Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

event that at first threatened destruction to it and to
the whole Protestantism of Britain. It was at this
time that the storm-cloud of the Armada gathered,
burst, and passed away, but not without rousing the
spirit of liberty, in Scotland. The Scots resolved to
set their house in order, lest a second Armada
should approach their shores, intercepted letters
having made them aware that Huntly and the
Popish lords of the north were urging Philip II of
Spain to make another attempt, and promising to
second his efforts with soldiers who would not
only place Scotland at his feet, but would aid him
to subjugate England.[5] Even James VI paused in
the road he was traveling towards that oldest and
staunchest friend of despotic princes, the Church of
Rome, seeing his kingdom about to depart from
him. His ardor had been cooled, too, by the many
difficulties he had encountered in his attempts to
impose upon his subjects a hierarchy to which they
were repugnant; and either through that fickleness
and inconstancy which were a part of his nature, or
through that incurable craft which characterized
him as it had done all his race, he became for the
time a zealous Presbyterian. Nay, he "praised God
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