The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649 / Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time

by David Masson

THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT: SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS TO THE ASSEMBLY.

The war, which had been on the whole in the King's favour hitherto, was going more and more against Parliament. In the north, Lord Fairfax had been beaten at Atherston Moor by the Earl of Newcastle (June 30); Sir William Waller, the hitherto unconquered, had been beaten twice in the south-west (at Lansdowne, July 5, and at Roundway Down, July 13); the Queen, coming from the north, had joined the King in his quarters, amid great rejoicing, after their seventeen months of separation; and Bristol, inefficiently defended by Nathaniel Fiennes, was on the point of yielding to Prince Rupert. It was time, in short, to do what it had long been in the mind of Parliament to do—call in once more the aid of the Scots.

On this the Parliament had already resolved. As it was judged likely, however, that the Scots would listen more readily to the application for armed aid if it were accompanied with some distinct proof of a desire for "uniformity of religion" between the two kingdoms, the Assembly was required to assist Parliament in pleading with the Scots. The Scottish Convention of Estates was then sitting (it had met, by express call, June 22); and the Scottish General Assembly was to meet on the 2nd of August. Let there be Commissioners from both the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly to these two bodies; let the Assembly write letters to the Scottish Assembly, backing the political application with religious arguments; let every exertion be made to secure a new alliance with the Scottish nation! Accordingly, while the Assembly was pursuing its revision of the Articles, or occupying itself with such incidental matters as the appointment of ministers to preach before the two Houses, and the recommendation of a Fast Day extraordinary in London, their thoughts, like those of Parliament, were chiefly fixed on the issue of their joint embassy to Edinburgh. [Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes for July 1643; and my MS. chronology of events]

The Scots had foreseen the application. Three courses were before them. They might remain neutral; they might interfere as "redders," or mediators between the King and the English Parliament; or they might openly side with the Parliament and help it in the war. Great efforts had been made by the King to induce the Scots to the first course. [Footnote: Burnet's Dukes of Hamilton (ed. 52), pp. 279-298] Five or six of the Scottish noblemen who were with the King at Oxford had been sent back among their countrymen to labour for this end. All in vain. It had become clear to Argyle, Loudoun, Warriston, and the other Scottish leaders, that neutrality would be ruinous. Things were in this state when the Commissioners from the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly arrived in Edinburgh (Aug. 7). The Scottish Convention of Estates was then still sitting; and the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk, with Alexander Henderson again its Moderator (the third time he had been raised to this Presidency), was in the middle of its annual fortnight or so of Scottish ecclesiastical business—one item of the business this time being, I find, "the late extraordinar multiplying of witches," especially in Fifeshire. Both the Convention and the Assembly had been anxiously waiting for the English Commissioners, and were delighted when they arrived. They were six in all—Sir William Armyn, Sir Harry Vane the younger, Mr. Hatcher, and Mr. Darley, from the Parliament; and Stephen Marshall and Philip Nye from the Westminster Divines. And what moving letters they brought with them—official letters from the Parliament and the Westminster Assembly to the Scottish Convention of Estates and General Assembly, and also a more private letter signed by about seventy English Divines! And how the Scots were impressed by the letters! The private letter of the seventy Divines in especial was "so lamentable" that, when it was read in the General Assembly, "it drew tears from many." And how all were struck by the ability and gravity of young Sir Harry Vane, and liked him and Stephen Marshall, but did not take so much to Mr. Nye, because of his known Independency! In short, in conferences between the English Commissioners and Commissioners appointed by the Scottish Convention and General Assembly to meet them, it was all arranged. There was, indeed, still some lingering question at first among the Scottish leaders whether it might not do to "go as redders or friends to both, without siding altogether with the Parliament;" but Warriston alone "did show the vanity of that notion and the impossibility of it." And so Vane and the other Commissioners could write to England that their mission had been successful, and that the armed aid of the Scottish nation might be expected.

Ay, but there was a special condition. The Commissioners had come to treat about "Scottish assistance to Parliament and a uniformity of religion," and it was the prospect held out in the second phrase that most reconciled the Scots to all that was involved in the first. The extension of Scottish Presbyterianism over all England and Ireland, or, at all events, the union of the two kingdoms in some common form of Church-government not essentially differing from Scottish Presbyterianism—for that object the Scots would strike in; for that object they would shed their blood, as fellow-soldiers with Englishmen, in the fields of England! Now the English Commissioners, like wary men, and probably in accordance with their instructions, would fain have avoided any too definite a pledging of England to a particular ecclesiastical future. Nye, in especial, as an Independent, must have desired to avoid this; and Vane, as a man who did not know how far from his present opinions continued reasoning might carry him, may have felt with Nye. Hence, on the religious question, they tried to get off with generalities. If there were a league between the two kingdoms for their civil liberties, would not a uniformity in Church matters naturally follow? But this was not quite satisfactory to the Scottish Commissioners. "The English were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant," says Baillie; and the event has made the sentence memorable historically. Let England and Scotland unite first in subscribing one and the same document, swearing one and the same oath, which should base their alliance on a certain amount of mutual engagement in the matter of Religion! To such oaths of mutual allegiance the Scots, among themselves, had long been accustomed. They called them "Covenants." This agency of "Covenanting" had been a grand agency in Scottish History. Was not the present liberation of Scotland, the destruction of Episcopacy root and branch within its borders, the result of the "National Covenant" sworn to only five years and a half ago—that Covenant being but the renewal, with slight additions, of a document which had done not unimportant work in a former age? Why not have another Covenant for the present emergency—not that National or purely Scottish Covenant, but a Covenant expressly framed for the new purpose, and fit to be a religious pact between the two kingdoms? So argued the Scots with the English Commissioners; and, that the English Commissioners might see what was meant, Alexander Henderson, who was probably the author of the idea, and to whom, at any rate, the preparation of any extremely important document was always entrusted, produced a draft of the proposed Covenant. The English Commissioners did not altogether like this draft; but, after a good deal of discussion, and apparently some suggestions from Vane tending to vagueness in the religious part and greater prominence of the civil, the draft was modified into a shape in which it was agreed to unanimously. On the 17th of August it was reported by Henderson to the General Assembly, and passed there not only unanimously and with applause, but with a most unusual show of emotion among old and young; and on the same day it passed the Scottish Convention. "This seems to be a new period and crise of the most great affair," writes Baillie, recording these facts. [Footnote: Acts of Scottish General Assembly of 1644; Baillie's Letters, II. 81-90; Burnet's Hamiltons, 298-307.]

Baillie was right. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, as Henderson's amended document of August 1643 was called (not the same thing at all, it is to be remembered, as the SCOTTISH NATIONAL COVENANT of 1638, though generally confounded therewith), became a most potent instrument in England. This, however, could not be foreseen at first. It remained to be seen whether the English Parliament would adopt the document which had been agreed to by their Commissioners in Edinburgh. In the faith that they would, or that they might be induced to do so, the Scottish General Assembly, before its rising (Aug. 19), not only sent cordial and sympathetic answers to the letters received from the Parliament and the Westminster Divines, but also complied with that request of the Parliament which desired the nomination of some Scottish ministers to be members of the Westminster Assembly. The ministers nominated were Henderson, Mr. Robert Douglas, Baillie, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr. George Gillespie; but it was thought right, if only to accustom the English to the principle of lay-eldership, to associate with these ministers the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Johnstone of Warriston. Of the eight Commissioners so appointed three were to be a quorum. Accordingly, Henderson, Gillespie, and Lord Maitland sailed for London at once (Aug. 30), leaving the others to follow more at leisure. [Footnote: Acts of Scottish Assembly of 1643; and Baillie's Letters, II. 96-98.]

When Henderson reached London, he found his "Covenant" the universal topic. The Parliament had lost no time in referring the document to the Westminster Divines for their consideration; and there had been three or four days of debate over it in that Assembly (Aug. 28 and onwards). Some members, especially Dr. Cornelius Burges, took exceptions. On the whole, however, the feeling of the Assembly decidedly was that the Covenant was a splendid invention, might be adopted with a few verbal changes, and might lead to fine results. This was reported to Parliament Aug. 31; and Dr. Burges, continuing in his captiousness against this judgment of the Assembly, found himself in disgrace. The two Houses then proceeded to examine the Covenant for themselves. They also proposed some modifications of the document, and referred it back, with these, to the Assembly (Sept. 14). The arrival of Henderson and his two colleagues at this nick of time accelerated the conclusion. On the 15th of September, when they first appeared among the Westminster Divines, and Henderson first opened his mouth in the Assembly and expounded the whole subject of the relations between the two kingdoms, all opposition came to an end. The document passed, with only the modifications that had already seemed reasonable, and to which the Scots Commissioners had assented; and, "after all was done, "Mr. Prolocutor, at the desire of the Assembly, gave thanks "to God for the sweet concurrence of us in the Covenant." The words are Lightfoot's; who adds that, to make the joy complete, Dr. Burges came in radiant and repentant, expressing his complete satisfaction now with the Covenant, and begging to be forgiven. [Footnote: Burges had actually been suspended by Parliament from being a member of the Assembly for his contumacy in this affair, Sept. 2, 1643; but he was restored on his own humble petition, Sept. 15, the very day of his repentant reappearance in the Assembly. He had already on that day been called in before the Commons and had explained "that it was very true he had unhappily taken exception to some things in the Covenant," but that "he hears there had been a review of this Covenant," and such an alteration "as will give him satisfaction." See Commons Journals of the two dates named.] The Covenant having thus been finally adjusted, the two Houses of Parliament were swift in enacting it. On the 21st of September, they ordered that it should be printed and published, and subscribed and sworn to by the whole English realm; and, on Monday the 25th, to set the example, there was a solemn meeting of the members of the two Houses and of the Divines of the Assembly in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, at which 220 of the Commons and all the Divines then present swore to the new pact, and signed it with their names.—This was but the beginning. The Covenant was thenceforth the Shibboleth of Parliamentarianism. In London first, and then gradually through England, in towns, parishes, and parish churches, wherever Parliament prevailed, all had to sign it or swear to it if they would be considered friends to the cause of Parliament and allowed action and standing-room as true Englishmen. Oliver Cromwell, as a member of the House of Commons, signed it—if not among the 220 of the Commons who signed it originally on the 25th of September (at which time there is proof that he was absent from London), at least in due course; and Milton must have signed it, as a London householder. But, in fact, the signing went on for months and months, the Royal Proclamation from Oxford forbidding the Covenant (Oct. 9) only increasing the zeal for it. From Sept. 1643, onwards for some years, the test of being a Parliamentarian in England was "Have you signed the Covenant?" and the test of willingness to become a Parliamentarian, and of fitness to be forgiven for past malignancy or lukewarmness, was "Will you now sign the Covenant?" Such was the strange fortune of the hurried paper drawn up by Henderson's pen in some room in the High Street of Edinburgh.—In Scotland, it need hardly be said, the Covenant was sworn to with alacrity. As the document was, in its very nature, a pact between the two kingdoms, proposed by the Scots, it was useless for them to swear until they had seen whether the English would accept the pact. But, as soon as it was known in Scotland that the Covenant had been adopted by the English and that the swearing in England had begun, the Scots did their part. There was some little grumbling at first over the verbal changes that had been made by the English in the text of the Covenant; but this ceased, and it was even agreed that the changes were for the better. Accordingly, on the 13th of October, 1643, most of the Scottish nobles in Edinburgh, including 18 of the Privy Council, swore solemnly to the Covenant in one of the city churches; and from that day on, for weeks and months, there was a general swearing to the Covenant by the whole people of Scotland, as by the Parliamentarians in England, district by district, and parish by parish. Thus the Scots came now to have two Covenants. There was their own National Scottish Covenant, peculiar to themselves; and there was the Solemn League and Covenant, in which they were joined with the English Parliamentarians. [Footnote: Lightfoot, XIII. 10-16; Baillie, II. 98, 99, and 102; Neal, III. 65-70; Stevenson, 515, 516; Parl. Hist. III. 172-174; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. 137, 138.]

And what was this Solemn League and Covenant, the device of Henderson and the Scots for linking the Scottish and English nations in a permanent civil and religious alliance? The document is not nearly Henderson at his best, and it has not the deep ring, the fervour and fierceness, of the old Scottish Covenant. For its purpose, however, it was efficient enough, and not so very illiberal either, the necessity of such a league being allowed, and the time and other things considered. Here are the essential parts:—

We, Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, Burgesses, Ministers of the Gospel, arid Commons of all sorts, in the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland … with our hands lifted up to the most high God, do swear:—

I. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, against our common enemies; [also] the Information of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches: and we shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church-Government, Directory for Worship and Catechising, that we and our posterity after us may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.

II. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (i.e. Church-government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy), Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues, and that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms.

III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness.

IV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries, Malignants, or evil Instruments, by hindering the Information of Religion, dividing the King from his People, or one of the Kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties among the People contrary to the League and Covenant; that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

V. And, whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is by the good Providence of God granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments, we shall, each one of us, according to our places and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm Peace and Union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article.

VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of Religion, Liberty, and Peace of the Kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof, and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory of God, the good of the Kingdoms, and the honour of the King; but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight of God… [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 478-9, and Lords Journals, Sept. 18, 1643.—"Not so very illiberal either," I have said of the League and Covenant in the text; and reader of the Second Article, pledging to "endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness," will naturally demur. This Article, however, was but a repetition of what all, of both nations, who might sign the Covenant, including the English Parliament, were, by past actions and resolutions, already pledged to, neck-deep or more. The illiberality is to be charged not upon this particular League and Covenant, but upon the entire British mind of the time, with individual theorists excepted. It belonged to the Royalists equally with the Parliamentarians; the only difference being that the objects for "extirpation" in their policy were and had been the Calvinisms and Presbyterianisms that were now exulting in the power of counter-extirpation.—The most important Article of the six is the First, pledging to a recognition and defence of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and to an endeavour after a Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland "according to the Word of God," with a view to uniformity in the three Kingdoms. The insertion of the caution "according to the word of God" is said to have been owing to Vane, who did not want to pre-commit the English too much to exact Scottish Presbytery. The few other changes made by the English Parliament and Westminster Assembly in Henderson's original Edinburgh draft of the Covenant may be traced by a diligent reader in the proceedings of the Lords and Commons on this subject as recorded in their Journals between Aug. 31 and Sept. 15. The parenthetical definition of Prelacy in Art. II. was a suggestion of the Assembly's; the bringing in of Ireland into the Covenant seems to have been a notion of the Commons.]

Ono effect of the Solemn League and Covenant was to clear away from the Westminster Assembly the few Anglicans who had till then tried to hang on to it. Dr. Featley alone, of this party, persisted in keeping his place for some time longer; but, on the discovery that he was acting as a spy in the King's interest and corresponding with Usher, he was expelled by the Parliament, sequestrated from his livings, and committed to prison (Sept. 30). On the other hand, the Assembly had now an accession of strength in the Commissioners deputed to it from the Kirk of Scotland. Two of these, Mr. Douglas and the Earl of Cassilis, never made their appearance; but the other six duly took their places, though not all at once. They were admitted by warrant of the Parliament, entitling them "to be present and to debate upon occasion"; but, as Commissioners from the Church of another nation, they declined being considered "members" in the ordinary sense. Practically, however, this was a mere formality; and the reader has now therefore to add to the list of the Assembly the following Scotchmen:—