as these bodies could meet in freedom, bishops could never get authority in Scotland.

On the 2d of July, 1605, notwithstanding the king's prorogation, nineteen ministers met in Assembly at Aberdeen. While they were sitting, a messenger-at-arms entered and charged them in the king's name to dismiss or incur the penalty of rebellion. The Assembly did dismiss, but appointed to meet again in three months. The wrath of the king, when informed of the meeting of this Assembly, knew no bounds. The ministers were forthwith arrested, and fourteen were sent to prison. Eight of these were banished to the remotest parts of the kingdom. The other six, among whom were John Forbes, the moderator, and John Welsh, son-in-law to John Knox, were confined in dungeons in the castle of Blackness, and after suffering fourteen months' imprisonment, were banished to France.

In the summer of 1606, letters were sent by the king to six of the most distinguished of the ministers who had not been already seized on account of the Aberdeen Assembly, ordering them to appear at the English Court in September. These ministers were Andrew and James Melville, William Scott, John Carmichael, William Watson, James Balfour, Adam Colt, and Robert Wallace. The king's aim was to engage the ministers and the English bishops in a conference touching the superior merits of Episcopacy; and every endeavor was used to draw the Scottish ministers into the use of language which might furnish a plausible pretext for instituting proceedings against them. James commanded them to attend a course of sermons preached by four English divines-on the bishops, the supremacy of the Crown, and the absence of all authority for the office of lay elders. The Scots heard the bishops' sermons with silent contempt; but Andrew Melville was accused of having caricatured the service in a Latin epigram which came under the notice of the Privy Council. For this he was summoned to answer before that tribunal, and was brought to trial as guilty of a treasonable act. Melville, in a moment of passion, when delivering a vehement invective against the hierarchy during the course of his examination, seized and shook the white sleeves of Bancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the same time calling them "Romish rags." For this offence he was imprisoned in the Tower of London four years, and afterwards banished to Sedan, in France, where he died. His nephew, James Melville, was also imprisoned and prohibited from returning to Scotland. The other four ministers were banished to remote parts of Scotland.

Free meetings of the Assembly having now been suppressed, the king proceeded to call together from time to time packed assemblies, and at one of these held at Glasgow, June 8, 1610, Episcopacy was restored; the right of calling and dismissing assemblies was declared to belong to the royal prerogative; the bishops were declared moderators of diocesan synods; all presentations to benefices were appointed to be directed by bishops; and the power of excommunicating and absolving offenders was conferred on them.

James now sought to introduce five articles of his own into the Church discipline, known as the Five Articles of Perth. These articles were kneeling at the communion, the observance of holy days, episcopal confirmation, private baptism, and the private administration of communion. They were adopted by an Assembly which met at Perth in August, 1618, and ratified by a Parliament which met at Edinburgh three years later. Meanwhile, the king had set up an engine of tyranny called the Court of High Commission, with the Archbishop of St. Andrews at its head. This Scottish Inquisition had power to summon before its bar any individual whatever, to examine into his life, conversation, and opinions on matters of religion, and to fine, imprison, or banish at discretion.

James insisted that his articles should be enforced on the people. He was always exhorting and threatening in vain; nonconforming ministers were imprisoned and banished without effect; and in spite of all his efforts many of the conforming ministers' churches began to be deserted, and they were left to declaim against schism and rebellion to empty pews.

James's natural timidity made him constantly wear on his fat body a dress stuffed and padded thick enough to resist the stroke of a dagger. Nevertheless, he was vindictive to a degree, and susceptible to the grossest flattery. He was extremely conceited a weak feature of his character much fed by the fulsome adulation of his English bishops. Of his kingly prerogatives he had the most extravagant ideas. In literature he was a pedant. He died March 27, 1625, at the age of fifty-nine.

That is not wholly a fanciful argument which is used by some who believe James to have been the son of Rizzio, basing their belief on the theory of hereditary transmission of parental foibles. The carping pettishness and vanity of his character, manifested in the importance which he gave to the minutest details of ecclesiastical formalities, is certainly more in keeping with that of the Italian agent of the Papal Court, who became the secretary, confidante, and favorite of James's mother, than it is with those traits which distinguished the family of his mother's lawful spouse.

CHAPTER XXX

SCOTLAND UNDER CHARLES I.

AMES VI. was succeeded by his son, Charles I., who began his reign at the

JAM

age of twenty-four. Like his father, he held erroneous ideas concerning the royal prerogative, and like some of his father's descendants who rule in the present day, was firmly convinced that he had been taken into partnership by the Almighty for the purpose of remodelling the universe. It has been said that Charles was incapable of distinguishing between his moral and political rights; possibly an inherited tendency led his narrow Jesuitical mind to assume and to maintain that his political position gave him an unquestionable right to dictate to his subjects the form of their worship. Hating Presbyterianism as intensely as his father had hated it, he was determined on establishing Epispopacy in Scotland and was delayed in this project only by the lack of money. To procure this, in October, 1626, he issued a revocation of all grants of lands by the Crown since the Reformation. This was intended for the benefit of the bishops and clergy, but it naturally aroused feelings of resentment among the nobles whose interests it threatened to invade, many of whom had received grants of Church lands from the Crown. Charles sent the Earl of Nithsdale to propose his plans to the Scottish Parliament, with promises of kingly favor to those who should submit, and threats of rigorous proceedings against those who might refuse.

The Convocation of nobles, though usually servile enough, resisted this proposition with all its power. The barons and gentry composing that body, while ever willing to assist the king in subverting the civil and religious rights of his subjects, became violently enraged when their own property rights were threatened. A secret meeting was held, at which the interested nobles resolved among themselves to destroy the king's emissary and all his supporters, in case the detested measure should be pressed. When the day of meeting came, therefore, the conspirators entered the Parliament House carrying arms concealed about their persons for the purpose of killing Nithsdale and his party in the open convention. That nobleman in some way became aware of the temper of the barons, and prudently deferred presenting the measure until it could be submitted to Charles for modification. The king accordingly found it necessary to limit the scope of his demands, and raised processes to reduce the grants on legal grounds. Finally, a deputation from the nobles visited London to treat with the king and a compromise was effected. The church lands and the property in dispute were permitted to remain in the hands of those who held them, under the condition of paying a proportion as rental to the Crown, while the Crown also insisted on a right of feudal superiority, whereby additional dues would fall to the public revenue; an arrangement was also effected by which the lands became chargeable for tithes for the benefit of the clergy.

Many of the nobles only surrendered their full claims to the church lands with a grudge which long embittered their minds, and predisposed them to join in the struggle against the king which subsequently ensued.

Charles visited Scotland in 1633, and was crowned at Holyrood on June 18th. He brought with him a little, square-faced, dark-eyed man, who afterwards became notorious as Archbishop Laud, of whom it has been said, "He came in like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog." Charles was eager to complete the scheme of church polity which his father had begun, and during his presence in Scotland preparations were made for composing a new book of canons and a liturgy. Bishops and archbishops had been for some thirty years forced upon the Church of Scotland. The king and his archbishop thought the time had now come for making the Scots use the Episcopal forms of worship also, thus completing the uniformity between the churches of the two kingdoms. Accordingly, they caused a liturgy or service-book to be prepared for use in Scotch congregations. It was framed by the bishops of Ross and Dunblane on the pattern of the English prayerbook, and submitted to Laud for his approval. It came back with numerous alterations. The canons, as finally revised by Laud and the bishops of London and Norwich, were ratified by the king in May, 1635, and promulgated by him in 1636. They bore little resemblance to any Scottish ecclesiastical rules subsequent to the Reformation. Charles also signed a warrant to the Privy Council on the 18th of October, 1636, which contained his instructions concerning the introduction of the new liturgy, and the Council in December issued a proclamation ordering all the people to conform to the same. The royal proclamation ordered the new service-book to be observed in all the churches on Easter day, 1637, but, on account of popular opposition, the authorities postponed the date of its introduction. This postponement merely served to heighten the feeling against it.

The 23d of July, 1637, was the day finally set for the introduction of the new service. In the cathedral church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, the two archbishops and other bishops, the members of the Privy Council, and the magistrates in their robes, attended in the forenoon to grace the proceedings. The Bishop of Edinburgh was to preach, and the Dean to read the service. A great crowd filled the church. The Dean, attired in his surplice, came from the vestry, and passed to the reading-room amid a deep silence. He had scarcely begun to read when confused cries arose. As he proceeded, the clamor became louder, and the prayers could not be heard. An old woman, named Janet Geddes, who kept a cabbage-stall at the Tron, grasped the little folding-stool on which she sat, and threw it at the Dean's head, crying, "Out! thou false thief, dost thou say mass at my lug?" The Dean, forgetful of his dignity, dodged the missile, and it flew by his head without harming him. The people now started to their feet, and the church became a scene of wild uproar. The voices of the women were loudest; some cried, "Woe, woe me!" others shouted that they were "bringing in Popery," and

Several of the

a number of stools were thrown at both bishop and dean. more vehement rushed towards the desk, to seize upon the object of their indignation. The dean, terrified by this sudden outburst of popular fury, tore himself out of their hands and fled, glad to escape, though with the loss of his sacerdotal vestments. The bishop of Edinburgh himself then entered the pulpit, and endeavored to allay the wild tumult, but in vain. He was instantly assailed with equal fury, and was with difficulty rescued by the interference of the magistrates. When the most unruly of the rioters had been thrust out of the church, the dean attempted to resume the reading, but the din of the mob on the outside, shouting aloud their hostile cries. against "Popery," breaking the windows, and battering the doors, compelled him to terminate the service abruptly. When the bishops came out of the church the multitude attacked Bishop Lindsay, and he narrowly escaped with his life.

At a meeting of the Glasgow Synod, John Lindsay preached, after being warned by some of the women in the congregation that "if he should touch the service book in his sermon, he should be sent out of his pulpit." William Annan, minister of Ayr, in a sermon preached before the same Synod, defended the liturgy. Afterwards, on leaving the church, he was assailed with cries and reproaches; which were repeated whenever he appeared on the streets. Returning one night from the bishop's residence, he was surrounded by some hundreds of persons, most of whom were women, and assailed with neaves, staves, and peats. "They beat him sore," says the old chronicle, "his cloak, ruff, and hat were torn. However, on his cries, and lights set out from many windows he escaped all bloody wounds." At Brechin, the bishop of that district armed himself with pistols, and entering the church with his family and servants, bolted and barred the doors, and read the service to his followers. On coming out, he was set upon by the people, nearly killed by their treatment, and obliged to leave the place and give up his bishopric. The excitement spread over the country like wild-fire. The liturgy was everywhere spurned. Petitions from all parts were poured in upon the Privy Council, and that body wrote a mild letter to the king, advising him of the serious crisis which the attempt to enforce the book had brought on. On the 4th of August, the Council was commanded by the king to punish all the persons concerned in the disturbance, and to support the bishops and clergy in establishing the liturgy. In violation of the chartered rights of the burghs, the king also ordered them to choose no persons as their magistrates except such as would conform. The Council resolved that another attempt should be made to use the liturgy on Sunday, the 13th of August; but when that day came, none could be found in Edinburgh who were willing to officiate as readers.

Meanwhile, the king's letter to the Privy Council tended to increase the popular excitement. In the course of a few days, twenty-four noblemen, many barons, about a hundred ministers, commissioners from sixty-six