CHAP.

XVI.

done to the people of Scotland in the preceding generation. It was because the Parliament of the Restoration had legislated in insolent defiance of the sense of the nation that the Parliament of the Revolution had to abase itself before the mob.

When Hamilton and his adherents had retired, one of the preachers who had been admitted to the hall called out to the members who were near him; "Fie! Fie! Do not lose time. Make haste, and get all over before he comes back." This advice was taken. Four or five sturdy Prelatists staid to give a last vote against Presbytery. Four or five equally sturdy Covenanters staid to mark their dislike of what seemed to them a compromise between the Lord and Baal. But the Act was passed by an overwhelming majority.*

Two supplementary Acts speedily followed. One of them, now happily repealed, required every officebearer in every University of Scotland to sign the Confession of Faith and to give in his adhesion to the new form of Church government.† The other, long ago most unhappily repealed, settled the important and delicate question of patronage. Knox had, in the First Book of Discipline, asserted the right of every Christian congregation to choose its own pastor. Melville had not, in the Second Book of Discipline, gone quite so far; but he had declared that no pastor could lawfully be forced on an unwilling congregation. Patronage had been abolished by a Covenanted Parliament in 1649, and restored by a Royalist Parliament in 1661. What ought to be done in 1690 it was no easy matter to decide. Scarcely any question seems to have caused so much anxiety to William. He had, in his private instructions, given the Lord Commissioner authority to assent to the abolition of patronage, if nothing else would satisfy the Estates. But this authority was most unwillingly given; and the King hoped that it would not be used. "It is," he said, "the taking of men's property." Melville succeeded in effecting a compromise. Patronage was abolished: but it was enacted that every patron should receive six hundred marks Scots, equivalent to about thirty-five pounds sterling, as a compensation for his rights. The sum seems ludicrously small. Yet, when the nature of the property and the poverty of the country are considered, it may be doubted whether a patron would have made much more by going into the market. The largest sum that any member ventured to suggest was nine hundred marks, little more than fifty pounds

* Account of the late Establishment of the Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland, 1690. † Act. Parl. July 4. 1690.

sterling. The right of proposing a minister was given to a parochial counsel consisting of the Protestant landowners and the elders. The congregation might object to the person proposed; and the Presbytery was to judge of the objections. This arrangement did not give to the people all the power to which even the Second Book of Discipline had declared that they were entitled. But the odious name of patronage was taken away; it was probably thought that the elders and landowners of a parish would seldom persist in nominating a person to whom the majority of the congregation had strong objections; and indeed it does not appear that, while the Act of 1690 continued in force, the peace of the Church was ever broken by disputes such as produced the schisms of 1732, of 1756, and of 1843.*

CHAP.

XVI.

The coali

tween

Montgomery had done all in his power to prevent the Estates from settling the ecclesiastical polity of the realm. tion beHe had incited the zealous Covenanters to demand what he the Club knew that the government would never grant. He had pro- Jacobites and the tested against all Erastianism, against all compromise. Dutch dissolved Presbyterianism, he said, would not do for Scotland. She must have again the system of 1649. That system was deduced from the Word of God: it was the most powerful check that had ever been devised on the tyranny of wicked kings; and it ought to be restored without addition or diminution. His Jacobite allies could not conceal their disgust and mortification at hearing him hold such language, and were by no means satisfied with the explanations which he gave them in private. While they were wrangling with him on this subject, a messenger arrived at Edinburgh with important despatches from James and from Mary of Modena. These despatches had been written in the confident expectation that the large promises of Montgomery would be fulfilled, and that the Scottish Estates would, under his dexterous management, declare for the rightful Sovereign against the Usurper. James was so grateful for the unexpected support of his old enemies that he entirely forgot the services and disregarded the feelings of his old friends. The three chiefs of the Club, rebels and Puritans as they were, had become his favourites. Annandale was to be a Marquess, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, and Lord High Commissioner. Montgomery was to be Earl of Ayr and Secretary of State. Ross was to be an Earl and to command the guards. James Stewart, the most unprincipled of lawyers, who had been

*Act. Parl. July 19. 1690; Lockhart to Melville, April 29. 1690.

CHAP.
XVI.

The chiefs

deeply concerned in Argyle's insurrection, who had changed
sides and supported the dispensing power, who had then
changed sides a second time and concurred in the Revolution,
and who had now changed sides a third time and was schem-
ing to bring about a Restoration, was to be Lord Advocate.
The Privy Council, the Court of Session, the army, were to be
filled with Whigs. A Council of Five was appointed, which
all loyal subjects were to obey; and in this Council Annan-
dale, Ross, and Montgomery formed the majority. Mary of
Modena informed Montgomery that five thousand pounds
sterling had been remitted to his order, and that five thou-
sand more would soon follow. It was impossible that Balcarras
and those who had acted with him should not bitterly resent
the manner in which they were treated. Their names were
not even mentioned. All that they had done and suffered
seemed to have faded from their master's mind. He had now
given them fair notice that, if they should, at the hazard of
their lands and lives, succeed in restoring him, all that he had
to give would be given to those who had deposed him. They
too, when they read his letters, knew, what he did not know
when the letters were written, that he had been duped by the
confident boasts and promises of the apostate Whigs. He,
when he despatched his messengers, imagined that the Club
was omnipotent at Edinburgh; and, before the messengers
reached Edinburgh, the Club had become a mere byword of
contempt. The Tory Jacobites easily found pretexts for re-
fusing to obey the Presbyterian Jacobites to whom the ban-
ished King had delegated his authority. They complained
that Montgomery had not shown them all the despatches
which he had received. They affected to suspect that he had
tampered with the seals. He called God Almighty to witness
that the suspicion was unfounded. But oaths were very
naturally regarded as insufficient guarantees by men who
had just been swearing allegiance to a King against whom
they were conspiring.
There was a violent outbreak of
passion on both sides: the coalition was dissolved: the papers
were flung into the fire; and, in a few days, the infamous
triumvirs who had been, in the short space of a year, violent
Williamites and violent Jacobites, became Williamites again,
and attempted to make their peace with the government by
accusing each other.*

Ross was the first who turned informer. After the fashion of the Club of the school in which he had been bred, he committed this betray * Balcarras; Confession of Annandale in the Leven and Melville papers.

each other.

base action with all the forms of sanctity. He pretended to be greatly troubled in mind, sent for a celebrated Presbyterian minister named Dunlop, and bemoaned himself piteously: "There is a load on my conscience: there is a secret which I know that I ought to disclose: but I cannot bring myself to do it." Dunlop prayed long and fervently: Ross groaned and wept: at last it seemed that heaven had been stormed by the violence of supplication: the truth came out, and many lies with it. The divine and the penitent then returned thanks together. Dunlop went with the news to Melville. Ross set off for England to make his peace at court, and performed his journey in safety, though some of his accomplices, who had heard of his repentance, but had been little edified by it, had laid plans for cutting his throat by the way. At London he protested, on his honour, and on the word of a gentleman, that he had been drawn in, that he had always disliked the plot, and that Montgomery and Ferguson were the real criminals.*

Dunlop was, in the meantime, magnifying, wherever he went, the divine goodness which had, by so humble an instrument as himself, brought a noble person back to the right path. Montgomery no sooner heard of this wonderful work of grace than he too began to experience compunction. He went to Melville, made a confession not exactly coinciding with Ross's, and obtained a pass for England. William was then in Ireland; and Mary was governing in his stead. At her feet Montgomery threw himself. He tried to move her pity by speaking of his broken fortunes, and to ingratiate himself with her by praising her sweet and affable manners. He gave up

to her the names of his fellow plotters. He vowed to dedicate his whole life to her service, if she would obtain for him some place which might enable him to subsist with decency. She was so much touched by his supplications and flatteries that she recommended him to her husband's favour: but the just distrust and abhorrence with which William regarded Montgomery were not to be overcome.†

Before the traitor had been admitted to Mary's presence, he had obtained a promise that he should be allowed to depart in safety. The promise was kept. During some months, he lay hid in London, and contrived to carry on a negotiation with the government. He offered to be a witness against his

*Balcarras; Notes of Ross's Confession in the Leven and Melville Papers. † Balcarras; Mary's account of her

interview with Montgomery, printed
among the Leven and Melville Papers.

CHAP.

XVI.

CHAP.
XVI.

accomplices on condition of having a good place. William would bid no higher than a pardon. At length the communications were broken off. Montgomery retired for a time to France. He soon returned to London and passed the miserable remnant of his life in forming plots which came to nothing, and in writing libels which are distinguished by the grace and vigour of their style from most of the productions of the Jacobite press.*

Annandale, when he learned that his two accomplices had turned approvers, retired to Bath, and pretended to drink the waters. Thence he was soon brought up to London by a warrant. He acknowledged that he had been seduced into treason but he declared that he had only said Amen to the plans of others, and that his childlike simplicity had been imposed on by Montgomery, that worst, that falsest, that most unquiet of human beings. The noble penitent then proceeded to make atonement for his own crime by criminating other people, English and Scotch, Whig and Tory, guilty and innocent. Some he accused on his own knowledge, and some on mere hearsay. Among those whom he accused on his own knowledge was Neville Payne, who had not, it should seem, been mentioned either by Ross or by Montgomery.†

Payne, pursued by messengers and warrants, was so ill advised as to take refuge in Scotland. Had he remained in England he would have been safe: for, though the moral proofs of his guilt were complete, there was not such legal evidence as would have satisfied a jury that he had committed high treason: he could not be subjected to torture in order to force him to furnish evidence against himself; nor could he be long confined without being brought to trial. But the moment that he passed the border he was at the mercy of the government of which he was the deadly foe. The Claim of Right had recognised torture as, in cases like his, a legitimate mode of obtaining information; and no Habeas Corpus Act secured him against a long detention. The unhappy man was arrested, carried to Edinburgh, and brought before the Privy Council. The general notion was, that he was a knave and a coward, and that the first sight of the boots and thumbscrews would bring out all the guilty secrets with which he had been entrusted. But Payne had a far braver spirit than those highborn plotters with whom it was his misfortune to have

* Compare Balcarras with Burnet, ii. 62. The pamphlet entitled Great Britain's Just Complaint is a good

specimen of Montgomery's manner. Balcarras; Annandale's Confession.