This short sketch was written as an Introduction to the recent edition of the late Rev. J. H. Thomson’s “Martyr Graves of Scotland.” The publishers having now resolved to issue my sketch separately as a convenient summary of the covenanting struggle, I have revised and considerably enlarged it.

No Englishman, it has been said, can distinguish the National Covenant from the Solemn League and Covenant. It is to be feared that many Scotchmen are in the same case. The Covenants, indeed, have been sadly mixed up even by native historians; and comparatively few people seem to have any idea of the number of these religious bonds.

May 1904.