The secretary now insisted that the questions which they had discussed should be put to the vote, and that the determination of the meeting should fix a rule for uniformity of doctrine among the ministers. Knox protested against this motion, and reminded their lordships that the General Assembly had agreed to the present conference upon the express condition that nothing should be voted or decided at it. At last it was agreed, that the opinions of those who were present should be taken, but that they should not be considered as decisive. Winram, superintendent of Fife, and Douglas, rector of the university of St Andrew’s, were the principal persons among the ministers, {126} who agreed in sentiment with the courtiers. Knox’s colleague, in delivering his opinion, took occasion to give an account of a public dispute at which he had been present in Bologna, upon the question, Whether subjects have a right to control and reform their rulers, when they have been guilty of violating their oaths of office. Thomas de Finola, rector of the University, and Vincentius de Placentia, persons celebrated for their learning, maintained the affirmative on this question, and their opinion was adopted after long discussion. “Ye tell us what was done in Bologna,” exclaimed one of the courtiers; “we are in a kingdom, and they are but a commonwealth.”――“My lord,” replied Craig, “my judgment is, that every kingdom is a commonwealth, or at least should be, albeit that every commonwealth is not a kingdom; and therefore I think that in a kingdom no less diligence ought to be taken that laws be not violated than in a commonwealth, because the tyranny of princes who continually reign in a kingdom, is more hurtful to the subjects than the misgovernment of those that from year to year are changed in free commonwealths.” He added, that the dispute to which he had referred was conducted on general principles, applicable equally to monarchies and republics; and that one of the conclusions adopted was, that, although laws contrary to the law of God, and to the true principles of government, had been introduced, through the negligence of the people or the tyranny of princes, yet the same people, or their posterity, had a right to demand that all things {127} should be reformed according to the original institution of kings and commonwealths.[131]