The commissioner had even sufficient influence to obtain an act, annulling at once all laws which had passed since the year 1633; on pretext of the violence which, during that time, had been employed against the king and his father, in order to procure their assent to these statutes.

This was a very large, if not an unexampled concession; and, together with many dangerous limitations, overthrew some useful barriers which had been erected to the constitution.

But the tide was now running strongly towards monarchy; and the Scottish nation plainly discovered, that their past resistance had proceeded more from the turbulence of their aristocracy, and the bigotry of their ecclesiastics, than from any fixed passion towards civil liberty.

The lords of articles were restored, with some other branches of prerogative; and royal authority fortified with more plausible claims and pretences, was, in its full extent, reestablished in that kingdom.
The prelacy likewise, by the abrogating of every statute enacted in favor of Presbytery, was thereby tacitly restored; and the king deliberated what use he should make of this concession.

Lauderdale, who at bottom was a passionate zealot against Episcopacy, endeavored to persuade him, that the Scots, if gratified in this favorite point of ecclesiastical government, would, in every other demand, be entirely compliant with the king.