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Updated: May 10, 2025
Strange as it may appear in an age of sectarianism and rebel theorizing, the war revealed the truth that the mass of mankind, now as in ancient Greece, respond at need to the call of citizenship: that when the cry goes up summoning each and all to the tents, it is not this or that little tabernacle but the protecting shelter of the larger and more truly representative state organizations to which men flock; that the sects and conventicles which have fed the enthusiasm and provided the activity of leisure hours cannot maintain their appeal when the whole fabric of our society is in danger.
The great talk is of the King's being hot of late against Conventicles, and to see whether the Duke of Buckingham's being returned will turn the King, which will make him very popular: and some think it is his plot to make the King thus, to shew his power in the making him change his mind.
My eyes beginning every day to grow less and less able to bear with long reading or writing, though it be by daylight; which I never observed till now. 13th. In the Painted Chamber I heard a fine conference between some of the two Houses upon the Bill for Conventicles.
If we could conceive of our fast-locked conventicles being thrown as freely open, could we conceive of Catholics wandering up and down their naves and aisles while the hymning or preaching went on? After being so high-minded in the matter, shall I confess that I was a good deal kept out of the churches by the cold in them?
But this not having the desired effect neither, it is followed with the third indulgence or toleration, emitted by proclamation, dated 28th June, 1687, excellently well calculated for obtaining his end; wherein, after a solemn declaration of his intention to maintain his archbishops and bishops, he does, by his sovereign authority, prerogative royal, and absolute power, suspend, stop and disable, all penal and sanguinary laws, made against any for non-conformity to the religion established by law granting liberty to all the subjects to meet and serve GOD, after their own way, in private houses or chapels, or places purposely hired or built for that use, with an injunction to take care that nothing be preached or taught, that might any way tend to alienate the hearts of the people from him and his government: but, notwithstanding the premises, strictly prohibiting all field meetings, against all which all his laws and acts of parliament are left in full force and vigor; and all his judges, magistrates and officers of forces, commanded to prosecute such as shall be guilty of said field conventicles, with the utmost rigor; and all this under pretense, that now, after this his royal grace and favor, there is not the least shadow of excuse left for these meetings.
Of these some two hundred were drowned in the wreck of their vessel off the Orkneys. The main body were penned up in Greyfriars Churchyard; many escaped; more signed a promise to remain peaceful, and shun conventicles. There was more of cruel carelessness than of the deliberate cruelty displayed in the massacres and hangings of women after Philiphaugh and Dunaverty.
Lloyd George began to speak everywhere, at street corners, in conventicles, in the market-places, at mass-meetings in the public buildings, and his peculiar oratory secured him larger and larger audiences and aroused attention, sympathetic or hostile, all over the constituency. Many who were lukewarm and went to hear him out of curiosity were swung by his personality into being supporters.
They never assembled in private rooms, or held private conventicles, employing persons to watch at the doors, to keep out spies and informers, or to prevent surprise from the magistrates. But they worshipped always in public, and with their doors open.
The Tories, on the other hand, complained that their share of power bore no proportion to their number and their weight in the country, and that every where old and useful public servants were, for the crime of being friends to monarchy and to the Church, turned out of their posts to make way for Rye House plotters and haunters of conventicles.
A few prisoners were picked up, and among them one King, a noted orator of the conventicles, formerly chaplain to Lord Cardross, whose service he had left, it is said, on account of a little misadventure with one of the maid-servants. The troops halted for the night at Strathavon, and early next morning set off with their prisoners for Glasgow.
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