Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/149

Mackenzie them. These he set at liberty; and while under his direction the prosecution of the covenanters was more ruthlessly pursued, strict legal formalities were much more scrupulously observed, one of his first cares being to frame certain rules by which greater precision was required both as to time and place in drawing indictments. Still his acts did not differ materially from those of his predecessor in office; and when in 1679 , third duke of Hamilton [q. v.], headed a deputation to complain of the illegal character of Lauderdale's administration, Mackenzie defended it, if not successfully, at least to the satisfaction of the king.

With the battle of Bothwell Bridge, in June 1679, the covenanters were treated with a great increase of severity, and Mackenzie soon earned among them the epithet of 'Bloody.' He was perhaps primarily responsible for the policy pursued. It was to him the government looked both for the legislative enactments appropriate to the special circumstances and for the relentless and ingenious application of the law to the cases of individual offenders. While Graham of Claverhouse was the main agent in the discovery and apprehension of suspected 'malignants,' Mackenzie made sure that none whom there was good reason to believe guilty should escape the prescribed penalties. 'No king's advocate,' he himself declared, 'has ever screwed the prerogative higher than I have. I deserve to have my statue placed riding behind Charles II in the parliament close.' In February 1680 he also boasted to the Duke of Lauderdale that he had 'never lost a case for the king' (Lauderdale Papers, iii. 192). As he had the principal charge of the government prosecutions, he must be held chiefly responsible for the introduction of torture to extort the truth from suspected persons, and in his 'Vindication' he specially defended its use, while he displayed an almost savage gusto in wielding its terrors. His overmastering temper could not brook opposition, and frequently tempted him to unseemly violence. On one occasion he threatened a specially taciturn prisoner that if he did not speak he would 'tear out his tongue with a pair of pincers.' Nor was the high rank of a prisoner any guarantee of the observance of the outward forms of civility. Even at the death of, first earl of Loudoun (1598-1663) [q. v.], his wrath led him to exclaim, 'Has the villain played me this trick ' (to die before being forfeited); and when Lady Loudoun presented a petition praying for mercy for herself and children, he snatched it out of her hands, tore it to pieces, and threw it out of the window (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 682). In the persecution of 'fanatics' he strained every legal device to secure a conviction. One of the most scandalous cases connected with his name was that of [q. v.], at his second trial for an attempt on the life of Archbishop Sharp; and it was the more indefensible, because Mackenzie, having been his counsel at the first trial, was fully aware of the circumstances which had induced him to make confession. But a still more flagrant instance of straining the law to secure conviction was the prosecution of the Earl of Argyll in December 1681 for lease making, on account of a reservation he had made in taking the test [see, ninth ]. On this charge Argyll was sentenced to death and forfeited; and when afterwards he was apprehended in 1685, after an abortive attempt to promote a rising in Scotland, Mackenzie advised that he should not be tried for rebellion, but that, 'to do him a favour,' the sentence of 1681 should be enforced.

In September 1680 [q. v.] the covenanter took it upon him to pronounce solemn sentence of excommunication against the king, Mackenzie, and others; and as a consequence a large reward was offered for his apprehension, with the result that he was executed on 25 July 1681. In 1682-8 Mackenzie assisted Claverhouse in bringing about the legal overthrow of the Dalrymples. In 1684 the covenanting prosecution underwent a new phase owing to the published threat of Renwick and others to retaliate on their prosecutors 'according to our power and the degree of their offence.' Mackenzie replied with the enactment 'that any person who owns, or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being done in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons having commission to this effect.' The enactment inaugurated the period known as the 'killing time.' After the passing of the act, 17 Aug. 1686, abrogating the penal laws against the catholics, Mackenzie resigned his office of king's advocate, and for a short time acted as counsel for covenanting prisoners, whom his own enactments had helped to bring within the grasp of the law. In February 1688 he was, however, again restored to his office, and he held it till the revolution.

Mackenzie attended the meetings of the Convention parliament at Edinburgh in March 1689. Along with Claverhouse he made a special complaint to the convention that a plot had been made to assassinate him, but no definite proof of this was forth-