Welcome to five minutes in church history hosted by Dr Stephen Nichols, where we take a little

break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people, events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity.

This is our story, our family history. Let's get started.

On this episode of five minutes in church history, we're going to be finishing our three-part

series on the Scottish Reformation.

We're looking at the year 1638.

But before we look at the year 1638, we need to back up just one year and look at the year

1637. In fact, I want to go to a specific date, July 23, 1637. And we can even go to a specific place to St. Giles Cathedral.

Now this was not just any cathedral, this cathedral has a great and rich history in Scottish church.

John Knox's church.

So here we are in 1637, but we need a little bit more background before I can tell you this story.

If we go back to the previous episode we had, of course Elizabeth was the monarch at that time,

and she died in 1603, James came to the throne. Now James was of Scotland. In fact, before he was James

the First of England, he was James the Fourth of Scotland. And he rolled until 1625, and then

along came Charles the Firstst. Well James the 1st did not like the

Puritan so he started a program of trying to route them from the land. In fact his

famous saying is I shall make them conform or I shall hairy them from this realm.

So James didn't think very highly of the Puritans.

And when Charles I came to the throne, things went from bad to worse.

Well, Charles the first had a theological and ecclesiastical henchman, William Laud.

And he kept promoting Laud up the ranks, and eventually Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Laud constructed a new version of the Book of Common Prayer and introduced a liturgy that was very much like the old Roman mass.

...