4

Scotland Under James VII

When two brothers we shall see

Quite the northern heresie…

Then shall a Lord espouse our cause

Whose Grandsire framed the penal laws…

When Toleration we shall see

Joined with Indemnity

When a Kind letter at one puff

Shall blow the bloody statutes off

The Declaration and the Test

Shall for a small oath be supprest…

When all these things shall come to passe

Then shall we freely go to Masse

And ne're a penal law transgress

Then let us Catholicks sing and say

Te Deum on that happy day.

‘A Catholic Prophecy’ [April, 1687]

(though clearly a Protestant satire) ¹

From the monarchy's point of view, the situation in Scotland in the aftermath of Argyll's rebellion appeared healthier than it had been for a long time. Scotland had been the most troublesome of the British kingdoms for the crown during the seventeenth century. A rebellion there had already helped bring down James's father, Charles I, while James's brother, Charles II, had faced insurrections in his northern kingdom in 1666 and 1679. When English Tories during the Exclusion Crisis expressed their fear that '41 was come again, their concern was that the British monarchy might once again be threatened by an alliance of English dissidents and radical Presbyterians north of the border. Yet by 1685 – due in part to James's own efforts as head of the Scottish government in the early 1680s – Scotland had been reduced to a loyal and manageable kingdom. There were enthusiastic demonstrations of support for James at the time of his accession, and loyal addresses from the political and religious elite, while the parliament, which met in the spring, had not only supported the crown's entire legislative programme but had even gone on to proclaim that the Scottish monarchy was absolute. Admittedly, significant pockets of disaffection remained, especially in the Presbyterian heartland of the south-west. However, politico-religious extremists no longer posed a serious threat to the government, as the debacle of Argyll's rebellion proved.

James's own confidence in the strength of the monarchy's position in Scotland can be seen in the way he pressed forward with measures designed to help his co-religionists. It was not that his Catholic subjects in Scotland needed much help. A small minority, they had been largely free from persecution during Charles II's reign, and before the passage of the Test Act of 1681 they had even found it possible to enjoy political office. Prior to his accession, James was reputed to have observed that the Scottish Catholics had ‘so much privat liberty of their religion’ they ‘had no reason to complain’.² We cannot be certain why he changed his mind once king. The evidence suggests, however, that he decided to use Scotland as a testing ground: if he could establish Catholics with a right to toleration in Scotland – and he clearly expected that it would be easiest to achieve this in Scotland, given the powers of the monarchy north of the border – this would set a powerful precedent for the English to follow. Most of the measures James was to adopt to promote the interests of his co-religionists in England were tried first in Scotland. As his own daughter, the Princess Anne, observed in June 1688: what ‘has been done there [in Scotland], has been but a fore-runner of what in a short time has been done here [in England]’.³ Right from the beginning of his reign, James gave Scottish Catholics positions of authority in the service of the crown, using his prerogative powers to dispense them from the provisions of the Test. He sanctioned the construction of public Catholic chapels and encouraged Catholics to worship openly. In 1686, he tried to force the Scottish parliament to pass legislation in favour of liberty of conscience, and when that failed he proceeded to grant it anyway through the use of his prerogative. He followed this with a general edict of toleration in 1687, in the hope of winning over the support of Protestant nonconformists, prior to issuing a similar Indulgence in England. Thus, in Scotland – as he was to do in England – he launched an attack on the dominant position of the Episcopalian establishment, using his prerogative to undermine the laws that upheld and defended the religious monopoly of the Church in Scotland.

All of these initiatives were justified in terms of an appeal to the absolute authority of the crown. Scotland during the reign of James VII, therefore, provides us with a test-case of later-Stuart absolutism in action. What were the realities of royal power at this time, and what did absolutism mean in practice? How far was James able to go in promoting the cause of Catholicism on the basis of his own authority, in opposition to the established laws of the land? What obstacles stood in his way? Who opposed him, on what grounds, and to what effect?

The reign of James VII has been a largely neglected area of Scottish historiography, and thus the precise extent of James's relative success or failure in Scotland remains under-explored.⁴ Historians looking back on James's reign from the perspective of the Glorious Revolution, however, seem to agree that the opposition to James in Scotland was muted and ineffectual. ‘The antecedents to the Glorious Revolution in England found few if any parallels in Scotland despite the similarity of the policies pursued by James VII in his northern kingdom’, one scholar has argued; ‘in political terms James appeared to be impregnable’.⁵ Similarly, the author of an influential survey of Scottish history has written that ‘the crisis which suddenly befell [James VII] in late 1688… was an English crisis, with its roots there, and it is hard to find any trace of the same in Scotland’.⁶ Such assumptions require critical re-evaluation. As this chapter will show, there were many of the same antecedents to the Revolution in Scotland as in England, precisely because the policies pursued by James in the two kingdoms were so similar. There was thus extensive opposition in his northern kingdom to his attempts to promote the interests of Catholics through the use of his royal prerogative, both in parliament and out-of-doors, among sections of the political and religious elite, as well as among the lower orders. Moreover, despite the fact that the Scottish parliament of 1685 had recognized the king as absolute, we see in Scotland, as in England, a legalist opposition to the initiatives of the crown, taking its stance in defence of the rule of law against the illegal actions of the King. Indeed, it is far from clear whether James's position in his northern kingdom by the summer of 1688 was any less fragile than it was in England. James VII, by his actions as king, contributed to the development of a genuinely revolutionary situation in Scotland. He broke the alliance between the Church and king and alienated the traditional Scottish ruling elite; and by granting religious toleration, he allowed the Presbyterians to organize and develop a more united front, without achieving any significant, new political support. In short, James managed to destroy the very system whereby effective royal control had been established over this difficult-to-rule kingdom under Charles II.

THE GROWTH OF DISCONTENT

The radical Presbyterians continued to be a minor irritant for the authorities after the defeat of Argyll's rebellion, but by now their threat had been effectively contained. In August 1685, a group of ‘phanatique Whigs’ from Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire brutally murdered a local official who had helped in the capture of the plotter Richard Rumbold, ripping open his belly and tearing out his heart, in imitation of the punishment inflicted upon Rumbold.⁷ The Scottish council continued to receive the occasional report of armed meetings of field conventiclers, especially in the south-west, where the Cameronian remnant remained active under James Renwick's leadership.⁸ Yet after a quarter of a century of persecution, the Presbyterian interest in Scotland had been significantly weakened,⁹ and the diehard opponents of the crown were a small minority. The loyalty of ‘the moderate and judicious people’¹⁰ seemed confirmed by the celebrations for the King's birthday on 14 October 1685, ordained by royal proclamation also to commemorate the defeat of the Monmouth and Argyll rebellions. The council in Edinburgh sponsored bonfires at Holyroodhouse and on Arthur's Seat, arranged for the drinking fountains to run with wine, and ‘caused Sweat-meats to be distributed among the People’. The promotion worked. There were so many bonfires and other ‘demonstrations of joy among the Ranks of the people’ that night, one observer commented, that ‘the Streets were hard1y passable’.¹¹ By contrast, 5 November was quietly ignored, with neither bells nor bonfires in the nation's capital.¹²

However, the goodwill that seemed to exist towards the monarchy in Scotland was soon put to the test. There was a sudden rise to prominence of Catholics in the administration within Scotland. As seen already, Argyll's rebellion gave James the excuse to appoint the Catholic Earl of Dumbarton commander of all the forces in Scotland in May 1685, justifying the appointment by appeal to his royal prerogative. He shortly thereafter appointed the Duke of Gordon, another Catholic, Lord Lieutenant of the north, in command of the Highland forces.¹³ Then, in the autumn of 1685, Lord Chancellor Perth announced his own conversion to Catholicism. The conversion appears to have been sincere, and Perth even offered to resign his offices, though James refused to accept. Some months later Perth's brother, the Earl of Melfort, James's Secretary of State for Scotland in London, also converted.¹⁴ There were a few other high profile conversions to Catholicism, the most notable being that of Dr Robert Sibbald, Professor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and the King's physician (though Sibbald was later to regret his decision and rejoin the Protestant Church).¹⁵

As yet, James saw no need to restructure his central administration. Queensberry remained as Treasurer (though he was to fall in the spring of 1686); the Marquis of Atholl was Lord Privy Seal; the Duke of Hamilton, Viscount Tarbat and the Earl of Mar (the last being Governor of Stirling Castle) remained influential figures on the privy council; while the scrupulous Protestant lawyer Sir George Lockhart was appointed president of the court of session in January 1686.¹⁶ But Catholics were brought in at the level of local government. In November 1685, James granted dispensations to twenty-six Catholic landlords to serve as commissioners to collect the revenues voted by parliament the previous spring, directly contrary, in Fountainhall's view, to the act of 1685 ratifying the existing laws for the established religion.¹⁷ The threat of popery became even more readily apparent when, upon his return to Edinburgh in late December, Perth began to celebrate mass openly in the Scottish capital and encouraged others to do the same. Soon the London-based diarist Roger Morrice was reporting that the King had ordered a Catholic chapel to be built in Edinburgh's royal palace, and had sent twelve priests to Scotland ‘to say mass in it’. Acts of 1560 and 1567 had declared the mass idolatrous, and made attendance punishable by death at the third offence. Yet Perth confidently assured James that Scotland was ‘not as England’: ‘Measures need not be too nicely keept with this people’, he opined, ‘nor are wee to be suffered to imagine that your Majesty is not so far above your laws as that you cannot dispence with them.’ Perth himself, with all the zeal of a convert, had no desire to keep things ‘nicely’. One contemporary Catholic observed that the Chancellor ‘would jade the Masse, he caused say it so oft’. On Christmas day that year, Perth not only celebrated the mass, but ‘rocked a child in the cradle, in memoire of our saviour’, Fountainhall informs us. An astonished Fountainhall could only add: ‘this ceremony is not used by the French Romanists’.¹⁸

The prominence of Catholics in central and local office, however, provoked a storm of anti-popish sermonizing by the local clergy. Twice in October 1685 Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh had to warn his clergy to desist, reminding them that they had ‘the King's promise and assurance to protect our religion’ and ‘strong laws in favour of our reformed religion’, though to limited effect.¹⁹ Nervous about the prospect of anti-Catholic invective finding its way into print, Perth issued orders at the beginning of 1686 forbidding printers, stationers and booksellers from printing or selling ‘any books reflecting on Popery'.²⁰ The government's attempts to silence the media were far from a complete success. In April, George Shiell, minister of Prestonhaugh (now Prestonkirk, Haddingtonshire), was heard to proclaim from the pulpit of St Giles, Edinburgh, that ‘he would believe the moon to be made of green cheese as soon believe Transubstantion’; when rebuked by his bishop, Shiell defiantly replied that he thought ‘a ridiculous religion might be treated in ridicule’.²¹ One of the most virulent anti-Catholic sermons, however, was delivered by James Canaries at the East-Church of St Giles, Edinburgh, on 14 February 1686, which also found its way into print. Its arguments are worth examining in some detail.

Canaries was far from being an inevitable opponent of the later Stuart monarchy. Indeed, he had preached a strongly loyalist sermon on 29 May 1685, the published version of which he had dedicated to Perth. By the new year, however, he had turned against the Lord Chancellor. As he made clear when he published his 1686 sermon, he was concerned not because he feared ‘that Popery will ever be impos'd upon us by our King’, but because there had been some eminent defections.²² Canaries, who when a younger man had flirted with Catholicism himself, thought popery a nonsensical religion, and claimed that no rational man could believe in papal infallibility or transubstantiation. Yet it was the political dangers of popery that Canaries emphasized. Since the Pope claimed a deposing power, how could any ruler then be assured of the loyalty of his nation, unless he had an army of 200,000, as in France? The conclusion was clear: ‘a King in a Popish Countrey, must either live at his Holiness's Beck, or else… upon the confidence of an Army’. Canaries was careful to distance himself from the radical Presbyterians, claiming that he looked upon them ‘as the scandal of Christianity, and plague of humane Society’. He was also keen to profess his loyalty to the monarchy, arguing that it was in James's best interests to support the religion of the Established Church in Scotland, since this was ‘the most loyal Religion in the World; so that the more closely we stick to it, the more ground we give our King to trust us’.²³ In the preface to the published version he insisted he was ‘dissatisfied with Popery’ because ‘it is of disloyal Principles, and vastly prejudicial to the Rights of Princes’, and sought to defend the authority of the crown while at the same time appealing to the safeguards offered to the King's subjects by the law. Protestants had nothing to fear from King James, because he had assured the Scottish parliament in 1685 that he wanted the crown powerful for no other reason than to be able ‘to defend and protect our Religion as established by Law, and all our Rights and Properties’. Rather, it was the monarchy that was threatened by the recent conversions to Catholicism. Pointing out that Britain might well have a Protestant ruler again one day, Canaries sarcastically asked ‘what if Britain were as much Popish’ then ‘as now it is the contrary’, would not a Protestant king ‘have a pretty Tenure for his Crown?’²⁴ Despite such protestations of loyalty, James remained unconvinced, and had Canaries suspended from his ministry for preaching and publishing a seditious sermon.²⁵

The inhabitants of Edinburgh did not suffer the public celebration of the mass in their city quietly. On the afternoon of Sunday 31 January, a huge crowd of tradesmen, apprentices and college students attacked a house in the Canongate, where Lady Perth was attending mass, destroying the altar, crucifixes and everything else in the chapel, smashing the windows, and throwing dirt and stones at the worshippers. Continuing in the streets with ‘great cries and outrageous speeches, threattenings and menaceings’, they ‘assaulted and set upon severall off his majestie's good subjects’, we are told, ‘beatt and wounded them, robbed and ruffled the cloaks, hatts, perivicks, and other abulziaments’, and even ‘draged some of them through the streets’. They forced one of the priests they caught to ‘swear the oath of the Test, and renunce Poperie’ on his knees. Crowds also attacked the houses of several Catholics in the city, including that of Dr Robert Sibbald (which induced Sibbald to resign his presidency of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and flee to London), breaking open their doors with iron bars. The English diarist Narcissus Luttrell recorded the news matter-of-factly in his journal: ‘Letters out of Scotland speak of some tumult or stir… there in the citty of Edenburgh, occasioned, as is said, by the chancellor's goeing or endeavouring to sett up masse, which putt the common people into a tumult.’ It was, of course, a major breach of the civic peace in Scotland's seat of government and an outrageous affront directed against the man who ruled Scotland in the King's name. Perth himself, in fact, proved more elusive than his wife. One gang stopped a coach, which they thought was bearing Perth through the streets of the capital, and pulled out the passenger, only to find it was the (Protestant) Duke of Hamilton: ‘so they let him goe saying that if it had been the Earle of Pirth they would have pulled him into as many pieces as they had broken the windows of the house.’²⁶

Crowds also threw stones at the city guards sent in to suppress the disturbances, causing injury to several soldiers, though eventually the troops were able to restore order and make several arrests.²⁷ That night, however, a fencing master by the name of Alexander Keith met in the cellar of a house off the High Street with about eighteen other tradesmen and apprentices to plan the rescue of apprentices taken in the tumult. Each conspirator undertook to raise a certain number of men from their respective trades and to obtain as many arms as they could. Although their priority was to rescue the prisoners, the conspirators also proposed that they should ‘gett assistance from the countrey, and… pull downe the papist's houses and stop ther meetings’, and drank several healths ‘to the confusione off the Papists’.²⁸ The following morning, as the magistrates ordered a baxter's (baker's) apprentice named Robert Grieve to be whipped in the Canongate for his participation in the rioting on the day before, a crowd of youths led by a shoemaker named David Mowbray, who had allegedly also been involved in the previous day's disturbances, rescued the young man and carried him down the streets, again ‘with great cryes, outragious speeches, and menaces’. They then went in search of local papists, storming their houses, rifling their goods, and smashing their windows. The soldiers again were called in; this time they fired at the crowd, killing three people, one of whom at least being a totally innocent bystander.²⁹

The council decided that Mowbray should be prosecuted for his part in the both the riot and the rescue, although there was some dissent. One counsellor wondered what the Lord Advocate would say if the accused argued in his defence that he was only dissipating ‘a meeting declared treasonable by Law’, and suggested that ‘if it had been a fanatical conventicle’ he ‘would have got thanks’. Nevertheless, Mowbray was tried on 8 February and, having confessed to his role in the rescue, was found guilty and sentenced to hang two days later. The council granted a short reprieve, to allow for the chance of a royal pardon, and Mowbray was eventually released from prison at the end of May. However Keith, the fencing master, found guilty at his trial on 26 February for his role in the disturbances, was hanged on 5 March. There were other victims too. One soldier, who had taken the rioters’ side saying ‘he would not fight in that quarrel against the Protestants, for he was sworn to that religion’, was remitted to a council of war. A drummer was accused by two Catholics of drawing his sword and saying ‘he could find it in his heart to run that through them’; the drummer claimed that he meant the rioting apprentices, but his accusers insisted he was referring to those attending the mass, and the drummer was executed under martial law on 23 February, even though Scottish law prohibited Catholics from serving as witnesses.³⁰

The King did write to Perth suggesting that he had been too open in celebrating mass, and warning him ‘to be more cautious and private’ in the future.³¹ But, if anything, the policy of promoting the interests of Catholics proceeded with greater pace after the disturbances. The riots were used by Perth to secure the removal of the Treasurer, Queensberry, who was accused not only of fiscal mismanagement but also of failing, in his capacity as Constable of Edinburgh Castle, to keep order in the capital. Queensberry was a staunch Protestant who was going to be an obstacle in the way of any attempts to promote Catholicism. Yet faction also played a part in Queensberry's downfall; on this occasion the Duke of Hamilton, another Protestant who was to frustrate efforts to promote toleration of Catholics under James VII, sided with Perth and Melfort in pressing for Queensberry's dismissal. The treasury was placed under the authority of a commission, with Perth as first commissioner, and Queensberry was replaced as Constable of Edinburgh Castle by the Catholic Duke of Gordon.³² The Catholics seemed more firmly entrenched in the government of Scotland than ever. James's next aim was to secure legal recognition for the position of the Catholics by getting parliament to agree to the repeal of the Test.

THE ‘BLACK RAINY PARLIAMENT’ OF 1686

Given his frustrations in dealing with the English parliament in November 1685, James decided to push for Catholic toleration in Scotland before he attempted any such measure in England. In doing so, he was again self-consciously trying to play the British card, hoping that the Scottish parliament would ‘cast England a good copie and example’, as they ‘had done in 1681, in declaring the right of succession’.³³ He therefore extended the prorogation of the English parliament, which had been set to reconvene on 10 February,³⁴ to allow the Scottish parliament to meet first, on 29 April. James had reason to feel confident, given the ultra-royalism the Scottish parliament had demonstrated in 1685 – this was, after all, not a new parliament, but the same body of men who had met the previous year – and the fact that the government could normally guarantee the success of its legislative initiatives through the Lords of the Articles. Tarbat visited James in London in February to assure him that parliament would agree to rescind the penal laws against Catholics, even showing him the roll of MPs and pointing out who would be for and who against.³⁵ To try to ensure the support of the burgh representatives, James let it be known he was intending to promote free trade with England as a quid pro quo.³⁶

On 4 March James wrote to the secret committee of the Scottish council informing them of his desire to procure ‘the entire abrogation of the sanguinary laws against the Papists’ and ‘the taking away of the test’ (this to be replaced by a short oath of allegiance ‘against defensive arms and covenants’), so that Catholics could be admitted to office. ‘All laws against phanaticisme’ would continue in force, however. The first hints of potential opposition were already becoming apparent. The committee insisted that they would have to consult with the bishops before they could give their opinion on the matter. When the King summoned Hamilton, Lockhart and Major-General William Drummond to London for further instructions, they argued that parliament would grant freedom of worship to Catholics only if the same were allowed to dissenters, and that if the Test were to be removed alternative safeguards for the security of the Protestant religion would be needed. James reluctantly agreed to make some concessions to moderate Presbyterians, without allowing them the full liberty he was intending for his co-religionists. He refused, however, to promise not to attempt anything to the prejudice of the Protestant religion, apparently saying he would not guarantee not to use his power against what he regarded as a false religion.³⁷

Defenders of the crown's position tended to take the line that James had the power to pursue such a policy even without parliamentary approval, and that therefore parliament should acquiesce in the King's demand. Melfort tried to convince Hamilton that the King's desire to help the Catholics arose from ‘the fatherly care’ he had ‘of all the concerns of the people’ and his inclination to be ‘mercyfull… to all’, but he also stressed that he (Hamilton) was one of the ‘guardians of the King's prerogatives’ and that it was important to take care that ‘none should be lost’.³⁸ Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh, in a speech delivered before the synod of Edinburgh on 13 April, maintained that James still intended to defend the Protestant religion and only craved that Catholics might be allowed to exercise their own in private; however, Paterson went on to insist that the King's desire ‘could not be denied him’, since James ‘might take it by his prerogative of the church supremacy’, as settled by the Scottish Supremacy Act of 1669.³⁹ James himself informed the secret committee that he conceived it his ‘unquestionable prerogative… to employ in our Royal service any of our subjects’ and ‘that by the same prerogative’ he had power ‘to suspend all penal laws, and all oaths relating to government’.⁴⁰

A number of pamphlets appeared in the spring of 1686 supporting James's plans for toleration, which were ‘carefully spread… about’ in an attempt to influence parliamentary opinion.⁴¹ Thomas Burnet, professor of philosophy at the Marischal College of Aberdeen, produced a short Latin work arguing that the king of Scotland was absolute and could abrogate and annul laws, and that the three estates could not question his pleasure.⁴² Another pamphlet, said to be written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, with the aid of ‘the Jesuits and Popish Priests, in and about Edinburgh', and which was circulated among members during the parliamentary session, maintained that since ‘Kings in Scotland were before Parliaments… all the legislative, as well as executive Power, did reside sovereignly in them’, and therefore the King could grant relief to his co-religionists without parliament's consent. The author then proceeded to ask whether it was necessary, or even politically desirable, to keep the laws in place. The laws against papists had been passed, he pointed out, in the early years of the Scottish Reformation, when Catholics were plotting against the king and government; given that Scottish Catholics were now quiet and peaceable, such laws were no longer needed. Moreover, how could the Scots condemn ‘the Persecution in France, or the French King's Method in forcing Men's Consciences’, when they were doing the same themselves? In a curious turn of argument, the author then warned that if James were ‘irritated and provoked’, he might ‘without violating of any Law, at one stroke, remove all Protestant Officers and Judges’, since they held their offices during his pleasure, and that by dint of the Supremacy Act he could even dismiss ‘all Protestant Bishops and Ministers from the Government of the Church’. ‘The whole Government both of Church and State’ might then become lodged ‘in the Hands of such as’ were not ‘so friendly to the Protestant Interest’; and we, as Protestants, would be powerless to do anything about it, since Protestants' religious principles did not allow for resistance.⁴³ Various pamphlets that had been published in England as part of the English debate over the dispensing power, and which set out to champion the royal prerogative and defend Catholics from the charges of idolatry and disloyalty, were also circulated in Scotland with the intent of influencing opinion there.⁴⁴

If James could act by his prerogative alone, we may wonder why he decided to act through parliament. The publicly proclaimed reason was that James was ‘a gentle and moderate Father and Governor’.⁴⁵ The real reason can be gleaned from the explanation James gave as to why he was reluctant to allow parliament to extend toleration to the moderate Presbyterians. Any concessions granted to the Presbyterians, he told Melfort, should be by his own act, ‘because ane act of parliament… Givs some shadow of Right to the Partys Concerned’.⁴⁶ In other words, James was determined to keep the Presbyterians in line by making them dependent upon the goodwill of the monarch. By contrast, he wanted to establish the Catholics with a right to toleration, which they would continue to enjoy if he were to be succeeded, as seemed likely at the time, by a Protestant ruler.

In response to this pro-government propaganda, a number of man-uscript works appeared criticizing the plans for Catholic relief – in manuscript, because the government had taken ‘great Care… of the printing Presses that nothing might be published against the King's favourite Design, or in Defence of the present standing Laws’.⁴⁷ Several scurrilous handwritten verses circulated attacking the Archbishop of St Andrews and the Bishop of Edinburgh for their support of the King's proposals.⁴⁸ In addition, three manuscript pamphlets were produced urging MPs not to agree to a repeal of the penal laws and Test. Despite adopting a fiercely anti-Catholic position, the authors were careful not to be critical of the King or to question his prerogative. Instead, they insisted that MPs were legally prevented from giving their consent to a repeal. Thus ‘Reasons why a Consent to abolish the penal Statutes against Papists, cannot be given’, which appeared at the end of April 1686 and was distributed among all MPs and many courtiers, accepted that James was ‘our supreme Ruler’ and not tied to the laws; nevertheless, the author continued, his subjects were so tied, and to support any measure for Catholic relief would be ‘most contrary to the Oath of the Test’, which required MPs to swear never to consent to any change or alteration to the true Protestant religion. Besides, a repeal would remove ‘all the Security we have in Law for our Religion’, a foolish thing to do right now, with ‘Popery having so prevailed abroad, and being so cruel and raging, and the Court and these Lands being filled with the Emissaries of Rome’ and Catholic converts. As for the argument that the repeal of the anti-Catholic legislation was ‘His Majesty's Pleasure’, the tract continued, James had publicly declared that his pleasure was ‘to secure the Protestant Religion in this Nation’; the proposal for Catholic relief could thus only be construed as ‘a Temptation from the Enemies of our Religion, who will incessantly labour to induce him to alter his royal Resolution and Promise’.⁴⁹

The second manuscript tract agreed that, despite ‘whatever his Majesty may legally do by virtue of his Prerogative’, the Test prevented MPs from consenting ‘to a suspending of the Execution of penal Statutes against Papists’. Moreover, in this instance James had limited his own prerogative at the beginning of his reign ‘by ratifying and confirming all Laws for the Protestant Religion’; and, furthermore, James did not have the authority to ‘dispense with an unrepealed Law of God’, such as ‘the Law for punishing Idolaters’.⁵⁰ The third pamphlet, while likewise insisting that MPs were tied by the Test, recalled that Scottish law stated that popish worship was idolatry and the pope and his clergy Antichrist, and asked what Christian could, ‘without Horror, think of consenting to a Liberty for Antichrist?’ Papists were obliged to extirpate heresy and propagate the Catholic faith not by gentle ways of Christian persuasion, ‘but by the infernal Methods of lying, dissembling, plotting, massacring, torturing, and imbruing their Hands in the Blood of all who stand in their Way’, as both history and the present-day example of France showed. Why was this Act being sought, the author asked, ‘at a Time when the Protestant Religion, all Europe over, is so low? when the Papacy hath gained and doth daily gain such Ground upon the Reformation… whilst other Popish Countries are endeavouring to transcribe the French example, and this Island remains… the only considerable Part of Christendom, wherein the Reformed Religion stands yet free from the cruel Attacks of Romish Rage’.⁵¹

Other forms of pressure were brought to bear to influence opinion in parliament. Towards the end of April the clergy of the diocese of Aberdeen petitioned their bishop against supporting any measures of relief for Catholics, maintaining that all persons in any public office were obliged by the Test ‘not only to adhere to the Protestant Religion’ for the rest of their lives, ‘but never to consent to the Alteration thereof’.⁵² The bishop was, indeed, to follow this advice in parliament.

It was in this climate of fierce public debate that the proposed measure for Catholic relief came before parliament in the late spring. James appointed as his high commissioner the Earl of Moray, a man already widely suspected of having converted to Catholicism (though he was not formally to go public about his conversion until 1687),⁵³ and in his letter to parliament asked simply that Catholics be given ‘the Protection of Our Laws and that Security under Our government’ which other subjects enjoyed; in return, he offered free trade with England and a full indemnity for all crimes committed against ‘our Royal Person’ or authority’.⁵⁴ The omens were not good, however. The opening day of the session, 29 April, saw a torrential downpour, and the weather continued foul all summer, earning the assembly the nickname ‘the black rainy Parliament’.⁵⁵ Indeed, parliament proved not to be in a compliant mood. Right at the start, one member moved that no one should be allowed to take his seat if he had not taken the Test; Moray (against whom the motion was clearly intended) only managed to prevent a vote on the matter by threatening to commit anyone who supported it to the Tolbooth (Edinburgh's chief prison).⁵⁶ In reply to the King's letter, parliament promised to go to ‘as great lengths’ in helping the Catholics ‘as our Conscience will allow’, ‘Not doubting that Your Majesty will be carefull to secure the Protestant Religion established by Law’, though some members were heard to observe in private that ‘they had fully examined the case, and found they could goe no lenth at all’. In the debates that followed, the question ‘whether the Laws against Roman Cath[olics] should be repealed’ was rejected by a sizeable majority, some said by ‘above 10 to one’.⁵⁷ Eventually, the Lords of the Articles agreed, by a majority of eighteen to fourteen, to a draft bill granting Catholics immunity from prosecution under the penal laws if they met certain conditions, which they presented to parliament for approval. Among those prepared to back the measure were the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Bishop of Edinburgh, Tarbat and Atholl, whose support had never been in doubt, and also more moderate figures like the Marquis of Tweeddale, and even Hamilton, Lockhart and Major-General Drummond, who had expressed their concerns about Catholic relief to the King the previous March. Ranged against them were the Archbishop of Glasgow, the bishops of Galloway, Brechin and Aberdeen, staunch Episcopalians like Lord Advocate Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (said to be ‘one of the chief opposers’), the Earl of Mar and Sir William Bruce, and six burgh provosts, including Alexander Milne of Linlithgow, who was expected to manage the burgh interest for the court but who deserted to the other side. The resultant bill nevertheless contained so many restrictions that Moray refused to accept it, and when the King suggested modifications, Hamilton made it clear that these would be unacceptable.⁵⁸ A frustrated James prorogued parliament on 15 June, astonished ‘that considering the former good disposition of the Scotch Nobility and Gentry, they should demur to so modest a request’.⁵⁹ It had generally been regarded in England that things would work out in Scotland ‘to the King's satisfaction’.⁶⁰ What had gone wrong?

There was a spectrum of opinions in parliament over the repeal of the penal statutes. At the poles were those who were either in favour or against, but in between there were many who, for varying reasons, were prepared to agree to repeal if certain conditions were met. Some who sought a compromise on a conditional repeal were just as hostile to the crown's policy and played as big a part in defeating the proposed toleration as those who were obstinate in their refusal to allow any concession to Roman Catholics. Let us examine the various positions in turn.

Some maintained that parliament should simply acquiesce in whatever James demanded. The Bishop of Edinburgh preached before parliament on its opening day ‘against resisting in any Case whatsoever’, telling members it was ‘their duty’ to comply.⁶¹ There were those, however, who ‘were for pleasing the Court’ but who were far from endorsing the logic of the crown's position. These proposed that the indulgence should last only during the King's life and requested certain minimal safeguards, namely that any Catholics who took the benefit of the toleration should first abjure the pope's deposing power and declare that ‘they were not obliged by the principles of their religion to persecute and extirpate Hereticks’. They believed that parliament could safely yield to the King's demands because ‘a Protestant successor would rescind all’ and that, besides, it was pointless to oppose James's plans since if this parliament proved obstinate he would simply dissolve it and get another to do his business.⁶² Here, then, we see no identification with the King's belief that Catholics had a right to toleration, which should continue beyond his death.

There were yet others, however, who were prepared to agree to some measure of relief for Catholics only if there were firm safeguards for the Protestant religion. The job of determining what form the proposed legislation should take was entrusted to a special twelve-man committee appointed out of the Lords of the Articles. Here, Hamilton put forward the provocative proposal that parliament should grant toleration not just to Catholics but to Protestant nonconformists as well, predictably (and doubtless intentionally) drawing the alarm of ‘the Church and Cavalier party’. Lockhart moved that Catholics should be given liberty to worship only in their private houses, and that they should continue to be barred from all public offices; any Catholics who took office would be guilty of treason, ‘irremissable even by the King, except with the consent of Parliament’.⁶³ The bill which the Lords of the Articles presented to parliament on 1 June was, in the end, not much different from Lockhart's proposal. Thus it provided that Catholics would not ‘incur the Danger of sanguinary or other Punishments contained in any Laws or Acts of Parliament’ made against them ‘for the Exercise of their Religion in their private Houses, (all publick Worship being hereby excluded)’. However, it concluded by affirming that ‘this Immunity’ should not be taken as an approbation of the Catholic religion or any ways ‘infringe or prejudge the Laws and Acts of Parliament made against Popery, or in favour of the Protestant Religion’, in particular the Test Act or any other laws enjoining the oaths of allegiance or the Test oath, which it declared should continue in full force ‘to the Ends and Intents for which they were made’.⁶⁴ The proposed measure, in other words, explicitly confirmed that all Catholics who had been given public office by James – who included those in the highest level of the Scottish government - were in violation of the law. It is hardly suprising that Moray refused to let the bill be enacted. As one court-based newsletter writer put it: ‘how short this is come of the mighty hopes we formed of their plenary complynace with all his Majesties desires in favour of those of the R. C. persuasion I need not tell you’.⁶⁵

Some opposed any measure of relief for Catholics, even with the limitations which the bill provided, believing that to support Catholic toleration would put them in violation of the Test oath and thus render them guilty of perjury. The campaign against compliance was led by the Earl of Mar, Governor of Stirling Castle, and the Laird of Gosford. There was also considerable hostility from the representatives of the burghs. Most alarming from the government's point of view was the vehement opposition from the Church establishment. Eleven of the fourteen bishops objected to parliament's reply to the King's letter intimating that they might be prepared to go to some lengths to help the Catholics. Four of the bishops on the Lords of the Articles, as we have seen, voted against the proposed bill. Bishop Bruce of Dunkeld and Bishop Ramsey of Ross were also outspoken in their criticism in parliament, the latter delivering such an inflammatory sermon before parliament that other bishops had to be stopped from preaching to the assembly because they refused to give assurances not to preach against popery.⁶⁶

Catholic toleration failed despite efforts by the government to secure a compliant assembly. Three deaths among the Lords of the Articles prior to the opening of the parliamentary session had allowed Moray to appoint his own men as replacements, even though there was a protest that they should have been appointed by the nobility and bishops.⁶⁷ Moray was also active in closeting MPs, using both threats and promises.⁶⁸ Attempts were made to intrude some new members. James had suspended burgh elections in Edinburgh the previous autumn, so that he could nominate his own man as provost, and at the beginning of the parliamentary session the court interest tried to persuade the old provost to relinquish his seat in favour of the new man, though he declined.⁶⁹ The Earl of Balcarres brought in Lord Newark, who had not sat in the previous parliamentary session, to fortify the court side, though in the end Newark declared against Catholic toleration.⁷⁰ There were others whom the court managers tried to make stay away. Objections were raised against several burgh members that they were not actually burgesses and were therefore incapable of sitting, though in the end they kept their seats. Military commanders such as Mar, Lord Ross, William Livingston of Kilsyth and Sir John Dalzeell were instructed to return to their charges, but instead they offered to resign their commissions rather than not be able to attend the session; Hamilton of Orbiston was ordered to the Highland commission of justiciary, but he refused on the grounds that the King's writ to attend parliament was more important. Others were simply told ‘to stay away or goe home’. The meeting of the parliament was deliberately prolonged, and the proposal for Catholic toleration left until other legislation had been enacted, in the hope that ‘the poorer sort, who had exhausted both money and credit’, would be forced to retire and the measure could be forced through a depleted house.⁷¹ Those who criticized the proposed toleration were removed from office. In mid-May James sacked his Lord Advocate, Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, removed the Earl of Glencairn and Sir William Bruce from the privy council and Lord Pitmedden from the court of sessions, and revoked Glencairn's and the Bishop of Dunkeld's pensions, as ‘warning shots’ intended ‘to terrify and divert other members of Parliament from their opposition’. When that did not do the trick, James sacked the Laird of Gosford from the council, turned Gosford, Mar and Ross out of the army, and deprived the Bishop of Dunkeld of his see, even though Dunkeld's appointment had been ‘for life’.⁷² In June, Hamilton of Orbiston and the Provost of Glasgow, John Johnston, were imprisoned on trumped-up charges – in reality because of their stance against Catholic toleration; Milne of Linlithgow lost his position as assistant-receiver of the customs; and Queensberry was finally removed from all his remaining offices.⁷³

The significance of James's failure to persuade the Scottish parliament to agree to the repeal of the penal laws cannot be overestimated. It foiled his entire strategy. As we have seen, James was self-consciously playing the British card, hoping the Scottish parliament would set a good model for the English to follow. It was a tactic that he had seen his brother, Charles II, play with great success in 1681, when James himself had been high commissioner to the Scottish parliament, and it was one that James had pursued in 1681, again achieving the desired result. Yet in 1686 it was a tactic that was to fail, being frustrated by the Scottish parliament itself – and what is perhaps more remarkable, by a Scottish parliament that had done so much to vaunt the powers of the Scottish monarchy only a year earlier. There was no logic now in reconvening the English parliament until James had achieved what he wanted in Scotland through other means. (In fact, James's English parliament was not to meet again.) In short, the events in Scotland dictated the way James subsequently chose to proceed in England.

Having failed to achieve what he wanted through parliament, James decided to act by his prerogative. As he told the French ambassador, ‘the affairs of Scotland had not taken the turn he at first expected’, but ‘by the authority which the laws give him, he could establish in Scotland that liberty in favour of the Catholics which the parliament refused to grant’.⁷⁴ On 21 August, therefore, James wrote to his Scottish council announcing that he had decided to grant Catholics the freedom to exercise their religion in private, indemnifying them against all the penal laws, and to establish a chapel in Holyroodhouse, with a number of chaplains and others whom ‘We are resolved to maintaine in their just Rights and Privileges’, so that ‘Catholick Worshipp may with the more Decency and Security be exercised’ in the Scottish capital. The penal laws, he explained, had been passed on the supposition that loyalty was inconsistent with the Catholic religion, but on the contrary, during all the ‘unnatural Rebellions’ raised by Protestants ‘against Our Royal Father, Brother, and Us’, the Catholics had ‘still adhered to the Royal Interest’. The Catholics therefore deserved relief. Moreover, James was sure that parliament would have granted relief had not ‘Our Enemies’ misled ‘well-meaning Men’ that it would have been a violation of the Test, which did not preclude people from consenting to changes or alterations in the Church ‘not contrary to the express Tenets of the Protestant Religion’. The people could nevertheless rest assured, James's letter said, that he did not intend to make ‘any violent Alteration’, since he was resolved to maintain the bishops and the inferior clergy ‘in their just Rights and Privileges, and the Professors of the Protestant Religion, in the free Exercise of it in their Churches, and to hinder all Fanatical Encroachments upon them’. The letter concluded with James promising to ensure the impartial administration of justice and to keep the army disciplined.⁷⁵

James undertook a further purge of the council to ensure that it would agree to his request, displacing the earls of Mar, Dumfries, Lothian and Kintore, and Lord Ross, and bringing in the Presbyterian Earl of Dundonald (mainly to help make way for the future appointment of Catholics) and the Catholic Earl of Traquair, both of whom took their seats without taking the Test.⁷⁶ Nevertheless, there was still some dissent when the council came to consider its reply to the King's letter in mid-September. Some wondered what the ‘rights and privileges’ of the Catholic clergy at Holyroodhouse were that the King was so determined to maintain. Hamilton and Lockhart successfully opposed a suggestion by Tarbat that the council recognize that the King's prerogative gave the Catholics a ‘legal security’, Hamilton insisting that although he did not question the prerogative, he failed to see why the council needed to ‘declare it to be law’. The council structured its reply to emphasize the assurances James had given to protect the rule of law. It began by thanking the King for his promise ‘to have Justice Impartially administered’ and his troops ‘well regulated’, and then for his renewed assurance ‘to maintain the Bishops and the inferior Clergy as they are Established by Law in their Just rights and privileges, together with all the Professors of the Protestant Religion’. In return, the council promised to stand by the King and ‘the inviolable prerogatives’ of his ‘Imperial Crown, for the exercise whereof’ he was ‘accomptable to God only’, and agreed to ‘humbly acquiesce’ in his desire to grant immunity to his Catholic subjects. Fountainhall concluded that the council had ‘granted what the Parliament had refused’.⁷⁷ This is misleading, however. James had sought to obtain a legal security for his Catholic subjects, yet this was something which not only parliament but also his council had refused to concede.

PREROGATIVE, INDULGENCE AND THE RAPPROCHEMENT WITH DISSENT

By the autumn of 1686 James's Scottish policy seemed to be failing. It is true that Catholics had been appointed to positions of high authority within the Scottish government, the mass was being celebrated openly in the Scottish capital, and the council had acknowledged the King's power to grant his co-religionists immunity from the penal laws. Yet in the pursuit of such gains, James had met opposition all the way: from the Edinburgh crowd, from many of the clergy of the Established Church, and from significant sections of the political elite. Even his own privy counsellors and the Lords of the Articles had obstructed his proposals, and as a result James had failed to get the Scottish parliament, which had in the past proven such a pliable body, to pass a suitable measure for Catholic toleration. Moreover, the basic strategy of pushing reforms through in Scotland first so it could be used as an example for England was backfiring. The worrying thing was that the problems were not being caused by those who had been the traditional enemies of royal policy under Charles II, the Presbyterians or radical Covenanters, although pockets of Presbyterian resistance certainly did survive. Rather, the crown was losing the support of those who had been its traditional allies in Scotland since the Restoration, namely the Episcopalian nobility, gentry and clergy. Nor did there seem much chance of recapturing support from this quarter. In the summer of 1686 Secretary Melfort summoned Archbishop Cairncross of Glasgow to London to try to persuade him to drop his opposition to Catholic toleration. At the same time Melfort was looking for suitable candidates to fill the sees left vacant by the deprivation of the Bishop of Dunkeld and the recent death of the Bishop of Galloway, and offered a choice of either one to John Birnie, minister of Broomhill, if he would agree to support the repeal of the penal laws. Both Cairncross and Birnie refused. The following January, James deprived Cairncross of his see, without a trial or hearing or even stating cause; he was later to appoint Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh as his replacement.⁷⁸

James needed to rethink his strategy. His priority remained the promotion of the interests of his co-religionists and the encouragement of the Catholic faith. Since this could only be done through the royal prerogative, he needed to consolidate the authority of the crown north of the border. All forms of opposition were to be silenced, and everything made subordinate to royal authority. He further sought to achieve an explicit recognition not only of the ability but also of the right of the king to act by his prerogative alone – a recognition, that is, that the king's will was law and carried the same force and provided the same security as parliamentary statutes. In short, James set out to establish royal absolutism in Scotland, in practice as much as in theory. At the same time he recognized the need to try to broaden the base of his support. To this end he began to make concessions to Protestant dissenters, by granting an Indulgence to moderate Presbyterians and Quakers, although the aim here was primarily to get more groups to acknowledge their dependency upon the absolute authority of the crown. In all these respects, however, James proved largely unsuccessful: the crown's authority in Scotland was not effectively enhanced; the policy of indulgence proved to be poorly thought through and had to be recast to such a degree that it failed to have the desired effect; and even the efforts to help Catholics had disappointing results, since the faith made little headway in Scotland.

James started by appointing more Catholics to his council: the Duke of Gordon and the Earl of Seaforth in November, and the Laird of Niddry in December.⁷⁹ All, of course, required dispensations from the Test. James was determined not to let his dispensing power be seen to work exclusively in favour of his co-religionists, however, and began to experiment with ways of co-opting conformist Protestants by making their positions dependent upon the dispensing power. As a ploy to get the ecclesiastical establishment to recognize the legitimacy of his dispensing power, in October 1686 James authorized the Archbishop of St Andrews and the Bishop of Edinburgh to allow conformist ministers who had relinquished their cures for refusing to take the Test – some had done so on the grounds that the Test was internally inconsistent – to take up vacant livings without having to take the Test. The results were mixed: some accepted the ‘door opened them by Providence’, though others ‘thought they should not embrace it, because it was a strengthening the prerogative on which the toleration of Popery and dispensing with our laws were founded’.⁸⁰ When the King appointed the Catholic Gordon and the Protestant Balcarres as commissioners to the treasury on 19 November, he dispensed both from the requirement to take the Test, even though Balcarres, who had been a privy counsellor since 1682, had previously taken it.⁸¹ Some Protestants who had scrupled to take the Test in 1681 and had resigned their offices as a result, were restored to their positions. In January 1687 Alexander Swinton of Mersington and James Daes of Cowdenknowes were reinstated as advocates, the King declaring that he dispensed them from the requirement to take the Test ‘by his prerogative royall’.⁸² The following month James installed Sir John Dalrymple (the son of the Presbyterian lawyer Sir James Dalrymple of Stair who had been driven into exile after 1681 for his refusal to take the Test), as Lord Advocate with a dispensation from the Test.⁸³

James also took further steps to promote Catholic worship in Scotland. On 30 November 1686, St Andrew's Day, the Catholics consecrated their chapel at Holyroodhouse, and the following March James granted a pension of £50 sterling per year to four of the priests who served as chaplains there. Then, in July 1687, James gave the abbey church at Holyroodhouse to the newly recreated Order of the Thistle, which James had established as a statutory foundation under new rules on 29 May of that year, to reward Scottish peers who supported his political and religious agenda. As Fountainhall ominously recorded, ‘so… is the first Protestant church taken away from us’. The first to be installed as Knights of the Thistle were Perth, Gordon and the Protestant Atholl, though the requirement to give their oaths on the popish missal proved difficult even for Atholl's flexible conscience, and he ‘stumbled a while’ as he was sworn in. In August 1687 the apartments in Holyroodhouse that had traditionally been set aside as the residence for the Lord Chancellor were turned into a college for the Jesuits. When the rules of the college were printed the following March, it promised that all children could be educated there free of charge.⁸⁴ In order to encourage conversions to Rome, in the first half of 1687 James gave £600 to the Scots mission.⁸⁵

The inhabitants of Edinburgh were far from happy with these developments. Perth had to post a troop of Catholic soldiers from Dumbarton's regiment at the chapel at Holyroodhouse on Christmas Day 1686 to prevent the possibility of any disturbances during the saying of mass. The guards were out in force in the capital again at the beginning of January ‘on a suspition that the prentises and other boyes intended to make a procession of the Devill's effigies and the Pope's’. In the middle of April 1687, an Edinburgh tailor who went to visit the Catholic chapel ‘out of curiosity’ revealed his distaste for what he saw by urinating upon Lady Blairhall and a number of other worshippers there, although he claimed that this had not been a deliberate affront but that he had merely been caught short. On Sunday 6 November a paper listing five queries about the Catholic faith was posted up at the chapel, asking, amongst other things, whether ‘the Popish custom of serving God in ane unknown tongue’ was not contrary to the doctrine taught by the apostle Paul, and therefore as much of a sin as adultery, and criticizing the Catholic priests for being dumb dogs who mumbled the mass because they did not want people to hear what they said. Outside the capital, the only Protestant church to be turned over to Catholic worship was Trinity chapel in Aberdeen in the spring of 1688, although it was a move that prompted resistance from the local trades, to whom it belonged.⁸⁶

As he continued with his efforts to help the Catholics, James did his utmost to suppress the expression of any critical opinion. A particular concern was with the pulpit, since many of the clergy had been so outspoken in raising the alarm about popery. On 16 June 1686 the council, on the King's orders, issued a proclamation forbidding ministers from reflecting ‘on the King, his person, principles, designs, or Government’ in their sermons, in accord with an Act of 1584. The clergy were upset, partly because the 1584 Act had been made against Presbyterians, and partly because it accused the clergy of the Established Church of promoting ‘seditious Designs… to alarm the People’. Three months later the proclamation was reissued, with the additional requirement that the clergy themselves read it four times a year, ‘to keep them in mind of it’.⁸⁷ Some ministers refused to comply.⁸⁸ At the end of July 1687 the King wrote to his Scottish primate, the loyally dependent Archbishop Rose of St Andrews, requiring him to instruct the bishops to suspend or deprive any minister who preached that the established religion was in danger, or reflected upon ‘our royall inclinations or authority’; any bishops who refused would themselves be regarded as disaffected.⁸⁹

The government also took further measures against the press. Although Perth had issued orders at the beginning of 1686 prohibiting printers or stationers from printing or selling books reflecting on popery, there remained the problem of anti-Catholic works being imported from England. As the press campaign against popery picked up south of the border, many of these works found their way north into Scotland. In August 1687 the Scottish council called upon the printers and booksellers of Edinburgh to declare on oath what books they had imported, printed or sold over the past twelve months: some booksellers were imprisoned or fined; all were in future prohibited from printing or selling any books without special license. Efforts were even made to prevent the reproduction of manuscript works. The government took no measures against Catholic literature. Indeed, the King allowed James Watson to set up a Catholic press at Holyroodhouse and to print, import and sell books against the Protestant religion. This was in breach of the monopoly of Scottish printing granted to Andrew Anderson in 1671, and required a special dispensation from the King; it was also in violation of long-standing Scottish laws against the publication of heretical literature, which had been reconfirmed by the Scottish council in 1661. Upon Watson's death towards the end of 1687, the press was taken over by the German Catholic, Peter Bruce.⁹⁰

On 12 February 1687 James issued his Declaration of Indulgence for Scotland, establishing toleration by royal fiat. The Declaration began by lamenting the fact that religious animosities in Scotland had led to the ‘decay of Trade, wasting of Lands, [and] extinguishing of Charity’, as well as the ‘contempt of the Royal Power’. Claiming to be resolved ‘to Unite the Hearts and Affections of Our Subjects to God in Religion, to Us in Loyalty, and to their Neighbours in Love and Charity’, James therefore declared that he had decided to grant by his ‘Soveraign Authority, Prerogative Royal, and absolute Power’, which all subjects were ‘to obey without Reserve’, his ‘Royal Tolleration’ to ‘several professors of the Christian Religion’. ‘Moderate Presbyterians’ were to be allowed to meet in their private houses, provided they did not say or do anything seditious or treasonable, though they were not allowed to build special meeting-houses or meet in out-houses or barns, and field conventicles were to continue to be prosecuted with ‘the utmost severity’. Quakers, by contrast, were to be allowed to hold their meetings ‘in any place or Places appointed for their Worship’. But the main benefits were intended for the Catholics. Since they had shown themselves to be loyal subjects, James said he had decided to ‘Suspend, Stop, and Disable all Laws and Acts of Parliament’ against them, so they might enjoy the same freedoms as Protestants ‘not only to Exercise their Religion, but to enjoy all Offices, Benefices and others’ which he might ‘think fit to bestow upon them’ in the future. They were therefore to be allowed to worship in private houses or in chapels, though they were forbidden to preach in open fields, invade Protestant churches by force, or make public processions in the high streets of any of the royal burghs. James further declared that he had decided to ‘Cass, Annul and discharge all Oaths whatsoever’ incapacitating his subjects from holding office, including the Test oath of 1681 instead, office-holders would be required to take an oath of non-resistance, acknowledging James VII as ‘rightful King and Supream Governour’ and promising never to ‘rise in Arms against Him, or any Commissionaned by him’ or to oppose his ‘Power or Authority’, but to ‘Assist, Defend and Maintain Him, His Heirs and lawful Successours, in the Exercise of Their absolute Power and Authority’. James also indemnified all religious groups for past infractions of the penal laws, again by virtue of the king's ‘absolute Power and Prerogative-Royal’, except those Presbyterians who had been guilty of uttering treasonable speeches at conventicles. The Declaration concluded with promises to protect the clergy of the Established Church ‘in their Functions, Rights and Properties, and all… Protestant Subjects in the free exercise of their Protestant Religion in the Churches’, and to maintain ‘the Possessors of Church-Lands’ formerly belonging to the Catholic Church ‘in their full and free possession’, though James warned that he intended to ‘employ indifferently all… Subjects’, regardless of their religious persuasion.⁹¹

The logic behind this policy was straightforward: James wanted to establish complete toleration for the Catholics; broaden the base of his support in Scotland by extending toleration to Quakers and, in a more limited sense, to the moderate Presbyterians, while maintaining the full force of the laws against field conventiclers and others who were likely to prove seditious or politically subversive; and to achieve a recognition that he could do this by virtue of his absolute power. In a subsequent letter to the council, dated 1 March, he insisted that no Presbyterians should be allowed to preach unless they first took the oath requiring them to defend the king's ‘Absolute Power and Authority’.⁹² James also hoped that if he could establish an Indulgence by means of his prerogative in Scotland, the path would be clear for him to pursue a similar policy in England. Gilbert Burnet, writing from exile in the Low Countries, published a tract condemning the ‘new designation of his Majestie's Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power’, the true meaning of which seemed to be ‘that there is an Inherent Power in the King, which can neither be restrained by Lawes, Promises, nor Oaths’. Burnet, however, was writing more for the English than the Scots; he concluded his tract by warning that ‘we here in England see what we must look for’.⁹³ This designation of the king's absolute power was, in fact, not new in Scotland: the Excise Act of 1685 had affirmed that the king of Scotland was absolute, while the Scottish council had acknowledged that James could grant a toleration to Roman Catholics by virtue of his ‘inviolable prerogatives’. Yet champions of royal authority had invariably linked a defence of absolutism with the doctrine that although the king could do no wrong, those who acted in his name could and were therefore obliged to uphold the law (and could be held accountable if they did not). The Scottish Indulgence, however, by insisting that James's subjects were obliged to obey him ‘without reserve’, seemingly removed any possible checks upon the abuse of power by the crown.⁹⁴ The Rye House plotter and Monmouth rebel Robert Ferguson – like Burnet, writing from exile – condemned the Indulgence as ‘an unpresidented exercise of Despoticalness, as hardly any of the Oriental Tyrants or even the French Leviathan would have ventured upon’, for its attempt to bind subjects to maintain and defend the King and his successors in the exercise of their absolute power. In effect, Ferguson proclaimed, the Indulgence required the people ‘to swear themselves his Majestie's most obedient Slaves and Vassals’, and was ‘an encouragement to his Catholic Subjects… Authorised with his Majestie's Commission… to set upon the cutting Protestants throats, when by this Oath their [Protestants'] hands are tied from hindring them’.⁹⁵

The council gave its response to the royal declaration in a formal letter to the King on 24 February, in which they essentially endorsed the Indulgence, though in somewhat guarded language. They stated that they hoped that no one would abuse such extraordinary acts of mercy and promised they would ‘mentaine and assert’ the King's ‘royal prerogative and authoritie’ if anyone were ‘to make any wrong use’ of James's ‘goodness’. Protesting their willingness to see the King's peaceable and loyal subjects ‘at ease and securitie’, regardless of their religion, they acknowledged that any who should ‘be employed by your Majestie in offices of trust civill or militarie’ were ‘sufficiently secured by your Majestie's authoritie and commissione for ther exerceing the same’; they did, however, omit to mention ecclesiastical offices, even though the Indulgence had specifically mentioned that Catholics should be free to enjoy any benefices bestowed upon them. The letter concluded by thanking James for promising to maintain ‘the church and our religione as it is now established by law’.⁹⁶ Even after all the purges, there was still some opposition. Hamilton and his two sons-in-law, the earls of Dundonald and Panmure, withdrew from the council when they saw the letter, to avoid having to sign it; the last two were subsequently dismissed. The Marquis of Tweeddale, his son Lord Yester and William Hay of Drummelzier absented themselves. Henceforth, they opted for semi-retirement rather than associate themselves further with James's policies.⁹⁷

The Presbyterians refused the benefit of the Indulgence, objecting to the limitations placed on their freedom to worship, the fact that the Indulgence was quite explicitly designed to help mainly the Catholics, and to the oath recognizing the King's claim to ‘absolute obedience, without reserve’, which, according to the contemporary historian of the Society People, Alexander Shields, far surmounted ‘all the lust, impudence, and insolence of all the Roman, Sicilian, Turkish, Tartarian, or Indian Tyrants that ever trampled upon the Liberties of Mankind’. Many of the moderate Presbyterians continued to attend the services of the Established Church; the radical Covenanters persisted in meeting in field conventicles, for which they were prosecuted ‘with the greatest severity’, some being transported, and a few even sentenced to death.⁹⁸ On 31 March James sent a letter to his council granting Presbyterians the benefits of the Indulgence without being required to take the oath. This seems to have made little difference.⁹⁹Therefore James decided to issue another Indulgence on 28 June (published in Edinburgh on 5 July), declaring that by his ‘sovereaigne authority, prerogative royall and absolute power’ he had decided to ‘suspend, stop and disable all penall and sanguinary laws made against any for non-conformity to the religion established by law’, thereby giving the Presbyterians the same liberties as the Catholics, and allowing them to meet in chapels or purpose-built places of worship as well as private houses, although retaining the prohibition against field conventicles.¹⁰⁰

Most Presbyterians accepted the revised Indulgence, with the exception of the radical Convenanters, the followers of the field preacher James Renwick.¹⁰¹ The benefits were felt most in the south-west, the area that had suffered the most during the years of persecution. Meeting-houses were speedily erected, and large numbers of parishioners deserted their parish churches, often leaving the Episcopal clergy with none to hear them, ‘save their own Families’.¹⁰² One hostile account, written after the Revolution, claimed that the Presbyterians used intimidation to force people to join their meetings.¹⁰³ While some scepticism is needed here, undoubtedly James's Indulgence had the effect of exacerbating tensions between Presbyterians and Episcopalians in what was already a highly volatile area. By contrast, there were very few meeting-houses erected north of the Tay.¹⁰⁴ Field conventiclers, on the other hand, who also tended to be concentrated in the south-west, continued to be pursued in the second half of 1687 and throughout 1688, and a reward of £100 sterling each was offered for the capture of James Renwick, Alexander Shields and others who preached at field conventicles.¹⁰⁵ Renwick himself was finally captured in Edinburgh at the beginning of February 1688. At his trial he disowned James VII's authority, and stated that ‘to give him the absolute power he assumed, was to put a creature in place of the Creator’. Renwick was executed on 17 February.¹⁰⁶

Presbyterian ministers from different parts of the kingdom gathered in Edinburgh on 20 July 1687 to discuss whether to offer the King thanks for the Indulgence. Although some were averse to the idea, they agreed the next day to a cautiously worded address, acknowledging the King's ‘gracious and surprizing Favour in… putting a Stop to our long sad Sufferings’ and professing their resolution ‘to preserve an entire Loyalty in our Doctrine and Practice, (consonant to our known Principles…)’ . The ‘Inhabitants of the Presbyterian Perswasion in Edinburgh and Canongate’ drew up a ‘more florrid’ address, in which they said they could not ‘find suitable Expressions’ to show their ‘most humble and grateful Acknowledgments’ for the Indulgence, and expressed the hope that their sincerity would make it clear that there was ‘no Inconsistency betwixt true Loyalty and Presbyterian Principles’. There was a third address, ‘from the Pastors and People of God in the West of Scotland in and about Glasgow’, which according to a hostile source, far out-did the first two ‘for high Strains of Flattery and vast Promises of Duty and Compliance’.¹⁰⁷ Some Episcopalians found the Presbyterians’ apparent change of heart difficult to swallow. One satirical address, which circulated in manuscript, had the Presbyterians give their ‘most humble and hearty Thanks’ and proceeded to mock the whole logic of giving such people religious toleration: ‘whereas our predicessors By whose principalls we are led’, it had the Presbyterians say, ‘did molest and trouble the happie Reign of… your Grandfather [James VI and I]’ and also ‘most Industriously did disturb, shake and alter the Government under the reigne of your pious father [Charles I] till we brought him to the block’, so they too ‘shall never want good will to show your majestie the lyke Kydnes whenever a fairr opportunity shall present’.¹⁰⁸ As we shall see in Chapter 9, the remarks contained more irony than the satirist could have foreseen.

The radical Covenanters, who refused to accept the toleration because it was based on the pretension to ‘absolute power’ and was intended ‘to make way for the introduction of Popery’,¹⁰⁹ were bitterly critical of those who did. Prior to his capture and execution, Renwick complained that never before in Scotland had a favour been ‘obtained to Papists to practise their Idolatries, without a resolute Protestation against it, much less was it ever heard that the open Profession of it’ should be ‘applauded in the congratulatory Addresses of some called Protestants and Presbyterians’.¹¹⁰ Similarly, the Episcopalian namesakes, George Mackenzie of Tarbat and Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, writing in early 1689, charged the Presbyterians with ‘compliance with the Papists’, and alleged that while those of the Established Church ‘hazarded all rather than comply', the Presbyterians ‘magnified the dispensing Power’.¹¹¹ Presbyterian apologists, writing after the Revolution, naturally put a different slant on their actions. As the historian of the Presbyterian sufferings, Robert Wodrow, pointed out, the Presbyterians did not play an active part in seeking this liberty, and they refused to accept the Indulgence ‘as long as it was connected with a Liberty to Papists in its Promulgation, and untill all the former Restrictions were taken off’.¹¹² Gilbert Rule, a Presbyterian divine who had suffered imprisonment himself at the hands of the Restoration regime, insisted that accepting ‘the Liberty granted them, after it had been unjustly withheld from them’, did not imply an acknowledgement of the dispensing power, because this was ‘their Due by a Grant from Christ in the Gospel’; the Presbyterians merely ‘gave Thanks for restoring them to their just Right’. As for being complicit in the design to bring in popery, the Presbyterians thought ‘the best way to keep it out’, Rule added, ‘was to make use of the Liberty, for setting people in the right way’; nevertheless they expressed their ‘dislike of the Tolleration give to the Papists for their Heresies and Idolatries’.¹¹³ A few Presbyterians certainly did this. In a sermon delivered at Gordon, Berwickshire, on 18 October 1687, John Hardy ‘thanked his Majesty for his toleration’, but added ‘if they behoved to take away the laws against Popery, it were better to want it: And any that consented to it, Zachariah's flying roll of curses would enter the house’. Summoned before the council, Hardy refused to retract, and at his trial on 1 December he not only boldly admitted what he had said, but added, ‘it is the Presbyterian principle, that idolatry… is punishable by death’ and that ‘they can never think but laws against Popery are both just, lawful and necessary’. Hardy persisted in maintaining, however, that he had said nothing seditious, and the judges eventually agreed, and set him free.¹¹⁴ In April 1688 Alexander Orrock, a Presbyterian minister from Dundee, was summoned before the council for allegedly ‘having called the King an idolator in his sermon’. Orrock was forbidden to preach any more at Dundee, and so he simply moved elsewhere. He was, seemingly, a man with some following. When the Archbishop of St Andrews had him arrested for trying to preach there, a riot ensued, and some of Orrock's supporters attacked the town officers who had come to make the arrest.¹¹⁵

The Indulgence afforded the Presbyterians a chance to rebuild after years of persecution had severely weakened their movement. Ministers who had been imprisoned or else forced into exile, returned to lead their flocks; indeed, parishioners were actively encouraged to call home their pastors who had fled the country. A basic Presbyterian structure was re-established, with monthly meetings of presbyteries; cooperation was sought over the building of meeting-houses; and provisions were set up for the encouragement of young students, so that they could be licensed and ordained to new congregations. Ironically, James's actions were to mean that when the Revolution came the Presbyterians were in a position to challenge for control of the Church.¹¹⁶

By contrast, James's policy of Indulgence undermined the unity of the Protestants of the Established Church. James sought to make his Protestant subjects complicit in his design to remove the Test for office-holders. In June 1687 he issued new commissions for the Lords of Session and the privy council, nominating the same men, but discharging them from taking the Test.¹¹⁷ The final adjustment to James's Indulgence policy came on 7 May 1688, when the King issued a proclamation reaffirming the Indulgence of 12 February 1687, as explained and enlarged by that of 28 June, and reporting that he had dissolved all ‘judicatures of privy Councell, Session, Exchequer, Justiciary, and magistracy of our burroughs royall, that by their acceptations of new commissions’ without the requirement to take the Test, ‘wee might convince the world of the justice of our procedures’.¹¹⁸ Even the loyalist Epsicopalian Earl of Balcarres conceded that this was a serious mistake, which ‘occasion'd a great Consternation’. It was made worse by an additional order that all crown employees purchase remissions for breaking the laws, even though done at the King's command.¹¹⁹

James could count upon the loyalty of his two archbishops, Rose of St Andrews and Paterson of Glasgow. Both, as privy counsellors, had signed the letter in support of the Indulgence in February 1687. But there were many disturbing signs of hostility from the Epsicopalian establishment. In March 1688, when Archbishop Rose prevailed upon the University of St Andrews to send an address to James acknowledging that the King ‘may, by his prerogative, take away the penal laws without a Parliament’, five of the fourteen masters refused to sign.¹²⁰ Few ministers of the Established Church appear to have welcomed the Indulgence. Balcarres, writing after the Revolution, claimed the Episcopal clergy condemned the Indulgence in their private discourses and sermons, being fearful that ‘by giving a general Liberty of Conscience’ the King designed ‘to ruin the Religion then established’.¹²¹ A contemporary correspondent reported that not just bishops but even some privy counsellors were upset by the June Indulgence, believing it ‘too large’; this correspondent later observed how it was ‘above all the episcopal party’ who were ‘most opposite to this liberty and its establishment’.¹²² Some Episcopalians simply refused to recognize the Indulgence. Roger Morrice learned in December 1687 that ‘divers of the Legall Ministers in Scotland' had ‘revived the old national Scotch Covenant against Popery’ (presumably the Negative Confession of Faith of 1581 condemning Catholicism), and got their congregations to signify ‘their resolution to stand by it’.¹²³ In the summer of 1688 the masters of the University of Aberdeen were in trouble ‘for presuming to take an oath from the Students’ upon graduation, ‘to profess the Protestant religion’, when the King ‘had discharged the exacting of any oaths’. The masters protested that they were required to do so by the University statutes, which they had sworn to uphold, and so they could not omit this oath without committing perjury.¹²⁴ In some areas Episcopalian magistrates sought to ensure the Presbyterians would not have a quiet toleration: by arresting ministers under the pretext that their names were not on the list of approved preachers given to the magistrates; harassing people who did not come to church or who hired out their barns or other buildings as places of worship; or denying burgh freedom to those who frequented meeting-houses. One particular trouble spot was Dundee, where the town's provost was the fanatical anti-Presbyterian crusader the Earl of Claverhouse, who busied himself investigating Presbyterian preachers suspected of going beyond the terms of the Indulgence by endeavouring to alienate the people from the royal government.¹²⁵

James still seems to have hoped to secure a more permanent toleration in Scotland by getting parliament to turn his Indulgence into law. To achieve this goal he would need to procure the return of a compliant parliament, and this was most readily achievable by securing control over the election of burgh representatives, who were normally chosen and also paid for by the town councils. In September 1686, James suspended local elections in all the royal burghs, and then proceeded to nominate his own men as provosts, magistrates and town councillors. This was a direct invasion of the burghs' legal right under their old charters to elect their own magistrates. Nor was there any pretence to a legal process of quo warranto; the King simply acted by virtue of his prerogative. In some burghs, the crown appointed members of the nobility and gentry, in violation of an act of 1609 barring them from serving as town magistrates.¹²⁶ The King repeated the policy of suspending elections and nominating his own officials in 1687 and 1688.¹²⁷ In July 1687, James tried to get the Convention of Royal Burghs to suspend the residential qualification for burgh representatives, to make way for some of the gentry he had nominated. Although he failed in this particular regard, he did succeed in getting the Convention to remove the restriction against the election of Catholics.¹²⁸ By February 1688 it was being rumoured in London that James was not only about to call a parliament in Scotland, but that he was ‘resolved to be present at it himself’, which it was thought would make it easier to enact ‘the gracious designs his Majesty has formed and remove all obstacles that have hitherto hindred the effecting of them’.¹²⁹

James did not call another parliament in Scotland and it is unclear how far he got with his plans to do so. In late 1687 and early 1688 he did begin canvassing the opinions of the parliamentary classes about the possibility of repealing the penal legislation, even approaching some of the more powerful figures in Scottish politics directly himself. Thus in February 1688, for example, he wrote to Hamilton asking if he would agree to a repeal of the penal laws and the Test and be in favour of ‘settling an entire liberty of conscience’. Hamilton wrote back saying he had been ill and had not had the chance to discuss the issue with any lawyers or clergymen, protesting that he was still of the opinion that no one ‘should suffer for conscience-sake’ and ‘every peaceable subject should be allowed the exercise of their own religion’, but adding that how this might ‘be done with security to the Protestant religion, our laws, and oaths' was something he was unable to make up his mind about just yet. James also commissioned Perth, Tarbat and Balcarres to get officers of state, judges and army officers to give a written pledge of their support for a repeal. Although Balcarres claimed that most were prepared to subscribe, albeit grudgingly, the process left ‘such a cruel Apprehension of other things farther to be press'd upon them, that it made them extremely uneasie’. Others were far from convinced whether the tactic had produced the desired results. In March 1688, the Earl of Shrewsbury informed the Prince of Orange that James's attempts to solicit the support of the parliamentary classes for a repeal of the penal laws had met with not ‘much better success’ in Scotland than they had in England – where, as we shall see in the following chapter, the policy was a noticeable failure.¹³⁰

ASSESSING THE COST

The policy of indulgence had been pursued with the main aim of helping promote the cause of Catholicism. To what extent had this been successful? Professed Catholics formed a tiny minority of the population in Scotland, probably less than 2 per cent. Moreover, the penal laws had never been comprehensively enforced. Few recusants had suffered persecution since the Restoration; the major inconvenience was the ban on holding public office, and even this had not been applied absolutely under Charles II, prior to the Test Act of 1681.¹³¹ It is difficult to see that there were any major gains for the Catholic faith in Scotland under James VII. There had been some notable converts to Catholicism, early in the reign, and Catholics had been given prominent positions in the service of the crown. Beyond that, the results were extremely disappointing. As Chancellor Perth bemoaned in a letter to Cardinal Norfolk of 3 February 1688: ‘one might have hoped a considerable progress would have been made in the advancement of the Catholic interest, but we have advanced little or nothing’. There were two public Catholic chapels, one at Holyroodhouse, another in Aberdeen; there was a Jesuit College at what used to be the Lord Chancellors' residence at Holyroodhouse; and there were six or seven monks from Germany active as missionaries. Yet there had been very few conversions of late; ‘the ministers and University men’ were ‘wild and furious’; and not one man in a hundred in the army was a Catholic.¹³² A few days later Thomas Nicholson, a Scottish Catholic returning to his country after several years’ absence, wrote how he ‘found things as to the advancement of the Catholic faith far short of my expectations… there were but few converts… and a greater aversion in the people than there was five or six years ago’.¹³³

Yet the efforts to help the Catholics had been pursued at immense political cost. In 1685 James had inherited a strong position in Scotland: the Scottish political elite were resolutely behind him, and even prepared to recognize his absolute authority; the political challenge of the radical Presbyterians had been effectively controlled; and Presbyterianism as a religious movement had been so seriously undermined as a result of years of persecution that many Presbyterians had been driven into at least a nominal conformity to the Established Church. There even appears to have been genuine popular support for James at the time of his accession. However, as a result of his policies, James had managed to destroy this favourable state of affairs. He had broken the unity of the political elite; provoked an ultra-loyalist parliament into opposition and failed to get passed his desired legislation, despite the existence of the Lords of the Articles; and alienated many members of his privy council. While there were some compliant types who were prepared to support the King in whatever he did, there were others who by instinct were royalists and prone to support the authority of the crown but who were nevertheless driven from office, such as Mar and Mackenzie of Rosehaugh. There were yet others, such as Hamilton and (to a lesser degree) Lockhart, whom James felt unable to force out of office, but who obstructed royal policy in significant respects. Moreover, James was inconsistent in the way he dealt with people. Having appointed Sir John Dalrymple as Lord Advocate to replace Mackenzie, he subsequently reappointed Mackenzie in February 1688, a move which helped lose Dalrymple's support without succeeding in winning back Mackenzie's full commitment.¹³⁴ James also destroyed the unity of the Episcopalian Church. While he retained the support of Rose of St Andrews and Paterson of Edinburgh (and later Glasgow), many churchmen became disaffected. In short, by alienating the traditional ruling elite and the Episcopalian interest, James destroyed the very foundation on which a strong Scottish monarchy had been reconstructed after the Restoration. At the same time, he enabled the Presbyterians to recoup their strength and begin to reorganize. All this, in order to achieve what were rather insignificant gains for Scottish Catholicism. Indeed, if anything, anti-popery had increased in Scotland: there was serious rioting against the celebration of the mass in Edinburgh in early 1686; the Episcopalian clergy did all they could from the pulpit to enflame their congregations against Catholicism; and from July 1687 they were joined in their efforts by the newly indulged Presbyterian ministers. In short, James had created a revolutionary situation in Scotland.