the legality, without impugning the supreme authority of the estates. As their independence was unexampled perhaps in their profession, their submission, though accelerated by the defection of some, was a real triumph over injustice and oppression; and the right of appeal was established at the revolution, as a salutary control on the court of session.63 BOOK VII. 1674. pression. To exclude the refractory advocates from seats, Acts of opthe convention of royal boroughs, an assembly annually held for the consideration of trade, was admonished by Charles to revive an obsolete regulation against the return of commissioners, not inhabitants of the boroughs, to serve in parliament, The answer of the convention, asserting the unrestrained rights of election, was condemned as seditious, and its members were imprisoned, displaced, and fined. The annual election of magistrates was prohibited at Edinburgh. Twelve of its chief magistrates were declared incapable of public trust, as not sufficiently submissive to Ramsay their provost, a bankrupt trader, whom Lauderdale had created a lord of session, in return for seventeen thousand pounds extorted as gifts from the town. Ten gentlemen and two peers, the opponents of Lauderdale, were dispossessed of their houses, which were converted into garrisons for the suppression of conventicles; and sir Patrick Hume, who had ventured to implore the protec Kirkton. Ralph, i. 268. 63 Crawford, MS. VII. 1675. BOOK tion of the laws, was imprisoned and disqualified from public trust. Lord Cardross, whose house was invaded by night, his lady insulted, and his chaplain illegally seized by the military, was imprisoned and fined with his lady in a thousand pounds, because the neighbouring peasants had rescued his chaplain. On the surmise of some correspondence of the disaffected with Holland, Drummond the general, an officer of distinguished merit, and a noted royalist, was suspected and confined for a twelvemonth in Dumbarton castle.64 Such acts of oppression past in silence, as parts of Lauderdale's ordinary administration; but the punishment of Baillie of Jerviswood, excited more open discontent. Carstairs, a spy employed by Sharp to frequent and discover conventicles, had inveigled Kirkton, a clergyman, to his lodgings, and endeavoured, under the pretext of a warrant from the privy council, to extort money for his release. When his situation was discovered, Baillie, his brother-in-law, burst open the doors, and delivered him by force. A warrant, however, for his arrest, antedated by Sharp, was subscribed by nine counsellors, and delivered to Carstairs; and on this judicial forgery, Baillie was convicted of a state offence, amerced in five hundred pounds, and imprisoned for a year. On the 64 Crawford's Hist. MS. ii. 126. Somers' Tracts, vii. 195. Wodrow, i. 384-93, 4-7. 443. App. 149. Burnet, ii. 11118-56. VII. 1676. representation of lord Hatton, the duke of Hamil- BOOK ton and the earls of Morton, Dumfries, Kincardine, lords Cochran, and Primrose, who alone had opposed this iniquitous sentence, were removed from the council.65 66 persecu During the late opposition to Lauderdale, Ar- A severer gyle and Dalrymple, to regain the popular support tion. of the presbyterians, were received into favour, and the clergy, as an earnest of future indulgence, were permitted to return, and even to preach in the capital. Such lenient treatment, had it been invariably observed, would have soon reconciled the people to government, and the sect itself might have disappeared under silent contempt. But we must observe, that the imperious disposition of Lauderdale was stimulated by the clamorous rage of the prelates on the one hand, whose outcries were incessant that the church was in danger, and on the other, by the jealous and incurable apprehensions of the sovereign, that the presbyterians were a disaffected party ever ready to revolt. It was from these causes that when all opposition to Lauderdale was surmounted, a more severe and unremitted persecution was kindled; productive of silence, but not of tranquillity or submission to the state. Field and armed conventicles continued to multiply, in proportion as the severities of government increased. As the offenders declined to 65 Id. Kirkton, MS. 93. 66 Burnet, ii. 108. Crawford, MS. VII. Letters of intercom BOOK appear in council, and confess their guilt, letters of intercommuning were revived and published; an 1676. obsolete writ by which the absent were outlawed, and whatsoever persons intercommuned with them muning. then, whether to fulfil the duties of relatives, or to administer the common offices of humanity, were liable to the same punishment as if equally involved in the same offence. In a single writ, above ninety clergymen, gentlemen, and even ladies of distinction, were interdicted from the common intercourse of social life; and as all who received or supplied them with sustenance, intelligence, or relief, who conversed or held communication with them, were equally criminal, their very presence became dangerous, and the contagious effects of their guilt were diffused and multiplied like a pestilential disease. At a moderate computation, seventeen thousand persons of either sex, and of every description and rank in life, were already harassed and oppressed in the west, for attendance on conventicles, or for their absence from church. Numbers outlawed, or terrified at such indefinite proscriptions, deserted their abodes, and acquired the fierce and savage habits of a vagrant life.67 Con 67 Wodrow, i. 392. 416-18. App. 166. Burnet, ii. 15683. Letters of intercommuning, similar to the Aque et ignis interdictio of the Roman law, concluded thus: "We command "and charge all our lieges and subjects, that none presume "to reset, (receive,) supply, or intercommune with any of the "foresaid our rebels, nor furnish them with meat, drink, house, harbour, or victuals; nor any other thing useful or 86 VH. بہت 1677. venticles, in consequence of their dispersion, be- BOOK came more widely diffused through the southern counties, from the borders of England to Perth and Lennox, beyond the friths; and were held in morasses, woods, or on the summits of mountains, to prevent surprise. From the vicinity and from the frequent assaults of the garrisons, the concourse of people became more numerous, and better armed and mounted for mutual defence. The conventicles assumed a more formidable appearance, and were protected by regular patroles and guards of horse, till the people dispersed. The ministers who rejoiced in the multitude of their audience, and the people who were delighted with the romantic and meritorious dangers of the sabbath, preferred the fields to the shelter of houses or the sanctity of churches; and while they braved or eluded, or suffered the united rage of the military and the laws, imagined that the gospel was far more efficacious and successful, when preached in the wilderness. During six years, their contests with the military were frequent and bloody, but not always successful. A price was fixed on the field preachers, whom the soldiers daily pursued like a partridge on the hills. The Bass, a steep rock in the mouth of the Forth, was converted "comfortable to them; nor have any intelligence with them "by word, writing, message, or otherwise, under the pain of "being repute and esteemed art and part with them in the « crime foresaid, and to be pursued therefore with all rigour." |