Revolution and Counter-revolution in Scotland, 1644-51 E-Book

David Stevenson

• Herausgeber: John Donald
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2003

Beschreibung

In 1644 a massive Scottish army of Scottish Covenanters moved over the border into England, claiming they were not invading their neighbour but acting to save its liberties, by helping ensure that the absolutist King Charles I did not win the civil war he was fighting with the English parliament. It was a daring move but the Covenanters believed it a necessary for defensive reasons, for if Charles triumphed over parliament in England he would then attempt to overthrow the Covenanters' regime. More positive ambitions were also involved. Having won the English civil war, the Scots then planned to impose a settlement that protected Scotland's political position under the union of the crowns, and force on England and Ireland Scotland's Presbyterian church. The Covenanters proved over-ambitious and over-confident, driven by their conviction that God would being them triumph. They did play a decisive role in parliament's victory, but not in the sensational way they had hoped, and the English were reluctant to give them credit - or to accept the Scottish vision of a Scottish-dominated, Presbyterian Britain. Moreover, invading England provoked a major Royalist rebellion in Scotland, led by the Marquis of Montrose. Disillusioned by the English parliament, some sought a compromise with the king, but a new invasion of England in 1648 led to disaster. Extremist covenanters then seized power in Scotland, and sought to impose radical policies, but they were forced by a growing royalist revival to again fall back on monarchy, provoking English invasion led by Oliver Cromwell. This volume continues the story begun in The Scottish Revolution of the Covenanters' sudden rise to power, but how their soaring ambitions and religious zeal in the end led Scotland to an unparalleled disaster. Scotland had long boasted of being 'the never conquered nation.' The legacy of the Covenanters was that Scotland could never make that boast again. It is a book that will appeal to scholars and students of the civil wars, as well as to all those with an interest in this fascinating and turbulent period in Scottish - and indeed British - history.

Leseprobe

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN SCOTLAND, 1644–1651

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN SCOTLAND, 1644–1651

DAVID STEVENSON

This eBook was published in Great Britain in 2021 by John Donald,

an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

First published in Great Britain in 1977 by the Royal Historical. Society, London

This revised edition was published in 2003 by John Donald

Copyright © David Stevenson, 1977 and 2003

eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 388 0

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

The right of David Stevenson to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988

To Wendy

Contents

List of Maps

List of Illustrations

Conventions and Abbreviations

Preface to the First Edition

Foreword

1 Civil War in England and Scotland, January 1644–September 1645

Intervention in England and Royalist Reaction in Scotland

The Treaty of Uxbridge

Montrose’s Year of Victories: Tippermuir to Inverlochy

Montrose’s Year of Victories: Auldearn to Kilsyth

Philiphaugh

2 The End of the Civil War in England, September 1645–January 1647

The Re-establishment of the Covenanting Regime and the 1646 Campaign in Scotland

Negotiation between the King and the Scots

The Propositions of Newcastle

The Disposal of the King

3 The Engagement, January 1647–September 1648

The End of the War in Scotland

Political Changes in England and Scotland

The Engagement

The Reception of the Engagement in Scotland

The Levying of the Army of the Engagement

The Invasion of England

The Whiggamore Raid and the Treaty of Stirling

4 The Rule of the Kirk Party, September 1648–September 1650

The Consolidation of the Regime and the Execution of the King

The Proclaiming of Charles II and the Purging of the Engagers

New Radical Policies

The Assault on Sin and Witchcraft

Pluscardine’s Rising and the Treaty of the Hague

Negotiations with the King and the Landing of Montrose

The Treaty of Breda and the Death of Montrose

A Covenanted King

5 The Cromwellian Conquest, September 1650–December 1651

Growing Opposition to the Regime: The Start

The Remonstrance and the Collapse of the Western Association

Resolutioners and Protestors: The Fall of the Kirk Party

Conquest

6 The Scottish Revolution

From Revolution to Counter Revolution

The Problem of Union

The Kirk

The Conservative Revolution

Revolution and Restoration

Notes

Bibliography

Maps

Notes on the Maps

Index

List of Maps

1 Scotland

2 Montrose’s Campaigns, August 1644–April 1645

3 Montrose’s Campaigns, April–August 1645

4 Scottish Campaigns in England, 1640–51

5 Scotland: Synods and Presbyteries in the 1640s

List of Illustrations

1 God’s Wars. Print by Wenceslaus Hollar.

2 John Lindsay, earl of Crawford-Lindsay (died 1678)

3 John Campbell, 1st earl of Loudoun (died 1664)

4 James, 1st duke of Hamilton (died 1649)

5 William Hamilton, 1st earl of Lanark and 2nd duke of Hamilton (died 1651) and John Maitland, 2nd earl and 1st duke of Lauderdale (died 1682)

6 The Independency of England. Title page of an English pamphlet, 1647.

7 Medal commemorating James, 1st marquis of Montrose, executed in 1650.

8 The Maiden.

9 The Scots Holding Their Young Kinges Nose to ye Grinstone. An English satirical print on the strict control the ministers of the kirk party exercised over Charles II after he arrived in Scotland in 1650.

10A The Coronation of King Charles II at Scone, 1 January 1651. Medal commemorating the event designed by Sir James Balfour of Denmylne, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, and cast in gold and silver.

10B The Coronation of King Charles II at Scone, 1 January 1651.

11 Leather Guns designed by James Wemyss, General of the Artillery in Scotland 1649–51.

12 The Battle of Dunbar, 3 September 1651.

Conventions and Abbreviations

Dates.  Old Style dates (as used in contemporary Britain) are used throughout, New Style dates as used on the Continent (ten days ahead of the Old Style) being adjusted where necessary. The new year is taken to begin on 1 January (the Scottish usage), not 25 March (English usage).

Quotations.  All abbreviations are extended, but otherwise the original spelling and punctuation are retained.

Money.  The £ sterling was worth £12 Scots in the seventeenth century.

References.  Details of a work are normally given the first time it is cited, with short title references thereafter. All MSS cited without any location being given are in the National Archives of Scotland (formerly the Scottish Record Office). All printed works are published in London unless otherwise stated.

The following abbreviations are used.

Aber Recs

Extracts from the Council Registers of the Burgh of Aberdeen 1625–42 and 1643–1747, ed. J. Stuart (SBRS 1871–2)

APS

The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson and C. Innes (12 vols., 1814–75). The new edition (1870–2) of vols. v and vi has been used.

CJ

Journals of the House of Commons

CSPD

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic

Edin Recs

Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1626–41 and 1642–55, ed. M. Wood (Edinburgh 1936–8)

EHR

English Historical Review

Glasgow Recs

Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Glasgow 1573–1642 and 1630–1662, ed. J.D. Marwick (SBRS 1876–81)

HMC

Historical Manuscripts Commission. References to HMC publications take the form of serial number followed by the report and appendix numbers or the collection title, as recommended in Government Publications, Sectional List, No. 17

LJ

Journals of the House of Lords

NLS

National Library of Scotland

PRO

Public Record Office, London

RCGA

The Records of the Commissioners of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, 1646–52, ed. A.F. Mitchell and J. Christie (SHS 1892–1909)

RMS

Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, 1634–51, ed. J.M. Thomson (Edinburgh 1897)

RPCS

Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 2nd. series, ed. P.H. Brown (Edinburgh 1899–1908)

SBRS

Scottish Burgh Record Society

SHR

Scottish Historical Review

SHS

Scottish History Society

Stirling Recs

Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Stirling 1519–1666, ed. R. Renwick (Glasgow 1887)

TRHS

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Preface to the First Edition

This book sets out to provide a political history of the later stages of the rule of the covenanters in Scotland. My former book The Scottish Revolution, 1637–44. The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot 1973, reprinted Edinbury 2003) traced the origins and early successes of the covenanting movement; the present volume continues the story through the years in which the movement disintegrated under pressure both from England and from within. The years it covers, 1644–51, have received surprisingly little attention from Scottish historians; though a considerable amount has been written on Montrose’s campaigns and on Scottish intervention in England, even these topics have been dealt with in a very one-sided manner, being dealt with from the point of view of Montrose and of the English parliament respectively. Much new light can, I believe, be thrown on them, and indeed on the whole period, by looking at them from the standpoint of the covenanters, of their ambitions and difficulties. Abundant evidence survives, including many of the official records of the covenanting regime in the parliamentary papers in the Scottish Record Office, but little of it has ever been systematically exploited by historians. This book attempts to make use of such evidence to make sense of a sad but fascinating period in Scotland’s history.

Like its predecessor this volume has its origins in my Ph.D. thesis, ‘The Covenanters and the Government of Scotland, 1637–51’ (University of Glasgow 1970); the acknowledgements for assistance received in the course of my work are therefore similar in both books. Professor A.A.M. Duncan and Dr I.B. Cowan of the Department of Scottish History in Glasgow proved to be the most patient and helpful of supervisors for my thesis. Dr John Imrie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland, generously gave me much advice about this period of Scottish history and its surviving records. Conrad Russell, Bedford College, University of London, provided much useful criticism and comment. The staff of various libraries and record offices anonymously provided those services, all too often taken for granted, without which no book like this could be written.

Foreword

Revolution and Counter Revolution in Scotland, 1644–1651 (1977) followed on from my The Scottish Revolution (1973), which is also now being reprinted. The first book followed the fortunes of the Scottish covenanters in their resistance to Charles I. Remarkable initial success was followed by unavoidable political complications, in that the very success of their revolt helped spark off revolts and civil wars in Charles’s other two kingdoms, England and Ireland. Seeing Scotland’s fate as inextricably bound up in the results of these struggles, the Scots sent armies to intervene in both. These were in part bold and confident moves. The calvinist ideology of the covenanters was strong, and belief that God had clearly shown them his favour and brought them success against remarkable odds was inspiring. They were God’s Chosen People, and intervention in England and Ireland was God’s will. His favour would again bring them victory. Others were more sober. They saw military campaigns in the other kingdoms as risky political necessities There seemed no alternatives if Scotland was to avoid invasion, threatening not just the loss of all that had been achieved in the past few years but the imposition of a crushing royal despotism which would make Scotland’s pre-1637 grievances seem petty by comparison.

As either the doing of god’s will or taking a calculated political risk, military interventions proved initially hopeful in their results, but disappointing in the longer term, and ultimately disastrous. In Ireland a strong bridgehead was established in eastern Ulster, but defeating the Irish catholic rebels proved impossible. Stalemate ensued, followed by military defeat in 1646. In England the north of the country was successfully occupied, and a major role was played in the English parliament’s decisive victory over the king at Marston Moor in 1644–5. But once it became clear that the English parliament was on the road to victory, it emerged that it was not prepared to pay the price that it had promised in return for Scottish help—the imposition of presbyterianism in England and Ireland, and a political settlement which would protect Scotland’s position within Britain. The covenanters were unable to use the fact of having a large and aggressive army in England in bargaining with parliament, because invading England had provoked royalist rebellion in Scotland. A remarkable series of victories in 1644–5 by the marquis of Montrose threatened to destroy the covenanting regime, and had forced it to withdraw thousands of troops from England. Just when the covenanters most needed some muscle in peace negotiations in England their reputation had been shattered, and their military power seemed on the verge of collapse.

Battered and embittered, the Scots withdrew from England. Their confidence and unity collapsed. Some, though pathetically bewildered as to why god was no longer bringing them victory, believed that priority should still be given to serving his presbyterian will. But increasing numbers, particularly of noblemen, had doubts as to Scotland’s divine mission. Perhaps it would be better to concentrate on political matters. As the English parliament had betrayed them, perhaps an agreement with the king could be arranged, for surely now he had been defeated he would make concessions. The ‘Engagement’ treaty was cobbled together and a distinctly ramshackle invasion of England undertaken in 1648—which met with total defeat. The decision to support the king had split the covenanting movement into fragments, and The ‘kirk party’, which put religion before all else, had bitterly opposed it. With the defeat of the noble-dominated Engagers in England, the kirk party was able to seize power in Scotland and embark on a series of thorough purges of the church, state officials, parliament and the army to remove ‘malignants’. But soon the kirk party had to compromise to gain support for its continuing confrontation with the English parliament (which had complicated matters by executing Charles I and abolishing monarchy), and it drifted into an unhappy alliance with the young Charles II. This provoked English invasion and, ultimately, conquest.

Thus the subtitle of this book could well have been ‘downhill all the way’. The civil wars had begun in Scotland. Now they ended there, for the English had already conquered Ireland. In trying to assert her status within the Three Kingdoms of the Isles, and then (made arrogant by success) to dominate a settlement in them, the covenanters had brought on the country the ultimate disaster of foreign conquest.

Perhaps because the years 1644–51 are ones of Scottish failure and collapse, they still tend to be shunned by Scottish historians. Since my books were first published in the 1970s, much has been written on the years of covenanting success (see the Bibliographical Update included in the reprint of The Scottish Revolution), but very little specifically on the years of decline. Revolution and Counter Revolution thus may still be regarded as the fullest account of the period, and I am delighted that this reprint is to be illustrated. Photographs I collected thirty years ago in the hope that the first edition would be illustrated now at last appear.

DS 2003

CHAPTER ONE

Civil War in England and Scotland, January 1644–September 1645

INTERVENTION IN ENGLAND AND ROYALIST REACTION IN SCOTLAND

The army of the covenant, close to its nominal strength of 21,000 men, crossed the Tweed on 19 January 1644 under the command of Alexander Leslie, earl of Leven, the old mercenary soldier who had led the Scots armies in the Bishops’ Wars of 1639–40. The invading force met with little opposition until it reached Newcastle; the city refused to surrender and an assault failed,1 so Leven and the committee of estates accompanying his army turned to consolidating their hold on Northumberand and to raising supplies there for their army.2 They also wrote urgently demanding more men and supplies from Scotland, and entreated that the Scottish army in Ireland be transferred to England.3 The covenanters’ main executive body, the committee of estates in Edinburgh, was doing all it could to help the army, and on 1 February the convention of estates (virtually an informal parliament) ordered the northern shires which had not yet sent men to England to do so; but it also ordered all shires to prepare to raise a second levy, half the strength of the first.4 This was evidently intended to form a reserve army which could be brought together quickly to deal with any royalist rising or invasion, and the army in England therefore opposed the raising of it for fear that it would divert supplies and recruits from England.5

As to the army in Ireland, the convention confirmed an earlier agreement that if the English parliament did not pay some of its arrears it should leave Ireland. But Major General Robert Monro (who commanded the army) and some of his officers were determined to remain in Ireland, and many in Scotland supported them. A joint meeting of the committee of estates and the privy council on 22 February therefore reversed the decision of the convention and instructed the army to stay in Ireland to protect protestants there and prevent any invasion of Scotland by the confederate Irish catholic rebels.6 Before these new orders reached the army, however, three regiments had already sailed for Scotland; the others were furious at the orders but though they had been ready to disobey Monro they did not dare to defy the committee, and therefore reluctantly agreed to stay in Ireland for the present.7

This was a great disappointment to the army in England. Failure to send it sufficient supplies or reinforcements either from Scotland or Ireland left it ill equipped to undertake major operations, though in April it managed to advance to lay siege to York (having left men to besiege Newcastle), where it was joined by the parliamentary army of the Eastern Association.8 This, however, was not enough to save the army’s reputation; already it was widely felt that it was a failure. In the circumstances this was hardly fair. Though it had failed to bring any large royalist army to battle and had not captured either Newcastle or York, it had shut up many royalists in the two cities and its very presence in England constituted a threat that the royalists could not ignore, and thus it relieved pressure on parliament’s armies in the south. The trouble was that far too much had been expected of the Scots.9 The covenanters, full of crusading zeal and memories of how the king’s forces had fled before them in 1640, had expected their army to have an immediate decisive effect in England. The parliamentarians who had supported Scots intervention had had similar hopes, which were now dashed, while those who distrusted and feared the Scots now hastened to make capital out of their failure to live up to expectations, in the hope of preventing them gaining undue influence in English affairs.

The Scots therefore found that quick victory was no easier to achieve in religious and civil matters in England than in military ones. The general assembly had sent a distinguished team of advisers to aid the Westminster Assembly in reforming religion in England—five ministers (Alexander Henderson, Robert Douglas, Samuel Rutherford, Robert Baillie and George Gillespie) and three elders (the earl of Cassillis, Lord Maitland and Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston). But when the first of these commissioners reached London late in 1643 they soon found that ‘the best of the English have a verie ill will to employ our aid’;10 the Westminster Assembly had been set up to encourage the Scots to give parliament military help, not through any wish for immediate ecclesiastical reform. Though most of the members of the assembly favoured some sort of presbyterian system for England they were unwilling to accept the kirk as their model and wished to avoid offending the Independents unnecessarily. An English presbyterian minister could state ‘that by this covenant we are bound no more to conform to Scotland than Scotland to us’, an opinion that to most Scots seemed to deny one of the essential points of the solemn league and covenant. But Stephen Marshall (who had helped to negotiate the covenant) took a leading part in preventing divisions deepening and tempers rising by supporting compromise. The Independents also avoided being too outspoken; they might dislike Scots presbyterianism, but they recognised the need for alliance with the Scots until the civil war was won.11 The Scots found that weeks passed in indecisive debates and that their influence on them was limited. But they comforted themselves with the belief that all would change once the Scottish army showed parliament how to win the war—though in fairness it must be said that they too saw the need to preserve unity until victory was in sight, and therefore resolved to avoid any public quarrel with the Independents for the time being.12

The alliance between the two kingdoms inevitably gave rise to a need for frequent consultations between them about civil as well as religious affairs, especially over conduct of the war and peace negotiations with the king. English commissioners were therefore appointed to accompany the Scots army in England and its attendant committee of estates, and parliament asked the Scots to appoint commissioners to reside in London.13 This the Scots were eager to do, hoping that such commissioners ‘would get the guiding of all the affairs both of this State and Church’ (exactly the ambition that many English feared motivated the Scots), and on 3 January 1644 the convention of estates nominated the earl of Loudoun (chancellor of Scotland), Lord Maitland, Wariston and Robert Barclay to proceed to London to see the solemn league and covenant imposed in England, and to work to establish religious uniformity and the liberties of both kingdoms. Provided these ends were achieved they were to work with parliament to restore peace.14 When the commissioners reached London they found much division in parliament over who should have control of the day to day running of the war, parliament or a committee, and what part the Scots should be allowed in it. In the end it was agreed that a committee of both kingdoms, on which the Scots commissioners would sit, should be established with wide powers to ‘order and direct’ the war. Many had wished to give such power to parliament’s commander in chief, the earl of Essex, one of the main arguments in favour of this being that ‘it would avoid the Scots’ Power over us’, an indication of how deep suspicion of the Scots was, even though they only comprised a small minority on the joint committee.15

The Scots members of the committee were soon busy trying to get parliament to send money and supplies to their army and in debating joint peace proposals for presentation to the king.16 Like their colleagues attending the Westminster Assembly they did not express their views too forcibly at first, for they too expected that a quick victory by their army would bring them popularity and influence. They were soon disillusioned. Robert Baillie complained that ‘we are exceeding sadd, and ashamed that our armie, so much talked off, hes done as yet nothing at all. What can be the reason of it, we cannot guesse, only we think, that God, to humble our pride … hes not yet been pleased to assist them’.17 So much had been expected of the army that its moderate success was seen as complete failure.

As well as disappointments in England the covenanters had to face dangers at home caused by the activities of Scottish royalists. After King Charles I had imprisoned the duke of Hamilton in December 1643, for failing to prevent the covenanters allying themselves to the English parliament, he turned for advice to the extreme royalists who had long denounced Hamilton as a traitor and urged the need for armed resistance to the covenanters. Their spokesman was the earl of Montrose, and he quickly worked out plans for royalist risings to coincide with an invasion from Ireland, which was to be organised by the irrepressible earl of Antrim, who had recently escaped for the second time from imprisonment by the Scottish army in Ireland. Antrim had persuaded the confederate Irish to grant him the rank of lieutenant general, and then went to Oxford and presented himself to the king as being in effect the supreme commander of the Irish armies, in which capacity he offered to raise for the king 10,000 Irish soldiers for service in England and 3,000 for Scotland.’18 In spite of doubts as to Antrim’s reliability Charles commissioned him on 20 January 1644 to persuade the Irish to send 10,000 men to England and 2,000 to Scotland. In planning the Scottish venture Antrim was to work with Montrose, and he was empowered to offer Major General Monro an earldom and a pension of £2,000 sterling per annum if he and the Scottish army in Ireland would declare for the king. Eight days later Antrim (now general of the Isles and Highlands of Scotland) and Montrose (now lieutenant general of Scotland) signed a formal agreement whereby Montrose undertook to do his utmost to raise forces in the north, the east and on the Borders, and declare for the king by 1 April; Antrim promised to do all he could to raise forces in Ireland and the Western Isles and invade the marquis of Argyll’s estates with them by the same date.19

Montrose immediately began trying to obtain aid from Scots royalists in England. Probably at his suggestion those at Oxford published a declaration denouncing the covenanters’ invasion of England as treason.20 The king helped by writing to those within Scotland whom he thought remained loyal, either commissioning them to act as his lieutenants21 or asking them to assist such lieutenants.22 Montrose soon found many of the Scots royalists whom he approached reluctant to help him. Some were moderates who had supported Hamilton and were shocked at his imprisonment; others had fled to England out of passive loyalty to the king but were reluctant to involve themselves in plots and armed risings; and many more proved uncooperative out of personal dislike and jealousy of Montrose, hating him as a former covenanter whom the king was now favouring above those who had always been loyal to him.23

Antrim too met with difficulties; it was not until late June that he managed to assemble three regiments in Ireland and shipping to carry them to Scotland, under the command of Alaster Macdonald, whose family had been driven out of Scotland by the Campbells.24 Macdonald had landed in the Western Isles with a raiding party of Irish in November 1643, perhaps in the hope of freeing his father Col Macgillispeck (whose nickname of Col Keitach was sometimes transferred to his son) and two brothers who were being held prisoner by Argyll, but the raiders had been driven out by the Campbells in the early months of 1644.25

Montrose also failed to have men in arms in Scotland by 1 April. The king instructed the northern English royalists to help him, but there was little they were able to do and he got little encouragement from within Scotland. As in the Bishops’ Wars the north-east seemed the most likely area for a royalist rising, but the leader of the royalists of the area, the marquis of Huntly, was an indecisive man given to relying on the advice of astrologers; he was also virtually bankrupt and his influence was weakened by family quarrels. His eldest son, Lord Gordon, had been persuaded by his uncle, Argyll, to accept command of a regiment of covenanters, whereupon his father refused to speak to him. Proceedings had been begun against Huntly for his failure to take the covenant, whereupon he had retired to his castle of Bog of Gight and refused to surrender himself.26

Huntly thus was not prepared to take the initiative against the covenanters though he defied them. Not surprisingly other local royalists saw this as folly; it would rouse the wrath of the covenanters without helping the king. Sir John Gordon of Haddo and a few other lairds therefore resolved on a rising as the only practical alternative to submission—Haddo was already in trouble with the covenanters, and had failed to appear before the convention to answer charges against him.27 From the timing of his rising it seems likely that he was in touch with Montrose and therefore expected help from him and Antrim by 1 April. On 19 March Haddo and others, about a hundred men, raided Aberdeen and kidnapped leading covenanters, probably hoping that this would lead the burgh to revert to its former royalism and would encourage other royalists to appear in arms. They may also have hoped that their action would force Huntly to join them; if so, they were partially successful. Though angered by the rising he issued a declaration justifying it, but promising that those involved would submit if they were assured that no violence would be done to them. He can hardly have expected that the covenanters would agree to this, but at about this time he received a message from the king promising him aid (Charles had in fact appointed him king’s lieutenant for the northeast, though he may not have known of this yet) through Montrose and Antrim, and he may have hoped to delay the covenanters by negotiations until this arrived.28

Having justified Haddo’s raid Huntly gathered his own forces and occupied Aberdeen—as much to reassert his own authority as for any more practical reason. The burgh proved hostile through resentment at Haddo’s raid and fear of the covenanters’ revenge. The royalists therefore seized what arms and money they could find and quartered men on the unwilling town while occupying themselves in the congenial task of plundering local covenanters. As had happened in 1639, having occupied Aberdeen the royalists seemed to have no idea what to do next.29

On hearing of Haddo’s rising the committee of estates in Edinburgh dispatched orders to the committees of war of the northern shires to gather forces against the rebels, but few men were sent from the south because of fears aroused by Montrose’s efforts to raise men in the north of England.30 The convention of estates met on 10 April to consider the situation; Argyll had returned from the army in England to give his advice and the commission of the kirk had already acted by excommunicating Huntly, Haddo and their supporters as well as Montrose and other royalists in England.31 The convention appointed the earl of Callander commander of all forces to be used within Scotland; his earlier flirtations with royalists were ignored as he had a sound reputation as a professional soldier and was highly regarded by the many mercenary officers employed by the covenanters. He was a difficult, unscrupulous and ambitious man and the covenanters were probably glad to have him accept employment under them; he had, it appears, been offered the post of lieutenant general under Leven in the army in England but had refused it, insisting on an independent command. He now agreed to lead the forces sent to keep order in the south of Scotland and guard the Borders, marching into England later if necessary. The army sent to the north against Huntly was to be commanded by Argyll, technically in subordination to Callander.32

Three days before the convention made these appointments Montrose entered Scotland. He had managed to assemble about 800 English foot, three troops of English cavalry and about 200 Scots horse. Most of the Englishmen were unenthusiastic, ill-armed and untrained but Montrose decided to march north from Carlisle without delay since he had already failed in his undertaking to enter Scotland by 1 April. He reached Dumfries without encountering opposition but there was little sign of local support for him and his forces were dwindling fast through desertion. He could not face the forces which Callander gathered against him and therefore had to flee back into England at the end of April.33 The army in England urged that Callander follow him to prevent him raising new forces, for with most of the army occupied in the sieges of Newcastle and York adequate forces could not be spared to hold down the large areas of northern England that the army nominally occupied. But Callander quartered his army along the Borders to prevent any further royalist incursion while Montrose took advantage of the vacuum in the north of England to recapture several garrisons from the covenanters.34

Meanwhile the rising in the north had been crushed almost as easily as Montrose’s venture in the south. In the absence of an Irish landing or revolts elsewhere in Scotland Huntly had no plan of campaign; he showed the quality of his leadership by gloomily issuing black cockades to his already apprehensive men as a sign they were willing to fight to the death. By the end of April Argyll’s forces were approaching Aberdeen from the south while to the north local covenanters prepared to attack the rebels. Huntly’s army began to waste away through desertion and his friends started to ‘grvge and mvrmwr with his delayis’, arguing that their only hope was to attack before the convenanters’ preparations were complete. But the only move he would make was backwards; as the covenanters closed in on Aberdeenn he retired northwards and Argyll occupied the burgh on 2 May. Haddo surrendered and most of the other royalist lairds followed suit or were captured, while Huntly fled to Strathnaver ‘quhair he remanit, sore against his will, whil the 4th of October 1645’. The covenanters could congratulate themselves that the first royalist risings provoked by their alliance with the English parliament had collapsed almost without bloodshed.35

On 4 June 1644 the first Scottish triennial parliament assembled (as arranged in 1641). Apart from confirming the work of the convention which had preceded36 it parliament concerned itself mainly with punishing those who had been involved in the recent rebellions, with providing for the Scottish armies in all three kingdoms and with considering peace proposals to be presented to the king by both kingdoms. The session lasted much longer than had been expected, for nearly two months, since discussion of peace proposals and the appointment of new commissioners to reside in London led to much dispute; but eventually Argyll and the more extreme covenanters succeeded in getting men who shared their views appointed, the nine commissioners including Argyll himself, Loudoun, Lord Balmerino and Wariston.37 Much delay was also caused by the fact that while parliament sat there was no compact executive body to carry on the routine work of government; many matters of minor importance were therefore dealt with by the full parliament, or referred to specially appointed temporary committees, which often had to report back to parliament. Such methods were inefficient. The committee with the army in England complained that it had not heard from Edinburgh officially for nearly three months, while Robert Baillie complained of the lack of news or instructions from Scotland as ‘a sottishness unexcusable’.38 Clearly there was a need for a permanent general committee to sit during meetings of parliament, like the committee of estates which sat between meetings. But it was doubtless memories of the all-powerful committee of the lords of the articles through which the king had once controlled parliament that led to a general reluctance to give any committee power while parliament sat.

In dealing with opponents of the covenanters some moderation was shown, though examples were made of three individuals. Haddo and John Logie were condemned and executed for their part in the Aberdeen rising, as was William Maxwell of Middletoun for having joined Montrose in Dumfries. In addition three Scots who held important positions in the king’s armies in England, the earls of Crawford and Forth and Lord Eythin, were declared to have forfeited lives and property.39 But no attempt was made to forfeit Montrose, Huntly or other nobles who had recently been in arms against the covenants; evidently a strong body of opinion was opposed to taking drastic action against them, in the hope that they might be persuaded to submit if not made desperate by harsh action. They had already been excommunicated and had their incomes in Scotland confiscated until they signed the solemn league and covenant, and this was thought sufficient punishment for the present.

Parliament granted Crawford’s forfeited title to the earl of Lindsay; he had long coveted it as it traditionally belonged to the head of the Lindsays. The new earl of Crawford-Lindsay (as he henceforth signed himself) was further favoured by being appointed treasurer of Scotland. The king was not consulted, though his approval was subsequently sought; this was a reversal of the procedure stipulated by the 1641 act concerning choosing officers of state, whereby the king should have made the appointment and parliament approved it. Parliament also ruled that the earl of Lanark (the duke of Hamilton’s brother) was sole secretary of state; the king had replaced him by Sir Robert Spottiswood on the disgrace of the Hamiltons but the covenanters now bid for their support by refusing to accept the change40 and by protesting at the imprisonment of Hamilton without trial.41 These moves were successful. Many of Hamilton’s supporters had already signed the covenants to demonstrate their disapproval of the king’s action, and many of them now sat in parliament and at least acquiesced in the aid being given to the king’s enemies in England; they would not have done so had the king been more sensible in his treatment of Hamilton.

In military matters parliament ordered the levying of men to reinforce Callander’s army in the Borders.42 The situation in the north of England was still confused. The English parliament opposed the withdrawal of any men from the siege of York, and the remainder of Leven’s army proved insufficient to subdue Montrose. It was therefore decided that Callander should lead his army into England, deal with Montrose, and then merge his army with Leven’s. On 22 June the English agreed to this, and Callander crossed the border three days later with between seven and ten thousand men.43

Montrose later complained that he could easily have kept Callander out of England if Prince Rupert (the king’s nephew) had not called him south,44 but in the circumstances Rupert’s action was justified, for he needed all the men he could get for his attempt to relieve York from the besieging Scots and parliamentary armies. York was duly relieved, but on 2 July Rupert was crushingly defeated at Marston Moor, the greatest victory yet won by the king’s enemies.

In spite of the fact that at Marston Moor the royalists were greatly outnumbered by parliamentarians and Scots they at first seemed likely to prevail. Parliament’s right wing collapsed and fled, accompanied by Lord Fairfax and the earl of Leven, who were convinced that the battle was lost. But the Scots infantry in the centre stood firm, while on the left wing Cromwell’s cavalry and Major General Leslie’s Scots horse routed their opponents and then joined the infantry in destroying the royalist centre. Leven, whose flight had carried him as far as Leeds, lamented on hearing the news, ‘I would to God I had dyed upon the place’; if there was anything more humiliating than a fleeing general being the first to bring news of his own defeat, it was a general acting thus when he was in fact victorious. His conduct was therefore an embarrassment to the Scots but Robert Douglas, his chaplain, had glib explanations for all awkward facts. If the right wing had fled it was because God (not being, in this instance, on the side of the big battalions) thought that victory would not be sufficiently glorious if his forces outnumbered those of the enemy, ‘therefor he dismayed more than the halfe’ of his forces so that they ran away. Moreover he wished to act as his own general and therefore caused Leven and Fairfax to flee.45

York surrendered within two weeks of the battle but the Scots were diverted from marching further south by the continued resistance of Newcastle. Their army therefore marched back to Newcastle, there joining Callander’s army, which now merged with Leven’s.46 Marston Moor was the decisive success in England that the covenanters had long awaited to restore their reputation in London; ‘behold, in a moment, when our credit was beginning sensiblie to decay, God hes come in’. But they soon found that victory did not bring them the popularity and power they had expected. In spite of their attempts to emphasise the part the Scots had played they found popular opinion far more willing to credit reports that Cromwell, already known as no friend of the Scots, was chiefly responsible for the victory.47 Had the Scots thought more deeply about the matter they might have predicted that success would not increase their popularity; it was natural that the suspicion that they were trying to interfere in English affairs and dictate a religious settlement should increase as the power of the Scottish army grew. Yet at the same time the Scots were finding that their failure to capture Newcastle was discrediting them. The Scots army was in the unhappy situation that failure increased contempt for it while success increased suspicion of it.

THE TREATY OF UXBRIDGE

During 1644 the religious differences between the covenanters and the Independents in England came to correspond more closely than before with a division in attitudes to the civil war and peace negotiations. The Scots army had been brought into England by the ‘war party’ and the ‘middle group’ in the English parliament, against the wishes of the ‘peace party’ which feared that Scottish intervention would prolong the civil war and make a compromise settlement with the king impossible. But once attempts began to agree on terms for a settlement in England differences arose between the Scots and their former supporters in parliament through incompatible ambitions. The war party had wanted the Scots alliance in order to bring about complete victory in the war; but this the Scots failed to achieve, and as the war dragged on indecisively many Scots came round to supporting those in England who wanted a negotiated, compromise settlement. In politics it came to be seen that the war party wished to go further in destroying royal power than the Scots; in religion the war party included a wide variety of moderate presbyterian, Independent and sectarian opinions, and it became clear that they would not accept a strict presbyterian settlement of the type that the Scots sought.

It has recently been said that ‘it became evident that the Scots were interested in something other than winning the war for an English parliament. For them the purpose of the alliance was to promote the establishment of a theocratic presbytery in England. To this they were committed by both principle and expediency’. The Scots had little concern for constitutional issues in England (which seemed of paramount importance to parliament); provided presbyterianism was established the Scots ‘would have no objection to the king being restored to his full executive powers.’48

This statement would have been entirely acceptable to members of the war party, for it reflects their propaganda image of the Scots. It is of course true that the covenanters wished to establish presbyterianism on Scottish lines in England, but this was by no means their only ambition there. As in 1640–1 proposals for unity of religion were only one aspect of their wishes for closer union, for permanent links between the kingdoms to protect Scotland by preventing the king using English resources against her. Moreover it is overstating the case to say that the Scots were little concerned with constitutional matters in England; they were anxious to see the king’s power limited, but the achievement of this was a matter in which the English parliament usually needed little encouragement from the Scots. On constitutional issues on which it was felt parliament could not be relied to act on its own—as over establishing permanent links with the Scottish parliament—the Scots did interfere. That the covenanters were not happy at the war party’s plans to render the king completely powerless hardly proves that from the first they had no wish to see his power limited at all, any more than the fact that the covenanters proved most active in trying to determine the shape of a religious settlement in England proves that religion was all that they were interested in—even though it suited the war party to assert that this was the case. Moreover parliament itself had invited the Scots to help to advise it on a religious settlement, and this gave them good authority to urge their views in England; in any case religion was the concern of all men and the Scots believed they had a duty to propagate their own beliefs, whereas they showed a tendency to hold back in constitutional affairs because they recognised the strength of the argument that such matters were the concern of Englishmen alone. Thus the fact that religion came to cause most controversy between the allies does not prove that it was the most important matter to the covenanters—any more than it proves that it was most important to the English parliament.

The allegation that it became evident that the Scots ‘were interested in something other than winning the war for an English parliament’, which implies that this had not been known before, hardly stands up to examination. Had parliamentarians ever thought the Scots were acting in a purely selfless way they would have been remarkably naive, believing them to be acting in a way unparalleled in history. They would, moreover, have had to be both blind and deaf, for the covenanters had never made any secret of the fact that they hoped that their intervention in England in 1644, as in 1640–1, would lead to political and religious changes in England which would spread true religion and give security to their revolution in Scotland. The differences between the ultimate aims of the war party and the middle group on the one hand and the covenanters on the other had always been evident, but in late 1643 and early 1644 efforts had been made to play them down since the first priority had to be defeating the king, which was essential to the survival of both parties. Each party at first expected quick military victory. The Scots hoped that their part in this victory would then enable them to dominate a settlement in England, while the war party believed that it would then be in such a strong position that it could defy the Scots, whom it had only chosen as allies through necessity. Dislike of the Scots could be whipped up by denouncing them for interfering in England’s internal affairs, even if all they were trying to do was to impose the solemn league and covenant which the English parliament had ratified. The covenanters had good reason for coming to believe that they had been double-crossed by their allies.

Failure to achieve the expected quick victory in the war led to disagreements between the allies emerging clearly before the war had ended, though the fact that it still remained to be won prevented them being pressed too far. The attitude of the Scots to the war began to change. Lack of military success by their army in England and Montrose’s royalist victories in Scotland began to swing them towards desiring not a military but a negotiated settlement that would satisfy their ambitions in England and allow them to concentrate their resources against Montrose. Scots desires for a negotiated settlement were reinforced by the conduct of their allies. After mid 1644 the Independents and others in the Westminster Assembly who opposed the introduction of strict presbyterianism to England became increasingly obstructive and outspoken.49 Disagreements with parliament itself increased during negotiations over joint peace proposals for presentation to the king, for the Scots showed themselves more ready to make concessions to the king than their English allies were; and the deeper the split between the Scots and the war party grew, the more the Scots wanted a compromise settlement. A settlement in England which left the war party, increasingly hostile to the Scots, in power no longer seemed in Scotland’s interests, whereas a settlement which divided power between parliament and the king might leave the Scots holding the balance between the two, courted by both. In 1644–6 the Scots did not change their basic ambitions in England, but the methods by which they attempted to achieve them altered.

The insistence of the Scots on opening negotiations with the king infuriated the war party; and this drove the Scots into alliance with the peace party, with whom they found they had many interests in common. The peace party feared that the war party, led by religious radicals, would carry out ‘a total alteration of the constitution and the subversion of the social order’ and therefore ‘began to turn to the Scots in the autumn of 1644 as counters … to the sects and the radicals’. This led to a remarkable reversal of alliances; less than a year after entering England at the behest of the war party and the middle group, the Scots had become the allies of the peace party which had originally opposed their entry into England.50 In this reversal lay the origins of the main split in the English parliament for the next three or four years—or at least the origins of its nomenclature. The peace party, through its alliance with the Scots, became committed to a presbyterian religious settlement (though many of its members had little liking for the Scottish kirk) and hence became known as the presbyterian party. The war party and the middle group, as a counter to the military power of the Scots, created the new model army. From the first this was dominated by religious Independents, and its creators therefore gradually became known as the Independent party. These parties were relatively small; most members of parliament were permanently committed to neither. But at first the Independents could usually rely on the support of many men who were ready to vote with them ‘to get rid of the Scots, to frustrate an intolerantly Presbyterian religious settlement’.51

Superficially, however, attempts were made to preserve some appearance of unity, though in December 1644 the Scots tried to arrange for the trial of one of their most outspoken war party enemies, Oliver Cromwell, as ‘an incendiary whay kindleth coals of contention and raises differences in the state to the public damage’. But though the solemn league and covenant bound both kingdoms to prosecute incendiaries the Scots were disappointed to be advised that such a prosecution in England would have little hope of success.52 The idea of proceeding against him was therefore abandoned, which the Scots must have regretted when later in the same month Cromwell was reported to have said that ‘he could as soon draw his sword against them [the Scots] as against any in the king’s army’.53 Anti-Scots feeling also remained strong among some peace party supporters—some officers were reported to have threatened to join the king to prevent the Scots conquering England54—but gradually the willingness of the Scots to work for a compromise settlement was realised.

Cromwell might openly denounce the Scots, but most war party leaders recognised that their help was still needed. They therefore accepted the insistence of the Scots and the peace party that peace negotiations be opened with the king, hoping that they would fail and thus prove to the covenanters that compromise was impossible and that the war must continue until he was completely defeated. Joint peace proposals were sent to Charles in November 1644. In religion they demanded that he swear the solemn league and covenant, impose it on all his subjects, abolish episcopacy in England and Ireland and so reform religion in these kingdoms that unity with Scotland could be achieved, along with uniformity of church government. Levying and commanding armed forces in England and Scotland were to be in the hands of militia commissioners appointed by the respective parliaments; up to one third of the commissioners of Scotland were to sit and vote with the English commissioners in matters concerning Scotland, and vice versa. All commissioners of the two kingdoms were to meet together to settle matters concerning preserving the peace between them, to resist rebellion in or invasion of either kingdom, and to direct the war in Ireland. Thus permanent links between the two parliaments would be established and the king would be unable to use the forces of one kingdom against the other. In addition the making of war or peace with foreign states would require the joint consent of both parliaments, the education and marriage of the king’s children would be arranged jointly, and negotiations would take place about free trade and commercial cooperation between the kingdoms.55

To the Scots these proposals to tie the kingdoms closer together in both civil and religious matters seemed of central importance in a settlement; but to the majority of English parliamentarians they seemed irrelevant complications of the issues they were fighting for and were included only to humour their allies. Negotiations on the propositions began at Uxbridge in January 1645. The lack of trust between the Scots and parliament was demonstrated when arrangements were made as to the order in which the various proposals should be discussed. It was agreed to divide them under three headings, religion, militia and Ireland. The Scots demanded that religion be debated first; only once agreement had been reached with the king on this should the other topics be negotiated on. Parliament opposed this, for fear that if the king made concessions in religion the Scots would then join him in urging parliament to compromise on other issues. It was therefore eventually arranged that each of the three topics should be discussed in rotation, three days being spent on each at a time.56

Luckily for the squabbling allies the king was not yet ready to try to divide his enemies by playing on the differences between them, and his refusal to make significant concessions led to deadlock and the abandonment of the treaty. During the debates the English commissioners had said relatively little, leaving most of the talking to the Scots since it was they who had insisted on having a treaty. As the Independent party had hoped, the failure of the treaty persuaded the Scots that further negotiations with the king were pointless for the present. They reported to Edinburgh with indignant surprise that Charles had not agreed to abolish bishops ‘notwithstanding that the unlawfulness of Episcopacie from Scripture and reason was cleerely evinced’.57

The covenanters were also encouraged to continue their alliance with parliament by the fact that the Westminster Assembly now at last seemed to be making some progress. By the end of 1644 it had approved a directory of worship and propositions concerning church government and the ordination of ministers. A special general assembly was therefore summoned in Edinburgh which accepted the documents with only minor alterations. This was a clear indication of the importance that the kirk attached to religious unity, for it was adopting for its own use standards which were the work of an English assembly (though admittedly Scots influence in it had been strong) even though this meant abandoning several details of worship traditional and well loved in the kirk.58

The failure of the treaty of Uxbridge and the progress over religious unity reinforced the determination of the Scots to defeat the king, but tension between them and their English allies remained. The Scots commissioners in London found that contempt for their country was increasing through their failure to defeat Montrose and the consequent weakness of their army in England; ‘O! If you could gett one sound blow of Montrose, that the body of that army might come up to England’.59 In June 1645 there were rumours that the Independents in parliament and the army were secretly negotiating with the king for the surrender of Oxford; fearing that they were trying to make a peace which would betray the interests of the Scots, Robert Baillie stirred up English presbyterians in the City to protest at any such intrigue. The rumour proved false, but Baillie’s success in rousing opposition to the alleged plot reveals that the Scots did have a considerable number of supporters in London.60