This excluded most Presbyterians from holding official positions of trust. The act required all persons taking public office to take the Oath of Abjuration not to take arms against the king and reject the Covenants. These were declared to be against the fundamental laws of the kingdom. The Abjuration Act of 1662 was a formal rejection of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. The Rescissory Act 1661 repealed all laws made since 1633, effectively ejecting 400 ministers from their livings, restoring patronage in the appointment of ministers to congregations and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. There was freedom of religion under the Commonwealth, except for Roman Catholics, but the edicts of the kirk's assemblies were no longer enforced by law.Īt his restoration in 1660 the king reneged on the terms of the treaty and his oath of covenant the Scottish Covenanters saw this as a betrayal. The resulting annexation of Scotland by the Commonwealth of England abolished Scotland's legislative institutions and disestablished Presbyterianism. The army associated with the kirk party under David Leslie, 1st Lord Newark was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650, while the English parliamentarian New Model Army had taken Edinburgh and much of Lowland Scotland. Charles II was crowned King of Scots in Scone in January 1651, but by then the terms agreed at Breda were already a dead letter. After the king's execution in 1649, the Covenanter government, in order to protect the Presbyterian polity and Calvinist doctrine of the Church of Scotland, signed the Treaty of Breda (1650) restoring Charles' son to the Scottish throne and supporting him against the English parliamentary forces as Charles II. By doing so, he hoped to exploit divisions between Presbyterians and English Independents.Īs a result, the Scots supported Charles in the 1648 Second English Civil War. After his defeat in May 1646, Charles I surrendered to the Scots Covenanters, rather than parliament. In 1638, thousands of Scots signed the National Covenant, pledging to resist changes imposed by Charles on the kirk following victory in the 16 Bishops' Wars, the Covenanters took control of Scotland, and the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant brought them into the First English Civil War on the side of parliament. The origins of the movement lay in disputes with James VI and his son Charles I over church structure and doctrine. The name is derived from covenant, a biblical term for a bond or agreement with God. An example of the flags flown by the Covenanters Ĭovenanters ( Scottish Gaelic: Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. For the British tank, see Covenanter tank. For the 1949 petition for Scottish home rule, see Scottish Covenant. This article is about the supporters of the 1638 Scottish National Covenant.
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