discretion to David Leslie. It is said that Leslie would have let them
go but for his chaplain, John Nave. Borrowing the words of Samuel, "What
meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of
the oxen which I hear?" in a long and fiery harangue this man of God
exhorted the conquerors to finish their work, and threatened their
captain with the curse of Saul who spared the Amalekites. The prisoners
were butchered to a man.[9]

If, then, it be but a delusion of later times that Scotland could at the
Restoration have been conciliated into accepting a moderate form of
Episcopacy, it is at least clear that there was at that time a strong
party in the country anxious for a compromise between the two Churches,
and willing to make all reasonable advances towards one. Unfortunately
the first move on both sides was of a nature to make all chances of a
compromise impossible.

Charles had conceived a violent dislike to Presbyterianism, and with
his experiences of it the dislike was not unnatural. It was not, he told
Burnet, a religion for gentlemen, and he found few among his court to
contradict him. Scarcely had he settled himself in his capital when the
Presbyterians were upon him. Sharp had already been some months in
London as ambassador of the moderate party, the party of the old
Resolutioners. But an easy way of reconciling Sharp's conscience was
soon found. It is not precisely clear when the bargain was struck which
was to convert the chosen champion of the Presbyterian Church into an
archbishop, but struck it was, and in no long time. He had by Monk's
advice visited Charles at Breda, and some suppose that the first
interview completed the transformation. If so, he managed to delude his
party very skilfully. His letters to the Assembly, though the light of
subsequent events enables us to translate them more clearly than was