From Reform to Renewal: Scotland's Kirk Century by Century

‘A remarkable achievement. Finlay Macdonald effortlessly guides the reader through five centuries from the Protestant Reformation to the present using simple terms that disguise his perception, precision and knowledge. This accessible story of the life of the Kirk in Scotland answers fundamental questions about what the Church of Scotland has been and is today and how it has shaped Scottish life and identity. Anyone and everyone interested in Scotland would benefit from reading this book.’

Jane Dawson, John Laing Professor of

Reformation History, University of Edinburgh

‘The history of Scotland over the past millennium is inextricably linked with that of the Kirk and in this wonderfully accessible book, Finlay Macdonald provides a history of the Kirk until the present. But this is much, much more than just a history book. Macdonald explains the politico-religious and legal debates imbuing Scottish society for centuries and throughout brings to life the theological context – changing over time but continually important. At times one concludes there is not one Scotland but many and, while true of many countries, Finlay Macdonald finishes with an intriguing vision of a one-Scotland future. A real page turner and one I will return to time and again.’

Sir Ian Diamond, Principal and Vice-Chancellor,

University of Aberdeen

‘This book should be essential reading for those who want to know something about the DNA of the Church of Scotland. In reading it we may see some repeating patterns of behaviour and in reading it carefully we may avoid repeating some of our worst excesses. Finlay Macdonald has used both his knowledge and his affection for the Church to give us an accessible history of four centuries of our life and, for many years to come, this will be a textbook for the ordinary member who wants to better understand what has made us what we are.’

Very Revd Dr John Chalmers, Principal Clerk of the

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

‘You couldn’t ask for a better guide to lead you down the highways − and by-ways − of the history of the Church of Scotland than Finlay Macdonald. Grounded in solid historical scholarship and his first-hand knowledge of the workings of the Kirk, this is an accessible and concise history highlighting the controversies and debates, century by century, which formed the Church as it is today. Finlay Macdonald writes with insight and a lightness of touch. A fine book for the interested general reader and a good refresher for those who have forgotten about the Auld Lichts and New Lichts.’

Revd Calum MacLeod, Minister of

St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh

‘A fascinating account of the history of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation to the present. The reader is led through highs and lows, periods of peace and times of conflict illustrating how the Church has arrived at where it is today. Thoughtful connections between past and present make for an enjoyable and informative read. I highly commend this book to Church people and beyond.’

Very Revd Bill Hewitt, Joint Clerk of the

Presbytery of Glasgow

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

Setting the Scene

The Sixteenth Century

The Seventeenth Century

The Eighteenth Century

The Nineteenth Century

The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Appendix: A Statement of Christian Faith, Authorised for Use in Worship and Teaching, by the General Assembly of 1992

Bibliography and Further Reading

Index of Names and Subjects

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Some acknowledgements are appropriate. My particular thanks go to the distinguished Scottish historian Rosalind K. Marshall for her generous encouragement as this book took shape; also to Laura Dunlop, David Fergusson, Sheilagh Kesting and David Robertson for advice on issues relating to their particular fields of expertise, and to John Chalmers, Principal Clerk of the General Assembly and his staff in facilitating access to Assembly records. I am grateful to Ann Crawford of Saint Andrew Press at the time this book was forming in my mind, who encouraged me to develop the idea; also to Peter Backhouse for his generous assistance with photographs, and to Iain Whyte, Secretary of the Church of Scotland Guild, and Jane Bristow of the Church’s Communications Department in this same connection. Finally, I place on record my thanks to Christine Smith and her team at Hymns Ancient & Modern for commissioning the book and for all their subsequent advice and assistance through the publication process.

PREFACE

The idea for this book came from various conversations which suggested that an accessible overview of the Kirk’s story would be helpful for elders, church members and the general reader – perhaps even for ministers interested in a crash refresher course.

There are many detailed studies of momentous events and famous individuals, but what I offer here is a more general survey, highlighting and illustrating the main themes of each century since the Reformation. The style aims to be accessible; the tone affectionate but not uncritical. I also make connections back and forth as the story unfolds. Inevitably, not all will agree with my choices as to what to include and what to omit, but I have endeavoured to provide enough detail to give a fair picture of the Kirk’s journey from the Reformation to the present. For those wishing to explore further there is a short bibliography with suggestions for further reading.

Finlay Macdonald

All Saints’ Day, 2016

SETTING THE SCENE

In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament rejected the authority of the Pope and outlawed the celebration of the Mass. This was far from a sudden decision; rather it was a defining moment in a process that had been gathering pace over many years and that would continue to evolve. It was, though, a hugely significant step and effectively determined the date of the Scottish Reformation.

What lay behind the growing pressure for reform? Here are some of the questions people were asking:

•  When the priest celebrated Mass, did the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ?

•  Was there a place called Purgatory, a kind of halfway state between Heaven and Hell where sins were purged?

•  Why could the Bible not be available in the everyday language of the people?

•  Why were church services in Latin?

•  Why was there so much wealth in the upper echelons of the Church when so many ordinary people were poor?

•  Why did so many supposedly celibate priests father children? Why couldn’t they just marry?

•  Why were sons of kings (including illegitimate sons) given lucrative church appointments, sometimes while they were still children?

Questions such as these lay behind the movement for church reform, not only in Scotland, but across Europe.

The term ‘Kirk’ has come to designate the reformed Church of Scotland which today is Presbyterian in government. The change from Roman Catholic to Presbyterian did not happen overnight. The Reformers didn’t wake up one day and decide to start a new Church. Rather, over many years and decades they sought to make changes from within to the institution in which they had been nurtured from birth. It follows that, despite the sixteenth-century parting of ways, a vital element of the Kirk’s self-understanding today is that it shares a common pre-Reformation history with the Roman Catholic Church. Today’s Scottish Catholics and Protestants may differ on matters of doctrine but they share a common heritage through Columba, Mungo and others who first brought the Gospel to Scotland.

Sauchieburn to Flodden

One of the darkest days in Scottish history was 9 September 1513. On that day the Battle of Flodden was fought, resulting in the death of King James IV, along with many leading figures in the nation’s life. Two particular battles stand out in Scottish history – Bannockburn in 1314 and Flodden in 1513. The former is celebrated in songs such as ‘Scots Wha Hae’; the latter mourned in ‘The Flowers of the Forest’.

Less well-known is the Battle of Sauchieburn, but it provides a good starting point for this narrative. James III, who reigned from 1460 to 1488, was an ineffective and unpopular king and a ready focus for rebellions. He and his queen, Margaret of Denmark, had three sons – the future James IV, James Stewart Duke of Ross (his father’s favourite) and John Stewart. The king’s ability to alienate extended even to his own family, and in 1488 matters came to a head at Sauchieburn, a few miles south of Stirling. King and heir fought on opposite sides of the battle and the king was killed as he fled the field. So at the age of fifteen, James IV came to the throne. Ever after, as a classic act of penance, he wore an iron belt round his waist, adding an additional weight each year.

Within two weeks of the battle James was crowned at Scone. The ceremony created new tensions, though this time of an ecclesiastical nature. Bishop Blackadder of Glasgow, who had supported the rebellion, was invited to place the crown on the king’s head. This deeply offended Archbishop Schevez of St Andrews, who had been a loyal supporter of James III. Furthermore, only recently the Pope had recognised the primacy of the archdiocese of St Andrews. This meant that Schevez outranked Blackadder who was, after all, only a bishop. Surely as senior prelate he, Schevez, should have placed the crown on the king’s head!

As it happened, the new king was a canon of the See of Glasgow, a typical example of the mingling of royal and ecclesiastical appointments. This explains the choice of Blackadder, who was busy campaigning to have Glasgow raised to an archbishopric. James supported this move and quickly had Parliament pass an Act declaring its support, and four years later, Pope Innocent VIII duly obliged, establishing Glasgow as an Archiepiscopal and Metropolitan See. However, the Pope stopped short of granting an additional request from James that the new archbishop be created a cardinal. He did, however, exempt Glasgow and its provinces from the jurisdiction of St Andrews. In the gesture one senses a papal concern that the prelates re-focus their energies on their primary task of promoting the Gospel. In truth, though, high ecclesiastical office brought an enhanced political role, and this was the real prize being fought over.

Meanwhile, James had his own game to play. If high-ranking ecclesiastics wished to exercise political power it was equally the case that high-ranking non-ecclesiastics were anxious to have some control over the Church; and there was none higher than the king. Having gained the throne through a rebellion against his father, James was anxious to protect his own back against future threats, not least from his younger brother, the Duke of Ross. When Archbishop Schevez died in 1497, James saw his opportunity and nominated the duke to be the next archbishop. Then, with the agreement of the Pope, he added lucrative commendatorships of Holyrood, Dunfermline and Arbroath to the duke’s ‘responsibilities’. These were effectively appointments to vacant monastic benefices giving title to the emoluments attached to them, thereby enhancing the royal revenues. An estimate of the comparative wealth of Church and Crown at the time suggests that ecclesiastical revenues were ten times greater than resources available to the Crown. From James’ point of view he was simply restoring the balance, buying off a potential rival and securing his throne in some style. Then, in the spirit of ‘the best laid schemes’, the Duke of Ross died in 1504 at the age of twenty-eight. This circumstance did not entirely relieve James of anxiety over possible rivals, so he devised a new plan. This was to have his illegitimate son, Alexander Stewart, who was still in his teens, appointed Archbishop of St Andrews. Two years previously Pope Julius II had approved the youth’s appointment as Administrator of the archdiocese. In addition to these lucrative roles, young Alexander was to receive the revenues of Dunfermline Abbey and Coldingham Priory and to take on the office of Chancellor of the Kingdom. As James was acting as his son’s guardian, again it was the Crown that ultimately benefited from this rich revenue stream. However, once again circumstances intervened when Alexander died with his father on the field of Flodden.

This saga perfectly illustrates the connivance between Church and Crown in the appropriation of church revenues for purposes other than the promotion of the Gospel. From these machinations one can only conclude that from 1497 to 1513 Scotland’s premier ecclesiastical office remained unoccupied by anyone qualified to provide appropriate leadership to the Scottish Church.

There were, of course, faithful priests quietly living out their calling and pressure for ecclesiastical reform was building. One of the issues the new Archbishop Blackadder had to deal with was a movement in Ayrshire that was challenging church teaching. Claims that the Pope was successor of Peter, the doctrine of purgatory, the worship of relics and the granting of indulgences were all dismissed by these radical thinkers. Known as ‘the Lollards of Kyle’, they not only rejected traditional practices; they positively affirmed counter-arguments in favour of the priesthood of all believers, the freedom of priests to marry (as distinct from turning a blind eye to concubinage) and the right of people to read the Bible in their own language. Such ideas were not particularly new. ‘Lollardy’ was the pejorative term (meaning ‘mumbling’) used to describe the teaching of the fourteenth-century English theologian, John Wycliffe. In Scotland it had already produced martyrs such as an Englishman, James Resby, burned at the stake in Perth in 1407, and a Bohemian, Paul Crawer, who suffered the same fate in St Andrews in 1433. In 1411 Laurence of Lindores, Abbot of Scone, had been appointed Inquisitor, charged with rooting out the heresy, and in 1416 the University of St Andrews decreed that applicants for the Master of Arts degree take an oath that they would resist all adherents of the sect of Lollards. The Kyle Lollards investigated by Bishop Blackadder were fortunate compared with Resby and Crawer. For all his abuse of church offices and revenues, James IV was a man of intelligence and ideas. He spoke several languages, encouraged poets such as William Dunbar and Robert Henryson and was instrumental in the establishment of Scotland’s third university at Aberdeen. When the Ayr Lollards appeared before him he was inclined to leniency. A clue as to why may be found in a comment of John Knox. In his History of the Reformation he suggests that some of them were the king’s ‘great familiaris’.

Politically James’ Scotland found itself in a triangular relationship with France (the Auld Alliance) and England (the Auld Enemy). This created tensions that in the 1490s led to military campaigns against England; though things looked more settled when, in 1502, a Treaty of Perpetual Peace with England was signed. One of the fruits of this was James’ marriage to Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England. Nevertheless, old habits die hard, and when war broke out between England and France, James supported France. War was declared on England, and the Scottish fleet, a significant naval force, was dispatched to support the French. By this time James’ brother-in-law had succeeded to the English throne as Henry VIII. Aware that Henry was in France with his forces, James saw his opportunity, led an army south and engaged the English at Flodden. The disastrous outcome was a wiping out of the ‘flower of Scotland’ and the bringing to the throne of James’ son aged just seventeen months. James IV, who twenty-five years earlier had come to the throne on the field of battle, left it in the same way.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses

According to tradition, on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg. It was an event that sent shockwaves across Europe and gave a huge impetus to the demand for religious reform.

Luther was born into a mining family at Eisleben, Germany, in 1483. In 1501 he entered the University of Erfurt, graduating with a Master’s degree in 1505. At his father’s behest he proceeded to study law but soon dropped out, being drawn instead to the study of theology. The story is told that on a visit home he was caught in a fierce storm and prayed to St Anna, patron saint of miners, promising to enter a monastery if she would save him. In that same year he was admitted to a closed Augustinian friary in Erfurt and began to submit himself to the life and discipline of a monk. His father was unimpressed, regarding this as a waste of a good education. Two years later Luther was ordained as a priest and in 1508 was invited to teach theology at the recently established University of Wittenberg. In 1512 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology and admitted to the Senate of the University.

At this time a major project was the rebuilding of St Peter’s in Rome, and a rich source of funding was the selling of indulgences to the faithful. These purported to offer forgiveness of sins and shorten the period the purchaser might have to spend in Purgatory after death. This flew in the face of what Luther’s studies had led him to believe, particularly from Paul’s letter to the Romans; namely that people could be saved only by divine grace mediated through faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation was not something that could be purchased like a commodity or a reward for good deeds. For Luther this was a profound revelation, a defining moment, and it moved him to write a letter of protest to his bishop. Enclosed with the letter was a document entitled ‘Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences’. This became known as ‘The Ninety-Five Theses’. It is now reckoned that Luther was not seeking a public confrontation, rather a theological debate on the nature of faith and salvation. Be that as it may, there was no doubting the force of his questioning of the Church’s teaching and practice. One of the theses asked why the Pope, ‘whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, builds the basilica of St Peter with the money of poor believers rather than his own money’. Such a challenge could not be ignored and it wasn’t. Indeed, it had the twofold effect of galvanising those who wished to see the Church reformed and mobilising upholders and beneficiaries of the policy to rally to the Church’s defence.

Particularly helpful in spreading the call for reform was the recently invented printing press, and Luther made full use of it. Indeed, it has been calculated that he was responsible for 20 per cent of the output of German printing presses between 1500 and 1530, a flow that vastly exceeded that of his antagonists. The Theses spread rapidly across Europe, eventually reaching Scotland through travellers from the continent who had embraced this new theological thinking. Their arrival inspired those in Scotland who shared Luther’s concerns, including Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart.

It was in 1523 that the nineteen-year-old Patrick Hamilton began his studies at St Andrews University. Hamilton was extremely well connected, his father being Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil and his mother Catherine Stewart, a granddaughter of James III. In 1517 the thirteen-year-old Hamilton was appointed titular abbot of Fearn Abbey and the proceeds of the benefice paid for his education. This is somewhat ironic given that such appropriation of ecclesiastical revenues by the nobility was one of the main grievances of the Reformers.

Four days before Hamilton’s arrival in St Andrews, James Beaton had been installed as archbishop. As Lord Chancellor, Beaton was already Scotland’s leading statesman. He now became its leading churchman as well. In 1525 Parliament passed an Act against Lutheranism and this gave Beaton his opportunity. The heresy hunt was on and Patrick Hamilton, who had generally kept his head down, was summoned to answer a charge of spreading Lutheran ideas. Sensing a trap, Hamilton left Scotland and travelled to Germany where he enrolled at the University of Marburg. While there he published his own ‘Theses’, which became known as ‘Patrick’s Places’. In these he set out ‘commonplaces’ of the Reformed Faith, centred round Luther’s core doctrine of justification by faith. In 1527 he returned to Scotland, began to preach and soon found himself invited to confer with Beaton. This time he accepted, returned to St Andrews and participated in a series of colloquies. It transpired, however, that this apparently civilised dialogue was no more than a ruse to lead Hamilton to incriminate himself. The mood changed and he was summoned to answer a charge of heresy. Once again friends urged him to flee, but he refused. There are suggestions that Beaton himself would have been content not to press things to their inevitable conclusion. Given Hamilton’s royal pedigree this is understandable; but the die was cast. The trial went ahead with Hamilton effectively pleading guilty as charged. The outcome was inevitable. The accused was declared to be a heretic, guilty of ‘disputing, holding and maintaining divers heresies of Martin Luther and his followers’. The very same day, 29 February 1528, Hamilton was burned at the stake at the entrance to St Salvator’s College. It was a particularly horrific event. The day was wet, the wood was damp and it reportedly took six hours to finish the job. The location is marked by the initials ‘PH’ laid into the cobbled pavement. To this day respectful St Andrews students maintain a tradition of never walking on them, and tour guides point to the image of a human face in the stonework above the arched entrance to the quadrangle. Some say it was scorched into the tower by the bright face of an angel sent to comfort the martyr; others suggest it was caused by a beatific radiance from Hamilton’s own face as he died for his faith.

Reaction to these proceedings was the precise opposite of what Beaton intended. The Reformation cause was given a great boost as, in the words of John Lindsay, one of Beaton’s advisers: ‘My Lord, if you burn any more, let it be in underground cellars, for the reek of Master Patrick Hamilton has infected as many as it blew upon.’

James V – Solway Moss

When James IV was killed at Flodden the throne passed to his infant son. Less than two weeks after the battle, on 21 September 1513, he was crowned James V at Stirling Castle. Initially his mother, Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, ruled as Regent, but