The Covenanters form an important movement in…
November 1666 CE
The Covenanters form an important movement in the religion and politics of Scotland.
In religion the movement is most associated with the promotion and development of Presbyterianism as a form of church government favored by the people, as opposed to Episcopacy, favored by the Crown.
In politics the movement sees important developments in the character and operation of the Scottish Parliament, which began a steady shift away from its medieval origins.
The movement as a whole is essentially conservative in tone, but it had initiated the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651 after these three countries had come under the "Personal Rule" of the same monarch.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 both the Covenants of 1638 and that of 1643 had been declared illegal and Episcopacy was reestablished.
Resistance to the new settlement is heavily concentrated in the southwest of Scotland, those very areas that had risen in the Whiggamore Raid of 1648, a march on Edinburgh by supporters of the Kirk party of the Covenanters to take power from the Engagers whose army had recently been defeated by the English New Model Army at the Battle of Preston.
Many of the ministers here vacate their parishes rather than submit to the new Episcopal authorities.
Just as the ministers leave, so too do the congregations, following their old pastors to sermons on the hillside.
From small beginnings these field assemblies—or conventicles—are to grow into major problems of public order.
In attempting to suppress these gatherings the authorities have used the military—though usually in numbers hardly adequate for the task.
A small incident in Galloway in November 1666, sparks the first serious Whig rebellion of the Restoration period.
After renewing the Covenants at Lanark—and declaring their loyalty to the king—several hundred armed men advance on Edinburgh in a tragic repetition of the Whiggamore Raid.
They are intercepted to the southwest of the city and defeated at the Battle of Rullion Green in the Pentland Hills, causing the whole episode to be labeled as the Pentland Rising.
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