Amongst those who looked ill upon the expedition which the Duke of
Hamilton was preparing for the relief of the king in England, was his
Grace’s own parish minister at Hamilton, Mr James Naismith. Wodrow
records, as a traditionary story, that, on the Sunday before the
Duke went to England, Mr Naismith preached before his Grace on the
text: ‘Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore
for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his
native country,’ _Jer._ xxii. 10. The preacher said that God would
regard neither dukes nor generals, and as sure as the Bible was the
word of God, any who went on in a course of opposition to him, should
not return in peace. ‘On the Monday after, when the duke was leaving
Hamilton, there was a crowd of women looking on. Mr Naismith said:
“Hold him! hold him! for you will never see his face any more.” The
Duke at his death in England,[120] said he would give never so much to
see his own faithful minister, Mr Naismith.’--_Wod. An._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 28.]
The Shorter Catechism recently framed by the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, for the instruction ‘of such as are of weaker capacity,’ and
which has since been in constant and universal use in Scotland, was
this day sanctioned by the General Assembly, sitting in Edinburgh.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OCT. 4.]
[Sidenote: 1648.]
Oliver Cromwell paid his first visit to Edinburgh. He came hot from
the destruction of the Duke of Hamilton’s semi-royalist Scotch army at
Preston, designing to confer with the heads of the ultra-presbyterian
party for the extinction of that kind of opposition in the northern
part of the island. The Earl of Kirkcudbright and Major-general Holburn
conducted him into the city, where he was lodged very handsomely in
the Earl of Moray’s house in the Canongate; a strong guard _of his
own troops_ was mounted at the gate. ‘The Earl of Moray’s house,’
says Thomas Carlyle, ‘still stands in the Canongate, well known to
the inhabitants there--a solid spacious mansion, which, when all
bright and new two hundred years ago, must have been a very adequate
lodging.’ ‘As soon as he came there, the Chancellor [Loudon], the
Marquis of Argyle, the Earl of Cassillis, the Lord Burleigh, the
Provost of Edinburgh,[121] with many other lords and gentlemen, went
to pay their respects to him; and the next day, the Earl of Cassillis
and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston went to visit him on the part
of the Committee of Estates, to know what he had to communicate to
them. Cromwell presented them a writing, whereby he demanded that, in
order to keep Hamilton’s party from being able to rise up again in
Scotland, where they might embroil the two kingdoms, they would be
pleased to order that none of those who had carried arms under his
command, or who had consented to the invasion of England, should have
any public employment in Scotland. The committee granted him that
article.’ Such was the ostensible, and, as far as appears on any good
evidence, the real business between Cromwell and the committee men.
Bishop Guthry adds the vulgar royalist rumour: ‘While Cromwell remained
in the Canongate, those that haunted him most were, besides the Marquis
of Argyle, Loudon the chancellor, the Earl of Lothian, the Lords
Arbuthnot, Elcho, and Burleigh; and of ministers, Mr David Dickson,
Mr Robert Blair, and Mr James Guthrie. What passed among them came
not to be known infallibly; but it was talked very loud, that he did
communicate to them his design in reference to the king, and had their
assent thereto.’
Cromwell was only three days in Edinburgh on this occasion. On
Saturday, all business being adjusted, ‘“when we were about to come
away, several coaches were sent to bring up the lieutenant-general, the
Earl of Leven [governor of the Castle and Scotch commander-in-chief],
with Sir Arthur Haselrig, and the rest of the officers, to Edinburgh
Castle; where was provided a very sumptuous banquet [old Leven doing
the honours], my Lord Marquis of Argyle and divers other lords
being present to grace the entertainment. At our departure, many
pieces of ordnance and a volley of small shot was given us from the
Castle; and some lords convoying us out of the city, we were parted.”
The lord provost had defrayed us all the while in the handsomest
manner.’--_Carlyle._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1648.]
To the fall of this year is to be traced the origin of the term
_Whig_, as applicable to a well-known party in the state. Burnet, who
was likely to know the facts well, makes the following statement:
‘The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve
them round the year; and the northern parts producing more than they
need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores
that come from the north. From a word Whiggan, used in driving their
horses, all that drove were called the _Whiggamores_, and, shorter, the
_Whigs_.... After the news came down of Duke Hamilton’s defeat, the
ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and
they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of
fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis of
Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about 6000. This
was called the Whiggamores’ Inroad [strictly the _Whigs’ Raid_]; and
ever after that, all that opposed the court came in contempt to be
called Whigs.’
We find John Nicoll, the diarist, in 1666, speaking of the west-country
Presbyterians as ‘commonly called the Whigs,’ implying that the term
was new. The sliding of the appellation from these obscure people to
the party of the opposition in London a few years later, is indicated
by Daniel Defoe as occurring immediately after the affair of Bothwell
Bridge in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth then returning from his command in
Scotland, instead of thanks for his good service, found himself under
blame for using the insurgents too mercifully. ‘And Lauderdale told
Charles, with an oath, that the Duke had been so civil to the Whigs,
because he was himself a Whig in his heart. This made it a court-word;
and in a little while, all the friends and followers of the Duke began
to be called _Whigs_.’[122]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1648.]
The time of the _Whigs’ Raid_, and from that to the execution of
Montrose (May 1650), may be considered as that of an entire supremacy
of the religious or rather ecclesiastical system for which the majority
of the nation had been struggling for several years. The view of it
taken by the royalists is sketched in strong terms by the writers on
their side. ‘The kingdom groaned under the most cruel tyranny that
ever scourged and afflicted the sons of men. The jails were crammed
full of innocent people; the scaffolds daily smoked with the blood of
our best patriots. The bones of the dead were dug out of their graves,
and their living friends were compelled to ransom them at exorbitant
sums. Such as they were pleased to call Malignants were taxed and
pillaged at discretion. The Committee of the Kirk sat at the helm, and
they were supported by a small number of fanatical persons and others
who called themselves the Committee of Estates, but were truly nothing
else but the barbarous executioners of their wrath and vengeance. Nor
were they ill satisfied with their office, on account of the profits
it brought them by fines, sequestrations, and forfeitures, besides
the other opportunities it gave them of amassing riches. Every parish
had a tyrant, who made the greatest lord in his district stoop to his
authority. The kirk was the place where he kept his court; the pulpit,
his throne, or tribunal, from whence he issued his terrible decrees;
and twelve or fourteen sour enthusiasts, under the title of elders,
composed his council. If any, of what quality soever, had the assurance
to disobey his edicts, the dreadful sentence of excommunication
was immediately thundered out against him, his goods and chattels
confiscated and seized, and he himself being looked upon as actually
in the possession of the devil, and irretrievably doomed to eternal
perdition, all that conversed with him were in no better esteem.’
The moderates involved in the late expedition of Duke Hamilton for the
king, were now brought to punishment. ‘They compelled every one that
escaped to sit several Sundays in sackcloth before them, mounted, as a
spectacle of reproach and infamy, upon the stool of repentance in view
of “the elect,” and to undergo such other penance as they were pleased
to impose.’[123]
Amongst the penitents was the Chancellor Earl of Loudon, of whom it was
scarcely to have been expected that he should join in the Engagement.
His submission is alleged by Burnet to have been enforced by his wife,
a high Covenanter and an heiress, who threatened him with a process
for conjugal unfaithfulness, ‘in which she could have had very copious
proofs.’ So he made a public repentance in the church of Edinburgh,
‘with many tears confessing his weakness in yielding to the temptation
of what had a show of honour and loyalty.’