266 



SECTION II. 



The contending parties in Scotland were the Popish Lords and 

 Clergy, with their adherents, and the Lords of the Congrega- 

 tion, with the Reformed ministers, and the majority of the people. 

 Between these the principles and affections of James were 

 strangely distracted. He had written with ability and learning 

 against the doctrines of Rome, and the pretensions of the Pope, but 

 was well inclined to her hierarchy, as favourable to monarchy. He 

 was firmly attached to the tenets of the Reformers, but entertained 

 an invincible antipathy to their parity of ministers and republican 

 form of ecclesiastical polity. While parties were thus balanced, the 

 success of the Reformation was intricately implicated with the admi- 

 nistration of government, and the Presbyterian clergy conceived it 

 to be their duty and right to take the oversight of their rulers as well 

 as of their flocks. Tliese pretensions they exercised in a manner 

 that no prince could willingly brook ; and thus the king and the 

 church were in a state of permanent hostility. 



The leading ministers were men of learning, eloquence, talent, 

 and resolution, and inspired with a degree of fanaticism. They 

 were all men of great personal influence, and some of them of noble 

 descent, and connected with powerful families. Pont, the minister 

 of St. Cuthbert's, was a Lord of Session, or College of Justice, as it 

 was then called. Andrew Melvil was a man of extensive learning, 

 eminent abilities, and intrepid spirit, and claimed alliance with the 

 royal family. Bruce added to all these qualities a knowledge of 

 law, and a talent for affairs of state. The genealogists* trace his 



* Petham's Irish Baronetage, vol. v. Appendix. 



