Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/372

Rh of England as Earl of Guilford and Baron Petersham, with descent to his heirs male, and he was placed on the privy council (, Peerage). The English title was perhaps to give him security against parliamentary attack as an English commoner (, Own Time, ii. 49, note). In April 1675 the commons again fell upon him, when Burnet was examined as a hostile witness. Three separate addresses were made to the king for his removal, but Charles declared that no special charge was made out, and refused to agree to them (Parl. Hist. iv. 684–99). According to Wodrow (ii. 298, ed. 1829), it was Lauderdale who in this year suggested the Test Bill, with its oath against endeavouring any alteration in the government of church and state. Throughout Danby's rule he was on terms of intimate confidence with that minister.

Conventicles meanwhile were again rapidly increasing, and the savage laws which had been enacted at Lauderdale's bidding had roused such resistance on all sides that he found himself deserted by the lowland landlords. He called to his aid, therefore, the broken highland nobles, and in the winter of 1677, with the active concurrence of the bishops, he let loose eight thousand highlanders upon the west country. This crime brought complaints once more to a head, and in 1678, in defiance of a proclamation which he had induced Charles to issue, forbidding the discontented nobles to leave Scotland, a large number, with Hamilton again at their head, and under the patronage of Monmouth, appeared in London, and formed a close connection with the country party. It was one phase of the great contest in which the Monmouth, Shaftesbury, and anti-catholic party, backed by Louis XIV, was opposed to Charles, James, Danby, and Lauderdale. After a two months' duel Charles, who could not then afford disturbance, sent orders that the highlanders were to be dismissed, in spite of the ‘Narrative’ which Lauderdale presented in defence of his conduct. On 23 April the king summoned the Scottish council. But personal attachment to Charles and James prevailed, and Charles's orders were approved. In May the commons at Westminster voted that an address should be prepared demanding Lauderdale's removal. The address was prepared, but by an unsparing use of court influence was thrown out by a single vote (Lauderdale Papers, iii. 135). Lauderdale, leaving Alexander Stuart, fourth earl of Murray, as his deputy, at once went to Scotland to preside at a convention of estates summoned to vote the money rendered necessary by Charles's difficulties; the old opposition was renewed, but was met with a high hand, and on 19 and 24 July 1678 he received the personal congratulations of Charles and James.

The feeling of the English parliament again found voice on 8 May 1679, in an address to the king for Lauderdale's removal from his councils and presence, and from all offices of trust, on account of his arbitrary and destructive counsels, and as contriving to raise jealousies between England and Scotland. It is clear, however, from the language of the address, that it was as the personal friend of James that the Shaftesbury party attacked him. Once more he was saved by the dissolution of parliament on 26 May (Parl. Hist. iv. 1130–50). At the same time, and in agreement with the Shaftesbury party, a fresh attack was made upon Lauderdale by the Scottish nobles who followed Hamilton. They laid before Charles their grievances in a paper called ‘Matters of Fact.’ On 8 July a conference was held between the party lords and the king's advocate before Charles. The result was another triumph for Lauderdale (, Church Hist. iii. 158–173, ed. 1829). In 1679 took place the last rising of the covenanters, who were crushed at Bothwell Brigg on 22 June. As secretary Lauderdale was responsible for the very limited indemnity issued by Charles on 27 July. But he did not, as represented in ‘Old Mortality,’ preside at the judicial cruelties which followed, for he appears never to have left Whitehall.

In 1680 Lauderdale's health began to give way. In April of that year he had a fit of apoplexy, and in June he went to Bath. At the end of October he resigned the secretaryship to the Earl of Murray. On 29 Nov. he voted for the condemnation of the catholic Earl of Stafford, and, according to Douglas, thus lost the favour of James. James succeeded him as commissioner in June 1681, and Douglas records that in 1682 he was deprived of all his other offices, except that of extraordinary lord of session, which he held for life, and of all pensions to himself and his duchess. The remainder of his life he lingered out at Tunbridge Wells, worn out with debauchery and the toils of his earlier days, and on 20 Aug. (or 24?) 1682 he died there. He was buried, with magnificent ceremony, at Haddington, on 5 April 1683 (Lauderdale Papers, iii. 230), being succeeded in his father's Scottish earldom by his brother Charles, but leaving no heir to his dukedom or English peerage. The only two authentic portraits are the picture by Lely and the miniature by Cooper in the royal collection at Windsor.