of the most rigid, falls on the overture to propone the commission
of the general assembly’s desires all together immediately to the
parliament, wherein, if we got satisfaction, we were to go on as
they desired us, to state a question. The motion was approven.
This draught of eight articles, after some changes of it to the
worse, was passed, and presented, in name of the commission of the
church, by Mr Robert Blair, Mr Robert Ramsay, and I. For answer,
the eighteen of their first great committee, with the addition of
six more, twenty-four in all, the prime members of parliament, were
appointed to confer with us on these our desires. The commission, to
these seven who had met before with the subcommittee of parliament
upon their declaration, added Mr Robert Blair and Mr Andrew Cant. On
the Thursday, before noon, they went through the first five of our
desires. All the sticking was on the fifth; wherein we pressed to
have the malignants who should rise in arms by themselves declared
enemies, as well as sectaries. This was contrary to the King’s
agreement with some, and their intentions, who, without the help of
malignants, made the work impossible. At last we carried the article.
In the afternoon we had almost differed on the sixth, the King’s oath
to consent to an act of parliament for injoining the solemn league
before his restitution to the exercise of the royal power. We pressed
him not to take the covenant; but whatever his conscience was, we
conceived him bound to consent to the necessary laws of the kingdom.
Thus his good-dame Queen Mary assented to the acts of parliament
for the Reformed religion. This also did pass for the substance;
only a committee was appointed to smooth some expressions about the
King’s restitution. We had no power to recede from any word, and
so would not be at any committee for changing any expression, but
believed the commission of the kirk would not stick at words, if
the matter were well secured. On the seventh article, for managing
the war by constant hands, there was not much debate. We could here
fall on no words which might not be granted, and yet little for our
advantage; albeit this was the greatest of all our difficulties. Upon
the constitution of the army depended all our human safety, hope,
and security of whatever else was granted. It goes now so, that no
trust remains to any words or oaths; except therefore force were in
the hands of our friends, we resolved not to stir; and yet we could
not crave any such particular, but had necessity to have it done
one way or other. Some underhand did move to have the Duke General.
Callender and his friends were careful to free us of this fear; for
generally all but the Duke’s own followers doubted much the sincerity
of his intentions, either for religion or the King; albeit I confess,
whenever I heard him or his brother speak in earnest, they seemed to
me to give ample satisfaction; but as yet they have not the fortune
to be believed by many. Ochiltree’s business sticks still in the
throats of some. Upon too great probability, Callender, by his own
party, which is great, is wished General: but his inflexibility to
serve against Montrose, upon the sense of private injuries, whereby
indelible marks of disgrace were printed on the face of Scotland, and
his very ambiguous proceedings in England at Hereford and elsewhere,
make us that we dare not put our lives and religion in his hands.
David Lesly and Holburn are more beloved by us. The old General, for
all his infirmities, is acceptable; also Middleton, and the general
of the artillery, will not be refused. In private we were assured
these should be the general officers; but we will not be assured
without sight, and our main difficulties will be upon the committees
to govern the state and army in the intervals of the sessions of
parliament. If herein they permit them whom we count trusty, to have
full power, when they can carry what they will in parliament, it will
be a great wonder; yet if in this we get not satisfaction, nothing
else will satisfy. We expect little debate on the eighth article, to
have an oath for all this; but herein we were peremptory, and hope
to obtain. It was my wish, that only the parliament and officers
of the army should swear, and that the body of the land should be
put to no more oaths; but it seems this association must be no less
sworn than our two former covenants. While thus far we had proceeded
on Thursday, I thought we were as good as agreed; so I resolved to
go home to-morrow; for the opening of our provincial synod lay on
me as the last moderator; also a new very dangerous infection was
broken up in Glasgow, and come to my very gates. Upon these reasons,
after eight weeks stay, I got leave from the commission to return;
albeit very hardly, for our business was not fully closed, and I had
immediate access and trust with sundry of the most leading men, with
whom I was esteemed to do no evil service; while others, by their
way, did irritate more; also we had resolved to have reason of Mr W.
Colvil and his followers for their great and dangerous insolency, not
so much in their open contempt, neglecting to read our declaration,
as in their sermons and private negotiations, both with noblemen and
ministers, to frame a faction for dividing of our church, wherein
the peremptory rigidity of some, the too great simplicity of others,
and the evil talents of more, gave them the occasion to make too
great progress; but having staid till I declared my sense abundantly
against these men, and helped to bring them low, and put them in a
way either to recant or to be censured, I came away on the Friday
morning, and to my own house at night. The college was almost totally
dissolved for fear of the plague. We are waiting on the Lord’s
pleasure, what he will do with Glasgow, whether yet it may be spared
from the plague, whereof I am not desperate; and what shall be the
next act of the long tragedy among us.
* * * * *
_June 26, 1648._—REVEREND AND DEAR COUSIN,—Since my last, March
28th, I have heard nothing from you, nor long before. Our affairs
since have had a great progress, but not an inch to the better. All
appearance of any possibility to agree, daily does more and more
evanish. A spirit of bitterness, jealousy, and mutual contempt,
grows on all hands, and the stronger party is begun to persecute the
weaker, and that evil is like much to increase quickly. The course of
affairs may draw both beside any intention to do the worst of that
which has been objected to either as their design. The sectaries and
malignants may shortly divide the whole isle, to the great danger and
hurt of the King and the honest Presbyterians in both kingdoms. Our
storm is yet but waxing; we can make but small judgement of its end.
When I closed my last to you, as then I wrote, there was some good
hope of concord, a pretty good answer was expected to our eight
desires; but some unhappy men made all these hopes to flee away. The
committee of twenty-four framed their answer, and got it passed in an
act of parliament before it came to the commission of the kirk. They
to whom the consideration of it was committed, looked so narrowly
into every word of it, that they found snares in every other line,
and not one of our eight desires satisfied. This much the commission
represented in a new paper, added a new desire, to declare against
the negative voice of the King, which the commissioners papers in
England had so much pressed. This draught of Mr James Guthrie’s, in
the absence of Mr G. Gillespie, was as ill taken when it came to the
parliament as any other, and so was as good as laid aside, till in
the large declaration they gave it an answer. In the mean time they
put out the act of posture for setting all the kingdom in a defence
against invasion; but in a few days came out the act of levy, which,
incontinent, alarmed all. The first narrative was ill taken, a danger
from the malignants that had taken Berwick and Carlisle. The world
knew there was no danger to us from them, for they had been with
us in Edinburgh, and their enterprise upon Berwick and Carlisle
was generally believed not to have been undertaken without some of
our privities. The act therefore, before publishing, was helped,
grounding our levy on the danger from the army of sectaries, which
these surprises would draw down on our borders; and in this there is
like to be no false prophecy.
Here it was where our differences began first to be irreconcileable.
We stood on the managers of the war as much as any one thing. The
committees of shires, and crowners for the posture, were indifferent;
but when it came to the levy, generally all the crowners of horse and
foot were chosen as Duke Hamilton, and Callender liked. Our friends
here got very little of their will; but the copestone was put upon
our despair, when we found Hamilton and Callender, how much contrare
soever one to another, yet at last, after their had been much
speech and dealing of either to join with Argyle, and that, through
whose fault I know not, had miscarried at last: I say, Hamilton
and Callender did join too friendly to our prejudice, and that on
these terms, beside others, that the Duke should be General, and the
Earl his Lieutenant. Both of them to that time had been opposite to
the employment of either; and so long as they had any hope of our
compliance, both professed a great deal of willingness to continue
the old general officers, without any change, and each offered to mar
the employment of the other; but when they could not draw our friends
to engage in any terms liking them, then peremptorily they struck
hands, and went on without much more notice of us.
With threats and promises they moved old Lesly to lay down his
place. For a long time we had hopes the army, which we had kept
from dissolving, should have been firm to us; but Middleton spoiled
that our hope. All the officers had joined in a supplication to the
parliament backing the desires of the kirk. Had this been stood
to, the designs of others had soon been broken; but Middleton, who
long had shifted subscription, at last was willing to join, with
an addition of a short postscript, of the subscribers willingness
notwithstanding to obey all the parliament’s directions. This
commentary did so enervate the text, that our friends persuaded the
officers to lay aside their petition, as that which was profitable
for nothing, being clearly emasculate by the postscript. From that
day we lost the army. David Lesly, by much dealing of many, was made
willing to keep his place; yet afterward he repented, and gave it
over; and so did Holburn, and divers more of the most gallant of
their officers, when they saw the church’s advice totally neglected.
These things did grieve much the spirits of many, and I believe few
more deeply than my own, so that my health by grief for many days
was impaired; yet by the importunity of many, I was (before fully
recovered) drawn back again to Edinburgh. Then I found that matters
totally were desperate. Lauderdale with grief, the Treasurer, with
many tears, told me how sore against their hearts they went the way
they were in, casting the blame on others, who yet assured me, for
their parts, that they found never any truth in the fair general
offers was made them, when it came to any particular. However, then
the dice was cast, every side were engaged to go on in their own way.
The declaration, long and well studied, and penned most by Lanerk, in
very plausible terms, was offered to us. We appointed a committee for
it. It was my advice to be short in observing, and to pitch but on
the main exceptions. On sundry we agreed, and what sum offered I got
out of their own conceptions; yet being obliged to take physic, I was
forced to keep my chamber ten days. In this interval Mr Gillespie,
without much contradiction, got in his representation whatever either
himself or W. or C. had collected, which made it tediously long,
and in sundry things needlessly quarrelsome, and to come so late,
that the parliament, after ten days waiting for it, at Lauderdale’s
canker’d motion, commanded their declaration to go out without any
more notice of what we had to say against it.
At this time a messenger went to the parliament of England with five
demands, craving an answer peremptorily in fifteen days. That which
they feared most was to engage in any treaty. This we ever pressed,
but they thought it needless, since they quarrelled not with the
parliament, but with the army and their adherents, with whom they
were not obliged to treat, and lose the season of the English motions
at home. The rumour of our war made a great stir in many parts both
of England and Ireland, and put the parliament to alter much of their
former way, to grant London their militia, the tour the guard of
the parliament as before, the freedom of their imprisoned aldermen,
the recalling of the eleven members to their places, the restoring
the impeached Lords, the making Warwick admiral of the navy: the
army also was forced to divide; Cromwell to Wales, where yet he is;
Fairfax to the north; but in his march he was recalled to suppress
the Kentishmen. The most of the shires were on their feet. Had not
our unhappy discords marred our expedition; had we with a small army,
with any unanimity, but appeared on the border in time, appearingly,
without stroke, we might have got for the King, for our friends, for
ourselves, what we pleased; but our fatal discords were as well known
at London as at Edinburgh, so leisure is taken by Fairfax to quiet
Kent and Essex, and by Cromwell to hold down Wales, and by others
to keep in Cornwall. Lambert in Yorkshire had time to keep back
Langdale from York and Lancashire, and great pains are taken to join
the Presbyterians and the Independents against all the risers in the
shires, and our army, as against malignants. If this conjunction go
on, the King and our nation are in a hard taking.
In the meantime the parliament and commission proceed in their
paper-differences. Their declaration and our representation are both
printed. They go on to act, we to preach against the lawfulness of
the engagement as it was stated. The rendezvouses are appointed
for the shires against the 21st of May. Many presbyteries, synods,
burghs, shires, gave in supplications the 1st of June, to delay the
levy till the church got satisfaction. Our poor town still singular
in that unhappiness, is made the first example of suffering. All of
us the town-ministers went up to supplicate the Duke in Hamilton,
in the name of the presbytery, to delay the lifting of our people
till our supplications were answered by the parliament. I spoke
oft, and at length, to his Grace and Excellency, as moderator of the
presbytery. We got courteous and civil words enough; but deeds very
bitter. Incontinent all our magistrates and town-council, that same
night, were summoned to answer to the parliament, for not keeping
with their men the rendezvous; a fault common to them with all their
neighbour towns and shires, yea with the whole kingdom well near; yet
they were all cast in the tolbooth, and kept there divers days; and
because they professed scruple of conscience to further the levy,
they were all deprived of their places, and a commission sent to the
old council that before was removed, to elect new magistrates.
* * * * *
But this not all our misery. Before this change, some regiments of
horse and foot were sent to our town, with orders to quarter on no
other but the magistrates, council, session, and their lovers. These
orders were exerced with rigor. On the most religious people of our
own town, huge burdens did fall. On some 10, on some 20, on others 30
soldiers, and more, did quarter; who, beside meat and drink, wine,
and good cheer, and whatever they called for, did exact cruelly their
daily pay, and much more. In ten days they cost a few honest, but
mean people, 40,000 lb. besides plundering of these whom necessity
forced to flee from their houses. Our loss and danger was not so
great by James Graham.
No relief got we, but a greater mischief. Many yeomen in Clydesdale,
upon fear to be levied by force, had fled from their houses to
Loudon-hill, and there had met in a body of some hundred horse and
foot. Sundry of the soldiers who had left the army, joined with them.
Much speech began of a resistance in the west. Too many ministers,
both east and west, were said to be for it, if there should appear
a likelihood of a party. For myself, I was clear against all such
thing: I thought we had neither a just cause nor a good authority
for any such matter, and the farthest we might go was no more than
suffering. While we are on these debates, Callender and Middleton
come west on the Saturday the 10th June. About a fortnight before
Argyle had met with Eglinton and Cassils at Irvine. This meeting gave
a show to the talk of a resistance in the west. Fife also seemed to
look that way: but it appears now well, that the named noblemen,
whatever they met for, did conclude of no such thing; for Argyle went
presently home to Inverary, and Eglinton declared himself willing
to let his men be levied. However Callender made haste to make the
west secure. The Clydesdale men came, on the Saturday, to Mauchline
to communicate. That night Callender lay at Paisley. On Monday he
made a rendezvous at Stewarton, of 16,000 good horse, and above 2,000
foot, at ten o’clock. From thence he marched to Mauchline, sending
Middleton before him with 300 horse.
The noblemen and gentlemen of the shire of Ayr had sat late on the
Saturday at a committee in Riccartoun: finding that Fife had yielded,
that Argyle was far off and quiet, and Callender with an army in
their bosom, they resolved to lay aside all thoughts of resistance,
and of this advertised the people at Mauchline. They notwithstanding
would not dissolve, but after the sermon in the morning of Monday,
some 1200 horse and 800 foot with eight ministers go out to Mauchline
muir; gentlemen or officers very few were among them. While they
are about to chuse some, Middleton appears. They expected no enemy
in haste, so they are amazed at the sight. The ministers went to
Middleton, and capitulated for the safety of all, except the soldiers
who had left their colours, whereof were 100 or 200. This written
capitulation the ministers did carry to the people, and persuaded
to their power their disbanding. The most of the men of Kyle and
Cunningham were content to go, but the soldiers and Clydesdale men
would needs fight. While they are more than an hour in this confused
uncertainty, and sundry crying to fight, Middleton makes a few of
his horse to charge; but the people presently fled. His soldiers
abstained from killing, only a taking horse, arms, and purses.
A troop of the people fleeing to a bridge, and missing the way,
were forced to stand. They turned on the soldiers, and fought very
stoutly. Here was the most of the slaughter; near forty fell: some
say as many of the troopers as of the people. Middleton himself was
sore put to it by a smith. He got some wounds; and confesses, had he
not stabbed the smith, though not deadly, while he was bringing on
him too great a stroke, he had undoubtedly killed him. Many of the
people were wounded. By the time Callender and the army came up, the
people were dispersed. They speak as if the Clydesdale horse were
gone to Galloway, with a mind yet to fight; but I believe it not.
There is indeed in our people a great animosity put in them, both by
our preaching and discourse; also by the extreme great oppression of
the soldiers; so that it fears me, if Lambert be come to Carlisle
with fresh men, and have put Langdale in to the town, as they say,
so soon as our army shall be entangled with the English, many of
our people rise on their backs. To prevent this, they have passed a
severe, and, as I think, an unjust and tyrannous act of parliament,
to put all the subjects of the kingdom to subscribe their readiness
with life and estate, to further the execution of the acts of this
parliament, meaning, above all, the act of the levy, which the
church has so much contradicted as unlawful; also to declare, that
the execution of the acts of this parliament, are the most necessary
and fittest means to remeid our troubles, and preserve religion;
and that all who shall not subscribe this much, without delay, are
justly to be holden enemies to the common cause, religion, and
country. We think the best part of the land will never subscribe
this, and so that all of us who refuse shall be at their mercy. If
I be put to this subscription, as possibly I may shortly, I think I
may once more come to you, and that to remain longer. A service to
any of our regiments, or any company of English merchants, will be
very welcome to me; which you will be thinking of; for however yet
they let ministers alone, and I have as much favour as any other,
yet I think our troubles may so increase, that I may be glad to be
out of Scotland. It seems many of our people may incline to venture
their lives, either alone or with the English army, if it come near,
against them who now are employed. I am not for any such matter. For
fear of sectaries, we have not joined with malignants. If we should
join with sectaries, it would be to me abominable. We who resolve
neither to join with malignants nor sectaries, may fall into great
inconveniencies; but the Lord’s will be done.
Our approaching general assembly is like to be a dangerous one. The
moderator’s task will be hard. I am in doubt if I shall be at his
election. The last time I was near it. I am feared more for it now.
I incline by absence to eschew it. You have here the posture of our
affairs as now they stand. I think they shall be much worse before
they amend.
* * * * *