THE ASSEMBLY RESISTS DISSOLUTION. he altogether evaded. No Assembly likes to hear an attack on the basis upon which it rests. This one refused to re-open a question which it probably considered as settled by its previous rejection of the petitions against the lay elders. Hamilton pleaded in vain for further delay. "I must ask," said the Moderator, "if this Assembly finds themselves competent judges." A warm debate ensued. "If the Bishops," said Loudoun, "decline the judgment of a National Assembly, I know not a competent judgment seat for them but the King of Heaven." "I stand to the King's prerogative," replied the Commissioner, "as supreme judge over all causes civil and ecclesiastical, to whom I think they may appeal, and not let the causes be reasoned here." 175 CHAP. 1638. Nov. 28. dissolves the Assem bly. No common understanding was any longer pos- Hamilton sible. After a few more words, Hamilton declared the Assembly to be dissolved in the King's name, and left the church. As soon as he was gone, the Assembly resolved that it was entitled to remain in session in spite of anything that had been done. Its first act was to pass a vote claiming competency to sit in judgment on the Bishops. Declara At the moment of Hamilton's departure an incident Argyle's occurred from which the Assembly must have derived tion. no slight encouragement. Argyle, like Huntly, was a potentate exercising almost royal power. He could bring 5,000 Highlanders into the field. Like Huntly, he came of a family which had long kept up its attachment to the Papal Church, and his father, who had lately died, had been for many years in the military service of the King of Spain in the Netherlands. During his father's absence he had exercised over the clan the authority which he now bore in his own name. Throwing off his father's religion, he adapted IV. 1638. Nov. 28. CHAP. himself to the habits and the ideas of the inhabitants of the Southern Lowlands. He was often to be seen in Edinburgh, and he took his place as a member of the Privy Council. He thus early became a national, rather than, like Huntly, a local politician. As a nobleman, he shared in the jealousy of the Bishops which was common to his class. But he was politic and wary, not willing to commit himself hastily to any cause, and tied to more than ordinary caution by his rank as a Privy Councillor. He was ambitious of power, and unscrupulous in his choice of means. Unlike the other noblemen of the time, he was absolutely without personal courage. He could not look upon a hostile array without being overcome by sheer terror. Something of this feeling was manifested in his political career. He had the sure instinct which led him to place himself on the side of numbers, the pride, too, of capacity to grasp clearly the ideas of which those numbers were dimly conscious. In times of trouble, such capacity is power indeed. Then, if ever, the multitude, certain of their aim, uncertain of the means by which that aim is to be reached, look for the guidance of one in whose mental power they can repose confidence, and whose constancy they can trust. Such a man was Argyle. It is probable enough that there was no conscious hypocrisy in the choice which he was now to make. He would hardly have maintained himself in power so long as he did, if he had not shared the beliefs of those around him. He was probably as incapable of withstanding a popular belief as he was of withstanding an army of his foes. At all events, the time was now come for him to declare himself. When Hamilton swept out of the church, followed by the members of the Privy Council, Argyle alone ABOLITION OF EPISCOPACY. remained behind. He took the part of the many against the few. "I have not striven to blow the bellows," he said, "but studied to keep matters in as soft a temper as I could; and now I desire to make it known to you that I take you all for members of a lawful Assembly, and honest countrymen." 177 CHAP. IV. 1638. No. 28. Dec. Further ings in the Assembly. Till December 20 the Assembly remained in session. As a matter of course, it swept away the proceedService Book, the Canons, and the Articles of Perth. It received with boundless credulity every incredible charge reported on the merest hearsay against the Bishops. It declared Episcopacy to be for ever abolished, and all the Assemblies held in Episcopal times to be null and void. It re-established the Presbyterian government, and ejected those ministers whose teaching had not been consonant with Calvinistic orthodoxy.1 son be Scottish and the ment. The challenge thus uttered by the Scottish CompariAssembly was in the main the same as that which tween the had been uttered by the English Parliament in 1629, Assembly and which was to be uttered again by it in 1640. The English Assembly demanded that the religion recognised by the Parlia nation itself should be placed beyond all contradiction, and that neither the King nor anyone else should venture to modify its ceremonies or its creed. Many conditions were present in the North to make the outbreak occur in Scotland earlier than it did in England. Charles's attack upon the religion of Scotland had been more sweeping and more provocative than anything that he had done in England. The Scottish nation, too, was more ready to combine than the English nation was. Government in England was a present reality. In Scotland it was but 1 Peterkin's Records, 128. Baillie, i. 165. Hamilton to the King, Dec. 1; Hamilton Papers, 62. CHAP. IV. 1638. Dec. the shadow of an absentee sovereign. In the people itself, the influence of the Calvinistic clergy produced a strange uniformity of thought and character. Even the noblemen appear to have been cast very much in a common mould. It is true that Argyle and Montrose stand out amongst their fellows with distinct characters. The rest are scarcely more than names. To pass from a history which tells of Wentworth and Northumberland, Cottington and Portland, Essex and Saye, to a history which tells of Rothes and Loudoun, Balmerino and Lindsay, is like passing from the manycoloured life of the Iliad to the Gyas and Cloanthus of the Æneid. The want of originality of character made combination the easier. It made it the easier, too, to place the real direction of the movement in the hands of the ministers. Whatever forces were behind, the revolution which had been effected was a Presbyterian revolution. The preacher was and remained the guide and hero of Scottish nationality. The preacher was strong because he appealed to an ideal conviction larger and nobler than his logic. Bishops were to be proscribed, not because particular Bishops had done amiss, but in the name of the principle of parity amongst all who were engaged in the ministration of the same truths. The influence of the King was to be set aside in the Church, not because Charles had been unwarrantably meddlesome, but because the Church knew but one Heavenly King. It is impossible to doubt that the Scottish people grew the nobler and the purer for these thoughts-far nobler and purer than if they had accepted even a larger creed at the bidding of any earthly king. Of liberty of thought these Scottish preachers neither knew anything nor cared to know anything. To the mass of their followers they were SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIANISM. 179 IV. 1638. Dec. kindly guides, reciprocating in their teaching the CHAP. faith which existed around them. But Scotland was no country for eccentricities of thought and action. Hardihood was there, and brave championship of the native land and the native religion. Spiritual and mental freedom would have one day to be learned from England. 1639. Jan. 15. relation. On January 15, Hamilton told, before the English Council, the story of his bootless mission. The dis- Hamilton's cussions which followed were long and anxious. Charles inclined to continue the negotiation. Disaffection, as he well knew, was widely spread in England, and any attempt to levy money would be met by redoubled outcries for a Parliament.1 evitable. Charles might wish for peace, but, unless he had War inbeen prepared to sacrifice all that he had ever counted worth struggling for, he could not avoid war. For him the saying attributed to his father, "No Bishop, no King," was emphatically true. He had not chosen Bishops in Scotland amongst men who were imbued with the religious sentiment around them. He had rather sought for those who would serve as instruments in imposing his own religious practice upon an unwilling people. It is true, that before the Assembly met at Glasgow he had surrendered all the original objects of contention. Liturgy and Canons, Articles of Perth, and irresponsible Episcopacy had been given up. It is true that between Charles's moderate Episcopacy, responsible to Assemblies, and the direct government of the Assemblies themselves, the difference does not seem Feb. 10 1 Salvetti's Newsletter, Jan. 1. Bellievre to De Noyers, Jan. 17, Jan. 31 Arch. des Aff. Etr. xlvii., fol. 341, 351. Joachimi to the States General, Jan. 19, Add. MSS., 17,677 Q. fol. 10. Giustinian to the Doge, Jan., Ven. Transcripts. |