Kitabı oku: «The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1», sayfa 42

Roger North tells us that his brother John, who was Greek professor at Cambridge, complained bitterly of the general neglect of the Greek tongue among the academical clergy.

172 (return)

Butler, in a satire of great asperity, says,

 
     "For, though to smelter words of Greek
     And Latin be the rhetorique
     Of pedants counted, and vainglorious,
     To smatter French is meritorious."
 

173 (return)

The most offensive instance which I remember is in a poem on the coronation of Charles the Second by Dryden, who certainly could not plead poverty as an excuse for borrowing words from any foreign tongue:—

 
     "Hither in summer evenings you repair
     To taste the fraicheur of the cooler air."
 

174 (return)

Jeremy Collier has censured this odious practice with his usual force and keenness.

175 (return)

The contrast will be found in Sir Walter Scott's edition of Dryden.

176 (return)

See the Life of Southern. by Shiels.

177 (return)

See Rochester's Trial of the Poets.

178 (return)

Some Account of the English Stage.

179 (return)

Life of Southern, by Shiels.

180 (return)

If any reader thinks my expressions too severe, I would advise him to read Dryden's Epilogue to the Duke of Guise, and to observe that it was spoken by a woman.

181 (return)

See particularly Harrington's Oceana.

182 (return)

See Sprat's History of the Royal Society.

183 (return)

Cowley's Ode to the Royal Society.

184 (return)

 
     "Then we upon the globe's last verge shall go,
     And view the ocean leaning  on the  sky;
     From  thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
     And on the lunar world secretly pry.'
 
 
          —Annus Mirabilis, 164
 

185 (return)

North's Life of Guildford.

186 (return)

Pepys's Diary, May 30, 1667.

187 (return)

Butler was, I think, the only man of real genius who, between the Restoration and the Revolution showed a bitter enmity to the new philosophy, as it was then called. See the Satire on the Royal Society, and the Elephant in the Moon.

188 (return)

The eagerness with which the agriculturists of that age tried experiments and introduced improvements is well described by Aubrey. See the Natural history of Wiltshire, 1685.

189 (return)

Sprat's History of the Royal Society.

190 (return)

Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, London Gazette, May 31, 1683; North's Life of Guildford.

191 (return)

The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio are mentioned in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.

192 (return)

Petty's Political Arithmetic.

193 (return)

Stat 5 Eliz. c. 4; Archaeologia, vol. xi.

194 (return)

Plain and easy Method showing how the office of Overseer of the Poor may be managed, by Richard Dunning; 1st edition, 1685; 2d edition, 1686.

195 (return)

Cullum's History of Hawsted.

196 (return)

Ruggles on the Poor.

197 (return)

See, in Thurloe's State Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch Deputies dated August 2-12, 1653.

198 (return)

The orator was Mr. John Basset, member for Barnstaple. See Smith's Memoirs of Wool, chapter lxviii.

199 (return)

This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year is not given; but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my purpose. I will quote some of the lines. The master clothier is introduced speaking as follows:

 
     "In former ages we used to give,
     So that our workfolks like farmers did live;
     But the times are changed, we will make them know.
 
 
     "We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day,
     Though a shilling they deserve if they kind their just pay;
     If at all they murmur and say 'tis too small,
     We bid them choose whether they'll work at all.
     And thus we forgain all our wealth and estate,
     By many poor men that work early and late.
     Then hey for the clothing trade! It goes on brave;
     We scorn for to toyl and moyl, nor yet to slave.
     Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease,
     We go when we will, and we come when we please."
 

200 (return)

Chamberlayne's State of England; Petty's Political Arithmetic, chapter viii.; Dunning's Plain and Easy Method; Firmin's Proposition for the Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist.

201 (return)

King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these families 440,000, according to him ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000, ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a week.

202 (return)

Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix B. No. 2, Appendix C. No 1, 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate mentioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Moore, the other, some years later, by Richard Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in Davenant's Essay on Ways and Means; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's valuable work on the poor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers and beggars in 1696, at the incredible number of 1,330,000 out of a population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who received relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 out of a population of about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in those returns, a pauper must very often be reckoned more than once. I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet entitled "Giving Alms no Charity," and the Greenwich tables which will be found in Mr. M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices.

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The deaths were 23,222. Petty's Political Arithmetic.

204 (return)

Burnet, i. 560.

205 (return)

Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit.

206 (return)

Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not venture to quote.

207 (return)

Ward's London Spy.

208 (return)

Pepys's Diary, Dec. 28, 1663, Sept. 2, 1667.

209 (return)

Burnet, i, 606; Spectator, No. 462; Lords' Journals, October 28, 1678; Cibber's Apology.

210 (return)

Burnet, i. 605, 606, Welwood, North's Life of Guildford, 251.

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I may take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever I give only one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth century, the style of England; but I reckon the year from the first of January.

212 (return)

Saint Everemond, passim; Saint Real, Memoires de la Duchesse de Mazarin; Rochester's Farewell; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6, 1676, June 11, 1699.

213 (return)

Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 28, 1684-5, Saint Evremond's Letter to Dery.

214 (return)

Id., February 4, 1684-5.

215 (return)

Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North, 170; The true Patriot vindicated, or a Justification of his Excellency the E-of R-; Burnet, i. 605. The Treasury Books prove that Burnet had good intelligence.

216 (return)

Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2, Oct. 4, 1683.

217 (return)

Dugdale's Correspondence.

218 (return)

Hawkins's Life of Ken, 1713.

219 (return)

See the London Gazette of Nov. 21, 1678. Barillon and Burnet say that Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of Parliament made against priests; but this is a mistake.

220 (return)

Clark's Life of James the Second, i, 746. Orig. Mem.; Barillon's Despatch of Feb. 1-18, 1685; Van Citters's Despatches of Feb. 3-13 and Feb. 1-16. Huddleston's Narrative; Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, 277; Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, First Series. iii. 333: Second Series, iv 74; Chaillot MS.; Burnet, i. 606: Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4. 1684-5: Welwood's Memoires 140; North's Life of Guildford. 252; Examen, 648; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Dryden's Threnodia Augustalis; Sir H. Halford's Essay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See also a fragment of a letter written by the Earl of Ailesbury, which is printed in the European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burnet an impostor. Yet his own narrative and Burnet's will not, to any candid and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other. I have seen in the British Museum, and also in the Library of the Royal Institution, a curious broadside containing an account of the death of Charles. It will be found in the Somers Collections. The author was evidently a zealous Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good sources of information. I strongly suspect that he had been in communication, directly or indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length; but the initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said that the D. of Y. was reminded of the duty which he owed to his brother by P.M.A.C.F. I must own myself quite unable to decipher the last five letters. It is some consolation that Sir Walter Scott was equally unsuccessful. (1848.) Since the first edition of this work was published, several ingenious conjectures touching these mysterious letters have been communicated to me, but I am convinced that the true solution has not yet been suggested. (1850.) I still greatly doubt whether the riddle has been solved. But the most plausible interpretation is one which, with some variations, occurred, almost at the same time, to myself and to several other persons; I am inclined to read "Pere Mansuete A Cordelier Friar." Mansuete, a Cordelier, was then James's confessor. To Mansuete therefore it peculiarly belonged to remind James of a sacred duty which had been culpably neglected. The writer of the broadside must have been unwilling to inform the world that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left to perish had been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity of a woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would prefer a fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not fail to give scandal. (1856.)——It should seem that no transactions in history ought to be more accurately known to us than those which took place round the deathbed of Charles the Second. We have several relations written by persons who were actually in his room. We have several relations written by persons who, though not themselves eyewitnesses, had the best opportunity of obtaining information from eyewitnesses. Yet whoever attempts to digest this vast mass of materials into a consistent narrative will find the task a difficult one. Indeed James and his wife, when they told the story to the nuns of Chaillot, could not agree as to some circumstances. The Queen said that, after Charles had received the last sacraments the Protestant Bishops renewed their exhortations. The King said that nothing of the kind took place. "Surely," said the Queen, "you told me so yourself." "It is impossible that I have told you so," said the King, "for nothing of the sort happened."——It is much to be regretted that Sir Henry Halford should have taken so little trouble ascertain the facts on which he pronounced judgment. He does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the narrative of James, Barillon, and Huddleston.——As this is the first occasion on which I cite the correspondence of the Dutch ministers at the English court, I ought here to mention that a series of their despatches, from the accession of James the Second to his flight, forms one of the most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collection. The subsequent despatches, down to the settlement of the government in February, 1689, I procured from the Hague. The Dutch archives have been far too little explored. They abound with information interesting in the highest degree to every Englishman. They are admirably arranged and they are in the charge of gentlemen whose courtesy, liberality and zeal for the interests of literature, cannot be too highly praised. I wish to acknowledge, in the strongest manner, my own obligations to Mr. De Jonge and to Mr. Van Zwanne.

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Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn. "According to the charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it believed to be by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor any proof ever after made."—Book xiv.

222 (return)

Welwood, 139 Burnet, i. 609; Sheffield's Character of Charles the Second; North's Life of Guildford, 252; Examen, 648; Revolution Politics; Higgons on Burnet. What North says of the embarrassment and vacillation of the physicians is confirmed by the despatches of Van Citters. I have been much perplexed by the strange story about Short's suspicions. I was, at one time, inclined to adopt North's solution. But, though I attach little weight to the authority of Welwood and Burnet in such a case, I cannot reject the testimony of so well informed and so unwilling a witness as Sheffield.

223 (return)

London Gazette, Feb. 9. 1684-5; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 3; Barillon, Feb. 9-19: Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 6.

224 (return)

See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the Examen, 647; Burnet, i. 620; Higgons on Burnet.

225 (return)

London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1684-5; Evelyn's Diary of the same day; Burnet, i. 610: The Hind let loose.

226 (return)

Burnet, i. 628; Lestrange, Observator, Feb. 11, 1684.

227 (return)

The letters which passed between Rochester and Ormond on this subject will be found in the Clarendon Correspondence.

228 (return)

The ministerial changes are announced in the London Gazette, Feb. 19, 1684-5. See Burnet, i. 621; Barillon, Feb. 9-19, 16-26; and Feb. 19,/Mar. 1.

229 (return)

Carte's Life of Ormond; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.

230 (return)

Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678.

231 (return)

The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v chapter v. In this work Lodowick, after his fashion, revenges himself on the "bawling devil," as he calls Jeffreys, by a string of curses which Ernulphus, or Jeffreys himself, might have envied. The trial was in January, 1677.

232 (return)

This saying is to be found in many contemporary pamphlets. Titus Oates was never tired of quoting it. See his Eikwg Basilikh.

233 (return)

The chief sources of information concerning Jeffreys are the State Trials and North's Life of Lord Guildford. Some touches of minor importance I owe to contemporary pamphlets in verse and prose. Such are the Bloody Assizes the life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys, the Panegyric on the late Lord Jeffreys, the Letter to the Lord Chancellor, Jeffreys's Elegy. See also Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 5, 1683, Oct. 31. 1685. I scarcely need advise every reader to consult Lord Campbell's excellent Life of Jeffreys.

234 (return)

London Gazette, Feb. 12, 1684-5. North's Life of Guildford, 254.

235 (return)

The chief authority for these transactions is Barillon's despatch of February 9-19, 1685. It will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History. See also Preston's Letter to James, dated April 18-28, 1685, in Dalrymple.

236 (return)

Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.

237 (return)

Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.

238 (return)

Barillon, Feb. 18-28, 1685.

239 (return)

Swift who hated Marlborough, and who was little disposed to allow any merit to those whom he hated, says, in the famous letter to Crassus, "You are no ill orator in the Senate."

240 (return)

Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 264. Chesterfleld's Letters, Nov., 18, 1748. Chesterfield is an unexceptional witness; for the annuity was a charge on the estate of his grandfather, Halifax. I believe that there is no foundation for a disgraceful addition to the story which may be found in Pope:

 
    "The gallant too, to whom she paid it down,
    Lived to refuse his mistress half a crown."
    Curll calls this a piece of travelling scandal.
 

241 (return)

Pope in Spence's Anecdotes.

242 (return)

See the Historical Records of the first or Royal Dragoons. The appointment of Churchill to the command of this regiment was ridiculed as an instance of absurd partiality. One lampoon of that time which I do not remember to have seen in print, but of which a manuscript copy is in the British Museum, contains these lines:

 
     "Let's cut our meat with spoons:
     The sense is as good
     As that Churchill should
     Be put to command the dragoons."
 

243 (return)

Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.

244 (return)

Barillon, April 6-16; Lewis to Barillon, April 14-24.

245 (return)

I might transcribe half Barillon's correspondence in proof of this proposition, but I will quote only one passage, in which the policy of the French government towards England is exhibited concisely and with perfect clearness.—— "On peut tenir pour un maxime indubitable que l'accord du Roy d'Angleterre avec son parlement, en quelque maniere qu'il se fasse, n'est pas conforme aux interets de V. M. Je me contente de penser cela sane m'en ouvrir a personne, et je cache avec soin mes sentimens a cet egard."—Barillon to Lewis, Feb. 28,/Mar. 1687. That this was the real secret of the whole policy of Lewis towards our country was perfectly understood at Vienna. The Emperor Leopold wrote thus to James, March 30,/April 9, 1689: "Galli id unum agebant, ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram et ejusdem populos fovendo simultates, reliquæ Christianæ Europe tanto securius insultarent."

246 (return)

"Que sea unido con su reyno, yen todo buena intelligencia con el parlamenyo." Despatch from the King of Spain to Don Pedro Ronquillo, March 16-26, 1685. This despatch is in the archives of Samancas, which contain a great mass of papers relating to English affairs. Copies of the most interesting of those papers are in the possession of M. Guizot, and were by him lent to me. It is with peculiar pleasure that at this time, I acknowledge this mark of the friendship of so great a man. (1848.)

247 (return)

Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the history of this quarrel. Summaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset's Life of Bossuet, and in Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV.

248 (return)

Burnet, i. 661, and Letter from Rome, Dodd's Church History, part viii. book i. art. 1.

249 (return)

Consultations of the Spanish Council of State on April 2-12 and April 16-26, In the Archives of Simancas.

250 (return)

Lewis to Barillon, May 22,/June 1, 1685; Burnet, i. 623.

251 (return)

Life of James the Second, i. 5. Barillon, Feb. 19,/Mar. 1, 1685; Evelyn's Diary, March 5, 1685.

252 (return)

 
     "To those that ask boons
     He swears by God's oons
     And chides them as if they came there to steal spoons."
 
 
          Lamentable Lory, a ballad, 1684.
 

253 (return)

Barillon, April 20-30. 1685.

254 (return)

From Adda's despatch of Jan. 22,/Feb. 1, 1686, and from the expressions of the Pere d'Orleans (Histoire des Revolutions d'Angleterre, liv. xi.), it is clear that rigid Catholics thought the King's conduct indefensible.

255 (return)

London Gazette, Gazette de France; Life of James the Second, ii. 10; History of the Coronation of King James the Second and Queen Mary, by Francis Sandford, Lancaster Herald, fol. 1687; Evelyn's Diary, May, 21, 1685; Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 10-20, 1685; Burnet, i. 628; Eachard, iii. 734; A sermon preached before their Majesties King James the Second and Queen Mary at their Coronation in Westminster Abbey, April 23, 1695, by Francis Lord Bishop of Ely, and Lord Almoner. I have seen an Italian account of the Coronation which was published at Modena, and which is chiefly remarkable for the skill with which the writer sinks the fact that the prayers and psalms were in English, and that the Bishops were heretics.

256 (return)

See the London Gazette during the months of February, March, and April, 1685.

257 (return)

It would be easy to fill a volume with what Whig historians and pamphleteers have written on this subject. I will cite only one witness, a churchman and a Tory. "Elections," says Evelyn, "were thought to be very indecently carried on in most places. God give a better issue of it than some expect!" May 10, 1685. Again he says, "The truth is there were many of the new members whose elections and returns were universally condemned." May 22.

258 (return)

This fact I learned from a newsletter in the library of the Royal Institution. Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig party in Bedfordshire.

259 (return)

Bramston's Memoirs.

260 (return)

Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the good Protestants of this Kingdom, 1689; Dialogue between Two Friends, 1689.

261 (return)

Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715.

262 (return)

See the Guardian, No. 67; an exquisite specimen of Addison's peculiar manner. It would be difficult to find in the works of any other writer such an instance of benevolence delicately flavoured with contempt.

263 (return)

The Observator, April 4, 1685.

264 (return)

Despatch of the Dutch Ambasadors, April 10-20, 1685.

265 (return)

Burnet, i. 626.

266 (return)

A faithful account of the Sickness, Death, and Burial of Captain Bedlow, 1680; Narrative of Lord Chief Justice North.

267 (return)

Smith's Intrigues of the Popish Plot, 1685.

268 (return)

Burnet, i. 439.

269 (return)

See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials.

270 (return)

Evelyn's Diary, May 7, 1685.

271 (return)

There remain many pictures of Oates. The most striking descriptions of his person are in North's Examen, 225, in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, and In a broadside entitled, A Hue and Cry after T. O.

272 (return)

The proceedings will be found at length in the Collection of State Trials.

273 (return)

Gazette de France May 29,/June 9, 1685.

274 (return)

Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, May 19-29, 1685.

275 (return)

Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685; Eachard, iii. 741; Burnet, i. 637; Observator, May 27, 1685; Oates's Eikvn, 89; Eikwn Brotoloigon, 1697; Commons' Journals of May, June, and July, 1689; Tom Brown's advice to Dr. Oates. Some interesting circumstances are mentioned in a broadside, printed for A. Brooks, Charing Cross, 1685. I have seen contemporary French and Italian pamphlets containing the history of the trial and execution. A print of Titus in the pillory was published at Milan, with the following curious inscription: "Questo e il naturale ritratto di Tito Otez, o vero Oatz, Inglese, posto in berlina, uno de' principali professor della religion protestante, acerrimo persecutore de' Cattolici, e gran spergiuro." I have also seen a Dutch engraving of his punishment, with some Latin verses, of which the following are a specimen:

 
     "At Doctor fictus non fictos pertulit ictus
     A tortore datos haud molli in corpore gratos,
     Disceret ut vere scelera ob commissa rubere."
 

The anagram of his name, "Testis Ovat," may be found on many prints published in different countries.

276 (return)

Blackstone's Commentaries, Chapter of Homicide.

277 (return)

According to Roger North the judges decided that Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was incompetent to be a witness of the plot. But this is one among many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much altercation between counsel, and much consultation among the judges of the different courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell his story; but the jury very properly gave no credit to his testimony.

278 (return)

Dangerfield's trial was not reported; but I have seen a concise account of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of the evidence against Francis, and his dying speech, will be found in the Collection of State Trials. See Eachard, iii. 741. Burnet's narrative contains more mistakes than lines. See also North's Examen, 256, the sketch of Dangerfield's life in the Bloody Assizes, the Observator of July 29, 1685, and the poem entitled "Dangerfield's Ghost to Jeffreys." In the very rare volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halstead," Lord Peterbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had some intercourse, was "a young man who appeared under a decent figure, a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed from a common understanding."

279 (return)

Baxter's preface to Sir Mathew Hale's Judgment of the Nature of True Religion, 1684.

280 (return)

See the Observator of February 28, 1685, the information in the Collection of State Trials, the account of what passed in court given by Calamy, Life of Baxter, chap. xiv., and the very curious extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Life, by Orme, published in 1830.

281 (return)

Baxter MS. cited by Orme.

282 (return)

Act Parl. Car. II. March 29,1661, Jac. VII. April 28, 1685, and May 13, 1685.

283 (return)

Act Parl. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685, Observator, June 20, 1685; Lestrange evidently wished to see the precedent followed in England.

284 (return)

His own words reported by himself. Life of James the Second, i. 666. Orig. Mem.

285 (return)

Act Parl. Car. II. August 31, 1681.

286 (return)

Burnet, i. 583; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of the Duke of York are wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been met by a direct contradiction. But the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There is in he Acta of the Scottish Privy Council a hiatus extending from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of York began to reside in Scotland in December 1679. He left Scotland, never to return in May 1682. (1857.)

287 (return)

Wodrow, III. ix. 6.

288 (return)

Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The editor of the Oxford edition of Burnet attempts to excuse this act by alleging that Claverhouse was then employed to intercept all communication between Argyle and Monmouth, and by supposing that John Brown may have been detected in conveying intelligence between the rebel camps. Unfortunately for this hypothesis John Brown was shot on the first of May, when both Argyle and Monmouth were in Holland, and when there was no insurrection in any part of our island.

289 (return)

Wodrow, III. ix, 6.

290 (return)

Wodrow, III. ix. 6. It has been confidently asserted, by persons who have not taken the trouble to look at the authority to which I have referred, that I have grossly calumniated these unfortunate men; that I do not understand the Calvinistic theology; and that it is impossible that members of the Church of Scotland can have refused to pray for any man on the ground that he was not one of the elect.—— I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in his history, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That narrative is signed by two eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he published it, submitted it to a third eyewitness, who pronounced it strictly accurate. From that narrative I will extract the only words which bear on the point in question: "When all the three were taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to the west side of the town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if they would pray for King James VII. They answered, they would pray for all within the election of grace. Balfour said Do you question the King's election? They answered, sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and said they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ's vicegerent, and so without one word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to his prayers, for he should die.—— In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable; and I shall not easily be convinced that any writer now living understands the feelings and opinions of the Covenanters better than Wodrow did. (1857.)

291 (return)