The king had been compelled, by the force of public opinion in England, to abandon the Union. But with the object to which he devoted the rest of his life even those Englishmen who doubted the wisdom of his policy were inclined to sympathise. The Scottish Reformation, unlike that of England, had been the work of the aristocracy, in opposition to the Crown. It had, at the same time, been a deeply religious movement; and these two forces, working together, had developed, as the distinguishing features of the Reformed Church of Scotland, a denial of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, and the assertion of the spiritual independence of the Church. Sir James Mackintosh has said that the peculiar theories of Berkeley were a touch-stone of metaphysical sagacity, meaning, apparently, by this phrase, that those who were without it could not understand the meaning or the tendency of those theories. In like manner, spiritual independence is the touch-stone of a capacity for understanding the history of the Scottish Church. The words “spiritual independence” expressed for Scotsmen what was, on the one hand, a part of their constitutional law, set forth in the statutes of the realm, and on the other hand, an article of faith, received by the people as an essential part of their religion, involving the principle of loyalty to the great founder of the Christian faith, as the only head of the Church. They believed—and for this belief thousands laid down their lives—that there were two authorities, the one civil and the other spiritual. Both were based upon a divine sanction; and each was to be obeyed within its own sphere. The civil magistrate was to bear rule and to be obeyed in civil affairs; but if he attempted to interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, he was to be resisted to the death. This principle of spiritual independence, which, neither at the Union of the Crowns, nor at the Union of the Kingdoms, nor during that memorable crisis which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, rent asunder the Church of Scotland, Englishmen were able to understand, was taught in the first Confession of Faith drawn up by the Scottish Reformers, and laid before the Estates in 1560.[68] After some years, when the long controversy between the king and the Church had begun, the two jurisdictions, civil and ecclesiastical, were still more carefully defined.[69]
Principles such as these were intolerable to James. By the law of England the king was head of the Church; and it was, therefore, his policy to introduce an uniformity of ecclesiastical government over the whole island. For more than twenty years before the Union of the Crowns he had been engaged in fighting the Scottish clergy. Sometimes he won, and sometimes he was defeated. The great point at issue was whether the Scottish Church was to be Presbyterian or Episcopal; for he had found that if the Presbyterian system was allowed to exist, the royal supremacy would never be acknowledged in Scotland. Accordingly he came to the throne of England with a firm resolution that he would use his new position so as to secure the establishment of Episcopacy in the north; and, though he artfully concealed it, we may be sure that one of his chief reasons for proposing the Union was that he believed it would be followed by the accomplishment of this object. Henceforth the policy of extending the Anglican system to Scotland became the hereditary policy of the Stuarts. Three years after the Union of the Crowns, the boldest leaders of the clergy having been driven into exile, the Scottish Parliament acknowledged the royal supremacy over all persons and all causes. It was not long before Episcopacy was established; and James had the gratification of seeing a few of his new bishops humbly consenting to receive consecration from the hands of English prelates, and returning to Scotland to confer upon their brethren the virtues of the apostolical succession. But the system which was thus set up had no hold upon the people. It would be impossible to point out in the catalogue of Scottish bishops the names of a dozen men who were either popular, or famous for learning, or eminent on account of their public services. The history of Christendom contains no story so humiliating as the story of Prelacy in Scotland during the seventeenth century.
The real meaning of the struggle between the Scottish people and the English Government which followed the Union of the Crowns cannot be understood unless we remember that, for most of those who suffered, the question at issue was a question of conscience. It is easy to find upon the surface of these events the materials from which to construct an explanation of a different kind. Envy at the sight of so much power in the hands of the priesthood, and the love, so strong in the Scottish character, of freedom from control, might influence some. But no one who looks below the surface, or reads the history of that period with an impartial mind, can fail to perceive that what brought the people of Scotland into a position of such stern antagonism to the English system of Church government, and, still more, what kept them there, was the fact that to accept Episcopacy was to give up spiritual independence, to admit the royal supremacy, and to abandon the principle of a divine head of the Church. It was for that principle that men and women died during the period between the Restoration and the Revolution, and not merely in defence of one form of Church government against another. And in the meantime, during the first half of the seventeenth century, it was the obstinate and persistent tyranny of James, and the infatuation of Charles the First and his advisers, which roused that memorable outburst of national resentment which scattered their policy to the winds. An uniformity in Church government and in ritual was the end aimed at by Charles and Laud. That end was, indeed, so far accomplished; but not by them. Having resolved to extend the Anglican system permanently to Scotland, they lived just long enough to see the Scottish system on the point of being extended to England, and the two kingdoms suddenly bound together by that solemn league which, conceived, though it may have been, in a spirit of intolerance, was nevertheless, for more than two generations, the watchword of the Whigs of Scotland, who afterwards, through the years of darkness and tempest, held high the blue banner of the Covenants, the rallying-point of Scottish freedom.
During a few years the Presbyterian Church was established, and the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland were administered in accordance with the long-cherished aspirations of the native clergy. But the alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament and Church did not long survive the execution of Charles. Their ideas had always been different. “The English were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant,” Baillie had written six years before. The Scottish Parliament protested against the execution. The Scottish Church was willing to receive Charles the Second, if he would declare himself a Presbyterian and sign the Covenants. “If his Majesty,” Baillie writes, “may be moved to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to sacrifice their lives for his service.” Charles consented. He subscribed the Covenants, and bound himself, by an oath, to maintain the Presbyterian Church. But the royal cause was hopeless. Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar was a crushing blow; and the battle of Worcester left Scotland at the mercy of the English army.
CHAPTER III
THE UNION DURING THE COMMONWEALTH
When the battle of Worcester was fought exactly a year had passed since the battle of Dunbar. The events of that year were not such as to reconcile Scotland to the Union which was now proposed by the Government of England. All trade between the two countries had been forbidden. Edinburgh had been taken, the royal palace of Holyrood, turned into barracks, had been set on fire through the carelessness of the soldiers, and almost totally destroyed. The churches had been desecrated, their pulpits and seats torn down and used as firewood. The edifice which George Heriot had directed his executors to raise for the benefit of the poor of Edinburgh was seized, while still in the builder’s hands, and turned into a military hospital. The castle had been surrendered into the hands of the invader. In the Parliament House, English troopers prayed and preached. The garrison of Stirling Castle had capitulated; the public records of the kingdom had been removed to the Tower of London; and the whole country south of the Forth and Clyde was subdued. Dundee held out to the last; but just two days before the battle of Worcester the town was stormed by Monk.
The slaughter at Dundee, and the news brought home by those who had escaped from the field of Worcester, extinguished all hopes of further resistance. In the Highlands alone there remained some faint show of adherence to the cause of the Stuarts, which afterwards found an outlet in the rising under Glencairn; and the Marquis of Argyll strove, for a time, to stem the tide which was overwhelming Scotland. But, to all intents and purposes, the country was now thoroughly subdued.