ts,--would certainly have been
perilous. Probably the wisest plan would have been to grant a General
Assembly, to meet _after_ the session of Parliament; not, as had been the
custom, to meet before it and influence or coerce the Estates. Had that
measure proved perilous to peace it need not have been repeated,--the
Kirk might have been left in the state to which the English had reduced
it.

This measure would not have so much infuriated the devout as did the
introduction of "black prelacy," and the ejection of some 300 adored
ministers, chiefly in the south-west, and "the making of a desert first,
and then peopling it with owls and satyrs" (the curates), as Archbishop
Leighton described the action of 1663. There ensued the finings of all
who would not attend the ministrations of "owls and satyrs,"--a grievance
which produced two rebellions (1666 and 1679) and a doctrine of
anarchism, and was only worn down by eternal and cruel persecutions.

By violence the Restoration achieved its aim: the Revolution of 1688
entered into the results; it was a bitter moment in the evolution of
Scotland--a moment that need never have existed. Episcopacy was
restored, four bishops were consecrated, and Sharp accepted (as might
have long been foreseen) the See of St Andrews. He was henceforth
reckoned a Judas, and assuredly he had ruined his character for honour:
he became a puppet of Government, despised by his masters, loathed by the
rest of Scotland.

In May-September 1662, Parliament ratified the change to Episcopacy. It
seems to have been thought that few preachers except the Protesters would
be recalcitrant, refuse collation from bishops, and leave their manses.
In point of fact, though they were allowed to consult their consciences
till February 1663, nearly 300 ministers preferred their consciences to
their livings. They remained centres of the devotion of their flocks,
and the "curates," hastily gathered, who took their places, were
stigmatised as ignorant and profligate, while, as they were resisted,
rabbled, and daily insulted, the country was full of disorder.

The Government thus mortally offended the devout classes, though no
attempt was made to introduce a liturgy. In the churches the services
were exactly, or almost exactly, what they had been; but excommunications
could now only be done by sanction of the bishops. Witch-burnings, in
spite of the opposition of George Mackenzie and the Council, were soon as
comm