Session, and confirmed in the House of Lords declared the above Veto Act ultra vires, so it was unenforceable by law. They also indicated that the Church of Scotland, having been set up by statute, was subject to the law of the land in all civil matters. Its Presbyteries were liable to severe financial penalties if they resisted Patron's nominees using the Veto Act. Court orders were made forbidding the ordination of Ministers who might harm the interests of a Patron's nominee. This led to the Great Disruption of 1843 - a walk-out of about 40% of the Ministers, led by Thomas Chalmers - and the setting up of the Free Church of Scotland. This Church at the time had no doctrinal or theological difference with the majority of Ministers who remained in the Church of Scotland, but it contained the greater proportion of evangelical ministers. Those who remained within the Church of Scotland were determined to remain within the law, and in 1874 they secured abolition of the Patronage Act. Abolition By the Church Patronage (Scotland) Act 1874, 163 years after the 1711 Act, lay patronage was abolished for the Church of Scotland, thus enabling presbyteries to follow canon law in the choice of ministers. Initially, ministers were chosen by a meeting of all the heads of households and elders, but a sophisticated process of trials was then developed, which by the second half of the twentieth century, also allowed women a voice in the selection of ministers. The General Assembly introduced the innovation of deaconesses in 1898, created the concept of women elders in 1966, and the concept of women ministers in 1968. Notes Sources Hetherington, W M History of the Church of Scotland ... to 1841 Johnstone, Edinburgh, 1842 The select antipatronage library consisting chiefly of reprints of scarce pramphlets connected with lay-patronage in the Church of Scotland John Johnstone, Edinburgh, 1842 Stevens, A J The Statutes Relating to the Ecclesiastical and Eleemosynary Institutions of England, ... etc''' Vol I, Parker, London, 1843 The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol V, J Murray, Edinburgh 1735 Gillan, Robert An abridgment of the acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland: from the year 1638 to 1820 inclusive, to which is subjoined an Appendix containing an abridged view of the civil law relating to the Church General Assembly, Edinburgh, 1821 Dunbar, W H et al, The Scottish Jurist: containing reports