Dunkeld Cathedral
in the 17th Century

As the Reformation gathered momentum, the more radical leaders of the Church were looking for more thorough changes. In 1578 Andrew Melville was appointed Moderator of the General Assembly, which in that year
decided that no more bishops should be appointed. Melville was keenly in favour of introducing what came to be known as the presbyterian form of Church government, in which decisions were made by tiers of representative courts, rather than by bishops appointed by the crown.

He was strongly opposed in this by James VI, who was anxious to retain bishops since he regarded presbyterianism as cutting across his own right to rule. In 1584 the decision taken six years earlier to abolish bishops was overturned by the so-called ‘Black Acts’, and for many years there was a slightly uneasy co-existence of the two systems.

Despite the differences of view between James VI and the more pro-reformist members of his Church, the king was sufficiently tactful in his dealings to prevent the development of a complete breach. This was not true of his son, Charles I, however. Although planning of a new service book had been under consideration for about twenty years, it was the way in which Charles introduced the new Scottish Prayer Book in 1637 that led to the signing of the National Covenant. In the following year the Assembly held in Glasgow abolished the order of bishops and reintroduced presbyterian government of the Church. The Solemn League and Covenant followed in 1643, linked with a military agreement with the English parliamentary forces.

 Yet for all their opposition to Charles I’s actions in introducing what were seen as Anglican forms of worship, most Scots were profoundly shocked when he was executed in 1649. In 1651 his son was crowned Charles II in Scotland, at Scone, but was soon afterwards forced to take refuge on the continent. After he was restored to his throne in 1660 bishops were re-introduced, although the forms of worship were to be little different from what they had been since 1638.

The situation might well have continued if the Scottish bishops had shown keener support for William of Orange when he supplanted James VII and II in 1688. Instead they chose loyalty to the Stewart dynasty. As a result, in 1689 they were finally ousted from the established Church in Scotland, and in 1690 presbyterianism was re-introduced.