Graeme Neil Forsyth THE PRESBYTERIAN INTERPRETATION OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, 1800- 1914 Ph. D thesis University of Stirling 2003 ABSTRACT The nineteenth century saw the revival and widespread propagation in Scotland of a view of Scottish history that put Presbyterianism at the heart of the nation's identity, and told the story of Scotland's history largely in terms of the church's struggle for religious and constitutional liberty. Key to. this development was the Anti-Burgher minister Thomas M'Crie, who, spurred by attacks on Presbyterianism found in eighteenth-century and contemporary historical literature, between the years 1811 and 1819 wrote biographies of John Knox and Andrew Melville and a vindication of the Covenanters. M'Crie generally followed the very hard line found in the Whig- Presbyterian polemical literature that emerged from the struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth century; he was particularly emphatic in support of the independence of the church from the state within its own sphere. His defence of his subjects embodied a Scottish Whig interpretation of British history, in which British constitutional liberties were prefigured in Scotland and in a considerable part won for the British people by the struggles of Presbyterian Scots during the seventeenth century. M'Crie's work won a huge following among the Scottish reading public, and spawned a revival in Presbyterian historiography which lasted through the century. His influence was considerably enhanced through the affinity felt for his work by the Anti- Intrusionists in the Church of Scotland and their successorsin the Free Church (1843- 1900), who were particularly attracted by his uncompromising defence of the spiritual independence of the church. The steady stream of historical works from Free Church ministers and laymen during the lifetime of the church corresponded with a very weak Free Church interpretation output of academic history, and in consequence the was 11 probably the strongest single influence in forming the Scots' picture of their history in the late nineteenth century. Much of this interpretation, - particularly the belief in the particularly Presbyterian nature of the Scottish character and of the British constitution, was acceptedby historians of the other main branchesof the Presbyterian community, while the most determinedopposition to the thesis was found in the work of historians of the Episcopal Church. Although the hold of the Presbyterian interpretation was weakened at the end of the century by factors including the merger of most of the Free Church in 1900 and the increasing appearance from 1900 of secular and sometimes anti-Presbyterian Scottish history, elements of it continued to influence the Scottish national self-image well into the twentieth century. 111 Declaration I declare that this thesis has been composed by myself and that the work which it embodies has been done by myself. I confirm that the work has not been included in another thesis. Signed: b, }Wd rv Preface Some years ago in Winnipeg, Manitoba, my Aunt Anne showed me a school text that had been used by her Aunt Margaret when she was growing up in Scotland,and asked me what I could make of it. It was a copy of Our Country: A History of Scotlandfor the Young, by the Free Church minister James Mackenzie, inscribed 'Maggie Forsyth, Logie Almond, 1871'. A cursory examination showed that it contained a version of Scottish history that was quite unfamiliar to me. Later, when, as a recent retiree, I was looking for a topic for a thesis on Scottish history, it occurred to me that my Great Aunt Maggie's school text might provide a key to an understanding of the manner in which the Scots of the nineteenth century - some of them, at any rate - saw the world. This thesis is the result. Dedication To my father, John Ewing Forsyth, who, though born on the Canadian prairies, his Free Church embodied many of the virtues, and not a few of the opinions, of ancestors in Scotland. V List of abbreviations AFCS Annals of the Free Church of Scotland DNB Dictionary of National Biography ECI Edinburgh Christian Instructor FES Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae RP Reformed Presbyterian Church SHR Scottish Historical Review UP United Presbyterian Church vii CONTENTS Abstract ii Declaration iv Preface v Dedication v Table of contents vi List of abbreviations vii 1. Introduction 1 2. The Scottish Historical Landscape in the First Part of the Nineteenth Century: General and Ecclesiastical Histories of Scotland, 1754-1832 18 3. Thomas M'Crie 53 4. Evangelicals, Non-Intrusionists, and the Origin of the Free Church Historical School 99 5. The Presbyterian Epic in Major National and Ecclesiastical Histories, 1850-1901 139 6 The Covenants, the Constitution and the Scottish Character: Ecclesiastical History for Popular Consumption 188 7. 'These Were Men Who Knew How to Die': Presbyterianism and Scottish History in School Text Books, 1805-1909 233 8. Conclusion 273 Bibliography 291 vi Chapter 1 Introduction Presbyterianism has almost ceased to be a perceived component in the Scottish identity, but it once loomed large. Visible reminders of past glories, and not just churches, are common: visitors can find statues of Knox, memorials to Covenanters, and graves of Presbyterian martyrs in many parts of the country without too much effort. In Scotland's libraries as well are monuments: works of academic and popular history in which the greatest event in Scotland's past was the Reformation, and the struggle of Presbyterian churchmen with their rulers was the struggle of the Scottish people. For most of the nineteenth century and a good portion of the twentieth much of Scottish history was written this way, or at least written in such a manner that a Presbyterian readership would find little to offend it. All this has changed, irrevocably and quite abruptly. Within the last half century such books have ceased to be written, and the great inventory of Presbyterian history has almost ceasedto be read. More than this, the extinction of this school of historiography, and for that matter its previous existence, have gone almost unremarked. There are no works available on the Presbyterian school of historiography, and in other historiographical works the Presbyterians emerge, if at all, as bit players, standing in the path of historiographical trends of more relevance to later centuries. The common indifference to religious factors in history unquestionably reflects the fact that present-day writers live in a highly secular society. Nineteenth-century Scots, however, did not. The rise of Evangelicalism in the first half of the century was associated with an increase in 1 Christian observance throughout the country. After the cataclysm of the Disruption in 1843, Presbyterian denominations three competed vigorously for the allegiance of the urban masses, their volunteers knocking on doors, teaching Sunday schools, establishing penny banks and running literacy classes and many other services. Until 1872, Presbyterian bodies ran two school systems. Rates of church attendance at mid-century were already high by historical standards, and seem to have risen steadily over the next fifty years; peak attendance was reached in 1905, with 50.5 % of the population in church each Sunday, with urban attendance rates not greatly 1 different from those in rural areas. Levels of nominal adherence were of course much higher, and the great majority of adherents were still Presbyterians. For that reason alone it would be an error to doubt the importance of the manner in which the Presbyterians understood their history. Their viewpoint informed much of what was written about Scotland's past until the middle of the twentieth century and was for a time during the nineteenth century probably the dominant interpretation, particularly at a popular level. It was called upon repeatedly during the great disputes that racked the Church of Scotland during the third and fourth decadesof the century, and probably played a part in determining their outcome. It created and maintained a legend, amounting almost to a cult, of the later Scottish Covenanters as martyrs and heroes of the faith and of Scottish liberty. Even in its decline, it played a great part in defining the Scots' image of themselves. It is worth examining. Presbyterian or otherwise, the historiography of nineteenth-century Scotland has not been dealt with in much detail in any published work. The one frontal attack on the subject was Marinell Ash's The Strange Death of Scottish History (1980), an 1Callum Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997), 47 2 examination of the decline, after a promising start, of Scottish historical writing during the century. Dr Ash particularly lamented the failure of Scottish historiography to develop the kind of consensusto which Walter Scott aspired, in which all aspects of the Scottish polity might find themselves represented. She concluded that the problem lay in the main with creeping anglicisation of the university system, as a consequence of which Scottish history had by the end of the seventh decade of the century ceased to be interest or practical use to the student 2 population. But she was also scathing against the Presbyterians, whose intolerance, backwardness and fissiparous tendencies she believed bore a considerable responsible for the reduction of Scottish historical writing to 'a succession of historical kailyards ,3 Her the historiography the first the . account of of part of century included a discussion of Thomas M'Crie, the most famous Presbyterian historian of the century, but thereafter there was no explicit acknowledgement that the Presbyterians wrote any history of their own. The other writer whose work most directly concerns the subject of this thesis is Colin Kidd, whose Subverting Scotland's Past (1993) detailed the path of whig historiography during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Dr Kidd's central narrative was that of the destruction of the old Buchananite mythology of the have been for origin of the Scottish state, leaving nothing which might useful the Scottish independence.