For several years, there was little to be observed regarding Scotland,
but that the non-conformity of its people in several of the more
populous provinces provoked an incessant show of severities on the part
of the government. During this time, literature and science remained
wholly uncultivated; no department of industry shewed any decided
tendency to advance. The energies of the nation were arrested by a
frightful contention, most degrading to the object for which men were
contending, and than which nothing could have been more hostile to the
spirit of religion simple and undefiled.
A preacher named James Mitchell had, in 1668, attempted the life of
Archbishop Sharpe, and had actually inflicted a mortal wound upon
the Bishop of Orkney. Being apprehended in 1674, he was confined
for several years, and at length condemned and executed. The crime
was not so odious among his party as to extinguish their sympathy;
accordingly, this wretched man was looked upon by them as a kind of
martyr. After this, the persecution for field-meetings became more than
ever severe. A calculation has been made that, previously to 1678,
seventeen thousand persons had suffered fining and imprisonment on this
account. The government resolved to try the expedient of pressing the
subscription of a bond renouncing conventicles; and to support them in
their efforts, an army of ten thousand men was collected at Stirling,
of whom the greater part were Highlanders. At the end of January,
this host was let loose upon the western counties, with instructions
to enforce fines from all who would not take the bond. The resistance
was passive, but universal. Only twenty out of two or three thousand
householders in Lanarkshire could be prevailed upon to abandon a mode
of worship which possessed so many charms. They preferred to see
themselves spoiled of a great share of their worldly goods. Even the
nobles, and other conspicuous persons, who lay most open to state
persecution, generally refused the bond. The Council was deeply
mortified at the passiveness of the people, for they had expected a
rebellion, which would have justified them in severer measures. After
a month, finding the attempt ineffectual, Lauderdale was obliged to
order the army away. The Highland Host, as it was called, left a deep
impression upon the memory of those who experienced its oppressions. It
is not alleged that the mountaineers shed much blood, but they freely
helped themselves to whatever movable articles they took a fancy for.
As they returned to the north, the whole country seemed to be removing
its household furniture from one district to another. Ayrshire alone
suffered losses to the amount of £12,000 sterling, which, in those
days, was a very large sum.
A deep spirit of resentment against the Council, and especially the
prelatic part of it, was the natural result of all these occurrences.
The worst passions of human nature mingled themselves with the purest
and noblest aspirations; and men appealed, in language of bitterness,
from the iniquity of their earthly rulers to the justice of God. The
wisest and best natures were perverted by feelings which had become
morbid by extreme excitement. On the 3d of May 1679, while the public
mind was in this condition, a small party of Fife gentlemen went out
with the deliberate intention of assassinating the sheriff at a chase.
Disappointed in that object, they had not dispersed when a greater
victim fell in their way. As they were riding over Magus Moor, near St
Andrews, Archbishop Sharpe happened to pass. The opportunity appeared
to their minds as a dispensation of Providence. They commanded him to
come out of the coach, apparently that his daughter, who was with him,
might not suffer from their shot. The archbishop tremblingly obeyed;
he flung himself upon his knees, offered them mercy, forgiveness,
everything, so that they would spare his life. The leader sternly
reminded him of the deadly injuries he had inflicted upon the church
and its martyrs. A volley of shot was poured upon his suppliant figure,
and finally the unhappy prelate was hewed down with their swords,
crying for mercy with his latest breath. They left his daughter
lamenting over his body, which was afterwards found to bear such marks
of their barbarity as could scarcely be credited.
The assassination of Sharpe produced a great alarm among the remaining
members of the government, each of whom knew how much he had done to
provoke the same fate. In another respect, it was perhaps a matter of
rejoicing to these men, as it afforded them an excuse for increasing
that severity on which alone they depended as a means of maintaining
the state. The Presbyterians never by any formal act expressed approval
of the deed; indeed, many of them must have felt that it was an affair
of the worst omen to their party. Neither, however, did they ever
express themselves as offended by the violence of their brethren; and
even half a century after the event, their historians are more anxious
to shew that the archbishop deserved his fate, than to apologise for
the barbarity of his murderers.
The blame of the murder has been the more plausibly thrown upon the
whole party, that it was immediately followed by an insurrection. On
the 29th of May, which was the king’s birthday, a party of about eighty
deliberately marched into the town of Rutherglen, three miles from
Glasgow, where they publicly burnt all the acts of parliament against
Presbytery. They afterwards extinguished the bonfires, in order to
mark their disapprobation of all holidays of human institution, and
concluded by fixing upon the Cross a declaration of their sentiments
respecting the late proceedings of the government. Having done this,
they retired to a mountainous part of the country between Lanarkshire
and Ayrshire, where there was to be a grand conventicle on the
ensuing Sunday. The government looked upon this proceeding as an act
of rebellion, and despatched a military party after the offenders,
consisting of three troops of newly levied dragoons, under the command
of Captain Graham of Claverhouse, a man of remarkable energy of
character, who had recently entered the king’s service in Scotland.
On Sunday, Graham came up with the insurgents, at a place near
Loudoun Hill, where they were assembled at devotion. They were about
forty horse and two hundred foot, under the command of a gentleman
named Hamilton, but without the least discipline or acquaintance
with military affairs. Graham fired a volley, which they eluded in a
great measure by falling upon their faces. He then tried to charge
them through a morass, behind which they were placed, but in doing
so threw his men into confusion, and exposed himself to the assault
of the enemy. They took instant advantage of his distress, attacked
the dragoons sword in hand, and soon compelled them to retire. Graham
had his horse shot under him, and about twenty of his men were slain,
while only one of the insurgents had fallen. A minister and some
country-people whom he had brought along with him as prisoners were
rescued by the victors.
The broken dragoons retreated to Glasgow, which was then garrisoned by
about eight hundred troops. The insurgents, flushed with their success,
and thinking it safer to go on than to draw back, marched next morning
to that city with considerably increased forces. The troops barricaded
the streets, so that the country-people could make little impression
upon them, while they were greatly exposed in their turn. Eight were
slain in this needless encounter; the rest retreated in rather low
spirits to Hamilton, where they formed a kind of camp.
Their numbers were here augmented in a short time to about five
thousand, chiefly peasants and farmers of Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, and
Galloway, but comprising also a few gentlemen of property, though
none of any note. Hamilton continued to exercise a nominal command,
though rather from his having been the leading man at the commencement,
than from any idea of his fitness for the situation. All of them had
arms, and many of them horses; but there was neither discipline, nor
any attempt to impose it. The whole insurrection proceeded upon mere
impulse. The unfortunate people acted, it would appear, simply from the
pressure of immediate circumstances, glad to protect themselves, for
a while, even at the risk of utter destruction, against an oppression
they could no longer endure.
The Privy Council collected all its disposable forces at Edinburgh,
and requested instructions from the court. It was speedily determined
that the Duke of Monmouth should be sent down to take command of the
army. This was the eldest natural son of the king; a youth of amiable
character, anxious for popularity, and intimately connected with the
English non-conformists, whom he expected to favour him in his views
upon the succession. The duke arrived in Edinburgh on the 19th of
June, and led forward the army to meet the insurgents. He marched very
slowly, in order, as was supposed, to afford them an opportunity of
dispersing; but they shewed no disposition to avail themselves of his
kindness. They had spent the three weeks during which they had existed
as an army, not in training themselves to arms, or arranging themselves
into proper divisions, but in disputing about the spiritual objects
for which they were in arms. One great cause of division was the
Indulgence, which some were for condemning, and others for overlooking;
they were also greatly divided as to the propriety of acknowledging
their allegiance to the king. In these abstractions they lost all view
of practical measures. They called such things ‘trusting in the arm
of flesh,’ for which, of course, they could adduce an abundance of
condemnatory texts.
On Sunday, the 22d of June, Monmouth had advanced to Bothwell, a
village about a mile distant from the insurgent camp. The river
Clyde ran between the two armies, and was only to be crossed by
Bothwell Bridge, a long narrow pass, highly capable of defence. The
non-conformists, who lay upon the ground beyond the bridge, were
still, at this late moment, holding high disputes, and there was even
a proposal for remodelling the army, and appointing new officers. The
moderate party sent two gentlemen in disguise--Mr David Hume and the
Laird of Kaitloch--to present a supplication to the duke, in which
it was proposed to disperse, on the condition that their grievances
should be redressed. But Monmouth was unable, from his instructions, to
treat with them unless they should have first laid down their arms. He
charged the two deputies with a message to that effect, threatening if
they did not throw themselves upon his mercy within half an hour, that
he should advance with his army. When these gentlemen returned, they
found the army on the point of falling to pieces through dissension. In
truth, many must have now been only seeking for occasion to withdraw
themselves from an adventure which they saw to be ruinous. The most
zealous and clamorous were the first to retire. The rest remained,
unable either to take advantage of the duke’s proposal, or to prepare
for giving him battle. At the time he had specified, he advanced his
troops to the brink of the river, and sent a large party to force the
passage of the bridge. That point was stoutly defended, for nearly an
hour, by some men from Galloway and Stirlingshire, under Hackstoun
of Rathillet. At length, when their ammunition ran short, they sent
back to the main body for a supply, which was denied. They were of
course obliged to retire, and leave a free passage to the royal
troops. When the horse soon after rode off from the field, the foot,
left defenceless, could not stand an instant against the charge of
the enemy. Excepting twelve hundred, who laid down their arms, the
whole body took to flight, without having made the least effort at
resistance. About three hundred were cut down in the pursuit.
The prisoners were brought in a body to Edinburgh, and confined,
like sheep in a fold, within the gloomy precincts of the Greyfriars’
Church-yard, where, for four months, they had no seat or couch but
the bare ground, and no covering but the sky. Two clergymen, Kid and
King, were executed. Of the rest, all were set at liberty who would own
the insurrection to have been _rebellion_, and the slaughter of the
archbishop _murder_, and promise never more to take up arms against the
government. Those who refused were sent to the Plantations; a mode of
disposing prisoners which had been introduced by Cromwell.
Under all the severities of this reign, the spirit of English liberty
was still kept alive. The king having been long married without any
children, his brother, the Duke of York, was heir-presumptive. But
this prince, besides various natural faults of character, had unfitted
himself for governing a Protestant people by becoming an avowed convert
to the Catholic faith. An attempt was made in the House of Commons
to pass an act for excluding him from the succession; it was read a
second time by a majority of 207 against 128; and the king only evaded
the question by proroguing the parliament. The duke, seeing himself
so unpopular in England, resolved to make friends, if possible, in
Scotland; so that, in the event of any resistance to his succession
in the former country, he might bring up an army of Scotch to his
assistance. He therefore paid a visit to Edinburgh in October 1679, and
revived the long dormant court of Holyroodhouse. As the persecution
had been in a great measure a local affair, it operated little against
his present views. The gentry, except in the western district, were
chiefly Cavaliers; in the Highlands, altogether so. Among a people
remote from a court, the mere presence of royalty--its slightest acts
of condescension--are sure to communicate a favourable impression,
although, perhaps, accompanied by but little merit or virtue in the
royal person. We are not therefore to be surprised that the duke
somewhat strengthened himself in Scotland on this occasion. He returned
at the end of February 1680 to London.
The excitement of the time now gave rise to a new and more fanatical
sect, who renounced their allegiance, and issued anathemas not only
against their persecutors, but against the great mass of their
brethren, who had submitted to the government. A minister named
Cargill and his associate, Cameron, with about twenty armed men,
appeared at Sanquhar on the 22d of June, and there affixed upon the
market-cross a declaration, in which they disavowed all obedience to
the king, and protested against the succession of the Duke of York.
Cameron was soon after killed, with some of his friends, at Airdsmoss,
and Hackstoun of Rathillet was seized and executed. Cargill, so far
from being deterred, held a large conventicle at Torwood, where he
formally delivered over the king, his brother, and ministers, to Satan,
after the usual forms of excommunication. He was soon after taken
prisoner and hanged. The whole proceedings of this sect were seriously
injurious to the great body of Presbyterians; as the government,
wilfully overlooking remonstrances to the contrary, held all that was
done as criminating the whole body, and took occasion from that to
exercise greater severities.
In October 1680, the Duke of York was again obliged, by the patriotic
party in England, to take up his residence at Holyroodhouse. A bill
for excluding him from the throne was now actually passed by the House
of Commons, but was lost in the House of Lords by thirty-three against
thirty. On Christmas Day, the spirit of the Scottish people against
a Catholic successor was manifested by the students of the Edinburgh
University, who, notwithstanding every effort to prevent them, publicly
burnt the pope in effigy. A parliament, the first for nine years,
sat down in July 1681, the duke acting as commissioner. A test oath
was here framed, to be taken by all persons in public trusts, as an
assurance of their loyalty; but it turned out to be such a jumble of
contradictory obligations, that many persons, including eighty of the
established clergy, refused to take it. The Earl of Argyle, son to the
late marquis, and a faithful friend to the Protestant religion, would
only receive it with an explanation, which was held to be an act of
treason, and he was accordingly tried and condemned to death. The real
object of this prosecution was to destroy a powerful Highland chief,
who might be disposed to use his influence against the succession of
the Duke of York. His lordship contrived to escape to Holland.
In the latter part of this year, the party left by Cargill and
Cameron formed themselves into a secret society, and on the 12th of
January 1682, published at Lanark a declaration of adherence to the
transactions at Sanquhar, which they affected to consider as the
work of a convention of estates. This, of course, only provoked new
severities.
In March 1682, the Duke of York returned to England, in order to hold a
conference with the king. Coming back in May for his family, his vessel
was wrecked on a sandbank near Yarmouth, when a hundred and fifty
persons perished, including some of the first quality. After spending
about a week in Edinburgh, he returned to England.
The ancient Presbyterian spirit was now reduced so low, or so many
of the clergy of that kind were destroyed and imprisoned, that there
was not a single individual who preached in defiance of the king’s
supremacy. The united societies, as the more unsubmissive termed
themselves, were obliged to send a youth named Renwick to Groningen,
in Belgium, in order to study divinity and receive ordination, as they
could not in any other way obtain a preacher. A general disposition to
emigration began to arise; and some gentlemen proposed to sell their
property, and become settlers in the new colony of Carolina. While
engaged at London in making the proper arrangements, they came in
contact with the patriots of the House of Commons, who, defeated in the
Exclusion Bill, were concerting measures for bringing about a change of
government. Common desperation made them friends; and a correspondence
was opened with the Earl of Argyle in Holland, for an invasion from
that quarter, in connection with an insurrection in England. Some
subordinate members of the conspiracy plotted the assassination of
the king; and, being discovered, the whole affair was brought to
light. Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney suffered death. Baillie of
Jerviswood was sent to Scotland, and there, under the most iniquitous
circumstances, consigned to the executioner. It was now hardly
possible, by any course of conduct, to gain assurance of not being
prosecuted. Masters were held liable for servants; landlords for their
tenants; fathers for their wives and children; and to have the least
intercourse with a proscribed person was the same as to be actually
guilty. The soldiery were now permitted by an act of parliament to
execute the laws without trial. If any one, therefore, refused to
answer certain questions, or gave rise to suspicion by running away, he
was shot. Numbers thus perished in the fields and on the highways. In
short, the reign of Charles II. terminated, February 6, 1685, amidst
a scene of oppression, bloodshed, and spoil, such as was never before
witnessed in the country, even in the most barbarous times.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1673.