Let us rejoice this day is from the Lord.
Fly hence all traitors, who did mar our peace—
Fly hence schismatics, who our church did rent—
Fly covenanting, remonstrating race—
Let us rejoice that God this day hath sent.
The magistrates, with the Earl, then withdrew to the Palace, where a large bonfire was lighted in its noble court; and the king, queen, with other loyal toasts, were drunk; after which the festivities of the semi-sacred carnival were concluded by the magistrates and a number of the inhabitants walking in procession through the town and “saluting every person of account.”
Parliament rose on the 9th of September, and the privy council entered upon the full exercise of their tyrannical powers, which had been acknowledged and vowed to by the obsequious legislature, who thus paved the way for their own lower degradation. By an act of the 10th, the diocesan meetings which had been deferred on account of the lords, archbishops, and bishops being engaged in attending their parliamentary duty, were appointed to be held within all dioceses of the south upon the second Tuesday of October, excepting that of Galloway, which, together with Aberdeen and some in the Highlands, Islands, and the north, were to keep the third Tuesday of the same month, at which all parsons, vicars, (uncouth titles in Presbyterian ears,) and ministers were required to be present, under pain of being considered contemners of his majesty’s authority. Every step taken to thrust Episcopacy forcibly upon an unwilling people, was accompanied by some new act of injustice and oppression to their respected ministers. It was requisite that those of the capital should set an example of obedience; and therefore, unless they also would apostatize and violate their oaths and their consciences by acknowledging the present Episcopacy, and concurring in their discipline, before the 1st of October, they were to be deprived of their office and banished the city—an arbitrary punishment, for which the oppressors had not even the authority of their own iniquitous parliament.
The western brethren being the most refractory, Middleton determined to proceed thither with a quorum of the council to enforce in person the obnoxious decrees. Accordingly, about the latter end of September, accompanied by Earls Morton, Linlithgow, Callender, and Lord Newburgh, with the king’s lifeguard,[[29]] the clerk of the council, and a great retinue of attendants, he set out upon his progress, preceded by macers and military music. Burghs and nobles regaled the party as they passed, evincing their affection for the hierarchy by prodigal hospitality, while their guests, conformably to the manners of the English court, displayed their loyalty by pushing it to the most disgusting and loathsome excess. In districts remarkable for the strict soberness of their manners, scenes of revelry and profane riot were exhibited by the Commissioner and his Episcopalian propaganda that astonished the decent, while it afflicted the pious, portion of the inhabitants. Their streets were disturbed by midnight inebriety; and men who had conscientious scruples about drinking healths at all, heard with sensations approaching to horror, that in some of these debauches the devil himself had had his health drunk! Ecclesiastical matters do not seem to have much disturbed the thoughtless “joyeosity” of this outrageous crew till they came to Glasgow, when Fairfoul entered a grievous complaint to Middleton, that, notwithstanding the acts of parliament and the time that had elapsed, not one of the younger ministers who had entered the church since 1649, had acknowledged him as archbishop—that he had incurred all the hatred attached to his office without obtaining any of the power; and, unless his Grace could devise some method for securing obedience, a bishop would be merely a cipher in the state. Middleton, a rough mercenary, requested the bishop’s directions. The archbishop, like a true son of a temporal priesthood, knew of no better remedy than force. He proposed that all the ministers who had entered since the year 1649, and who would not submit to receive collation and admission from the bishop before the 1st of November, should be peremptorily banished from their houses, parishes, and the bounds of their presbyteries; and he assured the Commissioner that, if this were rigorously enforced, he did not believe there were ten in the whole of his diocese who would choose to lose their stipends.
[29]. The king’s guard was chiefly composed of those who had, during the civil wars, been attached to the royal party, and who had expected mountains of gold at the Restoration; but, as the whole revenues of the kingdom could not have satisfied their claims and their cupidity, and “the merry monarch” and his higher satellites could spare nothing from their own licentious expenses, they, who had been unaccustomed to honest industry, had no other resource left but to enter the army.
A council was summoned, upon his Grace’s representation, to meet in the front hall of Glasgow College; but when the worthies assembled, the whole, except one or perhaps two, were in a high state of excitation, or, as Wodrow phrases it, flustered with drink.[[30]] Sir James Lockhart of Lee, the only sober member present, attempted to reason the matter. He affirmed that, so far from accomplishing its object, such an act would have a diametrically opposite effect—that the young ministers would suffer more than the loss of their stipends before they would acknowledge the bishops, and the inevitable consequences would be desolation in the country and discontent among the people. But reasoning was altogether out of the question. An act according to the archbishop’s wish was agreed to without dispute, although it was not quite so easily drawn up—“whether,” adds the honest historian, “for want of a fresh man to dictate or write, I know not.” It was, however, sufficiently severe; not only did the non-conforming ministers forfeit their current year’s stipend and incur the penalty of banishment, but their parishioners who should repair to their sermons were subjected to the same punishment as the frequenters of private conventicles. Besides this desolating act, the council passed two of a more private nature, incapacitating individuals—Mr Donald Cargill, minister of the barony parish, Glasgow, (with whom we shall frequently meet in the course of the Annals,) and Mr Thomas Wylie, minister at Kirkcudbright. This latter was a distinguished member of a distinguished presbytery, which had not one conformist in their bounds, and was among the very few that presented petitions against their illegal discontinuance, nor desisted from fulfilling their ministerial functions till compelled by force.