rs had hitherto subsisted chiefly by the voluntary oblations
of the faithful; and in a poor country, divided in religious sentiments,
this establishment was regarded as very scanty and very precarious.
Repeated applications were made for a legal settlement to the preachers;
and though almost every thing in the kingdom was governed by their
zeal and caprice, it was with difficulty that their request was at
last complied with. The fanatical spirit which they indulged, and
their industry in decrying the principles and practices of the Romish
communion, which placed such merit in enriching the clergy, proved now
a very sensible obstacle to their acquisitions. The convention, however,
passed a vote,[*] by which they divided all the ecclesiastical
benefices into twenty-one shares: they assigned fourteen to the ancient
possessors: of the remaining seven they granted three to the crown;
and if that were found to answer the public expenses, they bestowed the
overplus on the reformed ministers. The queen was empowered to levy all
the seven; and it was ordained that she should afterwards pay to the
clergy what should be judged to suffice for their maintenance. The
necessities of the crown, the rapacity of the courtiers, and the small
affection which Mary bore to the Protestant ecclesiastics, rendered
their revenues contemptible as well as uncertain; and the preachers,
finding that they could not rival the gentry, or even the middling rank
of men, in opulence and plenty, were necessitated to betake themselves
to other expedients for supporting their authority. They affected a
furious zeal for religion, morose manners, a vulgar and familiar, yet
mysterious cant; and though the liberality of subsequent princes put
them afterwards on a better footing with regard to revenue, and thereby
corrected in some degree those bad habits, it must be confessed that,
while many other advantages attend Presbyterian government, these
inconveniences are not easily separated from the genius of that
ecclesiastical polity.

* Knox, p. 296. Keith, p. 210.

The queen of Scots, destitute of all force, possessing a narrow revenue,
surrounded with a factious, turbulent nobility, a bigoted people,
and insolent ecclesiastics, soon found that her only expedient for
maintaining tranquillity was to preserve a good correspondence with
Elizabeth,[*] who, by former connections and services, had acquired such
authority over all these ranks of men.

* Jeb