th May 1634 the King transmitted instructions to the tioDs, I 34. Scottish bishops requiring them to condescend upon a Liturgy and a Book of Canons, for making uniformity of discipline in churches, colleges, schools, and families.^ At the same time all officials of the Law Courts were ordained to communicate twice yearly in Holyrood Chapel, since ' we will not suffer you to be leaders of our other subjects to contemn and disobey the orders of the Church.' This was no new phase of Erastianism to these calm students of precedents. Nineteen years had elapsed since King James instructed Spottiswood to prepare a Liturgy and Canons. The Aberdeen Assembly, in 1616, deputed Galloway, Ewart, Adamson, and Erskine to improve the Book of Common Order, and Law and Struthers to compile the Canons. The Scottish A Liturgy, after being corrected by Spottiswood and Cowper, Bishop ^T^' '^'^ °^ Galloway, was sent to James, who returned it scored with his own 'observations, additions, expunctions, mutations, accommodations.' The second revised draft was ready for the press in 1 6 1 9, but was not printed ; for, as the quaint Dean of Durham wrote : ' Before it could ' MS. 943, p. 659, The True A'arrative concerning the Scottish Service Rook, Catal. of Archiepisc. MSS. in Lambeth I'alace Library. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 227 be brought ad umbilicum, God called that blessed King to glory. '^ In 1629 Charles resumed the business of the Liturgy, and after examining the 16 19 draft, brought by Bishop Maxwell, refused to sanction it, probably on the advice of Laud, who declared to Maxwell, ' That if his Majesty would have a Liturgy settled there, it were best to take the English Liturgy, without any variation, that so the same Service Book might be established in all his Majesty's dominions.' To this common-sense view the King yielded for four years, till the question emerged at the Scottish Coronation, when the King asked the northern bishops to frame their own Liturgy ' with all convenient diligence.' The two Prayer Books were being used side by side, the Scottish one in parish churches only. The Bishops of Galloway (Cowper), Aberdeen (Forbes), Ross (Maxwell), and Dunblane (Bel- lenden) are said to have compiled the Canons after the model of the English Canons (1604), without submitting them to any convention of ministers. These Canons, after final emendation by Laud, and his successor in the see of London, Juxon, the fox-hunting bishop, were authorised for printing on 23rd May 1635. Bishop Maxwell presented Canons to Juxon a finished copy of the work, and the witty recipient in his \(^^, reply indicated a correct judgment of the temper of the Scots : ' Your Book of Canons . . . perchance at first will make more noise than all the cannons in Edinburgh Castle.' The title of the book is : ' Canons and Constittdions Ecclesiastical gathered and put in Forme for the Government of the Chtcrch of Scotlattd. Ratified and approved by His Majesties Royall Warrand and ordained to be observed by the Clergie and others ivhotn they coficerne. Published by Authoritie. Aberdene. Imprinted by Edward Raban, dwelling zipon the Market Place, at the Amies of the Citie 1636. With Royall Privilege.' Never was a little volume of forty-three pages so fateful as this governmental code of worship. The canons are arranged in nineteen chapters. The ' Sprott, The Booke of Common /'wj'fr (Edin., 187 1). The preface gives a good account of the origin of this Liturgy ; TIte Book of Cflmmon I'rayer (Laud's Lituigy), edited by Professor Cooper (Edin., 1904) ; Sprott, Scottish Liturgies of the Reigii of James VI., l^ref, 1901. 228 THE COVENANTERS Contents of Book of Canons. first chapter made practical King James's doctrine of 'innate power from God,' when, in treating of the Church of Scotland, it affirmed that the King as Head of the Church had absolute authority, by which he had, according to Scripture, sanctioned the Episcopal Church and its Liturgy. It also ordained that deniers of this supremacy, or assertors of errors in the Liturgy, should be excommunicated. The second chapter set forth rules for the ordination and guidance of pres- byters and deacons, who were to be educated at college and to be over twenty-five years of age. The ordained preaching deacon was an innovation provided for in the new Ordinal of 1636. Ordination at ' the two solstices and the two equinoxes ' was considered to be popish. No mention is made of assemblies of ministers. The third chapter dealt with ' residence and preaching,' and authorised ordained and licensed preachers to conduct worship according to the forth- coming Liturgy before sermon. It forbade allusions in the pulpit to royalty. Pastors were to read the Liturgy to the sick, toll the passing bell for the dying, and at home to read good books, and on all occasions to recite the Paternoster. The next chapter enjoined seemliness of conversation. The sixth chapter forbade laymen administering sacraments, enjoined private baptism in cases of necessity, and ordained the Lord's Supper to be dispensed at Easter and other three occasions annually, to kneeling communicants. The remains of the elements were to be eaten in Church by poor com- municants. This care, the Covenanters declared, indicated belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. The seventh chapter regulated marriage and divorce, no person under twenty-one years of age being permitted to marry without consent of parents. The eighth chapter provided for half-yearly and National Synods, but suppressed meet- ings in presbytery, session, and conventicle. It made the canons unalterable by presbyters. The ninth chapter prescribed manners in church : removing of hats, kneeling at prayer, standing at the Creed, not leaving during worship ; and, under pain of deprivation, ministers were forbidden to use extempore prayers, or prayers not in the Liturgy. Succeeding chapters imposed conformity on teachers. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 229 curates, readers, printers, regulated fasts, and appointed the apparel of Church and University men. The sixteenth chapter authorised The Canons. the purchase of a Bible, Book of Common Prayer, pulpit, communion table and vessels, font, and alms-box. The communion table was to be placed at the upper end of the church, to be decently ' carpetted ' when not used, and spread with fair white linen during celebration; the font at the entrance door. The church and churchyard were to be decently kept at the sight of bishops and archdeacons. The eighteenth chapter regulated ' censures ecclesiastical,' afforded a right of appeal to the King as Head of the Church, forbade clergy taking up civil causes and sanctioned the confessional. The last chapter treated of 'Commissaries and their Courts,' fixed the age of officials at not less than thirty, and gave the ordinaries sole power to punish the breakers of the Canons. With these Canons and the Court of High Commission the Protestant hierarchy had obtained a position scarcely less powerful than that of their popish predecessors. The Presbyterians saw the glory of their Reformed Church extinguished, and felt insulted by the suppression of names and institutions hallowed by long usage — 'ministry,' 'presbytery,' 'elder- ship,' and ' kirk-session.' They laid blame chiefly on the English Primate, whose name, Will Laud, corresponded with 666 according to their ingenious interpretation of the number of the Beast of the Apocalypse, as also with ' William a Devil.' Nor had they mali- sons enough for this ' Master of Postures ' and ' Archurger of the Ceremonies ' when they heard the reports of his persecution of the Puritans in England. These were the days in which, as Cromwell Kvii times in said, ' it was a shame to be a Christian ... a reproach to be a man,' '"^^" • and when the most religious man of the age, Milton, declared he was forced to shun the Church, having been ' church-outed by the prelates.' One of the first to feel the tyranny of the Scots bishops was Samuel Rutherford, the saintly minister of Anwoth, whom Sydserf, Bi.shop of Galloway, caused to be summoned before the Commission in Edinburgh, in July 1636, for disregarding the innova- tions and the laws of the Church. The verdict was that Rutherford 230 THE COVENANTERS should be transported to the parish of Aberdeen, then noted for its hard-headed doctors of divinity and staunch favourers of episcopacy, so that their influence might be brought to bear on this unwavering presbyter. Principal John Lee, in his Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland^ following other authorities, states that the Scottish Liturgy ■ was in a sfreat measure transcribed from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, and is generally represented to have been the work of Archbishop Laud.- But though it was framed under his direction, its execution was chiefly intrusted to Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, Wedderburn, Bishop of Dunblane (formerly a professor of divinity in St. Andrews), Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, and Bellenden, Bishop of Aberdeen.' Laud had less to do with the compilation of the book than he is credited with, and King Charles several times acknowledged his own connection with and sole Evolution of responsibility for its contents.* After several drafts of a Liturgy had Prayer Book, been prepared and set aside. Laud prepared a draft, if Bishop Hacket, in his Life of Archbishop Williams, correctly reports the following conversation of King James with Williams : ' This man [Laud] hath pressed me to invite them to a nearer conjunction with the Liturgy and Canons of this nation, but I sent him back with the frivolous draught he had drawn. . . . For all this he feared not mine anger, but assaulted me with another ill-fangled platform to make that stubborn Kirk stoop more to the English pattern ; but I durst not play fast and loose with my word \i.e. that there would be no more innovations]. He knows not the stomach of that people.'* King James had not then forgotten the counsel given to his son in Basilikon Doron, that in Psalms and Lord's Prayer — 'the meetest scholemaster — ye may learne all forme of prayer necessare for your comfort at all occasions. ... In your prayer bee neither over strange ' Lee, Lectures, ii. 248 (Edin., i860). - Kirkton, 30 : 'I have seen the principal book corrected with Bishop Laud's own hand, where, in every place which he corrected, he brings the word as near the Missale as English can be to Latin.' ' ChaxXcsK., Large Declaration, ^'i-yhaMd, Works,\\\. 217, Z'^d- * Scrinia Reserata,6^. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 231 with God like the ignorant common sort that prayeth nothing but out of books.' In the autumn of 1629 the second draft, after its revision by the Second and bishops, was by command of the King carried by Maxwell to Laud, j^" "^^ ^' who in vain had attempted to persuade Charles to authorise the English Prayer Book instead. The events of 1633 made it expedient that the Liturgy should be of native origin, although Charles had somewhat compromised himself by instructing the Scots prelates, in 1630, to familiarise themselves with the English book until they had prepared a 'fit and full Liturgy,' 'as near that of England as might be.' The bishops were suspected of evading this order, but Maxwell read the English Liturgy for three years.^ At length the compilers Fourth draft, completed a book which the King signed at Hampton Court, 28th ''" September 1634. An English Prayer Book, of date 1629, formerly in the possession of the Earl of Stirling, containing notes written by Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State in England, probably to the dictation of the King, may have been a model for the compilers." Laud selected a new font of Gothic type for the production of the book, and Young, printer in Edinburgh, prepared an edition which, however, was discarded at the close of 1635, ^rid as waste-paper dispersed among the sellers of sweets and snuff in the Luckenbooths. There, in all likelihood, ' Jenny Geddes,' applewoman, and John Mein, merchant and watchful critic, first saw the unwelcome intruder. What with Maxwell running to and fro, printer Young — ' the greatest knave ' the Earl of Stirling said he ever knew — defective type turned upside down, and discrepancies which no patience could rectify, Charles and Laud must have been sick of their enterprise. At last, Fifth or fmai Charles commissioned Laud and Bishop Wren to extend the sugges- "'■'■'• tions from Scotland ; and, after these had been considered by himself and, where approved of, entered upon the clean pages of an English Liturgy, he had arrived at a final Prayer Book for Scotland, which he signed on April 19, 1636. ' Hamilton I'apcrs, 2, Camden Soc, 1880. - Atlunaum, No. 2608, p. 499, Oct. 20, 1877 ; No. 2715, p. 596, Nov. 8, 1879. redacteur of the Liturgy. ;32 THE COVENANTERS Charles the Long aftcrwards, Laud's enemy, Prynne, found in the Primate's chambers a copy of the King's imprimatur, and wrongly declared it was a fraud.' It was in the following terms : ' Charles R. I gave the Archbp of Canterbury comand to make the alteracons ex- pressed in this Book and to fit a Liturgy for the Church of Scotland and wheresoever they shall differ from another Booke signed by us at Hampt[on] Court, September 28th 1634, our pleasure is to have these followed rather than the former ; unless the Archbp of St Andrews and his Brethren who are upon the place shall see apparent reason to the contrary. At White Hall, April 19, 1636.' The warrant in the handwriting of Charles himself, as Prynne gave it, was inscribed in 'The Booke of Common Prayer . . . R. Barker, 1637,' which belonged to a Duke of Hamilton, probably the Commissioner of 1638." The warrant, in the same terms, is written in copies of the English Liturgy, printed in 1634 and 1637, preserved in Lambeth Palace Library. The warrant is important, proving what Charles asserted in the Large Declaration and in the Stirling Proclamation, 19th February 1638, that personally he had taken great care and pains, ' so as nothing passed therein but what was seene and approved by Us before the same was either divulged or printed.' ' A similar confession was made to the Commissioners of the Covenanters at Berwick, in 1641, which Johnston of Wariston heard and recorded: ' He \i.e. the King] declared also that nothing could be said against the Service Booke of Scotland, bot it behoved to reflect against that of England, for they were all one ; that he had hand himself in the difference betwixt them, that he would not suffer any to be punished albeit they had brought in the Alcoran.' ■* Another corroboration of the warrant is in the letter written by Laud to Wedderburn, Bishop of Dun- blane, in April 1636, informing him that Wren and he had written into an English Prayer Book the King's own additions (some of them probably suggested by Wedderburn), 'with his Majesty's hand to it.' ' Prynne, Hidden Works, 156; cf. The True Narrative, etc., Lambeth MS. 943, p. 659. '^ On the sale of the Hamilton Librarj', the volume was sold for £iyi to Lord Roseber>'. ^ Charles R., Large Declaration, 48. '' Johnston, Diary, 79, Scot. Hist. Soc. edit., 1896. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 233 After these delays, the handsome folio, with its bold Gothic type Prayer Book and fine woodcut capitals and tailpieces, issued from the press of '''^"^''' ' -^^^ Robert Young in Edinburgh in April 1637. Its title-page, printed in alternate lines of black and red colour, bears this title : The Booke of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other parts of divine Service for the use of the Church of Scotland. Edin- burgh. Printed by Robert Young, Printer to the Kings most excellent Majestie, MDCXXXVII. Cum Privilegio. In the same binding appears a Prose Psalter, entitled : The Psalter or Psalvies of David after the Translation set forth by authority in King James his time of blessed memory, as it shall be said or sung throitghout all the Churches of Scotland. Edinburgh . Printed by Robej-t Young, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, Anno MDCXXXVI. Ctim Privilegio. This is accompanied by the Metrical Psalter, entitled : The Psalmes of King David, Translated by King James, London. Printed by Thomas Harper, 1636, which was authorised for use on 5th May 1632 and 14th March 1637. A remarkable woodcut of the capital letter C in 'Charles' begins a suggestive 1 , .... ., . r 11 ■ 1 11 illustration. the text, and quaintly depicts a pilot steering a lull-ngged galley, under favouring breezes, preceded by Neptune, past a headland into smoother waters, a happy Ulysses escaping Scylla and Charybdis. He is alone at the helm ; more suggestive still, he is alone in his armed craft. The King's name begins his Proclamation, dated 20th December 1636, ordaining every parish to procure two copies of the Prayer Book, and authorising the punishment of contraveners of the order. The Table of Contents, embraced in twenty-one sections in three hundred unnumbered pages, indicates the scope of the Liturgy, Scope of the namely : A preface ; of ceremonies ; order how Psalter is appointed "^'''^ to be read ; order how Scripture is to be read ; proper psalms and lessons for Sundays, and table of the order ; almanack ; calendar for psalms and lessons ; order for morning and evening prayer throughout year ; litany ; collects, epistles, and gospels for communion service ; communion; baptism; confirmation and catechism; matrimony; visitation of sick ; communion of the sick ; burial ; churching of 2G Prayer Book. 234 THE COVENANTERS women ; a commination against sinners, with certain prayers to be used divers times in the year. Substance of The volume is in substance the Prayer Book of Edward vi., as amended and then (1636) in use in England, there being a few changfes of the EHzabethan text, and of the rubrics concerning the ceremonies. These emendations were startHng enough to suspicious formalists and to conservative Calvinists, but were not Popish in any other sense than that they were not embraced in any formulae sanctioned at Geneva.^ To many the form was less acceptable than the substance, the rite more objectionable than the doctrine, and the rubrics worse than the text of the book. From the beginning every- thing tended to cast suspicion on a production whose secret, tedious, difficult manufacture had made it quite a portent to a people whom treachery had made wary and evil treatment had rendered inflam- mable. It was the match to set two kingdoms on fire. One intolerable feature of the Liturgy was its origin beyond the Tweed ; another, even less forgivable, was its imposition upon a Church which did not want it, and without the assent of either people or pastors, very few of whom ever saw it until it was in print. The terms of the Proclamation that this Praj^er Book was the ' only form which We (having taken the counsell of our clergie) think fit to be used in God's public worship,' are highly misleading. Dr. Sprott, in his excellent account of the work, declares : ' Only a portion of the Scottish Bishops concurred in it, and that not without much pres- sure.'" For these reasons it was viewed by intelligent Scotsmen as the emblem of Erastus, the mean idol of a craven Episcopate, and the memorial of a tyranny which the freeborn determined was never to be brooked again. Yet, after all, the Prayer Book had its use in authorising novel attitudinisings, which, though deemed to be ' ill-fangled ' movements, were reverential decencies sadly needed in 'a stubborn Kirk,' wherein ' The popcrie of the Sen'tce Book discovered by Didodavius, Laing MSS., Edin. Univ., No. 6g ; No. 293, Nitieieen points of resemblance between the Mass Book and Service Book. * Sprott, The Booke of Common Prayer, !xv. (Edin., iSvi). THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 235 a dull vitality, the monotonous platitudes of many wretched preachers, and the woful weather, forced careless worshippers into sleep under their Stewarton bonnets and woollen shawls. The innovations were distasteful to many who could not approve innovations in of the celebrant of the Lord's Supper standing at an altar, and "^^" presenting his side or back to the worshippers, from whom the rite was partly concealed, nor of dipping children in the font, at the front door, which reminded them of a holy-water vessel. The new terms, ' corporall ' for cloth, ' chalice ' for cup, ' Sunday ' for Sabbath, ' paten ' for plate, ' presbyter ' for minister, gave needless offence. The commemoration on holy days, fortnightly, according to a partial calendar, of saints, Celtic missionaries, and others, all as dead as Pharaoh and some as nebulous as Orion, recalled the Roman festivals. The following instruction created alarm : ' Then the Presbyter (at Baptism) shall make a crosse upon the childe's forehead, saying we receive this childe into the Church of Christ and do signe him with the sign of the crosse in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confesse the Faith of Christ crucified.' Row, in his animadversions Popish doc- on the book, pointed out Romanist significations in the Communion pray^f jjo^;.^ rite. The 'oblation' of the elements before consecration, the con- secrating prayer in these words that ' these Thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine may be unto us the body and blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son,' and the phrase ' partakers of the same His most precious body and bloud,' together with the kneeling posture, in- dicated the disguised doctrine of transubstantiation. That Laud, who regretted the omission of the ' oblation ' from the English Liturgy, considered the celebration by the priest an offering, as well as a memorial, of Christ's ' precious death and sacrifice.' is proved by his own notes in a copy of a Prayer Book.' The suspicion of Popery was increased by the permission of 'wafer-bread,' by the instruction ' to take the paten in his hand ' (not handle and break bread), and by the consumption of the residual elements in church by the communi- cants. The withholding of the sacrament, unless there was ' a ' Hutton, William Laud, 183 ; Laud, Works, iii. 359. 236 THE COVENANTERS sufficient number to communicate,' violated the Master's spirit. The minced selections from Scripture and the i\pocrypha, which were recommended to be sung, highly displeased others. Horror of The book was generally spoken of with horror. Damaging Presbyterians, p^j^pj^jgjg^ admonitions, suppHcatlons, petitions, books, and ballads, afterwards burned by the hangman, poured from the press at home and abroad. Even Alexander Thomson, minister of St. Giles, wrote verses to Sir James Carmichael about it : — ' I need not impairt to you Hou our Church stait does stand By this neu Service book, which nou So troubells all this land.' ' A scurrilous pasquil, entitled The New Litany, prayed for deliverance from the Laudians and Liturgy men : — ' From pupill, pastor, tutor flocke. From gutter Jennie, pupit Jocke, From all such head controlling taylles, And from small barkes with too big saylles.' '^ The last line may have been a reference to the royal pilot in the initial letter of the Prayer Book. Calderwood's trenchant polemical works, Altare Damascenum, A Re-examination of the Five Articles enacted at Perth, i6iS, and Quaeres concerning the Church, were Gillespie on eagerly read. The writings of a genius, George Gillespie, then twenty-five years old, an ' expectant ' for the Church, notably his A Dispute against the English- Popish Ceremonies intruded 2ipon the Church of Scotland, created a sensation on their appearance in 1637. He thus describes the injured Church : 'Her sweet voice is mumming and muttering some missal and magical Liturgies. Her fair neck beareth the halter-like tokens of her former captivity, even a burden- some chain of superfluous and superstitious ceremonies. Her undefiled ' Balfour MSS., Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. - A Book of Scottish Pasquils, 52. Forty-six petitions relative to the Liturgy arc pre- served in the Register House. the Prayer Book THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 237 garments are stained with the meretricious bravery of Babylonish ornaments, and with the symbolising badges of conformity with Rome.'' The very title of Dr. Robert Baillie's book (1641) indicates Baiilie's the popular horror of Popery : A parallel or brief e comparison of the °P""°"' liturgie with the masse-book, the breviarie, the cerenioniall, atid other Romish ritualls ; wherein is clearly and shortly demonstrated, not onely that the liturgie is taken for the jnost part word by word out of these anti-christian writs, but also that not one of the most abominable passages of the masse can in reason be reftised by any who cordially imbrace the liturgie as it now stands, and is commented by the prime of our clergie. John Row, the sturdy old Presbyterian minister at Carnock, scornfully declared : ' Any boy of eight years of age, who is taught to read Inglish, may be a Kirkman good enough, for he can read a prayer, a chapter, the Service Book, a printed Homilie or sermon.'" No indictment of it was so bitter as that of Montrose, who styled it ' a dead service-book, the brood of the bowels of the whore of Babel.' ' To Samuel Rutherford it was ' toothless and spiritless talk.'* The Nonconformists, in both Scotland and England, at this time P-ipai aiimncc could not divest themselves of the suspicion that King Charles and^"'"''"'' ' Laud had some secret understanding with the Pope regarding the restoration of the Roman Catholic faith and polity. There is no exact proof to show that their fears were well grounded. It is true that Charles was sometimes tolerant to, the Queen always shielded, and Laud once dreamed of reunion with, the Catholics, but that pro- bably was all. The Scots, so early as 1632, had been publicly expressing their distrust of the King, and the Jesuit agents reported this at headquarters.'' Laud never compromised himself in any negotiations he had with the Papal agents, and although Panzani wrote to Barberini, 2nd April 1636, that, according to Bishop Montague, Laud was 'favourable to Rome,' it is most probable that • Gillespie, A Dispute, etr., 6. '•' Row, Hisl., 401, Wod. -Soc. edit. •' Napier, Memoirs, i., app. xlvi. ' Triumph of Faith, 73, edit. 1845. ' /liiss Transcripts, No. 91, Status Cathoticac Rctigionis, etc., St.itc Paper Office. 238 THE COVENANTERS Prayer Book not approved by Rome. Fitzherbert's story. a wish was father to the thought.' And yet the Papal intriguers, in twice offering to Laud a Cardinal's hat, imagined that they had got a proselyte not likely to make the refusal a matter of conscience." There is a remarkable story, which has escaped the notice of editors of the liturgies, to the effect that Laud, wishing to ingratiate himself with the Pope, sent the Scottish Prayer Book to Rome for approval, and this was refused. The report was current in 1638 that Thomas Abernethy, the converted Jesuit, knew of this fact, but when he was questioned by Robert Baillie, he declared he had no infor- mation on the point. ^ However, his insecure position made him reticent. The narrative appears in a work entitled. The English- American his Travail by Sea and Land or a New Stirvey of the West Indias. . . . By the true and painful endcavotir of Thotnas Gage now preacher of the Word of God at Acres in the County of Kent. Anno Dom. 1648. London 1648. The author, Gage, avers that, being in Rome, after he had enjoyed an interview with Cardinal Barberini, he went to dine in the English College at the invitation of its well-known rector. Father Thomas Fitzherbert, who had formerly held the position of agent of the English clergy and became a Jesuit. Gage reports Fitzherbert's conversation thus : ' The Jesuite began to praise the Arch-prelate [Laud], for his moderate carriage towards Papists and priests, boasting of the free access, which one Simond, alias Flood, a Jesuite had unto him at all houres, and on all occasions ; and to extoll him the more, he brought in the Archbishop, Abbot, whom he cried down as much for a cruel enemie and persecutor of the Church of Rome, and of all papists and priests. But the now Archbishop, said hee, is not only favourable to us there, but here ■ Addl. MSS., 15390, xxxi. 359, British Museum; B/tss Tramcripts, No. 92 ; Barberini AfSS., Gen. Series, No. 17. On the other hand, P. Orleans in his //isf. dcs R^vohttions (TAngleterre, iii. 36 (Paris, 1694), citing Abbe Vittorio Siri, a contemporary of Laud, declares Laud was a Papist. - Laud, Diary, 4th August 1633; Hutton, Laud, 154, 155. 'Statement in reference to communications alleged to have been made to Rome by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and James Ussher, Primate of Ireland' (1639) : Rinuccini MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., ix. (ii.). 351. ' Baillie, Letters, i. 102. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 239 desireth to make daily demonstrations of his great affection to this our Court and Church ; which he shewed not long since in sending a Common Prayer Booke (which hee had composed for the Church of Scotland) to be first viewed, and approved of by our Pope and Cardinals, who perusing it liked it very well for Protestants to be trained in a form of Prayer and service ; yet considering the state of Scotland and the temper and tenants [^zV] of that people, the Cardinals (first giving him thanks for his respect and dutifull com- pliance with them) sent him word, that they thought that form of prayer was not fitting for Scotland, but would breed some stir and unquietnesse, for that they understood the Scots were aversed from all set forms, and would not be tyed and limited to the inventions of man's spirit having (as they thought) the true and unerring Spirit of God in them, which could better teach and direct them to pray. All this (said Father Fitzherbert) I was witnesse of . . . But the good Archbishop (quoth he) hearing the censures of the Cardinals (Cucua(?), Albornus [Alberici ?], Barberini), concerning his intention and Form of Prayer, to ingratiate himself the more into their favour corrected some things in it, and made it more harsh and unreasonable for that nation ; which we already heare they have stomached at, and will not suffer it in many parts to be read ; and we justly fear that this his Common Prayer Book and his great compliance with this Court will at last bring strife and division between the two king-doms of Scotland and England.'* The credibility of this extraordinary story rests upon the Account of testimony of a notable man, who, in his time, was supposed to be ''^^^' well acquainted with the movements of the Papists in the reign of Charles i., namely the apostate priest, Thomas Gage. Gage was a member of an old and staunch Catholic family, which had given three sons to the Church, and one, Sir Henry, Governor of Oxford, to the royal cause for which he fell in battle. Thomas had apostatised from the Dominican or P'ranciscan Order, and, in his Protestant zeal, became a chief witness against Peter Wright the Jesuit, who was ' Gage, T/ic English-American his Travail, 208. 240 THE COVENANTERS executed in May 1651. Gage's alleged informant regarding Laud's overtures was Father Thomas Fitzherbert, who, in 1618, became Rector of the English College in Rome and died in office in 1640. Gaee's narrative indicates that he had interviewed Fitzherbert before Laud's desire 1 639. Laud's desire of uniformity was an old affair in 1637. In o uniormity. ^^^^ j^g rccorded in his Diary: 'Dreamed that I was reconciled to the Church of Rome.' A prolonged search made by me in the Record Office, London, in the Stevenson and Bliss Transcripts of papers in Rome and elsewhere bearing on the period 161 1 to 1643, threw no light upon this incident. There were references to the troubles caused by the introduction of the ceremonies and Liturgy. The Jesuit, Con, who had been living under the protection of the Queen, had occasion to know the changeable tactics of Laud, and wrote to Ferrugalli, 13th November 1637, that Laud, the ' Bestiola,' was ready to sacrifice the Catholics to the fury of the armed Puritans in Scotland and England, thus indicating his hatred to Rome at that date.^ The draft pro- It was not to be cxpccted that the ill-advised act of sending a iiabiy sent to Liturgy for Papal iinpri??iaiur would be noticed in Laud's own True Narrative concerning the Scottish Service Booke given in at his trial. ^ But, as before stated, the Scots were convinced that the Prayer Book was an instrument created for assisting Popery back into authority in Scotland. If Laud, however, did seek approval of a Liturgy, one might argue from Fitzherbert's words — ' which hee had composed ' — and from our knowledge of Laud's temperament, that the draft sent was none other than the ' ill-fangled platform,' and the 'frivolous draught,' both of which King James had discarded some time about 1621, as recorded by Bishop Hacket.' Proclamations, The Privy Council (with a warrant for letters of horning '°36- appended),* on 20th December 1636, had proclamation made at burgh market-crosses that all ministers should, before Easter, procure ' Barbcnni Transcripts, Gen. Series. No. 92. 2 Lambeth MSS., 943, p. 659 ; History of the Archbishops Troubles, 168. « "' Hacket, Memorial of Archbishop Williams, 64. ■* I.e. the ordinary form of execution. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 241 for each parish two copies of the Liturgy, at the cost of four pounds sixteen shillings Scots each copy. The majority obeyed, but on June 13 the Council were forced to issue a second proclamation against those who refused to accept it, ordaining them to use the book within fifteen days. These opponents were not standing idly looking on. Laud, well informed by spies, asserted that the Non- Auimdeof conformists in England and Scotland had covenanted to resist the policy which he directed. Spalding, author of a History of the Troubles, went a step further, and declared that a ' clandestine band, drawn up and subscribed secretly,' provided for the establishment of one reformed religion and the uprooting of Episcopacy in both kingdoms.' King Charles, in his own Large Declaration concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland, etc.," a large folio compiled by Dr. Walter Balcanqual, Dean of Durham, for the King, attributed the seditious spirit of the opponents of the Liturgy to the recent Revoca- tions and to the paucity of honours distributed at the coronation. Although there may be no direct proof of the existence of national and international combinations, yet, when the fury of the time, the antagonism displayed in many petitions, subscribed even by women and children, and the self-sacrifice shown by the readers who resigned, are considered, the relation of effect to cause almost demands the production of some patriotic league, to explain the rapid spread of the revolutionary spirit which found undying expression in the National Covenant of 1638. The angry explosions of a crowd of domestic servants, herb-women, and fishwives, even though they were fired to a riot by aristocratic ladies at the introduction of the Prayer Book, are not sufficient to account for the wild enthusiasm, which -spread like an irresistible tide over Scotland and swept all the impositions away. It was a 'No Popery' revolutionary movement in reality. Sabbath, the twenty-third day of July 1637, was fixed for the inauguration of the new Service Book in the Capital itself, so that all the country might witness the example of the docility of subjects ' .Spalding, Mcmonalls, 77, Spald. Club. - London, 1639, fol. 430. 2 II 242 THE COVENANTERS Bishop Lindsay. St. Giles Church, 23rd July 1637. respectful to the majesty of the King and law.^ Dr. David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, issued printed advertisements, which the ministers were to read on i6ih July, announcing that the pastors would on the next Sunday read the book to their flocks. In some churches this order was not read, in others it was heard with murmurs from the people. This announcement, according to Laud, was inconsiderate and afforded time to the ill-affected to premeditate opposition.- Lindsay made elaborate arrangements for introducing the Liturgy with a stately ceremonial into his Cathedral of St. Giles.^ Choice could not have lit upon a happier instrument of the King's will than this former minister of Dundee and Bishop of Brechin, champion of the Divine Right of Kings, and a pamphleteer in favour of the kneeling posture — ' Doctor Resolutus,' as incisive Calderwood styled him. A contemporary opponent nicknamed him ' a pocke of avarice,' and thus doubly hit the prelate for his corpulency and his greed of honours. He had a willing henchman in James Hannay, M.A., formerly of Kilmaurs, now of the New Kirk, and Dean of Edinburgh. As usual the old-fashioned morning service, of prayers read from the Book of Common Order, of metrical psalms sung, and of Scripture lessons read, was conducted by the worthy reader, Patrick Henderson, standing in the ' latron ' or desk. Fresh in his memory was that scene, four years gone, when Bishop Maxwell hauled him out of that high place in order to install two surpliced priests. After finishing his duties, in the interval during which the ' A Large Declaration, 23 (London, 1639). - Letter to Traquair, Aug. 6, 1637. ' This account of the introduction of the Liturgy has been compiled from many con- temporary manuscripts and printed accounts of the incident, inter aha : Swinton, Kirk MSS., Advoc. Lib., 34-5-8 ; A True Relation of the Proceedings, etc. ; ibid.. The Second Part of the Historic of the Church, etc., 29 ; Charles First (or Balcanquhal), Large Declaration ; Phillip MSS., Baillie to Spang, Oct. 1637; Baillie, Letters, i. 17 ; Reg. Privy Counc, vi. ; A Collection of Several Manuscripts, etc. (said to have been written by Kirkton), p. 7 (Advoc. Lib.) ; Balfour MSS., W. 4, 16, 33-2-32, p. 39 (Advoc. Lib.) ; Rothes, Relation of the Affairs — 1637, with Appendix, A Briefe and True Relaiun of the Broyle, etc. (Lee, p. 109) ; The Stonie Field Sabot h Day — A breyf discriptioun of the tumult, etc., 48, 52 ; Wodroiv MSS., liv. 10 (Advoc. Lib.), A Relation of the Prelates carriage, etc. ; on same subject, pp. 169, 175, 249, 285, Catal. Wod. MSS.; Wodrow, Analecta, i. 64; Calderwood MS., transcript by Wodrow, MSS. xiii. (Glasgow University) : Laud, Works, ii. 373, 401?; The Cross Removed, Edin., 1756 ; Gillespie, Dispute, etc., 1637 ; Lee, Cath. Presb. Mag., viii. 102 (1882). THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 243 third bell rang its customary call for the preacher, Henderson dole- fully said : ' Adieu, good people, for I think this is the last time of my reading prayers in this place.'' The church was crowded. The places of worship at this epoch were not furnished with seats. Consequently many 'rascally serving-maids' were sent before public worship commenced to secure good places, and there sat on 'creepie- stools ' (folding or three-legged stools), until their fashionable mis- tresses arrived, as custom was, after the common prayers were recited. The ministers of Edinburgh agreed to enter their pulpits between eight and nine o'clock forenoon and to carry the prayer-books with them. Lindsay and Hannay duly appeared. With great pomp the King's representative, Spottiswood, Primate and Chancellor, occupied the throne in the royal loft and honoured the inauguration. Nobles grandly attired, law-lords brilliantly robed, and City Fathers gaily gowned and attended by their halberdiers filed in. Provost Aikenhead, whose rosy nose afforded such costly merriment to the satirical student, Leighton, afterwards the staid Bishop of Dunblane, looked down on the surging scene with his rubicund face, which three weeks later was laid pale enough in Grey- friars Churchyard." One may surmise that John Mein, elder, post- master, and merchant, who would sell goods on Christmas and other festival days, ripe critic of bishops and innovations, a somewhat officious man, whose irrepressible Presbyterianism brought him along with Henderson into conflict with the Privy Council, was also present. His capable wife, Barbara Hamilton, was at her post, on her ' creepie-stool,' and solemnly waited." David Calderwood, historian, looked on and took notes for his still unpublished account of the scene.' There was as much latent fire in that old church as might have turned it into another place. An indication of its presence ' Maitland, Hist, of Edinburgh, 71. 2 His monument is now affixed to the north side of Greyfriars Church. ^ The Cross Removed, 1756; Wodrow, Analcc/a, i. 64. A i^odly woman with the same name was a favoured correspondent of Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford's successor in Anwoth was John, son of this John Mein. * Wodrow M^S. (Glasgow), vol. xiii. 244 THE COVENANTERS was given when (about lo a.m. according to Row) Dean Hannay mounted the desk, carrying in his hand the brown leather-bound St. Giles riot, foHo. A murmur was heard. Soon 'a barbarous tumult' began; ^^^'^' women wept, men shouted, serving-maids clapped their hands, and others yelled the reader down. The sight of the fat bishop, glorious in his episcopal millinery, waddling up to the pulpit in order to appease the struggling rioters, fairly unleashed the more explosive sex, who first hurled at bishop and dean ' angry speeches and bitter, calling them traitors, bellygods, and deceivers,' 'a Pope, a Pope,' and other ' despightful exclamations.'^ After volleying a shower of stools and Bibles, Mrs. Mein, or ' Jenny Geddes,' having the honour to lead oft' the discharge, the women proceeded to grab and eject the rotund bishop from the pulpit.'- The witches swarming out of Kirk Alloway to the chase of Tam o' Shanter make faint comparison with the vigorous actors in this unholy scene. 'The stony The remonstrances of the Primate fell on deaf ears. By his Sabbath.' command the magistrates and their halberdiers descended and ejected the malcontents into the High Street, where they found stones and missiles with which they battered the door and pulverised the ' glassin windows ' of the Great Kirk. According to the King's Large Declara- tion, the Liturgy would have been consecrated with a bloody sacri- fice of the bishop on the very altar, had not a friendly hand warded off the blow intended for Lindsay. A manuscript narrative of the episode pointed out that ' No less worthy of observatioune is that renouned Christian valyance of ane other godly woman at the same season.' Unable to escape with the ejected, this pious dame retired to a corner to read her Bible, and to be far from ' the voice of the popische charmers,' when a young man behind her began effusively to respond ' Amens ' to the reader. The impatient mother in Israel made for the young man's face and showered home her hottest blows, as she shrieked and ' schott against him the thunder- bolt of her zeal,' exclaiming : ' False theefe, is there no uther part of ' SwintPn MSS. : Second Par/ of Hist, of the Church, 29. - Hist. MSS. Com., iv. 293, App. ; Wodrow, A/ia/ecta, i. 64. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 245 the Kirk to say masse in but thou must say it at my lugge?' The youth collapsed. Unfortunately the heroine's name was not recorded. Hannay and Lindsay, however, finished the office. After this morning service was ended, the bishop tried to thread his way down street through a flight of stones and curses hurled by the waiting crowd, and would have become a public sacrifice had not the servants of the Earl of Wemyss rescued him. In the other city churches similar tumults followed the introduction of the Liturgy, the College Church excepted, where Rollock, the preacher, prudently delayed producing the book that morning. In the afternoon of the 23rd July the authorities took care to Continuation have an undisturbed service in St. Giles in the presence of guards- ° "° ^' ' •'''■ men, when the offending Prayer Book was read to an aristocratic and congenial audience. But after the service, as the coach of the Earl of Roxburgh, Lord Privy Seal, with affrighted Lindsay within it, dashed down the Netherbow and Canongate to Holyrood House, it was assailed by a mad mob, who yelled, cursed, and threw the stones prepared for building the Tron Church at the flying rumble ; and, had a rearguard of the Earl's body-servants not repelled the rioters, there is the King's authority for stating that Lindsay would then have become Scotland's St. Stephen. He gladly evaded martyrdom again, and with Thomson, his reader that afternoon, sur- vived to be deposed by the Covenanters for being 'an obstinate papist,' according to his dittay. There are two theories regarding the origin of the disturbance, the one maintained by the Covenanters that it was only 'a rash emergent,' when God moved the spirit of these holy women 'to scourge the buyers and sellers out of God's house, and not to sufler the same to be polluted with that foul Book of Common Prayer.' ' The royalist view of the affair, as stated by Spalding, is : ' The nobells being foirseen of this noveltie never heard befor (since the Reformation) in Edinburgh, devysses a number of rascally serving ig ' Epistle Coitj^ratulatoric of Lysimachus Niawor, 73, 1640 ; Haslwick, IVte Beast is Wounded, 7, 1638. 246 THE COVENANTERS Bishop Guthry's narrative. Alleged con- spiracy of Henderson and others. women to throw stools at the reader and perturb the kirk.' ' This was also the opinion of Sir William Alexander, Secretary of Scotland at this period, who declared that the blame was ' put upon Rascallis and coal steilers, but how justly let subsequent actions and events declare.' The King's letters to the Council indicated a similar sus- picion, which, however, was not made into a charge in the Large Declaration. Laud, probably informed by Spottiswood, believed that there had been preconcerted action." The Memoirs of Bishop Henry Guthry contain this hitherto uncorroborated royalist account of the affair : ' This tumult was taken to be but a rash emergent, without any pre-deliberation, whereas the truth is, it was the result of a consultation in Edinburgh in April, at which time Mr. Alexander Henderson came thither from his brethren in Fife, and Mr. David Dickson from those in the west country, and those two having com- municated to my Lord Balmerino and Sir Thomas Hope the minds of those they came from, and gotten their approbation thereto, did afterwards meet at the house of Nicolas Balfour in the Cowgate, with Nicolas Balfour, Eupham Henderson, Bethia and Elspa Craig, and several other matrons, and recommended to them that they and their adherents might give the first affront to the book, assuring them that men should afterwards take the business out of their hands.' ^ There can be no doubt that Lord Advocate Hope's sympathies were with the Covenanters, so r^uch so that the Marquis of Hamilton urged the King to dismiss him in 1638, 'for he is ill disposed' to the royal policy, wrote Hamilton. The conspiracy is not in keeping with the upright and bold conduct of Henderson, the last man to shield himself and his enterprises behind the matrons of the Cowgate and the applewomen of the Tron. In the light of previous combinations, however, it would indeed appear a novel emergent if there had not existed, or risen, a band of men and women able and courageous enough to conspire to save their own spiritual independence, and to oppose regal and ecclesiastical tyranny. Scotland was being rapidly f ' Spalding, History, 47, Bann. Club ; 79, .Spald. Club. ^ Memoirs, 33, 2nd edit. - Laud, Works, ii. 373-401. THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 247 permeated with the spirit of rebelHous presbyterian Hildcbrandism, which was soon to bear fruit in the fallen Episcopate and the Civil War. Some contemporary narrators of the episodes, already described, asserted that the rioters in St. Giles were disguised men of title and position, and this is not unlikely. None of the narratives consulted by me mentions 'Jenny Geddes ' as the ringleader of the throwers 'Jenny of the stools ; nor could I find her name in the registers of the municipality. Her name appears in a pamphlet entitled Edinburglis Joy for his Majesties Coronation in England, printed in 1661, which refers to ' the immortal Jenet Geddis, Princesse of the Trone Adven- turers,' burning all the contents of her booth in honour of the Restoration. Wodrow, on the other hand, upon the authority of Robert Stewart, son of Lord Advocate Stewart of the Restoration period, informs us that ' Mrs. Mean, wife to John Mean, merchant, . . . cast the first stool . . . and that many of the lasses who carryed on the fray were prentices in disguise.'^ Lord President Inglis, preferring the tradition to the assertion of Stewart, Wodrow, and the descendants of Mrs. Mein, wrote the following inscription for a brass tablet affixed on a pillar in St. Giles : ' Constant oral tradition affirms that near this spot a brave Scotch woman, Janet Geddes, on the 23rd of July 1637, struck the first blow in the great struggle for freedom of conscience, which, after a conflict of half a century, ended in the establishment of civil and religious liberty.' Another tablet simply commemorates Dean Hannay. On the morning of 24th July the City magistrates clapped into the Tolbooth six or seven of the iconoclastic viragoes in order ' to show their diligence,' but their names are not given in the extant minute- book of the Bailie Court. The charge against them was departed from. Their offence was popular. The Privy Council sat daily through the crisis. They forbade crowds on pain of death, and ordered the magistrates to prosecute the rioters, and to protect the ' Wodrow, Analecta, i. 64 ; cf. J. K. Hewison, 'The Jenny Geddes Myth,' Gtasi^ow Herahl, P'eb. 5, 12, 1898. A Janet Geddie, wife of William Harclay in St. Andrews, left a legacy to the rhurch there, and in 1638 it was expended on Communion linen : Lee, Lectures, i. 400, App. 248 THE COVENANTERS suspended. Glasgow riot. readers of the Liturgy, all of whom, terrified, resigned. The Council Prayer Books and Episcopal bench, equally afraid, agreed to suspend both the Prayer Books until the King had been informed of, and sent a pronouncement upon, the rebellion. Their injunction ran that, until the 30th July, only 'a prayer sail be made before and after sermon, and that neither the old service nor the new established service be used in the interim.' When the Diocesan Synod met in Glasgow, in August 1637, to introduce and explain the desirability and scriptural authority of the Liturgy, the women convened ' with great din ' at the door of St. Mungo's Cathedral, to express their dissent. For their intolerance two of them were dragged off to Bridewell. This roused the populace far more against the unfortunate preacher, William Annan, of Ayr, who had already preached a polemical discourse in favour of the Liturgy, which was an inconsiderate step while the service was in abeyance. The 'devouter sex' waylaid Annan on the street, smote him with their fists, tore his cloak and battered his ruff-hat, and wellnigh martyred the liturgist, not far from the place where Spottiswood was satisfied to see Ogilvie the Jesuit made a sacrifice to intolerance. Next day, escorted by the magistrates and their guards, Annan was taken to the boundaries of the city, but on the route his luckless horse cast the dishevelled preacher into the mire amid the jeers of the rioters, who then with a show of charity let him go — in dirt and peace. If the St. Giles riot was not the result of clerical and aristocratic inspiration, that in Glasgow was claimed by a partisan annalist to have been indulged in by persons of ' the best quality.' In some dioceses, in cathedrals and parish churches, Fortrose, insomepace>. Qyj^j-jjg^pg^ Brechin, St. Andrews, St. Fillans, and Dingwall, the new Liturgy was used for some time.^ In March 1638 Mitchell, an Edinburgh minister, wrote to Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe, in these terms : ' Ross [Maxwell] keeps at home, and keeps up the service in his Cathedral, but I fear he shall not be able long.' Whiteford, ' Rothes, A Relation of Proceedings, etc., 4, Bann. Club. edit. Liturgy used THE LITURGY IMBROGLIO 249 Bishop of Brechin, entered the pulpit, pistol in one hand and Prayer Book in the other, with an armed bodj'guard for his congregation. On his retiral from church his froward flock interviewed him, in such an unmistakable temper that a contemporary humorist recorded, ' he durst never try that play over again.' Thus appeared and disappeared the long yearned-for, long hatched, mysterious, and ' impudently vented ' service-book. With the tidings of its surcease and of these risings a Scots courier was speeding to King Charles at his manor at Oatland.' ' The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, embracing the period April i, 1635, to December 21, 1637, is embodied in vol. vi.. Second Series; vol. vii. includes entries from January 6, 1638, to June 20, 1643. These two volumes may be consulted for the most important facts regarding the revolt against the ecclesiastical policy of Charles i. 2 I 250 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER IX THE NATIONAL COVENANT Anger of King KiNG Charles heard With horror the news of what he styled 'the barbarous tumult ' and ' that fearful! and horrible profanation ' of holy ground. He had forgotten that ever-memorable Sunday in June 1633, when, in the precincts of St. Giles he kept a Belshazzar's Feast ; and the wild mirth and breaking glasses of the courtly revellers there silenced the public worship, and injured the faith, more than the curses and ' creepie-stools ' which flew on that ' Stony Sabbath.' The suspension of the Liturgy made him angrier still. He sent commands for its re-introduction and for the punishment of the rioters. But the executive was too paralysed to attempt to do either the one thing or the other. Their slipshod inquiry led them to attribute the disturbance to ' a nomber of basse and rascally people,' who were not named, meantime ; and they confessed, ' Nather dare we dive aney further in the trayell [trial] of the causes of the said feares and remedies, until it shall pleis your Maiestie . . . to prescryve the way.' They described the commotion as general, not merely local, and realised their peril. It was easy for Laud, at the King's command, to write from a distance, where there was no danger to ruff-hats, and to taunt bishops and councillors who blamed each other, with delightful badinage spurning them both for their pusillanimity. Laud wrote : ' It was unworthy of the bishops to disclaim the book as their own. They did not like to admit of ours, but thought it more reputation for them, as indeed it was, to compile one of their own, yet as near as might be, and they have done it well! Will they now cast down the milk they have given THE NATIONAL COVENANT 251 because a few milkmaids have scolded at them ? I hope they will be better advised.'' It was equally easy for the King to vow that he would not resile from his policy to please a rascally mob, when he believed that the national commotions were caused only by handlers of spirtles and spindles. The Privy Council ordered the bailies of Edinburgh to see that the Liturgy was read at the point of the halberd, but no readers could be got for love or money.' The Lord Chancellor and the bishops were assiduous in making use of that old Scots legal instrument of terror, called ' The Horn,' and raised letters of horning 'The iio™.' (equivalent in English law to writs of execution and attachment) against Alexander Henderson, minister at Leuchars ; George Hamilton, minister at Newburn ; and James Bruce, minister at Kingsbarns, all in the presbytery of St. Andrews, charging them to buy and use the books within fifteen days, under pain of being held as rebels.^ The trio petitioned the Privy Council to grant a suspension of Alexander the charge. The presbytery of Ayr sent in a similar petition, appeal. Alexander Henderson is credited with framing the Bill of Suspen- sion, and those reasons stated in it for not granting the warrant following the charge.* This document was the first, and one of the most important, of those legal instruments upon which the Covenanters founded their case for the establishment of civil and religious liberty. Its concise reasoning and calm phraseology lifted the dispute out of the heated atmosphere of selfish partisanship up to the level where great causes are to be judged in the light of principle. Henderson was no chatterer in clerical conventions for notoriety or place. Long before this he had considered the Perth Articles and found them deficient in those elementary principles which conduce to peace and righteousness. His opposition was not the spasm of an attenuated intellect capable only of narrow views, and incapable of balancing the ' Laud to Traquair, 7th August 1637 : Works, vi. 493. * Large Declaration, 28. ■' Row, Hisl. of Kirk, 484. * This was the proper legal procedure in order to suspend 'letters of horning.' 25' THE COVENANTERS Henderson's merits of Conflicting opinions. His portrait in Yester, his extant works, and his achievements, attest that Henderson had a complete 1583-1646. Henderson's pleas. nature, solid judgment, firm will, kind heart, and was the man of the hour. In person he was neither large nor handsome, like Robert Bruce of Kinnaird, whose winning words at Forgan had won Henderson — 'the best fish caught in the net' — for Christ.^ His slender form, which crept through the beautiful Norman window of Leuchars Church, when he was intruded for ordination in the Prelatic epoch, now boldly essayed to free the Church. He was well pre- pared. The mantle of Andrew Melville, his spell too as a vivid expounder of Calvinism and philosophy, had fallen on Henderson, a Fifeshire man, who, now in his fifty-fourth year, was a quiet, digni- fied, unobtrusive man with well-reckoned, steadfast beliefs.'- A pamphlet against the Perth Assembly and Articles made him a suspect.^ His evangelical tendencies constrained him to seek con- stant comfort in the Holy Spirit. A frank contemporary said to him : ' I love you, sir, because I think you are a man in whom I see much of the image of Christ' The saintly Samuel Rutherford addressed him as ' the talking of the north and south, and looked to as if ye were all chrystal glass.' The brilliant pastor of Leuchars was not sure about the new Canons and Liturgy, and, being eminently sane and cautious, he abstained from obtruding the novelties upon his rural flock, until he had studied them and laid them phrase by phrase at the Throne of Grace, even although the penal sword hung over him. He was directed to seek defence under the judicial powers of the Privy Council. His five reasons showed a statesmanlike conception of the principles at stake. In them he condescended that The Book of Common Prayer had not been authorised by the General Assembly and the Scots Parliament, as the national religion and form of worship had been ; that the Church was inherently free and inde- ' JMacnicol, Life of Brua, 262 ; D. Hay Fleming, Guide to SI. Andreio's, 125. - Life, M'Crie's Miscell. Writings, 1841 ; Alton, Life and Times, 86. ^ Alton, Life, 103 : the anonymous author of the tract. The Nullitie of Perth Assemblie, i5i8, was David Calderwood ; Row, Hist., 325 note, 442. H^ ^ ^IL ^^^^^^^^1 ■ ^^Ml C'' ^ 1 H £^ J H ^^f ■ "'^y «^;5 fc^-rij^-jIs^B S^^n^K^I K^ L^L i'^^^H IPV^ ^^^1 ^HbS^^^^^B^^H ^Hl^ ^ J 1 ili'TOCUUVDIir. BY HSDttU riB wtiwv »■ ■ KINO CHARLES FIRST I. 1 THE NATIONAL COVENANT 253 pendent, having pastors qualified to provide spiritual necessaries — ' what may serve most for the good of the people ' ; that the cere- monies recently ordered were divisive, unharmonious with Refor- mation principles, and tending to Romanism ; that the people having been differently taught, would, if tried, be unwilling, even if the pastors were willing, to accept the changes. This was the case for the National Church in a nutshell ; the old plea for democracy, and the re-assertion of the Protestant dogma that the people are the custodiers of the Oracles of God, and the wardens of their own faith. This, although nothing more than an appeal for the previous status of the Church, was the gauntlet Charles had to lift. The Privy Council, now anticipating fresh sacrifices upon episco- Council's pal altars, cleverly shuffled away from the issue, and on a techni- cality produced a quibble of a judgment.* On 25th August they granted suspension on the ground that only the buying of the books was ordered. This judgment, tantamount to the supercession of the Liturgy, was viewed by the Royalists as an illustration of cowardice and disloyalty. It is not to be wondered at. Henderson and his compatriots were attended to their trial by a crowd of clergy, nobles, magistrates, and influential laymen, armed with steel, and carrying constitutional petitions. All classes petitioned against innovations. The King ignored their supplications as well as sound advice from Scottish counsellors. That slippery courtier and correspondent of Laud, Traquair the Treasurer, blamed the ' violent and forward ' clergy for the misgovernment and crisis. The restoration of the parliamentary power of the Church had more to do with the opposi- tion of the laity to the Liturgy than anything else. The malcon- tents, realising that the Council's deliverance was a mere subterfuge to gain time for procuring instructions from Charles, poured in petitions to the number of sixty-eight ; and powerful nobles, such as Sutherland and Wemyss, compeared before the Council to ask that ' P'or a collection of miscellaneous historical documents illustrative of this particular time and these incidents, cf. l^elerkin. Records of Ihc Kirk of Scotland (Edin., 1843), 47 et seq. !54 THE COVENANTERS The Liturgy a panacea. Edinburgh in Autumn, 1637, Second riot in Edinburgh. Policy of the Crown. the petitions should be dispatched to the King. In a petulant reply- in September the head of the Church declared that the only remedy for Scotland was reading the Liturgy. Edinburgh, depopulated during harvest, was crowded again as soon as the crops were gathered in. The excitement of the times attracted to the Capital many curious irascible bands of aristocrats and their armed retainers, thriving burgesses, and inhabitants from towns and villages. Even 'Old John Row' came from rural Carnock to foment the quarrel.^ Royalism had little popular sympathy. To buttress the King's cause, Sir John Hay, the Clerk Register, was commanded to take the chair of Provost Aikenhead. Hay bungled his part and insulted the citizens by preventing them from petitioning, so that they retaliated by besieging the town council, and by exacting from their council a promise to petition against the Liturgy. Robert Baillie was in the city and saw the ferment, of which he wrote : ' What shall be the event, God knows. There was in our land never such an appearance of a sturr ; the whole people thinks Poperie at the doors. . . . No man may speak anything in publick for the King's part, except he would have himself marked for a sacrifice to be killed one day. I think our people possessed with a bloody devill, farr above anything that ever I could have imagined, though the masse in Latine had been presented. The ministers, who have the command of their mind, do disavow their unchristian humour, but are no ways so zealous against the devill of their furie as they are against the seduceing spirit of the Bishops.'" The King, clearly mistaking the inwardness and magnitude of the movement, wrote ordering visitors to return to their homes, the Council to punish the rioters, and the courts of law to adjourn to Linlithgow and Dundee. This paltry policy merely strengthened the insurrection at its source. The petitioners dispersed, leaving their business to the care of a brilliant young advocate, Archibald John- ston of Wariston (1611-63), who soon recalled them to hear the ' Life prefaced to History, Wodrow Soc, 1S42. - R. Baillie to Spang : Works, i. 23. THE NATIONAL COVENANT 255 three fatal proclamations at the Cross on the i8th of October. These commanded the petitioners to be gone within twenty-four hours, under pain of outlawry for rebellion, authorised the Privy Councillors and Law Lords to convene in Linlithgow and Dundee, and ordained that all copies of George Gillespie's treatise, entitled A Dispute against the English-Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Kirk of Scotland, be burned by the common hangman, because it ' stirred the hearts and affections of the subjects from their due obedience and allegiance.' ' The agitation was growing uncontrollable. All night of the 17th October, Edinburgh, from causeway to garret, from nobility to servants and children, was busy subscribing a monster petition, indeed, two petitions. At daybreak knots of these excited anti-Liturgy ' Sup- plicants ' stood on the narrow streets and waited for the assembling of the councils and law-courts. The ' bloody devill ' having entered Third riot, into the populace, incited them now to demand the restoration of Jgl- their silenced ministers, Rollock and Ramsay, and Henderson, the reader. Consequently, with the aiacrity of the devil-possessed herd, they ran down and blocaded the City Fathers, who, to save their necks, were glad to promise anything. At this juncture Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, was espied near the Cross on his way to the law-courts, and some mischievous females set on this dignitary to unclothe him, willy-nilly, to discover some secret crucifix or other proof of his Popery ; and they would have succeeded in stripping him, had not his friends come on the scene and pushed him into the sanctuary of justice, round which the mutineers roared for the bishop's life. The magistrates were appealed to for aid ; they were in a worse blockade. Even Treasurer Traquair, white wand in hand, in essaying to mollify the crowd, was thrown on the street and lost his hat and cloak. Not until the services of a convention of notable Covenanters then sitting were called in, could the mob be appeased and the representatives of law and order rescued. Th(; Privy Council met in the afternoon and forbade all public ' Pelcrkin, Records, etc., ^o et scq. 2.0 THE COVENANTERS Petitions of ' Supplicants. Appointment of Commis- sioners of the Covenanters, afterwards called 'Tables. meetings, as well as ordered all persons, not on business, within doors. At their meeting the Council received the two petitions against the Canons and Liturgy, one from ' the men, women, children, servants, and indwellers, within the burgh of Edinburgh,' and the other from ' noblemen, barons, ministers, burgesses, and commons.' ^ Among these ' Supplicants,' many of whom were young men and elders of the Church, were the following nobles : Rothes, Cassillis, Home, Lothian, Kinnoul, Sutherland, Wemyss, Dalhousie, and Lords Montgomerie, Fleming, Lindsay, Elcho, Yester, Sinclair, Loudoun, Balmerino, Burley, Dalyell, Cranstoun, Boyd, and others. In this second petition these ' Supplicants ' exonerated the King, but definitely charged the bishops with misgovernment, and, through that, with wronging 'so good a king,' -with insnaring his subjects, with causing dispeace, and with breaking the laws. In accordance with the law and custom of Scotland, the ' Supplicants,' in this formal and con- stitutional document, demanded a trial of this cause, w'hich was no other than a trial of the bishops in a constituted court of law. The petitions were forwarded to the King, The tables were turned ; and the ' Supplicants ' were now accusers demanding the withdrawal of the bishops from all government until their cause was legally settled. This demand opened up a new^ phase of the case. With much shrewdness, Sydserf and Hay suggested that, until a settlement was effected, the petitioners should withdraw from the city, leaving behind ' them a committee, called commissioners, to represent them. With the sanction of the Privy Council these commissioners were appointed, and developed into a committee well known as ' The Tables,' in the following manner. In November the petitioners agreed that their commissioners should become a permanent official body residing in Edinburgh, and to that end appointed a committee consisting of six or more nobles, two gentlemen from each county, a burgess from each burgh, and a minister from each presbytery. This body was found to be too large. In February 1638 a central or headquarters committee, in four sections, was ultimately selected from the commissioners, ' Large Declaration, 41, 42 ; Peterkin, Records, 56. THE NATIONAL COVENANT 257 namely, one section of as many nobles as cared to attend, one of four county gentlemen, a third of four ministers, and a fourth of four representatives of burghs. These four sections met separately at four tables — ' The Green Tables ' — and together, to report to the Com- The Tables, missioners (also called The Tables), and to the larger body of petitioners or ' Supplicants.' Among the first notable members of the central committee were Rothes, Montrose, Lindsay, and Loudoun, all of them young nobles of spirit.' On 7th December a proclamation in Linlithgow announced the King's answer to the petitioners. It emitted a disclaimer of Popery, a promise to advance true religion, and a resolution to observe the 'laudable laws' of Scotland. This shuffling with momentous issues neither appeased the fiery bloods, who invaded church, city, chamber, and courts, nor yet the intellectual constitutional party, who had a spokesman in John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun. ThisEariof young elder in Irvine Parish Church — with stern face modelled like a medallion — had been brought up in the Lollard atmosphere of Ayrshire, full of memories of heroes fighting for freedom and martyrs dying for the faith, and had been stiffened in principle as well as sweetened in character by a grand preacher of truth and witness for Presbytery, the chaste poet of 'True Christian Love,' David Dickson, minister of Irvine, who was also a Supplicant. In 1636 Robert Blair, John Livingstone, James Hamilton, and John M'Lellan were deposed from the ministry in Ireland, and excom- municated for their opposition to Episcopacy, by Rramhall, Bishop of Londonderry. Some of these exiles, fleeing from the tyranny Exiled of Strafford and the Irish Protestant bishops, sought refuge in Irvine, f"''^""^ "-'*" where, no doubt, their piteous narratives influenced Loudoun and his covenanting Countess. The petition or ' General Supplication ' was reconstructed by the Commissioners, and, in the old and new forms, presented to the Privy Council on 21st December. Loudoun, with the fire of a Celt and the zeal of a prophet, eloquently addressed ' Gordon, Hist, of Scots Affairs, 28, 38 (.Spakl. Clul)) ; Spalding, Memorialls of the TrtMes, i. 78 ; Row, Hist. (.Suppl.), 486. 258 THE COVENANTERS The Tables resist autocracy. the Council, again libelling the bishops and demanding their removal from Council, twitted that facile body for authorising a Liturgy before it had been seen or printed, and demanded a trial of the national wrongs. A narrative of this rising was Scotland's Christmas gift to its King ; he reciprocated with an ultimatum. The bold action of The Tables indicated what little value these politicians placed upon the right of the Crown to give prelates legislative and judicial functions, and that they were prepared to resist unconstitutional procedure and autocracy. At this point in the struggle the plea for toleration on behalf of the free unit was less used than the plea for a free nation. These opponents of Charles well understood the limits of personal freedom and of personal toleration, which were fixed by existing laws of the State and decrees of the Church with popular concurrence. The unpatriotic Council had no choice but the royal will. Intriguers from Scotland poisoned the King's mind until he fell into melancholy ; and Laud, it is said, suppressed reliable informa- tion and shrewd advices sent from Scotland to the King. The elastic Traquair, whom none but Laud trusted, told the King that the mutineers were neither rebels nor deformers of the constitution, A multitude of but Were high-minded patriots who would not take their law nor counsellors. Ufurgy from a foreign prelate, unless after coercion. The recall of the Prayer Book would lead to obedience, he declared. Un- fortunately, Spottiswood, an ecclesiastic approaching his dotage, ever too timid and biassed to understand the spirit of the age, penned a fatal letter advising Charles simply to condemn the action of the Supplicants, and to declare their meetings to be treasonable, and then their combinations would disappear. As in his historic palace at St. Andrews he had often seen an impenetrable mist, hanging over the North Sea, dissolve before the rising King of Day, so the credulous Primate imagined that this dark cloud would vanish at the command of Charles. Never was a greater delusion. It is remarkable that Scottish feeling should be so deep and difficult to gauge in every epoch. With similar short-sigfhtedness Wentworth, THE NATIONAL COVENANT 259 fresh from crushing Ireland, and Laud, arrogant by reason of the subserviency of the rural clergy, urged the King to govern England according to his own will, and to satisfy his own lawful desires in every way. King Charles was doing this without suggestion.' He possessed views on / ■ o > landowners, political and religious protesters soon to be united under the comprehensive term of Covenanters — having thus practically got rid of the prelates, sought out the hierarchy of intellect, heart, and spirit to guide the course of events. In Rothes, now in his thirty- eighth year, they found a reliable leader, and in his noble associates, Loudoun, Home, Lindsay, Balmerino, Yester, Montrose, Cranstoun, and Lothian, men of action. To their council came the incisive debater, Alexander Henderson, the cultured poet, David Dickson, the loud-voiced orator, William Livingston ; and among other notable ministers, Row, Ker, Bonar, and Cant. Baillie designated Henderson and Dickson, ' the two archbishops by whose wit and grace, joined with two or three of the noblemen, all in effect was done.' The legal aspects of the case were watched, on behalf of the Crown, by the Lord-Advocate, Thomas Hope, who, being secretly in sympathy with the Supplicants, prevented any tampering with the course of justice." In Archibald Johnston, then only twenty-seven years old, the Supplicants retained an advocate and legal adviser who was ' It was on this occasion that Rothes remarked to Montrose, who was so excited that he had mounted a puncheon : ' James, you will not be at rest till you be lifted up there above the rest, in three fathom of a rope' — a sneer rather than a prophecy. The original Protest is preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities, OA. 34. - Omond, Lord Advocates, i. 93-147. THE NATIONAL COVENANT 263 a phenomenon for acumen, shrewdness, and piety .^ Of the warlike Johnston of breed of Annandale, he boasted that he was 'a true-hearted Johnston *"^° ' and a true friend to the house of Johnston.' He was bred among law-papers and musty parchments, being grandson to Sir Thomas Craig, of Feudal Law fame, and a relative of other law lords, among whom was that Lord Durie whom Christy's Will spirited away to a Border dungeon. His grandmother's house at Sciennes, in the suburbs of Edinburgh, had been a refuge for persecuted Presby- terians, and his youthful education had been received in society which could not brook even an appearance of Erastianism. By nature Wariston was a serene, unobtrusive, mystical individual, unlike that character reading 'murderous doom' with 'savage glee,' depicted by Aytoun in his ballad of Montrose. Solitary prayer for unbroken hours was his supreme luxury ; and then adoration absorbed him. A genius for incessant work and the superadded gift of lucid wakefulness were his. Large, lustrous eyes piercing the depths, and lighting up a noble brow, betokened vast mental energy.^ His grand- father Craig's house in High Street, which Johnston had inherited and dwelt in, was a rendezvous, overlooking the historic Cross, where the Supplicants frequently met. As Clerk to The Tables, Johnston took a prominent part in all the movements of the Covenanters. He is credited with the suggestion that the King's Confession of 158 1 should be renewed as an antidote to the royal policy and chicanery, which were subversive of civil and religious liberties ; and this attempt to set Charles the task of nullifying his father's policy was a masterly stroke of diplomacy and the move of a dexterous advocate. Rothes, convener of the new coalition, summoned to the Capital the Rothes influential men who were willino- to swear fealty to the ' cause of God ' "^""y^"""' "= o ■' petitioners, and the Reformation principles embodied in the Protestation. The ^^^'^ Keiinuxry terms of the invitation indicate the honourable aims of The Tables, ' Cf. Morlion, Jo/tns/i>n of Warriston, Famous Scots Series; Omond, Lord Advoaitcs, i. 148-54; Paul, Johnston's Diary, Scot. Hist. Soc, i8f)6. For Wariston's letters, cf. Hailes, Memorials. - His portrait is in the possession of Sir James II. ("libson-Crain, Baronet, of Kiccarlon. 264 THE COVENANTERS The 163S Covenant in course of preparalion. Draft of a Covenant. and their desire that any movement, which the crisis necessitated, should be spontaneous and national. Rothes wrote : 'It is thought fit that all considerable persons should be at once here to receive true information of the business that so nearly concerneth all who love the truth, the welfare of their posterity and estate, how mean soever, and desire to enjoy the liberty of free subjects that they may give their opinion herein.'' At this time, 22nd February 1638, the Supplicants definitely centralised their authority in the Four Tables already mentioned, and requested Henderson and Johnston to prepare a Covenant suitable to the circumstances and agreeable to the masses and ' considerable persons ' who might subscribe it. The leaders, realising that they could not cope with the forces of England unless they had popular support, promulgated the Covenant as a final appeal from a disdainful, misgoverning King to the people — themselves the fountain of power. It was a happy suggestion, and had an unprecedented result. The Lord's Day, 25th February, set apart for public fasting and humilia- tion, was the most solemn of days ever seen in the Scottish Capital, within whose walls some sixty thousand excited strangers had gathered. Gloomy preachers traced the national troubles to the breach of the Covenant of 1581, and adjured their hearers to make amends to Heaven by renewing the bond on the momentous day which was fast approaching. After an all-night sitting, on Tuesday, 27th February, Johnston and Henderson had the final draft finished and revised by Rothes, Loudoun, and Balmerino. The Supplicants — barons, ministers, etc.— met also to revise it, and, as was to be expected, some, true to the Scots spirit — fond of objecting in case of anything being wrong; others, troubled with oaths of conformity and with recollections of John Cameron's teaching of absolutism in Glasgow, had objec- tions, emendations, splitting of hairs with battle-axes, before the document was passed for extension and for signature on the Row, HisL, 489 ; Rothes, Relation of the Affairs of the Kir!:, 1637-8, p. 60, et seq. ^V 'J vi U Kt - .'if / ■■/( ':,^^\-.-- 1 v / , r ■-.' ; n 1 f ■: 4 -^/^Ky >'tery of Edin- burgh : Peterkin, Records^ 94. THE NATIONAL COVENANT 269 Rothes, Cassillis, Eglinton, Montgomery, Wemyss, Home, Lindsay, Lothian, Dalhousie, Yester, Burley, Loudoun, Melville, Johnston, Carnegie, Forrester, Cranstoun, Boyd, Sinclair, Balmerino, Fleming, Cowpar, Elcho, Drumlanrig, Rowallan, ' Lyone,' Grierson of Lag, Fergusson of Craigdarroch — nobles, barons, and commissioners of shires. Alexander Henderson, George Gillespie, David Dickson, Andrew Ramsay, Henry Rollock — ministers ; A.Johnston (Wariston). ' M. Patrik Henrysone, publict lector,' the outed reader of St. Giles, and sixtyrepresentativesof burghs were among the first who signed the deed. The grand and arresting tradition — in the former edition of this work treated with doubt, and now to be reckoned as a modern myth — that the Covenant was carried out of Church to the populace in the Churchyard and there signed on a tombstone amid scenes of unparalleled religious fervour, has lately been proved to rest upon so unsatisfactory a basis, that the historian must discard it.* Johnston does not mention this additional picturesque episode, nor does any other contemporary writer. The tradition seems to have arisen from an interpretation of a passage in Bishop Guthry's Memoirs to this effect : ' And so upon the ist of March 1638, they being all assembled in the Gray Friars Church and Churchyard, the Covenant (having been prepared before hand) was publickly read, and subscribed by them all with much joy and shouting.'^ Still we have a picture unique in Scots history — veritably 'The Night Watch' for any painter — as we see manly cheeks glistering with tears, others stern yet radiant with joy ; anon a blood-stained hand rises, and shows ruddier in that umber light, for some signed with their blood, and one enthusiast also appended to his signature the words, ' till daith.' The boldest spirits even dared to break the holy silence with a wild slogan of defiance. A weirder, ghostlier scene can scarcely be imagined. The sleepless Johnston spent Wednesday night preparing four 'principal copyes in parchment,' ready for signature by the ministers ' Cf. D. H;i>' Fleming;, The Subxcrihitt,^ of the A'ulional Covenant in 1638, being Chapter viii. pp. 55-87, of V^. M. Bryce's History of the Old Greyfriari Church, Edinl>i(ri^h. Etlin. and Lond., 191 2 ; where the authorities are marshalled. - Memoirs, 30, Lond., 1702. subscribe. 270 THE COVENANTERS at nine next morning, and by the Commissioners of burghs at two in the afternoon/ ciergysign. An animated meeting was held on Thursday, ist March, in the Tailors' Hall in Cowgate, and on the grassy parterres beneath it, when the leaders of The Tables and subscribing nobles met with three hundred ministers and the representatives of burghs who signed the Covenant that day. A copy of the Covenant was carried over the city, and as it itinerated, like the sacred carpet of the Prophet, it was followed by rapturous crowds of excited assenters, shouting, groaning Masses and weeping, who urged unwilling parties to subscribe it. At length Johnston read it publicly to the people of Edinburgh in the College Kirk on Friday, and they subscribed it on Friday and Saturday.^ After that memorable week Johnston wrote, ' the work is so wonderful in my eies that I could scairce beleive my auin eyes, hot was lyk a man in a dream.' Subsequent opportunities were given to the citizens of Edinburgh to take the Covenant, which was done amid scenes of extraordinary rapture, especially on one occasion of which Johnston wrote : ' O Edr. (Edinburgh), O Edr., never forget this first day of Apryle, the gloriousest day that ever thou injoyed.' ^ The leading Covenanters, Rothes, Montrose, Eglinton, Cassillis, and other members of The Tables next busied themselves in attesting duplicate copies, which were taken away by ' the considerable persons themselves,' or dispatched into every shire, bailiary, stewartry, presbytery, parish, and judicatory for signature. Above sixty copies on parchment, excellently preserved, remain : some are signed on both sides : a fe w are clean skins having: the Co venant without the signatures.* The enthusiasm of the people everywhere was unprecedented. A con- temporary account states that it was subscribed ' in a very short time by almost the whole Kingdome.'^ The outed minister John Living- stone rode in disguise post haste to London with copies of the Covenant for assenters there. Copies of the Covenant and the Con- ' Johnston, Diary, 322, 323. ^ Ibid., 323. 2 Ibid., 331. * Cf. Appendix iiL » A Short Relation of the State of the Kirk of Scotland, etc., B., 1638. D ;^ J= ^1 u "e y) *^ 1= 11 <0 6 ^ •^ c if c S rt ii c; o (* U u 5 -' 1^ THE NATIONAL COVENANT 271 fession were issued from the printing press/ In less than three weeks the greater part of the kingdom had subscribed, so that Rothes was anxious to know ' if the whole Canongate have subscribed with their minister, Mr. Matthew Wemyss,' on the i8th March.-' The notable exceptions were the towns of Aberdeen, St. Andrews, Crail, and Inverness. Commenting upon the marvellous unanimity of the Kmhusiasm Covenanters at this time, Alexander Henderson, replying to the L-ovenanters. Aberdeen Doctors, declared ' that this was the day of the Lord's power, wherein we saw His people most willingly offer themselves in multitude like the dewdrops of the morning — this was indeed the great day of Israel, wherein the arm of the Lord was revealed — the day of Jehovah's strength, on which the princes of the people assembled to swear allegiance to the King of Kings.' Differently affected was the feeble Primate, Spottiswood, who was in Edinburgh in the strictest seclusion until he could seek safety across the Borders. He mournfully exclaimed, 'All which we have been attempting to build up during the last thirty years is now at once thrown down.'^ As in all popular insurrections, the result of this agitation was the Result of the venting of an intolerant and violent spirit in many quarters. The ''^"'^''""" odium which the favourers of the old regime, clerical and lay, incurred, may be estimated from a letter of David Mitchell, minister in Edin- burgh, afterwards Bishop of Aberdeen, to John Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe, on 19th March : ' The greater part of the kingdom have subscribed, and the rest are daily subscribing a Covenant. It is the oath of the King's hou.se, 1580, with strange additions, a mutual combination for resistance of all novations in religion, doctrine, and discipline, and rites of worship that have been brought in since that time : so as if the least of the subscribers be touched, and there be some of them not ten years of ' Row, Hist., 489 ; Aldis, List, Nos. 904, 905, 906. ^ Dalrymple, Memoria/a (ind Letters, 38 note (Glasjjow, 1766) : Rothes to Wariston. Wemyss did subscribe, ' preacbetl lor the Covenant on .Sunday, and dischar^jed the organ': Mitchell to Leslie, iliid., 38. ' Lee, Lectures, ii. 259. 27: THE COVENANTERS Inlolerance in Edinburgh. Covenant subscribed through fear. age, and some not worth two pence, that all shall concur for their defence, and for the expulsion of all Papists and adversaries (that is, all that will not subscribe) out of the Church and Kingdom, according to the laws whereof a hundred are cited in the Charta. This goes on apace. The true pastors are brought into Edinburgh to cry out against us wolves ; and they, with our brethren here, INIr. Andrew- Ramsay, Mr. Henry Rollock, and your whilome friend, the Principal (crying out they are neither good Christians nor good subjects that do not subscribe, nay, nor in covenant with God) have made us so odious that we dare not go in the streets. I have been dogged by some gentlemen and followed with many mumbled threatenings behind my back ; and then, when in stairs, swords drawn, and " if they had the Papist villain, oh ! " Yet I thank God I am living to serve God, and the King, and the Church, and your Lordship. Your Chief [Rothes] is chief in this business. There is nothing expected here but civil war. There is no meeting of Council ; the Chancellor may not with safety attend it, nor any bishop ; the very name is more odious among old and young than the devil's. . . . ' There are still here 500 commissioners of the states ; they relieve one another by course, as Castor and Pollux went to hell ; they sit daily and make new laws. ..." No wonder all the professors, save two regents, in the University of Edinburgh subscribed! These two were deposed.' Copies of the Covenant were carried into every corner of the land to be subscribed, and were looked upon as tests of faith in Christ. In Ayrshire travellers were refused food and lodging until they had given assurance of being Covenanters. The Presbytery of Kirkcaldy resolved, ist August 1639, that no 'wilful non-Covenanters should be admitted to the Sacrament.'"- Non-subscribers were called ' Dis- covenanters.' The universal adherence to the bond was not alto- gether the result of piety and patriotism. The disclaiming of compulsory methods by the promoters of the Covenant is not in ' Dahyniple, Memorials, 36, 37 ; Crawford, Hist, of Edin. University, 133. - Sxe\c\iiox\, Presl>yi>-ie Booke of Kirkcaldy, 151. THE NATIONAL COVENANT 273 accordance with reliable contemporary accusations and menaces, of which there is proof, although many of the more tolerant, with Rothes, may have ' held it to be irreligious to use wicked means to advance such a work.'' In April, I. de Maria — a pseudonym — wrote to a person unknown : ' You could not have chused but laugh to have seen pipers and candle-makers in our town committed to the town-jail by our zealous Mr. Mayor; and herdmen and hiremen laid in the stocks up and down the country, and all for refusing to put their hand to the pen, as a thousand have done, who cannot write indeed. . . .'" A letter of Johnston of Wariston to his kinsman. Lord Johnston, reveals the manner in which the pressure was put on the educated classes to produce conformity : 'If you take this oath [of allegiance to Charles], then you Menaces of the renounce the Covenant with God, you draw down His vengeance visibly upon you, your house and your name, good fame, yourself, and your posterity, with that stigmatizing blot and blunder of a traitor to your religion, the kirk, the liberty and freedom of this kingdom ; you will be infamous in all stories, and contemned both at home and abroad, whereof I am very confident you abhorre the very thought worse than death.' ^ In this letter, Johnston, while asserting that he was 'the weakest of the thousands of Israel,' and 'no braggadocio,' appears to have worked himself into a terrible heat wherein he makes bold to prophesy the fall of curses upon the opponents of the Covenant : ' . . . I make not question but the great God, the patron of this work, will trample them down and erect over their bellies the trophies of His victory. God has said it and He will perform it. Antichrist shall fall, and Christ rise.'^ Robert Burnet, father of Bishop Burnet, gave to Wariston, his a wnmiug to brother-in-law, this .sane and needful advice regarding the excom- ^^^"^'""■ munication of opponents : ' Be not too violent then, and do as you would be done to, for you know not how the world will turn yet. . . . ' Hamilton to Cassillis, 31CI Oct. 1638 : I'eterkin, A'fcwv/.v, 91. Cf. /? Peterkin, Records^ 82. - Additional I/Lstrnctions, 27th July : I'eterkin, Records, 76. ' Ibid., 80. ■■ Ibid., 79. 294 THE COVENANTERS Privy Council Were : Hamilton, Traquair, Roxburgh, Marischall, Mar, Murray, Covenant'^ ' Linlithgow, Perth, Wigtown, Kinghorn, Tullibardine, Haddington, Annandale, Lauderdale, Kinnoul, Dumfries, Southesk, Belhaven, Angus, Lome, Elphinston, Napier, Dalyell, Amont, J. Hay, S. Thomas Hope, S. W. Elphinston, Ja. Carmichael, F. Hamilton, Blackhall.^ They declared in the Proclamation of 24th September, that they did ' sweare and subscribe the Confession of Faith dated the second of March 1 580-1, according as it was then prof est within this Kingdome' and commanded all others to subscribe the Covenant with the same meaning, i.e. as if it countenanced Diocesan Episcopacy." Montrose, Cassillis, Rothes, Balmerino, Lothian, Loudoun, Lindsay, Burleigh, Yester, Cranstoun did not join these acceptors of the Declaration. On the 22nd September, at the Cross of Edinburgh, the herald made the Proclamation dated 9th September, discharging the offensive books, ceremonies, articles, and Court of High Commission, ordering all ranks to subscribe the King's Confession anew, indicting the Assembly and Parliament, enjoining a fast, and proclaiming a pardon.' The Protesta- As soon as the herald had done, Johnston of Wariston produced September ^^'^ r&'A.A ' The Protcstation of the Noblemen, Barons, Burrowes, 1638. Ministers, and Commons,' and Montrose, in name of the noblemen, Alexander Gibson, younger of Durie, in name of the barons, George Porterfield, merchant burgess of Glasgow, in name of the burghs, Mr. Harie Rollock, minister at Edinburgh, in name of the ministers, and Johnston himself, in name of subscribers to the 1638 Covenant, took instruments in the hands of notaries present. This Protestation is a prolix document, formulating the reasons why the protesters could not accept the King's explanations of the situation and his intentions ; could not substitute the old Covenant for the new, which had deter- mined what the protesters had referred to trial in an Assembly — namely, the questions of the abjuration of Episcopacy in the 1 580-1 Covenant, and the offensive innovations ; could not countenance what they had already condemned by their oath, prelacy and innovations ; ' /?c'?. Privy Counc, vii. 64-74 : Peterkin, Records, 84. -Ibid., 90. ^ Ibid., 81. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 295 could not agree to a limited Assembly ; and could not tolerate the prelates in the Assembly.' Johnston of Wariston was probably carried away with enthusiasm when he concluded that the King's latest move was simply an invoca- tion of the Divine wrath. For, even on the showing of the Cove- nanters themselves, the King's Confession might have been signed as a work of supererogation by the strictest of them, if it had already abjured Episcopacy. In August, Hamilton, Traquair, Roxburgh, and Southesk warned Advice of the King that there was no hope of composing the Scots until the °^^^^^- innovations were abolished, and ' the illimited power which the Lords of the Clergy of this kingdom have of late assumed to themselves.'" Thus the friends of Charles and Episcopacy themselves despised the prelates for their arrogance, and constrained their Sovereign to plan the gendest fall for the tottering hierarchy. Yet if bishops and ' novelties ' had perforce to disappear and their destroyers go un- punished, the unconquered King would throw among the malcontents some apples of discord as a foretaste of his vengeance. Hamilton was instructed to disseminate poison by infusing into the ministers a sense of the injury they suffered from overbearing elders, and ' into the lay-lords and gentlemen, with art and industry, how manifestly they will suffer, if they let the Presbyters get head upon them.'^ This Mephistophelian scheme indicates that King Charles the Martyr anticipated the opinion of King Charles the Rake, that Presbyter- ianism was no religion for a gentleman. What made the deceit worse was, that the Proclamation of 9th September announced that the King was ' to forgive all bygones to all such as shall acquiesce in this our gracious pleasure and carry themselves peacefully.' Opposition sprung up in a quarter where it was little expected. Adam Bannatyne, Bishop of Aberdeen, and the famous Doctors there, saw no need for the pledge, and the latter would only sign the ' Peterkin, Records, 84-90. * /iief., 79 ; T/te Protestation of the Noblemen, etc. (1638) ; The Protestation 0/ the General Assembly, 18th Dec. 1638 (1639) : cf. Aldis, List, 923, 925, 952. •' Peterkin, Hecortls, 80. 296 THE COVENANTERS The Aberdeen Doctors qualify the new bond. Charles deals with the hierarchy. The Tables in a difficulty. Covenant on 5th October, with their explanations, seven in number, indicating how far it bound them. They stated that they abhorred all unscriptural errors ; would not condemn apostolical Episcopacy ; would not condemn the Perth Articles or orderly ceremonies found to be expedient ; repudiated as perpetually binding all laws which God Himself had not made ; accepted Presbyterial Government, not as immutable, but as independent of the Pope or of any other foreign power ; declared that the Church had power to amend the Confession ; and, lastly, objected to lay any further bond upon posterity except in so far as posterity found it to be according to the Word of God. The substance of these explanations was, that the Church, in representative government assembled, and not any individual, had the right to promulgate dogmas and rites harmonious with Scriptural injunction. That was exactly the position of Sir Thomas Hope, the Lord Advo- cate. These explanations quietly annihilated the Royal assumption of the Headship of the Church and Dictatorship in Scotland, and they might have formed a manifesto itself, issued from the moderate side of The Tables.^ The next difficulty of the King was, how he might relegate the useless, senile Archbishop and Chancellor Spottiswood to retirement without a public affront. Charles gave Spottiswood the alternative of resigning the Chancellorship, after receiving a solatium of ;^2 500, or of returning to Scotland to face his inimical countrymen. Spottiswood wisely made the former choice. But Charles, no coward himself, could not brook, and would no longer fight for, runaway shepherds, no better than hirelings ; and he brusquely commanded the terrified bishops to return to their dioceses, to support his Commissioner, and, if need be, stand their trial in the approaching Assembly. The Tables were confronted with a greater difficulty when they considered the abolition of the hierarchy. Many of the clergy could remember how, after the presbyters had disowned the Episcopate, King James had supported titular prelates and ultimately succeeded in re-establishing their order. At this time, 1638, the Church of ' Burnet, Memoires, 86 ; Peterkin, Records, 92. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 297 Scotland had no constituted judicature existing in prorogued session. The General Assembly had not met for twenty years and was, to all intents and purposes, defunct. Officials to receive complaints were non-existent, the genuine Presbyterians refusing to acknowledge a constant-moderator appointed by the Crown, and the Royal Com- missioner and Court of Session being debarred from adjudicating on spiritual cases. The difficulty was overcome by presenting to the Complaint Presbytery of Edinburgh a Complaint against all the bishops, who ^?^'"^'g' ^ were charged with usurping ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and against Bishop Lindsay, accused of scandalous conduct, as well. This was subscribed by John, Earl of Sutherland, eleven peers, thirty-three barons, five ministers, and six burgesses ; and it is noteworthy that none of them were commissioners elected for the ensuing Assembly.^ This arrangement left the Assembly with perfect freedom as judges of the cause. The Presbytery referred the Complaint simpliciter to the Assembly, and meantime passed an edict, on 24th October, which was authorised to be read in every pulpit, citing the accused to the bar of the Assembly in Glasgow, on 21st November. Were it not for the fact that Hamilton the Commissioner, the Privy Council, and the leaders of the Church, all agreed in the opinion that the spiritual lords were not what they ought to have been, this indictment might well be considered the slander of a fanatical sect. The con- ception of Charles and of the actual compiler of his Large Declaration, that the Complaint was a mean libel to create the irreconcilable aver- sion of the masses, does not coincide with the testimony of other contemporaries more likely to know the truth. The Assembly was regularly summoned. If the Covenanters captured the seats they did so through the acquiescence of the clergy. Hamilton, surprised at the reception and escort he got at Leith, was more astonished at the preparations made for his appearance in Glasgow. No doubt Charles expected the same happy issue from this as from the famous Angelical Assembly there in 16 10. Glasgow ' Peterkin, Recnnis, 94-9 : Atlioll, Dalbousie, Stormonth, Montj^omcrie, Ekho, Forrester, Forbes, iJoyd, Halcarres, Melville, Master of Berridale. 2 P 298 THE COVENANTERS PreparaUons was at this time a miserable little town, only of note owing to its ■^Qi^^y,^ magnificent Cathedral and reputable College, for as yet there was not even the remotest prospect of the rich argosies upon its noble river. The far-seeing Tables took early care to secure the hostelries and other lodgings for their own assembling hosts. They arranged that the northern Covenanters should assemble in Edinburgh, and march in a body to meet their southern compatriots in Glasgow. It was to be a muster in arms, a regular crusade. Every elected commissioner was to take four or more attendants with him — ostensibly for advice ; every burgh was to send two, four, or six good men to support its commissioner ; and congregations were asked to pay the expenses of any poor ministers in attendance. In answer to this appeal there appeared one hundred and forty ministers, two professors, ninety-eight ruling-elders, of whom seventeen were noblemen, nine were knights, twenty-five were proprietors of land, and forty-seven were burgesses of influence, together with their armed bodyguards. The contempt of King Charles for this representative and highly educated assembly can be traced to the ill-informed and prejudiced report of Hamilton himself, which deceived the King into believing that the ' crue assembled ' was. a mob of boors, many unable to read and write, and 'the most part totallie voyd of learning,' yet 'resolved to follow the opinion of thes feu ministers who pretend to be learned and thoes be the most rigid and seditious puritanes that liveth. What then can be expected but a totall disobedience to authoritie if not a present rebellion ? ' ' Burnet echoed that opinion in his Memoires, and helped to perpetuate this false estimate of the Covenanters, which has so long prejudiced students of this epoch. His mistake was all the more gross, that he could easily have got evidence to disprove his state- ment, that ' some commissioners there were who could neither read nor write, and yet these were to judge of heresie and condemn Arminius his points.'- Professor Masson arrived at a juster estimate when he described these ' first properly historical Covenanters ' as 1 Hamilton to Charles, 22nd Nov. 1638 : Hamilton Papers^ 1880, p. 59 ; Hist. MSS. Com. (Hamilton MSS.), xi. vi. 99. - Burnet, Mcmuires, 98. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 299 ' simply the whole flower and strength of the Scottish nation from the highest peerage to the lowest peasantry.'' The names, ranks, official -positions, and signatures of those who Character had subscribed the Covenant disprove unwarrantable assertions like semaUvX^" Hamilton's, which unfortunately misled the King. A scrutiny of the roll reveals the important fact that a more cultured convention of aristocracy, clergy, and capable laymen had never met in Scotland to deliberate upon ecclesiastical affairs." There was no uneducated delegate among the number. The Privy Council by command ap- peared in full muster. Three bishops- — ^Ross, Brechin, and Glasgow — secretly watched the gathering from the Bishop's Palace, near the Cathedral, and waited for their Primus who was never to return. The streets were thronged with armed men despite the orders of Government. The Choir (or High Church) in the Cathedral had been comfortably furnished with tiers of seats by the City magistrates. That winter morning, Wednesday, 21st November 1638, saw an Assembly in immense multitude crushed together in that sombre, cold Cathedral of ^^^^^^^^^°'^ Saint Mungo Kentigern, even then old and hoary. The churchyard, 21st Novem- . ber 1638. nave, chancel, and crypts surged with restless devotees, clamounng and struggling with each other for seats, stances, and ' coigns of vantage,' and not to be restrained by the City halberdiers. The clerestory buzzed with the whispers of excited ladies, while the nave and crypts resounded with the clangour of men armed with guns and pistolets, for Hamilton reported that they came all ' boddin in feare of war.' The gossiping, finical commissioner from Irvine, Mr. Robert Baillie, ' warm-hearted, canny, blundering, babbling Baillie,' as Carlyle described him, was there, and lost his temper in elbowing his rightful way through the enthusiasts, who were displaying their weapons and ' Lifi of Milton, i. 728. * The rank and position of the no elective representative elders whose commissions were sustained may be seen from the following list of the more influential members : The Earls of Home, Lothian, Cassillis, Eglintoiin, Rothes, Montrose, Wemyss ; the Lords Cranstoun, Hay of Yester, lialmcrino, Johnstoun, Loudoun, Sinclair, Lindsay, Cowpar ; Knights, Ker of Cavers, Humeof Wcdderburn, Hepburn of Waughton, Murray of Touchadam, William Baillie, Gilbert Ramsay, John Mackenzie, Stirling of Keir ; Principal John Adamson, etc. ; twelve provosts and ex-provosts of the principal towns, besides bailies, town-clerks, and lairds. There seems to have been no person of humble rank in the Convention. 300 THE COVENANTERS using the short language of troopers. His experiences furnished him ground for this comment : ' We might learn from Canterbury, yea from the Pope, from the Turks or Pagans, modesty and manners,' but not from those rascals, whom he, over-dainty for such a day, would have flung out of his manse at Kilwinning.' As anxious murmurs and pious cries throbbed among the moving shadows cast by pillar and mullion, the auditory was anticipating the idea of Pennant, the traveller, that this wonderful monument of religion and art was a place wherein men should only sing ' De Profundis clamavi.' This feeling must have been intensified when the smoky candles from their sconces threw out their tawny rays of light into these consecrated depths of darkness. The audience. A chair of State was placed for the Lord High Commissioner, Hamilton, and round it were seated the Privy Council in large numbers, Traquair, Roxburgh, Argyll, Angus, Glencairn, and others. Opposite the throne sat the Moderator and Clerk of Assembly at a table. Between the Commissioner and Moderator sat the represen- tatives of presbyteries, who were of noble rank — the Earl of Home Elders among (Elder from Chimside presbytery), Cranstoun (Earlston), Yester (Haddington), Lothian (Dalkeith), Balmerino (Edinburgh), Johnston (Middlebie), Cassillis (Ayr), Loudoun (Irvine), Eglintoun (Glasgow), Sinclair (St. Andrews), Lindsay (Cupar), Rothes (Kirkcaldy), Burleigh (Dunfermline), Montrose (Auchterarder), Wemyss (Perth), Cowpar (Meigle), and others. Many knights, proprietors of lands, provosts, town-clerks, and burgesses — by no means an illiterate faction — with the clergy, occupied the tiers of benches. Places were reserved for the younger sons of the titled members ; and ladies, too, watched the proceedings. Robes of sacred office were wanting ; fire-arms and steel blades were in abundance. Never in Scotland had such a representative gathering met in warlike gear to settle the simple question — Who is Head of the Scottish Church ? Three kingdoms were waiting for the answer.- ' Baillie, LetUrs, i. 123. Baillie in a History of Gen. Assembly at Glasgow, etc., gives a graphic account of meeting : ibid., i. 118-76. ^ The complete record of this Assembly will be found in Peterkin, Records, 99-193 ; cf. Baillie, Letters, i. 1 18-76 ; Reg. Privy Cotinc, vii. 91-102. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 301 The forenoon was occupied with worship and a sermon, topical and up to date, upon the 'Seven Golden Candlesticks,' which the venerable minister of the Inner High Church, 'old Mr. John Bell' delivered, without being heard, so that he failed to illuminate the audience. In the afternoon. Bell, as interim Moderator, in a fervent prayer, melting many to tears, acknowledged Christ to be the sole Head of the Church, and constituted the Assembly. The Commis- sioner handed his commission to Sandilands, the interim Clerk, whose father acted as clerk in the Aberdeen Assembly in 16 18. Other commissions were produced. The first skirmish arose in Preliminary connection with the appointment of the Moderator, which the Com- missioner did not wish to be made until after the commissions of the members had been examined and passed. Hamilton's proposal was rejected, and he entered his protest that the nomination should not prejudice the spiritual lords in any of their privileges. The Com- missioner next expressed his desire that a Declinature of the Assembly, carefully prepared by the bishops in their own interests, and afterwards revised and approved of by the King himself, should be read at this stage. This proposal was also unacceptable, and the reading of the document was postponed. The Commissioner thereupon claimed votes for his six Assessors — Traquair, Roxburgh, Argyll, Lauderdale, Carnegie, and Stewart, and the claim was disallowed. The next business was the appointment of a Moderator, and Alexander Henderson, minister of Leuchars, was chosen. Thereafter the Assembly adjourned. At the meeting next day, similar wranglings arose over the ap- Second day of pointment of the Clerk. For too obvious reasons, Hamilton wished his own Royalist nominee, Sandilands, appointed, but the Assembly pre- ferred Johnston of Wariston, and the latter, to their great delight, laid on the table the minutes of previous Assemblies, which had been lost. Another heated discussion, in which Hamilton and Traquair, on the Crown side, were answered by Rothes and Loudoun, arose out of the application of the bishops to be heard in support of their Declinature, before the commissions of members were passed. Argyll— converted. 302 THE COVENANTERS it is said, by Henderson the very night before the Assembly — young and hasty, interposed with some irrelevant opinion and was warmly rebuked by the Moderator for his inopportune interference and ad- vice. Argyll was not an elected Commissioner. The business of the Declinature was again held over. The protestations of the Commis- sioners became chronic, but unavailing. At length, on 27th November, the Declinature was formally pre- sented by Dr. Robert Hamilton, minister of Glassford, procurator for the absent bishops. Strange to say, it was signed by a minority of the bishops only, namely, the two Archbishops and the Bishops of Edinburgh, Galloway, Ross, and Brechin. The preamble of the Terms of the Declinature bore that, while a General Assembly was necessary for the bishops, the government of the Church, this Convention at Glasgow was a seditious gathering for many reasons. Epitomised these were : the representatives were elected before the Assembly was legally called ; the clerical members had not subscribed the Confession and taken the oath of fidelity before their ordinaries ; they had not subscribed the Negative Confession ( 1 581) ; they had opposed the Episcopal office established by law ; they held commissions from illegally constituted Presbyteries, which had discharged the 'constant-moderators'; they were associated with lay ruling-elders, who overruled free elections ; the representatives elect were partisans, rebels, and schismatics ; they admitted lay-elders to legislative functions in the Assembly ; they had already prejudged the business of the Assembly ; they had an animus against the bishops ; they debarred the bishops, unless they had been elected by Presbyteries, from the Assembly ; they disowned the right of the Primus to be moderator of the General Assembly. For these and other reasons the bishops would not compear for trial in a court which they thus held to be incompetent. This Declinature was a libel, as impolitic as it was impolite, and was essentially a manifesto from the Crown, since its terms had been revised by the King himself.^ The Assembly ordered answers to be framed. One set was composed by Wariston, and David Calderwood, ' Burnet, Memoires, 91. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 303 minister of Pencaitland, whom contemporaries delighted to call ' that learned and laborious servant ot Christ,' and another by Andrew Ramsay, minister in Edinburgh. Over these answers another acri- Answers to the monious debate took place, in which the Commissioner's English chaplain took part. The Moderator ended the discussion by calling upon the Assembly to declare whether it considered itself competent to deal with the whole subject of Bishops, the indictment, and their Declinature before the House. The Commissioner demanded a post- ponement, or otherwise, he said, he would depart. The Assembly was in no mood for delay. The Commissioner showed his temper, drew from his pocket informations giving a discreditable account of the manner in which The Tables had packed the Assembly, and then proceeded to announce that he would not preside over an Assembly The Commis- wherein lay -elders, and these so improperly elected, had spiritual ^'""^j"^^^ ^1^^ authority. He could do no other than depart. The eloquence of Assembly. Rothes and Loudoun fell on Hamilton's deaf ears. The Commissioner now requested the Moderator to close the meeting with prayer, and was informed that no such instruction was valid. Thereupon, before leaving the meeting, Hamilton said : ' I make a declaration that nothing done here in this Assembly shall be of any force to bind any of His Majesty's subjects; and I, in His Majesty's name, discharge this Court to sit any longer.' Followed by the Privy Council, Argyll alone remaining, and by some members of the House, Hamilton made for the door, which was found to be locked, no doubt designedly.' As aisles and roof resounded with the unholy noise of the Commis- sioner's retinue, of swords and spurs clanking on the paved floor, and also of the breaking open of the door, Wariston, by request of Rothes, was calmly reading a Protestation, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Head and Monarch of His own Church, against the Commissioner's too hasty retiral. After words of encouragement had been delivered by the Modera- tor, David Dickson, Harry Rollock, and Andrew Cant, Lord Erskine, son of the Earl of Mar, rose from his seat, and with tears in his eyes ' Burnet, Memoir es, io6. 304 THE COVENANTERS Proclamation dissolving Assembly. The Commis- sioner's report of proceedings. besought them to admit him as a Covenanter. The Assembly then quietly proceeded with its business, and almost unanimously declared itself to be the Court competent to try the case of the pretended bishops, their Declinature and Protestation, notwithstanding the step which the Commissioner had taken. Next day, 29th November, the Commissioner caused a Proclamation to be made at the Market Cross of Glasgow dissolving the Assembly ; and, this time accompanied by Lord Erskine, Wariston made the formal Protestation in reply.' Nevertheless, the Assembly continued sitting, and was assisted in its deliberations by Argyll, who, in a very ambiguous manner, threw in his lot with the new party, although shortly before he had signed the King's Covenant of compromise. The character of this remarkable nobleman, who maintained the policy of his family by taking the side of the most powerful, was thoroughly gauged by Hamilton in a report he sent to the King at this time, in which he wrote : ' Argyll is the only man now called up as a true patriot, a loyal subject, a faithful counsellor, and, above all, rightly set for the preservation of religion. And, truly sir, he takes it upon him. He must be well looked to, for it fears me, he will prove the dangerousest man in this state. He is so far from favouring Episcopal government that with all his soul he wishes it abolished.'^ In the same report, Hamilton sends his ap- preciation of the bishops and political men of the hour. In his confi- dent opinion, the bishops had brought about the muddle by their illegalities, pride, folly, incapacity, and despicable lives. ' It will be found,' he honestly wrote, 'that some of them have not been of the best lives, as St. Andrews, Brechin, Argyle, Aberdeen ; too many of them inclined to simony ; yet, for my Lord of Ross [Maxwell], the most hated of all, and generally by all, there are few faults laid to his charge more than ambition.'^ In another letter, he regretted the absence of Bishop Maxwell, ' for ther is none of the clergie heere thatt ' This was followed by a Royal Proclamation, of date 8th December 1638, prohibiting all the subjects from acknowledging the unlawful Glasgow Assembly, and from signing any bond emanating from it : Peterkin, Records, 124 ; Keg. Privy Coufic, vii. 95-102. - Hamilton to King, November 27, 1638 : Peterkin, Records, 113. = Ibid. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 305 can say aine thing in defence of themselfes.'' Hamilton was satisfied with the loyalty of Traquair, Huntly, Perth, Tullibardine, Lauderdale, Southesk, Kinnoul, Findlater, Linlithgow, Dalyell, Sir John Hamil- ton, and Sir John Hay. He was suspicious of Roxburgh, Wigtown, Haddington, Kinghorn, and Sir Thomas Nicolson. He referred to Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudoun, Yester, and Cranstoun as the prime movers in the rebellion ; to Lord Advocate Hope as one ' ill-disposed ' ; and to Montrose as ' none more vainly foolish.' Hamil- ton further concluded that these Covenanters had ulterior evil aims and that their religion was a cloak to rebellion against monarchy. He advised the King to suppress the agitation at once by paralysing Scottish trade by sea, especially in the strong burghs on the coast, thus rendering the people poor and miserable. He suggested that the embodiment of the Gordon Highlanders under Huntly, and of the Lowlanders under Traquair or Roxburgh, might bring the agitators to their senses. Hamilton's delineations of character were much more valuable than his counsel. The same courier who carried the Report brought a letter from Hamilton to Laud, in which he gave an account of his experiences in Glasgow, and stated that he feared he was spending his last night on earth. Laud, who said that if he could but right the wrong he would gladly sing his Nunc Dimittis, replied in these words : ' I will be bold to say, never were more gross absurdities, nor half so many in so short a time, committed in any public meeting ; and for a National Assembly, never did the Church of Christ see the like.'" Hamilton did not particularise the clergy ; his chaplain, Balcanqual, did. Re- Baicanquai's ferring to Balcanqual, Laud wrote to Hamilton : ' I find in the Dean's '^^P""- letter, that Mr. Alexander Henderson, who went all this while for a calm, and quiet, and calm-spirited man, hath shewed himself a most violent and passionate man, and a Moderator without moderation. Truly, my Lord, never did 1 see any man in that humour yet, but he was deep-dyed in some violence or other, and it would have been a ' Hamilton Papers, 55, November 5, [638 ; Rci;. Privy Counc, vii. 91-4. * Burnet, Memoires, io8 : Laud to Hamilton, 3rd December 1638. 2 Q Assembly passes seventy-two Acts. Episcopacy abolished. 306 THE COVENANTERS wonder to me if Henderson had held free.' It is evident that Dean Balcanqual had sent to Laud an unfavourable account of the clerical Covenanters, and on receipt of the news Laud went to the King to give him advice, so that Hamilton might not be ' kept in the dark for anything.' The Assembly, now liberated from the overshadowing influence of the Lord High Commissioner, and indeed feeling relieved from the incubus of autocratic authority, with that resilience of spirit native to the Scottish race, set itself to the practical work of legislation, and, during its many sederunts, from 29th November till 20th December, passed no fewer than seventy-two Acts. One Act annulled the six last Assemblies — Linlithgow 1606, 1608, Glasgow 1610, Aberdeen 1616, St. Andrews 161 7, Perth 161 8 — on various grounds invalidating their authority and the legality of their decrees. The principal reasons were the presence of members not elected constitutionally by presby- teries, the absence of lay-elders, and Crown interference. The oaths exacted by bishops from ministers were annulled. Several ministers were deposed for ecclesiastical and criminal offences. Acts were passed condemning the Perth Articles, the Prayer Book, the Book of Canons, the High Commission, Episcopacy, the profanation of the Sabbath, the contemners of the Covenant, and other matters out of harmony with the Covenanting policy. The Act (22) 'declaring Episcopacy to have been abjured by the Confession of Faith, 1 580-1, and to be removed out of this Kirk,' was passed on the 8th December, with one dis- sentient voice. It was that of Robert Baillie of Kilwinning, still finical, not recovered from his ruffling, and incapable of comprehending wherein the Negative Confession of 1581 abjured Episcopacy and the Perth Articles.' The chief interest of the Assembly centred in the processes accusing all the bishops of various derelictions of duty, breaches of law, transgressions, and horrible vices. With great foresight the Moderator, Henderson, gravely charged the Committee who were ' Peterkin, Records, 46, 168, 170, 269. This resolution was affirmed in the Edinburgh Assembly, 30th August 1639 : ibid., 269. ^ r' /y^.yvvV^x//r^/ / ^ ' /^^'r7A \ Bk ^/'^S^y^/^y^^-' -^//fy '-). '^%^ y4^>r/t^X4^y^y^i^yy?/?y^,^^)/^//^y^yy^^//^^ (V7^?Wy^Vj^/C THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 307 appointed to frame the indictments to see that they proceeded ' accurately and orderlie, and that it may be upon some sure grounds, Process for our proceedings will be strichted [tested] to the uttermost.' This ^P'"^""^^ judicial charge itself indicates the care with which the Covenanters proceeded to their solemn trial of the hierarchy. Members gave evidence as to their knowledge of the misdemeanours committed by the accused. No rebutting evidence was forthcoming. The panels were absent. The verdict went by default. All the bishops were found guilty of breach of The Cautions — agreements made ' in the Assembly holden at Montrose in 1600, for the restricting of the minister voter from encroaching upon the liberties and jurisdiction of this Kirk,' under pain of deposition and excommunication. The vices of the personal misdemeanours libelled, and held to be proved, were : the '^ °^^' Primate was a Sabbath-breaker, a tippler in taverns late at night, a falsifier of edicts of Assembly, a contemner of Assemblies and of the Covenant, an adulterer, and a Simoniac ; Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, taught Arminianism, used the crucifix, insisted on the kneeling posture at Communion, was a persecutor of Presbyterians, and a Sabbath- breaker ; Whitford, Bishop of Brechin, was infamous, an adulterer, a drunkard, a user of the crucifix, and a preacher of Arminianism and Popery ; Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, was a promoter of the innovations, affected Popish rites, domineered over presbyteries, and winked at heresy ; Bannatyne, Bishop of Aberdeen, was a Simoniac, liturgist, shielder of Papists, and an apostate ; Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, bowed to the altar (as did Whitford), wore Episcopal vestments, used the liturgy, deposed godly ministers, played cards on Sabbath and on a Communion day, was fraudulent, and fomented the troubles in the Church. More or less scandalous offences were alleged against the other bishops : Wedderburn, Bishop of Dunblane, was an Arminian and innovator ; Graham, Bishop of Orkney, played at curling on Sabbath ; Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, a staunch liturgist, was 'so mad upon dancing that, at his daughter's marriage, he danced in his shirt ' ; Lindsay, Archbishop of Glasgow, was an oppressor of his clergy and vassals ; Fairlie, Bishop of Argyle, was of Canterburian tendencies ; 3o8 THE COVENANTERS Montrose's opinion of the bishops. all they could allege against Neil Campbell, Bishop of The Isles, was, that he ignored The Caveats — The Cautions. Loudoun declared that ^ The Tables would stake ' estates, lyves, and honour ' that their allegations against the prelates were true.^ The bitterest invective ever uttered against these prelates was that of the Marquis of Montrose, who declared them to be the cause of the irreparable evils in the nation, since at their instance, ' the very quintessence of Popery was publicly preached by Arminians, and the life of the Gospel stolen away by enforcing on the Kirk a dead Service-book, the brood of the bowels of the Whore of Babel.'" On 6th April 1638, James Cleye, schoolmaster of Dundee, wrote Pasquilhis contra Episcopos, 1638, a bitter satire, beginning: ' Atheus Andreas est, stultus Glasgua, Brechin.' An old translation runs : ' St. Andreus is an Atheist, and Glasgow is ana Gowke : A vencher Brechin : Edinburgh, of avarice a pocke. To popery prone is Galloway, Dunkeld is rich in thesaure, A courtier Rosse, but glutton lyke Argyle eats out of measure, Dround Aberdein in povertie : vagge Murray's subtile vitt, Dumblaine the cripple loues the coupe ; Jylles for all subject fitt. Skilled Orknay is in archerie, as Caithness is in droges. O quhat a shame Christ's flocke to trust to such vnfaithful doges.' ^ William Drummond of Hawthornden wrote a bitter satire on the bishops, Lynes on the Bishopes, i\th Apryll, 1638, in which he declares that if he were king he would make their hides into leather for coaches and boots. t ' Or let me be as King, then of their skine I 'le causse dresse lether and fyne Marokin. To cover coatches (quher they wont to ryde), And valke in bootes and shoes made of their hyde.' He also designates them ' tobacco- breathed devyns.'^ Sydserf he dubbed ' that Roman snaikie viper.' ' Gordon, Hist, of Scots Affairs, 30, Spald. Club. edit. " Napier, Memoirs, App. xlv. ; ibid., i. 215 ; ii. 787. ' Poems, 404 (Malt. Club) ; Pasquils, 67-9. ■* Vi.2}iA\Xie.Xi\., Pasquils, 15-24. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 309 The doom of deposition and excommunication was passed upon the Bishops of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ross, Galloway, Brechin, Dunblane, and Aberdeen. Excommunication in the case of the rest was made conditional — if they accepted the verdict and showed penitence, they were to suffer deposition only. Not a voice was raised in mitigation of these sentences. If the hierarchy were inno- cent, was there not an honest man in that assembly to protest against this ill-treatment .'' With commendable charity, in our day, Mr. Grub endeavours to discredit the scandalous accusations against the bishops on this ground: 'The circumstance, that the formal sentences of Mr. Grub's deposition against the prelates contain no enumeration of personal the"v°"(j°;t crimes, is a strong presumption in favour of their innocence. Could such have been proved by reasonable evidence, it is not likely that the Assembly would have rested the deposition and excommunication on ecclesiastical offences alone.' ' But Mr. Grub overlooked the fact, referred to in the sentence, that they were deposed ' for their refusall to underly the tryal of the reigning slander of sundrie other grosse transgressions and crymes laid to their charge.' The proof was ready.^ Nor did Mr. Grub give sufficient weight to the terms of the Moderator's address when he published the verdict. The Assembly was convinced of the truth of the allegations. If on the one hand the libel seems incredible, on the other, it is scarcely fair to the memory of men who prided themselves in being conscientious, even to being finical regarding every jot and tittle of the law, to blame them for fanatical uncharitableness in condemning, for crimes never perpetrated, the accused, who were not heard in their own defence. The narrative of the share of the proceedings in which the Moderator took part proves, at least, that a judge so fair-minded and honourable as Henderson was morally certain of the existence of the scandals which he condemned. And the Commissioner acknowledged the existence of the offences libelled.^ The grim Cathedral, pitilessly cold on that thirteenth day of ' Grub, Eccles. Hist, of Scotland., iii. 48. ''^ Qi. postea, pp. 310, 311, Henderson's closing address. ^ Cf. atitea, p. 304. 3IO THE COVENANTERS The Bishops' Doom. December, was a fitting place wherein to publish ' The Bishops' Doom,' so unrelentingly final. The church was crowded. The accused were called to the bar, and did not compear. That morning the reader in church, thinking to improve the occasion by a suitable reading, selected a passage in St. John's Gospel, where it reads : ' These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be oftended. They shall put you out of the synagogues ; yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.' But to prevent the taunt, or the incitement to intolerance, the minister made the reader choose another theme. The Moderator took for the subject of his discourse Psalm ex. : ' The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool,' and in a powerful evangelical sermon expounded the true calling of a Christian and the exact dominion of the Saviour in the soul and in the world. Then came the solemn peroration beginning : ' Till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.' With scathing scorn he referred to the accused as the friends of Antichrist, the sons of Jerubbaal, who in the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, became ' unprofitable and rotten members, whom we are this day to cut off.' Holding in his hand 'an abstract of the proof against the bishops,' Henderson solemnly said : ' I will cause read a paper unto you, at the hearing whereof I think your heart shall quake, your hair shall stand, and your flesh creep, when ye hear tell that Christians, let be Church- men, who reckon themselves the chiefest and most eminent men in the Church, and call themselves the pastor of pastors, should have fallen out in such foul acts as these are.'^ He next ran over a Catalogue of Catalogue of their iniquities— treachery to the Church, wasting of benefices, tyranny, simony, bringing in innovations, extravagance, drinking, filthy dancing, swearing, gambling, adultery, and ' many other gross transgressions and slanders, at length expressed, and clearlie proven in their process,' and thereupon declared them worthy of ' this terrible sentence, the like whereof has not been heard in a land, because we never heard of such matters in our kirk.' Although ' Peterkin, Records, 178. their sins. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 311 Henderson had only one night wherein to compose this wonderful sermon, he clearly indicates that his words were not the hasty utter- ances of an incompetent man treading on uncertain ground, but of a logical, cultured, conscientious judge, impressed with the responsi- bility of his holy office. His awful solemnity, in calling down the Divine approbation on his address and on the sentence, struck terror into the audience. He uttered the dread words, ' We, the people of The sentence. God, and I, as their mouth in the name of the Eternal God and of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, ... do excommunicate the said eight persons from the participation of the Sacraments, from the Communion of the visible Church, and from the prayers of the Church ; and so long as they continue obdurate, discharges you all, as ye would not be partakers of their vengeance, from keeping any religious fellowship with them, and thus give them over into the hands of the devil, assuring you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that except their repentence be evident, the fearful wrath and vengeance of the God of Heaven shall overtake them even in this life, and after this world, everlasting vengeance.' ' To modify this terrible doom, Henderson said, that the visible Church only demanded the destruc- tion of the flesh for the saving of the soul. The other bishops were simply deposed. However, that succeeding generations might under- stand that this fearful judgment was not the result of passion or prejudice, the Moderator concluded, 'You may perceive how circum- jnstificat on spectly this Assembly have gone in giving judgment against these "^j^jg^j^j.^ men. Neither have they judged according to rumours or reports, nor yet by their own private knowledge, but have proceeded accord- ing to things that have been clearly proved, which makes us rather be persuaded of God's approbation of our sentence.' Whatever we may now think of this remarkable trial and its result, those acting as judges in it asserted that their action was controlled by the con- scientious desire to please their God, and their verdict was according to incriminating evidence. After disposing of the prelates and several prelatical sympathisers ' Petcrkin, Records, 180, 312 THE COVENANTERS in the ministry, the Assembly proceeded to purge the Church of scandalous and immoral ministers.^ It was further occupied passing Sundry Acts. Constructive Acts re-establishing the Presbyterian system, and abolish- ing all traces of Episcopacy, ordaining the 1 580-1 Covenant to be discharged and that of 1638 to be subscribed by all, limiting the liberty of the press, translating ministers, and appointing a public Thanksgiving for the success of the Assembly.' Act 8 annulled, with reasons given, the last six Assemblies, 1606, 1608, 1610, 1 616, 1617, 1618 ; Act 9 annulled the oath exacted from ministers by bishops ; Act 17 declared the abjuring and removing of the Perth Articles ; Acts i8, 19, 20, 21 respectively condemned the Service Book, Book of Canons, Book of Ordination and High Commission ; Act 22 cleared the meaning of the King's Confession, and abjured and removed Episcopacy ; Acts 23 and 24 deposed the bishops ; Act 25 restored the Church Courts to their powers, etc. ; Act 29 directed the erection of parochial schools ; Act 41 was directed against opponents of the Covenant ; Act 69 enjoined all ruling elders to accept the Covenant and Kirk Constitutions ; Act 45 condemned chapters, archdeacons, deacons, and suchlike Popish trash ; Act 53 condemned ministers holding civil offices. The Assembly, after interesting debates upon the legality of Diocesan Episcopacy and the obnoxious innovations, agreed to a deliverance, that Episcopacy, the Five Articles, and the other books, rites, and ceremonies complained of were all incompatible with the terms of The Confession of Faith, and therefore already abjured. An 1 Referring to Archdean Gledstanes — 'a monster of drunkenness and atheistic profanity' — Baillie declares that ' Rome Pagan could not have suffered such a beastlie man to have re- mained a priest, even to Bacchus' : Letters, i. 149. Fully persuaded of the guilt of 'all our monstrous fellows,' Baillie refers thus to Forrester, minister at Melrose, 'this monster was justlie deposed' : ibid., 166. Indeed no defence of these Carolan Church dignitaries and ex- communicates is pussible. - Acts of Assembly, Peterkin, Records, 46, 47. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 313 Act was passed (No. 62) ordaining Presbyteries to publish this ex- planation. Another Act (64) ordained ' the Covenant subscribed in February last to be now again subscribed, with the Assembly's de- claration thereof, and this to be intimated by all ministers in their pulpits.' In consequence of these Acts the later Covenants contain an addendum, explaining that subscribers swear the Covenant, on the understanding that the Confession of Faith abjured Episcopacy and the ' nocent ceremonies.' That there might be no further dubiety as to the meaning of the disputed bond of 1 580-1, an Act (No. 65) was passed ' discharging all subscripcon to the Covenant subscribed by His Majestie's Commissioner and the Lords of Councell, which is likewise to be intimated.' ^ An important Act (No. 68) reasserted the claim of the Church to be self-governing, and having the power to convene its own Assemblies, and it indicted the Assembly to meet in Edinburgh on Wednesday, 3rd July 1639.- This was a bold challenge to the King, who repudiated that right as inherent in the Church. Thursday, 20th December 1638, was the last day on which this The Modera- Assembly met. Henderson, with a modest reference to his share in counse"""'^ the glorious work then consummated, called upon his brethren to bless God for ' these worthie noblemen who have been cheefe instruments in this work,' and to thank the King, to whom they were loyal and from whom they expected approval of their Acts, for their peaceable Convention. He adjured the clergy to cultivate 'greater pietie, more religious exercises, greater sobrietie, chastitie, and care to keep the body from unclean ness, greater care to perform the duties of righteousness, not so much craft, crueltie, oppression, falsehood in the land, as was before this work began.' In a similar strain, David Dick.son, Andrew Ram.say, and Argyll, who had been admitted to the counsels of the Assembly, addressed the House and counselled its members to maintain the Reformation in the bonds of unity, peace, and love. After prayer was made by the Moderator, the Assembly sang Psalm cxxxiii. : — ' Peterkin, Records, 46, 47, 167, 168. - Act 68, ibid., 47. 2 R W' 314 THE COVENANTERS Behold how good a thing it is, and how becoming well, Together such as brethren are in unity to dwell.' The benediction was pronounced and the Assembly dissolved. As the brethren departed, Henderson is reported to have said : ' We have now cast down the walls of Jericho ; let him that rebuildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the Beth-elite.'^ In this manner, and by these agents, was the emancipation of the Church of Scotland from the domination of the Crown and bishops accomplished, to the inconvenience of a very limited number of indivi- duals. The rapidity with which the revolutionary movement spread, the ease with which the Covenant took root throughout the land, and the total absence of bloodshed at the supreme crisis of change, all indicate that the agitation was justifiable, and that the aim of the framers of the Covenant harmonised with the desires of the people generally, with few exceptions. The rising may not have been a purely religious crusade — for questions of politics, land, parliamentary power, and socialism were entangled at this time — but there was a unity of aim in clergy and laity in focussing their efforts to obtain one indispensable result, namely, the maintenance of the Church within its own spiritual sphere, wherein official Churchmen were to be compelled to use their energies only in propagating religion, pure and undefiled. Kesuitsof The result of the Covenant, and of the Assembly of Glasgow Covenant. consequent upon it, was to make practicable again the safe and prudent scheme of Church government promoted by Knox and the founders of Scottish Presbyterianism, through which the Church was to be left unmolested in making and executing its own laws based upon the Word of God, to remain in full enjoyment of its patrimony, and to obtain the co-operation and protection of the civil ruler. The Glasgow Assembly merely reasserted fundamental rights, which the Crown had too often overridden, to the hurt of the Church and the misery of the ' Stevenson, History of Church and State of Scotland^ 352 (Edin., 1840). Stevenson gives no authority for Henderson's closing remarks. Almost the same words, however, are found in James Guthrie's last speech, ist June 1661 : Wodrow, Hist., i. 192 note. THE GLASGOW ASSEMBLY 3^5 country. The Covenant was in reality a legal appeal to the people — the ultimate fountain of governmental power — demanding a plebiscite on the main questions in dispute ; and, according to the advisers of the Crown, the Covenant was a constitutional document properly drawn and promulgated. The members of the General Assembly, conscious of their own position and power, asserted themselves to be the People, in representative government assembled in the spiritual sphere to promote the cause of religion. Their standpoint was diametrically opposite to that of the King. It has often been contended that the Glasgow Assembly exceeded The Assembly its own admitted powers, and overstepped its boundaries, when it set incompetent! aside those Acts of Parliament establishing Episcopacy and its apparatus of reliorion. But it must not be left out of consideration — and the o point in its relation to Scots law and custom is an important one — that the Reformers, and their ecclesiastical heirs, the Covenanters, at every step, used the legal procedure at their disposal to maintain the consti- tutional rights that were being filched away ; and they cannot be justly accused of leaving their own proper sphere of action to usurp jurisdiction in another, because they declared that statutes for ratifying edicts of the Church, themselves obtained in an unconstitutional manner, could not be legally and morally binding, being neither national nor popular Acts. The learned and accurate Clerk of the Assembly, Johnston, righdy asserted that he knew ' certainlie that this office of the bishops was never established by any Act of Parliament in Scodand.'' It is a question for jurists how far conscientious men, who accept guidance alone from Scripture, must tolerate the encroachments of the civil power upon the privileges of the Church, claiming to be a free power. Christian or not, the Covenanters had enough of Scots manliness to resist, first by legal instruments, every attempt on the part of Caesar to roll Christ's crown in the dust, and then to repel any other affront at the point of the sword, interposing the body as a shield for the soul. Still theAimofihe influence of faith resulted in limiting the practical efforts of the genuine Covenanter, for the maintenance of his religious cause, to a defensive • ' Vtteik'in, Jiecords, 167. 3i6 THE COVENANTERS rather than an offensive method. He thus endeavoured to obey both the commands of Christ and the promptings of nature, arguing that Scripture does not forbid individuals nor the nation to defend their rights. One fault may be reasonably alleged against this General Assembly — it was not comprehensive enough. It might have been a national convocation, a Folk-mote, first assembled in every parish to select representative members to a National Assembly. As it was, it nearly approached to that standard, if we reckon that the members sent must have largely represented the vast multitudes who willingly signed the Covenant, and afterwards ratified the action of the Church by arms. It became the actual General Assembly when the army of Leslie mustered a little later. The change of the ecclesiastical regime was brought about by no fraud, chicanery, or deception of the masses most interested, as far as the leaders of the Covenanters were con- cerned. The Covenant was the will of the people. ^i Results of The main results of this bloodless revolution were : The Word of the Covenant. Qgd, as the sole rule of faith and morals, was restored to its authori- tative position ; the Lord Jesus Christ was again enthroned as the Head of the Church ; the principle of autocracy was condemned ; the seat of power was asserted to be in the People, as taught by Buchanan, Goodman, and other Reformers ; the national will regarding religion expressed in the Covenant was unmistakably announced ; Episco- pacy, as a barren and unwelcome imposition, was extinguished Scottish Presbytery, as a polity warranted by Scripture, was revived the right of the laity to representation in Church Courts was ratified and the personal interests of individuals in their own spiritual welfare was so quickened, that, for long after 1638, the printing-presses of Scotland poured out a flood of books and pamphlets, indicating the joy and satisfaction which the emancipation of the Church had conferred. Such were the most important results of the National Covenant and of the Glasgow Assembly. To undo these. King Charles had two choices — to convene the Scottish Folk-mote himself and obtain a repudia- tion of this work, or to draw his English sword. Unhappily for himself and for distressed Scotland, the misguided King chose the latter course. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 317 CHAPTER XI THE FIRST BISHOPS WAR The occasion for a miracle had now arrived. At least, Laud, per- Policy of the ceiving the desperate straits into which Wentworth, Lord Deputy of '°*"" Ireland, Hamilton, and himself had brought the King, so expressed his view of the crisis, immediately after the decision against John Hampden, in 1638. ' It is not the Scottish business alone that I look upon,' wrote Laud, ' but the whole frame of things at home and abroad, with vast expenses out of little treasure, and my misgiving soul is deeply apprehensive of no small evils coming on. ... I can see no cure without a miracle.' At one time. Laud imagined that split noses, lopped off ears, and other atrocities would be a certain cure for undesirable enthusiasm ; but had this visionary dreamed another dream, he would have perceived the heads of King, Primate, and Viceroy rolling off the bloody stage and failing to make even a tem- porary remedy. None of these men comprehended the situation. The statecraft of Charles was elementary and ineffective compared with that of his father. Hamilton was probably more treacherous than obtuse when he encouraged the King in his unsound policy of making war the cure, and consequently of ordering Hamilton to 'win time,' to flatter the rebels with what inducements he pleased, and to leave them to themselves until they cut each other's throats.^ The Scots were now rapidly arming, mustering, and drilling in Preparations every parish. A representative Committee of Estates, appointed with full legislative and executive functions, soon established a complete military organisation whereby every fourth man in the land was con- ' Peterkin, Records, 68, 70, 80. J i8 THE COVENANTERS scribed for active service, every male between the ages of sixteen and sixty stood to arms, and local supplies and subsidies were exacted.^ Eager officers returned from the Continent in hope of employment. Bishop Burnet's account of the universal enthusiasm and self-sacrifice rendering any compulsion unnecessary, and Baillie's overdrawn pic- tures of the popular ardour, are largely discounted by the frantic appeals found in the documents quoted by Wariston in his Diary, wherein the despair of the Covenanting leaders at their ' wants of money, munition, victual, order, and discipline, the natural impossi- bilities either to retire, remain, or goe on,' is described at the time the Scots stood face to face with the King's army on the Border." Not- withstanding this weakness, all the Covenanters needed was a sound statesman to concentrate their energies and turn their enthusiasm to practical account, in order that they might present an unbroken front to the power of England. This required no small amount of assur- ance on the part of a leader, as well as a determined hardihood on the part of his colleagues and subalterns. There were many prominent politicians, not lacking in talent, Rothes, Lothian, Lindsay, Loudoun, Cassillis, Balmerino, and others, but two nobles seemed to fill the public eye more than others at this time — Montrose and Argyll ; and, while differing from each other in nearly every respect, they had one quality in common, in their ambition to lead their disaffected countrymen. Earl of James Graham, fifth Earl of Montrose, was born in 1612, and was i6i2-i6To ''^ '■^^ \^&'sX of his effervescing, romantic nature, when the national outburst of religious enthusiasm caught him, a high-spirited young man, not long after his return from travelling on the Continent. A good face and striking appearance, a cultured mind, a poetic disposition, a hot rather than a tender heart, all realised by Montrose himself, went to form an individuality whose impulsive acts have, been commonly reckoned as instances of chivalry, and proofs of the possession of a noble nature imcommon in a rude land. It may have been true that Hamilton, with feelings of jealousy, had poisoned the King against ' Rothes, Relation, 80 ; Baillie, i. 191. ■* Wariston, Diary, 36, 44, 50, 56, 58. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 319 this gallant subject, and made him slight the youthful courtier so much that he took revenge by joining" the distasteful cause of the Cove- nanters ;^ still there was not a little discernment in the crafty Hamilton when he further informed the King that among the rebels there was 'none more vainly foolish than Montrose.'^ That dash and gallantry on many a battlefield, which made him almost invincible, were less the tokens of military genius — for Montrose was merely a sporting archer at St. Andrews — than the proofs of the successful knight- errantry of a dreamer, who imagined he might become a rival to Caesar and Alexander.^ His lack of power to see things in their proper perspective, to discern the seemliness and propriety of a line of conduct in keeping with his principles and pretensions, and to illus- trate the supposed grandeur of his soul in the actions of a wise states- man, made Montrose unreliable as a leader of the malcontents. His final theatrical appearance on the scaffold, dressed as a superb dandy, evidenced the peculiar contexture of a frivolous mind. On the other hand, Archibald Campbell, eighth Earl of Argyll, Earl of Argyll, had no personal charms to be vain about, and would have been of'^^"' no moment to his compatriots had he not had the power of five thou- sand claymores behind him. Compared with Argyll, Montrose was ' Hyperion to a Satyr.' In person small, in appearance unprepossessing, in visage coarse and sinister, in vision oblique, in action dubious, in council often suspected, in ignominious defeats a craven fugitive, Argyll appeared to have few qualities to make himself felt at this juncture. Indeed, the house of Argyll never had a pretty reputation among the patriots, and the last Earl was reputed to have destroyed his son's reputation at Court by bidding the King beware of his treachery. Nevertheless, this eighth Earl understood the problem of the hour. Laud noted a symbol in the squint of Gillespie Gruamach ^ when ' Nalson, An Impartial Collection, Introd. Ixxiii., citing ' H. L.' Observaiiotis upon tlu Hist, of Charles /., 205. '^ Peterkin, Records, 114. » Napier, Memoirs of Montrose, i. 43, 60 (Edin., 1856). * ' Gillespie, the gloomy or surly,' a sobriquet of Argyll. 320 THE COVENANTERS he jestingly wrote thus to Hamilton : ' If he [i.e. Argyll] do now publicly adhere to the Covenant and the Assembly (nay be the pro- fessed Head of the Covenant, as the Dean calls him), yet he will have much ado to look right upon that, who ever looked asqtiint upon the King's business.'^ Argyll as correctly gauged the smallness of the Primate, while he interpreted the sentiment of Scotland to him in a letter, thus : ' So with your lordship's good leave, I must say still, your lordship is mistaken if you think the book \i.e. the liturgy] that was offered and pressed here was only the English service, for in reading any man may see the contrary. Yet, truly, I think all His Majesty's subjects ought to thank God for His Majesty's paternal care of his own children, and as all (I hope) do acknowledge it to pro- 'ceed from His Majesty's own goodness, so I believe they are the loather to come under the hands of indiscreet pedants or rude task- masters, that want the affection and moderation of a father.'^ This was a deft thrust from a pen in a hand that trembled to wield a clay- more in the nation's defence. In like manner, Argyll's speech to the Parliament of England, in 1646, when he maintained that England and Scotland were substantially one kingdom, although they differed in name — a distinction he was willing to abolish — indicates that Argyll was a politician of breadth and foresight, who understood the position of Britain as we to-day realise it. He had a wider horizon than his rival, and with a modern instinct adjured the English govern- ment as much to restrain licence in religion as to withhold persecution from law-abiding citizens, who, in religious matters, differed on points which are immaterial. Until the Glasgow Assembly, Argyll, as a member of the Privy Council, had evinced loyalty to the Crown, but after Hamilton's dissolution of that Convention, Argyll threw in his lot with the Covenanters and upheld their cause with unwavering fidelity. His accession was no less a gain from a military than from an ecclesiastical point of view, since Argyll was a maintainer of the stern theology of Calvin, and the consequent polity of Knox and of 1 Peterkin, Records, 123. - Argyll to Laud, Febmary 28, 1639 : Hist. MSS. Com., xii. App., pt. ii. 213. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 321 Melville. He was also the personal friend and supporter of Samuel Rutherford in the days of his enforced exile. His presence contri- buted to the cohesion of the Presbyterian and anti- Royalist parties, and his wise counsels gave directness to their aims and resolutions. But neither Montrose nor Argyll had those supereminent qualities of a great statesman, who could both command in the field and devise the more lasting victories of the council chamber. ' I will either be a glorious king or a patient martyr ' ' was the fixed idea in Charles which his flatterers fostered. ' No bishop no king,' he also announced. Wentworth alone advised him to proceed slowly, and to secure impregnable strongholds on the Borders before he struck a final blow. Less wise counsels prevailed. Hamilton arrived in London early in 1639. Scots resident in London were ordered to abjure the Covenant, repudiate the last Assembly, and to promise to support the King's policy.' Even George Con, the privi- leged Jesuit hanging about Court, subscribed the abjuration.^ Charles next informed the shires that the Scots had risen in arms in order to invade England, and caused a proclamation, 27th February 1639, to be read in every parish church in England, summoning the northern barons and their vassals to meet him in York and to afford him supplies. The day chosen for this muster was All Fools Day. In Charles former days the threat of a Scottish raid would have terrified the Army,°"st^" northern shires from Chester to York, but this bogle of the King ^P"' '^39- created no scare. The people knew that their Parliament neither approved nor subsidised the enterprise. The vassals reluctantly responded to the Royalist barons, and the voluntary subsidies were miserably small. ^ The bishops and their party, with some Catholics, were, however, enthusiastic with supplies.' The Scots hastened, 4th February, to promulgate ' An Infoi'mation ' Burnet, Memoires, i. 203. - The Remonstrance of /he Nobility, etc., 1639, p. 29. ' Bliss Transcripts (Record Office), 8th December 1638 ; Peterkin, Records, 212. '' Nalson, Imp. Coll., i. 231. ° Hist. MSS. Com. {Monta^^iie House MSS.), Manchester to Mountague, 7th March 1639, 281. 2 S 322 THE COVENANTERS to all good Christians within the Kingdome of England from the Noblemen . . . and Commons of . . . Scotland for vindicating their intentions and actions from the nnjust calumnies of their eneinies! ^ It was signed by ' A. Jhonstoun.' Its explanation bore that the Scots only wished to be left unmolested in their own concerns and in domestic peace, and to purge out the corruptions from their national Zion, undeterred by Papists and vicious prelates. They repudiated any intention of invading England. The King answered in a proclamation warning his subjects against these seditious plotters, and they in turn replied in a printed manifesto : ' The Re7nonstrance of the Nobility, Bar rones, Burgesses, Ministers and Commons, etc.,' denying the slanderous charges." Their sole weapons, they asseverated, were tears and prayers. These ill-advised and unconstitutional royal pro- clamations, together with the inopportune publication of Balcanqual's Large Declaration by the King,^ in which an ex parte and unreliable account of recent events was given, aggravated the quarrel. The Covenanters issued tracts, said to have been written by Alexander Henderson, Lord Balmerino, and even Lord Advocate Hope, defend- ing their cause and the lawfulness of an arbitrament by arms.* Pedlars brought these manifestoes within the reach of those interested, so that the whole country was on the alert. King's plan The King's plan was to raise an army of thirty thousand o campaign. ^^^^^ which was to be reinforced by the northern Royalists, and to march into Scotland at its head. Hamilton was to sail with five thousand men to the Forth, and to co-operate with Huntly against Edinburgrh. Wentworth's Irish fleet was to enter the Clyde, while ten thousand Irishmen under the Earl of Antrim ' Edinburgh, Bryson, 1639; Row, /iisi., 508-10. ° Edinburgh, Bryson, 1639, 32 pp., 'Revised by A. Jhonstoun,' 22nd March 1639. ' A Large Declaration concerning The Late Tumults in Scotland from their first originalls : Together "with a particular deduction of the seditious practices of the prime Leaders of the Covenanters : Collected out of their oiune foule acts and writings : By lohich it dothplainly appeare, that Religion was onely pretended by those Leaders, but nothing lesse intended by them. By the King. London, Printed by Robert Young, His Majestit^s Printer for Scotland, Anno Dom. MDCXXXIX. Fol., 430 pp- * Omond, Lord Advocates of Scotland, i. 126: Row, 510. Henderson's 'Instructions for defensive arms' was printed by Stevenson, History of Church, etc., 356 (Edin., 1840). THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 323 were to overrun Argyleshire and the West. Hamilton's own Arran men, 'such naked rogues as they were,' accompanied by their cows, were to invade the mainland. Hamilton, it was reported at the time, gave the King ^1000 to be relieved from going to the front personally.^ Other nobles similarly compounded with the needy King. On 27th March 1639, Laud wrote in his Diary : ' Charles took his journey northward against the Scottish Covenanting rebels. God of His infinite mercy bless him with health and success . . . Grant, blessed Lord, that victory may attend his designs, and that his liege people may rejoice in Thee, but that shame may cover the face of Thine and his treacherous enemies.' Wentworth on the other hand wrote : ' I trust God is not so angry with us as to suffer your Majesty to be led into such apparent danger, or, by any persuasion, to consent the trusting of so precious a jewel in the custody of such as, to my understanding, are so great strangers to honour or morality.'" Only 22,874 men, of whom 3260 were cavalry, mustered to guard this jewel, and of the 5000 who sailed from Yarmouth with Hamilton, scarce 200 could handle a musket.^ The Covenanters hurried on defensive preparations, and the scent of battle attracted home soldiers of fortune distinguished in the Thirty Years' War. It was the luck of the patriotic party that in their peril Field-Marshal Alexander Leslie, one of the most experienced generals Field-Marshal of his age, should have visited his native land and espoused the cause ^^q^^' of the Covenant before he returned to Sweden.'' This veteran, who had served under King Charles ix. and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, was the hero of Stralsund and of many other victories. With the irascible temper of the Leslies and the quick impulses of the Stewarts, this 'old little crooked soldier,' weather-beaten by sixty years, bore a face whose keen eyes and riveted lips betokened the possession of intellectual power befitting him as a leader of men. The Tables invited him to return in the early autumn of 1638, to ' Mountague to Mountague : Montague House ATSS., i. 284. 2 Nalson, Imp. Coll. i. 208. ' Jbid., 207. ■* Terry, Life and Campaij^tis of Alexander Leslie., '899, <].i'. Leslie cap- tures the arsenals. 324 THE COVENANTERS become the Commander of their forces. It is to Leslie's credit, that although he was an honoured friend of the King, he threw in his sword with the weaker party when he saw the liberties of his country at stake. He set the foundries in the Potterrow of Edinburgh ringing with the casting of artillery for Sandy Hamilton, the master-gunner, and the city squares resounding with the tread of volunteers, armed with those two thousand muskets which Queen Christina of Sweden gave to him. The nobles and gentry eagerly sought commissions under him. The advocates of Edinburgh formed his bodyguard, under the leadership of a son of Lord Advocate Hope, and a son of Durie, a lord of Session. The King, on the other hand, set a price of .^500 upon his head, and ordered his forces to disband under penalty of being proclaimed traitors.^ On the 2 1 St March the practical work of the campaign was begun by Leslie, who, through a neat stratagem, captured the Castle of Edinburgh. Other arsenals, with their guns and stores, Caerlaverock Castle excepted, were taken, and garrisons were established in Dum- barton, Dalkeith, Strathaven, Douglas, Tantallon, Dumfries, Dairsie, and Brodick. That serviceable soldiers held back or sent unworthy substitutes with ' bachling naigs ' (foundered horses) is evident from the remonstrances sent out from the Scots camp at Dunbar in June. Some rued the rising and others were overtaken by ' some spirit of slumber . . . which maketh them to think that the fyre is not kindled when the flame may be seene and all is in a burning.' The War Committee blessed those who melted their plate and trinkets to fill the war-chest, and enacted that if they refused they ' be reputed as men careless of religion and the liberties of the country and their moneys to be confiscate.' A considerable muster, about ten thousand men, with banners bla- zoned with the motto, ' For Religioun, the Covenant, and the Countrie,' met in Edinburgh. Six days a week the towns on the seaboard of Forth rang with the noise of citizens scooping trenches, building sconces, and planting batteries, the nobles and peasants working side > Cal. State Pap. (1639), 77, 81. ° Wariston, Diary, 56. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 325 by side, 'none busier in bearing the rubbish than ladies of honour.'^ Activity of the From Eyemouth to Arthur's Seat watchmen trimmed the beacons. ^"^^"^"'"=- On Sabbaths noisy pulpiteers lit the fires of patriotism in crowded churches, and marched away as chaplains to the forces. The Countess of Hamilton was credited with curvetting on the sands of Leith, carrying pistols in her holsters, and threatening to blow out the brains of her son, the Marquis, should that new Admiral of the Forth cross her path to molest the Covenanters.' Montrose, in the meantime, was dispatched northwards with six Montrose and thousand men in order to suppress George, Marquis of Huntly, whom ""'^" the King had commissioned as his lieutenant in the north, and his ' dis- covenanting ' following. Montrose entered Aberdeen on the 30th of March without striking a blow, and without finding Huntly and the Aberdeen Doctors, who had fled. After a few days Huntly and Montrose subscribed a Concordat, which created a modus vivendi for Huntly and his popish co-religionists, both parties to it having agreed to leave out of consideration the Covenant, as not being a statutory ordinance. Displeased, the extremists on the side of Montrose demanded the submission and surrender of Huntly. This ingenuous noble returned into the Covenanters' camp on the good faith that he was not to be made a prisoner. Montrose broke that pledge. Montrose's naturally generous impulses were not supported by a will firm and righteous, which would scorn the treacherous resolution of his military council to detain Huntly. The entrapping of Huntly and his son. Lord Gordon, and the sending them as hostages to a prison in Edinburgh, are stains on the character of Montrose. Terms, iiuntiy reckoned dishonourable by the prisoner, were offered to him at the ^^ "cov°nani prison gate, to which Huntly boldly replied : 'Yow may take my heid 20th April from my schulderis, but not my hairt from my Soveraigne.'^ Thus the King's first fountain of hope had been dissipated, and Montrose was free to rejoin the muster in the Capital. At length the beacons flashed, and on May-day 1639 Hamilton's ' Guthiy, Memoirs, 54. '•' She was a Cunningham of Glencairn. 3 Spalding, Memorialls, i. 179 (Spald. Club) j Hisl., i. 126, 127, 142 (Bann. Club). 326 THE COVENANTERS Hamilton's flotilla dropped anchor in Leith Roads. The admiral's flagship, isf Ma'°i6-o ^^^^ Rainbow, painted red, was no signal of hope, according to the poetic pastor of Cambuslang, who wrote of it thus : — ' The Rainbow was to man a sign of peace, This doth portend much blood — no sign of grace. God's rainbow stayed the floods — O greatest wonder ! This threats to burn us all with fyrie thunder.' The twenty gunboats soon became hospitals for the soldiers stricken with disease, and afforded another ineffective detail in the royal campaign, like Wentworth's abortive military diversion in the west. Every act of Hamilton was impolitic. He directed an insulting letter to the magistrates of Edinburgh, in which he requested them to publish the latest proclamation, and at the same time rated them for fomenting the rebellion. Resenting the calumny, they handed on the demand to the Committee of Estates. This body, spurning the King's demand for obedience and offer of clemency in exchange for their renouncement of the Covenant, declared the proclamation to be illegal, and the fruit of the ' devilish malice of the known enemies of this Church and State.' To punish this insolence the truculent Commissioner asked liberty to burn the towns on the seaboard, but the King was not so bereft of wisdom as to sanction it. Charles, and a brilliant staff, joined what English chivalry had mustered under the Earl of Arundel at York, and spent the month of April in camp there. Theirs was an irregular crowd rather than a martial host, the troops being raw, badly equipped, and without heart in the enterprise. The Scottish prelates did not even march to the frontier with them. Defoe declared ' It would make too much sport with English courage and bravery, which is so well confirmed in the world, to give an account how like scoundrels this army behaved.'' English army On the 30th of May they encamped at Birks, on the south side of the 30th May. Tweed, three miles above Berwick, and twelve miles from Duns Law, a commanding height which Leslie occupied on the 5th of June. The Scottish force numbered twelve thousand men of all arms, with forty- ' Defoe, Memoirs of Church, 158, edit. 1844. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 327 five pieces of artillery. On the 9th of May Leslie had been formally appointed Commander-in-Chief, and chose for his staff Lieutenant- General Baillie and Lords Rothes, Lindsay, Loudoun, Yester, Mont- gomerie, and Dalhousie. The clansmen of Argyll were posted at Stirling, the gate of the Highlands, and other forces were stationed on the coastline to guard Leslie's rear. Robert Baillie has left a graphic picture of the Covenanters' Baiiiie's de- leaguer at Duns, with its many ' canvas lodges ' filled with pious canip'at" " campaigners and lusty ploughboys, easily distinguished by their blue ^""*- bonnets (few had iron-sculls), some crooning psalms or saying prayers, or anon dancing at midnight alarms of battle, others cursing, all well fed on wheat, well paid at sixpence daily, all longing for the fray under blue banners blazoned with red lions-rampant breathing the pious motto, 'For Christ's Crown and Covenant.'' He leaves a picture of himself : at home the man of peace ; here, facing ' the auld enemy,' a patriot, resolved to die on that service without return, withal a perfect Bombastes Furioso, leading out his si.x Ayrshire pikemen and his little son girt with a broadsword, himself carrying two pistols in his holsters, a whinger at his belt, and no doubt in his satchel that wing of goose-quills to which we are so much indebted. He depicts the foe waiting in mortal terror of seeing the swinging tartans of the men of Argyle, and the very King shaking in his shoes as his prospect-glasses revealed the Lord's ' army terrible with banners ' on the green crest of Duns. It is plain that this sanguine shepherd had not seen Wariston's nervous appeals to his indifferent countrymen, while Leslie lay at Dunglass Castle, to this effect : ' Will ye be perjured against God . . . and by your defection or wavering now losse your country, religion, liberties, and lyves. . . . .^nd now we tell you and give you the third summons that as ye love your country, your conscience, your lyves, and liberties, and would be delivered from the destruction threatened against us ye would haste, haste hither and be not deceaved . . . neither be ye detained.' - It is necessary again to follow the fortunes of Montrose. As soon ' Baillie, Letters, \. z\\ et seq. - Wariston, Diary, 47. ;28 THE COVENANTERS Second cam- paign of Montrose. Aboyne's force. PaciHcation of Berwick, 1 8th June 1639- as Montrose returned south the Royalists in Aberdeen made it perilous for Covenanters to show their sympathies in that city. Emboldened by the news that their Sovereign was marching to right the wrong, some northern barons, Banff, Abergeldie, Haddo, Cromartie, and other Royalists, with some eight hundred horse and foot, drew the first blood in the Civil War at Towie House, where they killed David Prott. At daybreak on the 14th of May this force surprised a body of Covenanters under the Earl of Errol and Lord Eraser, killing a few soldiers, capturing some prisoners, and putting Errol and his men to ignominious flight. This engagement is known as the Trot of Turriff.^ The victorious party separated after having a fillip of plunder. Montrose, at their heels, re-entered Aberdeen on the 25th of May, having 4300 men under his command. While Montrose and his staff attended worship on Sabbath, his rascally soldiers spent the day looting the houses and stealing victual. So unrestrained were they that, in the vicinity of Aberdeen, in their impartial devastation among friends and foes, they left neither a cock to crow nor a whelp to bark.- After Montrose had temporarily quitted Aberdeen, Lord Aboyne, whom the King had appointed as lieutenant in place of Huntly, his father, landed in Aberdeen in June, to make the proclama- tion demanding the abjuration of the Covenant. Two thousand raiders flocked to his banner and into the lands of Covenanters to ravage them. They made bold to meet their opponents under the Earl Marischal at Stonehaven ; but, as soon as the big guns roared, the unseasoned 'redshanks' fled from the noise of 'the musket's father,' as they termed artillery. Undismayed, Aboyne again gathered his followers, and sat tight behind the bridge of Dee in Aberdeen, which Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone gallantly held against the 20-poundersof Montrose. The wounding of Johnstone settled the conflict. The Royal- ists fled, and Montrose, master of an almost bloodless field, re-entered Aberdeen just one day after the Pacification of Berwick had been signed.^ At the frontier, the bold demeanour of the Scots, in reality a bluff, Spalding, Hist, of Troubles {Memorials), i. 134 (Bann. Club). ^ Ibid., 141. Napier, Metnoirs of Montrose, i. 212 ; Spalding, Hist., i. 154-158. THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR 329 made the timorous host of Charles chary of attacking. Had the King's blameworthy intelligence-officers only been able to inform him that before him lay a sorry crowd on foot, half-armed with obsolete weapons, unprovided with trenching tools, badly victualled, and a poorly horsed battalion, much afraid of himself, he would never have sat inactive till the Scots unexpectedly appeared as petitioners in his camp. While the King's lukewarm council of war retarded the ad- vance, the Scots had framed a supplication for peace, which Lord Dunfermline delivered to Charles on the 6th of June. The reply of the Sovereign and his Privy Council referred the petitioners to pub- lished proclamations, wherein an amnesty was offered to the rebels who submitted to the Crown. Their counter-reply declared the royal procedure to be illegal. Many communications, stating demands and counter-demands, passed from camp to camp, till six commissioners on each side were appointed to confer on the subject. The King hotly joined in their discussions.' At length, on the 12th of June, a Councils at debate took place in the Scots camp, wherein Argyll, Lord Durie, june'^'ig^Q Sir Thomas Nicolson, and Wariston discussed the legal position, and the outcome was the dispatch of Alexander Henderson and Wariston, along with Rothes, Loudoun, Dunfermline, and the Sheriff of Teviot- dale, Sir William Douglas, to Birks, with an ultimatum to the King. The intervention of Henderson, with his incisive reasoning, and the references of Wariston, with his unanswerable precedents, together with the cool attitude of Loudoun, and the reckless speeches of Rothes, were too much for the Sovereign's temper. He twice called Rothes a liar and a prevaricator.- Wariston he commanded to silence as one possessed of the uncharitableness and bitterness of the devil, not of the reasonableness of men.'' No concordat which the Crown offered to the Covenanters could be accepted, since every amended form of it contained a loophole for the crafty King to evade engagements he never intended to keep. The Scottish ultimatum demanded the total abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland, the unrestrained meeting of ' Cal. State Pap. (1639), 299, 300, 304, 310-12. ^ Hamilton Papers, 98. " Wariston, Diary, 85. 2 T 330 THE COVENANTERS Church courts, and the summoning of biennial or triennial Parliaments. Wariston luckily overheard Hamilton declaring in a joint Privy Council meeting that if the King ' consented to yearly Assemblies, he might quyte his three crowns, for they [the Covenanters] would trample over them all, and, if he would follow his way, he should free the Assemblie of ruling elders, and if the Assemblie were constitute onlie of ministers, he would paune his lyfe, honor, and estate to gett his Bishops therein established, and any other thing he would desyre.'' Thus, according to Hamilton, Scotland is indebted to her laymen for Terms of the the Saving of Presbyterianism. The King, on the i8th of June, practically conceded all his opponents asked, by consenting to the Pacification of Berwick. Therein, reserving approval of the Glasgow Assembly, he ratified the acts of his Commissioner, Hamilton, agreed to an annual Assembly, indicted an Assembly to meet on the 12th of August, and a Parliament later, to ratify the Assembly's Acts, agreed to disband the army, and repudiated any sinister intentions against the religion and laws of Scotland. Both parties arranged to disband their forces without delay, and not to muster again without the sanc- tion of Parliament ; while the Scots promised to ' deliver His Majestie's castles, and shall ever in all thinges carry ourselves like humble, loyal and obedient subjects.' Thus Charles discovered that neither he nor his diplomats could outmanoeuvre the sharp intellects of the North, who had so easily turned the First Bishops' War into a fiasco. When the proclamation of peace was read in the Scottish camp, ' all the people applauded that they did adhere to the Assemblie and bade hang the Bishops.' - ^ Wariston, Diary, 88. - Ibid.. 90-3. For a detailed account of these negotiations compare Terry, Life of Leslie (1899), 41-87 ; cf. Peterkin, Records, 236-9. I^'^g- Privy G?z/;i<:., vii. 123, gives 12th August; the King's Declaration gives 6th August: Peterkin, Records, 229. THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 331 CHAPTER XII THE SECOND BISHOPS WAR By the King the Treaty of Berwick was viewed as a mere suspension of arms, which an evil fate necessitated. He read good luck into it, inasmuch as it afforded him more time to devise another campaign better calculated to completely suppress the Covenanters. Charles never had the remotest intention of convening free Assemblies and free Parliaments, in terms of the Pacification. The object to be served by these conventions was too apparent, and he would nullify it by juggling or by force. His design was spontaneous. There is Tortuous no evidence by which to trace to the counsels of foolish courtiers P"'"^^"*^'^^ the tortuous and despicable course afterwards pursued. Charles had publicly consented to the abandonment of his most cherished aims, but privately he informed his abettors of his unalterable resolve to re-establish what he seemed willing to abolish. Laud fully realised the peril to Episcopacy that loomed ahead after the recent victory for Presbyterianism. He wrote to Roe : ' Faction and ignorance will govern the Assembly, and faction, and somewhat else that I list not to name, the Parliament ; for they will utterly cast off all episcopal government, and introduce a worse regulated party than is anywhere else that I know. ... I am clear of opinion, the King can have neither honour nor safety by it.'' The King soon plainly indicated his intentions to the Scottish prelates, when, through their Primate, Spottiswood, he discharged them from attending the Assembly. ' Though perhaps we may give way for the present to that which will be prejudicial both to the Church and our own government, yet we shall ' Gardiner, Hist, of England, ix. 48 ; Laud, Works, vii. 583. 332 THE COVENANTERS not leave thinking, in time, how to remedy both,' he wrote, also giving the assurance, ' that it shall be still one of our chiefest studies how to rectifie and establish the government of that Church and to repair your losses, which we desire you to be most confident of '^ This design had probably leaked out. When the proclamation of the indiction of the Assembly was published at the Cross of Edinburgh, and the hierarchy was duly summoned, the Covenanters replied with their customary protestation, which declared their adherence to the Glasgow Assembly and to their belligerent position." Although both armies were disbanded, the fleet removed, and the fortresses handed back to garrisons of the Crown, Charles lingered long at Berwick maturing his plans and playing at nine-pins. While there he invited fourteen of the leaders of the late rising to a conference with himself, on the 1 6th of July, in order either to arrange his visit to the Assembly and Parliament, to offer more attractive terms to the Scots, or to trap them as hostages for the fourteen bishops, as his father had lured Andrew Melville into the Tower.' Rothes, Montrose, Lothian, Douglas of Cavers, Wariston, and Bailie Edgar of Edinburgh, Conference without Suspicion, obeyed the summons. In a stormy interview '^- ^ fiery Rothes and the King fell foul of each other. Rothes informed Murray in August that the King wronged him in declaring that Rothes was bent on overthrowing Episcopacy in England and Ireland.* The King did not make the deputation wiser as to his aims. He dismissed them on the understanding that they were to return on the 25th of July, bringing with them the recalcitrants, namely, Argyll, Cassillis, Loudoun, Dunfermline, Lord Lindsay, and the provosts of Edinburgh and Stirling. These, however, according to Sir James Balfour, 'smelling the ratt afar offe, wer secretly adwertissed by ther frindes ... to eschew ane wnfallable and most certaine destructione.' Three of them, Loudoun, Lindsay, and Dun- fermline, ventured to go, but as the others were on the way, they were debarred at the W^atergate of Edinburgh by the rascal multitude ' Peterkin. Records, 234. * Ibid., 231. ' Guthry, Memoirs, 61 ; Burnet, Metnoires, 148 : Balfour, Annals, \\. 334 ; Lilly, Observa- tions, 38. ■* Hist. MSS. Com. {Hamilton A/SS.), xi., vi. 108. THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 333 which had been stirred up with fears that their leaders were to be treacherously dealt with.^ After this disrespectful episode, mutual recriminations, which had sprung out of the terms of the Pacification, developed into eighteen grievances formally dispatched by the King, and as emphatically answered by the Covenanters. Among other "things, he complained that Munro's foot-regiment had not been dis- banded, Leslie's commission had not been recalled, unlawful assemblies and seditious protestations and sermons were permitted, and that the Crown officers and non-Covenanters were persecuted. The Covenanters, in reply, naively invited the King to displenish Negotiations his own arsenals on the Borders, declared that Leslie's commission *' "^ '"^' was recalled, promised the fulfilment of other desires, and observed that the supposed sedition was according to law, and that the Cove- nant was to be maintained.- The respondents even insinuated some banter into the statement that there was no proof that ' the wyffe at the Netherbow and one Litle the barber ' had badly handled his faithful Traquair in a street riot in July. This last episode, however, afforded the King a pretext for refusing to trust himself to Netherbow wives and riotous barbers at the approaching Assembly, and he left Berwick for London on the 29th of July. The fascinating personality of the Monarch had left an indelible impression upon the romantic nature of Montrose, creating in him a personal interest, which, six weeks afterwards, was seen to be developed into an attachment fatal to his fidelity to his earlier love — the Covenant.^ In October, Baillie prophetically observed that Montrose was ' not unlike to be ensnared with the fair promises of advancement.' And Baillie turned out to be a true prophet. Montrose, on 26th December, while still associating with the Covenanters, offered his services to the King.'' The General Assembly met in Edinburgh on the 12th of August, six days later than the date originally appointed. Hamilton, who had refused the King's request to face the ordeal of the Commissionership, ' Baillie, Lcllers, i. 216, Baillie to Spang, 28th Sept. 1639 ; Balfour, Annals, ii. 334. - Balfour, Annals, ii. 334-9 ; Hist. MSS. Com., xi., vi. 109. " Napier, Memoirs, i. 220-7. * Hamilton Papers, 102; Hist. MSS. Com., x\., v[. no. Nalson declares that Montrose betrayed the secrets of his friends to tlie King : /////. Coll., i. 244. 534 THE COVENANTERS Edinburgh Assembly, 1639- Henderson's Sermon. was succeeded by Traquair. The instructions given to Traquair were as carefully expressed as they were Jesuitically conceived. He was to protest against lay-elders having a voice in settling questions of doctrine and policy ; to prevent any reference to the Glasgow Assem- bly, and to the King's sole power to convene Assemblies ; to submit the vexed question of Episcopacy for settlement to the Edinburgh Assembly ; to consent to the abolition of Episcopacy — not as a point of Popery, contrary to the law of God or to Protestant doctrine — this ' without the appearance of any warrant from the bishops ' ; to have it agreed that the King might send fourteen ministers in place of the bishops to Parliament, or, at least, to the election of the Lords of Articles.' The secret quirk in the King's procedure was this, that as he had ordained the prelates to decline this Assembly (which they did in a formal Declinature''), he imagined that he might afterwards declare the proceedings of the Assembly to be null and void, by a reference to those unrepealed statutes of the realm by which Episco- pacy had been established.^ Alexander Henderson, the retiring Moderator, occupied the chair, and, in an appropriate sermon upon the subject of Gamaliel, declared that humanist of Judea to have been devoid of Christ and of the love of gospel truth. His references to inept Episcopal readers of ser- mons and profane ministers were very pointed. To him, Christ only was the Head of the Church. He ended with this happy rejoinder : ' Let it be seene to His Majestie that this government can very weill stand with a monarchical government.' This was a gibe at the sapi- ence of the Scottish Solomon, and a sneer at the reiterated accusation of Hamilton, and of the King himself, that the aim of the Covenanters ' Peterkin, Records, lyi ; Reg. Privy Counc, vii. 128. - YiXziVvn, Records, 234. The terms of the DecHnature were calculated to irritate the members of Assembly, and to widen the breach between the angry parties. The bishops demanded ' That the present pretended Assembly be holden and reputed null in Law, as consisting and made up partly of Laical persons that have no office in the Church of God, partly of refractory, schisniatikal, and perjured ministers, that, contrary to their Oaths and Subscriptions, from which no Humane power could absolve them, have filthily resiled, and so made themselves to the present and future ages infamous ; and that no Churchman be bound to appear before them,' etc. There is a trace of the vulgar style of Balcanqual in this protest. ^ Act. Pari. Scot., iv. 430, Act 1609, c. 8. THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 335 was the disestablishment of monarchy. The Commissioner strove to retain the services of Henderson in the chair, but the latter, perceiving the drift of this move, resolutely refused, asserting: ' It savours of a constant-moderator — the first step of episcopacie ; and in trueth I have no mynd to be a bishop.' After discussion, and a vote, David Dickson, minister of Irvine, was elected Moderator. Then in his fifty- Dickson sixth year, a man of strong- will, yet of a warm, gladsome, poetic nature, appointed .. . .. . Moderator. bubbling up with humour, Dickson had suffered for his faith, having been cantoned out of Irvine in the time of King James for having denounced the Five Articles and the Liturgy. At the critical moment of Hamilton's dissolution of the Glasgow Assembly, Dickson's heroic speech sounded the keynote of that destructive Convention and of its subsequent judgments, which were intended to be a vindication of the purity of the motives of the Covenanters. He was appointed Pro- fessor of Divinity in Glasgow in 1641, and in Edinburgh in 1650.^ As became a pastor of such evangelical fervour, Dickson began his duties in a broad-minded address, which Traquair echoed with the hope that ' we may all sing ane sang before this assembly end.' A discussion arose regarding the grievances which had necessitated the Assembly, and as a result of it all the statutes constituting the Church were read and interpreted to Traquair. With consummate duplicity the Commissioner confessed that he was satisfied that the Episcopal innovations were unconstitutional, and this adroit, dramatic move was accepted for its ingenuousness. A committee was selected to frame an Act declaring that the innovations (Books of Prayer, Canons, and Act of Assem- Ordination, High Commission, Episcopal office, prelates in Parliament, tpbcopTcy,"^ and the Acts of the Assemblies, 1606, 1608, 1610, 1616, 1617, 1618) '3t'» August 1639. were the causes of the national disturbances, and contrary to the con- stitution of the Church of Scotland, and were unlawful.- This Act the Commissioner subscribed, on the 30th August, with the explanation that it was ' for settleing the present distractions and giving full satisfaction ' For Life of Dickson, cf. Wodrow, Sc-h-ct Biog., ii. 5-28 ; Pref., Select Writings of Dickson, edit. 1845 ; Johnston, Treasury Scot. Cov., 314. ^ Peterkin, Records, 204 ; Act Containing the Causes and Remedie 0/ the bygone Evils 0/ this Kirk. 336 THE COVENANTERS to the subjects' — 'such is his Majesty's incomparable goodness.' He also promised that, as Commissioner, he would in Parliament subscribe the Covenant, with the Assembly's Determination appended to the effect that the 1581 and 1638 Covenants were 'ane in substance,' and that 'the Five Articles of Perth, government of the Church and Bishops, the Civill places and power of Churchmen, were declared to be unlawful ' ; and he further consented that the Privy Council should ordain all sub- jects to sign the Covenant with the explanation added, as it appears on the later examples of that bond. This injunction was duly published. The often-balked defenders of the faith and pioneers of liberty seemed at last to have entered the Promised Land, with ' Sorrow vanquished, labour ended, Jordan passed.' Joy of the The subscHption of their purgative Act melted into the tears of joy and gratitude these stern heroes, who had long mourned the defections of their Church and country. Never was heard such jubilations, clapping of hands, and shouting 'God save the King.' 'Old Mr. John Row' from Carnock, a former sufferer, through his tears magnified the God of Heaven for His pity. Another member, John Weymes, with tears dropping off his venerable beard, declared, with the ecstasy of a Simeon, that his aged eyes had seen 'a wonderful work,' and 'no more did I wish, before mine eyes were closed, but to have seen such a beautiful day as this is, as to my great comfort I now see this day.' He ended by loyally praying; 'and the blessing of God, be upon his Majesty.'- As the Moderator rapturously cried, ' Would God the King's Majesty had a part of our joy that we have this day,' the cunning Traquair must have been gloating over the success of his deception. Traquair himself had yet to discover that he had gone a step too far for his earthly master. The Assembly was next engaged with a terrible list of indictments of ministers charged with, and deposed for, every conceivable scandal — carnality, drunkenness, manslaughter, robbing the poor, selling sacra- ' Reg. Privy Counc. ,vii., xi.x. 131-2 ; Peterkin, Records, 207, 269, 270. '^ Peterkin, Records, 251. >THE CONFESSION OF FAITH;^ SUBSCRIBED Al KIR.sr B1 I HE M/2C5& MAIESl It AND HIS HOUS. iioiM f\iii> //.<«;- o, aOD\^eo iiiiKiMnuT:, ri.Kso\s or .iLi^^ ajva5. , h > /,„ I NOfUMlN.awRIUftJ. ^f^ EX ■alls: ihrpualllj" molWi nnorti^avlt incn n. _- — . i^nd' . 1 -IJit (ir.iui ilii .1... ■ ' I ' I FMlLniOilflnSlM "BBi" .., ,.m,o,i 1 y ^ ,, 1. ... t , -i. ,1 -,:.!, Than lrirruirt>a« I. ^^N«.^' 'Ii j> i ^! »,..r^. L [,M;.»8"t«^wpi|4i^i^i^ P J—^TT^ :! b' iluvll)^^...-. -v CunMTZAnsiifHcn.inlknaupon AiH^hDi Itinn CriMiirK , tootlhitnilit dfmanftii Rflin»Jl*l< ,, U ■ '." 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'->'n.>iiri-- X| >< ' '- V^-^' pr» Siluii(,*in >»n-H.n^raieurw> ■•P.Ai<)^^<>irin« Oi iHilirJ. .V '!// ^^^ > iPyoni>t«twr(iinrir> 0> m i.jB,',,i , ».? ,.^.-/. a/ n /,»/.■ (.rMty-irSrVfi''-"'""-" h/. ■" ■■■ '■.■ n»ai J-rtpilInf »»i«ifr6.i,,-in-,i't-, -.n.-v i-.uiT7r{Ir«.«rTt>]fttfiotui|]riui(niu»ii>(ifir in.S of pvlmnriii ■11 '.■■■ *" ■■" ^u^- .'. ■■ f- f ■ '.„iM( ,V«, rrf. .Vr >ub|^4l PS»«t, xia nvfi. ijbr puiut, -,^^^ ;?. m ,.| i , -..? iB.>«ii. ^ L- " ■ 1 ,-.;,",', 1 Ml atoMfa ■ igitam flii »f pc ■, I thnra mtwpunilhrB, J,7 J /., i*^"*.^'' »-»r. rn,, „,(.,■', - ■..'MZV'^^* n'V '•"■'■■ >'■ ',."."■, .I'jii;; "".I'i ■ M,«fr Xntuuim lUi.y. .. ,, ■ , , ,. .1 . \, ■ ,., T ,, .,, .o(r.i.ii, "n ' VfTuiM, iiKSiquino I'M ■ ■ r ( , 1 . ■ 1 1 ,.i - . . . ., . ( II i ft-i ■*n? (^.»BJi?-.'i'wr...\, '■ , ,. ' .. ",',.. .,',..,',..,■ '.I " ",': :,:.."'.."!!Il'i' %ftT-^;„„„ lb. (li»Tiftmnii/(« ei iU,.i, i>- 1-. K> ,..' *.'. i^ /,., ,, (i ,. .' ■■■.T i>'n'..u(h. (liUhjiuXjF u«Oljn .,>iiu'piS'< xoru' n.i-ni .«r of 'I'l , B'inirci«iir4iR>h«'l>. prdrl'. .tna mOitui, Th. ii>.* irfibrm loN ifMlu"ii ^ip.ilt«rhm Mir M.'Wi" f*.*"" flKC sananv Jit* (H lu .inltfwtrui.n.'Ui'] ■nuDmiiiD'tuIti i"«auv.;ir- bHI tohMBOOIirf h>ai>irtrtfm>n».r-, , r,,. iniB,|)imniin»a« «mt) ill' " C'tickll l ' ninlinimi iri rli( Mr 4a>(amrina.«ilM/ vmili.' -|il)i» Kraliiv f i'«rMrl>a-'>"tU'1o"lTI''>''^''''Uli' ' r ut CMHXTiki'tHr .l. Ur •>* I Xiii V K^imilAnfr m ^I'T/.i n.1 Kiw.M»i>nfrM«n>n4di>rf >i.ai In NiKwriT bbnTM llwKiiii ^r If m ^> ' - * ••»"' w >l]l l>«M iiifctmlxtiFui hsivrsu ilui'iiiniiUD Of (,,•.''•,:: . ">',,■ THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 337 ments, sacrilege, fighting, disobedience, incompetence, reading the Liturgy, and other faults — all indicating the looseness of discipline in the Episcopal period. Without a reference to the judgment of the Glasgow Assembly against the bishops, their indictment was recon- sidered and the same verdict pronounced. But it was agreed that all ministers not guilty of immorality would be reponed in office, on indi- cating their penitence and submission to the Constitutions of the Church. The Assembly also passed the first Barrier Act.' The The first brethren had still grave business in reserve. The King himself had announced his personal share in the religious broil, having issued the Large Declaration, a bitter controversial work, bearing on the title-page his name as the author.-' It was meant to engender the worst enmities of the High Church party and of the purely Royalist party, both in England and Scotland, against the Scottish Presbyterians and conserva- tive politicians, who denied \}a^ Jus Carolinwn, i.e. the divine right of the Monarch to act as pleased him. It accused the Covenanters of treachery, treason, alliance with the devil, robbery, of foul acts and false words. It was known to be the work of Dr. Walter Balcanqual, son of a faithful Covenanter, who had been minister both in St. Giles, and Trinity College Church, Edinburgh. His perversion from his father's faith resulted in intolerant fanaticism — as is not infrequendy the case with perverts — directed against the very Church which sheltered his youthful head. His position in the English Church — soon to be the Deanery of Durham — was, he imagined, a safe enough hold out of which to sling abuse at his father's friends and Church. While doing this, Balcanqual depicted his beloved Sovereign, with unparalleled magna- nimity, bearing with his unnatural children so long, that he was forced out of very love, yet in pity, to chastise them. Acuter critics soon Large shattered the fabrication ; and the Assembly, with a polite deference condemned, avoiding the association of the book with the King's name, judged it to be 'dishonourable to God, to the King's Majestie, and to the National Church, and stuffed full of lies and calumnies.' ' They supplicated the ' 30th Aug., Act anent advising with Synods and Presbyteries, etc. : Peterkin, Records, 208. - A Liirf>e Declaration, etc. By the King (Lond., 1639). ^ Peterkin, Records, 265. 2 U THE COVENANTERS Assembly dissolved, 30th August. Meeting of Scots Parlia- ment of August 1639. Commissioner to request the King to suppress the book, and to punish Balcanqual and the other seditious authors of it. The tables were being turned. There was not a little covert humour in the remarks of the debaters. Andrew Cant, the strenuous presbyter of Aberdeen, declared it was ' so full of gross absurdities that I think hanging of the author should prevent all other censures.' Sir William Douglas, Sheriff of Teviotdale, with that decisiveness, which never failed the Douglases, if a gallows-knob was in view, broke in : ' Truly I could execute that sentence with all my heart, because it is more proper to me, and I am better acquainted with hanging.' The tears of the saints were brushed away by the sallies of those witty statesmen who thought, with Lord Kirkcudbright: ' It is a great pity that many honest men in Christendom for writing books called pamphlets should want ears, and false knaves for writing such volumes should brook heads.' This was a severe criticism of the Crown policy towards the persecuted Puritans. The King had again received a scarcely concealed castigation. At length the Moderator dissolved the Assembly after a tolerant oration, free of the spirit of a zealot, in which he adjured his brethren to love one another, to strive not with one another, ' neither insult over those that have beine of a discrepant judgment from us anent the matter of ceremonies and the governement of the Church : but let us make a perpetuall act of oblivion in all our memories of such things.' If poetic Dickson thus worthily displayed the gentleness of the dove, and a tolerance not credited to his party by partial writers, next day the cunning Traquair was to strike with the fang of the serpent. The day after the Assembly dispersed, the Scots Parliament sat down, and remained in session from the 31st of August till the 14th of November. The Estates assembled under the grand oak roof of the Upper Chamber of the New Parliament House, still an object of admiration. They rode with all the Honours, Argyll bearing the crown. It was almost a full convention. They had come to the funeral of the bishops, as Howell wittily expressed his opinion of what he saw that day : ' The bishops are all gone to rack, and they have had but a sorry funeral. The very name is THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 339 grown so contemptible that a black dog, if he hath any white marks about him, is called Bishop. Our Lord of Canterbury is grown here so odious that they call him commonly in the pulpit the priest of Baal, and the son of Belial' * The prelates were absent, and the burgesses and barons numbered ninety-eight, while the nobles num- bered sixty, so that the meeting could scarcely have been more representative of all sections of the community. Traquair first tried to introduce fourteen ministers, in place of the bishops, to initiate the business of electing the first eight Lords of Articles, and when this failed, proceeded, under protest from Argyll, to name them himself. With praaical unanimity the Lords of Articles, among whom were Argyll, Montrose, and Lauderdale, introduced their Church Acts, which were duly passed as under : — ^^^^ 6th September: Act ratifying Acts of Assembly of 17th August, mo'ed by the intituled, ' Anent the sex caussis of our bygane evillis and the Act prefixed to the Covenant.' ' Act rescinding all former actis of parliament introduced in favour of Bishops and Episcopacie.' I ith September : 'Act condemning Balcanqual's Large Declaration! 1 8th September : 'Act discharging civil powers of churchmen.' 24th September ; 'Act rescissory of Acts giving civil powers to churchmen.'^ On the 6th September the Commissioner, in his capacity of Treasurer, subscribed the Covenant. But when, on the 24th September, the ' Act Rescissory ' was produced, he demurred to it as violating the King's prerogative; and on the 14th November, without asking the consent of the Estates, he, after nine prorogations, finally prorogued the Parliament till the 2nd day of June 1640, under a special Commission, which declared that the Estates were trenching, by their acts, upon the King's prerogative and government.^ This was another ill-advised accusation of law-breaking, which was answered in due form in a Remonstrance. ' Howell, IIo-Elianae — Familiar Letters, domestic and forren, 276 (Lond., 1678). " Act. Pari. Scot., v. 253-61. ^ Ibid., 285 ; Balfour, .Iniials, ii. 362. 340 THE COVENANTERS Private meet- ings for worship regulated. Fate of the prelates. The Church, while thus menaced by outward trouble, was endan- gered within by the rise of disputes concerning the holding of private religious meetings. As has been recorded, these, in an age of persecution, had afforded solace to retiring Christians like Henderson, and to other Presbyterians, who in Ireland and elsewhere suffered at the hands of prelates for their tenets, especially for refusing to hear the Liturgy read. Their accusers stated that these meetings for private worship now tended to engender the errors of the Brownists, and that some of their number spoke lightly of the regular ministry. Henry Guthry, minister of Stirling, denounced these innovations in the Aberdeen Assembly of 1640, and was passionately answered by David Dickson, Samuel Rutherford, and others. The dispute was ultimately settled by the passing of a regulative Act, entitled, ' Act against impiety and schism,' drawn up by Henderson for the Assembly of 1641,^ which forbade mocking religion and all meetings breeding error — such as ' the neglect of duties in particular callings ' — while encouraging the practice of family worship. The Presbyterian Church was nowat the acme of her glory. Herjudi- catories were all re-established. The persecuting prelates had fled. The Covenant had been renewed. The King, if not subdued, was powerless to suppress the Covenanters and their cause, which in reality required no regal approval, so long as it was defended by the majority of the people. As the star of the Covenant rose that of Prelacy waned. The bishops had crossed the Borders. Sickness, as well as misfortune, overtook many of the most notable of the Episcopal bishops and clergy in the year 1639. The famous Dr. Baron, bishop-designate of Orkney, died in August, leaving behind him the memory of an excellent scholar and a meek divine. He was followed in September by Bishop Wedderburn of Dunblane, a man of scholarly propensities, timid spirit, and generous heart. The Primate, Spottiswood, himself was now feeling the weight of seventy-four years, and, being in infirm health, made his will disposing of his library and making arrangements for the publication of his excellent History, which he had undertaken ' Peterkin, Records, 294 : Guthry, Memoirs, 78 ; M'Crie, Miscell. Writings, 38, App. ii. I THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 341 at the request of; ' King James the vi. of ever blessed memory,' as the Spottlswood's title-page bears.^ His will reasserted his faith, for which he was then '^'°'''' an exile, that ' Government episcopal is the only right and apostollck form ; Parity among ministers being the breeder of all confusion as experience might have taught us, and ruling elders . . . a mere human device ; so they will prove . . . the ruine of both Church and State."' His biographer declared that he was a pious, peaceable, learned, charitable man, more anxious to win ' souls for God than praise from men.'' Hamilton and the General Assembly credited him with more carnality than adorns an apostle. 'Almost a martyr,' says his epitaph in Westminster, where he rests near his patron, King James. Traquair communicated these negotiations to the King, who was exasperated, and replied imperiously that he had overtopped his instructions : ' Though you have power for giving way to the abolition of Episcopacy as contrary to the Constitutions of the Church of Scotland, yet you will not find either in your instructions, or in any other directions since sent you, that We have consented to declare the same unlawful ... so We absolutely command you not to ratifie the same in these terms in the Parliament, but only as contrary to the Constitutions of that Kirk.' The Sovereign com- pleted the new directions — with the following remarkable illustration of his perfidy: ' If you find, that what We have commanded you to Perfidy of do is likely to cause a Rupture, their impertinent Motions give you a fair occasion to make it appear to the World, that We have con- descended to all matters which can be pretended to concern Conscience and Religion, and that now they aim at nothing but the overthrow of Royal Authority, contrary to all their professions, which We can neither with Honour nor Safety suffer. And therefore We hope and expect, that if a Rupture happen, you will make this appear to be the cause thereof, and not Religion, which you know not only to be true, but must see it will be of great advantage to Us, and therefore must be seriously intended by you.'"* ' Spottiswood, The History (if the Church o/Scotland, fol., 1655. - Ibid., Biography, by Bishop Maxwell. ' Ibid., I'ref. ' Peterkin, Records, 236-7. 542 THE COVENANTERS Traquair inflames the Kinir. Letter of Scots to As soon as the Parliamentary farce was over, the King com- manded Traquair to come to Court, where he was coldly received. Traquair's ingenious imagination soon rectified this slight, as he narrated to the King and Council the terrifying procedure of the rebels, and substantiated his account by producing a copy of a letter which, he said, had passed to the King of France, whose aid the insurgents had implored. Charles was mollified. Traquair was making good his threat to Henderson, that before he perished 'he would mix heaven and earth and hell together.' ^ The story of the treasonable letter is as follows : The Covenanters, after making clear their intentions to the English, resolved to send William Colvill, a gentleman of Fife, to the States of Holland and to France, to explain their position, and to ask their intervention with Charles on behalf of the Scots. A similar agent, Meldrum, was to proceed to Denmark and Sweden.- A draft letter to the French king was French Kin Prepared and signed by ' A. Leslie and Rothes ' ; but, according 19th February to the agent, Colvill, this letter was not relevant, while that to the States of Holland was 'not so sweet' as he could have wished; and, after submitting them and a letter of credence to Lothian, and Leighton, afterwards bishop, he recommended Balmerino to have the papers rewritten and signed.' This story is corroborated some- what by Burnet, who, on the authority of Lauderdale, recorded that Montrose ' both advised and drew the letter to the King of France for which the Lord Loudoun, who signed it, was imprisoned in the Tower of London.' Lauderdale, finding fault with the absurd French expressions, refused to subscribe it. These drafts were not sent.* A copy, however, subscribed by Rothes, Montrose, Mar, Loudoun, fell into the hands of Traquair, who gave it to the King. When Charles referred it to the King of France, the latter had no knowledge of it. Colvill got the instructions he desired, and a second letter, signed by Argyll, Montrose, Lothian, and others — not by Loudoun — of date \^tk February 1639, which he carried ' Dalrymple, Memorials, 1 21. ^ Da.\Tymp\e, Meiiiar/a/s, 57-65. ^ Baillie, Letters, i. 190-1. * Burnet, Hist., i. 48, 49. THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 343 to King Louis xiii.' The letter contained a supplication for pro- tection through the continuance of the ancient league with France. It required little incitement to move King Charles to design an- other war of extermination. But where might supplies be found ? Laud advised Charles to seize what he needed, by the exercise of his prerogative, in the same way that past subsidies had been raised. Wentworth, with more sagacity, advised the summoning of Parliament. The Scots, faithful to their declaration at Birks, signed by Loudoun, ' That our desires are only the enjoying of our Religion and Liberties, according to the ecclesiastical and civil laws of his Majesty's king- dom,'^ sent Commissioners to London to assert their loyalty to the Crown, to conciliate the King and his abettors, and to state their grievances. They were refused an audience on their first visit. Again they appeared, but their appeals were in vain. Loudoun, Dun- fermline, Douglas of Cavers, and Provost Barclay of Irvine were Scots Com- arrested on a fabricated charge oi laesa Majestas. Loudoun was com- ™/gs°ed"^ mitted to the Tower on the i ith of April.' The ground of the charge April 1640. of treason was that Loudoun, along with Rothes, Montrose, Leslie, Mar, Montgomery, and Forrester, had subscribed an appeal to King Louis of France to assist them against their liege lord. Before the Privy Council, Loudoun declared that a missive supplicating for mediation had been prepared, before the Pacification of Berwick, but was never sent to the French king. If he had erred he demanded a trial in his native land. Charles, so far from being satisfied, is said Loudoun to have ordered Loudoun's immediate execution, without trial or •';r^"t, ' with exccu- benefit of clergy. The keeper of the Tower hastened to inform ''""■ Hamilton, who appealed to his autocratic master not to imperil his own cause by so infamous an act as the violation of Loudoun's safe- conduct, and the execution of a peer without the semblance of a trial. The enraged King tore up the warrant. At the end of June, Loudoun ' Biblio. Nat. Fr., 15,915, fol. 410 ; cited by Gardiner, Hist., ix. 92, 93 note. - Nalson, Imp. Coll., i. 235. ' Peterkin, AVf-, Leslie, 121 note. /»: THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 351 tightly in, Newcastle, which he found full of stores and munitions of Scuts in New- war. He appointed Lothian to be its military governor. Leslie's August^°64o. position in the heart of an enemy's country was perilous, in his own estimation. He was forced to decimate his cowardly deserters. The prices for his provisions were trebled. He feared an Irish diversion in his rear. Consequently he requested the War Committee to send him reinforcements, and for his security to post Monro upon the Borders. Meantime, the chief events in Scotland had been the capitulation of Dumbarton Castle, the accidental but disastrous blowing up of Dunglass Castle, and the reduction of Edinburgh Castle, whose garrison, under Lord Ruthven, had been a source of trouble and bloodshed to the inhabitants of the city beneath its guns. The executive of the Covenanting party now found themselves in English and an advantageous position for respectfully addressing the King anew, ^'^jgy^^ces with a view to obtaining redress of their grievances. Fortunately, at the same time twelve English peers presented to their Sovereign a similar petition relative to English grievances. Charles, with a defeated army, menaced by mutineers, and having an empty war chest, was glad to reply that he would submit the Scots supplication , to a Council of Peers, to be convened in York on the 24th of September. He kept his word. After deliberation, he agreed to the appointment of a Committee of English noblemen, to meet at Ripon on the and of October with the Scots Commissioners, and to settle a treaty of peace. To this conference came, from the Scots camp, Rothes, Dunfermline, Loudoun, Hepburn of Waughton, Douglas of Cavers, Drummond of Riccarton, Bailie John Smith of Edinburgh, Hugh Kennedy, burgess of Ayr, Wariston, and Alexander Henderson. These bold men would not tolerate at their meetings Traquair, Morton, Lanark, Sir Lewis Stewart, and others, whom the King had sent as assistant negotiators. The English Commissioners were Hertford, Bedford, Bristol, Holland, Salisbury, Berkshire, Warwick, Paget, Saville, Dunsmore, Howard, Brooke, Paulet, and Wharton. The King's diplomatists schemed for delaying a settlement, but the Scots pressed their demand for the payment of their troops on that 352 THE COVENANTERS Treaty of servicc. Until a final treaty was agreed upon. By this arrangement the October^ 1640 Covenanters secured ^850 a day, payable from the three northern counties, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, and from the bishopric of Durham. It was further agreed that all acts of hostility should cease, and that the armies should remain where they were mustered.^ The Commissioners adjourned to meet in London. The King was left with no other alternative than the summoning of Parliament. It assembled on the 3rd of November to begin its The Long long Struggle with the Crown, hence its name — The Long Parliament. Parliament, jj. {jgcarng ^ seHcs of surpHses to the autocratic Monarch. Lords and 3ra November ^ 1640. Commons granted a commission to the peace plenipotentiaries to complete their work. Charles was in no haste to have a settlement. The English Parliament was in less haste, as soon as it recognised that the Scottish army was the best guardian of English liberties and the strongest lever for removing their national grievances. In that alien force they had the means of intimidating the King. The undaunted Pym again voiced the public dissatisfaction, and demanded the impeachment of Strafford, Laud, and other incendiaries, as well as the abolition of the Star Chamber, the Court of High Commission, and the Council of the North, which were the cruel engines of tyranny utilised by the King. Charles became more and more powerless to interfere. This impotence, however, was no justifi- cation for his mean treatment of his trustiest supporter — the misguided Fate of Strafford, to whose execution he ultimately consented. ' Put not your trust in princes,' said that noble defender of a fickle master, as he prepared for the block. A similar fate was in store for Laud and Hamilton. The sight of Strafford's blood gave the Puritans and Presbyterians a tiger's thirst for more. The Israelites would be drunk with the blood of the Gibeathites before they would feel satiated. While the Scottish Commissioners tarried in London, they insti- gated the leaders of the movement against Episcopacy to prepare a petition, which was subscribed by fifteen thousand persons and pre- sented to Parliament on nth December 1640, and they witnessed all ' Peterkin, Records, 302. Strafford. THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR 353 those stirring events which humbled the King, and made Parliament paramount in England.^ The city throbbed with excitement over the monster petition by the people, and the ' Petition and Remonstrance from seven hundred ministers of the Church of England,' to have the bishops and the ceremonies radically reformed.'- The Scots preachers, Henderson, Baillie, Gillespie, and others, drew great crowds to hear them state and defend the popular cause. In The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, a manual published by Henderson when resident in London in 1641, he put the case for Presbytery in a nutshell thus : ' Here there is superiority without tyranny, parity without' confusion and disorder, and subjection without slavery.'^ A more concise statement could hardly have been framed. At length, on the loth of August 1641, a Treaty was adjusted and Trcnyof made a statute, by which the Covenanting insurgents obtained all ^^^ August their demands, with the exception of Uniformity. As a consideration '641. for their losses, the Scots were awarded the sum of ^220,000 — a not too handsome war indemnity, or, as it was more euphemistically called, ' brotherly assistance.' In the Act of Oblivion included in the Treaty, the Scottish bishops and the incendiaries — Traquair, Sir Robert Spottiswood, Sir John Hay, and Dr. Walter Balcanqual — were specially exempted, so that they might receive their deserts should they ever fall into the hands of their countrymen. Besides this award, over one million pounds of expenses were incurred by the English through this invasion. It was a dear price that Laud and other meddlers made their country pay for 'The Second Bishops' War.'* ' Hallani, Const. Hist., ii. ii6. - Carlylc, Croimvcll, i. 85, Letter iii. ^ Aldis, List, 1005. * Nalson, Imp. Coll., 421-30. 2 V 354 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER XIII ' LEX REX '—THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER — THE KING IN SCOTLAND Loyalty of the Scots. The tragic end of Strafford, the ablest of the King's advisers, 1 2th May 1641, and the passing of several bills, notably one pre- venting the King dissolving Parliament suddenly without its own consent, denuded the Crown of its offensive powers. This statute plainly indicated the growing popularity of the Scottish contention — that the King was servant as well as head of the State, and that his counsellors also should be representatives of the people. The 'people, fountain of the King, must rather be fountain of the laws,' was the maxim which Samuel Rutherford was soon (1644) to pro- mulgate in his famous work, Lex Rex, or the Laiv and the Pi'ince. Still the Scots professed great veneration for the royal person and throne. If Charles guaranteed to them their liberties, they would be prepared to send ten thousand soldiers to Germany in defence of the blood-royal in the person of the Prince Elector Palatine.^ Charles placed a stronger trust in that reverence than in the fidelity of his Puritan critics. With his curious aptitude for acting inopportunely, Charles resolved to visit Scotland and turn its fealty to account. With his father's gift, he ' sweires terriblie ' against, and vowed vengeance on, those who tried 10 dissuade him.- The political atmosphere of London had grown unbearable to him ; and this was not to be wondered at. Baillie, at this very time, was recording, 'all here are weary of bishops.'^ Laud, impeached by Pym, and charged by Baillie as a traitor, ' Act. Pari. Scol., v. 386, 460. ~ M'Crie, Misc. Worls, 41 note. ^ Letters, i, 274. THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER 355 by authority of the Scots Commissioners, lay in the Tower awaiting his trial and bloody doom. The Scots now esteemed Laud to be too contemptible for further concern or notice among more engrossing affairs. Laud was executed on loth January 1645.' Hallam was Execution of of opinion that ' Laud had amply merited punishment for his loth January tyrannical abuse of power.'- Laud's former victims, Prynne, Bastwick, '645- and others, now liberated, used their freedom to create discontent. The populace, fired with their tale of wrong, looked on these victims of the slit-nose and cropped-ear policy as demigods. Now John Milton himself was noting arguments for his able pamphlet (1642) entitled The Reason of CImrch Government against Prelaty. The streets rang with scurrilous ballads such as this : Vox Popiili, in plain English : — ' Then let all good people take courage indeed, So that they from Antichrist's yoak may be freed : And seeing that libertic 's gained by the Scots, Let Englishmen seek for 't, it may be their lotts ; Then join hands together, and fear not their wrath, But cry down the Prelats, and spew out their Brotli.'^ The sanguine Sovereign hied away to Scotland. On his journey he visited the Scottish camp at Newcastle, where his kingly bearing made a great impression upon the warlike ' Bluebonnets.' They were in high spirits, packing up to march home with their gold and honours of war. He also won the heart of Leslie ; and that tough old veteran conditionally offered to Charles his sword— a courtesy which was afterwards rewarded with an earldom. This enthusiastic welcome was accentuated because of their delusion that Charles was the victim of unscrupulous counsellors. Charles entered Edinburgh on tht; 14th August. There he Charles visits found Montrose and other Royalists incarcerated in the Castle, ,^'" ""^^ ' charged with plotting against the Constitution and the Covenant. If confusion reigned in southern politics, the King found confusion worse confounded in his northern kingdom. Several parties opposed ' Hutton, William Laud, 226, note i. - Const. Hist., ii. 167. ■' The ' Broth ' was the Liturgy : Nalson, //«/. Coll., ii. 808. 356 THE COVENANTERS Partie-iin the dominant Covenanting Government. The Covenanters were "" ' divided among themselves as to what their own distinctive principles were. The staunch Carolan party, whose five leaders were called the 'Incendiaries,' because they were charged with being 'the authors of this combustion ' were : John, Earl of Traquair, Sir Robert Spottiswood of Dunipace, President of the Court of Session, Sir John Hay, Lord Clerk Register, Dr. Walter Balcanqual, and ex-Bishop Maxwell. These five were exempted from the indemnity clause in the Treaty of Ripon. The ' Banders ' or ' Plotters ' were a new party of patriots, who had formed a cave of their own within the main body of the Covenanters, as a protest against the too radical policy of The Tables and the schemes of Argyll. The most satisfactory explanation of the cleavage of the Covenanters into two followings, that of Montrose and that of Argyll, is afforded by Montrose himself, and recorded by his relative. Lord Archibald Napier.' The Montrose faction maintained that their former associates had left their original constitutional standpoint, and become usurpers of authority. This reason is more credible than the other — that Montrose's championship originated in the vainglory of a peevish and vindictive cavalier, who resented his countrymen's preference for Argyll to guide in council, and for Leslie to lead in war.- Truly the Presbyterian leaders had gone a long way since they discarded Episcopacy, and at Duns had asked the King to abolish the office of bishops in Church and State. Gillespie's trenchant work, A Dispute against the English-Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland, published in 1637, made it plain that Presbyterians had a divine mission to carry their polity over the Borders. The success of Leslie's arms gave this School of Gillespie its righteous oppor- tunity. A statement of their case for unity asserted that England was out of harmony with all the Reformed Churches regarding Church government. ' Napier, Memoirs, i. App. xliv. - Cf. Baillie's strictures on Montrose for his pride, vanity, and suspected treachery : Letters, ii. 261. THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER 357 In August 1640, Montrose with nineteen nobles and barons, realising that there were dangerous forces at work, and imagining that these were to be unscrupulously used by Argyll, Hamilton, and others for the overthrow of the monarchy, entered into what Baillie styled ' Montrose's damnable band.' This bond, subscribed at Cumbernauld House, the seat of the Earl of Wigton, a relative of Montrose, did not transpire till November. Its tenor is as follows : — ' Whereas WE Under-Subscribers, out of our duty to Religion, King, and Moimose's Country, were forced to join ourselves in a Covenant for the maintenance and Damnable defence of either, and every one of other in that behalf: Now finding how that, by the particular and indirect practicking of a few, the Country and Cause now depending, does so much suffer, do heartily hereby Bind and oblige ourselves, out of our duty to all these respects above mentionat, but chiefly and mainely that Covenant, which we have soe solemnlie sworne and already signed, to wed and study all public ends which tend to the safety both of Religion, Laws, and Liberties of this poor Kingdom ; And as we are to make account before that Great Judge at the last day, that we shall contribute one with another, in a unanimous and joint way, in whatsomever may concern the public or this cause, to the hazard of our lives, fortunes, and estates, neither of us doing, consulting, nor condescending in any point, without the consent and approbation of the whole, in so far as they can be conveniently had, and time may allow. And likewise we swear and jirotest, by the same Oath, that, in so far as may consist with the good and weal of the public, that every one of us shall join and adhere to others, and their interests, against all persons and causes whatsoever, so what shall be done to one, (with reservation foresaid), shall be equally resented and taken as done to the whole number. In witness wliereof, etc. ' Marschell. Stormonth. Montrose. Seaforth. Wigton. Erskine. Kinghorne. Kilcubright. Home. Amont. Atholl. Drummond. Mar. Johnston. Perth. Lour. Boyd. D. Carnegy. Galloway. Master of Lour.' In the following January, twelve of these 'Banders' signed an explanatory declaration, asserting their intention to do nothing ' prejudicial to the Covenant.' ' ' liaillie. Letters, ii. 468 ; i. 374, 375 ; ii. 262 ; Masson, Drummond, 345 ; N.npier, Afenif^irs, i. 269, 270. 358 THE COVENANTERS Montrose's hatred of bishops. Treachery nf Montrose. In a Remonstrance drawn up by Montrose at the height of his victorious career, before Philiphaugh, he justified his action in breaking from this dangerous party, declaring, ' We could not go further with a safe conscience, when we perceived their unlawfull designs.'' He hinted at some sinister plot of Argyll to seize the throne. Montrose repudiated any predilection for the bishops, and rightly blamed the bishops and Hamilton for the misery in Scotland. No fanatical Mitchellite, Cargillite, or Cameronian could have more bitterly banned the intruding prelates than did this Royalist, after deserting the extremists, having declared ' that trampling upon the necks of all whose conscience could not condescend to be of their coin, none were sure of life or estate, till it pleased God to stir up his own instruments . . . for . . . opposing such impiety.' This severe criticism coincides with what Montrose said on the day before his death : ' Bishops, I care not for them. I never intended to advance their interest.'" Thus his quarrel was purely political. He was of that minority in Parliament who maintained that the majority had violated both the letter and the spirit of the Covenant, by trespass- ing upon the prerogatives of the Crown, thereby causing the ' out- casting of the locust to be the inbringing of the caterpillar.' Montrose was but partly right. There was another prerogative — that of the people — and righteousness also demanded its exercise. Montrose had forgotten, or had never realised, the perfidy of his Sovereign, and his treacherous designs against that Covenant, concerning which he himself wrote : 'We take arms for the defence thereof That is the point in the quarrel which admirers of Montrose, and apologists for Charles, entirely overlook, that only the lack of power prevented the King from modelling the institutions of Scotland, and handling its populace, any way he pleased. In October 1640 Montrose, while in Newcastle, was discovered corresponding with the King. Leslie accused him to the Committee, and threatened him with the short shrift of a court-martial.^ Before ' Napier, Memoirs, i. App. iii. xlv. - Ibid., ii. 787 ; i. 215, App. xlv. ■' Ibid., i. 273 ; Burnet, Memcires, 179 ; Hist., i. 48; Wodrciv MSS. (Advoc. Lib.), fol. 65. THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER 359 the death of Lord Boyd, Argyll wormed out the secret of the Cumbernauld bond, and divulged it in November. Montrose was cited before the Committee of the Estates and a^ain warned to give over divisive courses. They ordered the bond to be burned. Montrose, now thoroughly exposed, was under surveillance. But he could not hold his tongue among clerical tattlers ; and Argyll again discovered his rival slandering him as a would-be dictator, and deposer of the King. Montrose acknowledged the gossip before the Committee, and gave as his informants Lord Lindsay and John Stewart, younger of Ladywell. Lindsay gave the lie to Montrose in examination, but Stewart owned to malice and went to the scaffold for his offence. Although Montrose confessed that he had been tempted to sign a bond at Duns in 1640, pledging him to the deposition of the King and the establishment of an oligarchy, he does not designate the conspirators in his Remonstrance, although he mentions Hamilton — ' the prime fomenter of these misunderstandings betwixt the King and his subjects.' Even when he was examined on the subject, he was not ingenuous in his replies.^ The views of Montrose became a family concern. His junto a Monuose contrived to inform the King that they were sympathetic. Early in^" 1 64 1 Montrose, Lord Napier, his brother-in-law, Sir George Stirling of Keir, his niece's husband, and Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackball, his brother-in-law, made bold to invite his Majesty ' to come in person to Scotland, and give his people satisfaction and just liberties,* and settle his own authority. Their advice was still more suggestive — 'suffer them not to meddle or dispute of your power.'" Charles graciously replied on 22nd May, and promised to come. The courier was intercepted, and the royal letter was found concealed in his saddle. The courier, Lieut.-Col. Walter Stewart, another scandal- monger, confessed that he had carried letters and instructions from Montrose, which Traquair had furbished up into dispatches for the King. Drafts of some papers in cipher were found in his possession, ' Napier, Memoirs, i. 264, 306 ; iVIasson, Dnimmoiid, 345 ; Act. Pari. Scot., v. 666 ; Willcock, The Great Marquess, 113. - Napier, Meiiivirs, i. 31;. 36o THE COVENANTERS and therein, in a curious jargon, Argyll was referred to as the 'dromedary,' Hamilton as the 'elephant,' and Laud as the 'serpent.' Nothing to incriminate the 'Banders' was discovered. Both the King and Traquair disowned complicity with Stewart. Nevertheless, Argyll and the Committee deemed it safer to throw this junto into Edinburgh Castle, just four days after Lindsay gave the lie to the inventive Montrose. incepUonof The Estates, the General Assembly, and the Peace Commission Le^e, 164!. were all sitting in July 1641. The Estates, under Lord Burleigh, had been thrice adjourned. The Assembly first sat in St. Andrews, and, on the invitation of Parliament, adjourned to Edinburgh, 27th July. John, Earl of Wemyss, was Commissioner, and Henderson was Moderator. The Assembly was occupied with routine business, — the maintenance of churches, pastors, universities, schools, and hospitals, and with repressive measures against gypsies and necro- mancers. On 1 2th August, an answer was framed to an important letter which was sent by some English clergy who desired a closer alliance with the Presbyterians, and it announced that the Scots were praying to secure ' in both Kirks one Confession, one Directory for public worship, one Catechism, and one forme of Kirk Government.' Henderson was thereafter empowered to frame a unifying Polity, as he himself first proposed.^ This step towards a National League was taken on the day before the English Parliament dropped the Root and Branch Bill. Meeting of The King arrived in Holyrood House on Saturday evening, 14th ment^, 17th* August. Next morning he heard Henderson, his chaplain, preach in August 1 64 1, the Chapel- Royal ; in the afternoon he played golf. Taken to task by Henderson for Sabbath-breaking, he soon forgot the Book of Sports ; and, intruder of Prelacy though he was, he bent his neck to the Presbyterian yoke, and kept the diets of worship without com- plaint, so long as he remained in Scotland. John Hampden, 'a subtle fox' according to D'Ewes, was one of four Parliamentary spies who arrived in Edinburgh at this time to note the movements of the ' Peterkin, Records, 296. THE >; 11 p ^ r K I r: I R <; or t ii [ LEAGUt AND C o V L N A N r. I'f, i<..- ..r..w.,., ->:»,»„ „.vt2i__ ^>f*f ■<---■ r-iF^Ki ^-'- fttrnrytf^ -,;-•/ — e,„.,.^pj,,:,ri,,i- U.^..,.,.. .f^r.l, .f, Wj.hr i\tmqlir, ifiCt l„r„r ilSUfi >-,-^ -iv^ f^.—r-i /"■M"- -J- >■'■'- 'V.r.'. -.J.:^i-^ . ~R.6 ,f., 6.1-".' fV"!'' \i ' y^xj"'' }U "•;■■"/ lit'' ^^.•.,' n'.'t*- ,4H..vV.r':..rP'''"- m League and (Covenant, subscribed in llie University uf tjlasgow in 1643 «* C O V E N A N T- -id^T!ea^,&'^S■:K^.;{rnJa^.^f^lT»^4^■-t*- C-.'^pr.-^ ■'-' Tf^-'v*- HVi^il -■' ' '- ^^.^xri.- ft'^ ^.-fi. f-V «'• ^'', -;-'*vshj. ^^."£71 , ft',«:^ f..t^ fi-y "'. ^ • >.'*v^v. ma.'nut lJ^.,„;f» 'r' ~ ^ »■>..,. ..V -■ot'ul.- a/ Solemn League and Covenant subscribed in G'.as.gow in 1648 Xw^i ^g. .1 •:/:.'.— I lAjf y..-u «;«' A,t)J.nli It m HI mAf urettiut f/u Mi <;/««^ "14 tf /<&/ iiafm>.y- Cnrt lit* f(^ Ktuit /Suj/ji 'fidj^./ 1 n S c R r fCUpAND CO "^ fM** r?!" 5 J- y/'/Zi"'- /• i>A/. ■A: dirin Ji/f^^ Leiicr of King Cliarles ri. to kev. ki.bert Douglas in 1649 Solemn League and Covenant subscribed by Samuel Kullieifoid and other Professors and Students in St. Andrews KACSLMILIi OF SIGNATUKliS ON COVENANT OK 16.13 THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER tiGi o^ King. On Tuesday, Charles opened Parliament most courteously, asseverating that he had come to settle the religion and liberties of his fatherland and to make his people content/ One may imagine the scene, when Argyll rose to thank his Sovereign, bowed his red head, tried to look amiably impressive with his conflicting eyes, referred to the skilful pilot of the storm-tossed Ship of State, and with a sneer congratulated the Kins^ on havins; thrown overboard ' the naughtiest baggage to lighten ' her, namely, Strafford and Laud. Without a cavil the King called for the obnoxious Acts of the preced- chaiiesin ing Parliament, for which war had been waged, that he might touch them into operative being with the sceptre." What were a few pawns t 1 1 Tr • J I I"' consurving Commissioun lor conservmg of the Peace between the two Kmgdoms, p^^^^ Parliament set up a new Council, which was virtually a Defence Committee, as Baillie wrote, ' to keep correspondence in so needful a time.'' Parliament adjourned, to meet on the first Tuesday of June 1644. That night also the King tried still more to mollify these fractious legislators by a grand feast in the Great Hall of Holyrood. Next morning he rode off, never to see the home of the Stewarts again. In the King's absence in Scotland, Pym's party in the Commons, Kcvoiuiion.iiy which had long threatened to abolish the bishops, ' root and branch,' ",^"^nri although they failed to carry a bill under that title, did pass a bill depriving the bishops of temporal power and their seats in the House ' Acl. Pari. Scot., v. 480, 519 ; Pcterkin, 317 ; Masson, Druiiintoitft, 355 ; Ikiillir, iMIcrs, i. 397 ; M'Ciie, Misc. Writ., 82 ; lialfour, ill. 165. 366 THE COVENANTERS of Lords — a statute which Charles ultimately (1642) ratified. This bill was followed by Pym's 'Grand Remonstrance,' which was a fierce indictment of the King, enumerating all his illegal doings, and denoun- cing the bishops, the advisers of the Crown, and the Liturgy'. This bill, embodying the principle laid down by the Scots Estates — that Parliament should be consulted in the King's choice of the Ofiicers of State — became law three days before Charles returned to London, on 25th November. He found the capital on the verge of civil war. News from Ireland, growing more heartrending every day, horror for Papists, and distaste for the prelates and the Prayer-Book, were maddening 'KingPym' the populace. 'King Pym ' was more supreme in England than foiiowin" Argyll was in Scotland. The real monarch, vainly endeavouring to outmanoeuvre the Covenanters and the Remonstrants, was no match for his popular rivals. Pym followed the procedure observed in inaugurating the National Covenant, and appealed to the people directly by means of the printed Remonstrance. Differences of opinion had arisen regarding the unseating of the prelates and popish peers, which cleft and imperilled Pym's party — already threatened with reprisals. The Royalists imagined that with Pym, Hampden, and a few others secured in the Tower, the Church would have peace again. Twelve bishops, in a petition to the King, protested against the late doings of Parliament and desired their protest to be recorded. They asserted that street mobs fettered their action and made Parlia- ment no longer free. A correspondent at this date wrote : ' The citizens grow very tumultuous, and flock by troops daily to the Parlia- ment . . . and there they never cease yawling and crying, "no bishops, no bishops." ' In a subsequent letter he wrote : ' The bloods of men severally affected are up, you may see by their catching.'^ Pym retaliated by arresting the twelve bishops for treason, and clapping them into the Tower, where Laud was engaged writing his History of the Troubles. The propriety of impeaching the Queen as ' W. Montague to Lord Montague, December i and i6, 1641 : Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. {Afotilaguc House AfSS.), i. 2S7, cSg. THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER 367 a fomenter of trouble and a conspirator against the liberties of the nation was discussed, the leaders of the Commons feeling some justification for plainly calling the rising in Ireland 'the Queen's Rebellion.' Charles, now too late, was ready to take Strafford's advice and seize the impudent impeachers, whom he accused of subverting the Crown and law, of having invited rebel Scots to invade England in 1640, and of other illegalities. On 4th January 1642 Charles, accompanied by a fierce retinue, The Five marched to the House of Commons personally to arrest five members ^"^ "^' — Pym, Hampden, Holies, Hazelrig, and Strode. Forewarned, they made their escape. 'The birds are Hown,' Charles exclaimed with chagrin when he scanned their empty seats in the House, then turned and madly strode away. Next day, as the King passed through the city, the jeering men in the street, now called Roundheads, because of their cropped pates, howled in his ears, ' Privileges of Parliament.' More afraid of the Royal autocrat than ever, the panic-stricken Londoners rose in arms to defend their homes from expected assassins, and to guard the Commons from an intimidating despot. Blood was up. Charles and his Court were glad to seek safety at Hampton Court and Windsor. When he came back to Whitehall, seven years afterwards, it was to die. Meantime Pym and the Parliament-men, who during this crisis found refuge in the city, returned to Westminster in triumph, accompanied by the jubilant masses. Civil war was now inevitable. The Court removed to York. CMi Wur On 22nd August Charles unfurled the national standard at ^"""' Nottingham, as his excited followers shouted, ' God save King Charles, and hang up the Roundheads.' A storm blew the emblem down, and some read a true omen from the fallen flag. The Queen was sent abroad to negotiate warlike alliances and to purchase munitions of war. The King solicited the purses and the swords of the Catholics. The early honours of the war fell to Charles and his cavaliers against the Earl of Es.sex and the Parliamentary forces. Since December 1641 a small force of English soldiery had in 368 THE COVENANTERS vain tried to quell the Irish rebels. Early in 1642 the Scottish force of 10,000 men, which had been intended for Germany, was dispatched to the north of Ireland under General Robert Munro, on English pay. English and Scots seemed to vie with each other in their revengeful butchery of men, women, and babes in Ireland. Sir James Turner, then a major in the Sinclair Levies, — a mer- cenary the least squeamish in affairs of blood — with shame afterwards described the barbarities he in vain tried to prevent.* During summer Leven superseded Munro in command of the troops in Ireland, but his success there was not brilliant, and he returned to lead the Scottish arms into England, on the invitation of the English Parliament, which declared that his acceptance would be ' taken as an Act of great love and advantage to this State.' Here it is only necessary to state the main events which rendered this military alliance with Scotland imperative. Charles had entered into a truce, called ' the Ces.sation,' with the fanatical Romanists, who had perpetrated the Ulster Massacres ; had handed over certain districts to the rule of ' Catholic Confederates ' ; and had promised these allies toleration. He as readily promised to Parliament to carry out the laws against recusants. There was no trusting him. His intrigues forced on the war. This 'Cessation' (15th September 1643) was the last intolerable manoeuvre among many. It was the King's ill-conceived antidote to the popular movement which gave birth Immediate to the Solemu League and Covenant. The prolonged and bitter cause of the experiences of Scotland groaning under despotic and priestly oppres- and CovenaiT. sions had prepared her for a stand on the side of the masses. The national instinct was democratic, and had grown more and more impatient of the attempts of authority to curb it. They found in Charles an enemy to representative government, as their clear intellects, accustomed to wrestle with subtle problems of theology and politics constantly projected from Scottish pulpits, led them to understand it. Both belligerents appealed to the Scots, who never deceived the King in assuring him that his own interests demanded ' Turner, Memoirs, 18-24; Gardiner, Hist., x. 175. THE RISE OF PARLIAMENTARY POWER 369 peace with his Parliaments, with which they were in accord. A few Scots nobles still encouraged Charles in his headstrong adventure, as remains to be seen. Charles was an incorrigible liar, and to his mendacity may be King Charles traced all his own personal afflictions as well as the woes which his ij^^ . perfidy brought on his unhappy kingdom. This glaring weakness in his character impressed Mr. Gladstone, who declared, ' Charles was no doubt a dreadful liar ; Cromwell, perhaps, did not always tell the truth ; Elizabeth was a tremendous liar.' ^ Had this vice perished also at Whitehall, Britain might have had a different destiny. But the King's two profligate sons and successors had the natural entailment of it, and were active in exercising it. ' Morley, The Life of William Ewaj-t Gladstone, iii. 480 (Lond., 1903). 3A MO THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER XIV THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT Origin of idea It IS HOW as difficult to mark on the plane of practical politics the uniormi). j^^j^gj^^-g ^f jj^g j^^gg^ ^f uniformity of religion as it is to prove from which side of the Borders the idea was reflected upon the other. It is most probable that polemical Covenanters first suggested union to the English Root and Branch reformers. Since Wariston had made the National Covenant a corollary from the King's Confession, he, with as great foresight, may have planned the development of the Solemn League and Covenant out of that 1638 bond. On the other hand, it certainly was Henderson who voiced the resolution of the Church, as to the expediency of the Union movement, at the time of the visit of Hampden and the Root and Branch spies in 1641. However, as early as 21st August 1640, in the Six Considera- tions of the Lawfulness of their Expedition into England manifested^ the idea of uniformity is veiled in these terms : ' Scotland shall be reformed as at the beginning, the reformation of England long prayed and pleaded for the Godly thereby shall be, according to their wishes and desires, perfected in Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline. Papists, Prelates, and all the members of the Anti-Christian Hierarchy, with their Idolatry, Superstition, and humane inventions, shall pack from hence, the names of Sects and Separatists shall no more be men- tioned, and the Lord shall be one, and his name one throughout the whole island.' After the negotiations were opened at Ripon, ist October 1640, Henderson formulated the views of his compatriots under the title : ' Our Desires concerning Unity in Religion, and ' Peterkin, Records, 297. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 371 Uniformity of Church Government, as a special means to conserve Peace in his Majesty's Dominions.'^ This pamphlet so much interested Oliver Cromwell, who was also a Root and Branch man, that he again borrowed the print in February 1642, declaring: 'I would peruse it against we fall upon that Debate, which will be speedily.'" In this remarkable document Henderson strongly First Covenan- repudiated the charge so often repeated, by the Carolan faction, ["^i^/^";"^"^'^ '° then and since, that the Covenanters had ' a presumptuous intention to reform England ' and ' to touch another free and independent Church and Kingdom ... we do not presume to propound the form of government of the Church of Scotland as a pattern for the Church of England, but do only represent, in all modesty, these few considerations, according to the trust committed unto us.' He proudly asserted, ' so have we not been so forgetful of ourselves ' ; and further, 'our ways also are witnesses of the contrary against the malicious.' This is a complete answer to the latest editors of the Memoirs of Montrose, who inform us that ' the Solemn League and Covenant was an unprovoked invasion of England on the part of Pre.sbyterian propagandists, seeking by help of a faction in England to impose on that country an alien form of Church discipline.'" Henderson, who guided the movement, while always prepared to defend Presbytery, was willing to submit all disput- able subjects for settlement by a convention of competent inter- preters of the word of God. Nye, on the other hand, is credited with being the earliest champion of toleration with the soundest views of the question of the hour. In our opinion Dr. S. R. Gardiner went too far in his generalisation when he asserted : ' Of liberty of thought these Scottish Preachers neither knew anything nor cared to know anything. . . . Spiritual and mental freedom would have one day to be learned from England.'' It is easy to meet that assertion with quotations from contemporary ' 'Arguments given in,' etc., 1641 ; Hetherington, Hist. Westminster Assembly, 381. " Carlyle, Crovtwcll, Letter iii. ' Murdoch and Simpson, Preface, xxxix. * Hist., viii. 374. Remodelling of the standards. 372 THE COVENANTERS works. For example, in the correspondence on the subject of uni- formity, the spirit of toleration was thus expressed : ' We [the Scots] conceive so pious and profitable a work to be worthy of the best con- sideration, so we are earnest in recommending it to your lordships, that it may be brought before his Majesty and the Parliament, as that which . . . without forcing" of conscience, seemeth not only to be a possible but an easy work.'' Men who had lived in foreign lands must have experienced the sweets of toleration, although they were not prepared to sanction an indefensible toleration of wicked men who professed to take their rule of conduct solely from the word of God, and yet pressed burdens on other consciences for which there was neither reason nor authority." The General Assembly of 1641 had before it a letter from certain English pastors, asking for a definitive opinion upon the relative merits of Presbytery and Independency ; and in their pronouncement in reply the Scots divines declared uniformity to be their aim. On 28th August, Henderson 'did fall on a notable motion of drawing up a Confession of Faith, a Cathechism, a Directorie for all the parts of the publick worship, and a Platforme of Government, wherein possiblie England and we might agree.' ^ This motion was accepted, and Henderson was appointed to draw up the standards, thus showing the implicit trust his associates placed in that divine's judgment. In spring, Henderson informed Baillie that he had found himself unequal to the task, for several reasons, among others he could not settle some disputed points of doctrine, nor venture to amend the Prayer Book of Knox, 'penned by our great and divine Reformers.' 'The publication would not be timely,' he thought, ' till we see what the Lord will doe in England and Ireland, where I still wait for a reformation and uniformitie with us ; but this must be brought to passe with common consent, and we are not to conceave that ' M'Crie, Skelclies, 275 ; Hetherington, Hist., 3S5. - Henderson, when addressing the people in St. Andrews before t.iking the Covenant, in 1638, expressly referred to the lawful means of persuasion — 'preaching the gospel and the demonstration of the Spirit of God' : Serino/is, edit. Martin, 42 (Edin., 1867). •* Baillie, Letters, \. 365. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 373 they will embrace our Forme ; but a new Forme must be sett downe for us all . . . my desire is to see what Forme England will pitch upon before we publish ours.'^ These clear statements indicate the tolerant spirit of the trusted leader of the Church — ex uno disce omnes — who was prepared to compro- mise on non-essentials, and was averse from tampering with the Psalm Book of Knox, which had become so popular and useful by long usage. While the four Scots pastors, Henderson, Baillie, Blair, and Spread of idea Gillespie, all men of incisive intellect and polemical fervour, who ° ""' """' ^' fostered the dream of universal uniformity, remained with the Peace Commissioners in London, they kept in line with the English ex- positors of the same views. But they disclaimed all desire to interfere in southern politics, while openly demonstrating that Presbyterianism alone would accomplish the statesmanlike design of King James for unifying his kingdom. There was simplicity more than craft in enthusiasts having such millennial views. What they enunciated in London was re-echoed by Professor Samuel Rutherford in St. Andrews, who taught that the Church of Scotland did ever repute the prelate to be ' the fifth element and the sixt finger in the hand, and therefore unlawful.'- That was the Covenanters' idde fix4e. The reply of the Assembly to the English ministers, already referred to, resembles the preface of an able work, which George Gillespie was engaged on at this very time. He begins An Assertion of the Government of the Chnrch of Scotland, etc., 1641, thus : ' It is high time for those who have been long praying for the Peace of Jerusalem, and, with bleeding hearts, have beheld the sorrows of Zion, now to bestir themselves . . . that this great and good work of reformation may not be blasted in the bud, nor fade in the flourish, but may be brought forward to that full maturity which shall afford a harvest of joy to us, and to all the churches of God.' Robert Baillie's prolific pen, which made more excitement for an already nervous generation, in works such as Autokatacrisis, The Canterburians ' Baillie, T.etlers, ii. 2. ' A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul' s Presbytery, 311, edit. 1642. 374 THE COVENANTERS Self-Conviction (1640), Parallel of the Liturgy with the Mass-Book, Antidote to Arminianisvi, The Unlawfulness of Limited Episcopacy, and other works, helped on the movement. In a printed ballad of the time Baillie is thus referred to : — 'Baillie is bold now with his subtile pen, At London Laud to encounter, and defend His scrolls 'gainst England's Bishops and their minions, And in High Justice Court plead his opinions.' To the chagrin of the Scots, their offers to be mediators between the King and Parliament, 1642, were rejected by Charles. The Rubicon was crossed. The Earl of Dunfermline was appointed Royal Commissioner in Scotland. General The General Assembly met in St. Andrews in July 1642. The Assembly in ■, , . , , . • i i 1642. "-ing sent the usual greetmgs, and protestations that he was in favour of reformation, and would prove himself 'to be a nursing Father in that Kirk wherein we were born and baptized.' In reply the Assembly, 3rd August, petitioned the King to bring about unity in religion, and conformity. The English Parliament, in guarded terms, assured the Assembly that they too desired 'a most firm and stable union between the two kingdoms,' and 'such a reform of the Church as shall be most agreeable to God's Word.' The Assembly, in a reply to the Commons, pressed home the uniformity scheme : ' For what hope can there be of Unity in religion, of one Confession of faith, one Form of worship, and one Catechisme, till there be first one Form of ecclesiastical Government.'^ A similar answer was sent to those English ministers who then favoured Presbyterianism. The Assembly ne.xt appointed a large committee of their number to prosecute those aims and to prepare drafts of the proposed standards, namely, Henderson, Robert Douglas, Rutherford, and Robert Baillie, ministers ; the Earl of Cassillis, Lord Maitland (afterwards that scourge, the Duke of Lauderdale), and Wariston, elders.- On 2nd June, the Scots Privy Council, "by an ambiguous letter, ' Peterkin, Records, 323, 325, 329. - Ibid., 339 ; Baillie, Letters, ii. 44-54 ; Grub, Hist., iii. 94-8. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 375 gave Charles to understand that he was not to expect help from the Proposed Scots against the English Parliament.* In September, the Scottish ^"f^^i,,y movement was reported in London, and resulted in a letter being sent from both Houses pledging them to the abolition of Episcopacy. In October, a bill passed both Houses for convening an Assembly of English divines and learned laymen, with power to frame a new model of the Church. The refusal of the King to receive a petition from his Parliament at this juncture forced Pym to move for a bond similar to the Covenant ; and shortly afterwards, in November, the Scots were invited to enter England." The war proceeded. The Queen advised the King to play off intrigues at the Irish against the Scots, and to buy help from Denmark by the cession of the Orkneys. The Government retaliated by having the most influential Catholics arrested and their estates sequestrated. There was still a strong peace party, whose efforts were practically fruitless. The same may be said of the attempts of Henderson, Loudoun, and other Conservators of Peace, who waited upon the King at Oxford as mediators. According to Bishop Burnet, these amicable Scots had gone the length of inviting the Queen to act as an angel of peace, and to come to Scotland in that interest.^ Charles slighted that request, as much as he did their presence at Court in Oxford, from which they were glad to escape in safety, having accomplished nothing.* The Crown had other advisers, Hamilton being at the King's ear, Montrose at the Queen's at York. Both had captivating schemes, of course diametrically opposite. Hamilton, that brass-faced Munchhausen, who boasted of having a genius for political malingering, had invented fresh stumbling-blocks to the Scottish advance. His countrymen might be bribed. He told Lauderdale that he succeeded in keeping the voracious Scots 'neuter' at this time, by the King's offer of a slice of England, of a Court at Newcastle under the Duke of Rothesay, and of good billets in the royal household." He could pull strings, he imagined, so that nobles ' Reg. Privy Counc, vii. 264. '^ G.irdiner, Hist, of the Great Civil War, i. 39, 54. ^ Memoires,io\ . * Baillie, /.(^//rrx, ii.66 ; Clarendon, vi. 337-66. ^ lUirnet, //;>/., i. 59. zi(> THE COVENANTERS Montrose's plan. Petition and Cross-petition inimical to Argyll would soon destroy his faction of clergy. Hamilton was thus probably corroborating what Baillie wrote, that ' public commotions ' were the ' private subsistance ' of needy nobles like himself.^ With statecraft, intrigues, bribes, lies, and Hamilton — with Traquair included— the rising could be ended. Charles cherished this silly delusion hatched in Hamilton's brain. Not so the bold and energetic Queen, now attracted by the agreeable machinations of the brilliant Montrose, who proposed to send the fiery cross through the Gordon Highlands, muster the Nithsdale Papists on the Borders, unleash the cut-throat Macdonells of North Ireland upon their barbarous kinsmen of Argyll, and thus by a triple blow crush the Scots. This scheme was the only one which had the elements of success in it. As might be expected, the King preferred the Machiavellism of Hamilton to this bold call to arms ; and Montrose had to bide his time. When Henderson returned from Oxford, the 'verie double' Montrose — as Baillie designated that intriguer — arranged an interview with Henderson at Stirling, ostensibly to get enlightenment on the national crisis, but in reality to hoodwink the Covenanting party, and gain time to further his own plans. Hender- son was too acute and too well informed of the ruse not to see through the foolish subterfuge of the cavalier, of whose untrust- worthiness he warned his compatriots.- In the meantime the Defence Committees of Church and State had not been asleep. They were in communication with the opposing parties, who, before the end of 1642, respectively solicited help from the Scottish executive. The Scots Privy Council arranged to put the King's appeal alone before the people. To this prejudiced action both the Commission of Assembly and the Conservators of Peace dAnurred, on the ground that such a step was not harmonious with the popular feeling. They set about proving this in a petition, demanding the publication of the communication from the English Parliament. The Royalists, Malignants, or Banders, as they were ' Letters, ii. 75. - M'Crie, Life of Henderson, 45 ; Baillie, Lellets, ii. 74 ; Napier, Memoirs, ii. 3S1. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 377 called, tried to nullify this by their cross petition upholding the Council's action. On reconsideration, the Council gave way to the complainants. The issue was placed before the people now. The informal Scots government, under Argyll and the Church Counterplots leaders, in May, determined to convene a Convention of Estates, l^^ Puritans'!" on 22nd June, if necessary, without the royal warrant. Hamilton, acting representative of the King, and his following, who schemed for delay, were again outmanoeuvred.^ The disclosure of the new Irish plot, and the proposed rising under Montrose, fired Scotland. News was sent to England. The English Parliament had no hesita- tion in appointing a deputation of clergy and laity to wait upon the Convention, ostensibly to ask counsel and to invite also the attendance of some Scots ministers at their Assembly in Westminster. Arms were not condescended upon. The deputies dilly-dallied. According to Baillie, ' their slowness in all their affairs is marvellous.' At length, on 2nd August 1643, t^''^ epoch-making Assembly met in the east division of St. Giles' Church, Edinburgh, when Sir Thomas Hope had the unique distinction of sitting as Commissioner, and Henderson, for the third time, filled the Moderator's chair. They began business by enacting that the National Covenant of 1638 should be issued in a little quarto volume, with blank leaves, to be subscribed in every synod, presbytery, and parish, and that non- subscribers of it should be censured. - The dignified Moderator communicated his own feeling of awe General and gravity to the anxious House, so as to prevent the Commissioners ^nd^Augu'st from England conceiving the common Anglican idea that the Scots '^43- were rude, hyperborean boors. The deputation who attended were Sir William Armyn, Mr. Hatcher, Mr. Darley, Sir Harry Vane, Stephen Marshall, a Presbyterian minister, and Philip Nye, a Con- gregationalist minister.^ They were not admitted as members of Assembly, but sat apart and communicated their views through the ' Baillie, Letters, ii. 68, 74 ; Act. Pari. Scot., vi. pt. i. 14. - Aldis, List, Nos. 107, 108, 109, 1343 ; I'eterkin, Records, 346 : 8th August 1643. ^ Baillie, Letters, ii. 8g. 3K 378 THE COVENANTERS medium of a committee which passed to and fro. Their message was that the Lords and Commons of England had removed the High Commission, ejected the bishops from the Upper House, abohshed Episcopacy, ordered other reforms, and had called an assembly of divines to advise with Parliament concernino religfion. To this assembly the Parliament now invited a quota of Scots divines, while they pleaded with the Assembly to pray to God and to stir up the nation to send an army to suppress Papists and Prelatists.' Seventy assenting English clergy also sent a fulsome letter craving the union of Protestants against Antichrist. The Westminster Assembly of Divines, in session since ist July, in a letter subscribed by their prolocutor. Dr. Twisse, and others (4th August), formulated their views in a more statesmanlike manner, referring to a ' nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland ' as desirable ; and they cordially invited 'their godly brethren of the north to help to set their afflicted ark upon the mountains of Ararat.' A mutual bond The English propositions were fully discussed in the three separate si^Tced upon The Solemn Committees of Estates, Assembly, and Commissioners from England. League and xhe deputies were careful not to commit their principals to anvthing Covenant, ^ ^ f r - & 1643. ple<^gi"g them to a fast scheme of Uniformity. They ' were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant,' wrote Baillie.' At length they agreed upon a happy compromise, and termed the bond ' The Solemn League.' Thereupon Henderson produced the draft of his famous document. It met the requirements of the case almost exactly. In it, however, the deputies wished to embody a clause of toleration giving countenance to Independency, but the Scots were too obstinate to concede the demand entirely. The consciences of the proposers, however, were relieved by the insertion of two expres- sions explaining the intended reformation to be ' according to the • Row, Pref., xxiii., extract of K. S. Record of Camock : ' The 24 of September 1643, I advertised our people that every minister in Scotland wes desyrit to send out a fencible man to go in to England to withstand the violence of the Papistes Armeis that were myndit to invad us, and take away the libertie of the Gospel from us." This levy was for the General's guard. - Letters, ii. 90. ition. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 379 Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches.' Vane is sometimes credited with having outwitted the unbending Presbyterians by the suggestion of this equivocal addendum safe- guarding Independency. But the phrase embodied a favourite idea of the Scots Reformers, and was expressed in the Book of Discipline, and even in their Argument for Uniformity. Vane succeeded, however, in beating those wary polemics with their own cudgels. On 1 7th August, the Assembly accepted the amended Covenant Covenant with an unparalleled enthusiasm. Robert Blair, minister of St. co'nvemi' Andrews, that famous sufferer for his faith, was present, and thus describes the electrifying effect of it when read for the first time : ' When the draught thereof, at last agreed unto, was read in open audience of the whole Assembly, our smoking desires for a more strict union and uniformity in religion betwixt both the nations did break forth into a vehement flame ; for it was so unanimously and heartily embraced (so sincere was the Kirk of Scotland in this grand affair), and with such a torrent of most affectionate expressions, as none but eye and ear witnesses (whereof the writer was one) can conceive.' When the vote of some old ministers was asked 'their joy was so great that tears did interrupt their expressions.'* The Assembly passed the bond on to the Convention and to the Parlia- ment for ratification. The Convention as heartily accepted it before adjourning on 19th August. To the three sets of correspondents the Assembly sent masterly replies, each distinctly exhibiting the characteristic styles of Wariston, Henderson, and Rutherford. Five ministers and three elders were authorised to carry these answers, and to treat regarding the union of the National Churches.^ Before di.ssolving, the Assembly, following ' the commendable l^ractice of the late Assembly at Saint Andrews,' appointed a large, influential Commission of Laity and Clergy to 'advance, accomplish, and perfect the great Work of Unity of Religion, and uniformity of Kirk-government in all his Majesties Dominions.' Among the ' Row, Life of Blair, 171. - Peterkin, Records, 355 ; Grub, Hist., iii. q6 : Act. Pari. Scot., vi. 41-3. 38o THE COVENANTERS ministers were Henderson, the two Gillespies, Blair, Rutherford, Henr}' Guthry, James Sharp ; the leading laymen were Argyll, Sutherland, Cassillis, Eglinton. Lauderdale, Queensberry, Lord Maitland (Lauderdale), Dun, Wariston, etc. The next Assembly was fixed for the last Wednesday of May 1644. Purport of the The Solemn League and Covenant purported to aim at the and Covenant, advancement of Christ's Kingdom, the protection of the King's honour, and of the liberty and peace of the realm, the overthrow of God's enemies, the preservation of Scottish Presbyterianism, the reform of the Church of England (Ireland was a subsequent English addition), the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy with their retinue of officials, the rooting out of superstition, heresy, and schism, the prosecu- tion of the wicked fomenters of the national troubles, the settlement of an abiding peace and union, the mutual defence of all Solemn Leaguers and Covenanters, and finally, the earnest amendment of individual lives. Such are the definite resolutions of this wonderful protocol. Its amended and final form as accepted is given in Appendix li. Eight Eight Covenanters — Henderson, Robert Douglas, Samuel deT^auf"^ Rutherford, George Gillespie, Robert Baillie, ministers; and the Earl of Cassillis, Lord Maitland, and Wariston, elders — were dele- gated to prosecute the Covenant in London.' We have many references in the literature and documents of this epoch to Henderson, whose acute and powerful intellect grasped the whole movement, kept in check the extremists whose fanaticism imperilled the cause, and foiled those intriguers who had only sordid ends in view. Unfortunately the moderation and toleration of this cultured divine engendered suspicion in narrower minds, against whom he complained bitterly, so that his coadjutors tried to soothe his sensitive soul by securing for him the approbation of Parliament and a vote of confidence from the Assembly. These delegates were notable men. Robert Douglas, minister at Kirkcaldy, and at this date settled ' Henderson, writing to Douglas from London in 1643, declared ' If the Scottish army were heere the Covenant would go through the more easily.' IVedrow MSS., fol. 25, No. 13, Gtn. .^ssem. Library. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 381 at Edinburgh, formerly a campaigner with Gustavus Adolphus, Robert received this handsome certificate from that king : ' There goes a ,594.1674. man, who for wisdom and prudence, might be councillor to any prince in Europe ; he might be a moderator to any general council, and even for military skill, I would very freely entrust my whole army to his conduct.' He was an unbending Presbyterian, and hater of Prelacy, of which he declared : ' The Lord will pluck up that stinking weed.' He preached at the coronation of Charles 11., was five times Moderator, and lived to be ejected at the Restoration. Samuel Rutherford is better known, through his letters, as an s,imuci aphrodisian lyrist in prose modelled after the 'Song of Solomon,' ,600-1661. than as one of the acutest controversial writers on theology and constitutional law which Scotland has produced.^ Many only think of him, in leafy Anwoth, pouring out his Balm of Gilead in spiritual letters to ecstatic women and case-hardened worldlings, whom he quickened with quaint questions, such as this : ' My Lord [Kenmure], where lay Christ all night? Did not your well beloved lie as a bundle of myrrh betwixt your breasts.^' Yet this emotional Covenanter, little of stature like Henderson, but fair as the other was dark, with starlike eyes always peering into heaven, with shrilly voice assisting his restless hands in the air in mauling malignants with his impetuous oratory, possessed one of the keenest and best- informed intellects of his age. A Tweedside borderer (1600-61), belli- gerent of instinct, but chastened with Christian culture, he graduated in the University of Edinburgh, and, in 1623, was appointed Regent of Humanity there. Early in 1626 he married Euphame Hamilton, which so displeased Adamson, the Principal of the University, that he charged him with immorality, so that he was forced to resign his appointment. His offence probably was marrying without academic or Episcopal authority. Archbishop Spottiswood was a martinet regarding the proclamation of banns. Rutherford's mistake, whatever it was, was no barrier afterwards to the ministry, at any rate, and may ' Gilmour, Samuel Rutherford (Edin., 1904) ; Taylor Innes, Studies in Scottish History, 3-60 (Lond., 1902). I 382 THE COVENANTERS have been an early instance of his distaste for Episcopacy.^ He soon got a licence to preach. Probably through the influence of young Lochinvar, he was appointed minister of Anwoth parish, Kirkcudbrightshire, and entered the charge without Episcopal ordina- tion." In Anwoth he wrote his first work, entitled Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia, adversus Jacobum Arminium, etc., which was published in Amsterdam in 1636. For his pronounced Kiitherfords views and anti-episcopal practices, Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, had volumes. ^im deposed and cited to answer to the Court of High Commission, which, despite the efforts of Lord Lome and other favourers of Presby- tery, removed him from his pastorate and cantoned him in Aberdeen in August 1636. For two years he poured out in full flood his spiritual love-letters, disputations, and orations against the ' Doctors ' and sectaries, and prepared for the impending conflict. The Glasgow Assembly which swept out Episcopacy ordered his restoration, and its successor, 1639, placed him in the Divinity Chair of St. Andrews. Ten years later, 1649, the Town Council of Edinburgh, who had ejected him, appointed him to the Chair of Divinity in Edinburgh University, thus indicating their confidence in one they had apparently wronged. His Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Patd's Presbyterie in Scotland, 1642, was followed by a manifesto on the constitutional crisis. Lex Rex, which created a furore, and, according to Bishop Guthry, was so idolised that it threw Buchanan's De Jure Regni apud Scotos entirely into the shade. A very double of Melville, Rutherford in the Westminster Assembly frequently, incisively, and eruditely reiterated the Melvinian principles, which Presbytery rested on — ' That where Christ hath not bound us, a Directorie ought not to bind us,' since worship requires the warrant of the Word. The incessant labours of the Westminster Assembly wore out the northern delegates. Rutherford became pnncipal of the New College, and afterwards Rector of the University of St. Andrews. An irreconcil- able Protester, he survived the Restoration, and had the honour of ' Edinburgh Town Council Records, xiii. 323. Cf. Appendix ix. ^ His brother was Reader in Kirkcudbright. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 383 being deprived, of being summoned as a traitor, and of being informed Death of that his Lex Rex was to be burned by the common hangman. To his citation he replied' from his deathbed : ' I behove to obey my first summons ' ; and there in the grey old city of St. Regulus soon afterwards, on 29th March i66i, he breathed among his last words these: 'Glory shines in Emmanuel's Land.'' One of the most remarkable geniuses Scotland has produced was George George, son of John Gillespie, the 'thundering preacher' of Kirk- ,g,"fg^g caldy, in which town he was born in 1613. From St. Andrews University he entered the houses of Kenmure and Cassillis as domestic chaplain. Kenmure, brother-in-law of Lome, a repentant renegade from the 'true-blues,' was to die a Lollard under the spell of Ruther- ford ; and Cassillis became doughtiest of the Reform party. His early youth was thus spent in the hotbed of constitutional dissent. Most likely he heard bold Lochinvar tell Lome, 'the Great Marquis,' that his soul was ' builded on a sandy foundation,' as well as confess to Rutherford, that the ' ceremonies now entered in the Kirk of God . . . are anti-Christian and come from Hell.' " In this atmosphere Gillespie composed his epoch-making book, A Dispute against the English- Popish Ceremonies obtrjided upon the Chtirch of Scotland, which, in 1637, first nerved the fevered masses to cast out the Laud Liturgy. During the same year in which he entered the ministry, 1638, the youth preached to the Glasgow Assembly. He went with Leslie and his ' blue bonnets ' to the front, and, such was his infiuence, he was sent to negotiate the Peace, Covenant, and Westminster Standards. He shone at Westminster. The ' babbling Baillie,' once disdainful of this phenomenon, when undeceived, wrote : ' None in all the companie did reason more, and more pertinently . . . my heart blesses God on his behalf ... a singular ornament of our Church . . . however there be in the Assemblie diverse very excellent men, yet, in my poor judgement, there is not one who speaks more ' Rutherford is buried in the Cathedral Graveyard, .St. Andrews. A plain stone, with a dot^gerel epitaph on it, indicates his grave. For epitaph, cf. Martyr Graves of Scotland, 208. * Wodrow, Select Biog., i. 396. 384 THE COVENANTERS rationallie, and to the point, than that brave youth has done ever. ' ^ While in London in 1641, Gillespie found time to write An Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland, which remark- ably learned reply to Bishop Hall's Assertion of Episcopacy by Divine Right is quite as telling as that by ' Smectymnuus,' a combination of English divines. Other works followed : A Brotherly Examination of Coleman' s Opinions ; Nihil Respondes ; Male Atidis ; One Hundred and Eleven Propositions concerning the Ministry and Government of the Church; Aaron' s Rod blossoming ; A Treatise of Miscellany Questions (posthumously); Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty: sermons, and other treatises. Gillespie ministered in the New Church, Edinburgh, till his health broke down, when he returned to Kirkcaldy to die. He was Moderator of the Assembly of 1648, and expired that very day on which the Solemn League and Covenant was renewed, 17th December 1648, in his thirty-fifth year. His latest composition was A Testimony against Malignants. Duke of John, Lord Maitland, afterwards Duke of Lauderdale (1616-82), \(,\C\(i%2' '^^^ ^^'' Hudibras in real life, giving no promise of becoming, after the Restoration, the scourge of his former fellows — ' With red hot irons to be tortured, Reviled, and spit upon, and martyred.' He was now a young noble of twenty-seven, well known for his classical attainments and interest in Church affairs. He dabbled in theology. ' For his Rehgion, it was fit To match his learning and his wit : 'Twas Presbyterian true blue, For he was of that stubborn crew. Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun.' ' You deservedly pass for a master in all learning,' said Bishop Burnet (in the dedication of the Vindication of the Chiirch) to this ' Letters, ii. 117, 129, 160. (Jcoigc Uillcspie {/''rom a Portrait in the Ne7v College JIall, Edinburgh, photograph by Mr. ]•'.. Druntmotui Voung) THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 385 ' Great Prince, greater in your mind than by your fortune.' His coarse, negritic face, betokening the brutish forces that lurked beneath, gave far less hint of his becoming, what Fountainhall styled him, ' the learnedest and powerfuUest minister of state of his age,' than that truculent inquisitor, who, before his victims, bared his arms up to the elbows, 'and swore by Jehovah that he would make them enter into these bonds ' of security for their allegiance. For two centuries the unsavoury name of this sensualist and persecutor has been greeted by Scots in general with the same odium as those of Bloody Mackenzie, Claverhouse, and Lag. These names are written in the public memory as in blood, never to be blotted out. John, sixth Earl of Cassillis, was a courtly Kennedy, who, like his Eariof ancestor the third earl, favoured Lollardy, and was probably the most ,595?.i66S. steadfast of the Covenanters in high places. His manly protest against the intrusion of the Liturgy is still extant, and his firm signature is on the first line of many copies of the Covenant of 1638. He was constantly in evidence as a protester against every illegal move of the King and Council. He opposed the 'Engagement,' negotiated the return of Charles 11., resisted Cromwell, and lived on after the Restoration a staunch Presbyterian. He never took his seat at Westminster. John, first Earl of Loudoun, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, i:ari of attended the meetings, but did not contribute any suggestions of °g5;.°6g', moment. Similarly, Sir Charles Erskine is just mentioned in the minutes, while Robert Blair of St. Andrews, appointed in 1648, does not seem to have sat. Maitland, Henderson, and Gillespie took their seats in West- minster on 16th September, and Maitland sat till 1647. Cassillis and Douglas never attended, and Balmerino came in place of Cassillis for a time; then Argyll succeeded Balmerino, sitting from July 1646 till the next January. He was succeeded by Winram of Liberton. Wariston, admitted rst February 1644, attended few meetings. Robert Meldrum, a political agent, was a member from the beginning. The Covenant in draft arrived in London before the deputies. 3c ;86 THE COVENANTERS The draft of the Solemn League. Covenant subscribed in London. The Commons sent it to the Assembly, then sitting in the Chapel of Henry vil The famous Assembly numbered thirty lay assessors and one hundred and twenty-one divines. The former included several distinguished nobles ; the latter, the most notable Puritan pastors and some Episcopal clergy. As was to be expected, the new Covenant afforded that splendid opportunity, which frequenters of such assemblies delight in, for showing a genius for hair-splitting, and discovering grounds for amendments. The Westminster divines would agree to maintain the Church of Scotland only in so far as it was 'according to the Word of God.' The Episcopacy which they were prepared to abolish was the personnel of the hierarchy, with the lower officials and underlings thereof The Commons accepted these amendments, threw out the reference to the Treaty of Ripon-London, included Ireland in the scope of the League, and passed it on to the Lords. The Lords excised the offensive reference to the Scottish Church, and inserted an enumeration of the offices to be abolished.^ September 25th was the day ordained for its public subscription. St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, was the scene of that unique gathering of Parliament-men, Lords, Commons, Puritan Divines, and Scottish Commissioners. Philip Nye was selected to give an exhortation, and in a tedious discourse, this clever champion of independency and toleration gave the positive Scottish proposers of Presbytery a Roland for their Oliver. In Edinburgh they had thought him a wearisome, prosy ' paper reader ' of sermons. He now deftly discarded the y«j diviimm of Presbytery in these terms: ' If in the churches of Scotland any more light and beauty in matters of order and discipline, by which their assemblies are more orderly [are obtained] ; or, if to any other Church or person it hath been given better to have learned Christ in any of his ways, than any of us, we shall humbly bow, etc.'- Henderson also delivered a stirring address, in which he declared that so intolerable had become the insolence of the prelates in Scotland, that his countrymen ' choose rather to die than to live in such slavery.' After commendinor the Gardiner, His/. Great Civ. War, - Kerr, The Co7'enants, 141. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 387 League and prophesying its success, Henderson concluded with the following remarkable peroration : 'Had the Pope at Rome the knowledge of what is doing this day in England, and were this Covenant written on the plaster of the wall over against him where he sitteth, Belshazzar-like in his sacrilegious pomp, it would make his heart to tremble, his countenance to change, his head and mitre Henderson's to shake, his joints to loose, and all his cardinals and prelates to be * astonished. . . . The Word of God is for it, as you have been now resolved, by the testimony of a reverend assembly of so many godly, learned, and great divines. In your own presence and experience you will find, that although, while you are assaulted with worldly cares and fears, your thoughts may somewhat trouble you ; yet at other times, when, upon seeking God in private or public, as in the evening of a well-spent Sabbath, your disposition is more spiritual, and, leaving the world behind you, you have found access unto God, through Jesus Christ, the bent of your hearts will be strongest to go through with this work. . . . As the Word of God, so the prayers of the people of God in all the Reformed Churches are for us, and on our side. It were more terrible than an army, to hear that there were any fervent supplications to God against us. Blasphemies, curses, and horrid imprecations there be, proceeding from another spirit, and that is all.' ' The contracting parties were all satisfied that they were entering subscription on an agreement which, though deficient in explicit details of the ,^'J[,j, " '*'"*"^' contemplated reformation, afforded a true touchstone to distinguish Puritans from Papists, and the defenders of popular freedom from the abettors of Carolan autocracy. The document, engrossed on parchment, was read in the pulpit, article by article. With uplifted hands the audience, standing uncovered, swore the Covenant and then subscribed it." ' M'Crie, Sketches, i. 281 ; Ebenezer Erskine, Collection of Sermons on Coz'enant^ 105 (Glasgow, 1 741); Kerr, The Covenants, 156. ' Of the Commons two hundred and thirty-six, and of the Peers twenty or thirty subscribed the deed, according to some authorities; one hundred and twelve, according to others: Hallam, Const. Hist., ii. 163 et seg.; -Somers, Tracts, iv. 533; Rushworth, Hist. Coll., v. 475-82. Cf. postca, 392 note. 388 THE COVENANTERS Covenant accepted in Scotland. After this auspicious event, Henderson lost no time in sending the deed home to the Moderator, Robert Douglas, then minister in Edinburgh, who, next to Henderson, was the most prominent pastor there. Douolas at once convened the Commissioners of Church and State to ratify the document. They appointed Friday, 13th October, for the public acceptance of it in the Choir of St. Giles. Anew, with English Commissioners present, the Scots solemnly swore and signed the Covenant, with ' great joy and manie tears.' ^ Copies were sent broadcast throughout the land, and every person was commanded to sign it on penalty of contiscation of goods. To facilitate its progress and to ensure its success, it was printed in the form of a quarto book, and prefaced with the edict of the Committee of Estates, which ordered (22nd October) all the lieges to subscribe, and threatened nonconformists with punishment for being enemies of God, King, and country." To all appearances this international Covenant was hailed and signed with honest joy everywhere. A few obdurate nobles and persons of influence refused to recognise it, and held aloof from the democratic party till they found opportunity to throw themselves into the Royalist ranks. • Baillie, Letters, iL io3. Cf. Appendices ii., iv. in this volume. - Act. Pari. Scot. (1643), vi. i. i \a. Articles to be framed applying the National Covenant ; ibid. (1643), 41-2, terms of Solemn League and Covenant agreed to : ibid-, 43/. Co//., v. 475-S2 ; Commo7u Journa/, iii. 252-4, 3S9 ; Carlyle, Cyomwe/Ps Leitfys, wiii. ; Gardiner, Hist. Great Civ. War, i. 235 and note, 310. THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 393 the southern diplomatists were making the Scots a catspaw to drag English affairs out of the general combustion, and they perceived their perilous course between Scylla and Charybdis — the policy of a shifty autocrat and that of equally unreliable democrats, who had no finality in their ecclesiastical views. To divest their council of individualism and prejudice, the Assembly took for a basis of negotiation, or rather as a model of concise and tolerant views of truth, the Articles authorised by the Irish Church, and in use since 1615.' This treasury of pure Calvinistic dogmas has been enriched by the incisive intellect of the learned Ussher, afterwards Primate of Ireland. On 1 2th October Parliament intervened to instruct the Assembly Directory for to frame a new Polity and a new system of worship ' most agreeable worship. to God's most holy Word,' to take the place of the discarded hierarchy and its apparatus of worship, so as to pacify and unify the Church. The Assembly committed the framing of a Directory for worship to a grand committee and subsequently to a sub-committee of five, (Marshall (chairman), Palmer, Goodwin, Young, and Herle), con- joined with the Scots members. They had a draft ready in March 1644. PVom 24th May onwards, at seventy diets, the Assembly debated over its contents. At length completed it reached Parliament, which authorised it, on 3rd January 1645. A month later it received the sanction of the Supreme Courts of Scotland.' Besides the Parliamentary Ordinance and the Preface, the contents of the book are in fifteen sections : Of the Assembling of the Congregation ; Public Reading of Holy Scriptures ; Public Prayer before the Sermon ; Preaching of the Word ; Prayer after the Sermon ; Sacra- ' The Irish Articles (1615) show the influence of The Lambeth Articles {iSOSX which were supplementary to the Thirty-jiine Articles. "- Act. Gen. Assent. Scot., 3rd February 1645, Sess. 10; Act. Furl. Scot., vi. i. 309,446, Charles I., Pari. 3, Sess. 5, cap. 60, 6th Fcbruaiy 1645, cap. 14, and August 1645. The title of the book is significant : ' A Directory for the I'ubliqtic Worship of God throughout the Three Kini^doms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Together with an Ordinance of Parlia- ment for the taking away of the Book of Common- Prayer and for establishing ami obsendvgof this present Directory throughout the kingdom of England, and Dominion of Wales, etc. London, 1644.' 394 THE COVENANTERS ment of Baptism ; the Lord's Supper ; Sanctification of the Lord's Day ; Marriage ; Visitation of the Sick ; Burial of the Dead ; Public Solemn Fasting ; Observation of Days of Public Thanksgiving ; Singing of Psalms ; Appendix touching days and places ior Public Worship. The Ordinance completely banned the Liturgy — ' the great Idol of England,' as Baillie called it/ as if it were a Mass-book. The Preface emphatically declared that the prayers in the book were merely suggestions of the ' general heads, — the sense and scope of the prayers,' and not liturgical forms. The Directory gave no instruction as to posture at public prayer. Lively discussions arose regarding the reader of Scripture, the use of a text, non-parental sponsorship, the disuse of the creed at baptism, sprinkling, the communion and its place, with the word 'sit about it or at it,' marriage in church, excom- munication, funeral services, and reading the psalm line by line. While resembling the Book of Cotnmon Order which it ousted, the Directory led to the obliteration for a time of some hallowed practices in the northern Church, such as the use of the Creed, Paternoster, Doxology, and Scripture Lessons.^ It also authorised some innova- tions quite repugnant to the well-educated Scots, such as reading the line before singing the metrical Psalter — a custom still retained in some Gaelic churches in Scotland. Opposition The English Parliament, pushed on by the populace, dissatisfied Independents. ^^ ^^ sight of SO many vacant parochial charges, clamoured for the new Polity and Ordinal. The preparation of this Directory for Church Government and Ordination early brought the Presbyterians into conflict with the Independents. The Independents did not approve of graduated church-courts, nor yet believed in the scripturalness of a National Church formed out of co-ordinated congregations. They saw no advantage in a parochial system. They were simply Bible- Conventiclers, Close-Brethren, gathering in societies of avowed regenerates only. Toleration from their standpoint was tantamount ' Letters, ii. 117. ^ The Westminster Directory, edit. Thomas Leisliman, D.D. (Edin., 1901). THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 395 to pure Antinomianism. According to Baillie,' 'The Independents, being most able men and of great credit, feared no less than banish- ment from their native country if Presbyteries were erected,' because 'as yet a Presbytrie to this people is conceaved to be a strange monster.' Consequently they determined to be obstructionists. They conducted their case with great strategy. In every conceivable way, creditable and discreditable, they tried to shun or scotch the 'monster.' The Scots Commissioners, foreseeing the conflict over Presbytery, prepared and presented to their associates a treatise outlining a system of Presbyterial government, and justified it by scriptural warrants. An incomparable treatise on the same subject had come from the pen of Alexander Henderson three years before.^ In the keen debates on the subject George Gillespie displayed his acute and well-stored mind, and showed that the power of Presbytery lay in jurisdiction only. During the debate on church censures and excommunication Selden enunciated an almost unanswerable exposi- tion of Matthew xviii. 15-17, and Gillespie followed in an unexpectedly brilliant reply which demolished his learned antagonist's conclusions. ' That young man,' said Selden sadly, ' has swept away the learning and labour of my life.' ^ The finished draft of the Ordinal reached Parliament in April, but Cromweii and in February the five Independents had also submitted ' An Apolo- Jj;^"""""""- getical Narration,' wherein they appraised themselves highly, and magnified Independency as an acceptable, tolerant, and scriptural system. Feeling ran high. A pamphlet war began to rage. Parlia- ment haggled over the document. The Independents feigned to have accepted Presbytery in substance, till after the battle of Marston Moor, 1644, when they quite outmanoeuvred their opponents. In the tents of the Parliamentary army similar discussions ended in practical results. The ' Ironside,' Lieulenant-General Cromwell, was the type of Independents. Liking Presbytery as little as Prelacy, he ' Letters, ii. 117. - The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, Anon. (Edin., 1641) : Wodrow, Hist., i. 29. ' M'Crie, Sketches, 291. 396 THE COVENANTERS became the champion of toleration. His plain speaking on swearing, profanity, and the disorderliness of officers rent Manchester's army.' He belittled denominationalism, and considered himself to be an unsatisfied seeker after truth, unfettered conscience to be a sufficient instructor of religious method, and the State to have no interest in the private concerns of the soul. 'Sir,' said Cromwell to Major- General Crawford, a Scot, ' the State in choosing men to serve it takes no notice of their opinions, if they be willing to serve it faith- fully ; that suffices.' Cromwell had the questions at issue discussed in Parliament and obtained the famous 'Accommodation Order,' 13th September 1644, whereby a committee was appointed to adjust the differences of the divines, and to devise an Accommodation for tender consciences.'- The Ordinal was ratified, on 2nd October. The Accommodation Committee acted in no haste. The majority of the divines had no patience with their sophistical opponents, whom they Debates on had persistently to answer. Parliament at length received the res y er>. gubstancc of the tedious controversy, which afterwards went under the title of 'The Grand Debate concerning Presbytery and Inde- pendency.' The ordinance for Ordination embodied the statement that ' Ordination is the act of a Presbytery ' ; and acceptance of this conclusion rather compromised the Independents. On 3rd February 1645, the General Assembly of Scotland ratified the Westminster Form of Church Government and Ordination, while it was still unauthorised in the south. On 15th November, the Westminster article on the subject of Presbytery was laid before the Commons and was acquiesced in, except the section asserting the divine right, the consideration of which was postponed. On 24th January 1648, the House of Lords ordered all the documents in this controversy to be printed, under the title TJie Reasons presented by the Dissenting Brethren against certain Propositions concerning Presbyterial Govern- juent, etc. The article on Excommunication roused the opposition of the ' Gillespie to his father, nth September 1644: Baillie, Letters, ii. 501. ' Frith, Cromwell, 151. i| THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 397 Erastian party, who were led by Selden and Llghtfoot, both erudite scholars. The strength of Selden's argument, that church censures were innovations borrowed from heathendom, was felt when Parlia- ment took up the subject. It passed an ordinance (an ordinance was Right of de facto a statute not ratified by the King), 28th October 1645, which j.^rM^'J^nt. enumerated censurable offences and gave the accused the right to appeal from the ecclesiastical tribunals to Parliament. One com- mittee was appointed to schedule scandalous offences, another to act as provincial judges of such causes. By this policy the Jus Divinum of Presbytery was diplomatically whittled away ; for Parliament, growing every day more imperious, was not ready to relinquish what Kings James and Charles had claimed for the Crown, jurisdiction over all ecclesiastical causes.^ The Presbyters grew more wroth. Parliament and Assembly soon came to close quarters.^ The former demanded scriptural proofs for the claim to Jus Divinum. The Assembly replied with an article for which scriptural proofs had been selected, to this effect : 'The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of the Church, hath therein appointed a Government, in the hand of the Church officers, distinct from the Civil Magistrate.' At length Parlia- ment effected a compromise, and, on 5th June 1645, ratified the ordinance establishing ruling elders and the erection of Presbyteries, and abolished the office of provincial judges of scandal. Still the way was not clear. King and Parliament were now negotiating a treaty, and the questions of Presbytery and Toleration were considerable factors in the case. The dissatisfied clergy did not hasten the erection of their new courts. The irritating contest dropped when Parliament, on 13th October 1647, gave Presbytery a short lease of power, the use of the tithes, allowed Nonconformists, with the exception of Romanists, to have freedom of worship, and tabooed the Liturgy. The Confession of Faith, emerging after a tedious process of evolution, was the result of infinitesimal scrutinies of every idea, word, and letter within it, by scholars capable of appraising the ' Rushworth, Hist. Coll., vi. 224-8. ^ liaillic. Letters, ii. 378. 398 THE COVENANTERS The West- minster Confession of Faith. Confession with the proofs. ( history, import, and possible effect of every part of it. The pre- liminary studies of the Thirty-nine Articles afforded a solid basis for the constructive work to follow. The collateral debates on Church Government, terms of Communion, and Jzis Divinuni provided useful material for the Creed. The Confession was the corollary of the Solemn League and Covenant. Wariston, lately arrived from Scotland, and Henderson, on 20th August 1644, demanded its incep- tion by the Grand Committee.^ A committee, composed of Dr. Temple (chairman), Arrowsmith, Burgess, Burroughs, Gataker, Goodwin, Herle, Hoyle, Ley, Newcomen, Palmer, Reynolds, Sedg- wick, Smith, Tuckney, and Young, was appointed to collect material and prepare a draft. A second committee, assisted by the Scots Commissioners, grouped and extracted the essence of the doctrinal facts collected, and submitted the results to the three Grand Com- mittees. In July 1645, the first sectional report of progress was tabled. It was not, however, till 26th November 1646, that the following satisfactory memorandum was made in the minutes : ' The Confession of Faith was finished this day, and by order of the Assembly, the Prolocutor gave thanks, in the name of the Assembly, to the Commissioners who had taken so good pains in the perfecting of the Confession of Faith.' Before this date the Commons had ordered scriptural proofs to be added to the text, and when these were added, the record of 5th April 1647 ran, 'The Confession was finished,' i.e. as far as the draft was concerned. On 29th April 1647 a committee of the divines appeared in the English Parliament with the Confession, with the proofs added to the text. From 19th May till 17th March 1648, the Commons debated various sections. On the latter date they resolved to designate the Confession Articles 0/ Christian religion approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after advice had zvith the Assembly of Divines, by authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster^' They sent the draft with corrections to the Lords, who approved of it with one exception regarding marriage. The Commons sent the final draft to 1 Baillie, Letters, ii. 220 ; Lightfoot, Works, xiii. 305. 2 Com. /our., v. 502. THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 399 the printers on 20th-2ist June 1648. Seven days afterwards it appeared from the press of Edward Husband/ On leaving- London at the end of 1646 Baillie took with him the Drafts of complete text of the Confession without proofs appended, that is, of^Falth."" the second issue printed in December 1646, t\\c first issue having appeared in October, and introduced this draft to the Commission of Assembly in January 1647.- The third draft, that of May 1647, that is the Confession with Scripture proofs adduced by references on the margins, was in all likelihood brought away by Gillespie on 1 6th July 1647.^ A copy of this 4to, pp. 56 (one of three hundred ordered by the General Assembly, 9th August) was issued in Edin- burgh in August 1647 — 'Printed at London, and Reprinted at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majestie, 1647.'^ Other editions followed in 1647 ^^^^ 1648. On the 27th August 1647, the Assembly passed the Act of 'Approbation of the Confession of F"aith,' thereby constituting the book a standard of the Church. The first Edinburgh authorised edition was printed by Evan Tyler in 1647.^ In 1649 Gedeon Lithgow, Printer to the University of Edinburgh, printed the title-page : ' The Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisme, etc., 1649.' " The Scottish Parliament which met in February 1649 passed a Act of Scots most important statute (Act 58), ' Act anent Swearing of Religion rJ^,ard7ni?"tiie and peace of the Kingdome,' in which it was ordained that the King, Covenant. or any of his successors, before being admitted to regal power should first subscribe, and promise to make all his subjects in the three kingdoms subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, and consent ■ ' Articles of Christian Religion Approved and Passed by both Houses of Parliament, After Advice had with the Assembly of /Hvitics. By Authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster. London: Trinted for Edward Husband, Printer to the Honourable l^louse of Commons, and are to be sold at his shop at the .Sign of the Golden Dragon, in Kleetstreet, near the Inner Temple. June 27. 1648.' 4to, pp. 50. ^ Letters, ii. 259. ' ' The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines now by Authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster Concerning a Confession of Faith luith the Quotations and Texts of Scripture annexed, etc. London, Printed for the Company of Stationers.' Sm. 410, pp. 56. * Peterkin, Records, 480. ' Cf. facsimile title-p.age in Williamson's edition of Hetherington's Hist, of the West. Assem., 1878. " Aldis, List, 1403. 400 THE COVENANTERS Directory for Family Worship. Westminster Catechisms. to the statutes enjoining its acceptance and the establishment of Presbyterial Government, the Directory of Worship, the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, promising also to observe them in personal practice and in his family/ The Estates having considered the Longer and Shorter Catechisms and the Confession with their accompanying Acts of Approbation passed another statute (Act 59), on 7th September, entitled, 'Act ratifying the Catechismes and Confession of Faith.' ^ It enjoined that they should be published and printed — the Statute Book adding in brackets [' and practised '] — essential words apparently omitted. On 5th March 1660, the Rump Parlia- ment, when reassembled, had the satisfaction of declaring the Westminster Confession, chapters thirty and thirty-one excepted, to be ' the public Confession of the Faith of the Church of England.' ^ To complete their work the Scottish Assembly, on 24th August 1647, also authorised The Directory for Family Worship to make uniformity as well in private worship. Parliament did not ratify it. The Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly — The Long, or Larger, and The Shorter — are the fruit of the labours of the divines — -the concentrated essence of all the material they amassed. Many of the divines were expert makers of catechisms. One of these in particular, Herbert Palmer, a London minister, whom Baillie described as 'learned, and gracious little Palmer,' was from the first on the committees preparing both works. On 2nd December 1644, a new committee consisting of Marshall, Tuckney, and Newcomen joined Palmer in his work of preparing a Directory for Catechising. The catechisms do not touch on debatable questions of government and worship, and thus have done more even than the Confession to mould the religious life of Scotland. The Larg^er Catechism contains one hundred and ninety-six, the Shorter, one hundred and seven questions and answers. The Larger Catechism was authorised in Scotland by ' Act. Pari. Scot., 1649, 58. vi. ii. 161. "■ Ibid., 161. 3 Com. Jour., vii. 862 ; Whitelocke, iv. 401. This Act fell into desuetude. After the Revolution the Scots Parliament again ratified it in these Acts: 1690, i.x. 117^-131^; 1690, c. 7, ix. 133, App. 1476 ; 1693, c. 38, ix. 303 ; 1702, c. 3, xi. 16 ; 1703, c. 2, xi. 104 ; 1707, c. 6, xi. 402,4131^. ■II THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 401 the Assembly on 20th July 1648/ and by the Parliament on 7th February 1649.° The Shorter Catechism, with proofs added, was accepted by the The shorter Scottish Assembly on 28th July 1648, and was ratified by the Scottish ^^'"'^'^"'• Parliament on 7th February 1649. In the Act of 1690 neither Catechism was mentioned.^ The Larger Catechism is very little consulted now, but the Shorter is deservedly held in much esteem in Scotland and in the Colonies, still forming a manual of doctrinal education for children in day- and Sabbath-schools. For a concise, intelligible, and informative catechetical treatise it still holds the foremost place. In the autumn of 1646, the Assembly considered their work, andrheCate- ordered, in January 1647, the preparation of a larger and a smaller' '^™'^' treatise. The Larger appeared before the Houses of Parliament in October, the Shorter a month later. Scriptural proofs were next demanded, and on 12th April both books reached Parliament. The Shorter Catechism soon passed the Lords, and was finally approved of by the Commons on 22nd September 1648, under the title : The grounds and principles of religion contained in a Shorter Catechism according to the advice of the Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminster to be used throughout the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales.* The Larger Catechism was not authorised by the Lords. The Commons asked the Lords for authority for the Commissioners to the King in the Isle of Wight to ask the royal warrant for the (Shorter ?) Catechism.^ Ministers apparently were never enjoined to use the Catechism in England. The Commons also took advice upon the subject of Francis The Metrical Rouse's Metrical Psalter!^ A committee of revision was appointed. ^^ ''^'^' The Westminster Assembly, 14th November 1645, passed the following resolution: 'Ordered that whereas the Honble. House of Commons hath by an order, bearing date the 20th of November ' Peterkin, Records, 496. * Act. Pari. Scot., 1649, 59. vi. ii. 161. * A. F. Mitchell, Catechisms of the Second Reformation, Preface, xxxvi. (Lond., 1S86). ^ Com. four., vi. 27 ; Lords four., x. 511. " Lords four., x. 572. " Baillie, Letters, iii. 532, App. 3E 402 THE COVENANTERS Barton's version. Revision of the ' only Paraphrase.' 1643, recommended the Psalms set out by Mr. Rous, to the con- sideration of the Assembly of Divines ; the Assembly hath caused them to be carefully perused, and as they are now altered and amended, do approve of them and humbly conceive that it may be useful and profitable to the Church that they be permitted to be publicly sung.'' The version was severely plain and without the ' Conclusion ' so much doted on by ' the Popish and Prelaticall parti e.' ^ The Lords had favoured a version by William Barton, M.A. The Commons withheld their approving injunction regarding Rouse until the Church of Scotland had considered the text.^ The Scottish Assembly received it through Lauderdale, remitted it to a committee who, after corrections were suggested, returned it to London.* The Commons, 15th April 1646, authorised it to be used from Land's End to Berwick-on-Tweed. The Independents, the Lords, and Barton were far from being satisfied. The Independents wanted liberty to sing what they fancied, and Barton preferred only his own jingles. Zachary Boyd, too, imagined his rhymes to be worth promulgation.^ The Lords allowed a compromise — the issuing of the Psabns begun by Francis Rouse, Esq., and perfected with stmdry /lymnes thereunto annexed by William Barton, M.A.^ Barton petitioned the Commons for a licence for his version, which, in the end, he got from the Protector and his Council, 1653-4. Otherwise no version was fully authorised by Lords and Commons in England. The Scots Assembly went about the revision of the proposed psalter leisurely. Committees were appointed to consider the versions of Rouse and the scriptural songs of Robert Lowrie, David Leitch, and Zachary Boyd, among the revisers being John Adamson, John Nevay, Patrick and George Gillespie, and James Guthrie. A printed ' revise ' was sent down to Presbyteries early in 1649. On the 23rd November I " Mitchell, Minutes, 163. - Baillie, Letters, ii. 259. ^ Ibid., ii. 279, 280, 2<^% passim. ^ Ibid., ii. 329. " Aldis, List., T2i6; Boyd (Z.), The Psalmes of David in Meeter (Glasgow: Anderson, 1646). '• Shaw, Hist. English Church, i. 377-84. THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 403 1649, the Commission authorised this oft-revised version to be the 'only Paraphrase' in use after ist May 1650, all others being discharged. The Committee of Estates also passed it on 8th January 1650.' ' Laing's Notices in Baillie, iii. 525-56; Peterkin, Records, 475, 513, 553. This is the version still in use in Scotland. ' The Psahnes of David in Meeter, etc. Edinburgh, Printed by Evan Tyler,' etc. Sm. Svo, pp. 1 5 and 30S. vr 404 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER XVI 1644 — THE GREAT CIVIL WAR: THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY OF PARLIAMENT AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE State of the At the beginning of the year 1644, several armies were in the field 1644'"^^'" '" England — King Charles and the Royalists contending for the prerogatives of the Crown, and Parliamentarians and Puritans resist- ing the King so long as rebel Papists were being shielded by him and political liberty was imperilled. Neither side could boast of continuous successes. The Solemn League and Covenant had been accepted by the House of Lords and was soon to become obligatory on all citizens. Great Pym was dead ; helpless Laud was nearing his doom ; Hamilton, now suspected to be infected with Presbytery, lay in ward in Pen- dennis, as Lothian did in Bristol ; and Argyll was the uncrowned King of Scots. ^ The hot debates in the Westminster Assembly over Presbytery, Independency, and Liberty of Conscience inflamed the laity. The King astutely tried to increase the divergencies of discordant parties, making a show of interest in the prominent question of toleration into a cloak to conceal his real design, namely, the throwing of loyal troops, especially Papists, from Ireland upon the west coast of England. IMontrose, Nithisdale, and young Aboyne hung about the Court in Oxford — Montrose still importuning the King for permission to carry out his flouted scheme — to lead a body of English cavaliers across the Borders, to raise the Gordons, and to wait upon the landing of German mercenaries and Irishmen. Antrim was sent to raise the latter force and, if possible, to corrupt Monro, ' J. C. Fotheringham, The Cirrespondencc of De Moiitereul, etc., i. 556 (Scot. Hist. Soc), cited as Montereul. 9 THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 405 who was reported to be impatient at the retention in Ireland of the clamorous, half-starved Scottish army. The Earl of Leven crossed the Tweed on 19th January 1644, with the van of the Covenanting army, which numbered 18,000 foot, 3000 horse, and 500 dragoons, with 150 guns. John Baillie was in command of the foot, David Leslie of the cavalry, and Sir Alexander Hamilton of the artillery. The forces were in high spirits. The English Parliament had Scots under agreed to pay them ^30,000 a month. Their unconquered leader had England. boasted before he left Edinburgh that he would never stop marching till he had planted the banner of the Covenant above the throne of the Pope.' The words of ' Leslie's March ' probably record their esprit de corps : — ' Stand till 't and fight like men, True Gospel to maintain, The Parliament 's blythe to see us coming.' But the Parliament was blither to see them returning, as we shall find. The King's Parliament sitting at Oxford — a body composed of Montrose and nearly all the English Peers and one-third of the Commons— pro- „^"' '"" claimed this inroad of the Scots Estates to be an unjustifiable invasion and a breach of the Pacification of 1642.- The King had no mis- givings now in unleashing Montrose. To remove possible jealousies among the touchy northern chiefs and nobility, Charles appointed Prince Maurice to be commander-in-chief, with Montrose as his lieutenant-general ; but twelve days afterwards, 1 3th February, he directly commissioned Montrose to be lieutenant-general in Scotland. Montrose, accompanied by Crawford, Nithisdale, Traquair, Kinnoul, Carnwath, Aboyne, Ogilvy, Reay, and about a thousand men whom they had gathered through the northern shires, made for the Lowlands, and on 14th April, finding their way barred at Dumfries by a resolute body of Covenanters, retreated to Carlisle.^ The gallantry of Mon- trose was rewarded by a Marquisate in May. Meantime the ever- ' Montereul, i. 556. - Rushworth, v. 560. ^ Napier, Memoirs, ii. 397. 4o6 THE COVENANTERS loyal Huntly summoned his vassals and other well-aft'ected persons to his standard, on which was inscribed the motto, ' For God, the King, and against all traitors.' The Estates placed Argyll at the head of a well-equipped force to suppress the Gordons. The Covenanters' colours bore the words, ' For the Covenant, Religion, The Crown, and The Kingdom.' Whenever the southern force came within striking- distance of the Gordons, the latter dwindled away and finally vanished to their homes, their leader betaking Huntly in himself for safety to the fastnesses of Caithness. The conquering army took its fill of plunder from friend and foe impartially. The loyal Argyle Highlanders, who went by the name of ' cleansers,' driving before them what could walk and carrying whatever could not, left the country clean. It was a bad example to set the wilder caterans who were shortly to rush through the same distressed districts under the leadership of Montrose and Colkitto the younger, and the Royalists did not fail to remember it The Oxford Parliament made overtures to their opponents for peace. The reply from London on 5th February was a demand that the King should subscribe the Covenant — on that very day, it is to A new be noted, that Oliver Cromwell signed the famous bond.^ The Parlia- ment at Westminster in February appointed ten of their number with four Scots, namely, Loudoun, Maitland, Wariston, and Barclay, a committee of both kingdoms, with power to control from a head- centre the military affairs of the realm. The rival governments banned each other for incendiaries and traitors. The conviction was steadily growing, especially in the minds of Puritans and Covenanters, that, so long as Charles reigned, peace was impossible. Everywhere conversation turned on ' his obstinacy judicial, as if in God's justice he were destroying himself.' Those, who with Rothes in 1641 'had hard work with the King,' were certain that he was possessed of a demon, and they deemed his execution to be necessary. The generals of the triple army besieging York in the summer of 1644 were sounded by Vane regarding his deposition, and all three, Leven, Fairfax, and ' Com. Jour., iii. 389. Parliamentary cunimittee, m THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 407 Manchester, rejected the proposal. To the Scots, Monarchy and Presbytery were divinely appointed forms of government, notwith- standing- the opinion of the Scottish Solomon, that they ill agreed with each other. The successes of the Parliamentary armies resulted in the King seeking safety in Oxford, while the dashing Prince Rupert advanced to the relief of York. The triple army there- Armies meet upon retreated to Marston Moor, followed close by Rupert and^j^^"^"" Newcastle. The Parliamentarians had the advantage of choosing their stand — a ridge overlooking a magnificent plain divided into fields of grain and grass between Tockwith and Long Marston. The 17,500 men under Rupert drew up in regulation form before the 27,000 men on the ridge, — cavalry on both wings and foot in the centre. Rupert gallantly selected the Ironsides of Crom- well for his opponents. With them were associated the Scottish Horse and some dragoons under David Leslie. The Scots army under Leven was in the centre between Manchester and Fairfax. A long hedge and a ditch separated the combatants. On the Royalist side Eythin led the centre. Goring the left wing, and Rupert the right. The evening of the 2nd July wore on, and neither force appeared The fight 1 ., M -T" • 111 <-• 1 iit Marston anxious to move and strike, until r'nsells bcots dragoons were sent ^00^, zmi to clear the ditch of musketeers. Cromwell next threw his Ironsides J"'y "'44- into a dubious conflict with Rupert's invincibles, from which, being wounded, he was barely extricated by David Leslie and the Scottish Horse. Leslie drove Rupert to flight. While Manchester's army on the left, led by Cromwell, Leslie, and Crawford, carried all before them, Fairfax's on the right was being cut to pieces by Goring's horse, and the Scottish force in the centre under Leven was thrown into disorder, being assailed vigorously in the front and rear. Leven, Manchester, and Fairfax fled, and left what they deemed a stricken field. Their braver subordinates stayed and turned the tide of battle. Baillie bravely held the centre, while three regiments of Scots — the men of Fife, Strathearn, Ayr, and Midlothian — repelled the desperate assaults on their flank. At length Cromwell, disentangled from the flying 4o8 THE COVENANTERS wing of Rupert, crossed the field, and leaving Crawford and Baillie to dispose of the hitherto unbroken Royalist foot, dashed into Goring's cavalry, as they returned from their victory in loose order, and routed them instantly. The carnage lasted till midnight, and 4000 Royalists bit the dust. Of the victors about 300 fell. Many prisoners were taken. With unpardonable mendacity Cromwell accepted all the credit of the victory accorded to him by the Independent party, and concealed the splendid feats of the Scots, who undoubtedly rescued both Cromwell and the English army from destruction.^ f Montrose Montrose, bent on capturing Scotland for the King, now made for st^lnX7at ^^^ camp of Rupert at York, where the two baffled leaders met. BhirAthoie. Rupert had no practical encouragement to offer the other enthusiast, and refused to part with any of his force. Montrose buoyed up his hopes with the assurance that Antrim had the Irish on the move, and with the belief that the Highlands would be true to the Stuarts. His spies soon found no grounds for such calculations. Scotland was under the heel of the Covenanters. Nevertheless, Montrose deter- mined to test his own surmises, and set out, disguised as a wood- merchant, to try the glamour of his own personality upon the excitable Gaels. On 22nd August he reached the house of Tullibelton in Perthshire, where dwelt his kinsman, Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, near his own ancestral castle of Kincardine. There the information he received was discouraging. Nevertheless, ' Black Pate,' the younger of Inchbrakie, who afterwards figured in kirk-session records for his sins, attached himself to the adventurer and faithfully followed him through his campaigns. Local Royalism was entirely crushed. They had to go into hiding in the Wood of Methven." While there he saw the fiery cross pass by to summon the Perthshire militia to muster and oppose the Irish advancing under Alasdair Macdonald and Colonel James Macdonald. Fortunately also he then received a dispatch from Macdonald himself, informing him of this military ' Gardiner, Hist. Great Civ. War, i. 375-82 : Ttxxy, Leslie, 239; Cromwell, Letter xxi. ; Holies, Memoirs, 200, 201. - V2.\.CiO\AQin, Britanis Distemper, -ji. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 409 expedition. Antrim had succeeded in equipping and throwing into the Western Highlands a body of fifteen hundred Irish infantry under the command of the handsome son of the notorious Colkitto.' This Alasdair (Alexander) Macdonald Maccoll Ciotach Aiasdair {ambidexter) MacGillespic was a Catholic, a sworn enemy of Argyll, ^'^ ""'^ and a soldier for Charles in Ireland. He had all the fighting qualities of the clan Donald, then at feud with the Campbells, who had expatri- ated Coil's family from their lands in the Isles. This blood-feud made the crisis less a matter of religion or politics than a family war to the knife. Macdonald landed his men on ancestral soil in Ardna- murchan. His summons of the septs of the clan Iain Mhor to the Royal standard was disregarded from fear of their hereditary enemy. For a similar reason the Mackenzies and other smaller clans would not rise. He could not push into the lands of the loyal Gordons, in case he should be ambushed by the Grants in Badenoch. In his extremity he happily received the command of the King's lieutenant, Montrose, to meet him at Blair- Athole. Montrose had arrived there just in time to prevent the Stewarts and Robertsons mustering and marching against the Irish marauders. Their chief, knowing how to touch Gaelic sensibilities, appeared habited in Highland dress, and displayed his military commission. Montrose appointed Alasdair Macdonald major-general. Soon the Macdonalds of Keppoch, Knoidart, Glen- garry, Glencoe, Grahams, some Gordons, Camerons, Drummonds, Robertsons, Stewarts, Ogilvies, flocked to the Royal standard. As soon three Covenanting armies were on the march to stop the career of Montrose. Lord Elcho, with the Fife and Perthshire levies — 6000 foot, 700 horse, and a park of field-guns — encamped at Perth. Montrose pluckily determined to lead his 3000 claymores against the untrained battalions of Elcho, many of the raw recruits of which had never blown a firelock-match before. Elcho led his host out to the green plain of Tippermuir, three miles west from the Fair City, ' He figures in Gaelic literature as (Sir) Alisdair mic Colla Chiotaig mic Giolla Easbuitj mic Colla mic AUasdar mic Eoin Cathanaig ; Cameron, Rcliquicc Ccltica: — 'The Hook of Clanranald,' ii. 179. 4IO THE COVENANTERS Battle of Stampede of the Covenanters. and there Montrose found them in battle array on Sabbath morning, I St September 1644. At divine service on the field, the Covenanting preachers promised the army a glorious victory. Their slogan was 'Jesus and no Quarter.' ' Montrose drew out his men in a long line, in three divisions, three deep. Major-General Macdonald, with the well-drilled Irish brigade, held the centre, the Highlanders from Athole and Badenoch occupied the right wing on a hill-face, and on the left wing stood the men from Strathallan under Lord John Drummond, and 400 archers from Menteith under the unfortunate Lord Kilpont, who was shortly afterwards murdered. For lack of muskets and weapons many hillmen armed themselves with stones. Montrose commanded the musketeers to withhold their fire until they closed with the foe. After a volley of shot, arrows, and stones, the claymore, Lochaber axe, and pike were to make the onset irresistible. Such were the simple tactics and orders of Montrose. Elcho's artillery began to play harmlessly. The Gaels steadily descended, dashed through the smoke of their pistols and firelocks, and, yelling their fierce slogans, leaped upon the terrified peasantry, and struck with their gleaming broadswords. The bloody onset lasted but a few minutes, until the Covenanters were broken and in full flight from the field. In vain the Covenanting cavalry rallied to the fight. The Irish brigade butchered the fugitives, too terrified to offer resist- ance. Two thousand of Elcho's army were slain, one thousand laid down their arms, and all the guns and munitions of war fell into the hands of Montrose. The affair was a stampede rather than a fight, in which very few clansmen fell. The rapacious Celts were loaded with plunder, and stripped the dead in order to cover their own nakedness. During the course of the conflict the conqueror drank a glass of water at the manse, for which the parish minister was put on discipline by the presbytery. His defence was that other ministers would have done a more servile act in similar circumstances when asked by such a victor. On Sabbath night Perth was given up to ' Napier, Memoirs, ii. 582. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 411 Montrose. His prestige was now assured. His battalions had arms, rations, and the sinews of war. This was the first instance of the 'general phlebotomie ' which that 'noble phisitian practised for a distempered religion ' ; so Patrick Gordon facetiously phrased it. Parliament on 12th February passed an Act of forfeiture against Montrose Montrose, Macdonald, Airlie, and other invaders of the north.' ['/"tj^""'^ Later the Government declared Montrose a traitor, an associate of mass-priests, a murderer of the lieges, and offered for him alive, or for his head, ^20,000 Scots, i.e. ^1666, 13s. 4d. stg. On the march north to Aberdeen, the clansmen furtively straggled homeward, true to the habits of their marauding ancestry of carrying back to shelling and clachan their rich booty before undertaking another inroad. The Irish could not retreat. The Earl of Airlie and some landowners from Angus and Mearns — Lord Spynie, Lord Dupplin, Sir John Drummond, Sir Thomas Ogilvy, Sir Thomas Tyrie, and other lairds — with their vassals and forty-four horsemen, joined the Royalists. A few Gordons who had been out with Huntly came in, under the leadership of the gallant Colonel Nathaniel Gordon,'- as notable a votary of Venus as he was of Mars.^ When Montrose halted at the 'Twa Mile Cross,' Aberdeen, he found a Covenanting army consisting of 2000 foot and 500 horse, with 3 guns, under Lord Burleigh, posted outside the city.^ Montrose sent an officer along with a drummer to demand the surrender of the city, with the alternative of ' No Quarter.' The citizens for reply slew the drummer, which unpardonable act made Montrose 'mad, and furious, and impatient.' In his ire he vowed he would give the city up for loot. Both armies lay across The Hardgate, the Covenanters having some cottages for defences. ' Act. Pari. .Scot., VI. i. 317-23. - Nathaniel Gordon was probably the third son of Ciordon ol Ardlogie : House of Gordon, New Spald. Club, Aberdeen, 1903, p. 51 ; Spalding, ii. 431 ; Prcsb. Rcc. Strathbogic, igth Jan. 1650. ' Presbytery Book of Strathbogie : 'Att Botarie 15 Martii 1648. The Lady Altar, Jean Gordon,' was accused of 'ane barne in adultcrie to Nathaniel Gordon, and also of ane vther bairnc in fornication with Captain Mortimer' : quoted by Gordon, Chronicles of Keith, 150. * Gordon, Hritanc's Distemper, Si ; Napier, Memoirs, ii. 450. 412 THE COVENANTERS Montrose's Montrose placed a half troop of horse on each wing, and interspersed victory at them with musketeers. Macdonald's force held the centre, with Aberdeen, 13th septcm- Nathaniel Gordon on his left, and Rollock on his right flank. The movement of the Royalist wings left the Macdonalds so unprotected that Forbes of Craigevar ventured a cavalry charge against the Irish veterans. The latter coolly opened their ranks to let their assailants pass, faced about, and sent a deadly shower of shot into the doomed brigade. By its annihilation the battle was turned. The claymores soon cut up the timid burghers like straws. Balfour and the officers were scattered like chaff The relentless Irish remembered the drummer-boy, and waded to their booty through blood. Spalding narrates how for four days horrible scenes of butchery, even of unoffending citizens, ensued.' Montrose gave their blood as a libation in place of the wine they had poured out in May in honour of their latest burgess, Argyll. The well-dressed were first stripped before their throats were cut, lest their clothes should be smeared with blood. Women were violated and then slain ; homes were sacked ; corpses lay unburied. Yet this city of lamentation was once the head-centre of revolt against the Covenant, and, as Montrose well knew, was a spot dear to Charles, because it stood up for his preroga- tive. On the same spot where the Covenanters came bare-headed, crying ' God speed the parting guest ' — Argyll — they lay nakeder still, in a redder vintage pledging his terrible rival. Montrose, despite his victory, by which he sustained few losses, was embarrassed, seeing that the Gordons would not join his colours, and Argyll, with a great force, was on his track. His only citadel was the mountains. Argyll's Montrose marched up the Don valley, struck the Spey, and expedition. descended to Blair- Athole, ravaging all unfriendly lands. Macdonald, with 500 men, left him in order to strike the Campbells again at the port of embarkation, so that Montrose's force was reduced to 1500 foot and 50 horse. Meantime Argyll advanced with studied procrastination, his soldiers devouring everything on the route, with t ' Spalding, ii. 265-70 (Bann. Club}. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 413 the gluttony of locusts. Montrose doubled back into the wilder Highlands, and at length encountered Argyll at Fyvie Castle in October. Argyll was repulsed, and, before he could rally to a fresh attack, his foe had vanished. Argyll still continued the devious hunt, but never touched his wily, elusive opponent. Discouraged, Argyll returned to give up his commission to General John Baillie, and was offered the thanks of the Committee of Estates for his futile campaign.^ Macdonald soon returned with a unique contingent of western Montrose bloods — from Lochiel, Glencoe, Glengarry, Keppoch, Moidart — some'^r^.,^^ clad in medieval panoply, ring-mail, casques, and well armed, all thirsting for Campbell blood. Black Angus of Glencoe offered to guide Montrose into Argyle. This invasion of Argyleshire, proposed at a council of war, was considered by Montrose to be a forlorn hope in the winter season ; but the hardy mountaineers overruled his judgment. They dreamed of their harvest of bestial and booty waiting in the holds and garners of chiefs and vassals, who, by heredity, were spoilers. The eager raiders made easy expedition by Loch Tay, through Glen Lochy, Glenurchy, Glenaray, and in a short time encamped before Inveraray Castle. No trackless wilds, snow-clad hills, nor roaring torrents stayed them. The rugged scenes which afterwards sickened the soldiery of Monk, in what the Cove- nanters called their ' Highland Dance,' whetted their martial ardour all the more. Fired homesteads, butchered men and boys, moaning, hamstrung cattle, dreary desolation, marked out the merciless way the Hero-Cavalier had taken." The clan Campbell was to be reduced to a tribe of wailing women, their land to a desert, their chief to an exile. Argyll, after his military diversion in the north-west, went home fancying himself secure in inaccessible Kintyre, but he was soon fleeing down Loch Fyne in a fishing-boat. Montrose lingered in his enemy's country for five weeks, before marching away through Lorn and Lochaber, to try to capture Inverness, and rally the clans. The ' WiUcock, The Great Marquess, 170. ''■ Eight hundred and ninety-five men were slain ' without battle or skirmish '- surely an adequate holocaust for the ' stainless Cavalier' : Cameron, Rel. Celt., ii. 183. Montrose's mountain marches to Inverlochy. 414 THE COVENANTERS local raiders once more ran home with their loot. The route now lay along the lovely chain of lochs intersecting Scotland. In the Glen- garry country Montrose found his progress menaced by a large force under Seaforth, while he heard that in his rear Argyll had mustered three thousand Highlanders and two Lowland recfiments, and was posted at Inverlochy, two miles from Fort William, under the shadow of Ben Nevis, in order to bar his retreat.^ Montrose rightly antici- pated that Argyll would shun a fray, and laid a plan to trap him there. At Abertarf, Montrose wheeled his mobile force about, took the old drove-road up Tarff, and, guided by cowherds, trudged over the snow-clad Lairc-thuirard as if he contemplated a retreat to Blair- Athole ; then turning down Glenroy, over its torrents of thaw-slush into friendly country, after an almost incredible march of forty miles in two days, he reached the spurs of Ben Nevis. This masterly retreat by a route parallel to that by which he advanced was as well- devised a movement as is known in military annals. What made it most memorable was the feat of the cavalry under Ogilvy, clambering over fell and moorland along with the infantry. They reached Ben Nevis at sunset, and saw the bivouac fires of Argyll on the meadows drained by the Lochy. They captured the outposts before any alarm could be sounded. Though perishing of hunger and cold, they stood to arms all night. A stir-about of meal — Athole brose without its essential of whisky — tasted badly enough from the points of skiatt-du.' The morrow was Sabbath, Candlemas day, 2nd February 1645, a national day for reckonings.^ Argyll as usual sought safety in his galley, devolved his command on his kinsman, Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck, a brave soldier with experience in Ireland, and, like a vulture, watched the slaughter from afar. For this pusillanimity he pleaded a physical injury, his excusers, political necessity.* Campbell drew up his Highlanders in the centre and Ranked them with the Lowland regiments. Behind he posted a strong reserve and Montrose placed Alasdair Macdonald and his invin- two field-guns. ' Napier, Me»ioi)s, ii. 4S4. ^ Gordon, 100. - Dirks, or short daggers. ■* Balfour, Annals, iii. 256. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 415 cibles on the right wing, Magnus O'Cahan and another Irish battalion Montrose's on the left, the Appin, Athole, Glencoe, and Lochaber men in the iJi^verTochy, centre, and Clanranald, Glengarry, some Irish and horse in the second 2nd Febr»ary line. The Campbells opened the fight with spirit. Macdonald and O'Cahan assailed the Lowlanders, reserving their fire till the muskets almost touched the foe, then swept on with the broadsword. Mean- time the trumpeters of Ogilvy's horse, like Gideon's braves, were blowing blasts to terrify the untried recruits. Next moved the solid centre of the Royalist host. In unbroken force it rolled over the falling Campbells, and this compact body of slaughterers met no check till it hurled itself against the reserve, which, on the impact of Ogilvy's horse, was overwhelmed. The usual carnage ensued. Every Royalist claimed a victim. Some Lowlanders received quarter ; the Gaels who found refuge in Inverlochy Castle were led out and butchered. Of the Royalists few fell, among the number being the gallant Sir Thomas Ogilvy, son of the Earl of Airlie. Auchinbreck also lay dead with forty headmen of his kin, and fifteen hundred men around him, including the laird of Carradale and the Provost of Kilmun.' With exulting spirit Montrose wrote to the King from the field of Montrose victory, adjuring him to treat no longer with the rebels, and con- ^^" eluding thus : ' Only give me leave, after I have reduced this country to your Majesty's obedience, and conquered from Dan to Beersheba, to say to your Majesty then, as David's general did to his master, "Come thou thyself, lest this country be called by my name." For in all my actions I am only at your Majesty's honour and interest.'^ Subsequent events show how premature the exultation was. As Dugald Dalgetty pithily put it : 'It smells a little too much of selling the bear's skin, before he has hunted him.' ^ Ten days afterwards, Argyll — Gillespie Gruamach — with sourer face appeared in Parlia- ment, his dislocated left arm in a sling. He told his simple tale, how his sword-arm would not fight, how easily he fled, how true till death his vassals fell. His sycophantic peers approved of his craven ' Cameron, Rd. Celt, ii. 185 ; Wisliart, Memoirs, 505, edit. Murdoch. - Napier, Memoirs, ii. 487. ' Legend oj Montrose, chap. iii. 4i6 THE COVENANTERS conduct, and even gave him thanks.' On the other hand, the Church passed sentence of excommunication upon Montrose, and Parliament, on iith February, declared him a traitor, twice over, for his invasion of the south and of the north, Nithisdale being conjoined with him in regard to the first invasion." Attempts at When Montrose imagined that Scotland crouched at his feet, he peacema iiig. ^lisunderstood the Covenanting spirit. So long as the Catholic traffic existed, there could be no compromise. The new negotiations for peace at Uxbridge were proceeding with consent of the King, while his lieutenant waded the northern snows (29th January). The Scots, from their religious standpoint, would have accepted the acknowledg- ment of Presbytery as a basis of peace ; the English negotiators went much further, and demanded increased Parliamentary powers. Charles, with much subtlety, favoured a scheme of toleration, formu- lated by the clergy in Oxford, which promised reform and also protection to all conscientious observers of distinctive religious rites. In such circumstances treaty-making was impossible. The paternal platitude, ' No bishop, no king,' was the Royal creed. With singular obstinacy Charles wrote to the Queen : ' I will neither quit Episcopacy, nor that sword which God hath given into my hands.' That was on the day before his fatal councillor, Laud, stepped on to the scaffold to die (lOth January), a victim to the chimera of Uniformity, an example of devotion to the Church of England, and a warning to all innovators — which warning the inconsistent Parliamentarians were slowest to take. The policy of cropped ears and slit noses was fully avenged, and insulted Presbytery was on the eve of being elevated into the established form of religion. The satisfaction of seeing Laud die for tinkering with rites established by law, ill harmonised with this new subversive policy. It was Satan reproving sin. ^ Baiiiie recalled If the King had an unbeaten champion in the north, he had also Montrose. ^^ the New Model Army under Fairfax, and in the Ironsides of Cromwell, a legion of Covenanted officers and red-coated Puritans all pledged to the noblest interests, which were to dissipate his most ^ Balfour, Annals, iii. 256, 272. ^ Ac/. Pari. Scot, VI. i. 313, 317, 327. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 417 sanguine dream. Charles promised to join Montrose with cavalry — his much-needed arm — somewhere south of the Forth. The Scottish Estates recalled Lieutenant-General Baillie and Colonel Hurry from Leven's army in the north of England to lead two expeditions against Montrose, whom they had proclaimed to be a traitor, as the Church had declared him to be an excommunicate. To their staff was attached a Parliamentary council of war, four from each Estate. This practice led to the ruin of many enterprises of the Covenanters by displacing capable officers from their rightful function.^ Montrose had now moved north, dispersed the Seaforth High- Raids of landers, swung round by Elgin and the coast to Aberdeen, fining, firing, spoiling mercilessly, and recruiting Murrays, Mackenzies, Gordons, and Grants in the King's name. The manses suffered severely, and many libraries were tossed out. No wonder Cant and other ministers were wont to rail in the pulpit against Montrose and his associates as bloody butchers, a hellish crew, and persons given to the devil ; but as soon as the Royalists drew near, the noisy shepherds were the first to seek shelter in the strongholds. When Montrose approached Aberdeen, the townsmen fled and the clergy betook themselves to impregnable Dunnottar. Hurry's dragoons, however, made amends by swooping down on Aberdeen, surprising and capturing some of the Royalists in the city. They capped this transaction by also securing a son of Montrose in Montrose. The Royalists marched from Stonehaven to Brechin, burning as they went, and killing what they could not drive — even the deer in Fetteresso Park, ' which skirled at the sight of fire.' Baillie and Hurry declined a conflict. Montrose pushed on to Dunkeld, where once more he was weakened by the withdrawal of the kilted raiders, and left with only the Irish legion, 600 in number, and 200 mounted men. On 4th April, he made a dash at Dundee and seized that town. Capture of from which he adroitly extricated his men, in the very face of Baillie, ^th'Ap'ji ,6^5, by fighting a rearguard action. ' lialfour, iii. 257. 3^ 4i8 THE COVENANTERS ' In spite of the loons, they set themselves free, And so bade adieu to bonny Dundee.'' Baillie in vain tried to keep his wily opponent out of the Grampians, but the latter soon wheeled his force round, got behind Baillie, reached the Dee valley, then turned his face southward and made for Strathearn, Balquhidder, and Loch Katrine, before heading away north again through Athole up to the Moray Firth. At Balquhidder he was cheered by the appearance of a handful of brave cavaliers, among others, Aboyne, Keir, Napier, who had ridden — almost a forlorn hope — out of Carlisle. At this juncture Baillie and Hurry parted company. Hurry moved towards Inverness, closely followed by Montrose, whom he expected to lure into a trap in hostile territory. When Montrose, on Montrose at the heels of Hurry, reached Auldearn, a small village two and a half miles south-east of Nairn, Hurry turned about and marched on Auldearn, hoping to surprise the Royalists at break of day (9th May). This they might have effected, had not the rainy night made it imperative for Hurry's musketeers to discharge their pieces, to render them effective on the morrow. The noise put Alasdair Macdonald and his men on the q^ii vive. When the opposing armies met there was a great disparity of numbers. Hurry's northern levies and southern regulars numbering" probably 4000 foot and 700 horse. Besides the clansmen under Seaforth, Sutherland, and other Highland chiefs, there were four famous regiments, Buchanan (Stirlingshire and Forthside), Loudoun (Clydesdale), Lothian (Teviotdale), and Lawers (Strathtay), lately recruited from Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray. They outnumbered the Royalists three times over.- The village of Auldearn in 1645 principally lay on the line of the present Boath road, below and to the east of the eminence, whereon, from time immemorial, stood St. Colm's Parish Church, at that time ■ Old song, Adcw, Dundee. The description ' Bonnie Dundee' was afterwards applied to John Graham of Cla\ erhouse. * Spalding gives Hurry 4000 foot and 500 horse ; Montrose, 3000 foot and horse. P. Gordon gives Hurry 3000 foot and 700 horse. Montrose acknowledged he had 1400 men all told. Montrose to Digby : Memoirs (Wishart, edit. Murdoch), 503. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 419 beautified by spoils from Elgin Cathedral. Southward from the church, in the direction of Newmill Farm, stretches a ridge beneath which on the eastern side the ground rolls. Montrose, by drawing Position of up the main body of his infantry — the Macdonalds and ClanranaldSf^^^." '^°^'^^ — on the slope and below the level of the line of ridge, and by disposing of his troop of horse under Lord Gordon in a hollow (still pointed out in Kinsteary Park) on the left wing of his force, effectually concealed his main strength and position from the foe approaching from the west. He posted Alasdair Macdonald, with his tried Irish contingent and 300 Gordons, in the area between the village and the old Castle Hill, or Doocot Hill, his right wing extending to the Castle Hill, on which probably he mounted a few guns, and his left reaching as far as the Mill. He had his back to the village. The garden dykes formed excellent defensive works. To the left, towards Geddes, the ground was swampy with the recent rains, and through it ran the Auldearn Burn, forming a ravine right in front of the hidden men under Montrose. The royal standard was entrusted to Macdonald as a decoy. No doubt when Hurry saw the yellow banner he had a vision of the great reward offered for the traitor's head. Tradition says that Montrose watched the fight from the steeple. In front of Kinnudie, about three-quarters of a mile from the Battle of village. Hurry marshalled his men, reserving under his own command g^l, M;iy'i645. the main body of horse drawn up behind his infantry. On his right wing was posted a force of cavalry under Major Drummond, and it is not improbable that the Lawers regiment, which bore the brunt of fighting against Macdonald, was in the front line of the same wing. Cove- nanters and Royalists advanced to meet each other in front of the Royal standard. But the musketry, push of pike, showers of arrows, and the (greater weiuht of the Covenanters, bore the gallant Macdonald behind his dykes. Three times his banner fell ; the ensign was killed. He rallied his men and leaped out like a lion on the foe. Hurry persisted in a frontal attack, till by sheer numbers he drove Macdonald behind his defences again. Macdonald, holding the garden- gate at Auldearn, anticipated the valour of his kinsman at Hougoumont. 420 THE COVENANTERS Heroism of Two bladcs brokc in his hand. Hurry's pikemen transfixed his targe, but 'the red-armed horse-knight Alaster' cut through a bunch of the shafts like straws. Notwithstanding his herculean efforts he would have been annihilated, had not Montrose marked the critical moment, and come to his assistance. Addressing Lord Gordon, Montrose said : ' Fj', my Lord, sturr, or Mackdonnell will carry the honnour of the day.'' Off dashed the Gordons, round by what is now the Deadmen's Wood, intending to cut into the rear of Hurry's right wing. The hidden foot also advanced over the ridge. Con- sequent on, or contemporaneously with, this movement, Hurry ordered Drummond to advance on the right, but he, by mistake, or, as some said, treachery, wheeled to the left and broke through Hurry's infantry, and threw the line into confusion. As the stampede developed, Montrose unleashed his hidden Highlanders — Macdonalds and Clanranalds — and before Hurry could restore order, a torrent of bloodthirsty clansmen, yelling for vengeance, and shouting ' Remember Gordon of Spynie ' and ' Remember Farquharson ' (two Royalists cruelly slain by the Covenanters), had mingled in the nieUe. The Gordon horse rode right over Hurry's battalions, and a portion wheeled and cut a passage back. Hurry's reserve either stood demoralised, or craven, ran away. The regulars stood their ground and fought to the death, their ranks being charged by Gordon and his horse, who were followed by the broadswords. Hurry's clansmen on the left and the reserves sought safety in flight. Spalding records that Hurry, Seaforth, Sutherland, Findlater, the Lairds of Boyn, Innes, Birkenbog, and the rest, 'wan safely away.' Hurry and Drummond never drew rein till they reached Inverness, where Hurry had Drummond tried by court-martial and shot on the road to Tomnahurich. The reunited forces of Montrose sur- rounded the Covenanters with a circle of death-dealing claymores, by which fell 3000 men, among the number being the gallant Sir Mungo Campbell, Colonel of the Lawers regiment, Drummond of Meedhope, Sir John Murray, Master Gideon Murray, and Captain ' Mackay, Chronicles of the Erasers, 295 (Scot. Hist. Soc). THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 421 Bernard Mackenzie.' The victors captured sixteen stands of colours, the baeeasre and ammunition, and much valuable loot. About a score of Royalists bit the dust." The Covenanting Government was alarmed at the turn affairs had Aiaimofthe ■ r A 1- 1 Covenanters. taken, although, with Baillie's army now approaching from Athole through the devastated lands of the abettors of Montrose, there still remained the hope of crushing the foe. That old campaigner, Baillie, kept at a safe distance from, and hung on to the rear of, his ever- moving antagonist, always ready to pounce on him when unprepared. Leven's army lay between the loyal Scots and their master, Charles, in England. The hopes of Charles, revived by the brilliant exploits of Rupert, were now dissipated by the destructive battle of Naseby. The only security for his lieutenant, Montrose, lay in the fastnesses of the Grampians. At length, 2nd July 1645, the opposing forces met at Alford, on Battle of the Don in Aberdeenshire, well matched as far as numbers went.^ ^nd jiiiy 1645. Montrose selected the arena. On a green declivity facing the Don he posted his Highlanders, supported on the right wing by cavalry under Lord Gordon, among whom were interspersed some musketeers under Nathaniel Gordon, and on the left wing by. Lord Aboyne's horse and a body of Irish under O'Cahan. The Master of Napier and the reserve were drawn up out of sight of Baillie. The Cove- nanters bravely crossed the river to make the attack. Baillie's horse on his left wing, under Balcarres and Hackett, were soon in a hand- to-hand fight with Lord Gordon's command, and were finally dis- persed by the musketeers, who, after firing, drew their claymores and began to hamstring the horses in the fierce melde. The Royalist ' I.awers and otliev braves had honourable burial in Cawdor Church and Churchyard. In Auldearn old choir a tablet memorialises Drummond and the Murrays ; a stone in the churchyard commemorates Mackenzie. 2 Cameron, Rel. Celt.—' Book of Clanranald,' ii. 185-93 ; Mackay, Chron. of Frascis, 295 ; Gordon, Brii. Dist., 121-7 ; Bain, Hist, of Auldearn, 14; .Spalding, //«/., ii. 473 ; Wishart, Memoirs {Dc Rebus, cap. x.), edit. Murdoch, 98, 389, 503 ; Gardiner, Hist, of Great Civil War, ii. 224. I am indebted to the Rev. J. Bonallo, B.D., Minister of Auldearn, for descrip- tions of the field and fight, which ha\ c been valuable in correcting the commonly accepted account of the battle. Recent writers do not appear to have consulted Mr. Bain's excellent History of Auldearn. ^ Gordon, Brit. Dist., 129. 422 THE COVENANTERS horse were free then to wheel round and attack the rear of BailHe. A Gaelic chronicle declares that Lord Gordon fell when clutching the very belt of Baillie, and that his death so mortified the clansmen that it was ordered that no quarter should be given that day/ Flight of Meantime the infantry of Montrose, the Farquharsons, and men of Badenoch, supported by the Irish and Aboyne, charged and broke the right wing of Baillie. At this juncture Napier's reserve was seen rushing on the centre and completing the bloody rout. It was Auldearn over again — sabres behind and thirsty broadswords before — the clansmen, mad for vengeance, making a speedy slaughter of sixteen hundred men. Baillie left his men to be cut to pieces, and fled to Stirling to make excuses to the Government." The fall of Gordon was an irreparable loss to Montrose. His other casualties were so triflinof that one must conclude that the Covenanters were as lambs for the slaughter, whenever the wild Highland slogans were heard from the throats of the Invincibles of Montrose. In the flight, Argyll, on his third horse, just escaped the avenging hand of Glengarry.^ The Estates had no other option than that of reinstating the defeated Baillie ; but, to secure some chance of escape in the day of Covenanters peril, they appointed sixteen wiseacres to be his council of war, namely, Argyll, Tullibardine, Kinghorn, Burleigh, Arbuthnot, and others.* They ordered the Lowland militia in force to meet at Perth, and the Hamiltons under Lanark at their local rendezvous. Baillie wished to quit the field. The thought of leading an undisciplined mob against the Invincibles, and of being controlled by incapable aristocrats appalled the veteran. He knew how the callow lads from Clyde and Ayr, who had never grounded pike or lit a match, would run like conies as soon as the Eagle of the North flapped his wings and the dreaded redshanks appe&red to claim a bloody prey.'' The bracing air of Aberdeen, and the loot of Angus and M earns, ' Cameron, Rel. Celt., ii. 195. 2 For Baillie's own account of the battle, see R. Baillie's Letters, ii. 419. 3 Cameron, Rel. Celt., ii. 195. ^ Balfour, Annals, iii. 294. ' Act. Pari. Scot., vi. 431, 447, 448. appoint a War Committee. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 423 refreshed the warriors of Alford, who, being reinforced by strong recruits, whom Alasdair Macdonald led in from the west, Huntly brought from the Gordon country, 'Black Pate' from Athole, and Airlie from Forfarshire, were ready to dash down on the Perth muster, before Lanark could join Baillie. ' Black Pate ' and Rollo of Duncrub knew every inch of the possible routes. After some manceuvring around Perth, the Royalist leader drew out the Cove- Montrose nanting army after him to the Wood of Methven. There he gave '"*""=""^^- Baillie and Hurry the slip, careered away over the hunting-ground of his youth, through the Ochils, down Glendevon, into Kinross-shire, as if he meant to devastate Fife. The baffled Covenanters had a miserable revenge in murdering in cold blood the female camp- followers — women and babes — left behind in this precipitate move- ment, an illustration of inhumanity equalled by the Model Army under Fairfax and Cromwell, who, at Naseby, butchered the Irish in terms of the Ordinance of 24th October 1644, and imitated by Leslie more than once, notably at Philiphaugh, when he dispatched the women and captives, and at Dunaverty, where he extinguished the garrison after its surrender on quarter given. Montrose carried red ruin on his track by Castle Campbell — a Montrose stronghold of Argyll — Muckhart, Dollar; swept rapidly across the J^'^i^J^J^' ^° Ochil hillfoots, and passed over the Forth at the Ford of P"rcw above Stirling. He hurried over classic Bannockburn towards Kilsyth, approaching that village by the old, rough, steep ' Tak-me-doon ' road. He bivouacked on the green uplands above Colzium House on the evening of the 141!; August.' Next morning the Royal standard fluttered over Riskcnd P^arm. The battlefield he chose suited his nimble infantry and small body of horse. Lord Advocate Hope reckoning the former at 3500, the latter at 600." It was a green plateau extending eastward a mile from Colzium Burn and Moss ' Chronicles of Strat/ieam, 194 ; C.uthry, Memoirs, 193 ; Ninimo, Hist, of Stirling, 392 ; Anton, Hist, of Kilsyth, loi ; Cameron, Rel. Celt., ii. 200 ; Gardiner, Hist, of Great Civil War, ii. 294-9. - Hope, Diary Misc. Scot. Hist., 128. The Hook of Clanranald gives Montrose fmir thousand foot and five liundrcd horse ; Cameron, Kel. Celt., ii. 201. 424 THE COVENANTERS to Banton Burn, having the Baggage Knowe for an excellent post for a rearguard in the west. Its northern boundary is the Drum Burn, flowing at the foot of a moorland slope, through what is now called the 'Slaughter Howe,' a natural fosse which protected the left wing and the front of Montrose's army. The southern front, facing the hot sun, sloped steeply into a long meadow, now a reservoir. Some field dykes increased the strategic importance of the plateau. The landscape recedes from this elevation to the east in many folds, and to the south in innumerable hummocks, grass and tree clad, significantly termed ' bullet knowes,' forming onward from Dullatur Bog an insuperable obstacle to cavalry advancing upon the right wing of Montrose. Plan of Baillie had to approach through the cornfields in the east, War. ripening to harvest. He led at least 5000 foot and 600 horse. On the night of the 14th he also chose an impregnable position at Holland Bush, three miles from his antagonist. The Council of War, nearly all of them runaways in battle worsted by Montrose, would not permit Baillie to sit tight. They would catch the wily bird, Montrose, in the net they had spread for him. His change of front, or a timely feint, which was interpreted to mean a contemplated retreat, settled their plans. The Council decided that Baillie must get between Montrose and the northern road. Lanark was expected to be on the march to meet and to checkmate Montrose if he headed to the west. Baillie reluctantly struck his camp and moved on Colzium, across the cornfields by way of Auchencloch. It was a perilous move. What made it disastrous was the order he received to march his eight regiments right in front of the enemy's lines, so as to secure the northern slopes. To do this he had to cross the Banton Burn, and to expose the left flanks of all his regiments to assault. His three small field-guns, which might have safeguarded the movement, seem to have been unused. A mixed force of musketeers and horse of Balcarres's regiment was soon in touch with the advance-guard of Montrose in the houses and enclosures near the farms of Auchinrivoch and Auchinvally, and THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 425 this skirmish tempted the Macleans and Macdonalds into irregular and perilous conflicts, which might have ended badly for Montrose, had Baillie's general advance not failed. Neglecting to execute his orders, the commanders of the Hume, Argyll, Glencairn, and Cassillis regiments got involved with the van of the foe in the enclosures. Montrose saw his opportunity, and let loose the agile, shoeless Highlanders. Clad only in their shirts, knotted between their legs, Onset by the lithe redshanks leapt the dikes, dirk in the left hand, targe on the '^^^" "^' left arm, whirling broadsword in the right hand, and cut clean through Baillie's centre before the Covenanters could prime for a second volley, lay a pike, or form to the attack. The rout was instantaneous. In the meantime the left wing of the Royalists had been engaged with those regiments which tried to occupy the northern slopes commanding the road by which Montrose had come. Airlie and his Ogilvies as well as Aboyne were sorely pushed, until Nathaniel Gordon and the main body of horse reinforced them, and in a wild charge dashed through Baillie's cavalry under Murray, and the foot under Crawford, and engaged Baillie's second line. In vain did Baillie try to lead up the reserves from Fife. For them the sight of the half-naked destroyers was enough. They fled and scarce struck a defensive blow. Their fleet barefooted foes mowed them down in the merciless pursuit which the horse kept up for ten miles. Dullatur Bog also swallowed up many. Four thousand Covenanters were slaughter at slain and two thousand were captured. The victor's casualties were ^^|,g„'j.,',J,^" slight. With despicable meanness Argyll and the blundering Councillors early betook themselves to flight, and with equal nimble- ness Baillie and the chief officers rode off, leaving their men to be butchered. It was a sordid massacre of chicken-hearted rustics impressed into war. The slayers were tired. Montrose, therefore, rested two days at Kilsyth and 'refreshed' his braves. Without vainglory he might now boast that he had regained Scotland for the King.* Charles himself was in a forlorn condition, as falls to be shown. ' For Baillie's Vindication, cf. R. Bnillie. /.r/fer.f, ii. 421. 3" Gordon's raid. 426 THE COVENANTERS The clansmen Before engaging Baillie, Montrose in an unlucky moment promised Montrole." '^^e clansmen the loot of Glasgow. As they approached the city their visions of plunder were glorified. These were rudely dissipated by their leader. He accepted a paltry sum from the magistrates, who pleaded that their prosperous town should be spared. No excuses, promises, or reprisals on the lawless would satisfy the petulant, incorrigible freebooters, who lost faith in their leader, no longer a man of his word. The gates of the capital were thrown open and Royalist compatriots set free, but pestilence, that horror of the Celt, kept' the foe from enriching themselves with the plunder of Edinburgh. Montrose vainly imagined that the Lowlands would flock to him, Nathaniel and Sent Nathaniel Gordon as a recruitingr officer with his dashing troops to rake through the southern counties, as far as Dumfries. They made up for the chance they lost in Glasgow. Few of the gentry came in. The easiest transported of their possessions sufficed the Highlandmen. There was no enthusiasm for a cause which undid the Covenant and spilled the blood of lovers of freedom. To keep his men out of temptation Montrose retired to Bothwell — another instance of faithlessness which threw the clansmen into such a dudgeon that ' they shrunke all away.'' They could ravage and spill Campbell blood without Montrose. With their Alasdair, now knighted by Montrose, they would go anywhere, but preferably to Argyle, where, according to a pitiable petition forwarded to the Government, they ' nested ' four months ; or as Montereul graphi- cally described the episode — ' Macdonald, who has two or three thousand, is still the guest of the Marquis of Argyll and continues to ravish his lands.' ' Aboyne also, nettled at the advancement of Crawford, President of Parliament, to the command of his horse, rode away in a pet. Montrose was thus left with one battalion of Irish, about 500 in number, under O'Cahan and M'Lachlan, and a few horse under Airlie and Nathaniel Gordon. His position was perilous. He moved to the south-eastern Borders to gather ' Gordon, 153. * Montereul, Correspondence, 23rd Nov. 1645, i. 60 (Scot. Hist. Soc). THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 427 the auxiliaries promised by Douglas — who joined Montrose after his victory at Kilsyth — Traquair, Roxburgh, and Hume. Twelve hundred borderers, ' all gentlemen, barrones, and noblemen, gallantly mounted,' joined his force. According to a contemporary letter writer, Montrose's men disgraced their march by their immoral conduct.' Hearing that Leslie and a large force was sent to oppose him, Recall of Montrose said, 'Though God should rain Leslies from heaven he *" would fight them.'- Meanwhile David Leslie, leaving Hereford with 4000 horse and some infantry, had marched as far as Mid- lothian, with the intention of preventing the retreat of Montrose, and there learned, it is said from the slippery Traquair, that the Royalist army was so attenuated that victory was within his grasp. Leslie resolved to offer battle. He rapidly marched down Gala Water, and up Ettrick, coming into touch with the outposts of his enemy near Selkirk on the night of the 12th September. It was a day of fasting and humiliation, which the Covenanters duly observed. Montrose, being in a hostile country, had no warning of Leslie's approach. The main body of the Royalists lay in fancied security on the plain of Philiphaugh, while their leader and other officers had quarters in Selkirk. This ancient burgh overlooks a picturesque haugh, which stretches along the stream of Ettrick for a mile and a half, its breadth being about half a mile. The western side of the strath slopes up to higher ground, affording defensive positions ; the southern entrance to the vale is dominated by the bosky Harewood- head. A few entrenchments — 'dikes and ditches' — converted the romantic scene into a fortified camp. Early in the morning of Saturday Leslie's vanguard drew near, ' A cloud of mist them weel concealed, As close as e'er might be.' They halted at the Shaw Burn to sing a psalm. Montrose, surprised, ' Rev. Ro. Dalsome, 17U1 Sept. 1645 ; J. \V. KcnneJy, The Ta'ioldale Ref(itiifn/, 10 (Hawick, 1903). '' Kaw; Li/c 0/ Blair, 176. 428 THE COVENANTERS Montrose had barelv time to get into his stirrups, and with his horsemen to ride ri^Phiiiphaugh. down the steep bank towards the camp, when 'On Philiphaugh a fray begun, At Hairwoodhead it ended ; The Scots out o'er the Graemes they ran, Sae merrily it bended.' ' He was too late to dispose his small army to suit his hitherto success- ful tactics. The superior troops and well-armed battalions of Leslie struck terror into the Gaels. The twelve hundred gentry drew off to the rear to watch the fight before allying themselves with the victors. The Irish veterans and the mounted men under Airlie and Gordon bore the brunt of a well-contested fight. The latter dashed into superior numbers only to be overwhelmed. The musketeers were wiped out by waves of advancing infantry. At the height of the battle a strong force emerged from the back of Linglee Hill and bore down on the left flank of INIontrose. According to James Hogg in his tale, JJai Pringle 6 the }'air, ' It was at the Lingly Burn where the armies separated, and from thence old Wat Pringle, well mounted on a gallant steed, led off 2000 troopers up Phillhope, over at the Fowlshiels Swire, and then by a narrow and difficult path through the Harehead Wood.' - This movement settled the day. Montrose fled. With great heroism 300 Irish fought on till 250 of them fell, when their officers, O'Cahan, M'Lachlan, and Stewart surrendered on quarter being promised. Ludorick Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, was among the slain. There was no pursuit. Many officers were captured in the battle, or in the vicinity afterwards — the Earl of Traquair, Lord Johnston (Earl of Hartfell), Lords Gray, Sinton, Drummond, and Ogilvy, Sir William Rollo, Sir Philip Nisbet, Sir Alexander Leslie, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Lord President Spottiswood, who was a non-combatant, Alexander Ogilvy of Inverquharity, and others.^ ' Local ballad, r/ie Battle of Philiphaugh. - J. W. Kennedy, The Teviotdale Regiment^ 7. ' 'Above a thousand were buried in that place; whereof scarce fifteen were ours,' wrote Baillie (ii. 321). Blair mentions ten slain : Row, Life of Blair, 177. Covenanters victorious at Philiphaugh, 13th Septem- ber 1645. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR . 429 What follows is scarcely credible. The Irish soldiery were Butdiery on accompanied by their wives and children, and besides these were other women, army scullions, and potboys, with probably the wounded, to the number of 300 — these were butchered like vermin in the courtyard of Newark Castle which overlooks the Yarrow, near the scene of battle.^ This must have been done with the concurrence of Argyll and the Council of War — Craufurd- Lindsay, Buccleuch, Lauderdale, Lanark, Yester, Barganie, Rutherford, Forrester, and William Scot. They watched the conflict throughout, and at noon dispatched the news of victory, declaring to the English Commissioners at Berwick, ' The Lord hath this day, here at Philip- hauch near Selkirk, appeared gloriously for His People.'" 'His People ' had no pity in their savage breasts, forgetting that many of their own comrades had wives in the English and Irish camps. ■' It may have been true what Patrick Gordon wrote concerning these Irish mercenaries: 'It seemed to them there was no distinction The j^o.is betwixt a man and a beast : for they killed men ordinarily with no j^^jj^' more feeling of compassion, and with the same careless neglect, that they kill ane henn or capone for ther supper. And they were also without all shame, most brutishlie given to uncleanness and filthie lust.' But he also asserts : ' Of those two cryeing sinnes the Scottes were als giltie as they.'"* It was the dying boast of Montrose that he had always tried to stop unnecessary bloodshed ; and, if it was only a boast, the conduct of brutal ruffians from Ireland was no pattern for the saints of covenanted Scotland. Nor was the massacre at Newark all. Leslie still further degraded his manhood by putting to death in cold blood the fifty heroes who stood by Adjutant Stewart, and, on his march to Edinburgh, by drowning at the bridge over the Avon, near Linlithgow, eighty women and children, ' without sentence, or the least formality of Law,' according to Sir George Mackenzie.'' ' Tales of a Griin/., 161. '' A Viiidii/i/ion of the Govcnunent^ 20; Gordon, 160. The bridge still stands: on the keystone the date 1626 is incised. 43° THE COVENANTERS The Covenan- ters clamour for vengeanci; on the Royalists. O'Cahan and M'Lachlan were reserved for execution in Edinburgh. Nisbet, Rollo, and Alexander Ogilvy, a youth of eighteen, were beheaded in Glasgow.^ Guthry tells the somewhat incredible story that when the poetic professor of divinity in the University of Glasgow, David Dickson, heard of these executions, he exclaimed, 'The work goes bonnily on."' What steeled the hearts of the Scots against the Irish was the fact that some of their officers were prominent actors in the 1641 massacres.^ Less refined ministers at the meeting of Assembly in December, Cant and others, clamoured for the blood of the captives, and said the Lord was angry at the law's delay. The old castle dungeons in St. Andrews held the victims safe. In St. Andrews the Estates assembled on 26th November, and the parish minister, Blair, opened it with a bloodthirsty sermon. Wariston, lately returned from West- minster, adjured the members by their divine Judge, and 'that sea of innocent blood, which lay before His throne crying for vengeance on these bloodthirsty rebels, the butchers of so many innocent souls,' to steel their hearts and decree justice. He also trounced the run- away generals, attributed the pestilence and the massacre at Kilsyth to the discords of public men, and to malignancy, and asserted that Parliament was ' lyke to Noa's arke, which had in it both foull and cleine creteurs.' The Irish prisoners were ordered to be executed without trial.* Lord Ogilvy escaped from prison in his sister's clothes, and Lord Johnston (Hartfell), a kinsman of Wariston, was pardoned. But the others met a bloody doom. President Spottiswood had been a consistent malignant and incendiary in sympathy with the King, and had officially signed the Commission of Montrose. He was ' Montereul, i. 47. - Memoirs, 208. ^ The Estates ordered all prisoners taken 'at and after Philiphaugh' to be executed, 'without any assize or process, conform to the treaty between the two kingdoms passed in Act.' Six Irish women were brought out of Selkirk gaol and executed : Balfour, Antuils, iii. 341 ; Act. Pari. Scot, vi. i. 492 ; Brown, His/, of Selkirkshire, i. 193. This was in keeping with the English ordinance of date 24th October 1644, which ordered Irish captured in England or Wales to be put to death : Lord's Jour., vii. 34. ' Balfour, Antials, iii. 312, 341, 363 ; Napier, Memoirs, ii. 592. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 431 put on trial as a traitor, ' art and part ' with Montrose at Philiphaugh, Execution of and sent to the block in St. Andrews on 20th January with the Go°|ion"°nti' brave cavaliers, Nathaniel Gordon and Captain Andrew Guthrie, Guthrie. son of the Bishop of Moray.^ Blair had the satisfaction of melting the heart of the gallant Gordon, who wished to die penitent and at peace with the Church. Consequently he relaxed him from excommunication, and received him as a member of the Church. Blair hoped he had gone to heaven. The two bishops' sons, whom Blair thought birds of ill feather,'- were not so easily moved, the judge dying railing, the officer stupid and impenitent, while Blair reserved his hopes about them unexpressed. ' The Maiden ' was brought from Dundee to dispatch them.'* William Murray, brother of Tullibardine, a youth of nineteen, was respited two days. At the old market cross where these Royalists fell the common hangman burned Rutherford's Lex Rex in 1660, so quickly did Royalism revive and triumph again. Parliament on 8th January 1646 passed an Act of Classes against Act of classes, the delinquents who had followed Montrose, making them incapable of holding places of public trust.* The Commission of the General Assembly made a disciplinary raid upon the ministers in the north whose Royalism had incited them to sign Huntly's bond and to sympathise with Montrose's enterprise. The Commission sat in Aberdeen for twelve days — 12th May to Commission. 24th May — and made short work of the delinquents ^ in that region. ^^ ' '*''■ Alexander Clark of Skiralvie, for preaching to Huntly, and William Douglas of Aboyne, for pledging Huntly and Aboyne in a stirrup cup {deoch an doruis) after the sermon, were deposed. While George Hannay of Alves was deposed for signing Huntly's bond and drinking his health, John Cheyne of Kintorc was deposed for enter- ' Act. Pari. Scot., v. i. 522-3. - Life, 179, 180: '■ mail cor'ji nullum ovum.' ' In Treason and Rebellion, etc. (two letters from Scotland, 26th January 1645, published by authority in London, 1646, pp. 16) it is recorded (p. 5) that Clordon 'confessed he had been an adulterer, a drunkard, and a shedder of innocent blood,' and that William Murray 'confessed himself guilty of adultery and drunkenness, but denyed he was a traitor to his country' (p. 6). ^ Act. Pari. Salt., \l. i. 503. ^ AVt. Com. Gen. Axseni., i. 242-67. the King foiled 432 THE COVENANTERS taining Montrose and Huntly and 'saying grace to their meatt. Ten ministers were put out, as many suspended, and others rebuked. These rebel pastors, together with influential laymen, were made to compear at the Commission, and on bended knee confess their sins. The Presbytery of Mearns (Kincardine O'Neil) was ordered to prosecute James Strachan, Coldstone, and make him satisfy in sackcloth in the church for giving the Sacrament to Montrose.^ 11 In September 1646 Presbyteries were ordered to make up a roll of compliers to be sent to magistrates." The Marquis of Douglas, who escaped from Philiphaugh, was captured in April, and sent to Edinburgh prison, where he paid a heavy fine. He had to compear before the Presbytery of Lanark, make his submission, and sign the Covenant in St. Bride's Church, Douglas.' « Montrose and After the defeat at Philiphaugh, Montrose betook himself to his impregnable stronghold of Blair in Athole, from which he issued north to summon the Gordons to the Royal standard. His victor, Leslie, returned to the army in England, but dispatched Colonel Middleton with a regiment of horse to pursue Montrose.* The jealous Huntly, who had never forgiven Montrose for his treacherous treatment of himself in earlier days, drew off the Gordons from the force his rival had assembled to undertake the perilous enterprise of rescuino- their brave comrades from the southern scaffolds. Montrose expected to meet the King, who was on the way to join him in the Lowlands, according to arrangement. But again the King was foiled, and he hurried off to the Borders a force of 1500 men under Di^by, who, on reaching Dumfries, was afraid to penetrate further without guides, and got out of a fix by dispersing his rank and file before crossing with his officers to the Isle of I\Ian. Had Digby boldly cut his way through, and joined hands with Montrose, who hovered some time round Glasgow, it might have fared worse for the cause of the Covenant. Montrose was compelled to retreat 1 Rec. Com. Gen. Assan., i. 271. ^ Ibid., i. 69. s Fraser, The Douglas Book, iii. 331-6. * Montereul, i. 33. The Xellierbow Poit, Kdinbuiijh The C'anongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh jt-:tfg.Sitf^T ar-il The Bass kock The Tolbooth of Kdiiiburgh llic \\'hiL;a' Wiull 111 Uuimuil.ti i_,i.-,ilr Duniiollnr < 'asllc PRISONS OF THIC COVKNA\Tl'',RS THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 433 again, and sought the fastnesses of the north, doubly crushed by the deaths of his wife and his brother-in-law. Lord Napier. Charles himself was in an evil case. The daring Rupert and he Charles in an had quarrelled, and the former, now the spokesman of the peace ''^' '^''''^' party among the Royalists, had become to his uncle as ' a rogue and rascal,' removed from Court, 27th October 1645. South Wales was also lost to the King. The toils were closing round him, indeed his capture was imminent, and his sole English army was nearing its last stand. Lauderdale exhibited great shrewdness when he declared that the success of Montrose ruined Charles. The campaigns of Montrose, resulting in no good, merely tended to embitter all parties, who began to lose sight of Christian principle in their anxiety to overreach each other, and to practise cruelty and intolerance wherever there was no chance of retaliation. The United Kingdom was in danger of losing all the first-fruits of the Reformation struggle, and the Covenanters, by forgetting their aims and distinctive teaching, laid themselves open to the taunt — ' You lie, you lust, you break your trust. And act all kind of evil ; Your Covenant makes you a saint. Although you live a Devil.' (Old Song, Vou 're Welcome, Whigs.) 31 434 THE COVENANTERS CHAPTER XVI I THE ENGAGEMENT : THE FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND OF MONTROSE Scots fight for The King vainly imagined that, by sowing discord between the Monarchy. different sections of the party still united in opposing him, by coquet- ting with the military leaders of the Scots, by holding out liberty of conscience to the Independents, who feared being obliterated by the Presbyterians, all the while he was intriguing with the Catholics at home and abroad, promising them toleration also, some triumphant genii of politics would arise to plant him on a secure throne and dash his enemies under his feet. The Scots military in England felt uncomfortable in their invidious position — a mercenary army in 'the auld enemy's land,' unpaid although promised pay, flouted and nicknamed in and out of Parliament, because they had to forage by compulsion on their marches, which the English described as stealing the butter off the children's bread. To fight without pay and then be abused by the ingrates whom they were actually saving was not to be brooked by Scots as proud as they were poor.' They would have both Presbytery and a Monarchy, cost what these might ! After some preliminary negotiations — in all likelihood initiated by the French statesman Mazarin — Jean de Montereul, an accomplished diplomatist, was sent to England by Mazarin to try to effect a tripartite arrangement with Charles, the Scots, and the French. From August 1645 onwards we find him in London and elsewhere writing to Mazarin.^ From the first, Leven, being proof against seduction, considered it treachery to receive private communications from the King, which he divulged to the committee in London. The ' The Correspondence of De Montereul, etc., edit. J. G. Fotheringham (Scot. Hist. Sec, 2 vols., 1898-9), i. 83, 85. ^ Ibid., passim, cited as Montereul. Montereul's negotiations. |: FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 435 representatives of Scotland in London — Loudoun, Balmerino, Hew Kennedy, and Robert Barclay- — however, were ready to negotiate a peace on the basis of the establishment of Presbytery by both Parlia- ments, and in October notified their willingness to aid and support the King if this was agreed to.^ Montereul subtly ministered to their prejudices and to their fear of Independency — now a powerful agency protected by invincible arms — by suggesting that the King might prefer to ally himself with that form of dissent. England already had broken the League and left the Scots free to act alone ; an ecclesiastical Synod might easily settle religious matters after a peace was concluded. Montereul did not tell the Scots what he wrote to Mazarln, that he anticipated that the first unfettered Carolan Parliament would disestablish Presbytery. Montereul was a true prophet. The growth in influence of Independency outside more than Aims of the within the House of Commons determined the Scots in their uncompromising antagonism to their rivals in nonconformity. The Independents demanded 'toleration, not only to themselves but to other sects.'- Such accommodation at the present crisis was not feasible.^ The hope of the Scots wholly depended on a recruited army. Montereul soon learned from Holland that the Independents would rally round the King if he 'would give them Ireland, as a retreat . . . in other words . . . establise independency.'^ But Charles never saw finality in any proposals. He alone knew ; could be right; was infalliblfe. If every other sword failed him he would defend his crown with his own blade. Expecting foreign allies to land, he played to gain time. At the end of the year only ' Montereul, i. 32 ; ii. 571. 2 The Commission of the C.eneral Assembly on 14th July 1647 in 'the UecLiration anil Remonstrance of the present dangers' gave as a reason for opposing a imiversal toleration : 'Neither doeth this universall libertie reach only unto the riving [tearing up] of Religion and razing the foundations of the Church but unto the subversion of policy and overturning the pillars of the State.' 'We desire to construct the actions of all men to the best' : Kec. Com. Gen. Assem., i. 289, 290, 291. 2 IJaillie, Letters^ ii. 326 ; Montereul, i. 85. ^ Montereul to Mazarin, 23rd Nov. 1645, '• 59- 436 THE COVENANTERS Monfcreul ad- vises Cliarlcs, January 1646. Demands of Ihe Covenanters. two avenues of escape lay open to him — to accept the invitation of the Scots and betake himself to their camp, or, uninvited, to enter London and take his chances there. Montereul arrived in Oxford on 2nd January 1646 and opened negotiations with the King, persuading him that his best policy was to trust the Scots, who were devoted to monarchy, and to distrust the sectaries, who were plotting his destruction. Of course the point of view from which Montereul looked was the advantage to France of an alliance with the Scots. In vain did the diplomatist coax Charles to accept Presbytery even temporarily, the King doggedly replying, ' his conscience would not allow him to consent to the ruin of the religion he had sworn to maintain, and that he would rather lose his crown than his soul.' Montereul advised him to confer with a Scots theologian and have his scruples cleared. This shrewd advice he refused to take, although afterwards he acted on it. He would agree to tolerate Presbyterian services and churches in England, a concession which Montereul thought would suffice.^ The King, on the other hand, considered his counsellor to be a mere juggler. But the Anglo-Scottish Covenanters would now have nothing less than Presbytery, a Protestant Ireland, the Covenant, and the Parliamentary control of the militia. The King, while concealing still more unworthy trafficking with the Papists, next proposed a modus vivendi for religion, which the English Parliament speedily rejected, along with his overture that he should return to West- minster. These secret negotiations having been divulged brought both King and Scots into greater odium. Current events reacted on the Westminster Assembly, which, in spring, was threatened with dissolution. The Commons were determined to have Presbytery subject to Parliamentary control. This cut at the root of Presby- terian pretension." After a tangle of unsatisfactory adjustments with the Scots at Newark-upon-Trent, Montereul being the intermediary, Charles ' Montereul, i. 104-5. '■* Baillie, Letters, ii. 362. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 437 deemed it expedient for himself to proceed to the Scottish camp Charles s«ks and seek refuge and help there. Disguised as a common lackey ^^.^^^^"^ ""^ attendant on two cavaliers, the King left Oxford, and by circuitous ^^^y '^46. roads came unexpectedly to Southwell, near Newark, on 5th May. According to Sir James Turner, who was present. Lord Lothian received and treated the King with great discourtesy, demanded of him to sign the Covenant, to establish Presbyterianism, to dismiss Montrose,^ and to order Newark to capitulate. Two days afterwards Leven struck his camp, and, with Charles a captive, marched north to Newcastle. This was the sional for the English Parliament to o o pay off the Covenanting army. The Scots pressed the King for a settlement. He argued that he had come into camp on the assur- ance that his freedom of conscience should be honoured, and that he might be instructed in their peculiar tenets and aims. They denied his interpretation of that transaction, asserting that he had been received into camp on the condition that he would sign the Covenant, which he had not done. Hallam was of opinion that he came voluntarily and received no pledge." Charles then asked for the theologian, Henderson, to come and solve his doubts, advised Parliament to seek a solution of the religious question with the help of the Westminster divines, and even desired the Pope to exercise his plenary powers and ordain a settlement. On 19th May, Charles wrote to Montrose regretfully commanding Escape of hT- nT 1 • 1 • o • ' 1 Montrose in im to retire to r ranee. Montrose, knowmg his Sovereigns realj„|y wishes, procrastinated until a more emphatic command was sent, on 1 6th July,^ ordering the Governor of Scotland to capitulate. This he did at Rattray, 30th July, his men being indemnified, but himself with Crawford and Hurry only obtaining passports to take them abroad. Like his master, disguised as a servant — minister's-man to the Reverend James Wood — he escaped to a wherry off Montrose, and crossed the ocean on the 3rd November 1646. Shattered in health, melancholy and broken-hearted with the vexatious politics and polemics of Westminster, Alexander Henderson ' Memoirs, 41. ' Const. Hist., ii. 196. ' Napier, Memoirs, ii. 634-7. 438 THE COVENANTERS Henderson debates with Charles. Death of Alexander Henderson, 19th August 1646. came at the Kings request to Newcastle, hoping to convert the Sovereign to the Covenant. It was the middle of May. His task was hopeless. The King was irrevocably bound to his father's creed, which he deemed inspired : ' I will say without hyperboly, that there was not a wyser man since Solomon, than he who said No Bishop, No King.' ' It was impossible to debate with an idealist who asserted that Presbytery was anti-monarchical, seditious, and intolerable, having an iniquitous purpose." To this monomania of the King, Robert Baillie traced the fatal disease of Henderson, who was crushed by brooding over what others considered a foreordained curse of madness resting on his Sovereign.^ The execution of the King was openly canvassed in this belief. The reasoning between King and subject was accomplished in writing, the monarch beginning and forwarding five letters, to which Henderson made four if not five replies, between 29th May and i6th July.* The King's contribution shows literary gifts, adroit reasoning, and the fruit of study of patristic authors and of Church traditions. Henderson fortified his conclusions by Scripture only. It was not to be expected that ' the incomparable Prince ' would be a match for ' the superexcellent Mr. Henderson.' An agreement was impossible. The interlude was the pleasantest method of procrastination for Charles. Henderson sailed for Leith in a state of collapse, arriving on the nth August. The haggard preacher had a premonition of death. ' In a few days,' said he, ' I am going home, and I am as glad of it as a schoolboy, when sent home from the school to his father's house.' The epitaph on his monument in Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh, best describes the place he holds in the Scottish Pantheon : ' Who was a most strenuous defender of the liberty and discipline of the church, in opposition to the aggressions, by fraud and violence, of the Prelates ; a formidable foe alike to Superstition and growing King to Queen, 5th March 1645. ' Clarendon, State Papers, ii. 273. ■> Letters, ii. 385. * Works 0/ Charles, 156-92 (Aber., 1766) ; Rer. Co»i. Gen. Assent., i. 47. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 439 Sectarianism ; a faithful advocate and champion of religion, and the purity of divine worship ; in which services, after devoting to them all the energies of body and mind, and accomplishing, both in his native country, and in the neighbouring kingdom of England, unre- mitting labours, at once useful to the church and honourable to himself, he breathed his last on the 19th August 1646, in the 63d year of his age.'' While Charles remained at Newcastle he was visited by many Charles in advisers, peacemakers, and diplomatists — Hamilton lately discharged from prison, Argyll returned from a mission to Ireland, representatives of the General Assembly's Commission with papers, and Montereul, trying to make straight the crooked paths of intrigue.^ The terms on which the King entered the Scottish camp resulted in fatal misunderstandings. Montereul's warning to Charles that the Scots would take advantage of their prisoner if he did not fulfil 'the only point they required of him ' — Presbytery — was justified. His cunning counsel to the King that he should appear a convert to the hated Covenant and anti-prelatic faith had less effect on Charles than the logic of Henderson. Obdurate and infallible, the King would hie away to Westminster, if the ' barbarians ' — so he termed his Scottish countrymen — would allow him. That they would not. He was the only asset which the threadbare, haggard military had, or were likely to get, almost bankrupt with their profitless business of arms. Mean- time he utilised that ' very civil and cunning' courtier, as he described Argyll, and sent him south to seek out for him some regal refuge.* Argyll, in pursuance of a policy of his own as well as of this instruc- tion, on 25th June appeared in the Painted Chamber to address the Joint Committee of the English Houses of Parliament. After discussing the situation and expressing his desire for the union of both kingdoms, he pleaded for as broad a toleration and as charitable ' M'Crie, Afisc. IVn'/., 84. He was buried before noon on the 21st, the Commission being in Session in Edinburgh on that day : J!ec. Com. Gen. Assent., i. 38-9. - The Commission of Assembly sent James Guthrie in December. In February he was appointed Chaplain to Munro's regiment : Pec. Com. Gen. Assent., i. 47, 163, 204. ■■ Willcock, T/ie Great Marquess, 191. 440 THE COVENANTERS Charles main tains Episco- pacy. Argyll's policy. 3. policy as would permit the existence side by side of different religions and political opinions and societies. He maintained that monarchy was an essential factor in the creation of national righteousness. But he had to acknowledge that the Peace accepted by the Scots enjoined the Covenant on the King, abolished Episcopacy, and stripped the Crown of its prerogatives. Such an illustration of charity could never be acceptable to the Monarch. A revolutionary programme of this kind better suited the ' honest men ' under Cromwell, of whom that saner councillor wrote to Parliament : ' He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for.' ' Still Charles maintained his position — as usual waiting for his angel of salvation. He openly discharged Montrose, but secretly enjoined him to go about his disarmament leisurely. He discouraged Macdonald, but countenanced other Royalist leaders. At the end of July, between the English ultimatum and moderate overtures from the Scots, he had to make a choice. Whether or not to become a Presbyterian-Solemn-Leaguer was his problem. The Catholic Queen urged him to become Presbyterian ostensibly and save his crown. His Scottish friends on their knees prayed him to do the same. But considering himself to be the Lord's Anointed, he held it to be his divine function to uphold Episcopacy. Episcopacy was the brightest jewel in the crown which God placed on his head. He could not recognise the presbyter, on the ground that ' it is less ill in many respects to submit to one than many popes.' At the same time he was willing to canton the bishops to certain districts," and even abdicate in favour of his son (2nd November). The Covenanters, tired of incessant haggling and dissatisfied at their prolonged absence, demanded their promised pay before packing up and marching away with their captive King. Many Scots objected to his presence in Scotland. Others declared his removal to be treachery to their allies. It was agreed to confer with them on the point. The military account amounted to one million and a half ' Cromwell, Letter .\xi.\. ^ Rushworth, vi. 328. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 441 pounds, and the Scots were willing to take one-third of this sum. The Commons, on ist September, voted them four hundred thousand pounds, payable in two instalments/ After a debate the English debates as to Parliament declared that the custody of the person of the King in '^^l King. England belonged to Parliament, and that, by English law, to remove him was a cas7ts belli. Notwithstanding this threat, it was understood that if Charles would subscribe the Covenant the Scots would lift the gage. The Scots Parliament sitting in December repeated the old demands, only to find the King obdurate ; Charles would not seek an asylum at the cost of principle.' An attempt to rescue him failed ; another to bribe the. staunch Leven was also unsuccessful.^ In the long-run the Scots yielded to the importunities of their allies, and on the understanding that the English custodiers would not injure his person, delivered up their King. Charles, and his guard Leven, were playing golf on the 23rd January when the commissioners sent from the English Parliament arrived in Newcastle to take the King into custody. A few weeks earlier the first instalment of the army pay arrived. When the convoy with it reached York, the Scots danced in the churchyard with delight.'' The hue and cry which followed the surrender — ' The traitor Scot Sold his king for a groat ' — was a political libel intended to intensify the English hatred of Presbyterianism, and to mitigate the odium resting on the southern regicides.'* On 3rd February the captive Monarch left the Scottish charies camp for Holdenby House, Northamptonshire, escorted by military j,^^^'i''i^[,';^^,'^^j. wearing: laurel on their head-pieces. When the northern army crossed "'"y. 3fd ^ ,11- K<.l>riiary 1647 the Borders it was partially disbanded. In the spring, a small standmg army was sent to the north to quell Huntly, and to the west to exterminate Macdonald's unconquered Celtic legion. General David ' Com. Jour., iv. 664. - Act. Pari. Scot., vi. i. 635. ' Montereul, i. 393. * Terry, Leslie, 435. ' Arj,'yll vindicated the Scots from imputation of treachery : A Shot I Vinduation, etc., Kirkton, 39. 442 THE COVENANTERS Leslie massacres the Macdonalds. Leslie was in command. Contemporaries declared that he lacked the traditional honour of a soldier. The butcheries of Philiphaugh and Linlithgow were re-enacted. Huntly's strongholds fell before him — ' who, after having promised to save the lives of all those who were in the last castle that surrendered to him (I believe Lismore), having said he would not take a drop of blood from any of the garrison, did not hesitate to hang thirty-five or forty Irish that were found there.' ' Leslie and Argyll with a force of eight thousand men surprised Macdonald in Kintyre, and drove his attenuated force into Dunaverty — a sea-girt fortress in Southend, where Angus of the Isles once entertained the fugitive Bruce — from which Macdonald escaped in a galley. By treachery the castle fell. Of eight hundred men, women, and children captured, wrote Montereul, who was in Edin- burgh when the news of victory came, ' four hundred have been massacred, in spite of a promise given that all their lives should be spared.'- Argyll at his trial repudiated the charge of having incited Leslie to this butchery, and declared it to have been ordered by a Council of War and approved by Parliament in 1648.^ Argyll looked on and spared one hundred men for the French service, according to sanguineous Turner, who was Leslie's adjutant-general there.* Another actor was John Nevay, army chaplain, minister at Newmilns, as thorough a Solemn Leaguer and hammer of malignants as existed, who in his leisure sang- the ' Songr of Solomon ' and edited the Psalter for the Assembly. Bishop Guthry echoes Turner in asserting that Nevay instigated Leslie to make his sword drunk in the blood of the Amalekites. When the brutal carnage was over, Leslie, turning to Nevay, inquired, ' Now, Mr. John, have you not once gotten your fill of blood ?' ^ The feline tastes of Mr. Nevay otherwise are less traceable than those of his traducers, and there is no justification for the epithets ' bloodthirsty Nevoy ' and ' monster as he was ' of Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. W. L. Mathieson.** For more than two ' Montereul to Mazarin, 13/23 April 1647, ii. 103 ; Gordon, Brit. Dist., 199. * Montereul, ii. 151, 169. - Wodrow, i. 141. * Memoirs, 45-7. ' Ibid., 45-7, 240; Guthry, Memoirs, 243, edit. 1748. * Lang, Hist, of Scot., Vn. 181, 2475 Mathieson, Politics and Religion, ii. 71. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 443 hundred years the sword-hacked skulls and bones of these heroes lay around Dunaverty, played with by the tides, blown on by the Atlantic winds that hid and discovered them in the sand, and viewed with superstitious awe by the peasantry, until a descendant of the sole male child spared from the massacre — the Rev. Douglas Macdonald of Sanda — with the Duke of Argyll's permission, collected the ghastly relics, and gave them Christian burial in a walled enclosure still visible in a field near the spot where the garrison was butchered.* Leslie crossed to Islay on his exterminating business. He carried Trucuience of with him a cousin of the Earl of Antrim, 'a person of merit,' whom he threatened to hang before the castle of Dunyveg, if the garrison did not surrender on receipt of a letter which the captive was com- pelled to write.- Old Colkitto came out of Dunyveg to parley with an officer and friend. Leslie surprised them, and ordered the officer to hand over Colkitto, or his commission. Even Turner considered this to be a stain on the General's honour. Leslie meanly conveyed Colkitto to a spot in view of Finlaggan, an islet-hold in Kilmeny, and informed his son in the castle that he would hang his father before his eyes unless he capitulated. Young Macdonald scorned the threat. Colkitto was sent to Edinburgh for trial, and after condemnation was marched back to Dunstaffnage to be hanged, in all likelihood at the suggestion of Argyll. Alasdair was driven back to Ireland, and Huntly, betrayed by a ruffian called Donald Durk, suffered for his loyalty.'' The country was now cleared of the belligerent opponents of the Covenant.^ Restraint mollified Charles, who began to see the wisdom of com- ciiaries favours .. ., . ^ , ,. i^j-'' compromise. promismg with some section of the nonconformists, and to devise a union of Royalists and Presbyterians against the Parliamentary extremists. The Scots Estates sent Lauderdale and other three representatives to reopen negotiations.^ When satisfied, the Scots ' Cf. J. K. Hewison, ' Macdonald of Sanda,' Glasgow Herald, 9th March igoi. ''■ Montereul, ii. 176. ■' Montercul, ii. 194. 255, 261, 280. ' For letters from Leslie and Argyll from Uunyveg, 5th July 1647, cf. Register House, Hist. Dept., Q. 200, 201. ' Act. Pari. Scot., VI. i. 731. 444 THE COVENANTERS Cromwell attempts conciliation, 20th October 1647. The Engage- ment, 26th December 1647. were to invade England. The news of this intrigue and treachery exasperated the Model Army. As time wore on the far-seeing Argyll realised the impossibility of accomplishing a retrieving scheme, since English Presbyterianism was now imperilled, and he cooled down. This was a political signal for the Hamiltons — Hamilton and Lanark — with hot heads to take up the Royal cause. Cromwell at the same time, October 1647, was pressing for an accommodation, and expected to create a Royalist reaction and to destroy the Scots' influence. He honestly attempted to conciliate the King — for at first he was in favour of a monarchy — and then the Presbyterians, but without avail. ^ He would have compromised with the latter on a basis of toleration for all Christians, from which cate- gory Catholics and Atheists were excluded. On the i6th December Charles approved of a scheme of toleration for England, and ten days afterwards secretly revoked it. Charles having escaped to Carisbrook Castle, Isle of Wight, was soon followed by friendly Scots Commissioners. There on the 26th December he signed 'the Engrao-ement' between himself, Loudoun, Lauderdale, and Lanark, on the one hand binding him to obtain Parliamentary authority for the Covenant, without enforcing it on the unwilling, to establish Presbytery in Scotland for three years, to con- tinue the Westminster Assembly augmented in membership, in order to frame a settlement of religion, and in England to suppress Sectaries, among whom Independents and ' Seekers ' — the sect followed by Cromwell — were classed ; and on the other hand binding the Hamilton party to restore to the King all his prerogatives, even by the help of the sword.2 The shrewd Sovereign would not pledge himself to establish Presbytery in England, nor yet to impose disabilities on those who would not accept Presbyterianism. This secret treaty, subscribed next day by the three Scots, was encased in lead and hid in the castle garden, lest it should be seized. Before the Commis- sioners left England they devised plans for an Anglo-Scottish revolu- ' Gardiner, Hist. Great Civ. War, iii. 381 ; iv. 58. ''■ Airy, Lauderdale Papers, i. 2 ; Gardiner, Cons. Doc, 259, 264. 1 FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 445 tion. The English Parliament met the crisis firmly. No longer to be fooled, Parliament on 17th January resolved that 'no addresses be sent to or received from the King on pain of treason.' The Solemn League was still their touchstone, which they ordered members to accept again.' To Montereul, who was in the Capital at the time, we are indebted Scoitish for valuable information. The Estates met on 2nd March. The ^pp^^^p ^f (^^ members were carried away by the specious arguments of the Engagement. Engagers, so that the Argyllian opposition was outvoted. Edinburgh was in a ferment ; Glasgow was cowed by plundering military. The preachers generally, and George Gillespie in particular, stormed in every pulpit and hurled imprecations at the King and the Hamil- tonians. In Glasgow, Major Turner silenced them with drums. In Parliament, Lauderdale, the spokesman of the Engagers, banned the Independents and the English at large for breaches of treaties and the Covenant, hatred of everything Scottish, and violence to the King. On loth June the Estates passed Acts approving of the Engagement, and an Act for putting the country into a posture of defence. The Committee of Estates further commanded all subjects to subscribe a concurrence in the Engagement.^ Rumour ran that the Prince of Wales was coming personally to lead the Royalist army, but that dishonour fell to Hamilton and the Earl of Callendar, to Lieutenant-General William Baillie. and to the rising Earl of Middleton. Middleton and his cavalry had the honour of spilling the first Skirmish at blood at Mauchline, when dispersing a force of two thousand enthusiasts from Clydesdale and Ayrshire, under John Nevay and other clefgy who had risen to protest against the Engagement, and ' Gardiner, Hist. Great Civ. War, iv. 53, 56. - Montereul, ii. 393 et scq.; Act. Pari. Scot., VI, ii. 17, 30, 86, 106, 107, loS ; Rec. Com. Gen. Assem., i. 540 : ' ist June 1648. M.ijor J.iines Turner to be cited to appeare before them the sixth day of Junii next, to answer for the tumultuous ^"'"8 ""t "f 'he Kirk of Glasgow upon the last Sabbath, being a day of humiliation ; and calling others out of the Kirk whilst the minister was preaching,' for disturbing the worship, reviling the ministers, and other 'scandalous miscarriages.' He did not compear, and was referred to the Assembly. Cf. r.aillic. Letters, iii. 4S. 446 THE COVENANTERS Assembly condemn Engagement. to resist the levy for war, and to the horror of Turner held a .Communion — vinculum pads — with swords in their hands. They expected to receive encouragement from Argyll and the Covenanters of Fife, and being disappointed were about to disperse when attacked. Middleton and Hurry were wounded in this action on 12th June.^ Argyll and the leaders of the General Assembly understood each other. The Commission of the Assembly sat at the same time as the Estates, and remonstrated with the Engagers on their folly. The Commission issued ' A Short Information, etc.', to serve as a dissua- sive, and till the Assembly met, took other steps to nullify the new move." On 1 2th July, the Assembly met in Edinburgh, George Gillespie being Moderator, approved of the Argyll policy, and condemned the 'unlawful engagement' as sinful and censurable.^ The Church opposed the Engagement because it violated the Solemn League and Covenant, inasmuch as it proposed the reinstatement of an Episcopal monarch, the formation of a party of Covenanters in alliance with their opponents, and the delegation of power to a government who ' mind not religion.' * The Assembly further declared the Engagers to be malignants, non-Covenanters, sectaries, and enemies to the one righteous cause. This was an emphatic reinforcement of the principles of the old bonds. The Covenant was to be the sole test of patriotism and of religion. Other bonds and the toleration of sects were to be avoided like the pest. Favourers of any other policy were to be excommunicated if unrepentant. Ministers approving of the Engagement were to be deposed, a fate which befell the veteran Andrew Ramsay, who figured in the Liturgy riots in 1637.* Lauderdale and Hamilton were reviled as treacherous Episco- ' Turner, Memoirs, 49; Peterkin, Records, 571; Baillie, Letters, iii. 49. Parliament approved of the Engagers' feat, and Nevay and his associates were processed for a rising, which a subsequent Parliament declared to be a 'Testimony for Truth and the Covenant' : Act. Pari. Scot., vi. ii. 137a, 138. ''■ Rec. Com. Gen. Assem., i. 528, 547. ■* Peterkin, Records, 496-520. * The original Protest of Argyll, etc., is preserved in the Laing Collection in Edinburgh University. ^ Peterkin, Records, 509 ; Montereul, ii. 445. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 447 palians in disguise. Young communicants and students were ordered to subscribe the test.' This uncompromising Assembly, however, distinguished itself on 20th and 28th July by authorising the Larger and Shorter Catechisms sent down from Westminster.- That very week the English Commons had debated to the conclusion that the Scots were their enemies. The latter, in turn, had reauthorised the Committee on Uniformity to 'bring that Treaty to a happy conclusion.' ^ On 8th July, Hamilton crossed the Borders into England with 10,500 foot and horse, verily a rabble of undrilled clod-hoppers, deficient in artillery and commissariat. The addition of 3600 fitter Englishmen under Langdale still made them no match for Cromwell, who marched with 8000 of the Model to intercept them. They met on Preston Moor, Cromwell 17th August. With ill-considered strategy Hamilton permitted his j_[^^;^^j, ^, main body to be divided, Langdale on one side of the river Ribble I'reston, 1 • I 1 1 ■7''* August and Baillie on the other, and both out of touch with the horse under 1648. Middleton. Cromwell had an opportunity given to few generals. He took the divisions in turn. First he overwhelmed Langdale's force, then chased and captured Baillie and his men at Warrington, and after three days' fighting found himself a victor with 10,000 prisoners. Soon Hamilton, Langdale, and Middleton fell into the hands of the Parliamentarians. If the Covenanters were unmerciful to the Engagers, the Parliamentarians showed them less pity. Of the prisoners only pressed men were released, on condition of never fighting in England without the sanction of the Government. The volunteers were banished to the plantations as slaves, and to Venice as soldiery.* Lauderdale's diplomacy was more successful than Hamilton's arms. He induced the Prince of Wales to yield to the Scottish demands, i6th August, but the Royalists had .so few for- tresses left to become bases of military operations that the Prince had to flee to Holland. As soon as news reached Scotland that > Peterkin, Records, 511. ' Ibid., 496, 498. ' Ibid., 5t4. * Carlyle, Letter Ixiv. ; Turner, 63; Gardiner, Hist. Great Civ. War, iv. 185, 193; ' Hamilton's Expedition,' Scot. Hist. Misc., ii. 290. 448 THE COVENANTERS Hamilton's army was wiped out, Argyll and his supporters seized the reins of power and constituted themselves a government, to which the The whiga- Chancellor, Loudoun, adhered. Lord Eglinton raised a Covenanting more s Raid. (qj.(~q Jj^ j}^g westem Lowlands and, in what was called ' The Whiga- more's Raid,' marched to the Capital and seized the Castle. The remnant of the Engagers found a temporary refuge in Stirling Castle.^ Establishment The English Parliament-men were still striving to come to some ofPresby- finality regarding the vexed religious question, and while they pro- mulgated an Ordinance establishing the Presbyterian system, 29th August, they had also appointed a strong Committee to interview the King at Newport and endeavour to arrive at some final arrangement whereby Presbytery, Director)^ and Covenant should be substituted for Episcopacy and the Prayer Book. Charles was unalterable. Presbytery, with other forms of faith, he would tolerate for three years ; the Covenant he would neither sign nor enjoin. He would promise to establish only primitive Episcopacy — bishops advised by presbyters — a proposal which the Presbyterian party in power, on 27th October, rejected.' Cromwell Cromwell too was on the march, and arrived in Edinburgh on 4th burgh October October. Argyll, Wariston, Leven, and other notables gave him a 1648. hearty welcome and banqueted him in the Old Parliament House. Argyll and Cromwell arrived at a complete understanding, which Cromwell declared to be ' a more glorious work in our eyes than if we ' This expedition was afterwards referred to as ' The Whigamore's Raid,' and the extreme westem Covenanters from this time bore the name 'Whigs.' Eumet supposed the term to be derived from the vulgar word used by carters when urging their horses onwards, namely, ' whiggam,' to ' whig,' or get on. ' Whig,' however, is an Ayrshire term for the sour water formed when milk is lappered. There are considerable families in south-west Scotland bearing the name ' Whigham,' but as to any Whighatn mor, or great Whigham, being a conspicuous leader in this enterprise, nothing is known. ' Whigs ' latterly was the nickname applied to all opponents of the Crown : Burnet, Hist., i. 72. '' The King's reason why he could not in conscience consent to abolish the Episcopal Government, as given in writing to the Divines at Newport on 2nd October 1648, was, ' I conceive that Episcopall Government is most consonant to the Word of God, and of an Apostolical institution, . . .' and he would not consent to its abolition 'untiil the same shall be evidenced to me to be contrary to the Word of God' : His Maiesiies Reason, etc. (Lond., 1648). To this the Divines replied next day. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 449 had gotten the sacking and plunder of Edinburgh . . . and made conquest from the Tweed to the Orcades.' ' It now boded ill for the Malignants. The grim Ironside, after a few days' stay, left Scotland with a warm feeling for the Covenanters, and fondly expected the approach of ' the day to see union and right understanding between the godly people — Scots, English, Jews, Gentiles, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and all.' 'Our brothers of Scotland,' however, did not prove so tractable and tolerant. In October, in the name of the Estates, Loudoun wrote to Charles Loudoun joins explaining the reason of their protest against the Engagement, and '^^ ^ ^" ^' pleading with his Sovereign to accede to the desires of the party in power. After this it was easier for Loudoun to join the party of Argyll. The King was busy devising means of escape, and was often foiled. For years it had been whispered with bated breath that the only solution of the national turmoils lay in the dispatch of the King as a traitor to the constitution. Now the demand was publicly voiced, when all attempts at compromise had failed. Cromwell had till now been averse to that extreme measure. But the tortuous, treacherous course of events forced him to conclude that Divine Providence was calling for justice to be meted out to the creators of the national troubles, and to him there was no doubt as to the prime mover and cause of them. The year 1649 began ominously for the King. The House ofncathof Cinrlcs Commons, such as it was after Pride's Purge, resolved to set up a resolved on. High Court of Justice to try the King, and on 4th January passed three resolutions to this effect : the people are under God, the original of all just power; the Commons wield that supreme power; the laws enacted by the Commons in Parliament bind all citizens alike. Here was the fruit of the teaching of the Scots jurisprudents, Buchanan and Rutherford, growing on English soil. These resolu- tions gave the new court a show of legality. It assembled with Bradshaw in the President's chair. In Westminster Hall, on the 20th January, the King was summoned to answer to the impeachment ' 6th November, Letter Ixxxiii. 450 THE COVENANTERS 1649. Trial and of being 'a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable chaXr" °^ enemy of the Commonwealth of England.'^ The terrible charge was 30th January amplified with many illustrations and supported by evidence. At several diets the King refused to plead before a tribunal which he stated to be unconstitutional. The Scottish Parliament also dissented from the action of the Commons. At length the court resolved that Charles was guilty and should die. He was summoned to answer why the capital sentence should not pass. He protested that he had only striven for true liberty to his subjects, and desired to appeal to the representatives of the people. His pleas were unavailing. He was formally sentenced to be beheaded." Three days afterwards, 30th January, Charles entered on the scaffold from one of the windows of the Great Hall of Whitehall. He addressed his confessor and the few auditors near him, asseverating that Parliament, not he, began the Civil War, that he was anxious for a settlement of religion, ever strove for the establishment of just government among his subjects, and that he died 'a Christian according to the profession of the Church of E norland.' A few moments afterwards the masked execu- tioner was seen lifting up a bloody head, while he exclaimed, ' Behold the head of a traitor ! ' Charles was put to death at the time when his influence, long on the wane, was at its lowest point. He had outlived his usefulness, alienated every party, political and religious, betrayed and deserted his most intimate accomplices, and deceived his subjects generally. Charles had talents above the average. With much of the culture and refinement of his epoch, he lacked that breadth of view, con- sistency of purpose, and firmness of will which distinguish a good ruler and a powerful statesman. His manliness was not of the highest order, and his courage was spasmodic, which is not to be wondered at, since in courting success Charles acted on the vicious principle that the end justifies the means. The oft-repeated assertion that Charles died a martyr to religion and to Episcopacy cannot be maintained by any one cognizant of the unscrupulous stratagems ' State Trials, iv. 1070. - Ibid., v. 1 3 10- 1 3. Character of Charles I. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 451 which he used in order to restore himself to absolute power, such as the temporary countenancing of Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1641, and his offer to re-establish popery in Ireland in 1645. No time was lost in bringing the schemer Hamilton to his doom. Uoomof He had long been suspect, especially in Scotland/ He was arraigned numiy. before the High Court of Justice as an English subject — having been created Earl of Cambridge in 1643 — for traitorously and hostilely invading England. The indictment ran that he ' levied war to assist the King against the Kingdom and people of England, and had committed murders, outrages, rapines, wastes, and spoils upon the said people.' He pleaded in defence that he was a Scot and an alien, an officer agting under Royal instructions, and a prisoner of war entitled to quarter. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. He was sent to the block on 9th March. Cromwell, it was said, 'watched with perspective glasses ' his head falling.'- To the last true to himself, the insincere and irresolute Hamilton left behind him the extraordinary testimony : 'I am of the true Reformed Protestant religion as it is professed in the Church of Scotland.' Holland and other Royalists in England met a similar fate. The Earl of Huntly was executed in Edinburgh as a traitor on the 22 nd March. All that was needed now to satisfy the vengeful Covenanters was the head of Montrose, and soon it also formed a gory finial upon the dread Tolbooth. The Scots Parliament assembled in January 1649. The Govern- Scots Pariia. ment made haste to pass statutes condemnatory of the Engagement, '^^^^' ''""'"'' to repeal Acts approving of it, to dismiss from the public service all who had concurred in it, and to publish a testimony against the toleration favoured in England and against all the proceedings of the Sectaries in reference to the King's person.^ On the 5th January, according to Sir James Balfour, Argyll 'had a verey long speiche, consisting of five heads, wich he called the brecking of the malig- nants' teeth, and that he quho was to speak after him [Wariston] ' T/te Manifold Practises and Attempts of the Hamiltons and participating of the present Utikc of Hamilton . . . to get the Crown of Scot/aJid (Lond., 164S, pp. 24). - Digitus Dei, 28 ; Lament, Chron., 3. ^ Act. Pari. Scot., vi. ii. 133 et seg. 452 THE COVENANTERS wold brecke their jawes.'' Such brutal language was not calculated to increase concord and amity among 'our brothers of Scotland,' nor among the would-be brothers of Sectarian principles in England. More than teeth and jaws were broken by ' The Act of Classes (1649, c. 30) for purgeing the judicatories and other places of public trust.'- That evilly conceived statute did more than anything else to embitter Scottish life and to encfender hatreds and revenges which the Engagers or their children indulged in after the Restoration. Many of those who sat on the stool of repentance lived to harass and destroy the Covenanters. The anti-Covenanters declared the enact- ment to be directed against those who ' loved the King and Peace.' Act of Classes, By the ' Act of Classes,' passed on the 23rd January (Act 30), all 1649. public officials were ordered to compear before the Estates and answer for their loyalty. Offenders were grouped into four classes and found liable to a graduated scheme of punishment. The first class consisted of officers and persons in public offices and places of trust, who had been Malignants of the worst type — plotters against the Covenant or actively engaged in promoting the Engagement either before or after its inception, and in assisting Montrose. Such were to be debarred from public offices and functions during their lifetime. The second class consisted of Malignants who had been censured as such and who had interfered with the opponents of the Engagement and the means taken to nullify it. Their punishment was depriva- tion of office for ten years, and the giving of satisfaction to both State and Church. The third class were lukewarm neutrals who had not supported by protest and help the anti- Engagers. Five years' deprivation and production of proof of non-malignancy was their penalty. The last class were frail brethren, members of judicatories and holders of places of trust, fallen in uncleanness, bribery, swearing, drunkenness, profanity, and neglect of worship. They were super- seded for one year and had to show proofs of their change to the Christian life. ' Balfour, Annals, iii. 377. - Act. Pari. ScoL, vi. ii. 143. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 453 In consequence of the Act of Classes the Treasurer, Crawfurd, was superseded by four Commissioners, Argyll, Eglinton, Cassillis, and Burleigh ; Lord Privy Seal Roxburgh, by Sutherland ; Secretary Lanark, by Cassillis and Lothian ; Clerk-Register Gibson of Durie, by Lord Advocate Johnston ; and eight Lords of Session made room for others of the ruling party.' Throughout the kingdom persons of all ranks, from the Lord Chancellor down to the peasant, were compelled to compear in church and publicly confess the sin of joining the Engagers, and these were not permitted to give or receive Church privileges until their repent- ance was proved." Such bitter humiliation had hitherto been reserved for the basest offenders. No wonder the old pikeman, Middleton, never forgot his humiliation in the church of Dundee, and paid off old scores in his 'Drunken Parliament.' The ill-advised Aboiiiion of policy embodied in the Act of Classes was compensated for by the patronage, passing, on 9th March, of a statute abolishing ' all patronages and presentations of Kirks ' as being unlawful, unscriptural, and sub- versive of the freedom of the Church.^ In consequence of this new patronage Act the Assembly, on 4th August 1649, drew up a Directory of Election, which confirmed the selection of preachers by Presby- teries and Kirk-sessions and the right of the choice of a pastor by each covenanted congregation.* This Directory gave power to the Presbytery to settle the pastorship of a disaffected or malignant congregation. Had this sane and beneficent Act remained on the Statute Book, Scotland would have been saved money, tears, and blood. The melancholy divisions in, and increasing impotence of, the Presbyterian Church can be traced to the abolition of this ' Balfour, Antials, iii. 390. - Rec. Cotn. Gen. Asscm., ii. 1J5. If ISurnet is to be credited {Hist , i. 74), it was Margaret Gordon of Lochinvar, a chaste wife and 'fierce Covenanter,' who brought her unfaithful husband to his knees in the Kirk of Edinburgh (5th December 1648), rather than fear of the Assembly's Commission — Dickson, Blair, Rutherford, Guthrie, and others who were busy hunting the Engagers into submission. ■* Samuel Rutherford and James Wood drew up the reasons for this abolition : I\fc. Com. Gen. Assem., ii. 206 ; Act. Pari. Scot., 1649, c. 206, \ ]. ii. 261. ' Peterkin, /Records, 550. 454 THE COVENANTERS Proclamation of King Charles II., 5th February 1649. redemptive statute. A remarkable debate took place in the Assembly on 29th July 1649, on the motion of Naysmithe, a minister who declared that all the teinds should be given up to the Church. Argyll, Cassillis, and the other laymen interested, repudiated this 'shamefast Caroll,' and declared that teinds were only jtire humano. The clergy, Argyll asserted, numbered less than one-hundredth part of the population and yet got one-tenth of the rents. ' It is not good to awalkin sleeping dogs,' said that astute law-giver.^ During the quiet summer of 1649, the pious activities of divines and elders were exercised in hunting down, worrying, and burning of witches. The clergy were not the only professional class, however, who devoted its leisure hours to this diversion, which King James vi. patronised and deemed imperative, so that Satan might be kept under. While Parliament was still in session news of the execution of King Charles arrived. On Monday, the 5th February, Chancellor Loudoun, surrounded by the members of Parliament, proceeded to the Cross of Edinburgh and proclaimed Charles 11., King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.- This proclamation expressed the almost universal protest of the Scots against what they styled the ' murder of the King.' The Courts of Europe were struck with horror on hearing of the fate of King Charles. More than sympathise they did nothing. The heir to the crown, Charles 11., a pleasure-loving youth not yet arrived at his majority, had with many Royalists found an asylum at the Hague, where the States-General immediately waited upon him and treated him with the deference due to a crowned monarch. Among those who soon sought an audience was Montrose. When Montrose, who left Scotland in 1646, and had been elevated to the rank of Field-Marshal by the Emperor Ferdinand in., was informed of the death of his master, he fell into a swoon. On his recovery he shut himself up alone, and produced a memorial rhapsody ' Balfour, Annals, iii. 41S. 2 Ibid., iii. 387. vengeance. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 455 which, it was said, he wrote with the point of his sword, thus expressing his determination : — ' I '11 sing thy obsequies with trumpet sounds, And write thine epitaph with bloody wounds.' He also vowed ' before God, angels, and men,' to avenge 'the martyred Montrose vows sire,' and to place his son upon the throne. His enemy, Argyll, had virtually forestalled him, and expressed the general opinion, which Parliament formulated in a statute,' that the Scots were ready to allow Charles to sit in peace on the throne of his fathers, provided he accepted the two Covenants, all the Westminster Standards, Presbyterial government, and removed from his presence 'the most bloody murderer in our nation ' — Montrose, already ' cast out of the Church of God.' The proclamation of his accession bore ' That before he be admitted to the Exercise of his Royal Power, he shall give satisfaction to the Kingdom in those things that concern the Security of Religion, the Uniformity betwixt the Kingdoms, and the Good and Peace of this Kingdom, according to the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant.'- The statute (c. 58) made it imperative that the Sovereign should be both a Presbyterian and a Covenanter. The Commission of the General Assembly, on 7th February 1649, sent a letter with Sir Joseph Douglas, craving him to avoid both Malignants and Sectaries, to establish Presbyterianism, to enjoin the Covenants, and to promote uniformity in all his dominions.* An embassy was crossing the sea to convey this resolution. The Commissioners sent were the Earl of Cassillis, George Wynram, afterwards Lord Libbertoun, Brodie, laird of Brodie, and two ministers, Robert Baillie of Kilwinning, and James Wood of St. Andrews.'' These ambassadors arrived too late to shape the policy of the young and inexperienced King, then angrily bent on avenging his father's death and seizing the throne by force.' He had already, 22nd February, commissioned his father's indomitable ' Aci. Pari. Scot., 1649, c. 58, VI. ii. 161, 7th .September. '^ I/iid., 1649, c- 52, VI. ii. 157 ; c. 53, 158. •■• Peterkin, Records, 563. ' Act. Pari. Scot., vi. ii. 232. '•" Wodrow, Select Biog., i. 185. The aim of Charles li. Character of Charles. 456 THE COVENANTERS lieutenant, Montrose, to be the Governor of Scotland and his general- issimo there. This precipitation proves that Charles inherited the fixed idea of the Stuart kings regarding their divinely appointed dynastic superiority. Thus, possessed of a definite aim, boyishly enthusiastic over the herculean capabilities of Montrose, and encouraged in his resentment against the stiff-necked, rebellious Covenanters, by exiled English Royalists and Scottish Engagers — refugees from Parliamentary vengeance and the Draconian discipline of the Church — Charles was not a youth likely to be biased by the arguments of the deputies from the Argyll Government. Besides, they had most unpalatable counsels to offer, being authorised to ban Popery, Prelacy, and Malignancy, to inform Charles that his Popish mother's idolatry was ' a maine cause of the evills ' in Britain, to advise him to avoid a Popish sweetheart, and to order him to dismiss that ' unhappy and cursed man, James Graham.'' In Scotland this was the traditional method of dealing with kings by aggressive agitators, who usually had some inkling of latent intrigues which long afterwards were exposed. They began by cursing, and ended with a petition for a blessing. The staunchest Covenanters displayed discrimination in distrusting Charles from the beginning. Time developed him in his true colours as a man who concealed his lack of virtue, principle, and grace by plausible manners, courteous acts done for expediency, and pleasant promises made to be broken if convenient. He inherited his father's genius for dissimulation, and his grandfather's inability to understand that subjects had rights as well as rulers. If the account of James Stuart (De la Cloche) is true, the Prince had already lost his virginal virtue, and begun his carnal and salacious career in Jersey during his boyhood." In fact, on 9th April 1649, Lucy Walters, or Barlow, had given birth at Rotterdam to a child, afterwards Duke of Monmouth, whom Charles acknowledged to be I ' Baillie, Letters, iii. 84, 45S-521. - Scot. Rev., 1885, p. 314 ; Airy, Charles II. 'H- Mr. Osmund Airy's Life of Charles II. (Lond., 1904) presents the portrait of a second Tiberius Ctesar. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 457 his son.^ It is asserted that Buckingham set himself to corrupt the callow youth. To the credit of the Covenanters, they practised the charity which ' thinketh no evil,' when they began negotiations with him at the Hague ; yet all the while he was over head and ears in the subtlest intrigues, and was only fooling the delegates, as Hyde led the King of Spain to understand ; and even deferring his visit to Scotland ' till the affections of that people be reformed or reduced, which he doubts not will shortly be done by the Marquis of Montrose.'" So much deceived were the Scots Commissioners by the courteous The Scots and artless demeanour of Charles, that Baillie wrote to Robert Douglas ^^d Charles. regarding him : ' He is one of the most gentle, innocent, well inclyned Princes, so far as yet appears, that lives in the world ; a trimme person, and of a manlie carriage ; understands prettie well ; speaks not much : would God he were amongst us.'^ Removed from his evil counsellors, thought Baillie, ' he would make, by God's blessing, as good a King as Brittaine saw these hundred years.' Simple Baillie ! Nor is it improbable that at this epoch he was a Papist. Burnet declared that he was confirmed in the Romish faith before he left Paris to assume the English crown. ^ To a prince having autocratic notions, a natural distaste for restrictive Puritanism, and predilections for indulgent, sensuous Romanism, which his mother would not neglect to foster, the counsels of the Scottish purists would come as insufferable insults. Further, their demand was unheard of for audacity — that the King before he was allowed to mount his own paternal throne must promise to establish Presbytery in his empire, and enforce the penal statutes against the Papists ! The Commissioners " Airy, Charles II., 51. 'Of the children whom Charles ri. owned, the following grew up: James, Duke of Monmouth and liuccleuch, son of Lucy Walters ; Mary, daughter of Lucy Walters ; Charlotte Boyle Fitzroy, daughter of Viscountess Shannon ; Charles Fitz- Charles and a girl, children of Catherine Peg; Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, George, Earl of Northumberland, and Charlotte Fitzroy, Countess of Sussex, the children of the Duchess of Cleveland ; the two Beauclercs, sons of Nell Gwynn ; the Duke of Richmond, son of Louise de Keroualle ; Mary Tudor, daughter of Moll Davis, and married to the Earl of Derwentwater ; and Benedicte P'itzroy, Prioress of the H6tel Dieu de St. Nicolas at Pontoise' : H. Forneron, The Court of Charles II., 1649-1734, p. 293 (Lond., 1897). 2 Airy, Charles II., 64. ^ Letters, iii. S8, April 3, 1649 I 89, April 17. ' Hist., i. 133 ; Foxcroft, SitppL, 139. 3M 458 THE COVENANTERS Charles pre- sented with the Covenant. Concessions by Charles. politely introduced their ultimatum by presenting to the King a beautifully bound volume containing the Covenants, the Westminster Standards, and other constitutional documents of the Church. A sporran filled with gold would have appealed more readily to their penniless Prince. There is good ground for inferring that Argyll, quick to feel the pulse of those in high places, which was not always the pulse of the people, was doubtful of the possibility of securing universal Presbytery, and would have been content with the Royal acknowledgment of the restricted aims of the National Covenant, which had been framed to apply only to the northern part of the United Kingdom — and this much the Prince of Orange pressed Charles to accede to ; but the cunning diplomatist did not express in writing the minimum of his expectations. The capable Hyde had the ear of Charles. Lauderdale, too, had many opportunities of knowing the limits of Argyll's concessions, and could assure the King how pliable Argyll was. The embassy, therefore, received a sensible reply, worthy of a king who understood his constitutional position. Of course, he concealed the arrangements completed with Montrose and Ormond. Charles declared his willingness to accept the Covenant and Presbytery for Scotland ; for the other portions of his realm he would refer these disputable affairs to a free Parliament which he would indict ; he would also sanction an Act of Oblivion for all insurgents save those who could be judicially proved to have had a share in the murder of his father. But he would not interfere with the Irish Treaty of 17th January, guaranteeing religious and political freedom to the Irish. So far this was a reasonable and fair offer, but the Com- missioners, having no authority to compromise, set sail for Scotland to report their failure.^ They arrived at Leith on 27th May. The compliance and moderation of Charles were a cloak for his real designs. This was the first example of his exercise of a corrupt and deceitful nature, which brought forth such bitter fruits in the ■ The Proceedings of the Conunissioners, etc., at the Hasnte (Edin., 1649) ; Baillie, Letters, iii. 84-90, 510, App. ; Act. Pari. Scot., VI. ii. 411, 727-32. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 459 sordid and adulterous career of this would-be Covenanter. Indeed, before the Commissioners departed, the impatient deceiver had begun to importune the Pope and other foreign sovereigns for subsidies for his military enterprises/ That very day, 29th May, on which Montrose Charles notified his pious intentions, he appointed Montrose Admiral ^^15^"^^°^,^ of Scotland, and shortly afterwards confirmed the Grand Vizier in his ^eht- naval and military appointments. The new Pope of Scotland blessed where the old Church cursed. The latter seemed more potent. Montrose could raise few dollars and in consequence few mercenaries. Only a handful of Danes and Swedes joined the filibuster's flag. Even the sea was unpropitious to the Admiral. In August, he was able to embark and throw into Orkney a pioneer force, with recruit- ing-officers attached, under the command of the Earl of Kinnoull, but he himself was not able to join them for seven months afterwards. His irritating and vituperative declarations preceded him, and these formed a terrible indictment of the Covenanters, whom he accused of unsettling religion, gendering errors, subverting law, selling and murdering the King, ' as if they had made a covenant with hell to banish modesty.'" Such lurid language did not bespeak a loving welcome for the Royalist Governor. The Committee of Estates and the Commission of the General Assembly issued as forcible answers to these libels.^ A declaration issued by Montrose in November 1649 called on all who maintained the justice of the King's cause to join him in ' opposing a horrid faction of rebels,' who after the late King had granted them all their desires, allied themselves to English rebels, so that 'they thrust in oil to the fire and ginger to the wound until they rendered all irrevocable.' He further accused his country- men of plotting with other traitors to destroy the late King. The party of Argyll, he declared, ' sold their sovereign unto death, and yet dig in his grave.' To all but such regicides he offered an amnesty." ' Gardiner, Letters and Papers, etc. ; Charles 11. and Scotland in 1650 (Scot. Hist. Soc), 3«. 39- ''^ A Declaration, etc., July 1649 (Lond., 1649) ; Rec. Com. Gen. Assetn., ii. 441, 446, 447. ^ A'ec. Com., ii. 341, 447 ; A Declaration of the Committee of Estates, etc. (Edin., 1650) ; A Declaration and Warning, etc., by Com. of Gen. Asscin., etc. (Edin., 1650). * Cal. State Pap., i. 416. 460 THE COVENANTERS Proposed alliance of Covenanters and Sectaries. Meantime, in England, monarchy had been abolished and the memorable Act passed on 19th May declaring the People of England and all its dominions to be a Commonwealth and Free State to be henceforth governed by the representatives of the People in Parlia- ment. Charles at first thought of utilising Ormond and the loyal Irish, to whose aid Montrose was also to be sent, for the recovery of the crown, but .the victories of pitiless Cromwell in Ireland for ever shut that gate of hope. The Sovereign w^as thrown back on his original design of trusting to the arms of Montrose. Early in July, a junto of lay and clerical Covenanters, including Argyll, Wariston, Loudoun, Leslie, Sir John Chiesley, and Baillie, Wood, Douglas, Dickson, and James Guthrie, ministers, discussed the question of an alliance with the new Commonwealth or a submission to their Monarch, provided he gave satisfactory pledges of his adherence to the Covenants and the national Faith. The majority, led by Argyll, declared themselves more afraid of the English Sectaries with their loose views of toleration than of the Malignants at home under a weak-kneed sovereign. They preferred to treat with Charles. The minority, consisting of Wariston, Chiesley, and Guthrie, favoured the alliance. The Assembly convened to pass laudable measures confirming the Covenanting policy, and to prepare an address to the King. In it they trounced him well, said the curse of heaven was on his idolatrous house, and adjured him to make his peace with God and to walk no longer 'in the counsel of the ungodly.'^ In September Argyll wrote to the Prince of Orange requesting him to persuade Charles to accept the Covenant and the terms of the regnant party in Scotland, and thus disappoint his enemies." That Prince and the Queen-Mother had advised Charles to accept the Covenant conditionally. The impecuniosity of Charles rendered some settle- ment necessary, but the enthusiast for autocracy was not prepared to buy his regal seat at such a price. Even his vexed soul demurred at first to soil itself further. Some said the Covenant ' Peterkin, Records, 553 (Edin., 6th August). ^ Ca.rd\ncT, Le/hrs and Papers, ^Xc. ; Cliarles II and Scotland {Scot. Hist. Soc), i. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 461 would involve him in the murder of his father, others that it would be a stepping-stone to higher things, namely, power to gratify his own pleasure. The sin of acceptance appeared less enormous when other possibilities were reckoned up. In October, the Estates again sent Mission of ITT T 1 T •! 1 1 • 1- Lord Libber - Wynram, now Lord Libbertoun, to press their requests upon the ^^^^ exile ; but Charles, cynically believing that fear of Montrose rather than principle incited the Whigs, and expecting military developments, remained obdurate. He had in September entreated Montrose 'to go on vigorously,' as he had not changed in his antagonism to the Presbyterians; and even in the middle of January 1650 he also informed his Grand Vizier that any proposed treaty was not to 'give the least impediment ' to his movements, nor diminish the power in his commission.^ The King might parley, his viceroy was to use force. Charles evidently had dreams of Inverlochy, Alford, and Kilsyth, of Argyll fleeing in his black galley, of a Carolan apotheosis in ancient Holyrood. Montrose was warned to accept unconcernedly instructions all other reports regarding treaty-making as details of diplomacy. In January, Charles himself invited the Scots Estates to renew negotiations at Breda ; before the ink was dry he instructed Montrose to 'proceed on your business with your usual courage and alacrity,' and sent him the Order of the Garter as a token of implicit trust (22nd January 1650). This bauble Montrose had to throw away in the wilds of Carbisdale. Charles, in an impolitic instruction, gave Montrose liberty to inform the loyal that he was conserving their interests. Wood, the agent of Montrose in Paris, published the letter of Charles to the Estates and that to Montrose together, and soon the Covenanters realised their irreconcilableness and the King's duplicity. As was to be expected, a fiery debate arose out of this revelation when the Committee of Estates met to choose and instruct Commissioners to wait on their perfidious Sovereign once more. The Argyll policy of moderation was again accepted. Before the Scottish Commissioners and the King had arrived in Breda, 27th March, to discuss the treaty, Montrose, obedient to his • Napier, Afemoirs, ii. 750, 752. 462 THE COVENANTERS Negotiations at Breda, 27th March 1649. Sovereign, had sailed to draw the sword in Scotland. The Com- missioners were Cassillis, Brodie, and three ministers, John Living- stone, James Wood, and George Hutchinson, to represent the Church, and Lothian, Cassillis, Brodie, Sir John Smith, and Alexander Jaffray to represent the Estates/ Honest John Livingstone, minister of Ancrum, foreboded evil from their negotiations, and said before setting out, he would rather ' be drouned in the waters by the way ' than enter on the business. He had afterwards seven reasons to give for thinking that the proceed- ings were not honourable and that the result would not please ' the honest partie."' His wife at home fell into the mill-race, and was borne to the wheel, which her bruised body stopped. She, a true Pythoness, wrote to her husband that the incident was an emblem of what the treaty would bring on the land. That was exactly what the Rump Parliament in England was thinking. When, at length, Sovereign and subjects met, Cassillis began with excessive courtesy to offer a humble submission to ' the Great Lyon of our Tribe' in return for an admission of their 'just desires.' If Charles would accept the Covenant, the Scots would invade England with an army blessed by the Church, as Hamilton's accursed force had not been.^ At their second interview they sought the dismissal of Montrose. Charles haggled and was in no hurry. He set others — Lauderdale, Lanark — to haggle too. He was longing to hear from Montrose, and to be sheltered under his wing. To gain that, he was willing even to use Argyll, on the principle, ' It's needful sometimes to hold a candle to the devil.''' But the devil himself held a candle to the King. Among the many schemes, plots, and proposals, abandoned and in vogue, not the least interesting was the overture of Argyll that his daughter Ann, a sprig of red heather, was suitable ' Jaffray, Diaiy, 54, 55; Brodie, Diary, 15, 140; Rec. Com. Gen. Assetn., ii. 212; Act. Part. Scot., VI. ii. 557 ; Register House, Papers on Breda, Q. 224. - 'Account of the Treaty.' etc., Select Biog., i. 170, Wodrow Soc. ^ Gardiner, Letters and Papers, etc. ; C/iarles II. and Scotland, 40 ; The Proceedings, etc., 15. ' Gardiner, Letters and Papers, etc. ; Charles II. and Scotland, 73. 'o FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 461 for a queen. War, however, not love, was in the other suitor's heart, although he had not the manly will to wage it. He had received the plaintive letter of Montrose, written in Kirkwall, 26th March 1650, in which he regretted the King's complacency to his foes, and offered nobly to ' abandon still my lyfe to search my death for the interests of your Majesty's honour and service, with that integrity and dearness as your Majesty and all the world shall see that it is not your fortunes in you, bot your Majesty in whatsomever fortune, that I make sacred to serve.' The nobility of Montrose always stands in contrast with the pitiable pusillanimity of his treacherous Sovereign. While the banner of Montrose, bearing the bleeding head of Charles i., Montrose with its bold motto, 'nil medium,' beneath the figure of a Hon ^'"'"'^"""'' springing over an abyss, fluttered in the Pentland breezes, Charles in Breda was trying to steer a middle course in a troubled sea full of shoals. Not a skilled procrastinator, as his father was, Charles succumbed to the negotiators. On loth April, Sir John Hurry, now a Royalist, and his force of Danes, Germans, and Orcadians, by command of Montrose, landed in Caithness to fight for the Crown. In May, the King signed the Referendum, which on iith June became the so-called Treaty of Breda — signed at sea near Heligo- land. General David Leslie mustered at Brechin to march against the The defe.it at descending army of the enemy. He dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel ^'"/"!'''^'-^' Strachan, Colonel Ker, and Colonel Halkett with cavalry to meet '650. Montrose. The latter had advanced through the Kyle of Sutherland as far as Carbisdale on its west side, and encamped there with 1200 infantry, of whom 450 were foreigners, and 40 horse. Strachan, Ker, and Halkett, in command of 230 troopers, 36 musketeers, and 400 foot-soldiers — Munroes and Rosses — left Tain to give battle to Montrose. They met on the 27th April. By a stratagem Strachan deceived his opponent into the belief that the Covenanting force was as weak in cavalry as he was. Montrose drew up his men to meet infantry supported by a small mounted force, and was busy with his movements when Strachan 464 THE COVENANTERS Flight of Montrose. Capture of Montrose. hurled his hitherto concealed horsemen upon the unprepared Royalists. In vain the mercenaries made a bold stand, but the undisciplined Orcadians and clansmen fled helter-skelter from the avenging sabres. The foot and musketeers ran in to have their fill of blood and booty. Montrose fought hardily and was sorely wounded, but ingloriously fled from the stricken field on a steed as nobly proffered to him by the wounded Frendraught. The young Earl of KinnouU fled with him into the wilds. Hurry and hundreds of prisoners were captured. Strachan's losses were inconsiderable.^ When the news of the victory reached Edinburgh the fortunate colonels were acclaimed as heroes, and a day of Thanksgiving was ordered by the General Assembly. Universally and heartily the day was observed, and the paeans of joy were sung with no little incon- sistency from the newly edited metrical Psalter of the English Sectary, Rouse.^ Strachan, an old trooper of the Model Army who had fought with Cromwell against Hamilton, was a lewd and scandalous fellow, whose half-conversion by Blair and James Guthrie gave him entrance from Sectarian into Covenanting Councils, which Baillie thought he did not improve. Having changed his accoutrements to don less conspicuous cloth- ing, Montrose, starved and eating his gloves, leaving behind the famished Kinnoull to find an unknown grave, continued his pathless wanderings until he was forced to surrender to a party who brought him to Neil Macleod of Assynt, a Sheriff-Depute of Sutherland, who at the time was loyal to the Government. Macleod had no alternative but to hand him over to Leslie's military. For this conduct, long blamed, Macleod was, in 1674, 'found clean by ane assyse.'^ Fevered by his wounds, clad in a beggar's duds, tied hands and feet on a shaggy Highland shelty, the fallen hero and a band of other miserables were conducted to the Capital. As the sorry convoy wended along, women here and there came out to curse Montrose, ' Lamont, Citron., ig. ^ Rec. Com. Gen. Assem., ii. 263. 3 Scot. Hist. Misc., i. 221 ; Gardiner, Letters and Papers, etc. ; Charles II. and Scot- land, 159. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 465 one minister in a vindictive sermon on Agag abused him to his face, and the populace greeted him with expressions of execration or of pity. In his case a criminal trial was not necessary, since the doom of treason with all its savagery, passed in 1644, still held good.' The Government arranged every detail of his entry into Edinburgh, so Entry of that it would be for ever memorable. There was to be a mock Edinburgh. triumph, the traitor its central figure. He arrived on the i8th May. At the Watergate, the city magistrates, in their robes and with insignia of office, met the ' Governor of Scotland ' and took him into custody. A common cart was his chariot, a lofty chair within it his throne, on which bare-headed he sat tied with ropes. The hangman, hideous in his bloodstained livery and mask, was Master of his Horse ; Hurry and other prisoners, walking chained in pairs, were his retinue. Yet, contrary to expectation, his dejected appearance provoked no howling or hissing from the multitude of Covenanters, who, massed on the streets and filling every window from the city wall to the common prison in High Street, were his bodyguard on this humiliating progress. It is to be hoped that it is mere fiction that Jean, Countess of Haddington, spat upon the passing victim, and that the gaieties at the marriage of Lord Lome to Moray's daughter were stopped to permit Argyll and other wedding guests to look exultingly over the balcony or through the half-closed lattices of Moray House at their fallen foe. As Montrose approached Moray House a less observant eye than his might have found comfort in the suggestive mottoes on the fronts of the houses between the Bake- house Close and the Tolbooth in Canongate, which still remain : ' Hodic mihi: eras tibi: 1570'; ' Constanti pcclori res mortaliuvi umbra ' ; ' S/>es alterae vitae ' ; and the advice on the Tolbooth, ' Bs/o Fidus.' Yet everything else was prepared to make Montrose rue his career and shudder at his horrible end. Passing under the Nether- bow Port, a long way off he could discern the grim gibbet, thirty feet high, specially erected on a huge black platform, sarcastically designated 'The Ministers' Altar.' A bowshot beyond that the ' Register House, Hist. Uept., Q. 223, Papers reldtim^ to the Trial. -IN of Montrose. 466 THE COVENANTERS Tolbooth stood, and soon, behind the door of the Iron House, the ' Eagle of the North ' lay caged. He had next to endure the insults of his masters. The jailer, Major Weir, the wizard afterwards burnt, smoked him with his vile tobacco. Commissioners from the Estates were sent to question him so as to incriminate Hamilton and other Incendiaries. The Church also sent deputies — Professor David Dickson, James Durham, James Guthrie, Robert Traill, and Hugh Mackail — to pry into the state of his mind regarding the Covenant, and of his soul regarding salvation, as well as to relax him from the pain of the greater excommunication (from which he desired release), should his show of repentance be deemed to be genuine. Sir James Stewart also accompanied the Examination deputies.^ When the ministers charged him with breach of the Covenant, he answered, ' The Covenant which I took I own it and adhere to it. Bishops, I care not for them. I never intended to advance their interest. But when the King had granted you all your desires, and you were every one sitting under his vine and under his fig-tree, — that then you should have taken a party in England by the hand, and entered into a League and Covenant with them against the King, was the thing I judged my duty to oppose to the yondmost."- According to Traill, he exclaimed, ' I pray you, gentlemen, let me die in peace.' These interrogators returned very little wiser. ' With sad hearts,' said Patrick Simson, who was permitted to accompany the clergy, they left the wretch, bound with his excommunication, to God.^ The clergy considered him for ever lost. His guardians would not permit a barber to shave him, lest Montrose would cut his own throat and balk the legal sacrificers of their own privilege of ordering him to a traitor's doom with its spectacular mangling, which, it is said, formed a pleasing interlude in Lord Lome's honeymoon. On the 20th May he made a spirited defence at the bar of Parlia- ment, and pleaded that he was merely an officer acting for his ' Coltncss Papers, 30. - Patrick Simson's Testimony, Napier, Memofrs, ii. 787. s Ibid., 788. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 467 Sovereign. The Lord Chancellor, Loudoun, rudely harangued the prisoner. He was commanded to kneel while Wariston read in barbarous terms his prearranged sentence, which he heard with the dignified bravery of a martyr. ' I could heartily wish,' said the fearless cavalier, ' that I had flesh and limbs enough to have a piece sent to every city in Christendom, as proofs and tokens of my unshaken love and loyalty to King and country.' On the 2ist May he walked down the High Street, a few yards K^ecution of past the church of St. Giles, to the gallows. Now he was fault- 21st May' lessly, even gaudily, attired in a black suit trimmed with silver, over '^so- which was thrown a scarlet cloak embroidered with silver and lined with crimson. He wore carnation-coloured silk stockings and garters, with shoes having rosettes of the same hue. A fashionable beaver hat with a band of silver lace shaded a fine face and partially covered his locks of beautiful auburn hair. Seldom had so handsome a galliard adorned a gallows. He was but thirty-eight years of age. To the people he spoke in exoneration of himself, in praise of his late Sovereign, and in kindly terms of his enemies, then prayed for mercy on Scotland and on himself. The executioner tied Montrose's Declarations and Wishart's account of his campaigns around his neck.' He boldly ascended the ladder, and soon Royalism had lost its ideal champion. Before the body was cold the hangman hacked it into portions for distribution and exhibition on the pinnacles of gaols. The trunk, because it contained the heart that did not repent, was consigned to accursed ground under the gallows on the Borough Moor. The head, fixed on a spike on the top of the west gable of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, once served as a prominent target for gunners in the castle, and remained in that position till the Restora- tion, when it was removed, and, with the other remains, was buried with a great pageant in St. Giles on iith May 1661." There is no valid excuse for all this feline ferocity evinced by educated men who set themselves up as defenders of the honour of Jesus Christ. The ■ De Rebus . ■ . Jacobi Montisrosarum Mnrchionis. . . . (Paris, 1647). ''' Napier, Meiitoiis, ii. [125 ; Proc. Soc. Antii/. Scot., vii., 3rd Series, 65 ; Lamont, Chron., zi. 468 THE COVENANTERS only regret which Argyll appears to have expressed in connection with this dispatch of his noble antagonist was that Montrose had not repented of his pohcy and conduct, and had refused to impHcate his associates by command of the King.' Montrose was somewhat avenged when Middleton, after Argyll's execution, suggested that Argyll had gone to hell. In this ignominious manner perished a brave, cultured, and capable Scot, who in a less troubled and more refined age might have given to his country the fruits of a genius which had the power to « create trust, enthusiasm, and admiration among those whom the hapless hero came into contact with. A mistake of judgment made him the champion of an indefensible cause, and an evil fate set him at the head of armies whose bravery yet invokes merited praise, but whose weakness is accounted for by the fact that the Celtic race, having lost its solidarity and become quite sectional, was not imbued with that constant ambitious spirit which constrains the Saxon to extend the personal, family, and national acquirements and lands all at the same time. Had the victors of those battles from Auldearn to Kilsyth possessed even a trace of the colonising spirit of the Saxon, they would never have dispersed with trivial loot, but have held the Character of field and maintained Charles and his cause upon it. Montrose had all the valour, with the defects, of his Celtic ancestry, and failed in realising high ideals because the sentiment which dominated him was tribal rather than cosmopolitan. A chieftain himself, he wrongly imagined that it was a first duty to obey the King as the infallible vicegerent of God. Unlike many Royalists, he had a clean life, although his Covenanting confessors suggested otherwise. A love of praise and distinction detracted from a magnanimous character, but he was not cursed with the mean land hunger that degraded the succeeding defenders of the Carolan Faith and spoilers of the Covenanters — Dalyell, Bruce, Claverhouse." ' Argyll to Lothian, 22nd May 1650, Lot/nan MSS. ^ Sir John Hurry and Captain John Spottiswood, grandson of the Archbishop, were executed by ' The Maiden,' and many of the other prisoners of war were transported to France to become soldiers (Register House, Q. 226, 227, 228, 229). Montrose. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 469 A strong reason for the Government refusing to consider any clemency for hapless Montrose and his men was their surmise, it may have been direct information, that Charles was using him as a catspaw, to be discarded if a better instrument to gain the Royal ends were forthcoming. They were in possession of incriminating papers showing the true position of affairs. With Lauderdale at the ear of Charles they could be well informed. The bloodthirsty bombast of Montrose, when in an exalted mood, lent credibility to the partisan statements that the Hero - Cavalier was a pitiless Goth. And if Lauderdale could tell Clarendon that Scotland would never forgive Montrose for his inhumanity and savagery, and that personally he preferred no King to the restoration of Charles and his Grand Vizier, he was fit to confide the same convictions to Argyll, and at the same time to conceal from his trustful Sovereign his enmity to Montrose.^ Intriguing Argyll himself was no pleasant companion to ride the Mendacity and • IT 1-111 . • I J treaclicry of water with. It seems not unlikely that some secret compromise had the King. been arrived at between Charles and Argyll, by which Montrose and his force were to be withdrawn for operations against the Sectaries elsewhere. Montrose was too rapid in his advance to his own defeat, and thus spoiled this latest project. Charles was too sanguine of a victory that would nullify his truce. His order to Montrose to lay down his arms came too late. It was only to be observed if success otherwise was impossible. The news of Carbisdale threw Charles into a dilemma. He condescended to an atrocious lie to shield himself He wrote to Parliament a letter, which was produced on 25th May, showing that he was heartily sorry that James Graham had invaded this kingdom, and how he had discharged him from doing the same ; ' and earnistly desyres the estaits of parliament to doe himselue that justice as not to belive that he was acces- sorey to the said inwasione in the lest degree.' This letter was accompanied with a copy of the discharge of date 15th May. But Argyll had a still greater surprise in store. He reported to the House that he himself had a letter from Lord Lothian, the Secretary, ' Clarendon, vi. 290. 470 THE COVENANTERS Montrose's execution a political blunder. 'which shew him that his Majesty was no ways sorry that James Graham was defeated, in respect (as he said) he had made that invasion without and contrary to his command.' No knave could have stooped lower than Charles to betray and then to calumniate a noble friend. It is inexplicable how, after this revelation, men who prayed for hours and kept, and made others keep, every jot and tittle of the law, could again condescend to negotiate with so faithless and unscrupulous a creature as Charles was."^^ Charles had outmanoeuvred himself and so had Argyll. While Montrose lay in blood, the first sacrifice of both intriguers, their mutual advantage in the inflammable situation depended upon their silence regarding unexplained factors in the case. Montrose met his fate with the dignity of a gentleman and the courage of a hero, exhibiting ' no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair. And what may quiet us in a death so noble.' His execution was a great political mistake, fraught with the bitterest results. The thought of it long deepened the hatred and stimulated the vigour of Royalist persecutors. Had he been preserved till he became convinced of the treachery of the two sovereigns whom he too exuberantly trusted, Montrose would in all likelihood have used his influence and martial genius to secure a purely constitutional monarchy in alliance with a pure and free Church. His policy and position have been much misunderstood. He was simply a con- servative and a constitutionalist who strove in vain to bring both Kings and Covenanters back to the old standpoints in politics and religion, as far as these were accepted by truly consistent Presby- terian legislators. His views were definite, well considered, and openly expressed to both parties. Till his death he renounced the pretended bishops, because he traced the irreparable evils in the land to their perverse practices ; he maintained himself to be a consistent ' Balfour, iv. 24, 25. FALL OF CHARLES FIRST AND MONTROSE 471 subscriber of the Covenant, willing to defend the liberties of both Montrose a Church and State ; he was an opponent of the Royal absolutism ^^ "" ' practised by Charles, whom he warned of it as an evil which the Scots could never brook ; he was a strenuous defender of those constitutional principles on which the National Covenant was based, and by which it became that defensible, legal instrument safeguarding the popular rights, which jurists have acknowledged it to be. The more aggressive and revolutionary character of the Solemn League was the cause of that cleavage of parties, on account of which Montrose, with no little insight into sound statesmanship, found him- self compelled to oppose his former associates. Notwithstanding this apparent defection, the man who could so honestly assert to the King that his fatal idea that the Covenanters of 1638 were mere conspirators against monarchical government was a calumny, deserved more generous treatment at the hands of his opponents. But the mendacity and treachery of public men at this epoch were such that it was deemed impossible to make workable compromises, and concord had to be produced with the help of the halter and the headsman's axe.' Before Charles left Breda for Scotland he consecrated himself to his new enterprise by partaking of the Eucharist. He received the elements kneeling, notwithstanding the remonstrance of the Scots Commissioners, who argued that this obnoxious mode would blast all his designs. His use of the English Liturgy, his lax moral code, and his free-thinking had already scandalised the Covenanters. Yet they deluded themselves with the idea that he would come to mean what he said and vowed. ' They must make a property of him : no other will serve to stalk their ends by.'- ' Napier, Memoirs, i. ::83-5, 311-12 ; App. xlv. - Airy, Charles II., 81-5. 472 THE COVENANTERS APPENDIX I THE NATIONALL COVENANT OR The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland, subscribed at first by the Kings Majesty and his Houshold, in the yeare 15 So. Thereafter, by Persons of all rankes, in the ytare 1581, By ordinance of the Lords of the Secret Covncill, and Acts of the general Assembly. Subscribed againe by all sorts of Persons in the Yeare 1590, By a netv Ordinance of Council, at the desire of the General Assembly : With a General Band for maintenance of the true Religion 6^ the Kings Person. And now subscribed in the Year 1638. By Us, Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, Ministers, and Commons, then under-subscribing : Together, with our resolution and f'ro?nises for the causes after specified, To maintaine the said true Religion, and the Kings Alajesty, according to the Confession foresaid, arid Acts of Parliament. And nou; upon t/ie Supplication of the General Assembly to His Majesty's high Commissioner, and the Lords of his Majesty's Honorable Priiy Council, subscribed again in t/ie Year 1639. by Ordinance of Council, and Act of General Assembly. T/ie Tenor whereof here follmveth. 1 We All, and ever}' one of Us underwritten, Protest, that, after long and due Examination of our owne Consciences, in matters of true & false Religion, We are now throughly resolved of the Truth, by the Word and Spirit of God ; and therefore we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirme before God, and the whole World, that this onely is the true Christian Faith and Religion, pleasing God, and bringing Salvation to man, which now is by the mercy of God revealed to the world, by the preaching of the blessed Evangel, and receaved, believed, and defended, by many and sundry notable Kirks and Realmes, but chiefly by the Kirk of Scotland, the Kings jlfajesty, and three estates of this Realme, as Gods eternall Truth, and onely ground of our Salvation : as more particularly is expressed in the Confession of our Faith, stabhshed, and publickly confirmed by sundry Acts of Parliament, and now of a long time hath beene openly professed by the Kings Majesty, and whole body of this Realme both in Burgh and Land. To the which Confession and forme of Religion, wee willingly agree in our consciences in all points, as unto Gods undoubted Truth and Verity, grounded onely upon his written Word. And therefore, we abhorre and detest all contrary Religion, and Doctrine : But chiefly, all kinde of Papistry, in generall and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the Word of God, and Kirk of Scotland: but in special we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God, upon the Kirk, the civill Magistrate, and conscience of men, All his tyrannous lawes made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty, His erronious Doctrine, APPENDIX I 473 against the sufficiency of the written Word, the perfection of the Law, the office of Christ, and his blessed Evangel. His corrupted Doctrine concerning originall sinne, our natural] inability and rebellion to Gods Law, our Justification by faith only, our imperfect Sanctification and obedience to the Law, the nature, number and use of the Holy Sacraments. His five bastard Sacraments, with all his Rites, Ceremonies, and false Doctrine, added to the ministration of the true Sacraments without the Word of God. His cruell judgement against Infants departing without the Sacrament : his absolute necessity of Baptisme : his blasphemous opinion of Transubstantiation, or reall presence of Christs body in the Elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men. His dispensations with solemne Oathes, Perjuries, and degrees of Mariage forbidden in the Word : his cruelty against the innocent divorced : his divellish Masse : his blasphemous Priesthood : his profane Sacrifice for the sinnes of the dead and the quick : his Canonization of men, calling upon Angels or Saints departed, worshipping of Imagery, Relicts, and Crosses, dedicating of Kirks, Altars, Dayes, Vowes to creatures ; his Purgatory, Prayers for the dead, praying or speaking in a strange language, with his Processions and blasphemous Letany, and multitude of Advocates or Mediators : his manifold Orders, Auricular Confession : his desperate and uncertaine Repentance ; his general and doubtsome Faith ; his satisfactions of men for their sinnes : his Justification by works, opus operatum, works of Supererogation, Merits, Pardons, Peregrinations, and Stations : his holy water, baptising of Bells, conjuring of Spirits, crossing, saning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of GOVS good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joyned therewith : his Worldly Monarchy, and wicked Hierarchy : his three solemne vowes, with all his shavelings of sundry sorts, his erronious and bloudy decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruell and bloudy Band, conjured against the Kirk of GOD : and finally, wee detest all his vaine Allegories, Rites, Signes and Traditions, brought in the Kirk, without or against the Word of GOD, and Doctrine of this true reformed Kirk, to the which we joyne our selves willingly, in Doctrine, Faith, Religion, Discipline, and use of the Holy Sacraments, as lively members of the same, in Christ our Head : promising and swearing by the Great Name of the Lord our GOD, that we shall continue in the obedience of the Doctrine and Discipline of this Kirk, and shall defend the same according to our vocation and Power, all the dayes of our lives, under the pains contained in the Law, and danger both of Body and Soul, in the day of GODS fearful Judgment : And seeing that many are stirred up by Sathan, and that Roman Antichrist, to promise, sweare, subscribe, and for a time use the Holy Sacraments in the Kirk deceitfully against their own Consciences, minding thereby, first, under the external cloak of Religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly GODS true Religion within the Kirk, and afterward, when time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the Popes dispensation, devised against the Word of GOD, to his greater confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the Lord Jesus. Wee, therefore, willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy, and of such double dealing with GOD and his Kirk, Protest, and call The Searcher of all hearts for witnesse, that Our mindes and hearts, do fully agree with this our Confession, Promise, Oath and Subscription, so that Wee are not moved for any worldly respect, but are persuaded onely in our Consciences, through the knowledge and love of Gods true Religion, printed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, as we shall answer to him in tlic d:iy, when 474 THE COVENANTERS the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. And because we perceave that the quietness and stability of our Religion and Kirk, doth depend upon the safety & good behaviour of the Kings Majesty, as upon a comfortable Instrument of Gods mercy, granted to this Countrey, for the maintaining of this Kirk, and ministration of Justice amongst us, we protest and promise with our hearts under the same Oath, Hand-writ, and Pains, that we shall defend his Person and Authority, with our goods, bodies and lives, in the defence of Christ his Evangel, Liberties of our Country, ministration of Justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within this Realm, or without, as we desire our GOD to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our Lord /dsus Christ : To whom with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all Honour and Glory Eternally. Like as many Acts of Parliament not onely in general do abrogate, annull, and rescind all Lawes, Statutes, Acts, Constitutions, Canons, civil or municipall, with all other Ordinances and practique penalties whatsoever, made in prejudice of the true Religion and Professours thereof; Or, of the true Kirk-discipline, jurisdiction, and freedome thereof; Or in favours of Idolatry and Superstition; Or of the Papisticall Kirk; As Act. 3. Act. 13. Pari. i. Act. 23. Pari. 11. Aa. 114. Pari. 12. of King lames the si.vt, That Papistry and Superstition may be utterly suppressed according to the intention of the Acts of Parliament repeated in the 5. Act. Pari. 20. A'. lames 6. And to that end they ordaine all Papists and Priests to be punished by manifold Civill and Ecclesiastical pains, as adversaries to Gods true Religion, preached and by Law established within this Realme, Act. 24. Pari. 11. A'. lames 6. as common enemies to all Christian government. Act. 18. Pari 16. K. lames 6. as rebellers and gainstanders of our Soveraigne Lords Authority, Act. 47. Pari. 3. K. lames 6. and as Idolaters. Act. 104. Pari. 7. K. lames 6. but also in particular (by and attour the Confession of Faith) do abolish and condemne the Popes Authority and Jurisdiction out of this Land, and ordaine the maintainers thereof to be punished, Act 2. Pari. i. Act 51. Pari 3. Act 106. Pari. 7. Act 114. Pari. 12. K. lames 6. do condemne the Popes erronious doctrine, or any other erronious doctrine repugnant to any of the Articles of the true and Christian religion publickly preached, and by law established in this Realme : And ordaines the spreaders and makers of Books or Libels, or Letters, or writs of that nature to be punished. Act 46. Pari 3. Act 106. Pari. 7. Act 24. Pari II. A'. lames 6. do condemne all Baptisme conforme to the Popes Kirk and the Idolatry of the Masse, and ordaines all savers, willfull hearers, and concealers of the Masse, the maintainers and resetters of the Priests, Jesuites, traffiquing Papists, to be punished without any exception or restriction. Act 5. Pari. 1. Act. 120. Pari. 12. Act. 164. Pari 13. Act. 193. Pari 14. Act. i. Pari 19. Act. 5. Purl 20. A', fames 6. do condemne all erroneous bookes and wTittes containing erroneous doctrine against the Religion presently professed, or containing superstitious Rites and Ceremonies Papisticall, whereby the people are greatly abused, and ordaines the home-bringers of them to be punished, Act 25. Pari 11. K. lames 6. do condemne the monuments and dregs of by-gone Idolatry ; as going to the Crosses, observing the Feastivall dayes of Saints, and such other superstitious and Papisticall Rites, to the dishonour of GOD, contempt of true Religion, and fostering of great errour among the people, and ordaines the users of them to be punished for the second fault as Idolaters, Act 104. Pari. 7. A. lames 6. APPENDIX I 475 Like as many Acts of Parliament are conceaved for maintenance of GODS true and Christian Religion, and the purity thereof in Doctrine and Sacraments of the true Church of God, the liberty & freedom thereof, in her National, Synodal Assemblies, Presbyteries, Sessions, Policy, Discipline and Jurisdiction thereof, as that purity of Religion and liberty of the Church was used, professed, exercised, preached and confessed according to the reformation of Religion in this Realm. As for instance, The 99. Act. Pari. 7. Act. 23. Pari. 11. Act. 114. Pail. 12. Act. i6o. Pari. 13, of King James 6. Ratified by the 4. Act. of King Charles. So that the 6. Act. Pari. i. and 68. Act. Pari. 6. of King lames 6. in the Yeare of God 1579. declares the Ministers of the blessed Evangel, whom GOD of his mercy had raised up, or hereafter should raise, agreeing with them that then lived in Doctrin, and Administration of the Sacraments, and the People that professed Christ, as he was then offered in the Evangel, and doth communicate with the Holy Sacraments, (as in the reformed Kirk's of this Realm they were publickly administrat) according to the Confession of Eaith, to be the true and Holy Kirk of Christ Jesus within this Realm, and decerns and declares all and sundry, who either gainsayes the Word of the Evangel, received and approved, as the heads of the Confession of Faith, professed in Parliament, in the Yeare of God 1560. specified also in the first Parliament of King lames 6. and ratified in tliis present Parliament, more particularly do specify, or that refuses the administration of the Holy Sacraments, as they were then ministrated, to be no members of the said Kirk within this Realme, and true Religion, presently professed, so long as they keep themselves so divided from the society of Christs body : And the subsequent Act. 69. Pari. 6. of A'. lames 6. declares, That there is none other Face of Kirk, nor other Face of Religion, then was presently at that time, by the Favour of GOD established within this Realme, which therefore is ever stilcd, Gods true Religion, Christs true Jieligion, tlie true and Christian Religion, and a perfect Religion, Which by manifold acts of Parliament, all within this realme are bound to subscribe the articles thereof, the Confession of Faith, to recant all doctrine & errours, repugnant to any of the said Articles, Act. 4. 6^ 9. Pari. i. Act. 45. 46. 47. Pari. 3. Act 71. Pari. 6. Act 106. Pari. 7. Act 24. Pari. 11. Act 123. Pari. 12. Act 194. and 197. Pari. 14. of K. lames 6. And all Magistrals, Sherifs, &c. on the one parte are ordained to search, apjirehend, and punisli all contraveeners; For instance. Act 5. Pari. 1. Act 104. Pari. 7. Act 25. Pari. 11. K. lames 6. And that notwithstanding of the Kings Majesty's licences on the contrary, which are discharged & declared to be of no force in so farre as they tend in any wayes, to the prejudice & hinder of the execution of the Acts of Parliament against Papists & adversaries of true Religion, Act. 106. Pari. 7. K. lames 6. On the other part in the 47. Act. Pari. 3. K. lames 6. It is declared and ordained, seeing the cause of Gods true Religion, and his highnes Authority are so joyned, as the hurt of the one is common to both : and that none shal be reputed as loyall and faithfull subjects to our Soveraigne Lord, or his Authority, but be punishable as rebellers and gainstanders of the same, who shall not give their Confession, and make their profession of the said true Religion, and that they who after defection shall give the Confession of their Faith of new, tiiey shall promise to continue therein in time comming, to maintaine our Souveraigne Lords Authority, and at the uttermost of their power to fortify, assist, and maintaine the true Preachers and Professors of Christs Evangel, against whatsoever enemies and gainestanders of the same ; and namely (against all such of whatsoever nation, estate, or degree they be of) 476 THE COVENANTERS that have joyned, and bound themselves, or have assisted, or assists to set forward, and execute the cruell decrees of Trent, contrary to the Preachers and true Professors of the Word of God, which is repeated word by word in the Article of Pacification at Perth the 23 of Februar. 1572. approved by Parliament the last of Aprile 1573. Ratified in .Parliament 1587. and related. Act 123. Pari. 12. of K. James 6. with this addition, that they are bound to resist all treasonable uproars and hostilities raised against the true Religion, the Kings Majesty, and the true Professors. Like as all Lieges are bound to maintaine the King Majesty's Royal Person, and Authority, the Authority of Parliaments, without the which neither any lawes or lawful judicatories can be established. Act 130. Act. 131. Pari. 8. K. lames 6. and the subjects Liberties, who ought onely to live and be governed by the Kings lawes, the common lawes of this Realme allanerly, Act 48. Pari. 3. K. lames the first. Act. 79. Pari. 6. K. lames the 4. repeated in the Act 131. Pari. 8. K. lames 6. Which, if they be innovated or prejudged, the commission anent the union of the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, which is the sole Act of the 17. Pari, of K. lames 6. declares such confusion would ensue, as this Realme could be no more a free Monarchy, because by the fundamental! lawes, ancient priviledges, offices and liberties, of this Kingdome, not onely the Princely Authority of his Majesty's Royal discent hath been these many ages maintained, but also the peoples security of their Lands, livings, rights, offices, liberties, and dignities preserved, and therefore for the preservation of the said true Religion, Lawes, and Liberties of this Kingdome, it is statute by the 8. Act Pari. I. repeated in the 99. Act Pari. 7. Ratified in the 23. Act Pari. 11. and 114. Act Pari. 12. of K. lames 6. and 4. Act of K. Charles. That all Kings and Princes at their Coronation and reception of their Princely Authority, shall make their faithfull promise by their solemne oath in the presence of the Eternal God, that, enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same Eternal God to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in his most Holy Word, contained in the old and new Testament. And according to the same Word shall maintain the true Religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of his Holy Word, the due and right ministration of the Sacraments now receaved and preached within this Realme (according to the Confession of Faith immediately preceeding) and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary to the same, and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of God, revealed in his foresaid Word, and according to the laudable Lawes and Constitutions received in this Realme, no wayes repugnant to the said will of the Eternall God ; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the Kirk of God, and whole Christian people, true and perfite peace in all time coming : and that they shall be careful to root out of their Empire all Hereticks. and enemies to the true worship of God, who shall be convicted by the true Kirk of God, of the foresaid crimes, which was also observed by his Majesty, at his Coronation in Edinburgh 1633. as may be scene in the order of the Coronation. In obedience to the Commandment of GOD, conforme to the practice of the godly in former times, and according to the laudable example of our Worthy and Religious Progenitors, & of many yet living amongst us, which was warranted also by act of Coimcill, commanding a general band to be made and subscribed by his Majesty's subjects, of all ranks, for two causes : One was, For defending the true Religion, as it APPENDIX I 477 was then reformed, and is expressed in the Confession of Faith abovewritten, and a former large Confession established by sundry acts of lawful generall assemblies, & of Parliament, unto which it hath relation, set down in publick Catechismes, and which had been for many years with a blessing from Heaven preached, and professed in this Kirk and Kingdome, as Gods undoubted truth, grounded only upon his written Word. The other cause was, for maintaining the Kings Majesty, His Person, and Estate : the true worship of GOD and the Kings authority, being so straitly joined, as that they had the same Friends, and common enemies, and did stand and fall together. And finally, being convinced in our mindes, and confessing with our mouthes, that the present and succeeding generations in this Land, are bound to keep the foresaid nationall Oath &: Subscription inviolable, Wee Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, Ministers & Commons under subscribing, considering divers times before & especially at this time, the danger of the true reformed Religion, of the Kings honour, and of the publick peace of the Kingdome : By the manifold innovations and evills generally conteined, and particularly mentioned in our late supplications, complaints, and protestations. Do hereby professe, and before God, his Angels, and the World solemnly declare. That, with our whole hearts we agree & resolve, all the dayes of our life, constantly to adhere unto, and to defend the foresaid true Religion, and (forbearing the practice of all novations, already introduced in the matters of the worship of GOD, or approbation of the corruptions of the publicke Government of the Kirk, or civil places and power of Kirk-men, till they be tryed & allowed in free assemblies, and in Parliaments) to labour by all meanes lawful to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it was stablished and professed before the foresaid Novations : and because, after due examination, we plainely perceave, and undoubtedly believe, that the Innovations and evils contained in our Supplications, Complaints, and Protestations have no warrant of the Word of God, are contrary to the Articles of the Foresaid Confessions, to the intention and meaning of the blessed reformers of Religion in this Land, to the above written Acts of Parliament, & do sensibly tend to the re-establishing of the Popish Religion and Tyranny, and to the subversion and ruine of the true Reformed Religion, and of our Liberties, Lawes and Estates, We also declare, that the Foresaid Confessions are to be interpreted, and ought to be understood of the Foresaid novations and evils, no lesse then if every one of them had been expressed in the Foresaid confessions, and that we are obliged to detest & abhorre them amongst other particular heads of Papistry abjured therein. And therefore from the knowledge and consciences of our duety to God, to our King and Countrey, without any worldly respect or inducement, so farre as humane infirmity will suffer, wishing a further measure of the grace of God for this effect. We promise, and sweare by the Great Name of the Lord our GOD, to continue in the Profession and Obedience of the Foresaid Religion : That we shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errours and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the uttermost of that power that GOD hath put in our hands, all the dayes of our life : and in like manner with the same heart, we declare before GOO and Men, That we have no intention nor desire to attempt any thing that may turne to tlie dishonour of GOD, or to the diminution of the Kings greatnesse and authority : But on the contrary, we promise and sweare, that we shall, to the uttermost of our power, with our meanes and lives, stand to the defence of our dread Sovcraigne, the Kings Majesty, his Person, and Authority, in the defence and preservation of the foresaid true 478 THE COVENANTERS Religion, Liberties and Lawes of the Kingdome : As also to the mutual defence and assistance, every one of us of another in the same cause of maintaining the true Religion and his Majesty's Authority, with our best counsel, our bodies, meanes, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever. So that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, shall be taken as done to us all in genearal, and to every one of us in particular. And that we shall neither directly nor indirectly suffer our selves to be divided or withdrawn by whatsoever suggestion, allurement, or terrour from this blessed & loyall Conjunction, nor shall cast in any let or impediment, that may stay or hinder any such resolution as by common consent shall be found to conduce for so good ends. But on the contrary, shall by all lawful meanes labour to further and promove the same, and if any such dangerous & divisive motion be made to us by Word or Writ, We, and every one of us, shall either suppresse it, or if need be shall incontinent make the same known, that it may be timeously obviated : neither do we fear the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination, or what else our. adversaries from their craft and malice would put upon us, seing what we do is so well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeined desire to maintaine the true worship of God, the Majesty of our King, and peace of the Kingdome, for the common happinesse of our selves, and the posterity. And because we cannot look for a blessing from God upon our proceedings, except with our Profession and Subscription we joine such a life & conversation, as beseemeth Christians, who have renewed their Covenant with God ; We, therefore, faithfully promise, for our selves, our followers, and all other under us, both in pubhck, in our particular families, and personal carriage, to endeavour to keep our selves within the bounds of Christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all Godlinesse, Sobernesse, and Righteousnesse, and of every duety we owe to God and Man, And that this our Union and Conjunction may be observed without violation, we call the living GOD, the Searcher of our Hearts to witness, who knoweth this to be our sincere Desire, and unfained Resolution, as we shall answere to JESUS CHRIST, in the great day, and under the pain of Gods everlasting wrath, and of infamy, and losse of all honour and respect in this World, Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his holy Spirit for this end, and to blesse our desires and proceedings with a happy successe, that Religion and Righteounesse may flourish in the Land, to the glory of GOD, the honour of King, and peace and comfort of us all. In witnesse whereof we have subscribed with our hands all the premisses, &c.^ [The Gl.\sgow Determination The Article of this Covenant, which was at the first Subscription, referred to the determination, of the General Assembly, being determined, and thereby the Five Articles of Perth, the Government of the Kirk by Bishops, the Civill places and Power of Kirkmen, upon the reasons and grounds contained in the Acts of the General Assembly, declared to be unlawful within this Kirk, we subscribe according to the determination foresaid.-] 1 Act. Pari. Scot., v. 294-8 ; Peterkin, Records, 9-13 ; Reg. Privy Counc, vii. 67-9. 2 Peterkin, Records, 187, 189, 208, 269,270. Variations in the spelling and slight changes of words are noticeable in different editions of the Covenants. APPENDIX II 479 APPENDIX II A SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT For Reformation, and Defence of Religion, The Honour and Happiness of the King, and the Peace and Safety of the three Kingdoms q^ Scotland, England, and Ireland. We Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, Burgesses, Ministers of the Gospel, and Commons of all sorts in the Kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland, by the providence of GOD living under one King, and being of one reformed Religion, Having before our eyes the glory of GOD, and the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Honour and Happinesse of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity, and the true publick Liberty, Safety, and Peace of the Kingdoms, wherein every ones private condition is included ; And calling to minde the treacherous and bloody Plots, conspiracies, Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of GOD against the true Religion and Professours thereof in all places, especially in these three Kingdoms, ever since the Reformation of Religion, and how much their rage, power and presump- tion are of late, and at this time increased and exercised ; whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the Church & Kingdom of England, and the dangerous estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies : We have now at last (after other means of Supplica- tion, Remonstrance, Protestation and Suffering) for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times, and the example of GODS People in other Nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutuall and solemn League and Covenant : Wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high GOD, do Swear, 1. That we shall sincerely, really and constantly, through the grace of GOD, endeavour in our several places and callings, the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, against our common Enemies ; The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, according to the Word of GOD, and the example of the best Reformed Churches ; And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three Kingdoms, to the nearest conjunction and Uniformity in Religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church-government, Directory for Worship and Catechizing ; That we and our Posterity after us, may, as Brethren, live in Faith and Love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. 2. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the Extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is, Church-government by Arch-bishops, Bishops, their Chancellours and Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Arch-deacons, and all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy) Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Prophanesse, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine, 48o THE COVENANTERS and the power of Godliness ; Lest we partake in other mens sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues ; And that the Lord may be one, and his Name one in the three Kingdoms. 3. We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy, in our severall vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments, and the Liberties of the Kingdoms ; And to preserve and defend the Kings Majesty's Person and Authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion, and Liberties of the Kingdoms ; That the world may bear witnesse with our consciences of our Loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatnesse. 4. We shall also with all faithfulnesse endeavour the discovery of all such as have been, or shall be Incendiaries, Malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the Reformation of Religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the Kingdoms from another, or making any faction, or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant, That they may be brought to publick triall, and receive condigne punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdomes respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient. 5. And whereas the happinesse of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms, denyed in former times to our Progenitors, is by the good Providence of GOD granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded, and settled by both Parliaments, We shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firme Peace and Union to all Posterity, And that Justice may be done upon the willfull Opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent Article. 6. We shall also according to our places and callings in this Common cause of Religion, Liberty, and Peace of the Kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination, perswasion or terrour, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction, whither to make defection to the contrary part, or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the Glory of GOD, the good of the Kingdoms, and honour of the King ; But shall all the dayes of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power, against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever ; And, what we are not able our selves to suppresse or overcome, we shall reveale and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed : All which we shall do as in the sight of GOD. And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins, and provocations against GOD, and his Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof, We professe and declare before GOD, and the world, our unfained desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these Kingdoms, especially that we have not, as we ought, valued the inesteemable benefit of the Gospel, that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof, and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our Uves, wich are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us. And our true and unfained purpose, desire, and endeavour for our selves, and all others APPENDIX III 481 under our power and charge, both in publick and in private, in all dutyes we owe to GOD and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation ; That the Lord may turn away his wrath, and heavy indignation, and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in truth and Peace. And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty GOD the Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, As we shall answer at that great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed ; Most humbly beseeching the Lord, to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end, and to blesse our desires, and proceedings with such successe. as may be deliverance and safety to his people, and encouragement to other Christian Churches groaning under, or in danger of the yoke of Antichristian Tyranny, or to joyn in the same, or like Association & Covenant, To the Glory of GOD, the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace & tranquillity of Christian Kingdoms, and Common-wealths.^ APPENDIX III EXTANT COPIES OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANTS Dr. David Laing, on 24th May 1847, read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland a paper entitled ' The Names of Some of the Persons who have Original Copies of our Covenants, National, and Solemn League.' It was published in their Froceedhigs, vol. iv. 238-50 (Kdin., 1863). The following notes supplement that catalogue of Covenants. (i) The Common, or Godlie Band. Cf. Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, iv. 243; xii. 216. This interesting parchment, measuring zoixisi inches, in a fine state of preservation, is exhibited in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh {Catai., No. OA.7). It was found among the papers of the Erskines of Little Saucliy. Presented by Captain John Cunningham in 1877. Cf. reduced (photo- graphic) facsimile in this volume, p. 12. (2) The Edinburgh Bond, subscribed on 27th April 1560, is preserved in Hamil- ton Palace. The skin is abraded, wrinkled, and mutilated, having four holes through it. It measures 26^X2o| inches. It is signed by Chatclherault, Arran, Huntly, Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, Morton, James Stewart (Regent Moray), the abbots of Kinloss, ' Act. Pari. Scot., vi. 41-2 ; Peterkin, Records, 362, 363. 31' 482 THE COVENANTERS Cupar, and Kilwinning, and many others. Cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., xi. vi. 43, for text. Laing, in Knox, ii., 61 note, refers to a contemporary copy in Harkian MSS., No. 289, fol. 70. A copy of The Edinburgh Generall Band, of 13th July 1559, is preserved in the Register of the Kirk Session of the City and Parish of St. Andrews, mdlix-mdlxiii. Cf. Register, edit. Dr. D. Hay Fleming, i., pref. vii. pp. 6, 7 {Scot. Hist. Soc). Misc. Mait. Club, 1843, iii. 211. Cf. reduced facsimile in this volume, p. 28. (3) 1567 Bond in Glasgow University Library, described as 'The Original Bond subscribed by the Earle of M. [letters defaced and rewritten Murray] Regent, with most of the Nobility, Gentry and Burgesses [at] the Coronation [in] Defence of King James 6th, anno 1567.' Among many signatures appear Mortoun, Mar, James Stewart, Ruthven, Sanquhar, Methven, Tulibardin, Dalyell, Bargany, Fraser of that Ilk, Alexander, Bishop of Galloway, the Commendators of Culross and Cambuskenneth, and many others. The parchment measures 46ixiii inches. It was one of three such deeds ' Given to the library of Glasgow Colege by John C. [letters defaced], 1696,' during Dunlop's principalship. Cf. Calderwood, ii. 378-83; cf. The Boohe of the U. Kirk, i. no. (4) 1572-8 Bond in Glasgow University Library, entitled ' Ane Originall Bond con- taining ane Confession of Religion in the tyme of Morton's Regency [1572-8] subscribed by Churchmen.' This parchment, subscribed by six or seven persons — signatures difficult to make out— measures 21^x13 inches and is in a good state of preservation. (5) The King's Confession, 1580-1. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq. of Scotland, iv. 243; National MSS. of Scotland, in. Ixx. Cf. reduced facsimile in this volume, p. 102. The original parchment deed is preserved in the Advocates' Library. Nine blots and a hole disfigure the skin. A draft is preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh. The deed was subscribed on 28th January 1581. The writing is much faded, but the signa- tures of King James, Lennox, Morton, Argyll, Ruthven, ' Mr. Johne Crag,' Duncanson, and other thirty-one subscribers are still discernible. It measures 23 inches square. The King, Lennox, Huntly, and ninety-six others signed another copy of this Confession on 25th February 15S8 ; the deed was preserved among the muniments at Pollok {Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 244). It cannot now be found. A copy of part of this Covenant appears in the Record of Laureations of the University of Edinburgh in 15S5, and graduates thereafter signed it {Catal. of Grad., Edin., 185S). It begins with 'We all' and finishes with 'fearful judgment.' Among the signatures are: (1585) 'Mr. Johne Craig,' 'Robert Rollock,' ' Patrik Home'; 'Jhone Earl of Gowrye' (1598); (July 23, 1631) 'Robertus Leighton ' ; {1645) 'Thomas Hog'; (1647) 'Jacobus Kirktoun.' There is in the possession of the Presbytery of Stirling, and now bound up with vol. i. (158 1-9) of their Records, a manuscript with the following heading: 'Ane Schort and generall Confessione of ye trew Christiane faithe and Religione according to God's word and actis of our pliaments Subscryved be ye King's Majestic and his househald, w' sindrie uthers, to ye glorie of god and gude exampill of al men, At Edinbrugh the xxviii day off Januar, ye zeir of god i™v'^lxxx zeirs And ye fourtein zeir of his Majeste's Regne And now subscyvit be the Ministers and Reiders of the evangell of Jesus Christ w'in ye bounds of the Presbyterii of Sterling. At the brugh thairof the APPENDIX III 483 [blank] day of [blank] The zeir of god i" v'^lxxxxviii zeirs.' It is subscribed by ten ministers and four readers. A folio printed broadsheet with the title 'Ane Shorte and Generall Confession of the Crede, Christian Faith and Religion,' with the date 'At Holyrudhouse 1580 the 2 day of March,' and the printer's name, 'Imprented at Edinburgh be Robert Lekprewike,' is preserved in tlie Advocates' Library: IVodnnv MSS., xliii. fol. M. 6. 8. At the end of John Craig's A Shorte Summe of the ivhole Catechisme, Edin. 1581 is A Short and general Confession. Adv. Lib.; Aldis, List, 176. No signatures are added. (6) 'The Copy of the General Band and Act of Counsail,' 1589-90, in Advocates' Library. Cf. Reg. Privy Counc, iv., pref. liv., Iv. 25, 787-789, Booke of the U. Kirk, ii. 748; text, 759-61. The draft of this Covenant, 4 pp. fob, is preserved in the Wodrow MSS., Ixiv. 75 fol. It is in a small crabbed hand and bears to have been 'signet at Edr. the sexi of March [1590] and of our reigne the 23 year.' Cf. Calderwood, v. 49-52, 90. A draft of the 1589 Band is preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh. A Covenant formerly in the same folio as numbers 3 and 4 (p. 482) is now lost. It was thus described : ' Ane Bond of Association for defence of the Protestant Religion against the detestable Conspiracy, then called the Holy League, made by Foreign Papists, which was subscribed by King Ja. ; with a great number of the Nobility and Burgess, anno 1589.' The Band, signed at Aberdeen in March 1593, is printed in Calderwood, Hist., V- 233-5, 773- Cf. Wodrow MSS., fol. xliii. 43. Cf. Meg. Privy Counc, iv. 254 note, 467 note; v. 52 note. Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 244. In 1590 Waldegrave printed Ane Schorl and General Confession with the Copie of the Baride, &c., 1 2 pp. and 4 pp. blank for ' The Subscribers vnto the Generall Band.' Cf. Aldis, List, 211. [The Confession of Faith : Trinity College, Cambridge. Press mark, via. 6, 8. Edin., 1590. 7x5 inches: printed.] [1596. The General Assembly authorised a new Covenant on 30th March 1596. Cf. this volume, p. 136; Calderwood, v. 408, 436. Row, Hist., 78; Booke of the U. Kirk, iii. 862, 869, 870.] (7) 1638 Covenant in the Museum of the Corporation of Edinburgh. This magnifi- cent parchment is par excellence the Covenant of 1638. It is preserved and framed between two sheets of glass. The skin, probably that of a deer, is the largest engrossed with the Covenant, and measures 43^ inches long and 4OJ inches broad. Both sides are fully occupied with the names, initials, and marks of subscribers, 3250 in all — 1350 on the front and 1900 on the back. Besides these autographs there are on the back about 940 signatures written by notaries, making a total of about 4150 names. The skin shows five small holes, one cut, one sewn, and one large hole. It was 'written be James Davie, Schoolmaister in Edinburghe.' Immediately below the terms of the Covenant appears the following addendum (of 30th August 1639) embodying the Determination of Glasgow Assembly : ' The article of this Covenant which wes at the first subscription referred to the determination of the General Assemblie being deter- mined, and thereby the fyve articles of I'erthe, the governement of the Kirk by bishops, the civill places and power of Kirkmen, upon the reasons and grounds containeil in the 484 THE COVENANTERS actis of the General Assemblie, declared to be unlawfull within this Kirk, wee subscribe according to the determination foirsaid ' (Peterkin, Records, 208 ; Scottish Hist, and Life, 1902, p. 98). Then follow these names in order: Montrose, Rothes, Eglinton, Cassillis, Lothian, Boyd, Forrester, Wemyss, Yester, Sinclare, Elcho, Lindesay, Cran- stoune, Loudoun, Johnstoun, Balmerino, Flemyng, Lyone, and others of the nobility. Then follow the leading lairds and members of Parliament : S[ir] H[ew] Campbell, the lairds of Drumlanrig, Lag, Duncrub, Craigdarroch, Keir, Rowallan, Gaitgirth, S[ir] D[uncan] Campbell of Auchinbreck, and scores of others. On the fifth line appears ' S[ir] A[ndro] Moray of Balvaird ' ; on the eighth line, ' Alex. Henderson, Leuchars ' ; on the ninth line ' M[r] Patrik Henrysone publict lector ' (the reader of St. Giles in July 1637); on the twenty-fifth line, ' Johne Cunynghame till daith,' written as others are with reddish pigment, as of blood. Grahames, Murrays, Hays, Shaws, Lawmonths, Semples, Johnstones of their particular ' ilks,' subscribe. A[rchibald] Jhonston (afteryv-ards Lord Wariston) signs ; and ' E. Johnestoun with my 0^ ' is also appended. On it one pious wish is thus expressed : ' Exurgat Deus et dissipentur omnes inimici eius, Johannes Paulicius manu propria.' ' Mr. Andro Cant ' made a clear subscription, as did David Dickson, minister in Irvme, Harie Rollok, minister in Edinburgh, many dames, doctors, advocates, ministers, magistrates : and illiterates made marks or penned huge initial letters. On the back of the deed appears this notarial attestation, ' At the South Kirk of Edinburgh the threttein, twentie, and xxvii dayis of Marche 1638.' Cf. reduced facsimile in this volume, p. 264. A draft of the 1638 Covenant is preserved in the Wodroiv MSS., Ixiv. 75, in Advocates' Library. Cf. Dr. D. Hay Fleming in Bryce's History of the Old Greyfriars' Church, 85; ibid., 87 note, where it states 'the first Covenant . . . put up in the charter hows ' of Edinburgh on ist November 1643. (8) 1638 Covenant in Museum of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. Press mark, OA.18. This irregularly dressed skin, measuring 31x28^ inches, is punctured with twelve holes. Has small writing ; no ornamental capitals. Has three hundred signatures : Montrose, etc., some Argyleshire lairds. Lacks Glasgow Determination above signatures, but has faint addenda at bottom. Inscribed ' For the Burghe and Parochin of Dum- barton.' Presented by Alexander Fergusson of Craigdarroch, 1784. (9) 1638 Covenant in Museum of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. Press mark, OA.28. This untrimmed skin measures 29^X24 inches, with the usual signa- tures of Montrose, Cassillis, and of many Ayrshire lairds, Cunninghamheid, Carberry, Cairnhill, Innerkip, Rowallan. Was subscribed by three hundred persons in Ayrshire, probably in Maybole ; among others by Jane Stewart, Margaret Stuart, Anna Stewart, Elizabeth Stewart. Presented by Thomas Rattraj in 1782. (10) 163S Covenant in Museum of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. Press mark, OA.25. This example is faintly written, has no border, and measures 22JX20J inches ; is signed by Rothes, Montrose, and other members of The Tables : ' S. A. Murray of Balvaird,' ' George Wynrame of Liberton.' It lacks Glasgow Determination. Presented by Thomas Rattray in 1782. APPENDIX III 485 (n) 1638 Covenant in Musenm of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. Press mark, OA. 21. This fine example, somewhat similar to that preserved in the New College, Edinburgh, measures 32|X26f inches; has a pink-coloured border, with pattern picked out in white, and some words picked out in red and gold ; was 'written be John Laurie, writer in Edinburgh.' It bears thirty-two names (of the Privy Council) still visible and others undecipherable. It has the Glasgow Determination. It has three large holes in the centre of the skin. It was presented to the Society by John Leslie in 1784. Cf. reduced facsimile in this volume, p. 306. (12) 163S Covenant in Museum of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. This Covenant, formerly possessed by Miss Agnes Black, Perth, is assigned to no district {Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii. 63, 64). The parchment measures 29JX23 inches; has been washed by some temporary restorative ; has signatures of nobles, and one hundred signatures of ministers and land-owners, among others being John Adamson, Princiiial of Edinburgh College, Foulis of Coliiiton, John Skene of Halzairds, Alex- ander Henderson, Leuchars, Graeme of Inchbraikie, and other Graemes. (13) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library. This example measures 41X32^ inches; has plain script, no capitals; a little torn. Signed April 1638. Subscribed on both sides with five hundred signatures of nobility, gentry, and persons from all quarters, probably at Edinburgh. (14) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library. This magnificent example, measuring 40x32 inches, is framed and exhibited in the Laigh Parliament House. It is dated i2th January 1639; written by 'William Aytoun, Maison,' and presented by William Aytoun, junior, to the Library in 1703. It is written in double columns, with some of the letters in gold. In circles round the edge are the names of Montrose, Argyll, other nobles, and members of Parliament. It contains the Glasgow Deter- mination. It was engraved in facsimile by Davidson, Edinburgh {Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 346). A reduced facsimile appears in this volume, p. 336. (15) 163^ Covenant in Advocates' Library. A parchment similar to the above, measuring 32 ix 22 J inches, has a border ornament, capitals in gold letters, special words in red capitals ; has signatures of J. Leslie, J. Mar, Rothes, Dunfermline, Sinclare, Loudoun, Forester, J. Erskine, Boyd, Balmerino, Linlithgow, G. Gordon, and no others. Has Glasgow Determination. In splendid condition : similar to Laurie's work on Covenant in U.F. Church College Hall. (16) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library. This parchment, very red-stained, measures 31 J X 29 inches, and is written in cursive with a few lines in Gothic text. ' R. M. M'Ghie wrotte it." It has Glasgow Determination, and about two hundred signatures, the last being ' W. Burnett'; among others. Eraser, J. Dalyell, 'John Lewis, proucst, Pat. Thomson, baillie,' and other bailies. It is probably the Covenant of Peebles. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv, 247. 486 THE COVENANTERS (17) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. This stained parchment measures 34 X 28J inches ; is subscribed by five hundred and fifty on both sides, probably at Ayr ; has, besides the names of Rothes, Montrose and J. Home, ' Robert Blair, minister at Ayr,' Robert Gordoun, Provost of Ayr ; has the notarial attestation, ' decimo tertio Mertii, 1638,' by George Maxwell. Presented by Lord Cowan and his nephews in 1874. Cf. Scot. Nat. Mem., 89-90; Row, Hist., 74-5; Edinburgh Courant, 14th January 1875. (18) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library. This example, covered with four hundred and thirty-two signatures, measures 32iX34| inches ; has indistinct script; signed by Montrose, Boyd, Loudoun, Keir, Sir J. Cochrane, W. Riccartoune, Dalmahoy, Shaw of Sauchie, Lugton, ' David Home at Ladykirk ' ; has no reference to Glasgow ; has subscriptions by notary George Aytoun, on 2 2nd-2 5th day of (Marche?) 1638 ; and the inscription, ' Ex dono Mri Adami Coult ' (?). A Mr. Adam Colt was minister at Inveresk in 1643, ^^^d joint keeper of the Advocates' Library. (19) 1580-1 Covenant subscribed in 1638 — in Advocates' Library. This printed document (quarto with blank pages), No. 34. 5. 15, is the King's confession of 1580 (signed by Hamilton, Traquair, Roxburgh, and the Privy Council on 22nd September 1638 at Holyroodhouse) ; attested by 'J. Prymrois.' It was also signed in Kirriemuir, Aberbrothock, Arbuthnot, Arbirlot, Alyth, Forfar, and other parishes in Forfarshire, by nine hundred and thirteen persons. Cf. Peterkin, Records, 84. (20) 1638 Covenant in Advocates' Library. This example measures 35X25J inches ; is very cracked ; torn on both of top corners ; is signed by Leslie, Amont, Argyll, Montrose, Cassillis, Sir R. Moray, Sir Thomas Hope, Ja. Sword, W. Hamilton, M. Gibsone Durie, S. J. Rutherfurd, G. Gordone, and four others. It records Glasgow Determination. CalUgraphy small ; no ornamental capitals. (21) 1638 Covenant in Register House, Edinburgh (Hist. Dept., Q. 133). This example, measuring 24^x22^ inches, is very small compared with others; is signed by Montrose, Rothes, Lothian, Boyd, Lyone, Hume of Polwarth, Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck, and other peers and members of Parliament. James Cheyne sub- scribes as penman of the deed. No Glasgow Determination. (22) 1638 Covenant in Register House (Q. 134.'^). This document was subscribed in Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire, and is dated 22nd April 1638. It measures 25X27 inches. Has Glasgow Determination on back and many signatures. (23) Humble Supplication and Confession in Register House (Q. 134B). It was signed in Edinburgh on 12th August 1639 by Lennox, Hamilton, Traquair, Argyll, Marischal, Wigtoune, Buccleuch, 'J. E. Southerland, S. Jo. Maitland ' (Lauderdale), A. Johnston (Wariston), and one hundred and twenty others. Measures 34^X36 inches. Has Glasgow Determination. (24) 1638 Covenant in Register House (Q. 135). This Covenant measures 26 x r2 inches, and has no date. It was the bond for the parish of Gartly, Strathbogie, and is subscribed by William Reid, the parish minister, and twenty-five other persons. On the APPENDIX III 487 edge is written boldly 'J. Huntlye.' Huntly signed the King's Confession in 1639 (Spalding, i. 88). This deed is written on paper. (Jeorge Jope, notary, signs for some. (25) Edinburgh Confession and Supplication in Register House (Q. 136). It is on parchment, dated 12th August 1639. Measures 42 x 2 7i inches. Has no signatures. (26) 1581 Covenant in Register House (Q. 137). This parchment, measuring 2oi X loi inches, contains the Confession, and is a copy of the Covenant signed at Holyrood House on 20th September 1639, the names attached not being holograph. (27) 1638 Covenant in Free Church College, formerly in New College, Edinburgh. This parchment, bequeathed by the late Earl of Dalhousie, measures 37X27 inches ; is framed and exhibited; is subscribed by Rothes, Montrose, Boyd, and eight hundred others. Lacks the Glasgow Determination ; is disfigured by one hole. (28) 1638 Covenant in New College Hall, Edinburgh. This fine example measures 38x32 inches; has ornamental border and capitals in gold; was written by John Laurie in Edinburgh ; subscribed by one hundred and eighty persons, including the nobles, Rothes, Lindesay, Ker, and ministers of Muthill, Fyvie, Stonykirk, by bailies and counsellors at Lauder. Many subscriptions are faded. It was bequeathed by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Guthrie. It has the Glasgow Determination. (29) 1638 Covenant in New College Library, Edinburgh. This parchment measures 29J X 23! inches ; has Glasgow Determination ; signed first by Montrose, and by Leslie, Dunfermline, Wemyss, Argyll, and other twenty nobles; has date 1639. (30) 1638 Covenant in New College Library, Edinburgh. This parchment measures 22i X 22 inches, and bears one hundred and forty-seven signatures of persons in Kinneil and Bo'ness, among others Richard Dickson, minister, and two John Gibs ; written 24th March 1638 ; has no names of nobles ; has Glasgow Determination added on the side. (31) 1638 Covenant in Library of General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh. This interesting deed was presented by James Wilson, blacksmith, foot of Liberton's Wynd, to the Incorporation of Hammermen, who, in 1876, presented it to the General Assembly. It measures 35X27 inches. It has the usual signatures, Montrose excepted, as well as those of some Dumfriesshire and Ayrshire lairds, notable as Covenanters and sufferers — Craigdarroch (Ferguson), Johne Kirko of Sundyvel Riddell, J. Laurie (Maxwelton) — in all one hundred and eighty names. 'Alexander Henderson, Leuchars,' subscribed this parchment. It is in good state of preservation ; a full skin, untrimmed ; has a few blots. Glasgow Determination is absent. It was subscribed at various places and also by notaries. Cf. Proc. Soc. Aiitiq., iv. 239, 242. (32) 1638 Covenant in Edinburgh University Library. This example measures 27iX23 inches; is a white uncut skin, framed; is signed by Montrose, Rothes, and other members of The Tables, by Sir J. Dalyell, Craigdarroch, J. Erskine of Dun, many Grahames, Ja. Sharp (Govan), Robertson (Cluny). Mr. H. M'Kaile — in all two hundred subscribers. It lacks the Glasgow Determination. (33) 1638 Covenant in Riccarton, Currie. This example was signed on 18th October 1638 (?), among others, by Argyll, Mar, Maitland (Lauderdale). Cf. Proc. 488 THE COVENANTERS Soc. Antiq., iv. 247. It is written in a large hand ; has the title and some letters in gold ; has been repaired. [A facsimile of a iine example of the 1638 Covenant, with beautiful border and three large capitals, and signed by Argyll, Rothes, Montrose, Cassillis, Lothian, Wemyss, Thos. Hope, A. Jhonstoun — fifty signatures in all — appears in the Nat. MSS., iii. No. xcvii. There is no reference to the depository of this Covenant.] (34) 1638 Covenant in Newbattle Abbey. This example, over a yard square, was subscribed by about one hundred persons, including Lothian, Sinclair, Wemyss, etc. It is folded and cut. 'John Laurie writer in Edinburgh,' who wrote the Covenant preserved in the New College, Edinburgh, appended his name as a witness. (35) 1638 Covenant in Duns Castle. This example was 'written be Johne Trotter nottar publict ' ; has about one hundred signatures. It lacks the Glasgow Determina- tion. Cf. Scot. Hist, and Life, 100 ; Brown, Covenanters of the Merse, 24, 82. (36) 1638 Covenant in Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow. This example, formerly the property of David Pulsifer, and purchased by Glasgow Corporation for ;^5o, is framed, and hangs in Kelvingrove Museum. It measures 28^X37 inches; has a strip cut off the lower edge ; has two holes in parchment ; is signed by Rothes, Montrose, etc. — twenty nobles, fifty barons, seventy ministers, and subscribers from various counties. Has Glasgow Assembly Determination at foot. Has ' The Confessioune of Faithe' written on back. Cf. Scot. Nat. Mem., 1890, p. 90. Condition fair. (37) 1638 Covenant in Library of University of Glasgow. This example, on a skin with neck-piece retained at bottom, is in good condition ; measures t,7,^ X 24 inches ; was probably signed in Argyleshire, having signatures of Colin Campbell of Strachur, James Couper, George Hutcheson, Andro Park, David Mitchell, Jhon Liddell, James Or, William Broune, J. Grahame, and others ; no nobles or barons sign. On the back is written: 'May 20, 1782. Presented by Mr. James Wardrop, merchant in Glasgow.' No Glasgow Determination. Cf. Froc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 239. (38) 1638 Covenant in Mitchell Library, Glasgow. This unevenly cut parchment, 2i\-/,2\\ inches, is the property of Glasgow Corporation; was probably the Covenant signed at Biggar in 1638; was purchased in April 1875 at the sale of the library of John Young, F.S.A., for ;^ioo. It is subscribed by Rothes, Montrose, and one hundred and fifty subscribers. It lacks the Glasgow Determination. [i6j8 Covenant in Mitchell Library. This example, measuring 30^X33! inches, is unsigned ; was beautifully engrossed by William Lawrie in Edinburgh ; has orna- mental border, and opening words in gold. It shows the Glasgow Determination.] (39) 1638 Covenant in Ewart (Public) Library, Dumfries. It measures 26x22 inches, and is subscribed on both sides by landowners and clergy in Dumfriesshire and parishioners in Caerlaverock — two hundred and sixty-two names. Has Glasgow Determination. Dumf. and Gall. Nat. Hist. Trans., v. 79-82 ; Palace of Hist., Catal., i. 447. (40) 1638 Covenant in custody of Mr. A. Philip, Union Bank Buildings, Brechin. Probably signed in Edinburgh by leading persons in counties of Aberdeen and Moray. Has Glasgow Determination. Pal. of Hist., Catal., i. 446. APPENDIX III 489 (41) 1638 Covenant preserved in Hamilton Palace. It measures 33x26 inches. It is an Aberdeenshire specimen, and, among others, appears the name of 'J. Souther- land.' Has Glasgow Determination. (42) 1638 Covenant in possession of Alfred Morrison, Esq., Fonthill House, Hindon. Cf. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., ix. ii. 431. (43) 1638 Covenant preserved in Saltoun Hall. It is a splendid example; measures 38J X 23 inches ; written by ' William Aytoun, Maison ' ; the title is in gold letters, and the names are enclosed in circles, and include 'J. Southerland.' Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 248. (44) 1638 Covenant in Knox College, Toronto; was formerly in Prestonfield House, Edinburgh; was sold by Mr. W. Brown, bookseller, Edinburgh, for £,21, to the Hon. W. M. Clark, Lt.-Governor of Ontario, in 1906. It measures 38x39 J inches ; was written by James Cheyne, was subscribed by The Tables and a few others, including ' Mr. Andrew FairfuU at Leith,' afterwards a bitter opponent of the Covenanters, and Archbishop of Glasgow. (45) 1638 Covenant in British Museum (Add. Charters^ 1380). This parchment measures 33 X 26 inches ; signatures begin with Montrose and Rothes ; subscribed at the end of March and beginning of April 1638 in Peebles, Stobo, Eddleston, Skirling, Newlands and Traquair. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., iv. 247. (46) 1638 Covenant in British Museum {Add. MSS. 4S51). This parchment measures 44X37^ inches; the first signatures are Montrose and Rothes; apparently subscribed at Edinburgh and 'written be William Cummine at Edr.' (47) 1638 Covenant, preserved in Cavers House. This parchment, 36 X 28 inches, was subscribed by Montrose, Sir William Douglas of Cavers, his son, Archibald, and many border lairds and their dependants. Some appear to have signed in blood. This Covenant 'For Tividail' was probably signed at Jedburgh. Cf. Stewart, Hawick and TeviotdaU Covenanters, 1885. (48) 1638 Covenant in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This fine example, measuring 31 J X 27i inches, has a floral edge and ornamental capital. It was the gift of the Hon. General Charles Rosse of Balnagoun in 1728 ; is in a case (S. c. 276, 80. E. Museo 247). It bears the names of thirty nobles, Argyll, Rothes, Montrose, Kenmore, Kirkcud- bright. The Glasgow Determination is in a different ink. (49) 1638 Covenant in Ingerthorpe Grange, Markinton, Leeds. It consists of two parchments, measuring 36x31 inches and 21X31 inches, sewn together. Has Glasgow Determination. The first sheet has three hundred signatures, the second five hundred ; written by Johne Achesoun ; probably signed in Roxburgshire. (50) 1638 Covenant in Mellerstain House. This parchment measures 26^x25 inches ; has about one hundred and twenty signatures of the Covenanting leaders, and of persons in Earlston. It bears the Declaration of 20th December 1638. (51) 1638 Covenant in Melville House, CoUessie. This example bears family signatures, both Melville and Leslie ; not yet examined. 3Q I 490 " THE COVENANTERS (52) 1638 Covenant in Trinity College Library, Cambridge, on a white skin measuring 26x24^ inches, is framed for exhibition. The first signature, that of Montrose, is nearly obliterated. It is followed by J. Lauderdaill, Dunfermline, Rothes, and other nobles and barons, etc., in all one hundred and fifty names. It was probably signed in Fifeshire. (53) 163S Covenant in St. Andrew's U.F. Church Session House, Dunfermline. It measures 37 X 34 inches ; bears about five hundred names, among others Halkett of Pitferan ; was subscribed at Dunfermline. (54) 1638 (or 1643) Covenant realised ;^i35 at the sale of the Burton-Constable MSS. on 26th June 1S89. The name of purchaser was not disclosed. Dr. Hay Fleming suggested that it may have been signed by Charles 11. at Spey or Scone. Cf. Scott. Nat. Mem., 97 note i. (55) 1638 Covenant in possession of Lord Rosebery. It measures 31 J X 24 inches ; has ornamental borders and capitals ; has ' The Supplication of the General Assembly ' and 'Act of the Lords of Councell,' 1639; unsigned; has Glasgow Determination; sold in Glasgow on 12 th April 191 2 by Messrs. J. and R. Edmiston, auctioneers. (56) 1638 Covenant in Session Records of Galston on 3rd January 1640; three pages of signatures. (57) 1638 Covenant in Minute Book of Dalkeith Presbytery signed by twenty-one persons in the summer of 1639. Cf. Butler, Leighton, 234. (58) 1638 Covenant in Session Record of Dundonald, subscribed 25th March 1638. (59) Of printed copies of the Covenant 3 are in Cambridge University Library (Press Mark, 8.28.19) j ^^d i in Trinity College, Cambridge (Press Mark, K. 15. 10 (9)). (60) Of four examples of Covenants mentioned by Dr. Laing {Proc. Soc. Antiq., - iv. 248 (Nos. 18, 19, 20, 21) two (1639 and 1641) in Penicuick House are at present ^ undiscoverable ; two in Dundas Castle (one for Dalmeny, the other for Sheriffdom of Linlithgow) have not been examined. (61) Other two, Nos. 16 and 17, also mentioned by Dr. Laing, have not been traced. (62) A 1638 Covenant in possession of Mr. David Hunter, S.S.C, and exhibited in i the Parliament House, Edinburgh, in April 1884, has not been traced. Cf. Scotsman, 17th April 1884. (63) The 1638 Covenant exhibited by Miss Pearson, 5 Pitt Street, Edinburgh, on 14th May 1877, has not been traced. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii. 215, 216. APPENDIX IV EXTANT COPIES OF THE BRITISH SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT (1) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in the Bodleian Library (Eng. Hist., d. 3). This example of the Solemn League and Covenant, printed in Edinburgh by Evan Tyler in 1643, ^'i'h pages for subscription, bears to have been signed at 'Edinburgh APPENDIX IV 491 in Templo orientali, 13 October 1643,' ^Y ninety-four persons, including Loudoun, Dunfermline, Leven, J. Lauderdaill, Argyll, Balmerino, Cassillis, Forrester, Lindesay, J. M. Hamilton, Wemyss, Sinclare, Balcarres, A. Jhonston. It was also signed at Edinburgh on 8th January 1644. On 13th October it was subscribed by Stephen Marshall, W. Armyne, Vane, Edward Bowles; on 22nd December 1643 by Hatcher, Darley, Robert Goodwin, Robert Fenwick, Robert Barwis : and on 7th November by Angus, Brodie and others. It was once possessed by William Ermyn, Bishop of Durham. This Covenant was the deed subscribed by the Commission of the Church, Committee of Estates, and the English Commissioners (Peterkin, Hecords, 395). [An example of the Solemn League and Covenant, written on parchment, lent to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries by Miss Agnes Black, Perth, and afterwards taken to America, has not been traced. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii. 64, 8th January 1877]. (2) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Oxford. This is the famous bond signed by King Charles 11., in 1650, and is preserved in the Clar. AfSS., 49. f. 80. in the Bodleian Library. The parchment measures 30A x 24^ inches and bears only the monarch's signature. It is endorsed by A. Johnston (Wariston) and by A. Ker, Clerk to the General Assembly. A reduced facsimile appears in volume ii. p. 2 ; cf. vol. i. p. 490, No. 54. (3) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant. Examples in the Bodleian Library: (3) Press mark, 56, 1643. i. Lond. Husbands, 8 pp. printed. (4) //'id. (Ash. 12 14). (5) Rawl. 165, Edin., 1648, Evan Tyler. Subscribed by sixty-six persons (among others ' W. Thomson, Minister,' 'in the parochine of Traquair'). Lond., 1645 — O"*^ sheet : Carte papers 65. f. 267. No signatures. (6) 1643 Foedus Pactum, etc. Lond., 1644. Th. 4, v. 7. B. 5 : not subscribed. (7) Another example, Pamph. 63. 1644. 2. (8) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant (Printed by Evan Tyler, Edinburgh, 1643) in St. Andrews University Library. This is a quarto ; covers five pages and part of sixth ; contains four relative documents, and blank pages for signatures, and was subscribed in 1643, or thereafter, by nine hundred and eighty-two persons of all ranks in St. Andrews. It was renewed on and after 31st December 1648, by four hundred and seventy-six persons. Samuel Rutherford signed three times. Rothes and Cargill also subscribed. (9) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Edinburgh University Library ; printed by Evan Tyler in 1648 ; belonged to Andrew Livingston ; is one of the Laing MSS., 229: has six pp. in print, fifty pp. blank; was signed on nth April 1649, inter alios, by Edinburgh Presbytery — James Hamilton, moderator (St. Giles), John Adamson, William Arthur, Robert Douglas, John Charteris, Mr. Robert Traill, M. A. Fairfull (Archbishop of Glasgow), Mr. R. Baylie, William Thomson, Hew Mackaile, A. Pryme- rose, James Kirktoun, Mr. Patrick Henderson (reader), Thomas Hoge. There are ninety-one subscribers and another on 20th February 1650. (10) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Edinburgh University; Edin., 1648, unbound; subscribed by three hundred and twciily-lwo persons 'in the parish Kirk of Kilbarchan the 14th-— 1648' in the presence of the Minister, Mr. James 492 THE COVENANTERS Glendinning ; records the subscriptions of local families, Kings, Cochranes, Semples and Knoxes. (ii) 1643 Foedus Sacro-sanctum pro Religione repurganda et propugnanda Pro Honore et Felicitate Regis afferenda, etc. Edin., 1643. Mr. Robert Young's Copy. No signatures. In Edinburgh University. Press mark, Dd. 7. 62. (12) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Museum of Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. Press mark, O.A.19. This example was subscribed in Newbattle parish, among others, by Robert Leighton, minister there, afterwards Archbishop of Glasgow. (13) 1643 'A Solemne League and Covenant.' Evan Tyler, 1643, in ^^^ Advocates' Library; Press mark, 23.3. 16 :K. igg. This primed example, 14 pp. with 18 pp. for subscriptions, is bound in vellum. It was subscribed at ' Edinburgh in eccl. occidintali, 23 Octob. 1643,' by 'Mr. Robert Douglas, minister,' his elders and deacons, and about seven hundred and fifty persons, of whom five hundred and twenty-two sub- scribed personally. (14) 1643 ' The Puritans' Covenant' in Trinity College, Cambridge, was signed on 30th June 1644, by inhabitants of Swinshead in the County of Huntingdon. (15) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant, Lond., 1643, in Trinity College. Press mark, Y. i. 33 (14). (16) another, Y. i. 52 (36); several other editions. (17) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant, (i) Ibid., Dd. 3. 27". (2) Ilrid. Adams 7. 64. 87. (3) Foedus, 8. 24. 7 (1644). Cambridge University Library. (18) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant. A copy of this Covenant is in the Egerton MSS., British Museum, 2 7 1 1 f. 84. It has no signatures. (19) 1642 Solemn League and Covenant in New College, Edinburgh. This ex- ample belonged to Edzell parish, and contains one hundred and ninety-one signatures. (20) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Hunterian Museum (Graham Copy). This copy was subscribed in 1643-9 by four hundred and sixty members of the Univer- sity of Glasgow. Transactions Glasg. Arch. Soc, new series, iv. i. 129. (21) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, be- queathed by Miss Brown of Lanfine, has two hundred and forty-three signatures ; the place of signature is not given; it is dated 17th December 1648. Cf. Transactions Glasg. Arch. Soc, new series, iv. i. 121-54; Scott. Nat. Mem., 96, 97. (22) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant is in possession of the Elgin and Moray Lit. and Scient. Association.' (23) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Montrose Museum ; has three hundred signatures. (24) 1643 Solemn League and Covenant in Dundee Free Library ; has five hundred autographs and three hundred names signed by a notary. (25) [Several printed copies of the Covenants were exhibited in the Scottish Exhibi- tion in Glasgow, 191 1, by the Rev. J. Sturrock. Cf. Pal. of Hist., Catal., ii. 992, 993.] (26) [The Covenant was signed in Culross by seven hundred and seven persons in 1643, and 1648 by four hundred and ninety-five persons. Cf. Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii. 246.] APPENDIX V 493 (27) [Renunciation of the Covenants in 1662 by the leading men of Scotland, Glen- cairn, Rothes, Morton, Moray, Lauderdale, eleven bishops, etc. In Register House Hist. Dept., Division Q., No. 247.] (28) [Declaration by the Lords and Senators of the College of Justice against the lawfulness of the Solemn League and Covenant. Preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities. Press mark, O.A. 24.] (29) [A 'Declaration signed by the Clergie and Nobilitie, 28th July 1681,' that the Covenants are unlawful, is preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh, and is printed in the Maitland MiscelL, iii. 379-85.] APPENDIX V ACTS OF PARLIAMENT RELATIVE TO THE COVENANTS 1639, vol. v., 593(5. Act ratifying General Assembly's Act prefixed to Covenant. 1639, 598a. Covenant ratified in Articles. 1639, 605a. Covenant to be sworn by all commanders before leaving the country. 1640, c. 18, 270. Confession of Faith and Covenant ratified ; all public officials enjoined to subscribe (all lieges, Privy Council Act, ibid., 271 ab). 1640, c. 19, 276. Acts of Privy Council and General Assembly ordaining sub- scription ratified ; the National Covenant, v. 2720-2760. 1641, 329a. Noblemen non-subscribers to have no voice in Parliament. 1641, c. 13, 348. Non-subscribers to hold no ofiSce as judge, procurator, etc. 1643, V'- '• 4i'42- Terms of Covenant agreed upon in 1643. 1643, 17 August, vi. i. 43a. Convention of Estates approve of Covenant. 1644, vi. i. 61b, 92a. Non-subscribers to be summoned and estates forfeited. 1644, vi. i. 89a. Lanark, Secretary, deprived for non-subscription. 1644, 15 July, c. 134, vi. i. 150. Solemn League and Covenant recited; T51, approved by Assembly and Convention ; 152, to be read by ministers; non- subscribers to be censured ; 152, or be held as traitors. 1646, c. 170, vi. 554. Patronage held by non-subscribers transferred to Presbytery. 1649, vi. ii. 132. Solemn League and Covenant read and subscribed in Parliament. 1649, c. 6, vi. ii. 127. A cojjy of National Covenant tabled in Parliament. 1649, c. 58, vi. ii. 161. The King to swear the Covenants of 1638 and 1643. 1650, I July, vi. ii. 596a. The King's subscription to Covenants and oath, read and delivered to clerk in Parliament by Brodie and Libbertoun. 1650, vi. ii. bo^b. Parliament 'appoyntis the motto to be upoun the haill cuUoris and standartis to be (for Covenant, Religion, King, and Kingdom).' 1650, vi. i. 6251?. Non-subscribers to be debarred from levy. 1661, 25 January, c. 22, vii. 18. Scottish League and (Covenant and other bonds without regal sanction, not binding, and forbidden ; also the relative treaties. 1662, 24 June, c. 12, vii, 378a. National Covenant, 163S, and Solemn I^'ague and Covenant declared unlawful and annulled. 1681, 31 Au{5ust, c. 6, viii. 245^. Oath renouncing Covenants of 1638 and 1643. 1685, I May, c. 5, viii. 461. Both Covenants declared to bo treason. 494 THE COVENANTERS APPENDIX VI THE IRISH MASSACRES OF 1641-2 Professor Matthew Crawford in A Briej Discovery of the Bloody Principles and Practises of the Papists, 1672, records the most incredible atrocities of the Irish rebels, proving that the Irish Catholics were glutted with Protestant blood. Miss Mary Hickson in her Ireland of the Seventeenth Century, or The Irish Massacres of 164 1-2 (Preface by J. A. Froude; Lond., 1884; 2 vols), corroborates Crawford from the depositions used at the trials of the criminals. The barbarities perpetrated would shame the heathen — dead thrown to dogs (i. 170) ; children killing children and adults with fiendish cruelty (196, 339) ; children hung up on tenter hooks to die (221) ; death by the pointed stake (341) ; atrocities of such Chinese brutality that the Lord President at the trial of Sir Phelim O'Neil asked, ' What, was he born of a woman who did this ? ' Miss Hickson calculated that twenty-seven thousand persons were murdered at the ' instigation of priests, Phelim O'Neil, the Maguire brothers, and that the king and Macdonell were responsible for the retaliations' (163). To understand the enormities practised, the reader must turn to these two works. Scottish Kirk-Session Records refer to these crimes in paragraphs such as these : — Carnock, 8th September 1644 (cf. Row, Hist., ref. xxviii.) ; Gave 30 sh. to Geils Hamilton, widow of an Irish minister, ' who wes pitifullie murderit and cuttit in pieces be the Erische rebellis, and had two bairns burnt quick, and Geils hirself at the same time wes traveling (travailing), and borne out of the house quhen it wes burning, and baire her bairne (gave birth to her child) in the fields, being naked, and had no clothes to cover her withe . . . became distracted in her wittes.' Tyninghame : ' Dec. 5, 1641. Intimation maid of Collection the next Lord's Day for ane pure honest woman, spouse to umquhile James Freeman. He was slain in Ireland and quarteret, as is allegit, for mainteining the Scottis Covenant.' APPENDIX VII THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH AND THE PROOFS Neither marginal references to the texts of scripture nor texts appear on the West- minster Confession as it was ratified by Parliament in 1690. On 2ist September 1646 as much of the Confession 'as the Assembly had perfected' was transcribed and then read ; and four days later it was conveyed to the House of Commons. The Commons decided to print it for their own use, asked the divines to supply scriptural proofs for the margin, and meantime printed the part of the Confession without the proofs. On 4th December 1646, the Confession was reported complete; and on the same day the Commons, having received it, ordered it to be printed as it APPENDIX VII 495 stood without the proofs. In April 1647 the Assembly had the proofs ready, and on the 26th April a committee was authorised to carry the completed work to both Houses. On 29th April the House of Commons 'ordered — That six hundred copies, and no more, of the Advice 0/ the Assembly of Divines concerning the Confession of Faith, with the quotations and texts of Scripture annexed, etc., be forthwith printed, etc' The edition printed at London in May was probably brought to Edinburgh by Gillespie before the meeting of the General Assembly in August 1647. That Assembly caused three hundred copies to be printed for its members. The imprint of the work bears ' Printed at London and reprinted at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majestic, 1647 ' (cf Aldis, List, No. 1275). The same year Tyler issued another edition — 'Humble Advice, etc' (Aldis, List, 1274). Both editions had the marginal references. On 27th August 1647 the General Assembly passed an Act of ' Approbation of the Confession of Faith.' On 7th February 1649 the Scots Parliament ratified and approved of the Confession and the 'Approbation.' On 9th February 1661 Parliament rescinded and annulled that ratification. The Parliament of 1690 (cap. 7) anew ratified and established the Confession, and in 1693 (cap. 22) ordained terms for its subscription. The Act of 1690 was twice printed in 1690 (cf. Aldis, List, 3007), and the Confession was subjoined ; but neither the proof texts nor references to them were appended to the original, nor to the printed copy of the authorised Confession.^ ' Mitchell, Minutes . . . IVcsttnimtcr Assembly, 286, 345, 354 and note, 419 and note ; Shaw, Hist, of the English Church, i. 362, 363 : Peterkin, Records, 480. I 496 THE COVENANTERS APPENDIX VIII CRIMES AND SUFFERINGS OF THE SCOTTISH CLERGY FROM 1560 TILL 1690 From 1560 till 1638. From 1638 till 1660. From 1660 till 1690. Executed, . Murdered, . 2 2 I 4 8 (laity 197) 2 Killed, I 2 3 Imprisoned, Banished or fugitated, 31 18 21 13 78 17 Deposed, Deprived, . Suspended, . Outed and rabbled, 35 14 3 I 126 12 7 3 46 548 4 142 Offences for which they Suffered. Immorality, Scandalous irregularities and ministerial in- 1 1 II 21 sufficiency. Murder, 18 2 15 I IS I Petty offences, Witchcraft, . 16 IS 3 13 Political offences. 40 80 22 Drunkenness, 2 12 3» Nonconformity to Episcopacy (Presbyterian- ism), ....... Nonconformity to Presbytery (Episcopacy) ; adoption of the Liturgy, .... The Test, 34 14 5 70 275 345' 45 4 Note. — The compilation of this table was accompanied by much difficulty, as oftentimes ministers were indicted for various offences at the same time, and in some cases it is impossible to state the offence considered most incriminating, and to differentiate political from ecclesiastical offences. 1 For list of ministers outed in 1661-2 cf. IVodrow MSS. (Edin., Advoc. Lib.), Rob. iii. 5, 17, No. 2 ; lae. V. 9-1. APPENDIX IX 497 APPENDIX IX THE SAMUEL RUTHERFORD SCANDAL ' For sumeikle as it being declared be the principall of the colladge that Mr. Samuell Rutherfuird regent of Humanitie hes fallen in furnication with Euphame Hamiltoun and hes committit ane grit scandle in the College and lyckwayis hes since dimittit himself from his chairge therin Thairfor elects and nominates Nicol Vduard one of the baillies and Henrie Aikman deykin of the chirurgianis Comissioneris for them and in their name to convein with the Commissioners appointit be the Lordis of Session and Commissioneris appointit be the Laweris and Writteris and principall judges appointit be contract betwaxt the saidis partis for depryving of the said Regent gyf onie scandle sould happin to fall furth in his persone with power to thir saidis commis- sioners to insist for depryving of the said Mr. Samuell and being depryvit for filling of the said plaice.'' On 29th March 1626 compear John Adamson for the Session and Writers, and the two bailies, and report that they have appointed Thomas Crauford ' in plaice of Mr. Samuell Rutherfurd quha hes maid demission of the same.'- On 27th June 1649 it is recorded that Samuel Rutherford, Professor of Divinity in St. Andrews, was appointed ' Professor of Divinity in this College.'^ Rutherford married Jean Macmath in Edinburgh on 24th March 1640. She was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard on 15th May 1675.^ No trace of Eupham Hamilton has been found in the Register of Marriages. Thomas Crawfurd (who succeeded Rutherford as regent) in his History of the Univer- sity of Edinburgh (1646, published in 1808) at page 104 states: 'In the end of this year Mr. Samuel Rutherford, Professor of Humanitie, having given some scandal in his marriage, was forced to dimit his charge : according to the wonted bountie of the citie, Mr. Samuel Rutherford had an honest gratification at his dimission.' Professor H. M. B. Reid in his Preface to Maxwell's Guide Book to the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, p. 14 (Castle Douglas, 1902), designates Rutherford ' a native of the Stewartry.' Minutes of Edinburgh Town Council, xiii. 323, 3rd February 1626. Ibid., 333. 3 /i)jif_^ xvi. i66. ■" City Registers. 3R Printed by T. and A. Constable, Primers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press 1 D 000 014 322 2 l^ 11,^ Xu ^j,,^^/-^, ^-'^-