Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

Obscurely born, we know nothing of Middleton till
we find him acting as "a pickman in Colonel
Hepburn's regiment in France."[1] He next served
under the Parliament in England, "taking the
Covenant as he would have put a cockade in his
hat, merely as the badge of the side on which he
fought."[2] Afterwards he took arms for the king;
he adhered to the royal cause in exile; and on the
death of Montrose, Charles's unacknowledged
lieutenant in Scotland, Middleton succeeded to his
place. His daring and success on the field brought
him rapid promotion. He had now attained the rank
of earl. He retained the coarse, brutal, overbearing
habits of the camp; he drank deeply, withheld
himself from no vice, answered all appeals to
reason or justice with a stroke of his sword. Cruel
by disposition, and with heart still further hardened
by the many scenes of atrocity and outrage in
which he had mingled, he was set over the people
of Scotland, as the fittest tool for taming their
obdurate and haughty spirits into compliance with
the mandates of the court.
James Sharp was in some respects very unlike
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