ville himself, but in the ecclesiastical
fabric of Calvinism, in its organization of the Church, in its annual
assemblies, in its public discussion and criticism of acts of government
through the pulpit, he saw an organized democracy which threatened his
crown. And at this he struck as boldly as his forefathers had struck at
the power of feudalism. The nobles, dreading the resumption of church
lands, were with the king; and in 1584 an Act of the Estates denounced
the judicial and legislative authority assumed by the General Assembly,
provided that no subjects, temporal or spiritual, "take upon them to
convocate or assemble themselves together for holding of councils,
conventions, or assemblies," and demanded a pledge of obedience from
every minister. For the moment the ministers submitted; and James
prepared to carry out his victory by a policy of religious balance. The
Catholic lords were still strong in northern and western Scotland; and
firmly as the King was opposed to the dogmas of Catholicism he saw the
use he might make of the Catholics as a check on the power of the
Congregation. It was with this view that he shielded Lord Huntly and the
Catholic nobles while he intrigued with the Guises abroad. But such a
policy at such a juncture forced England to intervene. At a moment when
the Armada was gathering in the Tagus, Elizabeth felt the need of
securing Scotland against any revival of Catholicism; and her aid
enabled the exiled lords to return in triumph in 1585. For the next ten
years James was helpless in their hands. He was forced to ally himself
with Elizabeth, to offer aid against the Armada, to make a Protestant
marriage, to threaten action against Philip, to attack Huntly and the
Catholic lords of the north on a charge of correspondence with Spain and
to drive them from the realm. The triumph of the Protestant lords was a
triumph of the Kirk. In 1592 the Acts of 1584 were repealed; Episcopacy
was formally abolished; and the Calvinistic organization of the Church
at last received legal sanction. All that James could save was the right
of being present at the General Assembly, and of fixing a time and place
for its annual meeting. It was in vain that the young king struggled and
argued; in vain that he resolutely asserted himself to be supreme in
spiritual as in civil matters; in vain that he showed himself a better
scholar and a more learned theologian than the men who held him down.
The preachers scolded him f