“I have considered the test, and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can.  I am confident the parliament never intended to impose contradictory oaths; therefore I think no man can explain it but for himself.  Accordingly I take it, as far as it is consistent with itself and the Protestant religion.  And I do declare that I mean not to bind up myself in my station, and in a lawful way, to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of the Church or State, not repugnant to the Protestant religion and my loyalty.  And this I understand as a part of the oath.”  And for this declaration, though unnoticed at the time, he was in a few days afterwards committed, and shortly after sentenced to die.  Nor was the test applied only to those for whom it had been originally instituted, but by being offered to those numerous classes of people who were within the reach of the late severe criminal laws, as an alternative for death or confiscation, it might fairly be said to be imposed upon the greater part of the country.

Not long after these transactions James took his final leave of the government, and in his parting speech recommended, in the strongest terms, the support of the Church.  This gracious expression, the sincerity of which seemed to be evinced by his conduct to the conventiclers and the severity with which he had enforced the test, obtained him a testimonial from the bishops of his affection to their Protestant Church, a testimonial to which, upon the principle that they are the best friends to the Church who are most willing to persecute such as dissent from it, he was, notwithstanding his own nonconformity, most amply entitled.

Queensbury’s administration ensued, in which the maxims that had guided his predecessors were so far from being relinquished, that they were pursued, if possible, with greater steadiness and activity.  Lawrie of Blackwood was condemned for having holden intercourse with a rebel, whose name was not to be found in any of the lists of the intercommuned or proscribed; and a proclamation was issued, threatening all who were in like circumstances with a similar fate.  The intercourse with rebels having been in great parts of the kingdom promiscuous and universal, more than twenty thousand persons were objects of this menace.  Fines and extortions of all kinds were employed to enrich the public treasury, to which, therefore, the multiplication of crimes became a fruitful source of revenue; and lest it should not be sufficiently so, husbands were made answerable (and that too with a retrospect) for the absence of their wives from church; a circumstance which the Presbyterian women’s aversion to the episcopal form of worship had rendered very general.