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The Restoration of the Scottish Episcopacy, 1660-1661*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Godfrey Davies  and
Hardacre Paul H.
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Extract

The reign of Charles II was described by Wodrow as “one of the blackest periods,” and by the late Hume Brown as “the most pitiful chapter” of Scottish history, The former attributed Charles's tyranny to the influence of popery; Hume Brown thought it stemmed from his desire to maintain his prerogative and to fill his purse. Doubtless the latter was more nearly correct. Nevertheless, a re-examination of the events of 1660-61 in the light of certain new materials suggests that the restoration of Scottish episcopacy was accomplished only after much hesitation by the King and his principal advisers, who were far less sanguine of success than the firebrands in Edinburgh. The interdependence of Scottish and English developments was also probably more important than has hitherto been supposed. In this paper the Erastian character of the restoration in Scotland has rendered necessary the inclusion of certain political questions, but its main purpose is to elucidate the ecclesiastical settlement.

The extravagant rejoicings at the restoration of monarchy afford ample proof of Scotland's relief at the prospect of the dissolution of the union with England. The nation eagerly looked forward to the withdrawal of the English forces, the end of the cess, and the re-establishment of the old government by King, Council, and Parliament. The King's return seemed so desirable that no one thought to impose any conditions as the price of his restoration, and no Declaration of Breda was issued for Scotland.

Popular enthusiasm temporarily concealed the deep divisions between the Protesters (or Remonstrants) and the Resolutioners, the two principal parties in both church and state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , May 1962 , pp. 32 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1962

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Footnotes

*

About 1954 the late Godfrey Davies wrote a sketch of the Restoration in Scotland which he proposed to enlarge for a successor volume to his The Restoration of Charles 11 (San Marino, Calif., 1955). Subsequently the late H. W. Meikle, then H. M. Historiographer in Scotland, called his attention to certain Lauderdale papers recently acquired by the National Library of Scotland. At Davies' request I transcribed these and also supplied him with some notes from the Clarendon MSS in the Bodleian. He asked me to rewrite that portion of his earlier paper which dealt with the ecclesiastical settlement, making use of these new materials, and after examining the result he requested me to join my name to his as joint author. Since this paper was written there has appeared the Rev. Walter Roland Foster's Bishop and Presbytery: The Church of Scotland, 1661-1688 (London, 1958), which discusses fully the main features of the ecclesiastical scene after the restoration of the episcopacy here described. P.H.H.

References

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4. Thanks are due to the Librarian of the National Library of Scotland for permission to quote from the Lauderdale MSS, and to the Acting Keeper of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, for permission to quote from unpublished Clarendon MSS.

5. Wodrow, , Church of Scotland, I, 10bGoogle Scholar. The Protesters (or Remonstrants) were extreme covenanters who derived their names from the Remonstrance (17 October 1650) by which the Western Army of Scots announced their refusal to fight for Charles II, and from their protest (20 July 1651) against the lawfulness of the Resolution passed by the committee of estates in favor of accepting Charles II as covenanted king and admitting royalists to office. The Resolutioners represented the last policy.

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75. The letter itself has not been discovered, but it is described in Lauderdale's to Sharp, August 26 (Miscellany of the Scot. Hist. Soc., I [1893], 250Google Scholar) and in Sharp's answer of September 6, cited below.

76. Kirkton, , Secret and True History, p. 135Google Scholar.

77. Sharp to Lauderdale, September 6, National Library of Scotland, Lauderdale MS. 2512, f. 10. Elsewhere Sharp says the king could take no other way (to Sir Alexander Wedderburn, September 27 [Wedderburn, Alexander, The Wedderburn Book (n.p. 1898), II, 103–4]Google Scholar).

78. Wodrow, , Church of Scotland, I, 232Google Scholar.

79. Laing, , Robert Baillie, III, 477Google Scholar. Earlier Baillie had warned Lauderdale that though a king could do no wrong, his ministers could be called to the strictest account for all mistakes, III, 459.

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