that they bred the Scottish government many diffi- | culties, and their rash and foolish expressions, and sometimes attempts both in private and public, had bred such a fear and jealousy in the hearts of many that things could not go well. The bishops, for example, had been complaining that the Scotch reformers of the former ages had taken from them many of their rents, and had robbed them of their power and jurisdiction even in the church itself; and they had been wont to say that the Scottish reformation generally must be reformed.* But Laud and Charles would listen to no complaints against the new bishops; and, urged on by them, the Scottish council issued a decree of "horning," or banishment, against all such ministers as refused to receive the New Book of Common Prayer, "out of curiosity and singularity." Alexander Henderson, minister at Leuchars ; Mr. John Hamilton, minister at Newburn; and Mr. James Bruce, minister of Kingsbarns, petitioned against this harsh sentence with great good sense and moderation, and with a total and most rare abstinence from fanaticism. They told the lords of secret council that they had been willing enough to receive the said books to read them beforehand,

Letter from Traquair to Hamilton, in"Burnet's Memoirs of Dukes of Hamilton.

in order to see what doctrine they contained, without which knowledge they could not adopt them; that, in the matters of God's worship, they were not bound to blind obedience to any man; that the said Book of Common prayer was neither authorised by the general assembly, the representative kirk of the kingdom, which ever since the Reformation had given directions in matters of worship, nor by any act of parliament, which had been ever thought necessary in high matters of this kind; that the liberty of the true kirk of Scotland, and the form of worship received at the Reformation, and universally practised ever since, were warranted by acts of the general assemblies and acts of parliament; that there had been great disputing, division, and trouble in Scotland, on account of some of the ceremonies contained in the new book; that they, upon a competent allowance of time, would undertake to prove it departed widely from the doctrine of the Reformation, and in points most material came near to the church of Rome, which they held to be as idolatrous and anti-Christian now as it was when their forefathers left it; and, finally, that the people of Scotland had been otherwise taught by themselves and their predecessors in the pulpit, and, therefore, it was likely they would be found averse to the sudden change, even if their pastors adopted it. Laud's

own bishop, the Bishop of Ross, gave a very short answer to these petitioners. He told them that, while they pretended ignorance of what was contained in the book, it appeared by their many objections and exceptions to almost all parts of it, that they were but too well read in it, albeit they had abused it pitifully. He asserted that not the general assembly, which consisted of a multitude, but the bishops, had authority to govern the church, and were in themselves the representative church of the kingdom. He assured the ministers that the service-book was neither superstitious nor idolatrous, but, on the contrary, one of the most orthodox and perfect Liturgies in the Christian church, and that therefore they must accept it, and read it, or bide their horning.* During harvest-time men were at work and quiet;" but that being ended, many resorted to Edinburgh, notwithstanding the proclamation, and got up a general petition to the Scottish council, praying that the service-book might no further be pressed upon them. But they presently found a tremendous edict against them.

Charles, to punish the inhabitants of the good old town, sent down orders for the removing of the term, or session, and the council of government from Edinburgh to Linlithgow, the next term to Stirling, the next to Dundee, &c., together with a fresh proclamation, commanding the Presbyterians to disperse immediately, and return to their homes, under pain of being treated as wicked and rebellious subjects, and with an order for calling in and burning a seditious book, entitled 'A dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies, obtruded upon the Kirk of Scotland.' The council would have delayed the publication of the arbitrary decrees; but Charles's orders were peremptory, and they were all read at the market cross. The Earl of Traquair communicated a part of the immediate result to the Marquess of Hamilton. "The noblemen," says he, "the gentry, and commissioners from presbyteries and burglis, seemed to acquiesce herewith, and every man, in a very peaceable manner, to give obedience to the tenour of the proclamations; but the next day thereafter, the town of Edinburgh, or, as our new magistrates call it, the rascally people of Edinburgh, (although their sisters, wives, children, and near kinsmen, were the special actors,) rose in such a barbarous manner, as the like has never been seen in this kingdom, set upon the Bishop of Galloway, and with great difficulty was he rescued into the large council-house." This Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, who was odious on many grounds, but upon none more than upon a popular rumour, that he wore a golden crucifix hid under his clothes, was almost strangled by the women, who were bent upon discovering this concealed relic; nor was he safe when he had escaped into the council-house; for a multitude, which seemed constantly to increase in number and fury, surrounded the house, crying for "the priest of Baal"-for all the traitors that ↑ Hardwicke State Papers.

• Rushworth, VOL. III.

were conspiring to ruin the old liberties and religion of Scotland. The terrified members of the council that happened to be in the house applied to the Edinburgh magistrates for protection: the magistrates could give them none, for they were themselves beset by the rioters, who stated that the reason of their rising against their own magistrates was, because they had promised them that they should be the last in the kingdom to be harassed about the Book of Common Prayer. At last, the gentlemen and clergymen who had come up to present the petition, and who had been opprobriously ordered out of the town, used their good offices to prevent bloodshed, and, by their influence and persuasion, rescued the bishop, the council, and the magistrates from the hands of the rioters. It was observed, however, that the friends and relations of these very magistrates were in the mob; that citizens of the best repute, with their wives and their sisters, were actively engaged, and that many well-known gentlemen openly joined the people in their cries and denunciations. It was, therefore, no longer possible to represent the disaffection as a thing of no consequence-as a mere outbreak of the lowest and poorest, who might easily be brought to reason by a little hanging and scourging. And nearly at the same time the city of Glasgow became the scene of a similar rising against the Prayer Book and episcopacy. But Charles and Laud, though warned by the Scottish ministers of the fierce and dangerous spirit of the people,-of the daily accession to their cause of men of rank and ability,-of the defenceless state of Edinburgh Castle and the other fortresses,-of the poverty of the exchequer, were resolved to go "thorough," and that too without admitting of any delay. In fact, all the Scottish ministers of state, with the exception of the bishops, were themselves opposed to the service-book, though for a time none of them declared their dislike of it, but made their requests to the king for time and patience to appease the perilous hostility of the people. Traquair said that the Prayer Book might possibly be submitted to in seven years' time ;* but Laud was furious at the mention of so long a delay, and Charles resolved to enforce it at once. Apprehending that the king meant to deprive Edinburgh for ever of its honours and advantages as the seat of government, the citizens of that ancient capital became more incensed than ever, and it was soon made to appear that Charles had committed a fatal mistake in exciting their jealousy in this particular. Before the removal of the session from Linlithgow to Stirling, the "Four Tables," or Boards, as we should now call them, were established with the acquiescence of the Scottish council, which were representative committees, consisting respectively of lords, gentlemen, ministers, and burgesses, and which were to be fixed permanently in the capital. With these Tables in Edinburgh there corresponded lesser Tables, or sub-com

The Archbishop of St. Andrew's also told Laud that it would take seven years to establish the service. 2 B

mittees, in the country, a constant communication being established among them all. Above all these Tables was a general Table, which consisted of members taken from each, and which was intrusted with something very like a supreme executive power. In the course of a very few weeks these Tables were looked up to with far more respect than the paltry government, and they exercised an uncontrolled authority over the greater part of Scotland. It has been well said that a better scheme for organizing insurrection could not easily have been devised. The contrivers of it and the leading members of the permanent committee were the Lords Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, and Cranston. While the king was determined to cede nothing, the Presbyterians now almost daily advanced their demands, and pressed them with increasing pertinacity and boldness. They no longer petitioned for time, and some alterations of the Book of Common Prayer; they demanded the instant removal of the whole Liturgy, the Book of Canons, which had also been forced upon them, and of the Court of High Commission, which had been most heartily detested ever since its first establishment; they accused the bishops as the cause of all the animosities and troubles which agitated the country; they declined their authority in all matters whether civil or religious, protesting against every act of the Scottish council to which any bishop should be a party. The lord treasurer, the Earl of Traquair, was summoned up to London by Charles, who examined him sharply, and then sent him back-though his sincerity was much doubted-with still harsher and more despotic instructions. Traquair was enjoined, or bound by an oath, to keep these things secret till the very moment when they should be announced by proclamation at Stirling; but, probably through the earl himself, the contents of the proclamation were divulged immediately; upon which the Tables put themselves into a state of preparation. The members of the sub-committees were summoned from all parts to meet at Edinburgh and Stirling. To disperse them and the multitudes that flocked with them, Traquair, on the 19th of February, caused the king's proclamation to be read at Stirling, where the council was then sitting, "condemning their irregular proceedings; imputing them rather to preposterous zeal than to disaffection or disloyalty; remitting past offences to such as should obey his majesty's commands; discharging all future meetings, on pain of treason; forbidding them to repair to Stirling, or any other place, where the council and session sat, without notifying their business, and obtaining leave from the council; and ordering strangers of all ranks to quit the place within six hours after the proclamation, under the same penalty." But the herald had scarcely done reading this proclamation, when the Lords Hume and Lindsay, acting for the Tables, published, with equal solemnity, a counter-proclamation, which was then fixed to the

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market-cross at Stirling, and copies of it sent to be read and affixed in Edinburgh and Linlithgow. Traquair, who had foreseen the mischief, wrote to Hamilton, that his majesty must now perceive how much all sorts and qualities of people in Scotland were commoved." Many things," he adds, "have been complained of; but the service-book, which they conceive, by this proclamation, and the king's taking the same upon himself, to be in effect of new ratified, is that which troubles them most. And truly, in my judgment, it shall be as easy to establish the missal in this kingdom as this service-book, as it is conceived."* The lord treasurer said again that he saw not a probability of power within the kingdom" to force the book down people's throats, or restore tranquillity to the country. He also mentioned that the Earl of Marr had written untimely" to his under-keeper of Edinburgh Castle, who had the reputation of a great Puritan, and had so given occasion to great alarms. Everything, he said, that was done or intended at court was instantly carried to the ears of the committees. The bishops and lords of the council were constantly quarrelling with, and accusing one another.

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My own condition," he continues," at this time is hard; for, as upon the one hand I am persecuted by the implacable underhand malice of some of our bishops, so am I now in no better predicament with our noblemen and others who adhere to the Presbyterian course; and I may truly say, the bishop they hate most is not more obnoxious to their hatred than I am at this time." But in less than a week the perplexed lord treasurer, who sent up the justice-clerk to London, had still more alarming intelligence to communicate. The Presbyterians, being now openly joined by the most powerful and popular noblemen of the kingdom, and even by several members of Charles's government, proceeded boldly to frame and subscribe their celebrated National Covenant, whereby they undertook to maintain, at all hazards, the old form of worship; to maintain the confession of faith subscribed by Charles's father and household and all ranks of people in 1580 and 1581, and again in 1590. The origin of the Covenant has been traced almost to the commencement of the Reformation in Scotland, or to the time of Cardinal Beaton, when the nobles, the friends of Wishart and Knox, who called themselves the Lords of the Congregation, undertook, by a solemn bond or covenant, to protect the persons and opinions of the reforming and persecuted preachers. The name was adopted from the covenants of Israel with God; and the nature of the obligation was derived from the bonds of mutual defence and maintenance peculiar to the nation; but the word covenant had a most significant and holy sense in the ears of the Scottish people, who knew that that form of association had carried their ancestors triumphantly through their struggle with Papistry. The Tables, or

Hardwicke State Papers.

standing and well-organized committees, now summoned every Scotsman who valued his kirk to repair to the capital, there to observe a solemn fast as a fitting preparation for the renewal of the covenant. The call was obeyed everywhere, and Edinburgh was presently crowded and crammed with fiery Presbyterians, who generally travelled with good broad swords. Upon the appointed day, the 1st of March, they took undisputed possession of the High, or St. Giles's kirk, which, in their notions, had been profaned by the preaching and praying of Laud's dean and bishop. After long prayers and exhortations the new covenant was produced; the congregation rose, and nobles, gentry, clergy, and burgesses, with hands raised towards heaven, swore to its contents. This memorable deed had been prepared by Alexander Henderson, one of the four ministers whose petition had been so rudely answered by the Bishop of Ross, and by Archibald Johnston, an advocate and the great legal adviser of the party. It had also been revised by the Lords Balmerino, Loudon, and Rothes. Whatever other defects there may have been in the composition, there was no want of power.

It was, indeed, most skilfully adapted for acting upon a proud, a devout, and enthusiastic people, who were about equally proud of their national independence and their national kirk. It began with a clear and nervous profession of faith, and a solemn abjuration of the usurped authority "of that Koman Antichrist (the pope) upon the scriptures of God, upon the kirk of Scotland, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men; all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty; his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection of the law, the office of Christ, and his blessed evangel; his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God's law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law, the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments; his five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the word of God; his cruel judgments against infants departing without the sacrament; his absolute necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real presence of Christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men; his dispensations, with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage forbidden in the word; his cruelty against the innocent divorced; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the quick; his canonization of men, calling upon angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relics, and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days, vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayers for the dead, praying or speaking in a strange language; with his processions and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or

mediators; his manifold orders; auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and doubtsome faith; his satisfactions of men for their sins; his justification by works, opus operatum, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations, and stations; his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits, crossing, saining, anointing, conjuring, hallowing, of God's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith; his worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows, with all his shavelings of sundry sorts; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruel and bloody band conjured against the kirk of God." "And, finally," said the covenant, 66 we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions, brought in the kirk without or against the word of God, and doctrine of this true reformed kirk." They went on to say that they would continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of their own kirk, and would defend the same according to their vocation and power all the days of their lives," under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of God's fearful judgment ;" that they were not moved to their resistance by any worldly respect, but through the persuasions of their consciences, and the knowledge of God's true religion, which some were minded to corrupt and subvert secretly till time might serve for their becoming open enemies and persecutors of the same; that they perceived that the quietness and stability of their kirk depended upon the safety and good behaviour of the king's majesty, whose person and authority they would defend with their goods, bodies, and lives, so long as he defended Christ and the liberties of their country, upheld justice and punished iniquity. A variety of Scottish acts of parliament and acts of council were next recited to justify their pretensions and their intolerance of the old religion, or of any approach to its ceremonies, which they called "the monuments and dregs of by-gone idolatry." idolatry." "We, noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons, continued this famous document, "considering the danger of the true reformed religion, of the king's honour, and of the public peace of the kingdom, by the manifold innovations and evils generally contained and particularly mentioned in our late supplications, complaints, and protestations, do hereby profess, and before God, his angels, and the world, solemnly declare, that with our whole hearts we agree and resolve all the days of our life constantly to adhere unto, and to defend, the foresaid true religion, and, forbearing the practice of all novations already introduced in the matters of the worship of God, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk, or civil places and power of kirkmen, till they be tried and allowed in free assemblies, and in parliaments, to labour by all means lawful to recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, as it was established and professed be

And if

fore the foresaid novations. . . . . And we promise and swear by the great name of the Lord our God to continue in the profession and obedience of the foresaid religion." . . . . They again most solemnly averred that they had no intention or desire to attempt anything that might turn to the diminution of the king's greatness and authority, which they maintained would be sensibly increased by their proceedings. But, at the same time, they resolutely expressed their determination to carry their object, and to bide by one another; so that whatsoever should be done to the least of them for that cause should be taken as done to all in general, and to every one of them in particular. Continuing in the same high strain, they said, "And we shall neither directly nor indirectly suffer ourselves to be divided or withdrawn by whatsoever suggestion, combination, allurement, or tenor, from this blessed and loyal conjunction, nor shall cast in any let or impediment that may stay or hinder any such resolution as by common consent shall be found to conduce for so good ends; but, on the contrary, shall, by all lawful means, labour to further and promove the same. any such dangerous and divisive motion be made to us by word or writ, we and every one of us shall either suppress it, or (if need be) shall incontinently make the same known, that it may be timeously obviated. Neither do we fear the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination, or what else. our adversaries from their craft and malice would put upon us, seeing what we do is so well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true worship of God, the majesty of our king, and the peace of the kingdom, for the common happiness of ourselves and posterity. And, because we cannot look for a blessing from God upon our proceedings, except with our profession and subscription we join such a life and conversation as beseemeth Christians who have renewed their covenant with God, we therefore faithfully promise for ourselves, our followers, and all other under us, both in public, in our particular families, and personal carriage, to endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of Christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to God and man. And that this our union and conjunction may be observed without violation, we call the living God, the searcher of our hearts, to witness, who knoweth this to be our sincere desire and unfeigned resolution, as we shall answer to Jesus Christ, in the great day, and under the pain of God's everlasting wrath, and of infamy, and of loss of all honour and respect in this world; most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with a happy success, that religion and righteousness may flourish in the land, to the glory of God, the honour of our king, and peace and comfort of us all."*

A few creatures of the court saw in all this mighty

*Rushworth.

| enthusiasm nothing more serious than a brief fanatic outbreak, and they assured Charles, who ought to have remembered the history of his grandmother and of his great-grandmother, that it would be easily dashed and dissipated. This was miserably to misunderstand the character of the Scottish people. The lord treasurer knew his countrymen better. On the 5th of March, writing from Stirling to the Marquess of Hamilton, he says, "It is now high time for your lordship to represent to his majesty the height of evils are like to fall upon us, if he shall not be pleased to free the subjects of the fears they have conceived of innovation of religion; and that it is not to be expected from this, that it will withstand, far less repress, the fury. The bond, whereof the justice-clerk hath the double, is subscribed by many; and all qualities of people, from all towns of the kingdom, are coming in daily to subscribe."* But the business was too well organised to permit the subscription to the covenant to depend upon men's making long journeys to the capital: copies of the deed itself were dispatched to the different counties in the west and north, the popular preachers were all warned, a fire of pulpit-batteries was opened from John o' Groat's House to the Cheviot hills— from Aberdeen to Tobermory, and the COVENANT was spoken in its thunder. The people were roused and excited to the utmost; all ranks, all ages hailed the pledge of liberty and salvation, and the covenant was signed on the Sabbath in every parish with shouts, tears of joy, or contrition and hearty embraces. It was a fine subject for the more eloquent of the ministers-now no longer dumb or tongue-tied by the priests of Baal; and some of them compared it in its progress to Elijah's cloud-a little cloud at first, arising out of the sea, like a man's hand, but which swelled and spread itself till the heaven was black with clouds and wind. Traquair pointed out the only means of averting the storm. of averting the storm. "If," says his lordship, "his majesty would be pleased to free them, or give them an assurance that no novelty of religion shall be brought upon them, it is like the most part of the wisest sort will be quiet; but, without this, there is no obedience to be expected in this part of the world; and, in my judgment, no assurance can be given them hereof, but by freeing them of the Service-book and Book of Canous. If the king, for the good of his own honour and service, may be moved to anything in this kind, I wish earnestly your lordship should not spare your pains in coming home, and undertaking to do his majesty's service; but, except something of this kind be granted, I know not what further can be done than to oppose force to force; wherein, whoever gain, his majesty shall be a loser."+

But still Charles and Laud disregarded the