ELEMENTS OF RESISTANCE TO THE KING. II. 95 1638. hopeless Such a people-and if other town corporations CHAP. were far behind the capital in wealth and population, they were not far behind in self-reliance-was not Charles's likely to endure for ever to be entirely excluded from task a all participation in the direction of the national one. policy, especially as the freeholders and gentry of the counties were very much like-minded with the inhabitants of the towns. "The blessing of Judah and Issachar," wrote Bacon, "will never meet, that the same people or nation should be both the lion's whelp and the ass between burdens Although the same tribute and tax laid by consent or by imposing be all one to the purse, yet it works diversely upon the courage." From the wisdom which had dictated these words Charles had gone very far astray. lution de layed. Yet it is no matter of surprise that the inevitable The Revoresistance was so long delayed. In the midst of material prosperity there was no sharp sting of distress to goad the masses to defiance of authority. Men of property and education had, in the intermission of Parliaments, no common centre round which they could rally. Those who were united in political opposition to the Crown were divided by their religious sympathies. The feeling of irritation against Laud's meddlesome interference with habitual usage was indeed almost universal; but Puritanism was, after all, the creed only of a minority. Many of those who detested the High Commission most bitterly would be no partners in any violent or revolutionary change. The nation needed an from with If the nation, however, was not ready to overthrow its government by force, it was not prepared impulse to make any effort to sustain it. How long this state out. of things would have endured, if no impulse had come from without, it is impossible to say. The II. 1638. CHAP. impulse came from a quarter from which Englishmen had long ceased to expect either good or evil. In 1636, Scotland, with its scanty population and its hardy poverty, was as seldom mentioned in London as the Republic of Genoa or the Electorate of Brandenburg. In 1638 it was in the mouths of all men. Charles had inflicted on the Scottish nation a blow which it deeply resented, and its resentment had already led to avowed resistance. CHAPTER III. THE RIOTS IN EDINBURGH AND THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. CHAP 1633. the Scots. SCOTSMAN as he was by birth, Charles knew even less of his Northern than of his Southern kingdom. Since his early childhood he had only paid one brief Charles and visit to Scotland. That visit had witnessed an outburst of dissatisfaction amongst the nobility with that Episcopal Government which they had eagerly assisted James to impose on a Presbyterian Church. The nobles had discovered that in placing a yoke on the necks of the clergy they had raised up rivals to themselves. Everywhere in Scotland the Bishops were thrusting them aside. The Archbishop of St. Andrews was Lord Chancellor of Scotland. Other Bishops were members of the Privy Council. Whenever Parliament met, the Bishops had in their hands the selection of the Lords of the Articles, and experience had shown that resistance to the decisions of the Lords of the Articles was not likely to be successful. In the country districts the Bishops claimed that respect and submission which the earl or the lord believed to be due to himself alone. Although Charles had given to the holders of Church property an indefeasible title to the estates which their fathers had usurped, and had actually purchased lands with English money to serve as an endowment for the revived Bishoprics, it was hard for him to allay the suspicion that he intended sooner or later to reconfiscate to the use of the Church that which had been VOL. I. H The no- bility and CHAP. 1633. The confiscated from the Church by an earlier generation of landowners. The greater part of the nobility, therefore, hated the Bishops thoroughly, and those few who did not hate them were not inclined to move a finger in their behalf. Of all the Scottish lords not one was more loyal than Lord Napier, the son of the inventor of logarithms. But he was as intolerant as Rothes or Loudoun of the political eminence into which the Bishops had been thrust. "That Bishops have a competence," he wrote, " is agreeable to the law of God and man; but to invest them into great estates and principal officers of the State is neither convenient for the Church, for the King, nor for the State."1 If Charles could have been content to leave the Scottish Church as he found it at the time of his visit, it is hardly likely that the nobles would ever have gathered courage to resist him. It is true that their power over their tenants was far greater than that possessed by English landowners, but it was less than that which had been possessed by their fathers. The middle classes had been growing in importance and cohesion, and even the peasants looked for guidance to their minister rather than to their lord. Till very recently the bulk of the clergy was tolerably contented. Here and there was to be found a man who had remained faithful to the extreme Presbyterianism of a former generation, and a large number felt the Articles of Perth to be a serious grievance. But their material comfort had been greatly increased by Charles and his father, at the expense of the neighbouring landowners. The Bishops interfered but little with their parochial ministrations. Above all, they were free to preach the whole Calvinistic creed, and to fulminate anathemas against Popery and 1 Napier, Memorials of Montrose, i. 70. THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. GENERAL LIBRARY Univerity of 99 MICHIGAN III. 1633 Arminianism to their hearts' content. No Royal CHAP. Kneeling at the Com munion. of doctrine The direction of the Articles of Perth to kneel at the reception of the Communion roused, it is true, no little opposition. It sometimes happened that when a minister asked the congregation to kneel, they flocked out of the church, leaving him alone at the table. But in general, either by the connivance of the Bishops or by the submission of the congregations, there was less trouble caused by this injunction than might have been expected. Here and there, Varieties under the shelter of episcopal authority, there were and cereeven to be found islands of a faith and practice which mony. contrasted strangely with the level waters around. The colleges of Aberdeen were notorious for their adherence to a more tolerant creed than that of the rest of the clergy. At the King's Chapel at Holyrood, at one of the colleges at St. Andrews, and at some of the cathedrals, the English Prayer Book was used without giving offence.2 If matters had been allowed to take their course, it is not impossible that the Church of Scotland would have been the first to give an example of that comprehensive tolerance which was the ideal of Chillingworth and Hales. Of no such elasticity in doctrine and practice was Charles likely to approve. When Laud accompanied the King to Scotland, he was struck by the mean aspect of many of the Scottish churches. Some of them were plain square buildings, looking, as he said, very like pigeon-houses. The galleries inside reBrereton's Travels, Chetham Society, 121. 1 This happened at Ayr. 2 Large Declaration, 20, Charles de- termines to Scottish Church. |