clapping their hands, uttering execrations and outcries, raising a hideous noise and hubbub. The Bishop of Edinburgh, who was to preach that day, stepped into the pulpit, which was immediately above the reading-desk, and tried to appease the tumult by reminding them of the holiness of the place; but this increased the storm instead of allaying it, and presently a joint-stool was thrown at the bishop's head, but diverted by the hand of one present-luckily diverted-for, though thrown by the arm of a woman, it was thrown with such vigor, that the general opinion was, that had it hit him, supposing his skull to be only of ordinary thickness, the stool must have killed the bishop. Sticks, stones, dirt followed the stool, with cries of Down with the priest of Baal!" "A pape, a pape!" "Antichrist!" "Thrapple him!" Stone him!" The Archbishop of St. Andrew's (Lord Chancellor), and other great persons then attempted to restore order, but they had no reverence from the multitude, who cursed them, together with the bishop and dean. Then the provost, the bailies, and others of the city authorities, came forth from their places, and with much ado and in terrible confusion cleared the church of the chief of those people that had made the tumult, and shut the church doors against them. And the dean began to read the service anew, but such were the outcries, rapping at the doors, throwing in of stones at the windows by the multitude without, who still kept crying, "A pape, a pape!" "Antichrist!" "Pull him down!" that the bailies of the city were again obliged to leave their places to appease the fury. At last the service and sermon were both ended, but not the people's rage: the Bishop of Edinburgh, who had preached the sermon, on leaving the church for his residence, distant not many paces, was surrounded by the multitude, cast down, and nearly trodden to death. He was rescued by some friends who saw his danger, and carried home breathless. The same morning the new service was read in another church adjoining to St. Giles's, yet not without a tumult, and in the Gray Friars' church the bishop-elect of Argyle, who began to read it, was hooted and threatened, and forced to give over after coming to the confession and absolution. Between morning and afternoon service the provost and bailies of Edinburgh were summoned before the privy council, who assembled at the lord chancellor's, and undertook to do their utmost for the peaceable reading of the prayers in the afternoon. Accordingly the churches were kept tolerably quiet by keeping out the people altogether; but after service the tumult was far greater than in the morning; and the Earl of Roxburgh, lord privy seal, who undertook to carry the bishop home from St. Giles's in his coach, was so pelted by stones, and so pressed upon by the mob, who wanted to drag out the "priest of Baal," that he was obliged to order his footmen and numerous attendants to draw their swords; and thus he and the bishop at last got into the palace of Holyrood, covered with dirt and curses.

On the following day the council issued a proclamation in detestation of this tumult, and to forbid all tumultuous meetings and concourse of people to VOL. III.-12

Edinburgh, upon pain of death: The magistrates pretended to deplore the disturbances; and they stated that no persons of quality had appeared in them. In truth, the rioters had been for the most part women and children of the poorest condition. The town-council, however, thought fit to suspend the reading of the new service till his majesty's further pleasure should be known, seeing it was so dangerous to the readers. For this they were harshly rebuked by Laud, who told them, through the Earl of Traquair, lord treasurer for Scotland, that his majesty took it very ill that the business concerning the establishment of the service-book had been so weakly carried, and had great reason to think himself and his government dishonored by the late tumult in Edinburgh. "And, therefore," continues the English primate, "his majesty expects that your lordship and the rest of the honorable council set yourselves to it, that the liturgy may be established orderly, and with peace, to repair what hath been done amiss..... Of all the rest, the weakest part was the interdicting of all divine service till his majesty's pleasure was further known. And this, as also the giving warning of the publishing, his majesty, at the first reading of the letters, and report of the fact, checked it, and commanded me to write so much to my Lord of St. Andrew's, which I did; and your lordship, at the council, July 24, spake very worthily against the interdicting of the service, for that were in effect as much as to disclaim the work, or to give way to the insolency of the baser multitude, and his majesty hath commanded me to thank you for it in his name; but the disclaiming the book as any act of theirs, but as it was his majesty's command, was most unworthy: 'tis most true, the king commanded a liturgy, and it was time they had one; they did not like to admit of ours, but thought it more reputation for them (as indeed it was) to compile one of their own; yet as near as might be they have done it well. Will they now cast down the milk they have given, because a few milkmaids have scolded unto them?" At the same time, several of the Scottish lords, not content with denying all share in the prayer-book, quarreled violently with the new bishops and the most stirring of the anti-Presbyterian clergy. Traquair himself complained to the Marquis of Hamilton, who was at court, and still high in the royal favor, that some of the leading men among them were so violent and forward, had such a want of right understanding how to compass business of this nature and weight, that they bred the Scottish government many difficulties, and their rash and foolish expressions, and sometimes attempts both in private and public, had bred such a fear and jealousy in the hearts of many that things could not go well. The bishops, for example, had been complaining that the Scotch reformers of the former ages had taken from them many of their rents, and had robbed them of their power and jurisdiction even in the church itself;

and they had been wont to say that the Scottish reformation generally must be reformed. But Laud and Charles would listen to no complaints against the new bishops; and, urged on by them, the Scottish council issued a decree of horning," or banishment, against all such ministers as refused to receive the New Book of Common Prayer, out of curiosity and singularity." Alexander Henderson, minister at Leuchars; Mr. John Hamilton, minister at Newburn; and Mr. James Bruce, minister of Kingsbarns, petitioned against this harsh sentence with great good sense and moderation, and with a total and most rare abstinence from fanaticism. They told the lords of secret council that they had been willing enough to receive the said books to read them beforehand, in order to see what doctrine they contained, without which knowledge they could not adopt them; that, in the matters of God's worship, they were not bound to blind obedience to any man; that the said Book of Common Prayer was neither authorized by the general assembly, the representative kirk of the kingdom, which ever since the Reformation had given directions in matters of worship, nor by any act of parliament, which had been ever thought necessary in

1 Letter from Traquair to Hamilton, in Burnet's Memoirs of Dukes of Hamilton.

high matters of this kind; that the liberty of the true kirk of Scotland, and the form of worship received at the Reformation, and universally practiced ever since, were warranted by acts of the general assemblies and acts of parliament; that there had been great disputing, division, and trouble in Scotland, on account of some of the ceremonies contained in the new book: that they, upon a competent allowance of time, would undertake to prove it departed widely from the doctrine of the Reforma. tion, and in points most material came near to the church of Rome, which they held to be as idolatrous and anti-Christian now as it was when their forefathers left it; and, finally, that the people of Scotland had been otherwise taught by themselves and their predecessors in the pulpit, and, therefore, it was likely they would be found averse to the sudden change, even if their pastors adopted it. Laud's own bishop, the Bishop of Ross, gave a very short answer to these petitioners. He told them that, while they pretended ignorance of what was contained in the book, it appeared by their many objections and exceptions to almost all parts of it, that they were but too well read in it, albeit they had abused it pitifully. He asserted that not the general assembly, which consisted of a multitude, but the bishops, had authority to govern the church, and

were in themselves the representative church of the kingdom. He assured the ministers that the service-book was neither superstitious nor idolatrous, but, on the contrary, one of the most orthodox and perfect liturgies in the Christian church, and that therefore they must accept it, and read it, or bide their horning. During harvest-time men were at work and quiet;" but that being ended, many resorted to Edinburgh, notwithstanding the proclamation, and got up a general petition to the Scottish council, praying that the service-book might no further be pressed upon them. But they presently found a tremendous edict against them.

Charles, to punish the inhabitants of the good old town, sent down orders for the removing of the term, or session, and the council of government from Edinburgh to Linlithgow, the next term to Stirling, the next to Dundee, &c., together with a fresh proclamation, commanding the Presbyterians to disperse immediately, and return to their homes, under pain of being treated as wicked and rebellious subjects, and with an order for calling in and burning a seditious book, entitled " A dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies, obtruded upon the Kirk of Scotland." The council would have delayed the publication of the arbitrary decrees; but Charles's orders were peremptory, and they were all read at the market-cross. The Earl of Traquair communicated a part of the immediate result to the Marquis of Hamilton. "The noblemen," says he, "the gentry, and commissioners from presbyteries and burghs, seemed to acquiesce herewith, and every man, in a very peaceable manner, to give obedience to the tenor of the proclamations; but the next day thereafter, the town of Edinburgh, or, as our new magistrates call it, the rascally people of Edinburgh (although their sisters, wives, children, and near kinsmen, were the special actors), rose in such a barbarous manner, as the like has never been seen in this kingdom, set upon the Bishop of Galloway, and with great difficulty was he rescued into the large council-house." This Sydserf, bishop of Galloway, who was odious on many grounds, but upon none more than upon a popular rumor, that he wore a golden crucifix hid under his clothes, was almost strangled by the women, who were bent upon discovering this concealed relic; nor was he safe when he had escaped into the council-house; for a multitude, which seemed constantly to increase in number and fury, surrounded the house, crying for the priest of Baal"-for all the traitors that were conspiring to ruin the old liberties and religion of Scotland. The terrified members of the council that happened to be in the house, applied to the Edinburgh magistrates for protection; the magistrates could give them none, for they were themselves beset by the rioters, who stated that the reason of their rising against their own magistrates was, because they had promised them that they should be the last in the kingdom to be harassed about the Book of Common Prayer. At last, the gentlemen and clergymen who had come up to present the petition, and who had been opprobriously 2 Hardwicke State Papers.

: Rushworth.

ordered out of the town. used their good offices to prevent bloodshed, and, by their influence and persuasion, rescued the bishop, the council, and the magistrates from the hands of the rioters. It was observed, however, that the friends and relations of these very magistrates were in the mob; that citizens of the best repute, with their wives and their sisters, were actively engaged, and that many well-known gentlemen openly joined the people in their cries and denunciations. It was, therefore, no longer possible to represent the disaffection as a thing of no consequence-as a mere outbreak of the lowest and poorest, who might easily be brought to reason by a little hanging and scourging. And nearly at the same time the city of Glasgow became the scene of a similar rising against the prayer-book and episcopacy. But Charles and Laud, though warned by the Scottish ministers of the fierce and dangerous spirit of the people,—of the daily accession to their cause of men of rank and ability,—of the defenseless state of Edinburgh Castle and the other fortresses,-of the poverty of the exchequer, -were resolved to go "thorough," and that too without admitting of any delay. In fact, all the Scottish ministers of state, with the exception of the bishops, were themselves opposed to the servicebook, though for a time none of them declared their dislike of it, but made their requests to the king for time and patience to appease the perilous hostility of the people. Traquair said that the prayer-book might possibly be submitted to in seven years' time;1 but Laud was furious at the mention of so long a delay, and Charles resolved to enforce it at once. Apprehending that the king meant to deprive Edinburgh for ever of its honors and advantages as the seat of government, the citizens of that ancient capital became more incensed than ever, and it was soon made to appear that Charles had committed a fatal mistake in exciting their jealousy in this particular. Before the removal of the session from Linlithgow to Stirling, the "Four Tables," or Boards, as we should now call them, were established with the acquiescence of the Scottish council, which were representative committees, consisting respectively of lords, gentlemen, ministers, and burgesses, and which were to be fixed permanently in the capital. With these Tables in Edinburgh there corresponded lesser Tables, or sub-committees, in the country, a constant communication being established among them all. Above all these Tables was a general Table, which consisted of members taken from each, and which was intrusted with something very like a supreme executive power. In the course of a very few weeks these Tables were looked up to with far more respect than the paltry government, and they exercised an uncontrolled authority over the greater part of Scotland. It has been well said that a better scheme for organizing insurrection could not easily have been devised. The contrivers of it and the leading members of the permanent committee were the lords Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, and Cranston.

1 The Archbishop of St. Andrew's also told Laud that it would take seven years to establish the service.