[103] The only incident that tells for the "constitutional" interpretation is the refusal of the Lords of the Articles to allow the king to aid Louis XI of France in 1473. But the action of the Estates was simply the action of the chancellor, Evandale, and his party, who ruled the king with a rod of iron. It is very likely that there was, especially among the clergy, a strong general feeling against going to war, and this feeling strengthened the king's jailers. But the opposition of a small ruling clique of nobles to the whim of a powerless monarch is scarcely to be regarded as a great constitutional fact. It must also be remembered that the few who constituted the Lords of the Articles were virtually the Estates. [104] William Elphinstone. [105] _History of Greater Britain_, p. 352 (Scottish Hist. Soc. ed.). [106] Pedro de Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, 25 July 1498 (_Spanish Calendar_, i. no. 210). The context shows that the remark was incidental, and was induced by an allusion by the ambassador to the king's behaviour in battle. [107] _Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen_, pp. 102-5 (New Spalding Club ed.). [108] The burgesses and "a parte of the nobilitie" had petitioned for the act (Laing, _Knox_, i. 100). [109] In 1558, indeed, before the outbreak of hostilities, the Lords of the Congregation asked the queen-regent to abrogate the acts against heresy, and Mary made the pretext of her refusal the difficulty of obtaining the consent of the prelates (Spottiswood, _History of the Church of Scotland_, sub anno 1558). [110] Laing, _Knox_, ii. 87. [111] For other important points in connection with this Parliament, cf. _supra_, pp. 24-5. [112] _Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville_, p. 370 (Wodrow Society). The year is 1596. [113] _The Book of the Universall Kirk of Scotland_, i. 329, 362, &c. (Maitland Club). [114] _Ibid._ i. 59. [115] _Ibid._ i. 506. [116] _The Book of the Universall Kirk of Scotland_, passim. [117] "We farther give over in the hands and power of the devill the said N., to the destruction of his flesh; straitlie charging all that professe the Lord Jesus, to whose knowledge this our sentence sall come, to repute and hold the said N. accursed, and unworthie of the familiar societie of Christians; declaring unto all men that suche as hereafter, before his repentance, sall haunt or familiarlie accompanie him, are partakers of his impietie and subject to the like condemnation."--Sentence of excommunication in the _First Book of Discipline_. [118] Calderwood, _Historie of the Kirk of Scotland_, v. 341-2 (Wodrow Society). [119] _Ibid_. pp. 396-7. [120] Cf. _Presbytery Examined: an Essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation_, by the late Duke of Argyll; and the various books on Scottish Church history.