Free A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game by Jenny Uglow Page A

to build Scotland into a strong ‘citadel’, a bulwark of monarchical strength, which would bring it revenue and help it progress. He was also useful to Charles, in dealing with the most intractable Scottish question, religion.
    To begin with, when the Earl of Rothes took over from Middleton as Charles’s commissioner to the Scottish parliament in 1663, backed by Archbishop James Sharp as head of the kirk, Lauderdale had mostly remained in Whitehall. But the Dutch war placed a great drain on Scottish resources and at the same time Archbishop Alexander Burnet of Glasgow persuaded Rothes to implement a fierce crackdown on covenanters, depicted as potential rebels. The administration expelled ministers and imposed draconian fines on all who attended conventicles, sending out troops to collect them and hunt down illegal meetings. The troops were led by the ruthless Sir James Turner, whose searches became even more brutal when it was feared that covenanters might collude with the Calvinist, republican States General. In November 1666, in reaction to Turner’s raids, and prompted by a passionate exhortation from John Brown, an exiled minister in Holland, rebels gathered in the south-west of Scotland. Affirming their oath to the covenant, they captured Turner at Dumfries and marched on Edinburgh. But they were not strong enough to take the city, and as they turned back to the south they were trapped at Rullion Green in the Pentland Hills. Gilbert Burnet (no relation to the Archbishop), who was twenty-three at the time, and had already written a polemic against the repressive policy of the Scottish bishops, reported the scene in the hills before the rebels faced the government troops:
     
    Their ministers did all they could by preaching and praying to infuse courage into them: and they sung the seventy-fourth and the seventy-eighth Psalms. And so they turned on the king’s forces. They received the first charge that was given them by the troop of guards very resolutely, and put them in disorder. But that was all the action; for immediately they lost all order, and ran for their lives. It was now dark: about forty were killed on the spot, and a hundred and thirty were taken. 13
     
    Ironically, Rothes was in London, assuring Charles of the security of his northern kingdom, when the rising broke out. Now he came scurrying back with a new title, as general-in-chief of the army. In their interrogation of the prisoners, and in their hunt for conspirators in the country, Rothes’s men used torture (which was banned by law in England but remained legal in Scotland) to obtain information. This horrified all who heard of it and many people risked their lives to save the rebels. The leaders were tried, convicted and strung up in groups on the gallows, still refusing to renounce the covenant. ‘For all the pains of torture,’ wrote Burnet, describing the death of the young preacher Maccail, he ‘died in a rapture of joy’:
     
    His last words were, Farewell sun, moon and stars, farewell kindred and friends, farewell world and time, farewell weak and frail body; welcome eternity, welcome angels and saints, welcome saviour of the world, and welcome God the Judge of all: which he spoke with a voice and manner that struck all that heard it.
     
    According to this account, Archbishop Burnet watched the men hang, deliberately keeping a reprieve from the king in his pocket. Charles had sent an urgent message, saying that he thought enough blood had been shed: all prisoners who agreed to obey the law should be released, and those who refused should be sent to the Plantations. But the king and the cleric had different notions of justice. Charles was pragmatic, wanting just enough judicial murder to stop further risings, but not enough to create martyrs. The Archbishop simply wanted revenge.
    Lauderdale was appalled by the brief, tragic Pentland Rising and its consequences, but used it swiftly to increase his own influence. In early 1667, with