The Jacobite Rebellions | Page 4

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.

DUNDEE'S REBELLION (1689).
+Source.+--Memoirs of the War carried on in Scotland and Ireland,
1689-1691, by Major-General Hugh Mackay, Commander-in-Chief of
His Majesty's forces. With an appendix of original papers, p. 225.
(Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1833.)
THE DUKE OF HAMILTON TO LORD MELVILL.
Holyroodhous, 8 June, 1689.
Yesternight I received your lordship's of the 4th instant, with one to
General Major Mackay; I did the same night send one to the west to
dispatch some to Ireland for intelligence, and write two several ways to
the captains of our ships to go to the coast of Ireland to cruise there,
and give the best account they could if there was any appearance of an
invasion from thence, which, I am confident, there is little fears of, if it
be not by the French fleet, and it's very strange if they can be able to
come to our coasts and land men, if there be an English and Dutch fleet
at sea as you write, but if they should be able to land any considerable
force we should be in an ill condition, considering how disaffected all
the north is, and if we should absolutely with all his forces recall
Mackay before he dissipates or beats Dundee, all