342 The bwmtons of that Ilk, by A. Campbell Swinton. 



all ; besides about 800 pound per annum out of my Lord Lauderdale's estate, 

 under tbe name of 400, albeit many of bis creditors be like to perisb for want 

 of bread ; who has been active and instrumental in putting known malignants 

 in places of trust ; who scandalously feasted an English lady in his house for 

 several daies, then pessimce fidei and since justly deserted by her husband, 

 when his own was at London ; who, with his stately lady swaggered with 

 the best of the Court in gallant apparel and powdered periwigs while it 

 lasted ; but now among the first of reformers hath thrown off his false head, 

 gotten shoes cut round over in the foreparts, and speaks nothing but shibbo- 

 leth to the great satisfaction of all the off-spring of James, turning not only 

 Round-head, but Round-Scot. Qui ucscit dissimulare nescit regnare." 



The last paragraph, of this pasquinade has reference to the 

 circumstance that Swinton had by this time turned Quaker. 

 This step was attributed, by his enemies, to fear of the pro- 

 secution with which he was threatened, for the part he had 

 taken in politics. If he had not trembled, said they, he 

 would not have qualced. But the sincerity of his adherence 

 to the Society of Friends was proved, both by his demeanour at his 

 subsequent trial, and by his life in after years. Being 

 destined, after the Restoration, as a victim to the new 

 order of things, he was, we are told, on the 20th of July, 1660, 

 " taken in King Street" (London) " straight out of his bed in a 

 Quaker's house, and was brought to Whitehall and thereafter 

 sent fettered to the prison of Gatehouse."* Thence he was con- 

 veyed to Edinburgh in the same ship with the Marquis of Argyle, 

 whose fate he was intended to share. Being brought before 

 the Parliament to show cause why he should not receive sentence 

 upon his former attainder, he refused to avail himself of any 

 legal pleas, several of which were open to him,f but answered, 

 according to his new religious principles of non-resistance, that 

 it was true he had been guilty of the crimes charged against him, 

 and many more, but that it was when he was in the gall of 

 bitterness and bond of iniquity, and that God Almighty having 

 since called him to the light, he saw and acknowledged these 

 errors, and did not refuse to pay the forfeit of them, even though 

 it should extend to life itself. The calm and dignified bearing 

 of one who had fallen from high estate, made a great impression 

 on his judges ; and Middleton, who presided as Royal Commis- 

 sioner, is said to have been influenced in his favour by enmity to 



* Nicoll's Diary, p. 296. 

 f See Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i., p. 127. 



