doing [Stair], he being my Lord Argyle's great confidant. It was admired by
all that he blushed not to make a reply upon his Father's forfaultor, and
whow he had committed many treasonable crimes before the discharge, and to
see him rather than tyne his cause, suffer his father rather to be
reproached and demeaned as a traitor of new again, by his own advocats,' So
fourteen years later he writes, 'Whatever was in Argile's first
transgression in glossing the Test (which appeared slender), yet God's
wonderfull judgements are visible, pleading a controversie against him and
his family, for the cruall oppression he used, not only to his father's,
but even to his oune creditors. It was remembered that he beat Mistris
Brisbane done his stairs for craving hir annuelrents, tho he would have
bestowed as much money on a staff or some like curiosity.' He was, however,
one of Argyll's counsel when he was prosecuted for taking the Test, with
the explanation 'that he conceived that this Test did not hinder nor bind
him up from endeavouring alterations to the better either in Church or
State.' Argyll, who had escaped, was sentenced to death in his absence,
attainted, and his estates forfeited. Lauder strongly disapproved of the
proceedings. He writes, 'There was a great outcry against the Criminal
Judges, their timorous dishonesty....' These words, 'consistent with my
loyalty, were judged taxative and restrictive, seeing his loyalty might be
below the standard of true loyalty, not five-penny fine, much less eleven-
penny,' ... 'The design was to low him, that he might never be the head of
a Protestant party, and to annex his jurisdiction to the Crown, and to
parcel out his lands; and tho' he was unworthily and unjustly dealt with
here, yet ought he to observe God's secret hand, punishing him for his
cruelty to his own and his father's creditors and vassals, sundry of whom
were starving.' Lauder speaks of 'that fatal Act of the Test.' He had no
favour for it, and he narrates with glee how 'the children of Heriot's
Hospitall, finding that the dog which keiped the yairds of that Hospitall
had a publick charge and office, they ordained him to take the Test, and