In May-September 1662, Parliament ratified the change to Episcopacy. It seems to have been thought that few preachers except the Protesters would be recalcitrant, refuse collation from bishops, and leave their manses. In point of fact, though they were allowed to consult their consciences till February 1663, nearly 300 ministers preferred their consciences to their livings. They remained centres of the devotion of their flocks, and the "curates," hastily gathered, who took their places, were stigmatised as ignorant and profligate, while, as they were resisted, rabbled, and daily insulted, the country was full of disorder. The Government thus mortally offended the devout classes, though no attempt was made to introduce a liturgy. In the churches the services were exactly, or almost exactly, what they had been; but excommunications could now only be done by sanction of the bishops. Witch-burnings, in spite of the opposition of George Mackenzie and the Council, were soon as common as under the Covenant. Oaths declaring it unlawful to enter into Covenants or take up arms against the king were imposed on all persons in office. Middleton, of his own authority, now proposed the ostracism, by parliamentary ballot, of twelve persons reckoned dangerous. Lauderdale was mainly aimed at (it is a pity that the bullet did not find its billet), with Crawford, Cassilis, Tweeddale, Lothian, and other peers who did not approve of the recent measures. But Lauderdale, in London, seeing Charles daily, won his favour; Middleton was recalled (March 1663), and Lauderdale entered freely on his wavering, unscrupulous, corrupt, and disastrous period of power. The Parliament of June 1663, meeting under Rothes, was packed by the least constitutional method of choosing the Lords of the Articles. Waristoun was brought from France, tried, and hanged, "expressing more fear than I ever saw," wrote Lauderdale, whose Act "against Separation and Disobedience to Ecclesiastical Authority" fined abstainers from services in their parish churches. In 1664, Sharp, who was despised by Lauderdale and Glencairn, obtained the erection of that old grievance--a Court of High Commission, including bishops, to punish nonconformists. Sir James Turner was intrusted with the task of dragooning them, by fining and the quartering of soldiers on those who would not attend the curates and would keep conventicles. Turner was naturally clement and good-natured, but wine often deprived him of his wits, and his soldiery behaved brutally. Their excesses increased discontent, and war with Holland (1664) gave them hopes of a Dutch ally. Conventicles became common; they had an organisation of scouts and sentinels. The malcontents intrigued with Holland in 1666, and schemed to capture the three Keys of the Kingdom--the castles of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Edinburgh. The States-General promised, when this was done, to send ammunition and 150,000 gulden (July 1666).