The matter being deferred for some days, till the king returned from Aberdeen, in the mean time the two ministers were confined to Perth and Dundee, whereupon they (Feb. 28.) presented another paper or protestation[105], which was much the same, though in stronger terms, and supported by many excellent arguments. After this the king and committee thought proper to dismiss them, and to proceed no farther in the affair at present, and yet Mr. Guthrie's declining the king's authority in matters ecclesiastical here, was made the principal article in his indictment some ten years after, to give way to a personal pique Middleton had against this good man, the occasion of which is as follows:
By improving an affront the king met with anno 1659, some malignants about him so prevailed to heighten his fears of the evil designs of those about him, that by a correspondence with the papists, malignants, and such as were disaffected to the covenants in the north, matters came in a little to such a pass, that a considerable number of noblemen, gentlemen, and others were to rise and form themselves into an army under Middleton's command, and the king was to cast himself into their arms, &c. Accordingly the king with a few in his retinue, as if he were going a-hunting, left his best friends, crossed the Tay, and came to Angus, where he was to have met with those people, but soon finding himself disappointed, he came back to the committee of estates, where indeed his greatest strength lay. In the meanwhile several who had been in the plot fearing punishment, got together under Middleton's command. General Leslie marched towards them, and the king wrote to them to lay down their arms. The committee sent an indemnity to such as should submit, and while the dates were thus dealing with them, the commission of the assembly were not wanting to shew their zeal against such as ventured to disturb the public peace, and it is said that Mr. Guthrie here proposed summary excommunication, as a censure Middleton deserved, and as what he thought to be a suitable testimony from the church at this juncture. This highest sentence was carried in the commission by a plurality of votes, and Mr. Guthrie was appointed the next sabbath to pronounce the sentence. In the mean time the committee of estates (not without some debates) had agreed upon an indemnity to Middleton.—There was an express sent to Stirling with an account how things stood, and a letter desiring Mr. Guthrie to forbear the intimation of the commission's sentence. But this letter coming to him just as he was going to the pulpit, he did not open it till the work was over, and though he had, it is a question if he would have delayed the commission's sentence upon a private missive to himself. However the sentence was inflicted, and although the commission of the church Jan. 3, 1651. (being their next meeting) did relax Middleton from that censure, (and laid it on a better man, col. Strachan[106]) yet it is believed Middleton never forgave or forgot what Mr. Guthrie did upon that day, as will afterward be made more fully to appear.
Mr. Guthrie about this time wrote several of the papers upon the protestors side, for which, and his faithfulness, he was one of those three who were deposed by the pretended assembly at St. Andrews 1657. Yea, such was the malice of these woeful resolutioners, that upon his refusal of one of that party, and accession to the call of Mr. Rule, to be his colleague at Stirling (upon the death of Mr. Bennet anno 1656) they proceeded to stone this seer in Israel with stones, his testimony while alive so tormented the men who dwell upon the earth.
And as Mr. Guthrie did faithfully testify against the resolutioners and the malignant party, so he did equally oppose himself to the sectaries and to Cromwell's usurpation; and although he went up to London anno 1657, when the marquis of Argyle procured an equal hearing betwixt the protestors and the resolutioners, yet he so boldly defended the king's right in public debate with Hugh Peters, Oliver's chaplain, and from the pulpit asserted the king's title in the face of the English officers, as was surprizing to all gainsayers. Yet for this and other hardships that he endured on this account, at this time, he was but sorrily rewarded, as by and by will come to be observed.
Very soon after the restoration, while Mr. Guthrie and some other of his faithful brethren (who assembled at Edinburgh) were drawing up a paper, Aug. 23d, in way of supplication to his majesty, they were all apprehended (except one who happily escaped) and imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, and from thence Mr. Guthrie was taken to Stirling castle (the author of the apologetical relation says to Dundee), where he continued till a little before his trial, which was upon the 20th of February, 1661. When he came to his trial, the chancellor told him, He was called before them to answer to the charge of high treason, (a copy of which charge he had received some weeks before) and the lord advocate proposed, his indictment should be read; which the house went into: The heads of which were:
(1.) His contriving, consenting to, and exhibiting before the committee of estates, the paper called, The western remonstrance.
(2.) His contriving, writing and publishing that abominable pamphlet, called, the causes of the Lord's wrath.
(3.) His contriving, writing and subscribing the paper called the humble petition[107] of the twenty-third of August last.
(4.) His convocating of the king's lieges, &c.
(5.) His declaring his majesty, by his appeals and protestations presented by him at Perth, incapable to be judge over him. And,