Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/121

Rh these depended so much upon the chancellor, that he could not answer to God and the church, if he did not bestir himself in that matter. He knew many thought of him for that post, but he was so far from that thought, that if his majesty had any such intention he would rather choose to be sent to a plantation. He desired that he should be a churchman in heart but not in habit, that should be called to that trust." From the king he went straight to Sheldon, and begged him to move the king to bestow it upon himself, furnishing him with many arguments in support of the proposal, one of which was that the late king had raised his predecessor, Spottiswood, to that dignity. Sheldon moved the king accordingly with more than ordinary fervour; and the king, suspecting Sharp had set him on, charged him to tell the truth, which he did, though not without a great deal of hesitation. The king told him, in return, the whole affair. Sheldon prayed him to remember the archbishop and the church, whatever he might think of the man, which the king graciously assured him he would do. Sheldon told Sharp he saw the motion for himself would be ineffectual, and he must think of some one else. Sharp then nominated Rothes, who was appointed accordingly; and with a commission to prepare matters for a national synod, to settle a book of common prayer and a book of canons, Sharp returned to Scotland, having assured the king that now, if all went not well, either Hollies or Lauderdale must bear the blame.

In another visit to court, along with Rothes, he endeavoured to undermine the influence of Lauderdale; but that bold and unhesitating man did not flinch from his averments, whether true or false, and compelled him publicly to retract them. Nor was he more successful in an overture to join with Middleton, in supplanting his rival. His terrors on the rising at Pentland, rendering him anxious for an increase of troops, he recommended the fines to be applied that way, by which many of the cavaliers, who looked to that fund, were disappointed in their expectations, and became his mortal enemies. Lauderdale, too, to complete his disgrace, procured a number of letters, written to the presbyterians after he had negotiated for the introduction of episcopacy, and gave them to the king, who looked on him ever after as the worst of men. During the rising at I'entland, Sharp was the principal administrator of the government; in which situation, the cruelty of nature, and insatiability in vengeance, which he displayed, are well known. After this period, he was so much disliked at court, (while he was a necessary instrument,) that, in 1667, he was ordered to confine himself to his own diocese, and come no more to Edinburgh. With the indulgences, the comprehension, &c., Sharp had little connexion, except in narrowing their effect. In the month of July, 1668, as he was going into his coach in daylight, he was fired at with a pistol loaded with a brace of bullets: but his life was saved by Honeyman, bishop of Orkney, who, lifting up his hand to step into the coach after him at the time, received the shot in his wrist, which caused his death a few years afterwards, the wound never having healed. So universally was Sharp hated, that when the cry was made that a man had been shot in the street, the reply was instantly made, that it wag only a bishop, and not a single individual offered to lay hold on the perpetrator of the deed. The court, however, took some compassion on him in this extremity, and he was repaid for his fears by a little gleam of favour. The person who committed the daring act, Mr James Mitchel, was afterwards seized, and, upon a promise of life, confessed, what it was impossible for his enemies to prove, he having no associates in the affair. That promise, however, was violated, and Mitchel suffered.

We now approach the violent end of this man, whose life was spent in vio-