to the judicial murder of Montrose; his assisting Cromwell's officers against Glencairn and Middleton; sitting in Cromwell's parliament; and advising Cromwell and Ireton to take the present king's life. It was as follows:

"1. THAT HE ROSE in arms against the king; and said to Mr. John Stuart, that it was the opinion of many divines, that kings might be deposed. 2. That he marched with an armed force, and burnt the house of Airlie. 3. That in 1640, he besieged and forced his majesty's castle of Dumbarton to surrender to him. 4. That he called, or ordered to be called, the convention of estates in 1643, and entered into the Solemn League and Covenant with England, levied subscriptions from the subjects, and fought against his majesty's forces. 5. That in 1645 he burnt the house of Menstrie. 6. That in 1646 he, or those under his command, besieged and took the houses of Towart and Ecoge, and killed a great many gentlemen. 7. That he marched to Kyntire, and killed 300 Macdonalds and M'Couls in cold blood, and transported 200 men to the uninhabited Isle of Jura, where they perished by famine. 8. That he went to London, and agreed to deliver up the late king to the English army at Newcastle, upon the payment of £200,000, pretended to be due for the arrears of the army treasonably raised, 1643. 9. That he protested against the Engagement' of 1648, for relieving his majesty; raised an army to oppose the 'Engagers;' met with Oliver Cromwell; consented to a letter wrote to him on the 6th of October, and to the instructions given to sir John Chiesley, to the parliament of England; and in May following, signed a warrant for a proclamation against the lords Ogilvie and Rae, the marquis of Huntly, John, now earl of Middleton, declaring them, their wives and families, to be out of the protection of the kingdom. 10. That he clogged his majesty's invitation to the kingdom of Scotland, 1649, with many unjust limitations, consenting to the murder of the marquis of Montrose; corresponded with Cromwell; contrived and consented to the act of the West Kirk, 1650, and the declaration following upon it. 11. That in 1653 and 1654, he abetted, or joined with, or furnished arms to the usurper's forces against Glencairn and Middleton, and gave remissions to such as had been in the king's service. 12. That he received a precept from the usurper of £12,000 sterling, consented to the proclamation of Richard Cromwell, accepted a commission from the shire of Aberdeen, and sat and voted in his pretended parliament. 13. That he rebuked the ministers in Argyle for praying for the king. 14. That he positively advised Crom

well and Ireton, in a conference, 1648, that they could not be safe, till the king's life was taken away; at least, he knew and concealed that horrid design."

THERE IS not the least doubt of his guilt, and it is greatly aggravated by the terms of his defence; but the Hamiltons entertained as guilty views as he did, although they did not commit so many atrocious acts of cruelty. A contemporary author asserts what has been already stated of the duke of Hamilton's ambition, and adds, that "Lanerk dropped these words 'we can never have peace as long as this king or any of his race remain;' and upon another occasion he said, 'we can have no difference about monarchical government; all the difference will be who shall be king1.'”

THE DUKE OF ALBEMARLE sent down Argyle's correspondence with him, which proved his full compliance with the invaders. He pleaded the commands of the rebel parliament and committee of estates; but of which he himself was the chief mover and director. He made a powerful defence in an eloquent speech; but the letters which he had written to Monk shewed his hearty concurrence in the rebellion, and they weighed strongly with parliament in voting him guilty. He received his sentence on the 25th of May," that he was found guilty of high treason, and adjudged to be executed to the death as a traitor; his head to be severed from his body at the cross of Edinburgh, upon Monday the 27th instant, and affixed on the same place. where the marquis of Montrose's head was formerly, and his arms torn before the parliament and at the cross." ." Burnet says it was at first designed that he should be hanged, as he had degraded Montrose by that mode of execution; but it was carried that he should be beheaded. He received his sentence decently, and composed himself to suffer with a courage that was not expected from him; for he was a notorious coward. He carried his hypocrisy and fanaticism to the scaffold, and informed his attendants, "the Lord hath again confirmed, and said unto me from heaven, thy sins be forgiven thee!" He justified all his rebellions and murders on the scaffold, and also in a letter he addressed to the king. His head was struck off by the maiden, an instrument similar to the guillotine. And his friend Baillie says, "however he had been much hated by the people, yet in death he was much regretted by many, and by none insulted over." His head was set up on the very spike on which Montrose's head had blackened,

1 The manifold Practices and Attempts of the Hamiltons, p. 21. 4to. 1648.

and whom his malice and revenge had pursued to death1. This noble traitor is considered "the proto-martyr of the covenant" by the presbyterians, and they cherish his memory with great affection. "Thus," says a presbyterian author, "died the noble marquis of Argyle, the proto-martyr for religion afte. the reformation, who was a great promoter and support of the covenanted work of reformation during his life, and stedfast in witnessing to it at his death." His father warned king Charles of his ambitious disposition, and intended to have disinherited him, but was persuaded not to do so by king Charles. But long before that, the old earl said to king James, to whose princely favour he stood highly indebted-" that his grace should not need to apprehend the least jealousy touching his loyalty or fidelity towards him; for his royal bounty, besides all conscientious ties, had made him wholly his. But there was a squint-eyed boy sprung up from his family who might minister to him or his posterity occasion of jealousy; for he feared GOD had marked him for no good end2"

A few days after Argyle's execution, the trial of Guthrie the minister of Stirling, came on. He was accused of accession to the remonstrance, and of being the author of a book entitled "The Causes of God's Wrath," in which there are many trea sonable passages, but in particular that he had denounced as apostacy the treaty with the king at Breda, the tendering him the covenant, before admitting him to the exercise of the government. He also declined at Perth the king's jurisdiction, and protested against him for remedy at law; that is, he threatened to prosecute his majesty in a court of law, as if he had been his fellow subject. He made a vigorous and ingenious defence, founding the whole on the obligations of the covenant, (which clearly shows the treasonable and sacrilegious nature of that popish document) and on the doctrines, confession of faith, and the laws of the presbyterian church. He was found guilty of high treason, and condemned to be hanged, and afterwards beheaded, and his head to be fixed on the Netherbow, one of the gates of the city. He suffered accordingly, and his head was placed on the gate, as directed in his sentence.

Burnet says, " he was a resolute and stiff man; so when his lawyers offered him legal defences, he would not be advised by them, but resolved to take his own way. He confessed and justified all that he had done as agreeing to the principles and

1 Baillie's Letters, iii. 466.-Burnet's Own Times, i. 226.- Wodrow's History, i. 130-157.

2 Mercurius Caledonius, p. 14.-The marquis of Argyle was red-haired, and squinted, and he was familiarly called "The Gleyed Marquis."

practices of the kirk, and which he had always asserted, that the doctrine delivered in their sermons did not fall under the cognizance of the temporal courts til it was first judged by the church; for which he brought much tedious proof. He said his protesting for remedy of law against the king, was not meant at the king's person, but was only with relation to costs and damages." A presbyterian author speaking of him, says"his defence was so strong that nothing but the notorious criminality of his conduct could have condemned him: some were not for condemning him capitally, but the majority being of a different opinion, he received sentence of death; which, candidly speaking, he well deserved. His trial appears to have been very fair, and carried on with great attention and patience, both by the lawyers and judges. The latter moments of this very extraordinary man were agreeable to the whole tenor of his life. There is reason to believe he had high offers, even that of a bishopric, made him, if he would have recanted. When it was told Charles, by one of the members, that Gillespie, who was Guthrie's fellow-labourer, had so many friends in the parliament, that his life could not be taken, 'Well, (said his majesty), if I had known you would have spared Mr. Gillespie, I would have spared Mr. Guthrie.' He seems, in short, to have proposed John Knox as the model of his conduct; and though their fates were different they were equally undaunted in maintaining their principles against the face of the civil power 2."

Guthrie was the son of Guthrie of that ilk, a title which, in Scotland, is considered extremely honourable. "When he was a regent in St. Andrews, he was very episcopal, and was with difficulty persuaded to take the covenant. He was a man of great piety, learning, judgment, and eloquence, but was pitched upon for a sacrifice and example amongst the ministers; partly because he was a great leader among the protestors, and a great unfriend (enemy) to malignant and scandalous ministers; partly because he was desperately hated by Middleton, whom he had formerly excommunicated 3." Strange ideas of piety seem to have been entertained by the presbyterians, which consisted in speaking evil of dignities-refusing to Cæsar his dues-teaching sedition and rebellion in the state, and schism and persecution in the church-and generally, all uncharitableness; for in their vocabulary all loyal episcopal ministers were malignant and scandalous. Burnet, who

Own Times, i. p. 206.

2 Guthrie's General History, 1. p. 91. * Kirkton's History, p. 109.

was present at his execution, says, "It was resolved to strike terror into them [the remonstrator ministers] by making an example of him. He was a man of courage, and went through all his trouble with great firmness. But this way of proceeding struck the whole party with such a consternation, that it had all the effect which was designed by it: for whereas the pulpits had, to the great scandal of religion, been places where the preachers had for years vented their spleen, and arraigned all proceedings, they became more decent, and there was a general silence every where, with relation to the affairs of state; only they could not hold from many sly and secret insinuations, as if the ark of God was shaking, and the glory departing."

WARRISTON in the meantime had escaped to the continent, and death saved Rutherford from any trouble for his share in the late troubles; and Gillespie had also suffered, had not his friends persuaded him to recant his remonstrance and compliance with Cromwell, and to petition the king and parliament for mercy. Nasmith, Dickson of Rutherglen, Stirling, and Trail, followed Gillespie's example, recanted and escaped all trouble. Mackward, one of the ministers of Glasgow, "in a set sermon of purpose, declared his grief for the parliament's hard usage of the covenant, wherein all honest men did concur with him; but in so high language as entering a protestation in heaven against the parliament's deed, whereof he took all his hearers for witnesses; such terms none did approve, yet for all that either one or other could say, he did obstinately stand to all; which provoked them to pass a sentence of banishment upon him 2."

THE PARLIAMENT rose on the 12th of July; and a presbyterian author says, "it is but doing justice to Charles and his ministers to say, that they applied themselves with great assiduity and with no little impartiality to restore the forms which had been so long abrogated." "When we consider," he continues, "Scotland at this time, divested of all internal jurisdiction but what proceeded from the king and his ministers, and her chains rivetted by her own parliament, which had repealed all the acts since the year 1635, that could give safety or security to the subject; when we consider, at the same time, that there was scarcely a gentleman of property in Scotland, not even excepting the lord commissioner, who, when those acts were repealed, was not a rebel in the eye of the law, the conduct of Charles in the government of that kingdom will not be found to deserve the harsh treatment it has met with from party prepossessions.

Own Times, i. p. 183.

Baillie's Letters, iii. 467.