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pragmatical conceits, as if they had been delivering the direct messages of heaven. Mr. Baillie candidly admits that the conduct of Guthrie and Gillespie, the leaders among the rabid party of the presbyterians, called Remonstrators or Protestors, was calculated "to destroy our state and rend our kirk. . . . . The most of the brethren of the west are fallen off [from] them, and more daily will, for their pride and schism will appear daily more and more intolerable: their only confidence is in Cromwell's victory, which God arrest1." Can that be called patriotism, when the success of a foreign invader was considered the confidence of a religio-political party?

IT IS MATTER of historical notoriety that Charles the Second was, in his latter years, a most immoral man, and left behind him a very numerous illegitimate progeny; a fact which it would be a work of supererogation to essay the proof. But at the time now under review, there was not the slightest breath of calumny against his moral character, even at a time when his majesty's besetting sin was most rampant in his northern kingdom. There never was a meeting of the General Assembly, but the chief topic of complaint was of the breach of the seventh commandment, in all its worst and most odious senses, and in all elasses; so that Charles had not to go far to find the gratification of his passions; but in all the histories, and private gossip, as it is detailed in the contemporary authors, there is not a word said against his moral character, although the accusation is neverceasing of his breaches of the covenant. One of their charges against him was, that he communicated according to the rites of the church of England, and used the Book of Common Prayer; moreover, that he defended his conduct as lawful and right, giving as a precedent his father's constant practice, and his own fixed determination to continue in so good and laudable a course. Yet such was their disgusting hypocrisy, their severity of discipline, and rudeness in constantly reminding him of the sins of himself and of his ancestors, which yet only consisted in their opposition to the presbyterian system-the effects of which they had felt in all its unmitigated atrocity, the iron had entered into their souls-that he naturally contracted a disgust and contempt for a religion of so much hypocrisy, malignity, and uncharitableness. Baillie makes frequent mention of the king's good disposition and correct deportment, and just before the march to Worcester, he says, "Alas! that so cood a king should have come among us, to be destroyed by our own hands, most by traitors and dividers 2." And bishop

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Burnet has given a description of the disgusting treatment which the king met with from the fanatical preachers, and says he was a witness to it-"The king wrought himself into as grave a deportment as he could: he heard many prayers and sermons, some of great length. I remember one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there myself, and not a little weary of so tedious a service. The king was not allowed so much as to walk abroad on Sundays: and if at any time there had been any gaiety, such as dancing or playing at cards, he was severely reproved for it. This was managed with so much rigour and so little discretion, that it contributed not a little to beget in him an aversion to all sort of strictness in religion1." He contracted an invincible opinion, and which he never changed, that "presbytery was NOT a religion fit for a gentleman." With this disgust rankling in his mind, by the rebellious and schismatical divisions of the presbyterian body, and by the remembrance of the tyranny which they had exercised over him, Charles was driven to seek shelter among papists in France, who immediately set all their proselytising energies and zeal to work to seduce him from the Old Paths in which he had been educated and had hitherto walked. Presbyterian hypocrisy and popish profligacy completely disgusted him with religion, and he became the prey of abandoned women, and at last died in the popish profession. We therefore owe to presbytery the destruction and the extinction of the most ancient and the most illustrious royal house in Europe.

1 Own Times, i. 99.

350

CHAPTER XXV.

CROMWELL HEAD OF THE KIRK.

PRESBYTERIES, SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, AND THE GRAND
REBELLION.

1651.-Dundee captured-the defenders put to the sword.-Argyle corresponds with Monk.-English laws and judges imposed.-The commission of the kirk alarmed. A meeting at Edinburgh dissolved.—A provincial synod at Glasgow. -A warning.-A schism.-Conduct of the Remonstrators.- -1652.-Cromwell governs the kirk.—Mr. Irvine, of Drum.—Meeting of the Remonstrators.— Mercurius Scoticus' account of the Remonstrators. - The Regalia-sent to Dunnotter.-Mrs. Grainger-carries off the "honours."-Rev. James Grainger's receipt for them.-Dunnotter taken.-Cromwell makes a visitation of the universities. An Assembly-transactions.-A testimony. - Three acts.Synod of Fife protests against the public Resolutions.-Synod of Perth-dispersed.-Cant's proceedings.-The covenant.-Resolutioners suffer.-Remonstrators' tyranny.-1653.-Gillespie made principal of Glasgow College.— An Assembly-interrupted-dissolved by colonel Cotterill.-Reflections.-The golden age.-Cromwell head of the kirk.

1651.-THE KING'S misfortunes were not confined to England; for Monk carried all before him in Scotland. He soon reduced Stirling Castle, and then marched for Dundee, which was held by the covenanters. On Monday, the 1st September, he stormed and took that town, the defenders refusing to accept quarter; when he commanded all of both sexes to be put to the edge of the sword! The defenceless inhabitants took sanctuary in the great collegiate church, but which proved no protection to them; for eight hundred men and two hundred women and children were there butchered by the fanatical independents as a filial offering to the sect that had made "the sectaries." The town was then given up to plunder, and Balfour asserts that it exceeded two million and a half Scots. Lumsden, the governor, was killed after quarter had been given; several other gentlemen shared the same fate; and Affleck and Robertson, two of the ministers, were sent prisoners by sea to London. "Thir two ministers were very averse from holding out the town, but would have had it rendered, knowing that

such a drunken, deboshed people, could do no good against so vigilant and active an enemy. Notwithstanding, the choleric and merciless commander would not hear them speak one word in their own defence, but in a rage commanded Mr. John Robertson not to speak one word, which if he presumed to do, he would scobe his mouth 1."

With the exception of Huntly and Argyle, who made a shew of opposition to Cromwell, the whole kingdom now lay prostrate at the feet of the conqueror. When danger approached Argyle retired to his own castle at Inverary, and thence wrote to Monk, proposing a meeting of the chief men of both kingdoms in some convenient place, in order to stop the further effusion of blood. He sent this letter by a trumpet to Dundee; but Monk only answered, "that he could not treat without orders from the parliament of England." Huntly's attainder had been reversed, and he raised about two thousand horse and foot; but on Monk's approach he retired to the highlands. Argyle summoned a meeting of the noblemen who still remained in the kingdom, and represented to the Rump the danger of driving the Scots to despair, which prevented Cromwell from reducing Scotland to a republic and a province of England, as he intended to have done. English law was introduced into Scotland, and a set of judges appointed by the Rump were sent down to supersede the native judges, and to govern the kingdom. On their arrival all public acts passed in their name, and in that of the commonwealth of England; and in order to an union of the commonwealths, they ordered twenty-one members to be sent up to London as the representatives in the Rump of this ancient and independent kingdom. This was very ill relished by the people; but Guthrie says, that " even the common people began now to think that no slavery could be equal to what they had already suffered from their preachers. The parliament officers affected the character of being scourges of presbytery. They preached and prayed in all the churches; and at last the English commissioners themselves demanded a total abrogation of the Scotch municipal law, and the established religion 2."

THE COMMISSION which met in Edinburgh were alarmed at these changes, as foreseeing in them the downfal of their own power, through their usurpation of which, their native country had been reduced to the greatest state of degradation and disgrace which it had ever before experienced. The decisions of the parliamentary officers were more equitable and impar

1 Balfour's Annals, iv. 315.

2 General History, x. 46-53.

tial than the administration of justice had ever been known in Scotland before, and gave universal satisfaction to the people. In the first impulse of their alarm, the ministers acknowledged their punishment to be just for their late treaty with the king; yet they ventured to remonstrate with Lambert against the proceedings of the army, the reduction of the kirk to subordination to the state, the contempt of the sectaries for the covenant, and many similar grievances. "Their fury served only to strengthen the good understanding between Argyle and Monk, who threatened, if they continued their practices, to proceed against them with military execution; and this menace had considerable effect in quieting their madness1." "The meeting of the [remonstrant] ministers at Edinburgh is dissolved; there were sixty-six of them in all. After they had made a kind of auricular confession, every man for his own sins; some for idolizing the covenant too much, others for compliance with the king, [!] their pride, ambition, and other sins, they have dissolved, and have sent some of their number to Glasgow, where they intend [to hold] a provincial meeting in a judicial way, and will emit some declaration or warning. They are very much troubled they cannot have that power in civil things, in ordine ad spiritualia, which they were wont to have in this nation; under which pretence, they got all civil power whatsoever in their hands 2.

THAT PROVINCIAL SYNOD did meet accordingly at Glasgow, under the chief auspices of Gillespie and the remonstrators; but it was also attended by a few of the resolutioners. The former party at first would not associate or even speak to the latter; but at last they began the business of the synod, and Warriston, Gillespie, and Guthrie, met with Baillie and some others, to whom, "after a long debate, the remonstrators gave ashifting answer that their meeting was dissolved, and the brethren gone home, and they could say nothing; though none of note were gone but Mr. Livingston, and their chief men were all present. This dealing did grieve us all, and made us see more of the progress and incurableness of the schism." A Warning, however, was agreed to, and Mr. Blair was ordered, in drawing it, carefully to eschew all offensive and irritating expressions; for the fear of Oliver's sword was now before their eyes! Nevertheless, Baillie and his party dissented from the act respecting the Warning— "We, &c., do dissent and protest against that paper, and all other proceedings of that synod contrary to the late General

1 General History, x. 49.

2 Mercurius Scoticus Diurnal: cited by Balfour, Annals, iv. 317.

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