tern resolve of the people to demand justice on their tyrants spoke
in his threat of the axe. Strafford and Laud, and Charles himself, had
yet to reckon with "that two-handed engine at the door" which stood
"ready to smite once, and smite no more." But stern as was the general
resolve, there was no need for immediate action, for the difficulties
which were gathering in the north were certain to bring a strain on the
Government which would force it to seek support from the people. The
king's demand for immediate submission, which reached Scotland while
England was waiting for the Hampden judgement, in the spring of 1638,
gathered the whole body of remonstrants together round "the Tables" at
Stirling; and a protestation, read at Edinburgh, was followed, on
Johnston of Warriston's suggestion, by a renewal of the Covenant with
God which had been drawn up and sworn to in a previous hour of peril,
when Mary was still plotting against Protestantism, and Spain was
preparing its Armada. "We promise and swear," ran the solemn engagement
at its close, "by the great name of the Lord our God, to continue in the
profession and obedience of the said religion, and that we shall defend
the same, and resist all their contrary errors and corruptions,
according to our vocation and the utmost of that power which God has put
into our hands all the days of our life."

[Sidenote: Charles and Scotland.]

The Covenant was signed in the churchyard of the Greyfriars at Edinburgh
on the first of March, in a tumult of enthusiasm, "with such content and
joy as those who, having long before been outlaws and rebels, are
admitted again into covenant with God." Gentlemen and nobles rode with
the document in their pockets over the country, gathering subscriptions
to it, while the ministers pressed for a general consent to it from the
pulpit. But pressure was needless. "Such was the zeal of subscribers
that for a while many subscribed with tears on their cheeks"; some were
indeed reputed to have "drawn their own blood and used it in place of
ink to underwrite their names." The force given to Scottish freedom by
this revival of religious fervour was seen in the new tone adopted by
the Covenanters. The Marquis of Hamilton, who came as Royal Commissioner
to put an end to the quarrel, was at once met by demands for an
abolition of the Court of High Commission, the withdrawal of the Books
of Canons and Common Prayer, a free Parliament, and a free General
Assem