indul

gence.

1664-1681. not warned by the fate of Laud, procured the restoration of the Court of High Commission to enforce the laws against ecclesiastical offenders. Fines were imposed on all who absented themselves from their parish churches or attended the sermons of the deposed ministers. Sir James Turner was sent by the privy council to the western shires to prevent conventicles and field preaching and to enforce the law as to conformity; and his exactions, with the burden of maintaining his soldiers quartered upon all persons suspected of favouring the ousted ministers, led to risings in Galloway, Clydesdale, and Ayr. With their ministers and a few of the gentry at their head the Covenanters marched to Edinburgh, but were defeated at Rullion Green in the Pentlands by Dalziel, a Scottish officer whom Charles had recalled from the service of the czar. The executions which followed, and especially that of Hugh M'Kail, a young and enthusiastic preacher, sank deeply into the spirit of the people. He was the first martyr of the Covenant as Wishart had been of the Reformation. The use of torture, before this rare, now became frequent, and bonds of law-burrows were wrested from their original use to compel the principal landowners to be sureties for the peace of the whole district. Large fines continued to be extorted from all persons who refused to conform to the ecclesiastical laws. Next year a change in the Scottish administration, the cause of which is not well explained, but which was probably due to the fall of Clarendon and the rise of the Cabal ministry, led to Policy of a milder but undecided policy in Scotland. Lauderdale, one of the Cabal, still directed Scottish affairs, but Rothes and Sharp were treated as responsible for the rising in the west and suspended. An indemnity was offered to all who would appear before the council and subscribe bonds to keep the peace. A rash attempt to assassinate Sharp in Edinburgh prevented this policy from being adhered to in 1668; but it was renewed in the following year. An indulgence was granted which allowed the deposed ministers who had lived peaceably to return to their manses and glebes, and to receive such a stipend as the privy council might allow. The grace of this concession was undone by a severe Act against conventicles. It favoured a conciliatory policy that schemes for union were in the air. Leighton, the good bishop of Dunblane, proposed a union of the churches upon the basis that the bishops were no longer to exercise jurisdiction, but to act only as perpetual moderators of presbyteries, subject to censure by the synods, and that ministers should be ordained by the bishops, but with consent of the presbyters. There was a meeting at Holyrood with some of the leading ministers, but they would listen to no compromise. The name of bishop was hateful whatever were his functions. It may be doubted whether Charles and his English advisers would have submitted to a curtailment of the bishop's office and dignity. The subject of the union of the kingdoms was again brought forward in the parliament of 1669, to which Lauderdale was sent as commissioner; and though it was not well received commissioners were appointed in the following year, who went to London in autumn to discuss with English commissioners certain specified points proposed by the king. After several meetings the conference broke up in consequence of a demand by the Scottish members that Scotland should have the same number of members in the united as in its own parliament. The arbitrary government favoured by the want of a settled constitution in Scotland was more to. the taste of the king and his advisers. Lauderdale openly boasted, as James VI. had done, that nothing could be proposed in the Scottish parliament except what the king through the Lords of the Articles approved. The "indulgence" entirely failed of the desired effect. The ministers who took advantage of

it were despised by the people, who continued to attend the conventicles. In 1672 an Act was passed punishing preachers at such conventicles with death and imposing fines, imprisonment, and exile for having children baptized by deprived ministers and for absence for three Sundays from the parish church. In 1675 letters of intercommuning were issued against about a hundred of those who attended the conventicles, both ministers and laymen, forbidding their friends and relations to have any dealings with them under the same penalties as if they had themselves been present at the conventicles. In 1678 Mitchell, a fanatical preacher, who had ten years before attempted the life of Sharp and mortally wounded the bishop of Orkney, was tried and executed. The feeling of the times, and the cruel manner in which a confession had been wrung from him by torture, led to his being regarded as a martyr. Prior to this year 17,000 persons had suffered fines or imprisonment for attending conventicles. A host of 10,000 men, chiefly Highlanders, was quartered in the western shires in order to force the landowners who favoured the Covenanters to enter into bonds of law-burrows.

It appears to have been the design of Lauderdale, Rising of who still governed Scotland absolutely through the privy 1679. council (no parliament having been summoned since 1674), to force the Scots to rebel. "When I was once saying to him," relates Burnet, "Was that a time to drive them into a rebellion?' 'Yes,' said he, 'would to God they would rebel that he might bring over an army of Irish Papists to cut their throats.' One part of his wish was speedily fulfilled. In 1679 the rebellion so long smouldering broke out. The murder of Sharp (3d May) by Hackston of Rathillet and a small band of Covenanters was followed by a still more stringent proclamation against field conventicles, which were declared treasonable, and the possession of arms was prohibited. This severity provoked a rising in the west. A small party led by Hamilton, a youth educated by Bishop Burnet at Glasgow, who had joined the Covenanters, burnt at Rutherglen the statutes and acts of privy council on the anniversary of the Restoration, and being allowed to gather numbers defeated Graham of Claverhouse at Loudon Hill (1st June). The duke of Monmouth, the favourite natural son of Charles, sent with troops from England to suppress the rising, gained an easy victory at Bothwell Bridge (22d June). His desire was to follow it up by a policy of clemency, and a new indulgence was issued, but its effect was counteracted by Lauderdale. All officers, ministers, and landowners, as well as those who had taken part in the rising and did not surrender within a short space, were excepted from the indulgence. Several preachers were executed and many persons sent to the colonies, while fines and forfeitures multiplied. A new and fiercer phase of the rebellion was originated by Cargill and Cameron, two preachers who escaped at Bothwell Bridge, and, assembling their followers at Sanquhar, published a declaration renouncing allegiance to Charles as a perjured king. They were soon surprised and Cameron was killed, but Cargill continued to animate his followers, called the "Society Men" or "Cameronians," by his preaching, and at a conventicle at Torwood in Ayrshire excommunicated the king, the duke of York, Lauderdale, and Rothes.

The duke of York, who had become a Roman Catholic Continuduring his residence abroad, was now sent to Scotland, ance of severities partly to avoid the discussion raised by, his conversion as to his exclusion from the succession. During a short stay of three months he astonished the Scots by the mildness of his administration, but on his return in the following year he revealed his true character. The privy council renewed its proclamations against conventicles and increased the fines, which were levied by the sheriff or other magistrate under the pain of liability if they were remiss in their

His gov

of Scot. Jand.

carried the necessary measures for the transfer of the government of Scotland to William and Mary. It declared in bolder terms than the English parliament that James had forfeited the crown and that the throne was vacant. The fifteen articles which contained the reasons for this resolution were included in a Declaration and Claim of Right,- -a parallel to the English Declaration and Bill of Rights. Besides the declarations against the Papists with which it commenced-that no Papist could be king or queen, that proclamations allowing mass to be said, Jesuit schools and colleges to be erected, and Popish books to be printed were contrary to law-it detailed each of the unconstitutional acts of James and pronounced it contrary to law. This formidable list included imposing oaths without the authority of parliament; grants without the 'consent of parliament; employing officers of the ariny as judges throughout the kingdom; imposing exorbitant fines; imprisoning persons without expressing the reason, and delaying trials; forfeiture upon insufficient grounds, especially that of Argyll; the nomination by the king of the magistrates of burghs; sending of royal letters to courts of justice with reference to pending cases; granting protections for debt; forcing the lieges to depone against themselves in capital crimes; the use of torture without evidence in ordinary crimes; quartering of an army in time of peace upon any part of the kingdom; the use of law-burrows at the king's instance; putting garrisons in private houses in time of peace without the consent of the owners and of parliament; and fining husbands for their wives. It closed with asserting that Prelacy and the superiority of any office in the church above presbyters were insupportable grievances and ought to be abolished, and that it was the right and privilege of subjects to protest to parliament for "remeid" of law and to petition the king, and that for redress of grievances it was necessary parliainent should frequently be called, with freedom of speech secured to members. As a conclusion from these premises the estates resolved that William and Mary should be declared king and queen of Scotland during their lives, but with the right of exercising regal power in William alone as long as he lived. After their death the crown was to pass to the heirs of the queen's body, and failing her to Anne of Denmark and her heirs, failing whom to the heirs of William. Commissioners were despatched to London to present the declaration and statement of grievances and take the royal oath to the acceptance of the crown on their terms. This was done at Whitehall in the following March (1689); but William, before taking the oath, required an assurance that persecution for religious opinion was not intended and made a declaration in favour of toleration.

By desire of William the convention was superseded by ernmen' a parliament which met in June; but, with the exception of an Act abolishing Prelacy, it transacted no business of Importance. The parliament of 1690 was more fruitful. It abolished the committee of the Articles, which had Lecome an abuse inconsistent with the freedom of parliament, and, while it retained a committee on motions and overtures in its place, declared that the estates might deal with any matter without referring it to this committee. The Act of Supremacy was rescinded. The Presbyterian ministers deposed since 1661 were restored and the Westminster Confession approved, though not imposed as a test except on professors. With more difficulty a solution was found for the question of church government. The Presbyterian Church was re-established with the Confession as its formula, and patronage was placed in the heritors and elders with a small compensation to the patrons. These prudent measures were due to the influence of Carstares, the chief adviser of William in Scottish ecclesiastical matters. He was not so well advised in the conduct of

the civil government by the master of Stair, who became sole secretary for Scotland. The proclamation for calling out the militia may have been a necessary precaution, but it raised much opposition amongst the landed gentry, and the militia was not then embodied. The massacre of the Glencoe Macdonalds at Glencoe by Campbell of Glenlyon was contrary to the spirit of the indemnity offered to the Highlanders. While the treachery with which it was executed may be attributed to Glenlyon, it was too plainly proved before the committee of inquiry which the Scottish parlia ment insisted on that it had been designed by Stair and Breadalbane, and, now that the whole documents have been published, it is also proved that it had been sanctioned by William. It was intended to strike terror; but its partial success was dearly bought, for it kept alive the Jacobite disaffection and gained for it much sympathy. The unfair Darien treatment of the Scots in the matters of free trade and navigation, in which the new Government appeared to follow the policy of Charles rather than that of Cromwell, and acted with an exclusive regard to the prejudices and sup posed interests of England, reached a climax in the abandon ment of the Scottish settlement at Darien when attacked by the Spaniards. The over-sanguine hopes of Paterson and the Scottish colonists and capitalists who supported his enterprise, so suddenly transformed into a financial disaster overwhelming to a poor country, accompanied by the loss of many lives, embittered the classes on which the Revolution settlement mainly depended for its support. It was the anxious wish of William to have effected the legislative union; but, although he twice attempted it, the last time a month before his death, the temper of the English parliament and of the Scottish people appeared to give small chance of its realization.

Still

ments.

9. The Union and its Consequences.-The reign of Anne, Union of so far as it relates to Scotland, centred in the accomplish- parlia ment of the union. In spite of the disparity of numbers, both nations now met to treat on equal terms. there were grave difficulties, and it required all the wisdom of the ministers of the early years of Anne, aided by the glory of Marlborough's arms, to overcome national prejudices and secure an object plainly for the benefit of both. The memories of Glencoe and Darien and the refusal of equal rights of trade led the Scottish parliament, the year after Anne's accession, to pass an Act of Security, by which, if the queen died without issue, the Scottish estates were to name a successor from the Protestant descendants of the royal line; but the successor to the English crown was expressly excluded unless there were "such conditions of government settled and enacted as may secure the honour and sovereignty of the crown and kingdom, the freedom, frequency, and power of parliament, the religious freedom and trade of the nation from English or any foreign influence." Political economy had not yet taught the reciprocal advantage of free trade, and the English jealousy of Scottish traders was intense. An incident about this time warned the English ministers that Scotland might easily revert to its old attitude of enmity. A Scottish ship of the African or Darien Company having been seized in the Thames at the suit of the English East India Company, the "Worcester," an English East Indiaman, was taken in the Forth by way of retaliation, and Green, its captain, with two other officers, was executed at Leith on a charge of piracy insufficiently proved. An attempt had been already made to complete the union by a commission, which sat from 10th November 1702 to 3d February 1705; but this miscarried through the refusal to grant free trade between the kingdoms. But again in 1705 the English parliament sanctioned the appointment of other commissioners, and new officers of state were nominated for Scotland with the express purpose of press

anion.

ing the scheme forward in the Scottish parliament. Though opposed on contrary grounds by the Jacobites and the party of Fletcher of Salton, the Scottish ministry of Queensberry succeeded, by the aid of a third party nicknamed the "Squadrone Volante," in getting the consent of parliament to the appointment of commissioners by the crown. The Act expressly excepted the church from the matters with which the commission was to deal. The commissioners, thirty-one from each country, met at Whitehall on 16th April and concluded their sittings on 23d July. The nomination by the crown had secured persons anxious to accomplish the union; experience had disclosed the cause of former failures, and the commissioners were guided by the statesmanship of Somers. It had been recognized from the first that the only settlement of the ecclesiastical question possible was to leave to each country its own church. It was wisely decided to treat the law and the courts in the same manner. These two subjects being removed from the scope of the treaty narrowed the debates to four main points, the succession, trade, taxation, and the composition of the future parliament. The Scottish commissioners yielded on the first, the English on the second, and the remaining two were adjusted by a skilful Tems of compromise. The chief articles of the treaty were the treaty of settlement of both crowns according to the English Act of Succession on Anne and her descendants, and failing them on the electress Sophia and the Hanoverian line; the establishment of free trade between England and Scotland, and the admission of the Scots to equal privileges as regards trade with other countries; the national debt and taxation were adjusted by the imposition on Scotland of a moderate share (£48,000) of the land-tax, of which England was still to bear £200,000, and there was to be a uniform rate of custom and excise, Scotland being compensated by an equivalent of about £400,000 for becoming liable to a proportion of the English national debt, which already amounted to £16,000,000; forty-five representatives of Scotland were to be admitted to the House of Commons and sixteen elected peers to the House of Lords. Although the terms were on the whole favourable to Scotland, their announcement was received with dissatisfaction, especially in Edinburgh. The loss was immediate, from the abolipopular- tion of an independent parliament, the reduction of the ity in Scrtland. capital to a provincial town, and the increase of taxation to pay the growing national debt. The gain was in the future and in part doubtful. No one contemplated the rapid and enormous extension of trade. A proud people was unwilling to admit the advantage consequent upon free intercourse with a country in which wealth and civilization were more widespread. It had a natural attachment to its own institutions, though these were less popular than the English. It feared that, notwithstanding the most solemn guarantee, neither its church nor its laws could resist the influence of a country so much larger and more populous, in which henceforth was to be the sole seat of government, and that much of its wealth and talent would be attracted to the south and become English. The last parliament of Scotland was preceded by a stormy agitation against the union, and began its session with numerous addresses praying that the treaty should not be ratified, while none were presented in its favour. The popular feeling was embodied in the speeches of Lord Belhaven from a sentimental and patriotic point of view, and of Fletcher of Salton, who represented the democratic or republican element latent in a portion of the nation. But common sense aided by ministerial influence prevailed. The vote on the first article was prudently taken with a proviso that it was to be dependent on the rest being carried, but it really decided the fate of the measure. The Government commanded a large majority of the peers,

Its un

perhaps more amenable to influence. They were accused 1705-1709 by the Jacobites of being bribed, but the sums received in name of payment of arrears of pension and of debts were too small to justify the charge. The lesser barons or county members and the representatives of the burghs were nearly equally divided; but there was a majority of four of each of these estates in favour of the article. The whole estates voted together and the total majority was thirty-five. This was increased when the last vote was taken to 41, the numbers being 110 for and 69 against, and the Act of Ratification to take effect from 1st May 1707 was carried. The Presbyterian Church received an additional guarantee in an Act passed for "securing the Protestant religion and the Presbyterian Establishment." In the English parliament there was less serious opposition, proceeding chiefly from the High Church party, which was conciliated by an Act for the security of the Church of England. On 6th March 1707 the Scottish and English Acts ratifying the union received the royal assent.

on union.

Two Acts of the British parliament naturally followed Legislathe Act of Union. The Scottish privy council was abol- tion conished in 1708. A secretary of state for Scotland continued sequent until 1746 to manage the Scottish department in London; but the lord advocate, the adviser of the crown on all legal matters both in London and Edinburgh, gradually acquired a large, and after the suppression of the office of the Scottish secretary a paramount influence in purely Scottish affairs, though he was nominally a subordinate of the home secretary. In 1709 the law of treason was assimilated to that of England, being made more definite and less liable to extension by construction in the criminal courts. In the later years of Anne, when after the fall of Marlborough power passed from the Whig to the Tory party, two statutes were passed of a different character. Patronage was restored in the Presbyterian Church notwithstanding the protests of the assembly, and proved a fertile source of discord. A limited toleration Act in favour of the Episcopalians, permitting them to worship in private chapels, was opposed by the Presbyterians but carried.

union

With the union of the parliaments Scotland lost its Other legislative independence. Its representation in the British results of parliament for more than a century, based on the freehold to Scotfranchise in the counties and in the burghs controlled by land. town councils, which were close corporations, was a representation of special classes and interests rather than of the nation. It almost appeared as if the prophecy of Belhaven would be accomplished and there would be an end of an old song. But Scottish history was not destined yet to end. The character of the people, though their language and manners gradually became more like those of England, remained distinct. They retained a separate church and clergy. Independent courts and a more cosmopolitan system of law opened a liberal profession and afforded a liberal education to youthful ambition. A national system of parish schools, burgh schools, and universities, though inadequately endowed and far from reaching the ideal of Knox and Melville, gave opportunities to the lower as well. as the higher classes of receiving at a small cost an educa tion suited for practical uses and the business of everyday life. The Scot had been from the earliest times more inclined to travel, to migrate, to colonize than the English-. man, not that he had a less fervent love of home, but a soil comparatively poor made it necessary for many to seek. their fortune abroad. This tendency which had led Scottish monks, soldiers, and professors to embrace foreign service, now found new openings in trade, commerce, colonial enterprise in America, the East, and the West Indies, in the southern hemisphere and the exploration of unknown parts

In 1885 a secretary for Scotland was again appointed with a separate office at Dover House, London.