Nov.
The western clergy sought in their meetings to learn the cause of the heavy wrath which the Almighty was pouring out upon the land. ‘After long attendance, their resolutions ended in confusion, distraction, and division among themselves, prognosticating much more desolation on the land. Whilk did manifestly appear among all estates and ranks of people; for religion and justice being the twa pillars of the land, were houghed [tripped] and near drawn down.... There were no courts of justice, sic as the Secret Council, Session, and Exchequer sitting for the time. All our records and registers carried aff the kingdom to the Tower of London; the Lords of Council, Session, and Exchequer, with their clerks and members of court not daring [to] kythe[149] in their strength for the use of the lieges, but, for fear of the English armies, were forced to abandon themselves; for the whilk cause the people of the land were forced to suit justice frae the English governors and commanders. As for Edinburgh, there was no magistrate there, nor no common council since the fecht at Dunbar; and therefore all petitions and complaints went to the captain of Edinburgh Castle and governor of Leith, wha in effect (to speak truly) proceeded more equitably and conscientiously in justice nor our awn Scottish magistrates.’—Nic.
1651.
We hear about this time of a paper given in by ‘a godly Scot’ to the Commission of the Kirk, alleging that the causes of the evils of the country lay, among other things, in the undertaking of solemn engagements unwarranted by the word of God, in a fleshly zeal in carrying on of these obligations by cruel oppressions for the constraint of the unwilling, and the idolising of individuals and receiving doctrine from them implicitly.[150]
At this very time, a lively controversy was going on between Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, and the presbytery of Aberdeen, as to the title which the latter body assumed of controlling his spiritual interests. A quarrel had taken place between the parties regarding the settlement of an incumbent in Sir Alexander’s parish, and he had appealed from the power of the local court to the English commander, Colonel Overton—a proceeding which must have been deeply grievous to the presbytery. A sentence of excommunication having been consequently pronounced against the knight, he uttered a protest against it in animated terms. It proceeded, he said, ‘from men more full of fiery zeal to advance their own interests than the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ They had urged him by threats to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, ‘as gif it had been a matter of salvation for me to swear to establish by arms Presbyterian government in England.’ And not only would they have had him to forswear himself, but ‘they did urge with the like threatenings my wife and three young maids, my dochters, who, for their age and sex, are not capable of such politic theology.’ To make good their charge against him of being a papist—a ‘pretext to satisfy their restless ambition and execute their rage upon all who will not implicitly obey them’—they ‘enforced my servants to reveal upon oath what they saw, heard, or knew done in my house—beyond which no Turkish inquisition could pass.’ Sir Alexander, therefore, now appeared by procurator, declaring, ‘I separate myself from the discipline of presbytery, particularly that of Aberdeen, as a human invention that is destructive to the civil peace of Christians;’ further appealing them before Colonel Overton, or any other judge who shall be appointed by the English commissioners, ‘to hear yourselves censured and condignly punished for your open contempt of their authority, for your false slanders raised against me, and for your cruel proceedings and erring sentence of excommunication.’[151]
1651.
Whitelocke, in January 1652, quotes letters which speak of the ‘great pride and insolency of the presbyteries in Scotland,’ with particular reference to the Laird of Drum’s case. It is stated that the laird wrote a letter of thanks to Lieutenant-general Monk, ‘for relieving those who were oppressed in their consciences by the presbyteries.’ The Cromwellian army was on principle favourable to toleration, and adverse to all sorts of church-discipline. Monk was therefore ready to issue an order, ‘that no oaths should be imposed by any of the kirk-officers upon any person without order from the state of England, nor any covenant, and, if they do, that he will deal with them as enemies.... The provost and bailiffs of Aberdeen were to proclaim this.’
1651.
From a petition presented to the king after the Restoration by his son, the bitterness of Sir Alexander’s experiences throughout the troubles appears to have been much the same in character as that of which an example has been given in the case of Farquharson of Inverey. ‘His lands were the first of Scotland that were spoiled.’ He was ‘twice fined in £4000 sterling, his house of Drum four times garrisoned and at length totally plundered, and his wife and children turned out of doors.’[152] For five years his revenues were detained from him by ‘one Forbes’—doubtless the same minion to whom the government had committed the fining of old Inverey.[153] Another Aberdeenshire laird, Sir Gilbert Menzies of Pitfoddels, being really a Catholic, had come even worse off. Throughout the whole period of the troubles, not only were his lands taxed like those of his neighbours for the support of the Covenanting armies, but he suffered endless finings, quarterings, and repeated banishments, on account of his inability in personal sentiment to go along with the popular movement. It appears from a petition he presented after the Restoration, that fully £12,000 sterling had been extorted from his estate, leaving it greatly reduced in extent and ‘like to ruin;’ as a matter of course, he and his family had undergone the greatest poverty abroad, and in one of the flights made by his family from Scotland, his wife and one of his sons had perished in a storm at sea.[154] We obtain from these historiettes, which are but examples of a large class, some notion of the grounds of the charges brought by cavalier writers against the men who, in all sincerity, believed they were establishing the reign of Christ upon the earth. Trusting to force for the attainment of the ideal which they had placed before them, they stirred up a spirit which made their object only the more unattainable.