and with volleys of stones
against the doors and windows.

The Scotch sent a sort of embassador to London to represent to the
king that the hostility to the Liturgy was so universal and so strong
that it could not be enforced. But the king and his council had the
same conscientious scruples about giving up in a contest with
subjects, that a teacher or a parent, in our day, would feel in the
case of resistance from children or scholars. The king sent down a
proclamation that the observance of the Liturgy must be insisted on.
The Scotch prepared to resist. They sent delegates to Edinburgh, and
organized a sort of government. They raised armies. They took
possession of the king's castles. They made a solemn covenant, binding
themselves to insist on religious freedom. In a word, all Scotland was
in rebellion.

It was the custom in those days to have, connected with the court,
some half-witted person, who used to be fantastically dressed, and to
have great liberty of speech, and whose province was to amuse the
courtiers. He was called the _king's jester_, or, more commonly, _the
fool_. The name of King Charles's fool was Archy. After this rebellion
broke out, and all England was aghast at the extent of the mischief
which Laud's Liturgy had done, the fool, seeing the archbishop go by
one day, called out to him, "My lord! who is the fool now!" The
archbishop, as if to leave no possible doubt in respect to the proper
answer to the question, had poor Archy tried and punished. His
sentence was to have his coat pulled up over his head, and to be
dismissed from the king's service. If Laud had let the affair pass,
it would have ended with a laugh in the street; but by resenting it,
he gave it notoriety, caused it to be recorded, and has perpetuated
the memory of the jest to all future times. He ought to have joined in
the laugh, and rewarded Archy on the spot for so good a witticism.

The Scotch, besides organizing a sort of civil government, took
measures for summoning a general assembly of their Church. This
assembly met at Glasgow. The nobility and gentry flocked to Glasgow at
the time of the meeting, to encourage and sustain the assembly, and to
manifest their interest in the proceedings. The assembly very
deliberately went to work, and, not content with taking a stand
against the Liturgy which Charles had imposed, they abolished the
fabric of Episcopacy--that is, the government of bishops--altogether.
Thus Laud's attempt to