law, instead of being disgraceful, does great credit to his sagacity, and entitles him to the gratitude of the people of England. The Whigs in the council, though few in number, may have likewise assisted in obtaining the King's consent to the act. Even the act now passed, however, excellent as it is, was not scrupulously observed till after the Revolution. The peculiar distinction of that great event is not, as some suppose, to have established the right of Parliament to depose the King, and alter the succession of the crown, a principle often before asserted in the course of our history, but to have brought into easy and undisturbed practice those ancient rights and liberties, which the Plantagenets had attempted in vain to subvert, which the Tudors had often been allowed to trample upon, and which the Stuarts sacrificed their throne to destroy.

CHAP. IX.

INSURRECTION IN SCOTLAND. PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.

EXECUTION OF LANGHORNE. -TRIAL OF SIR G. WAKEMAN. KING'S ILLNESS.

RETURN OF THE DUKE

May 29.

In the spring of the year 1679, the insurrection which is known by the name of the rising of Bothwell Bridge, broke out in Scotland. In the first encounter with the insurgents, which happened at Loudon Hill, Captain Graham, afterwards celebrated as Vis

June 2.

count Dundee, was defeated. When

this news was communicated to the council, Lord Russell stood up and began a speech, saying, " he was so far from wondering that this trouble happened now, that he rather wondered it did not happen long ago, since His Majesty thought fit to retain incendiaries near his person, and in his very council." Upon which the Duke of Lauderdale, seeing that he was aimed at, and recollecting the parliamentary

addresses against him, asked leave to withdraw. But the King replied, with a motion of his hand, No, no, sit down, my Lord; this is no place for addresses." *

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North, who relates this saying, does not hesitate to accuse Lord Shaftesbury and the Whigs of exciting the rebellion, which was the subject of debate. As the only authority he alleges in support of this position, is a rumour in an anonymous pamphlet, that forty copies of a speech of Lord Shaftesbury's had been sent to Scotland, it may seem unnecessary to refute so groundless a charge. But as it has been credited by the impartial Ralph, and as the affairs of Scotland may afford a specimen of the temper of the government in general, it is by no means superfluous to enquire into the real causes of the Scotch insurrection.

At the time of the Restoration, it became a question at court, whether prelacy should be reestablished in Scotland. Lauderdale, whose sufferings, abilities, and knowledge of his countrymen, gave weight to his opinion, advised, that the presbyterian form of church government should be continued, as more congenial to the religious opinions of the nation. But Clarendon and Middleton advised the restoration of prelacy,

*North Ex. p. 79.

in conformity to their own prejudices and the policy of the King's father. Unhappily, their counsel prevailed. Middleton, who was sent down as King's commissioner, obtained from an obsequious parliament, not only the measures which had been proposed at court, but an act annulling the four parliaments which had sate since the year 1633. The bishops, too, were restored, not as they had been during the reign of Charles the First, subject to the controul of a presbytery and synod, but invested with supreme and exclusive jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs. All ministers who refused or neglected to secure induction from a bishop were displaced. Three hundred and fifty clergymen were in this manner ejected from their livings. But the people, sincerely attached to the presbyterian worship, followed their pastors, and as they had not houses large enough to hold their congregations, conventicles were held in the open fields. The lukewarm and irregular behaviour of the new clergy tended to promote the secession of their flocks. Upon this proof of the determined spirit of the people, the severities of the government were increased. By an order of the privy council, the ejected clergy were forbidden to approach within twenty miles of their former parishes; declared seditious if they attempted to preach; and all those

1663.

who presumed to give them subsistence, subjected to the same penalties. And although Middleton was soon afterwards supplanted by Lauderdale, these acts were confirmed, and others still more severe added by the parliament which he assembled. On separation or absence from the parish church, the penalty for landholders was the forfeiture of a fourth part of their rents; for citizens the loss of a fourth part of their substance, the freedom of their corporations, and the privilege of trade; besides which, all were made liable to whatever corporal punishment the privy council might choose to inflict. The severity of these laws was exceeded by the rigour of their execution. An ecclesiastical commission went round the country, bound by no form of law, and filling the gaols with those who refused to take the oath of supremacy. In the western counties, a military persecution was introduced, and the recusants were ruined by fines arbitrarily imposed, and the still more indefinite exactions of the soldiery. After three years' continuance of extreme oppression, the people were driven into an insurrection, but their force was easily beaten and dispersed on the Pentland hills. Frequent executions, often preceded by torture, took place on that occasion, both in Edinburgh and the country, till an order arrived

1666.