A.D. 1681.]

CONDUCT OF JAMES IN SCOTLAND.

299

whose chief object had been to enrich his duchess and his dependents at the expense of law and justice. Seven commissioners of the treasury with high salaries administered a scanty income of 60,000l.: the farmers of the customs and the excise were encouraged by the connivance of the government to extort money by illegal artifices; and the troops, supposed to have been raised for the purpose of checking the depredations of the highlanders, existed only in the muster-rolls of the officers who received the pay of these imaginary guardians*. It was obviously to the interest of James to ingratiate himself with the nation. With this view he employed the influence of his high rank to heal the dissensions which divided so many noble families, sought to relieve the people from oppression by the gradual and noiseless removal of Lauderdale's dependents, and suggested to his brother such other remedies as could only be applied by the will of the sovereign. In a few months James had become popular in Scotland †.

While, however, he appeared to devote his attention to the concerns of that country, he kept his eye constantly fixed on the transactions in England. The meeting of the parliament in Oxford had plunged him into despair; its sudden dissolution taught him to rely on the firmness of the king. Yet his hopes were not speedily realised. By the advice of Halifax his first petition to be recalled to England was peremptorily refused; to the second, that he might hold a parliament in Scotland, Charles gladly signified his consent. The object of the monarch was to soothe the feelings of his brother, wounded by the previous refusal, the object of James to procure from the Scottish parliament a recognition of his right to the Scottish throne.

The duke proposed that this money should for the future be divided between Huntley, Argyle, Athol, and Seaford, the four great highland chiefs, and that they should be made responsible for all depredations committed by the clans dependent on them. They already had the power, they would then have the will, to prevent the incursions of the highlanders, James (Memoirs), i. 706.

† See James (Memoirs), ii, 580. 644. 704-707. Burnet, ii. 292.

July

28.

The duke, in quality of royal commissioner, opened the session with a speech, expressive of the king's readiness to unite with his people in providing security for the protestant religion, and of his confidence that he should find them equally ready to concur with him in securing the rightful descent of the crown. His wishes were gratified. The first act passed by the estates confirmed all the existing laws in support of the protestant religion, and all acts made against popery; the second Aug. declared that the kings of Scotland derived their royal 31. power from God alone, that they succeeded thereto lineally and according to the known degrees of proximity in blood; that no difference of religion, no act of parliament, made or to be made, could alter or divert such succession, and that to alter, invert, or suspend the next heir from the administration of the government according to the laws of the kingdom, amounted to an act of treason*. Much altercation followed respecting the grievances which had been suffered under the administration of the duke of Lauderdale †, and the tyranny which was exercised by the lords possessed of hereditary jurisdiction. But the most important act of the session was the imposition of a new test, which had been equally called for by the government to check the diffusion of the anti-monarchical doctrines preached by the Cameronians, and by the more zealous among the protestants, as a counterpoise to the influence of a catholic successor. But here a difficulty arose, how to define the protestant religion so as to give general satis

Wodrow, ii. App. p. 59. Scottish statutes, 1681, c. i. ii.

Proof was offered of the perjury of lord Hatton, Lauderdale's brother, on Mitchel's trial, and of a conspiracy in which he had engaged to convict lord Bargeny of rebellion. James prevailed to have the cognizance of these matters referred to the king, for which his enemies have severely reproached him. It appears, however, from a note in the new edition of Burnet (ii. 299), that the duke had already sent the proofs of the first of the cases to the king, who in consequence had deprived his old confidant Lauderdale of all his employments; and that Lauderdale was far from thinking James a friend to himself or his brother, appears from his opposition in England to the proceedings of the duke in Scotland.

A.D. 1681.]

A NEW TEST.

301

faction in a country, where episcopacy was, indeed, established by law, but presbyterianism retained its hold on the hearts of the people. For many years the Westminster confession of faith had formed the authorised creed of the Scottish kirk; but by the recissory act of 1661 this document had been stripped of its authority, and the only form of doctrine which still possessed the sanction of the legislature was the more ancient confession framed in 1560, and approved in the first parliament of James VI. in 1567. On the present occasion the lords of the articles, among whom was the earl of Argyle, proposed the ratification of this confession, and Dalrymple, the president of the court of session, moved that it should be recognised in the new test as the standard of the protestant religion. Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh, saw the difficulty, but after some opposition acquiesced; and an act was passed ordaining that all laws against papists and fanatical separatists from the national church should be rigorously enforced, and that all persons in public trust, with the exception of the lawful brother and sons of the king, should take the test appended to the act, under the penalty of forfeiture and incapacity to hold office. That test consisted of-1. a profession of adhesion, and a promise to adhere to the true protestant religion contained in the confession of faith recorded in the first parliament of James VI.; 2. the usual recognition of the king's supremacy over all persons civil and ecclesiastical, and a renunciation of all foreign jurisdiction; 3. a rejection of the doctrines and practices already condemned by the declaration prescribed in the eleventh act of the first parliament of the king; and, lastly, an acknowledgment that there "lay no obligation from the national cove"nant, or the solemn league and covenant, or any other "manner of way whatsoever, to endeavour any alter"ation in the government in church or state, as it was "then established by the laws of the kingdom *."

See it in State Trials, viii. 870; and Scottish statutes, 1681, c. vi. *

To the episcopal clergy the obligation of swearing adherence to a presbyterian confession of faith appeared at first an intolerable grievance. But their repugnance gradually wore away, when it was discovered that in point of church government this instrument contained no provision inconsistent with the established discipline, and when the council, to do away objections on the ground of a few speculative doctrines of minor importance, had published a declaration, that the test was not meant to apply to every part of the confession, but only to the "true protestant religion founded on the word of "God, and contained therein, as opposed to popery and "fanaticism," and that it neither made nor intended to make any invasion of the intrinsic spiritual power of the church, nor offered any prejudice to the form of episcopal government. A feeble attempt was, indeed, set up to keep alive the opposition, by maintaining that in making such declaration the council had exceeded its legitimate authority; because no court inferior to the parliament could possess the right of explaining the intention of parliament. But the majority of the beneficed clergy were too prudent to sacrifice their emoluments to unfounded scruples; and the dissidents, who resigned their livings, did not amount to more than eighty, influenced not so much by their objection to the confession of faith, as to the recognition of the king's supremacy, which, armed, as it was, with the most arbitrary power by Lauderdale's act of 1669, they considered dangerous in the possession of a catholic suc

cessor.

Among the laity the recusants were confined chiefly to the small number of individuals connected with the Whig party in England, who looked on several clauses in the test as repugnant to the political principles which they cherished, and to the designs which they meditated. The dukes of Hamilton and Monmouth accordingly resigned their offices: but the man, whose determination was expected with the greatest impatience,

A.D. 1681.]

ARGYLE IS IMPRISONED.

303

was the earl of Argyle. He had many powerful enemies among the Scottish nobility; during the session the earl of Errol had presented a bill praying that Argyle might be compelled to settle the pecuniary claims of several parties against the family estates, and the king's advocate had disputed his right to the hereditary sheriffdoms which he held, and to his office of justice-general of Argyleshire and the isles; and though James, by the interposition of the royal authority, had shielded him from these suits, yet the dismissal of the earl from the court of session showed that his conduct had given offence. By his adversaries it was hoped that he would refuse the test: for some time he hesitated; but the desire of preserving so many valuable hereditary jurisdictions prevailed; and he offered to take it with the following explanation, that he meant to bind himself by it, "only in as much as it was consistent with itself and Nov. "the protestant religion; and not to debar himself “from endeavouring, in a lawful way and in his station, "to make such changes in church and state as he might "judge beneficial." It is difficult to understand the necessity of these limitations. His only object in the first part was, as he stated, "to clear himself from cavils," for he had no notion that "the test imported anything con"trary to the protestant religion," and the second could hardly be requisite; for the general denial of any obligation "to endeavour alterations in the government" could never be understood as a renunciation of the right belonging to him as a peer of parliament. The duke of York remarked to him, that such was the real meaning of the test, and that he deluded himself, if he thought that he had imparted to it any new signification.

When Argyle took the test with this explanation, many of the spectators betrayed their disappointment by their looks; but James was satisfied, and, though the council maintained that he ought not to have suffered it, he resolved "to pursue the matter no further." But new representations were made to him; the earl was

3.