entailed military execution. The test was only
obnoxious to sincere fanatics; but among them must have been hundreds of
persons who had no criminal designs, and merely deemed it a point of
honour not to "homologate" any act of a Government which was corrupt,
prelatic, and unholy.

Later victims of this view of duty were Margaret Lauchleson and Margaret
Wilson--an old woman and a young girl--cruelly drowned by the local
authorities at Wigtown (May 1685). A myth represents Claverhouse as
having been present. The shooting of John Brown, "the Christian
Carrier," by Claverhouse in the previous week was an affair of another
character. Claverhouse did not exceed his orders, and ammunition and
treasonable papers were in Brown's possession; he was also sheltering a
red-handed rebel. Brown was not shot merely "because he was a
Nonconformist," nor was he shot by the hand of Claverhouse.

These incidents of "the killing time" were in the reign of James II.;
Charles II. had died, to the sincere grief of most of his subjects, on
February 2, 1685. "Lecherous and treacherous" as he was, he was humorous
and good-humoured. The expected invasion of Scotland by Argyll, of
England by Monmouth, did not encourage the Government to use respective
lenity in the Covenanting region, from Lanarkshire to Galloway.

Argyll, who sailed from Holland on May 2, had a council of Lowlanders who
thwarted him. His interests were in his own principality, but he found
it occupied by Atholl and his clansmen, and the cadets of his own House
as a rule would not rally to him. The Lowlanders with him, Sir Patrick
Hume, Sir John Cochrane, and the rest, wished to move south and join
hands with the Remnant in the west and in Galloway; but the Remnant
distrusted the sudden religious zeal of Argyll, and were cowed by
Claverhouse. The coasts were watched by Government vessels of war, and
when, after vain movements round about his own castle, Inveraray, Argyll
was obliged by his Lowlanders to move on Glasgow, he was checked at every
turn; the leaders, weary and lost in the marshes, scattered from
Kilpatrick on Clyde; Argyll crossed the river, and was captured by
servants of Sir John Shaw of Greenock. He was not put to trial nor to
torture; he was executed on the verdict of 1681. About 200 suspected
persons were lodged by Government in Dunottar Castle at the time and
treated with abominable cruelty.

The Covenanters were now effectually put down, though Re