Dunbar (3rd of September). Of the prisoners an unknown number died of hunger in Durham cathedral, others were sold to slavery in the colonies.
Cromwell had occupied the country south of the Forth, while Argyll was Charles's master, extorting hard terms from the prisoner, who once ran away. The committee of Estates, on hard terms, gave an indemnity to Royalists whose swords they needed; many ministers acquiesced (“The Resolutioners”), the more fanatical dissidents were called “Remonstrants,” and now the kirk was rent in twain by the disputes of these two factions. The Remonstrants, clerical and military (Guthrie and Strachan), would not support Charles while he was not “under conviction,” and Strachan was excommunicated by the Resolutioners. On the 20th of July 1651 Lambert defeated the Royalists at Inverkeithing; Forth no longer bridled Cromwell; Leslie was sure to be outflanked, and, with Charles, he evaded Cromwell, marched into the heart of England (unaccompanied by Argyll), and was defeated and taken, while Charles made a marvellous escape at Worcester (3rd of September 1651).
The conquest of Scotland was soon completed; at last she lay at an English victor's feet; the General Assembly was The Restoration. turned out into the street by “some rats of Musketeers and a troup of horse,” and the risings of Glencairn, Lorne (eldest son of Argyll) and others in the highlands were easily crushed. Argyll, deserted and detested, compromised himself by letters to Monk, containing intelligence as to the movements of the Royalists. While the rival bands of preachers squabbled, Cromwell, like Edward I., arranged that Scottish members should sit in Westminster, and, commercially, as in the administration of fair justice, and the peace of the country, Scotland prospered under English rule. But Monk withdrew his force to London in January 1660, and hurrying events brought the joyous Restoration of the 29th of May.
The festivities in Scotland were exuberant, but it was impossible that tranquillity should be restored. The Remonstrants, that is, the clerical fanatics to whom toleration was more especially abominable, are reckoned (Hume Brown) as the majority of the preachers, but exact statistics cannot be obtained. In their eyes, as Charles had taken both Covenants, he was bound to remain a Presbyterian and to establish Presbyterianism in England, a thing impossible and entailing civil war in the attempt. Even the representatives of the Resolutioners urged Charles not to use the Anglican service, though they confided to Sharp, their agent in London, their opinion that, if the Remonstrants (or Protesters) had any hand in affairs, “it cannot but breed continual distemper and disorders.” Suppose that the kirk was restored by Charles to her position in 1592, with General Assemblies. With the violent party in a majority, refusing the jurisdiction of the state, insisting on the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, excommunicating and scolding, Scotland would be as much disturbed as in the days of Andrew Melville. “Neither fair nor other means are likely to do with them” (the fanatics), says Baillie, principal of Glasgow University, himself a Covenanter from the beginning. He wished to banish the Remonstrants to Orkney.
Historians do not usually seem to perceive that Charles was faced by the old quarrel of church and state, in which “fair means ” were seen to be unavailing, while “unfair means” only succeeded, after some thirty years, in breaking down the old Presbyterian spirit so much that, after 1688, the state could hold her own. Charles, without first summoning the Estates, named his own privy council and ministers, of whom Lauderdale, long a Covenanter, came presently to be governor of Scotland. As Argyll, in face of all warnings, went to court, he was arrested, and during the session of parliament of January 1661 was tried for treason, and, on the ground of his letters to Monk, was convicted and executed, as was the leading Remonstrant preacher, James Guthrie, accused of holding an illegal conventicle, “tending to disturbance, . . . and, if possible, rekindling a civil war.”
The history of the country during the Restoration falls naturally into four periods.
I. In the first (1660-1663) the royal commissioner to parliament was the earl of Middleton, a soldier of fortune who Four periods during the Restoration. had been in arms for the Crown as late as 1655, who had been excommunicated by the kirk, and was determined to keep down the preachers. With him were the Cavalier party, anxious to recover their losses during the civil war. All were impoverished, and greed was the dominant motive of the members of the privy council, the rulers of the country. Meanwhile, in London, the earl of Lauderdale, once a fervent Covenanter, was secretary for Scotland, had the king's ear, and would have restored presbytery, at least by way of experiment. The “creature” of Charles, as he called himself, this burly, violent scholar, buffoon and bully, was reckoned a patriot. As an “Engager” he had seen his country conquered by English arms. His policy was to keep Scotland in good humour by restoring presbytery; to raise in the country a militia strong enough to support Charles against the English parliament, and thus, in both countries, to make the royal prerogative absolute. The first parliament (1661-1663), under Middleton, was obsequious enough to grant the king £40,000 annually, to abolish the covenants and to rescind all but the private legislation of the revolutionary years (1638-1660). The Lords of the Articles were restored, mere nominees of government. Middleton, Tarbat and Clarendon overcame Charles's reluctance to restore episcopacy; Lauderdale fell into the background; The Rev. James Sharp, hitherto the agent of the Resolutioners, or milder party among the preachers, turned his coat, and took the archbishopric of St Andrews. Episcopacy being restored, some three or four hundred preachers were driven from their parishes (1663). “We made a waste,” said Archbishop Leighton, “and stocked it with owls and satyrs,” the detested “curates.” The Shorter Catechism was taught; the liturgy was not brought in; the sole change was in kirk government.
Meanwhile the Cavalier party invented a system of heavily fining men who had been their opponents in the troubles. Middleton coveted the estates of the earl of Argyll, son of the late marquis, and on a trumped-up charge of “leasing making” (he had spoken in a private letter of “the tricks of parliament”) had him condemned to death. He was saved by the exertions of Lauderdale, and Tarbat suggested, while Middleton adopted, a scheme for ostracizing, and making incapable of office, twelve of their opponents, including Lauderdale. But Lauderdale had the skill to turn the cards on Middleton, accusing him of tricking both parliament and king, and of usurping royal prerogative. Middleton and Tarbat were cashiered, and the able but profligate earl of Rothes united four or five of the highest offices in his own person, Lauderdale remaining at court as secretary for Scotland.
II. We come now to the years from 1664 to 1667. Middleton, with Archbishop Sharp, misgoverned the country, established a high court of commission, exiled the fiercest preachers to Holland, whence they worked endless mischief by agitation and a war of pamphlets; irritated the Covenanting shires, Fife and the south-west, by quartering troops on them to exact fines for Nonconformity, and so caused, during a war with Holland, the Pentland Rising (November 1666). This unconverted movement arose out of an act of cruelty by soldiers in the remote Glenkens, and was unsupported by Holland, with which the Covenanters had been intriguing. Crushed at Rullion Green in the Pentlands, by General Dalziel, this movement left the Presbyterians the more angry, by reason of the cruelty of its suppression, and the use of torture to extract information from Mackail, a preacher, and Neilson of Corsack, a laird.
III. Lauderdale again saw his chance; Rothes was deprived of all offices save the chancellorship; Sharp was “snibbed” and disgraced, attempts at concession were begun, and the indulgence of 1669 licensed a number of Presbyterian ministers, under restrictions. The indulgence accentuated the division between those who accepted and those who rejected it. Outrages on conformist ministers were frequent, and conventicles were accompanied by armed men. A popular book, Jus Populi
