[28] The incident is thus told more fully and picturesquely by Wilson Armistead. "Calm and self-possessed, he looked the robber in the face, with a firm but meek benignity, assured him he was his and every man's friend, that he was willing and ready to relieve his wants; that he was free from the fear of death through a divine hope of immortality, and therefore was not to be intimidated by a deadly weapon, and then appealed to him whether he could find in his heart to shed the blood of one who had no other feeling or purpose but to do him good. The robber was confounded; his eye melted; his brawny arm trembled; his pistol dropped out of his hand on to the ground, and he fled from the presence of the non-resistant hero whom he could no longer confront." Mr. Armistead's memoir was published long after the publication of the contemporary letters which give the simpler narrative; the reader must take his choice.
Barclay like William Penn was charged with doubtful relations with James II. They both believed him sincere in his professed regard for religious liberty; they both felt for him a real, though it seems to us an unmerited regard. He showed them both special kindness, and listened to their pleas for their brethren and for others. George Fox writes to Barclay in 1686:—"Friends were very sensible of the great service thou hadst concerning the truth with the king and all the court; and that thou hadst their ear more than any Friend when here." But it must not be supposed that they were therefore indifferent to the constitutional principles at stake. (See [sketch of Penn].) There is a curious disproof of this in a hint conveyed in the Friends' address to the king on his Declaration of Indulgence, drawn up by the Yearly Meeting of 1687, when it is almost certain that Barclay was present and must have concurred. "We hope," they say, "the good effects thereof may produce such a concurrence from the parliament as will secure it to our posterity." This influence at court caused Robert Barclay often to be wanted in London, and he seems to have been a constant attender of the Yearly Meetings up to 1688.
In 1685 we are told that Barclay was again in London at the Yearly Meeting, and employed himself in many acts of kindness. Charles II. had died on the 6th of February, and James at once ascended to the throne. If Barclay had been anxious for the royal favour, as some asserted, he would at once have gone to court to salute the rising sun. Instead, we find him going simply to the May gatherings of his brethren, and only at a later date seeking the royal presence on behalf of others.
In 1686 he repeated his visit on the same errand and took part with George Whitehead in an appeal to the king, which resulted in the liberation of 1200 Friends. Whitehead says he took Barclay with him, "the king having a particular respect for him from the knowledge he had of him in Scotland;" but Whitehead seems to have been the chief speaker. In the end the king granted a commission to the attorney-general, Sir R. Sawyer, to issue warrants to release all whom he could legally discharge as the king's prisoners, which through George Whitehead's energy was thoroughly carried out.
Soon after Barclay's return, his aged father sickened, and died on the 12th of October. His son published a very full account of his last days, which seem to have been full of heavenly calm and restful faith. The old soldier, after a youth of adventures and a manhood of perils and persecutions, "fell asleep," says his son, "like a lamb." The feelings that first won him to Quakerism were strong to the last. To the doctor who attended him he said, "It is the life of righteousness that we bear witness to, and not an empty profession." To the Friends who gathered round his dying-bed, he said, "How precious is the love of God among his children, and their love to one another! My love is with you—I leave it among you." As the end drew near, he exclaimed, "Now the time comes! Praises, praises to the Lord! Let now thy servant depart in peace." And so he crossed the river.
Again in 1687 Robert Barclay visited London, travelling with Viscount and Lady Arbuthnot, the latter as a daughter of the Earl of Sunderland being a distant cousin of his own. The Scotch Quakers had previously met in Aberdeen, and had drawn up in their General Meeting an address of acknowledgment to the king on his recent Declaration of Indulgence; this Robert Barclay presented. A similar one, prepared by this London Yearly Meeting of 1687 and presented to the king by William Penn, has been already mentioned. On this occasion, Barclay visited the seven bishops who were in the Tower for refusing to circulate this very Declaration. They had declared that the Quakers had belied them by reporting that they had been the death of some of them. Probably Barclay felt not only that the charge, which certainly had been made, must be sustained for the credit of his brethren, but what was more important, that the bishops were now in a position better to understand the Quaker pleas for liberty of conscience. So he produced to them unquestionable proof that some Friends had been kept in gaol until they died, even after trustworthy physicians had warned their persecutors that death must be the result of their longer detention. However, he assured them that they would not publish the damaging facts, lest it should furnish a handle to their enemies.
His last visit to London was early in 1688, and he remained all the summer. On the journey he had the company of his brother-in-law, Sir Ewen Cameron, of Lochiel. He took with him his eldest son Robert, then a boy of sixteen, remarkable alike for his piety and for his precocious Scotch prudence, and introduced him to the court at Windsor. There he remained for some time, "being much caressed, it is said, on account of his father's interest, which occasioned numerous dependents; and he appears to have conducted himself so as to incur no reproach even with Quakers." A sermon which Robert Barclay preached at this time in Gracechurch St. Meeting, was reported and has been published. One great object of this journey was to see justice done to his brother-in-law, who had a difference with the powerful Duke of Gordon. Barclay set himself in good earnest to get the matter righted. First he wrote to several English noblemen with whom he was intimate, but they were shy of the difficult task, though they all professed their willingness to help him in anything else. Then he appealed to the king, and "succeeded in obtaining from him a full hearing upon the whole matter, in the presence of the Marquis of Powis and the Earls of Murray and Melfort, who were requested to become referees. Persevering through all obstructions raised by the opposite party, Barclay was able at length to obtain a final settlement, much to the advantage of Cameron of Lochiel." Thus again James appears under Barclay's influence as the good genius of the oppressed.
On one of his visits to the court, he found the king full of the thought of the coming of the Prince of Orange. They had a serious conversation about the state of affairs, and Barclay, like Penn, sincerely sympathised with the royal culprit in his troubles. "Being with him near a window, the king looked out and observed that 'the wind was then fair for the Prince of Orange to come over.' Robert Barclay replied, 'it was hard that no expedient could be found to satisfy the people.' The king declared he would do anything becoming a gentleman, except parting with liberty of conscience, which he never would whilst he lived."
After the Revolution, the calumnies by which he was assailed led to his drawing up a "Vindication," which is the last known production of his pen. For himself he would have been content to bear these calumnies in silence. Two reasons overruled this choice. Some men of judgment who found how completely he could refute them, wished his answers to be well known. On the other hand, the loss of his reputation caused damage to the Society to which he belonged, and of whose interests he was so jealous. Yet his own contempt for the charges laid against him, and for the popular opinion of him, is evident in almost every paragraph. There is more than courageous outspokenness; there is the indifference of one who feels, "With me it is a small thing that I should be judged of you. He that judgeth me is the Lord."