A History of Scotland by Bruce Lenman

Author:Bruce Lenman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141927565
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-02-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

CROMWELL

‘K. Charles behedit at Whytehall gate, in England, by that traiterous parliament and armey (all honest men being formerly remoued,) one Tuesday, the 30 of Januarij, 1649,… Prince Charles proclaimed King of Grate Britane, France and Irland, at Edin-burghe crosse, by Illa and Snaudon herauldes; the Lord Chanceler, Loudon, black veluet goune, read the proclamatione.’

So the dispassionate words of the Lyon King, Sir James Balfour of Denmilne, record a momentous transaction. Scotland had her King, and with him came new difficulties. On the one hand her hope that she could blame the English army for the execution and continue the Solemn League with England was vain; for now the army ruled all. On the other Charles II would not accept the Covenants; he would agree to maintain Presbyterianism in Scotland, but for England and Ireland he would promise nothing without consent of the parliaments of these countries.

Behind this strictly ‘constitutional’ attitude he was marking time; he still had adherents in Britain and Ireland, and he hoped that his family connections would bring him help from abroad. When this hope failed he allowed Montrose to make another venture in Scotland, which in public he disowned. The venture failed disastrously: on 27 April 1650 the little expedition was crushed at Carbisdale in Sutherland by a vigorous ‘Protester’, Colonel Strachan, and a few days later its leader was captured. He was led to Edinburgh with many indignities, brought before parliament, and sentenced to be hanged on a gallows and his body afterwards dismembered.

The sentence was carried out at the Market Cross on 21 May; but the handsome face of the victim, his resolute speech before his judges, and his undaunted courage gave him a place in the hearts of Scotsmen which he still holds, though their minds may not approve his full career. He died to no purpose. Charles had already decided that he must accept the Scottish offers. This he did at Breda on 1 May; and on 23 June, before he landed at Garmouth at the mouth of the Spey, he signed both the Covenants.

At last Scotland had a ‘Covenanted’ King. Since the King was Charles II the impossible situation had an element of comedy. Yet those who denounce its absurdity should remember that the exile got no help from his illustrious friends abroad, and came to Scotland only because there he could find men to fight and die for him as the figurehead of an unrealizable ideal. The incongruities involved soon revealed themselves. The Covenanting leaders treated the King with outward respect, but they found it necessary to persuade the world – and perhaps themselves – that they were still true to their old cause, and, hearkening to the Commissioners of the General Assembly, they demanded concessions that could only be regarded as indignities by Charles, among them a profession that, though he must honour his father, he was humbled and afflicted in spirit before God for his father's opposition to the work of God, and for his mother's idolatry.

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