On July 23rd, 1637, the new liturgy, which the care of Archbishop Laud had provided for the Scottish Church, was to be read for the first time in the Church of St. Giles in Edinburgh. The clergyman entered the reading-desk and the service began. But before he had read many words a tumult, in which a crowd of women of the lower class took a prominent part, arose. National feeling and religious feeling were alike outraged by the introduction of the new Mass-book from England,[202] and the assembly, which had been called together for public worship, broke up in wild confusion. That local riot, which seemed but an ebullition of temporary fanaticism and discontent, was in reality the symptom of a grave disease in the body politic. It meant for Scotland the beginning of a civil war, which soon was to cross the border and to break up in the sister kingdom the long internal peace which had made her the envied of Europe. It meant for Henrietta Maria and her husband the end of their happy, careless years, and the entering upon a series of misfortunes, the number and bitterness of which are almost unparalleled even in the annals of the House of Stuart. After the riot events moved quickly, for behind the rioters was the virile force of the Scottish nation. Charles was unwilling to give way, and by November his northern subjects were almost in open revolt. It was an unfortunate moment. The English Puritans, who were irritated by their own grievances, showed an indecorous satisfaction in the Scottish events, as shrewd observers, such as Salvetti, the Florentine envoy in London, were not slow to observe. The King had no money to meet expenses, and no means of getting any, except the objectionable one of calling a Parliament. Abroad the outlook was no better, and Charles and Henrietta ought to have known, if they did not, that they had no friend upon whom they could rely in such a strait.