According to them, the Reform could triumph only in those countries in which it had the protection of princes. This is a serious error. It was not the bloodthirsty Philip II. who established the Reformation in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. It was neither the feeble James V. nor the popish Mary Stuart who secured its triumph in Scotland. That worthy niece of the Guises sought only to crush it. A stronger arm than theirs fought against those mighty ones and gave the victory to the weak. The enemies of the Reformation made use in Scotland of the very weapons which in Italy, in Spain, and elsewhere arrested the movement of regeneration. The reformers were burnt also in Scotland, but the Reform arose out of their ashes. It was neither to their character nor to their strength that the Scots attributed the triumph. They knew that Jesus is the king of the Church, and that it is he who saves it. This is the feature which more than any other, as we shall see, characterized the Scottish Reformation. Andrew Melville said to James VI., ‘Sire, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the head of the state, and there is Jesus Christ who is head of the Church.’[370] To the king enthroned at Rome, the Scottish Reformation opposed the king enthroned in heaven, and to him it attributed the victory. [Sidenote: PRIEST AND PASTOR.] But in proclaiming this supreme authority, the reformation in Scotland also established the duties and the rights of Christians. The charge of leading the Church in conformity with the law of God was there intrusted to general assemblies elected by the free choice of a Christian people.[371] The clergy had ruled in Scotland throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and during the first part of the sixteenth. The Reformation rescued the country from that clerical domination, and gave to it the first of all liberties, the freedom of faith. For centuries three powers had existed there,--the king, the nobles, and the priests, and the last had kept the upper hand. After the Reformation, two of these still remained, the king and the nobles; but the people took the place of the clergy. It was under a popular form, that of Presbyterianism, that the Church of Scotland constituted itself. The feudal castles had for some time still a marked influence on the destinies of the country; but the tide of national and Christian life was steadily rising all round their walls and soon overflowed the ancient battlements which crowned the summits of those old fortresses. Laymen, the deputies of the people, obtained a voice in the presbytery, in the synod, and in the general assembly. Thus, by successive steps, the voice of the people became, through the influence of Reform, the expression of the main force of the country.