The Book of Canon Law was first brought out. It was drawn up by three English bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishops of London and Norwich, who belonged to the prevailing school of opinion. It was sent to Edinburgh, there amended, ratified in this shape by the King, in May 1635, and promulgated in the year 1636. It stands in sharply-defined contradiction to the ecclesiastical customs and to the opinions of the Scots. The Scottish Church had always opposed the royal supremacy: but in the new law-book this was laid down and enforced on [A.D. 1636.] pain of excommunication against all who should resist it, on the ground that it had been exercised by the Christian emperors of the first age. The Scots had originally claimed an independent legislative authority for their Church assemblies: the new law not only ordained that they must be summoned by the King, but also that even the bishops should not be authorised to introduce any alteration without the previous consent of the King. Single ordinances, as for instance those which prescribed the form of prayer in the Church, or the consequences of divorce, ran directly counter to Scottish usage. But the authority of the bishops, which all the measures aimed at securing, gave the greatest offence. The bishops alone were to have the right of expounding the Scriptures; private meetings of ministers for this purpose were to be forbidden; no one was to be allowed to controvert the opinion of another minister of the same diocese from the pulpit without permission of the bishop; without this permission no one was to give instruction either in public or in private; the bishops were to inflict punishment at their discretion when any publication appeared in print without the approval of the censor[88]. It is plain that these provisions put the whole internal life of the Church in regard to opinion and doctrine into the hands of the bishops. And was not the constitution of the Scottish Church virtually abolished when canons which made so thorough a change were to be introduced without the participation of the General Assembly? This was an affront to the national feeling of the Scots. ‘Supposing it were true,’ they said, ‘that the Scottish Kirk belonged to the province of York (as was formerly pretended), yet more than the bare warrant of the King would be required to introduce ordinances which affected the life of the Church collectively.’ The laws enforced beforehand, and that under threat of the severest penalties, the acceptance of a liturgy which had not yet appeared.