ly opened thofe tranfactions that I had particular occafions to know. My chief defign in writing was to give a true view of men and of counfels, leaving publick tranfactions to Gazettes and the publick hiftorians of the times. I writ with a delign to make both my felf and my readers wifer and better, and to lay open the good and bad of all fides and parties, as clearly and impartially as I my felf understood it, concealing nothing that I thought fit to be known, and reprefenting things in their natural colours without art or difguife, without any regard to kindred or friends, to parties or interefts: For I do folemnly fay this to the world, and make my humble appeal upon it to the great God of truth, that I tell the truth on all occafions, as fully and freely as upon my best inquiry I have been able to find it out. Where things appear doubtful I deliver them with the fame incertainty to the world.

Some may perhaps think that inftead of favouring my own profellion, I have been more fevere upon them than was needful. But my zeal for the true interest of Religion and of the Clergy made me more careful to undeceive good and well meaning men of my own order and profeffion for the future, and to deliver them from common prejudices and miftaken notions, than to hide or excufe the faults of those who will be perhaps gone off the ftage before this work appear on it. I have given the characters of men very impartially and copioufly; for nothing guides ones judgment more truly in a relation of matters of fact, than the knowing the tempers and principles of the chief actors.

If I have dwelt too long on the affairs of Scotland, fome allowance is to be made to the affection all men bear to their native country. I alter nothing of what I wrote in the first draught of this work, only I have left out a great deal that was perfonal to my felf, and to thofe I am defcended B 2 from:

from: So that this is upon the matter the fame work with very little change made in it.

I look on the perfecting of this work, and the carrying it on thro' the remaining part of my life, as the greatest service I can do to God and to the world; and therefore I fet about it with great care and caution. For I reckon a lie in hiftory to be as much a greater fin than a lie in common difcourse, as the one is like to be more lafting and more generally known than the other. I find that the long experience I have had of the baseness, the malice, and the falfhood of mankind, has inclined me to be apt to think generally the worst both of men and of parties and indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition of many clergymen has Tharpned my spirits perhaps too much against them: So I warn my reader to take all that I fay on thefe heads with fome grains of allowance, tho' I have watched over my felf and my pen fo carefully that I hope there is no great occafion for this apology.

I have fhewed this hiftory to feveral of my friends, who were either very partial to me, or they esteemed that this work (chiefly when it should be over and over again retouched and polifhed by me, which very probably I fhall be doing as long as I live) might prove of fome ufe to the world. I have on defign avoided all laboured periods or artificial ftrains, and have writ in as clear and plain a ftyle as was poffible, chufing rather a copious enlargement, than a dark concifeness.

And now, O my God, the God of my life, and of all my mercies, I offer this work to thee, to whofe honour it is chiefly intended; that thereby [ may awaken the world to just reflections on their own errours and follies, and call on them to acknowledge thy Providence, to adore it, and ever to depend on it.

THE

THE

HISTORY

OF

My Own Times.

BOOK I.

A fummary Recapitulation of the state of Affairs in Scotland, both in Church and State; from the beginning of the Troubles, to the Restoration of King Charles the Second, 1660.

T

HE mifchiefs of civil wars are fo great and lafting, and the effects of them branching out by many accidents, that were not thought on at first, much less intended, into fuch mifchievous confequences, that I have thought it an enquiry that might be of great ufe both to Prince and People, to look carefully into the first beginnings and occafions of them, to obferve their progrefs, and the errours of both hands, the provocations that were given, and the

B 3

jealoufies

The dif

turns.

jealoufies that were raifed by thefe, together with the exceffes into which both fides have run by And tho' the wars be over long ago, yet fince they have left among us fo many feeds of lafting feuds and animofities, which upon every turn are apt to ferment and to break out a-new, it will be an ufeful as well as a pleafant enquiry to look back to the first original of them, and to obferve by what degrees and accidents they gathered ftrength, and at laft broke forth into a flame.

The Reformation of Scotland was popular and tractions parliamentary: The Crown was, during that time, during either on the head of a Queen that was abfent, or King of a King that was an infant. During his minority James's minority. matters were carried on by the feveral Regents, fo as was most agreeable to the prevailing humour of the Nation. But when King James grew to be of age, he found two parties in the kingdom, The one was, of thofe who wished well to the intereft of the Queen his Mother, then a prifoner in England: These were either profeffed Papists, or men believed to be indifferent as to all religions. The reft were her inveterate enemies, zealous for the Reformation, and fixed in a dependence on the Crown of England, and in a jealousy of France. When that king faw that thofe who were most in his interefts were likewife jealous of his authority, and apt to encroach upon it, he hearkned first to the infinuations of his Mother's party, who were always infufing in him a jealoufy of these his friends; faying, that by ruining his Mother, and fetting him in her room while a year old, they had ruined monarchy, and made the Crown fubject and precarious; and had put him in a very unnatural pofture, of being feized of his Mother's Crown while fhe was in exile and a prifoner; adding, that he was but a king in name, the power being in the hands of thofe who were under the management of the queen of England.

House of

Their infinuations would have been of lefs force, The pracif the House of Guife, who were his Coufin Ger- tices of the mans, had not been engaged in great defigns, of transferring the Crown of France from the House of Bourbon to themselves; in order to which it was neceffary to embroil England, and to draw the king of Scotland into their interefts. So under the pretence of keeping up the old alliances be-. tween France and Scotland, they fent creatures of their own to be Ambaffadours there; and they alfo fent a graceful young man, who, as he was the King's nearest kinfman by his father, was of fo agreeable a temper that he became his favourite, and was made by him Duke of Lenox. He was known to be a Papift, tho' he pretended he changed his religion, and became in profeffion a Proteftant.

The court of England difcovered all these artifices of the Guifians, who were then the most implacable enemies of the Reformation, and were managing all that train of plots against Queen Elizabeth, that in conclufion proved, fatal to the Queen of Scots. And when the English Minifters faw the inclinations of the young King lay fo ftrongly that way, that all their applications to gain him were ineffectual, they infused fuch a jealoufy of him into all their party in Scotland, that both Nobility and Clergy were much alarmed at it.

But King James learnt early that piece of Kingcraft, of difguifing, or at leaft denying every thing that was obferved in his behaviour that gave offence.

The main inftance in which the French management appeared, was that he could not be prevailed on to enter into any treaty of marriage. It was not fafe to talk of marrying a Papift; and as long as the Duke of Guife lived, the King, tho' then three and twenty and the only perfon of his famiB 4

ly,