A Great Grievance - Laurence A.B. Whitley

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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_e24c1a7c-8f8a-5adf-9541-aad4ea4a2e8c">48. Baillie, Letters, iii, 94.

      Chapter Four

      The Restoration

      Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, and the power–base he had built up began slowly to crumble. With disorder mounting in the south, General Monck1 decided at the end of the following year to remove his army from Scotland and march to London. Arriving early in 1660, he restored Parliament to its full membership which then dissolved itself in order to elect a Convention Parliament. Since the latter was dominated by those in favor of the monarchy, the way had now cleared for its restoration. Charles was duly affirmed as king on 8 May 1660, and he returned from exile two weeks later.

      Since 1654, the cause of the Resolutioners had been promoted at London by the minister of Crail (St Andrews presbytery), James Sharp#. He continued this role through the change from commonwealth into royal rule, and after initially reporting that Charles was resolved to be coy about ecclesiastical arrangements for Scotland, eventually returned north bearing a letter from the king for circulation to the presbyteries. Dated 10 August 1660, the letter promised to protect and preserve the government of the Kirk as settled by law, recognized the Assemblies of 1651 (a signal to the Protesters of royal disfavor) and gave notice that another would be called as soon as possible.2 It was to be a false assurance.

      When the Scottish Parliament re-convened on the 1 January 1661, a programme of legislation ensued which began to dismantle most of what the Covenanters had gained since 1638. Its initial enactment was to approve an Oath of Allegiance which bound the subscriber to acknowledge the king as supreme governor “in all causes.”3 On 9 February, the passage of the Act approving the Engagement 1648 and annulling the parliament and committees 16494 meant that patronage was no longer abolished. Then on 28 March, the Act Rescissory annulled the “pretendit” parliaments of 1640, 1641, 1644, 1645, 1646, 1647 and 1648.5 On the 18 June, the Act anent presentation of ministers not only warned patrons to be careful about whom they presented, but specified that entrants must take the oath of allegiance or the presentation became void.6

      Meanwhile, progress towards the restoration of episcopacy continued, and Sharp himself and three others were consecrated in London on the 15 December. At the new Scottish Parliament in May 1662, bishops and archbishops were formally restored, after which an Act was approved which condemned the Covenants.7 The measure which acted as a watershed, however, came on the 11 June, with the Act concerning such benefices and stipends as have been possest without presentations from the lawful patron.8 Under its terms, if anyone had been settled since 1649, they had no right to the stipend, manse or glebe and their charge was to be regarded as vacant. However, any minister who applied to his patron, received a presentation (which the patron was bound to bestow) and received collation from the bishop before 20 September,9 could enjoy his position as before. Failure to comply gave the patron the right to present another by 20 March, otherwise the presentation fell to the bishop, jure devoluto.

      To be fair to Charles, his original instructions to his commissioner to Parliament, John, Earl of Middleton, did not include the requirement for episcopal collation and it is possible that it was added simply out of malice by the fiercely anti-presbyterian Earl.10 Either way, if the original intention of the Act had been—apart from reinforcing the principle of patronage—to rid the Church of a few Protester radicals, Middleton’s addition, together with the severity with which he prosecuted recalcitrants, triggered a large-scale exodus of ministers from their parishes. Instead of isolating and dispersing those whom Middleton saw as extremists, the policy united them and drew in support from Resolutioners as well. Over the next five years, between a quarter and a third of the country’s approximately 952 ministers were deprived of their livings,11 mostly south of the Tay. Their places were often filled with candidates imported from elsewhere, particularly the more conservative and conformist north-east.12 The new presentees were widely known by the derogatory term of “king’s curates,” and it is noticeable, in areas like Dumfries and Galloway where feelings ran highest against them, that the lay patrons opted to deflect popular opprobrium away from themselves by eschewing their right to present

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