When the Assembly met in Glasgow Cathedral in November 1638, the men there represented the flower of the Scottish nation. Apart from 140 church ministers, there were 17 nobles, 9 knights, 25 barons and 47 burgesses. As such, they also represented the voice of the majority of the people. With Alexander Henderson as the Moderator, they annulled the Five Articles of Perth, which had been forced on the Church of Scotland by King James VI, and rejected the Book of Canons and Archbishop William Laud’s Liturgy, which likewise had been thrust on them against their consciences. With this there also came the abolition of the king’s Episcopal structure in the Church of Scotland, along with the excommunication of its archbishops and bishops. The leaders were not against bishops as such, because the New Testament recognized them, but against the bishop model which had developed within the Roman Catholic Church and had remained within the Church of England. The assemblies of the Church, which had been controlled by the king between 1606 and 1618, were declared null and void.
Since 1578, the Church Assembly that met in Magdalen Chapel in Edinburgh had discussed this issue, amongst others, and the Second Book of Discipline, which followed the decisions made, had rejected the Episcopalian model of bishops, in favour of the democratic choosing of elders by the people, who would serve the congregations, rather than lord over them in great wealth and power as political princes. Dr Balcanquall, the Dean of Durham, wrote to King Charles I that the Scottish wanted a ‘free Parliament and a free General Assembly.’ Not surprisingly the king was furious when Scotland rejected his bishops and undid the structure of absolutism. He told the Marquis of Hamilton, ‘I will rather die than yield to those impertinent and damnable demands.’ The Marquis in turn, wrote in a letter to his king that next to hell, he hated Scotland most.
With fawning bishops encouraging him, Charles I prepared for war against Scotland. When the king reached Duns Law in 1639, he was shocked to see that a well-organized army of 30,000, led by the experienced General Alexander Leslie, was there to meet him. On the saltire flags of the Covenanting army defending liberty were the words, ‘For Christ’s Crown and Covenant’. Alexander Henderson was the acting chaplain over a force that had combined to act in self-defence for the preservation of their Church and Parliament. Charles I, realizing that he was ill-prepared for this show of strength, was forced to negotiate for a peace treaty.
However, Charles I had not changed his mind. He retreated in order to plan a better offensive. Taking advantage of the situation, the Covenanting army invaded England, winning an easy victory over the Royalists, and took Newcastle. A treaty was signed in Westminster in 1641, under which the demands of the Covenanters were met, so they returned to Scotland. The first round had gone to the Covenanters without too much trouble, but the way ahead would be our nation’s darkest time. The so-called ‘Bishops’ Wars’ may have come to nothing, but ultimately it was about King Charles I getting his own way, and he was not going to let go of Scotland without a fight.
‘And all the people took a stand for the covenant’ (2 Kings 23:3, NKJV). Image: Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Common