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mined that the duke should return with his family from Brussels, to reside in Scotland; and although he refused to concur in displacing Lauderdale, it was obvious that the administration there would devolve into his hands. During his first visit, he interfered but little in public affairs; discovered a preference for neither party; and by his condescending affability, studied to conciliate all ranks to his interests, and by his industrious application, to promote the service of the king. But his deportment was artificial, and his affable condescension, so remote from the haughty reserve of his character, was assumed, in order to establish his interest in Scotland, and when it should be fortified there as in Ireland, to support his right of succession by arms. Within three months, when the English parliament was prorogued, he was recalled to court. On his depar, ture he assured the privy council of his unalter. able regard, and promised to acquaint the king, that in Scotland he had a brave and loyal nobility and gentry, a wise and regular council, judica tures filled with learned and upright judges; that the disaffected were not near so considerable as represented in England; and that the Highland clans, from his endeavours to remove their animosities, were united and firmly attached to the throne. The privy council was not deficient in assurances of support, or attestation to his worth; 23 Dalrymple's Memoirs, i. 276. 347-65,

VIII.

and had he never returned to Scotland, it is pro- BOOK bable that he would not have forfeited the esteem which the nation still entertained for the house of 1830. Stuart 2+

the Came

But a party now appeared among the presby- Origin of terians, prepared to renounce their allegiance to ronians. the crown. The origin of this new sect must be ascribed to the rigours of government; its extravagance, to the sufferings which the intercommuned had endured. When proscribed and driven from their abodes by government, they were pursued by the military like beasts of prey; and their fanaticism was daily exasperated and confirmed by their sufferings and their despair. While they roamed or lurked throughout the country, heated and mutually inflaming each other, with religious phrenzy, their preachers began to consider their king as a tyrant, and to separate from the great body of the presbyterians, who, according as they enjoyed his protection, or acknowledged his authority, were involved in the iniquity or defection of the times. Cargill and Cameron, who had escaped from Bothwell, returned from the continent to their vagrant flock, which acquired from the latter the name of Cameronians; a designation still appropriated to a religious sect, and to a regiment of the line. A party appeared in arms at Sanquhar, where Cameron read and af24 Macpherson's Orig. Pap. i. 96—8. 100. Burnet, 275. Wodrow, ii. 111-49.

VIII

1680

July 20.

BOOK fixed a declaration to the market-cross; that although descended from the race of their ancient kings, Charles Stuart, by his perjuries in the breach of his covenanted vows, by his tyrannical government, and by his usurpation over their civil and religious liberties, had dissolved their allegiance, and forfeited all right and title to the crown. They were surprised at Airdsmoss in the district of Kyle. Cameron and his brother, fighting back to back, obtained by their gallantry an honourable death. Hackston of Rathillet, and fifteen horsemen, were taken prisoners; but the foot, a despicable band of forty peasants, retired into the morass from the pursuit of the guards. Cargill alone continued to preach in the fields. At a conventicle held in the Torwood, he pronounced a solemn excommunication against their persecutors, the dukes of Lauderdale, Rothes, Monmouth, York, and the king himself; a sentence ludicrous at present, but productive then of a deep and indelible impression on the whole sect, While we pity or deride their extravagance, it is difficult to condemn them entirely for disowning a government under which they had enjoyed no reciprocal protection, but by which they were uni, formly persecuted and proscribed 25,

Executions.

The indignity done to the majesty, or rather to the name of king, was severely avenged. Cameron's head was inhumanly presented to his aged

25 Wodrow, ii. 133-44.

father, confined in prison; and was affixed with
his hands the city gate, in the mock attitude of
t
prayer. Rathillet's sentence was first determined
by the privy council, and was pronounced next
day by the justiciary court. It appeared that he
was present, without assisting, at the murder of
Sharp; but there is reason to believe that he had
endeavoured previously to dissuade his associates
from the primate's death. Although reduced so
low by his wounds that he was preserved from
torture as unable to survive it, he suffered the am-
putation of his hands with indifference, and en-
dured, with an enthusiastic fortitude, the utmost
rigour of an atrocious punishment, which still con-
tinues to disgrace the humanity of our laws and
age. The other prisoners were executed to a
man; their heads exhibited a barbarous spectacle
at the entrance of the city; or, if stolen and in-
terred by the piety of their friends, were replaced
by the heads of other prisoners taken with Car-
gill 26.

BOOK

VIII.

1680.

York's

ministra

How cruel or incredible soever these executions Duke of may appear, they were exceeded on the duke of severe ad York's return to Scotland. As if the guilty were tion. insufficient to assuage the thirst of revenge, the innocent were artfully involved in their guilt. Availing itself of the frantic delusion which its own violence and oppression had created, the

26 Id. 142. Cruickshank's Hist. ii. 68. Burnet, ii. 321. Fountainhall's Memoirs, MS. Adv. Library.

BOOK privy council intermixed its tortures with the most

VIII.

1680.

ensnaring questions: Was Sharp's death murder? Was the rising at Bothwell rebellion? Is Charles a rightful king, or a tyrant whom it is lawful to dethrone or deprive of life? The unhappy victims of suspicion and rage, too sincere, or by the torture made unable to prevaricate, were dismissed from this severe inquisition to the justiciary court; and from the justiciary court to the place of execution. Among the first who suffered, for opinions not treasonable till they were extorted by the council, was a brother of the laird of Skene, who was convicted on his answers to those interrogatories: but the punishment was afterwards extended even to helpless females, in the flower of their youth. The wretched Cameronians who suffered death for their religious opinions, expired with such resolution, that when their lives were offered by the duke, if they would acknowledge Ligand his majesty, or even exclaim on the scaffold, God YX111299 bless the king, the very women refused to forfeit the crown of martyrdom. The frenzy of these deluded creatures might have excited the compassion, but could never justify the resentment of government. Their punishment demonstrated the unextinguishable hatred and fury of the royalists,

or 253

27 Id. They were executed with some others for child mur. der. "I am but twenty," said one, with an affecting simpli city," and am not come here for murder, for they can charge "me with nothing but my judgment." Cloud of Witnesses.

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