The Covenanters

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the bonds that Scottish Presbyterians made between themselves and their monarchs in the 16th and 17th Centuries, to maintain their form of worship. These covenants bound James VI of Scotland to support Presbyterians yet when he became James I he was also expected to support episcopacy. That tension came to a head under Charles I who found himself on the losing side of a war with the Covenanters, who later supported Parliament before backing the future Charles II after he had pledged to support them. Once in power, Charles II failed to deliver the religious settlement the Covenanters wanted, and set about repressing them violently. Those who refused to renounce the covenants were persecuted in what became known as The Killing Times, as reflected in the image above.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Roger Mason No other episodes
  Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews
• Laura Stewart 2 episodes
  Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of York
• Scott Spurlock No other episodes
  Professor of Scottish and Early Modern Christianities at the University of Glasgow

Reading list

• The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution
  Michael J. Braddick (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2015)
• Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union, 1603-1715
  Keith M. Brown (Palgrave, 1992)
• Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, 1625-1641
  Allan I. Macinnes (John Donald Publishers, 1991)
• The British Revolutions, 1629-1660
  Allan I. Macinnes (Red Globe Press, 2004)
• The Church of the Covenant 1637 - 1651: Revolution and Social Change in Scotland
  Walter Makey (John Donald Publishers, 1979)
• The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context 1638-51
  John Morrill (ed.) (Edinburgh University Press, 1990)
• Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650 -- 1660
  R. Scott Spurlock (John Donald Publishers, 2007)
• The Scottish Revolution, 1637-44
  David Stevenson (John Donald Publishers, 1973)
• Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Scotland, 1644 -- 1651
  David Stevenson (John Donald Publishers, 2003)
• Urban Politics and the British Civil Wars: Edinburgh, 1617 -- 53
  Laura A.M. Stewart (Brill, 2006)
• Rethinking the Scottish Revolution: Covenanted Scotland, 1637-1651
  Laura A.M. Stewart (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• The Seventeenth Century: Short Oxford History of the British Isles
  Jenny Wormald (ed) (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Related episodes

• The Interregnum
  
  27 May, 2021 940 History of Europe
• The Glencoe Massacre
  
  21 Jan, 2010 940 History of Europe
• The Jacobite Rebellion
  
  8 May, 2003 940 History of Europe
• The Hanoverian Succession
  
  28 Nov, 2024 940 History of Europe
• The Treaty of Limerick
  
  7 Nov, 2019 940 History of Europe
• The Battle of Bannockburn
  
  3 Feb, 2011 940 History of Europe
• The Trial of Charles I
  
  4 Jun, 2009 940 History of Europe
• The Death of Elizabeth I
  
  15 Oct, 2009 900 History
• The Davidian Revolution
  
  5 May, 2022 940 History of Europe
• William Cecil
  
  7 Mar, 2019 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: m000g3f6

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g3f6

Auto-category: 941.4 (Scotland - History)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1638, a gathering of Presbyterians signed the Solemn Covenant in Edinburgh, in Greyfire's Coat Yard.