He had already offered a price for mercy by promising to communicate "somewhat that would highly concern his Majesty's service."
Even those to whom his actions and his character have no attraction, must acknowledge that in these words Argyle advances no undignified appeal. Whether Clarendon would have aided that appeal it is impossible to say. Argyle's power, he might not unreasonably have judged, would have been incompatible with any settlement leaving adequate authority to the Crown. But however that might have been, Clarendon's intervention was never called for. Within forty-eight hours of the sentence of a court in which the influence of his enemies was dominant, and before there was time to appeal to London, Argyle was executed. Montrose was avenged; and just as his greatest rival fell, his own scattered quarters were gathered from the ports where they had been exposed, and buried in an honoured grave. The two great protagonists were gone, and Clarendon had to manage Scottish affairs through lesser men.
In that task he was handicapped by one serious disadvantage—his own absolute ignorance of the country and its conditions, and as its natural consequence an impenetrable lack of sympathy. To him Scotland was simply the home of deep-rooted and obstinate rebellion. Her Church represented to Clarendon the sternest and most repulsive form of Presbyterianism, the very antithesis of all Clarendon's ecclesiastical ideals. The national character was to him a mere amalgam of obstinacy and unblushing treachery. Her territorial nobility were to him a selfish caste, who had bargained away all their real influence over their countrymen in their greedy race after plunder. Their religious zeal was to him—and that on no mistaken grounds—merely a hypocritical cloak for coarse and besotted profligacy, not less vicious and much more degraded than the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion—such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial and distant observer there was not a little which justified such a judgment; and in the case of Clarendon it was buttressed by a solid mass of honest, however perverse, prejudice.
The agents in the Government of Scotland were the Earl of Middleton, Lord Commissioner; the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Rothes, President of the Council; the Earl of Crawford, Lord Treasurer; the Earl of Lauderdale, Secretary of State; and Sir Archibald Primrose, Lord Register. They were split into two bitterly opposed factions, that of the older Royalists, and that of more recent adherents, who were tainted with suspicions of intractability at once in Church and State. The first was led by Middleton; and he was no match in dexterity for Lauderdale, who led the opposite party. Clarendon had to manage an ill-harnessed team. By sympathy and former friendship he was inclined to the older Royalists; but he often found them untrustworthy agents. And we must remember that in English politics he was by no means of opinion that the King should look with suspicion on recent converts.
The first question to be settled was that of Indemnity. No previous stipulation prescribed it; but Clarendon was too shrewd not to perceive the certain ill-consequences of a terrorism of vengeance. The influence that chiefly worked against any complete Indemnity was the ignoble desire of those in power to profit by the slower process of forfeitures. Lauderdale did all he could to push forward a settlement of the terms of Indemnity; Middleton and his adherents delayed it, and endeavoured to compound with delinquents in a spirit of barefaced huckstering. A second question related to the maintenance of the English garrisons in Scotland. As a curb upon the national spirit of rebellion, Clarendon thought that, although they were monuments of Cromwellian rule, the garrisons were essential. He did all he could to maintain them; but Lauderdale was able to carry the King with him in their abolition on the plea of their injury to national pride, and their certain result in national discontent, and Clarendon's advice was set aside. The popularity which thereby resulted was a strong asset in Lauderdale's favour.
A question of even more importance was that of the method of administration. Although the Scottish Parliament was restored, Clarendon was no favourer of unrestricted Home Rule, and rightly discerned its dangers at once to the Crown and to responsible Government. He insisted that the Committee of Privy Council, which dealt with Scotland, should meet in London, and that six English Privy Councillors should be members of it. Here, again, it was an easy matter for Lauderdale to urge the offence that would thus be given to Scottish feelings. His real motive for resistance was the curb that would thus be placed on that power which he was plotting to engross in his own hands. Had it been preserved, that council would have formed a defence of Scottish liberties; its tincture of impartial statesmanship would have checked the growth of the petty local tyrants, and limited their influence. For two or three years Clarendon was able to maintain this independent council; it was only when his vigilance failed, and when his attention was otherwise engaged, that Lauderdale's pertinacity was rewarded, and a pernicious system of local tyranny admitted. [Footnote: It is not unimportant to note that even Burnet's Scottish sympathies and confirmed Whiggism did not prevent his outspoken preference for Clarendon's plan over that of Lauderdale.]
But the central point of combat was that regarding the restoration of the Episcopal form. It was only natural that Clarendon, from his own tastes and traditions, as well as from the memory of his first master's desires, should have placed this object first. Even at Breda, Sharp—afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews—had obtained audience of Clarendon, and as the accredited agent of Middleton and Glencairn, had shown a readiness to transfer his own allegiance from Presbyterianism to Episcopacy. Clarendon's sympathy led him to give to Sharp a trust that was little merited, and he became, through Sharp's means, involved in an intricate maze of double-dealing which sought to lull the suspicions of the Presbyterians to sleep, while secretly paving the way for a complete Episcopal restoration. Sharp's dominating motive was unabashed personal ambition. He was ready to make compromising concessions in points of principle, in order to obtain the outward recognition of Episcopacy, and the re-establishment of the Episcopal sees. Clarendon knew well, from old experience, the danger of exciting national susceptibilities, and was wise enough to urge caution to his subordinates; but cautious and wary statesmanship was the last thing to be expected from the double dealing of Sharp, or in the drunken counsels of Middleton and his adherents.
Meanwhile Lauderdale, while he did not hesitate to decry the Covenant, and to make eager profession of his own recantation of its bigotry, urged that no premature steps should be taken for restoring Episcopacy. That it would come in time he had no doubt; but it would be the height of folly to arouse susceptibilities that might easily be soothed by cautious dealing into a peaceable acceptance of the ecclesiastical forms that were approved at Court.
[Illustration: JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF LAUDERDALE. (From the original by
Sir Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery.)]
But Middleton and his adherents were now determined to carry matters with a high hand. Clarendon must have chafed to see a policy, with which in general he agreed, pressed with a recklessness that was certain to defeat itself. An Act was passed rescinding at one stroke all Acts passed since 1633. Burnet's phrase about it is, for once, scarcely too strong. "It was a most extravagant Act, and only fit to be concluded after a drunken bout." In that it agreed only too closely with other projects devised by Middleton and his convivial band. Lauderdale protested; and this time, if we are to believe Burnet, Clarendon found himself obliged to side with the Scottish Minister whom he most profoundly suspected.