James, a royal Stuart, residing in long untenanted Holyrood, was made much of by the Scottish nobility and gentry, and to conciliate them he so far unbent his generally sombre and unamiable demeanour. He paid particular attention to the Highland chieftains, and thus laid a foundation for that loyalty to himself and his descendants, so costly to the clansmen. But his presence and his influence in public affairs did no good to the poor Covenanters. Against nonconformity of every shade his only remedies were persecution and suppression. The poor wanderers of the Covenant were hunted as wild beasts. Richard Cameron was slain at Aire Moss. Hackston and Cargill were hanged. It is said that James often amused his leisure hours by witnessing the tortures of the boot and the thumb-screw. And not the common people only were thus vexed and harassed. Strangely- worded oaths, acknowledging the laws and statutes, and also the King’s supremacy, were administered to all holding official positions. When, as a privy counsellor, the oath was tendered to the Earl of Argyle—son of the Marquis who was beheaded at the commencement of the reign—he declared he took it so far as it was consistent with itself, and with the Protestant religion. For adding this qualification, he was tried for, and found guilty of, high treason. He contrived to escape from Edinburgh Castle in the disguise of a page holding up his step- daughter’s train. He reached Holland, a sentence of death hanging over him. And in England, after dismissing the Oxford parliament, the King was despotic. If he had any religious faith at all, it was towards Catholicism, and thus he took up his brother’s quarrel. In the administration of justice, juries were packed, and judges were venal. London was adjudged to have illegally extended its political powers, was fined heavily, and condemned to lose its charters. Breaches of their charters by provincial towns were looked for, and something was generally found sufficient to raise prosecutions upon, the award being always given for the Crown. Fines were levied for the King’s private advantage, and by his veto in the election of magistrates he held in his hand Parliamentary elections. The university of Oxford issued a solemn decree, affirming unlimited submission to the Royal authority; and the most detestable of the very few judges whose names are a stain upon the history of English jurisprudence—Jeffreys—was the very incarnation of venality and injustice; he was a vulgar bully, ever finding a demoniacal pleasure in cruelty and wrong-doing.