Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/190

484 of 1657, Monk committed him to prison, and Broghill was earnest to have him carried to England, for the more effectually preventing his intrigues among the royalists. Shortly after the Restoration, he waited on his majesty, Charles II., with a letter from his father, and was received so graciously, that the marquis was induced to go up to London upon the same errand as his son, but was sent to the Toner without an audience. During the time that Middleton was practising against his father the marquis, lord Lome exerted himself with great zeal, arid though he failed in rescuing his beloved parent from the toils into which he had been hunted, he left a favourable impression on the mind of Charles with regard to himself, and, in place of bestowing the estates of Argyle upon Middleton, as that profligate fondly expected, he was induced to restore them, as well as the original title of earl, to the rightful heir. Nor was this all; when, to the astonishment of all the world, he was, by the Scottish parliament, condemned to death, under the odious statute respecting leasing-making, he was again saved by the royal favour, to the confusion of his enemies. For some considerable time after this, there is little to be told of the earl of Argyle, and that little no way creditable to his fame. He had his share of the preferments and of the dirty work of the period, in which he fouled his hands more than was meet, as a Highlander would say, for the son of his father. It was on the 29th of June, 1681, that Argyle gave his vote in the council against Donald Cargill; and the very next day the parliament sat down, which framed under the direction of the bigoted James VII., then duke of York, and commissioner to the Scottish parliament, that bundle of absurdities known by the name of the Test, which was imposed without mercy upon all, especially such as lay under any suspicion of presbyterianism. This absurd oath was refused by many of the episcopal ministers, who relinquished their places rather than debauch their consciences by swearing contradictions. Some took it with explanations, among whom was Argyle, who added the following; that, as the parliament never meant to impose contradictory oaths, he took it as far as consistent with itself and the protestant faith, but that he meant not to bind or preclude himself in his station, in a lawful manner, from wishing or endeavouring any alteration which he thought of advantage to the church or state, and not repugnant to the protestant religion and his loyalty; and this he understood to be a part of his oath. Of the propriety of taking the test, even with this explanation, in a moral point of view, some doubt may reasonably be entertained. With such an explanation, why might not any oath be taken that ever was framed, and what can save such swearing from the charge of being a taking of God's name in vain; for an oath so explained is after all not an oath in the proper sense and meaning of the word. His explanation he submitted to the duke of York, who seemed to be perfectly satisfied; but he had no sooner put it in practice than he was indicted for his explanation, as containing treason, leasing, and perjury, and, by a jury of his peers, brought in guilty of the two first charges. This was on the 13th of December, 1681, and on the night of the 20th, fearing, as he had good reason, that his life would be taken, he made his escape out of the castle, disguised as a page, and bearing up the train of his step-daughter, lady Sophia Lindsay, sister to the earl of Ealcarras. On the third day after sentence of death was pronounced upon him, Fountainhall says, "there was a great outcry against the criminal judges and their timorous dishonesty. The marquis of Montrose was chancellor of this assize. Sir George Lockhart called it lucrative treason to the advantage of church and state ; and admired how a man could be condemned as a traitor for saying he would endeavour all the amendment ho can to the advantage of church and state." Even those who thought the words deserved some lesser punishment, called it diabolical alchemy,