Sacred memory: the Covenanter use of history in Scotland and America

See David Blight’s extensive body of work on ‘contending memories’, the creation of history and national identity, and ‘the ways in which groups, peoples, or nations construct versions of the past and employ them for self-understanding and to win power in an ever-changing present’. David Blight, ‘Historians and “Memory’”, Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life 2, no. 3 (2002), https://doi.org/www.common-place.org/vol-02/no-03/author/. For more on Presbyterian identity in Scotland, see Colin Kidd’s essay on the Cameronians’ and Seceders’ ‘alternative conception of Britishness’, rooted in their interpretation of the Covenants.

Colin Kidd, ‘Conditional Britons: The Scots Covenanting Tradition and the Eighteenth-Century British State’, English Historical Review 117, no. 474 (2002): 1147–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Richard Cameron, Donald Cargill, ‘The Queensferry Paper’, June 4, 1680, in The Covenants and the Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation, James Kerr, ed. (Edinburgh: R. W Hunter, 1895), 387–91. A few weeks later, in the Sanquhar Declaration, the Cameronians also claimed that Charles had ‘forfeited… any right, title to, or interest in, the said Crown of Scotland for government… by his perjury and breach of covenant both to God and His Kirk’.Google Scholar

Richard Cameron, ‘The Sanquhar Declaration’, June 22, 1680 in Covenants and Covenanters, 414–20.Google Scholar

Donald Cargill, ‘Torwood Declaration’, in Covenants and Covenanters, 409.Google Scholar

At this time, all of the Presbyterians (not just the radical Cameronians) were considered dissenters from the Episcopal Church establishment.Google Scholar

Ian Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 1660–1688 (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1976), 120.Google Scholar

The Second Indulgence suspended the laws that had punished people for not attending Anglican services and communions, and it removed the religious test for offices.Google Scholar

Erastians maintain the supremacy of the state over the church in ecclesiastical matters.Google Scholar

Matthew Hutchinson, The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland: Its Origin and History: 1680–1876 (Glasgow: John Menzies and Co., 1893), 57–8. NAS. CH3/269/4. Conclusions of the general meeting, 1693–1743. June 26, 1695, 10.Google Scholar

Seceders, also called Associate Presbyterians, arose from the 1733 split led by Ebenezer Erskine. Peter Gilmore’s essay in this issue discusses the ongoing Covenanter sensibility amongst Seceders.Google Scholar

Going forward in time, the terms Covenanter, Cameronian, United Societies and Reformed Presbyterians became interchangeable monikers to these believers and their neighbours. This slippage of terms sprang from the ongoing Covenanter sensibility that what they were in the present connected powerfully to the past.Google Scholar

See Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, W. C. Dickinson, ed. (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1949).Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/26. ‘Letter from (Sir) Robert Hamilton to Mr. Robert Smith’, 1702.Google Scholar

NLS. A.108.f John Howie, Faithful Contendings displayed: Being An historical relation of the State and Actings of the suffering Remnant in the church of Scotland (Glasgow: John Bryce, 1780), 76. Howie transcribed a series of United Societies documents collected by Alexander Shields, the Societies’ clerk. Faithful Contendings Displayed, 120.Google Scholar

Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 26. David Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–1644: The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973), 206. The 1649 purging of the Covenanter army of malignants is a case in point.Google Scholar

‘The National Covenant’, in The Covenants and Covenanters, 48. Descending obligation does not figure as prominently in the Solemn League and Covenant.Google Scholar

ML. A 437809, James Guthrie, ‘Sermon preach’d upon breach of covenant’, 1663, 6, 12.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/391/26. Copy Minutes of presbytery of Kirkcudbright, 192, 197–8.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/5, Conclusions of the General Meeting, 1725–60, 122.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/43. Papers re Presbytery’s overture for renewing the Covenant, 1769. This analysis draws from Pauline Maier’s American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/11, Reformed Presbytery, Minutes, 1788–1810, And Synod, 1810–1822, May 7, 1778.Google Scholar

This analysis draws from Marilyn Westerkamp’s Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625–1760 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

NLS. NRR, BCL.AA267, James Renwick, An informatory vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented, remnant of the suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatick, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland, &c, 1687, 3–4.Google Scholar

Although he joined with the United Societies during the Killing time, and in fact was instrumental in getting Renwick’s Informatory Vindication published in Holland, Shields ended up joining the Church of Scotland after the Glorious Revolution. John Howie, The Scots Worthies, W.H. Carslaw, rev. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), 587.Google Scholar

NLS. Nrr, 1.128(24), Alexander Shields, A short memorial of the sufferings and grievances, past and present, of the Presbyterians in Scotland: particularly of those of them called by nick-name Cameronians, 1690, 1.Google Scholar

Ibid.Google Scholar

Graduate Theologial Union. ‘The Solemn League and Covenant’. The Covenants and the Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation (Berkeley, CA: Evanston, 1991), 131.Google Scholar

Of course, Golden Age rhetoric conveniently glossed over certain not-so-reformed aspects of Scottish Reformation history. For example, Covenanter cries of ‘no episcopacy!’ obscured the fact that for many years, Scottish bishops played an integral role in Reformation ecclesiastical structure, and that even during the Covenanting period, both Catholics and Episcopalians maintained loyal (if sometimes covert) ties to their own denominations. See Ian Cowan, The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982). Elisions notwithstanding, the Societies sincerely believed that Scottish politico-religious development in Scotland was different than in the rest of Britain - and in fact, the period of Covenanter rule, however short-lived, was more stringent (and certainly less pragmatic) than that of either the Anglicans or the Independents in England.Google Scholar

NLS. APS.1.91.69. Alexander Peden, The Lord’s trumpet sounding an alarm against Scotland by warning of a bloody sword. Being the substance of a preface and two prophetical sermons, preached at Glenluce, Anno 1682. 1740, 18.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/21. Copy letter, from ‘the contending and wrestling, suffering and distressed reformed church of Scotland to the true Protestant and reformed church at Groningen. 1684, July 31.Google Scholar

NLS. BCL.AA267, James Renwick, ‘An informatory vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented, remnant of the suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatick, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland’, 1687, 28.Google Scholar

For example, see NAS. CH3/269/28. (Formula), queries put to Mr. Alexander Marshal before his ordination by the Reformed Presbytery.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/3/2, Copy of the Transcript of the proceedings and General Conclusion of the General Meeting by Rev. Dr. Cunningham, Missionary to the Jews in London, 22–23.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/15, Notebook containing copies of questions to be put to members of R.P. church. Transcribed May, 1714. The questions got even more specific over time. In his 1747 ordination exam, Alexander Marshal was asked for his opinions on both the Covenants, the Acts of Assemblies passed between 1638 and 1649, and the motivations of the martyrs killed ‘During the Tyranny of Charles 2d and James the 7th’. NAS. CH3/269/28 (Formula), queries put to Mr. Alexander Marshal before his ordination by the Reformed Presbytery. With additions, 1750–1819, signed by various ministers, 1747.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/3/2, Copy of the Transcript, 4. My analysis of these attempts draws from John Bodnar’s work on the intersection of ‘official’ and ‘vernacular’ memory in the construction of national identity. John Bodnar, ‘Public Memory in an American City: Commemoration in Cleveland’, in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, Gillis, ed. Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

NLS. Gray.1406–7, Robert Wodrow, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, From the Restauration [sic] to the Revolution: Collected from the Publick Records, Original Papers, and Manuscripts of that Time, and other well attested Narratives (Edinburgh: James Watson, 1721), 2.Google Scholar

Specifically, Wodrow positioned his version against the Jacobite Sir George Mackenzie’s 1691 Vindication of the Government in Scotland, During the Reign of King Charles, claiming that Mackenzie included ‘Facts, Assertions, and Representations of Things, perfectly contrary to the Knowledge and Experience of Multitudes yet alive’. Wodrow, 6. Wodrow’s suspicions about Mackenzie’s objectivity no doubt stemmed from the Lord Advocate’s hostile stance against the Cameronians during the Restoration; he had been nicknamed ‘Bluidy Mackenzie’ by his victims. Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London: Pimlico, 1991), 298. Both authors, no doubt, were equally biased.Google Scholar

Wodrow, History of the Sufferings, 19. In fact, Wodrow’s version of Covenanter history has been accepted by most of the Presbyterian denominations in Scotland, not just by the Reformed Presbyterians.Google Scholar

NLS. Wodrow, History of the Sufferings, 1721, 19. In fact, Wodrow’s version of Covenanter history has been accepted by most of the Presbyterian denominations in Scotland, not just by the Reformed Presbyterians.Google Scholar

NLS. Howie, Faithful Contendings displayed, vii.Google Scholar

NLS. A.108f Howie, Faithful Contendings displayed, 70–71.Google Scholar

NLS. NRR, 1.128(24), Alexander Shields, A short memorial of the sufferings, 1960, 30.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/3/2. Copy of the Transcript of the proceedings and General Conclusion of the General Meeting by Rev. Dr. Cunningham, Missionary to the Jews in London, 13.Google Scholar

Ibid.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/29. Notes of causes of fasts, etc., 1706–1786. 6 April 1754.Google Scholar

NAS. Andrew Newton, A voice to seceders, being a letter sent to Mr. (-) Turnbull, antiburgher minister in Ayton (Edinburgh, 1783).Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/269/74. A review of the antigovernment-scheme, as it is stated in what is called the Reformed Testimony and its vindication, 1783, 7.Google Scholar

PHS. PAM. FOL.BX 9183.R3. Alexander Craighead, Renewal of Covenants, National and Solemn League (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1895) (reprinted).Google Scholar

William Glasgow, The History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, with Sketches of all her Ministry, Congregations, Missions, Institutions, Publications, etc. (Baltimore: Hill & Harvey, Publishers, 1888), 245.Google Scholar

‘The Godly Band’, signed on 3 December 1557, pledged several Scottish noblemen to ‘continually apply [their] whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word of God and His Congregation, and shall labour according to our power to have faithful minister, truly and purely to minister Christ’s Gospel and Sacraments to His people’. The earls further vowed to ‘forsake and renounce the Congregation of Satan with all the superstitions, abominations, and idolatry thereof. The Perth Covenant emerged shortly after riots in that same city, when Protestant mobs destroyed an altar and three monasteries. Knox did not condone this violent iconoclasm, calling the rioters a ‘Rascal Multitude’; Craighead presumably was referring to the Covenant (and implicitly, to the father of the Scottish Reformation) rather than to the preceding riots and the undisciplined crowd. The Cameronian regiment was raised from Covenanter volunteers in 1689, who initially welcomed William and Mary in hopes that they would establish Presbyterianism in Britain. Three months after its formation, the regiment defeated the Jacobite Highlanders (who were trying to re-establish the Catholic James VII/II). Ironically, the Covenanters remaining in Scotland withdrew their support of William and Mary after the Glorious Revolution, when it became evident that the monarchs had no intention of forcing Presbyterianism on England. Craighead’s inclusion of this date seems a bit curious in this light; however, the defeat of King James and his heathen Highlandmen was greeted with praise and thanksgiving by the Covenanters, and any participation in the extirpation of popery always was a thing to be admired. The Auchensaugh Declaration, issued by the United Societies, called for the ‘acknowledgement of sins and engagement to duties’ and decried both the government and the mainstream church of Scotland for not adhering to Reformation standards. Covenants and Covenanters.Google Scholar

The Reformed Presbyterians in Scotland frequently referred to their Reformation and Covenanter forbears when upholding the descending obligation of the covenants. In addition, they cited the nation of Israel as both their model and spiritual ancestor in defence of their tenets. This was common among other Presbyterian (and Protestant) denominations as well. NAS. CH3/269/5, ‘Conclusions of the General Meeting, 1725–60’, 1769, 122. NAS. CH3/269/43, ‘Papers re Presbytery’s overture for renewing the Covenant’, 1769.Google Scholar

PHS. PAM.FOL.BX 9183.R3. Craighead, Renewal of Covenants, introduction, 6.Google Scholar

A. S. Aiken and J. M. Adair, A Biographical Sketch of the Rev. John Cuthbertson, the first Reformed Presbyterian Minister in America, from 1751–1791 (Pittsburgh: Stevenson, Foster & Co., 1878), 31. Aiken and Adair include in their Sketch the only surviving American minutes from before 1798. These minutes reference other Society meetings, implying that the Covenanters met fairly regularly, and I consider them representative of the meetings held at yearly and bi-yearly intervals in Covenanter settlements.Google Scholar

Aiken and Adair, Biographical Sketch, 32–4. The reference to ‘our Society Rules’ shows both that the American Covenanters were familiar with their strictures, and that they had been a matter of conversation even before this 1744 meeting.Google Scholar

Samuel Wylie, The Two Sons of Oil (Greensburg: Snowden and McCorkle, 1803), 51.Google Scholar

Samuel Wylie, The Obligation of the Covenants. A Discourse (Glasgow: Stephen Young, 1803), 94, 91, 100, 109–112.Google Scholar

Wylie, The Obligation of the Covenants, 39, 50–8. The prohibition on naturalisation was a particular problem for the Covenanters, most of whom were immigrants. Because of the church’s prohibition on swearing allegiance to ‘illegitimate’ governments, they remained in a state of national limbo. At the same time, as much as they ‘loved’ the United States and ‘[preferred its] government, comparatively’, they would not ‘fully incorporate’ with the nation and risk ‘[sinning] against GOD, and [being] found unfaithful to him, who is the King of Nations’. Wylie, 77.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/391/26. Copy Minutes of presbytery of Kirkcudbright re case of John McMillan, Balmaghie, 1700–1717. 40.Google Scholar

Ibid. The 1690 Act of Re-establishment ‘[restored] presbyterian government in the Church’; however, its overall effect was to create ‘an ambiguous relationship which hovered between practical Erastianism and a principled stance on a modified two-kingdom doctrine’. Lynch, 304.Google Scholar

NAS. CH3/391/26, Copy Minutes of presbytery of Kirkcudbright re case of John McMillan, Balmaghie, 1700–1717, 52.Google Scholar

Ian Cowan points out that both of these groups were indiscriminately targeted during the Killing Time, a policy which no doubt led to the overwhelming popular opinion in Scotland that James II was a threat to all Presbyterians. Cowan himself sides with the Church of Scotland on the above debate, claiming that the extremist Cameronians ‘could no longer validly claim to represent the Presbyterian viewpoint’, and that it is ‘surprising that this small sect of covenanting presbyterians and their martyrs has subsequently been taken to represent debate in the decade following Bothwell Bridge’. Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 104.Google Scholar

NLS. NRR, 1.128(24), Alexander Shields, A short memorial of the sufferings, 17.Google Scholar

Thomas Macaulay, History of England, ii, 132–3. Quoted in Mark Napier, History Rescued in answer to History Vindicated, Being a Recapitulation of the Case for the Crown and the Reviewers Reviewed in re the Wigtown Martyrs (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1870), xviii.Google Scholar

Napier, xlvii.Google Scholar

Guy S. Klett, ed. Minutes of the Presbyterian Church in America, 1706–1788 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1976), 179.Google Scholar

At this point, the American Reformed Presbyterians were immigrants from Scotland and Ireland, both of which had established presbyteries. The Americans did not have their own denomination yet; they were under the authority of the Scottish Reformed Presbytery. There would be no autonomous denomination in the United States until 1798.Google Scholar

Reformed Dissenting Presbyterian Church of North America, A Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland, Before the Reformation, and of the Reformation, and the Progress of Religion, since, in Scotland and America, Especially Among Presbyterians (Wheeler: Armstrong, 1809), 71.Google Scholar

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, ‘Declaration and Testimony’ (Philadelphia: Aitken, 1784), 13.Google Scholar

Robert Annan, A Concise and Faithful Narrative of the various steps which led to the unhappy division, which hath taken place among the members of the Associate body in the United States;: with a brief confutation of the high pretensions, unjust claims and ill-founded principles of those who call themselves the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania. By a ruling elder in the communion of the Associate Reformed Synod’ (Philadelphia: Zachariah Poulson, 1789), 50–1.Google Scholar

Reformed Presbytery in Scotland, ‘Constitution of the Associate-Reformed Synod in America Considered’ (Glasgow: Young and M’Culloch, 1787), 7, 6, 9.Google Scholar

Annan, A Concise and Faithful Narrative, 23, 18.Google Scholar

There also were several members of the Associate Presbytery who protested the union. The ‘Rev. Messrs. Marshall and Clarkson… protested against the union, and appealed to the associate synod in Scotland; and when the presbytery refused to admit their protest and appeal, they again protested, that the powers of the associate presbytery of Pennsylvania were now vested only in them who were adhering to the true principles and constitution of said presbytery’. RDPCNA, A Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity, 54.Google Scholar

Wylie, The Two Sons of Oil, 39, preface.Google Scholar

RDPCNA. A Narrative of the Introduction and Progress of Christianity in Scotland and America. The Reformed Dissenting Presbytery split off from the Associate Reformed Presbytery in 1801; the ARP had formed in 1782, when the main body of the first American Reformed Presbytery, under Cuthbertson, Linn and Dobbin, joined with the Associate Presbytery. In 1804, the Dissenting Presbytery’s efforts to join with the (second) Reformed Presbytery were unsuccessful.Google Scholar

Wylie expended some energy denouncing the ‘pretended friends’ who ‘[professed] friendship to reformation, and, at the same time, [sapped] its foundation’. Wylie, Two Sons, 80. Denominations like the Associate Presbytery, which also called for subscription to the covenants and a revival of Westminster standards, did not embrace the whole of Reformed Presbyterian political theology, and recognised the government of the United States as legitimate.Google Scholar