Short History of Scotland — 41 - Ch. 26: The Restoration, pt 4

Cameron and his followers rode about after issuing the wildest manifestoes, as at Sanquhar in the shire of Dumfries (June 22, 1680).

Bruce of Earlshall was sent with a party of horse to pursue, and, in the wild marshes of Airs Moss, in Ayrshire, Cameron "fell praying and fighting"; while Hackstoun of Rathillet, less fortunate, was taken, and the murder of Sharp was avenged on him with unspeakable cruelties.

The Remnant now formed itself into organised and armed societies; their conduct made them feared and detested by the majority of the preachers, who longed for a quiet life, not for the establishment of a Mosaic commonwealth, and "the execution of righteous judgments" on "malignants."

Cargill was now the leader of the Remnant, and Cargill, in a conventicle at Torwood, of his own authority excommunicated the king, the Duke of York, Lauderdale, Rothes, Dalziel, and Mackenzie, whom he accused of leniency to witches, among other sins.

The Government apparently thought that excommunication, to the mind of Cargill and his adherents, meant outlawry, and that outlawry might mean the assassination of the excommunicated.

Cargill was hunted, and (July 12, 1681) was captured by "wild Bonshaw."

It was believed by his party that the decision to execute Cargill was carried by the vote of Argyll, in the Privy Council, and that Cargill told Rothes (who had signed the Covenant with him in their youth) that Rothes would be the first to die.

Rothes died on July 26, Cargill was hanged on July 27. On the following day James, Duke of York, as Royal Commissioner, opened the first Parliament since 1673-74. James secured an Act making the right of succession to the Crown independent of differences of religion;

he, of course, was a Catholic.

The Test Act was also passed, a thing so self-contradictory in its terms that any man might take it whose sense of humour overcame his sense of honour.

Many refused, including a number of the conformist ministers.

Argyll took the Test "as far as it is consistent with itself and with the Protestant religion."

Argyll, the son of the executed Marquis, had recovered his lands, and acquired the title of Earl mainly through the help of Lauderdale.

During the religious troubles from 1660 onwards he had taken no great part, but had sided with the Government, and approved of the torture of preachers.

But what ruined him now (though the facts have been little noticed) was his disregard of the claims of his creditors, and his obtaining the lands of the Macleans in Mull and Morven, in discharge of an enormous debt of the Maclean chief to the Marquis, executed in 1661. The Macleans had vainly attempted to prove that the debt was vastly inflated by familiar processes, and had resisted in arms the invasion of the Campbells.

They had friends in Seaforth, the Mackenzies, and in the Earl of Errol and other nobles.

These men, especially Mackenzie of Tarbet, an astute intriguer, seized their chance when Argyll took the Test "with a qualification," and though, at first, he satisfied and was reconciled to the Duke of York, they won over the Duke, accused Argyll to the king, brought him before a jury, and had him condemned of treason and incarcerated.

The object may have been to intimidate him, and destroy his almost royal power in the west and the islands.

In any case, after a trial for treason, in which one vote settled his doom, he escaped in disguise as a footman (perhaps by collusion, as was suspected), fled to England, conspired there with Scottish exiles and a Covenanting refugee, Mr Veitch, and, as Charles would not allow him to be searched for, he easily escaped to Holland.

(For details, see my book, 'Sir George Mackenzie.'

) It was, in fact, clan hatred that dragged down Argyll.

His condemnation was an infamous perversion of justice, but as Charles would not allow him to be captured in London, it is most improbable that he would have permitted the unjust capital sentence to be carried out.

The escape was probably collusive, and the sole result of these intricate iniquities was to create for the Government an enemy who would have been dangerous if he had been trusted by the extreme Presbyterians.

In England no less than in Scotland the supreme and odious injustice of Argyll's trial excited general indignation.

The Earl of Aberdeen (Gordon of Haddo) was now Chancellor, and Queensberry was Treasurer for a while; both were intrigued against at Court by the Earl of Perth and his brother, later Lord Melfort, and probably by far the worst of all the knaves of the Restoration.

Increasing outrages by the Remnant, now headed by the Rev. Mr James Renwick, a very young man, led to more furious repression, especially as in 1683 Government detected a double plot--the wilder English aim being to raise the rabble and to take or slay Charles and his brother at the Rye House; while the more respectable conspirators, English and Scots, were believed to be acquainted with, though not engaged in, this design.

The Rev. Mr Carstares was going and coming between Argyll and the exiles in Holland and the intriguers at home.

They intended as usual first to surprise Edinburgh Castle.

In England Algernon Sidney, Lord Russell, and others were arrested, while Baillie of Jerviswoode and Carstares were apprehended--Carstares in England.

He was sent to Scotland, where he could be tortured.

The trial of Jerviswoode was if possible more unjust than even the common run of these affairs, and he was executed (December 24, 1684).

The conspiracy was, in fact, a very serious affair: Carstares was confessedly aware of its criminal aspect, and was in the closest confidence of the ministers of William of Orange.

What his dealings were with them in later years he would never divulge.

But it is clear that if the plotters slew Charles and James, the hour had struck for the Dutch deliverer's appearance.

If we describe the Rye House Plot as aiming merely at "the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne," we shut our eyes to evidence and make ourselves incapable of understanding the events.

There were plotters of every degree and rank, and they were intriguing with Argyll, and, through Carstares who knew, though he refused a part in the murder plot, were in touch at once with Argyll and the intimates of William of Orange.

Meanwhile "the hill men," the adherents of Renwick, in October 1684, declared a war of assassination against their opponents, and announced that they would try malignants in courts of their own.

Their manifesto ("The Apologetical Declaration") caused an extraordinary measure of repression.

A test--the abjuration of the _criminal_ parts of Renwick's declaration--was to be offered by military authority to all and sundry.

Refusal to abjure entailed military execution.

The test was only obnoxious to sincere fanatics; but among them must have been hundreds of persons who had no criminal designs, and merely deemed it a point of honour not to "homologate" any act of a Government which was corrupt, prelatic, and unholy.

Later victims of this view of duty were Margaret Lauchleson and Margaret Wilson--an old woman and a young girl--cruelly drowned by the local authorities at Wigtown (May 1685).

A myth represents Claverhouse as having been present.

The shooting of John Brown, "the Christian Carrier," by Claverhouse in the previous week was an affair of another character.

Claverhouse did not exceed his orders, and ammunition and treasonable papers were in Brown's possession; he was also sheltering a red-handed rebel.

Brown was not shot merely "because he was a Nonconformist," nor was he shot by the hand of Claverhouse.

These incidents of "the killing time" were in the reign of James II.

;

Charles II.

had died, to the sincere grief of most of his subjects, on February 2, 1685. "Lecherous and treacherous" as he was, he was humorous and good-humoured.

The expected invasion of Scotland by Argyll, of England by Monmouth, did not encourage the Government to use respective lenity in the Covenanting region, from Lanarkshire to Galloway.

Argyll, who sailed from Holland on May 2, had a council of Lowlanders who thwarted him.

His interests were in his own principality, but he found it occupied by Atholl and his clansmen, and the cadets of his own House as a rule would not rally to him.

The Lowlanders with him, Sir Patrick Hume, Sir John Cochrane, and the rest, wished to move south and join hands with the Remnant in the west and in Galloway; but the Remnant distrusted the sudden religious zeal of Argyll, and were cowed by Claverhouse.

The coasts were watched by Government vessels of war, and when, after vain movements round about his own castle, Inveraray, Argyll was obliged by his Lowlanders to move on Glasgow, he was checked at every turn; the leaders, weary and lost in the marshes, scattered from Kilpatrick on Clyde; Argyll crossed the river, and was captured by servants of Sir John Shaw of Greenock.

He was not put to trial nor to torture; he was executed on the verdict of 1681. About 200 suspected persons were lodged by Government in Dunottar Castle at the time and treated with abominable cruelty.