letter to the lord Balmerinoch, in which he owned that he drew the petition without any direction or assistance from him: and upon that he went over to Holland. The court was created by a special commission: in the naming of judges there appeared too visibly a design to have that lord's life, for they were either very weak or very poor. Much pains was taken to have a jury; in which so great partiality appeared, that when the lord Balmerinoch was upon his challenges, and excepted to the earl of Dunfrise for his having said, that if he were of his jury, though he were as innocent as St. Paul, he would find him guilty, some of the judges said, that was only a rash word: yet the king's advocate allowed the challenge if proved, which was done. The next called on was the earl of Lauderdale, father to the duke of that title: with him the lord Balmerinoch had been long in enmity: yet instead of challenging him, he said he was omni exceptione major. It was long considered upon what the prisoner should be tried: for his hand interlining the paper, which did plainly soften it, was not thought evidence that he drew it, or that he was accessary to it and they had no other proof against him: nor could they from that infer that he was the divulger, since it did appear it was only shewed by him to a lawyer for counsel. So it was settled on to insist on this, that the paper tended to alienate the subjects from their duty to the king, and that he, knowing who was the author of it, did not discover him; which by law was capital. The court judged the paper to be seditious, and to be a lie of the king and his government: the other point was clear, that he knowing the author did not discover him. He pleaded for

himself, that the statute for discovery had never been put in execution; that it could never be meant but of matters that were notoriously seditious; that till the court judged so, he did not take this paper to be of that nature, but considered it as a paper full of duty, designed to set himself and some others right in the king's opinion; that upon the first sight of it, though he approved of the main, yet he disliked some expressions in it; that he communicated the matter to the earl of Rothes, who told the king of the design; and that, upon the king's saying he would receive no such petition, it was quite laid 25 aside; this was attested by the earl of Rothes. A long debate had been much insisted on, whether the earl of Traquair or the king's ministers might be of the jury or not: but the court gave it in their favour. When the jury was shut up, Gordon of Bucky, who was one of them, being then very ancient, who forty-three years before had assisted in the murder of the earl of Murray, and was thought upon this occasion a sure man, spoke first of all, excusing his presumption in being the first that broke the silence. He desired, they would all consider what they were about: it was a matter of blood, and they would feel the weight of that as long as they lived: he had in his youth been drawn in to shed blood, for which he had the king's pardon, but it cost him more to obtain God's pardon: it had given him many sorrowful hours both day and night: and as he spoke this, the tears ran over his face. This struck a damp on them all. But the earl of Traquair took up the argument; and said, they had it not before them, whether the law was a hard law or not, nor had they the nature of the paper before

He was

condemned.

them, which was judged by the court to be leasingmaking; they were only to consider, whether the prisoner had discovered the contriver of the paper or not. Upon this the earl of Lauderdale took up the argument against him, and urged, that severe laws never executed were looked on as made only to terrify people; that though after the court's having judged the paper to be seditious, it would be capital to conceal the author, yet before such judgment the thing could not be thought so evident that he was bound to reveal it. Upon these heads those lords argued the matter many hours: but when it went to the vote, seven acquitted, but eight cast him: so sentence was given. Upon this many meetings were held and it was resolved either to force the prison to set him at liberty, or, if that failed, to revenge his death both on the court and on the eight jurors; some undertaking to kill them, and others to burn their houses. When the earl of Traquair understood this, he went to court, and told the king that the lord Balmerinoch's life was in his hands, but the execution was in no sort adviseable: so he procured his pardon, for which the party was often reproached with his ingratitude: but he thought he had been much wronged in the prosecution, and so little regarded in the pardon, that he never looked on himself as under any obligation on that account. My father knew the whole steps of this matter, having been the earl of Lauderdale's most particular friend: he often told me, that the ruin of the king's affairs in Scotland was in a great measure owing to that prosecution; and he carefully preserved the petition 26 itself, and the papers relating to the trial; of which

But pardoned.

I never saw any copy besides those which I have.

And that raised in me a desire of seeing the whole record, which was copied for me, and is now in my hands. It is a little volume, and contains, according to the Scotch method, the whole abstract of all the pleadings, and all the evidence that was given; and is indeed a very noble piece, full of curious matterb. When the design of recovering the tithes went a liturgy prepared. on, though but slowly, another design made a greater progress. The bishops of Scotland fell on the framing of a liturgy and a body of canons for the worship and government of that church. These were never examined in any public assembly of the clergy: all was managed by three or four aspiring bishops, Maxwell, Sidserfe, Whitford, and Banautine, the bishops of Ross, Galloway, Dunblane, and Aberdeen. Maxwell did also accuse the earl of Traquair, as cold in the king's service, and as managing the treasury deceitfully; and he was aspiring to that office. Spotswood, archbishop of St. Andrew's, then lord chancellor, was a prudent and mild man, but of no great decency in his course of life. [For he was a frequent player at cards, and used to eat often in taverns: besides that all his livings were scandalously exposed to sale by his servants.] The earl of Traquair, seeing himself so pushed at, was more earnest than the bishops themselves in promoting the new model of worship and discipline; and by that he recovered the ground he had lost with the king, and with archbishop Laud: he also assisted the bishops in obtaining commissions, subaltern to the high commission court, in their several dioceses, which were thought little different from the courts of inquisition. Sidserfe set this up in Galloway: ▾ Puppy. S.

V

The feeble

ness of the

government.

and a complaint being made in council of his proceedings, he gave the earl of Argile the lie in full council. He was after all a very learned and good man, but strangely heated in those matters. And they all were so lifted up with the king's zeal, and so encouraged by archbishop Laud, that they lost all temper; of which I knew Sidserfe made great acknowledgments in his old age.

But the unaccountable part of the king's proceedings was, that all this while, when he was endeavouring to recover so great a part of the property of Scotland as the church lands and tithes were from men that were not like to part with them willingly, and was going to change the whole constitution of that church and kingdom, he raised no force to maintain what he was about to do, but trusted the whole management to the civil execution. By this all people saw the weakness of the government, at the same time that they complained of its rigour. All that came down from court complained of the king's inexorable stiffness, and of the progress popery 27 was making, of the queen's power with the king, of the favour shewed the pope's nuncios, and of the many proselytes who were daily falling off to the church of Rome. The earl of Traquair infused this more effectually, though more covertly, than any other man could do: and when the country formed the first opposition they made to the king's proclamations, and protested against them, he drew the first protestation, as Primrose assured me; though he designed no more than to put a stop to the credit the bishops had, and to the fury of their proceedings: but the matter went much further than he seemed to intend: for he himself was fatally caught