As it is not usual for the ministers, who are put in the list of candidates, to claim a vote, all the elections by that means fell into the hands of the laity: the most furious of all ranks were chosen: and the more to overawe the clergy, a new device was fallen upon, of choosing to every commissioner four or five lay assessors, who, though they could have no vote, might yet interpose with their advice and authority in the assembly.[**] The assembly met at Glasgow; and, besides a great concourse of the people, all the nobility and gentry of any family or interest were present, either as members, assessors, or spectators; and it was apparent that the resolutions taken by the Covenanters could here meet with no manner of opposition.

A firm determination had been entered into of utterly abolishing episcopacy; and as a preparative to it, there was laid before the presbytery of Edinburgh, and solemnly read in all the churches of the kingdom, an accusation against the bishops, as guilty, all of them, of heresy, simony, bribery, perjury, cheating, incest, adultery, fornication, common swearing, drunkenness, gaming, breach of the Sabbath, and every other crime that had occurred to the accusers.[***] The bishops sent a protest, declining the authority of the assembly: the commissioner, too, protested against the court, as illegally constituted and elected; and, in his majesty's name, dissolved it.

This measure was foreseen, and little regarded.

The court still continued to sit, and to finish their business.[****] * A presbytery in Scotland is an inferior ecclesiastical court, the same that was afterwards called a classis in England, and is composed of the clergy of the neighboring parishes, to the number commonly of between twelve and twenty.
** King's Decl.p.190, 191, 290.

Guthry, p.