The private deportment of Lauderdale was as insolent and provoking as
his public administration was violent and tyrannical. Justice, likewise,
was universally perverted by faction and interest: and from the great
rapacity of that duke, and still more of his duchess, all offices and
favors were openly put to sale. No one was allowed to approach the
throne who was not dependent on him; and no remedy could be hoped for
or obtained against his manifold oppressions. The case of Mitchel shows,
that this minister was as much destitute of truth and honor as of lenity
and justice.
Mitchel was a desperate fanatic, and had entertained a resolution of
assassinating Sharpe, archbishop of St. Andrews, who, by his former
apostasy and subsequent rigor, had rendered himself extremely odious
to the Covenanters. In the year 1668, Mitchel fired a pistol at the
primate, as he was sitting in his coach; but the bishop of Orkney,
stepping into the coach, happened to stretch out his arm, which
intercepted the ball, and was much shattered by it. This happened in the
principal street of the city; but so generally was the archbishop hated,
that the assassin was allowed peaceably to walk off; and having turned a
street or two, and thrown off a wig which disguised him, he immediately
appeared in public, and remained altogether unsuspected.
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