Bishops and Covenanters: The Church in Scotland, 1688-1691

Why did the young Protestant monarch William of Orange fail to make his mark on Scotland? How did a particularly hard-line branch of Presbyterianism become the established Church in Scotland? How did it come about that Scotland suffered a kind of ‘cultural revolution’ after the Williamite revolution? Answering these and many other questions, this history reviews the political events that led to the abolition of episcopacy in 1689 and with it the concerted attack on the parish clergy. Exploring the background and influences that led to the brutal “rabbling of the curates” in southwest Scotland, it also analyzes the mindset of Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees—the author of the Act establishing hard-line Presbyterianism in 1690—and argues that the ongoing purging of the parishes led ultimately to the emptying of two-thirds of all the parishes of Scotland.