Confederacy of mutual hatred and intolerance.

583

should guard Burnet's house;" adding that Burnet "lives in great splendor, and hath lately married there a person of a very considerable fortune." Venus had charms for him, if she were widow of Pluto instead of wife to Vulcan; so long as Mammon was served, he would have laid siege to Proserpina, or Hecate, at home.1

Worst of all, those amiable peculiarities already mentioned, "envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness," hitherto so profitably employed in opposition to government, were found inconvenient when unrelinquished among themselves. Union for a common purpose of retrieval became of paramount importance. From first to last this is the moral of the twofold insurrection. Not only were the ideas of the Scotch antagonistic to those of the English, but insubordination was continual, because of mutual jealousies. Arrogance of self-assertion provoked quarrels, distrust was shown to all who were not "zealous," while the noisiest hypocrite and the shrewdest traitor took the place of leaders. There were some few men of honourable family and personal courage among them, chiefly Scotch. But they were headstrong and impracticable in their views. They, who had felt unable to combine together usefully on their native soil, were still less capable of joining heartily with the ragged regiment of English fugitives. They had hated Lauderdale and Rothes, they breathed curses loud as well as deep against Sir George Mackenzie, and nearly all who were left behind. But they disdained to be commanded by their countryman Argyle; suspecting him, not without warrant, of personal ambition and willingness to use them for his tools. Most of them detected the shallowness of Monmouth, and only accepted alliance with him because of his supposed popularity with the rich

1 Burnet's other wealthy wives were Lady Margaret Kennedy and Mrs. Berkeley. This Mrs. Smith had formerly been of great service to Argyle. On the 20th of Dec., 1681, he had escaped from Edinburgh Castle, disguised as a page, holding the train of his step-daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay, the Earl of Balcarres's sister. He went to Pringle of Torwoodlee, on the advice of John Scott, minister of Hawick. Pringle sent his servant with him to William Veitch, who took him to Chapwell, Derbyshire. Thence they sped to London, under convoy of an old Cromwellian, one Lockyer. They went to the Smiths at Battersea, who were rich, childless, and charitable. Smith was a sugar-baker, and was not entrusted with the secret of who they were, Argyle passing as Mr. Hope, and Veitch's alias being Captain Fabes. Her agent was Major Holmes, who recognized Argyle, but got separate lodgings for the two Scotchmen. Shortly afterwards the Smiths moved to a new house at Brentford, into which Argyle and Veitch were received by Mrs. Smith, they still bearing the false names, for concealment. The search had slackened; but when the Rye-House Plot was discovered, Argyle fled to Holland, and Mrs. Smith being implicated, thought it best to persuade her husband to follow with her, and take up residence at Utrecht. Veitch also had escaped, first to Scotland, and then, like the others, to the Cave of Adullam. Smith died before Argyle's ship expedition, the widow lending on bond an addition of six or seven thousand pounds, money probably never repaid.

584 William of Orange leaves the Plotters to their fate.

gentry of England's western and midland counties. They could scarcely tolerate the vulgar insolence of his adherents, such as Dare and Goodenough, or Wade. Among the needy adventurers were cherished the most incongruous opinions. Some, like Richard Rumbold, were Cromwellian republicans, hating monarchy, and certain to revolt if Monmouth assumed to be king. Others, who had seen the evil of anarchy with Commonwealth intolerance and spoliation, would have maintained the safeguards of constitutional Sovereignty. There were baptists, presbyterians, ranters, atheists or deists like Ayloffe, and every kind of obscure denominationalist; all vociferating against Papistry, but at heart despising one another. Such were the inhabitants of the Dutch Cave of Adullam: such the varie-coloured threads of the rope with which Argyle and Monmouth hoped to pull down Dagon from his pedestal.

Money was being raised, but not in sufficient quantity. Arms and ammunition were gathered, a frigate hired by Argyle, with three other vessels (the Anna, David, and Sophia) to take Scotch exiles from their sanctuary. Secrecy was maintained as to their destination, but it seems impossible to doubt that there was connivance on the part of Orange William and his people, especially at Amsterdam, to make no hindrance of departure. He must have felt assured that there would be failure, and thence would come removal of a dangerous "Protestant" rival, leaving himself to become the sole hope of English rebels against the Romanizing Court. If perchance damage were done to King James the Second, his uncle and father-in-law, so much the better it promised for the interest of James's daughter Mary and her plotting husband. No real affection bound the three together. As yet no fear of a possible heir being born to the King had entered into calculation.

It is the business of the historian to tell the full details of the mad Western Insurrection, which cost the lives of hundreds when Monmouth raised his standard at Lyme. Macaulay has made the theme his own. Hitherto we have been on ground which he only lightly trod or briefly indicated in his Introductory Chapters of the History. Our task now is to give, with such comment as may seem necessary, the Ballads and Poems, describing the events of June and July, 1685, from the landing on the shores of Dorset to the fight at Sedgemoor and the execution of "England's Darling," at the close of the long struggle for supremacy between York and Monmouth.

The main facts are tolerably clear, the evidence from contemporary records by no means scanty, but requiring care to extract the truth from contradictory reports. Within a few hours of death Monmouth declared "that the designe of invading the nation in that manner he did [at Lyme, etc.], was not formed three weeks or ane moneth before it was executed."-(Buccleugh MS., in Sir George Rose's

Mutual distrust between Monmouth and Argyle. 585

Appendix, p. lxvi.) This statement is scarcely to be taken literally, for the subject was discussed from the time when news arrived of the King's death. The Scotch refugees had been continually plotting from an earlier date. At last, "on the 17th April [1685] there was a meeting at Amsterdam, at which were present the Earl of Argyle, Mr. Charles Campbell his son, Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, George Pringle of Torwoodlee, William Denholm of West Shield, George Hume of Bassingdean, John Cochrane of Waterside, Mr. George Wishart, William Cleland, James Stewart, Advocate, and Mr. Gilbert Elliot. Sir John Cochrane was chosen Preses for that time.-(Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 369.)"

Monmouth's arrival from England, out of favour at Court but welcomed by Orange at the Hague, seems to have inspired the disaffected exiles with a hope of winning so popular a patron or adherent. But until the death of Charles II., Monmouth had tried to keep aloof from them, and avoid publicly compromising himself with the Scotch, although doing his utmost to secure the alliance of Flemings, Dutch, Brandenburghers and Spaniards. Still, we read (without date, but evidently little beyond this 17th of April, 1685, and after calling together the Ministers of Rotterdam, for advice and concurrence in their station), "By this time, the Duke of Monmouth having his return from England, some of us [Scotch] went to him, and got from him full and satisfying accounts of particulars and good encouragement, and saw the letters he had received," ," from English malcontents.1 Before this middle of April, Patrick Hume and the others had invited Monmouth from Brussels to Rotterdam, "giving in the letter some intimation of our business with him, who without delay came to us."-(P. Hume, p. 9.) Argyle, Sir John Cochrane and his son John came thither from Frieseland, but too late to see Monmouth. Argyle used "test expressions" upon the Duke of Monmouth. (Ibid, p. 12.) There was jealousy between these two leaders, from the beginning.

The first difficulty was now to prevent mistake betwixt the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl, when they should meet (Ibid, p. 17),' but next day Argyle visited Monmouth alone. Closer acquaintanceship did not assist to ripen intimacy into confidence or liking, since we find Hume stating, "But the Duke meeting frequently with the Erle found out of himselfe what wee would gladly have covered, and began to get light of the Erle's calculations, except in so far as we joined with him and assented."-(Ibid. p. 20.) These 66 calculations " could have been none other than for the projected

1 Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative, printed in 1809, in the Rt. Honble. George Rose's Observations on the Historical Work of Charles James Fox, pp. 34, 36.

586

G. Burnet's pupil, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

insurrection in Scotland, simultaneous with one to be made in the Western counties of England.

The meeting at Amsterdam preserves for us a record of all the chief Scotchmen engaged, with exception of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun; in some respects the most memorable among them. Often mis-quoted, let his words once more have a place here. He not improbably means himself when he speaks thus concerning ballads : "I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher Musgrave's sentiments, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the songs of a nation. . . . In this city the dramatic poet no less than the ballad maker has been almost wholly employed to corrupt the people."

Fletcher was a favourable specimen of the Scot Abroad,' noble and intellectual compared to his comrades. Yet even of him it was said that little help could be gained, through his irascibility:

If Saltoun for Freedom and Property cry,

While Tyranny may be read in his tongue and his eye.

There were also William Veitch (already mentioned on p. 582), Lord Melvin, Blackadder (Argyle's physician), the two Duncansons and others of less note, with Spence (qu. William, who had acted as Argyle's secretary and knew his cypher? see p. 342. Or Thomas). James Stewart, afterwards Sir James, already mentioned, bore the alias of Lawson, while in hiding in London, and was supposed to be the author of An Account of Scotland's Grievances, by reason of the Duke of Lauderdale's Ministry, humbly tendered to his Sacred Majesty, about 1680. He used to undertake the solution "of intricate law-cases, of any kinds, at half-fees, or half a guinea; his clerk Thomas Spence was to take the cases put, and return the case with the solution, upon receiving the fee." This was done so often and so cleverly that his safety became endangered. He fled to Holland some time in 1681 or '82, and earned the nick-name of Jamie Wylie, from his trimming and shrewdness. Later than the date of this group he obtained pardon through William Penn, and in time rose to be Lord Advocate in his native country, a position he well deserved. This was in 1692, but he was displaced in 1708. He survived until the 1st May, 1713, and died aged 78. Among the Pasquils on him is one beginning "Quam formosa tua et facies tenebrosa Stewarte," etc., paraphrased as "How wondrous are the features of thy face, Where smyles and frowns by turns assume their place." Another is "Gall or Honey," beginning "My heart, my heart, take this propine." Yet another is this, the briefest:

1 Fletcher of Saltoun's Political Works, Glasgow, 1749, p. 266.

A friendly prophecy for the wily Jamie, but unfulfilled. Many other plotters better deserved the "waeful woodie."

These Scotchmen were, excepting Ferguson, generally honest, brave, and enterprizing, although difficult to work with, because ungovernably opinionative; each man fighting for himself like Hal o' the Wynd, yet clannish enough to quarrel with every one who said or did injury to any North-countryman. Rebellious of all controul were they, even of themselves. The English exiles, as already shown, were chiefly bankrupt intriguers of the Slingsby Bethel, William Waller, Patience Ward, and Richard Goodenough stamp; persons who for years had commingled cant and roguery in equal proportions, and found the mixture more profitable for home consumption than for exportation to a land where cant was indigenous. In Holland, with the dregs of Calvinism and Sectarian subdivisions as substitutes for religion, these people maintained internecine war. Each was against everybody and himself beside, because each fanatic was a man beside himself.

We shall see that Argyle and Monmouth had equally to suffer the indignity of being curbed, insulted, and degraded from more than nominal guidance of their respective parties; but while in league the two men had distrusted one another. Their aims were incompatible, except for the overturning the government of James. It was a sorry exhibition of impotence, conceit, and factious phrenzy. The mutual jealousies were as ridiculous as they were noxious. The faithlessness and impracticability of multifarious sectarian subdivision were never more convincingly displayed than here in the "Nonconformists' Protestant Rebellion."

The impatience of these exiles, crippled as they were by poverty, unsupported by anything save vague hesitating promises from their secret correspondents in England or Scotland, amounted to culpable rashness. If rebellion be ever justifiable (which we scarcely admit, unless against a usurper like William of Orange), most certainly the crime is great in those who, without reasonable prospect of success, make insurrection against Power, simply from rage and hatred; bringing down upon their land the punishment, which never fails to exact a bloody sacrifice for each abortive rising. such indefensible attempts Monmouth's was the worst. He was the weakest leader of the most incompetent and disunited gang that

Of