debate on so vital a question. They proceeded to declare that James, by his misconduct, had "forfaulted" his right to the crown; that is, that he had forfeited it—a much more manly and correct plea than that James had "abdicated," which he continued to protest that he never had done, and as he was at this moment in arms in Ireland asserting his unrelinquished claim to it. As the term "forfaulted," according to Scottish law, would have excluded all his posterity, an exception was made in favour of Mary and Anne, and their issue. This resolution was warmly defended by Sir John Dalrymple, and as warmly by Sir James Montgomery, the member for Ayrshire, who had been a determined champion of the covenanters; and was resisted by the bishops, especially by the archbishop of Glasgow. It was carried with only five dissentient voices, and was then read at the Market Cross, in the High Street, by Hamilton, attended by the lord provost and the heralds, and the earl of Argyll, the son of James's decapitated victim. Sir John Dalrymple and Sir James Montgomery were deputed to carry it, with the second resolution that the crown should be offered to William and Mary, to London. To define on what principles this offered transfer of the crown was made, a "claim of right," in imitation of the English bill of rights, was drawn up and accompanied it. In this claim episcopacy was declared to be abolished, and that torture should be no longer exercised, except where there was evidence, or in ordinary cases! This was, in fact, admitting the legality of torture still—a most remarkable proof of the hardness of Scotch legislation, even at this period; for torture had never been admitted to be legal in England, but only to have been used in defiance and overbearance of the law by arbitrary power. That there might be no mistake on this head, the convention ordered a man who, in revenge of a decree made against him, had murdered the lord president Lockhart, to be tortured by the boot, under the eyes of a committee of the estates appointed for the purpose.
The Scottish commissioners were, of course, most graciously received at Whitehall, and all the Scotchmen of note in London were invited to witness the inauguration of the new king and queen. Argyll read the words of the Scotch coronation oath, which the royal pair repeated after him, holding up their hands towards heaven. At the last clause William stopped. It was one which required him "to root out all heretics and enemies of the true worship of God." As William knew very well that "the true worship of God" there meant presbyterianism, and nothing else, and that it would bind him to extirpate every variety of dissenter, and the episcopalians into the bargain, he declared that he would never undertake to become a persecutor. The commissioners replied that they were authorised by the convention to say that neither the words of the oath nor the laws of Scotland required any such thing from him. "In that sense, then," said William, "I swear; and I desire you all, my lords and gentlemen, to witness that I do so."
In the whole of William's proceedings on accepting the crowns of the two kingdoms, he stands forward a noble object of uprightness and enlightened mind. He was firm in his determination to give to religious faith all the freedom that he could. He had been vehemently importuned by the episcopalians both in England and Scotland to continue the establishment of the episcopal church in Scotland; but, though he had no objection to it himself, he declared that nothing should induce him to coerce or oppose the desire of the majority on the subject; and, on these honourable terms—extremely honourable to William and Mary as the first monarchs who had thus liberally advocated the liberty of faith from the throne—were they become the acknowledged sovereigns of both England and Scotland. In Scotland, however, as well as Ireland, there was yet much to do before their power was altogether established.
But with the acknowledgment of William as king of Scotland he was far from having acquired a state of comfort. In both his governments his ministers and pretended friends were his continual tormentors. In England his council and his chief ministers were at daggers-drawn—every one dissatisfied with the post he occupied, jealous of the promotion of his rivals, and numbers of them in close correspondence with the court of James. In Scotland it was precisely the same; it was impossible to satisfy the ambition and the cupidity of his principal adherents. The covenanters were exasperated because the episcopalians were merely dismissed from the establishment, and were not handed over to retaliation of all the injuries they had received from them. Sir James Montgomery, who expected a much higher post, was offered that of chief justice clerk, and refused it with disdain. He immediately concerted plans of opposition, and made his attack amidst a whole host of similarly disappointed aspirants. Amongst these were two who had been in the insurrections of Monmouth and Argyll—Sir Patrick Hume and Fletcher of Saltoun, men of great ability, but of reckless and insubordinate character. A club was formed, in which these men, with Montgomery, the lords Annandale and Ross, and a whole tribe of minor malcontents, did all in their power to thwart and embarrass the government of William. The chief promotion had been conferred on the duke of Hamilton, who was made lord high commissioner; the earl of Crawford, a very indigent, but very bitter presbyterian, who before this appointment did not know where to get a dinner, was made president of parliament; Sir James Dalrymple was appointed the principal lord of session, and his son, Sir John, was restored to his office of lord advocate. Lord Melville became secretary of state, and Sir William Lockhart solicitor-general. But whilst some of these thought they ought to have had something higher or more lucrative, there were scores for whom the limited administration of Scotland afforded no situation in accordance with their own notions of their merits, and these hastened to join the opposition club.
Meantime Dundee was exerting himself in the highlands to rouse the clans in favour of king James. But this he found an arduous matter. The highlanders, at, a distance from the scenes and the interests which divided both England and the lowlands of Scotland, occupied with their hunting and their own internal feuds, cared little for either king James or king William. If either, they would probably have given the preference to William, for James had more than once sent his troops after them to chastise them for their inroads into the demesnes of their Saxon fellow-subjects. Dundee himself had retired to his own estate, and offered to remain at peace if he received from William's ministers a
