young King in Scotland.

Cromwell and his army accordingly entered Scotland in July, 1650, and advanced to the vicinity of Edinburgh, but was unable to take it, as it was well covered by the Scottish army. He then retired to Dunbar, where a battle was fought on the 3rd of September, in which the Covenanters were completely defeated. Shortly after, Cromwell took possession of Edinburgh, and, by the beginning of October, was master of the south-eastern counties of the kingdom. While the Scots became more and more divided among themselves, as there had sprung up in the heat of the conflict several minute differences of opinion and sentiment on the pressing questions of the time, which each asserted and maintained with characteristic determination. There were three parties in Scotland distinctly visible. The Government party with the Marquis of Argyle at its head, consisting of the Committee of Estates, and the Commission of the General Assembly, so far as it concurred with the government: the body of the clergy who supported the government and the resolutions of parliament and the commission of the Church, were called the resolutioners. They supported the efforts of the government to defend the kingdom by all available means, a Covenanted king as well as anything else. Then there was the more strict and extreme party, fully resolved for the Covenant, and firmly opposed to all doubledealing in this solemn matter. They maintained that, though the King had granted everything, and signed the papers placed before him, yet on his own part this was a mere sham, since he had shown no real indications of any change. This section were called protesters; and this unhappy breach among the presbyterians subsequently became very bitter and disastrous. Finally, apart from both the real presbyterian parties, stood the extreme and rather mixed royalist party, numbering in their ranks the Marquis of Huntly, the Earls of Athole and Seaforth, and others; they were open enemies of the Covenant, real malignants.5

Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VI., pp. 544-546, et seq.; Balfour's Annals, Vol. IV., pp. 95-111, 135-160, 174-178, et seq.; Records of the Church of Scotland.

For all this distraction, the King was crowned at Scone on the 1st of January, 1651, when he again swore to maintain the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant. Mr. Douglas, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, delivered the coronation sermon, and reminded the young prince of the iniquity of some of his royal ancestors, warning him that if he followed their example, his house would soon become desolate."

As the Scots were unable to drive back the English army' they resolved on a raid across the Border. Charles accompanied the Scottish army into England, but Cromwell with a part of his force followed the King. A battle ensued at Worcester, on the 3rd of September, 1651, and the royalists were defeated. The King escaped and fled to the continent.

After this, General Monk was entrusted with the task of the reduction of Scotland, and he accomplished it more thoroughly than Edward I. had done. On the 28th of August, 1651, the Committee of Estates were surprised and captured at Alyth in Angus, together with five of the members of the Commission of the General Assembly, who were all sent prisoners to England. The Lowlanders then submitted to the English army, but some resistance continued to be offered by the royalists in the Highlands. But they too were shortly subdued, and the country was reduced to order.

The General Assembly, which met at Edinburgh in July, 1653, was quietly dispersed by a company of English soldiers, and the members commanded not to meet again. Baillie tells this in his usual graphic style. "Colonel Cotteral beset the Church with some files of musketeers and a troop of horse, and himself entered the Assembly house, and inquired if we sat there by the authority of the parliament of the Commonwealth of England, or of the Commander-in-chief of the English forces, or of the English Judges in Scotland? The moderator replied that we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with any civil affairs, that our

• The Form and Order of the King's Coronation, printed at Aberdeen, 1651.

authority was from God, and established by the laws of the land yet standing unrepealed, that by the Solemn League and Covenant, the most of the English army stood obliged to defend our General Assembly. When some speeches of this kind had passed, the colonel told us his orders were to dissolve us; whereupon he commanded all of us to follow him, else he would drag us out of the room. When we had entered a protestation of this unheard of and unexampled violence, we did rise and follow him; he led us all through the streets a mile out of the town, encompassing us with foot soldiers and horsemen, all the people gazing and mourning as at the saddest spectacle they had ever seen. When he had led us a mile without the town, he then declared what farther he had in commission, that we should not dare to meet again above three in number, and that by eight to-morrow morning, we should depart from the town, under the penalty of being guilty of breaking the public peace, and the following day, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off the town under the pain of immediate imprisonment.

Thus our General Assembly, the glory and the strength of our Church upon earth, is, by your soldiery, crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation from us, at this time, either in word or deed."7 But the forms of presbyterianism were not farther interfered with; the synods, the presbyteries and the sessions were permitted to hold their meetings, but only there were no General Assemblies.

The dissension between the resolutioners and the protesters continued throughout the Commonwealth. An attempt was made in 1655 to form an agreement of the two parties, but it failed. Subsequently both parties represented their cause to Cromwell, but neither of them gained any important advantage from this, and the disputes between them became bitter. No religious persecution was permitted in Scotland in Cromwell's reign, the Church being deprived of its power of inflicting civil penalties.

7 Baillie's Letters and Journals, Vol. III., pp. 225-226.

After the nation was subdued, the government of the Commonwealth was disposed to treat Scotland justly, according to its own view of the necessities of the case and the circumstances. The aim of Cromwell and his associates, so far as can be seen, was to amalgamate the two nations into one republic. The Protector made a bold attempt to extinguish the feudal powers of the nobles throughout Scotland. He placed twentyeight fortresses in the kingdom, and kept an army varying from about seven to nine thousand men in the country. The taxes imposed to support this force pressed hard upon the Scots; but then peace and security reigned, which was a boon not to be lightly estimated.

The most successful part of the incorporating scheme was that which established free trade between the two countries. "That all customs, excise, and other imposts for goods transported from England to Scotland, and from Scotland to England, by sea or by land, are and shall be so far taken off and discharged, as that all goods for the future shall pass as free, and with like privileges and with like charges and burdens, from England to Scotland, and from Scotland to England, as goods passing from port to port, or from place to place, in England; and that all goods shall and may pass between Scotland and any other part of this Commonwealth or dominions thereof with the like privileges, freedom, and charges as such goods do and shall pass between England and the said parts and dominions." 8 This was a great advantage to the Scots.

When the army had extinguished all resistance, Cromwell placed the civil administration of Scotland in the hands of a council of eight or nine men, most of whom were Englishmen, sitting in Edinburgh. The powers of this council embraced the revenue, the appointment of the inferior judges and justices of the peace, and authorised the ministers to draw their stipends, a sort of patronage which was extremely offensive to many of the

Bruce's Report on the Union.

In July, 1655, the Council consisted of eight members.

clergy. The police of the kingdom was generally entrusted to the military authorities, and was efficiently executed.

The Court of Session was superseded by a supreme commission of justice, consisting of seven judges, four English and three Scotch. This court had to deal with a great change in the laws already indicated, the abolition of the feudal system; and the commutation and adjustment of the many entangled interests and obligations thence arising. A collection of their decisions is preserved, and they are marked by good common-sense and much careful labour. 10

Another body of seven men, half of them English, were constituted trustees of forfeited and sequestrated estates, by an ordinance in 1654. Their duties were to look after the rents and the revenues of the many Scottish nobles and lairds whose estates had been seized by the government, for offences arising out of the conquest. They were instructed to pay creditors, to give allowances to the wives, the widows, and the children of the original owners of the estates. 11

But the Scots were not all satisfied with Cromwell's rule, though quietness and order were maintained in the kingdom by the strong arm. In the beginning of the year 1658, the Protector expressed his own opinion of the Scots thus::- And

10 The Decisions of the English Judges during the Usurpation. Baillie, under the year 1655, says: "The kingdom was suffering for want of justice, for we have no baron courts; our sheriffs have little skill, for common being English soldiers; our Lords of Session, a few Englishmen, unexperienced with our law, and who, this twelve-month, has done little or nothing; great is our suffering through want of that court. After long neglect of us as no nation, at last a Supreme Council of State, with power in all things, is come down, of six or seven English soldiers and two of our complying gentlemen, Colonel Lockhart and Colonel Swinton. We expect little good from them; but if an heavy excise, as is said, be added to our maintenance, and the paying of all the garrisons lie on us, our condition will be insupportable; yet be what it will, it must be borne, we have deserved it."-Letters and Journals, Vol. III., pp. 388-389.

11 Speaking of the state of Scotland in 1656, Baillie says::- "Our state is in a very silent condition: strong garrisons over all the land, and a great army, both of horse and foot, for which there is no service at all. Our nobles lying in prisons, and under forfeitures or debts, private or public, are for the most part either broken or breaking."-Letters and Journals, Vol. III., p. 317.