“We utterly detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing all who differ in judgement or persuasion from us” (The Covenanters, 1684).
I started writing this post about two weeks ago, and have been meaning to finish it off ever since, but I’ve finally been spurred into action after reading on the RP church’s second favourite blog that the programme in question is to be aired in the homeland tomorrow night at 8pm.
In short it’s good visually and could even be quite entertaining if you ignore the thinly veiled hatred of the Covenanters and the odd historical inaccuracy/untruth. It will quite probably make you angry, so it may be useful to have something handy to take your frustration out on (ig a cat*). Although some of the stuff that makes you angry may not be historically inaccurate (we might not be used to hearing it told from the perspective of the Stuart kings – especially James VI and (even) Charles I who weren’t as bad as those who followed – but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that; or the fact that the Covenanters aren’t portrayed as the heroes of religious liberty that they have been in most books written since the 19th century, but more on that later).
So back in the day I would’ve probably written a massive post about this**, but those days are gone now so here’s just a few thoughts on BBC Scotland’s A history of Scotland which began its second series the other week with an episode on ‘God’s Chosen People’ – ig the Covenanters. As a series, it’s already been attacked by Scotland’s foremost historian, Tom Devine, as ‘fatally flawed’ and resembling a ‘mediocre B movie’. But in a strange way I did quite like the episode on the Covenanters. Like it’s very, very wrong and I get pretty annoyed thinking about it. But I liked bits of it too! As Mark Thompson of Low Country Boys fame has noted, it was ‘visually stunning’ but with major flaws in the rest of it. However maybe I wasn’t overly outraged as I wasn’t really expecting anything too sympathetic to the Covenanters. It was terrible like. Even the visuals weren’t enough to ignore the historical inaccuracies and unashamed bias against the Covenanters (as was made particularly clear in the closing lines). But as I wasn’t particularly outraged, maybe this won’t turn into a rant.
Anyway, you can watch the programme here until the 13th of December.
Here’s the synopsis.
Neil Oliver continues his journey through Scotland’s past with the story of the Covenanters, whose profound religious beliefs were declared in the National Covenant of 1638. This document licensed revolution, started the Civil War that cost King Charles I his head, cost tens of thousands of Scots their lives and led to Britain’s first war on terror.
War on Terror: Before we even start on the historical inaccuracies in that sentence, you need to realise that when they talk about Britain’s first war on terror, they’re not talking about the terror the Covenanters went through when many were shot on sight in the fields for reading their Bibles. They’re not talking about the terror the Covenanters went through during the period of persecution from 1660-1688 (when c. 18,000 were killed/banished/severely persecuted for their faith) or during the Killing Times from 1685-88. They’re calling the Covenanters the terrorists. The ‘war on terror’ was required to deal with the Covenanters.
Rebellion: Their whole premise is that the National Covenant was a revolutionary document, which they state repeatedly. That would make the Covenanters rebels against the king and the law of the land. So I’ll just quote a few real historians:
The National Covenant was ‘a constitutional, and not a revolutionary document’ (W. C. Dickinson and G. Donaldson, A Source Book of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1961), iii, 104)
…What Charles I called ‘those impertinent and damnable demands constituted no violation of statute law, and the king’s legal experts told him so. Archibald Johnston of Wariston cited more than 60 Acts of Parliament in defence of the Covenanters’ action. (Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology)
Started the Civil War and cost Charles I his head: I’m pretty sure Charles I and his relationship with the English parliament was more important. Not that it really matters, but it’s just another example of twisting things to sound spectacular. And the Covenanters in no way supported the killing of the king!
Other historical inaccuracies/inventions:
- Jenny Geddes threw s[censored for my GAC readers] at the first Dean to read the prayer book. Pure invention. Probably just so he could get to say the s word. I’ve read A LOT of history books about this in the last coupla months (like proper history books, not in any way sympathetic to the Covenanters) and none of them have come across this remarkable fact. Like, unless they read that she threw a stool and assumed it was the less well known meaning of the word…
- They mix up those who supported the Engagement (in 1648) and those who didn’t with the debate between the Protestors and Resolutions (from 1650 onwards). Doesn’t make a huge amount of difference, but it does a bit, and shows that their research isn’t up to scratch.
- Sharpe’s death was planned. It was a planned as a ‘spectacular act of rebellion’ apparently. Whether it was right or not, one thing that’s certain is that Sharpe’s death was not planned. See his biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for real history.
- Renwick shot someone when he was being arrested (and more than that, he actually wanted to be arrested because he wanted to be a martyr). Although if you think about it, if he wanted to be a martyr why would he have shot someone to try and avoid arrest? But in actual fact he didn’t want to be a martyr – he was only arrested when customs people came to search the house he was in for illegal goods. And according to the only source historians have – The Life and Death of…Mr James Renwick by Alexander Shields (1724): “Whereupon Mr. Renwick discharged a pistol, which made the assailants retire”. And I think it might have been mentioned at Renwick’s trial if he had shot one of those who came to arrest him! Again, embellishing facts, and just pure making up stuff.
The Rule of the Saints: Then there’s all the nasty stuff about when the Covenanters were in power – “The rule of the saints” as the programme denotes it. So all they have to do is say the phrase, play spooky music, show a clip of an axe dripping with blood and make a few unsupported statements about what the Covenanters mutilating offenders – and we’re supposed to believe them. Sadly, most people will. Now I really don’t know much about what actually happened when the Covenanters were in power. Partly because there hasn’t been much written. And so I’m open to correction. But as far as I can see, all they actually did was kill some witches.
David Stevenson’s Revolution and Counter Revolution was in 2003 ‘still the fullest account of the period’ [Since then there's been a chapter in a book co-edited by Crawford Gribben ('Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1500-1700') on the Covenanters] and was written by an atheist in no way sympathetic to the Covenanters.
And all Stevenson really says is: “The most unpleasant aspect of the assault on sin was the great increase in the persecution of witches in 1649-50.” (p. 118). A severe lack of mutilating being mentioned. And everybody was into killing witches at the time – king James VI famously wrote a book on the subject.
The Covenanters are accused of having a lack of mercy – but absolutely no evidence is produced for this.
Incidentally, Stevenson mentions that “The increased concern of the kirk for the poor and the oppressed was connected with a new urgency shown in the work of moral reform” (p. 118) – but unsurprisingly there was no mention in the programme of the Covenanters caring for the poor and attacking injustice.
Worst of all: The worst thing of all about the programme however is the continual suggestion that the Covenanters wanted to kill those who disagreed with them religiously. So if you watch it, make sure and have the words of the Covenanters’ Apologetic Declaration and Admonitory Vindication (1684) ringing in your ears:
Therefore, that therein our mind may be the more clearly understood, and for preventing further mistakes anent [concerning] our purposes, we do hereby jointly and unanimously testify and declare, that as we utterly detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing all who differ in judgement or persuasion from us, it having no bottom upon the word of God, or right reason…
No, the Covenanters weren’t champions of religious liberty (for those who didn’t hold to the true religion) as is often claimed in history books and by well-meaning Christians. And they weren’t advocates of religious toleration, no matter how much you wish they had been. But they did not plan to go round killing those who disagreed with them, simply because they had different religious convictions.
But anyway, that’s enough. No wonder I don’t write blog posts anymore – takes ages! There’s more online on a BBC-hosted debate here – under the balanced title of “Did the Covenanters’ religious fundamentalism scar Scotland’s psyche?”. It’s actually amazing to see how many Scots came out in favour of the Covenanters. (Where are they the rest of the time?!) Many commentors note that the programme tried to impose modern categories on events that happened over 300 years ago.
So yeah that’s probably a bit of a rant. I really wasn’t that annoyed at the time. Like at least the BBC got the main point of it – King Jesus (even if they say it contemptuously) against king James and king Charles. And it’s pretty entertaining. And they may have made Johnston of Wariston sound like a nutter – but then, he WAS a nutter at least a little eccentric! So it’s enjoyable enough viewing if you’ve got all the real facts in your head. But the vast majority of people are just going to accept it as true. And that’s what’s annoying.
But to paraphrase that oft-used sermon anecdote, King Jesus will still reign when the final nail is driven into the BBC’s coffin.
“Let King Jesus Reign, and all his enemies be scattered.”
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* actually maybe not as I quite like cats – and comments like that may stop my one remaining reader (a Mrs HG from Rathfriland) from returning.
** Oops.
