the King's purposes.

At the Dundee Assembly, the transactions at the Perth Convention were
confirmed; and thereafter a new proposal was made by the King and
carried, which was fraught with evil for the Church. This was the
appointment of an extraordinary standing Commission to confer with the
King on the Church's affairs--a Commission which came to be a kind of
King's Council set up in the Assembly. Calderwood speaks of it as the
King's 'led horse,' and James Melville calls it 'the very neidle to draw
in the Episcopall threid.'

Armed with his new provisions, the King immediately began to use them
with energy. Edinburgh and St. Andrews were the strongholds of the
Church, where the Invincibles in its ministry were chiefly found. The
ministers of the former had already been disposed of, and the King's
next move was directed against those of the latter--above all, against
Melville, the chief Invincible. The two leading ministers of St.
Andrews, Black and Wallace, were discharged; George Gledstanes, who
afterwards became a Bishop, being appointed in Black's place; and
Melville was deprived of the Rectorship of the University. At the same
time, a law was enacted depriving professors of their seats in Church
Courts, the object being, of course, to exclude Melville, whose
influence in the Courts was so commanding.

At the end of this year another step was taken towards the re-erection
of Episcopacy. The Commissioners of Assembly, who were now mere
creatures of the King, appeared before Parliament, petitioning it to
give the Church the right of representation, so as to restore it to its
former position as the Third Estate of the realm; proposing also, that
for this end the prelatic order should be revived, and the Bishops
chosen as the Church's representatives. The jurisdiction of the prelates
within the Church was to be left over for future consideration, in
accordance with James's policy, which was not to filch so much of the
Church's liberty at any one time as might frustrate his hope of taking
it all away in the end. The petition of the Commissioners was granted by
the Parliament.

In February of the following year, 1598, the Synod of Fife met, Sir
Patrick Murray being present as the King's Commissioner; and the Court
at once entered on the question of the hour, Should the Church agree to
send representatives to Parliament? James Melville, who was the first to
rise and address the House, protested against their falling