"National Covenant" redirects here. For the 1949 petition calling for Scottish home rule, see Scottish Covenant.
A painting of an illegal conventicle: Covenanters in a Glen, by Alexander CarseFlag used by Scottish Covenanters.
The Covenanters were a Scottish Presbyterian movement that played an important part in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent that of England and of Ireland, during the 17th century. Presbyterian denominations tracing their history to the Covenanters and often incorporating the name continue the ideas and traditions in Scotland and internationally.
The recorded history of Scotland begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, when the province of Britannia reached as far north as the Antonine Wall. North of this was Caledonia, inhabited by the Picti, whose uprisings forced Rome's legions back to Hadrian's Wall. As Rome finally withdrew from Britain, Gaelic raiders called the Scoti began colonising Western Scotland and Wales. Prior to Roman times, prehistoric Scotland entered the Neolithic Era about 4000 BC, the Bronze Age about 2000 BC, and the Iron Age around 700 BC.
England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed. The earliest evidence for early modern humans in North West Europe, a jawbone discovered in Devon at Kents Cavern in 1927, was re-dated in 2011 to between 41,000 and 44,000 years old. Continuous human habitation in England dates to around 13,000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. The region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. In the Iron Age, England, like all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes in the south east. In AD 43 the Roman conquest of Britain began; the Romans maintained control of their province of Britannia until the early 5th century.
The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to about 12,500 years ago, shortly after the receding of the ice after the younger Dryas cold phase of the Quaternary ended around 9700 BC, and heralds the beginning of Prehistoric Ireland, which includes the archaeological periods known as the Mesolithic, the Neolithic from about 4000 BC, the Copper and Bronze Age from about 2300 BC and Iron Age beginning about 600 BC. Ireland's prehistory ends with the emergence of "protohistoric" Gaelic Ireland in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.
They derived their name from the word covenant meaning a band, legal document or agreement, with particular reference to the Covenant between God and the Israelites in the Old Testament.[1][2]
A covenant in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a seal. Because the presence of a seal indicated an unusual solemnity in the promises made in a covenant, the common law would enforce a covenant even in the absence of consideration. In United States contract law, an implied covenant of good faith is presumed.
A biblical covenant is a religious covenant that is described in the Bible. All Abrahamic religions consider biblical covenants important.
Beginnings
The Covenanters are so named for the series of bands or covenants by which the adherents bound themselves to maintain the Presbyterian doctrine and polity as the sole form of religion of their country. The first "godly band" of the Lords of the Congregation and their followers is dated December 1557; but more important is the covenant of 1581, drawn up by John Craig in consequence of the strenuous efforts Roman Catholics were making to regain their hold upon Scotland, and called the King's Confession or Negative Confession. Based on the Scots Confession of Faith of 1560, this document denounced the Pope and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church in no measured terms. It was adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, signed by King James VI and his household, and enjoined on persons of all ranks and classes, and was subscribed to again in 1590 and 1596.[3]
The Lords of the Congregation, originally styling themselves "the Faithful", were a group of Protestant Scottish nobles who in the mid-16th century favoured a reformation of the church according to Protestant principles and a Scottish-English alliance.
John Craig was a Scottish minister. He was originally a member of the Dominican Order, wherefore he had access to read Papally-censored works of John Calvin and was converted to Protestant doctrine. He later joined forces with John Knox and had a significant part in the Scottish Reformation.
The Scots Confession is a Confession of Faith written in 1560 by six leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland. The text of the Confession was the first subordinate standard for the Protestant church in Scotland. Along with the Book of Discipline and the Book of Common Order, this is considered to be a formational document for the Church of Scotland during the time.
Upheaval and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
In 1637, Scotland was in a state of turmoil. King Charles I and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, met with a reverse in their efforts to impose a new liturgy on the Scots. The new liturgy had been devised by a panel of Scottish bishops, including Archbishop Spottiswoode of St. Andrews, but a riot against its use was orchestrated in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, ostensibly started by Jenny Geddes. Fearing further measures on the part of the king, it occurred to Archibald Johnston (Lord Warriston) to revive the Negative Confession of 1581 in a form suited to the times. Together with the cooperation of Alexander Henderson, this National Covenant (as it was called) was finalized in early 1638.
Charles I was the monarch over the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.
William Laud was an English archbishop and academic. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, during the personal rule of Charles I. Arrested in 1640, he was executed in 1645.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", sent from Rome in the year 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams.
Greyfriars Kirkyard where the National Covenant was signed in 1638The Signing of the National Covenant in Greyfriars Kirkyard, by William AllanEdinburgh's copy of the National Covenant
Additional matter intended to suit the document to the special circumstances of the time was added, primarily a recital of the acts of parliament against "superstitious and papistical rites" and an elaborate oath to maintain the reformed religion. The Covenant was adopted and signed by a large gathering in the kirkyard of Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, on 28 February 1638, after which copies were sent throughout the country for signing. The subscribers engaged by oath to maintain religion in the form that it existed in 1580, and to reject all innovations introduced since that time, while also professing loyalty to the king. It did not specifically reject episcopacy but in effect undermined it. The year 1638 marked an apex of events for the Covenanters, for it was the time of broad confrontations with the established church supported by the monarchy. Confrontations occurred in several parts of Scotland, such as the one with the Bishops of Aberdeen by a high level assembly of Covenanters staging their operations from Muchalls Castle. The General Assembly of 1638 was composed of ardent Covenanters, and in 1640 the Covenant was adopted by the Scottish parliament, its subscription being made a requirement for all citizens. Before this date, the Covenanters were usually referred to as Supplicants, but from about this time the former designation began to prevail. The Covenanters raised an army to resist Charles I's religious reforms, and defeated him in the Bishops' Wars. The crisis that this caused to the Stuart monarchy helped bring about the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the English Civil War, the Scottish Civil War and Irish Confederate Wars.
Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 16th century, and a number of notable Edinburgh residents are interred at Greyfriars. The Kirkyard is operated by City of Edinburgh Council in liaison with a charitable trust, which is linked to but separate from the church. The Kirkyard and its monuments are protected as a category A listed building.
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Muchalls Castle stands overlooking the North Sea in the countryside of Kincardine and Mearns, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The lower course is a well preserved Romanesque, double-groined 13th century towerhouse structure, built by the Frasers of Muchalls. Upon this structure, the 17th-century castle was begun by Alexander Burnett of Leys and completed by his son, Sir Thomas Burnett, 1st Baronet, in 1627. The Burnetts of Leys built the remaining four storey present day castle.
For the following ten years of civil war in Britain, the Covenanters were the de facto government of Scotland. In 1642, they sent an army to Ulster in Ireland to protect the Scottish settlers there from the Irish Catholic rebels who had attacked them in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The Scottish army remained in Ireland until the end of the civil wars, but was confined to its garrison around Carrickfergus after its defeat at the Battle of Benburb in 1646.
In law and government, de facto describes practices that exist in reality, even if not officially recognized by laws. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with de jure, which refers to things that happen according to law. Unofficial customs that are widely accepted are sometimes called de facto standards.
Ulster is a province in the north of the island of Ireland. It is made up of nine counties, six of which are in Northern Ireland and three of which are in the Republic of Ireland. It is the second largest and second most populous of Ireland's four provinces, with Belfast being its biggest city. Unlike the other provinces, Ulster has a high percentage of Protestants, making up almost half of its population. English is the main language and Ulster English the main dialect. A minority also speak Irish, and there are Gaeltacht in southern Londonderry, the Gaeltacht Quarter of Belfast and in Donegal, where 25% of the total Gaeltacht population of Ireland is located. Lough Neagh, in the east, is the largest lake in the British Isles, while Lough Erne in the west is one of its largest lake networks. The main mountain ranges are the Mournes, Sperrins, Croaghgorms and Derryveagh Mountains.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for Catholics. The coup failed and the rebellion developed into an ethnic conflict between the Gaelic Irish and old English Catholics on one side, and both ethnically English Protestants and Scottish/Presbyterian planters on the other. This began a conflict known as the Irish Confederate Wars.
The Solemn League And Covenant, as publicised in England
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
A further Covenanter military intervention began in 1643. The leaders of the English Parliament, worsted in the English Civil War, implored the aid of the Scots, which was promised on condition that the Scottish system of church government would be adopted in England. Following considerable debate, a document called the Solemn League and Covenant was drawn up. This was in effect a treaty between England and Scotland which called for the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland and the reformation of religion in England and Ireland "according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches", and the extirpation of popery and prelacy. It did not explicitly mention Presbyterianism and included some ambiguous formulations that left the door open to Independency. It was subscribed to by many in both kingdoms and also in Ireland, and was approved by the English Parliament, and with some slight modifications by the Westminster Assembly of Divines. This agreement meant that the Covenanters sent another army south to England to fight on the Parliamentarian side in the First English Civil War. The Scottish armies in England were instrumental in bringing about the victory of the English Parliament over the king.[4]
In turn, this sparked the outbreak of civil war in Scotland in 1644–47, as Scottish Royalist opponents of the Covenanters took up arms against them. Royalism was most common among Scottish Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, who were opposed to the Covenanters' imposition of their religious settlement on the country. The Covenanters' enemies, led by James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose and aided by an Irish expeditionary force and Highland clans led by Alasdair Mac Colla won a series of victories over hastily raised Covenanter forces in 1644–45. However, the Scottish Royalists were ultimately defeated in September 1645, at the Battle of Philiphaugh, near Selkirk. The disaster at Philiphaugh was largely due to the Royalists' own disunity and the return of the main Covenanter armies from England. The civil war in Scotland was a bitter episode which exposed the religious divisions between Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics, the political divisions between Royalists and Covenanters and the cultural divisions between the Highlands and Lowlands.
Replica Covenanter flag, National Museum of Scotland
The end of the first civil wars in Scotland and England left the Covenanters hopeful that their Solemn League and Covenant would be implemented in the Three Kingdoms. However, Charles I refused to accept it when he surrendered himself to the Scots in 1646. He was taken to Newcastle, where several attempts were made to persuade him to take the Covenants. When this failed, he was handed over to the commissioners of Parliament in early 1647. However, many Covenanters, led by James Hamilton, were suspicious of their English allies' intentions and opened secret negotiations with Charles I. He made important concessions to them in the "Engagement" made with the Scots in December 1647. The Engagement was rejected by the militant Covenanters known as the Kirk Party, who wanted the king to endorse their agenda explicitly before an alliance could be reached. A Scottish army invaded England in support of the Engagement, but was routed at the Battle of Preston, leaving the Kirk Party in the ascendant in Scotland. The Westminster Confession of Faith, which had been submitted for ratification in 1646, was in part adopted by act of the English Parliament in 1648 as the Articles of Christian Religion, while in Scotland it was approved with minor reservations in August 1647 and ratified by the Scottish Parliament in February 1649.
The Covenanters' insistence on dictating the future of both Scotland and England eventually led to all-out war with their erstwhile allies, the English Parliament, and to the Covenanters signing an alliance with Charles II known as the Treaty of Breda. Charles II, before landing in Scotland in June 1650, declared by a solemn oath his approbation of both covenants, and this was renewed on the occasion of his coronation at Scone in the following January.
However, the Covenanters were utterly defeated in 1650–52 by the forces of the English Parliament under Oliver Cromwell. Lowland Scotland was occupied by the New Model Army and the Covenanters were sidelined. From 1638 to 1651 the Covenanters, led by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, had been the dominant party in Scotland, directing policy both at home and abroad. Their power had been seriously weakened, however, by Cromwell's victory at Dunbar in September 1650 and was practically destroyed after the Battle of Worcester and the English occupation of Lowland Scotland. Under Cromwell's Commonwealth, Scotland was forced into a temporary union with England and the General Assembly of the Kirk lost all civil power.
The murder of Archbishop Sharp on his memorial at St. AndrewsA conventicle in progress, from a children's history book published in 1906A Covenanter's bible in the National Museum of ScotlandCovenanters Prison, Greyfriars Kirkyard
Worse was to come for the Covenanters when Charles II was restored nine years later. Firmly seated upon the throne, Charles renounced the covenants, which in 1662 were declared unlawful oaths to be abjured by all persons holding public offices. Argyll himself was executed for treason, episcopacy was restored, James Sharp was appointed Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland, the court of high commission was revived, and ministers who refused to recognize the authority of the bishops were expelled from their livings. Archbishop Sharp survived an assassination attempt in 1668 only to be killed by another group of Covenanters in 1679.
Following the restoration of Episcopacy, rebel ministers began to preach at secret open-air meetings in the countryside known as "conventicles". A period of sustained persecution began. Oppressive measures against these illegal field assemblies where attendance was made a capital offence[5] led to an outbreak of armed rebellion in 1666, originating in Galloway. Advancing from the west towards Edinburgh, a small force of poorly armed Covenanters was defeated at the Battle of Rullion Green in the Pentland Hills, a location which caused the whole tragic episode to be misleadingly named the Pentland Rising. To quell unrest in south-west Scotland, the government brought in 6,000 Highland soldiers, described by its enemies as an "inhumane and barbarous Highland host", which were quartered on suspected Covenanters and were accused of committing many atrocities.[5]
A further rebellion broke out in 1679, after the unexpected success of a group of covenanters, armed with pitch forks and the like, against government forces led by John Graham of Claverhouse at the Battle of Drumclog. For a time the authorities looked in danger of losing control of the south west of Scotland, as more and more people joined the rebel camp at Bothwell near Glasgow; but only a few weeks after Drumclog the rebels were defeated at the Battle of Bothwell Brig. In the weeks before the battle the Covenanters spent more time arguing among themselves than preparing for the inevitable counterstroke, which did much to contribute towards their downfall. Of 1,200 captured rebels taken to Edinburgh, some 400 were imprisoned in an area of Greyfriars Kirkyard over the winter months.[6]
Inevitably, the government behaved harshly at first towards some of those caught in arms. On the initiative of James, Duke of Monmouth, who led the king's army to victory at Bothwell Brig, a more conciliatory policy was followed for a time, though this met with limited success.
Through the period of repression the Covenanters held their convictions with a zeal that was only intensified by the persecution. For them it was a matter of belief. For the government, in contrast, the whole conventicle movement was seen as a problem of public order, which they attempted to deal with often using very inadequate resources. However, after the collapse of the 1679 rebellion a more dangerous element entered into the whole equation.
A painting showing the last Covenanter martyr James Renwick being taken to execution in 1688
In 1680 a more extreme mood appeared among sections of the Covenanter underground, which found expression in a document known as the Sanquhar Declaration. This was the manifesto of the followers of the Reverend Richard Cameron, soon to be known as the Cameronians. Hitherto, many in the Covenanter underground maintained an outward loyalty to the king, despite their opposition to the religious policy of his government; but the Cameronians took matters to a new height, renouncing their allegiance to Charles and denouncing his brother, James, as a papist. One extreme position inevitably led to another: the government in attempting to stamp out sedition authorized field executions without trial. This was the beginning of what Robert Wodrow later called the Killing Time. Cameron himself was killed in a clash with government forces at Airds Moss in July 1680, but his followers, now a tiny part of the Covenanter movement, continued to exist. After the accession of James VII in 1685 the King issued a series of Letters of Indulgence allowing such "ousted ministers as had lived peaceably and orderly to return to their livings".[7] This succeeded in luring many ministers away from the struggle, but those remaining became more determined. When William of Orange summoned a Convention of the Estates which met on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh to consider whether Scotland should recognise him or James, forces of Cameronians arrived to bolster William's support. In the subsequent Jacobite rising, the Cameronian Guard helped to defeat the Jacobite Highlanders, particularly at the Battle of Dunkeld. Although the Cameronians had helped to defend the Revolution, they were disappointed that their religious views were not adopted by the new government. The binding obligation of the National Covenant (1638) and the Solemn League and Covenant (1643) was passed over since the acts of parliament in favour of these had been rescinded by Charles and were not revived under William and Mary. For some Covenanters even William of Orange was an "uncovenanted" King since he was head of the Church of England which was an episcopal church. Perhaps 1000 people in the south west made an issue of the failure to maintain the covenants and also, with some justification, viewed the new establishment as tainted by Erastianism. They formed the United Societies refusing to recognise the "usurped" Church of Scotland.[8]
Martyrs and memorials
Though the rebellion had ended and a degree of Presbyterian tolerance for other faiths had been suggested by thanks given for James's Indulgence of 1687, for allowing all "to serve God after their own way and manner",[7] memories of "the Killing Time" were now kept alive by monuments and tombstones at the many martyr graves across the south of Scotland, particularly the south west. "For the word of God and Scotland's work of Reformation. Scotland's heritage comes at a price which invokes our greatest heart felt thanks for the lives sacrificed on the anvil of persecution, when innocent blood stained the heather on our moors and ran down the gutters of our streets with sorrow and sighing beyond contemplation."
"Halt passenger, take heed what you do see, This tomb doth shew for what some men did die." Martyrs' Monument tablet, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh
Tombs are scattered around the moors and monuments were added later, for "if the authorities learnt that a murdered Covenanter had been given a decent burial, their bodies were usually disinterred and buried in places reserved for thieves and malcontents. Quite often the corpse was hanged or beheaded first", and burying the body in the kirkyard could result in another punitive death.[5] In 1707 a monument was erected at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, near the open ground known as the "Covenanters' Prison", where some twelve-hundred Covenanters were held captive after Bothwell.[6] It gives a figure of 18,000 killed in the period 1661 to 1680, quoting an estimate which Daniel Defoe claimed was "Collected from the Accounts both Publick and Private" for his Memoirs of the Church of Scotland (1717).
The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution by Robert Wodrow, published in 1721-1722, produced a detailed record and denounced the persecution of the Covenanters. This martyrology would be brought forward again when elements in the Church of Scotland felt it to be suffering state interference, as at the Disruption of 1843.[9]
The United Societies continued without preaching, sacraments, or government until they were joined by one ordained minister in 1706, then in 1743 the Reformed Presbytery was organised.[10] Covenanters fleeing persecution had set up churches in Ireland and North America and several small denominations were founded, including the Reformed Presbyterian Church.[8]
The "Burning Bush" emblem of the Church of Scotland bearing the motto "Yet it was not consumed"
From a religious perspective, "The king had been defeated in his attempt to dictate the religion of his subjects; Presbyterianism became the established religion. But it had been equally proved that the subjugation of the State to the Church, the supremacy, political as well as ecclesiastical, of the Kirk, was an impossibility. In this the Covenants had failed."[7] While the exploits and the sufferings of these martyrs in the cause of religious dissent and scripture as the sole "infallible rule of faith and practice" are still remembered, often in a romantic light, their aim of denying the religious freedom they sought for themselves to other denominations is reflected in the terms of ministerial and Christian communion of some groups which include "an approbation of the faithful contendings of the martyrs of Jesus, especially in Scotland, against Paganism, Popery, Prelacy, Malignancy and Sectarianism."[8]
Martyrs' Memorial, Barony North Church, Glasgow
Many actual and supposed places of concealment of Covenanters are recorded and perpetuate the memory of the 'Killing Times' such as Dunton Cove on the edge of Eaglesham Moor on the Craufurdland Water, Cleeves Cove on the Dusk Water near Dalry and Peden's Cave on the River Lugar near Ochiltree.
Covenanters started their migration to North America by way of Ireland. Having come to Ireland for religious, economic, and political reasons throughout the Seventeenth Century, Scottish Presbyterians, including Covenanters, once again for religious, economic, and political reasons felt compelled to migrate again. The migration is usually dated from the year 1717, when preacher William Tennent, founder of Log College, the first Presbyterian seminary in North America, came with his family to the Philadelphia area. In North America Covenanters became known as members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. They were among the most vocal agitators for independence from Great Britain and volunteered in large numbers as soldiers in the revolutionary armies. The Covenanters were opposed to slavery, and in 1800 the Reformed Church voted to outlaw slave-holding among its members.
↑ Furgol 1983, p.20 In the summer of 1643, the Scottish parliament and General Assembly of the Church entered into negotiations for an alliance with the English Parliament. Historians have concentrated on the clauses of the Solemn League and Covenant, the treaty which resulted from those deliberations.
↑ Currie 2009, pp.17–19 "Following the outbreak of the Civil War in England, in 1642, a committee of noblemen and clergy from both Scotland and England composed a document entitled the 'Solemn League and Covenant'. It was signed between September and October, in both countries, and later in the same year, in Ireland. This committed the Scots to supply an army to aid the Parliamentarian Par against the Royalists in the Civil War. As in the National Covenant, the signatories pledged to 'amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation'. As with the National Covenant they entered into a mutual contract with God where the signatory promised to reform his or her person, in this case, not only for the upholding of 'the Religion', but that 'the Lord may tu away his wrath, and heavy indignation'. (All quotations are from 'The Solemn League and Covenant', reprinted in SB, ILL, pp.122-5). The success of the Scottish National Covenant was thought by many sectarians and clergy alike to have been the direct result of the process of mutual bonding between the nation and God. Thus, at a time of rising religious schism, a threatened invasion of Irish Catholics and Royalist-Parliamentarian hostilities, the English Parliamentarians bound themselves to the same course that had appeared to guarantee the Scots 'virtually unmitigated success' (Edward J. Cowan, 'The Making of the National Covenant', in John Morrell, ed. (1988), p.75).
The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain".
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") over, principally, the manner of England's governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians in 1643 during the First English Civil War. On 17 August 1643 the Church of Scotland accepted it and on 25 September 1643 so did the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly.
Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven was a Scottish soldier in Swedish and Scottish service. Born illegitimate and raised as a foster child, he subsequently advanced to the rank of a Swedish Field Marshal, and in Scotland became Lord General in command of the Army of the Covenanters, privy councillor, captain of Edinburgh Castle, Lord Balgonie and Earl of Leven. In England he commanded the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant and was senior commander of the Army of Both Kingdoms (1642-1647).
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes known as the British Civil Wars, formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in the kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland between 1639 and 1651. The English Civil War proper has become the best-known of these conflicts; it included the abolition of the monarchy and the execution of the kingdom's monarch, Charles I, by the English Parliament in 1649.
This is a timeline of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the English Civil Wars.
Alexander Henderson was a Scottish theologian, and an important ecclesiastical statesman of his period. He is considered the second founder of the Reformed Church in Scotland, and its Presbyterian churches are largely indebted to him for the forms of their dogmas and organisation.
Between 1639 and 1653, Scotland was involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of wars starting with the Bishops Wars, the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the English Civil War, the Irish Confederate Wars, and finally the subjugation of Ireland and Scotland by the English Roundhead New Model Army.
The Engagers were a faction of the Scottish Covenanters, who made "The Engagement" with King Charles I in December 1647 while he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle by the English Parliamentarians after his defeat in the First Civil War.
The Treaty of Breda (1650) was signed on 1 May 1650 between Charles II and the Scottish Covenanters during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political. Independents reached particular prominence between 1642 and 1660, in the period of the English Civil War and of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, wherein the Parliamentary Army became the champion of Independent religious views against the Anglicanism or the Catholicism of Royalists and the Presbyterianism favoured by Parliament itself. The Independents advocated freedom of religion for non-Catholics.
The Killing Time was a period of conflict in Scottish history between the Presbyterian Covenanter movement, based largely in the south west of the country, and the government forces of Kings Charles II and James VII. The period, roughly from 1680 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was subsequently called The Killing Time by Robert Wodrow in his The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, published in 1721–22. It is an important episode in the martyrology of the Church of Scotland.
Robert Douglas (1594–1674) was the only minister of the Church of Scotland to be Moderator of the General Assembly five times.
The Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640 are generally viewed as the starting point of the 1639–1652 Wars of the Three Kingdoms that ultimately involved the whole of the British Isles. They originated in long-standing disputes over control and governance of the Church of Scotland or kirk that went back to the 1580s. These came to a head in 1637 when Charles I attempted to impose uniform practices between the kirk and the Church of England.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland is the original church of the Reformed Presbyterian tradition. The RPCS formed in 1690 when its members declined to be part of the establishment of the Church of Scotland. In 1876 the vast majority of Reformed Presbyterians joined the Free Church of Scotland, and thus the present-day RPCS is a continuing church. There are currently congregations in Airdrie, Stranraer, Stornoway, Glasgow, andEdinburgh.
Captain William Govan (1623–1661). was a Scottish officer who fought for the Covenanters during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He was awarded the honour of presenting Montrose's standard to the Scottish Parliament in 1650. He was accused of deserting the Scottish army later the same year and supporting the English New Model Army under the command of Oliver Cromwell, which was at that time invading Scotland. On 1 June 1661, the year after the restoration of the monarchy, and a few days after he was found guilty of treason, he was hanged as a traitor next to the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh and his head was put on a spike and displayed at West Port, Edinburgh.
The Reformed Presbyterian churches are a communion of Presbyterians originating in Scotland in 1690 when its members declined to be part of the establishment of the Church of Scotland. The Reformed Presbyterian churches collectively have a little over 9,538 members worldwide in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, France, the United States of America, Canada, Japan, South Sudan and Australia.
John Kennedy, 6th Earl of Cassilis, PC was a Scottish peer, the grandson of Gilbert Kennedy, 4th Earl of Cassilis, and nephew of John Kennedy, 5th Earl of Cassilis. He succeeded to the titles of 8th Lord Kennedy and 6th Earl of Cassilis on 25 July 1616. He was a non-sitting member of Cromwell's House of Lords, and was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Scotland on 13 February 1660/61. He held the office of Justice-general 1649-1651 and of an Extraordinary Lord of Session for Scotland June 1661-July 1662.
Scottish religion in the seventeenth century includes all forms of religious organisation and belief in the Kingdom of Scotland in the seventeenth century.
This is a timeline of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
References
Buckroyd, J. Church and State in Scotland, 1660-1681. 1980
Cowan, E. J. The Solemn League and Covenant, in Scotland and England, 1286-1815, ed. R. A. Mason, 1987.
Cowan, I. B. The Covenanters: a Revision Article'' in The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 28, pp43–54, 1949.
Cowan, I. B. The Scottish Covenanters, 1660-1688, 1976
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
