THE year was 1679 and the place was St Andrews – or rather a rough tract of country nearby that today is pretty parkland but once was a bleak, menacing sweep of heath and scrub called Magus Muir. It was the last stretch of open road before travellers entered the town.

Its menace came to life on May 3, 1679, with the brutal murder of the Rev James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, by a gang of vengeful Covenanters. For students of Scottish Christianity, it showed how different batches of believers found it so hard to love one another.

Sharp was a son of the conservative north-east of Scotland. His father made a living as a lawyer and general man of business to local landowners. He had sired three sons of the same sort, except that James chose a career in the Kirk.

The young man dutifully climbed the clerical ladder, not outwardly perturbed by the religious revolution that was going on in Scotland. By 1642, at the age of 24, he was a regent, or tutor, at the University of St Andrews. In 1648 a local patron, the Earl of Crawford, presented him as minister to the prosperous parish of Crail.

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Meanwhile, the turbulence in Scotland grew worse, as did its disputes with England. Both nations fought a civil war against the repressive King Charles I and, in different conflicts, got the better of him. By 1646 he put himself in the hands of the Scottish Presbyterian army that had advanced into England. At length, and in exchange for money, it handed him over to his English parliamentary enemies, who in 1649 were going to execute him.

Still, none of this made much difference to men like Sharp. He feathered his nest in St Andrews and then in Edinburgh, where he hoped to move next. But all such plans were upended after the Scots promptly proclaimed King Charles II as his father’s successor. He came over from his Dutch exile and in 1651 led them on an invasion of England, only to suffer crushing defeat at the Battle of Worcester.

Under the victorious Oliver Cromwell, Scotland was now to be absorbed into one Commonwealth with England. The episode gave Charles all the experience he wanted of quarrelsome Presbyterians. So matters remained till Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the succession to power of his son Richard.

The Kirk split between radicals and moderates, with Sharp growing in prominence among the latter. Up to this point he had shown himself to be one of its willing negotiators, trying always to avoid breakdowns in communication and retreats into rigid positions.

In 1659, he was in London to treat with Richard Cromwell, but the army left him on the wrong side when it recalled Charles II the next year. Sharp did reach out to him, too, though he got back only affectionate words and a promise to call a General Assembly of the Kirk.

Sharp wrote of his confidence that Scotland still had a Presbyterian future, and railed at those who suspected him of wavering – “I am a Scot and a Presbyter.” He did make clear his belief that the Kirk must be so ordered as to remove any conflicts with “the king’s interest”. Charles smiled at this and told Sharp: “You will be counted a malignant when you come home.”

So it was to be. Sharp’s confidence in moderation was soon eclipsed by the actions of the restored Scottish Parliament. At once it made clear that the Kirk must be subject to royal supremacy and then that without the re-establishment of episcopacy Scotland was going to remain an occupied country.

Sharp faced a choice: he could hold to his Presbyterianism and lose all, or he could resign himself to the inevitable, go along with a change and try to ensure it conformed at least to some extent with the desires of Scots churchmen.

On September 6, a proclamation concerning episcopacy was read in Edinburgh and Sharp became an agent for the new scheme. On November 14, he was nominated to the archiepiscopal see of St Andrews, and on December 15 was consecrated in Westminster Abbey.

Sharp got back to Edinburgh in April 1662, in the splendour of a new coach bought in London, complete with “two lacqueys in purple”. On May 8 ,the bishops returned to Parliament as the traditional ecclesiastical estate. On May 17, Parliament passed an act restoring episcopal government to the Kirk.

In September the government began its harassment of nonconforming ministers. Sharp now made a definitive shift and took sides against the Presbyterians. Here was the practical result of his policy of moderation as the road to unity.

In fact, Scotland had entered on an era of furious but impotent revolt. The politicians felt not at all pleased that this was where Sharp and his clerics were leading them. The people began to worship in the fields rather than in the kirks, and took up arms to fight off attempts at stopping them.

From the whole south-west of Scotland they gathered in the Pentland Rising of November 1666, which ended in defeat and massacre at the Battle of Rullion Green. Sharp’s policy seemed to be making the country’s religious troubles worse rather than better. His vision of an independent Kirk governed by a moderate episcopacy was in ruins.

There was a young theological student in Edinburgh called James Mitchell who had taken part in the acts of rebellion but escaped capture. He held on to a pair of pistols and awaited a chance to use them. On July 11, 1668, he shot at Sharp as the archbishop was waiting in his carriage in the High Street, but only succeeded in wounding the Bishop of Orkney, Andrew Honyman, seated next to him.

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In the ensuing confusion Mitchell escaped. Another minister, Gilbert Burnet, wrote: “Sharp was so universally hated, that, tho’ this was done in the full day light, and on the high street, yet no body offered to seize the assassin.”

Not till 1674 was Mitchell captured, after Sharp recognised him in the street. Still, this was a dubious kind of identification and he only confessed after he had received a promise that his life would be spared. But then he refused to repeat his confession in court, and his promise was declared invalid.

Sharp took a lead in the chicanery, as a result of which Mitchell was finally executed. In real life it only did damage to the reputation of a government now associated with torture and perjury. This set the pattern for the nation’s tradition of moderation, such as it is. Perhaps we have not got over it yet.

In the end this was also why, on May 3, 1679, the gang of Covenanter militants succeeded where Mitchell had failed and assassinated Sharp on Magus Moor. Before they killed him, they declared they were avenging the death of James Mitchell.