The king, sensible of his services, had remitted to him his father's forfeiture, and created him earl of Argyle; and when a most unjust sentence was passed upon him by the Scottish parliament, Charles had anew remitted it.

In the subsequent part of this reign, Argyle behaved himself dutifully; and though he seemed not disposed to go all lengths with the court, he always appeared, even in his opposition, to be a man of mild dispositions and peaceable deportment.
A parliament was summoned at Edinburgh this summer, and the duke was appointed commissioner.

Besides granting money to the king and voting the indefeasible right of succession, this parliament enacted a test, which all persons possessed of offices, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, were bound to take.

In this test the king's supremacy was asserted, the covenant renounced, passive obedience assented to, and all obligations disclaimed of endeavoring any alteration in civil or ecclesiastical establishments.

This was the state of the test, as proposed by the courtiers; but the country party proposed also to insert a clause, which could not with decency be refused, expressing the person's adherence to the Protestant religion.