2E - Radicalism, dissent and the approach of war: the spread of religious radicalism
The collapse of Personal Rule came through the interaction of religious dissent, organised Scottish resistance and military defeat. Trace the National Covenant, both Bishops’ Wars and the failed settlement at Berwick to explain why Charles had to recall Parliament in 1640.
Dissent and radical religion
Religious opposition could become more radical when critics concluded that reform through the established hierarchy was impossible.
Many Puritans sought changes within the Church of England. Others moved towards separatism, rejecting its authority and meeting in independent congregations. Private religious meetings, often called conventicles, were not all separatist: some supplemented parish worship without abandoning it. Distinguishing these positions matters when assessing the spread of radicalism. A small separatist congregation and a landowner opposing Laud could reject similar policies for different reasons.
Suspended ministers, pressure on preaching and the punishment of pamphleteers encouraged some believers to find religious authority in a congregation or direct reading of Scripture rather than an episcopal command. Networks of readers, merchants and correspondents helped circulate criticism, including works printed abroad. Censorship could limit this circulation, but did not eliminate it. Regional research documents the growth of separatism in the later 1620s and 1630s without making every private meeting evidence of separation. University of Kent research on Canterbury.
John Lilburne’s punishment in 1638 illustrates the connection between print and legal resistance. Prosecuted over unlicensed religious publications, he refused an oath that could force him to incriminate himself. Whipping, the pillory and imprisonment turned enforcement into a visible dispute over rights and conscience. These actions belong to his early career; the organised Leveller movement developed later, during the wars. It would be anachronistic to place its mature programme in the 1630s. Library of Congress on Lilburne’s oath dispute.
The National Covenant
The National Covenant transformed Scottish objections to religious reform into a collective commitment that could sustain organised resistance.
Protest following the Scottish prayer book of 1637 produced committees known as the Tables, representing groups including nobles, gentry, ministers and burgesses. The minister Alexander Henderson and lawyer Archibald Johnston of Warriston helped prepare the Covenant. First signed at Greyfriars in Edinburgh on 28 February 1638, it was copied and circulated for further signatures. Shared texts and promises connected local opposition to a wider movement. Historic Environment Scotland on Henderson and the Assembly and the Writers to the Signet on production and circulation.
The Covenant drew on earlier declarations of the Protestant faith and Scottish laws. It presented resistance as defence of true religion and lawful liberties, not rejection of monarchy. Its wording opposed unapproved innovations and promised mutual support. That combination widened appeal: people could believe they were defending an inherited settlement while making an unprecedented organised challenge to Charles.
The distinction between document and subsequent action matters. The Covenant’s initial wording did not simply abolish bishops at a stroke. At the Glasgow General Assembly in November–December 1638, Henderson presided over a body dominated by Covenanters. The royal commissioner, Hamilton, ordered dissolution, but the Assembly continued and rejected episcopal authority and disputed religious innovations. Charles now confronted an alternative claim to decide the Kirk’s government. National Records of Scotland on the Assembly’s minutes.
A collective religious bond was not a universal political consensus. Some Scots remained royalist or resisted Covenanting pressure. Its strength came from organised leadership, institutions and mobilisation, not from every inhabitant thinking alike. Calling this simply an English king’s war against all Scots also obscures Charles’s Scottish kingship and divisions within Scotland.
Resistance could defend monarchy in principle while rejecting the monarch’s authority to impose particular religious changes. Charles and the Covenanters disagreed over who could lawfully settle the Kirk’s affairs.
The First Bishops’ War
Charles’s decision to restore Scottish obedience by force made religious policy depend on military resources that Personal Rule had difficulty providing.
In 1639, the Crown planned pressure from several directions, including an English army approaching the border and naval forces under Hamilton. Scottish royalist support might divide Covenanting resistance. Plans across several kingdoms demanded finance, coordination and reliable allies; issuing commands did not guarantee that these existed.
The Covenanters mobilised under Alexander Leslie, an experienced soldier who had served abroad. Veterans, a coherent religious cause and organised support helped them assemble a more effective force. Charles’s troops suffered from inadequate preparation, supply and motivation. Some English subjects sympathised with resistance to the disputed religious policy, while others were simply unwilling to bear the burdens of war.
The armies faced each other near Berwick, but Charles did not obtain the decisive victory needed to reassert authority. The Pacification of Berwick in June 1639 ended the immediate confrontation. Forces were to disband and religious and civil grievances were to be addressed through a new Scottish General Assembly and Parliament. Charles’s acceptance of institutional discussion was a practical concession, but it did not mean that king and Covenanters agreed about the lawful outcome. Scottish History Society’s account and National Library of Scotland catalogue of contemporary negotiation papers.
The First Bishops’ War therefore demonstrates a limit on royal authority: a claim to command all subjects could fail when a well-organised opponent resisted and the king could not mobilise enough effective support. It was not a large English Civil War battle, and limited fighting did not make it politically insignificant.
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