ing. The press was at length free, but only for a time, being too dangerous an engine to the corrupt government, which so long succeeded.
Whilst the blood of unfortunate victims to imaginary plots was flowing in England, in Scotland the same ruthless persecution bad continued against the covenanters. Lauderdale had married the counters of Dysart, a most extravagant and rapacious woman, who acquired complete influence over him; and to find resources for her expense, be levied fines on the nonconformists with such rigour and avidity, that it was believed that be really sought to drive the people to rebellion, in order to have a plea for plundering them. "The parliament," says Laing, "was prolonged above four years, that be might enjoy the emoluments and rank of commissioner, and bis revenues during his abode in Scotland exceeded those of its ancient kings. His salary was sixteen thousand pounds sterling, the donations which be received twenty-six thousand pounds; but the annual revenues of the crown, the surplus revenue accumulated by Murray, and an assessment of seventy-two thousand pounds, were insufficient to support bis profusion, and disappeared in his bands. But the most lucrative and oppressive sources of extortion were the penalties and compositions for attending conventicles, of which it is impossible to estimate the amount. On one occasion two gentlemen compounded for fifteen hundred pounds; on ten gentlemen thirty thousand pounds were imposed; nor were these the most considerable in the shire of Renfrew. Injustice was aggravated by the insolence of Lauderdale, whose unfeeling jests insulted such as compounded for their fines. The penalties of nonconformity were farmed out or assigned to his dependents. Nineteen hundred pounds sterling were exacted by Athol, the justice-general, for bis own behalf, in a single week; and the estates of those who withdrew from Lauderdale's rage and insolence, were plundered and wasted by gifts of escheat."
Such was the woful condition of Scotland, delivered over by the lewd and reckless king to a man who combined the demon characters of cruelty, insult, and avarice, in no ordinary degree. Complaints from the most distinguished and most loyal inhabitants were only answered by requiring them all to enter into bonds that neither they, their families, nor tenants should withdraw from the established church, under the same penalties as actual delinquents. The gentry refused to enter into such bonds. Lauderdale, therefore, determined to treat the whole west of Scotland as in an actual state of revolt, and not only sent troops with artillery to march into the devoted districts, but let loose upon them troops of wild Highlanders, and commanded even the nobility, as well as others, to give up all their arms. The outraged population—left exposed to the spoliation of the Highlanders, who, though they spared the lives, freely robbed the inhabitants—sent a deputation of some of their most eminent men to lay their sufferings before the king himself. They were, however, dismissed with a reprimand, Charles replying, "I perceive that Lauderdale has been guilty of many bad things against the people of Scotland, but I cannot find that be has acted in anything contrary to my interest." "A sentiment," says Hume, "unworthy of a sovereign." To Charles, so long as he was left in quietness with his women, it mattered nothing how grievously the subjects were peeled and punished.
However, in 1678, the Highlanders were ordered to return to their bills, and they are represented as if returning from the sack of a city. They carried with them plate, merchants' goods, webs of linen, quantities of wearing apparel and household furniture, and a number of horses to carry their plunder.
We related the attempt—in 1668—of Mitchell to shoot the archbishop of St. Andrews in his carriage. Six years having elapsed without his discovery, Mitchell had become so bold, as not only to return from his wanderings through Holland and England, but actually rented a small shop under Sharp's lodgings in Edinburgh. Probably he was intending to repair his former failure on the archbishop's life. Sharp observed this man watching him closely, and, observing him more nearly, thought he recognised him. He was seized and examined before the privy council. He stoutly denied the charge brought against him, but on a solemn promise of his life, he confessed that be wounded Honeyman, the bishop of Orkney, on that occasion, a wound from which the bishop never fully recovered, though he lingered some years. But the council, repeating its promise of life to Mitchell, endeavoured to draw from him a confession of being concerned in the battle of the Pentlands, and not succeeding, they brought out the terrible iron boot, which is stated, in letters still in the possession of the historian, Lingard, not only to have been capable of crushing the leg bone, but of forcing the marrow out at the sole of the foot. The executioner asked him which leg be should try, and Mitchell, extending the right one, said, undauntedly, "Take the best; I willingly bestow it in this cause." Eight blows of the mallet and wedge were given, and borne with incredible fortitude; after the eighth the prisoner fainted. He was then sent to the prison of the Bass Rock, in the Firth of Forth, till January, 1078, when he was again brought before the council. There some of the privy councillors swore that no promise of his life had ever been given him, and Lauderdale would not allow the records of the council to be referred to, where the promise was, and remains to this day. He was, therefore, condemned and hanged in the Grass-market.
Mitchell was ere long terribly avenged by a band of covenanting enthusiasts in Fife. There the cruelties of the archbishop were pre-eminently intolerable. There David Hackston of Rathillet, his brother-in-law, John Balfour of Kinloch, or Balfour of Burley, as he is immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in "Old Mortality," James Russell of Kettle, and six others determined to take vengeance on a notorious creature of Sharp's, one Carmichael, who bad pursued his levy of fines with such brutality, as to have beaten and burnt with lighted matches women and children, to compel them to betray their masters, husbands, brothers, or fathers. On the 3rd of the present year Carmichael bad been out bunting, but hearing of Rathillet and his band being on the watch for him, he left the field and got home. The conspirators were returning disappointed, when a greater prey fell into their hands. The wife of a farmer at Baldinny sent a lad to tell them that the archbishop's coach was on the road, going from Ceres towards St. Andrews. The
