[Footnote 2:  Council Order Books of the Protectorate through 1655 and 1656; Mere.  Pol. for Sept. 27-Oct. 4, 1655; Evelyn’s Diary (ed. 1870), p. 248.  In the Council Order Books, under date Sept. 11, 1656, is minuted an order that, in terms of an Act of the Estates of Scotland of March 16, 1649, the Marquis of Argyle shall, from and after Nov. 10, 1657, have half the excise of wines and strong waters in Scotland, but not exceeding L3000 in any one year, until he is satisfied of a debt of L145,400 Scots due to him by Scotland on public grounds.]

Any influence which the Marquis could now have with the Protector in matters of Scottish Government must have been small; but it was understood that, such as it was, it would be on the side of the Kirk party of the Protesters.  And this had become of some consequence.  In and through 1656, if not earlier, it had become obvious that the inclinations of the Protector to that party had been considerably shaken.  The change was attributed partly to Lord President Broghill.  Almost from his first coming to Scotland, this nobleman had found it desirable to win over the Resolutioners.  “The President Broghill,” says Baillie, “is reported by all to be a man exceeding wise and moderate, and by profession a Presbyterian:  he has gained more on the affections of the people than all the English that ever were among us.  He has been very civil to Mr. Douglas and Mr. Dickson, and is very intime with Mr. James Sharp.  By this means we [the Resolutioners] have an equal hearing in all we have ado with the Council.  Yet their way is exceeding longsome, and all must be done first at London.”  So far as Broghill’s communications with London might serve, the Resolutioners, therefore, might count on him as their friend.  And by this time he had reasons to show.  Had he not succeeded, where the stern Monk had failed, in inducing the Resolutioner clergy to give up public praying for King Charles and otherwise to conform; and was it not on this ground that Monk was believed still to befriend the Protesters?  But perhaps it hardly needed Broghill’s representations to induce Cromwell to reconsider his Scottish policy in regard to the Kirk.  That same Conservatism which had been gaining on him in the English department of his Protectorate, leading him rather to discourage extreme men while tolerating them, had begun to affect his views of Kirk parties in Scotland.  The Resolutioners were numerically the larger party:  if they would be reconciled, might they not be his most massive support in North Britain?  It is possible that the institution of the new Scottish Council under Broghill’s Presidency may have been the result of such thoughts, and that Broghill thus only took a course indicated for him by Cromwell.  At all events, various relaxations of former orders, about admission to vacant livings and the like, had already been made in favour of the Resolutioners; and, in and from 1656, it was noted that extreme men in Scotland too were not to his Highness’s