Scenes of tumult.
Preaching to an empty church.
The day for introducing the Liturgy was the signal for riots all over the kingdom. In the principal church in Edinburgh they called out "A pope! A pope!" when the clergyman came in with his book and his pontifical robes. The bishop ascended the pulpit to address the people to appease them, and a stool came flying through the air at his head. The police then expelled the congregation, and the clergyman went through with the service of the Liturgy in the empty church, the congregation outside, in great tumult, accompanying the exercises with cries of disapprobation and resentment, and with volleys of stones against the doors and windows.
The Scotch rebel.
The Scotch sent a sort of embassador to London to represent to the king that the hostility to the Liturgy was so universal and so strong that it could not be enforced. But the king and his council had the same conscientious scruples about giving up in a contest with subjects, that a teacher or a parent, in our day, would feel in the case of resistance from children or scholars. The king sent down a proclamation that the observance of the Liturgy must be insisted on. The Scotch prepared to resist. They sent delegates to Edinburgh, and organized a sort of government. They raised armies. They took possession of the king's castles. They made a solemn covenant, binding themselves to insist on religious freedom. In a word, all Scotland was in rebellion.
The king's fool.
It was the custom in those days to have, connected with the court, some half-witted person, who used to be fantastically dressed, and to have great liberty of speech, and whose province was to amuse the courtiers. He was called the king's jester, or, more commonly, the fool. The name of King Charles's fool was Archy. After this rebellion broke out, and all England was aghast at the extent of the mischief which Laud's Liturgy had done, the fool, seeing the archbishop go by one day, called out to him, "My lord! who is the fool now?" The archbishop, as if to leave no possible doubt in respect to the proper answer to the question, had poor Archy tried and punished. His sentence was to have his coat pulled up over his head, and to be dismissed from the king's service. Had the archbishop let it pass, it would have ended with a laugh in the street; but by resenting it, he gave it notoriety, caused it to be recorded, and has perpetuated the memory of the jest to all future times. He ought to have joined in the laugh, and rewarded Archy on the spot for so good a witticism.
A general assembly called in Scotland.
The Scotch, besides organizing a sort of civil government, took measures for summoning a general assembly of their Church. This assembly met at Glasgow. The nobility and gentry flocked to Glasgow at the time of the meeting, to encourage and sustain the assembly, and to manifest their interest in the proceedings. The assembly very deliberately went to work, and, not content with taking a stand against the Liturgy which Charles had imposed, they abolished the fabric of Episcopacy—that is, the government of bishops—altogether. Thus Laud's attempt to perfect and confirm the system resulted in expelling it completely from the kingdom. It has never held up its head in Scotland since. They established Presbyterianism in its place, which is a sort of republican system, the pastors being all officially equal to each other, though banded together under a common government administered by themselves.