THE CRIMES AND TREASONS OF ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON, Laird WARISTON.  
One of the Grandees of the SCOTCH REBELS And Precedent of the late Committee of SAFETY under LAMBERT Now condemned, and to be executed at Edinburgh Wednesday July 22.  
Rarò antecedentem scelestum  
Deseruit pede poena claudo.  Horat. 
London, Printed for T. R. 1663.   

THE CRIMES & TREASONS OF ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON, Laird Wariston, etc.  
THe Deserved Fate of this Disloyal and perfidious Politicians, which hath such an aspect upon the late Usurpation, and the justice and happiness of these Times, doth so well deserve a Memorial, though in a summary and short account, (and that for the Honour also of his Country, which doth hereby expiate the remaining guilt of that Religious and pious Rebellion, begun and fostered by the rest of this man's Complices) that it is a requisite duty to the public to particularise the practices of this puny Matchiavil, during our late and horrible Confusions; following the method and traces of divine Vengeance, that hath singled him so remarkably out, and delivered him tot the Laws, that the world may know, and fear, and tremble, at the unevitable and righteous recompense of wicked men.  
Of all persons, who according to Scripture phrase, may be said to have Sold themselves to work wickedness; there is none but two in the 3 Kingdoms that can be compared to him: and those were Bradshaw and Cook, who set a price on their Villainy, and had their reward, and are gone without perplexing our Charity, to their own places; This Laird Wariston was one of the same Robe, an Eminent Lawyer in this Kingdom, and preferred by the Committee of Estates, At the instance and presentment of the Kirk, during the late Interregnum, to be the Custos or Magister Rotutorum, or Lord Roguster or Keeper of the Rolls: having given specious proofs of his zealous fondness to the Presbyterian most Rigid and Severest Discipline.  
He was a great Confident and Privado likewise of the marquis of Argyles, under whose clientele and Patronage, he listed himself, and proffered and performed his most officious services to that man's designs; he being the Chieftain and sole supreme Head of those, who ran-counter to the interest of the King in this Nation; and which is not to be omitted, a most violent Enemy of the glorious and immortal marquis of Montrosse; Nor did he fail of any obsequious insinuations and endearments thereby to carve himself a part in those his projected spoils of Loyal and Dutiful Subjects, and the Crown itself.  
But Providence altering the management of the Government in this Kingdom, and taking it from a cunning by devolving it to a violent Usurpation; the Kirk & Committee of Estates, with the General Assembly, being altogether abolished by the English conquest, which justly punished their most Tyrannical insolence upon the Conscience & Estates of their fellow Subjects, by bringing upon their heads an Evil adequate to their Crimes and Treasons; (for what was formerly infflicted upon the Jews, who made their Argument of Venient Romani, the Romans will come, a pretence to their Murder of the Messiah; was anew Executed upon these Scots, who having made the Venient Ritus Anglicani, the Rites of the Church of England will come in among us and destroy the Kirk, a pretence and mask to the Rebellion against the King's Authority, were now retaliated and punished with the victorious Arms (Venient exercitus Anglicani) of the new founded English Commonwealth, which these very men had helped to raise to this formidable greatness.) I say when this grand mutation was brought about, then did Wariston consult and look out for a better and surer interest, where he might bestow his perfidious endeavours, with the greatest profit and advantage.  
For whereas he had mancipated himself to Argile, and linked himself in a manner to him by most scelerate and strange combinations, he now estranged himself from him; but suffering him to continue the most notable and greatest of the Kirks party he set up for himself here, with these Grandees of England mounting in Degree & Trust above his former Master, as Mr. Thurloe did to St. John's, and became afterwards there, Olivers Scotch Secretary of State, and continued in it all along to the very time of the Restitution; and therefore to discover all his villainy, it will be necessary to deduce him in a brief History, through the following times.  
He appeared a main stickler first with that party, who opposed the agreement with the King at Bredah, and would have had his Majesty tied and obliged to more undutiful and disloyal Conditions (though those were unparallelled) before his return into that Kingdom, in 1650. (like some of our States men in 1659. upon a more happy and grand Revolution:) and when that could not be hindered, the more numerous party of the Parliament proving so honest, as to come to the intended conclusion of that affair; yet did he and his faction so oppose the power of the Kirk to the King's Authority, and to cry it up as supreme, to such a diminution of Majesty, that the King was no more than a mere shadow of their brightness and greatness, nor could exercise any part of the Royal Dignity without their approbation and allowance.  
And to this tenor of deportment did the Faction continue, even after the English Army were advanced into Scotland, by which means such misunderstandings and divisions were arisen among the Nobility, and fomented by Cromwell, that there was little hopes of escaping that ruin which soon after ensued. This very fellow & some few more, such as Col. Ker, and Straughan, Sir John Cheisly, and some Ministers, styled the Western Remonstrants, running out into such treasonable Declaratory Expressions, that they would not own the King's Quarrel and Interest, and that it was the cause of all the Evil and Troubles that at present afflicted the Nation, and that the King had been called in without confession and satisfaction, and the like saucy Dictates, and Penance-Injunctions of this worse than Roman Kirk.  
To this treasonable sense, to avoid a defection of such a considerable strength, who would by no means admit of other way, nor would join with the Loyal party at any rate, an Answer was sent to Cromwell by way of a Declaration; and thereupon ensued their lamentable and just defeat at Dunbar, which notwithstanding that it did clearly indigitate & point at this their undutifulness, yet did this same party continue in the same impious practices, even to the conspiring the seizure of the King, (who upon some such obscure intimation, did for a while withdraw himself out of their Clutches) and betraying and delivering him, as they had done his Blessed Father, into the hands of the English, for another rounder sum of money, which Treason they would have vailed still by the Covenant, to their interpretation whereof the King must be submitted. And in this damnable Intrigue, this Laird Warrieston had a principal hand, as by his succeeding actions plainly appeared.  
For Edinburgh Castle being surrendered to Cromwell by his fellow Traitor Dundasse the Governor thereof, who had Articled for the Transportation and secure conveyance of all the Records and writings belonging to the Kingdom) which were deposited there) to Sterling, or some other place in the King's possession, which were contrary to the said Articles detained for a while, with some other precious Goods and Movables; Warrieston, as it was belonging to his office, was sent to Edinburgh to dispute the matter, and to gain and recover the said Rolls.  
This advantage of nearer converse with Cromwell proffering itself, when as before it was very dangerous, he omitted net to prosecute; for being with a safe conduct admitted into that City, in stead of contesting for his Sovereignty, and his Country's right; he underhand agreed with those Money Masters, to do them what service he could in facilitating their war, which being like to prove cold and frosty work in that Northern climate, did sadden their premature thoughts, and over credulous and hasty hopes of a full and plenary Conquest of that Nation.  
In the mean time the Western Remonstrants growing more Malapart, several of them were called to answer their bold & impudent Contumelies of the King's Authority, and that under pain of Excommunication by the better taught Kirk; and among those this Gentleman them practising the civil jugle at Edinburgh, with some others of that Tribe was summoned, but upon some consideration, while the whole cabat of this traitorous faction should be better and more fully elucidated, & the writings if possibly, as the earnest and gloze of his Treason recovered; he was respited a while: but according to expectation, the said writings being come to Sterling, he with Abernethy, the Lord Swinton and the rest before mentioned, were soon after declared Excommunicates, and reserved for the future justice of the Laws.  
But Warieston escaped that by the wonderful and successful progress of the English Armies (in whose quarters he resolved after a suddden short appearance at Sterling, to communicate his practices with his Gang, and learn the King's Counsels from them, to continue for the future) whose invasion he seemed to quarrel from Christian grounds, and to desire an amicable debate according to the Scriptures and the Covenant, professing with great shows of devotion his renuntiation of the King's Interest, for which all these Evils, he said, had befallen them. By which means he kept and intended to foment the former divisions according to the instructions of his Treason by Cromwell, in that Nation.  
The consequence of which scelerate practice, being reduced by a near conquest to a lesser and particular design, which was to keep the Scots now subdued in perpetual discords and misunderstandings, on a religious, as formerly on a civil account; Warreston was the only fit man resolved on to prosecute the Cabel, and to hold sides with the Remonstrants, who had annulled by their assumed pretended Authority, all that the Kirk had done and ratified in their conclusion with the King at Bredah; and by the same magisterial power, Fasts and Humiliations upon that Treasonable occasion were thereby enjoined; and this promoted on purpose to make easy work for the English Usurpers, who by this though partial renunciation of the King by the Scots themselves in that quality as the supreme power, had the less work to do towards their total abolition of it, in which this Conspirator was mainly instrumental in all the changes and vicissitudes afterwards.  
In the year 1652. the Juncto at Westminster having made in a manner a total Conquest of Scotland, by their Commissioners deputed on that behalf, proceeded to the Union of that with this Kingdom, which having been a frustraneous enterprise in the Reign of King James, and proving but a mere politic notion and speculation was now in a kind effected. By which means they intended to assure that Kingdom by the specious shows of liberty, now made a Commonwealth, from ever returning to its ancient Regal and Legal Government. Against this Warreston, with all the Remonstrants, who liked not their total devestiture of power, directly opposed themselves; but Warreston as employed by our States to dive into the secrets of all that party which he seemed to Head, and to reveal all the Machinations, as well theirs or others which might be intended to the recovery of his Country from the slavery they suffered from those Usurpers.  
That same Union being at last accomplished by Oliver, no man was more re●dy to comply with the constitution of it, to that purpose getting himself returned a Member for the Parliament of the Three Commonwealths, as the establishment than was; Thirty being allotted respectively for Scotland and Ireland; and in these Assemblies and Conventions, which were very frequent in these times, he was sure to make one of the chief for his Nation, where he learned the knack of catering for himself, by complying with the most destructive Counsels and Designs of the prevailing party, therewith insinuating into their familiarity and confidence, by most vile Parasitical officers and demerencies of their respects and notice of him; insomuch that he grasped most of the important transactions of the Scotch affairs here, which he prostituted to the will of the Usurper, into his own management, and disposal.  
But the greatest remark of these his wicked Acts here, was manifestin the broil betwixt Lambert and the Rump, wherein he was so great a Favourite of that Commander, that upon the erection of his  of Safety, this man was made Precedent thereof pro tempore, which place he discharged chief in serving himself, and the pleasure and will of that Dictator: but the story of his fawning and most abject sordidness herein, is so largely described in a Play called the Rump, that there needs not any additional brand infamous note from this Bead roll of his impieties.  
All that shall be said further of him on that account, is, that his Devices to make insurrections and new Troubles in Scotland by his labouring the Remonstrants and that party to a defection from General Monck then advancing against Lambert, were such rank and pestilent Treasons, that the discovery of them shown the desperate wickedness of his Heart, and made the Noble General be his remembrancer for his due reward, to the Rump, in his speech to them at Westminster; but that, providence was pleased to reserve to a juster hand, and more due infliction afterwards; that his original and principal guilt against the King might finally be punished and avenged by his Royal Justice.  
Which hoping to avoid, he secretly fled out of Scotland (whether he sneaked from his greatness at Westminster) over into France, hoping to find shelter in that populous Kingdom; being pursued with a Proclamation and an Act of Attainder and Confiscation, together with the abovementioned Col. Dundass and others, and Condemned for his most notorious and evident Treasons.  
There he lurked a while till his just destiny discovered him to some of his own Nation, who made inquest after him, (an account whereof hath been already given) & sent him with a guard over to Dover, whence he was conveyed to the Tower by His Majesty's Order, and not long after shipped for Edinburgh in one of the King's Frigates in order to his Execution. At his Arrival he was committed prisoner to Edinburgh Castle, where the low spirited wretch kept such a Howling and Whining Lamentation, affrighted with the monstrous shame of his crimes, or Fear of Death, that he looked almost like a Changeling, by which means his Friends (of whom he hath very few) and Relations procured a short respite for his Life, that he might be the fit for his death.  
Upon his appearance at the Bar of the Parliament, and demanded what he had to say for himself why the sentence should not be excuted; he in a miserable strange posture fell a denying any intention of evil to the King, and that over and over again to the trouble and Din of the Judges and Hearers; then he desired a Copy of his sentence, which was likewise denied him, as derogating from the Authority of the Parliament, whose wisdom and justice would not admit any debate of it, and so he was commanded to prepare a final answer to the point of Execution, which yet remained to be done; and which will assuredly overtake him, to the magnifying the Divine Justice, and the expiation of those many pollutions this man's iniquity brought upon this Land, and to the Terror of all evil Doers, and such pernicious obstinate Traitors for the time to come.  
FINIS.