We resume our account of the period of the Covenanters, after an earlier series on the martyrs. Last week I wrote a special article on her Majesty, the Queen, whose virtue and dedicated Christian faith have been upheld as an example to the 5.1 billion people around the world who viewed her funeral service at Westminster Abbey. It is an extraordinary fact that no monarch had been invited to address the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland from the time of 1603 until 1969, when her Majesty spoke to both assemblies of the Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland, as queen, but also as a normal member of the Presbyterian Church, and not its Head. These days we have a constitutional monarch, which means that the king or queen is not allowed to control either Parliament or the Church. It was this very constitution which the Covenanters had pressed for in their time, but had been viewed as extremists and fanatics by those favouring absolutism of the king.
Let us rejoin our timeline in the year 1662. Charles II had been restored as king in 1660, and now he wanted total control. On 27 May 1662, the Great Charter of Presbytery of 1592 was repealed, thus abolishing the Presbyterian Church, and the king had now become the ‘pope’ over the church in our nation, with his puppet bishops being restored to power in both Church and State. By law the patronage system was introduced, making all ministers in the Church of Scotland subject to the authority of the local landowners and bishops. Either they compromised and accepted, or were thrown out of the church. This was the year which led to about 2,000 ministers in England being ejected, and almost 400 in Scotland. The Abjuration Act was passed by our Parliament, in which it was declared that ‘these oaths, the national covenant, as sworn and explained in 1638, and afterward, and the solemn league and covenant were, and are in themselves unlawful oaths, and imposed against the fundamental laws of the kingdom.’ It was now required that anybody holding offices of responsibility in Scotland, including the church pastors, must renounce the Covenants. By doing this, Charles II was committing blatant perjury, for he had himself signed the Covenants, and had promised to God and the people at his coronation at Scone, to support and uphold the Presbyterian Church. Furthermore, he had the Covenants burned at Linlithgow on 29 May, 1662.
The new oath now required from the people in Scotland was that ‘I acknowledge my said sovereign, only supreme governor of this kingdom, over all persons, and in all causes.’ This would also mean, theoretically, that if Charles II wanted the nation to return to Rome, everyone would have to submit, or be accused of high treason. With hundreds of pastors being driven out from their churches, they became homeless. Soon their loyal parishioners rallied round them to supply their needs and came to hear their beloved pastors preach in remote locations. When the puppet bishops realized what was happening, they alerted the king to make sure laws were passed, banning these gatherings. As time progressed, Scotland would witness the ‘Killing Times’, in which 18,000 faithful Presbyterians would suffer horrendously, or be killed – a subject, which I have already covered.
‘How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers’ (Isaiah 1:21, NKJV).
Image: Charles II by John Michael Wright, Wikipedia Free Commons: National Portrait Gallery: NPG 531