ascended the throne, his claim would be opposed by partisans of James's eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, and that a civil war would ensue. 16. =The Divine Right of Kings. 1679.=--The fear of civil war already frightened some, and would in time frighten more, into the acceptance of a doctrine which seems very absurd now--the doctrine of Divine indefeasible hereditary right--that is to say, that the succession as it was established by English law was established by Divine appointment, so that, though indeed subjects might refuse to obey the king, if he ordered them to commit sin, it was their duty to bear uncomplainingly any punishment that he might impose on them, however tyrannical he might be. Such a doctrine was credited, not because those who held it were absolutely silly, but because they were more afraid of rebellion and civil war than they were of the tyranny of kings. For the present, however, such ideas had little hold on the new Parliament, and Charles prorogued it to give time for them to grow. 17. =The Highland Host. 1677-1678.=--Events were in the meanwhile passing in Scotland which helped to impress upon those who were easily frightened the idea that the only security against rebellion lay in a general submission to established institutions in Church and State. For many years Lauderdale had been, with Charles's full support, the absolute ruler of Scotland. He put down with a high hand the opposition of noblemen in Parliament, but he could not put down the religious zeal of the peasants, who, especially in the western Lowlands, combined zeal for Presbyterianism and the Covenant with exasperation against a Government which persecuted them. They held meetings for prayer and preaching on the open hill-sides, and the Government, failing to suppress these Conventicles, as they were called, by process of law, sent into the disaffected districts, in =1677=, a body of half-savage Highlanders known as the Highland Host, to reduce them to obedience by plunder and outrage.