Whiteness afrikaans afrikaners addressing post apartheid legacies privileges and burdens 2nd edition
Whiteness Afrikaans Afrikaners
Addressing Post Apartheid Legacies
Privileges and Burdens 2nd Edition
Mistra Mistra
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Reading Affect in Post-Apartheid Literature: South Africa's Wounded Feelings Mark Libin
Women, Economic Development, and Higher Education: Tools in the Reconstruction and Transformation of PostApartheid South Africa 1st Edition Diane E. Eynon (Auth.)
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Andries Nel – Where are the Suzmans, Slovos, Fischers and Naudés of today? 17
Mary Burton – The ‘white man’s burden’: Fifteen years after the TRC 25
Christi van der Westhuizen – White power today 35
Whiteness and the South African Economy
Lynette Steenveld – Capitalism, racialism and whiteness 45
Bobby Godsell – The colour of capital
Dirk Hermann – Dear Mother Africa
Ernst Roets – Double standards and black privilege: The new story of South Africa
Xhanti Payi – The demands of the new world sustain the sins of the old: The parks fable on transformation 73
The World of Ideas: The Place of Afrikaans
Mathatha Tsedu – The world of ideas: The place of Afrikaans 87
Pieter Duvenage – Afrikaner intellectual history: An interpretation 91
Hein Willemse – The hidden histories of Afrikaans 115
Nico Koopman – A South African (’n Suid Afrikaner) university: Is it possible?
Remarks
Contributors
Kgalema Motlanthe
Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe was born to a working-class family on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg . He was elected President of the Republic of South Africa on 25 September 2008 and served until 9 May 2009 .
After his retirement as President, Motlanthe was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to serve as the Deputy President and occupied that position from 11 May 2009 until 24 May 2014 . As Deputy President, Motlanthe performed various functions, including the following:
• leader of government business in the National Assembly
• leader of the Anti-Poverty Programme
• chairperson of the Energy Advisory Council
• chairperson of the Human Resource Development Council
• chairperson of the South African National Aids Council
• chairperson of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup .
In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the then armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) . He was part of a unit tasked
with recruiting members for military training outside the country .
On 14 April 1976 Motlanthe was arrested with others for furthering the aims of the ANC and kept in detention for eleven months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg . In 1977 he was found guilty on three charges under the Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective ten years’ imprisonment on Robben Island .
After his release in 1987, Motlanthe was tasked with strengthening the trade union movement in the country . To this end, he worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as a national office bearer responsible for education . Among other things, he was involved in training workers to form shop steward committees .
In 1990, when the banning of the ANC and other political organisations was lifted, Motlanthe was tasked with re-establishing ANC structures in Gauteng Province . In 1992 he was elected General Secretary of the NUM, succeeding Cyril Ramaphosa who had been elected Secretary-General of the ANC .
Motlanthe also served two five-year terms as Secretary-General of the ANC, from December 1997 to December 2007 . Motlanthe was Deputy President of the ANC from December 2007 to December 2012 . Melissa Steyn
Melissa Steyn holds the DST-NRF South African National Chair in Critical Diversity Studies and is the founding director of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies . Her work engages with intersecting hegemonic social formations, but she is best known for her publications on whiteness and white identity in post-apartheid South Africa . Her book Whiteness Just Isn’t What It Used To Be: White Identity in a Changing South Africa (2001) won the 2002 Outstanding Scholarship Award in International and Intercultural Communication from the National Communication Association in the United States . Her coedited books include The Prize and the Price: Shaping Sexualities in South Africa Volume 2 (2009), Performing Queer: Shaping Sexualities in South Africa Volume 1 (2005), Under Construction: Race and
Identity in South Africa Today (2004) and Cultural Synergy in South Africa: Weaving Strands of Africa and Europe (1996) . Steyn was featured as one of Routledge’s Sociology Super Authors for 2013 . Andries Nel
Andries Nel is South Africa’s Deputy Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs . Elected to Parliament in 1994, he has been Deputy Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development, Deputy Chief Whip and has served on a wide range of portfolio and ad hoc committees . His constituency work has been in Pretoria Central, Centurion, Atteridgeville, Waterberg and Midvaal . His activism began at high school in São Paulo, Brazil, where his parents were part of the diplomatic corps . As a student he participated in the National Union of South African Students and several other organisations . He co-ordinated the Lawyers for Human Rights Capital Punishment and Penal Reform Project between 1990 and 1994 and was a member of the national executive committee of the ANC Youth League from 1996 to 2001 . He is currently the coordinator of legal monitoring on the ANC’s National Elections Team . He holds a Bachelor of Civil Law from the University of Pretoria and is married to Kim Robinson, CEO of Renaissance Strategic Solutions .
Mary Burton
Mary Burton (full name: Maria Macdiarmid Ingouville Burton) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and attended schools there and in São Paulo, Brazil . In 1961 she married Cape Town businessman Geoff Burton, and they have lived in South Africa since then . They have four sons and ten grandchildren . In 1965 Burton joined the Black Sash, a women’s organisation opposed to apartheid, and later various other civil and human rights organisations . She served as national president of the Black Sash from
1986 to 1990 and is currently a member of its Board of Trustees . In 1994 she served as Provincial Electoral Officer for the Western Cape in the country’s first national democratic elections . In 1995 she was appointed by President Nelson Mandela as a commissioner with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission . She is a previous member of the Council of the University of Cape Town (UCT), and a past president of UCT’s Convocation . She has a BA degree from UCT (1982), and in 2011 the university awarded her the degree of Doctor of Social Science, honoris causa . She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Imam Abdullah Haron Education Trust . Awards: Order of Luthuli (Silver), 2003; Member of the Order of the Disa, 2004 . Christi van der Westhuizen
Christi van der Westhuizen (PhD) is associate professor in Sociology at the University of Pretoria . She is the author of Sitting Pretty –White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa (2017), White Power and the Rise and Fall of the National Party (2007) and Working Democracy: Perspectives on South Africa’s Parliament at 20 Years (2014) . She has made contributions to books, including In the Balance: South Africans Debate Reconciliation (2010), and to various journals, including guest editorship of a special section in African Studies on Afrikaner identity (2012) . Her working life started as a journalist at the independent anti-apartheid weekly Vrye Weekblad and she later worked as associate editor at the global news agency Inter Press Service . She received the Mondi Paper Newspaper Award for her political columns . She is a regular public commentator in the media and writes a monthly column for Beeld/Netwerk24 and a Thought Leader blog . Van der Westhuizen held a postdoctoral fellowship with the Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, and a research associateship with the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State . Her PhD is in Diversity Studies and her master’s in Political Economy (cum laude) .
x
Lynette Steenveld
Lynette Steenveld has lectured in the School of Journalism and Media Studies (SJMS) at Rhodes University since the mid-1980s . Her early academic focus was on film studies, in particular the politics of film in contributing to social change . Broadly, this led to the study of feminist film and African cinema, and, in particular, anti-apartheid documentary films produced by local filmmakers . Her interest in media and politics moved from film to print . In the early 2000s she was appointed as the Independent Newspapers Chair of Media Transformation at SJMS and worked with the newspaper industry to put in place various programmes to facilitate the diversification of the media industry . To this end she conducted workshops on racism in the media; xenophobia; and citizen journalism . Her main area of research has thus been on the media and the politics of identity, and, more recently, on print media sustainability . She is also the chair of the Board of Grocott’s Mail, the oldest independent newspaper in South Africa which is located in Makhanda .
Bobby Godsell
Bobby Godsell is the current chair of Business Leadership South Africa, an organisation representing some 80 of the largest businesses operating in South Africa . He serves on the boards of the Industrial Development Corporation and the London-listed Russian gold and silver mining company, Polymetal International . He serves as co-chair of the Millennium Labour Council, a social dialogue body involving business and labour leaders .
Godsell is married to Gillian, who is a research psychologist, and has three daughters .
Dirk Hermann
Dirk Hermann is currently the CEO of Solidarity . He also serves as chairman of Solidarity Helping Hand, Maroela Media and Kraal Publishers . He is frequently quoted in the South African media regarding labour-related and socio-political issues . Hermann obtained a law degree, two honours degrees in Industrial Psychology and Industrial Sociology respectively, and master’s and PhD degrees in Industrial Sociology, focusing on affirmative action, at North West University (NWU) (formerly Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education) . He also completed a postgraduate diploma in labour law at the University of Johannesburg (formerly the Rand Afrikaans University) . He currently sits on the NWU Board . Hermann was born in 1972 and is married to Elsha . They have four daughters, Marisha, Minè, Elzaan and Hanri .
Ernst Roets
Ernst Roets was born in Pretoria on 5 September 1985 . He grew up in Tzaneen in Limpopo Province . After matriculating at Merensky High School, he enrolled for an LLB at the University of Pretoria . During his studies, he served on various student societies and was also a member of the Student Representative Council and the Senate of the University of Pretoria . As a student activist, he was the founder and first national chairperson of AfriForum Youth .
In April 2011, Roets was promoted to the position of deputy CEO of AfriForum . He is a registered attorney, although he does not practise as such . His position at AfriForum includes managing the organisation’s communications department, acting as spokesperson for the organisation and co-ordinating various campaigns . He is currently in the final stage of his master’s degree in Public Law (LLM) . His dissertation deals with the extent to which minority communities are protected by the South African Constitution . AfriForum is a civil rights organisation that deals with the protection of minority rights in South Africa .
Xhanti Payi
Xhanti Payi is an economist and the managing director at Nascence Advisory and Research, a strategy consulting and research outfit . He is also a columnist for Business Day and Business Times, and has contributed articles to international publications like the Financial Times . As a public commentator, his views are regularly sought by local and international media, including eNCA and the BBC . Payi has worked as an analyst at Investec Wealth and Investment, an economist at Stanlib Asset Managers and a country risk manager at Standard Bank . With academic training from the University of Cape Town and the University of London, Payi is keenly interested in creating new knowledge to contribute to solutions to today’s economic and business challenges . Payi also serves on the advisory panel to the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry .
Mathatha Tsedu
Mathatha Tsedu is the executive director of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), prior to which he was general manager for strategic development and projects at Media24 News . After serving as editor of City Press, he was head of the Media24 Journalism Academy, responsible for training working and learner journalists . He is a seasoned media trainer . He was, until September 2013, project director of the Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team and before that he was project director of the Press Freedom Commission of South Africa, which was established in 2011 to look at the regulatory framework of print media in South Africa . He is a board member of the African Media Initiative . He has served as editor at a number of South African newspapers, namely Sunday Times and City Press; and as deputy head of news at the SABC . He was chairperson of the African Editors’ Forum, which brings together editors and editorial executives from across the African continent .
He chaired SANEF for three consecutive years, and is also a member of council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution . Tsedu is a recipient of a number of awards, including the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, the Nat Nakasa Award for Courageous Journalism, the Mondi Shanduka Lifetime Achiever Award and the SANEF Wrottesley Award, the Media24 Newspapers All Time Legend Award and the Naspers Phil Weber Award . He served on the Task Group on Government Communications that devised the government’s communications structure, leading to the creation of the Government Communication and Information System . Tsedu holds a BA Honours in Journalism and Media Studies from Wits University . He was banned for six years and detained several times by the apartheid government .
Pieter Duvenage
Pieter Duvenage (born 1963) has studied philosophy in South Africa (Stellenbosch, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth) and Germany (Göttingen and Frankfurt-am-Main) . He received his doctorate in 1994 from the University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) .
Since his first position as senior lecturer (1995), he has lectured in philosophy from 1997 as an associate professor, full professor and visiting professor at various South African universities (Limpopo, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan), and two Australian universities with campuses in South Africa (Bond and Monash) . On 1 October 2011 he became full professor and head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein . He is the author and co-author of four books and 40 accredited articles in journals and books . He specialises in political and social philosophy within the traditions of critical theory, phenomenology/ hermeneutics and South African intellectual history . He has been a rated researcher under the National Research Foundation since 2003 (current rating C1), a member of the Akademie (Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns) since 2002 and a past president
of the Philosophical Society of Southern Africa (2005–2008) . Since 2015 he has been a professorial fellow at the Centre for Collingwood Studies and British Idealism; honorary professor at the University of Cardiff; and editor of the Journal for Contemporary History (based at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein) .
Hein Willemse
Hein Willemse studied law and Afrikaans literature at the University of the Western Cape . He has earned the following qualifications: BA (Hons) (cum laude), MA (cum laude), MBL and D .Litt . He has published widely on Afrikaans language, literature and orature studies . He has also taught for extended periods in Mexico, the USA and Namibia . He recently served as president of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa . He is a Professor of Literature in the Department of Afrikaans, University of Pretoria, and the current editor-in-chief of the multilingual African literary journal Tydskrif vir Letterkunde (www .letterkunde .up .ac .za) .
Nico Koopman
Nico Koopman has been Acting Vice-Rector Social Impact, Transformation and Personnel at Stellenbosch University since 1 June 2015 . He is dean of the Faculty of Theology, director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology and Professor of Systematic Theology and Public Theology at Stellenbosch University . He is an ordained pastor of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa . Since 2008 he has been a member of the Council of the University of Stellenbosch . His research focuses on the meaning of faith for public life and he has published widely on themes in the field of public theology . He is chairperson of the Global Network for Public Theology . During the academic year of September 2007 to June 2008 he was public theologian-in-residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton . As academic, public speaker and writer, he
plays a leading role in public discourse in the academy, churches and broader society, both locally and internationally .
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe, born in Cameroon, obtained his PhD in History at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989 and a DEA in Political Science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Paris) . He was assistant professor of History at Columbia University, New York, from 1988 to 1991, a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, from 1991 to 1992, associate professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1996, and executive director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa in Dakar, Senegal, from 1996 to 2000 . Achille was also a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001, and a visiting professor at Yale University in 2003 . He has written extensively on African history and politics, including La Naissance du Maquis dans le SudCameroun (Paris: Karthala, 1996) . On the Postcolony was published in Paris in 2000 in French and the English translation was published by the University of California Press, Berkeley in 2001 . In 2015, Wits University Press published a new, African edition .
Mathews Phosa
Lawyer, ANC member, MK commander, member of the ANC negotiating team at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), former premier of Mpumalanga and previously treasurergeneral of the ANC, Nakedi Mathews Phosa was born on 1 September 1952 in Mbombela Township, Nelspruit, Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga) . He grew up with his grandfather in a rural area near Potgietersrus (now Mokopane) . He was educated at Maripi High School in Acornhoek and matriculated from Orhovelani High School in Thulamahashe . In 1981, he opened a legal practice in Nelspruit . He left the country in 1985, and in 1986 became the regional commander
of MK, the military wing of the ANC, in Mozambique . Phosa was one of the ANC members instrumental in convincing King Sobhuza II of Swaziland not to accept the apartheid regime’s offer to give him the kaNgwane and Ngwavuma districts . Phosa, as an MK leader, operated out of Mozambique in his native Eastern Transvaal in the 1980s . Following the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, he played an important role in transition initiatives, including CODESA . He had been one of the first four members of the ANC to enter South Africa from exile in 1990 to start the process of negotiation with the National Party (NP) when the ANC was unbanned . He was also head of the legal department of the ANC, in which capacity he often engaged in fierce debates with the Minister of Law and Order, Hernus Kriel, over issues such as the joint investigation by the South African Police and the ANC into the death of Chris Hani . At the ANC’s 52nd National Conference, Phosa was elected treasurer-general . He was a member of the national executive committee of the ANC from 1999 . After the first democratic elections in 1994, Phosa was appointed premier of Mpumalanga, a position he held until 1999 . In 1995, the University of Boston awarded him an honorary doctorate .
Preface
In August 2015, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) published the outcome of its research project on social cohesion entitled Nation Formation and Social Cohesion: An Enquiry into the Hopes and Aspirations of South Africans. In the preface to that publication, we asked the questions:
Besides geography, as well as economic and political systems, to what extent do South Africa’s people constitute a nation? Do the erstwhile colonial settlers – who, unlike in most other parts of the postcolonial world, have decided in large numbers to make the country their permanent home – deserve equal recognition as members of the emergent nation?
However, in retrospect we noted a gap in that publication – the absence of the voices of white South Africans . Therefore, as a further probing of this vexed topic (perhaps more vexed now as we reel under the recent blows of an apparent resurgence of crude public manifestations of racism and a hardening of attitudes on both sides of the racial divide), MISTRA, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), convened a round-table in November 2015 at the Women’s Gaol on Constitution Hill with the title ‘Whites,
Afrikaans, Afrikaners: Addressing Post-Apartheid Legacies, Privileges and Burdens’ .
As was expected, the discourse at the round-table was rigorous . We are therefore pleased to publish in this volume the varied and provoking presentations at the event, including the keynote address by former President Kgalema Motlanthe and inputs from Melissa Steyn, Andries Nel, Mary Burton, Christi van der Westhuizen, Lynette Steenveld, Bobby Godsell, Dirk Hermann (of Solidarity), Ernst Roets (of AfriForum), Xhanti Payi, Mathatha Tsedu, Pieter Duvenage, Hein Willemse and Nico Koopman . Closing remarks were given by Achille Mbembe and Mathews Phosa . These varied inputs probe a range of issues about whiteness in general and about the place of Afrikaners and the Afrikaans language in democratic South Africa . Perhaps the key lesson to come out of this discourse is that there is no homogeneity of views on these issues among white South Africans in general and Afrikaners in particular . In fact, at the round-table, and in these pages, one finds a multifaceted effort to scrub energetically at the boundaries that apartheid South Africa imposed on us all .
We express our profound appreciation to the authors and to all the participants at the round-table and to the FES and NIHSS for making this discourse possible . We have, as far as possible, tried to reproduce the timbre of the event itself .
Joel Netshitenzhe Executive Director
Acknowledgements
MISTRA conveys its warm gratitude to the facilitators, speakers and participants at the round-table on which this publication is based, not just for their participation, but for the courage with which they tackled a fraught topic .
We, in particular, thank the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) for partnering us in this project, and for their generous financial support to it .
We also extend thanks to Barry Gilder, who edited this publication; to the staff of MISTRA, who helped to make the event a great success; and to Jacana Media for the copy edit, design, layout and production of this book . MISTRA funders
Though not directly involved with this project, MISTRA would nonetheless like to acknowledge its donors and funders for their support towards the Institute . They include:
• Absa
• Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA)
• Anglo Gold Ashanti
• Anglo Platinum
• Aspen Pharmacare
• Batho Batho Trust
• Brimstone
• Chancellor House
• Coca-Cola
• Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA)
• Discovery
• Encha Group Limited
• First Rand Foundation
• Goldman Sachs
• Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)
• Jackie Mphafudi
• Kumba Iron Ore
• Liliesleaf
• Lincoln Mali
• MTN
• Naspers
• National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)
• Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT)
• People’s Republic of China Embassy
• Robinson Ramaite
• Safika
• Simeka Group
• South African Breweries (SAB)
• Standard Bank
• Thandi Ndlovu
• Transnet Foundation
• True Spark Investment
• UBU Holdings
• University of Johannesburg
• University of Pretoria
• University of the Witwatersrand
• Yellowwoods
Acronyms and Abbreviations
ANC African National Congress
BEE black economic empowerment
CEO chief executive officer
CODESA Convention for a Democratic South Africa
COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions
DST-NRF Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation
FES Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
FOSATU Federation of South African Trade Unions
GDP gross domestic product
GRA Genootskap van Regte Afrikaanders
HRC Human Rights Commission
JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange
MISTRA Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection
MK Umkhonto we Sizwe
NDP National Development Plan
NIHSS National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences
NP National Party
NUM National Union of Mineworkers
NWU North West University
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme
SACP South African Communist Party
SANEF South African National Editors Forum
TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission
UCT University of Cape Town
UWC University of the Western Cape
VOC Dutch East India Company
ZAR South African Republic
Keynote Address
KGALEMA MOTLANTHE
Programme Director, Ms Gail Smith; Deputy Minister, Mr Andries Nel;
MISTRA’s Executive Director, Mr Joel Netshitenzhe;
MISTRA’s Director of Operations, Mr Barry Gilder; His Excellency, Ambassador Yacoob Abba Omar; Delegates and participants; Friends and comrades; Distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen:
Iam pleased to join you today as we undertake to discourse on a topic we rarely converse about in South Africa; namely, whiteness and what it means, or should mean, in post-apartheid society . I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers of this round-table, the Mapungubwe Institute (MISTRA) . In this regard, you have dared to provide a platform for all of us to understand the history of whiteness in all its socio-economic manifestations as well as the architecture of its power relations and privileges .
At issue here is the imperative to interrogate a socially pernicious ideology intellectually identified as whiteness, which has historically
privileged a particular racially defined social group by dint of skin colour .
The importance of this area of knowledge becomes all too apparent in the light of recent events on our social landscape, from the student protests against fee increases, growing calls for transformation of both our public and private institutions, and the call for decolonisation of the curriculum and staff representivity .
Weaving all these events together is the perception, rightly or wrongly, depending on one’s social and ideological position, that identity issues are still unresolved two decades into our system of constitutional democracy .
We would do well to remember that the preamble to our Constitution enjoins us to prioritise the creation of ‘a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights’ .
We are inclined to ask, therefore, what hampers the full realisation of these human rights and freedoms? Indeed, racial discrimination is neither permissible in our legislative framework nor allowed in the public domain . Yet this has not prevented the perception that the white section of our society is able to grow as a group thanks to racially favourable conditions, at least at a nuanced level .
In explaining this phenomenon, the one theory blames wilful ignorance, from an intellectual viewpoint, in terms of social practices rooted in notions of whiteness .
We either avoid an open, dispassionate public reflection on the scourge of racism or simply downplay it through all manner of subterfuge .
This is an astonishing act by intellectuals of all descriptions who avert their eyes to this historical sore point, given that South Africa is a colonial construct, meaning the notion of racism, or racialism, is rooted in its historical framework .
The one anomaly resulting from this wilful ignorance is that, while we hype up issues of racism in daily life, we scarcely ever dwell on its underlying causes .
To that extent this platform, which seeks to reflect on whiteness as a social construct, assumes epic proportions . As such one can only hope that this engagement will serve as an entry point for the emergence of
a multiplicity of voices reflecting the full spectrum of our nation and seeking to confront the historical import of the ideology of whiteness from different angles .
To reiterate: my understanding of its stated objectives is that this round-table discussion is an attempt to untangle the webs of mystification surrounding the foundations of whiteness .
In this respect, let me make so bold as to offer a few thoughts on these underlying causes .
First, one may contend that whiteness is a global phenomenon that traces its privileged position to the eighteenth-century industrial revolution from which has evolved modernity .
More than any other epoch in history, the dawn of industrialism disproportionately empowered Europeans in comparison to the rest of the world .
The advent of the Middle Passage, or the transatlantic slave trade, during which black Africans were turned into chattels in the service of emerging capitalist needs from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, provided for and was based on notions not only of racial purity but supremacy .
Corresponding with the ascendant narrative of whiteness against the background of European modernisation, history was revised and many non-Western cultures were consciously debased and devalued . In consequence, the central ontological narrative of human history was Europeanised .
And, therefore, to advance a more inclusive narrative, all conscious efforts have to be made to decentre whiteness through the creation of spaces for marginalised narratives, all of which have an equally justifiable claim to the centre of historical consciousness .
Second, related to the centredness of whiteness is the reality that it has over time commandeered the position of the normal and normative . Non-Europeans have not only been othered but also defined in reference to the white as a norm .
Richard Dyer, in his classic 1997 book, White, is apposite when he says: ‘As long as race is something only applied to non-white people, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they function as a human norm . Other people are raced, we are not . The claim to
power is the claim to speak for the commonality of humanity . Raced people can’t do that – they can only speak for their race’ .
Third, the question that arises in dislodging whiteness from its perch of normativity is what it should be replaced by . The narratives of others should be elevated to the same position of privilege as the dominant Western canons with which modern history is familiar .
A closer look into human history shows that the pool of human knowledge has incrementally benefited from all humanity across the ages, with each ethnic or racial group having had its turn at one historical period or another .
Ancient China, India and Africa have each made notable contributions to the march of progress since antiquity, a fact that is not faithfully reflected in school curricula .
Instead, the Western canon of the so-called dead white men like Plato, Newton, Kant, Marx and Wittgenstein rule the roost, while non-Western figures such as al-Khwarizmi, who mathematised science, and the Chinese polymath scholar, Shen Kuo, as well as the African, Imhotep, the first recorded genius of antiquity, and many more, languish at the margins of history .
This is the reason I wish to commend the vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Dr Ihron Rensburg, who has undertaken to ‘establish inclusive traditions‚ with particular reference to Africa’ .
I believe this effort will incorporate Key Themes in African History‚ Great African Philosophers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries‚ Important Anti-Colonial Struggles of the 20th Century‚ The State of the Post-colony – Progress and Retrogression‚ and Critical Citizenship in the 21st Century .
Fourth, these initiatives – partly aimed at removing whiteness from its unfairly privileged historical standing – also call for recognition that whiteness comes with access to power invariably expressed through the economic apparatus that enables it to include and exclude .
This power mechanism wielded by the ideology of whiteness was emphasised recently by the pronouncements of a prominent white human rights lawyer who tried to defend his decision for only briefing and working with white lawyers, since, in his opinion, only they have the cognitive capabilities to close and win cases .
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not the course of synods been interrupted by the introduction of bishops, few had keeped their places who were afterwards ejected by that infamous proclamation at Glasgow in the year 1662.”
Nor was the committee idle; Mr Patrick Gillespie, principal of Glasgow College, was brought prisoner to Edinburgh Castle, and Mr Robert Row, minister of Abercorn, and W. Wiseheart of Kinniel, were confined to their chambers in the town. Having forbid any meetings for petitioning, they proceeded to display their antipathy to those principles of freedom, for which their fathers had contended, by emitting a proclamation against Rutherford’s Lex Rex—a work which was held in high estimation by the covenanters, as it advocated the cause of liberty and the legitimate limitations on power, with an energy and clearness the enemies of freedom could not bear; and another work, supposed to be written by Mr James Guthrie, entitled “The Causes of God’s Wrath against Scotland,” which enumerated the sins of the land, princes, priests, and people, with a faithfulness that was intolerable. They declared these two books to be full of seditious and treasonable matter, animating his majesty’s good subjects to rise up in rebellion against their lawful prince and sovereign, and poisoning their hearts with many seditious and rebellious principles, prejudicial to his royal person and authority, and to the peace of the kingdom. All, therefore, possessed of copies of the obnoxious publications were required to deliver them up to the king’s solicitor within a certain time, under pain of being considered enemies to his majesty’s authority, and liable to be punished accordingly They were both burnt at the cross—a favourite, if not a very convincing, mode of answering such like productions. With revolting meanness, they at the same time caused the inscriptions to be effaced from the tombs of Alexander Henderson in Edinburgh, and George Gillespie at Kirkaldy—men who needed not the frail remembrance of a monumental stone to make their memories live in the recollection of their country, and whose services have more lasting record than a graving-iron could bestow.
Some few days after, they made a still more explicit disclosure of their aversion to the “good old cause”—a sneering form of expression become fashionable among the courtiers—by another
proclamation directed against the remonstrants and their adherents, not only forbidding meetings for consultation, which were still legal, but likewise any adverting, in their sermons or otherwise, to the state of the church, or the danger to be apprehended from the introduction of the exploded and hated prelatical offices and forms; and, as they knew the effect of popular preaching, they appear to have been most anxious at once to suppress all pulpit opposition to the course they were about to pursue.
Of the watchmen upon the Scottish Zion, the remonstrants had been the most wakeful and most jealous of encroachments upon the established covenanted constitution of the church and state, and the committee were assured, that when they apprehended danger, they would not be silent; they therefore expressly commanded that none, in sermons, preachings, declamations, or speeches, should presume to reflect on the conduct of his majesty or his progenitors, misconstrue his proceedings, or meddle in his affairs or estate, present, bygone, or in time coming, under the highest penalties; and if any who heard what could be construed into slander against the king did not reveal it, they were to be liable to the same punishment as principals. This proclamation, the anti-type of so many furious attacks upon the liberty of the lieges, was calculated to ensnare those who, being accustomed openly to speak their sentiments, were not prepared at once to renounce all mention of public affairs in common conversation or public discourses, whether ministers, elders, or private gentlemen; and numbers of each description were immediately made to feel its oppressive weight.
Had a free election been allowed, notwithstanding the loyal phrenzy of many, and the hypocritical pretensions of more, there might some troublesome members have procured admission to the estates; but those whose influence and opposition were most dreaded, being by this proclamation placed in very delicate circumstances—as evidence of unguarded expressions might easily have been procured—were happy to escape censure, and did not stand forward at the only time when they could have done so with some probability of success, in support of the constitution, freedom, and religion of their country. The committee, however, did not rest
here: with the most unblushing effrontery, although conscious themselves of having to a man complied with the English, they hung out a threat of prosecution for this common and inevitable fault, which damped all who seemed inclined to assert the independence of a Scottish parliament, or the privileges they had obtained from the crown during the late struggle.[9]
9 Of the nature of these prosecutions, the reader may form some idea from the following: “Mr James Nasmyth, minister of the gospel at Hamilton, was sisted before the committee for words alleged to have been spoken by him many years ago About the year 1650, when Lambert was in the church, it was alleged he pressed his hearers to employ their power for God, and not in opposition to the gospel, otherwise they might expect to be brought down by the judgement of God as those who went before were!” Wodrow, vol. i. p. 12.
Besides to pinion the country gentlemen more effectually, they tendered a bond to all of whom they were suspicious, which they obliged them to sign, with a sufficient cautioner, each binding themselves—besides disowning the remonstrance—that they should not in any way or manner, directly or indirectly, plot, contrive, speak, or do any thing tending, or what might tend, to the hurt, prejudice, or derogation of his majesty’s royal person or any of that royal family— that they should not do any thing, directly or indirectly, tending, or that might tend, to the breach or disturbance of the public peace, nor connive or concur with any person whatsoever who should contrive any such thing; but, to the utmost of their power, stop and let any such plot and doing, and appear personally before the committee, sub-committee, or parliament, upon a lawful citation; and, in case of failure, the parties bound themselves to pay a high fine, besides whatever other punishment might be inflicted.
For a justification of proceedings so unwarrantable, we must look to the sequel; it was not because the parties accused were inimical either to kingly government or to the person or right of Charles, but because the plan was already formed for sweeping from the face of the country, had it been possible, whatever was lovely or of good report—whatever in the institutions of the state or the polity of the church was calculated to present any obstruction to the tide of obscene licentiousness and faithless despotism that was now fast
flowing upon them. Their stretches of power against the liberties of the country, do not, however, seem to have occasioned any remonstrance; and the synod of Lothian was amused with a proclamation for calling a General Assembly, which Mr William Sharpe had submitted for their amendment; but the last acts of the committee, levying a cess, excited some remark as to the legality of the tax or their power to exact it.
On the 1st of November, a proclamation announced the meeting of parliament; and the same day another, that the king had committed to them the consideration and judging of the conduct of all his subjects during the late troubles, from whom alone he would receive any applications, and promising, after his honour and ancient royal prerogative were vindicated, he would grant a free, full pardon and indemnity—a promise which, although conveyed in very specious language, and accompanied by an assurance that there was nothing his royal bosom was more desirous of than that his people should be blessed with abundance of happiness, peace, and plenty, was received with suspicion, and, like almost all the other acts of grace, afforded little relief to the unfortunate, while it secured the persons and plunder of those who had pillaged and oppressed them.
BOOK II.
DECEMBER 1660 12 JULY 1661.
Lord High Commissioner arrives in Edinburgh Parliament Its composition Act of indemnity withheld Lord Chancellor restored to the Presidentship Oath of allegiance Retrogression in reformation-work Divine right of Kings asserted Solemn League and Covenant repealed Engagement approved, &c Declaration Resolutioners begin to perceive their error Middleton amuses the ministers of Edinburgh Manner of concocting the Act rescissory and of getting it passed—Middleton’s interview with D Dickson and part of the Edinburgh presbytery—Distress of the ministers—Dispersion of the synods— Concluding acts—Trial of Argyle—His behaviour before and at the place of execution Trial of James Guthrie His behaviour and execution Captain Govan Prosecutions of Mr Traill of Edinburgh Mr Moncrief of Scone Intrepid reply of his wife Mr Robert Macwaird of Glasgow His striking picture of the effects of the Restoration His accusation Defence Banishment Swinton of Swinton Sir John Christy and Mr P. Gillespie’s escape Parliament rises Samuel Rutherford.
The Earl of Middleton, Lord High Commissioner, arrived at the ancient Palace of Holyrood on the last day of December 1660. He entered upon his office with great pomp; and, being allowed a princely salary for the support of his establishment, he vied with royalty itself in the profusion of his expenditure. Every preparation had been made for his reception: he was met and conducted to his residence by a large concourse of the nobility and the magistrates of the capital; and the venerable cathedral of St Giles had been
elegantly fitted up with a throne for his Grace and lofts for the parliament.
That parliament which met on the first day of the new year, was one entirely suited for promoting the schemes of the Scottish rulers. The old nobles, who had been active in the cause of the covenant, had almost all died out, their estates had been wasted, and of the new race too many, neglected in their education, were now dependant in their circumstances. When the king arrived, they had flocked to London to put in their claims upon his justice or generosity for their sufferings in the royal cause, and had been received with specious condescension, and sent home with empty pockets and magnificent expectations. But they had learned at court to laugh at sobriety, to ridicule religion, and to consider even common decency a mark of disloyalty, while they looked to a rich harvest of fines and confiscations from the estates of the remonstrators, as a reward for their sacrificing their principles and profession at the shrine of prerogative. The commissioners for counties and burghs were chosen entirely from among those who were considered devoted to the court and averse to the strict Presbyterians. In some cases, when persons of an opposite description had been returned, the ruling party interfered and procured others to be substituted; and to prevent such as were distinguished for their attachment to the cause of religious freedom from offering themselves as candidates, they got them accused of complying with the usurpers, and summoned as criminals.[10]
10. Were it not that mankind have a strange propensity to reward with injury favours they feel too great to repay, and to heap injustice upon their benefactors in order to conceal their ingratitude, we would be astonished at the conduct of Charles; but having often, in private life, seen that to raise a wretch from penury, was to incur his hatred, if we did not, at the same time, rise in proportion We confess that the ingratitude of princes to those who have succoured them in distress, ceases to excite those strong feelings of reprobation, which we have often heard men in humbler life, who were themselves guilty of grosser injustice, express against crimes, whose highest aggravation was, that they were committed by persons of rank.
From a parliament so constituted, the most servile compliance might have been anticipated; but, to ensure their submission, an act of indemnity had been withheld from Scotland; and, while every one dreaded his individual safety, the whole assisted in destroying that public liberty which might have afforded a better chance for security than the will of a prince or the favour of a parasite. The regalia, always carried before the commissioner at the opening of a session, were borne—the crown by the Earl of Crawford, the sceptre by Sutherland, and the sword by Mar. The Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Montrose rode immediately behind. Mr Robert Douglas, who had preached the coronation sermon before Charles when he was inaugurated at Scone, delivered upon this occasion a faithful and appropriate discourse from 2 Chron. xix. 6.—“Take heed what you do; for you judge not for man but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.”
The Earl of Middleton’s commission was then presented, and, as had been previously agreed upon, an act was brought forward to restore to the Lord Chancellor the Presidentship of parliament. This act, which struck at the root of the whole reformation in Scotland, deserves particular notice. By several acts of the estates, passed during the troublous times, particularly one of the last, held in 1651, at which the king himself had presided, it was enacted, that, before entering upon business, every member should swear and subscribe the covenant, without which the constitution of parliament would become null and void. To have set aside these statutes openly and at once, was thought too flagrant; but it had also been enacted during the late struggle, that the President of the parliament should be elected by parliament, instead of the Chancellor nominated by the king; and it was therefore proposed to abolish this privilege, as trenching upon the royal prerogative. In this act, however, brought forward for that purpose, was inserted an oath of allegiance, which went to annul all preceding oaths, and covertly to revive the abhorred supremacy of the king. It was insidiously worded, in order that those who wished to have an excuse for compliance might take it without appearing undisguisedly to violate their former engagements, yet sufficiently plain to justify a refusal by men who
were not altogether prepared to surrender their principles to their interest.
By it the sovereign was acknowledged only supreme governor in the kingdom over all persons and in all causes; and it was declared that no foreign prince, power, or state, nor person, civil nor ecclesiastic, had any jurisdiction, power, or superiority over the same; “and therefore,” it was added, “I utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, and authorities, and shall, at my utmost power, defend, assist, and maintain his majesty’s jurisdiction aforesaid against all deadly, and never decline his majesty’s power and jurisdiction.” The consistent and stricter part of the Presbyterians were not imposed upon. They considered, and correctly as it afterwards appeared, that this was a complete acknowledgment of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and conferred upon him the power to alter or innovate at his pleasure upon the religion of the country. In parliament, however, almost the whole took the oath without remark, except the Earls of Cassils and Melville of the nobles, and the Laird of Kilburnie of the commissioners, who would not subscribe it unless allowed to limit the king’s supremacy to civil matters—an explanation which Middleton was disposed to admit of verbally, but, knowing the extent to which allegiance was to be required, he refused to permit this explanation to be recorded.
Having thus dispensed with the obligation of the covenant as a parliament-oath, and reinstated his majesty in his ecclesiastical power, they proceeded to restore to him a less questionable part of the prerogative—the nomination of the officers of state, privy councillors, and Lords of Session, the right of convoking and dissolving parliament, of commanding the militia, and of making peace and war. These powers, which are now deemed necessary for the support of the crown in regular ordinary times, had been assumed by the estates of Scotland (1649) on account of their abuse by the English ministers and favourites, at a period when our country, from being the poorest of the two united kingdoms, and the most distant from the immediate presence of the king, was peculiarly liable to be oppressed by those who obtained possession of the royal ear:—and the whole of the succeeding melancholy period,
evince but too clearly how well founded was the jealousy entertained of the power intrusted to a monarch who was a non-resident. But what then particularly disgusted the friends of freedom, was, to observe in their re-enactment, the express unqualified avowal of the slavish tenets of the divine rights of kings, and their accountability to God alone, the assertion of which had occasioned all the troubles of the land, had brought Charles I. to the block, and which was eventually to forfeit for the Stuarts the throne of their fathers.
Sudden and astonishing as had been the revolution that had taken place in the public feelings and morals, and outrageously violent as the shoutings of newfangled loyalty had been against the treasons and insults of the remonstrators, still the covenants were esteemed sacred bonds by an imposing number of the worthiest part of the community, whom it might not have been adviseable to shock too abruptly. These revered engagements were therefore first attacked obliquely in an act which purported merely to assert a constitutional truth respecting “his majesty’s royal prerogative in making of leagues and the convention of the subjects,” which, after narrating some enactments forbidding councils, conventions, or assemblies, for determining matters of state, civil or ecclesiastic, without his majesty’s command or license, declared that any explanation or glosse that, during these troubles, had been put upon these acts —“as, ‘that they are not to be extended against any leagues, councils, conventions, assemblies, or meetings, made, holden, or kept by the subjects for preservation of the king’s majesty, the religion, laws, or liberties of the kingdom, or for the public good either of kirk or kingdom,’ are false and disloyal.” No opposition having been made to this act, a more decisive followed, annulling the “pretended” convention of estates kept in 1643, which had entered into the Solemn League and Covenant, but which, not having been convoked by the king, although afterwards approved, afforded at least some pretext for disallowing it. Next came an act “concerning the League and Covenant, declaring that there was no obligation on the kingdom by covenant to endeavour, by arms, a reformation of religion in the kingdom of England; or to meddle in any seditious way in any thing concerning the religion and government of the churches of England and Ireland.” With this, perhaps, there was little quarrel.
The attempts to obtain uniformity in religion, and to procure a hollow profession of the form, where the reality was notoriously wanting, was a political sin, for which the covenanters had suffered severely already, and the repetition of which it might be laudable to prevent; yet, as the Solemn League and Covenant had been formally, fully, and repeatedly sanctioned by all the members of the state in subsequent parliaments, and was by many good men considered irreversible, it might have been more decorous to have allowed it to remain a dead letter, especially as it had been renounced by the English, and could not in such circumstances be acted upon by the Scots. Considerable reluctance was expressed respecting this measure; and, to silence opposition, the commissioner informed the House that he had no orders from his royal master to encroach upon the National Covenant or upon the consciences of the people; but as to leagues with other nations, he conceived they could not now subsist with the laws of the king. One honest man, however, had the courage publicly to avow that he could do nothing against his lawful oath and covenant; and numbers who could not approve of the act, silently withdrew. To make the annulling of the covenant more palatable, the managers sweetened the draught by an act against papists, priests, and jesuits, whose numbers they asserted more abounded of late, and insinuated as if the covenants had been the cause of the increase!
Preparatory to the bloody tragedy with which they were to conclude, an act was passed approving of the engagement, and vilifying in the most bitter terms all who opposed that expedition, ruinous equally to the king and to the country; and another, condemning the transactions respecting the delivering up of Charles I. at Newcastle, and declaring the approval of them by the parliament, 1647, to have been the deed of a few factious, disloyal persons, and not the deed of the nation. All the acts which had been voted were embodied into a declaration, entitled an acknowledgment of his majesty’s prerogative, which, together with the oath of allegiance, every person holding a place of public trust was required to subscribe, and all other persons who should be required by his majesty’s privy council, or any having authority from them, should be required to take and swear; and whoever should refuse or delay to
take them, were not only to be rendered incapable of any office of public trust, but be looked upon as persons disaffected to his majesty’s authority and government.
Hitherto, a majority of the Presbyterian ministers—the remonstrators excepted—had remained silent, while those who, after Mr Douglas, were employed to preach before parliament, shamefully flattered the proceedings of the day, by declaiming against seditious bands and the irregularity of the times, and inculcating the courtly doctrine of gratitude for their gracious deliverance from tyranny and usurpation, and for the miraculous restoration of the king—the duty of unlimited confidence on the best of princes; and some went so far as to recommend Episcopacy as that form of church-government that suited best with monarchy; but when the plans of the managers began to be developed, even the resolutioners were painfully constrained to suspect that they had been duped, and that their brethren who wished at first to make an explicit declaration of their fears, and to supplicate against encroachment, acted the wiser and more reputable part. When too late, they saw the folly of admitting to power men of bad principles, and trusting either to their professions of repentance or the smallness of their number. The ministers of Edinburgh now attempted to stem the torrent; they had frequent interviews with the Earl of Middleton, who, during the progress of the measures, treated them with respect and fair promises. They entreated that, in the oath of allegiance, the supremacy of the king might be restricted to his right as supreme governor in civil affairs, and in ecclesiastical, as defined in the Confession of Faith, ch. 23: that it might be declared by parliament that they did not intend to make void the oath of God: and that an act might be passed ratifying anew the Confession of Faith and Directory of Worship. His Grace politely promised to transmit their desires to the king, and requested that they would draw out an act of ratification, such as they would consider satisfactory, and he would attend to it, which they accordingly did.
But, while he was amusing them in this manner, a measure was in progress—the wildest and most extravagant ever tried in any legislative body—for which, however, the Scottish parliament, by a
peculiarity in its constitution, afforded every facility That peculiarity consisted in having a committee, called the Lords of the Articles, composed of from eight to twelve persons of each estate, who prepared all the bills brought before the House; so that when they were presented the members had little else to do but to vote. This committee, at all times under the influence of the crown, was, in the present instance, completely devoted to the king’s pleasure, and ready to approve and propose whatever he desired. Every thing had been so arranged by them, that the parliament was only required to meet in the afternoon of two days in the week,[11] where the important acts already noticed, together with others of a civil nature, of scarcely less consequence, had passed precipitately almost without discussion. Even this method, however, seemed too slow for accomplishing the total overthrow of the work of reformation, and an idea was now revived, which had been originally suggested in a meeting at London by Sir George M’Kenzie of Tarbet, for disannulling at one sweep the whole of the parliaments whose proceedings were disagreeable to the present rulers, or presented any obstacle to the establishment of unlimited despotism.
11. Before this, it had been the custom for parliament to meet at nine o’clock, A M and sometimes earlier, while their committees met about seven to prepare the business
Middleton had brought to Scotland, not only the high monarchical principles, but the shameless manners of the English court, rendered still more disgraceful by the regardless habits of a rough mercenary. Short as were the sessions of parliament, and late in the day as they met, he and his companions occasionally reeled to the House in such a state, that an immediate adjournment became necessary. Their sederunts at the Palace were more protracted; and the most important affairs were settled on these occasions, when all difficulties were got rid of, with a facility far beyond the reach of forenoondisputants, engaging each other in a dry debate. At some such carousal, a jocular remark of Primrose’s is said to have decided the commissioner; and the draught of a bill, rescinding all the parliaments which had met since 1640 as illegal and rebellious, was framed and attempted to be hurried through parliament with the
same rapidity as the rest. An unexpected opposition delayed its passage. As “that incomparable king,” Charles I., had freely presided at one, and the king himself at two others, some of the best affected to the court did not approve of an act, which they said went to throw a slur upon the memory of the blessed martyr, and was highly disrespectful to his present majesty. What staggered, however, even that assemblage, base and servile as it was, was the danger of destroying all the legal foundations of security for private property. If parliaments, regularly constituted in the royal presence, could be thus easily set aside, another parliament following the precedent might make this void, and render the tenures of their rights and possessions as unstable as they would be under the firman of an eastern sultan. To satisfy these, it was expressly provided, that all acts, rights, and securities passed in any of the pretended meetings, or by virtue thereof, in favour of any particular persons for their civil and private interests, should stand good and valid unto them, excepting only such as should be questioned before the act of indemnity; and notwithstanding the efforts of the Earl of Loudon, and a few others, a majority agreed to undo all that had been done in favour of religion and liberty for the preceding twenty years, and to wreath around their necks the yoke that had galled their fathers for other twenty before.
Some indistinct rumours of the recissory act having reached the ministers of Edinburgh, the presbytery assembled to draw up a supplication, praying that their church-government might be preserved to them amid this general wreck, and that some new civil sanction might be granted in place of the statutes about to be repealed; and three of the most complaisant were deputed to the commissioner, to show it before presenting to parliament. His Grace prevailed upon them to delay doing any thing in the business, and they, who appear to have been very willing to oblige, acceded, and the bill passed, like all the rest, without any representation by the ministers against it. Next day, when they learned it had been voted by a large majority, a deputation of a different stamp, with Mr David Dickson at their head, waited upon Middleton to remonstrate; but he had attained his object, and they found him in a very different mood. He received their paper in a very discourteous manner, and told
them they were mistaken if they thought to terrify him with their papers—he was no coward. Dickson pointedly replied—“He knew well his Grace was no coward, ever since the Bridge of Dee”—a sarcasm the Earl seemed to feel, as he had there distinguished himself, fighting in the cause of the covenant against the king’s army. Nor did his chagrin abate when he was reminded of the vows he had made to serve the Lord and his interest, in 1645, when under serious impressions in the prospect of death; but turning round pettishly, asked, “What do you talk to me for about a fit of the colic?” and entirely refused to have any thing to do with their supplication.
An evasive deceitful act followed, allowing presbyteries and synods to meet, but promising to make it his majesty’s care to settle the government of the church in such a frame as should be most agreeable to the word of God, most suitable to monarchical government, and most complying with the public peace and quiet of the kingdom. It did not tend to allay the fears of the ministers, who wrote an urgent letter to Lauderdale, reminding him of their sufferings for the king, of the steadiness of their loyalty, and their opposition to the heats of some during the times of distraction; and entreating him, by his zeal for his majesty’s service, and his love for his mother church, to interpose with his majesty to prevent any prejudice to her established government, and procure the calling of a General Assembly as the king had promised. Public fasts were now kept in various parishes throughout the country, and the synods met to prepare supplications for some confirmatory act to set the people at rest with regard to their religion. No attention was paid by the secretary to their application, and visiters were sent to the different synods to prevent their taking any disagreeable steps, or dissolve them if they proved refractory. Accordingly, the synod of Dumfries was dissolved by Queensberry and Hartfield, who were both exceedingly drunk at the time, and appear to have dispersed the ministers with very little ceremony, and without any resistance. Fife was equally quietly dismissed by the Earl of Rothes, who entered while they were in the midst of their business; and, ordering them to dismiss in the king’s name, they obeyed:[12] in their respective presbyteries, they afterwards approved of a petition, and declared their adherence to the principles of the church of Scotland. Glasgow
and Ayr being the most obnoxious, was discharged by proclamation, after they had drawn up a supplication, which was delayed being presented through the manœuvres of a few among themselves who afterwards became prelatic dignitaries. The synod of Lothian split, and, at the desire of the Earl of Callendar, suspended five of their most pious members, and removed two from their charges before they were themselves forcibly turned off. The northern judicatures were little disturbed, their majorities generally “falling in with the times.”
12. Lamont, in his usual naive manner, thus narrates the transaction: “1661, Apryll 2. The Provincial Assembly of Fyfe sat at St Andrew’s, where Mr David Forrest, minister of Kilconquhar, was moderator. After they had sitten a day, and condescended upon a peaper to be sent to his majestie, wishing he might be as good as his word, etc [This, in reference, he had sent doune to the presbetry of Edinboroughe, Sept 3, 1660 ] As also speaking of another peaper to be intimat in the severall parish churches, to put peopell in mynde of ther oath to God in covenant, in caise that episcopacy sould againe he established in this land: as also speaking against something done by the present parliament, in cancelling the league and covenant with England, etc. The nixt day, in the afternoon, they were raised by the Earle of Rothes and the Laird of Ardrosse, two members of parliament, (young Balfour Beton being present with them for the tyme,) and desyred them, under the paine of treason, presently to repaire to their several charges, which they accordingly did In the meane whille, the moderator offered to speake; and Rothes answered, Sir, wither doe ye speake as a private man, or as the mouth of this meeting? If you speake as the mouth of this meeting, you speake high treason and rebellion. After that, Mr David Forrest followed Rothes to his chamber, and spoke to him; and amonge other things, speaking of the covenant, he said, that few or none of ther meeting bot had ministered the covenant to hundreds, bot for himsef he had tendered it to thousands; and if he sould be silent at this time, and speake nothing of it, bot betray the peopell, he said he wist not what he deserved hanging were too little for him Rothes professed to this judicatory that it was sore against his will that he came to that employment However, many of the ministrie blames Mr James Sharpe, minister of Craill, for the present chaplaine to his majesties commissioner, Earle of Middleton, for ther scattering; for he wrat over to some of them some dayes before, that a storme was like to breake; and the said Mr David Forrest said of him that he was the greatest knave that ever was in the kirke of Scotlande.”
The remaining acts of this parliament, respecting ecclesiastical affairs, and which became instruments of cruelty and grounds of persecution, were, the seventeenth, enjoining the 29th of May—the anniversary of the Restoration, also the king’s birth-day—to be set apart as a day holy unto the Lord for ever, to be part employed in public prayers, thanksgiving, preaching, and praises to God for so transcendent mercies, and the remaining part spent in lawful diversions suited to so solemn an occasion; and the thirty-sixth, restoring “the unreasonable and unchristian burden of patrons and presentations” upon the church.
Having virtually subverted Presbytery, restored every abolished abuse, and obtained in the preambles of several of their acts repeated expressions of the parliament’s detestation and abhorrence of all that was done in the “rebellious and distracted times,” it was requisite that those who had been the most strenuous assertors of the civil and religious rights of their country, and who had been the chief instruments of the late Reformation, should be punished for their temerity. Accordingly, the most noble the Marquis of Argyle, who stood first on the list, was, on the 13th of February, brought to trial. He had been sent down from London by sea, along with Swinton of that ilk, in the latter end of 1660, and had encountered that storm in which the records of Scotland were lost;[13] since when he had lain in the Castle; but the first hurry being over, his case was proceeded in—the commissioner anticipating a reward for his services from the confiscation of his estates.
13. These had been seized and sent to London by the English during the civil war, and, upon the Restoration, were ordered to be returned to Scotland; but, as it was supposed the original Covenant which Charles had signed was among them, they were detained on purpose to search for it, in order to destroy it, till late in the season, when the weather became tempestuous, and the vessel that carried them was lost
His activity in the cause of religion, and the great power he had long enjoyed, had created him many enemies, and gave rise to many calumnies, which made even his friends dread the investigation. But the most painful endeavours could establish nothing against him, except his compelled submission to the English,
after every county in Scotland had acknowledged their superiority His indictment consisted of fourteen distinct charges, narrating almost all the public acts of the nation in which he had had any share, since his first joining the covenanters, till the final protectorate of Richard Cromwell, and attributing to him as treasonable acts, his concurrence with the different parliaments, or his obedience to their orders, and his submission to the usurper’s government, and sitting and voting in his parliament, together with having positively advised Cromwell and Ireton, in a conference in 1648, to take away the late king’s life, without which they could not be safe, or at least knew and concealed the horrid design. The last charge, which the Marquis strenuously denied, was not insisted on; nor does there appear to have been any foundation for it.
In his reply, he enumerated all the favours he had received from the former and the reigning sovereign, and desired the parliament to consider how unlikely it was that he should have entertained any design to the hurt or dishonour of either. He could say with Paul in another case, the things alleged against him could not be proven; but this he would confess, that, in the way allowed by solemn oaths and covenants, he served his God, his king, and country: he besought those who were capable of understanding, when those things for which he was challenged were acted, to recollect what was the conduct of the whole kingdom at the time, and how both themselves and others were led on in these actions without any rebellious inclination; and entreated those who were then young to be charitable to their predecessors, and to censure sparingly these actions, with all the circumstances of which they were unacquainted; for often the smallest circumstance altered entirely the nature of an action. In all popular and universal insurrections communis error facit jus: et consuetudo peccandi minuit crimen et pænam. As to what he had done before the year 1651, he pled his majesty’s indemnity granted in the parliament at Perth; and for what he had done since, under the usurpers, they were but common compliances, wherein all the kingdom did share equally, and for doing which many had express allowance from his majesty, who declared he thought it prudence, and not rebellion, for honest men to preserve themselves from ruin, and thereby reserve themselves till God should show
some probable way for his return. Besides, among all those who complied passively, none was less favoured by the usurpers than himself—what he did was but self-defence, and, being the effect of force, could not amount to a crime.
When he had finished, his advocates, Messrs Sinclair, Cunningham, and M’Kenzie, afterwards Sir George, protested, that, seeing they stood there by order of parliament, whatever should escape them in pleading for the life, honour, and estate of their client, might not thereafter be brought against them as treasonable— a common form and usually sustained; but on this occasion the parliament would not admit the protestation, lest they might allow themselves upon that pretext the liberty of speaking things prejudicial to his majesty’s government, and therefore desired them to speak at their peril. His advocates being strangers to his cause, as the ones he wished were afraid to appear, he requested a short delay to prepare his defence fully; but this being referred to the Lords of the Articles, they cruelly denied his reasonable request; upon which he gave in a supplication and submission, throwing himself entirely upon the king’s mercy, and entreating the intercession of the parliament on his behalf. This, also, they refused to listen to.
After which, his lordship gave in a bill, desiring to be remitted for trial before the justice court, as the intricacy of his case would require learned judges. Nor was it to be supposed that every gentleman or burgess could understand points of law; neither were they his peers; and a nobleman should be judged by his peers. His prosecutors, bent upon his ruin, construed this application into a declining the jurisdiction of parliament, and required him to own it, or inform them who had written the petition. The Marquis, perceiving that every possible advantage would be taken against him, was extremely perplexed; but his advisers avowed the paper, and, after a warm debate, the petition was rejected, but the advocates were excused. He then requested to be allowed the benefit of exculpatory proof, and to bring forward witnesses, who could either attest his innocence or give such explanations as would alleviate his guilt; even this, the last privilege of the lowest criminal, he could not obtain, and was commanded immediately to proceed to his defence
—likewise an unusual and oppressive mode of procedure, as it had been customary to discuss first the relevancy of the indictment; that is, whether the facts charged actually constituted the crimes alleged, and thus to give the accused a chance of escape from a cumulative treason, or from any legal informality that might occur.
All the Marquis’s reasonable requests and objections being thus disposed of, his defences, with the Lord Advocate’s replies, duplies, and triplies—papers of enormous length—were fully read before parliament, as tiresome, tedious, and unfair a mode of conducting a trial before a court, consisting of some hundred individuals, as could possibly have been contrived. When ended, a debate ensued, and the Lord Advocate restricted his charge to the acts committed after 1651, a letter having been procured from the king forbidding any person to be prosecuted for any deed antecedent to the indemnity of that year. This letter, which was understood to have been procured by Lauderdale and Lorn—who had staid at London to attend to his father’s interest—somewhat disconcerted the managers, who were now persuaded that the secretary had espoused Argyle’s cause; and therefore, to counteract this influence, dispatched Glencairn and Rothes to court, with a letter from parliament approving of the whole proceedings, accompanied by Mr James Sharpe, to inform his majesty respecting the state of the church.
Glencairn actively stirred up the vindictive feelings of the treacherous Monk and the bigoted Hyde, while Rothes reminded Lauderdale of the former treatment he had received from the Marquis, how dangerous a competitor he might yet be if he escaped, and hinted at the imprudence of committing himself too far with a declining faction. Their arguments prevailed; and, from the date of their arrival, repeated expresses were sent down to Scotland, urging forward the trial.
The relevancy having been sustained, proof was led with regard to his compliance with the usurpers; but the evidence was by no means satisfactory, especially to judges almost all of whom had been ten times more deeply implicated than he, and the issue was doubtful; when, after the debate and examination were closed, and parliament was proceeding to consider the whole matter, an express from
