The godly in Scotland rejoiced at the defeat of their army:  the levies of the western shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark occupied Edinburgh:  Argyll and the Kirk party were masters, and when Cromwell arrived in Edinburgh early in October he was entertained at dinner by Argyll.  The left wing of the Covenant was now allied with the Independents—­the deadly foes of presbytery!  To the ordinary mind this looks like a new breach of the Covenant, that impossible treaty with Omnipotence.  Charles had written that the divisions of parties were probably “God’s way to punish them for their many rebellions and perfidies.”  The punishment was now beginning in earnest, and the alliance of extreme Covenanters with “bloody sectaries” could not be maintained.  Yet historians admire the statesmanship of Argyll!

If the edge which the sword of the Covenant turned against the English enemies of presbytery were blunted, the edge that smote Covenanters less extreme than Argyll and the preachers was whetted afresh.  In the Estates of January 5, 1649, Argyll, whose party had a large majority, and the fanatical Johnston of Waristoun (who made private covenants with Jehovah) demanded disenabling Acts against all who had in any degree been tainted by the Engagement for the rescue of the king.  The Engagers were divided into four “Classes,” who were rendered incapable by “The Act of Classes” of holding any office, civil or military.  This Act deprived the country of the services of thousands of men, just at the moment when the English army, the Independents, Argyll’s allies, were holding the Trial of Charles I.; and, in defiance of timid remonstrances from the Scottish Commissioners in England, cut off “that comely head” (January 30, 1649), which meant war with Scotland.

SCOTLAND AND CHARLES II.

This was certain, for, on February 5, on the news of the deed done at Whitehall, the Estates proclaimed Charles II. as Scottish King—­if he took the Covenant.  By an ingenious intrigue Argyll allowed Lauderdale and Lanark, whom the Estates had intended to arrest, to escape to Holland, where Charles was residing, and their business was to bring that uncovenanted prince to sign the Covenant, and to overcome the influence of Montrose, who, with Clarendon, of course resisted such a trebly dishonourable act of perjured hypocrisy.  During the whole struggle, since Montrose took the king’s side, he had been thwarted by the Hamiltons.  They invariably wavered:  now they were for a futile policy of dishonour, in which they involved their young king, Argyll, and Scotland.  Montrose stood for honour and no Covenant; Argyll, the Hamiltons, Lauderdale, and the majority of the preachers stood for the Covenant with dishonour and perjury; the left wing of the preachers stood for the Covenant, but not for its dishonourable and foresworn acceptance by Charles.

As a Covenanter, Charles II. would be the official foe of the English Independents and army; Scotland would need every sword in the kingdom, and the kingdom’s best general, Montrose, yet the Act of Classes, under the dictation of the preachers, rejected every man tainted with participation in or approval of the Engagement—­or of neglecting family prayers!