Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/187

] then went on with the service, but it was amid the wildest cries both from without and within, of "A pape! a pape! Antichrist! stane him! pull him down!" The windows were smashed in by a hail of stones and dirt, and at the conclusion of the service there was a rush forth of the congregation, to get every one to his own home in safety. The chief object of the crowd's attention was the bishop, who was trying to escape to his lodgings in the High-street, but he was seized, thrown down, and dragged through the mud. "Neither," says Sir James Balfour, "could that lubberly monster, with his satine gown, defend himself by his swollen hands and greasy belly, but he had half-a-dissenneck fishes to a reckoning."

The same morning similar scenes had taken place in the other churches, and the bishop of Argyle had been driven from the pulpit of Grey Friars' Church. In the afternoon the service was read, but to empty churches, for the baillies of Edinburgh had been summoned before the privy council, and called upon to see order maintained. The service was therefore read with the doors locked, but the riot in the streets when it was over was worse than ever. The mob pursued the carriages of the nobles who took home the bishops with yells and stones; the women were like viragoes, urging on the men and showing the way; and the earl of Roxburgh, lord privy seal, who was driving home the bishop from St. Giles's, was so pelted with stones, the mob crying.

"Drag out the priest of Baal," that he ordered his attendants to draw their swords and defend them; but the women cared nothing for their weapons, but pursued the carriage with stones till they escaped into Holyrood, covered with mud and bruises. The same spirit manifested itself everywhere. Jenny Geddes became a national heroine, which she yet remains, Robert Burns calling his mare after her that he rode into the Highlands. In Glasgow about the same time one William Allan, in a sermon, having spoken in praise of "the buke," that is, of the common prayer, no sooner was he out in the street than hundreds of enraged women surrounded him and the other clergymen with him, assailed him with sticks, fists, and peats, and belaboured him sorely. They tore off his cloak, ruff, and hat, and went near to killing him.

At Edinburgh the following day the council issued an order denouncing any further riots, but suspended the further reading of the service on account of the danger to the clergy, till they received further instructions from his majesty. But all warnings were wasted on such a man as Charles. He appeared to go on his way sealed, bound, and blinded to his doom. The more a broad and calculating intellect would have recognised the danger, the more his bull-dog antagonism was aroused. Laud, at his command, wrote a sharp letter, snubbing the council for suspending the reading of the service, and expressing his astonishment that the Scotch should refuse their own work. This was because four Scotch bishops had been pliant enough to frame the liturgy in part; but the Scotch people disclaimed the act of the royally imposed bishops, as much as they disclaimed Laud and his doings themselves. The king commanded lord Traquair, the lord treasurer of Scotland, to enforce the service, and not to give way to the insolence of the baser multitude.

But it was not merely the base multitude, the nobility were as violent against the new liturgy as the people, and came to high words with the bishops and their favourers amongst the clergy. Four ministers, Alexander Henderson, of Leuchars, John Hamilton, of Newburn, James Bruce, of Kingsbarns, and another, petitioned the council on the 23rd of August, to give them time to show the anti-christian and idolatrous nature of this ritual, and how near it came to the popish mass, reminding them that the people of Scotland had established the independence of their own church at the reformation, which had been confirmed by parliament and general assemblies, and that the people, instructed in their religion from the pulpit, were not likely to adopt that which their fathers had rejected as contrary to the simplicity of the gospel. But the bishop of Ross, Laud's right-hand man, replied for the council that the liturgy was neither superstitious nor idolatrous, but according to the formula of the ancient churches, and they must submit to that or to "horning," that is, banishment. Still the council delayed, and the people were pretty quiet during the harvest time, but that over, the news having arrived of a peremptory message from the king, commanding the enforcement of the liturgy, and the removal of the council from Edinburgh to Linhthgow, thence in the following term to Stirling, and for the next to Dundee, the people flocked into Edinburgh; and incensed at the idea of their ancient capital being deprived of its honours as the seat of government, they became extremely irritated, attacked the bishops when they could see them, and nearly tore the clothes from the back of the bishop of Galway. He escapaed into the council-house, and the members of the council in their turn sent to demand protection from the magistrates, who could not even protect themselves.

For greater security the council removed to Dalkeith, and the marquis of Hamilton recommended to Charles to make some concessions; but far from giving way, a more positive order for the enforcement of the obnoxious liturgy arrived from the king. But it was found impossible to enforce it: the earl of Traquair was summoned up to London, and sharply questioned as to the causes of the delay and was sent back with more arbitrary commands. On the 18th of October these were made known, and fresh riots took place, Traquair and two of the bishops nearly losing their lives. The king then consented to the petitioners above-mentioned being represented by a deputation personally resident in Edinburgh. The object was to induce the crowds of strangers to withdraw to their homes, when it was thought the people of Edinburgh alone might be better dealt with; but the advocates of the people seized on the plan, and converted it into one of the most powerful engines of opposition imaginable.

At the head of these able politicians, and the contrivers of this profoundly sagacious scheme, were the lords Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, and Craustoun. Balmerino had been severely treated by Charles, and had thus become hardened into the most positive opponent of the episcopal movement. In his possession in 1634. was a copy of a petition to the Scottish parliament, too strong in its language even for the Scotch dissentients to present. He had under pledge of strictest secrecy lent