FLETCHER OF SALTOUN
BY G : W : T OMOND

FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

FLETCHER OF SALTOUN

FLETCHER OF SALTOUN

BY G : W : T OMOND

FAMOUS
SCOTS:
SERIES

PUBLISHED BY:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK

PREFACE

In 1792 the eleventh Earl of Buchan published a
volume of Essays on the Life and Writings of Fletcher
of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson. It contains our only
biography of Fletcher; but, though founded on original
sources of information, it is frequently inaccurate, and
must, therefore, be used with great caution. The
author of the article on Fletcher in the third edition of
the Encyclopædia Britannica (1797) mentions that the
tenth Earl Marischal, when Governor of Neuchâtel,
suggested to Rousseau that he should write the life of
Fletcher. Rousseau was furnished withmss. for this
purpose; but nothing came of it, and most of the
materials on which that work was to have been founded
seem to have been lost. Some interesting documents,
however, are preserved in the University Library at
Edinburgh, includingmss. used by Lord Buchan, and a
letter to him from Lord Hailes, who had evidently been
applied to for information. (Laingmss. 364.)

Mr. F. Espinasse refers to most of the printed
authorities for the life of Fletcher, in a succinct but
exhaustive article in the Dictionary of National Biography,
vol. xix. p. 292; and in the Scottish Review for
July 1893 (vol. xxii. p. 61) there is a very interesting
paper on ‘Andrew Fletcher, the Scottish Patriot,’ from
the pen of Mr. J. R. Donaldson. Many allusions to
Fletcher’s conduct as a member of the last Scottish
Parliament are to be found in the Godolphin Correspondence
in the British Museum. (Add. mss. 28,055.)

I have to thank Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun for allowing
me to consult a volume of Recollections respecting the
Family of Saltoun, and for an opportunity of examining
the library and visiting the scenes of Fletcher’s
early life.

Mr. E. Gordon Duff, librarian of the John Rylands
Library, Manchester, and Mr. R. A. S. Macfie have
for some time been engaged in compiling a Bibliography
of Fletcher; and I desire to thank them for
their kindness in placing theirms. unreservedly in my
hands. There is considerable doubt respecting the
authorship of several pamphlets which have been attributed
to Fletcher, as well as regarding the places at
which his works were printed; and if this Bibliography
appears in print, it will be found most valuable by all
who take an interest in his writings.

G. W. T. O.

Oxford, March 1897.

CONTENTS

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER I

Fletcher’s Birth and Education—Travels Abroad—A Member of
the Scottish Parliament—Goes to the Continent.

Andrew Fletcher, eldest son of Sir Robert Fletcher
of Saltoun, in the county of Haddington, and of
Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Bruce of Clackmannan,
was born in the year 1653. He was educated
either at home or in the parish school of Saltoun until
1665. On the thirteenth of January in that year his
father died, having, on his deathbed, intrusted the
charge of educating his son to Burnet, the future Bishop
of Salisbury, who had just been presented to the living
of Saltoun, of which Sir Robert was the patron. Burnet’s
first published work was, A Discourse on the Memory of
that rare and truly virtuous person, Sir Robert Fletcher
of Saltoun, written by a gentleman of his acquaintance.
This volume, which the author calls, ‘The rude essay
of an unpolished hand,’ contains almost nothing about
either Sir Robert or his son; and, in fact, Burnet does
little more than use his patron as a peg on which to
hang a string of platitudes. But from the moment Burnet
became minister of Saltoun, Andrew Fletcher lived in[Pg 10]
an atmosphere of learning. There was a library belonging
to the Church of Saltoun, founded by one of the
parish ministers, and added to by Burnet and the
Fletcher family; and among this collection of books we
may fancy Burnet and his pupil spending many hours.
There were two catalogues, one of them written by Sir
Robert Fletcher; and in August 1666 we find the
‘Laird of Saltoun,’ then thirteen years of age, visiting
the library, comparing the books with the catalogues,
and gravely reporting to the Presbytery of Haddington
that Burnet was taking proper care of the books.

These books were chiefly theological, but among them
were The Acts of the Second Parliament of King Charles,
from which Burnet might teach the boy many useful
lessons, and the ‘Book of the Martyrs, 3 vol. in folio,
gifted by my Lady Saltoun.’ For the support of this
library Burnet left a sum of money; and it is still
known in the district as ‘Bishop Burnet’s Library.’
The books are preserved in a room in the manse of
Saltoun under the charge of the parish minister, and
prominent among them are a fine folio edition of
Burnet’s own works, and a black-letter copy of Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs.

Of Fletcher’s earliest days little is recorded, except
that he was, from infancy, of a fiery but generous
nature. According to family tradition Burnet imbued
his pupil ‘with erudition and the principles of free[Pg 11]
government’; and perhaps it is not mere fancy which
leads us to picture the keen, eager, excitable boy
reading the Book of Martyrs, and listening to Burnet,
who describes his system of education in the account
which he gives of the manner in which he taught the
Duke of Gloucester in after years. ‘I took,’ he says,
‘to my own province, the reading and explaining the
Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the Principles
of Religion and the Rules of Virtue, and the giving him
a view of History, Geography, Politics, and Government.’
History, politics, and the theory of government—these
were, all through his life, Andrew Fletcher’s favourite
studies; and we cannot doubt that Burnet not only
drilled him thoroughly in Greek and Latin, as he
certainly did, but also fostered that taste for letters
from which not even the turmoil of politics could ever
wean him.

Fletcher also owed much to the influence of his
mother; and to this he himself, in his later years, bore
testimony. ‘One day,’ it is recorded in the private
family history, ‘after Andrew Fletcher had entertained
his company with a concert of music, and they were
walking about in the hall at Saltoun, a gentleman fixed
his eye on the picture of Katherine Bruce, where the
elegant pencil of Sir Peter Lely had blended the softness
and grace that form the pleasing ornaments of the sex.
“That is my mother,” says Andrew; “and if there is[Pg 12]
anything in my education and acquirements during the
early part of my life, I owe them entirely to that
woman.”’

Burnet remained at Saltoun until November 1669,
when he was appointed Professor of Divinity at Glasgow.
It is, however, possible that Fletcher was sent to the
University of Edinburgh before that date, as the name
of an Andrew Fletcher occurs in the University Register
for the year 1668. This may not have been young
Fletcher of Saltoun; but in any case we would suppose,
from the acquirements which he afterwards displayed,
that he had received a University education, though
this is not to be gathered from Lord Buchan, who says:
‘When he had completed his course of elementary
studies in Scotland, under the care of his excellent
preceptor, he was sent to travel on the Continent.’ But
as Fletcher was only fifteen when Burnet left Saltoun, it
seems more probable that he was sent to the University
of Edinburgh for a year or two before starting on the
‘Grand Tour.’

Of his travels nothing appears to be known; but he
doubtless followed the route usually taken, through
France, Germany, and Italy, by young Scotsmen of
family, who, it need scarcely be said, were almost
always sent to finish their education by visiting foreign
countries. Fletcher knew French, but with regard to
Italian Lord Buchan mentions a curious fact. ‘He[Pg 13]
had,’ says Lord Buchan, ‘acquired the grammatical
knowledge of the Italian so perfectly as to compose and
publish a treatise in that language; yet he could not
speak it, as he found when having an interview with
Prince Eugene of Savoy, and being addressed in that
language by the Prince, he could not utter a syllable to
be understood.’

Having returned to Scotland, he was, in June 1678,
sent as one of the members for Haddingtonshire to the
Convention of Estates which met that summer. His
colleague was Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, a fine
gentleman of the old school, but one of the most
virulent Presbyterians even of that day. It is to be
observed that the rolls of parliament have the name of
‘James Fletcher of Saltoun.’ It appears, from the
Official Return of Members (published in 1878) that the
original commissions for Haddingtonshire have been
lost; but there is no doubt whatever that the rolls are
wrong, and the name ‘James’ appears by a mistake
instead of ‘Andrew.’

This Convention of Estates, in which Lauderdale
was Lord High Commissioner, sat from the 26th of
June to the 11th of July. It was summoned for the
purpose of voting money to maintain the troops who
were to be employed in suppressing the conventicles or
field meetings of the Presbyterians; and a supply of
thirty thousand pounds a year, for five years, was[Pg 14]
granted. The Opposition, led by Hamilton, could
muster only thirty-nine votes, while the supporters of
the Government numbered one hundred, including, of
course, all the Bishops. Among the thirty-nine was
Fletcher, who thus, from the outset of his public life,
took his stand against the arbitrary system on which
Scotland was governed until the Revolution.

During this short session an incident took place
which was very characteristic of Fletcher. The Estates
had ordered that none but members were to be admitted
to the Parliament House. Fletcher’s brother Henry,
however, had managed to slip in. He was discovered,
fined, and sent to the Tolbooth. So next day Andrew
Fletcher ‘pitched on little William Tolemache as no
member,’ as Lord Fountainhall puts it. On this
Lauderdale was forced to declare that he was one of
his servants, whom he was entitled to bring into the
House. This is the first instance of that hot, pertinacious
spirit which Fletcher so often displayed on the
floor of the Parliament House; nor, trifling as the
incident was, must it be forgotten that it required some
courage to face Lauderdale, whose easygoing, plausible
manner concealed a most vindictive spirit.

The Government had now resolved to rule Scotland
by the sword; and their policy was to turn the militia,
as far as possible, into a standing army. The Scottish
Privy Council was ordered to draw five thousand foot[Pg 15]
and five hundred horse from the militia, and quarter
them at the expense of the heritors in all the counties;
and instructions were given that, in addition to the
oaths of allegiance and supremacy, the soldiers should
be called upon to swear ‘to maintain the present
Government in Church and State, as it is now established
by law, and to oppose the damnable principle of taking
up arms against the King, or those commissionate by
him.’ In other words, the militia of Scotland, where a
majority of the people were opposed to the Church
established by law, were to swear that they would
maintain the principles of passive obedience and non-resistance.
And this oath was to be taken, ‘not in the
ordinary way that such military oaths used to be executed,
by drawing up the troop or company together in
a body, but that every soldier, one after another, shall
by himself swear the same.’

Of the ‘New Model,’ as, borrowing the phraseology
of the Commonwealth, the Ministers called the troops,
two hundred foot and forty-six horse were quartered
upon Haddingtonshire; and this led Fletcher into
collision with the Government. At the end of July 1680,
along with Sinclair of Stevenston and Murray of Blackbarrony,
he was accused, before the Privy Council, of
seditiously obstructing the King’s Service, ‘in putting
the Act of the Privy Council to execution for levying
the five thousand five hundred men out of the militia.’[Pg 16]
It was expected that the accused, who, says Lord
Fountainhall, stated ‘difficulties and scruples,’ would
be fined and imprisoned, but they escaped with a
rebuke. In January of the following year Lord Yester,
Fletcher, and ten other gentlemen of Haddingtonshire,
presented a petition to the Privy Council, ‘complaining
of the standing forces, ther quartering upon them.’
This petition was extremely resented, because it spoke
of the quartering of soldiers on the country, in time of
peace, as contrary to law, and seemed to reflect upon
the Government.

At the general election of 1681 there was a double
return from Haddingtonshire. The Lairds of Saltoun
and Ormiston were returned by those freeholders who
opposed the Government, and Hepburn of Humbie and
Wedderburn of Gosford by the Ministerial party. It is
said that when the matter came before the committee
on disputed elections, Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh,
who was chairman, proposed that ‘for the sake of serving
the King,’ some votes which had been given in favour of
Fletcher should not be counted. But this dishonest
advice was not taken; the case was fairly tried, and
Fletcher and Cockburn were declared to have been duly
elected.

The Duke of York was Commissioner in this Parliament,
which met on the 28th of July 1681. The two
great measures of the session were the ‘Act acknowledging[Pg 17]
and asserting the Right of Succession to the
Imperial Crown of Scotland,’ which was passed for the
purpose of securing the succession of the Duke of York,
and the famous ‘Act anent Religion and the Test.’

Both of these measures were strenuously opposed by
Fletcher, who is said to have written a number of
private letters to members of the Parliament, imploring
them to vote against the Succession Act, on the ground
that the Duke was both a Roman Catholic and a
tyrant.

The Test Act was, in spite of its vast importance,
brought in and passed in the course of a single day;
but at least one amendment was moved by Fletcher.
‘Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun,’ says Dalrymple, ‘after long
opposing the bill, with all the fire of ancient eloquence,
and of his own spirit, made a motion which the Court
party could not, in decency, oppose; that the security
of the Protestant Religion should be made a part of
the Test.’

The new clause was prepared by Sir James Dalrymple,
then Lord President of the Court of Session, who so
framed it that the ‘Protestant Religion’ was defined as
that set forth in the Old Scots Confession of Faith of
1567, which was inconsistent with Episcopacy, and also
allowed the lawfulness of resistance. ‘That was a
book,’ says Burnet, ‘so worn out of use, that scarce any
one in the whole Parliament had ever read it. None[Pg 18]
of the Bishops had, as appeared afterwards.’ The
result was that Fletcher’s amendment, as framed by
Dalrymple, became part of the Act, all the Bishops
agreeing to it.

Fletcher also resisted the monstrous and unconstitutional
clause which compelled the county electors, on
pain of forfeiting the franchise, to swear that they would
never attempt to ‘bring about,’ as the statute puts it,
‘any change or alteration either in church or state, as it
is now established by the laws of this Kingdom.’ There
was a division on this question. No lists remain to
show how the members voted; but the following protest
is inscribed on the rolls of Parliament: ‘That part of
the Act—If the Test should be put to the Electors of
Commissioners for Shires to the Parliament, having
been put to the vote by itself, before the voting and
passing of the whole Act; and the same being carried
in the Affirmative, the Laird of Saltoun and the Laird
of Grant, having voted in the negative, desired their
dissent might be marked.’

Fletcher had now incurred the implacable enmity of
the Duke of York, who, says Mackay, ‘would not forgive
his behaviour in that Parliament’; and he was, moreover,
soon involved once more in trouble with the
Privy Council. The Estates had voted money for the
public service; and Fletcher was named as one of the
Commissioners of Supply for Haddingtonshire. Part of[Pg 19]
the Commissioners’ duty was to arrange for the troops
which were quartered on the country; and in April
1682 the Lord Advocate accused them before the Privy
Council for not meeting with the Sheriff-Depute, to set
prices on corn and straw, grass and hay, for the soldiers’
horses; ‘or at least for making a mock act, in setting
down prices, but not laying out the localities where the
forces may be served with these necessaries.’ In short,
the Laird of Saltoun and the Commissioners of Supply
did all they could to thwart and annoy the Government.

‘After much trouble and pains,’ in the words of Lord
Fountainhall, the gentlemen of East Lothian consented
to fix store-houses and magazines in the county; but in
a short time Fletcher came to the conclusion that he
could no longer remain in Scotland. He accordingly
went to London, perhaps to consult Burnet on the
situation, and thence made his way to the Continent.

[Pg 20]

CHAPTER II

The Whig Plot—Comes to England with Monmouth—Shoots Dare—Is
found guilty of High Treason and attainted—The Estate of
Saltoun forfeited.

Fletcher’s movements cannot be accurately traced for
some time after he left Scotland. Argyll wrote to him,
on several occasions, for the purpose of enlisting his
services against the Government; but he did not answer
the letters. At last, however, when he was at Brussels,
he heard that the English Ministers had privately requested
the Marquis de Grand to have him apprehended.
This seems to have irritated him; for he went to London
and joined the circle of Whigs who were then engaged
in preparing to resist the succession of the Duke of
York. As is well known, before the plot was matured
Shaftesbury fled to Holland, where he died, and the
management of this dangerous business was left in the
hands of a council of six—Monmouth, Russell, Essex,
Howard, Hampden, and Algernon Sidney.

According to Lord Buchan, Fletcher and Baillie of
Jerviswoode were the only two Scotsmen who were
admitted into the secrets of the six; but what part
Fletcher took in the Whig Plot, which, it need scarcely
be said, must be distinguished from the Rye-House
Plot, of which Fletcher probably knew nothing, it is
impossible to say. Baillie of Jerviswoode was offered
his life, on condition that he would give evidence
against his friends, and against Fletcher in part[Pg 21]icular;
but he answered, in the often quoted words, ‘They
who make such a proposal know neither me nor my
country.’

In October 1683 he was in Paris, whither he had
perhaps journeyed in company with Burnet, who had
left England at the beginning of September. Viscount
Preston who was then at Paris as Envoy-Extraordinary
from the English Court, wrote to Halifax about Fletcher.
‘Here,’ he says, ‘is one Fletcher, lately come from
Scotland. He is an ingenious but a very dangerous
fanatic, and doubtless hath some commission, for I hear
he is very busy and very virulent.’

Burnet returned to England in the beginning of the
following year; and Fletcher seems then to have gone
to Holland, where he saw he would be safer than anywhere
else, for we next find him travelling about in
that country and in Belgium, visiting the libraries of
Leyden, and picking up volumes among the bookstalls
of Haarlem. It was perhaps at this time that the
curious incident recorded by Mrs. Calderwood of
Polton, in the Coltness Collection, occurred. The
story is almost incredible; but Mrs. Calderwood gives
it in the most matter-of-fact way.

‘They tell,’ she says, ‘a story of old Fletcher of
Salton and a skipper: Salton could not endure the
smoak of toback, and as he was in [Pg 22]a night-scoot, the
skipper and he fell out about his forbidding him to
smoak; Salton, finding he could not hinder him, went
up and sat on the ridge of the boat, which bows like an
arch. The skipper was so contentious that he followed
him, and, on whatever side Salton sat, he put his pipe in
the cheek next him, and whifed it in his face; Salton
went down several times, and brought up stones in his
pockets from the ballast, and slipt them into the
skipper’s pocket that was next the water, and when he
found he had loadened him as much as would sink him,
he gives him a shove, so that over he hirsled. The
boat went on, and Salton came down amongst the rest
of the passengers, who probably were asleep, and fell
asleep amongst the rest. In a little time bump came
the scoot against the side, on which they all damned
the skipper; but, behold, when they called, there was
no skipper; which would breed no great amazement
in a Dutch company.’

In the meantime the Government had not lost sight
of Fletcher; for on the 21st of November 1684 he was
cited at the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and at the
pier and shore of Leith, to appear within sixty days,
and answer to the charge of ‘Conversing with Argyll
and other rebels abroad.’ With regard to this charge,
Lord Fountainhall says that Fletcher’s intrigues with
Monmouth, at the time of the Whig Plot, could not be
criminal, as Monmouth had received his pardon in
December 1683; but this was not the opinion of the[Pg 23]
Lord Advocate, for in the following January the Laird
of Saltoun and a number of other ‘fugitive rebels,’
including Lord Loudoun, Lord Melville, and Sir James
Dalrymple of Stairs, were charged with high treason,
and declared outlaws.

Soon after the death of Charles II. Fletcher was at
Brussels; and Monmouth, who was then living incognito
at Amsterdam, sent his confidential servant, William
Williams, with a letter to him. Williams afterwards, when
he was called as a witness against Fletcher, said he did
not know the contents of the letter; but it doubtless contained
a request that Fletcher would come to Amsterdam.

Monmouth was now in despair. With the death of
his father, his last chance of being received at the
English Court was gone. He had fallen into the hands
of conspirators who were urging him to invade England.
His own opinions were all against this; and he wished
to take the advice of Fletcher, which, whether sound or
not, was certain to be disinterested. So Fletcher went
to Amsterdam; and what happened shows that Monmouth
had acted wisely in sending for him.

A long list could be compiled of the exiles who were now
assembled at Amsterdam. Argyll, Lord Grey of Wark,
and Ferguson the Plotter, were the most active and persistent
of the conspirators who surrounded Monmouth;
but a great part in these fateful de[Pg 24]liberations was taken
by Ayloffe and Rumbold, whose names are so well
known in connection with the Rye-House Plot, by
Wade, and by Captain Matthews. Dare, known as
‘Old Dare,’ to distinguish him from his son, must be
specially remembered, as his name will presently occur
in connection with the most painful event in Fletcher’s
life. He had been a goldsmith of Taunton before he
went into exile. He was a man of rough manners, but
very popular in his native place. Having lived abroad
for some time, he was now eager for an immediate
descent on England, and persisted, more than any one
else, in promising to Monmouth a general rising in the
west country.

Another of the party was Anthony Buyse, who had
served under the Elector of Brandenburgh, and whom
readers of fiction may recollect as the ‘Brandenburgher’
with whom Micah Clarke has the bout of ‘handgrips,’
in Mr. Conan Doyle’s famous romance.

‘The person,’ Sir John Dalrymple says, ‘in whom
the Duke of Monmouth chiefly confided was Mr.
Fletcher of Saltoun, in whom all the powers of the
soldier, the orator, and the scholar were united; and
who, in ancient Rome, would have been the rival and
the friend of Cato.’ Fletcher’s opinion was strong and
clear. He was against making an attempt on England.
Monmouth himself held the same view. But the fates
were driving Monmouth and Argyll relentlessly to their
doom. Argyll’s mind was made up, and nothing[Pg 25]
could turn him from his purpose of invading Scotland.
Fletcher was so convinced that the expedition to Scotland
was useless, that he refused to take a part in it,
and said that, if there was to be an invasion, he would
accompany Monmouth to England.

He was, nevertheless, as strong against the expedition
to England as against that to Scotland; but it
appears, from what he afterwards told Burnet, that all
the English, except Captain Matthews, were pressing
Monmouth to make the venture. The west of England,
they told him, would rise to a man, as soon as he
appeared. There would be no fighting. Even the
King’s Guards would support him. In London, too,
the people were as disaffected as in the west. The
King would not dare to send troops out of the capital;
and so there would be time to raise such an army for
the Protestant cause that he would be able to fight the
King on equal terms. Monmouth was a soldier, and
therefore knew that a force newly enlisted, and hastily
organised, would have no chance against well-drilled
troops. In the discussions, Fletcher and Matthews
alone seemed to have agreed with Monmouth—Lord
Grey, Ferguson, Wade, and Dare all clamouring for
action. ‘Henry the Seventh,’ said Grey, ‘landed with
a smaller force, and succeeded.’ ‘He was sure of
the nobility, who were little Princes in those days,’
answered Fletcher shrewdly. ‘It is a good cause,’[Pg 26]
cried Ferguson, ‘and God will not leave us, unless we
leave Him.’

And, in the end, the rash counsels of Grey and
Ferguson prevailed; and Monmouth, who seems to
have been at last talked into believing that success was
possible, resolved to make the attempt. Nor could
Fletcher persist in his opposition when, on the 2nd of
May, Argyll, taking Rumbold and Ayloffe with him,
sailed for Scotland, having received a promise from
Monmouth that he would follow in six days.

It was not, however, until the 24th that the party of
adventurers, thirty in number, left Amsterdam in a
lighter. The weather in the Zuider Zee was bad, and
it took them nearly a week to reach the Texel. Here
the frigate Helderenberg and three tenders awaited
them. The frigate, with papers made out for Bilboa,
had been chartered by Monmouth, and carried arms and
ammunition. An attempt was made by the agent of the
English Government to induce the authorities at Amsterdam
to prevent the ship sailing; but, though the States-General
gave orders that she should be stopped, the
Admiralty of Amsterdam professed that they had not a
force at their disposal strong enough to take her. One
of the tenders was seized; but the Helderenberg, with
the other two, sailed with Monmouth and his followers,
who now numbered eighty-two—of whom Lord Grey
and Fletcher were the highest in rank. The [Pg 27]bad
weather continued after they left the Texel; but at last
the little company found themselves off the shores of
Dorsetshire.

Their intention was to land at Lyme; but Dare was
put ashore at Seaton, which lies a short distance to the
west of Lyme, with orders to make his way to Taunton,
and inform the friends of the Protestant cause that
Monmouth was at hand.

Between seven and eight o’clock on the evening of
Thursday, the 11th of June, the frigate anchored off
Lyme, and Monmouth, accompanied by Fletcher,
Grey, and the rest of his followers, landed.

What happened next is well known. The town was
seized; the blue flag was hoisted in the market-place;
the manifesto which Ferguson had prepared was read;
and the people assembled with cries of ‘Monmouth,
and the Protestant Religion.’

The leaders of the expedition lodged in the George
Inn; and during the following day Fletcher and Monmouth
were constantly together, while recruits arrived
in such numbers that the Duke’s hopes rose high. All
that day they were arriving, and the lists filled rapidly—one
of those who joined being Daniel Defoe, the
future author of Robinson Crusoe, then a young man of
twenty-four. The only bad news which reached Lyme
was that the Dorsetshire Militia were assembling at
Bridport.

[Pg 28]

Early next morning, Saturday the 13th of June, Dare
returned from his mission to Taunton at the head of
forty horsemen. He was mounted on a fine charger,
which he was said to have obtained at Fort Abbey,
the seat of Mr. Prideaux.

On that day Fletcher dined with Monmouth, and
a council of war, at which Lord Grey was doubtless
present, was held. It was resolved to attack the
Dorset Militia at Bridport, and the command of the
horse was intrusted to Grey and Fletcher. Orders
were given that the attack on Bridport, which is only
a few miles from Lyme, should take place that afternoon.

And now occurred that unhappy incident which not
only sent Fletcher once more into exile, but probably
had a fatal influence on the fortunes of Monmouth.
The horse on which Dare had ridden into Lyme that
morning had attracted the attention of Fletcher, and,
without asking leave of Dare, he went and took it,
thinking, as Dalrymple puts it, that times of danger
were not times of ceremony. Dare objected, assailing
Fletcher with a volley of insults and bad language,
which he bore patiently, perhaps because the other was
not his equal in rank, or because he was unwilling to
engage in a private quarrel when on duty. But the
rough Englishman was at last foolish enough to think,
from the calm demeanour of Fletcher, that he could[Pg 29]
bully him into giving up the horse, and had the insolence
to shake a stick in his face. On this Fletcher, in
a passion, pulled out a pistol, and in another moment
Dare was a dead man.

There can be little doubt that this is what actually
took place. Ferguson, indeed, represents it as a mere
accident for which Fletcher was not to blame. ‘The
death of Dare was caused,’ he says, ‘by his own intemperate
and unruly passion, and beyond the intention of
the gentleman whose misfortune it was to do it; who,
having snatched his pistol into his hand for no other
end but to preserve himself from the other’s rude
assault with a cane, had the unhappiness, unawares, to
shoot him, contrary to his thoughts and inclinations,
and to his inconceivable grief.’ But Burnet, who probably
heard the story from Fletcher himself, says nothing
about any accident, and his account is corroborated by
the evidence which Buyse afterwards gave at Edinburgh,
which will be found in the eleventh volume of the State
Trials. Fletcher went and told Monmouth what had
happened; and, while they were speaking, the country[Pg 30]
people, headed by Dare’s son, appeared, demanding
that justice should be done. Monmouth instantly saw
that it would be impossible to retain Fletcher in his
service, and advised him to make haste on board the
frigate, and at the same time he sent orders to the
master to sail.

Ferguson says that Monmouth advised Fletcher to
withdraw for a time, ‘to prevent murmuring among
some of ourselves, as well as to remove occasion of
resentment in the inhabitants of Taunton.’ But he
says that he only told Fletcher to go ‘under a desire
and command to return and meet him at a place which
he named, but where, alas! we never had the happiness
to arrive.’

But Monmouth knew that he had lost the services of
Fletcher, and he was distressed beyond measure at the
double blow. The loss of Dare, who knew the country
well, was serious; and when Fletcher rushed to the
shore and made his way to the Helderenberg, Monmouth
felt that he was losing the only competent officer in his
little army, and one of the few men of any rank who
were with him. ‘Though,’ says Ferguson, ‘the damage
that befell us by the dismissing of that gentleman
cannot easily be imagined or expressed, yet this I may
say towards giving an idea of it—that as he was a person
who, by his courage, military skill, civil prudence,
application to business, and the interest he had in the
Duke, would have contributed much to the conduct of
our whole affairs, and have promoted the embracing all
opportunities for action attended with any probable
success; so he would have done everything that could
have been expected from a person of character and
worth in a decisive engagement.’ Though prudence[Pg 31]
was not one of Fletcher’s virtues, this is scarcely an
over-estimate of the loss which Monmouth’s army
had sustained in the loss of Fletcher; and when, next
morning, the attack on Bridport took place, in which
the horse made such a poor display under the command
of Grey, not only the Scotsman Ferguson, but
the whole army, must have regretted the absence of
the brave Scottish gentleman. ‘With Fletcher,’ says
Dalrymple, ‘all Monmouth’s chances of success in
war left him.’

Lord Buchan’s account of the reasons which led
Fletcher to leave Monmouth may be at once rejected.
‘The account,’ he says, ‘given by Fletcher himself of
his general conduct at this time to the late Earl Marshal
of Scotland was, that he had been induced to join
the Duke of Monmouth on the principles of the Duke’s
manifestoes in England and Scotland, particularly by
the laws promised for the permanent security of civil
and political liberty and of the Protestant religion, and
the calling of a general congress of delegates from the
people at large, to form a free constitution of government,
and not to pretend to the throne upon any claim,
except the free choice of the representatives of the
people. That, when Monmouth was proclaimed King
at Taunton, he saw his deception, and resolved to proceed
no further in his engagement, which he considered
from that moment as treason against the just rights [Pg 32]of
the nation, and treachery on the part of Monmouth.
That, finding himself therefore no longer capable of
being useful, he left Taunton and embarked on board
a vessel for Spain.’

It is difficult to explain this statement. That it is not
in accordance with fact is undeniable; for the very
simple reason that nothing can be more certain than
that Fletcher killed Dare and left England on the 13th
of June, and that Monmouth was not proclaimed King
until the 20th. In fact, Fletcher had probably reached
Spain before Monmouth entered Taunton, where the
proclamation was made.

One explanation may be suggested. It is quite
impossible that Fletcher could have told the Earl
Marischal that he left England because Monmouth was
proclaimed King; but it is possible that when Fletcher
was hurried on board the Helderenberg to save him
from the fury of the mob, there was an understanding
that he would return. When, however, he heard that
Monmouth had assumed the royal title, he may have
changed his mind. He may have said something to
this effect to the Earl Marischal, who misunderstood
him. At the same time, it is to be observed, he was
soon in situations where he could scarcely have heard
of the proclamation until after the battle of Sedgemoor,
and perhaps not until after the execution of Monmouth.
All that can be said is that there was some mis[Pg 33]understanding
on the part either of the Earl Marischal or
of Lord Buchan.

The Government in Scotland had put Henry Fletcher,
Saltoun’s brother, under lock and key as soon as they
heard of Argyll’s expedition; and they now took proceedings
against Andrew. In August, Buyse, the
Brandenburger, and Captain Robert Bruce, who were
to be called as witnesses, reached Leith in one of the
royal yachts; but it was not until the 21st of December
that the case came on in the High Court of Justiciary
at Edinburgh.

By that time Monmouth was dead; but he was cited,
as Duke of Buccleuch, along with his widow and children.[1]
At the same time Sir James Dalrymple and
Fletcher were arraigned.

Sir George Mackenzie, then Lord Advocate, prosecuted.
The charge was that Monmouth, Dalrymple,
and Fletcher had, in the year 1683, entered into a plot
with Shaftesbury, Argyll, Russell, and others, to kill the
[Pg 34]King; in short, they were accused, in the first place, of
complicity in the Whig Plot and the Rye-House Plot.
But the most serious charge against Fletcher was that
he had come from Holland with Monmouth. The
indictment against him set forth that he ‘landed with
him (Monmouth) and rode up and down the country
with him, and was in great esteem with him at Lyme
for two or three days, and continued in open rebellion
with him, till, having killed one Dare, an English goldsmith,
who was likewise with them in the said rebellion,
he was forced to fly in the frigotts in which they came,
and make his escape.’

When the case against Fletcher came on, it was found
that of forty-five jurymen who had been summoned
only thirteen were in attendance; and the proceedings
were adjourned until the 4th of January. On that day
the charge of complicity in the Whig and Rye-House
Plots was withdrawn, and he was accused only of taking
part in Monmouth’s invasion.

Fletcher was called, as a matter of form, and, when
he did not appear, was declared a fugitive from the law.
Then the Lord Advocate asked that his estate should
be forfeited. A jury was chosen, amongst the members
of which were the Marquis of Douglas, the Earl of Mar,
the Earl of Lauderdale, and other peers, and of
commoners Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik and Sir John
Dalmahoy of that Ilk. Two witnesses, Captain Bruce[Pg 35]
and Anthony Buyse, were examined. Buyse could only
say that he had himself sailed in the ship with Monmouth,
‘where he did see a gentleman who was called
“Fletcher of Saltoun,” who was a little man, and had
a brown periwig, of a lean face, pock-marked,’ and that
he heard he was ‘a Scots gentleman of a good estate.’
After the death of Dare he saw this gentleman ‘flee to
the ship.’ Captain Bruce knew Fletcher, and had
sailed with him to Lyme.

The judges, however, were very punctilious about
complete identification, and the evidence was not
considered sufficient until the deposition of Monmouth’s
servant Williams, then a prisoner in Newgate, was read.
He stated that a few days before Monmouth embarked
for England he ‘saw the said Mr. Fletcher with the late
Duke, at his lodging in Mr. Dare’s house in Amsterdam,’
and then described Fletcher’s doings from the day they
left Amsterdam until the afternoon of the 13th of June
1685.

The proceedings of the jury, when they retired to
consider their verdict, show that the judges were right
in requiring full legal evidence as to the identity of
Fletcher; for Lord Torphichen, Sir John Clerk, Somerville
of Drum, and at least one more of the jury, argued
that the evidence was insufficient, on the ground that
only one witness, Captain Bruce, had been examined
who could identify Fletcher of his own per[Pg 36]sonal knowledge.
Buyse, they said, who had spoken only from
hearsay, ‘might be mistaken.’ But when they returned
to the court-room, Lord Lauderdale, the foreman,
announced that by a majority they found a verdict of
Guilty.

Then Fletcher was sentenced to be put to death
wherever he was found. He was attainted as a traitor.
His name and memory were declared extinct, his blood
tainted, his descendants incapable of holding any places
or honours, and all his estates forfeited to the Crown.

This sentence was pronounced on the 4th of January
1686; and, by a grant under the Great Seal, dated
Whitehall, 16th January, the lands and barony of
Saltoun were given to George, Earl of Dumbarton.

[Pg 37]

CHAPTER III

Adventures in Spain—Serves in Hungary against the Turks—Returns
to Scotland at the Revolution—Reforms in the Scottish Parliament—Saltoun
restored—Darien.

As soon as Fletcher gained the deck of the Helderenberg
the master sailed for Spain, carrying with him
one John Kerridge, a pilot who had been pressed into
Monmouth’s service for the purpose of steering the
vessel to Bristol. As soon as they reached Bilboa,
Fletcher, the master, and this unfortunate Kerridge were
all seized and put in prison; and soon afterwards the
English Minister at Madrid requested the Spanish
Government to send Fletcher to England. If he had
been sent to England his fate would not have long
remained doubtful; but, by some strange chance, he
escaped. The Earl Marischal’s account of what Fletcher
told him of his adventures at this period is as follows:—

One morning he was sitting at the window of his
prison, when a ‘venerable person’ appeared, and made
signs that he had something to tell him. Fletcher
somehow found an open door, at which he was met by
the ‘venerable person,’ who led him past the sentinels,
who, strange to say, were all fast asleep. As soon as
he was outside the prison, his deliverer, who was a perfect
stranger, disappeared before he had time to thank
him. Thereafter, in disguise, he wandered through
Spain, where, as soon as he thought himself out of
danger, he spent some time in studying in the conventual
libraries, and buying rare and curious books.

‘He made,’ says Lord Buchan, ‘several very narrow
escapes of being detected and seized in the course of
his peregrinations through Spain, particularly in the
neighbourhood of a town (the name of which Lord[Pg 38]
Marshall had forgotten) where he intended to have
passed the night; but in the skirts of a wood a few
miles distant from thence, upon entering a road to the
right, he was warned by a woman of a very respectable
appearance to take the left-hand road, as there would
be danger in the other direction. Upon his arrival he
found the citizens alarmed by the news of a robbery
and murder on the road against which he had been
cautioned.’

We next find him serving under the Duke of Lorraine
in Hungary against the Turks, whom he calls ‘the
common enemy of Christendom.’ Here he is said to
have distinguished himself by his gallantry and military
talents; but now events were happening elsewhere which
soon led to his return from exile. The Revolution was
rapidly approaching. James was losing ground in Scotland
as well as in England; and when the Scottish
Parliament, at which the apostate Earl of Murray was
Lord High Commissioner, met in April 1686, the
King’s letter, artfully framed for the purpose of inducing
the Estates to tolerate the Roman Catholics, contained
not only the offer of free trade with England, but also
the promise of a ‘full and ample indemnity for all
crimes committed against our royal person and authority.’
It is possible that if the Scottish Parliament had yielded
to the wishes of the King this indemnity might have
been granted, and Fletcher might have returned to
Scotland. But it was soon found that even the Episcopali[Pg 39]ans
would not submit to the royal wishes; and the
Parliament replied that they could only do as much for
the relief of the Roman Catholics as their consciences
would permit. Then followed the assertion of the dispensing
power, the declarations of indulgence, and the
series of events which brought about the Revolution.

On the 2nd of October 1688, the very eve of his
downfall, the King granted a general pardon; but from
that pardon several persons were specially excepted by
name, and among these were Burnet, Ferguson the
Plotter, Titus Oates, and Fletcher of Saltoun. By that
time, however, Fletcher was at the Hague, whence he
accompanied the Prince of Orange to England.

He did not linger in the south, but made his way as
soon as possible to Scotland.

[Pg 40]

Lord Buchan errs in saying that Fletcher was a
member of the Convention of Estates which met at
Edinburgh in March 1689. The members for Haddingtonshire
were Sir Robert Sinclair of Stevenston and
Adam Cockburn of Ormiston; but Fletcher was already
taking an active part in public affairs. He had come
back from the Continent with his Whig principles
deepening into Republicanism, with his mind full of
projects for the welfare of Scotland, and with a fixed
opinion that the power of the Crown ought to be
diminished.

He therefore joined the Club, that association which
had been formed for the express purpose of thwarting
the Government and decreasing the royal authority.
Sir James Montgomery, Annandale, Ross, and Sir
Patrick Hume were the leaders of this body; and
among them there was ‘no man, though not a member,
busier than Saltoun,’ writes Sir William Lockhart to
Lord Melville on the 11th of July 1689.

His great aim, then and ever after, was to reduce the
royal authority to a shadow, and to place all real power
in the hands of Parliament. ‘He is,’ said Mackay in
the paper which he drew up for the use of the Princess
Sophia, ‘a zealous assertor of the liberties of the people,
and so jealous of the growing power of all Princes, in
whom he thinks ambition to be natural, that he is not
for intrusting the best of them with a power which they
can make use of against the people. As he believes all
Princes made by, and for the good of, the people, he is
for giving them no power but that of doing good.’ The
Club did not long survive; but apart from some of the
questionable and factious purposes for which it had
been formed, it was mainly responsible for that salutary
reform by which the institution known as the ‘Lords of
the Articles’ was abolished. Though Fletcher was not
a member of the Convention, we are soon to enter on
that period of his career when he was one of the foremost
members of the Scottish Parliament; and the
proceedings of that body, of which an account must be[Pg 41]
given, will be unintelligible unless certain facts connected
with its history and character are understood.

The Scottish Parliament was originally divided into
the three Estates of the Bishops, the Barons, and the
Boroughs. The Estate of the Barons included the
peers, or greater barons, and the county members, or
lesser barons. The ‘Boroughs’ meant the representatives
of the royal boroughs of Scotland. The three
Estates sat in one chamber, there being no Upper and
Lower House as in England. At the Revolution, when
Episcopacy was abolished, the bishops lost their seats.
The peers then became the first Estate, the county
members (known as the ‘barons’) the second Estate,
and the borough members the third Estate. The peers
numbered sixty-four in 1606, soon after the Union of
the Crowns; but by 1707 they had increased to one
hundred and fifty-three. The number of commoners
who sat in the Estates was never more than one hundred
and fifty-six. Thus in the Scottish Parliament the feudal
aristocracy was almost supreme. The franchise was then
genuine, without the fictitious votes which were afterwards
created on all sides; but the county members were
really nominated, in many constituencies, by the peers.
This, coupled with the fact that there was only one
chamber, made the subjection of the Commons complete.

The Commons, at the date of the Revolution, consiste[Pg 42]d
of sixty-four county and sixty-six borough
members. The county franchise was in the hands of
the freeholders, who were few in number. The borough
franchise was in the hands of the magistrates, who were
self-elected. There was thus scarcely a trace of popular
representation. Moreover, the officers of state had
seats and votes without having to undergo any form of
election, a custom which was often complained of.

But the chief peculiarity, and the most glaring defect
in the constitution of the Scottish Parliament, before
the Revolution, was the institution known as the Lords
of the Articles. This was a committee chosen, at the
beginning of each session, to prepare measures for the
consideration of the Estates. It usually consisted of
forty members, eight bishops, eight peers, eight county
members, eight borough members, and eight officers of
state. The manner in which they were chosen was as
anomalous as their powers. First the bishops chose
eight peers. Then those peers chose eight bishops;
and those sixteen chose the county and borough
members. Eight officers of state, nominated by the
King or his Commissioner, were added, and the
Committee on Articles was complete. ‘Not only,’
Lauderdale once said, ‘hath the King in Scotland his
negative vote, but, God be thanked, by this constitution
of the Articles, he hath the affirmative vote also, for
nothing can come to the Parliament but through the
Articles, and nothing can pass in Articles but[Pg 43] what is
warranted by his Majesty; so that the King is absolute
master in Parliament, both of the negative and affirmative.’

All the business was, in most Scottish Parliaments,
transacted by the Lords of the Articles. The usual
course of procedure was this. As soon as the Estates
met, the Committee on Articles was chosen, and
directed to prepare the measures which were intended
to become law during the session. The House then
adjourned for a few days. When it met again, these
measures were read, and passed at once into law.
There was seldom any debating, and sometimes more
than one hundred Acts of Parliament were passed, and
received the royal assent, in one day. There was thus
a constant danger of hasty legislation, and for this
there was no remedy. In England the Lords could
reject any measure passed by the Commons, and the
Commons could reject any measure passed by the
Lords. But in Scotland, where there was only one
chamber, there was nothing to prevent the Estates
making any law, however rash or ill-considered, in the
space of a single day.

At the Revolution, however, the Committee of
Articles, which the Estates had declared to be a grievance,
was abolished. Henceforth the Acts of the
Scottish Parliament were no longer compiled in s[Pg 44]ecret,
brought, cut and dry, into the House, read over by the
clerks, and carried to the Throne to receive the royal
assent, in batches of a dozen at a time, within the
space of a few hours. Power was given to the Estates
to choose freely such committees as they might think
necessary, subject only to the condition that some of
the officers of state should sit on these committees,
but without the right of voting.

The statute which put an end to the old institution
of the Lords of the Articles became law on the 8th
of May 1690. On the 1st of May 1707 the Union
took place. Thus the Scottish Parliament lasted for
just seventeen years after the introduction of this great
reform. The old defects in the rules of procedure
remained; the method of conducting debates was
still irregular; and the risk of hasty legislation was as
great as ever, only a slight attempt having been made
to remedy this evil by a statute which forbade that any
measure should be passed until it had been read twice.[2]
But during these seventeen years the Scottish Parliament
was free. There was nothing to hinder the full
discussion of any topic; and independent members
could bring in measures, and move resolutions, as freely
as in the Parliament of England.

In the session of 1689 Fletcher presented a petition
to the Estates for the restoration of the estate of Saltoun,
in which he asserted that the sentence of forfeiture had
proceeded on ‘frivolous and weak pretences, and upon
lame and defective probation.’

This petition, along with some others of a similar
character, was remitted to a committee of Parliament for
inquiry. There was a long delay; and at last Fletcher was
put forward to complain to the Duke of Hamilton, who
was then Commissioner. So he went to Hamilton, and
said it was unfair that Argyll’s forfeiture should have
been reversed without delay, while he and others,
who had suffered unjustly, should have to wait so long.
Having lodged this complaint, he asked Hamilton to
mention the matter to the King.

‘Tell the King,’ he said, ‘that Fletcher of Saltoun
has a better right to his estate than his Majesty has to
the Crown.’

‘Devil take me,’ said the Duke in reply, ‘if it isn’t
true!’

At last, on the 30th of June 1690, an Act was passed,
[Pg 46]rescinding the forfeiture, and putting Fletcher once
more in possession of his family estate.

Before this event, so important to Fletcher, took
place, Hamilton, superseded by Melville, had retired in
disgust from public life; and there is some reason to
believe that it was Fletcher who was the means of bringing
him back to support the Revolution principles in
1692, when the country was alarmed by the threat of a
Jacobite invasion. ‘I know you will be surprised,’
Fletcher wrote to Hamilton in April of that year, ‘to
receive a letter from me; but my writing to you in
such an exigence shows the high esteem I must have
of you, and of the true love you bear your religion and
country. If, laying aside all other considerations,
you do not come in presently, and assist in council, all
things will go into confusion; and your presence there
will easily retrieve all. The castle has been very nearly
surprised, and an advertisement which Secretary Johnstone
had from France, and wrote hither, has saved it.
When things are any ways composed you may return
to your former measures, for I do not approve of them.
I do advise your Grace to the most honourable thing[Pg 47]
you can do; and without which your country must
perish.’ This ‘spirited letter,’ as it is called by
Dalrymple—in whose Memoirs it is printed—is said
to have induced Hamilton to make up his quarrel
with the Court, and in the following year he was
once more presiding over the debates of the Scottish
Parliament.

It was probably about this time, or soon after, that
the project of forming the ‘Company of Scotland
trading to Africa and the Indies’ first took shape in the
fertile brain of William Paterson, who may perhaps
have met Fletcher in Holland before the Revolution.
He was in London in 1690; and Dalrymple says that
in Scotland it was always believed that Fletcher brought
him down to Saltoun, and presented him to the Marquis
of Tweeddale, to whom Paterson unfolded the great
scheme. Then Fletcher, ‘with that power which a
vehement spirit always possesses over a diffident one,
persuaded the Marquis, by arguments of public good,
and of the honour which would redound to his administration,
to adopt the scheme.’

Sir John Dalrymple of Stairs, Mr. Secretary Johnstone,
and Sir James Stewart, then Lord Advocate,
took the matter in hand, and the famous Act constituting
the Company was passed by the Scottish
Parliament, and received the royal assent on the 26th
of June 1695. When the subscription list was opened,
in February 1696, Fletcher put his name down for one
thousand pounds’ worth of stock.

The story of the expedition which the Company sent
to Darien, and of the tragic fate of the adventurers,
has been told and retold so often that every child
from John o’ Groat’s House to the Cheviots knows i[Pg 48]t
off by heart. It has never been forgotten in Scotland.
England had to face the question—Shall we run the
risk of a war with Spain to save the property of a
Scottish trading Company, and the lives of some twelve
hundred Scotsmen? And England answered—No.

Fletcher was a rich man, and the disaster at Darien
did not mean ruin to him, as it did to so many of his
countrymen. But the sight of their sufferings, the
callous indifference of the English Government, and the
knowledge that there was not one London merchant in
a hundred who did not, in his heart, rejoice in the ruin
which had befallen the Scottish traders, made him, as
it made most Scotsmen, distrust England, and devote
himself, heart and soul, for the rest of his life, to the
cause of Scottish independence.

CHAPTER IV

Fletcher’s Political Writings—‘A Discourse on Militias’—The Affairs
of Scotland—Supports Slavery as a cure for Mendicancy—Attacks
the Partition Treaty.

It was in 1698, while the fate of the Darien expedition
was still uncertain, that Fletcher first appeared as an
[Pg 49]author.

In their original form his writings may be described
as short, anonymous pamphlets, of duodecimo or small
octavo size, and printed in italics. They were republished,
some years after Fletcher’s death, in one
volume, in 1732, under the title of The Political Works
of Andrew Fletcher, Esq., and since then there have
been other editions.

These earlier works consisted of—(1) A Discourse
of Government with relation to Militias: Edin., 1698;
(2) Two Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotland,
written in the year 1698; (3) a work in Italian, called
Discorso delle cose di Spagna, scritto nel mese di Luglio
1698: Napoli, 1698; (4) A Speech upon the State of the
Nation, 1701.

After the Peace of Ryswick there was a war of
pamphlets on the question of standing armies. William
III. desired to maintain a force sufficient to cope with
France; but, as Burnet says, ‘the word “standing
army” had an odious sound in English ears’; and most
Englishmen thought that a thoroughly trained militia
and a strong navy would afford the best means for
repelling an invasion from abroad, and securing order
at home.

Fletcher plunged into this controversy with his work
upon militias. His argument is that standing armies
kept up in peace have changed the governments of
Europe from monarchies into tyrannies. ‘Nor,’ he says,
‘can the power of granting or refusing money, though
vested in the subject, be a sufficient security for liberty,
when a standing mercenary army is kept up in time of
peace; for he that is armed is always master of him
that is unarmed. And not only that government[Pg 50] is
tyrannical which is tyrannically exercised, but all
governments are tyrannical which have not in their
constitution a sufficient security against the arbitrary
power of the Prince.’ Therefore no monarchy is sufficiently
limited unless the sword is in the hands of the
subject. A standing army tends to enslave a nation.
It is composed of men whose trade is war. To support
them heavy taxes must be imposed; and it thus becomes
the interest of a large and formidable party in
the state, consisting of those families whose kinsmen
are soldiers, to keep up the army at the expense of
their countrymen.

No standing armies, Fletcher points out, have ever
yet been allowed in this island. The Parliament of
England has often declared them contrary to law; and
the Parliament of Scotland not only declared them to
be a grievance, but made his keeping of them up one
of its reasons for disowning King James. But, on the
other hand, every free man should have arms, which are
‘the only true badge of liberty.’ Military service ought
to be compulsory upon all classes; for ‘no bodies of
military men can be of any force or value unless many
persons of quality or education be among them.’ The
only men who are fit to be officers are gentlemen of
property and position.

He has a plan all ready for organising the national[Pg 51]
militia. Four camps should be formed, three in England
and one in Scotland. All men, on reaching their
twenty-first birthday, must enter them, and serve for
two years, if rich enough to support themselves, and
for one year, if they must be maintained at the public
expense. They are to be taught ‘the use of all sorts of
arms, with the necessary evolutions; as also wrestling,
leaping, swimming, and the like exercises.’ Every man
who can afford it should be forced to buy a horse, and
be trained to ride him. These camps were to remain
for only eight days in one place, moving from one heath
to another, not only for the sake of health and cleanliness,
but to teach the men to march, to forage, to
fortify camps, and to carry their own tents and provisions.
The food of all, both officers and privates, was
to be the same. ‘Their drink should be water, sometimes
tempered with a proportion of brandy, and at
other times with vinegar. Their cloaths should be
plain, coarse, and of a fashion fitted in everything for
the fatigue of a camp.’

Each camp was to break up, at certain seasons, into
two parties, and spread over the mountains, marshes,
and country roads, and practise tactics by manœuvring
against each other. No clergymen nor women should
be allowed to enter them; but ‘speeches exhorting to
military and virtuous actions should be often composed,
and pronounced publicly by such of the youth as were,
by education and natural talents, qualified [Pg 52]for it.’ The
strictest discipline was to be enforced. ‘The punishments
should be much more rigorous than those inflicted
for the same crimes by the law of the land. And
there should be punishments for some things not liable
to any by the common law, immodest and insolent
words or actions, gaming, and the like.’

In this Spartan system Fletcher had the fullest confidence.
‘Such a militia,’ he says, ‘might not only
defend a people living in an island, but even such as
are placed in the midst of the most warlike nations of
the world.’ But the practical conclusion to which he
comes is that, in the meantime, the existing militia was
sufficient. No standing army was necessary. The
sea was the only empire which naturally belonged to
Britain. Conquest could never be our interest, still less
to consume our people and our treasure in crusades
undertaken on behalf of other nations.

This Discourse on Militias, which was first printed
in 1698, in the form of a pamphlet, will be found in the
various editions of his Works published in 1732, 1737,
1749, and 1798, and was also reprinted in London in
the year 1755.[3]

It appears, from internal evidence, that the Two
Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotland [Pg 53]were
written in the autumn of 1698. The Darien expedition
had sailed at the end of July, and Fletcher urges the
necessity of providing supplies for the new colony.
The whole future of Scotland, he says, depends on
the fate of this enterprise. The condition of the country
has become desperate. Partly through the fault of
Scotsmen themselves, and partly because the seat of
government has been removed to London, it is cruelly
impoverished, and has fallen so low ‘that now our motto
may be inverted, and all may not only provoke, but
safely trample upon us.’ Commerce we have none.
No use has been made of our harbours. Nothing has
been done for the poor. Every year people are emigrating
in search of work. We have no trade and no
manufactures. Everything depends on the colony at
Darien. Therefore the first business of Parliament
should be to support the Company of Scotland, for
which he proposes that the Estates should vote a large
sum of money, and that three frigates which had lately
been built by Scotland should be employed to convoy
the next fleet that sailed for Darien.

He hopes that, after providing for the Darien colonists,
the Scottish Parliament will take steps to encourage
trade at home. The war is at an end. In that war
Scotland has done great things. Seven or eight thousand
Scotsmen served in the English fleet, and two or
three thousand in that of Holland. ‘Besides,’ he says,
[Pg 54]‘I am credibly informed that every fifth man in the
English forces was either of this nation, or Scots-Irish,
who are a people of the same blood with us.’ But there
is now no reason for keeping up the standing forces in
Scotland. ‘There is no pretence for them, except only
to keep a few wretched Highlanders in order, which
might easily be done by a due execution of our old laws
made for that purpose, without the help of any fort or
garrison.’ As to danger from the Jacobites, ‘the party of
the late King James was always insignificant, and is now
become a jest.’ Scotland is called upon to provide
£84,000 a year for the army. This is the same thing
as if England had to find £2,500,000; and yet all
England provides is £350,000. Scotland is, therefore,
unfairly taxed; and for that reason, and also because
the militia is sufficient, the Estates should refuse to vote
supplies for the army, and devote the money to the
improvement of trade and industry.

It is in the Second Discourse that Fletcher gives his
well-known account of the poverty-stricken condition of
Scotland, and prescribes domestic slavery as one remedy.
No one who has minutely studied Scottish history
during the seventeenth and the first half of the
eighteenth centuries will think the picture overdrawn.
The country was barren, and the seasons were inclement.
But Fletcher thought of Holland, where he had seen
field upon field rescued from the [Pg 55]sea, harbours and
ships, wealthy towns, flourishing farmers, canals running
between rich pasturelands, or banks adorned by villas
and gardens; and all this had been the work of the
sober and industrious people of a free republic, who had
worked out their own salvation. Then he looked at
Scotland, the country which he loved, and saw ‘many
thousands of our people who are at this day dying for
want of bread,’ and asked, ‘How is this to be changed?’
He was under no illusions. He saw things as they
really were. The Trading Company might do much.
If the Parliament would spend money on the encouragement
of industry instead of on the army, Glasgow and
Dundee might rise from petty seaports into rich commercial
cities, and agriculture might flourish in the
Lothians. But a great part of the population of Scotland
consisted of people who would do anything rather
than work. These were the descendants of the Border
mosstroopers, the wild clansmen of the Highlands, and
a vast migratory horde of sturdy beggars who wandered,
in ragged hordes, over Lowlands and Highlands alike—starving,
pilfering, and incorrigibly idle. ‘How,’ he
asked, ‘are we to deal with these vagabonds?’ His
answer was, ‘Force them to work.’ He foresees that he
will be accused of inconsistency, and must face the
question how he, the champion of liberty, can propose
such a measure. But he answers that he regards not
names but things. ‘We are told,’ he says, ‘there is not
a slave in France; that when a slave sets his f[Pg 56]oot upon
French ground, he becomes immediately free; and I
say there is not a freeman in France, because the King
takes away part of any man’s property at his pleasure;
and that, let him do what he will to any man, there is
no remedy.’ Public liberty may be complete in a
country where there is domestic slavery, and he only
proposes that the idle, sturdy beggar should be made a
slave for the benefit of the country at large.

That Fletcher was favourable to domestic slavery, as
a social institution, is clear. He argues that the clergy
are to blame for the ‘multitude of beggars who now
oppress the world.’ His view is that churchmen,
‘never failing to confound things spiritual with temporal,
and consequently all good order and good
government, either through mistake or design,’ recommended
masters, when Christianity was established, to
set at liberty such of their slaves as would become
Christians; and the result of this advice was that
thousands of persons, who had been well clothed, well
fed, and well housed as slaves, were thrown loose upon
the world, which has ever since been overrun by a
ragged army of idle freemen who live on alms.

He therefore urges that in Scotland stern measures
should be taken, especially with the Highlanders, for
whom he has a profound contempt. ‘Nor indeed,’ he
says, ‘can there be any thorough reformation in th[Pg 57]is
affair, so long as the one-half of our country, in extent
of ground, is possessed by a people who are all gentlemen
only because they will not work, and who in
everything are more contemptible than the vilest slaves,
except that they always carry arms, because for the
most part they live upon robbery.’ His proposals are
that hospitals should be provided for such beggars as
are old and feeble; but as for the rest, he would divide
them into two classes. The harmless beggars should
be employed as domestic slaves. The dangerous
ruffians should be sent to Venice, to ‘serve in the
galleys against the common enemy of Christendom.’

Such were the means by which Fletcher would have
put an end to idleness and mendicancy in Scotland;
and his well-known description of the state of things
may be once more quoted, as an explanation of how he
came to hold such views. ‘In all times there have
been about a hundred thousand of those vagabonds
who have lived without any regard or subjection to the
laws of the land, or even those of God and nature….
Many murders have been discovered among them, and
they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to
poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or some kind
of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day,
are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many
poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood.
At country weddings, markets, burials, and[Pg 58]
other the like occasions, they are to be seen—both men
and women—perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming,
and fighting together.’

Apart from this evil of a large pauper population, for
which he had the courage to propose the remedy of
slavery, Fletcher thought that much of the poverty in
Scotland was caused by high rents. These, he says,
are so excessive that they make ‘the tenant even poorer
than his servant, whose wages he cannot pay,’ and this
affects not only the day labourer, but the village tradesmen,
and the merchants of the county towns. Rents
must therefore be reduced; and not only so, but an
Act of Parliament should be passed, forbidding any
man to possess more land than he can cultivate by his
own servants. By this means more labour would be
employed, the soil would be better cultivated, and the
wealth of the country vastly increased. ‘In a few years,’
says Fletcher, ‘the country will be everywhere enclosed
and improved to the greatest height, the plough being
everywhere in the hand of the possessor.’

He also suggested, as a cure for the depressed state
of agriculture, the crude remedy that lending money on
interest should be forbidden. By this means, he says,
‘men who have small sums at interest will be obliged
to employ it in trade or the improvement of land.’

Proposals such as these, which nowadays some will[Pg 59]
say were in advance of his time, and others will regard
as impracticable and absurd, were not taken seriously
at the time he made them. ‘Mr. Fletcher’s schemes,’
says Sir John Clerk, a commonplace man, but a shrewd
and cautious observer, ‘had but very little credit,
because he himself was often for changing them;
though, in other respects, a very worthy man. It
used to be said of him, that it would be easy to
hang by his own schemes of government; for, if they
had taken place, he would have been the first man
that would have attempted an alteration.’[4]

The Italian essay on the affairs of Spain was apparently suggested by the Partition Treaty of 1698. In
the editions of Fletcher’s collected works there is an
‘Auviso,’ or advertisement, prefixed to this pamphlet, in
which the author explains that he has written the discourse
in order to show how easily any prince who
succeeds to the throne of Spain may acquire the empire
of the world; and in the Speech upon the State of the
Nation, he deals with the same topic. The letter of
the Treaty, he urges, speaks of keeping the peace of
Europe by breaking up the Spanish monarchy, but the
spirit of it throws that monarchy into the hands of the
Bourbons. The result will be that the balance of
power will be upset, a war will follow, civil and religious
liberty will be endangered. Williamiii., he hints, may
offer to support the Spanish policy of France, if L[Pg 60]ouis
will assist him to become an absolute monarch in
England and Holland. ‘This treaty,’ he says, ‘is like
an alarum-bell rung over all Europe. Pray God it may
not prove to you a passing-bell.’[5]

This manifesto, though described as a speech, was
probably never delivered. But it may be regarded as
an election address; for on the dissolution of the
Convention Parliament, Fletcher was returned, at the
general election, for the county of Haddington, with
Adam Cockburn of Ormiston as his colleague.

CHAPTER V

The First Session of the Union Parliament—Fletcher proposes his
Twelve Limitations on the Crown—The Act of Security—The
Supplies are refused.

The Estates met at Edinburgh on the 6th of May
1703. The forms of the opening ceremony were
similar to those which had been used for at least a
hundred years. But it was observed that on this
day the preparations were more elaborate than usual.
Queensberry, who was Lord High Commissioner, occupied
the royal apartments in Holyrood House. On the
evening of the 5th the crown, the sceptre, and the
sword of state, known as the ‘honours,’ and regarded
[Pg 61]with peculiar veneration as the symbols of the ancient
monarchy, were carried from the castle to the palace by
the officials of the Treasury, and presented to the Commissioner.
Next morning, at an early hour, Lord
Errol, the hereditary High Constable of Scotland,
waited upon the Commissioner to receive his last instructions,
and then proceeded to the Parliament
House, for the arrangements of which he was responsible
during the sittings of the Estates. In the meantime,
the long steep street which still leads from Holyrood
to the Parliament House, and which was then the
fashionable quarter of the city, had been cleared of
traffic, and lined with wooden railings, to keep back the
crowd which assembled to witness the Riding of the
Parliament, as the procession of members to the place
of meeting was called. The tall houses, with their picturesque
gables and projecting balconies, were hung
with tapestry, and the windows were filled with gay
parties of gentlemen and ladies. The street was lined
by a regiment of foot-guards, under the command of
General Ramsay, then commander-in-chief of the forces
in Scotland, and by the members of the town-guard.

At ten o’clock the Commissioner held a levee, which
was attended by all the members of the Parliament,
both peers and commoners. The Lyon King of Arms
was there, with his heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters,
and the palace-yard was crowded by grooms and lackeys,
in charge of the horses on which the members were to
ride. The spectators on this day noticed that the liveries
of the servants were richer than had ever been seen
before, and that the horses were unusually fine. While
the levee was proceeding, Lord Chancellor [Pg 62]Seafield;
Annandale, President of the Council; Tarbat, Secretary
of State; and Tullibardine, Lord Privy Seal, mounted
and rode, with their attendants, to the Parliament
House, to await the arrival of the Estates.

When the Commissioner was ready to start, the
Lyon King declared the order in which the procession
was to be formed, and one of his heralds, from a window
of the palace, repeated his words to the attendants in
the yard below. A troop of horse grenadiers headed
the cavalcade. Then came the borough members, riding
two abreast on horses with trappings of black velvet,
and followed by the county members in the same order.
After them rode those officers of state who were not
peers of the realm. The barons, the viscounts, and the
earls formed the next part of the procession, all arrayed
in scarlet robes, and their horses led by serving-men in
liveries which displayed the arms of their masters.
Each earl had four, and each viscount three, servants
with him. The Lyon King, wearing his official dress
and carrying his baton, rode alone, with his pursuivants
and trumpeters, immediately in front of the honours,
which were carried by three peers. The sword of state
was carried by the Earl of Mar, the sceptre by the Earl
of Crawford, and the crown by the Earl of Forfar, as
nearest kinsman of Archibald, Marquis of Douglas, who
was then too young to take part in the ceremony. Then
came the Lord High Commissioner, surrounded[Pg 63] by his
pages and the gentlemen of his household, and followed
by Argyll, who rode last of the procession, at the head
of a squadron of the royal horse-guards.

When the procession reached the precincts of the
Parliament House, the members were received by the
High Constable, whose officers escorted them to the
door of the hall in which the sittings were held. The
last to enter was the Commissioner, who was conducted
to the throne by the High Constable, and by William,
ninth Earl Marischal, hereditary Keeper of the Regalia
of Scotland.

The place in which the last Parliament of Scotland
met that day was the spacious and lofty chamber which
is now used as an entrance-hall to the Court of Session.
The old oak roof, rising from curiously carved corbals,
still remains; but in other respects the appearance of
the place is completely changed since the days of
Fletcher. Then, at the south end, under the large
mullioned window, stood the throne, elevated on steps
to a considerable height. On either side there rose
from the floor tiers of benches, on which the members
of the Estates sat in places fixed according to their
different ranks. In the centre of the hall, between the
benches, was a long table, at which the Lord Clerk-Register,
the clerks of the House, and sometimes the
judges, sat. At the upper end of the table, in front of
[Pg 64]the throne, the crown, the sceptre, and the sword lay
during each sitting. The officers of state clustered on
the steps of the throne; and near them the Lord Chancellor,
who acted as Speaker of the House, had his chair.
At the other end of the hall was the bar, behind which
there was an open space, in which strangers were
allowed to stand and listen to the proceedings; and
often, during the debates of the next four years, when
the evenings closed in and the candles were lighted in
the body of the House, murmurs of disapproval or
shouts of applause came from the darkness behind the
bar. It was amidst these surroundings that the Whig
lords defended the policy of the English Government,
and were answered by the Cavaliers, and that Fletcher
and the Country Party declaimed on freedom and a
limited monarchy.

The leader of the Country Party, of which Fletcher
was the most enthusiastic and thoroughgoing member,
was James, fourth Duke of Hamilton, the Hamilton
of Esmond. ‘Of a middle stature, well made, of a
black, coarse complexion, a brisk look,’ is the contemporary
account of his appearance. He was, indeed, a
gallant gentleman, as Thackeray describes him; but
though perhaps afterwards, when he was appointed
Ambassador to France, he may have been waited
upon by obsequious tradesmen laden with jewels, and
velvets, and brocades, yet during the greater part of
his career he was overwhelmed with debts, a circumst[Pg 65]ance
which interfered with his independence, and
probably was the secret cause of a great deal that was
mysterious in his conduct. As Earl of Arran he had,
at the time of the Revolution, openly professed his
devotion to King James, and had, soon after, suffered
imprisonment on suspicion of carrying on a correspondence
with the Court of Saint Germains. By his
dexterity mainly the opposition was organised during the
last years of William’s reign, and, though his haughty
demeanour sometimes gave offence, he was followed
both by the Jacobites and by the Country Party.

He was assisted in the leadership by four peers,
whose opinions, unlike his, were entirely on the Whig
side. These were John, second Marquis of Tweeddale,
and his son-in-law, the seventh Earl of Rothes,
James, fourth Marquis of Montrose, and John, fifth Earl
of Roxburghe. Tweeddale was now a man of between
fifty and sixty; but Rothes, Montrose, and Roxburghe
were young, each about twenty-four, fiery and impetuous,
qualities which made them favourites at a
time of great popular excitement. These were the
chief colleagues of Fletcher during the arduous contest
which now began; but none of them displayed a consistency
or a disinterestedness equal to his.

At the beginning of the session Fletcher was
[Pg 66]occupied with an election petition from Haddingtonshire,
which was presented by Sir George Suttie of Balgonie,
who opposed the return of John Cockburn,
younger of Ormiston, as one of the county members.
The Committee on contested elections found that
Suttie and Cockburn had received an equal number of
votes. A new election was ordered, and, to Fletcher’s
satisfaction, Cockburn was on the 1st of June returned
as his colleague.

But more important matters than contested elections
were already engaging the attention of the Estates.
Queensberry had attempted to strengthen the Government
by forming an alliance with the Jacobites, who had
promised to vote the supplies for which the Parliament
was to be asked. But Argyll and his friends had refused
to follow him in this policy, and it became
evident that the Government would have to fight a
strong opposition, composed of the Jacobites and the
Country Party acting in concert. The struggle began
on the 26th of May, when the Estates discussed the
question of whether they should vote the supplies, or
proceed to ‘make such conditions of government and
regulations in the constitution of the kingdom, to take
place after the decease of her Majestie and the heirs of
her body, as shall be necessary for the preservation of
our religion and liberty.’

The terms of this resolution, which was moved by
Tweeddale, were often heard during the rest of the[Pg 67]
session; and the issue was soon narrowed down to the
single point of whether the Estates should grant a
supply, or pass an Act of Parliament for the security of
liberty, religion, and trade.

On the 26th of May Fletcher moved that the Estates
should divide on the question of whether they were to
take the first reading of the Supply Act or proceed to
make Acts for the security of liberty and religion.

‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘I am not surprised
to find an Act for a supply brought into this House at
the beginning of a session. I know custom has, for a
long time, made it common. But I think experience
might teach us that such Acts should be the last of
every session; or lie upon the table, till all other
great affairs of the nation be finished, and then only
granted. It is a strange proposition which is usually
made in this House, that if we will give money to the
Crown, then the Crown will give us good laws; as if
we were to buy good laws of the Crown, and pay money
to our princes, that they may do their duty, and comply
with their coronation oath. And yet this is not the
worst, for we have often had promises of good laws,
and when we have given the sums demanded, those
promises have been broken, and the nation left to seek
a remedy—which is not to be found, unless we obtain
the laws we want, before we give a supply. And if this
be a sufficient reason at all times to postpone a money
Act, can we be blamed for doing so at this time, [Pg 68]when
the duty we owe to our country indispensably obliges
us to provide for the common safety in case of an
event, altogether out of our power, and which must
necessarily dissolve the Government, unless we continue
and secure it by new laws: I mean the death of
her Majesty, which God in His mercy long avert.’

There was a long debate; and it was not until two
days later, that the Ministers, seeing themselves in a
minority, gave in, and allowed what was afterwards
known as the Grand Resolve, of 28th May 1703, to
pass without a division. By this Resolve it was declared
that Acts for the security of religion, liberty, and
trade were to have precedence over Supply or any other
business whatsoever.

Fletcher, with the whole of the Opposition at his
back, supported every proposal the effect of which was
to guard against the influence of England, and to
emphasise the fact that Scotland was an independent
kingdom. But he had also elaborated a great scheme
of his own, which he laid before the Estates. ‘Before
the Union of the Crowns,’ he said, ‘no monarchy in
Europe was more limited, nor any people more jealous
of liberty than the Scots.’ But the result of the Union
of the Crowns was that the people of Scotland lost
their liberties. English influence, the source of every
evil, had become supreme. Now was the time to strike[Pg 69]
a blow for freedom; and he proposed Twelve Limitations,
or conditions on which, after the death of Anne,
the Crown of Scotland was to go to the same Sovereign
as should rule in England. These Limitations were: 1.
Annual Parliaments, which should choose their own
President, adjourn at their own pleasure, and vote by
ballot. 2. That for every new peerage granted by the
Crown, another county member should be added to
the Parliament. 3. That none should vote in Parliament
except peers or elected members. 4. That the king should
not have the power of refusing the royal assent to any
Act passed by the Estates. 5. That when Parliament was
not sitting the executive Government should be in the
hands of a Committee chosen by Parliament. 6. That
the King should not have the power of making war or
peace, or concluding any treaty, except with consent
of Parliament. 7. That all offices, civil and military, and
all pensions, should be given by Parliament, instead of
by the King. 8. That without consent of Parliament
there should be no standing army. 9. That a national
militia, of all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty,
should be at once armed with bayonets, firelocks, and
ammunition. 10. That no general pardons should be
valid without consent of Parliament. 11. That no
judge should sit in Parliament, or hold any other office,
and that the office of President of the Court of Session
should be in three of the judges, named by the Estates.
12. That if the King should break any of these conditions,
the Estates were to declare that he had forfeited[Pg 70]
the throne, and proceed to choose a successor.

These conditions, for proposing which he would have
been sent to the gallows in the days of the Stuarts, and
to Botany Bay in the days of Mr. Pitt, Fletcher pressed
upon the Estates as essential for the protection of
Scotland against England. ‘If,’ he said, ‘our Kings lived
among us, it would not be strange to find these limitations
rejected. It is not the prerogative of a King of
Scotland I would diminish, but the prerogative of
English Ministers over this nation. These conditions
of Government being either such as our ancestors
enjoyed, or principally directed to cut off our dependence
on an English Court, and not to take place
during the life of the Queen, he who refuses his
consent to them, whatever he may be by birth, cannot
sure be a Scotsman by affection. This will be a true
test to distinguish, not Whig from Tory, Presbyterian
from Episcopal, Hanover from Saint Germains, nor yet
a courtier from a man out of place, but a proper test to
distinguish a friend from an enemy to his country.’

But the Scottish Parliament, in spite of all its high-strung
patriotism, was not prepared to accept so
republican a scheme as this; and by a majority of
twenty-six votes it was decided that the Laird of
Saltoun’s Limitations should not form a part of the
‘Act of Security’ which the Estates were now eng[Pg 71]aged
in framing.

The basis of this famous statute was a measure
introduced by the Lord Privy Seal, providing that the
Estates should meet within twenty days after the death
of Anne, and proceed to name a Protestant successor
to the throne of Scotland. But to this simple measure
a number of clauses were added, until it grew into that
elaborate Act which was the pivot on which Scottish
history turned until the Union.

Rothes proposed a clause which embodied the
principle of one of Fletcher’s Limitations: That war
and peace were to be made only by consent of Parliament.
Queensberry said that he was ready to consent
to anything which was for the good of the country,
and which ‘the Queen had under her view when she
left London.’ This proposal, he said, she had never
heard of.

On this Fletcher declared that it was now evident, as
he had often thought, that in Scottish affairs the Crown
was under the influence of English councillors. At
these words some members were so ill-advised as to
interrupt him, and even to suggest that he should be
censured. This led to a scene. ‘What!’ exclaimed
Hamilton, ‘is this the liberty of Parliament?’ There
were shouts of ‘privilege’ from all parts of the House;
and several members rose at the same time to demand[Pg 72]
that the member should be allowed, without interruption,
to explain his words.

As soon as silence was obtained Fletcher continued.
He had no difficulty, he said, in explaining. He
spoke, not as a slave, but as a free man. He had the
greatest respect for the Queen and for her Commissioner.
But the love and duty which he bore to his country
obliged him to speak as he had spoken. What the
Commissioner had said that day convinced him that
the only way to secure Scotland from English interference
was to refuse to settle the Scottish Crown on
the English Sovereign. The two countries must have
separate Kings.

This statement was received with a tumult of applause;
but the matter was allowed to drop. Nor did the
Estates embody the clause proposed by Rothes in the
Act of Security. The next great fight was over a clause
introduced by Roxburghe. It provided that the Succession
was not, on the death of Anne, to be the same
in Scotland as in England, unless conditions of government
were settled which would secure the independence
of the Crown of Scotland, the power of the Estates, and
the liberty and trade of the country ‘from the English
or any foreign influence.’

This was really the most formidable proposal which
any member of the Country Party, with the exception of
Fletcher, had a[Pg 73]s yet brought forward. It was, nevertheless,
evident that the House was ready to accept it,
and that the Act of Security would, therefore, contain
provisions which, though not so drastic as the Twelve
Limitations, could scarcely be tolerated by England.

Fletcher was up, supporting the clause with his usual
vehemence, when suddenly the Chancellor rose and
stopped him. It was, he explained, too late to finish
the debate, and he, therefore, adjourned the House.
Instantly there was one of those scenes to which members
were becoming accustomed. Some declared that
they would address the Queen, and complain that her
Ministers were attempting to interfere with the liberty of
debate. Others maintained that what the Chancellor
had done was a violation of the Claim of Right, and
that, therefore, he was guilty of treason. It was with
difficulty that the noise was stopped while prayers were
said. Hamilton announced that he would remain in
the House and instantly draw up the address to the
Queen, and Fletcher hurried to his side to help him;
but when the Duke saw the Commissioner descending
from the throne, he changed his mind and followed him
out of the House.

That night, however, the address was prepared and
signed by sixty members. On the morrow more signatures
were obtained, and when the Estates met the
Country Party tabled a protest against the irregular
adjournment of the previous evening. But the Chancellor
declared that the late hour was the reason why he[Pg 74]
had adjourned the House, said the Government had no
desire to encroach on the privileges of members, and
announced that the debate on Roxburghe’s clause
would be resumed on the following day.

In the meantime the Government had adjusted a
clause which was admirably fitted to secure a large
measure of support, and also to stave off the awkward
question which had been raised by Roxburghe. It
provided that, after the death of Anne, the same person
should not wear both the Crowns unless free trade
between the two countries was established, and the right
of trading to the colonies was granted to Scotland.
When the debate was resumed, the Lord Advocate, Sir
James Stewart, moved that this clause should be substituted
for that proposed by Roxburghe. To this
Fletcher adroitly answered that the Country Party was
delighted with the conduct of the Ministers in framing
this most useful clause, and would gladly accept it as well
as that of Roxburghe. He then moved that the two
clauses should be joined, and made part of the Act of
Security. The House would have agreed to this at
once; but the Ministers made one struggle more, and
obtained a short respite by moving the adjournment of
the debate, which they carried, but only by a majority
of three votes.

But the Government were in a hopeless [Pg 75]position. The
opinion of the Estates evidently was that the King of
England must not be King of Scotland, unless England
would agree to such conditions of government as the
Scottish Parliament chose to enforce, and unless the
home and colonial trade was thrown open to the Scottish
people. The clauses were joined, and then a division
was taken on the question, ‘Add them to the Act or
not?’ The Government voted against adding them,
and were beaten by no less than seventy-two votes.

Godolphin heard with dismay of what had been done.
In a letter to Athole he says that the Queen was not
pleased with either of the clauses proposed by Roxburghe
and by the Lord Advocate, as tending, each of
them, to make a perfect separation, instead of a Union.
Her Majesty, he declares, would never consent to any
Act which establishes a different succession in Scotland
to that in England.

The division in which the Government were so hopelessly
beaten, took place on the 26th of July, and after
that the Opposition had matters all their own way. The
last great debate was on the 10th of August, when a
clause was proposed directing the Protestant landowners
and burgesses to arm and drill all the men in
their districts who were capable of bearing arms.

This was a clause after Fletcher’s own heart, and he
supported it in a short but trenchant speech, in which[Pg 76]
he argued that to insist upon conditions of government,
without the means of enforcing them, was folly.
Without the support of arms, all enactments for the
security of the country were vain and empty propositions.
‘To rely upon any law,’ he said, ‘without such a
security, is to lean upon a shadow…. To be found
unarmed, in the event of her Majesty’s death, would
be to have no manner of security for our liberty,
property, or the independence of this kingdom…. If
we do not provide for arming the kingdom in such an
exigency, we shall become a jest and a proverb to the
world.’ The Government divided the House against
this clause, but were beaten, and it was added to the
Act.

Three days later, every bench in the Parliament
House being crowded, the Act of Security was read
over twice. No further amendments were proposed.
The roll was then called; and, though a number of
members did not answer to their names, the measure
was passed by a majority of sixty votes.

The chief provisions of the Act of Security, in framing
which the Estates had now spent two months, were as
follows: On the death of Anne the Parliament was to
meet, and settle the succession. If the Queen left an
heir, or a recognised successor, the Crown was to be
offered to him on the terms contained in the Claim of
Rights. But if there was no heir, or recognised successor,
then[Pg 77] the Estates were to choose a successor,
who must be of the royal line of Scotland, and of the
Protestant religion. But it was not to be in the power
of the Estates to choose the successor to the throne of
England as successor to that of Scotland, ‘nor shall the
same person be capable, in any event, to be King or
Queen of both realms,’ unless there were established, to
the satisfaction of the Scottish Parliament, free home
and colonial trade, and also such conditions of government
as would secure the Crown, the Parliament, the
religion, and the liberty of Scotland from English or
any foreign influence. And, ‘for a further security of
the kingdom,’ the men of every county and borough
were to be furnished with fire-arms and drilled once a
month. The Act was transmitted to London, and
Godolphin was requested to say whether or not it was
to be touched with the sceptre.

William the Third had, on several occasions, refused
the royal assent to Acts passed by the Parliament of
Scotland; and now the Courtiers, the Cavaliers, and the
Country Party waited with curiosity to hear what
course the Queen, on the advice of her Ministers, would
take at the present crisis. The Country Party and the
Cavaliers were equally determined not to settle the
Scottish Succession except on the conditions set forth
in the Act, and Queensberry was repeatedly questioned
on the subject. Fletcher, in particular, made several
speeches on this topic; but the Commissioner gave no
sign until the 10th of September, when he stated th[Pg 78]at
he had obtained leave to give the royal assent to all
the Acts which had been passed, excepting the Act of
Security. ‘You may easily believe,’ he explained, ‘that
requires her Majesty’s further consideration.’

He ended a speech, which it must have needed some
courage to deliver, by asking them to vote the Supplies.
But the House was in no mood to comply with this
request. We should have been told, one member said,
at the beginning of the session that we were called
together merely to vote money, and then adjourn. It
would have saved us a great deal of trouble. If any
Scotsman has advised the Queen in this matter, cried
another, he is a traitor to his country. Fletcher denied
the power of the Sovereign to refuse the royal assent,
and there is a good deal to be said in favour of this
view of the Scottish constitution. Hamilton and Roxburghe
moved that an address be presented to her
Majesty, praying her to reconsider the matter, and
direct the Commissioner to touch the Act with the
sceptre. After a long debate, in which every member
who spoke blamed the English Ministers for what had
happened, the motion to address the throne was rejected
by twelve votes, and the House rose.

A few days after the Commissioner had announced
that the royal assent was refused, Lord Boyle, the
Treasurer-Depute, moved that the Act of Supply[Pg 79], which
had been lying on the table since May, should be read,
and on this Fletcher once more brought forward his
Limitations. ‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘his Grace,
the High Commissioner, having acquainted this House
that he has instructions from her Majesty to give the
royal assent to all Acts passed in this session except
that for the security of the kingdom, it will be highly
necessary to provide some new laws for securing our
liberty upon the expiration of the present entail of the
Crown.’ From this text he delivered an impassioned
address, imploring the Estates, in particular, to accept
his proposal that all places, offices, and pensions should,
after the death of Anne, be conferred by Parliament
alone, so long as Scotland was under the same Prince
as England. ‘Without this limitation,’ he exclaimed,
‘our poverty and subjection to the Court of England
will every day increase; and the question we have now
before us is, whether we will be free men or slaves for
ever; whether we will continue to depend, or break
the yoke of our dependence; and whether we will
choose to live poor and miserable, or rich, free, and
happy?… By this limitation our Parliament will
become the most uncorrupted senate of all Europe. No
man will be tempted to vote against the interest of his
country, when his country shall have all the bribes in
our own hands: offices, places, pensions…. If, therefore,
either reason, honour, or conscience have any
influence upon us; if we have any regard either to
ourselves or posterity; if there be any such thing [Pg 80]as
virtue, happiness, or reputation in this world, or felicity
in a future state, let me adjure you by all these not to
draw upon your heads everlasting infamy, attended with
the eternal reproaches and anguish of an evil conscience,
by making yourselves and your posterity miserable.’
[Pg 81]

The Ministry, well aware that only a portion of the
Country Party would follow Fletcher on this question
of the Limitations, wished the House to vote on the
issue of whether Supply or the Limitations should
be discussed. But Fletcher, who saw in a moment
at what the Government were aiming, interposed, and
said that he had had the honour to offer a means
of securing the liberties of the nation against England;
that in his opinion the country was nearly ruined, and
that his proposals were necessary; but still he relied
on the wisdom of the Estates, and withdrew his
motion.

Thus checkmated, the Ministers were at a loss what
to do. They knew that the motion to discuss overtures
for liberty would be carried against their motion
to discuss Supply, and they could think of nothing
else on which they could ask the House to vote.
There were anxious faces, and some hasty whispering
on the steps of the throne. Cries of ‘Vote! Vote!’
resounded from all the benches. The Commissioner
rose. ‘If the House,’ he said, ‘will agree to the first
reading of the Subsidy Act, I promise that it shall
not be heard of for the next three sittings.’

Instantly Fletcher was on his feet. ‘Those about
the throne,’ he exclaimed, ‘could not really expect the
House to agree to this.’ It meant that the Subsidy
Act was to be read a first time now. Then the House
was to be amused with three sittings on overtures for
liberty, ‘which sittings shall meet at six and adjourn
at seven.’ On the fourth day, the Supplies would be
voted; and then Parliament would be prorogued. He
was certain the House knew the artifices of the Government
too well to be misled by them.

Another member pointed to the throne, and declared
that the men who sat round it were endeavouring to
destroy the privileges of Parliament, and filch away
its liberty. ‘The House,’ says Lockhart, ‘was crowded
with a vast number of people; nothing for two hours
could be heard but voices of members and others (it
being dark and candles lighted) requiring “liberty and
no subsidy.”’ The excitement of the members increased;
the clamour of spectators behind the bar
grew louder; and at last the voice of young Roxburghe
was heard, above the din, shouting, ‘What we desire
is reasonable, and if we cannot obtain it by Parliamentary
means, we shall demand it, upon the steps of
the throne, with our swords in our hands.’

[Pg 82]Upon this the Chancellor rose, and announced that
the Government yielded, and that the overtures for
liberty would be discussed upon the following day.

That night at Holyrood Queensberry and the
Ministers discussed the situation. The town was in
an uproar. For several nights the troops had been
under arms; and it had come to the ears of some
members of the Estates that their commander had
been so foolish as to threaten, in his cups, that ‘ways
would be found to make the Parliament calm enough.’
The members were incensed against the Government
and against England; and if they were allowed to
discuss the favourite ‘overtures for liberty,’ there was
no saying what might happen. As to the Supplies,
the small sum of money which was obtained from
Scotland was not worth fighting for; and when the
Council separated, Queensberry had almost made up
his mind to prorogue the Parliament at once.

Early next morning Fletcher and his friends had
a meeting at which they prepared a measure which
they intended to introduce. It provided that there
should be an election every year, at which no officer
of the army, or of the customs or excise, could be
elected; that Parliament should meet at least once
in every two years, and that each sitting should be
adjourned on the motion of a member, and not by
the Commissioner. They agreed that if the royal
assent was given to this Act, they would vote the[Pg 83]
Supplies.

Queensberry heard of this, but he could not, for the
sake of securing a small sum of money, run the risk
of giving the royal assent to a measure which introduced
such important changes. Accordingly, when
the House met, he rose, and prorogued the Parliament.

The Country Party spared no pains to let the people
of England know the importance which the people of
Scotland attached to the measure to which the royal
assent had been refused. The Act of Security was
circulated, and widely read in London, in an edition
to which some notes were added stating that nothing
was ever done with more deliberation by the Scottish
Parliament, and that there was not a shadow of a
reason for supposing that bribery, or any unfair means,
had been used to secure a majority, ‘considering the
quality and estates of those who were for it.’

Fletcher revised his speeches, and printed them in
a small octavo volume, for the purpose of educating
the English mind. They were, perhaps, not much
appreciated. The leaves of the copy in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford remained uncut till the autumn of
1896. Englishmen saw just two facts—that the
Scottish Parliament had refused Supplies in the midst
of an European war, and that the Scottish people
wished to be independent of the English Crown.

[Pg 84]

CHAPTER VI

‘A Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for
the Common Good of Mankind.’

When the turmoil of the Parliament House had
ceased for a time, Fletcher took up his pen. The
edition of his speeches which he prepared has already
been mentioned. A Speech without-doors concerning
Toleration, supposed to have been published about
this time, has been attributed to him, but, both in
style and argument, it is unlike anything he is known
to have written. He has also been credited with the
authorship of an Historical Account of the Ancient
Rights and Power of the Parliament of Scotland, which
appeared in 1703. The style is like that of Fletcher,
but there is no evidence that he wrote it. Indeed,
a passage in the preface, where he speaks of the author
of the Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias
as ‘a very learned gentleman of our own country, a
great patron of liberty, and happy in a polite[Pg 85] pen,’
makes it almost impossible. He composed, however,
a short piece in which he embodied his theories of
government, and his views regarding the relations of
England and Scotland, in the form of a dialogue on
politics, under the title of ‘An Account of a Conversation
concerning a Right Regulation of Government
for the Common Good of Mankind: In a
Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earls of
Rothes, Roxburghe, and Haddington. From London
the first of December 1703.’ In this little duodecimo,
of ninety-two pages printed in italics, he described himself
as walking slowly on the Mall one morning.
The Earl of Cromartie and Sir Christopher Musgrave
met him. Cromartie said he would be glad of
Fletcher’s company at dinner, and introduced him to
Sir Christopher, with whom Fletcher was not previously
acquainted. Some compliments passed between
them, and then they went to Cromartie’s lodgings in
Whitehall to pass away the time till dinner.

‘Here, gentlemen,’ said the Earl, ‘you have two of
the noblest objects that can delight the eye—the finest
river and the greatest city in the world.’

From the window they saw a charming view of
London and the Thames, which led them to speak of
the wonderful situation of the English capital; the
ground on which it was built, sloping to the river and
giving it a natural drainage; the gravel soil, and the
salubrious climate. Then all the country round—Kent,
with its choice fruits; Hertfordshire, with its fields of
golden corn; Essex and Surrey, producing t[Pg 86]he best of
beef and mutton; and Buckinghamshire, whence came
huge wains laden with wood. The river, too, brought
to their doors the produce of all parts of the world in
such plenty that nowhere else were things so cheap and
abundant.

Fletcher, thinking how different it all was from Scotland,
said that he had often admired the peace and
happiness of the inhabitants, caused either by the advantages
which they enjoyed, or by their natural temperament.
He spoke of their civil and religious liberty,
of the judgments of Westminster Hall, of the great
affairs of the Parliament of England, of the vast transactions
on the Exchange, of the shipping, and of the
flourishing trade. He was going on to praise the recreations
and pleasures of the court and the town, when
Sir Christopher called out that these last words had
spoilt all he said before. Talking about the pleasures
of the town, he said, reminded them of all the cheating
on the Exchange and in the gaming-houses, and of
the facilities for intrigues which were afforded by the
masques, the hackney coaches, the taverns, and the
playhouses of a great city.

This interruption to the flow of Fletcher’s eloquence
led them to discuss social questions. But the problem
of how to reform the morals of society seemed insoluble,
and especially in London, where, as Sir Christopher
pointed out, they had to deal both with extreme poverty[Pg 87]
and excessive riches. While they were thus conversing,
Sir Edward Seymour arrived, and Fletcher was presented
to him.

‘Ah,’ said Sir Edward, ‘you are one of those who, in
the late session of the Scots Parliament, opposed the
interests of the Court.’

Then they began to talk politics, and Seymour said
Fletcher had been engaged in framing Utopias. ‘In
which, sir,’ he said, ‘you had the honour to be
seconded by several men of quality, of about two or
three and twenty years of age, whose long experience
and consummate prudence in public affairs could not
but produce wonderful schemes of government.’

Fletcher took this sally in good part, and was defending
himself stoutly, when Sir Edward interrupted him.

‘Sir,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘you begin to declaim as
if they overheard you.’

But Fletcher maintained that the Country Party had
been right in acting as they did.

‘Pray, sir,’ asked Seymour, ‘of what is it that they
complain?’

Fletcher’s answer was that Scotland was an indepen[Pg 88]dent
nation, and that the National Party wanted to
secure the honour of the Scottish Crown, and the
freedom of their own Parliament and trade, from either
English or foreign influence.

‘Heyday!’ cried Sir Edward, all in a pet. ‘Here
is a fine cant indeed! Independent nation! Honour
of our Crown! And what not? Do you consider what
proportion you bear to England? Not one to forty
in rents of lands. Besides, our greatest riches arise
from trade and manufactures, of which you have none.’

To all this Fletcher replied by saying that the Union
of the Crowns had ruined Scotland; that the French
trade had once been great, and also the Spanish trade,
whilst Spain and England were at war; but that since
the Union of the Crowns everything had changed.
The Scottish nobles spent their money in England,
and the jealousy of English merchants had prevented
the growth of Scottish commerce.

Here Cromartie said that, in his opinion, there was
an easy remedy for all this, ‘which was an Union of
the two nations.’ But Fletcher thought that an Union
would not easily come to pass, nor would it be a
remedy for the grievances he complained of. England,
it seemed to him, had never shown any real willingness
to unite. ‘I have always observed,’ he said, ‘that a
Treaty of Union has never been mentioned by the
English, but with a design to amuse us when they apprehended
some danger from our nation.’ This was, he
had no doubt, the reason for the late treaty. England,
having chosen a successor to Queen Anne without
consulting Scotland, had thou[Pg 89]ght that the only way to
gain the assent of the Scottish people to the Hanoverian
succession was to propose an Union. Then he gave
an account of the state of public feeling in Scotland
on that subject. ‘The Scots, however fond they have
formerly been of such a coalition, are now become
much less concerned for the success of it, from a just
sense they have that it would not only prove no remedy
for our present ill condition, but increase the poverty of
our country.’

He gave his reasons. An incorporating Union,
which would abolish the Scottish Parliament, would
make Scotland poorer than ever, because Scotsmen
would spend more money than ever in England.
Members of Parliament would go to London and live
there. No Scotsman who wanted public employment
would ever set foot in Scotland. Every man who
made a fortune in England would buy land there. The
trade of Scotland would be nothing more than an inconsiderable
retail business in an impoverished country.

Cromartie said he did not think so, and tried to
convince Fletcher that free commerce with England,
and the right of trading to the Colonies, would be an
immense boon to Scotland.

‘For my part,’ exclaimed Fletcher, ‘I cannot see
what advantages a free trade to the English plantations
would bring us, except a further exhausting of our
[Pg 90]people, and the utter ruin of all our merchants, who
should vainly pretend to carry that trade from the
English.’

Then he said that the Scots had a further grievance
against England. They were indignant at the scurrilous
attacks which were made upon them by Englishmen.

Here Sir Edward broke out ‘all in a flame.’

‘What a pother is here,’ he cried, ‘about an Union
with Scotland, of which all the advantage we shall
have will be no more than what a man gets by
marrying a beggar—a louse for a portion!’

At this Fletcher fired up, and told Cromartie and Sir
Christopher that if Sir Edward had spoken these words
in the House of Commons,[6] he might not notice them,
but that as he had chosen to use them in a private conversation,
he would take the liberty to say that he wondered
Sir Edward was not afraid lest such language
should make the company suspect him not to be descended
of the noble family whose name he bore.
This pretty way of saying he was no gentleman put
Sir Edward into a towering rage, and they came to high
words about the past wars between the two countries.

‘’Tis inseparable from the fortunes of our Edwards[Pg 91]
to triumph over your nation,’ he said.

‘Do you mean,’ retorted Fletcher, ‘Edward of Carnarvon
and his victory at Bannockburn?’

The altercation was stopped by Sir Christopher, who
adroitly changed the subject, and asked Fletcher what
he thought of an Union between England and Ireland.

‘The better conditions you give them,’ Fletcher
represents himself as saying, ‘the greater wisdom you
will show.’

‘But you do not consider,’ said Sir Christopher,
‘that Ireland lies more commodiously situated for
trade, and has better harbours than England, and if
they had the same freedom and privileges, might carry
the trade from us.’

‘Ay,’ said Fletcher, ‘there ’tis. Trade is the constant
stumbling-block and ball of contention. But do you
think that if Ireland, by a just and equal Union with
England, should increase in riches, such an increase
would prove so prejudicial to England, where the seat
of the Government is?’

Sir Christopher argued that England, having conquered
Ireland, had a right to use the Irish people ‘at discretion.’

‘Then,’ replied Fletcher, ‘you have a right to do
injustice.’

‘’Tis not injustice,’ said Sir Christopher, ‘because it
is our right.’ The danger, he argued, is that Ireland
may break away from England, and ‘set up a distinct
Government in opposition to our right, and perhaps
with the ruin of this nation.’ ‘What can tempt and
provoke them so much,’ asked Fletcher, ‘to do so, as
unjust usage?’ ‘But the surest way’, was the reply,
‘is to put it out of their power to separate from us.’
‘If so,’ said Fletcher, ‘you must own your way of
governing that people to be an oppression; since your
design is to keep them low and weak, and not to
encourage either virtue or industry.’

He went on to expound his theory, which was that
London should no longer be the only seat of Government,
but that England, Scotland, and Ireland should
be joined together in a federal Union. ‘That London,’
he said, ‘should draw the riches and government of the
three kingdoms to the south-east corner of this island,
is in some degree as unnatural as for one city to possess
the riches and government of the world…. I shall
add that so many different seats of Government will
highly encourage virtue. For all the same offices that
belong to a great kingdom must be in each of them;
with this difference, that the offices of such a kingdom
being always burdened with more business than any
one man can rightly execute, most things are abandoned
to the rapacity of servants; and the extravagant profits
of great officers plunge them into all manner of luxury,
and debauch them from doing good; whereas the
offices of these lesser Governments, extending only over
a moderate number of people, will be duly executed,
and many men have occasions put into their han[Pg 93]ds of
doing good to their fellow-citizens. So many different
seats of Government will highly tend to the improvement
of all arts and sciences, and afford great variety
of entertainment to all foreigners, and others of a
curious and inquisitive genius, as the ancient cities of
Greece did.’

‘I perceive now,’ Sir Edward broke in, ‘the tendency
of all this discourse. On my conscience, he has contrived
the whole scheme to no other end than to set
his own country on an equal foot with England and the
rest of the world.’

Fletcher’s answer was that Scotland, if separated from
England, must be involved in constant war; but that
if united to England, and at the same time left in
possession of the power of self-government, she would
be prosperous. ‘This,’ he exclaimed, ‘is the only just
and rational kind of Union. All other coalitions are
but the unjust subjection of one people to another.’

At this point the conversation ended. ‘I was going
on,’ he concludes, ‘to open many things concerning
those leagued Governments, when a servant came to
acquaint us that dinner was set on the table. We were
nobly entertained, and after dinner I took leave of the
company, and returned to my lodgings, having promised
to meet them again at another time to discourse furth[Pg 94]er
on the same subject.’

This imaginary dialogue is perhaps the best known
of Fletcher’s writings. The style almost approaches
that of the Tatlers and Spectators, and it contains the
well-known saying about ballads. Sir Christopher
alludes to the infamous ballads which were sung in the
streets of London, and their bad influence on the
morals of the people. ‘One would think,’ says
Cromartie, ‘this last were of no great consequence.’

‘I knew,’ remarks Fletcher, ‘a very wise man so
much of Sir Christopher’s sentiment that he believed
if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he
need not care who should make the laws of a nation.’

The ‘very wise man’ is, of course, Fletcher’s ironical
description of himself; and the epigram may be taken
as an instance of the kind of humour which flashes out,
every now and then, in his treatment of the grave
topics on which he most delights to dwell. Lord
Buchan has preserved another instance of Fletcher’s
irony. ‘Fletcher,’ he says, ‘used to say with Cromwell
and Milton that the trappings of a monarchy and a
great aristocracy would patch up a very clever little
commonwealth.’ Being in company with the witty Dr.
Pitcairn, the conversation turned on a person of learning
whose history was not distinctly known. ‘I knew the
man well,’ said Fletcher; ‘he was hereditary Professor
of Divinity at Hamburgh.’ ‘Hereditary Professor!’
said Pitcairn, with a laugh of astonishment and der[Pg 95]ision.
‘Yes, Doctor,’ replied Fletcher, ‘hereditary Professor of
Divinity. What think you of an hereditary King?’

[Pg 96]

CHAPTER VII

A New Ministry in Scotland—Scenes in the Parliament House—The
Act of Security becomes Law—England retaliates by passing the
Alien Act.

Before the next session of the Scottish Parliament
there had been a change in the Scottish Ministry. The
‘Scots Plot,’ in connection with which Queensberry had
played such a sorry part, had proved to Godolphin that
a new Commissioner must be appointed; and Queensberry
was discarded in favour of Tweeddale, who formed
a Ministry in which Johnston of Warriston was Lord
Register, Cromartie was Secretary of State, and Seafield
Chancellor. He succeeded, moreover, in securing the
support of several members of the Country Party, among
whom Rothes, Roxburghe, Belhaven, and Dundas of
Arniston were prominent. This party took the name
of the New Party; and the Government in London
hoped that the Opposition would now be so far weakened
that nothing more would be heard of the Act of
Security.

Parliament met in the beginning of July 1704. The
Queen’s Speech urged the necessity of settling the
Protestant Succession in Scotland, and, at the same
time, prom[Pg 97]ised that the royal assent would be given to
any proper means of securing the liberties and the
independence of Scotland; but it was soon found that
the Estates were as intractable as ever. Hamilton at
once moved ‘that this Parliament will not proceed to
the nomination of a successor to the Crown until we
have had a previous treaty with England in relation to
our commerce, and other concerns with that nation.’

On this subject there were long debates, in which
Fletcher, says Lockhart, ‘did elegantly and pathetically
set forth the hardships and miseries to which we have
been exposed since the Union of the two Crowns of
Scotland and England in one and the same Sovereign.’
At last Hamilton moved that the Act of Security and
an Act granting supplies to the Crown should be tacked
together. When this proposal was discussed, Johnston
said that the plan of ‘tacking’ was reasonable in
England where there were two Houses, and where the
Commons might be forced to bring the Lords to reason
by sending up a Money Bill along with some measure
which the Upper House would not otherwise pass.
Such a system, he argued, did not suit the Scottish
Parliament, which consisted of only one chamber. It
was, moreover, ‘a straitening of the Queen, who might
possibly consent to the one and not to the other.’

‘Now,’ said Fletcher, ‘it appears there must be a
bargain, and unless the Parliament go into the measures
laid down in England, nothing must be done; and
he who spoke last has undertaken to obtain these
measures to be performed here. I know,’ he went
on, ‘and can make it appear that the Register has
undertaken to persecute the English designs for
promotion to himself.’

On this some of the members called out that
Fletcher should be sent to the bar of the House for
using such language.

Fletcher, backed up by Hamilton, then declared that
the Queen’s letter had been written when no Scotsman
was with her, and must, therefore, have been concocted
under English influence. Johnston denied this, and
said that the draught of the letter had been sent up
from Scotland.

Fletcher still maintained that he was right; and on
this Sir James Halket called out that Saltoun was
impertinent. To this Fletcher’s reply was that any
member who used such words of him was a rascal.

‘The House,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘being alarmed at
such expressions, Sir James Erskine moved both should
be sent to prison.’ The incident ended by the Chancellor
giving a ‘sharp rebuke’ to both the honourable
members, who were forced to express their regret, and
to promise, upon their word of honour, that they would
not take any notice elsewhere of what had happened.

In the end the House decided that the Act of
Security should be read a first time, and should, along
with the Act of Supply, lie on the table until it was
[Pg 98]known whether it was to receive the royal assent. It
was soon found that the Scottish Parliament had at last
gained the day; and in the beginning of August the
Act of Security received the royal assent. On this
the Estates voted the supplies.

During the rest of the session Fletcher spoke frequently.
He was especially indignant against the
House of Lords for an address which they had presented
to the throne on the subject of the Scots Plot;
and he went so far as to move that ‘the House of
Peers in England their address to the Queen to use
her endeavours to get the succession of England settled
in Scotland, and inquiring into the plot, so far as it
concerned Scotland and Scotsmen, was an undue intermeddling
with our affairs, and an encroachment upon
the sovereignty and independency of Scotland; and
that the behaviour of the House of Commons in these
matters was like good subjects of our Queen, and as
neighbourly friends of this nation.’

The feeling of the Estates may be gathered from the
fact that they refused to approve of the conduct of the
Commons, but agreed to censure the House of Lords.
Nothing done by the English Parliament was right.

Just before the end of the session Fletcher brought
in a measure for the purpose of adding eleven county
members to the Parliament, and one more, in future, for
every new peer who might be created. Hamilton, at
the same time, introduced an ‘Act about free voting in
Parliament,’ the object of which was to[Pg 99] exclude from
the House officers in the army, collectors of customs,
and some other persons in the pay of the Crown.

On the 24th of August, Fletcher moved the second
reading of his measure; and, as soon as he sat down,
Hamilton moved the second reading of his. On this
Fletcher said, ‘The member who has just spoken contradicts
himself,’ and explained that Hamilton had been
in favour of the measure for adding to the county
members, which he was now hindering.

Hamilton at once complained of the way in which he
had been spoken of, and offered to go to the bar, ‘If I
have said anything amiss.’

‘Such reckoning,’ cried Fletcher, ‘is for another
place.’

Hamilton retorted that he did not refuse to give that
satisfaction either. ‘The Chancellor,’ says Sir David
Hume, ‘took notice of both their expressions, and
moved, that first Salton should crave my Lord Commissioner
and the House pardon, if without design he had
said anything that gave offence; which, after a long
struggle he was prevailed with to do, if Duke Hamilton
would do the like, and which both did, and promised,
on their word of honour, there should be no more word
of what had passed.’

Four days after this incident the session ended. The
Act of Security was now law. Fletcher and his frien[Pg 100]ds
were triumphant, and more hostile to England than
ever; while the people of England were not only indignant,
but alarmed by the news that the Scots were
buying arms, and meeting for drill in every parish,
under the provisions of the Act of Security.

The prospect was very dark; but there were some
rays of light, the resignations of Nottingham and
Seymour, the most violent members of the Tory party,
making it possible that the claims of Scotland to equal
treatment with England might be acknowledged. But
England was not in a mood to be trifled with. A week
after the royal assent had been given to the Act of
Security, the battle of Blenheim was fought. Marlborough
was now at the summit of his power; and the
alliance between him and Godolphin alone saved the
latter from falling before the storm of indignation which
greeted him for advising the Queen to allow the Act
to become law. The Government had been successful
both in England and abroad; and the Opposition fixed
upon the one vulnerable point—their Scottish policy.
The Act of Security was printed and circulated throughout
the country. The nations, it was pointed out, were
now separated by law; and for this Godolphin was[Pg 101]
responsible. Wharton boasted that he had the Lord
Treasurer’s head in a halter, and swore that he would
draw it tight. It was believed that large quantities of
arms were arriving in Scotland from the Continent, and
that the people were being drilled for the purpose of
fighting against England. Godolphin himself, a man
of few words and great experience, did not share in the
general panic. ‘People,’ he told Queensberry afterwards
at another crisis, ‘who mean to fight, do not talk
so much about it.’ His invariable answer to all the
abuse which was hurled at his head was that there
would have been more danger in refusing the royal
assent than in giving it; and he added that the danger
was ‘not without a remedy.’[Pg 102]

There can be little doubt that this remedy was the
Union. But there were not many Englishmen who had
the long experience or the calmness of Godolphin. The
Scots, it was said, never wanted the will, and now they
have the power, to attack us. France will find the
money. They themselves will find the men, and their
long-suppressed hatred against England will burst forth.
Scotland must either be reduced by force of arms, or
the militia must be embodied, and Parliament must
petition the Queen to see that those gentlemen who
allowed the Act of Security to pass may have the
honour of defending the borders. By their policy they
have undone the Union, such as it is, which has existed
since the death of Elizabeth, and have separated the
countries. On them, therefore, the danger should fall.
Much that was very foolish and very false was said and
written; but even to the coolest heads in England the
peril seemed great, not on account of any immediate
danger from the army in Scotland, but on account of
the state of the Succession question. The situation was
that England was now shut up to these alternatives:—either,
on the death of Anne, she must make war on[Pg 103]
Scotland, conquer the country, and hold it by force of
arms, without any attempt at constitutional government;
or she must allow a separate King to sit on the Scottish
throne; or she must consent to an Union, and at last
submit to give Scotland an equal share in English
trade. Godolphin saw this. So did Somers and Halifax.
Everything depended on the course taken by the
English Parliament.

The English Parliament met on the 25th of October
1704; and what followed is in marked contrast to the
irregular proceedings of the Scottish Estates. The
strife of parties was as keen in London as in Edinburgh.
The factions were as violent; but the proceedings at
Westminster were regular and orderly. Speed there
was; but everything was done with that punctilious
attention to forms which makes the resolutions of the
English Parliament, by whatever angry passions the
members may be influenced, so doubly weighty, not
only because they are the decisions of the representatives
of a great and powerful nation, but because they
are framed, revised, and adopted in such an orderly
method, that to read the journals of the Lords and
Commons (a vast mine of constitutional law, which is
too much neglected) gives the student of our history
an impressive idea of strength and durability.

In the Queen’s Speech Scotland was not mentioned;
but a month later Haversham called the attention of the
Lords to the state of that country. He attacked the
Scottish policy of the Government, and said it proved
that the Ministry had not honestly tried to settle the
Succession question. ‘There are,’ he said, ‘two matters
of all troubles—much discontent and great poverty.
Whoever will now look into Scotland will find them
both in that kingdom.’ And the character of this people,
so poor and so discontented, made their condition all
the more dangerous to England. The nobles and the
gentlemen of Scotland were as brave as could be found
in Europe. The common people were the same, yet
they were all alike poor and discontented. By the Act
of Security they could choose a King for themselves,
and they could arm the whole nation; and who could
tell what dangers might not be in store for England if,
on the death of the Queen, with France to help them,
and with a King of their own, they chose to make war.
‘I shall end,’ he said, ‘with an advice of my Lord Bacon’s.
“Let men,” says he, “beware how they neglect or suffer
matter of troubles to be prepared; for no man can forbid
the sparks that may set all on fire.”’ It was resolved
that, on the 29th of November, the House should go
into committee ‘to consider of the state of the nation
in reference to Scotland.’

On the appointed day there was a full muster of t[Pg 104]he
peers; the Queen was present; and Rochester moved
that the Act of Security be read. In this he was supported
by the Tories, and by the High Churchmen in
particular; but the Whigs resisted this motion, on the
ground that there was no authentic copy before the
House, and the debate proceeded.

Godolphin, who, it was noticed at the time, did not
shrink from the responsibility of having advised the
Queen to give the royal assent, said that it had been
absolutely necessary to allow the Act of Security to
become law. The danger of refusing it would have
been greater than the danger of granting it. He
deplored the system of irritating the Scottish people by
constant interference in their business. Everything, in
his opinion, would come right, if they would only let
the Scots alone.

Burnet followed on the same side. Ever, he said,
since the Union of the Crowns Scotland had been
mismanaged. What could have been more reckless
than the conduct of England in the reign of Charles I.?
At the Restoration a promise had been given that Scotland
would be governed in accordance with the wishes
of the people. This promise had been broken, and
during the reigns of Charlesii. and Jamesii. the Scots
had been persecuted and oppressed. At the Revolution
religious persecution ceased; but since then the comme[Pg 105]rcial
policy of England had been enough to provoke
them beyond endurance.

This plain speaking was not very palatable to an
assembly of Englishmen, but those Scotsmen who
listened to the debate were delighted. ‘The Whigs,’
Roxburghe wrote to Baillie of Jerviswoode, ‘were modest
in their business, but the Tories were mad.’

It was evident that there was a considerable difference
of opinion between the two great parties as to the
proper method of dealing with the Scottish question.
Somers and Halifax, Rochester and Nottingham, alike
regarded the Act of Security as dangerous, but they
differed as to the course which England should pursue.
Nottingham and his friends were for condemning the
Act by a vote of the House; but the Whigs resisted
this, on the ground that it amounted to a vote of
censure on the Scottish Parliament. Somers, in a few
weighty words, moved the adjournment of the debate.
England, he said, must protect herself against the consequences
of the Act of Security; but whatever was
done, must be done calmly and without panic.

On the 6th of December he resumed the debate, when
he laid down the principle that the Parliament of England
must prove to the Scottish people that if they insisted
on a complete separation they would be the greatest
losers. He suggested, therefore, that an Act should
be passed so framed as to bring the issue clearly a[Pg 106]nd
distinctly before them; an Act, for instance, imposing
certain disabilities on the Scots, which would only be
removed if they settled the Succession as it had been
settled in England. Above all things, he urged the
necessity of adopting none but deliberate and well-considered
measures.[Pg 107]

The result of these debates was that on the 14th of
March 1705, the last day of the session, the royal
assent was given to the statute which empowered the
Queen to name Commissioners to treat for an
Union, provided that the Scottish Parliament passed
a similar measure; but the statute, at the same time,
declared that, after the 25th of December 1705, natives
of Scotland were to be held as aliens until the Succession
was settled in Scotland as it already was in
England. This was the chief clause of this important
measure, which was therefore known as the Alien Act.

The news of what had been done was received with
an outburst of indignation in Scotland; but the Union
was now inevitable.

CHAPTER VIII

A Ministerial Crisis, and a Change of Government in Scotland—The
Government is defeated—The Limitations again—Fletcher’s Duel
with Roxburghe—The Act for a Treaty of Union passed.

The English Ministers had for some time suspected
that Tweeddale and his party were not strong enough
to carry on the Government of Scotland, and in February
1705 Argyll wrote to Leven, informing him that
there was to be a change. Tweeddale was to be offered
the place of President of the Council. Seafield was to
be Lord Chancellor. Annandale was to be Secretary of
State. ‘And I am to be Commissioner,’ he added.
He had already been consulted as to the changes; but
he had taken no one into his confidence except Queensberry
and Annandale. They alone were in the secret;
but ‘the Whigs here[7] are positive that Mr. Jonson
must be out.’ Johnston, who had been Lord Clerk
Register, was dismissed; and a few days after that
event the new Commissioner started for the north.

The young Duke of Argyll, although not yet thirty,
had already distinguished himself as a soldier, and was
believed to possess the talents which were needed in
the troublesome office of Commissioner to the Scottish
Estates. But besides his personal qualifications there
were other reasons for appointing him. His great-grandfather
had been one of the first victims of the Restoration.
His grandfather was that Earl of Argyll whose
[Pg 108]rash expedition to Scotland Fletcher had attempted
in vain to prevent, but whose calmness on the eve of
death had overwhelmed his enemies with shame, and
made such an impression on his countrymen that ‘the
last sleep of Argyll’ was, for long years afterwards,
spoken of as a noble example of Christian and patriotic
fortitude. His father, who had returned from exile at
the Revolution, was the first Duke of Argyll. The
fortunes of the family, ruined under the Stuart tyranny,
were now mending. The young Duke was hereditary
Justiciar of Scotland. It was said that three thousand
clansmen were ready to draw the claymore at his call.
He was trusted by the Presbyterians—an important
matter, as Godolphin was well aware. Above all
things, the Argylls were to be depended upon in an
emergency such as the present. In office or out of
office, whether their private characters were good or
bad, they never swerved from their Whig principles.
The place of Commissioner had therefore been offered
to the Duke. He hesitated, and would have declined,
if left to himself, but Queensberry persuaded him to
accept the office; and on the 9th of April he started
for Scotland, ‘attended,’ says Cunningham, ‘with a
number of highlanders and swordsmen, in whom he
took great delight.’

When the Commissioner reached Scotland the effects
of the Alien Act were beginning to be felt. About thirty
thousand head of cattle and great flocks of sheep had
been annually exported from Scotland to England.
But since the passing of the Act these had to remain
on the north side of the Cheviots, and the breeders had
no market for their stock, or had to sell at a ruinous
loss in Scotland. Every branch of trade was paralysed;
[Pg 109]and no one knew what to propose as a remedy for the
deplorable condition of the country.[8] It was a time
when any scheme, however chimerical, was listened to;
and amongst those who, full of projects for retrieving
the finances of Scotland, awaited the arrival of the
Commissioner were two well-known men, Hugh Chamberlen
and John Law of Lauriston. Chamberlen’s proposal
of a Land Bank, already tried and found wanting
in England during the last reign, was now about to be
propounded in Scotland. Law was on intimate terms
with Argyll and with Tweeddale, both of whom were
charmed by his high spirits and good breeding. He had
just published his proposals for curing the ills of Scotland.
His intimacy with the Commissioner was certain
to gain at least a fair hearing for his plans; but, in the
meantime, Argyll’s time was fully occupied with preparations
for the meeting of Parliament.

In the intrigues of the next few weeks, which are now
to be described, the political parties in Scotland took
the form which they retained until the Parliament of
Scotland came to an end. Argyll and Queensberry had
already agreed privately that the Scottish Ministry was
to be rearranged; and as soon as he reached Edinburgh
Argyll came to the conclusion that the ‘New Party’[Pg 110]
must be dismissed at once. He then took the advice
of Glasgow and Annandale as to how the business of
the session was to be managed, and their opinion was
that Tweeddale, Roxburghe, and some of their friends
must resign before Parliament met. It was agreed that
letters expressing this opinion should be written to
Godolphin. ‘If her Majesty,’ Glasgow wrote, ‘be
pleased to make the Government all of a piece, thoroughly
upon the Revolution bottom, it is the only
means left to retrieve the mismanagement of the last
Parliament, when the prerogative and the monarchy so
extremely suffered, and to pull us out of the confusion
we at present lie under.’ Seafield declined to advise
Godolphin; but in his letter he gives an account of the
general drift of opinion amongst the members of Parliament.
‘All,’ he says, ‘that I speak with of the Old
Party are of one of these two opinions: First, that
there be a treaty set on foot for an entire Union betwixt
the two kingdoms, or for commerce and other advantages,
leaving the nomination of the Commissioners to
her Majesty; or second, that there be an Act of Succession,
with conditions and limitations on the successor,
and that we have free trade and commerce established
with England as we had before the Act of Navigation.’
Annandale also wrote and expressed his approval of
[Pg 111]the proposal to change the Ministry.[9]

Argyll and Annandale had long been friends, and
during the preceding winter and spring their friendship
had increased. By the influence of Argyll, Annandale
had been appointed to represent her Majesty at the
General Assembly of the Scottish Church, which had
just been held. It was on his advice that the letters to
Godolphin had been written. But at this point differences
arose between them, which ended in a complete
separation. Argyll, having no doubt that the English
Ministers would agree to the dismissal of the New Party,
wished to settle at once how the vacant offices were to
be filled, and, a few days after the letters to Godolphin
had been despatched, he called a meeting of his friends
to discuss the subject. At this meeting Annandale was
for delay. It would be time enough, he said, to think
about new appointments when they had received an
answer from London. Argyll, however, said that he had
promised to send a list of names ‘within two or three
days’; and at the same time he suggested that Loudoun
should be Secretary, in place of Roxburghe. Annandale
muttered something to himself, and then said that
Loudoun was well fitted for the place, but he w[Pg 112]as
married to Stair’s daughter, and to appoint him would
be to aggrandise the Stair family, and that would ‘raise
a dust in the Parliament.’ On this Argyll gave way for
the sake of peace, and nothing was arranged.

But in a few days Glasgow and Leven waited upon
Annandale, and informed him that the Commissioner
begged him to concur in recommending Loudoun as
Secretary. Annandale was a most difficult man to deal
with. ‘Even those of the Revolution Party,’ says
Lockhart, ‘only employed him, as the Indians worship
the devil, out of fear.’ He refused, point blank, to
comply with Argyll’s request, and never after acted
cordially with him. There can be no doubt that this
episode was the real cause of Annandale’s opposition to
the Union in the following year.

The next post from London brought a letter, from
which it was evident that the Ministers wished to delay
the change of Government in Scotland. Argyll instantly
sent off an answer, in which he said that he would not
act as Commissioner unless his advice was taken.
This threat of resignation produced the desired effect,
and Argyll received authority to construct an Administration
as he thought best.

Forthwith Tweeddale, Rothes, Roxburghe, Selkirk,
Belhaven, and Baillie of Jerviswoode were informed
that their resignations would be accepted. They took
[Pg 113]their dismissal with a good grace, and formed themselves
into the party which was thenceforth known as the
Squadrone Volante—a name which perhaps Fletcher,
the student of Italian, may have suggested. Led by
Tweeddale, Montrose, Rothes, Roxburghe, and Marchmont
among the peers, and by Baillie of Jerviswoode
among the commons, the policy of the Squadrone was
to hold the balance between the Government and the
combined forces of the Jacobites and the Old Country
Party, to which Fletcher and the irreconcilable nationalists
adhered. They mustered about thirty votes. Belhaven,
piqued at losing office, did not join them,
but preferred to form schemes for breaking up the
Parliament.

The arrangements for the new Administration were
soon completed, and in the list which was sent up to
London, Loudoun and Annandale were named as
Secretaries, Glasgow became Treasurer-Depute, Queensberry
was Lord Privy Seal, while Cockburn remained
in office as Lord Justice-Clerk, and Seafield as Chancellor.

It was entirely a Whig Ministry, but there were
differences of opinion as to what line they should take.
It was soon found that Annandale and Cockburn were
in favour of pressing the settlement of the Hanoverian
Succession, and leaving the Union alone. Sir James
Stewart, the Lord Advocate, whose great influence
with the Presbyterians made it desirable that he s[Pg 114]hould
act cordially, refused to commit himself. Baillie, now
a member of the Squadrone, had an interview of two
hours with him at this time, when he first said he
intended to support a Succession Act, and then that
he was in favour of an Union; and at last Baillie
came to the conclusion that he was ‘for no settlement
whatsoever.’

The Commissioner, acting on the advice of Stair,
used all his influence in favour of an Union. Queensberry
had not yet left London. Lockhart goes so far
as to say that he was so unpopular that he was afraid
to face the Scottish Parliament, and that he had sent
down Argyll, ‘using him as the monkey did the cat
in pulling out the hot roasted chestnuts.’ The help
of Queensberry was, however, urgently needed, and
Glasgow was of opinion that the only way to settle
the Succession question was for him to come down
to assist Argyll. A combination of their friends would,
he was certain, secure a majority.

Meantime the meeting of Parliament was close at
hand, and it was necessary that the views of the
Scottish Government should be laid before the Ministers
in London, so that the Queen’s letter to the
Estates might be prepared in time. On the night of
the 30th of May Argyll consulted his colleagues.
At this meeting (a ‘Cabinet Council’) Annandale
[Pg 115]insisted that the Succession should be earnestly pressed.
Argyll pointed out that the support of Queensberry’s
friends could not be counted on. In the last session
they had supported Hamilton’s resolution postponing
the settlement of the Crown until a commercial treaty
with England had been adjusted. They would not,
he feared, ‘make so short a turn.’ But if a Treaty of
Union was proposed, they would probably support it,
and also vote the supplies. Another proposal was
that the Succession should be tried first, and if it
failed, then they could fall back upon the Union.
Cockburn was strongly in favour of a Succession Act.
‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘the treaty is but a handle
to throw off the Succession, for I don’t find ten men
of the Parliament will go in for an entire and complete
Union; so there is no prospect of a treaty taking
effect.’

Of eight members of the Government who gave
their opinions, six were in favour of a Treaty of Union,
and two, Cockburn and Annandale, were for a Succession
Act. But, in the end, two draughts of a royal
letter were sent up to London. In one of these the
Union was put foremost, and in the other the Succession.
The responsibility of advising the Queen which
she should sign was left to Godolphin and his colleagues.
In due course the royal letter arrived, along
with the Queen’s instructions to Argyll, and it was
found that the preference had been given to the
draught in which the Succession Act was put fore[Pg 116]most.
The instructions were to the effect that the Commissioner
was to do his best to secure the passing of
a Succession Act for Scotland, in terms similar to
that by which the Crown of England had been settled
on the house of Hanover. If the Estates would not
agree to this, then an Act for the Union of England
and Scotland was, if possible, to be carried, and it
was to contain a clause leaving the appointment of
Commissioners in the hands of the Queen. He was
also expressly forbidden to allow the question of the
Scots Plot to be opened up again.[10]

The result of the recent changes in the Ministry, and
of the intrigues which have just been described, was
that the various political parties in Scotland now took
the shape which they retained until the Parliament[Pg 117]
of Scotland was abolished. There were the supporters
of the Government, known as the Old or Court Party,
or simply as the Whigs. There was the regular
Opposition, consisting partly of Jacobites or Tories,
and partly of Fletcher’s followers, the Old Country
Party, who were determined to oppose the Union and
the Succession also unless they could obtain good
terms for Scotland. In the third place there was
the Squadrone Volante, the party formed by the discarded
Ministers out of what had been called the
New Party when Tweeddale was in office. They
declined to commit themselves; but it would be a
great injustice to assert that the Squadrone acted, in
any way, the part of dissatisfied placemen. They
were certainly reserved in their attitude towards the
Ministry, but they never behaved in a factious or
discreditable manner. ‘They were in great credit,’
says Burnet, ‘because they had no visible bias on
their minds.’

When the Parliament met on the 28th of June, the
[Pg 118]position of Argyll and the other Ministers was one of
peculiar difficulty. In six months the Alien Act would
come into full force, if they did not succeed in persuading
the Estates to accept either the Hanoverian
Succession or a Treaty of Union. Even now Scotland
was suffering from those clauses of the Act which
were already in force; but if the Estates were obdurate
greater evils were in store, and the coming Christmas
would bring to the people of this island a message,
not of peace and goodwill, but of civil war and discord.
And it was soon apparent that the members were
not in a complacent mood; for on the 17th of July,
Hamilton moved that the Parliament should refuse
to name a successor to the throne until the commercial
relations of the two countries were settled;
and further, that before naming a successor they
should fix such conditions of government as would
secure the independence of Scotland. This motion
was carried, through the help of Queensberry’s friends,
who supported Hamilton to the number of thirty, by
a majority of forty-three. Next day the Ministers met,
and resolved that the Succession must be given up,
and an Act for a Treaty of Union introduced.[11]

In the meantime the Government had been anxiously
awaiting the arrival of Queensberry; and now, news[Pg 119]
having come that he was on his way to the north, Mar,
on behalf of the Ministers, introduced an Act for a
Treaty of Union. This was on the 20th of July, and
three days later Queensberry arrived. ‘He made,’
Boyer says, ‘a public entry with greater splendour and
magnificence than the three times he had been Commissioner.’ On the following morning he took his
seat as Lord Privy Seal.

The members of the Parliament were now canvassed
by Seafield, Argyll, and Queensberry, and it was found
that many of them were prepared to vote for an Union.
But, when the question came before the Estates, it was
evident that the Opposition were as determined as ever.
Fletcher made a long speech, in which he argued that
no treaty should even be considered until the hostile
clauses of the Alien Act were repealed; and Hamilton
moved that the Estates should discuss the questions of
trade and limitations before that of Union. The discussion
showed a formidable combination against the
Government, who were defeated by a majority of four.
It seemed as if Fletcher and Hamilton had brought all
business to a deadlock, and as if neither the Succession
nor the Union could be carried. In the opinion of
Argyll, however, the division showed who were for the
Government, and who aimed at ‘nothing but confusion.’
The Ministers, accordingly, resolved not to adjourn,
but to sit, and see ‘if we could not retrieve the[Pg 120]
treaty.’

Trade and limitations on the next Sovereign of Scotland
now engaged the attention of the Parliament.
The rival schemes of Law and Chamberlen were brought
forward—schemes for improving the financial condition
of Scotland, by means of Land Banks and a wholesale
issue of paper money. Preposterous as these plans
were, they were fully debated; and there seems to have
been a feeling in favour of Chamberlen’s proposal,
because the English Parliament had rejected it. Argyll
and Tweeddale gave some support to Law. Hamilton
laughed at them both; and, in the end, a resolution
was passed ‘that the forcing any paper credit by an
Act of Parliament was unfit for this nation.’

During the discussions on this subject, Fletcher
moved that the two financiers should be confronted with
each other. Roxburghe said it would be unfair to Law
to make him appear, without first finding out if he was
willing. ‘Mr. Law,’ he said, ‘or any gentleman that
has employed his time and thoughts for the good of
his country, ought to be treated with good manners.’
‘If any one,’ said Fletcher, ‘taxes me with bad manners,
he is unmannerly, and not I.’

On this Roxburghe turned to the Chancellor, and
said, ‘I did not mean to accuse any member of bad[Pg 121]
manners, but since that worthy member thinks himself
struck at, he may, if he pleases, take it so.’ ‘I
take it as I ought,’ retorted Fletcher. The Commissioner,
seeing that a challenge was inevitable,
gave orders that, as soon as the House rose, both
should be arrested. Roxburghe was taken into custody
at his own house, where he remained in charge of
an officer.

Fletcher was found in a tavern. When the officer
came to take him, he said there must be some mistake,
as he had given no occasion for being arrested; and so
adroit was he that the officer actually went away to
ask the Commissioner for orders. Fletcher, who had
already sent a challenge, by the hands of Lord Charles
Kerr, to Roxburghe, at once left the tavern—probably
Patrick Steel’s?—and drove down with Lord Charles to
Leith, where he remained all next day waiting for his
opponent.

Roxburghe, meanwhile, hearing that Fletcher was at
liberty, induced his friends to persuade Argyll to remove
the arrest; and, as soon as he was free, he and his second,
Baillie of Jerviswoode, drove to Leith about six in the
evening. There they found Fletcher waiting on the
sands. The seconds tried to make up the quarrel,
but Fletcher insisted in obtaining satisfaction for the
affront which he considered himself to have received in
Parliament [Pg 122]House. Roxburghe was as ready, and they
drew their swords. But Baillie ‘stept between ’em,’
and said that a duel with swords would be unfair, as
Roxburghe had a weak right leg. At these words
Fletcher sheathed his sword, and, producing two pairs
of pistols, offered Roxburghe his choice. At that
moment a party of the Horse-guards, who had been
sent to look for them, appeared in sight, to the joy of
the seconds, who persuaded their principals to fire two
shots in the air; and then the whole party drove back
to Edinburgh.[12]

When the Estates went into the question of Limitations,
Rothes introduced a measure for regulating the
mode of appointing Privy Councillors and other officers
of the Crown, and Belhaven introduced another for
triennial Parliaments. Both these measures were
popular with the House. But Fletcher was not satisfied,
and he again brought forward his own pet scheme.
His Twelve Limitations, which the Estates had, in the
session of 1703, declined to incorporate in the Act of
Security, were now known as the Duodecem Tabulæ,[Pg 123]
the Twelve Tables of the Law. But Fletcher himself was
in no joking humour when he moved that the Estates
should solemnly adopt them as a Claim of Rights, not
requiring the consent of the Sovereign.

On the 15th of August he made an elaborate speech
upon the subject. He was listened to in silence, and,
when he sat down, was asked to withdraw his motion.
But the more he was appealed to the stiffer he became.
A debate of four hours followed, in the course of which
he fell foul of Stair. Stair had sneered at the tenth
limitation, which provided that no pardon granted by
the Crown, for any offence, should be valid without the
consent of Parliament; and Fletcher thereupon exclaimed, ‘It is no wonder his Lordship is against this,
for had there been such a law he would have been
hanged long ago for the advice he gave King James,
the murder of Glencoe, and his whole conduct since
the Revolution.’ But the feeling of the House was
against him. He saw this, and, muttering to himself,
‘Well, is it so? I’ll serve them a trick for it,’ he
announced that he would not press the subject, but
would move that the House should consider the
measures which had been brought in by Rothes and
Belhaven.[13]

On the following day, when Rothes moved the second
reading of his measure, Fletcher again tried to [Pg 124]bring
forward his favourite subject, which led Stair to say that
the honourable member was resolved to do by his
Limitations as the ape did by her young, grasp them so
tight that she stifled them. Fletcher lost his temper,
and called out that the noble lord had, in the days of
King James, stretched the prerogative till it nearly
cracked, when he penned the declaration of arbitrary
power.

This was a very palpable hit, but the Chancellor rose
and stopped the altercation by moving that the House
should proceed to business; and on a vote being taken
whether the Estates, or the Sovereign with the consent
of the Estates, should appoint Privy Councillors,
Judges, and other officers, it carried in favour of the
Estates by twenty-three, in spite of the opposition of the
Government. Nothing, however, came of these wild
expedients for limiting the power of the Crown. The
Estates passed Acts for triennial Parliaments, for giving
to Parliament the power of appointing officers of the
Crown, and for securing the presence of Scottish
ambassadors at the making of all treaties, but to these
enactments the royal assent was refused. The proposals
for improving the trade of the country took the
form of a number of measures, only a few of which
received the royal assent. The general purpose of
these measures was Protection to home trade and
manufactures, and retaliation on England for passing
the Alien Act. Of these the royal assent was given to
[Pg 125]an Act forbidding the importation of English, Irish, and
foreign butter and cheese, to an Act for assisting the
fisheries of Scotland, to an Act for encouraging the
exportation of beef and pork, and to another declaring
Scottish linen and woollen manufactures free of duty at
exportation. In addition to these there was a statute,
which was considered the most important of all, for
appointing a Council of Trade for Scotland.

In the meantime the Government were waiting an
opportunity for again bringing forward the question of
the Union; and at last, on the 24th of August, Mar’s
resolution on the subject was discussed. Fletcher
moved, a few days later, an address to the throne,
complaining of the way in which Scotland had been
treated by the English Parliament, which he declared
to be ‘injurious to the honour and interest of this
nation.’ Though this address was not adopted, Hamilton
pressed upon the House a resolution binding the
Estates to resist any Union which would change the
fundamental laws of the Scottish constitution. At this
point the Country Party appear to have agreed to the
principle of an Union; but they were resolved that the
Scottish Parliament, the outward sign and instrument
of an independent national existence, must not be
abolished. Gradually the Act for a Treaty of Union took
shape; but, when the Government were congratulating
themselves on having weathered the storm, Fletche[Pg 126]r
moved to amend the Act by inserting a clause to provide
that the Commissioners for Union should not
meet until the ‘Alien Clause’ of the recent English
Act was repealed. He and his friends, both Jacobites
and members of the Old Country Party, probably
believed that England would refuse to treat on such
terms, and that, therefore, the Union, which he now
saw was threatening the independence of Scotland,
would collapse. It was likely that the Government
would be defeated if Fletcher’s amendment was openly
opposed, and the dexterous hand of Queensberry is
seen in the way in which the difficulty was met. The
Government professed to agree with the object of the
amendment, but proposed that, instead of adding it to
the Union Act, the House should, as soon as that Act
was passed, proceed to consider whether the question
of the Alien Clause should form the subject of a resolution
of the Estates or of a separate Act of Parliament.
Fletcher agreed to this, and his motion stands on the
rolls of the Scottish Parliament in these terms: ‘Then
agreed and ordered, nemine contradicente, that the
Commissioners to be named by Her Majesty for the
Kingdom of Scotland shall not commence the Treaty
of Union until the clause in the English Act declaring
the subjects of Scotland aliens be rescinded.’ The
Scottish Ministers, in transmitting this resolution to
London, carefully explained that they had found it[Pg 127]
necessary, if the Union was to go on, to comply with
the wish of the Estates that some resentment should be
expressed against England.[14]

But before this point was reached there had been a
very sharp debate regarding the appointment of the
Commissioners on Union. The story is told by Lockhart,
and is well known. At a late hour on the evening[Pg 128]
of Saturday the 1st of September, when most of the
members had left in the belief that the House was
about to rise, Hamilton suddenly addressed the Chancellor,
and moved that the nomination of the Commissioners should be left to the Queen. Some members
of the Opposition rushed from the House, shouting
that they were betrayed; but Fletcher sprang to his
feet, and made a personal attack on Hamilton for his
inconsistency in making this proposal. ‘Saltoun opposed
that most bitterly,’ says Sir David Hume, in his diary.
But it was in vain. The vote was called for, and
Hamilton’s motion was carried.[15] ‘From this day,’ says
Lockhart, ‘we may date the commencement of Scotland’s
ruin.’

The session ended quietly on the 21st of September,
when the Commissioner touched with the sceptre the
Acts to which he had obtained leave to give the royal
assent, of which the most important was the ‘Act for a
Treaty with England.’

CHAPTER IX

The Union Commission at Westminster—The Act of Union passed—Belhaven’s
Speech—Violent conduct of Fletcher and other Members
during the Debates.

When the English Parliament met in October, not only
the Alien clause, but all the hostile clauses of which
the Estates complained, were repealed. Whether Fletcher
was pleased that the object of his motion was
so completely and speedily gained may be doubted;
but there was now nothing to prevent the progress of
the negotiations for the Union. So the Commissioners
of both nations met at Westminster on the 16th of
April 1706.

The result of their labours still remains. The question
which they had to face was how to adjust the
relations of the two countries in a manner consistent
with a complete Union. It was not enough to say that
there was to be one Sovereign, one Parliament, and
equal trading privileges. The Union meant far more
than that. Although the machinery of Government and
the modes of social life were simpler then than they
now are, the problem of applying the principle of a full
and incorporating Union to the usages of the two
nations was one of the most formidable character.
The institutions and the internal economy of the two
peoples were, in many respects, entirely different. If
they were to be really united, if they were to become
one people in their interests and their aspirations, it
was necessary that, at the commencement of their
common national life, there should be a clear understanding
of the precise terms on which they stood
to one another. The difficulty of arriving at such an
understanding was enormous. The one nation was rich,
the other was poor. In what proportions were they to
contribute to the common treasury? Each had a public
debt; but the debt of England was far heavier than the
[Pg 129]debt of Scotland; and some equitable adjustment of the
national liabilities must be arranged. Each nation had
its own laws. Were these to be assimilated, or left unchanged?
What was to be the form of that one Parliament,
on which the responsibility of enacting laws for
the United Kingdom was now to be devolved? Was
there to be one executive for England, and another for
Scotland? The incidence of taxation was different in
each country. The customs and the excise and the
manner of their collection was different. The coinage
of England was different from that of Scotland. All
these matters were now to be considered and adjusted, if
possible, in a fair and reasonable manner; so that the
Articles of Union should be ratified by the two Parliaments,
and favourably received by the nations. Such
were some of the difficult questions which were discussed
by the Union Commissioners at Westminster
from April to July 1706; and the famous Treaty of
Union, the result of their deliberations, is, upon the
whole, one of the most successful works of practical
statesmanship which the world has ever seen.

On Monday the 22nd of July 1706 the Commissioners
of both Kingdoms met at Westminster and
signed the Treaty of Union; and on the following
morning they went to St. James’s, and presented the
document to her Majesty.

The Scottish Parliament was to meet upon the 3rd
October, and the Government wished to keep the
Articles of Union secret until then. No copies of the
Treaty were allowed to pass into circulation. A proclamation
forbidding the making of wagers upon the[Pg 130]
subject was strictly enforced, and a strong effort was
made to prevent the publication of writings about the
Union. But it was, of course, impossible to stop the
discussion of so momentous a question; all the more,
as many persons were in possession of the main outlines
of the Treaty. The Whigs had already made up
their minds that the Articles would be ratified by the
Estates; and even the most violent members of the
Jacobite and Country Parties saw that the general
feeling of Scotland was now favourable to the Union, a
fact which Lockhart explains by saying that false
accounts of the Articles were given by the Scottish
Commissioners on their return from England. ‘We
have,’ Halifax writes, ‘all the reason to promise ourselves
success in an Union with Scotland. All the
letters from that country give us great hopes that it will
be accepted by their
Parliament.’[16]

In the discussions which now took place, the community
seems to have been divided into three classes:
those who were distinctly in favour of an Union, those
who were distinctly opposed to it, and those who were
in favour of an Union, provided the separate Parliament
of Scotland was allowed to remain. If Fletcher was the
[Pg 131]author of a pamphlet which has been attributed to him,
entitled, The State of the Controversy betwixt United and
Separate Parliaments, he must be reckoned as amongst
the last class; and, indeed, he seldom expressed any
opinion which was not consistent with supporting a
federal Union. But it is very doubtful whether he
wrote this pamphlet. He was, however, supposed to be
writing, while the Commission was sitting at Westminster,
in favour of a dissolution, on the ground that
the question could only be lawfully settled by a Parliament
elected for that purpose by the constituencies.[17]
But, though the press was busy printing pamphlets
on the subject of the Union, the time for such discussions
was past, and everything depended on what was
done on the floor of the Parliament House.

During the discussions on the Articles of Union
Fletcher displayed the same courage, and the same
defects of temper, as during the previous session[Pg 132]s of
the Parliament. Sir David Hume, in his diary, frequently
mentions the scenes in which the member for
Haddingtonshire was the leader. For instance, on one
occasion, when it was proposed that a sermon should
be preached, on a ‘Fast Day,’ in the Parliament
House, a proposal which was supported by some
lay members of the Commission, or Standing Committee,
of the Church of Scotland, ‘Salton having
alleged that if he would tell what he knew, those of the
Commission who were for that manner of the Fast
would be ashamed to hold up their faces; he being
challenged by several honourable members of the
House, who were also members of the Commission,
the business was with some struggle let fall.’ On the
next day after this incident, Fletcher, in attacking the
Commissioners on Union, said they had ‘betrayed
their trust.’ He was called to order, but said he was
‘sorry he could not get softer words.’ Then it was
moved that he should be sent to the bar; but at[Pg 133] last he
was persuaded to say he was sorry if he had offended
any one, and the matter dropped.

On another day Hume describes how, when he
entered the Parliament House, he found an altercation
going on, apparently over the Minutes of the last sitting.
Fletcher said, ‘What my Lord Stair has said in reference
to the Minutes is not true.’ To this Stair answered
that he ‘desired the House to take notice of what Salton
had said; otherwise he would be obliged to say
what he had said was a lie.’

There was an hour’s ‘discourse’ about this; and then
they were both called upon to ask pardon of the House.
Fletcher at once apologised to the House, but ‘shifted,
craving Stair’s pardon.’ Stair then said, ‘If what he
had said offended the House, he craved pardon.’ The
Chancellor next appealed to Fletcher. He said he
‘hoped Salton would acknowledge that he meant no
reflection on my Lord Stair, but only to contradict the
thing he had said, and if he had given him any offence
he craved his pardon, which,’ Sir David goes on, ‘Salton
assented to, and both of them gave their word of
honour not to resent it without-doors.’ There were
many scenes of this description during the last session
of the Scottish Parliament. The passion with which
the debates were conducted was extraordinary. It was
sometimes difficult to hear a word of what was said.
‘Scandalous disorder,’ in the words of one member,
challenges to fight on the floor of the House, shouting,
interruptions, calls to order, Hamilton, whose voice was
[Pg 134]very loud, overbearing his opponents by sheer strength
of lung, Fletcher springing to his feet, ready, at a
moment’s notice, to draw his sword,—it was amidst all
this clamour and noise that the Union was debated.

Perhaps the stormiest sittings of all that stormy
session were those of the 2nd and 4th of November,
when the first Article of Union was debated and voted
on. It was on the first of these days that Belhaven
made his great oration. It was certainly the event of
that day; and it is generally spoken of as the greatest
speech delivered during the debates on the Union.
But we have no means of knowing whether this was the
case; for no materials exist from which we can judge of
the eloquence of Stair, whom all the writers of his time
agree in describing as an orator of surpassing power,
the greatest that ever spoke under the roof of the
Parliament House. And though the palm of oratory
belonged to Stair, he was not without rivals. When
Roxburghe spoke, he charmed even his opponents.
The speeches of Argyll were full of passionate vehemence.
Hamilton’s pathetic eloquence is the theme of
every Jacobite pen. Nor can it be doubted that Seafield
and Cockburn of Ormiston were adroit and ready
debaters; while Fletcher’s speeches in the session of
1703 are, so far as polished language and close reasoning
go, superior to any of Belhaven’s.[18] But of all that
was said in the debates of these two days, only two
speeches have been preserved in full. The speech[Pg 135] of
Seton of Pitmedden, a plain country gentleman, is one
of them. Its solid reasoning and sound conclusions,
which events have justified, did not catch the public
fancy. On the other hand, the speech of Belhaven,
full of predictions, every one of which time has falsified,
was eagerly received, was read by thousands, and is
still to be found, in more than one reprint, in every
private library in Scotland. Belhaven was a great
actor; but it is one thing to gain applause, and another
thing to gain votes. Burke producing a dagger
on the floor of the House of Commons, Brougham
kneeling on the woolsack, are examples, in more recent
times, of how little impression is produced by the display of dramatic powers; and, both in its composition
and its effects, it is as a theatrical display that the famous
speech of Belhaven must be regarded.

On the same day Fletcher spoke, ‘with great warmth,’
says Cunningham, ‘and vehemently reproached and
inveighed against the Queen’s Ministers, without any
regard to his own fortune, though very large. Some
there are who say that he was too hot in his ar[Pg 136]guments,
and too violent in his resentments, and that
he did thereby hurt his own cause.’

But the cause was past helping or hurting now.
The time for argument was gone. It was on Saturday
the 2nd of November that Fletcher and Belhaven
poured forth the vials of their wrath; and on the
following Monday the vote was taken. As is well
known, the Squadrone threw in their lot with the Government,
and the majority, by which the Union was
supported during the rest of the session, was secured.

From that time until the 16th of January 1707,
when the Treaty of Union was finally approved by
the Estates, Fletcher continued to oppose th[Pg 137]e Government.
As soon as the Act approving of the Treaty,
with the changes made in it by the Estates, had been
touched with the sceptre, it was sent up to London,
to be discussed in Parliament; and the Estates continued
to sit for the transaction of formal business,
and also to frame the Acts of Parliament which were
to regulate the method of electing the sixteen representative
peers and the forty-five commoners who were
to represent Scotland in the Parliament of Great
Britain.

Fletcher’s last piece of business in the Scottish Parliament
was to move, ‘That no peer, nor the eldest son
of any peer, can be chosen to represent either shire or
burgh of this part of the United Kingdom in the House
of Commons.’ This motion was rejected, by a majority
of thirteen, in favour of an amendment providing that the
elections for counties and burghs in Scotland should
continue, as regards those who were capable of electing
or being elected, on the same footing as before the
Union.

Fletcher may have been present, on the 19th of
March, when the Act of the English Parliament ratifying
the Treaty of Union was presented to the Estates;
but, according to tradition, he left Edinburgh immediately
after the House rose. ‘On the day of his departure,
his friends crowded around him, entreating him to
stay. Even after his foot was in the stirrup, they continued
their solicitations, anxiously crying, “Will you
forsake your country?” He reverted his head, and
darting on them a look of indignation, keenly replied,
“It is only fit for the slaves that sold it!” then leaped
upon the saddle and put spurs to his horse, leaving the
whole company struck with a momentary humiliation,
[Pg 138]and (blind to the extravagance of his conduct) at a loss
which most to admire, the pride of his virtue, or the
elevation of his spirit.’[19]

And so, to the intense indignation of Fletcher, the
old Scottish ‘Estates’ became a thing of the past. It
would be difficult to find, in the history of any other
country, laws more harsh and sanguinary than the long
series of enactments which the Parliament of Scotland
had passed for the purpose of suppressing liberty and
increasing the power of the Crown. The independent
spirit of the English people had constantly been reflected
in the independent spirit of the English Parliament.
The Scottish Parliament had been, before the
Revolution, submissive to tyranny, because it did not
fairly represent the people, and because of the defects
which were engrained in its constitution. It had been
a Parliament of which the only function, except on a
few memorable occasions, was to pass, almost in silence,
the laws which had been prepared by the King’s servants.
It sat for only a few days in each session, and
free debate was almost unknown. The franchise by[Pg 139]
which the county and burgh members were elected
was always in the hands of a few persons; and latterly,
although a majority of the Scottish people were Presbyterians, no one who was not an Episcopalian could be
either an elector or a member. The savage laws, therefore,
which were passed, and which have frequently
been quoted for the purpose of proving the slavish
spirit of the Estates, were just the laws which, in an
age of violence, might be expected to proceed from a
legislature which represented only a tyrannical minority
in the country. There were, indeed, times when the
Scottish Parliament threw off the yoke. In the reign of
Charles the First it extorted from the weakness of the
King concessions which would never have been obtained
by an appeal to his clemency; and in the
reign of James the Second even the Lords of the
Articles refused to act any longer as the blind tools of
despotic power. The occasions, however, on which
the Estates resisted the royal authority had been few.
There is, nevertheless, a brighter side to the picture;
for the Scottish statute law relating to private rights was
equal, if not superior, to anything which the English
Parliament had produced at the close of the seventeenth
century. Wonder has often been expressed at the marvellously
concise language of the Scottish Acts of Parliament.
But the explanation is very simple. Each
statute was the work of one or two thoroughly trained
lawyers, who knew exactly what they wished to say, and
whose productions were not afterwards subjected to the
unskilled criticism of a large assembly.

It is curious to remember that this admirable system
of laws was the handiwork of the very men who were
foremost in the business of suppressing the liberties of
the nation. The period between the Restoration and
the Revolution, every page of whose history is stained
by crimes perpetrated under the sanction of the law,
was the Augustan age of Scottish jurisprudence; and
the rolls of the Scottish Parliament during these years
are full of statutes, dealing with almost every department
of the law, and containing provisions which conferred
real benefits on all classes of the people.

Apart, then, from those laws which were destructive of
public liberty, the Scottish Parliament had done good
work for Scotland even under the Stuarts. It was now
free; and what Fletcher resented was not the Union
with England, by which Scotland gained a great deal,
but the destruction of the Scottish Parliament, which
had become, not only the symbol of national independence,
but a real instrument of self-government.
It was evident that the wishes of the Scottish people
could never prevail at Westminster, even in matters
which concerned Scotland alone, against the prejudices
or the ignorance of Englishmen, when Scotland was
represented by only forty-five commoners[Pg 141] and sixteen
peers. But the Treaty had been ratified, and there
was nothing more to be said.

CHAPTER X

Arrest of Fletcher—His Release—The Jacobite Prisoners of 1708—Death
of Belhaven—Fletcher retires into Private Life—Conversations
with Wodrow—His Death—Views of his Character.

It is possible that Fletcher did not ride further than
Saltoun; but if he did leave Scotland as soon as the
Union was accomplished, he was back again in the spring
of the following year. At that time the country was
alarmed by the fleet which was fitted out at Dunkirk
by the French, and which sailed, with the Chevalier de
St. George on board, for the shores of Scotland. The
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; and the Privy
Council ordered the arrest of a number of suspected
persons, among whom were the Duke of Gordon, the
Marquis of Huntly, and no less than twenty other peers
of Scotland. One of these was Belhaven. Many
commoners, too, were taken up, such as Stirling of
Keir, Cameron of Lochiel, Moray of Abercairney,
Edmonstone of Newton, and other notorious Jacobites.
But, strange to say, Fletcher was also arrested; on what
grounds it is difficult to surmise, for it seems impossible
to imagine that he could have been suspected of plotting
for the return of the Stuarts.

Fletcher took his arrest very quietly. ‘All I fear,’
he wrote to Leven, ‘is that so inconsiderable a man as
I may be forgot, and no further orders given about me.’
His indifference was justified; for on the 15th of April
1708 the Privy Council issued a warrant directing
Leven to send all the prisoners up to London, ‘Andrew
Fletcher of Saltoun, Esq., only excepted.’ After this
Fletcher disappears from public life; and Belhaven
too, but in a sadder fashion. A few lines may be spared
to say farewell to Saltoun’s old companion of the
Country Party. Belhaven went almost mad with rage.
As soon as he heard that a warrant was out for his
arrest, he wrote an impetuous remonstrance to Leven,
which he read aloud at a coffee-house before sending it
off. After he was apprehended he addressed a letter to
the Queen, demanding his release, ‘without bail, parole
of honour, or any other suspicious engagement.’ Then
we find him despatching a long letter to Leven, protesting
his innocence, and begging t[Pg 142]o be set at liberty. He
is like a caged lion. He cannot rest. ‘My good
name is attacked,’ he declares; ‘I am called unfaithful
to my God, and treacherous to my Queen. I must
throw my stones about, I must cry and spare not.’ A
few days later, he writes a most pathetic letter. ‘My
wife,’ he begins, ‘who hath been my bedfellow those
thirty and four years, takes it much to heart to be
separated from me now.’ And then he asks authority
for ‘my dear old wife to be enclosed as a prisoner in
the same manner with me in everything.’ Another of
his arguments is that he has work awaiting him at home
at Biel; eight ploughs going, and a little lake to drain,
and turn into meadowland. But he was never to see
his home again. The prisoners were sent up to
London; and there the eloquent Belhaven died of
brain-fever, or, as some say, of a broken heart.[20]

Henceforth Fletcher’s life was that of a private ‘person
of quality.’ He never married. When asked the
reason why, he used to answer, ‘My brother has got
the woman that should have been my wife.’ This was
Margaret Carnegie, the eldest daughter of Sir David
Carnegie of Pittarrow. Perhaps Andrew Fletcher did
not attract her—‘the low, thin man of brown complexion,
full of fire, with a stern, sour look,’ to quote the well-known
description of the Laird of Saltoun. At all events[Pg 143]
she fell in love with Henry, the younger brother, who,
besides, had this in his favour, that Andrew was an
outlaw in Holland while he was paying his court to the
young lady. Her father was at first against the marriage;
but the young people insisted on having their own way,
and they were married on the 27th of April 1688.[21] The
couple were very poor, and Henry became tenant of
the mill at Saltoun, after the estate had been restored
to his brother. Mrs. Henry Fletcher was a woman of
great capacity, and it was she who, acting probably on
hints given by her brother-in-law, got machinery from
Holland, introduced the Dutch system of making ‘pot
barley,’ till then unknown in Scotland, imported a
winnowing machine, or fanners, and, in short, was the
founder of the Saltoun Barley Mill, which was a household
word in Scotland for many years. ‘So jealous,’
says Sir William Fraser, ‘was Lady Saltoun of the
secret of the construction of her machinery, and so
anxious was she to retain a monopoly of this particular
trade, that, whilst she occupied, during the day, a room
in the mill specially fitted up for herself, all orders for
barley were received across a door which was secure[Pg 144]ly
fastened by a chain to prevent strangers from entering.’

This clever Scottish lady of the old school also started
the manufacture of Holland cloth on a wide field near
the mill; and in a hollow near Saltoun Hall the
British Linen Company worked for many years, until
they changed their business into that of a banking
company. Perhaps a dame of so very practical a turn
would not have sympathised with the Utopian dreams
of her famous brother-in-law, and had chosen wisely.
The walls of a new mill which was erected at Saltoun
in 1710 are still as strong as when they were built;
and some fragments of the old machinery still remain.

During the latter part of his life Fletcher lived
chiefly in England or abroad. Wodrow has preserved
an account of some conversations which he had with
him. On one occasion Fletcher told him that ‘he used
to say to Sunderland, Wharton, and the leading Whigs
in England, that they were the greatest fools imaginable
in three things, and acted directly contrary to their
interest: 1st, In the settling of the Succession upon
Hanover, he remarked that the Lutherans, and still the
nearer people goes to Popery, they are still the more for
absolute government; and so much the more for a
Tory. 2nd, In promoting and violently pushing the
Union with Scotland, which now they are sensible is an
[Pg 145]addition to the power of the Court, and makes the
Prince by far more absolute than before; and 3rd, In
the affair of Sacheverell, when he (Fletcher) was in
London, and conversed with them at that time, their
pushing of his trial was the most unpopular thing they
could do, and raised the cry of the “Danger of the
Church,” and proposed nothing in the world to themselves
by such a prosecution. Things were openly
vented upon the behalf of absolute Government and
non-resistance; and the event has sadly verified all his
thoughts as to this.’[22]

On another occasion Fletcher expounded his ideas
on the subject of church patronage. He said a Presbytery
was no judge of a young man’s fitness to be
minister of a congregation, and he had a plan of his
own ready. He would appoint six Professors of
Divinity in each University, none of whom were to
teach more than ten or twelve students; for they could
not know more than that number intimately. These
Professors were not only to lecture, but to watch the
temper and character of each student, and license him
when he was really capable of being a minister. Then,
[Pg 146]when a vacancy occurred, the Presbytery was to ask the
Professor to send down a man whom they thought
suited to the parish which was vacant. If the people
did not like the man who was sent, another was to
come; and so on until the congregation was satisfied.

Wodrow asked Fletcher if he had not thought of
writing a History of the Union; but he replied that he
had kept no notes of the proceedings, and his memory
was not to be relied on. He lamented his bad
memory, and said he used to write out all his speeches,
and repeat them, over and over again, to himself, like a
schoolboy learning his lessons. He also said that he
had so little readiness in debate, that if he did not know
what subject was to be brought forward, he was obliged
to prepare several speeches, which he laboriously
learned by heart.

In 1716 Fletcher was in Paris, where he took ill.
His nephew Andrew, afterwards a judge of the Court of
Session under the title of Lord Milton, who was then
studying at Leyden, hearing that his uncle wished to
return home, hurried to Paris. They reached London,
but the old gentleman was unable to go further. Lord
Sunderland called on him, and asked if there was [Pg 147]anything
he wished done. ‘I have a nephew,’ he replied,
‘who has been studying the law. Make him a judge
when he is fit for it.’[23]

[Pg 148]On the 15th of September 1716 he died; and his
nephew brought his body to Scotland in a leaden coffin,
which was laid in the family vault under the parish
church of Saltoun, where it still remains.

A scrap of paper among the manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford bears this curious memorandum,
in the handwriting of Thomas Rawlinson, the
great antiquary and book collector: ‘Andrew Fletcher
of Saltoun, dyed in London, on Sunday, September 16th
1716, of a flux contracted by drinking ye waters of the
River Seine at Paris. He died Christianly and bravely,
only concerned for ye ruin of his country, and yt he
had been base enough to have kissed the hand of ye
insulting Tyrant.’[24]

He was succeeded, in the estate of Saltoun, by his
brother Henry, and afterwards by his nephew, Andrew
Fletcher of Milton, who, as Lord Justice-Clerk, was,
for many years, the Duke of Argyll’s right-hand man
in the management of Scottish affairs. Many of the
books collected by Fletcher are still preserved at
Saltoun Hall, where there is a tablet with this inscription,
‘This Library was builta.d. 1775, by Andrew
Fletcher of Saltoun, to contain that excellent collection
of books made by his great uncle of Illustrious Memory,
whose name he bore. Lieutenant-General Henry
Fletcher of Saltoun inscribes this marble to the
memory of his lamented brother, and desires to remind
their common successors that the Love of
Letters or of Arms has always distinguished the family
of Saltoun.’

Fletcher occupies a peculiar place in the history of
Scottish Literature. His works were produced during
a period of about six years, from 1698 to 1704, and at
that time Learning had sunk to a very low point in Scotland.
Sir George M’Kenzie stands out almost, if not
entirely, alone as a man of Letters during the closing
years of the seventeenth century; but his style is turgid,
and wholly wanting in that quality of simplicity which
is to be found in everything written by Fletcher.
[Pg 149]Burnet’s chief works, with the exception of the History
of His Own Times, which was not published until after
his death, appeared before the end of the century; but
though a Scotsman, he can hardly be placed in the
catalogue of purely Scottish writers. Pamphlets and
sermons there were in abundance, many of them composed
with great skill, and most of them invaluable
from the light which they throw on the controversies of
that time; but in point of style Fletcher is unique.
He had no models. If he had written ten or fifteen
years later, it might have been supposed that he had
imitated Addison; for, especially in the Account of
a Conversation, the style of Fletcher resembles the
style of Addison. But he had ceased to write long
before the Spectator appeared. To Burnet he doubtless
owed a sound classical education, and a knowledge
of political history. The clearness and elegance of his
style, however, were certainly not learned from Burnet,
but were evidently the result of studying, very closely,
the literature of Greece and Rome, from which he loves
to draw illustrations for the purpose of enforcing his
own theories of government, and his peculiar political
schemes.

The political schemes of Fletcher may have been
visionary, but that he honestly believed in them is
evident. The Utopias which he loved to imagine may
have been wild dreams, but there was always something
noble in the ideals which he set up. His faults
were those of a man of ardent temper. I have not
[Pg 150]attempted to conceal them, and the men of his own
day, even those who most widely disagreed with him in
his views on public questions, seem all to admire him,
with only one or two exceptions. One of these exceptions
is Swift, whose description of him is: ‘A most
arrogant, conceited pedant in politics; cannot endure
any contradiction in any of his views or paradoxes.’
But a Scotsman was to Swift like a red rag to a bull.
Oldmixon, too, who knew Fletcher, says, and certainly
with some truth, that he was ‘hot, positive, obstinate,
opinionative.’ Nor does Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik
seem to have fully appreciated Fletcher. ‘He was,’ he
says, ‘a little untoward in his temper, and much inclined
to eloquence. He made many speeches in
Parliament, which are all printed, but was not very
dexterous in making extemporary replies. He was,
however, a very honest man, and meant well in everything
he said and did, except in cases where his
humour, passion, or prejudice were suffered to get the
better of his reason.’ On another occasion he speaks
of him as a ‘worthy man’; but that excellent placeman,
Sir John Clerk, patting Fletcher of Saltoun on
the back, is the tame pigeon patronising the eagle.

But, as against the hostile opinions of Swift and
Oldmixon, and the lukewarm verdict of Sir John Clerk,
it would[Pg 151] be easy to fill page after page of unstinted
praise from the writings of men who either knew
him, or had good opportunities for observing his conduct.
Of these I shall quote only two. In Mackay’s
well-known Characters of the Nobility of Scotland,
which are said to have been compiled for the private
use of the Princess Sophia, we have what may be
called the official opinion of Fletcher. ‘He is,’ says
Mackay, ‘a gentleman steady in his principles, of nice
honour, with abundance of learning; brave as the
sword he wears, and bold as a lion. A sure friend,
but an irreconcilable enemy; would readily lose his
life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing
to save it.’

The Tory Lockhart, also, in a passage which is too
long for full quotation, draws the character of Fletcher.
He tells us how the Laird of Saltoun was master of the
Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages, and well
versed in history and the civil law; a nice observer
of all points of honour; free from all manner of vice;
impatient under opposition, but affable in private conversation.
‘To sum up all,’ says Lockhart, ‘he was
a learned, gallant, honest, and every other way well
accomplished gentleman; and if ever a man proposes
to serve and merit well of his country, let him place
his courage, zeal, and constancy before him, and
think himself sufficiently applauded and rewarded by
obtaining the character of being like Andrew Fletcher[Pg 152]
of Saltoun.’

INDEX

• Account of a Conversation, 86-95, 150.
• Act of Security, introduced in 1703,
  71,
  72;
• debates on, 72-76;
• passed, 77;
• its chief provisions, 77, 78;
• royal assent refused to, 78;
• circulated in London, 84;
• in 1704, proposal to tack it to a Money Bill, 97, 98;
• royal assent given to, 99;
• English opinion on, 102.
• Addison, Joseph, 150.
• Alien Act, passed, 107;
• effects on Scotland, 110;
• resolution against, in Scottish Parliament, 127;
• hostile clauses of, repealed, 129.
• Amsterdam, Fletcher joins Monmouth at, 23;
• Monmouth sails from, 26.
• Annandale, Earl of, 40, 62, 108.
• Argyll, Archibald, Earl of, writes to Fletcher, 20;
• with Monmouth at Amsterdam, 24;
• invades Scotland, 26;
• his execution, 109.
• —- John, second Duke of, at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in May 1703, 63;
• appointed High Commissioner, 108;
• arranges for the dismissal of the New Party, 111;
• breaks with Annandale, 112, 113;
• threatens to resign, 113;
• forms a Ministry, 114;
• holds a Council, 116;
• supports the Act for a Treaty of Union, 116 et seq.;
• his refusal to act with the Jacobites in 1703, 67.
• Ayloffe, 24, 26.
• Baillie of Jerviswoode, 20, 21.
• —- —- (his son), 106, 114, 122.
• Ballads, Fletcher’s saying as to, 95.
• Belgium, Fletcher in, 21.
• Belhaven, Lord, 95, 123, 135, 136, 143, 144.
• Bilboa, 26.
• Blenheim, battle of, 101.
• Bridport, 28, 31.
• Bristol, 37.
• British Linen Company, 145.
• Brougham, Lord, 136.
• Bruce, Sir Henry, of Clackmannan, 9.
• —- Captain, 33, 35.
• Brussels, Argyll at, 20;
• Andrew Fletcher at, 23.
• Boyer, 119.
• Boyle, Lord, 79.
• Buchan, David, Earl of, 12, 13, 20, 38, 40.
• Burke, Edmund, 136.
• Burnet, Bishop, 9, 10, 11, 12, 21, 39, 105, 150.
• Buyse, Anthony, 24, 29, 33, 35, 36.
• Calderwood, Mrs., of Polton, her anecdote of Fletcher, 21, 22.
• Cameron of Lochiel, 142.
• Carnegie, Margaret, 144 et seq.
• —- Sir David, of Pittarrow, 144.
• Chamberlen, Hugh, 110, 121 et seq.
• Characters of the Nobility of Scotland, Mackay’s, 152.
• Chevalier de St. George, 142.
• Clerk, Sir John, of Pennycuik, 35.
• —- —- —- son of the foregoing, 95, 151, 152.
• Club, The, 40, 41.
• Cockburn, Adam, of Ormiston, 13, 40, 60, 114.
• —- John, younger of Ormiston, 66, 67.
• Coltness Collection, story of Fletcher in, 21, 22.
• Company of Scotland, Trading, 47, 48.
• Cromartie, Earl of, 86 et seq.
• Cunningham, Alexander (the Historian), 137.
• Dalmahoy, Sir John, 34.
• Dalrymple, Sir James (Viscount Stair), 17, 18, 23, 33.
• —- Sir John (First Earl of Stair), 47.
• —- —- (the Historian), 17, 24, 47.
• Dare of Taunton, at Amsterdam with Monmouth, 24;
• lands in England, 26;
• killed by Fletcher, 29.
• —- (the younger), 30.
• Darien, 48, 49, 54.
• Defoe, Daniel, 28.
• Discorso di Spagna, 49, 59, 60.
• Discourses on the Affairs of Scotland, 49, 53 et seq.
• Douglas, James, second Marquis of, 34.
• —- Archibald, Marquis of, 63.
• Doyle, Mr. Conan, 24.
• Dumbarton, George, Earl of, 36.
• Dundas of Arniston, 95.
• Dunkirk, expedition from in 1708, 142.
• Edinburgh University, 12.
• —- Review, article in, 117.
• Edmonstone of Newton, 142.
• Errol, Lord, 61, 64.
• Erskine, Sir James, 98.
• Essex, his connection with the Whig Plot, 20.
• Eugene, Prince of Savoy, 13.
• Ferguson the Plotter, 24, 26, 27, 39.
• Fletcher, Andrew, birth and early days of, 9;
• educated by Burnet, 10 et seq., 150;
• goes on the Grand Tour, 12;
• is in Parliament as member for Haddingtonshire, 13;
• opposes Lauderdale, 14, and accused before the Privy Council of obstructing the King’s service, 15, 16, 18;
• his return for Haddingtonshire contested in 1681, 16;
• opposes the Duke of York, 17;
• goes abroad, 19;
• his connection with the Whig Plot, 20 et seq., 23, 34;
• anecdote of him told by Mrs. Calderwood, 22;
• is outlawed, 23;
• joins Monmouth at Amsterdam and sails to England, 23-27;
• shoots Dare, 29;
• Lord Buchan’s erroneous account of his reasons for leaving England, 31 et seq.;
• is tried for high treason and attainted, 33 et seq.;
• the estate of Saltoun given to the Earl of Dumbarton, 36;
• adventures in Spain, 37;
• serves in Hungary, 38;
• returns to Scotland at the Revolution, 39;
• joins the Club, 40;
• complains of the delay in restoring Saltoun, 45;
• writes to Hamilton, 46;
• his connection with Darien, 47, 48;
• his political writings, 49 et seq.;
• plans for a national militia, 49-53;
• his account of the poverty of Scotland, 55;
• his opinions on slavery, 56, 57;
• on high rents, 58, 59;
• on the Partition Treaty, 60;
• returned to Parliament in 1703, 60;
• speech on the Supplies, 68;
• proposes Limitations on the Crown, 69 et seq., 80, 81;
• attacks the English Ministers, 72;
• supports the Act of Security, 71-77;
• denies the power of the Sovereign to refuse the royal assent, 79;
• publishes his speeches, 84;
• An Account of a Conversation, 86-94;
• his saying about ballads, 95;
• about an hereditary professor, 95;
• speeches in the session of 1704, 97 et seq.;
• attacks Johnston, 98;
• Sir James Halket, 98;
• Hamilton, 100;
• duel with Roxburghe, 121, 122;
• proposes the Limitations again, 123;
• moves an address against the Alien Act, 126;
• attacks Hamilton, 128;
• his conduct during the sessions of 1706-1707, 133-138;
• story of his leaving Scotland, 138;
• arrested in 1708, 142;
• reasons for not marrying, 144;
• conversations with Wodrow, 146-148;
• his death, 148;
• his place in Scottish literature, 149;
• contemporary opinions of his character, 151, 152.
• Fletcher, Andrew (Lord Milton), 148, 149.
• —- —- (grand-nephew of the patriot), 149.
• —- Henry (brother of the patriot), 14, 33, 144, 145, 149.
• —- —- (Lieutenant-General), 149.
• —- Sir Robert, 9, 10.
• —- Lady (Catherine Bruce), 9, 10, 11.
• Fletcher, Mrs. Henry (Margaret Carnegie), 144, 145.
• Ford Abbey, 28.
• Forfar, Earl of, 63.
• Fountainhall, Lord, 14, 19, 23.
• Glasgow, Earl of, 114.
• —- Burnet, Professor, at, 12.
• Gloucester, Duke of, 11.
• Godolphin, writes to Athole as to the Act of Security, 76;
• attacked for advising the Queen to give the royal assent, 101, 102;
• his views about Scotland, 102;
• explains the position to the House of Lords, 105;
• letters to him from Glasgow, Seafield, and Annandale, 111, 112.
• —- Correspondence, in the British Museum, 117, note.
• Gordon, Duke of, 142.
• Grand Resolve, The, 69.
• —- Marquis de, 20.
• Grant, The Laird of, 18.
• Grey, Lord, of Wark, 24, 26, 27.
• Haarlem, Fletcher at, 21.
• Hague, Fletcher at, 39.
• Halifax, Lord, 21, 106, 132.
• Halket, Sir James, 98.
• Hamilton, James, fourth Duke of, leads the Country Party, 65, 66;
• supports Fletcher against the Government, 72;
• protests against the adjournment of the House, 74;
• conduct in the session of 1704, 97 et seq.;
• quarrel with Fletcher, 100;
• moves that the Queen should appoint the Commissioners on Union, 128.
• —- William, Duke of, 14, 45, 46.
• Hampden, in the Whig Plot, 20.
• Hanover, Elector of, 132.
• Haversham, Lord, his speech in Scotland, 104.
• Helderenberg, the frigate, 26, 27, 30, 31, 37.
• Hepburn of Humbie, 16.
• ‘Hereditary Professor,’ 95.
• Highlanders, Fletchers opinion of, 54, 57.
• Historical Account of the Rights and Powers of the Parliament of Scotland, 85.
• Holland, Shaftesbury escapes to, 20;
• Fletcher visits, 21.
• Howard in the Whig Plot, 20.
• Hume, Sir David, 98, 133, 134.
• —- Sir Patrick (Earl of Marchmont), 40.
• Hungary, 38.
• Huntly, Marquis of, 142.
• James ii., Letter to the Scottish Estates in 1686, 39;
• grants a general pardon in 1688, 39.
• Johnston, James, of Warriston, 46, 47, 95, 108.
• Kerr, Lord Charles, 122.
• Kerridge, John, 37.
• Lauderdale, 13, 14, 34, 36, 43.
• Law, John, of Lauriston, 110, 121 et seq.
• Lely, Sir Peter, 11.
• Leyden, Andrew Fletcher at, 21;
• his nephew at, 148.
• Limitations, the, 69, 70, 71, 79, 80, 81, 123.
• Lockhart, George, of Carnwath, 82, 115, 152.
• —- Sir William, 40.
• Lorraine, Duke of, 38.
• Loudoun, Lord, 23.
• Louis xiv., 60.
• Lyme, Monmouth at, 27 et seq.
• Mackay, John, 18, 40, 152.
• Mackenzie, Sir George, 33, 149.
• Madrid, Fletcher at, 37.
• Mar, Charles, Earl of, 34.
• —- John, Earl of, 63.
• Marchmont, Earl of, 114.
• Marischal, Earl (tenth), 33, 37, 38.
• —- William, (ninth) Earl, 64.
• Matthews, Captain, 24, 25.
• Melville, Lord, 23, 40, 46.
• Micah Clarke, 24.
• Militias, Discourse on, 49 et seq.
• Monmouth, Duke of, in the Whig Plot, 20;
• writes to Fletcher from Amsterdam, 23;
• his confidence in Fletcher, 24;
• his invasion of England, 25-32;
• tried at Edinburgh after his death, 33.
• Montgomery, Sir James, 40.
• Montrose, fourth Marquis of, 66, 114.
• Moray of Abercairney, 142.
• Murray, Earl of, Commissioner in 1686, 39.
• —- of Blackbarrony, 15.
• Musgrave, Sir Christopher, 86 et seq.
• New Party, The, formed, 95;
• dismissed from office, 111 et seq.
• Nottingham, Earl of, 101, 106.
• Ochtertyre ms., 136, 148.
• Oldmixon, his opinion of Fletcher, 151, 152.
• Ormiston, Andrew Cockburn of, 13, 16.
• Paris, Fletcher at, in October 1683, 21.
• Paris, Fletcher at, in 1716, 148.
• Partition Treaty, 60.
• Paterson, Bishop, 16.
• —- William, 47.
• Pitcairn, Dr., 95.
• Polton, Mrs. Calderwood of, 21.
• Preston, Viscount, 21.
• Prideaux, Edmund, 28.
• Queensberry, Duke of, 61, 67, 72, 78, 79 et seq.;
• adjourns the Parliament, 84, 95 et seq., 114.
• Ramsay, General, 62.
• Rawlinson, Thomas, MS. at Oxford, 148.
• Rochester, Earl of, 106.
• Ross, Lord, 40.
• Rothes, Earl of, 66, 72, 73, 95, 114.
• Roxburghe, Duke of, 75, 95, 106, 114, 122.
• —- Earl of, 66.
• Rumbold, 24, 26.
• Russell, his connection with the Whig Plot, 20.
• Rye-House Plot, 21, 24, 34.
• Ryswick, Peace of, 49.
• Sacheverell, 146.
• Saltoun, Living of, presented to Burnet, 9;
• library at, 10, 11;
• Burnet leaves, 12;
• estate of, forfeited, 36;
• restored after the Revolution, 46;
• Lord Milton succeeds to, 149;
• Saltoun Hall, portrait of Lady Fletcher at, 11;
• memorial tablet at, 149;
• Barley Mill, 145.
• Scots Plot, 95, 117.
• Seafield, Earl of, Lord Chancellor, 62;
• adjourns the House suddenly, 74, 108, 114.
• Security, Act of. See Act.
• Sedgemoor, battle of, 33.
• Seymour, Sir Edward, 88 et seq.
• Shaftesbury, 20.
• Sidney, Algernon, his connection with the Whig Plot, 20.
• Sinclair of Stevenston, 15, 40.
• Slavery, Fletcher on, 56, 57, 58.
• Somers, opinion of the situation in 1704, 103, 106.
• —- proposes legislation, 107.
• —- State Tracts, 117.
• Somerville of Drum, 35.
• Spectator, The, 95, 150.
• Speech without-doors concerning Toleration, 85.
• Speech on the State of the Nation, 49, 60.
• Spittal of Leuchat, 136.
• Squadrone Volante, The, 114, 118, 137.
• Stair family, The, 113.
• Stair, first Earl of, 123, 124, 134.
• State of the Controversy betwixt United and Separate Parliaments, 132.
• Stewart, Sir James, Lord Advocate, 47, 75, 115.
• Stirling of Keir, 142.
• Sunderland, 146.
• Suttie, Sir George, of Balgonie, 66.
• Swift, Dean, his opinion of Fletcher, 151, 152.
• Tarbat (first Earl of Cromartie), 62.
• Tatler, The, 95.
• Taunton, 27, 28, 32.
• Texel, The, 26, 27.
• Titus Oates, 39.
• Tolemache, William, 14.
• Torphichen, Lord, 35.
• Tullibardine (afterwards Duke of Athole), 62.
• —- (Duke of Athole), 76.
• Tweeddale, Marquis of, 47, 66, 67, 95 et seq., 108 et seq., 114 et seq.
• Union, Act for a Treaty brought into the Scottish Parliament, 119;
• passed, 128.
• —- Commission on, at Westminster, 129 et seq.;
• Treaty of, signed, 131;
• approved by Scottish Parliament, 137.
• Vulpone, 117.
• Wade, 24, 26.
• Wedderburn of Gosford, 16.
• Westminster, Treaty of Union signed at, 131.
• Whig Plot, 21, 23, 34.
• Whitehall, 86.
• William iii. lands in England, 39;
• Fletcher’s distrust of, 60;
• refusal of royal assent to Acts of Scottish Parliament, 78.
• Williams, William, servant to Monmouth, 23, 35.
• Wodrow, his conversations with Fletcher, 146, 147.
• Yester, Lord, 16.
• York, Duke of (James ii.), 16, 17, 18, 20.