page_title: Scottish Episcopal Church
section_title: Episcopal government imposed by the Stuarts
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish Episcopal Church / History / Episcopal government imposed by the Stuarts
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of James VI and 1, c. 1606, by John de Critz
context_page_description: The Scottish Episcopal Church is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in Scotland.
  A continuation of the Church of Scotland as intended by King James VI, and as it was from the Restoration of Charles II to the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland following the Glorious Revolution, it recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury as president of the Anglican Instruments of Communion, but without jurisdiction in Scotland per se. This close but ambivalent relationship – consisting of a partial recognition of the authority of the Church of England, yet concurrent claim of independence – results from the unique history of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
  Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. In terms of official membership, Episcopalians nowadays constitute well under 1 per cent of the population of Scotland, making them considerably smaller than the Church of Scotland. The membership of the church in 2018 was 28,647, of whom 19,983 were communicant members. Weekly attendance was 12,430. In 2017, church membership had been 30,909, of whom 22,073 were communicant members.
context_section_description: In 1584, James VI of Scotland had the Parliament of Scotland pass the Black Acts, appointing two bishops and administering the Church of Scotland under direct royal control. This met vigorous opposition and he was forced to concede that the General Assembly should continue to run the church. Calvinists who disliked the more ceremonious style of liturgy were opposed by an Episcopalian faction. After ascending to the English throne in 1603 James stopped the General Assembly from meeting, increased the number of Scottish bishops and in 1618 held a General Assembly in Perth; this gathering adopted Five Articles of Episcopalian practices.  Many Scottish church leaders, and their congregations, responded to the Five Articles with boycotts and disdain.
  James's son Charles I was crowned in Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, in 1633 with full Anglican rites. Subsequently, in 1637, Charles attempted to introduce a version of the Book of Common Prayer, written by a group of Scottish prelates, most notably the Archbishop of St Andrews, John Spottiswoode, and the Bishop of Ross, John Maxwell, and edited for printing by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud; it was a combination of Knox's Book of Common Order, which was in use before 1637, and English liturgy in hopes of further unifying the (Anglican) Church of England and the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland. When the revised Book of Common Prayer was used for the first time during worship on 23 July 1637 in St Giles' Edinburgh, it sparked a riot which was so representative of the strength of popular feeling in Scotland that it indirectly precipitated the Bishops' Wars and this successful challenge of royal authority helped encourage many unhappy Irish Catholics into partaking in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the already increasingly uncooperative English Parliament into likewise declaring war on the king in the English Civil War. As a result of the weakness of the king, Presbyterian Covenanters were able to become the de facto government in Scotland until disagreement between the Scottish and English Parliaments over how to run Britain in terms of both civil and religious governance after the king was defeated led to another war and Scotland's conquest by the Covenanters' erstwhile allies the English Parliament's New Model Army.
  Following the Restoration of the monarch in 1660, the government of Charles II reimposed episcopacy, and required all clergymen to swear allegiance to the king and bishops and renounce the Covenants, or be prevented from preaching in church. Up to a third, at least 270, of the ministry refused, mostly in the south-west of Scotland, and numerous ministers also took to preaching in the open fields in conventicles across the south of Scotland, often attracting thousands of worshippers. This was forcibly repressed by the government, in actions later dubbed The Killing Time. The conflict continued under King James VII of Scotland (also James II of England) until the Glorious Revolution led to his removal from power.
  With the 1689 refusal of the Scottish bishops to swear allegiance to William of Orange whilst James VII lived and had not abdicated, the Presbyterian polity was finally re-established in the Church of Scotland. However, the Comprehension Act of 1690 allowed Episcopalian incumbents, upon taking the Oath of Allegiance, to retain their benefices, though excluding them from any share in the government of the Church of Scotland without a further declaration of Presbyterian principles. Many "non-jurors" also succeeded for a time in retaining the use of the parish churches.
  The excluded Scottish bishops were slow to organise the Episcopalian remnant under a jurisdiction independent of the state, regarding the then arrangements as provisional, and looking forward to a reconstituted national Episcopal Church under a sovereign they regarded as legitimate (see Jacobitism). A few prelates, known as college bishops, were consecrated without sees, to preserve the succession rather than to exercise a defined authority. At length the hopelessness of the Stuart cause
caption: Portrait of James VI by John de Critz, c. 1606.
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