eneration of profligacy and turmoil, cruelty and
corruption, the Kirk and country were to reap what they had sown in 1638.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE RESTORATION.

There was "dancing and derray" in Scotland among the laity when the king
came to his own again. The darkest page in the national history seemed
to have been turned; the conquering English were gone with their
abominable tolerance, their craze for soap and water, their aversion to
witch-burnings. The nobles and gentry would recover their lands and
compensation for their losses; there would be offices to win, and "the
spoils of office."

It seems that in Scotland none of the lessons of misfortune had been
learned. Since January the chiefs of the milder party of preachers, the
Resolutioners,--they who had been reconciled with the Engagers,--were
employing the Rev. James Sharp, who had been a prisoner in England, as
their agent with Monk, with Lauderdale, in April, with Charles in
Holland, and, again, in London. Sharp was no fanatic. From the first he
assured his brethren, Douglas of Edinburgh, Baillie, and the rest, that
there was no chance for "rigid Presbyterianism." They could conceive of
no Presbyterianism which was not rigid, in the manner of Andrew Melville,
to whom his king was "Christ's silly vassal." Sharp warned them early
that in face of the irreconcilable Protesters, "moderate Episcopacy"
would be preferred; and Douglas himself assured Sharp that the new
generation in Scotland "bore a heart-hatred to the Covenant," and are
"wearied of the yoke of presbyterial government."

This was true: the ruling classes had seen too much of presbyterial
government, and would prefer bishops as long as they were not pampered
and all-powerful. On the other hand the lesser gentry, still more their
godly wives, the farmers and burgesses, and the preachers, regarded the
very shadow of Episcopacy as a breach of the Covenant and an insult to
the Almighty. The Covenanters had forced the Covenant on the consciences
of thousands, from the king downwards, who in soul and conscience loathed
it. They were to drink of the same cup--Episcopacy was to be forced on
them by fines and imprisonments. Scotland, her people and rulers were
moving in a vicious circle. The Resolutioners admitted that to allow the
Protesters to have any hand in affairs was "to breed continual distemper
and disorders," and Baillie was for banishing the leaders of the
Protesters, irreconcilabl