The new reign had scarcely begun when trouble arose between King Charles and his Scottish subjects. On the one hand, he alienated the nobles by an attempt, partially successful, to secure for the Church some of its ancient revenues. More serious still was his endeavour to bring the Scottish Church into uniformity with the usage of the Church of England. James had understood that any further attempt to alter the service or constitution of the Church of Scotland would infallibly lead to serious trouble. He had given up an intention of introducing a new prayer-book to supersede the "Book of Common Order", known as "Knox's Liturgy", which was employed in the Church, though not to the exclusion of extemporary prayers. When Charles came to Edinburgh to be crowned, in 1633, he made a further attempt in this direction, and, although he had to postpone the introduction of this particular change, he left a most uneasy feeling, not only among the Presbyterians, but also among the bishops themselves. An altar was erected in Holyrood Chapel, and behind it was a crucifix, before which the clergy made genuflexions. He erected Edinburgh into a bishopric, with the Collegiate Church of St. Giles for a cathedral, and the Bishops of Edinburgh, as they followed in rapid succession, gained the reputation of innovators and supporters of Laud and the English. Even more dangerous in its effect was a general order for the clergy to wear surplices. It was widely disobeyed, but it created very great alarm.

In 1635, canons were issued for the Church of Scotland, which owed their existence to the dangerous meddling of Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury. James, who loved Episcopacy, had dreaded the influence of Laud in Scotland; his fear was justified, for it was given to Laud to make an Episcopal Church impossible north of the Tweed. Although certain of the Scottish bishops had expressed approval of these canons, they were enjoined in the Church by royal authority, and the Scots, whose theory of the rights of the Church was much more "high" than that of Laud, would, on this account alone, have met them with resistance. But the canons used words and phrases which were intolerable to Scottish ears. They spoke of a "chancel" and they commended auricular confession; they gave the Scottish bishops something like the authority of their English brethren, to the detriment of minister and kirk-session, and they made the use of a new prayer-book compulsory, and forbade any objection to it. Two years elapsed before the book was actually introduced. It was English, and it had been forced upon the Church by the State, and, worse than this, it was associated with the hated name of Laud and with his suspected designs upon the Protestant religion. When it came it was found to follow the English prayer-book almost exactly; but such changes as there were seemed suspicious in the extreme. In the communion service the rubric preceding the prayer of consecration read thus: "During the time of consecration he shall stand at such a part of the holy table where he may with the more ease and decency use both his hands". The reference to both hands was suspected to mean the Elevation of the Host, and this suspicion was confirmed by the omission of the sentences "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving", and "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful", from the words of administration. On more general grounds, too, strong objection was taken to the book, and on July 23rd, 1637, there occurred the famous riot in St. Giles's, which has become connected with the name of Jennie Geddes. The objection was not, in any sense, to read prayers in themselves; the Book of Common Order had been read in St. Giles's that very morning. The difficulty lay in the particular book, and it is notable that the cries which have come down to us as prefacing the riot are all indicative of a suspected attempt to reintroduce Roman Catholicism. "The mass is entered upon us." "Baal is in the Church." "Darest thou sing mass in my lug."

The Privy Council was negligent in punishing the rioters, and it soon became evident that they had public opinion behind them. Alexander Henderson, who ministered to a Fifeshire congregation in the old Norman church of Leuchars, and whom the king was to meet in other circumstances, issued a respectful and moderate protest, in which he did not deal with the particular points at issue, but asserted the ecclesiastical independence of Scotland. Riots continued to disturb Edinburgh, and Charles was impotent to suppress them. He refused Henderson's "Supplication"; its supporters drew up a second petition boldly asking that the bishops should be tried as the real authors of the disturbances, and, in November, 1637, they chose a body of commissioners to represent them. These commissioners, and some sub-committees of them, are known in Scottish history as The Tables, the name being applied to several different bodies. Charles replied to the second petition in wrathful terms, and it was decided to revive the National Covenant of 1581, to renounce popery. It had been drawn up under fear of a popish plot, and was itself an expansion of the Covenant of 1557. To it was now added a declaration suited to immediate necessities. On the 1st and 2nd March, 1638, it was signed by vast multitudes in the churchyard of Greyfriars, in Edinburgh, and it continued to be signed, sometimes under pressure, throughout the land. Hamilton, Charles's agent in Scotland, was quite unable to meet the situation. In the end Charles had to agree to the meeting of a General Assembly in Glasgow, in November, 1638. Hamilton, the High Commissioner, attempted to obtain the ejection of laymen and to create a division among his opponents. When he failed in this, he dissolved the Assembly in the king's name. At the instance of Henderson, supported by Argyll, the Assembly refused to acknowledge itself dissolved, and proceeded to abolish Episcopacy and re-establish the Presbyterian form of Church government.

The king, on his part, began to concert measures with his Privy Councilfor the subjugation of Scotland. The "Committee on Scotch affairs" of the English Privy Council was obviously unconstitutional, but matters were fast drifting towards civil war, and it was no time to consider constitutional niceties. It is much more important that the committee was divided and useless. Wentworth, writing from Ireland, advised the king to maintain a firm attitude, but not to provoke an outbreak of war at so inconvenient a moment. Charles again attempted a compromise. He offered to withdraw Laud's unlucky service-book, the new canons, and even the Articles of Perth, and to limit the power of the bishops; and he asked the people to sign the Covenant of 1580-81, on which the new Covenant was based, but which, of course, contained no reference to immediate difficulties. But it was too late; the sentiment of religious independence had become united to the old feeling of national independence, and war was inevitable. The Scots were fortunate in their leaders. In the end of 1638 there returned to Scotland from Germany, Alexander Leslie, the great soldier who had fought for Protestantism under Gustavus Adolphus. In February, 1639, he took command of the army of the Covenant, which had been largely reinforced by veterans from the Thirty Years' War. A more attractive personality than Leslie's was that of the young Earl of Montrose, who had attached himself with enthusiasm to the national cause, and had attempted to convert the people of Aberdeen to covenanting principles. Charles, on his part, asserted that his throne was in danger, and that the Scottish preparations constituted a menace to the kingdom of England, and so attempted to rouse enthusiasm for himself.

While the king was preparing to reinforce the loyalist Marquis of Huntly at Aberdeen, the news came that the garrisons of Edinburgh and Dunbarton had surrendered to the insurgents (March, 1639), who, a few days later, seized the regalia at Dalkeith. On March 30th Aberdeen fell into the hands of Montrose and Leslie, and Huntly was soon practically a prisoner. Charles had by this time reached York, and it was now evident that he had entirely miscalculated the strength of the enemy. He had hoped to subdue Scotland through Hamilton and Huntly; he now saw that, if Scotland was to be conquered at all, it must be through an English army. The first blood in the Civil War was shed near Turriff, in Aberdeenshire (May 14th, 1639), where some of Huntly's supporters gained a slight success, after which the city of Aberdeen fell into their hands for some ten days, when it was reoccupied by the Covenanters. Meanwhile Charles and Leslie had been facing each other near Berwick; the former unwilling to risk his raw levies against Leslie's trained soldiers, while the Covenanters were not desirous of entering into a war in which they might find the whole strength of England ultimately arrayed against them. On the 18th June the two parties entered into the Pacification of Berwick, in accordance with which both armies were to be disbanded, and Charles promised to allow a free General Assembly and a free Parliament to govern Scotland. While the pacification was being signed at Berwick, a battle was in progress at Aberdeen, where, on June 18th-19th, Montrose gained a victory, at the Bridge of Dee, over the Earl of Aboyne, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly. For the third time, Montrose spared the city of Aberdeen, and Scotland settled down to a brief period of peace.

It was clear that the pacification was only a truce, for no exact terms had been agreed upon, and both sides thoroughly distrusted each other. Disputes immediately arose about the constitution of Parliament and the Assembly. Charles refused to rescind the acts constituting Episcopacy legal, and it is clear that he never intended to keep his promise to the Scots, who, on their part, were too suspicious of his good faith to carry out their part of the agreement. In the end Assembly and Parliament alike abolished Episcopacy, and Parliament passed several acts to ensure its own supremacy. Charles refused to assent to these Acts, and prorogued Parliament from November, 1639, to June, 1640. The result of the king's evident disinclination to implement the Treaty of Berwick, was an interesting attempt to undo the work of the preceding century by a reversion to the old policy of a French alliance. It was, of course, impossible thus to turn back, and Richelieu met the Scottish offers with a decisive rebuff, while the fact of these treasonable negotiations became known to Charles, and embittered the already bitter controversy. A new attempt at negotiation failed, and in June, 1640, the second Bishops' War began. As usual the north suffered, especially from the fierceness of the Earl of Argyll, who disliked the more moderate policy advocated by Montrose. The king's English difficulties were increasing, and the Scots had now many sympathizers among Englishmen, who looked upon them as fighting for the same cause of Protestantism and constitutional government.

In August the Scots invaded England for the first time since the minority of Mary Stuart, and, on August 28th, they defeated a portion of the king's army at Newburn, a ford near Newcastle. The town was immediately occupied, and from Newcastle the invaders advanced to the Tees and seized Durham. Charles was forced, a second time, to give way. In October he agreed that the Scottish army of occupation should be paid until the English Parliament, which he was about to summon, might make a final arrangement. By Parliament alone could the Scots be paid, and thus, by a strange irony of fate, the occupation of the northern counties by a Scottish army was, for the time, the best guarantee of English liberties. There were, however, points on which the Scottish army and the English Parliament found it difficult to agree, and it was not till August, 1641, that the Scots recrossed the Tweed. Charles, who hoped to enlist the sympathy of the Scots in his struggle with the English Parliament, paid a second visit to Edinburgh, where he gave his assent to the abolition of Episcopacy, and to the repeal of the Acts which had given rise to the dispute. But it became evident that the Parliament, and not the king, was to bear rule in Scotland. The king's stay in Edinburgh was marked by what is known as "The Incident", a mysterious plot to capture Argyll and Hamilton, who was now the ally of Argyll. It was supposed that the king was cognizant of the plan; he had to defend himself from the accusation, and was declared guiltless in the matter. At the time of the Incident, Argyll fled, but soon returned, and Charles had to yield to him in all things. Parliament, under Argyll, appointed all officials. Argyll himself was made a marquis, and Leslie became Earl of Leven. There was a general amnesty, and among those who obtained their liberty was the Earl of Montrose, who had been imprisoned in May for making terms with the king. In November, 1641, Charles left Scotland for London, to face the English Parliament. He can scarcely have hoped for Scottish aid, and when, a few months later, he was on the verge of hostilities and made a request for assistance, it was twice refused.

With the general course of the Great Rebellion we are not here concerned. It is important for our purpose to notice that it affected Scotland in two ways. The course of events converted, on the one hand, the Episcopalian party into a Royalist party, and placed at its head the Covenanter, Montrose. On the other hand, the National Covenant was transformed into the Solemn League and Covenant, which had for its aim the establishment of Presbytery in England as well as in Scotland. This "will o' the wisp" of covenanted uniformity led the Scottish Church into somewhat strange places. As early as January, 1643, Montrose had offered to strike a blow for the king in Scotland, but Charles would not take the responsibility of beginning the strife. In August negotiations began for the extension of the covenant to England. The Solemn League and Covenant, which provided for the abolition of Episcopacy in England, was adopted by the Convention of Estates at Edinburgh on August 17th, and in the following month it passed both Houses of Parliament in England, and was taken both by the House of Commons and by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. Its only ultimate results were the substitution in Scotland of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory for Public Worship, in place of the older Scottish documents, and the approximation of Scottish Presbytery to English Puritanism, involving a distinct departure from the ideals of the Scottish Reformation, and the introduction into Scotland of a form of Sabbatarianism which has come to be regarded as distinctively Scottish, but which owes its origin, historically, to English Nonconformity.[89] Its immediate effects were the short-lived predominance of Presbytery in England, and the crossing of the Tweed, in January, 1644, by a Scottish army in the pay of the English Parliament. The part taken by the Scottish army in the war was not unimportant. In April they aided Fairfax in the siege of York; in July they took an honourable share in the battle of Marston Moor; they were responsible for the Uxbridge proposals which provided for peace on the basis of a Presbyterian settlement. In June, 1645, they advanced southwards to Mansfield, and, after the surrender of Carlisle, on June 28th, and its occupation by a Scottish garrison, Leven proceeded to Alcester and thereafter laid siege to Hereford, an attempt which events in Scotland forced him to abandon. Finally, in May, 1646, the king surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark, which had been invested by Leven since the preceding November.

While the Scottish army was thus aiding the Parliamentary cause, the Earl of Montrose had created an important diversion on the king's side in Scotland itself. In April, 1644, he occupied Dumfries and made an unsuccessful attempt on the Scottish Lowlands. In May Charles conferred on him a marquisate, and in August he prepared to renew the struggle. To his old foes, the Gordons, he first looked for assistance, but was finally compelled to raise his forces in the Highlands, and to obtain Irish aid. On September 1st he gained his first victory at Tippermuir, near Perth, on which he had marched with his Highland host. From Perth he marched on Aberdeen, gaining some reinforcements from the northern gentry, and in particular from the Earl of Airlie. Once again Montrose fought a battle which delivered the city of Aberdeen into his power (September 13th), but now he was unwilling or unable to protect the captured town, which was cruelly ravaged. From Aberdeen Montrose proceeded by Rothiemurchus to Blair Athole, but suddenly turned backwards to Aberdeenshire, where he defended Fyvie Castle, slipped past Argyll, and again reached Blair Athole. The enemies of Argyll crowded to his banner, but his army was still small when, in December, 1644, he made his descent upon Argyll, and reached the castle of Inverary. From Inverary he went northwards, ravaging as he went, till he found, at Loch Ness, that there was an army of 5000 men under the Earl of Seaforth prepared to resist his advance, while Argyll was behind him at Inverlochy. Although Argyll's army considerably outnumbered his own, Montrose turned southwards and made a rapid dash at Argyll's forces as they lay at Inverlochy, and won a complete victory, the news of which dispersed Seaforth's men and enabled Montrose to invite Charles to a country which lay at his mercy. At Elgin he was joined by the heir of the Marquis of Huntly, his forces increased, and the excommunication which the Church immediately published against him seemed of but little importance. On April 4th he seized Dundee, and on May 9th won a fresh victory at Auldearn, which was followed, in rapid succession, by a victory at Alford in July, and in August by the "crowning mercy" of Kilsyth, which made him master of the situation, and forced Leven to raise the siege of Hereford. From Kilsyth he marched to Glasgow, where both the Highlanders and the Gordons began to desert him. From England, Leven sent David Leslie to meet Montrose as he marched by the Lothians into the border counties. On September 13th, 1645, just one year after his victory at Aberdeen, Montrose was completely defeated at Philiphaugh. He escaped, but his power was broken, and he was unable henceforth to take any important share in the war.

When Charles surrendered himself to the Scots, in May, 1646, his friend in Scotland were helpless, and he had to meet the Presbyterian leaders without any hope beyond that of being able to take advantage of the differences of opinion between Presbyterians and Independents, which were fast assuming critical importance. The king held at Newcastle a conference with Alexander Henderson, which led to no definite result. In the end the Scots offered to adopt the king's cause if he would accept Presbyterianism. This he declined to do, and his refusal left the Scots no choice except keeping him a prisoner or surrendering him to his English subjects. They owed him no gratitude, and, while it might be chivalrous, it could scarcely be expedient to retain his person. While he was unwilling to accede to their conditions they were powerless to give him any help. He was therefore handed over to the commissioners of the English Parliament, and the Scots, on the 30th January, 1647, returned home, having been paid, as the price of the king's surrender, the money promised them by the English Parliament when they entered into the struggle in 1644.

In the end of 1647 the Scots again entered into the long series of negotiations with the king. When Charles was a prisoner at Newport, and while he was arranging terms with the English, he entered into a secret agreement with commissioners from Scotland. The "Engagement", as it was called, embodied the conditions which Charles had refused at Newcastle--the recognition of Presbytery in Scotland and its establishment in England for three years, the king being allowed toleration for his own form of worship. The Engagement was by no means unanimously carried in the Scottish Parliament, and its results were disastrous to Charles himself. It caused the English Parliament to pass the vote of No Addresses, and the second civil war, which it helped to provoke, had a share in bringing about his death. The Duke of Hamilton led a small army into England, where in August 17th, 1648, it was totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston. Meanwhile the Hamilton party had lost power in Scotland, and when Cromwell entered Scotland, Argyll, who had opposed the Engagement, willingly agreed to his conditions, and accepted the aid of three English regiments. In the events of the next six months Scotland had no part nor lot. The responsibility for the king's death rests on the English Government alone.

The news of the execution of the king was at once followed by the fall of Argyll and his party. The Scots had no sympathy with English republicanism, and they were alarmed by the growth of Independency in England. On February 5th Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the Scots declared themselves ready to defend his cause by blood, if only he would take the Covenant. This the young king refused to do while he had hopes of success in Ireland. Meanwhile three of his most loyal friends perished on the scaffold. The English, who held the Duke of Hamilton as a prisoner, put him to death on March 9th, 1649, and on the 22nd day of the same month the Marquis of Huntly was beheaded at Edinburgh. On April 27th, Montrose, who had collected a small army and taken the field in the northern Highlands, was defeated at Carbisdale and taken prisoner. On the 25th May he was hanged in Edinburgh, and with his death the story is deprived of its hero.

The pressure of misfortune finally drove Charles to accept the Scottish offers. Even while Montrose was fighting his last battle, his young master was negotiating with the Covenanters. Conferences were held at Breda in the spring of 1650, and Charles landed at the mouth of the river Spey on the 3rd July, having taken the Covenant. In the middle of the same month Cromwell crossed the Tweed at the head of an English army. The Scots, under Leven and David Leslie, took up a position near Edinburgh, and, after a month's fruitless skirmishing, Cromwell had to retire to Dunbar, whither Leslie followed him. By a clever manoeuvre, Leslie intercepted Cromwell's retreat on Berwick, while he also seized Doon Hill, an eminence commanding Dunbar. The Parliamentary Committee, under whose authority Leslie was acting, forced him to make an attack to prevent Cromwell's force from escaping by sea. The details of the battle have been disputed, and the most convincing account is that given by Mr. Firth in his "Cromwell". When Leslie left the Doon Hill his left became shut in between the hill and "the steep ravine of the Brock burn", while his centre had not sufficient room to move. Cromwell, therefore, after a feint on the left, concentrated his forces against Leslie's right, and shattered it. The rout was complete, and Leslie had to retreat to Stirling, while the Lowlands fell into Cromwell's hands. Cromwell was conciliatory, and a considerable proportion of Presbyterians took up an attitude hostile to the king's claims. The supporters of Charles were known as Resolutioners, or Engagers, and his opponents as Protesters or Remonstrants. The consequence was that the old Royalists and Episcopalians began to rejoin Charles. Before the battle of Dunbar (September 2nd) Charles had been really a prisoner in the hands of the Covenanters, who had ruled him with a rod of iron. As the stricter Presbyterians withdrew, and their places were filled by the "Malignants" whom they had excluded from the king's service, the personal importance of Charles increased. On January 1st, 1651, he was crowned at Scone, and in the following summer he took up a position near Stirling, with Leslie as commander of his army. Cromwell outmanoeuvred Leslie and seized Perth, and the royal forces retaliated by the invasion of England, which ended in the defeat of Worcester on September 3rd, 1651, exactly one year after Dunbar. The king escaped and fled to France.

Scotland was now unable to resist Monk, whom Cromwell had left behind him when he went southwards to defeat Charles at Worcester. On the 14th August he captured Stirling, and on the 28th the Committee of Estates was seized at Alyth and carried off to London. There was no further attempt at opposition, and all Scotland, for the first time since the reign of Edward I, was in military occupation by English troops. The property of the leading supporters of Charles II was confiscated. In 1653 the General Assembly was reduced to pleading that "we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with anything civil"; but their unwonted humility was of no avail to save them. An earlier victim than the Assembly was the Scottish Parliament. It was decided in 1652 that Scotland should be incorporated with England, and from February of that year till the Restoration, the kingdom of Scotland ceased to exist. The "Instrument" of Government of 1653 gave Scotland thirty members in the British Parliament. Twenty were allotted to the shires--one to each of the larger shires and one to each of nine groups of less important shires. There were also eight groups of burghs, each group electing one member, and two members were returned by the city of Edinburgh. Between 1653 and 1655 Scotland was governed by parliamentary commissioners, and, from 1655 onwards, by a special council. The Court of Session was abolished, and its place taken by a Commission of Justice.[90] The actual union dates from 1654, when it was ratified by the Supreme Council of the Commonwealth of England, but Scotland was under English rule from the battle of Worcester. The wise policy of allowing freedom of trade, like the improvement in the administration of justice, failed to reconcile the Scots to the union, and, to the end, it required a military force to maintain the new government.

As Scotland had no share in the execution of Charles I, so it had none in the restoration of his son. The "Committee of Estates", which met after the 29th of May, was not lacking in loyalty. All traces of the union were swept away, and the pressure of the new Navigation Act was severely felt in contrast to the freedom of trade that had been the great boon of the Commonwealth. But worse evils were in store. The "Covenanted monarch" was determined to restore Episcopacy in Scotland, and for this purpose he employed as a tool the notorious James Sharpe, who had been sent up to London to plead the cause of Presbytery with Monk. Sharpe returned to Scotland in the spring of 1661 as Archbishop of St. Andrews. Parliament met by royal authority and passed a General Act Rescissory, which rendered void all acts passed since 1638. The episcopal form of church government was immediately established. The Privy Council received enlarged powers, and was again completely subservient to the king. The execution of Argyll atoned for the death of Montrose, in the eyes of Royalists, and two notable ecclesiastical politicians, Johnston of Warriston and James Guthrie, were also put to death. An Indemnity Act was passed, but many men found that the king's pardon had its price. On October 1st, 1662, an act was passed ordering recusant ministers to leave their parishes, and the council improved on the English Five Mile Act, by ordering that no recusant minister should, on pain of treason, reside within twenty miles of his parish, within six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral town, or within three miles of any royal burgh. A Court of High Commission, which had been established by James VI in 1610, was again entrusted with all religious cases. The effect of these harsh measures was to rouse the insurrections which are the most notable feature of the reign. In 1666 the Covenanters were defeated at the battle of Pentland, or Rullion Green, and those who were suspected of a share in the rising were subjected to examination under torture, which now became one of the normal features of Charles's brutal government. Prisoners were hanged or sent as slaves to the plantations. In 1669, an Indulgence was passed, permitting Presbyterian services under certain conditions, but in 1670, Parliament passed a Conventicle Act, making it a capital crime to "preach, expound scripture, or pray", at any unlicensed meeting. On May 5th, 1679, Sharpe was assassinated near St. Andrews. The murderers escaped, and some of them joined the Covenanters of the west. The Government had determined to put a stop to the meetings of conventicles, and had chosen for this purpose John Graham of Claverhouse. On the 11th June, Claverhouse was defeated at Drumclog, but eleven days later he routed the Covenanting army at Bothwell Bridge, and took over a thousand prisoners. Only seven were executed, but the others were imprisoned in Greyfriars' churchyard, and a large number of them were sold as plantation slaves. A small rising at Aird's Moss in Ayrshire, in 1680, was easily suppressed. In 1681 the Scottish Parliament prescribed as a test the disavowal of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644, and it declared that any attempt to alter the succession involved the subjects "in perjury and rebellion". In connection with the Test Act, an opportunity was found for convicting the Earl of Argyll[91] of treason. His property was confiscated, but he himself was allowed to escape. The last years of the reign, under the administration of the Duke of York, were marked by exceptional cruelty in connection with the religious persecutions. The expeditions of Claverhouse, the case of the Wigtown martyrs, and the horrible cruelties of the torture-room have given to these years the title of "the Killing time".

The Scottish Parliament welcomed King James VII with fulsome adulation. But the new king was scarcely seated on the throne before a rebellion broke out. The Earl of Argyll adopted the cause of Monmouth, landed in his own country, and marched into Lanarkshire. His attempt was an entire failure: nobody joined his standard, and he himself, failing to make good his retreat, was captured and executed without a new trial. The Parliament again enforced the Test Act, and renewed the Conventicle Act, making it a capital offence even to be present at a conventicle. The persecutions continued with renewed vigour. James failed in persuading even the obsequious Parliament to give protection to the Roman Catholics. He attempted to obtain the same end by a Declaration of Indulgence, of which the Covenanters might be unable to avail themselves, but in its final form, issued in May, 1688, it included them. The conjunction of popery and absolute prerogative thoroughly alarmed the Scots, and the news of the English Revolution was received with general satisfaction. The effect of the long struggle had been to weaken the country in many ways. Thousands of her bravest sons had died on the scaffold or on the battle-field or in the dungeons of Dunnottar, or had been exiled to the plantations. Trade and commerce had declined. The records of the burghs show us how harbours were empty and houses ruinous, where, a century earlier, there had been a thriving trade. Scotland in 1688 was in every way, unless in moral discipline, poorer than she had been while England was still the "auld enemy".

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 89: Sabbath observance had been introduced from England six centuries earlier. Cf. p. 14.]

[Footnote 90: Justices of the peace were appointed throughout the country, and heritable jurisdictions were abolished.]

[Footnote 91: The son of the Marquis who was executed in 1661. The earldom, but not the marquisate, had been restored in 1663.]