throughout the country was like the crater of an active volcano, belching forth fire and smoke.

Hamilton now resolved to return to London for fresh instructions, but before doing so, he determined to publish the king's Declaration of Grace and Favour, as it was called. Preparatory to doing so, he recalled the Courts of Justice to Edinburgh-an act which was gratefully acknowledged by the council, the judges, and many of the citizens, but which the stern Covenanters met merely by requesting that Sir Robert Spottiswood, the Lord President, and Sir John Hay, the Clerk-Register, both enemies to the Covenant, should be removed from their places.1 On the 4th of July, the king's Declaration was proclaimed at the market-cross. It set forth his Majesty's abhorrence of Popery, his resolution neither then nor afterwards to press the canons and liturgy but in a fair and legal way, and his intention to rectify the High Commission with advice of his Council, and to have a Parliament and Assembly summoned at his best convenience.2 This was nearly all that the Covenanters had at first required, but their views were widening; and, besides, they had no great confidence in the word of the king-nor had they reason. sooner were the trumpets blown by the heralds, than the Covenanters crowded to the spot-a platform was extemporised upon the instant-the Earl of Cassillis, Johnstone of Warriston, and some others, mounted upon it, holding a protest in their hand, and whenever the proclamation was ended, they began to read.3

No

On the 6th of July, the Lord High Commissioner began his journey to court, from which he did not return to Scotland till the 8th of August. His instructions upon this occasion show that his Majesty had considerably modified his opinions. Hamilton was to take steps for the summoning of a General Assembly. No renunciation of the Covenant was to be required, but he was to get the Council, and as many of the Covenanters as possible, to subscribe the Confession of 1560. But while he conceded this, he was to labour that bishops should have a vote in the Assembly, and, if possible, that a bishop should be moderator. He was to protest

1 Large Declaration, p. 93. Baillie, vol. i. 2 Large Declaration, p. 96.

3 Rothes, in his Relation, informs us how they managed to get up a platform so rapidly. They had three or four puncheons lying at the market-cross ready; these were turned upon their end, some planks thrown across them, and upon these the protesters mounted.

against the abolition of bishops, but might allow them to be made amenable to the Assembly; and if any of them were accused of any specific crimes, he was not to stand in the way of their being brought to trial. Two conditions only did the king impose upon the Assembly-no layman must vote in choosing the clerical representatives to it from the various presbyteries; and when met, it must not meddle with matters determined by acts of parliament, unless by remonstrance and petition. But while the king was making these public professions, he was still secretly pressing on his preparations for war.

The subscription of the Confession of 1560 was designed as a diversion to withdraw men from the Covenant, but it did not succeed. The exclusion of laymen from the election of ministers to sit in the Assembly was asked, because it was known that the laity were more hostile to Episcopacy than the clergy; and also because it was known that some jeal ousies had already arisen, which might thus be increased. The committee appointed by the Tables to consider this condition, reported that both ministers and elders must have a vote in the election of representatives to the Assembly. When this resolution was communicated to the clergy at their Table, many of them hesitated about its propriety. They had no recollection of a time when elders had such a power, and therefore they insisted that the resolution should be so altered as merely to affirm, that the right of electing representatives should be vested in those in whom, by law or custom, it had previously resided. When this was brought before the Table of the nobility, barons, and burgesses, they were highly indignant at the attempt to exclude them from a voice in the Church Courts, and a rupture was like to take place; but by the dexterous management of Henderson, the ministers were induced to yield, and the resolution restored to its original shape.2 The second condition was probably designed to prevent the Assembly from touching the Articles. of Perth, or the framework of the Episcopate, as these had received a legislative sanction. The Covenanters refused to be fettered by any such restrictions—their Assembly must be free; and they again began to speak of calling an Assembly themselves without waiting for the royal authority.

1 Instructions by the King to Hamilton, 27th July 1638. Burnet, p. Peterkin, p. 76. Large Declaration, p. 123.

65%

Large Declaration.

Baillie, vol. i. p. 100. Stevenson, vol. ii.

Baffled in all his endeavours to win some concessions from the faction who now ruled the country, Hamilton proposed once more to visit the court, and get authority from the king to grant all that was desired. The request was reluctantly conceded. The king and his Commissioner met at Oatlands, where it was agreed that a free Assembly should be called; and to relieve the country of all fear of Popery, and also to out-manœuvre the Covenanters, Hamilton persuaded Charles to subscribe the Confession of 1581, which formed the first part of the Covenant, and was sometimes supposed to constitute it all. It must have been a bitter pill for the king to swallow, for it reprobates as Popish and pestilent many doctrines which he firmly believed." When the Commissioner was hastening down to Scotland, he met with some of the Scottish bishops who had sought an asylum in England, and communicated to them the instructions which he bore. They felt that their doom was sealed. On the 17th September he was in Edinburgh, three days before the time he had promised. The Council was instantly summoned, and the royal concessions were made known to them. They received them with joy; agreed to subscribe the Confession as required; and to pass an act recording their satisfaction with the goodness of the king. They farther resolved that the king's declaration should be published at the cross, and proclamation made that an Assembly should be held at Glasgow on the 21st of November, a parliament in the month of May of the following year, and requiring all to follow the example of the king and his Council by subscribing the confession, with the bond annexed for the defence of religion and law.1 Many now thought that all differences might be composed, and civil war averted; but the Covenanters had acquired such a habit of protesting that they protested against this declaration too, though it in reality granted them all that they desired. There was the same scene as before; a platform was erected-it was crowded with Covenanters with their hats on their head, and their swords in their hand; Montrose was conspicuous amongst them, but no representative from the clerical Table appeared. There had been a division in the camp-the ministers were satisfied, but not the laity.2

There were now two Covenants in the field popular favour the King's and the Tables'. 1 1 Large Declaration, pp. 134, 155.

competing for

Both were in2 Ibid., p. 185.

dustriously hawked about the country, and in some cases means more potent than persuasion were employed to procure subscriptions. There were rumours afloat of men subscribing under the influence of loaded pistols and drawn daggers. Some of the Covenanting lords wrote to the Commissioner that they had heard many grievous complaints of men being forced to give their adherence to the king's confession "against their consciences, and to the great trouble of their souls." But the Commissioner sharply retorted: "Alas! my lords, tell me now, in good earnest, whether you have heard they have used such violence in persuading this Covenant, as hath been used by your adherents in enforcing of yours? Hath the blood of God's servants, His holy ministers, been shed, which blood, I am afraid, keepeth the vengeance of God still hanging over this land? Have men been beaten, turned out of their livings and maintenance, reviled and excommunicated in the pulpits, and a thousand more outrages acted upon them for not subscribing the Covenant ?" 1 As this Covenanting work went on, every town and every hamlet was violently agitated; delusion and imposture sprung from the ferment, and people greedily believed everything that favoured their party. A poor girl, subject to insanity, was carried away by the prevailing frenzy. She oracularly declared that the Covenant was ratified in heaven. She recited long passages of Scripture ; repeated long passages from sermons; spoke of Christ as the Covenanting Jesus. Noblemen, ministers, ladies of high rank crowded to hear her, and listened reverentially to her ravings, as if they were the oracles of God.2 This was not all. A Jesuit priest was pressed into the service; he abandoned his Church, subscribed the Covenant, made many marvellous revelations, and had sermons preached and published in his praise. The king's Covenant was subscribed by all the members of the Privy Council, by all the judges, saving four; by great numbers in Angus and Aberdeen, by a good many in Glasgow and its neighbourhood-probably by some twenty or thirty thousand in all. But it never had the same favour with

1

3

Large Declaration, pp. 197-99.

2 Burnet's Memoirs, p. 83. Large Declaration, pp. 226, 227. 3 Burnet's Memoirs, p. 83. Baillie, p. 102. He says "Mr Andrew Ramsay made a very sweet discourse on the subject.' This very sweet discourse was afterwards published, and still remains. It is entitled, "A Warning to come out of Babylon.' Abernethy's statement was also published, and entitled : Abjuration of Popery by Thomas Abernethy, sometime Jesuit, but now penitent sinner and an unworthy member of the true Reformed Church of God in Scotland."

66

the people as the Tables' Covenant. If Saul slew his thousands, David slew his tens of thousands.

Men now began to look anxiously forward to the Assembly upon which so much depended. The king still clung to the hope of saving the Episcopate, albeit in a modified form, and it was known that many of the clergy had not been able all at once to shake off their Episcopal prejudices; but the nobility, the barons, and burgesses, were bent upon plucking it up as a plant which God had not planted, and the Tables were already busy at work, making provision for the proper constitution of the High Court. They had indignantly repudiated the interference of the king as an infringement of its freedom; but now they ventured themselves to send down to every presbytery minute instructions as to how they should proceed in the choice of their representatives. They were instructed to provide themselves with a copy of the Act of Assembly 1597, concerning the number of commissioners they were entitled to send ; they were furnished with a form of commission; every kirksession was to send an elder to vote in the election of representatives, both lay and clerical; every minister who was erroneous in doctrine or scandalous in life was immediately to be put under process, and not chosen as a commissioner, and if chosen by the majority, the minority were to protest, and bring up the matter before the Assembly; the moderators of presbyteries were not to be commissioners in virtue of their office; and all chapter men and such as read the liturgy were to be carefully excluded.1

The Covenanters declared that these instructions were necessary, as more than thirty years had elapsed since a lawful General Assembly had been held, and many of the presbyteries were ignorant as to how they should proceed. The court and Episcopal party complained that it was an attempt on the part of the Tables to pack the Assembly with creatures of their own; that the form of commission prescribed prejudged the whole question to be tried in the Assembly; that lay elders had not sat in presbyteries for forty years, and had never taken a part in the election of clerical commissioners,2

1 Large Declaration, p. 129. Besides the public instructions sent down to the presbyteries, there were others of a more private nature, which are now to be seen in the Wodrow MSS., and in the Appendix to Baillie's Letters, &c., vol. i. p. 469. Still further, there was a letter specially addressed to every presbytery by the Tables. See Appendix to Baillie.

2 Thus in the minutes of the Presbytery of Perth previous to 1638, only absentees are mentioned by name, and these always clergymen, and the