25 would receive no such petition, it was quite laid aside this was attested by the earl of Rothes. A long debate had been much insisted on, whether the earl of Traquair or the king's ministers might be of the jury or not: but the court gave it in their favour. When the jury was shut up, Gordon of Bucky, who was one of them, being then very ancient, who forty-three years before had assisted in the murder of the earl of Murray, and was thought upon this occasion a sure man, spoke first of all, excusing his presumption in being the first that broke the silence. He desired, they would all consider what they were about: it was a matter of blood, and they would feel the weight of that as long as they lived he had in his youth been drawn in to shed blood, for which he had the king's pardon, but it cost him more to obtain God's pardon: it had given him many sorrowful hours both day and night: and as he spoke this, the tears ran over his face. This struck a damp on them all. But the earl of Traquair took up the argument; and said, they had it not before them, whether the law was a hard law or not, nor had they the nature of the paper before them, which was judged by the court to be leasingmaking; they were only to consider, whether the prisoner had discovered the contriver of the paper or not. Upon this the earl of Lauderdale took up the argument against him, and urged, that severe laws never executed were looked on as made only to terrify people; that though after the court's having judged the paper to be seditious, it would be capital to conceal the author, yet before such judgment the thing could not be thought so evident that he was bound to reveal it. Upon these heads those lords

condemned.

doned.

argued the matter many hours: but when it went He was to the vote, seven acquitted, but eight cast him: so sentence was given. Upon this many meetings were held and it was resolved either to force the prison to set him at liberty, or, if that failed, to revenge his death both on the court and on the eight jurors; some undertaking to kill them, and others to burn their houses. When the earl of Traquair understood this, he went to court, and told the king that the lord Balmerinoch's life was in his hands, but the execution was in no sort adviseable: so he procured But parhis pardon, for which the party was often reproached with his ingratitude: but he thought he had been much wronged in the prosecution, and so little regarded in the pardon, that he never looked on himself as under any obligation on that account. My father knew the whole steps of this matter, having been the earl of Lauderdale's most particular friend : he often told me, that the ruin of the king's affairs in Scotland was in a great measure owing to that prosecution; and he carefully preserved the petition itself, and the papers relating to the trial; of which 26 I never saw any copy besides those which I have. And that raised in me a desire of seeing the whole record, which was copied for me, and is now in my hands. It is a little volume, and contains, according to the Scotch method, the whole abstract of all the pleadings, and all the evidence that was given; and is indeed a very noble piece, full of curious matter ". When the design of recovering the tithes went a liturgy on, though but slowly, another design made a greater progress. The bishops of Scotland fell on the framing of a liturgy and a body of canons for the worship ▾ Puppy. S.

prepared.

The feeble

ness of the government.

and government of that church. These were never examined in any public assembly of the clergy: all was managed by three or four aspiring bishops, Maxwell, Sidserfe, Whitford, and Banautine, the bishops of Ross, Galloway, Dunblane, and Aberdeen. Maxwell did also accuse the earl of Traquair, as cold in the king's service, and as managing the treasury deceitfully; and he was aspiring to that office. Spotswood, archbishop of St. Andrews, then lord chancellor, was a prudent and mild man, but of no great decency in his course of life. [For he was a frequent player at cards, and used to eat often in taverns: besides that all his livings were scandalously exposed to sale by his servants.] The earl of Traquair, seeing himself so pushed at, was more earnest than the bishops themselves in promoting the new model of worship and discipline; and by that he recovered the ground he had lost with the king, and with archbishop Laud: he also assisted the bishops in obtaining commissions, subaltern to the high commission court, in their several dioceses, which were thought little different from the courts of inquisition. Sidserfe set this up in Galloway : and a complaint being made in council of his proceedings, he gave the earl of Argile the lie in full council. He was after all a very learned and good man, but strangely heated in those matters. And they all were so lifted up with the king's zeal, and so encouraged by archbishop Laud, that they lost all temper; of which I knew Sidserfe made great acknowledgments in his old age.

But the unaccountable part of the king's proceedings was, that all this while, when he was endeavouring to recover so great a part of the property of

Scotland as the church lands and tithes were from men that were not like to part with them willingly, and was going to change the whole constitution of that church and kingdom, he raised no force to maintain what he was about to do, but trusted the whole management to the civil execution. By this all people saw the weakness of the government, at the same time that they complained of its rigour. All that came down from court complained of the king's inexorable stiffness, and of the progress popery was making, of the queen's power with the king, of 27 the favour shewed the pope's nuncios, and of the many proselytes who were daily falling off to the church of Rome. The earl of Traquair infused this more effectually, though more covertly, than any other man could do: and when the country formed the first opposition they made to the king's proclamations, and protested against them, he drew the first protestation, as Primrose assured me; though he designed no more than to put a stop to the credit the bishops had, and to the fury of their proceedings: but the matter went much farther than he seemed to intend: for he himself was fatally caught in the snare laid for others. A troop of horse and a regiment of foot had prevented all that followed, or rather had by all appearance established an arbitrary government in that kingdom: but, to speak in the language of a great man, those who conducted matters at that time had as little of the prudence of the serpent, as of the innocence of the dove: and, as my father often told me, he and many others, who adhered in the sequel firmly to the king's interest, were then much troubled at the whole conduct of affairs, as being neither wise, legal, nor just. I will

Saville's forgery prevailed on the Scots.

go no farther in opening the beginnings of the troubles of Scotland: of these a full account will be found in the memoirs of the dukes of Hamilton. [Of which I shall take the boldness to set down the character which sir Robert Moray (who had a great share of the affairs at that time, and knew the whole secret of them) gave, after he had read it in manuscript, that he did not think there was a truer history writ since the apostles' days.] The violence with which that kingdom did almost unanimously engage against the administration may easily convince one, that the provocation must have been very great, to draw on such an entire and vehement concurrence against it.

After the first pacification, upon the new disputes that arose, when the earl of Lowdun and Dunfermling were sent up with the petition from the covenanters, the lord Saville came to them, and informed them of many particulars, by which they saw the king was highly irritated against them: he took great pains to persuade them to come with their army into England. They very unwillingly hearkened to that proposition, and looked on it as a design from the court to ensnare them, making the Scots invade England, by which this nation might have been provoked to assist the king to conquer Scotland. It is true, he hated the earl of Strafford so much, that they saw no cause to suspect him": so they entered into a treaty with him about it. The

× There had been great contests between Saville and Wentworth about elections in Yorkshire; and upon Saville's being made a lord, Wentworth ran very violently against the court,

till he was created a viscount; upon which Saville changed sides, and was as warm against the court as the other had been. D.