noblemen, knights, and ministers, and possessing the combined power of a civil and ecclesiastical tribunal." After this came the Act giving full legal status to the "Anti-Christian hierarchy" of Episcopacy in Scotland; the formal consecration of the first Scottish prelates; the five articles of Perth; the Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical--a complete code of laws for the Church issued without any consultation with the representatives of the Church; an Act charging all His Majesty's subjects to conform to the order of worship prescribed by him, and the Semi-Popish Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments which was imposed upon all parishes and ministers. By these and other measures, the sovereign impiously assumed that spiritual power which belonged to Christ alone, as King and Head of the Church. Here, in its worst form, was "the absolutism that had so long threatened the extinction of their liberties; here was the heel of despotism openly planted on the neck of their Church, and the crown openly torn from the brow of Christ, her only King."
During all these years, the Reformers were resisting with courage the assaults of the enemy. At times there were secessions from their ranks when, under the bribes and threats of prince and prelate, some ingloriously succumbed. But, as Renwick said later in the struggle, "the loss of the men was not the loss of the cause." The champions of the Reformation, led by Andrew Melville, feared not to arraign that monarch who once told his bishops that "now he had put the sword into their hands they should not let it rust." They tabled petitions, published protests, obtained interviews, but all proved powerless to arrest the career of those who were bent on the annihilation of the Church, and the establishment on its ruins of the royal Supremacy. In one of their protests, they call upon the Estates to "advance the building of the house of God, remembering always that there is no absolute and undoubted authority in the world excepting the sovereign authority of Christ the King, to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the Kirk according to the good pleasure of His own will, as it belongeth to Him to save the Kirk by the merit of His own sufferings." The attempt to impose Laud's liturgy gave opportunity for an outburst of the slumbering flame of discontent. Janet Geddes flung a stool at the head of the officiating Dean, and the tumult that ensued extended far and wide. A tablet, recently erected to her memory in St. Giles, states that "she struck the first blow in the great struggle for freedom of conscience." The proclamation by the Council of the State, condemning all meetings against the Episcopal Canons and Service Book, brought the Reformers accessions from all parts of the kingdom. Could an oppressed people bear the tyranny longer? But, will they take up arms and scatter carnage and blood throughout the land? No, their weapons will not be carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. They will go to the Covenant God of the kingdom, and they will stand before Him, saying, "Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse." Scotland will renew her covenant with God.
The National Covenant of 1580 was produced. An addition was made, in two parts. The part summarizing the Acts of Parliament, condemning the papacy and ratifying the confessions of the Church, was drafted by Warriston; that with special religious articles for the time was by Henderson. The spot chosen for the solemnities of the first subscription was the Churchyard of Greyfriars, Edinburgh. "The selection," writes the historiographer-royal for Scotland, "showed a sound taste for the picturesque. The graveyard in which their ancestors have been laid from time immemorial stirs the hearts of men. The old Gothic Church of the Friary was then existing; and landscape art in Edinburgh has by repeated efforts established the opinion that from that spot we have the grandest view of the precipices of the Castle and the national fortress crowning them. It seemed a homage to that elevating influence of grand external conditions which the actors in the scene were so vehemently repudiating." In that memorable spot the Reformers gathered "the legitimate charters" of their nation into one document and presented them before heaven. Johnston unrolled the parchment in which these Scottish charters were inscribed, and read them in a clear, calm voice. "When he had finished, all was still as the grave. But the silence was soon broken. An aged man of noble air was seen advancing. He came forward slowly, and deep emotion was visible in his venerable features. He took up the pen with a trembling hand and signed the document. A general movement now took place. All the Presbyterians in the
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