JAMES THE SECOND.

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Campbell, was known among the population of the Highlands chap.by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, the fifasTMarquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Co-venanters, had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles theFirst, and was not thought by the Royalists to have atonedfor this offence by consenting to bestow the empty title ofKing, and a state prison in a palace, on Charles the Second.

After the return of the royal family the Marquess was put todeath. His marquisate became extinct; but his son was per-mitted to inherit the ancient earldom, and was still amongthe greatest of the nobles of Scotland. The Earl’s conductduring the twenty years which followed the Restoration hadbeen, as lie afterwards thought, criminally moderate. Hehad, on some occasions, opposed the administration whichafflicted his country: but his opposition had been languid andcautious. His compliances in ecclesiastical matters had givenscandal to rigid Presbyterians; and so far had he been fromshowing any inclination to resistance that, when the Cove-nanters had been persecuted into insurrection, he had broughtinto the field a large body of his dependents to support thegovernment.

Such had been his political course until the Duke ofYork came down to Edinburgh armed with the whole regalauthority. The despotic viceroy soon found that he couldnot expect entire support from Argyle. Since the most power-ful chief in the kingdom could not be gained, it was thoughtnecessary that he should be destroyed. On grounds sofrivolous that even the spirit of party and the spirit of chicanewere ashamed of them, he was brought to trial for treason,convicted, and sentenced to death. The partisans of theStuarts afterwards asserted that it was never meant to carrythis sentence into effect, and that the only object of the pro-secution was to frighten him into ceding his extensive juris-diction in the Highlands. Whether James designed, as his