Ch. 27: William and Mary

While Claverhouse hovered in the north the Convention (declared to be a Parliament by William on June 5) took on, for the first time in Scotland since the reign of Charles I, the aspect of an English Parliament, and demanded English constitutional freedom of debate. The Secretary in Scotland was William, Earl of Melville; that hereditary waverer, the Duke of Hamilton, was Royal Commissioner; but some official supporters of William, especially Sir James and Sir John Dalrymple, were criticised and thwarted by "the club" of more extreme Liberals. They were led by the Lowland ally who had vexed Argyll, Hume of Polwarth; and by Montgomery of Skelmorley, who, disappointed in his desire of place, soon engaged in a Jacobite plot.

The club wished to hasten the grant of Parliamentary liberties which William was anxious not to give; and to take vengeance on officials such as Sir James Dalrymple, and his son, Sir John, now Lord Advocate, as he had been under James II. To these two men, foes of Claverhouse, William clung while he could. The council obtained, but did not need to use, permission to torture Jacobite prisoners, "Cavaliers" as at this time they were styled; but Chieseley of Dalry, who murdered Sir George Lockhart, President of the College of Justice, was tortured.

The advanced Liberal Acts which were passed did not receive the touch of the sceptre from Hamilton, William's Commissioner: thus they were "vetoed," and of no effect. The old packed committee, "The Lords of the Articles," was denounced as a grievance; the king was to be permitted to appoint no officers of State without Parliament's approbation. Hamilton offered compromises, for William clung to "the Articles"; but he abandoned them in the following year, and thenceforth till the Union (1707) the Scottish was "a Free Parliament." Various measures of legislation for the Kirk---some to emancipate it as in its palmy days, some to keep it from meddling in politics--were proposed; some measures to abolish, some to retain lay patronage of livings, were mooted. The advanced party for a while put a stop to the appointment of judges, but in August came news of the Viscount Dundee in the north which terrified parliamentary politicians.

Edinburgh Castle had been tamely yielded by the Duke of Gordon; Balcarres, the associate of Dundee, had been imprisoned; but Dundee himself, after being declared a rebel, in April raised the standard of King James. As against him the Whigs relied on Mackay, a brave officer who had been in Dutch service, and now commanded regiments of the Scots Brigade of Holland. Mackay pursued Dundee, as Baillie had pursued Montrose, through the north: at Inverness, Dundee picked up some Macdonalds under Keppoch, but Keppoch was not satisfactory, being something of a freebooter. The Viscount now rode to the centre of his hopes, to the Macdonalds of Glengarry, the Camerons of Lochiel, and