=40. The Indulgence.=--But these measures only increased the disorders they were intended to quiet, and the Government tried a new system of greater toleration. An _Indulgence_ was issued, by which those of the outed ministers who could prove that they had lived peaceably and had not held conventicles since they had been turned out of their livings, were allowed to go back to their parishes, provided no one else had been put in their place. Some few took advantage of it; but the greater number would not, and looked on their indulged brethren as nearly as bad as the prelatists. But this semblance of yielding was more than balanced by new exactions. _Intercommuning_--that is, having anything to do with any persons who had in any way broken any of the many laws against conventicles--was denounced as a criminal offence. _Lauderdale_, who succeeded _Middleton_ as Commissioner in 1669, brought an army of Celts down on the Lowlands, which they pillaged at pleasure, carrying back rich spoils to their native mountains. =41. Murder of Sharp.=--_Sharp_, the Primate, who was looked on as the originator of all the persecutions, was bitterly hated. He was shot at in Edinburgh while getting into his carriage, but was not hurt. Some time after he recognized the man who had thus tried to take his life. _Mitchell_ the assassin was tried, and being bribed by a promise of pardon, freely confessed that he had fired the shot. Instead of receiving the promised pardon, Mitchell was sent to prison, tortured, and finally put to death in 1678. But the very next year Mitchell's attempt was repeated with better success. As Sharp was driving with his daughter across _Magus Moor_, near St. Andrews, he fell into the hands of a party of men who were lying in wait there for one _Carmichael_, the Sheriff-substitute, a wretch who had made himself specially hated. When they heard that the Archbishop's coach was coming that way, they looked on it as a special act of Providence by which the Lord delivered him into their hands. They fired into the coach, but did not hit him. He sheltered himself behind his daughter, but they dragged him out, and hacked him to death on the heath in a very barbarous way, May 3, 1679. It had long been believed that Sharp was in league with the Devil. To find proof of this they had no sooner slain him than they began to search everything he had with him. At last they opened his snuff-box, when a bee flew out. This they agreed must have been his familiar spirit. Every effort was made to track the murderers, among whom were _Hackston of Rathillet_ and _Balfour of Burley_, but they escaped to the West.