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We do declare, what in our own breasts often we have felt, and generally in the people among whom we live, have seen with our eyes an mournful sorrow for that execrable and tragick parricide, which, though all men on earth should pass over unquestioned, yet we nothing doubt but the great judge of the world will arise, and plead against every one, of what condition soever, who have been either authors or actors, or consenters, or approvers, of that hardly expressible crime, which stamps and stigmatizes, with a new and before unseen character of infamy, the face of the whole generation of sectaries and their adherents, from whose hearts and hands that vilest villany did proceed.
We do also profess, in name of them who have sent us hither, the great joy of all sorts of men in our land for the immediate filling of the vacant throne with your Majesty’s most gracious and hopeful person, earnestly praying, that the light of the Lord’s countenance may shine so bright upon your Majesty’s reign, that the very thick clouds of our present dangers and fears may flee away, and a new morning may spring up, to all your three kingdoms, of greater peace and prosperity, of more righteousness and virtue, especially of more religion and piety, than hath been seen in the days of any, the most pious, the most just, the most prosperous, of all your numerous ancestors.
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Mr Robert Baillie to Mr R. Douglas. April 3, 1649.
As yet our fears are great of a sore storm to Scotland; yet yesternight I learned from a great person here, that our affairs, blessed be God, are not desperate. There is no Scotsman that is of the King’s council. The five or six English that are, Cottington, Culpepper, Hyde, Long, and some more, are divided. The most are of Prince Rupert’s faction, who caress Montrose, and press mightily to have the King to Ireland. Culpepper, and some bedchamber-men, as Wilmot, Biron, Gerard, and the master of the horse, Piercy, are of the Queen’s faction, and these are for the King’s joining with us; but all of them are much averse from the league and covenant. The Prince of Orange, and by him all the nobles here, are for the last; and by their means we are hopeful yet to carry his Majesty to our covenant, and the most of our desires for religion; but I dare not promise so much: yet the greatest stick, I suspect, shall be our severe acts of parliament. It seems all here, even our best friends, will be peremptory for a greater mitigation than, I fear, shall be granted by you there. It were verily a great pity of the King. He is one of the most gentle, innocent, well-inclined princes, so far as yet appears, that lives in the world; a trim person, and of a manly carriage; understands pretty well; speaks not much; would God he were amongst us. I send you herewith the copy of what I said to him. Because it was but a transient speech, I give out no copies of it here at all; yet that we spoke so, it did us much good; for heavy slanders lay upon us here, which the report of our speeches helped to mitigate. Our enemies have great hopes, by the French peace, to get powerful assistance from France. I verily think, if the King and we shall agree, assistance shall be got from this state, and the Marquis of Brandenburg, and some others, for good purpose. I pray God guide you there to put no more impediments to our agreeance than are necessary. My heart bleeds to think of a necessity for Scotland to have any friendship for the English sectaries, the worst of men, and a war with our King and countrymen in our own bowels. What relaxation you may grant, with conscience and safely, let it be done freely and publickly with this express. It will admit of no longer delay.
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For Mr William Spang. September 14, 1649.
—— I thought to have sent you a particular account of the general assembly as I had done of some others; but the diary I wrote in the time I lost; so I cannot now do it; neither were there much in it worth the remembrance. The leeting of two for the moderator fell to Mr Robert Douglas, the ante penult moderator; Mr Gillespie, the last, was departed, and Mr Blair never thoroughly well since his English journey. He was not able to come to Edinburgh, whereof I was very sorry. The two Mr Robert leeted were, Mr Andrew Cant in earnest, and Mr Mungo Law for a fashion. The three the assembly added were, Mr Robert Douglas, Mr John Livingston and, by equal voices, Mr David Dickson and me; so, without question, the voices for moderation fell on Mr Douglas, whereof my heart was exceeding glad; for I was very feared for it, and it had done me great hurt. The committees were framed according to the custom by the moderator and clerk in private, and read at the next session, without any change considerable. We spent very much time; whole five weeks: I thought a fortnight less might have done our turn. Transportations took up much time, and deposition of ministers. There had been divers commissions, east, west, north, and south, who had deposed many ministers, to the pity and grief of my heart; for sundry of them I thought might have, for more advantage every way, with a rebuke, been kept in their places; but there were few durst profess so much; and I, for my ingenuous freedom, lost much of my reputation, as one who was inclining to malignancy.
My speech to the King, speaking so sharply of his father’s death, and the commendations I gave to himself, in the preface of my book, but especially a passage of a letter wrote from Holland, wherein, to a familiar friend, I spoke of the act of classes as so severe, that it will be needful to dispense with some part of it for the peace of the country: For these things, before the assembly, sundry spoke of me all their pleasure; yet I comforted myself in this, that I knew I was far from the calumny imposed, and that all the wise men I knew professed their agreement with me in the three things named. My unacquaintance with obloquy made my skin at this first assay more tender than needed; for I had so oft in print declared my sense against, not sectaries alone, but malignants also, and that so liberally, in my last book, that I thought in reason I should have been reputed above all suspicion of that crime; yet I was necessitated to drink more of that cup than I did truly deserve: for however in my sermon to the parliament I was as clear as needed, and in my report of our treaty obtained the unanimous approbation and thanks of the whole assembly, now in print; yet I behoved, in sundry voices of the assembly, either to quit the liberty of my mind, or endure the whisperings of my malignancy to continue. This last, though to my great grief, I behoved to chuse. I could not vote to depose Mr William Colvil upon his libel. The man indeed had, in my judgment, been an evil instrument in time of the engagement; yet all that was libelled against him was for mere silence in that engagement. For that alone I could depose no man, for the reasons I gave in the committee of the former assembly, when that act passed to depose for silence alone, if continued in. My mind did never go along with that act; though therefore I knew the whole assembly almost was otherwise minded, and, foresaw the mistake of my voice by some, yet I behoved to vote his suspension to continue, and no farther. As for Mr Andrew Ramsay, more was libelled and proven against him, and all this year he carried himself in a cankered untoward way; yet I told, I could not voice to depose a man of such age and parts; so in that vote I was silent, to the peace of my own mind, though some of my friends wrote sharp letters to me for it. I had also some contest with my neighbours in Mr William Wilkie’s process, whom I judged more hotly pursued than there was cause. But my sharpest contest was for the principal whom I found some men to pursue still, without any ground at all considerable. Contrary to their design, I got him reasonably fair off. These contests, and wrack of my friends, were very bitter to mind, and, joining with the obloquy in the ear against me by some, troubled my spirit sometimes, till I got my grief and wrong vented and poured out to God: for there was no other whom I found able and willing to help me. It was a piece of comfort to me, that the best of the land were, on more probable grounds, taxed for compliance with sectaries than I with malignants, whom yet I knew to be innocent; and that I remembered the cloud of infamy under which super excellent Mr Henderson lay, to my knowledge, till God and time blew it away. I have been ofter and sorer afraid for the wo of Christ to them, whom all the world love and speak good of, than I was grieved for any reproachful speeches which some were begun to mutter against me; but this now is our condition, that the chief in church, state, and army, how innocent soever, are whispered to favour either sectaries or malignants.
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I wished earnestly, and so did the Chancellor intreat Mr Robert Douglas, but out of time, that the framing of the declaration should have been committed to another hand than that it fell in; who, how able soever, yet was generally thought to be among the most severe of the company to the King; but this could not be helped. Some clauses we got altered in the committee; yet, as it stands, I much fear it shall prove a division-wall betwixt the King and us for ever. We were always expecting the promised expresses from him, and for that end, some of us held off all we could, determinations of every thing concerned him; but when none did appear, and when at last William Murray had come without any letter or instruction, either private or publick, then there was no remedy, but the declaration and letter, in the style you see it, and the act about the engagers, went out without contradiction, which, as I foresaw and foretold in the Hague, puts harder and more peremptory conditions on the King than there would have given satisfaction. We had greatest debate for an act of election of ministers. Mr David Calderwood was peremptor, that according to the Second Book of Discipline, the election should be given to the presbytery, with power to the major part of the people to dissent upon reason to be judged of by the presbytery. Mr Rutherford and Mr Wood were as peremptory to put the power and voices of election in the body of the people, contradistinct from their eldership; but the most of us were in Mr Gillespie’s mind, in his Miscellanies, that the direction was the Presbyteries, the election the sessions, and the consent the peoples. Sundry draughts were offered. Mr Woods, most studied, was refused; Mr Calderwoods also. Mr Livingston came nearer our mind, yet was laid aside. Mine came nearest the mind of all, and almost had past; but for avoiding debate, a general confused draught (avoiding, indeed, the present question, but leading us into so many questions thereafter as any pleased to make) passed with my consent. But Mr D. Calderwood and Mr John Smith reasoned much against it in face of the assembly; where, against my mind, the Book of Discipline was pressed against them, and a double election made, one before trial, and another after, as if the election before, and the trial by the Second Book of Discipline were given to the people, and that after-trial, before ordination, to the presbytery. This I thought was nothing so, but was silent, being in my mind contrary to Mr David in the main; though, in this incident debate of the sense of the Book of Discipline, I was for him. However, already we find the defect of our act; for, as I conceive and expressed it, so in my draught so much direction in this is due to presbyteries, that they ought to recommend to the session men to be elected, without prejudice of their liberty to add whom they think fit: but I find it the design now of leading brethren, that the presbyteries shall not meddle at all with any recommendations, but leave that wholly to any particular busy man of the presbytery, to whisper in the ear of some leading man of the parish, to get voices to any young man, though never heard in privy exercise, that he, by desires of the people to the presbytery, may be put on trials for such a church. This I find will be the way of our elections, which I think not orderly. However, Mr D. Calderwood entered a very sharp protestation against our act, which he required to be registered. This is the first protestation we heard of in our time; and had it come from any other, he had not escaped censure.