The south-western Highlands, from Lochaber to Islay and Cantyre, were, in his reign, the scene of constant clan feuds and repressions, resulting in the fall of the Macdonalds, and the rise of the Campbell chief, Argyll, to the perilous power later wielded by the Marquis against Charles I. Many of the sons of the dispossessed Macdonalds, driven into Ireland, were to constitute the nucleus of the army of Montrose. In the Orkneys and Shetlands the constant turbulence of Earl Patrick and his family ended in the annexation of the islands to the Crown (1612), and the Earl's execution (1615). CHAPTER XXIV. CHARLES I. The reign of Charles I. opened with every sign of the tempests which were to follow. England and Scotland were both seething with religious fears and hatreds. Both parties in England, Puritans and Anglicans, could be satisfied with nothing less than complete domination. In England the extreme Puritans, with their yearning after the Genevan presbyterian discipline, had been threatening civil war even under Elizabeth. James had treated them with a high hand and a proud heart. Under Charles, wedded to a "Jezebel," a Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, the Puritan hatred of such prelates as Laud expressed itself in threats of murder; while heavy fines and cruel mutilations were inflicted by the party in power. The Protestant panic, the fear of a violent restoration of Catholicism in Scotland, never slumbered. In Scotland Catholics were at this time bitterly persecuted, and believed that a presbyterian general massacre of them all was being organised. By the people the Anglican bishops and the prayer-book were as much detested as priests and the Mass. When Charles placed six prelates on his Privy Council, and recognised the Archbishop of St Andrews, Spottiswoode, as first in precedence among his subjects, the nobles were angry and jealous. Charles would not do away with the infatuated Articles of Perth. James, as he used to say, had "governed Scotland by the pen" through his Privy Council. Charles knew much less than James of the temper of the Scots, among whom he had never come since his infancy, and _his_ Privy Council with six bishops was apt to be even more than commonly subservient.