Sess. I. 20 July 1641.

Iohn Earle of Weymes, His Majesties commissioner, presented His Majesties Letter to the Assembly, whereof the tenor followeth.

Charles R.

TRUSTIE and welbeloved, Wee greet you well. It is no small part of Our Royall care and desires, that the true Reformed Religion, wherein by the grace of God, We resolve to live and dye, be settled peaceably in that Our ancient and native Kingdome of Scotland, and that the same be truly taught, and universally received and professed by Our Subjects there, of all degrees. For preventing of all division and trouble hereafter, We did intend in Our Own Royall Person, to have been present at this Assembly; but conceiving it to be unfitting, to detaine the Ministers from their particular charges, till the time of Our coming to the Parliament, We have resolved to make knowne unto you by these, and by Our Commissioner, That in the approching Parliament, it is Our intention by Our authority, to ratifie and confirm the Constitutions of the late Assembly at Edinburgh, that they may be obeyed by all Our Subjects living in that Our Kingdome. And that We will take into Our Royall consideration, by what meanes the Churches belonging to Our presentation, when any of them shall happen to vaik, may be best provided with well qualified Preachers: Like as We are not unwilling to grant presentations unto such as in these times of trouble have entred into the Ministerie, providing they have been examined by the Presbyteries, and approved by them: Because We want not Our own feares of the decay of Learning in that Church and Kingdome, We intend also to consider of the best meanes for helping the Schooles and Colledges of Learning especially of Divinity, that there may be such a number of Preachers there, as that each Parish having a Minister, and the Gospel being preached in the most remote parts of the kingdome, all Our Subjects may taste of Our care in that kinde, and have more and more cause to blesse God that we are set over them. And, finally, so tender is Our care, that it shall not be Our fault if the Churches and Colledges there flourish not in Learning and Religion: For which Royall testimonie of Our goodnesse, We require nothing upon your part, but that which God hath bound you unto, even that you be faithfull in the charge committed unto you, and care for the soules of the people: That you study Peace and Unity amongst your selves, and amongst the people, against all Schisme and Faction; and that you not only pray for Us, but that you teach the People, which We trust are not unwilling to pay that honour and obedience which they owe unto Us, as his Vicegerent set over them, for their good; wherein We expect you will by your good example goe before them. Which hoping you will doe, We bid you farewell. From Our Court at Whitehall, the 10 day of July 1641.

Sess. III. 28 July 1641.
Act approving the Overtures of the Assembly at Aberdene, for ordering the Assembly-House.

THE Overtures for ordering the Assembly-House, given in to, and approved by the Assembly of Aberdene the 29 July 1640, Act Sess. 2, were openly read, and again approved by this Assembly, and ordained to be kept the whole time thereof.

Sess. V. 30 July 1641.
Act anent old Ministers bruiking their Benefices.

THE Assembly having considered the Supplication given in by Doctor Robert Howie, Provest of the New Colledge of S. Andrews, whereby he craved, that (notwithstanding of his dismission of his charge) he should not be prejudged of his full provision and maintenance during his life-time: The Assembly thinks it fit and necessary, that his provision and maintenance should not be diminished, but that he should injoy the same fully, as of before, during all the dayes of his life-time, and craveth his dismission to be only but a cessation from his charge, because of his age and inability: And declares, that old Ministers and professors of Divinitie, shall not by their cessation from their charge, through age and inabilitie, be put from injoying their old maintenance and dignity. And recommends this and others the like things, concerning the estate of that Universitie of S. Andrews, to the Parliament, and the Visitation to be appointed from the Assembly and Parliament. And likewise the Assembly being informed, that the said Doctor Howie hath been very painfull in his charge, and that he hath divers papers which would be very profitable for the Kirk: Therefore they think fit, that the said Doctor Howie be desired to collect these papers, which doeth concerne, and may be profitable for the use of the Kirk, that the samine may be showne to the Visitors of the said Universitie.

Sess. VIII. 2 Aug. 1641, à meridie.
Act against sudden receiving Ministers deposed.

THE Assembly ordaines, that Ministers who are deposed either by Presbyteries, Synods, or Generall Assemblies, or Committees from Assemblies for the publike cause of the Reformation and order of this Kirk, shall not be suddenly received againe to the Ministerie, till they first evidence their repentance both before the Presbyterie and Synod, within the bounds where they were deposed, and thereafter the samine reported to the next ensuing Generall Assembly.

Sess. IX. Aug. 3, 1641.
The Overtures under-written, concerning the Universities and Colledges of this Kingdome, to be represented by the Generall Assembly to the Kings Majesty and Parliament, being openly read, the Assembly approved the saids Overtures, and ordained them to be recommended to the Parliament.

FIRST, because the good estate both of the Kirk and Commonwealth, dependeth mainly upon the flourishing of Universities and Colledges, as the Seminaries of both, which cannot be expected, unlesse the poore meanes which they have, be helped, and sufficient revenues be provided for them and the same well imployed: Therefore that out of the rents of Prelacies, Collegiat or Chapter-Kirks, or such like, a sufficient maintenance be provided for a competent number of Professors, Teachers, and Bursers in all faculties, and especially in Divinitie, and for upholding, repairing, and enlarging the Fabrick of the Colledges, furnishing Libraries, and suchlike good uses in every Universitie and Colledge.

II. Next for keeping of good order, preveening and removing of abuses, and promoving of pietie and learning, it is very needful and expedient that there be a communion and correspondence kept betwixt all the Universities and Colledges. And therefore that it be ordained, that there be a meeting once every year at such times and places as shall be agreed upon, of Commissioners from every University and Colledge to consult and determine upon the common affairs, and whatsoever may concerne them, for the ends above-specified, and who also, or some of their number, may represent what shall be needfull and expedient for the same effect, to Parliaments and Generall Assemblies.

III. Item, that speciall care be had that the places of the Professors, especially of Professors of Divinity in every University and Colledge, be filled with the ablest men, and best affected to the Reformation and order of this Kirk.

Sess. X. Aug. 4, 1641.
Act against Impiety and Schisme.

THE Assembly seriously considering the present case and condition of this Kirk and Kingdom, what great things the Lord hath done for us, especially since the renewing of our Covenant, notwithstanding our former backsliding and desertion; and if we shall either become remisse in the dueties of Piety, or shall not constantly hold & keep our Religion, unto which we have bound our selves so straitly & solemnly, what dishonour we doe unto the name of God before men, who have their eyes upon us, and how great judgements we bring upon our selves, upon these and the like considerations, The Assembly doth finde it most necessary to stirre up themselves, and to provoke all others both Ministers and people of all degrees, not only to the religious exercises of publike worship in the Congregation, and of private worship in their Families, and of every one by themselves apart, but also to the dueties of mutuall edification, by instruction, admonition, exhorting one another to forwardnesse in Religion, and comforting one another in whatsoever distresse; and that in all their meetings, whither in the way of civill conversation, or by reason of their particular callings, or any other occasion offered by divine providence, no corrupt communication proceed out of their mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers: And because the best means have been, and may still be despised or abused, and particularly the duetie of mutuall edification, which hath been so little in use, and so few know how to practise in the right manner, may be upon the one part subject to the mocking of ungodly and worldly men, who cannot endure that in others which they are not willing to practise themselves, and upon the other part, to many errors and abuses, to which the godly through their weaknes may fall, or by the craftinesse of others may be drawn into, such as are Error, Heresie, Schisme, Scandall, Self-conceit, and despising of others, pressing above the common calling of Christians, & usurping that which is proper to the Pastoral Vocation, contempt or misregard of the publike means, idle and unprofitable questions which edifie not, uncharitable censurings, neglect of duties in particular callings, businesse in other mens Matters and Callings, and many such others in doctrine, charity, and manners, which have dolefully rent the bowels of other Kirks, to the great prejudice of the Gospel.

Therefore the Assembly, moved with the zeal of God against all abuses and corruptions, and according to their manifold obligations, most earnestly desiring and thirsting to promove the work of Reformation, and to have the comfort & power of true godlinesse sensible to every soul, and Religion to be universally practised in every Family, and by every person at all occasions, Doth charge all the Ministers and Members of this Kirk, whom they doe represent, that according to their severall places and vocations, they endeavour to suppresse all impiety and mocking of religious exercises, especially of such as put foule aspersions, and factious or odious names upon the godly. And upon the other part, that in the fear of God they be aware and spiritually wise, that under the name and pretext of religious exercises, otherwayes lawfull and necessary, they fall not into the aforesaid abuses; especially, that they eschew all meetings which are apt to breed Error, Scandall, Schisme, neglect of dueties and particular callings, and such other evills as are the works, not of the spirit, but of the flesh, and are contrary to truth and peace; and that the Presbyteries and Synods have a care to take order with such as transgresse the one way or the other.

Sess. XIIII. 6 Aug. 1641, à meridie.
Act anent Novations.

SINCE it hath pleased God to vouchsafe us the libertie of yearly Generall Assemblies, It is ordained according to the Acts of the Assembly at Edinburgh 1639, and at Aberdene 1640, that no Novation in doctrine, worship, or government, be brought in, or practised in this Kirk, unlesse it be first propounded, examined, and allowed in the Generall Assembly, and that trangressors in this kinde be censured by Presbyteries and Synods.

Act Sess. XV. 7 Aug. 1641.
Overtures anent Bursars and Expectants.

The Overtures under-written being openly read in audience of the Assembly, were approved, and declared by them to be Acts of the Assembly, in all time coming, to be observed respectivè, as the samine bears.

I.

THE Assembly thinks meet for maintaining of Bursars of Divinitie, that every Presbyterie that consists of twelve Ministers, shall maintain a Bursar, and where the number is fewer nor twelve, shall be joyned with these out of another Presbyterie where their number exceeds: where this course is not already kept, it is to be begun without longer delay, and every Provinciall is ordained to give an accompt of their number of Bursars, that is constantly to be entertained by their Province, at the next ensuing Generall Assembly.

II. No expectant shall be permitted to preach in publike before a Congregation, till first he be tryed after the same manner, howbeit not altogether with that accuracie which is injoyned by the Act of the Assembly of Glasgow 1638, which prescribes the order and manner of tryall, that is to be kept with these who are to be admitted to the holy Ministrie: and none so tryed shall preach in publike, without the bounds of the University or Presbyterie where he past his tryalls, till he first make it known to the other Presbyteries, where he desires to be heard, by a testimoniall from the Universitie or Presbyterie where he lived, that he hath bin of an honest conversation, and past his tryalls conform to the order here prescribed: Which being done in the meeting of the Province or Presbyterie, where he desires to be heard; he is to be allowed by them to preach within the bounds of that Province or Presbyterie, without any further tryall to be taken of him.

III. Expectants being educate in a colledge that was corrupt, or under a corrupt Minister, if they themselves have been known to have been tainted with error, or opposite to our Covenant, and the blessed Work of Reformation within this Kirk, the same order is to be kept in admitting them to the holy Ministrie, or to any place in the Colledges or Schooles of this Kingdome, that was ordained to be kept in admission of these Ministers who fled out of the Countrey, and shew themselves opposite to our Covenant and Reformation.

Act Sess. XVII. Aug. 9, 1641.
Act against unlawfull Bands.

THE Assembly taking to their consideration the question proponed unto them concerning the Band, the copy whereof was presented before them from the Parliament, doth find and declare that Bands of this and the like nature, may not lawfully be made: By which Declaration the Assembly doth not intend to bring any censure for what is past, and by the wisedome and care of the Committee of the Parliament is taken away, upon any person, who being required by the Moderator and the Clerk, shall under his hand declare before them, That as the Assembly doth finde that the subscribers are not astricted by their Oath to the tenor of the said Band, so he findeth himself not to be astricted by his Oath to the tenor thereof; but the intention of the Assembly is meerly to prevent the like in time coming.

Sess. XVIII. 9 Aug. 1641, à meridie.
A Letter from some Ministers in England to the Assemblie.

Right Reverend and dear Brethren now conveened in this Generall Assembly.

WEE most heartily salute you in the Lord, rejoycing with you in his unspeakable goodnesse, so miraculously prospering your late endeavours, both for the restoring and settling of your own Liberties and Priviledges, in Church and Commonwealth (which we heare and hope he is now about to accomplish) as also for the occasioning and advancing of the Worke of Reformation among our selves; for which as we daily blesse the highest Lord, sole Author of all our good, so doe we acknowledge your selves worthy Instruments thereof. And for that (besides all other respects) doe, and ever shall (by the help of God) hold you deare unto us, as our own bowels, and our selves obliged to render unto you all due correspondence according to our power, upon all good occasions.

And now (deare Brethren) forasmuch as the Church of Christ is but one body, each part whereof cannot but partake in the weale and woe of the whole, and of each other part; and these Churches of England and Scotland, may seem both to be imbarqued in the same bottome, to sink and swim together, and are so near conjoyned by many strong tyes, not only as fellow-members under the same Head, Christ, and fellow-subjects under the same King; but also by such neighbour-hood and vicinity of place that if any evill shall much infest the one, the other cannot bee altogether free: or if for the present it should, yet in processe of time it would sensibly suffer also. And forasmuch as evills are better remedied in their first begining, then after they have once taken deep root; therefore we whose names are here under-written, in the behalf of our selves, and of many others, Ministers of the Church of England, are bold to commend to your consideration (being met together in this venerable Assembly) a difference of great concernment, which you may please (in brief) thus to understand. Almighty God having now of his infinite goodnesse, raised up our hopes of removing the yoke of Episcopacie (under which we have so long groaned) sundry other forms of Church-government are by sundry sorts of men projected, to be set up in the roome thereof: one of which (amongst others) is of some Brethren that hold the whole power of Church-government, and all Acts thereunto appertaining (as Election, Ordination, and Deposition of Officers, with Admission, Excommunication, and Absolution of Members) are by divine Ordinance in foro externo, to be decreed by the most voyces, in, and of every particular Congregation, which (say they) is the utmost bound of a particular Church, endued with power of government, and only some Formalities of solemne execution to be reserved to the Officers (as servants of the saids Church) if they have any, or if none, then to be performed by some other members, not in office, whom the said Church shall appoint thereunto: And that every of the said particular Congregations (whether they consist of few or many members, and be furnished with Officers or not) lawfully may and ought to transact, determine, and execute all matters pertaining to the government of themselves, amongst and within themselves without any authoritative (though not consulatory) concurrence or interposition of any other persons or Churches whatsoever, condemning all imperative and decisive power of Classes, or compound Presbyteries and Synods, as a meere usurpation. Now because we conceive that your judgement in this case may conduce much by the blessing of God, to the settling of this question amongst us; Therefore we doe earnestly intreat the same at your hands, and that so much the rather, because we sometimes hear from those of the aforesaid judgment, that some famous and eminent Brethren, even amongst your selves, doe somewhat encline unto an approbation of that way of government. Thus humbly craving pardon for our boldnesse, leaving the matter to your grave considerations, and expecting answer at your convenient leasure, We commit you, and the successe of this your meeting, to the blessing of the Almighty, in whom we shall ever remain,

Your faithfull Brethren to serve you
in all offices of love.

London, 12 July, 1641.

The Assemblies Answer to the English Ministers Letter.

Right reverend and dearly beloved Brethren in
our Lord and common Saviour Jesus Christ.

WEE the Ministers and Elders met together in this Nationall Assembly, were not a little refreshed and comforted by the good report which we heard of you, and others of our Brethren of the Kirk of England, by some of our Ministers who, by the good providence of our Lord, had seen your faces and conversed with you. But now yet more comforted by your Letters which we received, and which were read in the face of the Assembly, witnessing your Christian love, and rejoycing with us in God for his great and wonderfull Work in the Reformation of this Kirk, and in the beginning of a blessed Reformation amongst your selves, and that you are so sensible of your communion and fellowship with us, and to desire to know our minde and judgement of that which some Brethren amongst you hold, concerning Kirk-government.

We doe with our hearts acknowledge and wonder at the great and unspeakable wisedome, mercie, and power of our God, in restoring unto us the truth and puritie of Religion, after many Back slidings and defection of some in this Kirk, and desire not only to confesse the same before the world, and all other Christian Kirkes, but also doe pray for grace to walk worthy of so wonderfull a love: We have been helped by your prayers, in our weak endeavours, and you have mourned with us (we know) in the dayes of our mourning; and therefore is it that you doe now rejoyce and praise God with us: Neither are we out of hope, but the same God shall speedily perfect that which he hath begun amongst you, that your joy may be full: which is the desire of our soule, and for which we doe now pray, and in our severall Congregations will be instant at the throne of grace, for this and all other spirituall and temporall blessings upon the Kirk and Kingdome of England, by name, expecting the like performance of mutuall love from you, and others equally minded with you, for your parts, till a common consent may be obtained, even that you will recommend the Kirk of Scotland, by name, in your prayers to God. Thus shall we be as one people, mourning and rejoycing, praying and praising together; which may be one meane of the preservation of Unity, and of many other blessings to us both.

We have learned by long experience, ever since the time of Reformation, and specially after the two Kingdomes have been (in the great goodnesse of God to both) united under one Head and Monarch, but most of all of late, which is not unknown to you, what danger and contagion in matters of Kirk-government, of divine worship, and of doctrine, may come from the one Kirk to the other, which beside all other reasons, make us to pray to God, and to desire you, and all that love the honour of Christ, and the peace of these Kirks and Kingdomes, heartily to endeavour, that there might be in both Kirks, one Confession, one Directory for publike worship, one Catechisme, and one Forme of Kirk-government. And if the Lord who hath done great things for us, shall be pleased to hearken unto our desires, and to accept of our endeavours, we shall not only have a sure foundation for a durable Peace, but shall be strong in God, against the rising or spreading of Heresie and Schisme amongst our selves, and of invasion from forraine enemies.

Concerning the different Formes of Kirk-government, projected by sundrie sorts of men, to be set up in place of Episcopall Hierarchie, which we trust is brought near unto its period, we must confesse, that we are not a little grieved that any godly Ministers and Brethren should be found, who doe not agree with other Reformed Kirks in the point of government as well as in the matter of Doctrine and Worship; and that we want not our own feares, that where the hedge of Discipline and Government is different, the Doctrine and Worship shall not long continue the same without change: yet doe not marvell much, that particular Kirks and Congregations which live in such places, as that they can conveniently have no dependencie upon superiour Assemblies, should stand for a kind of independencie and supremacie in themselves, they not considering that in a Nation or Kingdome, professing the same Religion, the government of the Kirk by compound Presbyteries and Synods is a help and strength, and not a hinderance or prejudice to particular Congregations and Elderships, in all the parts of Kirk-government; and that Presbyteries and Synods are not an extrinsecall power set over particular Kirks, like unto Episcopall dominion, they being no more to be reputed extrinsecall unto the particular Kirks, nor the power of a Parliament, or Convention of Estates, where the Shires and Cities have their own Delegates, is to be held extrinsecall to any particular Shire or City.

Our unanimous judgement and uniforme practice is, that according to the order of the Reformed Kirks, and the ordinance of God in his Word, not onely the solemne execution of Ecclesiasticall power and authoritie, but the whole acts and exercise thereof, do properly belong unto the Officers of the Kirk; yet so that in matters of chiefest importance, the tacite consent of the Congregation be had, before their decrees and sentences receive finall execution, and that the Officers of a particular Congregation may not exercise this power independently, but with subordination unto greater Presbyteries and Synods, Provinciall and Nationall; which as they are representative of the particular Kirks conjoyned together in one under their government; so their determination, when they proceed orderly, whether in causes common to all, or many of the Kirks, or in causes brought before them by appellations or references from the inferiour, in the case of aberation of the inferiour, is to the severall Congregations authoritative and obligatorie, and not consultatory only: And this dependencie and subordination, we conceive not only to be warranted by the light of nature, which doth direct the Kirk in such things as are common to other societies, or to be a prudentiall way for Reformation, and for the preservation of Truth and Peace, against Schisme, Heresie, and Tyranny, which is the sweet fruits of this government wheresoever it hath place, and which we have found in ancient and late experience; but also to be grounded upon the Word of God, and to be conforme to the paterne of the Primitive and Apostolicall Kirks; and without which, neither could the Kirks in this Kingdom have been reformed, nor were we able for any time to preserve Truth and Unity amongst us.

In this forme of Kirk-government, our unanimity and harmony by the mercy of God, is so full and perfect, that all the Members of this Assembly have declared themselves to be of one heart, and of one soule, and to be no lesse perswaded, that it is of God, then that Episcopall government is of men; resolving by the grace of God, to hold the same constantly all the dayes of our life, and heartily wishing that God would blesse all the Christian Kirks, especially the famous Kirk of England, unto which in all other respects we are so nearly joyned with this divine Forme of government. Thus having briefly and plainly given our judgement for your satisfaction, and desiring and hoping that ye will beleeve against all mis-reports, that we know not so much as one man, more or lesse eminent amongst us, of a different judgement, we commend you unto the riches of the grace of Christ, who will perfect that which he hath begun amongst you, to your unspeakable comfort. Subscribed by our Moderator and Clerk.

Edinburgh, 9 Aug. 1641.

The Assemblies Answer to the Kings Majesties Letter.

Most Gracious Soveraign,

BESIDE the conscience of that duetie which we owe to supreme Authority, we are not only encouraged, but confirmed by the Royall favour and Princely munificence, expressed in Your gracious Majesties Letters, which filled our hearts with joy, and our mouths with praise, to offer up our prayers with the greater fervencie to God Almightie for Your Majesties happinesse, our selves for our own parts, and for the whole Kirks of this your Majesties Kingdome, which we doe represent, to serve Your Majestie in all humble obedience, our faithfull labours for preserving Trueth and Peace amongst all Your Majesties Subjects, and our example (according to Your Majesties just commandments laid upon us) to be a presedent to others in paying that honour, which by all Lawes divine and humane, is due unto Your sacred Majestie, being confident that your Majestie shall finde at your coming hither much more satisfaction and content than can be expressed by

Your Majesties most humble Subjects and faithfull servants, the Ministers and Elders met together in the venerable Assembly at S. Andrews, July 20, and Edinburgh, July 27, 1641.

Act anent the Kirk of Campheir.

THE which day a motion was made in the Assembly, that it seemed expedient for correspondence that might be had from forraigne parts, for the weal of this Kirk, That the Scots Kirk at Campheir were joyned to the Kirk of Scotland, as a Member thereof: Which being seriously thought upon and considered by the Assembly, they approved the motion, and ordained M. Robert Baillie Minister at Cilwinning, to write to M. William Spang Minister at Campheir, and Kirk Session thereof, willing them to send their Minister, and a ruling Elder, instructed with a Commission to the next Generall Assembly to be holden at S. Andrews, the last Wednesday of July 1642, at which time they should be inrolled in the Books of the Generall Assembly, as Commissioners of the Generall Assembly of Scotland, from the Scots Kirk at Campheir.

THE Assembly appoints the next Generall Assembly to be holden at S. Andrews, the last Wednesday of July next 1642.

FINIS.

Index of the Principall Acts of the Assembly
holden at S. Andrews and Edinburgh, 1641.
Not Printed.

1.—His Majesties Commission to Iohn Earle of Weemes.

2.—A Letter from the Parliament to the Generall Assembly.

3.—Act anent the continuation of M. Andrew Ramsay Moderator.

4.—His Majesties Letter to the Assembly.

5.—Act anent the translation of the Assembly from S. Andrews to Edinburgh.

6.—Election of M. Alex. Henderson Moderator.

7.—Declaration of the Assemb. anent the translation thereof to Edinburgh.

8.—Act for drawing up one Catechisme, one Confession of Faith, Directory of publike worship and form of Kirk-government.

9.—Act anent M. Andrew Ramsays delivery to the Clerk the Books, Warnesins Book, and others, which he received at Aberdene.

10.—Overtures anent transportation of Ministers, and plantation of Schooles, recommended to be advised by Synods.

11.—Ref. to the Parl. anent the Kirks of Dunkeld.

12.—Act anent M. David Calderwood.

13.—Commis. anent erecting a Presb. in Biggar.

14.—Com. for visitation of Orknay and Zetland.

15.—Act anent bringing of the Synode Books to the Assemblies.

16.—Ref. from the Parl. anent a Band and a Paper called a Manifesto.

17.—Act anent the deleting of the E. of Traquairs Declaration out of the Books of Secret Councell.

18.—Report of Overtures made anent the Plantation of Kirks in the High-lands.

19.—Commission for visitation of the Universitie of S. Andrews.

20.—Commis. for Visitation of the Universitie of Glasgow.

21.—Commis. to attend the Parliament.

22.—Ref. to that Commis. anent the Presb. of Sky.

Miscellaneous Historical Documents,
RELATIVE TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL EVENTS IN SCOTLAND—1640-41.

1640.—August 15.
1. Letter from Lord Conway to Secretary Windebanke, announcing the Approach of the Scotch Army.[268]

Mr Secretary,

My time is very short. I now received your Letter. I have within these two hours word brought to me, [I pray you tell my Lord of Canterbury, that it is by that man I did write last to him, that I have sent into Scotland and gave him sixteen pounds,] that the Scotch Army, as he doth assure me upon his life, and bids me hang him if it be not so, will upon Munday or Tuesday next come into England, that they will upon Saturday be before this Town, which they say they will take or here be broken, from hence they intend to go to Yorkshire, &c.

Your most humble servant,
Conway and Kilulta.

Newcastle Aug. 15,
1640.

1640.—August 21.
2. Six Considerations of the Lawfulness of their Expedition into England, manifested.[269]

As, from the beginning till this time, we have attempted nothing presumptuously in this great work of Reformation, but have proceeded upon good grounds, and have been led forward by the good hand of God; so now, from our own perswasion, are we ready to answer every one that asketh us a reason of this our present expedition, which is one of the greatest and most notable parts of this wonderful work of God, beseeching all to lift up their minds above their own particulars, and, without prejudice or partiality, to lay to heart the Considerations following:—

First, As all men know and confess what is the great force of necessity, and how it doth justifie actions otherways unwarrantable, so it cannot be denyed but we must either seek our peace in England at this time, or lye under the heavy burdens which we are not able to bear.

1. We must maintain Armies on the Borders, and all places nearest to hazard, for the defence and preservation of our Countrey, which, by laying down of Armes, and disbanding of our Forces, should be quickly over-run by hostile invasion and the incursions of our enemies.

2. We shall want trade by Sea, which would not only deprive the Kingdom of many necessaries, but utterly undo our Boroughs, Merchants, Mariners, and many others who live by Fishing, and by Commodities Exported and Imported, and whose particular callings are utterly made void, by want of Commerce with other Nations and Sea-trade.

3. The Subjects through the whole Kingdom shall want administration of Justice; and although this time past the marvellous power and providence of God hath kept the Kingdom in order and quietness, without any Judicatories sitting, yet cannot this be expected for afterward, but shall turn to confusion. Any one of the three, much more all of them put together, threaten us with most certain ruine, unless we speedily use the remedy of this Expedition. And this we say not from fear, but from feeling: for we have already felt to our unspeakable prejudice, [what it is to maintain Armies, what to want traffick, what to want administration of Justice.] And if the beginning of these evils be so heavy, what shall the growth and long continuance of them prove unto us? So miserable a being all men would judge to be worse than no being.

Secondly, If we consider the nature and quality of this Expedition, it is defensive, and so the more justifiable. For proof hereof, let it be remembered—

1. The Kings Majesty, misled by the crafty and cruel faction of our Adversaries, began this years war, not we. When Articles of Pacification had been the other year agreed upon, Armies laid down, Forts and Castles rendered, an Assembly kept, and concluded with the presence and consent of his Majesties High Commissioner, the promised Ratification thereof in Parliament (contrary to the foresaid Articles) was denyed unto us, and when we would have informed his Majesty by our Commissioners, of the reasons and manner of our proceedings, they got not so much as presence or audience. Thereafter his Majesty being content to hear them, before that they came to Court or were heard, War was concluded against us at the Council Table of England, and a Commission given to the Earl of Northumberland for that effect.

1. The Parliaments of Ireland and England were also convocate, for granting subsidies unto this war against us, as is notoure, Plots have been hatcht, and military preparations made against us: many invasions by Sea, which have spoiled us of our ships and goods; men, women, and children killed in Edinburgh by his Majesties Forces in the Castle: Our enemies therefore are the authors and beginners of the War, and we defenders only.

2. We intend not the hurt of others, but our own peace and preservation, neither are we to offer any injury or violence: And therefore have furnished our selves according to our power with all necessaries, not to fight at all, except we be forced to it in our own defence, as our Declaration beareth.

3. We shall retire and lay downe Armes, as soon as we shall get a sure peace, and shall be satisfied in our just demands. Upon which ground even some of those who would seem the greatest Royalists, hold the Wars of the Protestants in France against the King, and the factions of the Guisians, to have been lawful defensive Wars, because they were ever ready to disband and quiet themselves, when they got assurance of peace and liberty of Religion. Now this present Expedition being in the nature of it defensive, hence it appeareth that it is not contrary, but consonant to our former Protestations, Informations and Remonstrances: In all which there is not one word against defensive War in this cause; but strong reasons for it, all which militate for this expedition.

Our first information sent to England this year, though it accurseth all offensive or invasive war, yet sheweth plainly, that if we be invaded either by Sea or Land, we must do as a man that fighteth himself out of prison. If a private man when his house is blocked up, so that he can have no liberty of Commerce and Traffick to supply himself and family, being also in continual hazard of his life, not knowing when he shall be assaulted by his Enemies who lye in wait against him, may in this case most lawfully step forth with the Forces which he can make, and fight himself free, of how much more worth is the whole Nation? and how shall one and the same way of defence and liberation be allowed to a private man, and disallowed to a whole Nation?

Thirdly, We are called to this Expedition by that same divine providence and vocation which hath guided us hitherto in this great business. We see the expediency of it, for the glory of God, for the good of the Church, for advancing the Gospell, for our own peace: after seeking of God, and begging light and direction from Heaven, our hearts are inclined to it, God hath given us zeal and courage to prosecute it, ability and opportunity for undertaking it, unanimous Resolution upon it, scruples removed out of minds where they were harboured, encouragements to atchieve it from many passages of divine providence, and namely from the proceedings of the last Parliament in England, their grievances and desires being so homogeneal and akin to ours, we have laboured in great long-suffering by Supplications, Informations, Commissions, and all other means possible, to avoid this Expedition. It was not premeditate nor affected by us (God knows) but our enemies have necessitated and redacted us unto it, and that of purpose to sow the seeds of National Quarrels; yet as God hitherto hath turned all their plots against themselves, and to effects quite contrary to those that they intended; so are we hopeful that our coming into England (so much wished and desired by our adversaries for producing a National quarrel) shall so far disappoint them of their aymes, that it shall link the two Nations together in straiter and stronger bonds, both of Civil and Christian love, than ever before.

And that we may see yet further evidences of a calling from God to this voyage, we may observe the order of the Lords steps and proceedings in this work of Reformation. For, beginning at the gross Popery of the Service Book, and Book of Canons, he hath followed the back trade of our defection, till he hath Reformed the very first and smallest Novations, which entered in this Church. But so it is, that this back trade leadeth yet further, to the Prelacy in England, the fountain whence all those Babylonish streams issue unto us: The Lord therefore is still on the back trade, and we following him therein, cannot yet be at a stay. Yea, we trust, that he shall so follow forth this trade, as to chase home the Beast, and the false Prophet to Rome, and from Rome out of the world. Besides, this third Consideration resulteth from the former two; for if this Expedition be necessary, and if it be defensive, then it followeth inevitably, that we are called unto it, for our necessary defence is warranted, yea commanded by the Law of God and Nature, and we are obliged to it in our Covenant.

Fourthly, The lawfulness of this Expedition appeareth, if we consider the party against whom, which is not the Kingdom of England, but the Canterburian faction of Papists, Atheists, Arminians, Prelates, the misleaders of the Kings Majesty, and the Common Enemies of both Kingdoms. We perswade our selves, that our Brethren and Neighbours in England, will never be so evil advised, as to make themselves a party against us, by their defence and patrociny of our Enemies among them, as sometimes the Benjamites made themselves a party against the Israelites, by defending the Gibeathites in their wicked cause, Judg. 20. We pray God to give them the wisdom of the wise Woman in Abel, who when Joab came near to her City with an Army, found out a way which both kept Joab from being an Enemy to the City, and the City from being an Enemy to him, 2 Sam. 20. As touching the provision and furniture of our Army in England, it shall be such as is used among friends, not among enemies. The rule of humanity and gratitude will teach them to furnish us with necessaries, when as beside the procuring of our own peace, we do good offices to them. They detest (we know) the churlishness of Nabal, who refused victuals to David and his men, who had done them good, and no evil, 1 Sam. 20. And the inhumanity of the men of Succoth and Penuel, who denyed bread to Gideons Army, when he was pursuing the Common Enemies of all Israel, Judg. 8. But let the English do of their benevolence, what humanity and discretion will teach them; For our own part our Declaration sheweth, that we seek not victuals for nought, but for money or security: And if this should be refused (which we shall never expect) it were as damnable as the barbarous cruelty of Edom and Moab, who refused to let Israel pass through their Countrey, or to give them bread and water in any case, Numb. 20. Judg. 11. and this offence the Lord accounted so inexpiable, that for it he accursed the Edomites and Moabites from entering into the Congregation of the Lord, unto the tenth Generation, Deut. 23. 3, 4.

Fifthly, The fifth Consideration concerneth the end for which this Voyage is undertaken. We have attested the Searcher of Hearts, It is not to execute any disloyal act against his Majesty, It is not to put forth a cruel or vindictive hand against our Adversaries in England, whom we desire only to be Judged and Censured by their own Honourable and High Court of Parliament; It is not to enrich our selves with the Wealth of England, nor to do any harm thereto. But by the contrary, we shall gladly bestow our pains and our means to do them all the good we can, which they might justly look for at our hands, for the help which they made us at our Reformation, in freeing us from the French, a bond of peace and love betwixt them and us to all generations. Our Conscience, and God who is greater than our Conscience, beareth us record that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of both Nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing (in a legal way) of those who are the troublers of Israel the firebrands of Hell, the Korhas, the Baalams, the Doegs, the Rabshakahs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs and Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither have we begun to use a military Expedition to England, as a mean for compassing those our pious ends, till all other means which we could think upon have failed us, and this alone is left to us as ultimum & unicum remedium, the last and only remedy.

Sixthly, If the Lord shall bless us in this our expedition, and our intentions shall not be crossed by our own sins and miscarriage, or by the opposition of the English, the fruits shall be sweet, and the effects comfortable to both Nations, to the Posterity, and to the Reformed Kirk abroad: Scotland shall be Reformed as at the beginning, the Reformation of England long prayed and pleaded for the Godly thereby shall be according to their wishes and desires, perfected in Doctrine, Worship and Discipline. Papists, Prelates, and all the members of the Antichristian Hierarchy, with their Idolatry, Superstition, and humane Inventions shall pack from hence, the names of Sects and Separatists shall no more be mentioned, and the Lord shall be one, and his name one throughout the whole Island, which shall be glory to God, honour to the King, Joy to the Kingdoms, comfort to the posterity, example to other Christian Kirks, and Confusion to the incorrigible Enemies.

1640.—September 2.
3. Letter from the Commissioners of the late Parliament in Scotland to the Earl of Lanerick, and Petition therewith sent.[270]

Noble Lord,

As we have ever professed and declared, as well by our Words as Actions, that the Grounds of our Desires are, and ever shall be the redress of Wrongs and reparations of our Losses, and that we will never leave off in all humility to Supplicate His Majesty for the same, so this hath moved us now, being come this length, yet again humbly to Petition His Majesty to take our Case to Consideration, and grant our Desires. We are debarred from sending or carrying our Supplications in the ordinary way, which makes us have our Address to your Lordship, intreating your Lordship in our names to present this our Petition herein inclosed to His Majesty, and in all humility to beg an Answer thereunto, to be sent with the Bearer to us, who shall ever endeavour to approve ourselves His Majesties Loyal Subjects, and most unwilling to shed any Christian blood, far less the English; whereof we have given very good prooff by our bygone Carriage to every one who hath with Violence opposed us, yea, even to those who entred in Blood with us, and were taken prisoners, whom we have let go with Meat and Money, notwithstanding that all those of ours, who did but deboar’d from their Quarters, are miserably massacred by these whom we can tearm no otherwise than Cut-throats. Our behaviour to these in New-Castle can witness our Intention, which is to live at peace with all, and rather to suffer then to offend. We bought all with our money, and they have extortioned us to the triple value: the Panick fear made most of them leave the Town, and stop their own Trade; but we have studied to solve their doubts. As all our Actions shall ever tend to that which is Just and Right; so we could wish, they were interpreted to a true sense; and whatever may be the event of business, we hope the blame shall not lie upon

Your Lordships affectionate
Friends to serve you.

Leager beside New-Castle,
2ᵈ September, 1640.

Signed,
Rothes,Napier,D. Hoom,
Cassilis,Tho. Hope,Keir,
Dumfermline,W. Richarton,Ja. Sword,
Lindsay,J. Swith,J. Rutherford.
Lowdon,P. Hepburn.

Postscript.—We intreat Your Lordship to let the Bearer have a Pass for his safe Return to us.

To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty, The Humble Petition of the Commissioners of the late Parliament, and others of His Majesties Loyal Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland.

Humbly Sheweth,

That Whereas after our many Sufferings the time past, extreme necessity hath constrained us for our Relief, and obtaining our Humble and Just Desires, to come into England, where according to our Intentions formerly declared, we have in all our Journey lived upon our own Means and Victuals, and Goods brought a-long with us, and neither troubling the Peace of the Kingdom, nor harming any of Your Majesties Subjects of whatsoever quality in their Persons or Goods, but have carried our selves in a most peaceable manner, till we were pressed by strength of Arms, to put such Forces out of the way, as did without our deserving, and (as some of them have at the point of death confessed) against their own Conscience, opposed our peaceable passage at Newburn on Tine, and have brought their Blood upon their own Heads, against our purposes and desires expressed in our Letters, sent unto them at New-Castle, for preventing the like, or greater Inconveniences. And that we may without farther opposition come into Your Majesties Presence, for obtaining from Your Majesties Justice and Goodness satisfaction to our just Demands, we, Your Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects, do still insist in that submiss way of Petitioning, which we have keeped since the beginning, and from which no provocation of Your Majesties Enemies and ours, no adversity that we have before sustained, nor prosperous success that can befall us be able to divert our minds.

Most humbly entreating, That Your Majesty would in the depth of Your Royal Wisdom, consider at last our pressing Grievances, provide for the Repairing of our wrongs and losses, and with the advice and consent of the Estates of the Kingdom of England convened in Parliament, settle a firm and durable Peace, against all Invasion by Sea or Land, that we may with chearfulness of heart pay unto Your Majesty, as our Native King, all Duty and Obedience that can be expected from Loyal Subjects, and that (against the many and great Evils, which at this time threaten both Kingdoms, whereat all Your Majesties Good and Loving Subjects tremble to think, and which we beseech God Almighty in mercy timeously to avert) Your Majesties Throne may be established in the midst of us, in Religion and Righteousness; and Your Majesties Gracious Answer we humbly desire, and earnestly wait for.

1640.—September 5.
4. The King’s Answer to the above Petition, dated at His Majestie’s Court at York, the 5th of September 1640.[271]

His Majesty hath seen and considered this Petition, and is Graciously pleased to return this Answer by me, that he finds it in such general terms, that till you express the Particulars of your Desires, His Majesty can give no direct Answer; therefore His Majesty requires that you set down the Particulars of your Demands with expedition, he having been always willing to hear and redress the Grievances of His People: and for the more mature Deliberation of these great Affairs, His Majesty hath already given out Summons for the meeting of the Peers of the Kingdom in the City of York upon the 24ᵗʰ of this Month, that so with the advice of the Peers you may receive such Answer to your Petition, as shall most tend to His Honour, and the Peace and Wellfare of His Dominions. And in the mean time (if Peace be that you desire as you pretend) He expects, and by these His Majesty commands, that you advance no further with your Army to these parts; which is the only means that is left for the present to preserve Peace betwixt the two Nations, and to bring these unhappy Differences to a Reconciliation, which none is more desirous of than His most Sacred Majesty.

Signed, Lanerick.

1640.—September 8.
5. Letter from the Covenanters to the Earl of Lanerick.[272]

Right Honourable,

As nothing in Earth is more desired of us than His Majesties favour, so doth nothing delight us more than that His Majesty beginneth again to hearken to our Humble Desires, wherein we trust nothing shall be found but what may serve for His Majesties Honour and for the Peace of His Dominions. The Particulars we would have expressed, but that they are contained in the Conclusions of the late Parliament, and our Printed Declarations, which were sent to your Lordship; but in case the Papers be not by your Lordship, we now summarily repeat them.

That His Majesty would be Graciously pleased to command, that the last Acts of Parliament may be published in his Highness’s Name, as our Soveraign Lord, with the Estates of Parliament convened by His Majesties Authority; Next, That the Castle of Edinburgh, and other strengths of the Kingdom of Scotland, may, according to the first foundation, be furnished and used for our Defence and Security; Thirdly, That our Countrymen in his Majesties Dominions of England and Ireland may be free from Censure for subscribing the Covenant, and be no more pressed with Oaths and Subscriptions unwarranted by our Laws, and contrary to their National Oath and Covenant approved by His Majesty; Fourthly, That the Common Incendiaries, who have been the Authors of this Combustion in His Majesties Dominions, may receive their Just Censure; Fifthly, That our Ships and our Goods, with all the Damage thereof, may be restored; Sixthly, That the Wrongs, Losses, and Charges, which at this time we have sustained, may be repayed; Seventhly, That the Declarations made against us as Traytors may be recalled, and in end, by advice and consent of the Estates of England convened in Parliament, His Majesty may be pleased to remove the Garrisons from the Borders, and any Impediment that may stop free Trade, and with their advice may condescend to all Particulars, which may establish a stable and well-grounded Peace, for enjoying of our Religion and Liberties, against all fears of molestation and undoing from year to year, as our Adversaries shall take the advantage. This Royal testimony of His Majesties Justice and Goodness, we would esteem to be doubled upon us, were it speedily bestowed, and therefore must crave leave to regrate, that His Majesties Pleasure concerning the Meeting of the Peers the 24ᵗʰ of this Instant, will make the time long ere the Parliament be convened, which is conceived to be the only mean of settling both Nations in a firm Peace, and which we desire may be seriously represented to His Majesties Royal thoughts; the more this time is abridged, the more able will we be to obey His Majesties Prohibition of not advancing with our Arms, Our Actions, and whole comportment since the beginning of these Commotions, and especially of late since our coming into England, are Real Declarations of our love, and desire of Peace: nothing but invincible necessity hath brought us from our Country to this Place, no other thing shall draw us beyond the limits appointed by His Majesty; which we trust His Majesty will consider of, and wherein we hope your Lordship will labour to be a profitable Instrument for the Kings Honour, the Good of your Country, and of

Your Lordships humble Servants,
and affectionate Friends,

Scots-Leager at New-Castle,
Sept. 8ᵗʰ 1640.

A. Lesly,Tho. Hope,
Rothes,W. Rickartoun,
Cassils,J. Smith,
Montrose,P. Hepburn,
Dumfermline,D. Home,
Lindsay,Keir,
Lowdon,Ja. Sword.
Napier.

1640.—September 24.
6. Letter from the Earl of Lanerick appointing a Treaty.[273]

My Lords,

According to His Majesties appointment, the most part of the Peers of this Kingdom of England met here at York this day, where His Majesty did communicate unto them your Desires and Petitions; and because you do so earnestly press for a speedy Answer, His Majesty, with advice of the Peers, hath nominated such a number of them for a Conference with you upon Tuesday at Northallerton, whose names are underwritten. But withall if you shall think the time too short, and that with conveniency you cannot come so soon thither, if betwixt this and Sunday you do acquaint His Majesty therewith, he will take Order for the delay thereof, for one day or two.

And that you may without all fear or Danger of Detention, send such Persons unto the said Conference as you shall think most fit, if betwixt this and Sunday you send hither the Names of these you mean to imploy, His Majesty will with all possible diligence return a safe conduct under his own Royal Hand, for them and their necessary Servants.

His Majesty hath likewise commanded me to let you know, that upon your relieving of such Officers, and others of His Subjects, as are detained by you, he will return all such of yours as are his Prisoners, either here or at Berwick; and hereafter resolves, that fair Quarters should be kept betwixt both Armies. Thus having imparted His Majesties Pleasure, I continue

Your Lordships Servant,
Lanerick.

York, 24ᵗʰ of September,
1640.

1640.—October 16.
7. Articles agreed on for the Maintenance of the Scots Army.[274]

1. First, That the Scotch Army, now lying in the Counties of Northumberland, Bishoprick of Durham, and Town of Newcastle, shall have for a competent maintenance, the summ of £850 per diem, being the sum before agreed on by the Counties; and that the payment thereof shall begin upon the 16th of October, and to continue for two Months, in case the Treaty shall so long last; which payment to be made weekly upon the Friday of every Week, the first Friday being the twenty-third day to be for the payment of the Week past.

2. The dayes of the returning of the Army to be numbred, within the dayes of the allowed maintenance.

3. That the Scotch Army shall content themselves with the aforesaid maintenance, and shall neither molest Papists, Prelates, nor their adherents, nor any other persons of whatsoever quality, during the time of payment, but shall keep themselves free of all other Taxes and Plunderings not only during their abode, but in their returns, and such security as is usual shall be given for the performance of the same, and this to be ordered upon the condition of the Treaty.

4. That the Inhabitants of the said Counties shall also have liberty to return peaceably to their own dwellings, and shall be refused no Courtesie, it being alwayes presupposed that the fit Lodging of their Army shall be allowed.

5. That the Army be furnished with Coals in a Regular way, and not at the pleasure of the Souldiers, which is especially recommended to the care of the Scotch Commissioners.

6. That there be a provision of Forrage at the prices to be set down in a Table, which must also contain the particular prices of all sort of Victuals, and other necessaries for the Army, to be indifferently agreed upon by persons nominated on both sides.

7. That the Sea-Ports be opened, and there be free Trade and Commerce by Sea and Land, as in the time of Peace; with this Proviso, that with the Victuals, no Armes nor Ammunition be imported into Newcastle, or any Harbour of England, and this Free Trade and Commerce to be presently intimated, and not to be interrupted, but upon the warning of three Months, that there may be a sufficient time allowed for Ships to return, and for the disposing of their Commodities.

8. That the Victuals and other Necessaries for the Army be free of Custome; And that his Majesties Custome of Coals, and other Ware, be left free to be levyed by his own Officers.

9. That all restraints be removed, and that there be a freedem to furnish necessaries for both Armies, in such sort as is agreed on by the Articles, and liberty be granted for Milling, Brewing, Baking, and other things of that kind.

10. That the Arrears be completely paid to Octob. 16, and that such rents as are anticipate, and not yet due, be allowed in the Arrears.

11. That there be a Cessation of Armes, according to the particulars to be agreed upon.

12. As for securing the summ of £850 per diem above specified, there is a Committee appointed by the Great Council of the Peers, who have power to Treat with Northumberland, the Bishoprick of Durham, Newcastle, and (if need require) with other adjacent Counties, that there may be a real performance of what is agreed on by us: And for that we find many Difficulties of raising the Contribution out of the Counties of Northumberland, the Bishoprick, and Town of Newcastle, we have thought fit and necessary to add unto them the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, to assist towards the said Contribution according to their abilities.

13. And further, the Lords will before their going from York settle a Committee who shall have charge to see the Contribution orderly raised and paid; and that there shall likewise be a Committee nominated of the Lords Commissioners, to whom either the Scotch Commissioners may address, or the Committees of the Countrey may Weekly give an Accompt of the carriage of the business. And that from thence there may further Order be given for the due performance of that which is promised.

Signed
Bedford,Dumfermling,
Bristol,Lowdon,
Holland,Patrick Hepburne,
Berkshire,W. Douglass,
Ed. Mandevile,J. Smith,
Ph. Wharton,William Wedderbourn,
Ro. Brook,Alex. Henderson,
J. Paulet,Wᵐ [Archᵈ] Johnston.
Ed. Howard,
Fr. Dunsemore,

1640.—October 26.
8. Articles agreed on concerning the Cessation of Arms betwixt the English and Scottish Commmissioners at Rippon, the 26th day of October 1640.[275]

1. That there be a Cessation of Arms both by Sea and Land, from this present.

2. That all Acts of Hostility do henceforth cease.

3. That both parties shall peaceably retain, during the Treaty, whatsoever they possess at the time of the Cessation.

4. That all such persons who live in any of his Majesties Forts, beyond the River of Tees, shall not exempt their Lands which lye within the Counties of Northumberland and the Bishoprick from such Contribution, as shall be laid upon them for the payment of the £850 a day.

5. That none of the Kings Forces upon the other side of Tees, shall give any impediment to such Contributions as are already allowed for the Competency of the Scotch Army, and shall take no Victuals out of the bounds, except that which the Inhabitants and Owners thereof shall bring voluntarily to them: And that any restraint or detention of Victuals, Cattle, and Forrage which shall be made by the Scots within those bounds for their better maintenance, shall be no breach.

6. That no recruits shall be brought unto either Army from the time of the Cessation, and during the Treaty.

7. That the Contribution of £850 a day shall be only raised out of the Counties of Northumberland, the Bishoprick, Town of Newcastle, Cumberland, and Westmoreland; that the not payment thereof shall be no breach of the Treaty; but the Counties and Town so failing, it shall be left to the Scotch power to raise the same, but not to exceed the summ agreed upon, unless it be for the charges of driving to be set by the Commissioners of the Forrage.

8. That the River of Tees shall be the bounds of both Armies, excepting always the Town and Castle of Stockton, and the Village of Eggscliffe: And that the Counties of Northumberland and the Bishoprick of Durham be the Limits, within the which the Scottish Army is to reside; saving alwayes Liberty for them to send such Convoyes, as shall be necessary for the gathering up only of the Contributions which shall be unpaid by the Counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland.

9. If any persons commit any private Insolencies, it shall be no breach of the Treaty, if (upon Complaint made by either party) reparation and punishment be granted.

10. If Victuals be desired upon that price which shall be agreed upon, and ready Money offered for the same, and refused, it shall be no breach of the Cessation, to take such Victuals, paying such price.

11. No new Fortifications be made during the Treaty against either party.

12. That the Subjects of both Kingdoms, may in their Trade and Commerce freely pass to and fro, without any Pass at all; but that it be particularly provided, that no member of either Army shall pass without a formal Pass under the hand of the General, or of him that commandeth in Chief.

Bedford,Dunfermeling,
Bristoll,Lowdon,
Holland,Patrick Hepburne,
Berkshire,W. Douglass,
Ed. Mandevile,J. Smith,
Ph. Wharton,William Wedderbourn,
Ro. Brook,Alex. Henderson,
J. Paulet,Wᵐ [Archᵈ] Johnstown.
Ed. Howard,
F. Dunsemore,

1641.—April 24.
9. Letter from the Earl of Strafford to the Marquis of Hamilton.[276]

May it please your Lordship,

Hitherto I judged it not fit to endanger your Lordship by any Intelligence betwixt us, which might have turned much to your prejudice, in a time when the World is in so much mis-understanding of me; but now be your Lordship pleased, to admit me to resort to your noble Expressions and former Friendship, that I may carry forth of the Court with me the belief and tokens of it.

It is told me, that the Lords are inclinable to preserve my Life and Family, for which their generous Compassions, the great God of Mercy will reward them: and surely should I die upon this Evidence, I had much rather be the Sufferer than the Judge.

All that I shall desire from your Lordship is, that devested of all Publique Imployment, I may be admitted to go home to my own private Fortune, there to attend my own Domestick Affairs, and Education of my Children, with as little asperity of words or marks of Infamy, as possibly the Nobleness and Justice of my Friends can procure for me, with a Liberty to follow my own occasions, as I shall find best for my self.

This is no unreasonable thing I trust to desire, all considered that may be said in my case, (for I vow my fault that should justly draw any heavy Sentence on me, I yet do not see:) yet this much obtained will abundantly satisfie a Mind hasting fast to quiet, and a Body broken with afflictions and infirmities. And as I shall take myself highly bound to any that shall further me therein, so I more particularly desire to receive an obligation therein from your Lordship than from others, as being purposed in the truth of my former Professions, to express my self

Your Lordships humbly to be Commanded,
Strafford.

Tower, 24ᵗʰ of April, 1641.

1641.
10. Principal Baillie’s Journal of the General Assembly, 1641, in a Letter to the Rev. William Spang.[277]

Cousin,

Since your last, the 1st of August, you have received two of mine, and this is a third—if virtue were in length—worth any six of yours.

The carriage of our assembly was this. Since the assembly of Aberdeen there was a continual heartburning betwixt the favourers of Mr Harry Guthrie and Leckie; as in my discourse of that assembly you may see I foretold. As I came from London through Edinburgh, I found the misunderstanding so great, that I advised Argyle to take notice of it in time; and when Mr Archibald Johnston came home, I wrote to him to draw to him some of the parties for advisement how to preveen discord. For all that I could do, at my coming to Edinburgh on Saturday, July 17, I found Leckie, and many that favoured him, peremptor, not only to accuse Mr Harry Guthrie, but to have the Acts of Aberdeen about meetings and read prayers cancelled. They were much galled with the slanders went upon them, for the abusers of privy meetings, and other things falsely fathered on them. On the other part, Mr Harry, and many with him, were no less resolute to defend all that passed in Aberdeen, and to have sharp censures concluded in the next assembly against all that were for novations, not approven by our Church. With these minds went too many to St Andrew’s, as if it had been a place of combat. Our only remedy against such scandalous debates were our prayers to God, which carefully were offered the Sabbath before we came from home, in a solemn humiliation for a blessing to the ensuing assembly. This labour, we found, was not for nought; for at once we found the good hand of God with us above expectation.

The King had sent his warrant to Lord Weems to sit, with as ample a commission as either Hamilton or Traquair. His Majesty intended this service for Southesk, by Traquair’s advice, who yet had too great hand in affairs; but Mr Henderson diverted the King from that man, towards whom the country had so evil an eye. For what special respects Weems fell to be next, I do not know; however, the modesty and simplicity of the man made him displeasing to none. When we came to St Andrew’s, our first perplexity was about a moderator. Mr Henderson was passionately desired in so hard a time; but there was no certainty of his presence. Mr Harry Rollock, on whom the voices would have fallen next, had of purpose absented himself. The rest who were met were esteemed so far engaged to the question to be debated. Judge then what strait of men was there, when the like of me, who to this day had declined to moderate a presbytery, was shored to be leeted for to moderate a general assembly. Yet, after much secret advisement with the Commissioner, on Monday, with much ado, that difficulty was overcome.

1. On Tuesday, the 20th, the first day of our assembly, the last moderator, Mr Andrew Ramsay, preached the 122d psalm. According to his way, he went over it all. The first day of our assembly is appointed for fasting and humiliation. Of this disposition there was not so much this day among us as needed. After sermon we met in the Old College-hall. Mr Andrew prayed; the commissions were received by Mr Archibald Johnston; many of the commissioners were members of parliament; divers others also, upon the certain expectation of the assembly’s translation to Edinburgh, had not come over. His Grace’s commission in Latin was read; one clause thereof importing, at the Commissioner’s advice, the assembly’s translation, was demurred on by the clerk, as intruding on the assembly’s liberties; yet it was not publickly questioned. A letter from his Majesty to the assembly, so full of grace and favour as we could have wished, was read. The answering of it was laid on Mr David Lindsay of Belhelvie. His draught in the end of Edinburgh assembly was read: but it was so long and luxuriant, that Mr Henderson was caused to make that short, decised, and nervous answer.

The parliament had sent over a commissioner to us, one from ilk estate, Cassils, Auldbar, Provost of Dysart, intreating, without any prescription, that in regard many of them were members of the assembly, could not, without detriment to the publick, attend at St Andrew’s, we would be pleased to enter in no weighty action, especially in chusing a moderator, wherein they desired to have voice, before we returned to Edinburgh. In the translation there was no difficulty; but in the delay to chuse a moderator, the difficulty was huge. The most thought the assembly could not be constitute, and so was incapable to perform any act, let be so great a one as a translation, before a moderator was chosen. Some leading men, who would have had the moderation to themselves, or to those who favoured their intentions, urged a present election. The matter was remitted to the next session; wherein, to our great comfort, it was determined with far greater ease than any expected. Many of us thinking the delay impossible to be obtained, had concluded to voice for James Bonner; yet to-morrow, the earnestness of the commissioners from the parliament, the clerk finding in the register some such old practique, the certain hopes of Mr Henderson’s near return, his Grace permitting the matter to our own option, whilkas before some about him made him declare oft, that that delay would legally evacuate his commission; Mr David Dalgleish, overcoming in boldness his good friend Mr Harry Guthrie, stoutly reasoning the sufficient formality of continuing by voices the old moderator, ad hune actum, to transfer, and to chuse a new moderator in the beginning of the translated assembly, by plurality of voices it was clearly carried. We took that for a certain presage of God’s assistance in all subsequent purposes.

The next session was appointed to be held at Edinburgh, the 27th. No more but a supplication of D. Harry Reid, wherein he complained, that after his long service in the kirk and divinity-schools, he had been made to demit his place, by threats, in his extreme old age and poverty. The case was very invidious, and reflected much on his colleagues in the town and New college. The matter, I heard, was, that he, as principal, had given warrant for lifting the New-college rents, whiles to a wicked knave his son, whiles to D. Panter, and others; so that no count could be made by him of much money. Mr S. Rutherford, I think, caused complain of this to the estates when we were at London. They sent over Newton and William Ridge, rigorous enough, either to get account of him, or to lay him in ward. Upon the fear of this evil, he offered to demit his place; and his demission was taken, reserving 500 merits a-year to him for his entertainment. When his petition came to be considered in Edinburgh, his good friend Mr Henderson guided it so, that with a great deal of commendation to the old man, large as great, I am sure, as he ever deserved, it was voiced, that his demission should be rendered to him; that, according to the acts of our old assemblies anent failed ministers or professors, he should all his lifetime enjoy his full rent and honour, without any diminution.

When we came back to Edinburgh, to our great joy we found Mr Henderson and Mr Gillespie come home. That week was spent in privy consultations for accommodating the feared differences. Argyle and Cassils drew together in Loudon’s chamber the ministers of Edinburgh, Mess. Dick, Blair, Rutherford, Cant, me, and some others. All the ministers of Edinburgh were chafed at their people’s carriage towards them. They would have been at the simple discharge of all privy meetings, but those of a family; and for this the act of Aberdeen was alledged by them, and many moe: for this the other part would have had that act recalled or exponed. I marvelled much of both their forgetting the meaning and occasion of that act, set down at length to you in my letters. Then it was at last agreed, that Aberdeen act should be altogether miskent; that a draught should be made for ordering these meetings now in question. The paper drawn up by Mr Henderson the 10th of June, which pleased all well, that I had conferred with both, misliked the ministers of Edinburgh, and above all Mr D. Calderwood could not abide it. The clause in it of the number, which I liked best, did most mislike them; they alledged the permitting of any to meet, in the smallest numbers, was an establishing by an act the thing itself. Many meetings there were for little purpose. It was appointed, that Mr Dickson and Mr Blair should meet with Mr Henderson and Mr Will. Colvil, and set down their minds. Their draught was long, and too general. It was laid again on Mr David Dickson, with whom he pleased, to write down his mind. That form also did not please. At last Mr Henderson essayed it. His model liked us best; yet Mr D. Calderwood started mightily at it. We desired him to dite what he pleased; notwithstanding we were all refreshed with a certain hope of a solid agreement; for Mr Dickson and Mr Blair, and the rest who were suspected of innovating, purged themselves fully of all such intentions, and were ready to receive any of the models any had proponed. And being posed, what was their minds anent all the novations? Mr Andrew Ramsay could enumerate such as omitting, Glory to the Father, kneeling in the pulpit, discountenancing real prayers, &c. They gave answer satisfactory, that betwixt us and them there was no discrepance at all. At last Mr Henderson fell on that model, which thereafter was voiced and printed. This happy concord, whereof Argyle and Henderson were happy instruments, will, we trust, be a great blessing to the whole land, which every where began to be fashed with idle toys.

On Tuesday, July 27th, we met before noon in the Grayfriars. After prayer, Mr Andrew Fairfoul required, that his commission should be given to Mr Henderson, in regard that the presbytery had chosen Mr Andrew Ramsay, Mr Andrew Pollock, [Henry Rollock,] and Mr Alex. Henderson, if he should be present, and him only in case of Mr Henderson’s absence. So, albeit Mr John Adamson had, at his own hand, put in his own name in the commission at the first meeting in St Andrew’s, and had voiced there as commissioner; yet Mr Henderson being now present, he required to be free of the burden, which he had undertaken only in case of his absence. While the matter is going to voicing, Mr Calderwood, albeit no commissioner, reasoned very passionately, that Mr Henderson was incapable of a commission. In this Mr Henderson seconded him. Always, when it came to voicing, Mr Henderson’s commission was unanimously received. The next question was about a new leet for a new moderator. The old fashion was, that the former moderator leeted whom he would, and the assembly added whom they pleased. An overture had passed at Aberdeen, that every provincial synod should have one of their number to be on the leets for moderator, one to be on the committee of bills, one for the reports, and one for the overtures. The Northlandmen pressed much to have it so; but it was found unreasonable; and that overture not being an act, and not being booked was rejected. Yet they got Belhelvie added to the leet which Mr Andrew gave in. Mr Henderson declared earnestly against the burden of moderation; yet the most of the votes fell on him. The nobles were for Mr Henry Rollock, some for Bonner, some for Belhevie, none at all for Adamson, Dalgleish, Somervel, Blackhall. No more was done in that session; only Argyle told us, that the parliament was content to have but one session a-day, and that in the afternoon, hoping the assembly would be pleased to make but one session also, and that in the forenoon, that so the commissioners might get both assembly and parliament attended. This was agreed to.

Wednesday the 28th. The moderator read the overtures which I had drawn up, and were enacted at Aberdeen, for ordering of the house. He pressed them all; yet, through negligence to exact them, thereafter we fell at once into our old misorders. Always we hope that the exact order the parliament has now taken for ruling their house, will make us, ere long, follow their good example. He read also a list of names for the committees of bills and reports. Now for the overtures; Till those of Aberdeen were considered, very hardly would he permit any to be added to those of his own number. For assessors to himself, he shewed he would advertise privily those whom most he needed. Four were named to appoint preachers for all the churches, in which Mr James Bonner, my good friend, being chief, by his favour I got myself shifted of that burthen, as in all this assembly I did what I could to hold myself quiet, and well near mute. Mr Calderwood fell on again impertinently, and very peevishly, as if it had been almost a null, an evil-constitute meeting, for being translated without a moderator permanent, and chusing of him for moderator who had no commission. Mr Henderson dealt very patiently and respectfully with him: at last his Grace commanded him silence. The moderator caused read some letters, which were given him in England for the assembly. The first was from a number of our gracious brethren of the ministry at London, and about it, congratulating our happy proceeding, shewing their hopes to get our discipline established there, telling that some of their brethren, who were for independency of congregations, were great hindrances to that design; also that they gave out that some of the most eminent men in the ministry with us, inclined their way. The men they meant by, Mr Henderson told us, were Mr D. Dickson, and Mr Cant; but none in all the assembly were more against independency than these two. The matter, after some days, was voiced: all in one voice rejected that confusion, as contrary directly to our covenant: and appointed Mr Henderson to write a courteous answer to our English brethren; which he did very accurately. If I can, you shall have a copy thereof.

The next was from Mr Durie, for assistance to his negotiation of peace amongst Protestants. While some were beginning to say somewhat to the man’s prejudice, I excused all, so that his motion was received; and it was laid on Mr Andrew Ramsay, Mr Blair, Mr Gillespie, and me, to frame an answer. We left the labour to Mr Blair, who did it well enough, in a fair genteel general, appointing him to keep, when he pleased, correspondence with the ministers of Edinburgh. A third was from D. Sibbald of Aberdeen, supplicating for his books, which at the prior assembly were taken from him. It was granted that he should have all except some of his sermons, whereupon a part of his process was grounded. A fourth was from Mr John Guthrie, Bishop of Murray, supplicating that his place, for a little time more, might be kept for him. It was rejected as unreasonable, and his presbytery appointed to plant his place; yea, order was given, that none who had delayed so long to come in the covenant, should be received, without a singular measure of satisfaction and trial, to be approven by the general assembly. The Moderator fell on a notable motion, of drawing up a Confession of Faith, a Catechism, a Directory for all the parts of the publick worship, and platform of government, wherein possibly England and we might agree. All approved the motion; and thereafter the burden of that labour was laid on the back of the mover, with liberty to vaik from preaching whenever he pleased, and to take help of whom he thought meet. He did not incline to undertake it, yet it will lie on him; and readily in this he may do some good.

Thursday the 29th. The moderators of the committees had no matter prepared for the assembly; so we put off that session with general discourses, especially upon the matter of translation, which had most troubled us in bygone synods, and was like to do so in this also. A committee was appointed to find out overtures for that difficult matter. Lest I should be prejudged, I got it on Lord Eglinton and Mr Robert Barclay. Glasgow also, by their importunity, got on Dr Strang and D. Dickson. The presbytery of Glasgow, it were long to tell you the way how they stifled both Mr Dickson and Mr Ramsay from being commissioners. This was very evil taken by the whole country, and turned over to Glasgow’s prejudice: yet Mr David was used no otherwise by the assembly than if he had been a prime commissioner. This committee did nothing for a day or two, and that, it was publickly complained, because D. Strang and Mr David, for their own interest, marred the rest; so they, and with them my Lord Eglinton and Mr Robert Barclay, were removed from that committee. Thereafter they blocked a number of tolerable overtures; the conclusion whereof was remitted to the next general assembly. The moderator advised the town of Edinburgh, and other prime burrows, to entertain abroad some good spirits, who might be their own, if they proved apt for their service. Also he shewed the expediency of calling home one Mr Thomas Young from England, the author of Dies Dominicæ, and of the Smectymnuus for the most part; and of Mr Colvin from Sedan, to whose commendation he spake much. If he has done any thing in private, let us have it, and write what ye know of his abilities. There was a committee appointed to consider the state of our far remote churches of the Isles, of Lochaber, Orkney, and Shetland. Some present course was taken for Lochaber; and it was laid on Mr Robert Blair, and Mr Andrew Afflect, to go in the Spring to visit Arran and some near isles. There was a committee appointed to consider the advancement of the weal of colleges and schools. All their consultations we hope in time will produce good fruits.

Friday, the 30th, came in a number of particular bills; yea, some days thereafter, there came more than 200, for augmentation of stipends, for dividing or changing of churches; all which, without reading, were referred to the parliament; regrets for the enormous sins of the land. The removing of monuments of superstition, from divers parts of the country yet remaining, was recommended to the presbyteries. Mr John Guthrie, Bishop of Murray, sent out of the tolbooth, to the assembly, a supplication to confer with the moderator, and some others. All the subject of his discourse with them, as also of divers conferences he had before with the ministers of Edinburgh, was only a stiff wrangling about the formality of the process of excommunication. He sent in another supplication thereafter for the same end, but was neglected; for he and other of those men, seem to be obdured in perverseness: yet it is like, that if the King and we had settled sure in parliament, there are few of them, if any, but will supplicate to be permitted to do all that shall be prescribed.

Saturday, the 31st, no particular business was handled worth the writing. Aberdeen, in their commission from the general assembly, had met and decerned Mr George Gillespie, then at London, for their town-minister, and Mr Edward Wright for their divinity-professor, in the Marischal college. Mr Gillespie’s cause came then to be handled. His Grace pleaded, that these fifty years he and his people had been vexed with a most weak minister; that he had got Mr George admitted the first in Scotland without the bishops consent. Mr George spake well for himself, that he nor his people were never advertised till the decreet was passed, and divers other things. The dispute was long and hot: it was remitted to the next session. Argyle spake of the regret many ministers made under payment of their stipends, desired the assembly to find overtures for remeid, and promised the parliament would consider what should be proponed.

On Sunday afternoon, before the commissioners, I heard Mr Blair teach very gravely for peace, and abstinence from all such meetings, as in former times had been very profitable, but now were inexpedient, unlawful, and schismatical. This some mistook, but the most took it very well from him. Truly, I bear that man record, that in all his English voyages, in many passages of the assembly, private and publick, he contributed as much to the pacifying of our differences as any, and much more than many. That day a very unhappy accident fell in the hand of a minister, Mr Thomas Lamb, who had been deposed by the blind Bishop of Galloway, for divers quarrels; but he gave it only out for disobedience in ceremonies. The ministers of Edinburgh had obtained for him a church in the presbytery of Peebles. The man had always been of a contentious humour. They say he had struck a man, whereof he died. However his presbytery, for his perverseness and contentions, had suspended him. He had appealed to the general assembly. The committee, on Saturday, had agreed them, and remitted him to the presbytery. On Sunday, after both sermons in Leith, he told Mr James however that he was displeased with that accord, and would complain to the assembly, both of the committee and his presbytery. Immediately going to ease himself among the stuff, a young man to whom the stuff belonged, fell upon him with evil language, taking up his cloak and gloves: after some mutual jarring, when he had got his cloak and gloves again, he fell in some more quarrelling with the young man, and with his whinger struck him, whereof presently he died. He wrote a pitiful supplication to the assembly, to obtain some delay of his execution, till his wife and friends might come to him. This was granted. He obtained easily a letter of Slayans from the party; but we think the Constable will cause execute him; and so much the more because he a minister, on the Sabbath day, had committed that villainy in the time of the assembly and parliament.

Monday, the 2d of August, the parliament sat not, so we had two sessions. The forenoon was taken up with the business of Aberdeen. Mr Andrew Cant laid out Aberdeen’s necessities very pathetically; Mr David Lindsay and Provost Lesly, shewing their proceedings in Mr Gillespie’s election to have been punctually according to the words of their commission. Notwithstanding the moderator, desiring Mr George to stay still in Fife for the use of St Andrew’s, did so state the question, for all the northlandmen could say to the contrary, and notwithstanding also of Argyle’s evident seconding them. His abode at Weems was craved by plurality of voices: yea, when they pressed Mr Edward Wright’s transportation, albeit all that favoured Mr David Dickson did voice for them: yet they lost that cause also, in regard it was manifest before the meeting of that committee, that Mr Edward was admitted to the church of Glasgow, and before his citation to come to that committee, or his knowledge of Aberdeen’s invitation, he was agreed with Glasgow, and had obtained his dismission from the presbytery of Stirling. Mr Robert Ramsay had set the town of Glasgow on that man, whereof I suspect he now repents. The man is learned and blameless, but it is not like Mr David’s way, nor among the most prudent. Factions among that people and presbytery are like to grow. I wish they come not to a shameful hearing, and that quickly, on the occasion of Mr Hugh Blair’s election to that town’s ministry. Sir John Scot’s petition, to have a description of our sheriffdom, by some in every presbytery, to be set before the maps you have in hand, is granted.

In the afternoon Mr Andrew Ker, minister at Carrin, being transported by the provincial synod of Lothian to the burgh of Linlithgow, had appealed to the general assembly. His appeal was voiced null. This preparative made Glasgow too eager to call my cause; but they found the case many ways unlike. At Aberdeen there had been much ado for planting of Inverness. The Laird of Steinson, patron, had presented Mr James Annan. More than the two parts of the parish speaking Irish, obtained Mr Murdoch Macbaine, a bold well-speaking man, to be conjoined to an equal stipend and burden. This equality Mr Murdoch urged, and refused to preach to the Irish congregation, but day about, so every other Sunday they sang dumb. After some days travel, it was thus agreed that a third man should be got to those who had never more than one before to preach in Irish on 500 merks, the town to pay three, the two ministers each to pay one. We being agreed privately, the moderator thought it time to move the question about meetings, and regretted the sinister rumours thereanent. It was remitted to a committee in the moderator’s chamber. After two afternoons’ conference, Mr Henderson fell on the model you have in print. On Wednesday he read it once, twice, thrice. Many required delay to voice till to-morrow, and a copy of the writ. All delay was flatly refused; but any man was permitted to say what he would, if it were to ten at night. Mr Catherwood was impertinent still in his opposition. Mr Harry Guthrie, and those who were in this point, were feared to be more opposite than he had been. All called to the committee, and read at length. Some who craved delay were shortly taken up. Fear of raising and fomenting needless scruples, if that paper had ran a showering through the city, before it had been concluded, made the moderator peremptorily refuse that which is now every day practised in our parliament, and I think were more necessary to be practised in our assembly, except in some few extraordinary cases. The paper that day was voiced, and was unanimously assented unto: yet some voiced it too general and insufficient.

Tuesday, the 3d of August, was taken up with a very captious question of your good friend Sir John Scot. He had promised to Mr Mungo Law, second minister at Dysart, in the presbytery of Kirkaldy, a presentation to the kirk of Kilrennie, in the presbytery of St Andrew’s. The presbytery of St Andrew’s were not very curious to crave his transportation; Sir John, in the provincial of Fife, urges it. In the voicing, not only the whole presbytery of Kirkcaldy gets voices, but some burrow two ruling elders, gets voices. Upon this, and some other informalities, Sir John appealed to the general assembly. By strong solicitation, and by a world of merry tales in the face of the assembly, he gets a sentence for his appellation, to the great indignation of the synod of Fife, and the moderator’s malecontentment. Sir John held him with that advantage, and durst not pursue his main point, anent the minister’s transportation, which made many to take him but for a wrangler, who sought more the synod’s disgrace than any other contentment. Overtures for planting universities, burghs, schools, were read; also a letter of the King’s to the assembly, in favour of Panmure, requiring the minister of Monhey to be transported to some other church of his Majesty’s presentation: the desire, with the man’s own consent, was granted.

Wednesday, the 4th, Mr William Bennet was ordained, according to the act of Aberdeen, to transport to Edinburgh. Mr John Colins, after long opposition of the presbytery and parish, was ordained to be received to the church of Campsey. His presentation to the tack of Chanle of the chapter, wherein also he was obliged to ratify the patron’s tack, was ordained to be rectified. Mr Andrew Logie, deposed at Aberdeen according to the provincial’s appointment, was restored to his own kirk. Sir Alexander Abercrombie of Birkenbog fashed the Assembly much, that he might be obliged to receive a new presentation; that a new edict might be served; and so, that the assembly’s act of reponing him to his own church should be evacuate: but his motion being found to be from particular respects, it was misregarded.

Thursday, the 5th, Aberdeen supplicated Mr Andrew ____________ his transportation to their college. Arthur Areskine, of his own liberality, had given him 500 pound during an old man’s life. The man was but twenty-four years of age, and was extreme unwilling to flit. Arthur Areskine, a well-deserving gentleman in our cause, when he began to plead, was so choked with tears, that he became silent, and removed. This accident made the assembly so compassionate towards him, that, by plurality of voices, he obtained his point. These three rebukes in end well near angered Aberdeen. By way of indignation they crave leave to have back their deposed doctors; yet they gave in the fourth bill for Mr John Oswald of Pencaitland. His misfortune was to be last, else he had better reasons of staying than any of the former three; yet to please Aberdeen, all he could say was misregarded; and he, full sore against his heart, was ordained to flit.

Here came in my long-delayed action. After much altercation betwixt the passionate parties, and some calm dispute between the Principal and me, by the favour of the moderator, I got the invidious question eschewed anent my appeal, and the state made, Transport, or Abide; when, after I had read the reasons (which I here send you), there was not twenty voices for my transportation. I foresaw that this favour may readily transport me ere it be long to places where my life will be much more miserable than it is like it would have been in Glasgow; but yet I thought it incumbent to me, in conscience, to use all lawful means to keep me with my people. I took it to have been a sin to have neglected this duty for the preveening of crosses never so apparent. The Laird of Leckie gave into the committee of bills a complaint of Mr Harry Guthrie’s slandering of him at Aberdeen. Of this Mr Harry complained in the face of the assembly. This was like to blow up that fire again which we thought had been extinguished; yet even here God was favourable to us. That matter was referred to us the moderator’s assessors. We laboured so into it some nights, that at last we got the parties agreed, both in a writ, read to the assembly, under their hands, declaring their good opinions each of other: for Leckie truly witnessed, that he knew no blame to Mr Harry, neither in doctrine nor life; and Mr Harry testified, that he never had a thought that Leckie, or any of his family, was guilty of those slanders he complained of. Of this pacification we were all most glad. Being desirous to have the assembly at an end, it was appointed to keep her sessions twice in the day, and to dispense with the absence of so many of our parliamentary members as could not be present in the afternoon with us. The rest of that day, and much also of posterior sessions, were misspent with the altercation of that bardish man Mr D. Dogleish, and the young Constable of Dundee. He had obtained from his father to Mr David a presentation to the parsonage of Dundee. The custom was, that all of the tithes, the constable paid but to the church 500 pound, the town gave to the parson’s supply 500 merks. The town having not much will of Mr David’s ministry, refuses to pay the old 500 merks. Mr David refuses to transport from Coupar till the Constable secure him in a sufficient stipend. The assembly of Aberdeen ordains Mr David to transport with all diligence, and refers the question of stipend to the decision of the committee of estates. The Constable supplicates the assembly to move Mr David either to accept the charge, or give back the presentation. This Mr David peremptorily refuses, intending by his presentation to erect a stipend to that place, and then readily to leave it, if all do not embrace him. Mr David’s strong replies to the moderator would have been taken in worse part, if the Constable’s naughtiness, in proclaiming of the whole parsonage four or five chalders of victual was too much for him to pay to the church’s use had not offended us all. My Lord Fleming’s petition, to have a new presbytery erected in Biggar, of thirteen near adjacent churches of Lanerk and Peebles, was referred to the visitation of the bounds. It was regretted by the moderatour, that Mr David Catherwood, who deserves so well of our church, was so long neglected. He was recommended to the first commodious room. Likely he shall not be in haste provided. The man is sixty-six years old; his utterance is unpleasant; his carriage about the meetings of this assembly, and before, has made him less considerable to divers of his former benefactors. The case also of Mr James Fairlie, late Bishop of Argyle, was much regretted; that he having given so long ago satisfaction, that yet no place could be gotten to him to deliver him of that extremity of poverty wherewith he long has been vexed.

Friday, the 6th, a world of bills came to be referred to the parliament. Among the rest, one of Anna Inglis, complaining, that her husband, young Aiket Cunningham, having received above 40,000 merks portion with her, had deserted her, after frequent tormenting of her, with strokes and hunger, he debauching all with harlots in Paisley. We sent two with this bill to the parliament to get present order. The justice of God was in this matter. The damsel’s father had left her to be married to Mr Hugh Montgomery of Hazlehead, his wife’s near cousin. After, his wife falls in a conceit with Allan Lockhart, and gives herself to him; and, by his persuasion, makes her daughter, when scarce twelve years of age, without proclamation, to be married to his cousin Aiket. For her reward, her husband Allan leaves her to pay 10,000 merks of his debt, which made her a poor vexed widow, and her success as you heard. We were fashed with a bill of young Saville’s, a fine gentleman, who required, that one Littletower, whom the patron Lindores had thrust on his church, should be transported. The gentleman, for the well deserving of his house, was much pitied; yet, seeing the young man was admitted, and the most of the parish accepted him, it could not be helped till the young man, Littletower, found commodity to transport, which was not like to be sudden. The presbytery of Wigton complained of their molestation by one Macghee a notary, a criminous fellow, too much supported by that good man the Earl of Galloway. This bill being referred to the parliament, they enjoined the Earl to go home without delay, and fetch in that knave to suffer justice. There was no remeid; his Lordship behoved to go away to that unpleasant service. One Thomas Frazer in the tolbooth, being condemned to die for murder, supplicated us to be relaxed, before his death, from the sentence of excommunication. Some were sent to visit him. His true repentance being reported, Mr Andrew Cant was ordained, on the Sabbath, after his sermon in the great church, to relax him. On Monday he died penitent. Dr Scroggie of Aberdeen supplicated to be admitted to our covenant. The trial of his repentance was remitted to the provincial synod.

In the afternoon many overtures by Mr George Young, clerk of the references, were read. Chapperton’s supplication, to enter in our covenant, was referred to the provincial of the Merse.

Saturday the 7th. When Mr David Dickson, in the question of my transportation, had declared his intention to have as much help from me, in professing in the college, as he gave by his ministry to the town, the moderator, and others then there, not generally liking of mixing these two offices, every one whereof required a whole man, Mr David, lest any rub or mar from this should come to him in his ministry, which very profitably he did discharge, gave in a bill to have the matter cleared. It was gladly condescended, that it should be reason for him to exercise so much of the ministry there as he found himself able without detriment to his profession; the Principal not being foreacquainted with that bill, except somewhat for the preparative, wherewith Mr David was not well pleased. It was moved, that the declarations which the Earl of Traquair had alledged he had made in the assembly, but very falsely, and had obtained to be registered in the books of council, should be torn out and cancelled. This was referred to the parliament; who, after the consideration of the truth of our alledgeance, sufficiently verified by many witnesses, caused rent out of the council-books, according as we required, these full declarations. Two motions came in here, which were like to procure us much fashry; yet both, by God’s help, were brought to a peaceable conclusion.

The parliament sent in to us the Earl of Lothian, one from the Barons, and one from the Burghs, requiring our judgement of the Band; the tenor whereof was read. The reason why they required our declaration in that matter, was, because they said the Earl of Montrose had professed, the other night in his examination before the committee, that however that band was burnt, all the subscribers were yet by oath obliged to the matter of it; also they read a paper in our audience, written by Montrose’s hand, after the burning of the band, full of vain humanities, magnifying to the skies his own courses, and debasing to hell his opposites. Here great wisdom was requisite. It was remitted first to the afternoon, and then to Monday. Sundry of the banded Lords compeared. We feared their stirring. Montrose’s advocate craved to be heard. A supplication to us, written by his hand, was read, desiring our good opinion of him, offering to answer all we could lay to his charge to our full satisfaction. He said, the band was destroyed by the committee of parliament; that the paper was but a private memorandum for himself, never to have gone without his charter-chest, had not my Lord Sinclair been pleased to make it publick: that which was alledged of his words in the committee was not any written part of his deposition; that he had only spoken of a common guiltiness of all the subscribers with him; that he had spoken of their obligation only in relation to his accusation. Balmerino, moderator of that committee, spoke very pathetically for the truth of Montrose’s words. The assembly passed by what concerned Montrose, or any particular person; and, in answer to the parliament’s question, a committee was appointed for that end, drew up their wise answer penned by the moderator, making that band to be unlawful, and not obligatory of any; making those that will not subscribe censurable, and passing in those who subscribe what is bygone, and well buried by the committee of parliament. The banders that were present Kinghorn, Seaforth, Lour, did presently subscribe. Mr Blair and Pollock were sent up to Montrose to acquaint him with what was past. He spoke to them with a great deal of respect to the assembly, seemed to insinuate his willingness to subscribe what the moderator and clerk would require. Some made the motion, which the moderator much applauded, that as some from the parliament had been very happy instruments to take some differences away, which were like to arise in the assembly; so it were meet to offer to the parliament the labours of any they thought meet in the assembly, to help to remove what difference was betwixt the members of parliament. This motion was from zeal to peace, but not upon consideration of present circumstances; that the difference was not betwixt any particular men, but alledged crimes of high treason against the state, which could not be by counsels, being cited, and they standing to their defence. Yet D. Strang and Mr Andrew Cant, who were to carry our answer to the parliament’s question anent the band, were burdened with the foresaid overtures; the impertinency whereof the parliament miskent, and passed without an answer. All this passed on Monday before noon. The other motion, which on Saturday before noon perplexed us, was the moderator’s petition of liberty to transport from Edinburgh. At the beginning we took it but for jest; but it proved earnest. He assured us, his voice was for no church in the town; that continually he was unhealthy there, and not so any where else: that to keep him there was to kill him; and that in the act of his transportation from Leuchars, there was an express clause of liberty for him to transport when the publick commotions were settled, if he found that town disagreeable with his health. The city of Edinburgh was extreme averse; beside the loss of that incomparable man, thought it a dangerous preparative to have any of their ministers transported by assemblies. They offered to buy him an house, with good air and yards; to preach only when he would; to go freely, if his health was not tolerable. They were so much the more averse, because St Andrew’s sued at that time in a bill for his transportation to be principal of their college. He pressed his liberty, shewing his great errand out of England was troublesome. This reason from the assembly—some imputed his earnestness to some malecontentment from some of the wives speeches the last year of him for their well, against their humour in innovating; but he affirmed health was the only ground of his petition, and if it should not fail, notwithstanding of his liberty, he should not remove; and if he did, he would not go to St Andrew’s, but to some quiet landward charge.

After noon there was a long debate for the presbytery of Sky. Glasgow assembly annexed it to the provincial of Argyle. Upon the petition of one, Edinburgh had annexed it to the provincial of Ross. They had kept neither. Argyle pleaded for the renewing the act of Glasgow; Seaforth for the sealing the act of Edinburgh. After long debating of reasons, it was referred by the commissioners of the assembly to the parliament to determine.

Monday the ninth, before noon, besides the things already said, the presbytery of Newcastle, wrote a letter of complaint, that there was a great neglect in many presbyteries to supply the armies with mnisters; it was provided for; The afternoon was our last session. The answers to the King’s letter to the English letters, and to Durie’s letter, were read. The drawing up the directions of the Catechism, of the Confession, of the Form of Government, these were laid on Mr Alexander. His liberty was voiced, and granted, to the no small miscontent of Edinburgh. Hence thanks were given to God for his sensible and most special assistence; 23d psalm sung. Next assembly voiced at St Andrew’s July 27. Commissioners, to the number of thirty or forty, with some sixteen elders. Those of a province might serve by turns; so, after the first meeting, I got leave to go home.

You have here an account of the assembly, so far as my weak memory, without any notes to count of, can furnish. What I shall hear of the parliament, of Montrose’s process, of the King’s proceedings, who came here, to our great joy, on Saturday the 14th, you shall shortly receive. What information I got from London you have here inclosed; the evil illegal writ of Sir Thomas Dishintoun contains a journal of that parliament for some weeks.

Robert Baillie,

Kilwinning, August 20, 1641.

THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
AT ST ANDREW’S, 1642.

It is not necessary to recapitulate such of the proceedings of the immediately preceding Assembly as are introduced in the printed Acts. But a few particulars, not thus recorded, may be slightly adverted to.

Mr John Guthrie, the ousted Bishop of Moray, petitioned that Assembly that his benefice might be kept vacant for some time; but the Assembly disregarded his petition, and ordered his charge to be filled up, by the Presbytery of the bounds, without delay. They, however, reponed Mr Andrew Logie, who had been deposed by the Presbytery of Aberdeen; and overtures relative to the Universities (of which, to its credit, the Presbyterian Church never lost sight) were adopted, and ordered to be submitted to Parliament. The schism of the preceding year about private conventicles still continued; and their great patron, Mr Henry Guthrie, still fanned the flame, to quench which, it was necessary to “misken” or overlook the Aberdeen Act upon the subject, and frame a new one against impiety and schism. A case of Conscience, though for a political purpose, was submitted to the Assembly by a deputation from Parliament, relative to a Bond into which Montrose and others had entered, and which was thought inconsistent with the Covenant. The Assembly not only gave a deliverance suited to the views of the predominant party in Parliament, but volunteered their advice and assistance to it, which, however, was declined. In consequence, probably, of the brotherly communings which had recently taken place betwixt the Scotch and English nonconformists in London. A number of the latter wrote an Epistle to the Moderator touching Presbytery and Independency, and an answer was returned, intimating the unanimous adherence of the Scottish Church to Presbytery and its aversion to the other system; and a proposition was also mooted for framing a new Confession of Faith, Catechism, and Directory for public worship, &c., as a platform for an extension of Presbytery to England—a scheme which, ere long, was matured in the Westminster Assembly, and by the “Solemn League and Covenant,” of which we shall have to treat on a future occasion.

Of the minor concerns, we may mention the appointment of a committee to adjust the state of the churches in Orkney, Zetland, Lochaber, and the Isles; an application for erecting the Presbytery of Biggar; the rejection of applications from Aberdeen to translate George Gillespie and Edward Wright from Glasgow, and an Assistant at Scotscraig—but, to quiet the murmurs of the applicants, they got John Oswald from Pencaitland, which made room for David Calderwood, the well-known chronicler of the Kirk, from Crailing in Teviotdale. Among the other removes that took place at that Assembly, Mr Andrew Ker was transferred from Carriden to Linlithgow, William Bennet to Edinburgh, and John Colins to Glasgow; and Alexander Henderson sought and obtained leave to retire from Edinburgh to a rural parish, of which permission, however, he never availed himself. During the sitting of that Assembly, an awkward occurrence took place in the person of a Mr Thomas Lamb, a minister in Peebleshire, who, having killed a man on the road betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, was tried, condemned, and executed for the act. Many complaints by ministers for want of adequate stipends, were given in, and referred, as a matter of necessity, to the Parliament—the Church not having yet discovered any mode of accomplishing that object, otherwise than by the civil authority, although in these four last Assemblies it had assumed the prerogative of removing and transplanting ministers at its pleasure, without consulting either patrons or people, so far as we have been able to discover. Many matters were left over unfinished, and remitted to a Commission—the first, it has been alleged, (erroneously, we think,) in the history of the Church, on whom such powers were devolved. The Assembly terminated by appointing its next meeting at St Andrew’s, on the 27th of July, 1642.

As already noticed in a preceding chapter, the treaty of peace betwixt the two kingdoms was concluded on the 7th of August 1641.[278] Immediately after, on the 9th, his Majesty left London, and proceeded to Scotland. He arrived about the middle of that month at Edinburgh, having, in the course of his journey, interchanged courtesies with the chief of the Scottish army, which was still in the north of England. But his reception was far different in the Scottish capital from that which he had experienced in 1633 on the occasion of his coronation. The Covenanters were now triumphant in all their pretensions, not solely by moral, but visibly by the influence of overbearing physical force. By the terms of the treaty, and its inevitable sequences, the executive sceptre was wrenched from the hand of the King; the prerogatives of monarchy were one and all extinguished in Scotland and assumed by the Estates; and, as he had formerly meditated the assumption of undue authority, he now tasted a bitter retribution. Charles, the descendant of above a hundred Scottish Kings, virtually bowed his “discrowned head” in the palace of his fathers, beneath the victorious banner of “THE COVENANT.”

The Scottish Estates, which had been continued from time to time, reassembled on the 15th of July 1641, before the treaty was yet completed. The convention at first consisted of one hundred and forty-five members, of whom thirty-nine were of the nobility, forty-nine barons, and fifty-seven burgesses.[279] Lord Burlie was chosen President; and it was agreed on that the Estates should sit till the 17th of August, when the King or his Commissioner was expected to be present, and should prepare business, but not determine anything except the most urgent affairs for the public service. This Parliament was new-modelled, arbitrarily, (as indeed were all its proceedings from the first,) by the exclusion of the eldest sons of Peers, who previously had access to it—an exclusion which excited no little discontent among the rising aristocracy—and the Clergy, the Lords of Session, the Lord Advocate, and “all disaffected members,” were debarred from taking any part in its deliberations; and, among other stretches of its assumed intrinsic power, it ordered Traquair’s Declaration, as already noticed,[280] at the close of the Assembly 1639, to be delete from the register of Privy Council; as if such a proceeding could extinguish the document, which still stands on record, though partially obliterated. In short, it was a packed and arbitrary convention, having no legal authority, according to the ancient constitution of Scotland, until after the King had sanctioned its past and pending proceedings by an ex post facto concurrence, in terms of the concessions which had been extorted from him by the joint coercion of the House of Commons in England, and the Scotch Commissioners in London.

On the 17th of July, Among their preparatory measures, proceedings against the incendiaries were commenced. These were John Earl of Traquair, Sir Robert Spottiswood of Dunipace,[281] Sir John Hay, Clerk-Register, Dr Walter Balcanquell, and John Maxwell, late Bishop of Ross; and in the list of the proscribed were James Earl of Montrose, Archibald Lord Napier, Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Sir Lewis Stewart of Blackball.

It would be foreign to our task were we to enter on the grounds of imputation against these parties; and it belongs rather to the biography of the individuals, or the political history of the times, than to our humble track, to elucidate the nature and extent of their alleged offences against the compulsory unity prescribed by the Covenant and its rigid interpreters—armed with supreme and irresistible power. But we may be permitted to remark, that it is no ways surprising that good and honourable men, who, either as avowed friends of the King, or as honest Covenanters, in 1637, had voluntarily adopted, or from compulsion yielded to a predominant power, discovered good and sufficient grounds, in the interval of four years of intestine commotion, intrigue, and factious procedure—more especially after the invasion of England and the treaty in London—to shrink from following in the courses of the “Root and Branch” combination which had sprung up in both kingdoms during the past year. Without at all entering on the minutiæ, we are not prepared to concur with some enthusiastic admirers of the Covenanters in condemning those proscribed individuals, because they deprecated or dissented from the radicalism (a modern term, but sufficiently intelligible) of the seventeenth century, being satisfied perhaps, as we believe they were, that it was not identical either with reform or religion, and that its spirit and its tendency were inevitably, as they proved to be at no distant period, subversive alike of a constitutional monarchy, and of the civil and religious liberties of the land. Betwixt the conclusion of the treaty of Berwick and that of London, the cause of the Covenant had entirely changed its character; and if men of the present day will study with calmness and impartiality the whole progress of these troubles, and examine carefully the acts of the Scotch Convention, and those of its negotiators, he cannot fail, we think, to discern, in the authentic records of Parliament and otherwise, the most conclusive proofs that that convention exercised an unlawful and despotical authority, and employed it for the most vindictive and selfish purposes. Let one of its decrees suffice as a test of the ruling power. The convention declared, that in the proceedings against the proscribed individuals, members of the house might be witnesses as well as judges!

But we proceed with the narrative of events. The King arrived at Holyrood about six o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday the 14th of August, having but a small attendance. The Palatine, however, with the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, and Lord Willoughby, were in his train. On the Sunday following, he attended divine service in the Chapel-Royal, where Alexander Henderson officiated. The King, however, did not return in the afternoon; “but,” says Balfour, “being wearie, reposed himself in privat;” and Baillie tells us, with his wonted simplicity, that “being advertised by Mr Alexander, he promised not to do so again. Mr Alexander in the morning, and evening before supper, daily says prayers, reads a chapter and sings a psalm, and says prayers again. The King hears all duly; and we hear none of his complaints for want of a liturgy or any ceremonies. On Monday, the King came not abroad.”

Balfour, however, with all the minuteness and circumstance befitting a “Lord Lion King-at-Arms,” narrates a number of particulars. The King held a council, where it was discussed, whether there should be a “ryding” of the Parliament next day; but, as may easily be conceived, the King had no spirit, in his present humiliating circumstances, to take part in a hollow-hearted pageant; and it was resolved that he should hear sermon in the Abbey Church, and then proceed in his coach to the Parliament. “After Mr Andrew Ramsay’s long sermon,”[282] this course was adopted; and we cannot better paint the scene than we find it in Balfour’s Annals:[283]—

“The Marques Hamilton ves ordained to beare the croune, the Earle Argyle the scepter, and the Earle of Sutherland the suord.

“The Kinges Maᵗⁱᵉ came to the hous about 11 houres, the heraulds preceiding the honors, and the trumpets them.

“At his Maᵗⁱᵉˢ entrey wnto the hous, the Laird of Langtone, with a batton in his hand, went befor the honors as grate wsher, and offred to make ciuill interruptione for mantinence of his right aganist the Earle of Vigtone. The King reteired to the inner roume in a choler, and ther subscriued a varrant to put the La: of Langtone in the castle.

“Then did his Maᵗⁱᵉ enter the hous, and sitts him doune in his chaire, and, after a prayer said by Mr Alexander Hendersone, hes Maᵗⁱᵉ kyndly saluting the housse, spake thus:—

“‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’

“‘Ther hath beine nothing so displeassing to me, as thosse vnluckie differences vich of laite haue hapned betuix me and my subiects; and nothing that I haue more desyred as to see this day, quherin I houpe, not onlie to setle thesse vnhapey mistakinges, bot rightly to know and be knowen of my natiue countrey. I neid not tell you (for I think it is well knouen to most) quhat difficulties I haue passed by and ouercome to be heir at this tyme; zet this I will say, that if loue to my natiue countrey had not beine a cheiffe motiue to this iorney; other respects might easily haue found a shift to doe that by a commissioner, wich I am come to performe myselue. Al this considered, I cannot doubt bot to find such reall testimonies of your affections for the mantinance of that royall pouer wich I doe inioy after a 108 discents, and wiche you haue so often professed to manteine, and to wich your auen nationall othe doeth oblidge you, that I shall not thinke my paines ill bestoued. Nou the end of my coming is shortly this, to perfecte quhatsoeuer I haue promissed, and withall to queit thosse distractions wich haue and may fall out amongest you; and this I mynd not superficially, bot fully and cheirfullv to doe; for I assure you, that I can doe noething vith more cheerfulnesse then to giue my people content and a generall satisfactione. Wherefor, not offring to indeere myselue to you in vords, (wich indeid is not my way,) I desyre, in the first place, to settle that wich concerns the religione and iust liberties of this my natiue countrey, befor I proceid to aney wther acte.’

“The Lord Burlie, president of the parliament, in name of the housse, made a prettey speiche to hes Maᵗⁱᵉ, of thankes for all the former demonstrationes of his goodnes, and expressiones of loue to his Maiesties ancient and natiue kingdome.

“And therafter the Earle of Argyle did second the president, with a short and pithy harraing, comparing this kingdome to a ship tossed in a tempestuous sea, thir zeires by past; and seing his Majesty had, lyke a skillfull pilote, in the tymes of most danger, steired her throughe so maney rockes and shelwes, to saue anchor, he did humbly intreat his Maᵗⁱᵉ that nou he wold not leaue her, (since that for her saftie lie had giuen way to cast out some of the naughtiest baggage to lightin her,) bot be gratiously pleassed to setle her in her secure statione and harbour againe.

“Hes Maᵗⁱᵉ offred to ratifie the 39 actes of this parl: 22 Junij, 1639 40 which the housse humbley intreated hes Maiestie to superseid, till, according to the orders of the housse, they had taken them 24 houres to ther considerations; wich with a declaratione insert in the recordes of parl: of hes Maᵗⁱᵉˢ villingnes to doe that, and the housses earnist and humble supplicatione to his Maᵗⁱᵉ for keiping the orders of the housse; to wich he condescendit.

“The housse did humblie supplicat hes Maᵗⁱᵉ that he wold not comitt Langtone to the castle, and so dismember ther housse. His Maᵗⁱᵉ declared, that he [had] not done it for the respecte of aney subiecte, bot for the affront done to his auen persone, for intruding him in his seruice without acquantlng hes Maᵗⁱᵉ therwith. After much intretey, his Maᵗⁱᵉ wes gratiously pleassed onlie to confyne him till to morrow to his auen chamber. So with a prayer, his Maᵗⁱᵉ returned to his palace of Holyrudhousse to dinner.

“The croune, scepter, and suord, wer lefte in the parl: housse, in custodey of the Lordes Constable and Marishall till the last day of the parl: and ordained by his Maᵗⁱᵉ eurey day to be produced, and by the Lyone K. of Armes layed one the table befor the throne.”

Baillie’s account is not less significant of the King’s feelings on this occasion. “He spoke very graceously. The Preses and then Argyle answered him with cordial harangues of welcome. His Majesty offered presently, without delay, to put his sceptre to the thirty-nine Acts of Parliament enjoined in the treaty. He was intreated, according to the order of the house, to suspend till to-morrow; at which time he pressed again that he might ratify the Acts. He was intreated to delay till the return of the Commissioners, who were present at the treaty: at last he was intreated so to do.” (Vide also Acts, vol. v., p. 362.)

The day following Balmerino was chosen President in place of Burlie—and the King consented to defer his ratification of the Acts passed on 22d of June 1640, till the return of the Scotch Commissioners; meanwhile, all the incendiaries who were tangible were imprisoned in the castle, and a variety of preparatory steps taken for energetic legislation; and the Covenant, as a matter of course, was displayed. On the 24th of August, the Treaty betwixt the Commissioners of both Kingdoms, ratified in the Parliament of England, was read; and the same day another Act of the English Parliament for payment of £110,000, of the “brotherly assistance” at Midsummer 1642, and a similar sum in 1643, was produced. Orders for disbanding the army, and paying it off were also issued. On the 25th of August, the King signed the treaty with England in face of Parliament. Next day, it was ratified as an Act, by touching with the sceptre, and the royal sign manual—ordered to be exemplified under the great seal—and delivered to the English Commissioners; and on the 28th, his Majesty, with consent of the Estates, ordained the Acts, passed in June 1640, being in number thirty-nine, to be published in his Majesty’s name, in terms of the treaty.[284]

And thus Charles I., with all these formal solemnities, ratified a series of statutes, which, up to that hour, were utterly destitute of legal sanction—abandoned all his ill-advised schemes of ecclesiastical policy, and substantially, as will speedily appear, relinquished the most important prerogatives of the crown—devolving its functions entirely into the hands of an encroaching and tyrannical popular convocation, whose sole authority was derived from the power of the sword, and not from the constitutional law of the land.

The extent to which the Estates meant to carry their pretensions, was speedily exemplified; for, on 6th September, the demand made by the Commissioners in March preceding, as to the appointment of the Officers of State, Privy Counsellors, and Lords of Session, was read in the house; and, on the 16th, the King signified to the Estates that he would nominate the executive officers of his government above alluded to, with “the advice” of the Estates; thus transferring the undoubted and constitutional prerogative, which, except in those troublous times, has ever belonged to the Sovereign of these realms, into the hands of the Parliament, and combining, in one popularly constituted and self-created body, both the legislative and executive functions: a system of government which has ever been found alike injurious to the cause of genuine freedom, and mischievous in its consequences to society, wherever it has existed. As might be expected, when “the house had receaved this gratious ansswer from his Majesties owne mouthe, they all arrosse, and bowed themselves to the ground.”[285] The results of this most unwise act of the King was speedily manifested in the apponitments which followed.

On the 20th day of the same month, (vide Acts, vol. v., 406,) the King exhibited lists of privy-counsellors and officers of state, expressing a hope that the house would only state reasonable objections. Argyle, however, vehemently objected to Morton as chancellor. The latter retorted that for twenty years he had educated and protected Argyle, and had obtained for him the numerous beneficial possessions and honours which he enjoyed. The advice of the house was procrastinated; and on the 22d a proposal was made that the election of the officers of state and counsellors should take place “by billets or schedules,” on the ground that “men, for feares or houpes, might stand in awe to use the liberty of their consciences!” The King justly remarked that, in his opinion, “that man that feared to voice freelie was not worthy to sitt in the House.” There was much debate on the subject. Morton, to avoid dissension betwixt the King and the People, besought that his name as chancellor might be withdrawn; and subsequently his Majesty proposed Loudoun as chancellor, and urged the house to give its fiat upon his list; and, at length, after much delay and heart-burning, Loudoun was named Lord Chancellor, with the unanimous concurrence of the house, but to the disappontment of Argyle, who evidently aspired to the office. During this interval, the struggles and intrigues which prevailed for place and for power, were incessant; and bitter jealousies among the “covenanted” statesmen, sprung up as rife as among men of less spiritual pretension. The treasury was put in commission, to divide the power and emolument among the parties, when Glencairn, Lindsay, and Argyle were fitted with places. Orbiston was patronised by Hamilton for the office of Clerk-Register, (Hay being under process,) while Johnston was the elect of his adherents; but, ultimately, Gibson of Durie was appointed and Johnston was dubbed a knight, and, for his consolation, appointed a Lord of Session, and Orbiston made Justice-Clerk. The Marquis of Huntly and eight other Lords nominated by the King, were superseded, and an equal number of the covenanting Lords substituted in their place as Members of Council. And, to make room for their friends, Sir Robert Spottiswood, (President of the Session,) Sir William Elphingston, (Justice-Clerk,) Sir John Hay, and Sir Patrick Nisbit, were removed as judges, and Leslie of Newton, Sir Thomas Hope, (the Lord Advocate’s son,) Hepburn of Huntly, and Johnston appointed in their stead. Having now moulded the executive departments to their own satisfaction, and reduced the royal authority to a shadow, the Parliament proceeded in the work of reformation at a rapid pace. The conformation of the executive at that time being eminently illustrative of the spirit of the Scottish Estates, we subjoin, in a note, a list of the functionaries who were installed under the first reformed Parliament of Charles I.,[286] leaving all details of Parliamentary proceedings and squabbles among the jarring factions which then prevailed, to be gathered from the appropriate chronicles of the times.

while the King was resident in Scotland during these transactions, and harrassed by the unceasing turmoils among the leading men in his northern parliament, and tortured with the rising flame of faction in England, the natural effects of those commotions, and the total disruption of society in Britain, were fearfully developed in Ireland. On the 1st of November 1641, his Majesty received, by express, accounts of a rebellion and widely extended massacre by the Papists of Ireland, of his Protestant subjects in that portion of his empire. Of that rebellion we shall extract an account from the pages of Hume, whose liberality will scarcely be called in question by the most liberal parties of the present day, in regard to religious sects of all sorts;[287] and this we prefer to any attempt of our own, lest our Presbyterian leanings might subject us to misconstruction in exhibiting the characteristics of that atrocious occurrence. It is an episode, doubtless, in the annals of the Church of Scotland, but an episode, closely connected with that history, and full of instruction at the present day—and not the less so that the conflagration which overspread Ireland with horrors, was kindled by the fires which were first lighted up on Dunse Law and at Newburn. The moral of that sad tale may be practically applied with important benefit in the passing hour, when disruption in our constitutional establishments is imminent, when democracy is stalking abroad with its torch and its dagger, and when incendiarism and murder are perpetrated in Ireland to an appalling extent with impunity, and seemingly beyond the reach of repression in that devoted land.

“After Strafford fell a victim to popular rage, the humors excited in Ireland by that great event could not be suddenly composed, but continued to produce the greatest innovations in the government.

“The British Protestants, transplanted in Ireland, having every moment before their eyes all the horrors of Popery, had naturally been carried into the opposite extreme, and had universally adopted the highest principles and practices of the Puritans: monarchy, as well as the hierarchy, was become odious to them; and every method of limiting the authority of the Crown, and detaching themselves from the King of England, was greedily adopted and pursued. They considered not, that as they scarcely formed the sixth part of the people, and were secretly obnoxious to the ancient inhabitants, their only method of supporting themselves was by maintaining royal authority, and preserving a great dependence on their mother-country. The English Commons, likewise, in their furious persecution of Strafford, had overlooked the most obvious consequences; and, while they imputed to him, as a crime, every discretionary act of authority, they despoiled all succeeding governors of that power, by which alone the Irish could be retained in subjection: and so strong was the current for popular government in all the three kingdoms, that the most established maxims of policy were everywhere abandoned, in order to gratify this ruling passion.

“Charles, unable to resist, had been obliged to yield to the Irish, as to the Scottish and English Parliaments; and found, too, that their encroachments still rose in proportion to his concessions. Those subsidies, which themselves had voted, they reduced by a subsequent vote to a fourth part: the court of high commission was determined to be a grievance; martial law abolished; the jurisdiction of the council annihilated; proclamations and acts of state declared of no authority; every order or institution, which depended on monarchy, was invaded; and the prince was despoiled of all his prerogative, without the least pretext of any violence or illegality in his administration.

“The old Irish remarked all these false steps of the English, and resolved to take advantage of them. Though their animosity against that nation, for want of an occasion to exert itself, seemed to be extinguished, it was only composed into a temporary and deceitful tranquillity: their interests, both with regard to property and religion, secretly stimulated them to a revolt. No individual of any sept, according to the ancient customs, had the property of any particular estate; but as the whole sept had a title to a whole territory, they ignorantly preferred this barbarous community before the more secure and narrower possessions assigned them by the English. An indulgence, amounting almost to a toleration, had been given to the Catholic religion: but so long as the churches and the ecclesiastical revenues were kept from the priests, and they were obliged to endure the neighbourhood of profane heretics, being themselves discontented, they continually endeavoured to retard any cordial reconciliations between the English and the Irish nations.

“There was a gentleman called Roger More, who, though of a narrow fortune, was descended from an ancient Irish family, and was much celebrated among his countrymen for valour and capacity: this man first formed the project of expelling the English, and asserting the independency of his native country. He secretly went from chieftain to chieftain, and roused up every latent principle of discontent: he maintained a close correspondence with Lord Maguire and Sir Phelim O’Neale, the most powerful of the old Irish: by conversation, by letters, by his emissaries, he represented to his countrymen the motives of a revolt. He observed to them, that by the rebellion of the Scots, and factions of the English, the King’s authority in Britain was reduced to so low a condition, that he never could exert himself with any vigour in maintaining the English dominion over Ireland; that the Catholics in the Irish House of Commons, assisted by the Protestants, had so diminished the royal prerogative and the power of the lieutenant, as would much facilitate the conducting, to its desired effect, any conspiracy or combination which could be formed; that the Scots, having so successfully thrown off dependence on the crown of England, and assumed the government into their own hands, had set an example to the Irish, who had so much greater oppressions to complain of; that the English planters, who had expelled them their possessions, suppressed their religion, and bereaved them of their liberties, were but a handful in comparison of the natives; that they lived in the most supine security, interspersed with their numerous enemies, trusting to the protection of a small army, which was itself scattered in inconsiderable divisions throughout the whole kingdom; that a great body of men, disciplined by the government, were now thrown loose, and were ready for any daring or desperate enterprise; that though the Catholics had hitherto enjoyed, in some tolerable measure, the exercise of their religion from the moderation of their indulgent prince, they must henceforth expect that the government will be conducted by other maxims and other principles; that the puritanical parliament, having at length subdued their sovereign, would, no doubt, as soon as they had consolidated their authority, extend their ambitious enterprises to Ireland, and make the Catholics in that Kingdom, feel the same furious persecution to which their brethren in England were at present exposed; and that a revolt in the Irish, tending only to vindicate their native liberty against the violence of foreign invaders, could never, at any time, be deemed rebellion; much less during the present confusion, when their prince was, in a manner, a prisoner; and obedience must be paid, not to him, but to those who had traitorously usurped his lawful authority.

“By these considerations, More engaged all the heads of the native Irish into the conspiracy. The English of the pale, as they were called, or the old English planters, being all Catholics, it was hoped would afterwards join the party, which restored their religion to its ancient splendour and authority. The intention was, that Sir Phelim O’Neale and the other conspirators, should begin an insurrection on one day throughout the provinces, and should attack all the English settlements; and that, on the same day, Lord Maguire and Roger More should surprise the castle of Dublin. The commencement of the revolt was fixed on the approach of winter, that there might be more difficulty in transporting forces from England: succours to themselves and supplies of arms they expected from France, in consequence of a promise made them by Cardinal Richelieu; and many Irish officers, who served in the Spanish troops, had engaged to join them as soon as they saw an insurrection entered on by their Catholic brethren. News, which every day arrived from England, of the fury expressed by the Commons against all Papists, struck fresh terror into the Irish nation, and both stimulated the conspirators to execute their fatal purpose, and gave them assured hopes of the concurrence of all their countrymen.

“Such propensity to a revolt was discovered in all the Irish, that it was deemed unnecessary as it was dangerous to entrust the secret to many hands; and the appointed day drew nigh, nor had any discovery been yet made to the government. The king, indeed, had received information from his ambassadors, that something was in agitation among the Irish in foreign parts; but, though he gave warning to the administration in Ireland, the intelligence was entirely neglected: secret rumours likewise were heard of some approaching conspiracy; but no attention was paid to them. The Earl of Leicester, whom the King had appointed lieutenant, remained in London: the two justices, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlace, were men of small abilities; and, by an inconvenience common to all factious times, owed their advancement to nothing but their zeal for the party by whom everything was now governed. Tranquil from their ignorance and inexperience, these men indulged themselves in the most profound repose on the very brink of destruction.

“But they were awakened from their security on the very day before that which was appointed for the commencement of hostilities.[288] The castle of Dublin, by which the capital was commanded, contained arms for 10,000 men, with thirty-five pieces of cannon and a proportionable quantity of ammunition: yet was this important place guarded, and that too without any care, by no greater force than fifty men. Maguire and More were already in town with a numerous band of their partisans; others were expected that night: and, next morning, they were to enter on what they esteemed the easiest of all enterprises, the surprisal of the castle. O’Conolly, an Irishman, but a Protestant, betrayed the conspiracy to Parsons: the justices and council fled immediately for safety into the castle, and reinforced the guards: the alarm was conveyed to the city, and all the Protestants prepared for defence. More escaped; Maguire was taken; and Mahone, one of the conspirators, being likewise seized, first discovered to the justices the project of a general insurrection, and redoubled the apprehensions which already were universally diffused throughout Dublin.

“But though O’Conolly’s discovery saved the castle from a surprise, the confession extorted from Mahone came too late to prevent the intended insurrection. O’Neale and his confederates had already taken arms in Ulster: the Irish, everywhere intermingled with the English, needed but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and prosperity. The houses, cattle, goods of the unwary English were first seized: those who heard of the commotions in their neighbourhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their property; and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies. After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty—and the most barbarous that ever in any nation was known or heard of—began its operations: a universal massacre commenced of the English, now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes: no age, no sex, no condition was spared: the wife, weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke: the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent a like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault; destruction was everywhere let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn: in vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends: all connections were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continual intercourse of kindness and good offices.

“But death was the slightest punishment inflicted by those rebels: all the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity: such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost incredible: depraved nature, even perverted religion, encouraged by the utmost license, reach not to such a pitch of ferocity; unless the pity inherent in human breasts be destroyed by that contagion of example, which transports men beyond all the usual motives of conduct and behaviour.

“The weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings and compassionate to those of others, here emulated their more robust companions in the practice of every cruelty: even children, taught by the example, and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses or defenceless children of the English. The very avarice of the Irish was not a sufficient restraint of their cruelty: such was their frenzy, that the cattle which they had seized, and by rapine made their own, yet, because they bore the name of English, were wantonly slaughtered, or, when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods and deserts.

“The stately buildings or commodious habitations of the planters, as if upraiding the sloth and ignorance of the natives, were consumed with fire, or laid level with the ground; and where the miserable owners, shut up in their houses, and preparing for defence, perished in the flames, together with their wives and children, a double triumph was afforded to their insulting foes.

“If any where a number assembled together, and, assuming courage from despair, were resolved to sweeten death by revenge on their assassins; they were disarmed by capitulations and promises of safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths: but no sooner had they surrendered, than the rebels, with perfidy equal to their cruelty, made them share the fate of their unhappy countrymen.

“Others, more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their prisoners by the fond love of life, to imbrue their hands in the blood of friends, brothers, parents; and having thus rendered them accomplices in guilt, gave them that death which they sought to shun by deserving it.

“Amidst all these enormities, the sacred name of religion resounded on every side; not to stop the hands of these murderers, but to enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of human or social sympathy. The English, as heretics, abhorred of God, and detestable to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for slaughter; and, of all actions, to rid the world of these declared enemies to Catholic faith and piety, was represented as the most meritorious. Nature, which, in that rude people, was sufficiently inclined to atrocious deeds, was farther stimulated by precept, and national prejudices empoisoned by those aversions, more deadly and incurable, which arose from an enraged superstition. While death finished the sufferings of each victim, the bigoted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies were but the commencement of torments infinite and eternal.

“Such were the barbarities by which Sir Phelim O’Neale and the Irish in Ulster signalised their rebellion:—an event memorable in the annals of humankind, and worthy to be held in perpetual detestation and abhorrence. The generous nature of More was shocked at the recital of such enormous cruelties: he flew to O’Neale’s camp; but found that his authority, which was sufficient to excite the Irish to an insurrection, was too feeble to restrain their inhumanity. Soon after, he abandoned a cause polluted by so many crimes, and he retired into Flanders; Sir Phelim, recommended by the greatness of his family, and perhaps too by the unrestrained brutality of his nature, though without any courage or capacity, acquired the entire ascendant over the northern rebels. The English colonies were totally annihilated in the open country of Ulster: the Scots, at first, met with more favourable treatment. In order to engage them to a passive neutrality, the Irish pretended to distinguish between the British nations; and, claiming friendship and consanguinity with the Scots, extended not over them the fury of their massacres. Many of them found an opportunity to fly the country: others retired into places of security, and prepared themselves for defence: and by this means, the Scottish planters, most of them at least, escaped with their lives.

“From Ulster, the flames of rebellion diffused themselves in an instant over the other three provinces of Ireland: in all places death and slaughter were not uncommon, though the Irish in these other provinces pretended to act with moderation and humanity—but cruel and barbarous was their humanity. Not content with expelling the English their houses, with despoiling them of their goodly manors, with wasting their cultivated fields, they stripped them of their very clothes, and turned them out, naked and defenceless, to all the severities of the season. The heavens themselves, as if conspiring against that unhappy people, were armed with cold and tempest unusual to the climate, and executed what the merciless sword had left unfinished. The roads were covered with crowds of naked English, hastening towards Dublin and the other cities which yet remained in the hands of their countrymen: the feeble age of children, the tender sex of women, soon sunk under the multiplied rigours of cold and hunger. Here, the husband, bidding a final adieu to his expiring family, envied them that fate which he himself expected so soon to share: there, the son, having long supported his aged parent, with reluctance obeyed his last commands; and, abandoning him in his uttermost distress, reserved himself to the hopes of avenging that death which all his efforts could not prevent or delay. The astonishing greatness of the calamity deprived the sufferers of any relief from the view of companions in affliction: with silent tears or lamentable cries, they hurried on through the hostile territories; and found every heart which was not steeled by native barbarity, guarded by the more implacable furies of mistaken piety and religion.

“The saving of Dublin preserved in Ireland the remains of the English name: the gates of that city, though timorously opened, received the wretched supplicants, and presented to the view a scene of human misery beyond what any eye had ever before beheld. Compassion seized the amazed inhabitants, aggravated with the fear of like calamities; while they observed the numerous foes without and within which everywhere environed them and reflected on the weak resources by which they were themselves supported. The more vigorous of the unhappy fugitives, to the number of 3000, were enlisted into three regiments: the rest were distributed into the houses; and all care was taken, by diet and warmth, to recruit their feeble and torpid limbs; diseases of unknown name and species, derived from these multiplied distresses, seized many of them, and put a speedy period to their lives: others, having now leisure to reflect on their mighty loss of friends and fortune, cursed that being which they had saved. Abandoning themselves to despair, refusing all succour, they expired; without other consolation than that of receiving among their countrymen, the honours of a grave, which to their slaughtered companions had been denied by the inhuman barbarians.

“By some computations, those who perished by all these cruelties, are supposed to be 150,000, or 200,000; by the most moderate, and probably the most reasonable account, they are made to amount to 40,000; if this estimation itself be not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated.”

Such were the calamitous circumstances in which the Kingdoms of Britain and Ireland were placed at the period to which we now refer, arising, primarily from the mistaken policy of the King, in attempting to rule the nations under his sway, (in which the seeds of public liberty had been planted at the time of the Reformation, and had become widely disseminated,) solely by virtue of the royal prerogative, suited only to a very different state of society. The dissolution and entire disuse of Parliaments in England, the wealthier of his Kingdoms—his rash attempt to enforce, by mere authority, an equivocal system of Episcopacy in Scotland—the results of these several unfortunate measures, which we have already detailed—and the fatal error which he committed in sacrificing one of his most heroical and devoted friends, Stratford, to the antipathy of the English Puritans and Republicans—combined to produce the lamentable state of affairs which we are now contemplating; and, assuredly, if ever a human being, in the whole range of history, has claims on our commiseration, that man was Charles I., when, in the month of November 1641, the tidings of this horrible carnage in Ireland reached him, at Holyrood, in the palace of his ancestors, and in the bosom of his fatherland, of which he was now, indeed, but a nominal sovereign. We pause not to detail the particulars of those jealousies and jarrings, the “plots” and “incidents,” which at the moment surrounded him in Scotland, or awaited him in England, on his return thither, of which ample accounts are elsewhere to be found. On receiving the news of the Irish massacre, the King immediately went to the Parliament House and communicated the intelligence, calling on the Estates to co-operate with the Parliament of England in suppressing this frightful rebellion. And although he repeatedly urged them to the dispatch of business, that he might return to England in the exigency of these complicated national affairs, it was not until the 17th day thereafter that he was enabled to prorogue the Parliament—the intermediate time being consumed in an infinite variety of legislative proceedings, many of them trivial, but others of them eminently calculated to consolidate the supremacy of the Estates, and to benefit and strengthen the Presbyterian Church now firmly established. The first long parliament of Scotland was adjourned on the 17th of November 1641, and continued till the 1st Tuesday of June 1644.[289] The King entertained all the nobility in the great banquet-hall of the palace, in the evening—after having previously bestowed honours on the chiefs among them; and early next morning, he set out on his journey towards London, never to revisit the home of his fathers, or to look with patriotic emotion on the hills of his native land.

Without enumerating all the public Statutes of this Parliament, it is important to notice some of them, and the acts of grace and favour bestowed by the King, during his residence, on that occasion.

Among the honours conferred, the Earl of Argyle was created a Marquis; the Lords Loudoun and Lindsay, and General Leslie, were promoted to the rank of Earls; and, to grace the elevation of the man who had twice been the leader in baffling his King in the field, four of his attendants were knighted. Balmerino was overlooked in this distribution of titles, and Rothes was cut off by death, from reaping, in a higher title, the first fruits of his exertions to shear the crown of its beams; thus eluding, too, the unpopularity which was impending over him, as a backslider in the cause of the Covenant. In this particular he was not singular; for Dunfermline and the Lairds of Waughton, Cavers, Riccarton, and others, besides Montrose and his “banders,” fell into discredit, on account of their “cauldrifeness” in the cause; whilst Hamilton, Traquair, and others were destined to suffer all the varieties of fortune, which political revolutions and popular favour, alternately and invariably exhibit.

But these were not the only boons which were bestowed by Charles on his Scottish subjects, and which called forth from the Lord Chancellor, Loudoun, and Sir Thomas Hope, in the face and name of Parliament, at its close, the grateful declaration, that his Majesty had given his Estates satisfaction in all things concerning religion and liberty, and that he was about to depart “a contented king from a contented country.” Among the more substantial largesses on this occasion, General Leslie, now Earl of Leven, obtained 100,000 merks out of the “brotherly assistance;” Alexander Henderson received a gift of the revenues belonging to the dean of the chapel royal; while other leading men, cities and universities, cast lots for the garments which had previously clothed the Episcopal establishment. The bishopricks and deanery of Edinburgh and Orkney, were bestowed on the university of Edinburgh. That of St Andrew’s obtained £1000 sterling per annum, out of the bishoprick and priory of St Andrew’s. The bishoprick of Galloway, and spirituality of Glasgow were given to its college, while the temporalities of the latter were bestowed on the Duke of Lennox. The old college of Aberdeen got its bishoprick revenues. The town of Perth got a moiety of the revenues of Dunkeld, to build a bridge over the Tay; the Hammermen of Edinburgh (doubtless for services in their own department) receiving the remainder. Argyle secured the revenues of that see and of the Isles, whilst Ross, Moray, and Caithness, were distributed amongst other zealous friends of the cause. These vulgar facts go far to explain some of the public phenomena of “the Second Reformation,” and to account for the zeal which had been manifested under the banner, with “Christ’s Crown and Covenant, in letters of gold,” inscribed upon its foldings. For the working clergy—for the Church, in its ordinary acceptation, nothing was done in this scramble for a share of the plunder; but the discontent thus excited, was partially allayed by the appointment of a Commission to value the teinds, and grant augmentations to the parish ministers—a barren and unfruitful gift, which left many of the Presbyterian clergy, for a long period, in a state approaching to pauperism, until within the last thirty years, that a decent provision was made for the maintenance of the Scottish Church, by an act of the British Parliament.[290]

The only other act of the King and Estates of Scotland in 1641, to which our attention is more especially called at present, is that by which a commission of that body was appointed as Conservators of the late treaty of peace with England, and under this guise invested with all the executive powers of the Crown, and the functions of Parliament. It consisted of fifty-six members, of whom seventeen were peers, twenty-one barons, and eighteen burgesses, any twelve of them a quorum; and on this junto was devolved, for the space of three years, with all the formalities of law, the supreme authority of the state, enabling them to levy men and taxes, and exercise uncontrolled sway over the land as they listed. Henceforward the Scottish monarchy was in abeyance, and the kingly authority and prerogatives extinguished, and the government vested in a motley oligarchy, to whose unlimited sway, no constitutional check was provided, save the remote contingency of rendering an account of their conduct to a full Parliament, to be held at the distance of three years thereafter. This extraordinary arrangement has been lauded by some historians, as a wise and safe measure; but we take leave to dissent from the theory, and to think that, had the royal prerogative of calling parliaments, not been thus practically abrogated for a time, many of the calamities which ensued in both kingdoms, might have been averted or greatly softened in their character.

But leaving Scotland, for the present, under the sway of its Parliamentary Commission, our attention is unavoidably called to the state of matters in England, after the King returned thither on the 25th of November. On that occasion he was warmly welcomed by the citizens of London, and sumptuously banqueted by the corporation, which His Majesty requited by bestowing honours on the chief functionaries. The amicable termination of the Scottish Parliament, and the prostration of royal authority which had there taken place, inspired the English malcontents at once with jealousy, lest their own schemes might eventually be thwarted by a good understanding betwixt Charles and his Scottish subjects—and with hopes that, by intimidation and coercion, they might constrain him into a similar subjection to their own designs. For this purpose, and in striking contrast with the professions of loyalty which had greeted the King’s return to Whitehall, the Commons appointed a committee to draw up a catalogue of grievances, which, when finally concocted in the shape of a “Remonstrance,” contained no fewer than 206 articles of accusation, enumerating almost every act of the King since his accession, as infringements of the liberties of the people. This remonstrance, or rather impeachment, was presented to the King, calling on him, amongst other unconstitutional propositions, to concur in ejecting the bishops from the House of Peers; and, without consulting the other branch of the legislature on the subject, the Commons, in violation of all the usages of Parliament, printed and dispersed it over the country, thereby exciting an agitation, and spreading this firebrand of sedition throughout the whole land. Proceedings of a most violent nature were also instituted against the bishops who had recently absented themselves from Parliament under protest, being deterred from attendance by the violence of the mob, which had been incited by the usual methods to insult and assail them personally. And the collision betwixt the King and the Commons was brought to a crisis by His Majesty going to the house in person, to arrest with an armed force, five of its members, as guilty of high treason, by reason of the part which they had acted in various matters. In this he failed—the objects of his resentment having escaped from the effects of his immediate and natural resentment. Failing in his object, the irritation of the Commons was unbounded, and the populace was so much excited by the alarm, real or affected, of the Commons, lest their personal safety and their privileges were endangered, that the King, to avoid indignity and outrage to himself and his family, (on January 10,) left Whitehall and retired to Hampton Court—a removal which afforded to the Commons and their supporters, the populace of London, a great advantage over him. The Commons had impeached the Bishops, and the King had impeached Lord Kimbolton, Hampden, Pym, and others of the Commons, as guilty of high treason; one chief ground of the latter being an accusation against them, that the Scots invasion had been mainly occasioned by their invitation and encouragement, of which it has been said that Montrose furnished the King with information.

During the progress of these agitations in England, the spirit which guided them extended to Scotland; and the multitude, who, once excited by popular movements, are ever liable to sudden impulses from incendiary excitement elsewhere, joined in the clamours of the English malcontents, threatening to carry another crusade into England, and to aid in the subversion of its Church, and against the King—a project in which they were countenanced by too many of the Scotch clergy and politicians of the day. Even Henderson, the best, and, perhaps, the brightest man of which Scotland could then boast, incurred unpopularity for opposing this piece of extravagance. Balmerino, Lothian, Lindsay, Archibald Johnston, and Hope the younger, having been sent up by the Scotch Committee of Estates, to negotiate with the English Parliament about sending troops to Ireland, were not contented to restrict themselves within the limits of their commission, but renewed their intrigues (as during the progress of the treaty of peace,) with the wildest of the English incendiaries; and, on the 15th of January, 1642, had the audacity, under a pretext of mediating betwixt the King and his English Parliament, to make written communications to both, embodying the sentiments which they cherished, for the destruction of Episcopacy in England and the planting of Presbytery in its stead. A theory was then prevalent, which has been revived even in more recent times, that Presbytery is clothed with a jus divinum—that it alone and exclusively is the form of church-government sanctioned by Scripture—and that it was the bounden duty of its professors, like the Propaganda of Rome, to exert themselves in its extension to all the nations of the earth. This phantasy was evidently not merely inconsistent, but irreconcilable with the maxims on which they themselves had avowedly acted in resisting the imposition of the Service Book and Episcopal Canons on Scotland: but no incongruity of principle or conduct is too gross for fanatics of any sort; and, as remarked by Dr Cook, “their vehement complaints against the Church of England are entitled to as little attention as the contemptuous aspersions which the zealots for prelacy, even at the present day, cast upon every form of ecclesiastical polity different from their own.” The King indignantly prohibited such officious interferences, and, on the 26th of the same month, wrote to the Chancellor of Scotland, requesting that the Council would prohibit these mischievous meddlers from indulging in such practices.[291] The Parliament, however, received this intervention most graciously, encouraged their sympathizing testimonies, and opened correspondence with the most bustling Covenanters in Scotland, to secure co-operation and support in their destructive projects.[292]

The differences betwixt the King and his English Parliament had now assumed a very decisive character; and for some time, it had been evident that no accommodation could be effected otherwise than by the ultima ratio—the sword. The King proceeded to York on the 10th of March; and, on the 23d day of April, went to Hull, with an attendance of 300 cavalry, his usual guard; but Sir John Hotham, the Governor, refused him admission within its walls with more than twelve attendants, assigning as his warrant an order from the Parliament.[293] The King pronounced him a traitor; and thus the civil war in England may be said to have commenced.

A very unprofitable question has often been agitated with regard to who began the civil war. In this particular stage of it, however, there seems to be no room for doubt: by the pretensions of the Parliament, or rather of the House of Commons, to the entire control over the militia and army, which the King refused to concede, but more especially by this mandate to the governor of Hull, to refuse admission to their sovereign, with such a military attendance as he might deem fitting—that body usurped a prerogative inherent in the crown from the earliest times of the monarchy, and inseparable from the supreme executive authority in every country.

Whatever may be said by partisan advocates as to the King’s intentions—of his procuring military munitions, pledging the crown jewels for these and such like pretexts—all these apologies for the Commons are utterly irrelevant; and the logic by which they are enforced, is akin to that by which the same faction, in a decree of constructive treason, converted a cluster of insufficient facts into an offence, for which they shed Stratford’s blood. That the command of the army—that military occupation of every place within his dominions—are essential elements in the prerogatives of a British monarch, (subject only to the constitutional control of the Commons, in withholding supplies for its maintenance, if they see cause,)—is a proposition that cannot be soundly questioned. And, independently of every other consideration, this single overt act of usurpation of supreme executive functions, was unconstitutional, and an undeniable act of rebellion on the part of the English Parliament.

While these high points of controversy were in dependence betwixt the King and the Commons, (for from the commencement of the troubles, the House of Lords unfortunately relinquished its independent jurisdiction, instead of operating as a check on the two other conflicting branches of the legislature,) the King was intent on raising forces not merely for the maintenance of his authority at home, but for the suppression of the Irish rebellion, and he purposed heading the forces to be supplied from England and Scotland for this latter purpose. The republicans of that day, however, in both kingdoms, were averse to this, fearing lest the King might win the attachment of the army, and thereby quash their projects. In Scotland, Loudoun the chancellor, by his Majesty’s command, convened the Council; and the work of agitation having preceded its meeting, multitudes thronged to Edinburgh, and petitioned the Council that nothing should be done “prejudicial to the work of reformation, and the treaty of union betwixt the kingdoms.” The most malign surmises as to the King’s intentions, were propagated and believed by the vulgar, while the real incendiaries in both kingdoms were scattering their firebrands far and wide, and by the most approved modes of open and clandestine excitement.

While the political affairs of the three kingdoms were in this unsettled and perilous state, and all the elements of social disorganization let loose in every quarter of these islands, the General Assembly of the church convened at St Andrews on the 27th of July 1642. We now proceed to record its Acts, and give in our supplement of documents, a detailed account of its proceedings by Baillie, which presents a very lively picture of the feverish state of the public mind at the period now referred to.

THE PRINCIPALL ACTS
OF THE GENERALL ASSEMBLY, CONVEENED AT ST ANDREWS, JULY 27, 1642.

Act, Sess. I. 27 July, 1642.
The Kings Letter to the Generall Assembly, presented by His Majesties Commissioner, the Earle of Dumfermling, July 27, 1642.

Charles R.

IN the midst of Our great and weighty affaires of Our other Kingdoms, which God Almighty, who is privie to Our Intentions, and in whom We trust, will in his own time bring to a wished and peaceable conclusion, We are not unmindfull of that duetie which we owe to that Our ancient and native Kingdome, and to the Kirks there, now met together by their Commissioners in a Nationall Assembly. God, whose Vicegerent We are, hath made Us a King over divers Kingdomes, and We have no other desire, nor designe, but to govern them by their own Lawes, and the Kirks in them by their own Canons and Constitutions. Where any thing is found to be amisse, We will endeavour a Reformation in a fair and orderly way; and where a Reformation is settled, We resolve, with that authoritie wherewith God hath vested Us, to maintain and defend it in peace and libertie, against all trouble that can come from without, and against all Heresies, Sects, and Schismes which may arise from within, Nor do We desire any thing more in that Kingdom (and when we shall hear of it, it shall be a delight and matter of gladnesse unto Us) then that the Gospel be faithfully preached throughout the whole Kingdom, to the outmost skirts and borders thereof. Knowing that to be the mean of honour to God, of happinesse to the people, and of true obedience to Us. And for this effect, that holy and able men be put in places of the Ministery, and that Schooles and Colledges may flourish in Learning and true Pietie. Some things for advancing of those ends, We did of Our own accord promise in Our Letters to the last Assembly, and We make your selves Judges, who were witnesses to Our Actions, while We were there in Person, whether we did not perform them both in the point of presentations which are in Our hands, and in the liberall provision of all the Universities and Colledges of the Kingdome, not only above that which any of Our Progenitors had done before Us, but also above your own hopes and expectation. We doe not make commemoration of this Our Beneficence, either to please Our selves, or to stop the influence of Our Royall goodnesse and bountie for afterward, but that by these reall demonstrations of Our unfained desires and delight to do good, you may be the more confident to expect from Us, whatsoever in Justice We can grant, or what may be expedient for you to obtaine. We have given expresse charge to Our Commissioner, to see that all things be done there orderly and peaceably, as if We were present in Our Own Person; not doubting but in thankfulnesse for your present estate and condition, you will abstaine from everything that may make any new disturbance, and that you will be more wise then to be the enemies of your own peace, which would but stumble others, and ruine yourselves. We have also commanded Our Commissioner to receive from you your just and reasonable desires, for what may further serve for the good of Religion, that taking them to Our considertion, We may omit nothing which may witnesse Us to be indeed a nursing Father of that Kirk wherein We were born and baptized, and that if ye be not happy, you may blame not Us, but yourselves. And now what doe We again require of you, but that which otherwise you owe to Us as your Soveraigne Lord and King, even that ye pray for Our prosperity and the peace of Our Kingdomes, that ye use the best meanes to keep Our People in obedience to Us and Our Lawes, which doth very much, in Our personall absence from that Our Kingdome, depend upon your preaching and your own examplary loyaltie and faithfulnesse, and that against all such jealousies, suspitions, and sinister rumors, as are too frequent in these times, and have been often falsified in time past, by the reality of the contrary events: Ye judge Us and Our professions by Our actions, which, we trust, through God in despite of malice, shall ever go on in a constant way for the good of Religion and the weal of Our People, which is the Chiefest of Our intentions and desires. And thus we bid you farewell. Given at our Court at Leicester, the 23 of July. 1642.

To Our trusty and wel beloved the Generall Assembly, in Our Kingdom of Scotland, conveened at S. Andrews.

Act, Sess. III. July 29, 1642.
Act for bringing in of the Synode Books yeerly to the Generall Assemblies.

THE Moderator calling to minde that which was forgotten in the preceeding Sessions, the examination of the Provinciall Books, caused call the Roll of the Provinciall Assemblies; and the Assembly finding very few Provinces to have sent their Books to this Assembly, notwithstanding of the ordinance of the former Assembly thereanent, for the more exact obedience of that ordinance hereafter, the Assembly, in one voyce, ordaines, That the Books of every Provinciall Assembly shall be brought and produced to every Generall Assembly: And that this may be performed, ordaines that every Clerk of the Provincialls either bring or send the said Books yearly to the Generall Assemblies, by the Commissioners sent to the Assemblies, from these Presbyteries where the Clerks reside. Which charge the Assembly also layes upon the said Commissioners, sent from the saids Presbyteries where the Clerks reside; ay, and while some meanes be provided, whereby the Clerks charges may be sustained for coming with the saids Books themselves: And that under the pain of deprivation of the Clerk in case of his neglect, and of such censure of the saids commissioners, in case of their neglect as the Assembly shall think convenient.

Act, Sess. V. Aug. 1, 1642.
Act anent the choosing of Kirk Sessions.

ANENT the question moved to the Assembly, concerning the election of Kirk Sessions, The Assembly ordaines the old Session to elect the new Session both in Burgh and Land. And that if any place shall vaik in the Session chosen, by death or otherwise, the present Session shall have the election of the person to fill the vacand roome.

Sess. VI. 2 Aug. 1642.
The report of the interpretation of the Act at Edinburgh, anent tryall of Ministers.

THE meaning of the foresaid Act, is not that an actuall Minister to be transported, shall be tried again by the tryalls appointed for trying of Expectants, at their entry to the Ministery, according to the Acts of the Kirk; but only that he bringing a Testimoniall of his former tryalls, and of his abilities, and conversation, from the Presbyterie from whence he comes, and giving such satisfaction to the Parochiners Presbyterie whereto he comes in preaching, as the Presbyterie finds his gifts fit and answerable for the condition and disposition of the Congregation, whereto he is presented. Because, according to the Act of the Assembly 1596, renewed at Glasgow, some that are meet for the Ministery in some places, are not meet for all alike: and Universities, Towns, and Burghs, and places of Noblemens residence, or frequencie of Papists, and other great and eminent Congregations, and in sundry other cases, require men of greater abilities, nor will be required necessarily in the planting of all private small Paroches, the leaving of the consideration of these cases unto the judgement and consideration of the Presbyterie, was the only intention of the Act.

The Assembly approves the meaning and interpretation foresaid, and appoints the said Act, according to this interpretation, to stand in force, and to have the strength of an Act and Ordinance of Assembly in all time coming.

Act, Sess. VII. 3 Aug. 1642.
Act anent the order for making Lists to his Majestie, and other Patrons for Presentations; the order of tryall of Expectants, and for trying the quality of Kirks.

FORSAMEIKLE as His Majestie was graciously pleased in his Answer to the Petition, tendred by the Commissioners of the late Assembly to His Majestie, to declare and promise, for the better providing of vaiking Kirks, at His Majesties Presentation with qualified Ministers, to present one out of a list of six persons, sent to His Majestie from the Presbyteries wherein the vaiking Kirk lyeth, as His Majesties Declaration, signed with his Royal hand at Whitehall, the 3 of January last, registrate in the books of Assembly, this day at length beares. And suchlike whereas the Lords of Exchequer, upon a Petition presented to them by the Commissioners of the Generall Assembly, and the Procurator and Agent for the Kirk representing two Prejudices; one, that gifts obtained from His Majestie of patronages of Kirks, at his Presentation were passing the Exchequer, without the qualification and provision of a List, wherewith His Majestie was pleased to restrict himself; and the other, that some were seeking gifts of patronage of Bishop Kirks, which are declared to belong to Presbyteries, to be planted by two Acts of the late Parliament: The saids Lords have ordained that no signator, containing gifts of patronages from His Majestie, shall passe hereafter, but with a speciall provision that the same shall be lyable to the tenor of His Majesties said Declaration. Ordaining also the Procurator and Agent of the Kirk to be advertised, and to have place to see all signators whatsoever, containing any patronage, to the effect they may represent the interest of the Kirk therein; as the said Act of the date the 27 of June last, registrate also in the Books of Assembly, this day at length beares. Therefore, that the saids Kirks which now are, or which were at His Majesties presentation the said third day of January last, may be the better provided with able Ministers, when the samine shall vaik, The Assembly ordaines that hereafter every Presbytery shall give up yearly a Roll of the ablest of their Expectants, to their Synods; and that the Synods select out of these Rolls such persons whom they in certain knowledge judge most fit for the Ministrie, and worthiest of the first place, With Power to the Synods to adde or alter these Rolls given by the Presbyteries, as they thinke reasonable: And that the Synods shall send the Rolls made by them in this manner, to the next Generall Assembly, who shall also examine the Rolls of the Synods, and adde or alter the same as shall be thought expedient. Which Roll made by the Generall Assembly, shall be sent to every Presbyterie, and that the Presbyterie, with consent of the most or best part of the Congregation, shall make a List of six persons willing to accept of the presentation out of that Roll of the Assembly, upon every occasion of vacation of any Kirk within their bounds, and shall send the samine, together with a blank presentation: The which (if His Majesty be Patron to the vacant Kirk) shall be sent by the said Procurator and Agent, to such as the Commissioners of the Generall Assembly, or in their absence the Presbyterie of Edinburgh, shall direct and think at that time most able and willing to obtain the presentation, to be signed and filled up by His Majesties choise of one of the List. And if the vacant Kirk be of a Patronage disponed by His Majesty since the 3 of January, in that case either the Presbyteries themselves shall send a List to six persons in maner aforesaid, with a blank presentation to the Patron, to be filled up by his choise, and subscribed, or send the samine to the saids Officers of the Kirk, to be conveyed by them to the Patron of the vaiking Kirk, as the Presbyterie shall think most expedient. It is alwayes declared, that this order shall be without prejudice to the Presbyteries, with consent foresaid, to put actuall Ministers upon the said List of six persons, to be sent to the Patron of the said vaiking Kirks, if they please. And least that the nomination of Expectants by Presbyteries, Synods, or Assemblies, in their Rolls or Lists foresaid, be misinterpreted, as though the Expectants nominated in these Rolls and Lists, were thereby holden and acknowledged to be qualified, which is not the intention of the Assembly, who rather think, that in respect of this Order, there should be a more exact tryall of Expectants then before: Therefore the Assembly ordaines, That no Expectants shall be put on the Rolls or Lists above-mentioned, but such as have been upon the publike exercise, at the least by the space of half a year, or longer, as the Presbyterie shall finde necessary. And suchlike ordaines, that hereafter none be admitted to the publike exercise, before they be tryed, according to the tryall appointed for Expectants, at their entrie to the Ministerie in the late Assembly at Glasgow, in the 24 Article of the Act of the 23 Session thereof: which tryall, the Assembly appoints to be taken of every Expectant, before his admission to the publike exercise. And suchlike ordaines, That the samine tryall shall be again taken immediately before their admission to the Ministerie, together with their tryall mentioned in the advice of some Brethren deputed for penning the corruptions of the Ministery, approven in the said Act of the Generall Assembly at Glasgow. And because that Kirks of the patronages foresaids, will vaik before the Rolls and Lists be made up by the Presbyteries, Synods, and Generall Assemblies, in manner foresaid: Therefore, in the interim, the Assembly ordains the Commissioners of every Presbyterie here present, to give in a List of the ablest Expectants within their bounds, the morn, to the Clerk of the Assembly, that the Assembly may, out of these Rolls, make a List to be sent to every Presbyterie: Out of which the Presbyteries shall make a List of six persons, with consent foresaid, and send the samine upon vacancie of any Church within their bounds, together with a presentation to His Majestie, or any other patron, in manner foresaid. And because the Procurator and Agent of the Kirk cannot get sufficient information to the Lords of Exchequer, anent the Right and Interest of the Kirk, and Presbyteries in Kirks, whereof gifts of patronages may be presented to the Exchequer: Therefore the Assembly ordaines for their better information hereanent, that every Presbyterie, with all diligence, use all meanes of exact tryall of the nature and qualitie of all Kirks within their bounds, as what Kirks belong to the Kings Majesties patronage, what to other Laick patronages, what Kirks of old were planted by Presbyteries, and what by Prelates and Bishops, before the Assembly at Glasgow 1638, what hath been the way and time of the change of the planting and providing of the Kirks, if any have been changed, or any other thing concerning the nature and qualitie of every Kirk within their bounds, and to send the same to the Procurator of the Kirk with all diligence.

Act anent Lists for the Kirks in the High-lands.

THE Assembly considering that in Argyle, and in other places of the Irish language, there will not be gotten six expectants able to speak that language. And therefore the Assembly is hopefull, that in these singular cases, His Majestie will be pleased, for Kirks vacand in the High-lands, to accept of a List of so many expectants as can be had, able to speak the Irish language. And the Commissioners Grace promiseth to recommend it to His Majestie.

Overtures against Papists, non-Communicants, and Profaners of the Sabbath.

I.

THE Assembly would draw up a Supplication to be presented by the Commissioners of the Presbyterie of Edinburgh to the Councell at their first meeting, for the due execution of the Acts of Parliament and Councell against Papists, wherein it will be specially craved, that the Exchequer should be the Intromettors with the Rents of these who are excommunicate, and that from the Exchequer the Presbyterie may receive that portion of the confiscate goods, which the Law appoints to be imployed ad pios usus.

II. Every Presbyterie would conveen at their first meeting, all known Papists in their bounds, and require them to put out of their company, all friends and servants who are Popish within one moneth: also within that same space, to give their children, sons and daughters, who are above seven yeers old, to be educate at their charges, by such of their Protestant friends, as the Presbyterie shall approve, and finde sufficient caution for bringing home within three moneths such of their children who are without the Kingdom, to be educate in Schooles and Colledges at the Presbyteries sight; to finde caution likewise of their abstinence from Masse, and the company of all Jesuits and Priests.

III. That all, of whatsoever rank or degree, who refuse to give satisfaction in every one of the foresaid Articles, shall be processed without any delay; but those who give satisfaction shall be dealt with in all meeknesse, after this manner: The Presbyteries shall appoint such of their number as they shall find fittest to confer with them so frequently as the Brethren are able to attend, untill the midst of October next, against which time, if they be not willing to go to Church, they shall give assurance to go and dwell in the next adjacent University Town, whether Edinburgh, Glasgow, S. Andrews, or Aberdene, from Novemb. 1, to the last of March, where they shall attend all the diets of conference which the professors and Ministers of the bounds shall appoint to them: by which, if they be not converted, their obstinacy shall be declared in the Provincial Synods of April, and from thence their Processe shall go on to the very closure without any farther delay.

IIII. That every Presbyterie, as they will be answerable to the next Generall Assembly, be carefull to do their dutie in all the premisses.

V. That there be given presently, by the members of this present Assembly, unto the Commissioners of the Presbyterie of Edinburgh, a List of all excommunicate Papists they know, and of all Papists who have children educate abroad, that they may be presented, together with our Supplication, to the Councell, at their first sitting.

VI. That the Councell may be supplicate for an Act, that in no Regiment which goes out of the Kingdom, any Papists bear office, and that the Colonell be required to finde caution for this effect, before he receive the Councels Warrant for levying any Souldiers: also that he finde caution for the maintaining of a Minister, and keeping of a Session in his Regiment.

Item, The Assembly would enjoyn every Presbyterie to proceed against non-Communicants, whether Papists or others, according to the Act of Parliament made thereanent. And suchlike, that Acts of Parliament against prophaners of the Sabbath be put to execution.

The Assembly approves the Overtures foresaid, and ordains Presbyteries to put the samine to execution with all diligence: and that the Commissioners of every Presbyterie give in a List of the excommunicate Papists within their bounds, and of Papists children out of the Countrey, to the Clerk, that the same may be presented to the Councell by the Commissioners of this Assembly.

Act anent the joyning of the Presbyterie of Sky to the Synode of Argyle.

THE Generall Assembly having considered the whole proceedings of the Commissioners of the late Generall Assembly holden at Edinburgh, anent the reference made to them concerning the Presbyterie of Sky, together with the whole reasons pro & contra in the said matter, after mature deliberation have ratified and approved, and by these presents ratifie and approve the Sentence of the saids Commissioners thereintill. And further ordains the said Presbytery of Sky, and all the Ministers and Elders thereof, to keep the meetings of the Provincial Assembly of Argyle, where they shall happen to be appointed in all time coming, suchlike as any other Presbyterie within the bounds of the said Province of Argyle uses to do: And that the samine Presbyterie be in all time hereafter within the jurisdiction of the said Provincial Assembly, without any further question to be made thereanent.

Sess. VIII. 3 Aug., post meridiem.
The Supplication of this Assembly to the Kings Majestie.

To the Kings most Excellent Majestie, the hearty thanksgiving, and humble Petition of the Generall Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, met at S. Andrews July 27, 1642.

OUR hearts were filled with great joy and gladnesse at the hearing of Your Majesties Letter, which was read once and again in face of the Assembly, every line thereof almost either expressing such affection to the reformed Religion, and such royall care of us, as we could require from a Christian Prince; or requiring such necessary duties from us, as we are bound to performe as Ministers of the Gospel and Christian Subjects: For which, as solemne thanks were given by the Moderator of the Assembly, so do we all with one voice in all humility, present unto Your Majestie the thankfulnesse of our hearts, with our earnest prayers to God for Your Majesties prosperity, and the peace of your Kingdoms, that Your Majestie may be indeed a nursing Father to all the Kirks of Christ in Your Majesties Dominions; and especially to the Kirk of Scotland, honoured with your Birth Baptisme: promising our most serious indeavours by doctrine and life, to advance the Gospel of Christ, and to keep the people in our charge in Unity and Peace, and in all loyalty and obedience to Your Majestie and your Laws. Your Majesties commands to your Commissioner, the Earle of Dumfermling, to receive from us our just and reasonable desires for what may further serve for the good of Religion here, the favours which we have received already, and Your Majesties desire and delight to do good, expressed in your Letter, are as many encouragements to us, to take the boldnesse in all humility to present unto Your Majestie (beside the particulars recommended to Your Majesties Commissioner) one thing, which for the present is the chiefest of all our desires, as serving most for the glory of Christ, for Your Majesties Honour and Comfort; and not onely for the good of Religion here, but for the true happinesse and peace of all Your Majesties Dominions; which is no new motion, but the prosecution of that same which was made by the Commissioners of this Your Majesties Kingdom in the late Treatie, and which Your Majestie, with advice of both Houses of Parliament, did approve in these words: “To their desire concerning unitie in Religion and uniformitie of Church government, as a speciall meanes of conserving of Peace betwixt the two Kingdoms, upon the grounds and reasons contained in the Paper of the 10 of March, given in to the Treaty and Parliament of England: It is answered upon the 15 of June, That His Majestie, with advice of both Houses of Parliament, doth approve of the affection of His Subjects of Scotland, in their desire of having the conformity of Church-government betwixt the two Nations, and as the Parliament hath already taken into consideration the reformation of Church government, so they will proceed therein in due time, as shall best conduce to the glory of God, the Peace of the Church and of both Kingdoms, 11 of June 1641.” In our Answer to a Declaration sent by the now Commissioners of this Kingdom from both Houses of Parliament, we have not onely pressed this point of unity in Religion and Uniformity of Church-government, as a meane of a firme and durable union betwixt the two Kingdomes, and without which former experiences put us out of hope long to enjoy the puritie of the Gospel with Peace, but also have rendred the reasons of our hopes and confidence, as from other considerations, so from Your Majesties late Letter to this Assembly, that Your Majestie in a happy conjunction with the Houses of Parliament, will be pleased to settle this blessed Reformation, with so earnestly desired a Peace in all your Dominions. And therefore we Your Majesties most loving Subjects, in name of the whole Kirks of Scotland, represented by us, upon the knees of our hearts, do most humbly and earnestly beg, that Your Majesty in the deep of your Royall Wisdom, and from your affection to the true Religion and the Peace of your Kingdoms, may be moved to consider, that the God of Heaven and Earth is calling for this Reformation at your hands, and that as you are his Vice-gerent, so you may be his prime Instrument in it. If it shall please the Lord (which is our desire and hope) that this blessed unitie in Religion and Uniformity in Government shall be brought about; your Majesties Conscience, in performing of so great a dutie, shall be a well-spring of comfort to Your Self, your memory shall be a sweet favour, and your name renowned to all following generations. And if these unhappy commotions and divisions shall end in this peace and unity, then it shall appeare in the Providence of God, they were but the noyse of many waters, and the voyce of a great thunder before the voyce of harpers harping with their harps, which shall fill this whole Iland with melodie and mirth, and the name of it shall be, The Lord Is There.

The Declaration of the Parliament of England, sent to the Assembly.

THE Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, finding to their great grief, that the distractions of this Kingdome daily increase, and that the wicked counsells and practises of a malignant party amongst us (if God prevent them not) are like to cast this nation into bloud and confusion, To testifie to all the World how earnestly they desire to avoid a Civill Warre, they have addressed themselves in an humble Supplication to His Majestie, for the prevention thereof. A Copy of which their Petition, they have thought fit to send at this time to the Nationall Assembly of the Church of Scotland, to the intent that that Church and Kingdome (whereunto they are united by so many and so near bonds and tyes, as well Spirituall as Civill) may see that the like minde is now in them, that formerly appeared to be in that Nation. And that they are as tender of the effusion of Christian bloud on the one side, as they are zealous on the other side of a due Reformation both in Church and State. In which work, whilest they were labouring, they have been interrupted by the plots and practises of a malignant party of Papists, and ill-affected persons, especially of the corrupt and dissolute Clergy, by the incitement and instigation of Bishops, and others, whose avarice and ambition being not able to bear the Reformation endeavoured by the Parliament, they have laboured (as we can expect little better fruit from such trees) to kindle a flame, and raise a combustion within the bowels of this Kingdom: Which if by our humble supplication to His Majesty it may be prevented, and that according to our earnest desire therein, all Force and Warlike preparations being laid aside, we may returne to a peaceable Parliamentary proceeding, We do not doubt, but that by the blessing of Almighty God upon our endeavours, we shall settle the matters both in Church and State, to the encrease of His Majesties Honour and State, the peace and prosperitie of this Kingdome, and especially to the glory of God, by the advancement of the true Religion, and such a Reformation of the Church, as shall be most agreeable to Gods Word. Out of all which, there will also most undoubtedly result a most firme and stable Union between the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland, which, according to our Protestation, we shall by all good wayes and meanes, upon all occasions, labour to preserve and maintain,

Subscribitur, Jo. Brown, Cler. Parl.

The Assemblies Answer to the Declaration of the Parliament of England.

THE Generall Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, having received a Declaration sent unto them by the Commissioners of this Kingdome, now at London, from the honourable Houses of the Parliament of England, expressing their care to prevent the effusion of Christian bloud in that Kingdome, and their affections to Reformation, both in Kirk and State, and having taken the same to such consideration as the importance of so weighty matters, and the high estimation they have of so wise and honourable a meeting as is the Parliament of England, did require; have, with universall consent, resolved upon this following Answer:—

I. That from the recent sense of the goodnesse of God, in their own late deliverance, and from their earnest desire of all happinesse to our native King and that Kingdome, they blesse the Lord for preserving them in the midst of so many unhappy divisions and troubles from a bloudy Intestine War, which is from God the greatest Judgement, and to such a nation the compend of all calamities. They also give God thanks for their former and present desires of a Reformation, especially of Religion, which is the glory and strength of a Kingdome, and bringeth with it all temporall blessings of prosperity and peace.

II. That the hearts of all the members of this Assembly, and of all the well-affected within this Kingdome, are exceedingly grieved and made heavy, that in so long a time, against the professions both of King and Parliament, and contrary to the joynt desires and prayers of the godly in both Kingdomes, to whom it is more deare and precious then what is dearest to them in the world, the Reformation of Religion hath moved so slowly, and suffered so great interruption. They consider that not only Prelates, formall Professours, profane and worldly men, and all that are Popishly affected, are bad councellours and workers, and do abuse their power and bend all their strength and policies against the Work of God; but the god of this world also, with Principalities and Powers, the rulers of the darknesse of this world, and spirituall wickednesse in high places, are working with all their force and fraud in the same opposition, not without hope of successe, they having prevailed so farre from the beginning, That in the times of the best kings of Juda of old, and the most part of the Reformed Kirks of late, a through and perfect Reformation of Religion hath been a work full of difficulties; Yet doe they conceive, that as it ought first of all to be intended, so should it be above all other things, with confidence in God, who is greater than the world, and he who is in the world, most seriously endeavoured. And that when the supreame Providence giveth opportunity of the accepted time and day of salvation, no other work can prosper in the hands of his servants, if it be not apprehended, and with all reverence and faithfulnesse improved. This Kirk and Nation, when the Lord gave them the calling, considered not their own deadnesse, nor staggered at the promise through unbelief, but gave glory to God. And who knoweth (we speak it in humility and love, and from no other mind then from a desire of the blessing of God upon our King and that Kingdome) but the Lord hath now some controversie with England, which will not be removed, till first and before all, the worship of his name, and the government of his house be settled according to his own will? When this desire shall come, it shall be to England, after so long deferred hopes, a tree of life, which shall not only yeeld temporall blessings unto themselves, but also shall spread the branches so far, that both this nation and other reformed Kirks shall find the fruits thereof to their great satisfaction.

III. The Commissioners of this Kingdome in the late Treaty of peace, considering that Religion is not only the meane of the service of God and saving of Souls, but is also the base and foundation of Kingdomes and Estates, and the strongest band to tye Subjects to their Prince in true loyaltie, and to knit the hearts of one to another in true unity and love, They did, with preface of all due respect and reverence, far from arrogancy or presumption, represent, in name of this Kingdome, their serious thoughts and earnest desires for unity of Religion, That in all His Majesties Dominions, there might be one Confession of Faith, one directory of Worship, one publike Catechisme, and one forme of Kirk Government. This they conceived to be acceptable to God Almighty, who delighteth to see his People walking in truth and unity, to be a special meanes for conserving of peace betwixt the Kingdomes, of easing the Kings Majesty, and the publike Government of much trouble, which ariseth from differences of Religion, very grievous to Kings and Estates; of great content to the King himself, to his Nobles, his Court, and all his People, when (occasioned to be abroad) without scruple to themselves, or scandall to others, all may resort to the same publike worship, as if they were at their own dwellings; of suppressing the names of Heresies, and Sects, Puritans, Conformists, Separatists, Anabaptists, &c., which do rent asunder the bowels both of Kirk and Kingdome; of despaire of successe to Papists and Recusants, to have their profession, which is inconsistent with the true Protestant Religion, and authority of Princes, set up again, and of drawing the hearts and hands of Ministers, from unpleasant and unprofitable Controversies, to the pressing of mortification, and to Treatises of true pietie, and practicall Divinity. The Assembly doth now enter upon the labour of the Commissioners, unto which they are encouraged, not only by their faithfulnesse in the late Treaty, but also by the zeale and example of the Generall Assemblies of this Kirk in former times, as may appeare by the Assembly at Edinburgh, Decemb. 25, in the year 1566, which ordained a Letter to be sent to England against the Surplice, Tippet, Corner-cap, and such other ceremonies as then troubled that Kirk, that they might be removed. By the Assembly at Edinburgh, April 24, 1583, humbly desiring the Kings Majesty to command his Ambassadour, then going to England, to deale with the Queen, that there might be an union and Band, betwixt them and other Christian Princes and Realmes, professing the true Religion for defence and protection of the Word of God, and Professors thereof, against the persecution of Papists and confederates joyned and united together by the bloudy league of Trent: as also, that her Majesty would disburden their brethren of England of the yoke of Ceremonies, imposed upon them, against the libertie of the Word: And by the Assembly at Edinburgh, March 3, 1589, ordaining the Presbyterie of Edinburgh, to use all good and possible means for the relief and comfort of the Kirk of England, then heavily troubled for the maintaining the true discipline and government of the Kirk, and that the Brethren in their private and publike prayers, recommend the estate of the afflicted Kirk of England to God. While now, by the mercy of God, the conjunction of the two Kingdomes is many wayes increased, the zeale of the Generall Assembly towards their happinesse ought to be no lesse. But besides these, the Assembly is much encouraged unto this duetie, both from the Kings Majesty and his Parliament, jointly, in their Answer to the proposition, made by the late Commissioners of the Treaty, in these words:—To their desire concerning unity of Religion, and uniformity of Kirk government, as a speciall meanes for conserving of peace betwixt the two Kingdomes, upon the grounds and reasons contained in the paper of the 10 of March, and qiven in to the Treatie and Parliament of England. It is answered upon the 15 of June, That his Majestie, with advice of both Houses of Parliament, doth approve of the affection of His Subjects of Scotland, in their desire of having conformitie of Kirk government between the two Nations; and as the Parliament hath already taken into consideration the Reformation of Kirk government, so they will proceed therein in due time, as shall best conduce to the glory of God, the peace of the Kirk, and of both Kingdomes. And also severally; for his Majestie knoweth that the custodie and vindication, the conservation and purgation of Religion, are a great part of the duetie of Civill authority and power. His Majesties late practise while he was here in person, in resorting frequently to the exercises of publike worship, his Royall actions, in establishing the worship and government of this Kirk in Parliament, and in giving order for a competent maintenance to the Ministery and Seminaries of the Kirk, and His Majesties gracious Letter to the Assembly (seconded by the speech of His Majesties Commissioner) which containes this religious expression:—Where any thing is amisse we will endeavour a Reformation in a fair and orderly way, and where Reformation is settled, we resolve, with that authority wherewith God hath vested us, to maintain and defend it in peace and liberty, against all trouble that can come from without, and against all Heresies, Sects, and Schismes, which may arise from within. All these doe make us hopefull that His Majesty will not oppose, but advance the work of Reformation. In like manner, the Honourable Houses of Parliament, as they have many times before witnessed their zeale, so now also in their Declaration sent to the Assembly, which not only sheweth the constancy of their zeale, but their great grief that the worke hath been interrupted by a malignant party of Papists and evill affected persons, especially of the corrupt and dissolute Clergie, by the incitement and instigation of Bishops and others, their hope according to their earnest desire, when they shall returne to a peaceable and Parliamentary proceeding, by the blessing of God, to settle such a Reformation in the Church, as shall be agreeable to Gods word, and that the result shall be a most firm and stable union between the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland, &c. The Assembly also is not a little encouraged by a Letter sent from many reverend brethren of the Kirk of England, expressing their prayers and endeavours against every thing which shall be found prejudiciall to the establishment of the Kingdome of Christ, and the Peace of their Soveraigne. Upon these encouragements, and having so patent a doore of hope, the Assembly doth confidently expect, that England will now bestirre themselves in the best way for a Reformation of Religion, and do most willingly offer their prayers and uttermost endeavours for furthering so great a Work, wherein Christ is so much concerned in his glory, the King in his honour, the Kirk and Kingdome of England in their happinesse, and this Kirk and Kingdome in the purity and peace of the Gospel.

IIII. That the Assembly also from so many reall invitations, are heartened to renew the Proposition made by the aforenamed Commissioners of this Kingdome, for begining the Work of Reformation, at the uniformity of Kirk-government. For what hope can there be of Unity in Religion, of one Confession of Faith, one Form of Worship, and one Catechisme, till there be first one Forme of Ecclesiasticall Government? Yea, what hope can the Kingdome and Kirk of Scotland have of a firme and durable Peace, till Prelacie, which hath been the main cause of their miseries and troubles, first and last, be plucked up, root and branch, as a plant which God hath not planted, and from which, no better fruits can be expected then such sower grapes, as this day set on edge the Kingdome of England?

V. The Prelaticall Hierarchie being put out of the way, the Work will be easie, without forcing of any conscience, to settle in England the government of the Reformed Kirks by Assemblies. For although the Reformed Kirks do hold, without doubting, their Kirk Officers, and Kirk-government by Assemblies higher and lower, in their strong and beautiful subordination, to be jure divino, and perpetuall: yet Prelacie, as it differeth from the Office of a Pastor, is almost universally acknowledged by the Prelates themselves, and their adherents, to be but an humane ordinance, introduced by humane reason, and settled by humane Law and Custome for supposed conveniencie: which therefore by humane authority, without wronging any mans conscience, may be altred and abolished upon so great a necessity, as is a hearty conjunction with all the Reformed Kirks, a firm and well grounded Peace betwixt the two Kingdomes, formerly divided in themselves, and betwixt themselves by this partition wall, and a perfect Union of the Kirks in the two Nations: which although by the providence of God in one Iland, and under one Monarch, yet ever since the Reformation, and for the present also, are at greater difference in the point of Kirk-government, which in all places hath a powerfull influence upon all the parts of Religion, then any other Reformed Kirks, although in Nations at greatest distance, and under divers Princes.

VI. What may be required of the Kirk of Scotland, for furthering the Work of Uniformitie of Government, or for agreeing upon a common Confession of Faith, Catechisme, and Directory for Worship, shall, according to the order given by this Assembly, be most willingly performed by Us, who long extreamly for the day when King and Parliament shall joyn for bringing to passe so great, so good a Work, That all Warres and Commotions ceasing, all Superstition, Idolatry, Heresie, Sects, and Schismes being removed, as the Lord is one, so his name may be one amongst us; and mercy and truth, righteousnesse and peace meeting together, and kissing one another, may dwell in this Iland.