From Hebron now the suffering heir returned,
A realm that long with civil discord mourned;
Till his approach, like some arriving god,
Composed and healed the place of his abode.—P. [343.]
In some respects, the presence of the Duke of York in Scotland was very acceptable to the nobles and gentry of that kingdom. There is, among Somers' Tracts, a letter from a person of quality in Scotland, who professes, that, although a zealous Protestant, he had been converted from his opinion in favour of the Bill of Exclusion, by "the personal knowledge of his very many excellencies and virtues." Doubtless, many circumstances drew the Scots to the faction and favour of the Duke. They saw the halls of their ancient palace again graced with the appearance of royalty, and occupied by a descendant of their long line of kings. The formal, grave, and stately decorum of James, was more suitable to the manners of a proud, reserved, and somewhat pedantic people, than the lighter manners of Charles. The proud, as well as the ingenious, know, and feel, the value of favours conferred by those who resemble them. York applied himself particularly to secure the personal attachment of the Highland chiefs, and to staunch the feuds by which their clans were divided. He, no doubt, reckoned upon the assistance of these ready warriors, in case the sword had been drawn in England; but he little foresaw, that the last hopes of his family were to depend on the generous attachment of the descendants of the chieftains whom he then cultivated, and that his race were to involve in their fall the ruin of the patriarchal and feudal power of these faithful adherents. But if the conduct of James in these particulars was laudable, on the other hand, by introducing an inconsistent and absurd test into the law, by making it the means of ruining a loyal and innocent nobleman, the Earl of Argyle, by satiating his own eyes with the tortures inflicted on the Covenanters,—he gave tokens of that ill-judged and bigotted severity, which was the cause of his being precipitated from the throne. Settle gives a juster, if a less poetical, account of the manner in which he spent his exile:
Whilst sweating Absalon, in Israel pent,
For fresher air was to bleak Hebron sent,—
Cold Hebron, warmed by his approaching sight,
Flushed with his gold, and glowed with new delight,—