But the Treaty of Union had still its way to fight in Scotland, and it was only after a prolonged and keen conflict in the Scottish Parliament, lasting from October, 1706, until February, 1707, that the measure was carried, and the Union. accomplished. All the varied forms of the opposition made to the passing of the Treaty are vividly set forth in the Earl of Mar's letters to Sir David Nairne, the under-Secretary of State for Scotland at London, through whom her Majesty and the English Ministers were kept posted up in the progress of events at Edinburgh. The Earl was sent down from London with, as it were, the measure in his special charge, and certainly no one took a keener part in securing its success. Efforts were made to win over the Squadron to support it (p. 280), but the Jacobite party and the Church and the populace had specially to be reckoned with.

The Duke of Hamilton led the opposition in Parliament, and was on this account the popular favourite. The people waited for his coming out of the Parliament House, and convoyed him to his house with acclamations, while the Court party had frequently to run the gauntlet of a hostile mob armed with stones and staves. For their safety the latter were obliged to ask that troops should be provided and held in readiness, and these were actually sent to the Borders, though their intervention was not required. Within the House the progress of the bill was keenly contested. Often debate ran very high and continued until candles had to be brought in; but in the gloom the confusion became so great that little could then be effected.

The Church was a more uncertain factor. Many of the ministers feared that the Union with England would gradually but surely destroy Presbyterianism, and once more undo the work of the Reformation and what had been recovered at the Revolution. In the Commission of Assembly an act was almost passed for the appointment of a National Fast Day," for asking God's direction in the great affair," but the Court party judged this inadvisable. However, to satisfy the Church's fears and scruples an Act of Security was passed, in terms of which the constitution of the Church was secured by the Treaty of Union to remain unalterably Presbyterian (p. 339). The sequel to this was a similar provision in the case of the Church of England; and the more strict ministers of the Church of Scotland and many of the people, saw that this could not be

agreed to without the nullifying of the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant made with England in 1643. Their opposition was very considerable, but as there was no feasible way of taking off their objection the Court party ridiculed them as fanatics. There was even a report that these objectors and the Jacobites had drawn together and that King James had turned Protestant, and was ready not only to establish Presbytery but even to swear the Solemn League and Covenant (pp. 341, 345). Fears were strongly entertained that there would be armed risings, and there was actually an attempt to rouse the people of the West to march upon Edinburgh. A party set out from Glasgow, and went by way of Kilsyth and Hamilton towards Lanark, but it proved unsuccessful, and the rumour that troops were in pursuit caused it to disappear before it reached Lanark (pp. 338, 345, 350). Besides the riots in Edinburgh there were tumults in Glasgow (p. 325), also at Stirling and Dumfries, where the Articles of Union were publicly burned at the Cross (pp. 340, 347), and at some other places. Another form of the opposition was by addresses to Parliament from many parts of the country against the Union (p. 363), but the issue lay with the Parliament and in the end the Articles of the Treaty were carried through. The news was transmitted to London, the consent of the English Parliament readily obtained, and on 6th March, amid salvos of artillery from the Tower and the firing of guns in the Park, Queen Anne adhibited her signature to the Act, by which, from the first of May following, the two kingdoms of Scotland and England were to merge in one Great Britain (p. 383). One can hardly but notice the coincidence that with the expiry of Scottish independence the Earl of Mar received at London the intimation. of his wife's death, and was thus sent into mourning and temporary retirement at the very moment when he might most have rejoiced in the success of his labours.

There was still much to be done in the harmonising of the relations, fiscal and otherwise, between the two kingdoms, and the suppression and removal of the opposition to the Union in Scotland, which even now, after its consummation, seemed as if it would strengthen, and, instead of extinguishing, fan the flame of Jacobitism. The task was no easy one and misunderstandings became frequent. But the tenor of these will be seen from the Report. One point, however, may be

specially noticed, that of the Equivalent. Mr. Mackinnon, in his recent history of the Union, has ably shewn both the unreality and the absurdity of the charge often brought against the Scottish nobility that they were corrupted by English money, and, in fact, sold the independence of their country for gold. Had there been the least trace of such a thing it could not but have been remarked in the confidential letters of the time. We are to be "on the uses for which the Equivalent is to be applied," writes Mar, (p. 364). "Severals of us have been talking of this. We think there is a necessity of preferring the loss of the coin in the first place, then the African Company and then the debts." In the following letter he mentions that this has been given effect to in one of the clauses of the Treaty. Preference is given to the reparation of the coin, then to the African Company, and then to the debts of the nation. And there was to be added to this (p. 367) a payment to the commissioners engaged upon the Treaty towards their expenses.

After the Union the Earl continued in his office of Secretary of State, and had to deal with the Jacobite invasion of 1708, in consequence of which seizure was made of a number of prominent Jacobites in Scotland, some of whom were sent in custody to London. He ceased to be Secretary in February, 1709, but obtained a pension of £3,000 from the Queen, which was to continue during her life (p. 480). The Duke of Queensberry then got the appointment and held it till his death in July, 1711. The succession to the office was keenly contested between Mar and the Duke of Hamilton, but through the influence of the Earl of Oxford the former obtained it. By this time so much friction had arisen between the two nations over the difficulties experienced in harmonising their relations that proposals were seriously brought forward in the British Farliament for its dissolution and a return to the statum quo ante, and even Mar seems to have come to believe that after all the Union may have been a mistake. With the death of Queen Anne and the overthrow of the Tory party in England, Mar was removed from his office. Up to the last moment of his being in power he was firm to the Hanoverian interest; he used all his efforts to preserve the peace in Scotland, especially in the Highlands, and when King George the First arrived in England he waited upon him to proffer his allegiance. But the King refused to see him and sent word that he had no

further need for his services. His office of Secretary was then given to the Duke of Montrose.

Seeing his associates impeached in England for treason, and finding that by the King's orders Stirling Castle was to be taken out of his hands (No. 867), Mar began to fear that his life was in danger; and evidently stung with indignation at such treatment after his long and faithful services to the country, he took the rash and regretable step of joining the cause of the Pretender and raising the standard of rebellion in Scotland. There seems to be little doubt that the step was taken in a hasty spirit of resentment, though possibly from the still unsatisfactory results of the Union, he may have entertained the belief that his former policy in the matter of the Union had been a mistake, and that revolution was now the only way of undoing that. It was, however, tco good an opportunity for the Jacobites to miss; Mar was flattered by them, and placed by commission from the Chevalier in the chief command in Scotland. Interest centres for the moment in his camp at Perth. There he received letters from the Chevalier, in one of which the honor of a Dukedom is conferred upon him. But by this time the battle of Sheriffmuir had been fought; the invasion of England had ended in disaster at Freston in Lancashire, and it fell to Mar's lot to intimate the tidings to the Chevalier, who was now supposed to be off the coast of Scotland. Mar managed to retain a number of his troops, and to hold his opponents at bay until James landed at Peterhead, but the failure of the promised support from France forced James to return, and Mar went with him and was in his service for some years. There will be found in the Report several letters from the Chevalier and from his wife, the Princess Clementina, to the Duchess of Mar. The earl, of course, lost his estates, and was never again permitted to return to Scotland, but died at Aix-de-Chapelle, in May, 1732. Some time before his death he quite broke with the Stewarts, and strove long and earnestly to make his peace with the House of Hanover, but without avail.

The remainder of the report is chiefly composed of the correspondence of the Earl's brother, Lord Grange, who, to save the family estates, purchased them back from the Forfeited Estates Commissioners for the benefit of his nephew, the Earl's son. But the latter died childless, and the estates

passed to the Earl's daughter, who married her cousin, James Erskine, son of Lord Grange, ancestor of the present Earl of Mar and Kellie, and to their son in 1824 King George the Fourth restored the title.

Lord Grange was both an able judge and a wise politician. As already stated, he was for some time Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, and later in life was member of Parliament for Stirlingshire. He was held in much repute by the clergy of Scotland for his piety and his attachment to the Presbyterian cause. He had a large number of correspondents, and selections will be found in the Report of letters from the pen of Mr. Gabriel Wilson, minister of Maxton; Mr. John Wylie, minister at Clackmannan; Mr. Andrew Darling, minister at Kinnoul, and Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, one of the founders of the Secession Church, who not only writes upon a point of antiquity, but sends to Lord Grange immediately after the Secession a note of the progress of their young presbytery, and also a copy of the indictment laid against him evidently by the presbytery of Stirling. Among his correspondents from the ranks of statesmen are the Duke of Argyll, William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath; the Earl of Stair, Marshall Keith, and there are several epistles from Simon, Lord Lovat, couched in his usual attractive style, but certainly not in a tone which would make one suppose that he had Lord Grange in any respect in his power.

Among miscellaneous papers and letters may be noted a memorandum concerning the place in which the public Scottish records were preserved, or rather, as is suggested, destroyed in 1723, a somewhat amusing cipher, a satirical poem, which may be that which the Earl of Mar sent to his lady, mentioned p. 228; and a narrative about St. Fillan's, in Perthshire, and some superstitious customs associated therewith.

This Report has been prepared by the Rev. Henry Paton, M.A., Edinburgh, who also prepared the Report on the Manuscripts of the late Colonel Milne Home of Wedderburn.