[178] [The charges are in the alleged causes which led James VI., immediately after his accession to the English throne, to endeavour to bring about uniformity in the services of the church throughout the whole kingdom, and run thus: "That diversitie, nay deformitie, which was used in Scotland, where no set or publike forme of prayer was used, but preachers or leaders and ignorant schoolmasters prayed in the church, sometimes so ignorantly as it was a shame to all religion to have the Majestie of God so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously that their prayers were plaine libels, girding at soveraigntie and authoritie; or lyes, being stuffed with all the false reports in the kingdome" (Large Declaration, 1639, p. 16).]
[179] [The committee appointed by the General Assembly to examine the Large Declaration describe it as dishonourable to God, to the king, and to the kirk; and as "stuffed full of lies and calumnies." Concerning this part in particular they say: "To the great dishonour of this kirk [it] is affirmed in this Declaration that there is a great deformitie in our service—no forme of publict prayer, but preachers, readers, and ignorant schoollemasters, praying in the church, sometymes so ignorantlie," &c. (Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, pp. 265, 266).
[180] [The six were John Wynram, John Spottiswoode, John Willock, John Douglas, John Row, and John Knox (supra, p. [99]).]
[181] Spottiswoode's History, Spot. Soc. ed., i. 371, 372.
[182] Supra, pp. [112], [113].
[183] The appointment of such an official as chief minister of the English congregation of Frankfort had, however, been urged by Knox's opponents there, but was refused by his party (Discourse of Troubles at Frankfort, pp. xiv, xlvii, cxvii, cxxxv-cxxxviii, cxlvi, cxlvii).
[184] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 409, 410; Laing's Knox, iv. 177.
[185] The great services Coverdale had rendered to the cause of Protestantism by his translation of the Scriptures did not suffice to blot out from the minds of Elizabeth and her ministers the remembrance of his connection with Knox and Goodman. He was welcomed at the consecration of Archbishop Parker, though he came in his black gown, for they could not well do that without him; but all Grindal's efforts failed to secure for him a Welsh bishopric, or even to get him left unmolested in the parochial benefice he conferred on him.
[186] Even in St Andrews, with all its equipment of schools and colleges, the common people are represented in 1547 as welcoming Knox's offer of a public disputation, because though they could not all read his papers they could understand what he addressed to them vivâ voce (Laing's Knox, i. 189).
[187] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 518; Laing's Knox, ii. 185.