Sidney delivered up the seals which he had held during more than a year, and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.  Some months elapsed before the place which he had quitted was filled up; and during this interval the whole business which had ordinarily been divided between two Secretaries of State was transacted by Nottingham.202

While these arrangements were in progress, events had taken place in a distant part of the island which were not, till after the lapse of many months, known in the best informed circles of London, but which gradually obtained a fearful notoriety, and which, after the lapse of more than a hundred and sixty years, are never mentioned without horror.

Soon after the Estates of Scotland had separated in the autumn of 1690, a change was made in the administration of that kingdom.  William was not satisfied with the way in which he had been represented in the Parliament House.  He thought that the rabbled curates had been hardly treated.  He had very reluctantly suffered the law which abolished patronage to be touched with his sceptre.  But what especially displeased him was that the Acts which established a new ecclesiastical polity had not been accompanied by an Act granting liberty of conscience to those who were attached to the old ecclesiastical polity.  He had directed his Commissioner Melville to obtain for the Episcopalians of Scotland an indulgence similar to that which Dissenters enjoyed in England.203 But the Presbyterian preachers were loud and vehement against lenity to Amalekites.  Melville, with useful talents, and perhaps with fair intentions, had neither large views nor an intrepid spirit.  He shrank from uttering a word so hateful to the theological demagogues of his country as Toleration.  By obsequiously humouring their prejudices he quelled the clamour which was rising at Edinburgh; but the effect of his timid caution was that a far more formidable clamour soon rose in the south of the island against the bigotry of the schismatics who domineered in the north, and against the pusillanimity of the government which had not dared to withstand that bigotry.  On this subject the High Churchman and the Low Churchman were of one mind, or rather the Low Churchman was the more angry of the two.  A man like South, who had during many years been predicting that, if ever the Puritans ceased to be oppressed, they would become oppressors, was at heart not ill pleased to see his prophecy fulfilled.  But in a man like Burnet, the great object of whose life had been to mitigate the animosity which the ministers of the Anglican Church felt towards the Presbyterians, the intolerant conduct of the Presbyterians could awaken no feeling but indignation, shame and grief.  There was, therefore, at the English Court nobody to speak a good word for Melville.  It was impossible that in such circumstances he should remain at the head of the Scottish administration.  He was, however, gently let down from his high position.  He continued