s and permit free General Assemblies, the western Whigs
would become his law-abiding subjects; but till that day they would be
irreconcilable." But a Government is not always well advised in yielding
to violence. Moreover, when Government had deserted its clergy, and had
granted free General Assemblies, the two Covenants would re-arise, and
the pretensions of the clergy to dominate the State would be revived.
Lauderdale drifted into a policy of alternate "Indulgences" or
tolerations, and of repression, which had the desired effect, at the
maximum of cost to justice and decency. Before England drove James II.
from the throne, but a small remnant of fanatics were in active
resistance, and the Covenants had ceased to be dangerous.

A scheme of partial toleration was mooted in 1667, and Rothes was removed
from his practical dictatorship, while Turner was made the scapegoat of
Rothes, Sharp, and Dalziel. The result of the scheme of toleration was
an increase in disorder. Bishop Leighton had a plan for abolishing all
but a shadow of Episcopacy; but the temper of the recalcitrants displayed
itself in a book, 'Naphtali,' advocating the right of the godly to murder
their oppressors. This work contained provocations to anarchism, and, in
Knox's spirit, encouraged any Phinehas conscious of a "call" from Heaven
to do justice on such persons as he found guilty of troubling the godly.

Fired by such Christian doctrines, on July 11, 1668, one Mitchell--"a
preacher of the Gospel, and a youth of much zeal and piety," says Wodrow
the historian--shot at Sharp, wounded the Bishop of Orkney in the street
of Edinburgh, and escaped. This event delayed the project of
conciliation, but in July 1669 the first Indulgence was promulgated. On
making certain concessions, outed ministers were to be restored. Two-and-
forty came in, including the Resolutioner Douglas, in 1660 the
correspondent of Sharp. The Indulgence allowed the indulged to reject
Episcopal collation; but while brethren exiled in Holland denounced the
scheme (these brethren, led by Mr MacWard, opposed all attempts at
reconciliation), it also offended the Archbishops, who issued a
Remonstrance. Sharp was silenced; Burnet of Glasgow was superseded, and
the see was given to the saintly but unpractical Leighton. By 1670
conventiclers met in arms, and "a clanking Act," as Lauderdale called it,
menaced them with death: Charles II. resented but did not rescind it. In
fact, the