We must again turn our attention to the affairs of Scotland, and the internal struggles there. In the autumn of 1641 the King had made his comprehensive concessions to the Scots, in order to obtain their neutrality in his contest with the English Parliament. He thought he had personally made sure of the leading Covenanters, whom his concessions chiefly benefited. They had promised to live and die for him, in matters of temporal authority, and not to interfere in ecclesiastical disputes, in spite of their sympathies in favour of uniformity, except when he himself desired it[370]. For as he attributed his previous misfortunes to the alliance of the Scots and the English, he calculated on being strong enough, by satisfying the former, to resist the latter. Hence came his unyielding demeanour at the end of the year 1641, his departure from the capital, whereby he thought to secure a retreat into Scotland in case of necessity, and even the resolution to take up arms. Hamilton, who had been restored to favour, and for a long time had occupied his seat in the English Upper House, was one of the lords who assembled round the King at York, and strengthened him in his A.D. 1643. unconciliatory attitude. He then hastened into Scotland to exert his newly recovered influence there for the maintenance of a good understanding with the King. He was never weary of reminding men like Argyle and Loudon that they themselves and the Scots in general were pledged to the King, that he had fallen into all his difficulties through them, and that it would redound to their everlasting honour if they rescued him from them. It appears that their representations were not altogether fruitless. The two other leaders at least assented to his wish that the Queen should come to Scotland. The Privy Council, which conducted the government there, had been for a long time more favourable to the King than to the Parliament.
Had the Scottish aristocracy, like the English, sided en masse with the King, the monarchy would have been established throughout Great Britain on the old basis.
But the religious difficulty had made this impossible: for the difference between the English and Scottish nobility lay in the fact that the latter had abolished Episcopacy, while the former wished to maintain it, at least in England. Some Scots, for instance the Hamiltons, would have agreed to this, but by no means all. The Presbyterian clergy, on the contrary, were of the opinion, and expressed it with public authority in the General Assembly, that Episcopacy must be rooted out in England also, if the work of God was to be finished. Moreover the ruling grandees were afraid that the King would revoke all his concessions, as soon as he again obtained power[371]; they feared in that case to see their enemies exalted, for the old schism of the nobility was still in full operation. Argyle’s party could not go on long with the Hamiltons, when these drew together again.
It is intelligible that in this condition of the public mind every event in England should react on Scotland. The first encounter of the two parties took place at a sitting of the Privy Council in December 1642. The question was, whether A.D. 1643. of two opposing declarations made by the King and the English Parliament, which had been communicated together at the sitting, only the first, that of the King, or both alike should be printed. Hamilton and Lanerick observed that they owed duty to the King, but none to Parliament, and that the question was whether they would obey him or not. Argyle and Balmerino would not hear of commands and obedience in this tone, which would be reverting to the state of things in the old episcopal times. At this moment the Hamilton party was still the stronger: eleven members against nine determined that the King’s declaration should be printed, and not that of the Parliament[372].
In the state of parties this resolution of course created a great sensation. It implied a leaning towards the King’s cause on the part of the Scottish government, which was highly offensive to the earnest Covenanters. It was a trumpet-blast, says Baillie, which awoke us all.
The gentry of Fife, the most zealously Presbyterian association among the laity, flocked up to urge a repeal of the resolution; and similar petitions poured in from other counties, which were supported by many of the presbyteries. In pursuance of an act of Parliament, a new committee, called conservators of the peace, had just then been called into existence, and most of its members were Covenanters: in concert with them and the church commission, the Privy Council was obliged to declare that its publication of the King’s declaration implied no agreement with it: and the Parliamentary declaration had now to be printed also.
The matter was not ended yet: the fear gained ground that this resolution was only the first step to a greater scheme; that it would be proposed to arm for the King; that all the violent Royalists, the old Bonders, would be called upon to destroy the good patriots, their opponents[373].
The zealous Presbyterians spoke in a tone from which the A.D. 1643. King’s friends gathered that they would probably side with the Parliament against the King. To counteract this the Hamiltons put in circulation a petition in which they expressed their strong desire for ecclesiastical uniformity with England, but with the double limitation, first that they had no right to force on a neighbouring kingdom any forms of worship, on which only the legal authority could decide, and next that the league with England did not set the Scots free from the duty which bound them to their hereditary king[374]. Instead of quieting opposition, this petition only made it more vehement. For the Church valued the advancement of religion far more highly than any political interest, and thought itself justified by treaty in establishing ecclesiastical uniformity at any price, and even imposing it on the King. The petition was denounced in sermons, and signing it declared to be a crime: the church commission caused a counter declaration containing very violent language to be read from the pulpits.
There was a feeling throughout the country as though the outbreak of a new war was at hand: in February 1643 the noise of drums was believed to have been heard, and contending armies seen, in the air[375]. ‘Our neighbours’ houses are on fire,’ says Baillie, ‘and we already perceive in our own the smell of the burning.’
Immediately afterwards, through the influence of Argyle’s adherents and the Church, a deputation waited on the King, to urge him immediately to summon a Scottish Parliament, and to make an attempt at mediation between him and the English Parliament.