While the council were thus urging the pecuniary processes, in order more vigorously to incite their already too willing agents, they warranted the sheriffs, bailies of regalities, and other inferior officers, to appropriate to themselves the fines levied from all persons below the degree of an heritor; and, for those of heritors, they were to reckon with them. Of the extent of these exactions, no proper account remains; but as several of the soldiers received large donations, the sums must have been considerable; and the persecutions were chiefly carried on against those who could pay. In cases where the under-officials were remiss, “the committee for public affairs,” who were always upon the alert, took the matter under their own cognizance. A conventicle having been kept at Culross, on a Sabbath about this time, was dispersed by the military, and eighteen persons sent to jail. The committee finding that some of them had been set at liberty without their permission, ordered the magistrates to call them all back to prison, and “condescended” upon the most substantial of them, whom they appointed the said magistrates to produce before the council within eight days, to be dealt with as they should deserve, i. e. fined according to their circumstances.
Besides its all-pervading inquisition abroad and at home, the prelatic despotism of Charles had a malignity peculiarly its own, that delighted to destroy the very profession of Presbyterianism. The wretched, or, as he has been designated, “the merry monarch,” used to say, Presbyterianism was not the religion of a gentleman. I cannot pretend to define the religion of a gentleman; but if his majesty’s were a specimen, the more dissimilar Presbyterianism was to it the better.[[86]]
[86]. Evelyn, certainly no Whig, gives the following description of a Sunday at court:—“I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God, it being Sunday, which this day se’enight I was witness of. The king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine. A French boy singing love songs in that glorious gallery, while about seventy of the great courtiers, and other dissolute persons, were at basset round a large table; a bank of at least £2000 in gold before them, upon which the gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment.” Mem. vol. i. p. 585.
To be grave and decorous in conduct, devout and consistent in religious observances, were considered as unequivocal marks of Whiggery and disloyalty. At this period a majority of the inhabitants of the Scottish Lowlands were so distinguished, particularly in the west and south-west; and these quarters coming more immediately in contact with the prelatists were more severely visited, as they were stanch to their principles, and zealous for their creed. There, therefore, the bitterest efforts of the government were directed.
Upon the 2d of August, a proclamation was issued for enforcing a bond, obliging the subscribers, with their wives, children, cottars, and servants, regularly to attend public worship in their parish churches, and not to be present at any conventicles, neither at any marriage or baptism, except such as were duly celebrated or administered by a regular incumbent, under the statutory penalties. A few days after, a commission was appointed to carry this act into execution. Immediately a very full meeting of the noblemen, gentlemen, and heritors of Ayrshire assembled, at which a representation was drawn up, refusing the bond, as requiring impossibilities; for they asserted the councillors themselves were unable to enforce compliances in their own families, and how did they expect plain country gentlemen to become bound for numbers over whom they could, in these matters, have no control? but they proposed an easier and surer expedient for preserving the peace of the country, and that was by extending and protecting the liberty of the Presbyterians. The council was highly displeased at this address; and the Earl of Loudon, by whom it was signed, was in consequence exposed to so many unpleasant attacks, that he went into voluntary exile, and died at Leyden. Clydesdale followed Ayrshire. The Duke of Hamilton opposed it; and the heritors of Lanarkshire, at a full meeting, unanimously agreed to decline the bond; even those who were not partial to Presbyterianism reprobated it, as fraught with ruin to their estates, seeing they could not promise for all their own families and servants at all times, much less for those of their tenants.
The vexations occasioned by the bond, added to the other severities, had spread so widely, that it was computed, before the end of this year (1677), about seventeen thousand persons, of every rank, sex, and age—from the noble to the cottar-servant, man, woman, and child—from the grey-headed veteran to the infant at the breast, who was forced to lodge with its intercommuned mother on the heath—had suffered, or were suffering every extremity for no crime but hearing the gospel, and worshipping their Maker according to their conscience.
Lauderdale having come down to Scotland with his Duchess, to get one of her daughters by her former husband married to Lord Lorn, afterwards first Duke of Argyle, the Presbyterian ministers in Glasgow, Paisley, Hamilton, and the neighbouring districts, thinking that when he came upon so joyous an occasion, he would be more susceptible of kindlier feelings, deputed Mr Matthew Crawford to proceed to Edinburgh and consult with their brethren there, to try if possible to get the sentence of intercommuning pronounced against so many of their faithful fellow-labourers annulled, and the prisoners on the Bass released. Mr Anthony Murray, a relation of the Duchess, who was employed to intercede with the Duke, obtained an interview, and urged his Grace to grant this their humble request; but all the answer he obtained was, “as for himself, he (Lauderdale) was ready to do him any kindness in his power, but he would grant no favour to that party, because they were unworthy of any.” Next council day, however, when several of the lords represented that pressing the bond would ruin their tenants and lay their lands waste, he seemed inclined to relax, and not only spoke about a third indulgence, but even intimated his desire for it to some of the ministers by Lord Melville; and commissioners were in consequence sent from several parts of the country to consult about a supplication to the king. No sooner did the two archbishops learn what was in agitation, than they vehemently assailed the Duke, complaining heavily of his concessions to their enemies; in reply, he assured them he had no intention of granting any liberty to non-conformists, only it was necessary to amuse them till he got a force raised sufficient to suppress them, as they were then too numerous to be rashly meddled with. The representations, however, which he had received, subscribed by so many respectable heritors, who could not be considered fanatics, were not to be altogether despised; and, in the month of October, the council enacted (Sir George Mackenzie, who had lately been admitted to be his majesty’s advocate, says upon his suggestion)[[87]]—that if any person who is cited be ready to depone or pay his fine, he be not troubled with taking of bonds or other engagements, the law itself being the strongest bond that can be exacted of any man; and all the expenses of process were to be remitted.
[87]. Mackenzie’s Hist. p. 322. Sir John Nisbet was turned off because he would not give the rapacious Duchess of Lauderdale a sum of money; and Sir George Mackenzie, whose memory was long execrated in Scotland as “the bloody Mackenzie,” was made king’s advocate, Sept. 7, this year. Primrose had been removed from the lucrative place of clerk-register by the same influence, and Sir Thomas Murray, a friend of her own, was nominally appointed; “but her Grace hade from him the profits of the place. To stop Sir Archibald’s mouth, they bestowed upon him the office of justice-general, and sore against his heart.” Kirkton’s Hist. p. 383.
Knowing well the unstable nature of their eminence, the prelates were tremblingly alive to whatever they imagined might shake it; and they instantly took the alarm at these equivocal symptoms of moderation, which they supposed had that tendency. Like others in later times, they commenced their attacks upon the liberty of the people, by endeavouring to work upon their fears. Rumours were spread of extensive conspiracies which had no existence, and terrible plots which no one had ever heard of but themselves. On the present occasion, an incidental scuffle gave some grounds for raising the cry of insurrection, and bringing in a host of barbarians to live at free quarters upon a peaceable population. Carstairs, elated by the nefarious premium which he had obtained for his infamous conduct towards Kirkton, and desirous of showing his gratitude to Sharpe, from whom he had his commission, redoubled his activity against the Presbyterians, and was guilty of numerous revolting atrocities in the eastern quarters of Fife. The heartless wretch had turned Lady Colville out of doors in the month of October, and forced her to wander houseless on the mountains and in the fields, at the risk of her life and to the great detriment of her health. He had imprisoned not a few respectable inhabitants; and, patrolling the district attended by some dozen vagabond concurrences,[[88]] without any other authority than the archbishop’s commission, under pretext of searching for the intercommuned persons, he broke into gentlemen’s houses, seized their horses, and was guilty of various plunderings, as also divers wanton outrages.
[88]. A concurrence—the lowest attendant upon messenger or sheriff-officers.