6. Scottish Episcopacy. 1572-1612.—The social condition of Scotland was very different from that of England. The nobles there had never been crushed as they had been in England, and they had tried to make the reformation conduce to their own profit. In 1572 they obtained the appointment of what were known as Tulchan bishops, who, performing no episcopal function, received the revenues of their sees and then handed them over to certain nobles.[21] The Presbyterian clergy, however, represented the popular element in the nation—and that element, though it had hitherto been weak, was growing strong through the discipline which it received in consequence of the leading share assigned to the middle and lower classes in the Church Courts (see p. [434]). The disagreement between these classes and the nobles gave to James the part of arbitrator, and thus conferred on him a power which no Scottish king had had before. After much vacillation, he consented, in 1592, to an act fully re-establishing the Presbyterian system. It was not long before he repented. The Presbyterian clergy attacked his actions from the pulpit, and one of them, Andrew Melville, plucking him by the sleeve, called him 'God's silly vassal.' The nobles, too, were angry because the clergy assailed their vices, and tried to subject them to the discipline of the Church. Though their ancestors had, at almost all times, been the adversaries of the kings, they now made common cause with James. Gradually episcopacy was restored. Bishops were re-appointed in 1599. Step by step episcopal authority was regained for them. In 1610 three of their number were consecrated in England, and in 1612 the Scottish Parliament ratified all that had been done.
7. The Scottish Bishops and Clergy. 1612-1637.—In England bishops had a party (lay and clerical) behind them. In Scotland they were mere instruments of the king and the nobles to keep the clergy quiet. In 1618, James, supported by the bishops and the nobles, forced upon a general assembly the acceptance of the Five Articles of Perth, the most important of which was a direction that the Communion should be received in a kneeling posture. Yet, in spite of all that James had done, the local popular Church courts still existed, and the worship of the Church remained still distinctly Calvinistic and Puritan. Charles was more eager than his father to alter the worship of the Scottish Church, and, in 1637, at his command, certain Scottish bishops—often referring for advice to Laud—completed a new Prayer Book, not unlike that in use in England, but differing from it, for the most part, in a sense adverse to Puritanism. The clergy declared against it, and this time the clergy had on their side the nobles, who not only feared lest Charles should take from them the Church lands appropriated by their fathers, but were also irritated at the promotion of some bishops to high offices which they claimed for themselves.
8. The Riot at Edinburgh and the Covenant. 1637-1638.—On July 23, 1637, an attempt was made to read the new service in St. Giles's, at Edinburgh. The women present burst into a riot, and one of them threw her stool at the head of the officiating minister, fortunately missing him. All Scotland took part with the rioters. The new Prayer Book was hated, not only because it was said to be Popish, but also because it was English. In November four committees, known as the Tables, practically assumed the government of Scotland. In February, 1638, all good Scots were signing a National Covenant. Nothing was said in it about episcopacy, but those who signed it bound themselves to labour, by all means lawful, to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it was established and professed before the recent innovations.
9. The Assembly of Glasgow, and the Abolition of Episcopacy. 1638.—The greater part of 1638 was passed by Charles in an endeavour to come to an understanding with the Scots. On September 2 he revoked the Prayer Book, and offered to limit the powers of the bishops. On November 21 a general assembly met at Glasgow, in which ninety-six lay members—for the most part noblemen—sat with 144 clergymen, and which may therefore be regarded as a sort of Ecclesiastical Parliament in which the clergy predominated as the nobles predominated in the single house which made up the real Parliament. The Assembly claimed to judge the bishops, on which the king's commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, dissolved the Assembly rather than admit its claim. The Assembly, however, on the ground that it possessed a Divine right to settle all affairs relating to the Church independently of the King, sat on, as if nothing had happened, deposed the bishops, and re-established the Presbyterian system.
10. The First Bishops' War. 1639.—In refusing to obey the order for dissolution, the Scottish General Assembly had practically made itself independent of the king, and Charles was driven—unless he cared to allow the establishment of a precedent, which might some day be quoted against him in England—to make war upon the Scots. Yet he dared not summon the English Parliament, lest it should follow their example, and he had to set forth on what came to be known as the First Bishops' War—because it was waged in the cause of the bishops—with no more money than he could get from a voluntary contribution, not much exceeding 50,000l. Soon after he reached Berwick with his army, he found that the Scots had, on Dunse Law,[22] an army almost equal to his own in numbers, commanded by Alexander Leslie, an old soldier who had fought in the German wars, and mainly composed of veterans, who had seen much service on the Continent, whilst his own men were raw recruits. His money soon came to an end, and it was then found impossible to keep the army together. The war was one in which there was no fighting, and in which only one man was killed, and he by an accident. On June 24 Charles signed the Treaty of Berwick. Both sides passed over in silence the deeds of the Glasgow Assembly, but a promise was given that all affairs civil and ecclesiastical should be settled in an assembly and Parliament. Assembly and Parliament met at Edinburgh, and declared in favour of the abolition of episcopacy; but Charles, who could not, even now, make up his mind to submit, ordered the adjournment of the Parliament, and prepared for a new attack on Scotland.