irs PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY THIRD SERIES VOLUME XXXIV DIARY OF SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON OF WARISTON VOL. Ill 1940 DIARY OF SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON OF WARISTON VOLUME III 1655-1660 Edited from the Original Manuscript, with Notes and Introduction by JAMES D. OGILVIE EDINBURGH Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable Ltd. for the Scottish History Society Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION vii DIARY— xiv. 17 April to 10 June 1655 .... 1 xv. 30 July to 10 Sept. 1655 . .5 xvi. 17 Nov. to 26 Dec. 1655 . .11 xvii. 27 Dec. 1655 to 15 Jan. 1656 ... 21 xvm. 16 Jan. to 2 March 1656 .... 24 xix. 3 March to 5 April 1656 .... 27 xx. 5 May to 5 June 1656 ..... 29 xxi. 6 June to 1 July 1656 ..... 34 xxn. 1 July to 27 July 1656 ..... 40 xxm. 1 Sept, to 7 Oct. 1656 ..... 41 xxiv. 8 Oct. to 3 Nov. 1656 ..... 45 xxvi. 4 Nov. to 16 Dec. 1656 ..... 53 xxvii. 10 Feb. to 19 Mar. 1657 .... 57 xxvin. 7 June to 12 July 1657 ..... 76 xxix. 13 July to 8 Sept. 1657 ..... 91 xxx. 20 May to 1 Aug. 1658 ..... 101 xxxi. 24 Aug. to 8 Nov. 1658 ..... 101 xxxn. 9 Nov. 1658 to 23 Jan. 1659 . .103 xxxm. 29 April to 12 June 1659 .... 106 xxxiv. 13 June to 27 Aug. 1659 . .119 xxxv. 28 Aug. to 13 Oct. 1659 .... 134 xxxvi. 14 Oct. to 6 Dec. 1659 . .145 vi WARISTON’S DIARY xxxvn. 7 Dec. to 30 Dec. 1659 155 xxxvm. 30 Dec. 1659 to 7 Jan. 1660 . .165 xxxix. 7 Jan. to 19 Jan. 1660 167 xl. 19 Jan. to 26 Jan. 1660 . .171 xli. 26 Jan. to 2 Feb. 1660 173 xlii. 11 Feb. to 14 Feb. 1660 175 xliii. 21 March to 20 May 1660 .... 178 APPENDIX 186 INDEX 190 INTRODUCTION The second volume of the printed Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston 1 closed with the month of August, 1654. The remaining note-books cover, with sundry gaps, the period from mid-April 1655 to May 1660. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Hay Fleming was unable, on account of long and painful illness, to bring to the editing of these also his intimate knowledge of the men and events of Wariston’s time which so characterises the second volume and makes it a fit continuation of the earlier volumes edited by Sir George M. Paul. For the present volume it has been judged expedient to print the diaries with much abridgment, and to include only such passages as reflect Wariston’s life in its relation to the times, his motives as revealed by himself, and the working-out of them as he followed the slippery paths to which he set himself, until his fall, so much greater because of the heights he had attained. The meditations and prayers which occupy so much the larger part of these last note-books are omitted except where they bear directly on his actions, and this not only on account of space but because the former Extracts amply testify to this phase of his character. Entries concerning his domestic affairs are also excluded ; let it be said that these were seldom happy, his own and his family’s ill- health, at times mental as well as physical, and the extreme poverty of his circumstances rendered him irritable and frequently ‘ mightely passionat at children and servants ’ in small matters. ‘ Alsmuch sleepe as I 1 Scottish History Society, second series, vol. 18. vli viii WARISTON’S DIARY want alsmuch mor passion I haive ; it is so with my wyfe and sicklyk with us both for waunt of meate, and so it wilbe naturaly in the children.’1 The historical value of the diaries is not to be doubted, so much was Wariston concerned in the public life of Scotland and so frankly does he record arguments and debates which preceded notable decisions. Although the central figure is always Wariston one must acknowledge the candour with which, particularly in penitential moods, he reveals by-ends. ‘ I thought good,’ he wrote in such a mood, ‘ to look over the sins of my publik imployments, and throw the whol I found an proud, highmynded, humorous, vainglorious, ambitious, selfseeking, self- exalting, insolent humor and heart.’2 This is the key- note of the Diary. For some years Wariston, deprived of his duties as Clerk-Register in Scotland, had held no public office. ‘ If I live \not to doe good,’ he wrote, ‘ my nature is such as it wil be doing meekle evil.’ 3 In the controversy between Protester and Resolutioner he had found scope for his activities and had irremediably widened the breach by the publication, in the years 1652 and 1653, of his three commentaries on the quarrel, The Nullity of the pretended Assembly at St. Andrews and Dundee; the Causes of the Lords Wrath against Scotland; and the Answer to the Declaration of the pretended Assembly at Dundee. Robert Blair, who had striven for peace between the two parties, spoke of the Nullity as being ‘ a great heightening of our woeful divisions and a rendering of them as to men or means incurable.’ 4 Nevertheless, urged to it by his fellow-peacemaker James Durham,5 Blair had pressed James Wood as a leading Resolutioner to make one more effort for union, and a conference with the Protesters was 1 P. 43. * P. 22. 3 P. 22. 4 Blair’s Life (Wod. Soc.), p. 304. 5 Baillie’s Letters, iii. 278. INTRODUCTION ix arranged to meet at Edinburgh on the first of June, 1655. To Wariston the news came as a shock : he had no mind for such a conference and he expressed to James Guthrie his ‘ great feares of evil and little or no hoopes of good ’ as the result, ‘ especyaly,’ he acknowledges, ‘ when they [the Resolutioners] are fixed and united, and wee ar disjoynted.’1 Letters, however, were dispatched, ‘ north, south and west,’ summoning Protesters to the meeting. Evidently the letters miscarried, or arrived too late, since only a few ministers came to Edinburgh at the appointed time. Writing on May 31, Wariston says, ‘ some foor of us, or fyve, mett with Mr. Blair and Mr. Durham, and they fell to presse the amnestia or act of oblivion, of their Acts and our Protestations,’ in a word, to let bygones be bygones. Baillie, who was present, tells of the willingness of Gillespie and Carstairs, the minister of Glasgow, to capitulate, ‘ but Wariston, Guthrie and others were as rigid as ever.’ 2 Wariston was for no oblivion without repentance first; the nation must be ‘ purged ’ as in the Visitations ordered by the Assembly Commission in 1650, ‘ be the sam persons according to the sam reules in the sam wayes, for the sam ends.’ 3 As the Protesters claimed to be the Commission of 1650, not acknowledging the succeeding assemblies, Wariston’s motion meant no less than to put the complete government of the Church into their power. High words followed, during which Gillespie and Carstairs ‘ lett fall [that] if they had thought on al the inconveniences they had absteaned from protesting at St. Andrews ’ ; and Durham ‘ desyred I might not be at the nixt conference, or hold my toungue.’ 4 In the afternoon of the following day Wariston and his friends met again with Blair. While at the place of meeting 1 P. i. 2 Letters, iii. 280. 2 P. 4. 4 P- 4- WARISTON’S DIARY they were joined by three of the Resolutioners, who ex- pressed surprise to find them there ; for themselves ‘ they cam only in to speak with Mr. Blair.’ It would appear from Baillie’s account that their coming was to expostulate with Blair’s overture of the previous day, ‘ as granting to the Remonstrators almost all their unreasonable desyres.’ 1 Wariston was equally dissatisfied. ‘ I told my dissatis- faction with the ouverture as renversing our cause, and that wee could not transmitt it, but should be willing to meet to conferre anent union if it wer possible on Gods termes.’ In the evening he returned home, ‘ blissing God that He brought me out with hail bones 2 and a safe conscience in that mater.’ 3 Notwithstanding the failure of the June conference there were those among the Protesters who clung to the hope of union. A motion to this end made by John Livingstone was debated in committee on September 3. Wariston harked back to his demand for repentance first. ‘ I urged as the best mean of union that wee should be reunited to God, and desyre them [the Resolutioners] to concurre therein and them with us in the Commission and Visitations 1650.’ This was leading nowhere. Gillespie, recognising the uselessness of so unyielding an attitude, suggested petitioning the Council to settle their dispute. ‘ I refused,’ says Wariston, ‘ that maiking them arbiter of our differences, but that I could petition them as our captivers to restore us, and if they would not, yet to revive us in our bondage, and desyre they would restore us to the condition wherin they interrupted us in 1650, and let the remnant apoynt thes of the Comission and Visitations 1650, and uthers comissionated from them and let them back them with their Civil authoritye, and wee shal be content to taik in the godly of the Publik 1 Letters, iii. 280. 2 The reference is doubtless to Psalm xxxiv. 20. 3 P. 4. INTRODUCTION xi Resolutioners that wil ingage to prosecut the busines then comitted according to the reules, and so separat them from their trayne.’1 It is improbable that Livingstone’s motion was regarded with any seriousness by the committee ; their real business was over before it came to be discussed, and had not Gillespie spoken of an appeal to the Council it would have been dropped with Wariston’s reiteration of his former demand.