A Short History of Scotland Part 11

There was much friction in the first year of the Union over excis.e.m.e.n and tax-collectors: smuggling began to be a recognised profession. Meanwhile, since 1707, a Colonel Hooke had been acting in Scotland, nominally in Jacobite, really rather in French interests. Hooke's intrigues were in part betrayed by De Foe's agent, Ker of Kersland, an amusingly impudent knave, and were thwarted by jealousies of Argyll and Hamilton. By deceptive promises (for he was himself deceived into expecting the aid of the Ulster Protestants) Hooke induced Louis XIV. to send five men-of-war, twenty-one frigates, and only two transports, to land James in Scotland (March 1708). The equinoctial gales and the severe illness of James, who insisted on sailing, delayed the start; the men on the outlook for the fleet were intoxicated, and Forbin, the French commander, observing English s.h.i.+ps of war coming towards the Firth of Forth, fled, refusing James's urgent entreaties to be landed anywhere on the coast (March 24). It was believed that had he landed only with a valet the discontented country would have risen for their native king.

In Parliament (1710-1711) the Cavalier Scottish members, by Tory support, secured the release from prison of a Rev. Mr Greens.h.i.+elds, an Episcopalian who prayed for Queen Anne, indeed, but had used the liturgy. The preachers were also galled by the imposition on them of an abjuration oath, compelling them to pray for prelatical Queen Anne. Lay patronage of livings was also restored (1712) after many vicissitudes, and this thorn rankled in the Kirk, causing ever-widening strife for more than a century.

The imposition of a malt tax produced so much discontent that even Argyll, with all the Scottish members of Parliament, was eager for the repeal of the Act of Union, and proposed it in the House of Peers, when it was defeated by a small majority. In 1712, when about to start on a mission to France, Hamilton was slain in a duel by Lord Mohun. According to a statement of Lockhart's, "Cavaliers were to look for the best" from Hamilton's mission: it is fairly clear that he was to bring over James in disguise to England, as in Thackeray's novel, 'Esmond.' But the sword of Mohun broke the Jacobite plans. Other hopes expired when Bolingbroke and Harley quarrelled, and Queen Anne died (August 1, 1714). "The best cause in Europe was lost," cried Bishop Atterbury, "for want of spirit." He would have proclaimed James as king, but no man supported him, and the Elector of Hanover, George I., peacefully accepted the throne.

CHAPTER x.x.x. GEORGE I.

For a year the Scottish Jacobites, and Bolingbroke, who fled to France and became James's Minister, mismanaged the affairs of that most unfortunate of princes. By February 1715 the Earl of Mar, who had been distrusted and disgraced by George I., was arranging with the clans for a rising, while aid from Charles XII. of Sweden was expected from March to August 1715. It is notable that Charles had invited Dean Swift to visit his Court, when Swift was allied with Bolingbroke and Oxford. From the author of 'Gulliver' Charles no doubt hoped to get a trustworthy account of their policy. The fated rising of 1715 was occasioned by the Duke of Berwick's advice to James that he must set forth to Scotland or lose his honour. The prince therefore, acting hastily on news which, two or three days later, proved to be false, in a letter to Mar fixed August 10 for a rising. The orders were at once countermanded, when news proving their futility was received, but James's messenger, Allan Cameron, was detained on the road, and Mar, not waiting for James's answer to his own last despatch advising delay, left London for Scotland without a commission; on August 27 held an a.s.sembly of the chiefs, and, still without a commission from James, raised the standard of the king on September 6. {254a}

The folly of Mar was consummate. He knew that Ormonde, the hope of the English Jacobites, had deserted his post and had fled to France.

Meanwhile Louis XIV. was dying; he died on August 30, and the Regent d'Orleans, at the utmost, would only connive at, not a.s.sist, James's enterprise.

Everything was contrary, everywhere was ignorance and confusion. Lord John Drummond's hopeful scheme for seizing Edinburgh Castle (September 8) was quieted pulveris exigui jactu, "the gentlemen were powdering their hair"-drinking at a tavern-and bungled the business. The folly of Government offered a chance: in Scotland they had but 2000 regulars at Stirling, where "Forth bridles the wild Highlandman." Mar, who promptly occupied Perth, though he had some 12,000 broadswords, continued till the end to make Perth his headquarters. A Montrose, a Dundee, even a Prince Charles, would have "masked" Argyll at Stirling and seized Edinburgh. In October 21-November 3, Berwick, while urging James to sail, absolutely refused to accompany him. The plans of Ormonde for a descent on England were betrayed by Colonel Maclean, in French service (November 4). In disguise and narrowly escaping from murderous agents of Stair (British amba.s.sador to France) on his road, {254b} James journeyed to St Malo (November 8).

In Scotland the Macgregors made a futile attempt on Dumbarton Castle, while Glengarry and the Macleans advanced on Inveraray Castle, negotiated with Argyll's brother, the Earl of Islay, and marched back to Strathfillan. In Northumberland Forster and Derwent.w.a.ter, with some Catholic fox-hunters, in Galloway the pacific Viscount Kenmure, cruised vaguely about and joined forces. Mackintosh of Borlum, by a well-concealed movement, carried a Highland detachment of 1600 men across the Firth of Forth by boats (October 12-13), with orders to join Forster and Kenmure and arouse the Border. But on approaching Edinburgh Mackintosh found Argyll with 500 dragoons ready to welcome him; Mar took no advantage of Argyll's absence from Stirling, and Mackintosh, when Argyll returned thither, joined Kenmure and Forster, occupied Kelso, and marched into Lancas.h.i.+re. The Jacobite forces were pitifully ill-supplied, they had very little ammunition (the great charge against Bolingbroke was that he sent none from France), they seem to have had no idea that powder could be made by the art of man; they were torn by jealousies, and dispirited by their observation of Mar's incompetence.

We cannot pursue in detail the story of the futile campaign. On November 12 the mixed Highland, Lowland, and English command found itself cooped up in Preston, and after a very gallant defence of the town the English leaders surrendered to the king's mercy, after arranging an armistice which made it impossible for Mackintosh to cut his way through the English ranks and retreat to the north. About 1600 prisoners were taken. Derwent.w.a.ter and Kenmure were later executed. Forster and Nithsdale made escapes; Charles Wogan, a kinsman of the chivalrous Wogan of 1650, and Mackintosh, with six others, forced their way out of Newgate prison on the night before their trial. Wogan was to make himself heard of again. Mar had thrown away his Highlanders, with little ammunition and without orders, on a perfectly aimless and hopeless enterprise.

Meanwhile he himself, at Perth, had been doing nothing, while in the north, Simon Frazer (Lord Lovat) escaped from his French prison, raised his clan and took the castle of Inverness for King George. He thus earned a pardon for his private and public crimes, and he lived to ruin the Jacobite cause and lose his own head in 1745-46.

While the north, Ross-s.h.i.+re and Inverness, were daunted and thwarted by the success of Lovat, Mar led his whole force from Perth to Dunblane, apparently in search of a ford over Forth. His Frazers and many of his Gordons deserted on November 11; on November 12 Mar, at Ardoch (the site of an old Roman camp), learned that Argyll was marching through Dunblane to meet him. Next day Mar's force occupied the crest of rising ground on the wide swell of Sheriffmuir: his left was all disorderly; horse mixed with foot; his right, with the fighting clans, was well ordered, but the nature of the ground hid the two wings of the army from each other. On the right the Macdonalds and Macleans saw Clanra.n.a.ld fall, and on Glengarry's cry, "Vengeance to-day!" they charged with the claymore and swept away the regulars of Argyll as at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. But, as the clans pursued and slew, their officers whispered that their own centre and left were broken and flying. Argyll had driven them to Allan Water; his force, returning, came within close range of the victorious right of Mar. "Oh, for one hour of Dundee!" cried Gordon of Glenbucket, but neither party advanced to the shock. Argyll retired safely to Dunblane, while Mar deserted his guns and powder-carts, and hurried to Perth. He had lost the gallant young Earl of Strathmore and the brave Clanra.n.a.ld; on Argyll's side his brother Islay was wounded, and the Earl of Forfar was slain. Though it was a drawn battle, it proved that Mar could not move: his forces began to scatter; Huntly was said to have behaved ill. It was known that Dutch auxiliaries were to reinforce Argyll, and men began to try to make terms of surrender. Huntly rode off to his own country, and on December 22 (old style) James landed at Peterhead.

James had no lack of personal courage. He had charged again and again at Malplaquet with the Household cavalry of Louis XIV., and he had encountered great dangers of a.s.sa.s.sination on his way to St Malo. But constant adversity had made him despondent and resigned, while he saw facts as they really were with a sad lucidity. When he arrived in his kingdom the Whig clans of the north had daunted Seaforth's Mackenzies, while in the south Argyll, with his Dutch and other fresh reinforcements, had driven Mar's men out of Fife. Writing to Bolingbroke, James described the situation. Mar, with scarcely any ammunition, was facing Argyll with 11,000 men; the north was held in force by the Whig clans, Mackays, Rosses, Munroes, and Frazers; deep snow alone delayed the advance of Argyll, now stimulated by the hostile Cadogan, Marlborough's favourite, and it was perfectly plain that all was lost.

For the head of James 100,000 was offered by Hanoverian chivalry: he was suffering from fever and ague; the Spanish gold that had at last been sent to him was lost at sea off Dundee, and it is no wonder that James, never gay, presented to his troops a disconsolate and discouraging aspect.

On January 29 his army evacuated Perth; James wept at the order to burn the villages on Argyll's line of march, and made a futile effort to compensate the people injured. From Montrose (February 3-14) he wrote for aid to the French Regent, but next day, urged by Mar, and unknown to his army, he, with Mar, set sail for France. This evasion was doubtless caused by a circ.u.mstance unusual in warfare: there was a price of 100,000 on James's head, moreover his force had not one day's supply of powder. Marshal Keith (brother of the Earl Marischal who retreated to the isles) says that perhaps one day's supply of powder might be found at Aberdeen. Nevertheless the fighting clans were eager to meet Argyll, and would have sold their lives at a high price. They scattered to their western fastnesses. The main political result, apart from executions and the pa.s.sing of forfeited estates into the management of that noted economist, Sir Richard Steele, and other commissioners, was-the disgrace of Argyll. He, who with a petty force had saved Scotland, was represented by Cadogan and by his political enemies as dilatory and disaffected! The Duke lost all his posts, and in 1716 (when James had hopes from Sweden) Islay, Argyll's brother, was negotiating with Jacobite agents. James was creating him a peer of England!

In Scotland much indignation was aroused by the sending of Scottish prisoners of war out of the kingdom for trial-namely, to Carlisle-and by other severities. The Union had never been more unpopular: the country looked on itself as conquered, and had no means of resistance, for James, now residing at Avignon, was a Catholic, and any insults and injuries from England were more tolerable than a restored nationality with a Catholic king.

Into the Jacobite hopes and intrigues, the eternal web which from 1689 to 1763 was ever being woven and broken, it is impossible here to enter, though, in the now published Stuart Papers, the details are well known. James was driven from Avignon to Italy, to Spain, finally to live a pensioner at Rome. The luckless attempt of the Earl Marischal, Keith, his brother, and Lord George Murray, brother of the Duke of Atholl, to invade Scotland on the west with a small Spanish force, was crushed on June 10, 1719, in the pa.s.s of Glens.h.i.+el.

Two or three months later, James, returning from Spain, married the fair and hapless Princess Clementina Sobieska, whom Charles Wogan, in an enterprise truly romantic, had rescued from prison at Innspruck and conveyed across the Alps. From this wedding, made wretched by the disappointment of the bride with her melancholy lord,-always busied with political secrets from which she was excluded,-was born, on December 31, 1720, Charles Edward Stuart: from his infancy the hope of the Jacobite party; from his cradle surrounded by the intrigues, the jealousies, the adulations of an exiled Court, and the quarrels of Protestants and Catholics, Irish, Scottish, and English. Thus, among changes of tutors and ministers, as the discovery or suspicion of treachery, the bigotry of Clementina, and the pressure of other necessities might permit, was that child reared whose name, at least, has received the crown of Scottish affection and innumerable tributes of Scottish song.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. THE ARGATHELIANS AND THE SQUADRONE.

Leaving the fortunes of the Jacobite party at their lowest ebb, and turning to the domestic politics of Scotland, after 1719, we find that if it be happiness to have no history, Scotland had much reason to be content. There was but a dull personal strife between the faction of Argyll and his brother Islay (called the "Argathelians," from the Latinised Argathelia, or Argyll), and the other faction known, since the Union, as the Squadrone volante, or Flying Squadron, who professed to be patriotically independent. As to Argyll, he had done all that man might do for George I. But, as we saw, the reports of Cadogan and the jealousy of George (who is said to have deemed Argyll too friendly with his detested heir) caused the disgrace of the Duke in 1716, and the Squadrone held the spoils of office. But in February-April 1719 George reversed his policy, heaped Argyll with favours, made him, as Duke of Greenwich, a peer of England, and gave him the High Stewards.h.i.+p of the Household.

At this time all the sixteen representative peers of Scotland favoured, for various reasons of their own, a proposed Peerage Bill. The Prince of Wales might, when he came to the throne, swamp the Lords by large new creations in his own interest, and the Bill laid down that, henceforth, not more than six peers, exclusive of members of the Royal Family, should be created by any sovereign; while in place of sixteen representative Scotland should have twenty-five permanent peers. From his new hatred of the Prince of Wales, Argyll favoured the Bill, as did the others of the sixteen of the moment, because they would be among the permanencies. The Scottish Jacobite peers (not representatives) and the Commons of both countries opposed the Bill. The election of a Scottish representative peer at this juncture led to negotiations between Argyll and Lockhart as leader of the suffering Jacobites, but terms were not arrived at; the Government secured a large Whig majority in a general election (1722), and Walpole began his long tenure of office.

ENCLOSURE RIOTS.

In 1724 there were some popular discontents. Enclosures, as we saw, had scarcely been known in Scotland; when they were made, men, women, and children took pleasure in destroying them under cloud of night. Enclosures might keep a man's cattle on his own ground, keep other men's off it, and secure for the farmer his own manure. That good Jacobite, Mackintosh of Borlum, who in 1715 led the Highlanders to Preston, in 1729 wrote a book recommending enclosures and plantations. But when, in 1724, the lairds of Galloway and Dumfriess.h.i.+re antic.i.p.ated and acted on his plan, which in this case involved evictions of very indolent and ruinous farmers, the tenants rose. Mult.i.tudes of "Levellers" destroyed the loose stone d.y.k.es and slaughtered cattle. They had already been pa.s.sive resisters of rent; the military were called in; women were in the forefront of the brawls, which were not quieted till the middle of 1725, when Lord Stair made an effort to introduce manufactures.

MALT RIOTS.

Other disturbances began in a resolution of the House of Commons, at the end of 1724, not to impose a Malt Tax equal to that of England (this had been successfully resisted in 1713), but to levy an additional sixpence on every barrel of ale, and to remove the bounties on exported grain. At the Union Scotland had, for the time, been exempted from the Malt Tax, specially devised to meet the expenses of the French war of that date. Now, in 1724-1725, Scotland was up in arms to resist the attempt "to rob a poor man of his beer." But Walpole could put force on the Scottish Members of Parliament,-"a parcel of low people that could not subsist," says Lockhart, "without their board wages." Walpole threatened to withdraw the ten guineas. .h.i.therto paid weekly by Government to those legislators. He offered to drop the sixpence on beer and put threepence on every bushel of malt, a half of the English tax. On June 23, 1725, the tax was to be exacted. The consequence was an attack on the military by the mob of Glasgow, who wrecked the house of their Member in Parliament, Campbell of Shawfield. Some of the a.s.sailants were shot: General Wade and the Lord Advocate, Forbes of Culloden, marched a force on Glasgow, the magistrates of the town were imprisoned but released on bail, while in Edinburgh the master brewers, ordered by the Court of Session to raise the price of their ale, struck for a week; some were imprisoned, others were threatened or cajoled and deserted their Union. The one result was that the chief of the Squadrone, the Duke of Roxburgh, lost his Secretarys.h.i.+p for Scotland, and Argyll's brother, Islay, with the resolute Forbes of Culloden, became practically the governors of the country. The Secretarys.h.i.+p, indeed, was for a time abolished, but Islay practically wielded the power that had so long been in the hands of the Secretary as agent of the Court.

THE HIGHLANDS.

The clans had not been disarmed after 1715, moreover 6000 muskets had been brought in during the affair that ended at Glens.h.i.+el in 1719. General Wade was commissioned in 1724 to examine and report on the Highlands: Lovat had already sent in a report. He pointed out that Lowlanders paid blackmail for protection to Highland raiders, and that independent companies of Highlanders, paid by Government, had been useful, but were broken up in 1717. What Lovat wanted was a company and pay for himself. Wade represented the force of the clans as about 22,000 claymores, half Whig (the extreme north and the Campbells), half Jacobite. The commandants of forts should have independent companies: cavalry should be quartered between Inverness and Perth, and Quarter Sessions should be held at Fort William and Ruthven in Badenoch. In 1725 Wade disarmed Seaforth's clan, the Mackenzies, easily, for Seaforth, then in exile, was on bad terms with James, and wished to come home with a pardon. Glengarry, Clanra.n.a.ld, Glencoe, Appin, Lochiel, Clan Vourich, and the Gordons affected submission-but only handed over two thousand rusty weapons of every sort. Lovat did obtain an independent company, later withdrawn-with results. The clans were by no means disarmed, but Wade did, from 1725 to 1736, construct his famous military roads and bridges, interconnecting the forts.

The death of George I. (June 11, 1727) induced James to hurry to Lorraine and communicate with Lockhart. But there was nothing to be done. Clementina had discredited her husband, even in Scotland, much more in England, by her hysterical complaints, and her hatred of every man employed by James inflamed the petty jealousies and feuds among the exiles of his Court. No man whom he could select would have been approved of by the party.

To the bishops of the persecuted Episcopalian remnant, quarrelling over details of ritual called "the Usages," James vainly recommended "forbearance in love." Lockhart, disgusted with the clergy, and siding with Clementina against her husband, believed that some of the wrangling churchmen betrayed the channel of his communications with his king (1727). Islay gave Lockhart a hint to disappear, and he sailed from Scotland for Holland on April 8, 1727.

Since James dismissed Bolingbroke, every one of his Ministers was suspected, by one faction or another of the party, as a traitor. Atterbury denounced Mar, Lockhart denounced Hay (t.i.tular Earl of Inverness), Clementina told feminine tales for which even the angry Lockhart could find no evidence. James was the b.u.t.t of every slanderous tongue; but absolutely nothing against his moral character, or his efforts to do his best, or his tolerance and lack of suspiciousness, can be wrung from doc.u.ments. {264}

By 1734 the elder of James's two sons, Prince Charles, was old enough to show courage and to thrust himself under fire in the siege of Gaeta, where his cousin, the Duc de Liria, was besieging the Imperialists. He won golden opinions from the army, but was already too strong for his tutors-Murray and Sir Thomas Sheridan. He had both Protestant and Catholic governors; between them he learned to spell execrably in three languages, and sat loose to Catholic doctrines. In January 1735 died his mother, who had found refuge from her troubles in devotion. The grief of James and of the boys was acute.

In 1736 Lovat was looking towards the rising sun of Prince Charles; was accused by a witness of enabling John Roy Stewart, Jacobite and poet, to break prison at Inverness, and of sending by him a message of devotion to James, from whom he expected a dukedom. Lovat therefore lost his sheriffs.h.i.+p and his independent company, and tried to attach himself to Argyll, when the affair of the Porteous Riot caused a coldness between Argyll and the English Government (1736-1737).

THE PORTEOUS RIOT.

The affair of Porteous is so admirably well described in 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian,' and recent research {265} has thrown so little light on the mystery (if mystery there were), that a brief summary of the tale may suffice.

In the spring of 1736 two noted smugglers, Wilson and Robertson, were condemned to death. They had, while in prison, managed to widen the s.p.a.ce between the window-bars of their cell, and would have escaped; but Wilson, a very stoutly built man, went first and stuck in the aperture, so that Robertson had no chance. The pair determined to attack their guards in church, where, as usual, they were to be paraded and preached at on the Sunday preceding their execution. Robertson leaped up and fled, with the full sympathy of a large and interested congregation, while Wilson grasped a guard with each hand and a third with his teeth. Thus Robertson got clean away-to Holland, it was said,-while Wilson was to be hanged on April 14. The acting lieutenant of the Town Guard-an unpopular body, mainly Highlanders-was John Porteous, famous as a golfer, but, by the account of his enemies, notorious as a brutal and callous ruffian. The crowd in the Gra.s.smarket was great, but there was no attempt at a rescue. The mob, however, threw large stones at the Guard, who fired, killing or wounding, as usual, harmless spectators. The case for Porteous, as reported in 'The State Trials,' was that the attack was dangerous; that the plan was to cut down and resuscitate Wilson; that Porteous did not order, but tried to prevent, the firing; and that neither at first nor in a later skirmish at the West Bow did he fire himself. There was much "cross swearing" at the trial of Porteous (July 20); the jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged on September 8. A pet.i.tion from him to Queen Caroline (George II. was abroad) drew attention to palpable discrepancies in the hostile evidence. Both parties in Parliament backed his application, and on August 28 a delay of justice for six weeks was granted.

Indignation was intense. An intended attack on the Tolbooth, where Porteous lay, had been matter of rumour three days earlier: the prisoner should have been placed in the Castle. At 10 P.M. on the night of September 7 the magistrates heard that boys were beating a drum, and ordered the Town Guard under arms; but the mob, who had already secured the town's gates, disarmed the veterans. Mr Lindsay, lately Provost, escaped by the Potter Row gate (near the old fatal Kirk-o'-Field), and warned General Moyle in the Castle. But Moyle could not introduce soldiers without a warrant. Before a warrant could arrive the mob had burned down the door of the Tolbooth, captured Porteous-who was hiding up the chimney,-carried him to the Gra.s.smarket, and hanged him to a dyer's pole. The only apparent sign that persons of rank above that of the mob were concerned, was the leaving of a guinea in a shop whence they took the necessary rope. The magistrates had been guilty of gross negligence. The mob was merely a resolute mob; but Islay, in London, suspected that the political foes of the Government were engaged, or that the Cameronians, who had been renewing the Covenants, were concerned.

Islay hurried to Edinburgh, where no evidence could be extracted. "The High Flyers of our Scottish Church," he wrote, "have made this infamous murder a point of conscience... . All the lower rank of the people who have distinguished themselves by the pretensions of superior sanct.i.ty speak of this murder as the hand of G.o.d doing justice." They went by the precedent of the murder of Archbishop Sharp, it appears. In the Lords (February 1737) a Bill was pa.s.sed for disabling the Provost-one Wilson-for public employment, destroying the Town Charter, abolis.h.i.+ng the Town Guard, and throwing down the gate of the Nether Bow. Argyll opposed the Bill; in the Commons all Scottish members were against it; Walpole gave way. Wilson was dismissed, and a fine of 2000 was levied and presented to the widow of Porteous. An Act commanding preachers to read monthly for a year, in church, a proclamation bidding their hearers aid the cause of justice against the murderers, was an insult to the Kirk, from an a.s.sembly containing bishops. It is said that at least half of the ministers disobeyed with impunity. It was impossible, of course, to evict half of the preachers in the country.

Argyll now went into opposition against Walpole, and, at least, listened to Keith-later the great Field-Marshal of Frederick the Great, and brother of the exiled Earl Marischal.

In 1737 the Jacobites began to stir again: a committee of five Chiefs and Lords was formed to manage their affairs. John Murray of Broughton went to Rome, and lost his heart to Prince Charles-now a tall handsome lad of seventeen, with large brown eyes, and, when he pleased, a very attractive manner. To Murray, more than to any other man, was due the Rising of 1745.

Meanwhile, in secular affairs, Scotland showed nothing more remarkable than the increasing dislike, strengthened by Argyll, of Walpole's Government.

CHAPTER x.x.xII. THE FIRST SECESSION.

For long we have heard little of the Kirk, which between 1720 and 1740 pa.s.sed through a cycle of internal storms. She had been little vexed, either during her years of triumph or defeat, by heresy or schism. But now the doctrines of Antoinette Bourignon, a French lady mystic, reached Scotland, and won the sympathies of some students of divinity-including the Rev. John Simson, of an old clerical family which had been notorious since the Reformation for the turbulence of its members. In 1714, and again in 1717, Mr Simson was acquitted by the a.s.sembly on the charges of being a Jesuit, a Socinian, and an Arminian, but was warned against "a tendency to attribute too much to natural reason." In 1726-29 he was accused of minimising the doctrines of the creed of St Athanasius, and tending to the Arian heresy,-"lately raked out of h.e.l.l," said the Kirk-session of Portmoak (1725), addressing the sympathetic Presbytery of Kirkcaldy. At the a.s.sembly of 1726 that Presbytery, with others, a.s.sailed Mr Simson, who was in bad health, and "could talk of nothing but the Council of Nice." A committee, including Mar's brother, Lord Grange (who took such strong measures with his wife, Lady Grange, forcibly translating her to the isle of St Kilda), inquired into the views of Mr Simson's own Presbytery-that of Glasgow. This Presbytery cross-examined Mr Simson's pupils, and Mr Simson observed that the proceedings were "an unfruitful work of darkness." Moreover, Mr Simson was of the party of the Squadrone, while his a.s.sailants were Argathelians. A large majority of the a.s.sembly gave the verdict that Mr Simson was a heretic. Finally, though in 1728 his answers to questions would have satisfied good St Athanasius, Mr Simson found himself in the ideal position of being released from his academic duties but confirmed in his salary. The lenient good-nature of this decision, with some other grievances, set fire to a mine which blew the Kirk in twain.

The Presbytery of Auchterarder had set up a kind of "standard" of their own-"The Auchterarder Creed"-which included this formula: "It is not sound or orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ, and instating us in Covenant with G.o.d." The General a.s.sembly condemned this part of the Creed of Auchterarder. The Rev. Mr Hog, looking for weapons in defence of Auchterarder, republished part of a forgotten book of 1646, 'The Marrow of Modern Divinity.' The work appears to have been written by a speculative hairdresser, an Independent. A copy of the Marrow was found by the famous Mr Boston of Ettrick in the cottage of a paris.h.i.+oner. From the Marrow he sucked much advantage: its doctrines were grateful to the sympathisers with Auchterarder, and the republication of the book rent the Kirk.

In 1720 a Committee of the General a.s.sembly condemned a set of propositions in the Marrow as tending to Antinomianism (the doctrine that the saints cannot sin, professed by Trusty Tompkins in 'Woodstock'). But-as in the case of the five condemned propositions of Jansenius-the Auchterarder party denied that the heresies could be found in the Marrow.

It was the old quarrel between Faith and Works. The clerical pet.i.tioners in favour of the Marrow were rebuked by the a.s.sembly (May 21, 1722); they protested: against a merely human majority in the a.s.sembly they appealed to "The Word of G.o.d," to which the majority also appealed; and there was a period of pa.s.sion, but schism had not yet arrived.

The five or six friends of the Marrow really disliked moral preaching, as opposed to weekly discourses on the legal technicalities of justification, sanctification, and adoption. They were also opposed to the working of the Act which, in 1712, restored lay patronage. If the a.s.sembly enforced the law of the land in this matter (and it did), the a.s.sembly sinned against the divine right of congregations to elect their own preachers. Men of this way of thinking were led by the Rev. Mr Ebenezer Erskine, a poet who, in 1714, addressed an Ode to George I. He therein denounced "subverting patronage" and

"the woful dubious Abjuration Which gave the clergy ground for speculation."

But a Jacobite song struck the same note-

"Let not the Abjuration Impose upon the nation!"

and George was deaf to the muse of Mr Erskine.