ng sometimes in Holland, sometimes in France, sometimes in Jersey,
comforted himself amidst his present distresses with the hopes of better
fortune. The situation alone of Scotland and Ireland gave any immediate
inquietude to the new republic.

After the successive defeats of Montrose and Hamilton, and the ruin of
their parties, the whole authority in Scotland fell into the hands of
Argyle and the rigid churchmen, that party which was most averse to
the interests of the royal family. Their enmity, however, against
the Independents, who had prevented the settlement of Presbyterian
discipline in England, carried them to embrace opposite maxims in their
political conduct. Though invited by the English parliament to model
their government into a republican form, they resolved still to adhere
to monarchy, which had ever prevailed in their country, and which, by
the express terms of their covenant they had engaged to defend. They
considered, besides, that as the property of the kingdom lay mostly in
the hands of great families, it would be difficult to establish a common
wealth; or without some chief magistrate, invested with royal authority,
to preserve peace or justice in the community. The execution, therefore,
of the king, against which they had always protested, having occasioned
a vacancy of the throne, they immediately proclaimed his son and
successor, Charles II.; but upon condition "of his good behavior, and
strict observance of the covenant, and his entertaining no other persons
about him but such as were godly men, and faithful to that obligation."
These unusual clauses, inserted in the very first acknowledgment of
their prince, sufficiently showed their intention of limiting extremely
his authority. And the English commonwealth, having no pretence to
interpose in the affairs of that kingdom, allowed the Scots, for the
present, to take their own measures in settling their government.

The dominion which England claimed over Ireland, demanded more
immediately their efforts for subduing that country. In order to convey
a just notion of Irish affairs, it will be necessary to look backwards
some years, and to relate briefly those transactions which had passed
during the memorable revolutions in England. When the late king agreed
to that cessation of arms with the Popish rebels,[*] which was become
so requisite, as well for the security of the Irish Protestants as for
promoting his interests in England, the parliament,