Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

516 SCO T
1664-1681. not warned by the fate of Land, procured the restora¬
tion of the Court of High Commission to enforce the laws
against ecclesiastical offenders. Fines were imposed on
all who absented themselves from their parish churches
or attended the sermons of the deposed ministers. Sir
James Turner was sent by the privy council to the western
shires to prevent conventicles and field preaching and to
enforce the law as to conformity; and his exactions, with
the burden of maintaining his soldiers quartered upon all
persons suspected of favouring the ousted ministers, led
to risings in Galloway, Clydesdale, and Ayr. With their
ministers and a few of the gentry at their head the
Covenanters marched to Edinburgh, but were defeated
at Rullion Green in the Pentlands by Dalziel, a Scottish
officer whom Charles had recalled from the service of the
czar. The executions which followed, and especially that
of Hugh M‘Kail, a young and enthusiastic preacher, sank
deeply into the spirit of the people. He was the first
martyr of the Covenant as Wishart had been of the Re¬
formation. The use of torture, before this rare, now be¬
came frequent, and bonds of law-burrows were wrested
from their original use to compel the principal landowners
to be sureties for the peace of the whole district. Large
fines continued to be extorted from all persons who re¬
fused to conform to the ecclesiastical laws. Next year
a change in the Scottish administration, the cause of which
is not well explained, but which was probably due to the
fall of Clarendon and the rise of the Cabal ministry, led to
Policy of a milder but undecided policy in Scotland. Lauderdale,
indul- one 0f the Cabal, still directed Scottish affairs, but Rothes
seilce‘ and Sharp were treated as responsible for the rising in the
west and suspended. An indemnity was offered to all who
would appear before the council and subscribe bonds to
keep the peace. A rash attempt to assassinate Sharp in
Edinburgh prevented this policy from being adhered to in
1668; but it was renewed in the following year. An in¬
dulgence was granted which allowed the deposed ministers
who had lived peaceably to return to their manses and
glebes, and to receive such a stipend as the privy council
might allow. The grace of this concession was undone by
a severe Act against conventicles. It favoured a con¬
ciliatory policy that schemes for union were in the air.
Leighton, the good bishop of Dunblane, proposed a union
of the churches upon the basis that the bishops were no
longer to exercise jurisdiction, but to act only as perpetual
moderators of presbyteries, subject to censure by the synods,
and that ministers should be ordained by the bishops, but
with consent of the presbyters. There was a meeting at
Holyrood with some of the leading ministers, but they
would listen to no compromise. The name of bishop was
hateful whatever were his functions. It may be doubted
whether Charles and his English advisers would have
submitted to a curtailment of the bishop’s office and
dignity. The subject of the union of the kingdoms was
again brought forward in the parliament of 1669, to which
Lauderdale was sent as commissioner; and though it
was not well received commissioners were appointed in
the following year, who went to London in autumn to dis¬
cuss with English commissioners certain specified points
proposed by the king. After several meetings the con¬
ference broke up in consequence of a demand by the
Scottish members that Scotland should have the same
number of members in the united as in its own parliament.
The arbitrary government favoured by the want of a settled
constitution in Scotland was more to the taste of the king
and his advisers. Lauderdale openly boasted, as Japies
YI. had done, that nothing could be proposed in the Scot¬
tish parliament except what the king through the Lords of
the Articles approved. The “indulgence” entirely failed of
the desired effect. The ministers who took advantage of
LAND [history.
it were despised by the people, who continued to attend
the conventicles. In 1672 an Act was passed punishing
preachers at such conventicles with death and imposing
fines, imprisonment, and exile for having children baptized
by deprived ministers and for absence for three Sundays
from the parish church. In 1675 letters of intercommun-
ing were issued against about a hundred of those who
attended the conventicles, both ministers and laymen, for¬
bidding their friends and relations to have any dealings
with them under the same penalties as if they had them¬
selves been present at the conventicles. In 1678 Mitchell,
a fanatical preacher, who had ten years before attempted
the life of Sharp and mortally wounded the bishop of
Orkney, was tried and executed. The feeling of the times,
and the cruel manner in which a confession had been
wrung from him by torture, led to his being regarded as
a martyr. Prior to this year 17,000 persons had suffered
fines or imprisonment for attending conventicles. A host
of 10,000 men, chiefly Highlanders, was quartered in the
western shires in order to force the landowners who favoured
the Covenanters to enter into bonds of law-burrows.
It appears to have been the design of Lauderdale, Rising of
who still governed Scotland absolutely through the privy 1679.
council (no parliament having been summoned since
1674), to force the Scots to rebel. “When I was once
saying to him,” relates Burnet, “‘Was that a time to drive
them into a rebellion V ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘ would to God they
would rebel that he might bring over an army of Irish
Papists to cut their throats.’ ” One part of his wish was
speedily fulfilled. In 1679 the rebellion so long smoulder¬
ing broke out. The murder of Sharp (3d May) by Hack-
ston of Rathillet and a small band of Covenanters was
followed by a still more stringent proclamation against
field conventicles, which were declared treasonable, and the
possession of arms was prohibited. This severity provoked a
rising in the west. A small party led by Hamilton, a youth
educated by Bishop Burnet at Glasgow, who had joined
the Covenanters, burnt at Rutherglen the statutes and
acts of privy council on the anniversary of the Restoration,
and being allowed to gather numbers defeated Graham
of Claverhouse at Loudon Hill (1st June). The duke of
Monmouth, the favourite natural son of Charles, sent with
troops from England to suppress the rising, gained an easy
victory at Bothwell Bridge (22d June). His desire was to
follow it up by a policy of clemency, and a new indulgence
was issued, but its effect was counteracted by Lauderdale.
All officers, ministers, and landowners, as well as those who
had taken part in the rising and did not surrender within
a short space, were excepted from the indulgence. Several
preachers were executed and many persons sent to the
colonies, while fines and forfeitures multiplied. A new
and fiercer phase of the rebellion was originated by Cargill
and Cameron, two preachers who escaped at Bothwell
Bridge, and, assembling their followers at Sanquhar, pub¬
lished a declaration renouncing allegiance to Charles as a
perjured king. They were soon surprised and Cameron was
killed, but Cargill continued to animate his followers, called
the “ Society Men” or “Cameronians,” by his preaching, and
at a conventicle at Torwood in Ayrshire excommunicated
the king, the duke of York, Lauderdale, and Rothes.
The duke of York, who had become a Roman Catholic Contimi-
during his residence abroad, was now sent to Scotland,
partly to avoid the discussion raised by his conversion asse
to his exclusion from the succession. During a short stay
of three months he astonished the Scots by the mildness of
his administration, but on his return in the following year
he revealed his true character. The privy council renewed
its proclamations against conventicles and increased the
fines, which were levied by the sheriff or other magistrate
under the pain of liability if they were remiss in their