in the treason. But menaces were vain. With torments and death in immediate prospect, Mac Cullum More thought far less of himself than of his poor clansmen. "I was busy this day," he wrote from his cell, "treating for them, and in some hopes. But this evening orders came that I must die upon Monday or Tuesday; and I am to be put to the torture if I answer not all questions upon oath. Yet I hope God shall support me."

The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magnanimity of the victim had moved the conquerors to unwonted compassion. He himself remarked that at first they had been very harsh to him, but that they soon began to treat him with respect and kindness. God, he said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he did not, to save himself from the utmost cruelty of his enemies, betray any of his friends. On the last morning of his life he wrote these words :-" -"I have named none to their disadvantage. I thank God he hath supported me wonderfully."

Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devotion, and in affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with the pleasure of the government. He had, he said, been justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and dissimulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to the State and Church. Yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was the cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. "I do not," he said, "take on myself to be a prophet. But I have a strong impression on my spirit, that deliverance will come very suddenly." It is not strange that some zealous Presbyterians should have laid up his saying in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have attributed it to divine inspiration.

So effectually had religious faith and hope, co-operating with natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits that, on the very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite, conversed with gaiety at table, and, after his last meal, lay down, as he was wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might be in full vigour when he should mount the scaffold. At this time one of the lords of the council, who had probably been bred a Presbyterian, and had been seduced by interest to join in oppressing the church of which he had once been a member, came to the castle with a message from his brethren, and demanded admittance to the earl. It was answered that the earl was asleep. The privy councillor thought that this was a subterfuge, and insisted on entering. The door of the cell was softly opened; and there lay Argyle on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid sleep of infancy. The conscience of the renegade smote him. He turned away sick at heart, ran out of the castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady of his family who lived hard by. There he flung himself on a couch, and gave himself up to an agony of remorse and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks and groans, thought that he had been taken with sudden illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. "No, no," he said; "that will do me no good." She prayed him to tell her what had disturbed him. "I have been," he said, "in VOL. XXV.

C

Argyle's prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for me

'And now the earl had risen from his bed, and had prepared himself for what was yet to be endured. He was first brought down the High Street to the Council House, where he was to remain during the short interval which was still to elapse before the execution. During that interval he asked for pen and ink, and wrote to his wife. "Dear heart, God is unchangeable. He hath always been good and gracious to me; and no place alters it. Forgive me all my faults; and now comfort thyself in him, in whom only true comfort is to be found. The Lord be with thee, bless and comfort thee, my dearest. Adieu."

་

It was now time to leave the Council House. The divines who attended the prisoner were not of his own persuasion; but he listened to them with civility, and exhorted them to caution their flocks against those doctrines which all Protestant churches unite in condemning. He mounted the scaffold, where the rude old guillotine of Scotland, called the Maiden, awaited him, and addressed the people in a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of his sect, but breathing the spirit of serene piety. His enemies, he said, he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven. Only a single acrimonious expression escaped him. One of the episcopal clergymen who attended him went to the edge of the scaffold, and called out in a loud voice, "My lord dies a Protestant." "Yes," said the earl, stepping forward, "and not only a Protestant, but with a heart hatred of popery, of prelacy, and of all superstition." He then embraced his friends, put into their hands some tokens of remembrance for his wife and children, kneeled down, laid his head on the block, prayed for a little space, and gave the signal to the executioner. His head was fixed on the top of the Tolbooth, where the head of Montrose had formerly decayed.-Ib. pp. 562-565.

The length of these extracts compels us to pass briefly over what followed, which we regret the less, as the general outline of events is well known. The Western Campaign' of Jeffreys is unparalleled in English jurisprudence. He followed up the butchery of Kirke, and in earning the thanks of his master drew on himself the unextinguishable hatred of his countrymen. The state of parties had invested Monmouth with a character of which he was wholly unworthy. He was hailed as the champion of Protestantism, and thousands repaired to his standard with the view of preventing the fires of Smithfield from being rekindled. There was a fatal error in this, but it was the error of the day, and the Nonconformists partook of it largely. Mr. Macaulay computes the number hanged by Jeffreys at three hundred and twenty, which is a much lower estimate than that of other writers. He founds his statement on the returns sent to the Treasury by the judges, but it is open to serious doubt whether those returns were complete. There was great irregularity and much haste in many of the trials, and the motives which influenced Jeffreys in several cases, were not such as he would wish

to have too closely scrutinized. Very few of the convicts professed any repentance for what they had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan spirit, met death, not merely with fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain that the ministers of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt of rebellion and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of the king to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of the clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved the bitter scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed hymns in the dungeon and chaunted them on the fatal sledge.'

The power of James was at its highest at the close of 1685. The Whig party seemed extinct. Its name had become a byeword and reproach, the parliament was devoted to the king, and the church was louder than ever in the profession of the extreme doctrines of Toryism. The best men of the day saw with alarm and bitter mortification the dangers which threatened the country; but we probably owe to the complete triumph of the court the reaction which speedily ensued. James was amongst the least reflecting of mankind. He was incapable of foresight or discretion. Under adverse circumstances he would blindly have pursued his scheme, and was therefore encouraged, even to infatuation, by the triumph which had hitherto marked his career. His most sagacious counsellors advised him to pause, and to make his ground sure before proceeding further. He had done much for the prerogative; had put down a popular insurrection ; had conducted its leaders to the scaffold, and struck terror into the heart of a brave and generous people. The crown was now settled on his head, its power uncurtailed, and its resources more ample than ever. Had he therefore listened to the counsels of prudence, and been content with a slow and stealthy working out of his policy, there is no saying what might have been the result. Many of the most eminent Roman Catholics, and even the Pope, were of opinion that the interests of their Church in our island would be more effectually promoted by a moderate and constitutional policy.' But it is useless to speculate on a contingency which the character of James precluded. He was self-willed and obstinate, and took to his confidence the very men whose counsels hastened his ruin. The repeal of the Test Act was therefore resolved on, and Halifax, who had hitherto served the king, was dismissed from office, and his name struck out of the council-book, because he refused to support the measure :

'It soon became clear that Halifax would have many followers. A portion of the Tories, with their old leader, Danby, at their head, began to hold Whiggish language. Even the prelates hinted that there was a point at which the loyalty due to the prince must yield to higher

considerations. The discontent of the chiefs of the army was still more extraordinary and still more formidable. Already began to appear the first symptoms of that feeling which, three years later, impelled so many officers of high rank to desert the royal standard. Men who had never before had a scruple, had on a sudden become strangely scrupulous. Churchill gently whispered that the king was going too far. Kirke, just returned from his western butchery, swore to stand by the Protestant religion. Even if he abjured the faith in which he had been bred, he would never, he said, become a Papist. He was already bespoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco to turn Mussulman.' Vol. ii. pp. 13, 14.

The Houses met on the 9th November, and the royal speech, composed by James himself, congratulated them on the suppression of rebellion, and announced that considerable additions had been made to the army. So far, the king might calculate on the concurrence of his parliament, although a strong feeling existed, even amongst the Cavaliers, against a standing army. But James would not stop here. His despotic temper spurned concealment, and he proceeded therefore to reveal the extent to which he was prepared to stretch the prerogative. He informed his hearers,' says our author, that he had employed some officers who had not taken the tests; but he knew them to be fit for public trust. He feared that artful men might avail themselves of this irregularity to disturb the harmony which existed between himself and his parliament. But he would speak out. He was determined not to part with servants on whose fidelity he could rely, and whose help he might perhaps soon need.' The Upper House passed a vote of thanks, but the Commons demanded time for consideration, and ultimately came to a vote, by a majority of one, against the court. Some members of the Government, and several of its retainers, voted on this occasion with the country party. One of the latter, Captain James Kendall, who had been sent to parliament, in obedience to a royal mandate, by a packed corporation in Cornwall, on being reminded by Middleton at the bar of the House, that he had a troop of horse in his majesty's service, coolly replied: Yes, my lord, but my elder brother is just dead, and has left me seven hundred a year.' So insecure was the foundation on which the king relied, and so various the motives which determined the course of his opponents. The heedlessness with which he aroused opposition, was equalled by his utter incapacity to deal with it. His only resort was to force, which he employed with a rashness still more injurious to his cause. On the 13th November, those clauses of the king's speech which respected the Test were taken into consideration, and an address was resolved on, reminding

his majesty' that he could not legally continue to employ officers who refused to qualify, and pressing him to give such directions as might quiet the apprehensions and jealousies of his people.'

The answer of James was a cold and sullen reprimand, and the House was speedily prorogued; immediately after which, many members were dismissed from the royal service, and the name of the Bishop of London was struck out of the list of privy-councillors. The situation of the Tory party was at this time most perplexing :

'During many years,' says Mr. Macaulay, the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary monarchy and his zeal for the established religion had grown up together, and had strengthened each other. It had never occurred to him that the two sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even identical, might one day be found to be not only distinct but incompatible. From the commencement of the strife between the Stuarts and the Commons, the cause of the crown and the cause of the hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one. . . . He had seen the path of duty plain before him. Through good and evil he was to be true to Church and King. But, if those two august and venerable powers, which had hitherto seemed to be so closely connected that those who were true to one could not be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly enmity, what course was the orthodox royalist to take?'-İb. p. 42.

The Earls of Clarendon and Rochester, brothers-in-law of the king, were of this party, as was also the venerable Ormond, who had grown grey in the service of the Stuarts. Several of the Catholic nobility, also, counselled moderation, but the Earl of Castlemaine, whose title had been purchased by the notorious dishonour of his wife, the Earl of Tyrconnel, one of the basest of libertines, who had pandered to the worst passions of James, by charging infidelity upon Anne Hyde, and a mob of Jesuits, headed by father Petre, succeeded in closing the royal ear against all the suggestions of experience and the admonitions of danger from his rash and headlong course. • Edward Petre was descended from an honourable family. His manners were courtly; his speech was flowing and plausible; but he was weak and vain, covetous and ambitious. Of all the evil counsellors who had access to the royal ear, he bore, perhaps, the largest part in the ruin of the House of Stuart.'

The temper of James gave great advantage to those who advised him to eschew compromise and to insist on unconditional surrender. It was obstinate and imperious as his understanding was dull, and he therefore readily lent himself to their policy. Like other weak men, he accounted for events by the most shallow and flimsy causes imaginable. What had no relation, or only a very distant one, to some apprehended evil, was regarded