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Kitabı oku: «The Story of the Scottish Covenants in Outline», sayfa 4

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Assembly of 1639

As that time drew nigh, the King tried again to postpone or prorogue it; but it nevertheless met, and in the space of a few days effected a revolution unexampled in the previous history of Scotland. It set bounds to the power of the monarch. It ratified the Covenant, enjoining its subscription “under all civill paines”; it ratified the Act of the General Assembly of 1639, rejecting the service-book, Prelacy, etc.; it renewed the Act of Parliament of 1592 in favour of Presbytery, and annulled the Act of 1612 by which the Act of 1592 had been rescinded.

Parliament of 1640

The King had been preparing for the Second Bishops’ War, and the Covenanters marched into England, Montrose being the first to cross the Tweed. Again there were negotiations, and an agreement was at length come to at Westminster in August 1641. Charles now set out for Holyrood, and in the Scottish Parliament ratified the Westminster Treaty; and so explicitly, if not cordially, approved of the proceedings of the Parliament of 1640.

The Scots had now got all that they wanted from their King, although many of them must have doubted his sincerity, and feared a future revocation should that ever be in his power. This fear, coupled with a fellow-feeling for the Puritans, and gratitude for the seasonable assistance of the English in 1560, accounts for the readiness of the compliance with the proposal of the Commissioners of the Long Parliament who arrived in Edinburgh in August 1643.

The English ask Help

These Commissioners desired help from the Convention of Estates and from the General Assembly, and proposed that the two nations should enter into “a strict union and league,” with the object of bringing them closer in church government, and eventually extirpating Popery and Prelacy from the island.

Solemn League and Covenant

The suggestion that the league should be religious as well as civil having been accepted, Henderson drafted the famous Solemn League and Covenant.³ It was approved by the Convention of Estates and by the General Assembly on the 17th of August; and (after several alterations) by the Westminster Assembly and both Houses of the English Parliament.

The Covenant enjoined

In October the Commission of the General Assembly ordered that it should be forthwith printed, and gave instructions for the swearing and subscribing, presbyteries being ordered to proceed with the censures of the kirk “against all such as shall refuse or shift to swear and subscribe”; and the Commissioners of the Convention ordained that it should be sworn by all his Majesty’s Scottish subjects under pain of being “esteemed and punished as enemyes to religioune, his Majestie’s honour, and peace of thir kingdomes.” In Scotland it evoked more enthusiasm than in England; and, for a time at least, produced marvellous unanimity.

Montrose’s Army

The Scots took part against the royal army in the battle of Marston Moor (2nd July 1644); and soon afterwards Montrose, who had not approved of the Solemn League and Covenant, made his way into Scotland with the object of creating a diversion in favour of the King. Having raised an army in the Highlands, which was strengthened by an Irish contingent, he won a series of brilliant victories over the Covenanters at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearn, Alford, and Kilsyth.

Of Montrose’s army, Patrick Gordon, a royalist, wrote: “When God had given there enemies into there handes, the Irishes in particulare ware too cruell; for it was everiewhere observed they did ordinarely kill all they could be maister of, without any motion of pitie, or any consideration of humanitie: ney, it seemed to them there was no distinction betuixt a man and a beast; for they killed men ordinarly with no more feilling of compassion, and with the same carelesse neglect that they kill ane henn or capone for ther supper. And they were also, without all shame, most brutishlie given to uncleannes and filthie lust; as for excessive drinkeing, when they came where it might be had, there was no limites to there beastly appetites; as for godlesse avarice, and mercilesse oppression and plundering or the poore laborer, of those two cryeing sinnes the Scotes ware alse giltie as they.”

Retaliation

The same writer tells how the Irish were repaid for their cruelty by the victorious army of David Leslie at and after the battle of Philiphaugh (13th September 1645); and how their sin was then visited, not only upon themselves, but most brutally and pitilessly upon their wives and followers.⁴

The Engagement

On the 26th of December 1647, when the King was in Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight, he entered into an agreement in presence of three Scottish Commissioners – Loudoun, Lauderdale, and Lanark – in which he intimated his willingness to confirm the Solemn League and Covenant, by Act of Parliament in both kingdoms, provided that no one who was unwilling to take it should be constrained to do so; he was also to confirm by Act of Parliament in England, for three years, presbyterial government and the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for Worship, provided that he and his household should not be hindered from using the service he had formerly practised; and further, an effectual course was to be taken by Parliament and otherwise for suppressing the opinions and practices of Anti-Trinitarians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, Familists, Brownists, Separatists, Independents, Libertines, and Seekers.

On the other hand, Scotland was, in a peaceable way, to endeavour that the King should be allowed to go to London in safety, honour, and freedom, there to treat personally with the English Parliament and the Scottish Commissioners; and should this not be granted, Scotland was to emit certain declarations, and send an army into England for the preservation and establishment of religion, for the defence of his Majesty’s person and authority, for his restoration to power, and for settling a lasting peace.

This agreement was known as “The Engagement”; and the same name was applied to the expedition which, in furtherance of its object, the Duke of Hamilton led into England, only to be crushed by Cromwell at Preston in August 1648.

Charles II. proclaimed King

The Scottish Commissioners in London did what they could to prevent the execution of Charles the First, and on the 5th of February 1649 – six days after the scene in front of Whitehall – the Parliament of Scotland caused his son to be proclaimed at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, as King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. The Scots were determined that he should be their King, but they were as determined that he should not override either the General Assembly or the Parliament.

He did not like their conditions, and the first negotiations were abortive.

Montrose organised another expedition, which collapsed at Carbisdale on the 27th of April 1650; and on the 21st of May the gallant Marquis was ignominiously hanged at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and his dismembered body buried among malefactors in the Burgh Muir.

King and Covenants

The Prince had “already endeavoured to procure assistance from the Emperour, and the Electours, Princes, and States of the Empire, from the Kings of Spaine, France, and Denmarke, and most of the Princes and States of Italy,” and had only obtained “dilatory and generall answeres.” All his friends, he said, advised him “to make an agreement upon any termes with our subjects of Scotland”; and he took their advice as the only means of obtaining this crown and recovering his other kingdoms. He offered to subscribe and swear the National Covenant, and the Solemn League and Covenant, before landing at the mouth of the Spey, and he accordingly did so on the 23rd of June 1650.

On the 16th of August he agreed to the Dunfermline Declaration, deploring his father’s opposition to the work of reformation, confessing his mother’s idolatry, professing his own sincerity, declaring that “he will have no enemies but the enemies of the Covenant, and that he will have no friends but the friends of the Covenant,” and expressing his detestation of “all Popery, superstition, and idolatry, together with Prelacy, and all errors, heresie, schism and profaneness,” which he was resolved not to tolerate in any part of his dominions.

Dunbar and Scone

Notwithstanding Cromwell’s notable victory at Dunbar on the 3rd of September, and the dissatisfaction of the more rigid Covenanters, now known as Remonstrants, Charles was crowned at Scone on the 1st of January 1651, when he again swore and subscribed the National Covenant, and also the Solemn League and Covenant. The Marquis of Argyll placed the crown on his head, and Robert Douglas preached the sermon. The attempt to counteract Cromwell’s power in Scotland by an invasion of England was unsuccessful. The Committee of the Scottish Estates was captured at Alyth before the end of August; and Cromwell obtained his “crowning mercy” at Worcester on the 3rd of September. The young King, after many adventures and narrow escapes, was glad to find himself again on the Continent.

Resolutioners and Protesters

In December 1650, after obtaining the opinion of the Commissioners of the General Assembly, the Scottish Parliament had “admitted manie, who were formerlie excluded, to be imployed in the armie”; and in June 1651 had rescinded the Acts of Classes, by which certain classes of delinquents had been shut out of places of public trust. Those who were in favour of admitting these men were known as Resolutioners; and their opponents, as Protesters. This unfortunate dispute split the Presbyterians into two sections, and their contentions had not come to an end when the Restoration of Charles was effected in 1660.

3.An international Protestant league was not a new idea. The Convention, which met at Edinburgh on the 20th of October 1572, had suggested that a league and confederacy should be made “with our nychtbouris of Ingland and uther cuntries reformit and professing the trew religioun,” that we and they be joined together in mutual amity and society to support each other, when time or occasion shall serve, “for mantenance of religioun and resisting of the enemies thairof.” In 1585, the Scottish Parliament (understanding that divers princes and potentates had joined themselves, “under the Pape’s auctoritie, in a maist unchristiane confederacie, aganis the trew religioun and professouris thairof, with full intent to prosecute thair ungodlie resolutioun with all severitie”) authorised the making of a Christian league with the Queen of England, to be, in matters of religion, both offensive and defensive, even against “auld freindis and confederatis.” The league, or treaty, was finally concluded by commissioners, at Berwick-on-Tweed, on the 5th of July 1586.

4.The various accounts of the slaughter are rather contradictory in their details. It may be noted, too, that – while Patrick Gordon says that fifty Irishmen were promised safe quarter and yet were killed – it was urged, in defence of the four prisoners condemned by the Scottish Parliament, that the quarter they had received was not against the orders of the Commander-in-Chief at Philiphaugh, as he only forbade the giving of quarter to the Irish. Nearly a year before (24th October 1644) the English Parliament had declared that “no quarter shall be given hereafter to any Irishman, nor to any Papist whatever born in Ireland, which shall be taken in hostility against the Parliament,” either on the sea or in England or in Wales; and ordained that they should be excepted “out of all capitulations, agreements or compositions,” and when taken should be forthwith put to death. The massacres of 1641-1642 had not been forgotten.