The Archbishops presided, laity and clergy formed the body of the Court, and it was regarded as vexatious and tyrannical.

The same terms, to be sure, would now be applied to the interference of preachers and presbyteries with private life and opinion.

By 1612 the king had established Episcopacy, which, for one reason or another, became equally hateful to the nobles, the gentry, and the populace.

James's motives were motives of police.
Long experience had taught him the inconveniences of presbyterial government as it then existed in Scotland.
To a Church organised in the presbyterian manner, as it has been practised since 1689, James had, originally at least, no objection.

But the combination of "presbyterian Hildebrandism" with factions of the turbulent _noblesse_; the alliance of the Power of the Keys with the sword and lance, was inconsistent with the freedom of the State and of the individual.