Some offices were bestowed upon the leaders of the kirk party, and the duke of Hamilton, being reconciled to the government, was appointed commissioner.

On the eighteenth day of April the session was opened, and the king's letter, replete with the most cajoling expressions, being read, the parliament proceeded to exhibit undeniable specimens of their good humour.

They drew up a very affectionate answer to his majesty's letter; they voted an addition of six new regiments to the standing forces of the kingdom; they granted a supply of above one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to his majesty; they enacted a law for levying men to serve on board the royal navy; they fined all absentees, whether lords or commons, and vacated the seats of all those commissioners who refused to take the oath of assurance, which was equivalent to an abjuration of king James; they set on foot an inquiry about an intended invasion; they published some intercepted letters supposed to be written to king James by Nevil Payne, whom they committed to prison and threatened with a trial for high treason; but he eluded the danger by threatening in his turn to impeach those who had made their peace with the government; they passed an act for the comprehension of such of the episcopal clergy as should condescend to take the oaths by the tenth day of July.

All that the general assembly required of them was, an offer to subscribe the confession of faith, and to acknowledge presbytery as the only government of the Scottish church; but they neither submitted to these terms, nor took the oaths within the limited time, so that they forfeited all legal right to their benefices.

Nevertheless they continued in possession, and even received private assurances of the king's protection.