See, on their fall, some highly characteristic remarks in Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. i. p. 168. In 1639, Howell writes from Edinburgh, ‘The Bishops are all gone to wrack, and they have had but a sorry funeral; the very name is grown so contemptible, that a black dog, if he hath any white marks about him, is called Bishop. Our Lord of Canterbury is grown here so odious, that they call him commonly in the pulpit, the Priest of Baal, and the Son of Belial.’ Howell's Letters, edit. London, 1754, p. 276.
322
‘That people, after they had once begun, pursued the business vigorously, and with all imaginable contempt of the government.’ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, p. 45. Now, for the first time, the English government began to tremble. On 13th December 1639, Secretary Windebank writes, ‘His Majesty near these six weeks last past hath been in continual consultations with a select Committee of some of his Council (of which I have had the honour to be one), how to redress his affairs in Scotland, the fire continuing there, and growing to that danger, that it threatens not only the Monarchical Government there, but even that of this kingdom.’ Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 81, Oxford, 1773, folio. This is the earliest intimation I have met with of Charles and his advisers being aware of their real peril. But though the king was capable of fear, he was incapable of compunction. There is no evidence on record, to show that he even felt remorse for having planned and executed those arbitrary and unprincipled measures, by which he inflicted immense misery upon Scotland and England, but more especially upon Scotland.
323
‘The kinge was now so waik, haueing nether toune, fort, nor armie, and Oxford being a waik and onfortified toune, from whence he looked daylie to be taken perforce, he therefor resolues to cast himself into the arms of the Scots; who, being his natine people, and of late so ongratfullie dealt with by the Inglish, he hoped their particular credit, and the credit of the wholl natione depending thereupon, they would not baslie rander him to the Inglish.’ Gordon's Britane's Distemper, p. 193, published by the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1844, 4to.
324
That it may not be supposed, that, as an Englishman, I misrepresent this transaction by looking at it from an English point of view, I will merely quote what Scotch writers have said respecting it. ‘Giveing up the king to the will and pleasure of the English parliament, that soe they might come by ther money.’ Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. ii. p. 366. ‘The Scots sold their unfortunate king, who had fled to them for protection, to the commissioners of the English Parliament, for 200,000l. sterling.’ Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. ii. p. 38. ‘The incident itself was evidence of a bargain with a quid pro quo.’ Burton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 493. ‘The sale of the king to the parliament.’ Napier's Life of Montrose, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 448. ‘The king was delivered up, or rather sold, to the parliament's commissioners.’ Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. i. p. 91. ‘Their arrears were undoubtedly due; the amount was ascertained before the dispute concerning the disposal of his person, and the payment was undertaken by the English parliament, five months previous to the delivery, or surrender of the king. But the coincidence, however unavoidable, between that event and the actual discharge and departure of their army, still affords a presumptive proof of the disgraceful imputation of having sold their king; “as the English, unless previously assured of receiving his person, would never have relinquished a sum so considerable as to weaken themselves, while it strengthened a people with whom such a material question remained to be discussed.”’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 369, 370.
325
A letter from Sir Edw. Hyde to Lord Hatton, dated April 12, 1649 (in the Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 479, Oxf. 1773, fol.), says of Charles II., that the Scotch ‘sold his father to those who murdered him.’ But this is not true. Charles I., though certainly bought by the English, was not murdered by them. He was tried in the face of day; he was found guilty; he was executed. And most assuredly never did a year pass, without men far less criminal than he, suffering the same fate. Possibly, they are right who deem all capital punishment needless. That, however, has never been proved; and if this last and most terrible penalty is ever to be exacted, I cannot tell where we should find a more fitting subject to undergo it, than a despot who seeks to subjugate the liberties of the people over whom he is called to rule, inflicts cruel and illegal punishment on those who oppose him, and, sooner than renounce his designs, engages in a civil war, setting fathers against their children, disorganizing society, and causing the land to run with blood. Such men are outlaws; they are the enemies of the human race; who shall wonder if they fall, or, having fallen, who shall pity them?
326
The declaration was signed by Charles on the 16th August 1650. An abridgment of it is given in Balfour's Annales of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 92–94; but the entire document is preserved by Sir Edward Walker. See Journal of Affairs in Scotland, in Walker's Historical Discourses, London, folio, 1705, pp. 170–176. In it Charles is made to state that, ‘though his Majesty as a dutiful son be obliged to honour the memory of his Royal Father, and have in estimation the person of his Mother; yet doth he desire to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit before God, because of his Father's hearkening unto and following evil councils, and his opposition to the work of reformation, and to the solemn league and covenant by which so much of the blood of the Lord's people hath been shed in these kingdoms.’ He went on to say, that though he might palliate his own misconduct by pleading ‘his education and age,’ he thinks it better to ‘ingeniously acknowledge all his own sins and the sins of his father's house.’ Burnet (History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 97) says of this declaration: ‘In it there were many hard things. The king owned the sin of his father in marrying into an idolatrous family: he acknowledged the bloodshed in the late wars lay at his father's door: he expressed a deep sense of his own ill education,’ &c.
327
In reference to this event the following entry occurs in Lamont's Journal: ‘1650, Dec. 22. – The fast appointed by the commission of the kirke to be keiped througe the kingdome before the coronatione, was keiped att Largo the forsaide day by Mr. Ja. Magill; his lecture, Reu. 3. from v. 14 to the end of the chapt.; his text Reu. 2. 4, 5. Vpon the Thursday following, the 26 of this instant, the fast was keiped in likemaner; his lecture 2. Chro. 29 to v. 12; his text 2. Chron. 12, 12. The causes of the first day (not read) was, the great contempt of the gospell, holden forth in its branches; of the second day (which were read), the sinns of the king, and of his father's house, where sundry offences of K. James the 6 were aknowledged, and of K. Charles the 1, and of K. Ch. the 2, nowe king.’ The Diary of Mr. John Lamont of Newton, p. 25, Edinburgh, 1830, 4to. See also Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 107; Nicoll's Diary, Edinburgh, 4to, 1836, p. 38; Row's Continuation of Blair's Autobiography, edit. Wodrow Society, p. 255; Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 253; Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, edit. Spalding Club, p. 169; and, above all, the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, published by the Abbotsford Club, Edinburgh, 1839, 4to, pp. 88, 89.
328
Wodrow, who had before him the records of the Privy Council, besides other evidence now lost, says, that the period from 1660 to 1688 was ‘a very horrid scene of oppression, hardships, and cruelty, which, were it not incontestably true, and well vouched and supported, could not be credited in after ages.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, vol. i. p. 57. And the Reverend Alexander Shields, quaintly, but truly, observes, ‘that the said Government was the most untender, unpeaceable, tyrannical, arbitrary and wicked, that ever was in Scotland in any age or period.’ Shields' Scots Inquisition, Edinburgh, 1745, p. 24.
329
When James I. ascended the throne of England, ‘the principal native nobility’ accompanied him; and ‘the very peace which ensued upon the union of the crowns, may be considered as the commencement of an era in which many of our national strongholds were either transformed into simple residences
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