There can be little doubt that Dalyell returned to Scotland, with a heart boiling with rancour against those who had sold and destroyed the king; and who had brought so many of his brother soldiers--the Scottish Cavaliers of Montrose, of Hamilton and Munro--and so many of his own kinsmen, to the scaffold. With this sentiment may have been a longing for vengeance upon those who had been so long dominant in the land; who had deprived him of his estate and driven him into exile; and all these bitter sentiments were doubtless fostered by the inborn prejudice of class, religion, education, and the foreign service of years. To all these must be attributed many of the fierce and relentless acts which are related of him by the historians of the Covenant. Many of these dark deeds must, however, be doubted; and many accepted with caution. After the Restoration, the Parliament of Scotland, which was presided over by Lieutenant-General the Earl of Middleton as High Commissioner, proved a very pliant and complying body. They granted to Charles II. a revenue of 40,000_l._ for life, and rescinded all the acts passed by their wiser predecessors for defining or _restricting_ the royal prerogative. The Solemn League and Covenant was pronounced a treasonable and seditious bond; and they passed other acts, by which the Earl of Lauderdale, Secretary of State for Scotland, gradually prepared a way for the abolition of Presbytery, and the restoration of an Episcopal Hierarchy. Alarmed by these measures, the Scottish Kirk sent James Sharpe, one of their most eminent divines, to expostulate with Charles II.; but Sharpe abandoned his colours, and betrayed their cause by accepting the Archbishopric of St. Andrews, while the Marquis of Argyle, James Guthrie, and Johnstone of Warriston, who had conspired with Cromwell, and directly, or indirectly, abetted the sale and execution of Charles I., were consigned to the headsman. Such was the new aspect of affairs, and it made religion and rancour grow side by side in the land. The rash king next enjoined the Scottish privy council openly to establish Episcopacy, and bishops for the new dioceses were consecrated in England; while Fairfowl, Archbishop of Glasgow, was insane enough to solicit an act of council to eject all recusant ministers, and close their churches until episcopally ordained incumbents could be procured: and by this act, _three hundred and fifty_ parishes, about a third of those in the kingdom, were declared to be vacant; and this tyranny was attempted after all the wars, battles, and bloodshed in defence of the Covenant--after all the armies levied and lives lost since 1638, and after the king himself had perished in attempting to subvert the rights of the people! Now, the Scots became justly more than ever inflamed against the cruelty and injustice of their own government.