tion to explain the grounds of their conduct, asserting, one and all, that they were moved thereto by the evident dangers gathering around both Church and State, and asked their approval. Before replying, the Assembly sent to the king to know his judgment in the matter. The king having answered that in his opinion religion and his own person had been in peril, and that it was the duty of all to unite in their rescue and in reforming the commonwealth, they passed an act declaring their approbation of the enterprise.

The Assembly then entered upon the trial and deposition of the corrupt prelates, and the wretched Montgomery again submitted, begging pardon and reinstalment in the Church and ministry. The convention of the estates soon met, and in the fullest manner sanctioned the Raid of Ruthven and relieved its participants from all actions, civil or criminal, against them in the matter.

For the present all was quiet, and the Church was encouraged by the king to go forward in the work of reformation. It seemed as if the Court and the Church were henceforth to be as one, and the morning star of hope shone brightly out upon the sky.

CLOUDS-STORM-SUNSHINE.

True to his constitutional fickleness and hypocrisy, James continued for a while to smile on the Church, while at the same time he chafed under the restraints of her pure doctrine and scriptural discipline, and longed for the companionship of those who, while they corrupted his morals, fed his vain soul with honeyed flatteries. In our day a royal smile goes for what it is worth, but then even Scotchmen had not yet shaken off the traditional semi-superstitious regards for the purple. Hence the Protestants allowed themselves to be so beguiled by the king's apparent friendliness as to relax their vigilance and leave an open door for the execution of his subtle designs.

Having secretly invited such lords as he thought he could trust to meet him at St. Andrew's, he slipped quietly away thither, took possession of the castle, and then, contrary to the advice of his best friends, he invited the return of the infamous Arran and threw himself into his arms. The worst enemy of both Church and nation was now once more in power. So suddenly did the bright skies gather blackness! An insidious pardon was offered to the actors in the "Raid of Ruthven,"

Arran

whose conduct had been formally approved by the king, nobles and the General Assembly, on condition that they submit with repentance and confession! Then they were required, by a new proclamation, to surrender themselves prisoners, and all who refused were denounced as rebels. soon got himself appointed governor of Stirling Castle, and induced the poor silly king to take up his residence there, and thus put himself under the full personal control of this wicked earl. Hostilities were commenced also against the Church. Andrew Melville was cited before the privy council for certain alleged treasonable expressions. He appeared and proved his innocence. But they, proceeding to a formal trial, Melville protested that, as a minister, he should be first tried by his brethren. This reply angered the king and made Arran furious. But Melville was not a man to quail in the presence of despots. Unclasping his Hebrew Bible from his girdle, he threw it upon the table, saying:

"These are my instructions; see if any of you can judge of them or show that I have passed my injunctions."

Seeing that he could not be frightened into the withdrawal of his protest, they found him guilty

of declining the judgment of the council and of behaving irreverently before them, and condemned him to imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle, and to be punished in person and goods at his majesty's pleasure. Learning that Arran was preparing to send him to Blackness Castle, kept by one of his creatures, where Melville easily divined what fate would await him, he fled to Berwick.

The kingdom was startled by these measures as by a thunderpeal! The ministers prayed in the pulpits for Melville, and the lament was loud and universal among the godly that the misled king had driven from the realm its most learned man and the ablest defender of its religion. The Assembly, which met in April, was imperiously commanded to rescind its act approving of the Raid of Ruthven, and to pass another condemning it as treasonable. They had barely courage enough to decline obedience to these mandates, and broke up and withdrew cast down and dispirited. Knox was in his grave, Melville in exile, and heroism had departed with them.

The council raged with fury. They ordained that the accused preachers should be arrested without legal formalities, and it was declared treasonable to hold correspondence with those who had

fled. The earl of Gowrie, for his part in the Raid of Ruthven-though he had been expressly pardoned by the king-was scized and executed, and his estates divided among the friends of Arran. A parliament was called at Edinburgh to sit with closed doors, and the Lords of the Articles sworn to secresy. Knowing the malignity of James and Arran, the ministers awaited with dread the doings of this body. To mitigate the wrath of their persecutors, they sent the temperate David Lindsay to entreat the king that no law affecting the Church should be passed without consultation with the Assembly, and Arran arrested him in the palace courtyard and sent him prisoner to Blackness Castle. Others sent to Parliament were denied admission. The dark council, including Adamson and Montgomery as bishops, went on in their works of darkness, and enacted the "Black Acts of 1584," which asserted that to decline the judgment of king or council in any matter was treason -that to impugn or seek diminution of the power and authority of the three estates was treasonprohibiting any assembly, except the ordinary courts, to consult or determine any matter, civil or ecclesiastical, without special commandment and license from the king-declaring that bishops, and