chapter 6 Reaction and Realignment, 1679–88 In 1681, the gentlemen of Inverness and its environs begged James, duke of Albany to take some firm course for settling Highland disorder: Notwithstanding the Lords of His Majesties Privie Councill hes thir years bygone made many laudable Lawes and Actts for suppressing the lyke insolencies in tyme comeing [. .] yet your Royall Heighnes Petitioners have suffered more these four or fyve years Bygone, nor they have done those many years before.1 The Invernessian plea can be seen as a microcosm for wider political devel- opments. The ‘Restoration Crisis’ of the late 1670s and early 1680s, mani- fested through the ‘Popish Plot’ and Exclusionism in England, the collapse of Lauderdale’s religious policy in Scotland, and heightened anti-Catholic per- secution in Ireland, undermined the Restoration regime as it had functioned since 1660. In its place, a new status quo emerged, a ‘second Restoration’ which was fundamentally different in tone and ethos, and which endured until the flight of James VII and II in December 1688. This chapter seeks to trace the implications of these developments for the Highlands. It begins with a general overview of the ‘second Restoration’ in Britain. It then proceeds to examine the various re-orientations of Highland policy during the early 1680s. Finally, it offers a detailed study of the most significant initiative of the period, the com- mission for securing the peace of the Highlands. The ‘Restoration Crisis’ The ‘Restoration crisis’ as it unfolded in England was rooted in the ‘Popish Plot’. This giant and entirely fictious conspiracy, allegedly aiming to kill Charles II as a preliminary to re-imposing Catholicism across the British isles, was fab- ricated in 1678 by the fanatical anti-Catholic clergyman Israel Tonge and the unsavoury conman Titus Oates. Despite being patently ridiculous, a serious of unfortunate coincidences towards the end of 1678 provided a veneer of credibility sufficient to ignite widespread anti-Catholic hysteria which soon 1 D. Warrand (ed.), More Culloden Papers, 5 vols (Inverness, 1923–30), i, 173. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�69�55_�08 214 chapter 6 coalesced around parliamentary attempts to exclude the duke of Albany (or, as he was known in England, the duke of York) from the succession. Not until 1681, when Charles II succeeded in outmanouvering his mutinous English Parliament, did the crisis being to die down. While recognising that the Exclusion movement provided the focus for opposition agitation during the crisis, historians remain divided about the relative prominance of political, religious and ideological factors in stimulat- ing resistance.2 Much greater consensus surrounds the remifications of the turmoil, which entrenched the original ‘party system’ in England—a division, both in Parliament and society at large, between ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories’. The lat- ter developed an understanding of English monarchy as absolute, if limited, which was combined with staunch support for established social structures and the Church of England. The Whigs, by contrast, tended to espose ideas of popular sovereignty as a counter-balance to the potentially tyrannical power of monarchy, something often intertwined with sympathy towards religious dis- sent (so long as it was not Catholic). While the roots of this ideological divide arguably stretch back to the earliest days of the Restoration, it is clear that the ‘Popish Plot’ and the Exclusion movement were crucial in galvanising them into an embryonic party system.3 The ultimate defeat of the Whigs was followed by a development often characterised as the ‘Tory reaction’—a period of conservative, authoritarian rule lasting until the end of the Restoration. In central government, the reac- tion was exemplified by the sidelining of Parliament for the final four years of Charles II’s reign, as well as the loyalist composition of James II’s first Parliament in 1685.4 The reaction spread out across the machinery of government, par- ticularly though systematic purges of Whig sympathisers from municipal cor- porations, the higher judiciary and the commissions of the peace. As a direct consequence, the crown’s ability to suppress dissent—either through censor- ship or summary arrest—was greatly enhanced, all of which reached its zenith 2 For a sample of the differing interpretations, see J.R. Jones, “Parties and Parliament” in J.R. Jones (ed.), The Restored Monarchy 1660–1688 (London and Basingstoke, 1979), 48–70, at 57–70; G.S. De Krey, “Reformation in the Restoration Crisis, 1679–1682” in D.B. Hamilton and R. Strier (ed.), Religion, Literature and Politics in Post-Reformation England, 1540–1688 (Cambridge, 1996), 231–52, at 231–44; M. Goldie, “Restoration Political Thought” in L.K.J. Glassey (ed.), The Reigns of Charles II and James VII and II (Basingstoke and London, 1997), 12–35, at 17–35. 3 De Krey, Restoration and Revolution, 145; T. Harris, Politics under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660–1715 (Harlow, 1993), 80–109. 4 B. Coward, The Stuart Age: England 1603–1714 (London, 2003), 333 and at 336–42..