chastising out the rebels-a term he afterwards apologized for using and then he promised, heartily and clearly, to concur in satisfying their just grievances. The house of commons inverted the order recommended, and began with their grievances. The Scots had pointed out to their indignation, Strafford and Laud, as two of the chief incendiaries, whose punishment was requisite to ensure the peace of the two nations. The lord lieutenant of Ireland was obnoxious to the Scots, as the ablest, as well as the keenest of their enemies, and whose decided character they most dreaded. He had proclaimed them traitors and rebels, before the king ventured on this step, he had procured large subsidies from the Irish parliament to carry on the war against them, he had raised an army, of from nine to ten thousand men with which he threatened a descent on the western coast, and he had forced the Scots in Ulster, to take an oath, disavowing the covenant. His dissatisfaction with the late treaty, was open and avowed, and his advice to the king had been, to suffer any extremity Father than negotiate. That unfortunate nobleman, who, much against his judgment and inclination, had been ordered by Charles to leave the army at York, and attend him at London, was preparing to impeach some of the popular leaders, of a traitorous correspondence with the enemy, when, on entering the house of lords, he was himself surprised with an impeachment from the commons, to whom he was peculiarly offensive, as" the grand apostate to the commonwealth." *

Strafford's impeachment, was a prelude to that of Laud, which was supported by a complaint from the Scottish commissioners. They considered him as their arch-enemy, the prime mover of the innovations in their church, which had been the immediate cause of the war. Their charges against him, were for unjustifiable interference in their ecclesiastical affairs; his ordering the bishops to appear in their pontifical robes, contrary to the custom of the kirk; his desiring a list of those counsellors and members of the college of justice, who did not communicate according to an authorized form,

*Lord Digby's speech.-Rushworth, vol. iii. p. 1556.

to be sent up to him in order to their being punished; his obtaining warrant for an high commission court to sit once a week in Edinburgh, and his directing the taking down of galleries and stone walls in the churches of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, to make room for altars and adoration towards the east; but, above all, his causing to be intruded upon them a Book of Common Prayers, containing many popish errors and ceremonies contrary to the church of Scotland, and the acts of their parliament, and upon their refusal to admit it, his instigating the king to declare them traitors and rebels, and procuring a prayer, composed and printed by his direction, to be read in all the parish churches in England during divine service, in which they were styled traitorous subjects, who had cast off all obedience to their sovereign; and supplication was made to the Almighty, to cover their faces with shame as enemies to God and the king.

The two chief confidential ministers of the king being committed to custody, parliament proceeded to investigate the other complaints, which innumerable petitions from every quarter, reiterated in their ears, now that the people perceived their voice would be heard. Engaged in investigating their own abuses, and sensible of the important aid they de rived from the presence of the Scottish army in England, and the Scottish commissioners in London, the treaty was not pushed forward by the parliament with the rapidity which its removal to the capital had promised, nor, as new views now presented themselves to the covenanters, who expected to see their favourite bond established throughout the land, x from Dan to Beersheba, was it pressed with much urgency by them.

What may be the ultimate result of civil commotions, it is impossible to calculate at their commencement, or during their progress, nor are they always to be accused of unwarrantable ambition, or improper motives, who are placed in stations at the close of a struggle, which they had no expectation of, and to which they could have had no pretensions at the beginning. When the Scots were entirely employed in endeavouring to prevent the imposition of the English service book upon themselves, it is not at all pro

bable that the most sanguine among them, could entertain the least idea that ever they would have an opportunity of inculcating openly their own mode of worship in the English capital, with the approbation of the English parliament, much less, that any prospect would ever present itself of introducing it into England; but their desires expanded as the scene opened, and before they returned to their native country, a proposal for uniformity in religious worship throughout the whole island, founded upon this basis, was left for the consideration of those men who had the chief management of that kingdom. The Scottish commissioners, the earls of Rothes, Dunfermline, and Loudon, Sirs Patrick Hepburn of Wauchton, William Douglas of Cavers, Messrs. Drummond of Riccarton, Smith of Edinburgh, Wedderburn of Dundee, Hugh Kennedy of Ayr, with Archibald Johnston, advocate, and Alexander Henderson, minister, together with their chaplains, were received in London, with the greatest demonstrations of affection and respect; they were supported at the public expense, by the city, had a house appointed for their residence, and the church of St. Antholm's, for their devotion. The ministers were men of distinguished talents, and sincerely zealous in the cause for which they pled; their earnest impressive manner, and their discourses, suited to the spirit of the times, attracted immense crowds to their public services. From morning till night, during Sabbath, the place and the passages were crowded, and those who could not gain admission within, surrounded the doors, and clung to the windows.

Persecuted as they had been by the episcopalians, it affords no matter of surprise, that they did not display in their attacks upon a system, to which they had traced every calamity their country had endured, that calmness and temper which those, who never exposed to suffer for their creed, have not always preserved. In public and private, from the pulpit and the press, they oppugned the hierarchy, and their doctrines, disseminated among a people already prepared by the indolence, tyranny, and superstitious attachment to trifles, which distinguished the court clergy of the church of Eng

land, produced an almost instantaneous and amazing effect.* The citizens of London first gave in a petition to parliament, in November, praying a reformation in the liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline of the church of England; and early in December, another, to which fifteen or twenty thousand signatures were attached, was brought forward, craving a total extirpation of episcopacy, root and branch. These were followed by great numbers of others, from various places, complaining of ecclesiastical usurpations, and all were favourably received by the commons.

Charles, who saw, but could not prevent the immense ascendancy which the army of the Scots gave to the malecontents, sent for both houses to attend him at Whitehall, and represented the inconvenience that resulted from maintaining two armies at the same time, and requested them to bring their business to a close, promising that he would willingly and cheerfully concur in the reformation of all innovations in church and state; but, at the same time reminding them, that there was a great difference between reformation and alteration in government, the one he was willing to consent to, but would always endeavour to resist the other. The commons submitted to the inconvenience, and went on with their examination of grievances, nor was it till they had obtained the most material of these ends, that they seriously set about concluding the treaty. In the meantime, their commissioners discussed the articles with those of the Scots, and the latter, taught by the last negotiations at Dunse-law, rejected all verbal communications, and required every proposition to be reduced to writing. Each article was discus

*The Scottish ministers have left the evidence of their abilities behind them, in various publications, remarkable for acuteness of argument, a forcible, and far from inelegant elocution, although occasionally perplexed by a multiplicity of subdivisions, and a syllogistic method of reasoning, now gone to disuse; but, perhaps, the highest testimony to their talents, is the respect in which they were held by the first geniuses of the age, men who carried the piety they expressed in public, into the private intercourse of life, and whose daily and most intimate conversation, bore evidence to the bent and inclination of their souls, or to use the philosophical phraseology of Hume, "whose whole discourse and language were polluted with mysterious jargon, and full of the lowest and most vulgar hypocrisy !!" Hist. of Eng. vol. vi. ch. 54.

sed at length, and separately; they were in substance similar to the specification delivered to the king at York, [vol. iii. page 562.] The first, ratifying the acts of the late Scottish parliament, which implied a compliance with every demand, civil and ecclesiastical, was for some time resisted by the king, it was, in an unhappy hour, establishing a precedent for the English parliament, who were at that moment en→ gaged in assailing their own religious establishment, and his acquiescence in the complete overthrow of episcopacy in the one kingdom, he considered as paving the way for its downfall in the other; but the English commissioners, overcome by the arguments of the Scots, or friendly to the object themselves, concurred in recommending its acceptance, and the king reluctantly consented, "That the acts of the parlia ment assembled by his authority at Edinburgh, 1640, should be proclaimed along with those of the next session of the same parliament." The second, requiring that Edinburgh castle, and the other strengths of the kingdom should be garrisoned according to the first intent, was agreed to with little discussion, as was the third, by which Scottishmen, in Ireland and England, were freed from being constrained to take oaths inconsistent with the covenant; but the fourth, which required that the public incendiaries, the authors and causers of the late troubles, should be brought to trial and punished, according to the sentence of their respective parliaments, underwent a long discussion, and was with much difficulty acceded to by the king. He was extremely anxious to prevent his confidential servants from being brought before parliament, as he knew the general enmity that was entertained against them, and endeavoured-by conferring first with the nobles alone, next with the whole commissioners together, and then with such of them individually, as he thought the likeliest to yield, particularly Rothes-to obtain, either, that this article might be omitted altogether, or the matter be referred entirely to himself, to neither of which would the Scottish commissioners agree.

Strafford, who saw that his fate depended upon this article, in his letters from the tower, occasioned considerable delay, and a variety of proposals were made and rejected.