The Black Acts were abrogated by Parliament in 1592 and from that time forth ensued a struggle between the {370} king and the presbyteries which, in the opinion of the former, agreed as well together as God and the devil.

Still more after his accession to the English throne James came to prefer the episcopal form of church government as more subservient, and to act on the maxim, "no bishop, no king." [1] Could he have been David Borthwick or David Lyndsay?
See Luther's letters and _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[2] Such a piece of embroidery has been kept in my mother's family from that day to this.
{371} CHAPTER VIII THE COUNTER-REFORMATION SECTION 1.

ITALY It is sometimes so easy to see, after the event, why things should have taken just the course they did take, that it may seem remarkable that political foresight is so rare.

It is probable, however, that the study of history not only illumines many things, and places them in their true perspective, but also tends to simplify too much, overemphasizing, to our minds, the elements that finally triumphed and casting those that succumbed into the shadow.
[Sidenote: Italy] However this may be, Italy of the sixteenth century appears to offer an unusually clear case of a logical sequence of effects due to previously ascertainable causes.

That Italy should toy with the Reformation without accepting it, that she should finally suppress it and along with it much of her own spiritual life, seems to be entirely due to her geographical, political and cultural condition at the time when she felt the impact of the new ideas.
In all these respects, indeed, there was something that might at first blush have seemed favorable to the Lutheran revolt.