The Covenanters, Part 3: The King James Bible, a Tyrant, and the Scottish National Covenant
By Pastor Jacob Tanner - Posted at Place for Truth:
The corridors of history are filled with surprising twists and abrupt turns. Some philosophers, noting how the cogs of history seem to turn abruptly upon the smallest of happenings, have sometimes discussed what popular culture refers to as “the butterfly effect.” Originally, the theory was birthed by a meteorologist as part of chaos theory, but more commonly today people use this term to refer to the theory that one slight action in the present may act as a cause resulting in a multitude of unforeseen effects; for example, in popular media, the idea is often presented that the death of a butterfly in the present may result in a hurricane in the future.Cause and effect, ebb and flow, push and pull; we see these functions imprinted all over the cogs of fate throughout history. One event leads to another, that event leading to countless more. Everything, then, is connected. (I have often joked with my students that if you want a good game to waste some time on, just go to Wikipedia, click an article at random, and start clicking the hyperlinks until you eventually get to an article on Adolph Hitler—it never takes very long.) If we wanted to, we could effectively trace every moment in history back to a foundational starting point: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
This interconnectedness of history means that it ought not to be surprising to learn then that the Scottish National Covenant of 1638 exists because of the King James translation of the Bible.
Permit me to take you, dear reader, down a few corridors of history.
In modern retellings of his life, I have found that James is more commonly remembered as King James I of England, rather than King James VI of Scotland. Nonetheless, he was in fact King of both realms, and also ruler of Ireland, as well. He ruled all three nations from March 24, 1603, until his eventual death in 1625. Despite his two decades of rule, the nations were never able to come to a true unification, continuing to operate as sovereign nations with their own parliaments.
King James was born the son of Mary, Queen of the Scots (the same antagonist mentioned throughout the life and times of the great Scottish Reformer, John Knox), and a great grand-son of King Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland. He was also the great-great nephew of King Henry VIII, making him the first cousin, twice removed, of Queen Elizabeth I. Thus, from his birth, he existed as heir apparent to three different thrones. He ascended his first throne—that of Scotland—at only a little over a year old, when his mother was forced to abdicate and abandon the throne.
It was not unheard of for rulers after the Reformation to be Protestant, but it also was not unusual to see them still cling to their Roman Catholic upbringing. Several factors resulted in James being raised as a Protestant and Presbyterian, despite having received Roman Catholic baptism as an infant. His own ancestors had often stood between one side or the other, with each subsequent generation wavering to the opposite side. While his own mother had been staunchly Roman Catholic, several decades earlier his great-great uncle, King Henry VIII, had split from the Roman Catholic Church and had founded the Church of England.
