A form of notice was drawn up and served on every curate in the Western Lowlands who had not yet been rabbled.
This notice was simply a threatening letter, commanding him to quit his parish peaceably, on pain of being turned out by force, [268] The Scottish Bishops, in great dismay, sent the Dean of Glasgow to plead the cause of their persecuted Church at Westminster.

The outrages committed by the Covenanters were in the highest degree offensive to William, who had, in the south of the island, protected even Benedictines and Franciscans from insult and spoliation.

But, though he had, at the request of a large number of the noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland, taken on himself provisionally the executive administration of that kingdom, the means of maintaining order there were not at his command.

He had not a single regiment north of the Tweed, or indeed within many miles of that river.

It was vain to hope that mere words would quiet a nation which had not, in any age, been very amenable to control, and which was now agitated by hopes and resentments, such as great revolutions, following great oppressions, naturally engender.