Historiska
institutionen
Uppsala universitet
Searching the Presbyterian Soul: The Formation,
Changes, and Purposes of Scotland’s Covenants,
1557—1690
Master Thesis 60 credits, Term VT
Author: Craig Kelly
Supervisor: Henrik Ågren
Seminar Tutor: Maria Ågren
Date of discussion seminar: 27/05/2013
Abstract
This thesis reconstructs Reformed—and later, Presbyterian—thought by analysing the influences
on the formation, changes in conception, and purposes of Scotland’s covenants from the
emergence of covenantalism at the initial Reformation in 1557 to the Glorious Revolution of
1689—90. To achieve this, it has relied primarily on covenant documents and sermons. It has
challenged the idea that Presbyterians comprised a homogeneous and fixed group in opposition
to the crown’s ostensibly Episcopalian policies. Rather, this thesis argues that Presbyterian
thought was transitory and was influenced by particular historical contexts, biblical exemplars,
and to a lesser extent cultural norms such as the promissory nature of Scots contract law. It is
not possible to investigate Presbyterians in isolation, so this thesis has also considered the
relationship between different societal actors such as the national claimant, local elites, and
ordinary people. This analysis has brought into question many of the historiographical constructs
that have been imposed on Scotland’s Presbyterian and covenantal history. The idea that it is
possible to solely focus on one key event such as the signing of the National Covenant and
conclude that this was a Second Reformation has obscured the broader narrative. Historians
have approached the sources with preconceptions such as the idea that there was such a thing as
separate religious and political spheres which has led them to disregard religious sentiment as
mere political posturing. Covenantal ideas had both political and religious significance: often
starting as religious expressions and developing political implications such as the democratic
imagining of the City of God that went on to influence the desire for ordinary people’s
participation in political and ecclesiastical governance. To compare Scotland’s covenants, this
thesis has used the Cambridge School methodology and Mendenhall’s covenant formulation.
This has been particularly helpful in demonstrating that changes in ideas were not progressive or
linear. Instead, covenantal ideas often oscillated between different conceptions: the desire for
limited monarchy was articulated in early covenants, later there was a recognition of the divine
right of kings, and later still a return to the aspiration of limited monarchy. Whilst the covenants
were effective vehicles for forwarding Presbyterian ideology, they were limited as a result of the
fact they were Presbyterian documents. As such, the best they could hope to achieve was to
unite the Presbyterian community around a common goal. Once Scotland had a Calvinist king
on the throne, however, Presbyterians were able to pursue their desires through parliamentary
legislation in the form of the Claim of Right. It was able to turn Presbyterian thought into
i
national orthodoxy: which is exactly what it did by securing limited monarchy, nascent
democracy, and Presbyterianism as the creed of the Kirk. Therefore, contrary to the views of
many historians, the Glorious Revolution—as embodied by the Claim of Right—was not a
watershed for secularism and was instead part of Scotland’s Presbyterian history. It is, therefore,
suggested that the events between 1557 and 1690—from the beginning to the end of
covenantalism within mainstream Reformed and Presbyterian ideology—are reimagined as a
Long Reformation process.
Keywords
Covenant, Scotland, Presbyterianism, Reformation, Cambridge School, 1557—1690.
ii
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the incredible support from family, friends,
and the History Department at Uppsala University. Particular thanks go to Mikael Alm for
allowing me to bounce ideas off him a year ago when this thesis was little more than a flitting
idea; to my supervisor, Henrik Ågren, for his continual support that kept me focused when I was
in danger of trying to write Scotland’s entire early modern ecclesiastical history; and to the other
lecturers at Uppsala University for running the most inspiring courses I have ever had the
privilege to take. I have said it before, but it is worth saying again: I have learnt more in the last
two years than at any point in my life and I feel incredibly grateful to the History Department for
giving me that opportunity.
Massive thanks have to go to my girlfriend, Julie. It must have been frustrating to notice that
glazed look in my eyes, to realise that I had not been listening to what she had been saying and
instead my mind was lost somewhere in seventeenth century Scotland. Thanks, also, for putting
up with my periodic meltdowns and my illogical ramblings.
I would also like to thank Reverend David Scott of Logie Kirk for allowing me to take his
Christianity Explored course that filled in some of the many gaps in my theological knowledge.
Particular thanks go to David for answering my seemingly never ending questions about
covenants and the Prophet Isaiah.
Thanks also go to Gary Cocker for reading through my thesis and giving a non-historian’s
view. I was flattered by his blunt appraisal, “You actually made Scottish religious history
interesting, God knows how!”
Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellow EMS students for their stimulating debate
and constructive criticism over the last two years.
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Contents
Chapter 1: Landscaping ................................................................... 1
“Not Words but Meanings” ....................................................................................................................... 3
Swathes of Historical Commentary .......................................................................................................... 4
Research Questions ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Theory and Design .................................................................................................................................... 10
Hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................. 15
Chapter 2: Foundations ................................................................. 17
Plugging the Gaps ...................................................................................................................................... 17
The Re-Discovery of the Bible’s Central Idea....................................................................................... 18
Thoughts in a Distant Land: Covenantalism in Continental Europe ................................................ 20
The Influence of Continental Covenantalism and The Impact of Scotland’s “Popular Tumult” 21
A Quick Inspection ................................................................................................................................... 25
Chapter 3: Construction Choices: Changing Conceptions of
Covenantal Ideas ........................................................................... 26
Building Blocks of the Biblical Forerunners.......................................................................................... 26
A Promissory Statement: The Godly Band, 1557................................................................................. 27
An Unwritten Covenant in Popular Discourse ..................................................................................... 33
Where is David? King’s Covenant, 1580................................................................................................ 39
A Bond Tacked On ................................................................................................................................... 43
Underlying Beams: the Sermons of Robert Bruce................................................................................ 45
Superstructure: the National Covenant of Scotland, 1638 .................................................................. 49
“Not Against Authority, But For Authority”: Conceptions of the National Covenant in the
Sermons of Henderson and Cant ............................................................................................................ 55
The Return of the King: Solemn League and Covenant, 1650........................................................... 58
From the Riches of Scone Palace to a Field: Two Rather Different Sermons ................................ 62
“The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange”: Glorious Revolution, 1688—1690 .......................... 65
Conclusion: A Shiny New House .................................................. 69
iv
Chapter 1: Landscaping
In 1688 Mr Robert Bell—minister of Kilmarnock—walked towards the neighbouring village of
Richardtown. In the distance he noticed a large darkly dressed group of people blocking the
road. Suddenly, he was aware of a looming presence at either shoulder, hands began grabbing
and snatching at his clothes, and the cold metal barrel of a musket was placed against his temple
as he was escorted towards the rabble. Robert’s innocent walk was now a chaperoned march to a
destination unknown.1
He was brought to Kilmarnock market place—bare headed like a common criminal—and
forced against the Christian cross that stands in the centre of the square. As he glanced at his
assailants, certain faces looked familiar, yet rage and passion now contorted them into shapes
that looked rather different from the serene expressions of piety typical of a Sunday morning.
There were women and men, some he had married and baptised, others he had never set eyes on
before. Two figures stepped forward, one clutching the gown that Robert wore with pride each
day, the other tentatively held the Book of Common Prayer from her body as if merely touching
it was dangerous. A knife appeared: and then a torch fire. The gown was shred into an
unrecognizable mess; and there was nothing left of Robert’s Holy Book.2
Amidst his fear, anger, and sadness, Robert managed to force out one simple word; “why?”
“By the rule and Law of the Solemn League and Covenant, by which [we are] obliged to
extirpate Prelacy, and bring all Malignants to condign punishment,” cried the self-styled leader of
the rabble.3
Mr James Little, minister of Tindace and Trailflat, suffered a similar fate. The reply from his
assailants was that “they could not obey Man’s laws, but their King of Heaven’s Laws.” And
from the rabble that attacked Mr Archibald Ferguson, minister of Kirkpatrick, on Easter 1689,
“[we] require [you] also to be gone from [our] Covenanted Lands, under pain of death.”4
Robert Bell and his fellow ministers were not attacked because of any political disagreement
with their assailants: in fact both assailants and victims had recently welcomed William and Mary
as the new monarchs of Scotland. These ministers were assaulted and driven out of their
Case of the Present Afflicted Clergy 1690, A true account of those abuses and affronts, that were committed upon the person
of Mr. Robert Bell Parson of Kilmarnock, by a party of the Presbyterians now in arms in the West of Scotland, Project
Canterbury
2 ibid
3 ibid
4 ibid
1
1
parishes simply because they believed that the church should be governed by Bishops and
answerable to the state. Their assailants disagreed. The members of the rabble were convinced
by the ius divinum, the “intrinsic right”,5 of Presbyterianism. The wider battles fought throughout
Scotland’s seventeenth century were often based on this same dispute, and only with the removal
of the Stuart monarchs and the institution of Presbyterianism during the Glorious Revolution
was a resolution finally found—to a large extent.
Scotland’s initial Reformation, 1550—60, was peculiar in that it was inspired and carried out
by a “popular tumult” 6 of the ordinary people. It was not, as one might think from the
subsequent obsession over ecclesiastical power dissemination, a Reformation that espoused
Presbyterian church governance. In fact the nature of power dissemination within the Kirk was
not settled during the initial Reformation. But it was the distinct hermeneutic introduced by John
Knox—one that he had come into contact with in continental Europe—that captured the
imagination of many Scottish people.7 This hermeneutic appropriated one of the central themes
of Scripture, the covenant, and applied it equally to biblical analysis and to an understanding of
contemporary events.
Knox used covenantal ideas to ally the local elites and ordinary people against a monarch who
was opposed to any form of Protestant reform. Later, in the 1580s and ‘90s, the Scots’ Kirk
instituted a covenant to address concerns over which direction James VI would take the church,
and the Covenanters of the 1630s applied a covenant to counter King Charles I’s liturgical
reforms. Again, a covenant was employed to pacify Charles II and to make way for the
restoration of the Stuart monarchy. It was swiftly abandoned by Charles II and became a tool of
the rebel covenanters during the bloody years of the 1670s and ‘80s that have come to be known
as the Killing Times. And finally, covenantal ideas were present—even if a covenant was not—
during the Glorious Revolution.
Covenantal ideas, then, were adapted and influenced by the historical context against which
they were employed. Yet, to see the covenant solely in this political sense would be to lose the
true nature of covenantalism. Robert Bell’s assailants did not carry out their violent assault for
the sake of a convenient political tool. The covenant was—at a basic level—an expression of the
relationship between the Scottish people and God: a relationship that, for many, placed Scotland
at the centre of God’s universe. This was achieved through the simple yet powerful idea that by
accepting the Reformed faith the Scots had entered into a covenant with God and had become,
like the Israelites before them, “God’s chosen people”.
Raffe 2010, p. 317
James VI 1599 Basil. 23
7 Torrance 1996, p. xi
5
6
2
The covenant was incredibly important to early modern Scots; it provided the framework
through which they viewed the world and understood their place in it. And yet, our secular
generation of historians has generally ignored the religious aspect of covenantalism. There is,
therefore, an opportunity to analyse the different ways people of Reformed and Presbyterian
ideology conceived covenantal ideas, and as a result we are likely to gain a better understanding
of the events that took place between 1557 and 1690. In this way, we can appreciate early
modern Scotland on its own terms by dissecting the notion of Scotland’s “peculiar” relationship
to God.8
“Not Words but Meanings”
It is easy to get tied up in complex terminology when dealing with the analysis of ideas. In
particular, theological ideas that were once commonly understood have become obscure in an
increasingly secularised world. To address these issues, and for the avoidance of semantic
arguments, it is helpful to define some of the terms that will be used throughout this thesis.
The term covenant has multiple usages. In a legalistic sense, covenant denotes any agreement
between two or more parties in which signatories agree to do, or to not do, something specified.9
This definition can equally use the terms bond, pact, or contract. In an ecclesiastical sense, the term
covenant can be the agreement of members of a church to “act together in harmony with the
precepts of the gospel”,10 or to describe the relationship between humanity and God. This latter
definition of covenant can be confused further since for the ancient Israelites their covenant
with God was conditional and, as a result, contractual.11 However, since the Reformation the
term covenant can also denote the relationship between humanity and God that is exclusively
based on God’s grace and is, therefore, only conditional on the basis that an individual is willing
to accept grace.12 These various definitions are fundamentally the same thing: a declaration of a
relationship. However, it is important to highlight that while a written or oral covenant is, on one
level, merely the expression of a relationship between humanity and God, it is also a vehicle that
carried forward various ideas such as conceptions of kingship and nascent democracy. It is at
this deeper level that I will use the terms covenant and covenantal ideas.
1 Peter 2:9 King James (KJ)
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/covenant
10 ibid
11 This is the Reformed notion of the covenant of works. See: Zaret 1985, p.133 It is contradicted by Jewish understandings of
covenant in the Torah/Old Testament, but this is not a problem since my purpose is to understand Reformed/Presbyterian
ideology. For information, see: LaSor, Hubbard, Bush 1996, p. 122
12 Zaret 1985, p. 133
8
9
3
I will occasionally use the terms Prelacy/prelatic and Episcopalianism. In this context, these three
terms will be taken to mean roughly the same thing: church governance through Bishops whose
responsibility was divided along a diocesan structure. Prelacy will be used since it was the term of
choice for most of the historical actors under consideration, and to facilitate a seamless transition
between the language contained in the primary sources and the terminology applied for analysis.
It does not carry any negative connotations in this context. Although, it is worth pointing out
that like the term Papists to describe Catholics, in the early modern period prelacy was intended as
a term of derision towards the Episcopalian system.
Presbyterianism is a form of church governance in which members participate in devolved
legislative bodies starting with a presbytery, moving on to the more powerful synods, and finally
the most powerful body, the General Assembly. This form of ecclesiastical power dissemination
is based on Calvinist theology and was an express attempt to mimic the power structure of the
early church.
These terms are fundamental to an understanding of the following discussions. Covenant, since
it is the focus of this study. And Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism since they formed the two
competing solutions to the problem of church governance after the Reformation, and between
which a line can be drawn that divides the two rival camps throughout the historical period in
question. This thesis is primarily concerned with the development of Reformed and subsequent
Presbyterian thought; however, Episcopalianism will feature in the background since it is likely
that Presbyterian thought evolved, in part, as a reaction against Episcopalianism.
Swathes of Historical Commentary
A new study of Scotland’s covenants demands justification, as even a cursory glance through the
swathes of historical commentary will leave you wondering if such a rigorously analysed aspect
of Scottish history really needs further examination. It seems arrogant to claim to have anything
new to say, since the focus of this thesis is on an idea so central to early modern Scottish history
that it has leant its name to a revolution; that is, the Covenanter Revolution of 1637—44.
It seems, then, that scholars have put the covenant to rest. “The antecedents to the National
Covenant […] have often been discussed,” claimed I. B. Cowan, and now we have reached
“general agreement that constitutional opposition to the king was as important as matters of
religion.”13 For Alan MacInnes, this was a revolution “manufactured” by the local elites to limit
13
Cowan 1968, p. 38
4
the sovereignty of the crown.14 And, although he would likely admit to not being an expert on
the topic, Wayne Te Brake characterised this moment in history as an excellent example of the
local elites and ordinary people joining together in a shared political venture.15 You might be
wondering why these events are called the Covenanter Revolution at all, since there seems so little
attention afforded to the new, or at least reasserted, relationship between Scotland and God
expressed in the National Covenant. But perhaps we are like Plato’s men in a dark cave who
have discovered that there is more than one way to the light of knowledge pouring through the
entrance. These historians have seemingly tread that alternate path by adding political
explanations to the events of the Covenanter Revolution.
So, a political focus is the new route to enlightening the National Covenant; and, therefore, by
extrapolation a religious focus has not been forgotten, but the trail has been worn bare by the
footsteps of so many previous historians. Or so we are to believe. In 1958 S. A. Burrell was one
of these historians who discussed “the antecedents to the National Covenant”. He concluded
that the Covenanter Revolution was based upon apocalyptic belief heralded in during the initial
Reformation. His point was that whilst the visions of the Covenanters may appear “unrealistic to
a secular-minded generation”, by viewing the Covenant primarily as a religious symbol that just
so happened to have political ramifications, we gain a greater understanding of the events that
unfolded.16 Yet despite this conclusion, Burrell did not set out with a religious focus. He was
primarily interested in the political symbolism of the covenant and its earlier roots.
It seems that the revisionism of MacInnes and Cowan may be little more than the
historiographical equivalent of the Emperor’s new clothes. In fact, they share more than just a
focus of enquiry with the historians that preceded them. Both generations of historians seem to
accept that the Revolution of 1637—44 was the ultimate act in the story of Scotland’s covenants.
There are some, like John Young, who argue that certain groups active in the Glorious
Revolution drew upon the heritage of the Covenanters.17 However, this is yet again a political
argument that pays only a passing glance at the continuity of religious ideas.
These comments are not intended to discredit the excellent contribution of renowned
historians such as MacInnes, Cowan, Burrell, or Young, but rather to indicate that the political
aspect of the National Covenant has been thoroughly examined. Yet, the ecclesiastical aspect of
the Covenanter Revolution remains a sparsely inhabited space in the landscape of Scottish
historiography. And if we fast-forward to the Glorious Revolution, little scholarship has
examined this event in Scotland from either a political or ecclesiastical standpoint. You might be
MacInnes 1987, p. iii
Te Brake 1998, p. 141
16 Burrell 1958, p. 349
17 Young 2000, p. 159
14
15
5
inclined to agree with Ann Shukman’s cutting indictment of Scottish historiography, “If we lack
political analysis for those events, even more do we lack ecclesiastical analysis.”18
Shukman’s attack, however, is unscrupulous. In one sharply worded sentence, she placed a
large sticker that read, “not worth considering”, on top of works that have made a significant
contribution to our understanding: since, although there are gaps in our ecclesiastical and—to a
lesser extent—political knowledge, it is unfair to depict early modern Scottish historiography as a
barren wasteland. An example of a significant piece of scholarship is a 1994 article by John D.
Ford. He focused on an ecclesiastical debate around ceremonies introduced by the Five Articles
of Perth, 1618, and, for some, their perceived inconsistency with Scotland’s covenants. The
article was the first to examine specific sections in each covenant and categorise them as being
either assertory (an expression of the current state of things) or promissory (a promise to do
something in the future).19 As such, Ford argued that these documents were not so much
covenants, but collections of bonds that “were only thought to be worthy of retention because
they strengthened the bonds of divine law.”20 However, this conclusion would be more robust if
Ford had compared Scotland’s covenants to their biblical forerunners and identified differences.
And once again, Ford’s analysis was focused on the period around the National Covenant,
adding further fuel to the notion that the zenith of the covenant idea was in the 1630s and 40s.
Shukman was perhaps overly zealous with her appraisal of the shortcomings of Scottish
historiography. She did, however, come closer to the mark when she argued that, “Crucially too
there has been no full study of the political ideas of the Presbyterians, or of the legacy of the
covenant.”21 This thesis, then, is an attempt to provide such a study into the development of
covenantal ideas; and—in a reversal of Burrell’s approach—at the same time shed light upon the
political aspects of the period. This aim hints at one of my preconceptions—that politics and
religion were inseparable spheres in the early modern period. Religious ideas were influenced by
the historical context, and the events by the ideas.
This is not an exhaustive study of Scotland’s early modern history, or even Scotland’s
ecclesiastical history. This is merely a perspective, a different angle, into Reformed and
Presbyterian thought, and into the events that transpired between 1557 and 1690. A similar study
was carried out by Delbert R. Hillers who justified his work by arguing “that ‘covenant’ is just
the sort of idea which is apt to become ‘dark and doubtful’ with the passage of time.”22 He was
talking about Ancient Israel’s biblical covenants and one by one he examined them for their
Shukman 2012, p. 3
Ford 1994, p. 50
20 op. cit, p. 64
21 Shukman 2012, p. 3
22 Hillers 1969, p. 1
18
19
6
textual content, format, influences, and ultimately impact upon history. In the words of Hillers’,
“We may, for the sake of convenience, call this the history of […] an idea, but quite obviously it
was much more than an idea to Israel.”23 And to early modern Scotland.
Research Questions
Three central questions will be applied to five key stages in order to dissect different conceptions
of covenantal ideas. They have been chosen to allow a deep and prolonged analysis of these
ideas; where they came from, what they were used for, and how they changed. The central
questions are:
1) What influenced the formation of covenantal ideas?
This question should help us to understand what ideas early Reformed Protestants—and later,
Presbyterians—were drawing on to put together covenant documents. For example, if the Godly
Band of 1557 closely resembles the format, language, and particularly the content of the
Covenant of Sinai, we can conclude that the authors of the Godly Band were drawing heavily on
the Old Testament and particularly the Book of Deuteronomy.
I will also be analysing sermons delivered around the time covenants were signed. These
sermons were partly designed to explain covenantal ideas in more detail and, as a result, they
provide a window into popular Reformed and Presbyterian narratives. By considering what
influenced the formation of any given conception of covenantal ideas, we can gain a greater
understanding of Presbyterian thought. For instance, Richard Kyle has highlighted John Knox as
the herald of apocalyptic thought in Scotland,24 whereas Episcopalians described Presbyterians as
“rabbis” because of their perceived over reliance on the Old Testament.25 Both cannot be
correct. Either the initial Reformation was typified by a focus on the New Testament and
particularly the Book of Revelation, or the Reformers were more concerned with Old Testament
precedents. Considering what influenced covenant ideas will allow me to explore which of these
options is more likely in light of primary source evidence.
That is, however, merely one small example as to why this question is important. The main
purpose of this question is to try to provide a wider context for the ideas professed in covenants
and within popular narratives. I want to know what motivated Presbyterians and why they
op. cit, p. 5
Kyle 1984, p. 449
25 Maxwell 1644, p. 16; Coffey 1997, p. 157; Shukman 2012, p. 68
23
24
7
developed their thought in certain directions. Knowing what influenced the formation of
covenant ideas will provide us with an appreciation for the depth of Presbyterian thought.
2) What purposes did the covenants serve?
The second question is designed to act as a bridge between specific conceptions of covenantal
ideas and their historical context. It is one thing to discuss the lineage of ideas in an academic
vacuum, but such a thesis would be rather shallow and tell us very little. Instead, by considering
the purpose of a covenant and the reason why a covenantal idea was conceived in a specific way
at a particular time, we will be able to say something about the historical context. For example, if
we find that a certain covenant contains the notion of a divinely ordained monarchy and a
rejection of nascent democracy, then we can only conclude that this was a period in which the
national claimant enjoyed a strong position that the people were unwilling to challenge. And the
converse would be true if emphasis was placed on limited monarchy and the desirability of
nascent democracy.
3) How did the notion of covenant change over time?
The third and final question really drives to the heart of what it means to carry out an historical
enquiry. Historians can study specific points in time or particular practices, but an overarching
aim in most historiography is to discern how a practice, a cultural norm, or an idea changed over
time. Changes allow us to consider what is constant: they allow us to comment on what is fixed
about the human condition, and, conversely, what is transitory.
In the context of my thesis, mapping the changes in conceptions of covenantal ideas will
allow me to explore the transitory nature of Presbyterian thought and challenge a common
tendency to understand religious groups as homogenous and fixed in their beliefs. It will also
help to shed light on the changing historical context and how religious beliefs reacted to, or
influenced, that context.
There is a problem in trying to discern changes in an idea over time and that is the desire to
see ideas as inherently progressive: from a basic conception, to something more advanced, and
then into the fully mature and complex embodiment of an idea. Whilst this may be a correct
understanding of the development of ideas, it is as likely that the development of covenantal
ideas moved from one understanding, to something else, and back again. In short, the old adage
that there is “no such thing as a new idea”—or in this case a new conception—may hold true.
Moving on from the research questions, the key stages that will be placed under the
microscope are the:
8
• Initial Reformation, 1557—60
• Reign of James VI, 1567—1625
• Covenanter Revolution, 1637—43
• Charles II’s submission to the Solemn League and the Restoration of the Stuart
monarchy, 1650—81
• Glorious Revolution, 1689—90
The question concerning the formation of the covenant idea will be most relevant to
dissecting the Reformation and the reign of James VI; and the question that explores the changes
in the covenant idea over time will be most applicable to the Covenanter Revolution, the
Restoration, and Glorious Revolution. Finally, the question of what purpose the Covenant
served at any given time is relevant to every stage under consideration and will act as a binding
agent that holds the analysis together. You will hopefully understand how the research questions
will illuminate covenantal ideas in Scotland, but you might be wondering why the key stages—
rather than any other time periods or categorisations—have been chosen. The answer is simply
that a covenant was formed during each of these time periods (and their durations have been
fixed according to the sources under consideration).
Along with the central questions and key historical stages, the research will also be guided by
certain fixed covenantal ideas that I have found throughout the sources. These are like
benchmarks, or signposts, to keep the analysis on track. The ideas include, but are not limited to;
God’s chosen people, nascent democracy, kingship, and Reformation (as a process rather than
an event). It will be possible to examine how opinions about each of these ideas changed over
time, when they perhaps first appeared in rhetoric surrounding the covenant, and to consider if
certain ideas are particularly prominent at specific times, and what that tells us about a specific
covenant or historical context. These covenantal ideas were fixed in as far as they were present in
every covenant. But they were also malleable in the way they were conceived in each covenant
and in the way different actors understood them.
By outlining the central questions, key stages, and covenantal ideas, I hope to have provided
you with a handy map that will allow you to follow the argumentation throughout my thesis.
9
Theory and Design
“Government is twofold”, observed John Calvin, it is divided between “spiritual and temporal
jurisdiction.”26 “There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland”, echoed Andrew Melville.27
For Saint Augustine there was a “City of God” and “City of Man”.28 And Mathew, Mark, and
Luke all recalled Jesus’ haunting order; “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and
unto God the things that are God’s.”29 This fissure runs deeply through Christian thought.
Turn your attention to Western thought more generally and you will notice this schism
everywhere you look. For a moment, imagine Isaac Newton. The historian interested in work
and survival strategies may put Newton’s life under the microscope and consider how scientists
financially supported themselves in the 1690s—an investigation into Newton’s temporal life. The
historian of material culture may examine the kind of luxury items consumed by Newton and
how they impacted upon his status in English society—another example of history with a
temporal focus. Or the intellectual historian may delve into the inner workings of Newton’s
mind, considering what ideas he may have been familiar with in an attempt to reconstruct the
process that resulted in his greatest theories—a history of the spiritual realm. Perhaps you
remain unconvinced.
If you instead turn to philosophy, Jean Paul Sartre’s phenomenological project was simply an
attempt to turn philosophers away from introspection—the City of God—and towards temporal
considerations. His was a philosophy of everyday life. 30 And on the other side, we have
Descartes’ hyperbolically sceptical approach to understanding existence and the nature of God.31
Perhaps a return to Jesus’ words will provide a little clarity; “The Kingdom of God is within
you.”32 Here we have a hint to the division of knowledge within Western thought. By secularising
the phraseology— replacing the terms “spiritual” and “Kingdom of God” with “the realm of
intellect and ideas”—the division within academia becomes clear: some scholars study the
observable temporal sphere, and others the more abstract—but nevertheless real—realm of
ideas.
A study into the tangled web of ideas is a little daunting. Thankfully, there are theories and
pre-made methods to draw upon, such as Daniel C. Dennett’s catchy-titled heterophenomenology—
he is a philosopher after all. Dennett argues that phenomena are ingested as follows: a) conscious
Calvin 1536, Book 3; Chapter 19; Section 15
Calderwood 1844, p. 440; Mason 1994, p. 123
28 Augustine 2003, p. 596
29 Luke 20:25; Mark 12:17; Matthew 22:21 KJ
30 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/
31 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/
32 Luke 17:21 KJ
26
27
10
experiences themselves, b) beliefs about these experiences, c) verbal judgements expressing those
beliefs, and d) utterances of one sort or another.33 For my purposes, I will be focusing upon
section ‘c’ since the covenants of Scotland are a collective expression of beliefs about the
relationship between the Scottish people and God, and the dissemination of power within
society. Dennett expands with an important point worth keeping in mind when considering the
sources, “I am not assuming that you are right in what you tell me, but just that that is what you
believe.”34 So, while the views expressed about Scotland’s covenants may appear peculiar, we
have no reason to suppose that these expressions are anything other than an accurate depiction
of people’s beliefs.
We have, then, established the basic framework for this study: it is an exploration into the
realm of ideas. And, hopefully you have already realised, I will focus on covenantal ideas. Whilst
Dennett’s theory of consciousness is helpful in marking the boundaries for this study, it does not
give us any indication of exactly how we can unearth the meaning of Scotland’s covenant; how it
was used and understood; and how it may have changed over time. For this kind of practical
help, we have to turn to historical theory and methodology: namely, the Cambridge School
espoused principally by Quentin Skinner.
Skinner instructs would be intellectual historians to identify four elements in the sources: i)
the occurrence of a particular word or phrase which represents the idea, ii) the use of the
relevant sentence by a particular agent on a particular occasion, iii) the intention of the phrase,
and iv) the statement considered in its totality and context.35 I have adopted this approach when
analysing my chosen sources. However, Skinner’s instructions leave a gap that could easily be
filled by misunderstanding. To provide clarity: when sitting in a darkly lit room scouring over the
sources, I have not looked for key terms that denote specific ideas. Instead, I have decided to
focus on certain recurring themes in the sources. The expressions, God’s chosen people, nascent
democracy, kingship, and Reformation are not necessarily important in themselves. Instead, my
primary focus is on the sentences that describe these ideas. I am interested in meaning, not
words: concepts, not terms. For instance, the Old Testament regularly refers to the covenant
between God and Israel as a marriage: God is the groom, and Israel his bride.36 Yet, in other
places Israel is described as “the firstfruits of his increase.”37 The important aspect is the idea
that Israel had a unique relationship with God, and as a secondary aside we may ask why the
Dennett 2003, p. 3
op. cit, p. 4
35 Skinner 1969, p. 39
36 Hosea 2:19—20; Jeremiah 3:14; Jeremiah 21:31—32 KJ
37 Jeremiah 2:3 KJ
33
34
11
Bible uses different metaphors to describe the same idea. And whether this actually tells us
anything. As Geerhardus Vos rightly observed,
In tracing back the development of a doctrine, one should simply take care not to attach too
much importance to the name, and because of the lack of later current formulae, to conclude
prematurely that it was absent. Stock phrases usually do not appear at the beginning, but only
at the end of a development.38
It is the persistence of notions—such as the desire for limited monarchy—that will shed light
upon how the covenant was conceived. And the regularity of certain ideas can indicate what
questions, or problems, covenantal ideas were expected to solve at any given time. For instance,
if the notion of limited monarchy is particularly present during the Covenanter Revolution, but
absent during the Reformation, it would be fair to conclude that the constitutional role of the
national claimant was a matter of dispute during the Covenanter Revolution, and less so during
the Reformation.
It is incredibly important to emphasise at this stage that I am not using Skinner’s
methodology as a writing technique or a framework around which to format a presentation of
primary sources. Instead, I have applied the Cambridge School methodology to the sources
during the initial research. Do not be surprised when you reach the analysis section and find that
my thesis is not structured around the four elements identified by Skinner. The critical reader
may object that a thesis should be arranged in line with the methodology used by the historian.
However, since my thesis focuses on five separate time periods, to present Skinner’s
methodology would become insipidly repetitive and unbearably longwinded. Nevertheless, I will
present one small section using Skinner’s approach to give you a glance at his methodology in
action and I will occasionally refer back to the Cambridge School to help ground the analysis.
While we are on the topic of how I will present my analysis, it will be helpful to provide you
with a little more clarity. My analysis is concerned with comparing the covenant documents. This
will allow us to see the changes in the conception of covenantal ideas over time. I will also
present the biblical Sinai Covenant as a benchmark against which to compare the Scottish
covenants in order to highlight the influence of biblical ideas on the formation of Scottish
conceptions of covenant. One of the immediate problems is the varying length of the covenants.
If we were to merely take the Godly Band of 1557, for example, and try to compare it to the
National Covenant of 1638, we would be trying to contrast a half-page document against one
that covers ten full pages. In short, we would not be able to fully appreciate the similarities
between these two documents because we would be blinded by their obvious differences.
38
Vos 2011, p. 11
12
Theologian George Mendenhall proposed a way of segmenting covenants to ease
comparisons between them and ancient treaties. He was particularly concerned with showing
how Hittite treaties heavily influenced the formation of biblical covenants. As such, Mendenhall
suggested that there are six distinct sections in a covenant that can be identified to then compare
against other covenants or treaties.39 I am only using this method as an analytical tool at a
simplistic level and I am certainly not concerned with influences on the formation of biblical
covenants: if I were, we would end up with a never-ending analysis that went to ever-greater
extractions. Instead, I will use Mendenhall’s formulation merely to present my analysis section
and—at most—as a method of categorisation. To put it simply, I have identified specific
sections in each covenant that will be presented as quotes. I have then used Skinner’s
methodology to consider what these quotes really mean and to help us understand what was
influencing covenant ideas; the purpose of these ideas in a given historical context; and how the
ideas were changing over time.
There is an element of personal choice in deciding upon both the wider framework and
methodology. Yet, the potential for the research to be biased as a result of those choices is
fractional when compared to the impact of source selection. With that in mind, I have attempted
to be cautious by allowing the thesis to be driven by the covenant documents. However, if I
were to end there, we would have a very one-dimensional analysis. Therefore, sermons will also
be considered to provide depth, to flesh out the historical context, and to particularly give us an
insight into popular narratives. Whilst the sermons are without doubt subjective sources, I have
minimised the risk of unbearable bias by deliberately selecting sermons by well-known preachers
whose ideas could be considered as indicative of Reformed—and later, Presbyterian—popular
narratives.
There is one exception to my self-imposed rules around sources and that is when we reach
the Glorious Revolution, 1689—90. No covenant was signed during this key event and that
means that I will consider a parliamentary act instead of a covenant. Due to the covenant’s
absence, some historians—such as Andrew Drummond, James Bulloch, and Colin Kidd—have
argued that the Glorious Revolution was a watershed for secularism.40 They have pointed out
that Scotland’s covenantal history came to a close with the Solemn League (signed by Charles II
in 1651) and have portrayed the Glorious Revolution as something completely distinct from the
earlier key events in this thesis.41 So, the obvious question is why I have included the Glorious
Revolution at all?
Mendenhall 1954, pp. 58—59
Drummond and Bulloch 1973, pp. 1—24; Kidd 2003, pp. 62—63; Raffe 2010, p. 321
41 Kidd 2003, p. 52
39
40
13
I believe that the Claim of Right—a parliamentary act that ratified the transfer of the crown
from James VII to William of Orange—was the logical progression of covenantal ideas. It
enshrined Presbyterianism, limited monarchy, and nascent democracy. My thesis, then, is partly
motivated by re-imagining Scotland’s early modern Presbyterian history by including the
Glorious Revolution—as codified in the Claim of Right—as the final act in Scotland’s Long
Reformation. By including the Glorious Revolution into a narrative that is concerned with
Presbyterian thought, my thesis, then, hopes to sew together Scotland’s early modern
historiography into an extended tapestry, and covenantal ideas will be my thread.
Skinner’s methodology instructs us to be sensitive of both the author(s) and the audience(s)
of a given source. And, since the covenants are often concerned with power distribution within
the church and state, this thesis, then, is also concerned with societal actors. Wayne Te Brake’s
model of dividing actors within a community into ordinary people, local elites, and national
claimants will be adopted to aid the analysis.42 Some readers might protest at the arbitrary
categorisation of society in this manner, since it may seem misguided to talk of these as
homogenous groupings. But as an approach, it is helpful as it makes the source material more
manageable and provides a perspective into the way different sections of the community
interacted with, and conceived, covenantal ideas.
A final note of caution: whilst analysing covenantal ideas through time, they are as likely to
reveal conceptual disorder as much as coherent doctrine. Incoherence and contradiction are also
probable in the way ideas around the covenant were conceived even by the same person. This is
in part the unavoidable reality of the human mind. Each one of us holds contradictory opinions.
But it is equally a problem of trying to map a transitory idea. Irrespective of what we might be
inclined to believe, ideas rarely follow a linear progression. The historical actors will likely
oscillate between different ways of thinking about specific notions such as kingship. Whilst this
undoubtedly makes intellectual historiography a hard task, it would be disingenuous to attempt
to simplify that which is complex. Instead, we must accept that trying to understand ideas is a
complicated endeavour, but this only makes our adventure through Scotland’s covenants all the
more exciting.
42
Te Brake 1998, pp. 15—16
14
Hypothesis
Marc Bloch instructed historians to present their work as an investigation unfolding: advice that
was echoed by Helen Sword in her excellent handbook, Stylish Academic Writing.43 No one wants
to be told the identity of the killer on the first page of a crime novel, or to find out immediately
that everything will work out at the end of a romance tearjerker. Admittedly, a thesis is a
somewhat different beast. It should be the construction of an argument supported by source
analysis. The “who done it” or “how does it end?” should appear earlier in academic work, but
that does not mean that academics should give the game away from the very beginning.
With this advice in mind, I will present to you my initial thoughts on what we can expect to
conclude at the end of this thesis. I may be right or wrong—both are acceptable since being
wrong in our early assumptions tells us as much as being confirmed right. I believe we will find
that covenantal ideas were fixed, but the way to conceive these ideas was malleable and
influenced by factors such as a specific historical context or by biblical ideas (and I have a
sneaking suspicion that the Old Testament was far more prominent in the formation of
covenantal ideas than the New Testament). From my early research, I am of the opinion that
there was no such interminable absolute covenant. It was not an unchanging thing to merely be
invoked in later times; instead, written and oral covenants were vehicles used to forward ideas
about kingship, nascent democracy, church governance, and Scotland’s peculiar relationship to
God. Mapping how these ideas changed over time will allow us to observe how Presbyterian
thought developed and will likely demonstrate that it was transitory. In short, Presbyterianism
was not a fixed and homogeneous creed.
I am also of the opinion that ideas are not necessarily progressive or linear. Instead, I expect
this thesis to illustrate that covenantal ideas oscillated between different conceptions dependent
upon factors such as the specifics of a historical context, biblical ideas that were being drawn on,
or even an individual’s personal attributes (a factor that is outwith the remit of my thesis).
Scotland’s covenants encapsulate early Reformed—and later, Presbyterian—thought. For this
reason, they are particularly helpful to any study that seeks to examine Presbyterian ideology. But
for that same reason, their usefulness as vehicles for societal change—for forwarding ideas—was
limited. In short, you would not sign a covenant if you were Episcopalian or Catholic. As such,
the covenants’ inherent weakness was that they could, at best, only unify the Presbyterian
community around a particular goal such as limited monarchy. I believe that covenants fell from
their central place in Scotland’s popular narrative when covenantal ideas could be forwarded in a
43
Bloch 1992, p. 59; Sword 2012, pp. 79—83
15
wider sense, to the whole Scottish community, by parliamentary legislation (the Claim of Right)
after the Glorious Revolution when Scotland had a Calvinist king on the throne.
By considering the covenants for the religious documents they were, I hope to demonstrate
that the Claim of Right was merely a new vehicle for covenant ideas, the logical successor of
covenant. In this way, I believe I will find that the Glorious Revolution is not a political event
detached from Scotland’s Presbyterian history (contrary to the impression one gets from Scottish
historiography that has tended to focus on the political aspect of the Revolution Settlement).44
The Glorious Revolution is in fact the conclusion of Scotland’s Long Reformation that turned
Presbyterian thought into the official doctrine of Scotland. As a result, by portraying the
Glorious Revolution as part and parcel of Scotland’s covenantal history, it is likely that my thesis
will indicate that hitherto historians have imposed a religious/political divide onto a society that
would not have understood such a separation of ideas.
44
Patrick 2002, pp. 4—6
16
Chapter 2: Foundations
Plugging the Gaps
The covenant was, at a basic level, an expression of the relationship between the Scottish people
and God. But why was there any need to express it in written form? When you go to the shop
and buy a shirt you form an association with the retailer, but there is no need to officially convey
the relationship. When you go to support your local football team you affiliate with your fellow
supporters. And again, you feel no need to make an official declaration. Or do you? The truth is
you do express these relationships through a receipt in the first instance; and, in the second
example, by identifying yourself by the collective name held by the football fans: in my case I am
an “Arab” because I support Dundee United. It is merely that due to their familiarity, these
declarations of relationships are implicit and intuitive: just as declarations such as oaths, pledges,
bonds, and covenants would have been for the people of early modern Scotland.
The story of Scots Law before 1707 is like a James Joyce novel: the overall narrative is there,
but it appears to be pulling in different directions: clarity, it seems, remains allusive. Despite
Scotland having three medieval universities—St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen—Scots who
wanted to study law in the late medieval and early modern eras generally went to universities in
continental Europe.45 These often competing influences resulted in a legal system with gaps.46
Use of oaths, pledges, and bonds, then, made sense: they filled important holes in the network of
the law.
In a similar vein, but with a wider focus, consider treaties between Scotland and other
countries. This was a time when notions of international law were at an embryonic stage.
Instead, Scotland’s international relations were governed by treaties that were both assertory and
promissory in nature. For instance, Scotland’s Auld Alliance with France was a declaration of
mutual friendship and promises of military aid in the case of attack. Again, we see pledges acting
as an understudy for the role that would be later played by an all-encompassing legal system.
Today, we can catch a glimpse of the culture of oaths, pledges, and bonds every time we
attend a wedding. As the bride and groom stand at the alter they are asked to repeat a
MacQueen 2003, In: MacQueen; Aloy; Vaquer; Espiau 2003, pp. 102—103
Attwool 1997, p. 64; op. cit, pp. 71—72; Reid and Zimmerman 2000, p. 230; For a hyperbolic account of the confusions
within Scots law, see: Kidd 2003, pp. 147—148
45
46
17
promissory oath; “[I] take thee … to hold from this day forward … till death do us part.” The
wedding ceremony is an anachronistic remnant of an oath-based society.
To early modern Scots, expressing a relationship through a written covenant would not have
been peculiar. It is not as if John Knox and his friends conjured some novel way of expressing
the relationship between Scotland and God, as they saw it. Rather, covenants emerged within the
framework, or culture, of the time. In other words, relationships in early modern Scotland were
often expressed through bonds, it should therefore be expected that Reformers and
Presbyterians would express their desired arrangement of relationships—such as limited
monarchy—in the same manner.
The Re-Discovery of the Bible’s Central Idea
Historians are a little like builders: mainly their job is to construct arguments that are robust
enough to remain in tact against the wrecking-balls of counter-scholarship. And sometimes they
engage in a little deconstruction themselves in order to build a shiny new house on the site of a
dilapidated shack. So far in this thesis, I have dug the first foundation trench for my humble
apartment block and added a central pillar. I will now add an adjoining column. The problem is
that it is one thing to convince you that expressing a relationship through a covenant was
common practice in early modern Scotland. But it is an entirely different task to explain why
people believed Scotland had a unique relationship with God (which is, after all, the foundation
idea of covenantalism).
Three years ago, I sat in a dimly lit lecture hall and listened with interest as the lecturer
described the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. I remember picturing Martin
Luther nailing his “95 Theses” to a church door. The thing that really captured me was not so
much Luther’s bravery—undoubtedly he was a bold man—but it was the fact that he had
introduced a brand new idea into Christendom, one that seemed so obvious: God’s authority is
exclusively revealed through Scripture. The schism in the church, I thought, was obviously a
divide between revelation through tradition against revelation through Scripture: the Church
over the Bible, or the Bible over the Church. What a simple and yet incredibly profound dispute.
The problem is my lecturer, like so many historians, had peddled a common misconception.
Throughout the middle ages, most theologians accepted that Scripture was the sole source of
divine revelation—with the proviso that the Church had the authority to interpret Scripture
18
according to the apostolistic regula fidei (rule of faith).47 This is known as “Tradition I”.48 In the
early fourteenth century the theologian William Ockham introduced a two-source theory of
revelation. According to Ockham, extra-scriptural sources of revelation are as authoritative as
Scripture itself. Theologians describe this as “Tradition II”.49 For the following two hundred
years, these two theological positions sat side-by-side in relative harmony.
It was merely as a reaction against Luther and Calvin’s strict adherence to Tradition I that the
Roman Church approved Tradition II as orthodoxy.50 As such, since the Roman Church had
accepted Tradition I for a large part of its history, Jaroslav Pelikan was right when he observed,
“The Church did not need a Luther to tell it that the Bible was true.”51 The issue was not so
much the status of Scripture, but rather its interpretation.
If we return to the issue in hand, the obvious question is why, from the beginning, was the
concept of covenant so much in the foreground of Reformed theology? We could, as
Geerhardus Vos points out, accept that “the doctrine of the covenant is taken from the
Scriptures”52 and therefore a renewed vigour for scriptural analysis was surely going to rejuvenate
the covenant idea. This explanation, however, provokes more questions than it answers. The
Roman Church had accepted Tradition I for centuries and yet did not focus on the notion of
covenant. And more pressingly, the Lutherans as well as the Calvinists triumphed the doctrine of
sola scriptura (Scripture alone). Yet, the notion of covenant was, for the most part, curiously
absent from Lutheran theology.53
When Reformed theology championed the covenant, it was casting itself upon the Bible’s
“deepest root idea”.54 It is tempting—and a little amusing—to agree with Vos when he argues
that Calvinists were simply better at biblical exegesis.55 We can, however, argue with a little more
certainty—and a lot less bias—that for some Calvinists the covenant was a vehicle for advancing
an alternate interpretation of Scripture: beginning with humanity’s relationship with God and
moving on to explore other scriptural ideas. It was, in other words, a hermeneutic. Reformed
theology’s focus on the covenant was therefore not simply a result of the doctrine of sola
scriptura.
This section began with the ambitious aim of providing an explanation for the belief that
Scotland had a unique relationship with God. For that, you will have to wait a little longer. But
Romans 12:6 KJ; Mathison 2001, pp. 161—162
Oberman 2002, p. 58
49 Mathison 2001, p. 81
50 op. cit, p. 86
51 Pelikan 1964, p. 21
52 Vos 2011, pp. 5—6
53 ibid; McGrath 2005, p. 268
54 Vos 2011, pp. 5—6
55 ibid
47
48
19
what this section has shown is that Calvinism advanced a new interpretation of Scripture that
contained the notion of covenant. It is important to highlight that for John Calvin, the covenant
played a secondary role to his fixation with the Trinity.56 Nevertheless, a group known as the
Heidelberg theologians were the first to prioritise the covenant in their writings. Vos has
attributed covenantalism—or what can also be called federal theology—to these men.57 John Knox,
however, was contemporaneously promoting covenant theology. Which begs the question, did
this incarnation of Reformed thought influence Knox during his time in Europe, or did he
independently come to focus on the covenant by prioritising a strand already present in Calvin’s
theology?
Thoughts in a Distant Land: Covenantalism in Continental Europe
When focusing an historical enquiry on one specific country, there can be a temptation to
conclude that there was something exceptional happening in the locality in question. It will stand
us in good stead for the rest of this thesis, then, if we take a momentary step back and consider
covenant theology beyond the boundaries of Scotland.
Ralph Allan Smith has credited Heidelberg theologian Casper Olevianus as the first to
formulate covenant theology. Smith points out that there was a direct link between Calvin’s
focus on the Trinity and Olevianus’ conception of covenant. In trying to understand the
relationship between the constituent parts of the triune deity—God the father, God the Christ,
and God the Holy Ghost—Olevianus proposed that there was a covenant between God and
Christ.58 To put it simply, the covenant was a helpful way to understand the relationship between
a God that is tripart and yet one.
Olevianus published two works outlining his covenantal theology in 1576 and 1585.59 And
here we hit a little bump in Smith’s argument: if Olevianus was the first to articulate covenant
theology, how do we make sense of John Knox pushing the covenant into the foreground of
Scottish Reformed theology in the late 1550s and early 1560s? We can answer this problem in
one of two ways. Firstly, and slightly cynically, we can conclude that Smith is simply wrong and
has come to the conclusion that Olevianus was the first to prioritise the covenant because he was
the first to publish books on the covenant. If we turn our attention to Scotland, the first
op. cit, p. 2
ibid
58 Smith 2003, pp. 16—17
59 Vos 2011, p. 2
56
57
20
theological treatise on the covenant was by Robert Rollock in 1596.60 As such, you can see how
the mistake could be made. However, secondly, we could argue that Smith is wrong for a slightly
different reason. Geerhardus Vos has pointed out that while Calvin may have prioritised the
Trinity, the covenant had been the dominant principle for Calvinist theologians in Zurich for
both the practice of Christianity and as a hermeneutic for biblical exegesis. Unsurprisingly,
Olevianus spent time in Zurich where he likely came into contact with covenant theology.61
It does not really matter which of these explanations is correct. What we can say with
certainty is that Olevianus and his fellow Heidelberg theologians espoused and practiced
covenant theology. And if Vos is correct, so did Calvinists in Zurich. We have, then, established
an important point: Scotland was not unique in prioritising the covenant. Additionally, it seems
likely—as Vos also observed—that Latin translations of Olevianus’ work were being read in
Scotland and influenced the development of covenantal ideas.62
Scotland’s covenantal history did not develop in a vacuum and theological developments on
the continent mirrored Scotland’s experience (although the political implications of Scotland’s
covenants does seem to be without comparison). Indeed, even some Luthern theologians
adopted covenantalism at the end of the seventeenth century. However, it seems likely that they
were borrowing from Calvinism rather than building upon any covenantal tradition within a
Lutheran framework.63 I will leave you once more with the wise words of Geerhardus Vos that
highlight the experience of covenantalism across the globe,
Federalism [covenantalism] is truly a universal phenomenon, emerging everywhere theology is
done on the basis of the Reformed principle. It used to be thought rather generally that British
theologians had followed the Dutch on this score. Closer research has speedily shown that it is
not a matter of imitation but of independent development.64
The Influence of Continental Covenantalism and The Impact of
Scotland’s “Popular Tumult”
The notion that Scotland is, or at least was, a Calvinist country is engraved upon the popular
imagination. And it is an opinion that is undoubtedly correct when you look at the history of the
Scots’ Kirk from the seventeenth century onwards. However, this chapter is concerned with the
foundations of covenantal ideas and it would be negligent to not consider whether other
Elazar and Kincaid 2000, p. 145
Vos 2011, p. 2
62 op. cit, p. 4
63 op. cit, p. 1
64 op. cit, p. 3
60
61
21
theological branches informed the prominence of covenant in Scottish early modern theology.
As Carol Edington rightly observed, Knox’s “identification with Calvinist thinking […] has not
survived scholarly scrutiny unscathed.”65 As such, both Richard L. Greaves and Carol Edington
point to Lutheran influences in Knox’s conception of the atonement and the family of Christ.66
Calvinism did not have a monopoly on early Protestant thought in Scotland. However, the
influence of Lutheranism or Zwingli and his fellow Swiss—through, for example, the Scottish
reformer George Wishart67—is an issue of emphasis. On this matter, there has to be an element
of reading history backwards. For instance, Calvinism informed the later debates around church
governance in Scotland, it would be odd to then suggest that Lutheranism was the main
influence on one particular idea that preceded these debates. In other words, it seems extremely
hard to point to a shred of evidence that suggests the priority given to the covenant comes from
anywhere other than Calvinist doctrine. It should also be noted that just because John Knox
shared certain beliefs with early Scottish Protestants, this is not indisputable evidence for the
direct influence of Lutheranism. It is just as likely that Knox came to his conclusions regarding
the Atonement or the Christian family independently through his personal interpretation of
Scripture.
The reason for this section focusing upon John Knox is simply because he played such a
significant role in the Scottish Reformation: understand Knox and we will better grasp the initial
Reformation—and the introduction of covenantal ideas into Scotland. Knox spent time in
Geneva and Frankfurt where he engaged in various theological disputes: the best known of these
debates was over the use of the 1552 English Prayer Book.68 Here, Knox’s arguments can be
linked to wider trends in Reformed thought. Knox argued from two distinct positions: firstly, he
refuted the Catholic belief that words in themselves could have some sort of religious power.69
Thus, set forms of prayers were nothing more than mere convenience. Secondly, Knox argued
that any human intervention in devising forms of worship was intrinsically wrong. 70 After
discussions with Calvin, Knox accepted a revised form of the Prayer Book. But he did not stop
there. Knox continued to write to Calvin refuting the merits of the English Litany.71
In terms of Knox’s contact with covenant ideas, we have to play a game of deduction. We
know that Knox was in regular contact with John Calvin and we also know he was a great
admirer of the religious settlement in Geneva. Calvin’s theology focused on the Trinity and the
Edington 1998, p. 41 In: Mason 1998
ibid
67 op. cit, p. 33
68 Cameron 1998, pp. 59—61 In: Mason 1998
69 op. cit, p. 63
70 op. cit, p. 62
71 op. cit, pp. 60—65
65
66
22
covenant was, therefore, of secondary importance. Nevertheless, the covenant was present in
Calvin’s writings. It is also likely that Knox was aware of the Heidelberg and Zurich theologians,
both of whom pushed the covenant into a central place within their writings.
During his time in Europe Knox demonstrated his strict adherence to an uncompromising
form of sola scriptura that only accepted traditions or beliefs if they were taken straight from
Scripture. 72 From his regular contact with Calvin, his central place in refuting all human
intervention in worship, and his likely contact with rival Reformed interpretations of Scripture,
Knox’s time in Europe was a little like an apprenticeship for the would-be revolutionary.
According to Euan Cameron, John Knox’s legacy was to introduce “a subversive and
apocalyptic” 73 discourse into Scotland that “would remain embedded in the Scots religious
psyche [sic].” 74 It is easy to agree with Cameron when you consider the uncompromising
religious rhetoric and firebrand style of Scottish preachers throughout the seventeenth century.
However, Cameron overlooks Knox’s greatest contribution: he pushed the covenant idea into
the foreground of Scottish theology. So, Knox’s dogmatic preaching may have been the result of
his personal attributes. And, while in Europe he embraced a strict notion of sola scriptura and an
appreciation for the importance of the covenant.
That seems to be the issue put to rest. Scotland adopted the covenant because its leading
reformer spent time in continental Europe. Sadly, history cannot be encapsulated in such a
simplistic formulation. Whilst Knox’s experiences in Europe explains, in part, why he pushed the
covenant into the foreground of his own religious thought, it does not explain why Scotland was
so quick to embrace the covenant and how it came to hold a central place in Scotland’s
Reformed and Presbyterian narratives for the following century.
Euan Cameron concluded his article on Knox’s experiences in Europe by pondering the
differences between Scotland and England’s Reformations. He argued, quite rightly, that whereas
England brought about Reformation from the top-down, “In more fissile Scotland, a weaker
monarchy found Reformation foisted upon it”.75 And there we have it: in a few words the nature
of Scotland’s Reformation—being brought about by the people against the wishes of the
national claimant, rather than by monarchical diktat as in England—becomes the final
foundation pillar upon which this thesis will stand.
You might be wondering what any of this means. Euan Cameron concluded his sentence by
saying that the Reformation was forced through by the local elites.76 And we should add the
Johnson 2002, p. 134 In: Parish and Naphy 2002
Cameron 1998, In: Mason 1998, p. 69
74 op. cit, p. 73
75 ibid
76 ibid
72
73
23
ordinary people into the mix, since under Knox’s instructions the local elites had joined with the
ordinary people in an attempt to bring about the Reformation of religion in Scotland against a
monarch wholly opposed to any reform. This view is not merely the retrospective conclusion of
modern scholars, but James VI also argued that the Scots’ propensity towards rebellion and their
desire for “a Democraticke forme of gouerment”77 was directly linked to the ordinary people’s
integral role in Scotland’s Reformation. As James put it, “But the reformation of Religion in
Scotland, being extraordinarily wrought by God, wherein many things were inordinately done by
a popular tumult and rebellion”, and that many problems were the direct result of the
Reformation “not proceeding from the Princes order, as it did in our neighbour countrey of
England, as likewise in Denmarke, and sundry parts of Germanie”.78
These quotations were taken from Basilikon Doron, James’ instruction manual on how kingship
should be conducted in Scotland. Note the negative terms such as “rebellion” and
“inordinately”. It would be disingenuous to argue that James VI did not support the
Reformation, but his tone indicates that he looked unfavourably on the nature of Scotland’s
Reformation. Despite James’ astute observations, he was unable to see that it was the covenant
that linked the Reformation to later ideas such as the desire for ordinary people’s participation in
politics. We are slowly letting the light shine upon this issue. So, if James was correct that there
was a link between the role of ordinary people in the Reformation and later ideas, and I am right
that the linkage is best understood through the covenant, the obvious question is what was it
about ordinary people taking part in the Reformation that pushed them towards embracing the
notion of covenant?
We have to first transport ourselves back to the mid-sixteenth century if we hope to answer
that question. Before the Reformation, ordinary people had a small role to play in political or
ecclesiastical governance. And yet, they played a central role in the Reformation in Scotland.
James VI argued that they found “the gust of gouerment sweete”.79 Add to the mix the notion of
covenant—at least in the form it was conceived by John Knox. Here we have an idea of a direct
relationship between the people and God, with no need for any intermediary. In other words, all
men are equal under God. This notion challenged the traditional power structures of society and
would, by its very nature, have appealed to people who had recently had a favourable taste of
power. The covenant, then, appealed to the Scottish people because it implied ideas that were
desirable to the people of Scotland at that specific time in history. To put it simply, ordinary
James VI 1599, Basil. 23
ibid
79 ibid
77
78
24
people desired, in the words of Wayne Te Brake, a “creative”80 role in their future: and the
covenant offered a worldview that encouraged that creativity.
A Quick Inspection
Before we venture on to consider each specific covenant, it will be helpful to take a second to
consider where we are in our journey. Excuse the mixed metaphors, but in terms of building this
argument we have now completed the four foundation pillars. Firstly, I have argued that bonds,
pledges, oaths, and covenants were a common way to express relationships in early modern
Scotland. This was in part due to the many holes in the Scottish legal system—covenants, then,
filled the gaps. Secondly, the doctrine of sola scriptura allowed a new interpretation of Scripture
that focused on its root idea, the covenant. We then have the influence of ideas present in
Europe at the time that John Knox, and others, came into contact with while in Geneva and
Frankfurt. And finally, the nature of the Scottish Reformation—having empowered ordinary
people in league with the local elites—made the notion of equality under God, encapsulated in
the notion of covenant, appealable to the people of Scotland.
These foundation pillars provided the context into which covenantal ideas appeared. It will be
worth keeping these foundations in mind as we go on to erect the walls—through the use of
primary sources—that will allow my thesis to truly take shape.
80
Te Brake 1998, p. 21
25
Chapter 3: Construction Choices: Changing
Conceptions of Covenantal Ideas
Building Blocks of the Biblical Forerunners
Theological scholars George Mendenhall, Delbert Hillers, Steve McKenzie and Robert Charles
Sproule have all agreed that covenants, like ancient treaties, follow a set pattern that covers six
distinct sections: 1) preamble, 2) historical prologue, 3) general stipulations, 4) specific
stipulations, 5) blessings and/or curses, 6) a list of witnesses.8182 There are often slight differences
as to what order sections appear, or perhaps one section may not be present. However, this is
the—admittedly flexible—accepted formulation for a covenant. I will dissect each covenant
using Mendenhall’s categorisation. This will facilitate comparisons between the various Scottish
covenants, allowing us to map changes in the way covenantal ideas were conceived at different
times.
Before we get started, we need a point of comparison for the covenants of Scotland. This will
also allow us to discern if biblical covenantal ideas influenced the formation of their Scottish
counterparts. As such, below is the Covenant of Sinai—our very own benchmark—analysed
using Mendenhall’s six-stage formulation:
1) Preamble
And it came to pass in the fourteenth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the
month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the Lord had
given him in commandment unto them83
2) Historical prologue
And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren […]
And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do.84
Mendenhall 1954, pp. 58—59; Hillers 1969, p. 29; McKenzie 2000, p. 32; Sproul 2005, 107
I have slightly altered the covenant formulation by removing the provision for public reading of the text and instead split the
stipulations into separate general and specific stipulations (Mendenhall et al put all stipulations under one section). This has been
done to ease comparisons between biblical and early modern covenants (whereas Mendenhall et al included the public reading
section to facilitate comparisons between biblical covenants and Hittite treaties). My take on this formulation has been previously
observed in a linguistic study of the Old Testament, see: Sprinkle 1994, pp. 24—27
83 Deuteronomy 1:3 KJ
84 op. cit, 1:16—18
81
82
26
3) General stipulations
Take heed unto yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God […] if from
thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy
heart and with all thy soul.85
4) Specific stipulations
These are the statutes and judgements, which ye shall observe […] Take heed to thyself that
thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest: But in the place that the
LORD shall choose86
5) Blessings and/or curses
if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all
his commandments which I command thee this day […] the Lord thy God will set thee on
high above all nations of the earth. […] Blessed shalt thou be in the city […] if thou wilt not
hearken unto the voice of the Lord […] Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body87
6) Witnesses
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live88
The sections above are taken from the Book of Deuteronomy since, although it is not the
oldest record of the Sinai covenant, it is the most comprehensive.89 Mendenhall’s formulation is
not without its critics; however, you will see from the following analysis that it eases
comparisons between different covenants of biblical or early modern heritage.
A Promissory Statement: The Godly Band, 1557
By 1557, the Reformation in Scotland was well underway. However, Scotland was under a
Catholic Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and her equally Catholic daughter, Mary Queen of Scots,
lay in waiting to ascend to the throne. This was the context into which the first covenant of
Scotland appeared. I will break the covenant into the six components as demonstrated with the
Sinai covenant and also segment the preamble section into the four elements identified by
Skinner to provide you with a glimpse at his method in action. The succeeding parts of the
covenant will be presented in a more typical narrative structure. So, treat the preamble as a quick
look under the bonnet.
op. cit, 4:23—29
op. cit, 12:1—13
87 op. cit, 28:1—18
88 op. cit, 30:19
89 Hillers 1969, p. 151; Craigie 1976, p. 73
85
86
27
1) and 2) Preamble and Historical Prologue (in this case they are combined)
i. The occurrence of a particular phrase:
We perceiving how Satan in his members, the Antichrists of our time, cruelly do rage,
seeking to overthrow and destroy the Gospel of Christ, and his Congregation90
ii. The use of the phrase on a particular occasion: the preamble sets the scene and
explains how the authors of the covenant understood the Reformation.
iii. The intention of the phrase: to convince the audience that the Scots’ Kirk is in
serious danger.
iv. The statement considered in its totality: This is an explicit reference to the
Reformation, where Christ’s congregation refers to the Church of Scotland under
threat from the “Antichrists of our time”, the Roman Church. Since the terms in the
covenant are taken straight from the Bible, it is unsurprising that the covenant shares
the same acute dichotomy between good and evil, right and wrong, Church of Satan
and Church of Christ. What this tells us is that for the authors of the Godly Band,
the world was black and white (there was no acceptance of alternate views on matters
of religion).
Straight from the outset, there is something peculiar about the Godly Band. If it is indeed a
covenant in the mould of its biblical forerunners, then we should expect the preamble and
historical prologue to outline the relations between the two parties—Scotland and God—as
justification for the proposed treaty. Instead, the preamble to the Godly Band outlines the recent
and on-going relations between the Church of Scotland and Church of Rome. This is history
from a “very particular point of view”,91 but it is not the history you would expect to find at the
start of a covenant between Scotland and God.
Two conclusions can be drawn from this problem: either the Godly Band was not influenced
by biblical covenants and God is absent because in reality he is not an interested party in this
treaty; or, the author’s of the Godly Band aligned themselves so closely to God that there was no
need to mention Him. In effect, they are on God’s team and this is so patently obvious that the
authors do not deem it necessary to make this explicit. The clue perhaps lies with the phrase,
“Gospel of Christ, and his congregation.” Here we have the Church of Scotland, as Christ’s
congregation, integrally linked to the Gospel; which in turn is integrally linked to God if you
90
91
Godly Band 1557, available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/knox_history_covenant_1557.html
Hillers 1969, p. 31
28
believe—along with most early modern Scots—in biblical inerrancy. As likely as this hypothesis
may be, the absence of God in the preamble does pose a difficulty in portraying with any
certainty the Godly Band as a treaty designed to deal with Scotland’s relation to God.
3) General stipulations
We do promise before the Majesty of God, and his Congregation, that we (by his grace) shall
with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to
maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word of God, and his Congregation92
We can see here a fundamental difference between the biblical covenant and the Godly Band.
Where the Covenant of Sinai detailed God’s promise that he could be contacted by anyone from
this point forward—provided they came to him with a pure heart—the Godly Band, on the
other hand, is the promises of the signees towards God. In other words, the direction of the
covenant is reversed: from God to man, to man to God. God’s role is as witness and beneficiary,
not active participant.
Despite this, there are similarities between the Godly Band and the Covenant of Sinai. If you
ignore God’s role for a second, and re-read the above quotation, you will see that the signees
promise to protect and further the will of God at the cost of “our very lives”, if necessary. The
key term is “our”. The Godly Band is not a covenant entered into by each individual signee:
instead it is a communal treaty whereby the signees have certain obligations towards one
another. And, although less explicit than the Covenant of Sinai, the signees’ mutual obligations
are derived from their common allegiance to God (or at very least their allegiance to the Gospel
and the Kirk). We can, then, detect the influence of the Sinai Covenant at this stage in the
formulation of the Godly Band.
4) Specific stipulations
And shall labour according to our power, to have faithful Ministers, truly and purely to minister
Christ's Gospel and Sacraments to his people. We shall maintain them, nourish them, and defend
them93
Here, again, the differences between the biblical covenant and Godly Band are striking. The
specific stipulations in the Godly Band may initially appear similar to the Covenant of Sinai.
Where the Godly Band refers to the attributes of ministers, the Covenant of Sinai deals with
offerings made to God. It could be argued that both stipulations are concerned with the nature,
and purity, of religious worship. Yet, we need to look to the trees beyond the wood. The
difference is Sinai explicitly deals with God’s direct orders to man: whereas the Godly Band is
92
93
Godly Band 1557, available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/knox_history_covenant_1557.html
ibid
29
concerned with humanity’s power to affect positive change. The emphasis in the Godly Band is
firmly, once again, on humanity, not God. God is curiously absent from what is to all intents and
purposes a deeply religious statement.
We can draw two conclusions from the absence of God at this stage in the Godly Band.
Firstly, that Scots’ law heavily influenced the formation of the Godly Band—if we accept legal
scholar Martin Hogg’s assertion that promissory contracts were abundant in early modern Scots
law (in fact, Hogg asserts that Scots contract law is still promissory in nature).94 In short, the
Godly Band is primarily concerned with dealing with Scotland’s relationship to God but it does
so in a unilateral fashion due to the influence of Scots law. Or, secondly, in a slightly
contradictory fashion, we can suggest that the purpose of the Godly Band was to deal with
relations between temporal actors such as the Church of Scotland and the Roman Church, and
less to do with wedding the people to God in a spiritual sense. Before we have further evidence,
it seems fair to leave this conclusion somewhat open ended.
5) Blessings and/or curses
There are no blessings or curses in this covenant. You might think that this is unimportant, given
that I have already stated that not all covenants have all six sections identified by Mendenhall,
Hillers and friends. However, the absence of a blessings and curses section does pose a serious
problem in suggesting that the Covenant of Sinai had a large influence on the formation of the
Godly Band. Delbert Hillers has argued that “blessing and curse forms a standard, even essential,
part of ancient covenants”.95 Although the lack of blessings and curses in the Godly Band is
perhaps due to the focus of the covenant being firmly on humanity’s promises to God, rather
than God’s orders to humanity. For instance, if you voluntarily start giving to charity, it would be
rather odd to give yourself some kind of penalty if you suddenly decided to stop donating. In
this way, we can see that turning the tables and placing the focus on humanity—rather than
God—has a profound effect on the format and content of a covenant.
There is another explanation for the lack of blessings and curses, one that suggests that
biblical covenants had a vital input in the formation of the Godly Band. In the Sinai covenant—
and all other biblical covenants—blessings and curses encouraged people to comply with the
stipulations of the treaty. We can deduce that, since such coercion was deemed necessary, the
Sinai covenant was open to a large swathe of people. However, in the case of the Godly Band,
only a small limited group from the local elite are listed as signees. Admittedly, the Band lists five
94
95
Hogg 2011, p. xiii
Hillers 1969, p. 46
30
people followed by the term “etcetera”;96 yet, I get the distinct impression that the Godly Band
was an exclusive covenant. We have further evidence for this argument when we consider the
section on general stipulations: the signees promise “before the Majesty of God, and his
congregation”. 97 In this sharp little phrase, the signees set themselves apart from the
congregation (an exclusive act if ever there was one).
So, what is the point of this winding argument? Well, if the Godly Band was a traditional
covenant whose purpose was to unify an exclusive group (each of whom presumably accepted
that the other signees were of God fearing stock), then there would be no need to coerce the
signees into respecting the covenant that they were entering. In simple terms, there was no need
to incorporate the blessings and curses section present in biblical covenants into the Godly
Band: but that does not preclude biblical exemplars from having a significant influence on the
formation of the Godly Band.
6) Witnesses
By this our faithful Promise before God, testified to this Congregation by our Subscription at
these Presents. […] God called to witness.98
This section encapsulates God’s role in the Godly Band: he is recipient and witness. To be both
a participant in a treaty and its witness seems to be a conflict of interest. Here we see the Godly
Band on similar terrain as the Sinai covenant. In Sinai, the people are “witnesses against
themselves”,99 whereas in the Godly Band it is God who is a witness against the people. Yet, the
witnesses’ section adds doubt to the extent the Godly Band was influenced by Old Testament
exemplars. In the Covenant of Sinai the section that called the people to witness appears forced;
as Hillers puts it, “the impression one has is of a somewhat awkward attempt to incorporate a
traditional practice”.100 However, when we jump to the Godly Band, God’s role as witness seems
to work well.
This can be explained in one of three ways: firstly, God is not really an active participant in
the Godly Band. Instead, the Godly Band is nothing more than a bond between the signees and
the Reformed Church of Scotland. As such, God—as an independent bystander—is an
appropriate witness (a little like when people call on God to witness the truth of their testimony
in court). The second explanation seems, to me at least, to be as likely. Early modern Scots
accepted God’s goodwill implicitly. For God to play a dual role in a covenant was not a conflict
Godly Band 1557, available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/knox_history_covenant_1557.html
ibid
98 ibid
99 Hillers 1969, p. 63
100 op. cit, p. 52
96
97
31
of interest because the Christian God is not a God who would try to use his leverage to achieve
an unjust settlement. In essence, the authors of the Godly Band are saying that they trust God so
much that He can be both an active participant in their treaty and a witness to it.
Finally, there is a third explanation for the ease at which we accept God as a witness to the
Godly Band. This explanation is a little like a half way house since it draws on both of the above
explanations. So, we can assume that early modern Scots, like Christians today, accepted that
God was both all good and all just. Further still, just like in the Sinai covenant, the Godly Band
places no formal obligation on God. As such, while God is an active participant in the treaty as
one of the main beneficiaries, he is also able to play the part of witness since he is not expected
to actually do anything. God pledges nothing.
While the Sinai covenant was “mutual in the sense that there are two distinct parties who
have a certain freedom and initiative”,101 this is only true because God is the one directing the
Israelites (and the Israelites have autonomy to either accept or refuse God’s direction). In the
Godly Band, however, God plays a silent role as recipient of a promissory oath. Undoubtedly,
the authors of the Godly Band would argue that they were directed by God as much as the
people at Sinai, yet God’s role is often implicit in Scotland’s first covenant. It is, in many ways, a
unilateral treaty that strips God of agency.
After that rigorous dissection, you could be forgiven for wondering what we are left with.
Well, I believe the Godly Band is a covenant similar—but not the same—as its biblical
forerunner. Where the Sinai Covenant was mutual and thinly inclusive, the Godly Band is
unilateral and exclusive to the local elites (as shown by the list of signees at the bottom of the
document). However, they are similar in as far as both covenants have promissory and assertory
sections: and, most importantly, the Godly Band can be slotted fairly effortlessly into
Mendenhall’s covenant formulation which indicates that the authors of the Godly Band were
likely drawing on the Old Testament covenants as sources of inspiration. But the biblical
covenants were not the only factor influencing the formation of the Godly Band. The unilateral
nature of the Godly Band demonstrates that it was also influenced by Scots contract law and also
that the purpose of the covenant impacted on its formation. In short, the Godly Band’s primary
purpose was to unify an exclusive group of local elites around the goal of forwarding
Protestantism in Scotland. As a result, the Godly Band was formatted as a unilateral, promissory
treaty to achieve that end.
It is worth explaining the Godly Band’s purpose in a little more detail to give us a strong
grasp on the ideas it contained. As I have already said, the Godly Band was designed to forward
101
ibid
32
Protestantism. This was against a Catholic monarch who was set on preserving Catholicism in
Scotland and who was, as a result, unwilling to accept any form of Protestant reform.102 The
Godly Band, then, set about achieving its aim by unifying a powerful group of local elites against
the monarch. It said nothing about what form of church governance a Protestant church in
Scotland should adopt. Therefore, it follows that the Godly Band had nothing to do with
Presbyterianism.
An Unwritten Covenant in Popular Discourse
From the Godly Band alone, we could quite rightly agree with Euan Cameron’s conclusion that
the Reformation in Scotland was pushed through by the “secular nobility”; 103 or, in our
phraseology, the local elites. Yet, while my desire for simplicity would want for me to end there,
and avoid the impending contradictions thrown up by further sources, it would be wrong to
settle with Euan Cameron. Instead, we shall consider two public letters written by John Knox in
1558, a year after the Godly Band, and a sermon he delivered in 1565.
We can identify themes within these sources that are typical of covenantal thought. Let us
first turn to the notion that the Scots were God’s chosen people, an idea that seems to contradict
the exclusivity of the Godly Band. In a letter to Mary of Guise, Scotland’s Queen Regent, Knox
proclaimed, “pity and mercy showed to Christ’s afflicted flock”.104 This phrase is intentionally
provocative and threatening. On one hand, Knox is saying to the Catholic monarch that she has
no hope of conserving Catholicism in Scotland because mercy will be shown to the Protestants.
He also sets up a dichotomy where the Protestants belong to Christ; thus, by deduction the
Catholics must be anti-Christian (and Mary is implicitly the one afflicting Christ’s flock).
However, our concern is the more general meaning of this phrase. Quite simply, Knox is saying
that God has mercy on the suffering of his chosen people. Given that the context of this letter is
Knox trying to convince the Queen that she should convert to Protestantism—or, at very least
he wants to be seen to be trying to win her conversion105—we can only conclude that Scottish
Protestants are, for Knox, “Christ’s afflicted flock”: God’s chosen people.
Kellar 2003, pp. 147—148
Cameron 1998, In: Mason 1998, p. 73
104 Letter to the Queen Regent 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 163
105 It has been proposed that Knox was trying to convert Mary and that he merely went about it very badly. This explanation
seems, to me, to be a little naïve. In light of what Knox actually wrote to Mary, it seems likely that he was more concerned with
hardening views amongst the local elites and ordinary people against their Catholic monarch rather than positioning for some
sort of miraculous reconciliation. For the argument that Knox was genuinely trying to win Mary’s conversion, see: Lang 1905,
Chapter VII Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14016/14016-h/14016-h.htm
102
103
33
This is an idea of thin inclusivity since you can only belong to God’s chosen people if you are
Protestant; and interestingly, this matches the same kind of thin inclusivity we see in the Sinai
Covenant where “God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth” provided you adhere
to the covenant.106 We can, with a fair amount of certainty, argue that Knox is referring to ideas
that only stand up if there was already present in popular narrative a covenant between the
Scottish people and God in the mould of the Sinai Covenant. Essentially, while the Godly Band
does not codify a thinly inclusive and mutual covenant, the idea that one existed is implicit in the
writings of John Knox.
Perhaps you think I have read a little too much into an eight word quotation. Maybe you
suppose Knox merely meant to entice the Queen Regent into the welcoming arms of the Kirk.
Well, in his second letter also written in 1558 and this time addressed to The commonality of
Scotland—that is, the ordinary people—Knox adds further evidence to my argument that the
notion of an inclusive covenant was already present in Scotland:
And for that purpose, and for the more assurance of his promise, he [God] hath erected
among us here on earth, the signs of his own presence with us, his spiritual tabernacle – the
true preaching of the word, and right administration of his sacraments; to the maintenance
which, the subject is no less bound than the prince, the poor than the rich.107
The key term here is “tabernacle”, meaning the sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant. Knox is
saying that God has shown His presence on earth through accurate scriptural interpretation and
suitable sacrament rituals (both of which act as a shield, or vehicle, for the covenant). We can
presume that Knox viewed the Kirk’s worship and scriptural interpretations as true to the word
of God, and can conclude that Knox believed the covenant was alive and well in Scotland. So,
while the purpose of the Godly Band led its authors to draw on a combination of both the Old
Testament and Scots’ law, the formation of a thinly inclusive covenant in popular narrative
was—it seems—more heavily influenced by biblical precedents.
Knox’s belief that the Scots were God’s chosen people held firm through the 1560s. In his
sermon of 1565 he explicitly refers to the chosen people on two occasions with, “But yet, Lord, I
see thy promise true, and thy love to remain to- wards thy chosen”108 and “For as our God, in his
own nature is immutable, so remaineth his love towards his elect”.109 Both of these quotes have
an upbeat tone and match the historical context since by 1565 the Reformation had been ratified
by parliament. So, we can see Knox’s belief in Scotland’s peculiar relationship to God in two
distinct contexts: firstly, the notion seems almost a hope, a wish, and desire; whereas in the
Deuteronomy 28:1 KJ
To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 219
108 Sermon on Isaiah XXVI 13—20 1565, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 294
109 op. cit, p. 304
106
107
34
second context Knox seems content to have been proven right—God had shown mercy to his
flock, the Protestants, through parliamentary ratification of the Reformation in 1560.
If we accept that a covenant in the mould of Sinai was present in Scotland, but equally
acknowledge that the Godly Band does not embody such a covenant, then the obvious question
is how was this unwritten covenant understood? We can return first of all to the above quote,
and specifically to the phrase, “the true preaching of the word, and right administration of his
sacraments; to the maintenance which, the subject is no less bound than the prince”. If we look
at this clause in isolation, it seems that it is almost like a general stipulation we would expect to
find in a covenant. Knox is saying that the people are expected to maintain and protect the
correct interpretation of Scripture and appropriate sacrament rituals.
Knox goes on to instruct the ordinary people that “most justly ye may provide true teachers
for yourselves”.110 Compare this to the specific stipulation clause in the Godly Band; “shall
labour according to our power, to have faithful Ministers”.111 Interestingly, Knox is echoing the
meaning of the Godly Band, but here the purpose of the stipulation is to encourage and
empower the ordinary people, whereas in the Godly Band it is an exclusive promissory section.
We can deduce that while the stipulations in the Godly Band were exclusive and binding to the
local elites, they doubled up as best practice, or good behaviour, for the ordinary people. So,
while the Godly Band was an exclusive covenant, its content was applicable in a wider context.
But perhaps we can venture further still: if we accept that Knox’s writings provide evidence for
the existence of an unwritten covenant in popular discourse, we can suggest that there was no
change in conception between the stipulations in the Godly Band and the unwritten covenant.
We see further evidence of an unwritten and yet acknowledged inclusive covenant when
Knox warns the ordinary people that “if ye contemn or refuse God […] ye shall neither escape
plagues temporal […] neither yet the torment prepared for the devil and for his angels”.112 This
statement is a direct warning and could most aptly be described as a curse. It seems that the
section that was so problematically absent from the Godly Band—the blessings and/or curses
section—was present in popular discourse. This provides further evidence that biblical
precedents—such as the Sinai Covenant—had a larger role to play in influencing the formation
of covenantal ideas within a popular narrative. And, if we accept the previous argument that
blessings and curses were used as a tool of coercion, we can conclude that Knox was trying to
convince a large swathe of people to adhere to the stipulations of the unwritten covenant (just
like God/Moses in the Sinai Covenant).
To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 223
Godly Band 1557, available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/knox_history_covenant_1557.html
112 To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 223
110
111
35
An overarching theme throughout both Knox’s letter to the commonality and his sermon of
1565 was the notion of equality, or what I like to call nascent democracy. Knox seems to slowly
draw out the notion of equality, in fact his opening line to the ordinary people is, “Beloved
brethren, ye are God’s creatures”.113 This statement appears benign; few early modern people
would argue that humanity was anything other than the product of God. But Knox is setting the
scene, because if we are all God’s creatures then the logical conclusion is God’s grace is available
to peasant and prince in equal measure. As Knox puts it,
For the gospel and glad tidings of the kingdom truly preached, is the power of God, to the
salvation of every believer which to credit and receive, you of the commonality are no less
addebted than be your rulers and princes.114
Like a great thespian, Knox masterfully builds the tension in his letter: you know a dramatic
explosion is imminent. And finally we have it, not only are we all God’s creatures eligible for
grace, but none are “so poor” or “so rich” that they do not have access to the “spiritual
tabernacle”: the covenant is available to all.115
You might initially think that there is little difference between God’s grace being available to
all and an all-encompassing covenant. But what Knox achieves is to set up a radical power
structure: the Kingdom of God is democratic. And seven years later, in his sermon delivered at
St Giles Cathedral, Knox makes the next leap of logic: if the City of God is democratic, “Kings
then have not an absolute power to do in their regiment what pleaseth them; but their power is
limited by God’s word.”116
To help us contextualise this phrase, let us present it within Skinner’s methodology. We have
pinpointed the phrase in question, so we must now consider the use of the phrase by Knox on
this particular occasion. The phrase was delivered during a sermon on the prophet Isaiah in
1565. Now, if we move on to Skinner’s next stage we have to consider the intention of the
phrase. Knox was on one hand telling the congregation what they wanted to hear (that monarchs
are limited by God), but equally he seems to be offering a warning to Mary Queen of Scots (who
had ascended to the throne in 1560 following her mother’s death) to not dare think of trying to
push back the tide of Protestant reform since her reign is limited by God’s word. Or, in other
words, he intends to remind the Queen that her reign is limited by a Protestant interpretation of
God’s word.
And finally, Skinner instructs us to consider the phrase in its totality and context. By 1565
when Knox delivered this sermon, the Protestant settlement had been given parliamentary
op. cit, p. 215
ibid
115 op. cit, p. 219
116 Sermon on Isaiah XXVI 13—20 1565, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 271
113
114
36
ratification. However, a Catholic monarch was on the throne. This provides us with context for
Knox’s phrase. We can presume that Knox was concerned that the Protestant settlement was
vulnerable whilst a Catholic sat on the throne. But what Knox proposes is far more significant
than a mere defensive action. He presents the idea that a king’s power is limited in the City of
Man since we can deduce that for Knox the (democratic) Kingdom of God takes precedence
over the City of Man and should be used as a perfect exemplar. A king, then, is not God’s viceregent with boundless autonomy. Whilst Knox’s statement may seem benign, its purpose is to
set Knox and his followers in direct opposition to any notion of absolutist monarchy.
Throughout the two letters and sermon delivered by Knox there is only one biblical figure—
expect God and Christ—who is repeatedly mentioned: the prophet Isaiah. In fact, the sermon
that we have been discussing was specifically on Isaiah. Initially, I struggled to understand why
Knox seemed to be so fascinated by this particular prophet. In his letter to the Queen Regent he
argues that the things he warns of today, “the same foresaw the prophet Isaiah”.117 And then, at
the beginning of the 1565 sermon, we get a hint of why Knox was generally preoccupied with
prophets. Knox proclaimed that, “I dare not deny […] that God hath revealed un to me secrets
unknown to the world”.118 Knox is saying, unequivocally, that he is a prophet. Perhaps he styled
himself on Isaiah during the reign of Ahaz, the ancient Israelite king who broke the
commandments and persecuted the church. As Roger Mason rightly observed, “Knox was, first
and foremost, a preacher, a self-styled prophet who modelled his ministry on […] Isaiah and
Jeremiah”.119
You could be forgiven for thinking this is little more than an interesting aside. Yet, there is
perhaps something more significant than Knox’s vanity at play. When I initially approached
these sources, I had expected to find various references to Jeremiah. After all, Jeremiah was the
prophet who foresaw a new covenant. Yet, Jeremiah is conspicuously absent from Knox’s
writings. Instead we have Isaiah, a prophet who is more generally considered for what he said
about a future Messiah than any overtly covenantal traditions.120 Isaiah, however, did espouse a
covenant and in a similar historical context to Knox. Unlike Jeremiah who occupied himself with
distant future events,121 both Knox and Isaiah were trying to maintain adherence to the true faith
against monarchs opposed to their intentions.122 And, perhaps even more importantly, both were
proclaiming on behalf of God that the Israelites and Scots respectively were “my people”.123
Letter to the Queen Regent 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 161
Sermon on Isaiah XXVI 13—20 1565, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 265
119 Mason 1997, p. 58
120 Oswalt 1986, p. 85
121 Thompson 1980, pp. 113—114
122 For Isaiah: Efrid 1978, p. 59; For Knox: Kellar 2003, pp. 147—148
123 Isaiah 51:4 KJ
117
118
37
The Godly Band was not a covenant whose formation was solely influenced by Sinai. Yet,
within the popular imagination, Scotland was united to God in a peculiar relationship. This was
partly due to the way Scotland achieved Reformation. It was not, as Euan Cameron has argued,
pushed through exclusively by the local elites.124 Rather, the ordinary people in league with the
local elites achieved the institution of a Protestant settlement. If you are in any doubt, consider
Knox’s final instructions to the ordinary people; “consider what I, in his name, have required of
your nobility, and of you, the subjects; and move you altogether.”125
So, what does this description of Knox’s conception of an unwritten covenant tell us about
what influenced its formation and what purposes it served? Well, the covenant described by
Knox is incredibly similar to the Covenant of Sinai. It includes blessings and curses like Sinai,
and unlike the Godly Band. It is a covenant available to all just like Sinai and unlike the Godly
Band. In short, Knox’s conception of a covenant within Scotland seems to be almost exclusively
influenced by the Covenant of Sinai as expressed in the Book of Deuteronomy and Isaiah’s
conception of a direct relationship between the people and God.126 I say almost exclusively because
the unwritten covenant was also influenced by its historical context. It just so happens that
Scotland’s historical context of religious reform in a country with a monarch in opposition
mirrors the historical context experienced by the prophet Isaiah (allowing Knox to draw heavily
on Isaiah’s idea of covenant).
So, what of its purpose? The unwritten covenant sought to unify the ordinary people and the
local elites. We can discern this from its inclusivity. Presumably, Knox hoped that a covenant
would coalesce the ordinary people and local elites into a formidable opposition in the event of
the Catholic monarch trying to push back the tide of Protestant reform. In the same vein, the
covenant was used to side-line the monarch evidenced by notions of nascent democracy and
limitations on the national claimant’s power. The kind of covenant espoused by Knox was
influenced by the historical context in which ordinary people had just premiered their creative
role in society. In turn, this was a perfect fit for a covenant whose purpose was—partly—to limit
the role of the monarch. This was a covenant that contained, in the words of Hillers, “a
fundamental equality of status”.127
But it was not the only way to imagine a covenant.
Cameron 1998, In: Mason 1998, p. 73
To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 228
126 Oswalt 1986, pp. 85—86
127 Hillers 1969, p. 79
124
125
38
Where is David? King’s Covenant, 1580
By the 1570s and ‘80s the main argument within Scottish society had moved from whether
Scotland should be Protestant or not, to what kind of Protestantism should Scotland embrace.
The crown and Kirk embodied either side of the debate and had reached an impasse. The Kirk
wanted to institute the Second Book of Discipline that would essentially enshrine a Presbyterian
settlement, whereas the crown aspired towards Episcopalianism as set out by the Concordat of
Leith (an agreement that had allowed the crown to continue to appoint bishops).128
Alan MacDonald, however, has questioned this simplistic narrative. He highlights that the
Kirk was not as hostile towards Episcopalianism as is often believed; instead the Kirk took issue
more with hierarchical titles such as Bishop than with the office itself.129 MacDonald is also quick
to stress that contrary to common perceptions, James VI was not desperate to erect diocesan
episcopacy. As such, according to MacDonald there were flexible feelings within both the crown
and Kirk towards the best form of church governance.130 It was into this period of indecision
that the Second Scots’ Covenant, or King’s Covenant,131 made an appearance.
MacDonald’s thesis sets a problem for trying to discern the purpose of the King’s Covenant.
In the old simplistic narrative, for Presbyterians the purpose of the King’s Covenant was to
forward Presbyterianism. However, if MacDonald is correct that the Kirk was not fully behind a
Presbyterian settlement, then we have to completely reassess the purpose of the King’s
Covenant.
1)
Preamble
Subscrive with our hands, and constantly affirme before God and the whole worlde. That
this onely is the true Christian Faith and Religion.132
This is an assertory statement that confirms that Protestantism was settled in Scotland. It is
important to keep in mind that the king, as well as the local elites and ordinary people, was
subscribing to this covenant. With these intended audiences in mind, the fact that such a
sweeping statement was acceptable is evidence that the notion of the uniqueness of Scotland’s
Reformation was accepted across each section of society.
From the preamble, we can also glean that the notion of covenantalism was bedded into a
Scottish ecclesiastical narrative. The preamble does not describe a former event but rather an on MacDonald 1998, p. 17
op. cit, p. 11
130 op. cit, pp. 34—37
131 Also known as the National Covenant, King’s Confession, and Negative Confession.
132 King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
128
129,
39
going affirmation of the covenant. These two points are important because they demonstrate a
change in conception or, perhaps more accurately, a change of purpose between the King’s
Covenant and both the Godly Band and popular conceptions of covenant. The purpose of the
earlier covenants was to forward Protestantism in Scotland. However, by the 1580s there was no
serious question about the possibility of Scotland reverting to Catholicism. So, the preamble is
an assertory statement: Scotland is Protestant. At this stage we can only say that the King’s
Covenant was a change from earlier covenants in as far as it did not share their purpose of trying
to forward Protestantism because, quite simply, it had already been achieved.
2)
Historical Prologue
Gods eternall trueth and onely grounde for Salvation […] publictly confirmed by sindrie
acties of Parliamentis, and now for a long time hath bene opinly professed by the Kings
Majestie, and whole body of this Realme, both in burgh and land.133
In the historical prologue we have two actors, God and Scotland. Unlike the Godly Band that
described the relationship between the Church of Scotland and Church of Rome, this section of
the King’s Covenant is far closer to the Sinai covenant. Here we have God having provided
eternal truth through the Gospels, and Scotland accepting that truth by establishing Christ’s
congregation through parliamentary ratification. This statement simply outlines the previous
relationship between God and Scotland—exactly what we would expect to find in the historical
prologue of a covenant between God and Scotland that was heavily influenced by Old
Testament covenants.
Another interesting aspect of the historical prologue is the way Scotland is identified by its
constituent parts in the form of the crown, parliament, burghs, and shires. The author’s intention
is to demonstrate how the covenant had been accepted fully by Scottish society, but it also
shows how nothing in the early modern period was secular in our sense. And, by particularly
identifying the king, it underlines that such an important institution as kingship had to be woven
into the new ecclesiastical narrative that emphasised Scotland’s relationship with God: whilst it
also subliminally positions the King’s Covenant as nothing new, instead we are told the king has
been involved in covenantalism for “a long time”. 134 This is an important point because it
demonstrates that the purpose of the King’s Covenant was to create a role for the king within
covenantalism. The fact that the crown as well as Presbyterians willingly submitted to this
covenant indicates that both parties were happy with the new role for the king.
133
134
ibid
ibid
40
The central role carved for the king was a change of conception from the Godly Band and
unwritten popular covenant. Whereas the earlier covenants excluded the monarch from
covenantal thought, the King’s Covenant expressly wrote the king into a central role.
3)
General Stipulations
We willingly agree in our consciencis in al poynts, as unto Gods undoubted trueth and
veritie, grounded onely vpon his written worde. […] [and] Our iustification by Fayth
onely.135
When we directly compare this section to the Godly Band’s general stipulations, there is an
obvious distinction. Where God was curiously absent and the Godly Band instead placed
emphasis on the promissory nature of the stipulations, here God is given an element of agency.
Admittedly, God’s role is historic in as far as he provided truth via the Gospels, but he
undoubtedly has a role that extends beyond beneficiary.
We also have an assertory aspect to this stipulation, one which we could go as far to describe
as confessionary, since the King’s Covenant recognises two foundation pillars of Protestantism:
sola scriptura and sola fide. This is not a change in conception from the Godly Band or
unwritten covenant; rather the King’s Covenant merely expresses these ideas more succinctly. At
this point, we can also see the influence of the Covenant of Sinai on the formation of the King’s
Covenant: Sinai’s general stipulation states, “thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy
heart and with all thy soul.”136 I am not saying that the notion of sola fide can only be found in
the Sinai Covenant or Old Testament, but if the King’s Covenant identified sola fide and sola
scriptura merely because they were tenets of Protestantism, then I would have expected the
King’s Covenant to also point to sola gratia (grace alone). The lack of grace indicates that the
Old Testament was the overriding scriptural influence on the formation of the King’s Covenant.
Without diving too deeply into theology, I come to this conclusion because grace, in a Christian
sense, is far more connected with the New Testament. For instance, in the New Testament the
Greek term is charis that literally translates as grace: thanks or gratitude that is freely given.
Whereas, the Old Testament equivalent is the Hebrew term chen that translates as favour:
something that must be earned.137138 You see, then, that the absence of grace indicates that the
King’s Covenant was drawing on the Old Testament.
4)
Specific Stipulations
ibid
Deuteronomy 4:23—29 KJ
137 Berkhof 1996, pp. 426—427
138 This is a slightly simplistic breakdown of the distinction between Old Testament and New Testament understandings of grace.
However, it suffices for our purpose to merely demonstrate that there is a distinction.
135
136
41
We detest and refuse the vsurped authoritie of that Romane Antichrist vpon the Scriptures of
God […] [and promise] sanctification and obedience to the lawe, the nature, number and vse
of the holie Sacraments.139
Here we have the first indication as to why this covenant is also known as the Negative
Confession. The opening line is not a demand placed upon the people of Scotland to do
anything in particular, but instead they are to refute (to not engage with) the wayward teachings
of the Catholic Church. However, we should not labour this point. The stipulation goes on to
demand that the people of Scotland practice suitable sacrament rituals as instructed in the
Gospels. This is a reiteration of Knox’s instructions and indicates that there was no change in
conception regarding the importance of the sacraments between the unwritten covenant and the
King’s Covenant.
It is here that at a surface level we see parity between the Godly Band, Covenant of Sinai, and
the King’s Confession, since each covenant deals with the purity of religious rituals. Yet, the
King’s Covenant positions itself particularly close to the Covenant of Sinai. In the Godly Band
the specific stipulation is promissory with the emphasis on man, whereas Sinai deals with God’s
direct orders (articulated through Moses). The King’s Covenant plays a similar slight of hand: the
specific stipulation comes directly from God (through the Gospels). Sinai and the King’s
Covenant go from God to man, providing both parties with agency, as opposed to the
unilateralism of the Godly Band.
We can deduce firstly that the authors of the King’s Covenant were drawing heavily on Old
Testament exemplars, and perhaps something further. It seems to me that there was an express
attempt to, at the very least, pay lip service to democratic sentiment while equally crafting a place
for the crown. In short, this is a carefully crafted political document that successfully
incorporates the ordinary people’s desire for a creative role in their future with the hierarchical
aspirations of the crown. This clause seems to support MacDonald’s assertion that the crown
and Kirk were not so much divided on church governance;140 instead the King’s Covenant
reveals that the crown’s main motivation was to ensure it had a central place in Scotland’s
religious narrative.
5)
Blessings and/or Curses
We shall continue in the obedience […] vnder the panes contened in the law, and danger
both of body, and soule, in the day of Gods fearfull Iudgement.141
King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
MacDonald 1998, pp. 34—37
141 King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
139
140
42
Here we have a clear curse section in the King’s Covenant. Interestingly, while this is another
point of departure from the Godly Band, it does mimic the language used by Knox in his Address
to the Commonality that portrayed covenantal notions in popular discourse.142 We can also deduce
that the King’s Covenant was open to a large swathe of people since such coercion was deemed
necessary. So, we can say firstly that there was a convergence between the unwritten covenant
and King’s Covenant as both were thinly inclusive, whereas the Godly Band was exclusive to a
small group of local elites. And, secondly, that the presence of blessings and curses in the King’s
Covenant—just like the unwritten covenant—indicates that it was likely influenced by the
Covenant of Sinai.
6)
Witnesses
We therefore willing to take away all suspition of hypocrisie, and of sic dowble dealing with
God and his Kirk, protest and call the searcher of all hearts for witness, that our minds and
heartis doe fully agree with this our confession, promise, othe, and Subscription.143
God is called to witness another covenant in which He is an interested party. As Hillers rightly
observes, “the Lord, it is assumed, will […] behave in a just and righteous way.”144 At this point,
the King’s Covenant occupies the same space as the Godly Band. And once again, God’s dual
role works well.
A Bond Tacked On
All in all, the King’s Covenant does not introduce any radical new conception of covenantal
ideas. So far, I have presented to you a covenant that deals with ideas such as Scotland’s
relationship with God in a similar manner to the Godly Band—and certainly in the mould of
covenantal ideas already demonstrated as present in popular narrative. This is not, as I would
have expected, a covenant like God made with Noah or Abraham. In those cases, God treated
directly with each man and through him a covenant was made with the people.145146 In short,
there is little change between the way ideas were conceived between the King’s Covenant, Godly
Band, and the unwritten covenant. The only marked difference is the central place for the King;
To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 223
King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
144 Hillers 1969, p. 105
145 Matthews 1996, pp. 62—63
146 The Noahic and Abrahamic covenants are actually quite different. The Noahic covenant is universally applicable to all of
humanity through Noah; whereas the Abrahamic (like the Davidic covenant) is exclusive to the seed of Abraham. However, they
are the same in as far as God treated directly with each man and through them to the people.
142
143
43
however, the King appears to be crowbarred into a conception of covenant that is directly
between the people and God, rather than anything new.
However, with thirteen lines left in the King’s Covenant, Mendenhall’s six-stage formulation
comes to a close. Suddenly, there is a change of focus: the covenant no longer deals with
Scotland and God, but the Scottish people and their King. It is not quite an additional covenant
since all that can be identified is a preamble, historical prologue, and specific stipulation. Instead,
it is more a bond. You will find below an extended quote from the additional section of the
King’s Covenant for reference.
And because we perceave, that the quietnes and stabilitie of our Religion and Kirk doeth
depend upon the savetie and good behaviour of the Kings Majestie, as upon ane comfortable
Instrument of Godis mercy, graunted to this Countrey, for the maintening of his kirk, &
ministration of Iustice amongs us. We protest & promes with our heartis, under the same
othe, hand writ, and panes, that we sal defend his persone and authoritie, with our geir,
bodeis, and lyves, in the defence of Chrsitis Evangel, Libertie of our Countrey, ministration
of Iustice, and punishment of Iniquitie against al enemies within this Realme or without.147
The signees recognise that the “stabilitie of our Religion and Kirk doeth depend on the
savetie and good behaviour of the Kings Majestie”.148 Here we have recognition that the King is
central to Scottish religious stability. This may seem a cynical manipulation of religious sentiment
to achieve a power grab for the crown and direct Scottish Protestantism away from any notion
of nascent democracy. Yet, it is likely that James and his supporters genuinely believed that
Protestantism was safest in a Scotland governed by a strong crown.
The signees, once recognising James’ pivotal role in Protestantism’s fortunes, give thanks for
God having granted them such a Godly king and promise to “defend his persone and authoritie,
with our geir, bodies, and lyves”.149 From this statement, we do not get any impression that the
ordinary people and local elites were being coerced into supporting James’ position as defender
of the faith. Instead, we are left with the feeling that support for James flowed freely and readily.
As such, the ordinary people and local elites seem to have supported—or even shared—James’
intention to use the covenant to create a central role for the crown.
It seems incredible that the King’s Covenant does not draw on the Old Testament covenant
between God and King David. Unlike the Scottish Protestants who drew up the Godly Band
with one finger tracing the lines of Deuteronomy, James seems either ignorant of the rival
covenant tradition that incorporates kingship, or perhaps James saw no need to be so
controversial as to claim himself divinely ordained (in this context at least). Instead, it sufficed
James to simply tack a bond between him and the people onto a covenant that merely built upon
King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
ibid
149 ibid
147
148
44
the Godly Band. James, it seems, was a master of consensus. There is little in the King’s
Covenant that would displease any section of Scotland’s Protestant community, and yet with the
same stroke of the pen he managed to write himself into a central role in Scotland’s Protestant
story.
Underlying Beams: the Sermons of Robert Bruce
The King’s Covenant is not a remarkable document, in fact most of the ideas contained in this
particular covenant echo the Godly Band or ideas already present in popular discourse.
MacDonald’s thesis that this was a period of indecision, then, seems to be supported by my
findings. Yet, once again, it would be negligent to stop here without recourse to further sources.
This time we have a collection of sermons on the sacraments delivered by Reverend Robert
Bruce in 1589, followed by his sermons on Isaiah from 1591.
There are a number of new themes that permeate these sources. Firstly, perhaps
unsurprisingly, Robert Bruce picks up on the nature and responsibilities of kingship. Near the
beginning of his first sermon on Isaiah (delivered in the presence of James and directed for the
most part to the king), Bruce states, “Lord work this in you, (Sir,) that as he hath honoured you
in your birth; so ye may honour him be your doing in your government!”150 This statement is
almost a tip of the hat towards the notion of divine election, but Bruce is quick to stress that
kingship also comes with heavy responsibility. While this statement is in keeping with the
appropriation of the crown into Scotland’s religious narrative, Bruce seems to be chastising the
king. It is a subtle warning.
By the second sermon on Isaiah, Bruce has lost his previous subtlety. If the king does not
serve God and instead follows his own path, Bruce informs, he “shall lose dignitie, birthright,
[and] privilege of nature.”151 In short, the king will cease to be king. What Bruce does not expand
upon is exactly who will strip the king of his position. It might be a little far to say that this is a
threat of legitimate rebellion, but it equally might not be far from the mark. Despite James
having entered into a covenant with God, along with all other Scottish Protestants, and binding
the people of Scotland to him, Bruce sees fit to warn the king in this manner. We can only
conclude that Bruce had reasons for supposing the king would stray from God’s path, as he
understood it.
150
151
First Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 178
Second Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 191
45
Bruce’s conception of kingship was delivered within a covenantal context. What I mean by
this is that Bruce was considering the nature of kingship within a country covenanted to God.
And this matches the context within which Knox proposed a democratic City of God and the
notion of limited monarchy in a temporal sphere. However, these historical contexts were also
rather different. In Knox’s case, a Catholic monarch sat on the throne and Protestantism was a
new phenomenon. Whereas for Bruce, Scotland was under a Protestant King and Protestantism
was bedded into Scotland’s cultural fabric. The difference between these two contexts indicates
an important point since while the purposes of the Godly Band and unwritten covenant were
markedly different from the purpose of the King’s Covenant, the way kingship was conceived
did not alter in any significant way. In this example the historical context had little bearing on the
formation of a covenantal conception of kingship.
The second theme to premier in Bruce’s sermons is a fixation with the sacraments. That is
not to say that Knox and the Godly Band did not deal with the sacraments. If you cast your
mind back, the Godly Band instructed the right administration of the sacraments in its specific
stipulation and Knox described suitable sacrament rituals as a sign of the spiritual tabernacle.152
Nevertheless, Bruce puts extra emphasis on the sacraments to the extent that one collection of
sermons are taken up with trying to explain their importance. And here we have something
incredibly interesting. For Bruce, the sacraments are not a mere sign of the covenant; instead the
covenant is
brought about be the mean of the word and preaching of the gospell and it is brought about
be the meane of the sacraments and ministration thereof.153
In other words, it is the right administration of the sacraments that seals the covenant between
God and the people of Scotland. While this might initially seem a fairly innocuous point, it is
actually ground breaking. All along I supposed that Scotland entered into a covenant with God
by people physically signing their name at the bottom of a written document. Or, at the very
least, orally confirming their agreement after a written document had been read aloud. Yet, Bruce
is saying that it is through the physical act of taking the sacraments as described in the Bible—
along with direct reading of the Gospels—that people enter the covenant. As such, we can
suppose that the unwritten and yet acknowledged covenant implicit in Knox’s writings was as
important to the people of Scotland as the Godly Band or King’s Covenant.
The importance Bruce gifts to the sacraments is a difficult idea to pin down since I am
immediately drawn to think that it there a change of conception between the unwritten covenant
152
153
To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 219
First Sermon on the Sacraments in General 1589, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 5
46
and the King’s Covenant. However, whilst Knox may not have been as explicit about the
importance of the sacraments, it may be correct to presume people were aware that the
sacraments solidified their covenant with God. To put it simply, Knox’s lack of emphasis on the
sacraments is not indisputable evidence that people did not already conceive the sacraments’
central role in the same way as Robert Bruce. Instead, Bruce may have merely been a clearer
thinker than Knox and his conception of the importance of the sacraments was not a change
from earlier notions in popular thought. Nevertheless, we can only go on the evidence before us.
As such, the sources seem to indicate that Bruce’s conception of the sacraments as solidifying
the covenant between the people and God was a change in covenantal conception.
In Bruce’s third sermon on Isaiah, this time delivered exclusively to the ordinary people,
Bruce returns to a theme present at the opening to the King’s Covenant: the need for continual
Reformation of religion. It is almost as if Bruce is unshackled by the absence of the monarch
because now we get some controversy. Bruce argues that there is “confusion of kirk and
policie”, 154 in keeping with MacDonald’s argument that the Kirk was not a united body
espousing Presbyterianism. But instead of arguing for Presbyterianism, Bruce seems to desire
leadership and a sense of direction. He laments that the current historical context is “as gif there
were not a king in Israel”.155 And in echoing Knox’s call to bring the ordinary people and local
elites together to forward Reformation, Bruce demands “everie one […] that hear me, to crave at
God that would distill his grace in his Majestie’s heart, quilk may move him to take up another
manner of protection than hitherto he hath done.”156 Scotland, according to Bruce, is rudderless.
These points support MacDonald’s claims that this was a period of indecision 157 and
demonstrates how the historical context influenced these covenantal themes; kingship, and the
need for continual Reformation. It also demonstrates that the purpose of the King’s Covenant
was two-fold: to incorporate the king into Scotland’s covenantal narrative, and to forward
further Reformation.
Bruce also treads some familiar paths—evidence that Skinner was correct when he argued
that the context is not determinant of what is said about an idea, but rather draws a framework
for the historical circumstance.158 Again we have the notion of the Scots as God’s chosen people
when Bruce bemoans, “Oh, unhappy and wrathful country, that hath so abused the merciful
calling and great benignitie of God!” 159 This comment seems to remark upon the current
indecision over church governance. In a slightly more upbeat tone, Bruce goes on to proclaim
Third Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 210
ibid
156 op. cit, p. 212
157 MacDonald 1998, pp. 34—37
158 Skinner 1969, p. 49
159 Fifth Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 253
154
155
47
that “since the people of Israel came through the Red Sea, there hath not been a greater”160
miracle than His covenant with Scotland. The fact that Bruce, like Knox before him, emphasised
the Scots as God’s chosen people demonstrates that on this point there was no change of
conception between the King’s Covenant and the understanding of covenant present in popular
narrative around the time of the initial Reformation.
The notion of equality is present once again: it crops up repeatedly throughout Bruce’s
sermons on Isaiah. Bruce argues that “There is none of us but we are all subject to this [God’s]
estate”161 and that God’s grace is available to “prince or people”.162 This concept may initially
seem completely alien to a historical context typified by kingship. Bruce is, however, perhaps
hinting that firstly equality is intrinsic to covenantal thought, and secondly that Presbyterianism
must be the direction of travel—given that it is more representative than diocesan Episcopacy.
The presence of equality may also indicate that James’ attempt to carve a centrepiece for the
crown in Scotland’s relationship with God was not wholly successful. James managed to broadly
please all interested parties of both Episcopalian and Presbyterian sentiment. But by stopping
short of creating a rival covenantal tradition like that of the House of David all those centuries
before, James left the field wide open for the covenant of Isaiah—a direct relationship between
the people and God163—to take ever deeper root in the Presbyterian psyche. In the words of
Presbyterian reformer Andrew Melville, “There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland [the
House of Stuart and Christ]”.164 The tension driven by these competing allegiances was simply
ignored by James.
James’ reluctance to act almost led to a remarkable settlement that would have, as Alan
MacDonald has remarked, “led to a mixed polity with the General Assembly as the only court
able to censure the new quasi-episcopate.”165 Yet, James’ inaction caused simmering feelings of
discontent amongst Presbyterians as demonstrated by Robert Bruce’s desire for leadership.
James failed to establish a full-blown Episcopate not because he balked at the challenge, but
because he remained uncommitted to such a settlement. Alan MacDonald was right when he
argued that James’ lack of commitment to fully-fledged episcopacy is corroborated by the fact
that he did not appoint any bishops between 1585 and 1600.166 This conclusion is further
supported by James’ failure to impose a direct covenant between himself and God, in the mould
of the Davidic Covenant. Instead, James allowed the Isaiah conception of covenant— present in
Sixth Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 272
Third Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 205
162 Fourth Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 235
163 Oswalt 1986, pp. 85—86
164 Calderwood 1844, p. 440; Mason 1994, p. 123
165 MacDonald 1998, pp. 34—35
166 op. cit, p. 37
160
161
48
both the Godly Band and within popular narrative—to continue. Little changed in the way
covenantal ideas were conceived between the Godly Band and King’s Covenant, and neither was
there meaningful change between the popular narratives presented by John Knox and Robert
Bruce.
James’ indecision, however, stoked the flames of Presbyterian sentiment. When there was an
attempt to enforce Episcopalianism by diktat, that Presbyterian flame could no longer be
contained.
Superstructure: the National Covenant of Scotland, 1638
Charles I ascended to the Scottish throne in 1630. Historians are divided as to what insulted the
Scots most about Charles. He was ostensibly a Scottish king of Scottish lineage, but Charles was
ignorant of his homeland. An ignorance which, according to Maurice Lee, he “displayed very
little interest in remedying”.167 For Allan MacInnes, it was Charles’ revocation scheme that was
the most divisive aspect of his initial impositions:168 whereas Gordon Donaldson has simply
pointed out that conflict between the nobility and crown was likely at some point.169
Perhaps it was simply that the Scots felt ignored. If James had been found lacking when asked
to provide leadership in the 1590s, the situation got a whole lot worse after the Union of the
Crowns in 1603. In the latter half of James’ reign parliament was only called on three occasions:
and when it was called in 1621, it was heavily restricted by crown influence: an imposition that
Charles continued in 1633.170
It was against this backdrop of simmering discontent that Charles tried to instigate sweeping
liturgical reforms. And in response, Presbyterians did something that had become their modus
operandi: they took recourse to a covenant.
The King’s Covenant opened with the resolution that the signees would “constantly affirm”171
the covenant. The National Covenant took this instruction to heart, since it opens with a word
for word repetition of the King’s Covenant. Its purpose is partly to resuscitate covenantal ideas.
This repetition also serves as a moral standard, or point of comparison. In short, the signees are
saying to the King, “here is the everlasting code your father signed up to.” One hundred and
forty nine lines of legal commentary follow outlining the various acts of parliament that had
Lee 1984, p. 146
MacInnes 1987, p. iv
169 Donaldson 1965, pp. 299—300
170 MacIntosh and Tanner 2010, In: Brown and MacDonald 2010, p. 21
171 King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
167
168
49
enshrined Scottish Protestantism. The meaning is not bound by conventions of subtlety: you can
almost hear the message proclaimed by the signees; “these are the regulations that protect our
Protestant settlement that you, Charles, are contravening with your proposed liturgical reforms.”
And then we have the new covenant sewn onto the end of this long and complex missive.
The National Covenant is an intellectual tapestry that weaves various covenantal ideas into one
document. I will only concern myself with the new section since we have already discussed the
King’s Covenant at length, and even the most devoted legal scholar would be bored by the
succeeding exposition of parliamentary acts (which serve no other purpose than to highlight the
laws that Charles would break if he was to institute his proposed Episcopalian reforms).
Whilst I have previously been critical of scholars such as MacInnes and Cowan who portray
the National Covenant as the only covenant worthy of historians’ interest, it is in many ways a
covenant nonpareil. But to say, as James Torrance has, that covenant theology only rose to
prominence in the seventeenth century is to take the point and miss it completely. 172 The
National Covenant is unrivalled in its fulsomeness specifically because it was an accumulation of
covenantal ideas. Even so, its bombastic style veils the shallowness of ideas that had lost much
of their impact through repetition.
1)
Preamble
Considering divers times before, and especially at this time, the danger of the true reformed
religion, of the King’s honour, and of the publick peace of the kingdom.173
I am immediately struck by the clarity of this preamble. Whereas the Godly Band and, to a lesser
extent, the King’s Covenant seemed a little confused as to who was actually involved in each
treaty, the National Covenant could not be clearer (even if the reality is complex in itself). The
National Covenant deals with God (represented by the “true reformed religion”), the King, and
the ordinary people and local elites (depicted by the term “publick”).
In this sense, the National Covenant is a tripartite pact that aimed to deal with the
relationship between each of these three actors.
2)
Historical Prologue
By the manifold innovations and evils, generally contained, and particularly mentioned in our
late supplications, complaints, and protestations.174
Torrance 1981, p. 227
National Covenant 1638, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/natcov.htm
174 ibid
172
173
50
Initially, you could be forgiven for thinking that the historical prologue is referring to the
relationship between the people and God. Perhaps the “evils” are people breaking the covenant.
However, this section is referring directly to the relationship between the Scottish people and
Charles I. It is Charles who has attempted to institute religious “innovations” and it is to Charles
that the people have protested and complained against. As such, by focusing on Charles in the
historical prologue, the National Covenant sets itself up to deal primarily with the king.
3)
a: General Stipulation (directed to God)
We agree, and resolve all the days of our life constantly to adhere unto and to defend the
foresaid true religion, and (forbearing the practice of all innovations already introduced in the
matters of the worship of God […]) to labour, by all means lawful, to recover the purity of
the Gospel, as it was established and professed before the foresaid notvations.175
The authors of the National Covenant felt it necessary to reiterate this point—despite it already
being covered in their repetition of the King’s Covenant. It could be argued that the stipulations
in the King’s Covenant had lost some of their vitality and through repetition the authors of the
National Covenant attempted to revive the idea of the necessity of defending the faith.
Even so, I am of the opinion that the repetition of this clause has more to do with the
historical context. Since there was indecision from both the Kirk and crown as to what form of
church governance was desirable in the 1590s, the clause in the King’s Covenant was assertory:
basically, “we will defend the teachings of the Reformation and remain silent on church
governance.” Conversely, in the context of the National Covenant, a clear line of demarcation
can be drawn between a crown trying to impose Episcopal reform and a Kirk in vehement
opposition. Essentially, this is a retrograde stipulation that sought to recover a golden age of
Scottish Protestantism in the misguided belief that the “purity of the Gospel” had hitherto been
established and unrivalled.176 There is, here, a change in conception from the Godly Band and
King’s Covenant to the National Covenant. Quite simply, by trying to recover a golden age that
had never existed, the National Covenant is actually doing something new. In this case, the
National Covenant changes the conception of the “true religion” by championing it as
Presbyterianism (we can see this in the idea of “forbearing the practice of all innovations”.177 In
this, the authors mean refuting Episcopal reform). Whereas before the “true religion” had been
understood as Protestantism more generally.
You might be wondering how this is a stipulation between the people and God. Well, if we
accept that the Gospel is the mouthpiece of God, and the signees pledge to protect the Gospel,
ibid
ibid
177 ibid
175
176
51
then this is a promissory statement flowing from the people to God. Much like the stipulations
in the Godly Band. The primary purpose of this clause, then, is to bind the people to God.
b: General Stipulation (directed to the King)
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.178
At first reading, this stipulation is a direct reiteration of the bond tacked onto the end of the
King’s Covenant. And in many ways it is just that, a reiteration. I am inclined to think that the
author of the National Covenant had a penchant for repetition. So, here again, this need for
duplication is further evidence that the ideas themselves were becoming stripped of their
vivacity.
There is little to distinguish this clause from its forerunner in the King’s Covenant.
Nevertheless, it is perhaps a grudging recognition that whilst the people might not agree with
Charles’ proposed reforms, he is still their king. Or perhaps it is to emphasise to Charles that
Scotland has never had a Davidic conception of covenant. Instead, Charles is being reminded
that his power is limited by an earlier covenant between the people and God.
An interesting aspect of this stipulation is that Charles is largely stripped of agency. It is a
unilateral declaration by the people where Charles merely has the freedom to accept the terms or
contravene the covenant. And by accepting these terms he must abandon his desired liturgical
reforms and protect the “true religion”. In short, the purpose of the National Covenant is partly
to back Charles against a wall.
c: General Stipulation (directed to the ordinary people and local elites)
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 […] 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.179
Concluding the tripartite pact, the authors now turn to the obligations between the people. No
distinction is made between local elites and ordinary people, suggestive that notions of nascent
democracy had taken deep root in the Presbyterian psyche: it would seem that the authors of the
National Covenant had taken to heart the instructions by both Knox and later Bruce to bring the
ordinary people and local elites together.180
ibid
ibid
180 To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 228; Third Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In:
Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 212
178
179
52
The notion of mutual obligations between the signees draws heavily on the Godly Band and
Covenant of Sinai. The National Covenant, however, takes it one step further. Not only do the
signees have a mutual obligation to one another as a result of their shared allegiance to God, they
are to take the suffering of one member as a suffering for all. The National Covenant, then, has
taken a unilateral pledge of allegiance to God and turned it into a communal pact between the
people. It has made explicit what was, at best, previously intuitive. We can suppose that the
purpose of this change in conception was to secure a unified opposition against Charles’
reforms. Although we must equally accept that this could merely be an organic change that is not
bound to the historical context. All we can say with any degree of certainty is that the National
Covenant contained an idea of solidarity between the signees unseen in earlier conceptions of
covenant.
There is a final point worth emphasising. While I have described the National Covenant as a
tripartite pact, that description is not wholly helpful. It is tripartite in as far as there are three
actors: the people, God, and the king. But it is not one covenant shared by all three. Instead, the
National Covenant is perhaps better described as tri-directional since there is a pact between the
people and God, between the people and the king, and between the people and the people. As
you might have noticed, the people are the only constant in this covenant. This was a National
Covenant, but it could equally have been called the People’s Covenant.
4)
Specific Stipulations
We therefore faithfully promise for ourselves, our followers, and all others […] to endeavour
to keep ourselves within the bounds of Christian liberty, and to be good examples to others
of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness.181
This stipulation marks a clear point of departure from earlier Scottish covenants and the
Covenant of Sinai. Where the National Covenant’s forerunners concerned themselves with
general issues of worship, here we have requirements placed upon individuals to act in
accordance with a Christian code of behaviour. It is hard to ignore the sense of conceit and selfrighteousness that flows from this clause. Perhaps this stipulation is in keeping with the National
Covenant’s style of explicitly stating what was previously taken for granted, since this stipulation
does not actually say anything terribly new.
By signing the National Covenant people were accepting the specific stipulation from the
King’s Covenant to conduct appropriate sacrament rituals. In the new addendum, perhaps there
was no need to specify any grand theological promise. Instead, it was enough for the signees to
declare that they would behave as good Christians.
181
National Covenant 1638, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/natcov.htm
53
5)
Blessings and/or Curses
Under the pain of God’s everlasting wrath, and of infamy and loss of all honour and respect
in this world […] the Lord to […] bless our desires and proceedings with a happy success;
that religion and righteousness may flourish in the land.182
The National Covenant has a lavish dose of blessings and curses compared to earlier Scottish
covenants. The Godly Band neglected blessings or curses, the unwritten covenant contained
notions of God’s wrath if the covenant was broken, and the King’s Covenant followed in a
similar vein. Here we have a curse that specifies both spiritual and temporal punishment, and the
signees seek God’s blessing on their endeavours.
There are three explanations for these expansive blessings and curses. Firstly, it could be that
the formation of the National Covenant was influenced by biblical covenants such as Sinai that
have extensive blessings and curses sections. It could also simply be that the National Covenant
sought to convince many people to sign and keep the covenant, and so the blessings and curses
were used as tools of coercion. Or, finally, perhaps the far-reaching blessings and curses were
merely in keeping with the grandiose style of the National Covenant. Most likely it was a
combination of these reasons.
6)
Witnesses
We call the LIVING GOD, THE SEARCHER OF OUR HEARTS, to witness.183
Again, God is called to witness. And again, this section of the National Covenant is a direct
repetition of the King’s Covenant. The authors of the National Covenant seem to pride
themselves on the adage that if it is worth saying something once, you may as well say it again
and again. As an interesting aside, Delbert Hillers has made a similar observation about the
author of Deuteronomy. In fact, the parallels between Deuteronomy and the National Covenant
do not end there. Both were the culmination of ideas of covenant and both are peculiarly long.184
It would be wrong to assuredly conclude that Deuteronomy was a major influence on the
formation of the National Covenant. But I would suggest that we should not think of Scotland’s
covenantal tradition as something that developed independently after initial contact with Old
Testament ideas. Instead, it seems more likely that the authors of Scotland’s covenants were
both drawing on Scottish covenants that had come before and the Old Testament. In this way,
the Old Testament was continually pollinating the off shoots of Scotland’s covenantal tradition.
ibid
ibid
184 Hillers 1969, pp. 149—150
182
183
54
“Not Against Authority, But For Authority”: Conceptions of the
National Covenant in the Sermons of Henderson and Cant
Perhaps Gordon Donaldson was right that conflict between the people and the crown was
inevitable,185 although I would be wary of accepting such historical determinism. And maybe
Allan MacInnes was correct that the National Covenant was an elaborate game of smoke and
mirrors hiding people’s real political concerns.186 The problem is the sources do not support
either of these claims and I am unwilling to accept any grand conclusions that cannot be directly
linked to ideas contained within the primary sources. In keeping with my approach of adding
complimentary sources to help us delve into the meanings of each covenant, I will now discuss
two sermons by Andrew Cant and a sermon by Alexander Henderson, all delivered in 1638 to
try to convince people to sign the National Covenant.
We have two new themes that crop up in these sources. Firstly, the notion of rebellion and
revolution: or, more accurately, express attempts to refute the notion that the National Covenant
is a rebellious document. Alexander Henderson informs, “ye have no cause of fear, for I avow
and attest before God, that what you do is not against authority, but for authority.”187 The term
authority has dual usage: the authority of the king and the authority of God. Here, Henderson
recognises that distinction but attempts to bridge the gap. The line of argument is as follows:
renewing the covenant reasserts God’s dominance. As all authority flows from God, what is
good for God is also good for the king. So, even if the king thinks otherwise, people entering
into the covenant is actually in his best interests. It is also worth highlighting the term “fear”.
From this one word we can glean that there were popular concerns about the potentially
revolutionary nature of the National Covenant. And we can suppose that these concerns were
widespread since Henderson’s lack of explanation suggests that his audience was well aware of
this issue. Henderson’s argument, then, is designed to debunk a common misconception, as he
sees it.
Andrew Cant addresses this issue from a slightly different angle. Rather than argue that what
is good for God is good for the King, Cant informs his audience that “I know no other means
under heaven to make many loyal subjects, but by renewing our covenant.”188 This argument is in
keeping with the specific stipulation in the National Covenant that required signees to act within
Donaldson 1965, pp. 299—300
MacInnes 1987, p. iii
187 Henderson 1638, National Covenant Sermon at St. Andrews, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100h/19100-h.htm
188 Cant 1638, National Covenant Sermon at Glasgow, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100h.htm
185
186
55
Christian liberty. So, if people signed the covenant and behaved according to a set moral code of
conduct, they would likely be good subjects for the king to reign over. Whilst this is a different
approach to the same issue, Cant shares Henderson’s conclusion: even if the king is unaware of
it, the covenant is in his best interests.
Both Cant and Henderson refute that the National Covenant is a revolutionary document. In
doing so, they demonstrate a change in conception from the Godly Band and King’s Covenant,
both of which had toyed with the idea of legitimate rebellion. If we remember, Robert Bruce
outlined that the king could be removed (although he did not go so far as to explain how this
could be done).189 So, the change in conception is that the National Covenant plays down the
notion of legitimate rebellion.
Making a new appearance in covenant rhetoric is the notion of historical context. For
Henderson the covenant is not an abstract and fixed theological treatise, it is “exponed
[explained] according as the exigencies of the time requires, and it is applied to the present
purpose.”190 I could not have hoped for a better quote to support Skinner’s argument that the
context acts as a framework for what is said about ideas (a premise I accepted at the beginning of
my thesis). We have, here, unearthed evidence that the historical actors were aware of changes in
how covenantal ideas were conceived over time. Henderson is saying that the covenant must be
applied to current events, but the key term is “exponed”. He is not calling for the covenant to be
designed according to contemporary needs. So, the ideas themselves are, in Henderson’s opinion,
fixed. But the way they are conceived and explained is malleable to the historical context.
You will probably not be surprised to hear that Cant and Henderson go on to take us to
familiar stamping ground. The National Covenant is, after all, broadly a repetition of ideas that
had been present in Reformed and Presbyterian discourse for decades. Our first port of call is
the issue of church governance. Here, Cant has moved on from Alan MacDonald’s claim that
Presbyterians were more concerned with the titles of hierarchical offices than the offices
themselves.191 Cant poses himself the question, “Find we not the name of Bishop under the New
Testament?” (Presumably Cant raises this question because it is a common argument posed by
Episcopalians). His ready made answer is, “Yes; but not the bishop of a diocese, such as my
Lord Glasgow […]; but we find a pastor or bishop over a flock.”192 The issue, then, is not the
title at all; it is very much with the power distribution of diocesan Episcopacy. And what more
Second Sermon on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 191
Henderson 1638, National Covenant Sermon at St. Andrews, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100h/19100-h.htm
191 MacDonald 1998, p. 11
192 Cant 1638, National Covenant Sermon at Glasgow, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100h.htm
189
190
56
stinging attack could Cant pose to forward the cause of Presbyterianism than to say that
Episcopacy is unscriptural.
Nascent democracy makes another appearance, demonstrating the enduring power of the
idea. It is here, in the National Covenant, that we have the notion of nascent democracy in its
most established form yet. Henderson argues that
Sometimes most necessar, that we turn away our eyes from the kings greatness, from
kirkmen and men of state, and that we turn them towards another object, and look only to
Jesus Christ, who is the great king, priest, and prophet of His kirk.193
This is further evidence of ideas that were ever present being sculpted to fit a particular historical
context. The notion that Jesus was the king above all is not new, but putting such stress on
people turning away from the temporal sphere is a new adaptation: and very much in keeping
with a historical context simmering with revolutionary sentiment. As if to provide clarity,
Henderson goes on to repeat; “absolute power […] is in God’s hand, and He will not give that
power to any other over them.”194 In short, Henderson refutes any notion of divinely elected
kings. This statement demonstrates conceptual disorder within Henderson’s own thoughts since
he has already accepted “kings and their greatness”,195 irrespective of his instruction to ignore
them. But Henderson appears to be hinting at something far more: not only are kings worth
ignoring, they have no authority spiritually or—even more importantly in this context—
temporally. Knox established the City of God as democratic: Henderson seems to hint that the
same applies to the City of Man.196
S. A. Burrell explored the revolutionary symbolism of the National Covenant.197 While Allan
MacInnes and I. B. Cowan, we can presume, focused on the political nature of covenantalism
because they started from the position that the National Covenant was a revolutionary treatise: a
call for arms, you might say. 198 And the context surrounding the signing of the National
Covenant has become overshadowed by the revolutionary event of Charles’ eventual execution
at the hands of the English. Even so, my appraisal of the National Covenant has not shown it to
be a document whose purpose was overtly revolutionary. Yes, it challenged Charles’ impression
of his authority. But it did so by highlighting the various acts of parliament and the King’s
Covenant that Charles’ inflated notion of his power contravened. The National Covenant was a
revolutionary document in as far as it attempted to change the status quo. But it was not to
Henderson 1638, National Covenant Sermon at St. Andrews, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100h/19100-h.htm
194 ibid
195 ibid
196 ibid; To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 219
197 Burrell 1958
198 Cowan 1968; MacInnes 1987
193
57
achieve anything new, instead the National Covenant was a call for national renewal, for a return
to a mythical Golden Age of Scottish Presbyterianism, and an offer to their king: see the error of
your ways and be the king God chose you to be, the defender of our faith, not the “innovator”
and “corrupter”.199
Charles refused to accept the Presbyterians’ offer. He would have no limitation on his
authority. By refusing the covenant, in one quick sweep Charles erased the monarchy out of
Scotland’s popular Presbyterian narrative, and with it he deleted his father’s hard work.
It would take English occupation for the Scots to once again try to write a king back into
Scotland’s covenant.
The Return of the King: Solemn League and Covenant, 1650
Since this thesis has a limit of seventy pages, it has been necessary to jump over the period of
“Godly Rule” 200 typified by the Covenanters’ theocracy and followed by the Cromwellian
Protectorate of Scotland. This is a leap that is not altogether fair since covenantal ideas likely
evolved a great deal during this period in Scotland’s history. Nevertheless, there was no new
covenant entered into by the people of Scotland and since the covenants themselves have been
the guiding light for my thesis, the omission of the Cromwellian Protectorate may just be
permissible.
The astute reader may protest that an examination of the Solemn League is in fact an
exploration into the Cromwellian Protectorate. Yet, for my purposes, I am concerned with the
significance of the Solemn League for Charles II and the eventual Restoration of the Stuart
monarchy: since, as John Coffey has pointed out, many scholars have identified the Restoration
as a sudden shift towards religious plurality. However, I am equally inclined to agree with Coffey
when he argued that historians have been too quick to stress the emergence of a new world
order and have been particularly guilty of reading “secularism back into earlier eras.”201
Considering the Solemn League in light of the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy allows us
to test the idea that Scotland’s ecclesiastical narrative was radically changing.
1) Preamble
National Covenant 1638, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/natcov.htm
Rudé and Krantz 1985, p. 105; Greaves 1990, p. 2; Ohlmeyer 2000, p. 203
201 Coffey 1997, pp. 255—256
199
200
58
By the providence of GOD living under one King, and being of one reformed religion,
having before our eyes the glory of GOD, and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord
and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, the honour and happiness of the King’s Majesty.202
Straight from the outset the king is written into the Solemn League. The signees are asked to
forget Charles I’s refusal of the covenant and embrace Charles II. Time heals, and time allows
people to forget. In some ways, this preamble is the antithesis to the preamble in the National
Covenant. Whereas the National Covenant portrayed a troubled context, the Solemn League
depicts the historical context as settled and secure. The purpose of the preamble is to connect
Charles II with the notion of stability.
2) Historical Prologue
And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices
of the enemies of GOD, against the true religion […] ever since the reformation of religion;
[…] and the dangerous estate of the church and kingdom of Scotland.203
Here, we seem to have been transported back to the Godly Band. The historical prologue deals
with the relations between, we can assume, Presbyterians and their enemies: Catholics and
Episcopalians. We do not have an explanation of the former relations between the Scots and
God as you might expect from a treaty that would involve each party. Instead, the Presbyterians
revert to the style in the Godly Band where God only plays the role of someone with whom the
Presbyterians identify.
3) General stipulations
Endeavour […] the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in
doctrine, worship discipline, and government […] and shall endeavour to bring the Churches
of GOD in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity […] That we shall
in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, [and]
Prelacy.204
In keeping with the historical prologue, the general stipulations require the signees to protect the
Presbyterian settlement and refute the Church of Rome and Episcopalian system. It would seem
that the historical prologue rightly identifies the parties in the Solemn League: Presbyterians and
Episcopalians. But this is a unilateral promissory oath of negative conception: it is a refusal of
Episcopalianism.
It seems as if the relationship between the Scottish people and God had been dealt with on
so many occasions that it was not deemed necessary to bind to God any further than promising
Solemn League and Covenant (Subscribed by Charles II in 1650 and 1651), Available at:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/slcov.htm
203 ibid
204 ibid
202
59
to protect His church—Presbyterianism. Or, it is equally possible that the formation of the
Solemn League was influenced by the Godly Band’s way of identifying Protestants (in this case
Presbyterians) with God: almost as if they are on the same team. This, however, strips God of
agency since Presbyterian thought is substituted for God’s desires. To be blunt, the Solemn
League’s general stipulation reads a lot like the Godly Band. It seems, then, that the conception
of covenant had oscillated back to the Godly Band’s conception.
There is also a clever slight of hand or what Hillers would call, “history from a very particular
point of view.”205 In fact, it is so effective that you might not even notice what has been done.
This stipulation commands the signees to protect the “reformed religion”. And it follows by
requiring the signees to preserve Church “government”. But the initial Reformation did not
concern itself with what particular form of church governance was favourable. In a brushstroke
the Scottish Reformation has become a Presbyterian Reformation. It seems likely that the
purpose of re-writing the history of the Reformation was to bolster the Presbyterian cause.
4) Specific stipulations
To preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms;
and to preserve and defend the King’s Majesty […] [and] assist and defend all those that
enter into this League and Covenant.206
We can firstly observe that this is a repetition of the National Covenant’s general stipulation;
which in turn was a repetition from the King’s Covenant; that in turn was a repetition from the
Godly Band; and so on. It is the notion of mutual obligation under God, but like the National
Covenant this stipulation takes that idea a little further to the notion of communal commitment
that is limited only by subscription to the Solemn League. That, however, is the least remarkable
aspect of this stipulation.
You could rightly ask, where is God in this stipulation? And the answer, quite simply, is that
He is not present. This is the first time in any of Scotland’s covenants that a stipulation deals
exclusively with secular issues. It is, no doubt, concerned with power distribution and
sovereignty—themes that permeate Scotland’s covenants—but solely in the City of Man. Here,
perhaps, we have some evidence for the notion that the tide of secularism was close to breaking
on Scotland’s shores. However, we must be careful in how we handle this evidence. Just because
a covenantal idea only had secular implications does not mean that we have found evidence that
supports the notion of an intellectual divide between the political and religious spheres. For that,
we would have to find some form of explanation about how a covenantal idea separately
Hillers 1969, p. 31
Solemn League and Covenant (Subscribed by Charles II in 1650 and 1651), Available at:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/slcov.htm
205
206
60
impacted the political and religious spheres. Instead, this stipulation merely stays silent on
matters of religion.
Perhaps the authors simply felt that theological issues had broadly been resolved. The Scots
were God’s chosen people, God was sovereign above all, Presbyterianism was the correct form
of church governance, and the king was expected to defend Protestantism. These points did not
need to be reiterated again. But the relationships between the people, the parliament, and the
king continued to be contentious. This drives to the foundation of a binding principle underlying
all covenantal ideas: they are simply varying conceptions of relationships. And we can unpack
this idea a little further, since an expression of a relationship is fundamentally an articulation of
power or what we could also describe as sovereignty. So, in this stipulation we have the notion of
shared sovereignty between the parliament, national claimant, and the covenanted people. The
term covenanted is incredibly important. The Solemn League is an exclusive treaty that deals only
with the signees, not with the people of Scotland as a whole. In this way, the Solemn League
occupies similar territory to the Godly Band: we can conclude that the formation of the Solemn
League drew heavily from the Godly Band (which in itself was drawing from two sources: Old
Testament exemplars and Scots’ contract law).
5) Blessings and/or curses
Desire to be humbled for our own sins […] that the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy
indignation.207
The Solemn League does contain a blessing of sorts. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that
these were requests for blessings. The signees ask to be blessed with humbleness (due to their
previous sinful ways). And they ask to be blessed with the removal of God’s curse upon the land.
These are weighty requests that really drive home the depressed nature of the historical context.
Scotland was a country ravished by civil war, by an aborted revolution, and evidently tired.
These blessings and curses are a change in conception from the National Covenant since they
are expressions of hope, not warnings of things to come. In this way, the Solemn League has
again more in common with the Godly Band (which was also a promissory document that hoped
to bring about Reformation). Like the Godly Band, the overarching promissory nature of the
Solemn League indicates that it was a unilateral document that stripped God of agency. In short,
the blessing and curse section provides further evidence that the conception of covenantal ideas
had reverted back to the Godly Band’s conception and away from the more mutual covenantal
conceptions of the unwritten covenant and National Covenant.
207
ibid
61
6) Witnesses
And this Covenant we make in the presence of ALMIGHTY GOD, the Searcher of all
hearts.208
In keeping with every Scottish covenant that preceded the Solemn League, God is again called to
witness. However, while the National Covenant may have called God to witness in the same
fashion, it means something more in the context of the Solemn League. What I mean by this is
that God had an active role in the National Covenant (being a witness to the treaty was just one
aspect of His function), whereas in the Solemn League—as in the Godly Band—God’s role is
limited to witness and beneficiary. This provides us with a helpful summary of the way a
conception of covenant had begun in one form, evolved into something else, and returned to its
earlier conception.
From the Riches of Scone Palace to a Field: Two Rather Different
Sermons
We will now move on to consider two rather distinct sermons delivered in two different settings
and in two diametrically opposed historical contexts. Robert Douglas delivered the first sermon
at Charles II’s coronation in 1651 as a covenanted king was set on the throne of Scotland. And
Donald Cargill delivered the second sermon in a field in 1681 after Charles II had reinstated
Episcopacy and when all hope that a Stuart king would ever honour a covenant had dissipated.
Robert Douglas interwove covenantal ideas of lofty lineage in combinations that had hitherto
been at odds with one another. Unsurprisingly given the context, Douglas emphasised notions of
kingship. To begin with, Douglas informs his audience that Charles II “is the anointed of the
Lord who, by divine ordinance and appointment is the king.”209 This is an unequivocal statement
of support for the divine right of kings. And in a turn not present at any other point in
covenantal thought, Douglas invokes the House of David by instructing Charles II to “resolve
with David”.210 We can presume that this linkage was not lost on an audience who would have
been well acquainted with the Old Testament and aware of the rival covenantal tradition
whereby a king covenanted to God and through him the people entered the covenant.211 In Old
Testament theology this made the House of David indispensible. The problem is that Scotland
ibid
Douglas 1651, Coronation Sermon at Scone, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100-h.htm
210 ibid
211 Matthews 1996, pp. 62—63
208
209
62
had never had a Davidic covenant and that includes the Solemn League. Perhaps we are seeing
the expression of an unwritten and yet acknowledged Davidic covenant in Scotland. Or do we
merely have a preacher indulging in sycophancy?
Douglas goes on to expand with a point that seems to oppose the notion of a Davidic
covenant. He states that, “It is clear, that the kings power is not absolute, as kings and flattering
courtiers apprehend; a king’s power is limited by this covenant.”212 This is indeed a statement of
fact: the Solemn League carefully protected the shared sovereignty of the covenanted people,
parliament, and the king, limiting Charles II’s power. But I cannot help but be stunned by this
seeming contradiction. The question that follows, then, is whether Douglas’ hint at a Davidic
covenant is mere flattery? Or perhaps this is Douglas’ way of fitting the king into Scotland’s
theological narrative. And in the same breath Douglas puts forward an interpretation of the
Davidic covenant that contains both the notion of divine election and limited monarchy. Here,
we may have hit upon a substantial point since Douglas goes on to instruct the king to “be a
careful hearer of God’s word; take with reproof; esteem of it, as David did.”213
Douglas is a clever theologian and political strategist. He seems to be aware that the King’s
Covenant failed, in part, because the issue of James and Christ’s shared sovereignty was simply
ignored. This is a mistake that Douglas attempts to avoid again by taking the step that James
failed to take in 1580: introducing a Davidic covenant into popular narrative and at the same
time emphasising the limitation on divinely ordained kings. For Douglas, the Solemn League’s
purpose was to provide limiting boundaries in which to house a Davidic covenant. This was a
profound change in conception from earlier covenants that had codified the direct relationship
between the people and God.
If this central role for Charles II risked inflating his ego, Douglas brings in the notion of
legitimate rebellion as an antidote. He argues that
A king, abusing his power to the overthrow of religion, law and liberties, which are the very
fundamentals of this contract and covenant, may be controlled and opposed […] they who
have the power, as the estates of a land, may and ought to resist by arms.214
In some ways the style of this argument harks back to the National Covenant. Not because the
National Covenant dealt with rebellion—in fact if you remember it was careful to play down this
notion—but because Douglas makes explicit a notion that had been implicit since the initial
Reformation. But Douglas is doing more than shining a light on a shadowy notion within
popular narrative; he is warning Charles II that there will be consequences if he breaks the
Douglas 1651, Coronation Sermon at Scone, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100-h.htm
ibid
214 ibid
212
213
63
covenant. We can only conclude that Robert Douglas had good reason to suppose Charles II
would do exactly that.
Now we can return to some familiar terrain, but with an altogether unfamiliar conception.
Nascent democracy crops up again as it has in all of Scotland’s covenants. However, this time it
is as a rebuttal. Douglas argues that “there is a line drawn from God to the people, they are the
lowest in the line: and have magistrates and supreme above them, and God above all.”215 This
argument may well be drawing heavily on a historical context whereby nascent democracy had
led to an aborted theocracy. And equally, to refute nascent democracy is in line with Douglas’—
albeit complex and very likely contradictory—views on divine election.
We can now move on to Donald Cargill’s field sermon that is an altogether different beast.
Charles II had broken the covenant in 1661 by restoring Episcopacy to Scotland. By 1681 when
Cargill stood in a field and preached to a large crowd, Scotland was suffering a period that has
been labelled the Killing Times due to Charles II’s relentless persecution of rebel Presbyterians.
Unsurprisingly, Cargill’s message is rather different from Douglas. The topic of the sermon is on
Isaiah and the overriding message is that the Scots are still God’s chosen people. Cargill points
out “the tender care of God to His people” and that there must be “a covenanting with Him by
faith.”216 This is a call to return to a safer time, a time when the people of Scotland were under
God’s protection and remained faithful in their covenant with Him. And it is a call to a direct
relationship between the people and God—signified by the focus on the prophet Isaiah and in
contradiction to any notion of a Davidic covenant.
In some ways, I get the impression that Cargill is saying that the covenant remains in place.
But he also seems to plead for “the Master of Scotland [to] come, and keep a Court in
Scotland.”217 It is, therefore, hard to discern if we are dealing with the notion of a covenant in
popular narrative or the desire for one to be brought into existence.
This was a dark and doubtful time for the notion of covenant in Scotland. For the first time
since the beginning of Scotland’s story of covenant there were contemporaneously two rival
conceptions. One proposed by Robert Douglas that drew on the biblical Davidic covenant and
that merely attempted to cement a place for the king. But in doing so—and as a result of Charles
II’s subsequent rebuttal of the covenant—Douglas made it incredibly hard for any future
conception of covenant to incorporate kingship in a meaningful way: and the other that was
influenced by the covenant of Isaiah and was intended to instate a direct relationship between
the people and God. What followed were radical interpretations of covenant that firstly tried to
ibid
Cargill 1681, Sermon VI, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/cargill/sdtp_cargill_sermon06.html
217 ibid
215
216
64
rescue the notion of nascent democracy by emphasising that the Scots were still God’s chosen
people, to coming very close to arguing for republicanism. For instance—and I will only dwell
on this briefly—the Sanquhar Declaration of 1680 states that it is “one of the Lord’s great
controversies against us, that we have not disowned him [Charles II] and men of his practices
[kings].”218
The covenant could finally be accurately described as a “revolutionary symbol”.219 Its future
was in the hands of rebels who would eventually put their stock in a Reformed foreign prince.
They were soon to find, however, that not all Calvinists so valued the notion of covenant.
“The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange”: Glorious Revolution,
1688—90
In 1690 Scotland reached a revolution settlement. James VII was deemed to have forfeited the
throne and William of Orange was welcomed as the new king of Scotland; Presbyterianism was
recognised as the creed of the Kirk; and limited monarchy was enshrined. All of this was
achieved without renewing a covenant. Nevertheless, I am inclined to agree with Alistair Raffe
who has been highly critical of historical analysis that has emphasised “the 1690 settlement as the
solution to Scotland’s constitutional strife” and of historians who have overstated “the extent to
which post-revolution politics was secularized.”220
We do not have the luxury of a covenant to mine for ideas. Instead, we have to manoeuvre
subtly and approach covenantal notions from a different angle. The Claim of Right was an Act
of the Scottish Parliament that allowed for the transfer of the crown from James VII to William
of Orange and it detailed the constitutional arrangement of Scottish society.221 In short, the
Claim of Right embodied the Revolution Settlement and, by placing it into the narrative of this
thesis, it can also provide a window into certain themes that have permeated the notion of
covenant throughout my analysis.
Kingship is emphasised in the Claim of Right. As justification for enforcing James’ forfeiture
of the throne, the Claim of Right describes his reign as “from a legall and limited monarchy to
ane Arbitrary and Despotick power”.222 William is depicted as liberator; he is God’s “glorious
Sanquhar Declaration 1680, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100-h.htm
Burrell 1958
220 Raffe 2010, p. 335
221 Patrick 2002, pp. 57—58; Stephen 2007, p. 1
222 Claim of Right 1689, p. 1, Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1689/28/data.pdf
218
219
65
instrument”.223 Here we have the notion of the desirability of limited monarchy. A key term is
“legall”. If limited monarchy is “legall”, so despotic reign is not. The obvious question is where,
then, does this legality come from? If we refer back to the covenants of Scotland, and in
particular the Solemn League, we see limited monarchy codified within the covenants. We can
conclude that the notion of limited monarchy comes straight from the covenant. And if
covenantal ideas were deemed legal, then this is a conception of covenantal ideas as an
articulation of divine law: a point that was not explicit in any covenant and is, therefore, a change
in conception of the nature of Scotland’s covenants.
The notion of nascent democracy also makes an appearance in the Claim of Right. It is stated;
“Parliaments ought to be frequently called and allowed to sit and the freedom of speech and
debate secured to all members.”224 This is not quite the articulation of equality found in earlier
covenants, but it is a notion of nascent democracy (if we stress the term nascent).
For our purposes, the most important clause in the Claim of Right is the recognition of
Presbyterianism as Scotland’s religion (although it did not recognise the divine right of
Presbyterianism),225
That Prelacy and superiority of any office in the Church above presbyters is and hath been a
great and insupportable greivance and trouble to this Nation and contrary to the
Inclinationes of the generality of the people ever since the reformatione (they haveing
reformed from popery by presbyters) and therefor ought to be abolished.226
We have two interesting aspects to this clause. Firstly, the Claim of Right reiterates the Solemn
League’s rewriting of history whereby the initial Reformation is inaccurately claimed as a
Presbyterian Reformation. But perhaps of more interest is the justification for Presbyterianism.
It is not, as one might expect, described as God’s true faith—rooting the justification in
Scripture. Instead, Presbyterianism is desirable because, we are told, most people wanted
Presbyterian church governance and had done so since the initial Reformation. This is nascent
democracy in action. The people want it; therefore we should do it. This is a significant change
in conception from the National Covenant and Solemn League to the Claim of Right where the
covenants had championed Presbyterianism because it was the true church, not merely the
desired church.
The Claim of Right is not a covenant and it is not a religious document. Religion is addressed,
but the Claim of Right is mostly concerned with sovereignty and power distribution. But with its
op. cit, p. 3
op. cit, p. 4
225 Raffe 2010, pp. 326—327
226 ibid
223
224
66
clause on the freedoms of parliament (echoing the specific stipulation in the Solemn League),227 I
cannot help but think that the Claim of Right is a logical progression of covenantal traditions.
Yes, it was a leap into secularism, but it embodied many themes with their roots in covenantal
thought and enshrined, to a large extent, Presbyterian desires.
Perhaps you think that this provides evidence that the Glorious Revolution was a watershed
for secularism. Well I would not be too hasty. The Claim of Right promoted Presbyterianism
and so in many ways it served its purpose (from a Presbyterian point of view). As Alisdair Raffe
has pointed out, just because the covenant was not the vehicle to advance these notions, “This
did not mean that the Covenants were buried, forgotten, or superseded. Presbyterians saw them
as perpetually binding”.228 As I previously remarked about the seemingly secular nature of aspects
of the Solemn League, it is as likely that God’s step into the shadows was because the Scots’
relationship with God had already been finalised, rather than God slipping into insignificance. It
does, however, demonstrate that the Claim of Right shared the Solemn League’s emphasis on
secular matters that differentiates both documents from earlier covenants that dealt with the City
of God and City of Man in equal measure.
To get an appreciation of the Presbyterian reaction to the Glorious Revolution, we can now
delve into Alexander Shields’ Humble Proposal submitted to the General Assembly in 1690.
Immediately, Shields welcomes the Revolution Settlement by highlighting that “The government
of Christ’s institution, is at length restored to what it was anno 1592.”229 Here Shields welcomes
covenantal notions returning to the conception present in the King’s Covenant. For Shields,
Presbyterianism is Godly not because it is in keeping with Scriptures, but because it was better
than the alternative: Episcopalianism. For Shields, Episcopalians are “perjured covenantbreakers” who derive “their power from […] another head than Christ”.230 So, all in all the
Revolution Settlement seems to be good news for Presbyterians.
Nevertheless, Shields goes on to lament that “In former reformations, our worthy ancestors
used to begin with renovation of the national covenants” and that “we cannot but signify how
much we and many others are offended […] [by] the imposing and taking many bonds and
oaths, repugnant to the covenants and work of reformation.”231 Here we have some familiar
themes being put forth. Shields understands the Glorious Revolution as a work of
“reformation”: evidence that Reformation was understood as an on-going process. But perhaps
Solemn League and Covenant (Subscribed by Charles II in 1650 and 1651), Available at:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/slcov.htm
228 Raffe 2010, p. 324
229 Shields 1690, Humble Proposal to the General Assembly of Scotland, Available at:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/shields/shields_humble_proposals_to_assembly.html
230 ibid
231 ibid
227
67
most significantly, Shields does not take issue with the content of the Revolution Settlement.
Instead, he would merely prefer the covenant to be the vehicle that forwarded notions such as
limited monarchy, rather than parliamentary legislation.
Only by rebuilding covenantal ideology—as I have attempted throughout this thesis—are we
able to see that the Claim of Right was in many ways a realisation of covenantal ambitions. Not
because it used key terms present in covenants, but because it articulated covenantal ideas in a
fashion that was in keeping with the covenants: limited monarchy, nascent democracy,
Presbyterianism. And it was silent on the points that did not require vocalisation, such as the
Scots’ relationship with God. It was a bone of contention, for some, that secular law achieved all
of this and not God’s divine law articulated by a covenant. But then, Shield’s argument seems to
be to covenant for covenant’s sake. The purpose of the Claim of Right, then, was to resolve
issues of kingship, sovereignty, and church governance. In this broad sense, the Claim of Right
shared the purpose of preceding covenants.
The Glorious Revolution was not the end for the covenant as a vehicle to forward ideas: the
Cameronians, a group of extremist Presbyterians, continued to renew the covenants.232 But in the
old age of the idea, the notion of covenant had lost much of its appeal. By providing a robust
parliament, the Glorious Revolution gave a new avenue through which to pursue notions such as
nascent democracy and it was a tool to keep the king in check. And an enshrined and protected
Presbyterianism did not need covenants to help with forwarding further Reformation.
As with all good ideas, the covenant’s power to persuade, its usefulness, diminished with time.
232
Raffe 2010, p. 324
68
Conclusion: A Shiny New House
The covenants do not explain everything about early modern Scotland. They do, however, allow
us to rebuild early Reformed and subsequent Presbyterian thought. There can often be an
attraction for historians to look on sections of a community as homogenous and fixed groups. I
could, for example, have written a thesis that explored the tensions between Episcopalian and
Presbyterian views on kingship, nascent democracy, and church governance. But that would only
tell us part of the story and serve to bolster the notion that Presbyterianism was a fixed creed.233
It was not. Before historians can go on to explore the interplay between Episcopalianism and
Presbyterianism, we have to have a sense of the two beasts we intend to compare. This thesis has
attempted to contribute to that project by shining a light on the development and evolution of
Presbyterian ideology in Scotland. This has been possible by focusing on Scotland’s covenants
that act as time capsules for Reformed—and later, Presbyterian—ideas.
One of our first tasks is to clear the ground of misconceptions. The initial Scottish
Reformation was not a Presbyterian Reformation. There is no mention of church governance in
the Godly Band or Knox’s adjoining sermons and letters: other than a refusal of Catholic
hierarchy.234 In fact, even though Presbyterianism was on the agenda during the 1580s when the
King’s Covenant stole centre stage, I have shown that the Scots’ Kirk was not wholly sold on
full-blown Presbyterianism. Instead, there were lukewarm feelings from both the crown and
Kirk. Yes, anti-bishop rhetoric was present, but the issue was more with the title rather than the
office. “Bishop” reeked a little too much of Catholicism. The Presbyterians appear to have been
generally comfortable with the mixed Episcopal-Presbyter polity promoted by James’ inaction.235
Remember, when Robert Bruce lectured the ordinary people, he did not explicitly promote
Presbyterian church governance. He instead stressed the lack of leadership provided by James
VI. 236
There are two sides to this debate. See: Raffe 2007 who takes Episcopalians and Presbyterians as embodying two fixed
political positions; and on the other side see: MacDonald 1995 who rejects the usefulness of Presbyterian and Episcopalian as
categories of analysis. I inhabit the middle ground. MacDonald is right that there was no such fixed Presbyterian or Episcopalian
creed, but if we accept that each group merely had transitory conceptions of fixed ideas (and we map these changes), then
‘Presbyterian’ and ‘Episcopalian’ are helpful categories of analysis.
234 Godly Band 1557, available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/knox_history_covenant_1557.html; To the
Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 219; Letter to the Queen Regent 1558, In: The Writings
of John Knox 1844, p. 163; Sermon on Isaiah XXVI 13—20 1565, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 294
235 MacDonald 1998, pp. 34—37
236 Sermon Three on Isaiah 1591, In: Sermons by the Reverend Robert Bruce (1843 Reprint), p. 210
233
69
It was with the National Covenant of 1638 that Presbyterianism was pushed into the
foreground. The signees were not only concerned with titles such as “Bishop”, instead diocesan
power distribution was refuted in favour of a fully fledged Presbyterian system: the only system
that is favourable to God, we are told. And in a remarkable sweep of revisionist history, the
National Covenant re-writes the “true religion” as Presbyterianism. 237 The Solemn League takes
this ideas one step further as it reimagines the Reformation: we are told that not only was
Presbyterianism now desirable, it had always been the driving force behind the Reformation
process.238
In the 1689 Claim of Right, Presbyterianism was confirmed as the religion of the Scots’ Kirk.
And, the notion that Presbyterianism had its roots in the Reformation was also enshrined in
parliamentary legislation. The Claim of Right points out that Presbyterianism was not only an
ambition of the early Reformers, it was also the wish of the majority of people in Scotland ever
since the initial Reformation.239 This interpretation of history was now official and presumably
accepted as true by most Scots irrespective of the fictional nature of the claim. So, what we have
is an idea that changed over time in as far as it did not exist in the early conception of covenant
and then later appeared, but at the same time people from the 1630s onwards believed that
Presbyterianism was an intrinsic and unchanging part of covenantal thought. Whilst this is
interesting, we have here a far greater point: the Claim of Right was portraying itself as the
realisation of the initial Reformation. Which is, in my opinion, exactly what it was. Yes, the
Claim of Right dealt primarily with secular issues, but it was the natural heir to the covenant. In
short, it achieved what the covenant had sought to do on two occasions. The Claim of Right
succeeded in enshrining the Presbyterian polity where both the National Covenant and Solemn
League had failed.
The claim that the initial Reformation had anything to do with Presbyterianism is false. But if
we accept that Presbyterianism was later promoted because it was simply more representative
than any other form of church governance, we can root it to the initial Reformation through the
notion of nascent democracy. Here we have a notion that was initially present in John Knox’s
writings that demonstrate the existence of an unwritten and yet acknowledged all encompassing
covenant in popular narrative. Knox espouses a notion of the City of God that is democratic.240
This conception is reiterated and expanded upon during the reign of James VI where Alexander
Henderson goes as far as to hint that the democratic nature of the City of God may also apply to
National Covenant 1638, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/natcov.htm
Solemn League and Covenant (Subscribed by Charles II in 1650 and 1651), Available at:
http://www.truecovenanter.com/slcov.htm
239 Claim of Right 1689, p. 1, Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1689/28/data.pdf
240 To the Commonality of Scotland 1558, In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 219; Sermon on Isaiah XXVI 13—20 1565,
In: The Writings of John Knox 1844, p. 271
237
238
70
the City of Man.241 Again, the National Covenant mimics this conception. However, when we
come to the Solemn League and particularly what it tells us of the Stuart Restoration, we initially
have a refusal of democratic notions as Robert Douglas puts across a hierarchical conception of
the order of society.242 In the 1680s, Donald Cargill reverts to democratic notions by highlighting
the Scots’ direct relationship to God.243 Finally, with the Glorious Revolution, we have somewhat
of a halfway house where the shared sovereignty of the people, king, and parliament is
articulated.244 Or perhaps this is actually a logical articulation of how the City of Man could put
into practice the notion of nascent democracy.
We have established two fundamental points with the outline of nascent democracy. Firstly,
again, the Claim of Right is a realisation of desires present during the initial Reformation and
throughout most of the conceptions of covenant. And, secondly, we can see that the changing
nature of the way the covenant was conceived was not linear. It was not a progression from an
embryonic idea to something a little more full and finally to maturity as a complex notion.
Instead, we have to-and-fro between different ways to conceive covenantal ideas. Presbyterian
thought, then, was not fixed and it was not progressive. It was alternating or what you could
almost describe as vibrating between different ways to conceive ideas connected to the covenant.
We can highlight this point with a further example.
If we take the notion of kingship, from the outset neither the Godly Band nor Knox’s
writings overly concern themselves with the Queen’s role. Knox talks about the responsibility of
the national claimant to protect Protestantism, but there is no effort to incorporate the monarch
into Scotland’s new ecclesiastical narrative. The Godly Band and the notion of covenant in
popular narrative around the time of the initial Reformation are dealing with direct relationships
between the people and God (drawing heavily on the conception of covenant put forth by the
prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament).
By 1580, the king’s role in the covenant radically changes as he is written into a central place.
But like the revisionism of the National Covenant that portrayed Presbyterianism as present
from the beginning in covenant thought, the King’s Covenant puts across the notion that the
king had always been central to the covenant.245 If you allow me a slight diversion, this actually
demonstrates an important point: the authors of the covenants were aware that notions around
the covenant changed. But they did not want the signees to recognise the changes in conception,
Henderson 1638, National Covenant Sermon at St. Andrews, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100h/19100-h.htm
242 Douglas 1651, Coronation Sermon at Scone, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100-h.htm
243 Cargill 1681, Sermon VI, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/cargill/sdtp_cargill_sermon06.html
244 Claim of Right 1689, Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1689/28/data.pdf
245 King’s Covenant 1580, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/covenants/scotland_national_covenant_1580.html
241
71
so effort was made to portray any change in the covenant as something that had actually always
been the case.
Now we can return to the King’s Covenant. The King’s Covenant served two purposes: to
appease Presbyterians who wanted the king to enter into a covenant and, from the crown’s
perspective, to create a central role for the king by portraying him as the protector of
Protestantism in Scotland. This point was, however, tacked onto the end of the covenant. To be
blunt, the King’s Covenant was not a completely new conception of covenant. It merely took
notions present in a popular narrative and added on the section that promoted the role of the
king. Little changed within covenantal thought as a result of the King’s Covenant except the
favourable notion of kingship.
The National Covenant echoes the King’s Covenant and so the conception of kingship
remains static at this point in time. However, when we move on to the Solemn League, we get a
wholeheartedly different view of kingship put forth by Robert Douglas. Here, the king is likened
to the biblical King David and so we have a strong signal of support for the notion of the divine
right of kings. Admittedly, Douglas stresses that there are limitations on a monarch’s power, but
by trying to cement the king’s role in Scotland’s covenantal traditions, Douglas articulates a
conception of covenant that had hitherto been absent from Scotland.246
Finally, if we jump to the Claim of Right, we have what is broadly a return to the notion of
kingship contained in the King’s Covenant: central and vital, but severely limited as a result of
sharing sovereignty with the parliament and the people.247 I do not want to overly labour this
point, but it is so central to my thesis that I will punctuate it once more: the Claim of Right, once
again, articulated covenantal desires that had been present for the larger part of Scotland’s
covenantal history. And furthermore, we again see how an idea (in this case kingship) went from
being broadly ignored in the early conception of covenant, to central but limited (which was then
repeated), to incredibly important and limited to a lesser extent, to a return to central but limited.
We could also describe this movement in conception in relation to biblical influences on the
formation of covenantal ideas. For instance, there are two general biblical conceptions of
covenant, the first being the covenant of Isaiah which is a conception of a direct relationship
between the people and God, and the second being the Davidic covenant that contains the
notion of a hierarchical relationship from God to the king and through the king to the people.248
We can see that the covenant in Scotland went from purely an Isaiah conception, to Isaiah and a
little Davidic (repeated), onto a Davidic conception (with a tiny bit of Isaiah influence), and
Douglas 1651, Coronation Sermon at Scone, Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19100/19100-h/19100-h.htm
Claim of Right 1689, Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1689/28/data.pdf
248 Oswalt 1986, pp. 85—86; Matthews 1996, pp. 62—63
246
247
72
finally Isaiah and a little Davidic. This was not so much a pendulum swing between different
conceptions of covenant, but rather nuances in the way to envisage ideas such as kingship.
I accept that this discussion has a tendency to become a little abstract. So, to put it simply,
ideas connected to the covenant were generally fixed as you can see from the consistent themes
such as kingship, nascent democracy, and church governance. But the way they were explained
was dependent on the historical context and, as a result, they changed over time. This
malleability made the covenant such a powerful vehicle for forwarding ideas. But, as I have
shown, over time the covenant became less able to inspire. This is demonstrated by the fact that
as time went on, the covenants became longer and longer (this is actually the only linear
progression that is evident in the covenants). In my opinion, this is evidence that the covenants,
and the ideas they contained, had lost some of their impact. They were made long and bombastic
to try to regain some of that power of persuasion.
Finally, people turned away from the covenants towards a constitutional path. The Claim of
Right, as a piece of legislation from the Scottish Parliament, gathered and secured the themes
within the covenants. Some people, as I have shown from Cargill’s sermons, were disgruntled
that it was parliamentary legislation, rather than a covenant, that achieved the final act of
covenantalism in Scotland. The important point is that when we look at these ideas as they
transformed over time and their subsequent presence in the Claim of Right, we can reimagine
Scotland’s history. The Claim of Right was not something that stood apart from Scotland’s
covenantal history: it was very much the end scene. Or, to put it another way, the Claim of Right
was the final act in Scotland’s Long Reformation.
I was inspired to write this thesis because of two arguments within Scottish historiography.
The first is the imposed division of Scottish early modern history into bite-size segments:
Reformation, Covenanters, Restoration, Glorious Revolution. By solely focusing on one of these
key events, some historians have—perhaps unintentionally—given an impression of these events
as completely separate and unrelated processes.249 My thesis, I hope, has shed doubt on that idea.
Take the notion that the Reformation was a simple event that can be studied independently.
In every covenant Reformation is described as an on-going process. And what do historians
mean by Reformation? Do they mean the break from the Roman Church? If so, then they are
correct. But if they mean the establishment of Presbyterian institutions, then they should extend
their focus to the Glorious Revolution. If they mean the theological revolution that placed
emphasis on faith, grace, and Scripture, then, again, they should look for the changing nature of
Reformed theology all the way to the Claim of Right (and beyond).
For examples, see: Donaldson 1960; Halliday 1966; Barnes 1971; Lee 1971; MacInnes 1987; Jackson 2003; Onnekink 2006;
Goodare and Lynch 2008; Stevenson 2011
249
73
It seems to me that Reformation is a double-sided coin. On one side, we have the changes
within theology that are constantly in flux. On the other, we have the establishment of
institutions and power dissemination (which was also in flux until 1689—90). If we want to
consider the Reformation in its entirety, we have to take into account both sides of the coin.
And when we do, we see that the Reformation was a process that stretched from the 1550s (and
probably even earlier) to the 1690s.
The second issue I have with Scottish historiography is the notion that from the Solemn
League, and particularly by the Glorious Revolution, Scotland experienced a watershed of
secularism.250 I object to this point at a fundamental level, since it presupposes that you can
impose a secular/religious divide on early modern society. As my thesis has demonstrated,
religious ideas connected to the covenant developed into political expressions: democracy in the
City of God to nascent democracy in the City of Man. We cannot, then, divide these ideas into
two separate spheres. Yes, the vehicle that carried these ideas went from being explicitly religious
to explicitly political: covenant to parliamentary legislation. But the point is that the ideas
themselves cannot be distinguished by the method of delivery.
So, let us return to the questions that have driven my thesis and try to answer them in a
general way. What purposes did the covenants serve? Well, they primarily secured a creative role
for ordinary people and aimed to forward the Reformation process. How did the ideas change
over time? They did not evolve into ever-greater ideas; instead they oscillated between different
conceptions. The foundational covenant idea of a relationship between the people and God,
then, provided a framework that contained ideas such as kingship and power distribution within
the church and state. And within that framework, it was possible to conceive covenantal ideas in
various ways. Being a Presbyterian during the Covenanter Revolution did not mean the same
thing as being a Presbyterian at the Glorious Revolution. Furthermore, the nuances within the
conception of covenantal ideas indicate that no two Reformed Protestants—and later,
Presbyterians—shared the same ideas. In short, just because you attended the same church did
not mean you shared the same thought process. What influenced the formation of covenants?
They were influenced by a combination of factors such as the Old Testament—particularly the
Covenant of Sinai, the covenant described by Isaiah, and to a lesser extent the Davidic
covenant—along with Scots’ contract law, and the particular historical context.
The covenant was eventually replaced at the point when the ideas it had so long nurtured
came to fruition in the Revolution Settlement. If we return to where we began, with Robert Bell,
250
Drummond and Bulloch 1973, pp. 1—24; Kidd 2003, pp. 62—63; Raffe 2010, p. 321
74
minister of Kilmarnock:251 the obvious question is why was he attacked once Scotland’s religious
issues had largely been settled? The answer is simple: he was attacked specifically because
Scotland’s religious dilemma was now settled. When Presbyterianism was enshrined as the
religion of the Scots’ Kirk, Robert Bell and his fellow Episcopalians found themselves outside of
Scotland’s ecclesiastical narrative. And this hints at the real power of the Claim of Right.
Whereas the covenants were always exclusive to the point that initially only a Protestant would
sign, and then later only a Presbyterian would sign; the Claim of Right was a truly national text
with national implications. While people like Cargill could complain at the Erastian nature of the
Claim of Right,252 it forwarded Presbyterianism in a way the covenant could not.
The covenant had been put to use throughout some of the bloodiest periods in Scotland’s
history. As the sun set on Scotland’s covenantal history, I cannot help but imagine the covenant
whispering the words of John Knox;
As the world is weary of me, so am I of it.253
See the opening to this thesis and; Case of the Present Afflicted Clergy 1690, A true account of those abuses and affronts, that
were committed upon the person of Mr. Robert Bell Parson of Kilmarnock, by a party of the Presbyterians now in arms in the
West of Scotland, Project Canterbury
252 Cargill 1681, Sermon VI, Available at: http://www.truecovenanter.com/cargill/sdtp_cargill_sermon06.html
253 Graham 2013, p. 322
251
75
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