By an Act passed in the time of Knox, and breathing his spirit, it was a high crime to hear mass, and the third offence was capital.

[121] An Act recently passed, at the instance of James, made it death to preach in any Presbyterian conventicle whatever, and even to attend such a conventicle in the open air.

[122] The Eucharist was not, as in England, degraded into a civil test; but no person could hold any office, could sit in Parliament, or could even vote for a member of Parliament, without subscribing, under the sanction of an oath, a declaration which condemned in the strongest terms the principles both of the Papists and of the Covenanters.

[123] In the Privy Council of Scotland there were two parties corresponding to the two parties which were contending against each other at Whitehall.
William Douglas, Duke of Queensberry, was Lord Treasurer, and had, during some years, been considered as first minister.

He was nearly connected by affinity, by similarity of opinions, and by similarity of temper, with the Treasurer of England.