{1661.} These views induced the king to disband all the forces in Scotland, and to raze all the forts which had been erected. General Middleton, created earl of that name, was sent commissioner to the parliament, which was summoned. A very compliant spirit was there discovered in all orders of men. The commissioner had even sufficient influence to obtain an act, annulling at once all laws which had passed since the year 1633; on pretext of the violence which, during that time, had been employed against the king and his father, in order to procure their assent to these statutes. This was a very large, if not an unexampled concession; and, together with many dangerous limitations, overthrew some useful barriers which had been erected to the constitution. But the tide was now running strongly towards monarchy; and the Scottish nation plainly discovered, that their past resistance had proceeded more from the turbulence of their aristocracy, and the bigotry of their ecclesiastics, than from any fixed passion towards civil liberty. The lords of articles were restored, with some other branches of prerogative; and royal authority fortified with more plausible claims and pretences, was, in its full extent, reestablished in that kingdom. The prelacy likewise, by the abrogating of every statute enacted in favor of Presbytery, was thereby tacitly restored; and the king deliberated what use he should make of this concession. Lauderdale, who at bottom was a passionate zealot against Episcopacy, endeavored to persuade him, that the Scots, if gratified in this favorite point of ecclesiastical government, would, in every other demand, be entirely compliant with the king. Charles, though he had not so much attachment to prelacy as had influenced his father and grandfather, had suffered such indignities from the Scottish Presbyterians, that he ever after bore them a hearty aversion. He said to Lauderdale, that Presbyterianism, he thought, was not a religion for a gentleman; and he could not consent to its further continuance in Scotland. Middleton too and his other ministers persuaded him, that the nation in general was so disgusted with the violence and tyranny of the ecclesiastics, that any alteration of church government would be universally grateful. And Clarendon, as well as Ormond, dreading that the Presbyterian sect, if legally established in Scotland, would acquire authority in England and Ireland, seconded the application of these ministers. The resolution was therefore taken to restore prelacy; a measure afterwards attended with many and great inconveniencies: but whether in this resolution Charles chose not the lesser evil, it is very difficult to determine. Sharp, who had been commissioned by the Presbyterians in Scotland to manage their interests with the king, was persuaded to abandon that party; and, as a reward for his compliance, was created archbishop of St. Andrews. The conduct of ecclesiastical affairs was chiefly intrusted to him; and as