ARREST OF ARGYLL. (See p. [201].)

[[See larger version]]

In England, Scotland, and Ireland the king was, of course, beset by the claims of those who had stood by his father, or could set up any plea of service. There were claims for restoration of estates, and claims for rewards. Charles was not the man to trouble himself much about such matters, except to get rid of them. In Ireland the Catholics and Protestants equally advanced their claims. The Protestants declared that they had been the first in Ireland to invite him back, and the Catholics that they had been strongly on the late king's side, had fought for him both in Scotland and England, and had suffered severely from the late usurpers. The Protestants, however, were in possession of the forfeited estates, and Charles dared not rouse a Protestant opposition by doing justice to the Catholics, who, though the more numerous, were far the weaker party. Besides, the different interests of the claiming parties were so conflicting, that to satisfy all sides was impossible. Some of the Protestants were Episcopalians, some Presbyterians. The latter had been vehement for the Commonwealth, but to ward off the royal vengeance they had, on the fall of Richard Cromwell, been the first to tender their allegiance to Charles, and propitiate him by an offer of a considerable sum of money. Then there were Protestant loyalists, whose property under the Commonwealth had been confiscated, and there were the Catholics, who had suffered from both parties, even when ready to serve the king. There were officers who had served in the Royal army before 1649, and had never received the arrears of their pay; there were also the widows and orphans of such. To decide these incompatible demands Charles appointed a Commission. But little good could possibly accrue from this, for though there were lands sufficient to have pacified all who had just claims, these had been lavishly bestowed on Monk, the Duke of York, Ormond, Kingston, and others. Every attempt to take back lands, however unjustly held by Protestants, threatened to excite a Protestant cry of a dangerous favouring of Catholics, and of a design to reinstate the Papists, who, they averred, had massacred a hundred thousand Protestants during the rebellion. Charles satisfied himself with restoring the bishops and the property of the Episcopalian Church, and left the Commission to settle the matter. But appeals from this impassive tribunal were made to himself, and he at length published his celebrated declaration for the settlement of Ireland, by which the adventurers and soldiers who had been planted on the estates of the Irish by the Commonwealth were to retain them, except they were the estates of persons who had remained entirely neutral, in which case adventurers and soldiers were to have an equivalent from the fund for reprisals. But this settled nothing, for so many charges were advanced against those who pleaded they were innocent, that few were allowed to be so. The matter was next brought before the Irish Parliament, and there again was division. The Commons, who had been appointed through the influence of the soldiers and adventurers, voted that the king's declaration should pass into law. The Lords, on the contrary, protested that it would ruin all the old families, both Catholic and Protestant. The contending parties once more appealed to the king, who, wearied with the interminable strife, seized the opportunity of the discovery of a paper formerly signed by Sir Nicholas Plunket, one of the agents of the appellants, offering Ireland to the Pope or any Catholic power who would defend them against the Parliament, to dismiss their appeal, and the Bill, based on the Royal declaration, was passed. It was soon found, however, that it was not easy to carry this law into execution.

Scotland was restored to its condition of an independent kingdom. The survivors of the Committee of Estates, which had been left in management on Charles's disastrous march into England, previous to the battle of Worcester, were ordered to resume their functions. Middleton was appointed Lord Commissioner; Glencairn Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Lauderdale Secretary of State; Rothes President of the Council; and Crawford Lord Treasurer. A Parliament was summoned to meet in Edinburgh in January, 1661, and its first measure was to restore the Episcopal hierarchy. To completely destroy every civil right of the Presbyterian Kirk, Middleton procured the passing of an Act to annul all the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament since the commencement of the contest with the late king. Even the Lord Treasurer Crawford opposed this measure, declaring that as the late king had been present at one of these Parliaments, and the present one at another, therefore to repeal the Acts of these Parliaments would be to rescind the Act of Indemnity and the approval of the Engagement. Middleton carried his point, and levelled every political right of the Kirk at a blow. The ministers of the Kirk in astonishment met to consult and to protest; they sent a deputation to the king with a remonstrance; but they arrived at a time likely to inspire them with awe, and did not escape without a painful evidence that they were no longer in the proud position of their fathers. Charles had shed the blood of vengeance plentifully in England, and there were those in Scotland whom he looked on with a menacing eye. The chief of these was the Marquis of Argyll. Argyll had been the head and leader of the Covenanters. He had counselled with and encouraged the General Assembly in its resistance to the late king's measures. He had been his most persevering enemy, and, finally, he had encouraged the invasion of England by the Scots, and had been the first to support Cromwell, even sitting in the Parliament of his son Richard. Argyll was well aware that he was an object of resentment, and kept himself secure in the Highlands. But his son, Lord Lorne, had been a steady and zealous opponent of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, and he was one of the first to congratulate Charles on his restoration. To lay hold on Argyll in his mountains was no easy matter, but if he could be beguiled from his fastnesses to Court, he might be at once punished. No symptoms of the remembrance of the past, therefore, escaped the king or his ministers, and Argyll deceived by this, and by the friendly reception of his son, wrote proposing to pay his respects to his sovereign in the capital. Charles returned him a friendly answer, and the unwary victim was not long in making his appearance in London. But he was not admitted to an audience at Whitehall, but instantly arrested and committed to the Tower. He was then sent down to Scotland to be tried by the king's ministers there, some of them, as Lauderdale and Middleton, hideous to their own age and to posterity for their sanguinary cruelty. Besides, they were eager to possess themselves of Argyll's splendid patrimony, and they pursued his impeachment with an unshrinking and unblushing ferocity which astonished even the king.

Argyll pleaded that he had only acted as the whole nation had done, and with the sanction of Parliament; that the late king had passed an Act of Oblivion for all transactions prior to 1641, and the present king had given an Act of Indemnity up to 1651; that, up to that period, he could not, therefore, be called in question; that he had been out of the country during the time that most of the barbarities alleged had been committed; and that as to the Marquis of Montrose, he had been the first to commence a system of burning and extermination, and that they were compelled to treat him in the same manner. And finally, his compliance with Cromwell was not a thing peculiar to himself. They had all been coerced by that successful man; so much so, that his Majesty's Lord Advocate, then his persecutor, had taken the Engagement to him. This latter plea was the most unfortunate one that he could have used, for nothing but augmented malice could be the result of it, and there was enough of that already in the minds of his judges. Fletcher, the Lord Advocate, was thrown into a fury by the remark, called the marquis an impudent villain, and added an additional article to the charges against him—that of having conspired the late king's death.

Lord Lorne procured a letter from Charles, ordering the Lord Advocate to introduce no charge prior to 1651, and directing that on the conclusion of the trial, the proceedings should be submitted to the king before judgment was given. This would have defeated Argyll's foes had the king been honest in the matter; but Middleton represented to Charles that to stay judgment till the proceedings had been inspected by the king would look like distrust of the Parliament, and might much discourage that loyal body. Charles allowed matters, therefore, to take their course; but Middleton was again disappointed by Gilmore, the President of the Court of Sessions, declaring that all charges against the marquis since 1651 were less valid for the purposes of an attainder than those which had excited so much controversy in the cause of the Earl of Strafford, and he carried the Parliament with him. Argyll and his friends now calculated on his escape, but this was not intended. A number of letters were hunted out, said to have been written to Monk and other Commonwealth men whilst they were in power, expressing his attachment to their cause, and his decided disapprobation of the king's proceedings. These were decisive. Though the time was passed when fresh evidence could legally be introduced, these letters were read in Parliament, and the effect was that of a thunderbolt falling in the midst of Argyll's friends. They at once disappeared, overwhelmed with confusion, and sentence of death was passed on the marquis. That no time might be allowed for an appeal to the king, who wished to be excused refusing the favour of his life to his son, Argyll's execution was ordered in two days. In vain the unfortunate nobleman pleaded for ten days, in order that the king's pleasure might be ascertained; it was denied him, and understanding from that the determination of the king, he remarked, "I set the crown on his head at Scone, and this is my reward." He employed the short space left him in earnest prayer, and in the midst of his devotions, believing that he heard a voice saying, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee!" he was wonderfully consoled and strengthened, and ascended the scaffold with a calm intrepidity which astonished and disappointed his enemies. Before laying his head on the block, he declared his ardent attachment to the Covenanters in words which flew to every quarter of Scotland, and raised him to the rank of a martyr in the estimation of the people. His head was stuck on the same spike that had received that of Montrose.

Next to Argyll, the malice of the king and Cavaliers was fiercest against Johnston of Warriston, and Swinton. Warriston was the uncle of Bishop Burnet, a most eloquent and energetic man, who had certainly done his utmost for the maintenance of the Covenant, and against the tyranny of Charles I. He was now an old man, but he fled to France, where, however, he was not long safe, for the French Government gave him up, and he was sent back and hanged. Swinton, who had turned Quaker, escaped, perhaps through Middleton's jealousy of Lauderdale, who had obtained the gift of Swinton's estate, but more probably by a substantial benefit from the estate to the Court.

The wrath of Charles next fell on the deputation of twelve eminent ministers, who had dared to present a remonstrance against the suppression of the privileges of the Kirk. They were thrown into prison, but were ultimately dismissed except Guthrie, one of the most daring and unbendable of them. He had formerly excommunicated Middleton, and had been one of the authors of the tract, "The Causes of God's Wrath." Since the Restoration he had called a public meeting to remind the king of having taken the Covenant, and to warn him against employing Malignants. Guthrie was hanged, and along with him a Captain Govan, who had, whilst the king was in Scotland, deserted to Cromwell; but why he was selected from among a host of such offenders no one could tell. This closed the catalogue of Scottish political executions for the present.