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The Scots entered the civil war in England on the side of the parliamentarians. But there was to be a price for this assistance: the Solemn League and Covenant, in September 1643. By the terms of the Covenant, Presbyterianism, the one true religion, would also become the faith of the English. In reality, the wording was a bit vague, and it would have to be agreed to by the English Parliament before it could be implemented once the war was over. There wasn’t really much chance of this happening, but it sounded promising enough for the Scots to ally themselves with the English parliamentarians against Charles.
In January 1644, an army of more than 18,000 troops, 3,000 horses and 600 dragoons marched into England; another 8,000 troops followed in June. This tipped the scales in favour of Oliver Cromwell and Parliament, and the Royalists were well beaten at Marston Moor, near York, on 2 July 1644 and again at Naseby on 12 June 1645. God’s army was invincible – or was it?
That invincible reputation came under close scrutiny in Scotland’s own civil war. Between 1644 and 1645, a former leading Covenanter, James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, in alliance with Irish rebels, inflicted a series of defeats on the Covenanters, at places such as Tippermuir, Inverlochy and Kilsyth. For his services, Montrose was made lord lieutenant and captain general of Scotland by a grateful Charles. The war was effectively ended when Montrose’s army was defeated on a misty morning at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, on 13 September 1645. But another blow was struck at the invincibility of the Covenanting army when Irish rebel forces under the command of Owen Roe O’Neill defeated the Scots at Benburb on 5 June 1646. Maybe God wasn’t on their side after all?
We’ve got to talk about Charles
Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark in May 1646. But what were they to do with the defeated king? What was he worth to them? God’s own people decided to sell him to the English in 1647 in return for part payment of arrears of pay for the army amounting to £4.8 million in Scottish money. As one historian put it, they had entered England as part of religious crusade and left as mercenaries!
Handing the king over to Cromwell didn’t go down well in some quarters north of the border. The 2nd earl of Lauderdale visited Charles in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. He promised him military support if he would agree to impose Presbyterianism on England for a trial period of three years. With his fingers crossed behind his back, Charles agreed and a treaty called the Engagement was signed in December 1647.
The treaty split the Covenanters in two. Most of the nobility favoured the treaty and were known as the Engagers, but the clergy and some of the more militant among the nobility refused to believe Charles’s sudden conversion to the one true religion. So, when the duke of Hamilton led the Scottish army south, it was understrength, although still around 20,000 strong. The army was met at Preston by Cromwell’s New Model Army of only 8,000 and cut to pieces in a battle lasting three days in August 1648. Charles himself was executed on 30 January 1649.
The Reign of Charles II
When news reached Scotland of the defeat of the Engagers at Preston, Presbyterian communities in the southwest of Scotland staged what proved to be a
coup d’état.
Known as the Whiggamores (the ‘sour milk men’ –
Whigg
is a Scots word for ‘sour milk’ or ‘whey’, the main diet of the poor), they marched on Edinburgh with the support of Cromwell. A radical Presbyterian government was formed led by lairds, merchants and parish ministers.
The first thing the government of the saints did was to pass the Act of Classes, which disqualified the leading Engagers from holding office; it also abolished all the legislation passed by previous Scottish parliaments. But the Whigs, as they came to be known, for all their radicalism, opposed the execution of the king.
In reaction to the execution, the Scottish government immediately offered the crown of not only Scotland but also England, Ireland and France to Charles’s son, who at that point was in exile in The Hague, Holland. A bit presumptuous!
Charles II was proclaimed king by the Scots, but only on the basis that he was to be a covenanted king and that Presbyterianism was to be imposed on England and Ireland. No trial periods this time round. Charles II was willing to sign up to the Presbyterian agenda, but he wouldn’t agree to unilateral imposition of it in other parts of Britain.
In early 1650, he sent the exiled Montrose to Scotland to renew war against the Covenanters, but his ragbag army was defeated at Carbisdale in April that year. Montrose was hanged and quartered at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh. All the officers captured were put to the axe. ‘Jesus and no quarter’ was the rally cry of the Covenanters – now you know what that meant!
With no cards left to play, Charles II signed the Treaty of Breda with the Scots, accepting the conditions of the Scottish commissioners regarding the Covenant, and arrived in Scotland in June 1650.
Charles II may have been playing at being a Presbyterian, but how he was made to play! As one observer put it, ‘He was made to observe the Sabbath with more rigour than the Jews.’ This was a bit of a shock to the system – Charles had pretty much lived the life of a libertine in Holland. While at Falkland Palace, Fife, card playing, dancing and of course fornication was frowned upon. The young prince was preached at, prayed at and forced to listen to endless sermons. However, soon he was put out of his misery.
The Cromwellian occupation
On hearing the news of Charles II’s arrival, the English Commonwealth declared war on Scotland. The former allies had fallen out badly with each other. But the strategy in forming a Covenanting army was weird to say the least. Instead of recruiting as many men as possible, the Scottish Parliament decided to purge the army of anyone suspected of low morals or of being king’s men rather than Kirk men. Within three days, 80 officers and 3,000 men were sent home. God’s army was no match for the New Model Army, and at Dunbar, near Edinburgh, they were routed. The English were in control of Edinburgh and most of the south of Scotland.
The Scottish army was pushed north. In a desperate attempt to increase the pool of soldier material a resolution was put to the General Assembly to a
After formally signing the Solemn League and Covenant, Charles II was crowned king at Scone, near Perth, on 1 January 1651. Although there was bad blood between him and the Covenanters, he persuaded the Scots to have one last throw of the dice. An army was raised and an invasion of England began in the hope that English Presbyterians and Royalists would flock to join it. But as usual, the English failed to turn up! Cromwell’s army met the Scots at Worcester on 3 September 1651 and destroyed them. After hiding up an oak tree, Charles escaped to France. Scottish resistance was over.
Some Scots will boast that although we’ve lost battles, we have never been conquered. Well, that view was shot to pieces –not only were the Scots conquered, but they were also incorporated via the ‘Tender of Union’ into the English Commonwealth! Scotland had 30 representatives (half of them English officers) in the Westminster Parliament. General George Monck was put in charge of Scotland.
Was it so bad? Well, being occupied by a foreign army of never fewer than 10,000 men would never be an enjoyable experience, and there were a few Royalist pockets of resistance until 1655. Passes were needed to move from one part of the country to another, and the total amount the Scots had to pay in taxes to pay for their subjugation was £90,000 year!
But, on the plus side, ‘honest George’ without any consultation with the Scots went about improving the justice and tax systems in more efficient and fairer ways. By 1655 it was said, ‘a man may ride all over Scotland with £100 in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years’.
The Restoration of the monarchy
The tight grip of the English occupiers began to loosen, although this had nothing to do with the Scots and more to do with the political chaos in England caused by the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658. ‘Honest’ George Monck and his Scottish ally, Cameron of Lochiel, formerly sworn enemies of royalty, marched south in 1660 to restore parliament and the monarchy. Those who marched with him became the king’s prestigious Second Foot Guards (later, the Coldstream Guards).
Charles II received his English coronation on 1 May. The ‘Merry Monarch’, as he was known, proved to be far from jovial when it came to Scotland – which he never visited again during the rest of his reign.
What did the Restoration mean politically for Scotland? In a nutshell, it restored five things:
The monarchy
The Privy Council
The Scottish Parliament
The Scottish judiciary
The bishops
This didn’t happen overnight – in fact, it took more than two years to introduce all these changes – but by the end of 1662 it was pretty much in place. An Act of Rescissory, passed on 1 January 1661, declared null and void all legislation passed by the Covenanting and Cromwellian regimes. It seemed like the last 30 or so years had all been a dream – no, a nightmare!
Purge, purge and purge some more
However, these changes came at a price for those who had run Scotland prior to restoration. The marquis of Argyll who had collaborated with the Cromwellian regime was executed, and his severed head was placed on a spike outside the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, replacing the severed head of the royalist Montrose. Montrose’s remains were dug up and given a state funeral and interred in St Giles’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, coincidentally facing Argyll.
The Scottish authorities resolved to make a public example of a minister, so the Rev Dr James Guthrie was singled out as one of the leading opponents of Charles I’s religious policies. He was hanged and dismembered at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, on 1 June 1661. His snow-white head was cut off and was fixed on a spike in the Netherbow, where it remained for 27 years. Archibald Johnston, one of the drafters of the National Covenant of 1638, after being captured in France was hanged in 1663 and his severed head was placed on a spike, also in the Netherbow in the capital.
There was a determined drive to remove any vestiges of Covenanting rule. Both the National and Solemn League Covenants were declared treasonable. Those still subscribing to them were subject to execution for treason. An Oath of Allegiance to the crown was passed by the Scottish Parliament in February 1661. Those in the Kirk and the universities with Covenanting sympathies were driven from their posts. One-third of the Scottish clergy were ejected from their posts (in England, it was only one-tenth). In the southwest of Scotland alone, around 200 ministers were removed – a kind of religious equivalent of the later Highland Clearances!
The death rattle of the Covenanters