Remnant distrusted the sudden religious zeal of Argyll, and were cowed by Claverhouse.  The coasts were watched by Government vessels of war, and when, after vain movements round about his own castle, Inveraray, Argyll was obliged by his Lowlanders to move on Glasgow, he was checked at every turn; the leaders, weary and lost in the marshes, scattered from Kilpatrick on Clyde; Argyll crossed the river, and was captured by servants of Sir John Shaw of Greenock.  He was not put to trial nor to torture; he was executed on the verdict of 1681.  About 200 suspected persons were lodged by Government in Dunottar Castle at the time and treated with abominable cruelty.

The Covenanters were now effectually put down, though Renwick was not taken and hanged till 1688.  The preachers were anxious for peace and quiet, and were bitterly hostile to Renwick.  The Covenant was a dead letter as far as power to do mischief was concerned.  It was not persecution of the Kirk, but demand for toleration of Catholics and a manifest desire to restore the Church, that in two years lost James his kingdoms.

On April 29, 1686, James’s message to the Scots Parliament asked toleration for “our innocent subjects” the Catholics.  He had substituted Perth’s brother, now entitled Earl of Melfort, for Queensberry; Perth was now Chancellor; both men had adopted their king’s religion, and the infamous Melfort can hardly be supposed to have done so honestly.  Their families lost all in the event except their faith.  With the request for toleration James sent promises of free trade with England, and he asked for no supplies.  Perth had introduced Catholic vestments and furnishings in Holyrood chapel, which provoked a No Popery riot.  Parliament would not permit toleration; James removed many of the Council and filled their places with Catholics.  Sir George Mackenzie’s conscience “dirled”; he refused to vote for toleration and he lost the Lord Advocateship, being superseded by Sir James Dalrymple, an old Covenanting opponent of Claverhouse in Galloway.

In August James, by prerogative, did what the Estates would not do, and he deprived the Archbishop of Glasgow and the Bishop of Dunkeld of their Sees:  though a Catholic, he was the king-pope of a Protestant church!  In a decree of July 1687 he extended toleration to the Kirk, and a meeting of preachers at Edinburgh expressed “a deep sense of your Majesty’s gracious and surprising favour.”  The Kirk was indeed broken, and, when the Revolution came, was at last ready for a compromise from which the Covenants were omitted.  On February 17, 1688, Mr Renwick was hanged at Edinburgh:  he had been prosecuted by Dalrymple.  On the same day Mackenzie superseded Dalrymple as Lord Advocate.