The Radical Party in the Kirk, 1637–45

David Stevenson

doi:10.1017/S0022046900045711

The Radical Party in the Kirk, 1637–45

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

David Stevenson

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David Stevenson: Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, University of Aberdeen

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In the Scottish General Assembly of 1638 the Covenanters, openly defying Charles I, reformed the kirk to remove what they saw as its corruptions. Bishops and the Court of High Commission were abolished. The Five Articles of Perth (regulating certain points of worship), the 1636 Book of Canons and the hated Prayer Book of 1637 were all condemned.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , April 1974 , pp. 135 - 165

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900045711 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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^{page 135 note 1} See D. Stevenson, ‘Conventicles and the Kirk, 1619–37. The Emergence of a Radical Party’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society (forthcoming).

^{page 136 note 1} Most attention has been paid to these controversies by writers on the history of worship in the kirk, especially Sprott, G. W., The Worship of the Church of Scotland during the Covenanting Period 1638–61, Edinburgh 1893.Google Scholar See also Sprott, G. W., The Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh 1882, 18–20Google Scholar; Sprott, G. W., The Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh 1901, XVII–XXI, XXVIII–XXXI, LX–LXIIIGoogle Scholar; McMillan, W., The Worship of the Scottish Reformed Church, 1550–1638, London 1931Google Scholar; Maxwell, W. D., A History of Worship in the Church of Scotland, Oxford 1955, 88–91, 98, 106–8.Google Scholar Writers on sects and Congregationalism have also noted these events, though hardly their real significance: Escott, H., A History of Scottish Congregationalism, Glasgow 1960, 7–8Google Scholar; Hoy, W. I., ‘The Entry of Sects into Scotland’, in Reformation and Revolution, ed. Shaw, D., Edinburgh 1967, 178Google Scholar; Thompson, G. L. S., ‘The Origins of Congregationalism in Scotland’, Edinburgh University, Ph.D. thesis, 1932, 40–61.Google Scholar

^{page 136 note 2} Baillie, R., Letters and Journals, Bannatyne Club 1841–2, i. 249Google Scholar; Guthry, H., Memoirs, Glasgow 1747, 78.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 1} Wodrow, R., Select Biographies, Wodrow Society 1845–7, I. 161–2.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 2} Rutherford, S., Letters, ed. Bonar, A. A., Edinburgh and London 1894, 561, 564Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 3} Ibid., 611.

^{page 137 note 4} L[eckie], R. G. E., Leckie of that Ilk, Vancouver 1913, 93.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 5} Adair, P., A True Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast 1866, 61–2Google Scholar; Baillie, Letters, i. 249; Guthry, Memoirs, 78

^{page 138 note 1} Macdonald, A. and Dennistoun, J. (eds.), ‘Extracts from the Register of the Kirk Session of Stirling’, Maitland Miscellany, Maitland Club 1834, i ii. 475–6.Google Scholar

^{page 138 note 2} Ibid., 476–7.

^{page 138 note 3} Baillie, Letters, i. 249.

^{page 138 note 4} Guthry, Memoirs, 78–9.

^{page 138 note 5} Ibid., 79–80; Baillie, Letters, i. 250.

^{page 139 note 1} University of Edinburgh, New College Library [NCL], MS. MH.5/5, Baillie's Letters and Journals, i. fol. 256^r. The original foliation of this volume runs 1–255 then in error 226–40, corrected in pencil to 256–70. The corrected numbers are cited here.

^{page 139 note 2} Baillie, Letters, i. 250.

^{page 139 note 3} Guthry, Memoirs, 79–80. The paraphrase which Guthry gives of the paper agreed by Dickson and Henderson is the same in substance (and indeed largely the same in wording) as part of directions for private worship issued by the General Assembly of 1647: Records of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. Peterkin, A., Edinburgh 1843, 473.Google Scholar This throws serious doubts on the reliability of Guthry at this point.

^{page 139 note 4} Baillie, Letters, i. 250; Peterkin, Records, 208.

^{page 139 note 5} Gordon, J., History of Scots Affairs, from MDCXXXVII to MDCXLI, Spalding Club 1841, iii. 60.Google Scholar

^{page 139 note 6} Peterkin, Records, 208–9.

^{page 139 note 7} Baillie, Letters, I. 250. Henderson's paper may be that known from a version printed in 1641 (Familie Exercise, or, The Service of God in Families, Edinburgh 1641Google Scholar), though its bias against read prayers perhaps indicates that it is not.

^{page 140 note 1} Baillie, Letters, i. 250; Guthry, Memoirs, 80.

^{page 140 note 2} Baillie, Letters, i. 250.

^{page 140 note 3} Guthry, Memoirs, 80–1.

^{page 140 note 4} Baillie, Letters, i. 250; National Library of Scotland [NLS], Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 72–107, Account of the General Assembly at Aberdeen, 1640, fol. 92^r.

^{page 140 note 5} NCL, Baillie MS., i. fols. 256^r–256^v.

^{page 141 note 1} Torrance, J. B., ‘Covenant or Contract: A Study of the Theological Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland’, Journal of Scottish Theology, xxiii (1970), 71–3.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 2} Gordon, History, iii. 250.

^{page 141 note 3} Laud, W., Works, ed. Bliss, J. and Scott, W., Oxford 1847–1860, V 597.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 4} Donaldson, G., The Making of the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, Edinburgh 1954, 30.Google Scholar

^{page 141 note 5} Rutherford, Letters, 611. In saying the kirk never allowed read prayers Rutherford does not mean that it never permitted them, but that it had never specifically approved their use.

^{page 141 note 6} Donaldson, Prayer Book, 29–30; McMillan, Worship, 68–73.

^{page 141 note 7} Rutherford, Letters, 578–9. The letter is rather obscure, but almost certainly refers to ‘bowing’; McMillan, Worship, 161–2.

^{page 142 note 1} Glasgow University Library [GUL], MS. Gen. 1209, Wodrow MSS., Biographical Collections, Life of Andrew Ramsay, p. 19.

^{page 142 note 2} The Scottish Metrical Psalter of A.D. 1635, ed. Livingston, N., Glasgow 1864, facsimile 20.Google Scholar

^{page 142 note 3} McMillan, Worship, 87–92; Patrick, M., Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody, Oxford 1949, 54Google Scholar; Livingston, Psalter, 4, 35–6, 67.

^{page 142 note 4} NCL, Baillie MS., II. fols. 129^r–130^r; Livingston, Psalter, 36–7.

^{page 142 note 5} Baillie, Letters, i. 252.

^{page 142 note 6} For the 1640 Assembly, see ibid., i. 251–5; Gordon, History, iii. 221–3; Guthry, Memoirs, 81–2; NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 72–107.

^{page 143 note 1} Baillie, Letters, i. 251–2.

^{page 143 note 2} Peterkin, Records, 279.

^{page 143 note 3} Baillie, Letters, i. 251–2.

^{page 143 note 4} NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 76^v, 82^v.

^{page 143 note 5} Ibid., fols. 91^v–92^r.

^{page 143 note 6} Baillie, Letters, i. 252; Rogers, C. (ed.), Historical Notices of St Anthony's Monastery, Leith, and Rehearsal of Events which Occured in the North of Scotland from 1635 to 1645, Grampian Club 1877, 55.Google Scholar

^{page 144 note 1} Baillie, Letters, i. 251–2; NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 92^v–93^r.

^{page 144 note 2} Ibid., fol. 93^r.

^{page 144 note 3} Guthry, Memoirs, 81–2. The account in the Wodrow MSS. surprisingly makes no mention of Guthry's production of the August 1639 paper, but Guthry's question about signatures suggests that it came at this point.

^{page 144 note 4} Guthry, Memoirs, 81.

^{page 144 note 5} Baillie, Letters, i. 252.

^{page 144 note 6} Loc. cit.

^{page 144 note 7} NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 93^r–93^v.

^{page 145 note 1} Ibid., fol. 93^v; Baillie, Letters, i. 252.

^{page 145 note 2} NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 93^v–94^r.

^{page 145 note 3} Ibid., fol. 94^r; Sprott, Worship of the Church of Scotland during the Covenanting Period, 10.

^{page 146 note 1} Ibid., 11; Baillie, Letters, i. 252–3; NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 94^r–95^r.

^{page 146 note 2} Ibid., folk 95^r–95^v; Baillie, Letters, i. 253–4.

^{page 146 note 3} NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 95^v–97^v.

^{page 146 note 4} Baillie, Letters, i. 254.

^{page 147 note 1} Loc. cit.; Sprott, Worship of the Church, 11; Guthry, Memoirs, 82; NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXVI, fols. 96^v–98^r.

^{page 147 note 2} Ibid., fols. 104^v–105^r; Baillie, Letters, i. 254–5.

^{page 147 note 3} Baillie, op. cit., i. 255.

^{page 147 note 4} Gordon, History, iii. 223.

^{page 147 note 5} The commission set up by the Assembly to attend parliament ordered that the act should not be printed, a ruling confirmed by the 1643 Assembly: Scottish Record Office [SRO], CH.1/1/9, Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, 1642–6, 1643 Assembly, 22; Baillie, Letters, ii. 91; Peterkin, Records, 360.

^{page 148 note 1} Gordon, History, iii. 223.

^{page 148 note 2} Ibid., iii. 222–3; Spalding, J., Memorialls of the Trubles, Spalding Club 1850–1, i 312.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 3} Baillic, Letters, i. 358–60.

^{page 148 note 4} Ibid., i. 360–1.

^{page 148 note 5} Ibid., i. 362.

^{page 149 note 1} Ibid., i. 362–3.

^{page 149 note 2} Peterkin, Records, 295.

^{page 149 note 3} Baillie, Letters, i. 364.

^{page 149 note 4} Peterkin, Records, 295–6.

^{page 149 note 5} Ibid., 297; Baillie, Letters, i. 364, 365.

^{page 149 note 6} Baillie, Letters, i. 367.

^{page 150 note 1} Ibid., i. 369.

^{page 150 note 2} Spalding, Trubles, ii. 59; Peterkin, Records, 294. The Assembly also renewed the 1639 and 1640 acts against innovations: loc. cit.

^{page 151 note 1} S. Rutherford, A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Pauls Presbyterie in Scotland, London 1642, 325–6. For a paper of about this time arguing in favour of private meetings and against set prayers, see NLS, Wodrow MS. Quarto XXIX, fob. 53^v–55^v.

^{page 151 note 2} Baillie, Letters, i. 371. This is the last known appearance of Leckie in these controversies; he died between October 1642 and June 1644: Leckie, Leckie of that Ilk, 96.

^{page 151 note 3} Baillie, Letters, ii. 185–6.

^{page 151 note 4} Ibid., ii. 27.

^{page 151 note 5} Ibid., ii. 1.

^{page 151 note 6} Ibid., ii. 46, 51.

^{page 151 note 7} NCL, Baillie MS., i. fols. 366^v–367^r.

^{page 152 note 1} Ibid., fol. 367^r; Baillie, Letters, ii. 51; Sprott, Worship in the Church, 15.

^{page 152 note 2} NCL, Baillie MS., i. fols. 367^r–367^v.

^{page 152 note 3} Baillie, Letters, ii. 51.

^{page 152 note 4} NCL, Baillie MS., i. fols. 367^v–368^r; Sprott, Worship in the Church, 16.

^{page 152 note 5} Baillie, Letters, ii. 51.

^{page 152 note 6} Ibid., ii. 51, 52–3; Peterkin, Records, 333.

^{page 152 note 7} SRO, CH.2/341/1, Stranraer Presbytery Register, 1641–52, fols. 4^r–35^v, 40^r–42^r. The pages of the register have been bound and foliated in the wrong order. Only one minister in the presbytery supported Power—James Baird (Portpatrick), who was probably related to him, having married one Jean Power (Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, ed. Scott, H., Edinburgh 1915–1950, ii 350Google Scholar). Freugh also accused Baird of various offences, but the charges were dismissed: SRO, CH.2/341/1, fols. 29^v, 38^r–38^v.

^{page 153 note 1} Ibid., fols. 61^r–61^v.

^{page 153 note 2} Ibid., fols. 45^v–46^r; Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1638–43, ed. Masson, D., Edinburgh 1906, 322–4, 556Google Scholar; 1544–1660, Edinburgh 1908, 76; Baillie, Letters, ii. 53.

^{page 153 note 3} SRO, CH.2/341/1, fols. 43^v–44^r 45^v–46^r, 48^v, 49^r.

^{page 153 note 4} Ibid., fols. 48^v–49^r, 50^r–50^v.

^{page 153 note 5} Ibid., fols. 61^r–61^v

^{page 153 note 6} NCL, Baillie MS., i. fol. 371^r; Sprott, Worship in the Church, 17.

^{page 154 note 1} Baillie, Letters, ii. 51, 54.

^{page 154 note 2} Guthry, Memoirs, 123.

^{page 154 note 3} Baillie, Letters, ii. 54; NCL, Baillie MS., i. fols. 368^v–369^r.

^{page 154 note 4} Leith, W. F., Memoirs of Scottish Catholics during the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, London 1909, i. 252.Google Scholar

^{page 154 note 5} Spalding, Trubles, ii. 203.

^{page 155 note 1} Ibid., ii. 271; Baillie, Letters, ii. 54.

^{page 155 note 2} Leith, Memoirs of Scottish Catholics, i. 252–3.

^{page 155 note 3} Ibid., i. 253; Pittilloh, R., The Hammer of Persecution, London 1659, 13Google Scholar; History of the Baptists in Scotland, ed. Yuille, G., Glasgow [1926], 25Google Scholar; SRO, PA.11/3, Register of the Committe of Estates, 1644–5, fols. 68^v, 173^v.

^{page 155 note 4} Leith, Memoirs of Scottish Catholics, i. 252, 253, 261–2.

^{page 155 note 5} Spalding, Trubles, i. 313, ii. 173; Baillie, Letters, i. 248.

^{page 155 note 6} ‘Aberdeen Burgess Register’, ed. Munro, A. M., Miscellany of the New Spalding Club, ii. Aberdeen 1908, 387Google Scholar; Spalding, Trubles, ii. 187.

^{page 156 note 1} Ibid., ii. 203, 217, 226, 229, 241.

^{page 156 note 2} Ibid., ii. 205, 226.

^{page 156 note 3} McMillan, Worship, 131, 143, 145; Maxwell, Worship, 97–8, 106–7.

^{page 156 note 4} Baillie, Letters, ii. 69–71.

^{page 157 note 1} Ibid., ii. 94–5.

^{page 157 note 2} Ibid., ii. 69, 91.

^{page 157 note 3} Guthry, Memoirs, 136–7.

^{page 158 note 1} Baillie, Letters, ii. 1.

^{page 158 note 2} Ibid., ii. 94; Peterkin, Records, 349.

^{page 158 note 3} Peterkin, Records, 359.

^{page 158 note 4} Rutherford, Letters, 616, 618, 619.

^{page 158 note 5} Minutes of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, ed. Mitchell, A. F. and Struthers, J., Edinburgh 1874, 28.Google Scholar

^{page 159 note 1} [A. Henderson], Reformation of Church-Government in Scotland, Cleered from some Mistakes and Prejudices, by the Commissioners of the Generall Assembly of the Church of Scotland, now at London, London 1644, 15–16.

^{page 159 note 2} Peterkin, Records, 422.

^{page 159 note 3} Ibid., 418–19, 421–2; Baillie, Letters, ii. 123, 258–60; Sprott, Worship of the Kirk, 22–5; Livingston, Psalter, 67; Gillespie, G.. Notes of the Debates and Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines and other Commissioners at Westminster, Edinburgh 1846, 108.Google Scholar

^{page 160 note 1} Sprott, Worship of the Church, 26.

^{page 160 note 2} Guthry, Memoirs, 221, 230; The Records of the Commissioners of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, ed. Mitchell, A. F. and Christie, J., Scottish History Society 1892–1909, i. 7–9Google Scholar, 16, 23–7, 29–30, 34, 39–44. 7–3, 107, 137–8, 142, 198, 226, 237, 239–40.

^{page 160 note 3} Baillie, Letters, ii. 20.

^{page 160 note 4} Peterkin, Records, 476.

^{page 161 note 1} Ibid., 472–4; Baillie, Letters, iii. 15.

^{page 161 note 2} Gordon, History, iii. 222; Robert Mitchell, one of the ringleaders of the Stirling conventiclers in 1639, was abused as a ‘false puritane knave’ for having had a hand in the removal of Guthry, Maitland Miscellany, I. ii. 477, 484.

^{page 161 note 3} GUL, MS. Gen. 1209, 19; Maxwell, Worship, 90–1. Conversely some radicals benefited from the fall of the Engagers; in 1648 the veteran holder of private meetings, John Mean, was elected a member of the committee of estates for the first time and was appointed postmaster of Edinburgh: SRO, PA.11/7, Register of the Committee of Estates, 1648–9, fols. 11^v, 79^v–80^r, 122^v. In 1649 he was elected to the burgh council for the first time: Extracts from the Records of Edinburgh, 1642–55, ed. Wood, M., Edinburgh 1938 213.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 1} Scott, Fasti, ii. 99, iii. 8–9, 35, 105, 119–20, iv. 289–90, 318–19, vi. 37, vii. 419.

^{page 163 note 1} Ibid., ii. 348, 417.

^{page 163 note 2} Ibid., i. 65, v. 232–3.

^{page 163 note 3} Many of the few Scots who became Independents in the 1650s had been protesters, but none of the protesters who had been prominent among the radicals in the 1640s were among them: Henderson, G. D., ‘Some Early Scottish Independents’, Religious Life in Seventeenth Century Scotland, Cambridge 1937, 107–16Google Scholar; Hoy, ‘The Entry of Sects into Scotland’, in Shaw, Reformation and Revolution, 18:–7.

^{page 164 note 1} Quoted in Lamont, W. M., Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1603–60, London 1969, 145.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 2} Donaldson, G., Scotland: James V to James VII, Edinburgh and London 1965, 366.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 3} Henderson, G. D., The Claims of the Church of Scotland, London 1951, 101.Google Scholar For the prayer societies see Fawcett, A., The Cambuslang Revival, London 1971, 55–74.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 4} Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?’, Journal of Scottish Theology, xxiii. 51–76, esp. 70.

^{page 164 note 5} Quoted in Bumet, G. B., The Holy Communion in the Reformed Church of Scotland, Edinburgh and London 1960, 129.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 6} For the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ Churches, see Morgan, E. S., Visible Saints: the History of a Puritan Idea, Ithaca 1965.Google Scholar

^{page 165 note 1} Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?’, 70.

^{page 165 note 2} Ibid., 68.

^{page 165 note 3} See Lamont, Godly Rule, 146–7.

^{page 165 note 4} Quoted in Dallison, A. R., ‘Contemporary Criticism of Millenarianism’, in Puritans, the Millennium and the Future of Israel: Puritan Eschatology 1600 to 1660, ed. Toon, P., Cambridge and London 1970, 106.Google Scholar

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