Having delivered the several applications with which they had been intrusted from the provinces to the Clerk of the Council, the noblemen, gentlemen, and clergy met in three different bodies; but they concurred in a general declaration against the obnoxious books, and ordered it to be presented to the Council. It were tedious enumerating all the proclamations by the King and Council, and the protestations against these by the nobles and clergy, and all the negotiations and intrigues which supervened—of these original documents, however, copies will be given in the notes subjoined to the Acts of Assembly in 1638; but it would savour of undue partiality to the proceedings of the malcontents, if we omitted to state that, during the whole of the period alluded to, many disgraceful outrages were perpetrated by the rabble, who, in the language of Baillie, seemed to be “possessed with a bloody devil,” the authorities being utterly unprepared and unable to repress these disorders, at the very time that they were exciting the people of all classes by their lawless and inconsiderate edicts and tyrannical acts.
These mutual exasperations had reached the highest pitch, when, in February 1638, the Presbyterians assumed a bold and perilous attitude, amounting almost to a practical dereliction of their allegiance to the King, and an assumption of supreme authority. In order to avoid the large and tumultuary assemblages which had taken place during the preceding year, the Council had required that the supplications and communications should be managed by delegates and commissioners from the greater masses; and, accordingly, those persons acting in this capacity, under the sanction of the King’s Council, had, in the preceding November, formed large and influential subdivisions of themselves into distinct bodies called “Tables,” representing the different classes who were combined for the vindication of their religious liberties—one for the nobility, another for the gentry, a third for the clergy, and a fourth for the burghs. Committees of the most influential and zealous of each class, sat at four different tables in the Parliament House, having sub-committees, and a central one of the whole, devising and concocting such measures as they deemed necessary for promoting the common cause; thus centralizing the public feeling of the country, and again giving forth mandates from their united Councils, with all the force and authority of law, to the people, and superseding virtually the functions both of the Executive and Legislature of the country.
The most noted act of this anomalous Convention was the formation of a muniment, which was composed by Henderson and Johnston of Warriston, and revised by Balmerino, Rothes, and Loudon, and which was destined to be a powerful instrument in the hands of these national leaders. The Covenant was framed and promulgated at the time we refer to, and henceforward became the rallying standard of the nation, or, at least, of a great majority of its inhabitants, during the space of half a century, till a more benignant symbol of freedom was unfurled at the Revolution, under which the people of these realms have hitherto, since that time, enjoyed all the blessings of a limited monarchy, and institutions for the maintenance of the Protestant faith, and perfect freedom of conscience to all classes of the people.
The adoption and character of that remarkable League enter so deeply into the subject of the present undertaking, that, in order to render numerous subsequent proceedings intelligible to many persons, it is necessary to devote particular attention to it, and the circumstances under which it was promulgated.
The Earl of Traquair returned to Scotland, on the 15th of February, with instructions from the King in reference to the affairs of Scotland. He dissembled at first the full tenor of these, in his communications with the leaders of the Tables, and, on the 19th, proceeded, early in the morning, to Stirling, to publish the proclamation of which he was the bearer, before the Presbyterians should be apprized of his intentions, or prepared to offer any show of opposition. Lord Lindsay and Lord Hume, however, being apprised of Traquair’s movements, had outstripped him, and were on the spot to protest against its effects. The proclamation expressed the King’s approval of the Liturgy; declared all the petitions against it derogatory to his supreme authority, and deserving the severest censure, and prohibited the supplicants to assemble again under the penalties of treason.[16]
When this proclamation, which was calculated to excite their most gloomy apprehensions, and to extinguish all their hopes of the King ever listening to their remonstrances, was proclaimed by the heralds at Stirling, Lords Hume and Lindsay made formal protestation against it, claiming a right of access to the King by petition; declining the prelates as judges in any court, civil or ecclesiastical; protesting that no act of Council, past or future, (the prelates being members,) should be prejudicial to the supplicants, in their persons or estates; that the Presbyterians should not incur any danger in life or lands, or any political or ecclesiastical pains, for not observing the Book of Liturgy, Canons, Rules, Judicatories, and Proclamations; but that it should be lawful for them to worship God according to His Word and Constitutions of the Church and Kingdom, &c.; and it concluded with professions of loyalty, and a declaration that they only desired the preservation of the true reformed religion, and laws and liberties of the kingdom. A copy of this protestation was affixed to the Cross of Stirling. It was afterwards repeated at Linlithgow and Edinburgh, to the presence of seventeen Peers, and everywhere else where the proclamation was published.
In these critical circumstances, and to order at once to guard themselves from the perils which were sure to overtake them individually if severed, and exposed at once to the obstinate displeasure of the King and the revenge of the prelates, the nobles resolved to consolidate their union by a solemn engagement, such at those which had been entered into by the Lords of the Congregation and first Protestants, to the dawn and during the progress of the Reformation to its earlier stages.[17] The positions in which they stood were similar; and the example of the fathers and founders of the Protestant Church in Scotland, naturally prompted the Tables to imitation, independently of the ancient usage which existed to Scotland, of entering into “Bands” for mutual protection and support in troubled times. The model, however, which they had chiefly in view was a “Confession” framed under the auspices and instructions of King James VI., in which the errors of Popery were abjured, and to which there was subsequently added a bond, or obligation, to maintain the true religion, and protect the King’s person, as well as for the general defence.[18] Taking that document as the basis and model of the Covenant, the leaders of the Presbyterian’s superadded to it an obligation to defend each other against all persons whatsoever, and a pointed denunciation of the innovations recently attempted to be forced upon the country.
For the course thus adopted, they had precedents in the conduct of the first Reformers—in that of King James himself, who had signed the “Confession,” and sought the signature of all his subjects—and in the terms of the early “bands” for mutual defence and maintenance of the reformed doctrines. Nor is it necessary to resort to any casuistry to justify the adoption of such an engagement. Dr Cook justly remarks, that the vindication of the Covenant is to be rested “upon this great principle, that when the ends for which all government should be instituted are defeated, the oppressed have a clear right to disregard customary forms, and to assert the privileges without which they would be condemned to the degradation and wretchedness of despotism.”[19] That such was the predicament in which the Church and people of Scotland were placed, by the reiterated proclamations and edicts issued by the King and the Scots Privy Council for several years prior to February 1838, and that these amounted to an unqualified assumption of arbitrary and absolute power, paramount to the authority of Parliament, and the sanctions of the ecclesiastical authorities established by law, are points which do not admit of the slightest doubt; and no alternative remained but that the nobles, clergy, and people of Scotland, should combine, in the most constitutional manner that was practicable, for maintaining the law, and for mutual defence, or tamely submit their necks to the yoke which most assuredly would have been permanently imposed on them by the base minions of a court, and an unprincipled hierarchy. Whatever errors they subsequently committed, and however much we may deplore the infatuation by which Charles was misled in urging his Scottish subjects into such decisive measures, no one who is versed in the elements of the British Constitution, or imbued with the spirit of genuine freedom, can hesitate to admit that, in adopting the Covenant, the people of Scotland were, at the time, not only fully justified, but were imperatively constrained to do so by every motive which can influence Christians, patriots, and brave men. The most eminent lawyers of these times, too, declared their opinions that there was nothing in the Covenant inconsistent with loyalty to a constitutional sovereign; nor has anything ever yet appeared, whether in the contemporary defences of the Court, or in the pages of more recent historians and critics, to shake the soundness of that opinion.
Deviating from the practice of historians, who merely give an abstract and brief statement of the contents of the Covenant, we deem it more suitable and convenient, in a compilation like the present, to embody in this Introductory Sketch the entire document, as it appears in the authenticated records, and, therefore, have subjoined it, as deserving of the reader’s attention, before proceeding to consider the events which followed its adoption.