monarchs-from-scotland

"It cam’ wi’ a lass, it will gang wi’ a lass."

"James's Catholicising policy might seem insane; it can be explained only by his naive and grossly inflated expectations of conversions. Fortified by his sense of divine mission, he believed with a conviction born of faith that converts would appear, not because he had any rational grounds for thinking that they would but because he desperately wanted them to... He blundered on with the blind optimism of a man whose mind was determinedly closed to any thought of failure... [W]hen William invaded, few were prepared to resist him. In less than four years James had destroyed the strongest political position that any Stuart ever enjoyed. He had turned the Tories from vociferous loyalty to sullen apathy. And he had achieved this by concentrating single-mindedly on the line of action that the Tories could not stomach – the promotion of Popery."

"I fully declare my Opinion concerning the Principles of the Church of England, whose Members have shewed themselves so eminently Loyal in the worst of times, in Defence of my Father, and Support of my Brother, of Blessed Memory; that I will always take care to defend and support it. I will make it my Endeavour to preserve this Government both in Church and State, as it is now by Law Established; and as I will never depart from the just Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown, so I will never invade any Man's Property; and you may be sure, that having heretofore ventur'd my Life in the Defence of this Nation, I will still go as far as any Man in preserving it, in all its just Rights and Liberties."

"In retrospect the Revolution justified the policy of Exclusion. The events of the reign of James II fulfilled Whig predictions, proving that Popery was incompatible with the liberties as well as the religion of the nation. His conduct demonstrated to all that the Crown could not be allowed to retain those prerogative powers which had brought about the defeat of the Whigs, but which James had then turned against the Tories and the Church of England. Later generations disowned Shaftesbury, but they did not repudiate the principles on which the case for Exclusion, as well as the Revolution, rested—that political power should reside with those who possessed the greatest weight in society, and that in the last resort sovereignty rests with the people, the interests of the nation taking precedence over those of the Crown."

"The King, finding resistance impossible, assembled such peers and Privy Counsellors as were still in London, and on their advice entered into negotiations with the Prince of Orange. Meanwhile the invading army moved steadily forward towards London. James sent his wife and son out of the kingdom, and on the night of December 11 stole from the palace at Whitehall, crossed the river, and road to the coast. He endeavoured to plunge his realm into anarchy. He threw the Great Seal into the Thames, and sent orders to Feversham to disband the Army, and to Dartmouth to sail to Ireland with what ships he could. The London mob sacked the foreign embassies, and a panic and terror, known as the "Irish Night," swept the capital. Undoubtedly a complete collapse of order would have occurred but for the resolute action of the Council, which was still sitting in London. With some difficulty they suppressed the storm, and, acknowledging William's authority, besought him to hasten his marches to London. James in his flight had actually got on board a ship, but, missing the tide, was caught and dragged ashore by the fishermen and townsfolk. He was brought back to London, and after some days of painful suspense was allowed to escape again. This time he succeeded and left English soil for ever. But though the downfall and flight of this impolitic monarch were at the time ignominious, his dignity has been restored to him by history. His sacrifice for religion gained for him the lasting respect of the Catholic Church, and he carried with him into lifelong exile an air of royalty and honour."

"James II was neither so clever, nor so subtle as his brother. As we have seen, he was incapable of dissembling the Catholicism that so alarmed his subjects. Instead, from the moment he became king he worshipped openly and ostentatiously, asking Sir Christopher Wren to design an elaborate Catholic chapel at Whitehall. As his piety might seem to imply, James II was not as fun-loving as Charles II. At the beginning of his reign he banished from Whitehall all the men and women of pleasure, including (albeit temporarily) his own mistress, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester (1657-1717). In some ways, this sobriety was not such a bad thing after the scandalous behavior of the "Merry Monarch." The Crown needed to restore its dignity and it needed to save money. The new king was not afraid of attacking entrenched interests and his orderly mind caused him to launch a major "downsizing" of the court, eliminating sinecure offices and much of the fee-taking system. The result was a smaller, more efficient, and thriftier court- but also one which was much less exciting and lucrative than his brother's had been."

"For James the free exercise of Catholicism was the essential thing which, he believed, would lead inevitably to its re-establishment in England without any need for coercion. He thought once Englishmen could see how Catholicism had been misrepresented they would willingly turn to the true faith, especially if that had the weight of royal approval behind it. So long as Catholic worship were freely allowed, other details of the toleration were of secondary importance, merely a matter of tactics. Whether James wanted toleration for Dissenters as well as for Catholics varied according to circumstances. He was not a tolerationist in the sense that he believed that honest differences of opinion could be or should be permitted within a state or that no one church had a monopoly of truth: in fact he believed the opposite. His advocacy of toleration was the product of the self-confidence of his bigotry: if Catholicism were tolerated, it would triumph completely and inevitably and then the question of toleration would lose all meaning."

"At this point the king decided that the game was up. He abandoned his army and hurried back to London by coach. Once there, he put Queen Mary Beatrice and Prince James into a boat for France. On the night of December 11 he threw the Great Seal (required for registering statutes) into the Thames and attempted to make his own escape. He botched even this when he was discovered, disguised, while attempting to board a boat bound for the continent. The king returned briefly to London but, despite the urging of a number of Tory peers, he had no intention of staying. By the same token, William had no desire to see his inconveniently returned father-in-law. So, when James requested to go to Rochester, on the extreme east of Kent, there were no objections. The unfortunate monarch took advantage of this location and made his second, successful escape attempt on December 23. The Restoration Settlement was at an end. Put another way, the Great Chain of Being had been broken once again within a generation."

"King James the Second; who was a sour, cruel, and tyrannical disposition, and a zealous Papist. He resolved at once to be above the laws, make himself absolute, and establish popery; upon which the nation, very wisely and justly, turned him out, before he had reigned quite four years; and called the Prince of Orange from Holland, who had married King James's eldest daughter, Mary."

"James the Second, who was a very good King, but unhappily believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they should be Roman Catholicks."

"He loved and aimed at absolute power, and believed that nothing could introduce and support it but the catholic religion, as the Romanists call theirs; and this increased his zeal for it, and that zeal increased his disposition to arbitrary power: so that in truth, his religion and his politics were partly the cause of each other, and indeed they cannot easily be separated."

"In 1685 and 1686, James II struck several more blows to the Whig network in an attempt to silence the radical voice. Early in the first year of his reign, James moved to put the press under stricter supervision. His government was also quick to move against persons accused of distributing seditious papers or telling seditious tales. Bookstores were raided. Benjamin Harris's stocks were seized, wherein books were found with such titles as English Liberties (Henry Care's book) and A Scheme of Popish Cruelties. In December 1685, warrants to arrest anyone dispersing "seditious, scandalous, and unlicensed books, pamphlets, pictures, and papers" were issued. James's crackdown seems to have successfully hindered the production of radical books and pamphlets in England. The number of books printed in 1686 is the lowest of the entire decade. But the king could not eradicate the dissemination of oppositional propaganda completely or control his subjects' minds, many of which were already influenced by Whig revolution culture. Throughout his reign, persons were still arrested, charged with voicing seditious opinions or distributing seditious libels. Books promoting the Protestant cause were still smuggled in from Holland."

"James ascended the throne with all the ease of Richard Cromwell. He took every measure which forethought could enjoin to grasp the royal power, and his earliest declarations carried comfort to an anxious land. He tried to dispel the belief that he was vindictive or inclined to arbitrary rule. "I have often heretofore ventured my life in defence of this nation, and I shall go as far as any man in preserving it in all its just rights and liberties." He declared himself resolved to maintain in both State and Church a system of government established by law. "The laws of England," he said, "are sufficient to make the King a great monarch." He would maintain the rights and prerogative of the Crown, and would not invade any man's property. He is even reported to have said that "as regards his private religious opinions, no one should perceive that he entertained them." Nevertheless, from the moment he felt himself effectively King, on the second Sunday after his accession, he went publicly to Mass in his chapel. The Duke of Norfolk, who carried the sword of state before him, stopped at the door. "My lord," said the King, "your father would have gone farther." "Your Majesty's father would not have gone so far," rejoined the Duke."

"In short, James II may have been an excellent administrator, but he was a terrible politician. A soldier since youth and a Roman Catholic for nearly two decades, he craved order, hierarchy, obedience. He regarded questioning or disagreement from his subordinates, whether in Parliament, the court, or the military, as signs of disloyalty. Consistent with this, he was a lifelong absolutist. In James's view, his father's (Charles I's) only mistake was to make concessions. Above all, James II was convinced of the truth of the Roman Catholic faith and of his moral duty, as king, to bring his people back into the fold, regardless of their individual feelings on the matter. In his defence, James probably had no intention of persecuting his Protestant subjects into conversion or oblivion a la Bloody Mary. Rather, he seems to have believed that, if all Christian faiths were put on equal footing by a toleration, thus creating a free market of ideas and discourse, his subjects would see the self-evident truth of the Old Faith as he had done. Somewhat ironically given the rigid nature of James's personality, the pursuit of religious toleration became the major policy initiative of his reign. Historians have debated his sincerity ever since. But whatever his motivation, as in his administrative reforms, this otherwise old-fashioned and conservative man was too far ahead of his times for his own good."

"During the whole of 1686 and 1687 James held Parliament in abeyance, and used his dispensing power to introduce Roman Catholics into key positions. Whigs and Tories drew closer together. James was uniting the party that had challenged his brother with the party that had rallied so ardently his brother's defence. He now embarked on a political maneoevre at once audacious, crafty, and miscalculated. Hitherto he had striven only to relieve his Catholic subjects. If Whigs and Tories were combined he would match them by a coalition of Papists and Nonconformists under the armed power of the Crown. In William Penn, the Quaker courtier and founder of the state of Pennsylvania across the seas, influential in both this and the former reign, he found a powerful and skilled agent. Thus did the King break down the national barriers of his throne and try to shore it up with novel, ill-assorted, and inadequate props."

"...above all, I must recommend to you the Care of the Navy, the Strength and Glory of this Nation, that you will put it into such a Condition, as may make us considered and respected Abroad. I cannot express My Concern upon this Occasion more suitable to My own Thoughts of it, than by assuring you I have a true English Heart, as jealous of the Honour of the Nation as you can be. And I please Myself with the Hopes, that, by God's Blessing and your Assistance, I may carry the Reputation of it yet higher in the World, than ever it has been in the Time of any of My Ancestors."

"[T]he King sayd he...hoped we would join with him in making a magna Carta for Conscience as well as properties and other liberties, he was sure no man should be debarr[e]d of either while he lived, suppose said he there should be a law made that all black men should be imprisoned, twould be unreasonable and we had as little reason to quarrell with other men for being of different opinions as for being of different Complexions...and he was sure no Englishman could desire to see others persecuted for differences of opinion."

"In particular, the ruling elite seems to have taken a wait-and-see attitude to William's invasion. But as James hesitated to act, his support began to evaporate. The first to go over to William was Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury (1661-1723), the king's own nephew. By mid-November, the lords lieutenant who had been asked to raise the militia did so- and then marched it over to the prince of Orange: Lord Delamere (1652-94) gave his Cheshire tenants a choice, "whether [to] be a slave and a Papist, or a Protestant and a Freeman." Thus, at the moment of crisis James II turned out to be vulnerable on the last long-term issue that had cost his father the crown, that of local control. Ultimately, that control still rested with the landed aristocracy who held estates in the localities. In the course of two successive mornings between November 23 and 25, James awakened to find that his other son-in-law, Prince George, his dearest friend, Lord Churchill, and the head of the most staunchly Royalist family in England, James Butler, second duke of Ormond (1665-1745), had gone over to William. On the 26th he learned that Princess Anne had also fled the court, leading James to lament, "God help me... my own children have forsaken me.""

"Finally realizing the seriousness of William's preparations, in late September James tried to back-pedal, abolishing the Ecclesiastical Commission, restoring the old city charters and their Anglican Tory oligarchies, and promising to call a free parliament. This did nothing to placate the Tory clergy or gentry or attack Whig townspeople; instead it demoralized Catholics and threw the local government of the nation into confusion. Soon after hearing that William had landed, James developed a massive nosebleed- probably a psychological reaction. At first glance, the king's panic makes no sense. He had at his immediate disposal 25,000 troops encamped on Salisbury Plain, squarely between William, at Exeter, and London. His coffers were full. He had "home-field" advantage. And there had not been a successful invasion of England since the Wars of the Roses. James should have been able to throw William into the sea in a matter of weeks, if not days. But he must have realized that his forces were largely untested and divided in religion and loyalty. Nor could he have been encouraged by his own obvious personal unpopularity. Perhaps his father's fate haunted him."

"A great king, with strong armies and mighty fleets, a vast treasure and powerful allies, fell all at once: and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was so irrecoverably broken with a touch, that he was never able to retrieve, what for want both of judgment and heart he threw up in a day."

"In England during the autumn of 1688 everything pointed, as in 1642, to the outbreak of civil war. But now the grouping of the forces was far different from the days when Charles I unfurled his standard at Nottingham. The King had a large, well-equipped regular Army, with a powerful artillery. He believed himself master of the best, if not at the moment the largest, Navy afloat. He could call for powerful armed aid from Ireland and from France. He assumed that the Church of England was paralysed by its doctrine of nonresistance, and he had been careful not to allow any Parliament to assemble for the collective action. Ranged against him on the other hand were not only the Whigs, but almost all the old friends of the Crown. The men who had made the Restoration, the sons of the men who had fought and died for his father at Marston Moor and at Naseby, the Church whose bishops and ministers had so long faced prosecution for the principle of Divine Right, the universities which had melted their plate for Charles I's coffers and sent their young scholars to his armies, the nobility and landed gentry whose interests had seemed so bound up with the monarchy- all, with bet heads and burning hearts, must now prepare themselves to outface their King in arms. Never did the aristocracy or the Established Church face a sterner test or serve the nation better than in 1688. They never flinched; they never doubted."

"As Charles defaulted to his father’s autocratic habits, his throne returned to the vulnerability of the 1640s. On his deathbed in 1685, he showed more concern for his mistresses than his monarchy, and predicted that his brother’s reign would be short. So it proved. Louis’s revocation the same year of the Edict of Nantes (which had guaranteed freedom of worship for Protestants) flooded England with Protestant refugees, and every pulpit resounded to tales of Catholic atrocities. James II's Catholicism was toxic. He had to suppress a rebellion by the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, and began appointing Catholics to senior positions in the army, the church and Oxford University. He used his patronage to pack Parliament with loyal Tories. Even so, with the succession securely Protestant, all might have survived but for a final crisis. In June 1688, James’s wife gave birth to a son, thus removing Mary and William from the succession and substituting a Catholic infant. The battered Restoration compromise was in tatters."

"That this view was extremely naive goes without saying. But James never believed that anyone could honestly and sincerely hold opinions different from his own. He explained opposition in terms of personalities, faction, self-interest, misrepresentation or conspiracy but never in terms of principle... He did not understand that after a century and a quarter of continuous Protestantism Englishmen could not be (and did not wish to be) disabused of their misconceptions about Catholicism by a missionary effort as puny as the one that he mounted. He failed to appreciate that Protestants could be sincerely attached to their beliefs. His schemes were doomed to eventual failure because the vast majority of Englishmen would not willingly turn Papist."

"That King James the Second, having endeayour'd to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom, by breaking the Original Contract between King and People; and by the Advice of Jesuits, and other wicked Persons, having violated the Fundamental Laws; and withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom, hath Abdicated the Government, and that the Throne is thereby become Vacant."

"But now successive desertions smote the unhappy prince. Lord Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, an officer of the Royal Dragoons, endeavoured to carry three regiments of horse to William's camp. James, warned from many quarters, meditated Churchill's arrest. On the night of November 23, having failed to carry any large part of the Army with them, Churchill and the Duke of Grafton, with about four hundred officers and troopers, quitted the royal camp. At the same time the Princess Anne, attended by Sarah Churchill, and guided by Bishop Compton, fled from Whitehall and hastened northwards. And now revolt broke out all over the country. Danby was in arms in Yorkshire, Devonshire in Derbyshire, Delamere in Cheshire. Lord Bath delivered Plymouth to William. Byng, later an admiral, representing the captains of the Fleet, arrived at his headquarters to inform him that the Navy and Portsmouth were at his disposal. City after city rose in rebellion. By one spontaneous, tremendous convulsion the English nation repudiated James."

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

"I am the Queen of France and you are my subject"

"Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England."

"There is but one true kirk and that is the kirk of rome."

"In my end is my beginning."

"So ferr I fallyng into lufis dance, That sodeynly my wit, my contenance, My hert, my will, my nature and my mynd, Was changit clene ryght in anothir kynd."

"And therewith kest I doun myn eye ageyne, Quhare as I sawe, walking under the tour, Full secretly new cummyn hir to pleyne, The fairest or the freschest yonge floure That ever I sawe, me thoght, before that houre, For quhich sodayn abate anon astert The blude of all my body to my hert."

"Beautee eneuch to mak a world to dote."

"Now was there maid fast by the touris wall A gardyn fair, and in the corneris set Ane herber grene with wandis long and small Railit about; and so with treis set Was all the place, and hawthorn hegis knet."

"The bird, the best, the fisch eke in the see, They live in fredome, everich in his kynd. And I a man, and lakkith libertee."

"Worschippe, ye that loveris bene this May, For of your blisse the kalendis are begonne, And sing with us, “away, winter, away! Cum, somer, cum, the suete sesoun and sonne!”"

"The cristall water ran so clere and cold, That in myn ere maid contynualy A maner soun, mellit with armony, That full of lytill fischis by the brym Now here now there with bakkis blewe as lede Lap and playit, and in a rout can swym So prattily, and dressit tham to sprede Thair curall fynnis as the ruby rede, That in the sonne on thair scalis bryght As gesserant ay glitterit in my sight."

"Disobedience to this our Proclamation Wee had little reason to expect, because this Service-book was no new thing unto them: For it not differing from the English Service-book in any materiall point, and We supposing that the English Liturgie neither Was nor could bee displeasing to them, did likewise conceive that this Book should be as little disliked by them."

"Now, doth this Petition deserve the name of an explication of their Covenant? much lesse of such an explication as should give either Us or Our Commissioner any satisfaction? No, for it containeth neither more nor lesse then this, that they doe not meane to shake off their obedience, if We will give way to all their courses, which by this Petition they justifie; so that their meaning is, that they will continue obedient subjects, if We will part from Our Soveraigntie; which is in effect, that they will obey if Wee will suffer them to command."

"After Charles tried to rule as an autocrat for eleven years, the outcome was civil war and his defeat and execution in 1649. To us, that execution ranks as the truly revolutionary event of English history. But to see revolutions as incidents rather than processes is misleading. Charles’ execution was not seen at the time as a revolutionary triumph, whether for democracy or for Parliament. It was rather, as its instigator Oliver Cromwell put it, a cruel necessity’ to secure the sanctity of the Petition of Right. If that required violence, so be it."

"Since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you that you will send them unto me as soon as they return hither. But, I assure you on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other."

"For We supposing that they might have taken some offence, if We should have tendered them the English Service Booke totidem verbis, and that some factious spirits would have endevoured to have misconstrued it as a badge of dependance of that Church upon this of England, which Wee had put upon them to the prejudice of their Lawes and Liberties; We held it fitter that a new Booke should be composed by their own Bishops, in substance not differing from this of England, that so the Roman party might not upbraid Us with any weightie or materiall differences in Our Liturgies, and yet in some few insensible alterations differing from it, that it might truely and justly be reputed a Book of that Churches owne composing, and established by Our Royall Authority, as King of Scotland."

"Charles was put to death at the time when his influence, long on the wane, was at its lowest point. He had outlived his usefulness, alienated every party, political and religious, betrayed and deserted his most intimate accomplices, and deceived his subjects generally. Charles had talents above the average. With much of the culture and refinement of his epoch, he lacked that breadth of view, consistency of purpose, and firmness of will which distinguish a good ruler and a powerful statesman. His manliness was not of the highest order, and his courage was spasmodic, which is not to be wondered at, since in courting success Charles acted on the vicious principle that the end justifies the means. The oft-repeated assertion that Charles died a martyr to religion and to Episcopacy cannot be maintained by any one cognizant of the unscrupulous stratagems which he used in order to restore himself to absolute power, such as the temporary countenancing of Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1641, and his offer to re-establish popery in Ireland in 1645."

"There are thus grounds for believing that never since the days of Charles I. have we had either so much provision of work for the able-bodied or so complete a system of looking after the more needy."

"Amidst the wreck of his fortunes Charles seized on the growing discord among his opponents as a means of retrieving all. He trusted that the dread of revolution would at last rally the whole body of conservative Englishmen round the royal standard; and it is likely enough that had he frankly flung himself on the side of the Parliament at this juncture he might have regained much of his older power. But, beaten and hunted as he was from place to place, he was determined to regain not much but all. The terms which the Houses offered were still severe; and Charles believed that a little kingcraft would free him from the need of accepting any terms whatever. He therefore intrigued busily with both parties, and promised liberty of worship to Vane and the Independents at the moment when he was negotiating with the Parliament and with the Scots. His negotiations were quickened by the march of Fairfax upon Oxford. Driven from his last refuge at the close of April 1646, the King had to choose between a flight from the realm or a surrender to one of the armies about him. Charles had no mind to forsake England when all seemed working for his success; and after some aimless wanderings he made his appearance in May in the camp of the Scots."

"What the King said to me the 29th January 1648. being the last time I had the happinesse to see Him. He told me, He was glad I was come, and although He had not time to say much, yet somewhat He had to say to me, which he had not to another, or leave in writing, because He feared their Crueltie was such, as that they would not have permitted Him to write to me. He wished me not to grieve and torment myself for Him, for that would be a glorious death that He should die, it being for the Laws and Liberties of this Land, and for maintaining the true Protestant Religion. He bid me read Bishop Andrews's Sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Politie, and Bishop Laud's Book against Fisher, which would ground me against Poperie. He told me, He had forgiven all His Enemies, and hoped God would forgive them also; and commanded Us, and all the rest of my Brothers & Sisters, to forgive them... Further, He commanded Us all to forgive those people, but never to trust them; for they had been most false to Him, and to those that gave them power, and He feared also to their own souls; And desired me not to grieve for Him, for He should die a Martyr; And that He doubted not but the Lord would settle His Throne upon his Son, and that We should be all happier, then We could have expected to have been, if He had lived: With many other things, which at present I cannot remember."

"On the twentieth of January Charles appeared before Bradshaw's Court only to deny its competence and to refuse to plead; but thirty-two witnesses were examined to satisfy the consciences of his judges, and it was not till the fifth day of the trial that he was condemned to death as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy of his country. The popular excitement vented itself in cries of "Justice," or "God save your Majesty," as the trial went on, but all save the loud outcries of the soldiers was hushed as, on the 30th of January, 1649, Charles passed to his doom. The dignity which he had failed to preserve in his long jangling with Bradshaw and the judges returned at the call of death. Whatever had been the faults and follies of his life, "he nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." Two masked executioners awaited the King as he mounted the scaffold, which had been erected outside one of the windows of the Banqueting House at Whitehall; the streets and roofs were thronged with spectators; and a strong body of soldiers stood drawn up beneath. His head fell at the first blow, and as the executioner lifted it to the sight of all a groan of pity and horror burst from the silent crowd."

"He did not flinch in any respect from the causes in which he believed. Although, no doubt, in bargainings and maneuvers with his enemies he had practised deceit and ill faith, these arose from the malignancy and ever-shifting character of the quarrel, and were amply matched upon the other side. But he never departed from his central theme either in religion or State. He adhered unswervingly to the Prayer Book of the Reformed Church and to the Episcopacy, with which he conceived Christianity was to be interwoven. By his constancy, which underlay all the shifts and turns of the tumultous and swiftly changing years, he preserved the causes by which his life was guided. He was not a martyr in the sense of one who dies for a spiritual ideal. His own kingly interests were mingled at every stage with the larger issues. Some have sought to represent him as the champion of the small or humble man against the rising money-power. This is fanciful. He cannot be claimed as the defender of English liberties, nor wholly of the English Church, but none the less he died for them, and by his death preserved them not only to his son and heir, but to our own day."

"I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it."

"Our Father of blessed memorie immediately after his comming into England, comparing the decencie and uniformitie of Gods worship here, especially in the Liturgie of the Church, with that diversitie, nay deformitie which was used in Scotland, where no set or publike forme of prayer was used, but Preachers or Readers and ignorant Schoolmasters prayed in the Church, sometimes so ignorantly as it was a shame to all Religion to have the Majestie of God so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously that their prayers were plaine Libels, girding at Soveraigntie and Authoritie; or Lyes, being stuffed with all the false reports in the Kingdome."