James I. was peaceably succeeded on the throne by his son Charles
I., then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The administration of
Scottish affairs continued to be conducted by the Privy Council in
Edinburgh. For the endowment of the Episcopal Church now established,
the king (1625) attempted a revocation of the church-lands from the
lay nobles and others into whose hands they had fallen; but this
excited so strong a spirit of resistance, that he was obliged to
give it up. He ended by issuing (1627) a commission to receive the
surrender of impropriated tithes and benefices, and out of these, and
the superiorities of the church-lands, to increase the provisions
of the clergy. These proceedings, though legal, were unpopular. The
nobles, alarmed for their property, began to lean towards the middle
and humbler classes, who objected to a hierarchy on religious grounds
solely. While all was smooth on the surface, while the lords of the
Privy Council were full of expressions of servile obedience, while
they, as well as all judges and magistrates, gave most loyal and
regular attendance at church, and duly knelt at the communion--a
strong spirit of discontent ran through society. The more zealous
Presbyterians formed the habit of meeting in private houses for
prayer and worship. They beheld with apprehension the tendency to
medieval ceremonies which Charles, and his favourite councillor, Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury, were manifesting in England. That leaning to
Arminianism which the English Church was also accused of--modifying
Calvinism so far as to say that the perdition of sinners had been only
foreseen, not decreed, and that God’s wrath against them was not to
last for ever--was viewed with the utmost alarm in Scotland. The only
means the king had of giving reassurance was to make a loud profession
of horror for popery, and to practise all possible severities upon its
adherents. That the king and his Council availed themselves of this
chance, will be found abundantly evidenced in our chronicle.
It is rather remarkable, that the adjustment of the tithes by King
Charles in 1627 has proved a most useful practical measure, in
annulling a certain class of disputes between the clergy and their
flocks; anticipating, in short, the valuable commutation acts of
England and Ireland by upwards of two centuries.
During the first few years of the reign, large bodies of troops were
raised in Scotland, and conducted by native officers to serve the
Protestant powers of the continent, engaged in the great thirty years’
struggle with Catholic Germany.
The king paid a visit to Scotland in 1633, in order to be crowned as
its sovereign, and to see what further could be done for perfecting the
Episcopal system. His reception was respectful, but not so affectionate
as that experienced by his father. He wanted the good-humour of James;
he treated all difficulties in a stern and imperious manner. The people
were overborne by his power and his obduracy, but left unconvinced,
unreconciled. In the subsequent year, he lost additional ground by
a tyrannical and unjust trial of the Lord Balmerino on a charge of
treason, for merely having in his possession the scroll of a petition
against the royal measures. At the same time, the Scotch people knew of
the king’s quarrels with the English patriots Elliot, Pym, and others;
they knew that he had resolved on calling no more parliaments; they
heard of Strafford’s despotic government in Ireland; they sympathised
with the Puritans who were now and then pilloried and cropped of their
ears, or driven in multitudes to Holland and America. Although, then,
there was a strong prepossession for the institution of monarchy,
there was also a steady muster of irritation and fear against the
government of this particular monarch. It might have been evident to
any dispassionate observer, that, if the present system were persevered
in, an explosion would sooner or later take place.
There was this further difference between the late and present king,
that while James was only anxious for a church polity which would
work harmoniously with his doctrines of state, Charles--who, unlike
his father, was an earnestly religious man--deemed Episcopacy a
necessary part of faith. The struggle was now, therefore, between
a people fanatic for one system, and a king fanatic for another.
One thing Charles had long considered as necessary to complete his
favourite project in Scotland--the introduction of a liturgy into the
ordinary worship. He thought the proper time was now come, because he
everywhere saw external obedience. A service-book being accordingly
prepared by Laud, on the basis of that commonly used in England, but
with a few innovations relishing of popery and Arminianism, an order
of Privy Council was given for its being read in the churches. This
was precisely what was necessary to exhaust the popular powers of
endurance. It seemed to the multitude as if popery, almost undisguised,
were once more about to be introduced. When the dreaded book was opened
in St Giles’s Church (July 1637), the congregation rose in violent
agitation to protest against it. It was hooted as a mass in disguise,
and a stool was thrown at the head of the reader. Similar scenes
occurred elsewhere; but the clergy in general had declined to bring
the book forward. The state-officers and bishops now found themselves
objects of popular hate to such an extent that they could not present
themselves in public. The service-book was not merely a failure in
itself, but it had produced a kind of rebellion. Charles discovered,
when too late, that, as usually happens with men of headstrong temper,
the truth had been concealed from him. The general obedience had been
a hypocrisy. Nineteen-twentieths of the people were in their hearts
opposed to his measures, and now he had given them occasion to declare
themselves and enter at all hazards upon a course of resistance.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1625.