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 this 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, he 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. That as fast as these burghs felt their folly, and returned to their allegiance, they should be restored to favour, and their ports opened, which could make the rest anxious to follow. That he had done is 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. 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 excomnumicate 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, and especially when the queen of that prince was the king of France's own sister, Charles had managed to create nearly as strong a felling against him in Louis and his minister Richelieu, as in his own subjects. He had set the example by assisting the Huguenot against their prince, and had provoked France by defeating its plan of dividing the Spanish Netherlands betwixt 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 Scotch, 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 idolators; 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
