the Congregation was now triumphant, and about finally and emphatically to express itself.1 The Estates convened in August. On the 17th the Confession of Faith, containing a rendering, in English or Scots, of the principles of the Geneva Church was approved of as "hailsom and sound doctrine, grounded upon the infallible truth of God's Word." At the same time there was a general repeal or revocation of all Acts authorising any other form of belief or worship, and the authority of the Bishop of Rome was abjured. It was provided that the administering, or being present at the administration, of the mass, should be punishable-for the first offence, by forfeiture of goods, and corporal infliction at the discretion of the magistrate; for the second, by banishment from the realm; for the third, by "justifying to the deid," or death. These Acts were passed on the 25th of August. They have little organisation or legislative detail for the purpose of practical application, and may be held, as many Scots Acts then were, to be rather a resolution and declaration of opinion by the triumphant party in the States, than Acts of Parliament in the present constitutional meaning of the term.2 It will be observed, in what has hereafter to be said, and makes a very significant point in the character and policy of Queen Mary, that these Acts never got the royal assent. The external character of the religion thus suddenly introduced cannot be omitted from the material facts that 1 Randolph wrote to Killigrew how he "saw the dowager's corpse. She lies in a bed covered with a fair fine white sheet, the tester of black satin, and the bed-stock hanged round about to the ground with the same. All her own servants are at liberty, saving only the bishops and clergy, who are stayed until the Parliament make order with them. Her ordinary continues; her dames continually wait on the corpse. They have not yet received their mourning garments. Scindite corda vostra, non vestimenta; so said the Lady Fleming to him talking of that matter. Her burial is deferred till the Lords of Parliament are assembled the first day thereof is decimo Julii. It is determined that she shall have all solemnities meet for so noble a personage, saving such as savour rather of superstition than of Christian piety."-133. 2 Act. Parl., ii. 526 et seq. have to be told in history. But any account of it, as expressed in the authorised announcements of creeds and adoption of books of devotion, will come in more harmoniously with the later period, when the champions of the Reformation become the actual rulers of the state. On the face of the parliamentary record it would seem as if the Reformation in Scotland were the work of one day. On the morning of the 25th of August 1560, the Romish hierarchy was supreme; in the evening of the same day, Calvinistic Protestantism was established in its stead. But the departure of the French and the treaty of Edinburgh were the conclusion of past events; and as to the Acts of Parliament, whether they were of any avail or not depended on events yet to come.1 1 Throckmorton gives an account of this eventful Parliament. He 66 never heard matters of such great importance sooner despatched, nor with better will agreed unto.' After a question about the institution of the Parliament, "The next was the ratification of the Confession of Faith, which the Bishop of St Andrews said was a matter that he had not been accustomed with, and had had no sufficient time to consider or confer with his friends; howbeit, as he would not utterly condemn it, so was he loath to give his consent thereunto. To that effect also spake the Bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane. Of the Lords temporal, the Earls of Cassilis and Caithness said No. The rest of the Lords, with common consent and glad will, allowed the same. The old Lord Lindsay, as grave and godly a man as ever he saw, said, 'I have lived many years; I am the oldest in this company of my sort; now that it has pleased God to let me see this day where so many nobles and others have allowed so worthy a work, I will say with Simeon, nunc dimittis.' The old Laird of Lundie confessed how long he had lived in blindness, repented his former life, and embraced the same as his true belief. The Lord James, after some other purpose, said that he must the sooner believe it to be true for that some other in the company did not allow the same-he knew that God's truth would never be without adversaries. The Lord Marshall said, though he were otherwise assured it were true, yet might he be the bolder to pronounce it, for that he saw there the pillars of the Pope's Church, and not one of them would speak against it. Many others spoke to like effect, as the Laird of Erskine, the Laird of Newbattle, the sub-prior of St Andrews; concluding all in one, that that was the faith in which they ought all to live and die."-Calendars of State Papers (Foreign) for 1554-60, p. 261. It is not obvious in the face of the document in the Calendars whether the reporter of all this were present, or only spoke from what was told to him. Reference to the Calendars of State Papers, to which the student of British history at this period must needs be largely indebted, demands some explanation. The earlier sets of Calendars-as, for instance, the two volumes relating to Scotland—were little more than " contents or indications of what might be found in the manuscript papers enumerated in them. The series here quoted is much more full. Sometimes passages are quoted from the papers and placed within inverted commas. One must hold these to be absolutely accurate, and for all historical purposes to be cited as documents. The greater portion of the matter, however, is a rendering of the tenor of the document, closely abridged where it is unimportant, but fuller where matter of importance and interest appears. There must be discretion in making use of such passages. If there is nothing of a very critical nature in the absolute words used, they may be quoted as one quotes a book. But should a word, or the construction of a sentence, involve any important question about the meaning of any part, the Calendar must then only be treated as pointing the way to the original document. CONDITION OF THE NATION FROM THE WAR OF THE CONSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND-THE POWER OF THE ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT-THEIR EXERCISE OF THE EXECUTIVE-LORDS OF THE ARTICLES-THE ESTATES AS A FINAL COURT OF LAW-LORDS AUDITORS-DAILY COUNCIL-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION ON THE MODEL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS-INFLUENCE OF THIS IMITATION-CHARACTER OF THE INSTITUTIONS-ADAPTATION OF THE CIVIL LAW-CONSPICUOUS ABSENCE OF PREROGATIVE LAW AND INVIDIOUS CLASS PRIVILEGES-CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL RESULTS-POPULARITY OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS - PROVISIONS FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE-GRAMMARSCHOOLS-UNIVERSITIES-THEIR TESTIMONY TO AN ELEMENT OF ENLIGHTENED LIBERALITY IN THE CHURCH-THEIR MODEL BROUGHT FROM FRANCE-VESTIGES OF THIS INFLUENCE IN UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTION AND PRACTICE. It is now proposed to pause for a while in the narrative, and look back upon such isolated occurrences or established facts as are suggestive about the progress of the nation in wealth, civilisation, literature, the administration of justice, and other matters coming within the compass of a country's social condition. In the similar retrospect of progress before the War of Independence, the materials for distinct knowledge were so meagre that every trifle had to be seized with avidity. The materials, too, for the succession of historical events were too scanty to supply the significant features which enable us to see the manners and conditions of the people in the mere telling of the narrative. The fuller particulars of the later periods ought of themselves to tell about the social condition of the several actors who come forward, more expressively than a general VOL. III. 2 B dissertation can. On this occasion, then, nothing seems. to be appropiate or required beyond a rapid grouping of such specialties as narrative does not naturally carry with its current. The reasons have been given for supposing that there was much comfort, if not affluence, in Scotland when the War of Independence broke out. In the earlier summary of national progress we find traces of laws, which had grown up no one knew how, older than the traces of the existence of a parliamentary body. We have seen how, through the feudal institutions moulded by the spirit of the people, a parliament gradually grew, under the title of the Estates of the Realm; and we have seen that in the reign of Robert the Bruce, if not earlier, the citizens of the burghs were represented in that body. During the period now referred to, the Estates continued to exist, and to act as a constitutional establishment of the nation. We have had many opportunities of noticing the laws passed by the Estates, and the other transactions in which they were concerned. In some of these instances it may have been observed that the Estates interfered with transactions which, according to modern English constitutional notions, belong to the executive; and from this it would be inferred, by many practical politicians, that the Estates. of Scotland were not a properly constitutional parliament. There can be no doubt of the superiority of the practice of the present British Parliament on all points in which it differs from the practice of the Scots Estates anterior to the Reformation. But may we not find that the perfection of the British system has grown with the other political conditions surrounding it, and that it is as vain to seek it in the Scotland of the sixteenth century, as to seek the peace, the security, and the other blessings of our civilisation in the same conditions of time and place? Take, for instance, two features in which the British Constitution has gone far beyond any other human institution in the way to perfection, by effecting the rapid action of a despotism without weakening or checking |