In a sketch it is impossible to convey any idea of the sufferings of Scotland, at least of Covenanting Scotland, under the Restoration.  There was contest, unrest, and dragoonings, and the quartering of a brutal and licentious soldiery on suspected persons.  Law, especially since 1679, had been twisted for the conviction of persons whom the administration desired to rob.  The greed and corruption of the rulers, from Lauderdale, his wife, and his brother Haltoun, to Perth and his brother, the Earl of Melfort, whose very title was the name of an unjustly confiscated estate, is almost inconceivable. {225} Few of the foremost men in power, except Sir George Mackenzie and Claverhouse, were free from personal profligacy of every sort.  Claverhouse has left on record his aversion to severities against the peasantry; he was for prosecuting such gentry as the Dalrymples.  As constable of Dundee he refused to inflict capital punishment on petty offenders, and Mackenzie went as far as he dared in opposing the ferocities of the inquisition of witches.  But in cases of alleged treason Mackenzie knew no mercy.

Torture, legal in Scotland, was used with barbarism unprecedented there after each plot or rising, to extract secrets which, save in one or two cases like that of Carstares, the victims did not possess.  They were peasants, preachers, and a few country gentlemen:  the nobles had no inclination to suffer for the cause of the Covenants.  The Covenants continued to be the idols of the societies of Cameronians, and of many preachers who were no longer inclined to die for these documents,—­the expression of such strange doctrines, the causes of so many sorrows and of so many martyrdoms.  However little we may sympathise with the doctrines, none the less the sufferers were idealists, and, no less than Montrose, preferred honour to life.

With all its sins, the Restoration so far pulverised the pretensions which, since 1560, the preachers had made, that William of Orange was not obliged to renew the conflict with the spiritual sons of Knox and Andrew Melville.

This fact is not so generally recognised as it might be.  It is therefore proper to quote the corroborative opinion of the learned Historiographer-Royal of Scotland, Professor Hume Brown.  “By concession and repression the once mighty force of Scottish Presbyterianism had been broken.  Most deadly of the weapons in the accomplishment of this result had been the three Acts of Indulgence which had successively cut so deep into the ranks of uniformity.  In succumbing to the threats and promises of the Government, the Indulged ministers had undoubtedly compromised the fundamental principles of Presbyterianism. . . .  The compliance of these ministers was, in truth, the first and necessary step towards that religious and political compromise which the force of circumstances was gradually imposing on the Scottish people,” and “the example of the Indulged ministers, who composed the great mass of the Presbyterian clergy, was of the most potent effect in substituting the idea of toleration for that of the religious absolutism of Knox and Melville.” {226}