with revenge, hastily embarked with Rumbold, an English republican, and sailed for the West of Scotland. On their arrival they were joined by a few; but the royal troops totally defeated them, and took Arygle himself prisoner.

He was

brought to Edinburgh, where he suffered death, more like a martyr of the laws and religion of his country than like a subject rebellious against his sovereign. A similar fate awaited Monmouth in England, where he had landed, declaring Le came to rescue the nation from popery and arbitrary power.

These insurrections widened the breach between the unfortunate monarch and his disaffected subjects. Imprisonment, fines, or banishment were penalties the government thought necessary, and the subjects tyrannical. Hitherto no step had been taken in favour of the religion of the prince, nothing to alarm the wakeful jealousy of the established church. The wisest and most jealous of the Roman catholics deprecated every interference in their behalf: the pope himse foresaw in the downfal of James that of his region; but the zeal of James outstript that of the pontiff and of all his adherents. It is, however. but just to remark, that all his unpopular measures were sanctioned, and more than probably recommended, by the very men who in a few months distinguished themselves in their ardo for the prince of Orange. Guided by their cou sels more than by F. Petre or other jesuits, Jam began by proposing to his Scottish parliament. relaxation of the penal laws against the Ror... catholics. The proposal was received but coldi and the lords of the articles found it necessary t

limit the favour to the private exercise of religion, leaving in force all the penal laws against those who exercised it in public. Even in this form the bill could not pass; it was remitted for amendments to the lords of the articles, who returned it in a shape less exceptionable. The chancellor, however, doubtful whether the bill would pass the house, chose rather to drop it entirely.

Baffled in this first attempt, the king dissolved the parliament, and had recourse to other arbitrary means. After dismissing from the council those lords who opposed him, he filled their places with others of his own faith. Among these the most loyal was the duke of Gordon, a nobleman of great worth, but whose counsels were too moderate to prevail at court. Athol, a kinsman and friend of the prince of Orange, as lord privy seal, continued to wear the mask of loyalty to James, and to share his confidence. A proclamation appeared, wherein the king, in virtue of the powers vested in him by law, permitted the Roman catholics to exercise their religion in private, and ordered the chapel of Holyrood-house to be used for the catholic worship. Perth, the chancellor, imprudently permitted another in his own family. The whigs, irritated to frenzy at the appearance of the bugbear of popery, broke into his lordship's house, and committed dreadful de Vastations on the economy of his chapel. The Court continued to issue new declarations in favour of presbyterians, of quakers, of Roman catholics, and at last," by sovereign authority, prerogative, Toyal, and absolute power, suspended all penal and sanguinary laws for non-conformity to the religion stablished by law." The presbyterians of Edin

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burgh, and their ministers all over Scotland, gladly accepted of this toleration, which put an end to all their sufferings, and sent up warm loyal addresses to London, thanking his majesty for his protection. A day of thanksgiving was observed on occasion of the queen's pregnancy, which was attended with new religious indulgen cies: and the birth of a prince was celebrated with dutiful addresses and assurances of loyalty to his father.

But luckless son of a more luckless sire! The hour is come when the royal Stuart race must descend for ever from a throne which their an cestors had filled for ages. Regardless of kindred tics, ambitious William hastens to seize a sceptre ready to drop from the unskilful and feeble hand of his father. His zeal for protestancy, which scrupled not at suppressing it by the sword in other countries, urged him to its rescue when a crown was to be earned in its support. He came. The nobles, the gentry, the clergy, the army, the fleet, the nation, vied with each other in their eagerness to declare in favour of their long wished-for deliverer from popery, slavery, and arbitrary power, James saw himself abandoned by his counsellors, his bosom friends, his unnatural daughters. He fled; the fickle populace relented; they stayed the royal fugitive; once more they hailed him king. But his inflexible rival approached. It was signified to James that his palace must receive a new lord. The degraded monarch retired, and his constraine.i flight was pronounced an abdication of the throne. Scotland, late so loud in its professions of loyalty, the covenant late so grateful for its deliverance, hastened to worship the rising sun. The procla

matians

mations of William were received with enthusiasm all over the south. The official dispatches for the king were delivered into the hands of the prince. Athol, the confidential servant of James, having discarded his popish colleague, disbanded the troops at the moment when the falling monarch called for their aid. The people observed no decency towards their popish governors. The chief object of their fury was the king's chapel and a seminary for educating young gentlemen, which they demolished. The pope's effigy was burnt in every street, with loud cries of "No popish chancellor, no Melfort, no father Petre." Gordon, the only nobleman of Great Britain who openly espoused his royal master's cause, resolved to preserve for him the castle of Edinburgh. The other nobles voted an address to their deliverer, then resorted in crowds to court his favour, and to petition him to take the direction of affairs until a meeting of the states should be held. The prince ordered a convention of the states, with this proviso, that both electors and elected should be protestants. Indifferent as to modes of religion, he treated with presbyterians as well as episcopalians; but finding the bishops less tractable, he was obliged in the end to give them up in favour of presbytery.

The throne was declared vacant by the convention; on the grounds that James had never taken the coronation oath, prescribed by the laws; that he had forfeited his right by violating the constitution, by subverting the ends of government, and the protestant religion. William accepted of the crown tendered to him by a deputation from the states, and, with his spouse, took $ 3

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a coronation oath, wherein he was required to root out all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God. The king disclaimed all obligation of becoming a persecutor. The commissioners assured him, that neither the meaning of the oath, nor the laws of Scotland did import "Then" said his majesty, "I take the

it.

oath in that sense."

Thus was accomplished, without bloodshed, with an unanimity beyond example, a revolution which Britain still considers as the happiest æra in all its history. Happily for us, the civil contest to which this event afterwards gave birth, has long since been forgotten, amidst the beneficial effects, it has for more than a century produced.

The bishops in Scotland, more disinterested than their English colleagues, generously sacrificed their temporal interests, rather than swerve from a doctrine they had ever maintained. William found them too bigotted to their slavish notions of prerogative. On the other hand, the presbyterians were too turbulent and democratic to be easily reconciled to his regal power; but they were perhaps the majority of the nation, and certainly the friends of the revolution. The mind of William. hesitated for a considerable time. The gallant Graham, viscount of Dundee, was the only nobleman that took the field for his exile i master. Mackay met him at the pass of Killicrankie, but victory declared for Dundee. He had made five hundred prisoners, and killed two thousand of his enemies, when he himself unfortunately perished, and with him, all the hopes of the jacobite party in Scotland."

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