[86] ‘La quelle (it is said in an instruction of 1640) en rigueur et cruauté surpasse l’inquisition d’Espagne, car en cette nouvelle cour les evesques seuls commandoient à la baguette, avec un pouvoir absolu--à l’encontre de toutes sortes de personnes, de quelque condition et qualité qu’elles fussent’ Russel, Life of Spottiswood xliii. [87] Baillie, Jan. 1637. ‘The last year (1636) our bishops guided all our estate, and became very terrible to our whole country.’ A later petition (1638) of the Scottish Privy Council complains of ‘the illimited power which the lords of the clergie in this kingdom have of late assumed--its unwarranted power.’ [88] Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiasticall--ratified by H. Maj. royal warrant--and ordained to be observed: Aberdene, 1636. Cp. Collier, Eccl. Hist. ii. 762. [89] Account of the riots on Sunday, July 23, 1637. From Wodrow’s Life of Lindsay, in Aiton, App. I. [90] The Clergie’s report about the Service-book. Apud Edr. 29 Julii, 1637. [91] Supplication of certain ministers of Fyffe, and Information given to several counsellers, in Baillie, App. i. 400. [92] A relation of proceedings concerning the affairs of the King of Scotland from Aug. 1637 to July 1638, by John Earl of Rothes. CHAPTER VI. THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. The cause of Presbyterianism in Scotland was also the cause of the Presbyterians in Ireland and England. We hear of violent pamphlets which arrived from England and poured oil upon the flame. The greatest activity was displayed by the ministers who had been banished from the Scottish colonies in Ireland. Unable to offer further resistance in that country to the ordinances of Wentworth and of the Irish bishops, they sought refuge in Scotland: and as they found there a spirit like their own ready to meet them, they threw themselves with ardent and unbounded zeal into opposition to the progress of that episcopal authority which had compelled them to retire from Ireland. That discipline and subordination which had hitherto been maintained in Scotland had been broken up by the course of affairs above mentioned. All obstacles had thus been removed from their path in that country: the injustice which they had suffered doubled their hatred of the system of Charles I and his ministers; and they exercised an incalculable influence upon the excitement of Puritan and Calvinist feelings prevailing in Scotland[93].