Ch. 26: The Restoration

There was "dancing and derray" in Scotland among the laity when the king came to his own again. The darkest page in the national history seemed to have been turned; the conquering English were gone with their abominable tolerance, their craze for soap and water, their aversion to witch-burnings. The nobles and gentry would recover their lands and compensation for their losses; there would be offices to win, and "the spoils of office."

It seems that in Scotland none of the lessons of misfortune had been learned. Since January the chiefs of the milder party of preachers, the Resolutioners,--they who had been reconciled with the Engagers,--were employing the Rev. James Sharp, who had been a prisoner in England, as their agent with Monk, with Lauderdale, in April, with Charles in Holland, and, again, in London. Sharp was no fanatic. From the first he assured his brethren, Douglas of Edinburgh, Baillie, and the rest, that there was no chance for "rigid Presbyterianism." They could conceive of no Presbyterianism which was not rigid, in the manner of Andrew Melville, to whom his king was "Christ's silly vassal." Sharp warned them early that in face of the irreconcilable Protesters, "moderate Episcopacy" would be preferred; and Douglas himself assured Sharp that the new generation in Scotland "bore a heart-hatred to the Covenant," and are "wearied of the yoke of presbyterial government."

This was true: the ruling classes had seen too much of presbyterial government, and would prefer bishops as long as they were not pampered and all-powerful. On the other hand the lesser gentry, still more their godly wives, the farmers and burgesses, and the preachers, regarded the very shadow of Episcopacy as a breach of the Covenant and an insult to the Almighty. The Covenanters had forced the Covenant on the consciences of thousands, from the king downwards, who in soul and conscience loathed it. They were to drink of the same cup--Episcopacy was to be forced on them by fines and imprisonments. Scotland, her people and rulers were moving in a vicious circle. The Resolutioners admitted that to allow the Protesters to have any hand in affairs was "to breed continual distemper and disorders," and Baillie was for banishing the leaders of the Protesters, irreconcilables like the Rev. James Guthrie, to the Orkney islands. But the Resolutioners, on the other hand, were no less eager to stop the use of the liturgy in Charles's own household, and to persecute every sort of Catholic, Dissenter, Sectary, and Quaker in Scotland. Meanwhile Argyll, in debt, despised on all sides, and yet dreaded, was holding a great open-air Communion meeting of Protesters at Paisley, in the heart of the wildest Covenanting region (May 27, 1660). He was still dangerous; he was trying to make himself trusted by the Protesters, who were opposed to Charles. It may be doubted if any great potentate in