"They are surely not trifles, for they overturned his father's throne, and are shaking his own," replied Aberdeen, emphatically. "Pray, have you heard any thing of Argyle lately?"
"O yes," exclaimed Perth, merrily; "a capital story. He has got in with a rich burgomaster's frow at Amsterdam; and she has guilders anew to indemnify him for the loss of half the Highlands."
"Aye," replied Aberdeen, "I do not like that; for there has been of late a flocking of the presbyterian malcontents to Holland, and the Prince of Orange gives them a better reception than an honest man should do, standing as he does, both with respect to the crown and the Duke. This, take my word for it, Perth, is not a thing to be laughed at."
"All that, Aberdeen, only shows the necessity of exterminating these cursed presbyterians. We shall have no peace in Scotland till they are swept clean away. It is not to be endured that a King shall not rule his own kingdom as he pleases. How would Argyle, and there was no man prouder in his jurisdictions, have liked had his tenants covenanted against him as the presbyterians have so insultingly done against his Majesty's government? Let every man bring the question home to his own business and bosom and the answer will be a short one, Down with the presbyterians!"
While they were thus speaking, and I need not advert to what passed in my breast as I overheard them, Patterson the Bishop of Edinburgh came in; and with many interjections, mingled with wishes for a calm procedure, he told the Lords of our escape. He was indeed, to do him justice, a man of some repute for plausibility, and take him all in all for a prelate, he was, in truth, not void of the charities of human nature, compared with others of his sect.
"Your news," said the Lord Perth to him, "does not surprise me. The societies, as the Cameronians are called, have inserted their roots and feelers every where. Rely upon't, Bishop Patterson, that, unless we chop off the whole connexions of the conspiracy, you can hope neither for homage nor reverence in your appointments."
"I could wish," replied the Bishop, "that some experiment were made of a gentler course than has hitherto been tried. It is now a long time since force was first employed: perhaps, were his Royal Highness to slacken the severities, conformity would lose some of its terrors in the eyes of the misguided presbyterians; at all events, a more lenient policy could do no harm; and if it did no good, it would at least be free from those imputed cruelties, which are supposed to justify the long-continued resistance that has brought the royal authority into such difficulties."
At this juncture of their conversation a gentleman announced, that his master was ready to proceed with them to the palace, and they forthwith retired. Thus did I obtain a glimpse of the inner mind of the Privy Council, by which I clearly saw, that what with those members who satisfied their consciences as to iniquity, because it was made seemingly lawful by human statutes, and what with those who, like Lord Perth, considered the kingdom the King's estate, and the people his tenantry, not the subjects of laws by which he was bound as much as they; together with those others who, like the Bishop, considered mercy and justice as expedients of state policy, that there was no hope for the peace and religious liberties of the presbyterians, merely by resistance; and I, from that time, began to think it was only through the instrumentality of the Prince of Orange, then heir-presumptive to the crown, failing James Stuart, Duke of York, that my vow could be effectually brought to pass.