We find John Nicoll, the diarist, in 1666, speaking of the west-country Presbyterians as ‘commonly called the Whigs,’ implying that the term was new. The sliding of the appellation from these obscure people to the party of the opposition in London a few years later, is indicated by Daniel Defoe as occurring immediately after the affair of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth then returning from his command in Scotland, instead of thanks for his good service, found himself under blame for using the insurgents too mercifully. ‘And Lauderdale told Charles, with an oath, that the Duke had been so civil to the Whigs, because he was himself a Whig in his heart. This made it a court-word; and in a little while, all the friends and followers of the Duke began to be called _Whigs_.’[122] * * * * * [Sidenote: 1648.] The time of the _Whigs’ Raid_, and from that to the execution of Montrose (May 1650), may be considered as that of an entire supremacy of the religious or rather ecclesiastical system for which the majority of the nation had been struggling for several years. The view of it taken by the royalists is sketched in strong terms by the writers on their side. ‘The kingdom groaned under the most cruel tyranny that ever scourged and afflicted the sons of men. The jails were crammed full of innocent people; the scaffolds daily smoked with the blood of our best patriots. The bones of the dead were dug out of their graves, and their living friends were compelled to ransom them at exorbitant sums. Such as they were pleased to call Malignants were taxed and pillaged at discretion. The Committee of the Kirk sat at the helm, and they were supported by a small number of fanatical persons and others who called themselves the Committee of Estates, but were truly nothing else but the barbarous executioners of their wrath and vengeance. Nor were they ill satisfied with their office, on account of the profits it brought them by fines, sequestrations, and forfeitures, besides the other opportunities it gave them of amassing riches. Every parish had a tyrant, who made the greatest lord in his district stoop to his authority. The kirk was the place where he kept his court; the pulpit, his throne, or tribunal, from whence he issued his terrible decrees; and twelve or fourteen sour enthusiasts, under the title of elders, composed his council. If any, of what quality soever, had the assurance to disobey his edicts, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was immediately thundered out against him, his goods and chattels confiscated and seized, and he himself being looked upon as actually in the possession of the devil, and irretrievably doomed to eternal perdition, all that conversed with him were in no better esteem.’