er drawn up on the
Genevan model by that Reformer, and generally used throughout
Scotland--by a new Liturgy based on the English Book of Common Prayer.

[Sidenote: Its rejection.]

The Liturgy and Canons had been Laud's own handiwork; in their
composition the General Assembly had neither been consulted nor
recognized; and taken together they formed the code of a political and
ecclesiastical system which aimed at reducing Scotland to an utter
subjection to the Crown. To enforce them on the land was to effect a
revolution of the most serious kind. The books however were backed by a
royal injunction, and Laud flattered himself that the revolution had
been wrought. But the patience of Scotland found an end at last. In the
summer of 1637, while England was waiting for the opening of the great
cause of ship-money, peremptory orders from the king forced the clergy
of Edinburgh to introduce the new service into their churches. On the
23rd of July the Prayer-Book was used at the church of St. Giles. But
the book was no sooner opened than a murmur ran through the
congregation, and the murmur grew into a formidable riot. The church was
cleared, and the service read; but the rising discontent frightened the
judges into a decision that the royal writ enjoined the purchase, not
the use, of the Prayer-Book, and its use was at once discontinued. The
angry orders which came from England for its restoration were met by a
shower of protests from every part of Scotland. The ministers of Fife
pleaded boldly the want of any confirmation of the book by a General
Assembly. "This Church," they exclaimed, "is a free and independent
Church, just as this kingdom is a free and independent kingdom." The
Duke of Lennox alone took sixty-eight petitions with him to the Court;
while ministers, nobles, and gentry poured into Edinburgh to organize a
national resistance.

[Sidenote: The temper of England.]

The effect of these events in Scotland was at once seen in the open
demonstration of discontent south of the border. The prison with which
Laud had rewarded Prynne's dumpy quarto had tamed his spirit so little
that a new tract, written within its walls, denounced the bishops as
devouring wolves and lords of Lucifer. A fellow-prisoner, John
Bastwick, declared in his "Litany" that "Hell was broke loose, and the
devils in surplices, hoods, copes, and rochets were come amongst us."
Burton, a London clergyman silenced by the High Commission, called on
a