Mr Tytler attributes these new troubles to the persecuting spirit of the Presbyterian divines. ‘The principle of toleration,’ he says, ‘divine as it assuredly is in its origin, yet so late in its recognition even amongst the best men, was then utterly unknown to either party, Reformed or Catholic. The permission even of a single case of Catholic worship, however secret; the attendance of a solitary individual at a single mass, in the remotest district of the land, in the most secluded chamber, and where none could come but such as knelt before the altar for conscience’ sake, and in all sincerity of soul; such worship and its permission for an hour, was considered an open encouragement of Antichrist and idolatry. To extinguish the mass for ever, to compel its supporters to embrace what the kirk considered to be the purity of presbyterian truth, and this under the penalties of life and limb, or in its mildest form of treason, banishment and forfeiture, was considered not merely praiseworthy, but a high point of religious duty; and the whole apparatus of the kirk, the whole inquisitorial machinery of detection and persecution, was brought to bear upon the accomplishment of these great ends.’ The king, whether from his natural disposition, or views of policy, was averse to harassing the papists. He one day spoke privately to Lord Hamilton of his unhappy position. ‘“You see, my lord, how I am used, and have no man in whom I may trust more than in Huntly, &c. If I receive him, the ministers cry out that I am an apostate from the religion; if not, I am left desolate.” “If he and the rest be not enemies to the religion,” said the Lord Hamilton, “ye may receive them; otherwise not.” “I cannot tell,” saith the king, “what to make of that; but the ministry hold them for enemies. Always, I would think it good that they enjoyed liberty of conscience.” Then the Lord Hamilton crying aloud, said: “Sir, then we are all gone, then we are all gone, then we are all gone! If there were no moe to withstand, I will withstand.” When the king perceived his servants to approach, he smiled and said: “My lord, I did this to try your mind.”‘--_Cal._ Few things could better illustrate the sanctity in which the principle of intolerance was then held, than to find a contemporary historian relating this anecdote as one simply illustrative of the infirm adherence of King James to the presbyterian cause. The Earl of Errol, one of the exiled Catholic lords, writing to the king from Middleburg in July 1596, speaks of having undergone incessant troubles ever since he professed the Catholic religion, and of having for three or four years past been in daily and extreme peril of his life. He says: ‘My late and greatest extremities have proceeded only upon that over-great fervour and onnecessar rigour of the ministry, wha, disdainfully rejecting all reasonable conditions, will force men’s consciences, not as yet persuaded, till embrace their opinions in matters of religion.’[195]