Under James II. the throttling began; a necessary throttling of what remained of the revolution.  James II. had a laudable ambition to be an efficient king.  The reign of Charles II. was, in his opinion, but a sketch of restoration.  James wished for a still more complete return to order.  He had, in 1660, deplored that they had confined themselves to the hanging of ten regicides.  He was a more genuine reconstructor of authority.  He infused vigour into serious principles.  He installed true justice, which is superior to sentimental declamations, and attends, above all things, to the interests of society.  In his protecting severities we recognize the father of the state.  He entrusted the hand of justice to Jeffreys, and its sword to Kirke.  That useful Colonel, one day, hung and rehung the same man, a republican, asking him each time, “Will you renounce the republic?” The villain, having each time said “No,” was dispatched. “I hanged him four times,” said Kirke, with satisfaction.  The renewal of executions is a great sign of power in the executive authority.  Lady Lisle, who, though she had sent her son to fight against Monmouth, had concealed two rebels in her house, was executed; another rebel, having been honourable enough to declare that an Anabaptist female had given him shelter, was pardoned, and the woman was burned alive.  Kirke, on another occasion, gave a town to understand that he knew its principles to be republican, by hanging nineteen burgesses.  These reprisals were certainly legitimate, for it must be remembered that, under Cromwell, they cut off the noses and ears of the stone saints in the churches.  James II., who had had the sense to choose Jeffreys and Kirke, was a prince imbued with true religion; he practised mortification in the ugliness of his mistresses; he listened to le Pere la Colombiere, a preacher almost as unctuous as le Pere Cheminais, but with more fire, who had the glory of being, during the first part of his life, the counsellor of James II., and, during the latter, the inspirer of Mary Alcock.  It was, thanks to this strong religious nourishment, that, later on, James II. was enabled to bear exile with dignity, and to exhibit, in his retirement at Saint Germain, the spectacle of a king rising superior to adversity, calmly touching for king’s evil, and conversing with Jesuits.

It will be readily understood that such a king would trouble himself to a certain extent about such a rebel as Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie.  Hereditary peerages have a certain hold on the future, and it was evident that if any precautions were necessary with regard to that lord, James II. was not the man to hesitate.

CHAPTER II.

LORD DAVID DIRRY-MOIR.

I.