that this should be summoned yearly for the future: that the Church should be secured by statute of Parliament, so that no alteration affecting it should ever be introduced unless the General Assembly had been previously informed of it[101]. It was Henderson and Johnston who put these demands into shape, as well as the preceding: they were laid before the King almost as conditions of peace from which no abatement could be made. Charles I was surprised, affected, and deeply mortified. What he had undertaken was nothing new, nor strictly speaking arbitrary. He felt himself free from any real [A.D. 1638.] inclination towards Catholicism. All that he had set his heart on was the close union of Scotland with England, the removal of oppressive aristocratic privileges, and the strengthening and confirmation of the monarchy. His ordinances were but a fresh step along the path on which his father had entered. But downright crying acts of violence are not needed to call forth violent and general storms. What stirred men’s feelings and provoked opposition on this occasion was the stronger pressure which the King thought himself entitled to use, but which the people and the great nobles feared would effect the completion of a detested system. Taking their stand on the ancient laws of the country, which they expounded in a popular and Presbyterian sense, the Scots set themselves with logical consistency to curtail the importance of the monarch. From defensive they passed to offensive measures. King Charles thought it almost mockery in them to set the new Covenant on a level with the old[102]: for although in both the duty of mutual defence had been set forth, yet in the old steps were to be taken under the lead of the King; in the new, on the contrary, they were directed against every one, without excepting even the King, and therefore under certain circumstances even against him: and he thought that the man who entered into such a League could be no good subject. The demands moreover which were laid before him at the same time, ran directly counter to the principles with which he started: they annihilated the power of inflicting punishment, which had hitherto been based upon the co-operation of royal with episcopal authority, and transferred it to the General Assembly, which at the same time retained an extremely strong lay element. This power of inflicting punishment however, combined with the interpretation of the laws, constitutes in a non-military state perhaps the most important attribute of the sovereign. The idea of divine right and power from above to which [A.D. 1638.] Charles I adhered, was speedily and boldly met by another theory, which, although it did not reject monarchy, yet in substance undertook to build up the edifice of Church and State from beneath. FOOTNOTES: