s bound. A General Assembly erected on this basis had
the legislative authority in the Church, with the right of visitation
and of spiritual correction. It was incumbent on the King to protect
them; but he was amenable to their sentence. Such is the discipline
laid down in the Second Book, which was approved in the year 1578, in
a General Assembly, of which Melville was Moderator.[296]

With these opposite principles before his eyes, the young King grew
up. He showed himself to be imbued with the reformed doctrine, but he
was decidedly averse to this form of church government, which created
a power in the nation intended to counterbalance and withstand that of
the monarch. The political views of his teachers, highly popular as
they were, awoke in him, as was natural, the inborn feelings of a
king. He longed with all his soul for the restoration of episcopacy,
which, according to his view, was of almost chief importance for both
Crown and Church.

This was indeed a different strife from the battle between Catholicism
and Protestantism, which filled the rest of the world: but they had
points of contact with one another, inasmuch as the reform of doctrine
had almost everywhere put an end to episcopal government. And the
larger conflict was constantly exercising fresh influence on the state
of the question in Scotland.

When the Catholic party was on the point of becoming master of the
young King, the Protestant lords, as has been mentioned above, gained
possession of his person by the Raid of Ruthven. They were the
champions of Presbyterianism in the Church; but as they had been
overthrown, and overthrown moreover in consequence of the support
which the King received from an ambassador friendly to the Guises,
that form of government could not survive their fall. In the
Parliament of 1584, which obeyed the wishes of the ruling powers,
enactments distinctly opposed to it were passed. By these the
constitution of the Three Estates united in Parliament was ratified.
They forbade any one to attack the Estates either collectively or
singly, and therefore to attack the bishops. No meeting in which
resolutions should be taken about temporal or even about spiritual
affairs was to be held without the King's approval: no jurisdiction
was to be exercised which was not acknowledged by the King and the
Estates. The judicial power of the King over all subjects and in all
causes, and therefore even in spiritual causes, was therein expr