V. THe Covenant.

But to understand Milton's

contemptuous reference to the ‘fine clause’ of the
~ ‘riddling Covenant,’ it is necessary, to pause for a mo-

» ment to consider this bone of contention among all
parties in the last year of Charles’ reign. The Solemn
League and Covenant of August, 1648, was based
upon the Scottish National Covenant of 1688, which
in its turn had been imported from France. Areligious
pact between England and Scotland, it was not only
a league between two kingdoms to defend their civil
liberties, but paved the way for uniformity in church
matters, for the abolition of episcopacy, and the
establishment of Presbyterianism in England. On its

" acceptance by the English parliament, copies of the

_ document were signed at Westminster,! and in nearly

" all the parishes of England and Scotland. The text
of the Covenant? was easy to understand, but it
contained one clause which was afterwards to be
interpreted according as a man turned to the support
of king or parliament. This offending clause read as
follows:—‘ We shall with the same sincerity, reality
and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour
with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the
rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the
liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend
the King’s Majesty’s person and authority, in the
preservation and defence of the true Religion and

‘ The event is described by Neale, Hist, of the Puritans 1. 466,
See also Whitelocke, Aemor. 1, 202.

For a full text of the Covenant see Rushworth, Hist, Coit.
5. 478, 479,

c2

XX Introduction

Liberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear
witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that
we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his
Majesty's just power and greatness.’ In the first
Sion House tract the Presbyterian ministers accused
Cromwell's party of esteeming the Covenant (refer-
ring of course to the above clause) no more than ‘an
almanack out of date.’ In their second protestation
they held that ‘the taking away the life of the King,
in the present way of Trial is, not only not agreeable
to any word of God, the principles of the Protestant
Religion (never yet stained with the least drop of
bloud of a King) or the fundamental constitution and
government of this Kingdom, but, contrary to them,
as also to the Oath of Allegiance, the Protestation
of May 5, 1641, and the Solemn League and Covenant:
from all, or any of which Engagements, we know not
any power on earth, able to absolve us or others.’
The ambiguous clause of the Covenant follows, and
the citizens are exhorted to hold to it rather than to
commit the sin of perjury, and so draw upon them-
selves and the kingdom the blood of their sovereign.?
Prynne also quotes the ‘ fine clause ’ 1nd thus continues :
‘This Covenant you have all taken yourselves (some
of you often)® and imposed it on all three Kingdomes:
And will it not stare in your faces your consciences.
and engage God himselfe, and all three Kingdomes,
as one man against you, if you should proceed to

1 4 Serious and Faithf. Repres. etc., p. 7.

3A Vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel... with a short
Exhortation to their People to keep close to their Covenant-Ingagement
yp. 5 ff.
i Besides the national pledge, there were local voluntary
covenants, by which groups of individuals bound themselves to

sustain the parliamentary cause and to be faithful to one another.
See Mem. of Col, Hutchinson, p. 143.

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The Covenant xxi

depose the King, destroy his person or disinherit his
" posterity? yea, bring certaine ruine upon you and
yours as the greatest Covenant breakers, and most per-

_ jured Creatures under Heaven."! Again he says:
‘ Consider that Scotland and Ireland are joynt tenants,
at least wise tenants in Common with us in the King,
as their lawfull Soveraigne and King, as well as ours:

© and that the Scots delivered and left his person to our
Commissioners at Newcastle, upon this expresse con-
dition: That no violence should be offered to his
Person, etc., according to the Covenant.’?. The Pres-
byterians supported their constant quotation of this
clause by trying to prove from Scripture that oaths,
trusts, and covenants were broken only by sinful men.
Yet, however dogmatic the divines and Prynne were
on this question, others construed the loyal clause in
quite a different sense. John Price reflects this dif-
ference of opinion. ‘The Presbyterian,’ he observes,
‘pleads Covenant-engaging conformity (as they urge)
with the Church of Scotland: The Parliamenteer pleads
Covenant, engaging to preserve the rights and priviledges
of Parliament: The Royalist pleads Covenant, engaging
to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and
Authority: The Armists plead Covenant, engaging to

x preserve the liberties of the Kingdome, etc. So that you

have made the Covenant a meere contradictious thing,
like unto one of the Diabolicall Oracles of the Heathens,
speaking nothing certaine but ambiguities.’* Another
critic, this time a textual expert, complains that the
Presbyterians make ‘a stop at Authority,’ ‘And thus

' A Briefe Memento, p. 8.
* A Briefe Memento, p. 13. The clause is quoted in full on
p. 89. See also his Speech delivered in the House of Commons, Dec. 4,

1648, pp. 17, 18, for a furious attack upon the Covenar*-breakers
* Clerico-Classicum, p, 27,

xxii Introduction
our English sentences are read with Scotch comma’s
and periods, and the Covenant made to speak what
it never meant, and Covenanters to undertake absolute-
ly what they promise but conditionally, by the Scotch
Artificers, who make it a nose of wax.’! That Milton
was fully justified in heaping contempt upon the
Presbyterians for using Scotch commas and periods
in their cavilous reading of the ‘ unnecessariest clause’
(6.1; 38.1; 38,27; 35. 19; 86.9; 36. 16), we have it
on the evidence of Whitelocke that the Scotch them-
selves had changed their minds as to its meaning.
In Dec., 1645, the Parliament of Scotland voted ‘that
the clause in the covenant, for the defence of the
king’s person, is to be understood in defence and
safety of the kingdom.’? Yet in the very next month
they made a declaration to the English Parliament
that the king was to remain prisoner with ‘safety to
his person.’ On July 27, 1647, the Assembly of the
Kirk of Scotland ordered a public fast, for the danger
to religion and reformation by sectaries in England,
‘and that the Covenant may be kept.’ In August,
1647, when Fairfax moved on London, and the In-
dependents gained the upper hand in parliament,
Whitelocke mentions the increased emphasis with
which the pulpits in Scotland urged ‘the necessity
of that kingdom to maintain the ends of the covenant
against all violation.’® After this brief review of the con-
troversy, the plain reader will agree that Milton’s many
criticisms of the riddling Covenant were well founded.*

* The Jovial Tinker of England, p. 7.

2 Whitelocke, Memor. 2. 99.

* [bid 2. 108,

* ford, 2, 183,

* Ibid. 2, 194.

* For other references to the Covenant in Milton’s prose, see
Observ. Art. Peace (Bohn 2. 197), Eikon (1, 488, 390), First Def. (1. 198).

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The Presbyterian Divines