1688-9]

Dethronement of James

291

best hope. It was on September 18 that the news of his coming was received; on December 18 William was in Whitehall. Without a struggle James' authority came to an end in Scotland, and for a time. law was in abeyance. The Catholic Chapel in Holyrood was sacked by the Edinburgh populace, and the Presbyterians of the west "rabbled" and evicted the obnoxious King's curates with a harshness which showed that their own sufferings had not taught them charity. At length, on the petition of about thirty nobles and eighty gentlemen, William issued a summons for the meeting of the Estates, which duly assembled on March 14, 1689, with a decisive majority in favour of the Revolution. Without and within the Convention, the situation showed that the country was at a turning-point in its destinies. The Castle of Edinburgh was held for James by the Duke of Gordon; and Graham of Claverhouse, now Viscount Dundee, had come down from London at the head of a troop of sixty horse, prepared to act for the exiled King. On their part the supporters of William had introduced armed men from the west to be ready for battle if the occasion should arise. Unmolested, however, the Convention proceeded with the momentous business for which it had met; and its action proved that the cause of William was in the ascendant. By a majority of fifteen the Duke of Hamilton was chosen President; and, when two days after, letters came from William and James, William's was at once read, while before James' was opened it was voted that nothing it contained should invalidate the Convention. On April 11 the House agreed to a formal “Declaration," consisting of two partsa Claim of Right, and an offer of the Crown to William and Mary. The Claim asserted that the Estates had the constitutional right to dethrone a ruler who had violated the laws of the kingdom; and it was found that in fifteen cases James had infringed the constitution. On these grounds he was declared to have "forefaulted" the throne; and representatives were commissioned to proceed to London and make formal offer of the Scottish Crown to William and Mary. The ceremony was held at Whitehall on May 11, when William and Mary took the Coronation Oath which James had ignored. To one of its clauses, which bound the sovereign to be "careful to root out all heretics," William raised a demur; but the words were explained to his satisfaction, and that they could be so explained significantly denoted the fact that a new age had begun. Thus Scotland had cast out her native prince the 109th of his line, as was her proud boast to the nations. In widely different circumstances and with widely different results, the same national inspiration had dethroned James as had overthrown his father. It was the dread of Rome that had inspired the revolt against Charles I, and it was the same dread that had brought disaster to his son. With the Revolution the spectre of Rome ceased to haunt the spirit of the nation, and new cares and new interests were henceforth to determine its future destinies.

292

measures.

The Revolution Parliament

[1689

In ascending the throne of Scotland William had not behind him the general popular enthusiasm which had hailed Charles II at the Restoration. The first Parliament of Charles was virtually unanimous, and in the exuberance of its loyalty gave its sanction to all the royal Very different was the temper of the first Parliament of William. It was not thought prudent to risk a new election; and the Convention that had dethroned James was continued as a Parliament under the new King. To the chagrin of the Duke of Hamilton, who had been President of the Convention, his place was given to the Earl of Crawford, an ardent Presbyterian. With him, for the management of business, was associated as Lord Advocate Sir J Dalrymple, who had no preference for any form of polity, whether in Church or State, but was simply a statesman of cold, clear, and large intelligence. That William associated these two men as his representatives shows that he saw the necessity of a tentative policy. On Dalrymple devolved the task of upholding the rights of the Crown, which William was fully resolved to maintain. The Parliament met in June, 1689; and Dalrymple found that all his great powers would be taxed to secure his master's interests. Three different sections in the House were bent on giving trouble - Jacobites, who desired the recall of James, Whigs who aimed at curtailing the royal prerogative, and a body of dissatisfied politicians, who came to be known as the Club or the Country Party, ready to play fast and loose, as opportunity offered. It was on the mode of electing the Lords of the Articles that the opposition was mainly concentrated. The later Stewart Kings had virtually assumed the privilege of appoint ing these officials and thus made themselves masters of the Parliament. William in his instructions offered a remedy for this grievance; instead of twenty-four Lords there should be thirty-three, of whom the Estates, from which the Bishops were excluded as the result of the Revolution, should each choose eleven - the remainder to be made up from officers of State without election. The Opposition refused to accept the compromise, and the question remained in abeyance. But the main concern of the session was the settlement of the question whether Presbyterianism or Episcopacy was to be the national Church. William's recommendation was that, if the Presbyterians proved the predominant body in the nation, theirs should be the chosen Church. The decision at which the Parliament actually arrived showed the uncertainty of the public mind. Episcopacy was abolished, but Presbyterianism was not put in its place a conclusion which cut off the hopes of the one party and could not satisfy the other.

While Parliament was still sitting, the supporters of James made a bold stroke for his restoration. The hero of the adventure was Viscount Dundee, whom both his instincts and his interests attached to the House of Stewart. In the Highlands, henceforward to be the stronghold of Jacoos, he succeeded in collecting a force with which he threatened.

1689-90] Killiecrankie.-Establishment of Presbyterianism 293

to descend into the Lowland country. Met at Killiecrankie (July 27) by General Mackay, he fell in the hour of a brilliant victory, and, as there was no one equal to carrying on his enterprise, the danger to the Government passed as quickly as it had arisen.

-

The Government was safe from immediate danger; but the most critical question with which it had to deal the settlement of religion -had yet to be faced. The predominance of national feeling in favour of Presbyterianism was not so decisive as to make it clear which form of polity should receive the preference. Moreover, the difficulties of William and his advisers were increased by the fact that the Church of England had declared her resolution to stand or fall with her sister Church in Scotland. In his uncertainty William took the advice of one who of all men was best fitted to give it William Carstares, a Presbyterian minister who had been exiled in the reign of Charles II, and had made William's acquaintance in Holland. Mainly on the counsel of Carstares, William resolved to establish Presbyterianism as the national Church; and with this object the Parliament met in its second session (1690). The same parties appeared as in the previous year; but the extreme Whigs were conciliated by the abolition of the Lords of the Articles; and the Government succeeded in giving effect to its ecclesiastical measures. The assumption of the later Stewarts that the King was "supreme over all persons and in all causes ecclesiastical" was declared unconstitutional; sixty ministers, the survivors of those who had been ejected since 1661, were restored to their parishes; and Presbyterianism was established as the national Church. Finally, against the wishes of William, patronage was annulled and the right of electing ministers conferred on the congregations.

In spite of the sanction which had thus been given to Presbyterianism, it was with grave apprehensions that William and his advisers looked forward to the meeting of the General Assembly, which had been fixed for the following October. It was the first Assembly since that which had been broken up by the officials of the Commonwealth in 1653; and the natural dread was that the now triumphant Presbyterians would mete out such treatment to the Episcopalians as might endanger the peace of the country. A hundred and eighty members, laymen and divines, appeared on the appointed day, but among them were none from the north—the stronghold of Episcopacy; and, though three Cameronian ministers were received at their own express desire, they did not represent the majority of that body, to whom the Revolution Settlement was an unblessed compromise. The main business of the Assembly was to make arrangements for setting the new Church in order; and with this object it appointed two Commissioners, one for the north and the other for the south of the river Tay. The duty of the Commissioners was to restore church order and to extrude such ministers, Presbyterians and Episcopalians alike, as failed to give satisfaction in their doctrines and

294

Massacre of Glencoe

[1692

practices. The Commissioner for the south had a comparatively easy task, as there he had the sympathy of clergy and people; but in the Episcopalian north the work of purification met with determined opposition, and so harsh were the measures employed that the Government had to control the zeal of the inquisition.

So far as the Lowland country was concerned, the Government had no reason to fear a serious rising in favour of the exiled King; but in the Highlands there were symptoms of unrest which demanded vigorous measures if the public peace was to be secure. For various reasons the sympathies of many of the Highland chiefs went with the Stewart. James, we have seen, had, while Commissioner under his brother, made a special effort to conciliate them; and in the eyes of the chiefs of the west, the ascendancy of the House of Argyll, assured by the Revolution, was a hateful fact that made them the natural enemies of the new Government. As the disaffected chiefs were led to believe that a French armament was about to arrive in the interests of James, their attitude became more and more menacing; and it was necessary to take measures to avert a probable rising.

First, as a means of conciliating the impecunious chiefs, over £12,000 was distributed among them, but with so little effect that Dalrymple was in doubt whether the money would not have been better employed “to settle the Highlands or to ravage them." This measure having failed, an order was issued commanding all chiefs who had not yet done so to take the oath of allegiance by January 1, 1692, under "the utmost penalty of the law." All the chiefs took the oath by the prescribed date except Macdonald of Glencoe, who in bravado postponed the obnoxious act till the day of grace was past. As in Dalrymple's opinion the Clan Macdonald was "the worst in all the Highlands," he resolved, with unconcealed satisfaction, that it should be made an example of what the Government could effect against its enemies. Through his action as prime mover, a troop of a hundred and twenty men were quartered in the vale of Glencoe, and were hospitably entertained by the inhabitants for nearly a fortnight. On the morning of February 13, the errand of blood on which they had come was accomplished. The chief and thirty-seven of his clan were butchered, and the remainder escaped massacre only through the darkness of the morning and the neighbourhood of the hills. Had the Massacre of Glencoe occurred at any period previous to the Revolution, it would have been regarded merely as another of the long list of atrocities recorded in Highland history; but it was the interest of the Jacobites to stigmatise the existing Government, and at home and abroad they denounced the crime as an example of the iniquity of which it was capable. It was against Dalrymple, detested for other reasons, that the clamour was loudest; and, though William himself had signed the letters of fire and sword against the Macdonalds, he was at length (1695) constrained to grant a commission for an enquiry. As

1693]

The "Assurance"

295

its result, Dalrymple resigned his office of Secretary, and remained in privacy till the next reign, when his remarkable gifts were to be signally displayed in the service of his country.

The

The great problem for William in the government of Scotland was to conciliate the Episcopalians who composed such a formidable body of his subjects. On the loyalty of the Presbyterians he could securely reckon, since, however they might grumble and protest, they would in no event find it their interest to prefer the Stewart to himself. Episcopalians, on the other hand, who had lost their status through his accession and had no prospect of recovering it, were his natural enemies, and their one aim must be to undo the Revolution. It was thus evidently William's interest to make their position as tolerable as was consistent with the maintenance of his own authority. In 1693 the Parliament again met- the first time since 1690; and his representatives succeeded in carrying two measures intended to improve the existing situation. From the peculiar tenure by which William held the Crown the Jacobites had found a convenient ambiguity in the terms of the Oath of Allegiance: they might swear that he was King in fact, but with the mental reservation that he was not King of right. To remove

the ambiguity it was enacted that to the Oath of Allegiance there should be added an "Assurance" affirming that William was King of right as well as in fact. It reveals the difficulty of William's position that the "Assurance" was as obnoxious to the Presbyterians as to the Episcopalians against whom it was specially aimed; in the eyes of the former the exaction of such a pledge was an assumption of the Crown over the Church which had been the damning offence of William's predecessors. The other important Act of the session equally failed in its object of improving the ecclesiastical situation. By the terms of this Act all ministers were to be admitted into the national Church who should subscribe the Confession of Faith, the Oath of Allegiance, and the Assurance. To the Presbyterians the Act seemed only a deep-laid scheme to swamp the Church with Episcopalians, and to the Episcopalians the conditions it offered were incompatible at once with their principles and their aspirations. Thus abortive proved William's wellmeant scheme of comprehension, and alike for religion and the State its failure was to be a national disaster in the years that were to

come.

The last important event of William's reign was one which is written large in Scottish annals and, in its origin and its effects, is to be regarded as one of the most significant in the national history. In the process of public affairs since the Revolution, it had become evident that a new spirit reigned in the councils of the statesmen who were responsible for the conduct of the country; and in no sphere of their action had the change been more conspicuous than in their settlement of religion. The framers of the Solemn League and Covenant had sought to impose