[25]. Lamont gives the following account of Sharpe’s visit on this occasion:—“As for Mr Sharpe, he came to Fiffe, Apryl 15th, and dyned that day at Abetsaa, Sr. Andrew Ramsays, formerly provest of Edenboroughe, his house, and that night came to Lesly, being attended by divers both of the nobilitie and gentrie. The nixt day being Weddensday, the 16th Apr., he went to St Androws from Lesly, attended from the Earle of Rothes his house, with about 60 horse; bot by the way divers persons and corporations (being wretten for in particular by the said Earle of Rothes a day or two before) mett him, some at ane place and some at ane other, viz. some from Fawkland, Achtermowghtie, Cuper, Craill, and about 120 horsemen from St Androws and elsewhere; so that once they were estimat to be about 7 or 8 hundred horse. The nobilitie ther were, Earle of Rothes, Earle of Kelley, Earle of Leven, and the Lord Newarke; of gentrie, Ardrosse, Lundy, Rires, Dury, Skaddowory, Doctor Martin of Strandry, and divers others. All the way the said Archbishope rode thus, viz. betwixt two nobelmen, namely, Rothes on his right, and Kelley on his left hand. No ministers were present ther safe Mr William Barclay, formerly deposed out of Fawkland, and Mr William Comry, minister of St Leonards Colledge, that came foorth with the Bishope his sone out of St Androws to meit his father. (He dwells in the Abbey in Mr George Weyms house, that formerly belonged to B. Spotswoode, Archb. of St Androws.) That night ther supped with the said Bishope, the Earles of Rothes, Kelley, Newarke; Ardrosse, Lundy, Strandry, and divers others; and divers of this dined with him the nixt day. As for Rothes and Ardrosse, they lodged with him all night. On the Sabbath after, he preached in the towne church in the forenoone, and a velvet cushion in the pulpitt before him. His text, 1 Cor. ii. 2. ‘For I determined to knowe nothing amonge you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.’ His sermon did not run mutch on the words, bot in a discourse of vindicating himselfe and of pressing of episcopacie and the utilitie of it; shewing, since it was wanting, that ther hath beine nothing bot trowbels and disturbancies both in church and state. Apryl 30, 1662, he tooke journey for Edenboroughe, being accompanied with about 50 horse, most of them of the citie of St Androws; and, in his way, he gave the Ladys at Lundy a visit at Lundy: he cam with only 5 or 6 horse, and himselfe staid a short whille, toke a drink (bot did not dine), and was gone againe.” Diary, p. 183-4.

[26]. Leighton alone declined all public show. When he understood the manner in which it was proposed to receive them, he left the cavalcade at Morpeth, and came privately to Edinburgh. Afterwards, he told Dr Burnet, “he believed they were weary of him, for he was very weary of them.”

This ceremony, which had been deferred till the arrival of the Commissioner, was conducted in the grandest and most imposing style. His Grace, with all the nobles and gentlemen who had come to town to attend parliament, together with the magistrates of the city, were present; and none were admitted but by tickets. The two archbishops who officiated were in their full canonicals—black satin gowns, white surplices, lawn sleeves, copes, and all the long desecrated garments, known to the Presbyterians of that day by the contemptuous epithet of their forefathers—“Rags of Rome.” The others wore black satin gowns. The passage leading from the pews, where the bishops elect sat, to the altar, and the space before the altar, were covered with rich carpets. Mr James Gordon, one of the northern ministers, preached the consecration sermon from 1 Cor. iv. 1. “Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God;” in which, pointing out the errors of the former, he exhorted the new prelates to beware of encroaching on the nobles, nor exceed the bounds of their sacred function. They were then led from their places by the archbishop of Glasgow, and by him presented to the primate who presided, and set them apart according to the ritual of the church of England, and to whom they vowed clerical obedience during all the days of their lives. The bishops this day consecrated were—Dunkeld, George Halyburton, late minister of Perth; Ross, George Patterson, minister of Aberdeen; Moray, Murdoch Mackenzie, minister of Elgin; Brechin, David Strachan, minister of Fettercairn; Argyle, David Fletcher, minister of Melrose; The Isles, Robert Wallace, minister of Barnwell, Ayrshire;[[27]] none of whom were men either of distinguished talents or exemplary piety, and all had appeared zealots in the cause of the covenant. Common report attributed to them a private dissoluteness of character which might be exaggerated; but for their apostacy from a cause which they had urged with more than ordinary heat, no apology was ever attempted. Conviction could not be alleged, and as self-interest appeared the only ostensible reason, they sunk in the estimation of the people in proportion to the respect in which they had been previously held; while they returned the contempt with which they were deservedly treated by hatred and persecution—a consequent usual with renegades, who ever remorselessly pursue to degradation and death the steadfast members of the religion they have betrayed, whose unshaken integrity is a standing reproof of their temporizing baseness.

[27]. George Wiseheart, chaplain to Montrose, and author of the elegant Latin romance which goes under the name of his memoirs, was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh at St Andrews, on the 3d of June, and Mr David Mitchell, minister of Edinburgh, bishop of Aberdeen. Sydeserf had Orkney.

Next day, May 9, the parliament met; and their first act was to restore the bishops to the exercise of their episcopal function, precedence in the church, power of ordination, inflicting of censures, and all other acts of church discipline; and this their office they were to exercise only with “the advice and assistance of such of the clergy as they should find to be of known loyalty and prudence.” Without entering into any of the puzzling questions respecting the divine right of any form of church government, they at once founded their Prelacy upon a principle most repugnant to Presbytery—the spiritual supremacy of the king—“Forasmuch as the ordering and disposal of the external government and policy of the church doth properly belong unto his majesty as an inherent right of the crown, by virtue of his royal prerogative and supremacy in causes ecclesiastical.” In the preamble were narrated as the causes of its re-establishment, the disorders and exorbitancies that had been in the church, the encroachments upon the prerogative and rights of the crown, the usurpations upon the authority of parliaments, and the prejudice inflicted on the liberty of the subject ever since the invasion made upon the bishops and episcopal order—a form of church government pronounced most agreeable to the word of God, most convenient and effectual for the preservation of truth, regularity, and unity, most suitable to monarchy, and the peace and quiet of the state: “Therefore his majesty and his estates did redintegrate the state of bishops to their ancient places and undoubted privileges in parliament and all their other accustomed dignities.” Nor was it among the least strange enactments of this extraordinary act, that whatever his majesty, with the archbishops and bishops, should determine respecting the external order of the church, were “previously” declared valid and effectual.

Immediately upon this act being passed, a deputation of six members, two noblemen, two barons, and two burgesses, was sent to the prelates, who were waiting in the primate’s lodgings to invite them to take their seats. They were accordingly conducted in state to the House—the two archbishops first, walking between two noblemen, the Earls of Kellie and Wemyss, and the bishops following, attended by the barons, gentlemen, and the magistrates in their robes. When they entered, a congratulatory speech was made them from the throne, the act restoring them was read, and the parliament adjourned on purpose that the spiritual lords might have the pleasure of dining with his Grace, the Commissioner, who, to do them the greater honour, walked on foot with them in procession to the Palace. They were preceded by six macers with their maces, next three gentlemen-ushers, then the purse-bearer uncovered. The Commissioner and Chancellor followed, with two noblemen on their right and the two archbishops on their left. A select party of noblemen and members of parliament, with the bishops, made up the goodly company, who, “at four of the clock, sat down to ane sumptuous entertainment, and remained at table till eight.”

The bishops, as now thrust upon the Scottish church, differed widely from those intruded by James VI. They pled no scriptural authority, but an act of parliament, as the source of their power, and acknowledged, in its fullest sense, a temporal prince as the supreme head of the church. The old bishops were only a set of constant moderators in the synods and presbyteries, possessing merely a sort of negative voice, and were nominally at least responsible to the General Assembly; but the whole form of Presbytery was now swept away, and the prelates were amenable to no church courts; nor could any assembly of ministers meet, but under their sanction, or by their permission.

Having subverted the religion of the country, the next and most natural step was to eradicate, if possible, the principles of civil liberty. The sycophantish estates, therefore, proceeded to declare rebellious and treasonable those positions for which their fathers had contended unto blood, and which their children asserted at the point of the sword:—That it is lawful in subjects, upon pretence of reformation, or any other pretence whatsoever, to enter into leagues or covenants, or to take up arms against the king: or that it is lawful for subjects, pretending his majesty’s authority, to take up arms against his person or those commissionated by him, or to suspend him from the exercise of his royal government, or to put limitations on their due obedience and allegiance. As, notwithstanding the acts of the former session, the Presbyterians did not conceive themselves loosened from what they considered the oaths of God—ratified by the highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities of the land—the National Covenant, and the Solemn League and Covenant, these were now declared unlawful oaths; the subjects were relieved from their obligations; the acts of Assembly respecting them, which had received the sanction both of the parliament and of the king, but had hitherto escaped notice, were annulled; and all ratifications, by whatsoever authority, cassed and made void. At the same time, it was enacted, that if any person should, by writing, printing, praying, preaching, or remonstrating, express any thing calculated to create or cherish dislike in the people towards the king’s supremacy in causes ecclesiastic, or of the government of the church by archbishops and bishops, as now settled, they were to be declared incapable of enjoying any place or employment, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, and liable to such farther pains as the law directs; that is, liable to the pains of that detestable statute against leasing-making, of whose extent a notable specimen was speedily given in the case of Argyle. This was followed by an act obliging all persons in public trust to subscribe a declaration in which the whole of the transactions, since the commencement of the troubles, were affirmed to have been illegal and seditious, and the covenants unlawful oaths, unwarrantably imposed against the fundamental laws and liberties of the kingdom, and not obligatory either on themselves or others.

By another retrospective act, repeating the restoration of patronage, it was ordained that all the ministers who had entered to parishes since the year 1649, had no right to their stipends; and their charges were pronounced vacant, until they should procure presentations anew from the lawful patrons and collocation from the bishop of the diocese which he was enjoined to give to the present incumbents, upon application, before the 20th of September following, failing which, the presentation was to fall to the bishop jure devoluto; and, to conclude the series of enactments intended to establish Episcopacy upon a firm and immovable foundation, amid the ruins of Presbytery, all professors and teachers in universities and colleges were required to take the oath of allegiance on pain of deprivation—all ministers were ordered to attend the diocesan synods and pay all clerical obedience to their superiors under the like penalty—and all meetings in private houses, for religious exercises, which might tend to alienate this people from their lawful pastors, were strictly forbidden. Nor were any persons to be permitted to preach in public or private, to teach any school, or act as tutor in the family of any person of quality, without the license of the ordinary of the diocese.

Ecclesiastical matters being thus arranged, and the session apparently drawing to a termination, Lauderdale so strongly pressed a bill of indemnity, that Middleton could no longer get it avoided; but he introduced, as an accompaniment, the act of fines, which in numerous instances rendered it nugatory.