He
was tried and condemned in his absence. After two years of painful
shifts and wanderings he was tracked down in France by a man known as
Crooked-back Murray, and sent back to his fate. A third victim was James
Guthrie, the most vehement and active of the Covenanters, the framer of
the original Remonstrance and author of a seditious pamphlet called "The
Causes of the Lord's Wrath." With him would probably have suffered
Samuel Rutherford, a minister as zealous as Guthrie, but of more
education and manners. Fortunately for him, he died before the reign of
punishment began; and the Government was forced to content itself with
ordering his book "Lex, Rex," to be burned by the hangman at the Cross
of Edinburgh and at the gate of the University of Saint Andrews, where
he had been Professor of Divinity. In 1662, an Act of Indemnity was made
law, by which future punishment for the past was adjusted by a scale of
fines.
Close on the heels of the Act of Indemnity followed one demanding from
all persons holding any office of public trust a public abjuration of
the Covenant, and another requiring all clergymen who had been appointed
since 1649 to receive collation from the bishop of their diocese. Those
who did not obey were, after a short respite, expelled from their
parishes. Those who obeyed were regarded by their congregations as
backsliders and self-seekers.
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