Chapter VI: Book II: December 1660 to 12th July 1661 (1)

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Covenant repealed—Engagement approved, &c.—Declaration—Resolutioners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