Crime & punishment > Times of Claverhouse, or, Sketches of the persecution

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THE TIMES OF CLAVERIIOUSE.
nanted cause, which they were now by might and
main labouring to demolish. As a specimen of
the men who thus tyrannised, we select Lauderdale,
whose character has been drawn in the following
words of Laing : “ His temper was dark and vin¬
dictive, incapable of friendship, mean and abject
to his superiors, haughty and tyrannical to his in¬
feriors ; and his judgment, seldom correct or just,
was obstinate in error, and irreclaimable by advice.
His passions were furious and ungovernable, unless
when interest or ambition interposed. His violence
was ever prepared to suggest or to execute the
most desperate counsels. This ready compliance
preserved his credit with the king till his facul¬
ties were visibly impaired with age.” It will be
readily granted by those who are acquainted with
the history of this junto, that the preceding is by
no means the darkest of their portraitures that
might be given; a likeness of some of these men,
of a deeper shading by far, might be presented,
the ferocity and fiendishness of which, we shud¬
der, even at this distance, to contemplate.
The privy council, then, composed of persons of
so foul a cast, was the prime instrument of the
persecution in Scotland; and all the wicked schemes
that were put in execution abroad over the country,
emanated from this conclave, and came invested
with an authority that was not to be resisted. That
nation must have come to a woful pass when such
men were exalted over it, and were delegated with
full powers to manage its affairs as it seemed best
to them. Let the enemies of the Covenanters justify
their persecutors as they may, their deeds condemn
them, and will be regarded with merited execration