"THE BLUIDY MACKENZIE." 66 MR LANG has done well to write from the modern historical standpoint the life of one whom he describes thoroughly modern man, one of ourselves, set in society and political environment unlike ours, and perverted by his surroundings."1 The penalty for discordance with contemporary fashions is complete and persistent misunderstanding for, at any rate, a century or two. Historians are prone to classify under broad heads, and any subtlety of temper escapes their notice. Popular opinion looks only at deeds, and the suspicion of recondite motives serves only to add duplicity to the other counts of condemnation. Accordingly Mackenzie has remained for posterity "the bluidy advocate," and this "modern man" has taken his place in the vision of Wandering Willie's Tale' with "the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale, and Dalziel with his bald head and a beard to his girdle, and Earlshall with Cameron's blude on his hand, and wild Bonshaw that tied blessed Mr Cargill's limbs till the blude sprang, and Dunbarton Douglas, the twice-turned traitor baith to country and king." But Sir George was neither fierce, nor cruel, nor dissolute, nor specially crafty; nor was he ever a traitor; nor had he one single point in common with moss - trooping ruffians like Lag and Bonshaw. Yet "that noble wit of Scotland," as Dryden called him, has for two hundred years enjoyed the most gory of names, his tomb in Greyfriars churchyard has been the target of the street boys of Edinburgh, and he has secured the kind of popular hatred which in England has deservedly followed Jeffreys and Scroggs. Indeed, since the man of the robe is more disliked than the man of war, he has been odious beyond the average of the "Persecutors.' For much of this, no doubt, he has himself to thank; but it is the duty of serious history to revise popular reputations, and the work in the case of Mackenzie is overdue. "The impartial critic," says Mr Lang in a different connection, "can hardly touch Scottish history without evoking the outcries of blistered patriots." Happily in this case the patriot need not suffer, for a moderate defence of Mackenzie does not involve any new upsetting of Covenanting sanctities. The main plea is rather in extenuation than in defence. Mr Lang has done his work with great thoroughness and with marked fairness of temper. He has been meticulous in his examination of evidence, and scrupulously logical in his deductions. The reader will find no special pleading, and little in the way of historical generalising, save the sound doctrine that the despotisms of the Stuarts 1 Sir George Mackenzie: His Life and Times. By Andrew Lang. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. and of the Covenant were who first swithers and then both bad things, and had takes sides, appears still as the to be destroyed before the ambitious independent man, land could win peace. Mr and if he is earnest in the Lang has had one aim, and cause he has chosen he will one aim only, to get at the get no credit for scruples from facts about a very difficult char- any opponent. It is useless to acter. The result is a complete argue that a lawyer's loyalty portrait of Mackenzie, a criti- to his official superiors may be cism based upon a true under- as sincere as that of a soldier; standing. Many tangled pieces the world has long ago made of history are "redd-up," and up its mind to distrust the much new light is cast upon long robe. This has been controverted matters. We are Mackenzie's case. He had cerbound to add that while the tain convictions, broad-minded book is a conspicuous example and humane; he was also ambiof the author's value as an in- tious in his profession, a loyal quirer, it is also conspicuously servant of the king, and a good full of the faults of construc- fighter. His career was not tion which mar his historical in accord with his published work. Evidence is tumbled convictions; therefore, says the out precisely as Mr Lang disinterred it, and while the data are given the reader has generally to construct the case for himself. For example, the chapter on Argyll's downfall is a new and valuable contribution to our knowledge, but we defy any one to make head or tail of the argument at a first reading. In the fierce times of civil and religious strife the moderate man has a hard part to play. The world's sympathy goes out to the rash inconsiderate fiery voluntary, rather than to the men who see both sides of the case, are enthusiasts for neither, and choose their party with a sad resignation. A Falkland can never have the popularity of a Cromwell or a Rupert. For the soldier the task is easier, for he is under orders once the die is cast, and therefore a Montrose and a Claverhouse become definitely partisans who fight wholeheartedly for their cause. But a lawyer world, like so many others he kept his principles in one pocket and his ambitions in another. It is a fair judgment, but one must add the rider that in those ambitions there were certain other principles, the principles of a lawyer faithful to the law which he had to interpret. The conflict is therefore rather between the humanist and the legalist than between God and mammon. At the Restoration a Moderate Episcopacy was established in Scotland as a measure of policy by the advice of the majority of the Scottish Council in London, and apparently without any great desire on the part of the king. It was a fatal blunder, but the situation was difficult enough. Presbyterianism had become committed to the Covenant and to a doctrine of the "Crown honours of Christ," which made civilised government impossible. The preachers claimed to act only on God's commands, of which each individual was the sole judge. They demanded that the decrees of the kirk should override the laws of the land; and the more extreme among them preached the Knoxian doctrine of the divine "call to execute judgment upon idolaters." They advocated a crusade against Episcopacy and its extirpation in England. It may well have seemed to Charles and his advisers that the restoration of Presbytery with its political propaganda would lead at once to anarchy and presently to civil war. They therefore as a police measure tried a modified Episcopal system which would give them direct authority over the ecclesiastical leaders. It is easy now to see that the thing was a hopeless blunder, an unwarrantable interference with individual rights; but it is not so easy to see what other plan would have succeeded. Probably the best would have been to restore Presbyterianism and punish soundly all ministers who strayed into treasonable paths. It would have meant some harassed years, but the good sense of the people might have come to their aid. There were many quiet folk who resented the secular interference of the extremists. The Covenanter Baillie had a scheme for sending all the Remonstrant preachers to the Orkneys. Mr Robert Law, who was "outed" in 1662, sighed for the Cromwellian days, when there was no General Assembly. "From the year 1652 to 1660," he writes in his 'Memorials,' "there was great good done by the preaching of the Gospel in the West of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or thirty years before; a great many brought in to Christ Jesus by a saving work of conversion, which was occasioned by ministers preaching nothing through all that time but the Gospel, and had left off to preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrances." There must have been many Mr Laws, and the future was with them had the Government but realised it. Instead, they suffered in the general policy of curbing dangerous fanatics by making fanatics out of men naturally law-abiding and welldisposed. The government of Scotland fell into the hands of hungry nobles, eager for fines and penalties to pay their debts with, and as turbulent and profligate as they were stupid. A difficult situation was speedily turned into an impossible one. Mackenzie first comes upon the scene as a cultivated and ardent Liberal. He was sprung from the old house of Kintail, and his mother was a minister's daughter. After an education at Aberdeen and St Andrews, and a short stay at the University of Bourges, he was admitted to the Scottish Bar. The following year he published his novel, 'Aretina,' a youthful exercise in the Scudéry manner. Next year he was engaged for the defence in a great case for an advocate of two years' standing-the trial of Argyll for high treason. Mackenzie argued, with reference to his client's dealings with Cromwell, that his compliance was merely passive, and therefore not punishable. Unfortunately the sensational production, when the speeches were over, of a number of letters to Monk convinced Parliament that Argyll's offence was complicity rather than compliance, and the verdict was for death. Mackenzie, as we know from his own account, was much in sympathy with his client, and to him we owe the record of a gallant saying. His toleration is prominent, next, in his attitude towards witches, many of whom, as JusticeDepute, he had the business of trying. He exerted his influence on behalf of these wretched women, and did his best to have some of the villainous witch-finders punished. His position enabled him to squash many cases and to impose easy penalties in others. He did not reject the possibility of witchcraft altogether, though he was always inclined to be suspicious of the supernatural. But his humanity was outraged by the methods of extorting evidence, and his lawyer's mind condemned most of the proofs as flimsy. Such an attitude was not popular in his day, least of all among the ministers; and later Mr Donald Cargill made this protection of sorcery one of the grounds for excommunicating the King's Advocate. the philosophy which inspired his life. The gist of it is, that the practice of piety is much more vital in religion than this or that confession of faith. Sects dispute only over things immaterial, and absolute certainty on these matters is for ever denied to mankind. But since the human mind needs some code, the wise man will accept any reasonable creed which has been given the sanction of the law of his country. "In all articles not absolutely necessary for being saved, I make the laws of my country my creed," says this admirable Erastian. There is much in Justice- much in the style of the treatise to suggest Mr Balfour's 'Foundations of Belief.' The most famous sentences in it are those in which he condemns persecution for heresy as unjust-"God leaving us upon our own hazard, a freedom in our choice " and impolitic, since "it fares with heretics as with tops, which, so long as they are scourged, keep foot and run pleasantly, but fall as soon as they are neglected and left to themselves." This does not mean, however, as Mr Lang well points out, that persecution of heretics is not justifiable if their heresy becomes a danger to the public peace. "I confess," Mackenzie writes, "when men not only recede from the canonised creed of the Church, but likewise encroach upon the laws of the State, then, as of all others they they are the most dangerous, so of all others they should be most severely punished." On this point, at In 1663, when he was twentyfive years of age, he published his most interesting book, 'The Religious Stoic.' It contains VOL. CLXXXV.-NO. MCXXI. 2 B any rate, he was always consistent. Towards the end of his life he said a good word for the Quakers, against whom every man's hand was turned. He would always defend the Quietist, but not the militant Presbyterian. About this time his liberalism was stronger than his legalism. He is said to have disapproved of the liturgy, he certainly disapproved strongly of the "outing " of ministers in 1662-63; he dedicated with words of high commendation one of his moral essays to that Earl of Crawford who resigned office rather than take the anti-Presbyterian oath; and, though the date is uncertain, he seems to praise that extremest of fanatics, Johnstone of Waristoun. Some Presbyterian influence was at work in him, but it is difficult to know its source or duration, for his Memoirs 'seem to have been extensively revised at different dates. When he came into Parliament in 1669 we find him a pillar of the anti-Lauderdale Opposition. He regarded the Lords of the Articles as "a grievance with us," though later he came to think them one of the pillars of Prerogative. He fought the cause of the free burghs and opposed the practice of forfeiting rebels who did not appear when summoned to trial, In general he seems to have stood out against the Government of Scotland by a selfish oligarchy of nobles, who were now anti-Covenant as they had once been Covenanters, but even so Mackenzie, as the defender of monarchic rights, was likened by Sir George Lockhart to "a John of Leyden, a Masaniello, an enraged Venner the cooper and his Fifth-monarchy men." But the war was not to be waged over civil rights but over the endless differences in religion. The Indulgence of 1669 was a clever attempt to split the Presbyterian opposition, but it only filled the pulpits, in Leighton's words, with "owls and satyrs," and drove serious people to conventicles. Then came the Act of Supremacy, by which Lauderdale scotched the nascent ultramontane longings of the bishops. Lauderdale, with all his faults, was impartial in his favours to the clergy of every denomination. From these events dates the Persecution, properly so called. The Western Lowlands began to prepare for a systematic disobedience to the law, and the Government girded its loins for systematic repression. The Covenanting tradition needs no defence of ours. In its purer form it inspired hundreds of simple men and women to suffer and die for a spiritual cause. Its followers may have been guilty oftentimes of lawlessness and folly, but they opposed a deeper lawlessness and a more dangerous error. At the same time, it is only fair to realise that the Government were hard bested. Their initial blunder in church policy at the Restoration had committed them to a course from which there seemed to be no retreat. Moreover, they saw in the anarchy of the Westlands |