Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

elieving such an anomaly to be just as impossible
in the wider realm of Britain as his grandfather had
deemed it in the narrower domain of Scotland. But
Charles was too indolent to prosecute in person his
grand scheme, and its execution was handed over
to others. Lord Clarendon, we have said, was his
minister, and knowing his master's wishes, one of
his first cares was to find fitting tools for the work
that was to be done in Scotland. Clarendon
accounted himself exceedingly fortunate, no doubt,
in discovering two men whom nature seemed to
have shaped and molded for his very purpose. The
two men on whom Clarendon's eye had lighted
were not only richly endowed with all the vile
qualities that could fit them for the base task to
which he destined them, but they were equally
distinguished by the happy absence of any noble
and generous endowment which might have
enfeebled the working and impaired the success of
those opposite qualities, the possession of which
had led to their selection. These two men were
Middleton and Sharp.
The first was the less base of the two.
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