History of the Stewarts | Battles and Historic Events
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The Killing Times
When Charles I became king in 1625, his policy of High church Anglicanism and state control over spiritual matters of the church antagonised many Scots. This culminated in the 1638 National Covenant which was a widespread popular expression of protest at the King´s policy. Ultimately this resulted in war. On the 5th February 1649, Six days after the English Parliament executed the King, the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland" at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he accepted Presbyterianism throughout Britain and Ireland.
However, at his Restoration in 1660, the King renounced the terms of the Treaty and his Oath of Covenant, which the Scottish Covenanters saw as a betrayal. The Rescissory Act 1661 repealed all laws made since 1633, effectively ejecting 400 Ministers from their livings, restoring patronage in the appointment of Ministers to congregations and allowing the King to proclaim the restoration of Bishops to the Church of Scotland. The Abjuration Act of 1662 was a formal rejection of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. These were declared to be against the fundamental laws of the kingdom. The Act required all persons taking public office to take an oath of abjuration not to take arms against the king, and rejecting the Covenants. This excluded most Presbyterians from holding official positions of trust. Essentially, this returned church governance to the situation that existed prior to the expulsion of the bishops by the Glasgow General Assembly in 1638 and overthrew the Presbyterian form of organisation favoured by the Covenanters. Church ministers were therefore confronted with a choice: accept the new situation or lose their livings. Up to a third of the ministry refused. Many ministers chose voluntarily to abandon their own parishes rather than wait to be forced out by the government. Most of the vacancies occurred in the south-west, an area particularly strong in its Covenanting sympathies. Some of the ministers also took to preaching in the open fields in conventicles, often attracting thousands of worshippers.
The Stuart monarchy, worried about the possibility of disorder and rebellion, attempted to stamp the movement out, with varying degrees of success. Fines were levied upon those who failed to attend the parish churches of the "King´s curates", the death penalty was imposed for preaching at field conventicles, and torture of suspects with the boot and thumbscrews became a tactic of first resort. In 1678, some 3,000 Lowland militia and 6,000 Highlanders (the ´Highland Host´) were billeted in the Covenanting shires and plundered their unwilling hosts.These policies provoked armed rebellions in 1666 and 1679, which were quickly suppressed.
The early summer of 1679 saw an escalation of civil unrest with the assassination of the Scottish Primate, the Archbishop of St Andrews James Sharp and the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. The Sanquhar Declaration of 1680 declared the people could not accept the authority of a King who would not recognise their religion, nor commit to his previous oaths. Read publicly at Sanquhar by a group of Covenanters led by the Reverend Richard Cameron, it renounced all allegiance to Charles II and opposed the succession of his brother James, Duke of York, a Roman Catholic. In February 1685 the King died and was succeeded by his brother as King James VII.
In response to this rebellion, the Scottish Privy Council authorised extra-judicial field executions of those caught in arms or those who refused to swear loyalty to the King and renounce the Covenant. This Oath of Abjuration was specifically designed to be repugnant to Covenanters and thereby act as a "sieve, the mesh of which would winnow the loyal from the disloyal." John Graham, Laird of Claverhouse was commissioned to carry out the orders of the Privy Council and was responsible for various summary executions which earned him the name "Bluidy Clavers" by the Covenanters.
The persecution ended with the accession of William of Orange as King William II of Scotland in 1688 and the acceptance of Scottish Presbyterianism by the Act of Settlement 1690. The execution of James Renwick in 1688 is regarded as closing the period of martyrdom.