BOOK II.

DECEMBER 1660 TO 12TH JULY 1661.

Lord High Commissioner arrives in Edinburgh—Parliament—Its

composition—Act of indemnity withheld—Lord Chancellor restored to

the Presidentship—Oath of allegiance—Retrogression in

reformation-work—Divine right of Kings asserted—Solemn League and

Covenant repealed—Engagement approved, &c.—Declaration—Resolutioners

begin to perceive their error—Middleton amuses the ministers of

Edinburgh—Manner of concocting the Act rescissory and of getting it

passed—Middleton’s interview with D. Dickson and part of the

Edinburgh presbytery—Distress of the ministers—Dispersion of the

synods—Concluding acts—Trial of Argyle—His behaviour before and at

the place of execution—Trial of James Guthrie—His behaviour and

execution—Captain Govan—Prosecutions of Mr Traill of Edinburgh—Mr

Moncrief of Scone—Intrepid reply of his wife—Mr Robert Macwaird of

Glasgow—His striking picture of the effects of the Restoration—His

accusation—Defence—Banishment—Swinton of Swinton—Sir John Christy and

Mr P. Gillespie’s escape—Parliament rises—Samuel Rutherford.

The Earl of Middleton, Lord High Commissioner, arrived at the ancient

Palace of Holyrood on the last day of December 1660. He entered upon his

office with great pomp; and, being allowed a princely salary for the

support of his establishment, he vied with royalty itself in the

profusion of his expenditure. Every preparation had been made for his

reception: he was met and conducted to his residence by a large

concourse of the nobility and the magistrates of the capital; and the

venerable cathedral of St Giles had been elegantly fitted up with a

throne for his Grace and lofts for the parliament.

That parliament which met on the first day of the new year, was one

entirely suited for promoting the schemes of the Scottish rulers. The

old nobles, who had been active in the cause of the covenant, had almost

all died out, their estates had been wasted, and of the new race too

many, neglected in their education, were now dependant in their

circumstances. When the king arrived, they had flocked to London to put

in their claims upon his justice or generosity for their sufferings in

the royal cause, and had been received with specious condescension, and

sent home with empty pockets and magnificent expectations. But they had

learned at court to laugh at sobriety, to ridicule religion, and to

consider even common decency a mark of disloyalty, while they looked to

a rich harvest of fines and confiscations from the estates of the

remonstrators, as a reward for their sacrificing their principles and

profession at the shrine of prerogative. The commissioners for counties

and burghs were chosen entirely from among those who were considered

devoted to the court and averse to the strict Presbyterians. In some

cases, when persons of an opposite description had been returned, the

ruling party interfered and procured others to be substituted; and to

prevent such as were distinguished for their attachment to the cause of

religious freedom from offering themselves as candidates, they got them

accused of complying with the usurpers, and summoned as criminals.[10]

Footnote 10:

Were it not that mankind have a strange propensity to reward with

injury favours they feel too great to repay, and to heap injustice

upon their benefactors in order to conceal their ingratitude, we would

be astonished at the conduct of Charles; but having often, in private

life, seen that to raise a wretch from penury, was to incur his

hatred, if we did not, at the same time, rise in proportion. We

confess that the ingratitude of princes to those who have succoured

them in distress, ceases to excite those strong feelings of

reprobation, which we have often heard men in humbler life, who were

themselves guilty of grosser injustice, express against crimes, whose

highest aggravation was, that they were committed by persons of rank.

From a parliament so constituted, the most servile compliance might have

been anticipated; but, to ensure their submission, an act of indemnity

had been withheld from Scotland; and, while every one dreaded his

individual safety, the whole assisted in destroying that public liberty

which might have afforded a better chance for security than the will of

a prince or the favour of a parasite. The regalia, always carried before

the commissioner at the opening of a session, were borne—the crown by

the Earl of Crawford, the sceptre by Sutherland, and the sword by Mar.

The Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Montrose rode immediately

behind. Mr Robert Douglas, who had preached the coronation sermon before

Charles when he was inaugurated at Scone, delivered upon this occasion a

faithful and appropriate discourse from 2 Chron. xix. 6.—“Take heed what

you do; for you judge not for man but for the Lord, who is with you in

the judgment.”

The Earl of Middleton’s commission was then presented, and, as had been

previously agreed upon, an act was brought forward to restore to the

Lord Chancellor the Presidentship of parliament. This act, which struck

at the root of the whole reformation in Scotland, deserves particular

notice. By several acts of the estates, passed during the troublous

times, particularly one of the last, held in 1651, at which the king

himself had presided, it was enacted, that, before entering upon

business, every member should swear and subscribe the covenant, without

which the constitution of parliament would become null and void. To have

set aside these statutes openly and at once, was thought too flagrant;

but it had also been enacted during the late struggle, that the

President of the parliament should be elected by parliament, instead of

the Chancellor nominated by the king; and it was therefore proposed to

abolish this privilege, as trenching upon the royal prerogative. In this

act, however, brought forward for that purpose, was inserted an oath of

allegiance, which went to annul all preceding oaths, and covertly to

revive the abhorred supremacy of the king. It was insidiously worded, in

order that those who wished to have an excuse for compliance might take

it without appearing undisguisedly to violate their former engagements,

yet sufficiently plain to justify a refusal by men who were not

altogether prepared to surrender their principles to their interest.

By it the sovereign was acknowledged only supreme governor in the

kingdom over all persons and in all causes; and it was declared that no

foreign prince, power, or state, nor person, civil nor ecclesiastic, had

any jurisdiction, power, or superiority over the same; “and therefore,”

it was added, “I utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions,

powers, and authorities, and shall, at my utmost power, defend, assist,

and maintain his majesty’s jurisdiction aforesaid against all deadly,

and never decline his majesty’s power and jurisdiction.” The consistent

and stricter part of the Presbyterians were not imposed upon. They

considered, and correctly as it afterwards appeared, that this was a

complete acknowledgment of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and

conferred upon him the power to alter or innovate at his pleasure upon

the religion of the country. In parliament, however, almost the whole

took the oath without remark, except the Earls of Cassils and Melville

of the nobles, and the Laird of Kilburnie of the commissioners, who

would not subscribe it unless allowed to limit the king’s supremacy to

civil matters—an explanation which Middleton was disposed to admit of

verbally, but, knowing the extent to which allegiance was to be

required, he refused to permit this explanation to be recorded.

Having thus dispensed with the obligation of the covenant as a

parliament-oath, and reinstated his majesty in his ecclesiastical power,

they proceeded to restore to him a less questionable part of the

prerogative—the nomination of the officers of state, privy councillors,

and Lords of Session, the right of convoking and dissolving parliament,

of commanding the militia, and of making peace and war. These powers,

which are now deemed necessary for the support of the crown in regular

ordinary times, had been assumed by the estates of Scotland (1649) on

account of their abuse by the English ministers and favourites, at a

period when our country, from being the poorest of the two united

kingdoms, and the most distant from the immediate presence of the king,

was peculiarly liable to be oppressed by those who obtained possession

of the royal ear:—and the whole of the succeeding melancholy period,

evince but too clearly how well founded was the jealousy entertained of

the power intrusted to a monarch who was a non-resident. But what then

particularly disgusted the friends of freedom, was, to observe in their

re-enactment, the express unqualified avowal of the slavish tenets of

the divine rights of kings, and their accountability to God alone, the

assertion of which had occasioned all the troubles of the land, had

brought Charles I. to the block, and which was eventually to forfeit for

the Stuarts the throne of their fathers.

Sudden and astonishing as had been the revolution that had taken place

in the public feelings and morals, and outrageously violent as the

shoutings of newfangled loyalty had been against the treasons and

insults of the remonstrators, still the covenants were esteemed sacred

bonds by an imposing number of the worthiest part of the community, whom

it might not have been adviseable to shock too abruptly. These revered

engagements were therefore first attacked obliquely in an act which

purported merely to assert a constitutional truth respecting “his

majesty’s royal prerogative in making of leagues and the convention of

the subjects,” which, after narrating some enactments forbidding

councils, conventions, or assemblies, for determining matters of state,

civil or ecclesiastic, without his majesty’s command or license,

declared that any explanation or glosse that, during these troubles, had

been put upon these acts—“as, ‘that they are not to be extended against

any leagues, councils, conventions, assemblies, or meetings, made,

holden, or kept by the subjects for preservation of the king’s majesty,

the religion, laws, or liberties of the kingdom, or for the public good

either of kirk or kingdom,’ are false and disloyal.” No opposition

having been made to this act, a more decisive followed, annulling the

“pretended” convention of estates kept in 1643, which had entered into

the Solemn League and Covenant, but which, not having been convoked by

the king, although afterwards approved, afforded at least some pretext

for disallowing it. Next came an act “concerning the League and

Covenant, declaring that there was no obligation on the kingdom by

covenant to endeavour, by arms, a reformation of religion in the kingdom

of England; or to meddle in any seditious way in any thing concerning

the religion and government of the churches of England and Ireland.”

With this, perhaps, there was little quarrel. The attempts to obtain

uniformity in religion, and to procure a hollow profession of the form,

where the reality was notoriously wanting, was a political sin, for

which the covenanters had suffered severely already, and the repetition

of which it might be laudable to prevent; yet, as the Solemn League and

Covenant had been formally, fully, and repeatedly sanctioned by all the

members of the state in subsequent parliaments, and was by many good men

considered irreversible, it might have been more decorous to have

allowed it to remain a dead letter, especially as it had been renounced

by the English, and could not in such circumstances be acted upon by the

Scots. Considerable reluctance was expressed respecting this measure;

and, to silence opposition, the commissioner informed the House that he

had no orders from his royal master to encroach upon the National

Covenant or upon the consciences of the people; but as to leagues with

other nations, he conceived they could not now subsist with the laws of

the king. One honest man, however, had the courage publicly to avow that

he could do nothing against his lawful oath and covenant; and numbers

who could not approve of the act, silently withdrew. To make the

annulling of the covenant more palatable, the managers sweetened the

draught by an act against papists, priests, and jesuits, whose numbers

they asserted more abounded of late, and insinuated as if the covenants

had been the cause of the increase!

Preparatory to the bloody tragedy with which they were to conclude, an

act was passed approving of the engagement, and vilifying in the most

bitter terms all who opposed that expedition, ruinous equally to the

king and to the country; and another, condemning the transactions

respecting the delivering up of Charles I. at Newcastle, and declaring

the approval of them by the parliament, 1647, to have been the deed of a

few factious, disloyal persons, and not the deed of the nation. All the

acts which had been voted were embodied into a declaration, entitled an

acknowledgment of his majesty’s prerogative, which, together with the

oath of allegiance, every person holding a place of public trust was

required to subscribe, and all other persons who should be required by

his majesty’s privy council, or any having authority from them, should

be required to take and swear; and whoever should refuse or delay to

take them, were not only to be rendered incapable of any office of

public trust, but be looked upon as persons disaffected to his majesty’s

authority and government.

Hitherto, a majority of the Presbyterian ministers—the remonstrators

excepted—had remained silent, while those who, after Mr Douglas, were

employed to preach before parliament, shamefully flattered the

proceedings of the day, by declaiming against seditious bands and the

irregularity of the times, and inculcating the courtly doctrine of

gratitude for their gracious deliverance from tyranny and usurpation,

and for the miraculous restoration of the king—the duty of unlimited

confidence on the best of princes; and some went so far as to recommend

Episcopacy as that form of church-government that suited best with

monarchy; but when the plans of the managers began to be developed, even

the resolutioners were painfully constrained to suspect that they had

been duped, and that their brethren who wished at first to make an

explicit declaration of their fears, and to supplicate against

encroachment, acted the wiser and more reputable part. When too late,

they saw the folly of admitting to power men of bad principles, and

trusting either to their professions of repentance or the smallness of

their number. The ministers of Edinburgh now attempted to stem the

torrent; they had frequent interviews with the Earl of Middleton, who,

during the progress of the measures, treated them with respect and fair

promises. They entreated that, in the oath of allegiance, the supremacy

of the king might be restricted to his right as supreme governor in

civil affairs, and in ecclesiastical, as defined in the Confession of

Faith, ch. 23: that it might be declared by parliament that they did not

intend to make void the oath of God: and that an act might be passed

ratifying anew the Confession of Faith and Directory of Worship. His

Grace politely promised to transmit their desires to the king, and

requested that they would draw out an act of ratification, such as they

would consider satisfactory, and he would attend to it, which they

accordingly did.

But, while he was amusing them in this manner, a measure was in

progress—the wildest and most extravagant ever tried in any legislative

body—for which, however, the Scottish parliament, by a peculiarity in

its constitution, afforded every facility. That peculiarity consisted in

having a committee, called the Lords of the Articles, composed of from

eight to twelve persons of each estate, who prepared all the bills

brought before the House; so that when they were presented the members

had little else to do but to vote. This committee, at all times under

the influence of the crown, was, in the present instance, completely

devoted to the king’s pleasure, and ready to approve and propose

whatever he desired. Every thing had been so arranged by them, that the

parliament was only required to meet in the afternoon of two days in the

week,[11] where the important acts already noticed, together with others

of a civil nature, of scarcely less consequence, had passed

precipitately almost without discussion. Even this method, however,

seemed too slow for accomplishing the total overthrow of the work of

reformation, and an idea was now revived, which had been originally

suggested in a meeting at London by Sir George M’Kenzie of Tarbet, for

disannulling at one sweep the whole of the parliaments whose proceedings

were disagreeable to the present rulers, or presented any obstacle to

the establishment of unlimited despotism.

Footnote 11:

Before this, it had been the custom for parliament to meet at nine

o’clock, A.M. and sometimes earlier, while their committees met about

seven to prepare the business.

Middleton had brought to Scotland, not only the high monarchical

principles, but the shameless manners of the English court, rendered

still more disgraceful by the regardless habits of a rough mercenary.

Short as were the sessions of parliament, and late in the day as they

met, he and his companions occasionally reeled to the House in such a

state, that an immediate adjournment became necessary. Their sederunts

at the Palace were more protracted; and the most important affairs were

settled on these occasions, when all difficulties were got rid of, with

a facility far beyond the reach of forenoon-disputants, engaging each

other in a dry debate. At some such carousal, a jocular remark of

Primrose’s is said to have decided the commissioner; and the draught of

a bill, rescinding all the parliaments which had met since 1640 as

illegal and rebellious, was framed and attempted to be hurried through

parliament with the same rapidity as the rest. An unexpected opposition

delayed its passage. As “that incomparable king,” Charles I., had freely

presided at one, and the king himself at two others, some of the best

affected to the court did not approve of an act, which they said went to

throw a slur upon the memory of the blessed martyr, and was highly

disrespectful to his present majesty. What staggered, however, even that

assemblage, base and servile as it was, was the danger of destroying all

the legal foundations of security for private property. If parliaments,

regularly constituted in the royal presence, could be thus easily set

aside, another parliament following the precedent might make this void,

and render the tenures of their rights and possessions as unstable as

they would be under the firman of an eastern sultan. To satisfy these,

it was expressly provided, that all acts, rights, and securities passed

in any of the pretended meetings, or by virtue thereof, in favour of any

particular persons for their civil and private interests, should stand

good and valid unto them, excepting only such as should be questioned

before the act of indemnity; and notwithstanding the efforts of the Earl

of Loudon, and a few others, a majority agreed to undo all that had been

done in favour of religion and liberty for the preceding twenty years,

and to wreath around their necks the yoke that had galled their fathers

for other twenty before.

Some indistinct rumours of the recissory act having reached the

ministers of Edinburgh, the presbytery assembled to draw up a

supplication, praying that their church-government might be preserved to

them amid this general wreck, and that some new civil sanction might be

granted in place of the statutes about to be repealed; and three of the

most complaisant were deputed to the commissioner, to show it before

presenting to parliament. His Grace prevailed upon them to delay doing

any thing in the business, and they, who appear to have been very

willing to oblige, acceded, and the bill passed, like all the rest,

without any representation by the ministers against it. Next day, when

they learned it had been voted by a large majority, a deputation of a

different stamp, with Mr David Dickson at their head, waited upon

Middleton to remonstrate; but he had attained his object, and they found

him in a very different mood. He received their paper in a very

discourteous manner, and told them they were mistaken if they thought to

terrify him with their papers—he was no coward. Dickson pointedly

replied—“He knew well his Grace was no coward, ever since the Bridge of

Dee”—a sarcasm the Earl seemed to feel, as he had there distinguished

himself, fighting in the cause of the covenant against the king’s army.

Nor did his chagrin abate when he was reminded of the vows he had made

to serve the Lord and his interest, in 1645, when under serious

impressions in the prospect of death; but turning round pettishly,

asked, “What do you talk to me for about a fit of the colic?” and

entirely refused to have any thing to do with their supplication.

An evasive deceitful act followed, allowing presbyteries and synods to

meet, but promising to make it his majesty’s care to settle the

government of the church in such a frame as should be most agreeable to

the word of God, most suitable to monarchical government, and most

complying with the public peace and quiet of the kingdom. It did not

tend to allay the fears of the ministers, who wrote an urgent letter to

Lauderdale, reminding him of their sufferings for the king, of the

steadiness of their loyalty, and their opposition to the heats of some

during the times of distraction; and entreating him, by his zeal for his

majesty’s service, and his love for his mother church, to interpose with

his majesty to prevent any prejudice to her established government, and

procure the calling of a General Assembly as the king had promised.

Public fasts were now kept in various parishes throughout the country,

and the synods met to prepare supplications for some confirmatory act to

set the people at rest with regard to their religion. No attention was

paid by the secretary to their application, and visiters were sent to

the different synods to prevent their taking any disagreeable steps, or

dissolve them if they proved refractory. Accordingly, the synod of

Dumfries was dissolved by Queensberry and Hartfield, who were both

exceedingly drunk at the time, and appear to have dispersed the

ministers with very little ceremony, and without any resistance. Fife

was equally quietly dismissed by the Earl of Rothes, who entered while

they were in the midst of their business; and, ordering them to dismiss

in the king’s name, they obeyed:[12] in their respective presbyteries,

they afterwards approved of a petition, and declared their adherence to

the principles of the church of Scotland. Glasgow and Ayr being the most

obnoxious, was discharged by proclamation, after they had drawn up a

supplication, which was delayed being presented through the manœuvres of

a few among themselves who afterwards became prelatic dignitaries. The

synod of Lothian split, and, at the desire of the Earl of Callendar,

suspended five of their most pious members, and removed two from their

charges before they were themselves forcibly turned off. The northern

judicatures were little disturbed, their majorities generally “falling

in with the times.”

Footnote 12:

Lamont, in his usual _naive_ manner, thus narrates the

transaction:—“1661, Apryll 2. The Provincial Assembly of Fyfe sat at

St Andrew’s, where Mr David Forrest, minister of Kilconquhar, was

moderator. After they had sitten a day, and condescended upon a peaper

to be sent to his majestie, wishing he might be as good as his word,

etc. [This, in reference, he had sent doune to the presbetry of

Edinboroughe, Sept. 3, 1660.] As also speaking of another peaper to be

intimat in the severall parish churches, to put peopell in mynde of

ther oath to God in covenant, in caise that episcopacy sould againe he

established in this land: as also speaking against something done by

the present parliament, in cancelling the league and covenant with

England, etc. The nixt day, in the afternoon, they were raised by the

Earle of Rothes and the Laird of Ardrosse, two members of parliament,

(young Balfour Beton being present with them for the tyme,) and

desyred them, under the paine of treason, presently to repaire to

their several charges, which they accordingly did. In the meane

whille, the moderator offered to speake; and Rothes answered, Sir,

wither doe ye speake as a private man, or as the mouth of this

meeting? If you speake as the mouth of this meeting, you speake high

treason and rebellion. After that, Mr David Forrest followed Rothes to

his chamber, and spoke to him; and amonge other things, speaking of

the covenant, he said, that few or none of ther meeting bot had

ministered the covenant to hundreds, bot for himsef he had tendered it

to thousands; and if he sould be silent at this time, and speake

nothing of it, bot betray the peopell, he said he wist not what he

deserved—hanging were too little for him. Rothes professed to this

judicatory that it was sore against his will that he came to that

employment. However, many of the ministrie blames Mr James Sharpe,

minister of Craill, for the present chaplaine to his majesties

commissioner, Earle of Middleton, for ther scattering; for he wrat

over to some of them some dayes before, that a storme was like to

breake; and the said Mr David Forrest said of him that he was the

greatest knave that ever was in the kirke of Scotlande.”

The remaining acts of this parliament, respecting ecclesiastical

affairs, and which became instruments of cruelty and grounds of

persecution, were, the seventeenth, enjoining the 29th of May—the

anniversary of the Restoration, also the king’s birth-day—to be set

apart as a day holy unto the Lord for ever, to be part employed in

public prayers, thanksgiving, preaching, and praises to God for so

transcendent mercies, and the remaining part spent in lawful diversions

suited to so solemn an occasion; and the thirty-sixth, restoring “the

unreasonable and unchristian burden of patrons and presentations” upon

the church.

Having virtually subverted Presbytery, restored every abolished abuse,

and obtained in the preambles of several of their acts repeated

expressions of the parliament’s detestation and abhorrence of all that

was done in the “rebellious and distracted times,” it was requisite that

those who had been the most strenuous assertors of the civil and

religious rights of their country, and who had been the chief

instruments of the late Reformation, should be punished for their

temerity. Accordingly, the most noble the Marquis of Argyle, who stood

first on the list, was, on the 13th of February, brought to trial. He

had been sent down from London by sea, along with Swinton of that ilk,

in the latter end of 1660, and had encountered that storm in which the

records of Scotland were lost;[13] since when he had lain in the Castle;

but the first hurry being over, his case was proceeded in—the

commissioner anticipating a reward for his services from the

confiscation of his estates.

Footnote 13:

These had been seized and sent to London by the English during the

civil war, and, upon the Restoration, were ordered to be returned to

Scotland; but, as it was supposed the original Covenant which Charles

had signed was among them, they were detained on purpose to search for

it, in order to destroy it, till late in the season, when the weather

became tempestuous, and the vessel that carried them was lost.

His activity in the cause of religion, and the great power he had long

enjoyed, had created him many enemies, and gave rise to many calumnies,

which made even his friends dread the investigation. But the most

painful endeavours could establish nothing against him, except his

compelled submission to the English, after every county in Scotland had

acknowledged their superiority. His indictment consisted of fourteen

distinct charges, narrating almost all the public acts of the nation in

which he had had any share, since his first joining the covenanters,

till the final protectorate of Richard Cromwell, and attributing to him

as treasonable acts, his concurrence with the different parliaments, or

his obedience to their orders, and his submission to the usurper’s

government, and sitting and voting in his parliament, together with

having positively advised Cromwell and Ireton, in a conference in 1648,

to take away the late king’s life, without which they could not be safe,

or at least knew and concealed the horrid design. The last charge, which

the Marquis strenuously denied, was not insisted on; nor does there

appear to have been any foundation for it.

In his reply, he enumerated all the favours he had received from the

former and the reigning sovereign, and desired the parliament to

consider how unlikely it was that he should have entertained any design

to the hurt or dishonour of either. He could say with Paul in another

case, the things alleged against him could not be proven; but this he

would confess, that, in the way allowed by solemn oaths and covenants,

he served his God, his king, and country: he besought those who were

capable of understanding, when those things for which he was challenged

were acted, to recollect what was the conduct of the whole kingdom at

the time, and how both themselves and others were led on in these

actions without any rebellious inclination; and entreated those who were

then young to be charitable to their predecessors, and to censure

sparingly these actions, with all the circumstances of which they were

unacquainted; for often the smallest circumstance altered entirely the

nature of an action. In all popular and universal insurrections

_communis error facit jus: et consuetudo peccandi minuit crimen et

pænam_. As to what he had done before the year 1651, he pled his

majesty’s indemnity granted in the parliament at Perth; and for what he

had done since, under the usurpers, they were but common compliances,

wherein all the kingdom did share equally, and for doing which many had

express allowance from his majesty, who declared he thought it prudence,

and not rebellion, for honest men to preserve themselves from ruin, and

thereby reserve themselves till God should show some probable way for

his return. Besides, among all those who complied passively, none was

less favoured by the usurpers than himself—what he did was but

self-defence, and, being the effect of force, could not amount to a

crime.

When he had finished, his advocates, Messrs Sinclair, Cunningham, and

M’Kenzie, afterwards Sir George, protested, that, seeing they stood

there by order of parliament, whatever should escape them in pleading

for the life, honour, and estate of their client, might not thereafter

be brought against them as treasonable—a common form and usually

sustained; but on this occasion the parliament would not admit the

protestation, lest they might allow themselves upon that pretext the

liberty of speaking things prejudicial to his majesty’s government, and

therefore desired them to speak at their peril. His advocates being

strangers to his cause, as the ones he wished were afraid to appear, he

requested a short delay to prepare his defence fully; but this being

referred to the Lords of the Articles, they cruelly denied his

reasonable request; upon which he gave in a supplication and submission,

throwing himself entirely upon the king’s mercy, and entreating the

intercession of the parliament on his behalf. This, also, they refused

to listen to.

After which, his lordship gave in a bill, desiring to be remitted for

trial before the justice court, as the intricacy of his case would

require learned judges. Nor was it to be supposed that every gentleman

or burgess could understand points of law; neither were they his peers;

and a nobleman should be judged by his peers. His prosecutors, bent upon

his ruin, construed this application into a declining the jurisdiction

of parliament, and required him to own it, or inform them who had

written the petition. The Marquis, perceiving that every possible

advantage would be taken against him, was extremely perplexed; but his

advisers avowed the paper, and, after a warm debate, the petition was

rejected, but the advocates were excused. He then requested to be

allowed the benefit of exculpatory proof, and to bring forward

witnesses, who could either attest his innocence or give such

explanations as would alleviate his guilt; even this, the last privilege

of the lowest criminal, he could not obtain, and was commanded

immediately to proceed to his defence—likewise an unusual and oppressive

mode of procedure, as it had been customary to discuss first the

relevancy of the indictment; that is, whether the facts charged actually

constituted the crimes alleged, and thus to give the accused a chance of

escape from a cumulative treason, or from any legal informality that

might occur.

All the Marquis’s reasonable requests and objections being thus disposed

of, his defences, with the Lord Advocate’s replies, duplies, and

triplies—papers of enormous length—were fully read before parliament, as

tiresome, tedious, and unfair a mode of conducting a trial before a

court, consisting of some hundred individuals, as could possibly have

been contrived. When ended, a debate ensued, and the Lord Advocate

restricted his charge to the acts committed after 1651, a letter having

been procured from the king forbidding any person to be prosecuted for

any deed antecedent to the indemnity of that year. This letter, which

was understood to have been procured by Lauderdale and Lorn—who had

staid at London to attend to his father’s interest—somewhat disconcerted

the managers, who were now persuaded that the secretary had espoused

Argyle’s cause; and therefore, to counteract this influence, dispatched

Glencairn and Rothes to court, with a letter from parliament approving

of the whole proceedings, accompanied by Mr James Sharpe, to inform his

majesty respecting the state of the church.

Glencairn actively stirred up the vindictive feelings of the treacherous

Monk and the bigoted Hyde, while Rothes reminded Lauderdale of the

former treatment he had received from the Marquis, how dangerous a

competitor he might yet be if he escaped, and hinted at the imprudence

of committing himself too far with a declining faction. Their arguments

prevailed; and, from the date of their arrival, repeated expresses were

sent down to Scotland, urging forward the trial.

The relevancy having been sustained, proof was led with regard to his

compliance with the usurpers; but the evidence was by no means

satisfactory, especially to judges almost all of whom had been ten times

more deeply implicated than he, and the issue was doubtful; when, after

the debate and examination were closed, and parliament was proceeding to

consider the whole matter, an express from London knocked violently at

the door. Upon being admitted, he presented a packet to the

commissioner, which was believed to be a pardon or some warrant in

favour of the Marquis, especially as the bearer was a Campbell, but,

upon its being opened, it was found to contain a great many letters

addressed by Argyle to Monk when commanding in Scotland, which he had

perfidiously reserved, to produce, if absolutely necessary, for the

conviction of his former friend; and, on being informed by the

commissioner’s agents of the “scantiness of probation,” had transmitted

them by post to supply the deficiency. There was now no room for

hesitation; the parliament were perfectly satisfied that the rebel

English General had received the reluctant submission and forced

co-operation of the last royalist nobleman in Scotland who yielded to

the fortune of the victorious republicans, and therefore Argyle was

guilty of a treason which Monk had obliged him to commit! The proof of

his compliance was complete; and next day he was condemned and

forfeited. The manner of his execution was put to the vote, “hang or

behead,” when it was carried that he should be beheaded, and his head

placed on the same spike, on the top of the tolbooth, whence Montrose’s

had been but lately removed.

During the whole of his protracted trial, which lasted from the 13th of

February till the 25th of May, his behaviour was meek and composed,

although attacked with the most virulent abuse by the reptiles who

crouched before him in the hour of his prosperity. When in his own

defence he asked, how could I suppose that I was acting criminally, when

the learned gentleman, his majesty’s advocate, took the same oaths to

the Commonwealth with myself? Sir John Fletcher replied to a question he

could not answer, by calling him an impudent villain. The Marquis mildly

said, he had learned in his affliction to endure reproach. After his

case appeared desperate, his friends planned an escape, partly by force,

and partly by stratagem, and a number of resolute gentlemen had engaged

in it; but, after he had consented, and had even put on a female dress,

in which he was to be carried out of the Castle, he changed his mind,

threw aside his disguise, and declared he was determined not to disown

the cause he had so long appeared for, but was resolved to suffer to the

utmost.

When brought to receive sentence, there were but few, and these the most

determined time-serving sycophants, in the House, shame or compassion

preventing a number who had decided his fate from hearing it announced;

yet even they could not help moralizing on the mutability of human

glory, though, when he requested a delay of only ten days that the king

might be acquainted with the result of his trial, they refused that

short interval, and prevented his last chance of mercy!

He heard his sentence with equanimity. The Earl of Crawford, who

pronounced it in absence of the Chancellor, told him he must receive it

kneeling, and he immediately knelt, saying, “That I will with all

humility.” When rising, he remarked, “I had the honour to put the crown

upon the king’s head, may God bestow on him a crown of glory. Now he

hastens me to a better crown than his own.”[14] Then addressing the

commissioner and parliament, “you have the indemnity of an earthly

king,” said he, “among your hands, and have denied me a share in that;

but you cannot hinder me from the indemnity of the King of kings; and

shortly you must be before his tribunal. I pray he may not mete out such

measure to you as you have done to me, when you are called to account

for all your actings, and this among the rest.”

Footnote 14:

Kirkton, p. 103, _et seq._

After sentence, he was conducted to the common jail, where his lady was

waiting for him. “They have given me,” said he as he entered, “till

Monday, my dear, to be with you; let us improve it.” As she embraced

him, she sobbed out—“The Lord will require it! The Lord will require

it!” and wept bitterly. Nor could the officer who attended him, nor any

who were present, avoid shedding tears at the scene. The Marquis, too,

was at first considerably affected, but becoming composed, “Forbear!”

said he affectionately to the Marchioness, “forbear! truly I pity

them—they know not what they are doing. They may shut me in where they

please, they cannot shut out God from me; for my part, I am as content

to be here as in the Castle. I was as content in the Castle as in the

Tower of London; and as content there as when at liberty; and I hope to

be as content on the scaffold as in any of them all.” He then added, “he

remembered a text that had been cited to him by an honest minister—‘When

Ziglag was taken and burnt, the people spake of stoning David; but he

encouraged himself in the Lord.’”

The solemn interval he spent in exercises befitting a dying Christian;

and though rather of a timid disposition, yet during the short space

that now separated him from eternity, and with the immediate prospect of

a violent death, his mind was elevated above his natural temper, and he

desired those about him to observe “that the Lord had heard his prayers,

and removed all fear from him.” To some ministers permitted to attend

him, he said, “that they would shortly envy him who had got before,”

adding, “mind I tell it you; my skill fails me if you who are ministers

will not either suffer much or sin much; for though you go along with

these men in part, if you do it not in all things, you are but where you

were, and so must suffer; and if you go not at all with them you can but

suffer.” Mr Robert Douglas and Mr George Hutchison preached in the

tolbooth, at his desire, on the Lord’s day; and at night his lady, at

his particular request, took leave. Mr David Dickson spent the last

night with him that he spent on earth, which passed delightfully in

prayer, praise, and spiritual conversation, except a few hours he

enjoyed of calm and tranquil repose. On Monday, he rose early, and was

much occupied in settling his worldly affairs; but, while signing some

conveyances, his spiritual joy was such, that he exclaimed with rapture

before the company, “I thought to have concealed the Lord’s goodness,

but it will not do. I am now ordering my affairs, and God is sealing my

charter to a better inheritance, saying, ‘Son, be of good cheer; thy

sins are forgiven thee.’” He wrote a letter to the king, expressing his

satisfaction that nothing had been proved against him but his being

forced to submit to the unlawful power of usurping rebels—the epidemic

and fault of the time—praying his majesty’s princely goodness and favour

to his wife and family after his decease, and requesting that his just

debts might be allowed to be paid out of his estate. He dined with a

number of friends at twelve o’clock; after which he retired a little,

and returned from his private devotions in a holy rapture. A sense of

the forgiveness of his sins made the tears of joy run from his eyes;

and, turning to Mr Hutchison, “I think,” said he, “His kindness

overcomes me, but God is good to me; he lets not out too much of it

here, for he knows I could not bear it;” and, thinking the time was

expired, added, “Get me my cloak—let us go;” but being told that the

clock had been put back, he answered they were far in the wrong, and

kneeled down and prayed. As he ended, notice was sent that the bailies

waited him, upon which he called for a glass of wine, and asked a

blessing. Then he declared his readiness—“Now let us go, and God go with

us.” When leaving the room, he said to those who remained, “I could die

like a Roman, but choose rather to die as a Christian. Come away,

gentlemen; he that goes first goes cleanliest.” Calling Mr Guthrie as he

went down, he embraced him and took farewell. Mr Guthrie’s parting

benediction was—“My lord, God hath been with you, he is with you, and He

will be with you; and such is my respect for your lordship, that, if I

were not under the sentence of death myself, I could cheerfully die for

your lordship.”

The Marquis was accompanied to the place of execution by several

noblemen and gentlemen in mourning. He walked steadily down the street,

and, with the greatest serenity, mounted the scaffold, which was filled

with his friends, of whom he had given in a list, and whose names were

contained in a warrant subscribed by the commissioner. After Mr

Hutchison had prayed, his lordship addressed the spectators. He did not

attempt any explanation of his conduct. “I came not here,” were his

humble expressions, “to justify myself but the Lord, who is holy in all

his ways and righteous in all his works; holy and blessed is his name.

Neither came I to condemn others. I know many will expect that I should

speak against the hardness of the sentence pronounced against me, but I

will say nothing of it. I bless the Lord, I pardon all men, as I desire

to be pardoned of the Lord myself: let the will of the Lord be done.” He

then, as in the presence of God, disclaimed having entered upon the work

of reformation from any motive of self-interest or personal

dissatisfaction with the government. He had ever been cordial in his

desires to bring the king home, and in his endeavours for him when he

was at home; nor had he ever corresponded with his enemies during the

time he was in the country. “I confess,” he continued, “many look on my

condition as a suffering condition; but I bless God, He who hath gone

before, hath trode the wine-press of the Father’s wrath, by whose

sufferings I hope my sufferings shall not be eternal. I shall not speak

much to those things for which I am condemned, lest I seem to condemn

others. I wish the Lord to pardon them. I say no more.”

Then changing the subject, he continued—“There are some, and those not

openly profane, who, if their private interest go well, they care not

whether religion or the church of God sink or swim. But, whatever they

think, God hath laid engagements on Scotland. We are tyed by covenants

to religion and reformation, and it passeth the power of all magistrates

under heaven to absolve a man from the oath of God. It is the duty of

every Christian to be loyal; but God must have his as well as Cæsar.

Religion must not be secondary. They are the best subjects who are the

best Christians. These times are like to prove very sinning times or

very suffering times; and let Christians make their choice; and truely

he that would choose the better part would choose to suffer. Others that

will choose to sin will not escape suffering. Yet I cannot say of mine

own condition, but that the Lord in his providence hath mind of mercy to

me even in this world; for if I had been more favourably dealt with, I

fear I might have been overcome with temptations, as many others are,

and many more I fear will be; yea, blessed be his name, I am kept from

present evil and evil to come! I have no more to say but to beg the

Lord, since I go away, he would bless them who stay behind.”[15]

Footnote 15:

Sir George M’Kenzie, an unquestionable evidence, says—“At his death he

showed much stayedness, as appeared by all his gestures, but

especially by his speaking to the people, without any commotion, and

with his ordinary gestures.” _History_, p. 47.

Having again spent some time in devotion, he distributed some last

tokens of remembrance to the friends who were with him. To the Earl of

Caithness, his son-in-law, he gave his watch, saying, with a smile, it

was fit for men to pay their debts; and having promised him that watch,

he now performed it. After his doublet was off, and immediately before

he laid his head upon the block, he addressed those near him—“Gentlemen,

I desire you and all that hear me, again to take notice and remember,

that, now when I am entering into eternity and to appear before my

Judge, and as I desire salvation and expect eternal happiness from him,

I am free from any accession, by knowledge, contriving, counsel, or any

other ways, to his late majesty’s death; and I pray the Lord to preserve

our present king his majesty, and to pour his best blessings upon his

person and government; and the Lord give him good and faithful

councillors.” Mr Hutchison, his attendant minister, on bidding him

finally adieu, used a Scottish phrase, peculiarly emphatic—“My lord, now

hold your grip sicker.” The appropriate force of the expression was felt

by the sufferer. “You know, Mr Hutchison, what I said to you in the

chamber, I am not afraid to be surprised with fear;” and the Laird of

Skelmorlie, who took him by the hand at this awful moment, felt that no

tremour in his veins belied the assertion. He then knelt, offered up his

last prayer, and upon dropping his hands, the appointed signal, the axe

of the maiden fell, and his spirit fled to his God and Saviour. His body

was carried to Dunoon, and buried in Kilmun church.

Argyle has ever, by the unanimous verdict of his Presbyterian

countrymen, been considered a martyr, not for the form, but for the

reality of their religion. The form, perhaps, he might have consented to

modify—the essence he never durst think of forsaking. There was a

consistency in his adherence to his principles that claims our

admiration, especially as he sealed his testimony by his blood. He may

have given, as many of the excellent men of his day did, an undue

importance to points of inferior moment, but the fundamental truths of

the gospel were his hope, as, in so far as we can trust the testimony of

his friends, its precepts had been the rule of his life. It is

refreshing to know that his persecutors did not share his spoil. Through

the intercession of Lauderdale, Lorn procured from the king all his

father’s estates and titles, except that of Marquis.

Mr James Guthrie, minister at Stirling, remarkable for his piety, zeal,

and consistency in the cause of reformation-principles, followed his

friend to trial and judgment.[16] He was peculiarly obnoxious to

Middleton, having pronounced sentence of excommunication upon him, and

was considered the chief of the remonstrators, who had uniformly

resisted communion with the malignants; but he was no less distinguished

for his intrepid opposition to the government of Cromwell, whom he had

boldly stigmatized as an usurper, at the time when all those who now

made such flaming professions of loyalty had crouched before him.

Revered and popular among the lower ranks, he was not less respected

among the worthy of the higher; for, although constrained by terror to

condemn, no political victim was ever sacrificed with more reluctance by

the subordinate ranks of the priesthood of mammon, than was James

Guthrie; and even the Moloch at whose shrine he was immolated, expressed

his regret, and bore testimony to his worth—“Had I known,” said the

callous-hearted Charles, when he heard of Mr Gillespie being suffered to

live, “that they would have spared Gillespie, I would have saved

Guthrie!”—a noble testimony, but happily too late to deprive that holy

man of the honour his Lord had provided for him with them who were slain

for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. He was

arraigned before a court, of which the director and the president were

his personal enemies, and of which a majority had already prejudged his

case. His pursuers were men who had yielded to the blast that he had

braved, who had deserted their prince in the hour of his extremity, had

flattered the very powers that he had withstood, yet now came forward

with a flagrant effrontery to charge him with favouring an usurpation to

which they had done homage, but which he had suffered for withstanding.

Footnote 16:

“He was the son of the Laird of Guthrie, and so a gentleman. When he

was regent in St Andrew’s, he was very episcopal, and was with

difficulty persuaded to take the covenant. There goes a story, that,

when he first yielded to join with the covenanters in Mr Samuel

Rutherford’s chamber, as he came out at his door, he mett the

executioner in the way, which troubled him; and the next visit he made

thither, he mett him in the same manner again, which made him

apprehend he might be a sufferer for the covenant, as indeed he was.”

_Kirkton’s Hist._ p. 109.

On the 20th of February, he received his indictment, the general charges

of which were—his accession to the remonstrance—his writing and

publishing that abominable pamphlet, “The Causes of God’s Wrath”[17]—his

contriving, and writing, and subscribing “The humble Supplication of 23d

August last”—but, chiefly, his declining, in the year 1650, his

majesty’s power in matters purely ecclesiastical, which branch of the

royal prerogative the present managers were determined to assert, as

they traced, and justly, the chief, if not the whole, of the misery the

nation had endured under the king’s father and grandfather, to the

opposition made by the ministry to this anti-scriptural jurisdiction,

or, in the language of Sir George M’Kenzie, “because this principle had

not only vexed King James, but was the occasion of much rebellion.” The

indictment, framed upon certain obsolete or repealed acts in favour of

popery, prelacy, or the kingly power, passed before the last full

establishment of Presbytery, charged him with convoking the lieges

without warrant or authority to the disturbance of the state and church.

After it had been read, he addressed the Lord Chancellor—

Footnote 17:

“The Causes of God’s Wrath,” printed after the fatal defeat at

Worcester, which ruined the hopes of the Presbyterians and their

covenanted king, contained a faithful and pungent enumeration of the

sins of all ranks, public and personal, in which the misconduct of the

royal family and of the nobles—their defections from duty and the

oaths of the covenant in public, and the immorality and ungodliness of

their conduct in private—were treated with great plainness and

particularity, accompanied with strong exhortations to repentance as

the only way to avert the judgments of an offended God. Nor were the

sins of the ministry or the people slightly passed over; it was an

earnest, deep call upon the nation to consider their ways at a time of

great public suffering, when the land had been scourged by the

presence of two armies, of which their own had not been the least

oppressive, and when a threatened famine and an actual scarcity was

afflicting them. Its truth was its treason—it had the honour of being

burned.

“He was glad,” he said, for he pled his own cause, “that the law of God

was named first as being indeed the only supreme law, to which all other

laws ought to be subordinate; and there being an act of the first

parliament of James VI., by which all clauses of laws or acts of

parliament repugnant to the word of God were repealed, he hoped their

lordships would give most respect to this, that he might be judged by

the law of God especially, and by other laws in subordination thereto.

As to the acts of parliament upon which he was arraigned, he asserted

the legal maxim, that where any difference between acts occurs, the last

is that only which is to be considered obligatory; and he farther

affirmed, what almost all his judges had previously, repeatedly, and

upon oath allowed, that it must also be granted that laws and acts of

parliament were to be understood and expounded by those solemn public

vows and covenants contracted with God by his majesty and subjects,

which were not only declared by the laws of the land to have the

strength of acts of parliament, but, both by the law of God and common

law and light of all the nations in the world, are more binding and

indispensable than any municipal law and statute whatever.”

The general charge of abetting Cromwell, he defied all the world to

prove if he had justice allowed him; nor was it attempted. His approval

of the remonstrance he did not deny, but this he only did in a legal

manner, as a member of a legal assembly. His participation in the

authorship of “The Causes of God’s Wrath,” he avowed and defended. But

in this he said he acted merely and singly from a constraining power of

conscience to be found faithful as a minister of the gospel, in the

discovering of sin and guiltiness, that it being acknowledged and

repented of, wrath might be taken away from the house of the king and

from these kingdoms. “Your lordship knows,” continued he, “what charge

is laid upon ministers of the gospel, to give faithful warning to all

sorts of persons, and how they expose their own souls to the hazard of

eternal damnation, and the guilt of the blood of those with whom they

have to do, if they do not this. And you do also know, that the prophets

and apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ himself did faithfully warn all

men, though it was their lot, because of the same, to be reckoned

traitors and seditious persons. My lord, I wish it seriously to be

pondered, that nothing is asserted in these “Causes” as matter of sin

and duty, but what hath been the common received doctrine of the church

of Scotland, the truth of which is confirmed from the word of God; and

as to matters of fact, as far as regards the royal family, they are no

other than are mentioned in the solemn public causes of humiliation

condescended upon and kept by the whole church jointly, and his majesty

and family, with the commission of the General Assembly and committee of

estates, before his coronation at Perth.”

He also avowed the “Supplication” at Edinburgh, which he vindicated as

containing nothing more than a humble petition concerning those things

to which his majesty and all his subjects were engaged by the solemn

irreversible oath of the covenant, with a serious representation of the

dangers threatening religion, and the duties of that sacred obligation,

and did only put his majesty in remembrance of holding fast the oaths of

the covenant. The meeting was presbyterial, and therefore legal; and

was, besides, a quiet, orderly convocation, without tumult, and

requiring no particular warrant.

Respecting his declining the king’s authority in things sacred, he

unhesitatingly acknowledged that he did decline the civil magistrate as

a competent judge of ministers’ doctrine in the first instance.[18] His

authority in all things civil, he said he did with all his heart allow;

but such declinations were agreeable to the word of God, which clearly

holds forth that Christ hath a visible kingdom, which he exercises in or

over his visible members by his spiritual officers, which is wholly

distinct from the civil power and government of the world—to the

Confession of Faith and doctrine of the church of Scotland, which

acknowledge no head over the church of Christ but himself, nor any

judgment or power in or over his church, but that which he hath

committed to the spiritual office-bearers thereof under him, and had

been the ordinary practice of that kirk since the time of the

reformation from Popery; and were also agreeable to, and founded on, the

National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant, by which the king’s

majesty himself, and all the subjects of that kingdom, were bound to

maintain the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of that

church, with solemn vows and public oaths of God. “Upon these grounds,

therefore,” said he, “it is that I gave in and do assert that

declination for vindicating the cause, dignity, and royal prerogative of

Jesus Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, but with all due

respect to his majesty, his greatness, and authority.” Then, after

discussing the several acts of parliament that had been quoted, he thus

concluded an able and argumentative speech:—

Footnote 18:

The error of these good men was, in allowing the civil magistrate the

right of judging of a minister’s doctrine in any case whatever, so

long as he kept within the proper bounds of his pastoral duty, and

inculcated only religious tenets, and did not meddle with seditious or

treasonable matters.

“That I did never purpose or intend to speak or act any thing disloyal,

seditious, or treasonable against his majesty’s person, authority, or

government, God is my witness; and that what I have written, spoken, or

acted, in any of those things wherewith I am charged, hath been merely

and singly from a principle of conscience; that, according to the weak

measure of light given me of God, I might do my duty in my station and

calling as a minister of the gospel. But because the plea of conscience

alone, although it may extenuate, cannot wholly excuse, I do assert that

I have founded my speeches, writings, and actings, in these matters, on

the word of God, and on the doctrine, Confession of Faith, and laws of

this church and kingdom—upon the National Covenant of Scotland, and the

Solemn League and Covenant between these three kingdoms. If these

foundations fall, I must fall with them; but if these sustain and stand

in judgment, as I hope they will, I cannot acknowledge myself, neither I

hope will his majesty’s commissioner and the honourable court of

parliament judge me, guilty either of sedition or treason.”

This trial lasted from the 20th of February till the 15th of April; and

the most strenuous efforts were made to induce Mr Guthrie to submit and

plead for mercy. He was even offered a bishopric; but he deemed the

object for which he contended too important to be yielded up for any

consideration of temporal aggrandizement. When the protracted

proceedings were drawing to a close, on the 11th of April, after his

defences, which were very elaborate, had been read, he finished his

pleading by a pointed and solemn appeal, which was heard with the most

profound attention, and induced a number to withdraw, declaring, in the

language of Scripture, “They would have nothing to do with the blood of

that righteous man.”

Addressing the Chancellor, “My lord,” said the intrepid minister in

conclusion, “I shall, in the last place, humbly beg—having brought such

pregnant and clear evidence from the word of God, so much divine reason

and human law, and so much of the common practice of the kirk and

kingdom in my own defence; and being already cast out of my ministry,

driven from my dwelling, and deprived of my maintenance, myself and my

family thrown upon the charity of others; and having now suffered eight

months’ imprisonment—that your lordships would put no farther burden

upon me. But, in the words of the prophet, ‘Behold! I am in your hands,

do to me what seemeth good to you.’ I know for certain that the Lord

hath commanded me to speak all these things, and that if you put me to

death you shall bring innocent blood upon yourself and upon the

inhabitants of this city. My lord! my conscience I cannot submit; but

this old crazy body and mortal flesh I do submit to do with whatever you

will, whether by death, by banishment, or imprisonment, or any thing

else, only I beseech you ponder well what profit there is in my blood;

it is not extinguishing me or many others that will extinguish the

covenant and the work of reformation since 1638. No! my bondage,

banishment, or blood, will contribute more for their extension than my

life or liberty could, were I to live many years. I wish to my Lord

Commissioner, his Grace, and to all your lordships, the spirit of

judgment, wisdom, and understanding, and the fear of the Lord, that you

may judge righteous judgment, in which God may have glory, the king

honour and happiness, and yourselves peace in the great day of

accounts.” But all was of no avail; his life was determined on as an

example to the ministers, and he was found guilty, upon his own

confession, of the charges brought against him. Sentence was delayed

till the 28th of May, when the doom of a traitor was pronounced by the

Earl of Crawford, in absence of the Chancellor. As he arose from his

knees—for he had been ordered to kneel—“My lords,” said he, “may never

this sentence more affect you than it does me; and let never my blood be

required of the king’s family!” He had assisted in managing his defence

with an eloquence, acuteness, and legal knowledge, that drew forth the

admiration of the professional gentlemen who were his advocates.

When his case was decided, and he was removed to wait till his sentence

was written out, while he remained amid the soldiers, and officers, and

servants of the court, he afterwards declared he never felt more of the

sensible presence of God, of the sweet intimations of peace, and the

real manifestations of divine love and favour, than when surrounded with

all their bustle and confusion. From that time till he went to the

scaffold, he remained in a serene, tranquil frame of mind. On the day of

his execution, June 1, several of his friends dined with him, when not

only his cheerfulness, but even his pleasantry, did not forsake him.

After dinner, he jocularly called for a little cheese, of which he was

very fond, but had been forbid by his physicians to eat on account of a

gravelish complaint, saying, “I hope I am now beyond reach of the

gravel.”

He delivered his last speech from the ladder with the same composed

earnestness with which he was wont to deliver his sermons. “He thanked

God that he suffered willingly, having had it in his power to have made

his escape, or by compliance to have obtained favour, but he durst not

redeem his life with the loss of his integrity.” “I bless God,” he

proceeded, “that I die not as a fool, not that I have any thing wherein

to glory in myself. But I do believe that Jesus Christ came into the

world to save sinners, whereof I am chief; through faith in his

righteousness and blood, I have obtained mercy, and through him and him

alone have I the blessed hope of a blessed conquest over sin and Satan,

death and hell, and that I shall attain unto the resurrection of the

just, and be made partaker of eternal life. I know in whom I have

believed, and that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him

unto that day. I have preached salvation through his name; and as I have

preached, so do I believe, and do recommend the riches of his free grace

and faith in his name unto you all, as the only way whereby ye can be

saved.”

“And,” continued he, “as I bless the Lord I die not as a fool, so also

that I die not for evil-doing. God is my record, that in these things

for which sentence of death is passed against me, I have a good

conscience. My heart is conscious of no disloyalty. The matters for

which I am condemned, are matters belonging to my calling and function

as a minister of the gospel; such as discovering and reproving of sin,

the pressing and holding fast of the oath of God in the covenant, and

preserving and carrying on the work of reformation according thereto,

and denying to acknowledge the civil magistrate as the proper,

competent, immediate judge in causes ecclesiastical.” He then warned his

hearers that the wrath of God was hanging over the land for that deluge

of profanity that was overflowing it; for their perjury and breach of

covenant—“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this! shall he break the

covenant and prosper? shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with

God, which frameth mischief by a law?” for their ingratitude; for their

dreadful idolatry and sacrificing to the creature—a corruptible man, in

whom many had placed almost all their salvation and all their desire;

for a generation of carnal, time-serving ministers, men who minded

earthly things, enemies to the cross of Christ, who pushed with the side

and shoulder, who strengthen the hands of evil-doers, and make

themselves transgressors by studying to build again what they did

formerly warrantably destroy.

Next, he earnestly exhorted the profane, the lukewarm, and the

indifferent, to repentance, and the godly to confidence and zeal,

expressing his belief that God would neither desert his people nor cause

in Scotland. “There is yet,” exclaimed he, “a holy seed, a precious

remnant, whom God will preserve and bring forth; but how long or dark

our night may be, I do not know; the Lord shorten it for the sake of his

chosen. In the mean while, be patient, steadfast, and immovable, always

abounding in the work of the Lord. Beware of snares, decline not the

cross, and account the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the

treasure of the world. Let my death grieve none of you. I forgive all

men the guilt of it, and I desire you to do so also. Pray for them that

persecute you; bless them that curse you; bless, I say, and curse not!”

After bearing testimony to the faith of the gospel, the doctrine and

discipline of the church of Scotland, the protestation, and against the

course of backsliding then afoot in the land,

He ended in this strain of triumphant exultation, well becoming a martyr

for the truth—“Jesus Christ is my light and my life, my righteousness,

my strength, and my salvation, and all my desire. Him! O him! do I with

the strength of all my soul commend unto you; blessed are they that are

not offended in him. Bless him, O my soul! from henceforth even for

ever. Rejoice, rejoice all ye that love him; be patient and rejoice in

tribulation. Blessed are you, and blessed shall you be for ever and

ever. Everlasting righteousness and eternal salvation is yours; all is

yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s!” His last words

were—“Remember me, O Lord, with the favour thou bearest to thy people. O

visit me with thy salvation, that I may see the good of thy chosen; that

I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation; that I may glory with thine

inheritance. Now let thy servant depart in peace, since my eyes have

seen thy salvation!”

An obscure individual, named William, sometimes Captain, Govan, was

executed along with Mr Guthrie. He met death with the same joyful

confidence, resting on the same sure foundation. For what specific

charges he suffered, is uncertain. In his speech which he left, he says

it was for laying down his arms at Hamilton, as all the company did. Sir

George M’Kenzie alleges it was for joining in the English army in 1651.

“But so inconsiderable a person,” he adds, “had not died if he had not

been suspected to have been upon the scaffold when King Charles the

First was murdered, though he purged himself of this when he died; and

his guilt was, that he brought to Scotland the first news of it, and

seem’d to be well satisfied with it.” His chief crime, however, appears

to have been that he was a pious, consistent, and zealous Presbyterian.

Mr Guthrie was turned off first; and his behaviour must have tended

greatly to strengthen his fellow-sufferer, who, in his last speech,

after exhorting the licentious and the lukewarm to repent, remarked—“As

for myself, it pleased the Lord, in the fourteenth year of my age, to

manifest his love to me; and now it is about twenty-four years since,

all which time I professed the truth which I suffer for and bear

testimony to at this day, and am not afraid of the cross upon that

account. It is sweet! it is sweet! otherwise how durst I look on the

corpse of him who hangs there with courage, and smile upon that gibbet

as the gate of heaven?” When he had ended, he took a ring from off his

finger, and gave to a friend, desiring him to take it to his wife and

tell her—he died in humble confidence, and found the cross of Christ

sweet. Christ, he added, had done all for him; and it was by him alone

he was justified. Being desired to look up to that Christ, he

replied—“He looketh down and smileth upon me;” and mounting the

ladder—“Dear friends,” said he to those around him, “pledge this cup of

suffering before you sin, as I have now done; for sin and suffering have

been presented to me, and I have chosen the suffering part.” When the

rope was put about his neck, he observed—“Middleton and I went out to

the field together upon the same errand; now I am promoted to a cord and

he to be Lord High Commissioner; yet for a thousand worlds would I not

change situations with him! Praise and glory be to Christ for ever!”

Besides those who suffered unto death at this time, many others were

prosecuted and punished, by removal from their office, imprisonment, or

exile. Among these, the most conspicuous were, Mr Robert Traill,

minister of the Greyfriar’s church, Edinburgh. He had been in the Castle

while it held out against Cromwell, had encouraged the governor and

garrison to be faithful to their trust, and had received a severe wound

during the siege; yet he was now charged with disloyalty and a

participation in all the obnoxious transactions for which Mr Guthrie

laid down his life. His indictment had been drawn up, as all the libels

of that time were, with great acrimony and peculiar virulence of

expression, to exaggerate the crime of disloyalty, which formed the

prominent feature of the accusation. In replying, Mr Traill averred he

durst appeal to the Lord Advocate’s own conscience, whether he believed

him to be such an one as he had represented him, and complained of

bitter and injurious words, but abstained from any angry retort. “I have

not,” was his meek answer, “so learned Christ; yea, I have learned of

him not to render evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but

contrariwise blessing; and therefore I do from my heart pray for the

honourable drawer up of the libel, as I would do for myself, that the

Lord would bless him with his best blessings, and would give him to find

mercy in the day of the Lord Jesus!” When the remonstrance was

presented, he was confined in the garrison; but, with respect to the

other charges, his replies were similar to Mr Guthrie’s, although not

perhaps quite so strongly expressed assertions of the legality,

propriety, and the imperative necessity of ministers being faithful in

the discharge of their duty. He had been seven months confined before

being brought to trial; and to that he alludes in the following solemn

conclusion of his defence:—

“Now, my lord, I must in all humility beg leave to entreat your lordship

that you would seriously consider what you do with poor ministers, who

have been so long kept, not only from their liberty of preaching the

gospel, but of hearing it—that so many congregations are laid desolate

for so long a time, and many poor souls have put up their regrets on

their deathbed for their being deprived of a word of comfort from their

ministers in the hour of their greatest need! The Lord give you wisdom

in all things, and pour out upon you the spirit of your high and weighty

employment, of understanding and the fear of the Lord, that your

government may be blessed for this land and kirk—that you may live long

and happily—that your memory may be sweet and fragrant when you are

gone—that you may leave your name for a blessing to the Lord’s

people—and that your houses and families may stand long and flourish to

the years of many generations! Above all, that you have solid peace and

heart-joy in the hour of the breaking of your heart-strings, when pale

death shall sit on your eyelids—when man must go to his long home and

the mourners go about the streets: for what man is he that liveth and

shall not see death? or who can deliver himself from the power of the

grave? Even those to whom he saith, ye are gods, must die as men; for it

is appointed to all men once to die, and after death the judgment, and

after judgment an endless eternity! Let me therefore exhort your

lordship, in the words of a great king, a great warrior, and a holy

prophet—Be wise, be taught, ye rulers of the earth; serve the Lord with

fear, and rejoice before him with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be

angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but for a

little. Then blessed will all those, and those only, be who put their

trust in him. Now the Lord give you, in this your day, to consider the

things that belong to your eternal peace, and to remember your latter

end, that it may be well with you world without end!”

An address such as this, from a prisoner at the bar to his judges, who

had his life and death in their hands, could not fail but to have been

productive of a powerful effect upon the minds of such as were not

altogether hardened against every impression, and presents the sufferer

for truth and a good conscience upon a commanding elevation,

unattainable in any other cause, fearless of personal safety, and

anxious only that, while he be found faithful in the service of his

master, his persecutors may enjoy the same privilege. How forcibly does

it recall the Apostle’s address to Agrippa—“I would to God, that not

only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and

altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” Mr Traill was remitted to

prison, where he lay for some time, and was afterwards banished to

Holland. While uncertain of his fate, he thus wrote to another minister

from his prison—“Your imprisoned and confined brethren are kindly dealt

with by our kind Lord, for we have large allowance from him could we

take it. We know it fares the better with us. You and such as you, mind

us at the throne. We are waiting from day to day not knowing what man

will do with us. We are expecting banishment at the best; but our

sentence must proceed from the Lord, and whatsoever it be, it shall be

good as from him, and whithersoever he send us, he shall be with us; for

the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof!”

A remarkable trait in all these proceedings is, that the men now

persecuted for alleged disloyalty were the men who, when the throne was

prostrate, and when these their persecutors had in general deserted the

cause as desperate, rallied round the standard of royalty, refused to

bow to the invaders, and had suffered for their attachment to the

legitimate prince! and it seemed as if the measure of ingratitude meted

out to them, was to be in proportion to the steadfastness with which

they had adhered to the fortunes of that family in their lowest

depression.

Mr Alexander Moncrief, minister of the gospel at Sconie, in Fife, had

particularly distinguished himself by his loyalty during the usurpation

and domination of the English—and had subjected himself to imprisonment

by boldly praying for the king; and so far had he been from joining with

the sectaries, that he presented a petition to Monk against their

toleration; but he had approved of the remonstrance, and had assisted in

drawing up “The Causes of God’s Wrath;” and he was therefore a proper

object for persecution. Highly esteemed in the country where he lived,

the greatest interest was made to procure his life; and two ladies of

the first rank presented a handsome service of plate to the Lord

Advocate’s wife—a practice, it seems, not uncommon in these times!—to

procure his interference; but the plate was returned, and they were told

that nothing could be done to save him. The Earl of Atholl, likewise,

and several members of parliament, were anxious to protect him, but were

informed that he could expect no mercy, unless he would consent to

change his principles. When this was told to his wife, her reply showed

her to have been a woman of a similar spirit. “Ye know that I am happy

in a good husband, to whom I have ever borne a great affection, and have

had many children; but I know him to be so steadfast to his principles,

where conscience is concerned, that nobody need speak to him upon that

head; and, for my part, before I would contribute any thing that would

break his peace with his master, I would rather choose to receive his

head at the cross!” Yet the numerous applications in his favour from

persons of influence—without his knowledge—procured a mitigation of his

punishment; and, after a tedious confinement, he was only rendered

incapable of all civil or ecclesiastical employment, deprived of his

living, and forbid to enter his parish.

Mr Robert Macwaird, minister, Glasgow, who had likewise maintained his

loyalty to his king in the face of his enemies, was included in the

noble band of sufferers; but the accusation against him differed

somewhat from the others. When he perceived the general and awful course

of defection from the very profession of religion, and the design to

overturn the whole covenanted work of reformation, he commenced a series

of sermons, in his week-day exercise, from that striking text, Amos iii.

2. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I

will punish you for all your iniquities.” In these, he first addressed

himself to his hearers, and pressed upon their consciences their

personal sins—for these worthies, who stood in the front of the battle

while contending earnestly for the national religion, never failed to

inculcate the inutility and danger of a public profession without

personal holiness—from personal, he ascended to general and national

sins; and, adverting to the open profligacy and backsliding which

pervaded a nation once so high in profession, and so favoured in

privilege, he pathetically asked, “Alas! may not God expostulate with

us, and say, ye are backslidden with a perpetual backsliding, and what

iniquity have you found in him? We are backslidden in zeal and love. The

glory of a begun reformation in manners is eclipsed, and an inundation

of profanity come in. Many who once loved to walk abroad in the garment

of godliness, now persecute it. The faithful servants of Christ are

become enemies, because they tell the truth. The upright seekers of God

are the marks of the great men’s malice.” And, interjecting this most

remarkable prayer—“May it never be said of faithful ministers and

Christians in Scotland, ‘We have a law, and by this law they must

die’”—he continued, “Backsliding is got up to the very head and corrupts

the fountains; and wickedness goeth forth already from some of the

prophets through the whole land! Are these the pastors and rulers that

bound themselves so solemnly and acknowledged their former breaches? How

hath the faithful city turned an harlot?”

These expressions, and many others of a like import, excited the enmity

of those whom they convicted, and to whom the exhortations to repent and

to return were addressed in vain; and some of the apostate tribe

transmitted to the managers information against the preacher, as having

been guilty of treason. The following passage was that upon which the

charge chiefly rested. After entreating his audience to mourn, consider,

repent, and return—to wrestle, pray, and pour out their souls before the

Lord, he encouraged them, by remarking, that “God would look upon these

duties as their DISSENT from what was done prejudicial to his work and

interest, and mark them among the mourners in Zion.” Then came the

treason! “As for my own part, as a poor member of the church of

Scotland, and an unworthy minister in it, I do this day call upon you

who are the people of God to witness, that I humbly offer my _dissent_

to all acts which are or shall be passed against the covenants or work

of reformation in Scotland. And, secondly, protest, that I am desirous

to be free of the guilt thereof, and pray that God may put it upon

record in heaven.” For this discourse he was arrested; and, on the

Thursday following Mr Guthrie’s execution, was brought before the

parliament.

Expecting nothing else than to follow that great man to heaven from the

scaffold, he was equally courageous and unhesitating in his behaviour;

and, when called upon to reply, June 6th, thus honestly avowed his

sentiments:—“My lord, I cannot, I dare not, dissemble, that, having

spoken nothing but what I hope will be the truth of God when brought to

the touchstone, and such a truth as, without being guilty of

lese-majesty against God, I could not conceal while I spoke to the text,

I conceive myself obliged to own and adhere to it. So far from

committing treason in this, I am persuaded that it was the highest part

of loyalty towards my prince, the greatest note of respect I could put

upon my superiors, the most real and unquestionable evidence of a true

and tender affection to my countrymen and the congregation over whom the

Holy Ghost made me, though most unworthy, an overseer, to give

seasonable warning of the heavy judgment which the sin of Scotland’s

backsliding will bring on, that so we may be instructed at length to

search and try our ways and turn to the Lord, lest his soul be separated

from us; for wo unto us if our glory depart! No man will or ought to

doubt whether it be a minister’s duty to preach this doctrine in season

and out of season, which yet is never unseasonable, and to avow that the

backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways; and if any man

draw back, his soul shall have no pleasure in him. And if so, what evil

have I done, or whose enemy am I become for telling the truth?

“But in order to remove any thing that may seem to give offence in my

practice, I humbly desire it may be considered that a ministerial

protestation against, or a dissent from, any act or acts which a

minister knows and is convinced to be contrary to the word of God, is

not a legal impugnation of that or these acts, much less of the

authority enacting them, which it doth rather presuppose than deny; it

is just a solemn and serious attested declaration, witness, or

testimony, against the evil and iniquity of these things, which, by the

word of God, is a warrantable practice, as is clear from Samuel, where

the prophet was directed by the Lord himself to obey the voice of the

people, howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner

of the king that shall reign over them; also Jeremiah xi. 7. There is no

act of parliament declaring that it shall be treason for a minister to

protest, in the Scripture sense, against such acts as are contrary to

the covenant and the work of reformation; nay more, there were acts by

which the covenants and vows made to God for reformation in this church,

according to his will revealed in his word, received civil confirmation;

and I, as his unworthy servant, was authorized to protest that these

rights be not invaded—that these vows be not broken!

“Nor may I conceal, that, when I reflect upon and remember what I have

said and sworn to God in the day when, with an uplifted hand to the most

high, I bound my soul with the bond of the covenant, and engaged

solemnly, as I should answer to the great God, the searcher of hearts,

in that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, never to

break these bonds, nor cast away these cords from me, nor to suffer

myself, either directly or indirectly, by terror or persuasion, to be

withdrawn from owning them—when I recollect that, had they been even

things indifferent, I durst not have shaken them off when I had sworn to

God, and consider that, instead of this, they were duties of

indispensable obligation antecedently to all oaths, and remain

unalterably binding independently of them—and when I considered my duty

as a minister, to give warning, to declare, testify, and bear witness

against the sin of violating these covenants, in order to avoid the

wrath that shall follow, and that under no less a threatening than

banishment from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power—I

had no choice.

“Now I humbly beseech I may not be looked upon as a disloyal person,

either as to my principles or practice; and so clear am I that there was

neither iniquity in my heart, nor wickedness in my hands, against his

majesty, that I only wish the informer’s conduct, be he who he may, in

the place where I live, were compared with mine, and the issue of my

trial depended on this—whether he or I had shown most loyalty during the

prevalence and usurpation of the enemy; but I suspect he has rather a

little more prudence than to agree to such a test. But as for me, my

lord, while I wait the coming forth of my sentence from his presence,

whose eyes behold the things that are equal, I declare, that however I

cannot submit my conscience to men, yet I humbly, as becometh, submit my

person.”

This case appears to have been ably managed; and the parliament delayed

proceeding to any immediate decision. In the interval, he presented a

supplication withdrawing the words “protest and dissent,” as too legal

and forensic, substituting the words “declaring and bearing witness.”

The reasons which he assigned for so doing are satisfactory, and show

that the witnesses of this period did not stand with obstinacy upon any

irrational punctilio, or foolishly rush upon suffering for the sake of

unmeaning distinctions or of favourite phrases. “I am brought,” are his

expressions, “to offer this alteration, not so much, if my heart deceive

me not, for the fear of prejudice to my person—though being but a weak

man, I am easily reached by such discomposing passions—as from an

earnest desire to remove out of the way any, the least, or remotest,

occasion of stumbling, that there may be the more ready and easy access,

without prejudice of words, to ponder and give judgment of the matter;

and that, likewise, if the Lord shall think fit to call me forth to

suffer hard things on this account, it may not be said that it was for

wilful and peremptory stickling to such expressions; whereas, I might,

by using others, without prejudice to the matter, and no less

significant, have escaped the danger; and lest I should seem to

insinuate that a minister of the gospel could not have sufficiently

exonered his conscience without such formal and legal terms.” But it was

necessary to get rid of men whose abilities were dreaded by their

apostate brethren, and whose consistent piety would have been a standing

reproach to the new prelates. He was therefore, before parliament rose,

sentenced to banishment, though, by an uncommon stretch of moderation,

he was allowed to remain six months in Scotland—one of them in Glasgow

to arrange his affairs—and empowered to receive his next year’s stipend.

What rendered these rigorous proceedings towards the ablest, the most

pious, and most conscientious loyalists, more flagrantly unjust, was,

the lenity shown to others who had been deeply implicated in active

compliances with the usurpers, not only after their power became

irresistible, but even while Charles was in the country and at the head

of an army. The Laird of Swinton had been suspected, in the year 1650,

of corresponding with Cromwell, and being summoned to answer before the

parliament at Perth, was forfeited for failing to appear, on which he

joined the English, and was appointed a judge; but having now turned a

quaker, he was pardoned, and went to the north, where he succeeded in

making a few proselytes. Sir John Chiesly, also, who had acted cordially

with the English, and been forfeited by the same parliament, was passed

over; but his safety was attributed to the influence of money; for

rapacity and venality characterized almost every member of government,

and every court of justice, from the Restoration to the Revolution.

The escape of Mr Patrick Gillespie was more surprising, as he was

personally disagreeable to the king, who had repeatedly refused to

listen to any solicitations on his behalf. Gillespie was a minister in

Glasgow, and afterwards principal of the College. He had been the most

conspicuous of the remonstrators—had approved of “The Causes of God’s

Wrath,” and had been appointed principal by the English commissioners,

or sequestrators as they were called[19]—had been a great favourite with

Cromwell—had preached before him—prayed for him as chief magistrate—and

had received from him several valuable gifts—all which were now brought

forward as charges against him. But he had many friends in the House,

and was induced to profess civil guilt and throw himself upon the king’s

mercy. His concessions, it is alleged, were strained beyond what he

intended, and represented as of great importance at the time, as he had

been eminent among his brethren; and it was supposed his example would

have a mighty influence in inducing the more scrupulous to give way.

They were, however, grievous to the Presbyterians and not satisfactory

to his majesty; but they procured a mitigation of his punishment, which

was commuted to deprivation of his office, and confinement to Ormiston

and six miles round.

Footnote 19:

At the time when the English ruled, the church of Scotland was divided

and subdivided into a variety of sections. The remonstrators

themselves divided; some of them, among whom were, Messrs P.

Gillespie, Samuel Rutherford, James Durham, William Guthrie of

Fenwick, Robert Traill, and other eminently pious men, complied with

the ruling powers on the Christian principle of obedience to the

powers that be, and the absolute necessity of the case; but they were

still more obnoxious to the resolutioners, because they so far agreed

with the sectaries, in only considering as members of the church

persons who gave proof of practical godliness, and opposed the

principle of promiscuous communion and general membership. Against

this schism, Principal Baillie was very violent. “This formed schism,”

says he, in a letter to Mr W. Spang, “is very bitter to us, but

remediless, except on intolerable conditions, which our wise orthodox

divines will advise us to accept:—We must embrace, without

contradiction, and let grow, the principles of the remonstrants, which

all reformed divines, and all states in the world, abhor. We must

permit a few heady men to waste our church with our consent or

connivance. We must let them frame our people to the sectarian model—a

few more forward ones among themselves, by privy meetings, to be the

godly party; and the congregation, the rest, to be the rascally

malignant multitude; so that the body of our people are to be cast out

of all churches; and the few who are countenanced, are fitted, as

sundry of them already have done, to embrace the errors of the time

for their destruction.” _Letters_, vol. ii. p. 375. The other section

of the remonstrants refused to acknowledge in any manner the power of

the usurper, lamented the toleration of sectaries, and maintained,

with the resolutioners, the legitimate principles of a national

church—that all who attended were to be considered members of that

church, unless excommunicated for openly immoral conduct or

disobedience to the order and discipline of the church. At the head of

this section were, Mr James Guthrie, Warriston, and many others, who

bore testimony by their blood to the sincerity of their profession. It

is worthy of remark, that the first class were chiefly the older, the

second the younger, race of the Presbyterians.

On the 12th of July, the parliament rose; and, on the last day of that

month, their public acts were proclaimed, with the usual formalities,

from the cross of Edinburgh—a ceremony that employed the heralds and

other functionaries from ten o’clock in the forenoon till six at night.

About the same time, Samuel Rutherford was relieved by death.

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