William made a resolute effort also to heal the great schism of the Church, and admit, by a comprehensive Bill, the main body of Nonconformists. By this Bill as introduced, it was proposed to excuse all ministers of the Established Church from the necessity of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles; they were only to make this declaration: "I do approve of the doctrine, and worship, and government of the Church of England by law established, as containing all things necessary to salvation; and I promise in the exercise of my ministry to preach and practise according thereunto." The same looseness of declaration was extended to the two universities. Presbyterian ministers could be admitted to the pulpits and livings of the Church by accepting from a bishop a simple command to preach, administer the sacraments, and perform all the ministerial offices of the Church. Except in a few churches, the clergyman might wear the surplice or not, as he wished; might omit the sign of the cross in baptism; might christen children with or without godfathers and godmothers; might administer the Sacrament to persons sitting or kneeling, as they pleased. Besides this, the Bill proposed a Commission to revise the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts. But it was soon found that no such sweeping changes could be effected. There was no determined opposition to the revision of the liturgy, but the danger to the rites on which the High Church laid so much stress soon called forth powerful resistance. It was represented that all manner of anomalous and contradictory practices would soon rend to pieces the harmony and decorum of the Church. Presbyterian and Puritan would set at defiance the most honoured practices of the Establishment. The Dissenting body were as much alarmed as the High Church. This wide door of admission to the Church, it was feared, would draw away a whole host of their ministers and members; and as the Test Act was by no means to be removed, they would thus become additionally unable to contend for its future abolition. The Bill, after much discussion and many modifications, fell to the ground.
The next attempt was to modify the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, so as to accommodate the consciences of the Non-jurors; but it was finally agreed that all persons holding ecclesiastical or academical preferment who did not take the oaths before the 1st of August should be suspended, a pecuniary allowance to the deprived, in some cases to be at the option of the king, but not to exceed one-third of the income forfeited. This was followed by the passing of a new Coronation Oath, by which their majesties bound themselves to maintain the Protestant religion as established by law, and the coronation took place on the 11th of April.
These domestic matters being thus settled, war was declared against France on the 13th of May. The inhuman desolation of the Palatinate in the preceding winter, where Louis's general, Duras, had laid waste the whole country, burned down the towns, leaving all of that fertile and populous district one black and terrible desert, had roused the powers of Europe against him. Germany, Spain, Holland, and England all prepared for vengeance, and the people and Parliament of England were equally loud in denunciation of the worthless desolator.
Whilst these affairs had been progressing in England, Scotland had been equally active. The Scots had even more profound cause of hatred to James, and more hope of effectual relief from William, than the English. In England the Church had managed to maintain its ascendency, and the fierceness of persecution had been somewhat restrained. There the iron boot and thumbscrews, and the fury of Tory troopers, had not perpetrated the horrors that they had done north of the Tweed. The Scots had had the hateful yoke of Episcopacy forced on them, their Church completely put down, and their liberties in a variety of ways crushed by the authorised licence of James's delegated ministers.
No sooner, therefore, had James fled than the suppressed feeling of the people burst forth. At Edinburgh crowds assembled, took down the heads of the slaughtered Whigs from the gates, and committed them in solemn ceremony to the earth. The episcopal clergy were set upon in many parts of Scotland, especially in the West, where the Covenanters prevailed, and where they had suffered so much from the emissaries of the Church. The Covenanters now chased them away from their manses, ransacked them, turned their wives and children out, broke all the furniture, or set fire to it. They tore the gown from the back of the clergyman if they could catch him, destroyed all the prayer-books they could find, locked up the church, and warned ministers not to be found there again. Two hundred clergymen were thus forcibly ejected. Christmas Day was selected for the commencement of this summary process, to mark their abhorrence of such superstitious festivals. As amid this violence many began to plunder, the Presbyterian ministers and elders assembled, and resolved that in future every incumbent of a parish should have due notice served on him to quit his parsonage peaceably, to avoid the necessity of being driven out by force.
The bishops and dignitaries made an instant appeal to William for protection, and a proclamation was issued—for William had no military force in Scotland—ordering the people to desist from further violence towards the clergy till the Parliament should determine the form of the establishment. But so little regard was paid to it, that on the same day that it was published at Glasgow, the mob rushed to the cathedral, and drove out the congregation with sticks and stones.
On the 14th of March the Scottish Convention of Estates met. By the able management of Sir James Dalrymple of Stair—afterwards Lord Stair—and his son, Sir John Dalrymple, who was an able debater, it was so managed that chiefly Whigs were returned. Sir James was a man of great legal learning, and consummate talent, though of doubtful character, who had been deprived of his position as a privy councillor and Chief Lord of the Court of Session, and had gone over to Holland, and was William's main adviser as to Scottish affairs. His son, Sir John, longer continued to side with the Stuarts, and was made Lord Advocate; but at the Revolution he appeared in the other party, and was supposed to have been for some time in effect pledged to William's cause in secret through his father. He at once declared for William on his landing, and exerted himself zealously for his interests in Scotland.
With the Dalrymples was associated George Lord Melville, who had also been for some time with William in Holland. On the other hand, the celebrated Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, and Colin Lindsay, Earl of Balcarres, were the chief agents of James in Scotland. These two leaders had pretended to go over to William, or at least to acquiesce in the change of dynasty; had waited on him on his arrival at Whitehall, and been well received by him. William was urged to arrest these noblemen, as too deeply implicated in the tyrannies of James and the murder of the Covenanters ever to be allowed to mingle with the new order of things; but William would not listen to the advice, determining to give every one a fair trial of living peaceably. So far did they promise this, that William granted them an escort of cavalry on their return to Scotland, without which they would not have been allowed by the Covenanters to reach Edinburgh alive. The name of Claverhouse was a horror in every Scottish home in the Lowlands, where he was loathed for his terrible cruelties towards the Presbyterian population.
No sooner did they reach Edinburgh than they set to work with all possible activity to assist the interests of James in the Convention and the country. The Duke of Gordon, who held the castle for James, was on the point of surrendering it when they arrived; but they exhorted him to hold out, and called upon all the Royalists who were elected at the Convention to take their places and defend the absent king's interests. When the Estates met, the Earl of Argyll, who had been proscribed by James, took his seat amid the murmurs of the Jacobites, who declared that, as a person under legal attainder, he was incapable of performing any office in the State. This was, however, overruled by the majority. Melville, who had been living abroad too, and had reappeared with William, presented himself, but without any opposition. The Duke of Hamilton was put in nomination by the Whigs for the presidency of the Convention, and the Duke of Athol by the Jacobites. Neither of them was a man whose conduct in the late reign was entitled to respect. Hamilton had adhered to James to the last, and had acquiesced in many invasions of the laws and liberties of Scotland; Athol had not only been a violent partisan of James, but had fawned on William immediately on his arrival, and, being coldly received, had wheeled round again. Hamilton was chosen president; and the moment this was discovered twenty of the Jacobites instantly went over to the stronger side. It was a striking fact that in Scotland, while the great body of the people had stood to the death for their principles, the nobility had become so corrupt through compliance with the corrupt Court, and in eagerness for office, that public principle was at the lowest ebb amongst them.
The Convention having thus organised itself, sent a deputation to the Duke of Gordon demanding the surrender of the castle, as its cannon might at any moment knock in the roof of the Parliament House, and drive thence the Convention. Gordon requested twenty-four hours to consider the proposition; but Dundee and Balcarres again succeeded in inducing him to hold out. The Convention determined to try the force of arms. They summoned the castle to surrender in due form, and pronounced the penalties of high treason on all who dared to occupy it in defiance of the Estates. They called out a guard to stop communication with the castle, and made preparations for a regular siege of the fortress. The next day a messenger arrived from King James with a letter, which, on being read, was found to be a furious denunciation of the Convention, and of every one who had shown a willingness to receive William. At the same time it offered pardon to all traitors who should return to their duty in a fortnight, with the alternative, if they refused, of the utmost vengeance of the Crown. There was no regret for any past acts which might have tended to alienate his subjects, no promises of future redress. The very friends of the king, whom nothing could alter or improve, were astonished and dispirited, and they stole away out of the Convention, pursued through the streets by the groans and curses of the crowd. At the same time, a letter was read from William, modest and liberal, trusting to the result of the free deliberations of the Estates. James, as was always the case with him, had done incalculable service to the cause of his rival. His most bigoted adherents could not avoid seeing that, were he restored to the throne, he would only continue to pursue the blind and foolish course which had already driven him from it. What added to the disgust of all parties was, that the letter was countersigned by Melfort, James's Secretary of State—a furious Papist and apostate from Protestantism, and nearly equally abhorred by both Protestants and Catholics.