and having attained for their own country an establishment of this golden candlestick,the Scots became liberally and fraternally anxious to erect the same in England.This they conceived might be easily attained by lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of the Scottish forces.The Presbyterians,a numerous and powerful party in the English Parliament,had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the King;while the Independents and other sectaries,who afterwards,under Cromwell,resumed the power of the sword,and overset the Presbyterian model both in Scotland and England,were as yet contented to lurk under the shelter of the wealthier and more powerful party.The prospect of bringing to a uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in discipline and worship,seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
The celebrated Sir Henry Vane,one of the commissioners who negotiated the alliance betwixt England and Scotland,saw the influence which this bait had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt;and although himself a violent Independent,he contrived at once to gratify and to elude the eager desires of the Presbyterians,by qualifying the obligation to reform the Church of England,as a change to be executed "according to the word of God,and the best reformed churches."Deceived by their own eagerness,themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS DIVINUM of their own ecclesiastical establishments,and not holding it possible such doubts could be adopted by others,the Convention of Estates and the Kirk of Scotland conceived,that such expressions necessarily inferred the establishment of Presbytery;nor were they undeceived,until,when their help was no longer needful,the sectaries gave them to understand,that the phrase might be as well applied to Independency,or any other mode of worship,which those who were at the head of affairs at the time might consider as agreeable "to the word of God,and the practice of the reformed churches."Neither were the outwitted Scottish less astonished to find,that the designs of the English sectaries struck against the monarchial constitution of Britain,it having been their intention to reduce the power of the King,but by no means to abrogate the office.They fared,however,in this respect,like rash physicians,who commence by over-
physicking a patient,until he is reduced to a state of weakness,from which cordials are afterwards unable to recover him.
But these events were still in the womb of futurity.As yet the Scottish Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice,prudence,and piety,and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to their very wish.The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax and Manchester,enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York,and to fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor,in which Prince Rupert and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated.The Scottish auxiliaries,indeed,had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen could desire.David Leslie,with their cavalry,fought bravely,and to them,as well as to Cromwell's brigade of Independents,the honour of the day belonged;but the old Earl of Leven,the covenanting general,was driven out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert,and was thirty miles distant,in full flight towards Scotland,when he was overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
The absence of these auxiliary troops,upon this crusade for the establishment of Presbyterianism in England,had considerably diminished the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland,and had given rise to those agitations among the anti-covenanters,which we have noticed at the beginning of this chapter.
CHAPTER II.
His mother could for him as cradle set Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,That never plain'd of his uneasy nest;
Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,And woke,and fought,and won,ere he could stand.
HALL'S SATIRES
It was towards the close of a summer's evening,during the anxious period which we have commemorated,that a young gentleman of quality,well mounted and armed,and accompanied by two servants,one of whom led a sumpter horse,rode slowly up one of those steep passes,by which the Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire.[The beautiful pass of Leny,near Callander,in Monteith,would,in some respects,answer this description.]Their course had lain for some time along the banks of a lake,whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the western sun.The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty,was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees,and in others overhung by fragments of huge rock.
Elsewhere,the hill,which formed the northern side of this beautiful sheet of water,arose in steep,but less precipitous acclivity,and was arrayed in heath of the darkest purple.In the present times,a scene so romantic would have been judged to possess the highest charms for the traveller;but those who journey in days of doubt and dread,pay little attention to picturesque scenery.
The master kept,as often as the wood permitted,abreast of one or both of his domestics,and seemed earnestly to converse with them,probably because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who are made to be sharers of common danger.
The dispositions of the leading men who inhabit this wild country,and the probability of their taking part in the political convulsions that were soon expected,were the subjects of their conversation.
