Parnell's call in the House of Commons represent
their nation now, or than men like Napper Tandy and Wolfe Tone
represented it a century ago. It seems still a common belief that
Claverhouse and his troopers were sent to force upon a sober, patient,
God-fearing nation a religion and a king that they abhorred. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. The large majority of the Scottish
nation was as eager to welcome Charles as the old squires who had lost
their fortunes for his father, or the young bloods who hoped to find
fortunes under the son. The narrow and blatant form of religion
professed by the extreme party was as repulsive to the bulk of their
countrymen as to the King himself.
These men were a remnant of the old Remonstrants of the Mauchline
Convention. They had originally, as we have seen, looked to Argyle as
their leader; but when Argyle ranged himself on the side of the young
King there were some among them who would not follow him. These
maintained, and so far they were unquestionably right, that the "young
man Charles Stuart" was, for all his protestations and oaths, as much at
heart a Malignant as his father; and that those who pretended to believe
him were playing the Kirk and the Covenant false. When Cromwell marched
into Scotland to win the battle of Dunbar these men had formed
themselves into a separate party under Colonel Archibald Strachan, an
able soldier who commanded that division of Leslie's army which had
defeated Montrose in Rossshire.
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