78 FAMOUS SCOTS 



the nakedness is hid of the renegade from the nation, and 

 the apostate from its church. Dean Stanley found that 

 ' the questionable idols ' of the Episcopalian sect were 

 Mary Queen of Scots, Montrose, and Dundee. These 

 have never been the idols of the Scottish people : the 

 last, indeed, occupies in its memory the peculiar niche 

 of infamy. 



The political side of the national religion is expressed 

 no less clearly in facts. The Scottish Crown is held by 

 a contract, 1 and the coronation oath is the deliberate 

 expression of it. In his De Jure Regni in 1579, dedi- 

 cated to the king, Buchanan had made this apparent to 

 Europe, and in his Lex Rex> in 1644, Buchanan was 

 reinforced by Rutherfurd in the doctrine that the people 

 is the source of power, and his officers are merely 

 ministri regni non regis, ' servants of the kingdom, not of 

 the king.' Startling doctrine this to the slobbering 

 vicegerent of God, conceding to the people acts to be 

 revoked at his pleasure. In the light of ordinary facts, 

 therefore, what are the national covenants of 1580 and 

 1638, but very simple Magna Chartas or Reform Bills 

 with a religious colouring ? One half of the statements 



1 For this important point in its bearing upon the position of the 

 Cameronians, and the 'Testimony* of Richard Cameron at the 

 market-place of Sanquhar, June 22, 1680, see Buchanan's History, xx. 

 36-47, and Milton's Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, with the coins of 

 James vi. stamped in 1570. Thus, while James vn.'s creatures, the 

 Bishops, maintained the ' divine right ' of their creator, led by Paterson, 

 the Archbishop of Glasgow, Dalrymple could carry the resolution on 

 the constitutional question of tenure that the king had ' forfaulted the 

 throne.' 



