In 1634-35, on the information of Archbishop Spottiswoode, Lord Balmerino was tried for treason because he possessed a supplication or petition which the Lords of the minority, in the late Parliament, had drawn up but had not presented.  He was found guilty, but spared:  the proceeding showed of what nature the bishops were, and alienated and alarmed the populace and the nobles and gentry.  A remonstrance in a manly spirit by Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet, was disregarded.

In 1635 Charles authorised a Book of Canons, heralding the imposition of a Liturgy, which scarcely varied, and when it varied was thought to differ for the worse, from that of the Church of England.  By these canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, the preachers could not use their sword of excommunication without the assent of the Bishops.  James VI. had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of “conceived prayers,” spoken by the minister, and believed to be extemporary or directly inspired.  There is an old story that one minister prayed that James might break his leg:  certainly prayers for “sanctified plagues” on that prince were publicly offered, at the will of the minister.  Even a very firm Presbyterian, the Laird of Brodie, when he had once heard the Anglican service in London, confided to his journal that he had suffered much from the nonsense of “conceived prayers.”  They were a dangerous weapon, in Charles’s opinion:  he was determined to abolish them, rather that he might be free from the agitation of the pulpit than for reasons of ritual, and to proclaim his own headship of the Kirk of “King Christ.”

This, in the opinion of the great majority of the preachers and populace, was flat blasphemy, an assumption of “the Crown Honours of Christ.”  The Liturgy was “an ill-mumbled Mass,” the Mass was idolatry, and idolatry was a capital offence.  However strange these convictions may appear, they were essential parts of the national belief.  Yet, with the most extreme folly, Charles, acting like Henry VIII. as his own Pope, thrust the canons and this Liturgy upon the Kirk and country.  No sentimental arguments can palliate such open tyranny.

The Liturgy was to be used in St Giles’ Church, the town kirk of Edinburgh (cleansed and restored by Charles himself), on July 23, 1637.  The result was a furious brawl, begun by the women, of all presbyterians the fiercest, and, it was said, by men disguised as women.  A gentleman was struck on the ear by a woman for the offence of saying “Amen,” and the famous Jenny Geddes is traditionally reported to have thrown her stool at the Dean’s head.  The service was interrupted, the Bishop was the mark of stones, and “the Bishops’ War,” the Civil War, began in this brawl.  James VI., being on the spot, had thoroughly quieted Edinburgh after a more serious riot, on December 17, 1596.  But Charles was far away; the city had not to fear the loss of the Court and its custom, as on the earlier occasion (the removal of the Council to Linlithgow in October 1637 was a trifle), and the Council had to face a storm of petitions from all classes of the community.  Their prayer was that the Liturgy should be withdrawn.  From the country, multitudes of all classes flocked into Edinburgh and formed themselves into a committee of public safety, “The Four Tables,” containing sixteen persons.