Ch. 26: The Restoration - Page 2

Scotland except the Marquis wished to revive the constitutional triumphs of Argyll's party in the last Parliament of Charles I. Charles now named his Privy Council and Ministers without waiting for parliamentary assent--though his first Parliament would have assented to anything. He chose only his late supporters: Glencairn who raised his standard in 1653; Rothes, a humorous and not a cruel voluptuary; and, as Secretary for Scotland in London, Lauderdale, who had urged him to take the Covenant, and who for twenty years was to be his buffoon, his favourite, and his wavering and unscrupulous adviser. Among these greedy and treacherous profligates there would, had he survived, have been no place for Montrose.

In defiance of warnings from omens, second-sighted men, and sensible men, Argyll left the safe sanctuary of his mountains and sea-straits, and betook himself to London, "a fey man." Most of his past was covered by an Act of Indemnity, but not his doings in 1653. He was arrested before he saw the king's face (July 8, 1660), and lay in the Tower till, in December, he was taken to be tried for treason in Scotland.

Sharp's friends were anxious to interfere in favour of establishing Presbyterianism in England; he told them that the hope was vain; he repeatedly asked for leave to return home, and, while an English preacher assured Charles that the rout of Worcester had been God's vengeance for his taking of the Covenant, Sharp (June 25) told his Resolutioners that "the Protesters' doom is dight."

Administration in Scotland was intrusted to the Committee of Estates whom Monk (1650) had captured at Alyth, and with them Glencairn, as Chancellor, entered Edinburgh on August 22. Next day, while the Committee was busy, James Guthrie and some Protester preachers met, and, in the old way, drew up a "supplication." They denounced religious toleration, and asked for the establishment of Presbytery in England, and the filling of all offices with Covenanters. They were all arrested and accused of attempting to "rekindle civil war," which would assuredly have followed had their prayer been accepted. Next year Guthrie was hanged. But ten days after his arrest Sharp had brought down a letter of Charles to the Edinburgh Presbytery, promising to "protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland as it is established by law." Had the words run "as it may be established by law" (in Parliament) it would not have been a dishonourable quibble--as it was.

Parliament opened on New Year's Day 1661, with Middleton as Commissioner. In the words of Sir George Mackenzie, then a very young advocate and man of letters, "never was Parliament so obsequious." The king was declared "supreme Governor over all persons and in all causes" (a blow at Kirk judicature), and all Acts between 1633 and 1661 were rescinded, just as thirty years of