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pate the plot 25. The right of parliament was acknowledged, to appoint committees at pleasure, of an equal number from each estate. The officers of state were admitted to sit and deliberate, but without a vote; and instead of the domineering articles, which were abolished for ever, separate committees were appointed, for supplies, elections, forfeitures, and the government of the church. 1. Twenty-eight monthly assessments were granted; amounting to a land-tax of an hundred and sixty-eight thousand pounds, to be levied in five years. The sixth penny of interest was voted for a year; but it was converted afterwards into a tax on hearths, at a time when hearth-money was abolished in England at king William's request. 2. When the grievance respecting the manner and measure of representation was considered, a salutary addition of twenty-six members was made to the counties, in order to counterbalance the recent increase of the peerage, 3. The iniquitous sentences of Jerviswood, Argyle, and others, were reversed according to the claim of rights, and their heirs restored to their honours and estates. Forfeitures and fines incurred since the insurrection at Pentland were repealed; by a single act, upwards of four hundred attainted persons were restored by name; and the numerous sufferers under the late reigns were ordered to be indemnified by such as had obtained lucrative gifts of

25 Id. iii. 201. ·

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BOOK their estates or fines. 4. When the act of

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restored.

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macy was repealed, the presbyterian ministers Presbytery ejected by the prelates, were restored to their liv ings, and with such as they had admitted, or might thereafter admit, were invested with the full and exclusive government of the national church. A general assembly was appointed, for the expulsion of those episcopal clergymen whose doctrines were erroneous, or whose example was scandalous. The Wesminster confession of faith was confirmed, as the test and standard of orthodoxy and of persecution; but the curse of excommunication was divested of every civil or penal effect. The severe and sanguinary laws against conventicles, the tests, and in general the oppressive acts of the preceding reigns, were repealed; but by a new assurance to government, the distinction between a king de jure and a king de facto was abjured. The covenants were judiciously overlooked or forgotten; but as the rights of patronage were abrogated, the presbyterian form of government was established in its full extent 26.

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The clergy ejected at the restoration, of whom not above threescore survived, were inclined to moderation from experience and age. But the ministers whom they had admitted were violent, and often illiterate preachers, ordained in secret, during the persecuting triumph of prelacy, against which they were inspired with the most vindictive

26 Minutes of Parl. MS.

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zeal 27. Neither the preservation of their order BOOK and authority, nor their sour and illiberal temper, exasperated by thirty years of persecution, nor their sudden sense of independence, after subsisting hitherto on the voluntary, though precarious oblations of the faithful, permitted them to listen to the moderation recommended by William, or to retain such of the episcopal clergy as might submit to their discipline and confession of faith. In their presbyteries, and in the general assembly, they proceeded with the most indecent violence, and often on the most frivolous pretexts, to exclude the episcopal incumbents from the circumscribed and narrow pale of an orthodox church 28. From their indiscreet and intolerant bigotry, the king began to repent of his concessions. Such was the peculiar infelicity of his reign, that every concession to the presbyterians alarmed and awakened the jealous clamours of the English church; every concession in Scotland to the episcopal dissenters, offended the presbyterians; and each suspected that he was indifferent or secretly adverse to their established sect. But he complained with reason, that his commissioner had exceeded his instructions in abolishing patronage, which was properly no innovation upon the constitution of the Scottish church. From the beginning of the reformation it had subsisted as a right, though protested against as a grievance, till the death of 27 Burnet, iv. 42. 92. 28 Skinner, ii. 562.

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BOOK Charles I. when the choice of the ministers was first transferred to the congregation, and their admission to the presbytery, on a popular election or call. This privilege was restored at present with some reservation. The rights of patronage were purchased by the parishes at an inconsiderable rate, and the ministers proposed by the elders and landholders were approved or rejected by the congregation at large. Their dissent was reviewed by the presbytery, and as the elders were ever more numerous than the landlords, the influence of the clergy never failed to determine the election. But the clergy were not relieved from the necessity of low flattery and unbecoming compliance; on the contrary, their influence over the people induced them to cultivate the most popular arts: grace and zeal were invariably preferred to moderation and learning; and to determine the choice of a fanatical people, it was necessary that the clergy should become fanatics themselves. Their fanaticism reacted on each other; while the king was deprived of the influence of the patrons to prevent the expulsion of the episcopal, and to restrain or temper the into lerance of the presbyterian clergy 29.

But the satisfaction with which the re-establishment of presbytery, and the redress of grievances inspired the people; the security derived from the detection of the plot, and the praise of clemency due to government, were effaced by a barbarous

29 Burnet, iv. 89. Carstairs, 45. Parl. 1690, ch. 23,

transaction, not inferior to the worst event in the BOOK preceding reigns.

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of the high

On William's departure for Ireland, to dispos- Pacification sess James of his last kingdom, a plan for the se- lands at curity of Scotland was suggested to persuade the tempted. highlanders to submit to government, by sums of money distributed among the clans. The arrival of Buchan, and the expectations entertained from Montgomery's plots, had prevented its success. The episcopal lords who repaired to court on the king's return, to implore a pardon, endeavoured to extenuate their concern in the plot, by their apprehensions from the presbyterians; promised to support the established government if protected from the fury of Melville's party; and engaged to appease the disorders of the highlands, if the remainder of their clergy were preserved from expulsion. Although nothing could be more insincere than their promises, the earl of Melville was gently displaced with his friends. Sir John Dalrymple, the master of Stair, was appointed secretary; the earl of Tweedale chancellor; the earl of Lothian commissioner to the assembly, which was soon dissolved; and by a political mistake that disgusted the presbyterians, some of the late plotters were admitted into administration, while they continued secretly devoted to James. The earl of Breadalbane, whose influence was extensive in the highlands, was entrusted with twelve thousand pounds to reconcile the chieftains, or rather to

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