The decision which he gave was the opposite of that which [A.D. 1638.] had been expected from him. In order once for all to avert the blow which threatened the bishops, Charles I took upon himself the responsibility of everything which had been laid to their charge. He met the suspicions which had been thrown upon the Liturgy by the assertion that it was only intended to serve as a means of strengthening true religion and of dispelling superstition: he took praise to himself for the trouble which he had personally taken in its composition: he said that there was no word in it which he had not approved: he continued firm in his resolve that it must and should be accepted. He still adhered to his point of view on church matters with a full sense of his dignity. He said that if meetings had been held and petitions forwarded to him in opposition to the book, he would ascribe this conduct rather to mistaken zeal than to intentional disobedience, and that he would pardon it; but that for the future he forbade every assembly of this kind under threat of the penalties inflicted on treason. James I had always succeeded in keeping alive the idea of the obedience that was due to him. Following his example, Charles I came forward personally, as it were, in defence of his cause: was it not likely, he thought, that the disturbance would be kept within bounds on this occasion also by the interposition of the supreme authority? Would men refuse to seize the means of escape afforded by the amnesty which the King offered, and prefer to break with him instead? But already during the last tumult astonishment had been excited by the slight effect which the name of the King had produced. We read in a contemporary letter that any one wishing to take King Charles’s part would have endangered his life, that a demoniacal frenzy possessed the people, that men had now a notion that Popery was at their doors, and would not let it go. Baillie expresses his fear lest they should be forced to drink the dregs of God’s cup which had been so bitter for the French and Dutch, and his apprehension not merely of a schism in the Church, but of a civil war.