By such means an insurrection was at last produced, which, from the weakness, or, as some suppose, from the wicked policy of an administration eager for confiscations, and desirous of such a state of the country as might, in some measure, justify their course of government, made such a progress that the insurgents became masters of Glasgow and the country adjacent.  To quell these insurgents, who, undisciplined as they were, had defeated Graham, afterwards Viscount Dundee, the Duke of Monmouth was sent with an army from England; but, lest the generous mildness of his nature should prevail, he had sealed orders which he was not to open till in sight of the rebels, enjoining him not to treat with them, but to fall upon them without any previous negotiation.  In pursuance of these orders the insurgents were attacked at Bothwell Bridge, where, though they were entirely routed and dispersed, yet because those who surrendered at discretion were not put to death, and the army, by the strict enforcing of discipline, were prevented from plunder and other outrages, it was represented by James, and in some degree even by the king, that Monmouth had acted as if he had meant rather to put himself at the head of the fanatics than to repel them, and were inclined rather to court their friendship than to punish their rebellion.  All complaints against Lauderdale were dismissed, his power confirmed, and an act of indemnity, which had been procured at Monmouth’s intercession, was so clogged with exceptions as to be of little use to any but to the agents of tyranny.  Several persons, who were neither directly nor indirectly concerned in the murder of the archbishop, were executed as an expiation for that offence; but many more were obliged to compound for their lives by submitting to the most rapacious extortion, which at this particular period seems to have been the engine of oppression most in fashion, and which was extended not only to those who had been in any way concerned in the insurrection, but to those who had neglected to attend the standard of the king, when displayed against what was styled, in the usual insulting language of tyrants, a most unnatural rebellion.

The quiet produced by such means was, as might be expected, of no long duration.  Enthusiasm was increased by persecution, and the fanatic preachers found no difficulty in persuading their flocks to throw off all allegiance to a government which afforded them no protection.  The king was declared to be an apostate from the government, a tyrant, and an usurper; and Cargill, one of the most enthusiastic among the preachers, pronounced a formal sentence of excommunication against him, his brother the Duke of York, and others, their ministers and abettors.  This outrage upon majesty together with an insurrection contemptible in point of numbers and strength, in which Cameron, another field-preacher, had been killed, furnished a pretence which was by no means neglected for new cruelties and executions; but neither death