their allegiance to their sovereign, except in so far as he exceeded his legitimate authority. Before entering on the Proceedings and Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church from 1638 to 1649, which it is one of the objects of this work to preserve, it is necessary, for the elucidation of these, to detail the circumstances, political and ecclesiastical, (these being, in truth, identical,) which preceded that great demonstration of the national will and power, during the years 1636 and 1637; and, in doing so, the facts shall be as concisely stated as is practicable, amidst the great mass of materials which are supplied to the student of our history in the numerous works that treat of the period now referred to.[10] Early in the progress of the Scottish Reformation, the Lords of the Congregation had directed the “Book of Common Order,” as it was called, which was used in the Protestant Church of Geneva, to be read in the religious service of the Scottish Reformers; and it was sanctioned by the Church in the “First Book of Discipline,” among the first of its acts after the abolition of Popery.[11] Under this sanction, the “Book of Common Prayer” was appointed to be used by the Readers as a part of the public worship in the churches; and, so far as we can discover, it continued to be used, either as an essential part or, at least, as the model for prayer in public worship, during the fluctuations in the frame of the Church in the time of James VI. The Assembly at Aberdeen,[12] indeed, had ordered the Geneva form to be revised; but the vehement opposition made in the subsequent Assembly at Perth to King James’ Articles, induced him to suspend his innovation. Charles, however, a man of higher moral and personal courage than his father, and stimulated by the fanatical and semipopish zeal of Laud, had given instructions, during his recent visit to Scotland, for superseding the early Book of Order, and directed the introduction of Canons and a Liturgy similar to those of England. In order to deceive the Scotch into a belief that it was different, and to soothe the national pride, by eschewing the aspect of servile imitation as a mark of its dependence on the English hierarchy, the Scotch Prelates devised a new Liturgy, which was, in many points, and indeed in its leading features, much more Popish than that of England.