this policy he took no heed of English national sentiment, but was quite ready to defy and insult it, even to the point of making—­before children who remembered the Armada had yet reached middle age—­an alliance with the hated Spaniard.  In such wise James succeeded in arraying against the monarchical principle the strongest forces of English life,—­the sentiment of nationality, the sentiment of personal freedom, and the uncompromising religious fervour of Calvinism; and out of this invincible combination of forces has been wrought the nobler and happier state of society in which we live to-day. [Sidenote:  James Stuart and Andrew Melville]

Scarcely ten months had James been king of England when he invited the leading Puritan clergymen to meet himself and the bishops in a conference at Hampton Court, as he wished to learn what changes they would like to make in the government and ritual of the church.  In the course of the discussion he lost his temper and stormed, as was his wont. [Sidenote:  King James’s view of the political situation]

The mention of the word “presbytery” lashed him into fury.  “A Scottish presbytery,” he cried, “agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the Devil.  Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasures censure me and my council and all our proceedings ....  Stay, I pray you, for one seven years, before you demand that from me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you ....  Until you find that I grow lazy, let that alone.”  One of the bishops declared that in this significant tirade his Majesty spoke by special inspiration from Heaven!  The Puritans saw that their only hope lay in resistance.  If any doubt remained, it was dispelled by the vicious threat with which the king broke up the conference.  “I will make them conform,” said he, “or I will harry them out of the land.”

These words made a profound sensation in England, as well they might, for they heralded the struggle which within half a century was to deliver up James’s son to the executioner.  The Parliament of 1604 met in angrier mood than any Parliament which had assembled at Westminster since the dethronement of Richard II.  Among the churches non-conformity began more decidedly to assume the form of secession.  The key-note of the conflict was struck at Scrooby.  Staunch Puritan as he was, Brewster had not hitherto favoured the extreme measures of the Separatists.  Now he withdrew from the church, and gathered together a company of men and women who met on Sundays for divine service in his own drawing-room at Scrooby Manor.  In organizing this independent Congregationalist society, Brewster was powerfully aided by John Robinson, a native of Lincolnshire.  Robinson was then thirty years of age, and had taken his master’s degree at Cambridge in 1600.  He was a man of great learning and rare sweetness of temper, and was moreover distinguished