Solemn League and Covenant

An alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters against Charles I, agreed in September 1643. Parliament promised £30 000 a month to the Scots and the introduction of full Presbyterianism in England; the Scots agreed to provide an army to the hard-pressed parliamentarians to fight Charles. The pact facilitated parliamentary victory in the first Civil War, but although it was part of the bargain, Presbyterianism was never fully implemented in England.

The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians.

The Protestant leaders of the embattled English parliament, faced with the threat of Irish Catholic troops joining with the Royalist army, requested the aid of the Scots. This was acceptable to the majority of the English Long Parliament, as many of them were presbyterians, while others preferred to ally themselves with the Scots than lose the Civil War. This was practically a treaty between England and Scotland for the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland, the reformation of religion in England and Ireland "according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches," and the extirpation of popery and prelacy. It did not explicitly mention presbyterianism, and included some ambiguous formulations which left the door open to the English Independents, another strong faction on the English Parliamentary side, particularly in the parliamentary armies. It was subscribed by many in England, Scotland, and Ireland, approved by the English Long Parliament, and, with some slight modifications, by the Westminster Assembly of Divines. This agreement meant that the Covenanters sent another army south to England to fight on the Parliamentarian side in the First English Civil War.

After the Royalists had lost the First Civil War, Charles I was able to enter into an "Engagement" with the majority of the Covenanters in which the Covenanters agreed to support Charles in the Second English Civil War against their mutual enemy the English Independents, in return for him imposing presbyterianism for three years on England. The Scottish Covenants persuaded the exiled Charles II of England to agree to the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant in the Treaty of Breda (1650).

After the Restoration the English Parliament passed an Act which declared that the Solemn League and Covenant was unlawful, was to be abjured by all persons holding public offices, and was to be burnt by the common hangman.