A situation already bad for the king has gotten steadily worse in the course of the past year.

Following the advice of James, Marquess of Hamilton, he allows the General Assembly to meet at Glasgow in November, the first since that held at Perth twenty years before.

It's not absolutely certain what Hamilton, a man of limited political ability, had hoped to achieve by this move, but the outcome is contrary to all expectations.

Not only are the bishops—hunted figures rarely appearing in public now—prevented from attending, but the whole affair is so stage-managed that it is packed out with as many elders (many of them armed) as ministers.

Hamilton, having lost all control, departs.