dence. I knew him in his old age; and saw plainly he was a slave to his popularity, and durst not own the free thoughts he had of some things for fear of offending the people.

I will not run out in giving the characters of the other leading preachers among them, such as Dickson, Blair, Rutherford, Baily, Cant, and the two Gillispys. They were men all of a sort: they affected great sublimities in devotion: they poured themselves out in their prayers with a loud voice, and often with many tears. They had but an ordinary proportion of learning among them; something of Hebrew, and very little Greek: books of controversy with papists, but above all with the Arminians, was the height of their study. A way of preaching by doctrine, reason, and use, was that they set up on and some of them affected a strain of stating cases of conscience, not with relation to moral actions, but to some reflexions on their condition and temper. That was occasioned chiefly by their conceit of praying by the Spirit, which every one could not attain to, or keep up to the same heat in at all times. The learning they recommended to their Their stuyoung divines were some German systems, some other mecommentators on the scripture, books of controversy, and practical books: they were so careful to oblige 35 them to make their round in these, that if they had no men of great learning among them, yet none were very ignorant: as if they had thought an equality in learning was necessary to keep up the parity of their government. None could be suffered to preach as expectants, (as they called them,) but

i Great nonsense. Rutherford was half fool, half mad. S.

dies, and

thods.

Their great

severity.

after a trial or two in private before the ministers alone: then two or three sermons were to be preached in public, some more learnedly, some more practically then a head in divinity was to be common placed in Latin, and the person was to maintain theses upon it: he was also to be tried in Greek and Hebrew, and in scripture chronology. The questionary trial came last, every minister asking such questions as he pleased. When any had passed through all these with approbation, which was done in a course of three or four months, he was allowed to preach when invited. And if he was presented or called to a church, he was to pass through a new set of the same trials. This made that there was a small circle of knowledge in which they were generally well instructed. True morality was little studied or esteemed by them. [They were proud and passionate, insolent and covetous.] They took much pains among their people to maintain their authority: they affected all the ways of familiarity that were like to gain on them: [even in sacred matters they got into a set of very indecent phrases.]

They forced all people to sign the covenant: and the greatest part of the episcopal clergy, among whom there were two bishops, came to them, and renounced their former principles, and desired to be received into their body. At first they received all that offered themselves: but afterwards they repented of this and the violent men among them were ever pressing the purging the kirk, as they called it, that is, the ejecting all the episcopal clergy. Then they took up the term of malignants, by which all who differed from them were distinguished: but the strictness of piety and good life, which had

gained them so much reputation before the war, began to wear off; and instead of that, a fierceness of temper, and a copiousness of many long sermons, and much longer prayers, came to be the distinction of the party. This they carried even to the saying grace before and after meat sometimes to the length of a whole hour. But as every new war broke out, there was a visible abatement of even the outward shews of piety. Thus the war corrupted both sides. When the war broke out in England, the Scots had a great mind to go into it. The decayed nobility, the military men, and the ministers, were violently set on it. They saw what good quarters they had in the north of England. And they hoped the umpirage of the war would fall into their hands. The division appearing so near an equality in England, they reckoned they would turn the scales, and so be 36 courted of both sides: and they did not doubt to draw great advantages from it, both for the nation in general, and themselves in particular. Duke Hamilton was trusted by the king with the management of his affairs in that kingdom, and had powers to offer, but so secretly, that if discovered it could not be proved, for fear of disgusting the English, that if they would engage in the king's side he Conditions would consent to the uniting Northumberland, Cum- the Scots. berland, and Westmerland, to Scotland; and that Newcastle should be the seat of the government; that the prince of Wales should hold his court always among them; that every third year the king should go among them; and every office in the. king's household should in the third turn be given to a Scotchman. This I found not among duke Hamilton's papers but the earl of Lauderdale assured

offered to

Montrose's undertak

ings.

me of it, and that at the Isle of Wight they had all the engagements from the king that he could give. Duke Hamilton quickly saw, it was a vain imagination to hope that kingdom could be brought to espouse the king's quarrel. The inclination ran strong the other way: all he hoped to succeed in was to keep them neuter for some time: and this he saw could not hold long: so after he had kept off their engaging with England all the year 1643, he and his friends saw it was in vain to struggle any longer. The course they all resolved on was, that the nobility should fall in heartily with the inclinations of the nation to join with England, that so they might procure to themselves and their friends the chief commands in the army: and then, when they were in England, and that their army was as a distinct body separated from the rest of the kingdom, it might be much easier to gain them to the king's service than it was at that time to work on the whole nation.

This was not a very sincere way of proceeding: but it was intended for the king's service, and would probably have had the effect designed by it, if some accidents had not happened that changed the face of affairs, which are not rightly understood: and therefore I will open them clearly. The earl of Montrose and a party of high royalists were for entering into an open breach with the country in the beginning of the year 1643, but offered no próbable methods of maintaining it; nor could they reckon themselves assured of any considerable party. They were full of undertakings: but when they were pressed to shew what concurrence might be depended on, nothing was offered but from the

Highlanders: and on this wise men could not rely: so duke Hamilton would not expose the king's affairs by such a desperate way of proceeding. Upon this they went to Oxford, and filled all people there 37 with complaints of the treachery of the Hamiltons; and they pretended they could have secured Scotland, if their propositions had been entertained. This was but too suitable to the king's own inclinations, and to the humour that was then prevailing at Oxford. So when the two Hamiltons came up, they were not admitted to speak to the king: and it was believed, if the younger brother had not made his escape, that both would have suffered; for when the queen heard of his escape, she with great commotion said, Abercorn has missed a dukedom; for that earl was a papist, and next to the two brothers. They could have demonstrated, if heard, that they were sure of above two parts in three of the officers of the army; and did not doubt to have engaged the army in the king's cause. But the failing in this was not all. The earl, then made marquis of Montrose, had powers given him such as he desired, and was sent down with them: but he could do nothing till the end of the year. A great body of the Macdonalds, commanded by one col. Killoch,

k Before the civil war the queen had a very particular aversion to duke Hamilton, which he perceiving, prevailed with Mrs. Seymour, who attended upon her in her bedchamber, to let him into the queen's private apartment at Somerset House, (the usual place for her retirement,) where he surprised the queen in great

familiarities with Harry Jermyn; after which she never durst refuse the duke any thing he desired of her. This, sir Francis Compton told me, he had from his mother, the countess of Northampton, who was very intimately acquainted with Mrs. Seymour, that was afterwards drowned in shooting London Bridge. D.