VII. 1663. BOOK ject of cruel derision to his enemies, and a melancholy spectacle to the compassion of his friends. His sentence in such a situation, was a reproach to government. Lauderdale durst not, however, protect a man whom the presbyterians revered, and against whom the king was personally exasperat ed. His faculties seemed to revive on the scaffold, where he spoke and suffered with devout enthusiasm. Among the presbyterians, his lengthened devotions, and zeal for the covenant, had procured a reputation of superior sanctity, which, as it was confirmed by martyrdom, is still preserved. But he was a man of more than common understanding or genius; of an active, violent, and disinterested spirit; of a quick and vivid invention; of an extensive and tenacious memory; incapable of repose; indefatigable in application; ever fertile in expedients; endowed with a vehement, prompt, and impressive elocution; and at a time when the nobility themselves were statesmen, his political talents raised him from an obscure advocate, to a level with the prime nobility in affairs of state.29. Ecclesias tical com mission. The dissolution of a servile, vindictive parliament was acceptable to the people. But the execution of its laws remained, in which the cruelties inflicted by government are hardly consistent with the character of a civilized state. A court of ec 29 Burnet, i. 37. 297. Naphtali. Wariston kept a minute -diary of his life, which, if still extant, would explain the most secret transactions of the covenanters. Kirkton, MS. $ VII. 1664. clesiastical commission was procured by Sharp, BOOK consisting of nine prelates and thirty-five commissioners; but a bishop, with four assistants, composed a quorum, to which the civil and military officers were all subordinate. Neither time nor place was prescribed for their meetings; and an ambulatory court was established on the principles of the inquisition; an ecclesiastical court, bound by no forms of law, was instituted to exercise a civil jurisdiction for the preservation of the church. Its summary proceedings were conducted without accusation, evidence, or defence. The persons cited were convicted on captious interrogatories, and if legal defences, or satisfactory answers, were returned to the questions, they were punished on their refusal to receive the oath of allegiance, which was invariably tendered, or to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the king. The violence of Sharp was abetted by Rothes, who overruled the moderation of the temporal judges; and the commission proceeding from imprisonment and ruinous penalties, to corporal punishments, appeared to emulate or even to exceed the severity of the privy council. Every petty or pretended riot was magnified into a conspiracy against the church or state. The gaols were crowded with prisoners; 'numbers ruined by penalties, sought a refuge among their countrymen in Ulster, till at length the people, preferring the danger of outlawry, refused, when summoned, to attend the commission; VII. BOOK the lay commissioners refused to witness its illegal violence, and the commission sunk into such ge. neral contempt, that in two years it was suffered to expire.30 1665. Military persecu tion. But a severer, and more extensive persecution was already introduced. The western counties, which continued refractory, were abandoned by government to military oppression wheresoever the people had deserted the church. The clergy were the sole accusers; and the soldiers, at once the judges and the instruments of justice, were commanded by Turner an Englishman, naturally ferocious and almost always drunk. Lists of recusants were presented by the clergy, and the people, fined by Turner without examination, were eaten up by the military quartered upon them till the fines were discharged. The penalties were enormous; the insolence and oppressions of the soldiers intolerable. Neither the old and infirm, nor widowed or orphan indigence, were exempted from fines, which the soldiers were permitted to exact at discretion, on their absence from church; and as the landlords were rendered responsible for their tenants and servants, so the tenants were dragooned and ruined by quarterings if their landlords withdrew. Their substance was consumed or sold to discharge the penalties; their families 30 Kirkton, 51. Burnet, i. 301-8. Wodrow, i. 192-79223. Cruckshank's Church Hist. i. 183. Crawford's MS. Hist. ii. 74. VII. 1666. were reduced to indigence and dispersed; and for BOOK three years this desolating persecution was successively resumed. Additional forces, to prevent the danger of an insurrection so industriously excited, were raised as an additional source of persecution. The fines imposed by the late parliament, which had been frequently suspended, but never entirely remitted by Charles, were appropriated to their support, and were levied as usual, by free quarters and military execution. No defence nor exemption was admitted.31 The complaints of the people were disregarded by government, and chastised by the soldiers. The indigent were dragged to prison, and the public gaols, which the high commission had filled and crowded, were emptied by the transportation of the prisoners to Barbadoes. The commons implored in vain the protection of their superiors, who durst not interpose; and under the influence of Sharp and the prelates, which Lauderdale's friends were unable to resist, the government seemed to be actuated by a blind resentment against its own subjects. Such was the insolence or apprehensions of the prelates, that twenty of the chief gentlemen in the western counties were, for several years, imprisoned at 31 The king is represented by Hume, as endeavouring to mitigate or persuade his ministers to remit one half of the fines. But the fact is that they were levied intire, for his own Wodrow, i. 203-6-25-37. use. BOOK their instigation, to prevent the danger of an in VII. 1666. Insurrec surrection during the Dutch wars.32 The presbyterians had endeavoured hitherto to tion in the disarm the resentment of government by submission; but their submission had furnished an ad West. ditional pretext to prolong their miseries, and to justify those coercive measures to which such prompt, and unexpected obedience was given. Turner, in his third expedition, which continued upwards of seven months, had spread desolation and despair through the West. Many families were dispersed and scattered over the kingdom. Numbers, both of the gentry and peasants, were driven from their habitations, to lurk for concealment in morasses and mountains.33 The presbyterians perceived that their ruin was determined, and their sufferings had already risen to such an unhappy extreme, that no consideration but the improbability of success, could prevent their resistance. It is said that their clergy were encouraged to resist, by the confusion and dismay which the recent fire of London was expected to create. Their own account is more simple and correct. Nov. 13. An indigent old man, unable to discharge the fines of the church, was bound and extended on the ground, to be conveyed to prison; but the peasants, moved with sudden indignation at this cruel treat 32 Wodrow, 184—6—9—9224—37, App. 86, Burnet, i. 308. Naphtali. Hind let loose, 184. 33 Burnet, i. 341. Wodrow, i. 241-83. |