Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-21T11:38:16.200Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

PRESBYTERIANISM, SECULARIZATION, AND SCOTTISH POLITICS AFTER THE REVOLUTION OF 1688–1690*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2010

ALASDAIR RAFFE
ALASDAIR RAFFE*
Affiliation:
Durham University
*
Department of History, Durham University, 43 North Bailey, Durham, DH1 3EXa.j.n.raffe@durham.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article assesses the significance of Presbyterian ideas of church government in Scottish politics after the revolution of 1688–90. While recent historians have revised our understanding of Scottish politics in this period, they have mostly overlooked debates concerning religious authority. The article focuses on what contemporaries called the ‘intrinsic right’ of the church: its claim to independent authority in spiritual matters and ecclesiastical administration. The religious settlement of 1690 gave control of the kirk to clergy who endorsed divine right Presbyterianism, believed in the binding force of the National Covenant (1638) and the Solemn League and Covenant (1643), and sought to uphold the intrinsic right. An ambiguous legal situation, the criticisms of episcopalian clergy and politicians, and the crown's religious policies helped to make the Presbyterians' ecclesiological claims a source of instability in Scottish politics. Meetings of the general assembly and, after 1707, the appointment of national fast and thanksgiving days were particularly likely to spark controversy. More broadly, the article questions two narratives of secularization assumed by many previous scholars. It argues that Scottish politics was not differentiated from religious controversy in this period, and that historians have exaggerated the pace of liberalization in Scottish Presbyterian thought.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 317 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Stephen Taylor and to audiences in Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Reading for comments on earlier versions of this article.

References

1 Ferguson, W., ‘The making of the treaty of union of 1707’, Scottish Historical Review (SHR), 43 (1964), pp. 89–110Google Scholar; idem, Scotland: 1689 to the present (Edinburgh, 1968), pp. 1–69; idem, Scotland's relations with England: a survey to 1707 (Edinburgh, 1977), pp. 180–272.

2 P. W. J. Riley, The union of England and Scotland: a study in Anglo-Scottish politics of the eighteenth century (Manchester, 1978), esp. pp. 10–15; idem, King William and the Scottish politicians (Edinburgh, 1979).

3 P. Hopkins, Glencoe and the end of the Highland war (Edinburgh, 1998 edn), esp. pp. 8, 208.

4 D. J. Patrick, ‘People and parliament in Scotland, 1689–1702’ (Ph.D. thesis, St Andrews, 2002), p. 7.

5 K. Bowie, Scottish public opinion and the Anglo-Scottish union, 1699–1707 (Woodbridge, 2007).

6 K. M. Brown, ‘Party politics and parliament: Scotland's last election and its aftermath, 1702–1703’, in K. M. Brown and A. J. Mann, eds., Parliament and politics in Scotland, 1567–1707 (Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 245–86.

7 D. Hayton, ‘Traces of party politics in early eighteenth-century Scottish elections’, in C. Jones, ed., The Scots and parliament (Edinburgh, 1996).

8 T. N. Clarke, ‘The Scottish episcopalians, 1688–1720’ (Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 6–9; Harris, T., ‘The people, the law, and the constitution in Scotland and England: a comparative approach to the glorious revolution’, Journal of British Studies, 38, (1999), pp. 28–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 34–7; Davidson, N., ‘Popular insurgency during the glorious revolution in Scotland’, Scottish Labour History, 39, (2004), pp. 14–31Google Scholar.

9 Bowie, Scottish public opinion.

10 D. Watt, The price of Scotland: Darien, union and the wealth of nations (Edinburgh, 2007); A. I. Macinnes, Union and empire: the making of the United Kingdom in 1707 (Cambridge, 2007).

11 Onnekink, D., ‘The earl of Portland and Scotland (1689–1699): a re-evaluation of Williamite policy’, SHR, 85, (2006), pp. 231–49.Google Scholar

12 See e.g. C. A. Whatley with D. J. Patrick, The Scots and the union (Edinburgh, 2006); C. Storrs, ‘The union of 1707 and the war of Spanish succession’, in S. J. Brown and C. A. Whatley, eds., The union of 1707: new dimensions (Edinburgh, 2008), pp. 31–44.

13 M. F. Graham, ‘Kirk in danger: Presbyterian political divinity in two eras’, in B. Heal and O. P. Grell, eds., The impact of the European Reformation: princes, clergy and people (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 178–84; M. F. Graham, The blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead: boundaries of belief on the eve of the Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 2008).

14 An exception is C. Jackson, ‘Revolution principles, ius naturae and ius gentium in early Enlightenment Scotland: the contribution of Sir Francis Grant, Lord Cullen (c. 1660–1726)’, in T. J. Hochstrasser and P. Schröder, eds., Early modern natural law theories: contexts and strategies in the early Enlightenment (Dordrecht, 2003), pp. 107–40.

15 J. Stephen, Scottish Presbyterians and the act of union 1707 (Edinburgh, 2007). See also D. J. Patrick, ‘The kirk, parliament and the union, 1706–1707’, in Brown and Whatley, eds., Union of 1707, pp. 94–115; Macinnes, Union and empire, pp. 286–7.

16 Riley, King William, p. 7.

17 J. Hoppit, A land of liberty? England, 1689–1727 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 216–23, 231–6, 283–5; M. Goldie, ‘The nonjurors, episcopacy, and the origins of the convocation controversy’, in E. Cruickshanks, ed., Ideology and conspiracy: aspects of Jacobitism, 1689–1759 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 15–35; G. Holmes, The trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973); A. Starkie, The Church of England and the Bangorian controversy, 1716–1721 (Woodbridge, 2007).

18 J. C. D. Clark, English society 1660–1832: religion, ideology and politics during the ancien régime (Cambridge, 2000 edn). See B. Young, W., ‘Religious history and the eighteenth-century historian’, Historical Journal, 43, (2000), pp. 849–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 859–61.

19 J. C. D. Clark, ‘Great Britain and Ireland’, in S. J. Brown and T. Tackett, eds., The Cambridge history of Christianity, vii: Enlightenment, reawakening and revolution, 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 68.

20 Foremost among older studies are the (rather narrowly conceived) works of Thomas Maxwell. T. Maxwell, ‘William III and the Scots Presbyterians: part i – the crisis in Whitehall’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society (RSCHS), 15 (1964), pp. 117–40; idem, ‘William III and the Scots Presbyterians: part ii’, RSCHS, 15, (1965), pp. 169–91; idem, ‘The church union attempt at the general assembly of 1692’, in D. Shaw, ed., Reformation and revolution: essays presented to the Very Reverend Principal Emeritus Hugh Watt (Edinburgh, 1967), pp. 237–57. There is a brief account of the debates in Stephen, Scottish Presbyterians, pp. 6–8.

21 Leneman, L. and Mitchison, R., ‘Acquiescence in and defiance of church discipline in early modern Scotland’, RSCHS, 25, (1993), pp. 19–39Google Scholar.

22 See D. Martin, On secularization: towards a revised general theory (Aldershot, 2005), p. 20.

23 Ferguson, Scotland: 1689 to the present, pp. 102–32.

24 A. L. Drummond and J. Bulloch, The Scottish church, 1688–1843: the age of the moderates (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 1–24.

25 Frace, R. K., ‘Religious toleration in the wake of revolution: Scotland on the eve of Enlightenment (1688–1710s)’, History, 93, (2008), pp. 355–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. at pp. 363–4.

26 C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland's past: Scottish whig historians and the creation of an Anglo-British identity, 1689-c. 1830 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 62–9; idem, ‘Religious realignment between the Restoration and union’, in J. Robertson, ed., A union for empire: political thought and the British union of 1707 (Cambridge, 1995); C. Kidd, ‘Constructing a civil religion: Scots Presbyterians and the eighteenth-century British state’, in J. Kirk, ed., The Scottish churches and the union parliament, 1707–1999 (Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 1–21. This is less the case with Kidd, C., ‘Conditional Britons: the Scots Covenanting tradition and the eighteenth-century British state’, English Historical Review, 117, (2002), pp. 1147–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See also Raffe, A., ‘Presbyterians and episcopalians: the formation of confessional cultures in Scotland, 1660–1715’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010).Google Scholar

28 A seasonable admonition and exhortation to some who separate from the communion of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1699), p. 6.

29 Walter Steuart, Collections and observations methodiz'd; concerning the worship, discipline, and government of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1709), p. 1.

30 Letter to a member of the general assembly of this church to meet at Edinburgh, April 26. 1710 ([Edinburgh?], [1710]), p. 2.

31 [Gilbert Rule], A true representation of Presbyterian government (Edinburgh, 2nd edn, 1690), p. 4; see also David Williamson, ‘Account of the sufferings from 1660 to 1688’, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland (NLS), Wod. Fol. xl, fo. 3v.

32 [James Clark], Presbyterial government as now established and practised in the Church of Scotland methodically described (Edinburgh, 1701), p. 5; [Rule], True representation, p. 4; [Gilbert Rule], A sermon preached before his grace the kings commissioner and the three Estates of parliament, May the 25th 1690 (Edinburgh, 1690), p. 11. The expression comes from Isaiah 49:23. For the broader significance of this text, see J. Coffey, Persecution and toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 30–2.

33 Thomas Forrester, The hierarchical bishops claim to a divine right, tried at the scripture bar (Edinburgh, 1699), p. 53.

34 John Anderson, A defence of the church-government, faith, worship & spirit of the Presbyterians (Glasgow, 1714), p. 37.

35 [Clark], Presbyterial government, p. 6.

36 David Williamson, A sermon preached in Edinburgh at the opening of the general assembly of this national Church of Scotland, upon the 10th day of March 1703 (Edinburgh, 1703), p. 32.

37 [Rule], True representation, pp. 3, 5.

38 Kidd, ‘Religious realignment’, pp. 160–2; idem, ‘Constructing a civil religion’, pp. 4–10.

39 Stephen, J., ‘The kirk and the union, 1706–07: a reappraisal’, RSCHS, 31, (2001), pp. 68–96Google Scholar, at p. 76; Patrick, ‘The kirk, parliament and the union’, p. 100. Contrast Kidd, ‘Conditional Britons’; idem, Union and unionisms: political thought in Scotland, 1500–2000 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 74–7.

40 Seasonable admonition and exhortation, p. 7.

41 Synod of Galloway minutes, 1689–1712, Edinburgh, National Archives of Scotland (NAS), CH2/165/2, p. 138.

42 Williamson, Sermon preached in Edinburgh at the opening of the general assembly, p. 13; see also idem, Scotland's sin, danger, and duty faithfully represented in a sermon preach'd at the West-Kirk, August 23d, 1696 (Edinburgh, 1720), pp. 35–7.

43 See e.g. [Michael Shields], Faithful contendings displayed: being an historical relation of the state and actings of the suffering remnant of the Church of Scotland, ed. J. Howie (Glasgow, 1780), p. 455; Robert Wodrow, Analecta: or, materials for a history of remarkable providences (4 vols., Maitland Club, [Edinburgh], 1842–3), i, p. 28.

44 Robert Wylie, draft petition of the commission of the general assembly to parliament, 1706, NLS, Wod. Fol. xxxv, fo. 143r.

45 [Gilbert Rule], A [second] vindication of the Church of Scotland (London, 1691), pp. 13–14.

46 Robert Wodrow to James Wodrow, 19 Dec. 1706, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. iv, fo. 130r.

47 The National Covenant and Solemn League & Covenant; with the acknowledgement of sins, and engagement to duties: as they were renewed at Lesmahego, March 3 1688 ([Edinburgh?], 1690).

48 Robert Rowan, an answer to the United Societies, 1704, NLS, Wod. Qu. xcvi, fo. 22v.

49 ‘The most memorable passages of the life and times of Mr J[ohn] B[ell]’, NLS, Wod. Qu. lxxxii, fos. 62v–63r.

50 Memoirs of John Brand, minister of Bo'ness, NLS, MS 1668, fo. 109v.

51 See James Wodrow to Robert Wodrow, Jan. 1707, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. iv, fo. 174.

52 Raffe, ‘Presbyterians and episcopalians’.

53 A. Raffe, ‘Religious controversy and Scottish Society, c. 1679–1714’ (Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh, 2008), pp. 144–8. Probably this tendency has encouraged historians to see a decline in the importance of the Covenants.

54 K. M. Brown et al., eds., The records of the parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (RPS), www.rps.ac.uk (St Andrews, 2007–9), 1592/4/26.

55 Ibid., 1584/5/10; G. Donaldson, Scotland: James V – James VII (Edinburgh, 1978 edn), p. 199; A. R. MacDonald, The Jacobean kirk, 1567–1625: sovereignty, polity and liturgy (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 48–51.

56 David Calderwood, The history of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson and D. Laing (8 vols., Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842–9), vii, pp. 99–100.

57 Acts of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, MDCXXXVIII–MDCCCXLII (Edinburgh, 1843), pp. 158–9.

58 [Rule], True representation, p. 4; David Williamson, A sermon preached before his grace the king's commissioner, and the three Estates of parliament, June the 15th. 1690 (Edinburgh, 1690), p. 19; James Johnston to William Crichton, 17 Oct. 1693, NAS, SP3/1, fo. 199r; Kidd, Subverting Scotland's past, pp. 55–6.

59 RPS, 1690/4/43.

60 Robert Wylie to David Crawford, 7 Nov. 1693, NAS, GD406/1/9686; James Johnston to Archbishop John Tillotson, 10 June 1693, NAS, SP3/1, fo. 163v.

61 Duke of Hamilton to King William, 19 June 1693, NAS, GD406/1/10631.

62 ‘Memoriall concerning the affairs of Scotland’, 1695, NAS, GD112/39/169/1/2.

63 Anonymous letter, 17 Nov. 1700, NLS, Wod. Qu. lxxiii, fo. 238r. See RPS, 1663/6/39. The 1690 statute (Ibid., 1690/4/43) repealed the earlier law ‘in sua far allennerly as’ it was ‘contrary or prejudiciall to, inconsistent with or derogatory from the Protestant religion and Presbyterian government now established’.

64 Archibald Foyer, ‘A letter to a learned & dear friend concerning the causes of the growth of popery’, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. i, fo. 146r.

65 RPS, 1689/3/108.

66 Ibid., 1690/4/43.

67 Wodrow, Analecta, i, pp. 200–1; draft act ratifying Presbyterian government, 1690, NLS, Wod. Oct. xii, fo. 9r.

68 RPS, 1700/10/72, 1702/6/30, 1703/5/189.

69 [John Sage], The fundamental charter of presbytery, as it hath been lately established in the kingdom of Scotland, examin'd and disprov'd (London, 1695); [Archibald Campbell], Queries to the Presbyterians of Scotland, whereunto a satisfactory answer is humbly desired (Edinburgh, [1702]), pp. 47–8.

70 Patrick Walker, Biographia Presbyteriana (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1827), i, p. 225.

71 [Gavin Mitchell], Humble pleadings for the good old-way, or a plain representation ([Edinburgh?], 1713), p. 24.

72 Raffe, ‘Religious controversy’, pp. 156–80.

73 [John Cockburn], A continuation of the historical relation of the late general assembly in Scotland (London, 1691), pp. 31–5; account of the proceedings of the commission, 21 Jan. 1691, NAS, GD26/10/56.

74 Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), Supplementary report on the manuscripts of his grace the duke of Hamilton, ed. J. H. McMaster and M. Wood (London, 1932), pp. 115–6; W. Fraser, The Melvilles earls of Melville and the Leslies earls of Leven (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1890), ii, pp. 51–2. The stop was continued by another royal letter in June: Ibid., ii, pp. 52–3.

75 Address by the commission to the crown, 24 Apr. 1691, NAS, GD26/10/60.

76 The register of the privy council of Scotland, 3rd ser., ed. P. Brown, H. Paton, and E. Balfour-Melville (16 vols., Edinburgh, 1908–70), xvi, pp. 574–6.

77 Robert Langlands to William Dunlop, 4 Nov. 1691, NLS, MS 9250, fo. 268r.

78 John Law to William Dunlop, 7 Nov. 1691, NLS, MS 9250, fo. 271r.

79 Maxwell, ‘Church union attempt’.

80 Additional instructions to the earl of Lothian, 6 Feb. 1692, NAS, GD40/2/19/2·3; Johnston to Tillotson, 10 June 1693, NAS, SP3/1, fo. 163v.

81 Register of the general assembly, 1690–2, NAS, CH1/2/12, p. 153.

82 Account of the dissolution of the 1692 general assembly, NAS, GD26/10/74; earl of Lothian to Sir John Dalrymple, 15 Feb. 1692, NAS, GD40/2/8/43.

83 Earl of Tweeddale to King William, 9 Feb. 1692 and 16 Feb. 1692, NLS, MS 7027, fos. 16–17, 20r; James Johnston to the earl of Tweeddale, 5 Mar. 1692, NAS, SP3/1, fo. 4r.

84 Sir John Dalrymple to the earl of Tweeddale, 11 Jan. 1692, NLS, MS 7014, fo. 5r.

85 King William to the Scottish parliament, 23 Mar. 1693, NAS, GD406/1/10718.

86 Sir Patrick Murray to the earl of Lothian, 1 Mar. 1694, NAS, GD40/2/7/62.

87 Privy council acta, 4 Apr. 1693–17 Aug. 1694, NAS, PC1/49, pp. 140–1, 147, 181–3; privy council acta, 4 Sept. 1694–3 Sept. 1696, NAS, PC1/50, pp. 161–3, 208–9, 252–3, 257–8.

88 HMC, Supplementary report on the duke of Hamilton, p. 129. Contrast Robert Wylie's 1703 sentiments: see below, p. 330

89 Duke of Hamilton to the duchess of Hamilton, 7 Mar. 1694, NAS, GD406/1/7460.

90 RPS, 1695/5/186; J. M'Cormick, ed., State-papers and letters, addressed to William Carstares (Edinburgh, 1774), pp. 254–5.

91 Adam Cockburn to the duke of Hamilton, 30 Nov. 1693, NAS, GD406/1/3835; M'Cormick, ed., State-papers and letters, p. 264.

92 M'Cormick, ed., State-papers and letters, pp. 364–6; Hamilton presbytery instructions to the general assembly, 1701, NLS, Wod. Fol. xxxv, fo. 55r.

93 St Andrews presbytery instructions to the general assembly, 1701, NLS, Wod. Fol. li, fo. 25r; Wodrow, Analecta, i, p. 13.

94 David Hume, A diary of the proceedings in the parliament and privy council of Scotland. May 21, MDCC.–March 7, MDCCVII (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1828), pp. 5, 12–16.

95 Ibid., p. 15

96 Robert Maxwell to Robert Wodrow, 13 Jan. 1701, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. iii, fo. 38r.

97 W. J. Hardy, ed., Calendar of state papers, domestic (CSPD), 1695 (London, 1908), p. 122; E. Bateson, ed., CSPD, 1698 (London, 1933), p. 13; idem, ed., CSPD, 1699–1700 (London, 1937), pp. 8, 353; idem, ed., CSPD, 1700–1702 (London, 1937), pp. 216, 522.

98 HMC, The manuscripts of the duke of Roxburghe (London, 1894), p. 153.

99 [Robert Wylie], Letter from a gentleman in the city to a minister in the country ([Edinburgh?], [1703]), pp. 3, 5.

100 James Wallace to Robert Wodrow, 15 Apr. 1701, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. i, fo. 156r.

101 Anonymous letter, 17 Nov. 1700, NLS, Wod. Qu. lxxiii, fo. 237r.

102 Thomas Boston, Memoirs of the life, time, and writings of the reverend and learned Thomas Boston, ed. G. H. Morrison (Edinburgh, 1899), p. 164.

103 Wodrow, Analecta, i, p. 13.

104 W. Fraser, The earls of Cromartie: their kindred, country, and correspondence (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1876), i, p. 169.

105 Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale minutes, 1698–1710, NAS, CH2/252/7, p. 133; Synod of Glasgow and Ayr minutes, 1687–1704, NAS, CH2/464/1, pp. 318–19; Synod of Dumfries minutes, 1691–1717, NAS, CH2/98/1, p. 169; Synod of Galloway minutes, NAS, CH2/165/2, pp. 137–8.

106 [Wylie], Letter from a gentleman in the city, p. 11.

107 L. W. Sharp, ed., Early letters of Robert Wodrow, 1698–1709 (Scottish History Society, 3rd ser., vol. 24, Edinburgh, 1937), pp. 258–9.

108 Synod of Angus and the Mearns minutes, 1701–6, NAS, CH2/12/1, pp. 143–4; Boston, Memoirs, pp. 165–6.

109 J. Grant, ed., Seafield correspondence from 1685 to 1708 (Scottish History Society, new ser., vol. 3, Edinburgh, 1912), p. 369.

110 W. Fraser, The Annandale family book of the Johnstones, earls and marquises of Annandale (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1894), ii, pp. 22–3.

111 Fraser, Earls of Cromartie, i, p. 231; Boston, Memoirs, p. 165; Edmund Calamy, An historical account of my own life, ed. J. T. Rutt (2nd edn, 2 vols., London, 1830), ii, pp. 159–60.

112 Stephen, Scottish Presbyterians; Raffe, ‘Religious controversy’, pp. 181–207.

113 With Philip Williamson, Natalie Mears and Stephen Taylor, I am preparing British state prayers, fasts, thanksgivings and days of prayer, 1540s–1970s (Woodbridge, forthcoming 2012). This volume will contain the first full list of fasts, thanksgivings, and special prayers in Scotland, England, and Ireland, as well as edited texts relating to each occasion. For a brief survey of Scottish fast days, see Stephen, J., ‘National fasting and the politics of prayer: Anglo-Scottish union, 1707’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 60, (2009), pp. 294–316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114 ‘Anent the power of appointing nationall fasts and thanksgivings’, NLS, Wod. Oct. xii, fo. 34; A short but plain discovery to whom the due right of describing and appointing fasts doth belong (London, 1708); An answer of several ministers of the Church of Scotland, to a letter written to a member of the assembly ([Edinburgh], [1710]).

115 ‘Anent nationall fasts and thanksgivings’, NLS, Wod. Oct. xii, fo. 35v; overture for an act of the presbytery of Hamilton, 1708, NLS, Wod. Qu. lxxiii, fo. 289r (quotations).

116 ‘Anent nationall fasts and thanksgivings’, NLS, Wod. Oct. xii, fos. 33v–34r; Short but plain discovery, p. 4.

117 Proclamation for a solemn national fast, 28 Nov. 1707 (Edinburgh, 1707).

118 Newsletter, 2 Jan. 1708, probably by Robert Wylie, NLS, Wod. Qu. xl, fo. 33v.

119 Elizabeth West, Memoirs, or, spiritual exercises of Elizabeth Wast (Edinburgh, 1724), p. 233; Patrick Warner to Robert Wodrow, 28 Mar. 1710, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. ii, fo. 139; T. M'Crie, ed., The correspondence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow (3 vols., Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1842–3), i, pp. 130–3.

120 HMC, Report on the manuscripts of the earl of Mar and Kellie, ed. H. Paton (2 vols., London, 1904–30), i, p. 426; An essay for removing of prejudices, against the keeping of days of fasting and thanksgiving ([Edinburgh?], 1713), pp. 5–6.

121 By the queen, a proclamation, 18 Feb. 1710 (Edinburgh, 1710); Wodrow, Analecta, i, pp. 260–1.

122 Acts of the general assembly, p. 443.

123 See e.g. A seasonable advertisement, concerning the late publick fast of the 25th January, 1712 ([Edinburgh?], [1712]); Reasons of Masters James Hog and James Bathgate, humbly offered to the reverend presbytery of Dunfermline, for their not observing the day of thanksgiving appointed by the king ([1724]).

124 Answer of several ministers; A humble representation of several ministers of the Church of Scotland ([Edinburgh?], [1710]), pp. 2–3.

125 William Mitchell to Viscount Townshend, 16 Mar. 1716, London, The National Archives (TNA), SP54/11/180C.

126 London Gazette, 8–12 May 1716, no. 5432; Reasons of Masters James Hog and James Bathgate, p. 13.

127 Allan Logan to Lord Grange, received 8 Nov. 1720, NAS, GD124/15/1214/1.

128 Commission of the general assembly minutes, 1720–5, NAS, CH1/3/17, 53–5; London Gazette, 15–19 Nov. 1720, no. 5904.

129 Robert Wylie to Robert Wodrow, 19 Dec. 1707, NLS, Wod. Lett. Qu. iv, fo. 213r.

130 Wodrow, Correspondence, i, p. 573.

131 Reasons of Masters James Hog and James Bathgate, p. 11.

132 Walker, Biographia Presbyteriana, i, p. xxii.

133 I. B. Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 1660–1688 (London, 1976), and J. Buckroyd, Church and state in Scotland, 1660–1681 (Edinburgh, 1980), were perhaps the last major redactions of a narrative originating in Robert Wodrow's The history of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1721–2).

134 Cowan described the revolution as the ‘triumph of Presbyterianism’: Scottish Covenanters, p. 134.

135 J. S. Shaw, The political history of eighteenth-century Scotland (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 110–12.

136 See B. R. Wilson, ‘Reflections on a many sided controversy’, in S. Bruce, ed., Religion and modernization: sociologists and historians debate the secularization thesis (Oxford, 1992), pp. 203–5.

137 In addition to the works of Drummond and Bulloch and Frace, see R. L. Emerson, ‘The religious, the secular and the worldly: Scotland, 1680–1800’, in J. E. Crimmins, ed., Religion, secularization and political thought: Thomas Hobbes to J. S. Mill (London, 1990).

138 Raffe, ‘Presbyterians and episcopalians’.

139 A. Skoczylas, Mr Simson's knotty case: divinity, politics, and due process in early eighteenth-century Scotland (Montreal, 2001); D. C. Lachman, The Marrow controversy, 1718–1723: an historical and theological analysis (Edinburgh, 1988).

140 Raffe, ‘Religious controversy’, pp. 201–6.

141 H. Sefton, ‘‘New-lights and preachers legall’: some observations on the beginnings of Moderatism in the Church of Scotland', in N. Macdougall, ed., Church, politics and society: Scotland, 1408–1929 (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 186–96.

142 Skoczylas, A., ‘Archibald Campbell's Enquiry into the original of moral virtue, Presbyterian orthodoxy, and the Scottish Enlightenment’, SHR, 87, (2008), pp. 68–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; T. D. Kennedy, ‘William Leechman, pulpit eloquence and the Glasgow Enlightenment’, in A. Hook and R. B. Sher, eds., The Glasgow Enlightenment (East Linton, 1995), pp. 56–72.

143 A testimony to the doctrine, worship, government and discipline of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1734), pp. 33–4, 40.

144 TNA: PRO, secretary of state's ecclesiastical entry book, 1727–37, SP44/153, pp. 17–18, 20, 54–7, 146–9, 214–17, 268–70, 333–7, 388–91, 471–3; TNA, Scottish church book, 1742–64, SP56/2, pp. 8–12, 35–9, 57–60.

145 I. D. L. Clark, ‘From protest to reaction: the Moderate regime in the Church of Scotland, 1752–1805’, in N. T. Phillipson and R. Mitchison, eds., Scotland in the age of improvement: essays in Scottish history in the eighteenth century (Edinburgh, 1970); J. R. McIntosh, Church and theology in Enlightenment Scotland: the Popular party, 1740–1800 (East Linton, 1998).

146 S. J. Brown and M. Fry, eds., Scotland in the age of the Disruption (Edinburgh, 1993).

147 Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, The courts, the church and the constitution: aspects of the Disruption of 1843 (Edinburgh, 2008), pp. 2–3.

148 See esp. C. G. Brown, The death of Christian Britain: understanding secularisation, 1800–2000 (London, 2001).