anger of his
life, and to which the opposition members also went armed and protected,
alleging that they were in fear of the Papists, who were numerous among
the King's guards. However, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, and
were so earnest upon it that they would have carried it again, if the
King had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled
himself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where the
House of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. After which he
scampered home, and the members of Parliament scampered home too, as fast
as their legs could carry them.

The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the law which
excluded Catholics from public trust, no right whatever to public
employment. Nevertheless, he was openly employed as the King's
representative in Scotland, and there gratified his sullen and cruel
nature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful cruelties against
the Covenanters. There were two ministers named CARGILL and CAMERON who
had escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and who returned to
Scotland, and raised the miserable but still brave and unsubdued
Covenanters afresh, under the name of Cameronians. As Cameron publicly
posted a declaration that the King was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was
shown to his unhappy followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke of
York, who was particularly fond of the Boot and derived great pleasure
from having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people, if
they would cry on the scaffold 'God save the King!' But their relations,
friends, and countrymen, had been so barbarously tortured and murdered in
this merry reign, that they preferred to die, and did die. The Duke then
obtained his merry brother's permission to hold a Parliament in Scotland,
which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securing
the Protestant religion against Popery, and then declared that nothing
must or should prevent the succession of the Popish Duke. After this
double-faced beginning, it established an oath which no human being could
understand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that his religion
was the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking it with the
explanation that he did not consider it to prevent him from favouring any
alteration either in the Church or State which was not inconsistent with
the Protestant religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high trea