Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/473

] under the crown. In this form it passed the lords, but in the commons, where parties appeared nearly equally balanced, it was defeated through the ingenuity of Shaftesbury, who got up a quarrel betwixt the lords and commons on a totally different subject. Charles detected the clever hand of his quondam minister, and declared that it was the work of some one who was no friend to either him or the church; but the quarrel went on, and the king, despairing either of supplies or the resumption of the test act, prorogued the parliament, in great vexation, on the 9th of June.

On their reassembling in October they voted three hundred thousand pounds for shipbuilding, perceiving that the French navy was outgrowing our own; but they contended that according to the sum he had received from parliament the year before, and the money from Holland, he ought to have a large surplus. There was a proposal for the dissolution of this parliament, which had now continued sixteen years, and a threatened exposure of bribery and corruption; and then, on the 22nd of November, Charles prorogued parliament for fifteen months.

We may now take a brief glance at proceedings in Scotland and Ireland.

In Scotland archbishop Sharp had pursued his persecuting and coercive system to such an extent, that Charles was obliged to order him not to overstep his proper duties, but to confine himself to spiritual concerns alone. Such was the hatred which this renegade churchman had excited, that in 1668 a young man of the name of Mitchell, who had witnessed the horrible cruelties which followed the battle of Rullion Green, believed himself called upon to put Sharp to death. He therefore posted himself in front of the archbishop's palace, and as the archbishop came out with the bishop of Orkney to get into his carriage, he stepped up and fired at Sharp, who was just seated in the carriage; but at the same moment the bishop of Orkney raised his arm to enter the carriage, and received the ball in his wrist. There was a cry that a man was killed, but some one exclaimed, "It is only a bishop!" and Mitchell, coolly crossing the street, mixed with the crowd, walked away, and changed his coat; and though the council offered a large reward for his apprehension, it was six years before he was discovered.

The earl of Rothes had been removed from the office of royal commissioner, and the earl of Tweeddale, who now occupied that post, endeavoured to soften the spirit of persecution, and granted a certain indulgence. This was to admit such of the ejected ministers to their livings as were vacant, or to appoint them to others, provided they would accept collation from the bishop, and attend the presbyteries and synods. But this was to concede the question of episcopacy, and the king's supremacy in the church. The more complying of the ejected members, to the number of forty-three, accepted the offer; but they found that by so doing they had forfeited the respect of their flocks, who deserted their churches, and crowded to other preachers more stanch to their principles. Lauderdale soon after returned to Scotland, and his very first proceeding was to pass an act to appoint commissioners to co-operate with English commissioners, to endeavour to effect a union of the two kingdoms. His next was to pass another, converting the act of allegiance into an act of absolute supremacy. This at once annihilated the independence of the kirk; and a third act was to give the king a right to maintain an army, and to march it to any part of the king's dominions. This was so evidently a step towards despotism, that not only in Scotland, but in the English parliament, the indignation was great, and the English commons presented an address to the crown, praying for Lauderdale's removal. The address, however, produced no effect. Lauderdale proceeded, plausibly offering "indulgence" to such easy principled ministers as would accept livings subject to the oath of supremacy and the acknowledgment of bishops, whilst at the same time he passed an act in July, 1670, more rigorously prohibiting conventicles within private houses or in the open air. Any minister preaching or praying at such meetings was to suffer forfeiture of both life and property. The Scotch did not understand this kind of indulgence, which allowed their ministers to enter their churches by the sacrifice of their moral principles, and put them to death if they took the liberty to follow their own consciences. The people took arms and went to their meetings, determined to defend their preachers and themselves. Lauderdale then, with the aid of archbishop Leighton, extended the "indulgence" to all such ministers as would attend presbyteries, where the bishops should have no negative voice; but this did not deceive the people. The rigour against their own choice ministers and places of worship was kept up, and they declared that bishops, even without a negative voice in the presbyteries, were bishops still; that such assemblies had no resemblance to those previous to 1638; they had no power of the keys, no ordination, no jurisdiction; that the whole was but a snare to draw in unwary or self-interested ministers, and after them their flocks. To assent to such terms would be apostacy from the principles of the kirk. Lauderdale made another step in his "indulgence" in 1673. He named eighty ejected ministers, and ordered them to repair to their churches and officiate there, but nowhere else, under severe penalties. This was to lock up the conventicles in which these preachers ministered. About one-fourth of the number refused to obey, and were confined by order of the council to particular places. But this did not diminish the number of conventicles, it only excited a schism betwixt the complying and the non-complying. He next passed an act of grace, pardoning all offences against the conventicle acts committed before the 4th of March, 1674; but this only encouraged the people to fresh freedom in their attendance on conventicles. They regarded his concessions as certain proofs of his weakness, and the independent meetings, scorning any compliance with episcopacy and royal supremacy, spread and abounded more than ever. They assembled in vacant churches, where they would not have entered to listen to what they called an intrusive minister, or in the open air in glen or mountain, around a lofty pole erected as a signal. "The parish churches of the curates," says Kirton, "came to be like pest-houses, few went into any of them, and none to some; so the doors were kept locked." No policy, however severe or plausibly insinuating, could induce the wary Scots to swallow the hated pill of episcopacy.