The best known events of the Covenanters tend to be the pivotal National Covenant (1638), the Solemn League and Covenant (1643) and the horrors of "The Killing Time" (1684-5). But inbetween there were other events of significance which should not be overlooked.

Not least of these were "The Bishops Wars" and the ongoing intereference of the three countries - England, Ireland and Scotland - in one another's affairs.

Over the course of 1639 and 1640 Charles I was to clash twice with his Scottish subjects in the Bishops Wars, so-called because of the resistance by the Presbyterians to the rule by bishops (episcopacy).

But there were also in a short space of time the rebellion of the Catholic Irish (and Old English settlers from Norman times) in October, 1641, for which a Scots army went to Ireland in 1642. Meanwhile, Civil War erupted in England in August 1642 in which the Covenanters' Army became embroiled after the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643.

And as if that wasn't enough, an Irish force under Alasdair McColl landed in Argyll in 1644 and joined up with the royalist forces under the Marquis of Montrose. Thus Scotland was involved in wars on three fronts for three different reasons: the Covenanters for religion; the political objectives for a Greater Britain, and; the private ambitions of Argyll over the Lordship of the Isles.

Following the National Covenant of 1638 there was a wave of euphoria that surged through the Presbyterian leaders resulting in dreams of extending "the royal prerogative of King Jesus ... through all the earth". For the King there were significant dangers as not only were the Covenanters challenging his authority in Scotland, it also stimulated the Puritan movement in England.

The Bishops Wars were almost non-events with little real fighting at national level, but was an excuse for feuding between local families in the north east and west of Scotland.