The despotic viceroy soon
found that he could not expect entire support from Argyle. Since the
most powerful chief in the kingdom could not be gained, it was thought
necessary that he should be destroyed. On grounds so frivolous that even
the spirit of party and the spirit of chicane were ashamed of them, he
was brought to trial for treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. The
partisans of the Stuarts afterwards asserted that it was never meant
to carry this sentence into effect, and that the only object of the
prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his extensive jurisdiction
in the Highlands. Whether James designed, as his enemies suspected, to
commit murder, or only, as his friends affirmed, to commit extortion by
threatening to commit murder, cannot now be ascertained. "I know nothing
of the Scotch law," said Halifax to King Charles; "but this I know, that
we should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle has
been sentenced." [334]

Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence passed over to
Friesland. In that secluded province his father had bought a small
estate, as a place of refuge for the family in civil troubles. It was
said, among the Scots that this purchase had been made in consequence of
the predictions of a Celtic seer, to whom it had been revealed that Mac
Callum More would one day be driven forth from the ancient mansion of
his race at Inverary. [335] But it is probable that the politic Marquess
had been warned rather by the signs of the times than by the visions
of any prophet. In Friesland Earl Archibald resided during some time so
quietly that it was not generally known whither he had fled. From
his retreat he carried on a correspondence with his friends in Great
Britain, was a party to the Whig conspiracy, and concerted with the
chiefs of that conspiracy a plan for invading Scotland. [336] This plan
had been dropped upon the detection of the Rye House plot, but became
again the Subject of his thoughts after the demise of the crown.

He had, during his residence on the Continent, reflected much more
deeply on religious questions than in the preceding years of his life.
In one respect the effect of these reflections on his mind had been
pernicious. His partiality for the synodical form of church government
now amounted to bigotry. When he remembered how long he had conformed to
the established worship, he was overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and
showed too many signs