THE ISLES AND THE COVENANT. 329 



measures of James, and Episcopacy, linked with Presby- 

 terianism, was tolerated by the people ; but the insistence 

 upon outward forms of prelacy, which in the minds of the 

 populace were associated with the abhorred Church of 

 Rome, had been suffered to remain in abeyance, until the 

 time became ripe for the introduction of a measure of 

 uniformity with the Church of England. 



Charles made the mistake of supposing that such a time 

 had arrived ; his zeal for the Anglican Church outran his 

 discretion. When, in 1635, he promulgated in Scotland 

 the canons for establishing ecclesiastical jurisdiction, his 

 action was viewed with profound suspicion, but did not 

 excite active opposition, in the land of Knox. The 

 hierarchical domination and the civil interference in 

 ecclesiastical matters which these canons entailed, did not 

 appeal to the prejudices of the people so strongly as to stir 

 them up to revolt. The case was different when the new 

 liturgy was introduced. The fears of Scotland revived 

 under the influence of this outward expression of prelacy. 

 The aesthetic beauties of the Anglican service and the 

 literary beauties of the liturgy, met with no appreciation at 

 the hands of a people steeped, it must be admitted, in 

 prejudices which were not unnatural, and resolved at all 

 costs, to reject conformity with any semblance of that 

 Church which they regarded as Antichrist. The 

 struggles of the past between Presbyterianism and Episco- 

 pacy had rooted in their hearts democratic principles, 

 which rebelled equally against prelatic domination in the 

 Church, and monarchical absolutism in the State. The 

 struggle which was about to ensue a struggle which led 

 indirectly to the great Civil War in England and the 

 execution of the King ; to the promotion of democratic 

 ideas, the ultimate prevalence of which paved the way to the 

 extinction of the Stuart dynasty that struggle, although 

 initiated by the opposition of the Scottish people to a very 

 harmless and a very excellent book, had its real origin in 

 far deeper causes. The Presbyterian form of ecclesiastical 

 government is nothing if not democratic. Parity in the 



