Both the king and the Covenanters accompanied their
military preparations with propaganda campaigns dur-
ing the months before the brief skirmish known as the
First Bishops' War. By the end of the war in June 1639,
there seems little doubt that the Scottish point of view
had gained ground with the English, while the king's
had lost credibility. As early as 1637, the Venetian ambassador reported
on what he called the Puritan version of the prayer-book crisis:

A report has got abroad that the pope's resident has had a hand
in this [Scottish innovations] and that he has encouraged the efforts
of the archbishop, hoping that either the people will yield to his
ordinances, which approach closely to those of the Roman church,
or by opposing them they will bring about a civil war between
the Protestants with considerable advantage to the Catholic party,
to whom the archbishop would have to approach more and more
nearly in order to suppress the other. Such are the suspicions that
the Puritans have about him not without reason. ¹

By mid- 1639 this interpretation of the Scottish troubles had spread be-
yond Puritan circles.

For this development the persuasiveness of Scottish propaganda can
take only partial credit, although in the person of the renegade Jesuit
Thomas Abernethie they had a presumably expert witness on popish plot-
ting. The utter conviction and consistency with which the Scots pressed
their arguments must also have helped their case. But the king's own
actions provided the best corroboration of Scottish propaganda. The
secrecy with which Charles I handled his preparation for the war, the
failure of his campaign and the sense of humiliation and frustration it
induced in the English, and his patent (albeit unsuccessful) appeal to
Catholic aid--all stimulated Protestant imaginations. Furthermore, the
attempt to use Scottish and Irish Catholic arms, the reliance on advisors
suspected of Catholic sympathies, and the permission given the queen to
organize a Catholic contribution were all political errors that far out-
weighed the slight practical advantage they provided. Within the ranks of
the aristocracy that gathered at the king's northern rendezvous in April,

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