CHAPTER XXV.

CHARLES THE SECOND. THE KINGDOM UNDER CROMWELL.

PARLIAMENT was sitting when the intelligence of the King's execution reached Scotland, and immediately, on the 5th of February, 1649, proclaimed his eldest son, Charles II., King of Scotland. The national sentiment of the Scots was decidedly in favour of monarchical government; their Covenants recognised it, and they had no idea of setting up a republic. They had no special objections to kingly authority, when it was exercised according to what they conceived to be the word of God and the constitution of the kingdom; while the English Independents and sectaries directly discarded both king and monarchy, which was only one among many points of difference between them and the Covenanters.

Two days after the proclamation of Charles II., the Estates emphatically expressed the sentiment and the feeling of the nation, by passing an act, which declared that, before this young prince or any of his successors should be admitted to the exercise of the kingly power, he should sign and swear the National Covenant, and the Solemn League and Covenant; that he should, for himself and his successors, consent to the acts of parliament enjoining the Solemn League and Covenant, and fully establishing Presbyterianism, the Directory of Worship, the Confession of Faith, and the Catechisms; that he should observe these in his own family; and that he should never oppose or attempt to change any of these things. Further, before being admitted to the exercise of his royal functions, he should dismiss and

relinquish all counsel of those opposed to religion and to the Covenants; and give satisfaction to the Parliament of Scotland in whatever else should be found requisite for settling a lasting peace, preserving the union between the kingdoms, or for the good of the crown, and his own honour and happiness; and consent that all civil matters should be settled by the parliament of the kingdom, and ecclesiastical matters by the General Assembly.1

On the 6th of March, 1649, the Estates commissioned the Earl of Cassillis and other members, the Rev. Robert Baillie and other two from the Church, to proceed to the young king in Holland, and offer him the crown on the conditions indicated in the last paragraph. They were admitted to an interview with the prince on the 27th of March, and attempts were made to treat. They tried to persuade him to sign the Covenants, insisting that this would gain for him the support of the Scots and the whole Presbyterian party. Many papers passed between the king and the Scotch commissioners; but Charles declined to commit himself, and no definite conclusions were arrived at. The commissioners returned to Scotland, and reported their proceding to the Estates on the 14th of June, which were all approved.2

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh, on the 7th of July, 1649, and passed some remarkable acts. It was enacted

1 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VI., pp. 363-364. This parliament, on the 9th of March, passed an act abolishing patronage, on the ground that it was unwarranted in Scripture, and merely introduced in times of ignorance and superstition; that it was an evil and a bondage, under which the Lord's people and ministers of Scotland had long groaned. Vol. VI., pp. 411-413. Of this act Balfour says:"The parliament passed a most strange act this month, abolishing the patronages of kirks, which pertained to laymen ever since Christianity was planted in Scotland. The Earl of Buccleuch and some others protested against this, as altogether derogatory to the just rights of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom of Scotland, and so departed out of the house. But it was carried. . . . Johnston, the Kirk's minion, durst not do otherwise, lest the leaders of the Church should desert them, and leave them to stand on their own feet, which without the Church none of them could well do."-Annals of Scot., Vol. III., p. 391.

2 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VI., pp. 400, 451-459; Baillie's Letters and Journals, Vol. III., pp. 84-90, 508-521.

that all who had been in any way concerned with the late engagement, should be deemed malignants, and must submit either to the discipline of the Church, or to excommunication, and that the army and the parliament should be thoroughly purged of malignants. For the instruction of the people the assembly issued this statement:"1. That as magistrates and their power are ordained of God, so are they, in the exercise thereof, not to walk according to their own will, but according to the law of equity and righteousness, as being the ministers of God, for the safety of His people. Therefore, a boundless and unlimited power is not to be acknowledged in any king or magistrate, neither is our king to be admitted to the exercise of his authority, as long as he refuses to walk in the administration of the same, according to this rule, and the established laws of the kingdom. 2. That there is a mutual obligation and stipulation between the king and his people, for the performance of mutual and reciprocal duties. 3. That arbitrary government, and unlimited power, are the fountains of all corruption in the Church and in the State. 4. That it is no new thing for kingdoms to preserve themselves from ruin by putting restraint upon the exercise of the power and government of those who have refused to grant the things that were necessary for the good of religion, and the safety of the people."

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3 Peterkin's Records of the Church of Scotland. This Assembly passed an act on the election of ministers, intended to carry out the act abolishing patronage. When a vacancy occurred, the kirk-session of the parish were to elect a minister, and if this person was accepted by the congregation, the presbytery were to proceed and try his qualifications, and if he was found to be properly qualified, then to admit him to his office. When a majority of the congregation dissented from the choice of the session, then the matter was to be brought before the presbytery, who were to judge of it; and if they found reasonable ground of dissent, they were to appoint a new election. If the dissent came from a mere minority of the congregation, it was not to be sustained, except on sufficient reasons shown to the presbytery. But, when the congregation were disaffected or malignant, the presbytery was to appoint a minister for them. There was a long debate on this act in the Assembly. Calderwood maintained that, according to the Second Book of Discipline, the election should belong to the presbytery, and that the people had only the right to dissent for reasons to be judged by the presbytery,

Treating with the King was resumed at Breda, early in the spring of 1650. The conditions were the same as those offered to the prince before; but it was thought that circumstances were now more favourable, as all hope of assistance from Ireland had been blasted by the victories of Cromwell there; and the youthful prince began to think of consenting to the conditions of the Covenanters. After some treating the King agreed to the propositions of the Scots, then embarked for the home of his ancestors, and arrived at the mouth of the Spey on the 23rd of June. There he signed the Covenant, and having landed next day, proceeded thence southwards. The Scots had now got a king, and as they had resolved that he should conform to their principles and to their modes of life, there were every morning and evening lectures, from which the prince was never permitted to be absent.1

Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VI., pp. 513-514, 516, 535-536; Balfour's Annals, Vol. IV., pp. 68, 73. Burnet says:- "The King wrought himself into as grave a deportment as he could: he heard many prayers and sermons, some of great length. I remember on one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there myself, and not a little weary of so tedious a service. The King was not allowed so much as a walk abroad on Sundays; and if at any time there had been any gaiety at court, such as dancing or playing cards, he was severely reproved. This was managed with so much rigour and so little discretion, that it contributed not a little to beget in him an aversion to all sort of strictness in religion."-History of his Own Time, Vol. I., pp. 91-92.

Carlyle has some curious remarks on the Covenant. "The meaning of the Scotch Covenant was, that God's Divine Law of the Bible should be put in practice in these nations; verily it, and not the four surplices at Allhallowtide, or any formula of cloth or sheepskin here or elsewhere which merely pretended to be it: but then the Covenant says expressly, there is to be a Stuart King in the business we cannot do without our Stuart King. Given a Divine Law of the Bible on the one hand, and a Stuart King, Charles First or Charles Second, on the other: alas, did history ever present a more irreducible case of equations in this world? I pity the poor Scotch pedant governors; still more the poor Scotch people who had no other to follow. Nay, as for that, the people did get through in the end, such was their indomitable pious consistency, and other worth and fortune: and presbytery became a fact among them, to the whole length possible for it, not without endless results. But for the poor governors this irreducible case proved, as it were, fatal. They have never since, if we look narrowly at it, governed Scotland, or even well known that they were to attempt governing it. Once they lay on Dunse Hill, each earl with his regiment of tenants round him, for Christ's Crown and Covenant; and never since had they

The Scots were bitterly opposed to the party at the head of the Commonwealth in England, while this party could not afford to remain passive observers of the movement in behalf of the

any whole national act which it was given them to do. Growing desperate of Christ's Crown and Covenant, they in the next generation, when our Annus Mirabilis arrived, hurried up to court, looking out for their crowns and covenants; deserted Scotland and her cause, somewhat basely; took to booing and booing for causes of their own, unhappy mortals ;-and Scotland, and all causes that were Scotland's, have had to go very much without them ever since. Which is a very fatal issue indeed, as I reckon ;- and the time for the settlement of accounts about it, which will not fail always, and seems now fast drawing nigh, looks very ominous to me.

"But leaving all that, the poor Scotch governors, we remark, in that old crisis of theirs, have come upon the desperate expedient of getting Charles the Second to adopt the Covenant the best he can. Whereby our parchment formula is indeed served; but the divine fact has gone terribly to the wall. The Scotch governors think otherwise. By treaties at Jersey, treaties at Breada, they and the hard law of want together have constrained this poor young Stuart to their detested Covenant, as the Frenchman said, they have compelled him to adopt it voluntarily. A fearful crime, thinks Oliver, and think me. How dare you exact such mummery under high heaven? exclaims he. You will prosecute malignants; and with the aid of some poor varnish, transparent even to yourselves, you adopt into your bosom the chief malignant. My soul come not into your secret ; mine honour be not united unto you."-Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, Vol. II., pp. 4-5.

Many declarations and papers passed between the English and the Scotch governinents at this time, and between Cromwell and the Covenanters. This is from a letter of Cromwell's to the commission of the Church of Scotland, the 3rd of August, 1650:-"Your own guilt is too much for you to bear: bring not, therefore, upon yourselves the blood of innocent men-deceived with pretences of King and Covenant-from whose eyes you hide a better knowledge. I am persuaded that divers of you, who lead the people, have laboured to build yourselves in these things; wherein you have censured others 'upon the Word of God'. Is it, therefore, infallibly agreeable to the Word of God, all that you say? I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. Precept may be upon precept, line upon line, and yet the Word of the Lord may be to some a word of judgment: that they may fall backward and be broken, and be snared and be taken. . . . There may be a Covenant made with Death and Hell. I will not say yours was so. But judge if such things have a politic aim to avoid the overflowing scourge, or to accomplish worldly interests? And if therein we have confederated with wicked and cruel men, and have respect for them, or otherwise have drawn them into association with us, whether this be a Covenant of God, and spiritual. Bethink yourselves, we hope we do. I pray you read the twenty-eighth of Isaiah, from the fifth to the fifteenth verse. And do not scorn to know that it is the spirit that quickens and gives life. The Lord give you and us understanding to do that which is well-pleasing in His sight."Vol. II., pp. 20-21.