It is important in life, or at least I think it is, to celebrate your achievements as you go along. It puts you in a positive mood, and why dwell constantly on your failing? So last time I lamented that we didn’t get very far chronologically, but look what we did achieve? Among many, many leaps for mankind, we also made our introductions to a few key members of the new Privy Council. John Middleton – military man, Episcopalian, an angry, vengeful, hard drinking sort of chap, aggressive and definitely not a fan of Presbyterians and Covenanters. Middleton was the King’s main man and his Commissioner to parliament. He came with allies, among them Lord Glencairn, the new Chancellor.
Middleton would find a competitor on the Privy Council and we met him also – John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale; reviled by his enemies as a coarse man, and certainly a cynical and ruthless politician. Willing to do what was required to hold on to his position of power, bit also prepared to be as flexible to different shades of political opinion as he could get away with. Now he was Secretary of State and this had good and bad in the title. Bad was that he was often away, in London; good was that he was in London so that he could press his lips to the ear of his master, Charles II and fill said ear full of the warm breath of his opinions. And access to the king was as important as it ever had been. Maitland was a Covenanter, and there were other Covenanters around in the Council too – the Earl of Rothes, Cassilis and Crawford. These men represented the moderate wing of covenanters – the Engagers, who had engaged with Charles I and welcomed back Charles II to the throne of the land of the holy. As for Radical Covenanters on the Privy Council, well have precisely no one. Zip. Rien. Charles did not like radical covenanters, he had felt the heavy weight of their yoke in his youth.
So, the Committee of Estates had done little except pull in James Guthrie to his doom and decree that there should be a full parliament. And so it was that in January 1661 the Scottish nobility and burghal representatives assembled at the palace of Holyrood, ready to form a grand procession to the Toolbooth and parliament. In all, 187 made it there; 70 of the greater nobility, 56 of the lesser nobility or lairds, 61 representatives of the burghs. The Ride of Parliament as the procession was known, was led by the Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State, carried at the head of the procession, with Middleton right behind as the King’s Commissioner and two by two they walked in all their gladest of glad rags to design the programme of government and settlement of the new kingdom. All eyes and eyes and hearts and hopes and fears turned their way
Now I have to ‘fess up to something here; the title of the episode is slightly naughty – in that it reflects the way that the coming parliament was represented in the future by a particular historical tradition – a presbyterian view, that saw the acts of the Restoration parliament with eyes of horror. It does also reflect something the true flavour though; this is a parliament that will tear up pretty much everything we have learned of the last 30 years, and will pass over 400 acts of parliament.
‘It was a mad, roaring time,’
Presbyterians wrote, looking back
‘And no wonder it was so, when the men of affairs were almost always drunk.
At a later event, in the 1662 parliament, the Duke of Hamilton told the historian Gilbert Burnet that at a meeting
“they were all so drunk that day, that they were not capable of considering anything that was laid before them, and would hear of nothing but the executing of the law, without any relenting “
The 1662 Parliament would therefore be known in the Presbyterian tradition as the Drunken Parliament. I doubt they called the 1661 parliament by any nicer names. Celebrations in Edinburgh in May 1661 recorded how the Covenant was torn up in front of an apparently drunken crowd, while the burgh fountain ran with wine, sweetmeats were handed out, and the party then proceeded on, laughing cheering nd presumably drinking to the Palace of Linlithgow.
Now, I must reflect on three things. Firstly I suspect that the bar of qualification for drunkenness by a 17th century Radical presbyterian, Calvinist Covenanter was lower than that which you or I would set. Secondly, there is more than an element of bias here – these observers did not like what resulted. But thirdly they reflect that there was indeed something of a backlash going on, the release of a dam and a great heavy rush of a vast body of reaction swept into the valley of Scottish politics and swept all visible aspects of the Scottish revolution into the storm gutters.
Often, Middleton has been credited with being the architect of the tide of legislation and reactionary reform that spewed in floods from the restoration parliaments. It’s true that his king had most certainly sent him with a mission to re-impose royal power in no uncertain terms, though with no specifics on how to do it. Behind Charles’ agenda to re-establish the status quo ante lay another game; to establish such a model of Stuart Absolutism in Scotland that would prove an example to his Kingdoms of Ireland and England. This was Middleton’s task should he choose to accept it. And he did.
Meanwhile Charles had cleared the ground for him by forbidding the General Assembly of the Kirk to gather, to relieve him of the pressure from the kirk presbyterians. There would have been plenty of clerics there however none the less; parliaments brought in clouds of clerics, wary of the ecclesiastical policies that might emerge, and without the platform of the general assembly could still whip up a storm among their congregations. Petitioners came in from all over the country, bringing with them their grievances and injustices to be heard and favours granted. Beggars, chapmen and pedlars saw their opportunity and worked the crowd; along with food and drink sellers, prostitutes, thieves – a right old carnival, and a carnival in which women figured as highly as men. There was a hectic atmosphere at most parliaments, and at 1661 as much as the most febrile; feelings were high, and the feelings of many without and within was for the parliament to sweep away the indignities and humiliations of the last 10 years which had brought the chaos of regicide, defeat and occupation, and the rule of the lairds and ministers over the traditional rulers of society, the Magnates. Remember that it was those magnates that dominated the mechanics of this parliament, with the lairds present often their willing and obedient clients. And the main object for a majority was the supposed architect of those bad things – the Covenanters. Middleton without doubt rode this wave – but it would not be wise to assume that he was always in control of it.
The strength of the reaction was evident from the very first day of the parliament, which immediately passed an act requiring all members to take an oath of allegiance to Charles II as ‘only supreme governor of this kingdom over all persons and in all causes’. Rather crucially they were also required to agree that ‘no foreign Prince, Power or state, nor person civil or ecclesiastic’ had any power over him. That ecclesiastic word and the overwhelming, inclusive and general nature of all of this made some members immediately rebel; as one author put it, Charles ‘was to be the voice of a god rather than that of a man’. The earl of Cassilis was one of those who refused the oath – and straightaway a Covenanter was lost not just from the parliament, but from the Privy Council. It would be a trend.
Now then, it should be noted that war behind the scenes between the courtiers had already been joined. Lauderdale had a strong personal rapport with Charles and was based with him in London; he had already gained a commitment from him to maintain the kirk, and not restore the episcopy. He’d also persuaded him to withdraw English garrisons from Scotland – the Highlands in particular were free once more of the controlling hand Cromwell had laid on their activities.
But all this infuriated Middleton and his Scottish allies; and indeed the Earl of Clarendon, Charles’ English right hand man who wanted England to continue to have a say in Scottish affairs. Lauderdale then was between the Middletonian rock, and the Clarendonian Hard place. Internecine political backstabbing, corruption and an unseemly struggle for the king’s ear will be a feature of Restoration politics.
Middleton though was still the main man, but reform came piecemeal. The first thing of note was not the acts that were passed, but the acts that were not. The English parliament had passed its act of indemnity and oblivion in 1660 with only 20 or so regicides excluded from the general amnesty; Clarendon has been blamed that the same did not happen in Scotland, but this was in fact the decision of the Scottish parliament, with Middleton’s influence most likely; it would take until September 1662 for such an act to be produced, which then specified 12 people to be disabled from public office, and although envisaging very few executions excluded 700 individuals who could be fined or have their estates sequestered. It was then, like a gun held to the head of the members of parliament; unlike the English Convention parliament, the sword of Damocles still hung above them, to concentrate the mind of restoring the power of the king. I think one of those actually executed as a result was Archibald Johnston of Wariston, one of the authors of the National Covenant.
Now individual acts began to follow. Two of the most howlingly radical acts of the Covenanter parliaments had been to embed the principle that the king must appoint ministers with parliamentary approval; and that parliaments would be held every three years whether the king liked it or not. These fundamental changes to the balance of constitutional power were reversed first. Next, bonds and assemblies for matters political or religious were banned without government approval; the militia was confirmed to be under the control of the king and no one else.
Momentum was growing and like a rolling stone was gathering moss. The parliamentary cart from trundling and bumping over the rocky stones of the track of reform, began to go down the hill into the valley of absolutism, rattling and clanking. It started with the declaration that all the acts of the Convention of 1643 were null and void – whoa, so all the way back to 1643 then, and hey hang on a moment – that was the Convention which had issued the National League and Covenant; so…what does that say about the future of the national Covenant then? Charles did after all swear to the National Covenant, are you saying there’s a doubt about the need for a Covenant and covenanted king?
Now the cart of reform had really caught the hill, was travelling at breakneck speed, flying into the air as it hit rocks in the road with furious clamour and destruction. And on 28th March came the Rescissory Act – from the Latin rescindere, to cancel or annul by the way, if you were wondering. The Rescissory Act was a hammer blow to all those Radical Covenanters, Moderate Covenanters, constitutional reformers – pretty much anyone who had supported the heady changes of the Scottish Revolution. The act, revoked, and I quote,
pretendit parliaments kept in the years 1640, 1641, 1644,1645,1646, 1647, and 1648 and all acts and deids past and done in them the same to henceforth voyd and null.
Everything. Baby, bathwater, even the bath. Effectively, the clock had been turned back to the parliament of 1633. Even in England, some of the reforms of the revolution remained, as the clock was turned back to 1641. In Scotland, where the Revolution had been perhaps even more profound, the Restoration was even more reactionary.
For the men in parliaments – peers, in particular, this was the complete and welcome erasure of the whole sorry business of the Revolution. Where for once it had not been the magnates who had the all-powerful voice in politics, their position usurped by lairds, burghal commissioners and worse, the relatively low born ministers of the Kirk. The world turned upside down in the immortal phrase. Well, that could now be firmly put behind everyone and we could get things back to the way they ought to be. The chaos and change of the years since 1638 could be forgotten, with the return of the king bringing peace, stability and support for the restored social order. The attitude of George MacKenzie of Tarbat, one of Middleton’s staunchest Cavalier supporters, maybe sums up the attitude when he said that all the acts passed since 1640
Were but a series of rebellions
The raw, red, bleeding wound to the nation of the regicide and commonwealth could at last begin to heal.
Well, that’s one point of view from one perspective. There are always opinions of all sorts, some not to be taken too seriously – one of these was that some more extreme royalists objected to the sweeping away of the 1641 acts, not because they liked them but because they had been made with Charles I in the chair of parliament so they though it disrespectful to his memory. I can feel Charles spinning in his grave yelling ‘oh get away with you! Don’t be so daft, get on!’ But it was those who held the Covenanter cause close to their hearts still who were hit hardest, but particularly the Radical Presbyterians. The National Covenant was banished. That was bad enough. As the contemporary James Kirton wrote the act condemned
All the resistance that ever had been made to any of the ancient tyrants; and more especially all that the estates of Scotland had done in the late Reformation[1]
Effectively, he thought, parliament
Had done what they could to render their king absolute
Another, Alexander Shields, wrote that the restoration settlement was specifically designed to destroy the constitution established by the Revolution
By introducing and advancing ane arbitrary tyranny
Presbyterian historian Alexander Smellie later wrote that
They robbed the nation of its liberties; they checked its social progress; they did what they could to stifle its religious life
Which points to the dual nature of the Rescissory Act; the Second Reformation in Scotland had been based on resistance to King Charles I; by condemning the works of that resistance, parliament had in effect undermined the foundation of the protestant state.
The message was hammered home by the institution of a national holiday for the king’s birthday, 29th May. The preamble for the act condemned the preceding 23 years as resulting in the
Ruine and destruction of religion, the king’s majestie and his royal government, the laws, liberties and propertie of the people and all the public and private interests of the kingdom
And complained that Scots were
Exposed to be captives and slaves to strangers
Parliament passed a generous settlement for the king of all the customs dues, which they though to be about £480,000 Scots a year, though this was to prove to deliver less than planned – trade would plummet, as we will see. This was a crucial decision; the grant was made for life. Immediately, the dynamic of the need for money which would operate in England, was broken in Scotland; the king had far less need to summon the Convention of Estates, still less the full Parliament.
All this having been done, they all went home for a bit of a break, well satisfied or otherwise with their good work. The parliament so far had represented a triumph for vested interest and conservative traditional forces – and that would not be the end of if, as the attention and battlefield now turned specifically to religion. Parliament had recognised that the Rescissory act left a lot unsaid about religious governance and structure; it removed much of the underpinning foundation such as the Covenant, without putting anything in its place, in line with the king’s promise to Lauderdale to leave the kirk as it was. So, it passed an act allowing kirk sessions, synods and presbyteries to carry on, so that life could carry on, but then handed it back to the king to decide what should happen next and define a form of government. The way they did it, in important; they gave complete, absolute power to the king to decide as he wished without consent, without agreement, for example of the General Assembly; and also made a gentle suggestion as to what the answer should probably be. See if you can guess from this
…the king would make it his care to settle and secure…the most agreeable to the word of God, most suitable to monarchical government, and most complying with the public peace and quiet of the kingdom
So two things; the idea of two kingdoms, beloved of John Knox and George Buchanan, lay panting with severe body wounds down a dark political alley behind the bins nicely out of sight. The King would define the governance of God’s kingdom on earth, thank you very much. Secondly the suggestion as to the answer – ‘most suitable to monarchical government’ was a bit of a giveaway if you remember Charles’ grandfather’s dictum, ‘no bishops, no king’. Lauderdale the Covenanter had a fight on his hands.
That battle would be held down his way, at Whitehall. During the parliamentary out season, Charles called together his Scottish advisers again, and the parties of Middleton and Lauderdale slugged it out; Lauderdale though was always outnumbered, since in the other ear Clarendon also supported Middleton’s case – that the episcopy should be restored. Lauderdale sought to maintain his good office with the King, even attending Anglican services in August to curry favour, but the wind of change was blowing. James Sharp, was a convinced Covenanter and presbyterian minister who had worked hard to reconcile protestors and resolutioners to keep the kirk united under the Commonwealth; he was in London at the time, and despite his past, he became convinced that he could either get on the Bishops’ Bus, or be left to choke in the exhaust fumes, and he gave up that battle, and turned to arguing against who should be appointed to the restored bishops sees, to make sure English proposals for appointments did not suceed.
Charles had become convinced that Middleton understood better the mood of the Scottish people better that did Lauderdale, and Middleton assured him that bishops were
‘desired by the greater and honester part of the nation’
By the end of August, Lauderdale had lost his cause, and by 5th September 1661 the Scottish Privy Council had a letter in their hands bearing the King’s wishes – the bishops were to be restored. A proclamation was read from the mercat cross in Edinburgh on 9th September, and all Covenanters now knew their fate. Throughout the South West, Glasgow, Ayr, Dumfries and across to Fife synods had expressed their rejection of Bishops, drawing up resolutions in favour of Presbyterianism – all these synods were dissolved by force by the Privy Council. Only on, the synod in Aberdeen, passed a resolution in favour of Bishops. It was because of this general resistance that Charles had prevented the General Assembly from meeting.
By the end of December, James Sharp the shape shifter was appointed as the new Archbishop of St Andrews and had been consecrated at Westminster. Middleton and Sharp had hoped that Resolutioner ministers would sign up to become Bishops; Resolutioners you might remember were those in 1649 who had admitted the Engagers back into the kirk and political world – moderate presbyterians essentially. Most, however, refused to do any such thing. Which meant that following behind Sharp would be a bench of largely second rate Bishops, with the exception of the learned Robert Leighton at Glasgow, who were appointed largely due to their noble connections rather than their industry. Although Sharp had been consecrated according to the English Book of Common prayer, the new episcopalian church of Scotland that emerged from the settlement never adopted it – in fact the BCP only became formally legally tolerated in Scotland in 1712. Generally, most congregations, whether in church or conventicle, continued to follow the Book of Common Order. There was no split between Presbyterians and Episcopalians about doctrine and disciple, though episcopalians might do things like take their hats off in church. As one Church of Ireland commentator remarked, the Scottish episcopalian in Ireland ‘would seem to us to be ranke phanaticks’. Among all the following chaos, it’s important to keep the basic continuity in mind of the weekly round of services and the kirk sessions. However – there would be chaos and change to boot.
Parliament met again in May 1662, and at the top of its agenda was to legislate for the new religious settlement. On 8th May Bishops were restored to parliament and– another feature of the Two Kingdoms fell down lifeless as church entered the secular political world once more. The Bishops made leaders of establishing the composition of the lords of the Articles, the body that established the agenda for each parliament, a body easily influence by the king’s servants, and therefore another weapon in the armoury of royal management of parliament returned. Lay patronage in church appointments was restored, the ability of landowners to present new ministers to the parish church rather than congregations choosing their own. Things got worse for the children of the Revolution; in June acts were passed depriving ministers of their position unless they had applied to their former patrons; this was effectively post ipso facto retribution for ministers appointment without lairdly control. And all ministers were requited to acknowledge and comply with government of the church by Bishops.
All private meetings and conventicles were banned. Now this, my friend, would be serious trouble, and I mean serious trouble with a capital T, radical presbyterians would have no recourse without such meetings. Leagues and covenants were declared treasonous, and the National covenants of 1638 and 1643 declared specifically unlawful and anyone who acknowledged or defended them was to be debarred from office.
Once more Middleton was riding the wave, and he used the wave not only to put Presbyterians out of business but to try to and put his rival Lauderdale out of business. Middleton despised him, growling that Lauderdale’s political flexibility meant he would pimp for any prince in Europe[2]. On 5th September, he managed an act through parliament requiring all office-holders to denounce the covenants; he hoped Lauderdale and his covenanter allies would refuse and just be cast out from political power and remove his opponents. And indeed he had some success – Lauderdale’s ally the earl of Crawford resigned from parliament and Privy Council. But Lauderdale was made of tougher stuff – or more more flexible, ambitious, less principled stuff you might argue with some justice. He made the declaration, sneering that he would take a cartload of others if needed.
In a few days Middleton tried again. Under the Act of Indemnity you might remember thayt 12 named individuals were to be named as excluded. The process was that they were to be named by secret ballot. Middleton did a bit of asking around twisting of arms, whispering suggestions in the right ears, calling in of favours – and ensured that Lauderdale would be one of the names out of the hat. Maybe that’s where JK Rowling got the idea for the goblet of fire, who knows. Lauderdale, sitting 400 miles away in Whitehall, was blissfully unaware of what was going on – but unknown to him, Midleton was confident his days were numbered. Mwa ha haaaa…
Are you enjoying this bit of political skulduggery? I thought it was rather fun, should write a novel about it. Anyway, it so happens that Lauderdale one night heard a received an exhausted messenger, fresh from his secretary in Edinburgh. The message warned Lauderdale what was going on, the Tsunami that was heading his way. At this, immediately Lauderdale’s situation in London became a winning card rather than a 2 of clubs. Immediately Lauderdale demanded an audience with Charles and relayed the story to his master; here, boss, you are being manipulated by Middleton into appointing his creatures as your ministers in Scotland, not your own man.
Middleton had over reached himself. Lauderdale had trumped hos Ace of Spades with his two of clubs and outplayed him in the Whist of life. Charles really hated it when people tried to play him, or coerce him into things he didn’t want to do. Lauderdale had his trust, he believed him. So when the results of the secret ballot arrived with Lauderdale’s name duly included doe exclusion, Charles returned it with a stiff note rejecting the election in its entirety. The plinth on which Middleton’s position rested crumbled slightly, became a bit wobbly and less secure.
The result of the religious settlement was to force large numbers of ministers from the kirk. Middleton seems to have tried to sell the settlement to the doubters in the Covenanter heartlands of the west and south west; according to Presbyterian tradition he organised a ride with many of his Privy Councillors through the area to sell the idea. This is how one Presbyterian historian reported it:
Their progress was marked by pomp and displayed the triumph of the new régime with shows of maces, swords, and drums. The evenings, however, were given over to licentiousness and drink including a toast to Satan pledged at the cross of Ayr.
I can believe the pomp and so on – not sure I buy the Satanic pledge thing, though who knows I guess. But you get the flavour maybe of how Middleton’s propaganda exercise was received. They certainly did not manage to sell the new church to the Radical Presbyterian heartlands.
The 1662 settlement resulted in what the Presbyterian tradition would call the ‘Outings’ of ministers. The established kirk contained 952 ministers; around 300 or one third of these ministers were driven from the church through the settlement, though the impact varied enormously by region. The western and south western shires like Glasgow and Galloway where radical Presbyterianism was strong were worst hit; the synod of Dumfries lost half of its ministers; Galloway lost 34 of its 37 ministers. Fife was also bad, but in conservative areas north of the Tay, relatively few were deprived. It’s also worth noting that a similar process of purging happened in the universities among masters and professors. Radical Calvinism was to be expurgated.
The idea of the 1662 settlement I suppose was three fold; I have emphasised the link with Charles’ determination to re-establish royal power in Scotland; and for Scotland to be an exemplar of good royal power to Charles’ other kingdoms. The Scottish magnates had come then to see an episcopalian church as supporting traditional social structures and helping to re-establish stability.
But thirdly, a more charitable view might be that the Scottish kirk had been at war with itself since 1650; and here was an attempt to bring peace. If so, it failed dramatically.The new structure was never accepted by large sections of the population, and dissent would be ever present over the next 30 years. Worse, Scottish governments would consistently misinterpret moderate dissent with Covenanting radicalism, which continuously upped the ante and political heat and made things exponentially more fractious and violent.
By 1662, the Restoration settlement had been largely defined – though it was far from it’s consequences having been fully played out. It remained to be seen who would rule Scotland for the king; Middleton and his allies, or Lauderdale. But for the moment, Middleton was revelling in his supremacy; he wrote a book, For the Good of the Publick explaining how to buy estates and make a bundle. He was himself making a bundle anyway; because he had found a rich vein of income. Alongside the Act of Indemnity the price of fees and penalties had been set by the Council for the 700 excluded, and it was Middleton’s sad and solemn duty to collect them. And if a little should stick to his fingers, all well and good for his hard work and put of pocket expenses, and if a certain individual wanted to pay a small consideration to avoid an unfairly heavy fine, well, Middleton was a reasonable man and justice would be served. Now it appears that letters came from the king, worried that there could be a volent reaction, and suggesting the PC should suspend the fines. But that didn’t seem at all the thing to Middleton; and anyway, his good friend Clarendon in the royal court assured himself it would all be OK not to worry; and the advantage of the king, and indeed Lauderdale, being in London and Middleton in Scotland was that it was pretty easy to do things under the table. So John Middleton, an efficient military man, kept right on with what he was doing – on the principle of what the eye don’t see, the heart don’t grieve over. So efficient and military was he, that fines & sequestrations raised about £1m Scots, the equivalent of about £83,000 English at the time irrespective of any extra that stuck to the fingers of the Kings commissioner. Now surely that would please the king.
In February 1663 confident of his position with the king, Middleton travelled down to meet his boss at Whitehall, taste the delights of the Restoration court and restoration London in all its gaudy glory.
At Whitehall, leading with the chin, jaw met fist. Middleton had walked into a trap. Lauderdale had acquired the name Red John along the way, probably because of his hair and complexion, but he was to earn it many times in his love of the kill and political blood. And Lauderdale had sensed blood. Accusation against Middleton followed accusation; Middleton had been over zealous in his pursuit of fines and resentment simmered beneath his tyranny; Middleton had accepted bribes and inducements to lighten the load; and worse, Middleton had known full well about Charles’ letter, and had ignored it. Obviously, Lauderale protested he raised these points purely to protect the king’s own interests.
You can be sure Middleton fought back; and both Middleton and Lauderdale had Charles’ trust. But there was a worm now, a worm eating at the Middletonian apple – after all, what about those games Middleton had played with the selection of the 12? It was enough, enough to splinter once more the plinth of trust on which Middleton’s power stood and more stone crumbled from its by now frankly precarious structure.
In May 1663 the plinth disintegrated. Charles ordered Middleton to stand down as the King’s Commissioner, and appointed Lauderdale’s ally Rothes in his place. Worse Rothes was commissioned to investigate Middleton’s actions – ably aided and assisted by none other than Lauderdale. The scrupulously impartial Lauderdale, of course. Spookily, the report in the summer was not positive towards Middleton; added to which Lauderdale managed to persuade parliament to provide for a fully paid for militia for the king to put the lad in the right frame of mind towards him.
Middleton had by this time retired to the Surry countryside; Pepys would meet him and remark
He seems a fine soldier, and so everybody says he is; and a man like … most of the scotch gentry (as I observe), of few words
Nice use of the word Scotch there. Not to be re-used north of the border, just as a piece of friendly advice, unless you are talking whisky. Interestingly, Middleton would end his life as the Governor of Tangiers, a city which had passed temporarily into British control along with the Queen’s dowry, in 1674. The game had been played out, and Middleton had fluffed it.
Lauderdale had overcome all the disadvantages of his position, and played his cards with great skill, to destroy his opponent. He was now one of the effective rulers of Scotland, alongside two others; his benefactor and supporter the Earl of Rothes; and the new Archbishop, James Sharp. It was to be then, a triumvirate. Generally speaking, I have a feeling that triumvirates don’t end well – am I wrong?
[1] Harris, T ‘Restoration’, p109
[2] Hutton, R ‘Maitland’ ODNB
