Worship, Civil War and Community, 1638–1660

Chris R. Langley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781848935211
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317289777
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This is the first study of the interaction between warfare and national religious practice during the British Civil Wars. Using hundreds of neglected local documents, this work explores the manner in which civil conflict, invasion and military occupation affected religious practice. As Churches elsewhere in Britain and Ireland were dismantled and the country was invaded by a foreign English army, mid-seventeenth-century Scotland provides an important, yet neglected, point of entry in exploring the intersection between early modern warfare and religious practice.

The book establishes a fresh way of looking at the conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century. No other study has explored how soldiers were quartered or marched in close proximity to parish worship, how their presence affected worship patterns and how the very idea of conflict in the mid-seventeenth century impacted upon the day-to-day lives of worshippers. Using the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 as its starting point, this perspective emphasises flexibility in religious practice and the dialogue between local communities, religious leaders and troops as a critical element in the experience of war.

1
Kirk and Covenant

This chapter will explore local responses to Charles I’s ecclesiastical policies and suggest that a breach between the Crown and its Scottish subjects was not inevitable and responses to the changes that followed were not uniform. Local authorities continued to make subtle changes to official policy to fit local circumstances and consciences. Splitting the Church into ‘Covenanter’ and ‘Episcopalian’ camps is a simplification. Those who signed the Covenant did so for a range of different reasons, making the Covenanters a rather diverse group. Unfortunately for the Crown, as discussions over liturgical changes advanced, it could not successfully discredit the more radical protestors and placate the moderates enough for them to disown their less conservative neighbours. The radicals, on the other hand, deliberately tailored their demands to a wide audience. For one heady period in the autumn of 1638, a large group of moderates found the radicals’ demands acceptable enough to spark a revolution that would have consequences for all of Britain and Ireland.

Charles I’s policies towards the Kirk of Scotland from his accession in 1625 aimed to curb the sheer variation of religious practice in Scotland. ¹ A large proportion of ministers in Scotland were openly ignoring the divisive Jacobean Articles of Perth that enjoined kneeling at communion and the reinstatement of prohibited holy days by the end of James’s reign. A number of ministers who had fled to parts of Ireland earlier in the century in protest slowly returned. ² Despite initial attempts to placate the Scottish ministry by not enforcing the Articles, it became quite clear that plans were afoot to attempt to further alter worship arrangements in Scotland. In 1633, the Crown ordered Scottish bishops to follow the English form of service at the Chapel Royal in Holyrood and in the university chapels. ³ The English service emphasised reverence through ornamentation and behaviour and ordered the reading of set prayers. While most parish churches remained untouched, the Crown’s desires for ‘congruity’ of worship gathered momentum. ⁴

The Crown’s discomfort over the sheer variation of practice within the Kirk and its belief in creating a more harmonious religious settlement came to a head in discussions over new forms of liturgy for use in Scotland. Discussions took place in mid-1635 between the Crown, prominent English bishops and the Scottish episcopate over a new set of canons to shape the Scottish Kirk, and the Crown authorised a print run at the end of September. ⁵ Once released in January 1636, the terms of the Canons were couched in language that emphasised Royal authority over ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland. The authors informed readers that the Crown held ‘ancient jurisdiction over the estate ecclesiastical’ and that those who rejected ‘any part of his royal supremacy in causes ecclesiastical’ were open to excommunication. Accepting the importance of the King in ecclesiastical affairs was entirely orthodox, but some of the comments verge on an English-style royal supremacy over the Kirk rather than the different system in operation in Scotland. Rather than allude to its consultations with the episcopate, the Crown ordered the implementation of the Canons ‘by our prerogative royal, and supreme authority in causes ecclesiastical’. ⁶ Moreover, the proclamation ignored claims from the Kirk’s established hierarchy of general assembly and provincial synods to consult on the new canons. The assertion of royal supremacy in the canons underlined the differences of the position of the Crown in the structure of Charles’s northernmost church.

In addition to buttressing royal authority, the authors of the Canons intended to strengthen the Scottish episcopate. At the death of James VI and I, Scottish bishops operated alongside Presbyterian meetings ranging from the national General Assembly through the seven provincial assemblies and, below them, regional presbytery and local parish-based kirk sessions. While this hybrid system operated quite smoothly in terms of its day-to-day practice, bishops in Scotland were clearly ‘shadows’ of the episcopate elsewhere in the Stuart kingdoms. ⁷ The Book of Canons made tacit recommendations that altered this delicate balance: the episcopate effectively held executive power in the Kirk envisaged by the Book of Canons. Bishops would appoint the meetings of diocesan synods, approve of candidates for the ministry, conduct visitations to observe ‘the quality of curates and readers’, punish errant clerics and ordain entrants to the ministry. ⁸ Despite this, the Book of Canons did not raise the Scottish episcopate to a position of parity with their English counterparts. Nevertheless, the changes for ecclesiastical governance in Scotland were quite clear and came with royal assent.

Although based on a set of English canons from 1604, the authors of the Scottish canons attempted to shape the text to some of the Kirk’s peculiarities. The repeated use of the word ‘presbyter’, rather than priest or minister, is the most obvious example of this, although the text made no fundamental distinction in definition. Other sections of the Canons recognised the role of Presbyterian structures in moderating some of the episcopate’s power. For instance, although the Canons gave bishops a more central role in selecting ministers, ‘two or three presbyters of the diocese’ joined them during the ordination ceremony. ⁹ Similarly, complaints against the bishop ultimately resided with the Crown but were channelled through rather ambiguously named ‘delegates’—although it is unclear who such figures would be and who would appoint them.

Such ambiguity punctuated the Book. The absence of any reference to presbyteries or local kirk sessions—the very essence of the Presbyterian parts of the Kirk—is startling. ¹⁰ The authors of the Book did not explicitly attack these bodies. Rather, these structures were controlled or their impact diluted. The Canons envisaged a system where diocesan synods occurred twice per year, but it refused to allow ministers to meet in private to discuss ecclesiastical matters. This effectively condemned ministers meeting in ad hoc presbyteries without episcopal authorisation. Furthermore, the Canons reduced the role of lay elders by refusing to allow members of the laity to ‘make rules, orders, or constitutions, in causes ecclesiastical… without the king’s authority’. ¹¹ Local kirk sessions would have limited scope in policing local behaviour under such guidelines. Without mentioning these bodies by name, the Canons’ comments on ecclesiastical structures were revealing.

Despite the Book’s grandiose aims, very little changed in local services. Local records show no significant variation in practice. This was because the Canons either deferred to a prayer book that did not yet exist or remained remarkably vague. The Canons instructed ministers to preach ‘according to the form of the book of Common Prayer’ in their regular services and to follow the unknown book’s guidelines when visiting sick members of their congregation. The lack of clear liturgical guidance prevented local authorities from implementing the vision put forward in the Book of Canons. However, it is important to remember that a number of the more practical points in the Canons were compatible with existing practices. For instance, the Canons demanded that preachers should always hold a degree, regularly catechise, be eager to study the Church fathers, remain modest in their apparel, worship in their families, reside in their parish, be careful in their conversation and, importantly, keep the scandalous away from the communion. ¹² These were all generally reforming and edifying goals that held widespread appeal. The ambiguities of the Canons prevented any real alterations to parish worship but also underlined their main aim in changing the structure of the Kirk rather than its practice.

Inadvertently, though the Crown devised the Book of Canons in tandem with a new liturgy, the delay in releasing the new liturgical form allowed local ministers to continue practising their preferred services. Due to the number of holes contained within the Book of Canons, it was clear that the Crown would also introduce a new Scottish liturgy to supplement it. Combined, these documents would stand as the cornerstone of a new uniformity in Scottish worship and provide the Book of Canons with the liturgical guidance it was missing. ¹³ Royal proclamations ordered the use of The Book of Common Prayer ‘for the use of the Church of Scotland’ in November and December 1636 and ordered all ministers ‘to conforme thameselffes in the practise thairof’ by Easter the following year or face punishment. ¹⁴ The preface of the first edition of the text stated

Wherefore it were to be wished, that the whole Church of Christ were one as well in forme of publike worship, as in doctrine… this would prevent many schismes and divisiones, and serve much to the preserving of unitie. But since that cannot be hoped for in the whole Catholike Christian Church, yet at least in the Churches that are under the protection of one Soveraigne Prince the same ought to be endeayvoured. ¹⁵

This alluded to the breadth of worship within the Kirk itself, as well as its relationship with other churches in England and Ireland. Breadth in worship was clearly framed as a problem, with the Book stating that ‘the mindes of men are so divers’ that unity of worship suffers. The Book characterised the Crown’s activity as protecting the Kirk from innovations—the inventions of men and not God. Worship, it continued, ‘ought to be performed by a Liturgie advisedly set and framed, and not according to the sudden and various fancies of men’. ¹⁶ Rather than emphasise the unity of English worship, the Book suggested that Scottish worship was prone to excessive breadth through speculation. Establishing a set liturgy in Scotland would prevent the Kirk from haemorrhaging and then moving further away from religious practices in England. Going a step further than the Canons, the Prayer Book positioned the King as arbiter of these disputes.

If the Book of Canons outlined how the Crown thought the Kirk should be run, the Prayer Book established practical detail on how parochial services would look in the parish. The book codified key tenets of the Five Articles, such as the observation of holy days (the Book included a calendar), and extended the idea of kneeling at communion to other key parts of the service. The main substance of the Book, however, related to set forms of prayer, stipulating certain Scriptural texts to certain days. To this end, the authors included a litany with set prayers that ministers could use in various circumstances. This limited, but did not entirely preclude, the opportunity fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Conventions
• Introduction
• 1 Kirk and Covenant
• 2 Discipline
• 3 Ministers and Sermons
• 4 The Lord’s Supper in Crisis
• 5 Worship Spaces and War
• 6 Collections and Poor Relief
• 7 Death
• 8 Conclusion
• Works Cited
• Index