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Robert Wodrow and The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

A. M. Starkey
A. M. Starkey
Affiliation:
associate professor of history in Adelphi University, Garden City, Long Island, New York
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Extract

A dark picture of tyranny and prelatical persecution endured by Scottish Presbyterians under Charles II and James II was created by Robert Wodrow in his History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland published in 1721. This image became deeply embedded in the national consciousness much to the despair of apologists of rovalist and episcopalian causes. “That which we have from Wodrow”, Mark Napier complained bitterly, “is a caluminous tissue of monstrous fables. It has poisoned the History of Scotland to an extent that is now, perhaps, irremediable.” But those who wish to revise Wodrow's interpretation of the period cannot do so simply by dismissing his work as fabulous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 1974 , pp. 488 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1974

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References

1. Napier, Mark, The Case for the Crown in re the Wigtown Martyrs Proved to be Myths versus Wodrow and Lord Macaulay… (Edinburgh, 1863), p. v.Google Scholar For a discussion of eighteenth and nineteenth-century reactions to Wodrow see Couper, W. J., “Robert Wodrow and His Critics,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 5 (1935): 239–250.Google Scholar

2. Cowan, I. B., “The Convenanters: A Revision Article,” The Scottish Historical Review 48, no. 143 (04 1968): 45 n. 2.Google Scholar

3. Wodrow to The Reverend John M'Bride, June 21, 1715, The Correspondence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, ed. Thomas M'Crie, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842–1843), 2:48.Google Scholar

4. Correspondence, 1:20–21 n.Google Scholar

5. Wodrow, Robert, The Life of James Wodrow A.M. (London, 1828), pp. 61–64.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., pp. 3–4.

7. Wodrow to Cotton Mather, January 23, 1713, Correspondence, 1:389.Google Scholar

8. An excellent discussion of martyrdom and martyrology is provided by Kelley, Donald R., “Martyrs, Myths, and the Massacre; The Background St. Bartholomew,” The American Historical Review 771 (1972): 1323–1342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Wodrow to George Ridpath, June 21, 1706, “Correspondence between George Ridpath and the Reverend Robert Wodrow,” Miscellany of the Abbotsferd Club (Edinburgh, 1837), p. 395.Google Scholar

10. Riley, P. W. J., The English Ministers and Scotland, 1707–1727 (London, 1964), p. 159.Google Scholar

11. Wodrow, Robert, Analeota: or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences Mostly Relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842), 2:79.Google Scholar

12. Mathieson, W. L., Scotland and the Union: A History of Scotland from 1695–1742 (Glasgow, 1905) p. 311.Google Scholar

13. Analecta, 2:103.Google Scholar

14. Sir Mackenzie, George, A Vindication of the Government in Scotland During the Reign of King Charles II Against Misrepresentations Made in Several Scandalous Pamphlets (1691).Google Scholar Mackenzie's case against the covenanters is given on p. 7. The incriminating “Queensferry paper” is published on pp. 44–53. At the battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679 there was a group which advocated the principles which Mackenzie attributed to the Presbyterians opponents of the Government. According to Cowan, pp. 48–49, this group included only two to four of the eighteen ministers in the rebel army. After 1679 anti-erastianism survived only among the Cameronians, a small fringe group unrepresentative of the thinking of most Presbyterians.

15. Wodrow, Robert, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, ed. Burns, Robert, 4 vols. (Glasgow, 1828), 1:xxxviii.Google Scholar Unless otherwise noted all references will be the 1828 edition. The original edition was published in two volumes in 1721.

16. Ibid., 3:203.

17. Ibid., 3:208.

18. The best account of Wodrow's early career as librarian, antiquarian and student of natural science is provided by Sharp, L. W. in the introduction to the Early Letters of Robert Wodrow, Scottish History Society, 3d Ser. (Edinburgh, 1937).Google Scholar

19. Wodrow to Patrick Smith, September 3, 1717, Correspondence, 2:294.Google Scholar

20. Nicolson, William, The Scottish Historical Library: Containing a Short View and Character of most of the Writers, Records, Registers, Law-Books, etc. which may be Serviceable to the Undertakers of a Generai History of Scotland Down to the Union of the Two Kingdoms in K. James the VI (London, 1702), pp. xxxviii–xxxix.Google Scholar

21. Robert Sibbald to Wodrow, April 24, 1702. quoted by Sharp, Early Letters, p. xlviii.

22. Wodrow to Edward Lhyd, January 12, 1702, Early Letters. p. 188.

23. Wodrow to Lachlan Campbell, November 9, 1702, Early Letters, p. 237.

24. For example, Wodrow's collation of David Buchanan's edition of Knox's History of the Reformation, printed in London in 1664 with the Glasgow manuscript. Wodrow to Nicolson, September 22, 1701, Early Letters, pp. 167–176. Part of this letter was printed in the Scottish Historical Library, Appendix 6.

25. Rae, T. I., “The Scottish Antiquarian Tradition,” in Scots Antiquaries and Historians, Abertay Historical Socicty Publication No. 16 (Dundee, 1972), 12–25.Google Scholar

26. See Fussner, F. S., The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought, 1580–1640 (London, 1962), p. 115.Google Scholar

27. Wodrow to George Ridpath, September 3, 1717, Correspondence, 2:294.Google Scholar

28. Gorge Ridpath to Wodrow, August 2, 1717, Correspondence, 2:296.Google Scholar

29. History, 1: xl.

30. Wodrow to James Fraser, 1720, Correspondence, 2:541–543.Google Scholar

31. Wodrow paid 1. 12, s. 2, d. 1 in May 1719 for an “extract out of the Warrands in the Parliament House of Mr. James Guthrie's process.” National Library of Scotland, Wodrow MSS, Quarto 42.

32. “Letters 1670–1707 mostly to Robert Wylie,” Wodrow MSS, Quarto 30. For Wylie see Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Minister, in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, ed. Hew Scott, 9 vols. (Edinburgh, 1915–1961), 3:260.Google Scholar

33. “Account of the Highland Host with several papers relating thereunto. This paper formed by Mr. William Dunlop and R. Wylie, 1678,” Wodrow MSS, Quarto 35, fol. 224–250. Wodrow follows this account verbatim at some points.

34. Wodrow MSS, Quarto 38, fol. 306.

35. History, 1:331.Google ScholarBurnet was, perhaps, even harsher on the curates: History of His Own Time, 2 vols. (London, 1724–1734), 1:155–158.Google Scholar Gordon Donaldson argues, however, that “the dispassionate pages of the Fasti Ecclesiae Scolicanae prove that Burnet's allegations about the youth and poor educational standard of the curates are unfounded…” Scotland: James V. to James VII (Edinburgh and London, 1965), p. 367.Google Scholar

36. History, 3:40–48.Google Scholar Wodrow followed the reports of two witnesses, James Russell and Andrew Guillan: Wodrow MSS, Octavo 29, fol. 143–153, Octavo 44, fol. 158–159. Other accounts are in Octavo 29,. fol. 183–185 and Octavo 4, fol. 457–468.

37. History. In the 1721 edition: Vol. 2, Appendix 10, p. 8. Burns placed the official version in a footnote in the 1828 edition: 3:45–46.

38. Ibid., 4:172–173.

39. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. and abridged by Henry Paton, 3d Ser. (Edinburgh, 1927), 9:xii–xiv, 219–222, 285–286.Google Scholar

40. Wodrow to Rev. Patrick Cowper, January 1, 1717, Correspondence, 2:218.Google Scholar

41. The catalogues are included in the Wodrow MSS, Quarto 107 and 108. Bayle is listed under “Press D” in the 1733 Catalogue, Quarto 107.

42. History, 1:xxxix.

43. Napier, Mark, History Rescued in Answer to History Vindicated (Edinburgh, 1870), p. xxxiii.Google Scholar Despite the heated battle between Napier and Archibald Stewart, the author of History Vindicated in the Case of the Wigtown Martyrs (Edinburgh, 1807),Google Scholar the question of whether or not there were any martyrs at Wigtown in 1685 remains not proven.

44. Napier, , History Rescued, p. xxxiv.Google Scholar

45. Wodrow MSS, Quarto 29, fol. 222–224. For Wodrow's account see History, 4:246–249.Google Scholar The Penninghame material has been published in Extract from Session-Book of the Parish of Penninghame (Newton-Stewart, 1826).Google Scholar

46. History, 4:195.Google Scholar

47. James Brodie to Wodrow, Wodrow MSS, Folio 45, fol. 119.

48. Compare the description of Andrew Donaldson in History, 1:409Google Scholar with the original letter from James Charters, March 14, 1720, Wodrow MSS, Folio 32. fol. 91.

49. Trevor-Roper, Hugh, “The Scottish Enlightenment,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, ed. Besterman, Theodore (Geneva, 1967), 57:1643.Google Scholar

50. Graham, Henry Grey, The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1969), p. 347.Google Scholar

51. The words of Professor William Edmonstone Aytoun, quoted by Couper, p. 248.

52. Analecta, 3:470.Google Scholar