The Dictionary

* cross-reference entry ** multiple cross-reference entries

ABERDEEN DOCTORS. The Scottish city of Aberdeen was the first place to witness serious fighting during the wars. Some of the academics from the university, known as the Aberdeen Doctors, refused to sign the Covenant^* and persuaded the town not to do so too. In response a team of Covenanters^* was sent to debate the issue. The Aberdeen Doctors’ stance was moderate; they did not find the episcopate to be forbidden by the Bible, but would not sign the Covenant because it was not sanctioned directly by the monarch or Scottish Privy Council, not because of theological differences or because they supported the episcopate fully.

Charles I^* took this opposition as an example of support and set out to exploit it. In 1639 and again in 1640 Aberdeen was to be the locus of anti-Covenanter risings and a proposed landing point for the king’s forces. In 1639 the earl of Montrose^* defeated the marquis of Huntly’s^* forces outside the city at the Bridge o[f] Dee. In 1644 Montrose, this time as a royalist^* lieutenant general, defeated the Covenanter forces from the city at the Battle of Justice Mills^*.

ABJURATION, OATH OF. This oath was imposed on Catholics* who were sequestered or active in the royalist^* cause. It required them to renounce the pope and the tenets of the Catholic Church. Only if they abjured could they compound^* for their estates.

ADAMS, MARY (?–1652). A member of the Ranter* sect who believed herself to be carrying the new Messiah. She committed suicide after the birth of a stillborn child.

ADWALTON, BATTLE OF. Fought on 30 June 1643 in the vicinity of Adwalton and Drighlington between Leeds and Bradford in Yorkshire, this battle saw the forces of the marquis of Newcastle* outmanoeuvre and then defeat the parliamentarian army under Lord Fairfax^* and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax^*. This forced the Parliamentarians^* into hiding at Hull^*, whilst Newcastle was able to dominate the West Riding of Yorkshire. Almost total control of the north-east of England meant that Newcastle was able to march south and drive the parliamentarian forces out of central Lincolnshire.

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