2), and the
Earl's execution (1615).

CHAPTER XXIV. CHARLES I.

The reign of Charles I. opened with every sign of the tempests which were
to follow. England and Scotland were both seething with religious fears
and hatreds. Both parties in England, Puritans and Anglicans, could be
satisfied with nothing less than complete domination. In England the
extreme Puritans, with their yearning after the Genevan presbyterian
discipline, had been threatening civil war even under Elizabeth. James
had treated them with a high hand and a proud heart. Under Charles,
wedded to a "Jezebel," a Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, the Puritan
hatred of such prelates as Laud expressed itself in threats of murder;
while heavy fines and cruel mutilations were inflicted by the party in
power. The Protestant panic, the fear of a violent restoration of
Catholicism in Scotland, never slumbered. In Scotland Catholics were at
this time bitterly persecuted, and believed that a presbyterian general
massacre of them all was being organised. By the people the Anglican
bishops and the prayer-book were as much detested as priests and the
Mass. When Charles placed six prelates on his Privy Council, and
recognised the Archbishop of St Andrews, Spottiswoode, as first in
precedence among his subjects, the nobles were angry and jealous. Charles
would not do away with the infatuated Articles of Perth. James, as he
used to say, had "governed Scotland by the pen" through his Privy
Council. Charles knew much less than James of the temper of the Scots,
among whom he had never come since his infancy, and _his_ Privy Council
with six bishops was apt to be even more than commonly subservient.

In Scotland as in England the expenses of national defence were a cause
of anger; and the mismanagement of military affairs by the king's
favourite, Buckingham, increased the irritation. It was brought to a
head in Scotland by the "Act of Revocation," under which all Church lands
and Crown lands bestowed since 1542 were to be restored to the Crown.
This Act once more united in opposition the nobles and the preachers;
since 1596 they had not been in harmony. In 1587, as we saw, James VI.
had annexed much of the old ecclesiastical property to the Crown; but he
had granted most of it to nobles and barons as "temporal lordships." Now,
by Charles, the temporal lords who held such lands were menaced, the
judges ("Lords of Session") who would have defended their