Our narrative takes up the political story of Scotland at the crisis of the Revolution, when, King James having fled in terror to France, his nephew and daughter, the Prince and Princess of Orange, were proclaimed king and queen as William and Mary, and when the Episcopacy established at the Restoration, after a struggling and unhonoured existence of twenty-eight years, gave way to the present more popular Presbyterian Church. It has been seen how the populace of the west rabbled out the alien clergy established among them; how, notwithstanding the gallant insurrection of my Lord Dundee in the Highlands, and the holding out of Edinburgh Castle by the Duke of Gordon, the new government quickly gained an ascendency. It was a great change for Scotland. Men who had lately been in danger of their lives for conscience’ sake, or starving in foreign lands, were now at the head of affairs—the Earl of Melville, Secretary of State; Crawford, President of Parliament; Argyle restored to title and lands, and a privy-councillor; Dalrymple of Stair, Hume of Marchmont, Steuart of Goodtrees, and many other exiles, come back from Holland to resume prominent positions in the public service at home—while the instruments of the late unhappy government were either captives under suspicion, or living terror-struck at their country-houses. Common sort of people, who had last year been skulking in mosses from Claverhouse’s dragoons, were now marshalled in a regiment, and planted as a watch on the Perth and Forfar gentry. There were new figures in the Privy Council, and none of them ecclesiastical. There was a wholly new set of senators on the bench of the Court of Session. It looked like the sudden shift of scenes in a pantomime, rather than a series of ordinary occurrences.
Almost as a necessary consequence of the Revolution, a war with France commenced in May 1689. Part of the operations took place in Ireland, where James II., assisted with troops by King Louis, and supported by the Catholic population, continued to exercise sovereignty till his defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690). The subjugation of Ireland to the new government was not completed till the surrender of Limerick and other fortified places by treaty (October 3, 1691). Long before this time, the Jacobite movement in Scotland had come to a close by the dispersion of the Highlanders at Cromdale (April 1690). A fortress and garrison were then planted at Inverlochy (Fort William), in order to keep the ill-affected clans Cameron, Macdonald, and others, in check. At the same time, the Earl of Breadalbane was intrusted with the sum of twelve thousand pounds, with which he undertook to purchase the pacification of the Highlands. In 1691, there were still some chiefs in rebellion, and a threat was held out that they would be visited with the utmost severities if they did not take the oaths to the government before the 1st of January next. This led to the massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe (February 13, 1692), an affair which has left a sad shade upon the memory of King William.
