23. 27. 30. composed, their hearts enlarged; they blessed their God, that his holy Spirit had led them step by step to the accomplishment of this glorious work, and solicited his grace and strength, that they might, if it were necessary, seal its truth with their blood, as became valiant soldiers of Christ. Nor were their prayers poured forth in vain: Danziel heard a supernatural voice saying, “ Well done, "good and faithful servants!" and from that moment till the hour of his death (it happened in the course of the month) the soul of the enthusiast was rapt in a transport of joy *. May To discover the assassins the council offered the most 21. tempting rewards, and compelled all the inhabitants of Fife to compear on stated days, and clear themselves before their respective presbyteries. But the men whom they sought had wound their way by a circuitous route into the west, and at Glasgow their leaders met 26. Hamilton, Cargill and Spreul. The two last were ministers of the most rigid notions and most daring fanaticism; Hamilton was a young man of family, who had repeatedly exhorted his brethren to draw the sword in support of the gospel of Christ. According to appointment, on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the king's 29, restoration, they entered, to the number of sixty men in arms and on horseback, the little burgh of Rutherglen, and extinguished the bonfires kindled in honour of the day. A sermon and prayer followed; the several acts of parliament subversive of the liberties of the kirk were read by Hamilton, and committed with much solemnity to the flames; and the copy of a declaration or testimony against them was left affixed to the cross in the market place +. June 1. On the following Sunday they held a field conventicle at Hairlaw, but the exercises of the day were interrupted by the approach of the celebrated Graham of Claverhouse with three troops of cavalry. The covenanters hastened I repeat almost the very words of Russell himself, 422. 426. A.D. 1679.] DRUMCLOG AND BOTHWELL-MUIR. 205 to meet him at Drumclog, where a narrow slip of swampy ground divided the two parties. The dragoons, in their attempt to pass, fell into confusion; their opponents charged them with halberts and pitchforks; and Graham was compelled to make a precipitate retreat upon Glasgow. Of the military thirty men perished in the action, besides one, a prisoner, slain in cold blood by order of Hamilton, who had forbidden his followers to ask, or to give quarter. The conquerors lamented the loss of six of their brethren, but of no one with more sincere regret than of Danziel, the murderer, who cheered his last moments with the assured hope of an everlasting reward *. At Rutherglen the fanatics had thrown down the June gauntlet of defiance; at Drumclog they had won the 2. laurels of victory. By most men it was believed that the conflagration would rapidly spread to every quarter of the western counties. But no plan of operations had been arranged, and the leaders despised the counsels of worldly wisdom. God had called on them for their testimony against the enemies of the kirk. They had given it, and cheerfully left the consequences to him, who was able to save with a few as well as with many. Though the council, uncertain of the extent of the danger, had withdrawn the military towards Edinburgh, the insurgents moved not to any distance from Glasgow. Volunteers, indeed, continued to arrive, for many thought it a sin to remain idle at home, while their brethren ventured their lives in the field: but the accession of numbers added only to their weakness; the new comers differed in religious opinion from the victors at Drumclog; the time, instead of being devoted to preparations for the approaching contest, was consumed in useless but irritating controversy; and both ministers and * Wodrow, ii. 46. Russell, 441-446. "Russell speired and said, Dear 'brother Will, ye many times told me ye was sure enough of heaven; “ have ye any doubts now ? He scarcely could speak, but said, No doubts, "but fully assured-fully assured." Ibid, 545. leaders spent day after day in discussing the obligations of the covenant, the lawfulness of the indulgence, and the grounds on which it was proper to rest the justice of their cause. Never was insurrection so rashly commenced, or so weakly conducted *. June In the meanwhile the duke of Monmouth, after many 18. objections made in council, arrived from London to take the command of the royal forces, and encamped with 5,000 men on Bothwell-muir within two miles of the 21. enemy. An attempt to negotiate was made by the more moderate among the covenanters. Hamilton would consent to no message unless its object were "to represent "to the duke the king's, his own, and his associates' "rebellion against God, and to desire him to lay down 22. "the weapons which he had taken up against the Lord "and his people:" but a less offensive petition was composed by Welsh the minister, and presented by Hume and Murdoch, who received for answer that no proposals could be accepted from rebels in arms; if they would submit, they might expect mercy; but that one half hour only would be allowed for their final determination. It seems to have been the object of Monmouth to spare the insurgents, whether he had received such instructions from the king, or followed the advice of his political friends, who certainly at a later period, perhaps even now, looked for aid from the discontented in Scotland. He refused to pass the Clyde by the ford at the foot of the Aven, where no guards had been placed, and whence he might have charged the enemy in the rear; nor did he attempt to cross by Bothwell bridge, till some hours after its defence had been abandoned by Rathillet through want, as it is said, of ammunition. The covenanters, drawn up on a neighbouring eminence, still continued to consume their time in theological controversy, but a discharge of cannon, which killed fifteen men, warned them of their danger; instantly they *Russell, 448. 453-456. A.D. 1679.] TRIAL OF THE JESUITS. 207 turned their backs to flee; above four hundred fell during the pursuit, and twelve hundred yielded themselves prisoners of war, of whom, those who promised to live peaceably, were set at liberty; the others, about two hundred and seventy, were transported as slaves across the Atlantic. Rathillet with the men of Fife returned to their own county, whence after many perilous adventures most of them escaped by sea to Holland*. In England the fanaticism and adventures of the Scottish insurgents excited but little sensation. The attention of the public was absorbed by subjects of more immediate and commanding interest, the investigation of the pretended plot, and the punishment of the supposed conspirators. By order of the council, the two June jesuits Whitbread and Fenwick, who on their former 13. trial had been illegally remanded to prison, were placed at the bar with three others, Harcourt, Gavan, and Turner; and against them was marshalled a host of formidable witnesses, Oates, Bedloe, Prance, and Dugdale, once steward to lord Aston, and now, on his dismissal from the service of that nobleman, a subordinate informer. Oates, indeed, could only repeat with a few embellishments his former story; but Bedloe felt himself at liberty to make additional disclosures; better cheer and more indulgent treatment had wonderfully improved the memory of Prance; and the situation which Dugdale held in the family of lord Aston was supposed to have supplied him with much secret and valuable information. The prisoners rested their defence chiefly on the utter worthlessness of their accusers, particularly of Bedloe and Oates. 1. Against the first they urged that, according to his own showing, he must have perjured himself on Whitbread's former trial; nor did he attempt to deny the charge, but pleaded in excuse Russell, 465-482. Wodrow, ii. 62-67. Sydney's Letters, 95-99. The Exact Relation published by authority" differs in several particulars from the preceding authorities. See also "A History of the Ren counter at Drumelog," &c. by W. Aiton, 1821. that his prevarication at the time was necessary for the success of his intrigue with Reading; and this plea, as far as appears from the printed copy of the proceedings, was admitted as satisfactory by the court and jury. 2. They met the testimony of Oates by pointing out its variance in several points from his former depositions before the council, the two houses of parliament, and at the preceding trials in the court of King's bench: but the judges answered that they had not those depositions before them; the prisoners might have indicted him for perjury; and if they had omitted to do so, must abide by the consequences of such omission. 3. In answer to his assertion that on the 24th of April he had waited on the accused at their treasonable consult in London, they produced sixteen young men who deposed that they dined on that day in the same room with him at St. Omer, and that during the four preceding and the two following months he was never more than twenty-four hours absent from the college. To rebut this powerful attack on his veracity, Oates had provided six witnesses to swear that in the month of May they had at different times seen him in London, or some one like, or who bore his name *; and it was argued that in judging of contradictory evidence more credit was due to men who were protestants, who spoke upon oath, and who were bound to deliver the truth, than to papists, unsworn, and accustomed, so it was pretended, to obtain dispensations for the utterance of falsehood. 4. Again he had given the names of three persons, in whose company he crossed the sea to come to England. Of these, one deposed in open court that he never saw Oates during the voyage, and the servants of the other two, that their respective masters had not on any occasion in the months of April and May been a day absent from their places of abode on the continent. But the minds of men were still too highly excited to give due weight to such testimony: the voice of On the credibility of these six witnesses, see North, 239, 240; and State Trials, x. 1189. |