BOOK IX. 1689. Settlement of the crown, ration of rights. "has become vacant." According to the legal import of the vote, the whole issue of James was excluded from the crown, but the forfeiture, as explained by a subsequent resolution, was limited to the persons and to the future children of the late king, and his pretended son 5o. When the throne was declared vacant, the convention resolved that the crown should be tendered to William and Mary, as joint sove reigns; and that it should descend, on the failure of their issue, to the princess Anne and her heirs. and decla- But the fifteen articles of misconduct in James, were first digested into an instrument of government, and a declaration and claim of rights. More comprehensive still than the English declaration, it extended to almost every abuse of the two preceding reigns. It asserted that no papist, according to the laws of the kingdom, could ascend the throne; that all proclamations assuming an absolute power to suspend or dispense with the laws, were illegal; that the measures employed to establish popery, that the imposing of bonds or oaths, and exacting money without authority of parliament, were contrary to law; that it was illegal to invest the officers of the army with judicial powers; to inflict death without trial, jury, or record; to exact exorbitant fines or bail; to imprison without expressing the reason, or to delay the trial; to prosecute and procure the for 50 Minutes of Convention, MS. IX. 1689. feiture of persons upon stretches of old and obso- BOOK lete laws, upon frivolous pretexts or defective proofs, especially the late earl of Argyle to the reproach of justice; to nominate the magistrates and common council of boroughs; to dictate the proceedings of courts of justice; to employ torture without evidence in ordinary crimes, or to oblige the subjects to accuse or to swear against themselves; to garrison private houses, and to introduce an hostile army into the country, to live at free quarters in profound peace. The two memorable opinions of the fifteen judges were declared illegal; that it was treason to conceal the demand of money for traitors; and that persons refusing to discover their private sentiments respecting the treasonable doctrines or actions of others, were guilty of treason. Prelacy and precedence in ecclesiastical office, as repugnant, ever since the reformation, to the genius of a nation reformed by presbyters, were declared an insupportable grievance which ought to be abolished. The rights of appeal to parliament, and of petition to the throne, were unconditionally asserted; fre quent parliaments were demanded, and these articles the estates asserted and challenged as their undoubted rights, against which no declaration nor precedent should operate to the prejudice of the people; but whatsoever forfeitures or punishments were otherwise inflicted, should be revised and redressed. A separate list of grievances was IX. 1689. BOOK framed, in order to be redressed in parliament; the most remarkable of which were the committee of articles, the act of supremacy, the manner and measure of the popular representation; and in the removal of every injury which the constitution had sustained, the Scots were apparently desirous that nothing should be left unadjusted between the people and the king. New sove The new sovereigns were crowned in London, reigns proclaimed. and proclaimed in Scotland on the same day. April 11. Argyle, Montgomery, and sir John Dalrymple, were deputed from the three temporal estates to present the crown, and to administer the oath to the king and queen. The instrument of government and the grievances were first read; to which an address, to turn the convention into a parliaMay 11. ment, was subjoined. When the coronation oath Exclusion of the was administered to William, he paused at the obligation to root out heretics, and declared that he did not mean to become a persecutor; and, on the assurance of the commissioners that such was not its import, protested that in that sense only he received the oath 51. The insidious toleration attempted by James had excited universal disgust; but the unaffected scruples of William were honoured and approved. Thus the hereditary reign of the Stuarts, in the Stuarts male line, was concluded eighty-six years after. necessary. their departure from Scotland. Their accession, 51 Life of William. Hist. Rev. in Scotland. IX. 1689. to the English crown was the era of their gran- BOOK deur; an event that contributed neither to their felicity, nor perhaps to the improvement of their native, hereditary kingdom. The contracted abilities of James VI. were better adapted to the government of a small state, than of divided kingdoms; but the prospect of his elevation to the throne of England, inspired a weak mind with ideas of absolute power unknown to his ancestors, to which we must primarily attribute the execution of his son, the expulsion of his grandson, and the exclusion of his male posterity for ever from the crown. Had his reign been confined to Scot land, the presence of the sovereign, and the natural progress of society, were sufficient perhaps to have introduced subordination and the arts of peace; nor with a limited authority would he have ventured, so fatally for his posterity, to invade the established religion and liberties of the nation. If the Stuarts had continued to reign in Scotland alone, the attachment of the nation to an ancient family, without a rival in dignity, and without a competitor for power, might have still preserved their descendants on the throne. But the loyalty of the nation was diminished by their absence. The immense influence acquired at the accession, was employed to crush the independence of the estates; and although they recovered. and enlarged their authority during the civil wars, a jealous and cruel tyranny was introduced VOL. IV. P BOOK IX. 1689. at the restoration; aggravated by all the vexatious insolence of delegated power. To England the revolution was a glorious event, useful rather than absolutely necessary; for if the late king had remained, its religion and liberties, under a regency, might have been secured by proper limitations on the throne. The loyalty of the English was gratified, while the adherents of James were insensibly mollified, by the accession of his daughters; and the nation was gradually reconciled and prepared to adopt a more complete change in the line of succession. To this circumstance must be ascribed the apparent defects in its declaration of rights, which neither asserts the choice that was actually made of a new race, nor secures the frequency and independence of parliament against the influence of the crown. But the revolution was absolutely necessary to restore tranquillity to Scotland, and to revive the confidence of the people in government; without which the king unavoidably degenerates into a tyrant, and hist subjects vibrate alternately between rebels and slaves. So various and so enormous was the tyranny which I have attempted, imperfectly, to delineate, that the people never could have dismissed their suspicion and resentment, nor the government the terrors which it felt, and sought to inspire; the uniform principle of despotism, for which we may truly affirm that there was no cure but the expulsion of the Stuarts. |