IV.

waive their claim of a negative voice, and that all who CHAP. pleased should be at liberty to protest against it. But A.D. 1670 many saw, or thought that they saw, even in this proposal, a conspiracy to undermine the rights of the kirk. In a few years, a new race of ministers would succeed, less aware of the arts of their enemies, and less habituated to contest the authority of the bishops; those prelates would gradually resume their claims, and the presidents would ultimately become the masters of their respective presbyteries. It was therefore replied, that such assemblies could bear no resemblance to those which existed before the year 1638. They had no power of the keys, no ordination, no jurisdiction. The bishop would be bishop still, though he should abstain from the exercise of his negative voice. To assent to such terms would be an apostasy from the principles of the kirk,—" an "homologation of episcopacy."1

The religious dissensions continued, and the ministers and their hearers were occasionally imprisoned and fined for their violations of the law. In 1672, Lauderdale returned to Scotland with the title of duke, and accompanied by the countess of Dysart, whom he had recently married. She had long been reputed his mistress, and has been described as a proud, rapacious, and despotic woman, possessing unlimited dominion over the mind of her husband, and making him the obsequious minister of her passions. It was intended that a second indulgence should be granted in Scotland, to correspond with the celebrated declaration

2

1 Wodrow, 335; App. p. 132, 133. Kirkton, 296. Burnet, i. 476, 503, 513.

2 In a suppressed passage in Burnet, that writer says:-"I was "in great doubt whether it was fit for me to see Lauderdale's mis"tress. Sir Robert Murray put an end to that; for he assured me "there was nothing in that commerce between them besides a vast "fondness" (i. 518).

1672.

April

CHAP. which had been issued in England. But Lauderdale A.D. 1672. previously held a short session of parliament, in which,

IV.

1673.

to prevent the succession of ministers in the kirk, severe punishments were enacted against the ordainers and the ordained, and the duration of the act against field conventicles was prolonged for three additional years. At last he determined to publish the instrument which for months had been expected, by many with hope, by more with distrust. It named about eighty ejected ministers, ordered them to repair to certain churches, and gave them liberty to exercise all the duties of their office within the limits of their respective parishes, but with a severe injunction to abstain from all religious exercises in any other district. The consequence was a schism in the body, which was not easily closed. About one-fourth of the ministers named in the indulgence refused to obey, and were confined by order of council in particular places; the rest accepted the churches which had been allotted to them, having previously given their testimony against the Erastianism of the measure. Its framers had reason to be satisfied. The more opulent of the Covenanters attended the service of the indulged ministers, and the number of conventicles was diminished.1

During this protracted struggle between the government and its religious opponents, scarcely a murmur of disapprobation had been heard in the Scottish parliament. It seemed as if Charles, at the restoration, had

1 Wodrow, 351. Kirkton, 315, 326, 334. Burnet gives himself out as the deviser of this plan (i. 520). Lauderdale had sixteen thousand pounds allowed him for his outfit, as chief governor, with a salary of fifty pounds per day while the parliament sat; and ten or fifteen pounds per day during the rest of the year.-Wodrow, App. p. 148.

INCREASE OF CONVENTICLES.

289

IV.

ascended a despotic throne, and the supreme council CHAP. was of no other use than to record the edicts of the A.D. 1673. sovereign. The consequence was, that the officers of government extended and abused their authority; every department was filled with the relatives and dependants of the commissioner; and these made it their chief object to enrich themselves at the expense of the country. But that spirit of resistance, which had so obstinately and successfully warred with the advocates of the court in the parliament of England, aroused, at length, a similar spirit in that of Scotland, and a plan of opposition, unknown to Lauderdale, was carefully arranged among the old Cavaliers and his political enemies. When he opened the next session, Nov. 12. he demanded, with his usual confidence, a plentiful grant of money to aid the king in his war against the States. The young duke of Hamilton rose; but, instead of expressing an obsequious assent, he called the attention of the house to the grievances of the nation; the coin had been adulterated under Hatton, the master of the Mint, and Lauderdale's brother; by new regulations in the customs, the price of salt, of brandy, and of tobacco, had been raised; monopolies in all these articles were enjoyed by the friends of the minister, and the administration of justice was polluted by personal interests and animosities. Other speakers followed, and all were careful to echo the sentiments of Hamilton. The commissioner was amazed and alarmed. He endeavoured to intimidate; he adjourned the session for a week; he abolished the monopolies; but he could not dissolve the combination, or satisfy the demands of his adversaries. Hamilton and Tweedale repaired to London to lay their grievances before the monarch. Kincardine was despatched to oppose them;

IV.

CHAP. and Charles, while he laboured to appease the discon A.D. 1673. tent of one party, religiously observed his promise not to desert the other. But all his efforts to conciliate were fruitless: another prorogation took place; and, before it expired, the parliament was dissolved.'

May 12.

May 19.

In the enumeration of grievances, the principal, the persecution of the Covenanters, had never been mentioned. Since the last act of supremacy, religious subjects were avoided, as forbidden ground on which it was dangerous to tread. Lauderdale, however, took it into consideration, and published an act of grace, pardoning every offence against any of the conventicle acts committed before the 4th of March, 1674. If by this concession he sought to conciliate the minds of the Covenanters, he was disappointed; for they attributed his lenity to weakness, and looked on pardon for the past as an encouragement to new transgressions. From that day, the cause of these religionists made constant progress. In the north, indeed, they were but few, and in the west they might attend without impediment the service of the indulged ministers; but from the English borders to the river Tay the conventicles continued to multiply. They were held in the vacant churches, in private houses, in the open air; on every Sabbath, crowds assembled, for the purpose of worship, around a lofty pole, fixed in a glen, on a mountain, or in the midst of a morass; and the minds of the people were occupied during the week with conversation respecting the gifts and doctrine of the

1 Burnet, ii. 19-33, 36. Wodrow, 364, 369. Kirkton, 339342. If the reader compare the character of Lauderdale, drawn by Burnet in the dedication of his four conferences, published at this time, with the character of the same nobleman, drawn by him in the History of his Own Times, he will form no very favourable opinion of the veracity of that writer.

IV.

preachers, the dangers which they had run, the perse- CHAP. cutions which they had suffered, and the place and A.D. 1674 time appointed for the next conventicle. A spirit of the most ardent and obstinate fanaticism animated the great mass of the population; and hostility to episcopacy was coupled with hostility to that government by which episcopacy was maintained.1

2. The history of Ireland during the same period furnishes but little that can interest the general reader. The English act of parliament prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle had reduced the agricultural classes in Ireland to the lowest distress; and Ormond, the lord-lieutenant, who was himself a principal sufferer, employed all his power and ingenuity to discover and open new sources of industry and new channels of commerce. A free trade was permitted between Ireland and all foreign countries, whether at peace or war with the king of Great Britain; the introduction of Scottish woollens was prohibited, as a measure of retaliation against the Scots, who, after the example of the English parliament, had forbidden the importation of Irish cattle into Scotland; and, to encourage the manufacture of woollen and linen cloths, five hundred Walloon families, from the neighbourhood of Canterbury, and an equal number from Flanders, were induced to settle in Ireland. But after the fall of Clarendon, it was not the intention of those who succeeded in the administration to leave his friend Ormond

2

1 Wodrow, 366. Kirkton, 343. "At these great meetings

many a soul was converted to Jesus Christ; but far more turned "from the bishops to profess themselves Presbyterians. The paroch "churches of the curates came to be like pest-houses; few went "to any of them, and none to some; so the doors were kept lockt." -Ibid.

2 Carte, ii. 342, 344.

1667.