[108] Note on the private articles: Baillie i. 469. Guthrie’s assertion goes somewhat further: ‘For the ruling elders, as there was but one from each presbytery, so they enjoined that he should be a well-affected nobleman, and failing there a well-affected gentleman; whereby it came to pass that all the noblemen who were furious in the cause were elected either in one presbytery or in the other.’ (p. 46.) [109] Documents in Rushworth ii. 342. Aiton, Life of Henderson 358. [110] Cp. Laud to Strafford. Strafford Letters ii. 265. BOOK VII. CONNEXION BETWEEN THE TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND AND THOSE IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE. CHAPTER I. CAMPAIGN OF CHARLES I AGAINST SCOTLAND. Some few score of years before these events, the Aragonese had rebelled against Philip II for reasons similar to those for which the Scots rebelled against Charles I. The pressure of the ecclesiastical and temporal rule as exercised by that sovereign had made the Aragonese anxious for their ancient liberties: the Inquisition was as much hated by them as the High Commission by the Scots; and a trivial circumstance had sufficed to cause the nobles, the hidalgos, and the towns to revolt in quick succession. But Philip II had arrayed against the Aragonese the power of his principal state of Castile, to the position of which they feared to be reduced, had recovered their obedience by force, had still more narrowly restricted their ancient liberties, and had established the royal authority more firmly than any of his predecessors had ever succeeded in doing. The cause of the Scots involved yet more serious issues than that of the Aragonese. If the Aragonese had been victorious, they would only have revived within narrow territorial limits a representative Catholic constitution, according to the ideas of the middle ages. The Scots on the other hand repudiated everything which reminded them of the old hierarchy and its alliance with the crown: they laid claim on religious grounds to a political freedom such as had never yet existed in the world.