In order to satisfy the religious zeal which was still coupled with loyalty to the King, the Scottish Council hit upon the plan of setting up in opposition to the [A.D. 1638.] Covenant of February another which should emanate from the King himself. In this the clauses referring to the latest measures of the government and to the hostile feeling they had aroused, or implying the possibility of offering resistance to the King himself, were to be left out, but the anti-Catholic tone of the first was to be retained, and to be as prominent as ever. The Scottish statesmen affirmed that if the two books and the Articles of Perth were then recalled, the High Commission dissolved, and the General Assembly acknowledged, there was ground for entertaining not merely a hope but a confident expectation that general contentment would revive in the nation, and that all opposition would be put down at home: for that the movement in the nation had been caused by anxiety about innovations opposed to Protestantism, not by any feeling of disloyalty. On the advice of the highest officials in Scotland and of his friend Hamilton, the King conceded all these points. He consented to the proposal for renewing the old Covenant of his father’s time: he wished this to be signed at his own injunction, and a proclamation making new concessions was published in Edinburgh on the 20th of September[106]. The Privy Council expressed its agreement with this proclamation, which it characterised as the only thoroughly sufficient means of securing Church and State. They thought that the King’s subjects should prove their gratitude to him by hearty obedience, and that whoever henceforth should venture to disturb the peace of the realm ought to be chastised with all severity. The old Covenant was signed by the members of the Privy Council, and was then transmitted to the King in proof of re-established harmony. Proclamation was made with his sanction that a free General Assembly should be held on the 21st of November following at Glasgow, and a Parliament at Edinburgh in the May of the next year. And in the nation these measures were received with hearty approval in many quarters.