In Our Time - The Covenanters

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the bonds that Scottish Presbyterians made between themselves and their monarchs in the 16th and 17th Centuries, to maintain their form of worship. These covenants bound James VI of Scotland to support Presbyterians yet when he became James I he was also expected to support episcopacy. That tension came to a head under Charles I who found himself on the losing side of a war with the Covenanters, who later supported Parliament before backing the future Charles II after he had pledged to support them. Once in power, Charles II failed to deliver the religious settlement the Covenanters wanted, and set about repressing them violently. Those who refused to renounce the covenants were persecuted in what became known as The Killing Times, as reflected in the image above.With Roger Mason Professor of Scottish History at the University of St AndrewsLaura Stewart Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of YorkAndScott Spurlock Professor of Scottish and Early Modern Christianities at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon Tillotson

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. learning this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoy the programs. Hello, in 1638, a gathering of Presbyterians signed a solemn covenant in Edinburgh

in Greyfire's Corkyard. In the months after, thousands from all ranks added their names, an extraordinary show of defined unity. They declared the people were subject to the king, Charles I, but the king was subject to God, just another parishioner, and his duty was to maintain the true religion, namely theirs,

Presbyterianism, a duty he breached. When Charles attacked them, the Covenant has crushed him. In the later Civil War, he surrendered to them. They expected Cromwell to spread their form of worship to England, but he attacked them, and in the 1670s, Charles II suppressed them, jailing many in that same Greyfriars' Kirkyard, executing others in what became known as the killing time. with me to discuss the Covenant as are Roger Mason, Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews, Scott Spurlock, Professor of Scottish and Early Modern Christianity at the University of Glasgow,

and Laura Stewart, Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of York. Laura Stewart, how had Scotland become Protestant? The first thing to know about Scottish Reformation is that it's an act of rebellion involving appeals to the people, and that's going to be really important for our further discussions about where the Covenant has come from. Many of your listeners will know more about the English Reformation perhaps

and we tend to describe that as an active state. Henry VIII breaks with Rome and there is a reformation that's pushed forward by the King and Parliament but in Scotland the situation is very, very different. I'm going to take us to the 1550s and at that time the ruler of Scotland is Mary, Queen of Scots, but she's not there. She's in France. She has been packed off there by her mother, Married Gies, who is acting as regent in her daughter's name from 1554 onwards.

She marries the heir to the French throne. He will become Francis II. And that regime in Scotland is one in which the alliance between Scotland and France by the later part of 1550s is starting to look like one that's more in favour of France than Scotland. So where does this rebellion come from? It's important to understand that it's as much about politics. as it is about religion. So the people who lead the rebellion against married Gies

are objecting to a French regime, as much perhaps as they are standing for the Protestant Reformation. So when did it happen? She's a Catholic, and behind all of this all the way through is a deep anti-Catholicism. So when did the Reformation in Scotland happen? The first band, signed by the laws of the congregation, 1557.

And initially, the rebellion doesn't go very well. They don't get as much support as they would like. So this creates two important features of the Scottish Reformation. One is the appeal to the people. And so we see the people actively involved in the process of attempting to reform Scotland. And we can take an example of the preacher John Knox.

He goes to Perth. and he delivers a sermon which incites the people to acts of iconoclasm. And years later, James X, when he becomes King of Scotland, will fulminate about a reformation in which the people have risen against lawful authority. The other thing that's very important is that, to all intents and purposes, without English support for the Scottish Reformation, that rebellion might well have collapsed. So the English regime headed by Elizabeth VIII.

who becomes Queen in 1558 provides support for the Scottish laws of the congregation. The crucial thing that happens is that Maui de Guise dies in 1560. That creates a vacuum and the laws of the congregation are able to take power in Scotland. And they quickly summon a parliament and it can look as if the Scottish Reformation happens overnight. There is a parliament in which the mass is abolished, the papal jurisdiction is abolished. and a confession of faith is accepted. So on one level, it looks like a very quick reformation. But, of course, there's something more complex going on here.

A reformation is not just an active state. It's a process. It's going to take a lot longer. Can you tell us they kept the bishops, didn't they? They initially keep the bishops, yes. So again, this is going to be a feature that makes the Scottish Reformation quite different from the English one. and it is necessarily the case that a reformation that has been enacted from below, if we want to put it that way, has to involve discussions about how the church is going to be governed.

It cannot be led by the monarch because the monarch is a Catholic, Mary Queen of Scots is a Catholic. She cannot be governor of the church, as Elizabeth I is. So in the early years of reformation, we see considerable experimentation with different forms of governance. But it's important to understand that in 1660 people don't decide that the Scottish Church is going to be a

Presbyterian one headed by a general assembly. But they decide they're going to be Protestants. But they do decide they've decided they're going to be Protestant. So they're there in 1560 they made a first dramatic and rather swift transition as it seems on paper to Protestantism. Roger Mason

what gave a new Presbyterian in its momentum? As Laura says, it's very much a process rather than an event. 1560 is critically important in establishing the legislative framework and platform for what subsequently happens. John Knox is a very interesting player in this whole scenario. One of the key things about him is that his formation, as it were,

his debut as a preacher, was actually in England. And he developed his Protestantism in England in the 15, late 154. early 1550s, before being sent into exile when Bloody Mary, Mary Chudder, came to the throne. And when he comes back to Scotland in 1559, 60, and the Reformation takes place there, he is absolutely determined that it will not have the same as he sought flaws as the English church. And the biggest flaw, as far as he was concerned, and the English church was the Royal Supremacy, the role of the crown in determining the pace and extent. of religious reform.

And so that key principle of Presbyterianism, the independence of the church from the state, is built in right from the start by John Knox. And one can't, as I understand, you tell me, we can't stress this more firmly, that they thought that God, you, the God ruled the church and the king ruled the rest of it, as it were.

But in the eyes of God, he was just another parishioner. Yes, I mean, they talk about, the two kingdoms, the temporal kingdom and the spiritual. The king or queen is head or governor of the temporal realm, but she or he can only be a member of the church. The head of the church is Christ and Christ alone. So in the spiritual sphere, everybody is equal and everybody is subject

to ecclesiastical control and discipline. When James at the age of one became James the sixth of Scotland, and from then when he got to be able to think for himself, he supported Presbyterianism. When he came to England in 1603 and became James I first of England, he began to turn against it. That's very raw, but it's got a lot of truth in it. Well, I have to take issue with you there

because I'm not sure he ever really supported the fundamental principles of Presbyterianism, the separation of church and state. In one of the first acts of the Parliament of 1884, is the re-establishment of the royal supremacy. In other words, the recognition of the king as head of the church. And although... Did he let on about this then, Roger?

Yeah, I mean, this is public. Everybody knows. There's a dispute going on in the 1580s and 90s, and James is determined to reassert his authority over the church. And that means acknowledgement by his subjects of his supreme authority over church as well as state, in the same way as Elizabeth in England. where it becomes a little bit more ambiguous, perhaps at least initially, was whether or not he was

determined to re-establish bishops at the church, a full-blown diocese and episcopacy. But even that begins well before 60 and 03. And just because it's after 60303 that it is fully established doesn't mean to say it was because of 603 and because of the influence of the English church. And it's very much in James's interests as a ruler to be able to be able to. say that I am supreme over the church as well as the state. I mean, any self-respecting Rulho would want to be able to say that.

We'll have to move on swiftly, Scott Spillock, I'm afraid, to Charles I first, son of James the 6th. What did he start to do that inferiority's cross-Scottish Presbyterians? He came in the mid-20s, 1620s.

Whereas his father was able to negotiate his own will with the response and expectations of his people in Scotland. Charles did not have any sense of subtlety or of half measures. So from 1625, he becomes king of both kingdoms. He doesn't arrive in Scotland until 1633. As part of royal prerogative, he introduces a parliament. Those contemporary accounts by Scots suggest that of the 30-plus acts that will be addressed in that parliament, maybe three of them are not detrimental to the rights of the Scots. He's coronated in.

in a very Anglican ceremony in Holyrood. From 1636, he begins to introduce ecclesiastical change, including an assertion that those who question royal authority will be excommunicated from the church. And then in 1637, famously, he introduces liturgical reform that Scottish Presbyterians think look like an English mass book. Yes, so that prayer book, Mass Book, was a change a lot. Can you just explain to listeners why it was so influential and why it was so central?

Seems a rather reconditing at the moment to us now, but why? It was almost wording, wasn't it? Wording and action, yes. Wording, action, a lack of the extemporary. Preaching under Presbyterians was longer, was less liturgical, was less structured, but was much more rooted in the word. Presbyterians felt like what was being introduced was something that pulled people into perhaps a space of worship, but it was detached from the word being preached.

And that was seen as a major step back from the advances of the Reformation. And one of the issues with Scotland from the time that the Reformation takes hold is they, theologically, very much, frame themselves in line with the people of Israel, and therefore they feel that there is an expectation

that right worship and right religion is an imperative in the eyes of God. It's the same covenant that God had with the Israelites. They're drawing that on to themselves, yes. Yes. And there's the business of kneeling, which seems to figure largely in the notes. Why is that so important? Because it's viewed as a Catholic practice.

There is a sense that if you kneel in front of the sacrament, that you were ascertaining a presence in the sacrament that Presbyterians don't think is there. Presbyterians think there is no presence of Christ in the bread. Instead, they'll sit at a table. They'll break the bread. They'll share it. So it's an active community, like the Last Supper, an active community. something important does happen

drawing on Calvin's theology they think that Christ is present but they think that the people are lifted mystically into the presence of Christ but Christ is not present in the elements so therefore do not kneel to the elements I mentioned earlier that Catholicism was a backcloth

to what was going on also a backcloth, a strange backcloth was that the Scots were loyal to the Stuart dynasty but the stewards of Scots for Scots so Charles is playing on home ground if he'd chosen to if he could recognize

that the stewarder of Scottish origin, which he was really poor at doing. But the issue about Catholicism is important because in 1558, John Knox wrote to the nobility in Scotland and said, any nation where Christ is preached is a nation that is in covenant with God. He immediately went on to say that a nation in covenant with God cannot stand or tolerate idolatry, and he immediately identified the mass as idolatry. So he created a very clear picture for people in Scotland that the people are like, Israel and when do you get punished by God when you partake in idolatry?

So we're braced through since we were last talking to your Laura. Indeed, yes. It's 1638 in Greyfrage, Kirkyard. Well, the covenant was first signed. What was it and who signed it? Yes. So Scott has already mentioned the prayer book riots of 1637, and they don't just drop out of a summer blue sky.

they are organised and people, Presbyterians, have been organising against the prayer book since it's first mooted around about 1635. So these riots are certainly not spontaneous and the people who organise it are building on years and years of opposition to royal policy.

I think building on what Scott's been saying, what's important I think, is not so much opposition to bishops in the early part of the 17th century. Presbyterians, are opposed to bishops, but most people will probably never see a bishop in their whole lives. Where James and then Charles interfere with worship,

that's really what upsets people. And as Scott has absolutely rightly said, the issue with the prayer book is twofold. One is that it has a set liturgy which detracts from extemporary preaching. But the other thing is that the actual business of putting out the prayer book is so badly handled that Presbyterians are able to,

to say this prayer book is the mass, well, it isn't. And it's been modified by Scottish bishops and Scottish clerics. So although Charles personally is involved with the prayer book and his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Lord, is involved with it. The actual process of putting it together occurs in Scotland.

So the riots are meant to be a demonstration of how opposed Scotland is to the prayer book. And in the immediate wake of those riots. The people who've organised them

pull back and they start a petitioning campaign and they do this so to speak by the book. They put petitions into the Privy Council so they're asking the King's Privy Council to mediate for them. They don't print them

so they're not publicising these petitions and they're not circulating them as far as we know all around the country for signatures. But it's clearly the case that the petitioning campaign is designed to mobilise more people, to start organising people outside Edinburgh and the central belt of Scotland. But to get, as many people as we are told, came to the Kirkland to sign this, Roger

Roger Mason. Was that a trigger or was that, as has been suggested, an accretion? What was going on? I think it's very much an accretion. I mean, I think the broader context for this, you need to go back to 1603 at the Union of the Crowns. which is a union of the crowns, not of the kingdoms. So James and subsequently Charles are monarchs over three kingdoms, each of which constitutionally, technically, is run on its own terms. Scotland retains its privy council, it retains its parliament, so does England, so does Ireland in its own way.

However, complicating that is a drive on the part of the Crown and actually everybody else to create religious uniform. that everybody across the three kingdoms ought to worship God in the same way. But what was the same way? Well, that's precisely the issue, because then you get these conflicting truth claims, if you like. And what... Truth what, sorry? Truth claims.

Truth claims, yes. But these are the, this is the truth. And what complicates this is that Charles and his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Lod, were actually pursuing a religious policy that, antagonised a great many of their English subjects as well as the Scots. And this is known as Armenianism. It's a highly ritualized, ceremonial, beauty of holiness, high church Anglicanism, if you like. And to Puritans in England and to Presbyterians in Scotland, it was Crypto-Catholic at best and Catholic at worst.

And what's happening in 1636-7 is that this new prayer book, whatever its contents, is perceived as high church, Anglicanian. and stroke Catholic. But they flowed into this kirkyard, which is still there, obviously. And did somebody say, let's meet here, did one of the leaders, was it a specific action? It would be nice for us all to know what happened that they all turned up that day to do this thing.

But it's all very carefully orchestrated and goes back some time. And it involves not just those who have religious quarrels with Charles, but also the nobility who may or may not favor Presby. but have been excluded from government and whose landed estates have been attacked through various measures introduced by Charles. Remember, in England, it's the so-called 11 years tyranny or personal rule of Charles I. When he rules without Parliament is imposing all kinds of taxations on the English people. And he's doing similar sorts of things in Scotland, except at one remove, as it were.

He's doing it from a distance. And there are all kinds of discontents brewing. And the religious one, it becomes the trigger, the flashpoint, because it affects everybody. It's like Laura and Scott were saying earlier. Bishops, well, who really cares? But if you mess around with how people are worshipping, and these are Scots who've been told since 1560

that they have the purest church in. Christendom, that their salvation depends on not kneeling for communion. And now they're being told that that is how they must worship. I mean, I'd be up in arms too. But you weren't up in arms, Scott, but a lot of people were, who were they? And why did they go to that place to do that thing? So there's the wide breadth of the population. Well, they're led by anybody. I'm sorry to be so pedantic, but they're led by a number of nobles who organize themselves into an alternative government called the tables. But two particular individuals are asked to produce an ideological justification for this resistance to the

crown and that's Archibald Johnson of Worcston and Alexander Henderson, a lawyer and a cleric, probably a dangerous combination at any time. But what they're really doing is they're constructing a line in the sand that establishes that Protestantism is non-negotiable. The National Covenant sets out by saying in its early paragraphs, basically Catholicism will not be tolerated. It asserts the right of the king, but in doing that, we'll tease out with the limitations of monarchy are. And it sets out that it's about maintaining the stability in the sovereignty of skull. And so there is a wide proportion of the population. But it's very cleverly constructed because in its first iteration from February 1638, there's no reference to anti-episcopacy.

It's only about Protestantism. So you're drawing in people to sign what is viewed by many as, an articulation of the unwritten constitution of the nation. So what do they think they're going to achieve by signing this? They think that they're coming together in solidarity to, in some sense, help Charles to help himself. There's a sense in which Charles is ruling in such a... Authoritarian and unbridled way that actually what they're doing is they're establishing the status quo

and saying these are the rights, these are the laws, these are the obligations, and now we have, in some sense, a clear sense of the playing field. Charles himself adopts the idea of a covenant and produces a king's covenant, but for him he prioritizes the rights of the king rather than these three separate factors that then have a difficult process of finding equilibrium. So, Laura, what did they think they're going to achieve? I think I'm going to take a very small issue with Scott here. I actually think the covenant's more threatening.

than he's suggesting, because they're not just saying, Charles, we're going to help you. It's also, Charles, you're wrong. And for subjects to tell a king that he's wrong is an astonishing thing to do. A king who believes in divine right? Absolutely, yes. So there are lots of different people with lots of different views, I think, on what they've done when they've signed this covenant. And I think in some senses what's important for people is not just what's in it. And Scott's given us a flavour of some of the, the, the,

text itself, but what they do when they swear it. And there are two ways of reading this which are interacting with one another. One is that it's an enormously radical and subversive thing to do. There is nothing like the Covenant in the whole of Europe. This document goes out to parishes all over Scotland and it's very, very explicit that people of all social ranks are going to take it and we know that in some parishes, shockingly, that also includes women. So we have a situation here whereby people are signing and swearing a covenant. And that may be the first, possibly the only time in their lives where they've been asked to give consent to the religion that they have faith in. But also it has implications for politics because it includes the definition of the church by Acts of Parliament.

So that's one reading. Another reading is it's people of all social ranks, but they swear the covenant according to. their social rank. Again, as Scott has rightly said, there's no doubt that the nobles and their clerical friends are in charge of this process. And so many of the defenders of the Covenant say, oh, it's not as radical as some people are thinking it is. It's not as subversive as all that, because what we're doing is maintaining the social order. What we want to achieve with this also has obviously a spiritual dimension. I think that many people in Scotland and feel that they're reuniting their country, reuniting their congregations,

and renewing the covenant with God. And there are a series of covenants that are described in the Bible that provide a framework for people in their relationship with God, and that's what people think they are doing. So Roger Mason, this was, by the sign of it, a very powerful,

can almost be described as even a mass movement? How would you describe it influence on the people at the time in 1638, we have just been and signed the covenant. What did they expect to come after that? It's hard to know exactly what, because the thing about the covenant is it's astonishingly ambiguous, wonderfully ambiguous, deliberately ambiguous, I think. And it's also very long, very dry, and very dull. And I can't actually imagine parishioners sitting down and reading it.

But there must have been what we now call bullet points. Well, the bullet points are one, it's fundamentally anti-Catholic. We are defending Protestantism from Catholicism. Implicit in that, though it's never made explicit, is an attack on what we call wicked hierarchy, by which they mean bishops. But the second part of it is a list of statutes, basically. Statutes in support of the Presbyterian Church and of the independence of Scotland from English jurisdiction, basically.

But it is a list of statutes. It's incredibly dry and boring. And then the last part is a renewal of the covenant, which brings in all the sort of apocalyptic element. You know, we are the people of Israel. We are engaged in a struggle with the Antichrist. So it is our bound and duty under God to sign this contract, this country.

covenant and to do whatever is necessary to preserve our religion, the true religion. Despite the ambiguities and the donnes, what was it about the government that made Charles thinking he ought to go to war? However ambiguous it may be, I don't think there's any doubt in Charles's mind that this is an act of defiance of his will. And that's not how Charles operates. Any defiance of his will is seen as treasonous. So in his view it's his subjects declaring war on it And it gets worse of course the following year

When it's something with this one year at a time So he tries to get an army together It'd be difficult because he hasn't gone any money He hasn't called Parliament for it's 10 years They're not inclined to give him money Because it's been so But he does go up there And then watch Scott Spurlock

Well the first Bishop's War is a very short affair They're called the Bishop's Wars Which is the Bishop's war. Yes. And hardly a shot is fired. And Charles, I think, Charles often thinks he's being magnanimously gracious and that people will think, what a lovely king. But he allows Parliament and the General Assembly to meet,

to reconsider the radical nature of some of what they've done. And the Scots reaffirm all of their assertions, which then leads to a second Bishop's War, which is much more militaristic and involves the Scots occupying Newcastle. A bit difficult because it's winter and London depending on Newcastle for coal, but that's almost a side issue. Absolutely, absolutely. But there's very much a sense in which the Scots are continuing to uphold what they think is not an innovation. When they say they renew the National Covenant, they can look back at 1581 and the negative confession,

which says the Crown will not accept anything that smacks of popery. It's signed by all senior officials of Scotland. It's signed by a number of boroughs. So the Scots do not think what's happening is something new and radical. They think that it's a perfection of a much longer trajectory. Archball Johnson of Worson calls it the signing of it, the wedding day between Scotland and Christ. So the events that follow with Charles are about not imposing their will on Charles,

but defending what they've already established as the legal standing in Scotland. So we're drifting into what we're going towards a civil war and the parliamentarians and the English side seem to see the coventers or both each sees the others a natural ally. What's going on there? The English Parliament by 1642 is of course at war with the King. By this time there's been a revolution in Scotland. The Scots have got everything they want.

Charles I had come to Scotland in 1633 as a monarch who was in charge of his country, he comes in 1641 and he has to sign off all the legislation that essentially repatriates the prerogative to Scotland. So the Scots are sitting on the sidelines watching very carefully what's happening in 1642. They won, yeah.

But when war breaks out between Charles and his English Parliament, the Scots Covenanters are really, really worried that Charles will defeat his critics in England and then he'll be more powerful than ever. So they feel they have to intervene. And it is the work of the English parliamentarian John Pym that brings the Scots into the English Civil War in 1643

with the signing of the Solem League in Covenant. And that's an extremely important moment that bonds the critics of Charles I's First Government in England with the Scottish Covenanters. Was there any appetite in England for the English to go Presbyterian? There's a substantial lobby in the English House of Commons of Presbyterians,

yes, and when the long parliament is summoned, the one that isn't dissolved by Charles as soon as it meets, but it goes on until 1651, isn't it? 1642. It's the one that really initiates the civil

war in England between Parliament and the Crown. They say that, yes, they hold him to run some inside the Constitution in a way. Yeah, there are They say they will not fund wars, fund Charles's armies, until they settle the grievances that have been building up during the 11 years of personal rule. And yes, there are substantial numbers of Presbyterians

in the House of Commons, and it's the English House of Commons that sets up the Westminster Assembly that actually redefines what Presbyterian doctrine is and a new confession of faith, catechism, and so on. But what makes the Scots so important in this is that they're the ones with the best army.

The men are forward as mercenaries in the 30 years war and come back very well trained and so on. They're incredibly well organised in 1638 39 and all these officers from Gustavus Adolphus's army are decommissioned and come back to Scotland

and amongst them is Alexander Leslie who's a field marshal in the Swedish army as a brilliant general and he is effectively leading the Scottish armies during the Bishop's Wars and Charles's militias, his local musters

are no competition for this kind of semi-professional army so the parliamentarians when war breaks out with the king look to Scotland as that's the army we need that army and the Scots are willing

to go along with this on certain conditions. And that's the background to the drawing up of the so-called solemn league and covenant between Scotland and England, or English parliamentarians and the Scottish covenanters. So there's the parliamentarians in which Cromwell plays a large part in the centre, linking up with the covenants, which would seem like a natural linking up.

But is it, does it come about unexpectedly? No, I think. think there's a lot of disingenuousness on the part of particularly some of the English parliamentarians. But the real problem here is that, yes, there are substantial numbers of Presbyterians in the House of Commons, but there are also what are now known as independence, people who didn't like any kind of clerical organisation. And Cromwell was one of those. Oliver Cromwell was one of those. And what that means is that they were highly critical of this, league between Presbyterian Scotland and the Parliament.

And Cromwell, as a result of this, goes off and makes his own army, the new model army, so that they're not so dependent on this Presbyterian army. In 1645, Charles surrendered to the Covenanters. Why did he do that and what were the consequences? Laura. Charles's surrender to the Scots comes as a shock to many people, not least some of the Scots of the Army. By this time Oxford has fallen. There isn't an effective Royalist Army. Yeah, Royalist City, the headquarters of the Royalist Army. And Charles

is playing for time. Charles is doing what Charles always does, which is trying to divide the people who are fighting him. By 1646, the Scottish Covenanters and the English parliamentarians are not getting on as well as they had done in 44. The Scots have not. The Scots have not made the decisive military breakthrough they was expected of them, and their army is costing the English Parliament a fortune. Now, they don't pay as much money as the Scots are expecting, but nonetheless,

if you're paying for an army, you're expecting it to do the business. So the alliance is starting to fracture. As Roger has already said, the other thing that's happening is that there are disagreements within the English parliamentary alliance between Presbyterians and independents, and everybody is now going into print

to fight with one another for their particular corner. So the surrender. One of the greatest stages of pamphleteering, isn't it? Indeed. So it's very, very exciting, but also incredibly destabilising and undermines the possibility of getting a settlement

because all these divisions are out in the open. So Charles' surrender to the Scots, in one sense, is an opportunity. Maybe the Scots can finally make a deal with him and do as they set out to do, which is settle on the basis of the Solem Leading Covenant, but it also looks like it's going to tear

the parliamentary alliance apart. Why did the covenant give Charles back to the English? Because Charles was their king as well. So in some sense, the Scots had attained what they wanted in Scotland after the National Covenant. They had increased the game with the Solomon Leagin Covenant, which put a requirement that the best form of reformed religion would be implemented across the three kingdoms. They, I think, wanted the English Parliament to come to terms with their own king. But alongside this at the same time, the Scots looked south of the border, and the once-reformed theological gel that held together Puritans and independence was now fragmenting into Baptists.

The Quakers are not far down the road. And the Scots are horrified at this breadth of religious possibility that was being unleashed in England. And the Scots, I mean, one of the interesting things about the covenanting period in Scotland, the national Protestant settlement is never quite. question. There's not a debate about the diversity of religion. They don't want independent congregations. They don't want a fragmentation of religion. And this is a terrifying prospect to the Scottish Covenant enters looking south of the border. Now you've been valiant in galloping through over a hundred years with fractures and fissures. It's just going to get worse because we, Charles goes back. He is taken by

English. Then he is executed, which sends ripples right through Europe, the execution of a king who believed in divine right and his son immediately is declared Charles II by the Covenanters after he said that he has sworn that his father was a heretic and his mother was a whore. But there he is and then some years later he becomes King Charles II.

Where's Cromwell when that's happening? Laura? Cromwell already has passed form with the Scots and we've heard a little bit about this. Cromwell actually has arguments with his Scottish under-officers during the middle of the 1640s. In 1648, before Charles has executed, Cromwell is involved in a coup, which re-establishes the most radical of the Covenanters back in power.

And I won't go into the complexities of that. But Cromwell thinks at that moment that the Scottish Covenanters are on side and they will acquies in the execution of Charles I. But the English unilaterally execute the King of England and just seem to pretend that the same man isn't wearing the crown of Scotland. So the Scots immediately crown Charles II because they really don't have any other choice. Charles II thinks that he is by birthright King of Britain. Had Charles II not been proclaimed by the Covenanters,

somebody else in Scotland would have done it and there would have been a civil war, which is what the Scots have been trying to avoid for 10 years. The other thing, of course, very obviously, is that the covenant is a defence of monarchic authority. It says in the covenant that everyone has bound themselves to preserve the body as well as the authority of the king. So this is the only sensible thing that Scots can do. But, of course, what it does is put the Scots on a warpath with the nascent English Republic. And when Charles II comes in, Roger, he is as anti-covenant as it's possible to be. Can you tell the listeners how he operates

and how we're at the end of the covenant as his insight? But I think he finds that the whole coronation business rather humiliating. It's a cold January, I think it's January 1st. He's crowned. That schoon is freezing cold. He has to listen to a sermon for two hours and is obliged to sign the covenants

and almost certainly has his fingers crossed behind his back when this is going on. I mean, he does not want to be a covenanted king. I think it's interesting to speculate, though it is no more than speculation, on what would have happened if the Covenanters had simply declared Charles King of Scots and left England as a republic

with its Irish attachment. I doubt it would have worked out because Cornwell would always have felt threatened by Scottish Stuart Scotland on his northern frontier, particularly if the stewards continued to pursue or to try and reclaim their British thrones. But when Charles does finally come to the throne in 1660, both Scotland, England and indeed Ireland are war-weary.

They've had 20 years of conflict. And the idea really is to undo everything that's happened in the 40s and 50s and go back to their position before the outbreak of the troubles as they're called in Scotland. So would he be fair to say that he set out to eliminate the comtors? There's this killing time where the murders, there's suppression... That's a bit later. I mean, yes. But still, we can speed up a bit here.

That is what he's trying to do. He doesn't like what he's been forced to swear to do. They are not friends, therefore he thinks of them as enemies. And by the time his reign is well underway, they are on the way out as a force. Yes, in the 1660s, things like bishops are re-established, to what supremacy is re-established, and the clergy are obliged one way or another

to conform to the new regime. There's something like a thousand parishes in Scotland, sort of a thousand ministers. Three quarters of them do conform in the 1660s, believing about maybe 250 you don't. Over the next 10 years or so, there are various accommodations and indulgences, and that brings in another 100, 150.

You seem to be... There are about 100 who will not conform because they are committed to maintaining their allegiance to the covenants. And they are harshly dealt with. And they are increasingly harshly dealt with. I mean, the pendulum tends to swing between attempts at accommodation, bringing them into the church, and attempts at suppression. But by the end of the century of Scott Spurlock,

where the covenants are not much in the books are they? No, they become, well, they're quite marginal through the 60s and 70s, actually, small numbers. And you can have some sympathy for both sides. Those who are continuing to meet in the fields are arming themselves to protect them against government troops. From the Crown's perspective, there are armed insurgents who refuse to recognize royal authority over religion. It seems that there is some degree of greater sympathy from the wider population by the time you get in. to the killing times. But by the end of the century,

well, 1690, when Protestantism and Presbyterianism is reestablished in Scotland, there's no mention of the covenants, and it's only a very small minority followers of Richard Cameron and the United Societies who keep this going as something that is binding the nation, even though most of the country, is happy to be Presbyterianism without the covenants. Well, thank you very much.

That was a very gallant attempt. Thank you. Laura Stewart, Roger Mason and Scott Spurlock. Next week it's the great Portuguese poet Peser, who explored the idea of the self-writing in the names of over 70 different selves. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Well, thank you for that.

That must have been tough for you. It was a sprint. It was a sprint. Well, now you'd make a bit of leisure now. So how much that we missed out is it important for you to say now? We didn't talk very much about the 1650s. We went from the Covenant being this incredibly important defining event in the lives of Scottish people in the 1640s to only 20 years later. It seems much more marginal.

Yes, there's going to be a minority of people who remain absolutely committed to it. But I wonder how important the 1650s are for undermining the authority of the Covenant. Certainly for the majority of the nobility of Scotland and perhaps. for many of the middling sort as well. And I know this is something that Scott's done more work than me on. Well, it's pretty difficult for a population to be told for more than a decade that they are a chosen people and that God is looking to bless them and then to be absolutely humiliated at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650.

It causes some very deep introspection about how to understand what's happened. And within mainline Presbyterianism in Scotland, you get the formation of the protesters and the resolutioners who are both, equally committed to Presbyterianism, but are struggling to interpret why God is judging the nation in light of the failure at Dunbar. So in the 1650s the covenant isn't outlawed, but toleration is introduced,

and the English regime protects both the Presbyterian hierarchy, below the General Assembly, at least, but also protects independent ministers. So we don't know very much about what that does in terms of what people are thinking. The people in the pews think about what's happened to the government. What I might add is that for covenanters, the introduction of toleration in Scotland is about the worst possible situation that can find themselves in because the covenanters are hell-bent on preventing other forms of religion other than Presbyterianism.

Which probably the vast majority of people in the British Isles believe in, they believe that the magistrate wields the sword in defence of religious unity and uniformity. So the covenants aren't peculiar in that view. they just hold it rather more strongly, I think, than some people do. I think it is actually important to recognize that, you know, we value toleration as a virtue in the 17th century. It was a vice. Toleration was a thoroughly bad thing. And what was required was uniformity of religious practice. And what's really significant, I think, about the glorious revolution, the overthrow of the Catholic stewards and so on, is not so much that there is a

Toleration Act that's passed, but that's actually less important, I think, than just a pragmatic recognition that you can have a plurality of Protestantisms within the British Isles, that you don't all have to worship the same way as long as you are all Protestants. And the other factor in this, I think, that's really important is that after 1690, Scotland is a Presbyterian kingdom and the winner's right history. So the history of the 17th century, so the history of the 17th, century for the next three centuries was written by Presbyterians. So the killing times I mean that's a very very

judgment-laden term. Looked at another perspective, these people are not defenders of Christian liberty, they're terrorists in the assassinate Archbishop Sharp. They rebel in 1666. I mean, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist and all that sort of thing. And the whole history of the 17th century is essentially written by Presbyterians in ways that highlight in historically dubious terms the extent to which the covenanters and going back actually to the reformers in 1560 are defending liberty.

So that they fit into a Whig kind of constitutionalist pattern. But it's simply not the case. And these people were defending Christian liberty only in the sense of their liberty to develop their church and to eliminate everybody else's church. Because it's a huge point, isn't it? Huge. Could I follow up on that and just say that the strength of the Reformation in Scotland also proved to be its weakness? Because in taking this very much Old Testament model of Israel, they committed, while keeping the secular state and the church, they basically could, conflated the population into being subject to both the secular authority and the church,

and required basically all Scots to be members of the church, just like all Jews were subject to religious law. And in doing that, while holding at the same time a doctrine of reprobation, they expected all people to be obedient and godly and believe that most of them couldn't, which is one of the reasons that Presbyterian discipline is so important, because you need to maintain a godly society to prevent being punished by divine wrath. And what's astonishing about the Scottish Reformation and the English one is

there is an awful lot of consensus around doctrine. There are far more arguments because of the nature of the English Reformation about what the doctrine of the church should be. In Scotland, the arguments are over this key issue that Roger talked about, which is the relationship between the monarch and the church and the autonomy of the church, this theory of the two kingdoms. and this is where you see the story of the 17th century

rolling itself out. But Roger's point about the winners writing history of course is very important but in the 17th century what I think's going on is Presbyterians competing with other people to say that the Reformation moment itself was Presbyterian

and so an understanding of how fluid thought is about the Scottish church in the later, mid to later part of the 17th century sorry is really important too. And that's an important point because Andrew Honeyman, who is a full-blown covenanter, becomes Bishop of Orkney after the restoration. And when he tries to justify why this happens, he looks back and says, yes, Scalland is a covenant denation on the grounds of the 1581 negative confession and the first draft of the National Covenant. But once they add an anti-episcopal

line into it, they've changed the game. So he can look back and see a continuity from the Reformation through 1581, through the first draft of 1638, and he sees that actually the departure and the anti-episcopal dominant, radical covenanters as being the departure from right religion in Scotland. And of course, the other thing that we didn't talk that much about is that the covenant is also a response to the Union of the Crimes in 1603, an attempt to work through the complexities of the relationship between Scotland and England. And I think that's also part of the reason that the covenant doesn't go away.

We talked about it being politically far less significant in 1690 than perhaps we might think it would be. But it keeps popping up again in the 18th century and into the 19th century, even in the 20th century. There's an attempt at a secular covenant to drive home rule. And it gains millions of signatures. It's not a religious document, it's a secular one. So the covenant remains this idea about what it means to be Scotland long after it's lost all the associations. I didn't ask what the legacy was. Would you go along with what Laura say?

Absolutely, yes. I think there are two legacies. One is that, and the sense in which a covenant remains an important thing in Scotland, an important concept, which can be taken out of its religious context and repurposed, as it is, in the covenant of its sin in early 1950s, I think.

And something like two million people signed this covenant, which was really about home rule for Scotland, not independence, home rule. But the other thing is I think the tradition of constitutional thinking that is read back and includes the covenanters. I mean, it's often conceptualised in terms of constitutionalism against royal absolutism. And the stewards are absolutist monarchs and the members of the Kirk are defenders of religious freedom. And you can take that back to Knox,

but actually you can take it back to the medieval period. And you can establish this narrative of the Scots being a peculiarly democratic, egalitarian people who would never ever countenance absolute monarchy. And it's perhaps worth mentioning that this is the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Our Broth of 13th. And that becomes part of that story, not the foundational document of that story, which declares that Robert Bruce will only be allowed to rule in Scotland if he continues to maintain Scotland's independence from England.

And so there's a conditional, constitutional element to his monarchy that is kind of written into this narrative of Scotland's constitutional legacy. Do you think that the civil war The civil war, it's called the civil, would have gone in the direction it went without the Scottish interventions and the Scottish power at the beginning, their military power? There wouldn't have been a civil war

in the way that there was a civil war. The English are quite capable of having their own wars with Charles I. They've got a lot to be upset about the Charles I. But it certainly would not have taken the path that it did if the Scots had not galvanised themselves on the streets of Edinburgh in 1637. And what would have been the difference

of the path they did take? Well, the English Parliament wouldn't have been able to establish itself in opposition to the Crown. So 1640, that established that parliament only happens because Charles has to deal with events in Scotland. And if there hadn't been an Irish rebellion, of course,

but that, as they say, is another programme. But I think the other thing that I briefly alluded to were the print debates that take off in the 1640s. And the role of the Scots as allies of English Presbyterians arguing with English independence in print about true religion and about what the relationship between the kingdoms ought to be. I think that's an extremely important thing.

They need much more work done on it. That's absolutely the case, but it's also very interesting that the Scots are at the leading edge of fostering debate in England through the newspaper, the Scottish Dove and other avenues, but they censor any of that entering into a Scottish space. So they are happy to stir the pot in England, but there's strict censorship under Archbald Johnson-Warson from 1638 as to what can be allowed into the print market in Scotland. Because debate is not something they want for its own sake.

Debate is about establishing truth. Yeah. Well, I think the producer is now going to make his grand entrance. Simon. Anyone want to your coffee? I'd love a cup of tea, please. Tea? I'm fine, thanks. Coffee, please.

Tea, coffee. I'll let you just have some more water, thank you. Thank you very much. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by, Simon Tillotson. Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from the funny history podcast, You're Dead to Me.

I've got good news. We're back for a second series where historians, comedians, alike, will join me in learning things about, well, we've got Mary Shelley coming up, we're doing Eleanor of Aucytaine, we're doing The History of Chocolate. Find us on the BBC Sounds app

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