God's Chosen People A History of Scotland


God's Chosen People

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For almost 20 years in the 17th century,

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this island was the most secure prison in the entire British Isles.

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Welcome to the Bass Rock, in the Firth of Forth.

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Welcome to Scotland's Alcatraz.

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There was no escape from the Bass.

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Its cells were home to the country's most dangerous men,

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men whose religious beliefs threatened the stability of Britain itself.

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Their radical vision was declared in a document called the National Covenant.

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The National Covenant would unseat kings,

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license revolution, cost tens of thousands of Scots their lives.

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It started the Civil War that would cost King Charles I his head.

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He struggled to erase the Covenant from history, but to tell the truth,

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there was never any chance that he would succeed.

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After all, he was only a king.

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And the National Covenant was a contract between Scotland and God.

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In 1633, King Charles I came here, to Edinburgh, for his coronation.

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It was a visit he would really rather not have made.

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He had been king for eight years now,

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and if the Scots had agreed to his frequent demands

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that the Scottish Crown Jewels be sent to London, this trip really wouldn't have been necessary.

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But the Scots had said no. Several times. So here he was.

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It was his first visit to Scotland in 30 years.

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Scotland had missed their king.

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They'd missed his father James as well.

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After all, the Stuart dynasty might now be in charge

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of all three kingdoms, but it was Scotland that they came from.

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And now, here Charles was, processing down the Royal Mile towards his palace at Holyrood.

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The crowds were cheering.

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The Scots were pleased to see him.

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Because they hadn't seen him before.

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Charles was ignorant of everything that mattered to his Scottish subjects.

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Especially the Presbyterian kirk.

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It might have helped to meet some of its members. Someone, for instance,

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like Archibald Johnston of Warriston,

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a deeply religious young lawyer.

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Warriston was as sure as his fellow Presbyterians

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that the Scottish church was the closest to perfection on Earth.

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But equally certain that it was still sinful, because it was made of human beings, and humans fall short.

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King Jesus is the perfect one.

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King Jesus supplies the grace and mercy that we lack.

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King Charles, on the other hand, chose his first visit to Scotland

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to show that grace was not his strong point.

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The Scots had made plans for the coronation, but Charles rewrote them.

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He would not be visiting Scone with its charmless and poky chapel.

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He would have the service here, in Holyrood Abbey, with suitable pomp.

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And the coronation service would be Anglican,

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conducted by an English priest.

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A Scottish minister simply wouldn't do.

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Clumsy.

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But Charles sincerely believed he was God's anointed king.

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He sincerely believed that his church, the Anglican church, worshipped God correctly.

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And that the Presbyterian church did not.

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A shiver ran down the spines of Scotland's Presbyterians.

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The King had forced change on their church once before.

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Charles' father had imposed bishops on them,

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but to the Presbyterians, every soul was equal.

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Bishops were distasteful.

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The King's task was to defend the church, not define it.

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But it would take more than courage to say no to the King.

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Warriston kept a diary...

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a window into the mind of a man who would do just that.

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So, this is all diary in here?

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It certainly is.

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-It's fair to say he liked taking notes!

-He wrote all the time.

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He wrote when he was in church, he wrote when he was on horseback,

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he wrote and he wrote and he wrote.

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What kind of man is revealed in these pages?

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A fiery, fanatical, energetic, zealous man at the forefront of the revolution.

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Royal authority, it's not something we take very seriously, but in the 17th century,

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you thought God's authority came down through royalty,

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came down through the people to whom royalty delegated their powers.

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If the King tells you to do something, and you are studying your bible,

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and this great feeling is washing through you in prayer, you have the courage to say no to the King,

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even if that leads you to the gallows or the headsman's axe.

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The King provided the Presbyterians with many things to say no to.

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Charles ordered the conversion of Edinburgh's high kirk, St Giles, into an Anglican-style cathedral.

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He appointed new bishops.

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And then, three years after his troubling visit, a rumour came to Warriston's ears.

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The King intended to introduce an Anglican service book in Scotland.

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Scots tended to look down their noses at the English Reformation.

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Technically, both Anglicans and Presbyterians were Protestant,

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both had rejected the Catholic church and the powers of the Pope who led it,

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but as far as the Presbyterians were concerned, all the English had done

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was swap the Pope for their own King.

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In due course, in 1637, the prayer book arrived.

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It was an Anglican prayer book with superficial tweaks.

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The presiding minister was called a Presbyter, but the words he spoke were priestly.

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Popish, to Presbyterian ears.

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Warriston went to a meeting to discuss the prayer book at the end of May.

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When he got home he wrote in his diary that it was the very image of the Beast.

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The 23rd July, 1637 was the day appointed

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for the first use, throughout Scotland, of Charles' new prayer book.

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The Bishop of Brechin had no trouble at all when he conducted the service,

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but the Bishop of Brechin delivered the service

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with a pair of loaded pistols on either side of the service book.

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In Edinburgh, the presiding Bishop and his Dean took no such precautions.

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They were beaten up.

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The new prayer book was ripped to shreds and the Dean had to hide in the clock tower.

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Later, the carriage in which the Bishop and the Dean tried to make their escape

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was rocked, rolled and overturned.

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The rioting lasted for hours, until nightfall.

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In due course, the riots became a revolt.

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Charles had no idea how serious things were getting in Scotland.

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His advisers kept the truth under their flamboyant hats.

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The Scots had formed an alternative government.

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Warriston was appointed as its secretary.

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They wanted a useful Scottish king, who would visit Scotland

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more than once a decade, who understood the Presbyterian kirk.

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They wanted everything that Charles was not.

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So Warriston made a suggestion.

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They should rewrite him.

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This was their rewritten king, the National Covenant of 1638,

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drafted by Warriston with the help of the leading minister of the day, Alexander Henderson.

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It was addressed to an idealised Charles I who already understood his duties as a Presbyterian king.

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It was addressed, in other words, to a king who didn't exist.

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In carefully respectful terms, it attacked all the changes

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that Charles had made, and everything he stood for.

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It demanded a monarchy limited by a constitution, limited in power.

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Limited by laws.

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The Covenant was a contract between three parties -

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the King, whose task was defence of the Presbyterian kirk, the people, and God himself.

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It was called the Covenant as a reference to the Old Testament,

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to the Covenant made by God with his chosen people.

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In the Old Testament, the chosen people had been the Jews.

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But it was and is an article of Christian faith that the coming of Christ,

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and his death on the cross, had changed the Covenant.

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God's chosen people now were Christians.

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The National Covenant of 1638 went a bit further.

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God's chosen people were the faithful members of the most perfect church on the face of the Earth,

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the Scottish Presbyterian kirk.

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A meeting was scheduled here, at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, for the 28th February, 1638.

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The Covenant was signed by 3,250 people.

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Warriston signed it himself, and in his diary that evening he wrote,

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"This is the glorious marriage day of the Kingdom with God."

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Copies were sent to every parish in Scotland.

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One Sunday in March, Warriston took his family to a kirk south-west of Edinburgh.

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It was a chance to see how the Covenant was being received outside the city.

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The minister explained the Covenant.

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The congregation sat unmoved.

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Then the minister asked them to stand and swear their Covenant to the Almighty God.

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The congregation rose to their feet.

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They raised their hands. They broke down, they wept, they testified.

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The minister was almost suffocated by his own tears.

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They swore their Covenant with God.

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And after 15 minutes, they fell down on their knees and prayed.

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Warriston was stunned.

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"Lord," he wrote, "let me never forget my part in this.

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"There is a very near parallel between Israel and this church,

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"for we are the only two nations sworn unto the Lord.

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"Our Scots kirk in its rediscovered perfection will be a pattern for other nations.

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"We shall extend the royal prerogative of King Jesus the Son of God above all others,

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"perhaps extend his kingdom throughout the Earth."

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The enthusiasm was national in scale.

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At the very least, 60% of Scotland's million people promised themselves to God,

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and believed that God made them a promise in return.

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They were his chosen people.

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And it was indeed the people who signed.

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They weren't even used to holding pens.

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Now they were signing a document of national significance.

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This was a new world where a king like Charles I could soon find it hard to breathe.

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But not all the signatures were freely given.

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Failure to sign the Covenant was considered sinful.

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Dubious. Popish.

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And what if God was watching, and saw that you had failed to sign?

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Not all the signatures were shaky for lack of practice.

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But once they'd signed, whatever their reasons, then they'd made an oath, a contract, a promise to God.

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Impossible to unmake.

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Impossible to untake.

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A heavy weight on any conscience, a terrible weight for any nation to inflict upon itself.

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A constant pressure towards extremism, fundamentalism, madness.

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It took a year for Charles to realise how far

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his Scottish subjects had gone beyond mere disobedience.

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They would have to be brought to heel. Charles began preparing for war.

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Other Kings of England would have turned to Parliament for money,

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but the English Parliament had shown insufficient sympathy with Charles' belief that his rule was absolute,

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so he hadn't called them for ten years.

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The alternative was war on the never-never.

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Charles began looking for someone to borrow from.

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The Scots raised an army of fervent Covenanters,

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led by expert soldiers who had returned home from foreign wars.

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Charles raised the military equivalent of a tickling stick.

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He lost. Twice.

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By September of 1640, he was shamed and mired in debt.

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He had to call the English Parliament.

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And the English Parliament was full of Protestants

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who wanted the same things as the Scots - limits to his power.

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They didn't understand that he was God's anointed, trying to save their souls.

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Charles declared war on Parliament in August, 1642.

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The English Civil War had begun.

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Warriston had prayed for a chance to extend the power of King Jesus beyond Scotland's borders.

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The English Civil War was a regrettable blood bath, of course, but it was also an opportunity.

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For the first year, the Scots took no part.

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Charles and his Royalist army secured victory after victory.

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And in the autumn of 1643, England's Parliament sent agents north to Scotland, to ask for help.

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The National Covenant had been for Scotland alone.

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The Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 would go much further.

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I wasn't expecting to see this in the form of a little hardback book.

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Unlike the National Covenant, Solemn Leagues actually tend to be printed.

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They are normally a plain printed book that is signed up to.

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-We have these lovely engravings here.

-What do they tell us?

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One of my favourite illustrations is this one here.

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It shows how the Covenant is more radical than that of 1638.

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There's no wishy-washy stuff from bishops here.

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It's the extirpation of popery, prelacy, that is bishops.

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And here we have these bishops, prelates, deans, deacons,

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all being cast out of the church, being insulted as they go.

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-Something as benign as a chorister is an evil that has to be extirpated?

-Oh, yes, of course.

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This expanded Covenant closed a simple deal.

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In return for their military assistance, the Scots required

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the establishment in both England and Ireland of a Presbyterian kirk, modelled after Scotland's very own.

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Plus expenses. The royal prerogative of King Jesus would extend through all three kingdoms.

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Now the Scots had something serious to fight for.

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They happily sent an army of 20,000 men south, complete with ministers and a battle cry.

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King Jesus.

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In July, at the battle of Marston Moor in Yorkshire,

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they won the first of many victories over Charles' army.

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The Scots had turned the tide.

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Charles would never have the upper hand again.

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Two years later, Charles sent his sons Charles and James to France, for safety,

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and surrendered to the Scots.

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He was taken to Newcastle.

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Alexander Henderson and Warriston, the Covenant's co-authors,

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were sent to persuade him to sign the Covenant.

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There were two paths open to Charles.

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On the one side, a long life as a Covenanted king, limited by laws, but the country's leader still.

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On the other, more war, more loss of life.

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The faint hope of victory for absolute monarchy.

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They got down on their knees and begged Charles to sign the Covenant, accept a kingship limited by laws,

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agree to establish in all three kingdoms a Presbyterian church of which he was in no sense a head.

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They were asking for peace, of course, but they were also asking him to reject his God, to reject his

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entire understanding of himself, his duties, his place on Earth.

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The King could not say yes. It was a syllable too far.

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He did not sign the Covenant.

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The Scots handed the King over to the English Parliament.

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But in his own mind, he was still King by God's grace.

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It would be sinful simply to accept his fate.

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Secretly, he made contact with the nobles of the country that his dynasty had been born in.

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Scotland's nobles had signed the Covenant, but it was Charles' hope

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that their loyalty to his family would prove stronger.

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And he was proved right. The nobles agreed to fight for him again, provided that if they won,

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he would adopt the Covenant and the Presbyterian kirk for a three-year trial period in all his kingdoms.

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The nobles took their secret deal to the rest of the Covenanters.

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And the very idea split the movement in two.

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For the ordinary folk who made up the majority of the movement, the Covenant was everything.

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This talk of three-year trials was nonsense.

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They would not fight for the vague promises of an uncovenanted king.

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They became known as the Protesters.

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The appeals of the Protesters fell on deaf ears.

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The nobles marched south to fight for Charles.

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And at Preston, they were defeated utterly by an army led by a former gentleman farmer, Oliver Cromwell.

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For the Protesters, this was no more than God's judgement.

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God did not want the nobles to run the country.

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The Protesters seized the capital and purged the ungodly nobles from power.

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Warriston joined them.

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Now the Protesters were the heart of the Covenanting movement, God's people.

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And a government as well.

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This was the Rule of the Saints.

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They packed the governing session of the kirk with their members.

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They seized control of public conduct.

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Backsliders and opponents would be executed.

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No sin would go unpunished.

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There were floggings, ears nailed to posts, holes bored in tongues.

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The Rule of the Saints marked the high point of the Covenant's power.

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Covenanters in later years would remember it as the golden age.

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But there was no way the Rule of the Saints could ever have lasted.

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It was only possible while certain things remained undecided.

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Such as the fate of the King.

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By December of 1648, Cromwell had become the leader of a faction

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that controlled the English Parliament behind the scenes.

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All those who might have defended the King were purged from Parliament, and an act was passed.

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The King would be prosecuted for treason.

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The trial began on the 20th January, 1649.

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Charles refused to defend himself.

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He refused to recognise the jurisdiction of the court, or the logic of the charge itself.

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But this was the new world, where kings found it hard to breathe.

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On the 30th January, 1649, they cut off his head.

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When the King's head fell, the old world ceased to be.

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It went mad.

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The people were horrified by what Cromwell's faction had done.

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So the English Parliament abolished monarchy.

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If there was no king, there was no crime.

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They had beheaded a nobody.

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No-one had asked the Scots if they wanted their king beheaded.

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Their Covenant needed a king, like King David in the Bible.

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Their Covenant needed his signature.

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A dead king could sign nothing.

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So within a week of the King's execution, they declared his son Charles king instead.

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The 20-year-old Charles returned from France to take the throne.

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It was imperative that he sign the Covenant.

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His ship arrived in the mouth of the Spey, in the north east, in June.

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It anchored, and before he had had a chance to set foot on land, commissioners went on board,

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presented him with a copy of the Covenant, and required his signature.

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He signed.

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Because he had to.

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But in Cromwell's world, there could be no kings.

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As long as there were kings, he was a regicide, a king killer.

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Which meant that Cromwell had a bone or two to pick with the Scots.

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In July of 1650, Cromwell came north.

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At first, his campaign went badly.

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He was forced back to Dunbar, his back to the sea.

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One last push would secure his total defeat.

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The Protesters mustered their army in Leith.

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It was more than double the size of Cromwell's force.

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The godliest of the godly, Warriston amongst them, chose this moment

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to insist that the army be purged of its ungodly elements.

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The ungodly elements, by and large, tended to be

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the professional soldiers on whom the army's success had depended.

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"God can do much with a few," said Warriston. He was right.

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But God chose to do it for the other side.

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One morning in September, Cromwell broke out of Dunbar at dawn,

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killed 4,000, took 10,000 prisoner,

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and put the rest of the Covenanting army to flight.

0:26:150:26:18

It became one of Cromwell's most famous victories.

0:26:180:26:22

It made him seem, at last, like a possible leader, not just of an army, but of the country itself.

0:26:220:26:29

The very next day, the kirk session and the town council fled from Edinburgh.

0:26:310:26:36

The Rule of the Saints was over.

0:26:360:26:39

The young King Charles fled to France, and the English Parliament declared the birth of a new country.

0:26:390:26:45

The Great Britain of the Stuarts, the Union of the Crowns, was gone,

0:26:470:26:52

replaced by the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

0:26:520:26:56

Behind the pleasant title was a brutal union of conquest,

0:27:040:27:08

secured by pillage, massacre, and the presence in Scotland

0:27:080:27:12

of an English army of occupation, 10,000 strong.

0:27:120:27:16

In 1653, Cromwell became something called Lord Protector.

0:27:230:27:28

Not a king, but still addressed as "Your Highness" by those who served him.

0:27:280:27:32

Behind his back, people called him a tyrant and usurper.

0:27:320:27:37

For four years, Warriston held himself aloof from the new regime.

0:27:370:27:41

But in the end, his ambition required him to collaborate.

0:27:410:27:45

He could not bear being unimportant.

0:27:450:27:47

In 1657, Cromwell made him the Lord Clerk Register,

0:27:470:27:52

chief record keeper of the Scottish government, and gave him a position on the English Council of State.

0:27:520:27:58

It was a dream of power.

0:28:010:28:03

And a nightmare of betrayal.

0:28:030:28:06

Just what was Warriston loyal to now, apart from himself?

0:28:060:28:10

It was hard to say.

0:28:130:28:15

The Covenant hung over his head as much as anybody's, but there was no king.

0:28:150:28:20

There was someone who looked and behaved increasingly like one.

0:28:200:28:23

But that was Cromwell.

0:28:230:28:25

He began to look like a king reflected in a wicked mirror, ugly, ill-favoured.

0:28:250:28:30

A tyrant with a bloodstained chin.

0:28:300:28:33

Warriston went on with his daily regime of prayer, manufacturing certainty as best he could.

0:28:330:28:39

Then Cromwell died.

0:28:430:28:45

His unreal regime died with him.

0:28:480:28:51

Now the Commonwealth was headless.

0:28:510:28:54

But there was a head available.

0:28:540:28:56

It belonged to Charles II.

0:28:570:29:00

On May 8th, 1660, the English Parliament proclaimed Charles II King of England.

0:29:090:29:15

The Scottish parliament did likewise one week later.

0:29:180:29:22

There were scenes of wild celebration in Edinburgh,

0:29:220:29:26

toasts drunk, glasses shattered, cannons fired.

0:29:260:29:30

The joy was hysterical.

0:29:320:29:34

11 years of guilt unleashed.

0:29:340:29:37

Warriston felt the future tighten around his neck, and fled to Europe.

0:29:370:29:43

The brief and ugly experiment was over.

0:29:590:30:01

The headless king had horrified everyone.

0:30:010:30:04

No-one wanted anything to do with dictators, no-one wanted

0:30:040:30:08

anything to do with the almost-democracy of the Covenant.

0:30:080:30:11

The way ahead was backwards.

0:30:130:30:16

The parliaments of both England and Scotland began undoing things.

0:30:160:30:20

They remade the old world.

0:30:200:30:22

They remade the Union of the Crowns.

0:30:240:30:27

You could hardly see the join.

0:30:270:30:29

It was as though nothing had happened.

0:30:330:30:35

As though this Charles was that Charles.

0:30:350:30:39

His father's ghost was promoted.

0:30:390:30:41

He became King Charles the Martyr.

0:30:410:30:44

Cromwell's body was exhumed and its head cut off.

0:30:440:30:48

There was no Cromwell.

0:30:520:30:53

There had been no Civil War.

0:30:530:30:55

There was no Covenant.

0:30:550:30:57

There would be no Covenanters.

0:30:570:30:59

The English parliament declared the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 unlawful.

0:31:070:31:13

Surviving copies were collected and burnt by the public hangman, executed as though they were people.

0:31:180:31:25

Charles was destroying the evidence of the new world that had killed his father.

0:31:280:31:34

Everyone knew there would be changes for the Presbyterian church.

0:31:340:31:38

Perhaps it would be enough for Charles that the Protesters no longer ran it.

0:31:380:31:42

It wouldn't.

0:31:440:31:46

Charles appointed bishops and archbishops.

0:31:540:31:58

He ordered Scotland's ministers to swear an Oath of Allegiance to him,

0:31:580:32:03

and also required that every minister seek the nomination of a local member of the gentry.

0:32:030:32:08

262 out of roughly 1,000 ministers failed to make the cut,

0:32:120:32:16

couldn't or wouldn't take the oath,

0:32:160:32:18

couldn't or wouldn't find a noble patron.

0:32:180:32:21

So 262 ministers, mostly in the southwest, were made redundant.

0:32:210:32:26

Alexander Peden was one of them.

0:32:260:32:29

Until 1662, Peden was a minister in the parish of New Luce, in the deep southwest.

0:32:320:32:39

Charles' Oath of Allegiance stuck in his craw.

0:32:390:32:42

He couldn't say it, let alone swear it.

0:32:420:32:45

On the last Sunday before his expulsion, Peden entered the pulpit at New Luce and preached.

0:32:470:32:52

It was a performance to warm the heart of a Warriston.

0:32:520:32:55

He preached from morning until midnight.

0:32:550:32:58

When at last he left the pulpit, he struck its door three times

0:32:580:33:01

and ordered it never to open again, except for a Presbyterian minister like himself.

0:33:010:33:07

This became his pulpit instead.

0:33:240:33:26

Any rock would do, to be honest. And this became his kirk.

0:33:260:33:31

He became a field preacher.

0:33:360:33:39

A man on the run, with a growing reputation.

0:33:390:33:42

His followers called him Prophet Peden.

0:33:420:33:45

The meetings to which he preached were outlawed

0:33:450:33:47

under the new King's regime, but they took place regardless.

0:33:470:33:52

The largest drew crowds of 10,000 and the crowd bore arms.

0:33:520:33:56

Here, and in places like this, he preached to a movement that

0:33:560:34:00

the Covenant had created, to people who had no nobles, no gentry to lead them,

0:34:000:34:06

and never felt the lack.

0:34:060:34:08

They were voices in the wilderness,

0:34:140:34:16

pointing at the Stuart dynasty and crying tyrant, insisting that the King could not do as he wished.

0:34:160:34:23

Almost nobody was listening.

0:34:260:34:28

Once, the Covenanter movement had run the entire country.

0:34:280:34:32

Now it was numerous only in the southwest, numerous and illegal, dismissed by the mainstream.

0:34:320:34:38

The nobles, many of the ministers, and most of the rest of society, had gone back indoors, where it was warm

0:34:380:34:45

under the umbrella of what the King permitted.

0:34:450:34:48

The Protesters stayed outside.

0:34:480:34:50

They liked it cold.

0:34:500:34:52

In Prophet Peden, the Protesters had found a new hero.

0:34:550:34:59

He was desperately needed.

0:34:590:35:01

The government of Charles II was eating up the old ones.

0:35:010:35:05

In 1663, Warriston was finally arrested in France,

0:35:080:35:13

the last of 18 men that Charles held responsible for his father's death.

0:35:150:35:20

Time passed. The King adopted a more tolerant policy.

0:35:250:35:29

He licensed some of the Protesting ministers to preach once more,

0:35:290:35:33

as long as they accepted that he, not King Jesus,

0:35:330:35:36

was head of the church.

0:35:360:35:37

For Peden and the hardcore of the Protesters this was wickedly similar

0:35:410:35:45

to Catholic Christianity, in which the head of the church was human, and had power over individual souls.

0:35:450:35:52

The King, they were now certain, was popish.

0:35:560:35:59

Even paranoids are right occasionally.

0:36:010:36:04

In 1670, Charles concluded a secret treaty with the most powerful Catholic king in Europe,

0:36:040:36:11

Louis XIV of France.

0:36:110:36:13

Louis XIV agreed to provide Charles with a generous annual pension.

0:36:170:36:21

This was to assist Charles in the restoration of his kingdoms to the arms, the very open arms,

0:36:210:36:26

of the Catholic church, at which point Charles would announce his own Catholicism.

0:36:260:36:31

And Charles promised that once the national conversion was complete,

0:36:310:36:35

he would assist the French in their war with the Protestant Dutch.

0:36:350:36:40

This was a secret that Charles must keep.

0:36:470:36:49

Anyone who accused him of popery must be silenced.

0:36:490:36:52

The most outspoken protesters were confined on the Bass Rock.

0:36:560:37:00

Peden was one of them.

0:37:000:37:03

He was imprisoned there for four long years.

0:37:030:37:06

Their leaders were captives, the King's power seemed limitless.

0:37:110:37:16

Everything that the Protesters had once achieved was being undone.

0:37:160:37:20

The idea grew amongst them that a spectacular act of rebellion

0:37:260:37:30

would recall their countrymen to the one true path.

0:37:300:37:32

Bishops were at the heart of the wicked changes that the King had made.

0:37:350:37:39

And the Archbishop of St Andrews had once been, like themselves, a decent Presbyterian.

0:37:390:37:45

On 3rd May, 1679, Archbishop Sharp was returning to St Andrews with his daughter.

0:37:480:37:54

But nine Protesting Covenanters had lain in wait.

0:37:540:37:57

They gave chase.

0:37:570:37:59

Sharp's coach was no more than two or three miles from safety when they brought it to a standstill.

0:37:590:38:04

It was an assassination, a terrorist act.

0:38:260:38:31

The Government sent a taskforce to the Protesting heartland to stamp on the rats,

0:38:310:38:37

led by a newly appointed captain, John Graham of Claverhouse.

0:38:370:38:43

Claverhouse knew that the crowds at field preachings could sometimes number as much as 10,000.

0:38:430:38:49

But he was unaware that they were half religious service, half army.

0:38:490:38:52

Like the one he blundered into at Drumclog.

0:38:520:38:56

The terrain was boggy and treacherous.

0:39:000:39:03

Claverhouse's men were trained, but outnumbered.

0:39:030:39:06

Manoeuvres were simply not possible.

0:39:060:39:09

They were defeated. Claverhouse was almost killed.

0:39:090:39:12

Soon afterwards, Glasgow fell to the Protesters.

0:39:120:39:16

With this victory, the golden age seemed within their grasp.

0:39:200:39:23

They could have marched on Edinburgh to restore the Rule of the Saints.

0:39:230:39:27

Instead they made camp near Bothwell Brig,

0:39:270:39:31

just south of Glasgow, and settled down for three weeks of discussion.

0:39:310:39:35

Should the ungodly be allowed to join the army?

0:39:390:39:42

Were they fighting to unseat Charles for failing in his duty as a Covenanted king,

0:39:420:39:47

or were they fighting simply to reproach the King and restore him to the path of righteousness?

0:39:470:39:53

During these three weeks, the Protesters dissolved into smaller and smaller factions.

0:39:530:39:58

Tubs were thumped. Hobby horses were ridden.

0:39:580:40:01

Fine points of theology debated.

0:40:010:40:03

Perhaps they were under the illusion that the King was in a mood for clemency.

0:40:090:40:12

After all, Peden was once again at liberty.

0:40:120:40:16

But Peden himself was not at Bothwell.

0:40:160:40:18

He had learnt his lesson on the Bass.

0:40:180:40:21

The best sort of prophet to be was one who was breathing.

0:40:210:40:24

From a safe distance of 40 miles, he prophesied the bloody slaughter of his friends at Bothwell Brig.

0:40:270:40:33

Wherever his information came from, it was accurate.

0:40:330:40:37

400 of the Bothwell debaters were killed,

0:40:460:40:49

1,200 taken prisoner, the rest dispersed in terror.

0:40:490:40:53

But Bothwell Brig had shown that the Covenanting movement was still a threat.

0:40:560:41:01

Executions of the Protesters became frequent.

0:41:160:41:18

In 1681, a widow's son from a small town in Dumfriesshire

0:41:210:41:25

came to watch as the very last Protesting minister swung to glory.

0:41:250:41:29

And he decided that a martyr's death would suit him, too.

0:41:290:41:34

His name was James Renwick.

0:41:370:41:39

Later that year, he came into the city to watch another five executions.

0:41:420:41:47

Five more of his fellow Protesters.

0:41:500:41:53

Their heads were stuck on the city's Netherbow gate.

0:41:530:41:56

And that night, Renwick climbed up, took them down,

0:41:560:42:00

and buried the five grisly parcels with all due ceremony.

0:42:000:42:04

He began to rise in the ranks of the Protesters.

0:42:040:42:07

Renwick was in the bloom of youth.

0:42:160:42:18

The King who so offended him, Charles II, was withering on the vine.

0:42:180:42:22

His wife had proved barren.

0:42:260:42:28

Charles had fathered several bastards,

0:42:310:42:34

but male bastards weren't considered king material.

0:42:340:42:39

There was only one alternative, the King's brother, James.

0:42:390:42:44

At the King's command, he was confirmed as Charles II's successor.

0:42:440:42:48

But James had been openly Catholic for almost ten years.

0:42:520:42:57

The vast majority of his future subjects were Protestants, for whom Rome was a byword for tyranny.

0:43:090:43:16

Yet almost nobody dared object.

0:43:160:43:19

He was a Stuart, after all, and guilt for his father's execution stilled most tongues.

0:43:190:43:26

Only the Protesters said out loud that here was the final proof

0:43:260:43:30

that the Stuart dynasty was unfit to rule.

0:43:300:43:33

Since Bothwell Brig, the Protesters' numbers had declined.

0:43:350:43:39

There were no more than 6,000 left, when once the Covenant could have claimed 600,000.

0:43:390:43:45

They didn't care. They rechristened themselves the United Societies,

0:43:460:43:51

declared that they were the country's rightful government,

0:43:510:43:54

and as their leader, they chose James Renwick.

0:43:540:43:58

To announce their presence, they marched into Lanark to the Mercat Cross

0:43:580:44:03

and burnt copies of the acts that made James next in line for the throne.

0:44:030:44:09

Then they made their own declaration.

0:44:090:44:11

In the name of the people, for whom of course they did not speak, they rejected the Stuart dynasty.

0:44:130:44:19

They rejected Charles II as King on the grounds that he had destroyed

0:44:190:44:22

the perfect reformation, on the grounds that he had made his court into a brothel.

0:44:220:44:27

On the grounds of the hateful Catholicism of his intended heir.

0:44:270:44:31

They demanded a return to the years 1648 and 1649, to the Rule of the Saints.

0:44:310:44:38

Then they took up hammers and smashed the Mercat Cross.

0:44:380:44:42

Renwick's United Societies cut a dash.

0:44:460:44:49

They drew the eye of Prophet Peden.

0:44:490:44:52

He took to preaching sermons that supported them.

0:44:530:44:56

He lamented the bad faith of the nobles, gentlemen and ministers

0:44:580:45:03

who had deserted the Covenant for the safety of Charles II's church.

0:45:030:45:07

"They are vile bastards," he said.

0:45:070:45:09

Clearly, Peden hoped the United Societies would take him on as their minister.

0:45:090:45:15

But Renwick let it be known that Peden had been tested and found wanting.

0:45:150:45:19

His numerous absences when others had lost their lives had been noted.

0:45:190:45:24

In fact, he had disgracefully failed to die on several occasions.

0:45:240:45:30

Renwick was more than willing to die if his God required it.

0:45:300:45:34

Renwick was insanely resolute.

0:45:430:45:46

And with his 6,000 men, he was perfectly capable of starting a second civil war.

0:45:460:45:51

He and his followers were eminently worth killing.

0:45:550:45:58

But how could these dangerous men be identified?

0:45:580:46:02

The Government needed to look inside its subjects' heads.

0:46:020:46:05

An oath was framed requiring all citizens to reject

0:46:080:46:11

the United Societies, but there were questions, too.

0:46:110:46:16

Could the subject say, "God save the King"?

0:46:160:46:18

No-one from the United Societies could say that of Charles II.

0:46:200:46:24

Not when God was listening.

0:46:240:46:26

And God was always listening.

0:46:260:46:29

John Graham of Claverhouse, fast becoming the Government's enforcer of choice,

0:46:330:46:38

was sent into the southwest, armed with the oath.

0:46:380:46:42

The oath could be administered on the spot and failure to take it was punishable by instant death.

0:46:420:46:48

These months would be remembered as the Killing Times.

0:46:480:46:52

It wasn't the numbers that made the Killing Times notorious.

0:46:560:46:59

The numbers weren't great.

0:47:040:47:06

It was the summary nature of the executions.

0:47:100:47:14

No courts. No appeals.

0:47:170:47:19

Just a bullet in the head.

0:47:190:47:21

A little over 90 deaths in a little less than a year.

0:47:210:47:24

The killings began in December and provided an unpleasant baptism

0:47:240:47:29

for the beginning of a new and inauspicious reign, the reign of James VII and II.

0:47:290:47:35

In February of 1685, Charles II died of a stroke.

0:47:390:47:44

James' succession was unopposed.

0:47:440:47:47

The Stuart dynasty seemed unassailable.

0:47:470:47:49

Now there were two powerful Catholic monarchs for Europe's Protestants to contend with.

0:47:510:47:57

In France, Louis XIV.

0:47:570:48:00

In Britain, James VII and II.

0:48:000:48:03

For William of Orange, the Calvinist Prince of the Dutch Republic, the prospect of a Catholic alliance

0:48:060:48:11

between Louis XIV and James was too frightening for words.

0:48:110:48:16

He had been fighting the French on and off for years, and he was a Stuart, or very nearly.

0:48:160:48:21

He was James' nephew and his son-in-law.

0:48:210:48:25

In short, he had a claim to James' crowns.

0:48:250:48:28

James set about providing William of Orange with ammunition.

0:48:310:48:35

He decreed that Catholics could not only worship, but hold office.

0:48:350:48:39

He was his father's son. Parliament was not consulted.

0:48:390:48:43

Catholics became a majority on the Privy Council,

0:48:440:48:47

Catholics were appointed to the control of royal burghs.

0:48:470:48:52

Little was lacking from James' victory. Only the United Societies remained.

0:48:520:48:56

He set a price on Renwick's head by proclamation.

0:48:560:49:00

£100, dead or alive.

0:49:000:49:03

It was clear to Renwick what his God required of him.

0:49:060:49:09

He would preach in the fields outside Edinburgh,

0:49:110:49:15

he would even enter the city itself.

0:49:150:49:18

He would make it easy for the King's men to find him.

0:49:180:49:20

The authorities entered the house he was staying in.

0:49:230:49:26

Renwick shot one of them, escaped, but couldn't or wouldn't run.

0:49:260:49:30

He walked this far, to Castle Wynd, where he was captured.

0:49:300:49:34

He was too important a prize for simple execution.

0:49:370:49:40

For two weeks, the authorities attempted to extract from him

0:49:400:49:44

a confession that he had never done God's work.

0:49:440:49:46

This proved impossible.

0:49:460:49:49

His execution was finally fixed for February 17th, 1688.

0:49:560:50:01

On the scaffold, Renwick spoke for King Jesus at considerable length.

0:50:010:50:06

He recited Psalm 103.

0:50:080:50:11

"The Lord has established His throne in Heaven, and His kingdom rules over all."

0:50:110:50:15

He read from Revelations, Chapter 19.

0:50:150:50:18

"Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings."

0:50:180:50:24

And he concluded, "Lord, I die in the faith that you will not leave Scotland, but that you will

0:50:240:50:29

"make the blood of your witnesses the seed of your Church, and return again and be glorious in our land.

0:50:290:50:35

"And now, Lord, I am ready."

0:50:350:50:37

Renwick's death made James feel safe.

0:50:440:50:47

He could ignore the Covenant. He was anointed by God, an absolute monarch, unchallenged.

0:50:490:50:56

And then he did what his brother had failed to do, he secured the future of the Stuart dynasty.

0:50:580:51:03

On 10th June of that year, the king's wife gave birth to a healthy male heir, James Francis Edward.

0:51:060:51:13

A rhyme began to do the rounds. James should have listened to it.

0:51:130:51:17

It was a prophecy.

0:51:190:51:20

Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top,

0:51:250:51:29

when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

0:51:290:51:31

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

0:51:330:51:36

down will come baby, cradle and all.

0:51:380:51:41

The roots of his power as a Catholic king were far from deep.

0:51:460:51:50

They had grown upon stony, Protestant ground.

0:51:500:51:53

William of Orange had begun preparing an invasion fleet two months before the child was born.

0:51:580:52:03

The fleet was ready by the first week of October.

0:52:070:52:11

With sailors and others included, William's force totalled 70,000.

0:52:110:52:16

Clearly he had no intention of doing this twice.

0:52:160:52:19

The army landed in Devon in the first week of November.

0:52:220:52:25

And almost at once, James' support began mysteriously to wither away.

0:52:250:52:31

Because in the end, Stuart or not, son of the headless king or not, he was a Catholic.

0:52:310:52:38

On the night of 9th December, the Queen and the King's young heir fled to France.

0:52:400:52:46

James VII and II followed on the 23rd.

0:52:460:52:49

He had not abdicated.

0:52:490:52:51

But everybody decided to behave as though he had.

0:52:510:52:55

They decided, too, that this wasn't an invasion.

0:52:550:52:58

This would be the Glorious Revolution.

0:52:580:53:01

They had invited William of Orange.

0:53:010:53:03

Do come and take a kingdom!

0:53:030:53:05

Dress: military.

0:53:050:53:07

RSVP.

0:53:070:53:08

In May of 1689, William of Orange and his wife Mary

0:53:200:53:24

accepted a joint monarchy of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

0:53:240:53:29

A monarchy with strings attached.

0:53:290:53:32

The crown could no longer suspend laws, levy taxes,

0:53:320:53:36

or maintain a standing army in peacetime without Parliament's permission.

0:53:360:53:40

Here at last was the new world, 50 years after the Covenanters had first asked for it.

0:53:420:53:49

50 years after Charles I had said no.

0:53:490:53:52

In England, the Stuarts were kings no longer, with hardly a shot fired.

0:53:560:54:01

The Glorious Revolution would acquire another adjective.

0:54:010:54:06

Bloodless.

0:54:060:54:08

But in Scotland, there was blood aplenty.

0:54:080:54:11

Several northern nobles remained faithful to James.

0:54:110:54:15

One of these Jacobites was John Graham of Claverhouse,

0:54:150:54:19

now the Viscount Dundee.

0:54:190:54:23

Claverhouse went north, formed an army,

0:54:230:54:26

won a decisive victory at Killiecrankie, and died of his wounds on the battlefield.

0:54:260:54:31

The first Jacobite rebellion died with him, but its body twitched for some time after.

0:54:310:54:36

It took several months to crush the Jacobite garrison in Edinburgh Castle.

0:54:360:54:41

But the garrison here held out longest of all.

0:54:410:54:44

So it was on the Bass Rock that the Stuart dynasty finally lost its grip on power.

0:54:440:54:51

At last, there was a kind of peace.

0:55:020:55:05

The moderate remnants of the Presbyterians reached a compromise with King William.

0:55:050:55:10

Bishops were abolished, and the Presbyterians resumed control of the Church of Scotland.

0:55:100:55:15

But they were deceiving themselves.

0:55:150:55:18

They were the church of southern Scotland.

0:55:180:55:20

Because in the north, loyalty to the older kind of God-anointed king remained in force.

0:55:200:55:27

The split in the kirk was a split in the country, an unhealed wound,

0:55:270:55:32

and the Stuarts, of course, were far from dead.

0:55:320:55:36

They were only in exile, in France, a long swim across the English Channel.

0:55:360:55:41

A dynastic time bomb.

0:55:420:55:44

For 50 years, the Covenanters had been almost the only voice that constantly resisted the rule

0:55:470:55:53

of the Stuarts, stood against absolute monarchy,

0:55:530:55:57

insisted that the soul of every human weighed the same.

0:55:570:56:02

We can almost see them as martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.

0:56:020:56:06

From a distance of several hundred years, the Covenanters seem almost benign.

0:56:060:56:12

But come closer.

0:56:120:56:14

The Covenanters knew very little of mercy.

0:56:140:56:16

They knew nothing of moderation.

0:56:160:56:20

The only government they could ever have approved

0:56:200:56:22

was the rule of the Presbyterian kirk, with a Covenanted King.

0:56:220:56:25

One nation under God, and bound for glory, sermons once a day and twice on Sunday.

0:56:250:56:32

The freedoms they sought were freedoms for

0:56:320:56:34

Covenanting Presbyterians, and no-one else at all.

0:56:340:56:38

Anyone of another faith could, and certainly would, go to hell.

0:56:380:56:43

Once, this was God's country.

0:56:430:56:45

It's not any more.

0:56:450:56:47

Thank God for that.

0:56:470:56:48

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0:57:240:57:27

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