When the astonished people heard these accents, which were strange to their ears and which they regarded as savoring of Popery, a profound emotion took possession spontaneously of the whole assembly. An old woman threw her footstool at the head of the officiating clergyman; sedition sprang up in the streets. Repression did not calm the agitation. From Edinburgh it spread into all the counties of Scotland. Every day the privy council and the municipal council were besieged by a numerous, earnest, and ardent mob; by gentlemen, farmers, townsmen, artisans, peasants, who complained of the innovations introduced into their worship. Upon being ordered to retire, they gave way without violence, but the petitioners came back in greater numbers on the morrow. Everywhere resistance was being organized, and when a royal order was at length promulgated, prohibiting any assemblage under pain of treason, the Lords Hume and Lindsay, both peers of the Realm, following in the steps of the herald who read the royal proclamation, caused to be affixed to the walls a protest which they had signed in the name of their fellow-citizens. {54} The same care was taken in all places in which the king's proclamation was made public. Six weeks after the imprudent and arbitrary act of Charles, the whole of Scotland was confederated under a solemn pledge called the "Covenant," a profession of religious faith, and a national protest against the new liturgy which the Government wished to impose upon the public. The king and Laud had roused the Scottish nation to rebellion against them. Charles was both astonished and indignant. Imbued with all the principles which flourished on the Continent respecting the royal dignity and authority, he looked upon resistance as a crime of the lower classes, and marvelled to see noblemen and gentlemen united in the same feeling and serving the same cause. He immediately resolved to have recourse to force in order to chastise the rebels, but he required time to raise an army. The Marquis of Hamilton, despatched into Scotland to negotiate with the Covenanters, promised all that was desired, and authorized the assembling of a general synod, wherein all the controverted questions might be discussed. The assembly met at Glasgow; but the Scots, distrusting with good cause so much condescension, soon perceived that Hamilton was merely endeavoring to delay matters. At the moment when the synod was preparing to accuse the bishops, the marquis suddenly declared its dissolution. At the same time it learned that war was imminent, and that a body of troops raised in Ireland by Strafford was about to land in Scotland. The king was preparing to chastise his rebellious subjects, and Hamilton returned precipitately to London, while the synod, without troubling itself about its dissolution, continued its deliberations and abolished the episcopate. {55}