No. IV. Edinburgh, 3 Aug. 1652. Ante mer. Sess. 19. Act concerning admitting Expectants to their tryals, and Ruling Elders to act in Presbyteries and Synods. (continued 2)

When the conference was broken off, the Committee of state went about their answer to the petitioners, and there began debate. The most found the matter high treason; the divesting the King of his authority; the breaking of the treaty approven by kirk and state; the slandering highly of the judicatories; and engaging of private men to change the government. The deepness of these crimes troubled the judges; the respect the most of them had to the persons guilty, moving them to go far lower than the writ’s deserving, and all of them being resolved to make no more of it than was in the committee’s power to pardon; they went therefore no higher in the censure than you have in the sentence; from which yet near fifteen dissented for one or other word, though all professed their disallowance of the writ. This dissent was in the King’s presence. If he had been absent, as some would have persuaded him, the dissenting might have been greater; for Wariston was very long and passionate in his exhortation to wave it simply, which had been very unhandsome, since the parties peremptorily refused to take it up. At the sentence, the gentlemen stormed, but the ministers much more. It came next to the commission of the church. The states had given in their sense to them, and required the kirk’s judgement. Here came the vehement opposition. The remonstrants petitioned to have the present consideration thereof laid aside, lest the parties should be discouraged to act against the enemy. Mr Rutherford pressed this with much more passion than reason, and Mr Guthrie also. Here it was where I spoke but so much as declared my sense against the thing. Much dealing was still to take it up. Mess. Cant, Blair, Rutherford, and Durham, were sent to persuade them; but Mr Patrick was peremptory to shew their willingness to quit their life rather than their testimony. So when there was no remedy, at last, by Mr Douglas and Mr James Wood’s industry most, it came to that mild sentence which you see here subscribed. With it the parties were highly offended, and entered their loud protestation. Mr Blair came in the hinder end. He and you, by your letters, had signified your judgement much averse from the remonstrance; which in a scolding way was cried out by Mr John Nevo in Mr Blair’s face: to which he replied nothing. Mr David Bennet and Mr Hugh Peebles expressed themselves bitterly, and were answered accordingly by others. Our Provost, George, spoke in his protestation of something like sealing the remonstrance with his blood. All of them went out of town highly discontent; though as little occasion was given them as possibly could be, either by church, or state, or any person. I thought the separation exceeding unhappy, both to our west country and to the whole kingdom, but remediless, God giving over the chief misleaders, who had oppressed, to my grief, many others, to follow their own sense in that which the rest of us thought a high and dangerous sin.

Mr Patrick and Mr James Guthrie, where-ever they came, uttered their passion. I heard one who had married Mr Patrick’s sister’s daughter, report to Mr Douglas, that Mr Hugh Binning, with Mr Patrick, in Kirkaldy, had spoke like a distracted man, saying to Mr Douglas’s own wife, and the young man himself, and his mother-in-law, Mr Patrick’s sister, “That the commission of the kirk would approve nothing that was right; that a hypocrite ought not to reign over us; that we ought to treat with Cromwell, and give him security not to trouble England with a King; and whoever marred this treaty, the blood of the slain in this quarrel should be on their heads!” Strange words, if true. Always behold the fearful consequence of that pride of stomach. The state sent Col. Robert Montgomery west, to join the best part of the horse they had with the western forces, or any part of them that would join with him. For this end, he spoke with the commissioners of the west, at Stirling, who had been at Perth; but they shewed great averseness at any such junction. He wrote also to Ker for this effect, and marched towards Glasgow. On the Sunday at night he came to Campsie; but on the Saturday, Ker, with all his forces, lying at Carmunock, resolves to prevent Col. Robert’s approach, and by themselves to make an infall on the English before day.

Our intelligence was, that the English at Hamilton were but 1200; but Lambert lay there, with above 3000 of their best horse. They called ours above 1,500; but some double the number: for of all their forces, there was not above four or five of Strachan’s troops away. Some speak of treachery; for Govan, for all his cashiering, was re-admitted by Ker on fair promises. Strachan was not far off. It is certain when, at four o’clock in the morning, December 1, our men came to set on, the enemy were ready to receive them, having sounded to horse half an hour before, as it were for a march to Glasgow. All speak of a great rashness, as in an anger, or what else, to cast away these forces. Lieut.-Col. Ralston, with a small party of horse, entered Hamilton, and most gallantly carried all before him, killed sundry; some spoke of hundreds, other are within scores; however, he cleared the town of the enemy. Col. Ker, with fewer than 200, seconded him well; but at the end of the town, where the body of the English drew up again in the field at the back of a ditch, when Ker saw it not easy to pass, he retired a little, which they behind took for a flight, and all turned their backs; yea, the whole rest fled apart; not one would stay. The English pursued as far as Paisley and Kilmarnock that day; yet very few were killed. Some say, scarce twenty; not above eighty prisoners, whereof Col. Ker made one; as some say, deadly, as others, slightly wounded. Argyle said to me, he might have escaped if he would. The next day, 200 or 300, who rallied in Kyle, by Strachan’s persuasion disbanded; and himself, as fearing to be taken by us, went in to Cromwell, with Swinton, whose first work was, to agent the rendering the castle of Edinburgh, with their dear comrade young Dundass, who most basely, and, as yet it is taken, treacherously, gave over that most considerable strength of our kingdom. But of this more certainly afterwards.

The miscarriage of affairs in the west by a few unhappy men, put us all under the foot of the enemy. They presently ran over all the country, without any stop, destroying cattle and corn, putting Glasgow and all others under grievous contributions. This makes me yet to stick at Perth, not daring to go where the enemy is master, as now he is of all Scotland beyond Forth, [i. e. besouth Forth,] not so much by his own virtue as our vices. The loss of the west, the magazine of our best forces, put the state presently to new thoughts. We had long many debates about employing malignants in our armies. Some were of opinion that the acts of church and state were unjust, and for particular ends, from the beginning. All agreed, that common soldiers, after satisfaction to the church, might be taken in; but as for officers, noblemen and gentlemen volunteers, that we were not to take them in at all, at least not without an eminent degree of evident repentance. The most thought they might be employed as soldiers, on their admittance by the church to the sacrament and covenant. As for places of counsell and trust, that this was to be left to the state’s discretion. However, when the case was clearly altered, and now there was no choice of men, the parliament wrote to Mr Robert Douglas to call the commission extraordinary. A quorum was got, most of these of Fife. The question was proponed, of the lawfulness of employing such who before were excluded. The question was alledged to be altered from that which Mr Gillespie writes of, and that whereto Mr Guthrie had solemnly engaged, a defence of our lives and country, in extreme necessity, against sectarians and strangers, who had twice been victors. My heart was in great perplexity for this question. I was much in prayer to God, and in some action with men, for a concord in it. The parliament was necessitated to employ more than before, or give over their defence. Mr Samuel Rutherford and Mr James Guthrie wrote peremptory letters to the old way, on all hazards. Mr Douglass and Mr D. Dick had of a long time been in my sense, that in the war against invading strangers, our former strictness had been unadvised and unjust. Mr Blair and Mr Durham were a little ambiguous, which I much feared should have divided the commission; and likely bad done so, if with the loss of the west, the absence of all the brethren of the west had not concurred. However, we carried unanimously at last the answer herewith sent to you. My joy for this was soon tempered when I saw the consequence, the lothing of sundry good people to see numbers of grievous bloodshedders ready to come in, and so many malignant noblemen as were not like to lay down arms till they were put into some places of trust, and restored to their vote in parliament. Against this necessity for our very being, and hope that the guides of our state would, by their wisdom and virtue, and adherence of the church and good men, get kept what they had of authority, the Chancellor oft remembering us, that in this there was a great alteration of the case, that the King being now in covenant, the most whose malignancy stood in their following the King against the covenant, were no more to be counted malignants, the fountain of that evil being stopped in them, there was just ground why that blot and name of distinction in that respect should be now abolished. Another inconvenience was like to trouble us, a seed of Hyper-Brounism, which had been secretly sown in the minds of sundry of the soldiers, that it was unlawful to join in arms with such and such men, and so that they were necessitated to make a civil separation from such, for fear of sin, and cursing of their enterprises. The main fomenters of these doubts seemed not at all to be led by conscience, but by interest; for the officers of our standing army, since the defeat at Dunbar, being sent to recruit the regiments in the northern shires, little increased that number, but taking large money for men, and yet exacted quarters for men which were not; this vexed the country, and disappointed the service. The officers, by the new levies, thought it easy to be recruited at their pleasure; but an act passing, that the new levies should not recruit the old regiments, they stormed, and gladly would have blasted the new way for their own ends. Under these evils we wrestle as yet, but hope for a good end of these divisions also. In the mean time Cromwell is daily expected to march towards Stirling to mar the coronation, which, sore against my heart, was delayed to the first of January, on pretence of keeping a fast for the sins of the King’s family on Thursday next. We mourned on Monday last for the contempt of the gospel, according to Mr Dickson’s motion, branched out by Mr Wood. Also you see in the printed papers, upon other particulars the commission at Stirling, which appointed these fasts, could not agree. The remonstrants pressed to have sundry sins acknowledged which others denied, and would not now permit them to set down as they would what causes of fast they liked. Surely we had never more need of mourning, be the causes, what God knows, visible or invisible, confessed or denied, seen or unseen, by all but the most guilty. It cannot be denied but our miseries and dangers of ruin are greater than for many ages have been; a potent victorious enemy master of our seas, and for some good time of the best part of our land; our standing forces against this his imminent invasion, few, weak, inconsiderable; our kirk, state, army, full of divisions and jealousies; the body of our people besouth Forth spoiled, and near starving; the be-north Forth extremely ill-used by a handful of our own; many inclining to treat and agree with Cromwell, without care either of King or covenant; none of our neighbours called upon by us, or willing to give us any help, though called. What the end of all shall be, the Lord knows. Many are ready to faint with discouragement and despair; yet divers are waiting on the Lord, expecting he will help us in our great extremity against our most unjust oppressors.

* * * *

This day we have done that what I earnestly desired, and long expected, crowned our noble King with all the solemnities at Scone, so peaceably and magnificently as if no enemy had been among us. This is of God: for it was Cromwell’s purpose, which I thought easily he might have performed, to have marred by arms that action, at least the solemnity of it. The remonstrants, with all their power, would have opposed it: others prolonged it so long as they were able. Always, blessed be God, it is this day celebrated with great joy and contentment to all honest-hearted men here. Mr Douglas, from 2 Kings, xi. Joash’s coronation, had a very pertinent, wise, and good sermon. The King sware the covenant, the league and covenant, the coronation-oath. When Argyle put on the crown, Mr Douglas prayed well; when the Chancellor set him on the throne, he exhorted well; when all were ended, he, with great earnestness pressed sincerity and constancy in the covenant on the King, delating at length King James’s breach of the covenant, pursued yet against the family, from Neh. v. 13. God’s casting the King out of his lap, and the 34th of Jeremiah, many plagues on him if he did not sincerely keep the oaths now taken. He closed all with a prayer, and the 20th psalm.

Dundas and Major Abernethy have most basely delivered the castle of Edinburgh to Cromwell. All the ministers saw the treachery, and protested against it. Wariston, Sir John Cheesly, and the Provost of Edinburgh, who put them in that trust, contrary to the minds of others, have little credit by it.

Now the parliament having, by the needless length of some, sat so long, ended their session on Monday after twelve at night. None of the remonstrants are on the committee of estates. Wariston, with great difficulty, was got on. All dilligence will now be used to get up an army. The Lord be with us. Our greatest danger will be from famine. Now get victuals to starving Ireland. It were an happy benefit if your Hollanders would bring us in victual for money. The Spaniard, nor any other, could never, by their persuasion nor force, hinder them to trade where-ever they find gain. Is not this a strange slavery now, our love to the English murderers, that they for their pleasure should give over all trade with us their brethren and well-deserving friends? Though we should never be able to revenge their ingratitude, yet there is a God who will see to it. Our case will be exceeding hard if, before the summer, your Zealanders, on piety and pity, be not moved to bring us victuals for all the money we have resting; though it may be the Lord may be pleased to open some other door which yet is not visible to us.

Perth, January 2, 1651.

P. S.—I think to-morrow we shall give order to excommunicate Strachan, and relax Middleton the next sabbath. By the coming of some, all engaging officers and noblemen were all purged out of our army, but now I think all of them, without any considerable exception, are received. On this necessary conclusion, some turbulent men are like to be factious; but to-morrow a warning is to be put out for their reclaiming if possible. By God’s blessing, our affairs shortly may be in a better posture. Our great troublers, both in church and state, have set themselves aside. If God give us over to Cromwell, we expect little good from these men but a violent executing of all in their remonstrance; but otherwise I think they may be brought quickly to repent their needless quarrelling. However, the Lord’s will be done, who has begun to comfort us with the smallest appearance of better hopes.

To Mr Calamy, Minister at London. Glasgow, July 27, 1653. * * * *

At this time I have no more to add, but this one word, to let you know, That on the 20th of July last, when our general assembly was set in the ordinary time and place, Lieutenant-Colonel Cottrell beset the church with some rattes of musqueteers and a troop of horse. Himself (after our fast, wherein Mr Dickson and Mr Douglas had two gracious sermons) entered the assembly house; and, immediately after Mr Dickson the Moderator his prayer, required audience; wherein he inquired, If we did sit there by the authority of the parliament of the commonwealth of England? or of the commanders in chief of the English forces? or of the English judges in Scotland? The Moderator replied, That we were an ecclesiastick synod, an spiritual court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with any thing civil; that our authority was from God, and established by the laws of the land yet standing unrepealed; that by the Solemn League and Covenant, the most of the English army stood obliged to defend our general assembly. When some speeches of this kind had passed, the Lieutenant-Colonel told us, his order was, to dissolve us. Whereupon he commanded all of us to follow him; else he would drag us out of the room. When we had entered a protestation of this unheard-of and unexampled violence, we did rise, and follow him. He led us all through the whole streets a mile out of the town, encompassing us with foot-companies of musqueteers, and horsemen without; all the people gazing and mourning as at the saddest spectacle they had ever seen. When he had led us a mile without the town, he then declared what farther he had in commission, That we should not dare to meet any more above three in number; and that against eight o’clock to morrow, we should depart the town, under pain of being guilty of breaking the public peace: And the day following, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off the town, under the pain of present imprisonment. Thus our general assembly, the glory and strength of our church upon earth, is by your soldiery crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation from us, at this time, either in word or deed. For this our hearts are sad, our eyes run down with water, we sigh to God against whom we have sinned, and wait for the help of his hand; but from those who oppressed us we deserved no evil. We hear a noise of further orders, to discharge all our synods and presbyteries, and all prayer for our King. Many the most moderate reckon such orders will make havock of our church, and raise against many the best men we have, a sore persecution; which, God willing, we purpose to endure with all patience and faith, giving just offence to none.

I detain you no more. The Lord mind his Zion in these lands, and bless you, who for the time stand in the most eminent pinnacle thereof. Thus rests, your Brother to serve you,

Robert Baillie.

To Mr William Spang. July 19, 1654. * * * *

As for our church affairs, thus they stand. The parliament of England had given to the English judges and sequestrators a very ample commission to put out and in ministers as they saw cause, to plant and displant our universities. According to this power, they put Mr John Row in Aberdeen, Mr Robert Leighton in Edinburgh, Mr Patrick Gillespie in Glasgow, and Mr Samuel Colvill they offered to the Old College of St Andrew’s. This last is yet held off; but the other three act as Principals. All our colleges are quickly like to be undone. Our churches are in great confusion. No intrant gets any stipend till he have petitioned and subscribed some acknowledgement to the English. When a very few of the remonstrants and Independent party will call a man, he gets the kirk and the stipend; but whom the presbytery, and well near the whole congregation, calls and admits, he must preach in the fields, or in a barn, without stipend. So a sectary is planted in Kilbride, another in Lenzie, [or Kirkintilloch,] and this guyse will grow rife, to the wrack of many a soul.

We thought at the general assembly to have got some course for this; but Colonel Lilburn, the commander in chief, gave orders to soldiers to break our assembly before it was constituted, to the exceeding great grief of all, except the remonstrants, who insulted upon it; the English violence having trysted with their protestation against it. Since that time we have had no meeting for the whole church, not so much as for counsel, though the remonstrants have met oft, and are like to set up a commission and assembly of their own for very ill purposes. They are most bitter against those who adhere to their covenant in the matter of the King and assembly. They are as bent as ever to purge the church. To punish men truly deserving censure, we are as willing as they; but their purging is, for common, a very injurious oppression. Sundry of them fall openly to the English errors, both of church and state, and many more are near to that evil; yet Lord Wariston, Mr James Guthrie, and others, still profess their great aversion to the English way: however, their great aversion of the King, and of the late assemblies, and their zeal to make up the church and army, and places of trust, only of the godly party, (that is, their own confidents,) make them dear and precious men to the English, do or say what they will, and their opposites but rascally malignants. This makes them exceeding bold, knowing of their back; and were it not for a few more moderate men among them, they, before this, would have played strange pranks. However, they are going on pretty fast. Their wracking of the congregation of Lenzie, and dividing of the presbytery of Glasgow, their doing the like in the congregation and presbytery of Linlithgow, you heard long ago; also what they have done in Bathgate, and sundry parts of the south. I will only give some account of their last dealings.

From their meeting in Edinburgh they were instructed to have monthly fasts and communions. They excluded more than the half of these who were ordinarily admitted. Six or seven ministers, leaving their own congregations desolate, were about the action. Numbers of strangers flocked to these meetings. At their fasts, four or five ministers of their best preachers in the bounds exercised from morning to even. The great design of this was evidently but to increase their party; whereof yet in most places they missed. Always the word went, that they purposed to put up committees, for purging and planting everywhere as they thought fit. I was so charitable as not to suspect them of any such purpose, when the land was full of confusion and danger; yet I found myself disappointed; for at our synod, the moderator’s sermon ran on the necessity of taking up the too-long neglected work of purging. The man’s vehemency in this, and in his prayer, a strange kind of sighing, the like whereof I had never heard, as a pythonising out of the belly of a second person, made me amazed. To prevent this foolish and cruel enterprise, we pressed, in the entry of the synod, that in these times of confusion we might be assured of peace till the next synod, as we had been in the three former synods. We intimated our great willingness to cast out of the ministry all whom we conceived either unfit for weakness, or scandalous: but a synod so divided in judgment as we were, we conceived very unfit for any such work. When we found our desire flatly refused, and perceived a clear design to set up presently their tyrannous committees, we, as we had resolved beforehand, and were advised by the ministry of Edinburgh, and others of our mind, required them, that our synod might be rightly constitute; that ministers censured by the general assembly, and elders notoriously opposite to the last three general assemblies, might have no voice. When this was flatly refused, we shewed we were necessitated to sit by ourselves, and leave them in their separation from the general assembly and church of Scotland. When, by all we could say, nothing could be obtained, all of us who adhered to the general assembly went to the Blackfriars, and there kept the synod, leaving our protestation with them. Some brethren travelled all the next day for an union. We offered it gladly, on condition that they would be content for this time of the land’s trouble and danger, to leave all meddling with things controverted, or else to constitute according to the act of the general assembly. When neither could be obtained, (as you may see in the paper of mediation,) we constituted ourselves in a synod by an act; and when we had appointed a fast, we closed, to meet at Irvine the next diet. To our absent brethren we sent a letter, and an information of our proceedings to the neighbouring synods of Lothian, Galloway, Argyle; also Fife, Perth, and the Merse.

The remonstrants chose Mr William Guthrie for their moderator, and one James Porter, a devoted servant of their party, for clerk; named a committee of their most forward men to go immediately to Lanerk, to purge and plant as they found cause; sent two of their gentlemen, Sir George Maxwell and Walkingshaw, with the help of their good friend Bogs, and Commissary Lockhart. Mr Somerville, and Mr Jack, and, when they prevailed not, two of their ministers, Mr William Somerville, and Mr William Jack, went to the Governor of Glasgow, Col. Couper, for a troop of horse to guard them at Lanerk and Douglas. Some of them, to their power, fomented a very injurious scandal on Mr Robert Hume, whom we had made minister at Crawfordjohn contrary to their mind; their committee laboured to their power to try that their own invention, but failed therein. There is an old man, Mr John Veitch, minister of Roberton, they sent two or three ministers of their number to hear him preach. On their report, they pronounced a sentence of deposition on him as insufficient. But their chief work was at Douglas. The noblemen, gentlemen, whole heritors, people, and session, unanimously had called Mr Archibald Inglis, a very good and able youth, to his father’s place. They stirred up some of the elders, who subscribed a call to the young man, to desire his trials might be before the united presbytery, and not before our part of it, from which the remonstrants had separated. This motion they so fomented, that these few elders, with a very few of the people, were moved by them, contrary to all the congregation, to give a call to a silly young man, a mere stranger, from Fife, one Mr Francis Kidd, who had never been heard nor seen in the bounds. This man they bring to the kirk on the Sunday. When the people refused to let him or them enter, he preached on a brae side to some strangers and a few of the people of Douglas, and even these run away from hearing of him, except a very few of them. Sermon ended, they sent one to read an edict at the church door, who refused to give a copy of what he read. Without more ado, on Monday morning, they passed all his trials in one hour, and came to the church of Douglas in the afternoon to give him imposition of hands. The body of the people and heritors hindered their coming into the church and churchyard; whereupon they sent once and again for their English guard. By all their importunity they could get none of the troop to countenance them, except twelve, with the lieutenant. By the power of their sword, as was avowed on all hands, on a brae side, without preaching, they admitted him minister of Douglas: An abominable example, generally much abhorred, which shews what we may expect from that party. Our Synod appointed some to join with the true presbytery of Lanerk, which met the week thereafter; tried, with all accuracy possible, what could be found in the scandal of Mr Hume; found nothing but malice of some parties, fomented by ministers; with the unanimous consent of the people of Roberton, strengthened the minister, and appointed a helper to be settled there in an orderly way; admitted to the church of Douglas Mr Archibald Inglis, after all trials duly performed, with the blessings and tears of the congregation. Possibly they will procure an order from the English, that the stipend and church shall go to Mr Kidd and his twelve or sixteen followers, and Mr Inglis shall be tolerated, with much ado, to preach to the whole congregation, Marquis of Douglas, Earl of Angus, whole heritors and people, in the fields, or a barn, without a sixpence of stipend.

In this glass see our condition. It is so in sundry congregations already, and like to be so in many more; not so much through the violence of the English, as the unreasonable headiness of the remonstrants, which for the time is remediless; and we, for fear of worse from their very evil humour, give way to permit them to plant divers churches as they like best. This formed schism is very bitter to us, but remediless, except on intolerable conditions, which no wise orthodox divine will advise us to accept: We must embrace without contradiction, and let grow, the principles of the remonstrants, which all Reformed divines, and all states in the whole world abhor; we must permit a few heady men to waste our church with our consent or connivance; we must let them frame our people to the Sectarian model; a few more forward ones joined among themselves by privy meetings to be the godly party, and the congregation, the rest, to be the rascally malignant multitude: so that the body of our people are to be cast out of all churches; and the few who are countenanced, are fitted, as sundry of them already have done, to embrace the errors of the time for their destruction. Against these abominations we strive so much, and so wisely, as we can. Mr R. Douglas, Mr Dickson, and others, have yet got Edinburgh right. The faction which Mr Robert Traill and Mr John Stirling have there is inconsiderable. Mr R. Blair and Mr J. Wood keep St Andrew’s and Fife pretty right. Mr Rutherford, to the uttermost of his power, advances the other party. Mr John Robertson and Mr William Rate get Angus and Dundee right: but the naturally heady men of Aberdeen are come to the full design too soon; yet the body of the people and country are right. In this Mr J. Guthrie in Stirling comes but small speed: albeit his confident, Sir William Bruce of Stenhouse, be made the English sheriff in Linlithgowshire, they have used great violence, imprisoned their chief opposite Mr John Waugh, forced a silly man into the ministry of Linlithgow, and another on Bathgate, contrary to all the synod of Lothian could do; yet the body of the people there is flat against them. Their greatest prevalency is with us in Glasgow, which comes much more by Mr James Durham’s professed neutrality, but real joining with most of the other’s designs, and Mr John Carstair’s zeal, than any thing that Mr Patrick Gillespie had done, or could do, by himself. This is the pitiful condition of our church, which is but going on from evil to worse till the Lord remeid it.

As for our state, this is its case. Our nobility are well near all wrecked. Dukes Hamilton, the one executed, the other slain; their estate forfeited; one part of it gifted to English soldiers; the rest will not pay the debt; little left to the heretrix; almost the whole name undone with debt. Huntly executed; his sons all dead but the youngest; there is more debt on the House than the land can pay. Lennox is living as a man buried in his house of Cobham. Douglas and his son Angus are quiet men, of no respect. Argyle, almost drowned in debt, in friendship with the English, but in hatred with the country. He courts the remonstrants, who were and are averse from him. Chancellor Loudon lives like an outlaw about Athol; his lands comprised for debt, under a general very great disgrace. Marischal, Rothes, Eglinton and his three sons, Crawford, Lauderdale, and others, prisoners in England; and their lands all either sequestrated or forefaulted, and gifted to English soldiers. Balmerino suddenly dead, and his son, for publick debt, comprisings, and captions, keeps not the causey. Wariston, having refunded much of what he got for places, lives privily in a hard enough condition, much hated by the most, and neglected by all, except the remonstrants, to whom he is guide. Our criminal judicatories are all in the hands of the English; our civil courts also; only some of the remonstrants are adjoined with them. In the session are Craighall, and his brother Hopeton, Mr A. Pearson, Southall, Col. Lockhart, and Swinton. The only clerks to the session are Mr John Spreul and William Downie. The commissariot and sheriff courts are all in the hands of English soldiers, with the adjunction in some places of some few remonstrants. Strong garrisons in Leith, Edinburgh town and castle, Glasgow, Air, and Dumbarton, Stirling, Linlithgow, Perth, Dundee, Burntisland, Dunnotter, Aberdeen, Inverness, Inverary, Dunstaffnage, &c.

Of a long time no man in the whole isle did mute. All were lulled up in a lethargic fear and despair; only the other year, Glencairn and Balcarras, understanding of an order to apprehend them as corresponding with the King, retired to the hills of Athol. Kenmure having escaped from England, when his house was burnt and his rents seized upon, got to the Lennox with a few horse. Lorn being but coarsely used by his father, joined with Kenmure. To these sundry did associate, Glengary, Athol, Seaforth, not so much to do any thing against the English, as to make some noise of a party, to encourage the King’s friends abroad to send him supplies of men, arms, and money. At once a great animosity did rise in every shire of the land. Very many young gentlemen made bold with all the serviceable horses they could find about them, and notwithstanding of all the diligence the English could use to prevent, great numbers came safe to the hills. The war with Holland, and rumour of great help from over seas, did increase daily both the number and courage of this party.

But behold inward division doth hazard all at the very beginning. The irreconcileable discord betwixt Argyle and Hamilton had undone the isle, and almost both the families. Glencairn, Hamilton’s cousin, did much mistrust and slight Lorn. Ralston, and the remonstrant gentlemen of Kintyre, seemed ready to arm for the English, against the King’s party. Lorn and Kenmure, with the men they had raised, went to Kintyre to suppress these. They, on hope of the English assistance from Ayr, fortified the castle of Lochead. But when neither Argyle nor the English appear in their defence, they render the house to Lorn’s discretion. Kenmure thinking the besieged better used by Lorn than they deserved, fell in a miscontent, and went from Lorn to Glencairn with many complaints. Balcarras also unwilling to have Glencairn above him, and conceiving it was best for the advancing of the King’s affairs, that till the King himself, or one of the authority from him, should come, the party should be ruled by a committee without any supreme officer, and that all admitted to councils and command in the army should declare for the Solemn League and Covenant. For these ends he dealt with Lorn, Seaforth, and Athol, till Glencairn produced a commission under the King’s hand to be general, till himself or some from him should come to take the command. This unexpected commission put all to a submissive silence, but increased heartburnings. Lorn professing all firmness to the King and cause, was not willing to take orders from Glencairn, till he knew more particularly the King’s pleasure. For this end, he Balcarras, and others, wrote to the King their discontent with Glencairn’s command. These letters were intercepted, and brought to Glencairn; whereupon he gave order to Glengary to apprehend Lorn to answer for his sedition. Lorn hardly enough escaped Glengary’s pursuit. Balcarras retired; and, a little after, with his lady, went disguised through England to the King. Notwithstanding of all these pitiful and shameful debates, Glencairn’s party still increased, and his conduct became considerable. The whole highlands, isles, and much of the north, and numbers from the lowlands, were come unto him; so it was thought, at Middleton’s coming, he had here and there 8000 or 9000 foot, and 2000 or 3000 horse, of very stout and resolute men as ever we had on the fields, the most of them old soldiers. But at Middleton’s coming, when neither the King, nor his brother, nor any foreign forces did appear, the hearts of many began to doubt; and when, after his coming, some months, notwithstanding of all the reiterated promises, no foreign assistance at all did come; but on the contrary, the Holland peace was proclaimed; the treaty of the Protector with Sweden went on; the French ambassador at London was solemnly received, as the Spanish and Portugal had been; all human hope began much to fail, especially after Monk’s coming down as general, the proclamation of the Protector, the act of union, and the ordinance of grace, which forfeited and deeply fined so many, and subjected the whole privileges of the nation to the Protector and his council’s pleasure, with the abolition of royalty, the whole branches of the family-royal, and all Scots parliaments and conventions of estates; the taking of Kinnoul, Lieutenant-Colonels Heriot, Wishart, Forsyth, and sundry more of our Scotsmen, unhappily: all these were so hard presages, that the most gave all the King’s affairs for gone, and many thought that the King, whether through their weakness, or the treachery of the few counsellors about him, or the cross aspect of all Europe towards him, had so far disappointed the expectation of his friends, that while he lived he was not like to get such a party for his service in Scotland.

So for the time the case of our land is most sad. Monk, by sea and land, is to beset Glencairn and his party, and with much severity to crush them, and for their sakes to lie more heavily on the whole subjected country, beginning with the best of the ministers; who, after mutual advice, find themselves in conscience necessitated to keep the King still in their publick prayers. They have been very careful to give the English no other offence at all; for in all this northland rising, to my best knowledge, there is no minister in Scotland who has had the least hand or any meddling. However, for this our great treason of naming the King in our publick prayers, (as we conceive our duty, covenant, and directory of worship do require, as you will see in the papers herewith sent you), we are like to suffer heavy things. For all this our eyes are towards the Lord. We expect protection from him; and if so he think meet, we are willing to seal our testimony, in faith and humble modesty, with all the sufferings which the injustice of men may be permitted of our heavenly Father to impose upon us.

Being called the other week to confer with the brethren of Edinburgh, I was comforted to find all that met, fully in my sense about prayer for the King, and affairs of our divided synod, divided presbytery, troubled college, and all else we spoke of. But it was a sad sight to see the general affliction at the proclamation of the Protector, of the act of union, the act of forfaultry and deep sinning of so many, the preparations of Monk by sea and land presently to swallow up the northern party, destitute of all hope of the oft-promised foreign supplies, as common fame surmised. As our miseries, (without a kingdom wholly, without any judicatories to count of of our own, without a church well near), are great; so we expect they shall increase, and the next heavy dint shall fall on the chief of the ministry. At once it will not be safe to have any audible complaints of these things either to God or man.

Postscript, July 20, 1654.

While I waited long for a bearer, I add further, our triumviri, Mess. Livingston, Gillespie, and Menzies, staid long at London without much access to the Protector. He thought it good to write for Mess. Douglas, Blair, and Guthrie. Mr Blair excused his health. Mr Guthrie, by a fair letter, declared his peremptoriness not to go. Mr Douglas, by Monk’s friendly letter, got himself also excused. On their not coming, Mr Livingston got leave to return, and is at home. Mr G. and Mr M. are expected. The business of the plot gave not the Protector much leisure for auditing of them. Only we fear that our church shall be cast under such a committee as now guides all ecclesiastical affairs in England, absolutely as the Protector thinks fit, the most whereof are Anabaptists, Independents, and gentlemen of no ecclesiastical relation. We thank God that persecution on the ministry is not yet begun, except what the remonstrants draw from the English on some few. Mr John Waugh and Mr Robert Knox were long prisoners for naming the King in their prayers; yet now they are at their liberty, and at their charges, to our great joy.

As to our anti-synod, after the pranks in Lanerk they met synodically very frequent at Glasgow, fell on a committee for purging all the presbyteries. I alone went up to them, intreated them with many fair words to delay any such work, and for that end gave them in a large paper, which a very gracious and wise brother, somewhat a mid-man betwixt us, had drawn for that end, which I send to you, that from it you may more fully learn our present temper. All this labour procured little; for notwithstanding they proceeded in their work, and appointed their purging and planting committees; but with this proviso, that they should have, at their next meeting, a conference with any I pleased of my mind before they proceeded. Against their day I had our part of the synod met, and full information of the brethren of Edinburgh and others for our proceeding. We presently set up a purging and planting committee as well as they, and of these we appointed a number to confer with them. With much ado we got them to stay till the first of August, upon a new conference: against that day Mr James Ferguson drew up a paper of his overtures for our reunion, and I drew up another. You have both here. What the issue shall be you may hear afterward; only these things lie heavier on my heart than any man’s else I know, for usually at the times of these comfortless janglings, I am sick and distempered with grief and discontent, though every one of them gives me more respect than to any other; yet for the remediless breach I am heavily oft troubled in my own mind, which I use to pour out before God, and get them courage and strength to go on, and bear the burden.

General Monk went to the fields in the beginning of June, thinking and professing that the discussing of the northern Tories would cost him but a few weeks labour; and we indeed expected no other; for the English in men, horse, money, and all things they could desire, had the clear advantage: yet we cannot hear of any great progress he has made. So soon as Glencairn had rendered his commission to Middleton; on a jar between Monro and Glengary, Glencairn speaking for Glengary, got a challenge from Monro; which he answered, and beat Monro, to his great commendation. This affront, not so much resented by Middleton as need had been, together with the King’s too much neglect, as some say, in his late commissions, of Glencairn’s very great services, upon the information, as it is thought, of Lorn and Balcarras, he left Middleton, and came with a small party to the Lennox. The noise of this malecontentment exceedingly discouraged many; but at once Glencairn carried it so, that all this discouragement was quickly changed; for with the small party he had, he defended the pass of Aberfoyle so well against Monk’s frequent assaults, and sent out, for good purpose, so many small parties to Clydesdale, Renfrew, Cunningham, Kyle, Carrick, and Galloway, as retarded a while Monk’s march to the north; and when he went north, notwithstanding of all the garrisons, and beside them one full regiment of foot and another of horse, left at Glasgow and Kilsyth, the party sent out from Glencairn, ran up and down the whole country, and did what they liked, without great impediment. Monk found his march to the north very troublesome. The people carried all out of his way; stragglers were snapped up; the hills made sundry both horse and men sicken and die. It was oft printed, that Morgan had Middleton so enclosed in Sutherland, that he could not escape to the south; yet when Middleton thought it time, he divided his men in parties, and passed by, with ease, both Morgan and Monk, coming to Perthshire and Argyle, notwithstanding all they could do to impede him. Colonel Brian’s regiment from Ireland, landing in Lochaber, was lighted on by the country-people, and near 100 of them slain: for this Monk did cause burn all the lands of Lochaber, Glengary, and Seaforth, as he came through. Glenorchy had been too great an intelligencer to the English, and sided with Argyle against Lorn his son: so Middleton caused burn much of his land. This burning, now begun on both hands, may ruin the whole country. It is thought the English have their full of the highland hunting, and that the flux is fallen among them, which make them speak already of quartering. It seems Middleton minds no fighting in any body, but shifts till he see what time may bring forth. The country every where suffers much; yet is patient, for they see no remedy; also the victual all this year, is at 4 lb. the boll, a greater appearance of the continuance of this greater plenty, than has been seen in our days....

That you may know the way of planting our churches, have this late practice. Mr John Galbraith of Bothkennar was deposed for tippling and other faults, some three or four years ago. When Mr James Guthrie continued to preach in Stirling, after his deposition by the general assembly, Mr Galbraith followed his example, and returned to his pulpit. His people loved him better than Stirling did the other. Of the presbytery of Stirling, Mr James Simpson, of Airth, likewise deposed and Mr Jo. Hogg, of Larber, adhered to Mr Guthrie, and these three made one presbytery. Mr R. Wright and other two or three adhering to the assembly, made themselves another presbytery. Mr George Bennet and other two were neutrals, and abstained from both. Mr Guthrie began a process of excommunication against Mr Galbraith; but he boasted so fast to excommunicate Mr James if he proceeded against him, that this was left off. Mr James professes to have no meddling with the English at all, and to be much averse from all compliance with them, yea to mislike Mr P. Gillespie’s way; yet Sir William Bruce of Stonehouse, his special and intimate friend to this day, has taken the sheriffship of Stirling from the English, and continues ruling elder in Mr James’s presbytery. By his means an order is procured from the English, that Mr John Galbraith shall give over preaching. This he is forced to obey. The whole parish gives an unanimous call to Mr William Galbraith, a good young man; but an order comes from the English to hinder his plantation; and the whole parish’s supplication oft presented to the English, could not get it helped; for the judges are fully for the remonstrants, though General Monk seems to dislike them. Thereafter one Mr John Blair, never heard nor seen by the parish, is named by Mr Guthrie’s presbytery to be minister of that kirk; for that people having adhered to a deposed minister must be counted malignant, and so lose their right to call, and the right of calling must fall in the hands of the presbytery; so an order is procured by the presbytery’s ruling elder, Sir William Bruce, from the English, to admit that Blair. Mr Ja. Guthrie causes convene a great number of this faction from divers parishes about, and gets Mr Robert Traill from Edinburgh, and Mr John Carstairs from Glasgow, and others to spend a day in preaching and prayer at his admission. The whole people of the parish meet, and keep the other out of the kirk; the tumult begins; dry strokes are distributed; some fell upon the sheriff’s neck. The gentlemen-parishioners, so soon as the sheriff produced his English orders for the admission, ceded; but the people continued all day casting stones and crying: yet they went on with their work, and thrust in the man. For all this, Mr Guthrie has no dealing with the English, and does no wrong. Our oppression is great and crying.