s alliance without
communicating his intentions to the parliament, who received the
proposal with satisfaction.[*] This was the commencement of the
connections with the family of Orange; connections which were afterwards
attended with the most important consequences, both to the kingdom and
to the house of Stuart.

* Whitlocke, p. 38.

CHAPTER LV.

CHARLES I.

{1641.} THE Scots, who began these fatal commotions, thought that
they had finished a very perilous undertaking much to their profit and
reputation. Besides the large pay voted them for lying in good quarters
during a twelvemonth, the English parliament had conferred on them
a present of three hundred thousand pounds for their brotherly
assistance.[*] In the articles of pacification, they were declared
to have ever been good subjects; and their military expeditions were
approved of, as enterprises calculated and intended for his majesty's
honor and advantage. To carry further the triumph over their sovereign,
these terms, so ignominious to him, were ordered by a vote of parliament
to be read in all churches, upon a day of thanksgiving appointed for
the national pacification;[**] all their claims for the restriction of
prerogative were agreed to be ratified; and, what they more valued
than all these advantages, they had a near prospect of spreading the
Presbyterian discipline in England and Ireland, from the seeds which
they had scattered of their religious principles. Never did refined
Athens so exult in diffusing the sciences and liberal arts over a savage
world, never did generous Rome so please herself in the view of law and
order established by her victorious arms, as the Scots now rejoiced
in communicating their barbarous zeal and theological fervor to the
neighboring nations.

* Nalson, vol. i. p. 747. May, p. 104.

** Rush. vol. v. p. 365. Clarendon, vol. ii p. 293.

Charles, despoiled in England of a considerable part of his authority,
and dreading still further encroachments upon him, arrived in Scotland,
with an intention of abdicating almost entirely the small share of
power which there remained to him, and of giving full satisfaction, if
possible, to his restless subjects in that kingdom.

The lords of articles were an ancient institution in the Scottish
parliament. They were constituted after this manner: The temporal lords
chose eight bishops: the bishops elected eight temporal lords: these
sixteen named eight