Several conferences took place between Leighton and Mr Hutchison’s small party; but the utmost the latter could be brought to concede, was, to consent to the appointment of the bishops as perpetual presidents or constant moderators in their synods and presbyteries, which being no divine institution, it was thought the king might be allowed to appoint, but they required the resumption of assemblies and the legal recognition of all the essential parts of Presbyterian church government—a proposal which met the approbation of no party. The prelates saw in the loss of their negative voice in the courts, a relinquishing of a main pillar of Episcopacy; while the more consistent Presbyterians affirmed that, to allow the royal nomination of a perpetual president, was laying a foundation for again rearing, when times should prove more propitious, the prelatic power.
Thus the conferences broke up; and, as usual in all such cases, the ineffectual endeavours to procure peace, tended greatly to imbitter the war. Some, however, refused to conform to the present establishment upon higher and more scriptural grounds. They had observed that popery and profanity always increased where conformity prevailed, and that the Lord had stamped this mark of his displeasure upon prelacy, that under it truth and godliness had ever sensibly decayed. They therefore rejected all fellowship with it, as a plant which man, and not God, had planted; and they refused to hold communion in church government with those who, by their carelessness and negligence, were the destroyers of his holy mountain, and laid his vineyard waste—who had been thrust into the oversight of charges whence many had been cast out, whom the Lord had made polished shafts in his own right hand for gaining souls to Christ.[[72]]
[72]. Mr Menzies, minister of Carlaverock, who had conformed, withdrew this year from the bishop’s presbytery of Dumfries, and gave in a testimony to this effect.
[1671.] Where the fundamental principles of parties in religion are opposite, it is vain to expect that public disputation will reconcile them. The Presbyterians have ever held that Jesus Christ is the supreme Head, King, and Lawgiver of his church, with whose statutes, ordinances, and appointments no earthly power has a right to interfere; and however this principle may have been obscured by circumstances, or how much soever it may have been misrepresented by enemies, or misunderstood by ill-informed friends, it was the principle for which these excellent men, who were now accounted too rigid, earnestly contended, and which, when they came to die, they were anxious should be fully cleared as the ground of their sufferings. The Scottish Episcopalians owned the supremacy of the king, their whole system was based upon his prerogative, and they acknowledged his power to model the government of the house of God according to his pleasure.
Leighton had attempted a compromise between these two abhorrent opinions, and, had not their self-interest opposed, it is evident the latter could offer no argument for non-compliance with a royal mandate for conciliation; while the former, without violating their conscience, could not advance a step upon such ground. When they separated, however, upon this distinct, palpable, and, so long as each retained their principles, irremediable cause of difference, the Presbyterians were represented as obstinate, unreasonable men, full of an entangled scrupulosity; and the privy council, immediately ordered their act requiring all the indulged ministers to attend the bishops’ presbyterial meetings, under the penalty of being straitly confined within the limits of the parishes where they preached, to be strictly enforced; nor dared they visit a dying parent, although not a mile distant, without special leave asked and granted from that arbitrary court. To add to the hardship of this imprisonment, their salaries were very irregularly paid, and their applications so violently opposed by the primate, that it was with difficulty, and after in some cases a twelvemonth’s delay, an order could be obtained upon the collector of the vacant stipends.
The observation of the anniversary of the king’s birth-day was anew rigidly enjoined, and the sheriffs required to see that the council’s act forbidding lecturing was obeyed, and that the names of such as contravened should be sent to them. A committee, at the head of which stood the Archbishop of St Andrews, was next appointed, to consider what further could be done to suppress conventicles, and to see that the militia did not neglect their duty in preventing or dispersing these hated assemblies, or in apprehending and bringing to condign punishment all who should countenance such atrocities! In order to render offenders still more inexcusable, the patrons in the west were recommended to use all diligence to get their churches planted with able and godly ministers, but they were either unable or unwilling to comply; and, in the month of July, the affair was turned over to the bishops, who provided incumbents, which inflamed the evil; for, instead of decreasing, the obnoxious meetings multiplied.
Linlithgowshire, Fife, and the Lothians were especially infected; and, during the present year, the most remarkable conventicles appear to have been held immediately in the vicinity of the primate’s dwelling, not far distant from Linlithgow Palace, and in the muirs of Livingstone, Bathgate, Calder, and Torphichen. The Duke of Hamilton’s factor at Kinniel, who acted likewise as baron-bailie, was favourable, and by his connivance Mr Blackadder frequently visited the seaport town of Borrowstownness or its vicinity, where, many years after, the effects of his and his brethrens’ preaching were felt.
Implacably bent against the “outted” ministers, the prelates would neither allow them to obey their consciences actively nor passively. If they preached, prayed, or exhorted, beyond the bounds of their own families, they were persecuted as the most obnoxious pests of society. If they remained at home and refrained from these duties, if they did not attend the parish church regularly with their families, they were complained of as disobedient, and the sheriffs were ordered by the council to commit them to prison. Yet, notwithstanding, “at that time,” Mr Fraser of Brae remarks, “the church of Christ had great rest and liberty from persecution, through variance among the statesmen;” so highly was a short respite from actual suffering then esteemed, though loaded with heavy, and what would now be reckoned intolerable, burdens.
The variance referred to was a quarrel between Lauderdale and those who had assisted him in overturning his former opponents, whom he now rewarded with the usual gratitude of politicians, by procuring their dismissal from office as soon as he found them stand in the way of his own advancement. When he sacrificed his religion upon the altar of ambition, he threw his morality into the same fire; and, according to the fashion of the court, lived in open adultery. Lady Dysart, the prostitute with whom he cohabited, and, upon the death of his lady, soon after [1672] married, was remarkable in her day for personal beauty and fascinating manners, joined to unfeeling rapacity and cruel extravagance; and her influence completed a dreadful revolution in his character, already depraved by his prosperous career as a courtier. She caused him to separate from the only portion of his confidential friends who had the courage to oppose his violence, or the virtue to attempt it; and when Sir Robert Murray and Tweeddale were now removed from the direction of public affairs, all decency and moderation soon followed. Together with a few of his devoted creatures, he engrossed every place of importance in the country. In his own person, he held the offices of Commissioner, President of the Council, a Lord of the Treasury and of the Session, Agent at Court for the royal burghs, Captain of the Castle, and Captain of the Bass[[73]]—a high insulated rock at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, now converted into a state prison. His brother, Hatton, was Treasurer, Depute-General of the Mint, and Lord of Session; Atholl, Justice-General and Privy Seal; Kincardine, Admiral of Scotland; Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, President of the Court of Session; and Lockhart of Lee, Lord Justice-Clerk.
[73]. “åThe Bass is a very high rock in the sea, two miles distant from the nearest point of the land which is south of it; covered it is with grass on the uppermost parts thereof, where is a garden where herbs grow, with some cherrytrees, of the fruit of which I several times tasted, below which garden there is a chapel for divine service; but, in regard no minister was allowed for it, the ammunition of the garrison was kept therein. Landing here is very difficult and dangerous; for, if any storm blow, ye cannot enter because of the violence of the swelling waves, which beat with a wonderful noise upon the rock, and sometimes in such a violent manner, that the broken waves reverberating on the rock with a mighty force, have come up over the walls of the garrison on the court before the prisoners’ chambers, which is above twenty cubits height. And with a full sea must you land; or, if it be ebb, you must be either craned up, or climb with hands and feet up some steps artificially made on the rock, and must have helps besides of these who are on the top of the rock, who pull you up by the hand. Nor is there any place of landing but one about the whole rock, which is of circumference some three quarters of a mile; here you may land in a fair day and full sea without great hazard, the rest of it on every side being so high and steep. Only on the south side thereof, the rock falls a little level, where you ascend several steps till you come to the Governor’s house, and from that some steps higher you ascend to a level court, where a house for prisoners and soldiers is; whence likewise, by windings cut out of the rock, there is a path which leads you to the top of the rock, whose height doth bear off all north, east, and west storms, lying open only to the south; and on the uppermost parts of the rock there is grass sufficient to feed twenty or twenty-four sheep, who are there very fat and good. In these uppermost parts of the rock were sundry walks of some threescore feet length, and some very solitary, where we sometimes entertained ourselves. The accessible places were defended with several walls and cannon placed on them, which compassed only the south parts. The rest of the rock is defended by nature, by the huge height and steepness of the rock, being some forty cubits high in the lowest place. It was a part of a country gentleman’s inheritance, which falling from hand to hand, and changing many masters, it was at last bought by the king, who repaired the old houses and walls, and built some new houses for prisoners; and a garrison of twenty or twenty-four soldiers therein are sufficient, if couragious, to defend it from millions of men, and only expugnable by hunger. ’tis commanded by a Lieutenant, who does reap thereby some considerable profit, which, besides his pay, may be one hundred pounds a year and better. There is no fountain-water therein, and they are only served with rain that falls out of the clouds, and is preserved in some hollow caverns digged out of the rock. Their drink and provisions are carried from the other side by a boat, which only waits on the garrison, and hath a salary of six pounds yearly for keeping up the same, besides what they get of these persons that come either to see the prisoners, or are curious to see the garrison. Here fowls of every sort are to be found, who build in the clifts of the rock, the most considerable of which is the solan goose, whose young, well fledged, ready to fly, are taken, and yield near one hundred pounds yearly, and might be much more, were they carefully improved.” Mem. of Fraser of Brea, pp. 298-300.