Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

We have seen the extravagant joy with which
the king's return was hailed in Scotland. This
ecstasy had its source in two causes, and a brief
explanation of these will help to make clearer the
course which events took afterwards. The first
cause was the almost idolatrous loyalty which the
Scots bore to the House of Stuart, and from which
all their dire experience of the meanness,
fickleness, and perfidy which had characterized the
recent sovereigns of that house had not been able to
wean them. The second was a decay of that spirit
of pure patriotism that had animated the Scots in
the days of Alexander Henderson, and the
immediate consequence of which was a deplorable
disunion in their ranks at a time when it behoved
them above all things to be united. The schism to
which we refer is that known in history as the
Resolutioners and the Protesters, which had arisen
in 1651. The question between the two parties into
which the once united band was now split, had its
first rise in the suspicions of the sincerity of
Charles II, that began to be entertained by some of
the ministers, who blamed their brethren for
365