Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

do nothing with more cheerfulness than to give my
people a general satisfaction." And, by way of
seconding these promises with deeds, he ratified
the National Covenant which had been sworn in
1638, and made it law. The black clouds of war
seemed to be roiling away; the winds of faction
were going down in both countries; the biting
breath of tyranny had become sweet, and the
monarch who had proved false a score of times was
now almost trusted by his rejoicing subjects.
The two kingdoms were now, as a speaker in
the English Parliament expressed it, "on the
vertical point." The scales of national destiny hung
evenly poised between remedy and ruin. It was at
this moment that terrible tidings arrived from
Ireland, by which these fair prospects were all at
once overcast. We refer to the Irish Massacre. This
butchery was only less horrible than that of St.
Bartholomew, if indeed it did not equal it. The
slaughter of the Protestants by the Roman
Catholics commenced on the 23rd of October,
1641, and continued for several months; forty
thousand, on the lowest estimate, were murdered;
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