The covenant was profanely called, in the house of commons an almanac out of date;[*] and that impiety, though complained of, had passed uncensured.

Instead of being able to determine and establish orthodoxy by the sword and by penal statutes, they saw the sectarian army, who were absolute masters, claim an unbounded liberty of conscience, which the Presbyterians regarded with the utmost abhorrence.
All the violences put on the king, they loudly blamed, as repugnant to the covenant by which they stood engaged to defend his royal person.
And those very actions of which they themselves had been guilty, they denominated treason and rebellion, when executed by an opposite party.
The earls of Loudon, Lauderdale, and Laneric, who were sent to London, protested against the four bills, as containing too great a diminution of the king's civil power, and providing no security for religion.

They complained that, notwithstanding this protestation, the bills were still insisted on, contrary to the solemn league, and to the treaty between the two nations.

And when they accompanied the English commissioners to the Isle of Wight, they secretly formed a treaty with the king for arming Scotland in his favor.[**] * Cl.

Walker, p.