Lauderdale accompanied the Earl to Scotland, professedly to inquire into the origin of that conspiracy against his majesty’s royal prerogative—the balloting act;—in reality to secure his own ascendancy in Scotland, and, by pushing to the utmost the advantage he had gained over the Middleton faction, to prevent any attempt being made against him from that quarter for the future. The Chancellor made some feeble show of opposition, but the universal spirit of submission to the will of the crown which pervaded the higher classes, and their selfish eagerness to obtain a share in the spoils of their unhappy country, not only blighted every appearance of patriotism, but precluded every plan of association among the aristocracy themselves for maintaining their own rank and station independent of the minions of the court. The Presbyterians who rejoiced in Middleton’s fall, soon found that they had gained very little by the change. At the first diet of council, (June 15, 1663,) the two archbishops were admitted, with Mr Charles Maitland, Lord Hatton, Lauderdale’s brother; but Crawford having refused the declaration, was deprived of the treasurership, and Rothes, the commissioner, that same day was appointed to succeed him in the office.

On the 18th, parliament met, and, by an alteration in the method of appointing the Lords of the Articles—allowing the spiritual lords first to name eight temporal lords, then the temporal lords to choose eight spiritual; and these sixteen, or such of them as were present, to elect the representatives of the barons and burghs—they virtually gave up the privilege of nominating this important committee, to the servants of the crown, and surrendered the last check they had upon the prerogative. The tyranny of the council was next legalized, and a practice introduced which continued till the Revolution:—the most oppressive acts of the former sessions, together with the acts of council, enlarging and explaining their vindictive clauses, were approved of by a retrospective declaratory enactment; and every mode of persecution which had been adopted upon trial since last session, was incorporated into the statute law of the kingdom. Thus an act against separation and disobedience of ecclesiastical authority—introduced early in the session—besides recapitulating all the penalties to which the non-conforming ministers had been previously subjected, ordained those who still dared to preach in contempt of law, or did not attend the diocesan meetings, to be punished as seditious persons, and despisers of the royal authority. Absence from church on Sundays—a finable offence—was now denounced as sedition; and whoever wilfully should withdraw from the ministrations of the parish priest, however incapable he might be, were, if noblemen, gentlemen, or heritors, to lose the fourth part of their yearly income—if yeomen, tenants, or farmers, such proportion of their moveables, after payment of their rents, as the council should think fit, not exceeding a fourth part—but if a burgess, his freedom, along with the fourth of his moveables, and, in addition, the council was authorized to inflict such corporeal punishment as they should see proper. The declaration was ordered by another act to be taken by all who exercised any public trust; and persons chosen to be councillors or magistrates of burghs, if they declined to subscribe, were declared for ever incapable of holding any office, or exercising any occupation, trade, or merchandise. To complete the organization of the hierarchy, an act was passed for the establishment and constitution of a National Synod, bearing the same resemblance to the estates of Scotland that the Houses of Convocation did to the English parliament: both emanated from his majesty’s supremacy, and consisted of the bishops and their satellites, only the Scottish assembly was to meet in one place, and was even more servilely abject than their elder Episcopalian sister, and could not be constituted without the presence of the king or his commissioner. The balloting act was, after long investigation, rescinded with every mark of detestation, the parliament declaring they had never consented to any such thing! and, that it might not appear in judgment against them, was ordered to be erased from their minutes. Sensible that the measures now pursued in Scotland must necessarily lead to insurrection, and that a military force would be requisite to carry them into effect, Lauderdale procured from this servile crew the offer of an army of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse, to be raised for his majesty’s service when required, under the ridiculous pretence of preserving Christendom against the Turks!! This number never was demanded; and it was alleged that the secretary had carried the measure to ingratiate himself with the king, and to show him what assistance he might derive from Scotland in any attempt to destroy the liberties of England. From the beginning, the Scots had been harassed by the king’s guard, but from this date the troopers were more unsparingly employed to enforce clerical obedience, while the act hung in terrorem over the hands of the dissatisfied Presbyterians, and afterwards became the foundation of the militia.

Arrest of Lord Warriston anno 1662.
Vide page [103]
Edinr. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen, 1842

Middleton’s first session set in blood; Rothes closed under as deep a stain. Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, had been forfeited and condemned by parliament when Argyle and Guthrie were arraigned, but escaping to the Continent, had remained concealed in Holland and Germany, chiefly at Hamburgh, till most unadvisedly, in the latter end of 1662, he ventured to France. Notice of this having been carried to London, the king, who bore him a personal hatred for his free admonitions when in Scotland,[[36]] sent over secretly a confidential spy, known by the name of “Crooked Murray,” to trace him out and bring him to Britain. By watching Lady Warriston, Murray soon discovered her lord’s retreat at Rouen in Normandy, and had him seized while engaged in the act of secret prayer. He then applied to the magistrates, and, showing them the king’s commission, desired that they would allow him to carry his victim a prisoner to England. The magistrates, uncertain how to act, committed Warriston to close custody, and sent to the French king for instructions. When the question was debated in council, the greater part were for respecting the rights of hospitality, and not giving up his lordship till some better reasons were shown than had yet been given; but Louis, who was extremely desirous to oblige Charles, and sympathized cordially in his antipathies against the Protestant religion and liberty, ordered him to be delivered to the messenger, who carried him to London and lodged him in the tower in the month of January 1663. While the parliament was sitting in June, he was sent to Scotland with a letter from the king, ordering him “to be proceeded against according to law and justice,” and landed at Leith on the 8th, whence, next day, he was brought bareheaded to the tolbooth of Edinburgh. Neither his wife, children, nor any other friend, were permitted to see him, except in presence of the keeper or guard, and that only for an hour, or at farthest two at a time, betwixt eight o’clock in the morning and eight at night. Here he was detained till July 8th, when, no more trial being deemed necessary, he was brought before parliament to receive judgment. His appearance on this occasion was humiliating to the pride of human genius, debilitated through excessive blood-letting and the deleterious drugs that had been administered to him by his physicians,[[37]] the faculties of his soul partook of the imbecility of his body, and, on the spot where his eloquence had in former days commanded breathless attention, he could scarcely now utter one coherent sentence. The prelates basely derided his mental aberrations, but many of the other members compassionated the intellectual ruin of one who had shone among the foremost in the brightest days of Scotland’s parliamentary annals. When the question was put, whether the time of his execution should be then fixed or delayed? a majority seemed inclined to spare his life, which Lauderdale observing, rose, and, contrary to all usage or propriety, in a furious speech, insisted upon the sentence being carried into immediate effect; the submissive legislators acquiesced, and he was doomed to be hanged at the cross of Edinburgh on the 22d of the same month, and his head fixed upon the Nether Bow Port, beside Mr Guthrie’s.

[36]. “The real cause of his (Warriston’s) death, was not his activity in public business, but our king’s personal hatred, because when the king was in Scotland he thought it his duty to admonish him because of his very wicked, debauched life, not only in whoredom and adultery, but he violently forced a young gentle-woman of quality. This the king could never forgive, and told the Earle of Bristol so much when he was speaking for Warriston.” Kirkton’s Hist. of the Church of Scot. p. 173.

[37]. “Through excessive blood-letting and other detestable means used by his wicked physician, Doctor Bates, who they say was hired either to poison or distract him, and partly through melancholy, he had in a manner wholly lost his memory.” Kirkton’s Hist. p. 170. Mr C. K. Sharpe, the editor, thinks his mental imbecility was occasioned in some measure by fear, and quotes a passage from one of Lord Middleton’s letters to Primrose. “He pretends to have lost his memory,” &c. “He is the most timorous person ever I did see in my life,” &c. Note. But it was not to be expected that Middleton would allude in the most distant manner to any thing that could be supposed to countenance in the least the then general belief.

Mr James Kirkton, author of the “History of the Church of Scotland,” who visited him, says—“I spake with him in prison, and though he was sometimes under great heaviness, yet he told me he could never doubt his own salvation, he had so often seen God’s face in the house of prayer.” As he approached his end, he grew more composed; and, on the night previous to his execution, having been favoured with a few hours’ profound and refreshing sleep, he awoke in the full possession of his vigorous powers, his memory returned, and he experienced in an extraordinary degree the strong consolations of the gospel, expressing his assurance of being clothed with a white robe, and having a new song of praise put into his lips, even salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb!

Before noon, he dined with great cheerfulness, hoping to sup in heaven, and drink of the blood of the vine fresh and new in his father’s kingdom. After spending some time in secret prayer, he left the prison about two o’clock, attended by his friends in mourning, full of holy confidence and courage, but perfectly composed and serene. As he proceeded to the cross, where a high gibbet was erected, he repeatedly requested the prayers of the people; and there being some disturbance on the street when he ascended the scaffold, he said with great composure—“I entreat you, quiet yourselves a little, till this dying man deliver his last words among you,” and requested them not to be offended that he used a paper to refresh his memory, being so much wasted by long sickness and the malice of physicians. He then read audibly, first from the one side and then from the other, a short speech that he had hurriedly written—what he had composed at length and intended for his testimony having been taken from him. It commenced with a general confession of his sins and shortcomings in prosecuting the best pieces of work and service to the Lord and to his generation, and that through temptation he had been carried to so great a length, in compliance with the late usurpers, after having so seriously and frequently made professions of aversion to their way; “for all which,” he added, “as I seek God’s mercy in Christ Jesus, so I desire that the Lord’s people may, from my example, be the more stirred up to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation.”

He then bare record to the glory of God’s free grace and of his reconciled mercy through Christ Jesus—left “an honest testimony to the whole covenanted work of reformation”—and expressed his lively expectation of God’s gracious and wonderful renewing and reviving all his former great interests in these nations, particularly Scotland—yea, dear Scotland! He recommended his poor afflicted wife and children to the choicest blessings of God and the prayers and favours of his servants—prayed for repentance and forgiveness to his enemies—for the king, and blessings upon him and his posterity, that they might be surrounded with good and faithful councillors, and follow holy and wise councils to the glory of God and the welfare of the people. He concluded by committing himself, soul and body, his relations, friends, the sympathizing and suffering witnesses of the Lord, to his choice mercies and service in earth and heaven, in time and through eternity:—“All which suits, with all others which he hath at any time by his spirit moved and assisted me to make, and put up according to his will, I leave before the throne, and upon the Father’s merciful bowels, the Son’s mediating merits, and the Holy Spirit’s compassionating groans, for now and for ever!”