on as under the Covenant. Oaths declaring it unlawful to enter into
Covenants or take up arms against the king were imposed on all persons in
office.

Middleton, of his own authority, now proposed the ostracism, by
parliamentary ballot, of twelve persons reckoned dangerous. Lauderdale
was mainly aimed at (it is a pity that the bullet did not find its
billet), with Crawford, Cassilis, Tweeddale, Lothian, and other peers who
did not approve of the recent measures. But Lauderdale, in London,
seeing Charles daily, won his favour; Middleton was recalled (March
1663), and Lauderdale entered freely on his wavering, unscrupulous,
corrupt, and disastrous period of power.

The Parliament of June 1663, meeting under Rothes, was packed by the
least constitutional method of choosing the Lords of the Articles.
Waristoun was brought from France, tried, and hanged, "expressing more
fear than I ever saw," wrote Lauderdale, whose Act "against Separation
and Disobedience to Ecclesiastical Authority" fined abstainers from
services in their parish churches. In 1664, Sharp, who was despised by
Lauderdale and Glencairn, obtained the erection of that old grievance--a
Court of High Commission, including bishops, to punish nonconformists.
Sir James Turner was intrusted with the task of dragooning them, by
fining and the quartering of soldiers on those who would not attend the
curates and would keep conventicles. Turner was naturally clement and
good-natured, but wine often deprived him of his wits, and his soldiery
behaved brutally. Their excesses increased discontent, and war with
Holland (1664) gave them hopes of a Dutch ally. Conventicles became
common; they had an organisation of scouts and sentinels. The
malcontents intrigued with Holland in 1666, and schemed to capture the
three Keys of the Kingdom--the castles of Stirling, Dumbarton, and
Edinburgh. The States-General promised, when this was done, to send
ammunition and 150,000 gulden (July 1666).

When rebellion did break out it had no foreign aid, and a casual origin.
In the south-west Turner commanded but seventy soldiers, scattered all
about the country. On November 14 some of them mishandled an old man in
the clachan of Dalry, on the Ken. A soldier was shot in revenge
(Mackenzie speaks as if a conventicle was going on in the neighbourhood);
people gathered in arms, with the Laird of Corsack, young Maxwell of
Monreith, and M'Lennan; caught Turner, undressed, in Dumfries, a