wn by both
parties from a thunderstorm which occurred at the time of the
ratification of the Articles of Perth by Parliament in Edinburgh (August
4, 1621).

By enforcing these Articles James passed the limit of his subjects'
endurance. In their opinion, as in Knox's, to kneel at the celebration
of the Holy Communion was an act of idolatry, was "Baal worship," and no
pressure could compel them to kneel. The three great festivals of the
Christian Church, whether Roman, Genevan, or Lutheran, had no certain
warrant in Holy Scripture, but were rather repugnant to the Word of God.
The king did not live to see the bloodshed and misery caused by his
reckless assault on the liberties and consciences of his subjects; he
died on March 27, 1625, just before the Easter season in which it was
intended to enforce his decrees.

The ungainliness of James's person, his lack of courage on certain
occasions (he was by no means a constant coward), and the feebleness of
his limbs might be attributed to pre-natal influences; he was injured
before he was born by the sufferings of his mother at the time of
Riccio's murder. His deep dissimulation he learnt in his bitter
childhood and harassed youth. His ingenious mind was trained to
pedantry; he did nothing worse, and nothing more congenial to the cruel
superstitions of his age, than in his encouragement of witch trials and
witch burnings promoted by the Scottish clergy down to the early part of
the eighteenth century.

His plantation of Ulster by Scottish settlers has greatly affected
history down to our own times, while the most permanent result of the
awards by which he stimulated the colonisation of Nova Scotia has been
the creation of hereditary knighthoods or baronetcies.

His encouragement of learning left its mark in the foundation of the
Town's College of Edinburgh, on the site of Kirk-o'-Field, the scene of
his father's murder.

The south-western Highlands, from Lochaber to Islay and Cantyre, were, in
his reign, the scene of constant clan feuds and repressions, resulting in
the fall of the Macdonalds, and the rise of the Campbell chief, Argyll,
to the perilous power later wielded by the Marquis against Charles I.
Many of the sons of the dispossessed Macdonalds, driven into Ireland,
were to constitute the nucleus of the army of Montrose. In the Orkneys
and Shetlands the constant turbulence of Earl Patrick and his family
ended in the annexation of the islands to the Crown (161