Читать книгу The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) - J. Pringle Thomson - Страница 5

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Source.—Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II. until the Sea-Battle off La Hogue, vol. i., p. 218, by Sir John Dalrymple, Bart. (London and Edinburgh: 1771.)

The convention met on the 14th of March. As the governing part of the boroughs had been modelled by King James, the members sent up from thence should have been favourable to his interests. But Lord Stair, whose views were extensive, had taken care, in the paper which contained the offer of administration to the Prince, to recommend that the borough-elections should be made by a general poll of the burgesses; an artifice which, while it took the blame of innovation off the Prince, prepared the way for securing the elections to the whigs and presbyterians. The parties at the convention first tried their strengths in the choice of a president. The Duke of Hamilton was set up by the new, the Marquis of Athole by the old court: a singular situation, where both candidates were distrusted, both by those who recommended, and by those who elected them. The former was preferred by 40 votes out of about 150 voters: a victory which, from the nature of the human mind, determined the wavering. A committee of elections was next named, consisting of nine whigs and three tories. Sir John Dalrymple, who was an able lawyer, found it easy to start objections to the returns of the opposite party, and to remove those which were made against his own. The committee in the house followed his opinions, because the necessity of the times was made the excuse of partiality. …

When the convention sat down, two letters were presented, one from the present, and another from the late King of England. The convention read both; but first passed an act, that nothing contained in the last of them should dissolve their assembly, or stop their proceeding to the settlement of the nation. James's letter was written in the terms of a conqueror and a priest; threatening the convention with punishment in this world, and damnation in the next. And, as it was counter-signed by Lord Melfort, a papist, and a minister abhorred by the presbyterians, the style and the signature hurt equally the interest which the letter was intended to serve. No answer was given. William's letter, on the contrary, was answered in strains of gratitude and respect; a distinction which sufficiently showed what might be expected with regard to the future resolutions of the assembly. …

The revolution in England was brought about by a coalition of whigs and tories; but, in Scotland, by the whigs almost alone. Hence, the Scottish convention, instead of amusing themselves with school disputes about words, which, while they discovered the fine lines of party in England, had embarrassed the English convention, struck their blow without ceremony, and came to a resolution, that King James had, by his evil deeds, forfaulted his right to the crown; a term which, in the language of the law of Scotland, involved in it the exclusion of all his posterity as well as his own. But, as this resolution would have comprehended the other children of James, as well as the young Prince, they agreed upon the following explanation of the word forfaulted. "Agreed, that the word forfault, in the resolution, should imply no other alteration in the succession to the crown than the seclusion of King James, the pretended Prince of Wales, and the children that shall be procreated of either of their bodies." Only five opposed these resolutions. …

The convention next made offer of the crown to William and Mary: a vote in which the Duke of Queensberry and the Marquis of Athole concurred, although they had refused to be present at the other. They reconciled their conduct by saying, "That, since the throne was declared vacant by the nation, they knew none so worthy to fill it as the Prince and Princess of Orange"—a mixture of sentiment, intended to please both Kings, but which, like most compliments of the kind, pleased neither. From an excess of zeal which betrayed the cause of it, the Duke of Hamilton demeaned himself to act the part of a clerk; reading, at the ordinary place of proclamation, the act of convention aloud to the mean multitude, who found even their own vanity hurt in the sacrifice which was made to it by the first man in the nation. With more dignity the parliament accompanied the offer of the crown with such a declaration of rights as laid open all the invasions upon the constitution, not of the late King alone, but of his brother, and ascertained every disputed pretension between the crown and the subject; for, accustomed either to trample upon their sovereigns, or to be trampled upon by them, the Scottish nation chose to leave nothing to be adjusted afterwards by the vibration between the executive and legislative powers, which had kept the English constitution almost continually in a just medium between the imperiousness of the crown and the licentiousness of the subject. The Earl of Argyle for the peers, Sir James Montgomery for the knights, and Sir John Dalrymple for the boroughs, were sent to London with the offer of the crown. …

The administration of the coronation-oath of Scotland was a ceremony attended with much awe; the King holding up his right hand high, whilst he swore, and repeated each word with slowness after the person who read it. It contained a clause, that the King should root out heretics. At these words, William stopt the Earl of Argyle, who was administering the oath, and declared, he did not mean to oblige himself to become a persecutor. The commissioners answering, that such was not the meaning of the oath: "Then," said the King, "I take it in that sense only." Whether this scruple was the effect of affectation or of delicacy, is immaterial: it became a King, and it pleased the people.