From the tion to the Reforma. Union. Scotland, affirmed that no Papist could be King of CHAP. II. Scotland, that the Scottish Church was Presbyterian, and that William and Mary were now King and Queen of Scotland. A number of resolutions were next voted called the Articles of Grievances, which set forth various acts done under the authority of bad laws that the Estates desired to have repealed, and certain reforms in regard to which they craved the new King's co-operation. offer the crown to William. Until the settlement of the crown had been finally The completed by the acceptance of William III., the Con- Estates vention exercised the executive authority in Scotland, and then it became a Parliament, all its acts henceforth belonging to the statute law of Scotland. The offer of the crown was made to William by three commissioners -the Earl of Argyle, Sir James Montgomery, of Skelmorlie, and Sir John Dalrymple-representing the three estates of peers, barons, and burgesses. The King received the Declaration of Right and the list of grievances, but demurred to the condition that he should "root out all heretics" in upholding the true Church. Nevertheless, on his being assured that the words were a mere form, he accepted the oath, and promised for himself and his wife, with God's assistance, religiously to observe it. The Estates, which now looked forward to a new and Parlia more popular constitution as well as a complete change ment and in their relations with the Crown, elected the Duke of Hamilton not a man of strong purpose-President of the Convention. When the Convention was turned into a Parliament (June 5th, 1689), he was appointed by William Lord High Commissioner, and the Earl of Craufurd succeeded him in the presidency of the Estates. Parliament soon found itself in conflict with the Crown. It resented the nomination of a president by the Lord High Commissioner, but passed this by to enter upon a more serious contest for the establishment of a free debating Parliament in Scotland. The Lords of the Articles stood The Lords in the way of this reform, and the Estates called for of the their abolition. William, however, hoped to modify the Articles. Reforma Union. CHAP. II. offensive system and to render it more acceptable by From the making the Lords of the Articles elective, and increasing tion to the their number to thirty-three. But the Estates were firm in demanding their abolition, stating also that there ought to be no committees of Parliament but such as were chosen freely by the Estates to prepare motions and overtures. Hamilton then bluntly announced, on June 17th, the King's pleasure that there should henceforth be twenty-four Lords of the Articles, eight chosen from each Estate, but that their power of rejecting absolutely any motion laid before them was to cease, remedy being provided by motion in full Parliament. The Estates met this by passing a resolution that a fixed committee was a grievance; and shortly afterwards a bill was brought in for regulating committees according to their views. This plan was modified so far as that each Estate was to elect its own representatives upon the committees. Hamilton withheld his consent until he had communicated with the King. Meanwhile the Church settlement was postponed, and angry debates ensued about the Crown, proceedings being threatened against the Earl of Argyle and the other Commissioners, who were held to have betrayed their country if they had suffered the King to believe that he had the power to restrain the action of Parliament by fixed committees. The two Dalrymples, as the advisers of William in his anti-Scotch policy, were also denounced. Their abolition demanded. It was at this juncture that William's proposal to enlarge the Lords of the Articles to thirty-three arrived; but the Estates remained obdurate. Abolition was their only policy, and it was in vain that Hamilton devised expedients for drawing away their attention from this one great object. The Commissioner even offered to restore all forfeitures carried out since the year 1665; and when that and all other efforts at distraction failed, he announced that he had discovered a formidable conspiracy against the Government and the Estates of Parliament at their very doors. The Duke of Gordon and thirty-seven other persons were arrested, but the whole thing turned out to be only some minor matter affecting the hostile force of Claverhouse. The session of the Estates closed on August 2nd, many questions remaining undecided. But Parliament had asserted its rights so freely that "something which Sir John Dalrymple called a' prerogative' was sacrificed every day." Six important measures had passed the Estates, but they had not received the magic touch of the royal sceptre. Before the Estates again met there occurred the Jacobite The King plot, in which Sir James Montgomery, one of the original gives way. Commissioners to William, was implicated, and this, in conjunction with the rising in the north of Scotland and the war in Ireland, predisposed the King to an amicable settlement with the Scots. He now gave his sanction to the acts passed during the late session, and surrendered the main points of difference with regard to the mode of Parliamentary proceedings. Hamilton had already been dismissed and succeeded by Lord Melville, who was Legisla empowered to deal with leading opponents in a spirit of tive reforms. bribery—a spirit which was neither creditable nor successful. The Lords of the Articles were abolished, this being a great triumph for Parliament, and in future the Estates were to appoint at pleasure committees to digest measures submitted to their consideration. In every committee there was to be an equal number of representatives from each Estate, but the King reserved for the officers of state the right to attend such committees, with the privilege of moving and debating, though not of voting. The representation of the larger counties was augmented during this session, twenty-six representatives being added to the Estates. By special acts reversing their forfeitures in preceding reigns, such men as Fletcher of Saltoun, Melville, and Carstares were restored to their former positions; and a general act of reversal of forfeitures and condemnations on religious grounds from the . year 1665 was also passed. 1 Burton's History. 2 Minutes of the Estates. VOL. II. 11 CHAP. II. Reforma tion to the Union. The Mas sacre of Glencoe. The massacre of Glencoe was inquired into by a royal From the commission, and, after it had reported, the Estates addressed a memorial to King William on July 15th, 1695. The inferior persons implicated in that mournful and disgraceful tragedy being in Flanders, the Estates censured Sir John Dalrymple, without directly impeaching him of high treason; and they accused Lord Breadalbane of high treason, though he was not brought to trial. As a matter of fact, no one was directly punished for this crime against humanity, which must ever remain a blot upon the otherwise noble character of William III. The infamous design was clearly traced to Dalrymple, Argyle, and Breadalbane. The man most deeply involved, Dalrymple (afterwards Lord Stair), was simply dismissed from his office of Secretary of State for Scotland. Even after the massacre of Glencoe, writs of extermination, or "letters of fire and sword," were granted against two Highland clans, on private grounds of quarrel, by the Privy Council of Scotland. Presby re-estab lished. The ecclesiastical settlement of the Revolution was now terianism proceeded with. In 1689 an act had been passed for abolishing prelacy and all superiority of office in the Church; and during the following session (1690) statutes were passed which practically ended the ecclesiastical struggle by establishing Presbyterianism. Banished Presbyterian clergymen were restored to their benefices, and on May 26th Parliament adopted the Confession of Faith. The preamble to this important religious declaration stated that "the Confession of Faith underwritten was this day produced, read, and considered, word by word, in presence of their Majesties' High Commissioner and the Estates of Parliament, and being voted and approven, was ordained to be recorded in the books of Parliament." As the acceptance of the Confession of Faith was not accompanied, however, by the renewal of the Covenant, alarm was created in many minds. A second opportunity occurred for imposing it when the Estates passed an act repealing the legislation of later times which might impede the exercise of their old powers by the Church courts. Another statute of importance was carried, whose ostensible purpose was to abolish the offensive powers given to the hierarchy in previous reigns. The ecclesiastical punishment of excommunication, which had been enforced by the courts of law, was put an end to; and "all acts enjoining civil pains upon sentences of excommunication" were repealed. CHAP. II. From the tion to the Reforma Union. and the A new General Assembly was summoned to meet on The October 16th, 1690, and Lord Carmichael, a firm and Assembly judicious man, was appointed King's Commissioner. He Covenant. kept aloof from ecclesiastical questions, and most of the authority was left in the hands of the Church president, the Moderator; but the King was resolved that the State should maintain a general control over the Assembly. Hence it became an established custom that the Commissioner, at the end of the session, adjourned the Assembly to its next meeting " in the name of the sovereign"; and the Moderator adjourned it to the same day "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Great offence was given to the Covenanters by the failure of the Assembly to renew the Covenant, which, as Burton observes, was "a more flagrant abandonment than even in Parliament, of the fundamental privileges of the Church." The Patronage Act was passed by Parliament on July Patron19th. The right of patrons to present to benefices had age. always been repugnant to the Presbyterian body, who would never concede it when they had the power of resistance. Nevertheless it had been restored with the hierarchy in Charles II.'s reign, and now it was to be abolished. The first clause of the Patronage Act of 1690 expressly stated that "our sovereign lord and lady their Majesties the King and Queen, considering that the power of presenting ministers to vacant churches of late exercised by patrons hath been greatly abused, and is inconvenient to be continued in this realm, do therefore, with the advice and consent of the Estates of Parliament, hereby discharge, cass,' annull, and make void the |