=13. Hamilton Commissioner.=--A few months later the _Marquess of Hamilton_ came to _Scotland_ as _Commissioner_ with full power, it was said, to settle everything. The demands of the _Covenanters_ were that the _Court of High Commission_, the _Canons_ and the _Liturgy_ should all be done away, and that a free Assembly and a free Parliament should be summoned. But Hamilton, acting on the orders given him, kept putting them off with promises till the King should be ready to put them down by force, when suddenly the King turned about, promised all they asked, and agreed that the Assembly should be called, and that the bishops should be tried by it. =14. Glasgow Assembly.=--The Assembly met in the Cathedral Church at _Glasgow_, November 21, 1638. Hamilton opened it as the Royal _Commissioner_. But after a few days, when the attack on the bishops began, he withdrew and ordered the members to disperse. They paid no heed to this order, but went on with the trial of the bishops, who were all deposed, and eight of them excommunicated. The _Canons_ and the _Liturgy_ were then rejected, and all acts of the _Assemblies_ held since 1606 were annulled. =15. War in the North.=--In the _North_, where _Huntly_ was the _King's Lieutenant_, the Covenant had not been received, and the Tables resolved to enforce it with the sword. Scotland was now full of trained soldiers just come back from _Germany_, where they had learnt to fight in the _Thirty Years war_, and as plenty of money had been collected among the Covenanters, an army was easily raised. Their banner bore the motto, _For Religion, the Covenant, and the Country_, and their leader was _James Graham, Earl of Montrose_, one of the most zealous among the champions of the cause. _Aberdeen_, Huntly's capital, dared make no resistance, for the soldiers occupied the town and the ministers the pulpits, and Montrose brought Huntly himself back to _Edinburgh_ in his train. But in the first brush of actual war the _King's party_, the _Cavaliers_, or _Malignants_ as their opponents called them, had the advantage, for they surprised and scattered the _Covenanters_ of the _North_ at the little village of _Turriff_, which they had made their trysting place. In this action, called the _Trot of Turriff_, the first blood was shed in the great Civil War. The Cavaliers were the first to draw the sword. Though Huntly had been taken out of the way by his removal to Edinburgh, his two sons, the _Lord Aboyne_ and _Lewis Gordon_, supplied his place and called out the Highlanders. _Aberdeen_ changed hands, and again _Montrose_ was sent to subdue the _North_ before the expected struggle with England should begin. At the _Bridge of Dee_ he defeated the Malignants, and once more entered Aberdeen in triumph. Just after this entry the news was brought that peace had been made between the King and the other army of the Covenant on the Border. June 1639.