tish clergy sensible that he was become the sovereign
of a great kingdom, which he governed with great, authority. Though
formerly he would have thought himself happy to have made a fair
partition with them of the civil and ecclesiastical authority, he was
now resolved to exert a supreme jurisdiction in church as well as state,
and to put an end to their seditious practices. An assembly had been
summoned at Aberdeen;[***] but, on account of his journey to London, he
prorogued it to the year following. Some of the clergy, disavowing
his ecclesiastical supremacy, met at the time first appointed,
notwithstanding his prohibition. He threw them into prison. Such of them
as submitted, and acknowledged their error, were pardoned. The rest were
brought to their trial. They were condemned for high treason. The
king gave them their lives, but banished them the kingdom. Six of them
suffered this penalty.[****]

The general assembly was afterwards induced[v] to acknowledge the king's
authority in summoning ecclesiastical courts, and to submit to the
jurisdiction and visitation of the bishops Even their favorite sentence
of excommunication was declared invalid, unless confirmed by the
ordinary. The king recommended to the inferior courts the members whom
they should elect to this assembly; and every thing was conducted in it
with little appearance of choice and liberty.[v*]

* Spotswood.

** Spotswood.

*** July, 1604.

**** Spotswood.

V 6th June, 1610.

v* Spotswood.

By his own prerogative, likewise, which he seems to have stretched
on this occasion, the king erected a court of high commission,[*] in
imitation of that which was established in England. The bishops and a
few of the clergy, who had been summoned, willingly acknowledged this
court; and it proceeded immediately upon business, as if its authority
had been grounded on the full consent of the whole legislature.

But James reserved the final blow for the time when he should himself
pay a visit to Scotland. He proposed to the parliament, which was then
assembled, that they should enact, that "whatever his majesty should
determine in the external government of the church, with the consent of
the archbishops, bishops, and a competent number of the ministry, should
have the force of law."[**] What number should be deemed competent was
not determined; and their nomination was left entirely to the king: so
that his ecclesiastical a