Other victims followed. Swinburne has said of Mary of Scotland, “A kinder or more faithful friend, a deadlier or more dangerous enemy, it would be impossible to dread or to desire.” Mary’s descendants were noways remarkable for fidelity in friendship, but they were implacable in their hatreds. When he was in the over-careful hands of the Covenanters, Charles had treasured up against a day of vengeance, many affronts, brow-beatings, and intimidations, and now he meant, in his stubborn way, to demand payment, with heavy interest, of the old debts.
And so Charles, the Covenanted King of Scotland, and in whose cause its best blood had been shed, had nothing but hatred for the land of his fathers, and for its presbyterian faith. A packed and subservient Scottish Parliament proceeded to pass, first a Rescissory Act, rescinding all statutes, good and bad, which had been passed since the commencement of the civil wars; and next, an Act of Supremacy, making the king supreme judge in all matters, both civil and ecclesiastical. Charles soon made it evident that he meant to establish episcopacy. James Sharpe, minister of the little Fifeshire town of Crail, was sent to London to look after presbyterian interests; he was got at on the selfish side, and made archbishop of St. Andrews. Nine other pliant Scottish ministers received episcopal ordination in Westminster Abbey.
On the third anniversary of the Restoration, 29th May, 1662, copies of the Covenants were in Edinburgh publicly torn to pieces by the common hangman. The ministers were ordered to attend diocesan meetings, and to acknowledge the authority of their bishops. The majority acquiesced; but it is pleasing to learn that nearly four hundred resigned their livings, rather than submit to the prelatic yoke. To take the places of the recusants, a hosts of curates, often persons of mean character and culture, were ordained. The people did not like the men thus thrust upon them as ministers, and they still sought the services of their old pastors; hence originated the “conventicles,” a contemptuous title for a meeting-place of dissenters.
And now began, chiefly in the west and south of Scotland, those field meetings which afterwards became so notable. At first they were simply assemblies for worship, no arms were worn; after service a quiet dispersal. But, as signifying nonconformity to prescribed forms, they gave great offence. A new Act forbade, under punishment for sedition, any preaching without the sanction of the bishops; and inflicting pains and penalties on all persons absenting themselves from their parish churches. If fines were not paid, soldiers were quartered on the recusants, and their cattle, furniture, and very clothing were sold. It was even accounted seditious to give sustenance to the ejected ministers.
It can be easily asked, why did this Scottish people, with the memory of their past, submit to these things? There was, as in England, a reaction to an extreme of loyalty; there was the satisfaction of finding themselves freed from English domination in its tangible form of Cromwell’s troops and garrisons; there was the pleasure of once more seeing a Parliament in Edinburgh, even though it merely registered and gave legal form to the king’s decrees. They were told that the advantage of being governed by their own native prince implied as its price the establishment of that prince’s form of religious faith. Their own nobles and many of their ministers had conformed; and thus bereft of their natural leaders, there was weakness and division. Despite of all these discouragements, they were often goaded into insurrections; which were cruelly suppressed, and made the excuses for further intolerance, and still harsher persecutions.
The field conventicles continued. In the solitudes of nature, in lonely glens, or on pine-shaded hillsides, with sentinels posted on the heights, arose the solemn psalm, and the preachers prayer and exhortation. And men now came armed to these gatherings, the women had to be defended, force was to be met by force. To suppress such meetings, troops were sent into the insubordinate districts, under a wild fanatical Royalist, General Dalziel, and had free quarters on the inhabitants. By 1666, a reign of terror was fully inaugurated; Dalziel flared like a baleful meteor over the West of Scotland. In November of this year, without concert or premeditation, an open insurrection broke out. At Dalry, in Ayrshire, four soldiers were grossly maltreating an aged man, and common humanity could not stand by and look on with indifference or mere sympathy. The people rescued the old man, disarmed the soldiers, and took their officer prisoner to Dumfries. A resolution was suddenly taken to march on Edinburgh. They gathered in a fortnight’s march to barely 2000 men, and wearied and worn out, encamped on a plateau, called Rullion Green, on the Pentland hills, a few miles south of Edinburgh. Here they were attacked by double their numbers under Dalziel, and, after a gallant resistance, considering their inferior arms and discipline, were put to flight. Some fifty were killed on the field, one hundred and thirty were taken prisoners, thirty-four of whom were, chiefly at the instigation of Archbishop Sharpe, hanged as rebels, and the rest banished.
THUMBIKINS.
(From the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.)
And tortures—such as have had no place in modern history since the palmy days of the Spanish Inquisition were inflicted to extort confessions of complicity in a rising, which was really the offspring of momentary excitement. Thumbikins squeezed the fingers by iron screws. These tortures were generally borne with heroic patience and resolution. One young minister, Hugh McKail, comely in person, well educated, an enthusiast in his covenanting faith, was subjected to the torture of the boot. His leg was crushed, but he uttered no cry, only moving his lips in silent prayer. He had taken very little part in the insurrection, but was condemned to death. On the gallows-ladder his last words were:—“Farewell father, mother, and all my friends in life, farewell earth and all its delights, farewell sun, moon, and stars, welcome death, glory, and eternal life.” Seeing what impressions such words made on the listeners, in after executions drums were beaten to drown the voices of the sufferers.
A weary ten years ensued of alternate “indulgence,” and renewed intolerance. In 1667, the Duke of Lauderdale was placed at the head of Scottish affairs. He had subscribed to the covenant, and had been a Presbyterian representative at the Westminster Assembly. He was now a subservient courtier, but did not at first assume the role of a persecutor. He disbanded the army, and proclaimed an indemnity to those who had fought at Rullion Green, on their signing a bond of peace. The ministers ousted from their parishes were permitted to return, but on conditions which the strict consciences of many could not accept; and those who did accept were placed under close surveillance, and under severe penalties forbidden to take part in any field meetings. Some of the bishops were good men, striving earnestly to make peace within the church. One of these, Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane, made an attempt to reconcile Presbyterianism with a modified episcopacy. The bishops were merely to sit as chairmen, or moderators, in the diocesan convocations, and to have no veto on the proceedings, but the Covenanters thought this a snare for entrapping them into an acknowledgment of prelacy, and the idea was abandoned.