Scotland endured a decade of English rule because of an over confident belief in its sanctified role as a religious imperialist, according to new research.
The religious fundamentalism of the mid-17th century saw Scotland assert itself as God's chosen nation with a duty to export its Presbyterian values.
Scots fought in both English Civil Wars – on both the Parliament's side and the King's. Their only stipulation in either case was that Presbyterianism be introduced as the official state religion in England.
Religion's role, however, in Oliver Cromwell's invasion of 1650 and subsequent occupation of Scotland has been played down in accounts of the period. Now a new study has sought to give religion its proper place in the story.
"Contrary to previous scholarship, the English occupation was not religiously benign," said Dr Scott Spurlock, a Teaching Fellow in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.
"The religious motivations of the English Commonwealth (the republican government that ruled first England and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660) carried over into the policies of their decade-long occupation of Scotland, during which times regimes actively sought to undermine Scottish Presbyterianism and diminish its influence over the Scottish people.
"Key to this was the unpopular policies of the Scottish Kirk and State in the previous decade, which had ostracised a significant portion of the Scottish populace," explained Dr Spurlock. "Therefore, English missionaries such as the Baptists and Quakers found among the Scots individuals eager to hear alternative forms of Protestantism preached."
Dr Spurlock's research – gathered together in his new book Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650-1660 – dispels myths that the sectarian presence had little intention of impacting upon Scottish religion. It charts the proselytising endeavours of the Independents, Baptists and Quakers and explains their varying degrees of success.
Dr Spurlock said the Scots ultimately paid "a heavy price" for their over confident belief in their sanctified role as ideological and religious imperialists.
"One of the primary roles of the new English regime was to introduce religious toleration, believing that this represented an essential foundation upon which the new Commonwealth had to rest," he said. "A necessary part of this process required the Kirk's powers of censure to be neutered.
"As a result, under the English regime and later Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, religious toleration was introduced for the first time.
"Division within the Kirk and harsh party persecutions had already created cracks in Presbyterian Scotland that sectarian seeds found just enough soil to grow. And as these new religious ideas took root they forced the fractures ever wider, further eroding the strength of the Kirk."
Dr Spurlock added that modern foreign policy makers could learn from religion's role in Scotland's fall to Cromwell.
"To some degree the current foreign policy of America, embraced by many American Christians as Providential, is not all that dissimilar to Covenanted Scotland's export of Presbyterianism in the 17th century," he added.
"They both share a belief, to some extent, that they possess something that is a gift from God which they believe it is their duty to share with the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wants it or not. The Scots paid a heavy price for their beliefs. Must similar mistakes be made in the 21st century?"