Agreeably to the royal order, the communion was administered in the king’s chapel at Holyroodhouse in July, ‘by sound of trumpet,’ to all such of his majesty’s councillors, members of the College of Justice, and others, as were disposed thus to testify their worthiness of the royal favour. On the 6th of November, the king wrote a letter to his Scottish Council on this subject. ‘Understanding,’ he says, ‘that some popishly affected have neglected this course, we, out of our care and affection for the maintenance of the professed religion, are pleased to will and require that you remove from our council-table all such who are disobedient in that kind.’ This the Council (December 3) obediently resolved to do. [Sidenote: 1628.] The Council was much importuned by the captive papists for relief; but it was pithily ordained that none now or hereafter ‘sall be relieved out of ward, but upon obedience and conformity to the true religion, or else upon their _voluntary offer_ of banishment furth of his majesty’s whole dominions.’ One remarkable captive was the Marchioness of Abercorn, whom we have already seen manifesting some ultra-ardour on her own side. This lady had lain for a long time in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh--a lodging which was loathsome in the reign of George III., and may be presumed to have been still worse in that of Charles I. The confinement had procured her ladyship ‘many heavy diseases, so as this whole last winter she was almost tied to her bed,’ and she now ‘found a daily decay and weakness in her person.’ The severity of the fate of this, as of some other persons, may be measured by the mercy extended to her. It being represented to the king that her ladyship, being oppressed with sickness and disease of body, required the benefit of a watering-place, he, being inclined, on the one hand, to do nothing that would derogate from the authority of the church, but, on the other, being unwilling that the lady should be ‘brought to the extremity of losing her life for want of ordinary remedies,’ ordered (July 9, 1629) that she should have a licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but only on condition that she should not attempt to appear at court, and after her recovery, return and put herself again at the disposal of the Council.