Part 3

The General Assembly had been suppressed under Cromwell’s iron rule, and the Church of Scotland was otherwise handicapped at this period; but something effective might have been done to safeguard her rights had the Resolutioners not been deceived by Sharp, although it would have been impossible to make Charles the Second safe, either by the renewal of former or by additional obligations, even if the Scots had been able to impose these upon him. Such a man could not be tied by oaths. At his Restoration, those in power trusted to his honour, and of that virtue he had wondrously little.

His entry into London had been timed to take place on the 29th of May 1660—the thirtieth anniversary of his birthday. Some of the leading Protesters, fearing the overthrow of Presbytery, met in Edinburgh, on the 23rd of August, to draw up a supplication to the King. The Committee of Estates arrested them, and imprisoned them in the castle.

[Sidenote: The Act Rescissory]

A few days afterwards Sharp brought a letter from his Majesty, in which he said: “We do also resolve to protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland, _as it is settled by law_, without violation.” A suggestion that this might be understood in two ways, was condemned as “an intolerable reflection” on the King. The Scottish Parliament, on the 28th of March 1661, rescinded the Parliaments which had been held in and since 1640, and all the Acts passed by them. Thus all the civil sanction which had been given to the Second Reformation was swept away at a stroke. Early next morning, Samuel Rutherfurd—whose stipend had been confiscated, whose “Lex Rex” had been burned, and who had been cited to answer a charge of treason—appeared before a court that was higher than any Parliament, and “where his Judge was his friend.”

A month after this, Sharp professed, in a letter to James Wood, that he was still hopeful that there would, “through the goodnes of God,” be no change; and affirmed that, as he had, “through the Lord’s mercy,” done nothing to the prejudice of the liberties and government of the Church, so he would not, “by the grace of God,” have any accession to the wronging of it.

[Sidenote: Duplicity]

He was then on the eve of setting out for London with Glencairn and Rothes. They returned in the end of August, bringing with them a letter intimating the King’s determination to interpose his royal authority for restoring the Church of Scotland “to its right government by bishops as it was by law before the late troubles”; and justifying his action by his promise of the previous year. Candid Episcopalians admit that this dealing shook all confidence in the sincerity of Charles.

[Sidenote: Episcopacy Re-established]

In October Sharp again went to England; in November he was appointed Archbishop of St Andrews; and in December he was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, after being privately ordained as a deacon and a priest. The Scottish Parliament, on the 27th of May 1662, passed the “Act for the restitution and re-establishment of the antient government of the church by archbishops and bishops.” The preamble of this Act acknowledges that “the ordering and disposall of the externall government and policie of the Church doth propperlie belong unto his Majestie, as are inherent right of the Croun, by vertew of his royall prerogative and supremacie in causes ecclesiasticall.” The Oath of Allegiance, which had been adopted by Parliament on the 1st of January 1661, contained the clause: “I acknowledge my said Soverane only supream governour of this kingdome over all persons and in all causes.”

[Sidenote: Argyll and Guthrie]

The Solemn League and Covenant had already been burned by the hangman in London; and the long and bloody persecution in Scotland had already begun. An example had been made of the Marquis of Argyll, and of James Guthrie, the minister of Stirling. Both suffered at the Market Cross of Edinburgh in the same week, Argyll on Monday, the 27th of May, and Guthrie on Saturday, the 1st of June, 1661. To secure Argyll’s conviction, Monk was base enough to give up several of his letters proving his hearty compliance with the Usurper’s government after it was established. The case for the prosecution was closed before the letters arrived; but they were nevertheless received and read.

Sir George Mackenzie—later to acquire an unenviable notoriety as the Bluidy Mackenyie—was one of his advocates, and in his opinion the Marquis suffered mainly for the good old cause. Guthrie had never compromised himself in any way with Cromwell, who described him as the little man who would not bow.

[Sidenote: Ministers Disqualified]

The Parliament of 1662 not only re-established Prelacy, but decreed that no minister, who had entered after the abolition of patronage in 1649, should have any right to his stipend unless he obtained presentation from the patron and collation from the bishop; and that ministers who did not observe the Act of 1661, appointing the day of the King’s restoration as an annual holy day unto the Lord, should be incapable of enjoying any benefice. It also declared that the Covenants were unlawful oaths, and enacted that no one should be admitted to any public trust or office until he acknowledged in writing that they were unlawful.

[Sidenote: Ministers Ejected]

These Acts of Parliament were speedily followed up by the Privy Council, which, in September 1662, ordered all ministers to resort next month to their respective bishop’s assemblies; and in October commanded all the ministers entered since 1649, and who had not since received the patron’s presentation and the bishop’s collation, to quit their parishes. By this latter Act it has been reckoned that fully three hundred ministers were turned out of their charges.

[Sidenote: Church-Courts Discharged]

When Prelacy was established in 1610, James the Sixth was much too politic to close the ecclesiastical courts which had been set up and carried on by the Presbyterians. “Honest men” continued to maintain in them “both their right and possession, except in so far as the same were invaded, and they hindered by the bishops.” But, by command of Charles the Second, synods, presbyteries, and kirk-sessions had now been (by a proclamation of 9th January 1662) expressly discharged “until they be authorized and ordered by the archbishops and bishops upon their entering unto the government of their respective sees.” At his first Diocesan Synod, Sharp took care that ruling elders should have no standing in his presbyteries, or “meetings of the ministers of the respective bounds”; and he likewise circumscribed the power of these “meetings.” Instructions were also given that each minister should “assume and choose a competent number of fitt persons, according to the bounds of the parish,” to assist in session, etc.

[Sidenote: Court of High Commission]

Early in 1664 the King resolved to re-erect, by virtue of his royal prerogative, the Court of High Commission, to enforce the Acts “for the peace and order of the Church, and in behalf of the government thereof by archbishops and bishops.” The extraordinary power vested in this court was increased in range by the general clause, authorising the Commissioners “to do and execute what they shall find necessary and convenient for his Majesty’s service in the premises.” Any five of the Commissioners could act, if one of them were an archbishop or bishop. No provision was made for any appeal from the judgment of this court. Of it a learned member of the bar has said: “All law and order were disregarded. The Lord Advocate ceased to act as public prosecutor, and became a member of this iniquitous tribunal. No indictments were required; no defences were allowed; no witnesses were necessary. The accused were dragged before the Commissioners, and compelled to answer any questions which were put to them, without being told of what they were suspected.” The court could order ministers “to be censured with suspension or deposition”; and could punish them and others “by fining, confining, committing to prison and incarcerating.” For nearly two years this court harassed and oppressed the Nonconformists of Scotland.

[Sidenote: Origin of Pentland Rising]

Towards the close of 1665, conventicles were, by royal proclamation, forbidden under severe penalties. The officiating ministers, and those harbouring them, were threatened with the highest pains due to sedition, and hearers were subject to fining, confining, and other corporal punishments.

Such measures could hardly be expected to beget in the people an ardent love for Prelacy; and when opposition was manifested in the south-west of Scotland, troops, under Sir James Turner, were sent to suppress it.

[Sidenote: Torture and Execution]

At length the harshness of a handful of soldiers to an old man, at Dalry in Galloway, led to a scuffle with a few countrymen, and the success of the latter led to the untimely rising which was suppressed by General Dalyell at Rullion Green on the 28th of November 1666. In that engagement the slain and mortally wounded Covenanters numbered over forty. On the 7th of December ten prisoners—all of whom, save one, had been promised quarter—were hanged at the Market Cross of Edinburgh. In less than a month, fully twenty more prisoners had been hanged at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Irvine, Ayr, and Dumfries. Two of these—Neilson of Corsack and Hugh M’Kail—were tortured in the boots. Never before had drums been used in Scotland to drown the voice of a victim dying on the scaffold. At this time it was introduced at Glasgow.

Had the rising not been so ill-timed, it would probably have been much better supported. After its suppression, Rothes and Dalyell wrote gloomily of the condition of Ayrshire; but Dalyell was not the man to shrink from quelling incipient rebellion by force. Compared with his measures, those of Sir James Turner were mild, although they had driven the sufferers to despair. Finding that his own influence was in peril through the alliance between the military and ecclesiastical party, Lauderdale broke up this brutal administration.

[Sidenote: The Indulgence]

The first indulgence (granted in the summer of 1669) was fated, as its successors were, to be a bone of contention among the Covenanters. It was condemned by the more scrupulous because of its restrictions; and because, as they held, compliance with it involved the owning of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. Many refused to hear the indulged ministers, and some would have nothing to do with those non-indulged ministers who did not denounce the indulgence. It was also disliked and resented by Alexander Burnet, Archbishop of Glasgow, and his diocesan synod, but for very different reasons. They objected to indulged Presbyterian ministers being exempted from Episcopal jurisdiction, and objected all the more because, in some districts, the people would not countenance either doctrine or discipline under Episcopal administration.

[Sidenote: Conventicles]

The ejection of the ministers, and the filling of their places by the miserable substitutes then termed “curates,” had led to the keeping of conventicles, and as the indulgence, like the proclamation of 1665, failed to put an end to these unauthorised religious services, it was resolved to put them down with a strong hand. Parliament decreed, in 1670, that non-indulged, outed ministers, or other persons not allowed by the bishops, who either preached or prayed in any meeting, “except in ther oune housses and to those of ther oune family,” should be deemed guilty of keeping conventicles, and should be imprisoned until they found caution not to do the like again, or bound themselves to leave the kingdom; and those who conducted, or convocated people to, field-conventicles, were to be punished by death and confiscation of their goods, and hearers were to be severely fined. The Act explained that a house-conventicle became a field-conventicle if there were more persons present than the house contained, so that some of them were outside the door.

That this might not be a dead letter, a reward of five hundred merks was offered to any one who captured a holder of, or convocater to, field-conventicles; and these captors were not to be punished for any slaughter that might be committed in apprehending such delinquents. Even with such a law hanging over their heads, the faithful Covenanters were not prepared to give up their conventicles. The Word of Life was much too precious to be thus parted with. They did not intend, however, to permit the oppressors to drive them or their preachers as lambs to the slaughter, and so they henceforth carried arms for defence.

[Sidenote: Public Worship]

As no general attempt had been made, since the Restoration, to alter the services of the Church, save to a very slight degree, the worship of Conformists and Nonconformists was practically the same. Now, however, “many Conformists began to dispute for a liturgy and some to preach for it; but the fox Sharp was not much for it, only because he had no will to ride the ford where his predecessor drowned.”

[Sidenote: James Mitchell]

An unsuccessful attempt to rid the country of Sharp had been made in 1668 by James Mitchell, who several years afterwards was apprehended; but no proof could be adduced against him, until, on the Lord Chancellor’s promise to save his life, he confessed. The Chancellor and Treasurer-Depute swore that they heard him make his confession before the committee; Lauderdale and Sharp swore that they heard him own it before the Privy Council. They denied all knowledge of any promise of life, although the promise had been duly minuted; and the request of Mitchell’s advocates, that the Register of the Privy Council should be produced, or the clerks obliged to give extracts, was rejected; and the prisoner was sentenced to be hanged.

In Lord Fountainhall’s opinion, this was one of the most solemn criminal trials that had taken place in Scotland for a hundred years; and it was generally believed that the law was strained to secure a conviction. He adds: “It was judged ane argument of a bad deplorat cause that they summoned and picked out ane assysse [_i.e._, a jury] of souldiers under the King’s pay, and others who, as they imagined, would be clear to condemne him.” The Privy Council would have granted a reprieve, but Sharp would not consent. On him was laid the chief blame of Mitchell’s torture in 1676 and execution in 1678.

[Sidenote: The Ladies’ Covenant]

According to Dr Hickes, several ladies of great quality, in January 1678, kept a private fast and conventicle in Edinburgh, to ask God to bring to nought the counsels of men against his people; and before they parted they all subscribed a paper, wherein they covenanted, to the utmost of their power, to engage their lords to assist and protect God’s people against the devices taken to reduce them to order and obedience. Next month the Highland Host plundered covenanting Ayrshire and Clydesdale.

[Sidenote: The Cess]

The Scottish Convention of Estates, professedly regarding field conventicles as “rendezvouses of rebellion” with which the ordinary military forces could not successfully cope, and desiring that the “rebellious and schismatick principles may be rooted out by lawfull and sutable means,” resolved, in July 1678, to offer the King £1,800,000 Scots, for securing the kingdom against foreign invasion and intestine commotions. The payment was to be spread over five years, and the money raised by five months’ cess in each of these years. Many Covenanters denounced the paying of this cess as an active concurring with the Lord’s enemies in bearing down his work. Some, however, thought it better to pay than to furnish the unscrupulous collectors with a pretext for destroying their goods, and extorting more than was due. The cess thus became a cause of division, as well as an instrument of oppression.

[Sidenote: Sharp’s Death]

The hated Sharp fell into the hands of nine Covenanters at Magus Muir on the 3rd of May 1679. Seven of the nine had no misgivings as to what they should do in the circumstances; and they unscientifically butchered him in presence of his servants and daughter. For that deed none were responsible save those who were there; but many were afterwards brought to trouble for it, and not a few, who were perfectly innocent, chose to suffer rather than brand it as murder.

[Sidenote: Bothwell Bridge]

Some of those who took an active part in the tragedy of Magus Muir were present at Rutherglen, on Thursday, the 29th of May, when the bonfires which had been kindled in honour of the King’s birthday were extinguished, and when the Act Rescissory and other obnoxious Acts were publicly burned. On Saturday, Claverhouse set out from Glasgow to make some investigations concerning this outrage, and next morning he attempted, but in vain, to disperse an armed conventicle at Drumclog. On this occasion he added nothing to his military reputation; and fled from the field as fast as his wounded charger could carry him. Three weeks later (22nd June 1679) the Covenanters, divided in counsel and badly officered, were slaughtered by hundreds at Bothwell Bridge; and the thousand and more prisoners who were taken were shut up in Greyfriars church-yard, Edinburgh. Some of these prisoners were executed; some escaped; many, after lying for weeks in the open church-yard, were induced to purchase their release by binding themselves never to carry arms against the King or his authority; and two hundred, after enduring sufferings worse than death, were drowned next December off the coast of Orkney.

[Sidenote: Cameronians]

Donald Cargill and Richard Cameron now became the leaders of the more thorough-going Covenanters—a small and select party as strong in faith as weak in numbers. They were sometimes known as “Cargillites,” more commonly as “Cameronians.” On the first anniversary of Bothwell Bridge, a score of them rode into Sanquhar, and there emitted a declaration in which they cast off their allegiance to the King, declared war against him, and protested against the succession of James, Duke of York.

The Privy Council replied by offering a reward of five thousand merks for Richard Cameron, dead or alive, and three thousand for his brother or Cargill. On the 22nd of July, both of the Camerons fell at Ayrsmoss; and a year later (27th July 1681) Cargill, who had excommunicated the King and some of the leading persecutors, triumphed over death at the Market Cross of Edinburgh.

[Sidenote: Effect of Persecution]

Those who could not be charged with the breach of any law were asked if they owned the King’s authority. If they disowned it, or qualified their acknowledgment, or declined to give their opinion, they were deemed guilty of treason. But, as Alexander Sheilds says: “The more they insisted in this inquisition, the more did the number of witnesses multiply, with a growing increase of undauntedness, so that the then shed blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church; and as, by hearing and seeing them so signally countenanced of the Lord, many were reclaimed from their courses of complyance, so others were daylie more and more confirmed in the wayes of the Lord, and so strengthened by his grace that they choose rather to endure all torture, and embrace death in its most terrible aspect, than to give the tyrant and his complices any acknowledgment, yea not so much as to say, _God save the King_, which was offered as the price of their life.”

[Sidenote: The Test]

On the 31st of August 1681, Parliament passed an “Act anent Religion and the Test.” By this Act, every person in public trust or office in Scotland was ordered to take the Test Oath, or be declared incapable of all public trust, and be further punished by the loss of moveables and liferent escheat. By the oath, the swearers bound themselves to adhere to the Confession of Faith of 1560; to disown all principles inconsistent therewith, whether popish or fanatic; to own the King as “the only supream governour of this realme, over all persons and in all causes, as weill ecclesiastical as civill;” to defend all the rights, prerogatives, and privileges of the King, his heirs, and lawful successors; never to enter into covenants or leagues, nor to assemble for consulting or treating in any matter of state, civil or ecclesiastic, without his Majesty’s special command or express license; never to take up arms against him or those commissioned by him; never to decline his power and jurisdiction; and they owned that no obligation lay on them by the National Covenant, or by the Solemn League and Covenant, or otherwise, “to endeavour any change or alteration in the government, either in Church or State, as it is now established by the laws of this kingdom.” Through the imposing of this complicated Test, many were brought to trouble, and not a few declined it at all hazards.

[Sidenote: The Children’s Bond]

One of the most curious and suggestive documents of this period is known as “The Children’s Bond.” In 1683, “when there was no faithful minister in Scotland,” a number of children in the village of Pentland, who had formed themselves into a society for devotional purposes, solemnly entered into a covenant, of which the following is a copy:—

“This is a covenant made between the Lord and us, with our whole hearts, and to give up ourselves freely to him, without reserve, soul and body, hearts and affections, to be his children, and him to be our God and Father, if it please the holy Lord to send his Gospel to the land again: that we stand to this covenant, which we have written, between the Lord and us, as we shall answer at the great day; that we shall never break this covenant which we have made between the Lord and us: that we shall stand to this covenant which we have made; and if not, it shall be a witness against us in the great day, when we shall stand before the Lord and his holy angels. O Lord, give us real grace in our hearts to mind Zion’s breaches, that is in such a low case this day; and make us to mourn with her, for thou hast said, ‘them that mourn with her in the time of her trouble shall rejoice when she rejoiceth, when the Lord will come and bring back the captivity of Zion;’ when he shall deliver her out of her enemies’ hands, when her King shall come and raise her from the dust, in spite of all her enemies that will oppose her, either devils or men. That thus they have banished her King, Christ, out of the land, yet he will arise and avenge his children’s blood, at her enemies’ hands, which cruel murderers have shed.”

On the back of the document was written:—

“Them that will not stand to every article of this covenant which we have made betwixt the Lord and us, that they shall not go to the kirk to hear any of these soul-murdering curates, we will neither speak nor converse with them. Any that breaks this covenant they shall never come into our society. We shall declare before the Lord that we have bound ourselves in covenant, to be covenanted to him all the days of our life, to be his children and him our covenanted Father.

“We subscribe with our hands these presents—

“BETERICK UUMPERSTON. JANET BROWN. HELEN MOUTRAY. MARION SWAN. JANET SWAN. ISOBEL CRAIG. MARTHA LOGAN. AGNES AITKIN. MARGARET GALLOWAY. HELEN STRAITON. HELEN CLARK. MARGARET BROWN. JANET BROWN. MARION M’MOREN. CHRISTIAN LAURIE.”

[Sidenote: Beatrix Umpherston]