the most intense interest was felt by the
whole kingdom in its proceedings, all men perceiving that upon its
decision would depend the continuation or the overthrow of the
presbyterian form of church government in Scotland. The King's first step
was the arbitrary exclusion from the Assembly of the celebrated Andrew
Melville. The discussion commenced respecting the propriety of ministers
voting in Parliament. But when those who favoured the measure could not
meet the argument of its opponents, the King again interposed, and
authoritatively declared that the preceding General Assembly had already
decided the general question in the affirmative; and that they had now
only to determine subordinate arrangements. The measure was thus saved
from defeat. The next question, whether the parliamentary ministers should
hold their place for life, or be annually elected, was decided in favour
of annual election. Yet James prevailed upon the cleric to frame an
ambiguous statement in the minute of proceedings, virtually granting what
the Assembly had rejected. Even then, though thus both overborne and
tricked by the King, the Church framed a number of carefully expressed
"caveats," or cautions, for protecting her liberties, and guarding against
the introduction of Prelacy. It was not, however, the intention of the
King to pay any regard to these "caveats," so soon as he might think it
convenient to set them aside; and, accordingly, within a few months he
appointed three bishops to the vacant sees of Ross, Aberdeen, and
Caithness, directly in violation of all the "caveats" by which he had
agreed that the appointment of ecclesiastical commissioners to Parliament
should be regulated.

That mysterious event, the Gowry conspiracy, and the views taken of it by
some of the best and most influential of the ministers, tended to alter
the aspect of the struggle between the King and the Church; and though the
King twice interposed to change the Assembly's time and place of meeting
by his own authority, contrary to the provisions of the act, 1592, yet the
church succeeded in maintaining a large measure of its primitive freedom
and purity, against the encroachments of the crafty and perfidious monarch
and his "creatures," to use their own phrase, the bishops.

The Assembly of 1602, however, was the last that retained anything like
presbyterian liberty, and ventured to act on its own convictions of duty.
But, the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the ac