Hence the Revolution was perhaps welcome to him. As an adherent of
character and some position he met with marked favour from the new
sovereigns, who promoted him to the bench, and corrected the injustice
which had been done to him in the matter of the patent of his father's
baronetcy, and also granted him a pension of £100 a year, an addition of
fifty per cent. to his official salary. Shortly afterwards he was offered
the post of Lord Advocate, but declined it, because the condition was
attached that he should not prosecute the persons implicated in the
Massacre of Glencoe.[21] From these facts it has been sometimes inferred
that Lauder was disaffected to the Stewart dynasty, and that his
professional advancement was thereby retarded. In reality his career was
one of steady prosperity. Having already received the honour of knighthood
while still a young man, and being a member of parliament for his county,
he became a judge at the age of forty-three. So far from holding opinions
antagonistic to the reigning house, Lauder was an enthusiastic royalist. He
was indeed a staunch Protestant at a time when religion played a great part
in politics. In his early youth the journal here published shows him as
perhaps a bigoted Protestant. But he was not conscious of any conflict
between his faith and his loyalty till the conflict was forced upon him,
and that was late in the day. In this position he was by no means singular.
Sir George Mackenzie, who as Lord Advocate was so vigorous an instrument of
Charles II.'s policy, refused, like Lauder, to concur in the partial
application of the penal laws, and his refusal led to his temporary
disgrace. Lauder was not even a reformer. He was a man of conservative
temperament, and while his love of justice and good government led him to
criticise in his private journals the glaring defects of administration,
and especially the administration of justice, there is no evidence that he
had even considered how a remedy was to be found. There was indeed no
constitutional means of redress, and all revolutionary methods, from the
stubborn resistance of the Covenanters, to the plots in London, real or