no doubt that the
English succession had made James more powerful in Scotland than any of
his predecessors had been. "Here I sit", he said, "and governe Scotland
with my pen. I write and it is done, and by a clearke of the councell I
governe Scotland now, which others could not doe by the sword." The
boast was justified by the facts. The king's instructions to his Privy
Council, which formed the Scottish executive, are of the most
dictatorial description. James gives his orders in the tone of a man who
is accustomed to unswerving obedience, and he does not hesitate to
reprove his erring ministers in the severest terms of censure. The whole
business of Parliament was conducted by the Lords of the Articles, who
represented the spiritual and temporal lords, and the Commons. All the
bishops were the king's creatures, and by virtue of their position,
entirely dependent on him. It was therefore arranged that the prelates
should choose representatives of the temporal lords, and they took care
to select men who supported the king's policy. The peers were allowed to
choose representatives of the bishops, and could not avoid electing the
king's friends, while the representatives of the spiritual and temporal
lords choose men to appear for the small barons and the burgesses. In
this way the efficient power of Parliament was completely monopolized,
and none dared to dispute the king's will. Even the Church was reduced
to an unwilling submission, which, from its very nature, could only be
temporary. He forbade the meeting of a General Assembly; and the
convening of an Assembly at Aberdeen, in defiance of his command, in
1605, served to give him an opportunity of imprisoning or banishing the
Presbyterian leaders. He had to give up his scheme of abolishing the
Presbyterian Church courts, and contented himself with engrafting on to
the existing system the institution of Episcopacy, which had practically
been in abeyance since 1560, although Scotland was never without its
titular prelates. Bishops were appointed in 1606; presbyteries and
synods were ordered to elect perpetual moderators, and the scheme was
devised so that the moderator of almost every synod should be a bishop.
The members of the Linlithgow Convention, which accepted this scheme,
were specially summoned by the king, and it was in no sense a free
Assembly of the Church. But the royal power was, for the present,
irresistible; in 1610 an Assembly which met at Glasgow establi