argued against his treatment on
technical grounds, and on the following day, when, after being duly
cited, he neither compeared nor pled "ane aguish distemper," the Bishop
and Synod charged the Presbytery of Auchterarder to proceed with the
excommunication, which after some bungling they did, and finally the
superior Court ordered the {200} intimation of the excommunication to
be read from every pulpit in the Diocese on the first Sabbath of
January, 1681, but no attempt was made to detain the unruly member, and
the door of grace was left open to the very last, quite remarkable
leniency when it is remembered that 1680 was the year of the Sanquhar
Declaration and Airds Moss, and that the peroration of Mr Spence's
protest would have done credit to Cuddy Headrigg's mother. "For these
reasons specially, and many others I need not mention now, I, the said
William Spence, protest against the sentence aforesaid, and disown the
same, seeing the said inflicters have hereby proclaimed themselves to
be the patrones and abettors of all the said corruptions, supplanters
of the Gospel faction for Anti-christ, promoters of the powers of
darkness, enemies to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and such from whom
all good Christians ought to separate because of their maintaining and
defending soul-murdering heresies, and in persecuting with the utmost
violence and rigour any man who darr open his mouth for the truth of
Christ. (_Sic Subscribitur_), Mr William Spence."[14]

{201}

Mr Spence as yet was only an ecclesiastical rebel, and instead of going
over to the extreme Covenanters, made his way to Holland, where he
joined the colony of Scotch refugees. Ultimately he attached himself
to the Earl of Argyle as a kind of secretary, and conducted part of the
correspondence between the Earl and the English plotters. He was in
London in 1683, apparently on the Earl's business, when he was arrested
and imprisoned for some months, but as he could not be efficiently
examined in England, where torture was not legal, he was finally sent
down to Scotland along with Carstares and other suspects in His
Majesty's "Kitchin Yaucht," which did not go at a royal pace, for the
journey to Leith took thirteen days. They arrived late at night on
November 14th, having left London on the 1st, and were taken straight
to the Tolbooth.[15] A week after, orders came from London that Mr
Spence should be put to the torture, but for some reason or other he
was left al