The Earl of Aberdeen (Gordon of Haddo) was now
Chancellor, and Queensberry was Treasurer for a while; both were
intrigued against at Court by the Earl of Perth and his brother, later
Lord Melfort, and probably by far the worst of all the knaves of the
Restoration.

Increasing outrages by the Remnant, now headed by the Rev. Mr James
Renwick, a very young man, led to more furious repression, especially as
in 1683 Government detected a double plot--the wilder English aim being
to raise the rabble and to take or slay Charles and his brother at the
Rye House; while the more respectable conspirators, English and Scots,
were believed to be acquainted with, though not engaged in, this design.
The Rev. Mr Carstares was going and coming between Argyll and the exiles
in Holland and the intriguers at home. They intended as usual first to
surprise Edinburgh Castle. In England Algernon Sidney, Lord Russell, and
others were arrested, while Baillie of Jerviswoode and Carstares were
apprehended--Carstares in England. He was sent to Scotland, where he
could be tortured. The trial of Jerviswoode was if possible more unjust
than even the common run of these affairs, and he was executed (December
24, 1684).

The conspiracy was, in fact, a very serious affair: Carstares was
confessedly aware of its criminal aspect, and was in the closest
confidence of the ministers of William of Orange. What his dealings were
with them in later years he would never divulge. But it is clear that if
the plotters slew Charles and James, the hour had struck for the Dutch
deliverer's appearance. If we describe the Rye House Plot as aiming
merely at "the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne," we shut
our eyes to evidence and make ourselves incapable of understanding the
events. There were plotters of every degree and rank, and they were
intriguing with Argyll, and, through Carstares who knew, though he
refused a part in the murder plot, were in touch at once with Argyll and
the intimates of William of Orange.

Meanwhile "the hill men," the adherents of Renwick, in October 1684,
declared a war of assassination against their opponents, and announced
that they would try malignants in courts of their own. Their manifesto
("The Apologetical Declaration") caused an extraordinary measure of
repression. A test--the abjuration of the _criminal_ parts of Renwick's
declaration--was to be offered by military authority to all and sundry.
Refusal to abjure