use had to deal no more represented the Scottish nation than the
Irishmen who follow Mr. Parnell's call in the House of Commons represent
their nation now, or than men like Napper Tandy and Wolfe Tone
represented it a century ago. It seems still a common belief that
Claverhouse and his troopers were sent to force upon a sober, patient,
God-fearing nation a religion and a king that they abhorred. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. The large majority of the Scottish
nation was as eager to welcome Charles as the old squires who had lost
their fortunes for his father, or the young bloods who hoped to find
fortunes under the son. The narrow and blatant form of religion
professed by the extreme party was as repulsive to the bulk of their
countrymen as to the King himself.

These men were a remnant of the old Remonstrants of the Mauchline
Convention. They had originally, as we have seen, looked to Argyle as
their leader; but when Argyle ranged himself on the side of the young
King there were some among them who would not follow him. These
maintained, and so far they were unquestionably right, that the "young
man Charles Stuart" was, for all his protestations and oaths, as much at
heart a Malignant as his father; and that those who pretended to believe
him were playing the Kirk and the Covenant false. When Cromwell marched
into Scotland to win the battle of Dunbar these men had formed
themselves into a separate party under Colonel Archibald Strachan, an
able soldier who commanded that division of Leslie's army which had
defeated Montrose in Rossshire. Strachan's design seems to have been to
stand aloof for the present from either side; but from some not very
intelligible cause he fell into disgrace with his party, and this is
said to have so preyed upon his mind as to have caused his death. From
that time the Wild Westland Whigs, as they began now to be called, had
no ostensible leader. They withdrew sullenly to their own homes,
contenting themselves during the remaining years of the Commonwealth
with protesting against everybody and everything outside their own
narrow circle. They must not be confounded with the general body of the
Remonstrants, between whom and the Resolutioners Cromwell had to keep
the balance. They were a people apart. Throughout the wild
hill-districts of the Western Lowlands they preached their fierce
crusade against all who were not prepared to stand by the spirit of the
Covenant as they chose to i