simply because others had done so. Many signed through fear of the consequences of a refusal. But when allowance has been made for all the arts commonly employed to foment a popular disturbance, and for all the motives which have power to influence the popular mind at such times, it is impossible to doubt that, so far as the Covenant was understood to be taken in defence of the national religion, it reflected the current of the national thought. Scotland was now practically in a state of rebellion, and the Tables began to assume the airs of a sovereign. Munitions of war were collected and moneys levied. Several of the leaders had already come forward with voluntary subscriptions, Montrose heading the list with a contribution of twenty-five dollars. It was determined to supplement this with a more certain source of supply. A general tax was levied of a dollar on every thousand marks of rent. Though delicately called a contribution, it was in effect a tax, and a tax, moreover, levied with a strictness to which Scotsmen had hitherto been strangers. A committee was appointed for the purpose, soon to be known by the appropriate title of the War Committee. It was clear that some more serious effort must be made to maintain the royal authority than the issue of proclamations that were only laughed at. Hamilton was accordingly commissioned to treat with the Covenanters. He was empowered to make certain concessions, such as the King fondly conceived, or pretended to conceive, should be sufficient to assure all loyal Scotsmen that he had no design on either their religion or their laws. He might promise, for example, that the new Canons and the new Liturgy should not be pressed except in what Charles was pleased to call a fair and legal way. Some modifications also might be made in the Court of High Commission, a harmless invention of the previous reign with nothing but the name in common with that tribunal so odious to Englishmen, but which nevertheless was equally odious to Scotsmen, as relegating to bishops that moral supervision of the Church previously vested in the Presbyteries. But on one point the King was firm. No concession was to be made, nothing was to be promised, until the Covenant had been rescinded. In vain did all his advisers, Scots and English, clerics and laymen, assure him that negotiation on these terms was hopeless. It mattered not. The Covenant, he answered, was a standard of rebellion, and until it was taken down he had no more power in Scotland than a Doge of Venice.