The discontent was not confined to the Episcopalian party.
Such Roman Catholics as there were in Scotland at the time were prepared
to take up arms for a Stuart king who was a devout adherent of their
religion. Moreover, the Presbyterians themselves were not united. A
party which was to grow in strength, and which now included a
considerable number of extreme Presbyterians, still longed, in spite of
their experience of Charles II, for a covenanted king, and looked with
great distrust upon William and Mary. The triumphant party of moderate
Presbyterians, who probably represented most faithfully the feeling of
the nation, acted throughout with considerable wisdom. The acceptance of
the crown converted the Convention into a Parliament, and the Estates
set themselves to obtain, in the first place, their own freedom from the
tyranny of the committee known as the "Lords of the Articles", through
which James VI and his successors had kept the Parliament in
subjection. William was unwilling to lose entirely this method of
controlling his new subjects, but he had to give way. The Parliament
rescinded the Act of Charles II asserting his majesty's supremacy "over
all persons and in all causes ecclesiastical" as "inconsistent with the
establishment of Church government now desired", but, in the military
crisis which threatened them, they proceeded no further than to bring in
an Act abolishing Prelacy and all superiority of office in the Church of
Scotland.
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