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the Government there. The policy to be pursued was modelled on the order taken with a group of the most powerful chiefs subjected to certain conditions, of which that which stood at the head as fundamental, was that they were to bind themselves mutually, as sureties for each other." For the observance of the other conditions, chief among them was that they should appear before the Council annually on the 10th of July, and oftener if required, and on being legally summoned. By another they became bound to "exhibit annually a certain number of their principal kinsmen, out of a larger number contained in a list given by them to the Council." The number of "Gentlemen" to be maintained in the household of each was limited. There were conditions against serving and going armed. It was conditioned that each chief should have a fixed residence-viz., Macleod at Dunvegan, Maclean of Dowart at that place, Clanranald at Elanterim, Maclean of Coll at Bistache, Lochbuy at Moy, and Mackinnon at Kilmorie. Such of them as had not convenient dwelling-houses corresponding to their rank at these places, were to build without delay "civil and comelie" houses, or repair those that were decayed. They were likewise to make "policie and planting" about their houses; and to take mains, or home-farms, into their own hands, which they were to cultivate, "to the effect they might be thereby exercised and eschew idleness." They were required to adjust fixed rents with their tenants or followers in place of the traditional Celtic exactions. Another condition looks as if the spirit of the old searover still lingered. It was that no single chief should keep more than one birling, or galley, of sixteen or eighteen oars; and that, in their voyages through the Isles, they should not oppress the country people.

The ninth condition is one of much interest. It required that they should send all their children above nine years of age to school in the Lowlands, to be instructed in reading, writing, and speaking the English language; and that none of their children should be served heir to their fathers, or received as a tenant by the king, who had not received that education. This provision regarding

education was confirmed by the Act of Privy Council, which bore, that "the chief and principal cause whilk has procured and procures the continuance of barbarity, impiety, and incivility within the Isles of this kingdom, has proceeded from the small care that the chiftanes and principal clanned-men of the Isles has had of the education and upbringing of their children in virtue and learning; who, being careless of their duties in that point, and keeping their children still at home with them, where they see nothing in their tender years but the barbarous and uncivil forms of the country, they are thereby made to apprehend that there is no other forms of duty and civility keeped in any other part of the country; so that, when they come to the years of maturity, hardly can they be reclaimed from these barbarous, rude, and uncivil forms, whilk, for lack of instruction, were bred and settled in them in their youth: whereas, if they had been sent to the inland (the low country) in their youth, and trained up in virtue, learning, and the English tongue, they would have been the better prepared to reform their countries, and to reduce the same to godliness, obedience, and civility.'

" 1

1 Gregory's Highlands and Islands, 392-395. The "lastly' "of these conditions embodies the limitations on the consumption of wine already cited.

4I

CHAPTER LXVI.

JAMES VI.

EXPECTATION OF A VISIT BY KING JAMES TO HIS "ANCIENT KINGDOM”– PREPARATIONS FOR IT-SCANDAL AND ALARM CREATED BY DECORATIONS OF THE ROYAL CHAPEL, AND OTHER INCIDENTS-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND IN SUCH MATTERS-HE COMES -THE PAGEANTRIES AND SPEECHES-RESTORATION OF DEANS AND CHAPTERS-OTHER ECCLESIASTICAL SOURCES OF ALARM-THE FIVE ARTICLES OF PERTH-A BATTLE WITH THE PRESBYTERIANS TO COMPEL THEM TO CONFORM-KING JAMES SHOWS SENSE, AND STOPS -HIS OPINION OF LAUD-AN AFFAIR VARYING THE ECCLESIASTICAL DISCUSSIONS-SCOTS ENTERPRISE-DREAMS OF COLONISATIONNOVA SCOTIA, OR NEW SCOTLAND-THE PROJECTORS AND THE BARONETS—THE ULSTER PLANTATION-CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF JAMES VI.

THE king had promised that when State affairs permitted him to leave England he would pay a visit to his "ancient kingdom." That event was now at hand, and many preparations for it were in progress, some of them not entirely propitious. The project for establishing a choir of singers in the Chapel of Holyrood has already been noticed. The Bishop of Galloway, who was actively engaged in it, and suffered in his worldly goods for his activity, writes to the king, saying: "I have intended action against all such as presently possess the rents of the chapel, and shall do what in me lies to recover them (not for any benefit to me, being heartily content to quit all the rent thereof), that your highness's chapel may be provided of musicians, and the churches belonging thereto of

pastors."1 Whoever has studied the contest of the new hierarchy for subsistence out of the old domains of their sees, will easily realise what a group of sordid enemies this effort to recover the revenues of the chapel would raise.

The king indulged himself in a pleasant fancy for having his chapel decorated for his reception with pictures and wooden sculpture. The zealous Presbyterians, who in Edinburgh were growing in numbers and zeal, heard a rumour of this scheme, and it filled them with horrible suspicions. Their activity, earnestness, and bitterness communicated a sensation of alarm to James's own particular friends in the hierarchy, and they ventured to remonstrate against his project. The end was, that the dreaded cargo of pictures and graven images did not arrive from London. In a letter thoroughly his own, the king set forth at great length that this result must not be attributed to any homage to the superior wisdom of his advisers, or any failure of resolution to give effect to his royal determination, but was the effect of mere accidental interruption to the completion of his decorations :

"When we received and perused your letter of the 25th of February last, concerning the graven work of wood intended for decoring of our seat in our chapel at Holyrood House, we were at first afraid that some of the directors or workmen had been Papists, and so without our knowledge had intended there to erect such idolatrous images and painted pictures as those of that profession had been in use to adore; but when we had better considered, and exactly tried what was done, we find but a false alarm, and that causeless fears have made you start at your own shadows. Yet seeing a change is commanded upon that work, upon notice given to us by our master of works here of the difficulty and longsomeness thereof, lest our silence, and not answering of your letter, might be interpreted for a kind of consent or approbation of what ye wrote thereanent-and to the effect that the command of that alteration shall not be thought to have proceeded

1 Original Letters (Bannatyne Club), 466.

from any such conceit in us as ye are possessed with—we have thought good hereby to certify you that we was not induced thereto by any such ground or consideration, but merely because of the misdoubt conceived that the work would have been so well or so soon done in that kind as in the form now directed. And therefore do not deceive yourselves with a vain imagination of anything done therein for ease of your hearts or ratifying your error in your judgment of that graven work, which is not of an idolatrous kind like to images and painted pictures adored and worshipped by Papists, but merely intended for ornament and decoration of the place where we shall sit, and might have been wrought as well with figures of lions, dragons, and devils, as with those of patriarchs and apostles. But as we must wonder at your ignorance, and teach you thus to distinguish the one and the other, so are we persuaded that none of you would have been scandalised or offended if the said figures of lions, dragons, and devils had been carved and put up in lieu of those of the patriarchs and apostles."1

The king entered Scotland on the 13th of May 1616, and remained there till the 5th of August 1617. This period was chiefly occupied in royal receptions and pageants of such meagre kind as Scotland could afford. Comparing what we know of these with the portly records of the great English progresses, one would say that the ancient kingdom endeavoured to make up in intellect and scholarship for her deficiency in grandeur and substantial hospitality. The scholarship of Scotland was put under requisition for eulogistic addresses in all forms of Latin versification. We have consequently to weigh against the substantial chronicles of festivals and costly pageants a thin folio volume, chiefly filled with such productions as will remind its reader of college exercises, though it is enlivened by one poem in the vernacular, contributed by Drummond of Hawthornden. 2

1 Original Letters (Bannatyne Club), 497.

2 'The Muses' Welcome to the High and Mighty Prince James, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, De

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