Mitres were offered some of her more
prominent ministers, for Charles I. knew that Presbyterianism is the
friend of civil freedom, and that Prelacy in the Church will more
readily consent to despotism in the State. The "Black Acts" were passed
confirming the "king's royal power over all states and subjects within
this realm," discharging all assemblies held "without our Sovereign
Lord's special licence and commandment," and requiring ministers to
acknowledge the ecclesiastical superiority of bishops. The assembly was
induced to adopt a proposal for the appointment of a number of
commissioners to sit and vote in Parliament, become members of the Privy
Council, and Lords of Session; and such honours would not readily be
declined. Then came the Court of High Commission, instituted for the
purpose of compelling the "faithful" ministers to acknowledge the
bishops appointed by the king--a court called into existence by royal
proclamation, "a sort of English Inquisition," writes Dr. M'Crie,
"composed of prelates, noblemen, knights, and ministers, and possessing
the combined power of a civil and ecclesiastical tribunal." After this
came the Act giving full legal status to the "Anti-Christian hierarchy"
of Episcopacy in Scotland; the formal consecration of the first Scottish
prelates; the five articles of Perth; the Canons and Constitutions
Ecclesiastical--a complete code of laws for the Church issued without
any consultation with the representatives of the Church; an Act charging
all His Majesty's subjects to conform to the order of worship
prescribed by him, and the Semi-Popish Book of Common Prayer and
Administration of the Sacraments which was imposed upon all parishes and
ministers. By these and other measures, the sovereign impiously assumed
that spiritual power which belonged to Christ alone, as King and Head of
the Church. Here, in its worst form, was "the absolutism that had so
long threatened the extinction of their liberties; here was the heel of
despotism openly planted on the neck of their Church, and the crown
openly torn from the brow of Christ, her only King."

During all these years, the Reformers were resisting with courage the
assaults of the enemy. At times there were secessions from their ranks
when, under the bribes and threats of prince and prelate, some
ingloriously succumbed. But, as Renwick said later in the struggle, "the
loss of the men was not the loss of the cause." The champions of the
Reformation,