Robert Baillie and the Second Scots Reformation [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520311954

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ROBERT BAILLIE AND THE SECOND SCOTS REFORMATION

ROBERT BAILLIE and the Second Scots Reformation

F. N. McCOY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY, LOS ANGELES, LONDON

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Copyright © 1974, by The Regents of the University of California I S B N : 0-J20-02447-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 7 3 - 7 6 1 1 0 Printed in the United States of America Designed by Jean Peters

For my mother, a Covenanter, and Quirinus Breen, my teacher

Contents

Preface 1. Introduction 2. Baillie's Early Years, 1602-1638 3. Baillie and the Glasgow Assembly, 1638 4. For Christ's Crown and Covenant, 1639-1643 5. Baillie at the Westminster Assembly, 1643-1646 6. Tor King's Crown or Covenant, 1647-1650 7. Baillie and the Glasgow Protesters, 1651-1654 8. Baillie and Patrick Gillespie, 1654-1658 9. Baillie's Closing Years, 1659-1662 Bibliography of Works Cited Index

ix i 13 39 62 94 112 139 173 200 220 229

Preface

The religious Reformation that John Knox and his disciples effected in 1560-1561 resulted in the overthrow of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland and in the establishment of a Calvinist church with a protopresbyterian form of church government. The religious Reformation that the radical reformers and their disciples effected in 1638 resulted in the overthrow of the episcopacy that James V I had superimposed upon the Reformed church and in the establishment of the Presbyterian church in Scotland. This Second Reformation is acknowledged by political historians as a political revolution also, as the first volley in the English civil wars. From this viewpoint, the religious-political happenings in Scotland, from the royal proclamation of the Scottish prayer book in December 1636 through the period of the Cromwellian Protectorate to the Restoration, are important to students of English as well as Scots history.1 This Second Reformation, therefore, was an important one. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was studied repeatedly, although its students, unfortunately, were too often partisan in their 1

Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: Church and Nation Throuh Sixteen Centuries (London: SCM Press, i960), p. 83; H. R. Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud, 1573164s, 2nd ed. (New York: St Martin's Press, 1965), p. 368; Sidney Burrell, "Kirk, Crown, and Covenant" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1953), p. 8; C. V . Wedgwood, The King's Peace. 1637-1641 (New York: Macmillan, 1956).

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Preface

loyalties. The twentieth century witnessed a diminution of interest until the post-World War II historians picked up the theme again. The work of these historians, C. V. Wedgwood, Maurice Lee, and Sydney Burrell, has awakened new interest in seventeenth-century Scotland. The most prolific and eloquent voice on the seventeenth-century Scottish scene, the one on whom all historians of the period must rely, was Robert Baillie. Baillie was a Glasgow minister and professor of divinity at Glasgow College. He was a participant in the important events in seventeenth-century Scots church history. He shared in the framing of the National Covenant of 1638, spoke before the Glasgow General Assembly of that year, was chaplain in the first bishops' war, was a commissioner to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and was a commissioner to attend young Charles II at The Hague in 1649. In the Protester-Resolutioner schism of the 1650s, Baillie was on the side of the Resolutioners. Throughout the years of the Protester hegemony during the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland, and often at the risk of his ministry, his teaching, and his very freedom, he remained a Resolutioner, a monarchist, a conservative legalist, a defender of the rights of the church courts, a foe to Independency and episcopacy alike, and a publicist for the cause of the Scots Presbyterian church. Curiously, despite the importance of Baillie's role in the Second Reformation and despite the importance to the historian of his three volumes of letters and numerous pamphlets and books, no full-length biography of the man has been published. Carlyle wrote a short sketch of his life, as did Reid in his Divinity Professors of the University of Glasgow, 164.0-1903. David Laing, who transcribed Baillie's letters in 1842, prefaced the three volumes with a "Memoir" of Baillie's life. All three accounts, however, contain serious errors, primarily because the supplementary materials necessary to the historian were not available to these writers. Many of these materials are available today.2 Unfortunately, many of these materials remain lost, perhaps forever. Nevertheless, the twentieth-century historian is far better prepared to a

Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 4 vols. (London: Chapman & Hall, 1870), 4:304-338; H. M. D. Reid, The Divinity Professors in the University of Glasgow, 1640-1903 (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1923); Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXV1I-MDCLXI1, David Laing, ed. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 3 vols.

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understand the seventeenth century Scottish scene than were his predecessors. One trusts, also, that the ecumenical spirit of the twentieth century will have washed clean the dark glass of bitterness that obscured the vision of so many earlier Scottish church historians. Robert Baillie would have wanted it so. This book was made possible by the precepts of the two persons to whom it is dedicated, by the discipline in research taught me by Joseph A. McGowan, by a grant from the American Association of University Women, by the encouragement of Elizabeth K. Nottingham, by the patience of Richard Dell and the librarians of the University of Glasgow, and by the kindness of Grant Barnes, my editor. I thank them all.

1 Introduction

Robert Baillie knew two Scotlands. The Scotland he knew as a man was a state where, in true Calvinist theory, church and state were separate, yet where, in truer Calvinist practice, they were one. It was a state where the civil legislative bodies of parliament, privy council, and convention of royal burghs could hardly be distinguished from the church legislative body of the General Assembly and where the duties of layman and ordained clergy, formerly discrete, had become blurred. The Scotland hé had known as a boy had been, in many ways, a more orderly world, a more comfortable world in which to live. Although changes in both church and state had occurred since the 1561 settlement, they had occurred slowly. Above all, they had occurred relatively peacefully. The Parliament. In the period prior to the First Reformation, the Parliament had consisted of three groups, lay lords, clerical lords, and burgesses, each voting separately. Because the Parliament represented only landed interests, it was their instrument. Because it was a feudal institution, its powers for legislation were limited. In the Reformation Parliament of 1560 a fourth group appeared: the barons of the shires. Their right to participate had been granted by James I in the early fifteenth century. Until 1560, however, their participation had been negligible. Their presence in the Reformation Parliament after more than a century's absence posed a question of the legitimacy of that Parliament. After the First Reformation and during the minority of James V I (1567-1578), a fifth component of the Scots Parliament appeared: the members of the king's privy council, who represented the interests of

2

Introduction

the crown and who "constituted a group peculiar to the Scottish Parliament." These officers appeared first in the Parliament of 1567 and retained parliamentary status until 1641, when they were excluded. The Scots Parliament of the early seventeenth century, therefore, was composed of five groups: (1) the higher clergy and (2) the nobles, who were summoned by the crown; (3) the privy council, whose members sat as representatives of the crown; (4) the barons of the shires; and (5) the burgesses. The members of the last two groups were elected. The five groups sat as a single chamber. Parliament was not a large gathering at any time. Before 1660 it never numbered more than 183, and it rose above 150 on only six occasions.1 The First Reformation had not affected the status of the clerical estate in Parliament. Clerics continued to attend until they were abolished as an estate in 1639. Roman Catholics, however, had been barred from Parliament in 1572. The privy council. More influential than the Parliament was the king's privy council. The first function of the privy council was judicial, and it was responsible in its judgment to the king and, in theory, to Parliament. In its feudal capacity as advisory body to the crown lay precedence for its second function, that of executive in the absence of the monarch. During the minority of James VI, its power increased. Its members sat in Parliament; they were members also of the more important parliamentary committees. Indeed, "the measure of the essential weakness of the Parliament was the measure of the almost continuous strength of the Privy Council." 2 After James V I began to rule in his own name, the privy council too began to lose its autonomy, as James assumed increasingly the right 1 Sir Robert S. Rait and George S. Pryde, Scotland (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 195J), p. 60; James Mackinnon, The Constitutional History of Scotland from Early Times to the Reformation (London: Longmans, Green, 1924), pp. 80-81; John D. Mackie and G. S. Pryde, The Estate of the Burgesses in the Scots Parliament and Its Relation to the Convention of Royal Burghs (St. Andrews: W . C. Henderson, 1923), p. 3, hereinafter cited as Estate of Burgesses-, Robert S. Rait, The Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson, 1924), p. 4; C. S. Terry, The Scottish Parliament, Its Constitution and Procedure, 1603-1707, with an Appendix of Documents (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 190J), p. 4. "Rait, Parliaments of Scotland, p. 11.

Introduction

3

to choose his own councilors and to dismiss them at will. Thus, the privy council became increasingly an instrument of his will. After 1603 James governed Scotland through a compliant privy council and a subservient parliament. The convention of royal burghs. In more meaningful and in more all-pervasive ways, the most important of the three legislative bodies was the convention of royal burghs. Royally chartered towns, called royal burghs in Scotland, had deveoped in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In return for the responsibilities of paying proportionately larger taxes, the charters granted exclusive rights over imports, exports, fairs, and markets. By the mid-sixteenth century thirty-five royal burghs existed. After that period few new ones were created because of the opposition of the existing ones.3 Each burgh had its own court, although all royal burghs operated under the same law code. Out of these individual burghal courts evolved the convention of royal burghs, which was a burghal parliament. Its functions were both legislative and judicial. It had begun quite informally out of a common interest, that of merchant control over mercantile matters. In 1581, however, Parliament defined the duties and privileges of the convention: It had the right to determine each burgh's share of the total assessed taxes; it could regulate foreign trade; it was to meet yearly to "deal with the welfare of merchants"; it was recognized as the guardian of the privileges of the royal burghs.4 Just as the merchants controlled the burghs, so they controlled the convention, and so they came to control the burgesses in Parliament. The burgesses in Parliament, therefore, did not so much represent the interests of all burgesses as they represented the interests of the convention. Because of the parochial views of the burgesses, a true third estate did not evolve in the Scots Parliament. The barons of the shires tended to align themselves with the nobility rather than with the burgesses; the burgesses were interested principally in matters mercantile. Indeed, as early as the mid-sixteenth century the convention of royal burghs and 8 1. F. Grant, The Economic History of Scotland (London: Longmans, Green, 1934), pp. 37, 92-94. T w o other classifications of burghs existed: burghs of regality and burghs of barony, whose charters had been granted by nobles, barons, or great churchmen. 4 Ibid., pp. 9J-97.

4

Introduction

the estate of burgesses in Parliament had become confused, in that the burgesses who were elected to attend the Parliament were most frequently the same men who were commissioned to attend the convention as well. A major function of the delegates to the convention appears to have been the preparation of legislation to be submitted to the Parliament by the convention commissioners in their capacity as parliamentarians.5 The Scots judiciary. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scots judiciary system was a conglomeration of medieval and modern elements. In the period between the death of Robert Bruce (1329) and the formal Reception of Roman Law (1532), the so-called Dark Age in Scots legal history, justice was dispensed by a weakened central authority and by decentralized, but strong, feudal courts. The Renaissance monarchs, James IV and James V (1488-1542), tried to put an end to this feudal control over the dispensation of justice. The establishment of the college of justice in 1532, which utilized Roman Law, was the result of their combined efforts. The college was to be financed partly by additional church taxes and partly by the crown. The judges of the college, therefore, were to be seven laymen and seven clerics, with a cleric as president. They were to be chosen by the king "with advise and consent of the three estates." After the First Reformation an act of Parliament decreed that the president might be either lay or cleric. In the 1630s the distinction between the two estates was abolished.6 After 1603, the college too lost its autonomy, as King James, using the increase in power that the addition of the English crown had given him, came to nominate not only judges but president as well, disregarded the advice of the estates, and often nominated men who were obviously not qualified. His policy of disregarding the recommendations of the estates was continued by his son and successor, Charles I. Although the civil wars put an end to such executive control of the college, it was resumed with the Restoration in 1660. "Mackie and Pryde, Estate of Burgesses, pp. 1, 8, 21-25; Rait, Parliaments of Scotland, pp. 13, 15. 'Robert Kerr Hannay, The College of Justice: Essays on the Institution and Development of the Court of Session (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1933), pp. 63, 41, 109-110.

Introduction

5

In addition to the college of justice, other courts claimed supreme jurisdiction. Chief among these was the Parliament, which tried cases of treason and which claimed, although apparently without success, the right of appeal from the college of justice in civil procedures. Others were the court of justiciary, which was the highest criminal court; the admiralty court, which tried maritime cases; the court of the exchequer, whose area of jurisdiction lay with finances; the commissary courts of the burghs, which were the remnants of the old episcopal courts and which dealt with "marriage, divorce, legitimacy and testaments."7 Other vestiges of medieval jurisdiction were the sheriff's court, which was the local court for both civil and criminal matters, and the baron and burgh courts, both of which were little used in the seventeenth century. New courts, those of the Reformed church, will be discussed later in this chapter. The crown. The Scots crown in the late sixteenth century was weak. Prior to 1603 the king's authority was limited by the necessity of securing approval of the king's council and, in matters of taxation, the Parliament. This position of weakness was furthered by the fact that from James I (1437-1460) until Charles I (1625-1649) every Scots monarch, with only one exception, was a minor when he acceded to the crown. He was thus a tool in the hands of regents and councilors, at least until he had reached his majority. Both regents and councilors represented, at any given period, the strongest families in the feudal first and second estates. As in France, a state with which Scotland had maintained close alliance for centuries, the goal of the feudal landed aristocracy, many of whom were Norman in ancestry, appears to have been to prevent the monarch from amassing any real power.8 The Renaissance monarch, James IV (1488-1513), emulating Henry VII in England, had tried to establish a strong personal monarchy. His decrees that resulted later in the college of justice are evidence of his efforts to regain some of the regal rights that the Scots Roman lawyers advised him belonged to the crown. His untimely death at Flodden had ' R a i t and Pryde, Scotland, pp. 173-174. e Thomas B. Smith, Scotland, vol. 11 of The British Commonwealth: The Development of Its Laws and Constitutions (London: Stevens, 1962), p. 6; Grant, Economic History of Scotland, p. JJ.

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Introduction

left his infant son, James V , the nominal ruler. For fifteen years James V "was the pawn of factions ruling in his name" 9 although he later continued the work of strengthening the crown, as, for example, in his founding of the college of justice. His daughter, Mary, was, from the moment of her return from France in August 1561, never in control either of Parliament or of the privy council. Her Catholicism and proFrench sympathies alienated her from her Calvinist, anti-Catholic and hence anti-French, Lowlanders. James VI, however, understood the stomach of the Scots as well as he understood his own limited powers. Only after he acquired the throne of England did he undertake to act contrary to the sympathies of commoners and nobles alike. Even in his gradual reintroduction of bishops into the Reformed church, he was successful because he based his appeal upon ancient Scottish custom and law. After 1603 James set about to put down the Scots feudal nobility by banning many of their feudal privileges. Indeed, "the outstanding fact of James's reign was the transformation which he wrought in the Scottish constitution. He found it a monarchy strictly limited, and he left it all but a pure despotism." 1 0 Foreign trade. The Scotland that James ruled was a relatively poor place. Its economy was primarily agricultural, and, employing the primitive farming methods they did, the Scots knew years of famine alternating with years of plenty. 11 At the turn of the seventeenth century, Scotland's industries too were primitive. The traditional industries depended on an abundance of native resources. The newly developing ones involved manufacture. Those in the first category included skins and hides, fish, salt, and coal. Those in the second category included cloth- and soap-making, beer, paper- and sword-making, and tanning. All these products were exported. Because of an old alliance with France and because of exemption from custom duties there, Scotland * J . H. S. Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 120. "Grant, Economic History of Scotland, p. 161; P. Hume Brown, History of Scotland (Cambridge: University Press, 1902), 3 vols., 2:276. U S . G. E. Lythe, The Economy of Scotland in Its European Setting: ¡sfo162$ (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, i960), pp. 15-21 et passim.

Introduction

7

did a brisk trade with France prior to the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1560. Even afterward, Scotland continued to export salmon and herring, raw wool, skins, hides, and coal to France, and to import fruit, lace, tapestry, and salt, but primarily wine, which was the favored drink among the Scots. After 1603, however, trade with France fell off, in part because of better relations between Scotland and England, in part because of the lessening of troubles along the border, in part because Scotland's own salt and cloth industries were expanding. Scotland's chief trading region, however, were the Lowlands. Records of a staple port in the Lowlands begin with the early fifteenth century. The staple port was originally in Bruges (1426-1492), later at Middelburgh (1492-1503), and finally at Veere (1541-1799). The port had been established by contract with the town and the Scots merchants who were burgesses of Scots royal burghs. By the contract only these Scots merchants would be allowed to trade at the port. They were to be given a house for lodgings, a church and burial ground, and to be free from paying anchorage duty for their ships. The nature of the goods that were classified as staple is not clear. Specific goods were not defined until the mid-seventeenth century, and even after this first definition, which included salt, coal, knitted stockings, and salmon, changes continued to be made in the classification of the staple. The nature of the staple must be inferred from the facts that only free burgesses of royal burghs could engage in foreign trade and that the staple goods were those goods "in which only free burgesses of free towns could trade." Therefore, they would have been those goods that, being exported, were subject to tax by the Scots crown. Any goods whatever that merchants exported would, therefore, have come under the label of staple.12 All matters concerning the staple and its port were under the control of the convention of royal burghs. The merchants who exported came under its jurisdiction as did the administration and regulation of the staple port. Export duties were collected by the conservator, who lived at the port and who was both an employee of the convention and the representative of the royal burghs. He had jurisdiction also over the merchants, was required to report to the convention yearly, " J o h n Davidson and Alexander Gray, The Scottish Staple at Veere: A Study m the Economic History of Scotland (London: Longmans, Green, 1909), p. 354.

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Introduction

had the obligation to enforce laws regarding trade, and acted as judge in disputes among the Scots merchants. In the seventeenth century he became virtual governor of the Scots colony at Veere. As trade with France fell off after the turn of the century, so trade with the Lowlands increased, in part because of the church Reformations that had united the two Calvinist countries in a bond of common ecclesiology. Indeed, in the contract of 1578 between Veere and the Scots merchants, a clause granted the merchants not only the "choir of the great kirk" for their services but stipulated also that the minister should have from the town "their dwelling house, with free excise of beer and wine for his household and family," all so that the Scots in residence should "be not frustrated in the word of God and exercise of the religion, as it is for the present used in Scotland." 1 3 The first known appointment of a Scots minister to the church was not made, however, until 1614. Between that date and 1630 three men held the post, but little is known of the men or of the church activities in these years. With the appointment of William Spang in 1630, the church records at Veere clarify. Spang, who was a Glasgow man and a cousin to Robert Baillie, remained at Veere until 1654, after which date he was called to the Scots congregation at Middelburgh. Throughout his years at Veere and Middelburgh, Spang corresponded with his cousin in Scotland. Baillie's letters to Spang constitute the bulk of the three volumes of Baillie's published correspondence.14 The Reformed church. The church to which Baillie and Spang ministered had weathered several crises in its short history. The Reformation begun by John Knox in 1560 had aimed at a restoration M

Ibid., 420-424, prints the contracts of 1541 and 1578 in full. "William Spang was the son of Andrew Spang, a Glasgow merchant, who, in turn, was the younger son of William Spang, also a Glasgow merchant. The older son of William Spang, Sr., was also named William and was married to one Katherine Baillie some time between 1611 and 161 j . Three children were born to this marriage. For each child, one of the godparents was a male relative of Robert Baillie's mother (her brother, a cousin, and again her brothers). One godparent was chosen customarily from each side of the family. In the absence of Baillie's father and Baillie himself being too young to act in this capacity, the nearest male relatives on the mother's side would have been her uncles. This choice of godparents, revealed by the Glasgow baptismal records in the Glasgow city archives, opens the door to speculation that Spang's relationship to Baillie might have been by way of marriage of his uncle to an older sister of Robert Baillie. N o such sister is mentioned in his Journals, but then Baillie makes only rare reference to his brother and wife and never mentions his mother and father.

Introduction

9

of the church to apostolic simplicity, but that aim had not been achieved. Although the First Reformation had abolished some of the dogma, doctrine, and outward signs associated with the Catholic church, as far as the government of the Reformed church was concerned, this First Reformation had only divorced the church from communion with Rome. Although it had spoken against the office of bishop, it had not abolished it. The details of reorganization of the Reformed church were the later work of Andrew Melville after his return from Geneva in 1574. It was Melville who claimed parity of the ministry, government of the church by assemblies of pastors and elders rather than by bishops, and the separation and equality of the two kingdoms of church and state. The supreme authority of the church on earth, Melville asserted, was not the king but was rather the voice of the whole congregation met in an assembly. This assembly was later called the General Assembly. The General Assembly was one of the four church courts in operation at the opening of the seventeenth century. The lowest court was the kirk session, which met almost weekly and which was composed of the minister and elders of one church. It handled matters of discipline, morals, and disputes among congregational members. Matters not able to be resolved at the kirk session level could be referred to the presbytery court. The presbytery met once or twice a month and was composed of ministers and elders from all the churches in the diocese, or presbytery. It was the court of first appeal from the kirk session, exercised jurisdiction over expectant ministers, and held the right of ordination. The synod, or provincial court, met twice a year and was composed of ministers and elders from all the presbyteries in the synod. Unresolved matters could, in theory, be appealed to the synod court, although its chief function appears to have been administrative. Finally, at the top of this juridical pyramid, was the General Assembly, which was supposed to meet once a year and to be composed of at least one delegate from every presbytery. The General Assembly heard cases on appeal from the presbytery, handled administrative matters not settled by the synod, and legislated for the entire church.15 In the years between 1560 and 1600 the General Assembly had grown ls Duncan Shaw, The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, 15601600: Their Origins and Development (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1964), passim.

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Introduction

increasingly powerful. In those same years the Parliament had become increasingly subordinate to the will of the Assembly. By 1592 the two wings of the state's legislative-judicial system, which were in theory to be separate and equal, had in fact become merged in one, in part because the same influential earls, lords, barons, and burgesses who sat as members in the church court sat also in the civil court, in part because James V I did not assume personal rule until 1578, by which time the power of the General Assembly had become firmly established, and in larger part because the church had the support of the common folk of Scotland. One result of this absorption of the civil interest by the ecclesiastical had been the confirmation by act of Parliament, in 1592, of the Presbyterian form of church government, with its system of inferior and superior church courts, as the only legal one for Scotland. This "Charter of Presbytery," as the act is called, also abolished the ecclesiastical office of bishop as one not warranted by Scripture. James VI chafed under the limitations that presbytery placed upon the office of king. In the year 1600, therefore, knowing that he was to succeed Elizabeth as monarch of England, James took the first step that was intended ultimately to make of the church in Scotland a duplicate of that in England, namely, an episcopacy with the king at the head. In that year, with the qualified approval of the General Assembly, James advanced three Scots ministers to the title of bishop and appointed them to sit in Parliament, to complete, he said, the three estates necessary to a parliament. In 1606 a parliamentary act approved this reinstatement of the estate of bishops. Within the church, however, these bishops had no superiority over any other pastor. Like all pastors, they were subject to the authority of the general assemblies. In 1609, however, some of their old diocesan juridical functions were returned to them by act of Parliament. In 1610 three Scots bishops were consecrated at London by Anglican bishops, and in the same year each Scots archbishop was made judge over his own court of high commission, a court that superseded presbytery and synod alike. Finally, in 1612 the Parliament repealed the Charter of Presbytery.16 Although the bishops were subject to the authority of the General Assembly, the act of 1592 had given to the king the right not only to "Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 196j), pp. 197-211 et passim; Burleigh, Church History of Scotland, pp. 188-209 et passim.

Introduction

11

convene the Assembly but also the right not to call one. Furthermore, to convene without his permission was an offense. The last Assembly had been called in 1618 at Perth. At this Assembly, whose delegates had been chosen by the king via the bishops, five articles reinstating Catholic rites (kneeling at the communion, private communion, private baptism, early childhood confirmation, and observation of five holy days) were passed. Throughout the seven years remaining in the reign of James V I and the first thirteen years of the reign of Charles I, no General Assembly was convened. The collective voice of the presbytery was not heard; abuses went unchecked; the supreme authority on earth of the Scots Reformed church was stilled. Until 1638 the church in Scotland remained in this fluid state, neither wholly presbyterian nor wholly episcopal. Kirk sessions, presbyteries, and synods met regularly, although the bishop was the constant moderator at the two higher courts. The bishop also assisted in the ordination of new pastors, but he could do so only in the presence of, and upon the recommendation of, the pastors and elders of the presbytery. The bishops' authority was hedged, in turn, by the king. They were his instruments. Such, in substance, was the government of the church in Scotland when, in December 1636, King Charles, on his royal prerogative alone, ordered that The Scottish Book of Common Prayer, recently completed, be purchased and used throughout Scotland.17 The book had been the joint effort of the Scots bishops and some English bishops, particularly Archbishop Laud, and was an attempt to bring about increased uniformity in church services in England and Scotland—two sovereign states united only in personal union by the Stuart king—but at the expense of the Reformed church in Scotland. Throughout 1637 the ministry of the Scots church petitioned against the mandatory use of the book. An attempt to use it in St. Giles in Edinburgh in July 1637 resulted in riot by the parishioners. In autumn 1637 ministers and elders converged on Edinburgh to plan a course of action against it. When their many supplications to the king met with little response, three of the ministry met again in Edinburgh in February 1638 and composed the document that was to become known as the National Covenant. The covenant was subscribed throughout Scotland. The " S e e Gordon Donaldson, The Making of the Scottish Prayer Book of (Edinburgh: University Press, 1954).

1631

12

Introduction

Covenanter party had come into existence. A revolution was in the making. As J. H. S. Burleigh, late professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Edinburgh, wrote, "The Book of Common Prayer was the spark that kindled a consuming fire." In the words of Robert Baillie, one of the participating ministers, Scotland's "Second Reformation" had begun.

2 Baillie s Early Years (1601—1638)

Robert Baillie was a Glasgow man. He was born there and spent fortysix of his sixty years in the town that seventeenth-century travelers described as very fair indeed, with sweet and fragrant air. Glasgow. In the seventeenth century Glasgow lay on the north side of the river Clyde only and consisted of two wide thoroughfares that crossed each other at right angles. The traditional market cross, the place of proclamations, was situated at the point of juncture, as was the tolbooth, the building that served as counting house, city hall, and prison. The four streets that radiated from the market cross were the one-mile-long High Street to the north, on the east side of which stood the old Blackfriars' Church,1 the college, and which ended with the bishop's palace and the Cathedral of St. Mungo or High Church; the Gallowgate to the east; the Trongate to the west, named after the weighing place, or tron, and on the south side of which stood the town's third church, the former Church of Our Lady and St. Anne, or Low Church, also called Tron Kirk. South of the market cross the Saltmarket Street, where Baillie was born on April 30, 1602, extended 1 I n 1563 Blackfriars' Church had been made the property of the university. Grayfriars' Church, which had been on the west side of High Street, had been destroyed during the Reformation. Robert Renwick and Sir John Lindsay, History of Glasgow: Vol. I: Pre-Reformation Period (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1921), 40J-406. George Eyre-Todd, History of Glasgow: Vol. II: From the Reformation to the Revolution (Glasgow: Jackson, W y l i e & Co., 1 9 3 1 ) , 23.

14

Baillie's Early Years

in the direction of the river. The streets of Glasgow were wider than were those of Edinburgh, and they were paved. The plots of ground on which the two-story, thatched wooden houses stood were long and narrow, and fruit and vegetable gardens were a feature of every household. The population in 1602, the year of Baillie's birth, was about 7,000, and Glasgow was the seventh largest town in Scotland.2 Before the Reformation Glasgow had been an archepiscopal burgh. Even after the Reformation the bishop retained considerable civil authority. It was he who chose the lord provost from a leet submitted to him by the town council, and it was he who chose the three or four baillies, again from a leet. The provost and baillies in turn chose the members of the town council, one from each of the fourteen trade guilds and, usually, an equal number from among the merchants. When James V I elevated Glasgow to the position of a free royal burgh in 161 j, the bishop retained his rights of appointment to office. 3 The college. The bishop of Glasgow was also chancellor of the college.4 In the early seventeenth century, when Baillie was a student there, the college consisted of three small buildings on the east side of the High Street, one of which, the principal's house, had been built in 1615. The two other buildings dated from the fifteenth century. Although the papal bull of 1451 that had authorized the college had permitted faculties in civil and canon law as well as in the arts, by the seventeenth century only the faculty of arts remained, with one unstructured graduate program in divinity studies. The faculty was made up of the principal, in whose hands lay the program in divinity, and four teachers called regents. The undergraduate program lasted three years. The master's degree was mandatory for graduates and added an extra one-half to one year to the program. A young man admitted as a bajoun, or first-year student, was usually about fifteen years of age. A 2

John Gunn and Marion I. Newbigin, The City of Glasgow: Its Origin, Growth, and Development (Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Geographical Society, 1 9 2 1 ) , p. 8. " T h e trade guilds, chartered in 1604, were hammermen, tailors, cordiners, maltmen, weavers, baxters, skinners, wrights, coopers, fleshers, masons, gardiners, barbers and surgeons, and bonnetmakers. James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow, 2 vols. (Glasgow: 1816), 1:409; David Murray, Early Burgh Organization in Scotland, 2 vols. (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1924-1932), 1:170. 4 Munbnenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis: Records of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation till ij2j, Cosmo Innes, ed., 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 18J4), 3:xxiii-xxiv, hereinafter cited as Munimenta.

Baillie's Early Years

15

second-year student was called a semi-baccalaureus; a third-year student was a baccalaureus; and a fourth-year student was a magistrand.5 The college year operated on a quarter basis. The Martinmas, or fall term, began around November 2; the Candlemas, or winter term, began around February 2; the Whitsunday, or spring term, began in midMay and lasted until the third or fourth week of July. The grammar school. A student prepared for the college by first attending the grammar school, which was located on the west side of the High Street, almost directly across from the college. Six days in the week he was taught Latin, and on the seventh he was sent to church.6 Classes began at six in the morning and lasted until six in the evening. The course of study lasted five years, during which time the college aspirant achieved the degree of perfection in classical Latin that college admission standards required.7 Prior to attending the grammar school all children, boys and girls, could be sent to a Scots or English school, where they were taught to read and write in English or in the north dialect of Scots. Before a pupil was admitted to attend the grammar school, he had to be able to read and write one of these two dialects, preferably English. Baillie's family. Little can be learned of the identity of Baillie's "David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow: Jackson, W y l i e & Co., 1927), pp. 20-21. •Extracts of the Records of the Glasgow Presbytery, 1 $92-1601, Maitland Club Miscellany, vol. 1, part 1 (Edinburgh: Maitland Club, 1833), 89-90, January 3 and January 17, 1597/8. John Blackburn, the schoolmaster, was ordered by the presbytery to see to it that all his students attended services in the High Church. The presbytery ordered also that the ministers and magistrates arrange a special place for the students to sit while they "hear God's word preached." 'James Grant, History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland (Glasgow: William Collins, 1876), pp. 336-338, gives the five-year curriculum at the turn of the seventeenth century. T h e original manuscript was in the city archives, Glasgow, at the time Grant was researching, but Mr. Richard Dell, the present archivist, could not locate it at the time I was there. James Cleland Burns, The History of the High School of Glasgow: Containing the Historical Account of the Grammar School, by James Cleland, LLD., and a Sketch of the History from 182$ to 1877, by Thomas Muir, MA., FJIS.E. (Glasgow: David Bryce & Son, 1878), pp. 2-3, prints a mid-seventeenth-century daily program of study that was to be followed. Pupils were "strictly commanded not to use any expression except from classical authors or from the mouths of their teachers, who must take care that their pupils hear nothing from them but classical Latin." (Grant, op. cit., p. 161, citing the late sixteenth-century curriculum that was in the city archives in the late nineteenth century.

16

Baillie's Early Years

father. Baillie's editor, David Laing, gave him the name of Thomas and connected him with a family of minor lairds in Lanark.8 The testament of Baillie's mother, however, identifies her as the widow of James Baillie, merchant and burgess of Glasgow. Although the Saltmarket Street, where Baillie's parents lived at the time of his birth and where, presumably, he was raised, was a street of merchant houses and prosperous, yet nothing exists in any of the burgh records to indicate that one James Baillie was a man either of substance or of importance in Glasgow. Indeed, a James Baillie, "citizen," appeared quite suddenly in the records in 1598 and 1599 as a witness in land transactions and disappeared by 1601 as mysteriously as he appeared. No record of his marriage- to Baillie's mother is extant because parish registers for marriage do not begin until 1611. 9 Baillie's mother was Helen Gibson. She was the daughter of Henry Gibson, town clerk of Glasgow and commissariot of Glasgow. She had been married once before, to David Glen, a Glasgow merchant.10 One son by this marriage is known to have grown to manhood. He was the Henry Glen, whom Baillie referred to as his "only brother," who was about six years older than Baillie. At no time in his letters did Baillie ever refer to any other brothers or sisters. In her testament, filed in 1634, Helen Gibson referred only to her two sons and bequeathed her small legacy of forty pounds Scots, which was the sum ' T h e name "Thomas" was given, according to Laing, "in a brief notice of Baillie's life, prefixed to the publication of his Letters in 1775." Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLXll, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), i:xxi, hereinafter cited as Letters. "Helen Gibson's testament was recorded on April 18, 1635. The Commissariot Record of Glasgow, Register of Testaments, 1547-1800, compiled by Francis J . Grant, Rothesay Herald, and Lyon Clerk (Edinburgh: Scottish Records Society, 1901), p. 189. The testament is deposited today in the Register House in Edinburgh. A James Baillie, "citizen," first appears in the printed Glasgow records on May 26, 1598, as witness to a land transaction. Abstracts of Protocols of the Town Clerks of Glasgow, Robert Renwick, ed., 11 vols: 1547-1600 (Glasgow: printed for the subscribers by Carson & Nicol, 1894-1900), n ( i S 9 i - i 6 o o ) : 7 i , hereinafter cited as Abstracts of Protocols. Baillie appeared as a witness on three later occasions, August 3, 1598, and on April 14 and August 10, 1599. Abstracts of Protocols, 11:78, 108, 122. Marriages are listed in the Glasgow Parish Registers, Vol. 1: Marriages, 1611-171$, transcribed and edited from the original manuscripts by Arthur Jamieson of Barnach, in progress. Typescript is in the Glasgow city archives, not paged. 10 Abstracts of Protocols, 9(ij84-i587):46, 121; 10:12; 1 1 : 1 7 1 - 1 7 2 , 181-182.

Baillie's Early

Years

17

of all her "goods, gear, debts and sums of money" owed her, to her son Robert. No real property was mentioned. Baillie's education. Baillie did not attend an English school; he was taught at home.11 He did attend the Glasgow grammar school, however. Although the first year of his attendance cannot be known, his last year can be determined by the date he was admitted to study at the college, March 1617, when he was just a few months short of his fifteenth birthday. While he was a pupil at the grammar school, he came under the influence of Robert Blair. Blair had been laureated at Glasgow College in 1614 and immediately thereafter had been employed as the assistant schoolmaster at the grammar school. He was put in charge of half the 300 children then attending. One of those children was Robert Baillie. Later, Baillie was to pay tribute to Blair when he dedicated his Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland to his former schoolmaster. "I cannot deny," he wrote in the preface, "that since the eleventh year of mine age to this day, in my inmost sense, I have always found myself more in your debt, than in any other man's upon earth." This precise reference to Baillie's "eleventh year" puzzled Baillie's editor since Blair did not begin his teaching until 1614, which would have been Baillie's thirteenth year. 12 Baillie's half-brother, however, had begun his undergraduate studies at Glasgow College in 1611 in the same class as Robert Blair. Quite possibly Blair had been a visitor to the Baillie-Glen household as a friend to Baillie's older brother and Baillie had known Blair even before Blair started at his teaching post. Baillie attended Glasgow College from the spring of 1617 through the spring of 1620. Of his years of attendance at the college nothing is known save that which he recorded in his notebooks, which David u

Laing says, "Of Robert Baillie's early education, we learn from his own words that his first instructions were received under the parental roof." Baillie, Letters, i:xxii. T h e only source I have been able to find for Laing's undocumented statement comes from the first page of Baillie's Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland (London, 1646), which Baillie dedicated to his grammar school master, Robert Blair. Baillie wrote, "When I look back (as frequently I do with a delightful remembrance) toward those years of my childhood and youth, wherein I did sit under your Discipline, my heart blesses the goodness of God, who in a very rich mercy to me, did put almost the white and razed table of my spirit under your hand, after my domestic instructions which were from mine infancy. . . ." "Baillie, Letters, nxxiii.

18

Baillie''s Early Years

Laing said were "scarcely intelligible." By statements that Baillie made later in life, however, one can piece together a picture of a hardworking, hero-worshipping young scholar. Fifteen years later, for example, as he was being drawn into the Covenanter movement, he had first to fight an inner battle with the doctrine of passive submission to civil authority that he "had drunken in, without examination, from my Master Cameron, in my youth," although Master Cameron had been the college principal for only half of one year, in 1622. 13 At the college he came once again under the tutelage of Robert Blair, who had been admitted as regent at the college beginning with the Martinmas term in 1616. Two other regents at the college were to become Baillie's life-long friends and colleagues also. They were David Dickson, who later married Baillie's first cousin, Margaret Robertoun, and who was ten years Baillie's senior. The other was George Young, who would later become pastor at Glasgow's Tron Kirk. The fourth regent, James Robertoun, was Baillie's first cousin and the brother to Margaret, Dickson's future spouse. Baillie received his master's degree in 1620. In the Munimenta of the college his name is first on a list of nineteen. The names are not in alphabetical order; therefore, the inference may be drawn that he was laureated first in his class. According to Laing, Baillie recorded in his notebooks that he then took off on a brief holiday. He visited his many cousins and visited also the cities in eastern Scotland he had only read about to date: Stirling, where the gray castle that had witnessed so much of Reformation history stood sharply outlined against the mountain crags; Perth, where the famous articles had been passed only two years before; and, of course, Edinburgh where he saw "the tollbooth, kirks, castle, printers, booksellers, colleges, abbey." He wanted to continue his travels, but having "no means to go abroad," he returned to Glasgow and to Glasgow College to begin his studies in divinity.14 The exact year when Baillie began his divinity studies is unknown because no formal list of graduate students in divinity was kept before 1644. Neither did any set curriculum in divinity studies exist.18 T o 13 14 w

Ibid., 189. Ibid., xxiv.

Munimenta, 3:xvii. A formal graduate program of studies in divinity was not established until the spring of 1640.

Baillie's Early Years

19

further complicate the picture, the only divinity professor was the principal, and between the years 1620 and 1623 the office of principal was vacant for a total of four out of nine terms of study. Who was his teacher in these intervals? Laing records that Baillie had written in his notebooks in 1621 that he hoped "in two years to see Leiden and England, part of France, if peaceable, then to live and die in any landward church that is offered." 1 6 This note would seem to indicate that he planned to study for a total of three years, from 1620 to 1623. Baillie gives no hint of when he finished; the Munimenta of the college are mute. If Baillie finished his divinity studies in 1623, what did he do in the following two years before he returned, in 1625, as a teaching regent? Two possible alternatives come to mind. He may have taken a post as assistant schoolmaster at a grammar school, as his mentor, Robert Blair, had done, or he may have taken a post as family chaplain to a well-to-do family until such time as a regency post would become vacant. Either alternative would have been a solution for a twenty-oneyear-old divinity graduate whose parents could not afford to send him abroad and who had to earn his living. The only pieces of information that can be found on Baillie for these years are in the manuscript Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow in the Glasgow city archives. These records reveal that in June 1624 and again in February and December of 1625 he appeared as "exerciser" before the Glasgow presbytery. An "exercise" was an exegetdcal sermon delivered by a divinity student or graduate before an assembled presbytery. Baillie must have done well because after his second exercise in February 1625, "The Presbytery ordained a testimonial to be given to Mr. Baillie." Again in March 1628, after he had become a teaching regent at the college, he appeared before the presbytery, this time "to handle the controversy" of the sermon of another expectant minister. A year later, in December 1629, he was chosen to do the "adding" or extemporaneous supplement to the exercise of yet another expectant minister.17 "Baillie, Letters, i:xxiv; James Coutts, A History of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation in 14$ 1 to 1909 (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1909), p. 88. " G l a s g o w Presbytery Records MSS, 2:181, 184, 188. T h e records are complete from 1592 to September 1654, when a break occurs, and they resume with the year 1663. The manuscripts, which are in the city archives of the burgh of

20

BaHHe's Early Years

Baillie as regent. T h e top graduate was usually asked to teach at the college. Thus, Baillie became a teaching regent, apparently in 1625, although he did not sign the oath until the following year. In the oath Baillie promised to teach for six years and to give at least three months' notice of intention to leave. 18 A new principal arrived at the college at the same time. He was Dr. John Strang, a man with whom Baillie was to be friends until Strang's death. George Young was still a teaching regent, but David Dickson had been transferred to a church in the town of Irvine in A y r , and Robert Blair had resigned in 1622 after a theological dispute with former Principal Cameron and had gone to a pastoral charge in Ireland. Baillie's cousin, James Robertoun, had left to practice law. Of the faculty members who had been at the college when Baillie was a graduate student, only George Young and John Rae, professor of Greek, who, according to Laing, may have been another one of Baillie's numerous cousins, remained. Another period of darkness ensues. Baillie's letters for this period are not extant. Aside from his exercises before the presbytery in 1624, 1625, 1628, and 1629, nothing is known of his professional or personal Glasgow, are in bad condition, having gone through a fire at the Tron Kirk in 1793. The pages are burned at the edges and are water-damaged. In 1891 the Glasgow presbytery paid out 9.15.0 pounds to have all thirteen volumes interleaved in tissue paper and bound in half-pigskin. Details from Administrative Note No. 17, compiled by Mr. Richard Dell, city archivist for Glasgow. I am indebted to Mr. Dell for teaching me something of seventeenth-century Scots handwriting and for helping me with this, as well as all later transcriptions from these presbytery records. 18 An examination of the printed oaths taken by incoming regents between the years 1592 and 1635, during which time twenty-one regents were hired, reveals that Baillie's was the only oath in which the word legitime had been inserted, namely, "Quo die in numerum Magistrorum Academiae Glasguensis legitime cooptatus est M. Ro. Ballaeus. . . ." (Munimenta, 3:378), all of which could be interpreted to mean that Baillie had already been teaching at the college when he took the oath in 1626. The clauses in the oath relating to length of tenure reads, "rec [sic] ante sexennium exactum nisi impetrata venia ab iis quorum interest stationem hanc deserturum, nec nisi consultis, et ante tres menses praemonitis Academiae Moderatoribus, discessum . . . et trium mensium praemonitionem, alio migraturum." These clauses were standard in the oaths administered between 1592 and 1635. (Munimenta, 3:374-378.) Baillie's complete oath is given by Laing in a footnote in Letters, i:xxvii. Baillie left the college at the close of the academic year 1631, which would have been six full years, if he had begun his teaching in the autumn of 1625.

Baillie's Early Years

21

life. Only a few pieces of evidence testify to his six-year stay at the college. His signature appears on a faculty act of 1628 regulating the procedure for choosing and hiring of new regents. It appears again in 1630 together with a pledge of a contribution of 100 merks toward the college building fund that Dr. Strang had begun as part of a modest building program he had undertaken.19 Baillie referred in later years also to some who had been his "scholars" during these years. Among those scholars were the earl of Glencairn, who was to become one of the Covenanting lords; Hugh Montgomery, the oldest son of the earl of Eglinton, whose teacher or chaplain Baillie may have been prior to their both coming to the college; and, foremost, Archibald Johnston of Wariston, who was to be one of the composers of the National Covenant and a lawyer of some prominence.20 Baillie's ordination and translation. Baillie's plan in 1621 to settle ultimately in a "landward kirk" came to fruition in 1631. Considerable question has existed over the nature of Baillie's ordination to his pastoral charge at Kilwinning in Ayr. Robert Chambers in his Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen says that Baillie "in 1622 [sic] received episcopal orders from Archbishop Law of Glasgow." The Rev. Dr. Reid in his Divinity Professors in the University of Glasgow, 16401903, says that "the orders were Presbyterian orders, with the imposition of the hands of presbyters." 2 1 The actual ordination record, however, is not so specific as is either of these two accounts. The manuscript Records for the Presbytery of Glasgow for May 25, 1631, state that on April 20, 1631, a committee of " E a s t of the old High Street building, a new, long building was completed in 1632. It formed the northern unit of what would later be the inner quad. In 1639 the building forming the east wall of the inner quad was completed. T h e building program was laid aside during the period of the civil wars and was not resumed until 1656. (Murray, Memories, pp. 29, 30.) Strang put on a heavy campaign for funds. In 1633 Charles I pledged 200 pounds sterling but never paid it. It was paid by Oliver Cromwell in 1654. Principal Strang contributed joo merks. ( A merk was a silver coin the equivalent of 13'A English pennies.) All faculty members contributed something, as did the ministers and town council. (Munimenta, 3:472.) Sir William Brereton, in his Travels in Holland and the United Provinces: England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1634-163; (London: Chetham Society, 1844), p. 117, described the new building as a "good handsome foundation . . . a good fair and college-like structure." "Baillie, Letters, 3:336-337, 487. a T h e Rev. Dr. H . M. D. Reid, The Divinity Professors in the University of Glasgow, 1640-1903 (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1923), p. 82.

22

Baillie's Early Years

parishioners from Kilwinning, a parish in the presbytery of Irvine, had been summoned to appear before the Glasgow presbytery and the archbishop of Glasgow "to give their consent to the ordination and admission of Mr. Robert BailUe to the ministry of the Kirk of Kilwinning" but that the ordination had been postponed until May 25. The minutes continue: therefore the Archbishop of Glasgow . . . [pro]duced the edict, duly execute, and indorsation . . . [con] sent of the parishioners and all other things being done needful for the said Mr. Robert, his ordination, did in presence of the brethren of the presbytery and commissioners of the presbytery of Irvin, to wit, Mr. Michall Wallace, Mr. William Castellaw, Mr. Hugh Eglintoune, and parishioners foresaid, b y prayers and imposition of hands, admit the said Mr. Robert to the office and function of the ministry at the Kirk of Kilwinning, who was received by the foresaid commissioners in the name of the rest of the parishioners.22

The phrase "imposition of hands" does not specify whose hands. According to the rite of ordination published in 1620, the expectant minister was first tried by the presbytery, examined by them, and was then presented to the bishop. After this presentation by the presbytery, the bishop examined the expectant in the presence of the presbytery and a prayer followed. Then, "The prayer ended, the bishop, with the ministers that are present, shall lay their hands upon the head of him that is to be admitted, he in the meanwhile kneeling humbly upon his knees. . . ." 23 If this procedure was followed, Baillie's ordination was performed by bishop and ministers together; as such, it was neither wholly episcopal nor wholly presbyterian. The question of the date and year of Baillie's translation to Kilwinning has also been unsettled. Scott's Fasti gives the date as that of "Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, 3:47-48. These minutes, at the top of the left-hand page, are badly burned. I have tried to reproduce them as they appear today. "The Miscellany of the Wodrow Society: Containing Tracts and Original Letters, Chiefly Relating to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scotland During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, David Laing, ed. (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1844), 1:597-608.

Baillie's Early Years

23

the ordination, May 25, 1631,24 but the college year would not have been over by that time, and Baillie was not one to renege on a contract. Further, the Kilwinning kirk session records prior to 1656 are not in existence.25 However, Baillie's presentation and ordination had been scheduled originally for April 20, which would have been three months before the end of the college year. This date would have met the terms of Baillie's contract concerning three months' notice of termination at the close of the minimum contract period of six years. Furthermore, as the last week of the college year approached, the records of the Burgesses of Glasgow record that on July 12, 1631, "Robert Baillie, Minister of Kilwinning" was made a burgess of the burgh of Glasgow, "gratis, as eldest 1. [legitimate] son to dec. James B., merchant, Burgess and Guild Brethren." 26 Since Baillie was always one to abide by regulations and to fulfill contracts, the conclusion can be drawn that he gave his notice of intent to leave as soon as his presentation had been approved by the parishioners in April, that he remained at the college until the end of the academic year, and that he went immediately thereafter, probably at Lammas, August 1, to begin his pastoral duties at Kilwinning. He thought he was settled for life. At Kilwinning, 1631-1636. Only a few facts can be ascertained about the next five-and-one-half years of Baillie's life. Local records are not extant. Only a few of Baillie's letters and none of his sermons have survived.27 " H e w Scott, D.D., Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, rev. and enlarged ed., 9 vols. (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1 9 1 J - 1 9 6 1 ) , vol. 3: Synods of Glasgow and Ayr, 1 1 7 .

Originally published in 1866, it contains many errors for this period under study. 25 The Register House in Edinburgh holds those kirk session records after 1656. Records of the Irvine presbytery, to which the church of Kilwinning belonged, are not in existence prior to 1687. Rev. Mr. Thomas Burns, The Benefice Lectures Delivered

at the Universities of Aberdeen,

(Edinburgh: George A. Morton, 20 The

Burgesses

and Guild

190J),

p.

Brethren

Edinburgh,

Glasgow, and St.

Andrews

203.

of

Glasgow,

'573-1750

(Edinburgh:

Scottish Record Society, 1 9 2 5 ) , p. 8 1 . Baillie was exempt from payment of the regular burgess fees, from which fact the inference may be drawn that he had not sought this burgess-ship but rather that the town council had conferred it upon him as an honor in view of his imminent departure from Glasgow. " David Laing, in an appendix to the "Memoir" of Baillie's life, refers to a folio volume that had been in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Thomas M'Crie of Edinburgh. This volume is listed as Item II of "Adversaria and Miscellaneous

24

Baillie's Early Years

The old Catholic abbey of Kilwinning, in which the Reformed services were held, was only partially standing. Reformation violence, accompanied by and followed by clan feuds between the Cunninghams and Montgomeries, both of which families laid claim to the abbey and to its fruits, had left little of the original building intact. Around the turn of the seventeenth century the abbey came finally into the possession of the Montgomeries, earls of Eglinton, and they made repairs on the old choir section that were necessary to permit church services to be held there.28 An adjacent house, with the cornerstone date of 1598, had been used as the manse by the minister who had presided there in 1606. Whether this house was the manse of Baillie in 1631 is not known. A letter Baillie wrote in 1639 would indicate that it was not. He said, " G o d has blessed my labors here. . . . I have a good glebe, a money-duty paid me for my manse. . . . " A manse and glebe of four acres were considered part of a minister's stipend, and the owner of a benefice, in this case the earls of Eglinton, was obliged to furnish both to the minister, and in good condition. If the heritor, or owner, could not furnish these, he was obligated to pay the minister's rent. From the term, "money-duty," Eglinton probably paid Baillie extra money to rent a manse, rather than use the old manse, which was probably in poor condition. Hugh Montgomery, the oldest son of the earl of Eglinton, had been one of Baillie's students at the university; he had also been one of the Kilwinning parishioners present at Baillie's ordination. Less than a year after he had gone to Kilwinning, Baillie returned to Glasgow to marry one Lilias Fleming on July 12, 1632. 29 Five children were born to the couple during their stay at Kilwinning, although the dates for the first four children cannot be known because birth registers Papers" (Letters, i:civ) and contains letters that Baillie wrote to a cousin, a Mr. Creichton of Paisley, and to David Dickson in Irvine in 1634, 163J, and 1636. The letters are theological debates rather than personal letters. I located this folio MS, written in a scribe's hand, in the N e w College Library of Edinburgh, courtesy of Mr. J . V . Howard, librarian. " Information on Kilwinning Abbey is scarce. This paragraph is based on one book, written by the Rev. Mr. William Lee Ker, Kilwinning Abbey: The Church of St. Winning (Ardrossan: Arthur Guthrie, n.d.). I judge this book to have been written about 1883. 26 Glasgow Parish Registers, typescript from the original manuscripts. Both original and typescript are in the city archives of Glasgow; typescript is not paginated.

Baillie's Early

Years

25

do not exist for Kilwinning prior to 1688. The first born, a son, died sometime between May 28 and July 10, 1634. In an unpublished letter to his cousin, The Rev. Mr. John Creichton of Paisley, written by Baillie on the latter date, he began, "Your letter came to my hand in a sorrowful time, some two hours after the death of my only son." 30 The second child was probably Robert, born in 1634, followed by Lilias, and Henry, who was probably born in 1637, a n d finally an unnamed daughter, born May 20, 1641, who died only a year later. The folio volume that contains the letter to Creichton gives evidence of the extent and breadth of young Baillie's theological and ecclesiological interests. His two chief correspondents, or friendly adversaries, in a series of running debates were Creichton in Paisley and Dickson in Irvine. From 1634 through 1637 he debated with Creichton, whom he referred to as a "Canterburian Minister," on the tenets of the Arminians, to which Baillie was opposed. With Dickson he engaged by letters in a "friendly conference" on the Perth articles, to which Dickson was opposed. Even at this early date Baillie showed the interest that was to engage him throughout his life, namely, his opposition to any introduction of popery, Arminianism, Congregationalism, and Independency in the Scots Reformed church. One of the less happy features of the Presbyterian church government system, from the viewpoint of a minister's personal preference, was the power of a presbytery or kirk session to "call" a minister to its service. Having once been called, the minister was obligated to answer the call unless, by appealing either through the system of church courts or through personal influence, he could have the call nullified. In 1633 Robert Baillie received the call to attend the parishioners of a church in Edinburgh whose minister had died recently. Baillie appealed to one of the town baillies of Edinburgh, another cousin, to do all he could to have his name stricken from the leet. Baillie did not want to leave Kilwinning. "It had pleased God so to join my heart to my people," he wrote, "and theirs to me, ever since my entry among them, that to speak of a departure it were to break not my heart alone, but of many hundreds." A feature that would later become characteristic of Baillie, his reluctance to be drawn into the center of controversy, appeared at this " P . 1 of the folio M S referred to in footnote 27 above.

26

BMine's Early Years

early date as part of his pathetic plea: "[I pray] you would not draw me, to that place wherein daily I would have griefs that my weak, silly [weak] spirit could not digest, beside the daily danger, as times goes now, to be silenced, imprisoned, spoiled of my goods, liberties, and all that I have but God." 3 1 He would be buffeted from two sides, he wrote, if he were to go to Edinburgh. On the one hand, the anti-Perth faction would oppose him because he was not opposed to the rites established by the Perth articles. On the other hand, the bishops, "our new Cassandrian Moderators," could put him in jeopardy because he persisted in preaching against "Arminianism and Papistry." The call was canceled. Recourse to church courts had been unnecessary. Baillie remained at Kilwinning. His name had been first on the list of those leeted. In 1639, after his fame had spread, he would have to deflect yet another call. By 1642 he would have no recourse. The call would come from the highest church court, the General Assembly, and all his persuasive powers and influential friends would not be able to help him to stay at Kilwinning. Baillie on the new liturgy, 1637. Baillie's tranquil life at Kilwinning was shattered in December 1636 when he learned of the proclamation of the new service book. His published letters open with his letter to William Wilkie, regent at Glasgow College, in which he recorded his immediate reactions to the proclamation. Recorded too, in this first letter, are all the qualities that were to characterize Baillie throughout his life. In matters indifferent, Baillie was a conformist. He avoided all "jangling." "For myself," he wrote, "I am resolved, what I can digest as any way tolerable with peace of conscience, not only in due time to receive myself, but to dispose others also, so far as I can by word and writ, to receive quietly the same." In matters that were scripturally either mandated or prohibited, Baillie could not be swayed by majority opinion or by fear of being different. On such matters he was answerable only to his God. "I pray you, if you can command any copy . . . let me have one," he asked, "and it were but for two or three days . . . I am minded to cast my studies for disposing of my mind to such a course as I may be answerable to God for my carriage." 81

Baillie, Letters, i:xxx.

Baillie's Early Years

27

He did not approve of the extralegal manner in which the book was being promulgated. Authority for decisions on dogma and doctrine resided with the church itself, he maintained, and not with the state. "All Church Laws, [and] all Canons Ecclesiastical, have always been made in Church Assemblies, and not elsewhere," he wrote, and added, "The constant practice of the Church, both universal and particular, does evince this." He did not blame the king for this illegality; the king had been wrongly informed. "It is to me a matter above marvel, how any had minded to move our sweet Prince, to begin a new practise so late on our poor Church. . . . It's a pity that we should have none to give our gracious Prince due information." Baillie blamed the English bishops, particularly Archbishop Laud; these "foreign prelates" lusted after power, "which are the price of our poor Country and Church's peace and liberties, betrayed to the lust, and set under the sight, of some f e w foreign Prelates, if not one alone." Above all, this first letter demonstrates Baillie's brooding nature; he was a man who stood apart from the action. He observed the actions of others and then he brooded on his observations. The result of this meditation was a capacity for prediction that was invariably correct. In this case he wrote, "I am greatly afraid that this apple of contention have banished peace from our poor Church hereafter forever," and concluded, " I am afraid sore that there is a storm raised which will not calm in my days." Unfortunately, Baillie's fears and predictions were to prove true.32 Four months elapsed between the proclamation of December 21 and the publication of the service book the following April. After the publication, Baillie reported, the book became the focal point of many a sermon against it. The objections to it clarified once the book had gone "from hand to hand." Both its content and its manner of proclamation were the issues. "Some of the unconforming party makes it their text daily," Baillie wrote to his cousin, William Spang, in Holland, "to M T h e only extant phrase of a characterizing nature written about Baillie by a contemporary was that written by the earl of Lauderdale, when he referred to Baillie as "the little Monk of Kilwinning." Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh and Some Other Brethren of the Ministry, William Stephen, ed., vol. 2, 1657-1660, Scottish History Society, ser. # 3 , vol. 16 (Edinburgh: University Press, 1930), 38.

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show the multitude of the Popish points . . . the grossness of it far beyond the English; the way of the imposing of it, . . . contrary to standing laws both of Church and State; in a word, how that it was naught but the Mass in English." 33 The next few months were months of tension, tumult, and petitions. In June the bishop of Glasgow, as well as the other bishops, ordered the ministers of his presbyteries of the Glasgow-Ayr synod to buy the book immediately and to use it. He would not wait even until the synod meeting in August, Baillie reported. In July, the riot occurred in St. Giles in Edinburgh. Baillie happened to be in Edinburgh the day after and reported that the people were determined "to have done some mischief" if another attempt were made to use the book. In August the petitions against the use of the book began to be presented to the privy council in Edinburgh. Baillie had undertaken to carry the A y r presbytery petition around to the various towns of the presbytery. Baillie had not undertaken this activity on his own initiative, but at the request of a minister in the Glasgow presbytery whose name is unknown. To this person Baillie wrote that he considered the course of petitioning to be a "good and wise" one. The Ayr petition was only one among many. During August supplications were drawn up by the presbyteries of Glasgow, Fife, and Edinburgh as well. All these petitions requested that the charge to use the book be lifted. The reasons they gave were: ( i ) that the book had not been drawn up by the authority of the General Assembly or by any act of Parliament; (2) that the form of worship in the Scottish church had been established by the general assemblies and had been ratified by the Scots Parliament; (3) that the church in Scotland was "a free and independent Kirk" and that its pastors knew best what would "serve most for the good of the people"; (4) that the book contained points of ceremony that "departed" from the Scots church and that "drew near" the church of Rome; (5) that the book destroyed the church system of courts and "puts the censure of doctrine, the admission of ministers, and the whole government of the Kirk absolutely in the hands of the Prelates"; and (6) that it established a "reading ministry; whosoever can read the book can be a minister, and he who is best gifted must say no more nor he readeth, whether in ** Baillie, Letters, 1:16-17.

Baillie,s Early Years

29

34

prayer, baptism, communion." The result of all these supplications was a modification of the council edict. On August 25 the privy council said that the pain of horning extended only to the buying of the books, not to their use.35 In August, too, the bishop of Glasgow wrote to Baillie and asked him to preach at the approaching meeting of the Glasgow-Ayr synod "and, withal, to incite all my hearers to obey the Church Canons, and to practice the Service." Baillie answered that he had as yet not fully studied the canon and service books but that from what little he had studied, his mind was "no ways satisfied." Further, the displeasure that most had found in them had so "filled my mind with such a measure of grief, that I am scarce able to preach to my own flock," much less to the assembled synod. The bishop then commanded Baillie upon his "canonical obedience" to preach before the synod.36 Baillie was unwilling, but "I chose rather to obey," he wrote to Spang, "than to have cast myself in needless contests with a troublesome man." He started to prepare a sermon for the occasion. Fortunately— and Baillie's life was to be full of fortuitous circumstances that would relieve him of the necessity of endangering himself on a point of principle—another minister, who had been asked by the bishop to preach on the day after Baillie, could not do so on that day but asked for an earlier day. The bishop then assigned this other minister, one William Annan, to open the synod. The burden had been taken from Baillie. Had Baillie preached that day, he would have pleased no one. On the one hand, he would undoubtedly have met with the public reaction that followed upon the reluctant sermon of William Annan. "At the outgoing of the church," Baillie recorded, "about 30 or 40 of our honestest women, in one voice, before the Bishop and Magistrates, did fall in railing, cursing, scolding with clamours on Mr. William Annan. . . . All the day . . . he got threats of sundry in words and looks." M

Ibid., 449-451, where the supplication from Fife is printed. The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ser. # 2 , vol. 6 (Edinburgh: H . M. General Register House, 1905), 521, hereinafter cited as RPCS. M A s part of the ordination service under the Episcopal-Presbyterian compromise, the minister had to take the following oath: "I, A.B., do swear, that I will yield due and canonical obedience to your Lordship and your successors, in all lawful causes, according to the laws ecclesiastical in that behalf provided." (The Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, 1:607.) 85

30

Baillie's Early Years

Later that night, "Some hundreds of enraged women, of all qualities, are about him, with fists, and staves, and peats, [but] no stones: they beat him sore." 37 On the other hand, he would not have pleased the bishop, for the sermon that honest Baillie had been preparing was from St. Paul's second letter to Timothy: I charge thee therefore before God. . . . Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. . . . The following sentences of this particular chapter, which all the assembled ministers would have known, were, "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Baillie was indeed a conformist, as he himself admitted. He had not disagreed with the Perth articles. He had even, on one occasion in early 1637, written, "Bishops I love, but . . ." Much has been made by historians from Wodrow in the early eighteenth century to Burleigh in the twentieth of Baillie's supposed pro-episcopal leanings based upon this one short sentence.38 Any generalizations drawn from these three words about the young Baillie's attitude toward bishops and Perth articles must be offset, however, by a longer sentence he had written in 1633, when he was asking to be removed from the leet for Edinburgh: " T o preach against all points of Arminianism and Papistry," he had written to baillie Fleming, his cousin, "especially the doctrine of our new Cassandrian Moderators, you know likewise, how hateful it is to these men . . . ," but such sermons Baillie did preach against the Cassanders of Scotland.39 A wide gap lies between being conforming and "Baillie, Letters, 1:21. "Robert Wodrow, Analecta: Or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences; Mostly Relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Maitland Club, 1843), 1:321. See also J. H. S. Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, i960), p. 215. "Baillie, Letters, i:xxx. George Cassander took part in the movement for union between Protestants and Catholics in sixteenth-century France.

Baillie''s Early Years

31

being pro-episcopal. Baillie conformed to bishops and Perth articles because both had been agreed to by general assemblies, packed though these assemblies might have been. A minister did not choose which assembly he would agree with and which he would not agree with, not a minister at any rate who had been only a boy of sixteen years when the Perth articles were signed and who came, while still at college, under the influence of the doctrine of passive submission to civil authority, as Baillie was during Cameron's time. Thus Baillie, when commanded by the bishop, had agreed to preach. The line, however, was drawn there. The bishop could not tell him what to preach. Once in the pulpit, Baillie's authority came from a higher source, as he was to demonstrate again on later occasions. "Glad I was that Mr. William Annan took that burden off me," he wrote to Spang, and added, "I would have spoken no syllable of any conformity, but pressed these pastoral duties, which would not have pleased all." The text he had chosen testifies to this decision. The privy council wrote to the king in late August. The supplications against the service book had come, they said, "from almost all the parts and corners of the Kingdom . . . as the like hath not [been] heard in this Kingdom." They dared not proceed further, not knowing where it might lead. They suggested that the king take counsel with clergy and laity alike on the matter and said that they would meet with him on September 20 to hear his pleasure in the matter. Charles's answer, which Baillie called "that sharp reply," was read into the council register on September 20. It commanded that every bishop see to it that the service book be used and sharply rapped the council for being "very slack." 40 At this point the town council of Edinburgh, on demand from the townspeople, submitted its own petition to the privy council. 41 The council agreed to write to the king again. The archbishop of St. Andrews, Spottiswoode, who was also chancellor of Scotland, told the petitioners to expect the king's answer on October 16. The mood of the parishioners, in the lowlands at least, was ugly. 40

Ibid., 451-4J2 for the full text of the letter; 452-453 for the king's letter. RPCS, 6:534. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1626 to 1641, Marguerite Wood, ed., published for the corporation of the city of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1936), pp. 194-195, hereinafter cited as Edinburgh Burgh Records. 41

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Baillie's Early

Years

Violence was in the air. "The whole people thinks Popery at the doors," Baillie wrote, " N o man may speak any thing in public for the King's part, except he would have himself marked for a sacrifice to be killed one day. I think our people possessed with a bloody devil, far above any thing that ever I could have imagined, though the mass in Latin had been presented." 42 He was critical of the ministers' share in this hysteria. They "disavowed" the "unchristian humour" of the people, Baillie noted, but at the same time, they "are noways so zealous against the devil of their fury, as they are against the seducing spirit of the Bishops." When a group of the leading ministers, Baillie among them, met in Edinburgh in late September to devise means of calming the storm, the overtures they drew up could not but be against conformity. Such overtures were not conducive to tranquillity. Baillie, the moderate, could not get his suggestion to pass, namely, that the people must be reminded that it was "madness" for anyone, in this or any other cause, to risk the loss of his soul "in resisting authority." Although the implication in Baillie's suggestion was "by violence," such Pauline doctrine did not well agree with the prevailing mood. The day for moderation was past. "The Ministers who had the command of their mind . . . ," Baillie wrote, had obviously not reckoned on such a public reaction. Baillie's reputation for conformity in the past and for moderation was well known. Nevertheless, he began to fear for his own safety: The Lord save my poor soul! for as moderate as I have been, and resolve in the spite of the devil and world, by God's grace to remain to death. For as well as I have been beloved hitherto by all who had known me, yet, I think I may be killed, and my house burnt upon my head; for I think it wicked and base to be moved or carried down with the impetuous spate of a multitude; my judgment cannot be altered by their motion, and so my person and state may be drowned in their violence.43 The violence that Baillie anticipated occurred on October 18 in Edinburgh. Word had gotten around Edinburgh that the town council's petition of September 25, which the privy council had promised "Baillie, Letters, 1:23. «Ibid., 24-25.

Baillie's Early Years

33

to forward to the king, had never been sent. This rumor, which turned out to be fact, put the burgesses and their wives "in a high rage," according to Baillie. A multitude converged upon the council house. At this unfortunate moment, the bishop of Galloway came toward the tolbooth. He was set upon by the crowd. He cried for help and was rescued from the angry mob, most of whom were women, and taken into the tolbooth. Later that afternoon a proclamation ordered all persons off the streets. "It was not much from a dangerous uproar," Baillie reported, "but the diligence of the gentry, whom the people did respect, held all in." 44 That evening the leading noblemen, barons and ministers, among whom was Baillie, met and resolved to convene again on November 15, which was the day set for the next privy council meeting. Until that time, when they expected an answer to their supplication, nothing more could be done. The supplicants, Baillie among them, converged on Edinburgh as planned. Baillie had not wanted to go. "I was present against my mind," he wrote, "for I love no travel; but the Presbytery was importune with me to go, on the report of my service at the meeting before." So many representatives appeared, however, that in order to minimize the number of strangers on the streets of Edinburgh and hence the possibility of another outbreak, they chose commissioners from each of the four estates to deal directly with the privy council in the name of all. They chose three each from the ministry, burgesses, and gentry, and four from the nobility. Baillie was not among those chosen; nor did he want to be. The commissioners met with some members of the privy council and posed five "desires": (1) that they hoped they would not be misunderstood if they continued to convene for petitioning, if they found that his Majesty had not been "rightly informed"; (2) that the privy council would "mediate" with the king to restore the court of sessions and privy council to their ordinary place of sitting, namely, Edinburgh, rather than Stirling to which he had moved it; (3) that the council u lbid., 38. John, earl of Rothes, A Relation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the Kirk of Scotland from August 1637 to July 1638 (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1830), p. IJ, hereinafter cited as Rothes, Relation, says that "no violence was intended nor performed by the said multitude, no weapons used, nor present."

34

Baillie's Early

Years

intercede with the bishop for the restitution of Edinburgh's "silenced" ministers and of regular church services;45 (4) that the council intercede with the bishops not to make any innovations in religion or read from the service book until his majesty's answer should be known; and (5) that they might have permission to choose commissioners and to meet in their respective shires.46 That day the privy council wrote to the king and to the king's secretary, informing them of the latest events. The thirteen commissioners, "the Tables," as they came to be called, remained in Edinburgh to await further developments while the rest of the supplicants returned home.47 Baillie returned to Kilwinning and remained there until midFebruary. He took no part in the negotiations of December-February although he maintained a brisk correspondence with friends in Edinburgh and recorded a chronology of the events, which he then wrote about to Spang in Holland. Not until December 21, exactly one year to the day after the privy council had proclaimed the mandatory use of the service book, were the supplicants finally able to present their objections to it, with some degree of assurance in law that the supplications would be transmitted to the king. In all this time they still believed that the obstacles in the path of the king's withdrawal of the objectionable book were the privy council, the bishops, and the king's unwise advisers in England. They "Several ministers had been deposed by the bishops for their refusal to participate in using the service book. Since August 1637 no full church services had been held in Edinburgh. (Baillie, Letters, 1:18.) Part of the petition dealt with restoration "of the common prayers, within this burgh [and] reponing of the two ministers presently silenced." (Edinburgh Burgh Records, p. 197.) " T h e order and wording in which these five requests are given differ slightly according to Rothes and Baillie. (Baillie, Letters, 1:40-41; Rothes, Relation, pp. 26-27.) 47 W . L. Mathieson, Politics and Religion: A Study in Scottish History from the Reformation to the Revolution, 2 vols. (Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons, 1902), 1:376, calls them the "Green Tables, in allusion to the table covered with green cloth at which each of the committees sat." I have found no reference to any "green" tables. John Row, a contemporary, although not an eyewitness, in his account written a few years after the event, says, "and each rank choosed commissioners . . . sitting in four several rooms at several tables in the Parliament House; hence they were called T H E T A B L E S . " See also John Row, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, from the Year is;8 to August 1637, with a Continuation to July ¡639, by His Son, John Row (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1842), p. 486.

Baillie's Early Years

35

believed that once he was rightly informed, he would rescind the mandate. They believed also, as of December 1637, that a return to the status quo before 1618 was all they wanted.48 Baillie, however, writing his account to date, feared the growing mood of rebellion. "Even if [the King] relent," he wrote, and give w a y to our Supplications, the danger is not passed: W e k n o w not where to stand; when the Books of Canons and Service are burned and a w a y , when the H i g h Commission is down, when the Articles of Perth are made free, when the Bishops' authority is hemmed in with never so many laws; this makes us not secure f r o m their future danger: so whatever the Prince grants, I fear w e press more than he can grant. 49

Neither was Baillie wholly in accord with the extreme views that the leaders of the movement were beginning to voice. He wrote in January: "For matters of ceremonies, I know no reason of changing my mind; yea a late book, which others admire as a piece unanswerable, had made me more adverse than I was from these men's doctrines and practices." Nevertheless, as long as they stayed within the limits of legal action, Baillie would join them. "I am glad to join with them in opposing a common enemy," he wrote, "since no other way is left, but either to swallow down all that the Canterburians can invent, or else to oppose them plainly in their lawless practices." 50 The National Covenant, 1638. Scotland waited almost two months for the king's reply. Around February 20-21 the king's proclamation was read throughout the major burghs of the kingdom. The king had forbidden all meetings the purpose of which was to protest the service book and ordered all strangers to leave Edinburgh.51 The supplicants, having learned in advance of the nature of the king's reply, had prepared protests against it. The king's actions, they 48 Rothes, Relation, pp. 39, 42; and p. 56: " W e crave no more but the discharge of the Service-Book, Canons, and High Commission; that no oath should be taken of Ministers by their ordination but that which is allowed by the Act of Parliament, which gave Bishops the power of ordination . . . and that a General Assembly might be appointed every year . . . and [that] the King would willingly discharge the Acts of Perth." "Baillie, Letters, 1:49. m lbid., 28. 61 For the text of the proclamation, see RPCS, 7:3-4.

j6

BaHUe's Early Years

held, were not in accord with Scots law. Each time the Lyon-Herald mounted the steps of a market cross, therefore, he was met with a supplicant-turned-protester who was armed with a legal protest against it, thus prohibiting immediate implementation of the proclamation pending a parliamentary decision. At Edinburgh, on February 22, the protest was read by Archibald Johnston of Wariston, Baillie's former student. Baillie was not there to witness the beginning of Wariston's historic career, however, because Baillie did not arrive until late in the afternoon. On that same February 22 a notice, written by the earl of Rothes, was sent to all the supplicants in Scotland, telling them of the king's proclamation, of the protestation, and urging them to come to Edinburgh "with all possible diligence," where, after consultation together, "You may then resolve either to join with these here in that way they have hitherto gone or shall hereafter prosecute, which is and shall be just, legal, and necessary, or else coming and hearing your friends here privately, not getting satisfaction, you may freely return, and observe your own way, if ye be not pleased with the course we take." 82 They converged on Edinburgh. The question was, What to do next? According to Baillie, Alexander Henderson and David Dickson "resolved to renew the old covenant." According to Rothes, "Speaking generally what was to be done, they [the Tables] fell upon the consideration of a band of union to be made legally; also, after his Majesty was supplicated, and would not return an answer, a declaration was thought on as the last act." 63 On that same day, February 23, according to Rothes, Archbishop Spottiswoode, the chancellor, said he would "deal with" the king to remove the objectionable book and to modify the court of high commission, "providing the Petitioners would crave no further," but this answer, which might have been satisfactory six months sooner, was now too late and offered too little. The supplicants-turned-protesters would not be put off. That day, February 23, Alexander Henderson and Archibald Johnston wrote the "The Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, vol. 1:1632-1639, George Morison Paul, ed., Scottish History Society (Edinburgh: University Press, 1911), 318, hereinafter cited as Wariston, Diary, 1632-1639. For the text of the notice, see Rothes, Relation, pp. 67-68. 03 Rothes, Relation, p. 69.

Baillie's Early Years

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first draft of the general band that would be known in Scots history as the National Covenant. On the following day the nobility, represented by Rothes, Loudoun, and Balmerino, made their revisions. On the following Monday, February 2 6, the band was presented to the representatives of the ministers and another revision was made. Baillie did not participate in the actual writing of the covenant, although when he suspected that the intention was to include clauses "to make us foreswear Bishops and Ceremonies," he spoke "sharp" against any such statement. Were such a clause to be included, he said, it would create a division within the ministry since many ministers were of his mind, and such a division within the ministry would be only what the bishops wanted. He secured a written promise from Lord Loudoun that when the covenant came to be approved by the nobles, they would destroy it rather than allow any clauses to be included that would cause a rent among the ministry. When Baillie saw the document he found that certain phrases could indeed have been so construed. At his request, a parenthetical clause was inserted in Part III that allowed "the practice of all innovations already introduced . . . till they be tried and allowed in free Assemblies and in Parliament." Until such time as Parliament disallowed the ceremonies and bishops, he argued, he must approve them in practice. In return for this clause, Baillie had to yield on the point of agreeing to the fact of the "corruption" of the government of the church that the bishops had permitted to exist.64 Some other clauses disturbed the moderate Baillie, clauses "which might have seemed to import a Defence in arms against the King." Baillie could not yield to this point "in any imaginable case." Master Cameron had taught him that open rebellion against the king was not permitted under any conditions. Were these clauses to remain, he said, he could not subscribe. "These were also changed," he wrote, "so that no word, I hope, remains in this writing, which, in any congruity, can be drawn against the Prince; but many sentences are expressly to the contrary." 55 K J o h n Lumsden, The Covenants of Scotland (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1914), pp. 227-240, prints the text of the National Covenant, as does Samuel Rawson Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 124-134. K Baillie, Letters, 1:52-53.

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Baillie was modest enough when he gave the reason for the willingness of the earl of Loudon and the writers of the new band to make these revisions. "Both because they hoped what would content my scrupulous mind," he said, "might by appearance satisfy others who were of my judgment, whereof there was a great number; as also for the regard to myself, to whom they profess some respect for my pains in this cause." The authors hoped also "that I being satisfied, would be an instrument to give others contentment." In the moderate nature that the National Covenant took in its final form, the influence of Robert Baillie has never been given due credit. On Tuesday, February 27, the final draft was ready. It was taken to the hall where two or three hundred ministers were congregated and was submitted to them for their approval. They had some objections but were "soon satisfied," according to Baillie. Then all gave their consent. Unity had been preserved. On the following day, the consent of the barons was obtained. That afternoon the band, now called a covenant, was signed. The supplicants had gathered in Greyfriars' Church. The prayer was given by Alexander Henderson. Archibald Johnston read a draft of the covenant. At four in the afternoon the nobles began to put their signatures to it. They were followed by the barons, "so many as could subscribe that night, til it was near eight." 66 On March 1 300 ministers and the commissioners of the burghs subscribed. On March 2 and 3 the people of Edinburgh gathered in the college church and put their signatures to it. The Covenanter party had come into existence. Whether he liked it or not, Baillie found himself associated with the members of its central committee. "Rothes, Relation, p. 79; Wariston, Diary, 1632-1639, p. 322.

3

Baillie and the Glasgow Assembly («>38) 1 Only a little more than a year had elapsed since the promulgation of the king's order regarding the Scottish Book of Common "Prayer. In that year the mood of the Scots ministry had changed from that of petitioner to that of resister. With the signing of the National Covenant in February 1638, the mood underwent yet another change. The resisters had become potential revolutionaries. Whether this potential for open defiance would be translated into actuality was to depend in large part on the actions of the king. By the close of the year 1638 Charles's actions were such that this potential was indeed made a reality. Seven long months of negotiations were required to get the king's permission to hold a general assembly. In the course of those seven months the king, by his hedging, sacrificed much of the trust that the traditionally royalist Scots had in him. Further, his attempts to control and limit the freedom of the Assembly by way of his commissioner, the marquis of Hamilton, resulted in the act of open defiance of the king's authority that resulted, in turn, in a fatal rupture in Anglo-Scots relations, a loss of power of the king in Scotland and England as well, a new constitution for the Scots Reformed church, and a hardening of doctrinal lines behind a church governmental structure that was to be purely presbyterian. The Covenanter experiment in theocracy was about to begin. The National Covenant. The covenant of 1638 was only one of many Scots covenants. Indeed, Lumsden, in his volume, The Covenants

40

Baillie and the Glasgloiv Assembly

of Scotland, says that Scotland was "the land of Covenants, for during a century and a half of her history there were no fewer than thirtyone of these subscribed in the country." The first covenant had been one agreed upon by five lords, upon the occasion of a visit of John Knox to Scotland in 1556, the "Duns Covenant," as it came to be called. In this first covenant, the lords had agreed "to renounce the congregation of Satan with all the superstitions, abominations, and idolatry thereof," the "congregation of Satan" being the church of Rome.1 The covenant of 1638 was in three parts. The first part began with a repetition of yet another covenant, that of 1580, which was called "The King's Covenant," "The King's Confession," or "The Negative Confession," because in it King James V I had "so vigorously denounced all things papistical that it could hardly be improved on as a test of protestantism." 2 The second part, written by Wariston, consisted in a detailed summary of all the acts of the Scots Parliament that had established and guaranteed the rights and privileges of the Reformed church. The third part, written by Alexander Henderson, contained what Baillie referred to as "an application to the present case." 3 In this third part Henderson had written that because of the "danger" to the Reformed religion, the people of Scotland were banding together "to adhere unto and to defend the foresaid true religion." Henderson ended with these words: The Articles of the Covenant, which was at the first subscription referred to the determination of the General Assembly, being now determined; and thereby the five Articles of Perth, the government of the Kirk by Bishops, and the civil places and power of Kirkmen, upon the reasons and grounds contained in 'John Lumsden, The Covenants of Scotland (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1914), p. 1. The period referred to is that between ijj6 and 1683. See also J. H. S. Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, i960), p. 134. * Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), 178; see also Burleigh, op. cit., p. 201. ' R o b e r t Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A.M., Principal of

the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLXIL David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 1:52, hereinafter cited as Baillie, Letters. Baillie's modifications appear in this third part of the covenant.

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the Acts of the General Assembly, declared to be unlawful within the Kirk, we subscribe according to the determination aforesaid. The National Covenant was thus essentially an appeal to law and constitutionality.4 To the extent that Charles had acted extralegally and contrary to the acts of the Scots parliaments, to that extent the covenant could be said to have been implicitly revolutionary. Indeed, Charles himself was later that year to say, "As long as this Covenant is in force . . . I have no more Power in Scotland than as a Duke in Venice," and he concluded with the prophetic statement, "which I will rather die than suffer." 6 As soon as word of the covenant was bruited about, the privy council took action. On March 1, 2, and 3 they met at Stirling and resolved to tell the king "the true state of the country," namely, that, "the fears apprehended by the subjects of innovations of religion and discipline of the kirk established by the laws of this kingdom upon occasion of the Service Book, Book of Canons, and High Commission, and the form [and] introduction thereof, contrary or without warrant of the laws of this kingdom, are the causes of this combustion." 6 Later that week the nobility decided to take their complaint to the king more directly. They wrote a letter to three influential Scots nobles at the London court and asked them to intercede with Charles on behalf of the Covenanters. Charles's answer to the privy council came during the last week of March. In his letter he said that "at first sight this course that you have advised unto us would hazard the overthrow of that church government which our dear father of blessed memory hath established," but he nevertheless requested that Traquair and Roxburgh, two of the ' G o r d o n Donaldson, Scotland: Church and Nation Through Sixteen Centuries (London: S C M Press, i960), pp. 83-84. 8 Records of the Kirk of Scotland, Containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the Year 1638 Downwards, as Authenticated by the Clerks of Assembly; with Notes and Historical Illustrations, Alexander Peterkin, ed., vol. 1 (Edinburgh: John Sutherland, 1838), 70, letter from Charles to Hamilton, June 25, 1638, hereinafter cited as Peterkin, Records. 'The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ser. # 2 , vol. 7 (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1906), 8-9, hereinafter cited as RPCS.

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privy council, hasten to court to inform him more fully of the situation.7 The demand for a general assembly. The members of the Tables sensed a possible weakening of the united front in view of impending concessions by the king. In order to prevent such a possibility, they, or rather Wariston and Henderson, wrote out eight demands for distribution, the purpose of which was "to informe the people in the nature of our desires." The demands were: ( i ) that simply discharging the service books for the present was not sufficient; (2) that a general assembly must be called, and a parliament, to settle this matter; (3) that the high commission court could not be "limited"; it must be discharged; it was unlawful; (4) that the "urging of Perth Articles must cease and desist"; (5) that the bishops and archbishops were to be "tried and censured according to the Acts of the General Assemblies," likewise ministers who had acted unlawfully; (6) that general assemblies must be held "once in the year" as promised by King James; (7) that ministers in Parliament must vote within the limitations of the canons of the General Assembly of 1600; otherwise, they did not represent the kirk; and (8) that only the consent of the people and of the presbytery was necessary to admit to the ministry; "therefore the commission granted to bishops" must be made null.8 In mid-April the messenger who had been sent by the nobles to the Scots lords who were at court returned with a letter from the duke of Lennox. He had spoken with the king, he wrote, and the king had commanded that this message be communicated to the nobles: that he had seen the supplication, that the council had sent him supplications from time to time, and that he would explain his intentions and thus save the nobles the trouble of sending any more supplications or of going themselves to London. An answer was in order, but it was not to be a joint one, signed by all the nobility, lest the king's suspicions of rebellion be aroused. Therefore, the eight demands of the ministry were revised somewhat and signed by the earls of Rothes, Cassilis, and Montrose in name of all the nobles and were sent off to Charles in early May under the title, 7

RPCS, 7:17; see also John, earl of Rothes, A Relation of Proceedings Concerning the Affairs of the Kirk of Scotland from August 1637 to July 1638 (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1830), pp. 93-95, hereinafter cited as Rothes, Relation. 8 Rothes, Relation, pp. 96-98.

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"Articles for the Present Peace of the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland." Charles's answer was two-dimensional. He began to stock the castle at Edinburgh with ammunition, which the chancellor is alleged to have said "was the best way to force Edinburgh to obey whatsoever should be enjoined, and to beat and keep out the Supplicants from Edinburgh." 9 He also appointed the marquis of Hamilton as his personal commissioner in Scotland. Hamilton carried with him a declaration from Charles to the effect that he intended no innovations in religion and that he did not intend to press the service book and book of canons "till by a fair way they were induced to approve the same." Hamilton's instructions included the power to declare as rebels any who made protest against this declaration, to call a general assembly "as soon as the peace of the Country will permit," and to refuse to allow any petition against the articles of Perth.10 Hamilton reached the border town of Berwick on June 3. He presented his commission from the king to the privy council at Dalkeith on June 6. The following day he traveled to Edinburgh and was greeted by more than 20,000 persons who lined Canongate Road on the route to Holyrood Palace, where he was to make his headquarters. A number of the Covenanters met with Hamilton that day in Holyrood and were well received. They left with hope of having their demands met. Baillie, who was present, said, T h e Marquis . . . was much moved with pity, even to tears; he professed thereafter his desires to have King Charles present at that sight of the whole country, so earnestly and humbly crying for the safety of their liberties and religion. His Grace's countenance and carriage was so courteous, and his private speeches so fair, that w e were in good hopes for some days to obtain all our desires. 11

After a delay of ten months the Covenanters were impatient for settlement. Hamilton, new to the scene, played for time. In doing so, he only increased the suspicions of the Covenanters. As their suspicions increased, so their actions became more peremptory and their demands "Baillie, Letters, 1:79-80; Rothes, Relation, p. 113. " F o r the king's declaration and his instructions to Hamilton, see Peterkin, Records, 65-68. "Baillie, Letters, 1:84; Rothes, Relation, p. 116.

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less subject to peaceful solution. When the Tables spoke with him again on June 12, he assured them they would have their General Assembly and Parliament, provided "they would not irritate his Majesty by their carriage and behaviour in this business, and that in his Majesty's own time." When they told him the next day that they were prepared to protest if the king's declaration demanded that they give up the covenant, Hamilton said that further protests would do no good and would only irritate the king. Hamilton did say, however, that the king had ships prepared to sail against Scotland (the port of Leith was even then being fortified by Charles) as soon as Hamilton were to inform him that the king's "honour [was being] slighted." 1 2 On June 15 the Tables presented a common supplication to Hamilton. In it they asked him to call a general assembly and a free parliament. They met with him the following day for his answer. At that time Hamilton promised an answer within two days. They asked him again the next day. He said that the king meant to grant a general assembly but that "during the present disturbance" was not the right time. Hamilton gave his answer on June 20: A general assembly and a parliament would be granted. First, however, Baillie wrote, "some scruples anent [the supplication of June 15] behooved to be satisfied." Rothes says that Hamilton proposed that they rescind the covenant "as a means to get them all their desires." This suggestion was rejected. The Tables, however, did revise their supplication of June 15 and the revision stressed their "loyal intention in entering that Covenant," as Hamilton had suggested. Hamilton said that he would go to the king with it, that he had permission to declare for an assembly and a parliament only on the condition of their renouncing the covenant, and that since they would not do so, he had to go back to court to submit the new petition to the king. On June 28 the Tables pressed him for a definite date for his return. He specified August 5 and made a demand of his own, that no changes be made or action taken in his absence. Hamilton did not leave for London immediately. Rather, the following Tuesday, July 3, he announced that he would publish the king's proclamation the next day. Perhaps a letter from Charles, dated June 25, was instrumental in this decision. In it Charles had said, "Baillie, Letters, 1:85; Rothes, Relation, pp. 144-147.

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There be two things in your Letter that require Answer, to wit, the Answer to their Petition, and concerning the Explanation of their damnable Covenant; for the first, the telling you that I have not changed my mind in this particular, is Answer sufficient . . . and for the other, I will only say, that so long as this Covenant is in force (whether it be with or without Explanation) I have no more power in Scotland than as a Duke in Venice; which I will rather die than suffer; yet I commend the giving ear to the Explanation, or any thing else to win Time, which now I see is one of your chiefest cares. . . . Another I know is, to show the World clearly, that my taking of Arms is to suppress Rebellion, and not to impose Novelties, but that they are the seekers of them; wherefore if upon the publishing of my Declaration a Protestation should follow, I should think it would rather do right than wrong to my Cause; and for their calling a Parliament or Assembly without me, I should not much be sorry, for it would the more loudly declare them traitors, and the more justify my Actions; therefore in my mind my Declaration would not be long delayed; but this is a bare Opinion and no Command.13 The king's proclamation was published at the market cross of Edinburgh on July 4. Baillie wrote that the king had declared his resolve never to be "stained with Popish superstition," and had said that he would never "press" the service books "but in such a fair and legal way, as shall satisfy all Our loving subjects," and had promised also that the court of high commission would be so "rectified" that it would never "impugn our Laws, nor be a just grievance to Our loyal subjects"; he had said further that all other items that should be discussed in a general assembly, and a parliament would "likewise be taken into Our Royal consideration, in a free Assembly and Parliament, which shall be indicted and called with Our best convenience." In the days that followed, the Tables penned reasons for holding a general assembly, even without the permission of the king, if necessary. Baillie, who had journeyed from Kilwinning to take part in the debate, was unsure of the legality of such an eventuality. He wrote to Spang: 13

Peterkin, Records, 70.

46

Baillie and the Glasglow Assembly At my first hearing of it, I was much amazed; I was utterly averse from thinking of any such proposition; but after some study, I find my mood allayed. I intreat you, try the mind of Rivett and Voetius, if when the Prince or State are unwilling, the Kirk may keep a General Assembly in times of necessity, though authority should discharge; also direct me to all the writers you are able for my help of information. I am feared that this boast of our right, only in policy, as yet they say, be indeed put in practice: the events I groaned to imagine.14

The first phase of the contest between king and Covenanters was drawing to a close. Hamilton left for London the following Monday, July 9. He returned on August 9. On August 17 he said that a general assembly would be called, but first the commissioners would have to meet eleven conditions prescribed by the king. The king's conditions, which were lengthy, represented a capitulation by Charles to the demand for a general assembly; however, they represented also an attempt by him to control the election of delegates to it and to limit its freedom of action, once convened.15 The legal mind of Wariston was quick to see the implications in the king's conditions. He started framing the answers and objections that very day. 16 Together with the other members of the Tables, he worked into the night and the next morning on the answers. The one condition that met with conflicting reaction among the Covenanters was that which said that only ministers should elect to the Assembly and that "no lay person whatsoever" had that right. Such a requirement would have eliminated the church elders as electors. It would have eliminated also many of Scotland's strongest lords because the elders were invariably chosen from among the nobility. The first draft of the reply would have given elders the right to vote, but others among the Tables—the ministers mainly—would deny this to be a right. Baillie searched the question for himself, he said, and "was satisfied in my "Baillie, Letters, 1:92-93, 95-96. Voetius was a Dutch Reformed theologian; Rivet, also a theologian, had studied at Glasgow College. " F o r these conditions, written on July 28, see Peterkin, Records, 76-77; for the king's private instructions to Hamilton, see ibid., 76. 18 The Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, vol. 1:1632-1639, George Morison Paul, ed., Scottish History Society (Edinburgh: University Press, 1911), 374, hereinafter cited as Wariston, Diary, ¡632-1639.

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mind, of the lawfulness and expediency of our old practise and standing law, for Elders sitting and voting in presbyterian matters, especially in election of commissioners to Assemblies," but here, as on so many other occasions, he refrained from speaking.17 Wariston in his Diary says that he cleared up the argument by citing from the acts of the Parliament of 1592. Baillie concluded that the reasons for the objections to elders voting lay with the class of man that was customarily chosen as elder, "for sundry of the brethren [i.e., the ministers] are very jealous of the gentry's usurpation over them," he wrote. This initial conflict within the Covenanter ranks was a foreshadowing of the future. The final draft was presented to Hamilton on August 18. In it the section on electors read: "We say, that according to the order of our Church discipline, none but Ministers, and Elders of Churches ought to have voice in choosing Commissioners from Presbyteries." 1 8 Hamilton took the written answer but said "that his keeping them might not be called an acquiescing with them." 19 Now began the wait for an answer. On August 19 Hamilton said he would give his reply in two days. Two days later, Hamilton said that the answers appeared satisfactory to him and that he would leave Edinburgh to return to London with the answer and to confer with the king, that he would return on September 20, and asked again that no further action be taken until his return. Suspicions began to rise. More than two months had passed since Hamilton's arrival in Edinburgh. More than two months had passed since the Tables had first requested that an assembly be called. Why was Hamilton delaying now if the reply was satisfactory? Should the presbyteries proceed with selection of delegates before getting the word from the king's commissioner, or should they wait? All that night the committee deliberated: to wait upon Hamilton's answer or to proceed without it? Baillie was opposed to the idea of proceeding, although no one asked his opinion and so, once again, he did not volunteer it. The following day, August 23, according to Wariston, they learned about the king's project of getting the privy council and the people of Scotland to sign the 1580 "King's Confession" in an "Baillie, Letters, 1:99. 18 F o r text of the full answer, see Peterkin, Records, " W a r i s t o n , D i a r y , 1632-163% 375.

77-78.

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Assembly

effort to draw them away from the 1638 covenant.20 This news made Wariston urge no delay in their elections, but, after heated discussion, the vote was to wait upon an official calling of an assembly by the king's commissioner. They decided to proceed in the interim with drawing up regulations for the choosing of delegates. The earls of Loudoun and Rothes, and Henderson and Wariston devised the plan of delaying the actual choice of delegates until September 20, but of having all the preliminaries thereto well defined before that date, "and then immediately to be executed before the commissioner could divide us by his projects and offers, threats, and proclamations." 2 1 They also drew up four articles for Hamilton to give to the king. They were: (1) that the Assembly should be free in members and matters, (2) that no further delay in its calling should be proposed, (3) that the place should be "commodious," and (4) that their letters should not be intercepted.22 The following day the Tables presented these four articles to Hamilton, who still had not left Edinburgh. Hamilton in turn asked their promise that all things be "left as they were" until his return on September 20, and then he left for London. Hamilton was gone from Scotland exactly three weeks. In those three weeks Henderson, Wariston, and David Calderwood, the church historian, drew up directions for presbyteries concerning the choosing of delegates to the Assembly. Hamilton returned to Edinburgh on September 17. 23 The king's proclamation was read at the market cross on September 22. On the same day Wariston read a protest to the proclamation. The king's proclamation had said that the service book, book of canons, and court of high commission, "and the practice of them, or any of them" were "discharged" and that all acts of council and proclamations that had established them were declared null "and to have no force nor effect in time coming." The Covenanters' protest said that "our fears that they 20

See first paragraph of Charles's instructions to Hamilton, dated July 27: "You shall try by all means to see if the Council will sign the Confession of Faith, established by Act of Parliament, with the new Bond joined thereto; but you are not publickly to put it to Voting, except you be sure to carry it." Peterkin, Records, 76. 21 Wariston, Diary, 1632-1639, 376-377. w Baillie, Letters, 1:101. 28 For Charles's instructions to him, see Peterkin, Records, 80-81.

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may be introduced hereafter, must still remain." The king's proclamation had said that " f o r the quiet and peace of Church and State" the articles of Perth were also "discharged" and that all persons were discharged "from urging the practice thereof." It proclaimed also the king's intention not to "innovate any thing, either in Religion or Laws." The Covenanters' protest declared "that the articles of Perth are established b y the acts of Parliament and General Assembly" and that only "urging" the practice of these acts had been discharged. B y the juxtaposition of these two statements, the inference could be drawn that the king had no intention of repealing the articles of Perth. On the subject of episcopal power, the king's proclamation had said that any one, "whether ecclesiastical or civil," who assumed "exemption" from the law was to be tried b y "parliament, general assembly, or any other judicatories competent," and also freed ministers of their oaths to bishops. T o these statements, the Covenanters' protest declared, "but the office of Bishops is thereby not only presupposed as unquestionable" and that "since Archbishops and Bishops have no warrant for their offices in this Kirk . . . w e protest, that they be not present, as having neither place or voice in the Assembly." The king's declaration had called also for all subjects to swear to the 1580 confession, to which the Covenanters answered that if they were to do so, " w e should be obliged b y our oath to maintain Perth articles, which are the innovations already introduced in the worship of God, and to maintain episcopacy, with the civil places, and power of kirkmen" and that such swearing furthermore would nullify the covenant of 1638 to which all were already sworn. 24 Such were the views of Wariston and Henderson, the dedicated Covenanters. Baillie, the moderate, viewed the king's proclamation in a different light: T h e King's will . . . was exceedingly gracious in the most of our desires; the unhappy Books, the Commission also simply discharged; Perth articles made free; Ministers entry as w e could wish; Bishops subjected to the Assembly; the Assembly and Parliament indicted at the times and places we could have desired; only one thing frays us, the subscription of another Covenant. 24 For the text of the protest, see Peterkin, Records, 84-90; for the text of the king's proclamation, see RPCS, 7:64-66.

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Assembly

This, and the convoy of it, makes us tremble for fear of division; also the continual rumors of the King's preparation for war. 2 5

Preparations for the Assembly. Three activities dominated the two months that preceded the Assembly: ( i ) the selection of delegates, (2) the drawing up and publishing of the charges against the bishops, and (3) the preparation of the burgh of Glasgow for the influx of visitors. Even at this early date in the Covenanter movement, Glasgow was to prove difficult because of its independence. The presbytery postponed its elections until October 10, three weeks after they had been held everywhere else, because the principal of the college, John Strang, who was a member of the presbytery, had only reluctantly and lately signed the covenant. Indeed, he had finally subscribed to it only after Baillie had convinced him that nothing was in it "that makes against the King's full authority, so far as either religion or reason can extend it, or against the office of Bishops, or any power they have by any lawful Assembly or Parliament." They had postponed their election because the teaching regents of the college were in doubt about the legality of all the proceedings. They had postponed it because the presbytery itself had been rent by dissension over the question of admitting elders to the elections. Baillie viewed this inability of the Glaswegians to comply as a "most pernicious" example, as "the first open door to division." 26 In this pronouncement, Baillie was not far wrong. Throughout the years to come, Glasgow was to remain strongly independent in its thinking. Out of that independence was to come the rupture fatal to the Covenanter movement. The summons for, and charges against, the bishops were not so easily dispatched. On October 2 the Tables requested Hamilton to issue a warrant for the bishops to appear before the Assembly, "which he delayed verbally, but refused really." Then Wariston and one of the ministers drew up a summons against the bishops, but Hamilton refused to pass them on.27 Another route had to be used. Wariston "sent away the bishops' summons to all the dioceses" in late October, that is, he sent them to "Baillie, Letters, 1:104. "Ibid., IOJ. 27 Wariston, Diary, 1632-1639, 393; Baillie, Letters, 1:108.

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Assembly

51

the presbyteries for their action. Thus, for example, within the presbytery of Glasgow, a complaint against the archbishop "and his colleagues" was drawn up by Zachary Boyd and David Dickson, ministers, and Lord Loudoun, elder, and was presented to the presbytery. This complaint, Baillie said, "required justice, or an answer. The presbytery, after deliberation, resolved, and wrote it as an act, that such a complaint was made to them; which, for the weight of it, they did remit to the General Assembly." 28 The presbytery of Edinburgh did the same for its bishop. By these actions, the legality of future actions against the bishops was being maintained. The complaints against them, duly lodged with the courts of the presbyteries by members of the presbyteries, was merely being routed to a superior court, the General Assembly, for settlement. On the last sabbath of October, "the summons against the Bishops, to appear in the General Assembly at Glasgow, 21 November next" was read out in St. Giles after the sermon.29 Although Hamilton had forbidden this action, the summons were read in many of the churches of Scotland that sabbath. Two weeks later, Spottiswoode, the archbishop of St. Andrews, resigned his post as chancellor of Scotland and moved to England. Of the fourteen Scots bishops, only four answered the summons and submitted themselves to the General Assembly. The others sought sanctuary in England.30 Throughout the months of October and November the burgh of Glasgow prepared for the coming Assembly. Repairs were made on the High Church; guards were ordained to patrol the city day and night; the town council elected its provost, Patrick Bell, as its commissioner to the Assembly, and commissioned persons to inspect and license all rooms that were offered for rent "to the end that every one may be lodged according to their quality and ability of this city." 3 1 By mid-November everything was in readiness for the first General "Baillie, Letters, 1:108. 28 A Diary of the Public Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Bart., 1633-1645, from the original, in the library at Pinkie House (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1843), p. 78, hereinafter cited as Hope, Diary. ""Those who submitted themselves were John Graham, the Bishop of Orkney; Patrick Lindsay, the archbishop of Glasgow; Alexander Lindsay, the bishop of Dunkell; and John Abernethy, the bishop of Caithness. Of these four, only the archbishop of Glasgow was excommunicated. 51 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, AJD. 1573-1642, J. D . Marwick, ed. (Glasgow: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1876), 391-39}, hereinafter cited as Glasgow Burgh Records I.

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Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to be held in the last twenty years. Altogether 140 ministers, 100 elders and burgh representatives, and numerous auditors converged on Glasgow to attend that Assembly. The official calling of a general assembly by the king had relieved Baillie of his most immediate fear, that is, that the church would attempt to hold an assembly contrary to the will of the king. A t first he would have opposed such a move and would have refused to take part. "I reasoned with the best of those that was against an Assembly without the King," he wrote; "their reasons I thought not pressing; my reasons I withheld from them; but to those who were laid down for it, I communicated my mind." None of their reasons satisfied the scrupulous Baillie, however. Afterwards, he conferred two nights with Lord Loudoun, whose arguments Baillie does not record, but they must have been impressive, because Baillie said that after speaking with Loudoun, "I returned reasonably well satisfied, and well near resolved to countenance the Assembly, forbid it who would." At exactly this point, however, the September 22 proclamation had been made. The king had proclaimed the calling of the Assembly. Baillie had been spared the test of conscience. Baillie's brooding nature now took over. All wine was mixed with water, he was accustomed to say. In a letter to Spang, written on the eve of the Assembly, Baillie looked into the future. If God be with us, we hope to have our Church and State put in a better case than it has been these thirty years bygone; but if he desert us, we cannot avoid presently to fall into great danger to be a field of blood, and, thereafter a poor slaved province, at the devotion, both in religion and laws, of a faction which to us is extremely suspect of wicked designs: between this great hope and great fear now we hang.32 The Glasgow General Assembly. The Assembly was to begin on Wednesday, November 21, in the High Church of Glasgow. Baillie and the other delegates from the west arrived on the sixteenth. Baillie was impressed by the preparations that the burgh had made for the occasion: "The Town did expect and provide for huge multitudes of people, and put on their houses and beds excessive prices: but the " Baillie, Letters, 1:111.

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diligence of the Magistrates, and the vacancy of many rooms, did quickly moderate that excess. We were glad to see such order and large provision above all men's expectation: for this that Town got much both thanks and credit." 33 Baillie had "resolved not to be a meddler in any thing." He had brought with him "a trunk full of my best books and papers." He had resolved "to read and write, and study so hardily as I could all incident questions." From the very beginning the collective will of the Assembly pitted itself against the will of the king's commissioner. During the first three days the opponents argued on five minor points of procedure, and Hamilton lost on all five.34 Then, after Alexander Henderson was chosen as moderator and Wariston was elected clerk, three days more were needed to read and approve the commissions. By the end of that time 112 commissions had been read. Ninety-nine had been approved and thirteen had been protested. Of those that were rejected, not one was on the overt basis of the commissioner not being a Covenanter but was rather on the method of election. One could assume, however, that the six commissioners from Kincarden, for example, who had been chosen by the bishop and not by the presbytery and who were rejected on this basis, were not Covenanters. On the other hand, Glasgow College had sent four commissioners when it should have sent only one, and the commission was rejected on this basis. The principal, John Strang, a reluctant signer of the covenant, remained as the college's one commissioner, but for a few days only, after which he walked out. The commissioners who were approved could not be said to have been representative of the church in Scotland, either socially or doctrinally. Ninety-eight elders and burgh representatives were approved, but of these, "17 were Noblemen of high rank; 9 were Knights; 25 were landed Proprietors, or lesser Barons, of such station as entitled them to sit in Parliament; and 47 were Burgesses, generally holding the principal offices of authority in their respective town—men who were capable of representing their communities in the Parliament. There was not a peasant, . . . or even a farmer or yeoman, in the number." 35 "Ibid., in. " F o r the proceedings of the Assembly, see Peterkin, Records, 128-193; see also Baillie's "History of the Glasgow Assembly" in Letters, 1:118-176; for the acts of the Assembly, see Peterkin, Records, 22-42. M Peterkin, Records, 111.

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Altogether, the commissions of 140 ministers were approved, but not one of these ministers was anti-covenant and pro-episcopal. Finally, six days after the Assembly had begun, Hamilton was permitted to speak. He read the bishops' protest against the Assembly's right to try them. He followed this with a reading of protests against the legality of allowing elders to have voice in the Assembly. In answer to the latter, Henderson called for a voice vote. The vote was to permit the elders to remain.3* The next day, November 28, was a long and crucial one. It began with the reading of answers to the bishops' protest, following which reading Henderson called for a vote: "Is it fit that this Assembly should voice, whether they find themselves competent judges to the presented Bishops, notwithstanding of the Declinature and Protestation?" The king's commissioner caused the vote to be postponed by a re-reading of his statement of all the concessions that the king had made to the people of Scotland: the "discharging of the Service Book, Book of Canons, High Commission," ordaining the articles of Perth "to be no more urged," and "the granting of a free general assembly." "If any change of religion had been intended," he said, "this Assembly had never been granted, nor yet these offers made unto you." He accused them of not showing respect for the commissioner of the king, of being prejudiced against his presence, and stated that on the basis of directions about the manner of election to the Assembly that the Tables had distributed, he could "give no consent to any thing that is here done." He defined this basis in the words that all subsequent opponents to the Covenanter movement have used in their list of charges against the Assembly: "For there is not a Commissioner chosen but Covenanters, or if any other be, there is a protestation against him, or else they are chosen because none other could be found." All day long the thrust and parry of charges, denials, and counter*" Charles's instructions to Hamilton, September 9, included these two points: " X V . You must by all means possible you can think of be infusing into the Ministers, what a wrong it will be unto them, and what an oppression upon the freedom of their Judgements, if there must be such a number of Laicks to overbear them, both in their Elections for the General Assembly and afterwards. X V I . Likewise you must infuse into the Lay-Lords and Gentlemen with art and industry, how manifestly they will suffer, if they let the Presbyters get head upon them." For the complete list of eighteen points, see Peterkin, Records, 80-81.

Baillie and the G lasglow Assembly

55

charges continued. Hamilton, acting only on orders from the king, could not yield. The Covenanters, acting on what they considered higher orders, would not yield. Finally, late in the day, Hamilton spoke the words they had all tried, albeit perversely, to forestall: "I make a declaration that nothing done here in this Assembly shall be of any force to bind any of his Majesty's subjects; and I in his Majesty's name discharge this Court to sit any longer." 37 Hamilton left the church. Even as he left, the formal protest of the Assembly against his action was being read to the Assembly and notarized. "My heart pities the man," Baillie wrote at this point in his narrative; "beside other evils, the mishappiness of the affair, which could not be by any hand so compassed as to give content to all. . . ." In that same narrative, written in the spring of 1639, Baillie said of Hamilton, I take the man to be of a sharp, ready, solid, clear wit, of a brave and masterlike expression; loud, distinct, slow, full, yet concise, modest, courtly, yet simple and natural language: if the King have many such men, he is a well served Prince. M y thoughts of the man, before that time [i.e., before the Glasgow Assembly] were hard and base; but a day or two's audience did work my mind to a great change toward him, which yet remains, and ever will, till his deeds be notoriously evil. 38

The commissioner of the king had discharged the Assembly and had left. The next move was up to the moderator. A lesser man than Henderson might not have been able to hold the Assembly together, for if they held, such action would constitute nothing less than overt disobedience to ordained authority. He said, All that are here knows the reason of the meeting of this Assembly; and albeit we have acknowledged the power of Christian Kings for convening of Assemblies and their power in A s semblies, yet that may not derogate from Christ's right; for he hath given divine warrants to convocate assemblies whether Magistrates consent or not; therefore, seeing we perceive men to be so zealous of their Master's commands, have we not as good 37 88

Ibid., 146. Baillie, Letters, 1:124-125.

j6

Baillie and the Glasglow

Assembly

reason to be zealous toward our Lord, and to maintain the liberties and privileges of His Kingdom? Ye all know that the work in hand has had many difficulties, and God has borne us through them all to this day; therefore, it becometh us not to be discouraged now by any thing that has intervened, but rather to double our courage when we seem to be deprived of humane authority.39 Then David Dickson spoke: " W e must either go on, or take upon us all the imputations of scandalous and turbulent persons," and after a few more short speeches, Henderson put the question to them: Whether they would adhere to their protestation against Hamilton's discharging of the Assembly without giving cause and would continue with the Assembly to the end, and all but "six or seven" declared their decision to do so. Henderson then put the question to them again: "Whether they found themselves lawful and competent Judges to the pretended Bishops and Archbishops of this Kingdom, and the Complaints given in against them and their adherents, notwithstanding of their declinature and protestation?" All but four answered yes. 40 Baillie's comment on this vote, taken so late in the day, was, "It was good we were all put to it presently: for if we had been delayed till morrow, it was feared many would have slipped away." The Assembly sat for three weeks more. The mood was one of unity; the theme was one of reform. The object was to examine all innovations and accretions to church government and doctrine made since the 1580 Confession of Faith and to evaluate their degree of conformity or nonconformity with that confession. Just about the only delegate who would disrupt the harmony was a young and relatively unknown minister from the west, and the only one who would persist in his vote against the chief reform of the Assembly was that same minister, Robert Baillie. Although rules of order were adhered to at all times, given the mood and theme of the Assembly, the results were predictable. The preceding six general assemblies were declared null. Baillie said of this act, 89

Peterkin, Records, 147. One of those four who denied the Assembly the right to continue after it had been discharged was John Strang, principal of Glasgow College. He left the Assembly and did not return. 40

Baillie and the Glasglow

Assembly

57

I was most glad of that day's act: I thought the nullifying of these Assemblies did clearly quit us of Bishops and Perth Articles, without the necessity of any further scrupulous and divisive disputes: but some that think no steel band sufficient to bind their tenets on the consciences of others, rested not with this vantage, but drove their nail to the head afterward, as ye shall hear.41

Ministers were declared freed from all oaths "exacted b y the Prelates" upon their entrance to the ministry. T h e power of the presbytery, synod, and General Assembly "to admit, suspend, or deprive ministers . . . to choose their own Moderators, and to execute all the parts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction" was declared restored. T h e service book, book of canons, book of ordination, and court of high commission were condemned as unlawful, and use of them was prohibited. All fourteen of the Scots "pretended" bishops were deposed from the ministerial office. T h e charge was that of having received ordination into the episcopal office contrary to the laws of the Kirk. Eight of these men were excommunicated as well. T h e charges in these cases usually included immorality in personal lives, corruption of their ministerial obligations, and obstinate refusal to comply with the discipline of the church courts. T h e harmony of the Assembly was broken over the question of episcopacy itself. W h e n the roll was called on the question: W a s episcopacy abjured by the Confession of Faith of 1580? all except Baillie agreed that it was. He said that according to the express words of the Assembly 1580, 1581, Episcopacy was to be distinguished: Episcopacy as used and taken in the Church of Scotland, I thought to be removed; yea, that it was a Popish error, against scripture and antiquity, and so then abjured; but Episcopacy simpliciter

such as was in the

ancient church, and in our church during Knox's days, in the person of the Superintendents, it was, for many reasons, to be removed, but not abjured in our Confession of Faith.42 "Those of 1606 and 1608 at Linlithgow, of 1610 at Glasgow, of 1616 at Aberdeen, of 1617 at St. Andrews, and of 1618 at Perth. (Baillie, Letters, 1:152.) "Ibid., 1: IJ8.

j8

Baillie and the Glasglow Assembly

The Assembly was not in the mood for such scholastic refinements. The act was approved; episcopacy had been abjured in 1580, then and forevermore. The articles of Perth were next on the agenda. The question was put to the vote: Were the five articles of Perth abjured by the 1580 Confession of Faith or not? All voted that they were, with the exception of Robert Baillie, who said, "For the removing of the Articles of Perth out of the Kirk, I heartily consent unto it; but to remove them as abjured in the Confession of Faith, so that they all shall be abjured who practised them, I do not think." 43 In his written account to Spang in Holland, Baillie says of this occasion, "If Perth Articles were to be removed according to our Confession . . . was all one, as if to ask, If they were truly abjured before, and all who had defended them since, were truly perjured; which was a very hard matter for many to grant." 44 Again Baillie was "drawing the question" too "straight" to please the Assembly, and the act was passed; the articles of Perth had been abjured by the 1580 confession, only Robert Baillie casting the dissenting vote. Sundry lesser acts were passed: David Dickson, Baillie's colleague in the presbytery of Irvine, was translated to Glasgow College in the capacity of doctor of divinity; the act of visitation of colleges was renewed and Glasgow and Aberdeen were to be the first to be visited; and ministers were henceforth forbidden to hold any civil position, whether municipal or national. The last act was tantamount to abolishing the clerical estate in the Parliament; the Covenanters were leaving no opening wedge for a reintroduction of episcopacy. They appointed the next Assembly to meet in Edinburgh on the third Wednesday in July 1639, wrote and approved a letter of supplication to the king, and adjourned the Assembly on Decembejr 20, 1638. One modern historian has said o^ the Glasgow General Assembly, "It was a moment which von Ranke has compared to that scene a century and a half later, when the new French National Assembly for the first time withstood the commands of its king." 45 In continuing to meet after Hamilton had discharged them, the Covenanters were committing an act of open rebellion. Once having taken this path, they 48

Peterkin, Records, 170. "Baillie, Letters, 1:159-160. 46 John Buchan, Montrose (London: Hodder & Stonghton, 1928), p. 73.

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59

settled for no halfway measures. The reforms they instituted went beyond those of removing the post-1580 accretions. In effect, they rewrote a large portion of the church's constitution. In doing so, they wrote into it an anti-episcopal code that Knox would have hardly recognized. Another modern historian has said: "The acts of the Glasgow Assembly were a declaration of war from Scotland." 48 Yet Charles had begun his preparations for war at least six months before, and he continued those preparations even as the Assembly was meeting, a fact that the Covenanters were aware of. By his letter to Hamilton in June, he needed only to justify that war to the world. The Covenanters gave him that justification on November 28 when they refused to adjourn. The Glasgow Assembly brought both fame and notoriety to Baillie. He had gone to Glasgow with a reputation among a small circle as somewhat of a theologian. He was both colleague to and friend of David Dickson, some ten years his senior, and a theologian of established reputation. His abilities had been recognized as early as 1633 when he had been called to a church in the capital city, an honor that was extended only to men of promise. Back in August of 1637 the bishop of Glasgow had asked him to speak to the Glasgow synod in favor of the service book, a request that he would have rejected, but a request that demonstrates that his word must have carried weight among ministerial circles of the west. Finally, it was his urging that had brought John Strang, principal of Glasgow College, to sign the 1638 covenant. Baillie, however, was a relatively young man. He had grown up under the quasi-episcopal system. B y his own admission, he was not opposed to bishops. In January of 1637 he had written, "Bishops I love; but pride, greed, luxury, oppression, immersion in secular affairs, was the bara6 of the Romish Prelates, and can not have long good success in the Reformed." 47 Nevertheless, he was opposed to the service book, not only to its contents, which he considered more Roman than Anglican, but to the intervention of the man he considered responsible for it, the archbishop of Canterbury, and his disciples, and to the unconstitutional 46 H. R. Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud, 1573-1645, Martin's Press, 1962), p. 368.

"Baillie, Letters, 1:2.

2nd ed. (New York: St.

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manner by which it had been introduced. For these reasons he joined with the reformers although he did not agree with them in all matters. Later that year, after he had signed the covenant and was trying to persuade Strang to do so, he wrote, I do not only believe that there is no word into it that makes against the King's full authority, so far as either religion or reason can extend it, or against the office of Bishops, or any power they have by any lawful Assembly or Parliament; or any thing at all which is not contrary to God's word: not only I believe this, but have professed so much before the whole meeting at Edinburgh, oft both in word and write, without the least appearance of contradiction of any to this hour.48 Neither, he added, could any such interpretation be drawn from it, "else would I never have subscribed it." T w o theologians, as distinct from ministers, attended the Glasgow Assembly. They were David Dickson and Robert Baillie. The moderator had called upon both to give talks to the Assembly on Arminianism. Both speeches were well received, and Baillie reports that he was "wearied many days in providing copies" of his speech for those who requested one.49 That had been on December 4. Three days later his troubles with the Assembly began. He disagreed first on the matter of excommunication of the bishops. During the discussion on this subject, the more zealous of the speakers wanted to excommunicate them on the spot. Such a procedure seemed to Baillie to be cruelly unfair: "Excommunication seemed to me so terrible a sentence, and that obstinacy, the formal cause of it, required admonition, and some delay of time after the closure of the process, that I voiced him to be deposed, but not presently excommunicated. In this I was followed by some five or six, but the rest went on to present excommunication." 50 All that evening he pondered the problem. B y morning he had convinced himself that the acts of the bishops did indeed constitute "an obstinate avowing of extreme contempt," and on the following day, therefore, he was able to vote with the others. "Ibid., 67. "Ibid., ij 1. 110 Ibid., 15s;

see also Peterkin,

Records, 166.

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61

H e could not bring himself to change his mind on the matter of episcopacy and the 1580 confession. Even when the earl of Rothes and Alexander Henderson sent for him and tried to point out his error, he could not change his mind: I was plain, that I thought that office necessarily to be removed out of our Church forever; for great inconveniences it had ever brought to our Church, and still was most like, limit as men could best: but withal, I did heartily wish, that in the act of removal of it, no clause might be put which might oblige us in conscience to count that for wicked and unlawful in itself, which the whole Reformed churches this day, and so far as 1 know, all the famous and classic divines that ever put pen to paper, either of old or late, did absolve of unlawfulness.51 B y December 10, the day the vote was taken on the question of the articles of Perth and the 1580 confession, he "was very loath to make any jar in the Synod's sweet harmony, y e t I behooved to f o l l o w the freedom of m y mind." Baillie paid a price for his lone stand, but it was not one that troubled him much. H e had been mentioned recently f o r a ministerial position that had become vacant in Edinburgh, but now, Behold, so soon as my voice about Episcopacy and Perth Articles came to their ears, I have become a sour plum, a hatcher of some heresy . . . for which they will taste me no more: yea, if I be yet troubled to go to places for which I have no capacity, as I am like to be, this is my punishment, and may hope to brook still my present happiness, that a man who cannot assent to the church's chief acts, may not be put in an eminent place. I live now by favor and mercy in private: my toleration in a more public view were dangerous for the public safety. 52 H e was to pay a second price for failing to assent: His presbytery would not choose him to be a delegate to the 1639 General Assembly, and this second punishment would trouble him indeed. B1 62

Baillie, Letters, 1:156-157. Ibid., 167.

4 For Christs Crown and Covenant (1639-1643)

Hill In the five-year period between the outbreak of war between the Scots Covenanters and King Charles in the spring of 1639 and the admission of the Scots commissioners to the meeting of the Westminster Assembly of Divines in the autumn of 1643, Baillie's reputation as a scholar and defender of the presbyterian cause went beyond the borders of Scotland. In those same five years the Covenanter wing in the Presbyterian church grew into a powerful political party. By 1643 it controlled both church and state in Scotland. These years were the ones that witnessed Charles's initial defeats at the hands of the rising Puritan faction in the English Parliament, the outbreak of the English civil war, and the ultimate joining together of the disparate ecclesiastical interests of the Scots Covenanters and English Puritans in the compromise document known as the Solemn League and Covenant. The first bishops' war. The inevitable war between Charles and the Covenanters came in the spring of 1639. Both king and Scots had spent four months in open preparation for armed conflict, but when the two armies finally faced each other from the opposite banks of the River Tweed on May 28, nothing happened. When the English forces, consisting of 1,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry, crossed the Tweed a week later on June 3 and advanced on Scottish soil toward the Scots army, the Scots returned the advance and the English, outnumbered three-toone in infantry, recrossed the Tweed. For another week they faced each other. On June 11 the peace negotiations began. The first bishops'

For Christ''s Crown and Covenant

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war ended on June 18 with the Pacification of Birks, called Berwick b y the English. N o t a battle had been fought; not a blow had been struck. 1 Scots morale had been high. Baillie, who was stationed at Duns L a w with the Scots forces, wrote, "It would have done you good to have cast your eyes about our brave and rich Hill. . . . Our soldiers grew in experience of arms, in courage, in favour daily; every one encouraged another; the sight of the nobles and their beloved pastors daily raised their hearts; the good sermons and prayers, morning and even, under the roof of heaven. . . . " 2 Even Baillie, however, had to admit that the Covenanting army was not composed of saints. "Had ye lent your ear in the morning, or especially at evening, and heard in the tents the sound of some singing psalms, some praying, and some reading scripture, ye would have been refreshed: true, there was swearing, whereat we were grieved; but we hoped, if our camp had been a little settled, to have gotten some w a y for these disorders." 3 B y the terms of the treaty the Scots had won another victory. Although Charles would not acknowledge the Glasgow General Assembly, as the Scots had wished, he did agree that "all matters Ecclesiastical shall be determined by the Assembly of the Kirk, and matters Civil b y the Parliament." He agreed further that a general assembly should be held once a year and indicted the next Assembly to "be kept at Edinburgh the sixth day of August next . . . and thereafter a Parliament to be holden in Edinburgh the Twentieth day of August next." T h e Scots agreed to disband their forces within forty-eight hours and to deliver over to the royalists all Charles's "castles, Forts, Ammunition," immediately following which act Charles was to dismiss his forces. 4 1

Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War: 1603-1642, 10 vols. (Ne>v York: AMS Press, 196s)» 9:1-41, for a full discussion of the first bishops' war. 2 Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLX1I, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 1:211, 213. Baillie's secondhand account of the preparations for, and strategy of, the war is given in volume 1, 188-225, hereinafter cited as Baillie, Letters. 'Ibid., 1:214. 4 Records of the Kirk of Scotland, Containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the Year 1638 Downwards, as Authenticated by the Clerks of the Assembly; with Notes and Historical Illustrations, Alexander Peterkin, ed., vol. 1 (Edinburgh: John Sutherland, 1838), 228-229, "Declaration by the King, and Terms of the Treaty."

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For Christ's Crown and Covenant

According to Baillie, the Scots had won this stand-off on something of a bluff: Many, whereof I was one, was glad at their heart of this divine conclusion, and blessed God then, and ever since, for so rich a mercy to the Prince and whole Isle. Many secret motives there was on all hands that spurred on to this quick peace. What to have done when we came to Tweedside we were very uncertain: the King might have been so wilfull, as rather to have hazarded his person than to have raised his camp. Had he incurred any skaith, or been disgraced with a shameful flight, our hearts had been broken for it; and likely all England behooved to have risen in revenge. Taking such eventualities into consideration, Baillie concluded that "those who understood best our affairs, thought that God had sent us a tolerable peace in a very fit time." B Back in Kilwinning, 1639-40. Baillie returned to Kilwinning at the conclusion of the treaty and did not leave it, apparently, for more than a year. He took no part in the affairs of the state during this year. He spent his time occupied with his pastoral duties and with the writing of his first published work, The Canter burian's Self-Conviction.6 During the summer of 1639 the minister of the High Church of Glasgow died. The Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, A.D. 1573-1642, make first mention of the vacancy at the July 20 meeting, at which time the town council sent one of its members to ride to Ayrshire and do all he could to persuade David Dickson to take up the charge and move to Glasgow. The General Assembly, however, which met later that summer at Edinburgh, ordered Dickson to move to Glasgow in the capacity of professor of divinity at the college.7 "Baillie, Letters, 1:219. 9 Baillie's letters are dated from Kilwinning; his name does not appear in the Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow, which meetings he attended whenever he was visiting in Glasgow; his letters give no indication of any journeys. None of his sermons from this Kilwinning period is extant; no Kilwinning kirk session records, the Irvine presbytery, or the A y r synod are extant for this period. This period in Baillie's life is covered in his Letters, 1:225-247. ''Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, A.D. /173-1642, J. D. Marwick, ed. (Glasgow: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1876), 403, hereinafter cited as Glasgow Burgh Records I. In addition to being of national prominence as a theologian, Dickson was a Glasgow man and had been regent at the college.

For Christ's Crown

and Covenant

65

The town council turned to another Glasgow man, Robert Baillie. Baillie's first reference to this call is in a postscript dated October 12 of a letter written earlier to Spang: "The matter of my transportation ye shall hear when it is at any point; my mind is afraid of all changes, so I have yet opposed it what I can, upon the reasons ye shall see." In an undated letter to his half-brother, Henry Glen, who was one of the baillies of Glasgow, Baillie pleaded his case for remaining in Kilwinning: I am settled, b y G o d ' s clear calling, in a place eminent enough f o r any gifts I have; G o d has blessed m y labours here evidently; I have full contentment in all things; a most loving and obedient people, w h o at the motion of m y removal are much moved; plenty of means, eight chalders of barley and meal, paid b y m y L o r d Montgomery only, a good glebe, a money-duty paid me f o r m y manse; I have all m y heart could wish, and m y mind cleaves to m y people, as theirs does to me.

Following this pathetic plea, Baillie launched into a legal one. "Your people has never so much as concluded among themselves, in any orderly way, to call me: When was this matter voiced in your Presbytery? when in your Session? when in your Council? and albeit all this were, ye are not patrons, ye have no right to call any man to that place without the King's presentation." 8 The town council would not accept his refusal. At the November 2 3 meeting two of the council members were ordered to ride to Kilwinning and "require master Robert Baillie to come here conforming to the ordinance of the last provincial assembly." In his answer to the council, Baillie announced that he intended to appeal his case to the next General Assembly, and that "both my Noble Patron and my people, and myself, are confident that our protestation in Aberdeen will be discussed in our favor." 9 The town council made one last appeal on December 7, but Baillie's 8

Baillie, Letters, 1:229. Calls to the ministry of any congregation had to originate in the kirk session. Baillie always remained insistent upon upholding the authority of the separate church courts. During the occupation by Cromwell and the ascendancy of the Separatists, this orthodox presbyterian view almost cost him his freedom. ' Glasgow Burgh Records /, 406. The "provincial assembly" refers to the Glasgow synod, which must have met and confirmed the town's call. Glasgow synod records for this period are not extant. (Baillie, Letters, 1:231.)

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For Christ's Crown and Covenant

legal tack had impaired the force of the call. It had also postponed all action until the following July, when the General Assembly was to meet at Aberdeen. He remained on at Kilwinning. The year 1640 was ushered in with a new threat of war between England and Scotland. Charles's grievances were many: the 1639 General Assembly had reenacted all the major legislation of the Assembly of 1638, including the abolition of episcopacy; the Parliament that met on August 31, two weeks after the close of the Assembly, had not only ratified the acts of the Assembly but had abolished the clerical estate from the Parliament as well. Henceforth the Scots Parliament would consist in nobles, barons, and burgesses only. If Clarendon's analysis of Charles's prime goal is credible, namely, that he "proposed nothing more to himself, than to unite his three kingdoms in one form of God's worship, and in a uniformity in their public devotions," then—from the royalist viewpoint—these acts of Assembly and Parliament would be acts of defiance of the king's will and would, in themselves, have been sufficient reasons for war. In January 1640, however, Charles came into possession of a letter signed by the leading Covenanting nobles of Scotland and written to the king of France, the contents of which letter constituted in effect a case of private persons entering into diplomatic negotiations with a foreign monarch. This letter gave Charles the excuse he needed for war once again against the Covenanting nobles and against Scotland. He summoned the English Parliament to meet that April. 10 This new threat of war was the occasion that brought Baillie back to the national scene. Wariston, who was clerk of the General Assembly and advocate for the Scots church, had urged Baillie to write a treatise in defense of the Scots position. Baillie answered that request in a letter dated March 30, 1640: "Your frequent and very pressing letters, together with the approaching of the English Parliament, has made me use all the speed I was able, in the midst of my very frequent and necessary distractions. I have sent you all to the last chapter, which I hope shall be ready before you have perused the rest." 1 1 The manuscript that Baillie had sent was entitled, Autokatakrisis, The Canter10 Edward, earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (Oxford: University Press, 1849), 1:116. Peterkin, Records, 282, gives the letter in its original French and in English translation. "Baillie, Letters, 1:242.

For Christ's Crown and Covenant

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burian Self-Conviction, with the subtitle: An Evident Demonstration of the Avowed Arminianistn, Poperie, and Tyrannie of That Faction, by Their Own Confessions. The 128-page treatise is a defense of the Scots position. It is also an appeal to the English nation not to war with the Scots because the cause, Baillie says, is common: The quarrel of both kingdoms is with the archbishop of Canterbury and his bishops who are bent upon returning both England and Scotland to Rome's ways. The argument is syllogistic: ( 1 ) "Whoever in the King's dominions spreads abroad Popery or any doctrine opposite to the Religion, and Laws of the land, now established, ought not to be countenanced, but severely punished by the King." (2) "But so it is that Canterbury and his dependents, men raised, and yet maintained by him, have openly in their printed books, without any recantations or punishment to this day spread abroad in all the King's dominions, doctrines opposite to our Religion and Laws, especially the most points of the grossest popery." (3) "That Canterbury and his dependents in all the three dominions ought not to be countenanced by the King, but severally punished." Seven chapters follow. The charges against the Canterburians constitute the text; substantiations quoted at length from their writings and speeches are given in the citations. The basic charge, with supporting evidence, is that the Canterburians espouse the theology of Arminius on election and predestination although all reformed churches have rejected these doctrines. The Synod of Dort rejected them; even Rome rejected them; King James rejected them. Scotland rejects them. Nevertheless, Scotland's expelled Arminians have found haven at Lambeth. 12 The Canterburians teach, implicitly or explicitly, the doctrines that " T h e Dutch protestant theologian who died in 1609 had declared that election to grace was conditional upon belief, that grace was resistible, and that one of the elect could fall from grace. These doctrines had been condemned in 1619 by the synod held at Dort. The Scots Reformed church subscribed to the Synod of Dort. This via media theology of Arminius emphasized God's ethical obligations to man, whereas the supralapsarian position of the Scots Covenanters held to the Calvinist emphasis of man's obligations to, and complete dependence upon, the sovereign God. See William M. Campbell, The Triumph of Presbyterianism (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1958), pp. 134-138.

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good works are necessary to election, rather than being the effects of election; that faith precedes election and is necessary to election; that faith is resistible, that is, that man's will is stronger than is God's; that no substantial difference exists between Rome and England in the matter of free will; and that man has no assurance that God will not withdraw His grace, once given. Further, all arguments against these writings have been forbidden, while Laud permits his Arminian friends to continue writing and alleges he has the king's agreement in this. Moreover, Laud says that the doctrine of personal election, without the necessity of the sacraments, is presumption. Clearly, these writings are contrary to the king's government and to the king's majesty in that they make out these doctrines to be consonant with the Articles of the English church, which they are not. In addition to being Arminian, the Canterburians would draw both the Church of England and the church in Scotland closer to Rome. They magnify the elements of the Lord's Supper, teach the merit of works, teach the adoration of images, approve of monasteries and nunneries, say that the reformers wronged the pope, that the pope is Peter's successor, that the authority of the English bishops derives from the pope, that the pope has authority over all, including the king, yet assert that the restoration of the pope in England would be beneficial to the king. T h e y would nullify the doctrinal differences between the reformed and Catholic churches by saying that the Protestant teachings really do not differ in essence from Roman ones. T h e y adore and advocate the Catholic uses and interpretations of altars, images, relicts, sacramental bread, and saints. T h e y put tradition before Scripture. T h e y say that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper signifies grace to be conferred, that all children once baptized are truly justified and that all unbaptized are damned, that all persons must confess to a priest, that monks and nuns are holy people, and, finally, that souls departed go to purgatory. T h e y cross themselves, wear crucifixes, say their beads, observe fast days, make mock of the sabbath, and say that preachers are only ignorant fellows. The Canterburians would divide English from Scot by saying that we, in rejecting the service book, are rejecting the English church—as though the two churches were the same. In rejecting the book, we reject those parts that would have drawn us "beyond all that ever was allowed in England," since the book contained parts of the Mass that

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the English church had rejected totally: the offertory and the canon. Both English and Scot have rejected these as nonscriptural and idolatrous. We respect the English church as a sister church although we differ from it. W e have no enemies in England but the Canterburian faction, and they are the enemies of the Church of England as well as of Scotland. They would tyrannize not only the people of England and Scotland but the king as well. In advancing the service book, the bishops of Scotland would have annulled the acts of our general assemblies and our established form of worship. They did this by direction of the archbishop of Canterbury. Yet we were supposed to yield in this without demur. In Scotland and England alike, we all know that the king hates tyranny. Yet they persuade the king to permit all forms of tyranny by telling him that a king's power is without limit, that he is not obligated to keep his oaths, that he alone may make church law and state law, that he may, if he will, make liturgy and church confessions, without having to consult with anyone. In matters of state they tell him that a parliament is only his council, which he may use or not, as he please, and that Scotland is his property, and a subdued nation. They teach us, English and Scot alike, that no manner of tyranny may be resisted. Thus we are to bow our necks to whatever is promulgated in the king's name. In truth, they mock the king. They raise him high so that he may be "a statelier horse for them to ride upon, in their triumphing above all that is called God." Yet they deny him the headship of the church in England. They say "the king can be no more the head of the church, than the boy that rubs their horseheels," that the heart of church law is with the bishops and not the king, that kings ought to "adore Bishops and pay them tributes," and that every bishop is a prince "as far in dignity above the greatest secular Prince, as the soul above the body, or God above man." On these words, the Autokatakrisis ends abruptly. Baillie draws no conclusions. Baillie must have been an omnivorous reader. Fully half the printed text is made up of citations. As with all his writings, the appeal rests on scholarship, on a neatly elaborated syllogism that requires only that the reader read, accept the evidence presented, and draw his own conclusions. In the case of the Autokatakrisis, the only conclusion possible is that the policy of Laud was to return both England and

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Scotland to Rome, and to divide the sympathies of the two nations by presenting the Scots to the English as treasonous defiers of the king's authority and as heretical defilers of a service book that did not differ substantially from that of the Church of England. In the long run, Laud's policy did not work. Unfortunately, however, the king must not have read Baillie's work. His preparations for war continued. In his letter to Wariston, Baillie said, I do verily think that a treatise of this kind were very useful at this time to be published, both to show to the Churches abroad the true state of our controversies, and to waken up the spirits of our own countrymen, by demonstrating to their eye, in a short table, the incredible designs of our party: also for the rousing up of our slippery neighbours of England, who readily, if G o d have not given them over for their own destruction to a spirit of sopour [Scots, lethargy], cannot fail at this time to press more earnestly the King than ever for justice on those our oppressors. 13

Baillie, however, had lost none of that temerity of speaking out that had plagued him to date. The treatise was published anonymously. He wrote to Wariston, "I think not good, that the likes of me should proclaim our weakness in print: only at your desire, have I undergone this labour; make what use of it ye think good." A postscript to the printed work says that the treatise was revised by Wariston in his capacity of clerk of the General Assembly and was published on April i, 1640, at Edinburgh. Anonymity was a device common to seventeenth-century literature, however, and anyone who read the tract would, without doubt, have known the author's name. For his part, Baillie sent some copies to Spang in Holland, with instructions to forward them to influential persons in Paris and Geneva. 14 The General Assembly of 1640. The General Assembly of the church met on July 28, 1640, at Aberdeen and disbanded two weeks later on August 5. According to Baillie the Assembly was a peaceful one, although "we found great adverseness in the hearts of many from Baillie, Letters, 1:242. " Ibid., 247.

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our course." 1 5 The course to which he referred was that of strengthening the cause of the 1638 National Covenant. It took the form of two acts, both of which were directed to producing conformity among the ministers. The first act decreed that "such as have subscribed the covenant, and speaks against the same . . . shall be deprived; and if he continue so, being deprived, shall be excommunicated." By the same act, a layman who had subscribed to the covenant and later spoke against it "shall be dealt with as perjured." The second act decreed that any expectant minister who refused to subscribe to the covenant would be declared "incapable" of holding any teaching or preaching position and would not "have liberty of residing within a Burgh, University, or College." 1 6 The peacefulness of the Assembly was broken over the issue of private worship, or conventicles as they would be called later. The background to the issue, according to Baillie, was that Presbyterian church services in Ireland had been suppressed, with the result that small groups of Presbyterians had formed conventicles. As long as these conventicles remained in Ireland, their orthodoxy had not been questioned seriously. When they began to be formed in Scotland, apparently by Scots who had returned from Ireland, opposition to them arose. The incident that brought the matter to the attention of the Assembly was that of a conventicle that had been formed in Stirling. The minister of the Stirling High Church, Henry Guthrie, wanted such conventicles outlawed.17 The issue split the leaders of the kirk: Guthrie and Henderson favored their abolition; Sam Rutherford and David Dickson declared that private worship was permitted by Scripture. A committee was formed to frame an official policy. Baillie was on that committee, as was Henry Guthrie. Baillie wrote that when the policy statement that each committee member had prepared was read aloud, "The question came betwixt mine and Mr. Harry's; mine was liked by all, only Mr. Harry misliked it, and conceived, that under every word a dangerous serpent did lie; there was no remedy: his contentment was the contentment of the body of the Assembly." 11

Baillie's account of the Assembly is given in Letters, 1:247-255. Peterkin, Records, 279. " H e was deposed in 1648 for Malignancy, in 1665, after the restoration of episcopacy, he was made bishop of Dunkeld. 18

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Once again Baillie's reluctance to be the cause of "jangling" came to the fore. He persuaded himself that, in view of Guthrie's adamant position, Guthrie's statement should be accepted, "for truly it had nothing that was controverted." The official statement of the kirk concerning conventicles, therefore, was basically the work of Henry Guthrie, who was a moderate Covenanter, a royalist, and later an opponent of Independency. It stated that family prayer was permitted but that such prayer was to consist in members of the family only, that read prayer was lawful, that only minsters and approved expectants were permitted "to expone Scripture to people," and that the family worship of the minister's family may be attended by nonfamily. By these three acts the Covenanters tried to hedge out the possibility of heterodoxy. By these three acts the Covenanters strengthened their control in both church and state and extended that control to include the rites of family worship. Baillie called to England. At the close of the Assembly, Baillie returned to Kilwinning. He played no role in the brief war, the second bishops' war, that broke out in August between king and Covenanters. Neither did he take part in the peace negotiations that took place at Ripon near York. While negotiations were proceeding at Ripon, the Scots army remained encamped at Newcastle. On October 15 a letter went out to Baillie from the Covenanting leaders at the camp: "We must entreat you to come hither with as great expedition as you can conveniently, and to bring with you a number of your Canterburian's Self-Conviction, together with the warrants thereof, and all such papers and proofs which may serve for that purpose. Your being here within a few days, is desired and wished by all your friends here, and may prove useful for the public." The letter was enclosed within a letter from the earl of Argyl. Argyl urged, "I hope neither will you make difficulty to come, nor will my Lord Iglinton hinder you: for truly, as I hear, our Ministers work more upon the soldiers than all other discipline could." 1 8 " F r o m a letter written to Baillie on October 17 by the earl of Argyl, Baillie had been asked to participate in his ministerial capacity but Baillie's patron, the earl of Eglinton, had prevented his going. Argyl wrote, "I wish I had insisted in my desire to urge your outcoming, when I spoke it to you at Glasgow; but my respect, as ye know, to my Lord Eglinton, made me forbear at that time." (Baillie, Letters, 1:266-267.)

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19

Baillie left for Newcastle on October 22. Traveling by way of Edinburgh, he reached Newcastle on October 31. Once there, "the Committee sent for me, and told me of their desire I should go to London with the Commissioners." Baillie protested, but in vain. The thirteen Scots commissioners set out for London on Friday, November 6. The party comprised three burgesses, three barons, three nobles— Rothes, Dunfermline, and Loudoun—and four ministers: Henderson, Robert Blair, George Gillespie, and Baillie. The ministers had been chosen each for a special capacity: M r . Robert Blair, to satisfy the minds of many in England, who loves the w a y of N e w England better than that of Presbyteries used in our Church; I, for the convincing of that prevalent faction, against which I have written; Mr. Gillespie, for the crying down of the English Ceremonies, for which he has written; and all four to preach b y turns to our Commissioners in their houses, which is the custom of

diverse noblemen

at

Court. . . .

The commissioners averaged twenty to twenty-five miles a day, rested on the sabbaths, and reached London before sunup on Monday, November 16.20 In London, November 1640 to May 1641. The commissioners for the Scots presented eight demands as part of the terms of a treaty. The first three were approved by Parliament by December 12. They were: "The ratification by the King of the Acts of their last Parliament; that the castles and fortresses in Scotland should be used for defence and security of that kingdom; that their countrymen should not be molested either in England or Ireland because they subscribed the Covenant." 2 1 The fourth article, "that the authors of the disturbances be punished," had not yet been approved as of December 19 because of opposition to it by the king and by Strafford. Strafford's head, Baillie wrote, "de" Ibid., 267-268. On this occasion Baillie made out his testament, which is given in ibid., 267-268. This testament was the third. He had written the first in May 1639 just before he left to join the army at Duns. {Ibid., 245-246.) He wrote the second just before he left for Aberdeen to attend the General Assembly. (Ibid., 246.) 80 Ibid., 268-272. " J o h n Lumsden, The Covenants of Scotland (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1914), p. 253.

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pends on it." Writing on January 29, 1641, Baillie related that the fourth demand, as well as the fifth, "that ships and goods taken be restored," had been met, but that Parliament was sticking on agreement to the sixth, "that losses sustained and charges incurred during the war be repaid." The Scots had presented an accounting that totaled 250,000 pounds sterling and did not include an additional 514,000 pounds Scots, "whereof we offered to bear ourselves such a proportion as the Parliament should find reasonable, or us able." On January 21 the matter was presented to the House of Commons where "it was much debated pro and contra, and referred to the next day." The measure was approved in principle; only the matter of the amount was left unresolved. Baillie was not optimistic: " W e fear three hundred thousand [pounds Scots] shall be the most we will obtain." 2 2 Baillie's fears, however, were unwarranted. B y mid-February he was able to write home that an amount satisfactory to all had been agreed upon: "Three hundred thousand pound Sterling . . . is a pretty sum in our land, beside the eighteen hundred thousand merks for our army, these last four months, and twenty-five thousand pound Sterling for the fifth month coming. Yet the hearty giving of it to us, as to their brethren, did refresh us as much as the money itself." B y the end of February Baillie reported that the seventh demand, "that the proclamation denouncing them as traitors be recalled," had been passed and that the eighth and last demand, that Parliament "condescend to all things which may establish a firm and well-grounded peace," had been taken up by Parliament.23 Other matters interceded, however, in the completion of the treaty terms. In mid-March Baillie reported that the eighth demand, that is, the treaty itself, had been postponed until after the trial of the earl of Strafford, and the treaty was in fact not completed until August of that year, more than two months after Baillie had left London and returned to Scotland. T w o other matters occupied Baillie's attention during his five-month stay in London. The one involved him in the pamphlet war that raged between the pro-episcopal and the anti-episcopal factions. In January w Baillie, Letters, 1:290. The Scots pound was one-twelfth the value of the pound sterling. This value had been fixed by James V I and I. See S. G. E. Lythe, The Economy of Scotland in Its European Setting: 1550-162$ (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, i960), 102. 28 Baillie, Letters, 1:200-301.

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1641 Henderson had published The Unlawfulness of Limited Prelacy, in which he sought to demonstrate that episcopacy, however hedged in by restrictions, remained nevertheless unlawful in that it was not required by Scripture.24 Within a few weeks a member of the proepiscopal faction had answered Henderson's charges in a published tract, A Modest Advertisement. The task of answering this tract was assigned to Baillie. In a letter of February 28, written to the presbytery of Irvine, Baillie reported that he had finished his reply and that he expected it to be in print "at once." Baillie was too optimistic. His treatise, The Unlawfulness and Danger of Limited Episcopacie, had not been printed by the time Baillie left London to return to Scotland, that is, by June 1. It was not printed, in fact, until December, if the date 1641 given on the title page is accurate, or possibly not until February 1642. Baillie, writing to Spang in February 1643, said, "My reply for Mr. Henderson, printed a year ago, comes but now to my hand." Furthermore, a second treatise of Baillie's, "The Question of Episcopacy Discussed from Scripture and Fathers," which was to have been printed between the same covers and which Baillie called "the best half of it," was not printed at all because, Baillie said, of its "manifold Greek citations." 25 The Unlawfulness and Danger of Limited Episcopacie elaborates on five leading arguments: (1) that current episcopacy bears no relationship to early church episcopacy; (2) that episcopacy is not required by Scripture but is rooted only in tradition; (3) that Scripture declares that no pastor may have preeminence over another; (4) that Scripture gives power of ordination to all ministers, not only to one; and (5) that even a limited episcopacy leads to popery, favoritism, and other corruptions. In the closing passages, Baillie states that Parliament would perform "a happy and glorious work" if it would "break in pieces" the "unhappy instrument" of episcopacy and would permit presbyteries to operate freely in England as they had done in the past. The treatise does not equal Baillie's Autokatakrisis in scholarship. Its argument employs more of the commonplace logic and less of the " J a m e s D. Ogilvie, "Church Union in 1641," Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 1(1926)-.143-160, specifically 146-147. x Baillie, Letters, 2:61. According to David Laing, the "Question of Episcopacy" was never published. (Letters, i:xciv.)

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scholastic. Its citations are fewer in number; its tone is more flippant. Baillie, however, had spent at least a month in preparing the actual draft of the Autokatakrisis and had intended it as a legalistic defense of the Scottish church, whereas he spent considerably less time in preparing the Limited Episcopacie and its purpose was less exalted: It was propaganda solely. Baillie wrote four other pieces while he was in London. In December 1640 he wrote the first draft of the charge of the Scottish commissioners against the earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud, the charge that Henderson worked into final form and presented to the House of Lords on December 17. 26 He wrote also a Large Supplement of the Canterburian Self-Convicton because the original had met with such huge success in London and A Parallel or Brief Comparison of the Liturgy with the Mass-Book, the Breviary, the Ceremonial, and other Romish Rituals. He had been working on the last treatise for several years, as is evidenced by his request back in April of 1638 that Spang purchase such volumes for him and ship them to him in Scotland. The Parallel is a weighty tome, though only eighty-five quarto pages long, theological and ecclesiological in theme and scholastic in method. The last treatise, An Antidote Against Arminianism, was an enlargement upon the speech he had given at the Glasgow Assembly in 1638. 27 The other matter that engaged Baillie's attention was the trial of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth, the earl of Strafford, on charges of treason. Of the sixteen sessions that met in Westminster Hall between March 22 and April 10, Baillie attended fourteen. In a letter he wrote in May to the presbytery of Irvine, Baillie gave a thirtyseven-page, day-by-day account of the trial. In Baillie's favor must be said that, although as a Scot he was almost obliged to abhor Strafford because of Strafford's plan to turn loose upon the rebellious Scots the full force of the Irish army, his account of the trial is a model of dispassionate, disinterested reporting. Only at the very end, when he " Ibid., 2:40. "Canterbury and the Lieutenant of Ireland their challenge, for the first draught and matter, was mine, though the last form, as oft all our writes, was Mr. Henderson's." Also ibid., 1:280, December 12: "Our pieces against Canterbury and the Lieutenant are now ready. The first moulding of both was laid on me; when all had perused them, the one was given to Mr. Alexander, the other to Loudon and Mr. Archibald [Johnston of Wariston] to abridge and polish."

" Ibid., 2:40.

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recounted Strafford's speech of April 13, did he make a personal and disparaging judgment: "And, in the end . . . he made such a pathetic oration, for a half hour, as ever comedian did upon a stage." Even this judgment, however, was modified in the next sentence: "The matter and expression was exceeding brave: doubtless, if he had grace or civil goodness, he is a most eloquent man." 28 Baillie disapproved of the move by the House of Commons toward a bill of attainder against Strafford. The action, he believed, was unfair to the king: "But no more now ado, but the Lords, one of these days, to confirm the bill; and then the King's confirmation must be had. Unhappy men put the King daily in harder straits." Baillie's last letter from London was written on May 7. He left London on June 1 and took ship from Gravesend on June 2 for Edinburgh, arriving six days later. While awaiting ship at Gravesend, he wrote two short letters, one to his wife and one to Hugh Montgomery. In the letter to his wife he rejoiced over the news that she had been "delivered safely of a daughter" on May 20. In the letter to Lord Montgomery he spoke of sundry matters, of army payments and disbandonment, and indicated that his reason for leaving London was that Eglinton, his patron, had recalled him "before it was meet." In neither of these letters did he make any mention of the resolution of the Strafford case, nor did he ever again refer to it. What his thoughts were between May 7 and May 12, whether he witnessed the execution, and what his thoughts and actions were following that memorable day, all these must remain unknown. The usually garrulous Baillie remained peculiarly silent. A study of his written account, however, gives evidence that Baillie had become increasingly convinced that Strafford was innocent of treason. The history of Baillie's letters is this, that in times when his opinion was contrary to the majority, he remained peculiarly quiet, or used a pseudonym, or revealed himself only obliquely. Baillie's account of the trial was written for his presbytery in Irvine. It is devoid of any personal remarks. His choice of adjectives, of which he was a master, reveal nothing of what was going on in his mind. Such sterile reporting is unlike Baillie. Quite likely, therefore, Baillie the royalist and conservative was, in this instance, in conflict with Baillie the Scot w

lbid., 1:316-352.

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and Covenanter. If such a conflict did exist, it would be only the first of many such occasions. The General Assembly of 164.1. Baillie stayed home in Kilwinning for only six weeks before he left for St. Andrews to attend the General Assembly, only to find that the Assembly had been transferred to Edinburgh.29 The Assembly of 1641 did not transact a volume of business, but several items were to prove important for future events, both for Scotland and for Baillie.30 On August 3 the Assembly approved a proposal, subject to Parliament's approval, that would permit universities to use the rents of former episcopal benefices or church chapters to increase the teaching staffs, to institute building programs in the universities, and to enlarge libraries. Charles approved the proposal in November and the Scots Parliament ratified it on November 12. T o Glasgow College were assigned the "whole feu duties of all the lands and baronies pertaining to the late Bishop of Galloway." The value of the gift was 348.8.4 pounds sterling annually.31 On August 7 the Assembly, at the request of Parliament, took under consideration the Cumbernauld Bond. Henderson was given the task of penning an answer to the Parliament. In this answer the Assembly declared that "bands of this and like nature may not lawfully be made" but refrained from making any recommendation concerning punishment of either Montrose or the other signatories. The intention of the Assembly, the act read, "is merely to prevent the like in time coming." The intention of the Assembly was also to prevent any further wedge being driven in the Covenanter forces as a result of official action that would drive the powerful Montrose and his considerable following into the king's ,^rms.32 28

Ibid., 1:358-3^7. For the acts of the Assembly, see Peterkin, Records, 292-297. 21 Munimenta Alme Vniversitatis Glasguensis: Records of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation till 1727, Cosmo Innes, ed., 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), 1:285-286, hereinafter cited as Munimenta. 82 The Cumbernauld Bond had been subscribed by Montrose and nineteen lesser lords of Scotland in August 1640. In the bond, which had been secret, the subscribers swore to defend the covenant and to "study all public ends" pertaining to the safety of Scotland "against all persons and causes whatsoever." Particularly were they bound to defend Scotland against the "particular and 80

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Some lesser business was transacted. Several ministers were translated to new congregations; a letter was written to some English ministers advising against Independency of individual congregations and in favor of dependency upon and subordination to presbyteries and synods; Alexander Henderson was charged with drawing up a directory of public worship; and commissioners for the coming year were appointed, among w h o m was Robert Baillie. T h e Assembly adjourned on August 9 and Baillie left Edinburgh to return home. H e did not know, as he rode back to Ayrshire, that this year was to be his last one in Kilwinning. 3 3 The call from Glasgow

College renewed.

A s the highest ecclesiasti-

cal court in the land, the General Assembly held final and almost absolute power over the translation of clerics, both those w h o practiced in the ministry and those w h o taught in the schools and colleges. 34 It had the right also of visitation of schools and churches with the purpose of examining the teachers and ministers "in matters of Religion, their ability, f o r discharge of their calling, and the honesty of their conversaindirect practising of a few." Those "few" were unnamed. (See Lumsden, Covenants of Scotland, 255-257 for the text of the bond.) By implication the earl of Argyl was meant. Montrose had had cause to believe that Argyl intended to set himself up as king in Scotland. The Cumbernauld Bond, therefore, bound the subscribers to defend the royal prerogatives against Argyl's ambitions. Argyl learned of the bond. The committee of the estates seized it. The signers were examined by the committee and were censured. The bond itself was condemned and burned by the committee. 88 For the acts of the Assembly of 1641, see Peterkin, Records, 292-297. The General Assembly commission for public affairs of the kirk, to which Baillie was appointed, had begun rather informally in 1638 when the General Assembly gave power to the presbytery of Edinburgh, "pro re nata, and upon any urgent and extraordinary necessity . . . to give advertisement to all Presbyteries, Universities, and Burghs, to send their Commissioners for holding an occasional Assembly." (Peterkin, Records, 40.) This informality maintained throughout 1639 and 1640. In 1641 a commission was foimfed, with delegates from the different synods throughout Scotland. Peterkin does not record this act, but according to Baillie, on the last day of the Assembly, "Commissioners (appointed) to the number of thirty or forty, with some elders sixteen. Those of a province [i.e., synod] might serve by turns; so, after the first meeting, I got leave to go home." (Letters, 1:376-377-) 34 In only one respect was its power hedged, namely, in the presentation of "Pastors or Readers and School-masters." An act of the 1638 Assembly had specified "that no persons be intruded in any office of the Kirk, contrary to the will of the congregation to which they are appointed." (Peterkin, Records, 37.)

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tion." The commissioners who visited the schools and churches were required to make formal report, together with any recommendations for change, to the next Assembly. At the Assembly of 1641 three proposals had been approved, all of which dealt with the universities and the university commissioners. The first proposal dealt with the use of episcopal funds to help finance the universities. The second ordained that the commissioners to the different universities maintain correspondence among themselves "for keeping of good order" and that they meet together once a year "to consult and determine upon the common affairs." The third stated "that special care be had that the places of the Professors, especially of Professors of Divinity in every University and College, be filled with the ablest men, and best affected to the Reformation and order of this Kirk." 35 By implication this third overture extended one power of the General Assembly, that is, the power to compel translation, indirectly to the universities by way of the delegated power of the visitors' commission. Such, at least, was how Baillie interpreted the renewed call from Glasgow College that came the following March. "The General Assembly," he wrote to Spang, "had given to Universities almost a Sovereign power to call to their profession any Minister of the land." 36 The attempts to rout Baillie out of the quiet of Kilwinning had been renewed almost immediately upon his return from the Assembly in 1641. At that Assembly he had successfully pleaded his case against his transfer to Glasgow's High Church. By 1641, however, Baillie had become a well-known scholar, and during the academic year 16411642 he received bids from all four of Scotland's colleges, including the least prestigious of the four, Glasgow College. At the same time as he was trying to fend off these offers he received a letter, dated March 7, 1642, from the Glasgow lord provost and town council in which they urged him to "employ your talent amongst us where you first received it." 37 Baillie's reply was a polite refusal. "Ibid.,

293-294. Baillie, Letters, 2:7. " N e i t h e r Baillie (Letters, 2:7, I I - I Z ) nor the town council letter made clear which ministry was being offered. However, the position of minister "in place of the archbishop" was still vacant at the H i g h Church. One Patrick Gillespie, w h o will play an important role in Baillie's life later in the story, had secured a letter M

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During these same weeks in March, David Dickson, who had formerly been Baillie's colleague in the synod of Ayr, and who, since the spring of 1640, had been professor of divinity at Glasgow College, wrote three letters to Baillie. In all three he urged Baillie to come to the college. In his fourth letter, written March 28, he again urged Baillie to come, if only for a space of two years. If after that time the post were not agreeable to him, he would be free to go where he pleased. Dickson's letter was followed by a deputation from the college to the synod of Ayr, requesting that they order Baillie to accept the call "for the public good of the Ministry and common benefit of this Western part of this kingdom, and foreseeing in more than probable appearance that Mr. Robert Baillie shall shortly be transported to some more eminent place." Baillie made his appeal to the synod that he be permitted to remain; the vote was taken and "it was voiced unanimously that I should transport." 38 One last avenue of appeal was left to Baillie: the General Assembly. He had made that appeal twice, in 1640 and again in 1641. In 1640 the Assembly had postponed a decision until the following year. In 1641 the decision had gone against Glasgow and in favor of Baillie. He could appeal again, despite the vote of the A y r synod, and, with his patron's support, he would probably gain another year at Kilwinning, "so small respect had the town of Glasgow hitherto found in all their contests with my Lord Eglinton." A new note is evident in Baillie's letters at this point. For the first time in these matters of translation, Baillie became anxious about the sin of hubris. He wrote: of presentation to the place in the High Church and had presented the letter to the Glasgow town council on December 4, 1641. (Glasgow Burgh Records I, 435; Baillie, Letters, 2:4-5.) Gillespie was liked by both David Dickson and Robert Ramsay, teachers at the college, both of whom urged the town council to accept the presentation. The council, however, was "highly displeased that any man, let be a young man and mere stranger without their advice, should offer himself to their chief place." (Baillie, Letters, 2:5.) They asked the presbytery to "delay master Patrick Gillespie's trials till the council be better advised whether they will embrace the King's signature or not." (Glasgow Burgh Records I, 436, December 14, 1641.) The "trials" referred to consisted in examination of the expectant minister by the presbytery in matters of doctrine and sound knowledge. (See acts of the 1638 General Assembly, 23rd session, 23rd article, Peterkin, Records, 37.) The vacancy was not filled, apparently, as of March 1642. 38 Baillie, Letters, 2:8-16 et passim.

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Reasons more tangible than the unknowable will of God pressed him to leave. Although the salary for a professor was about equal that of a minister, yet at Kilwinning, "Since the thirty-fifth year of God, my stipend had been very evil paid," he wrote to Spang in May 1642, and when he had pressed Eglinton for partial payment of that which was due him, Eglinton refused. A t the college, at least, his wages would be paid, barring, that is, some unforeseeable circumstance.40 He decided to get the opinions of disinterested parties. In mid-May he wrote to Alexander Henderson, Robert Blair, and Wariston. His chief question to each was, If I take the matter to the General Assembly, would the Assembly be able to give me assurance that I would be allowed to remain undisturbed at Kilwinning for the remainder of my life? All three were prompt and unanimous in their replies: N o Assembly could give you that assurance; you will not be allowed to remain at Kilwinning. 41 Baillie knew then that he had to go to Glasgow or risk being translated to another college that would displease him even more. Reluctantly, he informed the Irvine presbytery of his decision. The General Assembly of 1642. T w o weeks after his formal acceptance of the position at the college, Baillie traveled to St. Andrews to attend the 1642 General Assembly, which convened on July zj.i2 At the Assembly the Covenanters were in full control; even the king's commissioner—he who was supposed to safeguard the royal prerogative " Ibid., 8, written M a y 10, 1642. "Ibid., 6. In M a y 1639, prior to

his leaving for Duns Hill in the first bishops' war, Baillie had made out his testament, according to which he had received only 300 merks of his 1637 stipend with 1,200 merks as yet unpaid, and about 2,400 merks still owing on his 1638 and 1639 stipends. H e revised his testament a year later, J u l y 20, 1640. A t that time he noted that his entire stipend for 1638, 1639, and 1640 were still owing him, in addition to the 300 merks from 1637. (Letters, 1:245-246.) "Baillie, Letters, 2 : 2 4 - 3 1 . 12 Baillie's account of the Assembly is given in Letters, 2:44-54.

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—was the Covenanting earl of Dunfermline. T h e moderator was Robert Douglas, minister in Edinburgh, and a member of the Covenanter party since the 1638 Assembly. 43 T h e king's letter to the Assembly was read. "It was very gracious," Baillie recorded, " y e t had a discharge, express enough, to meddle with any thing concerned us not." B y this directive, the king meant that the Assembly should not intervene in the dispute between him and the English Commons, a dispute that was threatening to break out any day in overt civil war. 44 In this atmosphere of tension the Assembly went about its work. On the agenda lay a declaration from the English Parliament to the General Assembly, attesting to the pacific nature of the Parliament and its zeal for church reformation; a petition from the Scots in rebelliontorn Ireland requesting that ministers be sent to them; a letter from a group of London ministers soliciting Scots help in an English Reformation; and, above all, the king's stern warning not to intervene in English affairs. In addition, the king's plight had caused another rent in the Covenanter ranks, a small one albeit, but one that could prove serious. Alexander Henderson was charged with drafting the answers to both " S e e the article by the Rev. Mr. William M'Millan, "The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly, Part II," Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 6(1938) ¡96-114, specifically p. 107, "It would seem that he had been selected for this honour in order to conciliate the prevailing party in the Church . . . he was not in favour with the King. Nor is this to be wondered at for he was a strong Covenanter and made no secret of his principles." See also the article by the Rev. Mr. John Kilpatrick, "The Rev. Robert Douglas, A.M., jJ94-1674," Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 12 (1958):29-46. "Peterkin, Records, 320, prints the king's letter in full. During the spring and summer of 1642 both the English Parliament and Charles had been in almost constant correspondence with the Scots privy council, each trying to win over the Scots to its point of view, each hoping, no doubt, for the promise of military assistance or, failing that, for a promise of neutrality. In the answer that the privy council had sent to the king on June 2, the lords assured Charles that they were "heartily sorry to see the condition of affairs" in England and promised that they would "ever be ready, according to our bound duty, to contribute our humble service and best endeavors for settling the same in such a way as may conduce most to your Majesty's honor and authority and good and peace of your kingdoms." Having secured this equivocal statement of neutrality from the Covenanters in their capacity of privy councillors, Charles turned his attention to the future actions of the Covenanters in their capacity of commissioners to the unpredictable General Assembly. The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ser. # 2 , vol. 7 (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1906), 264-265, hereinafter cited as RPCS.

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the king and Parliament. In the message to the king, the Assembly's letter reminded him of his words to the English Parliament on the occasion of the conclusion of the treaty between Scotland and England in June 1641, at which time he had approved of their desire for conformity in church government between the two nations. The Assembly called upon the king "to settle this blessed Reformation" as he was the "vice-gerent" of God and his "prime instrument" in it. In the long letter to the English Parliament, Henderson repeated the excerpt from the king's speech to the Parliament, lamented the fact that "the Reformation of Religion hath moved so slowly," and then went on to press the necessity of "uniformity of Kirk-government. For what hope can there be of Unity in Religion, of one Confession of Faith, one Form of Worship, and one Catechism, till there be first one Form of Ecclesiastical Government?" He urged that the bishops be put out as a necessary prelude to that Reformation and pledged the assistance of the church in Scotland in "furthering the Work of Uniformity of Government, or for agreeing upon a common Confession of Faith, Cathechism, and Directory of Worship." 45 The letter from Ireland requesting ministers was read. The decision of the Assembly was that the "unsettled condition both of Church, and State, and Land" would not permit the Assembly to send any ministers there to settle permanently. The unstable Irish situation remained throughout the coming decades to frustrate the proselytizing efforts of the Scots church. The letter from the London ministers was read. In answer to the request "that the Presbyterian Government . . . may be established amongst us, and that . . . we may agree in one Confession of Faith, one directory of Worship, one public Catechism and form of government," the Assembly wrote: " W e wish that the work may be begun with speed, and prosecuted with diligence by the joint labours of some Divines in both Kingdoms, who may prepare the same for the view and examination of a more frequent Ecclesiastical meeting of the best affected to Reformation there." 46 Within the year the wishes of the General Assembly would be fulfilled. * Peterkin, Records, 324-326. On August 18 the Scots privy council approved of, and concurred with, the sentiments of these letters. ( R P C S , 7 : 3 1 4 . ) "Peterkin, Records, 329.

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The rent in the Covenanter ranks that the king's quarrel with the English Parliament had caused to happen was a forerunner of future trouble for Scotland. It had been indirectly responsible also for Baillie's decision to leave Kilwinning and accept the post at the college. During the spring of 1642 both the king and English Parliament had been soliciting the sympathy of the Scots privy council in their differences. During that same spring, Baillie was trying to decide whether or not he should move to Glasgow. At some time prior to May 28 those in favor of aiding the king or, at the least, of not aiding the English Parliament, namely, Montrose and the earl of Morton, had begun to form a new party within the Covenanters.47 These royalists had converged on Edinburgh where the privy council was to meet and decide upon its official stand in the dispute between Charles and the Commons. They had formed themselves into a band, after the old Scots fashion, and tried to petition the Scots privy council to declare that it would not give any assistance to the English Parliament. The privy council records do not record this petition.48 On May 31 the Covenanters, headed apparently by Argyl, petitioned that the privy council return an answer to the English Parliament that would declare that those who would "raise arms against the subjects of the other Kingdom [i.e., England] without consent of [the Scots] Parliament" would be declared traitors. The petition asked also that the privy council refrain from offering any assistance to the king and, indeed, that it shun any and all engagements. This petition was accepted by the council and is recorded in the privy council records. The division in the Covenanter ranks that these two petitions represented was not closed. Henceforth, two factions would be present in the Covenanter party: that headed b y Argyl and supported by the general assembly and privy council and "Baillie, Letters, 2:34-37. See Baillie's letter to Lord Montgomery, his former "scholar" and son to the earl of Eglinton, and to Montgomery's wife, Lady Montgomery. " S e e C. V . Wedgwood, The King's War, 1641-1647 (New York: Macmillan, 1959), p. 97. Wedgwood says that the privy council refused to accept the bander's petition. Laing (Letters, 2:4411) says that the petition was presented to the privy council on May 2j, 1642, but gives no reference. RPCS for that date gives no hint of any such royalist petition having been handed in. However, RPCS records that the privy council sat the following day, May 26, with the addition of Argyl to the council, and the editor's note says, "No record of business." (RPCS, 7:259.)

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that headed by Montrose and supported only by a few other royalist lords.49 In those early years of the Covenanter hegemony, Baillie had not yet had cause to disagree with the majority voice, as led by Argyl. Thus, when Baillie learned that his former "scholar at the College, his patron and friend of some seventeen years," the Lord Montgomery, son of the earl of Eglinton, had joined with Montrose, Baillie pleaded with him to reconsider. In a postscript to a letter written to Spang in late June 1642, Baillie said, with reference to his decision to accept the offer of the college, "However, my great grief for my Lord Montgomery his change of party, notwithstanding of all I could either say or write to him, and for his presenting that infamous supplication, did further me in m y purpose to leave him." 5 0 The Assembly adjourned on August 6, after having named the commissioners for the Public Affairs of the Kirk, those who would attend to church business on issues of national importance until the next General Assembly. Baillie was again appointed one of those commissioners. Once again he returned home to Kilwinning, to close out his ministry there and to begin his preparations for the journey to Glasgow and the college.61 "RPCS, 7:260-264; see also Baillie, Letters, 2:43-44. This difference of opinion regarding the course the privy council should take may be viewed in two lights. On the national scene it revealed that the Covenanters were not all of one mind in their priorities. T o the majority, headed by Argyl, the cause of Reformation in England and of unity of the two churches was more important than was the cause of the king's prerogatives in England; to the minority, headed by Montrose, the king was more important. (In the years to come, this minority would increase to become, by 1649, the majority, but by then it would be too late.) Viewed from the aspect of clan feuds, this most recent defection of James Graham, the earl of Montrose, from the Covenanter cause could be taken as little more than an extension of his personal feud with his most serious rival for power in Scotland, Archibald Campbell, the earl of Argyl. 80 Baillie, Letters, 2:11. 61 The duties, obligations, and powers of the commission were given in some detail by the General Assembly of 1642. (Peterkin, Records, 330-331.) It had full power to "consider and perform what they find necessary for the Ministry . . . for furtherance of this great Work in the Union of this island in Religion and Kirk-government . . . and keeping of good correspondence betwixt the Kirks of this Island . . . to concur . . . with the Council . . . to send some to present and prosecute their desires and humble advice to His Majesty and the Parliament . . . they being always accountable to, and censurable by the next General Assembly, for their proceedings. . . ." Unfortunately, the records of the commis-

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At the college. Although the college had charged him to move to Glasgow by July 12, and he apparently had journeyed there to deliver his inaugural address on July 6, evidence from his letters indicate that he did not move to Glasgow until the autumn, probably not until October.62 The college year began at Martinmas, November 11. Writing in October, Baillie anticipated 60 first-year students, 40 second-year, and 20 "laureat" or graduate students. The course of study was divided among Principal Strang, David Dickson, and Baillie. Each appears to have lectured six to eight hours a week. Baillie taught Hebrew on Monday afternoon. On Wednesday morning he taught "Parergetic Diatribes," that is, argumentation on matters subordinate to the sermon material itself, matters such as "the authority of Presbyteries" and "episcopacy and elders." On Thursday morning from eleven to twelve he dealt with "Controversies." Dickens, as the first professor of divinity, handled the "analytic Commentary on the text of Scripture" on Monday and Tuesday mornings and homilies on Friday morning. Principal Strang heard private disputations on Tuesday afternoons and lectured on the hard places of Scripture for an hour each on Thursday and Friday mornings.53 By May of 1643, Baillie had made his plans for his next few years at Glasgow. "I purpose to assay . . . the Controversies of Bellarmine. sions for 1642, 1643, 1644, and 1645 have been lost. The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh in 16;o, in St. Andrews and Dundee in 1651, and in Edinburgh in 1652, James Christie, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1909), p. ix. Baillie was appointed a member of the commission frequently, but as early as 1642 he had mixed reactions to its power and autonomy. Writing to Spang in February 1643, he commented, " T h e commission from the General Assembly, which before was of small use, is like to become almost a constant judiciary, and very profitable; but of so high a strain [Scots, temperament], that to some it is terrible already." (Letters, 2:JJ.) " Baillie, Letters, i:xliv, David Laing's "Memoir." I have not been able to confirm this date, July 6, from any of my sources. M Munimenta, 3:239-240, print a prescribed course of study for divinity students. However, it is for a period later than mid-seventeenth century. A n editorial note in Munimenta, 3:xviii, says, "There are in the Record two such series of laws, the earliest of which is undated, but appears to be engrossed in a hand of the middle of the 17th century. Preference has, however, been given to the particular series printed in the text, though in considerably later handwriting than the other, on account of its greater completeness." See also Baillie, Letters, 2:71-72.

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. . . How I will be assisted in that high and great task . . . I know not; but I purpose it shall be my exercise." He planned also to continue the Hebrew through the second year and then begin the students on Chaldaic and Syriac in the third and fourth years. "I have little of these," he wrote to Spang, "but I hope to learn with my scholars." 54 In addition to his college assignment, Baillie held a full-time ministerial position at the Low Church in the Trongate. From the evidence of the Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow, he appears to have undertaken this second position at the opening of the second term, that is, after Candlemas, February 2, 1643. Once more Baillie appeared to be settled for life. Summer 1643: prelude to Westminster. Baillie's teaching plans for the next academic year would not be fulfilled. Indeed, Baillie would not even be at Glasgow College during the academic year 1643-1644. The civil war that had broken out in England, the petitions from the English Parliament to the Scots privy council for assistance, the requests from the English ministers for Scots assistance at the forthcoming Reformation assembly of divines—these factors combined with the willingness of the General Assembly commissioners to help the cause of the English Reformation by helping the cause of the English Parliament, and with the belief that the success of the one hinged upon the success of the other. Upon this willingness and this belief both church and state based their actions. In July and August of 1643 those actions drew Scotland, the Presbyterian church, the Covenanters, and even Robert Baillie irrevocably into the maze of English politics, a maze from which neither Scots kirk nor state nor nation would emerge unscathed.56 During that summer of 1643 both the committee of estates and the General Assembly were sitting at Edinburgh. In July a commissioner from the English Commons, one Mr. Corbett, arrived in Edinburgh and presented two requests to the estates. One request told of the English Parliament's "calling of an Assembly [of Divines] at our desire, to which they craved some of our Divines to be sent." The other re84 Baillie, Letters, 2:72. Saint Robert Bellarmine, who died in 1621, had been a well-known Jesuit controversialist. He had written a series of disputations in defense of Catholicism against Protestantism. 65 "I saw in all our nation, at that time a very great good will to the [English] Parliament's cause." (Baillie, Letters, 2:80.)

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quest was that the Scots Parliament "give them [the English Parliament] assistance according to the treaty [of 1641]." The request for ministers to attend the Westminster Assembly was "referred to the approaching Assembly." The request for military assistance was taken under consideration.56 The General Assembly of 1643, which sat from August 2 to August 19, transacted a larger volume of business than usual.67 While the Assembly awaited the arrival of the commissioners from the English Parliament, it handled the domestic issues. After the arrival on August 7 of the English commissioners, it dealt almost exclusively with the letters that they brought with them. Among these letters was one from the English Parliament to the General Assembly, wherein the Parliament thanked the Assembly for its efforts to "extirpate the Reliquies of Popery" and for its efforts "to procure the like happiness to our Church and Nation." The letter went on to itemize the efforts that had been undertaken already in England in the direction of church Reformation and concluded that Parliament considered itself obligated to let the Assembly know, that by reason of the prevailing of the Papists, Prelatical Faction, and other malignant enemies . . . these hopeful beginnings are likely, not only to be rendered ineffectual, but all the former evils, superstitions, and corruptions [are likely] . . . to be re-introduced by strong hand which if once they should take root again in the Church and Kingdom of England, will quickly spread their venom and infection into the neighbour Church and Kingdom of Scotland.58 This letter was followed by a declaration of the English Parliament to the General Assembly. In it, Parliament announced that it had called an "Assembly of diverse godly and learned Divines, and others of this Kingdom, unto the City of Westminster" whose purpose was "the necessary Reformation of Church discipline and Government in this Kingdom, and the more near union of both Churches." The letter requested that the Assembly "will according to their former promise and resolution, send to the Assembly here, such number of godly and 69

Ibid. Peterkin, Records, 360-361, lists seventy-nine acts. 58 Ibid., 347, prints the letter in full, K

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learned Divines, as in their wisdom they think most expedient for the furtherance of this work." T h e declaration contained a second request: And that their endeavours may be more effectual, the two Houses do make this request to them, with their authority, advice, and exhortation, so far as belongs to them, to stir up that Nation to send some competent Forces in aid of this Parliament and Kingdom, against the many Armies of the Popish and Prelatical party, and their adherents, now in arms for the ruin and destruction of the reformed Religion, and all the Professours thereof.59 A third letter was from the Westminster Assembly to the General Assembly. In it the ministers referred to the dangers to the Reformed religion in England, with the reminder that such dangers threatened even Scotland. T h e y seconded the English Parliament's request for Scots ministerial assistance in the matter of settling the English Reformation. A fourth letter was signed by more than seventy English ministers. It described the "bleeding condition of your poor distressed Brethren in England" under the "Antichristian faction" of "Papists and Prelates." Of this letter Baillie wrote, " T h e letter of the private Divines was so lamentable, that it drew tears from many." Finally, a paper that had been presented b y the commissioners of the English Parliament to the Scots convention of estates was read now to the General Assembly. It called for a military alliance of Scotland and England against the "Papists and prelatical Faction, and their adherents in both Kingdoms, and not to lay down their arms till those their implacable enemies shall be disarmed, and subjected to the authority and justice of Parliament in both Kingdoms." It requested that Scotland raise "a considerable force" of infantry and cavalry for this purpose, and offered "to consider with their brethren the Estates and kingdom of Scotland, of what other Articles or propositions are fit to be added and concluded, whereby this assistance and Union betwixt the two Nations may be made more beneficial and effectual for the security of Religion and Liberty in both Kingdoms." 60 60 60

Ibid., 347-348, prints the declaration in full; see also Baillie, Letters, 2:89. Peterkin, Records, 350-351, prints the paper in full.

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The reading of these papers, either in committee meetings or to the Assembly, occasioned many private meetings of the leading Covenanters, many of which meetings Baillie attended. "All thought it most necessary to assist the English," he wrote; "yet of the way there was much difference of opinion." They considered the idea of acting as arbitrators "without siding altogether with the Parliament." That idea, however, was dismissed as vain and impossible. If an alliance were to be made, what form should it take? What limitations should be imposed upon the English? Would the English agree to limitations? These questions engaged the Assembly's privy meetings. Baillie wrote, "The English were for a civil League, we for a religious Covenant. When they were brought to us in this, and Mr. Henderson had given them a draught of a Covenant, we were not like to agree on the frame; they were, more nor we could assent to, for keeping of a door open in England to Independency. Against this we were peremptory." 6 1 A compromise was reached in the document that would be known as the Solemn League and Covenant, written by Alexander Henderson.62 The commissioners of all three assemblies, namely, the estates, the General Assembly of Scotland, and the Parliament of England, agreed to it. "From that meeting it came immediately to our Assembly," Baillie recorded, "[where] it was received with the greatest applause that ever I saw any thing, with so hearty affections, expressed in the tears of pity and joy by very many grave, wise, and old men." On August 17 the Solemn League and Covenant was passed by vote of the General "Baillie, Letters, 2:90. "Printed in Lumsden, Covenants of Scotland, pp. 261-26J, and Samuel R. Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 267-271. In six paragraphs, the commissioners of the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland pledged to preserve the Reformed religion in Scotland, to work for the reformation of religion in England and Ireland "according to the W o r d of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches" and to bring all three "to the nearest conjunction and uniformity"; to extirpate popery and prelacy from the three kingdoms; to "preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the Kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority"; to bring to trial all "incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments" who hindered the reformation or who divided "the King from his people"; to remain "conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity"; to "assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant" and not to permit themselves to be divided.

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Assembly and shortly after was dispatched to England. At the Assembly only the king's commissioner, Sir Thomas Hope, disapproved of part of it, that part that "concerned the Parliament of England, with whom his Majesty was for the present at odds." A committee had to be chosen to attend the Westminster Assembly. Those chosen were Alexander Henderson, Robert Douglas, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie, ministers, and the earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Archibald Johnston of Wariston, elders. Baillie objected to his name on the committee; they were to leave on Saturday, August 26, only five days hence, and surely "no man could dream they could be so unreasonable as to command me, without visiting my family, and putting my small affairs to some order, so suddenly to go so far a voyage." Furthermore, Mrs. Baillie "was great with child; had I in so dangerous a time so suddenly departed, likely she had died for grief." Finally, he argued, a quorum was any two ministers. Henderson was one; George Gillespie, who lived in Edinburgh, could be the second. The question was put to vote, and Baillie's arguments prevailed. Gillespie was chosen to go. Baillie left Edinburgh to return to Glasgow, "with joy for my liberation unexpected from a troublesome if not a dangerous voyage." 63 He had been too optimistic. He had spent barely two months with his family before the commissioners in England called for him. "We are thus far in our way to go aboard, God willing, one of these days," he wrote to Spang in Holland. "Write none to me till you hear from "Baillie, Letters, 2:95-98. In charity to Baillie's opposition to another journey must be said that only a year ago, in either June or July of 1642, Baillie's youngest child had died and his wife had been gravely ill, that he had only begun his work at the college, and that he had been called away from his family and work on two lengthy occasions already, while he was at Duns Law in the first bishops' war and for seven months in London in 1640-1641. Furthermore, Baillie had good reason to fear ocean travel. On the occasion of his return from London to Edinburgh in 1641 he wrote, "Upon the sea we were from Wednesday morning til Monday. . . . W e were once tethered on a sand-bed. . . . After that, we had some storm for sixteen hours, our ship fell leak, it was very evil ballast, and heeled much; but our chief danger was about the Holy Island [Lindisfarne]: the wind served us not to go about the blind rocks, where there are frequent shipwrecks, we behoved to go through them, we fell in a calm, so at very midnight we fell among them; great was the fear of the whole company, yet God brought us through that death, blessed be his name! I resolve, if I may go by land, never more to sail that coast." (Letters, 1:355-356.)

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me where I am." The letter was dated November 17. The college year had just begun; a substitute teacher would have to be found. The burgh would have to find a minister to replace him at the Tron Kirk. By the date of his next letter, December 5, Baillie would be living in London. With the exception of a short visit home in 1645, he was to remain in London for more than three years.

5 Baillie at the Westminster Assembly (1643-1646)

The Assembly of Divines that met in Westminster Abbey was the creature of the English Parliament. B y an ordinance of Parliament, dated June 12, 1643, 121 ministers plus 20 lay representatives from the House of Commons and 10 from the House of Lords convened in the Henry V I I Chapel of the abbey on July 1, 1643. Parliament had empowered the members of the Assembly "to confer and treat amongst themselves, of such matters and things touching and concerning the Liturgy, Discipline and Government of the Church of England." 1 The English had sought Scots assistance. In the Solemn League and Covenant, which was a product of this request for help, the magistrates of the kingdoms had pledged themselves to the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and we shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity 1

Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, C. H . Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., 3 vols. (London: H . M. Stationery Office, 1911), 1:180-184, publishes the ordinance in full.

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after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the L o r d m a y delight to dwell in the midst of us. 2

In fulfillment of this pledge, the General Assembly of 1643 had sent its first three commissioners to assist the ministers sitting at Westminster. They were the ministers Alexander Henderson and George Gillespie and the ruling elder Lord Maitland, all of whom arrived in London in mid-September. They were to stay at Worcester House, which had been prepared for them. The remaining two commissioners arrived on Friday, November 17. They were the ministers Samuel Rutherford and Robert Baillie.3 Baillie's letters during his stay in London are full of details of the Assembly's proceedings, but, as with so much of his correspondence, they are almost devoid of any personal details. His letters, therefore, are a rich source of historical information, but Baillie the man is all but lost. His role at the Assembly, as far as history is concerned, was to be that of chronicler of events. In a letter written to Spang only two weeks after he arrived in London, he gave his first enthusiastic impressions: "The like of that Assembly," he wrote, "I did never see, and, as we hear say, the like was never in England, nor any where is shortly like to be." At first he was favorably impressed by the orderly speeches and method of voting, first by voice vote, then by standing for a count. He recorded that in their speeches, "They harangue long ' Samuel Rawson Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 267-271, prints the covenant in full. " A year earlier, in anticipation of the Westminster Assembly, the English Parliament had requested the General Assembly of 1642 to send ministers "to assist at their Synod against the 5th of November, or when it might be called." Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLXII, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 2:55, hereinafter cited as Letters. A t that time, "It was intended by some, that only Ministers should go." Baillie, however, "moved the conjunction of Elders" and drew up a list of five reasons why elders should be included. (Letters, 2:478-479.) His reasons carried in the Assembly. Therefore, although the parliamentary instructions of 1643 specified the sending of "divines" and did not mention other church officers, the Scots sent along a ruling elder anyway. If they had not done so, Baillie asserted in his reasons, "we should confirm that common error of too many of the English, that Church affairs should be handled by Divines alone." (Letters, 2:479.)

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and very learnedly. T h e y study the questions well before hand, and prepare their speeches; but withal the men are exceeding prompt, and well spoken. I do marvel at the very accurate and extemporaneous replies that many of them usually do make." Despite his praise for the content of the speeches, however, he was impatient with their length. "They follow the way of their Parliament," he commented; "Much of their way is good, and worthy of our imitation: only their longsomeness is woeful at this time, when their Church and Kingdom lies under a most lamentable anarchy and confusion." 4 Within the year Baillie's initial enthusiasm was to be dampened by these seemingly endless debates over issues that the Scots considered obvious in their solution. After he had been away from home for nearly fourteen months, he became openly critical. He was weary with the tediousness of the Assembly. "Their way is woefully tedious," he wrote; "Nothing, in any Assembly that ever was in the world except Trent, like to them in prolixity." 5 He was discouraged also by the limitations that Parliament had placed upon the Assembly. "They have no power to write one line to any soul, but as the Parliament directs," he complained. "You know this is no proper Assembly, but a meeting called by the Parliament to advise them in what things they are asked." 6 English verbosity irked him. Less than six months after the Assembly had begun, he wrote, "The unhappy, and unamendable prolixity of this people, in all their affairs, except God work extraordinarily, is like to undo them: they can put nothing to any point, either in Church or State: we are vexed and overwearied with their ways. God help them, and our poor land, who by their own unhappy sottish laziness is like to be in great hazard." Three months later he commented, "This is an irresolute, divided, and dangerously-humored people: we long much to see them settled, and our nation honestly rid of them." 7 Conflicting objectives beset the work of the Assembly from the very beginning. On the one hand, the Parliament, at whose directive the Assembly worked, rejected any attempts of the Assembly to formu4

Ibid., 109.

'Ibid., 164, also, 130.

" Ibid., 186. 7

Ibid., 164; see also 176-177, 211, 230.

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late a church government along the lines of the Scots system of church courts that would be independent of the civil courts and of Parliament itself. On the other hand, even the English Presbyterians in the Assembly did not share the Scots concept of a rigidly stratified system of church courts, independent of the civil authorities. They wanted "a lame Erastian presbytery," Baillie lamented. Above all, the Assembly could not ignore the growing numbers of those who rejected all attempts at a national church. Baillie feared these Independents. In April of 1644 he wrote, T h e Independents are resolute to give in their reasons against us, and that shall be the beginning of an open schism: likely after that, we will be forced to deal with them as open enemies. T h e y have been here most unhappy instruments, the principal, if not the sole cause, w h y the Parliament was so long in calling an Assembly, and when it was called, why nothing in a whole year could possibly be gotten concluded.8

In addition to the problems that the Assembly presented, Baillie became increasingly concerned for the welfare of his wife. "I thank your wife heartily for that great kindness she shows to my wife," he wrote to Dickson in April. In June he asked George Young to "help my wife to get my half-year's stipend, due the first of July, so pleasantly as you can." Toward the end of June, he asked Robert Ramsay to "go down to [Dickson's] wife, and say, I thank her heartily for all her kindness to my [wife]; say as much to your own." In July he wrote again to Dickson: "I know all of you are countenancing and encouraging my poor wife, as you have occasion." 9 He was concerned, too, about his position at the college. Would Parliament confirm it in his absence? "That which I wish you chiefly to advise on is, the confirmation of my place in the next ensuing parliament," he wrote to George Young in March 1644. In April he asked Dickson to "remember my love and best affections to all our scholars . . . and be pleased to remember me to the Principal and all my colleagues." 1 0 'Ibid.,

168; see also 139, 211.

'Ibid., 161, 173, 190, 196, 213. 10

Ibid., 161, 172-173, 189-190.

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Throughout all his letters ran the theme of his concern over the war that was raging in England, over the ragtail condition of the unpaid Scots regiments, over the increasing power of Cromwell and the Independents, and the certain knowledge that worse was yet to come. All this confusion made him resolve to be "much the more willing to condescend to live quietly with worse men than any I know [in Glasgow]." The threat that Independency presented to Baillie's ordered world was to instill in him a fear he would never overcome. He would live to see that threat become a reality in the years that lay ahead. Baillie worked hard and long hours while he was in London. Although he did not once address the Assembly, he did participate in the work of the major committees and attended the Assembly meetings in the morning and the committee meetings in the afternoons, meetings that lasted often until six-thirty in the evening. Saturdays were given over to preparing sermons for the sabbath (the Scots ministers were very popular with the people of London), and he had on one occasion delivered a sermon before the House of Commons. 11 Therefore, when the opportunity came to make a brief visit home, he was delighted. Even the prospect of the long journey, by land this time, did not faze him. The object of the journey that he and George Gillespie began on January 5, 1645, was to attend the General Assembly in Edinburgh. The Assembly had been called out of season so that they could present to it, for its ratification, the work so far completed by the Westminster Assembly. Baillie and Gillespie arrived safely at Newcastle, after some ten or eleven days' journey through countryside overrun with royalist and parliamentary armies. According to Baillie, they had had one narrow escape around Newark: "Yea, much more than we knew; for we learned thereafter that we were pursued, and escaped scarcely one hour." They rested a day or two at Newcastle, long enough, at any rate, for both Baillie and Gillespie to speak at Nicholas Church. From Newcastle Baillie wrote to Wariston in Edinburgh, advising him that they would not be able to arrive in Edinburgh before noon on January 23; the General Assembly was to begin on January 22. Baillie wrote "February 28, 1643/4: "Satan the Leader in Chief to all who Resist the

Reparation of Sion." Vide infra.

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that Robert Douglas must be chosen moderator "and that y o u have set y o u r committees of well-affected wise men."

12

Baillie and Gillespie arrived in Edinburgh late on the evening of January 22. T h e next day Baillie addressed the Assembly: T h a t a n A s s e m b l y a n d P a r l i a m e n t of E n g l a n d u n a n i m o u s l y ( w h i c h is t h e i r w o r d ) a b o l i s h e d , n o t o n l y t h e s e c e r e m o n i e s w h i c h t r o u b l e d us, b u t t h e w h o l e S e r v i c e - b o o k , a s a v e r y i d o l ( s o s p e a k t h e y a l s o ) a n d a vessel f u l l of m u c h m i s c h i e f ; t h a t i n p l a c e of E p i s c o p a c y a S c o t s P r e s b y t e r y s h o u l d b e c o n c l u d e d i n a n E n g l i s h A s s e m b l y , a n d o r d a i n e d i n a n E n g l i s h P a r l i a m e n t ; as i t is a l r e a d y o r d a i n e d i n t h e H o u s e of C o m m o n s , t h a t t h e p r a c t i s e of t h e C h u r c h of S c o t l a n d , set d o w n i n a m o s t w h o l e s o m e , p i o u s , a n d p r u d e n t D i r e c t o r y , s h o u l d c o m e i n t h e p l a c e of a L i t u r g y i n all t h e t h r e e d o m i n i o n s ; s u c h stories l a t e l y t o l d , w o u l d h a v e been counted fancies, dreams, m e r e l y impossibilities: y e t this d a y w e t e l l t h e m as t r u t h s , a n d d e e d s d o n e , f o r t h e g r e a t h o n o u r of o u r G o d , a n d , w e a r e p e r s u a d e d , t h e j o y of m a n y a g o d l y soul. If a n y w i l l n o t b e l i e v e o u r r e p o r t , let t h e m t r u s t t h e i r o w n e y e s ; f o r b e h o l d h e r e t h e w a r r a n t of o u r w o r d s , w r i t t e n a n d s u b s c r i b e d b y t h e h a n d s of t h e c l e r k s of t h e P a r l i a m e n t of E n g l a n d , a n d t h e s c r i b e s of t h e A s s e m b l y t h e r e . Nevertheless, if the hard-won victories at Westminster gave him cause to rejoice, the impending invasion of Scotland b y Irish royalist forces "Baillie, Letters, 2:255. The Solemn League and Covenant had caused a rift among the Covenanters, the first of many. Some had become disaffected; some, like Montrose, had gone over to the royalist cause. Baillie apparently did not want any apostate Covenanters in key positions at this important General Assembly, which would be dealing with the results of that Solemn League and Covenant. An indication of the seriousess of the rift is seen in the action of the General Assembly when, on February 12, it ordered that " A Solemn and Seasonable Warning," written by George Gillespie, be printed and distributed throughout Scotland. In it, warning was given to those who spoke against the Covenant or who attempted to divide the Scots and English parliamentary forces, with Montrose specifically mentioned. "He that is not with us, is against us," it concluded. Records of the Kirk of Scotland, Containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the Year 1638 Downwards, as Authenticated by the Clerks of the Assembly; with Notes and Historical Illustrations, vol. 1, Alexander Peterkin, ed. (Edinburgh: John Sutherland, 1838), 423-427, prints this warning in full. Hereinafter cited as Peterkin, Records.

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Baillie at the Westminster Assembly

and the victories of Montrose, apostate Covenanter now fighting in Scotland for the king, cast a shadow over the day. "Our sun will shine, and our air will clear again: this we must believe, and, according to our faith, we shall certainly find it. It was indeed very needful that we should be humbled; our nation lately was advanced to a high pitch of honour; we might have perished worse, if we had not perished thus." 1 3 Speeches, letters, and documents occupied the Assembly that day. After Baillie, George Gillespie spoke. Following Gillespie's speech, a letter from the Scots commissioners at Westminster was read aloud, followed by a letter from the English ministers at Westminster. Then, "to deliver the minds of some from their fears, lest we had other things than we at first would bring forth, all was presently read." The Directory for Worship was read "from end to end" as was the Directory for Church Government and Ordination "so far as had passed the Assembly." "It was," Baillie wrote later, "one of the fairest Assemblies I had seen. . . . Our message to all was exceeding opportune and welcome: it was a great refreshing to them in a time of languishing and discouragement." For five or six days the committees worked over the documents that Baillie and Gillespie had brought with them. On February 3 the Assembly approved the Directory for Worship and ordered that a copy be put in every church and presbytery in the kingdom. The propositions concerning church government and ordination of ministers were approved on February io. 14 Some time before the Assembly was finished, Baillie left Edinburgh to return to Glasgow to visit his family "after sixteen months absence." He had hoped that he would not have to return to London, but at its last session, on February 13, the Assembly renewed the commission to Westminster. "I had left sundry in the Assembly to deal for my abode at home," Baillie wrote, "but there was no remedy; both of us were ordained . . . to go back." 1 5 They left Scotland by ship on March 8. They should have arrived in London within the week and were therefore almost given up for lost, Baillie wrote, when a storm blew the ship off course and drove "Baillie, Letters, 2:256-157. "Peterkin, Records, 422. " Ibid., 454; also Baillie, Letters, 2:260.

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them to Holland. This accident gave Baillie his first glimpse of the land he had so long wished to visit, and so they journeyed to Rotterdam to visit with Spang. They spent some time in that city and attended at least one kirk session there on April 5. Baillie spent all his money buying books that were unobtainable in London or Glasgow and would have stayed longer in Holland but for Gillespie's apparent insistence on returning to London.16 Before he had left Westminster for Scotland, Baillie had written that he expected the business of the Assembly would be concluded in "a month or two . . . for all men now incline to a conclusion." Again, Baillie was over-optimistic. He and Gillespie returned to Westminster on April 9, 1645; they were to remain there for twenty-one months more.17 During that time the Assembly worked on the Confession of Faith and on the Larger and Shorter Catechism. In that period Baillie delivered a sermon before the House of Lords and published two papers. Baillie's sermons and publications. If the letters that Baillie wrote during his stay at Westminster have a recurring theme, it is fear of Independency and of all the schismatic sects that, to his mind, began with Independency. Over and over again the fear of schism, of "renting the kirk," of impending anarchy appears as a dark prediction of coming events if the Independents were not somehow made to see the error of their ways, if, instead of being kept in the gathered church, they should be irremediably alienated from it. Over and over again he expressed the hope for accommodation. In committee work he invariably maneuvered the agenda so that the committee would begin its work on points on which Independents and Presbyterians could agree, postponing those points on which they did not agree and trusting in the Lord to help when the hard times came.18 His sermons and publications reflected this concern for orthodoxy. When the House of Commons requested him to deliver the sermon on the public fast day for February 1643/4, he chose Zechariah 3:1-2 as 16 William Steven, The History of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam (Edinburgh: Waugh & Innes, 1832), pp. i j - 1 6 . " J o h n R. deWitt, Jus Divinum: The Westminster Assembly and the Divine Right of Church Government (Kampen, The Netherlands: John Calvin Stichting, 1969), p. 151. " S e e Baillie's Letters, 2:110, i n , 116, 122, wherein he expresses his hopes for accommodation with the Independents.

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his text: 19 "And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. A n d the Lord said unto Satan, T h e Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" In his dedicatory epistle to Francis Rouse, member of the House of Commons and composer of a metrical version of the Psalms that the Assembly did not adopt, Baillie stated his premises. T h e chief parties in the building or rebuilding of a church, he said, are Christ and the Devil. "Men are but inferior and subservient agents to these two Princes." Further, "the Ordering of the State and Kingdom, how necessary soever, ought not to precede the settling of the church." T h e man who had been present at the General Assembly of 1638 and who had seen an entire church system overhauled in a matter of twenty-seven sessions commented, " N o Protestant Church to this day, did ever stay the half of the time in purging the whole Body of Religion, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and all, as this Land hath already spent on some few points of Discipline alone." T h e sermon itself, some fifty-four printed pages, compared the post-Babylonian days of Judah with the present, that is, with the deliverance of England from the Babylonian captivity of the Romish mass of the church of Laud. For Joshua, read England. For the Satan that stood at Joshua's right hand and that urged Joshua to resist the Lord, read all the devils that plagued England's church: the Antinomians, the Arminians, the Socinians, the popish priest and bishops.20 Just as Joshua had cast off his Satan, so, Baillie said, the lesson that this text teaches is that "the great and chief leader of all who oppose the Reformers of a Church or State is the Devil" and that this Satan, too, in whatever guise, is to be resisted. W e must "pull the tree of our Church and State out of the fire which hath already burnt up very a

T h e Scots commissioners each delivered one sermon before the House

Commons assembled at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster:

of

Henderson, on

December 27; Rutherford, on January 31; Baillie, on February 28; and Gillespie, on March 27. In 164J they each delivered one sermon before the House of Lords in the abbey church at Westminster. A l l these sermons are in print and under one cover. Dr. Stuart Mechie, head librarian of Trinity College, Glasgow, allowed me to peruse the library's rare volume that contains them. 30

Baillie refrained from mentioning the Independents at this time; as of February

1644 he still hoped for accommodation.

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many Branches," he concluded, "And is like, if not quickly quenched, to go to the very Root." 2 1 Baillie had hoped to put a fire under the Assembly. Unfortunately, as he commented later in a letter to David Dickson in Glasgow, although "the preface to my Sermon has put some edge on the Assembly for a quicker dispatch," nevertheless "the nature itself of their way is so woefully longsome, that it's almost impossible to be shortened." A year and a half later, when he preached in the abbey church to the assembled House of Lords, his subject was the same, although his approach was more direct. On this occasion he chose as his text, Isaiah 63:17: "O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance." In the seven-page preface dedicated to "the Equitable Reader," Baillie states that errors and indurations are among the principal sins and miseries of the times. Although the Lord deals with us "by the rod, the Hammer, the fire of his judgement," yet we do not melt our hearts, as He wishes, and so we bring down upon us yet more wrath and judgments. Error is no less sinful than is vice, Baillie said, "whence it necessarily followeth, that it is more, at least no less unlawful for a Christian State to give any liberty or toleration to Errours, than to set up in every City and Parish of their Dominions, Bordels for the Uncleanness, Stages for Plays, and Lists for Duels." On this occasion, in contrast to his earlier sermon, Baillie conceded that God had given over the list to Satan: "God in his wrath had given over that people to errour," he said, as was evidenced by their multiplicity, their "incredible increase," and "a total neglect of their cure." In this last statement, he was hitting hard at the peers for their part in hindering the work of the Assembly in their failure to date to implement the Directory for Church Government. "Yet here is our comfort," Baillie concluded, that a government submitted to the * Satan, the Leader in Chief to All Who Resist the Reparation of Sion, as It Was Cleared in a Sermon to the Honourable House of Commons at Their Late Solemn Fast, February 28, 1643, by Robert Baillie, minister at Glasgow. Published by order of the House of Commons, London, printed for Samuel Gellibrand at the Brasen Serpent in Pauls Churchyard, 1643. For additional excerpts from and comments on this sermon, see deWitt, op. cit., p. 12m., and William Haller, Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 121-122.

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Houses was even now being voted on, and "that in a very short time the whole Frame shall be erected." The sermon itself was a direct accusation against the Parliament for allowing its "hardness of heart" to keep it from dealing effectively with the "errours" of the times. Baillie's premises were that God's ways are his commandments; to sin, therefore, is "to wander from God's commandments." With such a growth of errors on all sides, Baillie concluded that he must admit that God had permitted the people to err, to sin. Even Baillie digressed occasionally. As soon as he drew his conclusion, he launched into a lecture on the semantic force of the Hebrew verb in the original tongue that, in its active voice, was translated as "made"—which would make God the author of sin—and in its passive voice as "permitted." Thus, he had concluded that God "permitted" sin. In Calvinist theology, however, God does not permit what He does not will; thus, Baillie's digression revealed that his theology here had more than a little infralapsarian tinge to it. This slip from orthodox Scots Presbyterian theology obviously eluded his English listeners. He returned to his sermon. Sins, he said, are heavier than affliction; sins are indeed the "fountain of affliction." T o sin is to err; it is the great evil. N o w Baillie came to the heart of his sermon: Civil disorder, he asserted, is an error and a great judgment of God. Ecclesiastical anarchy is an error. False doctrine is an error. They are all errors; they are all sins. T o permit these errors to exist is, in itself, a judicial error on the part of those who can effect the cure. "Induration," that is, judicial hardness of heart, is "the greatest grief to the godly." It refuses to heed the judgment of God. It is often "the sign of the reprobate to whom God shows no mercy." What was the cure? Baillie gave it: to embrace the word of faith and to draw up "a catalog of our sins." And what were the sins of the country? Baillie cited two: episcopacy on the one hand, and Independency on the other. They were as two fountains that had the same source, and that source was error.22 22 Errours and Indurations Are the Great Sins and the Great Judgements of the Time, Preached in a Sermon Before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30, 164s, the Day of the Monthly Fast, by Robert Baillie, minister at Glasgow. London, printed by R. Raworth for Samuel Gellibrand at the Brasen Serpent in Pauls Churchyard, 1645. For additional comments on this sermon, see Haller, op. cit., p. 223.

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However reluctant Baillie was to speak out against authority when he was speaking in a private capacity, in this sermon, in his ministerial capacity and with the charge laid upon him to teach, he did not shrink before the magistrates. In a letter written a year before, Baillie had made this comment on the English preachers: "The way here of all preachers, even the best, has been, to speak before the Parliament with so profound a reverence as truly took all edge from their exhortations, and made all applications to them toothless and adulatorious."23 If these two published sermons of Baillie's are typical of his style in the pulpit, no one would ever be able to lay this charge against him. Baillie published two tracts while he was in London and prepared a third. The first, A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time, was prepared during October 1645 and was published in November. Baillie's intention in writing this tract was to explain what the Independents believed, which, Baillie said, they were loathe to do for themselves. "I mind to do [it] for them," he wrote, "in their own words." 24 In the Dissuasive Baillie elaborated upon his favorite theme of the dangers to society of toleration of Independency. Independency, he said, was the "porter" that "let into the Church all other errours." His examples of this cause and effect were the teachings of the Independent, Brown, which led to the sect of Brownists, and the teachings of Mr. Cotton in New England, whose followers then fell into the errors of Pelagianism, Montanism, Antinomianism, and Familism.25 Because of the extent of the influence of Mr. Cotton, "the fruits of Independency had been worse in seven years than of Brownism in fifty." Letters, Ibid., 318.

"Baillie, 21

2:220-221.

25 Pelagianism was a fifth-century heresy that rejected the Augustinian doctrine of the basically sinful nature of man. The Pelagians believed that man had the inborn ability to recognize the good and to follow it; baptism and communion were therefore unnecessary to grace. God's grace was prevenient. Montanism was a second-century heresy that, stressing the imminent coming of Christ, advocated asceticism and martyrdom. It claimed special secret knowledge on the part of its adherents and was thus a kind of Gnosticism. Antinomianism was the recurrent heresy that man is not bound by the moral law. Its most recent appearance had been among the Anabaptists in Germany. Familism was the teaching of a sixteenthcentury German; it was mystical, emotional, had no prescribed religious service, and its adherents lived a communal life. It had spread recently to England. T o Baillie, all these errors had one common characteristic: They denied the authority of the organized church.

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Baillie assigned certain "absurdities" to the Independents in N e w England. One was that they denied church membership on spurious grounds, that is, on hint of the applicant being a "scandalous person," and denied him the opportunity to give satisfaction against the charge. Another absurdity was that they limited the preaching of the Gospel by restricting the pastor to his own congregation, thus denying any "relation to a Church universal visible." 28 The pamphlet was successful and no repercussions ensued. Writing to Robert Ramsay in Scotland on January 15, 1646, Baillie appeared relieved on both counts: "I thank God my Dissuasive has done no evil here. I hear no word of any answer for it; albeit it be on the subject most here in agitation. The whole first impression is sold; the second I expect tomorrow." 27 In late spring of 1644 a pamphlet written by John Maxwell, former bishop of Ross, but published anonymously, had made its appearance in London. At the time Baillie had characterized it and its author as "so desperately malicious an invective against our Assemblies and Presbyteries, that, however, I could hardly consent to the hanging of Canterbury himself, or of any Jesuit, yet I could give my sentence freely against that unhappy liar's life." 2 8 The Scots had made no written reply to this pamphlet when it was published for the first time. When, however, the pamphlet was published a second time, in the spring of 1646, Alexander Henderson intended to write a reply, but his service to the king at Newcastle and his failing health caused him to turn the task over to Baillie. Baillie wrote to David Calderwood, the venerable historian of the Scots church and asked him to send some historical materials from which Baillie could prepare his answer. Baillie's answer came off the press in early August 1646.a9 That 28

A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time: Wherein the Tenets of the 'Principal Sects, Especially of the Independents, Are Drawn Together in One Map, for the Most Part, in the Words of Their Own Authours, and Their Main Principles Are examined by the Touch-Stone of the Holy Scriptures, b y Robert Baillie, minister of Glasgow. London, printed f o r Samuel Gellibrand at the Brasep Serpent in Pauls Churchyard, 1645. "Baillie, Letters, 2:335. Baillie encountered opposition to his pamphlet in 1653 and published a defense of it in 165J. 28 Ibid., 207-208. Maxwell had been deposed and excommunicated b y the Glasgow General Assembly in 1638. See Letters, 1:162. "An Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland, from the Manifold Base Calumnies Which the Most Malignant of the Prelats Did

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which troubled the Scots, as Baillie pointed out in his opening paragraph, was that Maxwell's pamphlet had been "put in the hands of the prime Members of both Houses of Parliament" by "some Sectaries," where it was having an evil influence. Presbyterianism was beginning "to be suspected by some who hitherto had not been unfriends to it." According to Baillie's answer, the pamphlet had alleged that presbytery was inconsistent with monarchy and prophesied England's destruction if episcopacy were not restored. It was, therefore, an insult to the Parliament of England as well as to the church in Scotland. For these reasons, the pamphlet required an answer. Baillie's An Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland is in four parts: (1) a challenge to the author's credibility because of his deposition and excommunication by the General Assembly in 1638; (2) an exposition of "those whom he professes to tax," namely, Scotland, and that, as an attack on Scotland, it is an attack on England also, for since the time of Elizabeth, England had "assisted" in the Scots Reformation; (3) a question concerning the motives of the publishers since it had been published by "a Bishop at Oxford" where all were known Malignants, opposed to both the London Parliament and the Scots at the Assembly; and (4) a refutation, point by point, of all the charges that the pamphlet laid upon the Scots Reformed kirk, its classification of officers (particularly elders), its system of church courts, its history from the time of John Knox, and its tenets. In his examination of Maxwell's charges, Baillie began with the title, "Issachar's Burden." The very title was an insult to Scotland and England alike; especially was it an insult to the Parliament of England. Issachar, the son of Jacob and Leah, had been likened to "a strong ass couching down between two burdens" (Genesis 49:14). Maxwell likened England to Issachar. England, therefore, couched down between two burdens and the one was presbytery; the other must be Parliament. These two burdens, according to Maxwell, were infinitely heavier than were the alternative ones of episcopacy and monarchy. All the evils in England, again according to Maxwell, had come about because England had rejected episcopacy, without which no legitimate Invent of Old, and Now Lately Have Been Published with Great Industry in Two Pamphlets at London, by Robert Baillie, minister at Glasgow. London, printed for Samuel Gellibrand at the Brasen Serpent in Pauls Churchyard, 1646.

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church could exist, had rejected the right of monarchy not only to define the law but to be above the law, and had extolled the Parliament above the king. Under these two burdens England was doomed. You well know, Baillie replied, "that all our Heresies and Sects did breed under the wings of Episcopacy." They appeared now to be "so thick in public" not because of the removal of episcopacy but because of "the plague of our too long anarchy." Regarding the king's subjection to church law, another of Maxwell's charges, Baillie asked, "I would gladly know if among the rest of the Prelatical absurdities this were one: That Christian Princes and Magistrates are fully exempted from all Ecclesiastic jurisdiction." Maxwell and his party spoke, Baillie asserted, "as if every Magistrate, at least every Prince were such a God upon earth that none might say to any of them, Sir, what are you doing." Clearly, Baillie had come a long way since his days of doubt that had preceded the 1638 Glasgow Assembly. Point by point, Baillie then defended or refuted Maxwell's remaining charges. Elders do not have any more power in the kirk sessions of Scotland than have those of the Reformed churches of France, Holland, or New England. Unlicensed preachers do not preach in the presbyteries; expectant ministers undergo their trials there: "Where can these [exercises] be so fitly performed as in the [presbyteries]?" he asked. "The Expectants are present in the presbyteries for their training, not as Members." Also, presbyteries do not meddle with trade and commerce; they concern themselves with church matters only. You liken our synod meetings to the old episcopal provincial council and then say that no true provincial council can exist without a bishop at its head, but since we reject episcopacy your arguments fall flat. It is, however, upon the General Assembly that "you spew out the whole remnant of your gall." We say that the assemblies have no powers except those that the Parliament has allowed them; we say that the assemblies do not change the civil law, but, seeing a change to be necessary, petition the king and Parliament to do so; we say that the assembly does not meddle with civil courts. You gibe at what you call the "twelve Articles of our Creed," and since you gibe, "I am content freely to tell you my mind, of all these Articles (as you style them)." Yes, we do believe that God has instituted two polities among men: church and state, that they are not to be confounded and are not to encroach upon one another. We do believe in parity among the

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ministry. No, we do not believe in Independency but rather on the necessary subordination of each church court to the one above. W e do grant the General Assembly the power to judge of all "divine truths and heresies." We do hold that any minister who preaches treason must be subject to the magistrates. We do not insist that the civil magistrates add further sanctions to the decrees of the assembly; that is a matter for law, conscience, and custom. We do insist that reformation within the church is permitted only as the Word of God dictates. We do believe that "inferior magistrates . . . [are not] to be public reformers of a country without a lawful calling," regardless of the sins of idolatry of his superiors; the task of the inferior is rather to reform his own soul. We do hold that all the Covenants of our land "are warranted by Acts of Parliament." We do assert that our assemblies do not "meddle with questions of State." Baillie closed with the statement that all episcopacy is a human invention, is not based on the word of God, and serves only the prince in advancing his privileges above all law and that any episcopacy, even the "moderate episcopacy" of which Maxwell speaks, is still episcopacy, and "to speak of a moderate Episcopacy [is the same as speaking] of a moderate Popedom, a moderate tyranny, is to tell us of a chaste Bordello, . . . a meek murderer, and such like repugnancies." Baillie had written his Vindication for the influential English Presbyterians and for the influential English parliamentarisms. At times, therefore, he shaved the truth between theory and practice somewhat too closely for comfort. In a theocracy the hairline between church matters and state affairs could be all but invisible, but, as usual, the little monk of Kilwinning had honed his razor to perfection. The Vindication is a scholary piece of work. Baillie's bibliography included the Acts of Parliament, the Acts of the General Assembly, A Collection out of the Registers of the Church of Scotland by David Calderwood, Knox's History of the Reformation, Archbishop Spottiswoode's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, and Calderwood's Altar of Damascus. As with all Baillie's published works, the text is readable; the arguments are set down in logical fashion. Above all, the point is not overstated. Baillie had the knack of knowing when he had said enough to demonstrate his point, a characteristic not shared by all his fellow Covenanters. As soon as the Vindication came off the press, he sent a copy to

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Henderson at Newcastle, saying, "Our brethren are all content with it," and one to Robert Blair, his old grammar school master, to whom he had dedicated it. "In my Epistle," Baillie wrote to Blair, "I thought it my duty to let the world know my obligation to you: I hope you will take this testimony of the thankfulness of my heart in good part, til I have occasion to declare the same by deed." 30 Baillie returns to Scotland. The commissioners of the General Assembly, meeting in Edinburgh on November n , 1646, read a letter, dated October 27, from the Scots ministers at Westminster. In the letter Gillespie, Baillie, and Rutherford requested permission to return to Scotland, even though "much of the work yet remains to be done . . . but we verily judge that these things will take a long time; and we are so weary with our exceeding long absence from our particular charges." 31 A week later, on November 19, the commissioners in Edinburgh answered the letter, giving permission "to demit any one of your number, when you shall find it convenient." In a letter written to Spang on December 24, Baillie said that "after some debates, I, who truly may best be spared, got the favour." The two other ministers had their wives and children in London with them, "who in the dead of winter could not be gotten transported." The following day Baillie and Loudoun, chancellor of Scotland, took their leave of the Assembly, at which time Baillie addressed the Assembly for the first and only time, thanking them for their courtesy and promising to remember them and their work in his prayers.32 Baillie and Loudoun left London around January 2, traveled by horse to Newcastle, where the king was staying, and remained at Newcastle "eight or nine days." While at Newcastle, Baillie recorded, "The King took very well with me. I might have had occasion to have said to him what I pleased; but knowing his fixed resolutions, I would not meddle Baillie, Letters, 2:385-386. The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh in the Years ¡646 and 1647, Alexander F. Mitchell and James Christie, eds. (Edinburgh: University Press, 1892), 98-99. "Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines While Engaged in Preparing Their Directory for Church Government, Confession of Faith, and Catechisms (November 1644 to March 1649) from Transcripts of the Originals Procured by a Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Alexander F. Mitchell and John Struthers, eds. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1874), pp. 316, 471. 11

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at all neither to preach nor pray before him." He appeared before the commissioners of the General Assembly, meeting in Edinburgh, on January 21, and made his report about "the condition of the matter of Uniformity in England and the travells [travails?] of the brethren there." Once back in Scotland, Baillie tended to look more favorably on the work of the last three years. Writing to Spang on January 26, he said: "I have made my report in the Commission of the Church to all their contentment; our errand in England being brought near a happy period, so far as concerned us the Commissioners of the Church; for, b y God's blessing, the four points of Uniformity, which was all our Church gave us in commission to agent in the Assembly at Westminister, were as good as obtained." 33 Back at Westminster the divines continued to sit and debate the fine points of the catechism and church government until the summer of 1648. Uniformity of religion, as promised in the Solemn League and Covenant, was not achieved, however. From this viewpoint, therefore, the Westminster Assembly must be counted as a failure. T h e effects of that failure were to be felt by the Scots church during the years of the Cromwellian occupation that lay ahead. ""Baillie, Letters, 3:1.

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When Baillie returned to Scotland in January 1647, Scotland's future looked brighter than it had for some years past. The English Parliament had paid a large portion of its arrears to the Scots army. The king was to be taken in safety to London. Those Scots who had opposed the Solemn League and Covenant had been barred in 1646 from ever holding church or government positions, thus removing them from positions of power. The work of the Westminster Assembly was almost completed, to the satisfaction apparently of both the English Parliament and the Scots church. The land could now return to peace. Baillie could return to his teaching post at Glasgow. The church could go about its work of implementing the Westminster standards. Four years later the picture had changed. The land lay wasted and famine threatened. The burghs were short of money. T w o years of warfare had cost thousands of young lives. One king had been executed, and a new one was about to be crowned. Scotland's independence as a sovereign state was all but gone, and she had been invaded. The Solemn League and Covenant was a ghost, and efforts toward uniformity of religion between England and Scotland had ceased. The church was rent in two. Indeed, in Scotland itself the very foundations of the Scots church were about to be challenged. This bleak picture, however, lay in the future as Baillie made his way to the Ayrshire coast that January. He did not go to Glasgow because the plague, an almost annual visitor, had visited Glasgow with

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especial virulence that year, and all who could had fled from it. In fact, the plague had visited all of Scotland. The colleges were dispersed to the countryside. Glasgow's classes were being held at Paisley, Irvine, and Kilwinning that Whitsunday term. Thus, Baillie's June 2 postscript to a letter to Spang was inscribed from Kilwinning. However, the plague appeared close to Kilwinning also, and the town council was planning to close the entrances to the town; so in July Baillie moved his family to Edinburgh where he remained until the end of October, when he returned to Glasgow for the opening of the Martinmas term.1 The General Assembly of 1647. Baillie was living in Edinburgh when the General Assembly convened on August 4, although he absented himself from the first meeting so that his name would be removed from the leet for moderator. On the third day of the Assembly, Baillie made his report of the accomplishments of the Assembly at Westminster. He reported later to Spang that his speech was well received.2 The Assembly passed some 200 acts. Among those relating to the work of the Westminster Assembly, it approved the Confession of Faith and appointed a committee of four to revise the Westminster paraphrase of the Psalms, which were not to its liking. The commission to the Westminster Assembly was renewed, although only Samuel Rutherford and the earl of Lauderdale remained at London. When the Commission of the General Assembly for the Public Affairs of the Kirk was named on August 31, Baillie's name was on the list. Among the many duties that the General Assembly laid upon the commission was that of transportation of ministers from one charge to another. In this connection two petitions pertaining to Glasgow's ministers, and therefore to Baillie, came before the commission in 1647. 1 Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis: Records of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation till 1121, Cosmo Innes, ed., 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), 2:312, hereinafter cited as Munimenta. A faculty meeting was held at Irvine in July, "habita Irviniae quo academia tempore pestis Glasguae grassantis translata est." The college bore the moving and rent expenses. (Munimenta, 3:574.) "Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A.M., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLX1I, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 3:10-14, hereinafter cited as Baillie, Letters.

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The first petition referred to the Blackfriars' Church, which had been without a pastor for nine months. The town council chose James Durham, who was only twenty-five years of age and who had never held a ministry. He had, however, studied divinity under Dickson at Glasgow College and was undoubtedly known to Baillie. The town council wrote to him in August and also sent Robert Ramsay, then minister at the High Church, to the General Assembly to ask that the matter be referred to the commission. The call was approved, and on September 22 the town council ordained that James Durham was to be the new minister at Blackfriars. Baillie presided and preached at his ordination by the Glasgow presbytery on December 2, 1647.3 The second call from Glasgow was one that would profoundly affect not only Baillie and the ministry of Glasgow but Glasgow College and the national church as well. In September 1647 Robert Ramsay and George Young appeared before the town council with a presentation that had been made to the kirk session by the Glasgow provost. That presentation was for Patrick Gillespie and a separate congregation was to be carved out for him.4 This new congregation, made up of those who lived to the east of Glasgow's burgh boundaries, was to be housed in the lower level of the High Church. Two of the town's ministers were sent to the commission of the General Assembly to get approval for his translation from Kirkaldie. On September 30 the representatives from Glasgow and from Kirkaldie were heard before the commission, and the decision was made that Gillespie should translate to Glasgow before Candlemas next, that is, before February 2, 1648.5 'George Christie, "James Durham as Courtier and Preacher," Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 4(1932) :66-8o. In later years Baillie was to say of Durham that he was the pastor he respected above all others; he became the Baillie family minister. 1 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, AD. 1630-1662, J. D. Marwick, ed. (Glasgow: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1881), 123, hereinafter cited as Glasgow Burgh Records 11. Gillespie was the brother of George Gillespie, who had been one of the commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. He is also the minister who, in 1641, had secured a royal presentation to the High Church of Glasgow. (See my Chaper I V , footnote 37.) " The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh in the Years 1646 and 1641, Alexander F. Mitchell and James Christie, eds. (Edinburgh: University Press, 1892), 305-306, 308, hereinafter cited as GA Comm. Recs. I. See also Glasgow Burgh Records 11, 124.

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The year of the Engagement, 1648. On the national scene the year 1648 was the year of the Engagement. The deteriorating conditions of the king in England had caused increasing concern among some of the royalist faction in Scotland during 1647. The result of that concern was the Engagement of December 1647, concluded at Carisbrooke Castle in England between the king and three Scots parliamentary commissioners, the earls of Loudoun, Lanark, and Lauderdale. Baillie had muted something of this meeting back in August 1647, when, in a letter addressed "To a Friend in Kilwinning," he wrote, "Yesterday, and this night, our State, after much irreconcileable difference, as appeared, are at last unanimously agreed to send the Chancellor and Lanark to the King and Parliament of England, to comfort and encourage both to keep our Covenant, and not to agree to the propositions of the Army." 6 Baillie was incensed that the Scots Parliament had not been more resolute in its dealings with the English army for the king's safety and for the inviolability of the English Parliament. "It was a dementation," he wrote, "to sit still amazed at the taking of the King, . . . the army's approaching to the city." Nevertheless, being sworn to maintain the covenant, Baillie and the other commissioners could not go along with the idea "to espouse the King's quarrel in any terms." Neither could Argyl and Wariston in Parliament. By the first of September, Baillie was writing to Spang, T h e present sense of many is this: If the King and the army agree, we must be quiet and look to God: if they agree not, and the King be willing to ratify our Covenant, we are all as one man to restore him to all his rights, or die by the way: if he continue resolute to reject our Covenant, and only to give us some parts of the matter of it, many here will be for him, even in these terms, but diverse of the best and wisest are irresolute, and wait til God give more light.7

"Diverse of the best and wisest" were "irresolute" in their insistence upon a covenanted king. Baillie and the other commissioners were called to Edinburgh in Gillespie arrived in Glasgow on February 3, 1648, and was welcomed by a dinner paid for by the town council. "Baillie, Letters, 3:15. 'lbid^ 18.

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early February 1648 to hear the report of Loudoun and Lauderdale concerning the Engagement they had entered into with the king. The commissioners of the church asked the two councilors to put everything in writing so that they could study the terms. When they received the written report a week later, the church commissioners objected to it on several grounds. They declared that the first article was "destructive to the Covenant," that the second article was "destructive to Presbyterial Government, the Directory for Worship, and the Uniformity intended according to the League and Covenant," and that the third article was "dangerous and defective in omitting Erastianism and other errors and heresies, especially Popery and Prelacy." Above all, they feared giving church support to an agreement that would engage Scotland in a war with the English Parliament and army.8 All that spring and summer the official attitudes of church and state toward the Engagement developed along opposing lines. All spring both Parliament and the General Assembly commissioners sat at Edinburgh. B y means of messages, private conferences, declarations, and remonstrances, each wing of the state's dual legislative-judiciary system tried to convince the other of the Tightness of its viewpoint.9 In March a declaration from the commissioners was read aloud from the pulpits of Scotland by order of the commission. The declaration was an elaboration of the commissioners' objections to the terms of the Engagement. 10 Three days later the commissioners sent a report to the Parliament, listing eight points they wanted clarified so "that the grounds and causes of undertaking a war may be cleared." Parliament's answers on March 28 did not satisfy the commissioners. Once again, on March 30, a paper was taken across the square from St. Giles to the House of Parliament. In this paper the commissioners insisted upon "satisfaction to our Desires, before we appoint a Conference upon the * GA Comm. Recs. I, 363, February 22. 8 See the GA Comm. Recs. I, 362-J45, for the day-by-day record of this debate. These Records include not only the papers of the commission but many of the papers sent from the committee of estates and Parliament as well. See also The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland and the Government During the Commonwealth, vol. 6, part 2: a j j . 1648-1660, hereinafter cited as APS (printed by authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, 1872), beginning with p. 9 (March 9) for the Parliament's view and acts. 10 GA Comm. Recs. I, 373-382 for the text, and 390, for the act.

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state of the question." They declared, "Our real purpose is to keep ourselves so free, that in an implicit way we consent not to, nor concur in, stating of a question of war, before we see the safety and security of Religion sufficiently provided for." 1 1 Parliament tried another approach. On April 12 it sent an article "Extracted forth of the Records of Parliament and Articles of the Breaches of the Covenant and Treaties, and Demands for Reparation Thereof" to the church commissioners. The article was a much-condensed version of an official letter that the Parliament intended to send to the English Parliament. It listed the grievances of the Scots Parliament against the English. The commissioners were asked to read the condensed version and give their opinion of it. Even in the extracted portion, the demands of the Scots Parliament were sweeping and belligerent. The article demanded of the English Parliament that the covenant be taken by all in England, that the Westminister standards be put into use, that Presbyterian government be settled in England, and that "effectual course be taken for suppressing and extirpating all heresies and schisms." 1 2 If the Scots parliamentarians thought that these demands would meet with the approval of the church commission, they were mistaken. The commissioners returned an answer the next day. Your demands, they said, are only an excuse for war if the English Parliament refuses. They said that they would have to see the rest of the article before they would give any further opinion on it. The penultimate scene in this first act of the tragedy of Scotland took place in the House of Parliament on April 20. On that day the parliamentarians wrote a declaration to the English Parliament, charging breach of the Solemn League and Covenant, demanding uniformity of religion, freedom of the king from his imprisonment, disbanding of the sectarian army under Fairfax, and declaring that "we have resolved to put the Kingdom presently in a posture of defence as it was in Anno 1 6 4 3 " T w o weeks later the Scots Parliament called up "horse and foot." 1 3 '"•Ibid., 403-405 for the text; also 416-420, 426. "Ibid., 443; APS, 6(part 2)123-25 for the complete

act dated April 11. The extracted portion represented approximately 10 percent of the total act. 13 GA Comm. Recs. I, 462-471, prints the complete text from APS, 6(part 2): 40-43.

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The church commissioners played out the last scene on May 5. In a declaration of the commission of the General Assembly to the whole kingdom, they summarized events since December 27 and concluded that they "neither were nor are against an engagement if once satisfied in the grounds of undertaking and manner of proceeding. . . . So, for the reasons before mentioned . . . we judge the present Engagement, as it is stated, unlawful, and trust that all the well affected in the Kingdom will . . . keep themselves from being ensnared and carried alongst in any course contrary to the Covenant." 14 The commissioners ordered that the declaration and all other papers be printed and sent to all the presbyteries. The commission of the General Assembly had taken its stand, and that stand was contrary to the will of the Parliament. Parliament made the next move. On May 11 an act of Parliament declared that the ministry was subject to the laws of Parliament and that they were were not to preach against such laws under pain of treason. They were rather to "stir up the people . . . to a cheerful obedience to our orders and engaging in this business." A copy of this act of Parliament was received in the commissioners' meeting of June 1. The commissioners countered with a declaration to all presbyteries that all ministers who "do not declare themselves against the present Engagement" be presented to the coming General Assembly and that those who have "already declared themselves for it" be immediately censured.16 With the exception of the period between March 24 and April 19, when he returned to Glasgow to moderate the Glasgow-Ayr synod, Baillie remained in Edinburgh from February 8 to May 5. He attended thirty-six of the sixty-nine sessions that were held while he was there. He was a member of most of the committees responsible for the exposition to Parliament of the church commission's viewpoint. As such, and as a reputable observer of scenes, Baillie is qualified to explain that viewpoint, which has been so grievously misinterpreted by later writers. In a private letter written on March 8 to a member of the Scots Parliament, he did so.18 Baillie's purpose in writing was "for the clearing of the gross mis" GA Comm. Recs. I, 530. 15 Ibid., 53J-J36n for the text, and 545. "Baillie, Letters, 3:24-31. This letter is worth reprinting in full, but because of its extreme length, I shall extract only the most telling parts.

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takes which you assured me were fleeing abroad of many the best men of my coat." He continued: I gave you assurance that my Brethren of the ministry were so far from that alleged averseness from all War against the Sectaries in England in any terms, that I knew these of them that were most aspersed with that slander, to be ready to go along with an army, and venture their persons against that enemy, if so be they might obtain the question of the War to be stated, as, yourself did acknowledge, every pious, wise, and unbiased spirit would gladly admit of as most reasonable and necessary. We judge it indeed convenient, that ministers be very wary of what they speak of any matter of state, and most of all, what encouragement they give to the raising of a War; yet every subject of a kingdom has so much to do and suffer in his person, estate, and friends, when a war comes on, and war is so great and weighty a case of conscience, that ministers, both as men and according to their calling in the Church, may well be admitted to deliver their sense of that which so much concerns the conscience, both of themselves and every soul of their flock. In the present case, three things are most considerable. 1. A conclusion. 2. The ground thereof. 3. The impediments that lie in the way of its practice. Baillie then went on to elaborate upon this introduction. Of the conclusion, namely, "that Scotland at this time has a just cause of War against the Sectarian army in England," he wrote, "none of us doth question; nor do we controvert the common and obvious grounds of this conclusion." The covenant had indeed been violated by "a fraction of sectaries and heretics, now prevalent in the Army and Parliament." They had violated the covenant in every one of its articles. He then elaborated upon those violations, article by article, and continued: Neither do we contradict what is spoken of the evident and imminent hazard of Scotland to have their church and kingdom embroiled in all the miseries of England, the religion and liberties of both kingdoms being laid up together in the same vessel . . . for who can forget Cromwell's threatening with his army, in the face of Parliament, the very walls of Constantinople.

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For King's Crown or Covenant If thus far we be agreed, what hinders us from getting presently up, hand in hand, to the way? Certainly the retardments come from another side of the House than that which is called ours; [i.e., from Parliament] even from them who so willfully, and, as I am bold to term it, imprudently, have refused all this while to give us satisfaction in three things which we esteem most necessary for us to have, and easy for others to grant, without all prejudice to any of their avowed ends.

They desired "satisfaction" in "three things" so "that our Covenant, Religion, and Liberties, purchased of old and maintained of late at very high rates, may not by this new W a r be put in a condition every way as hazardous as they stand in this day," so that the commissioners could be assured they would not be putting down the Sectaries only to raise up in their place "the King, though nothing changed in his mind" and have once again "the yoke of tyranny in the state, of popery and prelacy in the church." This eventuality must be guarded against, hence the "three things." The first demand was that the King be not entrusted with the full exercise of his Royal power, till he have given all assurance, that is possible for him in his present condition, of his own consent and concurrence to settle the Solemn League, and Religion according unto it, in all the three Kingdoms. We require not this as a previous condition to the King's rescue . . . only we require the foresaid condition to be previous to his Majesty's exercise of Royalty. The second demand was that the Malignant party of papists, prelates, and others opposite to our Covenant, may not be permitted to rise to such a strength as may enable them to give us the law; for this end we crave that all of them who are willing to join in arms with us, do join likewise in the Covenant. W e are persuaded that many of them are not impeded so much by scruple of conscience, as reasons of state and opposition of humor to take that oath; and we verily hope the most of them (if dealt with in earnest) would readily join with us in our way for the love of our common end, to do right to the King, and pull down the oppressing faction of Sec-

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taries. Those of the Malignants, who will not join with us, let them sit still and wait on til God change their minds: In this their quietness we are not to trouble them. The third demand was that the commissioners "require a security for keeping what shall be promised in the two former," for we have been so fouly deceived by many men who of late did make us very solemn promises of constant friendship, that our scrupulosity in any new undertaking might justly be excused, yet all the security here we crave, is but a very simple one as the affairs of the world now go. What less can be required of men who avow their full resolution to perform all we crave, than their oath to be constant: When we have agreed on all the rest, shall we diifer in this? W h y does the Parliament stick on this point, he asked: "If this be stood upon, will it not give us just cause to fear that all which is now promised, is but for an allurement once to engage, and then to disappoint us of all our expectations?" Did these "three things" indeed "deserve the severity of that censure which the unadvisedness of some is pleased to put upon us?" Was the Parliament not exhibiting great "temerity" when, "rather than to give us satisfaction, [they] choose to go on without us to present action, though they know that without our assistance, a great part of the people will neither have heart nor hand to concur with them." 1 7 Baillie's argument took a practical turn. Where are either their men, money, or ammunition, requisite for such an undertaking? Is not the enemy ready to receive them. . . . If they should be repulsed at first, would it not extremely discourage their friends in England, and hazard the ruin of all the remainder of the King's hopes? Were it not good to stay but a little, til a more wise and patient dealing did unite us at home, and we had some time to form and furnish an army with things 17

In this matter Baillie showed his understanding of the influence of the church in Scotland. Before and after the levy was laid on May 4, petitions from all over Scotland's shires came to Parliament asking to bp excused from the levy. See Baillie, Letters, 3:47, and Glasgow Burgh Records II, 134.

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Then Baillie, who had lived among the English for more than three years and who knew the power of Cromwell's army, prophesied: W e may draw in upon Scotland so much of the Sectarian army as will overrun all our plain country, and in a short time infect our Church with the leaven of their doctrine, and change the government of our estate. W h e n wise men will not be pleased to go on in a w a y of reason, to avoid apparent dangers, occasion is given to fear their designs, and of driving them on for some purposes of their own.

In part of this letter Baillie was voicing the requirements of the church commission; in the latter part he voiced his own fears born of his firsthand knowledge. That Baillie was opposed to war with England in the spring of 1648, there can be no doubt. His quandary came in May and June when church and state took two opposing stands on the issue. The General Assembly of ¡648. Baillie returned to Edinburgh to attend the General Assembly that convened from July 12 to August 12. Because the Engagement "was the great and only question for the time," the presbyteries had chosen carefully only those delegates "who were most zealous for the Covenant and for the proceedings of the Commission of the Kirk." 1 8 The bulk of the business dealt with the Engagement, much to Baillie's annoyance. "All things else were like to be neglected," he complained, and so he "pressed" and got the two Westminster catechisms approved. The Assembly, however, was of one mind in dealing with the Engagement. Robert Blair drew up a large "Declaration" against it. Baillie had wanted to make "no further progress" in this direction of declarations, but he was overruled. He warned Blair "to beware that his draught carried anything which, directly or indirectly, might carry us to a resistance of the State," and Blair heeded his warning. He was able to get his way also on the matter of not barring from the communion table those who "were active for the Engagement"; he "Baillie's account of the Assembly is in Letters, 3:52-65; the acts of the Assembly are in Peterkin, Records, 495-520.

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had pressed for this point because he believed that the design behind the proposal was to "have our Statesmen put under Church censures for their diligence in this Engagement." However, he was not able to get his way on the matter of deposing ministers who kept silent instead of preaching against the Engagement. "I wished," he said, "if men were modest, and otherwise offended not, that this fault might carry no more but a rebuke." The act was passed, but by the votes of only "two or three" men "at most." Baillie was fortuitously absent from the Assembly at a crucial time. While the Assembly was meeting, he received word that the plague had erupted in Glasgow and had struck at his nephew's house. He left Edinburgh around July 24 to return to Glasgow, probably concerned for his own children, and returned a few days later. In his absence the Assembly drew up an act against the June 10 act of Parliament that had required all Scots to subscribe that Parliament's acts in toto were "the most necessary and fittest means to remedy our troubles, and preserve religion." The act had stipulated also that those refusing to subscribe were enemies to the state. According to the Assembly's act, the subscription was unlawful and all members of the church, which would include the members of Parliament, were forbidden to subscribe or press the subscription of it under pain of censure, with the threat of excommunication implicit. Baillie had said in June that he would never subscribe the Parliament's act and even contemplated exiling himself to Holland if he should be required to do so. Nevertheless, the wording of the Assembly's act was too strong for him because "it carried censure against the pressers of it [and] this directly aimed at our Statesmen, the contrivers of it." When he returned from Glasgow, he tried to keep the act from a vote but was unsuccessful. "In the face of the Assembly," he wrote, "I got it to be exponed [i.e., applicable] only ad futura." 19 Baillie was glad to be gone from Edinburgh on August 12. The mood of the Assembly had been too querulous for him. Although he had once again been appointed a member of the General Assembly commission, he did not remain to attend their first meeting. He had "Baillie, Letters, 3:49, jo, 62; APS, 6(part 2): 106-107. The subscription was a failure apparently. Baillie wrote on August 23: "Though in some parts of the country the subscription goes on, yet in the chief and most parts it is not required of any."

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had enough of "jangling" and was relieved only that no overt rupture had occurred in the Assembly. "The matter of this unhappy Engagement," he wrote a week later to Spang, "I hope will not last, and so the ground of our difference with the State shall be removed." Then he added, "But new grounds of division may possibly arise, which may make our contentions greater." 20 Even as Baillie was writing, the Engager cause was collapsing. On July 8 the army of the Engagement, a total of 10,000 men under the duke of Hamilton, had crossed the border into England. Cromwell had engaged that army on August 17 at Preston Moor and had defeated it. One week later Hamilton surrendered to General Lambert. The Engagers had lost the war. Argyl's time had come. The chief of Scotland's anti-Engager nobles seized the castle at Edinburgh on September 5, ousted the pro-Engager committee of estates, and put the government of Scotland in antiEngager hands.21 On October 4 Argyl received Cromwell at Edinburgh and promised him that all Engagers would be permanently excluded from public office in Scotland. When Cromwell left Edinburgh, he left a military force behind to protect the anti-Engager parliamentary members. When the Scots Parliament convened again, on January 4, 1649, it was an all anti-Engager one, and Argyl and Archibald Wariston were in control. On January 23 it passed the "Act of Classes," condemning the Engagement and all who had participated in it and classifying the participants into four classes or degrees of complicity, with accompanying terms of exclusion from public office ranging from exclusion for life to exclusion for one year. In all cases, "satisfaction to the Kirk" was a prerequisite for reinstatement to public life.22 " Baillie, Letters, 3:65. W h e n Baillie wrote this letter of August 23, he did not yet know that the Engager cause had already been lost. What his thoughts were when he did learn of Preston Moor must remain unknown. This letter of August 23 is the last one in his collection until February 1649. 21 See Glasgow Burgh Records II, 149-150, for an account of the actions of this new committee of estates regarding Glasgow, whose magistrates had been imprisoned for refusing to abide by the levy. This new anti-Engager Parliament ousted the pro-Engager Glasgow magistrates, released the former, and placed them in their former positions. 22 William C. Dickinson and Gordon Donaldson, eds., A Source Book in Scottish History, vol. 3: 1567-1707 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 140-143, prints the act.

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The church commissioners had been meeting throughout the autumn of 1648. Their chief concerns lay with verbal chastisement of the leading parliamentary Engagers, with purging from the church all proEngager ministers and expectant ministers, and with recommendations for purging from the army all Malignants and Engagers. On September 7 George Gillespie voiced the opinion of the commission when he wrote that not only had the Engagement itself, and all those who were involved in it, been unlawful, but that even "compliance with any who have been active in that Engagement is most sinful and unlawful." The term "compliance" was not defined.23 Baillie took no part in these proceedings. Sixty sessions of the church commissioners were held between September 7 and February 7; Baillie attended seven. The remainder of that autumn and winter he remained at Glasgow and attended presbytery meetings, his duties at Tron Kirk, and his college teaching. The anti-Engager years, 1649-1650. With the Act of Classes of January 1649, state policy and church policy regarding the Engagement became one. That unity was cemented when the news of the execution of the king reached Edinburgh on February 4. The following day, at the market cross of Edinburgh, Chancellor Loudoun proclaimed Charles II, king of Scotland. On February 15 the Parliament again "put the Kingdom in a posture of defense." "One Act of our lamentable Tragedy being ended," Baillie deplored, "we are entering again upon the scene." 24 Baillie went to Edinburgh when he heard the news of the king's execution. At a meeting of the church commissioners held on February 7, the commissioners wrote a letter to the prince, to be taken to The Hague by the Parliament's commissioner. In the letter the Parliament acknowledged Charles as rightful successor to his father "to reign as King over these Kingdoms." The church commissioners who were to attend Charles at The Hague were chosen on March 1. Baillie was absent from this meeting 10

See Alexander F . Mitchell and James Christie, eds., The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh the Years 1648 and 1649 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1896), pp. 36-196, September 7, 1648, through February 7, 1649, hereinafter cited as GA Comm. Recs. II. "Baillie, Letters, 3:66.

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although he had been present the day before; nevertheless, he was one of those chosen. The others were Robert Blair and George Wynrame of Libberton, the second of whom was on the Parliament's commission also.25 Their instructions were lengthy. They were to learn the king's principles, who his councilors were, his grounding in religion, and what form he used; they were to instruct him in the consonancy of presbytery with monarchy and to inform him of the contents of the two covenants and the Westminster standards; they were to instruct him in the evil of prelates and Malignants, particularly in reference to Scotland; they were to show him that the evil of his mother's "former idolatry" was a "main cause of the evils . . . that have afflicted these Kingdoms." 26 On March 12 the commission added James Wood, divinity professor at St. Andrews University, and the ruling elder, the earl of Cassilis, who was a member of the parliamentary commission also, to the list of church commissioners. The combined commissions of Parliament and church left Scotland in mid-March. They were not to return until three months later. In a report written on April 3 to the commission in Edinburgh, Baillie and the others gave an account of their journey to date. They had arrived at Rotterdam on March 22, which was Good Friday, had gone to Delft where they remained to preach at the Easter services, and on Monday had gone on to The Hague. On Tuesday, March 27, they had had their first audience with the prince. Cassilis spoke for the Parliament; Baillie spoke for the church. Baillie's speech was a model of brevity and compassion. It contained nothing of covenants, national or solemn, nothing of papacy, prelates, or paternal sins. Baillie, whose own son was almost the age of the young king, spoke gently, striking a balance between that of father and that of loyal subject. a

While I was examining the volumes that had been in Baillie's own library and that are today in Glasgow University's Special Collections Room, I discovered that he had written on the flyleaf of four of the volumes the inscription "TO lie\\6i> áópccTov" (the future is unseen) and the date March 1, 1649. a GA Comm. Recs. II, 212-214; printed also in Baillie, Letters, 3:460-461. Baillie wrote to the moderator of the commission on April 17 that he found Charles's mother to be "a wise and religious lady, [who] promises to hold her son right." (Letters, 3:90.) Parliament's instructions to its commissioners were similar to those of the church commission. (APS, 6[part 2]¡211-212.)

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After the speeches the commissioners handed in their respective letters of commission and letters for the king.27 The church commissioners made their first request of the king on March 30: that Montrose be removed from Charles's court and council. Charles's written answer was that the church commissioners should deliver to him "all the Propositions or Desires you or any of you are entrusted to present to me, before I make an answer to any particular one." The following day they gave Charles the text of the two covenants and the Westminster standards, bound in one volume "so handsome as we could get." 28 Baillie was impressed by the young king. "He is one of the most gentle, innocent, well-inclined Princes, so far as yet appears, that lives in the world; a trim person, and of a manly carriage; understands pretty well; speaks not much: Would God he were among us." Sometime before April he had a second, and private one-hour, conference with the king. "In this conference," Baillie wrote, "I found the King, in my judgement, of a very meek and equitable disposition, understanding, and judicious enough, though firm to the tenets his education and company has planted in him. If God would send him among us, without some of his present councellors, I think he might make, by God's blessing, as good a King as Britain saw these hundred years." 29 In this conference Charles objected to passing the Solemn League and Covenant for England and Ireland although not for Scotland. Baillie "strove by many reasons to show the unsatisfactoriness of such a concession" and later put the reasons in writing. In two conferences with the prince of Orange, Baillie discussed the reasons with him and left the prince "so it seemed to me, satisfied with every one of them, and promising to press them as hard as he could on the King." In answer to the king's request for "all the Propositions or Desires," the commissioners, on April 15, handed in their desires concerning the volume of documents they had given him earlier. Among these desires, they wished the king's approbation of the covenants and the standards, the king's signature to both covenants, and conformity of the king to the Directory of Worship. The day following, Charles asked in writ" Baillie, Letters, 3:86-88; GA Comm. Recs. 11, 242-248. "Baillie, Letters, 3:86-7, 513. " Ibid., 90.

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ing whether these demands were all, and the commissioners assured him that they contained "the substance of all we have to demand." 30 They waited more than a month for the king's answer.81 Finally, on May 28, they wrote to the king requesting an answer. He answered the next day, saying that he would maintain the laws of Scotland "as is settled by law," particularly "the National Covenant, the Confession of Faith, and Presbyterial Government of that Church," but that as far as the kingdoms of England and Ireland were concerned, he could make no promises because it was not in his power to do so "without the advice of my respective Parliaments of these Kingdoms." The commissioners experienced "great grief" at this answer and wrote as much to the king. Charles's response was that he, in turn, was "unsatisfied" with this paper but said that he would give fuller answer to it at a later time. The commissioners did not give written answer this time: "We kissed his hands, and took our leave in discomfort and grief, yet not without some hope." They returned to Scotland and landed at Leith on June 6. Baillie returned to Glasgow where, at the June 27 presbytery meeting, he and Robert Ramsay were chosen as delegates to the coming General Assembly. The General Assembly of 1649. The Assembly convened at Edinburgh from July 4 through August 6, entirely too long a time, in Baillie's opinion; three weeks would have been sufficient, he thought. Writing to Spang, Baillie apologized for his brief account of the Assembly, but he had lost the diary he kept; in any event, he said, there was not "much in it worth the remembrance." 32 Perhaps he did not want to remember it. About the only action of Baillie's that met with the Assembly's approval was his reading, on July 10, of the report of the commissioners to The Hague. After that, nearly everything he said met with Assembly opposition. As a result w

lbid.,

3:514, for the text. In the course of that month Baillie penned and published at Delft a pamphlet, " A Review of Doctor Bramble, Late Bishop of Londonderry, His Faire Warning Against the Scots Discipline," which was in answer to what Baillie called "a wicked pamphlet" published at Delft in 1649 by John Bramhall, former bishop of Derry, entitled, " A Fair Warning to Take Heed of the Scottish Discipline, &c." (Baillie, Letters, 3:87, 87n, 90.) 83 The acts of the Assembly are in Peterkin, Records, 542-559; Baillie's account is in Letters, 3:91-97. 81

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of this opposition, he "lost much of [his] reputation, as one who was inclined to malignancy." For example, some fifteen ministers were deposed and twelve were suspended; Baillie opposed this too-casual action, "for sundry of them I thought might have been, for more advantage every way, with a rebuke, kept in their places." He decided to remain quiet for the rest of the time rather than "endure the whisperings of my malignancy to continue." Despite this resolution, however, when the case of one William Colville, suspended minister of Edinburgh, came up, Baillie cast the solitary vote against his deposition. He was deposed not for taking an active part in the Engagement, but for failing to speak up against it. "For that alone," Baillie wrote, "I could depose no man." He fought also for Principal Strang, whose lectures had for two years been under suspicion of heterodoxy. He testified on behalf of Lord Lauderdale to no avail.33 When the committee was preparing an act concerning the terms on which Engagers should be readmitted to the church, Baillie debated at length to make it "fairer than it stands" and almost succeeded at one point, "yet thereafter that was cancelled, and the act framed as (it) stands, to my grief." 34 In addition to the foregoing, "sundry" in the Assembly took Baillie to task for the contents of his speech before the king on March 27 because in it he had spoken too gently of his father's death and too sharply of those who had had a hand in it, as well as for a confidential letter he had written from Holland "to a familiar friend" in which he had spoken "of the act of Classes as so severe, that it will be needful to dispense with some part of it for the peace of the country." For all these opinions contrary to those of the majority, Baillie lay under the taint of malignancy by the time the Assembly was over. Malignancy in Scotland in 1649 meant deposition from the ministry. Deposition for Baillie would have meant his very life. One need not wonder, then, that his letters stopped in September of that year. For more than a year Baillie remained silent. By the time his letters would " Lauderdale had been with Charles at T h e Hague, where he had labored, apparently, to bring about some kind of conciliation between the Scots commissioners and Charles. "Bailie, Letters, 3:93; Peterkin, Records, 543-544. The act was indeed stringent. It required not only confession of guilt and active penance but a trial period during which the penitents were "to live soberly, righteously and godly" lives. It was accompanied by a printed confession that was to be signed by the penitent.

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resume, in November of 1650, the majority in the church would have come around to his way of thinking, but with that reversal in policy the church would be rent in two by the unrelenting opposition of the minority. Baillie withdrew from active participation in national church affairs. He continued his part-time post of preaching at the Tron Kirk, his college duties, and his attendance at the Glasgow presbytery meetings. Although he had been chosen one of the delegates from Glasgow to be on the General Assembly commission for the year, he absented himself from the August, November, and January meetings and did not attend until the convening of the February 1650 sessions.35 The subject of that February meeting was a letter from the king. Charles had written of his "readiness to condescend to all their just and reasonable demands" and had requested that a commission from the church be sent to meet with him at Breda on March 15. Baillie was assigned to the committee to deal with this letter. He continued to attend the commission meetings until the afternoon of February 21, when the committee reported out. On that afternoon the terms of the treaty and the oath that Charles was to sign were presented to the commission, and the commissioners to Breda were chosen. Although Baillie had attended the morning session, he was not present that afternoon; he was not chosen to be one of the delegates this time.36 Charles capitulated to the terms of the parliamentary and church commissioners. On May 11, at Breda, he signed a draft of the treaty. 38 His name appears at the February 13, 1650, meeting for the first time. ( G A Comm. Recs. II, 353—355.) During that autumn, the commission had dealt primarily with the transportation of ministers, cases of charity, the piecemeal readmission to the church of redeemed late Engagers, and with letters to the committee of estates reminding them of their obligation to purge the army of all Engagers. (See GA Comm. Recs. II, 304-353 et passim.) X GA Comm. Recs. II, 367-373. The terms of the treaty remained essentially as before: Charles's signature to both covenants and oath to abide by the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant, but with one important difference; in the oath that Charles was to swear, he was required to consent to "all Acts of Parliament" concerning the two covenants and the Westminster standards "in the Kingdom of Scotland, as they are approved by the General Assembly of this Kirk and Parliament of this Kingdom; And that I shall give my Royal assent to Acts of Parliament enjoining the same in the rest of my dominions." Charles was not being required to swear to press presbytery upon England and Ireland, a promise he would be in no position to fulfill at the time.

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On June 1 1 , at Heligoland, he signed the revised draft, and on June 23, as his ship rocked in the waters of the Spey Bay in Morayshire, Charles took the oath to both covenants. Baillie's life that spring of 1650 can be only dimly known. H e returned from Edinburgh on February 21 with what must have been a heavy heart. T h e commission had decreed that his colleague and long-time friend, David Dickson, was to translate to Edinburgh University before April 1. B y the end of April, he lost another friend and colleague also. Principal Strang, so long harassed b y the General Assembly, had finally given in his resignation.37 According to a letter Baillie wrote four years later to Spang, " T h e design then was to put in Mr. Patrick Gillespie for our Principal; but most of us esteeming that purpose exceeding absurd, w e gave a call to Mr. Blair." Sometime that summer, Baillie, along with some others, journeyed to St. Andrews to convey the call to Blair. Blair refused the call and the office of principal remained vacant for a year, Baillie wrote, even though, I was, both before and after, much dealt with by these whom it concerned, to accept that place; but I ever peremptorily refused: I knew it belonged to Dr. Strang, and in the manifold depositions, and demissions of places, we have had these years bygone, in Church, State, and Schools, I had seen f e w thrive, but exceeding many who succeeded to fall in great hurts, if not shame and death: I loved no changes, especially to a place of civil action; however, G o d guided my mind to be resolute not to meddle with it. 38 "Baillie, Letters, 3:237: "When by great study and violence, Dr. Strang was made to demit his place. . . ." The date is uncertain, but Strang had stopped attending the Glasgow presbytery meetings by the end of April. See also Munimenta, 4:lxxxv. Andrew L. Drummond, The Kirk and the Continent (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1956), p. 51, says that Strang was suspected of leaning to Amyrauldism and infralapsarianism, and, p. 126, that "Strang was a sound theologian, never far from the central position; yet he was not the type of scholar that the Kirk delighted to honour in the 17th century." Baillie's respect for Strang is given more than words. A daughter was born to Baillie that spring; she was baptized on May 7. Principal Strang was one of her godfathers; the others were Robert Ramsay and George Young. Baillie, Letters, i:cviii, sermon note; Parish Registers, Glasgow city archives, not paged. 88 Baillie, Letters, 3:238.

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While Baillie was gone from Glasgow on his mission to St. Andrews, the presbytery chose its delegates to the forthcoming General Assembly. Baillie was not among them.39 The General Assembly of 1650. The Assembly met at Edinburgh from July 10 to July 24. No official minutes, if kept, are extant. Baillie was not present so that even his account is lacking.40 The one slender account extant, another diary, says that many ministers were deposed, that a letter from the "pretended Parliament of England" was answered by the Assembly, and that three ministers were "appointed to attend his Majesty," Robert Blair and James Durham among them. The letter to the "pretended Parliament of England" was dated July 19, 1650. It dealt with the impending invasion of Scotland by the English army under Cromwell.41 On that same day Cromwell's forces lay camped at Berwick. Three days later they crossed the Tweed and invaded Scotland. Leslie's forces met Cromwell's at Leith on July 30. The Scots were defeated. Following this defeat, the Scots purged their army of Engagers. Some eighty officers and 3,000 soldiers were purged. When the two armies met again at Dunbar on September 3, Leslie's army, weakened by purges and acting on military advice given out apparently by the nonmilitary committee of estates, was defeated. Three thousand of Leslie's force of 23,000 men fell in battle; 10,000 were taken prisoner. On September 7 Cromwell and his army entered Edinburgh. Almost immediately a new Scots army began recruiting in the western shires. This new army, known as the "Western Association," was assembled by "Mr. Patrick Gillespie, by his diligence with some Brethren of the West," according to Baillie. They had procured "Delegates chosen at this June 14 meeting were Patrick Gillespie, James Durham, and John Carstares, all of them strongly anti-Engager. Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, vol. 4, not paged. 40 Peterkin, Records, J92: "There are not, it is believed, any authorized minutes extant, of the Assemblies 1650, 1651, or i6j2." One diary has been found in which some few lines were recorded of this Assembly of 1650. John Lamont of Newton, Diary (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1830). Peterkin prints this extract on p. 618. a

On June 26 the council of state in England had voted unanimously to invade Scotland because "there was no reasonable doubt that the Scots were preparing to invade England in the name of the King." Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656, 4 vols. (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1903), 1 : 2 5 7 , 261, hereinafter cited as Gardiner, Commonwealth.

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permission from the committee of estates not only to organize, but to levy money against the western shires and to act as a separate army, not under Leslie's command. Nearly 4,000 men were put under arms. At the same time, at Stirling, Leslie reformed his broken regiments.42 Leslie's army, stripped of its strongest fighting potential by the purge of the Engagers, provided only a dangerously thin line of defense against Cromwell. Inevitably, therefore, the question was raised of allowing former Engagers back into the army. The question was a delicate one; the young king raised it. In a letter to the General Assembly commission, Charles first vowed his intent to "prosecute the ends of the Covenant" and his readiness to "lay down our life for the maintenance and defence of it"; then he asked, "How far they thought conjunction lawful with those that for the late Engagement have been given or are willing to give satisfaction to the Church and Estate." He was willing, he said, to abide by the decision of the church and of the committee of estates in this question.43 The decision of the commission that September day was to recommend that individual Engagers, "upon their petition and public satisfaction," should be readmitted to the army. On the following day they answered the king's query, saying that although altering the laws of kirk or kingdom would be "very dangerous," especially "seeing our enemies make the unlawful Engagement one of the grounds of their present invading of this Kingdom," nevertheless, the existing laws provided for readmission to the army and government of any who gave "satisfying and convincing evidences of repentance." The following day the commission wrote two equally important letters: one to the officers of the independent Western Association "Baillie, Letters, 3:106, 112, and i:cviii, sermon note for September 8: "Fears for new divisions by the (Western) Association, excluding D . Leslie and all who be for, and going on for the ruining of the A r m y gathering again at Stirling." See also John Nicoli, A Diary of Public Transactions and Other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland, from January i6$o to June 166-1 (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1836), pp. 28, 30, hereinafter cited as Nicoli, Diary, referring to the army of the Western Association: "And yet they did little or no service, but trooping up and down through the country a long space, even from the fight at Dunbar to the end of November or thereby." 43 The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh in i6$o, in St. Andrews and Dundee in 1651, and in Edinburgh in 1652, James Christie, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1909, 47-48, hereinafter cited as GA Comm. Recs. III.

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and one to the ministers of the troublesome Glasgow-Ayr synod. In both letters a subtle change in directives and a plea for cooperation with the plan to readmit Engagers are evident. The officers and ministers of the west were urged to employ all means "to make that levy effectual, and no thing done that may interrupt or obstruct the progress of the work in other places" and assured them that the state would not "employ any formerly employed in our armies without warrant from the Committee of Estates." 44 The remonstrances. The gentlemen, officers, and ministers of the Western Association were not to be put off. At the October 2 meeting of the Glasgow-Ayr synod, at which Baillie was present, Gillespie, Colonel Ker, and Colonel Strachan (the chief officers of the Western Association), and others unnamed "brought forth" a remonstrance in the name of the synod but written prior to the meeting. It was addressed to the committee of estates. It said that the wrath of the Lord had been brought down on Scotland because, inter alia, of the "closing of a treaty with the King to put him in the full exercise of his government . . . before sufficient trial was taken and evidences had that his Majesty had changed his corrupt principles," because the king had not put from him "all disaffected and prophane persons," because the committee of estates "have entrusted in eminent places . . . both in judicatories and armies," persons who lacked the qualifications of godliness and adherence to the "Cause of God," and because of the "strong inclination . . . to employ the Malignant party and to make a conjunction with them." If Scotland "make a conjunction with such evil instruments once more," the remonstrance asked, "how can we escape" further judgment of God? For these reasons, "We have purposed, not only to abhor all conjunction and compliance with Sectaries on the one hand as with Malignants on the other hand . . . and rather to adventure upon our duty, though destruction were written upon it." 45 This remonstrance was agreed to by the synod members although Baillie was sure that "the most of that write was without the knowledge of the most." A few objected to it, including Baillie, although "fearing what was in hand," he wrote, "I could speak little." 48 " Ibid.,

48, 58, 61-63. " T h e text is printed in Ibid., 558-562. "Baillie, Letters, 3 : 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 . Baillie was absent from this meeting and therefore escaped the later rebuke of church and state alike.

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A second remonstrance was written on October at Dumfries. This one was longer and sharper in its criticism of both the king and Parliament but was essentially an elaboration upon the first. A copy of the first remonstrance was presented by Gillespie to the commissioners at Stirling. The commissioners said they would take it into consideration. A copy of the second remonstrance was presented to the commissioners by Gillespie and some others in late October. They were told that the church commissioners and committee of estates would meet together in November to consider the two remonstrances.47 At this point Baillie's letters resume. The clerks of the church commission had sent for him to attend the meetings that were to be held at Perth beginning November 19. "I was resolved not to go," he later wrote to Spang, but he went anyway, and "then, and thereafter, was witness to all, and little more than a witness; for not being a commissioner, I thought meet to be silent." Before he left Glasgow, however, he wrote letters to Dickson and Douglas, lamenting that he "by Gillespie's cunning" had been prevented from being a commissioner that year. Had he been, he said, he would have "told freely my mind of these injurious invectives, invented only for division." The remonstrance was "a very scandalous piece, and exceedingly injurious both to the King and State; which, if our Kirk should countenance, would bring exceeding great grief to the hearts of many." The church commission session that opened at Perth on November 19 had a much larger attendance than was customary. The members were divided into groups according to synods and were told to consult on the remonstrances.48 Many arguments ensued, "Though it was visible," Baillie commented, "that every day the kingdom languishes, under these debates." The result of this division was that no proposition could be brought to a vote. The Remonstrants, for such history calls them, refused to withdraw their charges and to join their army (the Western Association) with that of Leslie in the common cause unless the authority of the king were laid aside and no former Engagers were permitted in the army. " GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 106-107. See also Gardiner, Commonwealth, 1:339; Nicoll, Diary, pp. 30-31; and William Fraser, Memorials of the Montgomeries, Earls of Eglinton, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: 1859), 1:88-89, and Baillie, Letters, i:cix (sermon note), and 3:119-120. 48 GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 114-123.

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Meanwhile the Parliament, which was to have met on November 20, postponed its convening to the 22 nd, and then once again, waiting for the commissioners to come to agreement. The committee of estates was meeting, however, and on November 25 Argyl and Wariston appeared at the commissioners' meeting and presented a paper from the committee of estates, condemning the remonstrance as "scandalous and injurious to his Majesty's person and prejudicial to his Authority," as holding "the seeds of a division of a dangerous consequence," as dishonorable "in so far as it tends to a breach of the Treaty with the King's Majesty at Breda," and forbidding adherence to it. They named James Guthrie, minister at Stirling, and Patrick Gillespie as co-complicitors. T w o days later Guthrie and Gillespie testified in their own defense. Guthrie declared that he had never seen the paper until it first appeared at the meeting. Gillespie said that "the paper did only present the private thoughts of these who concurred in it." The commissioners appeared satisfied with these statements. Patrick Gillespie left and never again appeared at any meetings of the commission of the General Assembly. The commissioners postponed a decision on the remonstrances. Many ministers had agreed with it, and petitions had appeared in the meetings in favor of it. The commissioners as a body recognized the dangers in it to the state, but they believed also that it contained many truths. At the same time as they avoided coming to a resolution on it, they sent notice to the Parliament, saying, "Whatever has been your Lordships sense of that paper presented to you from the gentlemen, officers, and ministers attending the forces in the West, yet we wish you seriously to lay to heart the many sad truths contained therein." 49 B y refusing either to condemn or condone the remonstrances, the commission pleased none of the partisans; nevertheless, by refusing to disagree with the official stand of the Parliament, they gave evidence of a lesson having been learned from the debacle of 1648. In this demonstration of a heightened political maturity, the commission of the General Assembly must be given its due. B y being equivocal, however, the members had at the same time sacrificed something of their individual honor as clerics and something of the glory, albeit mis"Ibid137-141.

See also APS, 6(part 2)1611-612, 619-620.

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directed by twentieth-century standards, of the kirk. Perhaps Baillie said it better. In March of 1648, while the Engager controversy was at its height, he had written, "I am more and more in the mind, that it were for the good of the world, that Churchmen did meddle with Ecclesiastic affairs only; that were they never so able otherwise, they are unhappy statesmen, that as Erastian Caesaro-Papism is hurtful to the Church, so an Episcopal Papa-Caesarism is unfortunate for the State." 50 Baillie, it would appear, did not approve completely of the Scottish attempt at a theocracy. Events moved swiftly to their inevitably tragic end, as far as the church was concerned. On December 1 the army of the Western Association was defeated by Lambert at Hamilton. Colonel Ker was captured, and Strachan, who was not in the battle, later went over to Cromwell. On December 12 the church commission was reconvened at Perth by order of Parliament and the king "for advise in matters of great concernment to the Cause." The query that Parliament presented to them was: "What persons are to be admitted to rise in Arms, and join with the forces of the Kingdom, and in what capacity, for defence thereof against the Army of Sectaries, who (contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant and Treaties) have most unjustly invaded and are destroying the Kingdom?" Two days later the commissioners submitted the reply that is known in history as "the first resolution": "We cannot be against the raising of all fensible persons in the land, and permitting them to fight against this enemy for defence of the Kingdom, except such as are excommunicated, forfaulted, notoriously profane, or flagitious. . . ." No specific prohibition was made against either Malignant or Engager. The first resolution to permit former Engagers to enter the army had been passed. That same day petitions from more than twenty military men, formerly excluded, were heard. Most of them were passed on to the Parliament with a favorable recommendation.51 Schism in the kirk. The gentlemen, officers, and ministers of the west protested this resolution. They would continue that protest in the years to come. In Glasgow the head of the Resolutioners, the official voice of the church, was Robert Baillie; the head of the Protesters, which in Glasgow was a majority, was Patrick Gillespie. As "Baillie, Letters, 3:38. Comm. Recs. Ill, 157-163.

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in Glasgow, so throughout the land, the church in Scotland was everywhere rent in two. On the eve of the coronation at Scone, Baillie wrote, It cannot be denied but our miseries and dangers of ruin are greater nor for many ages have been; a potent victorious enemy master of our seas, and for some good time of the best part of our land; our standing forces against this his imminent invasion, few, weak, inconsiderable; our Kirk, State, Army, full of divisions and jealousies; the body of our people [south of the] Forth spoiled, and near starving; they [north of the] Forth extremely ill used by a handful of our own; many inclining to treat and agree with Cromwell, without care either of King or Covenant; none of our neighbours called upon by us, or willing to give us any help, though called. What the end of all shall be the Lord knows.

On January 1, 1651, Charles II was crowned king of Scotland. "This is of God," Baillie wrote; "the King swore the Covenant, the League and Covenant, the Coronation Oath." Robert Douglas "prayed well." The chancellor "exhorted well," and "with great earnestness, pressed sincerity and constancy in the Covenant on the King." It was a day, "blessed be God . . . to celebrate with great joy and contentment to all honest-hearted men here." 62 Of what use to heap recriminations upon this or that faction of this unhappy land, either ministers or parliamentarians, as so many critics have done? No city of God on earth has yet been achieved. The splendor of Scotland's ministry was that they tried. The tragedy was not that they failed. Failure was inevitable. The tragedy was that even as they crowned their covenanted king at Scone, they did not know that they had failed already. 10

Baillie, Letters, 3:127-128.

r Balille and the Glasgow Protesters (I6SI-I6S4)

The king had been crowned. The army was gathering. Preparations were underway to fight off the English invader. These signs were the hopeful ones in early 1651. Scotland was to pay for these signs, however, in the coin of national unity. The two factions, Remonstrant and Resolutioner, created by the public resolutions that had made possible the army of defense, would continue to exist long after the cause that had created them was lost. The Remonstrants had predicted that God's wrath would descend upon Scotland if she were to enlist Malignants and Engagers in her army. As the king's cause lost out to Cromwell's army, the Remonstrants increased in number, in part because their predictions appeared to have come true. After the king's cause was lost and the English had overwhelmed Scotland, a few Resolutioners were able to resist the pressures to join with the Remonstrants. By 1654 this class of Resolutioners in the Glasgow-Ayr synod would form a tiny minority, and Robert Baillie would be among them. Schism in the General Assembly, 16p. Adumbrations of the impending schism were apparent at the first General Assembly commission meetings held at Perth immediately after the coronation. Two letters from the Glasgow presbytery were read. One was from the Remonstrant faction, which objected to the resolutions. The second was from the ministers who, not being members of the commission, asked for clarification of the commission's stand and for "direction how we shall

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behave ourselves for the future." 1 Letters were received also from the presbytery of Stirling and from the presbytery of Aberdeen. In all cases the puzzled ministry asked for clarification; the tone was one of supplication and not of demand. The answer of the commission to the presbytery of Stirling was a lengthy one, thirteen printed pages, complete with scriptural citations. In this answer, compliance with the public resolutions was not only justified but mandated. A copy of this letter was enclosed in a shorter letter to the Glasgow presbytery. In this shorter letter the dissenting members were reminded of their obligations to abide by the acts of the commission, to accede to the levy of the Parliament, and to refrain from speaking against the resolutions. "You know," the answer read, "that the eyes of many, yea, almost of all in that part of the country, are upon you, and that your drawing back at such a time, while the enemy ceases not to present his unjust and cruel attempts against the whole land, and more particularly to fix his station amongst you (as w e hear), cannot but have very sad consequences." 2 The commission sent also a short explanatory note to all the presbyteries, along with a lengthy "Solemn Warning" to be read in all the congregations, exhorting the people to beware of associating with, or complying with, Sectaries, with those "who did most unjustly and perfidiously invade this Kingdom, contrary to Covenant and Treaties." They wrote also a remonstrance addressed to the king and Parliament in which they said, in effect, that, having gone so far in support of 1 The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland Holden in Edinburgh in 1650, in St. Andrews and Dundee in i6$i, and in Edinburgh in 1652, James Christie, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1909), hereinafter cited as GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 196-199, for the Protesters' letter; 199-201, for the second letter. Baillie's name is not listed among those present at these meetings, but then he was not a member of this year's General Assembly commission. I believe he was present nevertheless. He was at Perth for the coronation on January 1. The commission met at Perth from January 2 to 7. Baillie was absent from the Glasgow presbytery meetings on January 2 and 15. Moreover, a sermon note for January 19 says, "After 8 weeks silence I returned from St. Johnstown." Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVII-MDCLXI1, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), i:cix, hereinafter cited as Baillie, Letters. St. Johnstown is the old name for Perth; the two names were used interchangeably throughout this period. Baillie had gone to Perth around N o vember 19. 'GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 23J-236.

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the king's cause, they hoped that neither king nor Parliament would do anything to jeopardize the fragile equilibrium achieved. Baillie returned to Glasgow at the close of the meetings, around January 16. He carried with him the letter to the Glasgow presbytery. When the presbytery met the next day, a brief answer was written, thanking the commission and promising a fuller answer after they had studied all the material. Throughout the next few months, comparative quiet in the church allowed Baillie to turn his attention to his neglected teaching duties. The day after he arrived home, a faculty meeting was held also. At this meeting Baillie was promoted to the position of first professor of divinity, the position made vacant by Dickson's move to Edinburgh University the year before. He was to have 600 pounds Scots a year, to be paid in two installments on February 2 and July 1, plus "four chalders victual," a chalder being the Scots equivalent of ninety-six English bushels, and the use of the house on High Street, to the north of the college, that Dickson had occupied. At that meeting the faculty chose a new principal also. Robert Ramsay, pastor at the High Church and on two occasions elected dean of faculty, was installed sometime during the summer of 1651, but he died shortly thereafter, and Glasgow College was once again without a principal.3 Baillie had a busy schedule, judging from a letter he wrote to Dickson. He had meant to get around to answering some of the Remonstrant tracts that Gillespie and Guthrie had written, he said, but I have no time for this, for on Monday I dictate Theses of the Errors of the Time; on Thursday and Friday I dictate long lessons in Chronology; on Thursday I have a long Hebrew lesson; Thursday, before noon, I wait on the Homilies, and will go through the Directory for preaching, prayer, sacraments, &c.; Saturday is for Sunday [i.e., to prepare his sermon]. I have 3 Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis: Records of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation till 1727, Cosmo Innes, ed., 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), 3:388-389. The Scots pound was one-twelfth the value of an English pound. Robert Ramsay was not a faculty member. According to James Coutts, A History of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation in i4$i to 1909 (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1909), p. 79, the dean of faculty was chosen usually "from among the ministers of Glasgow" and did not have to be a faculty member.

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many letters for the public to write every other day. I hardly enough hold up with all these in so calamitous a time, so albeit I was minded to tell my mind of these papers, I must let it alone.4

Nevertheless, Baillie could not resist a brief comment on the tracts of the Remonstrants and added, "They are a heap of clatters . . . without scripture, reason, or any light." With the convening of the synods throughout Scotland during the first week of April, the Remonstrant opposition to the public resolutions became once again the dominant issue. At the Glasgow-Ayr synod the Remonstrants composed a letter to the General Assembly commission. They had read all the material sent to them in January, they said, but their objections were not satisfied by them, "nor are we induced by fear of any censure or suffering that may follow to lay aside our judgement." The synod chose eight of the Remonstrants to request a meeting with the commissioners to discuss the issues further. Then, over the objections of Baillie and the other Resolutioners, the synod was adjourned sine die pending the commissioners' answer.5 When the General Assembly commission convened at Perth that May, its position was not enviable. On the one hand, the Parliament had written to it on April 3, inquiring if it would be sinful to repeal the Act of Classes. On the other hand, the commission was faced with the protests of the Remonstrants and with a possible open schism if it were to give an affirmative reply. Baillie was angry when he heard of Parliament's inquiry. He wrote to Lord Balcarres: W h a t wisdom is it in you to put the Church to a present declaration of their mind in the A c t of Classes? A r e our friends so foolishly impatient as not to wait some little time? W h y rest they not content with what they have gotten, above their expectation, till they have made some use of it? . . . A r e they so wise also as to force the Church, either to establish the A c t of Classes by a favourable declaration for it. or by a disfavourable declaration on it, such as I think it well deserves, to hazard a new strengthening of the Remonstrants, by adding to them 'Baillie, Letters, 3:131. 5 Ibid., 3:142-146, for Baillie's account of this turbulent synod meeting.

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the late dissenters in Parliament . . . and to raise such new confusions as, at this nick of time, may destroy all our affairs.6 The commissioners had at first evaded a direct answer, but Parliament wrote again, requesting, in firm tones, an answer to its query. The commissioners received this second parliamentary letter on April 23. On the same day they received the gauntlet from the Glasgow-Ayr Remonstrants. When the commissioners reconvened on May 22 at Perth, at Parliament's insistence, they reported that the meeting that the Glasgow Remonstrants had requested for May 6 had come to nothing because only two Remonstrants had appeared. The Glasgow problem was laid aside, therefore, while the commissioners dealt with Parliament's query. On May 24 the commissioners of the church gave their answer to Parliament. We do declare that we do not assume to ourselves, and that it is not competent to us, but only to the King and Parliament, to make or repeal Acts of Parliament, and, therefore, that as the Commission of the Kirk had not hand in making of the Act of Classes, so neither do we take upon us to determine the keeping up or rescinding or repealing of the same. Yet, being required by his Majesty and Estates of Parliament to give our judgment and advice in point of conscience . . . we know no thing of the nature or grounds [why this should not be done].7 The commissioners turned again to the problem of the Remonstrants. They arranged another interview with the Glasgow-Ayr synod members, to be held at St. Andrews on June 4, and then passed an act that all opposers to the public resolutions be cited by their presbyteries to appear before the next General Assembly. By this act the commissioners prevented any Remonstrants from being delegates to the forthcoming General Assembly because any person cited by a presbytery could not, at the same time, be an elected representative of that presbytery. B y this act the commissioners demonstrated that they had not accurately gauged the strength of conviction in their dissenting brethren; by this act the commissioners doomed the General Assembly. • Ibid., 160. * GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 441-442. On May 31 Parliament repealed the Act of Classes of 1646 and 1649 (also, 458-459).

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The Remonstrants from the Glasgow-Ayr synod, Gillespie among them, kept that meeting at St. Andrews on June 4, but they remained unsatisfied. Gillespie was not present at the presbytery of June 11 although he had most likely returned to Glasgow by that time. The other Glasgow Remonstrants were present, however, when, at that meeting, Zachary Boyd, the moderator, tried—over their objections— to read a letter from the commission. The letter contained directions for a fast to be held on June 19 in supplication for success of the king's cause. The Remonstrants objected both to the letter and to its contents. Boyd refused to record the reasons for their objections to the letter because only that which had been voted on was to be recorded in the minutes. At that point eleven members rose up and left, the minutes record, thus "deserting the presbytery and making a visible secession and foul schism, protesting that they could not sit because the presbytery as they alleged was not free and was no presbytery." 8 After the Remonstrants walked out, the minutes continue, T h e Brethren who stayed at the removal of these protested that they were a lawful presbytery insofar as they had stayed still in the ordinary place of meeting . . . that they were a sufficient number . . . and that the brethren who had separated from them had gone away alone for this cause, that they did adhere to their duty in maintaining the authority of the commission of the Kirk.»

The Glasgow presbytery continued to meet throughout June and July, however, and the Remonstrants attended those meetings. The fatal rupture had not yet come. At the July 3 meeting, two slates of representatives were chosen to attend the General Assembly: the Remonstrants, to object to their exclusion, and the Resolutioners, to submit their letter in which they declared that their delegation constituted the lawful presbytery. The General Assembly of 1651 convened at St. Andrews on July 16. 10 On the very first day, before the Assembly had been properly 'Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow MSS, 5:23, in the Glasgow city archives. •Ibid. 10 N o official records of this Assembly are in existence. Further, Baillie's letters from May 12, 1651, to December 10, 1651, are not in existence—if he wrote any. "The Proceedings" in Records of the Kirk of Scotland, Containing the Acts and

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assembled, three double elections were handed in, those of Glasgow, Stirling, and Dunkell, and the proceedings of the commission were challenged as scandalous. On the second day the king's commissioner, Lord Balcarres, urged that the Assembly censure those who were against the resolutions, but nothing was done about it at the time. On the third day the disputed elections were considered, but no decision was affirmed. At midnight on the sabbath, July 20, an extra session was called because of news of the approaching English army, and the vote was to adjourn to Dundee, there to reconvene on July 22. At that midnight session one of the Remonstrants handed in a protest, signed by twenty-two members, against the legality of the Assembly. When the protest was not read immediately, these Remonstrants walked out of the Assembly. 11 The Assembly reconvened at Dundee on Tuesday, July 22, and sat until August 1. The protest was read although the Remonstrants were not present. The Assembly, the protest said, was illegal in that it had been pre-limited by the act of the commission that had prohibited those who were opposed to the resolutions from being delegates. After the reading the king's commissioner offered "the King's authority" on behalf of the Assembly against the Protesters, but Douglas, the moderator, said the church would deal with its own. Yet another protest Proceedings of the General Assemblies, from the Year 1638 Downwards, as Authenticated by the Clerks of the Assembly; with Notes and Historical Illustrations, Alexander Peterkin, ed., vol. 1 (Edinburgh: John Sutherland, 1838), 626631, hereinafter cited as Peterkin, Records, prints an account written by a M r . Alexander Gordon, who was a member of the Assembly. William R o w , minister at Ceres in Fife and son-in-law to Robert Blair and author of the continuation of Blair's life found in Blair's Autobiography, gives a four-page account with no indication as to whether he was an eyewitness to the proceedings although he could have been. Peterkin prints some of the acts of the Assembly, "extracted from the Controversial Pamphlets of the Time, but never recognized or printed among the A c t s of the Church since the Revolution" (Records, pp. 6 3 1 - 6 3 6 ) . Peterkin prints also "Excerpts from Balfour's Annals of Scotland for 1651 (Records, pp. 638-646). The Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, vol. 2: I6$O-I6$4, David H a y Fleming, ed., Scottish History Society (Edinburgh: University Press, 1919), 8 j - i o j (hereinafter cited as Wariston, Diary, 1650-1654), gives an account. Another slender reference is found in John Nicoli, A Diary of Public Transactions and Other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland, from January 1650 to June 1661 (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1836), pp. 54-55, hereinafter cited as Nicoli, Diary. See also GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 499. "Peterkin, Records, 628. Wariston, Diary, I6$O-$4, 93, says that twenty-eight signatures were on it.

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was presented from the absent members, protesting against approval of the acts of the commission of the last Assembly. The Assembly, however, voted that this document was no legal protest, the writers not being present, but was rather a declinature, a declining to assent to the authority of the Assembly. This attempt to evade acknowledgement of a protest backfired, however, when a member reminded Douglas that according to an act of the Assembly of 1638, a decliner was subject to immediate excommunication. Douglas, Dickson, and James Wood replied that "they might modify and molify their own act— yea, repeal it, if need were." The king's commissioner said that, nevertheless, the act stood now and, therefore, could not now be ignored, regardless of what future action they might take regarding it, but Douglas admonished him, saying that the Assembly "knew what to do with their own Acts." 1 2 On July 24 the Assembly voted to examine the acts of the commissioners of the last Assembly. Douglas, as a member of that commission, removed himself from the moderator's chair, and Baillie, who had not been a member of the commission, was chosen to moderate the examination. One by one the acts were read. All were approved, with the exception of that of August 13, 1650, which was the act that had led directly to the king's signing of the Declaration of Dunfermline. The Assembly voted clarification of this act, that it "shall not in any time coming be interpreted to have any other meaning, than that the King's Interest is not to be owned but in subordination to God." With this emendation, the acts of the commission were approved. The Assembly's activities after July 24 can be only inferred. James Guthrie of Stirling and Patrick Gillespie of Glasgow were deposed, on an unknown date, for declining to assent to the authority of the Assembly and, on July 31, the Assembly voted to cite and censure all who would not acknowledge the Assembly as a lawful one and all who opposed the resolutions.13 The Assembly chose its commissioners for the coming year on July 31, Baillie being one of them, and adjourned on August 1. The Protesters, for such the Remonstrants may "Peterkin, Records, 629.

u Ibid., 636. What had occurred between July 23, when the Assembly's leading Resolutioners demonstrated an unwillingness to take such drastic action, and July 31, when they acquiesced, must remain unknown.

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now be called, had not been successful in halting the proceedings of what they considered to be an illegal Assembly. On the contrary, their two leading ministers had been deposed. The rent in the kirk had become an open schism. On the military side, the year 1651 was a replaying of 1648. While the Assembly was meeting at St. Andrews, Cromwell's forces had met Leslie's at Inverkeithing and the Scots had been defeated. On August 3 Perth fell, followed by Stirling three days later. Stirling Castle held out until August 14. On August 27 an attempt to hold a meeting of the committee of estates at Alyth was broken up by General Monck, and prisoners were taken. The following day the sitting of the General Assembly commission was broken up by Monck. The records were taken, and the commissioners were made prisoners and put in the Tower. 14 On September 1 Dundee fell to Monck; by mid-September, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Montrose had all been captured while at Worcester, in England, on the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar, Charles and Leslie were defeated by Cromwell. Leslie was captured and Charles escaped to Holland. The war was over; Scotland had been defeated. Mopping up operations began in Scotland. Although they would last until 1654, the way was open now for the incorporation and anglicization of Scotland. In late October the English Parliament's "Declaration . . . Concerning the Settlement of Scotland" was completed and printed, and on December 4 the English commissioners for Scotland received their instructions from Parliament.15 Fortunately, Baillie had left Dundee as soon as the Assembly had 11G A Comm. Recs. Ill, 513. Among those sent to the Tower was Robert Douglas, the moderator. A t this point in time, the records of the General Assembly commission stop and do not begin again until May 12, 1652. In the intervening time, meetings were held, but no records are extant. 15 The Cromwellian Union: Papers Relating to the Negotiations for an Incorporating Union Between England and Scotland, 1651-1652, with an Appendix of Papers Relating to the Negotiations in 1670, C. Sanford Terry, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1902), pp. xxi-xxiii, hereinafter cited as Terry, Cromwellian Union, prints the text from The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland and the Goverment During the Commonwealth, vol. 6, part 2: AJ>. 1648-1660, printed by authority of the Lords Commissioners of H.M. Treasury, 1872, 809, hereinafter cited as APS; see also Nicoll, Diary, p. 81, and Scotland and the Protectorate: Letters and Papers Relating to the Military Government of Scotland from January 1654 to June 1659, C. H. Firth, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1899), PP- 393-398, hereinafter cited as Firth, Protectorate.

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adjourned. He had had "a hard journey home," he wrote, but he had at least escaped the fate of the commissioners who had been captured by Monck. When the Glasgow presbytery met on September 3, both Baillie and Gillespie were present although Gillespie was not listed among the members, having been deposed. At this meeting he protested that deposition as unlawful. Gillespie continued to preach and to attend presbytery meetings even though deposed. Possibly because of his presence, the minutes from this point on become even less informative than before. During the autumn of 1651 the Protesters initiated a national organization of their own. They met in Edinburgh at the beginning of October in a congregation that they called a general assembly and organized their own commission of the church with the object of annulling the commission of the 1651 General Assembly. They met about fifteen or sixteen days and refused to acknowledge the commission appointed by the 1651 Assembly, but rather "they resolved to continue the commission" of the 1650 Assembly. 16 When the Glasgow-Ayr synod met the first week in October, the Protester majority declared the General Assembly of 1651 null, whereupon the Resolutioner minority, Baillie and thirty-seven of the ministers and elders of the synod, wrote a protest against the synod's action, dissenting from the majority action. 17 A conference between the two factions was planned in Glasgow for December 9. Baillie was anxious about it, gloomy about its possible use, "yet willing to hear what shall be offered." When they met that night at the home of John Carstares, minister at Blackfriars, Baillie wrote, W e did declare our mind unanimously. . . . T h e y did declare their mind as unanimously in the rigour of all the other; so any drawing near one to another, while we remained in our present judgements, appeared desperate to us all; yet, after much talking, and on their professions to be very desirous of peace, and of their willingness to have all differnces laid aside for their part, w e were not averse from trying if any just peace were possible.18 M

Peterkin, Records, 656; Nicoll, Diary, pp. 61-62; Baillie, Letters, 3:190-194. "Baillie, Letters, 3:561-562, for the protest and the subscribers. w lbid., 200. This letter is incorrectly included with the letters for 1652; however, Wednesday, December 10, the date given, occurred in 1651.

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A few days later Baillie regretted that he had allowed himself to go so far in the direction of peace overtures. "In our conference," he wrote, "I granted too much, and [was] almost entangled to lay all aside." To prevent this possibility in the future, he wrote to James Wood, divinity professor at St. Andrews, who had become the acknowledged leader of the church since Robert Douglas's imprisonment, and referred all further conferences to him. The stalemate, 1652. Once the English Parliament had opted for incorporation of Scotland rather than for annexation, the machinery of Cromwell's military moved quickly. The military government began with the arrival of the English commissioners in January at Dalkeith, which was to be the base from which they were to persuade Scotland to unite voluntarily with England. On February 4 the abolition of the authority of Charles Stuart was proclaimed at the market cross of Edinburgh; one week later another proclamation promised tolerance for all who remained peaceable, including the ministers of the gathered church. Another proclamation on the following day, February 12, announced the offer of the Tender of Union and announced also a thirty-day limit on Scotland's acceptance of that Tender. 19 The burghs having been informed of the Tender prior to the official proclamation, Glasgow had elected its delegates on February 10. When the delegates returned from the meeting at Dalkeith and reported to the assembled Glaswegians, however, the townspeople were not satisfied; Glasgow dissented from the Tender.20 English soldiers were sent to Glasgow. New deputies were chosen, and on March 13 the new deputies accepted the Tender. The declaration of the voluntary union of England and Scotland in one commonwealth was proclaimed at Edinburgh's market cross on April 21. 21 A fortnight later the judges appointed by the English Parliament to " N i c o l l , Diary, pp. 81-83; for the terms of the Tender, see Terry, Cromwellian Union, pp. i j - 1 6 , and Nicoll, Diary, pp. 85-6. "Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, A.D. 1630-1662, J. D . Marwick, ed. (Glasgow: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1881), p. 219, hereinafter cited as Glasgow Burgh Records II. Of all Scotland's shires and burghs, only Glasgow, Morayshire, and Kirkcudbrightshire dissented. See Terry, Cromwellian Union, p. xxviii; for Glasgow's dissent, see 34-35. " T e r r y , Cromwellian Union, pp. 140-144, for the text; see also Nicoll, Diary, pp. 90-91, for the manner of proclamation.

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administer justice in Scotland arrived at Edinburgh. Among their many acts, that of June 4 is of particular interest. By it a commission was appointed with power to change all laws concerning universities and the ministry that were inconsistent with those of England. The declaration also declared null all acts and proceedings since the abolition of the king's authority on February 4, which meant, inter alia, any changes effected by the committee of visitors to the universities of the General Assembly or by the commission of the General Assembly. The declaration stated also the intent of the English commission to remove from the universities and the ministry any and all persons who were either "scandalous in their lives and conversations, or that shall oppose the Authority of the Common-weath of England" and to replace them with persons of the judges' choice, and to determine in all causes relating to ministers. The commission was to sit at Edinburgh in the Scots Parliament house where they would hear all complaints.22 To Baillie and other ministers whose professional lives extended back to the General Assembly at Glasgow in 1638, this commission constituted not only a usurpation of the lawful authority of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland but an abrogation of the Solemn League and Covenant as well. Baillie wrote to his old friend, Francis Rouse, in England: Your judges are going the next week, as we hear, to visit our Universities. If they be instructed to minister the Tender to us, they must purge out of St. Andrews Mr. Blair, Mr. Rutherford, and Mr. W o o d ; out of Edinburgh Mr. Dickson; and me out of Glasgow; and thereafter multitudes of our most precious ministers. Whatever differences be among us, yet all of us of any good esteem, are resolved, by God's grace, to suffer what shall be imposed, rather than to quate [Scots, abandon] any article of that Covenant, which, at the solicitation of the Parliament of England, we were brought into. For the time we are all very quiet and peaceable; but if, for conscience sake, w e shall be wracked, by these of whom we have deserved the best things, our silent 22 Scotland and the Commonwealth: Letters and Papers Relating to the Military Government of Scotland from August 1651 to December 1653, C. H. Firth, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1895), pp. 44-4J, hereinafter cited as Firth, Commonwealth.

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mourning will c r y aloud in the ears of the L o r d , to the small advantage of them w h o trouble us without all cause. 2 3

By coincidence, the English proclamations of tolerance and of the Tender in February had occurred at the same time as the two factions in the church were each holding meetings in Edinburgh. In the face of "defections being so rife," as Baillie wrote, the Resolutioners had decided to issue a presbyterial warning against compliance with the Sectaries. They had asked the Protesters to join with them in this undertaking. "If we joined in this," Baillie continued, "it was a step to further [union]; if this was refused, we had little hope to join in haste in anything else." The Protesters, however, would not join with the Resolutioners even at this moment of peril to the church. The two factions grew even further apart. Between February and April of 1652 the pressure for union of the two factions increased. Robert Blair even went so far as to suggest that all debates and differences about resolutions, acts, censures, and even commissions—whether of 1650 or of 1651—should be "quite laid aside." "If uniting on such terms may be had," he wrote to Baillie at the end of March, "they are accursed that would hinder the same, by seeking satisfaction for what is passed." There were, Blair added, "some things amiss utrinque." 24 Despite his love for his old teacher, Baillie could not let this suggestion pass without attempting to refute it. H o w gladly I would be at union in any tolerable terms many k n o w , but f o r the quite laying aside all the acts of the last A s sembly, and that men censured shall not make so much as the least acknowledgement f o r all their erroneous and v e r y

evil

Remonstrances, Protestations, and other miscarriages, w h e r e b y * Although the Tender was not imposed upon the college professors, yet the powers that the judges and commission claimed, and were able to implement, became a constant source of irritation and anxiety to Baillie in the years ahead. (Baillie, Letters, 3:199.) 24 Ibid., 176. The Protesters had invited Blair to their October i6yi Assembly, but he had refused. (Ibid., 559.) Three of the Protesters, Gillespie among them, had conferred with Blair after the Protester Assembly was over. Wariston,

Diary, 1650-1654, 15 m.

i j2

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they have directly ruined the Commission and the General Assembly, and have been very instrumental in the public calamity, and to this day goes on with a high hand in destructive ways to their power; to clap their heads in all this, I doubt it be acceptable to God, or the men's good, or can stand with the being of our discipline in any time to come. 25

Regarding the suggestion that all who opposed such union should be excluded from presbytery and synod, Baillie wrote, "All this I take, albeit with grief, yet in patience and silence, but so as I count such writes and speeches, no lenitives [Scots, resting places] at all for healing." That Baillie's opinion in this matter of uniting with the Protesters on their terms was firm was revealed in his closing declarative sentence: " I shall be loathe to deserve the estimation of accursed man by any, but least of all from you, whom hitherto I have professed a Father in Christ." Events in the years that were ahead would test the strength of this conviction of conscience in the man who, above all, had spent his life either avoiding or smoothing over all jangling and sticking points. On this issue Baillie neither avoided nor did he attempt to smooth over. T o unite on the terms of the Protesters, who denied the legality and authority of the 1651 General Assembly, would be to "bury the Assembly indeed, and to put tyrannous men's feet again on the neck of our Church." T o this he would never consent, even though "I should be openly avowed unworthy to sit in a Presbytery; yea, though I should be counted worse than all that, and worse hardly can be than an accursed man." In this atmosphere of tension the April session of the synod met. James Durham, currently pastor at the High Church and a man whom Baillie respected though he could not understand, handed in proposals for union.28 He proposed that both factions cease from further debates or tracts that argued one side or the other, that they "forbear the practising, executing or pressing of all acts concluded in the last Assembly at St. Andrews and Dundee," that no past differences be used against "Baillie, Letters, 3:176. x Ibid., 145. Durham had been pastor of Blackfriars' from 1647 to 1650, when he was called by the Assembly to be minister to the king. He had been relieved of that post in I6JI and had returned to Glasgow, where he was appointed pastor to the High Church in place of Ramsay, who had first been made principal of the college (June) and who had died in September.

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any minister, elder, or expectant minister, if he were otherwise qualified, that these overtures be recommended to all other synods and a conference with all other synods be arranged, and that a future General Assembly be the place to settle all disputes "and, in the meantime, to proceed in all affairs according to the uncontroverted rules and acts of our Church." T h e proposals almost passed approval in the synod, but Baillie and others of his mind, "though the minor and weaker part," he admitted, prevented their coming to a vote until they should be discussed "with all our friends, w e pleased, far and near." O n the one hand, Baillie wrote, "For all the safeguards expressed, the acts and proceedings of the Assembly are as good as buried [if these proposals were passed]; the authority of all posterior Assemblies is fearfully shaken, and put in hazard to be trod underfoot, b y the error and willfulness of any the like party." O n the other hand, he continued, " T h e miserable daily fruits of our division are hardly tolerable; they w h o n o w press the Union are like to carry to it many of our chief and best men, so that the refusers will be exceedingly weakened b y this abstraction, and become odious and contemptible." T h e synod was adjourned without coming to any decision. 27 W h e n the synod reconvened on June 2, the proposals were not taken u p again. Instead, several cases of censure in presbyteries within the G l a s g o w - A y r synodal jurisdiction were to be tried. According to Baillie, they were in all cases censure b y the Protester faction of nonProtester ministers. "In this w a y and b y this means they have drawn some of the Presbytery to their side," he wrote, and the implication in his letter was that the Protesters were deliberately using the threat of accusation of scandal, which accusation could then be referred to the English commissioners for their adjudication, in order to bring the presbyteries and the synod to union with the Protesters on Protester terms. 28 T h e contest for control carried over into the presbytery's July 7 meeting. A t that meeting Patrick Gillespie and t w o other ministers, w i t h the votes of ruling elders added, were able to outvote Baillie and six other ministers in the matter of electing delegates to the forthcoming General Assembly. T h e vote was not to elect, whereupon Baillie, pre" Ibid., 185-186, for Durham's proposals. "Ibid., 186. Baillie's is the only account we have of these synod meetings; no records are in existence; I have uncovered no other account.

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pared in advance, handed in a written protest against Gillespie, a deposed minister, having any voice in the presbytery and against the presbytery's refusal to elect to the Assembly. 29 Nevertheless, Baillie attended the General Assembly, which met in Edinburgh from July 21 through August 5. 30 In another room of St. Giles another convocation was being held. Thus, Edinburgh witnessed the convening of two general assemblies meeting at the same time and in the same church, one of Resolutioners, the other of Protesters. 31 In the Resolutioner Assembly, Dickson was the moderator in place of Robert Douglas, who was still being held in the T o w e r . Wariston, representing the Protesters, presented a protest signed b y "about 65 hands of ministers" against the legality of the Assembly and requested a conference. Dickson replied that before a conference could be called, the Assembly must first be legally constituted. This act was, of course, what the Protesters were trying to prevent. Once again, apparently, some attempts were made at overtures for union, but the opposing leaders, "standing at so great a distance, the more moderate, that strove to mediate betwixt them, judging that they came both upon extremes, could effectuate nothing for union or healing of our woeful divisions." Robert Blair, totally discouraged, left before the Assembly was over. "Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, 5:64. Also Baillie, Letters, 3:194-195 ("Reasons of Protest"). That Patrick Gillespie continued to present himself at presbyteries after his deposition by the Assembly can be attributed to a combination of luck and persistence. In former days, when church discipline was still intact, the town council would have refused him his stipend, the presbytery would have chosen his replacement with approval of the congregation, and Mr. Gillespie would probably have gone to Holland or Ireland. With church discipline eroded, Gillespie's persistence, speaking charitably, in combination with a congregation split between Protester and Resolutioner and a burgh magistracy elected with the approval of the English commissioners and in office on their suffrance and hence willing to continue Mr. Gillespie's stipend, permitted him to remain in office as though no deposition had ever taken place. This fact alone was wormwood to Baillie. No official minutes of this assembly are extant; Baillie was writing no letters to Spang because of the war between England and Holland. The only references to this assembly are in Row's "Continuation" of Blair's Autobiography, pp. 296297; Nicoll, Diary, pp. 97-98, 99-100, where Nicoll repeats himself; and in the "Diary of John Lamont" excerpts in Peterkin, Records, 656. Baillie's authority to attend was that of an ordained minister presenting a legal protest against the actions of his presbytery. n See Wariston, Diary, 1650-1654,179-184, for the Protesters' Assembly; Peterkin, Records, 656, for the Resolutioners' Assembly.

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Robert Baillie remained to the end, was chosen one of the commissioners for the coming year, and was present at the first meeting of the commissioners on the afternoon of August 5. Baillie's letters are wanting from August 20, 1652, to January 3, 1653; therefore, information on his life for these months is scanty. He attended the presbytery meeting held on August 25 and attempted to have read into the minutes "some papers from the General Assembly." The petition was put to a vote, and his request was voted down. Baillie probably attended the October meeting of the Glasgow-Ayr synod also, where two days were spent in bickering over the choice of a moderator and nothing much else was accomplished. He was present at a presbytery in October at which time he handed in a written protest against the dissenting brethren's controlling the presbytery by always voting one of themselves in the position of moderator. He was absent from the presbytery of October 22, on which date, for the first time, all those present were of the Protester faction. 82 When the commission of the General Assembly convened in Edinburgh during the last week of November, Baillie was present. A letter from the Protesters was received and read. In it the Protesters asked the commissioners to refrain from calling themselves a commission of the General Assembly "so long as endeavours and conferences for union shall continue" and asked again for a conference. In their answer, which Baillie helped to draw up, the commissioners promised to forbear putting any of the Assembly's acts of censure into effect until their next quarterly meeting in February. They also appointed a committee to meet with the dissenting brethren and confer with them until that time, at the Protesters' convenience. Among the other actions that this meeting of the commissioners undertook was one that was to influence the Glasgow presbytery. The church of Lenzie, a town in Dumbartonshire but within the jurisdiction of the Glasgow presbytery, had been without a permanent pastor for more than two years, apparently because the two factions in that presbytery had not been able to agree upon the choice of one. N o w a selection was made from among the Glasgow-Ayr synod members of a committee with power from the commission to fill that vacancy. The members of this committee were all Resolutioners.33 " Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, 5:70, 75. "GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 525-530, 535-538.

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Schism in the presbytery, 1653. Sometime during the month of December, the committee selected by the commissioners made their nomination. They chose James Ramsay, the son of Robert Ramsay. Some time during that month also the Protesters must have learned of their choice and communicated that knowledge to the Lenzie parishioners because at a meeting of the presbytery on January 5, a few delegates from the congregation "who are not satisfied with Mr. James Ramsay to be their minister" handed in a petition requesting that he not be ordained to their parish. A total of 242 signatures of men and women appeared on the petition. Half these parishioners said they wanted him; half were dissenting.34 An all-day presbytery session, with the members of the synod named by the commission in attendance, was held on January 12. Gillespie was in attendance at the morning session also. As soon as the roll was taken, the opening prayer said, and the object of the meeting stated, Gillespie objected to the presence of nonpresbytery members in attendance and to the unlawfulness of the commission ab initio and, consequently, to its right to name a committee to fill any vacancy. With these statements he left the meeting and did not return.35 The session reconvened in the afternoon. Baillie read into the minutes the written commission from the General Assembly commission. Young Ramsay's trial was satisfactory, apparently, but the committee decided to take turns ministering to the Lenzie congregation pending his ordination.36 The problem was not so easily resolved. The actions of the presbytery were reported to the English judges; on February 1 the judges wrote to the presbytery questioning the appointment. The letter was received on Saturday, February 5. On the following Tuesday a presbytery was convened and an answer written. The presbytery, the answer read, believed in our consciences the right of Ordination of ministers to vacant congregations belongs to the Church by divine right, and the M

Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, 5:96-99. A t exactly this point in time the Glasgow presbytery split in two: Resolutioner and Protester. M " T h e delegation of ministers to preach in Lenzie to us was a lawful and expedient presbyterial act." (Baillie, Letters, 3:203.)

™lbid., 105.

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gift of Jesus Christ. . . . W e therefore humbly intreat your Honours to take in good part that we go about that which we believe in conscience to be our duty in a matter merely spiritual, wherein we meddle with nothing Civil, and wherein the Civil power, wherever it gives any toleration at all, makes no question anywhere, to our best knowledge. 37 On the following evening, February 9, the presbytery ordained James Ramsay to the kirk at Lenzie. Baillie wrote to Dickson the next day: W e conceived ourselves necessitated to go on, without delay, to the ordination, not only because we found no just or legal cause of any delay, which all acknowledged; but also, on the delay of never so f e w days, we saw a great more difficulties coming upon us than we durst venture upon. This case is a leading one to all Scotland and will be a beginning of sore persecution to many, if God prevent it not. 38 Bailie was not far wrong. Even as he was writing, the judges in Edinburgh were writing also. In a directive addressed to Baillie and Young, they stated, Whereas power and authority is given to us . . . by the Parliament of England, to see all vacant Churches in this land supplied with godly and able ministers . . . we conceive it fit, at this time also, by letter to give you notice thereof, that so y e may forbear to attempt to settle any minister in any church within your Presbytery, without our approbation, lest y e contract a further trouble upon yourselves, and the people whom ye think to pleasure therein. 39 Baillie tried to use some indirect influence to "get Judge Moisley off him," but to no avail. Ramsay was apparently never allowed to preach at Lenzie. 40 " Ibid., 205-206. lbid., 210. 30 Ibid., 209. When the presbytery next met, on February 17, it had to be dissolved for lack of a quorum. "Exactly what happened later is obscured by lack of documents, but Baillie, writing to Spang in 1656, said, "Mr. James Ramsay, a very able and sufficient youth as we have of his age, planted by us in Leinzie, to the great satisfaction of all, except a very few who chose an English sectary, to whom they promised the m

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The year 1653 was one of personal tragedy and professional disappointments for Baillie, among which the schism in the presbytery and the subsequent denial by the English judges of any de jure rights to the old court was only the first. In the college, John Young, who was the son of George Young and one of the regents, had been nominated to Baillie's former position of second professor of divinity, despite the fact—as Baillie was quick to point out—that he was not an ordained minister. The English judges were responsible for this appointment, Baillie reported, although they had allowed old Zachary Boyd, minister at the Barony Church and vice chancellor at the college, to make the formal nomination. Out of "respect to Mr. George," Baillie absented himself from the faculty meeting at which the votes were cast. The faculty divided evenly, and Boyd cast the decisive vote in John Young's favor. Thus, Baillie was to have as a colleague in the preparing of young men for the ministry a very young man who was "professedly opposite to our Church and General Assembly" and who had never undergone trial and ordination in the church. Young tried immediately to nominate his own replacement. When Baillie reminded him that custom and law decreed that competition be open in the appointment of regents, Young "continued in his Regent's place to the end of that year, though he had entered in the Divinity profession; which he let lie for the exercise of it, but not for its stipend." John Young's appointment had come on January 13, 1653, the day after Patrick Gillespie had walked out of the presbytery to form his own. Some time between that date and February 1, "an order and command was presented to us by our Rector, from the English Judges, to accept of Mr. Patrick, whom they, according to their power, had appointed our Principal." 41 At the faculty meeting where this order stipend; when, after two years trouble, the Englishman removed, our brethren Mr. P. Gillespie, Mr. James Durham, Mr. John Carstares, all much obliged to Mr. R. Ramsay for their own places, would not for any intreaty be pleased to let his son live in peace: so we let him go to Linlithgow, where he is much better than he could have been where he was." (Baillie, Letters, 3:313.) Ramsay continued to appear from time to time at Glasgow presbytery meetings. 41 Ibid., 3:239. On January 17, at Edinburgh University, the election of one William Colville by the faculty was laid aside. Another was to be chosen "in obedience to the judges' desire." Extract from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1642 to 1655, Marguerite Wood, ed. (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1938), 304, hereinafter cited as Edinburgh Burgh Records 11.

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was read the vote of the faculty was four to three against the appointment of Gillespie. Those opposed were Baillie; George Young, who was the dean of faculty; Patrick Young, another son of George and the youngest regent; and Zachary Boyd, the vice chancellor. Those in favor were John Young, the second divinity professor; Richard Robertson, the first regent; and James Veitch, the second regent. All three who favored Gillespie were of the Protester faction. T h e rector said that he would communicate the decision of the faculty to the judges. On February 1, the same day the English judges wrote to the presbytery questioning the appointment of James Ramsay to the Lenzie church, they wrote also to the faculty of the college. " W e having formerly made known unto you our desires of Mr. Gillespie's being Principal of your College," the letter said, "and hearing you are not at all unanimous in your desires of the same," the judges desired individual letters from the faculty members, stating who was in fayor and who was opposed and, if opposed, "their reasons f o r the same." Baillie answered that he objected on three grounds: ( 1 ) that it was the privilege of the college to appoint its own principal, (2) that Gillespie was a deposed minister and hence his appointment would be contrary to the regulations of both General Assembly and the college, and (3) that he believed "that Mr. Patrick Gillespie is not furnished with that measure of learning which the place of our Principal does necessarily require." On the same day he wrote to Dickson in Edinburgh, sending along copies of the judges' letter and of his reply. You will perceive by the enclosed what storms Mr. Patrick Gillespie has been brewing against us from the English; and indeed, if God prevent it not, he is like to make them fall upon me the first, of all the ministers of Scotland, but not the last, that so he may have, without any more impediment, the full rule of our College and Presbytery, which long he has been seeking, and is now on point of receiving it.42 On the morning of February 14 another faculty meeting was called. Patrick Gillespie announced that he would accept the post of principal, or rather that "til the General Assembly, which, rightly constituted, "Baillie, Letters, 3:209.

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had a great oversight of University places, he would be content to accept so much of that charge as might stand with his ministry in the town, to oversee the discipline of the house, and to do what else he was able in that charge." Baillie was incensed by Gillespie's conditions of acceptance. "The matter was totally new; a Principal in part, not fully for a time, not finally, but til a General Assembly rightly constituted; a Principal with a full ministry in the town; a Principal, upon no invitation from the College, but some private men, after a Faculty had judicially refused all invitation. Such things were great novelties." 43 He made formal protest against putting Gillespie's acceptance to the vote. He then debated with Gillespie on his right, contrary to church and college rules, to accept the post under the conditions of his appointment and acceptance but to no avail. The oath of principal was administered. "Thus goes the game with us," Baillie wrote; "this to me is a demonstration that there is more betwixt that party and the English than we yet know." Baillie may have been right. When the General Assembly commissioners assembled to hold their quarterly meetings in Edinburgh later in the month, they were greeted by a letter from the Protester faction, dated November 23, informing the commissioners that because they had not responded in time to their November 11 offer for a conference, they, the Protesters, considered themselves absolved from all obligation to meet for any conference at all. The commissioners made no further efforts at conference although at the meetings in May they did name a standing committee with power to confer with the Protesters in Edinburgh or any other place "they shall find most convenient." 44 Baillie was not present at those last sessions of the commission. In mid-April his wife had become very sick with what Baillie described as "a languishing disease." By the time the commission met, during the third week in May, Baillie wrote that he "could not be sent from her, "Ibid., 213; Nicoli, Diary, p. 108. According to a faculty act, July 27, 1651, the faculty was not to hold any full-time pastoral position. Gillespie, however, held both, and claimed salary for both for at least a year although the town council did not pay him his pastoral stipend. H e did not relinquish his claim to his ministerial stipend until September 9, 1654. (Glasgow Burgh Records II, 296.) u GA Comm. Recs. Ill, 556. On this depressing note, the records of the commission of the General Assembly end.

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and yet I have but small hopes of her life." On June 7 Baillie's "most gracious and virtuous companion" died. "In the midst of a great and just grief," Baillie wrote later to Spang, " I had this mixture of comfort, that, to the full satisfaction of all, in her whole life, sickness and death, the grace and wisdom of God did shine forth in her, til all was crowned with great applause, and regret of all who knew her." 45 Yet more water was to be mixed with Baillie's wine. The General Assembly, which convened on July 20 at Edinburgh, had barely begun, the sermons and prayers having just ended, when an English officer, one Colonel Cotterel, entered the church with his troops and demanded to know by whose authority they had convened. Dickson, the moderator, answered that their authority was from God and that they were a church court and did not meddle with civil matters. Cotterel ordered them to disband. They were led outside the town. Their names were written down. They were told that they were not to meet again in numbers more than three and were to be gone from Edinburgh by eight o'clock in the morning.46 The following day a proclamation at the market cross in Edinburgh forbade all further meetings of the ministry. Although the proclamation stated "all ministers," which theoretically included Protesters as well, Baillie and the other Resolutioners believed that the dispersion and proclamation had been the work of the Protesters. This coup de grace by the military government of England against the authority of the church in Scotland was almost too much for Baillie. He wrote to an old friend, an English minister in London: Thus our General Assembly, the glory and strength of our Church upon earth, is, by your soldiery, crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation from us, at this time, either in word or deed. For this our hearts are sad, our eyes run down with water, we sigh to God against whom we have sinned, and 46 Baillie, Letters, 3:219, 222, 237. Nicoll, Diary, p. 108, said that the "trembling agues," a malarial-type fever, and the smallpox were prevalent that spring and had killed thousands, both young and old. "Baillie, Letters, 3:225; Nicoll, Diary, p. i;o; Peterkin, Records, 656-657. On July 16 Colonel Lilburne, commander-in-chief of the English forces in Scotland, had written to Cromwell informing him of the coming General Assembly and asking for "directions whether I should prevent that meeting or not." (Firth, Commonwealth, p. 161.) This Assembly was the last one to convene until 1690.

162

Baillie and the Glasglow Protestors wait for the help of his hand; but from those who oppressed us we deserved no evil.47

Baillie feared even further restrictions. " W e hear a noise of further orders, to discharge all our Synods and Presbyteries, and all prayer for our King: many the most moderate reckons such orders will make havoc of our Church, and raise against many the best men we have, a sore persecution." 48 On August 4 the English judges forbade prayers for the king under pain of punishment, but the ministers continued "out of conscience" to include him in their prayers for another two years. Baillie never ceased to include him throughout the long, seemingly hopeless years that lay ahead. Baillie's volte-face. What were Baillie's thoughts that July as he made his way back to Glasgow? The General Assembly had been forbidden to meet. Without the Assembly, no commission could be appointed. Even if one had been, the ministers were forbidden to meet together. The presbytery was rent in two, powerless in authority, and attendance had fallen off in the remnant that remained. The synod had become a semi-annual session of jangling and was likely to split in October unless he could get it to adjourn. War between England and Holland these past two years had cut off all letters to and from Spang and had cut off too the flow of books and newsletters from the continent. The historian need not exceed the limits of historical probability to theorize that in the course of that forty-mile ride on horseback between Edinburgh and Glasgow on the morning of July 21 that Baillie's mind dwelled, and even brooded, on these events. N o r need one exceed the limits of probability to imagine that he came to a sort of resolution of what he believed he was called upon to do: work, and work according to the injunction "with all thy might." Take positive action. "Baillie, Letters, 3:255-256. "Ibid., 226. On August 6 Lilburne wrote to Cromwell: "Though the General Assembly was routed, yet they have their provincial assemblies, and whether I should also discharge those I should be glad of your Lordship's commands, for I doubt the people are not well able to bear any more against their ministers." (Firth, Commonwealth, pp. 191-192.) N o order was given forbidding presbyteries and synods; no order was necessary. Without the Assembly, the synods and presbyteries no longer had any power.

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How else does one account for the virulence of his verbal attack upon the first regent, Richard Robertson, at the very next faculty meeting a week later, an attack that was so unlike Baillie? In 1653 Baillie's second son, Henry, was a student in one of Robertson's classes. Perhaps Henry was Baillie's source of information; Baillie does not say. He says only that he had ignored Robertson's "open errors, heresies, and blasphemies" as long as he could, hoping that Gillespie, as principal, would deal with the problem, but Gillespie had not. When Baillie returned from Edinburgh he called Robertson to a private meeting where Robertson was required to read his lectures to him. Baillie then wrote a lengthy letter to Robertson accusing him of a variety of heresies and instructing him to delete the errors from his lectures. When Robertson answered in a brief defense, ending with "The Lord lay not to your charge the heavy accusations you lay on me," Baillie called him to account before the entire faculty. At that meeting, "they all professed they misliked the tenets as much as I," yet were reluctant to do anything about the problem, apparently because Gillespie would not. Baillie then threatened to "let the world know" that Gillespie was harboring in his college "one who taught so blasphemous heresies" and to lay blame for the retention of the heretic solely at Gillespie's door. The result of this attack was that Robertson had to resign. Baillie had won one small victory for orthodoxy. 49 At the same time Baillie was working on a summa of the "errors which today vex the church." He put the last line to this Catachesis on July 29 and dedicated it to Dickson, not only so that Baillie might be able to render an account to Dickson of his (Baillie's) studies, "but also that you might perceive that in the Academy at Glasgow, orthodoxy perseveres to this day." 50 On September 19 he finished the "Robertson had been admitted in December 1649 by the Remonstrants, "violently . . . thrust in over all our privileges," according to Baillie. (Letters, 3:239.) Editor David Laing had deleted from Baillie's letter the lengthy theological contents of it; they must be inferred from Robertson's answer in Letters, 3:223. Baillie had accused him of Sabellianism (denial of the Trinity), Nestorianism (denial of the divine and human natures of Christ in one person), and blasphemy (making God the author of sin) m Catechesis Elenctica Errorum qui hodie vexant Ecclesiam, ex nudis sacrae Scripturae testhnoniis, in brevibus ac Claris Questionibus ac Responsionibus preposita. In gratiam studiosae Juventutis Academiae Glasguensis, printed at London by Sam Gellibrand, 1654. A portion of the dedication to Dickson is given by

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vindication of his Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time, in which he finally refuted the charges made in 1647 1650 by John Tombes, an English Presbyterian, against his 1645 publication. In his preface Baillie apologized for his long silence, avowing his "averseness and constant disinclination from such public appearances, and making of any noise with my voice or pen, in this exceeding clamorous and tumultuous generation." Nevertheless, he wrote, "When Mr. Tombes did press me so sore, as to commence against me a printed process of false accusations before the Provincial Synod of Glasgow, and the General Assembly of Scotland, my true Superiours and very proper Judges, I could no longer be dumb." Tombes had brought those charges against Baillie back in 1650; that Baillie did not answer them until 1653 is further evidence of a refusal any more to be content to enter into his chamber and shut the doors behind him.61 Also in 1653 Baillie finished his book on Hebrew grammar, which was published in Edinburgh that year, and continued to work on his magnum opus, his chronology of the world, taken from sacred and profane sources, from the creation to the time of Constantine the Great.82 In college affairs, he continued to take what positive action he could. He attended "most of the college meetings," he wrote later, although he opened every one by stating that his presence was not to be taken as a recognition of either Gillespie as principal or Young as professor, and when he was required to put his signature to a faculty act, he added PSS, Protestationibus Salvis, to it, in this way keeping before the faculty and moderators his constant protest against the entry of Gillespie by the English. When the Protester, Robert M'Ward, was appointed on August 4 to fill John Young's former position as regent, Baillie absented himself from the meeting when the vote was taken. He absented himself not out of reluctance to be the cause of jangling but rather as an act of protest against the fact that the young man had been chosen by Gillespie without any competition for the vacancy. Laing in Baillie, Letters, i:xcviii, "non tantum ut meorum studiorum tibi rationem redderem . . . sed ut cum gaudio perciperes eandem in Academia Glasguana orthodoxiam ad hunc diem perseverare. . . ." " F o r a fragment of Tombes's letter to the synod, see Baillie's Letters, irxcix. The paraphrase of the biblical injunction "enter into his chamber" is from Isaiah 26:20, one of Baillie's favorites. M Ibid., 3:237.

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When the vacancy of the fourth regency came to be filled in September, Gillespie did hold a competitive trial between the burgh's nominee, John Glen, and his own nominee, Andrew Burnet, who came from Aberdeen "with the testimony of all the apostates" in that university but with none from Andrew Cant, Aberdeen's sole Resolutioner. At the competition, however, when Gillespie's partiality to Burnet became obvious, Baillie wrote, "I departed in silence; for this Mr. Patrick cried after me, he would teach me better manners. At this I smiled, and went away." 53 He did not involve himself in the contest between Gillespie and the burgh magistrates that began that autumn, a contest that might very well have arisen as a result of Gillespie's refusal to "prefer" John Glen to the post of regent. At the beginning of August, before the competition for the vacant regency post but after the burgh had made its nomination, the burgh magistrates had asked Gillespie and John Carstares, minister at Blackfriars, for their suggestion of a man to replace Gillespie as minister to the Outer High Church. Gillespie and Carstares named one Andrew Gray. On September 17, nine days before the new regent, Andrew Burnet, was formally admitted, the town council objected to Gillespie's choice of Gray and wrote to Gray, telling him that they did not approve the nomination. Despite the town's letter to him, Gray remained in Glasgow. Twice in October the town council protested Gray's preaching at the Outer High Church. He continued at the post. On November 5 the magistrates took the only course left open to them. They declined to accept the entry of Gray and ordered that both their declination and protestation be kept in retentis. Not until a full year later, in September of 1654, did the town council finally order that Gray be paid his stipend, and then they could do it only because Gillespie had formally renounced his claim to it. Baillie had taken no active part in this fracas, but when he was asked by the council, he did say that he would never give his consent to admitting Gray. 84 In addition to his writing and teaching activities that autumn of 1653, Baillie steadfastly attended the ever-dwindling meetings of the presbytery. Between August 18 and December 5, nine meetings were held. w Glasgow Burgh Records 11, 268. Glen was probably nephew to Baillie's half-brother, Henry Glen. " Ibid., 27J-276, 277, 280, 281, 296; Baillie, Letters, 3:258.

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Little or no business was recorded; four of these meetings were recorded on only one page of the minutes. On one occasion the meeting was dissolved for lack of a quorum. No synod was held in October, probably because both the Resolutioners and the Protesters were holding illegal meetings in Edinburgh in October. Probably because the meetings were illegal also, no records of them exist.55 Schism in the synod, 1654. The year 1654 brought an end to the English war with Holland. For Baillie, this fact meant he could resume his correspondence with Spang. For Scotland this fact meant that General Monck was now freed to return to Scotland to complete the work of subduing the Scots, work that Lilburne had not been able to accomplish. Monck arrived at Dalkeith on April 22 with a commission that made him a supreme authority over all Scots affairs.56 In London, Cromwell's ordinance of union passed the council of state on April 12; the union of Scotland with England under the Protectorate of Cromwell was proclaimed at Edinburgh on May 4. In the church the early months of 1654 witnessed a continued fragmentation in church discipline. In Glasgow the presbytery continued to meet, often without a quorum. Its regulars included Baillie; Hew Blair and George Young, the two full-time ministers at the Tron Kirk; James Ramsey, erstwhile pastor at Lenzie kirk; Archibald Dennistoun, minister at Campsie kirk; and Gabriel Cunningham, one of Glasgow's ruling elders. The Protester presbytery continued to meet at Lanark. The Protesters also continued their illegal meetings in Edinburgh, at least one of which meetings was known to Lilburne, who did nothing to disband it.5T The schism in the synod, so long in coming, occurred in April. Baillie would have preferred to have the synod postponed until October rather than have any overt rupture take place; nevertheless, he and some of the other Resolutioners had laid plans for a separate synod in case such plans would be needed. When the synod met, the situation "Nicoll, Diary, p. 115, refers to a meeting of Protesters that month; Baillie, Letters, 3:232-234, refers to a meeting in Edinburgh but does not say when or refer to any matters discussed other than the composition of a "Presbyterial Warning." Gillespie was visiting with Lilburne in October, but Lilburne's letter to Cromwell mentioning this fact gives no indication that he knew of illegal meetings. Firth, Commonwealth, pp. 241-242. m For Monck's instructions, see Firth, Protectorate, pp. 76-80. "Ibid., p. 57.

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was such that those plans were necessary. The Protester moderator— Baillie does not name him—delivered a long sermon on the necessity of "the too-long neglected work of purging." Baillie then gives a description of the moderator's method, a method that was alien to his disciplined scholastic mind: "The man's vehemence in this, and in his prayer, a strange kind of sighing, the like whereof I had never heard, as a pythonizing out of the belly of a second person, made me amazed." 68 The Resolutioners attempted a compromise. T h e y said they would be willing to purge all who were "unfit for weakness or scandalous," but they were rejected. Committees for purging were about to be set up. At this point the Resolutioners borrowed the technique of the Protesters, as they had agreed among themselves in advance to do: They demanded that the synod be constituted in accord with General Assembly rules, which meant that all ministers and elders who had been deposed or who were under censure would be excluded from having any voice. This demand was refused, as had been anticipated. The Resolutioners then produced a protest of their own, prepared in advance, and a declaration in which they declined to sit any longer with those deposed, and removed themselves to continue the synod at Blackfriars' Church. According to Baillie, "some brethren travelled all the next day betwixt us for a union," but the Resolutioners remained resolute: a synod according to General Assembly rules. N o union could be effected with the Protesters on these terms. The schism was complete. The last vestige of church discipline in Glasgow was gone. The disintegration of discipline in the church had carried over into the college. Dr. Strang, who, in return for his donation of 600 merks toward the building fund back in 1636, had been given a room at the college for his lifetime use, had been put out of that room "by the English," Baillie said, but he had refused to give up the key until he could be heard in a full faculty meeting. Gillespie, however, at the beginning of the year, had broken the lock, installed a new lock, and set up his protégé, John Young, in Dr. Strang's room. Gillespie took the keys to the small study rooms from Baillie's students also, ousted those students, and gave the keys "to whom he liked better." All this was bad enough, Baillie thought, but, in addition, Gillespie had not "Baillie, Letters, 3:236; also Wariston, Diary, 1650-1654,

229.

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Protestors

conducted one class since he had been installed as principal, which meant in more than a year, at the time Baillie was writing.59 This faculty feuding had its effect upon the students, who began lampooning the professors and regents "in a number of the most base and scandalous Latin verses," particularly "abusing Mr. Patrick and Mr. John Young very vilely." Gillespie was infuriated and tried to put a stop to it by "scourging" and threats. The result was that some of the best students left Glasgow and "would no more return." The lampoons continued. Young Henry Baillie was thoroughly disillusioned. Much to his father's regret, Henry wanted to quit the college and become a merchant. Writing to Spang in May, Baillie thought that he could persuade Henry to finish out his bachelor year and that after the harvest he would send him to Spang "to spend the winter, and what time more you think fit, to learn Dutch and French, to keep a merchant-book, or what else you made my brother's son learn." This decision was not easy for Baillie. "I had purposed him, as also my eldest son, for the ministry," he wrote, "and I thought he had as fair beginning as any of his age, towards that holy calling. But his peremptory resolution makes me, with grief, change that my design for him." The affairs of kirk, college, and commonwealth converged in March when Cromwell wrote to Gillespie and two other Protesters, requesting that they confer with him in London. The "triumvirate," as Baillie called them, left for London in April. In mid-May another letter from Cromwell to the Resolutioners Robert Blair and Robert Douglas and to the ministerial leader of the Protester faction, James Guthrie of Stirling, requested their presence also at Whitehall. All three excused themselves.60 "Baillie, Letters, 3:239. " " T h e letter is printed in Firth, Protectorate, p. 102; references to it are in Nicoll, Diary, pp. 127, 13J, and Baillie, Letters, 3:243, 249, 281. Neither the Resolutioner nor the Protester faction would do business with Cromwell. Each was bitterly opposed to Cromwell's action concerning the General Assembly. F o r a scholastic explication of the stand of the Protesters—with which any Resolutioner would have agreed (and that is the tragedy of this whole story)—see Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh and Some Other Brethren of the Ministry, vol. 1, 1 6 5 2 - 1 6 5 7 , William Stephen, ed, (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1 9 2 1 ) , 4 4 - 5 6 . Gillespie was willing to deal with the English; Livingston remained more aloof. William M . Campbell, The Triumph of Presbyterianism (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1 9 5 8 ) , p. 59, says, "There was a good deal of

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Baillie viewed Gillespie's four-month stay in London as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he wrote in July, "Through Mr. Gillespie's absence, our College had been long at peace." On the other, "Though these diverse months all discipline has been loose among us; the boys, after the fray among them for the scandalous verses, never well settling; no examination at the end of the year, no solemn laureation, nor much attendance on classes. I think Mr. P. G., if he were present, would see better order." The troubles of Glasgow's Resolutioner synod and presbytery increased during the summer of 1654. In June the Protester synod met and began its work of purging and replanting the churches, although both Baillie and Ferguson, Baillie's successor at Kilwinning, had asked them to delay or at least not to move hastily. The formation of the purging committees must have had some effect upon the Resolutioner ministers, however, because on August 1 the two synods met together in an attempt to reconcile their differences, although Baillie does not say who had initiated the move. Suggestions for terms of reunion passed back and forth among them, but they "could come to no agreement." The Resolutioners, those whom Lilburne had called "The Assembly Party," stood firm on the regulations of the defunct General Assembly. The Protesters, equally firm in the belief that the general assemblies of 1651 and 1652 had been illegally constituted, would also not yield. One of the Resolutioner ministers whom the Protester synod was trying to purge was Archibald Dennistoun, minister of the church of Campsie. The Resolutioner presbytery appointed a committee to visit the church, to gather testimony from the congregation, and to report. On July 14 the committee reported to the presbytery that they could find no basis for purging. When the presbytery met again on August 3, Dennistoun reported that the charges had not been dropped, but he added that he had denied the Protesters' right to judge him, that he had refused to answer their charges, and had said that he would defend himself only before the lawful presbytery. The decision at this meeting was to meet with the Protesters to find some way of resolving the issue. George Young was sent as messenger to John Carstares to try to learn the Protesters' bases for their charges. Apparently Young the careerist in both Gillespies." The other Gillespie had been George, delegate to the Westminster Assembly, who had died in 1648.

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could not arrange a meeting with Carstares by the time of the next presbytery on August 15 because no record of any meeting was recorded. Again when the presbytery met on September 12, no report was mentioned although that meeting was dissolved for lack of a quorum. The Dennistoun matter was not yet over.61 Gillespie's charter. Sometime in the interim between those two presbytery meetings, Gillespie had returned from London. He brought with him two charters out of Whitehall: one concerned the college;82 the other concerned the ministry. The latter was to become known as "Gillespie's Charter." It read in part: For the better propagation of the Gospel, and advancement of Godliness in Scotland, be it ordained . . . that none but godly and able men be authorized . . . to enjoy the livings appointed for the Ministry in Scotland; and to that end, that respect be had to the choice of the more sober and godly part of the people, although the same should not prove to be the greater part; and that no person shall be . . . authorized, or admitted into any such living or benefice, but such as shall be first certified by the persons hereafter named, for the respective provinces hereafter mentioned . . . to be a person of a holy and unblameable conversation, disposed to live peaceably under the present government, and who for the Grace of God in him, and for his knowledge and utterance is able and fit to preach the Gospel.63

The charter divided Scotland into five districts or provinces and assigned to certain designated persons within each district the authority to pass judgment on all ministers and expectant ministers in that district, both to purge and to plant. A total of fifty-seven persons was named; the overwhelming majority was either Protester or Independent. Of the fifteen persons named in the Glasgow-Ayr district, only Patrick Colville, minister at Beith, was a Resolutioner. Patrick Gillespie was one of the Protesters on the list. The Glasgow presbytery met again on September 29 with Baillie and five other ministers plus one ruling elder in attendance. T w o pieces " Glasgow Presbytery Records MSS, j: 147-150. "Munimenta, 1:319-320; APS, 6(part 2):8ji-833-

" Nicoll, Diary, p. 166.

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i71

of business were taken up. The one was the report of George Young on the Dennistoun affair. The Protestors, he said, were willing to hold a meeting in the case of their censure of Dennistoun, but some were unwilling even to sit with some of the Resolutioners. Young did not specify which Resolutioners had been named. The other was the fact that since their last meeting on September 12, the entire presbytery had been put under censure by the Protesters. The presbytery then voted that each member present would submit himself to trial by the presbytery to determine if the conduct of any one of them had been such as to warrant censure according to the laws of the church. One by one the seven members present were examined by the others. In each case the other members voted: no basis for censure. On this note of fragile independence, the Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow end abruptly. They were not to resume until three years after the Restoration.84 Baillie never wrote about what had happened in those fateful days between mid-August and October. His letters end on August 22, and a gap exists of more than a year. The very fact that Baillie, the "voluble Baillie" as Wedgwood calls him, the "babbling Baillie" according to Carlyle, never recounted the story of the last days of the lawful Glasgow presbytery is evidence of the painful crosscurrents that were at work. What happened must be inferred from fragments and innuendo. The presbytery all except Baillie met again with the Protesters. Dennistoun was deposed and a Protester put in his place. The remainder of the presbytery voted to unite with the Protesters. Baillie refused. In a letter to Spang in 1655, Baillie made his one and only reference to Gillespie's charter: "The clauses in the order appointed the judges to assist them [the Protesters] in the ejection of all whom they should declare scandalous, as ye may read in the order itself printed by the council. So soon as this was known, however, the Remonstrants in our bounds and in the south were glad, and began to make use of it." 65 Baillie did write about the synod, albeit briefly. As soon as Gillespie had returned from London, a committee of four, "Mr. James Ferguson and Mr. George Young for us, Mr. James Durham and Mr. Patrick Gillespie for them," was appointed. They agreed among themselves on a set of suggestions for union of the two synods. All decisions were " G l a s g o w Presbytery Records MSS, 5:150-151. "Baillie, Letters, 3:278-283

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to be left to the synod, "whereof Remonstrants were the plurality." The Assembly was to be abandoned. Clearly, to Baillie this new plan was in error; it could lead only to Independency. "I did not yield to it," he wrote. The others did. Only four out of the entire synod hesitated, and one refused outright. That one was Baillie. At the risk of his ministry and of his position at the university, he held out. He never again attended either a presbytery or a synod. The man for whom the church, the covenants, and the king had formed the very core of his being found himself in his early fifties cut off from all three, by Cromwell, by the commonwealth, by the Protesters, but, above all, by his own unyielding Scots Covenanter conscience.

B

Baillie and Patrick Gillespie (1^4-1^5-8)

Patrick Gillespie's future success in Glasgow seemed assured when he returned from London in 1654. The continued ascendance of the Protester faction seemed likewise assured. Throughout the next four years Gillespie took the center of the stage while Baillie stayed in the wings. From this vantage point, however, Baillie was able often to set the scene in which Gillespie was to play. Gillespie's charter. Although Gillespie had some immediate success in Glasgow in implementing his charter, he failed on the national scene. Both the Protesters and the Resolutioners, meeting in their respective sessions in Edinburgh in November, rejected it. It was, each group said, an infringement upon presbyterial rights granted by Parliament. The Protesters, not content with this statement, added that that infringement came from an unlawful magistrate, namely, the English Cromwell.1 The Resolutioners gave their written objections to General Monck, who on November 10 enclosed them in a letter to Cromwell and added, "Your Highness may hereby perceive the present temper of the Ministers here, most of whom (as well Remonstrators as others) are very much dissatisfied with the Instructions brought down by Mr. ,

S e e Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh and Some Other Brethren of the Ministry, vol. 1: 1652-1657, William Stephen, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1921), 57-69, hereinafter cited as Cons. Mins. /, for the Protesters' objections, and 71-80 for the Resolutioners' objections.

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Gillespie, and very few (if any) will act in it, but I perceive they do rather incline against it." 2 Gillespie's charter, moreover, created a slight rift in the hitherto unified Protester ranks. According to Baillie, some Protesters had favored it, and the Protester resolution against it had, therefore, been suppressed "for fear of dividing their party . . . for some of them were much more complying with the English than Wariston and Mr. James Guthrie allowed." 3 Gillespie's building program. Gillespie's other charter concerned Glasgow College. By it, King Charles's mortification of the income of the property of the former bishop of Galloway was confirmed and augmented, and an additional 200 merks sterling were ordered to be given by the burgh of Glasgow to the college for the support of additional scholarship students of Gillespie's choosing. With the additional funds and privileges granted, Gillespie started building. As the building progressed, so did the need for money increase. Gillespie reactivated a college regulation, long defunct, that students who stopped attending classes would not have their fees refunded, and added fines for nonattendance of classes and also for misbehaving. Further, fees were to be paid in full before a student would be promoted to the next class. The students, it appears, had a habit of spending the fee money their parents had given them on carousing in a Scotland and the Protectorate: Letters and Papers Relating to the Military Government of Scotland from January 1654 to June ¡659, C. H . Firth, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1899), p. 211, hereinafter cited as Firth, Protectorate. John Nicoli, A Diary of Public Transactions and Other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland, from January 1650 to June 1667 (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1836), p. 137, hereinafter cited is Nicoli, Diary, reports that "the rest of the brethren of the ministry were not well pleased." In Letters from Roundhead Officers Written from Scotland and Chiefly Addressed to Captain Adam Baynes July MDCL-MDCLX (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1856), two references are made to Gillespie's charter and the reaction to it: " T h e Ministers here are generally dissatisfied: they find that the power given to Mr. Gillespie, and others in commission with him, strikes at their root, and is an order to taking their prerogative from them" (p. 101, written October 7, 16J4); and " T h e Ministers here are in a discontent, and have declared against the late Ordinance of his Highness and Council (Empowering Mr. Gillespie and 20 with him, to settle the Ministry in Scotland), and have voted it a great sin (for) Mr. Gillespie to procure such an ordinance" (p. IOJ, written November n , 1654). 8 Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, AM., Principal of the University of Glasgow, MDCXXXVI1-MDCLX1I, David Laing, ed., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842), 3:283, hereinafter cited as Baillie, Letters.

Baillie and Patrick Gillespie

lis

the town and then of never paying the college. Gillespie put a stop to that. In March he demanded from the town, and got, the 1,000 pounds that Zachary Boyd, who had died in 1653, had bequeathed to the college for building purposes. In June the town council voted money for building materials for the college, and a month later they voted an additional 600 pounds Scots toward the construction. In March 1656 they voted an additional 100 pounds sterling, which was the equivalent of an extra 1,200 pounds Scots. With all these extra useful services that Gillespie was performing for the college, he requested a raise in salary. Thus, the faculty voted to give him half the income that accrued to the college from any new land leases he would be able to secure on the Galloway lands; only Baillie objected to this act. It was not customary, he said, to pay the principal a percentage for such services. In June of that year, Gillespie was also given one-half the income of the tithes, the leases on which had expired and which Gillespie had not renewed. Baillie apparently did not object in writing to this gift. Further, Gillespie had received 100 pounds sterling from Cromwell before he left London and, according to Baillie, a gratuity of "thirty pieces" from the town council for his services to the town. Baillie, whose only extravagance was his library, wondered about the way money passed through Gillespie's hands. "His stipend that year, I think, was two thousand merks, and his disbursement for us about (one thing and another) another thousand merks, beside one thousand merks for books to the Library. For all this I think he was no gainer: his journey and way of living at London was sumptuous." 4 Gillespie started his building program in 1655. Baillie says that before the end of the academic year, Gillespie had taught "two or three hours something on the first of Ezekiel; but his main task was, that which he goes about very well, the building of a very fair house, on Mr. Zachary Boyd's legacy: this he does so that no man can do it better." A year later Baillie marveled: "Our gallant building going on vigorously; above twenty-six thousand pound are already spent upon it: Mr. Patrick Gillespie with a very great care, industry, and dexterity, managing it himself as good as alone. But," he added sadly, "our inward and most necessary materials are too much neglected." In November of 1658, ' Ibid., 382.

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the building was still going on. By that time, however, Baillie's patience was wearing thin: "With the din of masons, wrights, carters, smiths, we are vexed every day," and, "I bear [it] because I cannot help it. And also because Mr. Gillespie has strange ways of getting money for it, by his own industry alone." 5 Baillie was always to marvel at Gillespie's "strange ways" of getting money and of spending it; he frankly admired the first and deplored the second. By the time Baillie made these comments, Gillespie had given up teaching altogether and had concentrated on his chief work, which to Baillie was "building and pleas." 6 The reconstruction, which was not completed until 1659, was handsome indeed. The buildings, four stories high, were all of the native gray granite that abounds in Scotland. Gillespie completed the inner quadrangle that had been begun in 1632 and 1639 by the late Principal Strang.7 T o the north and east sides already completed, Gillespie added the south and west sides in 1656, with the archway in the west side that led to the outer quadrangle. The north and south sides of the outer quadrangle were finished in 1658. In 1659 the three old buildings that faced High Street were torn down, and a new west side to the outer quadrangle was constructed. The new west side was composed of the new principal's house to the south, the main entrances and archway in the middle, over which was the large and sumptuous faculty meeting room, and the entrance to the new home for the divinity professor on the north.8 Baillie did not appreciate losing his old home. "Mr. Gillespie," he wrote, "alone for vanity to make a new quarter in the College, has cast down my house to build up another of greater show, but far worse accommodation; in the mean (while), for one full year, I will be, and am exceedingly incommodated." Photographs and the muniments of the college, however, reveal that Baillie's new house was a solidly built 'Ibid., 285 (September I 6 J 5 ) , 313 (September I6J6), 384. ' A faculty act of April 30, 1658, exempted Gillespie from all his teaching duties to leave him free to attend his other "very weighty" duties. Micnimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis: Records of the University of Glasgow from Its Foundation till 1121, Cosmo Innes, ed., 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), 1:356, hereinafter cited as Munimenta. ' See my Chapter II, footnote 19. "David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow: Jackson, W y l i e & Co., 1927), p. 31. Murray's volume contains numerous photographs of the old college. T h e photograph of Baillie's new house is opposite p. 48.

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structure on the north side of the outer quadrangle. It was made up of five "chambers" and had one fireplace. It was whitewashed and painted inside and had a pitched slate roof. T w o large windows on each of the three upper stories faced north toward the High Church, and t w o faced south into the quadrangle. In addition, Baillie had his own stable for his horse. In the cold Glasgow winters Baillie did not even have to go outside to reach his classrooms because the Hebrew classroom was on the ground floor of his house and the divinity classrooms were on the upper floors of the tower that was formed b y the juncture of Baillie's house with the new High Street front. Baillie's complaints about his new accommodations, therefore, must be viewed in light of a middle-aged man, conservative and sentimental b y nature, who could do nothing to prevent the tearing down of old buildings he had known since childhood and with which he had fond memories of earlier and happier times.9 Gillespie used every legitimate means to raise money for the building: he got money from Cromwell and from the town council; he leased fallow land belonging to the college; he borrowed against future rents; he allowed pulpits over which the college had jurisdiction to lie vacant because, b y an additional gift of Cromwell in 1657, the principal had the use of the first-year stipends of such vacant pulpits. He even, as it turned out, used some illegitimate means, such as juggling the accounts of the college to conceal rents that should have gone to other purposes. W i t h all this income, however, when the college books were audited b y the town council in December 1656 they showed a deficit of 334.12.4 pounds. W h e n the books were audited in 1658 they not only showed a deficit, but, as Baillie says, they "did not well agree." Y e t there was "no din," and the faculty signed the audit. N o one even hinted that Gillespie had feathered his own bed in this matter of uneven accounts, certainly not Gillespie's appointees and not even Baillie. T h e town coun• These buildings remained in use until 1870 when the new university buildings were completed at the Gilmorehill section of Glasgow. T h e old buildings were sold and were used as a railroad station. T h e y were demolished in 1887. A portion of the center building on H i g h Street, that is, the main archway and a portion of the adjacent building, was removed to the new site and reconstructed. This small section is the only part that remains today of all this frenetic building activity T h e old site is today unrecognizable as a once beautiful thoroughfare. T h e new buildings on Gilmorehill are laid out on lines similar to the old, around large quadrangles.

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cil, however, had not been permitted to oversee the audit, as was its right.10 Scotland in 1655. The year 1655 witnessed a turning point in AngloScots relations. General Monck, the Englishman, wrote to Cromwell in January, "All is quiet here, and things are like to settle, the country seeming to be weary of the war." 1 1 In April he repeated, "Things here are very quiet." Baillie, the Scot, said also that "all Scotland is exceeding quiet," and added, But in a very uncomfortable condition; very many of the Noblemen and gentlemen, what with imprisonments, banishments, forfaulters, fines, as yet continuing without any release, and private debts from their former troubles, are wrecked or going to wreck. T h e commonality and others are oppressed with maintenance to the English army. Strange want of money upon want of trade, for our towns have no considerable trade; and what is, the English have possessed it. 1 2

At Monck's urging, Cromwell appointed a nine-man separate council of state for Scotland in May. The chief of the council was one Roger Boyle, son of the earl of Cork, created baron of Broghill by Cromwell. In this young man, only thirty-four years of age, Cromwell had made an astute choice. The council members arrived in Scotland in September. Broghill conferred with the leading Resolutioners and Protesters and by the end of the month of September had passed two acts that were to go a long way toward alleviating some of the more painful reminders that Scotland was a militarily occupied country. On September 24 he granted the Scots burghs the right to election of their magistrates, the first time since 1652, with the provision that none be elected who were "dangerous to the commonwealth" or "disaffected to the present government." Then, following conferences with the leading Resolutioners, at which time the Resolutioners told him that they could not leave off praying for the king as long as the prohibition remained in effect lest the people 10 Munimenta, 1:354-355 (December 29, 1656), 3:493-494 (January 14, 1656), 3:501. "Firth, Protectorate, p. 244. 12 Baillie, Letters, 3:288.

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believe that they had been motivated by fear of loss of their stipends, Broghill removed the penal prohibition against prayers for the king. 13 When Broghill reported to Cromwell on these two actions, he added that he believed the Resolutioners would now abstain voluntarily.14 He was right. The Resolutioners met in Edinburgh on October 5 and voted to discontinue public prayer for the king. 15 Baillie, however, continued. "So long as I might do it," he wrote to Spang, "without scandal, or reflecting on my wiser and better brethren's omitting of it, I did never pass it by in prayer." Broghill and the Protester-Resolutioner controversy. The difference between Protester and Resolutioner was one of emphasis. Both held that they were abiding by the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant. The Protesters emphasized Article I V of the covenant, by which all Malignants were to be excluded from service or places of public trust, formerly to the king and currently to the commonwealth. They saw in the public resolutions a repudiation of the contract that had been made with, and in the presence of, God. Such violation would bring the wrath of God on Scotland and ultimate failure of any earthly enterprise undertaken as a result of that violation. They considered the failure of Charles in 1651 and the subsequent commonwealth to be the result of the wrath of God because of the violation of the covenant brought about by the public Resolutions. The Resolutioners emphasized Article III of the Solemn League and Covenant, by which the king's "person and authority," the "liberties of the kingdoms," and the "rights and privileges of the Parliaments" were to be preserved. In 1651 they had viewed the growing power of the sectarian army of England as a danger to the king, the church, the kingdom, and the covenant itself. They had seen in the Resolutions a means of strengthenia Nicoll, Diary, p. 160, says it was proclaimed at the market cross on the first day of October. 14 The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland and the Government During the Commonwealth, vol. 6, part 2: AJ>. 1646-1660, printed by authority of the Lords Commissioners of H . M. Treasury, 1872, 891-893, hereinafter cited as APS. Broghill wrote this letter, in which he recounted this conversation with the Resolutioner ministers, on September 27. The conversation had preceded the lifting of the ban. * Cons. Mins. I, 89-90. Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), p. 3j6, is in error on the sequence of events here.

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ing the king's army on behalf of this article. As long as the former Malignant repented sincerely of his apostacy, the Resolutioners held him acceptable in the sight of God to fight for the king. The Protester wing had been a united one for more than three years. It had been divided on the issue of Gillespie's charter but had not split. The rift grew wider in the months that followed. The cause of that widening rift was a difference of opinion over the means to employ to bring about a union between the Resolutioner and Protester factions. Gillespie had thought his charter would force a union. James Guthrie and Wariston, not approving of bringing the English into Scots church problems, devised another way. In December 1654 they wrote up a new covenant, a personal covenant. According to Baillie, the personal covenant repudiated the 1651 and 1652 general assemblies. It was intended also to replace the old covenants of 1638 and 1643 and thus, by removing the basic documents out of which the ResolutionerProtester split had developed, to provide a new basis for union among those whom the Protesters called "the godly," whether Protester or Resolutioner. An additional intent appears to have been the placing of all church power in the hands of those who subscribed to the new covenant. Likewise, it denounced the English authority in Scotland and in matters of Scots conscience. Gillespie and Livingston were also for union of the two factions but not at the expense of losing English friendship. At a Protester meeting in January 1655 these two "English agents," as Baillie called them, had opposed the personal covenant. At a Protester meeting in early September 1655, just before the new council of state held its first meeting, Gillespie suggested that they petition the council to arbitrate in a union between the two factions. Wariston and Guthrie opposed this scheme. Union, they said, should be on the basis of the 1650 General Assembly commission and was not a matter for English intervention. When the new covenant was discussed at the October Glasgow-Ayr synod, it was rejected, or, to use Baillie's language, it was "crushed" by Gillespie.16 Gillespie went to Edinburgh in October. He said that he was going M

The Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, vol. 3:1655-1660, James D . Ogilvie, ed., Scottish History Society (Edinburgh: University Press, 1940), 8-9, hereinafter cited as Wariston, Diary, 1655-1660. See also Baillie, Letters, 3:276. N o copy of this covenant is known to exist.

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for a conference with the other Protesters on the subject of union with the Resolutioners. Baillie, however, reported that Gillespie was "preaching to the Council, and keeping of their kirk the whole Sabbath, and going with the President in his coach to dinner." This behavior puzzled Baillie until, on October 23, the council of state proclaimed at the market cross in Edinburgh that the ordinance of August 8, 1654 (Gillespie's charter), had not yet been acted upon and proclaimed a deadline of December 1 for the persons designated in the ordinance to set about their task of certifying Scotland's ministry, or the council would "supply it with other fit persons who shall be willing to carry on that desired work." 1 7 As a result of this announcement Baillie concluded that because Guthrie and Wariston had opposed Gillespie's charter in 1654, so Gillespie had opposed their personal covenant and had thereafter sought Broghill's assistance in implementing his charter. The new announcement met with immediate response. The Protesters, who still opposed it, published their original objections and called for a conference with the Resolutioners on the subject of union.18 The two forces met in Edinburgh from November 8 through November 30, although the tedium and failure to come to any agreement caused persons on both sides to leave before it was over. Baillie was there but was one of those who left early; so did Gillespie. Overtures, queries, answers, and new overtures passed back and forth. The sticking points remained as before: the assent of the General Assembly commission to the public resolutions of 1650, to the rescinding of the Act of Classes in 1651, and the illegality of the 1651 General Assembly because of the prelimitations placed upon delegates. An element new to these conferences, however, was the dissention within the Protester party in their private meetings. Wariston's Diary for the years 1655-60 recounts numerous "terrible debates" and "arguments" over the best means to effect union. Some favored the personal covenant; some favored Gillespie's charter. Ultimately, in these arguments, the personal covenant was defeated. Wariston and Guthrie had proved to be no match for Gillespie.19 Each wing of the church continued to go its own way. The Guthrie17

Nicoll, Diary, pp. 163-164, prints the proclamation in full, as does 6(part 2):8jo-83i. The proclamation was dated October 17, 1655. APS, 6(part 2>:899. Broghill's letter enclosed a copy for Cromwell's use. 18 Cons. Mins. I, 90-184, prints all the papers of these meetings.

APS,

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Wariston clique courted General Monck's favor. The Resolutioners courted Broghill's support. Gillespie too courted Broghill. Broghill had his own plans.20 Monck encouraged the Wariston-Guthrie faction to deal with Cromwell. He told them to submit a petition to Cromwell requesting that they be recognized, under the name of the General Assembly commission of 1650, as the ultimate church authority in Scotland. The Resolutioners countered this move by writing to Broghill, opposing this Protester request and listing reasons why the 1650 commission was no longer in legal existence.21 In February the Resolutioners petitioned Broghill for restoration of the authority of the inferior church courts as established by acts of the Scots Parliament. The particular authority they requested was that of certifying of ministers, and the reason they asked was that by such restoration of authority, peace could once again be restored to the church. They were, they said, "men of peaceable and orderly principles, disposed to live peaceably and inoffensively in our stations and conversations, not stretching ourselves beyond the line of our calling under any power or government it pleaseth the Lord . . . to subject us unto." 22 Between February and August the situation remained unchanged. Gillespie's charter was not put into effect. Neither were the Protesters granted their petition. The Resolutioners waited also. Gillespie left off his scheme for union and attended to his rebuilding of the college. " Wariston's Diary, 1655-1660, is strewn with references to dinner with Monck, with visits to his house, and with obvious pleasure that the Resolutioners "wondered to see the General so really our friend as he was" (p. 19). See Broghill's letter of February 26, 1656, in APS, 6(part 2):899-900, wherein he describes the situation between Protester and Resolutioner and the two wings of the Protester party. H e describes Gillespie and Livingston as "pious sober men, and I verily believe friends to your government." His plan was to gain the confidence of the Resolutioners so that they would purge their party voluntarily and then unite voluntarily with the Gillespie-Livingston wing of the Protester party. This union would then leave outside, that is, as hostile to Cromwell's government, only a handful of Protesters of the Wariston-Guthrie persuasion since the Resolutioners alone, as Broghill stated, constituted 750 out of the 900 parishes in Scotland, and the remaining 150 parishes were thus split. Such was Broghill's impression after onehalf year in Scotland. These impressions and plans were to undergo a radical change in the year that was to follow. "Wariston, Diary, 1655-1660, 18-19 (December 4, 1655); Cons. Mins. I, 184-190; Baillie, Letters, 3:300, 305-306 (January 30, 1656). 22 Cons. Mins. I, 200.

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Even Baillie's letters for the period are lacking in tidbits of gossip. If others were impatient for action, however, Baillie was willing to wait because, after all, "all must be done first at London," and they were "exceedingly longsome," as he knew well from experience.23 In those months of tranquility, Broghill's popularity grew. On August 14 the town of Edinburgh gave what Nicoll described as "a feast" for him because "This Lord Broghill was a very worthy nobleman of great judgment, and well beloved of all our Scots nation as knew him, and much desired by them to have remained in [the] place of Presidency." Baillie reported also that Broghill was "a man exceeding wise and moderate" and accorded him the highest praise he could have bestowed on anyone: Baillie called him "a Presbyterian." 24 At the same time as Edinburgh was feting Broghill and the other members of the council of state, the Resolutioners were meeting in Edinburgh. They petitioned Broghill in person for an answer to their February petition "relating to the entry of ministers." Broghill answered that he had only just recently received an order from Whitehall giving the council the power to determine in the matter. The conference between Broghill and the Resolutioners resulted in the Resolutioners sending notices to all the synods requesting that all ministers send to the council certificates from their presbyteries. The council would then determine the validity of their pastoral charges. By this act those persons who had intruded themselves into church pulpits without consent of the presbytery would not be able to obtain a certificate and could not, therefore, claim a stipend. By this act those ministers whom the Protester faction had put into pulpits without presbyterial permis" A provocative notice in APS, 6(part 2)-.890, col. 2, under "Letters and Papers of State, 1655" with no other date, and addressed to the council of state in Scotland, required that the commission for the planting of the churches in Scotland were to be careful to plant with "honest and faithful able ministers . . . and without any relation or respect had to any former order granted to Mr. Gillespie and others, that none shall be admitted without their recommendation, which was rather for their own eminency than the good of the work, as it now appears." When exactly was this order written? Was it after the Johnston-Guthrie petition, with Monck's recommendation, had arrived at Whitehall? Was it after Broghill's letter to Cromwell of late February 1656, in which he evinced such confidence in Gillespie and his wing of the Protester party? Gillespie's charter was not put into effect. "Baillie, Letters, 3:315-316. Wariston, however, called Broghill "the instrument of our ruin; he thinks to be very great by his so doing and so hopes to undo us. Lord, free us of him." {Diary, 1655-1660,61-62.)

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sion could be ousted. For the first time since 1651 some measure of church discipline was about to be restored to Scotland.25 As soon as the Protesters heard about the new order, they met together and decided to seek redress at Whitehall. The Edinburgh Resolutioners were informed of this intention—they do not say by whom— and decided to send one of their own "with Instructions for representing the condition of affairs here, and for using all means to keep off anything that may be projected by the dissenters to the prejudice of this Church." On August 23 they wrote to Broghill, informing him of their decision to send a representative to London and thanking him for his many kindnesses to them.26 The man the Edinburgh Resolutioners had chosen was James Sharp, minister at Crail in Fife. When Baillie and Blair heard of the decision to take the case to the English, they were angry. Blair did not approve of the Scots ministers airing their differences before Cromwell. Baillie, too, thought it "shameful," but then the Edinburgh ministers who had made the decision had not had time to seek the opinion of all the Resolutioners. The decision had been a private not a judicial one. Baillie, 1655-1656. Baillie had taken very little part in national affairs during these two years. He had attended a brief conference in June 1655, after which he had concluded that the Protesters did not want union any more than did the Resolutioners. He had been a delegate also to the fruitless and long drawn-out conferences of November 1655. With the exception of these two excursions, however, Baillie had been content to remain at Glasgow. He taught his classes, as best he could surrounded by the din of building, preached weekly at the Tron, and continued working on his Chronology. He did not sustain the aggressive action that had characterized him during the latter part of 1653 and early 1654. That behavior had been * I n a letter dated August 12, 1656, Broghill wrote to Thurloe: " A s soon as I received your letter with his highness's order in it concerning the ministers stipends, I forthwith called together the heads of them, where after some reasoning of the thing and the matters being well prepared before hand, they unanimously agreed, that every presbytery in the nation should certify to his highness's council here the fitness of him they would desire should enjoy the stipends." A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq; Secretary, First, to the Council of State, and afterwards to the Two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell (London: Thomas Woodward, 1742), 5:301. 26

Cons. Mins. I, 203, 210-213.

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out of character for him anyway and once Gillespie had returned with the evidence of his favors from the Protector, Baillie capitulated. Only the absence of his letters for more than a year following Gillespie's return testify to the painfulness of that capitulation. "Concerning our College-affairs," he wrote a year later, "this year we had nothing but quietness; for I have given over to stir more in vain, absenting myself from what I like not, and the rest are all of one piece." Robert M'Ward, the regent admitted in 1653, had had to quit at the close of the academic year in 1654 because of ill health, and a new regent, one George Sinclair, had been put in his place without any public competition. Baillie did not object but merely commented rather sadly that although he was a "peaceable and well-conditioned" young man, he was inferior in scholarship to young John Glen, who should have had the post. The students at the college were few, and practically no divinity students were enrolled; therefore, Baillie occupied himself with teaching Hebrew twice a week to all the students and not just to the graduates. Not only were the divinity students few in number, they also had no mind for study, Baillie reported, especially when they learned of students in other colleges, newly graduated, who after one or two years were "put in the best places." The students reacted by neglecting all study and were content to "preach in their popular kind of way, which requires little learning." Baillie ignored as best he could the fact that Gillespie was not meeting his classes because of his preoccupation with other matters, and he "took no notice" of what John Young was teaching.27 The churches of Glasgow were likewise quiet. Baillie attended no presbytery or synod meetings, but his colleagues, George Young at the Tron and James Ferguson in Kilwinning, kept him informed of all that went on. James Durham at the High Church abstained from all church meetings also and, to some extent, came to take the place of Dickson in Baillie's life, as a colleague with whom he could discuss and debate on questions theological. Durham "to this day, was to me very precious and dear," he wrote to Spang in 1656, "for however I have (as oft I told him) been very dissatisfied with many of his ways, yet I counted him one of the most gracious, wise, and able preachers now in this Isle." When rumors appeared that Durham might be transferred to Ireland, "Baillie, Letters, 3:285, 313.

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Baillie was saddened by his possible loss: " M y heart truly would be sorry if he should remove: he is the minister of my family, and almost the only minister in this place of whom my soul gets good, and whom I respect in some things above all men I know." Happily for Baillie, the rumors proved untrue. This professional friendship with Durham went a long way toward compensating for other disappointments. When Andrew Grey's death in 1656 created a vacancy at the Outer High Church, Gillespie put in Robert M'Ward, the same young man who had had to quit his post as regent because of poor health. Moreover, he had been installed without ever having undergone any trials by the presbytery and without a proper ordination. His health, it appears, would not have stood up under the ordeal. Baillie wondered how his health would stand up under the pressures of the ministry and concluded that he would handle that post as he had handled his teaching post—by frequent absences. Baillie took this appointment of M'Ward by Gillespie in his stride, but he was bitter over the next event in Gillespie's career. At the October 1656 meeting of the Glasgow-Ayr synod, the members voted to remove the censure that the synod in April 1651 had placed upon Gillespie for his rejection of the authority of the commission of the Assembly regarding the public resolutions and that the 1651 Assembly had ratified.28 That which amazed Baillie above all else was the fact that Gillespie had not requested removal of the censure and that the synod had not made it contingent upon his acknowledgement of any fault on his part. " T o this strange enormity, all formally voted," Baillie reported. Three persons had absented themselves from the meeting, including James Ferguson and George Young, and two others had left the meeting just before the vote was taken. Following this lifting of the censure, the synod sent Gillespie as a representative of the Glasgow 28 The Glasgow synod was one of the few that was not controlled by the Resolutioners. The Galloway synod was another; the Aberdeen synod was falling rapidly into Independent hands. The remaining thirteen synods had a majority of Resolutioners; some had no Protesters at all. This fact is not to deny the growth of the Protesters since i 6 j i . The protest against the Assembly that year had been signed b y twenty-two hands, that of 1652 by sixty-seven ministers, a threefold growth in only one year. By 1656 the total was 150 parishes. H o w many of these Protester ministers had been put in with the help of the English judges and Monck and how many had been called by the congregations is, to date, a moot question. The James Ramsay call and ordination of 1653, with his subsequent ousting by the Protesters, is a case in point.

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synod to attend the meetings of the Edinburgh synod. Two accounts of this mission, those of Baillie and Nicoll, are available. Baillie says that the Protesters had in mind that if the synod of Edinburgh were to permit Gillespie to sit, that such action would set a precedent for other synods in the matter of censured and deposed ministers, thus establishing a means of reentry into the Resolutioner presbyteries and synods of those who had been censured and deposed. Nicoll makes no attempt to interpret but says merely that Gillespie's "commission was rejected, alleging, that he was a deposed minister by the General Assembly and their committee, and not lawfully restored and readmitted," following which rejection some harsh words passed back and forth between Gillespie and the moderator, Robert Douglas. Baillie, who was in constant communication with Douglas, went into more detail and concluded, "I knew this irritation would not be easily forgot; it was a spur for their voyage to London." 29 Baillie's family life underwent some changes in this two-year period. His son, Henry, returned from Holland in November 1655. After having spent a year of apprenticeship to be a merchant, he was more than eager to return to college, "for which I thank God and you," Baillie wrote to Spang. The indulgent father then added, "I think his being with you well worth all the time, labour, and charge he had spent on it. The six pounds sterling he borrowed . . . at London, I have caused pay. . . . The rest of his account to you shall be answered with the first opportunity." Henry returned to his studies and was laureated in July 1656, third in a class of twenty-three. He started on his divinity studies in the fall. Baillie's elder son, Robert, had finished his divinity studies in the summer of 1655. Rather than try for a ministry, however, he had asked for the post of college librarian. The town council had approved his application in March 1655, but more than a year of diplomatic negotiations were required before Gillespie would sign the contract, although no one on the faculty had objected to the presentation.30 " I t was to be one of Gillespie's personal grievances that he would bring up in debate before Cromwell in February 1657. Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh and Some Other Brethren of the Ministry, vol. 2:16571660, William Stephen, ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1930), 15, hereinafter cited as Cons. Mins. II. "Baillie, Letters, 3:286-287, 295; Munimenta, 3:31-32; Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, AD. 1630-1662, J. D . Marwick, ed. (Glasgow: Scottish

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In mid-September 1655, in a letter to Spang, Baillie referred to the subject of his possible remarriage. "I dare not yet meddle with it," he said, until the situation in Scotland, and his own position particularly, were more secure. He was particularly worried about the possibility of being charged with treason for continuing in his public prayers for the king despite the mandate against it. "If in this I were secure, it's like I would follow your example in a second marriage," he told Spang, and added, in a tone somewhat too coy to be true, "albeit I know not yet the party; but I trust in this the Lord will be merciful to me." 3 1 In a fourteen-page letter written to Spang on September 1, 1656, Baillie made no mention of marriage, yet only one month later, on October 1, he married for the second time. His bride was Helen Strang, the widow of James Eliot, a minister, and one of the daughters of the late Dr. Strang. Baillie had undoubtedly known her since childhood. He had been a friend and colleague to her husband. By her first husband she had had three children, one of whom, the youngest daughter, Christian, was now added to the Baillie household. Baillie's new "five chamber" house was almost finished at the time of his marriage, but the new quarters must have been cramped. To his own six children by Lilias Fleming were now added Helen Strang and Christian, who must have been about two years younger than young Lilias, and, with almost indecent haste, Margaret, who was born on July 15, 1657. Baillie had said that he would not remarry until his situation and that of Scotland were more secure. In September 1655 the punishment for prayers for the king had been removed; in late August 1656 Broghill had issued his orders that would regulate the ministry and presbyteries of Scotland, presumably to the advantage of the Resolutioners. The hegemony of the Protester minority appeared about to be broken. The five-year period of anarchy in the pulpits was about to end. Baillie may not have approved of Scots ministers' airing their internal problems before the English at Whitehall, but he believed, nevertheless, that such an airing was necessary in order to restore discipline to the church and the universities. In a letter to James Wood, principal of St. Andrews, written in December 1656, Baillie warned: "See to your Colleges as you may: they [i.e., the Protesters] are fully masters of Glasgow Burgh Records Society, 1 8 8 1 ) , 3 1 0 - 3 1 1 , 329, 334, hereinafter cited as Burgh Records II. " Baillie, Letters,

3:287.

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[College], Aberdeen, and almost of Edinburgh. This commission of Wariston's, [Sir Andrew Ker of] Greenhead, Mr. P. Gillespie, and Mr. James Guthrie, will draw our affairs to a quick crisis." Then Baillie added, somewhat cryptically, I doubt nothing but one of their chief business will be to get, what Mr. P. Gillespie had obtained, the whole Magistracies in the land put in their party's hand. If they had this, Glasgow alone, beside other services, could give them sundry thousand pounds a-year, as they wont to do, to be disposed on without all count, as they thought fittest. If the burgh and shires see not to it, they will quickly be their hard taskmasters.32

As on many other occasions, so on this one too, Baillie's predictions were about to come true. London interlude: Gillespie vs. Sharp, 1657. Elaborate plans were laid on both sides for the coming duel of words. James Sharp left Edinburgh toward the end of August accompanied by Broghill, who was going up for the Parliament. In Sharp's pocket was a list of instructions drawn up by Douglas, Wood, and Dickson and a letter of introduction to Mr. Simeon Ashe, a prominent London Presbyterian minister.33 In late October, James Simpson, minister of Airth who had been deposed in 1651, departed for London as the advance representative of the Protesters. In his pocket were his list of instructions and a letter of introduction to that same Simeon Ashe. In early January 1657, "the chief of their party," as Baillie called them, that is, Guthrie, Wariston, Gillespie, and Ker, left for London with a letter of commendation from General Monck to Cromwell, testifying to their "peaceable living" and saying that "they are better to be trusted than the other party which are called the General Resolution men." 34 The Protesters went with four proposals to put before Cromwell: ( 1 ) that in every synod a committee should be appointed of equal numbers of Resolutioners and Protesters with power to plant and to purge the churches of all Malignants, (2) that a similarly composed committee should have power over all ecclesiastical matters, (3) that Cromwell 33

Ibid., 326-317. Cons. Mins. I, 204-210, prints the instructions, as does Baillie, Letters, 3:568-572. 84 Firth, Protectorate, p. 345.

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should appoint a committee to authorize ministerial stipends, and (4) that Cromwell should renew the Act of Classes of 1649 against Malignants.35 The first flurry of excitement came in January, when the Resolutioners learned that Samuel Rutherford, a Scots minister and theologian highly respected by Protesters and Resolutioners alike and by English Presbyterians as well, had written a letter to Simeon Ashe. Rutherford had said in this letter that no godly man could be admitted to the ministry in Scotland and that the churches were full of Malignants. Because of Rutherford's reputation, the letter had alienated the London Presbyterians from the Resolutioners. Dickson and Douglas wrote to Baillie and solicited his assistance in this matter. Baillie, who had maintained correspondence with the leading London ministers ever since the Westminster Assembly, wrote letters to Ashe and also to Francis Rouse, composer of the metrical Psalms and currently a member of the English council of state, thus counteracting the effect of the Rutherford letter. Douglas also asked him to write out a party platform for Sharp to use in his debates before Cromwell. When Baillie sent this platform to Sharp, he enclosed a caveat: "I desire, so far as may be, my name to be suppressed . . . else my name may hurt you, and the cause you have in hand." The result of Baillie's letters, as well as those written by Douglas and Dickson, was that even before the first debates before Cromwell occurred in February, the attitudes of influential Presbyterian ministers in London had been changed; in a letter to Rutherford, Ashe chided him for attacking the Resolutioner party in such "tartness of language" and admonished him to "keep at such a distance from approving any extrajudicial course in matters of Church government." In his report to Edinburgh in February, Sharp reported that the Protesters had said that no good could come from talks with their colleagues in London because Sharp's party had already corrupted their thinking. The Resolutioners had won the first bout.36 The first debates were held in February. In the presence of Cromwell, Sharp stood alone confronted by the five Protesters, three English Independent ministers, and one English Presbyterian. Sharp handled "Baillie, Letters, 3:353-354, and 573, for the propositions. That these were in fact their propositions is borne out by the later debates before Cromwell, as recorded in Cons. Mins. I, 348ff., and Cons. Mins. II, 1-14. "Baillie, Letters, 3:334-335; Cons. Mins. 1, 288-290 (January 19).

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himself well although he was understandably nervous, being alone against so many. He later had private conferences with the two Independents, Dr. Owen and Mr. Caryl, and those two, who had favored the Protesters before the debates, now admitted to holding neutral positions. Manton, the one Presbyterian, was turned sharply away from the Protester stand, primarily by what Sharp described as Gillespie's "insolent, laughing way." Cromwell, however, kept his own counsel. He dismissed them without giving them any decision.37 The scene shifted to Parliament in May. Among the many articles contained in the Parliament's "Humble Petition and Advice" given to Cromwell on May 25, to which he consented, the fourth article granted eligibility to sit in Parliament to all Scots who "have lived peaceably" since March 1652, which was the month and year of the acceptance of the Tender of Union. To the Protesters this phrasing was too vague; it opened the way for Malignants to sit in Parliament. They penned a paper giving reasons why all those who had engaged in the war of the Engagement of 1648 should be excluded, not only from Parliament but from all places of public trust, which would have included the burgh magistracies. As soon as Baillie heard of this projected paper, by what unknown correspondent he does not say, he saw Gillespie's ambitions at work. He wrote to Douglas, giving reasons why it must be blocked. It would be, he said, a renewal of the Act of Classes of 1649 and would place all the magistracies of Scotland in the hands of the Protesters. It was, above all, a move to replace the magistrates of Glasgow, an act which, if accomplished, would mean that in Glasgow the church, university, and town council as well would be under Protester control. Douglas then wrote to Sharp, who drew up an amendment of his own and had it submitted to Parliament by way of "our friends at the House." The "Protesters' Proviso" or "Additional Petition and Advice" was submitted to Parliament on June 15 and voted on. It was passed by a vote of fifty to forty-two. Ten days later Sharp's amendment to the proviso came before the house. Despite Desborough's onehour speech in its favor, when the vote came, whether the bill should be read a second time, the vote was sixty-six against and sixty-two for. Sharp's amendment, which would have excluded from the prohibition "Sharp's account of these debates and of his later interviews with the two Independents are in Cons. Mins. I, 348-369, and Cons. Mins. II, 5-18; Wariston's account is in his Diary, 16$$-1660, 57-66 passim.

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against Malignants all those persons currently holding office in Scotland, was defeated.38 Cromwell consented to the "Additional Petition and Advice" on June 26. By this Protester proviso the Engagers in the war of 1648, both those who had actually invaded England as well as those who had "advised, consented, assisted or voluntarily contributed unto that war," that is, those who had been "debarred from public trust by the Parliament of Scotland" by the Act of Classes of 1649, were hereby declared incapable of sitting as members of Parliament "or in any other place of public trust" except those who had subsequently fought for Cromwell or the commonwealth Parliament and those who were current parliamentary members. A copy of the "Additional Petition and Advice" was sent to the council of state for Scotland on July 7. Wariston was jubilant. Scotland, when it learned of the act that would in effect renew the Act of Classes of 1649, was angry. Monck wrote to Cromwell as soon as he learned of the June 15 vote. "The greatest part of this nation," he said, "are not pleased with this Act." He predicted that it would result in a reawakening of royalist sympathies. Wariston received letters from his wife in which she said that Scotland was "enraged" and that his name was hated for his part in it.39 The commonwealth Parliament rose on June 2 6. "Little was done in that parliament conduceable to the weal of this nation," Nicoll commented in his Diary. Fortunately for the Resolutioner cause, however, the "Additional Petition and Advice" was not to be put into effect. The third contest occurred during the summer months. In the weeks that followed the Parliament's "Additional Petition and Advice," both Wariston and Gillespie continued to press for further advantages while Sharp tried to press the advantages inherent in his favor with both Broghill and Secretary of State Thurloe. Finally, after prolonged debate in the council of state on July 14, Cromwell appointed a com88 Broghill had been absent for several days with the gout, a fact that Sharp regretted (Cons. Mins. II, 43) and Wariston thanked God for (Diary, 1655-1660, 80-81). Sharp reported, "Scots concernments do not much take with Englishmen. They thought it not worth the pains of going to the door." (Cons. Mins. II, 4243.) w APS, 6 (part 2) -.907, col. 2; Wariston, Diary, 1655-1660, 88.

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mittee of fourteen whose function was to hear both sides and to recommend a course of action. Seven of the fourteen were ministers, and three of those seven were Presbyterians; the other four ministers were Independents. Between July 21 and August 3 the committee met four times, although it was adjourned once for lack of a quorum and on the other occasions only one of the Presbyterian ministers, Manton, appeared.40 Sharp pleaded that he had no commission from a church court to deal in a judiciary way with a parliamentary committee that would be dealing with changes in Scots church law. Wariston and Gillespie claimed they had such a commission. The committee therefore refused to hear Sharp or to acknowledge his lawful capacity to treat of the matters at hand. The Protesters submitted their petition of suggestions for improving the churches of Scotland. On August 4 the committee brought forth its report. The report incorporated the requests of the Protesters.41 Sharp petitioned Cromwell immediately that no order be given on the basis of the committee's report until he could be allowed to have a copy of the Protesters' petition, transmit it to Edinburgh, and get advice and presbyterial or synodal authority to act. Thurloe took the petition to the council of state, where, he assured Sharp, it would be read in conjunction with the committee's report. A week later the council gave Sharp permission to appear before them, at which time he was called upon to comment on the three recommendations in the committee's report. The recommendations would have established a "visitation" committee of equal numbers of Protesters and Resolutioners with power to purge and plant the churches of Scotland, other committees of equal numbers of Resolutioners and Protesters in all the synods and presbyteries to ensure that no decision by the "visitation" committee would be overturned, and at the head of this system was to be a commission of persons appointed by Cromwell who would have " Bramford, one of the other Presbyterian ministers, may have been either in poor health or else very old because he died on August 27, 1657. (Cons. Mins. II, IOJ.) William Cooper, the other Presbyterian, lived outside London and found travel difficult apparently. "Wariston, Diary, 1655-1660, 96; Cons. Mins. II, 74. Sharp was allowed to see the petition only fleetingly at this meeting, and so he could not reproduce it fully. His report on its contents is in Cons. Mins. II, 58-59. Its contents will be revealed, however, by the report of the committee. Vide infra.

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the powers formerly exercised by the old General Assembly commissions, particularly in the matters of implementing the recommendations of the visitation committee and in authorizing the stipends. Sharp's replies to these recommendations, although extemporaneous, were directly to the point. Such a program, he said, would go contrary to the laws of the church in Scotland as established by acts of Parliament. Such a program would give control of the church to a minority, for the Resolutioners held 750 churches, and the Protesters held only 150 churches. Most presbyteries had no Protesters at all; nevertheless, they would be imposed, contrary to the will of the congregation, in order to make a moiety.42 As soon as the recommendations of the committee were bruited about London, some prominent English Presbyterian ministers gathered together, wrote a protest to the report, and said that the English council of state had no right to legislate in matters concerning the liberties granted to the Scots church by the Scots Parliament prior to the union. They submitted this joint protest to the council of state. The council sent it to the committee. The committee's report was dropped. They decided instead to write a public letter to the Scots ministers, telling them that they must work out their problems themselves. With this decision of August 27, the Resolutioner faction had achieved its goal. With the help of the London Presbyterians, they had prevented Gillespie and Wariston from overturning Broghill's decision of September 1655, the one that had placed admission of ministers in the hands of the Scots council of state based upon certification by the presbyteries. The authority of the presbyteries had been upheld. Scots church matters were to be once again the concern of Scotland. Gillespie and Wariston were not so easily defeated, however. The committee submitted a new report to the council on September 9, after which the council wrote an additional instruction for Scotland's council. In the case of disputed stipends, the instruction read, the ultimate decision was to be left to the persons designated by certain persons, hereinafter named. Gillespie's charter was about to be revived.43 " Cons. Mins. II, " Cons. Mins. II, person or persons ( follow.

94-98. 117; APS, 6(part 2)1765, cols. 1-2. APS reads: "but unto such as shall bring unto you a testimonial under the hands of ) [sic] or more of the persons hereafter named." N o names

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Sharp went immediately to Thurloe. Thurloe spoke with Cromwell and returned to assure Sharp that such an ordinance would never pass. In debate in the council of state two weeks later, with Cromwell present, the additional instruction was indeed laid aside. Neither was the public letter to the Scots ministers to be sent. When Wariston had his last interview with Cromwell on September 25, he noted in his Diary that Cromwell's attitude had changed. N o purging committee was to be set up, Cromwell had told him. Instead, both factions were to be referred to the Scots council of state. Wariston got leave to return to Scotland and left the following Monday. Only Gillespie remained in London. His mission was not yet finished.44 Gillespie vs. the Glasgow magistrates, 1657-1658. The "Additional Petition and Advice" remained in effect; it had been passed by Parliament and consented to by Cromwell. It could be voided only by Parliament, and Parliament had adjourned and was not to meet until January 1658. On the basis of this act, Gillespie had made his next move even before the church question had been resolved. The scene must shift temporarily at this point to Scotland. On September 29, exactly one week before their annual elections, the Glasgow town council received a letter directly from Cromwell, not by way of Secretary Thurloe, instructing Glasgow to suspend elections "until he shall be more fully informed in that particular." The magistrates must have gone directly to Baillie with Cromwell's letter because on the very same day Baillie wrote a detailed letter to Sharp, explaining the internal contest for control of Glasgow, which neither Sharp nor Cromwell could have been expected to know anything about. He enclosed Cromwell's letter with his own letter to Sharp and sent it off to London immediately.45 Five days earlier, on September 24 from Dalkeith, Monck had written a letter to Cromwell also about the Glasgow elections. " I have taken a view of the enclosed paper," Monck wrote, "And . . . humbly submit this my opinion concerning the same, that your highness would be pleased not to sign either this or any other paper of the like nature to Glasgow, or any other city or burgh within this nation." Monck then went on to give his reasons why the "enclosed paper" should not be approved. It would infringe the burgh privileges; it would be con44 16

Cons. Mins. II, 120, 123; Wariston, Diary, 1655-1660, 98-99. Baillie, Letters, 3:346-347; Glasgow Burgh Records II, 381.

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trary to the act of union; the "ordinance herein insisted on, dated the nth August of 1654" had been voided by the Parliament; the "Additional Petition and Advice" had made ample provision "for this very particular." Monck could not advise approving such an act, he concluded, "though I wish the remonstrating party very well." The burgh should "be left to the free election of their fellow burgesses." Cromwell should not "in the least interpose therein." 46 The scene now returns to London. Sharp had another interview with Thurloe on October 5. Thurloe assured him that not only were the Protesters' demands concerning the church not to be granted but that even the "Additional Petition and Advice," which had renewed the Act of Classes—although valid and not to be undone by Cromwell—would not be put into effect. Monck's "letters" (sic, plural), Thurloe said, had arrived and were very favorable to the Resolutioners, and added that "the letter came very opportunely." 47 Baillie's letter arrived a week later on October 12, only hours after Sharp had had a personal interview with Cromwell. Sharp went immediately to Thurloe, who told him to write out all the details of the Glasgow business. Sharp did so, enclosed Cromwell's letter to the magistrates of Glasgow (which Baillie had sent to him), and gave it to Thurloe. Sharp then went to work on friends in the English council of state. The result was that the council transferred the question of the Malignancy of Glasgow's magistrates, as alleged by Gillespie, to the Scots council of state. "If Mr. Gillespie, upon his return, make any bustling in that matter," Sharp wrote to Baillie on November 21, "Let [your magistrates] use their influence with their friends in the Council, at Edinburgh." Sharp's letter should have reached Baillie by December 1. On December 12 the Glasgow town council appointed two of its baillies to go to Edinburgh, with full powers as agents on behalf of Glasgow's liberties.48 Gillespie had attempted to have Cromwell and the English council of state set up a committee of the godly that would act as judges over the 48

Glasgow Burgh Records II, 379-380, prints Monck's letter, as does APS, 6(part 2) :9i3, col. 1. The "enclosed paper" is not printed. "Cons. Mins. II, 126. Whether this reference is to Monck's September 24 letter is not specified. That particular letter bears no reference to the Resolutioner party. I conclude that Monck had written other letters on the subject. 48 Glasgow Burgh Records II, 387; Baillie, Letters, 3:355, 360-361.

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nomination of Glasgow's magistrates in accord with the "Additional Petition and Advice." His plan had been foiled by Monck's strong letter advising against it. Cromwell, however, influenced undoubtedly by pressure from Gillespie, had, by his own fiat, suspended Glasgow's elections before he received Monck's reply. When Baillie wrote out his explanation of the Glasgow situation and turned Cromwell's letter over to Sharp, he gave Sharp the ammunition he needed in order to have the intricacies of the Glasgow matter elucidated and, as a result, transferred out of the hands of Cromwell and the English council of state to the Scots council of state at Edinburgh, where the ambitions of "Glasgow's Metropolitan," as Sharp called Gillespie, were better understood. Gillespie would now have to deal with the council in Scotland, and Monck was no longer his friend. Gillespie, the last of the Protester delegates, left London in midNovember. The Protesters had achieved none of the four proposals they had taken with them to London in January. Gillespie, however, did not return empty-handed. The council of state had granted him 200 pounds sterling on November 5 to help pay his expenses in London. In addition, he had been granted further privileges on behalf of the college to help with his building program. Wariston had had his debts forgiven and had been given a job. Guthrie had asked for nothing for himself and had received nothing. He had left London in July, at odds with both Wariston and Gillespie. Sharp returned to Edinburgh in January. He received the grateful thanks of the Resolutioners. He was to receive more tangible rewards for his diplomacy a few years later. No sooner was Gillespie back in Glasgow than he renewed his attack upon the Glasgow town council. In January he took his charges of Malignancy to the council of state in Edinburgh. In January, too, the town council made a compromise offer to Gillespie to remove nine names from the leet for the next council elections and to replace them with nine names of Gillespie's choice. Gillespie refused to listen. A month later the Glasgow burgh records for 1645 and 1648, the two "Malignant" years (that is, those that had preceded the two Acts of Classes of 1646 and 1649), were sent to Edinburgh, on request of the council. A debate was held before the council between Gillespie and Glasgow's representatives later in February. The result of this debate was that Glasgow was granted "full liberty" to proceed with its burgh

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elections. The order, signed by Monck, was read at the town council meeting of February 27.49 Gillespie was not through. The day before the elections the magistrates removed from the leet as many of Gillespie's men as they could (they no longer having to pacify Gillespie in view of the council's ruling) and, after the elections on March 2, Gillespie protested that the elections had been irregular. The case went back to the council of state. Hearings were held in April. Gillespie's charges of irregularity did not hold up. The case was dismissed.50 At this point the magistrates turned on Gillespie. On April 1, prior to the hearings on the elections, the magistrates and council had drawn up, approved, signed, promised to abide by and stand behind, a list of charges against Gillespie. The charges were lengthy and detailed. They included four charges of neglect of his duties at the college, that is, of failure to conduct his classes, of failure to preside at examinations and laureations, of extraordinary absence, and of academic insufficiency even to hold the post of professor and principal, plus five charges of maladministration of the income of the college. As soon as the charges against the town magistrates were dropped, they presented their suit against Gillespie. Gillespie went into "a high rage," according to Baillie. "He imagined," Baillie wrote to Spang, "that whatever libels he gave in against others, no man dared have been so bold as to have libelled him." 5 1 Gillespie returned to Glasgow and immediately called a faculty meeting. He read the charges and asked for faculty testimony on his behalf. The rector, one of Gillespie's friends, wrote out a testimonial for the faculty to sign. All signed with the exception of Baillie. The rector wrote out a special testimonial for Baillie to sign, but Baillie found too many statements in it that were "untrue" to Baillie's knowledge. On May 3, however, Baillie wrote out his own statement, brief, neutral, " Glasgow Burgh Records II, 388-389, 390-393; Nicoll, Diary, p. 211. Glasgow Burgh Records II, 393; Baillie, Letters, 3:363. 61 Glasgow Burgh Records II, 395. Curiously, the only person on the town council who did not sign the charges was Henry Glen, Baillie's half-brother. Barring the possibility that Glen and Gillespie were friends, which is not likely, I conclude that Baillie may have asked him not to sign, lest Gillespie's wrath (which, according to Sharp, Wariston, Nicoll, and Baillie, could be considerable) be turned against Baillie himself. Baillie, Letters, 3:574-577, prints the charges in full; see also 372. 60

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and significant by its omissions. He mentioned only those financial gifts and salary increments of which he had approved. He sent it to the rector for Gillespie's defense. Gillespie also solicited the support of the "common session," which was the term by which the town council had come to refer to the presbytery since 1654, and even sought testimonials from the divinity students themselves.52 Gillespie was not without friends on the council of state. When the matter was referred on May 11 to the council, Baillie writes, "His good friend, Swinton, obtained to him a fair absolution from all without any cognition of the matter." This refusal to hear the case, however, had been a quid pro quo because, at the same time, Gillespie's threat of new charges against the magistrates was dropped also. The Glasgow magistrates "were content to let [the charges] hang over his head for a time," Baillie wrote, just in case Gillespie decided to renew his suit against them. Gillespie then turned on Baillie. He accused him and George Young of having drawn up the charges. In a letter to Spang, Baillie denied ever having seen the formal charges until Gillespie read them at the April 30 faculty meeting, but he did admit "assisting to my power, by my letters to my friends of our town, in their just defence," and he did admit that he thought "it was no less than behoved to be expected, when so long and so violently Mr. Gillespie had been libeling them without cause." Baillie was not unhappy with the results of the town's suit, however.53 Gillespie's bid for control of the town council of Glasgow had failed. Gillespie, his ambitions on the national scene and even on the burgh level having been thwarted, turned back again to his rebuilding of the college. The din of masons, wrights, carters, and smiths resumed. The gallant building went vigorously on. 52

Baillie, Letters, 3:372. Ibid373. I do not disbelieve Baillie when he said that he had never "seen" the written charges; the details of the charges, however, could have come only from someone who was intimate with the minutest details of life at the college. K

9 Baillie's Closing Years (i6s. 1661-1664 (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1908), 63, hereinafter cited as RPCS. 84 Munimenta, 2:331-332. Gillespie settled for 4,000 merks. "Baillie, Letters, 3:406.

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With the opening of the First Scots Restoration Parliament, Baillie's faith in his "gracious Prince" was to be severely tested. Even as he waited for the king's formal presentation that was to make him principal of the college, Baillie learned that the Parliament had declared that the Solemn League and Covenant was not binding on the king and that no one was to require anyone either to swear to it or renew it without the king's permission. By the Act Recissory of March 1661, all parliamentary legislation since 1640 was declared null; by this act the parliamentary ratification of the rights and privileges of the Scots Reformed Kirk gained as a result of its victory over Charles I in the first and second bishops' wars, and all subsequent protective legislation, were wiped away. It nullified the Solemn League and Covenant also.36 Synods all over Scotland met in April and petitioned against these changes in the church government, but "while the Presbytery of Edinburgh, [the] Synods of Lothian, Fyfe, Glasgow, and others, were preparing petitions against this," Baillie wrote, "they were sore threatened." The synods were dispersed. The synod of Glasgow, whose petition had been completed, was forbidden to meet again. All supplications were forbidden. Baillie wrote to Lauderdale in anguish: "Were supplications discharged to any subjects in any time or place in the world, when modest and loyal? and for such alone, were ever the chief judicatories of the Church dissolved by authority? What will the end of such work be?" 37 In the last year of his life, Baillie witnessed the destruction of the Reformed church in Scotland on direct orders from the king. In August 1660 Charles had written a letter to the Edinburgh presbytery declaring that he had resolved "to protect and preserve the Government of the Church of Scotland as it is settled by Law, without violation, and to countenance in the due exercise of their functions all such ministers who shall behave themselves dutifully and peaceably, as becomes men of their calling." He had promised also to "take care, that the authority and Acts of the General Assembly at St. Andrews and Dundee 1651, be owned and stand in force until we shall call another General AssemM

APS, 7:18, 86-87; printed also in William C. Dickinson and Gordon Donaldson, eds., A Source Book in Scottish History, vol. 3: 1567-1707 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 153-155. "Baillie, Letters, 3:464, 477; Wodrow, Sufferings, 1 : 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , prints the text.

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Years

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bly." Nevertheless, exactly one year later the privy council received a letter from the king stating that, although such had indeed been his intention, the "Parliament, having since that time not only rescinded all the acts since the troubles began . . . and left to us the settling and securing church government," that he "declared to those of our Council here our firm resolution to interpose our royal authority for the restoring of that church to its right government by bishops, as it was by law before the late troubles." On September 6, 1661, episcopacy was reintroduced by royal mandate into the church in Scotland. On December 15, four Scots ministers were consecrated by Anglican bishops in London. One of those four was James Sharp, former minister at Crail, the loyal agent in London of the Edinburgh Resolutioners.39 The two forms of church government, episcopacy and presbytery, cannot co-exist in one church. By act of the privy council of December 12, therefore, patrons were forbidden to submit candidates to presbyteries for trials and presbyteries were forbidden to admit ministers to pulpits. A proclamation of January 9, 1662, suspended all church courts until authorized by the bishops. In February the observance of Lenten fasting was made mandatory. The Parliament, reconvened in May, declared the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant to be unlawful. In June, all appointments to benefices made since 1649 were declared invalid. Such ministers had to present themselves to the bishops before September 20 for the bishops' determination of their right to hold a ministry. In June also, all regents, masters, and principals of Scots universities were ordered to submit themselves to the bishops to take the oath of loyalty to the king as supreme governor in all matters and to receive approval of the bishops to continue in their teaching positions. The church calendar in Scotland had been turned back 100 years.40 Baillie's reactions to these changes were those of disbelief, followed by anguish, and ultimately by rejection. "Our State is very adverse to hear of our League and Covenant," he admitted in January, 1661; 38

Nicoll, Diary, pp. 299-300, for the text of the king's letter. RPCS, 1:30-32; Nicoll, Diary, pp. 340-341, prints the privy council decree also. Sharp was made bishop of St. Andrews; Robert Leighton, principal of Edinburgh University, was made bishop of Dunblane; James Hamilton, minister of Cambusnethan, was made bishop of Galloway; Andrew Fairfoul, minister of Dunse, was made bishop of Glasgow. (Nicoll, Diary, p. 354.) " N i c o l l , Diary, p. 360; APS, 7:377-378; Munimenta, 2:332-333. X

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"many of our people are hankering after Bishops, having forgot the evil they have done, and the nature of their office." In this atmosphere, Baillie placed his faith in the king. "The Goodness of the King himself is the only hope we have to get anything going right," he believed.41 After the passage of the Act Recissory in April 1661, Baillie was incredulous. The king had been badly advised. Baillie displaced his anger on the Scots secretary of the council, Lauderdale: What needed you to do that disservice to the King, which all of you cannot recompense, to grieve the hearts of all your gracious friends in Scotland to whom the King was, is, and will be, I hope, after God, most dear, with pulling down all our Laws at once which concerned our Church since 1633? W a s this good advice, or will this thrive? Is it wisdom to bring back upon us the Canterburian times? 4 2

After the reestablishment of episcopacy in September 1661 by royal fiat, Baillie did not know whom to blame: "His Majesty's letter to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, confirmed our hopes that no change should be made in our Church; but seeing what is past since, we know not now what to say, who desire most gladly to get any true ground of apologizing for all the King's and State's actions." 43 Before the end of the year, Baillie had rejected any idea that the king had been at fault. He wrote again to Lauderdale. It is all the pities in the world, that when his Majesty has no other intention but to give contentment to all his good people, that by the false information of some, none of the best men, he should do that which infallibly would bring the greatest grief and miscontentment, generally, on all here, that for some hundred years any action of any of our Princes ever brought on this land.44

By May 1662, the time of his last letter, Baillie had defined to his satisfaction those who had given this "false information": the English bishops had "poisoned" James Sharp; Chancellor Hyde had corrupted u

Baillie, Letters, 3:448. Ibid458-459, April 1661. "'Ibid., 464, September 1661 " Ibid477, undated, but written late in I6