68

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chajp. ;t in his power to persecute others, his real propensities began■ 168 ^ — to show themselves. He hated the Puritan sects with a mani-fold hatred, theological and political, hereditary and personal.He regarded them as the foes of Heaven, as the foes of alllegitimate authority in Church and State, as his great grand-mother’s foes and his grandfather’s, his father’s and hismother’s, his brother’s and his own. He, who had com-plained so loudly of the laws against Papists, now declaredhimself unable to conceive how men could have the im-pudence to propose the repeal of the laws against Puritans.*He, whose favourite theme had been the injustice of requiringcivil functionaries to take religious tests, established in Scot-land, when he resided there as Viceroy, the most rigorousreligious test that has ever been known in the empire.** He,who had expressed just indignation when the priests of hisown faith were hanged and quartered, amused himself withhearing Covenanters shriek and seeing them writhe while theirknees were beaten flat in the boots.*** In this mood he becameKing, and he immediately demanded and obtained from theobsequious Estates of Scotland, as the surest pledge of theirloyalty, the most sanguinary law that has ever in our islandsbeen enacted against Protestant Nonconformists,cruel With this law the whole spirit of his administration was in

ofTho 1 " 11 perfect harmony. The fiery persecution, which had ragedcovenan- when he ruled Scotland as vicegerent, waxed hotter than everters. from the day on which he became sovereign. Those shires inwhich the Covenanters were most numerous were given up tothe license of the army. With the army was mingled a militia,composed of the most violent and profligate of those who

* His own words reported by himself. Clarke’s Life of James theSecond, i. 656. Orig. Mem.

** Act Pari. Car. II. August 31.1681.

*** Burnet, i. 583.; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of theScottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of theDuke of York are wanting.