The Black Oath was a 1639 oath that Scots in Ulster who were over the age of 16 were required to take under penalty of a fine or imprisonment. [1] [2]
The oath was aimed at stopping Covenanters: it required rejecting the National Covenant, an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, which opposed the proposed Laudian reforms of the Church of Scotland by King Charles I; [3] and loyalty or obedience to the king. [4]
The oath was reportedly framed by Hugh Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery and James Hamilton, 1st Viscount Claneboye and recommended by Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1632 to 1640, who urged its enforcement throughout the country starting on 21 May 1639. [5]
The imposition of the Black Oath was related to the larger context of religious and political matters leading up to and including the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640 in Scotland and northern England and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1653) overall.
The Battle of Newburn, also known as the Battle of Newburn Ford, took place on 28 August 1640, during the Second Bishops' War. It was fought at Newburn, just outside Newcastle, where a ford crossed the River Tyne. A Scottish Covenanter army of 20,000 under Alexander Leslie defeated an English force of 5,000, led by Lord Conway.
The Ulster Scots people or Scots-Irish are an ethnic group descended largely from Scottish and Northern English Borders settlers who moved to the northern province of Ulster in Ireland mainly during the 17th century. There is an Ulster Scots dialect of the Scots language.
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bishops' Wars, the First and Second English Civil Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650–1652. They resulted in the execution of Charles I, the abolition of monarchy, and founding of the Commonwealth of England, a unitary state which controlled the British Isles until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.
The Treaty of Ripon was a truce between Charles I, King of England, and the Covenanters, a Scottish political movement, which brought a cessation of hostilities to the Second Bishops' War.
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point between 1639 and 1653, while around 4% of the total population died from war-related causes. These figures illustrate the widespread impact of the conflict on society, and the bitterness it engendered as a result.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was an uprising in Ireland, initiated on 23 October 1641 by Catholic gentry and military officers. Their demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and return of confiscated Catholic lands. Planned as a swift coup d'état to gain control of the Protestant-dominated central government, instead it led to the 1641–1653 Irish Confederate Wars, part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Between 1639 and 1652, Scotland was involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of conflicts which included the Bishops' Wars, the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the English Civil War, the Irish Confederate Wars and finally the conquest of Ireland and the subjugation of Scotland by the English New Model Army.
The Treaty of Breda (1650) was signed on 1 May 1650 between Charles II, exiled king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the Scottish Covenanter government. Under its terms, they agreed to install Charles II as King of England as well as Scotland, while Charles undertook to establish a Presbyterian form for the Church of England, and guarantee the rights of the Church of Scotland.
Robert Blair was a Scottish presbyterian minister who became a Westminster Divine and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1646, after failing to emigrate to Boston in 1636.
James Hamilton, 1st Viscount Claneboye was a Scot who became owner of large tracts of land in County Down, Ireland, and founded a successful Protestant Scots settlement there several years before the Plantation of Ulster. Hamilton was able to acquire the lands as a result of his connections with King James I, for whom he had been an agent in negotiations for James to succeed Queen Elizabeth I.
The Bishops' Wars were two separate conflicts fought in 1639 and 1640 between Scotland and England, with Scottish Royalists allied to England. They were the first of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which also include the First and Second English Civil Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, and the 1650 to 1652 Anglo-Scottish War.
Henry Leslie was a Scotsman who became the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor from 1635 to 1661 and briefly Bishop of Meath from January to April 1661.
Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the Republic of Ireland, 4.27% of the population described themselves as Protestant. In the Republic, Protestantism was the second largest religious grouping until the 2002 census in which they were exceeded by those who chose "No Religion". Some forms of Protestantism existed in Ireland in the early 16th century before the English Reformation, but demographically speaking, these were very insignificant and the real influx of Protestantism began only with the spread of the English Reformation to Ireland. The Church of Ireland was established by King Henry VIII of England, who had himself proclaimed as King of Ireland.
Covenanters were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. It originated in disputes with James VI and his son Charles I over church organisation and doctrine, but expanded into political conflict over the limits of royal authority.
John Livingstone was a Scottish minister. He was the son of William Livingstone, minister of Kilsyth, and afterwards of Lanark, said to be a descendant of the second son James, of the fourth Lord Livingston. His mother was Agnes, daughter of Alexander Livingston, portioner, Falkirk, brother of the Laird of Belstane.
The Battle of the Brig of Dee took place on 18–19 June 1639 at the Bridge of Dee in Scotland, and was the only serious military action of the First Bishops' War. It featured a Royalist force under James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, opposed by Covenanters led by James Graham, 5th Earl of Montrose, and resulted in a Covenanter victory.
The Treaty of London of 1641 was an agreement between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland which formally ended the 1639 to 1640 Bishops' Wars.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the wars of the Three Kingdoms:
John Semple was a seventeenth-century minister who served in both Ulster and Scotland. He began his ministry by exhorting the people while leading the psalm-singing. His Presbyterian principles brought him into opposition to the policies of the civil authorities. Semple refused to take The Black Oath, a stance that brought him into conflict with those sent from Dublin to apprehend non swearers.
The First Bishops' War was a conflict that took place in Scotland in 1639 between a Scottish political movement known as the Covenanters and forces loyal to King Charles I, who at that time was the king of both Scotland and England. Military activity was mostly limited to skirmishing in the north-east of Scotland. Scottish and English armies assembled at the border in June 1639 but withdrew without a battle after agreeing to a treaty. However, this failed to resolve the political tensions and fighting resumed the next year with the Second Bishops' War. The Bishops' Wars were the first of a series now called the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
