Monro also published a tract of his own, defending himself against charges made by the commissioners who had been appointed to visit the Scottish universities, and “purge” them of all professors who would not swear allegiance to William and Mary.[111] The effect of this work, and others upon the same subject, was to raise a feeling of contempt for the state of learning in Scotland, and to cause Englishmen to believe that, under the Presbyterian system, literature and science were doomed. Other pamphlets were published giving an account of the proceedings in the General Assembly and in the Parliament connected with the establishment of the Church.[112] These, certainly, contain materials of great historical value; but they do not even pretend to be impartial, and were written to excite sympathy with the ejected Episcopal ministers and dislike to their successors.
The author of one of these pamphlets, the Rev. John Sage, wrote also an elaborate treatise on the history and nature of Presbytery, in which he maintained that the article in the Claim of Rights which declared that Prelacy was a grievance, and contrary to the inclinations of the Scottish people, was utterly without foundation.[113] The Presbyterians, he asserted, had, in pursuance of a carefully-arranged plan, encouraged the rabble to eject the Episcopal ministers, and had managed, during the confusion of the times, to secure a majority in the Estates, which did not represent the wishes of the country. It was obvious that if this could be proved to the satisfaction of the Whigs of England, they would, in any treaty of Union, consider seriously whether the religious Establishment of Scotland should not be brought into conformity with that of England. If a majority of the people desired Presbytery, the Whigs, on principle, were bound to support Presbytery. But if neither the mob nor the Parliament represented the wishes of the people; if the real desire of the nation could only be discovered by private consultations with the Tory and Jacobite laity, or gathered from the writings of the Episcopal clergy; if the majority of the Parliament represented the minority of the nation, then it was the duty of the Whigs to support Episcopacy.
But the pamphlets which were most widely read in England were those which held up the Presbyterians to execration as persecutors, and to ridicule as fanatics. Monro and his friends took great pains to collect accounts of the hardships which the Episcopal clergy had suffered at the hands of the mob, and published them for the purpose of influencing public opinion in England.[114] The clergy were described as “a company of resolute Christians that dare lay down their lives for the truth of those doctrines which they have formerly taught.” In point of fact, none of them were called upon to lay down their lives. One of the worst cases of “rabbling,” which the Episcopalians described as a “tragedy,” took place at Kirkpatrick in Annandale. On Easter day a party of men and women went to the clergyman’s house in the morning, knocked him down, and then threw him into “a nasty puddle.” His wife, who ran out of the house, was also thrown down. “Then their noble Captain at this honourable expedition gave the word of command to his female janizaries, which was Strip the Curate (for they think this a most disgraceful appellation, and therefore they apply it to all Episcopal ministers). The order was no sooner given, than these Amazons prepared to put it in execution, for throwing away their plaids (i.e. loose upper garments) each of them drew from her girdle a great sharp-pointed dagger, prepared, it seems, for a thorough reformation. The good minister lying panting and prostrate on the ground, had first his night-gown torn and cut off him, his close coat, waistcoat, and britches ript open with their knives, nay, their modesty could not so far prevail against their zeal, as to spare his shirt and drawers, but all were cut in pieces and sacrificed to a broken Covenant. The forementioned Captain gave the finishing stroke himself with a great Reforming Club, the blow was designed for the minister’s head or breast, but he naturally throwing up his hands to save those vital parts, occasioned it to fall upon his shin-bones, which he had drawn up to cover his Nakedness; the blow was such as greatly bruised his legs, and made them swell extraordinarily after; however the Captain thinking they were broke, and finding it uneasie for himself and his companions to stand longer in a great storm of wind and snow which happened to fall out that morning, he drew off his company, and left the Semi-Martyr, who afterwards, by the assistance of his servants, crawled home to his bed, and but a little after, the whole herd of his persecutors broke in again upon him, and told him: they had treated him so because he prayed for the Tyrant York (so these people ordinarily called King James, tho’ he was too kind to them), and because he had presumed to preach and visit the parishioners as if he had been their minister, which they had formerly forbidden him to do; they required him also to be gone from their Covenanted Lands, under pain of death, before that day Sevennight, and never again to meddle with the ministry.”[115]
Such stories—and this is only one of many which were printed and circulated—could not fail to produce anger and alarm in England; and the conduct of the Presbyterian ministers was, at the same time, represented in the most unfavourable light. Not one of them, it was said, had ever been heard to condemn these outrages from the pulpit. On the contrary, sermons had been preached in which the mob had been applauded for their zeal. In the cathedral church of Saint Giles at Edinburgh the congregation had been told that “such shakings as these were the shakings of God, and without such shakings his Church was not in use to be settled.”
But the sayings and the character of the ministers of the Church of Scotland were assailed in the most effective way by those writers who relied upon ridicule rather than serious invective. Londoners who remembered laughing over Hudibras in the heyday of the Restoration must have found the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence very poor reading. But it was admirably suited for the purpose of persuading Englishmen that the sermons and prayers of the Scottish ministers were nonsensical rhapsodies, and that, in many cases, both the preachers and their hearers were hypocrites who led the most immoral lives. That part of the work which attacked the private characters of the Presbyterian ministers was met by a series of accusations of the same kind against the Episcopalians; and it is difficult to say whether the attack or the defence is more discreditable. Both are probably, on the whole, equally mendacious.[116] But the most telling part of the work consisted of selections from grotesque sermons and prayers. “Sirs,” one minister is reported to have said in his first sermon, “I am coming home to be your shepherd, and you must be my sheep, and the Bible will be my tar-bottle, for I will mark you with it; (and laying his hand on the clerk or precentor’s head) he saith, ‘Andrew, you shall be my dog.’ ‘The sorrow a bit of your dog will I be,’ said Andrew. ‘O Andrew, I speak mystically,’ said the preacher. ‘Yea, but you speak mischievously,’ said Andrew.” Another minister, preaching on the first chapter of the Book of Job, is represented as saying, “Sirs, I will tell you this story very plainly. The Devil comes to God one day. God said, ‘What now, Deel, thou foul thief, whither are you going?’ ‘I am going up and down now, Lord, you have put me away from you now, I must even do for myself now.’ ‘Well, well, Deel (says God) all the world kens that it is your fault; but do not you know that I have an honest servant they call Job? Is not he an honest man, Deel?’ ‘Sorrow to his thank,’ says the Deel; ‘you make his cup stand full even, you make his pot play well, but give him a cuff, I’ll hazard he’ll be as ill as I am called.’ ‘Go, Deel,’ says God, ‘I’ll yoke his honesty with you. Fell his cows, worry his sheep, do all the mischief ye can, but for the very soul of you, touch not a hair of his tail.’”
The specimens of prayers are equally absurd. “O Lord,” one divine says, “thou’rt like a mousie peeping out at the hole of a wall, for thou sees us, but we see not thee.” Another prayed as follows: “Good Lord, what have ye been doing all this time? What good have ye done to your poor Kirk in Scotland?... O, how often have we put our shoulders to Christ’s cause, when his own back was at the wall; to be free with you, Lord, we have done many things for thee that never entered in thy noddle, and yet we are content that thou take all the glory; is not that fair and kind?”
The small quarto from which these extracts are taken was only one, though it was the most popular, of a series of similar lampoons. The most offensive of these, a comedy written without the wit, but with all the licentiousness of Wycherley, was not printed for many years; but it may now be read by anyone who wishes fully to understand into what depths of malice and profanity some men were driven by the party spirit of those days.[117]
The public opinion of England on the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland was, to a great extent, formed by these publications. They increased the hostility with which the High Church party regarded the establishment of Presbytery. The accounts of the outrages committed on the ejected clergy caused a widespread feeling of sympathy with them among all classes of Englishmen; and the effect which they produced was not only evident during the discussions on the Union, but afterwards led Parliament to pass measures which were most unpopular in Scotland, which endangered the stability of the Union before it had lasted more than a few years, and which have been the occasion of endless troubles, misunderstandings, and secessions among the Presbyterians.
The Church question, however, was settled for a time; and the people of Scotland, whose whole energies had for so long been absorbed in the struggle against religious tyranny, were now ready to advance on the path of secular progress. But the commercial policy of England remained unaltered. The least hint that the Navigation Act ought to be repealed raised an outcry among the merchants of London. The proposals for an Union, made by the Estates, had not been listened to. Therefore Scotland, it appeared, must submit to remain poor, while England became wealthier and wealthier.
But now the self-reliant spirit of the Scottish people rose. If they could not share in the trade of England, they would establish a trade of their own. If they were not to be the partners of England, they would be her rivals. There can be no doubt that the schemes of the Scottish Company Trading to Africa and the Indies, on which the hopes of the country were placed, were rash and visionary. Scotland, it is true, was an independent country, with a Parliament of its own, with its own church, laws, coinage, and taxation, united to England by nothing except the Crown; and the powers which the Scottish Parliament gave to the Company brought this fact prominently into view, for the Company was to have the right of arming ships of war, building cities, making harbours and fortresses, waging war, and concluding alliances. But these very powers, which impressed on Scotsmen the fact that their country was independent, could not fail to rouse the alarm of Englishmen, and particularly of English traders. The royal assent had, indeed, been given to the statute by which the Company was created.[118] But the merchants of England were so alarmed, so jealous, so persuaded that their own trade was endangered, that we cannot be surprised that William, whose position depended entirely on the goodwill of England, acted as he did; especially when, at a time when he was deeply involved in continental politics, the Company, by sending the expedition to Darien, so seriously imperilled his relations with Spain.