Infuriated by the severities of what was called the "twenty-eight years' persecution," the Lowland population were ripe for armed revolt, and the capital, to which they flocked in overwhelming masses, became the grand centre of their operations, and the scene of newer atrocities. The greatest outrages were committed upon the persons and property of those unhappy Catholics, Episcopalians, and cavaliers, who fell into the hands of this wild mob. Perth, the Lord Chancellor fled; the Privy Council, which had been severe to the nation, in proportion as it was servile to James, dispatched an immediate address to William, and none were more cordial in their offers of dutiful service than Provost Prince, and the worthy council of Edinburgh: those very men who had so lately declared to the unfortunate Stuart, that they "would stand by his sacred person on all occasions." Now they were equally prompt in offers to his dethroner, to whom they complained bitterly "of the hellish attempts of Romish incendiaries, and of the just grievances of all men relating to conscience, liberty, and property." For three days the capital was in the power of a mad and lawless rabble, who, rendered furious by bigotry and intoxication, committed the most dreadful atrocities. The houses of all who were obnoxious to them were plundered and given to the flames, and all effects of value were scattered in the streets. There were episodes of horror ensued such as Edinburgh had never witnessed before. The streets were filled with the smoke of burning houses; the air was sheeted with flame; the shrieks of the perishing inmates, the howls of their destroyers, and the crash of falling masonry, rang night and day. The college of the Jesuits was levelled to the dust; crosses, and reliques, statues, pictures, and vestments were borne aloft through the streets, and consigned to the flames amid yells of derision. The ale and wine found in the cellars of the cavaliers, inflamed the inborn savagism of the multitude, who were urged by their ministers to commit a thousand nameless atrocities. For three days they continued in a state of perfect intoxication (says Lord Balcarris in his _Memoirs_), and in open daylight, in the crowded streets of the city, committed upon the persons of many Catholic ladies such outrages as cannot be written, and "without any attempt being made by the authorities to restrain such brutality." (pp. 22, 27.)