adventurers and soldiers 'who had been planted on the estates of the Irish by the commonwealth were to retain them, except they were the estates of persons who had remained entirely neuter, in which case the adventurers and soldiers were to have an equivalent from the fund for reprisals. But this, in fact, settled nothing, for so many charges were advanced against those who pleaded innocence, that few were allowed to be so. The matter was next brought before the Irish parliament, and there again was division. The commons, who had been appointed through the influence of the soldiers and adventurers, voted that the tang's declaration should pass into a law the lords, on the contrary, protested that it would ruin all the old families, both catholic and protestant; and the contending parties once more appealed to the king, who, wearied with the interminable strife, seized the opportunity of the discovery of a paper formerly signed by Sir Nicholas Plunket, one of the agents of the appellants, offering Ireland to the pope, or any catholic power who would defend them against the parliament—their appeal was dismissed, and the bill, based on the royal declaration, was passed. It was soon found, however, that it was not easy to carry this law into execution; but we must take up these struggles again at their proper date.
Savoy Palace.
Scotland was restored to its condition of an independent kingdom. The survivors of the committee of estates, which had been left in management on Charles's disastrous march into England, previous to the battle of Worcester, were ordered to resume their functions. Middleton was appointed lord commissioner; Glencairn lord chancellor; the earl of Lauderdale secretary of state; Rothes president of the council; and Crawford lord treasurer. A parliament was summoned to meet in Edinburgh in January, 1661, and its first measure was to restore the episcopal hierarchy. To completely destroy every civil right of the presbyterian kirk, Middleton procured the passing of an act to annul all the proceedings of the Scottish parliament since the commencement of the contest with the late king. Though even the lord treasurer Crawford opposed this measure, declaring that as the late king had been present at one of these parliaments, and the present one at another, and that therefore to repeal the acts of these parliaments, would be to rescind the act of indemnity and the approved of the "engagement," Middleton carried his point, and levelled every political right of the kirk at a blow. The ministers of the kirk in astonishment met to consult and to protest; they sent a deputation to the king with a remonstrance; but they arrived at a time likely to inspire them with awe, and did not escape without a painful evidence that they were no longer in the proud position of their fathers. Charles had shed the blood of vengeance plentifully in England, and there were those in Scotland whom he looked on with a menacing eye. The chief of these was the marquis of Argyll. Argyll had been the head and leader of the covenanter. He had counselled with and encouraged the general assembly in its resistance to the late king's measures. He had been his most persevering enemy, and finally, he had encouraged the invasion of England by the Scots.
