BOOK XVII.

A.D. 1681.

Parliament—Act for securing the Protestant religion—asserting the divine right and lineal succession of their kings—for securing the peace of the country—Lord Bargeny’s case—-The Test—debate upon it—Belhaven—Argyle—objections to its imposition—Argyle takes it with an explanation—his trial—escapes from the Castle—forfeited—Fraser of Brea—fined—banished.

At nine o’clock of the forenoon of July 28, the peers in their robes, and the commissioners of shires in their foot-mantles, assembled at Holyrood-house on horseback, whence they accompanied his Royal Highness James Duke of Albany and York to the Parliament House. There being neither Chancellor nor Treasurer, the Marquis of Atholl was appointed president of the parliament. Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh, opened it by a prayer.[139]The Duchess of York and several other ladies were present, which was uncommon in those days, and considered indecorous. The Duke of York, who, as a papist would, but for a party in the English House of Lords, have been excluded from the succession, was sent to Scotland as commissioner to securethat country, and lay the foundation of another civil war, if things went adverse to his interest in England. Nor was any opposition made by this mean-spirited assemblage to receiving a papist as their king’s representative: previously to their meeting, it had been privately agitated, but the Duke of Hamilton refused to have any thing to do with the business, unless a majority could be previously secured.

139.The first thing which came before the parliament was of course the settling of controverted elections, on which occasion Bishop Paterson gave proof of his fitness for the office he filled. “The Bishop of Edinburgh was heard to say, in the debateable election of East Lothian, that, for serving the king, the committee might very lawfully prefer one who was inferior in votes, and they might pass over four or five votes to hold out a Shaftesbury, which,” adds Lord Fountainhall, “was spoke very like one who minded his oath, his parliament oath, de fideli, to judge according to law!”—Decis, vol. i. p. 140.

Both the king’s letter and his speech are pregnant examples of that villanous hypocrisy which distinguished the royal brothers. The king told them—“We have ever considered our own and the interests of our subjects to be inseparable;” and then he explained how “experience having sufficiently evinced, that all invasions upon, or diminutions of, the rights and prerogatives of our crown, prove fatal and destructive to the security and property of our people—which can only thereby be protected!” and “it is one of our greatest satisfactions that we have been always careful of that our ancient kingdom, with a tenderness suitable to our great interest in it,” “for promoting which and securing the protestant religion, we have called this parliament, and impressed upon them the necessity of adopting effectual and adequate remedies for curing these violent distempers, schisms, and separation in the church, and rebellion in the state.” The Duke of York confirmed the declarations of the gracious letter. He had it in command from his majesty to assure them that he would inviolably maintain and protect the protestant religion as now established by law, and seriously recommended them to fall upon effectual courses for suppressing these seditious and rebellious conventicles, from whence proceeded all disorder and confusion, and those horrid and extravagant doctrines which are a scandal to Christianity, and tend to the subversion of all public and private interests; and he concluded by telling them, “as the inclination I had to serve and promote the interest of this kingdom hath been the chief inducement to his majesty to give me this opportunity to convince you of it; so you may be sure I shall do what becomes me to satisfy you of the truth of it: and I hope you will have that consideration and kindness as to enable me to perform his service.”

The parliament made a reply, the baseness of which I do notwonder at, but I do admire the impudence, when I recollect that it was first to be presented to a papist commissioner, and by him transmitted to a half-popish king—if he was any thing. “It is a great satisfaction to us to find your majesty so concerned for the protestant religion, not only in your gracious letter to us, but in the whole conduct of your royal government; and we shall with all Christian care and duty endeavour to confirm it, so as it may become a solid and pious support to your royal family and monarchy, and a sure fence in this disturbed and divided church against all usurpations and disorders of popery and fanaticism;” and they added, what would not be less gratifying, “we shall not fail, by positive laws, to declare our humble and hearty acknowledgments of the just rights and prerogatives of your imperial crown, in its just, native, and lineal course of descent; and to secure the just rights and liberties of your subjects, so as may justly demonstrate our unalterable resolutions never to depart from our duty to your royal family and your lawful heirs and successors, to whom we are tied by so many sacred obligations.”

Their first act was one ratifying and approving all former laws, acts, and statutes, made by our sovereign lord’s royal grandfather and father, of blessed memory, for settling and securing the liberty and freedom of the kirk of God, and the protestant religion presently professed, and all acts against popery! The very next was one asserting that the kings of the realm deriving their royal power from God Almighty alone, their lineal succession, according to the known proximity in blood, could neither be suspended nor diverted by any act or statute whatsoever; and that no difference in religious profession, nor law, nor act of parliament, made or to be made, can alter or divert the right of succession and lineal descent of the crown to the nearest and lawful heirs![140]

140.On this Laing well remarks—“When we peruse the act, and consider how soon the crown was afterwards forfeited; when we contemplate how frequently and happily the lineal succession has been since inverted—we must smile with contempt at the extreme fragility of political laws, and at the anxious precaution with which the most violent of them are framed, only to be disregarded and ultimately broken.”—Hist. vol. iv. p. 119.

Then followed an act for securing the peace of the country, bydoubling the fines and increasing the penalties against all who frequented field-conventicles, or had any intercourse with those who did. This presents us with a feature recognizable in the whole conduct of the ruling party, from the Restoration to the Revolution, which has not been sufficiently held up to contempt, and that is the low avarice, the base money-getting tricks which formed the soul, and directed the agency, of the gallant and chivalrous supporters of the merry monarch, and of his successor, the gloomy monk of La Trappe. There stands not out among them one redeeming character—all were the vilest of money-scrapers, who would have raked the lowest kennels to gather a supply for their prostitutes, and who, when that failed, only did not take to the highway, because they found legal villany an easier and less hazardous way of plundering. An incident which occurred at this time, shows the tenure by which the wicked hold their power.

Lord Bargeny, a relation of the Duke of Hamilton’s, who had been imprisoned on a charge of being at Bothwell, was liberated by especial order of the king, as no proof was produced against him. He offered, in open parliament, to produce evidence that Hatton, (Lauderdale’s brother,) the Earl of Moray, and Sir John Dalrymple, had suborned witnesses to swear away his life, in order to obtain his estates among them; but the Duke of York, who wished to have the parties in his own hands, interposed and prevented all inquiry into the foul transaction:—such was his love of justice—and such was the baseness of the parliament, that they quietly acquiesced in the Commissioner’s arbitrary and unjustifiable interference.

But the act which above all others holds up the memory of this servile set to everlasting shame, is the test—the plain history of which is worth a thousand arguments to prove the folly as well as the iniquity of all attempts to secure religion by civil penalties, or to enact religious tests for political purposes. In order to induce members to pass the act of succession, they had been promised that every requisite measure should be adopted for securing the protestant religion. Accordingly, an act anent religion and the test was brought in, August 31, by which the following oath was ordered to be taken by all persons in offices and places ofpublic trust, members of parliament, and all electors of members of parliament, and all ministers or preachers of the gospel, teachers in the universities, chaplains in families, pedagogues to children, and all officers and soldiers, betwixt and the 1st of January next:—“I, ——, solemnly swear, in presence of the eternal God, whom I invocate as judge of my sincere intention in this my oath, That I own and sincerely profess the true protestant religion contained in the Confession of Faith, recorded in the first parliament of King James VI., and that I believe the same to be founded on and agreeable to the written word of God; and I promise and swear that I shall adhere thereunto during all the days of my life-time, and shall endeavour to educate my children therein, and shall never consent to any change or alteration contrary thereunto, and that I disown and renounce all such principles, doctrines, or practices, whether popish or fanatical, which is contrary unto, and inconsistent with, the said protestant religion and Confession of Faith: and for testification of my obedience to my most gracious sovereign Charles II., I do affirm and swear by this my solemn oath, that the king’s majesty is the only supreme governor of this realm, over all persons, and in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil; and that no foreign prince, person, pope, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminency, or authority, ecclesiastical or civil, within this realm; and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and authorities; and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith, and true faith, and true allegiance to the king’s majesty, his heirs and lawful successors; and to my power shall assist and defend all rights, jurisdictions, prerogatives, privileges, pre-eminences, and authorities belonging to the king’s majesty, his heirs and lawful successors: and I further affirm and swear by this my solemn oath, that I judge it unlawful for subjects upon pretence of reformation, or any pretence whatsomever to enter into covenants or leagues, or to convocate, convene, or assemble, in any councils, conventicles, or assemblies, to treat, consult, or determine in any matter of state, civil or ecclesiastic, without his majesty’s special command, or express license, had thereunto, or to take up arms against the king or thosecommissionate by him; and that I shall never so rise in arms or enter into such covenants or assemblies; and that there lies no obligation upon me from the National Covenant or the Solemn League and Covenants (so commonly called), or any other manner of way whatsomever, to endeavour any change or alteration in the government, either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of this kingdom: and I promise and swear that I shall with my utmost power, defend, assist, and maintain his majesty’s jurisdiction foresaid against all deadly; and I shall never decline his majesty’s power and jurisdiction, as I shall answer to God. And, finally, I affirm and swear that this my solemn oath is given in the plain, genuine sense and meaning of the words, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or any manner of evasion whatsomever, and that I shall not accept or use any dispensation from any creature whatsomever. So help me God.”

This sacredTEST, which I have given at length, because of its characteristic singularity, even in that age of oaths—carries on its front such palpable self-contradiction, that it appears to have been intentionally framed, as the justiciary categories of that day confessedly were, to create crime. The Confession of Faith here sworn to, was that drawn up by John Knox, and asserts Christ to be thesole“head of the church, in which [whose] honours and offices, if men or angels presume to intrude themselves, we utterly detest and abhor them.” In the test, the king is acknowledged as “the only supreme in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil.” In the Confession, there is enumerated in the list of good works, “the duty of repressing tyranny and defending the oppressed.” In the test, it is declared “unlawful, upon any pretence, to take up arms against the king or any commissionate by him.”

In opening the debate, Lord Belhaven remarked, that “he saw a very good act for securing our religion from one another among ourselves, but he did not see an act brought to secure our religion against a popish or fanatical successor to the crown.” He was instantly sent to the Castle, and the Lord Advocate declared there was matter for an accusation of treason against him; nor was he released until some days after, upon making an ample apology. Argyle thought it unnecessary, as there were too manyoaths already; and he strenuously opposed the concluding clause, excepting the king’s lawful sons and brothers. “It is our happiness,” he said, “that the king and people are of one religion by law; and he hoped the parliament would do nothing to loosen what was fast, or open a door for the royal family being of a different religion from the nation, and therefore he wished, if any exception were made, it might be made particularly for his Royal Highness.” The Commissioner hastily rising, said, he would allow of no exemption for himself. “Then,” replied Argyle, “if this exception pass, it will do more prejudice to the protestant religion than all the rest of the acts will do good.” It did pass, after a day’s debate, by a majority of seven.[141]Having sat seven weeks, the parliament adjourned without doing much credit to the Commissioner’s character, “on which some wise men observed, ‘the Duke of York might have courage and obstinacy enough, like his father; but had neither great conduct nor a deep reach in affairs, and was but a silly man.’”[142]

141.The majorities seem to have consisted chiefly of “the royal burrows, who,” says Fountainhall, “were by the court gulled with the hopes of getting their privileges restored against burghs of regalities and baronies (which were taken away by the act of parliament 1672); and in hopes of it, with Issachar, they couched under the burden, and yielded to every demand of the Duke of York; but when they brought in their bill to the Articles, they were so far from getting redress, or the regalities and baronies declared liable to bear a part of the burden with them, that the Articles were like to take away more from them; so the burrows were glad to put up their pipes, and hold them as they were, beside the skaith they had got, by limiting them to elect none but one of their own town.” Decis. vol. i. p. 155.

142.Fountainhall’s Decis. vol. i. p. 156.

When the test came to be imposed, Scotland presented the appalling scene of an almost universal compliance among her men in office; yet even among them there were a few names who defiled not their garments. John Hope of Hopeton, who had the honour of being deprived of the Sheriffdom of Linlithgowshire—the excellent Duchess of Rothes, who though strongly urged, decidedly refused—besides several others. Queensberry took it with an explanation, “that he did not understand himself to be against any alterations in case it should seem good to his majesty to make them in church or state.” The Duke of Hamilton also had hisscruples, but was willing the council should name deputies in any jurisdictions belonging to him, which they did. The Marquis of Huntly positively refused to take it; but being a papist, he was passed over. The opposition, however, made by the synod and Bishop of Aberdeen, the synod of Perth and Bishop of Dunkeld, and a number of the Episcopalian clergymen, who for the first time appeared in opposition to the court, induced Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh, to prepare an explanation, which was approved of by the council, purporting “that by the test we do not swear to any proposition or clause in the said Confession of Faith, but only to the true protestant religion, founded on the word of God, contained in that Confession, as it is opposed to popery and fanaticism; that no encroachment is intended upon the intrinsic spiritual power of the church, as it was exercised by the apostles in the three first centuries; nor any prejudice to the episcopal government of this national church.” The precise and unalterable obligation at the close, however, was so decisive, that many who would have scrupled little at common obligations, were startled at this; and, to the honour of the conformist clergy, not less thaneightyrather surrendered their livings than their conscience; and “these were noted to be the best preachers, and the most zealous enemies to popery, that belonged to that church.”

The Presbyterians decidedly refused it. Nor could they act otherwise, without deserting and betraying their religion. Argyle, who saw all this, unfortunately did not act with that decision which is often, if not always, the safest, though frequently not the most pleasant or easy mode of procedure, and at once resign his employments. He endeavoured to evade taking it, by offering an explanation, as had been done by the synods and conforming clergy; and his proposal was accepted graciously by the Duke of York, who at the same time told him the oath was such as no honest man could swear. His explanation was:—“I have considered the test, and am desirous to give obedience as far as I can. I am confident the parliament never intended to impose contradictory oaths, therefore I think no man can explain it but for himself. Accordingly, I take it in as far as it is consistent with itself and the protestant religion; and I do declare I mean not to bindup myself in my station, and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of the church or state.” No remark was made at the time, and the Earl took his place as a privy councillor; but next day, when he waited upon the Duke, he was told his explanation was not satisfactory. “I thought,” said his Royal Highness, “it was to have been a short one like Queensberry’s. Well! it passed with you, but it shall pass so with no other.”

The unsuspecting Earl understood this as an harmonious finale to the matter; but he knew not with whom he had to deal. On the same day he was called before the council as a commissioner of the treasury, and again required to take the test. He offered to do so in the same manner as he had done before, but was sternly refused. “You and some others,” said the Duke of York, “have designed to bring trouble upon a handful of poor catholics, who would live peaceably, however they are used! but it shall light upon others,” and walked off, after desiring the Earl not to leave town till he saw him again. Next day he was ordered by the council to enter himself prisoner in Edinburgh Castle before twelve o’clock, and the Lord Advocate was instructed to pursue him for treason. They also sent an account of their proceedings to the king for his approbation, which they received in course, only desiring that no sentence should be pronounced until submitted to him. His trial, which lasted two days (12th and 13th December), immediately commenced; and a more nefarious one does not disgrace the justiciary records.

In common, there is some appearance of crime in the charges brought by a public prosecutor, however distorted by legal subtlety; but not the shadow of a fault could be made to appear against this nobleman, in so far as his loyalty was concerned. Here, if in any thing, his failings leaned to the royal side; and when it is considered what his family had suffered for the royal cause, and by the royal personages, both “the blessed martyr” and his profligate son, it is wonderful that any of the house of Campbell could ever have been found in the ranks that supported the Stuart race.

His indictment was founded, among other acts, upon that ofJames VI. 205 act, parliament 14, by which all leasing-makers and tellers of them[143]are punishable with tinsel of life and goods; and 107, James I. parliament 7, which ordains that no man interpret the king’s statutes otherwise than the statute bears, and to the intent and effect that they were made for, and as the makers of them understood; and whoso does in the contrary, to be punished at the king’s will; and the 10th act, parliament 10, James VI., by which it is statuted, that none of his majesty’s subjects presume to take upon him publicly to declare, or privately to speak or write, any purpose of slander against his majesty’s person, laws, or acts of parliament, under pain of death. And his explanation of what all allowed to be a contradictory act of parliament, was, from the most unnatural distortion and forced construction of the words by that base unprincipled slave of the court, Sir George Mackenzie, tortured into treason:—

143.i. e.Liars or tellers of lies. What would have become of the royal brothers had they been tried upon this statute?

“You the said Archibald Earl of Argyle declared that you had considered the saidTEST, and was desirous to give obedience as far as you could, whereby you clearly insinuated that you was not able to give full obedience. In the second article, you declare that you were confident the parliament never intended to impose contradictory oaths, thereby to abuse the people with a belief that the parliament had been so impious as really and actually to have imposed contradictory oaths; and so ridiculous as to have made an act of parliament (which should be the most deliberate of all human actions) quite contrary to their own intentions; and that every man must explain it for himself, and take it in his own sense, which is a settling of the legislative power in private subjects: that you take the test in so far only as it is consistent with itself and the protestant religion, by which you maliciously intimate to the people that the said oath is inconsistent with itself and the protestant religion, which is not only a downright depraving of the said act of parliament, but likewise a misconstruing of his majesty’s and the parliament’s proceedings, misrepresenting them to the people in the highest degree, and in thetenderest points implying that the king and parliament have done things inconsistent with the protestant religion, for securing of which that test was particularly intended. In the fourth article, you expressly declare that you mean not by taking the said test to bind up yourself from wishing and endeavouring any alteration in a lawful way, that you shall think fit ‘for the advancing of church and state,’ by which you declare yourself, and by your example invite others to think themselves, loosed from that obligation, and think it is free for them to make any alteration in either as they shall think fit; concluding your whole paper with these words, ‘and this I understand as a part of my oath,’ which is a treasonable invasion upon the royal legislative power, as if it were lawful for you to make to yourself an act of parliament, since he who can make any part of an act may make the whole.”

The Earl’s speech, after the indictment was read, was manly and noble. It contained simply a general sketch of what he had done for the royal ingrates, and the consequent improbability that he who had evinced such unshaken loyalty in the worst of times, should now be guilty of gratuitous treason.

Sir George Lockhart and Sir John Dalrymple followed in plain luminous speeches, such as it is impossible to conceive how minds of common construction could withstand the force of the reasoning, and the effect of the downright statement of facts, which give to them, in perusal, a power beyond what any artificial eloquence could bestow; yet such was the deadening effect of a wretchedly supposed self-interest, that the bench divided equally—two, Newton and Forret, voting for, and two, Collington and Harcarse, against, the “relevancy of the libel;” and they remained until midnight discussing the subject, nor were able to come to a decision. Queensberry, who presided as Justice-General, having himself received the test with an explanation, declined to vote, as, in condemning Argyle, he must have condemned himself; yet to acquit him would have been to forfeit the favour of the court, and he preferred having his name registered with infamy, to acting the part of an honest man. In this dilemma, Nairn, an old superannuated judge, who had fallen asleep during the trial, and had been under the necessity of retiring from the bench, because,through infirmity, he could not follow the proceedings, was dragged from his bed and called upon to give his casting vote. Next day, the interlocutor was pronounced—“sustaining the charges as relevant, repelling the legal defences against treason and leasing-making, and remitting the indictment, with the defence against perjury, to the knowledge of an assize.”

This assize consisted of the Marquis of Montrose, a personal enemy of Argyle, who presided; the Earls of Linlithgow, Roxburgh, Dumfries, Early, Perth, Dalhousie, Middleton; Lords Sinclair, Lindores, Burntisland; the Lairds of Gosford, Ballymain, Park, Gordon, and Claverhouse. A majority of them were political adversaries, predisposed to condemn. Argyle refused to reply. He saw that his case was prejudged; and he did not give his enemies the triumph of overwhelming a fruitless defence. With a vile affectation, the Lord Advocate charged the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty, or stand the consequences of a process of error. “And it being proven,” Fountainhall’s expressions, “that he (the Earl) gave in that explanation which the lords found treasonable, the assize (being so determined by the interlocutor) could not but find him guilty of treason and leasing-making, but assoilzied him from the article of perjury.”

“There was a great outcry,” his lordship adds, “against the criminal judges for their timorous dishonesty,” and well there might; nor can I help joining issue with Sir George Lockhart, who “admired how a man could be condemned as a traitor for saying he would make all amendments he could to the advantage of church and state!” Were not every circumstance in this atrocious business as much opposed to common sense as to law, we might wonder how any set of men above the scale of idiocy could consent to a process of treason being raised upon such palpable expressions of loyalty and patriotism; but that men, and these in the highest rank of society in Scotland, could have been found to bring in a verdict of guilty, shows what a dreadful want of moral principle then existed in the country, especially among the elevated classes.

As soon as the verdict was made known, the council met and sent a letter to the king, requesting leave to order the justiciaryto pronounce sentence of death, but to delay execution during the royal pleasure. Argyle, who justly dreaded the event, had despatched a messenger to court to ascertain what he might expect from that quarter. By him he learned that the king would be prevailed upon to comply with the council’s desire; and being at the same time informed that he was to be transferred from the Castle to the common jail, to which peers were wont to be removed a few days before execution, he considered that no time was to be lost in providing for his safety; and on Tuesday the 20th of December, about eight in the evening, he succeeded in effecting his escape, disguised as the page of Lady Sophia Lindsay, his step-daughter. Irritated at his flight, which was doubly galling as they knew he could proclaim, not to his oppressed country only, but to Europe, the vileness of the religious tyranny that desolated his country, the council immediately issued a proclamation, denouncing the fugitive as having added “the breach of prison to his other crimes, and without waiting for that clemency which he might have relied upon (!!) if he had not been conscious to himself of guiltiness that required such an escape; and commanding all loyal subjects to apprehend the said Earl, indemnifying those who should kill, mutilate, or slay the said Earl or his accomplices, if resisting;” besides placing him under the ban of intercommuning. But the Earl, who could fully estimate the value of that clemency which he was accused of mistrusting, had fortunately got beyond their reach. Mr John Scott, minister of Hawick, directed him to an obscure alehouse, where he met Pringle of Torwoodlee, by whom he was sent to William Veitch, an exiled minister, lurking on the borders, under whose direction he was safely conducted to London, whence he got to Holland—then the place of refuge for the persecuted Presbyterians.[144]

144.In London, the Earl lodged at the house of a Mr Smith, a sugar baker, whose lady, a pious woman, with the generosity and fearlessness of her sex, concealed him at the risk of her own life and fortune, for it was known that he was in London; and if Burnet be correct, Charles II. showed on this occasion one of the few praiseworthy traits of his character. He was informed of Argyle’s retreat, but would not allow him to be sought after.—A long and interesting account of Argyle’s escape and journey to London, is given in the Life of Veitch, published by Dr M’Crie.

The privy council, to strike terror into any who complained ofthe injustice of the interlocutor pronounced by the court, named a committee to call his (Argyle’s) advocates before them for subscribing an opinion that his explanation contained nothing treasonable, although they themselves had given these gentlemen authority to plead freely in defence of their client. When they appeared, some proposed to imprison and deprive them; nor was it without difficulty that they were allowed to continue their practice, York observing, if any bad use were made of their written opinion by spreading it abroad in England to incense the people, or reproach him or the judges, he should consider them as much to blame. It was, however, afterwards printed in England along with Argyle’s trial, where it produced a powerful effect.

It had not been usual, nor was it deemed legal, to pronounce sentence of forfeiture in absence; but when all the essentials of justice had been violated, the council did not deem it worth while to stickle at forms. The Countess gave in a petition to the court of justiciary. It was as might have been anticipated of no avail. “Archibald Earl of Argyle was found guilty and culpable of the crimes of treason, leasing-making, and leasing-telling, and adjudged to be executed to the death; demeaned as a traitor; his name, memory, and honours to be extinct; and his arms to be riven forth and deleted out of the book of arms: so that his posterity may never have place, nor be able hereafter to bruik or enjoy any honours, offices, titles, or dignities within this realm in time coming;” and his tacks, stedings, goods, and gear whatsoever remaining to him “be escheated” to our sovereign lord, to remain perpetually with his Highness in property; which was pronounced for doom. Within seven years, the representative of Argyle was the first man in Britain—the representative of Stuart was a wanderer and a vagabond on the face of the earth!

Next day, after Argyle’s escape, Fraser of Brea appeared before the council. Returning home from the south, he had preached in a barn on a Lord’s day, for which the council ordered him to be summoned as holding field-conventicles; but on learning the true state of the case, the summons was stopped, only some of them spoke to Sir Hugh Campbell of Calder, his surety. Sir Hugh shortly after visiting his friend, found him lying sick of anague and proposed writing to the Bishop of Edinburgh and the Lord Advocate to inform them of his situation, and get him excused. Mr Fraser, who knew the men, earnestly entreated him not to interfere, “for if the prelates hear that I am sick, they will instantly cite me, in hopes that either I cannot appear being sick, and so fall in the forfeiture of my bond of five hundred and sixty pounds, which they would gladly be in hands with; or, if I should appear, might thereby endanger my life.” His surety thought his fears groundless, and acquainted Bishop Paterson that Mr Fraser was seriously ill, and never preached in the fields. Immediately the citation was revived, and the day of his appearance fixed for the 22d of December, when they thought he certainly could not at that season come from the north, and the bond must be forfeited; but he most unexpectedly and suddenly recovered, and arrived in Edinburgh in good health, and his surety with him.

The council, astonished at his appearance, finally referred the case to the bishops, by whom he was sentenced to pay a fine of five thousand merks, be imprisoned in Blackness Castle till he paid it, and gave security not to preach any more, or go off the kingdom. He was accordingly sent to Blackness Castle, where he remained six weeks, till, upon the Duke of York’s going to England, accompanied by Bishop Paterson and his brother—his two great enemies—Mr Fraser’s friends applied to the council, and procured a liberation and a remission of the fine, upon the condition of his leaving the kingdom, which he did, and went to reside at London.

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