It forms at once the charm and the difficulty of this history to trace out the independent movements which, under the most varying forms but following always the old lines of historical development, come to the surface within the limits of Great Britain, and engage with each other in a struggle for life and death.

At the Hague, where the young King had found refuge and a welcome with his brother-in-law, William II of Orange, and had gathered round him the adherents of his father and of the monarchy, and all the leaders of the vanquished parties, whither too now the new Commonwealth sent its representatives, a horrible event occurred, which revealed all the vehemence of the Royalist passions.

A native of Holland, by name Dorislaus, who had distinguished himself in England as a lawyer, had embraced the opinions of the Independent-Republican party, and had rendered legal assistance at the trial of the King, had at this time been sent by the Commonwealth to the Hague to act as colleague with the existing ambassador. He was there regarded as representing that regicidal sentiment which, in Holland as elsewhere, excited general abhorrence. In the breasts of some of the Scots there those feelings were awakened which knit together the clans in the closest alliance with each other and with their chieftains. They determined to take blood-revenge upon the representative of the regicides.