Reformation Tours – This Week in Scottish Reformation History

A little Presbyterian history.

This week in 1653 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was dissolved; it would not meet again for another 37 years.

Technically it was two separate General Assemblies which were dissolved. By this point, the Covenanter ranks were split in two, the Protestors and the Resolutioners, over the “Engagement” with Charles I. Both sides mistrusted each other, so they held rival Assemblies in St Giles with a partition dividing them. However, in the Highlands there had been an uprising by some Highland Royalists, known as the “Glencairn Rising.”

There was suspicion that there was contact between the assemblies and these Highlanders. So Oliver Cromwell, who was in control of England, Scotland, and Ireland as Lord Protector, decided to stop them.

So on the 21st July 1658, Major-General Robert Lilburne, the Governor of Scotland dissolved the rival assemblies. The next one would not be until 1690, after the Glorious Revolution.