In 1663 Rothes succeeded Middleton as commissioner.  The latter had been rash enough to measure his strength with Lauderdale, and had been signally worsted.  To complete the legislative machinery a Conventicle Act was passed this year, declaring all assemblies of more than five persons, besides members of the family, unlawful and seditious.  As most of their congregations had followed the expelled ministers into the wilderness, this new law so mightily increased the labours of the authorities that it was found necessary to institute a new tribunal of justice for the especial treatment of ecclesiastical offences.  This was no less than a renewal of that old Court of High Commission which had been abolished by the Long Parliament twenty years before to the joy of the whole nation.  To strengthen its hands a body of troops was sent down into the western shires, now the stronghold of the Covenant, to impose and exact the fines ordained by the Commission.  Their leader was Sir James Turner, a man of some education, but rough and brutal.  He had served on the Continent under Gustavus Adolphus, had fought under Leslie in the Presbyterian ranks, and had accompanied Hamilton with the Engagers into England.  Turner, in his own memoirs, declares that he not only did not exceed his orders, but was even lenient beyond his commission.  When, a few years later, in a momentary fit of indulgence, his acts were called in question by the Privy Council, the evidence hardly served to establish his assertion.

At length the West rose.  On November 13th, 1666, four countrymen came into the little village of Dalry, in Galloway, in search of refreshment.  There they found a few soldiers, driving before them a body of peasants to thresh out the corn of an old man who would not pay his fines.  There was an argument and a scuffle:  a pistol was fired and a soldier fell:  the rest yielded.  It was now too late to go back.  Turner was posted at Dumfries with a considerable sum of money in his charge.  It was determined to seize him.  The four champions had now been joined by some fifty horsemen and a large body of unmounted peasants.  Turner was made prisoner; and the money restored to the service of those from whose pockets it had been originally drawn.

The number of the insurgents had now risen to three thousand.  They determined to march on Edinburgh, thinking to gather recruits on the way; but when they came within five miles of the city their hearts failed them.  The weather was bitterly cold:  provisions and arms were scarce:  the peasantry of the more cultivated districts had proved either lukewarm to the cause or openly hostile:  no recruits had come in, and their own ranks were growing daily thinner.  At length they turned on their tracks and made once more for their western fastnesses.  But they had now to reckon with a more dangerous foe than Turner.