The pretensions which the preachers had inherited from Knox and Andrew Melville were practically incompatible, as had been proved, with the existence of the State.

In the southern and western shires,--such as those of Dumfries, Galloway, Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark,--the forces which attacked the Engagers had been mustered; these shires had backed Strachan and Ker and Guthrie in the agitation against the king, the Estates, and the less violent clergy, after Dunbar.

But without Argyll, and with no probable noble leaders, they could do little harm; they had done none under the English occupation, which abolished the General Assembly.

To have restored the Assembly, or rather two Assemblies--that of the Protesters and that of the Resolutionists,--would certainly have been perilous.

Probably the wisest plan would have been to grant a General Assembly, to meet _after_ the session of Parliament; not, as had been the custom, to meet before it and influence or coerce the Estates.