"THE TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND"
The new reign had scarcely begun when trouble arose between King Charles
and his Scottish subjects. On the one hand, he alienated the nobles by
an attempt, partially successful, to secure for the Church some of its
ancient revenues. More serious still was his endeavour to bring the
Scottish Church into uniformity with the usage of the Church of England.
James had understood that any further attempt to alter the service or
constitution of the Church of Scotland would infallibly lead to serious
trouble. He had given up an intention of introducing a new prayer-book
to supersede the "Book of Common Order", known as "Knox's Liturgy",
which was employed in the Church, though not to the exclusion of
extemporary prayers. When Charles came to Edinburgh to be crowned, in
1633, he made a further attempt in this direction, and, although he had
to postpone the introduction of this particular change, he left a most
uneasy feeling, not only among the Presbyterians, but also among the
bishops themselves. An altar was erected in Holyrood Chapel, and behind
it was a crucifix, before which the clergy made genuflexions. He erected
Edinburgh into a bishopric, with the Collegiate Church of St. Giles for
a cathedral, and the Bishops of Edinburgh, as they followed in rapid
succession, gained the reputation of innovators and supporters of Laud
and the English. Even more dangerous in its effect was a general order
for the clergy to wear surplices. It was widely disobeyed, but it
created very great alarm.
In 1635, canons were issued for the Church of Scotland, which owed their
existence to the dangerous meddling of Laud, now Archbishop of
Canterbury. James, who loved Episcopacy, had dreaded the influence of
Laud in Scotland; his fear was justified, for it was given to Laud to
make an Episcopal Church impossible north of the Tweed. Although certain
of the Scottish bishops had expressed approval of these canons, they
were enjoined in the Church by royal authority, and the Scots, whose
theory of the rights of the Church was much more "high" than that of
Laud, would, on this account alone, have met them with resistance. But
the canons used words and phrases which were intolerable to Scottish
ears. They spoke of a "chancel" and they commended auricular confession;
they gave the Scottish bishops something like the authority of their
English brethren, to the detriment of minister and kirk-session, and
they made the use of a new prayer-book compulsory, and forbade any
objection to it. Two years elapsed before the book was actually
introduced. It was English, and it had been forced upon the Church by
the State, and, worse than this, it was associated with the hated name
of Laud and with his suspected designs upon the Protestant religion.
When it came it was found to follow the English prayer-book almost
exactly; but such changes as there were seemed suspicious in the
extreme. In the communion service the rubric preceding the prayer of
consecration read thus: "During the time of consecration he shall stand
at such a part of the holy table where he may with the more ease and
decency use both his hands". The reference to both hands was suspected
to mean the Elevation of the Host, and this suspicion was confirmed by
the omission of the sentences "Take and eat this in remembrance that
Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with
thanksgiving", and "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was
shed for thee, and be thankful", from the words of administration. On
more general grounds, too, strong objection was taken to the book, and
on July 23rd, 1637, there occurred the famous riot in St. Giles's, which
has become connected with the name of Jennie Geddes. The objection was
not, in any sense, to read prayers in themselves; the Book of Common
Order had been read in St. Giles's that very morning. The difficulty lay
in the particular book, and it is notable that the cries which have come
down to us as prefacing the riot are all indicative of a suspected
attempt to reintroduce Roman Catholicism. "The mass is entered upon us."
"Baal is in the Church." "Darest thou sing mass in my lug."
The Privy Council was negligent in punishing the rioters, and it soon
became evident that they had public opinion behind them. Alexander
Henderson, who ministered to a Fifeshire congregation in the old Norman
church of Leuchars, and whom the king was to meet in other
circumstances, issued a respectful and moderate protest, in which he did
not deal with the particular points at issue, but asserted the
ecclesiastical independence of Scotland. Riots continued to disturb
Edinburgh, and Charles was impotent to suppress them. He refused
Henderson's "Supplication"; its supporters drew up a second petition
boldly asking that the bishops should be tried as the real authors of
the disturbances, and, in November, 1637, they chose a body of
commissioners to represent them. These commissioners, and some
sub-committees of them, are known in Scottish history as The Tables, the
name being applied to several different bodies. Charles replied to the
second petition in wrathful terms, and it was decided to revive the
National Covenant of 1581, to renounce popery. It had been drawn up
under fear of a popish plot, and was itself an expansion of the Covenant
of 1557. To it was now added a declaration suited to immediate
necessities. On the 1st and 2nd March, 1638, it was signed by vast
multitudes in the churchyard of Greyfriars, in Edinburgh, and it
continued to be signed, sometimes under pressure, throughout the land.
Hamilton, Charles's agent in Scotland, was quite unable to meet the
situation. In the end Charles had to agree to the meeting of a General
Assembly in Glasgow, in November, 1638. Hamilton, the High Commissioner,
attempted to obtain the ejection of laymen and to create a division
among his opponents. When he failed in this, he dissolved the Assembly
in the king's name. At the instance of Henderson, supported by Argyll,
the Assembly refused to acknowledge itself dissolved, and proceeded to
abolish Episcopacy and re-establish the Presbyterian form of Church
government.
The king, on his part, began to concert measures with his Privy Council
for the subjugation of Scotland. The "Committee on Scotch affairs" of
the English Privy Council was obviously unconstitutional, but matters
were fast drifting towards civil war, and it was no time to consider
constitutional niceties. It is much more important that the committee
was divided and useless. Wentworth, writing from Ireland, advised the
king to maintain a firm attitude, but not to provoke an outbreak of war
at so inconvenient a moment. Charles again attempted a compromise. He
offered to withdraw Laud's unlucky service-book, the new canons, and
even the Articles of Perth, and to limit the power of the bishops; and
he asked the people to sign the Covenant of 1580-81, on which the new
Covenant was based, but which, of course, contained no reference to
immediate difficulties. But it was too late; the sentiment of religious
independence had become united to the old feeling of national
independence, and war was inevitable. The Scots were fortunate in their
leaders. In the end of 1638 there returned to Scotland from Germany,
Alexander Leslie, the great soldier who had fought for Protestantism
under Gustavus Adolphus. In February, 1639, he took command of the army
of the Covenant, which had been largely reinforced by veterans from the
Thirty Years' War. A more attractive personality than Leslie's was that
of the young Earl of Montrose, who had attached himself with enthusiasm
to the national cause, and had attempted to convert the people of
Aberdeen to covenanting principles. Charles, on his part, asserted that
his throne was in danger, and that the Scottish preparations constituted
a menace to the kingdom of England, and so attempted to rouse enthusiasm
for himself.
While the king was preparing to reinforce the loyalist Marquis of Huntly
at Aberdeen, the news came that the garrisons of Edinburgh and Dunbarton
had surrendered to the insurgents (March, 1639), who, a few days later,
seized the regalia at Dalkeith. On March 30th Aberdeen fell into the
hands of Montrose and Leslie, and Huntly was soon practically a
prisoner. Charles had by this time reached York, and it was now evident
that he had entirely miscalculated the strength of the enemy. He had
hoped to subdue Scotland through Hamilton and Huntly; he now saw that,
if Scotland was to be conquered at all, it must be through an English
army. The first blood in the Civil War was shed near Turriff, in
Aberdeenshire (May 14th, 1639), where some of Huntly's supporters gained
a slight success, after which the city of Aberdeen fell into their hands
for some ten days, when it was reoccupied by the Covenanters. Meanwhile
Charles and Leslie had been facing each other near Berwick; the former
unwilling to risk his raw levies against Leslie's trained soldiers,
while the Covenanters were not desirous of entering into a war in which
they might find the whole strength of England ultimately arrayed against
them. On the 18th June the two parties entered into the Pacification of
Berwick, in accordance with which both armies were to be disbanded, and
Charles promised to allow a free General Assembly and a free Parliament
to govern Scotland. While the pacification was being signed at Berwick,
a battle was in progress at Aberdeen, where, on June 18th-19th, Montrose
gained a victory, at the Bridge of Dee, over the Earl of Aboyne, the
eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly. For the third time, Montrose
spared the city of Aberdeen, and Scotland settled down to a brief period
of peace.
It was clear that the pacification was only a truce, for no exact terms
had been agreed upon, and both sides thoroughly distrusted each other.
Disputes immediately arose about the constitution of Parliament and the
Assembly. Charles refused to rescind the acts constituting Episcopacy
legal, and it is clear that he never intended to keep his promise to the
Scots, who, on their part, were too suspicious of his good faith to
carry out their part of the agreement. In the end Assembly and
Parliament alike abolished Episcopacy, and Parliament passed several
acts to ensure its own supremacy. Charles refused to assent to these
Acts, and prorogued Parliament from November, 1639, to June, 1640. The
result of the king's evident disinclination to implement the Treaty of
Berwick, was an interesting attempt to undo the work of the preceding
century by a reversion to the old policy of a French alliance. It was,
of course, impossible thus to turn back, and Richelieu met the Scottish
offers with a decisive rebuff, while the fact of these treasonable
negotiations became known to Charles, and embittered the already bitter
controversy. A new attempt at negotiation failed, and in June, 1640, the
second Bishops' War began. As usual the north suffered, especially from
the fierceness of the Earl of Argyll, who disliked the more moderate
policy advocated by Montrose. The king's English difficulties were
increasing, and the Scots had now many sympathizers among Englishmen,
who looked upon them as fighting for the same cause of Protestantism and
constitutional government.
In August the Scots invaded England for the first time since the
minority of Mary Stuart, and, on August 28th, they defeated a portion of
the king's army at Newburn, a ford near Newcastle. The town was
immediately occupied, and from Newcastle the invaders advanced to the
Tees and seized Durham. Charles was forced, a second time, to give way.
In October he agreed that the Scottish army of occupation should be paid
until the English Parliament, which he was about to summon, might make a
final arrangement. By Parliament alone could the Scots be paid, and
thus, by a strange irony of fate, the occupation of the northern
counties by a Scottish army was, for the time, the best guarantee of
English liberties. There were, however, points on which the Scottish
army and the English Parliament found it difficult to agree, and it was
not till August, 1641, that the Scots recrossed the Tweed. Charles, who
hoped to enlist the sympathy of the Scots in his struggle with the
English Parliament, paid a second visit to Edinburgh, where he gave his
assent to the abolition of Episcopacy, and to the repeal of the Acts
which had given rise to the dispute. But it became evident that the
Parliament, and not the king, was to bear rule in Scotland. The king's
stay in Edinburgh was marked by what is known as "The Incident", a
mysterious plot to capture Argyll and Hamilton, who was now the ally of
Argyll. It was supposed that the king was cognizant of the plan; he had
to defend himself from the accusation, and was declared guiltless in the
matter. At the time of the Incident, Argyll fled, but soon returned, and
Charles had to yield to him in all things. Parliament, under Argyll,
appointed all officials. Argyll himself was made a marquis, and Leslie
became Earl of Leven. There was a general amnesty, and among those who
obtained their liberty was the Earl of Montrose, who had been imprisoned
in May for making terms with the king. In November, 1641, Charles left
Scotland for London, to face the English Parliament. He can scarcely
have hoped for Scottish aid, and when, a few months later, he was on the
verge of hostilities and made a request for assistance, it was twice
refused.
With the general course of the Great Rebellion we are not here
concerned. It is important for our purpose to notice that it affected
Scotland in two ways. The course of events converted, on the one hand,
the Episcopalian party into a Royalist party, and placed at its head the
Covenanter, Montrose. On the other hand, the National Covenant was
transformed into the Solemn League and Covenant, which had for its aim
the establishment of Presbytery in England as well as in Scotland. This
"will o' the wisp" of covenanted uniformity led the Scottish Church into
somewhat strange places. As early as January, 1643, Montrose had offered
to strike a blow for the king in Scotland, but Charles would not take
the responsibility of beginning the strife. In August negotiations began
for the extension of the covenant to England. The Solemn League and
Covenant, which provided for the abolition of Episcopacy in England, was
adopted by the Convention of Estates at Edinburgh on August 17th, and in
the following month it passed both Houses of Parliament in England, and
was taken both by the House of Commons and by the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster. Its only ultimate results were the substitution in Scotland
of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory for
Public Worship, in place of the older Scottish documents, and the
approximation of Scottish Presbytery to English Puritanism, involving a
distinct departure from the ideals of the Scottish Reformation, and the
introduction into Scotland of a form of Sabbatarianism which has come to
be regarded as distinctively Scottish, but which owes its origin,
historically, to English Nonconformity.[89] Its immediate effects were
the short-lived predominance of Presbytery in England, and the crossing
of the Tweed, in January, 1644, by a Scottish army in the pay of the
English Parliament. The part taken by the Scottish army in the war was
not unimportant. In April they aided Fairfax in the siege of York; in
July they took an honourable share in the battle of Marston Moor; they
were responsible for the Uxbridge proposals which provided for peace on
the basis of a Presbyterian settlement. In June, 1645, they advanced
southwards to Mansfield, and, after the surrender of Carlisle, on June
28th, and its occupation by a Scottish garrison, Leven proceeded to
Alcester and thereafter laid siege to Hereford, an attempt which events
in Scotland forced him to abandon. Finally, in May, 1646, the king
surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark, which had been invested by
Leven since the preceding November.
While the Scottish army was thus aiding the Parliamentary cause, the
Earl of Montrose had created an important diversion on the king's side
in Scotland itself. In April, 1644, he occupied Dumfries and made an
unsuccessful attempt on the Scottish Lowlands. In May Charles conferred
on him a marquisate, and in August he prepared to renew the struggle. To
his old foes, the Gordons, he first looked for assistance, but was
finally compelled to raise his forces in the Highlands, and to obtain
Irish aid. On September 1st he gained his first victory at Tippermuir,
near Perth, on which he had marched with his Highland host. From Perth
he marched on Aberdeen, gaining some reinforcements from the northern
gentry, and in particular from the Earl of Airlie. Once again Montrose
fought a battle which delivered the city of Aberdeen into his power
(September 13th), but now he was unwilling or unable to protect the
captured town, which was cruelly ravaged. From Aberdeen Montrose
proceeded by Rothiemurchus to Blair Athole, but suddenly turned
backwards to Aberdeenshire, where he defended Fyvie Castle, slipped past
Argyll, and again reached Blair Athole. The enemies of Argyll crowded to
his banner, but his army was still small when, in December, 1644, he
made his descent upon Argyll, and reached the castle of Inverary. From
Inverary he went northwards, ravaging as he went, till he found, at Loch
Ness, that there was an army of 5000 men under the Earl of Seaforth
prepared to resist his advance, while Argyll was behind him at
Inverlochy. Although Argyll's army considerably outnumbered his own,
Montrose turned southwards and made a rapid dash at Argyll's forces as
they lay at Inverlochy, and won a complete victory, the news of which
dispersed Seaforth's men and enabled Montrose to invite Charles to a
country which lay at his mercy. At Elgin he was joined by the heir of
the Marquis of Huntly, his forces increased, and the excommunication
which the Church immediately published against him seemed of but little
importance. On April 4th he seized Dundee, and on May 9th won a fresh
victory at Auldearn, which was followed, in rapid succession, by a
victory at Alford in July, and in August by the "crowning mercy" of
Kilsyth, which made him master of the situation, and forced Leven to
raise the siege of Hereford. From Kilsyth he marched to Glasgow, where
both the Highlanders and the Gordons began to desert him. From England,
Leven sent David Leslie to meet Montrose as he marched by the Lothians
into the border counties. On September 13th, 1645, just one year after
his victory at Aberdeen, Montrose was completely defeated at
Philiphaugh. He escaped, but his power was broken, and he was unable
henceforth to take any important share in the war.
When Charles surrendered himself to the Scots, in May, 1646, his friends
in Scotland were helpless, and he had to meet the Presbyterian leaders
without any hope beyond that of being able to take advantage of the
differences of opinion between Presbyterians and Independents, which
were fast assuming critical importance. The king held at Newcastle a
conference with Alexander Henderson, which led to no definite result. In
the end the Scots offered to adopt the king's cause if he would accept
Presbyterianism. This he declined to do, and his refusal left the Scots
no choice except keeping him a prisoner or surrendering him to his
English subjects. They owed him no gratitude, and, while it might be
chivalrous, it could scarcely be expedient to retain his person. While
he was unwilling to accede to their conditions they were powerless to
give him any help. He was therefore handed over to the commissioners of
the English Parliament, and the Scots, on the 30th January, 1647,
returned home, having been paid, as the price of the king's surrender,
the money promised them by the English Parliament when they entered into
the struggle in 1644.
In the end of 1647 the Scots again entered into the long series of
negotiations with the king. When Charles was a prisoner at Newport, and
while he was arranging terms with the English, he entered into a secret
agreement with commissioners from Scotland. The "Engagement", as it was
called, embodied the conditions which Charles had refused at
Newcastle--the recognition of Presbytery in Scotland and its
establishment in England for three years, the king being allowed
toleration for his own form of worship. The Engagement was by no means
unanimously carried in the Scottish Parliament, and its results were
disastrous to Charles himself. It caused the English Parliament to pass
the vote of No Addresses, and the second civil war, which it helped to
provoke, had a share in bringing about his death. The Duke of Hamilton
led a small army into England, where in August 17th, 1648, it was
totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston. Meanwhile the Hamilton party
had lost power in Scotland, and when Cromwell entered Scotland, Argyll,
who had opposed the Engagement, willingly agreed to his conditions, and
accepted the aid of three English regiments. In the events of the next
six months Scotland had no part nor lot. The responsibility for the
king's death rests on the English Government alone.
The news of the execution of the king was at once followed by the fall
of Argyll and his party. The Scots had no sympathy with English
republicanism, and they were alarmed by the growth of Independency in
England. On February 5th Charles II was proclaimed King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, and the Scots declared themselves ready to
defend his cause by blood, if only he would take the Covenant. This the
young king refused to do while he had hopes of success in Ireland.
Meanwhile three of his most loyal friends perished on the scaffold. The
English, who held the Duke of Hamilton as a prisoner, put him to death
on March 9th, 1649, and on the 22nd day of the same month the Marquis of
Huntly was beheaded at Edinburgh. On April 27th, Montrose, who had
collected a small army and taken the field in the northern Highlands,
was defeated at Carbisdale and taken prisoner. On the 25th May he was
hanged in Edinburgh, and with his death the story is deprived of its
hero.
The pressure of misfortune finally drove Charles to accept the Scottish
offers. Even while Montrose was fighting his last battle, his young
master was negotiating with the Covenanters. Conferences were held at
Breda in the spring of 1650, and Charles landed at the mouth of the
river Spey on the 3rd July, having taken the Covenant. In the middle of
the same month Cromwell crossed the Tweed at the head of an English
army. The Scots, under Leven and David Leslie, took up a position near
Edinburgh, and, after a month's fruitless skirmishing, Cromwell had to
retire to Dunbar, whither Leslie followed him. By a clever manoeuvre,
Leslie intercepted Cromwell's retreat on Berwick, while he also seized
Doon Hill, an eminence commanding Dunbar. The Parliamentary Committee,
under whose authority Leslie was acting, forced him to make an attack to
prevent Cromwell's force from escaping by sea. The details of the battle
have been disputed, and the most convincing account is that given by Mr.
Firth in his "Cromwell". When Leslie left the Doon Hill his left became
shut in between the hill and "the steep ravine of the Brock burn", while
his centre had not sufficient room to move. Cromwell, therefore, after a
feint on the left, concentrated his forces against Leslie's right, and
shattered it. The rout was complete, and Leslie had to retreat to
Stirling, while the Lowlands fell into Cromwell's hands. Cromwell was
conciliatory, and a considerable proportion of Presbyterians took up an
attitude hostile to the king's claims. The supporters of Charles were
known as Resolutioners, or Engagers, and his opponents as Protesters or
Remonstrants. The consequence was that the old Royalists and
Episcopalians began to rejoin Charles. Before the battle of Dunbar
(September 2nd) Charles had been really a prisoner in the hands of the
Covenanters, who had ruled him with a rod of iron. As the stricter
Presbyterians withdrew, and their places were filled by the "Malignants"
whom they had excluded from the king's service, the personal importance
of Charles increased. On January 1st, 1651, he was crowned at Scone, and
in the following summer he took up a position near Stirling, with Leslie
as commander of his army. Cromwell outmanoeuvred Leslie and seized
Perth, and the royal forces retaliated by the invasion of England, which
ended in the defeat of Worcester on September 3rd, 1651, exactly one
year after Dunbar. The king escaped and fled to France.
Scotland was now unable to resist Monk, whom Cromwell had left behind
him when he went southwards to defeat Charles at Worcester. On the 14th
August he captured Stirling, and on the 28th the Committee of Estates
was seized at Alyth and carried off to London. There was no further
attempt at opposition, and all Scotland, for the first time since the
reign of Edward I, was in military occupation by English troops. The
property of the leading supporters of Charles II was confiscated. In
1653 the General Assembly was reduced to pleading that "we were an
ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual court of Jesus Christ, which meddled
not with anything civil"; but their unwonted humility was of no avail to
save them. An earlier victim than the Assembly was the Scottish
Parliament. It was decided in 1652 that Scotland should be incorporated
with England, and from February of that year till the Restoration, the
kingdom of Scotland ceased to exist. The "Instrument" of Government of
1653 gave Scotland thirty members in the British Parliament. Twenty were
allotted to the shires--one to each of the larger shires and one to each
of nine groups of less important shires. There were also eight groups of
burghs, each group electing one member, and two members were returned by
the city of Edinburgh. Between 1653 and 1655 Scotland was governed by
parliamentary commissioners, and, from 1655 onwards, by a special
council. The Court of Session was abolished, and its place taken by a
Commission of Justice.[90] The actual union dates from 1654, when it was
ratified by the Supreme Council of the Commonwealth of England, but
Scotland was under English rule from the battle of Worcester. The wise
policy of allowing freedom of trade, like the improvement in the
administration of justice, failed to reconcile the Scots to the union,
and, to the end, it required a military force to maintain the new
government.
As Scotland had no share in the execution of Charles I, so it had none
in the restoration of his son. The "Committee of Estates", which met
after the 29th of May, was not lacking in loyalty. All traces of the
union were swept away, and the pressure of the new Navigation Act was
severely felt in contrast to the freedom of trade that had been the
great boon of the Commonwealth. But worse evils were in store. The
"Covenanted monarch" was determined to restore Episcopacy in Scotland,
and for this purpose he employed as a tool the notorious James Sharpe,
who had been sent up to London to plead the cause of Presbytery with
Monk. Sharpe returned to Scotland in the spring of 1661 as Archbishop of
St. Andrews. Parliament met by royal authority and passed a General Act
Rescissory, which rendered void all acts passed since 1638. The
episcopal form of church government was immediately established. The
Privy Council received enlarged powers, and was again completely
subservient to the king. The execution of Argyll atoned for the death of
Montrose, in the eyes of Royalists, and two notable ecclesiastical
politicians, Johnston of Warriston and James Guthrie, were also put to
death. An Indemnity Act was passed, but many men found that the king's
pardon had its price. On October 1st, 1662, an act was passed ordering
recusant ministers to leave their parishes, and the council improved on
the English Five Mile Act, by ordering that no recusant minister should,
on pain of treason, reside within twenty miles of his parish, within six
miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral town, or within three miles of any
royal burgh. A Court of High Commission, which had been established by
James VI in 1610, was again entrusted with all religious cases. The
effect of these harsh measures was to rouse the insurrections which are
the most notable feature of the reign. In 1666 the Covenanters were
defeated at the battle of Pentland, or Rullion Green, and those who were
suspected of a share in the rising were subjected to examination under
torture, which now became one of the normal features of Charles's brutal
government. Prisoners were hanged or sent as slaves to the plantations.
In 1669, an Indulgence was passed, permitting Presbyterian services
under certain conditions, but in 1670, Parliament passed a Conventicle
Act, making it a capital crime to "preach, expound scripture, or pray",
at any unlicensed meeting. On May 5th, 1679, Sharpe was assassinated
near St. Andrews. The murderers escaped, and some of them joined the
Covenanters of the west. The Government had determined to put a stop to
the meetings of conventicles, and had chosen for this purpose John
Graham of Claverhouse. On the 11th June, Claverhouse was defeated at
Drumclog, but eleven days later he routed the Covenanting army at
Bothwell Bridge, and took over a thousand prisoners. Only seven were
executed, but the others were imprisoned in Greyfriars' churchyard, and
a large number of them were sold as plantation slaves. A small rising at
Aird's Moss in Ayrshire, in 1680, was easily suppressed. In 1681 the
Scottish Parliament prescribed as a test the disavowal of the National
Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644, and it
declared that any attempt to alter the succession involved the subjects
"in perjury and rebellion". In connection with the Test Act, an
opportunity was found for convicting the Earl of Argyll[91] of treason.
His property was confiscated, but he himself was allowed to escape. The
last years of the reign, under the administration of the Duke of York,
were marked by exceptional cruelty in connection with the religious
persecutions. The expeditions of Claverhouse, the case of the Wigtown
martyrs, and the horrible cruelties of the torture-room have given to
these years the title of "the Killing time".
The Scottish Parliament welcomed King James VII with fulsome adulation.
But the new king was scarcely seated on the throne before a rebellion
broke out. The Earl of Argyll adopted the cause of Monmouth, landed in
his own country, and marched into Lanarkshire. His attempt was an entire
failure: nobody joined his standard, and he himself, failing to make
good his retreat, was captured and executed without a new trial. The
Parliament again enforced the Test Act, and renewed the Conventicle Act,
making it a capital offence even to be present at a conventicle. The
persecutions continued with renewed vigour. James failed in persuading
even the obsequious Parliament to give protection to the Roman
Catholics. He attempted to obtain the same end by a Declaration of
Indulgence, of which the Covenanters might be unable to avail
themselves, but in its final form, issued in May, 1688, it included
them. The conjunction of popery and absolute prerogative thoroughly
alarmed the Scots, and the news of the English Revolution was received
with general satisfaction. The effect of the long struggle had been to
weaken the country in many ways. Thousands of her bravest sons had died
on the scaffold or on the battle-field or in the dungeons of Dunnottar,
or had been exiled to the plantations. Trade and commerce had declined.
The records of the burghs show us how harbours were empty and houses
ruinous, where, a century earlier, there had been a thriving trade.
Scotland in 1688 was in every way, unless in moral discipline, poorer
than she had been while England was still the "auld enemy".
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 89: Sabbath observance had been introduced from England six
centuries earlier. Cf. p. 14.]
[Footnote 90: Justices of the peace were appointed throughout the
country, and heritable jurisdictions were abolished.]
[Footnote 91: The son of the Marquis who was executed in 1661. The
earldom, but not the marquisate, had been restored in 1663.]