erpower these adversaries, and the
obligations under which they had laid the King himself during the
struggle, inspired them with resolution to bind him to their system by
every means in their power.

But as the King also adhered to his own views, a conflict now broke
out between them which holds a very important place in the history of
the State as well as of the Church of Scotland.

The King ordered the Commissioners of the Church, who made demands so
distasteful to him, to leave the capital. The preachers then turned to
the people. From the pulpit Robert Bruce set before an already excited
congregation the danger into which the ecclesiastical commonwealth had
fallen owing to the return of the Catholic lords and the indulgence
vouchsafed to them; and invited those present to pledge themselves by
holding up their hands to the defence of their religion on its present
footing. They not only gave him their assent, but went so far as to
make a tumultuous rush for the council-house in which the King was
sitting with some members of the Privy Council and the Lords of
Session. With difficulty was the tumult so far quieted as to allow
James to retire to Holyrood.[306] Here a demand was laid before him to
remove his councillors, to allow the commissioners to resume their
functions, and to banish the lords again from the country. It was
intended that religious profession should supply a rule for the
guidance of the State.

But in political conflicts nothing is more dangerous than to overstep
the law by any act of violence. It was the violence attempted by the
leaders of the Presbyterians against the King, their attack on the
rights of his crown, that procured him the means of resistance. He
betook himself with his court to Linlithgow and there collected the
nobles, who for the most part stood by him, the borderers, whose
leaders the Humes and Kerrs took up arms for him, and bodies of
Highlanders, a force to which the magistrates succumbed, not wishing
their city to be destroyed; so that even the ministers thought it
advisable to leave. On New-Year's Day 1597 James made his entry with a
warlike retinue into Edinburgh, where a convention of the Estates met
and passed decisive resolutions in his favour. Both the provost and
baillies of the town were obliged to take a new oath of fealty by
which they bound themselves to suffer no insults to the King and his
councillors from the pulpit: and it was resolved that the citizens
shoul