ASSASSINATION OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. (See p. [263].)

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At this crisis Sir William Temple proposed to Charles a measure which he thought most likely to abate the virulence of Parliament, and at the same time prevent ministers from pursuing any clandestine purposes to excite the suspicion of the Parliament and nation. Temple had always shown himself above and apart from the mere interested ambitious and selfish objects of the king's ministers. Whenever he was wanted, he was called from his philosophic retreat of Moor Park, in Surrey, to do some work of essential benefit to the nation, which it required a man of character and ability to accomplish. He had effected the Triple Alliance and the marriage of the Princess Mary with William of Orange; he had refused to have any concern with the intrigues of the Cabal; and now, when Parliament was fast hastening to press on the prerogative, he proposed that the Privy Council should be increased to thirty members, half consisting of officers of State, and half of leading and independent members of the Lords and Commons. All these were to be entrusted with every secret movement and proposition of government; and the king was to pledge himself to be guided by their advice. Temple augured that nothing pernicious could be broached by unscrupulous ministers in a body where half were independent members of Parliament, holding no office from the Crown; and that, on the other hand, Parliament could not so vehemently suspect the tendency of measures which had first the approbation of their own popular leaders. The House of Commons had now driven three successive ministries from office—Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby—and was still bent on a career violently opposed to the Crown. If Temple had calculated that the effect would be to neutralise or convert the democratic members, he would have been right; but that such a Council could ever work any other way was impossible. The king would never long submit measures, intended to maintain his prerogative, to a Council which was not likely to carry his views at once to both Houses; but he might, and undoubtedly would, in many cases, succeed in bringing over the Opposition orators to his interest. This was the immediate effect on most of them. Shaftesbury, Lord Russell, Saville, Viscount Halifax, Powle, and Seymour, the late Speaker, were included in the Council. But Temple soon found that men of such contrary views would not pull well together, and was compelled to break his chief condition, and compose a sort of inner council, of himself, Capel, Halifax, Essex, and Sunderland, who prepared and really managed everything. Halifax was a man of the most brilliant talents, ambitious, yet not thinking himself so, but so little swayed by mere party, that he was called a trimmer, and gloried in the title. For the rest—Capel, Cavendish, and Powle lost the confidence of the Commons, which looked on the new institution with distrust; Russell and Shaftesbury alone spoke out as boldly as ever, and retained more influence in the two Houses than they gained in the Council. In fact, the Opposition members soon found that they might propose, but the king would not be outvoted in his own Council. The very first measure suggested, was that all persons of Popish tendencies should be weeded out of office, out of the posts of lord-lieutenants, the magistracy, and the courts of law; but Charles, perceiving that the object was to remove the staunchest supporters of the Crown, quickly put an end to it. He called for the rolls, and wherever he saw a name marked for removal, gave such ludicrous and absurd reason for its retention, that there was no gravely answering him. One objected to, he said, was a "good cocker," another an "expert huntsman," "kept good foxhounds," or a "good house," "had always excellent chines of beef," and the like. Arguments were thrown away on the king, and the matter came to nothing.

On the other hand, Shaftesbury, who had been made President of the Council by Charles himself, undiverted by this from his great object, pursued his Popery alarms out of doors, where the king could not checkmate him. A fire broke out in a printing-house in Fetter Lane, and the servant was induced to confess that one Stubbs had promised her five pounds to do it, who in turn said Gifford, his confessor, had set him on, urging it was no sin; and he added that London was to be set on fire again by French Papists. The absurd story soon grew into a rumour that the Duke of York was coming with a French army to claim the throne and re-establish Popery with all its horrors. Shaftesbury declared in the Lords that Popery must be rooted out if there was to be any liberty left; that Popery and slavery, like two sisters, went ever hand-in-hand; that one might now go first, now the other; but wherever one was seen, the other was certainly not far off. The Commons eagerly seizing on the temper of the nation, voted unanimously a Bill of Exclusion against the Duke of York, and that a Protestant successor should be appointed, as though the duke were actually dead. Sir William Temple attempted to weaken this movement by attributing it to Monmouth and Shaftesbury, between whom, it was asserted, there was a secret understanding that if Monmouth's scheme of proving his legitimacy succeeded, Shaftesbury should be his Prime Minister. Probably by the advice of Temple, Charles proposed a plan for a compromise—that in case a Popish prince succeeded, every power of altering the law should be taken out of his hands; that no judges, justices, lord-lieutenants, privy councillors, or officers of the navy should be appointed without consent of Parliament; and that no livings or dignities in the Church should be at the option of the king, but of a board of the most pious and Protestant divines. Shaftesbury, however, ridiculed all these precautions, as attempting to bind Samson with green withes, which he could snap with the greatest ease. The Commons were of that mind, and on the 21st of May, 1679, passed their Exclusion Bill by a majority of two hundred and seven against one hundred and twenty-eight. The Commons followed this up by proceeding in a body to the House of Lords, and demanding judgment against Danby. They also required that the Prelates should not vote on Danby's case, fearing that their numbers might give the Crown a majority; but to this the Lords were opposed, and though the bishops offered to concede the point, the king forbade them, as the matter involved his prerogative. The Commons persisting in their demand, now instituted a strict inquiry into the cases of bribery of members of Parliament by the late minister, and ordered one of his agents, Fox, the Treasurer of the Navy, to proceed to Whitehall in company of three members, and bring his books and papers for examination. The king resented the searching of his house as a gross insult, and the books and papers were refused; but Fox was compelled to state how many members he had paid money to, and he named twenty-seven individuals. This was on the 24th of May, and Charles, to cut the inquiry short, suddenly sent for the Commons, and prorogued Parliament for ten weeks. Shaftesbury was so enraged at this unexpected obstruction to his plans, that he vowed in the House of Lords that it should cost the king's advisers of this measure their heads.

This prorogation was, on other accounts, one of the most remarkable eras in our Parliamentary annals, for before pronouncing the Parliament prorogued, the king gave his consent to the Habeas Corpus Act, and allowed the Act establishing the censorship of the press to expire. The carrying of the Habeas Corpus Act was owing mainly to the influence of Shaftesbury, and was a benefit of such magnitude, that it might cover a multitude of the sins of that extraordinary man, who, with all his faults, had a genuine substratum of patriotism in him. The press had hitherto never been free. Elizabeth cut off the hands of Puritans who offended her, and her successors dragged them into their Star Chamber. Even the Long Parliament, when they abolished the Star Chamber, declined to liberate the press, notwithstanding Milton's eloquent appeal for the liberty of unlicensed printing. The press was at length free, but only for a time, being too dangerous an engine to the corrupt government which so long succeeded.

Whilst the blood of unfortunate victims of imaginary plots was flowing in England, in Scotland the same ruthless persecution had continued against the Covenanters. Lauderdale had married the Countess of Dysart, a most extravagant and rapacious woman, who acquired complete influence over him; and to find resources for her expense, he levied fines on the Nonconformists with such rigour and avidity, that it was believed that he really sought to drive the people to rebellion, in order to have a plea for plundering them. Such was the woful condition of Scotland, delivered over by the lewd and reckless king to a man who combined the demon characters of cruelty, insult, and avarice, in no ordinary degree. Complaints from the most distinguished and most loyal inhabitants were only answered by requiring them to enter into bonds that neither they, nor their families, nor tenants should withdraw from the Established Church, under the same penalties as real delinquents. The gentry refused to enter into such bonds. Lauderdale, therefore, determined to treat the whole West of Scotland as in an actual state of revolt, and not only sent troops with artillery to march into the devoted districts, but let loose upon them bands of wild Highlanders, and commanded even the nobility, as well as others, to give up their arms. The outraged population—left exposed to the spoliation of the Highlanders, who, though they spared the lives, freely robbed the inhabitants—sent a deputation of some of their most eminent men to lay their sufferings before the king himself. They were, however, dismissed with a reprimand, Charles replying, "I perceive that Lauderdale has been guilty of many bad things against the people of Scotland, but I cannot find that he has acted in anything contrary to my interest."

At length Lauderdale's confederate, Archbishop Sharp, was murdered by a band of Covenanting enthusiasts in Fife. There the cruelties of the archbishop were pre-eminently intolerable. There David Hackston of Rathillet, his brother-in-law, John Balfour of Kinloch, or Balfour of Burley, as he is immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in "Old Mortality," James Russell of Kettle, and six others determined to take vengeance on a notorious creature of Sharp's, one Carmichael, who had pursued his levy of fines with such brutality, as to have beaten and burnt with lighted matches women and children, to compel them to betray their masters, husbands, brothers, or fathers. On the 3rd of May, 1679, Carmichael had been out hunting, but hearing of Rathillet and his band being on the watch for him, he left the field and got home. The conspirators were returning disappointed, when a greater prey fell into their hands. The wife of a farmer at Baldinny sent a lad to tell them that the archbishop's coach was on the road, going from Ceres towards St. Andrews. The delighted men gave chase, and, compelling the old man to leave his coach, barbarously murdered him. The assassins only crossed to the other side of Magus Muir, where the bloody deed had been perpetrated, and in a cottage they spent the remainder of the day in prayer and praising God for the accomplishment of what they deemed this noble work. They then rode into the West, where they joined Donald Cargill, one of the most noted of the Cameronian preachers, with Spreul, and Robert Hamilton, a young man of good family, and a former pupil of Bishop Burnet's, who had been excited by the persecutions of the people to come out and attempt their relief.

The murder of the archbishop only roused the Government to more determined rigour, and the persecuted people, grown desperate, threw off in great numbers all remaining show of obedience and resolved to resist to the death. The more moderate Presbyterians lamented and condemned the murder of the Primate, but the more enthusiastic looked upon it as a judgment of God. They resolved to face the soldiery, and they had soon an opportunity, for Graham of Claverhouse, a man who acquired a terrible fame in these persecutions, being stationed at Glasgow, drew out a troop of dragoons and other cavalry, and went in pursuit of them. He encountered them at a place near Loudon Hill, in a boggy ground called Drumclog, where the Covenanters, under Hamilton, Balfour, and Cleland, defeated his forces, and put them to flight, killing about thirty of them, including a relative of Claverhouse's (June 11, 1679). The insurgents under Hamilton, elated with their victory, marched after Claverhouse into Glasgow itself, but were repulsed. They went on, however, increasing so fast, that Claverhouse evacuated Glasgow, and marched eastward, leaving all the west of Scotland in their hands.

On the news reaching London, Charles despatched the Duke of Monmouth, with a large body of the royal guards, to quell the rebellion. On the 21st of June, as the Covenanters lay near the town of Hamilton, they received the intelligence that Monmouth, with his forces joined to those of Claverhouse, was approaching. The insurgents had soon taken to quarrelling amongst themselves, and the more moderate section were now for submitting on favourable terms. Rathillet and the more determined would not hear of any surrender, but marched off and left the waverers, who sent a memorial to Monmouth, declaring that they were ready to leave all their complaints to a free Parliament, and free Assembly of the Church. The duke, who showed much mildness throughout this campaign, replied that he felt greatly for their sufferings, but that they must lay down their arms, and then he would intercede for them with the king. On the receipt of this answer the greatest confusion prevailed; the moderate durst not risk a surrender on such terms, remembering the little mercy they had hitherto received from the Government; the more violent, with a fatal want of prudence, now insisted on cashiering their officers, who had shown what they called a leaning towards Erastianism, or, in other words, a disposition to submit to the civil power.

Whilst they were in this divided state, Monmouth's army appeared in sight on the 22nd of June. The Covenanters, therefore, compelled to fight or fly, seized on the bridge of Bothwell, which crossed the Clyde between the village of Bothwell and the town of Hamilton. It was narrow, and in the centre there stood a gateway. Here Rathillet, Balfour, and others posted themselves with about three hundred men to defend this pass. But the army of Monmouth, on the slope of the hill descending from Bothwell to the Clyde, commanded the opposite hill, on which the Covenanters were posted, with his artillery, and under its fire a strong body of troops advanced to force the bridge. Balfour and Rathillet defended their post bravely, but the gate was at length carried, and they were pushed back at the point of the bayonet. They found themselves unsupported by the main body, which, on the artillery playing murderously upon them, had retreated to Hamilton Heath, about a quarter of a mile distant. There they rallied, and repulsed one or two charges, and broke a body of Highlanders; but undisciplined, disunited, and without artillery to cope with that of Monmouth, they were only exposed to slaughter. They turned and fled.