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CARSTARS, WILLIAM, an
eminent political and ecclesiastical character, was born at the village of
Cathcart in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, on the 11th of
February, 1649. His father was Mr. John Carstairs, descended of a very
ancient family in Fife, and minister in the high church of Glasgow, where
he had for his colleague the Rev. James Durham, well known for his
commentary on the Revelation and other learned and pious works. His mother’s
name was Jane Muir, of the family of Glanderston in the county of Renfrew.
Giving early indication of an uncommon genius, young Carstairs was by his
father placed under the care of a Mr Sinclair, an indulged presbyterian
minister, who at that time kept a school of great celebrity at Ormiston, a
village in east Lothian. Under Mr Sinclair, in whose school, as in all
schools of that kind at the time, and even in the family, no language but
Latin was used, Carstairs acquired a perfect knowledge of that language,
with great fluency of expressing himself in it, and a strong taste for
classical learning in general. He had also the good fortune to form, among
the sons of the nobility who attended this celebrated seminary, several
friendships, which were of the utmost consequence to him in after life.
Having completed his course
at the school, Mr Carstairs entered the college of Edinburgh in his
nineteenth year, where he studied for four years under Mr, afterwards Sir
William Paterson, who in later life became clerk to the privy council of
Scotland. Under this gentleman he made great proficiency in the several
branches of the school philosophy then in vogue; but the distracted state
of the country determined his father to send him to study divinity in
Holland, where many of his brethren, the persecuted ministers of the
church of Scotland, had already found an asylum. He was accordingly
entered in the university of Utrecht, where he studied Hebrew under
Leusden and Divinity under Herman Witsius, at that time two of the most
celebrated professors in Europe. He had also an opportunity, which he
carefully improved, of attending the lectures of the celebrated Graevius,
who was at this time in the vigour of his faculties and the zenith of his
reputation. The study of theology, however, was what he made his main
business, which having completed, he was licensed as a preacher of the
gospel, but where or by whom seems not to have been known by any of his
biographers. In all probability, it was by some of the classes of
Holland. Being strongly attached to the presbyterian system, in which he
had been educated, and for adherence to which his father was a sufferer at
home, and himself in a limited sense a wanderer in a strange land, for it
was to avoid the taking of unnecessary or unlawful oaths imposed by the
bishops that he had been sent by his father to study at Utrecht, he
naturally took a deep interest in the affairs of his native country, and
was early engaged in deliberating upon the means of her deliverance. On
sending him to Holland by the way of London, his father introduced him by
letter to an eminent physician of that city, who kindly furnished him with
a letter to the physician of the prince of Orange. This latter gentleman,
upon the strength of his friend’s recommendation, introduced Carstairs
to the Pensionary Fogel, who finding him so much a master of every thing
relative to the state of parties and interests in Great Britain,
introduced him to a private interview with his master, the prince, who was
at once struck with his easy and polite address, and with the extent of
his political knowledge. This favourable opinion was heightened by
subsequent interviews, and in a short time nothing of consequence was
transacted at his court relative to Great Britain, till Carstairs had been
previously consulted. Holland had, from the first attempts of the court
after the Restoration to suppress the presbyterians, been the general
resort of such of the Scottish clergy as found it impossible to retain
their stations, and they were soon followed by numbers of their unhappy
countrymen who had vainly perilled their lives on the fatal fields of
Pentland and Bothwell, with the principal of whom Carstairs could not, in
the circumstances in which he was placed, fail to become acquainted. Being
well connected, and in no way obnoxious to the government, he seems to
have been selected both by his expatriated countrymen and by the agents of
the prince of Orange to visit Scotland on a mission of observation in the
year 1682.
Nothing could be more
hopeless than the condition of Scotland at this time. Her ministers where
every where silenced: Cargill and Cameron, the only two that remained of
the intrepid band that had so long kept up the preached gospel in the
fields, had both fallen, the one on the scaffold by an iniquitous
sentence, the other on the open heath by the hand of violence. Her nobles
were either the slaves of arbitrary royalty, or they had already
expatriated themselves, or were just about to do so, while the body of her
people, Issachar-like, were crouching beneath their burdens in the most
hopeless dejection. Finding no encouragement in Scotland, where the few
individuals that felt any of the true aspirations of liberty, were
seriously engaged in a project for purchasing lands and transporting
themselves, their families, and their friends to Carolina in North
America, Mr Carstairs determined to return to Holland, where, under a
rational and indulgent government, he had enjoyed a liberty which he found
to his grief was not to be obtained at home. He, however, probably not
without instructions, took London in his way, where he arrived in the
month of November, 1682, at the very time when Shaftesbury, Monmouth,
Sydney, Essex, Russell, Hampden, and Howard were engaged in what has been
called Shaftesbury’s plot, or more generally, from a forged story of a
design to murder the king and the duke of York at a farm called the Rye,
possessed by colonel Rumbold, the Ryehouse plot. These gentlemen were
actuated by very different views. Monmouth had probably no object but the
crown; Russell and Hampden were for restraining the prerogative and
securing the nation’s liberties, civil and religious; Sydney and Essex
were for restoring the republic, while Howarcl, a man without principle,
seems to have had nothing in view, but to raise a tumult, whereby he might
by accident promote his private interest. All of them, however, agreed in
soliciting the co-operation of those Scotsmen, who, no longer able to
subsist under the impositions of a government whose sole object seemed to
be not the protection, but the entire ruin of its subjects, were about to
transport themselves to a distant and desert country. Most of the
conspirators having some previous knowledge of Carstairs, he was employed
to negotiate between the parties; and he was empowered by a letter from
Sir James Stewart, afterwards lord advocate for Scotland, to assure the
English conspirators that, upon furnishing a certain sum of money for the
purchase of arms and ammunition, the Scottish refugees in Holland were
ready to co-operate with them by an immediate descent upon the west coast
of Scotland. This letter he communicated to Russell and Sydney, seconding
its contents by a fervent eulogium upon the influence, the talents, and
the particular merits of Argyle, whose numerous vassals, extensive
jurisdictions, as well as his past sufferings, pointed him out as the most
proper person to head an insurrection in that country. All this must have
been self-evident to the whole party; yet they do not seem to have been so
cordial as might have been expected. Though Carstairs ceased not to press
the object of his mission, he was put off from time to time till he was at
length told by Shepherd, an eminent wine-merchant in London, who was one
of the subaltern conspirators, that he had heard Sydney declare that he
would have nothing to do with Argyle, being well aware that, whatever his
present circumstances might prompt him to undertake, he was too strongly
attached to the reigning family and to the present government, both in
church and state, to unite cordially with them in the measures they had
determined to pursue. At the same time, he was told both by Shepherd and
Ferguson that the party were jealous of Sydney as driving a secret design
of his own, and Ferguson took the opportunity to hint to Mr Carstairs,
that there might be an easier method of attaining their point than by an
open rebellion, as by taking the lives of at most two men, they might
spare the lives of thousands, evidently, hinting at what must have been
spoken of among the inferior members of this conspiracy, though certainly
never among the higher, the assassination of the king and the duke of
York. Feeling himself insulted, and the cause disgraced by such a
proposal, Mr Carstairs told Ferguson that he and the men with whom he was
engaged, thought themselves warranted even with arms in their hands, to
demand for redress of their grievances, those constitutional remedies
which had been so often denied to their complaints and remonstrances; but
they held it beneath them, both as men and as Christians, to adopt any
such mean and cowardly contrivances either against the king or his
brother. From that time forward, Ferguson never mentioned any such thing
in his presence, nor did he ever hear any such thing alluded to in his
intercourse with any other of the party. Disgusted, however, with their
procrastination he took his departure for Holland, without carrying any
message, having refused to do so, except it were a full compliance with
his demands.
Scarcely had he landed in
Holland, than Shaftesbury found it convenient to follow him, not daring to
trust himself any longer in England; and by his desertion, the remaining
conspirators, finding their connection with the city of London, upon which
they had placed great dependence, broken, saw it the more necessary to
unite with Argyle and the refugees abroad, as well as with the Scots at
home. Sydney now dropped all his objections, and letters were immediately
forwarded to Carstairs, requesting him to come over, and an express was
sent down to Scotland, for his friends to come up, in order to a speedy
adjustment of every particular relative to the insurrection and
consentaneous invasion. In consequence of this, consultations were held
among the refugees, Argyle, Stair, Loudoun, Stewart, and others, where it
was proposed that the conspirators in England should contribute thirty
thousand pounds sterling in money, and one thousand horse, to be ready to
join Argyle the moment he should land upon the west coast of Scotland. Mr
Stewart was for accepting a smaller sum of money, if so much could not be
obtained; but all agreed in the necessity of raising the horse before any
thing should be attempted. Stair seemed more cold in the matter than the
others; but Argyle having assured Carstairs that, so soon as the
preliminaries were settled, he would be found abundantly zealous, he
consented to carry their proposals and lay them before the committee or
council, that had been by the conspirators appointed to conduct the
business at London. When he arrived there, he was mortified to find that
the difficulty of raising the money now was as formidable an obstacle as
the opposition of Sydney had formerly been. Russell frankly acknowledged
that the whole party could not raise so much money; and begged that ten
thousand pounds might be accepted as a beginning, and even this was never
paid to Shepherd, who was appointed cashier to the concern, nor was one
single step taken for levying the proposed number of troops upon the
borders. After having spent several weeks in London, fruitlessly
prosecuting the business that had been entrusted to him, he became
perfectly convinced from the temper of the men and their mode of procedure
that the scheme would come to nothing. This opinion he communicated to a
meeting of his countrymen, where were present Baillie of Jerviswood, lord
Melvill, Sir John Cochrane, the Campbells of Cessnock, and others,
recommending it to them to attend to their own safety, by putting an
immediate stop to further preparations, till their brethren of England
should be more forward, and better prepared to join them. Baillie of
Jerviswood, the most ardent and decisive of all his countrymen who had
engaged in this enterprise, reflected bitterly upon the timidity of the
English, who had suffered their zeal to evaporate in talk, when they
might, by promptitude of action, have been already in possession of the
benefits they expected to derive from the undertaking; and insisted that
the Scots should prosecute the undertaking by themselves. There was, no
doubt, in this something very heroic; but alas, it was vain, and he
himself was speedily brought to confess that it was so. It was agreed to,
however, by all, that a communication should be made to their English
friends, that, unless they were determined to act with more vigour, they
were not to expect co-operation on the part of the Scots any longer. In
the meantime they wrote to their friends in Scotland, to suspend their
preparations till further notice. This was a very proper and wise
determination; only it came too late. The English conspirators had no
unity of purpose, and they had no decision. They had talked away the time
of action, and the whole scheme was already falling to pieces by its own
weight. In short, before they could return an answer to their Scottish
brethren, the whole was betrayed, and they were alone to a man in the
hands of the government.
The prudence of the Scots
saved them in part; yet the government got immediate information, that
there had been a correspondence carried on with Argyle by the
conspirators, and Major Holmes, the person to whom all Argyle’s letters
were directed, was taken into custody, having a number of the letters, and
the cypher and key in his possession. The cypher and key belonged to Mr
Carstairs, who had sent it to Monmouth only two days before, to enable him
to read a letter from Argyle, which having done, he returned it to Major
Holmes, in whose hands it was now taken. The earl of Melfort no sooner saw
the cypher than he knew part of it to be the handwriting of Carstairs, and
an order was instantly issued for his apprehension, as art and part in the
assassination plot. Though Mr Carstairs was conscious of being innocent as
to this part of the plot, he had gone too far with the conspirators for an
examination on the subject to be safe either for himself or his friends.
He therefore assumed a fictitious name, and concealed himself among his
friends in Kent the best way he could. Being discovered in this situation,
he was suspected to be the notorious Ferguson, of all the conspirators the
most obnoxious to government, and as such was seized in the house of a
friend at Tenterden, and thrown into the jail of that place on the Monday
after the execution of lord Russell. Here he continued for a fortnight,
when orders came for his being brought up to London, where he was for some
days committed to the charge of a messenger at arms. During this interval
Sir Andrew Forrester brought him a message from the king informing him,
that though his majesty was not disposed to believe that he had any direct
hand in plotting either his death, or that of the duke of York; yet as he
had corresponded with Argyle and Russell, he was convinced that he knew
many particulars relative to the Rye House plot, which if he would
discover, with what he knew of any other machinations against the
government, he would not only receive an ample pardon for the past, but
the king would also show him all manner of favour for the time to come.
If, however, he rejected this, he was to abide by the consequences, which,
in all likelihood, would be fatal to him. His answer not proving
satisfactory, he was committed to close custody in the Gatehouse, where he
continued upwards of eleven weeks. During this time he was often before
the privy council, but revealed nothing. At length, finding that he could
obtain no favour through the king, but upon dishonourable conditions, he
petitioned the court of king’s bench for his habeas corpus, instead
of which he received an intimation that he was to be sent down to Scotland
within twenty-four hours, to take his trial in that kingdom. It was in
vain that he represented it as a breach of law to send him to be tried in
Scotland for a crime said to be committed in England. He was sent off next
day with several other of his friends, who were consigned into the hands
of the Scottish privy council, to be tried for compassing the death of the
king in London, or at the Rye House, between London and Newmarket. Among
that unhappy number was a servant of Argyle, of the name of Spence, who
was instantly brought before that most abominable tribunal, the privy
council of Scotland, where, because he refused to take an oath to
criminate himself, he was first put to the torture of the boot, which he
endured with unshrinking firmness; then kept from sleep upwards of nine
nights together—which not answering the expectations that had been
formed, steel screws were invented for his thumbs, which proved so
exquisite a torment, that he sunk under it, the earl of Perth assuring him
at the same time, that they would screw every joint of his body in the
same manner till he took the oath. Even in this state, Spence had the
firmness to stipulate that no new questions should be put to him, that he
should not be brought forward as a witness against any person, and that he
himself should be pardoned. He then acquainted them with the names of
Argyle’s correspondents, and assisted them in decyphering the letters,
by which it was seen what Argyle had demanded, and what he had promised to
do upon his demands being granted; but there was nothing in them of any
agreement being then made.
Carstairs, in the mean
time, was laid in irons, and continued in them several weeks, Perth
visiting him almost daily, to urge him to reveal what he knew, with
promises of a full pardon, so far as he himself was concerned. On this
point, however, Mr Carstairs was inflexible; and when brought before the
council, the instruments of torture being laid before him, and he asked by
the earl of Perth if he would answer upon oath such questions as should be
put to him, he replied, with a firmness that astonished the whole council,
that in a criminal matter he never would, but, if they produced his
accusers, he was ready to vindicate himself from any crime they could lay
to his charge. He was then assured, that if he would answer a few
questions that were to be put to him concerning others, nothing he said
should ever militate against himself, nor should they ever inquire whether
his disclosures were true or false; but he peremptorily told them, that
with him, in a criminal cause, they should never found such a detestable
precedent. To the very foolish question put to him, it he had any
objections against being put to the torture, he replied, he had great
objections to a practice that was a reproach to human nature, and as such
banished from the criminal courts of every free country. Here he repeated
the remonstrances he had given in to the council at London, and told them
that he did consider his trial a breach of the habeas corpus act.
To this Perth replied, that he was now in Scotland, and must be tried for
crimes committed against the state by the laws of that country, had they
been committed at Constantinople. The executioner was now brought forward,
and a screw of a particular construction applied to his thumb with such
effect that large drops of sweat streamed over his brow. Yet he was
self-possessed, and betrayed no inclination to depart from his first
resolution. The earl of Queensberry was much affected, and after telling
Perth that he saw the poor man would rather die than confess, he ran out
of the council, followed by the duke of Hamilton, both being unable longer
to witness the scene. Perth sat to the last without betraying any symptoms
of compassion for the sufferer. On the contrary, when by his express
command the executioner had turned the screw with such violence as to make
Carstairs cry out, that now he had squeezed the bones to pieces, the
monster, in great indignation, told him that if he continued longer
obstinate, he hoped to see every bone in his body squeezed to pieces.
Having kept their victim under this cruel infliction for an hour and a
half without effect, the executioner was ordered to produce the iron
boots, and apply them to his legs; but, happily for Mr Carstairs, the
executioner, young at his trade, and composed of less stern stuff than his
masters, was so confused that he could not fix them on. After
repeated attempts, he was obliged to give it up, and the council
adjourned.
Torture having thus
proved vain, the council once more assailed him in the way of flattery,
promising him an ample pardon for himself, and that he should never be
called in any court as a witness on any trial, and they further stipulated
that none of his answers to the interrogatories to be put to him, should
ever be produced in evidence, either directly or indirectly, in any court,
or against any person whatsoever. On these conditions, as they had already
extracted from Mr Spence and Major Holmes, nearly all that he could inform
them of upon the stipulated questions, he consented to answer them,
provided the promise made him was ratified by a deed of court, and
recorded in their books. He had, however, scarcely given his answers, when
they were printed and hawked through the streets, under the name of
Carstairs’ Confession. Had they been printed correctly, less might have
been said; but they were garbled to suit the purpose of the ruling party,
which was to criminate Jerviswood, on whose trial Mackenzie the advocate
read them to the jury as an adminicle of proof, without taking any
notice of the qualifications with which they were clothed, the alleviating
circumstances with which the facts to which they related were accompanied,
or the conditions upon which he delivered them. They were so far true to
their agreement, however, as to relieve him from his confinement in a
dungeon of the castle, where he had remained for some months cut off from
all communication with his friends, and struggling under the infirmities
of a shattered constitution. He was also permitted to leave Scotland, on
condition that he should wait on the secretaries at London, on his way to
Holland. Milport being then at court, he went to him and demanded a pass,
which he found no difficulty in obtaining; but the king was desirous to
see him, and the secretary thought he ought in duty to wait upon him, and
receive his commands. On stating, however, that, in such a conversation
with the king, he might be led to say what might not be so honourable to
some of his majesty’s servants in Scotland, the secretary made out his
pass, and he departed for Holland, where he arrived in the end of the year
1684, or the beginning of 1685, only a few months before the death of
Charles II., and the accession of James VII.
This was by far the most
important event in the life of Carstairs, and it is impossible to say how
much the human race may be indebted to his firmness and his address on
this occasion. He had, at this very time, secrets of the greatest
consequence from Holland, trusted to him by the pensionary Fogel, of which
his persecuters had no suspicion. The discovering of these secrets would
not only have saved him from torture, but would undoubtedly have brought
him a high reward, and, had they been at that time discovered, the
glorious revolution might have been prevented, and these kingdoms, instead
of being the first and most exalted, as they are at this day, been among
the lowest and most debased of nations. The great anxiety the Scottish
managers were under to take the life of Baillie, by implicating him in the
Rye House plot, seems so totally to have blinded them, that they had no
suspicion of the Dutch connection, which Carstairs was so apprehensive
about, and which he was so successful in concealing. On his return to
Holland, William, fully appreciating his merits, received him into his
family, appointed him one of his own chaplains, and at the same time
procured him to be elected minister of the English protestant congregation
at Leyden. To the day of his death William reposed upon the advice of
Carstairs with the most perfect confidence. He was now, indeed, much
better qualified than ever for being serviceable to his illustrious
patron. During his stay in Britain he had had a fair opportunity of
judging of public men and public measures. He had not only witnessed in
others, but he had felt himself, the severities of a popish
administration; and he saw the universal alienation of all ranks from the
system of government they had adopted, and perceived that the very methods
fallen upon for stilling popular clamour was only tending to its increase.
The narrow politics of the duke of York he had thoroughly penetrated, was
aware of all the schemes he had laid for enslaving the nation, and saw
that the tools with which he was working could easily be turned to his own
destruction, Of all these interesting particulars he was admitted to give
his sentiments freely to the prince of Orange, who was no longer at pains
to conceal his aversion to the means James was employing to restore the
Catholic church. This encouraged still greater numbers of suffering
British subjects to place themselves under his protection, and for the
characters of these new comers his Royal Highness generally applied to
Carstairs, and he was wont to remark, that he never in one instance had
occasion to charge him with the smallest attempt to mislead or deceive
him. It cannot indeed be doubted that he was made the channel of many
complaints and advices to William, which were never made known to the
public. Of these secret warnings the prince had sagacity enough to make
the best use, even when he was to outward appearance treating them with
neglect, and Carstairs himself was in all probability not a little
surprised when he was summoned to attend him on an expedition to Great
Britain. Notwithstanding all that has been spoken and written and printed
about it, we believe that William felt very little, and cared very little
about the sufferings of the British people; but he had an eye steadily
fixed upon the British crown, to which, till the birth of a prince of
Wales, June 10th, 1688, his wife was the heir apparent, and so long as he
had the prospect of a natural succession, whatever might be the disorders
of the government or the wishes of the people, he was not disposed to
endanger his future greatness by any thing like a premature attempt to
secure it. The birth of the prince, however, gave an entirely new aspect
to his affairs. He behoved now to fix upon the disorders of the
government, and embrace the call of the people, or abandon all reasonable
hopes of ever wearing that diadem which he so fondly coveted, and by which
alone he could ever hope to carry into effect those mighty plans of policy
with which his mind had been so long pregnant. Equally wise to discern and
prompt to act, he lost not a moment in idle hesitation; but while he
seemed to discourage all the invitations he was now daily receiving,
hastened to complete his preparations, and on the 19th of October, 1688,
set sail for the shore of Britain with sixty-five ships of war, and five
hundred transports, carrying upwards of fifteen thousand men. The
subject of this memoir accompanied him as his domestic chaplain aboard his
own ship, and he had in his train a numerous retinue of British subjects,
whom the tyranny of the times had compelled to take refuge in Holland. On
the evening of the same day, the fleet was dispersed in a tremendous
hurricane, and by the dawn of next morning not two of the whole fleet were
to be seen together. On the third day William returned to port, with only
four ships of war and forty transports. The ship in which he himself
sailed narrowly escaped being wrecked, which was looked on by some about
him as an evil omen, and among the rest by Burnet, afterwards bishop of
Salisbury, who remarked that it seemed predestined they should not set
foot on English ground. A few days, however, collected the whole fleet
once more, and on the 1st of November, the whole sailed again with a fair
wind, and on Monday the 5th, the troops were safely landed at Torbay in
Devonshire, the English fleet all the while lying wind-bound at Harwich.
On the landing of the troops, Mr Carstairs performed divine service at
their head, after which the whole army drawn up along the beach sang the
118th psalm before going into a camp. From this time till the
settlement of the crowns upon William and Mary, Carstairs continued about
the person of the prince, being consulted and employed in negotiating
affairs of peculiar delicacy, and disposing of sums of money with which he
was entrusted, in various quarters. "It was during this
interval," says his biographer, and the editor of his state papers,
the Rev. Joseph M’Cormick, "that he had it in his power to be of
the greatest service to the prince of Orange, nothing being carried on
relative to the settlement of Scotland which the prince did not
communicate to him, and permit him to give his sentiment of in
private." He was highly instrumental in procuring the settlement of
the church of Scotland in its present presbyterian form; which was found
to be a matter of no small difficulty, as the king was anxious that the
same system should continue in both parts of the island. Carstairs has
been often blamed for having acceded to the king’s wishes for
maintaining patronage, and also for recommending that some of the worst
instruments of the late monarch should be continued in office, which he
did upon the plea that most of them were possessed of influence and
qualifications, which, if properly directed, might be useful under the new
régime. It must be recollected, that, at such a critical time, a man of
Carstairs’ political sagacity was apt to be guided rather by what was
practically expedient than what was abstractly proper. It is probable that
Carstairs, who was unquestionably a sincere man, was anxious to render the
settlement of the church and of the government as liberal as he thought
consistent with their stability, or as the circumstances he had to contend
against would permit. King William now took an opportunity of atoning to
his counsellor for all his former sufferings; he appointed Mr Carstairs
his chaplain for Scotland, with the whole revenue of the Chapel Royal. He
also required the constant presence of Mr Carstairs about his person,
assigning him apartments in the palace when at home, and when abroad with
the army allowing him £500 a year for camp equipage.
He was of course with his
majesty at all times, and by being thus always at hand was enabled on some
occasions, to do signal service both to his king and his country. Of this
we have a remarkable instance, which happened in the year 1694. In 1693,
the Scottish parliament had passed an act, obliging all who were in office
to take the oath of allegiance to their majesties, and at the same time to
sign the assurance, as it was called, whereby they declared William to be
king de jure as well as de facto. This was one of the first
of a long series of oppressive acts intended secretly to ruin the Scottish
church, by bringing her into collision with the civil authorities, and in
the end depriving her of that protection and countenance which she now
enjoyed from them. This act had been artfully carried through the
parliament by allowing a dispensing power to the privy council in cases
where no known enmity to the king’s prerogative existed. No honest
presbyterian at that time had any objection to king William’s title to
the crown; but they had insuperable objections to the taking of a civil
oath as a qualification for a sacred office. Numerous applications were of
course made to the privy council for dispensations; but that court which
had still in it a number of the old persecutors, so far from complying
with the demand, recommended to his majesty to allow no one to sit down in
the ensuing general assembly till he had taken the oath and signed the
assurance. Orders were accordingly transmitted to lord Carmichael, the
commissioner to the assembly to that effect. When his lordship arrived in
Edinburgh, however, he found the clergy obstinately determined to refuse
compliance with his demand, and they assured him it would kindle a flame
over the nation which it would surpass the power of those who had given
his majesty this pernicious council to extinguish. Lord Carmichael, firmly
attached to his majesty, and aware that the dissolution of this assembly
might not only be fatal to the church of Scotland, but to the interests of
his majesty in that country, sent a flying packet to the king,
representing the difficulty, and requesting further instructions. Some of
the ministers at the same time wrote a statement of the case to Carstairs,
requesting his best offices in the matter. Lord Carmichael’s packet
arrived at Kensington on a forenoon in the absence of Mr Carstairs, and
William, who, when he could do it with safety, was as fond of stretching
the prerogative as any of his predecessors, with the advice of the
trimming lord Stair and the infamous Tarbet, both of whom being with him
at the time, calumniously represented the refusal on the part of the
clergy to take the oaths as arising from disaffection to his majesty’s
title and authority, peremptorily renewed his instructions to the
commissioner, and despatched them for Scotland without a moment’s delay.
Scarcely was this done,
when Carstairs arrived; and learning the nature of the despatch that had
been sent for Scotland, hastened to find the messenger before his final
departure, and having found him, demanded back the packet, in his majesty’s
name. It was now late in the evening; but no time was to be lost; so he
ran straight to his majesty’s apartment, where he was told by the lord
in waiting that his majesty was in bed. Carstairs, however, insisted on
seeing him; and, being introduced to his chamber, found him fast asleep.
He turned aside the curtain, and gently awakened him; the king, astonished
to see him at so late an hour, and on his knees by his bedside, asked,
with some emotion, what was the matter. "I am come," said
Carstairs," to beg my life!" "Is it possible," said
the king, with still higher emotion, "that you can have been guilty
of a crime that deserves death!" "I have, Sire," he
replied, showing the packet he had just brought back from the messenger.
"And have you, indeed," said the king, with a severe frown,
"presumed to countermand my orders?" "Let me be heard but
for a few moments," said Carstairs, "and I am ready to submit to
any punishment your majesty shall think proper to inflict." He then
pointed out very briefly the danger of the advice he had acted upon and
the consequences that would necessarily follow if it was persisted in, to
which his majesty listened with great attention. When he had done, the
king gave him the despatches to read, after which he ordered him to throw
them into the fire, and draw out others to please himself, which he would
sign. This was done accordingly; but so many hours delay prevented the
messenger from reaching Edinburgh, till the very morning when the assembly
was to meet; when nothing but confusion was expected; the commissioner
finding himself under the necessity of dissolving the assembly, and the
ministers being determined to assert their own authority independent of
the civil magistrate. Both parties were apprehensive of the consequences,
and both were happily relieved by the arrival of the messenger with his
majesty’s letter, signifying that it was his pleasure that the oaths
should be dispensed with. With the exception of the act establishing
presbytery, this was the most popular act of his majesty’s government in
Scotland. It also gained Mr Carstairs, when his part of it came to be
known, more credit with his brethren and with presbyterians in general,
than perhaps any other part of his public procedure. From this period,
down to the death of the king, there is nothing to be told concerning
Carstairs, but that he continued still in favour, and was assiduously
courted by all parties; and was supposed to have so much influence,
particularly in what related to the church, that he was called CARDINAL
CARSTAIRS.
Having only the letters
that were addressed to him, without any of his replies, we can only
conjecture what these may have been. The presumption is, that they were
prudent and discreet. Though he was so great a favourite with William,
there was no provision made for him at his death. Anne, however, though
she gave him no political employment, continued him in the chaplainship
for Scotland, with the same revenues he had enjoyed under her predecessor.
In the year 1704, he was elected principal of the college of Edinburgh,
for which be drew up a new and very minute set of rules; and, as he was
wanted to manage affairs in the church courts, he was, at the same time,
(at least in the same year,) presented to the church of Greyfriars; and,
in consequence of uniting this with his office in the university, he was
allowed a salary of 2200 merks a year. Three years after this he was
translated to the High Church. Though so deeply immersed in politics,
literature had always engaged much of Carstairs’ attention; and he had,
as early as 1693, obtained a gift from the crown to each of the Scottish
universities, of three hundred pounds sterling per annum, out of the
bishops’ rents in Scotland. Now that he was more closely connected with
these learned bodies, be exerted all his influence with the government to
extend its encouragement and protection towards them, and thus essentially
promoted the cause of learning. It has indeed been said, that from the
donations he at various times procured for the Scottish colleges, he was
the greatest benefactor, under the rank of royalty, to those institutions,
that his country ever produced. The first General Assembly that met after
he became a minister of the church of Scotland, made choice of him for
moderator; and in the space of eleven years, he was four times called to
fill that office. From his personal influence and the manner in which he
was supported, he may be truly said to have had the entire management of
the church of Scotland. In leading the church he displayed great ability
and comprehensiveness of mind, with uncommon judgment. "He moderated
the keenness of party zeal, and infused a spirit of cautious mildness into
the deliberations of the General Assembly. [We here quote from a memoir of
Principal Carstairs, which appeared in the Christian Instructor, for
March, 1827.] As the great body of the more zealous clergy were hostile to
the union of the kingdoms, it required all his influence to reconcile them
to a measure, which he, as a whole, approved of, as of mutual benefit to
the two countries; and although, after this era, the church of Scotland
lost much of her weight in the councils of the kingdom, she still retained
her respectability, and perhaps was all the better of a disconnection with
political affairs. When queen Anne, among the last acts of her reign,
restored the system of patronage, he vigorously opposed it; and, though
unsuccessful, his visit to London at that time was of essential service in
securing on a stable basis the endangered liberty of the church. The
ultra-tory ministry, hostile to the protestant interests of these realms,
had devised certain strong measures for curtailing the power of the
church of Scotland, by discontinuing her assemblies, or, at least, by
subjecting them wholly to the nod of the court. Mr Carstairs prevailed on
the administration to abandon the attempt; and he, on his part, promised
to use all his influence to prevent the discontents occasioned by the
patronage bill from breaking out into open insurrection. It may be
remarked, that, although patronage is a privilege which, if harshly
exorcised, acts as a severe oppression upon the people; yet, while
justified so far in abstract right, by the support which the patron is
always understood to give to the clergyman, it was, to say the least of
it, more expedient to be enforced at the commencement of last century than
perhaps at present, as it tended to reconcile to the church many of the
nobility and gentry of the country, who were, in general, votaries of
episcopacy, and therefore disaffected to the state and to the general
interests."
Principal Carstairs was, it
may be supposed, a zealous promoter of the succession of the house of
Hanover. Of so much importance were his services deemed, that George I.,
two years before his accession, signified his acknowledgments by a letter,
and, immediately after arriving in England, renewed his appointment as
chaplain for Scotland. The last considerable duty upon which the Principal
was engaged, was a mission from the Scottish church to congratulate the
first prince of the house of Brunswick upon his accession. He did not long
survive this period. In August, 1715, he was seized with an apoplectic
fit, which carried him off about the end of the December following, in the
67th year of his ago. His body lies interred in the Greyfriars churchyard,
where a monument is erected to his memory, with a suitable inscription in
Latin. The university, the clergy, and the nation at large, united in
lamenting the loss of one of their brightest ornaments, and most
distinguished benefactors.
Carstairs was one of the
most remarkable men ever produced by this country. He appears to have been
born with a genius for managing great political undertakings; his father,
in one of his letters, expresses a fear lest his "boy Willie"
should become too much of a public political man, and get
himself into scrapes. His first move in public life was for the
emancipation of his country from tyrannical misrule; and nothing could
well equal the sagacity with which he conducted some of the most delicate
and hazardous enterprises for that purpose. In consequence of the triumph
of the principles which he then advocated, he became possessed of more
real influence in the state than has fallen to the lot of many responsible
ministers; so that the later part of his life presented the strangest
contrast to the earlier part. What is strangest of all, he preserved
through these vicissitudes of fortune the same humble spirit and simple
worth, the same zealous and sincere piety, the same amiable and
affectionate heart. It fell to the lot of Carstairs to have it in his
power to do much good; and nothing could be said more emphatically in his
praise, than that he improved every opportunity. The home and heart of
Carstairs were constantly alike open. The former was the resort of all
orders of good men; the latter was alive to every beneficent and kindly
feeling. It is related of him, that, although perhaps the most efficient
enemy which the episcopal church of Scotland ever had, he exercised
perpetual deeds of charity towards the unfortunate ministers of that
communion who were displaced at the revolution. The effect of his
generosity to them in overcoming prejudice and conciliating affection,
appeared strongly at his funeral. When his body was laid in the dust, two
men were observed to turn aside from the rest of the company, and,
bursting into tears, bewailed their mutual loss. Upon inquiry, it was
found that these were two non-jurant clergymen, whose families had been
supported for a considerable time by his benefactions.
In the midst of all his
greatness, Carstairs never forgot the charities of domestic life. His
sister, who had been married to a clergyman in Fife, lost her husband a
few days before her brother arrived from London on matters of great
importance to the nation. Hearing of his arrival, she came to Edinburgh to
see him. Upon calling at his lodgings in the forenoon, she was told he was
not at leisure, as several of the nobility and officers of state were gone
in to see him. She then bid the servant only whisper to him, that she
desired to know when it would be convenient for him to see her. He
returned for answer— immediately; and, leaving the company, ran
to her and embraced her in the most affectionate manner. Upon her
attempting to make some apology for her unseasonable interruption to
business, "Make yourself easy," said he, "these gentlemen
are come hither, not on my account, but their own. They will wait with
patience till I return. You know I never pray long,"—and, after a
short, but fervent prayer adapted to her melancholy circumstances, he
fixed the time when he could see her more at leisure; and returned in
tears to his company.
The close attention which
he must have paid to politics does not appear to have injured his
literature any more than his religion, though it perhaps prevented him
from committing any work of either kind to the press. We are told that his
first oration in the public hall of the university, after his installation
as principal, exhibited so much profound erudition, so much acquaintance
with classical learning, and such an accurate knowledge of the Latin
tongue, that his hearers were delighted, and the celebrated Dr Pitcairn
declared, that when Mr Carstairs began his address, he could not help
fancying himself in the forum of ancient Rome. In the strange mixed
character which he bore through life, he must have corresponded with men
of all orders; but, unfortunately, there is no collection of his letters
known to exist. A great number of letters addressed to him by the most
eminent men of his time, were preserved by his widow, and conveyed through
her executor to his descendant, Principal M’Cormick, of St Andrews, by
whom they were published in the year 1774.
William Carstars
Character and Career of the Revolutionary Epoch (1649-1715) By Robert
Herbert Story (1874) (pdf) |
