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256 might have remarked, that on the parliament passing the act recissory, Sharp affected concern sufficient to qualify him for a new mission, which afforded him an opportunity of perfecting what he had already so far advanced, and ended in his now exalted situation of primate of all Scotland. Well might Burnet say of the Scottish ministers, "poor men, they were so struck with the ill state of their affairs that they had neither sense nor courage left them." Sharp, when made archbishop of St Andrews, affirmed that he had only accepted of it, seeing the king would establish episcopacy, to keep it out of more violent hands, and that he might be able so to moderate matters that good men might be saved from a storm that otherwise could not have failed to break upon them. No sooner had he the reins of ecclesiastic government in his hands than a proclamation was issued, forbidding any clergymen to meet in a presbyterial capacity till such time as the bishops had settled the order of procedure in them, and he was so very moderate in his measures, that of his co-presbyteis of St Andrews, he spared only three old men who were nonconformists, and these were spared not without great difficulty. Nor did his elevation, which he had attained with so much infamy, content him ; besides the dignity of the church, he loved that of the state, and in the differences that fell out between Lauderdale and Middleton he narrowly escaped a fall with the latter, he had been prevailed on to write to the king that the standing or falling of Middleton would be the standing or falling of the church, and he went up to London to support him personally. When he came to London, however, and saw how much Middleton had fallen in the estimation of the king, he resolved to make great concessions to Lauderdale, and when the latter reproached him with his engagements with Middleton, he boldly averred that he had never gone farther with him than what was decent, considering his post. That he had ever written to the king in his behalf, he totally denied. But Charles had given Lauderdale the prelate's letter. When it was shown to the writer he fell a-weeping, and begged pardon in the most abject manner, saying "what could a company of poor men refuse to the earl of .Middleton, who had done so much for them, and had them so entirely in his power." Lauderdale, upon this, said he would forgive them all that was past; and would serve them and the church at another rate than Middleton was capable of doing; and Sharp became wholly Lauderdale's. In 16G3, he went up to court to complain of the chancellor Glencairn and the privy council, when he said there was so much remissness and popularity on all occasions that, unless some more spirit was put into it, the church could not be preserved. On this occasion he obtained an order for establishing a kind of high commission court, a useful instrument of oppression, and procured a letter to the council directing that in future the primate should take the place of the chancellor, which so mortified Glencairn that he is said to have in consequence caught the fever of which lie died. Sharp, who now longed for the chancellorship, wrote immediately to Sheldon, bishop of London, that upon the disposal of this place the very being of the church depended, and begging that he would press the king to allow him to come up before he gave away the place. The king, who by this time had conceived a great dislike for Sharp, bade Sheldon assure him that he would take care the place should be properly filled, but that there was no occasion for his coming up. Sharp, however, could not restrain himself, but ventured up. The king received him coldly, and asked if he had not had the bishop's letter. He admitted that he had, but he chose rather to venture on his majesty's displeasure, than see the church ruined through his caution or negligence. "In Scotland they had but few and cold friends, and many violent enemies. His majestj's protection and the execution of the law were all they had to depend on, and