nishment; they
had plotted his assassination; they had risen against him in arms by
thousands. He had avenged himself on them by havoc such as England had
never before seen. Their heads and quarters were still rotting on poles
in all the market places of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire. Aged women
held in high honour among the sectaries for piety and charity had, for
offences which no good prince would have thought deserving even of a
severe reprimand, been beheaded and burned alive. Such had been, even
in England, the relations between the King and the Puritans; and in
Scotland the tyranny of the King and the fury of the Puritans had been
such as Englishmen could hardly conceive. To forget an enmity so long
and so deadly was no light task for a nature singularly harsh and
implacable.

The conflict in the royal mind did not escape the eye of Barillon. At
the end of January, 1687, he sent a remarkable letter to Versailles. The
King,--such was the substance of this document,--had almost convinced
himself that he could not obtain entire liberty for Roman Catholics
and yet maintain the laws against Protestant Dissenters. He leaned,
therefore, to the plan of a general indulgence; but at heart he would
be far better pleased if he could, even now, divide his protection and
favour between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, to the
exclusion of all other religious persuasions. [233]

A very few days after this despatch had been written, James made his
first hesitating and ungracious advances towards the Puritans. He had
determined to begin with Scotland, where his power to dispense with
acts of parliament had been admitted by the obsequious Estates. On
the twelfth of February, accordingly, was published at Edinburgh a
proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences. [234] This
proclamation fully proves the correctness of Barillon's judgment. Even
in the very act of making concessions to the Presbyterians, James could
not conceal the loathing with which he regarded them. The toleration
given to the Catholics was complete. The Quakers had little reason
to complain. But the indulgence vouchsafed to the Presbyterians, who
constituted the great body of the Scottish people, was clogged by
conditions which made it almost worthless. For the old test, which
excluded Catholics and Presbyterians alike from office, was substituted
a new test, which admitted the Catholics, but excluded most of the
Presbyterians. The Catholic