having but newly escaped from the fetters of papistical power, and acting in conformity with the spirit of the times in which they lived, overlooked in their struggle against those who wished to re-forge them under a prelatical form, the less evident danger of falling into the thraldom of presbyterian bondage. Especially as almost all the popular writers who have treated of that period, however differing in other respects, appear to agree in considering the men who defended the liberties of Scotland at that time, as being influenced by a dark unsocial spirit of fanaticism. We are apt to forget, in talking of the liberality of our own day, of the progress of enlightened sentiments, and of the change which has taken place in the creed, or in the practice of the Roman Catholics ;-that all these things were totally unknown to our forefathers. They conceived that an infallible church could never change either her creed or her practice without subverting the very foundation on which she was built, and that if any communion was to be held with her, it must have been by their returning to her bosom, not by her advancing a step to meet them; by their betraying what they considered truth, not by her retracting what she never would acknowledge to be error. Unfortunately their kings thought differently, both James the First, and the first Charles, entertained the idea that a compromise might be effected, or what was nearly the same thing, that the royal will should be the rule of conscience. Hence originated in the Scottish nation, who bore a decided and unalterable aversion to whatever in the most remote degree carried an appearance of retracing their steps towards Rome, an ever watchful suspicion of their monarchs, who on their parts, showed an incessant desire, under similar names, and various pretexts, to introduce the splendid trappings or imposing forms of that hated hierarchy. Along with the shadow of the ancient religion, the Stuart family were anxious to revive and perpetuate the ancient despotism, and depress a rising spirit among the people. The nobles, on the other hand, some from motives of self-interest, and some from love to the cause, encouraged that spirit, and promoted the progress of those opinions, most decidedly opposed both to popery, or any prelatical refinement of it, which would have restored enormous revenues to the bishops, and a third devoted estate to the crown. The ministers orthe church, constituted a semi-political party, made use of by both sides, occasionally, in the contest, and their proceedings became consequently so far necessary to be related in recording the civil transactions with which they are thus blended, and of which they form an essential part; as the principal personages performed conspicuous characters both in the plot and under-plot of the grand drama. From the time when the general assembly met at Glasgow 1638, till the overthrow at Worcester, the whole history of the country becomes politico-ecclesiastical, and the movements of the state were scarcely more influenced by the parliament or their committee, than by the general assembly and their commission. During the short space of presbyterian ascendency, the history of the church divides itself into two sections, the one which I have given in connection with the civil, the other strictly theological, which regards solely its internal state, and the practical progress of religion among its members. After the defeat at Worcester, and during the pro tectorate, a complete separation took place between the government of the country, and the government of the church; at least whatever there might be of Erastian interference by the civil power in the ecclesiastical arrangements, the assemblies of the kirk were never suffered to interfere, or to direct any of the political proceedings; in consequence the church retires from the notice of the general historian for a while, nor appears in conjunction with civil affairs until THE RESTORATION. Twenty-eight years of deep and agonizing interest follow that event. They are the darkest, yet the most glorious in the annals of the church of Scotland, but they form an episcole in her history most valuable and instructive in details, which the general historian usually passes over, or which, being esteemed only as religious, have not hitherto been considered as falling within his immediate range. I have not so considered them. While therefore I have given an account of the sufferings of the church, the corporate, and what ought to have been the legal establishment of religion in the country at the period of her lowest depression, and the political causes whence they originated, I have not omitted the details which display the power of religious truth upon the mind, and the operation of those principles which enabled the sufferers to bear up under the cruel persecution, and spoliation to which they were exposed, and to meet proscription, imprisonment, exile, or death, not with equanimity only but with joyfulness. THE REVOLUTION which gave internal peace to England, was far from being productive of tranquillity in Scotland, and that portion of our history, until the union, is not the least interesting of the periods of the Scottish Annals. I have given an ample account of the various transactions; the struggle that ended with the battle of Dunkeld, the plots and counterplots that followed, conjoined with what never before appeared in any other history, pretty full notices of the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom, from the revolution settlement till the union; these I have continued down to the last presbyterian separation that took place in the church. No regular history of Scotland from the union to the present date, having been attempted previous to my undertaking. In order to render it complete, I projected and have now brought the transactions of this separate section of the Empire, as far as they could be told intelligibly, without relating the history of Britain and of Europe; in which will be found particular, and I trust impartial, accounts of the two rebellions raised in favour of the forfeited family. The amazing and rapid improvement which commenced immediately after the extinction of the last wild attempt, and the rank which Scotland has since attained in literature, arts, sciences and commerce, form ample and interesting subjects of investigation; neither the limits I had prescribed to myself, nor the nature of the present publication, allowed me to enter upon them; but as an important sequel I hope to have the pleasure, at no distant period, of presenting the result of my inquiries to the indulgence of the public. THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. BOOK XIX. LOOKING down from the eminence on which we now stand, with all the advantages of time, and with a full view of the consequences before us, we wonder that an object of such evident utility, and productive of such important benefit to Scotland, as the union of the two kingdoms, should ever have encountered such virulent and unremitting opposition as attended its progress,-should ever have been branded as the disgrace, or predicted as the ruin, of the nation it was destined to raise from poverty to wealth, and from insignificance to an importance in the European family, which without that conjunction, it could never have hoped to attain. But in order properly to understand this opposition, we must transport ourselves back to the days of our fathers, revive their prejudices, enter into their feelings, and recal their prospects and anticipations at a time when nine-tenths of the population of the land would have risen to prevent, or afterwards to break asunder a connexion, which the unanimous voice of their children would now pronounce it the greatest of their calamities, were it possible to dissolve.* • Some strange fatality has attended the records of Scotland from first to last; and those respecting the secret intrigues which produced the union have shared in the common lot. Among the MSS. of lord Somers, which were destroyed by a fire in London, were a large collection of papers relative to the union. A more serious loss was an extensive collection of state papers and letters made by lord Seafield, which, together with his memoirs of his own times, were consumed in his own |