Great was the chagrin of the regular clergy at the breaking up of the Highland host. The gospel itself, they said, would depart from the district along with it; for they themselves might leave their parishes whenever they were removed, unless garrisons were settled among them. Garrisons were accordingly appointed; one hundred and twenty foot and forty horse in Blairquhan; fifty foot and ten horse in Barskimming; and as many in Cessnock. But these were deemed insufficient by the presbytery of Ayr, who, seemingly taking fresh alarm at the Earl of Cassilis’ visit to the capital, wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, February 28, transmitting to his Grace “their humble opinions of several occurrences. 1st, The great and leading men of this country,” say they, “are all gone into Edinburgh, and expect to be sheltered there; therefore it is fit they be severely dealt with, sought after, and forced to obedience, otherwise the commonalty, who absolutely depend upon them, will never be brought to conformity. 2dly, The indulged ministers must be stinted of their liberty, and some new tie laid upon them, or they absolutely removed; for let people say what they will, most of these disorders flow from them. 3dly, That the leading men of this country now at Edinburgh be not protected by the council, but taken and sent hither; for the committee think their credit highly concerned in it, if after they have been at the pains of prosecuting them this length the council do protect them, it will be a great discouragement to them in their procedure for the future. 4thly, The garrisons appointed here are but three, and too weakly manned, and they are too far from the heart of the shire, and it will be fit two hundred men be left in garrison at Ayr. This is the opinion of your Grace’s most humble and obedient sons in the Lord.”
Roused by this appeal, the archbishop immediately set out to court, carrying with him an address from his subalterns to the same effect—breathing out the same spirit of intolerant and unfounded accusation of the brethren; and, by a species of unblushing falsification, reproaching as persecutors the very men they themselves were persecuting. It is a perfect specimen of jesuitism:—“May it please your most Sacred Majesty: The danger this church is exposed unto in the present circumstances, which are such as threaten the dissolution thereof, hath necessitated us in the discharge of our duty, to desire the Lord Archbishop of Glasgow humbly to address your royal presence, and to offer unto your princely consideration, how inconsistent the violent and irregular courses of those who rent the church, (and prosecute us for no other reason but that of our absolute and entire dependence on your majesty’s authority,) are, with the rights and interests of your majesty’s crown and government, as well as with the safety of your people, and the reverence due to religion, for no other end but that your majesty’s authority may be vindicated and rescued from the persecution of the open disturbers of the church and their abettors, who, for their own ends, endeavour to constrain the people, and to debauch them equally from their loyalty as their religion.” The council had the full countenance of the king; yet still they do not seem to have felt entirely at ease. They therefore sent him a summary account of all their proceedings, with a request that he would grant them his explicit approbation, which they enforced, as they generally did their applications for his support in their extravagant measures, by recalling to his remembrance the steps which had led to the late execrable rebellion, and working upon his fears by marking a resemblance between the present and those unhappy times; hinting, in conclusion, their suspicions that their political rivals were chiefly to be dreaded. “We are fully convinced that the meaner sort would not dare to appear in such open insolences, if they were not encouraged by persons of greater eminency, and who, by how much they are the more considerable, are so much the more to be jaloused: tumultuary rabbles being then only dangerous when they get a head, and when delusions in opinion mix themselves with faction and humorous opposition to authority.” His majesty immediately thanked them very heartily for their careful prosecution of what he had recommended, in calling in his forces and accepting the offers of the Highland noblemen, and expressed himself well pleased that the bond should be offered to all persons and magistrates within the ancient kingdom without exception, approved of the law-burrows and the settled garrisons, and declared that his approbation should have the force of an absolute indemnity and letter of thanks to all in any way concerned in the late expedition to the west, in council, committee, or execution, having very good reason to consider the same as special and necessary service.
Notwithstanding his knowledge of this ample approval given by the king to his council, and fully aware of the dangerous ground upon which he stood, the Earl of Cassilis, with a noble boldness, delivered in writing, under his hand, a true state of his case, March 28, an attested copy of which was sent down by express to the council. A few days after its receipt, they dispatched a long reply, in which they denied the facts, and endeavoured to confute the arguments of his lordship; but craved from his majesty’s justice that the Earl, who had contemned his royal proclamation, and charged his privy council with crimes of so high a nature, might be sent down prisoner to be tried and judged according to law.
Affairs in England at this time did not admit of such prompt measures. The Scottish patriot had engaged some of the English in his cause, who sympathized with his sufferings and those of his country, and the king also, influenced by his favourite Monmouth, either felt or pretended to feel some commiseration. Cassilis was not sent down. The council were still further mortified by the defection of two of the leading nobles, the Marquis of Atholl and the Earl of Perth, when they returned from the west. They not only did not concur in the severe methods going forward, but from what they had observed of the peaceable conduct of the Presbyterians, and the information they had received from some of the noblemen, they could not continue to lend their countenance to the severities so unreasonably exercised against them; nor could they avoid showing their displeasure at the violence of the prelates, so that they were openly accused of favouring conventicles, which now began to multiply in the north and among the Highlands of Perthshire, where they had not formerly been wont to be heard of; and the Bishop of Galloway, who had been sorely annoyed with them, in a visit he had lately paid to that quarter, thus complained to the Lord Register:—“I am surprised to hear of the great and insolent field-conventicles in Perthshire, it being as much influenced by the Marquis of Atholl’s example, as directed by his authority. There is, besides many others, a constant field-conventicle now settled in the confines of some parishes, Methven, Gask, Tippermuir, and another, where it is marvelled that many observe several shoals of Highlanders in their trews, and many bare-legged, flocking thither to propagate the mischief of ‘the good old cause.’ It is to good men no small discouragement that a shire, under the influence and conduct of the Marquis of Atholl and the Earl of Perth, who say they are true sons of the church, should (being formerly orderly and obedient to the laws) become so turbulent and schismatical, especially since the Marquis is sheriff-principal, and one altogether devoted to his lordship is sheriff-depute, of that shire, in whose hands is placed the power to punish and suppress these disorders.”
So far had the expedient of letting loose a band of mountaineers upon the west failed in answering the end proposed by the prelates, that the devastations they had committed, had raised the indignation of many of the nobility and country gentlemen, who were indifferent to religious modes of worship, and averse to all disputes about them; but having heard of the success of the Earl of Cassilis, determined, as they were denied any redress in Scotland, to lay their grievances before the king in person. Accordingly, about the end of March, the Duke of Hamilton, accompanied by the Earls of Roxburgh, Haddington, Loudon, and others—in all about sixteen lords, together with Lieutenant-General Drummond, and upwards of forty of the principal proprietors, breaking through the prohibition, repaired to London; and what was most distressing to the prelates, the Marquis of Atholl and the Earl of Perth, who had been members of the committee of the privy council in the west, likewise went thither.[[101]]
[101]. When these two noblemen, with their servants and some gentlemen, were upon their road in Annandale, they lost their way; and it being late, the two noblemen were obliged to shelter in a cottage in that country. The people having heard somewhat of their errand in going up, were extremely kind to them, wishing them heartily success. When they could not get their horses under lock and key, or perhaps to any house, the noblemen appeared concerned for them, lest they should be stolen, having heard Annandale spoken of for stealing of horses; but the country people told them they were in no hazard, there was no thieving among them since the field-preaching came into that country, and talked of many other branches of reformation wrought among them by Mr Welsh and other preachers. Wodrow, vol. i. p. 507.—Kirkton, from whom Wodrow has borrowed this pleasant little anecdote, adds, “the poor country people talked to the noblemen’s great admiration for the time, but it brought forth but small fruit.” Hist. p. 239.
At first the king would only permit Atholl and Perth to approach his person—the others he refused to see, because they had left Scotland in contempt of a proclamation; but their representation of the mad projects going forward there, made him conclude that certainly Lauderdale’s head was turned; yet neither would he allow him to be blamed, or admit that he had done any thing detrimental to his service. But as he professed his intention of setting the Duke of Monmouth at the head of the Scottish government, he allowed him to act as mediator upon this occasion, and they were at last admitted into the royal presence; the more readily perhaps, as their visit had begun to make a great noise and awakened the jealousy of the English parliament now sitting;—who imagined they saw, in the management of the sister kingdom, a specimen of what they themselves might expect whenever circumtances would permit, and anticipated their own subjection, should Charles establish a despotism there, especially as the Duke of York, whose papistical principles were now openly professed, strongly abetted the cause of the Scottish Episcopal church—a church that gloried in being the daughter of the church of Rome by true lineal descent in the uninterrupted apostolical succession of her bishops,[[102]] and who equalled her in the antichristian persecuting spirit of her priests.
[102]. This was always strenuously contended for by the old non-jurants, who only lately died out here; but is apparently reviving in the Puseyites.
Alarmed at the departure of so many influential personages for London, and at receiving no reply to their former letter, the privy council dispatched the Earl of Murray and Lord Collington to counteract the efforts of their opponents, and carry another epistle to his majesty, complaining of the conduct of those persons, “who, instead of concurring with them, which as sheriffs, and enjoying other responsible offices, they should have done, had, with much noise and observation, gone to England without seeking their license; but they, with humble confidence, expected that his majesty, by his princely care and prudence, would discourage all such endeavours as tended to enervate his royal authority and affront his privy council; and they referred his majesty to their messengers, two of their own number, men of known integrity and ability, who could give him an exact account of what had passed, and resolve such doubts as might occur to the royal mind, which could not be settled so well by letters, and confute such unworthy mis-reports as were raised by others who have choosed a time when his majesty was likely to be engaged in a foreign war, and had assembled his parliament of England.”
After these deputies had reached London, and the various statements of the different parties had been laid before the king, a message was received by the council from him, announcing “that he had considered some representations made by some of his subjects anent the late methods with the west country, with the answers made thereunto and replies, which so fortified the representations, that he resolved to hear and consider things fully, and, in the meantime, commanded that the bond and law-burrows be suspended till his further pleasure be sent, and that all the forces, except his own guards, be immediately disbanded.” Astonished at receiving such a command, when they expected to have got Cassilis sent down prisoner as they had requested, they could not conceal their disappointment and chagrin. In a reply which they transmitted by Sir George Mackenzie, who was instantly sent off to aid in advocating their cause, they say—“You know how much all were inclined to give the council ready obedience till these noblemen interested themselves in the phanatical quarrel; how ready all were to concur in assisting his majesty both with their own tenants and militia; and, which is very remarkable, how ready the gentry and heritors in every shire were to rise, between sixty and sixteen, which, in shewing how all ways were taken and owned for assisting the royal authority, did strike a just terror in all those who were refractory; whereas now, the numbers and humorousness of those who are gone up has done all they could to loose all the foundations of authority here to such a height, as will soon grow above correction, if it be not speedily, vigorously, and openly adverted to by his majesty.”