Viscount Dundee. Louis Auguste Barbé
and subscribing of the League and Covenant. It contained special injunctions to the Presbyteries that they should take account of the performance thereof in their several bounds; that they should proceed with the censures of the Kirk against all such as should refuse or shift to swear and subscribe, as enemies to the preservation and propagation of religion; and that they should notify their names and make particular report of them to the Commission.
On the next day, the Commissioners of the Convention of Estates, in their turn issued a proclamation by which, supplementing the censures of the Church, they ordained as a penalty on those who should ‘postpone or refuse,’ that they should ‘have their goods and rents confiscate for the use of the public,’ and that they should not ‘bruik nor enjoy any benefit, place nor office within this kingdom.’
The Covenant, which these ordinances thus required the people of Scotland to subscribe, consisted in an oath binding them to support the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches; to 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 catechising; to strive, without respect of persons, for the extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness and whatsoever should be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; to endeavour to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King’s person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; to endeavour to discover all such as had been, or should 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 factions or parties amongst the people, contrary to the League and Covenant, that they might be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences should require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms, respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, should judge convenient; and, finally, to assist and defend all those that entered into this League and Covenant, and not to suffer themselves, directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give themselves to a detestable indifference, or neutrality.
If, at its origin, the Covenant of 1643 was practically a treaty between the heads of the Presbyterian party in Scotland and the leading Parliamentarians in England, it entered upon a new phase after the execution of Charles I. Notwithstanding the hostile attitude of the Presbyterians towards the King himself, they were strongly opposed to the subversion of the monarchical form of government. On the 5th of February, six days after the King’s death, and one day earlier than the formal abolition of the monarchy by the English House of Commons, the Scottish Estates of Parliament passed an Act by which Prince Charles, then in Holland, was proclaimed King, in succession to his father. Following upon this, a deputation was sent to the Hague to invite Charles to come over and take possession of the throne of his ancestors. As a preliminary condition, however, it was required that he should give adhesion to the principles set forth in the Solemn Covenant. This he hesitated to do; and the commissioners returned, well pleased, indeed, with “the sweet and courteous disposition” of the Prince, but disappointed at the failure of their mission, owing to the pernicious influence of the “very evil generation, both of English and Scots,” by whom he was surrounded.
A second deputation, sent shortly after this, to treat with the Prince at Breda, was more successful. Charles, seeing no other way open to him of regaining possession of the throne, gave his consent to the demands of the commissioners. In June 1650, he returned to Scotland. On the 1st of January 1651, he was crowned at Scone. Before taking the oath of coronation, and after the full text of the Solemn League and Covenant had been distinctly read to him, kneeling and lifting up his right hand, he assured and declared, on his oath, in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of hearts, his allowance and approbation of all it set forth, and faithfully obliged himself to prosecute the ends it had in view, in his station and calling. He bound himself in advance to consent and agree to all Acts of Parliament establishing Presbyterial government; to observe their provisions in his own practice and family; and never to make opposition to them or endeavour to make any change in them.
It was not till nearly ten years later that Charles II. was really restored to the throne. The event was hailed with joy by the Presbyterians, who looked upon it as the accession of a covenanting king, and who founded their hopes, not only on the promise made at Scone, but also on a letter which Charles had forwarded, through Sharp, to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, to be communicated to all the Presbyteries in Scotland, and in which he expressed his resolve to protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland, as settled by law, without violation.
But the law itself was to be modified in such a manner as to enable the King to violate the spirit of his promise whilst leaving him a verbal quibble with which to justify his breach of faith. On the 9th of February an Act was passed annulling the Parliament and Committees of 1649, that is, declaring those proceedings to be illegal, by which Presbyterianism had been established on its firmest foundations. Less than three weeks later, two other Acts were passed with a view to preparing the way for a complete revolution in Church matters. The first of them, known as the Act Rescissory, had for its objects the annulling of the ‘pretended Parliaments’ of the years 1640, 1641, 1644, 1645, 1646, and 1648 – a measure which Principal Baillie described at the time as ‘pulling down all our laws at once which concerned our Church since 1633.’ The other, which purported to be ‘concerning religion and Church government,’ was substantially an assertion and recognition of the King’s claim to be considered as head of the Church. It declared that it was his full and firm intention to maintain the true reformed Protestant religion in its purity of doctrine and worship, as it had been established within the kingdom during the reigns of his father and of his grandfather; to promote the power of godliness; to encourage the exercises of religion, both public and private; and to suppress all profaneness and disorderly walking; and that, for this end he would give all due countenance and protection to the ministers of the Gospel, ‘they containing themselves within the bounds and limits of their ministerial calling and behaving themselves with that submission and obedience to his Majesty’s authority and commands that is suitable to the allegiance and duty of good subjects.’ A concluding clause provided that, notwithstanding the Rescissory Act, the ‘present administration by sessions, presbyteries, and synods – they keeping within bounds and behaving themselves’ – should, ‘in the meantime’ be ‘allowed.’
The official toleration of Presbyterianism lasted till the 27th of May 1662. On that day an Act of Parliament, after declaring in its preamble that the ordering and disposal of the external government and policy of the Church properly belonged to the King, as an inherent right of the Crown, and by virtue of his royal prerogative and supremacy in causes ecclesiastical, proceeded to re-establish the ancient government of the Church by the sacred order of Bishops. A further step was taken on the 5th of September of the same year by the imposition of a test on all persons in public trust. Before entering upon the duties of any office under the Crown, they were called upon to subscribe a declaration setting forth that they judged it unlawful in subjects, under pretence of reformation, or for any motive, to enter into leagues and covenants; that they more especially considered the Solemn League and Covenant to have been contrary to the fundamental laws and liberties of the kingdom; and that they repudiated any obligation laid upon them by their former sworn recognition and acceptance of this bond.
As a sequel, an Act not of Parliament but of Council, ordained that the Covenant should be burnt by the hand of the common hangman. Prior to this, however, on the 11th of June 1662, an Act concerning such benefices and stipends as had been possessed without presentations from the lawful patrons deprived the Church of the right claimed by it of calling and choosing its own ministers. Under its provisions, no minister admitted subsequently to the year 1649 could possess any legal claim to his stipend unless he obtained a new presentation, and collation from the bishop of the diocese.
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