Cumbernauld Bond was a pledge between eighteen Scottish noblemen who met at
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld (; gd, Comar nan Allt, meeting of the streams) is a large town in the historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth most-populous locality in Scotland and the most populated t ...
in August 1640 to defend Scotland against extreme
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
s and to defend the
National Covenant
The National Covenant () was an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, opposing the proposed reforms of the Church of Scotland (also known as ''The Kirk'') by King Charles I. The king's efforts to impose changes on the church i ...
for the public good against those who used it predominantly for private gain. At political level it was an agreement to oppose the policies of
Earl of Argyll
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...
who controlled the dominant political faction in Scotland. The most prominent pledger was the
Earl of Montrose Montrose may refer to:
Places Scotland
* Montrose, Angus (the original after which all others ultimately named or derived)
** Montrose Academy, the secondary school in Montrose
Australia
* Montrose, Queensland (Southern Downs Region), a locality ...
, others included
Lord Fleming
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
, the
Earl of Marischal, and
Lord Almond.
The Earl of Argyll learnt of the Bonds existence from Lord Almond and on 13 April 1641 it was discussed by the Scottish
Committee of Estates
The Committee of Estates governed Scotland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638–1651) when the Parliament of Scotland was not sitting. It was dominated by Covenanters of which the most influential faction was that of the Earl of Argyll.Da ...
. Although many members of the Committee were eager to press treason charges against the pledgers, after Montrose and others appeared before them and testified to the bonds existence and tried to justify it, no action, beyond having the bond burnt on a written statement extracted from the pledgers that no evil had been intended, was taken.
[Hogg p.221] Lord Almond, who had been appointed lieutenant-general of the Scottish army before the Committee's meeting, retained his position as the Covenanters did not want to emphasize division in their ranks.
Although the Bond is often seen as a sign of the growing division between Argyll and Montrose, some of the signatories did go on to back the Covenanter side in the
Scottish Civil War.
[Hastings, Max ''Montrose: The King's Champion'']
Notes
References
*Robert Chambers. ''A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen''
*Hogg, James & Hughes, Gillian (2002). ''Tales of the Wars of Montrose'', Edinburgh University Press, .
*Stephen C. Manganiello (2004). ''The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1639-1660'', Scarecrow Press, {{ISBN, 0-8108-5100-8.
1640 in Scotland
17th-century documents