cloak, and white wand of office pulled from him (Gordon, Scots Affairs, i. 23–4). Traquair represented to the king that it would be vain to demand observance of the liturgy unless he was prepared to enforce compliance with forty thousand men. But he by no means desired the latter alternative. In a private conference with John Leslie, sixth earl of Rothes [q. v.], he stated that he was himself opposed to the liturgy, but advised that some kind of acknowledgment should be made by the city of Edinburgh of the lawlessness of the citizens' procedure, in order that the ‘king might be righted in the eyes of the world for the contempt which appeared to proceed from this people to his authority’ (Relation, p. 52). In answer to a letter of the council to the king, Traquair was asked to proceed to court. While there he was, according to Guthry, accused of treachery to the bishops; but the king, says Guthry, ‘would not be induced to take any hard course against him, to the grief of all that were loyal, and the encouragement of rogues and traitors’ (Memoirs, p. 55). In what way Traquair represented matters to the king is of course unknown; but if he advised him, meanwhile, to let the matter drop, he was unsuccessful, for in February 1638 he was sent down—according to his own account ‘with great unwillingness’ (Traquair to Hamilton, 15 March, in Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 101)—with a proclamation commanding obedience to the service, and forbidding all meetings convened in opposition to it under pain of treason. The proclamation was, however, met at all the principal towns with a protestation against it (Gordon, i. 33–6), and a movement at once commenced for a renewal of the national covenant.
To be prepared against eventualities, the king resolved to place the castle of Edinburgh in a state of defence; but the covenanters forbade the landing of a cargo of arms and ammunition sent by sea for this purpose. Thereupon Traquair secretly provided a boat at night, and conveyed the arms and ammunition to Dalkeith Palace (Gordon, i. 66). He found it, however, impossible to transfer them to Edinburgh Castle. After the capture of the castle by the covenanters, on 19 March 1639, a force of one thousand musketeers was sent by them under the command of the Earl of Rothes and other noblemen to Dalkeith. They compelled Traquair to deliver up the palace, and brought the arms and ammunition, as well as the royal ensigns, to Edinburgh Castle (ib. ii. 208; Balfour, ii. 322). After this surrender Traquair joined the king at York, but was regarded for some time with suspicion and ordered to keep his chamber. After the treaty of Berwick, in June he was appointed, in place of Hamilton, the king's commissioner to the assembly which met at Edinburgh on 12 Aug., when an act was passed abolishing episcopacy. Not only did Traquair give his verbal assent to this act: he promised both to give a written declaration of his approval of it and to ratify it in the ensuing parliament, to which he was also the king's commissioner (Gordon, iii. 48; Balfour, ii. 353). He did sign the declaration of assent (Gordon, ib.), and he also, as a subject, consented to subscribe the covenant, with an explanation of his reasons for doing so (ib. iii. 54); but, instead of arranging for the ratification of the act by parliament, he adjourned the opening of parliament from 14 Nov. 1639 to 2 July 1640. On his return to London he is said, in order to excuse his own conduct, to have given in a report strongly representing the obstinacy of the covenanters; and if he did not, as Gordon suggests, seek to ‘play with both parties,’ the result probably was, as Gordon affirms, that he ‘was trusted of neither’ (ib. iii. 83). In any case, his inconsistency was so strongly resented by the covenanters that the Scots commissioners for the treaty of Ripon had private instructions to object to him should he be one of those appointed to treat with them (Balfour, ii. 410). In 1641 also an act was passed by the Scottish parliament against him as one of the chief incendiaries, and a warrant was directed to the Scots commissioners in London to have him sent home for trial (ib. iii. 3). He failed to appear, but in his absence he was sentenced to execution; and although at the instance of the king the sentence was revoked, he was deprived of the office of treasurer, and the king also undertook that he should not be employed in any office of court or state without the consent of parliament (Acta Parl. Scot. v. 495). In 1644, for having repaired to the court, and for having indicated his opposition to the covenant, he was declared an enemy to religion, and his goods were ordered to be confiscated. To avert further evil consequences, he therefore offered to the parliament a sum of forty thousand merks, whereupon he was formally fined in that sum, and ordained to confine himself within the sheriffdoms of Roxburgh, Tweeddale, and Peebles—all the former acts made against him in the parliament of 1641 to stand ‘in force and vigour’ (Balfour, iii. 286). In 1645 he sent his son, Lord Linton, with a troop of horse to join Montrose, and, according to Bishop Guthry, undertook to
