Covenanters
Covenanters were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. It originated in disputes with James VI and his son Charles I over church organisation and doctrine, but expanded into political conflict over the limits of royal authority.
In 1638, thousands of Scots signed the National Covenant, pledging to resist changes in religious practice imposed by Charles. This led to the 1639 and 1640 Bishops' Wars, which ended with the Covenanters in control of the Scottish government. In response to the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Covenanter troops were sent to Ireland, and the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant brought them into the First English Civil War on the side of Parliament.
As the Wars of the Three Kingdoms progressed, many Covenanters came to view English religious Independents like Oliver Cromwell as a greater threat than the Royalists, particularly their opposition to state religion. During the 1648 Second English Civil War, a Covenanter faction known as Engagers allied with Scots and English Royalists. A Scottish army invaded England, but was defeated. The Kirk Party now gained political power, and in 1650, agreed to provide Charles II with Scottish military support to regain the English throne, then crowned him King of Britain in 1651. Scotland lost the subsequent Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652 and was absorbed into the Commonwealth of England. The Kirk lost its position as the state church, and the rulings of its assemblies were no longer enforced by law.
Following the 1660 Stuart Restoration, the Parliament of Scotland passed laws reversing reforms enacted since 1639. Bishops were restored to the Kirk, while ministers and other officeholders were obliged to take the Oath of Abjuration rejecting the 1638 Covenant. As a result, many Covenanters opposed the new regime, leading to a series of plots and armed rebellions. After the 1688 Glorious Revolution in Scotland, the Church of Scotland was re-established as a wholly Presbyterian structure and most Covenanters readmitted. Dissident minorities persisted in Scotland, Ireland, and North America, which continue today as the Reformed Presbyterian Global Alliance.
Background
The 16th century Scottish Reformation resulted in the creation of a reformed Church of Scotland, informally known as the Kirk, which was Presbyterian in structure, and Calvinist in doctrine. In December 1557, it became the state church of Scotland, and in 1560, the Parliament of Scotland adopted the Scots Confession which rejected many Catholic teachings and practices.The Confession was adopted by James VI, and re-affirmed first in 1590, then in 1596. However, James argued that as king, he was also head of the church, governing through bishops appointed by himself. When James became king of England in 1603, he saw a unified Church of England and Scotland as the first step in creating a centralised, unionist state. Although both churches shared much of the same doctrine, even Scottish bishops rejected many Church of England practices as little better than Catholic.
By 1630, Catholicism was largely confined to the aristocracy and remote, Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands but opposition to it remained widespread in Scotland. Many Scots fought in the Thirty Years' War, one of the most destructive religious conflicts in European history, while there were close economic and cultural links with the Protestant Dutch Republic, then fighting for independence from Catholic Spain. Lastly, the majority of kirk ministers had been educated in French Calvinist universities, most of which were suppressed in the Huguenot rebellions of the 1620s.
These links, combined with a general perception that Protestant Europe was under attack, meant heightened sensitivity around religious practice. In 1636, Charles I replaced the existing Scottish Book of Discipline with a new Book of Canons, and excommunicated anyone who denied Royal supremacy in church matters. When a revised Book of Common Prayer was introduced in 1637, it caused anger and widespread rioting across Scotland, perhaps the most famous sparked when Jenny Geddes threw a stool at the minister in St Giles Cathedral. More recently, historians like Mark Kishlansky have argued she was part of a series of carefully planned and co-ordinated acts of protest, the origin being as much political as it was religious.
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Supervised by Archibald Johnston and Alexander Henderson, in February 1638 representatives from all sections of Scottish society agreed to a National Covenant, pledging resistance to liturgical "innovations". Covenanters believed they were preserving a divinely ordained form of religion which Charles was seeking to alter, although debate as to what exactly that meant persisted until finally settled in 1690. While the National Covenant said nothing about bishops, they were expelled from the kirk when the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in Glasgow in December 1638.Support for the Covenant was widespread except in Aberdeenshire and Banff, centre of Episcopalian resistance for the next 60 years. The Marquess of Argyll and six other members of the Scottish Privy Council had backed the Covenant; Charles tried to impose his authority in the 1639 and 1640 Bishop's Wars, with his defeat leaving the Covenanters in control of Scotland. When the First English Civil War began in 1642, the Scots remained neutral at first but sent troops to Ulster to support their co-religionists in the Irish Rebellion; the bitterness of this conflict radicalised views in Scotland and Ireland.
Since Calvinists believed a "well-ordered" monarchy was part of God's plan, the Covenanters committed to "defend the king's person and authority with our goods, bodies, and lives". The idea of government without a king was inconceivable. This view was generally shared by English Parliamentarians, who wanted to control Charles, not remove him, but both they and their Royalist opponents were further divided over religious doctrine. In Scotland, near unanimous agreement on doctrine meant differences centred on who held ultimate authority in clerical affairs. Royalists tended to be "traditionalist" in religion and politics but there were various factors, including nationalist allegiance to the Kirk. Individual motives were very complex, and many fought on both sides, including Montrose, a Covenanter general in 1639 and 1640 who nearly restored Royalist rule in Scotland in 1645.
File:Alexleslie.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|Alexander Leslie, Lord General of the Covenanter Army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
The Covenanter faction led by Argyll saw religious union with England as the best way to preserve a Presbyterian Kirk and in October 1643, the Solemn League and Covenant agreed a Presbyterian Union in return for Scottish military support. Royalists and moderates in both Scotland and England opposed this on nationalist grounds, while religious Independents like Oliver Cromwell claimed he would fight, rather than agree to it.
The Covenanters and their English Presbyterian allies gradually came to see the Independents who dominated the New Model Army as a bigger threat than the Royalists and when Charles surrendered in 1646, they began negotiations to restore him to the English throne. In December 1647, Charles agreed to impose Presbyterianism in England for three years and suppress the Independents but his refusal to take the Covenant himself split the Covenanters into Engagers and Kirk Party fundamentalists or Whiggamores. Defeat in the Second English Civil War resulted in the execution of Charles in January 1649 and the Kirk Party taking control of the General Assembly.
In February 1649, the Scots proclaimed Charles II "King of Great Britain". Under the terms of the Treaty of Breda, the Kirk Party agreed to restore him to the English throne and in return he accepted the Covenant. Defeats at Dunbar and Worcester resulted with Scotland being incorporated into the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1652.
Under the Commonwealth
After defeat in 1651, the Covenanters split into two factions. Over two-thirds of the ministry supported the Resolution of December 1650 re-admitting Royalists and Engagers and were known as "Resolutioners". "Protestors" were largely former Kirk Party fundamentalists or Whiggamores who blamed defeat on compromise with "malignants". Differences between the two were both religious and political, including church government, religious toleration and the role of law in a godly society.Following the events of 1648–51, Cromwell decided the only way forward was to eliminate the power of the Scottish landed elite and the Kirk. The Terms of Incorporation published on 12 February 1652 made a new Council of Scotland responsible for regulating church affairs and allowed freedom of worship for all Protestant sects. Since Presbyterianism was no longer the state religion, kirk sessions and synods functioned as before but its edicts were not enforced by civil penalties.
Covenanters were hostile to sects like the Congregationalists and Quakers because they advocated separation of church and state. Apart from a small number of Protestors known as Separatists, the vast majority refused to accept these changes, and Scotland was incorporated into the Commonwealth without further consultation on 21 April 1652.
Contests for control of individual presbyteries made the split increasingly bitter and in July 1653 each faction held its own General Assembly in Edinburgh. Robert Lilburne, English military commander in Scotland, used the excuse of Resolutioner church services praying for the success of Glencairn's rising to dissolve both sessions. The Assembly would not formally reconvene until 1690, the Resolutioner majority instead meeting in informal "Consultations" and Protestors holding field assemblies or conventicles outside Resolutioner-controlled kirk structures.
When the Protectorate was established in 1654, Lord Broghill, head of the Council of State for Scotland summarised his dilemma; "the Resolutioners love Charles Stuart and hate us, while the Protesters love neither him nor us." Neither side was willing to co-operate with the Protectorate except in Glasgow, where Protestors led by Patrick Gillespie used the authorities in their contest with local Resolutioners.
Since the Resolutioners controlled 750 of 900 parishes, Broghill recognised they could not be ignored; his policy was to isolate the "extreme" elements of both factions, hoping to create a new, moderate majority. He therefore encouraged internal divisions within the Kirk, including appointing Gillespie Principal of the University of Glasgow, against the wishes of the James Guthrie and Warriston-led Protestor majority. The Protectorate authorities effectively became arbitrators between the factions, each of whom appointed representatives to argue their case in London; the repercussions affected the Kirk for decades to come.