Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:40:55.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parish Politics and Godly Agitation in Late Interregnum Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2021

Chris R. Langley
Chris R. Langley*
Affiliation:
Reader of Early Modern History, Newman University, Birmingham, UK
*
Email: Christopher.Langley@staff.newman.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Following the English invasion of Scotland in July 1650, ministers and laymen in the Church of Scotland splintered between Protester and Resolutioner factions: The Protesters argued that the Church of Scotland required further moral reformation in order to appease a vengeful God, and the Resolutioners were more content to accept the reintegration of former royalists into places of trust following the civil wars. This article explores the profound ways in which this split fundamentally altered relationships in the unusually well-documented parish of Crichton in Midlothian. Unlike other studies that have emphasized the ways in which the Protesters moved toward a position of separation from the rest of the kirk, this article explores a group of Protesters who sought to actively reform the kirk from within. Godly agitation in parish affairs was characterized by three traits: it was coordinated, remarkably litigious, and disseminated in manuscript libels and petitions rather than print. Ultimately, while this godly elite was adept at agitating for further reformation at the parish level, it did so without seceding from the structures of the national church altogether.

Keywords

InterregnumPresbyterianismSeparatism
Type
Article
Information
Church History , Volume 90 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 557 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dow, Frances, Cromwellian Scotland, 1651–1660 (1979; repr., Edinburgh: John Donald, 1999)Google Scholar; Stevenson, David, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Scotland, 1644–51 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977)Google Scholar; and Spurlock, R. Scott, Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650–1660 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2007)Google Scholar.

2 Stevenson, David, “Conventicles in the Kirk, 1619–37: The Emergence of a Radical Party,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 25 (1974): 114Google Scholar.

3 Gordon Donaldson, “The Emergence of Schism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland,” in “Schism, Heresy, and Religious Protest,” ed. Derek Baker, special issue, Studies in Church History 9 (1972): 288.

4 John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 220–222.

5 David George Mullan, Scottish Puritanism: 1590–1638 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 131.

6 Alexander D. Campbell, The Life and Works of Robert Baillie (1602–1662): Politics, Religion and Record-Keeping in the British Civil Wars (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), 167.

7 Hunter Powell, The Crisis of British Protestantism: Church Power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638–44 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 35–60.

8 Kyle David Holfelder, “Factionalism in the Kirk during the Cromwellian Invasion and Occupation of Scotland, 1650 to 1660: The Protester-Resolutioner Controversy,” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1998), 101–103.

9 R. Scott Spurlock, “‘Anie Gospell Way’: Religious Diversity in Interregnum Scotland,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 37 (2007): 89–119; and Spurlock, Cromwell and Scotland, 198–199.

10 David R. Como, “Radical Puritanism, c. 1558–1660,” in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 252.

11 Donald F. Chatfield, “The Congregationalism of New England and its Repercussions in England and Scotland: 1641–1662,” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1963), 99–100; and Ann Hughes, “‘The Public Profession of these Nations’: The National Church in Interregnum England,” in Religion in Revolutionary England, ed. Christopher Durston and Judith Maltby (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 94.

12 Ann Hughes, “‘Popular’ Presbyterianism in the 1640s and 1650s: The Cases of Thomas Edwards and Thomas Hall,” in England's Long Reformation: 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (London: UCL Press, 1998); Elliot Vernon, “A Ministry of the Gospel: The Presbyterians during the English Revolution,” in Religion in Revolutionary England, ed. Durston and Maltby; and Mark S. Sweetnam, ed., The Minutes of the Antrim Ministers’ Meeting, 1654–8(Dublin: Fourt Courts, 2012).

13 John Morrill, “The Church in England, 1642–9,” in Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649, ed. John Morrill (London: Macmillan, 1982), 90.

14 R. Scott Spurlock, “Boundaries of Scottish Reformed Orthodoxy, 1560–1700,” in The History of Scottish Theology, ed. David Fergusson and Mark W. Elliott, vol. 1, Celtic Origins to Reformed Orthodoxy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 359–376.

15 Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).

16 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 264–265, CH2/424/3, National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh (hereafter cited as NRS); and John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland: Drawn Up from the Communications of the Ministers of the Different Parishes, vol. 14 (Edinburgh, 1795), 433–437.

17 Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland, Scottish Record Society 93 (Edinburgh: Neill and Co., 1967), iii–v; John Maitland Thomson, ed., Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum: The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, A.D. 1593–1608, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1890), 145; and Alexander MacGrigor, ed., Reports on the State of Certain Parishes in Scotland, Made to His Majesty's Commissioners for Plantation of Kirks, &c.: In Pursuance of Their Ordinance Dated April XII. M.DC.XXVII (Edinburgh, 1835), 54–57.

18 Papers Relating to Teinds and Teind Administration, Midlothian (1627), TE5/161, item 2, NRS.

19 Walter R. Foster, “A Constant Platt Achieved: Provision for the Ministry, 1600–38,” in Reformation and Revolution: Essays Presented to the Very Reverend Principal Emeritus Hugh Watt, D.D., D.LITT., on the Sixtieth Anniversary of His Ordination, ed. Duncan Shaw (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1967), 135; and Alan R. MacDonald, “Teinds and Stipends in Seventeenth-Century Linlithgowshire” (paper, Agriculture and Teind Reform in Early Modern Scotland Conference, University of Edinburgh, May 2017).

20 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1630–1639), 137–138, CH2/424/2, NRS.

21 John Dickson, Crichtoun: Past and Present; The Story of the Parish (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1911), 70–71.

22 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 46, CH2/424/3, NRS.

23 Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ: The Succession of Ministers in the Parish Churches of Scotland; From the Reformation, A.D. 1560, to the Present Time, part 1, Synod of Lothian and Tweedale (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1915), 312; and John Nicoll, A Diary of Public Transactions and Other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland: From January 1650 to June 1667, ed. David Laing (Edinburgh, 1826), 434.

24 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 111.

25 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 96.

26 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 118–119.

27 Some of these disputes echo much older arguments over the parish stipend. My thanks to Dr. Norah Carlin for discussions on this topic.

28 Andrew Borthwick, petition against Adam Wauchop of Cakemuir (1640), RH15/29/163, NRS.

29 Decreet of doubling poinding at instance of James Scott and others against Gideo Penman (1642), GD1/1120/9, NRS.

30 John Durkan, Scottish Schools and Schoolmasters: 1560–1633, ed. Jamie Reid-Baxter (London: Scottish History Society, an imprint of Boydell, 2013), 165–166, 260.

31 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 87.

32 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1639–1652), 344–345.

33 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 163, CH2/424/4, NRS.

34 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 169–171.

35 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 164.

36 Margo Todd, “Consistories,” in Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World, ed. Charles H. Parker and Gretchen Starr-LeBeau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 41.

37 John Bossy, Christianity in the West 1400–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Neal Enssle, “Patterns of Godly Life: The Ideal Parish Minister in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English Thought,” Sixteenth Century Journal 28, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 24–25; and Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, 70–71.

38 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 172–176.

39 Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘Godly Discipline’ and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 348.

40 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 274.

41 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 273–274.

42 We are only just beginning to appreciate the dynamics of petitioning in early modern Scotland. See Karin Bowie and Alasdair Raffe, “Politics, the People, and Extra-Institutional Participation in Scotland, c.1603–1712,” Journal of British Studies 56, no. 4 (October 2017):797–815. We know that petitions in the north of England served to escalate the severity of a legal actions. See Steve Hindle, “The Keeping of the Public Peace,” in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox, and Steve Hindle (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1996), 213–248.

43 Chris R. Langley, ed., The Minutes of the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, 1648–1659 (London: Scottish History Society, an imprint of Boydell, 2016), 217–218 (hereafter cited as Lothian and Tweeddale).

44 Lothian and Tweeddale, 219–225.

45 Lothian and Tweeddale, 219.

46 Lothian and Tweeddale, 280.

47 Lothian and Tweeddale, 240; Samuel Rutherford, The Divine Right of Church Government (London, 1646), 28; and Tom Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c. 1620–1643 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 96–97.

48 Lothian and Tweeddale, 240–241.

49 Lothian and Tweeddale, 308.

50 Lothian and Tweeddale, 240–241.

51 Lothian and Tweeddale, 308–309.

52 Lothian and Tweeddale, 308–309, 325.

53 Scott, Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, 1, 339.

54 John Barclay, ed., Diary of Alexander Jaffray, Provost of Aberdeen, One of the Scottish Commissioners to King Charles II, And a Member of Cromwell's Parliament: To Which are Added Particulars of His Subsequent Life [. . .] (London, 1833), 98.

55 Contrary to the findings of Holfelder, “Factionalism in the Kirk,” 302.

56 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 276.

57 Lothian and Tweeddale, 376. “Skybald” denotes a scamp, rascal, rogue, a worthless person who is contemptible.

58 Janay Nugent, “Reformed Masculinity: Ministers, Fathers and Male Heads of Households, 1560–1660,” in Nine Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinity in Scottish History, ed. Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Ewan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 39–52.

59 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 356.

60 Register of Testaments, Edinburgh Commissary Court, (1657–1659), 148–149, CC8/8/670, NRS.

61 Register of Deeds, Second Series, Court of Session (1661–1662), 429–430, RD2/3, NRS.

62 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, chap. 1; Jamie Reid Baxter, “Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross: New Light from Fife,” Innes Review 68, no. 1 (May 2017): 38–77; and Diane Willen, “A Godly Friendship: Thomas Gataker and William Bradshaw,” Seventeenth Century 34, no. 3 (2019): 1–23.

63 Nicola Cowmeadow, “‘In Sum What Have I Don for God or My Soule this Day?’: The Religious Writing of Katherine, First Duchess of Atholl (1662–1707),” Journal of Scottish Historical Studies 34, no. 1 (2014), 14–15; and Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle, “Introduction: A Monstrous Regiment of Women?,” in Women in Scotland c.1100–c.1750, ed. Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M. Meikle (East Linton: Tuckwell, 1999), xxvii.

64 Alexander George Reid, ed., The Diary of Andrew Hay of Craignethan, 1659–1660 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, imprint of Edinburgh University Press, 1901), 7 (hereafter cited as Hay of Craignethan). Emphasis added.

65 Lothian and Tweeddale, 421–422.

66 Lothian and Tweeddale, 421–422.

67 Hay of Craignethan, 20; and Maurice Lee Jr., The Heiresses of Buccleuch: Marriage, Money and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Britain (East Linton: Tuckwell, 1996), 40.

68 Hay of Craignethan, 85.

69 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 13–14, CH2/252/4, NRS.

70 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 13.

71 Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland: Manuscript Production and Transmission, 1560–1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 245–246.

72 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland.

73 Hay of Craignethan, 153.

74 Hay of Craignethan, 6.

75 Kirsteen M. MacKenzie, The Solemn League and Covenant of the Three Kingdoms and the Cromwellian Union, 1643–1663 (London: Routledge, 2018), 134–135; Holfelder, “Factionalism in the Kirk,” 204–205; and Laurence A. B. Whitley, A Great Grievance: Ecclesiastical Lay Patronage in Scotland until 1750 (Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2013), 62–65.

76 Alexander Peterkin, ed., Records of the Kirk of Scotland: Containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, From the Year 1638 Downwards [. . .] (Edinburgh, 1843), 510.

77 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 57–58.

78 Register of Deeds, Second Session, Court of Session (1661), 102–103, RD4/3, NRS.

79 All three men would conform to episcopacy in 1663. See James Hunter, Fala and Soutra: Including a History of the Famous “Domus de Soltre” [. . .] (Edinburgh, 1892), 86.

80 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 366–367, 373–375, CH2/424/4, NRS.

81 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 402.

82 Keith M. Brown, Noble Power in Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011).

83 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 15–16.

84 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 17.

85 Chris R. Langley, Worship, Civil War and Community, 1638–1660 (London: Routledge, 2016), 25–26.

86 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 245–246.

87 Presbytery of Dalkeith Minutes (1652–1662), 401–402.

88 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 48.

89 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 50.

90 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 50.

91 Whitley, Great Grievance, 51–62.

92 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 51.

93 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 51.

94 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 48.

95 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 50–51.

96 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 52–53.

97 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 54.

98 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 54.

99 Scott, Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, 1, 325, 396.

100 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 54–57.

101 For more on the oath of office, see Chris R. Langley, “‘In the Execution of his Office’: Lay Officials and the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Discipline in Scotland, c. 1600–1660,” Seventeenth Century 33, no. 5 (2018): 4–7; and Todd, Culture of Protestantism, 369–385.

102 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 56. Emphasis added.

103 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 55.

104 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 54–55.

105 Scott, Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, 1, 325.

106 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 56–57.

107 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 56.

108 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 57–58.

109 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 67.

110 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 67.

111 Julia M. Buckroyd, “Bridging the Gap: Scotland 1659–1660,” Scottish Historical Review 66, no. 181, part 1 (April 1987): 1–5.

112 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale Minutes (1659–1661), 83.

113 Records of the Parliament of Scotland, 1661/1/121.

114 Records of the Parliament of Scotland, 1661/1/121.

115 Cowan, Ian B., The Scottish Covenanters 1660–1688 (London: Gollancz, 1976), 31Google Scholar.

116 Holfelder, “Factionalism in the Kirk,” 297–298.

117 Stewart, Laura A.M., Rethinking the Scottish Revolution: Covenanted Scotland, 1637–1651 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 Raffe, Alasdair, Cultures of Controversy: Religious Arguments in Scotland, 1660–1714 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012)Google Scholar.