Purging out
Malignants.

defence in numbers, fighting power, and experience-many capable
officers and privates being set aside. Probably Whitelocke was re-
cording incredible gossip when he mentioned that some ministers in
their prayers said, that 'if God did not deliver them from the Sectaries
He would not be their God any longer.'1

Round the Capital Leslie made strenuous exertions to oppose
Cromwell. A great entrenchment, strengthened with redoubts, was
cut from the foot of the Canongate to the Port of Leith, and behind
it encamped the Scots, from Broughton village to St. Leonard's Craigs.
The Lammas floods befriended the Scots. The Covenanters have
often been severely criticised for their intolerant suppression of the
Malignant faction at this juncture. But extant records prove that
Scotland was being threatened with a repetition of that moral decadence
which a hundred years before sorely exercised Queen Mary and ruined
the Church. The nobility, gentry, and clergy included many profligate
members. The Old Man' was much in evidence. The advent of
Charles II. alone was needed to popularise wickedness in Royalist
society, and bring about that recrudescence of vice justly feared by
the Covenanters. As yet the 'gracious' Lauderdale was not 'swollen
with gluttony and brutalised with vice'; nor was young Rothes-un-
happily made for drunkenness,' as Burnet wrote-who afterwards was
both and worse, indulging that sin they blamed his stricter father for:

2

'In the old cause your father led the van,
But you bring up the rear with Lady Ann.''

The gallant soldier Nathaniel Gordon had already been processed
for adultery, and the similar scandals of Chancellor Loudoun and
Ludovick Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, were coming into court.*

The wanton imitators of the Merry Monarch had many precursors
and imitators, over whose unsavoury lives it might be better to draw
a veil. It is to the national credit that there survived some honest
and fearless men who were willing to tear the blister from the front

1 Memoirs, i. 465.

2 Pref. Lauderdale Papers.

3 Ballad, Mitchel's Ghost. 4 Gordon, Keith, 150, 426; Lamont, Diary, 38, 130; Scot, Staggering State, 24.

of virtue.

the Carolan

The Commission of Assembly, which was very representative, influential, and large, busied itself putting the stringent Acts against Engagers into operation in the autumn. In the visitation of lax Presbyteries they found and deposed many ministers and teachers guilty of vices incompatible with their offices, as well as doubtful characters whose chief fault seems to have been preference for the Royalist policy. The growing lewdness of the Carolan age had even Lewdness in crept into manses and destroyed the usefulness of preachers, who age. incurred deposition for inefficiency, drunkenness, and immorality. With few exceptions the deposed Malignants were of no distinction. More notable were: Henry Guthry, minister of Stirling, who had been a member of the High Commission in 1634, was a noisy zealot in the Assembly, and survived to become Bishop of Dunkeld after the Restoration; Andrew Ramsay, the sturdy opponent of Laud's Liturgy, now senile and dotard, vented silly views regarding Presbytery and law; William Colvin, also an Edinburgh minister, was as loquacious a wire-puller in the Assembly as he was sly in concealing his Royalist leanings.3 Scandalous facts like these grieved earnest men such as George Gillespie, who on 15th December 1648, on his death-bed, gave a testimony declaring the Malignant party to be 'the seed of the Serpent.'*

1 Cf. postea, Chapter xxi.

2 Rec. Com. Gen. Assem., ii. 125.

3 Peterkin, 592.

* On 14th April 1650 the Earl of Buchan 'did stand up in his daske,' in Auchterhouse Church, confessed his sin of Engaging, held up his hand, swore to the Covenant, and subscribed it. In the same place fifteen years afterwards his widow, Marjory Ramsay, Countess of Buchan, confessed the sin of immorality with the parish minister, James Campbell, who also had to sit on the repentance pillar, December 1665 (Kirk-Sess. Rec.; Inglis, Annals of Auchterhouse, 108, 131, 132). 'At Bottarie, 15 Martii 1648, The Lady Altar, Jean Gordon,' was accused of ane barne in adulterie to Nathaniel Gordon, and also of ane uther bairne in fornication with Captain Mortimer.' 'May 21, 1651, Elspeth Crukshanks, Botarie, confessed adultery with Ludovick Lindsay, Earl of Crawfurd' (Pres. Rec. Strathbogie; J. F. S. Gordon, Keith, 150, 426). Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, the fidus Achates of Montrose, an old man in 1678, knelt in the church of Auchterarder, confessing immorality, gave money to the poor and to Christian prisoners in Turkey, and on the bishop's recommendation was absolved (Sess. Rec. of Auchterarder, anno 1678). Patrick Lesley, Lord of Londors, was never married, but had aboue 67 basse children' (Balfour, Annals, 12th August 1649, iii, 423). '1651, Jun. ... The Commission of the kirk satt at Stirling, att which tyme Chancelour Campbell (Loudoun) was brought up before them and challenged for adulterie with ane Major Jhonston's wife, surnamed Lindsay. This Jhonston was he that went in shortlie before to Cromwell, and reveilled to him the purpose of a pairtie of our armie that went forth to beat up his quarters' (Lamont, Diary, 31).

Cromwell's pious Declarations.

If purgation led to the disintegration of the Covenanted host in Scotland, as has been often asserted, Cromwell found it to be a method of selection of the fittest which rendered his Ironsides both stable and invincible.

On his northward march Cromwell, a God-intoxicated man,' composed and dispatched various Declarations, 'To all that are saints and Partakers of the Faith of God's Elect in Scotland,' and, ‘To the People in Scotland,' repudiating the false accusations by Scottish enemies, that the Sectaries were brutal monsters, further asserting that in Charles II. there was no salvation possible, and assuring them that the English had come to fight for the substance of the Covenant.1 Replies and counter-replies passed to and fro. This correspondence called forth the oft-quoted letter of Cromwell, dated Musselburgh, 3rd August 1650, in which he accused the Scottish leaders of having a carnal confidence upon misunderstood and misapplied precepts, which may be called spiritual drunkenness.' This insobriety deluded them with the idea that their policy was established 'upon the Word of God.' He inquired, 'Is it therefore infallibly agreeable to the Word of God, all that you say? beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be There may be a Covenant made with Death and

mistaken.
Hell I will not say yours was so.'

3

I

Two days later the scornful men' of the Covenant answered the 'blasphemer '—such many styled Cromwell-with an emphatic disclaimer of Malignancy, which but made matters worse. Some influential members of the extreme section of the CovenantersColonels Ker, Strachan, and others-were not averse to contemplating an alliance with the Cromwellians in the event of the King not accepting their demands. But the unforeseen action of the unscrupulous Sovereign in consenting to promote the Covenants was a disappointment to Cromwell and to these concordant friends in the opposing camp.

1 Aldis, List, 1407, Declaration of the Army upon their March, etc.

2 Reply 1431; other Replies, 1410, 1411, 1417, 1428, 1429.

3 Cromwell, Letter cxxxvi.

before Edin

burgh.

Cromwell came into contact with Leslie's insuperable barrier on Skirmishes 29th July, and the Scots had as little difficulty in rolling back his weary and wet troops to their fortified camp at Musselburgh as they in turn repulsed the assault on it two days later.' The King, on the invitation of the Earl of Eglinton, came from Stirling to Leith, where he was received with an enthusiasm which disconcerted the Government. They permitted him to watch the first conflict from the Castle, but were uneasy until he had left the lines. The extremists believed his presence would blight the holy army. He was forced to retire to Dunfermline to prevent intrigues. Meantime the Committee of Purging was busy weeding out eighty officers and three thousand of the rank and file who were tainted with Malignancy and other offences distasteful to Covenanting purists—a handful of the elect being deemed more invincible than a legion of those lost by unpardonable sin.

retreats to

Cromwell, having retired to Dunbar to replenish his commissariat, Cromwell returned to Musselburgh, whence he made a wide flank movement to Dunbar. the west, as he intended to assault Leslie to the rear of his own lines. He camped upon the Braid Hills and watched Leslie from Blackford Hill. Leslie would not be tempted to a general engagement. A strategist, and knowing the ground well, Leslie marched the Scots round to the slopes above Corstorphine, which now look down on green meadows, then marshy and impassable with water. Cromwell could not dislodge his wily opponent; the way to Queensferry and to the roadstead in the Forth was effectually barred; and there was no alternative to a retreat, more especially since disease was spreading in the English ranks. Cromwell made for Dunbar and arrived there on 1st September, closely chased by Leslie, who got between him and the Borders.

among

The Scottish army was miserably rent by factious parties, and Dissensions military discipline had suffered severely in consequence of the loss Covenanters. of unity caused by the constant purging process and the growth of

1 Balfour, iv. 87; Douglas, Cromwell's Scotch Campaigns, 37-52.

* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., xi., App. vi. 132, No. 293 (Hamilton MSS.); Row, Blair, 235.

divisive views of the situation. Before John Livingstone took leave of his Sovereign he adjured him to divert the shock of the English invasion by making a personal declaration that, while maintaining his title to the English Crown, he would not prosecute it with the sword until political confusions had vanished. Not relishing the proposal, Charles replied to his wise adviser, 'he hoped I would not wish him to sell his father's blood.' This snub convinced the preacher that he was not 'called to meddle in any publick state matters.' The Covenanters were not unanimous in their idea of this demand. Cromwell knew this, and vainly hoped to win over the extremists to his side. He had formerly insisted on the passing of an Act of Classes, and subsequently tried to convince the Presbyterians that to trust another Malignant ruler was a fatal error. The leaders in the Church and Estates, especially in the former, were as determined to exact from Charles some safeguarding Declaration as he was obstinate in giving any satisfaction as to his intentions. Robert Douglas, like Livingstone, in a private interview with Charles, failed to convince him of the necessity for declaring his views. They were also resolved not to brook the well-timed taunt of Cromwell as to their inconsistency in professing the Covenants at the same time that they drew the sword in the Malignant cause. This is not to be wondered at. The demands of the Covenanters, who bitterly stigmatised the parents of King Charles as murderers August 1650. and idolaters, were as humiliating and insulting as they could possibly be. Nevertheless Charles stooped to agree to them, merely stipulating that the harsh terms of the Declaration should be altered. The Protesters refused to do this after obtaining the King's signature.' He was further subdued by a resolution of the Church and of the Estates, subscribed at the West Kirk, Edinburgh, on the 13th August, for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of some officers, wherein it was declared that the Kirk and Kingdom would only fight for the settled Cause of the Covenant; disclaimed the sins of the Royal House; and would not own the King or his interest, unless he 1 Select Biog., i. 185. 2 Wodrow, i. 47.

The West Kirk resolution, 13th