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In Gillespie’s view, the most sensible course was for the eldership of a vacant church, with the advice of the “ablest and wisest men of the congregation, especially . . . magistrates,” to elect a candidate, and then seek the congregation’s consent for their choice. This consent was not, in Gillespie’s eyes, to be considered a suffrage. The eldership had already decided the issue: their secondary task was to strive to carry with them at least the majority of the congregation.

The problem with Gillespie’s plan was that it contained too much room for uncertainty, especially over the issues of advice and dissent—a difficulty remarked upon by one contemporary commentator, who felt he would “not contend to understand all the particulaires mentioned.”47 For men like Rutherford and Wood, however, there was no need for such confusion. Whereas Gillespie’s concern was not to promote the franchise of the untutored many over the privileged few, but rather to keep what he saw as a spiritual act (vacancy–filling) in the hands of the church’s spiritually–commissioned officers, in Rutherford and Wood’s eyes, the issue was otherwise. The question for them was straightforward: the power of election resided “in the body of the people, contradistinct from their eldership.”48 It was a premise they promoted with some passion.

      The most bitter resistance to Gillespie’s views, however, came from David Calderwood. His revulsion against congregationalism, expressed at the time of the Westminster Assembly (see above), led him to feel that any arrangement which did not make presbytery unequivocally the electors (although the people could dissent), was a betrayal of presbyterianism. Baillie records that the sharpness of his protestations were such that he was fortunate to escape censure, although the court did afford him the honor of commissioning a written response to his objections.

The paper reveals how the main constituent of Calderwood’s argument was that the Assembly’s inclinations were a departure from the Second Book of Discipline, which had stated: “Election is the choosing out of a person or persons, most able for the office that vaikes, by the judgement of the eldership [i.e., presbytery] and consent of the congregation.”49 In reply to this, it was argued that church and society had moved on since that era. Since the Book did not “determine every particular belonging to the practice of election,” and that nothing in the new version was contrary to God’s word, men were surely free to alter the doctrines of men. Then, moving their reasoning onto less certain ground, the authors claim that the Book did not give the power of choosing to the presbytery only “as if the consent of the people were not an essential ingredient and part of election,” but to both jointly. Accordingly, the kirk session is not given “complete and free” election, but only a nomination by vote, which the people must acquiesce with.50

      The respondents’ answers underline the difficulties encountered by the Church when it sought to make the second Book its guide on the planting of parishes. Baillie watched the interpretations ebb and flow and considered Calderwood had the better of the argument, nevertheless his own inclinations remained with the majority who favored a version of Gillespie’s ideas. The general sticking-point for the Assembly, however, remained the matter of how the candidate(s) for nomination were to be brought to the attention of the session—was presbytery to be the sole source? In the event, a compromise was reached whereby the presbytery would send candidates to be heard, but if the session petitioned them to allow, in addition, a hearing of someone else, then they would endeavor to facilitate it.

In reality, since malignant congregations (or their sessions) were to be denied participation in the vacancy process, the directory’s final form ended up giving most advantage to the presbyteries. Baillie, however, still disliked the plan, believing there was a danger presbyteries might decide to hold back altogether from becoming involved, and thereby leave the field clear for trouble-makers to promote the cause of virtually anyone.51 In the event, the ensuing political upheavals brought about a situation even worse than he imagined.

      The Period of Cromwell

      The beheading of Charles I on the 30 January 1649 caused a pro-royalist reaction north of the border. Partly because of this and partly through annoyance that the execution had been done without any consultation, the Scots Parliament proclaimed the Prince of Wales as the new king on the 5 February. Two days later, it passed further legislation, clarifying the limitations to be put upon his authority and making presbyterianism and the Covenants a central fixture to any subsequent negotiations with him. Commissioners were sent to Charles in Holland but because of his reluctance to agree to any of the key conditions, nothing was settled until a year had passed. By May 1650, Charles realized he was running out of options for regaining his throne and accordingly came to terms at Breda, although it was not until actually arriving at Speymouth that he finally, on the 23 June, subscribed the Covenants. News of Charles’s return stimulated Cromwell into action and he crossed the Tweed with an army on the 22 July. The Scots army, although larger, was weakened by purging of its supposed malignant elements, and was routed at the battle of Dunbar on the 3 September.

The Dunbar disaster damaged the Kirk’s credibility and coherence. The Covenanting hardliners in the south and west (especially Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Galloway) banded together52 and issued, on 17 October, a Remonstrance in which they detached themselves from supporting the king’s cause unless he showed real repentance for his sins and repudiated the company of malignants. During November, both the Committee of Estates and the Assembly Commission conducted angry and divisive debates on the “Western Remonstrance” before deciding to reject it. Polarization of opinion increased when, in response to further success by the English forces at Hamilton (1 December), Parliament decided to approach the Church with a plan to bolster both national unity and military effectiveness by relaxing the ban on Engagers and royalists. The Commission’s reaction was to agree that the crisis warranted such a move, and gave it their approval on the 14 December. However, Parliament’s determination to rally mixed support and the Commission’s continued adherence to the policy, set the Kirk on the path to schism.

On the one side, moderates or “Resolutioners,” still hoped that Charles would live up to the trust placed in him, and they gave their blessing to his coronation at Scone on the 1 January 1651. In addition, on the second and third of June, they agreed to the repeal of the Act of Classes of 1649, which had discriminated against malignants, and also approved the Act against the Western Remonstrance, which demanded that it be formally renounced by its adherents.53 On the other side, the Remonstrant party, led especially by James Guthrie (Stirling first charge) and Patrick Gillespie (Outer High kirk, Glasgow), clamored with mounting disgust against what it saw as the Church’s defections. Matters climaxed over the General Assemblies held, because of the advance of Cromwell’s army, at St. Andrews and Dundee in July and August. A clumsy attempt to prevent opponents of the Resolutioners from attending resulted in angry scenes and a protest being lodged by Rutherford, after which over twenty colleagues joined him in walking out. From this point, a bitter breach opened up between the Resolutioners and the Remonstrants (or Protesters), who thereafter refused to countenance the validity of the Assemblies. Unfortunately for the former, their backing for Charles’s invasion of England and subsequent defeat at Worcester on the 3 September, meant that as Cromwell now took control of Scotland, his administration throughout the 1650s would give its favor to their numerically inferior rivals.54

      The Settlement of Vacancies

      Although the 1649 directory was in place at the start of the period of the Protectorate, any assessment of how it worked is immediately complicated by the partisan split within the Kirk and the readiness of the state to interfere. This began on the 4 June 1652, when Cromwell’s commissioners announced that they were intending to purge the Kirk of all unsatisfactory ministers and replace them with those

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