Chapter XX: THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. (continued) (2)

Having thus with a high hand carried his measures--refused the confirmation of the graces, conformed the Irish to the English Church in one Session, and obtained such an amount of money as would not only pay off the debts of the Crown, but would supply for some years the extraordinary demands of the Government, he wrote exultingly to England, declaring that the king was as absolute in Ireland as any king in the world, and might be the same in England if they did their duty there. He boldly demanded an earl's coronet, on account of these services, which, however, Charles deferred for awhile, thinking that he should hold such a man to his work rather by the hope than the possession of high preferment. Wentworth was so delighted with his overruling the Irish Parliament, that he proposed to the king to merely prorogue and not dissolve it, as being the most convenient instrument for effecting his further designs on the country. But Charles would not listen to it, remarking that parliaments were like cats, they ever grew cursed with age, and it was better to put an end to them early, young ones being most tractable. He thanked him for what he had done, and especially for saving him from the odium of breaking his promise about the graces.

How little did this bold bad man see that, whilst he was serving the king's worst purposes, he was preparing his own destruction. In fact, though he had stunned the Irish for a moment by the audacity of his bearing, he had struck deep into their souls a resentment that no man, however powerful or subtle, could withstand. He was, however, only on the threshold of the sweeping changes which he contemplated in that country, for he was resolved to reduce it to a condition of absolute dependence on the Crown. He was not content with forcing the English Articles on the Irish Church, but he refused to the Catholics every relief that Charles had pledged himself to in order to get their money. Instead of abolishing, as promised, the oppressive power of the court of wards, he gave them a more virulent activity. The Catholic heir was still obliged to sue out the livery of his lands, and before he could obtain them, to take the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. To obtain his rightful property, he was thus compelled to abjure his religion. But he entertained a still more gigantic design, which was to seize on the fee simple of the greater part of Ireland, on pretence of defective title.

We have seen that in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the titles of the great landed proprietors both in Connaught and Ulster had been called in question, and those monarchs had pretended to renew them on condition of certain payments. These conditions had been repeatedly fulfilled by the proprietors, but not by the Crown. Charles, in 1628, amongst the other benefits promised, had engaged to ratify these titles; but Wentworth showed him the folly of doing that while by alarming them on the point he might draw immense sums from them, or get possession of the lands. To this proposal Charles consented, and the experiment was begun with Connaught. Wentworth proceeded (1635) at the head of a commission, to hold an inquisition in every county of Connaught. He opened his proceedings at Roscommon, where he summoned a jury of "gentlemen of the best estates and understandings," that more weight might attach to their decisions if favourable, or that, if adverse, he might levy heavy fines upon them. He assured the jury that his majesty merely meant to ascertain the condition of all titles, in order that if defective he might render them legal. It was on this plea that the freeholders had been wheedled into the surrender of their deeds and patents by Elizabeth and James; but Wentworth added another alarming fiction. He contended that Henry III., reserving only five cantreds to himself, had given the remainder to Richard de Burgh, to be holden of him and his heirs of the Crown, and that those tenures had now descended to the present king, by the marriage of the heirs of De Burgh with the royal line. According to this the king was the rightful owner of every acre of land in Ireland. He assured the jury, therefore, that it was their best interest to give a general verdict for the king, as he could without their consent establish his right, and if compelled to do that in opposition to them, the result might be much worse for them. By these means he induced the juries in Roscommon, Sligo, Mayo, Clare, and Limerick, to return a verdict in favour of the Crown, but the people of Galway stoutly resisted. They declared that the title of the king, through Edward IV., from Richard de Burgh, could not be proved; there was a hiatus in the genealogy. They were all Catholics, and were the more resolute from having been so shamefully deluded in the matter of wardship. Wentworth was rather glad to be able to make an example of them, and he therefore fined the sheriff one thousand pounds for returning so obstinate and perverse a jury, and dragged the jury into his Star Chamber, the chamber of the Castle, and fined them four thousand pounds apiece. He fell with especial vindictiveness on the old Earl of Clanricarde, and other great landowners of Galway, and set about to seize the fort of Galway, march a body of troops into the country, and compel it to submit to the king's will. The proprietors, disbelieving that the king could know of or sanction such infamous breaches of faith and acts of oppression, sent over a deputation to Charles to lay the matter before him. But the king received them with reproaches, declared his full approval of the proceedings of the Lord-Deputy, and sent them back to Ireland as State prisoners. The old Earl of Clanricarde, whose son had been the head of the deputation, died soon after receiving the news of this conduct of the monarch, and Wentworth wrote to Charles that he was accused of being the cause of his death. "They might as well," he remarked haughtily, "impute to me the crime of his being threescore and ten." He was still busily pursuing other noblemen with the same rancour--the Earl of Cork, Lord Wilmot, and others--when the Catholic party in England, who had a friend in Queen Henrietta, made their complaints heard at Whitehall. Laud, who was acting as outrageously himself in England, informed Wentworth of it, and even hinted more caution, observing that if he could find a way to do all those great services without raising so many storms, it would be excellently well thought of. But Wentworth was as little disposed to avoid storms as his adviser himself. He proceeded in the same autocratic style both towards the public and individuals. It had been the original intention to return to the proprietors three-fourths of their lands, and retain one-fourth for the Crown, amounting to about one hundred and twenty thousand acres, which were to be planted with Englishmen, on condition of yielding a large annual income to the Crown. But now it was resolved to retain a full half of Galway as a punishment of its obstinacy, and Wentworth was proceeding with the necessary measurements, when his career proved at an end.

(_After the Portrait by Vandyke._)]

The individual acts of injustice which he perpetrated were done at the suggestion of his profligate desires or personal revenge, with the most unabashed hardihood. He had seduced the daughter of Loftus, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, wife of Sir John Gifford, and wanted to confer a good post on her relative Sir Adam Loftus. Such an opportunity soon occurred by an inadvertent expression of Lord Mountnorris, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. It happened one day that Annesley, a lieutenant in the army, accidentally set a stool on the foot of the Lord-Deputy, when he was suffering from the gout. This Lieutenant Annesley had some time before been caned by Wentworth in a paroxysm of passion, and Mountnorris hearing the incident of the stool mentioned at the table of Chancellor Loftus, said, "Perhaps Annesley did it as his revenge, but he has a brother who would not have taken such a revenge." This being repeated to Wentworth, he treated the observation as a suggestion to Annesley to perpetrate a more bloody revenge; and though he dissembled his resentment for some time, he then accused Mountnorris, who was also an officer in the army, of mutiny, founded on this expression. Wentworth attended the court-martial to overawe its proceedings, and obtained a sentence of death against Mountnorris. The sentence was too atrocious to be carried into execution, but it served Wentworth's purpose, for he cashiered Mountnorris and gave his office to Loftus. Much as the Irish had suffered before, this most lawless act excited a loud murmur of indignation throughout the land; but Wentworth had secured himself from any censure from the king by handing him six thousand pounds as the price of the transfer of Mountnorris's treasurership to Sir Adam Loftus.

The resentment of the Irish was becoming so strong against Wentworth, that the king thought it safest for him to come to England for a time; but he soon returned thither, with the additional favour of the monarch, where he remained till summoned by Charles to assist him by his counsels against the Scots. But the fatal and memorable year 1640 was at hand, to close the story of his tyrannies. We must now retrace our steps, and bring up the conflicts of Scotland with the same blind and determined despots to that period.

The storm against the despotism of Charles had broken out in that country. From the moment of his visit to Edinburgh with his great apostle Laud, he had never ceased pushing forward his scheme of conforming the Presbyterian Church to Anglican episcopacy. He had restored the bishops on that occasion, given them lands, erected deans and chapters, and Laud had consecrated St. Giles's Church as a Cathedral. As he could not persuade the Scottish Peers to submit to the liturgy as used in England, which his father had attempted in vain before him, he consented that a liturgy should be drawn up by four Scottish bishops, who were also to form a code of ecclesiastical canons. They were to introduce into the latter some of the acts of the Scottish assemblies, and some more ancient canons, to make the whole more palatable. These laws and the liturgy were afterwards revised by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London and Norwich, and Charles ordered the amended copies to be published and preserved.

None but a monarch so foolhardy as Charles would have dared such an experiment on the Scots who had resisted so stoutly his father, and had driven his grandmother from the country for her adhesion to Popery. The people received the publication of the canon with unequivocal indications of their temper; and when, therefore, the first introduction, of the liturgy was fixed for the 23rd of July, 1637, in St. Giles's Church, they went thither in crowds, to give a characteristic reception. The archbishops and bishops, the Lords of Session, and the magistrates went in procession, and appeared there in all their official splendour. This display, however, so far from imposing on the people of Edinburgh, only excited their wrath and contempt, as the trumpery finery of the woman of Babylon. A considerable riot ensued, during which a woman named Jenny Geddes is said to have thrown a stool at the bishop's head. The story is, however, supported by indifferent evidence.

But it was not merely the base multitude, the nobility were as violent against the new Liturgy as the people, and came to high words with the bishops and their favourers amongst the clergy. Four ministers--Alexander Henderson, of Leuchars; John Hamilton, of Newburn; James Bruce, of Kingsbarns, and another--petitioned the Council on the 23rd of August, to give them time to show the anti-Christian and idolatrous nature of this ritual, and how near it came to the Popish mass, reminding them that the people of Scotland had established the independence of their own Church at the Reformation, which had been confirmed by Parliament and General Assemblies, and that the people, instructed in their religion from the pulpit, were not likely to adopt what their fathers had rejected as contrary to the simplicity of the Gospel. But the Bishop of Ross, Laud's right-hand man, replied for the Council that the liturgy was neither superstitious nor idolatrous, but according to the formula of the ancient Churches, and they must submit to that or to "horning," that is, banishment. Still the Council delayed, and the people were pretty quiet during the harvest time, but that over, the news having arrived of a peremptory message from the king, commanding the enforcement of the liturgy, and the removal of the Council from Edinburgh to Linlithgow, thence in the following term to Stirling, and for the next to Dundee, the people flocked into Edinburgh, and, incensed at the idea of their ancient capital being deprived of its honours as the seat of government, they became extremely irritated, attacked the bishops when they could see them, and nearly tore the clothes from the back of the Bishop of Galway. He escaped into the Council House, and the members of the Council in their turn sent to demand protection from the magistrates, who could not even protect themselves.

For greater security the Council removed to Dalkeith, and the Marquis of Hamilton recommended to Charles to make some concessions; but far from giving way, a more positive order for the enforcement of the obnoxious liturgy arrived from the king. But it was found impossible to enforce it: the Earl of Traquair was summoned up to London, sharply questioned as to the causes of the delay, and was sent back with more arbitrary commands. On the 18th of October these were made known, and fresh riots took place, Traquair and two of the bishops nearly losing their lives. The king then consented to the petitioners above mentioned being represented by a deputation personally resident in Edinburgh. The object was to induce the crowds of strangers to withdraw to their homes, when it was thought the people of Edinburgh alone might be better dealt with; but the advocates of the people seized on the plan, and converted it into one of the most powerful engines of opposition imaginable.

At the head of these able politicians, and the contrivers of this profoundly sagacious scheme, were the Lords Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, and Cranstoun. Balmerino had been severely treated by Charles, and had thus become hardened into the most positive opponent of the episcopal movement. In his possession in 1634 was a copy of a petition to the Scottish Parliament, too strong in its language even for the Scottish dissentients to present. He had, under pledge of strictest secrecy, lent this to a friend. For this he was committed to prison, and at the instigation of Spottiswood, Archbishop of St. Andrews, it was resolved to prosecute him for high treason, and a verdict was procured against him. But the people were so enraged that they assembled in vast crowds, vowing to murder both the jurors who had given the verdict and the judges who had accepted it. Government was alarmed, and the king was reluctantly induced to grant Balmerino a pardon. From that moment he became the champion of the people.

He and his colleagues the nobles, the gentry, the Presbyterian clergy, and the inhabitants of the burghs, formed themselves into four "Tables" or Committees, each of four persons, and each Table sent a representative to a fifth Table, a Committee of superintendence and government. Thus in the capital there were sitting five Tables or Committees, to receive complaints and information from the people, and decide on all these matters. Throughout the country were speedily established similar Tables, with whom they corresponded. Thus, instead of that mere representation of the petitioners which the king contemplated as an expedient for getting rid of the immediate pressure of the people, one of the most perfect and most powerful systems of popular agitation was organised that the world had ever seen. There was the most instant attention to the suggestions of the people by the provincial Tables, and the most prompt and respectful consideration of their reports by the Tables in the capital. A permanent government of the people was, in fact, erected, to which the public looked with the utmost confidence, and by which step its whole weight was brought to bear on the unpopular government of the king.

The formidable nature of this novel engine of the popular will was quickly perceived by the Court; and Traquair was ordered to issue a proclamation declaring the Tables to be unlawful, commanding all people to withdraw to their own homes, and menacing the penalties of treason against all who disobeyed. This proclamation was made by Traquair at Stirling, on the 19th of February, 1638; but it was disregarded. The Tables had procured early information of the forthcoming proclamation, and had summoned the provincial Tables from all parts to assemble in Edinburgh and Stirling. These cities were thus crowded with the very life and soul of the whole agitation. They had already risen in their demands as they perceived their strength, and had ceased to petition for time and some trifling alterations in "the buke." They demanded the formal revocation of the liturgy, the canons, and the Court of High Commission. Now, no sooner had the herald read the royal proclamation than the Lords Hume and Lindsay read a counter proclamation, saw it affixed to the market cross, and copies sent to Edinburgh and Linlithgow, to be read and publicly placarded there.

Traquair, who had clearly foreseen these consequences, and in vain warned the king to avoid them by timely concession, wrote to Hamilton, informing him of what had taken place, and that there was no power in the kingdom capable of forcing the liturgy down the people's throats; that they would receive the Mass as soon. His words received a speedy confirmation. The Tables determined to publish a Solemn Covenant between the people and the Almighty to stand by their religion to the death. Their fathers, at the time of the Reformation, had adopted such an instrument. The great nobles of the time had sworn to maintain the principles of Wishart and Knox, and to defend the preachers of those doctrines against the powers of Antichrist and the monarchy. James had sworn to adhere to this confession of faith, with all their households and all classes of people, in the years 1580, 1581, and 1590. The name of Covenant was thus become a watchword to the whole nation, which roused them like a trumpet. This document had been composed by Alexander Henderson, one of the four ministers who had petitioned, and Archibald Johnstone, an advocate, the legal adviser of the party; and had been revised by Balmerino, Loudon, and Rothes.

This famous document began by a clear exposition of the tenets of the Reformed Scottish Church, and as solemn an abjuration of all the errors and doctrines of the Pope, with his "vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions." It enumerated the anti-Christian tenets of Popery--the denial of salvation to infants dying without baptism; the receiving the Sacrament from men of scandalous lives; the devilish Mass; the canonisation of men; the invocation of saints; the worshipping of imaginary relics and crosses; the speaking and praying in a strange language; auricular confession; the shaveling monks; bloody persecutions; and a hundred other abominations. All these were made as great offences against the Anglican hierarchy, which was fast running back into those "days of bygone idolatry." The various classes--"noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons"--bound themselves by the Covenant to defend and maintain the reformed faith before God, His angels, and the world, till it was again established by free Assemblies and Parliaments, in the same full purity and liberty of the Gospel as it had been heretofore.

On the 1st of March, 1638, the church of St. Giles, which had witnessed so lately the hasty flight of the bishops, was thronged with the Covenanters of all ranks and from all parts of the country. The business was opened by a fervent prayer from Henderson, and then the people were addressed in a stirring harangue by the Earl of Loudon, the most eloquent man in Scotland. The effect was such that the whole assembly rose simultaneously, and with outstretched arms, amid torrents of tears, swore to the contents of the Covenant. That done, they turned and embraced each other, wept, and shouted aloud their exultation over this great victory, for such they felt it, in the united energy and religious dedication of the nation.

Dispersing to their various homes, the delegates carried the fire of this grand enthusiasm with them. Over moor and mountain it flew, across the green pastoral hills of the South, through the dark defiles of the Highlands, and to the sea-swept isles. Thousands continued to pour into the capital to add their signatures to the Covenant; and in every parish on the Sunday the people streamed to listen to the fiery harangues from the pulpits, and to give in their names, with the same tears, emotions, and embraces as in Edinburgh. It was soon found that, except in the county of Aberdeen, the Covenanters outnumbered their opponents in the proportion of one hundred to one.

Nor did these determined reformers readily admit of any dissent or lukewarmness. Where they found any opposed or inert, they roused them by threats, and often by blows and coercion. Some they threw into prison, and some they set in the stocks for refusing to sign. The Catholics were those who principally stood aloof; but these were not calculated at a thousand in all Scotland. Of such they entered the names in a list, and made calculations of their property, with a view to confiscation. In Lanark and other places the contending factions came to blows before the lists were filled up. Active subscriptions were levied for the maintenance of the Cause, and before the end of April there was scarcely a single Protestant who had not signed the Covenant. The bishops had fled to England, and all Scotland stood ready to fight for its faith.

Here was a spectacle which would have shown the folly of his career to any other monarch; but all reason or representation was wasted on Charles. Traquair entreated him, before plunging into war, to listen to the counsels of his most experienced Scottish Ministers; but Charles seldom listened to anything except his own self-will, or any person except his fatal counsellors, Laud and Wentworth. He is said on this occasion to have consulted with a small council of Scotsmen living in England, which had been formed by James on his accession to the English throne, and in accordance with their advice and in opposition to that of the Council in Scotland, he resolved on suppressing the Covenant by force.

In May he sent the Marquis of Hamilton to Scotland, with orders to endeavour to soothe the people by assuring them that the liturgy and canons should only be exercised in a fair and gentle manner, and that the High Commission Court should be so remodelled as to be no grievance. If these promises did not satisfy them, as Hamilton must have known they would not, for Charles's promises were too notorious to be of any value, he was to resort to any exercise of force that he thought necessary.

On the 3rd of June he arrived at Berwick, and sent to the nobility to meet him at Haddington; but no one appeared except the Earl of Roxburgh, who assured him that anything but a full revocation of the canons and liturgy was hopeless. On reaching Dalkeith he was waited on by Lord Rothes, who, on the part of the Covenanters, invited him to take up his abode in Holyrood as more convenient for discussion.

Hamilton objected to enter a city swarming with Covenanters, where the castle was already invested by their guards. These, it was promised him, should be removed and the city kept quiet, on which he consented; and on the 8th of June he set forward. But he found the whole of the way, from Musselburgh to Leith and from Leith to Edinburgh, lined with Covenanters, fifty thousand in number. There were from five to seven hundred clergymen collected; and all the nobility and gentry assembled in the capital, amounting to five thousand, came out to meet and escort him in. All this he was informed was to do him honour, but he felt that its real design was to impress him with the strength of the Covenant party.

Being settled in Holyrood, Hamilton received a deputation of the heads of the League, and asked them what they required to induce them to surrender opposition. They replied that in the first place they demanded the summons of a General Assembly and a Parliament. They then renewed the guard at the castle, and doubled the guards and watches of the city. The preachers warned the people to be on their guard against propositions. They informed the marquis that no English Service Book must be used in the royal chapel, and they nailed up the organ as an "abomination to the Lord." They then waited on Hamilton, requesting him and his officers to sign the Covenant, as they hoped to be regarded as patriots and Christians. The ministers whom the oppressions of Wentworth had chased out of Ulster to make way for the Anglican service were in Edinburgh, inflaming the people by their details of the cruelties and broken promises of Charles and his Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland.

Hamilton saw that it was useless to publish Charles's proclamation, but wrote advising him to grant them their demands, or to lose no time in appearing with a powerful army. Charles replied desiring him to amuse the Covenanters with any promises that he pleased, so that he did not commit the king himself. He was to avoid granting an Assembly or Parliament, but he added, "Your chief end being now to win time, they may commit public follies until I be ready to suppress them." The marquis, therefore, endeavoured to spin out the time by coaxing and deluding the Covenanters. He promised to call a General Assembly and a Parliament, and redress all their grievances. When pressed too closely, he declared that he would go to London himself and endeavour to set all right with the king; but this was part only of the plan of gaining time whilst Charles was preparing a fleet and army. But the Scots were too wary to be thus deceived. They had information that troops were being raised in England, and they too made preparations. At the same time they waited on the marquis, professing the most unabated loyalty, but resolute to have free exercise of their religion. Hamilton promised to present their address to the king, and set out on the 4th of July for England. He informed Charles of the real state of the country, and that the very members of the Privy Council were so infected by the Covenant that he had not dared to call them together. But Charles was not to be induced to take any effective measures for pacifying the public mind of Scotland. His instructions to the marquis were to amuse the people with hopes, and to allow of the sitting of a General Assembly, but not before the 1st of November. He was even to publish the order for discharging the use of the Service Book, the canons, and the High Commission Court, but was to forbid the abolition of bishops, though the bishops were for the present not to intrude themselves into the Assembly. They were, however, to be privately held to be essentially members of the Assembly, and were to be one way or other provided for till better times.

These half measures were not likely to be accepted, but they would serve Charles's grand object of gaining time, and the marquis arrived with them in Edinburgh on the 10th of August. Three days after his arrival the Covenanters waited upon him to learn how the king had received their explanations, and the marquis assured them with much grace and goodness; but when they heard that the bishops were not to be abolished, they treated his other offers with contempt, and Hamilton once more proposed to journey to England to endeavour to obtain a full and free recall of all the offensive ordinances. Before taking his leave, as a proof of his earnestness, he joined with the Earls of Traquair, Roxburgh, and Southesk, in a written solicitation to his Majesty to remove all innovations in religion which had disturbed the peace of the country. By the 17th of September Hamilton was again at Holyrood. On the 21st he received the Covenanters and informed them that he had succeeded; that the king gave up everything; that an Assembly was to be called immediately, and a Parliament in the month of May next; and that the king revoked the Service Book, the Book of Canons, the five Articles of Perth, and the High Commission. The Covenanters were about to express their unbounded satisfaction and loyal gratitude, when the marquis added that his Majesty only required them to sign the old confession of faith as adopted by King James in 1580 and 1590. This single reservation broke the whole charm; their countenances fell, and they declared that they looked upon this as an artifice merely to set aside their new bond of the Covenant.

In all Charles's most solemn acts the cloven foot showed itself. Even when seeming most honest, there was something which awoke a distrust in him. He was not sincere, and he had not the art to look so. In any other monarch the positive assurance that the innovations on the religion of Scotland should be abandoned, would have settled the matter at once; but Charles had so utterly lost character for truth and good faith that it was believed throughout the country that he was still only deluding them, and seeking time ultimately to come down resistlessly upon them. And we know from his own correspondence preserved in the Strafford Papers that it was so. These words addressed to Hamilton, "Your chief end is to win time, that they may commit public follies, until I be ready to suppress them," are an everlasting proof of it. Besides, they had ample information from friends about the Court in England that this was the case, and that in a few months the king meant to visit them with an irresistible force. The people of England were suffering too much from the same species of oppression not to sympathise warmly with the Scottish patriots, and keep them well informed of what was going on there. We find it asserted in the Hardwicke State Papers that the Government was very jealous of the number of people who went about England selling Scottish linen, and it was recommended to open all letters going between the countries at Berwick.

The Covenanters therefore determined to hold together and be prepared. On the 22nd of September, 1638, the Marquis of Hamilton caused the royal proclamation to be read at the market-cross at Edinburgh, abandoning the Anglican Service and the High Commission Court; but as it required subscription to the old confession of faith, there was no rejoicing on the occasion. There were two particulars in this proclamation which fully justified the Scots in refusing to comply with it. It stated that the vow of the Covenant was unauthorised by Government, and therefore illegal; and it professed to grant a pardon for that act to all who signed the confession, which would have acknowledged that the nation had been guilty of a crime in accepting the Covenant, a thing they were not likely to admit, for in that case they could not have refused the re-admission of the very liturgy against which they were at war. They therefore published a protest against the proclamation, founded on these reasons.

The marquis having obtained the signature of the Lords of the Secret Council to the new bond, which Charles had previously signed, though it contained many clauses repugnant to Arminianism, issued the proclamation for the meeting of the Assembly in Glasgow on the 21st of November, 1638, and for that of the Parliament on the 17th of May, 1639. In a few days afterwards, the Council published an act discharging the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Canons, etc., and called for the subscription of all his Majesty's subjects. The municipal bodies, the ministers, and the people hastened to thank the Council, and to express their joy at the revocation of the obnoxious orders, but they refused to sign the confession.

The marquis wrote to Charles, informing him of the determined spirit of the people, and advising him to hasten his military preparations. He also represented to him the protests of the bishops against the holding of the Assembly; but the king bade him persist in holding it, so that he might not appear to break faith with the public and thus precipitate matters, but to counteract the effect of the Assembly by sowing discord amongst the members, and protesting against their tumultuary proceedings.

But the Scots did not give Hamilton much time for such machinations before the meeting of the Assembly. They were warned by a trusty correspondent--notwithstanding the waylaying of the post was carried into effect--that vigorous preparations were being made to invade Scotland. There were arms for twenty thousand men, including forty pieces of ordnance and forty carriages; but the writer did not believe they would get two hundred men for the service, such was the desire of all parties--nobles, gentry, and people--for their success, which if obtained, he said, would lead many of all ranks to settle in Scotland for freedom of conscience. He added that Wentworth had made large offers of assistance to the king from Ireland, but that the Irish were themselves so injured that he doubted whether any considerable help would be had from Wentworth against them; yet if Charles could muster sufficient force, they might expect no terms from him but such as they would get at the cannon's mouth.

At the end of October the Earl of Rothes demanded from Hamilton a warrant citing the bishops as guilty of heresy, perjury, simony, and gross immorality, to appear before the approaching Assembly. The marquis refused, on which the Presbytery of Edinburgh cited them. Charles had ordered, as a sign of his favour, the restoration of the Lords of Session of Edinburgh, but on condition of their signing the confession of faith. Nine out of the fifteen were induced with much difficulty to sign, but from that moment they were in terror of their lives from the exasperation of the people.

When Hamilton arrived on the 17th of November in Glasgow to open the Assembly, he found the town thronged with people from all quarters, evidently in intense excitement. The Tables had secured the most popular elections of representatives to the Assembly, sending one lay elder and four lay assessors from every Presbytery. The marquis therefore found himself overruled on all points. In his opening speech he read them the king's letter, in which Charles complained of having been misrepresented, as though he desired innovations in laws and religion; and to prove how groundless this was, he had granted this free Assembly, for settling all such matters to the satisfaction of his good subjects. He then of himself protested against the foul and devilish calumnies against his sacred Majesty, purporting that even this grant of the Assembly was but to gain time whilst he was preparing arms to force on the nation the abhorred ritual. The marquis, whilst he was making these solemn asseverations, being well assured, as were most of his hearers, that the king was all the while casting cannon and ball, and mustering soldiers for this "foul and devilish purpose," the Assembly must have been perfectly satisfied that no good was to be expected but from their own firmness. They at once proceeded to elect Alexander Henderson as their Moderator, and Hamilton protested as vigorously against it, but in vain. They next elected as clerk-register Archibald Johnstone, the clerk of the Edinburgh Tables, against which Hamilton again protested with as little effect, Johnstone declaring that he would do his best to "defend the prerogative of the Son of God."

Defeated on these important points, the marquis the next day entered a protest against the return of lay members to the Assembly; and the proctor on behalf of the bishops added their protest, declining the authority of the Assembly, which he contended ought to be purely ecclesiastical. James had, in fact, put the lay members out of the Assembly, and the king therefore treated this original constitution of the Assembly, as settled at the Reformation, as an innovation, turning the charge of innovation on the Covenanters. The marquis would then have read the protests of the bishops with which he was furnished; but the Assembly declined to hear them, and repeated that they would pursue the charges against the bishops so long as they had lives and fortunes. On this Hamilton dissolved the Assembly, and the same day wrote a most remarkable letter to Charles, which appears to leave little ground for the suspicions of the royal party that he was secretly inclined to the Covenant. He informed the king that he had done his utmost, but to no purpose, with that rebellious nation. He seemed to apprehend danger to his life, and that this might be the last letter he should ever write to his Majesty. He blamed the bishops for persuading the king to bring in the English liturgy and canons in so abrupt and violent a manner; that their pride was great, their folly greater. He gives the king his opinion of the character and degrees of the trustworthiness of the different Ministers, and bids him beware of the Earl of Argyle, whom he declares to be the most dangerous man in the State; so far from favouring episcopacy, as had been supposed, that nobleman wished it abolished with all his soul. This was immediately afterwards, as we shall see, made clear by Argyle himself. Hamilton then proceeded to instruct the king how best to proceed to quell what he deemed not merely a contest for religion, but an incipient rebellion. It was to blockade the ports, and thus cut off all trade, by which the burghs, the chief seats of the agitation, lived. As fast as these burghs felt their folly and returned to their allegiance, they should be restored to favour, and their ports opened, which would make the rest anxious to follow. He said he had done his best to garrison the castle of Edinburgh, though it was in a precarious state, but that the castle of Dumbarton might be readily garrisoned by troops from Ireland. If he preserved his life, which he seemed to doubt, he would defend his post to the utmost, though "he hated the place like hell," and as soon as he was free of it would forswear the country. He recommended his brother to the king's favour and his children to his protection if they lived; and to these, if they did not prove loyal, he left his curse. His daughters, he desired, might never marry into Scotland.

The marquis clearly saw the dreadful conflict which was approaching, and his tears and emotion on dismissing the Assembly struck every one with that impression. But the Assembly had no intention of dispersing. Like the Commons of England, they entertained too high an estimate of their right, and of their duty in such a crisis. They therefore passed a resolution declaring the Kirk independent of the civil powers, and the dissolution of the Assembly by the Royal Commissioner illegal and void. They said that if the Commissioner should see fit to quit the country, and leave the Church and kingdom in that disorder, it was their duty to sit; and that they would continue to sit till they had settled all the evils which came within their lawful and undoubted jurisdiction.

Laud, in reply to Hamilton, lamented that fear of giving umbrage to the Covenanters too soon had too long delayed the means to crush them. He thanked him for having conveyed the bishops to Hamilton Castle to protect them, and trusted that his own life would yet be preserved from the diabolical fury of the Scots. What Hamilton had foreseen in the meantime had come to pass. The Earl of Argyle declared plainly in the Council that he would take the Covenant and sanction the Assembly. Accordingly, though not a member of it, he took his place in the Assembly as their chief director; and thus encouraged, they proceeded to abolish episcopacy for ever, to deprive all the bishops, and to excommunicate the greater part of them and all their abettors. Charles, and James before him, had completely conferred all the power of Parliament on the bishops, making eight of them the Lords of the Articles, with authority to choose eight of the nobles, and these sixteen having power to choose all the rest, so that all depended on the bishops, and they, again, on the king. This effectually ranged the nobles against them. The Marquis of Hamilton, notwithstanding his fears, was permitted quietly to withdraw to England, whence he was soon to return against them at the head of the fleet. The people received the news of the proceedings of the Assembly with transports of joy, and celebrated the downfall of episcopacy by a day of thanksgiving. Charles, on the other hand, issued a proclamation declaring all its acts void, and hastened his preparations for marching into Scotland.

But the Covenanters were not the less active on their part, and everything tended to a civil war, the result of Charles's incessant attacks on the liberties of the nation. They made collections of arms, and as early as December they received six thousand muskets from Holland. These had been stopped by the Government of that country, but Cardinal Richelieu had suddenly shown himself a friend, by ordering the muskets as if for his own use, receiving them into a French port, and thence forwarding them to Scotland. However impolitic it might appear for France to assist subjects against their prince, it must be remembered that Charles had managed to create nearly as strong a feeling against him in Louis and his minister Richelieu as in his own subjects. He had set the example by assisting the Huguenots against their prince, and had provoked France by defeating its plan of dividing the Spanish Netherlands between that country and Holland. The present opportunity, therefore, was eagerly seized to make Charles feel the error he had committed. Richelieu, moreover, ordered the French Ambassador in London to pay over to General Leslie, one of Gustavus Adolphus's old officers, who had been engaged by the Assembly, one hundred thousand crowns. This last transaction, however, was kept a profound secret, for the Scots, when advised to seek the assistance of France and Germany, had indignantly refused, saying the Lutherans of Germany were heretics, and the people of France Papistical idolaters; that it became them to seek support from God alone, and not from the broken reed of Egypt. The preachers thundered from the pulpits against the bishops, and the determination of the king still to force them on the country; and they refused the Communion to all who had not signed the Covenant. The Tables called on the young men in every quarter of the country to come forward and be trained to arms, and the Scottish officers who had been engaged in the wars in Germany flocked over and offered their services for the support of the popular cause. The nobles contributed plate to be melted down, the merchants in the towns sent in money, and an army of determined men was fast forming.

Charles, on his part, was not the less busy preparing for the campaign, and he was persuaded by many of the courtiers that he had only to appear, to pacify the Scots. If we are to believe Clarendon, the Treasury was in a flourishing condition, a most unlikely circumstance, considering the unpopular mode of raising funds without a Parliament; and we are assured of the contrary by a letter of the Earl of Northumberland, addressed to Wentworth in January, 1639. He says, "I assure your lordship, to my understanding, to my sorrow I speak it, we are altogether in as ill a posture to invade others or to defend ourselves as we were a twelve-month since, which is more than any one can imagine that is not an eye-witness of it. The discontents here at home do rather increase than lessen, there being no course taken to give any kind of satisfaction. The king's coffers were never emptier than at this time, and to us that have the honour to be near about him, no way is yet known how he will find means either to maintain or begin a war without the help of his people." Cottington wrote to Wentworth in the same strain.

So far from consulting Parliament, Charles had not even opened his difficulties to his Council. He was now compelled to do the latter, and on this occasion Laud was found entreating for peaceful measures. It is probable that he had taken a more rational view of the belligerent temper of the Scots, and saw more danger in the king's attempt to coerce them, than he generally discerned in pushing on arbitrary counsels. His advice was rejected, and the rest of the Council acquiesced in the determination of the king. By the beginning of the year 1639, Charles had named his generals and officers, had issued orders to the Lords-Lieutenant to muster the trained bands of their several counties, and the nobles to meet him at York on the 1st of April with such retinues as belonged to their rank and fortune. To procure money he suspended the payment of all pensions, borrowed where he could, and judges, lawyers, and the clergy were called upon to contribute from their salaries and livings in lieu of their personal service. The clergy were in general extremely liberal. They considered that the cause was their own, and that if the Presbyterians of Scotland became triumphant, the Puritans of England might deal in similar fashion with the Church of England. Laud, moreover, ordered the names of all clergymen who refused to be returned to him. The queen also lent her aid by calling on the Catholics to assist, reminding them that aid given to the king in this emergency was the most likely means to securing future advantages to themselves. When the knowledge of the queen's circular letter to the Catholics became known to the Puritans, they were greatly scandalised; and the Catholics responding readily to the call, and holding a meeting in London presided over by the Pope's Nuncio, tended to strengthen their opinion of the papistical bias of Charles and his Church.

The king, on his part, sought to take advantage of the ancient antipathies between the two kingdoms, and issued proclamations calling on all good subjects to resist the attempts of the Scots, who were contemplating, he asserted, the invasion and plunder of the kingdom and the destruction of the monarchy. But he found this was an empty alarm. The reformers of England knew too well that the cause of the Scots and their own were identical; that the purpose of the king was to destroy the constitutional rights and freedom of religion in both kingdoms alike. The Scottish nobles, as well as the English public, rejected all attempts to divide them in this Cause. There was a time when they could be bought by the money of England, which had been freely and successfully employed by the Tudors. But Charles had little money to give; and to the honour of the Scottish peers, when other temptations were tried, for the most part the sacred cause of their religion triumphed over them. They exhorted one another to stand fast by the Covenant. The most intimate communication between the Scottish and English reformers was maintained by pamphlets secretly circulated, by emissaries traversing all classes and all quarters. The earliest information of the movements of the Court was transmitted; and before Charles commenced his march towards York, General Leslie, the elected Commander-in-Chief, took the initiative, and surprised the castle of Edinburgh, on the 21st of March, at the head of a thousand musketeers, and without losing a single man. The next day, Saturday, the castle of Dalkeith was given over by Traquair, with all the regalia and a large quantity of ammunition and arms. It was thought that Traquair had shown great timidity, to surrender so strong a castle almost without a blow; but he complained of having been left alone, without countenance or advice. The Earls of Rothes and Balmerino took the castle, and conveyed the regalia safely to the castle of Edinburgh. The following day, Sunday, did not prevent even Scotsmen and Covenanters from seizing the castle of Dumbarton. The governor was surprised on his return from church, and threatened with instant death if he did not surrender the keys to the provost of the town, a zealous Covenanter. Stirling was in the hands of the Earl of Mar, who had taken the Covenant; and of all the royal fortresses, only Carlaverock, the least important, remained in the hands of the Crown. The Marquis of Huntly, who had undertaken to hold the Highlands for the king, was overpowered or entrapped by Leslie and Montrose, who at the head of seven thousand men compelled the reluctant professors of Aberdeen to accept the Covenant, when Leslie returned to Edinburgh, carrying Huntly with him. The Earl of Antrim, who was to have invaded the domains of Argyle from Ireland, was unable to fulfil his engagement, and thus every day brought the news of rapid disasters to Charles on his march towards York. Hamilton, who had been despatched with a fleet, appeared in the Forth on the 13th of April. He had five thousand troops on board, and was expected to secure Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and overawe if he could not take the capital; but he found the place strongly fortified, and twenty thousand men were posted on the shores to hinder his landing. All classes, from the noble to the peasant, had been labouring industriously to repair fortifications and throw up batteries, and ladies had carried materials for them. The marquis saw no chance of effecting a landing, and therefore disembarked his men on the islands in the Forth, to prevent them from perishing in the ships, for they were landsmen, and had been hastily pressed into the service, and were both sickly and mutinous. No prospect was ever more discouraging; even Wentworth could not send him the small aid of five hundred musketeers in time, and strongly advised Charles to avoid coming to an engagement with his raw levies against the enthusiastic Scots and their practical generals, but to garrison Berwick and Carlisle to prevent incursions, and wait till the next year if necessary.

Charles arrived at York on the 19th of April, and proceeded to administer to the lords who there awaited him with their followers, an oath of allegiance, binding them to oppose all conspiracies and seditions, even if they were veiled under the pretence of religion. The Lords Say and Brooke declined to take the oath, saying they were willing to accompany their sovereign from loyalty and affection; but that, as they were ignorant of the laws and customs of Scotland, they could not undertake to say that the Scots were rebels, or the war was just. Charles with indignation ordered them to be arrested, but the Attorney and Solicitor-Generals on being consulted declaring that there was no ground for their prosecution, they were dismissed with the royal displeasure and desired to return home. Nor had the king much more satisfaction with the lords who had taken the oath, for they qualified it by signing a paper stating in what sense they took it. To perform an act calculated to please the people whom he was leaving behind, at York he issued a proclamation, revoking no less than thirty-one monopolies and patents, pretending that he had not discovered before how grievous they were to his subjects; but the real fact was, that most of them had been granted to Scotsmen who had now forfeited his favour.