The conduct of the Duke of Lauderdale, who was the chief actor in these scenes of violence and iniquity, was completely approved and justified at court; but in consequence probably of the state of politics in England at a time when the Whigs were strongest in the House of Commons, some of these grievances were in part redressed, and the Highlanders, and writs of Lawburrows were recalled. But the country was still treated like a conquered country. The Highlanders were replaced by an army of five thousand regulars, and garrisons were placed in private houses. The persecution of conventicles continued, and ample indemnity was granted for every species of violence that might be exercised by those employed to suppress them. In this state of things the assassination and murder of Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, by a troop of fanatics, who had been driven to madness by the oppression of Carmichael, one of that prelate's instruments, while it gave an additional spur to the vindictive temper of the government, was considered by it as a justification for every mode and degree of cruelty and persecution. The outrage committed by a few individuals was imputed to the whole fanatic sect, as the government termed them, or, in other words, to a description of people which composed a great majority of the population in the Lowlands of Scotland; and those who attended field or armed conventicles were ordered to be indiscriminately massacred. By such means an insurrection was at last produced, which, from the weakness, or, as some suppose, from the wicked policy of an administration eager for confiscations, and desirous of such a state of the country as might, in some measure, justify their course of government, made such a progress that the insurgents became masters of Glasgow and the country adjacent. To quell these insurgents, who, undisciplined as they were, had defeated Graham, afterwards Viscount Dundee, the Duke of Monmouth was sent with an army from England; but, lest the generous mildness of his nature should prevail, he had sealed orders which he was not to open till in sight of the rebels, enjoining him not to treat with them, but to fall upon them without any previous negotiation. In pursuance of these orders the insurgents were attacked at Bothwell Bridge, where, though they were entirely routed and dispersed, yet because those who surrendered at discretion were not put to death, and the army, by the strict enforcing of discipline, were prevented from plunder and other outrages, it was represented by James, and in some degree even by the king, that Monmouth had acted as if he had meant rather to put himself at the head of the fanatics than to repel them, and were inclined rather to court their friendship than to punish their rebellion. All complaints against Lauderdale were dismissed, his power confirmed, and an act of indemnity, which had been procured at Monmouth's intercession, was so clogged with exceptions as to be of