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LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA y/i^e^ sz;^52^. i^ sri- /9^w//ai'^r/// y SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE KING'S ADVOCATE, OF ROSEHAUGH HIS LIFE AND TIMES 1636 (?)-i69i BY ANDREW LANG WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1909 All rights reserved 331 333 Index 335 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh . . . Frontispiece Painted in 1665. The property of the Earl of Wharncliffe. John Graham of Claverhouse (ist Viscount Dundee). ....... To face page 146 From a Painting by SiR PETER Lely, at Glamis Castle. John Graham of Claverhouse (ist Viscount Dundee) „ » 298 From a Painting at Melville House, Collessie. Tomb of Sir George Mackenzie {Half-tone) . „ „ 310 ERRATA Page 19, last X\nt., for " 1676," read " 1677." Mackenzie was appointed as an aide to the King's Advocate in 1676, and promoted to his post in 1677. Page 39, line 11, for "Alexander Blair" 7ea«? " Alexander Colville of Blair." Page 41, line 25, "Dowart." This place-name also appears as "Douart" and " Duart." Page 88, line \T, for "could be," read " could not be." Page 143, line i^,for " December 8, 1677 '' read "January 10, 1677-78." Page 209, fourth line from ioo\.,for " 1654" read " 1653." Page 222, line 24, for " Duke " read " Earl." Page 279, line 11, for " B.C. " read " A.D." Page 310, line 5,y^r he •' lies in that last home," we should probably read " was laid.in that last home." It is not thought that Mackenzie's body was allowed by religious hatred or by idle ruffianism to rest in its sepulchre. SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The Grey Friars Churchyard — Martyrs and the Persecutor — "Come out if ye daur!" — Mackenzie's versatihty in Letters — Scott on "the Ex- communicate Advocate " — Heart of Midlothian — Redgautitlet— Dic- tionary of National Biography on Mackenzie — Only " one redeeming feature" — Tradition in Scottish History — Mackenzie and Maitland of Lethington — Contrasted quahties in his character — To be described by antitheses— Tenderness, ferocity, a Jacobite, a Socialist, a friend of the Quakers, scrupulous, unscrupulous — The professional bias — The Legist, the Lawyer, and the Man— Legend of his Repentance — Did not play a wholly losing game — Nature of the contest. Under the walls of Edinburgh Castle, and not far from the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, where so many Saints of the Covenant were "justified," is the ancient kirkyard of the church of the Grey Friars, or rather here is the site of the gardens of the monastery. Granted by Queen Mary to the citizens as a place of burial, the yard is as rich in memories and matter of moralising as Westminster Abbey. Here, or in the church, the Covenant was subscribed by enthusiastic multitudes, in 1638; here, in 1679, were penned up hundreds of prisoners, who had fought at Bothwell Bridge in belated adherence to that treaty with the Almighty. Here the monument of the Covenanters declares, in rude contemporary verse, that — " they were found Constant and steadfast, zealous, witnessing For the prerogative of Christ, their King," and here the foe of the Covenanters sleeps beside them, A \ft, ; ; i^JIR: GEORGE MACKENZIE Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, he who was zealous unto slaying — " For the prerogatives of Charles^ his King." His tomb, built by himself, (ever mindful of death, which no man dreaded less) is in the form of a Grecian shrine : the eight columns are covered by a heavy cupola, crowned with an urn, and at the tall door of this sepulchre, the most daring street boys of Edinburgh used to shout — " Bluidy Mackenzie, come oot if ye daur. Lift the sneck and draw the bar! " It is as " Bluidy Mackenzie " that a scholar, " the flower of the wits of Scotland," an erudite and eloquent pleader, a writer who touched on many themes, — morals, religion, heraldry, history, jurisprudence, — the author of perhaps the first novel written on Scottish soil, — is known, or used to be known, in popular tradition. Sir Walter Scott, who first made the dry bones of Scottish history live, has touched but seldom on the memory of Mackenzie. In T/te Tales of a Grandfather he quotes a passage from his works in illustration of the great Advocate's pity for the most pitiable class of mortals, the women accused, tortured, led to the stake by the parish minister, and burned among the curses of the populace for the crime of witchcraft. Again, in that scene where Davie Deans rejects, as advocate for his daughter Effie, all the glories of the Scottish Bar, he refuses a young kinsman of Mackenzie. "What, sir, wad ye speak to me about a man that has the blood of the Saints at his fingers' ends ? Didna his eme (uncle) die and gang to his place wi' the name of Bluidy Mackenzie ? and winna he be kenned by that name sae lang as there's a Scots tongue to speak the word ? " Again, we have that vision where Steenie, in " Wander- ing Willie's Tale " {Redgauntlet), sees the persecutors in their own place, with "the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale, and Dalziel with his bald INTRODUCTORY 3 head and a beard to his girdle ; and Earlshall, with Cameron's blude on his hand, and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill's limbs till the blude sprang, and Dunbarton Douglas, the twice-turned traitor baith to country and king, and Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived." And there was " the bluidy Advocate, Mackenzie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god." The echo of the popular voice prolongs itself in the notice of Mackenzie published in the modern Book of Doom, The Dictionary of National Biography. Thence the shuddering student learns that there was but one " redeeming feature " in Mackenzie's character, his love of literature ! To tell the truth, knowledge of History and of historical biography in Scotland long was, and to a great extent continues to be, not critical but traditional. In the cottages, till recently, the War of Independence was studied in the well- thumbed copies of Blind Harry's Wallace; modernised in a book dear to Burns in youth, Hamilton of Gilbertfield's poem on the Bruce. Information about the Covenanting period and the Restoration was derived from Peter Walker's uncouth but honest and entertaining cheap Lives of the Saints of the Covenant, — Cameron, Peden, Cargill and others ; ^ from works like Naphtali, The Hind Let Loose, The Cloud of Witnesses, and the Scottish Worthies of Howie of Lochgoin. Round the graves of the martyrs, too, traditions flocked and skirled, melancholy and vague as the cries of the whaups on the moor. Many farmers' families looked back to their forbears of " the Killing Time," to these men and women of indomitable courage, with as much pride, and often with better warrant, than noble Houses regard their Norman ancestors who " came over with the Conqueror." In our own day popular books, and tracts, and religious services held by the graves of the martyrs, keep fresh the Covenanting tradition. But a critical knowledge of more than a century of war between the Kirk and the State, from 1 The best edition is that edited by Mr. D. Hay Fleming, Six Saints of the Covenant, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1901. 4 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE 1559 to 1689, is rare indeed. The Early Fathers of the Kirk, and the Covenanters, are too commonly regarded as cham- pions and martyrs of enlightenment, of liberty, civil and religious, of freedom of conscience, whereas religious liberty and freedom of conscience were to them abominations. Meanwhile nothing is remembered about Sir George Mackenzie, for example, except that he was "the bluidy excommunicate Advocate," and "a persecutor." On the other side, inheritors of Cavalier traditions are apt wholly to forget Mackenzie, a man of the robe, while they cherish the memory of the equally " bluidy " but more romantically attractive Claverhouse, a man of the sword. The interest of the career and character of Mackenzie, as of the famous Maitland of Lethington, a century earlier, is that in him we see a thoroughly modern man, one of ourselves, set in society and political environment unlike ours, and perverted by his surroundings. Had he lived in England, Mackenzie would have won a happier record. But Scotland was in an anomalous and wretched condition. Twelve years of religious wars, eight years of subjection to the Commonwealth, had perturbed society, and, with the Restoration, Scotland had again become an independent nation, under the same king as England, indeed, but under strange laws, such as England had never known, laws which made the monarch, or so Mackenzie believed, as absolute as Louis XIV. was in France. For some ten years after the Parliament of Charles I. in 1640, Scotland was, for the first time, a constitutional monarchy ; but she was at war with her constitutional monarch. She returned, in 1661, to her unconstitutional conditions, and the later part of Mackenzie's career was devoted to supporting, against a Church which claimed to be jure divino, a king who urged the same claim for himself. It was as if two bodies of equal weight encountered each other with equal momentum. There was a bitter struggle, waged by both parties with great stubbornness ; on the royal side with persistent cruelty, on the ecclesiastical side with slowly bending fanaticism. In this contest Mackenzie I INTRODUCTORY 5 was out of pKace, and his career was inharmonious with his nature, or rather, the times brought to the surface of his nature elements which, in a more settled age, would have lain dormant, and unsuspected by himself. With all the courtesy and courage of the Highland character, Mackenzie had the fiery temper of the Celt, and more than once spoke unadvisedly with his lips, or wrote unadvisedly with his pen. Though his domestic corre- spondence is almost wholly lost, we have one brief and tender letter of his, when, with a heart wrung by recent grief, and in a spirit of "religious stoicism," he speaks of the consolations of faith, and of his indifference to a life wrecked by sorrow. His faith, of which he published a con- fession, was not lightly held ; but he was always averse to the exorbitant claims and pretensions of priests and preachers. The fatal error in his career was that, being, to quote his biographer of 1722, "a gentleman of pleasant and useful conversation, but a severe opponent of vicious and loose principles in whomsoever he found them," he became associated in politics with men whose principles were ex- tremely loose and vicious. His enemies do not often attack his private character. Like Claverhouse, he is not charged by the sympathetic historians of the Covenant with sensual sins,^ but he adopted, in an age of uproar, the policy of repression, when, as we shall see, the policy of concession was surrounded by insuperable difficulties. The result of the clash between Mackenzie's bon naturel, in Queen Mary's words about herself, and his environment, was as tragic as in the case of the Queen of Scots herself. Hawthorne, perhaps, could have painted in words a true portrait of Mackenzie, and — " Divinely through all hindrance found the man." But the pen of one less imaginative, less keen to search in the dark places of conscience and of sin, shrinks from the task of judgment. 1 "The hell wicked-wilted, bloodthirsty Graham of Claverhouse . . . haled to spend his time with wine and women. . . ." — Walker, Six Saints, \\. d^. 6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE It is easy to describe the Advocate by antitheses in Macaulay's manner, thus : " The man who, in his Discourse on Point of Honojir ' Hghted this, though the smallest and dimmest of Virtue's torches, at Honour's purest flame,' was also the man whom his most unprincipled associate, the detested Melfort, spoke of as * a useful tool,' a ' cat's paw to get us the chesnuts,' while Dundee writing to Melfort, just before Killiecrankie, styles Mackenzie *a very honest man, firm beyond belief.' The man remembered as a ruthless oppressor had a heart full of pity for the poor, and pleaded earnestly for the practice of Christian Socialism. He who strove to compel the dour Presbyterians to/ make the laws of the country their creed,' in perhaps his last words written for the press, heartily applauded the most eccentrically aberrant wanderers from the fold of the Church, the Quakers. He whom Macaulay represents as only once entertaining a scruple was, to the last, full of scruples unintelligible to his associates in the government of Scotland. He whom Scott, and Davie Deans, so unhesitatingly consign to his own place, wrote, in his latest days, * tho' the portion bestowed upon me be very small, yet I wish I may employ that one precious talent so as that I may have from my Glorious Master that only desir- able Character, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful in a few things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord:" His one precious gift was " right reason," and, when re- viewing at its close the life which we are to study, he believed that the gift had been well employed. His wickedest associate was the chief of his traducers ; his most intimate friend, — the great mathematician. Dr. Gregory, — wrote of him an eulogy ascribing to him all the virtues which a good man would most desire to possess. He was despised by Melfort ; he was admired by Dundee, Dryden, and Evelyn, and was dear to all the learned of the University of Oxford. In his life we see, as in a strange modern drama. La Robe Rouge of M. Eugene Brieux, " the working of the law to unjust ends through inevitable professional instincts, rivalries, prac- tices, and traditions. Things that are life and death, or honour INTRODUCTORY 7 and dishonour, for the accused, are for the lawyers merely details of le metier." ^ His professional and political career was to Mackenzie, dratna, art, a thing with its own rules and conventions ; his life was to him a thing apart, and from these twain which he would have kept asunder, was born his tragedy, mournful and inscrutable, true and incredible. As a legist, no man of his time was so sedulously careful in mitigating law, and protecting the accused ; as a lawyer, no man was credited with more " diabolical alchymy," says Fountainhall, his contemporary, in transmuting, for State purposes, the gold of innocence into the lead of treason. Such, without exaggeration, are the antitheses which mark the career and character of Mackenzie. The learned minister of Eastwood, Mr. Wodrow, the author, (1721-1722) of The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland^ tells us, in another book, his Analecta, that Mackenzie was not without moments of remorse, as he confided to Mr. Matthew M'Kell, or Mackail. There are no traces of " this impure passion of remorse " in Mackenzie's works, or in his conduct. He seems to have been able to hold by the belief that he did no more than his duty. In the latest year of his life, when the dynasty which he had served, and the Cause which he had chosen, were overthrown, and he himself was an exile, he wrote his Vindication of the Government of Charles II. without regretting anything. (The publication was posthumous, and apparently the author had not checked it by documents.) He had once been of another party in the State, a party which, however self-seeking and intriguing its leaders may have been, at all events fought against many intolerable grievances. But Mackenzie was moved, as we shall see, to change sides, by resentment of private wrongs, and by a dread of the extremes of popular passion, the haunting fear that the civil wars and anarchy of the Great Rebellion were re- turning. Once engaged, he was only too true to his Cause ; ' Mr. A. B. Walkley in Drama and Life, 1907. 8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE still, true he was, and he never deserted the sinking ship ; he stood to his post with great courage, and retired, when retire he must, with dignity to his studies, and to Oxford, " that native city of his soul," that home of " impossible loyalties." We wish that, like Archbishop Leighton, he had early abandoned a position which could not be held without smirches on the reputation, that he had gone back to his books and his garden. But he came of a fighting clan, he was of an ambitious nature : enjin he was a lawyer and a politician. We shall have to examine the question, did he go beyond even the ferocious law of his country ? but, to his praise or to his prejudice, it must be shown that, in the use of judicial tortures he acted against the grain of his character, which, though ambitious, was naturally honourable, considerate, and rather that of a man of letters than of a man of action. In short, like Lethington, this later flower of the wits of Scotland was born out of due time. He played his part in what was not wholly a losing game, though he, like his king, "died in his enemies' day," and in exile. Neither party in the strife was entirely victorious. The Presbyterians restored their Church, Nee tamen consumebatur, but they abandoned the dream of thrust- ing their Church on England. Scotland was no longer to be furiously agitated, and was not at all to be governed by the clergy of the Kirk. The Cavaliers lost their beloved dynasty, but not before they had crushed the claims of the preachers to be prophets and judges and rulers. The Government of the Restoration, under an absentee king, and under politicians almost incredibly profligate, was, apparently, a necessary moment in the education of Scotland. The country had to be weaned from a dream of a century's duration, the dream of a Theocracy like that of ancient Israel ; a Theocracy under Prophets and Judges, namely the preachers who inherited the doctrines of Knox and Andrew Melville. The process of awaking was cruel, but the result was salutary. % INTRODUCTORY 9 One man alone could have saved the country, if even he could have saved it ; he whom Mackenzie revered — " Montrose, his country's glory and its shame." But he, happily for himself, had fulfilled his promise ; he had " carried fidelity and honour with him to the grave." CHAPTER II THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION Why did the Restoration persecute ? — The Struggle of the Restoration — Unintelligible to English visitors — Why was Episcopacy restored? — Not "because Presbytery was no religion for a gentleman" — Old relations of Scotland and the Church — Exorbitant claims of the Reformed Kirk — Struggle between Church and State — James VI. introduces Bishops as a matter of police — Charles I. brings in the Liturgy — The Covenant — Covenant imposed in violation of conscience — Civil war — Clerical claim to interpret Covenant — The Kirk rent in twain — Remonstrants, Resolutioners, Malignants — Result, Cromwell's conquest of Scotland — The Restoration has to deal with impracticable claims — State of parties before the Restoration — Clerical pretensions unabated — Baillie's remedy, exile of Remonstrants — Que /aire ? — Greed and profligacy of the nobles — An impossible task in incapable hands. Why was there any persecution in Scotland after the Restoration ? That question could only be duly answered in a History of Scotland from the birth of Mary Stuart to Oak Apple Day in 1660. Apparently the subject will never be understood by the readers and writers of popular works on Scottish affairs. The struggle of the Restoration was a struggle to impose Episcopacy on one side, and to restore Presbytery on the other. Most Scottish children used to be taught this amount of knowledge, but they were not taught what Presbytery then meant, and for what political reasons Episcopacy was imposed. They supposed Presbyterianism to be no more, in the old days, than the peaceful religion in which they were bred, and they wondered why men were hunted and hanged, tortured, and sent in crowds to the West Indies, for wishing to do without Bishops, and teaching the Shorter Catechism, which, in fact, was taught under the Bishops. English visitors to Scotland during the Restoration, could 1 10 THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION ii no more understand than could little Presbyterians fifty years ago, what the trouble was about. The Confession of Faith of 1560 was still the standard of the Church, the worship hi the churches seemed identical, — save for the use of the Doxology and one or two other trifles, — with that of the Presbyterian meeting-houses in England. English tourists asked why there were risings, murders, hangings, and torture, all about nothing? Why, then, was there such a frenzy on the part of rulers who despised Bishops to thrust Episcopacy on a Presbyterian people to whom prelacy seemed "a limb of Antichrist"? Charles II., himself a Catholic by conviction, " was indifferent in the matter," as Lauderdale said, writes Bishop Burnet.i The learned Dr. M'Crie explains that the maxim of Charles was that Presbyterianism "was not fit for a gentleman, his dissipated and, irreligious courtiers were of the same opinion, and therefore Episcopacy was established.'' - This is a flippant and frivolous, though popular, account of the reasons for the establishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration. Really Episcopacy was established as a measure of police, and with the hope of preventing the renewed outbreak of the hundred years' war between Church and State. Scotland, till the Reformation, had, of all countries, been least dominated by the Church, and was most regardless of Interdicts, and most cavalier in her treatment of the Pope. The troubles of the persecutors and persecuted, in the reign of Charles II., can only be understood if we go back to their origin a hundred years earlier. Mackenzie himself was taunted with a pedantic affection for ancient history when, in 1678, he traced the causes of the turmoil back to 1648. We, unluckily, if we wish to understand, must go back to 1559, to the Reformation. Before the Reformation Scot- ^ Burnet saw a long letter on the subject, which Lauderdale wrote in 1 660 to Lady Margaret Kennedy, who later married Burnet, History of His Own Times, vol. i. p. 198 : 1833. Ed. 1897, Pt. i. vol. i. p. 196. * My italics: cf. M'Crie, Works, vol. iv. p. 17. 12 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE land had been, as we said, singularly exempt from the war of State and Church : her Parliament and kings were "Erastian" and kept the clergy in due subjection, from the days of St. Margaret onwards.^ After the Reformation, on the other hand, after 1560, the Kirk was not, like Rome, remote and almost negHgeable, but planted in the heart of the country ; and the Kirk, from the first, endeavoured to be, in a nation, what the Calvinist Church was in a small city state, Geneva. Her aim was theocracy, with preachers as interpreters of the will of God. Her preachers claimed the Keys of St. Peter, as Mackenzie himself observes, even when they were deprived of the Sword. Knox, from the first, averred that the preachers could "bind or loose, on earth, what should be bound or loosed in Heaven." By her power of Excom- munication, the Kirk did not merely prevent men from approaching the Holy Communion, did not merely reduce them to a condition in which it was questioned whether they might, or might not, be poisoned with impunity ! In the regular formula, she " handed " the excommunicated person " over to Satan." The civil magistrate was obliged to enforce the Kirk's decree by secluding the victim from all intercourse with his kind, except the members of his own family. The victim was caput lupiniini. The preachers could always refuse to obey the king on the ground that " God is to be obeyed rather than men," and as they were the only judges of what God's commands were, in any case, they could resist the State whenever they pleased.^ With more explicit claims went a vaguer pretension of the clergy to direct inspiration by the Holy Ghost. In Knox's Book of Common Order the preacher is directed to pray for the assistance of " God's Holy Spirit, as the same shall move his heart." If the preacher, after emitting a violent political attack on the civil power from the pulpit, chooses to say that he has spoken what " the Spirit " put into his lips, ^ See Statutes of the Scottish Church, Dr. Patrick's Introduction, pp. xxxix, xl. ^ This pretension was a corollary from a Genevan formula. Cf. Mitchell, 'J'he Scottish Reformation, pp. 100-IO2. I THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION 13 how is he to he taii^lit his proper place ? He is certain to refuse secular jurisdiction, till he has heen tried hy these "prophets" and "judifes," his hrother ministers. Their pro- fessional pride, and their consciences are almost certain to acquit the preacher, and the case having been decided in the spiritual Court, the secular Court has no loais standi. Sir George Mackenzie has stated the secular view of this particular pretension in the case of a minister, Mr. James Guthrie, who was hanged in the dawn of the Restoration, long before Mackenzie was in office. " He was accused," says Mackenzie in his Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, ''of having preached treasonable and seditious doctrine," and, against Charles II. and the Council, at Perth, in 1651, "he declined his Majesty and his Council, as Judges, in the first instance, to what he preached, affirming that the presbytery, or provincial assembly, were the only judges competent in the first instance, to what a minister spoke in the pulpit. This was the rather insisted on, because this principle had not only vexed King James (VI.), and was the foundation of much rebellion with us, but by the ministers' conniving with one another's crime and treasonable and seditious expressions, (which might probably be expected from them,) they were secure against the secular power, and might safely contemn the royal authority." ^ Thus treasonable agitation, threats from the pulpit against the Government of the day, (threats which had a knack of fulfilling themselves,) could be safely organised and uttered from the sacro-sanct shadow of the pulpit's sounding-board, and under the ajgis, as it were, of " the spreit of God." It cannot be denied, again, except by the ignorant or the dishonest, that Knox had also introduced a doctrine rejected both by Calvin and by the French leader of the early Huguenots. This was the theory that the private citizen, if conscious of a divine " call," might righteously " execute judgments " on " idolaters," might assassinate "the enemies of God" as he found opportunity .2 Against 1 Me»ioi>-s of the AJfairs of Scot laud, p. 50. * Knox's Works i. 309, 328, 32Q. The opposite view, iii. 194; cf. ii. 441 et seq. 14 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE this unhappy theory, borrowed from Knox by the Covenant- ing author of Jus Populi Vindicatum in 1669, and carried into practice by his disciples ; against this legacy of the great Scottish Reformer, the Government of the Restoration had to contend. It is impossible in these pages to trace in detail the history of the war of Church and State from the days of Mary Stuart to those of her great-grandson, Charles II. It must suffice to say that James VI. triumphed over the pretensions of the Kirk by methods of cunning and violence. He was not content with reducing the preachers, on the whole, to abstention from interference with the State. He introduced modifications, such as kneeling at the Holy Communion, and the observation of Christmas and Easter, which galled the consciences of the godly. Charles I. wrecked himself in the effort to bring in, tyranni- cally and of his own mere motion, the Laudian Liturgy. Under the Covenant, 1638, the preachers became the authorised interpreters of that document ; they had their turn in enforcing it by persecution ; they ruled the State for some twelve years ; they ruined the effort of the estates to release the imprisoned king ; they divided the country, " purged " the army ; brought on Scotland the Cromwellian conquest; and split into two hostile parties, — the fiercer, the Remonstrants ; the milder, the Resolutioners. Twelve years of the Covenant as interpreted by the preachers had led Scotland, State and Kirk, to these ex- tremes of disaster. But time had taught no lesson to the Remonstrants. They were still the interpreters of the Covenants ; still convinced that these treaties with Jehovah were eternally binding ; still, (some of them at least,) per- suaded that Charles II. was bound by oath to impose presbyterial government on England, and they were still the darlings of their flocks. Mr. Hume Brown has reckoned that the majority of ministers were Remon- strants or Protesters, but it is not easy to find trustworthy statistics. When the Restoration came, in a General Assembly held THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION 15 to admonish Parliament of its duties, (as was the custom,) they would carry their proposals. Could Charles II., when restored, permit the existence of General Assemblies, and their Commission, and the re- opening of the old quarrel between the claims of theocratic preachers and the rights of the State ? Was the experi- ment feasible, and, if not, where was Presbyterian ism without a General Assembly ? It was where Cromwell placed it, nowhere, and was innocuous ; but it was no longer what the preachers desired. Mr. Robert Law, minister of East Kilpatrick, expelled from his pulpit in 1662, shows the excellent results of Cromwell's policy in crushing the General Assembly. He says "from the year 1652 to 1660 there was great good done by the preaching of the Gospel in the west of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or thirty years before ; a great many brought in to Christ Jesus by a saving work of conversion, which was occasioned through ministers preaching nothing through all that time but the Gospel, and had left off to preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrances . . ."1 These were the happy consequences of the policy of Cromwell. The Rev. Mr. Kirkton adds his testimony to the same effect. During Cromwell's time, the wilder party, the Remonstrants, or Protesters, had dealt with the Pro- tector. Argyll, who had welcomed him on the Border after he smote the army of the State at Preston, *'was judged to be the Protesters' agent in London," in 1656.2 Mr. Guthrie, and the fierce fanatic, Johnstone of Waristoun, and others, had interviews with Cromwell in 1657, and obtained leave to renew, in a platonic way, the Act of Classes. 5 Their opponent was Mr. James Sharp, later the apostate Archbishop of St. Andrews. In the spring of 1660, before the Restoration, Sharp was in London, watching events in the interest of the more moderate clerical party, the Resolutioners, men like Baillie 1 Law's Memorials, p. 7. ^ Row's Blair, p. 329. a Baillie, iii. pp. 330, 354. i6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE and Douglas, with whom he corresponded. Both were as keen as ever for the Covenant. Sharp, however, assured Douglas that the cause of "rigid Presbyterianism " was hope- less, and he insists on the phrase, in spite of Douglas's remonstrances. Douglas, in turn, from Edinburgh, assures Sharp that " the new upstart generation " in Scotland, (men of Sir George Mackenzie's status) " bear a heart-hatred to the Covenant," and "have no love to Presbyterial Government, but are wearied of that yoke, feeding themselves with the fancy of Episcopacy, or moderate Episcopacy. Our desire is that presbyterial Government be settled. . . ." ^ Supporting the Covenant and " rigid Presbyterianism " as they did, the more moderate party do not seem so very remote from the wilder Remonstrants, yet " no peace can be had with these men, but upon their own terms, how destructive soever to truth and order," says Sharp, in 1658. "Nothing will satisfy them unless they have all their will. . . ."- Yet Douglas, himself of the milder party, says that the Solemn League and Covenant, imposing Presbytery on England, " is the only basis of settling these distracted nations." ^ For Charles to act on the principles of the Solemn League and Covenant, and impose the detested rigid Presbyterianism on England, meant civil war. Yet we find Douglas, a man of the milder party of the Kirk, insisting on this mad scheme, as the only basis of settlement, before the Restoration. What, then, could come of the re-establishment of a Kirk in which the wilder men, perhaps the majority, were im- practicable, while Sharp's employers, " not stumbling if the king exercise his moderation towards " the Remonstrants, " yet apprehend their principles to be such, especially their leaders', as their having any hand in affairs cannot but breed continual distemper and disorder." * Baillie suggested that the Remonstrant preachers should be sent to the Orkneys ! ^ ^ Wodrow, i. p. 21. 2 James Sharp to Mr. Patrick Drummond, 28 Aug. 1658. Lauderdale Papers, i. pp. 3, 4. * March 31, 1660. Wodrow, i. p. 14. * Wodrow, i. p. 24, note to p. 22. ^ Baillie, iii. p. 459. THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION 17 When a dying man, (April 18, 1661) Baillie, a resolute Cove- nanter, wrote to Lauderdale, " I ever opposed Mr. James Guthrie's way ; hut see none get the king persuaded to take the ministers' heads. Send them to some place where they may preach and live. . . ." ^ Thus, even to so keen a Covenanter as Baillie, it seemed that the Remonstrant ministers must be removed from their parishes to "some boundless con- tiguity of space," some Highland wilderness where they might preach, apparently to Gaelic-speaking congregations, or to the Orkneys. Now these preachers at the moment filled the pulpits of the south-western shires. There was no room for them in the Orkneys ! Conceive, then, a General Assembly composed of the two parties, both eager for the Solemn League and Covenant, though Douglas and his allies were ready to drop that after the Restoration,- both supporters of the Covenant, and both intolerant of their opponents. Even if Douglas and the Edinburgh preachers who acted with him were prepared to abandon the effort to make Eng- land Presbyterian, this was not to the mind of Baillie, a Re- solutioner, a relatively moderate man. After the Restoration, on June 6, 1660, he writes to Lauderdale, "Your unhappy diurnals and letters from London have wounded me to the heart. Is the Service Book read in the King's Chapel ? . . . Has the House of Lords passed an order for the Service Book ? Ah, where are we so soon ! " With much more of same sort.^ If defeated on a vote, the Remonstrants, as they had done before, would form a separate party, and disallow the lawfulness of the decision of the majority. If themselves in a majority, the Remonstrants would be " neither to baud nor to bind," and the furies of 1638 might be again let loose. Our historians do not, as a rule, seem fully to understand the difficulties of the situation which the Government of Charles II. had to face. The position of the king was this: ^ Wodrow, i. p. 290. 2 See their letter to Charles of May 8, 1660, Wodrow, i. Note to p. 22. * Wodrow, i. p. 288. i8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE in Scotland, if he renounced the Covenant, he was a perjured man ; while in England a Dr. Crofts told him to his face, in a sermon, that God allowed him to be defeated at Worcester because he had taken the Covenants, an act injurious to the Church of England ! Que f aire? Probably the Government should either have allowed matters ecclesiastical to stand as they did under Monk ; with no General Assemblies and no civil penalties consequent on excommunication ; or they should have granted a General Assembly on the lines laid down by Douglas, in a letter of July 1660 to Sharp, "After this, Assemblies are not to interweave civil matters with ecclesi- astic, and he " (Douglas) " wisheth that the king were informed of this, that after our brethren," (the Remonstrants) " went from us, our proceedings were abstract from all civil affairs." ^ Had a General Assembly been granted, the preachers could not have abstained from meddling with religion as established in England ; that is certain. Bishop Burnet, in 1660 a young man of twenty, writes, " It would have given a great advantage to the restitution of episcopacy if a General Assembly had been called and the two parties had been let loose on one another. That would have shown the im- possibility of maintaining the government of the Church on a parity and the necessity of setting a superior order over them for keeping them in unity and peace." 2 They would not have seen the necessity ! The Remonstrant preachers, who certainly would not have abstained from interfering with secular policy, might have been packed off, on Baillie's plan, to the Orkneys, or elsewhere, but they were so numerous, and their fiery flocks were so resolute, that probably new ministers would not have been received in the vacant parishes, conventicles would have abounded, all the troubles which actually occurred would have ensued. The Government, however, increased, by their disloyal and infatuated methods, the difficulties which, in any case, were serious, while the wild orgies of * Wodrow, vol. i. p. 47. '^ Burnet, vol. i. p. 199: 1897. THE BURDEN OF THE RESTORATION 19 Middleton and Rothes, the champion drinker of his day, brought discredit on all the measures which were conceived in their cups. The Government was to be restored, as under James VI., to the nobles of the Privy Council, inspired by the Court in England, and inspiring the Court. Sunk deep in debt, as a consequence of the long civil war, the nobles, as Mr. Froude describes them at an earlier date, were like a pack of hungry wolves. They recouped themselves with " the spoils of office," they hunted for fines and forfeitures : some of them to recover their own, lost by their loyalty, some to win new fortunes. Like wolves they fought each other over the quarry, and, in the reaction from puritanism, profligacy was reckoned virtue. It is now plain, perhaps, that the Government of the Restoration, incapable as it was, had a hard and complex task. It is easy to be easy-going, and ask, "Why did these nefarious men not respect the consciences of the people, and restore Presbyterianism ? " But that measure, though it ought, at any risk, to have been ventured as an experiment, seemed impossible to men who, from first to last, were haunted by the belief that the renewal of presby- tery meant the renewal of the recent civil wars. Such, then, was the Burden of the Restoration. The Government's object was to prevent the Kirk from reviving her old pretensions, and embroiling Scotland in a civil war which might spread to England. The repressive measures of Government were, necessarily, deemed persecution, and when Mackenzie took office as Public Prosecutor, " King's Advocate," in 1676, he became a persecutor, ratione officii. CHAPTER III THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE Mackenzie's early memories — Montrose's army in Dundee — Defeats of Dunbar and Worcester — Massacre of Dundee — Mackenzie's ancestry — Kintail and Seaforth — His father Highland, his mother Lowland — Simon of Lochslin— Date of Mackenzie's birth, probably 1638 — Sufferings of his clan for the King — His mother's father an Episco- palian minister — Mackenzie enters Aberdeen University (1650) — Frugal life— Goes to St. Andrews (1653) — Life at St. Andrews — Mr. Blair on Golf and Theology — Mackenzie's cousin, Tarbat, at St. Andrews- Mackenzie at Bourges — Returns to Edinburgh — Admitted to the Bar — Energy of Mackenzie in law and literature — Publishes his novel, Aretina — Plot of Aretina — "An up-to-date novel" — Account of the Civil Wars and Restoration — Mackenzie's sympathy with the great Montrose. The most disastrous period in the civil wars was within the memory of Mackenzie. As a child of seven, or perhaps of nine, in his grandmother's house at Dundee, he may have watched the plaids of Montrose's Highlanders sweep through the streets, and heard the ordered tramp of his disciplined Irish musketeers. He may have seen Montrose miraculously gather the scattered and intoxicated forces in the dusk, and drive them out to that retreat which French strategists deemed more wonderful than his victories. Children, we know, interest themselves eagerly in war, but we cannot tell whether Mackenzie rejoiced or wept over the capture of Montrose and his execution. As a young man he admired and praised in verse the great Marquis ; in childhood we know nothing of his sentiments. He must certainly, however, have been saddened, as a patriotic boy, by the national defeats of Dunbar and Wor- cester ; he may have understood the miserable results of the feud of Remonstrants and Resolutioners, concerning THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE 21 which he cannot but have heard many a sermon. He was probably not in Dundee, but perhaps at his Hi^^hland home in Ross-shire, when Monk stormed the town, and wrought massacre in the streets (1651). George Mackenzie was a member of the ancient Highland House of Mackenzie of Kintail. His grandfather, Kenneth, was raised to the Scottish peerage as Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, in 1609. He was succeeded by his eldest son by his first marriage, who later became first Earl of Seaforth. The first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail married a second time ; his bride was Isobel, daughter of Sir Gilbert Ogilvy of Pourie, whose ancestor had been a famous Catholic intriguer in the early reign of James VI. By her Lord Mackenzie had sons, Alexander, who died without issue ; George, who succeeded his half-brother by the first marriage, as Earl of Seaforth ; Thomas, laird of Pluscardine, and Simon of Lochslin, with an ancient castle in the parish of Tarbat, Ross-shire ; from its two massive towers, rent from roof-tree to ground, which still dominate the loch, there is but a distant view of the violet-tinted hills. Simon, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Peter Bruce, (who was minister of St. Leonard's, and Principal of St. Leonard's Hall in the University of St. Andrews,) was father of George Mackenzie, later Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh. He was of Highland and Lowland, Celtic and English blood : his maternal grandmother was a daughter of Sir Alexander Wedderburn of Kingennie, town-clerk of Dundee. Of Simon we know little ; he seems to have stood outside of the hurly-burly of politics when it was at its wildest, but he sat for Inverness-shire and Ross in the Parliament of 1640-41. On June 3, 1634, he "was added to the Burgesses and Brethren of the Guild " of Dundee, " for his numerous services to the State." He died about 1666, being succeeded in his estates by his son George.^ Sir George Mackenzie was born in Dundee, (of which in 1661 he became a burgess,) in the house of his mother's widowed ^ Roll of Eviitunt Burgesses of Dundee, by A. H. Millar, pp. 152, 153, 171 ; Barty, Mackenzie Wharncliffe Deeds, pp. 104, 105. 22 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE mother, wife of Wedderburn of Kingennie. The town then deserved the name it bears in the old Hght-hearted song " Bonnie Dundee," and the beautiful site on the Tay was occupied by a small city with four chief streets, meeting in the wide market-place, with its Cross. It was Sir Walter who transferred to Graham of Claverhouse the style of " Bonnie Dundee." On the mother's side, Mackenzie was akin to Sir Peter Wedderburn of Gosford, a Lord of Session, who had been Clerk of the Privy Council in the beginning of the Restora- tion. Mackenzie has left a Latin eulogy of Sir Peter, and was on terms of friendship with him ; unluckily his letters to Sir Peter are not among the MSS. of the Halketts of Pitfirrane, in Fife, who represent the Wedderburns of Gosford. According to the Biography of Mackenzie published in the folio edition of his Works (1716-1722) he was born at Dundee in 1636. All accounts of him, including that by Mr. T. F. Henderson, in The Dictionary of National Biography, follow the anonymous author, (probably Ruddiman,) of 1716- 1722. But as Mackenzie himself, in his book. The Religious Stoic, published in 1663,^ declares that he is not yet twenty- five, he must have been born not earlier than 1638 : the contents of the book, for example the allusions to the eviction of many preachers, and to their conventicles, prove that it was written in the year of its publication. If Mackenzie was born in 1636, not in 1638, it is not easy to account for the long interval between the time when he left school, which would be 1646, and the date when he entered Aberdeen University (1650). The Registers of Baptisms at Dundee are missing before 1648.^ The birth date of 1636 is given on the tablet of his sepulchre. We know almost nothing about the influences that sur- rounded the boy in childhood. His father's name is incon- spicuous in the history of the troubles. His father's eldest brother, Lord Seaforth, had been now for the king, now for the ^ Mackenzie, Works, vol. i. p. 71. - Infurmaliun frum Mr. A. H. Millar. THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE 23 Covenant. He was, like most of the nobles save Huntley, a Covenanter in 1638-1639, but when Montrose, in 1641, revolted against the influence of Argyll, Seaforth joined him in the " band " of Cumbernauld, which had no effect save to delay Argyll's dictatorship, and to cause the imprisonment of Montrose, his friend Lord Napier, and a few other Cavaliers. When the great Marquis began his year of victories (1645) and had left Inveraray, he found that Seaforth was to encounter him as he went north, while Argyll was to fall on his rear. He turned on his tracks, made a forced march through the snow-clad hills, and " discussed Argyll " in the crushing victory of Inverlochy. After Montrose won his hard fight at Auldearn, Seaforth came over to his cause. After Philiphaugh, fines were imposed on, but never paid, by the chief leaders of the Mackenzies, among whom Simon of Lochslin, father of Sir George, is not numbered.^ Possibly he was busy with commercial undertakings, at Dundee, where Sir George was born. In 1649, Seaforth joined Charles II. in Holland, and he was acting as Secretary for Scotland when Montrose, fore- seeing his doom, went to " search my death," as he wrote to his unworthy king. On the Oykel, near which he was surprised and defeated, Montrose hoped to have been joined by Seaforth's clan, but, their chief being abroad, not a man came to his standard. In 165 1 Seaforth died in Holland, while Secretary for Scotland for Charles II. From the Mackenzies Sir George may have imbibed a dis- like of the Kirk and the Covenant, which had driven the chief of his house into exile. If his mother was of the same ecclesiastical politics as her father. Dr. Bruce, Principal of St. Leonard's College, she was no stickler for Presbyterianism. Dr. Bruce, in 1629, resigned his Principalship, being then aged sixty-three: he died before 1631. Through the latest struggle of James VI. with the Kirk, he was a quiet follower of Archbishop Spottiswoode. In 1616 he received his doctor's degree : " this novelty was brought in amongst us without ^ Barty, Mackenzie Whamdiffe Deeds, p. 4. 24 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE advice or consent of the Kirk," grumbles Calderwood. Dr. Bruce sat on the Court of Commission, which held a sort of inquisitorial powers, and he was usually in opposition to the ministers who were recalcitrant against the Articles of Perth. His death prevented him from being involved in the latter struggles, but he was of King James's Episcopal Kirk, and from his daughter George Mackenzie was not likely to learn fanatical opinions, though ladies were so eager for the Covenant that we have no certainty on this point. Thus the mother of Bishop Burnet, though the wife of a resolute loyalist, was an enragee Presbyterian. But she came of a fanatical family, that of Johnstone of Waristoun, whereas Mackenzie's mother's people were probably, like her father, conformists and loyal. Mackenzie entered Aberdeen University in 1650. If born in 1636 he would be aged fourteen. At that age Bishop Burnet had graduated, and, as Mackenzie like Burnet was very precocious, he may, if born in 1638, have entered King's College, Aberdeen, as the Register of King's College proves, at twelve years of age. His name is not recorded in his own hand.i Mackenzie's boyhood was probably spent under frugal conditions. His father, says Mr. Barty, was apparently " in pecuniary difficulties, and had to beseech his very dear friend, Mr. Farquhar, to advance money for his son, . . ." whose board, for a quarter of a year, cost £<\o Scots, that is, ;^3, 6s. 8d. sterling. His red nightcap cost £\ Scots.2 In the autumn of 1653 Jie migrated, and joined the fourth and last year's class, or lecture, at St. Andrews, under a Mr. Jamieson as Regent, or college tutor. His own college was St. Leonard's, and on May 13, 1653, he graduated.^ Of Mackenzie's life at St. Andrews no records exist. We do not even know of what rank he was ; probably of that answering to ** Gentleman Commoner." The University, as ^ I owe the facts to the kindness of Dr. Cowan, Professor of Ecclesiastical History. * Mackenzie Whantcliffe Deeds, p. 104. ^ Mr. Maitland Anderson, Librarian to the University, kindly consulted th bucks. THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE 25 it was the oldest in Scotland, was the most famous, and had numbered among its alumni the rival Marquises of Montrose and Argyll, the Earl of Rothes, and a Covenanter no less notorious than Mr. Daniel or Donald Cargill. Probably Mackenzie competed for the prize of archery, though, unlike Argyll and Montrose, he was not successful. Among the men who graduated with him not one has left a memory, or made any mark on history. We may presume that he, like Montrose and like James Melville, nearly a century earlier, played golf, a game then in so much favour that the eminent contemporary preacher, Mr. Blair, is said to have illustrated the relations of our Lord to the Church by a homely simile drawn from the club-maker's art, the whipping and the glue that unite the head and the shaft. St. Leonard's, later, became a Jacobite college, and there is every probability that, at St. Andrews, Mackenzie's views would be remote from those of the wilder Kirkmen. His Life says that Mackenzie went from St. Andrews to the University of Bourges, which was at that time, and indeed had been since the sixteenth century, chiefly devoted to the legal studies in which he took much pleasure. In a Catholic country he was remote from Presbyterian influences. Returning to his native land, he was admitted to the Scottish Bar in 1659, and, after the Restoration, readmitted, in 1661. The Bar was then the one avenue of young Scots not of the highest noblesse to wealth and public oftice. He had not, probably, seen much of Paris or London, and to him the Edinburgh of that day, scarcely larger than in Queen Mary's time, with the long central street from the Castle to Holyrood, and the many steep lanes of tall houses branching off, may have seemed a magnificent capital, though, in summer, " the most unpleasant and unwholesome town in Scotland." Mackenzie, at all events, would walk and talk in the long hall, with lads more idle than himself, for he worked diligently from the first, and was working, when Monk rode forth on his march to England, at his novel, A retina. In 1660 Mackenzie published this novel, which he must 26 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE have written in the stirring times when the country was gazing towards the rising sun of Charles II. His story is entitled — A RE TIN A OR THE SERIOUS ROMANCE Written originally in English Part First edinburgh Printed for Robert Brown, at the sign of the Sun, on the north side of the Street, 1660.^ The Dedication is : — "To ALL THK Ladies of this Nation. "Fair Ladies, — I do, like Moses' trembling mother, leave this my first born upon the banks of envie's current, wishing that the fair hands of the meanest of your number would vouchsafe to dandle it in the lapp of your protection," and so forth. The words " written originally in English " are meant to make it plain that Aretina is not a translation from the French of Monsieur or Mademoiselle de Scud^ri, or any of their rivals, whose works, as Mackenzie says elsewhere, are " the darlings " of his generation. He opens with an Apologie for Romances, as no "excuses for mispending time," — how can time be better spent than in the study of character ? The style of " the famous Scuderie," especially of his Clelia, deserves imita- tion, " wherein he professes that he hath adapted all to the present converse of the French," with no pedantic archaism. Kings and shepherds of Babylon or Memphis are to talk and behave like Frenchmen of the age of Les Precieuses Ridicules^ while, in the amazing mixture, the Giants, Fairies, Knights, and errant ladies of the Mart d' Arthur roam at large, holding ^ British Museum press mark : — 12614. ccc. 20. THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE 27 tilts and tourneys. This fashion "is really the mould wherein all true romances should be casten." The world has not agreed w-ith the critical opinion of Mackenzie, given at a moment when, as certain recommen- datory verses inform us — "Thy beardless chin high voicedly doth declare That wisdom's strength lyes not in silvered hair." Perhaps Mackenzie read as many romances as law books at Bourges. These romances are now totally unreadable except by such insatiable students as Sir Walter Scott was, and Mr. Saintsbury is. Writers on Mackenzie have been daunted by Aretijia, and none of them has observed that in an episode, " The Wars of Lacedajmon," he gives a veiled account of the Civil War, or rather of the history of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the rejoicings at the Restoration. Thus Aretina, published in the year of the Restoration, was a " topical" and "up to date" novel, and its extreme rarity is due to the fact that it must have been thumbed to rags in such circulating libraries as, ten years earlier, consoled at Hull the captivity of that wandering knight. Sir James Turner. Aretina is no longer readable " for human pleasure," none of the romances d la Scuderi are readable. The characters are numerous as the grains upon the ribbed sea sands, and not one of them is interesting. The scene opens in ancient Egypt, of which Mackenzie necessarily knew nothing. The period is of no actual time, but post-Ptolemaic, and rather Hellenic than redolent of ancient Khem. " Melancholy lodged herself in the generous breast of Monanthropus," lately Chancellor of Egypt. He frequented forests more than men ; Egypt being famous for her pathless woods. As he meditated in a sylvan glade he met two ladies, naked to the waist (a characteristic of Minoan female costume in Crete about 2500 B.C.). The dames were chained to each other, and thus heavily handicapped fled from two villains. Two knights rescued them, and Monanthropus offered them hospitality. They explained that they were the highly edu- cated daughters of a Theban savant, and that they, after his 28 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE demise, had been sought in marriage by two unwelcome suitors. These bad men, having found a venal astrologer, made him announce that the ladies must leave Thebes for Delphi, to appease Apollo. En route the wicked wooers killed the ladies' chaperons, and lodged the maidens in the cave of a witch. Moved by advice from the astrologer, the wooers carried the ladies to Egypt, and entrusted them to a pair of murderers, from whom they had now escaped. To their joy, Monanthropus possessed an excellent library, but Philarites, one of the knights, on beholding Aretina, daughter of Monan- thropus, swooned at the sight of her beauty, and that day they read no more. Need we proceed ? Aretina dropped a scarlet ribbon, by way of giving Philarites encouragement, and he wore his lady's favour at the tournaments which were the favourite recreation of the Egyptian gentry ; or while he sat by Aretina's side in the coach of the recluse Monanthropus, who had every- thing handsome about him. They visited a local hermit, who showed them the skulls of Plato and of Alexander the Great, whereon tears came in rivers from the eyes of Aretina and her conscious lover. The story now wanders to the distracted and "lunatick country " of Lacedaemon, (England,) where a gentleman named Megistus imparts to Monanthropus a full history of Scotland since the days of James VI., (Sophus,) and his minion Paratus, (Buckingham). The Bishops are "Muftis," the Presbyterians are " Jovists," Hamilton is Autophilus, accused of aiming at the Crown. Argyll is Phanosebus, " a man of more wit than virtue, and of more cunning than either." Little did the author dream that he would soon be defending Phanosebus on a charge of treason ! Montrose is " Oranthus," " a gentleman whom hundreds of years cannot parallel," praise not too high for the great Marquis. He did not gain all the hearts that would gladly have come to him, " because the Jovists had placed domestic priests in each family, for the service of their household gods, to remark men's actions, or at least to tutor their wives. . . ." Montrose's THE YOUTH OF MACKENZIE 29 "endurance of liardships showed the world that, as his spirit was of ^old, his body was of brass. Grass was his best bed, stones his ordinary pillows, and tlie heavens his continual canopy." But to his equals he was as haughty as he was urbane to his inferiors. Macleod of Assynt is "an ignomi- nious rascal who sold that priceless gentleman," Montrose. Theopemptus is Charles II., "a gentleman of noble spirit, and well-limbed eloquence." Cromwell is " the most hateful tyrant who ever lived." Here we have a view of Mackenzie's political opinions in youth. A short extract may suffice to convey an idea of the style of this romance. It was the sweet month of May, and one morning Aga- peta and Aretina arose early and went into the garden and there met Megistus and Philarites by a hedge. " Philarites would willingly have tendered his respects to them, but his heart, which did climb up his throat, as if it would have pro- pined itself to Aretina, had already stopt the passage." The gentlemen and the ladies fall into mutual compliments on one another's beauty and accomplishments, which Aretina requests them to stop, and changes the discourse to the beauties of the morning. " Observe, fair ladies," said Megistus, " how these red roses blush, and these tulips grow pale, through anger to see their beauty so outstript by yours, and how these cherries, albeit they be but hard-hearted creatures, yet understand their duty so well as bow downwards to do you obeisance, and would willingly throw themselves at your feet, if their stalks did not hinder them ; and how yonder pond hath drawn your picture, and placed it in its bosom, presenting it to you when ye approach, to indicate the high value it sets upon your beauty, and concealing it when you are gone, fearing lest any should rob it." The book ends abruptly, as if the author were thoroughly tired of it, but Philarites is at least the accepted lover of his Aretina, whom, unknown, and clad in black armour, he has rescued from various inconveniences. Scott did borrow a 30 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE scene in Ivanhoe from one of the Scud^ri romances, as he says, and perhaps he owed the Black Knight to Mac- kenzie. It is not thought prudent in a young barrister to dally with belles lettres, but Aretina did not injure Mackenzie in his profession. CHAPTER IV MACKENZIE'S DEFENCE OF ARGYLL (1661) Mackenzie as counsel for Argyll— Argyll's visit to Court — Vain warnings — Charles's reasons for hating Argyll— Arrested, sent to the Tower — Sent to Edinburgh — Defences of Argyll — His offences after the Indemnity of 1651 — Aided the English— A Campbell messenger from London disturbs the Court— A pardon expected— The Campbell "a corby Messenger" — "Prophecies of the death of Argyll" — Mac- Naughton's Revenge — Argyll's fatal letters to Monk — Historic doubts concerning these — Doubts destroyed — Were the letters holograph ?— Mackenzie's speech for Argyll — Courage of Argyll — His death — Mackenzie in full practice at the Bar —Note, "Argyll's Compromising Letters." That Mackenzie's genius for his profession was early recog- nised, is proved by the first great event in his public life. He was chosen with John Cuningham, afterwards Sir John, and several other advocates, as counsel for the unhappy Marquis of Argyll, when accused before Parliament of high treason (1661). Charles IL, after his Restoration, had not yet proclaimed an indemnity for Scotland, when Argyll, contrary to all advice, and despising the warnings of second-sighted men and howling dogs, went up, uninvited, to kiss the king's hand at Court. He had crowned Charles at Scone, but he had offended the king as he had offended all parties. The air was full of grudges against him, from the clans on his frontiers, Macdonalds, MacNabs, MacNaughtons and Macleans, to the Ogilvies, for his burning of the Bonny House of Airlie, and the Grahams, who pined for vengeance for Montrose. Apart from his leadership of the Covenanters in the Civil War, he was accused of taking the lead in the sale, as it was called, of Charles L to the English ; he had ruined the broken army of the Engagers ; he had helped to pass the Act of 32 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Classes; if he had brought Charles II. back to Scotland, it was across the dead body of Montrose, and at the cost of the king's honour, for he was compelled to sign the Covenant. Argyll was supposed to have entangled Charles in some sort of engagement to his own daughter. Lady Anne, though it was more probable that the idea of the match came from the Royalist side, and he certainly, when the king was in his power, and sorely bestead, made Charles sign a promise to pay him a debt of ^^"40,000. This sum seems to be the unpaid portion of Argyll's share of the arrears of the Scottish troops who served in England against Charles I. : the first portion was paid when the king was delivered over to the English at Newcastle. All these facts made it highly imprudent in Argyll, who, to add to his offences, was now allied with the detested Remonstrants, to leave his lochs and impenetrable hills, and present himself at St. James's. He knew, better than any one, the part he had taken in aiding the leaders of the English army of occupation, when they were opposed by his own son. Lord Lome, and by the Earl of Glencairn, in 1653-54, after the general indemnity given by Charles II., early in 1651. He knew what letters he had written to the English commanders, and though he had later furnished Charles with money, the score against him was long and black, and endorsed by Glencairn, Middleton, and other Cavaliers who were in the royal favour. He arrived in London, he went to St. James's ; it is said that in the ante-chamber Hyde (Clarendon) rebuffed him ; his last chance, for he might even now have escaped. But he carried that stricken, sallow, soured face which his latest portrait shows, and the gleyed eyes of one who, in Evelyn's aviary, mistook turtle-doves for owls, into the light of a hundred candles, a glittering crowd, and before the eyes of the king. Charles was not by nature resentful or cruel ; he was too light-hearted, too nondtalant, too good- natured. But that face of Argyll reminded him of un- speakable shames, dishonours, and disgraces, of deliberate perjuries, of the mangled limbs of Montrose, spiked on a MACKENZIE'S DEP'ENCE OF ARGYLL 33 gate under which he had passed. He sent his visitor to the Tower, whence, in December 1660, the sometime dic- tator of Scotland was taken by sea to Edinburgh, where he was lodged in the Castle. Mackenzie, and the rest of Argyll's advocates, though they knew it not, had a hopeless cause to plead. The Indemnity of 1 65 1 covered their client's conduct, as we saw, up to that date, from the consequences of all his actions against the Crown from 1638 to 1651. After the Cromwellian occupa- tion, he could plead that "compliance" with the English conquerors was due to force majeure : that all men were guilty, even Lochiel and Glengarry, who were present at the proclamation of Richard Cromwell at Inverlochy. But the truth was that Argyll had run too cunning, and had committed himself. In 1653, when his eldest son. Lord Lome, had ridden off to join the Highlanders and others in arms against the Cromwellian Government, Argyll had solemnly cursed Lome, and had sent a copy of the curse to Lilbourne, the English officer. No doubt he was merely playing the old game, the father on one side, the eldest son on the other, though the loyalty of Lome is beyond impeach- ment. But he did not succeed in "playing for safety." He assisted Colonel Cobbett to take Douart Castle, the strength of the royalist Macleans in Mull, so Glencairn reported to Charles. Lilbourne writes to Cromwell, Sept. 13, 1653, that by intelligence sent from the Marquis of Argyll, Sept. 3, Cobbett entered Mull, and took in the strong castle of Douart.^ Argyll went far beyond passive compliance, and he thus dealt a stroke, which had terrible consequences for his son, at his old foes, the Macleans, while Charles II. was then aware that the English boasted of Argyll's assistance, and Charles told this to Lome by letter. Glencairn, the leader of the Royalist rising, then asked Charles to proclaim Argyll a traitor, as having been with the English at the taking of Douart, and as having " hindered all this summer's service." " The Marquis of Arg^'ll is resolved to engage in blood * Scotland and the Common-^cealth, Scottish History Society, p. 221. C 34 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE with us," Monk wrote to Cromwell, (July 17, 1654,) and Argyll's clansmen were in the pay of the English. "The hate of the country is heavy on Argyll," in 1659. Yet Monk detested him and thought him utterly treacherous. Two days before the Restoration, (May 29, 1660,) Argyll and Mr. Patrick Gillespie, a Remonstrant, whom Charles above all men especially detested, '' with a world at their back," held a Communion of the wilder sort at Paisley.^ On February 13, 1 661, he was presented at the Bar of Parliament, and accused of treason by Sir John Fletcher, the King's Advocate. In his indictment were many charges dating before the Indemnity of 1651, including the burning of the Bonny House of Airlie, the arrangement to hand over Charles I. to the English at Newcastle ; the opposition to the rescue of Charles I. ; advice to Cromwell and Ireton to behead the king, (this was certainly a false charge,) and the abetting and furnishing of arms to the English in 1 653-1 654. He put himself at the king's mercy : this offer was refused by Parliament. He denied, or justified himself, as regards the mass of accusations, and, as to the affairs of 1653-54, " denies any joining with the English to oppose the Scots forces ; " he was, he says, a prisoner in the hands of the English. The pay of his men by the English meant no more than keeping up what was later called " an independent company" to maintain order, and pursue cattle thieves. " Because his men did not oppose the Royalist forces in the hills Monk discharged payment," did not pay. Wodrow, who is very copious in his account of the trial of the Marquis, does not know, or cannot bring himself to tell, the cause of his condemnation (May 25). The real facts were doubted or denied by his partisans in later history, though they were briefly indicated by Bishop Burnet in his History of his Own Times. The truth came out when, in 182 1, a fragmentary historical work, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, by Sir George Mackenzie, was published, and, since that date, some of Argyll's damning letters have been given to the world. 1 Baillie, iii. p. 404. MACKENZIE'S DEFENCE OP' ARGYLL 35 111 the fragmentary manuscript, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, Mackenzie tells the story of the defence of his great client. He and the other counsel for the defence protested " that as some things might escape them which might he interpreted as treason, what we pleaded or spoke might be no snare to us." Parliament did not admit the protestation. Counsel also asked that Argyll might be tried by a Justice Court ; Parliament men were not his peers. Argyll put in this request ; he was asked who had written it ; he would not betray his advocate, " and at last we owned the paper. The bill was refused, but we were excused." The King's Advocate, by the king's desire, "restricted his pursuits to such acts as were done since the year 1651." Lauderdale, then in London and in possession of the king's favour, was supposed, says Mackenzie, to have pro- cured the document surreptitiously, to protect his own friends, and to "have shuffled it in among other papers," for Charles's ^gnature, " when his Majesty was in haste." But the good-natured king hated to hang people, as he scribbled in a note handed to Clarendon at the Council table at Oxford ; the notes are in the Bodleian Library, and have been published for the Roxburghe Club. It was thought that Lauderdale, from respect to his own old cause, " the good old Cause for which the Marquis mainly suffered," says Mackenzie, and out of kindness to Lome, would save Argyll. But Middleton, the King's Commis- sioner, himself a hard fighting cavalier, though he had been in arms for the Covenant before the Engagement, sent to Court Rothes and Glencairn, (who had wished Argyll to be proclaimed a traitor in 1653,) and Glencairn daily incensed Monk, while Rothes worked on Lauderdale, who might fear that Argyll, if acquitted, would renew an old feud with him. The contest turned on Argyll's dealings in 1653-54. Sufficient proof was not produced ; debate was closed ; Parliament was about to consider its verdict, when a man of clan Campbell " knocked most rudely at the door," and handed a packet to Middleton. There was a pause and a deep silence. Hope may have 36 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE risen in the heart of Argyll, if he merely heard that the rude and hurried messenger wore the tartan of Clan Diarmaid. But, if he saw the man's face, he must have guessed the worst. All the Campbells were not loyal to him, and this man served his deadly foe, MacNaughton. As the bearer of the packet was a Campbell, Middleton himself naturally supposed him to be an envoy, (probably from Lord Lome, who was pleading for his father's life in London,) with a pardon for the Marquis. But this Campbell was a retainer of MacNaughton, whose ruined castle of Dunderawe stands on the shore of Lochfyne, near Inveraray, and whose lands lay between those of Argyll and those of the Campbells of Ardkinglas. A scurrilous poem on Argyll, " to be sold at the new Mercat of Inveraray, 1656," begins — " How now, Argyll, thinkst thou to stand With thy deep plots and bloody band ? There must no house stand near to thee. But Ahab-like thy prize must be, If MacNaughton brooked on its raw For forged crymes he tholes the law." The meaning is that Argyll used MacNaughton as Ahab used Naboth, and MacNaughton had his revenge when his retainer, a Campbell, brought the fatal packet.^ It really contained, says Mackenzie, "a great many letters," written by Argyll to Monk while he commanded in Scotland. Of these many letters a few, to Lilbourne and to Monk's secretary, exist at Inveraray. Even they were enough to prove that Argyll's conduct was complicity, not compli- ance, with the English.2 They were by no means " private " ^ The date of the poem, 1656, is intended to prove the rhymes to be prophetic : they must be of 1661, so the Higher Criticism will aver. But it is not so certain, for the prophecy contains an item never fulfilled. Argyll will beg in vain for the original lands of his family, near Loch Awe. - These letters came into the possession of the late Duke of Argyll on November 5, 1874, from what source we are not told (Sir William Eraser, in I/ist. A/SS, Com. Report, vi. 607). They are published in the same volume, p. 617, in summary ; they were written to Monk, Lilbourne, and Clerk, Monk's secretary. In the article on the Marquis of Argyll in the Dictionary of National Biography, Mr. T. F. Hen- MACKENZIE'S DEFENCE OF ARGYLL 37 and friendly letters to Monk, who was accused of betraying friendship. "No sooner were these produced, but the Parliament was fully satisfied as to the proof of the com- pliance," and Argyll was convicted and condemned, " though his own carriage drew tears from his very enemies," says Mackenzie. "And I remember, that I having told him, a little before his death, that the people believed he was a coward, and expected he would die timorously, he said to me he would not die as a Roman braving death, but he would die as a Christian without being affrighted." Argyll's was not military courage, perhaps, but in his death he did honour to his name ; and public sympathy veered round to the lately detested chief. Mackenzie, pleading for Argyll, excused his own " unripe- ness both in years and experience," and discussed the ques- tion " Whether passive compliance in public rebellions be punishable as treason ? " Unluckily Arg^'ll's compliance had not been merely passive, as was proved after Mackenzie had spoken.^ He hints no doubt, in his Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, that the " great many letters " contained sufficiently damning proof. His sympathy was clearly with his client. In defending Argyll he pointed out to the Parliament, (as, indeed, did Middleton himself,) that the new Indemnity for Scotland had not yet been issued, and that, if they condemned Argyll for "compliance" they made a dangerous precedent against themselves, for all had, at one time or another, " complied " and been in Argyll's situation. If they were severe against Argyll, they, like the Earl of Morton, who brought a kind of guillotine, the Maiden, into Scotland, might be introducing an instrument for their own destruction. This argument, with others, might have saved Argyll, but no members of Parliament, probably, had compromised themselves as Argyll's letters to the English commanders in Scotland proved him to have done. In face of these Mackenzie's eloquence was derson says that these letters are only known through Bishop Burnet's account of them. Burnet, pt. i. vol. i., pp. 224-225 (ed. 1897). ^ Works, vol. i. ; Pleadings^ pp. S0-S4 : 1716. 38 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE unavailing. He had shown abiHty, and courage, a virtue in which he never was deficient ; but his defence of Argyll, though perilous, was only part of his professional work, and did not commit him to the party of covenanted Presby- terianism. In 1661, as we learn from the Acts of Parliament, Mackenzie appeared in many important cases ; for Montrose against the estate of Argyll, on which he asserted some claims ; for the Argylls in other cases ; for Mackintosh against Lochiel, and in many suits of less moment. He was in wonderfully good practice for so 3'oung a man.^ ^ Argyll's Compromising Letters. I owe the following note to the kindness of Dr. Barty : — "According to the present practice in trials with a Jury before the Scotch Criminal Courts no witness for the prosecution can be examined whose name is not contained in the list of witnesses served on the accused, and no article can be produced of essential importance that is not mentioned in the list of productions. It would be impossible, therefore, at the present lime that such an occurrence as the production of Argyll's letters to Monk after the evidence for the prosecution had been led could happen. It seems, however, as far as one can see from Mackenzie's own book, not to have been thought an irregular or improper thing in the seventeenth century. I observe in Mackenzie's Criminal Law, page 524, {1678,) that he refers to the letters thus: 'And yet the Marquess of Argile was convict of treason upon letters written by him to General Monck ; these letters being only subscribed by him and not holograph, and the subscriptions having been \)XOVt<\ per coiiiparationem literariim which were very hard in other cases ; seeing comparatio litcrarum is but a pre- sumption, and men's hands are oft times and easily imitated, and one man's write will differ from itself at several occasions.' Strictly speaking Monk should have been forthcoming as a witness, but they did strange things in those days in their criminal trials." CHAPTER V MACKENZIE AS A DEFENDER OF WITCHES Mackenzie appointed Justice Depute (1660-1661)— Presides on Trials for Witchcraft — Abates the frenzy against Witches — The frenzy during the English occupation — Statistics of Witchcraft in 1661 — Stereotyped formula of confession — A " pricker " at once arrested — Confessions extracted by illegal torture — Case of the Macleans — Later recrud- escence of persecution — Temporary abatement due to Mackenzie — Fountainhall's credulity — Mackenzie on the Law of Witchcraft — The Judges condemned — Judicial processes— y//^rwiv// del Pais — Lairds and Ministers accuse and try — Torture in most cases — Anecdote of Mackenzie and a confessing witch — Mackenzie's defence of Maevia — He does not deny possibility of witchcraft — His reasons — Humanity of Mackenzie — Excommunicated for his humanity (and other offences) — Letter to Lauderdale — Resigns his office — A later letter to Lauder- dale — Judge in Criminal Courts — Introduces rules favourable to the accused — Salaries of Judges very small. Mackenzie's defence of Argyll rather advanced than injured him in his profession. In November 1660, the king ap- pointed him and on July 25, 1661, he was promoted by Lauderdale, to a judicial post, that of Justice Depute, which was very poorly paid, at ;^5o a year, but gave him experience and, I think, enabled him to do good service to the cause of common sense, and of a humanity then v'ery uncommon. Mackenzie, with two other Justice Deputes, Alexander Blair and John Cuningham, was ordered at once to hold Courts at towns near Edinburgh, such as Duddingstone, Musselburgh, and Dalkeith, to try the cases of "a great many persons, both men and women, who are imprisoned as having confessed, or witnesses led against them, for the abominable sin of witchcraft." ^ To stimulate the zeal of these young Judges, they were ' Privy Council Pe^ister, 1661-1664, pp. 11. 12. 39 40 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE actually promised a share of " the fines and escheats " of prisoners found guilty ! This was a premium upon severity, but Mackenzie saved as many as he could of the unfortunate men and women whom he pitied ; and it seems probable that he, with his fellow Deputes, did much to abate the frenzy for accusing people of sorcery. Few could guess at the heights to which that frenzy had risen. The English, while they occupied Scotland, were surprised and horrified by the tortures which the lairds inflicted, with the sanction and assistance of the preachers, on witches and warlocks. In one horrible case, reported by the Mercurius Politicus of October 23, 1652, the English judges "ordered the minister, sheriff, and tormentors to be found out, and to have an account of the ground of their cruelty." They had hung women up by the heels, whipped them, and placed lighted candles beneath their toes and in their mouths. These appear to have been the usual methods of extorting confessions. The English may have kept down the insane fury of witch-burning among a superstitious clergy, gentry, and populace ; at all events the numbers of those who had been tortured into confession and were lying in loathsome prisons awaiting judgment is amazing. In three-quarters of one year, (1661-1662,) I reckon that eighty persons were awaiting judgment in the regions of Duddingstone, Dalkeith, Musselburgh, Newbattle, Spott, Stirling, Queensferry, Inner- leithen, Eyemouth, Crichton, Forfar, Selkirk, Flisk, Inverkip, Falkland, Montrose, and so forth. Some had lain in durance for three years, others for shorter periods. Most of them had already confessed to a kind of formula which is stereotyped as to the central facts, but varies in details. The accused is always made to allege that she met the devil in the shape of a black man, that he laid one hand on her head and another on her feet, that she gave herself body and soul to him, and became his mistress, receiving from him a new name. There are eight of these confessions in the papers of the Privy Council, for May 28-31, 1661.^ ^ Pri(iy Council Register, pp. 647-651. MACKENZIE AS A DEFENDER OF WITCHES 41 How these confessions were extorted we ^^iither from the Privy Council Register of August 2, 1661, just five days after Mackenzie and the other two Justice Deputes were sent to hold their court of inquiries. The Council orders the arrest of John Ramsay, " an ordinary pricker of witches, to answer for the prickin Mackenzie did not lose his practice at the Bar when Justice Depute, though his practice must have been im- paired and interrupted. He would lose more as a Judge in the Criminal Court. Judges were very ill-paid, and eked out their salary, often, by receiving " compliments " from suitors. The Lord President of the Court of Session had a salary of ;^350, and Sir George Lockhart, when President, looked wistfully back on the Bar where he made a better income. The King's Advocate, before 1707, got but ^^5^0 annually.- Probably no barrister's practice was worth £']Q0 a year. in our own tongue, as the French writ ther pleadings. This I say to recomend me to your Lordships favoure, who is the true protector of your nation, and not to get my thousand merks, which I value not so much for any reason as that the world may know that you ar just and that you hav some kyndnesse for, Your Lordships' most humble servant, {Signed) " Geo. Mackenzie. "Edinburgh 5 November." 1 Vindication, p. 29 (1691). * Omond, Lord Advocatet of Scotland, vol. i. p. 290. I CHAPTER VI "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" Mackenzie publishes The Religious Stoic (1663) — Vivacity and style — Contains his principles — Opposed to pretensions of preachers — Dis- believes in speculative Theology — "Why stand ye gazing up into Heaven?" — The Zealots derided — Wandering fires — Heretics are like tops — Law rtiustbe obeyed— Bloodthirstypaganism of the Covenanters — Persecutors amazed when persecuted — The Restoration did not perse- cute for Religion — Views of Mr. Taylor Innes — Mackenzie's view not tenable by the Presb)yterians — How far the subject may dissemble his belief — Religious hatred concerning trifles — Belief changes with the point of view — Piety preferred to speculation — " I make the laws of my country my Creed" — In unessential matters — Mr. Taylor Innes shocked — Where Mackenzie drew the line in submission — At Catholicism — Scottish zest for persecution — " Man a statue of dust, kneaded with tears" — distinctive belief in Deity — Mackenzie a Christian Stoic — Will not discuss the Fall — Answer of his opponents — Mackenzie anticipates Pascal's bet — "Preaching no part of public worship" — Why the heathen had no sermons — Claim of the preachers to miraculous gifts — Prophecy, Clairvoyance — Mackenzie's theory of the super- normal — Anticipates that of Mr. Frederick Myers — Denounces Con- venticles — Anecdote of Mackenzie and the Liturgy — "Wily Jamie Stewart" — Really "a damned Macgregor" — Revenge of Gregarach. In 1663, before he was twenty-five years of age, Mackenzie published his book, The Religious Stoic. Though it effer- vesces with the high spirits of youth, though the soil of the argument blossoms with a hundred lively tropes and similes, now poetical, now fantastic, this work expresses the principles to which Mackenzie was true, (with perhaps a period of other ideas, indicated in his Memoirs,) to the end. He had already speculated much on ultimate problems of life, of government, and of religion. He had seen the ruin that came from Knoxian ideas, and from clerical pretensions. These things had waxed old as a garment, their end was nigh. He practically abandoned speculative "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" 49 theology as hopeless, and there is melancholy as well as gaiety in his glances at the ruins of so many systems. He opens with "A P'riendly Address to the Fanatics of All Sects and Sorts," and heads the address with the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven ? " Ye are not St. Stephen, ye shall not see heaven open, ye gaze in vain, the everlasting gates will not be unfolded, no mortal eyes will behold the Beatific Vision, no human scrutiny will discover the secrets of God. Une iniuiejise espdrafice a travcrsce la tcrre ; we know enough for Faith, enough for Hope, enough for Charity, but we do not know and in this life shall never know enough for Curiosity. Mackenzie unconsciously opens with two lines of blank verse — " The madcap zealots of this bigot age Intending to mount Heaven, Elias-like," unlike Elias, and like Phaethon, have fallen earthward in their flaming chariot; "and when they have set the whole world in a blaze, this they term ' a new Light.' " The furiously driving Jehu, full of zeal, did more harm to the House of God than Gallio, who cared for none of these things. The only members of the Apostolic conclave who desired to call down fire from heaven, were those sons of Zebedee, (and of Thunder) who desired the first seats, not in synagogues, but in the kingdom of Heaven. Fever-fits of unseasonable zeal, as of the Covenanters, the Brownists, the Quakers, all the sort of them, are a malady of the Church, which is " in a very distempered condition, when its charity waxes cold and its zeal hot." The trivial differ- ences and the fury with which they are fought for, (as when a Kirk with the Confession of Faith of 1560, the Shorter Catechism, and extempore prayers, revolts against law on a question of Bishop or presbyter,) " is that ignis fatiius or wild fire, which is but a meteor patched up of malignant vapours, and is observed to haunt churchyards oftener than other places." Mackenzie does not applaud individualism, and the sanctity of private judgment in religion. " I am of opinion, D 50 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE that such as think that they have a Church within their own breasts, should Hkewise believe their heads are steeples, and so should provide them with bells. . . . Elias believed that the Church, in his days, was stinted to his own per- son," just as the Rev. Robert Bruce, about 1630, and the Rev. Donald Cargill, about 1681, are said to have regarded themselves as the only lawful ministers in Scotland. If Laws and Lawgivers did not make heretics conceited, " by taking too much notice of their extravagancies, the world should no more be troubled with these than they are with the Chimaeras of Alchymists and Philosophers. And it fares with heretics as with tops, which, so long as they are scourged, keep foot and run pleasantly, but fall as soon as they are neglected and left to themselves." This is one of Mackenzie's best known sayings, and has been thought inconsistent with his later career as a perse- cutor. But he explains that while persecution for religious opinion is unjust, "God leaving us, upon our own hazard, a freedom in our choice," none the less " I confess when men not only recede from the canonised creed of the Church, but likewise encroach upon the laws of the State, then, as of all others they are the most dangerous, so of all others they should be most severely punished." It was the firm belief of the rulers of the Restoration that rigid Presbytery was the mother of civil war, or at least of eternal unrest. For their opinion they had the experience of a century of troubles. The State therefore made laws which left religion where it had been, left worship where it had been,i save for the use of the Doxology and the Lord's Prayer, but placed the preachers under bishops, for the sake of the peace of the country. They did not thus ensure the peace which they sought, but they made its existence possible in the next generation. ^ 1 may be in error, but I presume that the Confession of the Convention of 1560 had not been abolished. Kirkton, however, says that the restored Episcopal Church "owned no confession of faith," save a "a general and short" one, " both nonsense and heresy," in the Acts of Parliament. The young divines were so lost as to " plough with the heifers" of Sherlock and Jeremy Taylor, "and such." Kirkton, pp. 191, 192. "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" 51 The zeal of the Covenanters, said Mackenzie with perfect truth, " supposes our most merciful God to be of the same temper with these pagan deities, who desired to have their altars gored with blood." It was for the sake of cleansing blood with blood that the Commission of the General Assembly demanded the deaths of cavaliers taken under promise of quarter, and of women who had followed Montrose. It was in accordance with this pagan idea of purification by blood that the Rev. Mr. Nevoy, (who at this time fled to Holland,) urged Leslie to the massacre of Dunaverty. There is no certainty so firmly based, says Mackenzie, that it "justifies so much violence in such things. Are we not ready to condemn to-day, as fanatic, what yesterday was judged jure divino. And do not even those who persecuted others for their opinions, admire why they should be, on that score, persecuted themselves ? " He quotes the tenor of the Gospel, which is not that of the Koran, and "all this makes us admire why, in our late troubles, men really pious, and naturally sober, could have been so transported as to destroy whom they could not convince, and to persuade those who were convinced that Religion obliged them to destroy others." Mr. Taylor Innes, in his admirable essay on Mackenzie,^ writes, " His Vindication (1691) opens with the statement that 'the civil government in Scotland was never bigot ' under Charles II., and on that account he thinks it unnecessary to consider either Episcopacy or Presbytery in themselves, neither of them having been held to he, Jure divino. We are inclined to think that the claim he here puts forward is a true one ; nor perhaps is the other assertion which he goes on to make false, that ' the Governors of the time can truly and boldly say that no man in Scotland ever suffered for his religion.' " The religious opinions were a matter of indiffer- ence to the Government. "The standards of the Kirk" the confession of faith, were what they had been, unless a man chose to say, as men did say, that, according to their religion, '' prelacy was a limb of Antichrist." * Contemporary Review, vol. xviii. pp. 248-266, September 1S71. 52 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE When Mackenzie writes, "As every private Christian should be tolerated by his fellow subjects to worship God inwardly according to his conscience, so should all conspire to that exterior uniformity of worship which the laws of his country enjoin." But there was no difference in exterior uniformity of worship among conformists and non- conformists, unless the latter thought it wrong to say the Lord's Prayer and to hear the Doxology. To the Govern- ment the quarrel was purely political ; bishops were part of the Civil Service. To the thorough Presbyterian they were " priests of Baal." This belief, and no other, was what Mackenzie thought that honest citizens might blamelessly dissemble. He himself would not have dissembled his disbelief in Transub- stantiation ; he would not even vote for relieving Catholics from penal laws. Mackenzie could not help observing that " the meaner the subject" of contention "is, the heat is always the greater. Stand not some Episcopists and Presbyterians at greater distance than either do with Turks and Pagans." There is no use in religious controversy, he says. No man is ever convinced by argument. One man may account that a miracle which another looks upon as a folly, and yet none but God's Spirit can decide the controversy. " Matters of religion and faith resemble some curious pictures and optic prisms, which seem to change shapes and colours, according to the several stances from which the aspicient views them." Everything in our ideas of religion depends on the point of view. The right rule, in matters so fleeting, in a phantasmagoria so protean, is to regulate our conduct by " the Laws of our Country." Perhaps Presbytery is the best of Church governments, perhaps Episcopacy is ; a wise man will accept, in matter so essentially trivial, the decision of the State in which he lives. " May not one who is convinced in his judgment that Monarchy is the best of Governments, live happily in Venice or Holland. . . . What is once statuted by a Law we all consent to, in choos- ing Commissioners to represent us in these Parliaments "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" 53 where the Laws are made ; and so, if they ordain us to be decimated, or to leave the nation if we conform not, we cannot say when that Law is put into execution, that we are oppressed. . . ." Yesterday, by the decree of the State [de facto) the Covenant was a thing of Divine Right ; to-day, by the same decree. Royal Prerogative is of Divine Right, and the Covenant is a seditious rag. " Since discretion opened my eyes," says Mackenzie, " I have always judged it necessary for a Christian to look oftener to his practice of piety, than to confession of faith . . . working out the work of his own salvation with fear and trembling, than standing still with the Galileans, curiously gazing up to heaven. True religion and undefiled is to visit the widow and the fatherless." Mackenzie declares that, *< in all articles not absolutely necessary for being saved, I make the laws of my country my creed," and adds, in a postscript, " By the laws of this country the author means that religion which is settled by law." By that he stands, " in all matters not absolutely neces- sary for salvation." Under the Covenant he was a Presby- terian, under the Restoration an Episcopalian. He did not think that the salvation of his soul was imperilled by one or the other form of Church Government, the religion, down to the Shorter Catechism, (" Proofs " and all,) being the same in both, and the worship identical, bar the use of the Lord's Prayer, (which cannot be dangerous,) and the Doxology, which seems orthodox. After the Reformation the Scottish Protestants compelled, by many forms of persecution, the Catholics to accept for their Creed, the creed dictated by " the laws of their country." The Protestants did not regard this process " with loathing and indignation ; " as we all do now- : they thought it a godly process : " the idolater should die the death ; " and, in short, — by fines, exile, disabilities, mob violence, oppres- sion by Protestant landlords of Catholic tenants, — they very nearly extirpated the Catholic faith in their country. The Government of the Restoration, by measures yet 54 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE more ferocious, left only " a misrepresented Remnant";" true to the doctrines of Andrew Melville. This much may be said for persecution that, in Scotland as in Spain, it was successful. Catholicism and the Presbyterianism which attempted to erect an ijuperiuni in iniperio were reduced to negligible quantities. We ought to regard with equal abhor- rence the method which obtained both results. Mackenzie now enters on his own doctrine of Christian Stoicism. " Albeit Man may be but a Statue of dust kneaded with tears, moved by the hid engines of his restless passions," yet he is a creature of boundless pride, who could never have admitted that there exists a Being greater than himself, if " a natural instinct . . . had not irresistibly bowed his faith to assent to a Deity." Religion is natural and inevitable. Mackenzie's own religion is Christianity harmonised with what people called " natural religion," that of the Stoics, whom he regards as "perhaps a sect of John Baptist's," certainly an unhistorical position ! His God is the God who revealed himself to Socrates, as to all men, in the " mirror " (so he calls it) of "instinct" and of "conscience." Like Tertullian, he thinks that the nations of old " vocevi Christianavi fiaturalitcr exclaniant" though many superstitions, in his own time, choke and confuse the vox Christiana. Revealed religion, that of Christ, restores and illuminates the instinct of faith. The mysteries of faith are not to be pried into. Borrowing an illustration from his favourite study. Heraldry, he says, "in religion as in heraldry, the simpler the bearing be, it is so much the purer and the ancienter." He desires as little theology as possible. He declines to be drawn into those insoluble problems of foreknowledge and free will, that distracted Satan's Angels. He wishes religion to " drive at practice," to make men gentle, not ferocious. He will not discuss the Fall of Man, and "that forbidden fruit." "I think we should rather lament than inquire after so pitiful a frailty," as Adam's eating the apple. Mackenzie's attitude is the chief example, in Scotland, of the freedom which began to dawn with the Restoration after exactly a century of Presbyterian power. "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" 55 He could now publish, in safety, doctrines "Arminian," " Latitudinarian," or what you will. "The Fanatics inveigh against Presbyterian gowns. The Presbyterian tears the Episcopal lawn sleeves, and thinks them the Whore of Babel's shirt. The Episcopalian flouts at the Popish robes, as the livery of the Beast." Religion, he says, is, apparently, now old and dying ; shaken by senile fever-fits. In the visible Church, " charity is cold, zeal is hot." Mackenzie's book was certainly not apt to remove the prejudice of the godly against the Bar : he told ludicrous anecdotes of Puritan casuistry. A case of conscience among the godly was, " Is it lawful to use the herb tobacco on a Fast day ? " The answer was, tobacco may not be used in a pipe, for the smoke enters the mouth, but may be used in snuff, which is inhaled through the nose ! Mackenzie, admitting the difficulties of belief, anticipates Pascal's famous argument that, whether there be anything to believe in or not, belief is " safer." We ought, says Pascal, to put our money on belief ; it is even betting ; and Mac- kenzie avers that the death-beds of Atheists are awful warnings of the dangers of disbelief. Mackenzie thought " preaching no part of divine worship." Few men can have suffered more than he from long sermons. " The pulpit is a Calvary, whereon our Blessed Saviour suffers daily from scandalous railings," political, social, personal, and theological. The godly, after their twenty-two years of " ruling the roast," must have felt that Satan was unchained when such sentiments could be pub- lished in Edinburgh. Observing that the ancient heathen went to no sermons, Mackenzie supposes that the Legislator, in his wisdom, had forbidden harangues which were certain to prove inflammatory, and of perilous consequence to the State. Of course, as a matter of fact, the nature of classical religion gave priests no chance of coercing the State by addresses to the populace. The priest of Zeus or Athene, however, was not believed to be inspired by the God, or to possess, what the Presbyterian preachers claimed, the " Power of the Keys." 56 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE What Mackenzie, and many men of his generation above all things desired, was a breathing space of peace in Scotland. From 1558 to the Restoration the country had been hurried up and down in religion through a mist of tears and blood, for the sake, not of Presbyterianism, but of the insane pretensions of the preachers. For bishops Mackenzie probably cared no more than Montrose had cared, that is, not at all ; but the new generation, as Douglas said in his letters to Sharp before Charles II. returned, inclined to a moderate Episcopacy, manifestly in hopes of a quiet life. But the pretensions of the preachers were backed, as we have seen, not only by their claim to possess the keys of St. Peter, — "those who offend them are sure to get it over the head with these keys," Mackenzie wrote, — but by the popular belief in their miraculous powers. Some of them were credited, and had been credited since the days of Knox and Bruce, with the gifts of prophecy, clairvoyance, second-sight, premonitions ; with gifts of healing, and with marvellous visions. Hence came their perilous prestige. On this point Mackenzie writes, "Albeit the cessation of miracles be cried down," (he means "proclaimed,") "by many, yet do the most bigoted relate what miracles have been wrought by the founders of their hierarchies, and what prophecies they have oraculously pronounced." Thus Bishop Burnet tells us that Mr. Robert Bruce was credited with prophecies, but that his father had heard him frequently deliver oracles which never were fulfilled. Later, Peden and Richard Cameron were looked on as prophets, and there are many stories of clairvoyance and prediction, by preachers, especially in the case of Peden. The belief greatly increased the influence of these preachers among the people, and Mackenzie ventures on a theory of the phenomena, which he probably derived from the Neo- Platonists. It curiously resembles Mr. Myers's hypothesis of the "subliminal self," and he distinguishes between the " supernatural " and the " supernormal," though not in these terms. " 1 am almost inclined to believe," he says, "THE RELIGIOUS STOIC" 57 " that prophecy is no Miraculous Gift, bestowed upon the Soul at extraordinary occasions only, but is the Natural though the Highest Perfection of our human Nature . . . since it must be Natural to the Soul, which is God's Impressa, to have a faculty of Foreseeing, since that is one of God's." Veridical dreams too, he says, are not " extraordinary," but " natural," and dying men sometimes show clear fore- sight, because "the soul then begins to act like itself." Holding this theory, Mackenzie would neither burn a woman as a witch, because she was proved to be second- sighted, nor adore a preacher, because he had the second- sight. The faculty is no more than a natural faculty of the human spirit, which is divina partiaila aurce. As for the conventicles of people who preferred the ministrations of an "outed" minister, to those of a con- formist, " compared with our Jerusalem they resemble only the removed huts of those who live apart because they are sick of the plague." There could be no fair and useful discussion betw-een Mackenzie and his adversaries ; indeed he maintains that all religious controversy is altogether vanity. No man looks for any useful light in his opponent's statements, he only seeks the readiest dialectical trick, or Biblical text, for their confutation. The preacher damns the lawyer, the lawyer accuses the preacher of treason. Both sides end by trusting to the arm of flesh, sword, musket and pistol, and the peace and quiet for which Mackenzie longed never visited Scotland during the Resto- ration. The contending parties had to destroy each other by a process of attrition. As vainly as Falkland, did Leighton " ingeminate Peace ! Peace ! " In the confession of his Religio Laid Mackenzie does not indicate any preference for the Anglican or Laudian liturgy over the "conceived prayers" composed by the ministers. If we may believe a story in Wodrow's collec- tion of gossip, the Analecta (iii. 257, 258), Mackenzie was opposed to a liturgy. Being in London in 1678, he, with a Scottish bishop, argued against an English bishop who stood up for the liturgy. Each party called in supporters. 58 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the Englishman brought two friends ; Mackenzie brough: a person whom he did not name, a person in a very neghgent attire. The EngHsh bishop overcame the Scottish prelate in argument, Mackenzie was worsted, but the stranger interposed and triumphed all along the line. He was James Stewart, "wily Jamie," a violent Presby- terian, who was in hiding, for he had been mixed up in the Pentland Rising of 1666, and was the author of a dangerous book. Jus Populi Vitidicatum. We often meet him and his book in the following pages. Of his family, the Stewarts, Mackenzie is said to have exclaimed in court, after the trial of this scion, in 1684, that they were not Stewarts, they were " damned Macgregors ! " Their father had chosen Stewart in place of "the name that is name- less by day." ^ ^ Omond, The Lord Advocates, vol. i. p. 252. No authority is cited. The passage is from part of the Coltness Papers, written apparently by Sir Archibald Stewart Denham (born 1683, died 1773). I do not know who these Stewarts really were, but these old baronial claims were exploded by the learned Riddell, in the once famous Saltfoot Controversy. Naturally Sir Archibald Stewart Denham did not like Mackenzie, who had styled these Stewarts "bare-behinded Macgregors." Sir Archibald gives a lively character of Sir George, " A man of great vivacity and humour, but of undigested accomplishments. He pretended to know everything, and was superficial and vain-glorious, in all a perfect Proteous {sic) or a kind of cameleon," (like Maitland of Lethington in Buchanan's lumbering satire). " He changed figure, shape, and colour upon every whim and turn ; he had no penetra- tion, and what struck him first was his best thought. His governing passion was to make a land estate, and establish it from generation to generation in his Highland name, but Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, Lord of Session, a good judge of men, (and from whose character of Sir George most said here is taken,) observes he laid a bad foundation by defrauding his father's creditors. . . ." Of this I find no evidence. Sir Archibald goes on to praise " the virtuous ingenious Earl of Argyll," " the martyr Earl of Argyll," who, according to this very Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, constantly bilked and oppressed his father's creditors and his own. It is unlucky to tell a Stewart that he is a bare-behinded damned Macgregor ! — The Coltness Collections, The Maitland Club, pp. 75-80 (1842). kti CHAPTER VII MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS, 1 663-1 668 Mackenzie's first marriage (1662)— His descendants through his daughters — His History of his Own Times — Comparison of Mackenzie with Bishop Burnet — Mackenzie's poHtics as traceable in his History — Singular fortunes of his History — A fragment discovered (18 17)— Published in 1821 — Character of its editor — When was the History written? — Lauderdale revised a History by Mackenzie — Could it be the Fragment? — Did Mackenzie write two Histories of which ours is the earlier? — His portrait of Middleton — His candour — Character of Lauderdale— Mackenzie on Lady Margaret Cassilis — Lauderdale in his night-gown — Mackenzie's sympathy with the poor — Episcopacy established— Expulsion of ministers blamed — Burnet's description of the ministers — Their parishes occupied by "owls and satyrs" — Middleton's attack on Lauderdale — Mackenzie of Tarbat is Middleton's agent — Probably he is the source of Mackenzie's information — "The Billeting Act" — Lauderdale saves the Earl of Argyll — Drives Middleton and Tarbat from office — Rothes in favour — His character — Mackenzie sympathises with Tarbat and Middleton — Execution of Waristoun — Oppressive policy of Rothes — Mackenzie dedicates to him a Moral Essay— Mackenzie corresponds with Evelyn— The south-west ready to rebel— Intrigues with Holland— Offers of Dutch aid— The Pentland Rising— Mackenzie defends the rebels— Rebels tortured— Mackenzie accused of responsibility for introduction of torture — The charge erroneous— Mackenzie's second marriage— Melancholy religious letter —Poem on Caelia— Letter to Evelyn— Verses on Montrose— Mac- kenzie's town-house. Between the year 1661, when he defended Argyll, and 1663, when he published The Religious Stoic, Mackenzie's time was occupied by the discharge of his duties as Justice Depute, by his profession, and, more agreeably, by wooing and winning Elizabeth, daughter of George Dickson of Hartree, one of the Senators of the College of Justice. The marriage was in 1662. Of the children, the sons died young ; from the eldest daughter descend the Marquis of Bute and the Earl of Wharncliffe. 59 6o SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE These years of love-making were full of events, in which began the fierce ecclesiastical struggle of the Restoration. Concerning them, Mackenzie's opinions can only be divined dimly, through his fragmentary Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland. He wished to be an historian as well as a legist, a moral essayist, a novelist, an authority on heraldry, a dramatist, and an orator. His play, to which he refers in a preface to his printed pleadings, is lost ; its very name is unknown. As . an historian, he is acute and singularly impartial, he knows the inner wheels of the political machine, but he does not aim at the picturesque. We really are not in a position to criticise him as an historical writer, as will be seen when we presently examine the curious puzzle presented by his frag- mentary work, styled The Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland. It is by no means certain that he intended to give this work to the world ; not improbably he had decided to publish a more polished and literary composition. As it is mainly from these Memoirs that we learn Mac- kenzie's opinion concerning public affairs in 1660 to 1663, and again from 1669 to 1677, it is necessary to explain, as far as possible, the singular fortunes of the book, and to dis- cover the date of its composition. The "proposals for" the publication, by subscription, of Mackenzie's collected works, were issued in 1714. They offered "many learned treatises of his, never before published," and the Discourse concerning the three Unions between Eitgland and Scotland was produced as an example of the fifteen manuscripts in the hands of Mackenzie's friends and family. But nothing like fifteen hitherto unprinted works are con- tained in the two folio volumes of 1716-1722, which also lack Aretina and The Discovery of the Fanatick Plot (1684), a folio now absolutely introuvable. Among the fifteen manuscripts of the advertisement of 1714, mention was made of a History of the Affairs of Scotland from the Restauration of King Charles II., 1660, to 1691. When the second volume of the posthumous folio edition (1722) of Mackenzie's collected writings was being printed, an advertisement announced that his History was in the hands I MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 6r of some of his relations, " who think it not ready for the press until it be carefully revised." The hook was promised as an Appendix to the second volume of his works, after it had been " revised and transcribed by a good hand." No more was heard of this History, till a century later, when in 1816 or 1817, a grocer of Edinburgh found a MS. book in a mass of waste papers " purchased by him for the humblest purposes of his trade." The grocer placed the MS. in the hands of the learned Dr. M'Crie, the biographer of Knox and Andrew Melville, who briefly describes it in Black- wood s Magazine for June, 1817. The book was in the writing of a copyist of the seventeenth century,^ but had been corrected in Mackenzie's own hand. Dr. M'Crie gave extracts from this treasure, but unluckily he did not edit the whole, which was published, anonymously, by Mr. Thomas Thomson, in 1821. The contents, from 1663 to 1669, had been excised or lost, with all that followed 1677, if that part were ever completed, (as from the advertisement it appears to have been,) and there are other gaps in the volume, and lacunae where documents were to be inserted. The editor, Mr. Thomson of the Register House, was a man of great learning, but confused in his affairs, apt to procrastinate, and singularly averse to adding introductions and notes to his editions of old manuscripts. He meant to have written an introduction on Mackenzie's literary char- acter, and the historical value of the Memoirs ; and to have added an appendix of documents ; so he wrote to Sir James Mackintosh (March 30, 1821).^ But he never carried his good intentions into practice, and, what is worse, the original MS. which he meant to place in the Advocates' Library, cannot now be found there. Probably it filtered back from Mr. Thomson's house into a chaos of waste paper. Mr. Thomson, in a brief preface to the Memoirs, says, " At what particular periods of time the several parts of the following work were written, it would not be easy to ascer- * Dr. M'Crie says, of the eighteenth century, but this must be an error, as it is said to be corrected in the hand of Mackenzie, who died in 1691. * Memoirs oj Tiiomas Thomson^ pp. 1 71, 1 72. 62 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE tain," but he presumes that it " was done progressively, during the course of the author's poUtical Hfe, though perhaps at considerable intervals. . . ." This is a probable inference, for the book shows curious waverings in opinion. Mackenzie says, in his second page, that he has been an actor in, or witness of the events which he records, " especially since the year 1677," when he became King's Advocate. But this statement is, as Dr. M'Crie apparently supposed, a Preface, an Introduction, an afterthought. It is true that, in 1680-1681, we find Mackenzie asking Lauderdale for copies of papers of 1663, for the purposes of a History, portions of which Lauderdale has revised. But this can scarcely be identical with the work of which fragments survive. The difficulty is that, as every reader of the Memoirs must see, Mackenzie could not have submitted that work to Lauderdale's scrutiny. It is far too frankly critical of his patron. Are the Memoirs, as they stand, an early draft, and did Mackenzie, about 1 678-1680, begin a quite different new history, which Lauderdale read and criticised ? It is im- possible to solve this problem. If Mackenzie began a new history, no trace of it has been discovered. It must be confessed that Mackenzie's History of his Oivn Times, as it has reached us, lacks the liveliness of Burnet's, and, up to 1663, where it breaks off, not to begin again till after a gap of six years, gives us little information about his own opinion of men and affairs. He does not, like Burnet, open with a series of vivacious portraits of the chief char- acters in the drama ; he draws only one of them, the Earl of Middleton, a good soldier, but a very bad representative of Royalty in the early Parliaments. This portrait may be cited, because it shows much sympathy with Middleton, as a man, though no sympathy is expressed for his measures. "The Earl of Middleton had by his valour raised himself from the condition of a gentleman to be Lieutenant Generall, in anno 1648, under Duke Hamilton; and continued in the same employment in attno 1651, when his Majesty was in Scotland : but these armies being dissipated by his Majesty's MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 63 unkind fate, rather than his ill conduct, he after a wonderful escape from the tower of London, followed his Majesty in his exile, and was sent in anno 1653, General into Scotland. He was by his heroick aspect marked out for great things, and was too liberal to be a private person ; but this too muni- ficent humour, which made him value the services of those whom he esteem'd above all rewards, made him ofttimes disoblige such as were not virtuous enough, by promising to them what he hoped to obtain, though he fail'd in the under- taking ; by which great men should learn to surprize their dependers with favours, for thereby the benefit is more wel- come, and their own reputation is less hazard. His natural courage and generosity made him likewise less jealous both of men and events than a great person ought to have been : but his greatest weakness was, that he prefer'd such to offices of trust as were unfit to serve him in them, regarding therein rather their interest than his own. Nor did he attend his Majesty so frequently as w-as convenient, but made his addresses ordinarily by Chancellor Hyde ; whereas all Kings and great persons love to have their servants depend im- mediately upon them ; and it was observ'd that nothing endeared more any person to his Majesty than personal acquaintance. He was really a man of a manly eloquence as well as aspect ; happier in his wit than in his friends ; and more pitied after his fall than envy'd in his prosperity." Nothing is said here about Middleton's schemes of extor- tion. Tarbat, a cousin of Mackenzie, was a prime favourite of Middleton, Mackenzie obviously was informed by Tarbat, and naturally dwells on the best side of Middleton. Had Mackenzie drawn in this manner the other leading nobles in the struggles of the Reformation, we should better under- stand them, and better understand himself. Mackenzie frankly attributes the troubles which arose to greed for the spoils of ofhce, and to jealousies on the part of the nobles who had adopted the Royal cause in 1648- 1651. He states that Clarendon, as a Cavalier from the first, made another Cavalier, the Earl of Middleton, Royal Com- missioner, practically Viceroy of Scotland (a post for which 64 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE his careless temper, habitual intemperance, rancour against the Kirk, which had excommunicated him and made him do humiliating penance, and his desire of money, rendered him hopelessly unfit). But Middleton detested Presbytery, and Clarendon, to keep Lauderdale, a Presbyterian, out of Scotland, had Middleton selected as Charles's repre- sentative. This suited Lauderdale at the time, for he pre- ferred to stay at Charles's side as Secretary for Scotland. Of him, who had evil influence on Mackenzie's career, a brief account must be given. The Earl of Lauderdale, of old a vehement Covenanter, a man most active in handing over Charles I. to the English, and a foe of Montrose, was, after 1647, an anti-Montrosian supporter of Charles I. and Charles II. He was of infinitely greater ability in civil matters than Middleton. He came of the house of Maitland of Lethington, in which talent, literary and political, was eminent and hereditary. Moreover, he still retained or professed a tenderness for " the good old cause " of the Covenant, with all the contempt of prelates as, at best, serviceable tools, which marked his caste in Scotland. The freedom of the Restoration, coming to Lauderdale after a long period of imprisonment in England, debauched his naturally sensual temperament ; he was brutally profligate, his conversation, Mackenzie says, was "bawdy" and blas- phemous, and, before his death, his coarseness and his dull attempts at humour ended by alienating Charles II., as Lord Ailesbury proves by anecdotes not easily to be quoted.^ But when Ailesbury knew Lauderdale, the Scottish duke was old and was losing his memory. He certainly was a very remarkable man. In earlier days, he had been dear to the erudite Baillie, not only as an ardent Covenanter and godly youth, but as an accomplished scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He had been, as we saw, one of those opponents of Charles I. who came over to his side after he had been sold to England ; and he was none the less dear to the Resolutioners, because he urged Charles II. ' Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury, vol. i. pp. 14, iS. Roxburglie Club, 1S90. MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 65 to perjure himself by taking the Covenant, and to reject the honourable advice of the great Montrose. Charles II. de- lighted in his society for manv years ; in a pamphlet he is called " the king's buffoon " ; he is said to have dissipated the king's melancholy by draping his bulky form in petticoats and dancing a skirt-dance before his Majesty, and his skill in political intrigue was only equalled by his intense desire to set the king, in Scotland, above law. Though he offended the Presbyterian clergy, as Mackenzie says, by his conver- sational delight in blasphemy and obscenity, yet, even after his policy wavered from concession to suppression, and back again, the Presbyterians could not rid themselves of the idea that his heart was true to their cause. He was, at least, able to please an honourable Presbyterian virgin like Lady Mary Margaret Cassilis. Her letters to him, innocent indeed, and much occupied with efforts to gain Lauderdale's pro- tection for suffering " professors," display a shy fondness of affection ; she uses cyphers to disguise the phrase "my dear." Lauderdale is well spoken of, for his national patriotism and his ability, by oppressed preachers and historians, Mr. Law and Mr. Kirkton. He could win men, and, at last, he won Mackenzie. While Lauderdale kept close to the king's ear, at Court, Middleton, as Commissioner to the Parliament in Edinburgh, found that, in Mackenzie's words, " Never any Parliament was so obsequious to all that was proposed to them." They instituted an oath of allegiance, to be taken by all before admission to any public judi- catory, and by this oath the king's supremacy was asserted even in matters ecclesiastical. The Earl of Cassilis was alone in declining this oath, so obnoxious to Presbyterians. The Covenant was declared to be an unlawful oath, "upon which the ministers did begin to thunder after their usual manner," a phrase which suggests that Mackenzie did not relish their thunders. They resolved to remonstrate in their provincial assemblies, but Rothes, Atholl, and others were sent to bring them to order. By Mackenzie of Tarbat's device, aided by Archibald Primrose, the Acts of E 66 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Parliament, since 1640, were rescinded, save in private legislation, and all constitutional advances that had been made were swept away, leaving the king as absolute as James VI. had been. The Parliament voted to Charles a sum of ^40,000 yearly, mainly from excise of beer and ale. Lauderdale cried out against this, " and yet so strange and dangerous a thing is advancement " that " when he became Commissioner he would not abate a penny of it." " So strange and dangerous a thing is advancement ! " These words of Mackenzie's sum up the tragedy of his own career. The tax which tried " to rob a poor man of his beer " had the pernicious effect of " lowering the price of victual." Mackenzie shows his wonted tender- ness of heart by exclaiming, "Pardon me, reader, to entreat thee that if ever thou become a member of Parliament, then consider what curses are daily pqured out by many poor, hungry, and oppressed creatures, upon such as are in accession to the imposition of taxes." The poor creatures suffering from cheap bread, were thirsty rather than hungry. Going to Court with his proof of Parliamentary obsequiousness, Middleton moved for the restoration of Episcopacy, against Lauderdale, who had been a rigorous Presbyterian, knew that the country preferred Presbytery ; and wished, according to Burnet, who had read his letters to Lady Margaret Cassilis, to keep Scotland in the best humour, as a counterpoise to the English Parliament. It was the dream of Lauderdale to avenge Scotland for her Cromwellian defeats, and to lead an army of loyal, contented, Presby- terian blue bonnets over the Border. Charles himself, though he thought Presbyterianism " no religion for a gentleman," was not eager, Burnet says, to enforce Episco- pacy. He knew the Scots very well, moreover he had solemnly promised to restore Presbytery. Crawford w^as passionate on this side ; Hamilton, too, backed Lauderdale ; but the majority of the Scottish Council held in town was for Episcopacy, or so the king said, and he struck the Privy Council in Edinburgh dumb, (September 5, 1661) MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 67 by bidding them inhibit the synodical meetings of the ministers, and by hiter restoring the government of the Church by bishops. Every one knows how, in the Parhament of 1662, the Royal commands were obeyed; how in "the drunken Council" at Glasgow, ministers were given a short day to accept bishops or leave their parishes ; how a longer reprieve was given, when the extent and vigour of resist- ance was imderstood ; and how, in 1662-16C3, nearly four hundred preachers abandoned manse and kirk. Mackenzie says that "all wise and good men" heartily disapproved of these reckless measures, which deprived of their pastors a people who " were fond of their ministers," and placed at the head of the Church a Primate, Sharp, who was undeniably an apostate, and was believed to have slowly and warily betrayed, from the first, the sacred cause of Presbytery. It will be remarked that Mackenzie speaks with grave disapproval, in his History, of a revolution which he welcomed with a light heart in The Religious Stoic of 1663. We must infer that he wrote this part of his History in a graver mood, perhaps at the time (1665) when he commended, in a dedication of one of his moral essays, the resolution of the Earl of Crawford, who re- signed public employment rather than take oaths of ever increasing anti-Presbyterianism.^ "Your Lordship's con- dition makes you almost the only Person who deserved" (the Dedication) " at all, and altogether the Person who deserved it most." When Mackenzie affronted persons in power by this dedication to a recalcitrant, he must have been under some Presbyterian influence which is unexplained. That influence ceased to direct him in 1666, but again revived for a while : so much is plain ; the rest is obscure. To replace the " outed ministers," young men of little education, of morals declared to have been odious, and of preaching powers very inadequate, were foisted on aggrieved parishioners. To be sure Burnet tells us that the deprived ' See Works, vol. i. p. 75. The Dedication of the Essay Solitude Preferred lo Public Employment. 68 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE ministers, at least the Remonstrants, had many faults. Their parishioners were often addicted to morbid casuistry, he says, were spiritual hypochondriacs, "and they fed this disease of weak minds too much." Kirk discipline as to sensual sins. Sabbath breaking, and we may add the crying sin of witchcraft, was very severe. The preachers were indiscreet, passionate, and " too apt to fawn upon and flatter their adherents. . . . Their opinions about the independence of the church and clergy on the civil power, and their readiness to stir up the people to tumults and wars, was that which begat so ill an opinion of them at this time in all men, that very few, who were not deeply engaged with them, pitied them much, under all the ill-usage they now met with.''^ These preachers being succeeded by a hastily gathered crowd of " curates," " Ignorance, scrupulosity, and censure ordinarily go together, especially in so dark an hour as this," (says Wodrow, speaking of other events,) " and now came "one of the first handles to the common people to censure" ministers who showed any signs of acquiescence in the decrees of the Government.^ The curates cannot have been so black as they are painted by their adversaries ; but Burnet says they were the worst preachers he ever heard, ignorant to a reproach, and often openly vicious. Leighton also reprobated the careless haste with which they were selected and introduced. They were pelted with stones and insulted by their parishioners, who flocked to the "outed" preachers in their field conventicles. These large assemblages were dispersed by force ; fines were imposed on their attend- ants and on absentees from church. The outed preachers were placed under the "Scots Mile Act," and curates in- formed against their own parishioners. Henceforth the contest was between the defenders of two prerogatives, " the prerogatives and Crown honours of Christ," with the Covenant, and the prerogative of Charles II. Un- happily both parties, as we see them in the perspective of time, were in the wrong. It was an error, on the Presby- terian side, to think that the claim of preachers to interfere ^ Burnet, i. pt. i. pp. 272-274 (ed. 1897). ^ Wodrow, i. p. 286. MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 69 in sccuhir affairs, to be free from the secular law of libel, and to make the Covenant eternally binding, was a " prero- gative of Christ." It was no less an error, on the other hand, to stretch the prerogative of Charles, as Mackenzie later did, by straining the terms of Scottish laws passed under James VI., at a time when the Tudor ideas of absolutism, and of Royal right divine, were passed into legislation. The Covenanters, between 1641 and 1649, had abolished the power of the Lords of the Articles, (a packed Committee dominating parliaments) had acquired the right to control the king's choice of ministers and officers of State ; and had abolished lay patronage of livings. It was one of the prero- gatives of Christ, that the people should elect their own preachers. The early parliaments of the Restoration restored patronage, allowed the king to choose his own ministers and officers of State, restored the power of packed legislative Committees, the Lords of the Articles, and made Charles supreme over all persons and causes. The Revolution of 1688-89, ^^ l^^t, made an end of the Lords of the Articles, reduced patronage, restored Pres- bytery, but did not restore the full Crown Honours of Christ, and the Covenant. This result was only rendered possible by the brutal struggle of extremists of both parties, who, during the Restoration, wore the strength of each other down into weakness, and made compromise welcome. We study the early portion of the Memoirs, not to find traces of Mackenzie's part in politics, for at that time he had no opportunity of playing any part, but to discover his opinion of the various measures, and the leaders of parties. He was well informed, we saw, by his cousin, Mackenzie of Tarbat, who, in the complicated intrigues of 1663, stood by Middleton for "the Cavalier interest" in Scotland, which Lauderdale, at Court, was thought eager to ruin. Burnet describes Tarbat, who, at one time, had so much ousted Lauderdale from Royal favour, that the king, says Mackenzie, would shut the door on the Secretary, while he conferred with Middleton's envoy. " He was a young man of 70 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE great vivacity of parts, but full of ambition and very crafty, who has had the art to recommend himself to all sides and parties by turns, and is yet alive, having made a great figure in the country now above fifty years. He has great notions of virtue and religion, but they are only notions, at least they have not had great effect on himself at all times." He was son of Sir John Mackenzie of Tarbat, his father was a brother of the first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail (later the title became Earl of Seaforth). Tarbat died in 1714, being then Earl of Cromartie. This statesman was Middleton's chief agent with Charles for his purpose of exacting fines from hundreds of persons in Scotland, for their compliances with Cromwell, and for depriving a dozen eminent men of capacity for public office. They were selected, on Tarbat's suggestion, by an unheard- of process of secret balloting, called " Billeting " in Parlia- ment. Members were bribed or threatened into voting in accordance with a list dictated to them.^ Middleton hoped to shelve Crawford, Sir Robert Murray, and Lauderdale, among others. The king, informed by Lauderdale of this plan, which he had never sanctioned, was irritated by the Athenian mode of Ostracism, a strangely impudent innovation, and told Tarbat that he would not accept the advice, but would not disclose the secret of the voters. Tarbat in vain said that only by the dismissal of Lauderdale could the Scottish cavaliers escape ruin. Charles dismissed Tarbat ; who advised Middleton to hurry to Court (February 1663), and at Court Lauderdale and Middleton fought out their battle. Mackenzie does not insert Lauderdale's written speech, apparently he did not obtain a copy, but describes it as " the great masterpiece of his life." (Mr. Thomson inserts the papers in the printed Memoirs.) Middleton, argued Lauder- dale, had invaded the Royal Prerogative in an unheard-of way, by passing, without the king's approbation, the Act for ^ The whole complicated intrigue is well described by Mr. Osmund Airy in " Lauderdale and the Restoration in Scotland," Quarterly Rcvinv, January to April ib84, pp. 407-439- MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 71 Ostracism. Such conduct, if allowed, made the Commissioner a despotic ruler in Scotland. Middleton, for example, had, without instructions, touched with the Royal sceptre and ratified an Act prohibiting the king from pardoning the sons of men recently forfeited. Thus, for example, Middleton had made it impossible for Charles to restore the son of Argyll to his estates. The truth is that jSIiddleton wanted them for himself, and Lauderdale, who was of a surprising loyalty to the House of Argyll, did restore the young earl in 1669, without taking the vote of a Parliament most hostile to the proceeding. Lauderdale next exposed the craft of Tarbat, (as he called it, Mackenzie disagrees,) who had tried to " jnggle " with two different copies of an Act of Oblivion, and with the Act of Billeting, or Ostracism. This, said Lauderdale, is a mode of secret voting only heard of among the Athenians, " who were governed by that cursed Sovereign Lord, the People!' Mackenzie was right in admiring the tact and logic of " Lauderdale's masterpiece." Middleton's speech was much longer, and was able enough, but "full of palpable falsehoods," says Mr. Airy. From the constant citations of precedents, of Roman legists, of passages in Scottish history, and from the style, I am tempted to think that Mackenzie himself had a hand in its composition, though Tarbat also was skilled in law. But the king was justly dissatisfied : recalled Middleton's com- mission, took from him the all-important command of Edinburgh Castle, and gave it to Lauderdale. In this affair Lauderdale had made great use of the Earl of Rothes, son of him who had at first been the great leader of the Covenant. Rothes was young, almost un- educated, as was said, and in addition to his natural wit, applauded by Mackenzie, he possessed a strength of head which enabled him to see one set of boon companions under the table, and then renew the bacchanalian conflict with fresh combatants. He was so profligate that he carried with him a young lady of good family, dressed as a page, when he rode about the country. His face, as shown in 72 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE an admirable miniature, is that of a very dark man, with an evil glance, much like Charles II., and bloated with high living. A great favourite of Charles, Rothes increased his hold on the king, says Mackenzie, by arranging that his wealthy niece, the Duchess of Buccleuch, should marry Charles's favourite bastard, James, Duke of Monmouth. Both were very young, and Monmouth's heart was given to Lady Henrietta Wentworth. Charles now made Rothes Com- missioner, and Parliament condemned themselves for their Billeting Act. Mackenzie makes it evident that his own sympathies are with his cousin, Tarbat, who, he thinks, did not juggle with and deceive both Parliament and the king. Lauderdale would have proceeded further against Tarbat, but he had something " up his sleeve." He possessed old letters written, in 1647, t>y Lauderdale, "wherein he persuaded them" (the Scots) "to deliver up King Charles I., with many severe reflections upon the King's person." Lauderdale, being informed that Tarbat would produce these letters, wisely ceased to assail him. So Mackenzie says, but from the Lauderdale papers it seems that the compromising letters were copies, not originals. ^ A gap in the manuscript of Mackenzie's Memoirs occurs at the end of the Parliament of 1663, and the narrative is not resumed till 1669. It ceases after the statement that the fanatic Covenanter, Johnstone of Waristoun, (executed on July 22, 1663) "had been a man of \eminent parts and more eminent devotion\" These words are a late addition to the MS. and appear to indicate an appreciation of Waristoun's furious superstition which is surprising in Mackenzie. The sentence goes on, " But his natural choler being kindled by his zeal had been fatal, first to this kingdom, and then to himself." The nature of Mackenzie's Memoirs continues to puzzle their readers. Can they have been shown, as we have them, ^ Compare Memoirs, pp. 49, 131. On p. 49, Middleton possesses the letters. In any case Tarbat was consigned to private life till 167S. MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 73 to L;iudcrchilc, as shown some History certainly was ? How are we to understand the apparent tenderness for Middleton, Tarbat, and the extreme Episcopal party, in combination with the admiration of Waristoun's "eminent devotion," and the disapproval of the measures against Presbyterian ministers ? Once more, the career of Rothes, when he was at once High Commissioner, High Chancellor, Lord President of his Majesty's Exchequer and Council, and Commander-in- Chief in Scotland, was notoriously reckless and oppressive. Between 1663 and 1667, Scotland was governed by Rothes through the bishops, who re-established a Court of High Commission to detect and punish nonconformity, and by the army. The Remonstrant counties of the west and south-west, Dumfries and Galloway, with the shires of Lanark, Ayr, and Renfrew became ripe for rebellion, vexed as the gentry and peasantry were by fines, and by the military license of the few men commanded by Sir James Turner, a gallant and learned soldier, and most amusing writer, who lent some traits to the picture of Dugald Dalgetty. Sir James, to judge by his diverting Memoirs, was a man of a tender heart, but he admits that "drink brought me into many incon- veniences." Though he undeniably acted more gently than his orders commanded him to do, when in liquor he was furious, and his men, in his absence, were extortionate and cruel. Yet, while Rothes accumulated offices in an unprece- dented way, (the death of Glencairn had left the Chancellor- ship vacant,) Mackenzie dedicated to him his essay, " Moral Gallantry," proving that "The Point of Honour, abstracting from all other ties, obliges men to be Virtuous, and that there is nothing so Mean, or unworthy of a Gentleman, as Vice." The vices of Rothes may not yet have come into perfect flower, but the dedication would seem ironical, if Mackenzie did not say, " My obligations to you are such as may excuse real passion in a Stoic, and seeming flatteries in a Philosopher." 74 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE What can these obHgations have been ? Perhaps the honour of knighthood was among them. " No paper, nor anything else except the heart which sends you this, is capable to contain or express that kind- ness it feels for you." These are Mackenzie's "last words," as a Moral Essayist, " I confine my thoughts for the future to my ordinary employment." ^ We can date this effu- sion, by aid of the following letter of Mackenzie to John Evelyn : — Edinburgh, February 4, 1666-7. Sir, — I have written two letters which, with my last moral discourses, now lie before me because I want your address. This I have at last ventured upon, which will assure you of a friendship as zealous, though not so advan- tageous as you deserve ; as a testimony of which, receive this inclosed poem written by me, not out of love of poetry, or of gallantry, but to essay if I might reveal my curiosity that way. I could wish to know the censure of Sir William Davenant or Mr. Waller upon it ; and in order to this, I beg that you will present this letter and it to Sir William, and if he pleases it, to give copies of it, or use it as you please. I wish he sent me an account of its errors, and as a penance I promise not to vomit any new one. I had sought my security in no other approbation than your own, if your friendship for me had not rendered you suspect. Dear sir, pardon this imprudence in Your most humble servant, Geo. Mackenzie. The "last moral discourses" are "Moral Gallantry" with others. The poem on which the author wants the opinions of Waller and Davenant is unknown. However, we find Mackenzie deeply obliged to Rothes, and perhaps, attempt- ing to win him to virtue as the only course for a gentle- man, in 1666, the year when the misgovernment of Rothes produced the Pentland Rising. Here is an unexplained ' Mackenzie, Works, vol. i. pp. c.9, 100. MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 75 departure from the tone of the dedication to the disj^raced Crawford, in 1665. England was at war with Holland, and in June 16O5, after a naval battle with the Dutch, Government treated several of the leading western gentry as the Government of Anne and George I. treated the Jacobites in troubled times, locked them up to keep them out of mischief. Con- venticles continued to be held, and the Covenanting chiefs not in durance turned for aid to Holland, just as the Jacobites, later, turned to France. From Neuport (August 5, 1666) some one writes to Lauderdale that there is talk of a Dutch landing in Ireland or Scotland, "hoping in God that your Lordship tell His Majesty, that our gates and frontiers be provided, that our poor country be not a prey, and the seat of war." From Antwerp came news that de Witt " makes the people believe he has Scotland with all the Scots in Ireland at his de- votion for driving Charles Stuart out of his dominions." ^ Possibly Government knew that the Covenanters, acting through violent exiled preachers like Mr. MacWard, resident in Holland, had laid a plot, in July 1666, to seize the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dunbarton. The States-General (July 15) in a secret resolution say that the "friends of religion " in Scotland have announced to them their inten- tion of seizing fortresses. As soon as they have succeeded, the States will send them 3000 muskets, 1000 matchlocks, 1500 pikes, swords, and ten field-pieces, with 2000 brace of pistols, 1000 carabines, and 150,000 gulden in money. MacWard writes to another preacher. Brown, about this transaction, in September and October, 1666.- In the camps of rebels, Jacobite or godly, there are usually traitors ; Government perhaps knew about the doings of "the friends of religion" and the Dutch, so when the Pentland Rising began on November 13. 1666, Government supposed that "the turtle had popped its head out of the ^ Information from letters from Holland printed hy Mr. W. del Court. * M'Crie. Frum MacWard MSS. in the Advocates' Library. Life of Veitch, PP- 363. 378. 379- 76 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE shell." In fact the rising began in the remote clachan of St. John's town of Dairy, in the Glenkens, (at a field con- venticle, Mackenzie says,) and was not premeditated. The country people, according to most versions, rose against the cruelty of three or four soldiers ; country gentlemen like young Maxwell of Monreith, and preachers like the Rev. James Mitchell, (who later shot at Sharp,) Mr. Veitch, (who later perhaps knew more than befitted a clergyman about the Rye-House Murder plot,) and others flocked to their standard. They went to Dumfries and caught Sir James Turner. They walked about the country, getting very wet and renewing the Covenant ; they approached Edinburgh, where they received no assistance ; and on November 28, tired and discouraged, they were driven to all the winds by Dalziel of Binns, at Rullion Green. Fifteen preachers were denounced as traitors in connection with this raid, and some eighty prisoners were put in gaol in Edinburgh. It was urged in their favour that they had received quarter, at least in many cases, from commissioned officers. Not much had the plea of quarter availed to screen captured cavaliers : after Philiphaugh, in 1645, the Covenanters exe- cuted gentlemen taken under promise of quarter. The pre- cedent was awkward for Captain Arnot and other prisoners of Rullion Green, who were tried before one of the Judges, and a Justice Depute on December 4, 1666. The Privy Council allowed them, as Counsel, Sir George Lockhart, an eminent advocate, and Sir George Mackenzie, already knighted, with two others. To the lay mind it may seem that quarter given to rebels, guilty of high treason, on the field of battle, merely means sparing their lives, and letting them have their chance with the law. Mackenzie argued that in war, civil or international, every soldier has a right to give quarter, and that the quarter remains valid, seeing that, but for this promise of life, as it were, men, being desperate, might fight to the death, and do incalculable injury to the Royal forces. Quarter, in fact, is regarded by lawyers as a transaction (so Grotius. Claudius de Cotte, Paris de Puteo). The king's forces with Glencairn in the MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 77 hills, (1653-55) '^"d Cromwell's English forces acted on this principle, when the English were rebels. "Wilt thou take the life of those whom thou hast taken by thy bow and sword ? " asked Mackenzie. The judges took the view that, quarter or no quarter, none can remit treason but the king, and the prisoners were hanged. The same principle appears to have been applied to some prisoners of war in 1745, by the English Government. Mackenzie had not a likely cause to plead, on this occasion. A consequence of the Pentland Rising, and perhaps of the Covenanting intrigues with Holland, was the use of torture to extract evidence from two of the prisoners, the Rev. Hugh Mackail and Neilson of Corsack. For perhaps thirty years judicial torture had been in desuetude, but henceforward it again became familiar.^ The extreme scarcity of Mackenzie's private letters, and the deplorable loss of his Memoirs for 1 663-1 669, make it impossible to follow his career during these years. He had a low opinion of their literature. " It hath been well observed, that it would seem now, that none but mad men write or censure " (criticise). These words occur in his preface to Pleadings before the Supreme Courts of Scotland ^ published in 1672. He may have been thinking of fiery Covenanting books like Naphtali 2ind fus Populi Vindicatuin ; at all events the age was not propitious to literature. It has been "kind to his own writings," he says, "beyond his merit and expectation." Of Mackenzie's private life, at any time, very little is known. A single brief letter lights up a melancholy moment. He married, as we saw, in 1662, and by his first wife he had three sons and two daughters. These must have been born years before 1670, when he was married again, to Margaret Haliburton, daughter of Haliburton of Pitcur, whose brother fell at the battle of Killiecrankie. From the births of five children by the first wife, in less than eight years, she must ^ The author of the notice of Mackenzie in the Dictionary of National Biop-aphy , has made him •' chiefly responsible for the introduction of torture." It is easy to disprove this. 78 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE have died not later than 1 667-1 668, and, if there were three sons, two of them must also have died. These were heavy sorrows, and it was probably in 1668 (?) that he wrote as follows to his friend, Sir Peter Wedderburn of Gosforth. The note was obviously written in the sorrow of bereavement, and in bad health, while contemplating the difftcult journey into Ross-shire. " I am now forced to go north, though somewhat tender, and if anythings ails me, I hope you will look to the little children. I have left a disposition of my estate to the boy, and failing him to the elder lass, and failing her, to the other, and an exact account of my effects. Your Lordship may call for them from Colin " (his brother). " Think me not apprehensive but cautious in this, for truly I fear not death now in the least. My thoughts are, God be praised, very much of my Maker, and I live as much out of duty as inclination." ^ Was this the period when, according to Mr. Cargill, Mac- kenzie " began a profession of godliness " ? Mackenzie must have been rising in his profession. In 1665, he was chosen as Advocate for the town of Dundee, his retaining fee being the moderate sum of £^6 (Scots). It is to be hoped that he received "refreshers" when he spoke in the cause of the good town. What follows is, to some extent, conjectural, but it is possible that, probably towards the end of 1668, Mackenzie had begun to think of a consoler in his bereavement. He writes to John Evelyn, dating " Edinburgh 1668," to the following effect : — I did. Sir, in my greener years believe that our lofty and more wingy thoughts could not be forced into rhymes or submit to the rules of poetry. But I attribute this partly to the rudeness of my ear, which the storminess of the place where I live fashioned from my infancy to take notice of no sound less loud than winds or thunder, and thus I undervalued poetry as soldiers accustomed to the noise of drum and cannon contemn the softer airs of the viol or lute. 1 T/ie IVedderbiirn Book, i. p. 138. Mr. Wedderburn quotes from a published text of this letter ; once the MS. was at Pitfirrane. Lady Halket kindly informs me that none of Mackenzie's letters are now in the papers at Pitfirrane. MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 79 But being at last released from this error, I resolved to choose for my essay a theme which (like her for whom the poem was intended) would not look ill in any dress, and in which my duty might excuse my want of wit. This poem being the first fruits of my muse, I have sent to you as to whom it was due, being Apollo's high priest. Your eyes can ripen everything they see, and if there be any lameness in its feet, your touch can miraculously cure it. Your approbation is a sanctuary unto which if these lines can once get they will be secure, nor dare the avenger follow them ; and your bays are branches enough to secure them against the heats of envy, though they need, I fear, more the pity than the rage of more exalted heads. I desire rather your assistance than your censure, and I fear as much the one, as they need the other. Pardon the rudeness of this address from Your humble servant, Geo. Mackenzie. P.S. — If you favour me with a return, direct it to Sir Geo. Mackenzie, Advocate, in Edinburgh. The poem to which Mackenzie refers as "intended for" a lady " who would not look ill in any dress," is probably "Caelia's Country House and Closet." His Muse is that, for the moment, of friendship : " Friendship ! that wiser rival of vain Love Which does more firm, but not so fiery prove." He can raise his thoughts in the direction of the Sublime, he says, " but cannot raise my Theme, There's too much merit in her charming name " ! He describes the avenues of elms, and the tranquil lake beside Caelia's home, a lake where, if the swan does not " float double, swan and shadow," " The birds at once here and above do fly." "But when those waters show their Lady's face The world can boast of no such picture-case." 8o SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE j The country, (with Caelia,) is preferred to scenes of ambi- tion, " What courts, what camps, what triumphs may one find ^ Displayed in Caelia when she will be kind ! " Leaving wood and lake the poet reaches the gate, which was adorned by a statue of Caelia's father, who was not a lawyer, but a military man. The garden boasts images of Nereids, and " an artificial rock," and fountains. " O happy country life, pure like its air, Free from the rage of pride, the pangs of care ! Yet all these country pleasures, without love Would but a dull and tedious prison prove." The poet next invades the gallery, wherein are sacred pictures and portraits. Among these we remark Charles I., " His life was the best law a king could make. Much liberty he gave, but none did take : Above all martyrs in this magnified. They for religion, but it with him died." The ideas of The Religious Stoic are repeated in verse, " Fretted religion sickens into zeal, That holy fever of the Commonweal. By this sweet name fierce men their rage baptize, And not to God but Moloch sacrifice." After describing busts of Roman heroes, the poet comes to Jl a modern fit for Plutarch's pen, " Montrose, his country's glory and its shame, Caesar in all things equall'd, but his fame. His heart, though not his country, was as great As his, and fell yet by a nobler fate." From these lines we gather, at least, that Mackenzie appre- ciated the greatest character of his age. Caelia's books are next celebrated : they are the poems MACKENZIE'S HISTORY, POLITICS, POEMS 8i of Tasso, Cowley " whose nultiiij^ works .ire new," Denham, Waller, " (oiliiiLj Johnson " (Hen), "easy Fletcher," " And Donne, into whose mysteries few pry," but Shakespeare is strangely absent. The lines give iis some idea of Mackenzie's tastes, and are on the level of contem- porary amateur verse. In the course of 1669, Mackenzie was consoled, and was wooing a daughter of Halyburton of Pitcur, whom he married on January 14, 1670. Of this lady we know little, but con- cerning her the following story is told. Mackenzie's country house, within reach of Edinburgh, was Shank, which " is said to have stood on Shankpoint, a beautifully wooded promontory in the grounds of Arniston, formed by the confluence of the Gore water and the Esk." ^ Very earlv one morning, Lord Tweeddale rode to Shank, to consult Mackenzie on legal business of importance. He was ushered into the lawyer's bedroom, and found him in a fourpost bed, with the curtains drawn. From behind the curtains Mackenzie's voice delivered all his lore, and Lord Tweeddale approached the couch with his fee, when a lady's hand slipped forth, and took possession of the gold. Lady Mackenzie appears to have taken charge of her lord's finances. In Edinburgh, at this time, Mackenzie occupied the old towai-house of the Abbots of Melrose, on the south side of the High Street, in the alley now called Strichen's Close from a later judge. Lord Strichen. The house had a garden w^hich ran down to the Cowgate. In 1847 there was a small quadrangle, and the gable was surmounted by a curiously carved fleur-de-lys, while the gutter of the roof ended in a grotesque gargoyle of the period of the Abbots. Mackenzie's estate of Shank, not far from the town, and his other property, Haughead, then produced a rental of less than ;^ioo.- The lands of Rosehaugh came into his possession in 1668, 1669; he was generally known by the ^ Journal of Jurisprudence, ix. 194, note. * Barty, pp. 70-72. F 82 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE territorial title of " Rosehaugh," in the county for which he sat in Parliament, in 1669, and later. His most im- portant estates were in Perth and Angus. They had been the personal property of Robert Bruce, and were conveyed by him to an Oliphant.^ ^ Barty, in Mackenzie- IVkarndiffe Deeds. f the Articles — Speaks against haste as to the Union — Act of Supremacy — Both religions coerced — Mackenzie on the preachers — Sons of ser- vants and farmers — Mackenzie on Leighton— On Presbyterian insolen- cies — Opposes Militia Bill — Anger of Lauderdale— Opposes Salt Tax — Opposes forfeitures of rebels in absence — Lauderdale illegally re- stores Argyll to his estates— Parliament of 1670 — Armed conventicles — Mackenzie opposes compulsory evidence on oath — Outrages by Presbyterians — Burnet's evidence— " Clanking Act" — Lauderdale and Lady Margaret Kennedy — Lauderdale's second marriage — Rapacity of his wife — Mackenzie opposes new taxation — Civic jobbery of Lauder- dale in Edinburgh — Provost Ramsay's corruption— Mackenzie defends the town- — Called a John of Leyden by Lockhart — Fountainhall's defence of the Pro\ost — A litres 'Iciitps^ aiitrcs Mcviirs. Mackkxzie tirst entered public life as member for the county in which his clan was predominant, the shire of Ross, in 1669. His Parliamentary career, while in opposition, is perhaps the least interesting and characteristic period of his life. He is no longer the gay philosopher and stylist ; no longer the poet ; and he is not yet the picturesque persecutor, still less the mournful Jacobite and premature Socialist. In him we see a familiar figure ; the earnest young Liberal member of Parliament, whose mind is full of "the House," of divisions and debates about questions settled long ago. 83 84 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE To understand the proceedings of this Parliament, the first since 1663, it is necessary to look back at the events which followed the defeat of the western rebels at Rullion Green in 1660. The prisoners of the Pentland Rising, according to Burnet, " might all have saved their lives if they would have re- nounced the Covenant," but they refused, and rejoiced in their sufferings. We cannot but respect their ill-guided consciences, but their consciences, and those of the fiery exiles, like MacWard of the Dutch plot, still kept the country disturbed. The bishops were more than ever loathed. Gilbert Burnet accuses his namesake, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Wodrow and popular rumour accused Sharp, of keeping back a Royal letter that ordered the cessation of executions. Burnet, if any one, was the offender. Popular passion was stirred, Government was in the mood to make concessions. Sharp was " snibbed," reduced to abject submission, and Sir Robert Murray came down from London in 1667, to see that " things were managed with more temper." Rothes ceased to be Commissioner, Commander- in-Chief, and Treasurer, becoming Chancellor, while Lauder- dale, at Court, was more powerful and inclined for peace in the country. Murray cried " peace, peace," where there was no peace, for the curates in the west were attacked and robbed by the godly. Sir James Turner was deprived of his command, but attempts at lenity were met by fresh outrages from the blades of the Covenant, whose consciences permitted them to "rabble" conformist ministers but not to arraign them before their bishops for their misdeeds. The king was anxious to be tolerant, all the more as he was trying to be secretly re- conciled to Rome, and desired to protect Catholics, who, like Quakers, were persecuted by all parties. They had no right to own consciences ! Leighton attempted to reduce episcopal powers to the shadow of a name, but the preachers cried " taste not, touch not, handle not." MacWard, safe in Holland, persuaded the preachers not even to sign a bond " to keep the peace." MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 85 There \v;is :in /;/i/>(issi-, :i deiidlock. There could be notiiin;^ else. No concessions short of restoriiiLj Presbytery and the Covenants would satisfy, and the Government knew what such a concession meant. Orderly firm repression was im- possible, without police, without a standinj^ army, and, above all, without ready-money and supplies for the troops. The few regiments that the king had in Scotland were on the point of mutiny for their pay.^ The method of free quarters inevitably led to abuses and increased discontent. Govern- ment wavered between "Indulgences" — which divided the brethren among themselves, but were followed by an increase of conventicles — and the infliction of penalties too severe to be executed save in a spasmodic fashion. Leighton, in an undated letter, justly says that the mischief arose in bereav- ing a large district of its clergy at a stroke, in 1662-1663, "and then stocking again that desert we had made with a great many owls and satyrs" (the "curates"). "We have still been tossed betwixt the opposite extremes of too great rigour and too great relaxations and indulgences ; well made laws too severe to be executed and, for a counterpoise to have executed almost none of them, except by exorbitant fits and starts that by their extremity made all men sure of their short continuance." - An Indulgence was to have been proclaimed in 1668, when James Mitchell, one of the preachers implicated in the Pentland Rising, carried out a favourite tenet of John Knox. Having "a call," and being armed with two pistols of large bore, he fired at Sharp, in his coach in the Blackfriars Wvnd, and shattered the arm of the Bishop of Orkney (July 1668). Mitchell fled to a house, changed his clothes, borrowed a perruque, and walked away to a safe hiding-place. In face of this outrage the scheme of " Indulgence," of filling vacant pulpits with tame Presbyterian preachers, was postponed. In 1669 it was put into practice, forty-two tame preachers were planted in parishes, under various hampering restric- tions. The precise parishioners avoided, condemned, and ^ Haiiukon to Lauderdale, Nov, 14, 1670, //isi. MSS. Com., XL, 6, p. 140. * /did., p. 149. 86 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE deserted them. The indulged preachers then took to evading the restrictions, but Indulgences, renewed at intervals, broke the Kirk into two irreconcilable factions, weakened her, and ended by leaving a wild " Remnant" alone true to the ancient clerical pretensions. In 1669 a fanatical manifesto w^as issued, /«j Populi Vindi- catum, by James Stewart, then a fierce Presbyterian, later an extremely shifty politician. Stewart fled to Holland, leaving his mine to explode behind him. His book, says Mackenzie, "had made the killing of all deserters from Presbytery seem not only lawful, but even duty, amongst many of that pro- fession, and, in a postscript to Jus Populi it was told that the sending the Archbishop of St. Andrews's head to the king would be the best present that could be made to Jesus Christ." This is not strictly correct, but Jiis Populi did ask Charles to hang all the bishops, and all his ministers who aided and abetted them, to renew the Covenant, and to unite England and Scotland by forcing Presbytery on England. The fanatics were as eager as ever to renew the Civil War. As every one is not familiar with Jus Popjili it may be convenient to quote the frantic words of a writer who, after being the closest associate of King James's w^orst minister, Melfort, later became King's Advocate of William III. " Let his Majesty . . . execute justice on the Apostate Prelates, by hanging them up before the Sun . . . and on all others who have been authors and abettors of this horrible course of defection, and unparallelable apostasy, which makes these lands an hissing and a byword to all nations ; and let him honestly and with an upright heart prosecute the end of these holy Covenants, and zvith that Godly King enter into a Covenant, that whosoever will not seek the Lord God oj Israel shall be put to death, whether small or great, whether Man or woman." ^ This appears to mean that every one who does not take the Covenants " shall be put to death." The fanaticism of these people had to be suppressed. Sharp was adjured to * Jus Populi Vindicaiuiii, pp. 376, 377 (1669). MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 87 send his own he.id " ;is a propiiic, in a silver box, to his Majesty," ^ and assassination was advocated, under a cloud of words and quibbles. In Jus Populi Vindicatum, the author accepts Knox's arguments in favour of such "executing of judgements" as Phinehas, that favourite model, practised. Lethington, in controversy with Knox, had said that, " the fact was extra- ordinary, and not to be imitated." Knox replied, " I say that it had the ground of God's ordinary judgement, which commandeth the idolator to die the death ; and therefore I yet again afifirm, that it is to be imitated of all these that prefer the true honour of the true worship and glory of God, to the affection of flesh and wicked princes." Lethington answered that " we are not to follow extraordinary examples unless we have the same warrant and assurance." Knox replied that it would not do to rob because the Israelites robbed the Egyptians, for theft is contrary to the Decalogue. " But where the example agrees wuth the Law, and is, as it were, the execution of God's judgement, expressed within the same, I say that the example approved of God stands to us in place of a commandment." "- The author of Jus Populi Vindicatum accepts Knox's position, overlooking Knox's repudiation of it, when to repudiate it was useful. He says, " Sure I am this fact of Phinehas was according to the Law, and to the express mind of God, and why then might it not be imitated in the like case ? What warrant, command, or commission had Phinehas which none now can expect ? " It is not proved that no man can now have such a " call " as that of Phinehas. The author would not say that the example of Phinehas is "a binding precedent in all times to all persons, unless it be every way so circumstantiated as it was then." ^ ^ Jus Populi Vindicatum, p. 572. * Ibid., p. 418, citing Knox ; History of the Reformation, p. 390, folio edition. In my Knox and the Reformation, I dwelt on Knox's occasional encouragement of assassination, his anarchism ; and a Scottish Professor of Church History denied that Knox promulgated such views. I give my authorities for the fnct in Appendix B. ' ftis Populi Vindicatum, pp. 418-426. 88 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE In effect, the fanatic who thinks he has the "call" to murder constitutes himself judge of the case and the cir- cumstances. Mitchell did so, so did the later murderers of Sharp, and of other persons. However much the writers of books like this work of 1669 might shift and wriggle, Knox spoke plainly enough in his discussion with Lethington, to the encouragement of fanatics. We now understand part of Knox's legacy to Scotland, and perceive the difficulties which would have beset a much better ruler than Lauderdale, in conducting a much more sagacious policy than that of " the king's buffoon " ever was. On one side the statesman had to do with the exiles in Holland and their adherents at home, zealous even unto slaying for the Covenants. On the other side were the Presbyterians who were ready to accept the Indulgence, and to wait peaceably for better times. To restore Presbytery fully and freely, yet without the Covenants, which could be renewed without civil war, was to leave the fanatics and the milder party engaged in a death struggle, while the con- formists, deserted, would have been at the mercy of the extremists. The Church party in England, against whom Charles II. was powerless, would have interfered, and a chaos at least as bad as the actual misery of Scotland would have reigned. At no time did Mackenzie lean to the side of the fanatics. We now arrive at the autumn of 1669, a critical moment, for a Parliament began to sit, with Lauderdale as Com- missioner representing the king. Here commences the political career of Mackenzie. A few preliminary remarks may make the conditions of politics and of parties in- telligible. The Members of Parliament, the Spiritual Estate, six prelates, the " Lords of Parliament," from dukes to the barons (sixty-five), the members for shires (fifty-six), and the sixty members for boroughs, sat all in one room, dis- tinguished only by their appointed seats, while members of both parties, (as far as there were any party divisions,) crowded together without distinction. A division of party could not yet be said to exist ; there MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 89 was no Parliamentary "party" worth mcntionin;^ till 1673. Lauderdale, as Commissioner, ruled everything' after his own pleasure, the House was merely " obsequious." Business was done, in the old Scottish manner, by the Lords of the Articles, a Committee of eight members from each of the Estates. The Articles were " packed," and produced such Acts as suited Lauderdale, while the House accepted these without much debate. Yet the House contained many men adverse to Lauder- dale, in Church policy, (though on this they were usually mute,) and in regard to Lauderdale's inveterate jobbery. The chief of the nascent party of resistance to Lauderdale was the third Duke of Hamilton. This peer was a Douglas, eldest son of the first Marquis of Douglas by his second wife. In 1646, Charles I. created him Earl of Selkirk. In 1656 he, being still a very young man, married Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, eldest daughter of James, first duke. He had been out with Lome, Glencairn, and the last of the loyal, against Cromwell, in 1654. In 1660, Charles II. made him Duke of Hamilton for life. His main object was to obtain, as he did in 1673, the arrears of the debts of Charles I. to his wife's father. But from the first (1663), Hamilton lay under suspicion of " not being forward in Church business, as Lauderdale told him." ^ He held large lands in the districts abandoned to the practice of field conventicles, and his letters show a reluctant obedience to the drastic rules imposed on his tenants. His real sympathies were with them, and his wife was sincerely Presbyterian, not from any speculative ideas about the scriptural warrant of either form of Church Government, but because the Presbyterian ministers were better men and better preachers than the conformist curates. If we read Presbyterian Eloquence, and the retort by Williani Laick, and believe both books, we must suppose that the sermons of both parties were inconceivably grotesque, while many of the curates, as Leighton said, were " satyrs " of the worst description. Their amorous exploits are incredibly 1 Hamilton Papers, Hist. MSS. Com., XL, 6, p. 139. 90 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE lewd, and remind us of those attributed to the monks by Boccaccio, and in the mediaeval fabliaux. Between the influence of his wife and his sympathy with his tenants, Hamilton was certainly " not forward in Church business," indeed, in Parliament, the Presbyterian cause was not supported ; Lauderdale's political profligacy and personal tyranny came to be the objects of attack. With him, later, was William, third Earl of Queensberry, also a Douglas, who, after the fall of Lauderdale, and in the years 1682-1686, was to be powerful in the Govern- ment, and a persecutor. But, for several years, the Earl of Perth, and his brother, John Drummond of Lundin, were mainly of the Hamilton party, while Argyll stood by Lauderdale who had rescued him, after the death of his father, the Marquis, from a perilous situation, and, in December, despite the clamour of his countless creditors, had him restored to his estates, and backed him in his main desire, the conquest of Mull and Morvern, the terri- tory of the Macleans. In these days Argyll was nothing less than a "phanatick," but was bent on retrieving his family's fortunes, extending their domination and estates, and avoiding his creditors. The earls, as a rule, were of the Cavalier party, as were the members for shires, on the whole. Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree much later appeared as an actual conspirator against Government, while Mackenzie himself was foremost in opposition to Lauderdale, till 1675. Of the earls, Kincardine, a man much esteemed, stood by Lauderdale while he could, but was to join Hamilton after a private quarrel with the burly and bullying dictator. Mackenzie must not be regarded as an eager sym- pathiser, in 1670, with the oppressed Presbyterians. If ever he "made profession of godliness," as Mr. Cargill declared when excommunicating him, his godliness was a matter of his private religion, and he was revolted by the tenets of the left wing of the Covenanters. Lauderdale, as Commissioner in 1669, had instructions (i) to propose union with England, (2) the Royal Supre- MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 91 macy over the Church, (3) the estabHshment of a Militia, (4) the consideration of the Forfeitures, (5) and measures of ConciUation. In his Memoirs, Mackenzie treats, first, of the Union. Men of intelhgence could not beUeve that it was really desired either by the king or the statesmen. As matters stood, Charles could play ofT one kingdom against another ; and, indeed, the constant policy of Lauderdale had been, from the first, to raise an armed force in Scotland by which the king might coerce the English Parliament. His one idea was to establish Charles's absolute power, and to raise himself on that foundation. To merge Scotland into one kingdom with England was, for Charles, to lose his strongest base of power. Lauderdale, again, had of all men most to lose if Scotland and England became one nation, " because his absoluteness over Scotland would cease," the English would have control over him. This is so true that Lauderdale in a private letter confessed his aversion to Union ; he only worked for it in obedience to the Royal command. Meanwhile the people of Scotland, as in 1706, suspected that the nobles were bribed to consent, and were patriotically averse to the proposal of Union. Describing the opening of Parliament, Mackenzie speaks of the Lords of the Articles as " a grievance with us " ; 1 the time came when he regarded " the Articles " as the very foundation of Prerogative, and valued them in proportion, even after the Revolution of 1688. Parliament, though entirely puzzled by the proposal of Union, instantly pro- duced an obsequious and hasty letter of acceptance. Mackenzie rose, and, in his maiden speech, asked for the decency of delay and mature consideration. He was seconded by Sir George Gordon of Haddo, who, much later, was created Earl of Aberdeen. The delicate question of the Succession, (Charles being childless,) was raised, for " the lines of succession in Scotland and England were different, and would there divide" if the king died "without ^ Memoirs, ji. 142. 92 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE succession." Lauderdale "rose in a great passion," a spectacle to which Mackenzie became well accustomed, for, in 1669-1673, he was a leader of opposition, and in opposi- tion was sometimes alone. " How could any gentleman be so bold as to inquire into the succession, upon a supposition that his Majesty and all the present line should fail ? " A lawyer like Mackenzie, accustomed to deal with " tailzies," entails and the accidents incident to them, could not but observe the difficulty which failure of succession must cause, if the countries were made one kingdom without reflection. Hamilton made excuses for the two lawyers, Mackenzie and Haddo. " In him this excuse was thought imprudence, because the doubt was started in his favour : the family of Hamilton pretending to be next to the Crown of Scotland, if the succession of king James should fail." Their claim went back to James II. of Scotland, and for many generations had ruled the policy of their House. Perhaps in 1669, though Hamilton did not head the Opposition till 1673, Mackenzie sided with him as the only possible opponent of Lauderdale, and his practical sovereignty. The letter of Parliament on the Union was read next day, (October 22) and Mackenzie again spoke. (He gives his account of those debates in his Memoirs.) He did not mean absolutely to gratify these popular delusions, *' against the Union, but he did desire mature consideration in so great an affair, that the English may be convinced that we are as jealous of our liberties as they could wish us." Their Parliaments " do not pass any Law till it be proposed and debated several days." Now, in Scotland, there had been almost no debate, the Lords of the Articles practically prepared the Bills which Parliament merely accepted. So much did Mackenzie's opinions alter, under the later stress of the life othcial, that, in 1689, we shall find him warning William III. against the desire of his first Scottish Parliament to suppress "the Articles" and have free debate. Mackenzie pointed out that Parliament was placing the selection of the negotiators of the Treaty of Union in the MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 93 hands of the kin^, (in 1706 the selection was j:fiven to Queen Anne,) and Scotland, by the ParHamentary letter, was "taking three steps before Enghind meet us in one." Debates and votes were necessary before taking each of these steps. " Let us remember that Nature hath bestowed ease and riches upon others, leaving us courage and honour, by which we made ourselves oft masters of the other two ; and when honour was in the field, our veins and purses were open upon all occasions ; and therefore though honour seems but a punctilio to others, let us be careful of it, as were our predecessors." The nomination of negotiators should be in the hands, not of the king, but of the House. He went into details, adding that, in the attempted Treaty of Union of 1604, Parliament named the Commissioners, and recommended, to James VI. and I., "the preservation of our liberties, laws, and privileges." The Parliament of 1669 should be as careful. He was saying that he hoped the House "will suffer this tediousness to pass as zeal," when Tweeddale cried that "such long discourses were intolerable," especially where " they were intended to persuade Parliruiient not to comply with his Majesty's desires." The Duke of Hamilton, among shouts of " Privilege," moved that Tweeddale should go to the Bar of the House, but Mackenzie urbanely said that "he had not been inter- rupted." In him we seem to see a vindicator of open Parha- mentary debate, and his speech was cautious in its language, as Lauderdale remarked with annoyance. He had given no handle to the Dictator. Charles presently dropped the scheme of Union, after the Commissioners for a treaty had met. Mackenzie's remarks on the plan, in a tract on the subject, balancing advantages and disadvantages, prove that he would have been, from patriotic motives, on the side of Lockhart of Carnwath and Fletcher of Saltoun, against the Union, had he lived to take part in the debates of 1706. As to Church matters, he observes that Lauderdale, an ex-Covenanter of 1 637-1 647, had been bred in aversion to 94 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Episcopacy, and that the Presbyterians, which is strangely true, were devoted to his interest even when he " seemed to persecute them." Lauderdale was not more ready to persecute Presbyterians than to " snib " bishops. Sharp, who had amazed mankind by saying, in the first sermon preached before this Parliament, that " there were three pretenders to supremacy, the Pope, the King, and the General Assembly," was coerced by the suspension of Archbishop Burnet of Glasgow. He and his clergy had lifted up their voices against the Indulgence, "nor was this paper less seditious than the Remonstrance, nor the Archbishop more innocent than Mr. James Guthrie," writes Mackenzie, " for both equally designed to bar the king from interposing any way in the affairs of the Church." ^ The Act of Supremacy was passed on November i6, and Mackenzie does not say that he made any opposition. The Act was so drastic that Wodrow " sees nothing to hinder the king, acting according to this power, from establishing a new religion, and palming a new Confession of Faith upon Scotland." James II. did not find that the Act availed him to that extent. But, says Mackenzie, " Most of the Lords of the Articles " (who were simply chosen from the list given by Lauderdale) " inclined to the motion, because by this all the Government of the Church would fall in the hands of laics, and especially of Councillors, of which number they were. And the nobility had been, in this and the former age, kept so far under the subjection of insolent Churchmen, that they were more willing to be subject to their Prince, than to any such low and mean persons as the clergy, which consisted now of the sons of their own servants and farmers." There were many exceptions to this rule among the Pres- byterian clergy, often cadets of very good old Houses, but the social standing of the curates was low indeed. Mackenzie's remarks on Bishop Leighton, who for some time took the place of Burnet at Glasgow, are worth quoting : — " It was easily found, that the Bishop of Dumblane was ' Memoirs, pp. 158, 159. MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 95 the most proper ;ind fit person to serve the st.'ite in the church, :iccordintf to tlie present platform of /government now resolv'd upon ; for lie was in much esteem, for his piety and moderation, amongst tlie people, and as to wliich, the Presbyterians themselves could neither reproach nor equal him ; albeit they hated him most of all his fraternity, in respect he drew many into a kindness for Episcopacy, by his exemplary life, rather than debates. His great principle was, that devotion was the great affair about which church- men should employ themselves ; and that the gaining of souls, and not the external government, was their proper task ; nor did he esteem it fit, and scarce lawful to churchmen, to sit in councils and judicatories, these being diversions from the main. And albeit his judgement did lead him to believe the Church of England the best modell'd of all others, both for doctrine and discipline, yet did he easily conform with the practice of the Christians amongst whom he liv'd, and therefore liv'd peaceably under Presbytery, till it was abolish'd : and when he undertook to be a Bishop himself, he oppos'd all violent courses, whereby men were forc'd to comply with the present worship, beyond their persuasions ; and he had granted a latitude and indulgence to those of his own diocese, before the King had allow'd any by his letter." How the popular Covenanting book Naphtali spoke of Leigh ton may be illustrated by an extract. Of this " angelic man," as Burnet calls him, it is written, " It is true indeed that. Mr. Leighton, prelate of Dunblane, under a Jesuitical vizard of pretended holiness, humility, and crucifixion to the world, hath studied to seem to creep upon the ground, but always up hill, toward promotion and more places of ease, honour, and wealth ; and as there is none of them all hath, with a kiss, so betrayed the cause, and smitten religion under the fifth rib, and hath been such an offence to the godly ; so there is none who by his way, practice, and expressions, giveth greater suspicion of a popish inclination, affection, and design." ^ ^ Naphtali, p. 301 (ed. 1667). 96 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE No sooner had Lauderdale discomfited bishops by the Act of Supremacy, than he consoled them by bestowing his attention on Presbyterian recalcitrants. Mackenzie writes, " Upon St. Andrews's day, he past two Acts in their (the Bishops') favours ; one to make the parishes liable for the in- solencies committed against ministers ; and another, contain- ing severe certifications against such as paid not Bishops' duties, and Ministers' stipends. The first of these Acts was enforc'd as necessary, because Ministers, to the great contempt of religion, had their houses robbed, and were nightly pursued for their lives, in all the western shires ; so that they were forc'd to keep guards, which exhausted their stipends, and abstracted themselves from their employments : and albeit those shires pretended that this was done by highway men, who showed their insolencies under the pretext of religion, calling them- selves Presbyterians, and enveighing against the poor Ministers whom they robb'd, in the language of that sect ; yet it was concluded, that these insolencies were committed by those of that persuasion, who were known to thhik that all injuries done to Episcopal Ministers, were so many acceptable services done to God : and it was most probable, that the same zeal which carried them on to plunder, imprison, and execute all such as differ'd from them, in the last rebellion, and to shoot at the Bishop of St. Andrews upon the street, might incite them to great outrages, when they were countenanc'd, as they thought, by authority, and under silence of night, when they might hope for impunity : nor was ever the West country known to be infected with robbers at other occasions, so that they were connivers at least in those crimes, and therefore de- serv'd to be fin'd upon such occasions." As to the outrages, Mackenzie's evidence is amply corroborated by Burnet. Lauderdale next introduced a scheme for " a constant militia " of 22,000 men. Already, on riding from the Border to Edinburgh, Lauderdale, as Mackenzie says, had reviewed the militia with satisfaction. As he wrote to the king he had seen five troops of horse, and six admirably drilled regiments of foot, " those you may depend on to be ready MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 97 to march when ;iik1 whither you please," that is, across the Border if the king needed them. Mackenzie says that the world quite understood the aim at a standing army, "to make Parliaments unnecessary." ^ But the miHtia did not prove useful against insurgent Covenanters. The Militia Act was opposed by Mackenzie, in a clause permitting the men to be quartered on "deficients" in tax-paying. He denounced quartering "as a word odious to the people," not foreseeing his own later use of the process. He also stood out against a tax on salt, which hampered the fishing trade of his constituents, till Lauderdale stood up in wrath and swore that " he would, by virtue of his Majesty's prerogative pepper the fishing" — give them pepper. "After a long and deep silence," Mackenzie rose, and spoke thus : — " He believed that prerogative granted to the King, of disposing upon our trade wath foreigners, would not authorise his Majestie's Officers of State, nor any else, to impose arbitrary customs ; the design of that Act being only, that his Majesty should, during the interval of Parliaments, regulate our trade with England, in order to the treaty of commerce which w^as to be settled betwixt us ; at least it could not warrant the taking away a privilege, granted to the fishers, in the same Parliament wherein this prerogative was granted : but without debating what his Grace might do in other cases, the Parliament would here desire the vote, whereby it would appear what was the opinion of the Parliament, who were his Majesty's great Council ; and if thereafter, his Majesty should think fit to burden trade, his subjects would succumb to all his royal commands." The votes were declared to be equal, twice, and Rothes, as Chancellor, gave his casting vote in favour of Lauderdale. In short, by constant opposition, notably in favour of free elections in the burghs, Mackenzie " made his Grace swear that he would have that factious young man removed from the Parliament," as not " a free Baron," not holding his lands direct from the Crown. But Primrose, the Register, pointed out "that this would make the people jealous of * Memoirs, p. 167. G 98 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE some close design to overturn their liberties, which, as they believed, that gentleman defended upon all occasions." It was next Mackenzie's business to oppose a motion for forfeiting rebels who did not appear when summoned to trial. They had been so forfeited, after the Pentland Rising, with the sanction of the judges. Mackenzie spoke against the desired Parliamentary sanction : it permitted witnesses to give evidence which they would not dare to utter if con- fronted with the accused. Many years later, when public prosecutor, he had unwelcome proof of the correctness of his argument. The Act, however, was passed. Passed, too, by Lauderdale's violence, without a vote, and in face of the opposition of the innumerable creditors of the Earl of Argyll, and of his debtors, clan Maclean, was an Act restoring Argyll to all the lands that his father had forfeited. The consequences, as we shall see, were the ruin of Argyll, in 1681. The Parliament in 1670 met on July 22. " The fanatics, encouraged by the Indulgence," had held many conventicles, especially a great armed conventicle at the Hill of Beith, in Fife, " being all armed," and insulting some of the Guards. Mackenzie says that Rothes exaggerated the facts, in letters to the king, in order to decry the Indulgence, and the Earl of Tweeddale, its author. The Church party in England blamed Lauderdale, who thereon passed Acts fining non-conformists, and making preaching at field conventicles a capital offence ; a law more severe in words than in fact, like the similar law inflicting death for the third hearing of Mass, passed by the Protestant Convention of 1560. Witnesses were obliged, under arbitrary punishment, to answer, on oath, all questions proposed by the Council. This measure was regarded by Mackenzie as " a new Inquisition," and illegal. Tweeddale thought it severe but necessary. Something was necessary. Burnet says in 1672, " Conventicles abounded in all places of the country. And some furious zealots broke into the houses of some of the ministers, wounding them and robbing their goods, forcing some of them to swear that they would never ofticiate any MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 99 more in their churches." Burnet visited some of these con- demned men in prison. One went further than John Knox, and justified himself by the lootintf of the Ej^yptians by the IsraeHtes.^ In 1673, on an unhickv day for himself, Burnet pubhshed his Vindication of the Church and State in Scotland. He was then a familiar of Lauderdale, whom he praises in fulsome wise in his Dedication. In his Vindication he says, " How many of the (conformist) ministers have been invaded in their houses, their houses rifled, their goods carried away, themselves cruelly beaten and wounded, and often made to swear to abandon their churches, and that they should not so much as complain of such bad usage to those in authority. . . . Their wives also were beaten and wounded by those accursed zealots, some of them being scarcely recovered out of their labour in child birth." A Presbyterian, in the dialogue, replies that " our honest ministers express their horror at such practices," to which it is answered that, notorious as the outrages are, and heavy as are the stolen articles, no evidence against the perpetrators can ever be extracted. The west, (as in "an island celebrated for its verdure and its wrongs,") was terrorised by village ruftians, whose pastors did not aid in detecting the authors of out- rages. Now' came a quarrel between Lauderdale and Tweeddale, and the rising influence over Lauderdale of the Countess of Dysart, whom he married six weeks after the death of his neglected wife (1671). The daughter of Will Murray, who had been whipping-boy to Charles I., and was behind all the darkest intrigues of the Civil War, the Countess was said to have sapped the rigid virtue of Oliver Cromwell ! She was regarded as unscrupulously avaricious, and driving Lauderdale on to greater excesses of tyranny. This marriage, according to Mackenzie, had strange consequences. " Lauderdale had, of a long time, entertain'd with Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter to the Earl of Cassillis, an intimacy which had grown great enough to become sus- * Burnet, i. p. 621 (1833). lOO SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE picious, in a person who lov'd not, as some said, his own Lady. This Lady had never married, and was always reputed a wit, and the great patron of the Presbyterians, in which persuasion she was very bigot ; and the suspicion increas'd much, upon her living in the Abbey, in which no woman else lodg'd ; nor did the Commissioner blush to go openly to her chamber, in his night-gown : whereupon her friends, having challeng'd her for that unusual commerce, and having represented to her the open reprehensions and railleries of the people, received no other answer, than that her virtue was above suspicion ; as really it was, she being a person whose religion exceeded as far her wit, as her parts exceeded others of her sex." The rest of the story, with its consequences, is to be given later. Lauderdale's brother, Charles Maitland of Haltoun, took Tweeddale's place with him, and Haltoun was as greedy and unscrupulous as the new duchess herself. She was forty-five years of age, but, says Mackenzie, " Her wit was not less charming than the beauty of other women, nor had the extraordinary beauty she possessed, whilst she was young, ceded to the age at which she was then arrived." Lauderdale was now created a duke by the king whose " creature " he professed himself to be, and he passed an Act making the ordaining of young ministers by deposed ministers, a capital offence. Such ordinations, as Mackenzie says, ad ministeriuni vagmn, were "against the Acts of their own AssembHes." Mackenzie appears to have sup- ported Lauderdale, for once, in his desire to abolish the Summer Session, through which "June and July, the only pleasant months, wherein gardens and land could be improved, were spent in the most unwholesome and un- pleasant town in Scotland." However, Lauderdale changed his mind, and the town was supposed to have bribed his duchess. But " after exact inquiry, I found these " (the charge that the change was proposed in order to exact bribes from the town) " to be mere calumnies." Mackenzie again showed his courage when Lauderdale MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT lox passionately declared that the member for Inverurie should be sent to prison, and to the Bar of the House, for sug- gesting that, as in England, members might make extra- parliamentary addresses to their constituents. Though Mackenzie and others "offered to appear for him," the member for Inverurie gave in his submission, "and was brought to the Bar and then to his knees, but without any vote of Parliament. . . . And here did many begin to repent their former pusillanimous compliance, and to accuse themselves of having betrayed the privileges of their native country." Backed by the advocates and the burghs, Mackenzie next spoke against burdening personal, as contrasted with real property, with taxation. He was outvoted, and again, when he resisted an Act regulating, and reducing, the fees of advocates. "At best the Act will but tie such as fear an oath, and enrich such as contemn it, and thus you will seem more careful of the people's money than of their souls." The advocates, on whom Lauderdale had imposed four ignorant judges, including Ramsay, Provost of Edin- burgh, turned to popular courses, and, in all societies, " most of them being idle, though men of excellent parts," criticised and ridiculed the Commissioner. Dalrymple of Stair, then Lord President, suffered from their tongues in Lauderdale's company. We have a letter of Mackenzie to Lauderdale dated Edinburgh, Oct. 15, 1672. At that time he was opposing the " obliging minister." The occasion of this letter of October 15, 1672, is stated in his Memoirs. The Provost of Edin- burgh, Sir Andrew Ramsay, was becoming, to all appearance, Provost for life. He had been elected ten times, and, by gaining i^io,ooo for Lauderdale in civic jobbery, was much in his favour, and led the votes for him in Parliament. Lauderdale procured for him an annuity of ;^200, and ^^4000 on his "comprising of the Bass, a rock barren and useless." In fact Lauderdale and Ramsay had established what the Americans, in the technical language of municipal corrup- tion, style "a graft." 502 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE The reader must remember that Mackenzie tells us all this in his History, and that, about 1680, he was polishing the style of his History, under Lauderdale's " superin- tendency." We cannot sufficiently admire his candour, and Lauderdale's good nature unless Mackenzie had begun a new History on very different lines, a work of which nothing has ever been heard. In " working the graft," Ramsay invented new patent places for his partisans, "applying the Common Good" (the municipal funds) "to himself and his friends." In 1672, he was opposed, two of his followers voted " non liquet," a case was put before the Chancellor and President, and it was decided that no man should be Provost for longer than two years in succession. P Ramsay wrote to Court that a riot had occurred during these proceedings, and the Pi ivy Council were commanded to inquire into the tumult and its authors. The Council examined witnesses, in the absence of the accused, which was illegal (except, apparently, in the case of attendants at preaching conventicles). There really was no riot, but some unusual proceedings by men in Ramsay's own livery ; and two bailies, who said that there was a riot, confessed that Ramsay had coerced them by threats. An important municipal politician, Rocheid, was judged without being heard : Ramsay was "so much dreaded that none dared oppose him," and under protection of Royal favour, was re-elected.^ So Mackenzie writes in his Memoirs of Scotland. To Lauder- dale, on the date already given, he writes as Advocate for the town : the letter is given in summary.^ Edinburgh, 15 Od. 1672. To THE Duke of Lauderdale. — The neighbours of the good town of Edinburgh would have presented the Duke with an earlier address, but their business was not ripe enough for so eminent a person : they would have pre- ' Mackenzie, Memoirs, pp. 246-250. - Add. A/SS., B.M. 32,094 {Malet Papers, f. 270). MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 103 sented a letter with many thousands of hands hut feared to seem "tumultuary." Therefore as Advocate, in their behalf he sends an account of their differences with Sir Andrew Ramsay with a tender of their respects. The town being desirous not to " jusle " with Sir Andrew Ramsay but finding his re-election would overturn their privileges, dealt with him to refuse the employment, on condition of securing to him all that had passed under his hands and continuing the clerkship to his son. On his refusal one of the number moderately and respectfully protested against his eligibility : even two of the voices numbered for him were only conditional : there was no tumult as represented. The people, who groaned under his perpetual dictatorship, by their looks expressed more sorrow than any one magistrate's interest is worth. He wonders how Ramsay can think it dishonourable to quit an employment which no subject can keep by law. Moreover, the Lords of Session are displeased at one of their members (Ramsay) being abstracted from the common service by extrinsic employments. The "factious" protest of which he com- plains that Mackenzie drew it up, is the foundation of a new "libell" before the lords, who finding anything cen- surable in it, he will forfeit his gown. The Chancellor found there was no tumult, and in Lauderdale's name promised the town a fair trial for their privileges. To pretend Sir Andrew is still a "marchand" is a cheating of the law. On behalf of his clients he begs that the Duke will inform himself through the Chancellor. It is clear that Mackenzie stood in no fear of Lauder- dale. His letter to that minister, who, for the purposes of the " graft " had made Ramsay a judge, a " Lord of Session," is in the same spirit as the passage in his His- tory (Memoirs). On February 3, 1673, Mackenzie pleaded for the town. Sir George Lockhart was counsel for Ramsay. Mackenzie argued that Ramsay, as a Lord of Session, and no merchant, ought to be declared incapable of being elected as Provost, for all time coming. He described Ramsay's conduct in the Town Council in words which 104 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE applied precisely to that of Lauderdale in Parliament. " He tyrannously threatened and abused, with most scandalous and opprobrious language," offering to imprison opponents without trial. Every listener must have noted and smiled at the parallel to Lauderdale. Just as Lauderdale made the untrained and ignorant Ramsay a judge, so Ramsay made his son, "a mere child. Town Clerk, and uplifted the profits." Sir George Lockhart, the greatest advocate of his day, in reply, likened Mackenzie to " a John of Leyden, a Masani- ello, an enraged Venner the cooper, and his Fifth Monarchy men." Sir George Mackenzie would "throw all into con- fusion, rebellion, and anarchy," and establish Annual Kings as in The Golden Bough ! "He threatened to reduce the world to a second Babel, if not to the first Chaos." The judges seem to have laughed, for Lockhart says, " I pray you to be serious in so important an affair." Fountainhall, then a junior at the Bar, later a judge, is wholly on Lockhart's side, against that " sneaking " anarchist, Mackenzie, and his riotous clients, who threaten to " de Witt " Ramsay, to tear him to pieces. Ramsay, in fact, is " a storehouse of virtuous actions." Among other good deeds, he obtained an annuity of ;^200 for the Provost ; — scarcely unselfish, as he meant to be Pro- vost for life. He did not succeed, for provosts, by Rothes's decision, were henceforth never to hold office for more than two years. An instructive thing to mark is this attitude of Fountain- hall, then Mr. John Lauder, of Fountainhall. He was an honest man, granting the state of society in which he lived. But he had married a daughter of this jobbing tyrannical Sir Andrew Ramsay, and he gives a flourishing report of his many virtues. His title as an amateur Lord of Session, or Judge, was Lord Abbotshall. Among the factions of Hamilton, Rothes, and Lauderdale, " Abbots- hall, who cotild make a very judicious choice, did strike in with Lauderdale, and upon his bottom reared up the fabric \ \\ of his ensuing greatness. For by his favour he was both MACKENZIE IN PARLIAMENT 105 maintained in the provostry of Edinburgh, ;incl :idv:inccd to the Session, Privy Council, and Exchequer." Foiuitain- hall regrets that, when Ramsay appointed iiis own son, a boy, to the town clerkship, "his death, some few years after, made the design of this profitable place abortive ! " He complains of the " envy and malice " of the citizens, when Lauderdale, through Ramsay, obtained "yearly, large donations and gratifications, besides they longed to have a share in the government of the town, which they saw monopolised by Sir Andrew and his creatures." Thus Sir Andrew, like Themistocles and Coriolanus, says the egregious Fountainhall, became the victim of popular in- gratitude.^ Such are the opinions of Fountainhall, the pink of respectability, and when Mackenzie, later, " made a very judicious choice," "struck in with Lauderdale," and "upon his bottom reared up the fabric of his greatness," he did a thing which we must regret and condemn, though, in the eyes of the contemporary moralist, his conduct was " very judicious." Autres temps, autres vioeurs ! ' Founlainhall,y(7«?-;/(7/f, p. 306. CHAPTER IX MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES— THE "OUTED" ADVOCATES Mackenzie's boldness in bearding Lauderdale — How his party began to suspect him — In 1673, Church afifairs neglected by both parties — Private aims of Hamilton — Mackenzie defends the burghs — Organised parliamentary opposition to Lauderdale^Lauderdale gives up mono- polies — Mackenzie's secret interview with Lauderdale — Who falsely says that he betrays his party — His party believe Lauderdale — Irritation of Mackenzie — Quarrel with Lockhart — Resentment of English interference — Dread of danger from popular excitement — Lauderdale attacked in English House of Commons — Hamilton seeks their aid — Mackenzie's patriotism hurt — Turns against Hamilton as avaricious — Repeated Conventicles— Riot of Presbyterian women — Sharp hustled and threatened — Mackenzie disgusted — Affair of the suspension of advocates — Mr.ckenzie sides with his profession — Be- lieves that Lockhart intrigues for his ruin — Mackenzie breaks his leg — Accused of perjury — His defence — He and his friends to be brought to trial — Finds that Lockhart is betraying him — Makes his submission in deference to his Prince — His example is followed — Changes sides in politics — His mixed motives — Becomes an ally of the Duchess of Lauderdale. So far we have seen in Mackenzie a young Liberal politician full of promise. He was not to be daunted ; he spoke with grace and studied moderation. He resisted and denounced the corruption, the public robberies, under Lauderdale's administration. In all matters, says Mackenzie, "the public good is made subservient to the meanest interests, and is overruled by the most inconsiderable and unworthy persons." Lauderdale, he says, consulted nobody, and passed all his measures by bullying and violence. He lost his esteem among the Presbyterians " by his bawdy dis- courses and passionate oaths," but "he knew not what it was to dissemble." We know Burnet's portrait, and MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OP^ SIDES 107 Lely's, of the flushed an^ry face of Lauderdale, which terrified most of the members of the House, but had no terrors for Mackenzie. In opposing Lauderdale he spoke, as that politician says, in terms of honeyed urbanity, but he was tenax propositi, resolute in support of his opinion. The change in Mackenzie's attitude began, at first unper- ceived by himself, in the next session of Parliament. In opposing Lauderdale he had carried on the feud of his cousin, Tarbat, against the statesman who had driven Tarbat from office, for Mackenzie was a good clansman. In October 1673, Lauderdale, who was now obnoxious to the English House of Commons, again came down as Commissioner. In this session, Mackenzie was suspected by his party of deserting them : he gives his own defence against that charge. In 1673 a set of politicians called " The Party," consisting primarily of the Duke of Hamilton, Queensberry, and Rothes, w^as deliberately formed against Lauderdale. Of this party, Mackenzie, already distinguished in opposition, was a member. On Lauderdale's side were Argyll (the "martyr" of 1685), Kincardine, and Stair, the godly President of the Court of Session. It would be a mistake to suppose that Mackenzie's activity in the Oppo- sition committed him to the cause of the Presbyterians. Kirkton says " all the time of this great strife, (though some expected it would have been otherwise) neither of the sides mentioned the name of religion, either for dis- tress or danger. . . . And this made the lovers of religion to be less concerned for either of the Dukes, since neither of the two owned the most noble interest, which was in great hazard." The party divisions "emboldened the dis- contents," the Presbyterians. 1 The " Party," as Hamilton's group was called, was not a party formed to befriend the Presbyterians. Letters that passed between Hamilton and Lauderdale show that Hamilton was full of private grudges, and anxious for money and public employment. He wants a very old family debt repaid, he wants the Garter, and the command of the castle of Dunbarton. He wishes ' Kirkton, p. 342. io8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE (June 9, 1673) to decline a commission to keep order in the west, as dangerous. It is too like the commission that brought Sir James Turner into trouble.^ It was not from a party aiming at the restoration of Presbyterianism that Mackenzie, later, retired. Before Lauderdale's arrival in Edinburgh, in 1673, the burghs continued their course of agitation for free election of provosts, and were advised by Mackenzie. Burnet arrived in Edinburgh from London while the Party were discussing their tactics, the night before Parliament met ; Lauderdale declined to let him come to his presence at Holyrood ; and supposed, correctly, I think, that the Party were acting on encouragement and advice from Shaftesbury. Conse- quently Lauderdale, as he writes to Charles (Nov. 13, 1673) " was met with such a spirit as I thought never to have seen here," for, when he proposed that the Lords of the Articles should answer the King's Message, Hamilton, and more than twenty other speakers, demanded that their grievances should first be stated and considered. Morton, Eglintoun, Cassilis, Roxburgh, and Queensberry, with others, followed suit. Sir Francis Scott denounced the war with Holland ; Hume of Polwarth moved for a Committee of Bills, that is of Grievances, and for a debate as to whether they were a Free Parliament. (This Polwarth, later Earl of Marchmont, is the Whig whom Macaulay hated worse than some Tories.) The result was that Lauderdale called a large meeting at Holyrood, where he removed the monopolies on salt, a perquisite of Kincardine's, brandy, and tobacco, popular grievances. "This would certainly have satisfied," says Mackenzie, "if the design of such as managed the whole affair had not been, not to suffer Lauderdale to be reconciled to the people, and to persuade the Court that he was not able to serve the king here." Emphatically he was not : Mackenzie's own Memoirs prove that, but his Memoirs now begin to take a new ply. He tells us what he did, after the failure of Lauderdale ^ Hist. MSS. CoDunissioii, XL, Part VI., pp. 139-146. MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 109 to secure pe:ice at the Holyrood mectin;4 occurred. When the assembly broke up, " Sir George Mackenzie, finding that their differences reached further than was at first designed, resolved to try, in a private conference, if Lauder- dale would consent to a rectification of some other abuses ; and [they] having met privately upon that design, his own friends grew jealous that he was to desert them ; and Lauderdale, that he designed only to pump him. And thus his love to his country drew upon himself that hatred which he endeavoured to lessen in both against one another. And these who would not believe Lauderdale, even when he spoke truth, seemed to believe him when he said, in policy only, that Sir George had offered to betray them : albeit they found that this was a mere Court trick, for Sir George had at that time refused to be Justice Clerk, and had adhered very vigorously to them thereafter ; in resentment of this injury" (the charge that he was betraying his party,) "done him by Lauderdale. And Lauderdale entrusted him thereafter with all affairs of the greatest importance and secrecy, which certainly he had never done, if he had found that Sir George had betrayed his old friends." This part of the Memoirs must have been written, or the passage was interpolated, after 1677, when Lauderdale made Mac- kenzie King's Advocate. When once Mackenzie had digested his grudge against Lauderdale for traducing him, he was on the way to change parties. This may seem rather extraordinary. He opposes Lauderdale's measures when Lauderdale is in the height of his power, and comes over towards that ruler when he is in considerable peril ; when " the Thanes fly from him ; " when Tweeddale, and Kincardine, and Sir Robert Murray, his most reputable supporters, fail the Commissioner, and when Gilbert Burnet reports to the English House of Commons, private remarks of Lauderdale very apt to involve him in the doom of Strafford. A person enamoured of " solitude " and averse to " public employment," like Mackenzie in his essay of 1665, would not now have acted like Mackenzie. We shall see no SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE that he changed sides partly in the irritation caused by what he deemed the unjust treatment of himself by his associates ; partly in wrath against his insolent rival, Sir George Lockhart ; and, again, (if the partiality of a biographer does not delude me,) because he resented English interference in the affairs of his country ; and mainly because popular passions, on the Presbyterian side, seemed to threaten great dangers to public peace, and to Royal prerogative, then regarded by him as the only bulwark against disorder. It is my conjecture that Mackenzie, as a stalwart patriot, was cooled in his aversion to Lauderdale by English interference with the affairs of Scotland. " The Party," according to Lauderdale, was " advised and fomented at London, you know by whom" (Shaftesbury) and is headed by Tweeddale, Hamilton, "and their two or three lawyers," doubtless Mackenzie was one of them. Their aim was to attack the existence of the Lords of the Articles, whom Lauderdale, as we saw, nominated himself, to carry his purposes. In Lauderdale's opinion, as he told his brother, the English Whigs wanted him to be superseded by Monmouth, who declined to meddle. The Whigs, early in 1674, were stirring against Lauderdale in the House of Commons of England. In their opinion, based on Gilbert Burnet's revelations, Lauderdale meant to use Scotland, as Strafford had meant to use Ireland, as a base of attack on the English Parliament. Ever since the Restoration this plan, the use of a Scottish force to invade England, had been present to Lauderdale's mind. The English had defeated the Scots ; he wanted a stroke at them. He was to be removed from Charles and his place, " this vote pleased the factious party here exceedingly," but Charles had assured Lauderdale that he would stand by him. The Party wished to send Rothes, Primrose, and Nisbet, King's Advocate, " to transact the affairs of Scotland at London without me," so Lauderdale wrote to the king. (Feb. 1, 1674.) Kincardine, however, (February 10) wrote from London to Lauderdale that he had refused to be questioned MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES iii by the Enjrlish House of Commons, for " since they could pretend no jurisdiction over Scotland, I could not be answerable when I should return to my own country, if I should answer to a committee of the Parliament of Eng- land, on any affair which was only proper for Scotland."^ Lauderdale's faction argued that their opponents were bad Scots, unpatriotic courtiers of the English Whigs. The Duchess writes, " Their carriage is most detestable to all honest and sober men, but the longing desire," (in England,) "of such a conquest as would be the cantonising of Scotland, makes them respected by only those who will be the most ready to sacrifice them. ..." 2 When Lauderdale adjourned the Scottish Parliament (January 17, 1674), Hamilton, Tweeddale, and General Drum- mond went to London with their complaints, and raised a storm against Lauderdale in the English House of Commons.^ Burnet says that Charles sent for them, in- tending to back their party if he could get supplies from Parliament and so prosecute the Dutch war. He failed, and returned to confidence in Lauderdale. However this may be, it is clear that the English Parliament was inter- fering in Scottish affairs, and accusing Lauderdale of having said, in Council, that The King's Edicts are as good as Laws.^ Now Mackenzie was " a Scottish man," first of all, and had the greatest jealousy of English interference with Scot- land. It may be, then, that this jealousy of English inter- ference first inclined him to hold late in 1673, or early in 1674, his private conference with Lauderdale. His natural and professional aversion for the high-handed conduct of the English House of Commons, which Charles prorogued after signing the peace with Holland, may also have in- fluenced him. Certainly Mackenzie did not now come over to Lauderdale wholly. The Convention of Burghs, in * See Laitderdak Papers, vol. iii. pp. 20-34 ; State Trials, vol. vi. 1026- 1034. - Letters of Lady Mari^aret Kennedy, Api)ciKlix, p. 105. ^ Memoirs, p. 263. * Stixte Trials, vi. 1028. Also Kincardine to Lauderdale, 12 Feb. 1673-4, Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 34. 112 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE August 1674, petitioned Charles for a new Parliament, (the previous Parliament had been dissolved by Lauderdale). Three provosts were thereon imprisoned : the rest were called before the Privy Council, and, when asked who was the author of their petition, the Provost of Glasgow " indirectly let fall that Sir George Mackenzie was the man." Their leaders were heavily fined, but nothing was done to Mackenzie.^ His Memoirs now begin to show an aversion to the Duke of Hamilton, whose party was, for long, the only drag on the wheel of despotism. Lauderdale (March 24, 1674) issued a Royal proclamation discharging all penalties due by penal statutes, and all bygone loss, and suspending all exaction of annuities. "The very men who had so passionately craved this . . . treated it in ridicule, lest it might make some kind impression upon the people for Lauderdale ; and though Duke Hamilton had very earnestly pressed for this discharge, yet he would not consent that the proclamation should discharge the taxation 1633, because he pretended a right to them {sic)." Hamilton " forced the Council to discharge that part of the Act of Grace," and lost favour with the public, as an avaricious man.^ He was fighting for repayment of the debts to his wife's father, incurred by Charles I. It seems probable that Mackenzie and his party leaders first quarrelled, when Lauderdale, "out of policy," accused him of betraying them ; and that then Lauderdale, " put at" as he was in England, thereafter ingratiated himself slowly with Alackenzie. The year 1674 was remarkable for many conventicles, even in Lothian, and "the Magdalen Chapel in Edinburgh was broken open" for " outed " preachers. Mackenzie says that " many hundreds of women " with a petition, filled the Parliament Close, and threatened the life of Archbishop Sharp. " Some had conspired to set on him, when a woman, ^ Law's Memorials, pp. 72, 73. * Memoirs, pp. 266, 267. See Hamilton's contention, that the discharge by a Royal letter was unconstitvUional. L.P., iii. 38-40. MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 113 whom I shun to mention, should raise her hand on hij^h as a signal." Rothes, however, "entertaining tlie woman with insinuating speeches all the time as he passed to the Council, did divert that bloody design." ^ Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe avers that Mrs. Livingstone, widow of a preacher and daughter of the fanatic Johnstone of Waristoun, was the woman, and refers to "Wodrow and Kirkton."- Wodrow says that Mrs. Livingstone "presented the petition to the Chancellor," Rothes ; so probably she was the lady on whom Rothes bestowed his blandishments.^ Wodrow tells us that he received the petition civilly, read it, "and patiently heard what she had to add. He talked and jested a little with some of the rest." Some of the women (among them was Gilbert Burnet's aged mother, with two of his lady cousins,) called Sharp " Judas," and others "traitor," and one of them laid her hand upon his neck, and said, " Ere all was done that neck behoved to pay for it ; " but no further violence was done. We know what the sex are when they go on the warpath ! Sharp, an Episcopal Orpheus, was in danger of being torn to pieces by the Presbyterian Maenads ! Wodrow merely takes his anecdote, with verbal changes, from Kirkton.-* Where Mackenzie got the story of the signal for murder we do not know. The ringleaders in the riot were punished, but to kill Sharp was the burning desire of the fanatics, male and female, indeed a woman put the slayers on his track at the last. We have observed that among the grievances which Mackenzie had argued against in Parliament, were not named those of Presbyterians deprived of their favourite ministers. He probably adhered to his early opinion, given in The Religious Stoic (1663) that the subject, in matters of Church government, must obey the laws of the country, and, — as Leighton was peaceable under Presbyterian sway, though attached to "the beauty of holiness," — be peaceable, though of Presbyterian sentiments, under legalised Episcopacy. 1 Memoirs, p. 273. " Law's Memoriah, p. 67, note. '^ Wodrow, ii. pp. 26S-269. * Kirkton, pp. 344-345- H 114 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Such things as armed conventicles and riots of women, were not apt to make Mackenzie more tender towards the cause of Presbyterians, though he disapproved of the ex- pulsion of many ministers from their parishes. Events now occurred which, in their effects, led to Mackenzie's definite change of party. The suspicion in which he was held by his faction, on account of his private interview with Lauderdale, and Lauderdale's charge against him of betraying his associates, probably rankled deeply in his mind. Meanwhile (in May, 1674) Mackenzie's hated rival, Sir George Lockhart, had advised the Earl of Callendar, in a suit against the Earl of Dunfermline, to appeal to Parliament against a decision of the Court of Session. Mackenzie says that Lockhart, knowing Callendar to possess in Parliament the influence of his father-in-law, Hamilton, hoped that his client would thereby triumph, while Parlia- ment would be glad to be recognised as the final Court of Appeal. "This appeal displeased most sober men," for ignorant members would have, in the subtlest points of law, votes overriding those of the expert judges. Lauderdale shov^ed Charles that, while the king, (really Lauderdale him- self,) chose the judges, the king did not elect the members of Parliament. The king, Lauderdale, and the judges were all interested in preventing appeals to Parliament. J The judges cited Callendar for making this appeal, ^' which they regarded as an affront, and Mackenzie, with Lockhart and two other advocates, drew up a paper in which Callendar declared that he did not " appeal," but merely "protested for remedy of law," a delicate distinction ! Examined before the judges, they adhered to this declaration, though why that course then pleased Mackenzie which " dis- pleased most sober men," and was, he says, part of an intrigue of Lockhart to become President of the Court of Session, he does not tell us, beyond saying that Lockhart, for his own purposes, beguiled him into it. The judges were mostly in Lauderdale's interest, and gave him a kind of testimonial to the legality of his proceedings. Armed with this, and accompanied and backed by the President, MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 115 Dalrymple of Stair, he went to London, and complained against the advocates. They regarded the crafty Stair as their chief foe, and persecuted him with printed pasquils, to be found in Maidment's collection. Charles, in a letter to the judges (May 19, 1674), approved of their doings, and expressed his " abhorrence of appeals." He bade the judges forbid such appeals, and command the advocates to disavow them on oath, under penalty of disbarring, and of imprisonment. Charles also forbade the burghs to elect members who were "gentlemen or noblemen's servants." The burghs conceived that they would thus be deprived of representatives learned in the law, though such elections were contrary to their old rules. Mackenzie drew up for them a reply to the king, which Lockhart and a Mr. Pringle carried to their committee. But they so altered Mackenzie's draft as to change it from " a discreet and dutiful " to " a most indiscreet and unpolished paper," for the purpose, so Lockhart told James Stewart, of " making Sir George Mackenzie unpardonable." This Stewart, author of Jus Popiili, was an unscrupulous mischief- maker, and it is not necessary to believe the charge against Lockhart which he seems to have revealed to Mackenzie. The Committee of Burghs, believing the altered paper to be Mackenzie's, sent it up to the king, who was angry, and fined and imprisoned the provosts of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Jedburgh. Lockhart and Sir John Cunningham being now called before the judges, owned i\\\\\. forntal appeals were contrary to an Act of James II., but said that protestations for remedy of law might be allowed. They were disbarred ; and the junior counsel followed them out of the court in a "tumultuary" fashion. They were ordered to leave Edin- burgh, and some of them went to Haddington, some to Linlithgow. Lockhart thus had sharers in his disbarment, and "diverted early from himself that great hatred which was so justly conceived against his insolence and his avarice ; two crimes which were more eminent in him than his learning." His insolence we have seen in his grotesque ii6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE attack on Mackenzie, when he spoke for the freedom of the election of provosts of Edinburgh. Burnet also says that Lockhart was "a covetous, an ambitious, and a passionate man," though a most learned pleader and accomplished debater. Mackenzie, at all events, having been in opposition to Lauderdale, was supposed to have devised the appeal. Really Lockhart had drawn him into it, telling him that, in his parliamentary opposition, he would have the aid of the advo-. cates in general, and that the appeal was contrived for this very purpose. Mackenzie was not averse to receiving such aid against Lauderdale, he says, till he found himself opposing his Prince, who, by Proclamation, announced that all advocates who did not submit by a given day should be for ever disbarred. In November, 1674, according to the Biography prefixed to his Works (1722), Mackenzie addressed the judges on the whole question, in a speech which is published. He said that he was resolved to withdraw and not to plead, "because of my indisposition," he refers, perhaps, to an accident in which he broke his leg.^ He cannot therefore be asked to " declare " ; his meaning is not obvious, unless the declaration was that he disavowed the late appeal, and would never more be concerned in an appeal to Parliament. He never means to plead, if he does not plead he cannot appeal, and therefore cannot be asked to forswear appeals. But his profession is his " life rent right," " his plough or his ship," and cannot be taken from him if he commits no crime. Now there is no law declaring appeals to be criminal. Express Acts of Sederunt have allowed Protests for Remedy of Law ; if his law is wrong, he is mistaken, not criminal. A new Act against Appeals can be made, and will be obeyed, and the advocates are ready to promise not to appeal in future. They are also asked to disown ^ This broken leg is rather mysterious. In an undated letter to Archbishop Sharp, written apparently in 1675, Mackenzie says that his enemies *' have broken his leg, and are trying to break his reputation." How did they manage to break his leg?— Add. MSS., Brit. Museum, 23,138, f. 53. MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 117 what they have done ; they are disbarred for a mere word ; "and no gentleman would disapprove what he hath done." Mackenzie's Life avers that this speech was held satis- factory, "the Advocates returned to Edinbur;^!!, and were admitted to plead." ^ This is erroneous. On November 24 Mackenzie, " who has been sick before," was recpiired to disown his appeals, he did not give satisfaction, and was disbarred. 2 The king (December 18) called on the advo- cates, on pain of perpetual disbarment, to petition the judges for readmission before January 28, 1675.^ Mackenzie says in his Memoirs that he "did so much tender the re- putation" of his king, "that being bedridden by a broken leg," he did not attend in Court when the rest were dis- barred, or " publicly own the appeal." He wrote a letter to his brethren of the Bar in which he promised not to practise till the others were readmitted. Lockhart insisted that he should have himself disbarred, so he " owned the appeal with a very undaunted courage." To his letter of promise to abstain from practice till the rest re-entered, he added a postscript, " But if I enter, and put myself in the same position with the rest, I do declare this letter, and all the obligations therein, to be void and not obligatory. This is that letter from which the Party " (that is the Opposition, Hamilton's allies, called " the Party ") " con- cluded Sir George Mackenzie to be guilty of perjury, in having entered before the rest ; dispersing copies of the letter, without the postscript, because they knew the post- script destroyed their malicious pretences." It is not easy to follow his reasoning.'* I give in a note the whole passage.^ Mackenzie next reluctantly signed, * Works, vol. i. pp. ii, iii, iv. ' MS. Books of Sederunt, November 24, 1674. 3 MS. Books of Sederunt. * Memoirs, pp. 278, 279. * " And though it was most unlit to cause the King promise this, upon the word of a Prince, yet Sir George Mackenzie did so much tender the reputation of his King, that he, having been bedrid of a broken leg when the rest were debarr'd, shun'd to have himself debarr'd, or publickly to own the appeal ; though to secure such as had, he declared that he would not return to his employment with- out them : Which not satisfying Sir George Lockhart, who prest still that Sir George Mackenzie should be debarr'd, he was content, in a letter under his ii8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE with Lockhart and twenty-eight others, a long address to the Privy Council. They disclaimed a "combination," or trade-union, and professed their loyalty, begging the Council to send the paper to Lauderdale. They stated the reasons why they could not "disown protestations for remeid of law, as unlawful in general." They discriminated between "appeals" and "protestations." Protestations are permitted by an Act of Session of 1567, and by precedent under James III., V., VI., and so on. The Council declared this paper to be seditious, and Lockhart with two others went to town, to mollify the king, promising that if Mackenzie and the rest were prosecuted for the address, they would return, and concur in their common defence, which Mackenzie drew up. It occupies thirteen pages, and is interrupted by a gap in the MS. After the gap, Mackenzie says that he suspected Lockhart and his companions of deserting him and the advocates. He intercepted a letter in which they told their " confidents " that, contrary to their promise, they meant to wait in England till they saw how the process against Mackenzie went. If he were absolved, so were they ; if he were found guilty, " the malice of their pursuers would be blunted before it reached them." " This gross dis- ingenuity did so confirm his former aversion for these principles^ which, he daily discovered, had inflamed the ignorant people beyond his first inclinations, that he resolved to submit to his hand, to oblige himself in tliose lerms ; but this letter not having satisfied, and he being pre.st, merely to satisfy Sir George Lockhart's private humour, he call'd for his former letter, and wrote in a postscript these words : " But if I enter, and put myself in the same condition with the rest, I do declare this letter, and all the obligations therein, to be void and not obligatory : ' And having own'd the appeal with a very undaunted courage, didfrovi that hour despise that party which had jealous' d him, after so many proofs of his courage and fidelity, to please a little creature, who had never follow'd them, but his own passion ; to which he and they were become such slaves, that they had thereby lost the glory and reputation of impartial reformers, which had so much recommended them at first, whilst they followed Sir George Mackenzie's disinterested advices. This is that letter from which the party concluded Sir George Mackenzie to be guilty of perjury, in having enter'd before the rest ; dispersing copies of the letter, without the postscript, because they knew the postscript destroy'd their malicious pretences." MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 119 Prince." ^ These words contain Mackenzie's reasons for leaving "the Party" of Hamilton. He called together the advocates, denounced Lockhart and his companions as " cowardly rogues," said that the advocates, as a body, must not be " martyrs for any faction," nor set to their successors the precedent of, as we say, "going solid" for any political party. "It was no dishonour to submit to their Prince." Tumults tended to sedition, and sedition to war, " in which advocates not only became losers, but insignificant." All present, save one, then signed a petition to the king, " which was allowed by his Majesty : and though the four who were at London decried it, as insinuating an acknowledgment of guilt because they had submitted to his Majesty's clemency as well as his justice, yet themselves did shortly follow their example." ^ Matters were not, in fact, so readily concluded ; and we must glance at the facts as recorded in the manuscript Books of Sederunt. The affair is puzzling. On January 28, 1675, some advocates obeyed the Royal will, they sent in petitions, and these were transmitted to Lauderdale. Other advocates had entered their petitions as early as January 15, and they were readmitted. Clearly many of the petitions of January 28 did not give satisfaction to Lauderdale and the king, but, by June 17 the Lords announce that Mackenzie has now presented another petition, explaining his former words. The Lords sent it to the king, who, on June 29, replies that Mackenzie may be readmitted, "as he hath been the first who hath clearly returned to his duty, so it is just that he be the first restored, and we hope he may be so exemplary in the future as will render him capable of our further favour." His brother, Colin, and others are also readmitted, " who shall petition in the very terms Sir George Mackenzie or his brother respectively have done, and the others." ^ It thus appears, from the documents, that some advo- 1 Memoirs, p. 30S. ''■ Ibid., pp. 30S, 309. ' MS. Books of Sederunt. I20 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE cates gave satisfaction as early as January 15, 1675, that others, on the last day of grace (January 28), sent petitions which, at London, were deemed insufficient. Their address, to recapitulate, to the Privy Council was looked on as seditious, and sent (February 2) to London. Lockhart and Sinclair then set off to plead their cause in town, but (February 20) their comrades wdth Mackenzie were pursued in a process before the Privy Council, and Lockhart and Sinclair, hearing of this, retired from town and lurked near Northallerton, " without acquainting even their wives of their residence." ^ Mackenzie then drew up a defence of the advocates to be laid before the Privy Council. There is a gap in the manuscript, in the middle of this paper, and then comes the statement, already quoted, that Mackenzie intercepted a letter from the skulkers at Northallerton, found that they were sacrificing him and his associates, and held the meeting in which he advised submission to their Prince. It is certain, however, that he was the first of those who did not submit on January 15, to send in a satisfactory petition, a model for all the others, and this, doubtless, was regarded by Lockhart and his associates, as a desertion of their common cause. This is not so easily to be gathered from Mackenzie's own fragmentary and dateless narrative.^ The Duchess of Lauderdale had been serviceable to the advocates, and bade Haltoun " endeavour the bringing off the outed advocates by all fair and peaceable means." ^ They were " brought off," with the possible result that absolute power would be safe, in the servility of the judges, from whom there was no appeal to a Parliament which had shown signs of recalcitrancy. But there had been no right of appeal before. Mackenzie's motives were mixed. He hated and sus- pected Lockhart, for the reasons he assigns. The popular ^ Memoirs, p. 294. * Some dates are added, on the margins, by the editor, the others are taken from the manuscript Books of Sederunt. * Hon, Charles Maitland to the Duchess, Dec. i, 1674, L.P., iii. p. 67. MACKENZIE'S CHANGE OF SIDES 121 tumults were not to his taste ; he foresaw dan^'cr ui a renewal of rebellion and civil war. Resistance in the name of civil and religious liberty was now going " beyond his first inclination," and he sided with Government as a Radical, in face of Socialism, may become a Tory. There is nothing uncommon in all this, but Mackenzie's only excuse for taking office under Lauderdale must be that he honestly believed violent suppression of the partisans of Jus Populi Vindicatum to be absolutely necessary. It does not seem to have been absolutely necessary that he should at once " draw up with " the Duchess of Lauderdale. When staying at Haltoun with the laird, Lauderdale's brother, Mackenzie wrote to the duchess, reminding her that they are distantly akin, " which warms him in a great degree to serve her, though some accidents have crossed his private inclination " (August 16, 1675).^ 1 British Museum, Add. MSS. 23,137, f. 70. He did "serve her" in some way not clearly indicated, but not to her liking, as is plain from his letters to the duchess in 1 680-1 681 {Lauderdale Papers^ vol. iii. pp. 204, 217, 218). She is trying to extort ;[^25oo from the tuwn of Edinburgh, is angry with Mackenzie for her failure : he replies with some tartness in his civility : he has done his best for her. The state of affairs is obscurely given in a letter of Mackenzie's to the duchess, undated, but of the autumn of 1681. Parliament, with James, Duke of York, as Commissioner, had been looking into the transactions of the fallen Commissioner, Lauderdale. He, by the king's command, had obtained money from the town of Edinburgh. The duchess wanted it, and wanted more, and charged Mackenzie with saying in Parliament that she had got the money. He replied, " I thought it was not necessary to deny it was given to the Duke of Lauderdale, that being transacted publicly and by the king's command, nor think I any man con- cerned whether your own husband gave you that money or not." In this affair of 1681 "no man was so violent" against the Lauderdales "as the Earl of Argyll " {Add. MSS. 23,248, f. 23), yet, when a month or two later Argyll was attacked, Lauderdale remained loyal to him, though unable to rescue him. CHAPTER X MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE— THE MITCHELL CASE, 1675-1679 Burnet and Lauderdale — Burnet's accusations before the English House of Commons— Victory of Lauderdale — The strange affair of Mr. Kirkton — Hamilton removed from the Council — Evidence of a preaching spy — Mackenzie as a duellist — Becomes King's Advocate — New brooms sweep clean — His improvements in legal procedure — His account of his scruples — His version criticised — Errors in his statement — Mackenzie's Vindication of his official career — Disturbed state of south-western Scotland — Story of Lauderdale's negotiations with the Presbyterians — Hickes's evidence — Fountainhall's version — Lauderdale contradicts — Was the west ready for rebellion ? — The gentry refuse to enforce order — Dangerous conventicles— Mackenzie's report — Lauderdale's view based on old experience — Suppression decreed — Raising of the Highland Host — Advice of the bishops — The case of Mitchell — Mackenzie prosecutes — His pleadings quoted — The Promise of Life to Mitchell— Perjury, conscious or unconscious of Rothes, Lauderdale, Haltoun, Sharp — Strange conduct of Presbyterians in Court— SufferingsofHickes — Infamous behaviour of Primrose — Scandal about Claverhouse and Lady Mackenzie — Charles exonerates all concerned in Mitchell's case — Haltoun accused of perjury— The case of the MacGibbons — Mackenzie publishes his work on Criminal Law — Sorrows of Evelyn — Baxter on Lauderdale's vices — Mackenzie on his virtues. Unluckily the manuscript of Mackenzie's Memoirs fails us for 1676 and most of 1677, while he touches very lightly on Lauderdale's dangers from the English House of Commons in 1675. He merely tells us that Lady Margaret Kennedy, furious with Lauderdale because he did not marry her after all his visits to her chamber " in his night- gown," "encouraged Gilbert Burnet into an amour," and engaged him in a plot against Lauderdale.^ ^ Memoirs, p. 315. IZ2 MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 123 As for " an amour," the noble Presbyterian spinster had secretly married Burnet, a foolish action which may have created scandal. Burnet himself had babbled, of course, about hasty expressions used by Lauderdale, before their quarrel, in private talks with him. Lauderdale wished the Presbyterians would rise, that he mi Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. pp. 137, 138. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 180. * Memoirs, pp. 319-323. The new rules are given in a Privy Council paper. Wodrow, ii. p. 369. I I30 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE This is true. He also interceded that the precognition, or preliminary examination of witnesses, should be done by the judges, not by the advocate. He and Sir John Cuningham, when criminal judges, " introduced the liberty to the accused of calling exculpatory witnesses who may depose on oath for him against the king, which the Law of England does not allow." "To strengthen the security of the Defendant, Sir George Mackenzie used to interpose with the Officers of State, before the Depositions were brought into the Council, and represent to them his own scruples." If the Officers of State persisted in prosecuting, then he called in " the ablest advocates," and if they agreed that the case demanded a prosecution, then these advocates "were ordered to concur with him in the pursuit, or prosecution. And many of the most learned and most popular advocates did concur with him in the most intricate cases," as in Argyll's and Jerviswoode's. The last remarks, as to Argyll's case, I cannot fully explain : as we shall see later when we come to the famous case of Argyll, they are overstated. Nothing in Mackenzie's career is so incomprehensible as these statements of his, for though he died before his Vindication was published, we are not informed that his memory, like that of Lauderdale in 1680, had begun to play him false. We do learn, however, that a book of his, also posthumously published, was written when he " languished under fatal distemper of the body." The same words may apply to the Vindication for, in his normal condition of intellect, it is incredible that he should have written exaggerated accounts of facts which every man who could read, could expose.i It is natural to say that it is easy for a man not to be ^ At the same time it must be noted as curious that the author of a reply to his Vindication did not expose these misstatements. The only reply known to me is silent on the subject : " A Vindication of the Presbyterians of Scotland from the Malicious Aspersions Cast on them in a late Pamphlet written by Sir George Mackenzie, &c." Golding. London, 1692. This rare tract, lent to me by the kindness of the Rev. John Sturrock, appears to be by an English Presbyterian, who "is credibly informed " that Mr. James Kenwick was — "a Romish priest " ! MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 131 King's Advocate, easy to decline tlie appointment, (as Mackenzie did, in 1674 or 1675, decline that of Justice- General,) and easy to withdraw, if any case excited his scruples, and Mackenzie confesses to scruples in some cases. As to throwing up a case, he objects that the advocate must either " have a negative over the King and all Judicatories by refusing to concur (for though he should lay down his employment, yet it would give an ill impression even of the best cause) or otherwise he must be obliged to concur." In concurring he can do no harm, he only states, professionally, and before intelligent judges and juries, the case entrusted to him. Thus many a barrister does his best for a client in whose innocence, or right, he has the reverse of confidence, and the King's Advocate acts in the same way for his Royal client. We have quoted Mackenzie's defence of his career as Public Prosecutor before entering on an account of that career. Mr. Taylor Innes writes, "As an administrator of public justice Sir George Mackenzie seems to have deserved well of his country." He claims the introduction of an Act giving the selection of forty-five men, out of whom the defendant selected fifteen, to the judges, whereas the King's Advocate had been wont to select the jury. He also secured the last word to the defendant's counsel, but he adds that this did not apply to cases of treason, in which, by English even more than by Scots law, " the king" was given singular advantages. In both countries men charged with treason were scarcely ever acquitted, witness the cases of the innocents accused by Oates, Prance, Dugdale, and Bedloe, in 1679-80. By packing a Whig jury in the City, Shaftesbury secured an ignoramus ; and, in singular circumstances, the Campbells of Cessnock were acquitted in Edinburgh. But these were the rarest exceptions. We now return to the situation when Mackenzie entered on office. According to Kirkton, the state of affairs had long been grave. In religious assemblies "the people had a 132 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE sort of affection to the fields above houses." The con- venticles "were brought to resemble armies," which are almost the very words of Mackenzie himself. " Within a little time they became so numerous and formidable, our State thought fit even to forbear what they could not help." " Sometimes people discovered their own secret scandals," which must have been entertaining, and con- verted " curates " joined in the movement. One was our friend, the spy who told the story about the offer of the leadership of the Presbyterians to Hamilton. Thirty- nine ministers, including Cargill, "were the stock of the preaching church that was driven into the wilderness. Their ministry was a sort of outlawry," and all this was the result of the tyranny of bishops. "The men went ordinarily with arms, and the soldiers next adjacent looked upon them as the appearance of an enemy. Many skir- mishes there were, much violence was used and indiscre- tion upon both sides. . . . The people were sometimes as much judges as disciples." A reward was offered for such ministers, and they were " intercommuned," that is, their offence was proclaimed to infect all who harboured or conversed with them. (This was in 1675.^) In the same way, under the rule of the Covenanters, persons were excommunicated for having merely conversed with Montrose. Mr. Law, in his Memorials, corroborates Mr. Kirkton's account of the prevalent disorder. Mackenzie also says that conventicles were numerous, and well armed, that ], they threatened the orthodox clergy, and usurped their t pulpits.* It was often said that Jesuits in disguise preached at the conventicles. They had enough of the spirit of gay adventure to do so, and Matthew Mackail, in a post- script to one of his newsletters {S.P. Dom., Charles II., vol. 407), writes, " I have been informed from a good hand that one father Brown a Jesuit was about a year agoe in this kingdome, and hath preached in the fields and baptized. In his preaching he said most upon Christ's royall 1 Kiiktun, pji. 352-374. " Memoirs, p. 322. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 133 Prerogative of being head and king in the Church, show- ing how far people were oblidged to beheve profess it and maintain it. He dyed within twelve miles of this place. Bot I assure vow it is a singular instance, and there uses to be no publick confluences bot when the people are warned by persons of good repute in the bounds, nor do the Presbyterian ministers go bot upon much solicitation and the pressing desire of the people." There is great diversity as to the events and motives which now produced remarkable measures of repression. Lauder- dale's chaplain, Dr. Hickes, wrote to Dr. Patrick "in the Cloister of Westminster Abbey," and no doubt Hickes told what Lauderdale wanted to be believed, while the manuscript newsletters from Edinburgh (now in the Record Office) gave the Presbyterian version, or that of Hamilton's party. Hickes, in October, warned Patrick of a tale set afloat by Lauderdale's enemies " that he intended an Indulgence to the Whigs." The conformist clergy were much discouraged, and the Whigs proportionally insolent, but the rumour was spread merely to injure Lauder- dale in the opinion of the bishops, and to encourage the fanatics to rise. They now threaten an insurrection, "and are underhand encouraged to it," by Hamilton, Tweeddale, Queensberry, and other nobles. Consequently Govern- ment is collecting forces ; the vassals of Argyll, Caithness, (Campbell of Glenorchy,) Perth, AthoU, Strathmore, Murray, and Panmure will be employed. "W^e wish it may be true," (that the West means to rise,) " but I am afraid it is not" (January 3, 1678). The combination of Cassilis, Hamilton, Lord Melville, and General Drummond is morientis bestice ultivms conatus, "the last effort of that dying beast," Whiggery (March 21, 1678).^ We next turn to the evidence of Fountainhall. Lauder- dale, by one of the freaks of his veering no-policy, had been trying, since August 1677, to ingratiate himself with the Presbyterians, and recover his lost credit with the preachers. " He was serious in it," says Fountainhall, " and did it not 1 Hist. MSS. Com., Report Xlll., Appendix. Part II., p. 4S. 134 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE merely to cajole or gull them. The carriers on of it were the President, (Dalrymple of Stair,) Argyll, Melville, and Arniston, with James Stewart" [oi Jus Populi Vvidicatiim), "and the ministers of that party, who were allowed to come freely to Edinburgh. They offered to raise i^i 5,000 presently for Laviderdale's service, and to contrive the elections so that in a Parliament he should carry a subsidy, and the President get a ratification for what he pleased," (that is, obtain what he chose in the way of estates, and privileges, as of holding fairs,) " provided their Indulgence were secured to them by Act of Parliament, so that it might not next day be recalled." But Lauderdale, though eager for the subsidy, " could not comprehend " how it was to be managed, when the Presbyterians came to explain. Moreover Sharp, Arch- bishop of St. Andrews, had his own intrigues in the contrary sense, and was reported to have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who so moved the king that he peremptorily bade Lauderdale desist. Here was the very crisis of Mackenzie's career. At the moment when he became King's Advocate there was a prospect of a reconciliation with the Presbyterians. Had they got their Indulgence by Act of Parliament, he might never have acquired his terrible sobriquet, " the Bluidy Advocate." But, says Fountainhall, on October 9, Lauder- dale publicly announced to the Privy Council "that there never had been any audience, treaty, or capitulation between him and the Nonconformists." ^ Apart from the Presbyterian offers, not intelligible to Lauderdale, he had reasons for either making great concessions, (which never satisfied the Presbyterians,) or resorting to repression for which he had not adequate forces. The question is, was the south-west in a dangerous condition, or was it not ? On August 22, 1677, the Duke of Hamilton, on whose estates " phanaticks " were as common as farmers, wrote to the Earl, later Duke, of Queensberry, one of his party, saying " these people are more troublesome * Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. pp. 177, 1/8. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 135 since the proclamation against them than before, however, I resolve to order my deputies to do their endeavour," His deputies were of no avail.* On August 30, he tells Queensberry about a suspected treaty " between the fanatics and those in power," that means the negotiations between Lauderdale, Argyll, Stair, and the preachers. "That it will be possible to reclaim the people from conventicles ... I much doubt. . . . Let us do all we can." 2 They could do nothing. He notices the appointment of Mackenzie as King's Advocate, " for his great integrity and abilities " (Sept. 30, 1677 (?) ) and praises the Earl of Perth, whom no offers could induce " to change his former principles." He is " a man of much worth and virtue." Perth, as we shall see, became the most furious persecutor, and most profligate jobber, except his brother, John Drummond of Lundin, later Earl of Melfort, among the ministers of James U. Both men turned Catholics when James came to the throne, and both conspired, in 1684-1686, to ruin Mackenzie, and Queensberry, Hamilton's correspondent, their own patron in 1683. On October 6, Hamilton reports a fight between some soldiers and a conventicle. He makes as little of it as possible, but this afiray, with the other disturbances, pro- bably turned the balance in Lauderdale's mind, and, three days later, he had broken off negotiations with Argyll, Stair, and the preachers, and declared in Council that no such negotiations had occurred. On October 24, Dundonald, himself a Presbyterian Whig, wrote to Lauderdale, giving more examples of the disturbances in the west. " Insolent abuses " are committed ; almost weekly there are conventicles in Carrick ; they occupy the pulpits of placed ministers ; Welsh is to hold a communion at Garven, at Tarbolton seven or eight armed men broke into the manse, missed the minister, but left word that if he preached again " he should die the next day." These abuses will wax to a greater height, if not timely prevented.^ 1 ffis^. J/SS. Cow., XV., viii. p. 222. » /did., p. 223, ^ Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 8S. 136 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE I add a report received by Government, from the State Papers unpublished : ^ — " On Sunday sennight a great conventicle was kept in and about the new built Meeting House. Mr. Welch, Dick, Cunningham, Gilchrist, Gilbert, and Robert Kennedies, Preachers, with 7000 people. The Communion was cele- brated in silver cups ; there were two tables each containing at least 100 persons, filled 10 times. Scandalous persons as William Kelso in Air were admitted, who ' since rides well in Welch's lifeguard.' On Sunday morning Welch preached on John xi. 34, 35, and said among other ' villainous things ' that the King nobles and prelates were murtherers of Christ. Mr. Gilbert Kennedy was prayed for as minister of Girvan. " Before admission to the Sacrament the people promised never to hear Curates again but to adhere to the glorious ends of their League and Covenant. On Monday they kept a Presbytery with Welch as moderator. Kennedy was cen- sured for not preaching warmly enough against the wicked ways and nobles and prelates. Mr. Cunningham having repented his service under Episcopacy was newly ordained. It was enacted the people should not rise in arms until oppressed and provoked. On Tuesday Welch came through Mayboll with 20 horse. On Wednesday he preached at Auchenleck. He is now supposed to have gone towards the Borders. Friday, by Order of Council the heretors of Air and Renfrew met at Irving to consider the suppression of disorders. Some of their Committee, especially Sir John Cochrane, have pleaded for an indulgence. Last week at a fair at Mayboll a great many swords were sold. The Privy Council sent to the heritors Earls Glencairn and Dundonnald and Lord Rosse." Mackenzie says that " it was most easy for two or three conventicles, by joining together to make an army of ten thousand men, to whom all of that persuasion would pro- ^ Abridged from S.P. Dom., Charles II., vol. 397. "An Account of the present posture of affaires in y'= shires of Air and Renfrew, Nov. 5th, 1677." MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 137 bably gather," against whom the king could only oppose his own standing forces, not exceeding 1500 in all, while his militia and the landed gentry were much inclined to the same opinions, and to "the Party," that of Hamilton.^ Lauderdale was a statesman without a policy, and possessed of a furious temper, and a bitter memory of events now long past. He remembered well the ruin of the policy and the army of the Estates, when, in 1648, they marched to rescue Charles I., and were ruined by the western fanatics whom they left in their rear. At that time the opposition of the Whigamores began in a large " Holy Fair," or sacramental field conventicle, of "slashing communicants" as Sir James Turner says. He remarks " the whole West of Scotland cried up ' King Christ ' and ' the kingdom of Christ,' thereby meaning the uncontrollable and unlimited dominion of the then Kirk of Scotland." The field conventicle of 1648 made " that peace so often inculcated, and left as a legacy by our blessed Lord to his whole Church . . . the symbol of war and bloody broils." On that occasion a conventicling force of 2000 horse and foot, near Mauchline, in Ayrshire, repulsed and wounded Middleton himself and General Hurry, and was only scattered when Turner and Callendar came up with rein- forcements from the Engagers' army that aimed at the rescue of Charles L^ As an old " Engager," Lauderdale could not but fear a similar rising in the west, when he heard of a huge assemblage held by Mr. Welsh, " and a good many other ministers, beside the Girvan water in Ayrshire." "There were many thousands of people present," says Wod- row.3 It may be a heterodox historical opinion, but I venture to think that Lauderdale, with his old experience of the powers of "the kingdom of Christ," in Ayrshire and the west, with his present knowledge of the armed conventicles, and with a regular force utterly inadequate, had reason- able excuse for taking extraordinary measures of precaution and repression. These measures, unhappily, were the raising of "the Highland Host" to be quartered on the disturbed 1 Memoirs, p. 329. ^ Turner, p. 53 ei set/. ^ Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 347. 138 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE districts. On this Lauderdale (November 8, 1677) wrote to Danby, saying that he was arranging an expedition of Atholl and other clansmen, to be quartered on the disturbed districts, "for this game is not to be played by halves." ^ He also requested that Lord Granard's regulars in Ireland might be ready to move to his assistance, and Charles assented, ordering the Northumberland militia also to be mobilised, with part of Oxford's regiment. The bishops stepped in with their advice (Wodrow throws the blame on " the prelates and such who had packed cards with them "). The suggestions of the prelates (Dec. 21, 1677) are truculent. A Committee of military members of Council should accompany the forces. The western shires should be disarmed, and horses above ^^50 Scots in value should be seized. The soldiers should be quartered upon "the guilty." At each stopping-place the Committee should call before them "the transgressors," and destroy the meeting- houses, and smartly fine field-conventiclers. Informers as to the whereabouts of Mr. Welsh should be rewarded out of fines. Landlords ought to take the oath of allegiance and be made responsible for their tenants. Bonds should be exacted from them for the security of orthodox and orderly ministers (who were constantly robbed and bullied). Garrisons should be stationed in the towns.2 Preparations were now made for launching " the Highland Host" upon the innocent and quiet shires of western Scot- land, where, says Mackenzie, " the orthodox clergy were forced to abandon their churches and homes," while even the President of the Court of Session (Dalrymple) and Dundonald reported their preparations to rebel. Wodrow says that the malefactors were many times found to be " persons who were pleased to take on the mark of Presby- terians, and were common robbers oft times." He gives no example of such findings, and Burnet remarks on the frivolity of the excuse. But to the state of the west, and the affair of the Highland Host, we return in due season (1678). ^ Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 89. ^ Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 95-98. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 139 While Lauderdale made his preparations the case of the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, who shot the Bishop of Orkney in 1668, came up aj^ain. The affair requires a return to events as early as 1674. In that year, as Charles Maitland of Haltoun, brother of Lauderdale, reported to Kincardine, in a letter of February 10, Mitchell was arrested by Sir William Sharp, brother of the archbishop. On P'ebruary ID, being brought before a Committee of the Council, Mitchell denied that he was the assassin, but "being taken apart by the Chancellor" (Rothes), "upon assurance of his life, he fell upon his knees and confessed. . . ." Haltoun expected that he would be punished by loss of his hand and imprisoned for life. On February 12, Haltoun writes that Mitchell has repeated his confession before the Council and that Nesbit, King's Advocate, is to prosecute him. I add an Act of Council in a note. Nothing is herein said as to Mitchell's confession, or as to promise of life to him.^ On March 2, the indictment against Mitchell was read to the Justiciary Court, a Committee of the Court of Session, "the Criminal Lords" in Fountainhall's phrase. He was accused of taking part in the Pentland Rising (1666) and of the attack on Sharp. When arrested, in 1674, he was carrying his two pistols, "near musket bore." On March 12, the Privy Council passed another Act, mentioning that promise of life was given to Mitchell, with warrant from the Commissioner and Council ; that he thereon confessed and signed his confession, but that he withdrew it before the Court of Justiciary. The Lord Commissioner (Lauderdale) and the Council, therefore renounce their promise of life, which was fair, for the promise was given on " 1 Forasmuch as Mr. James Mitcliell now imprisoned in the Tolbuith of Edinburgh, is guiUie of being in the late relseliion in anno l666, and attempting the assassination of the Archbi.>hop of Saint Andrews by shooting of a pist-.H, wherewith the Bishop of Orkney was wounded, iherfore the Lord Commissioner his Grace and Lords of his Majesties Privy Council! doe rcmitt the said Mr. James Miiciiell to the Com- missioners of liis Majesties Justiiiary to lie proceided against for the saide crymes according to law, and grantes order and warrand to his Majesties Advocat to raise ana indytment against him for the said crymes before the said Commissioners, and to process and persew him thcrapon " (Report of Privy Council, I2lh February 1674, Acta). I40 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE \ condition of confession, the confession had been withdrawn : no confession, no promise. On March 25, before the Justiciary Court, Mitchell denied his confession. Apparently he could do this, as it was not made before a quorum of the judges. There was no other evidence against him, and the judges, with the assent of the King's Advocate, " deserted the diet," dropped the prosecution, pro teviporey but Mitchell was kept in prison.^ After an attempt by Mitchell to escape from the Tolbooth, ^ the Council (Jan. 6, 1676) ordered him to be tortured " "anent" his being in the Pentland Rising. Mitchell was tortured on this occasion. He objected that he should have been set at liberty when his " diet was deserted," but in Scot- land there was no Habeas Corpus. On January 24, 1676, though the torture was inflicted in presence of the judges, he was not proved to be accessory to the rebellion. Now Mackenzie, in his Vindicatioti (1691), says that torture was never used, save when the prisoner " was evidently proved to be guilty of accession to the crime, and that he knew the accomplices." There was no such proof outside the confes- \ sion which Mitchell had withdrawn, but the younger Auchin- ■' drane under James VI., was tortured in the absence of | evidence, on a true charge of murder. We now turn to Mackenzie's version, in his Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland. He declares ^ that Mitchell, in February 1674, confessed all to Rothes, "in another room" "without either asking life or promise of any favour." Now Haltoun's two letters, with the Act of Council, already cited, prove that this is incorrect. Mackenzie, of course, was not present at the proceedings of Council in 1674. In January 1678, he was King's Advocate, and was ordered by Council to prose- cute Mitchell, because "new discoveries had been made of a design to murder the Archbishop." By Mackenzie's "earnest desire," his great rival at the Bar, Sir George Lockhart, was appointed as counsel for the fanatic^ " The law that reached his life," says Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, "was the Fourth Act of the Parliament of 1600, against invading and 1 Wodrow, ii. pp. 248-252. -^ Memoirs, p. 327. •' Ibid., p. 328. I: MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 141 pursuing of Councillors, though it was only inaclc ad tcrroreDi, (James VI., i6th Pari. Act IV.) and in desuetude, and never practised as to the pain of death, for, otherwise, an attempt without full consummation is never capitally punished." • The question was raised, Had the archbishop been assailed " for doing his Majesty's service " ? This could not well be proved, and the "demembration" of the Bishop of Orkney was supposed not to be a capital offence under a law of 1491. Mackenzie's own pleadings are in his Works (vol. i. p. 118-121 bis) in Latin, for the benefit of foreign students ignorant of English, as he explains. Mackenzie was clearly unconscious of guilt, for he published this speech with many of his other pleadings in 1681. Mitchell, he said, is a cleric bearing arms, contrary to the canons ; an assailer of the king's counsellor ; a shepherd who feeds his flock with blood, not milk ; a wretch unmoved by the sacred character of a bishop. He has bragged of his crime, (this was proved by two witnesses,) and declared that it would be " a sweet and sacred thing," to murder the whole Bench of Bishops ! He has declared that he was inspired to do the deed, making God his accomplice. God to be sure, did inspire zealots, like Phinehas, in Old Testament times, but, since the days of the Gospel, He does so no longer, and Peter was rebuked for using the sword. Mackenzie proves Mitchell's guilt by his own confession, his repeated confession, corroborated by " adminicles " of external evidence : for example, his boasting of the deed. He argues that the mere attempt is a capital offence, quoting many Roman legists, as was the custom : and also argues that the Council, before whom Mitchell confessed, was a com- petent tribunal. He cites Seneca and St. Ambrose, also TertuUian, and then comes to the plea of promise, for all those witnesses who were present at the confession swear that there was no promise of life, or, some that they did not give it (Lauderdale and Rothes,) some. Sharp and Haltoun, that they did not hear it given. The confession itself includes no mention ' Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. p. 182, 142 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE of a promise of life.^ The Act saying that the promise is withdrawn, as Mitchell withdraws his confession, was made ex post facto, and proves nothing, in case a report that pro- mise was given may have reached the judges (the force of this reasoning escapes the lay reader ! ) ^ In his Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, and in English, Mackenzie writes, " The Act of Council, being posterior to the confession, could not prove that confession was emitted upon promise of life." Why could it not ? The Act narrates that Mitchell refused to confess, at first, " until having retired with one of the Committee, he did confess upon his knees he was the person, upon assurance of his life given him by one of the Committee, who had warrant from the Lord Commissioner" (Lauderdale) "and Secret Council to give the same, and therefore did freely confess. . . ." ^ Certainly this Act proves the offer of life in exchange for confession. Mackenzie went on to argue that David slew an Amalekite on his own unsupported con- fession. (But that was in Old Testament times !) Mackenzie ended by pointing out the danger of permitting fanatics to execute judgment on the plea of inspiration. The turning-point of the case was that Rothes, Lauder- dale, and Haltoun, all swore that the confession was spon- taneous, with no previous promise of life : Rothes could remember nothing of the sort. Sharp only swore that he gave no promise, beyond saying that, if Mitchell confessed, " he would do his best for him." He added that no pro- mise was given in his presence. Mitchell's brother-in-law, Somerville, boldly averred the reverse, accused Sharp of per- jury,* and, says Fountainhall, "the misfortune was that few there but believed Somerville better than the Archbishop." J| ^ '' He did freely confess." Wourow, vol. ii. p. 460. "^ I give the passage in the original. "Quoad actum vero Secreti Concilii, quo contineri dicitur spes veniK, patet responsio ; nam Senatus consultum illud non pra^cessit confessionem, adeoque non confessus est reus crimen hoc spe venine in illo expressre. Sed ut sophisma hoc radicitus diluatur, sciant judices integerrimi, reum hunc nunquam spem veniffi sibi proposuisse, nee examinatores ipsam oblulisse ; sed ex post facto, ne falsus rumor spei hujus, et venite concessce locum apud vos obtineret, emissum est hoc edictuni, in quo spes Venice ex post facto indultoe per transennam solummodo narratur " (Works, vol. i. p. 122). ' Wodrow, ii. pp. 250-252. ■* Ibid., ii. pp. 469, 470. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 143 Lockhart and Ellis, for Mitchell, then produced a copy of the Act of Council withdiawini^ the promise, and thereby admitting its existence. The judges refused to admit it, says Fountainhall, "as not probative, and because not pro- duced when it should have been produced, before the said noble witnesses were sworn. . . . And they abstracted the books," (the Registers of Privy Council,) "and would not produce them . . . and it choked the principles of both criminal law and equity to say it was too late, for it is never too late, in criminal cases, {nunquavi in criminalibus con- cluditur contra remn,) any time before the closing of the assize."^ The judges, however, unanimously pronounced against the opinion of Fountainhall, and Mitchell was found guilty and hanged. By unusual good fortune, we catch a glimpse of the crowd in the Court during the trial of Mitchell. Dr. Hickes, Lauderdale's chaplain, was present, much to his discomfort, and writes (December 8, 1677), "You cannot imagine how the Presbyterian party, especially the women, were concerned for him. The Court was full of disaffected villains, and because of my dress and profession I had many affronts done me ; for sitting high with my back towards that side of the Court where the zealous rabble were gathered together, near the bar at which the prisoner stood, they railed at my black coat, for so they called my gown, and bespit it all over, and pelted me now and then with such things as bits of apple and crusts of bread." This speaks ill for the tolerance and manners of the godly. Mackenzie, "almost the only great man in the country," says Hickes, "pursued Mitchell like a gallant man and a good Christian," in face of a letter threatening his murder.2 In this extraordinary and shameful affair, it has been argued for Mackenzie that he, who was not of the Council in 1674, relied on the oaths of the nobles and gentlemen who were then present, and who swore that no promise was made to Mitchell.^ As to the copy of the Act of Council in which ' Fountainhall, Historical Notices, \o\. i. pp. 182-186. * Ellis, Original Letters, Series II., vol. iv. pp. 47-51. 3 Barty, Mackenzie- VVharncliffe Deeds, p. 22. 144 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE promise of life was at once confessed to and withdrawn, the judges "repelled it," as Mitchell said in his speech on the scaffold, though why they did so is not obvious to the lay intelligence, unless they were overawed.^ Sir George Lockhart, says Mackenzie, was blamed for not producing the copy of the Act of Council before taking the evidence of Lauderdale, Rothes, and the others. Probably they suspected him of having planned a coup de theatre, inducing them to swear as they did, and then confuting them by litera scripta. The extraordinary fact is that Lauderdale and Rothes at least, seem to have absolutely forgotten the giving of the promise. Their depositions are quite frank. But Haltoun only swears that he did not hear the promise given^ which, in letter, was probably true, as Rothes and Mitchell were "apart," in another room. Sharp was equally cautious. Burnet's account is probably, or certainly, derived from Sir Archibald Primrose. He was delighted that his enemies, Lauderdale and the rest, were to perjure themselves in his own Court. He had copied and given the Act of Council of March 12, 1674, to Mitchell's counsel. He told the noble witnesses that "many thought" there had been a promise of life. Lauderdale stiffly denied it. Primrose said that "he heard there was an Act of Council." Lauderdale said that it was not possible, and that he would not take the trouble to consult the books. Primrose said within himself, " I have you now ! " This wret(;h actually believed that he was entailing damnation on his political enemies. When Lockhart pro- duced the copy of the Act, Lauderdale lost his temper, Burnet declares, and said that " he was not there to be accused of perjury." After the trial, the noble witnesses, says Burnet, examined the books, and found that they had ^ " I may say that there was a great deal of justification for the judges refusing to admit the copy of the Act of Council withdrawing the promise to Mitchell in respect that no notice of the intended production had been given to the prosecution. It would not be admitted under present practice without previous notice, unless it could be shown that the accused was unable to give the statutory notice, in which case the prosecutor is entitled to an adjournment. Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1887."— J. W. B. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 145 sworn falsely. Laiulcrdalc was willing to i^rant a reprieve and refer the matter to Charles II., with whom Mitchell would have probably been safe enouj^h. Hut Archbishop Sharp replied that any one would then think it safe to shoot him. So Burnet avers : he hated Sharp, and is not a ^ood witness. There is infamy enout^h for all parties to divide, from Mitchell the murderer, to Sir Archibald Primrose. Mackenzie, in his Vindication of the Government of Charles II. (1691), writes that, at Mitchell's trial "the Registers of Council were produced, but not the least mark of a promise was made to appear." That the Registers were not produced, he says, in his Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland {" that was justly refused "). In the Vindication he observes that the enemies of Government were reduced to declaring that the Registers had been "vitiated." They did say this, before the trial, and it is clear that Mackenzie, by 1691, had confused the facts of the case. Mackenzie's whole conduct remains a puzzle to me, because he ever tried to keep within the letter of the law, and his publication of his own pleading in the case, in 1681, shows that he was unconscious of having done anything that deserved reproach. In a copy of a dying speech issued by Mitchell, he says that Mackenzie was one of his counsel when he received his first indictment.^ That was on March 2, 1674, the Act of Council with- drawing the promise of life was of March 12, Mitchell came before the Court on March 25, when "his diet was deserted," and it is difficult to see how Mackenzie, at that time, can have been unaware of the Act of Council of March 12. Charles II. backed the Council and the judges in the letter which is quoted in the note.- * Wodrow, ii. p. 472. ^ Hist. MSS. Commission ; Mar Papers, 1904, p. 210. Copy of a Letter from King Charles II. to the Lords of Justiciary. Windsor Castle,////)' 13, 1679. Right trustie and well beloved counsellors, and trustie and welbeloved, wee greet you well. The punishment of crymes being of so great import to our K 146 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE A wretched piece of {gossip emerges from this miserable business. A lampoon in rhyme says that Mackenzie C Vulcan" referring to his broken leg and consequent lameness) " loves not Mars for Venus' sake," and a note explains that "by Mars is meaned the Viscount Dundee, who was thought to be too familiar with his lady." There was no Viscount Dundee till ten years after 1678. The lampoon is thus not contemporary, but a Whig slander done long after the date of the events : unless the notes were inserted after 1688, on a lampoon of a much earlier period. His worst enemies cleared Claverhouse of sensual sins, and he and Mackenzie, as Claverhouse's letters show, were on friendly terms. Haltoun was, later, accused of perjury before Parliament, but the Duke of York, who was then Royal Commissioner, adjourned the House.^ In Fountainhall's opinion, Haltoun could not have been convicted. He might argue that, in his letters to Kincardine, he w^as deceived by rumour, and that, before he swore, Lauderdale and Rothes had deposed, on oath, that there had been no promise. When he did swear, it was only to the fact that no promise was given in his hearing. Moreover the king, in his letter cited in the preceding note, describes Mitchell as "the enemy of human society." Two years earlier (December 20, 1676), three men named McGibbon were hanged for robbing the Laird of Lawers. Fountainhall says that the laird " cheated and cuUied service, and tending so much to secure our peaceable suUjectis ; and you being in the execution of that imployment at so much paines, and your bench being by its late constitution filled with persons of extraordinarie abilities and breeding, wee have thought fitt at this tyme to assure you of our firme resolution to owne you and that our Court in the administration of justice to our people, and that wee will punish such as by injureing you asperse our authority and poyson our people. And particularly wee doe thank you for your proceedings against Mr. James Mitchell, that enemy of humane society, these who lessen that cryme or insinuat any reproach against these who were interested in that process as judges or witnesses being chargeable with the blood which they encourage to spill upon such occasions, and so wee bid you farewell. Given at our Court at Windsor Castle, the 13th day of July, 1679, ^'^d of our reigne the 31 year. By his Majesties command. Signed Lauderdale. '• State Trials, \o\. vi. 1262-1270. MACKENZIE AS LORD ADVOCATE 147 them by a fofLjcd remission, which was scarce pia fraus, only it was Ihou^^lit such roiihris and enejnics to mankind and IniJiuvi society deseived to he hunted and caiij^ht, as we do with wild beasts, by nets and all xwcaw:^, per fas et nefas." Poor Mitchell was an enemy to human society, and per nefas he perished.^ While the year 1678 saw, in the case of Mitchell, an indelible stain upon the ermine of Scottish justice, it also saw the publication, by Mackenzie, of a book "which became the manual of criminal law in Scotland for a hundred and thirty years." Thus Mr. Taylor Innes describes Mackenzie's Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal.- We must remember, however, that, as re^^ards torture, and the law of hi^h-treason, the former was abolished and the latter was amended, two years after Scotland ceased to be an independent kingdom by the Union of 1707. These changes were not the least of the benefits flowing from that Union which, it is probable, Mackenzie would have opposed for reasons of patriotism, hke Lockhart of Carnwath and Fletcher of Saltoun. The dedication of Mackenzie's treatise, to Lauderdale, is another of the surprising testimonials to a character sadly in need of them, which Lauderdale won from such a man as President Stair, and from suffering ministers like Mr. Kirkton and Mr. Law^ Lauderdale was certainly learned, a true lover of books, and acquainted with Hebrew as well as with the classical languages and literatures. He was much interested in history, as John Evelyn learned to his cost, for Evelyn lent to Lauderdale many letters of Mary Queen of Scots, and of Maitland of Lethington, her famous secretary, Lauder- dale's great-uncle, Evelyn never recovered the MSS,, some of which, stolen at some time or other from the Lauderdale Papers, are now in the British Museum. Nor was Evelvn more fortunate when he lent MSS. to Bishop Burnet. He used unkind expressions about the Scots in general, but no man should trust any antiquary ! One holy man had found * Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. p. 136. ' Contemporary Review, 1871, p. 250. 148 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Lauderdale out, and told him frankly what was said of him, namely, that he was reputed to be a drunkard and a pimp. Mr. Richard Baxter did not, indeed, accept these charges, but he asked for means of refuting them. In any case Lauderdale would, one day, find it distressing " to reflect on a life of Covenant-breaking and unfaithfulness to God." It was too late to ask Lauderdale to renew the Covenants.^ In his Dedication of 1678, Mackenzie, of course, dwelt only on the virtues of the High Commissioner, concerning whom he says, in a passage added to his Memoirs, " Lauder- dale knew not what it was to dissemble." " Your enemies admire more the greatness of your parts, than of either your interest or your success, and how you have made so great a turn in this kingdom, without either blood or forfeiture, showing neither revenge as to what is past, nor fear as to what is to come, continuing no longer your unkindness to any man, than you think he continues his opposition to his Prince." Lauderdale's patriotism was really the quality that won Scottish hearts. How Scottish this is ! " To you every Scotsman is almost as dear as every man is to his own relations." ** He speaks to a' body as if they were his blood kin," said a labourer about Sir Walter Scott. After a com- pliment to the House of Lethington, Mackenzie says, " You are yourself the greatest statesman in Europe who are a scholar, and the greatest scholar who are a statesman : for to hear you talk of books one would think you had passed no time in studying men, and yet, to observe your wise conduct in affairs, one might be induced to believe that you had no time to study books. . . . You spend one half of the day in studying what is just, and the other half in practising what is so." ^ ^ Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. pp. 235-239. * Works, vol. ii. pp. 49, 50. CHAPTER XI THE HIGHLAND HOST AND ITS RESULTS Motives for summoning the clans — The alternative, mob eviction of con- formist ministers — Violence of the godly — Excesses of the Host — " Law- burrows" — Question of free quarters, 1678 and 1690 — Mackenzie's defence — Disapproves of the measures— Clans sent home — Complaints to the king — War of pamphlets — Mackenzie's statement — Arctina, Part II. — Hamilton and Mackenzie at Court — Claverhouse "our generous friend" — Mackenzie wins over Monmouth — Letter to Lauder- dale — Lauderdale attacked by the English House of Commons — Pro- tected by Charles — A Convention to be held — Mackenzie specially commended by the king. While Mackenzie was revising the proof-sheets of his work on Criminal Law, was poHshing his Dedication to Lauder- dale, and was prosecuting Mitchell, Government was busilv organising (November 1677, February 1678) the equipment of the Highland Host that was to subdue the west. The king "extremely approved" of this measure.^ The Presby- terians believed, with the Duke of Hamilton, and historians still maintain, that the Highland expedition was merely designed, not to check a rebellion in the bud, (a rebellion which, once begun, the Royal forces were undeniably unable to suppress,) but to provoke rebellion, and provide the members of Council with forfeitures and fines. Of these, in any case, they were unscrupulously greedy, but only one fine, much later, seems to have been given to Mackenzie. Lauderdale himself, as we have shown, acted on his old knowledge of the west ; his ceaseless fear of a return to 1648 ; his sense that the Militia could not be trusted, while the regular forces were helpless if the armed conventicles grew to a iiead ; and his discovery that the gentry of the * Danby Ic Lauderdale, Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 91, November 15, 1677 149 T50 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE west were as impotent to keep order as Hamilton says that his "deputies" were. "There is not a regiment in all the Militia in Scotland that his Majesty's commissioner puts trust in, and that is his incomparable prudence," writes Mr. Matthew Mackail.i As early as November 8, 1677, Lauderdale had explained the impotence of the local authorities to Danby. He had called together the gentry of the two most disaffected shires, " not that we expected much from them, but to try their pulse and render them inexcusable." The shires were those of Ayr and Renfrew ; in a letter of Council (October 17, 1677) the gentry thereof were warned of " the severe courses " that would ensue if disorder continued.^ The gentry, according to Lauderdale, " pretend they cannot repress these disorders, that is to say, they will do nothing towards it." 3 Wodrow gives the same answer from the gentry. " They found it not within the compass of their power to repress conventicles," and they said that toleration was the only possible measure. A recent writer, the Rev. Mr. Willcock, biographer of the unfortunate Earl of Argyll, not unjustly remarks that toleration " might have involved some rough measures of justice being undertaken by the populace, in replacing the ' outed ' clergy in their livings, and * rabbling out ' those who had been thrust upon the country by a fraudulent manoeuvre and maintained in office by violence." ^ This candid remark lights up the situation. The Government was to grant toleration, and look on while the rabble, continuing and extending the very violences which Government wished to stop, drove out one set of ministers and installed another ! The alternative to a plan so natural and judicious was coercion. Lauderdale coerced. I am not defending the calling out of the Highland Host ; I am only asking — What could the Government do ? Being without money, and without sufficient troops, they ^ S.P. Dow., Charles II., vol. 404. Record Office. ^ Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 372. ' Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 89. * A Scots £ar/ {Ihe Earl of Argyll), p. 206 (1907). THE HIGHLAND HOST AND ITS RESULTS 151 called on Atholl, Perth, Strathmore, Mar, Airlie, and other nobles and chiefs to muster their men, and to quarter them in the disturbed districts. We do not learn, save from Hickes, that Argyll was called on for a detachment ; the peers invited were of the southern Highlands, and Argyll had enough to do in his long private war with the Macleans. Perhaps his negotiations for a Toleration had made Lauderdale distrust his "forwardness in Church matters." Meanwhile " a measure of rough justice " was being dealt by the populace. Between December 25 and January 10, says Hickes, writing on the latter date, " the Saints . . . seized on six parish churches, and have appointed clerks and other officers of their own." 1 To suppress the Saints Atholl alone sent 2000 kilted Stewarts and Murrays ; the whole host was of some 6000 to 8000 claymores. It is worth notice that Perth, in reply, speaks of his House as " now at so low an ebb," " my poor despised family " (December 3, lOjy).- Both Perth and Atholl thought them- selves aggrieved, and turned against Lauderdale, presently ; but the poverty of Perth and his greed urged him and his brother, John, into the most ruthless, cruel, and lawless courses ; they were the worst of those officials who ruined the cause of James II. The host marched, and ravaged the western country with circumstances of ferocious license. On February 11, 1678, the Council issued a Proclamation in which Wodrow detects the hand of Mackenzie, " much the ablest advocate that party ever had," he elsewhere says. "The narrative is very bitter, and the public papers, since Sir John Nisbet's being laid aside, have a peculiar edge and flourish against Presbyterians." 3 The proclamation, after some " edge and flourish," announces that the king commands a bond to be subscribed, by which lairds and masters must go bail, so to speak, for ' Ellis, Original Letters, Series II., vol. iv. p. 51. * Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 93. * Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 398. 152 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the orderly and conformist behaviour of their tenants and servants. Some such bond was wont to be imposed on Highland chiefs, but Lowland tenants on lease were not Highland clansmen, obedient to the will of their chiefs. The bond was therefore very generally refused, by earls, lairds, and lawyers.^ In these circumstances a new legal device was tried, and possibly it was of Mackenzie's invention. The protection afforded by " law-burrows " (binding a person over to keep the peace, an instance occurred in January 1908) was extended to the king and the king's peace. This process, says Wodrow, thus extended, was " unexampled," moreover the information on which it was based was "a. sinister narration and wrongous information." This is a return to the old position that the disturbed west was peaceful and in no rebellious humour, which was untrue, in the opinion of the Government. Indeed the west was far from peaceful, whether a rebellion was being organised or not. Govern- ment from the first was haunted by the memories of 1648-49, when the preachers and Argyll led the fanatics against the army of the Estates. In his Vindicatioft (1691) Mackenzie avers, as in his Memoirs, that there was danger of con- venticles coalescing into an army ; that the gentry of the western shires declared, as they did, that peace and the continuance of Episcopacy were incompatible ; that the king and Council could not yield to the passions of private men ; that, as was proved in 1643 by the Solemn League and Covenant, full concession of Presbytery did not appease the Presbyterians, who sent their army to attack Charles I. in England ; and that therefore the Highlanders were quartered on the west, with security for repayment out of the fines levied there, and from the king. " Nor have those who were then in the Government clamoured so much for a year's Free Quarters, as these people did then for a fort- ^ In a programme of a book, The Covenanters, by James King Ilewison, M.A., D.D., it is announced that " The Gentlemen of the Restoration were the curse of Scotland." This is a popular error. Many of the gentry and many of the nobles resisted the arbitrary measures. THE HIGHLAND HOST AND ITS RESULTS 153 night's, and even during that fortnight most men paid for their quarters." The latter part of the argument is ruined by Wodrow's statistics of the losses of the western shires in five weeks,* whatever the sufferings of Mackenzie's party may have been during " a year's Free Quarters." In April 1690, indeed, we find Tarbat, now in the service of William III., complaining to him that his troops have been at free quarters in Scotland since November i, 1689. They "have ruined many, and irritated more." - But a William may steal a horse while a Charles may not look over a fence ! The Williamite troops were at free quarters in 1689, much longer than were the Highlanders in 1678. Even if better under control they "ruined many." But the Whiggish Muse of History makes no complaints of the Deliverer. "Two blacks do not make a white " in the nursery saying, so we need not set off the quarterings of 1689, 171 6, and 1746 against those of the High- land Host. It is the old quarrel of Presbyterian pot and Royalist kettle. As for law-burrows, or law-borrows, " by the very style thereof any private man may force another by the law to secure him against all prejudice from his men, tenants, and servants, and others of his command. Out hounding and Ratihibition." " The surety was thereupon approved by Parlia- ment," and was "a most advantageous remedy." ^ It appears that, about 1638, leases used to include a clause binding the tenants to have family prayers, whereas, in 1685, the leases bound the tenants to abstain from " fanatical disorders. How much do these tacks differ from those ! " says Wodrow.* ^ Wodrow, vol. ii. pp. 423-426. - SiaU' Papers, Domestic, Calendar 1689-90, p. 55 1 ; cf. Tarbat's Complaint, S.P. Dom., Will, and Mary, Calendar 16S9-90, p. 324. The Kinc. (0 Sir James Leslie. ,, ,,, Aoz'. 19, 10S9. Whereas we are informed by George \'iscount of Tarbet " that Major Wishart, in October last, forcibly entered his house of New Tarbet . . . and contrary to law did garrison the said house, &c. ... as also that numbers of soldiers were quartered on the said Viscount's lands on free ciuarters, and that several abuses were committed by the soldiers on his tenants, (S:c." ■* Works, vol. ii. p. 345. * Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 280. 154 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Persons who would shield Mackenzie under the plea that he was coerced by Lauderdale into the extension of "law-borrows," and the severities of 1678, might find a text in their favour. On February 15, 1678, the Earl of Perth wrote from Edinburgh to the Duke of Hamilton. The Council, he says, have resolved to disarm all the west, "even of their very swords, not sparing your Grace's self. Your Grace was named on that occasion, and particularly resolved to be so treated. Rothes . . . said it was the Mark of the Beast, so to say, for that the usurpers had practised it," and advised Lauderdale to forbear for his own sake. There was a quarrel, each of them upbraided the other as the cause of the disorders in the county. Sir George Mackenzie and Archbishop Sharp "both swear that they have no accession to these courses, and say, God knows, ill enough both of the things and their actors. But there is not one single Councillor otherwise, and yet all goes on." ^ Unluckily as Mackenzie had no dread of Lauderdale, we cannot excuse him on the plea of " forced out." We do see how Perth coursed with the hounds of Lauderdale, and ran with the hare of Hamilton. The dis- tracted Government, if we believe Perth, were all at odds among themselves. Their measures were, naturally, dis- tasteful to Mackenzie, and dangerous to themselves. It is easy, indeed necessary, to blame the conduct of Govern- ment, but not so easy to see what, with a tiny army, no money, and no police, they should have done to repress the disorders, and protect the conformist clergy. In fact, things had come to a state in which the brute forces of evolution directed them. There was violent dis- order, there was violent repression, all working to one end, the restoration of the form of Church government which the country demanded, without the unessential but hitherto inseparable domination of ministers. It was not the main- tenance of a diluted Episcopacy, it was the attempt to introduce Catholicism, that ruined the Stuart dynasty, after it had subjugated the Kirk. ^ Hist, A/SS. Cow., XL, vi. pp, 163, 164. THE HIGHLAND HOST AND ITS RESULTS 155 In the middle and AdJ. MSS., Malet Papers, 32.095, f. 94. - Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. pp. 154-159. 164 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE and moderation, and Hamilton with a great deal of peremptor}^ boldness." ^ Whatever the Hamilton party may have thought of the Convention, Mackenzie was much pleased w^th it, with public loyalty, and with his own successes, as he freely explains to the English Secretary of State in the following letter : 2_ Sir George Mackenzie to Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State. Sir, . . . Our afifairs heer prosper to our wish for the whole convention did vnanimously vot a suplie & vher wee differd such as serve the King in his own way prevailed still in all the severall votes, and the people ar almost in as loyall a frame as they wer in vhen his Majestie was restord. All men heer speak kyndly of his interest & most men think kyndly of it. I hav been so happie as to be very instru- mentall in this turne And the great things I have said of the Kings inclination to justice & of his understanding perfectly our affairs did much influence all sydes to the united vote. I hoop you will tak occasion to remember the King in vhat ill condition his affairs wer vhen I first engadgd in his service and vhat pains I have taken to restore them to ther first con- dition and with vhat passion & concern I interest my selfe. This good office is not deservd though expected by your humble servant Geo. Mackinzie. Edinburgh, i,Jul: 1678. The Convention, the vast majority being of a singular loyalty, voted grants for a new regiment of foot, three troops of horse, and some dragoons, with a " cess " or tax of ;^i 80,000. The forces were intended to repress the field conventicles, and taxation seemed better than free quarters. But, as Wodrow says, "the Act divided those who were before disjointed," and the Presbyterians, already rent by the ^ S.P. Do»i., Charles II., vul. 404. _ * Ibid., vol. 405. MURDER OF SHARP 165 questions of indcliiiitc ordinations, and the lawfulness of being in communion with the Indulj^ed, now split upon the question of the le<^aiity of paying the cess. "Tlie banished ministers in Holland were warmly a<^ainst paying this assess- ment," some ministers at home preached against it, the congregations of other ministers, by way of a popular Erastianism, insisted that they should do so. They found a case of a primitive Christian, who, moved by his conscience, committed arson in a pagan temple. He was ordered to rebuild it, (which seems no more than reasonable,) but he preferred to be a martyr.^ In Wodrow's time (1722) the Presbyterians were still wrangling among themselves over these old cases of con- science. They bitterly felt that, after all their sufferings, they had failed to recover " the prerogatives of Christ," and they cast blame upon their ancestors, on one or the other side in their old disputes. A wild party of non-indulged preachers, young pro- bationers, a preaching hangman, and wandering dispos- sessed lairds now arose, fomented by the exiles in Holland. Mr. Mackail, on August 10, thus reports the activities of the Rev. Mr. Welsh : 2— To Mk. John Adam. I am always labouring to remove your errors, the greatest of which is to maintain the Presbyterian principles. How will you justify what fell out the Sabbath 4th of this month. Mr. John Welch with 36 other nonconformist Ministers convented loooo of the kings I know not whether to say Leidges or enemies, at Maybol near Air celebrated the Lord's Supper with great solemnity, preached up the Solemn League and Covenant, the lawfulness of defensive arms, before and after their sermon modelling themselves drilling and exercising themselves in " faits of amies" and appointing another celebration at Fenuick within 34 miles of this city declaring they will defend themselves if opposed by His Majesty's forces. ^ Wodiow, ii. p. 491. - Abridijcd fiuiu S.P. Doin., Charles II., vol. 405. i66 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Mr. Welsh rode about with an armed guard, not of the godliest, organising rebellion, (according to Mackail and Claverhouse,) yet was insulted as being too tame, and " an Achan among us." "Many" (sensible Presbyterians!) "by reason of these unhappy jars deserted us, and many more never joined us," writes a survivor, consulted by Wodrow.^ At this time Robert Hamilton, once a pupil of Gilbert Burnet, desecrated the Sabbath by leading a party in arms to invade the Rev. Matthew Selkirk, in the parish of IMonkland, near Glasgow. Hamilton brought in another preacher, more to his taste, and of his sermon Mr. Selkirk took notes, " which sadly discover the height the flames were come to." Wodrow piously forbears from printing the notes, which would be instructive. Here follows another letter from ]\Iackail : — To John Adams, merchant of Lisbon. Edinburgh, Aug. 17, 1678. Welch's great conventicle lasted from Saturday Sunday and Monday. He had considerable guards. He entered the town of Air with his guards and performed such visits as he pleased. The Magistrates on reproof from the council alleged that they had no suitable force to oppose him. Sir James Stuart has been released from prison by order of council though he declared he would not live " orderly " as that meant he should converse with no outed ministers, nor countenance them.^ The madness of Oates's Popish Plot was now raging m England, and the following year was a period of delirium north and south of Tweed. Early in the year 1679 Mackenzie was engaged in the singular affair of the Rev. Mr. William Veitch. This young clergyman was of a temperament rather Cavalier than Covenanting : he carried a spirit of gallantry and gaiety into the defence of his cause ; and, from his Memoirs, it appears ' Wodrow, ii. pp. 497-500. "- S.P. Doiii., Charles II., vol. 406. MURDER OF SHARP 167 that he thorou<^hly enjoyed the dreick period of " the Suffer- ings." An account of his adventures may seem a digression, but it brings hfe and gaiety into a deplorable picture of the age. In November 1666, when the Pentland Rising began, Mr. Veitch, then residing at Lanark, took unto him an old soldier, now a tailor. Major Learmont, and led a little band to march under the standard of the Covenant. With fifty horsemen he invaded the town of Ayr, captured one of the magistrates who had absconded, and billeted 800 horse and foot in the town and citadel. Thence he marched on Lanark, which his party occu- pied ; and here he meant to stop Dalziel, with the Royal army, from crossing the flooded Clyde. Dalziel would be driven back on Glasgow, by lack of supplies, the Cove- nanters would concentrate on Lanark, and be ready, in force, for a dash on Edinburgh, where panic prevailed. "An excellent plot, good friends!" but the author of Jus Populi Vindicatiim sent a message bfdding the Cove- nanters to march at once on Edinburgh, where they would find reinforcements and supplies. Mr. Veitch was reposing when this message came, after several nights spent under heavy rain. He was aroused, and called to a council of war, where he stood by the strategic scheme already de- scribed. But as the council differed from his opinion, and as their general, Wallace, volunteered to go himself as a spy into Edinburgh, Mr. Veitch gallantly took that dan- gerous task upon himself. He left his sword and pistols behind, wore an old cloak and an old hat, mounted a bag- gage horse, and rode by way of Biggar. At the park wall of Greenhill he was warned by three countrywomen that Lord Kingston, with horse and foot, was watching by Bruntsfield Links. " If you go that way, you are a dead man." He therefore rode across the Boroughmuir to enter by way of Dalkeith, from the east, but some coal-miners told him that all the gates were guarded in force. " Reason and light was for going back ; but credit " (honour) " cried, * You must go forward, or lose your reputation, as a coward that durst not prosecute your commission. ' " i68 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Mr. Veitch was not disobedient to the call of honour ; he rode on, and, at the Potter Row gate, two sentries " culled him like a flower." He asked to be allowed to go to his lodgings, as a man of peace, but was led before Lord Kingston, "a huffle and hot-spirited man," to whom he gave "very smooth and suitable answers." A cry arose that the Whigs were at the gates, when Mr. Veitch said, "My Lord, if you have any arms to give me, I'll venture against these Whigs in the first rank." It was a false alarm, and Mr. Veitch requested Lord Kingston to send him, under guard, to the house of the Dean of Edinburgh, from whom he would bring a line to prove his honesty. The Dean was a friend of Kingston, and Mr. Veitch had probably guessed, what Kingston knew, that the worthy divine had fled, in great fear, to the shelter of the Castle. Kingston, quite satisfied, was just bidding Mr. Veitch go in peace, when in came two scouts with a prisoner, no less than Mr. Veitch's friend, the unfortunate Mr. Hugh Mackail. As Mackail was sure to have saluted Mr. Veitch as a com- panion in tribulation, he asked hastily for a corporal and his guard, to protect him from further inquiries. Released in the Potter Row, he went to an inn kept by a woman that was a widow. On entering the hall he found it full of trembling curates, slipped back, and, after other adventures, took refuge with an outed minister. Here he got a bed, cut off his wet boots, and hung them up. He found them still hanging there when, thirteen years later, he fell into the hands of the Lord Advocate Mackenzie, in 1679. ^ Others might think that Mr. Veitch had now done |- enough for honour, but that was far from his mind. He ^ heard that his comrades were among the Pentland hills, I and thither he rode next morning. He was surrounded |f by a patrol of Dalziel's horse, but he called to Paton, who y commanded the rear-guard of the Covenanters ; Paton | charged the patrol, and freed Mr. Veitch, with apologies f for having sent him on such an errand. About midday his comrades, hearing of Dalziel's advance, occupied a hill- '' MURDER OF SHARP 169 top, whence they drove an attackinj^ party under General Drummond. Maj(M- Learmont, Vcitch's friend, drove off another party, and would have slain the Duke of llauiilton hut for Ramsay, Dean of Hamilton, who warded off the stroke with his sword. Learmont then slew one of four men who attacked, and he escaped, as did Mr. Veitcii, who was actually taken, but s4alloped away under fire. After countless adventures he managed to cross the Border. He preached in I.ondon, stayed in England, mainly on the Border, for twelve years ; was at last arrested as an outlaw fugitive from Scotland, and sent to Edinburgh. He was brought before the Criminal Court as having been condemned, in absence, to death for his share in the Pent- land Rising, a decision of which Mackenzie had disap- proved at the time, and in 1669, when an Act of Parliament made such condemnations legal. But now, as King's Advocate, Mackenzie had to administer the existing law. A new trial would not be granted to Mr. Veitch, against whom evidence could scarcely be found, while he had an alibi; people could sw^ear to his presence in Edinburgh on the night before and in the morning of the battle of RuUion Green, while nobody could show that he actually took a part, as he did, in the battle. The Privy Council (March ii, 1679) wrote to the king, saying that, w^hereas a Mr. George Johnstone, a farmer, had been sent to them from England, he turned out to be the Mr. William Veitch forfeited in absence in 1667. The Royal Orders about Johnstone did not apply to Veitch, "who offers him to prove that he was in Edinburgh the time of the fight at Pentland." (Oh, Mr. Veitch !) The Council, therefore, awaited further orders. On March 18, under these orders, Mackenzie was commanded to prosecute the hero. But, on April 8, the judges found that they needed the advice of the Privy Council and Lords of Session, for there was no precedent for executing a sentence pronounced in the absence of the accused, when he appeared "and offered defences." Mr. Veitch's "de- fences" were of the flimsiest, for he had done as much I70 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE fighting as he could get, but that circumstance he kept to himself. His " diet " was deferred again and again. Through Eliot of Minto he sent a petition to Lauderdale, who was his kinsman. That failed, "the Duke was pre-engaged." But Shaftesbury heard of the matter, and " made a great noise," while the English House of Commons threatened an inquiry. Charles, therefore (July 17, when Mackenzie was in London) wrote a letter saying that as Mr. Veitch " was not actually present at Pentland fight " (where he had been in the thick of it) Mr. Veitch must be set at liberty, on promise to leave Scotland.^ Now Mr. Veitch, when brought before the Council on his arrival as a prisoner from England, had turned the laugh against the Bishop of Edinburgh (Paterson), " ' Have you taken the Covenant ? ' asked the bishop. " He answered, ' All that see me at this honourable board may easily perceive that I was not capable to take the Covenant, when you and the other ministers of Scotland tendered it.' " At which the whole company fell a laughing." Mr. Veitch probably did not know that the bishops unanimously desired his acquittal. Mackenzie writes to Lauderdale, " I find the bishops violent to have him cleared, for they think his death will ruin their interest, and St. Andrews (Sharp) said to myself they would petition for it, and thereupon I entreated them never to blame your Grace for favouring fanatics. All men here wish his life to be spared." ^ Mr. Veitch being thus happily released, with the good will of all parties, soon distinguished himself in new adven- tures even more curious and heroic than those in which he had already been engaged. His guiding star was romance ; his wife, a pious lady, was worthy of him, and, at a very great age, after more than fifty years of married life, they died within a day of each other : " in death they were not divided." Their lives are a gleam of light in the gloomy annals of the time. ' Wodrow, iii. pp. 7-9. * Add. MSS. 32,095, A/a/e/ Papers, f. 205. MURDER OF SHARP 171 The early months of 1679 saw a chaii^^L- in tlic methods of the conventiclers, some ministers witlidrew from the majority of their brethren, concentrated their armed foUowers, and, from December to May, discoursed " to vulgar auditories" against the Indulged, and against pay- ment of the recently imposed taxation, Mr. Welsh and others of his temper, " with whom there were not many in arms," preached in other places.^ On March 31, Major White had news of a conventicle to be held at Lesmahago, and took out a party of twenty dragoons, with two officers. He came across a force of three hundred foot and a troop of sixty horsemen, whom he commanded to disperse. Their leader replied in a phrase both disloyal and unquotable, as regarded the king, and said that his men fought for "the King of Heaven." They fired, and the Whigs fell on the fourteen dragoons (six had been left to guard prisoners) and mortally wounded Lieutenant Dalziel, whom they took prisoner, with six others. Robert Hamilton was believed to be the leader.^ Two soldiers were later murdered in cold blood at a place called New Mills, on the borders of Ayrshire, whereon the gentry of that county met (April 28) and attributed the disturbances to " a few unsound, turbulent, and hot-headed preachers, most part w^hereof were never ministers of the Church of Scotland." ^ On May 3, Archbishop Sharp was murdered, in a butcherly manner, (the whole process of slaying him and rifling his baggage occupied three-quarters of an hour,) on Magus Moor, some three miles from St. Andrews. It became a kind of test question, "What do you think of the death of the Archbishop ? " Many fanatics had no clearness to pronounce it murder. If it was not murder, then it was the righteous execution of God's judgments. The murderers, as one of them, Russell, says, had already "judged duty to hang them both" (Sharp and another man) "over the port," the gate of his house at St. Andrews.* " Many of * Wodrow, iii. p. 33. '■' Lauderdale l\ipers, iii. pp. 162-164. ■' Wodrow, iii. p. 38. * Kirklon, p. 406. 172 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the Lord's people and ministers judged a duty long since not to suffer such a person to live. ..." " The Lord had put it into the minds of many of his people," said one David Walker to Russell. John Balfour of Burley or Kinloch "got that word borne in upon him, ' Go and prosper,' this after I 'inquiring the Lord's mind.'" "He went again and got it %] confirmed by that scripture, 'Go, have I not sent you.' " All these divine commands reached Balfour when he was thinking of retiring from Fife to the Highlands.^ Others also had "a clear call," and said " truly this is of God." Their ■''■ duty, on the principles of Knox a.nd/us Populi Vindicatuin, was thus fully " circumstantiate." They had " calls," as Phinehas had, and they hacked the Archbishop to death. The affair was entirely en regie, from their point of view. They escaped to the west, where some of them, such as | Balfour and Hackston of Rathillet, joined the congenial X Robert Hamilton. The details of the murder of the Arch- ;\,i bishop were not, at first, clearly known, as appears from ^ Mackenzie's undated note to Lauderdale, probably of May 4 or 5. "The chancellor and I waited all day at Leith examining witnesses, with result that Hackston of Rathabuch was he who struck the postillion & turned the coach, but is not taken. Camron's brother is taken, &c. Inchdernie commanded the party and was killed by Achmutie the Duchess's page. Many are taken as suspect but no clear probation against them, but we will put them all to the torture. Remember that King Alexr. II. killed 400 for the death of one Bishop of Caithness and gelded them and what law had he for that ? " 2 As a matter of fact it was Russell who struck the postillion, at least he says so himself, and Inchdernie was not the leader nor present at the murder, he was shot in galloping away from Achmutie's party of avengers. The threat to "put them all to the torture" was not carried out, at least, as far as I can find, Wodrow makes no mention of a fact which he would have been careful not to omit. He only says that 1 Kirklon, p. 413. ^ jj^^ AJSS. 32,095, A/a/cl Papers, f. 190. MURDER OF SHARP 173 the Council " took the oaths of the Archbishop's servants, and used all imaginable care to discover the actors." ' Wodrow says that no party of Presbyterians approved of the murder, but his editor candidly quotes, from that popular book The Hind Let Loose, the statement that " attempts at cutting off such monsters of nature " are " lawful " (and, as one would think, laudable) in the circumstances. They are seldom profitable. Mackenzie himself, at this time, knew that he carried his life in his hand. In a letter to Lauderdale, undated, but probably written rather later, he says that, when riding from The Shank (his country house) on Monday, four armed men rode up and asked Gifford and Pitcur (Haliburton of Pitcur, his brother-in-law) if Mackenzie were with them, but seeing their servants coming up with his own, they retired. He " is not afraid to do his duty." - Mackenzie was not able to stay in Scotland, seeking after the murderers of the Archbishop. While they were riding about the country, making for the congenial west by the north, he was summoned to Court. He therefore was no eye-witness of the confusion and panic in Scotland, when events proved that the murderers, far from absconding, were publicly heading a rebellion ; and proving perhaps rather to Mackenzie's satisfaction, that with such a rising as his party had looked for in 1678, and had suppressed by aid of the Highland Host, the regular forces in Scotland were unable to cope. News presently came to Court which Mackenzie could employ as a good defence for the use of the Highland Host. It was on May 14 that Charles sent to Edinburgh, commanding Mackenzie, Stair, the Register, the Justice- Clerk, and the Justice-General, to attend a conference in London, on Lauderdale's affairs.^ The House of Commons, on May 29, Restoration Day, presented to the king an address against Lauderdale, and " his arbitrary and pernicious counsels," tending to " the alteration of the Protestant * Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 52. - AiiJ. MSS. 32,094, f. 302. ■ Founlainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. p. 225. 174 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE religion established." Shaftesbury was still making his own use of " the Popish Plot," and if ever any counsels were " arbitrary and pernicious " they were those of his party, which sent so many innocent men to the block and the gibbet on the grotesquely incredible evidence of Gates, Bed- loe, Turberville, Dugdale, and Mr. Kirkton's enemy, Captain Carstairs. Lauderdale was said to be " with just reason regarded as a chief promoter of such counsels," and no doubt Captain Carstairs, now at enmity with him and other witnesses, would have told marvellous tales against him. Probably Carstairs came to town for that purpose, but he found another victim, who was hanged.^ The chief charge was that Lauderdale " raised jealousies and misunder- standings " between the kingdoms, " whereby hostilities might have ensued." Probably Burnet's evidence of 1675 lingered in the minds of the Commons. The exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession was also designed, but Charles dissolved the Parliament. Now on that very Restoration Day which the Commons chose for their attack on Lauderdale, a genuine rebellion broke out in the disturbed districts of Scotland. The murderers of Sharp had joined hands with the western devotees under Robert Hamilton, and on May 29 Hamilton headed a band of the most devout, who avenged a standing grievance of the preachers. The State, they held, had no right to appoint holidays ; to do so was to touch the Ark, like the well-meaning but unfortunate Uzziah. Hamilton, on Restoration Day, trotted into the town of Rutherglen near Glasgow, burned a number of Acts of the Government at the Cross, and affixed to it a written Testimony of " the true Presbyterian party." They witnessed against the Act Rescissory for overturn- ing the whole Covenanted Reformation. The Acts for establishing abjured prelacy. The Renun- ciation of the Covenants. The outing of the ministers. The invasion of the Lord's prerogative by the appointing of a holy day on May 29. The Act of Supremacy of 1669. The ^ Burnet, pt. i, vol. ii. pp. 170-172. MURDER OF SHARP 175 Indulgence and all other sinful Acts of Council. (This clause as to the Indulgence is not in all copies.) On May 31 Claveihousc with a small force of cavalry rode out to look for the authors of the Testimony, and for a conventicle. He succeeded to a wish in finding both at Drumclog ; he caught a preacher, Mr. King, and encountered an armed body of men, under Russell, and Balfour of Burley, Sharp's murderers, and Robert Hamilton. The Covenanters held a strong position surrounded by marshes, and Claver- house, having reconnoitred, sent to Glasgow for reinforce- ments. But he did not wait for their arrival, and after some skirmishing, the enemy marched up to his dismounted dragoons, and came to hand-strokes, slaying several of his officers, and wounding his horse with a pitchfork, whereon his men took to flight. He lost some prisoners, who sur- rendered to quarter, and Hamilton, by his own account, pistolled one of them, and declared that to have given quarter " was one of our first steppings aside." Claverhouse brought his fugitives into Glasgow in the late twilight, here he found Lord Ross with a small force ; they barricaded the streets, and three days later were attacked by the Covenanters. They drove ofif the enemy, but now the country, small lairds, yeomen, labourers, townsfolk, were hurrying to fight for the Covenants ; and Linlithgow, from Edinburgh, ordered Ross to retire on Stirling, joining him at Larbert on June 5. Meanwhile the enemy, some 6000 or 7000 men, occupied Glasgow un- opposed, where they found supplies and a welcome. The Privy Council was raising the Militia, a half-hearted body, and must have been comforted to hear, about June 15, from Lauderdale, that the king was sending down several regiments of foot and horse under Monmouth, then the darling of Protestants, frightened by Oates's fables of a popish plot. It is not possible to say what would have happened if the Covenanters had been in harmony among themselves. They might have marched on Edinburgh raising the country as they went, though they would have exposed their flank 176 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE to Ross and Claverhouse. But they only " fought like devils for conciliation," in their own ranks : the party of Mr. Welsh and the wilder party of Robert Hamilton preaching and praying against each other about com- munion with the Indulged, was it sinful ? about payment of cess, was it a Cause of Wrath ? and so forth. Welsh's party raised a new Testimony at Hamilton, against the Testimony of Rutherglen. Was the army to be " purged " of Achans, as before the battle of Dunbar, and, if so, were the Achans the Welshites, or the partisans of Robert Hamilton ? The host loitered about on the Clyde, among villages and little towns, like Hamilton and Bothwell, infecting all the country with the microbe of rebellion, for, till the revolution of 1688, peasants and lairds and yeomen who had " conversed with the rebels " were liable to arrest, fine, forfeiture, even death. On July 22 Monmouth found the unhappy, distracted host grouped round the various preachers, on the farther side of Bothwell Bridge. After some parley he advanced, there was skirmishing and artillery fire, but the enemy did not fight as at Rullion Green in 1666. Each party in the Presbyterian camp blames the other, but the Bridge was not resolutely held, and before the Royalists the Covenanters presently all ran away, losing hundreds of prisoners. The news would reach London about June 25 or 26. In London and at Windsor, during the month of the rebellion, Hamilton, with AthoU, Sir John Cochrane, Sir George Lockhart, and Sir John Cuningham (Mackenzie's old companion as Justice-Depute) were at Court, present- ing Charles with a list of their grievances. This document, of which there is a MS. copy in the Townshend papers, was printed as a pamphlet, " Matters of Fact." Wodrow gives a text. The Lords say (i) that Lauderdale grossly misrepre- sented the condition of western Scotland, (which is not so certain,) and sent in the Highland Host, with all its quarter- ings and exactions. (2) The Bond was "illegal." (3) So MURDER OF SHARP 177 was " law-liorrows," witli the clisruniiii^ of the- t^'c-iitrv, aiid tlic seizure of their best horses. (4) The nobles ;iik1 gentry of Ayr were iiKheted, bv Mackenzie, not allowed time to prepare their defences, and " put to swear aj^ainst them- selves in matters that were capital." (3) They " pureed themselves upon oath." (6) When they went to Edinburgh they were ordered to leave the town. (7) When they de- sired to ^o to lay their grievances before the kinj^, they were forbidden to leave the country. (8) A number of persons were illegally imprisoned, others were incapacitated from public offices. (9) The Kirkton story among others is told, not as by Mr. Kirkton, for Carstairs, "a person now well enough known to your Majesty " as a witness in the Popish Plot, is represented as saying that he had a warrant, which Mr. Kirkton has neglected to record. It is stated that Carstairs procured an ante-dated warrant.^ After other offences of less interest, the complainants give the story of Mitchell. Lauderdale is said to have " threatened them " (the judges) <* if they should proceed to the examination of that Act of Council which, he said, might infer perjury on them that had sworn." They then touch on jobbery and corruption, and accuse Haltoun of sending from the Council models of any Royal letters he pleases, which Lauderdale, in town, returned with the Royal signature.^ Wodrow is for laying much of the blame upon the bishops, but as Sharp had been already judged, condemned, and executed by the Fifeshire Phinehases, he was dropped out of the Memorial. On July 8, the Lords of Hamilton's party, with Lock- hart and Cuningham, met at Windsor, to accuse Lauderdale. Against them l\Lackenzie appeared, single-handed, " who undertook the debate against them all," ncc pluribus iinpar ! Among his adversaries was, unlocked for, the chief of Clan MacXaughton, that doughty victim of Argyll. To him the king was pleased to say, in banter, " You are indeed a ' Burnet says that he confessed this to AthoU. Burnet was " against the making use of so vile a man." Burnet, pt. i. vol. ii. p. 170. - Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. 159- i6j. M 178 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE great lawyer, and a Highland man." Mackenzie, according to a letter printed by Wodrow, " proved the king's prero- gative, controvert as it was by the municipal law of the kingdom, by printed statutes, and constant practiques," and at last the two lawyers (Lockhart and Cuningham) " ac- knowledged that, by law, the king might do what was done, but did much question the Council's prudence in the particular application. . . ." Mackenzie replied that to question the application was to question the king and his Council. " That no judicatory was to give an account of the application of law, because the members were sworn to act according to their con- science, that they had done so ; and to question this were to overturn the fundamentals of all Government ; for then all sentences of a judicatory would be misregarded by the subjects, and consequently no delinquents punished ; and by this means the subject would lose liberty and property." The king " listened patiently " to a debate of eight hours. Mackenzie argued, in regard to the particular instances com- plained of, " that no accusation could be brought here without the kingdom" (of Scotland) "against any particular man." He held his own against his adversaries, lawyers, lords, and the fiery Celt, from ten to one o'clock, and from four to nine in the evening. This was a considerable feat of mind and body.^ On July 13, Charles was to hear the case again, but Lockhart had withdrawn, " saying, he would debate no more against persons that, for anything he could see, would hereafter be his judges." Mackenzie, to be sure, was in the same position, for conversis rebus, Lockhart and the rest would be his judges. In ten years came the revolution, and Lockhart was slain by a private foe, Chiesly of Dairy. The Hamilton party said, in letters seen but not quoted by Wodrow, that the king " was very much convinced of great ^ Burnet here confuses Mackenzie's expedition to London in 1678, with his visit in 1679. See Mr. Airy's edition of Burnet, vol. ii. p. 234, 710/e 3. Burnet says that the case against Lauderdale and the Council, "was made out beyond the possibility of an answer," " Mackenzie having nothing to shelter himself in but that flourish in the Acts against field conventicles in which they were called the rendez- vous of rebellion." The Advocate had much more than that to say for the Council. MIIRDKR OF SHARP 179 misniannLjcinc'nts in ScotLuul " ; he could not nt once- break with Lauckichik", l>iit llaniiitoii was _i;ivin reason to liopc tlial Micldleton ami Mackenzie's cousin, Tarlial, WDuld he substituted for him, while Haiti lun would be laid aside. On July 31, Charles explained the state of alfairs in a public letter. He had heard the Lords, with their le^al advisers, and the advocates had allowed that the Government had acted within the law, except as to incapacitating^ men from public ollice, a question into which he would make inquiries. He could not possibly hear, in England, cases "in the first instance" ai^ainst persons in Scotland. The charges against Lauderdale, making him, wIk; was in England, responsible for all that the Council did in Scotland were " a high contempt of that our judicatory." He also (July 13) exonerated the udges, and we have printed his special exoneration in the case of Mitchell.^ ^Lackenzie had won his case, and it appears probable that, though the judge was favourable, he really had a good case, as Scots law stood. This fact, if correctly estimated, proves the miserable estate of Scotland, under the Union of the Crowns, with the king an absentee. The laws were in favour of despotism. But, while Scotland had her king at home, in any such state of affairs as that of 1679, the Hamilton party would have watched their oppor- tunity, seized the king's person, and taken office. Tiiis was the regular practice : there would have been a Raid of Ruthven, or a Raid of Stirling. With the king safe in England, Scotland was governed "by the pen," as James VT. said, and by his Council. A king like Charles 11. was so indolent that the Council wrought their will unchecked. We possess, in manuscript,- ^Lickenzie's written defence of the Council, handed in, on July 8, as a reply to the paper of the Hamilton party, of wliich a summary has been given. Mackenzie states his case much more vigorously in English than in his Latin Dcfcnsio Sccrcti CoJidlii, in his Works (vol. i. pp. 160-164, Ins). Mackenzie premises that the King of Scotland does not derive power "from a contract with the people." In that ' Wodro\\ , iii. pp. 168-171. - AJJ. MSS. 23,244, tV. 20-2S. i8o SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE case he could claim no prerogative which was not acknow- ledged by statute. But the king, in Scotland, derives his power from God alone, as is expressly stated in James VI., Pari, xviii., Act 2. Here James is "humbly and truly " declared to be sovereign monarch, absolute Prince, judge and governor over all persons, estates, and causes, both spiritual and temporal. (Act 15 of the first Parliament of Charles II., and other Acts, buttressed by the opinion of Bodin and Black- woodius, and several others, Charles has the right to do whatever any other king can do, see Barclay, who places his authority on a par with that of the kings of France and Spain.) "All legists number our King among the absolute Kings." ^ "That power cannot be denied to your Majesty which I can prove to have been exercised by any of your predecessors." Thus, a king of Scotland " upon strong and pregnant evidences of a rising" can call together a force to enter the disturbed district. " To wait till the rebellion were risen were, in effect, to incapacitate the king to repress it." Certainly the king had to bring in English troops to suppress the rising of Drumclog (June i, 1679). The regulars were obliged to retreat and concentrate at Edinburgh, leaving the west and Glasgow in the hands of the rebels. The king's right to do what the Council did with the Highland Host, is proved by Act 6 of the third Parliament of James VI., "where the Council is made Judges of what is rebellion, and whence the kingdom is to be armed." " If the taking of quarter be not allowed to the king's forces in such cases, our kings had never been able to suppress rebellions, for it was known that they had no ready cash." The alYair of "the bond" was justified in the same way, and the right of pre- cautionary imprisonment, forbidden only in England (and freely practised there, later, against Jacobites) ; Scottish law fixes no limit to such imprisonments before trial ; the power, "Hke dangerous medicines, should never be used save in cases of extreme necessity." The advocate has this latitude, and the last advocate, Nisbet, " left twenty who have lain for many years notwithstanding many petitions." The setting aside of borough magistrates is defended by historical precedents, ^ Laurius, De Leg. Reg. MURDER OF SHARP i8i one that of "your gnindmothcr," great-grandmother, of course, is meant, Queen Mary. A neat but long argument is brought against tlie gentry who did not repress the chsorders. The case of Jerviswoode and Carstares is stated as by the King's Advocate at the time. It is false that the warrant was ante-dated; it was "of old date and writing, and was seen previously by many." No other particular cases are touched upon, Charles could not hear them, in England, or so he argued. Mackenzie ends with an eloquent appeal in the names of Archbishop Laud, Montrose, and Strafford, who " were rebels at a time when monarchy itself was declared to be tyranny." Lockhart and Cuningham are said to have acknowledged that Mackenzie was right, in law, and we can only say tant pis pour les lots. It was probably when he went to town in 1678, or 1679, that Mackenzie met the great poet, John Dryden, and gave him literary advice. Dryden was far from saying, (as Mr. Taylor Innes avers,) "that his poetic efforts and successes were originated by the conversation " of the Scot. What he does say is — " Had I time, I could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this, as in heroic poetry itself, of which the satire is undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns, I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller and Sir George Denham, of which he repeated many to me. I had often read with pleasure, and with some profit, those two fathers of our English poetry, but had not seriously enough con- sidered those beauties which gave the last perfection to their works. Some sprinklings of this kind I had also formerly in my plays ; but they were casual, and not designed. But this hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors." Dryden is speaking only of certain points of style, " turns i82 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE of words," such as Mackenzie quoted from his favourite poet, the judicious and knowing Waller. But Dryden pursued what he calls " turns " through the whole range of English, French, and classical literature : here is what he deems a choice example : — Cujii subita incautuin dementia cepit amantem, Ignoscenda quidem scirent si ignoscere Manes. Alas, what a step it was from talking of the Muses with Dryden, in England, to torturing preachers in Scotland ! The Highland " short way " with Dissenters is thus de- scribed by Mackail : ^ — Matthew Mackaile to John Adams. Edinburgh, 26 Oct. 1678. The Marquis of Athol, being represented to the King as a promoter of " the fanatick interest in Scotland " and accused by His Majesty as a countenancer of Field conventicles in his bounds, answered that he felt no obligation to execute the Council's commands as they were not according to law, framed to ensnare him by pressing him to do what was not warrantable. But if the King would give him a commission he would not be wanting in proofs of loyalty to the present government of the Church. Whereupon the King gave him a commission ; so Athol has written peremptory letters to his "deputs" to use all rigour against conventicles and in case of opposition to kill and take prisoners. " So these Northern bounds q*^ since the beginning of these late animosities accustomed every Sabboth to meet in the open fields, being assembled upon Sabboth last and sermon begun were sur- prised by a number of Highlanders in pursuance of this order, and some were killed, some plundered, others bar- barously stripted naked, and weemen forced and many taken prisoners so that where the Sanctuary was thought strongest the assault was most ferce, toward the town of St. Johnston." 1 S.P. Dom., Charles II., vol. 407. CHAPTER XIII AFTER BOTH WELL BRIDGE, i679-i6id., pp. 153-154. 3 Ibid., p. 183. * Jbid., p. 185. AFTER BOTIIWKLL BRIDGE 187 as wc gather from hints in Wodrow's Analecta, expected them to make a Bartholomew massacre of the Indulged ! At this time few ministers preached in the fields, perhaps none save Richard Cameron, who had been ordained to that very end by the preachers in Holland ; and Donald Cargill, an old man, once a minister in Glasgow. Ure told Cargill, just before the battle at Bothwell Bridge, that "he rendered himself odious by his naughty principles," and that his party was establishing "a tyranny over consciences." This was true, but the Government did not make good use of the feud between the Cargillists and Cameronians, on one hand, and the mass of Presbyterians on the other. There were three Presbyterian factions: first the Indulged; then the faction of Ure and Welsh, who refused Indulgence, but did not declare the king deposed, and pretend to set up a Government of their own, "the Kingdom of Christ;" lastly, the Cargillites and Cameronians, who went to these lengths, and had many partisans, mainly uneducated country people. To this Remnant the genuine holders of the tenets of Andrew Melville had dwindled, and the Remnant was disowned by the new Presbyterian generation. In Galloway, according to a Royal proclamation, (May 14, 1680,) conformist ministers were boycotted, "denied the necessaries of life and the help of servants and mechanics for their money." They were to be " defended and secured," and in Galloway, chiefly, Claverhouse devoted his energies to the task. The third Indulgence was also clogged with restrictions — for example, meeting-houses were not to be pitched close to the churches. We only now and then catch glimpses of Mackenzie in the records of these con- fusions. We have a singular dialogue, written down by Mr. Riddel, between himself and the Council. To Linlithgow Mr. Riddel offered "the word of a gentleman" that he had not preached in the fields since the indemnity of August 1679, "but swearing I dare not meddle with." The Advocate saw his meaning. To preach from within a house to a congregation out of doors was to hold a field conventicle, in the terms of the Acl. Could Mr. Riddel swear that he i88 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE had not done this ? " Indeed, my Lord, I cannot do that.'' "Oaths are tender things," he said, but he offered to give "the word of a gentleman " that he had not "kept any field conventicles." The Advocate said, " We would not expect any man of such a peaceable disposition as Mr. Riddel seems, would so far contemn authority as not to forbear to act contrary to law." Mr. Riddel pled that he really could not help it ; if people overcrowded a house, he must preach to them out of doors, and the Advocate replied that the conscience of every single man was not the measure of the law. Mackenzie, indulging his taste for ancient history, then asked, " If Presbyterian government were established, and some ministers were not free to comply with it, as in 1648, and a law were made that none without doors should hear them, would you deem it reasonable that such ministers should, in contempt of law, do as you do?" Mackenzie might have cited a case to the point. About 1640 many persons, in the flush of Presbyterian power, had taken to holding conventicles, " seeking edification by private meet- ings." Mr. Henderson, a celebrated leader of the Kirk^ with others of the party of the Covenant, denounced these conventicles, as threatening " by progress of time " to break up " the whole Kirk." An Act of the General Assembly was passed against them.^ To Mackenzie's question Mr, Riddel did not give a direct answer. How could he know what he would do in the circumstances suggested ? " He who has called me to preach may, before I go out of the world, call me to preach upon the tops of mountains, yea, upon the seas, and I dare not come under engagement to disobey His calls." But how was he to know that he had such " calls " ? Any odd text that floated up into the memory of Burley or Russel was a "call" to murder. If " He went up into a mountain to pray" floated into Mr. Riddel's consciousness, he seems to have been capable of construing it into a " call " to go and preach on the top of Ben Cruachan. * Guthry, Memoirs, pp. 66-70 (ed, 1702). AFTER BOTH WELL BRIDGE 189 The Advocate said that a "call" to chsohcy the law could not he rej^ardcd as a j^emiine " call." He himself, if convinced that the laws of the land were contrary to tlie laws of God, would juds^e it iiis duty to leave the country rather than disturb the peace by law-breaking. In 1689 he acted on his principles and retired to Oxford : to be sure he was not safe in Scotland. These are the ideas of his book, The Religions Stoic of 1663. Mr. Riddel fell back on "whether it be better to obey God or man, jud^c ye." It was the old Presbyterian impasse. A bishop, after gracefully alluding to Mr. Riddel's " ancient and honourable family," (he was one of the Riddels of Riddel,) asked this very natural question : " Mr. Riddel has been speaking of his calls, I would fain know of him what he reckons his call." Is it miraculous, like that of the Apostles ? They worked miracles, in proof of their call. Will Mr. Riddel work a miracle ? Mr. Riddel replied that he could only answer by " ripping up " the whole controversy between Presbyterians and con- formists. This was true. They had arrived at the bed-rock of the claims of the preachers with their mysterious " calls." Mr. Riddel briefly reiterated the historical parallel between himself and the Apostles. He was asked about a young man, apparently a compromising young man, in whose company he had been taken by Henry Ker of Graden, an ancestor, probably, of Prince Charlie's gallant aide-de-camp.' He again offered his word, but would not swear, that he " did not know what the young man was," till they met on the day of their capture. As he w'ithdrew the Advocate said, " Mr. Riddel, I am sorry that such a person as you should drink in such irrational brutish principles, and would desire you, for your good, wishing well to you, and being willing to do all I can for you, to quit them, and be better advised." In a later dialogue, at which Mackenzie was not present, or, if present, took no part, Mr. Riddel was asked for his simple promise, without an oath, to keep the law. He * There are two Gradens in the Border district, and I am not certain as to which laird of Graden took Mr. Riddel. iQo SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE ^ remained in prison for seven months, and later was kept | in the Bass for three years and a half, because, having been released, he took to conventicling again.i Unhappily we shall find Mackenzie engaged in more f painful affairs than the dialogue with Mr. Riddel. The f: differences between the Indulged preachers and their flocks, | on one side, and those who separated from them, such as ■ Cameron, Cargill, and others, became more bitter in 1680. > Even MacWard, the exile in Holland, met extremists ; concerning whom he writes, " If the principle whereby they defend their practice were owned, it would infer the dis- solution of the visible Church, and all society." In June 1682 these separatists, most conscientious men, published a declaration at the little town of Sanquhar in Dumfriesshire, one of their favourite centres. Another document called the Queensferry Declaration, or " Mr. Cargill's Covenant," also made a great noise. Accompanied by Henry Hall, who had fled to Holland after Bothwell Bridge, and returned secretly, Cargill was arrested. There was a scuffle, a " waiter " in an inn (a tide-waiter) hit Hall with a carbine on the head, of which wound he died, while Cargill escaped under convoy of the women of Queensferry. In Hall's pocket was found a draft of a paper, " The Queensferry Paper," which is published at the end of Mackenzie's Vindication (1691), in company with the Solemn League and Covenant. The editor, or publisher, adds these documents, " by which we leave the world to judge whether Sir George Mackenzie has not treated them" (the Scottish Presbyterians) ''with all modesty and tenderness, and whether any Form of Government can possibly subsist, where such wicked and pernicious Fooleries are propagated." The paper in Hall's possession was clearly a draft for a manifesto of his party, but, I think, was never issued by them. According to some confessions it was drawn up by Mr. Cargill himself. The paper says that " we have judged it our duty again to Covenant with God and one another." They intend to "advance the Kingdom of Christ" in the ^ Wodrow, iii. pp. 196-202. AFTER BOTHVVKLL BRIDGE 191 land, and establish "the discipline and L;overnmcnt of the Church " free from prelacv and Erastianisin. They will extirpate idolatry, popery, and prelacy, and " overthrow that Power " which has established prelacy and Erastianisni. They will also punish witches (as if that duty were bein^ nc<^lected) and Sabbath-breakers, and so forth. As Govern- ment is persecutintf men "for maintaining the Lord's ri^ht to rule consciences," they reject the kint,' from bein^ their ruler. Bein<4 made free by God and the doin^fs of the Government, they " w-ill set up over ourselves and over all that God shall give us power," Government and Governors according to the Word of God, " monarchy and the hereditary principle" being rejected. The new Governors "shall rule principally by the civil or judicial Law given by God to the people of Israel," slavery and polygamy being excepted. The ministers of the Gospel, or at least the majority of them, have failed in their duties by acknowledging the Royal supremacy, paying cess, inducing the Bothwell Bridge prisoners to promise to be peaceable ; from them, therefore, the new party separate themselves, and from their flocks. This is the gist of many vast and wandering paragraphs. The document, of course, is full of what worldly men call rebellious principles, but the very wording proves that the Presbyterians in general are not responsible for the ideas. This paper, with those of Sanquhar, and of Renwick in 1684, are the dernier cri of the old claims of the preachers, or rather, they go further, and denounce the monarchy, or, at least, the ruling dynasty. The party announce, perhaps with truth, that they alone are " the representatives of the true Presbyterian Kirk and covenanted nation of Scotland." ^ The Privy Council assured Charles that they had per- used the Sanquhar and Queensferry documents " with horror," and they began to hunt Cameron, Cargill, their supporters, and " resetters " or harbourers, while many thou- sands of people were put on their oaths to state what they knew, or whether they knew anything about the retreats of the rebels. In the quiet parishes among the waste upland * Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. 202-213. 192 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE moors of Galloway, about the head-waters of the pastoral Ken, young and old were " rounded up " by dragoons, driven to meet Claverhouse or Grierson of Lag, and forced to swear to what their consciences abhorred. Recusants, tracked like fugitive slaves, dwelt in caverns behind roaring mountain linns, and made their beds in caves among the fallen boulders of the cliffs above Loch Dungeon or Loch Trool, They cursed the curlews that swooped and cried, disturbed by their presence, and brought the eager troopers to their hiding-places. "Thus the land mourned because of swearing," as, indeed, the land had mourned ever since the Covenanters set the example of making reluctant persons, including the king, swear to the Covenants. The south-west, thanks to the New Covenant, became more than ever the scene of dragoonings and military license, but, on July 20, 1680, Cameron was shot in a skirmish at Ayrsmoss, where many of his comrades also fell ; and Hackstone of Rathillet, one of Sharp's murderers, bemg taken prisoner, was executed with horrible cruelty. His hands were chopped off before his head was, and in other respects the atrocities of the English punishment for treason were inflicted, as on the Jacobite captives in 1746. Wodrow found nothing about torture, in Hackstone's case, in the Registers of the Privy Council, now lost. Fountainhall reports the torture, before the Privy Council, of the emissary who carried letters for the rebels. The bishops had the grace to retire.^ Hack- stone declined the jurisdiction of the judges, " because they have usurped a supremacy over the Church," and are "open competitors for his Crown and power," and so forth. Meanwhile Mr. Cargill, abhorred by Mr. Law, was not slack in the good work, but, in September, held a great con- venticle in the Torwood, where he " surprised many " by pronouncing the highest excommunication on the king, the Duke of York, Monmouth, and Lauderdale, Rothes, Dalziel, and Mackenzie. If one may presume to understand the mental processes of Mr. Cargill, he, as the only ordained ^ Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. p. 269. AFTER HOTHVVELL BRIDGE 193 preacher of those wiio were now " the representatives of the true Presbyterian Kirk," owned, in liis proper person, the Power of the Keys, and of loosing, and binding, and handing over to Satan, which had been claimed by the Kirk in general. The Government appears to have understood this ex- communication as intended to put the king and his ministers out of law, and make it lawful for any of Cargill's Kirk to assassinate them. It was reckoned fairly safe to poison the excommunicated, as poisoning Christians was alone for- bidden by law. Mr. Cargill's compliments to Mackenzie were paid in the following terms, " I, being a minister of Jesus Christ, and having authority and power from him, do in his name, and by his spirit excommunicate, and cast out of the True Church, and deliver up to Satan, Sir George Mackenzie, the King's Advocate, for his apostacy in turn- ing into a profligacy of conversation, after he had begun a profession of holiness : for his constant pleading against, and persecuting to death the people of God, and alleging, and laying to their charge, things which in his conscience he knew to be against the Word of God, truth, reason, and the ancient laws of this kingdom, and his pleading for sorcerers, murderers, and other criminals, that before God, and by the laws of the land, ought to die ; for his ungodly, erroneous, phantastic, and blasphemous tenets, printed to the world in his pamphlets and pasquils." It was to be expected that these people would detest Mackenzie for his compassionating their victims, the witches. At what moment he "made a profession of holiness," we know not, (though we have found him privately devout in 1668, or 1669,) for that pasquil of his which must have been most annoying to the fanatics is The Religious Stoic of his youth. Of his " profligacy of conversation " I find no other charge, nor any instances given, whereas Cargill accuses Dalziel of adultery.^ The " testimonies " of the sufferers of this party are ^ A Cloud of Witnesses, pp. 509, 510 (1S71). I have taken the opening of the formula from the excommunication of Charles II. with which it begins. N 194 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE such that the judicious Wodrow refrains from pubHshing them, and thinks that their appearance in A Cloud of Wit- nesses (1714) gives advantages to the adversary, "and the common enemies of rehgion." The party regarded itself as the best judge of what " Presbyterian government " really ought to be, while the rest of the Presbyterians had ceased, in their opinion, to be true to the genuine old ideal. Whether the Cameronians were justified in holding this opinion or not, is a delicate question. In the hunt for Cargill, some prisoners, Stewart, Skene, and others were caught and examined under torture on November 15, and Mackenzie "is ordered to form a dittay" (indictment) "against James Skene on his confession."^ " Skene left his blood upon Carstares," as well as on the Duke of York, because Carstares, he said, had called him a Jesuit. This is the father of the famous Carstares, " Car- dinal Carstares," who later was so useful to William III. in moderating the ardour of the Kirk after the Revolution of 1688. Concerning Skene, Stewart, and Spreul, we have the contemporary opinion of Lord Fountainhall, a man who sided with the Revolution, and a fair sample of the best legists of his time. Skene voluntarily proclaimed, before the Council and the judges, his adhesion to the excommuni- cation of the king and his ministers, and averred his own freedom to slay the king. He was persuaded to apply to the Duke of York for a reprieve, that he might reconsider his tenets : a reprieve was granted, but he repented of his petition. He went clad wholly in white to the block. Fountainhall visited him, found him calm and assured of salvation, but unable to give "a solid and satisfactory" account of his principles. He merely said that "from the old prophets' example, we are bound " to coerce the rulers. Many thought that his was a case for medical treatment and perpetual imprisonment, lest he should put into practice "his bloody zeal." Fountainhall disapproved of capital punishment for mere opinions, while a man conceals them, 1 Wodrow, iii. p. 227. From the lost Privy Council Registers. AFTER BOTHWELL BRIDGE 195 "But if he openly avow doctrines destructive of all Ciovern- ment, the sparins^ such iiiii^ht in the end prove cruelty." ^ Through Fountainhall we obtain tiie historical per- spective, as it were, of all these cases. Through his eyes we see them as they were seen by a liberal unprejudiced legist of the time. It is desirable thus to correct our visual powers, lest we fall into the error of Macaulay's tirade against Lord Crawford, for his letter on the torture of Nevil Payne under William III. Government saw the Cargillites as Bishop Burnet did, who writes " they taught that it was lawful for any to kill the king, and that all his party, chiefly those who were episcopal, by adhering to him had forfeited their lives; so that it was lawful to kill them."'^ Mackenzie's sentiments appear in his letter to Lauderdale about the case of the Town Major of Edinburgh, who had been threatened and beaten by some of the fanatics, early in 1679. Wodrow makes little of the affair, but, in 1680, one Lennox gave evidence that " Cameron, Ker, and Blakall, three ministers, did in cold blood sit doun and contriv the murther, and that they had killed him if one Trumble had not received the stroaks upon his pistol. Tell the king what excellent men these are." ^ The opinion that the new fanatics recommended assassination was stated in a pro- clamation by the Council (November 22) and the fanatics are said to have lately consulted with Cargill, as to ways and means of carrying their ideas into practice.'* The Sanquhar declaration, "that murdering proclamation at Sanquar," as Mackenzie styles it in a letter to Lauderdale, says nothing about murdering the king, but only that " we do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Cause and Covenants," also " against all such as have . . . 1 Hislorical ObseiTes, pp. 7-12. - Burncl, pt. i. vol. ii. p. 306 (ed. 1900). " Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 195. * Wodrow (iii. p. 231) denies ail this, but as he .idds lhaty«j Populi I'indicatum "gives not the least colour to the doctrine of assassinations" we must differ from him so far. 196 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE anywise acknowledged him in his tyranny, civil or ecclesi- astic." The fanatics thus declared war against all who had not repudiated the authority of the State, but they had not used the word " assassination." The Council confess that their evidence for the doctrine of assassination was extracted, by torture, from Archibald Stewart, taken with Skene, and from intercepted papers of the rebels.^ A proclamation which did announce a pohcy of murder under private law was issued by Renwick and his associates, later, in 1684, but the testimony of a tortured man, in 1680, proves nothing. By November 2, Lauderdale had resigned the Secretary- ship for Scotland, to which his ally, the Earl of Moray, succeeded. Lauderdale's memory had failed, he became disgusting to the king ; who hated, said Ailesbury, to see his fingers in the Royal snuff-box, and the Duke of York took his place as Commissioner. The case of John Spreul is one of the most repulsive in which Mackenzie was engaged as prosecutor. We know that " John Spreul, apothecary in Glasgow," was in the rebel camp at Hamilton, before Bothwell Bridge, and was of the wilder party there. " He owned Robert Hamilton strongly," says Ure, who was present.- Wodrow, however, says that he returned to Scotland from Ireland " after the scuffle at Drumclog," but "had no freedom to join the western army," though two cousins of his, both named John Spreul, were in arms.' Either Ure, who sat in council in camp with "John Spreul, apothecary in Glasgow," or Wodrow, who appears to have known the man in his old age, is in error. Spreul fled to Holland, after Bothwell Bridge ; returned, was taken with Skene and Stewart (November 12, 1680), and, by his own account, when examined, would not call the risings " rebellions," and admitted that he had recently been in company with Mr. Cargill. He was therefore interrogated as to what he knew of a new rebellion ; " who were to bring ' The Council to the king, November 22, 1680. Wodrow, iii. p. 231, tio/c. * M'Crie's Veitch, p. 473. ^ Wodrow, iii. p. 252. AP^TER BOTIIWELL BRIDGE 197 home the arms?" and as to the promoters of the late risiii;^, and their correspondents aliroad. Ar^^vll, Perth, Oueensberry, Haddo, Mackenzie, and others, were commanded to put him to the torture, which, as can be shown, was in concord with the sentiments of Arf^yll. "The Duke of York and many others were present," probably the rest (jf the Commissioners inchichn^ Ar^^yll. On this soHtary fact, that the Duke was present, and on a statement of Burnet, (whose evidence on sucli points Macaulay elsewhere speaks of as untrustworthy,) the ^reat historian bases this remark, "he" (the Duke of York) " amused himself with hearing Covenanters shriek, and seeinii them writhe while their knees were beaten flat in the boots." The boot, as far as one can judge, did not attack the knees, and Burnet's statement about the Duke " looking on with an unmoved indifference," is not corroborated by any Covenanting writer known to me. Lockhart of Carn- wath, when Burnet's History was posthumously published, wrote that " no part of this calumny was ever so much as suggested or laid to the Duke's charge by any one of his many inveterate enemies before or since the Revolution." ' In Spreul's case he was to be examined on an alleged plot to blow up Holyrood, Duke and all. It is possible to libel even James II. ! The Privy Council Registers said nothing of this examination, and Wodrow uses " other papers " not de- scribed.2 Poor Spreul was twice tortured ; Dalziel, according to Wodrow, showed brutal ferocity. In Marcii 1681 new witnesses were brought against him, before the judges, and he protested against their having been examined extra- judicially, to give evidence thus was prodere testiviotiium. The Duke of York asked him, "Sir, would you kill the king ? " and he retorted, " I bless God that I am no papist," with attacks on " Jesuitical murdering principles." On June 9 Mackenzie was ordered by the Council to prosecute Spreul for having been in correspondence and present with * Burnet, pt. i. vol. ii. p. 420 ( 1900 ) ; Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 600. * Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 253. 198 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the rebels at Bothwell Bridge. He had five counsel, in- cluding Sir George Lockhart. The legal arguments that followed were very prolix. In Mackenzie's book on Scottish Criminal Jurisprudence he says that a man who has been tortured may be tried anew upon new presumptions. He gives the cases of Spot, Maxwell of Garrery, and others, who were condemned after torture, "upon other probation than was deduced before the torture." 1 He adopted this line in Spreul's case, who " was never tortured upon the grounds he is now to be tried upon." This was a new trial, for other crimes than accession to the Torwood ex- communication, and correspondence wdth Cargill and the rebels in Holland. Lockhart replied, disapproving of torture as res fragilis, and adding that the prisoner, under torture, had been examined as to his presence with the rebels at Bothwell Bridge, Hamilton, and Glasgow. " No law will allow torture to be made use of, and parties still liable to further inquiries as to the same crime." The case of Toisach, in 1632, was quoted ; in this instance the Court had held that he could not be tried again. The judges now dis- allowed this plea, and many other points of law as to whether Spreul's confession was evidence against him were debated. The evidence of the witnesses was vague ; it was thought to refer to the other John Spreul, who was present in Court. Whether Ure was right, whether Spreul the apothecary was with the rebels, and even of the wilder party, or not, remains a problem, but the jury acquitted hmi. A new indictment was brought against him, and he lay for some years in the Bass prison.2 The whole case is parallel to that of Nevil Payne, a Jacobite, twice tortured in 1690, under William III., and by our Liberator detained in prison for ten years, though nothing was proved against him. It does not seem that the foreign Protestant Liberator more deserves our approval than the native popish tyrant, the Duke of York, who, according to Wodrow, was set on hanging Spreul. Bishop Burnet, who was not a friend of the Duke, says * Works, vol. ii. p. 261 - Wodrow, iii. p. 262. AFTER P.OTHWELL I'AUlHAi ny) that the iiobMitv aiul gentry now "fouiul a very sensible clianj^e " frt)ni the manners of Lauderdale and his party ; that there was "no cause of complaint," while the Duke "in matters of justice showed an impartial temper." He even declares that the Duke "stopped that persecution" of the Cargillites, who insisted on dyinj^ ; amonj^ them were two women who refused to say "God bless the kin^," and so secure a pardon.^ As to these women, Mackenzie writes that " they had entertained for many months together the murderers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews." - Wodrow says that one of them confessed that she had conversed with Rathillet, Balfour, and the two Hendersons, " said to be concerned in the Archbishop's death." Possibly this was a false aspersion on Rathillet, Balfour, and the two Hendersons ? Wodrow says nothing about the usual offer of pardon. Mackenzie, for his part, recalls the slaying of women without trial after Philiphaugh,^ "for no higher crimes than the following Montrose's camp." It is fair to add that these women were probably papists, which makes an obvious difference between the cases. In July 1 68 1 the chief leader of the fanatics, and, I believe, at that time their only ordained preacher, Mr. Donald Cargill, was captured by Irving of Bonshaw. The story is that Bonshaw tied his feet together under his horse's belly, and that Cargill prophesied his speedy end. " Soon after he got the price of blood, he was killed in a duel near Lanark." Cargill was noted for such prophecies : he threatened that Mackenzie should die in no ordinary way, and the legend ran that he expired in agony, " all the passages of his body running blood," like Charles IX., author of the Paris massacre. We shall see, later, the fact on which this tale is based. When examined before the Council, Cargill gave indirect answers about the owning the Royal authority. As to his excommunicating the king, " that being merely an ecclesias- 1 Burnet, pt. i. vol. ii. pp. 306-30S. - Vindication, p. 20(1691). ■' lie speaks of eighty women and children drowned at Linlithgow Bridge, "and six more at Elgin hy the same faction." I have no evidence for these facts. 200 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE tical matter, he cannot answer it before the Council, being a civil judicatory." He would not say whether he was at Bothwell Bridge or not, in fact he was severely wounded in the battle. As to Sharp's murder, he would pronounce no opinion but that the Scripture says, " that the Lord giving a call to a private man to kill, he might do it lawfully," and instanced Jael and Phinehas. The evidence for the " call " is not easily established ! Cargill was condemned on his confessions, and by the evidence of two witnesses who saw him at Bothwell Bridge. The Cameronians said that Argyll's vote in Council determined the fate of Cargill. He, with several companions in misfortune, was hanged on July 27, and Parliament met next day, with remarkable consequences. Among those who assembled the evil familiar face of Rothes was missing. The Covenanters say that Cargill de- nounced him to death, and he died next day. He had been long in very bad health, and thus the persecutor and the martyr, who had signed the Solemn League and Cove- nant together at St. Andrews in their youth, in their deaths were not divided. The place of Chancellor was vacant till Gordon of Haddo, raised to the rank of Earl of Aberdeen, filled Rothes's chair. His appointment was secured by Queensberry, who in 1684, with Perth, paid a large sum to the Duchess of Portsmouth to obtain his dismissal. Among charges against Mackenzie's conduct at this time, the case of Lord Bargeny is prominent. Bargeny, with other lords and lairds of Ayrshire, had refused the bond offered for signature in 1678, at the time of the Highland Host. He was a prominent person, a nephew of the Duke of Hamilton, and in March 1680-1681, according to Burnet, he was attacked by "a wicked conspiracy." He was impri- soned in December 1680, and a letter from the king ordered Mackenzie to prosecute him, in connection with treasonable words uttered at earlier dates, and with the Bothwell Bridge Rising. He was tried before the Justiciary in March. Wodrow says, " The managers had a mind to have his estate, but their probation failed them, and the crimes in his libel 1 Cloud of Witnesses, p. 2 {1871). AFTER BOTHWELL BRIDGE 201 must be reckoned of the Advocate's framinj^," wliicli appears to mean that the accusations are inventions of Mackenzie's, or suborned false witness procured by him. In Har^eny's indictment he is said, in 1674 or 1675, to have cursed the chief nobles for not heading' "the fanatics," and, in 1677 or 1678, and 1679 to liave puiilicly rej^retted that nobody killed Lauderdale, especially he tried to persuade a notary that a liundred men should assault tiie Duke in his own house at Lethington. In 1679 he wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Welsh, a leader in the rebellion, and promised to Cuningham of Bedlane that he himself "and persons of far greater quality" would join. He harboured rebels, and publicly applauded the principles ol Jus Populi Vindicatiim. The judges found that Mackenzie " wants some of his material witnesses, though he hath used all diligence possible to adduce them," in fact Mackenzie himself declined to prosecute at the moment. The case was postponed till June, when Bargeny's advocate produced an Act of Council of June 3, releasing his client, as commanded by a letter from the king, dated May 11. Bargeny had given bail to reappear, if called, 50,000 merks.i Burnet adds that, when released, Bargeny discovered that Haltoun " and some others " had, by promise of part of his estates, suborned witnesses to swear that he had encouraged them to rebel. When it came to the trial, " their hearts turning against it," they refused to appear. Bargeny had full proof, but the Duke of York had the question referred to the king, "and it was never more heard of." 2 Certainly, in 1681, Bargeny presented a petition "in />/«/// Parliament" (not before the Lords of the Articles), accusing Cuninghame of Mountgrinan, and his servant, of having been suborned " by my Lord Haltoun, Sir John Dalryuiple, Crawford of Ardmillan, and others, to have deponed falsely against him." Haltoun and the Man of Glencoe, Dalrymple, were capablcs dc tout, but they all denied the charge before Parliament.^ 1 Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. 235, 236. ' Burnet, pi. i. vol. ii. pp. 311, 312 (1900). ' rountainhall, Hisloridil A'olices, vol. i. pp 262. 2^4, 310. 202 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE As to Mackenzie's part in any wrong done to Bargeny, we have his letter to Lauderdale of February 1680-1681. He complains that no pains are taken to get proof against the rebels. " I am weary of having all the burden." He "has two witnesses" against Bargeny, "as to his design against you, and I expect four new witnesses. . . . To bring criminal processes to the Council is unsafe for your interest, for it is a stretch against law, and would leave all the odium upon your friends in Council, and I admire that they are not sensible of it," as the Duke of York is.^ On March 4, 1680, 1681, Mackenzie writes that Bargeny's process had been called, " but was not so ordered, as that the Advocate would venture to proceed," so the case was adjourned.2 On March 13, Haltoun writes that Bargeny's friends have dealt with the witnesses, " some that were brought here they have put out of the way, some material ones having been conveyed into Ireland for the time." ^ Lastly, we know that on May 11 the king ordered Bargeny to be released on bail. A paper in the hand of the Earl of Moray contains the evidence of John Craig, a tailor at Irvine, the servant of Mountgrinan, said by Burnet to have been suborned with his master, which Mountgrinan denied before Parliament. Craig deposed to having heard Mountgrinan read aloud, several times, a letter advising him to go to the rebel host, which Mountgrinan actually did, also Cuningham of Bedlane, to whom Bargeny's letter was written.^ All that I know about Mackenzie's conduct in Bargeny's affair has now been stated, and it seems to contain no evidence that he had any share in suborning witnesses, if any witnesses were suborned. As to the blameless Bargeny, we find him called, in Court, "a false villain " by Miss Sophia Johnstone, for getting her with child under a promise of ^ Latiderdale Papers, vol. iii. pp, 191-192. ^ Ibid., vol. iii. p. 196. ' Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 197, 198. * Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. 434, 435. Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. pp. 201, 202. Mr. Airy says [op. cit. iii. p. 201, note) that Craig's is "evidently one of the false depositions referred to by Burnet." How are we to know whether it is fnlse or not ? AFTER nOTHWKT.L BRIDGE 203 marriaf^e, unfulfilled, to wliich Har^cny replies that she had got some one to personate him, and offer her inarriaj^e before witnesses ! ' Next he is " pershued " by a tenant for "a most un- warrantable breach of the peace." - Lastly, he is fined ^^50 sterling for a false and calumnious accusation against Hu^h Mure for usin^ false weights.3 After all this, Bargeny's seems not more valuable than Bardolph's security. In 1684 he was appointed convener of the commissioners to punish conventiclers in Ayrshire, and other ferocious persons. " You are not to examine any women, but such as have been active in the said courses in a signal manner, and those are to be drowned."* The infamous drowning of Margaret Wilson and another woman was the consequence, in circumstances not clearly under- stood, of some such order. ^ Fuuntainhali, Historical A'oliies, vol. ii. pp. 579, 580. * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 810. » Ibid., vol. ii. p|). S61, 862, SS2. * WodroNV, vol. iv. pp. 163-165. CHAPTER XIV RUIN OF THE EARL OF ARGYLL, 1681 The case of Argyll — The affair mysterious and misunderstood — His Protestantism not the cause of attack on him — Nature of Argyll debts, 1656-168 1 — Accused of oppressing his creditors — How the Macleans were ruined (according to their version) — Their original debt (1642) — Their Spartan courage at Inverkeithing (165 1) — They will not appear in Argyll's courts — A debt of ^30,000 becomes a debt of ^200,000 — Fountainhall's version — The Earl's flight from a creditor — Clan war against Argyll — The Macleans and the Covenanters — The Macleans capitulate — Argyll gets Mull, Morvern, and Tiree — Duke of York espouses the cause of the Macleans (1680) — Mackenzie defends interests of Argyll^ — The Duchess of Lauderdale warns Argyll (March 1681) — The Duke of York defends Argyll's interests (1681) — Why did he turn against the Earl ? — Argyll's Protestant energy in Parlia- ment — The Test — A Commission to revise Argyll's rights — Argyll forbidden to go to Court — Argyll takes the Test with an explanation — The Duke is satisfied — Argyll's enemies make the Duke dissatis- fied — They were Gordon of Haddo and Mackenzie of Tarbat — The Earl takes the Test again — Tarbat and Haddo pronounce his explanation treasonable — He is imprisoned — Statements of the Duke of York — Mackenzie's scruples as to prosecuting — How removed — His attack on Argyll's explanation — Trial and condemnation of Argyll — He escapes to England, Mr. Veitch, and Mrs. Smith — An English verdict on his case. In 1 68 1, as we saw, a Parliament met, with the Duke of York as Commissioner, a ParHament which is chiefly notable for the ruin of the Earl of Argyll. No sin of the Restoration is more widely known than the iniquitous condemnation and forfeiture of the Earl on a charge of leasing-making and treason. Yet to this day the motives for the treatment of Argyll remain obscure, and now, perhaps, their origin can be explained. In my History of Scotland (vol. iii. p. 366) I remarked that " the circumstances " of Argyll's ruin " are more or less mysterious." To understand them needs an RUIN OF THE EARL OF ARGYLL 205 excursion into clan history — a topic usually avoided — and a more minute examination of the career of Ar^fyll, and of his success in makin^^ enemies, where there was no quarrel about religion, than has hitherto been made.^ The result will not palliate by a sinrjje shade, but it will explain the concerted attack on Arj^yll in 1681. THE ARGYLLS AND MACLEANS In the text it is said that I was unable to find the pleadings for the Earl of Argyll against the case put forward by the Macleans in 1676, 1677. Sir Fitzroy Maclean, chief of Clan Gilzean, has most kindly sent me the memorial for the Duke of Argyll against Maclean of Drimnin, in a lawsuit of 1771-1776. The writer, Mr. Andrew Crosbie, well known to Sir Walter Scott, traces the growth of the Maclean debts to the Marquis and Earl of Argyll ; asserts that they were large and legitimate, and shows, what is obvious, that the Privy Council, in 1677, set aside the Maclean case as "frivolous and groundless ; and nothing produced for verifying thereof." At the same time, as Lauderdale was dictator, and was supporting Argyll, who appointed all the officers of Justice in his vast domain of Judicature, it is not easy to be historically certain of the impartiality of the verdict, though, necessarily, it was accepted by the Court, a century later. had been eager, and far from sportsmanlike, in the pursuit ' Mr. Airy's account of Argyll in the Dictionary of Nalional Biogiaphy is excellent, but some of the threads in the web of the schemes against Arg)ll are not quite sufficiently grasped. * Wodiow, vol. iv. p. 306. ■* Willcock, ^ Scots Earl in Coi'enanting rimes, p. 147; Letters of tht Earl of Argyll, p. 6. i CHAPTER XIV is more widely known than the iniquitous conciemnaiion and forfeiture of the Earl on a charge of leasing-making and treason. Yet to this day the motives for the treatment of Argyll remain obscure, and now, perhaps, their origin can be explained. In my History of Scotland (vol. iii. p. 366) I remarked that " the circumstances " of Argyll's ruin " are more or less mysterious." To understand them needs an ^ s. I 1 RUIN OP^ THE EARL OF ARGYLL 205 excursion into clan history — a topic usually avoided — and a more minute examination of the career of Argyll, and of his success in making enemies, where there was no quarrel about religion, than has hitherto been made.^ The result will not palliate by a single shade, but it will explain the concerted attack on Argyll in 1681. Even at the time of Argyll's most unjust condemnation, it was commonly believed that he was " put at " by the Duke of York, then Commissioner in Parliament, because of his opposition to the admission of Catholics, save the Duke himself, to the throne. But it is plain that, though the Duke was doubtless displeased by his Protestantism, he was prepared to accept, in fact did accept, Argyll's famous explanation of the sense in which he took the Test of 1681 ; that he remained friendly till he was urged to seize the occasion of ruining the Earl by the Earl's enemies, — who were Protestants. Writing some thirty years after the execution of Argyll, Wodrow credited him with " the noble and excellent qualities of his father." He had virtues, in fact, which his father did not possess, while he lacked the intellect, the rigid religious enthusiasm, and the astuteness of his sire. "They both shine brightly as martyrs for religion, liberty, and their country," says Wodrow.- But the Earl's recent biographer, Mr. Willcock, justly says that "his connection with the Covenant, indeed, was but slight, and recently he had acquiesced without a murmur in the repudiation of it which the Government had ordered as a condition of public employment. He distinctly objected to being classed as a Presbyterian. . . ." ^ Argyll had been a member of Council since 1664. He had been eager, and far from sportsmanlike, in the pursuit ' Mr. Airy's account of Argyll in the Diitionary of National Bioi:;iapliy is excellent, but some of the threads in the web of tlie schemes against Arg)ll are not quite sufficiently grasped. * Wodrow, vol. iv. p. 306. •* Willcock,^ Scots Earl in Covenanting Times, p. 147; Letters of the Earl of Argyll, p. 6. 2o6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE of fugitives from the Pentland Rising.^ He had supported Lauderdale steadily, though there was a private coolness between them at one time, and though Argyll, in 1672-1679, was anxious for the conciliation of the Presbyterians. Many of his tenants in Kintyre were Lowland Covenanters. He had negotiated with Lauderdale for the Presbyterians, (or so Fountainhall avers,) in 1677. If he sent none of his men to join the Highland Host, he had need of them all, at the moment, in his private war with the Macleans and their allies. Lauderdale had been his preserver and liberator when he was condemned under Middleton in 1662. Lauder- dale continued to support and abet him while the old states- man lived. On January 28, 1667, Argyll had written to Lauderdale, as we have already seen, "the outed ministers that meddled in the late rebellion I think deserve torture." ^ He, with Linlithgow, Perth, Queensberry, Melfort, Mackenzie, Dalziel, Foulis of CoUington, and Gordon of Haddo, were commissioned, we have shown, to examine Spreul under torture, though, as the Privy Council record is lost, we do not know him to have been present.^ He was believed to have decided, by his vote, for the execution, as against the lifelong imprisonment, of Mr. Cargill. It is probable that but for his need of Lauderdale's protection and patronage, he would have leaned more than he did towards the party of Hamilton. It is not at all, as Mr. Airy writes, "strange to find the signature of Argyll " to a letter from the Council to Charles, ■ saying (February 17, 1680), "We will maintain your sacred Majesty and your Royal successors in the ordinary degrees of succession, according to their unalterable right of blood, which you and they derive only from God Almighty, whom you represent." * Argyll, however, was Protestant on the point of excluding, not the Duke of York, but his future Catholic heirs from the throne, at a time when the Duke seemed unlikely to have a son or any surviving offspring ' Willcock, A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times, p. 149. ^ LetltTS from the Earl of Argyll, p. 56. ^ Wodrow, iii. p. 253 ; Macaulay, vol. i. p. 387 (1896), p. 497 (1858). •* Lauderdale Papers, iii. p. 194. RUIN OF THE KARL OF ARC;VLI. 207 (1681). W't the ical c:iusc of the ;itt;ick on the K;irl was leiiiotc. His frithcr, the iiKutyrcd M-iiqiiis, was connected with tliat Marquis of lluntly who constantly thwarted Montrose in his year of victory, but, at last, died on the scaffold for his kiiiff, Huiitly beinjij a Royalist, and in trouble, the Marquis of Ar<4yll bought up his debts and mort^a^es. He got the paper cheap, said the world, but he maintained that he had paid heavily, and, as a kinsman of Huntly, he doubt- less had the interests of the Gordons in view. On the whole, he, and his son, the Earl of Argyll, were bound for the payment of about ;^ 20,000 of Huntly debt. After the death of the Marquis of Argyll (1661) his son, the Earl, became responsible for all these Huntly debts. Other men added their claims, because the late Marquis had ruined their estates ; and the Marquis had much paper in the market. When the Earl was restored, Charles gave him ;^'i5,ooo sterling per annum'' out of the estates, and to his brothers and sisters gave what the Marquis had settled on them. The rest of the Argyll estates were charged, tirst, with the Huntly debts, next, with the payment of all the other debts proportionally, and thus, says Burnet, arose "the great outcry which has pursued Argyll ever since, but this was occasioned by the restoring Huntly without making him liable for his just debts. . . ." Argyll, says Burnet later, " had not behaved himself in his prosperity like a man that thought he might at some time or another need the affections of his people," and for this among other reasons, when he invaded Scotland in 1685, he failed to win the support, reckoned at 5000 claymores, of his clan. Burnet was not ill disposed towards Argyll, and we learn, from other sources, that the Earl was accused of oppressing both his tenants and his creditors.- The Earl was restored to his father's propertv, despite the opposition of the Estates, through the illegal violence of Lauderdale, on December 23, 1669. "So averse were ^ Burnet says "sterling." 2 Miss Foxcroft's SiippUmenl to lUnnet's History, pp. 5-7, S3, 84, 1 58. 2o8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the members of Parliament to that gift, wherein so many poor creatures were defrauded," says the tender Mackenzie, " that Lauderdale dared not put it to a vote." Amongst " very many other " opponents were " the Earls of Errol and Kinghorn," (now Strathmore,) ^^ and the Lairds of Maclean!'^ The Earl had great debts of his own, in addition to what he had inherited. He was " hated enough for oppressing his creditors, and neither paying his own nor his father's debts," says Fountainhall, who often recurs to the topic.^ " God's wonderful judgments are visible, pleading a controversy against him and his family for the cruel oppression he used, not only to his father's, but even to his own creditors. It was remembered that he beat Mrs. Brisbane down his stairs for craving her annual rents, though he would have bestowed as much money on a staff or some like curiosity." 3 " God punished him for his cruelty to his own and his father's creditors and vassals, sundry of whom were starving." ^ Among the suffering creditors were Heriot's Hospital and the hospital at Stirling.^ Among the Earl's possessions was, by 1680, the Isle of Mull, the isle of the Macleans, "at a racked and screwed rental," says Fountainhall.^ One has marvelled why, after all that Clan Gilzean did and suffered for the Crown during the civil war, they came to be " racked and screwed " tenants of Argyll. That the Marquis and Earl had managed thus to reduce them, making them, like the Macgregors, a clan all but landless, was, — with the hatred of the Earl's creditors, from the Earl of Errol to Mrs. Brisbane, and to Joseph Brown and James Clark, — the primary cause of the attack on Argyll in 1681. In that year Brown and Clark, "for a debt owing to them by the Earl's bond," seized his cabinet from the Mint, or "coin house" of Edinburgh, where it lay. "The said cabinet" (of plate?) "was rescued from them by 1 Mackenzie, Memoirs, pp. 177, 17S. * Fountainhall, Historical Obsey-ves, p. 54. 3 Fountainhall, Historical Observes, p. 184. Mrs. Brisbane was the mateinal aunt of Lord Napier, and on his death was served heir to his estate of Napier. ^ Fountainhall, Historical Notices, i. p. 342. 6 Ibid., p. 434. « Ibid., ii. p. 533. RUIN OF rilE KART. OF ARGYLL 209 violence," :incl tluy conipliiined (Noviinlier 22, litHi) to the Privy Council. It was arLjiied, vainly, that the Mini was a sanctuary.^ The case of the Macleans is peculiar, and it is fair, at least, to state the view taken of it by the clan.'- In 1642, Sir Lachlan Maclean of Duart, was chief of the peculiarly gallant and loyal Clan Gilzean. Between his public dues unpaid during the civil war, and his private debts to the Marquis, Argyll had against him a claim of ;^3o,ooo (Scots). He put Sir Lachlan, as a prisoner for debt, into his own castle of Carrick, till the knight's health succumbed ; and he signed a bond for the sum, was released, went to Duart Castle, and there died in 1648. So, at least, says the clan's historian. It is said that Sir Lachlan's son, Sir Hector, actually paid i^io,ooo of the ;^30,ooo, but was deceived in the matter of the receipt. This may be legendary, but Sir Hector fell gloriously at the battle of Inverkeithing (1651), after his foster-brothers, one by one, had died in obedience to their father's cry, "Another for Hector!" Surrounded by Lambert's cavalry, and, of course, without bayonets, 800 Macleans and 700 Buchanans fought to the last ; of the I\Licleans only forty are said to have survived. At Glen- rinnes, at Inverkeithing, at CuUoden, this clan was true to the motto of " no surrender." Sir Hector was succeeded by his brother Allan, a minor, and he by a son, John, a child of four years old. As we have seen, the Marquis of Argyll was with the Cromwellian forces, and helped them to pacify Mull, and to take Castle Duart in 1654. The Earl of Argyll, from 1672, while Sir Allan was chief, pursued his claims on the ^Laclean debt, and, backed by Lauderdale, laid it before the Privy Council in 1676, two ' Fountainliall, Decisions, p. 163. -' .-/ History of Clan Maclean, by Mr. J. I'. M.iclean of Cincinnati (18S9), is marked by faults of inexperience in historical composition. Law's Narrative is deficient in dates and distinction of persons. Mr. Maclean prints a document presented to the Trivy Council by the Macleans in 1676, and we have Kuuntainhali's comments. O 2IO SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE years after Sir Allan's death. The Macleans replied in a long document ; ^ they alluded, very modestly, to their sacrifices in the Royal cause, and they traced the history of the debt, which now mounted up to a very large sum. Doubtless it was swollen by interest, and by " wards," " reliefs," "escheats," and other claims of Argyll as feudal superior. His object was to become actual owner of Mull, Morvern — the region on the east side of the Sound of Mull — and of the island of Tiree. As he had somewhat similar claims on the Cameron country of Lochiel, Argyll, executing justice in his own courts over these immense domains, and over all the islands, would almost recover the power of the ancient Dalriad kings. The Maclean debt soon swelled to _^6o,ooo Scots. By 1676, say the Macleans, the debt has reached ^^200,000, while the original bond taken by the Marquis was for ;^i4,ooo "and to subscribe on account ^^16,000," with annual interest. Sir Hector paid in ;i<^io,ooo, and, from 1652 to 1659, the clan paid, so they allege, ;^22,ooo, which went to the Lady Anne, daughter of the Marquis, the lady whom Charles II. did not marry. In 1659 the Marquis applied for -^85,000, 1 History of Clan Maclean, pp. 187-192. No source is given. The author had access to the charter-chests of several of his clan. This document he seems to have taken from an earlier history, anonymous : the earlier author quotes no authority. The document, however, is used by the Counsel of Maclean of Drimnin in his printed argument against the Duke of Argyll in 1771. * I have no means of checking the Maclean statements by those of Argyll. In the published Letters of the Earl of Argyll to Lauderdale (1663-1668) are many references to the Maclean debt, which seems to have been, with a Clanranald debt, all that Argyll's creditors had to expect as satisfaction of their claims. The Earl refused to pay his debts out of his ;i^i5,ooo a year. The Maclean debt, about 1665, is not reckoned by him at the amount to which it finally swelled. See Letters of Argyll, pp. 12, 13, 14, 18, 25, 26, 40, 73, 74, 78, 90, 94. In 1663- 1668, Argyll hoped for a peaceful legal solution. In an undated letter to Lauder- dale, marked in pencil " <./. 29 May, '69," Argyll writes, "My strait is [that] most of what Maclean is due will fall to the creditors" (of the Argyll estate) "and on the one side, give Maclean what ease I will, it is clamoured I am strict to him, and, if I give never so little, the creditors cry that they are defrauded " {Add. AfSS. 23,131 ; Lauderdale Papers, f. 179). Thus, Argyll being resolute in paying no creditors out of his ^15,000 a year, the creditors had no hope except in the payment of the Maclean debt, finally amounting to ;^ 200,000 Scots. Argyll speaks of having Maclean "at the horn." RUIN OF THE EARI. OF ARGYLL 21 r witli no rej^arcl to the ^'32,000 :ilrc.i(ly paid. The Macleans then, ;il the Restoration, prayed for compensation for their lands, ruined hy the Marquis; hut the forfeiture of the Marquis occurred, and when the Karl recovered his estates in 1669, tlie Maclean debt, now ^121,000, was all that re- mained for the army of j^eneral creditors. The Earl said that he would leave it to them, but brought processes of ejection into his oivti Courts, against the ^Llcleans ; and accused them of treasonable convening in arms. Not likin<4 ^'i^' Earl as their jud^e, or his deputies, they did not appear at his Coiut, and were declared fugitives. They could not pass to Edinbur<^h to plead their cause, because they could not traverse Argyll's lands. He then got " letters of fire and sword," levied forces, and invaded Mull. They resisted in arms (1674) ; the Council granted a suspension of the case, and they now (July 1676) appear before the Council. As for their offences when in arms, the Earl indemnified them, when (September 8, 1674) the Council granted him Duart Castle and the Maclean lands in Movern, on the opposite shore of the Sound. He then again summoned them to his Court, and his men stripped their chief naked, a boy of seven, and took all his clothes ! The Marquis never, the Macleans urge, paid more than ;^' 10,000 for Lachlan Maclean, now ;^200,ooo is demanded. To extirpate a loyal clan in this way, the Macleans ''cannot but think hard." Turning to a Lowland witness, Fountainhall, in July 1676, writes that Argyll " had denounced the Macleans, gotten letters for fire and sword against them, and nearly forced them to the fields in their own defence, and all uf^on patched up claims and decreets in his oivn Courts," (for he had recovered the judicature of all the Isles, and was Sheriff of Argyll,) " for contumacy (whereas they durst not appear) or pretended casualities of superiority, as escheats, wards, non-entries, reliefs, &c." All this despite their suffer- ings for the king! "Argyll had walked warily and legally enough in all he had done. But his ambitious grasping at the mastery of the Highlands, and western isles of Mull, 212 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Islay, &c., stirred up the Earl of Seaforth, Marquis of Atholl, Lord Macdonald, Glengarry, Macleod, and other clans to enter into combination for bearing him down . . . who nettled him so, that they not only procured to that Name" (the Macleans) "a suspension of his charges, but a protection for them to come over. . . ." ^ They also, this is amusing, "hounded out" Roderick Mackenzie, brother of Tarbat, to pursue Argyll for a debt of 8000 merks. Argyll " trussed up bag and baggage " (oh, the ignominious retreat !) " and away to Stirling," whence he "quickly retired to Inveraray," concealing his furniture "in a secure place in the Highlands." ^ While pursuing the Macleans for the uttermost penny, he was flying from the payment of his own debts ! This flight left the question at issue unsettled. (This Roderick Mackenzie became a Judge of Session, and after 1 691 married Sir George's widow.) Meanwhile the Macleans had not been idle, but are pitifully plained on by Argyll's bailiff of Tiree for cruelty and robberies.^ In short, private war continued to be waged with great ferocity on both sides. The tutor of Maclean, in May 1677, was seeking help from Lochiel, and guns from Lord Macdonald. Charles, in November 1679, approved of Argyll's conduct,* (obviously under the in- fluence of Lauderdale,) and the Council gave the Campbells leave to pursue to the death, in case of resistance, the Macleans who had been summoned, in 1675, before an hiveraray jury !^ Argyll was backed by regular forces.^ Throughout summer in 1679 the Macleans successfully raided Campbells wherever they could find them, and were helped by Lord Macdonald.'' When the defeat of Claverhouse at Drumclog, and the evacuation of Glasgow by the regular forces, encouraged the ^ Fountainhall, Historical Notices, i. p. io8. - Ibid., i. p. 109. * Hist. AISS. Coin., vi.'p. 632. ■* VVodrow, iii. p. 144. '•> Hist. MSS. Com., vi. p. 628. " See his undated letter to Lauderdale, British Museum, Add. M.SS. 23,137, f. 77. ^ Hist. MSS. Com., vi. p. 629. RUIN OP^ THE EARL OF ARGYLL 213 Covenanters in their rising, Macdoiiald and the Macleans wrote a brief ejiistle to tlie Privy Council. They are coni- pelled, they sav, by the oppression of Ar/^yll, to "defend themselves from bcin/^ for ever ruined, and enslaved to him." They have rejected advances from "a rebellious crew in tiie west, in arms against his Majesty's authority." They request leave to be allowed to join in crushin;^ the rebellion, "and that the Earl of Argyll may in the mean- time be commanded to desist ; which lie liath ever done when his Majesty had anything to ch)." Unluckily the Council had seen lit, by way of keepinj^ up the belief in Oates's Popish Plot, to order the dis- armament of the clan as papists. The real motive may have been the protection of Argyll. Matthew ^Llckail, in one of his newsletters, (October 19, 1678,) says that there has been a proclamation summoning the chiefs of the High- land clans to give a hand to preserve the peace : it is contrived in favour of Argyll to prevent combinations against him occasioned by his oppression of the ^L'lcleans.^ Religious differences interested the clans but slightly, how- ever ; according to Wodrow, the Council shrank from letting the claymores loose on the Whigs, as this was "so open a siding with popery." - Naturally Wodrow denounces as false the statement that the Covenanters sought aid from papists. The Covenanters, however, had long before appealed to popish France. Later Argyll forced the Macleans into a capitulation, not before thev had cruelly plundered his remotest isles, and pushed their raids to Inverawe and Glenshira near Inveraray. On July 10, 1680, Charles desired to raise a sum of ;^"300 yearly, to be invested in lands in Tiree, pour tout potage for the chief of Clan Gilzean, plus ;^200 to be paid by Argyll. The Council dissented, and Charles ordered Argyll to pay the £y^o? The Revolution prevented the Macleans from retaining their own. Their chief was offered the X500 a year, in lands in Mull, but he turned ^ S.P. Dom., Charles II., vol. 407. ' Wodrow, vol. iii. pp. SS, 89. ^ Hist. MSS. Cow., vi. p. 633, 214 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Jacobite ; and the Campbells clung to most of Mull, Morvern, and Tiree. There are still Macleans of Lochbuy and Ardgour, but Drimnin, Kinlochaline, Ardtornish, and most of their other old seats, are held by strangers. About 1692 man)'' of the good clan retired to Ireland. At CuUoden, out of 250 men, they lost 200, so Lochgarry wrote to young Glengarry. We now see that, by the aid of his own Courts, of Lauderdale's influence, and by dint of feudal superiority and military force, Argyll had acquired Mull and Movern, had left the Macleans landless, but, it was hoped, would pay their chief ;^5oo a year. The Duke of York says that he advised Charles to provide that money, thus he would ^^ preserve that ancient and honourable claji of Maclean^ in possession of whose teri'itory Argyll was greater than it tvere fit for a subject to be." ^ The " preservation " of the clan seems to have meant no more than preventing the Macleans from becoming a chiefless or broken clan. Their chief would not be starved or forced to emigrate, he would have ;^5oo a year, and the king's idea was that the money should be rental on lands in Mull.2 The Macleans sent in " high and mighty papers," ^ Life of James II., vol. i. p. 706. ^ How Argyll received the proposals appears in the following summary of his letter on the subject to Lauderdale. Add. MSS. 23,246, f. 49. Argyll to Lauderdale. June 15, 1680. He has received Lauderdale's, written by the King's command. lie is anxious to serve His Majesty and His Royal Highness who have been at much pains about the affair between the McLaines and him. He is confident that nothing is intended but a favour to McLaine which he is not against, and the settling of the country, which he desires. He " condiscended " to H.R.H. to accept of ready money for all McLaine's estate, [what condescension !j and though tlie offer of favour made at Lauderdale's desire was refused by Maclean of Broloss, the pretended tutor of McLaine, and though he has since been put to as much expense as the value of the offer amounted to, he is still willing to give the ^200 sterling to McLaine and his family as is offered in the principal paper in the hands of the Earl of Murray. And, seeing that His Majesty now only proposes to buy a part he complies with that also. As H.M. has promised to protect him in the possession of the rest, he hopes H,M. will hear him in matters that should be cleared before further commands are laid on him. He has put them in a paper and hopes as they are necessary to him they are not hurtful to the minor McLaine. RUIN OK THE KARL OK AROVI.L 215 says Laudcrchilf to Argyll, dcnKiiKlin;^ the restoration to them of Mull and Castle Duart, their ancient patrimony.' Out of the acquisition of other men's lands by the House of Argyll rose the storm that fell on the Earl in 1681, in strange and unlooked-for fury. The Duke of York, small blame to him so far, earlier than July 1680 was interested in restoring the Macleans, and in reducing the power, unfit for any subject, which Argyll could exercise over the Dalriadic kingdom by the use of "his own courts." In July 1680, Argyll's Protestantism is not said to have given any occasion of offence to the Duke of York. 2 Argyll, hitherto, had been on the best terms with the Duke of York, who, in a suit about the right to the Armada vessel, blown up by the great Lachlan Maclean in Tobermory Bay, in November 1588, had been worsted, and acknowledged defeat in a courteous letter to the Earl, signed " Yours affectionately, James." The vessel, in 1906, was explored by a syndicate, and many curious relics of the Armada, with silver plates of the captain, were discovered. In the Parliament of 1681, Argyll was confirmed in the possession of Duart and many other Maclean estates in Mull and the island of Tiree.^ But against this contirma- tion the Earl of Errol protested. Errol was among Argyll's creditors for a large sum, and it seems that Errol, or others in his position, instigated the Duke of York to pursue Argyll to his ruin. Certainly there was private influence at work ; while Mackenzie, (who, as King's Advo- cate, later prosecuted the Earl with energy,) had a kindly feeling towards him. Mackenzie and Argyll signed together (February 17, 1680) the effusive letter to Charles, full of praise of the Duke of York. On the same day Mackenzie wrote thus to Lauderdale : " I am sure 1 have served Earl Argyll in all this affair of the Highlands even against my 1 Hist. MSS. Com., vi. p. 621. * Compare the account of all this in Mr. Willcock's A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times, pp. 197-20x3.^ The statements of the Macleans and of Fountainhall are omitted. ' Act. Pari. Scot., viii. pp. 257-259. 2i6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE own relations." (Seaforth and other Mackenzies, friends of the Macleans. Seaforth had protected and entertained the child chief, Sir John, whose clothes were taken by the Campbells.) " Nor did I, as I am a Christian, know any- thing of the scheme, nor does it please me yet. I presented a paper against it privately to his Royal Highness, which displeased him very much, but I always tell my inclina- tion, and if it please not I serve others according to their inclination." ^ Thus the desire to aid the Macleans, and to deprive Argyll of "his own courts" was active as early as February 1680, and the attack was not based on the Pro- testant exertions of Argyll in the autumn of 1681. "The affair of the Highlands," in Mackenzie's letter, refers to Argyll's war with the Macleans whom he had ousted from Mull, and who, with their Macdonald allies, had force- fully reoccupied their estates, and driven Argyll's divers away — by a well-nourished fire of musketry — from the Spanish vessel of the Armada which Lachlan Maclean blew up in 1588. "The scheme" unfavourable to Argyll, against which, early in 1680, Mackenzie drew up a paper offensive to the Duke of York, may also have been aimed at restoring to the Crown the vast hereditable judicatures of the Earl. " By such helps as these did the Family of Argyll in the last age commit and maintain their execrable treasons," says the Act for withdrawing these offices in 1685.2 The list is long : Argyll was Justice-General of all the isles, save the Orkneys ; Lieutenant and Sheriff of his shire ; and held superiorities over lands of Breadalbane, Lovat, Moydart, and the lands of the Macleans, Harris, Lochiel, and other chiefs, who, to be sure, opposed the Campbell policy on most occasions. It is plain that, early in 1680, the Duke of York desired to reduce the power of Argyll, whether fearing that he would prove a resolute enemy to his scheme in the Catholic interest, or merely because the reduction was, in fact, desirable for reasons of State and for the protection of Argyll's neighbours. It was most necessary that such ^ Lauderdale Papers, iii. p, 195. » Act. Pari. Scot., viii. 493. RUIN OK THK KARL nV ARGVLI. 217 supremacies should he suppressed, as tlicy were- in 1740. But then they were 9, "The Case of the Earl of Argyll." ' Burnet, i. pt. i. vol. ii. p. 323, note I. 2 Perth to Aberdeen, March 14, 1682. Letters to the Earl of AbercUen, pp. 6, 7. Spalding Club. ■• Fountainhall, Historical Notices^ i. p. 350. P 226 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Protestant Earl was gratified, but was not the Duke's first motive. There is a passage in Mackenzie's Vindication of 1691 to the effect, as we saw, that the Duke was " assured by one of the best lawyers in the nation that Argyll's paper imported treason, though the Advocate scrupled to prosecute him from a principle of personal kindness to the Earl. . . ." As we saw, when discussing Mackenzie's account of his rules of procedure while King's Advocate, if he had scruples about prosecuting, the advice of the best lawyers was taken, and, they concurring, he obeyed orders. In Argyll's case the lawyers who concurred must have been Tarbat and Haddo. Mackenzie's scruples, I think, rested on no doubt that the Earl's explanation " imported treason." " It was represented to the Earl," he says, '' that by Act of Parliament all such as put limitations upon their allegiance were guilty of treason. ... It is apparent that this Act was made upon most just and necessary motives, for the foundation of the Rebellion in the last age, was That by the Covenant the subjects were not further obliged to own the King's interest than in so far as it agreed with the Word of God, and the laws of the land, of which every private breast made himself the judge ; and, if this be allowed, no oath of allegiance can bind, and so all society must be dissolved." ^ But Mackenzie scrupled, probably, because, as he says, in his own work on Criminal Law, " it was the design of Law- givers only to punish such acts as are designedly malicious." Now, clearly, Argyll had never dreamed of a treasonable purpose, and Mackenzie could only plead before posterity that he prosecuted because certain lawyers did not share his scruples, when consulted, and that, in these circumstances, he could not withdraw from the case without injury to the Government which he served. These were his rules, he says so himself, and the author of " The Case of the Earl " warns him of what will happen '' when his day comes " to be tried. He took good care that his "day of law" should never come. ^ Mackenzie, Vindicatiofi, p. 21 (1691). RUIN OF TIIK KARL OF ARf'.VLL 227 Mackenzie, then, in aecoi il.mcc with his rule of c()n(Uiet as stated liy liiniself, overcame liis scruples, obeyed his orders, and, with his professional instinct, prosecuted Arj^yll to the best of his ability. Mackenzie had only too j^ood a case as far as the ab- surdity of the Earl's explanation of the sense in which he took the Test was concerned. It ran, " 1 have considered the Test, and I am very desirous to ^ive obedience as far as I can. I am confident the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory oaths ; therefore I think no man can explain it but for himself. Accordingly I take it as far as it is consistent with itself, and the Protestant religion. And I do declare that I mean not to bind myself up, in my posi- tion and in a lawful way, [not ?] to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State, nor repugnant to the Protestant religion and my loyalty. And this I understand as part of my oath." It is clear that any fanatic could take tlie oath thus under- stood. Mr. Cargill miglit liave promised (though he would have disdained it) to obey, " at least as far as he is able," and as far as he has no mystic " call " to disobey. If the oath be inconsistent with itself and the Protestant religion, and if, therefore, every man must explain it for himself, the oath is open to the caprice of every man, and the Parliament which made it is contemptible. In fact it was contemptible, but to say so was tactless, and involved " leasing making." Argyll will only obey as far as he is able, and will, in a lawful and loyal way, endeavour any alteration in Church or State. Now as his own idea of the law-ful and loyal is to be the standard of his conduct, he is as free as the Covenanters were to take up arms against the king, " in defence of his person." ^ * Patrick Walker, the aiillmr of Lives of Caryill, Cameron, and other Saints, writes, " I have heard Sir George Mackenzie answer some of our pawky-wittcd primitive trucklers," (who took oaths with their own explanations,) " Do not cheat your own consciences and deceive the world. Ve must pray for the King and swear allegiance to him in the sense of the imposers, for you that are swearers and prayers, ye have no power to put your own sense in our words " (Six Satnts of the Covenant, vol. i. p. 329). 228 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Argyll " drove a coach and four through the Act." I do not see how that can be denied, but he was only tactless, he had no treasonable intention, though even Fountainhall inferred that he had, from his subsequent rising in 1685. Mackenzie says that the Council " observed that the Test, by one part of his declaration became ridiculous, and by the other it became ineffectual to all intents and purposes for which it was designed ; for so every man's opinion became the rule of his own loyalty. . . . They therefore earnestly begged the Earl to withdraw his explanation." "The Case of the Earl " says nothing of this. How would the Covenanters have used a man, Mackenzie asks, who took the oath of the Covenant "as far as it was consistent with itself," and "as far as he was able ? " I conceive that they would have excommunicated a person who offered to take no more of the Covenant than that ; but it did not, perhaps, lie in their way to condemn him for treason. The Council, in the long run, accused Argyll of " gross and scandalous reflections " on the Act of Parliament, de- claring it self-contradictory (as it was), "depraving the laws," misrepresenting Parliament, and teaching the subjects to "disappoint all laws and securities enacted for the preserva- tion of Government." A majority of the judges found that his words " inferred treason." 1 On consulting Fountainhall, who was one of Argyll's counsel, we find that Lords Strathurd (Nairne), Forret, and Newton voted against Argyll, "Colinton having been non liquet, Harcous voting that it was not treason, and Queensberry, Justice-General, concealing his vote, in regard it was carried affirmatively ere it came to him." ^ Thus Nairne's vote, whether he was half asleep or not, did turn * It is said by Burnet that one judge, Nairne, was old, deaf, tired, and had gone to bed ; while the other four were divided in opinion. Nairne was sent for, fell asleep, (others say,) and gave the casting vote against Argyll. Lockhart of Carnwath points out that Queensberry, as Justice-General, not voting, and Nairne being absent, there were still five voting judges, and there must have been inequality of votes, so Nairne was not needed to take one side or another and settle the verdict. But Colington was non liquet {Lockhart Papers, i. p. 599). » Fountainhall, Historical Notices, i. p. 342, RUIN OF THE EARL OF ARGYLL 229 the scale. "There is a great t)utcry aj^ainst the judges for their timorous dishonesty," says F'ouiitainhall.* The jury, on the matter of fact, could find no verdict but what they did, and condemnation followed. Fountainhall says that in public opinion, though Argyll's words "deserve some lesser punishment, it was diabolical alchymy to screw them to treason." It is not certain that there was an intention to inflict capital punishment, but Argyll seeing symptoms of this design — mustering of soldiers, and a command to him to go to the Tolbooth, or common prison — walked out of the Castle on the night of December 20, dressed as a page, and holding up the train of his step-daughter. Lady Sophia Lindsay. Whether this escape had the connivance of Government or not, is also uncertain.'- The Earl escaped to England, and to Mr. William Veitch, who, guided by the genius of romance, and by a useful dream, led him to safe hiding in London, through a maze of adventures such as only befell Mr. Veitch. In London the germs of the Rye-House Plot came into being, and Argyll retired to Holland : to these things we return. When Argyll was in town, he saw several important people, and made the acquaintance of the lady who supplied the money for his later rising, Mrs. Smith, wife of an opulent sugar-baker. "One that saw him" (disguised as Mr. Hope) "knew him, and went to tell the king of it. But he would have no search made for him, and retained still very good thoughts of him," says Burnet. A pithy English opinion of Argyll's case appears in a letter by Sir Charles Lyttleton to Lord Hatton. It was written on January 5, 1682, just after the Earl's arri\'al in London. " My Lord Argyll, it is believed, is here ; his case is thought very hard, and the proceedings against him rigorous ; and all imputed the Duke's severity, and so made use of by those that don't love him, as an argu- * Fountainhall, Historical Notues, i. p. 341. ■^ Burnet, vol. ii. p. 322 ; Fountainhall, Historical Notiai, i. p. 343. 230 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE ment what we may expect from his Government here. But Argyll is not much pitied, being looked on generally as a very ill man to the Crown, and who has made use of the King's favours heretofore to do very great injustices to others." Apparently people had heard of the Macleans. ^ * Hatton Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 13. Camden Society, 1878. (The affair of Errol and Argyll's debts is not easily understood. Fountainhall, who sat in the Failianient of 168 1, says that Errol, Marisclial, and Strathmore were "distressed" for ;^40,ooo Scots, their predecessors having hacked to that extent the bills of the late Marquis of Argyll. The holders of the bonds were the Town of Edinburgh, as trustees for Heriot's Hospital. "The esi.-ites" of the three earls "were adjudged for it." Fountainhall says that forfeiture should not make void " a pious debt," as to a hospital, when the heir of tiie forfeited debtor has been restore(i, like Argyll, to the estates. The king took a bond from the Earl " to pay such a portion of the debts," but Argyll recovered this bond " viis et uiedis" (he means bribery), when his son married the daughter of the Duchess of Lauderdale. The Earl said he was content to be liable for this debt if he was given "access and execution " for what they had paid in relieving Huntly's estate. The Duke of York and his party were resolved to attack Argyll, for his Protestantism (who were the Duke's aiiti- Protestant backers ?), but the Duke " projected it might be referred ' to the king, lest the Koyal "gift of restitution" should be "clipped" by I'arliament, and the reference was made to Charles. — Fountainhall, Historical Notices, i. pp. 312, 313. See also "The Case of the Earl," State Trials, viii. p. 859.) CHAPTER XV "THE FANATIC PLOT," 1682- 1684 Changes in the Government — Fall of Lauderdale, Aberdeen, Qucensbcrry, Perth, and his brother, Melfort — Mackenzie's apprehensions — Death of Lauderdale — Haltoun prosecuted — The Carolina project —Shaftes- bury's projects — Politics in the City — Mr. Veitch and Argyll — Beginning of Rye-House Plot — The Respectables and the Assassins — Version of Ferguson the Plotter — Terrorism in Scotland — Black- wood's case — Various versions — Scots plotters in London— Jerviswoode, Sir John Cochrane, the Campbells of Cessnock — Argyll's cyphered letter and Carstares — The plot betrayed — Gordon of Earlston taken — "The old Rotten Stuff" — Revelations of Earlston— Mackenzie at Court — Described by Melfort as "a cat's-paw" — "The Junto" — Edinburgh civic politics — Settlement of the Argyll estates — Mackenzie denies his letter to Edinburgh — The letter is produced — Melfort and Monkland — Rapacity of Melfort — Mackenzie "not mealy-mouthed" — " We have got the best of him" — His "best side " seen in England- Extradition of Carstares. Time and fortune now began to make changes among the rulers of Scotland. " Single speech Roxburgh," as we may call him, he who spoke but once in Council, and then to injure Argyll, was drowned in May 1682, when the frigate of the Duke of York was wrecked off Yarmouth. Haddo had a narrow escape, and was proclaimed Chancellor, and Earl of Aberdeen, when the Duke arrived in Scotland. " Thereat the nobility grumbled in their bosom," says Fountainhall. Haddo's elevation was said to have been procured by Queens- berry, for his private ends, Queensberry, from Justice- General, was made Treasurer, Perth succeeded to his former office, and Hamilton was restored to the Council, but ii;id scant part in ruling. Lauderdale was a dying man. Soon it was the turn of his brother, Haltoun, to be attacked for malversation as "General" of the Mint. In May 1682, a Commission for examining into the affairs of the Mint, 232 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE against Haltoun, was given, in the manner of the period, to his enemies, Hamilton, Perth, (who, as we saw, called Haltoun "a brute rascal,") Aberdeen, and others. "They being somewhat diffident of the King's Advocate, on the pretence he was sometimes out of town adjoined to him Sir Patrick Home, who was a sworn enemy to Haltoun," says Fountain- hall. " This dissatisfied the Advocate." ^ Perth, in a letter to Aberdeen (March 23, 1682), speaks of " some people at Edinburgh that are grown very high, and must have all their wills, or else they will throw up the cards and take another course." Apparently Mackenzie was one of these people, for Perth goes on, " Next, the Advocate is in some doubt that Sir George Lockhart may do him hurt ; you know what use to make of this." 2 Mackenzie had long known that, in the changes of times, his position was dangerous. In an undated letter to Lauderdale, he asks him to procure a letter from the king "for my future security. . . . The reason why I desire to be tried before the King is, because if our adversaries at any time get the nomination of my judges, I will have my ears declared horns. And the Advocate is in a singular condition because all whom he prosecutes turn his adver- saries, and if I survive your Grace, nothing less can secure me. . . ."3 We do not know that Mackenzie ever obtained this letter. He would have needed all the cover that a Royal letter could give had he been tried before, or prosecuted by. Sir George Lockhart. Meanwhile the enemies of Haltoun, who were numerous, extracted a letter, depriving him of all his places, from the king. There was a story (on the late authority of Bozzy's father) to the effect that Charles took this step in sheer disgust, when Haltoun's oath concerning Mitchell and the promise of life to him was brought to the Royal notice. But Charles in 1679 had exonerated all the witnesses ^ Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. p. 356. 2 Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen, p. 10. ' Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. p. 220. "THE FANATIC PLOT" 233 in that case, as \vc have proved. Moreover, Fountainhall, as we saw, thought that perjury could not be proved against Maltoun. As to his deahn^s in the Mint, Haltoiui, being in his enemies' hands, had as scant justice as any Came- ronian ; was invited to swear to his own hurt, and was represented as declining their jurisdiction on tlie ^roiuid tliat he was exonerated under the indemnity of 1679. He was also accused of takinj^ bribes, by the brewers of Edinbur/^h, but Aberdeen and Mackenzie protested against the injustice of the procedure, and he escaped for that time.^ Haltoun's great case did not come on till January 1683. The Scottish councillors had been summoned to Court on the affair of the malversations in the Mint. By August 20 they heard of the death of Lauderdale, " an old kind master" Sir Andrew Forrester calls him.2 Fountainhall says, " Discontent and age were the ingredients in his death, if his physicians and Duchess be freed from it, . . . for she had got from him all she could expect." His fall was attributed to the revenge of the Duke of York, who never forgave his vote against the innocent Stafford in the Popish Plot. The world censured Lauderdale for leaving the old family estate of Lethington to Lord Huntingtowcr, a son of the Duchess, " thought by some to be his own." Lethington was not lionestly purchased, " for it belonged of right to the grandson of William NLaitland, his grand- uncle, Secretary to Queen Mary, who lived at Rowan (sic) in France, and to whom the Duke of Lauderdale paid a small yearly pension." » Lauderdale was buried in great state, with a long train of mourners, at Haddington ; he died at Tunbridge Wells.^ Haltoun having lost all his places, in consequence of ' Lattderdak Papers, vol. iii. p. 227; Fountainhall, Historiial A'atices, vol. i. pp. 367-372- * Letters to the Ear/ of Aberdeen, p. 51. ' These were the children of James Maitland, who has left an unfinished and very unsuccessful Af'o/ogia for the great Lethington, edited by me for the Scottish History Society. * Lauderdale Papers, vol. iii. pp. 230, 231 ; Kountainhall, Historical Observes^ PP- 75-77- 234 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE the Windsor conference of August 1682, Charles left him to be prosecuted either on a civil or criminal action, at Mackenzie's discretion. The Duke of York preferred a civil plea, and the indemnity of 1679 was not, at first, allowed to protect the accused, the action being civil, "not penal, but rei vindicatio only." However, the Act of Indemnity, the Lords reflected, could not safely be tampered with, "because they knew not in what need they might stand of it, or the like Act themselves, ere they had done with their part of the game." The case was very long, intricate, and technical. Finally, the judges found that Haltoun and his subordinates owed ^72,000 sterling to the Crown. ^ The reason why Aberdeen " took all this pains to make them guilty " appeared, according to Fountainhall, when the king reduced the money repayable to ^20,000 and gave ;^'i 6,000 of the sum to Aberdeen. To Claverhouse ^£4000 was assigned, the whole redeemable by the surrender by Haltoun, now Earl of Lauderdale, of the lands and lord- ship of Dundee and Dudhope. Thus Claverhouse got Dudhope, with the Constabulary of Dundee, from Aber- deen, at twenty years' purchase. Nobody can be sorry for Haltoun, but Fountainhall thought the procedure of the judges illegal. By way of remedy he suggested that the king, or Parliament, or justice-court should "in an arbitrary way" forfeit the Duchess of Lauderdale, on the ground of her " treasonably reviling the King," and give part of her lands to Haltoun.2 Such were Scottish ideas of justice ! The result was a quarrel between Claverhouse and Aberdeen, who soon fell from office as suddenly as he had risen, while Claverhouse, in May 1683, became a Privy Councillor. At this time Mackenzie went on a Western Circuit with the judges, administering the Test right and left (some guardsmen had been killed in a rescue of Presbyterian prisoners), and prosecuting rebels, old or new. Hamilton had come into the policy of repression, and the west, he ^ Fountainhall, Historical Notices, vol. i. pp. 397-407. ^ Ibid., vol. i. p. 440. "THE FANATIC PLOT" 235 said, was now free from (.vcii house conventicles.* There is an ominous undated letter from Mackenzie. " I i\\u\ the Carolina project encourages much cjur fanatics, thinkin;^ they are now secure of a retreat." This letter must he of June- October 1682 ; the project of a retreat to Carolina led to consequences very unfortunate for the Presbyterian gentry. In the year 1682 the new troubles for the country sprang not directly from the oppression of the Presby- terians, but rather from the general fear that the Duke of York, when he came to the throne, would force popery on the nation. Scotland, with her obsolete laws, and her subjection to prerogative, was regarded as the stronghold and base of the Duke's operations. In i6(S2 an unhappy and ill-organised attempt at resistance was initiated. The party of Shaftesbury had made England drunk with the cup of the sorceries of Titus Oates, and while reeling from their orgy of blood and falsehood the Whigs were stricken by reaction, and took refuge in conspiracy. Thus the letters written to the Scottish Chancellor, the Earl of Aberdeen, (Gordon of Haddo,) from various corre- spondents, in 1682, contain traces of the then unsuspected germs of "the Fanatick Plot" or "Rye-House Plot," which was to provide much work for Mackenzie. Affairs in western Scotland seemed unusually quiet, but in England there was much agitation about the election of the sheriffs. The City, violently Protestant, was wont, under the auspices of the roaring, drinking Green Ribbon Club, with its house near Temple Bar, to elect Protestant sheriffs, who chose a Protestant Grand Jury, an " ignoramus Jury," that threw out the bill against the Earl of Shaftesbury ; earlier juries had condemned the innocent Five Jesuits. The king, per- ceiving that City juries, packed with Whigs, would always acquit Protestants charged with treason, restored what was called " the undoubted right of the Lord Mayor to elect the eldest Sheriff," and the City charter was declared forfeited.* ' Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen, p. 64. * Sprat's True Aicount, pp. S, 9 ; out " the whole of the Privy Council," but runs thus — "At Edinburgh Dec. 22, 1684. " These foregoing depositions, subscribed by Mr. William Carstares, deponent, and by the Lord Chanrellor, were acknowledged on oath by the said Mr. William Carstares to be his true depositions; and that the subscriptions were his, in presence of us undersubscribers, "W;li,iam Carstari^s. " Perth. Canceli.. "Queensberry. „'' " Atholt.. \ " David Falconer (a judge). ,| " George Mackenzie. * i 1 Story's Carstares, p. 103. Si 2 State Trials, x. p. 699 ; Act. Pari. Scot. , viii. Appendix, p. 36, V TRIALS OF RYE-HOUSE CONSPIRATORS 277 Apfxircntly, then, Carslaics was not said to "renew his ' of a Jesuit — Mackenzie's last words to Oxford — He dies in London — Foundation of Covenanting myth of his death — Retlections — Buried in Grey Friars Churchyard. The history of the Revolution in Scotland, as far as it specially concerns Mackenzie, may be gleaned from the Memoirs presented to King James at St. Germain, in 1690, by his loving but inefficient adherent, the Earl of Balcarres. He candidly tells James that real trouble began in the Earl of Moray's Parliament of 1686. The king's command to rescind the penal laws against Catholics " gave a jealousy beyond expression, as if some greater alterations were designed." The rumour of a thing terrible to all good men, universal toleration, "general liberty of conscience," threatened the ruin of the Established Church (Episcopal). " This put the Episcopal clergy into such a rage that they could not conceal it," the Presbyterians waxed insolent, and Melfort's employment of James Stewart, (of Jus Populi Vindtcatuvi,) increased the general uneasiness. Why Melfort did employ this man, "no Stewart but a damned M'Gregor," is uncertain. He was a very able man, and probably urged 296 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Melfort, as Sunderland urged the king, down the road to ruin. Melfort ordered all who were under terror of law to take out remissions, paying seven pounds a head to himself, and a pound to James Stewart. These remissions had to be sought for the crime of obeying the king's command to enter on public employment without taking the Test ! On remonstrances from the Council, the king stopped this ingenious swindle by Melfort and James Stewart, but the impression made even on the most loyal was ineffaceable. Meanwhile Catholics were appointed to high commands in the army ; the Jesuits openly kept school in Holyrood ; and money was paid from the Treasury to Catholic mission- aries. Presbyterian fugitives flocked home from Holland and the West Indies, and then came the birth of the Prince of Wales on June 10. This was the last drop in the cup, the Catholic king would probably have a Catholic successor. "And the turning out of Sir George Mackenzie your Advocate, upon that account," (objection to toleration of Catholics,) " did not a little heighten the prevailing humour, for he " (with two others also dismissed) " was esteemed of the greatest integrity and learning " (of the judicatory) "as appeared afterwards by all their actions." Then came the news of an invasion under the Prince of Orange, and the ungrateful preachers, when asked what part they would take, said (as usual) that " they would carry themselves as God should inspire." A child knew how God would inspire them ! Country Presbyterians hurried to Edinburgh and formed themselves into clubs, headed by lairds such as Shaw of Greenock, whose people caught Argyll, and Sir James Montgomery. The king summoned Tarbat, Sir George Lockhart, and Balcarres to London ; only Balcarres obeyed. After Churchill's desertion. Sir John Dalrymple and Tarbat turned their coats ; the mob frightened Perth out of Edinburgh ; a price of ;^400 was set on his head and on that of Melfort. Holyrood was stormed ; the guards were slain or imprisoned and starved to death. Atholl assembled the Council and proposed a THE REVOLUTION— DEATH OF MACKENZIE 297 fulsome address to the Dutch invader : Mackenzie and others voted against it, but were out-voted on the question of sending a colder address. Perth was caught at sea in an attempt at flight, thrown into the common jail at Kirkcaldy, and thence taken to Stirling, where he lay long in prison. Atholl and most of the Oiangeite members of tiie Council went to London, followed by Sir George Mackenzie and the wavering Tarbat. London was now full of Scots, mainly Presbyterians. They declared Claverhouse (now Viscount Dundee), Hal- carres, Queensbcrry, Tarbat, and Mackenzie incapable of office for ever. William "absolutely refused the motion," he would see how men behaved in the approaching Con- vention at Edinburcfh. On the night when Balcarres came to town he heard that James had fled. His Scottish sup- porters remained in town for some weeks to study the new face of things ; Mackenzie was more safe in London than in Edinburgh, where the rabble were somewhat riotous. On January 15, 1689, he dined with the Archbishop of Canterbury, where he met among other good company, John Evelyn and that Earl of Aylesbury who has left us interesting Memoirs of the time. Evelyn's account of the party may be quoted. " I visited the Archbishop of Canterbury, where I found the Bishops of St. Asaph, Ely, Bath and Wells, Peter- borough, and Chichester, the Earls of Aylesbury and Claren- don, Sir George Mackenzie, Lord-Advocate of Scotland, and then came in a Scotch Archbishop, &c. After prayers and dinner, divers serious matters were discoursed, concerning the present state of the Public, and sorry I was to find there was as yet no accord in the judgments of those of the Lords and Commons who were to convene ; some would have the Princess made Queen without any more dispute, others were for a Regency ; there was a Tory party (then so called), who were for inviting his ALajesty again upon conditions ; and there were Republicans who would make the Prince of Orange like a Stadtholder. " I found by the Lord-Advocate that the bishops of 298 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Scotland (who were indeed little worthy of that character, and had done much mischief in the Church) were now coming about to the true interest, in this conjuncture which threatened to abolish the whole hierarchy in that kingdom ; and therefore the Scottish Archbishop and Lord-Advocate requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to use his best endeavours with the Prince to maintain the Church there in the same state, as by law at present settled." It is not clear whether Evelyn quotes Mackenzie's opinion of the Scottish bishops or gives his own. They, like the English bishops, had been alarmed by James's proceed- ings ; now, like some of the English bishops, they were to become Nonjurors and Jacobites. Probably they would have been Jacobites even if William had protected them and their form of church government, which he was too sagacious to do, contenting himself with Presbytery purified, practically, of its old exorbitant pretensions. In the defence of their Church, Tarbat and Mackenzie composed a " Memorial for the Prince of Orange. By Two Persons of Quality." " If his idea was to support the laws, the laws, in twenty- seven Parliaments, had sanctioned Episcopacy." William would have done so with pleasure, but he, or Bentinck, understood the Scots too well. Meanwhile the mob would have been masters of Edinburgh, but the members of the College of Justice armed themselves in the interests of order, and kept the town in awe. Balcarres and Dundee, returning, found all tranquil, and prevented the feeble Duke of Gordon from surrendering the castle. The Convention met, and the town was full of wild western Whigs. " The cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, And long-hafted gullies to kill Cavaliers." A frenzied letter from Melfort, breathing out threats, was received, and dispirited the adherents of James, who had advised the king to be conciliatory. They determined to leave the House, and hold a separate Convention, as in the infancy of James VI., at Stirling. On the day before that y7j^i?.-. f. ''3- 304 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Som tak great pains to mak Scotland and this reigne very odious & terrible & I am sure it is their interest to mak both easie. You cannot beleev what is really true & the King will find all true that I fortold him & if you think fit yow may show his Majestic this. It appears from this letter that Mackenzie, when in London, had met William III. The warning which he gave him no doubt was that the Scots were likely to invade the Royal Prerogative, sweep away the Lords of the Articles, and generally to insist, as they did, on having a free debating Parliament, as in England. Mackenzie, whose last letter was apparently of May, remained at Knaresborough Wells, then a watering-place. His health was failing : he was disgusted by the Liberalism of the Scots Parliament. Sir George Mackenzie to Lord Melvill. — 29 ///;/. [1689]. Knesborrough Wells, My Lord, — You may perceave, by what has past in the Parliament, that I justly declined to be present when the articls and the Sitting of the Officers of State in Parliament was to be contraverted ; and I hop you will represent this to the King, and that his Majestic will pardon this excesse of loyaltie ; for few will need a pardon in this point to my certain knowledge. I expect his Majesties protectione, and the stat of my health will excuse my absence from the Parliament ; but I entreat your measurs, and how I should cary, and wher I should goe ; only let mee not be sent back to Scotland in this confusion, tho' I shall answer at any other tyme. I am ashamed of our publict papers in Parliament. Allow Mr. Nairne to writ a letter to mee, to be left at Mistresse Gardiners, keeper of the stage coache at York. Tell me how Tarbat is, and wher. His next letter to Melville is in the same tone as his first to Yester. He wants to return to his profession, though THE REVOLUTION— DEATH OF MACKENZIE 305 without office, as he is the only competent le^nl adviser. He will not "^o north no, not to An^^iis," obviously because Dundee was concentrating in tiie north : by July 2 he had fallen in the arms of victory at Killiecrankie. Though Mackenzie was not a fi^htin^ Jacobite, the news must to him have been a heavy blow. Not only his friend Dundee, but his wife's brother, Haliburton of Pitcur, was amouLj the slain. The letter to Melville is of earlier date than the battle. /////. 1680? My Lord, — My confidence in yow and your family is such that I thought it unnecessary to speak or writ to yow. Yow neither need it, nor can misconstruct it ; and your friends wold possibly be jealous of our correspondence, tho' they should not, for I design not, nor shall be ever in any the remotest accession to what may wrong mv religion or countrey ; and probably I will be as sincere as any of yow ; but honest men should allow scrupls when they are against our interest, for no wyse man wold entertain such without being forced to them. I see not why lawvers of my standing (especially when I only remain of the old stock) [should] be forced to leav .... and the last President was pleased to say that, till 1 return'd, after the King put mee out, that the Lords could not understand the pleadings ; and if they could not when hee was ther, what will they now. I seek no publick employment, and so am rivall to no man ; but the libertie of informing judges (who, to my great regrat, need it) is a cheap and innocent favour, and yet it will oblidge me sufficiently, and keep mee from being suspected of what idlenesse suggests. Ther ar many things to be said on this subject which your friendship will suply. I will begin to follow your advyce in not going north, no not to Angus ; and ther is no fear of my speaking, for I spok only to get a [solujtion to my doubts ; and all that affair . . . and the case differs from what it was ; and yow will find my conduct very different in many things, tho it never u 3o6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE shall in what relats to yow and your family, including my friend Levin. All of yow may beleev that I am Your sincer friend, Geo. Mackenzie.^ In June, apparently, Mackenzie wrote thus to Mr. James Melville. " I receaved yours on the road, and as to Sir Wm. Scotts processe, I am sure the Commissioner will not consent to it; for the King said to the Marquis of Carmarthen and the Lord Notingham, that hee wold discharge all processes for fynes or forfeitures, and particularly myne. Tell this to the Commissioner and Tarbat, the President and Advocat ; and if it be suffered to goe on, I am allowed to complain ; but I am particularly sure that the King, and all at London wer very angrie at the remitting processes to the Councill or a Committee, as a ruin to the King's authority and the subjects security. Presse this. I have writ formerly to tak these things from the Lady Colington, if shee goe out of the toun, but no otherwyse. I design not to cary my books to the Shank, if they can be otherwyse secured. I hop yow will put these japan things in the boxes they cam in, since they are not bought. Give them, if shee will give twelve pounds for table stands, and looking glasse. I wrot formerly to the Countesse of Seaforth, and to Aplcrosse." ^ (For Mr. James Melville at Mr. Fergusons, in Suffolks Street.) He was leaving Knaresborough, probably for London, The reference to " Sir W. Scott's process " means Scott of Harden's suit for recovery of the ;^i5oo given to Mackenzie out of his fine for the non-conformity of his wife. In the long run, after Mackenzie's death, Harden appears to have recovered the money. Is Mackenzie himself to be "at Mr. Ferguson's, Suffolks Street"? and is 1 Leven and Melville Papers, p. 128. ^ Ibid., p. 129. THE RKVOLirnON— DKATH OF M ACKl'-NZIl-: 307 that Fcrj^iison, Ferguson the Plotter ? If Melville is in London, why does Mackenzie write to him about his furniture and hooks in Scotland? He himself, by June 18, has "<^ot a pass." (Melville to Ilanulton, June iS, 1689.') Accordin<^ to the author of his Life (1722) Mackenzie- took refuge in a city naturally dear to him, for its libraries and its Toryism, arrived in Oxford in September, 1689, and was admitted as a student in the Bodleian on June 2, 1690.- Deus nobis hac otia fecit, Mackenzie may have murmured to himself in the uninvaded peace of the gardens of Magdalen or St. John's, in the crystal October days. He was doubtless accompanied by his wife, who had been with him at Knaresborough, and by his little son, of his second marriage, who, about 1704, entered University College as a Gentleman Commoner. The AL'ister of University College, Dr. Charlett, was a friend of Mackenzie, who presented him with his portrait.^ In June, 1684, as Wood the Oxford antiquary records, Mackenzie had presented to the University his Jus Regiuin, a defence of Prerogative, and Convocation formally thanked him for the congenial gift. In his Diaries Wood notes that, on September 21, 1689, he met Mackenzie at the Crown Tavern, with Charlett, Dr. Plott, author of a History of Oxfordshire, Creech, and a Balliol undergraduate, John Alexander. Wood notes, later, that Bishop Burnet, (who refused to subscribe to an edition of the Septuagint,) is " cold towards learning, like all the Scotchmen, who care for nothing but themselves, no matter for learning pro- vided that they thrive." The only exceptions to our facetious and rejoicing ignorance are "that famous Scot, Sir George Mackenzie," the great Montrose, and John Urry of Christ Church ! ' Leven and Melville Papers, i. p. 66. - These facts are taken from a very brief biograpliical notice prefixed to Mackenzie's " Essays on Several Mtiral Subjects." (London, 1713.) That notice, again, is l)ased on a sketch of Mackenzie's career, in Wood's Fasli Oxonietises, by Dr. Charlett, Master of University College, and Dr. Gregory, the famous Edinburgh mathematician, who Hed from rresbytcrianism to the banks of Isis. ^ Life of MackenzUf 171 3. 3o8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Mackenzie made visits to town. On March 9, 1690, Evelyn writes: — " I dined at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, Ahnoner to the new Queen, with the famous lawyer Sir George Mackenzie (late Lord Advocate of Scotland), against whom both the Bishop and myself had written and published books, but now most friendly reconciled. He related to us many particulars of Scotland, the present sad condition of it, the inveterate hatred which the Presbyterians show to the family of the Stuarts, and the exceeding tyranny of those bigots who acknowledge no superior on earth, in civil or divine matters, maintaining that the people only have the right of Government ; their implacable hatred to the Episcopal Order and Church of England. He observed that the first Presbyter-dissents from our discipline were introduced by the Jesuits' order, about the 20 of Queen Eliz., a famous Jesuit amongst them feigning himself a Protestant, and who was the first who began to pray extempore, and brought in that which they since called, and are still so fond of, praying by the Spirit. This Jesuit remained many years before he was discovered, afterwards died in Scotland, where he was buried at . . . having yet on his monument, Rosa inter spinas!' Whom can Mackenzie have meant, who was the praying Jesuit ? Not Father Holt nor any other known to history. Mackenzie returned to Oxford in April or May, 1690, and entertained two Aberdonian ministers who came to ask pecuniary help for the rabbled conformists. On July 7, 1690, Wood met him at a very thin gathering of dons, some twenty, who attended the inaugural lecture of a new teacher of chemistry, so early had Science invaded the home of the classics. In the Bodleian, Mackenzie read law and was happy, he tells the University, among " your libraries, whereof each of your colleges has one which might almost supply the place of a Bodleian." Who could know Oxford, "without being forced by a noble emulation to leave all other pleasures, that he might retire into your libraries, or his I THE REVOLUTION— DEATH OK MACKEX/JE 309 own closet, tlicrc to purcliusc some share of that iinpiove- ment, which every private man's breast concurs with tlic world to esteem ? " These words, which enci the dechcation to tlie University of The Moral History of Frugality, may be the hist that Mackenzie wrote for the Press. He was workin|^ at The Laivs of Nations, at a defence of tlie j^enuineness of the liirth of the Prince t)f Wales, (James III. and VIII.,) at his Vindica- tion of the Government of Charles II., but the Moral History of Frugality and the Vindication he never saw in print, at least he never saw them published. On May 16, 1691, Archibald Cockburn, in London, wrote to the publisher, Hindmarsh, that, if there be anything unworthy of the author in the book on Frugality " it must be imputed to the fatal distemper of body which he languished under when he wrote it." For, on May 9, 1691, Strachan of Balliol wrote from London to O.xford, that Mackenzie had died in his rooms in St. James Street. " He vomited blood for three quarters of an hour before he died."i This is the founda- tion of the Covenanters' legend about the manner of their enemy's death. On the day before his death, (May 8, 1691,) he promised to his friend, Sir Robert Southwell, a copy of his manuscript Discourse on the First Four Chapters of the Digest^ to show the Excellence a7id Usefulness of the Civil Laiu. This book he "dictated in the time of his last sickness in London." ^ The languor of mortal sickness could not depress his indomitable spirit, nor could imminent death chill his ardour for literature and law. His last years in England, where, as Melfort said, " they see the best side of him, and that is very good," were, let us hope, his happiest years. One loves best to think of Mackenzie in a nook of the Bodleian, by a window where the sun shines fair on Exeter gardens ; or in that ancient library of Merton, with the green Christ- church meadows beneath ; or limping with a friend along the Broad Walk, shadowed by the elms that then were ^ Wood, Diaries, vol. iii. p. 361. - Sloane MSS., British Muacuni, 3028, f. 1^:4. 310 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE young ; or musing on what his hfe might have been, beside the still grey waters of the Cherwell. It was not in that " dear city of youth and dream " that he chose to rest ; his heart had been set on his own country ; his body was carried to Scotland, and lies in that last home which he had builded for himself, hard by the Monument of the Martyrs. " There servants, masters, small and great, Partake the same repose ; And there, in peace, the ashes mix Of those who once were foes." The Life of Mackenzie, in the folio edition of his works, tells us that his body was carried by land to Scotland, and after lying for some time in the Abbey Church of Holyrood, (then recently sacked by the mob,) was carried to its last resting-place. All the Council, many of the nobles, the gentry, the College of Justice, the College of Physicians, the University, and the Clergy, attended the funeral. To the coffin lid a Latin epitaph on a brazen plate was attached. By the pious care of Sir George's descendants, the late Marquis of Bute, and the Earl of WharnclifTe, the epitaph has been engraved on a tablet within the tomb. It will be remarked that the epitaph, contrary to Mackenzie's own statement of his age, gives his birth year as 1636. Mackenzie's only surviving son, (no son by his first marriage survived,) a Gentleman Commoner of University College, Oxford, died without issue in 1707. Agnes, his eldest daughter by his first marriage, wedded James Steuart, Advocate, Sheriff and later Earl of Bute ; his family descends from Robert III., and is represented by the Marquis of Bute. The younger daughter, Elizabeth, married, first, Archibald Cockburn, younger of Langton. This gentleman, in 1690, was in some trouble in England, as a suspected Jacobite ; his secretary confessed to having written frequently to Sir George. Cockburn, as we saw, sent to the publisher, Hindmarsh, the manuscript of Mackenzie's dedication of "Moral Frugality" to the University of Oxford. Elizabeth's second marriage was to Sir James Mackenzie, Baronet, of TOMB OF SIR GEOkGI-: MACKKN/Ii: THK KKVOLL'TION DKATH OF MACKKNZIl': 3'« Koystoii. Lord Roystoii \v;is :i Judge of Session, third son of Mackenzie of T.irbut, wlio became first Earl of Cromarty. Mackenzie left his widow, (who later married Roderick Mackenzie of Prestonhall, a Lord of Session,) as sole tutrix to his son, because, as he says, " I have found my friends unwilling to be tutor even to my own son." This shows, as Mr. Barty writes, "the solitary position, politically and personally," which he occupied after the Revolution. The guardianship of the boy, in fact, was apt to involve litigation, as in the case of Harden's fine. Mackenzie could only suggest that his widow should consult his sons-in-law ; the Wedderburns of Gosford and Blackness ; and his brother Colin, Tarbat, and other Mackenzies.^ • Barly, pp. ^S, 39. Details of liliijaiion may be read in Dr. Barty's book, PP- 39-45- CHAPTER XIX MACKENZIE'S WORKS Mackenzie's literary loneliness — No Scottish belles-lettres in his time — Seek- ing for a style — Imitates Sir Thomas Browne — Examples of style in The Religions Stoic — Mackenzie on death — On the Point of Honour — Moral History of Frugality — Socialism — Admiration of the Quakers — Essay on Forensic Eloquence — On the old pleaders — Merits of the Scottish idiom — Work on Criminal Law — Curious facts — Pirrauru among Scottish tinkers — Are excommunicated persons to be poisoned with impunity ? — On the duel — " Burden-sack " — Macleod of Assynt — Work on Heraldry. It cannot be said that Mackenzie's works survive on their literary merits merely, or have with two or three excep- tions, much interest beyond that excited by his personality and career. Literature was only his second love, his first was given to Law, the chief science cultivated by his nation, he says, and the chief road to advancement. He was equally devoted to the erudition of Law, and to the sedulous study and practice of eloquence in pleading. It was only during his youth, when, busy as he was in his profession, he could still find or make time in abundance, that he strove to attain to style in literature, and to master the arts of ex- pression. We have seen his quaint apology for his verses. In Edinburgh it always blows great guns, he says, and deadens the ear to the music of poetry. One great disadvantage thwarted Mackenzie's essays in literature, which flourishes in the companionship, com- petition, and conversation of men of letters. As a student and aspirant in literature, Mackenzie in Scotland was practi- cally alone. The Reformation, first, and then the second Reformation of the Covenant, had stifled belles-lettres in Scotland. Even the popular ballads had degenerated into 312 MACKKNZIK'S WORKS 313 do^ttrcl, witness the h;ill;icls on the h;ittles of PhiHph.iuj^h unci Bothwell Bridge. Everything th;it \v;is written (hove at prac- tice. Since the last verses of Drummond of Hawthornden, WilHam Alexander, Earl of Stirlin;^, and the swan-song of cavalier verse by Montrose, literature had consisted of wrangling pamphlets on politics and religion. Mackenzie began, like tlie great Scottish writers of the middle of the eighteenth century, by looking for an English style. He does not seem, like Hume, Robertson, Dr. Carlyle, and the rest, to have been constantly seeking to avoid Scotticisms : these are rare in his works, and it would seem that he must have read much English literature, in addition to Frencii and Latin, though he makes few literary allusions. His conversations with Dryden, as reported by that Laureate, prove that he read critically, gathering and studying flowers of exquisite expression. He quotes more than once, from Virgil's Georgic on the Bees, " my beloved verse," the lines which seem most charged with the sad lucidity of Virgil. "/// motus animcruin^ atquc /urc certamina (aula, Pulveris exigiii jaciu compressa (juiescunt.'' " That stir of spirits and these great conflicts must Be stilled and silenced 'neath a toss of dust." So must end the wars of creeds and the strife of bigots, the struggles of persecutors and persecuted, pulveris cxigiii iactu ! Mackenzie was alone ; save for Leighton's sermons and other works, only his books speak of the faint renaissance of literature in Scotland, during the Restoration. We have seen Mackenzie, greatly daring, attempt to be the father of the novel in Scotland, in imitation of the then popular French romancers, but his A retina is as dead as Le Grand Cyrus, and the rest of that strange literature. In The Religious Stoic, already criticised, Mackenzie is, like Mr. Stevenson in youth, " the sedulous ape " of Sir Thomas Browne, and adopts the style of a prose in stiff brocade 314 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE of tropes and similes and fancies. " I have travelled no further in theology than a Sabbath day's journey, and therefore it were arrogance in me to offer a map of it to the credulous world. But if I were worthy to be consulted in these spiritual securities, I should advise every private Christian rather to stay still in the barge of the Church, with the other disciples, than by an ill-bridled zeal to hazard drowning along with Peter, by offering to walk upon the unstable surface of his own fleeting and water-weak fancies, though with a pious resolution to meet our Saviour." Mackenzie looked out on " the sea of faith " and saw many zealous disciples, like St. Peter, essaying to walk the waters, floundering and splashing ; Quakers running about only in their shirts, " carryit of the Devil," writes Nicoll, " from ana place to another," " making swallows to come down from their chimneyis, and to cry out, ' My Angelis, my Angelis ' " ! The Quakers, later, won Mackenzie's hearty admiration. There were Protesting preachers, as Baillie notes, who uttered " a strange kind of sighing, as the pythonising out of the belly of a second person." There were Fifth Monarchy men, and saints like Trusty Tompkins who took care to inherit the earth and the fulness thereof in a very practical way. The pulpits were occupied by buff-clad Cromwellian divines in their bandoliers, with their private and original interpretations of religion. Later came they who followed John Gibb into the wilderness, fasting for many days, and burning the Bible at midnight, " in the Deer Slunk," while a light not of this world shone about their bodies, as round that of precious Mr. Walsh, while he meditated in his garden. Mackenzie, naturally enough, deemed it better to "stay still in the barge of the Church," than to walk " the unstable surface of fleeting and water-weak fancies " with the eccentric disciples of his day. "The Church, like the river Nilus, can hardly condescend where its head lies," till it was forced to "condescend" on "the darling of God, Charles the Merci- ful" [Vindication, 1683). MACKKNZIK'S WORKS 315 Mackenzie's meditations on dcalli show that for him death had no terrors ; indeed we know that he worked at a law book on liis deathbed. "Albeit the ^lass of my years has not yet turned five-and-twenty, vet the curiosity I have to know the different Limbos of departed souls, and to view the Chart of the region of Death, would j:^ive me abundance of courage to encounter the King of Terrors, though I were a pagan ; but when I consider what joys are prepared for those who fear the Almighty, and what craziness attends such as sleep in Methusalem's cradle, I pity them who make long life one of the most repeated prayers in their pater noster. . . . To satisfy my curiosity I was once resolved with the Platonic," (Marsilio Ficino,) "to take the promise of some dying friend, that he should return and satisfy me in all my private doubts concerning heaven and hell. . . ." The experiment was fre- quently made in Mackenzie's time, with success, according to the stories in Wodrow's Analecta, and Lord Brougham has reported a similar and successful venture of his own. Mackenzie's other Moral Essays, on Happiness, for example, are much inferior to The Religious Stoic, more commonplace, less quaint, and, in fact, strongly resemble the sermons which he so unaffectedly disliked. In his essay on the Virtues demanded by the Point of Honour, he did not edify Rothes, or persuade him that " it is most unbeseeming a gentleman, for such as frequent ladies, to spend so much time in studying a kind of wit," (Rothes' kind of wit,) "that not only cannot be serviceable, but which cannot in any case be acceptable or recreative to those lovely persons." The lovely persons of the Restoration, of whom Mackenzie always writes with chivalrous respect, were better known, at Court, to Rothes than to him : and, with exceptions like that white lily of Maids of Honour, Evelyn's "dear friend" Mistress Blagg, were capable of appreciating Rabelaisian humour. Mackenzie disliked it ; his letters and works have not a grain of gros sel, " My employment, (as an advocate,) as well as my philo- sophy, obliges me to implead injustice as the worst of things, because it wrongs the best of men, and the best of things. 3i6 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE . . . Injustice likewise debauches the laws, which are the best of things . . ." writes, in 1665, the prosecutor of Baillie of Jerviswoode. Alas, " what a strange thing is ad- ' vancement ! " as this philosopher cries in an early chapter of his Memoirs, reflecting on the career of Lauderdale. It often appears as if we were most apt to fall into the error which we most detest, as men with the best memories, trusting solely to them, are most incorrect in their quota- tions. Like them, we think ourselves secure, and are off guard against temptation. Mackenzie has persuaded nobody, [ by the paradox " It is Easier to be Virtuous than Vicious," that the road is not broad which leads to destruction, and strait the path and narrow the way which leads to the City. His best point is his motto from Jeremiah, ''They weary themselves to commit iniquity." Mackenzie, in 1667, promised to write no more except on legal subjects. But in 1690-1691, a dying man, he wrote his his essay on T/ie Moral History of Frugality, attacking Luxury and Avarice as " the powerful enemy of Law and Justice." He found that Oxford men "think themselves rather stewards than proprietors of benefits, reckoning the wants of those who are distressed among your principal debts," among the needy are "the exiled French Protestants, the fugitive Irish, and the starving clergy of your own pro- fession in Scotland," rabbled out by Patrick Walker and his companions in virtue. So great was the charity of Oxford, " that I cannot but admire how even frugality itself could have made you live with that neatness I observed among you." In contrast with the amazing filth of Edinburgh, in these days, Oxford must have appeared of a Dutch cleanliness. In this essay Mackenzie verges on economic ideas. " I am so far from thinking that luxury is useful because it main- tains so many poor artizans, that I think there would be no poor, but for luxury and avarice, for all would have somewhat, and none would have too much." He cannot but see that *' a present innovation would starve some : yet it would not starve so many as might be easily maintained upon what the luxurious and avaricious possess beyond a due measure." MACKENZIE'S WORKS 317 What is "a due measure"? who is to decide? These will not be peaceful times in which that problem is solved, and Mackenzie, most unexpectedly, appears as a sociahst, a Masaniello or John of Leyden, at least, as Lockhart had said, lon^ ago. How would the Dons like to see the barj^ees appropriating the college plate, distinctly an article of luxury, for beer tastes even better than in silver, "in its native pewter"? " If men do bestow their money on perfumes, pictures and such other baubles, with design to let it fall into hands which needed it," then they are not so much to blame. Otherwise, "may the devil Hy away with the fine arts;" Mackenzie agrees with Mr. Carlyle. Pictures are on a level with pachouli. Our onlv luxuries ought to be Contemplation, Virtue, and Religion — what a doctrine to preach to the Oxford of the period. Mackenzie's generosity is convinced " that any generous gentleman would be much more troubled to think that his poor tenants who toil for him, are screwed up to some degrees that look too like oppression, than he could be pleased with any delicacies that the superplus of rent could buy for him." So one might suppose, indeed, but did Mackenzie's experience of Scottish lairds confirm his opinion ? He goes on to denounce " militarism," possibly with an eye on the Dutch usurper, and his alacrity in piling up the National Debt. The persecutor, again to the astonishment of orthodox Oxford, " cannot but commend most cordially the Quakers, who have let us clearly see that if men please, they may emancipate themselves from the tyranny of custom in this particular ; and this one excellent endeavour does not only give them much tranquillity, and enable them to help all those of their persuasion to a degree that is to be admired and commended, but it really makes them acceptable in the neighbourhood." Persecution seems to be a matter of taste : Wodrow growls that James II. tolerated the Quakers "since not a few of the leading men among them were in close friendship with the Jesuits." He calls an Act of Council (1663) against Quakers "this good Act," and grumbles that the bishops did not exercise it freely, and save us from " that 3i8 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE dangerous sect." In 1666, they were to be "punished by fining, confining, imprisonment, and such other corporal and arbitrary punishments as the Council think fit." But " very little effectually was done," in this laudable way. Thus, from the Presbyterian point of view, not religious persecution was wrong, but the persecution of Presbyterians. To this extent, as late as 1720, were Presbyterians the friends of religious and civil liberty. It is a piquant fact that the last words of Mackenzie's last essay enthusiastically commend a sect of Nonconformists. Mackenzie's legal writings cannot be effectively criticised except by persons acquainted with old Scottish law and practice. His brief characterisations in Latin, of the famous pleaders of his time, may have "beguiled Dr. Johnson's leisure in distant Dunvegan," as Mr. Taylor Innes says, but as they can be read in ten minutes, they would do little for a man on a wet day in the Highlands. Who cares whether Nisbetius, that very corrupt King's Advocate, " had more of art and polish " than Gilmorius, or whether Gilmorius possessed more natural vigour than Nisbetius ? It is neatly said that the learning of Craigius needed no aid from style, trunco non frondibus efficit nmbram. " No flowers ! " The learning and ratiocination of Lockhart are spoken of otherwise than in the Memoirs, but we hear nothing of Stairius, Dalrymple, whose " Institutes " are the great monument of Scottish legal erudition. ■ Great advocates, like great actors, leave but novmiis umbra, or the memory of anecdotes, in which Mackenzie does not deal like the garrulous and rather spiteful Fountainhall. Probably Bozzy inherited, through his father, abundant traditions of the Bar, (we have one from him, about Haltoun, which is certainly untrue,) and it must have been Bozzy's commentary rather than Mackenzie's text, that amused Dr. Johnson in Skye. In his essay on " What Eloquence is fit for the Bar," Mackenzie glorifies forensic eloquence above all other. The preacher, he says, may meditate his theme as long as he likes, and, in the pulpit, meets " no opposition." That, MACKKNZII-yS WORKS 310 indeed, is the cruel p;irt of it I We all aj^ree, in essentials, with the preacher before he begins; the advocate lias to meet rephes whicli he did not, perhaps, expect, and to convince in dangerous c.ises, and perhaps aj^ainst the pre- disposition of the jury. " What can tlie world bestow " above the moral reward of the advocate? "What is so desirable as to be a sanctuary to such as are afflicted, to pull the innocent from the claws of his accuser, to ^ain bread for the hun<^ry, and brin^ the guilty to the scaffold ? " But suppose that they are not guilty, or are guilty only under laws that should never have been made ? " Some divines and philosophers " think Law " too dull and flat a subject," not so barristers or judges, for not even actors find in their profession a more entrancing theme of dis- course. All pleading, by an ancient Scottish rule, was to be " arguniiing " syllogistically, not rhetorically. Yet Mackenzie finds that even aged judges are captivated by " charming expressions." Unluckily we meet few of these flowers in his printed pleadings; they chiefly occur in the Latin, not the English version of his speech against Mitchell : the English report, in Fountainhall, is almost purely tech- nical. There is the pointed and short way, and the full and opulent way of pleading. The latter was certainly used by Demosthenes and Cicero, of the former a good example of an earlier date is found in the speeches in Thucydides ; if these compressed discourses were formed on the method of the Athenian Bar of his time. " Cecilius did allow the pursuer six hours, the defender nine." The orators must have had lungs of bronze ! Mackenzie advises the use of many arguments, one or other is likely to hit the judge, if the rest miss. Mackenzie thinks that the use of action adds grace, not force, and is not in fashion as among the gesticulating Greeks and Romans. Their costume showing much of the figure, if we may judge by statues of orators, was more favourable to action than the dress of the late seventeenth century. Mackenzie has heard advocates "very innocently condemned for calling the late 320 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE times Rebelliofi, though in that they spoke their art, and were not obHged to speak their thoughts." For pleading, he thinks " the Scottish idiom of the British tongue " the best of any, being brisk, smart, and quick. "Our pronunciation is, like ourselves, fiery, abrupt, sprightly, and bold. . . . Nor can I enough admire why some of the wanton English undervalue so much our idiom since that of our gentry differs little from theirs, nor do our commons speak so rudely as those of Yorkshire." Our language varies only in the number of French words, and in compressed words, as stour for dust in motion. But stoiir also is from the old French, I think. Mackenzie is always patriotic. He ends by a pretty compliment to his contemporaries : " I daily hear my colleagues plead so charmingly that my pleasure does equal their honour." Concerning some of Mackenzie's own printed pleadings we have already spoken : the speech for Argyll is remarkable for modest grace, and for arguments that would have pre- vailed, probably, but for the unexpected documentary evidence sent in by Monk. All the pleadings are rich in Latin quotations, which the judges, let us hope, understood. In Latin, too, is a long argument against the English theory that the Scottish kings did homage to those of England. They only did so for Northumberland, Cumber- land, and Westmoreland, according to Mackenzie. He does not discuss the evidence of the English chronicle, debated by Mr. Freeman and Mr. Robertson. A discussion of the Observations on Acts of ParHa}ne7it, from James I. to Charles II., cannot be attempted. The book must have been useful at the time, and all repressive legislation in Church matters is, of course, defended. The serious inquirer into Scottish history will find many notes of curious interest in the Observations. ' Mackenzie's book on Criminal Law was for long, as we have seen, a work of pre-eminent authority. To modern readers, if any glance into it, the volume is most interesting for its references to facts. For example, was there ever a protectionist, or tariff reformer, so zealous unto slaying MACKENZIKS WORKS 321 as Mr. Alexander Hcutli ? " Bcin;^ pursued for killing some men, he alle^^ed tliat these nieu were hritij^iiij^ meal from Ireland, and that, by Act of Council, it was lawful to sink or kill such as contravened the Act." Mr. Beath, none the less, was found guilty, hut was not executed. The invocation of spirits is only heresy if the spirits be asked to prophesy, for to do that is to attribute omniscience to the devil, which is one of God's attributes. If spirits are only in- voked to prevail with a man's beloved, that is not heresy, though it looks perilously like witchcraft. It is not necessary, in posthumous charges of treason, that the dead body of the accused should be brought into Court, as was done in the case of Logan of Restalrig. It is questioned whether the poisoning of Jews and excommunicated persons be punishable. It is punishable, under the liberal laws of England, but, as an excommunicated person is not a Christian, his case is dubious, the law only referring to " any Christian man or woman." For a physician to poison his patient is certainly murder under trust. If a man be killed by the fore feet of a horse, the rider must pay croo or galnes. The rider is not responsible for what his horse may do with its hind feet. "Duels are but illustrious and honourable murders," though Mackenzie, as we have seen, was prepared to commit such a crime, in a quarrel with a Mr. Bannerman. "Courage thinks law here to be but pedantry, and honour persuades men that obedience here is cowardice." In old Scots law the Bridge of Stirling was the proper scene of judicial duels, though they were legally fought on other places.^ If the appealer in ordinary crimes was worsted, his pledges, or guarantors, paid to the king nine cows and a colpindach, which is not explained, but seems a survival of Celtic law. The safest way of getting engaged in a duel was for the challenged to decline to transgress the law, but say that, if attacked, he would defend himself. Mackenzie did not adopt this plan when challenged by Mr. Bannerman. Not only seconds but spectators of a duel are punishable. * Cf. Neilson's Tnal by Covibat. 322 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Whether the statute against parricides extends to bastards, or not, is doubtful, but bastards had better be careful, for parricide is a crime against the law of nature, "and bastards are natural children." The law still recognised, apparently, an official styled Toscheodoroch, equivalent to the Mayor of the Lordship, "Notour adultery" was punishable by death, but capital punishment was seldom inflicted, at least a tinker was only whipped, banished, and burned on the cheek (1662). Regard was paid to the pirrauru rule among tinkers, " that absurd custom they have of living promiscuously and using each others' wives as concubines," If by " tinkers " gipsies are meant, we seem here to have a survival of the Dieri and Urabunna custom of pirrauru or piraungaru. We are not told whether any rite was performed before such unions were recognised as orthodox by tinkers. " Margaret Thomson was executed" (May, 1646) "for committing adultery with a minister, and for falsifying a testimonial, to the end she might get her child baptised." What was done to the minister ? It is doubtful whether or not Quakers can be punished for bigamy, "seeing they give no oath at marriage." By the interesting law of " burden-sack," no man can be accused of theft, for so much meat as he can carry on his back. Milo could carry a bull. But Mackenzie thinks that the rule only holds good when the man is justified by necessity. " His necessity in effect makes it no theft." In England theft of an object worth a shilling was punish- able by death. " I incline to think that for simple theft a thief should not die," and Claverhouse, as Constable of Dundee, insisted on acting on this opinion, though common practice was cruel. "There is no proportion between the life of a man and any theft of money, for all that a man hath will he give for his life." The law as regards the re- sponsibility of gaolers, when prisoners escape, is interesting, for we learn from Fountainhall that escapes out of the Tolbooth were frequent, but the gaoler. Vans, had the interest of Lady Stair, wife of the President, Dalrymple of Stair, and was secure enough. Probably he was bribed in most cases. "The taking of bribes is discharged to the Lords of MACKENZIE'S WORKS 323 Session, their wives, :ind serv;iiUs, under llie piiin of infiiiny and contiscMtion." "Compliments" to judges, or at least to the public prosecutor, or his wife, were commonly paid, as we know in Nisbet's case. For coiners the penalty was sometimes burninj^. Making cockahifids against English privy councillors was treated as " leasing making." Cockaland seems to be coq i\ I'dne. The payers of blackmail are punishable as thieves and robbers, but this is in desuetude. Blackmail, of course, is money paid, say to Rob Roy, for the protection of your cattle. A curious point in a debated question occurs in the chapter on "Art and Part." Macleod of Assynt is said to have alleged an alibi when accused of betraying Montrose to his death. Mackenzie writes that Assynt was " pursued as an accessory, in as much as he had at least ratihabited the crime," (Montrose's murder,) *' having vaunted that he had taken him prisoner at his own house. . . . Yet the Parliament inclined not to punish him if nothing else could be proved." It is not clear why Assynt should be prosecuted while the men who condemned Montrose came under the Indemnity, but the Seaforth Mackenzies coveted and seized his estate. The following remark appears likely to alleviate any scruples which the King's Advocate may entertain about the justice of his cause. "Albeit where the pursuer is a private person, he is obliged to swear the Libel, yet where the King's Advocate pursues, he is not obliged to swear the Verity of the Dittay, because he pursues only ratione officii." The Institutions of the Laics of Scotland is a work too technical for discussion by a layman, while a fresh account of the antiquity of the Scottish kings, their precedency over all kings, and their prerogative is too voluminous for analysis. The Science of Heraldry was written, Mackenzie says, because as a lad in France, he found that " Heraldry was looked on as the science of gentlemen," and he studied it " rather to serve my country than to satisfy my curiosity." His Account of Our Old Families he leaves in manuscript " as a new testi- mony to my kindness to my native country," which has never printed it, and probably never will. Following Pliny, 324 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Mackenzie derives armorial shields from the devices borne on their shields by the heroes of Homer. The poet, how- ever, mentions no blazons, which do not appear earlier than on vases of the seventh century B.C., and, as on the shields described by ..-Eschylus in the " Seven Against Thebes," the blazons were personal, not hereditary. Everywhere, among martial peoples, personal blazons have been common, but Mackenzie is in error when he ascribes the origin of the science of heraldry to Charlemagne : it is later than the Norman Conquest. • " The Maxwells bear the Eagle to show their descent from Germany," of which the Maxwells appear to be unaware. In many cases, as Mackenzie shows, heraldry is really the handmaid of history, the arms of extinct families being quartered by families whose ancestor married an heiress, as the House of Dunbar, in memory of Black Agnes, quarters the cushions of the Randolphs, Earls of Moray. " The Shaws of the north are known to be Mackintoshes by their arms." Bruce gave to the Irvines or Irvings, three laurel leaves, as an Irving had been his armour-bearer, but these are now represented by holly leaves. The oldest arms are those of Macdowal, and derived from the slaying of a tyrant, " many years before Christ." Even Mackenzie had his doubts about this impossible story. "Tarbet" is wrongly written by some of the name whose arms are turbots, fretted proper. This is canting heraldry, or punning, for Tarbet or Tarbat is a place name, meaning a neck of land, and has no connection with the fish. Mackenzie remarks on names taken from lands, and anna cantantia, without observing that Tarbet and turbots are a case in point. One cannot follow Mackenzie into the minutia3 of the science. He concludes " as it is much nobler to raise a science than to be raised by it, so, having written this book as a Gentleman, I design as little praise or thanks as I would disdain all other rewards." His own blazon is ^^ Azure, a deer's head cabossed or, within two laurel branches disposed orle-wise," these being an addition to the arms of Seaforth. This blazon is quartered by the Earl of Wharncliffc. APPENDIX A THE "DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL lilOGRAPIlV" AND MACKENZIE The article on Sir George Mackenzie, by Mr. T. F. Henderson, in the Dictionary of National Biography (vol. xxxv. pp. 142-145, 1893), contains statements which, I think, need correction. Thus, (i) " In the earlier part of his career his sympathies were with the popular party rather than with the government. . . ." To judge from his Religious Stoic his early sympathies were entirely opposed to "the popular party," if by "the popular party" the Presbyterians are meant. (2) Mackenzie is said to have "received the honour of Knight- hood" as a reward for his services to Government in the affair of the outed Advocates (1674-75). It is certain that he was a knight at least as early as 1666. (3) "He must be held chiefly responsible for the introduction of torture to extort the truth from suspected persons, and in his ' Vindication ' he specially defended its use. . . ." Every one knows that torture was commonly used in Scotland long before the birth of Mackenzie, especially by the anti-Marian ministers during the minority of James VI. ; by James himself, and by the Privy Council under Charles I. During the revolutionary years, and under the English occupation (1638- 1660), it would not be easy to prove the use of torture in political cases, but it was constantly employed at that period to extract confessions from persons accused of witchcraft, and was approved of by the preachers. After 1660 it was applied to some of the rebels of 1666, while Mackenzie was engaged for their defence, and the Earl of Argyll gave his approval. It is thus quite erroneous to accuse Mackenzie of being "chiefly responsible for the introduction of torture. . , ." He is said to have " specially defended " the use of torture in his Vindication. 326 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Mackenzie's words {Vindication^ p. 24, 1691) are: "It would seem to some who are now bystanders as they " (the censurers) " then were that though they cried out against us for torturing, when it was war- ranted by our uncontroverted law ; yet the expediency of Government, or some other reason, makes them do it, after they had declared it a Grievance^ and had railed against it as inconsistent with all humanity. Nor do I see that the reserving it only to king and Parliament answers this objection ; for the Parliament by their authority cannot tnake that fit, which is inconsistent with human nature, or that convenient which was declared to be incapable to produce the true effect for which it was designed : and the making torture then only a grievatice, when inflicted without a cause, (as is pretended) seems to satisfy as little, since every man can easily pretend that what he does is done upon just motives." Such is Mackenzie's "special defence" of torture. He does not at all defend it in itself, but says that it was undeniably legal, and that the Revolutionary party continue to use it, (they did so,) though they call it " inconsistent with human nature." In his Cri??iinals, as his work on Scottish Criminal Jurisprudence was called, Mackenzie states the conspicuous reasons against the method, whose use, he says, is limited to " the Council and Justices " (judges). If he remembers right, it was decided by the Privy Council, after the rising of 1666, that men, once condemned, could not be tortured to extract the names of accomplices.^ If Mackenzie's law be correct, all the preachers, lairds, and others who tortured witches did so illegally, and when he, in resigning his Judge Deputeship, told Lauderdale that he had to sit in cases where his conscience was offended, he may have referred to the witch trials, to which, we know, he was often summoned. That Mackenzie "displayed an almost savage gusto in wielding the terrors " of torture, is an accusation for which no evidence is adduced : the authority for the story that he threatened to pluck out the tongue of a taciturn prisoner is probably a statement of Wodrow, based on "some papers," unnamed.^ Wodrow does not say that torture was employed in this instance. Dr. Hewison, in The Covenanters (vol. ii. p. 357), referring to The Cloud of Witnesses {]). 221, ed. 1871), says, " The youth Stewart testified that on his refusing to answer questions, in the presence of York and Paterson" (William?) "on ist October, Mackenzie threatened to tear his tongue out with a pair of pincers," — a singular way to make him speak. On another occasion we found Mackenzie, in a moment of excitement, promising to torture many ' Works, ii. p. 261. - Wodrow, iii. p. 285. » J APPENDIX 327 persons. But, if he kept his word, the fact has cscai)ccl the research of the minute and copious Wodrow.' Mr. Henderson produces two examj)les of Mackenzie's ferocity in speech and act. " Nor was the high rank of a prisoner," he says, "any guarantee of the observance of the outward forms of civihty." At the death of "John Campbell, first Earl of Loudoun (i 598-1663)," Mackenzie is said to have complained that "the villain" had escaped him. As this Earl of Loudoun was not a prisoner, and as he died in 1663, while Mackenzie was not Public Prosecutor till 1677, Mr. Henderson is again unfortunate. He probably meant to refer to the second Earl, who, in fact, died in Holland. The stories of Mackenzie's brutal disregard of rank, and of his tearing up a petition by Lady Loudoun, were told to Lord Hailes, in 1749, by Lady Stair, whose family was at odds with Mackenzie. Lady Stair said that she had the story from an eye-witness, but it is a long interval from 16S5 to 1749, and Lord Hailes, who re- corded the anecdotes in 1749, observes that they "are not moral evidence." - After showing that Mackenzie can neither be justly burdened with the chief responsibility for introducing torture, nor even with specially defending the use of torture, it is fair to add that, in his tenure of office, torture was much more frequently employed than had been customary. The reason is not far to seek. In times of public excite- ment, justice, in these days, was never remarkable for mildness or equanimity. The many and hideous judicial crimes committed against innocent Catholics, during the long frenzy of "The Popish Plot" (1678-80), can never be forgotten, and, though torture was illegal, the extremes of cold and hunger were inflicted, in England, for example on the miserable Prance, who was driven to perjure himself against Green, 1 Cloud of Witnesses, pp. 199-206 (od. 1730), pp. 216-224 ('-"fl- 1871). Last Speech and Testimony of James Stewart, Oct. 10, 1681, p. 203 (ed. 1730). " I leave my testimony against Jaylor-fee paying : it being an acknowledgment of their Tyranny to be Lawful ; which how unjust it is, I have a proof among others : for that Night, that I was before York and the rest, being October ist, 16S1, I Ijcing examined by Sir George Mackenzie, York and Mr. William Paterson coming unto me, when I was silent, and would not answer to some things they asked at me, he [who ?] threatened to take out my Tongue with a Pair of Pincers if I would not. And he held him [whom ?] as a Witness against me. And tho" I told him [whom ?] that he was a Judge the other Night, and would yet hold him [whom ?J as a witness against us before your [whose?] Justiciary, yet they did it [did what?]: which was neither according to Law nor Reason." I think that Stewart attributes the threat to Mackenzie. The remarks are scarcely according to grammar, and the "he's," " him's," "you's," &c., may be variously interpreted. * Hist. MSS. Com., vol. iv. p. 532. 328 SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE Berry, and Hill, hanged for the murder of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey.^ " To have him have the Rack," annotated the Lord Chancellor.^ The number of plots and risings in Scotland, after Bothvvell Bridge, were the occasions of the endeavours to extort evidence by the boot, and Mackenzie approved of a motion, by Gordon of Haddo, (later Earl of Aberdeen,) that witnesses, in given cases, might be tortured, when they varied and contradicted themselves. I am not aware that this pious opinion was ever acted upon. "It is, indeed, agreeable to Roman law," says Fountainhall, "but does not suit the genius of our nation, which looks upon the torture of the boot as a barbarous remedy, and yet of late (1680), it hath been frequently used among us." Such are the facts as regards the charges against Mackenzie of being chiefly responsible for, or specially defending, and of special ferocity in the use of torture. Like all manner of men who, in his age and country, had the opportunity, he was " art and part " in the use of torture when it served his ends. The coal-masters who tortured their miners ; William III. who ordered Payne to be tortured ; the rulers of Scotland whose warrants for the use of torture may be read in the Acts of the Scots Parliament after the Revolution ; the preachers, lairds, and busy- bodies who tortured witches ; are all in the same condemnation. Yet it is probable that few of them were men of cruel natures ; or, if Mackenzie was, all were. Torture was not abolished in Scotland till 1709, two years after the Union with England. In this connection we may quote a newsletter by Matthew Mackail (November 16, 1678, S.F. Z>om., Charles II., vol. 408): — " A seminarie Priest had almost been seized upon, bot the per- suit is much hoter against the Presbyterian partie, who vsuallie get the ill deeds, and the Papiste get the evill words, as appears by their bringing in of so many prisoners to this place if it be bot knowen they have heard a Presbyterian Minister preach, and they most all be packed to Virginia in a ship readie for them, and least they should overpouer the Mariners when they are aboard, there is invented (as is alledged) by the famous Bishop of Galloway a certain Screw to couple their thumbs together by pairs to disable them from Defensive or offensive war. The number is some sixtie or seventy persons, guilty of no other crime but what is represented." Whether this " allegation " against the Bishop of Galloway be true or not, the kind of " screw " described is not the thumbscrew ^ See "Who killed Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey?" in my book, The Va/ei's Tragedy, and Mr. John Pollock's The Popish Plot. 2 i'/a^fi/'a/ Escrick, Howard of, 239, 249 Evelyn, John, relations of, with Mac- kenzie, 6, 74, 78-79, 308 ; on the loan of MSS., 147 ; on the attitude of the Scottish bishops in 1689, 297-298 Farouhar, Mr., 24 Ferguson, Robert (the Plotter), and Rye- House conspiracy, 239, 241, 242, 248, 249 Five Jesuits, condemnation of, referred to, 235 Fleming, D. Hay, 244 Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, opposes the Union, 93, 147 Sir John, King's Advocate, 34, 35 William, witness in Cessnock trial, 261 Forester, Sir Andrew, and Lauderdale, 159. 233 Fountainhall, Sir John Lauder of, rela- tions of, with Sir Andrew Ramsay, 104-105 ; on Sir G. Mackenzie, 104, 129, 292; on Skene, 194-195; on Argj'U's feud with the Macleans, 211-212; on the Earl of Argyll's trial, 228-229 ; ai^d on his debts, 230 ; on Haltoun's case, 234 ; on Laurie of Blackwood, 244-246 ; de- fends Campbells of Cessnock, 258, 260-261 ; on use of torture, 263, App. A. 328 ; on Mackenzie's Anti- qiiily of the Scottish Royal Line, 282 ; cited, 7, 42, 45, 127, 128, 133-134, 140-141, 142, 143, 146-147, 173, 185-186, 192, 201, 203-204, 208, 209, 218, 222-223, 224, 225, 232, 233. 255. 291, 294 \ I IXDKX 339 General AsscmMy, the <|Ufsti()n i>f, at the Restoration, 15, 17, |8 Geneva, and Calvinism, 12 Gillespie, Rev. Patrick, 34 Gilzean, Glan. .Vr Maclean Glanvil. Joscpli, K.R.S., 42 Gi;is{;ow, occui)itil hy the Covenanters, 175 ; Melfort's proceeclinjjs in, 2S2 Glencairn, William, 9th Karl of, opposes Argyll, 35 Godfrey, Sir Kdmimd Hury, murder of, 32S and >w/i- Golf, at St. Andrews, 25 Gordon of Iladdo. .SV^- Iladdo Gosford, Wedderliiirn of. SW Wedder- l)iirn Granard, .Arthur, ist Karl of, 13S ; and Ryc-Ilousc riot, 236-237 Green Ribbon Club, 235, 240 Gregory, Dr. James, 6 Grey Friars, churchyard of, i, 1S4 Guthrie, Rev. James, his treasonable utterances, 13 ; and Cromwell, 15 ; and Act of Supremacy, 94 Guthry, Bishop, his Memoirs cited, 1S8 IIackston of Rathillet, 172, 192 Haddo, Sir George Gordon of (later Karl of Aberdeen), and Treaty of Union, 91 ; and the Royal Succession, 92 ; promoted to the earldom, 200 ; made President of Court of Session, 221 ; opposes the Karl of Argyll, 223, 224, 225 ; relations of, with (^)ucensberry, 231 ; and Haltoun, 232, 233, 234 ; and the Rye- House conspirators, 235; relations of, with Lundin, 252, 253. 255 ; and with Monkland, 254 ; on torture, 328 Hale, Sir Matthew, 42, 44 Haliburton, Margaret, second wife of Mackenzie, 77 of Pitcur. Sec Pitcur Halketts, the, of Pitfirrane, 22, tS Hall, Henry, 190 Haltoun, Maitland of, and the Carstairs- Kirkton affair, 124, 125, 126 ; accuses Nisbet, 128; and Mitchell's confes- sion, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146, 232 ; at the Mint, 1S4, 231-234 ; and the llargcny case, 20I, 202; r., loa 120, I2r, 127 ; r., App. D. 334 Hamilton, William, 3rd Duke of, rela- tions of, with I^udcrdale, 66, 8^, 90, 107- loS, III, 112, 126, 127, '^3i '77 » '* ""' " forward in Church business," 89-90; and the Royal Succession, 92 ; head of the " Party," 107, 1 10 ; and the Act of Grace, 112; sides with Jerviswoodc, 125, 126; correspondence of, with -37 Heraldry, Mackenzie on, 323-324 Heriot's Hospital, 208, 2^0 Hewison, Dr. James King, his CoT'e- nanters cited, /j^, App. A. 326, 329 Hicks, Dr., on the western rising, 133, 151 ; at Mitchell's trial, 143 " Highland Host," the, quartered on the western shires, 137-138, 149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 173; pamphlet war on, 157 Hind Let Loose, The, cited, 3, 173, 286 Historical MSS. Commission cited, 85, 89, 108, 127, 133, 135, 145, 154, 212, 213, 215, 237, 238, 243, 251. 283, 2S7, 327 History, how studied in Scotland, 3-4 Holland, Kngland at war with, 75 Holmes, M.-ijor, and Karl of Argyll, 236, 239 ; his cipher, 243, 249 340 INDEX Holyrood, Jesuits in, 296 Home, Alexander, connection of, with estate of Bute, App. C. 331 Sir Patrick, 232 Howie of Lochgoin, his Scottish Wor- thies, 3 Huntingtower, Lord, 233 Huntly, George, 2nd Marquis of, 23 ; his debts, 207 Hyde, Edward. See Clarendon Indulgences, effect of, on the Kirk, 85, 86, 98 Ingram, Mr., witnesses against Cessnock, 259, 261 Innes, Taylor, quoted on Mackenzie, 51, 131. 147 Father Thomas, 279 Ireland, the Macleans in, 214 James I. (VI. of Scotland), methods of, with the Kirk, 13, 14, 69 James II. See York, James, Duke of Jerviswoode, Baillie of, and the Carstairs- Kirkton affair, 124, 125, 126; Rye- House conspirator, 243, 247, 249 ; evidence against, 262-263 ; relations of, with Carstares, 266, 267, 268, 270, 271-272, 275, s-jd-syy ; trial of, 270, 271, 272-273; death of, 274 Jesuits, the, 185, 296 Johnstone of Waristoun. See Waristoun Journal of Jurisprudence, 8 1 Jus Populi Vindicatum, dangerous doc- trine of, 14, App. B. 330; subject and style of, 86-88; cited, 77, 121, Keeling, Josiah, divulges the Rye- House Plot, 248 Kelburne, Boyle of, App. C. 331 Kennedy, Lady Mary Margaret, relations of, with Lauderdale, 65, 66, 99-100 ; her Letters cited, 11 1, 217; rela- tions of, with Bishop Burnet, 122- 123 Kid, Rev. Mr., trial of, 183-184 Killiecrankie, battle of, 6, 77, 305 Kincaid, John, witch-pricker, 41, 42 Kincardine, Alexander, 2nd Earl of, stands by Lauderdale, 90 ; and the Salt Tax, 108 ; and the English House of Commons, 1 10-11 1; he sides with Jerviswoode, 125 ; re- moved from the Council, 126 King, Rev. Mr., trial of, 183-184 Kingston, Lord, and Mr. Veitch, 167, 168 Kintail, Lord Kenneth Mackenzie of, 21 Kirk, the, and the Covenant, 12, 14, 19 ; arrogance of, in 1638, 157 Kirkton, Rev. James, on the neglect of religion, 107 ; his version of the affair with Carstairs, 123-124 ; com- pared with Burnet's, 125-126; on conventicles, 131-132 ; on dangers of the Union, 156 ; on " calls," 172 ; cited, 15,50, 65, 113, 171 Knox, John, his dangerous doctrines, 12- 14, App. B. 330 ; the practice of his doctrines, 14 ; connection of, with Jus Populi Vindicattun, 87, 172 Knox and the Reformation (Lang), cited, 87 Laick, William, cited, 89, 244, 245, 246 Lang, Andrew, his History of Scotland cited, 204-205 ; his Knox and the Reformation, 87 ; editor of Mait- land's Apologia, sjj ; his Valet's Tragedy, ^28 Lauderdale, Elizabeth, Duchess of, de- scription of, 90, 100; serviceable to the advocates, 120; relations of, with Mackenzie, 121; r., 217, 233, 234 John, Duke of, 11 ; relations of, with Lady Margaret Kennedy, 65, 66, 99-100, 122-123 ; attitude of, towards Marquis of Argyll, 35 ; re- lations of, with Mackenzie, 46, 97- 98, loo-ioi, 102-105, 106-107, 109, 112, 127, 147-149, 159; and Mac- kenzie's History, 62, 102 ; character and career of, 64-66 ; attitude of, towards Presbytery, 65-66, 93-94, 96, 133-134. I35-I36> 148; rela- tions of, with Tarbat, 69, 70, 72 ; I INDEX 341 relations of, with I'^il of Middlcton, 70-71; and legacy of Knox, 88; King'b Cummissioncr in 1669, 88, 90-91, 96-97 ; avi-rsc to the Union, 91 ; on the Koyal Succession, 93 ; dealings of, with the field con- vcnticlers, 98, 137, 138; his second marriage, 99; created Duke, lOo; relations of, with Sir Andrew Ramsay, ioi-l05;and Hamilton's "Party," 107, 108, 1 10; Whig in- fluence against, no, iii ; and the Act of Grace, 112; opposes the "Appeals," 114; and the Mitchell case, 139, 141, 142, 144, 145 ; learning of, 147 ; patriotism of, 1 48 ; quarrels of, with Rothes, 154 ; uncertain of power, 159, 160; a petition against, 173-174, 176, 177, 178-179; exonerated, 179; resigns the Secretaryship, 196; illness and death of, 231, 233 ; r., App. D. 333 Lauderdale Papers (Printed and MS.) cited, III, 125, 126, 135, 138, 147- 151. 155. «59. 163, 171, 1S5, 195, 202, 206, 210, 216, 217, 232, 233 Laudian Liturgy, 14 Law, Rev. Robert, on Cromwell's policy with the Kirk, 15 ; on the Covenant- ing Saints, 186 ; his Memorials cited, 112, 113, 132, 184 Lawers, the Laird of, and the Mac- Gibbons, 146-147 Laws of Nations (Mackenzie), 309 Learmont, Major, 167, 169 Leighton, Abp., on Mackenzie, 8; loves peace, 57, 84, 113 ; on the curates, 68, 85, 89 ; Mackenzie quoted on, 94-95 ; Naphtali quoted on, 95 Lethington, Maitland of, 4, 8, 87, 88, App. B. 330 Lez'en and Melville Papers cited, 306, 307 Lilbourne, Robert, 33 Livingstone, Mrs., and Abp. Sharp, 113 Lloyd, William, Bishop of St. Asaph's, his Historical Aaount of Church Governmenl, 278, 279, 280, 282 ; meets Mackenzie, 308 I^>ckhart. Sir Giortjc, and the Kullion Green prisoners. 76 ; counsel for Sir A. Ramsny, 103. 104 ; relations of, with Mackenzie, 1 10, 114, 116, 118, 128, 232, 245. 290, 300-301 ; suggests the "Appeals," II4; dis- barred, 115; relations of, with Mac- kenzie concerning disbarment, 117- I20; counsel for James Mitchell, 140, 143, 144; and debate on I^iuderdalc, 1 77. 178; on case of John Spreul, 198; defends I^urie of Blackwood, 246; on disfxisal of the Argyll estates 253, 256; prose- cutes Campbells of Cessnock, 258, 259, 260 ; President of Court of Session, 290 ; King's Advocate, 291 ; death of, 300-301 Lords of the Articles, Covenanters and, 69 ; how chosen, 89 ; "a grievance." 91 ; prepare the Bills, 92 ; attitude of, towards Act of Supremacy, 94 ; Lauderdale and, 108 ; threatened, no Lome, Archibald, Lord (later 9th Earl of Argyll), 32, 33, 36 Lundin, Drummond of (later Earl of Melfort), relations of. with Mac- kenzie, 6, 251-257, 286-287 *. ^so- ciation of, with Stewart of Jus Populi, 86, 295-296 ; of the Hamilton party, 90 ; opposes Lauderdale, n i ; character of, 135. 251 ; relations of, with Queensberr)', 237, 251, 25s, 256, 257, 286-2S7 : agreement of, with Carstares, 264-267, 269- 270, 272 ; tyranny of. 282-283 '■> and Porterfield of Duchal, 283, 287 Lyttleton, Sir Charles, on the Earl of Argyll's case, 229-230 Macaui.ay, Thomas Babington, 6, 108 ; on James H., 185, 197; his tirade against Lord Crawford, 195 M'Cormick, Rev. Joseph, his Carstares cited, 241, 248, 26S, 269, 274 M'Crie, Dr., on Charles H. and I'resby- terianism, n; on Mackenzie's 342 INDEX History, 6i and note ; his Veitch cited, 196, 237 Macdonald, Lord, and tiie Macleans, 212-213 Macgregors, the, 58 and note Mackail, Rev. Hugh, 77, 168 Matthew, 7, 163-164; on disguised Jesuits, 132-133; on the Militia, 150 ; on Mr. Welsh's preaching, 165, 166 ; on Atholl's dealings with conventiclers, 182; on thumbscrews, App. A. 328 Mackenzie, Agnes, her marriage contract, App. C. 331 Sir George, tomb of, 2, 310 ; allusions to, in works of Sir Walter Scott, 2-3; his love of literature, 3, 60, 74, 77, 299, 307, 308, 312-314; contrast of his character and career, 4-8 ; relations of, with Melfort, 6, 25 1-257, 283, 286-2S7, 292 ; his Vin- dication {see under that title) ; child- hood and parentage of, 20-22; dislike of, to Kirk and Covenant, 23-24, 90, 151 ; university days, 24-25 ; ad- mitted to the Scottish Bar, 25 ; Are- tina published, 25-26 {see also under Af-etina) ; counsel for the Marquis of Argyll, 31, 35-38; Justice De- pute, 39, App. D. 333 ; humanity of, towards witches, 40-42, 45- 46 ; attitude of, towards witchcraft, 42-43, 44-45 ; relations of, with Lauderdale, 46 and note, 97-98, loo-ioi, 102-105, 106-107, 109) 112, 127, 147-149, 159; his remedy of Exculpation, 47 ; his Religions Stoic, 48 [see also tinder title) ; on matters of faith and doctrine, 49- 57 ; his first wife and children, 59 ; literary works, 60-63, 73-74> 3^9 ; his Memoirs {see under Memoirs) and the History, 60-62, 102 ; on Middleton, 62-63 > his Dedication to Earl of Crawford, 67 and 7tote ; his " Moral Gallantry " and Rothes, 73-74 ; relations of, with John Evelyn, 74, 308 ; and Rullion Green prisoners, 76-77 ; second marriage and children, 77 ; Advocate for town of Dundee, 78; "Caelia's Country House and Closet," 79-81 ; he enters Parliament, 83, 88 ; on the Lords of the Articles, 91 ; on the Union, 91, 92-93 ; on the Royal Succession, 92 ; on Act of Supremacy, 94 ; on Abp. Leighton, 94-95 ; on the Salt Tax, 97 ; relations of, with Sir G. Lockhart, no, 114, 116, 118, 128, 232, 245, 290, 300-301 ; his jealousy of English interference, III ; and Committee of Burghs, 115; on Questions of Appeal and disbarment, 1 16-120; understudy to Sir John Nisbet, 127 ; challenged by Mr. Bannerman, 129 ; his defence of his career as King's Advocate, 129-13 1 ; on conven- ticles, 136-137 ; on the Mitchell case, 140, 141-142, 143, 144, 145, App. D. 333-334; lam- poon on, 146 ; his extension of the "law-burrows," 152, 153, 154; on ecclesiastical tyranny, 157 ; un- dated letters, 159; loyalty of, to Stuart Dynasty, 160- 161, 299 ; letter to Sir Joseph Williamson, 164 ; he prosecutes Mr. Veitch, 169, 170 ; defends the King's Pre- rogative, 163, 177-178, 179-181; and Dryden, 181-182; and Rev. Mr. Riddel, 187-190 ; is excom- municated, 193 ; on case of John Spreul, 197-198 ; on use of torture, 198 ; on slaying of women, 199 ; and Lord Bargeny, 200-202 ; re- lations of, with Earl of Argyll, 215- 216, 217, 218, 226, 227, 228; and with Duke of York, 215, 253, 256- 257, 288; on the Western Circuit, 234-235 ; and case of Laurie of Blackwood, 244-246 ; and Earlston case, 250, 253 ; he receives a fine, 255 ; prosecutes Campbells of Cessnock, 258-262; and Carstares case, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 271- 272, 276-277 ; and Jerviswoode trial, 270-273 ; his Defence of Antiquity of Scottish Royal Line, 278-281, 282; and William HL, INDKX 343 281 ; on Oath of Ahjuraiion, jSo ; dismissal from oflicc. 291 ; com- pared with Dalrymplc of Stnir, -92 293; his "scruples" 294; in London, 297; opens the Advocates' Library, 299 ; letters of, to Lord Yester, 300 301, 301-302 ; to Ixird Melville, 303-304, 304 305. 305- 306 ; to Mr. James Melville, 306 ; at Oxford, 307, 30S ; death of, 309 ; descendants of, 310-31 1 ; his Moral History of FnigiilHy, 3 16 317; on Quakers, 317, 318; his legal writ- ings, 3 18-320; on points of law, 321- 323 ; and Barony of Bute, App. C. 33'~332i connection of, with The Brahan Seer, App. D. 334 Mackenzie, Roderick, 212, 223, 311 Simon, of Lochslin, 21, 23 of Tarbat. See Tarhat Tliomas, I^ird of Pluscardine, 21 MackeiizU-Whantcliffe Deeds cited, 23, 24, 206, 20S, 209- 217 ; the History of Clan Macleau cited, 209, 210, 217 ; Duke of York wishes to reinstate, 225 Sir Hector, death of, 209 Sir Lachlan, imprisoned, 209 ; and Armada vessel, 215, 216 MacNaughton of Dunderawe, 35-36, 177, 225 MacWard, Mr., and Dutch conspirators, 75, 84; and the extremists, 190 " Maevia," 42, 44 Maitland of Haltoun. See Haltoun Malet Papers cited, 46, 163, 172 Mary Queen of Scots, 5, 147 Melfort. ^cf Lundin, Drummond of Melville, Rev. Andrew, 54, 1S7 Melville, (leorge. Earl of, in favour with William HL, 300; Mackenzie's letters to, 303-306 Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Mackenzie), fragmentary character of, 60 ; fortunes of the MSS., 61 ; a gap in, 72 ; puzzling nature of, 72-73: (|«ote3-. '37. «40. 142, 152, 208 Middlcton, John, 1st Karl of, orgies of, 18-19; King's Commissioner at Marquis of Argyll's trial, 35-36 ; Mackenzie on, 62-64 ; on Ijiudcr- dale's Ministry, 65 ; chanipions Episcopacy, 66; relations of, with Tarliat, 69 70 ; relations of, with Lauderdale, 70-71 Mint, the, 231-234 Mitchell, A. F., his Seottish Reformation cited, 12 and note Rev. James, and Peniland Rising, 76 ; fires at .\bp. Sharp, 85 ; his vindication, 88 ; indictment, 139 ; torture, 140; confession of, 140- 145 ; Charles H. and, 145-146, 147 ; his trial referred to, App. D. 333-334 Monk, (General, iS, 21 ; relations of, with Marijuis of Argyll, 34, 35, 36- Monkland, Hamilton of, forfeited, 253-255 Monmouth, James, Duke of, 72 ; asks questions, 157, 158, 159 and note; goes to Holland, 160, 185 ; at Bothwell Bridge, 176, 184 ; and Rye- House Plot, 236, 239, 240, 289 Monreith, Maxwell of, 76 Montrose, the great Marquis of, r., 9, 20, 23, 25, 32-33 Moray, Alex.inder, 5th Earl of. Secretary for Scotland, 196; and arrest of Rye-House conspirators, 248-249; High Commissioner, 290 Morton, William, Earl of, yj Mountgrinan, Cuninghame of, and Bargeny case, 201, 202 Murray, Sir Robert, 84 Myers, Frederick, 56 Nairne, Justice, 22S and note Napthali cited, 3, 77, 95 Napier, Sir Gerard, 23 Neilson of Corsack tortured, 77 344 INDEX Nevoy, Rev. Mr,, and Massacre of Dunaverty, 51 Nisbet, John, 242-243, 250 Sir John, and the Carstairs-Kirkton affair, 124-125 ; open to bribes, 128; and James Mitchell's case, 139 Oak Apple Day, 10 Gates, Titus, and the Popish Plot, 166, 174. 185, 235 Ogilvy, Sir Gilbert, 21 Isobel, 21 Omond, Mr., his Lo7-d Advocates cited, 47. 58 Orkney, Bishop of, wounded by James Mitchell, 85, 139 Oxford, Mackenzie at, 8, 307-309 Pascal cited, 55 Paterson, Bishop, of Edinburgh, and Mr. Veitch, 170 Bishop, of Galloway, and thumb- screws, App. A. 328-329 Payne, Nevil, 195-198 Peden, Rev. Mr., his predictions, 56 Pentland Rising, the, relations of Rothes to, 73, 74 ; start of, 75 ; dispersed, 76 Perth, James, 4th Earl and 1st Duke of, and Duke of Hamilton, 90, 154; character of, 135, 151; and Mackenzie, 232, 294 ; and Queens- berry, 255, 286 ; intrigues of, 286, 287, 290 ; flight of, and imprison- ment of, 296-297 Philiphaugh, battle of, 23, 76 Philiphaugh, Murray of, and Rye-House Plot, 247 Phinehas, his "call" cited, 87, 141, 172, 200 Pitcur, Haliburton of, 77, 81, 173 Polwarth, Hume of (later Earl of March- mont), demands a Committee of Grievances, 108; Rye-House con- spirator, 247 Portsmouth, Louise, Duchess of, 251, 252,255 Presbyterians, the. Church of, restored, 8; dissensions among, 17, 164-165, 187 ; turbulence of, in the west, 152 Presbyterianism, character of, in Scotland before the Restoration, 10-14; the General Assembly, 15, 17, 18 ; social standing of the clergy, 94 ; conflict of, with Episcopacy, 156 Prestonhall, Mackenzie of, 311 Primrose, Sir Archibald, and Tarbat, 65 ; and Mackenzie, 97-98 ; loses a lucra- tive place, 127-128 ; and the Mitchell trial, 144-145; becomes a Roman Catholic, 294 Privy Council Register, jg, 40, 41, 43 Privy Council of Scotland, 158 Protesters. See Remonstrants Quakers, 6, 317-318, 322 Queensberry, William, 3rd Earl and 1st Duke of, association of, with Duke of Hamilton, 90, 127, 134-13S, 237 ; Treasurer, 231 ; relations of, with Melfort, 237, 251, 255, 256, 257, 286-287 ; feud of, with the Douglases, 244-245 ; said to threaten to hang Mackenzie, 245 ; and Duchess of Portsmouth, 255 ; deprived of the Treasurership, 255, 290 Queensferry Paper, the, subject and style of, 190-191 Raith, Lord, 267, 269-270 Ramsay, Sir Andrew, and the Provost- ship, 101-104 John, witch-pricker, 41 Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court, cited, App. D. 333-334 Reformation, effect of the, in Scotland, I1-14 Religious Stoic, The (Mackenzie), r., 22, 193; synopsis and style of, 48-50, 53, 54-55. 56-57 Remonstrants, the, fanaticism of, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 157 ; feuds of, with Resolutioners, 20 Renwick, Rev. James, his Apologetical Declaration, 191, 196, 285 ; peculiar position of, in Scotland, 284 ; tried and executed, 292, 293 Resolutioners, the, interests of, 14, 15- 16 ; and Remonstrants, 20 Respectables, plot of the, 250, 275- 276 INDKX 345 Restoraiii)ii Day, May 29, 1O79, burning of the Acts, 174-175 Restoration, the. r., 4. 14, 18, 60: i-flcct of, in Scotl.ind, S : causes of persecu- tion after, 10-14; Burton, Sir [.inies Mackenzie of. 311 Rullion Green, battle of. 76 ; prisoners of, executed, S4 Rumboid. Richard, Rye- House con- spirator, 239, 240. 241, 242. 288 Ramsey, Col., Rye-House conspirator, 240, 241, 242, 248, 249 Russell, William, I.,ord, and Rye-Ho\isc conspiracy, 236, 239, 240, 247, 249 Rye-House Plot, the, r., 229, 235, 240- 243. 247-250 St. Andrews, University of, 24-25 St. I^eonard's College, 24, 25 Saintsbury. Ceorge, 27 Sanquhar Proclamation, the, 191, 195 Scotland, under the Commonwealth and the Restoration, 4-5. 8 ; effect of the Reformation in, 11-14 i "o M/es- Uttres in, 3 1 2-3 1 3 Scotland attd the Commonwealth cited. 33 Scots Mile Act, the, 68 Scott, James, of Tushielaw, 124 Sir Walter, on Mackenzie, 2-3, 6 ; and " Bonnie Dundee," 22 ; a reader of Scudcri, 27, 29-30 ; on Scottish historians, 279 Scott, .Sir William, of Harden, 2;;, 306; App. C. 332 Scott -MoncriefT. W. d., r., App. D. 333 Siottish Jitoipa/>hi(at Dictionary, article on Sir G. Mackenzie in, App. C. 33" Scottish Historical Society, r., App. D. Scottish law, difficulties r>f, 1 58 ; stale of, 179 Scottish Worthier, by Howie of Loch- goin, 3 Scuderis, the, 26, 27. 29 30 Seaforth, George, 1st Hirl of, 21 George, 2nd Karl of, death f>f, 23 Kenneth, 4th Earl of, 216, 217, 223. 224 Sederunt, MS. Hooks of, cited. 1 16, 117. 119, 120 Selkirk, Rev. Matthew, 166 .Shaftesbury, Anthony. K„irl of, encourages Hamilton's " Party," 108, i lO ; and Popish Plot. 174. 235; relations of, with Scottish Presbyterians, 236, 237; and Rye- House Plot, 239-240 ; trial of, 260, 261 .Sharp, James Abp. of St. Andrews, and the Protesters, 15. 18; appointment of, to St. Andrews. 67 ; "snibl)ed.'' 84; fired at, 85: murder of, advo- cated, S6, 87 ; on the King's .Supre- macy, 94 ; threatened by women. 112, 113; .ind Mr. Kirkton, 125, 126; intrigues of, 134; and the .Mitchell case, 142, 144, App. D. 334; murder of, 17 1. 172 Sharpe, Charles Kirkpatrick. 113 Shepherd. .Mr., Rye- House conspirator, 239, 240, 24 r, 242, 243, 247. 249 Shorter Catechism, the, 10 Sidney, Algernon. 239, 243 Six Saints of the Cc^enant (Walker), r., j, J, t2S, J2J Skene, James, 194 Sloane MSS. cited, 309 Smith. Aaron, 239 Mrs., relations of, witii Karl of Argyll, 229, 236. 237 Southwell. Sir Rolicrt, 309 v. 346 INDEX Spence, Mr., 262-263, 28S, 290 Spottiswoode, Abp., 23 Sprat, Thomas, his htformations cited, 241, 248, 249, 250, 268; his True Account cited, 235, 247, 250 Spreul, John, case of, 196-198 Stair, Dalrymple of. See Dalrymple State Papej-s Dotn., Charles II., cited, 136, 150, 164, 165, 166, 1S2, 213, 218, 328 State Trials cited, iii, 146, 218, 219, 220, 222, 225, 2J0, 246, 267, 268, 271, 273, 276 Statutes of the Scottish Church, Dr. Patrick's Introduction, 12 Stewart, Archibald, 196 James, a Macgregor, 58 ; his Jus Populi Vindicatum, 86 ; a mischief- maker, 115; and Pentland Rising, 167 ; his Case of the Earl of Argyll, 218 and note ; at Utrecht, 239 ; and the Scottish conspirators, 243 ; dis- liked by Mackenzie, 294 ; Melfort's employment of, 295-296 Sir James, later ist Earl of Bute, App.C. 331-332 Story, Principal, his Carstares c\itA, 251, 263, 264, 267, 268-269, 276 Strafford, Thomas, ist Earl of, r., no Tarbat, Mackenzie of (later Earl of Cromartie), in favour with Middle- ton, 63 ; and the ecclesiastical supremacy, 65-66 ; his character and career, 69-70 ; and Mackenzie, 69, 72, 73, 217, 298; the "Billet- ing," 70; relations of, with Lauder- dale, 71, 72, 107 ; on the quartering of soldiers, 153 and note; relations of, with Earl of Argyll, 217, 221, 223, 224 ; and Carstares, 267 ; and Jerviswoode, 270 ; is a turncoat, 294 Tarras, Walter, Earl of, 247, 270 Test Act, the inconsistency of, 219-224, 226-228 Theocracy, in Scotland, 8 Thomson, Thomas, 61-62, 70 Thumbscrews, use of, 262 and note, 263, 328-329 Tinkers, curious custom of, 322 Torture, use of, in eliciting confessions, 40, 41, 42, 43. 45- 77^ App. A. 325 326 Torwoodlee, Pringle of, 247 Turner. .Sir James, and Pentland Rising, 71, 76,84, 108 Tweeddale, John, ist Marquis of, 81,93 author of the Indulgence, 98 quarrels with Lauderdale, 99, 100 III Union, the, of England and Scotland, r., 91, 92-93, 155, 156, 160 Veitch, Rev. William, and Pentland Rising, 166-169 ; his trial and defence, 169-170; relations of, with Earl of Argyll, 229, 236-237; and Rye-House Plot, 243, 247, 248 Vindication of the Government of Charles //.(Mackenzie) cited, 7, 220, 221, 222, 224, 226, 246, 259, 285, 286, 309, 314, App, A. 325-326 Walkley, a. B., his Drama and Life cited, 6-7 Wallace, James, Covenanting leader, 167 Waller, Edmund, 74, 181, 182 Waristoun, Johnstone of, his fanaticism, 15, 24, 72-73 Wedderburn, Sir Alexander, 21 Sir Peter, 22, 78, 291 Wedderburn Book, the, "/S Welby, Horace, his Signs before Death, r., App. D. 334 Welsh, Rev. Mr., his preaching, 136, I37» 165, 166, 171, 176; informers on, rewarded, 138 Wentworth, Lady Henrietta, 72 West, Mr., Rye-House conspirator, 241, 242, 248 Weston, J. W., App. D. 334 Wharncliffe, the Earl of, 310, 324 Whiggery, in London, 235, 238 White, Major, 171 Wildman, Major, 241, 242 Willcock, Rev. Mr., on conventicles, 150; on Earl of Argyll, 205, 206 INDKX 347 Williiim III.. ()2, 15J, 15S. 296. 207; relations of, with Carstarcs, .'74 276; with Mackenzie, 281, 304; and with the Kirk, 298: he takes the Coronation Oath, 300 Williamson, Sir Joseph, 164 Wilson, fames, and Ulackw(xxl case, 244, 245, 246-247 Marijaret, 203 Witches, persecution of, 40-45 Wodrow, Rev. Ko\H;f\,\\\s History of t/ir Sufferings of the Chunh of Siotlatid, 7 ; his AnaUcta cited, 43, 57-58 ; on Earl of Argyll, 205, 206 ; on the Earlston papers, 250 ; on case ofCarstares, 266, 267, 270; on in- terview between Jerviswoode and Mackenzie, 272-273; cited. 17, 18, 34,68,94. 113, 137, 138, 140, 142, 145, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 162, 164-165. 166, 170, 171, 173, 176, 177, 178, 179, 184, 185. 190, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198,199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 212, 213, 219, 220, 223, 238, 254, 262, 277, 282, 283, 285, 286. 201.293, 294,317. App. A 326 327. App. I). 334 Woncstcr, l»attle of, 20 VoKK, James, Duke of (later James II.). and Act of Supremacy, 94 ; and the Koyal Succession, 174 ; on Scottish I'rivy Council, 185 186 ; and Test Act, 185, 220, 221. 222, 223, 214 : and case of James Spreul, 197, 198; Burnet on, 199; relations of, with Earl of Argyll, 205, 206, 215, 216- 217, 218, 220-225, 230; and Clan .M.iclean, 214, 215 ; and Lauderdale, 233; and Ilaltoun's case, 234; and Carolina scheme, 238, 243 ; and Rye- House riot, 240, 241 ; and Camp- bell of Cessnock, 260; accession of. 2S7 ; leanings of, towards Roman Catholics, 289-290 ; demands a Catholic Emancipation Act, 291 ; abolishes penal laws against noncf)n- formists, 293 ; (light of, 297 ; for- feiture of, declared at Edinburgh, 299 ; ;•., 157, 158, 162, 201, 202, 235 THE END Printed by Ballantyni:, Hanson 6* Co. 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"Where Mr. Briggs has fished in Scotland there also has he painted, and vice versa, and his book gives us charming records of his achievements in both respects. His pictures, which are reproduced in color, are little gems." — New York Times. Thirty-two colored plates, each as good as a well-executed water-colored paintiiig. ... Its style is most interesting, amusing and instructive; indeed, within its covers there is not a dull line." — Scottish- American. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS THE BOOK OF PRINCES AND PRINCESSES. By Mrs. LANG. Edited by Andrew Lang. "With 17 Plates (8 colored) and 34 other Illustrations by H. J. Ford. Crown 8vo. Gilt edges, pp. xx-361. $1.60 net. By mail, $1.75. ". . . Mrs. Lang, very properly, has made use of all the traditional stories and has woven around her young heroes and heroines something about the history and the social conditions of their times. . . The fourteen biographies are told as stories, however, and any didactic intention is veiled by not observing chronological or geographical order. Mrs. Lang very sensibly tells in each case what happened in after life to her children. She has made a very interesting story book, and Mr. H. J. Ford's illustrations are as dainty and pretty as in the fairy books." — N. Y. Sun. "... A volume of truth that in many respects seems stranger than fiction. While the book would be of more than ordinary interest to the adult reader, it is especially designed for youthful ones, in whose minds it will permanently fix many facts of historical interest. The illustrations are as delightful as the text." — Baltimore Sun. LITTLE MISS QUIXOTE. A Story for Girls. By ROBERT HAYMES and DOROTHY ROSE. With 8 Illustrations by H. R. Millar. Crown 8vo. pp. x-242. $1.50. "A very sweet and attractive story." — The Living Church. ". . . A narrative in which are retold many of the legends of old England in the time of King Arthur and of the exploits of that kindly old Spanish gentleman, Don Quixote. These legends are related in the course of the story, by the grown-ups, and furnish material to the children of the story for the fan- tastic imaginings of which only a child-mind is capable." — Brooklyn Daily Eagle. FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. By E. (E. SOMERVILLE/and MARTIN ROSS.'" Authors of "Some Experiences of An Irish R.M.," etc. With 35 Illustrations by E. CE. Somerville. Crown 8vo. pp. viii-315. $1.50. " . . . A book to be hailed with joy. The authors are lavish in the entertainment that they furnish The magistrate, the central figure of the narrative, is a long-suffering individual, and his 'experiences' might have reduced a man of less vigorous mentality to a pessimistic state of mind — to put it mildly. But the Major is blessed with the Irish sense of humor, and sad indeed is the happening from which he cannot extract a fund of amusement. Many of the incidents are highly diverting, and they are given a setting entirely worthy of them. The book is well illustrated."— iV^tt'arfe Evening News. ON SAFARI. Big Game Hunting in British East Africa, With Studies in Bird Life. By ABEL CHAPMAN, F.Z.S., Author of "Wild Norway," "Bird Life on the Borders," "Wild Spain," etc. With 170 Illustrations by the Author and E. Caldwell, Sketch-maps and Photographs. 8vo. pp. xvi-340. $4.50 net. The author of this good book takes the reader . . . through a new and unknown African region, unearthing, meanwhile, many interesting stories and facts." — Chicago- Record Herald. "A very readable and instructive narrative of the author's experiences, interesting both to the un travelled and to those who know of old the meaning and the full joys of being 'on safari.'" — London Times THE LAND OF PROMISE: An Account of the Material and Spiritual Unity of America. By RICHARD DE BARY. Crown 8vo. pp. xvi-311. $1.^0 net. "There are not many Americans who could write a more informing book about America. . . . Mr. DeBary believes in America and its future, yet is not blinded to many crudenesses, many failings, many follies in our national and social life. Of these he writes just as frankly as of the qualities which he admires, and still with a kindliness which makes him a welcome critic. His little book is well worth while. It will teach most of us some things about our native land which we did not know before, and which it is well to know." — Tribune, Scranton, Pa. NEW LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY. By E. E. FOURNIER d'ALBE, B.Sc. (Lond.), M.R.I.A. Author of "The Electron Theory," and "Two New Worlds" ; Hon. Secretary of the Dublin Section of the Society for Psychical Research. With Frontispiece, Portraits, and Dia- grams in Text. Crown 8vo. pp. xx-334. $1.75 net. The work claims to embody a "type," at least, of a scientifically thinkable view of a future life, such as official science may be expected to adopt as soon as the existing evidence has been amplified and made more generally accessible. APPLIED PHYSIOLOGY. A Handbook for Medical Students. By ROBERT HUTCHISON, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician to ihe London Hospital, late Demonstrator of Physiology, London Hospital Medical College; Author of "Food and the Principles of Dietetics," etc. With 3 colored Plates and 18 Figures. Crown Svo. pp. xii-298. $2.00 net. THE ORIGIN OF VERTEBRATES. By WALTER H. GASKELL, M.A., M.D. (Camb.), LL.D. (Edinburgh and McGill University, Montreal), etc. With 160 Illustrations, Some of Which Are Colored. Svo. pp. x-537. $6.00 net. — - r.^r" ^"''"" MAR '1973 50m-7, M U C BERKELEY LIBRARIES f CUMi^MSSfii '•/>