with greater favour than before. To this, indeed, his nine years of bondage
must have not a little contributed. Perhaps the king also saw in Lauderdale
the fittest person through whom he might govern Scotland with absolute
authority, and revenge himself upon the Presbyterians, by whom he had been
so strictly curbed and schooled. Shortly after the Restoration, therefore, he
was appointed secretary of state for Scotland, and soon after, the influential
offices were added of president of the council, first commissioner of the
treasury, extraordinary lord of session, lord of the bedchamber, and governor of 'Edinburgh Castle. In the meantime, however, he did not rule alone;
for while his place was the court at London, from which his influence could
only be indirect upon Scotland, the Earls of Middleton and Rothes, bitter
enemies of Presbyterianism, and unscrupulous actors in the restoration of
Episcopacy, had the chief direction of Scottish affairs, which they signalized
by a frightful course of persecution. "But on Middleton being disgraced in
1662, and Rothes in 1667, Lauderdale, who had procured their removal, was
now enabled to rule the north without rival or impediment.
This change in the government of Scotland had at first a propitious appearance. Lauderdale had all along been the advocate of a limited monarchy, as well as a staunch adherent of Presbyterianism; and it was hoped, by a people who had been trampled into the dust by the rule of Middleton, Rothes, and Archbishop Sharp, that his sympathies would have been awakened in their behalf. Nor were these expectations in the first instance disappointed. He procured the demolition of those fortresses which Cromwell had erected to overawe the country. Be prevented the establishment of a Scottish Privy Council that was to sit in London, by which the liberties of Scotland would have been imperilled. He also obtained the royal pardon for those of his countrymen who had been arrayed against Charles I. during the Civil war. But more than all, he steadily resisted the imposition of Episcopal rule upon the country, disbanded the standing army, by whom the people had been persecuted and plundered, and dismissed the principal agents under whom this misrule had been conducted. But events subsequently showed that he cared neither for religion nor liberty, neither for Presbyterianism nor constitutional government, but was all for royal supremacy, and his own personal interests as connected with it; and that for these he was prepared to sacrifice everything, or worship anything, whether in church or state. He thus became the most merciless persecutor of the Covenanters, whom he sent "to glorify God at the Grass-market;" and the most despotic of tyrants, when, upon a remonstrance of the noblest and highest of the kingdom, he made bare his arms above the elbows at the council board, and " swore by Jehovah that he would make them enter into these bonds." In the meantime, the king took care that so compliant an instrument for the entire subjugation of Scotland to the royal will, should have ample means and authority for the purpose, for in May, 1672, he created him Marquis of March and Duke of Lauderdale; a month afterwards, Knight of the Garter; and in June, 1674, he elevated him into the English peerage, by the titles of Viscount Petersham and Earl of Guilford, and appointed him a seat in the English Privy Council.
It was these last honours, which raised Lauderdale to the culminating point, that occasioned his downfall. Having now a place in the English government, he endeavoured to bring into it the same domineering arrogance which had disgusted the people of Scotland, and was a member of that junto of five ministers
