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Chapter 11
King, Commonwealth and Revolution (1625–1690)
In This Chapter
Looking at the reign of Charles I
Considering the reign of Charles II
Studying the reign of James II and VII
Understanding the Glorious Revolution
Focusing on the first Jacobite Rebellion
Looking at everyday life in 17th-century Scotland
The years between 1625 and 1690 were nothing short of momentous. During this period, the course of modern Scottish and British history was set in motion. In the name of Christ, all ma
The Presbyterian Church in Scotland didn’t want bishops ru
The Reign of Charles I
Charles I came to the throne in 1625 following the death of his father James VI and I. Like his father he believed that he was an instrument of God and therefore had a divine right to rule – he wasn’t answerable to his court, to his parliament or to his people, only to God. Sounds delusional, but this is what Charles and others who supported him at the time believed.
However, unlike his father, Charles lacked the wisdom and the political skills to sustain his reign for more than 24 years. Too arrogant, too stupid and too aloof, Charles succeeded in alienating his people north and south of the border.
Although he was crowned king of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1625, Charles waited for eight years to have his coronation in Scotland – and what a provocation it caused! The queen, Henrietta-Maria, was a Catholic and held a Mass in Edinburgh. Ornately dressed bishops were in attendance at the coronation ceremony, and there was a lot of kneeling before the altar. Presbyterians were almost apoplectic at the open display of popish sympathies. It all seemed like a massive snub to Calvinist Scotland – something that people didn’t expect, because Charles had been born in Dunfermline Palace in 1600 and had been baptised at Holyrood by a Presbyterian minister. Still, he had left Scotland before his fourth birthday and returned only once, in 1633, for his coronation. So, maybe Scotland’s hopes were misplaced.
The Book of Common Prayer and more trouble for Charles
The furore over the coronation was nothing compared to Charles’s attempts to impose the English
Book of Common Prayer
on the Scottish Church without any consultation. Although it was drafted by Scottish bishops, the new prayer book was clearly the work of Charles’s chief adviser, Archbishop William Laud.
The first reading of the book took place on 23 July 1637 in St Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, and it led to a riot. One of the serving women, warming the pew for her mistress, Je
The ferment in Edinburgh spread like a plague to other parts of the country. The earl of Montrose summed up the general mood when he claimed that the book had emerged ‘from the bowels of the whore of Babylon’!
This was the final straw for the Scottish nobility. Charles had succeeded in alienating the very people who should’ve been his natural supporters. But it wasn’t just the coronation and the prayer book that left them feeling hacked off; there were other issues as well:
The Act of Revocation of 1625:
The act threatened to repossess all the lands gained by the nobility during the Reformation.
Promotion of bishops to the most important offices of state:
Archbishop John Spottiswoode was appointed chancellor, the highest political office in Scotland. This policy was hugely resented by the politically ambitious nobles, like John Stewart, Earl of Traquair and Lord Treasurer.
The Privy Council, the ruling executive in Scotland, suspended the reading of what now was known as ‘Laud’s Liturgy’ and pleaded with the king to take a step back. But Charles was not for turning. He chose to make a stand on his authority, turning a crisis into a full-scale rebellion against kingly powers.
In December, an alternative government was formed in the shape of what was known as the ‘Five Tables’, a body made up of nobles, ministers, barons and burgesses, as well as an executive committee. Charles treated the Tables with contempt. He issued a new proclamation demanding obedience, pointing out that he and he alone was responsible for the new prayer book. The response was not what the king expected!
The National Covenant
The Tables meeting in Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh in February 1638 greeted the royal proclamation with derision. Rather than submit to royal authority, they presented the king with a challenge of their own making – the National Covenant. The following extract from the document contains the core of the argument against unrestrained royal authority:
we declare before God and men, That we have no intention nor desire to attempt anything that may turn to the dishonour of God, or to the diminution of the King’s greatness and authority; but, on the contrary, we promise and swear, That we shall, to the uttermost of our power, with our means and lives, stand to the defence of our dread sovereign the King’s Majesty, his person and authority, in the defence and preservation of the foresaid true religion, liberties and laws of the kingdom; 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, means 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 general, and to every one of us in particular.
On the surface, it seems a fairly inoffensive statement of loyalty to the king. The architects of the document – Archibald Johnston (a lawyer) and Alexander Henderson (a minister) – had no desire to appear radical. But the National Covenant had buried within it something truly revolutionary: in a nutshell, it said that as long as the king was prepared to uphold the ‘one true religion’ – that is Presbyterianism – he would enjoy the full devotion and support of his people. But should he fail in this, then the people had the right to remove him.
So, there was no acceptance or recognition of the divine right of kings to rule – it was rule by the consent of Parliament and the General Assembly.
The National Covenant was signed by the political elite present but then distributed throughout the country for wider subscription. This gave the Covenant the status of expressing the settled will of the Scottish people. Those signing the document were known as the Covenanters.
Royal reaction
The marquis of Hamilton convinced Charles that he ought to reconvene the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to meet in Glasgow in November 1638, for the first time in 20 years. The goal of reconvening the General Assembly wasn’t clear, but the outcome was:
They swept away everything that the Stewarts had worked for in trying to build a British Church (see Chapter 10):
Laud’s Liturgy
The Five Articles of Perth
The Court of High Commission
The bishops (who had been ba
The one true religion was declared the government of Scotland.
The General Assembly presented Charles with a dilemma of major proportions: how could he rule by divine right in England but only by the consent of Parliament and the General Assembly in Scotland? An impasse had been reached.
The royal solution was to send an army north, but that was risky because it meant recalling the English Parliament (which had not sat for 11 years) to vote funds for war. Charles wanted to avoid that, so a woefully ill-equipped army was sent north. The first of the Bishops’ Wars began.
The Scots blocked the royalist advance at Berwick, and a treaty was drawn up between the king and the Covenanters. The Covenanters agreed to set aside the decisions of the ‘illegal’ Glasgow assembly. In return, Charles agreed to reconvene another assembly in Edinburgh and to a new sitting of Parliament. The treaty provided a breathing space but not a permanent peace – anyone with an ounce of sense knew that Edinburgh would simply confirm the decisions arrived at in Glasgow. But the Edinburgh Assembly went one stage further by separating Church and state – churchmen were ba
While Charles was drawing up his plans for another war to enforce his authority north of the border, the Scots caught him off-guard. A Covenanting army under the command of Alexander Leslie, veteran of Continental wars, marched into the north of England. In August 1640, they defeated royal forces at the Battle of Newburn in the second Bishops’ War.
Newcastle became the Scots’ headquarters. They were now in a position to cut off coal supplies to London. Charles had no choice but to sue for peace. While in Edinburgh, between August and November 1641, he reluctantly recognised a Presbyterian Kirk and the right of Parliament to sit every three years. Worse still, he had to agree to write a blank cheque to cover the Scottish army’s daily expenses in the north of England until peace was reached.
Charles was broke and there was no way he could afford to make good his promise to the Scots. He had no choice but to recall the English Parliament, which was anything but friendly to him! This began a chain of events that used to be called the English Civil War but is now known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms
While Charles was in Edinburgh, things kicked off in Ireland. Catholics there had decided to massacre their Protestant brethren. An agreement with the English Parliament saw a Covenanting force of more than 11,000 men sent to Ulster to pacify the Irish rebels. While this was happening, England was sliding into civil war. The recalled Parliament made demands of Charles that would’ve stripped him of his royal authority. Rejecting these demands, Charles raised his standard at Newark in August 1642 and battle commenced. Such was the reputation of ‘invincibility’ of the Covenanting army that both the king and the parliamentarians sought military assistance from the Scots.