William the Third had, on several occasions, refused the royal assent to Acts passed by the Parliament of Scotland; and now the Courtiers, the Cavaliers, and the Country Party waited with curiosity to hear what course the Queen, on the advice of her Ministers, would take at the present crisis. The Country Party and the Cavaliers were equally determined not to settle the Scottish Succession except on the conditions set forth in the Act, and Queensberry was repeatedly questioned on the subject. Fletcher, in particular, made several speeches on this topic; but the Commissioner gave no sign until the 10th of September, when he stated that he had obtained leave to give the royal assent to all the Acts which had been passed, excepting the Act of Security. ‘You may easily believe,’ he explained, ‘that requires her Majesty’s further consideration.’
He ended a speech, which it must have needed some courage to deliver, by asking them to vote the Supplies. But the House was in no mood to comply with this request. We should have been told, one member said, at the beginning of the session that we were called together merely to vote money, and then adjourn. It would have saved us a great deal of trouble. If any Scotsman has advised the Queen in this matter, cried another, he is a traitor to his country. Fletcher denied the power of the Sovereign to refuse the royal assent, and there is a good deal to be said in favour of this view of the Scottish constitution. Hamilton and Roxburghe moved that an address be presented to her Majesty, praying her to reconsider the matter, and direct the Commissioner to touch the Act with the sceptre. After a long debate, in which every member who spoke blamed the English Ministers for what had happened, the motion to address the throne was rejected by twelve votes, and the House rose.
A few days after the Commissioner had announced that the royal assent was refused, Lord Boyle, the Treasurer-Depute, moved that the Act of Supply, which had been lying on the table since May, should be read, and on this Fletcher once more brought forward his Limitations. ‘My Lord Chancellor,’ he said, ‘his Grace, the High Commissioner, having acquainted this House that he has instructions from her Majesty to give the royal assent to all Acts passed in this session except that for the security of the kingdom, it will be highly necessary to provide some new laws for securing our liberty upon the expiration of the present entail of the Crown.’ From this text he delivered an impassioned address, imploring the Estates, in particular, to accept his proposal that all places, offices, and pensions should, after the death of Anne, be conferred by Parliament alone, so long as Scotland was under the same Prince as England. ‘Without this limitation,’ he exclaimed, ‘our poverty and subjection to the Court of England will every day increase; and the question we have now before us is, whether we will be free men or slaves for ever; whether we will continue to depend, or break the yoke of our dependence; and whether we will choose to live poor and miserable, or rich, free, and happy?... By this limitation our Parliament will become the most uncorrupted senate of all Europe. No man will be tempted to vote against the interest of his country, when his country shall have all the bribes in our own hands: offices, places, pensions.... If, therefore, either reason, honour, or conscience have any influence upon us; if we have any regard either to ourselves or posterity; if there be any such thing as virtue, happiness, or reputation in this world, or felicity in a future state, let me adjure you by all these not to draw upon your heads everlasting infamy, attended with the eternal reproaches and anguish of an evil conscience, by making yourselves and your posterity miserable.’
The Ministry, well aware that only a portion of the Country Party would follow Fletcher on this question of the Limitations, wished the House to vote on the issue of whether Supply or the Limitations should be discussed. But Fletcher, who saw in a moment at what the Government were aiming, interposed, and said that he had had the honour to offer a means of securing the liberties of the nation against England; that in his opinion the country was nearly ruined, and that his proposals were necessary; but still he relied on the wisdom of the Estates, and withdrew his motion.
Thus checkmated, the Ministers were at a loss what to do. They knew that the motion to discuss overtures for liberty would be carried against their motion to discuss Supply, and they could think of nothing else on which they could ask the House to vote. There were anxious faces, and some hasty whispering on the steps of the throne. Cries of ‘Vote! Vote!’ resounded from all the benches. The Commissioner rose. ‘If the House,’ he said, ‘will agree to the first reading of the Subsidy Act, I promise that it shall not be heard of for the next three sittings.’
Instantly Fletcher was on his feet. ‘Those about the throne,’ he exclaimed, ‘could not really expect the House to agree to this.’ It meant that the Subsidy Act was to be read a first time now. Then the House was to be amused with three sittings on overtures for liberty, ‘which sittings shall meet at six and adjourn at seven.’ On the fourth day, the Supplies would be voted; and then Parliament would be prorogued. He was certain the House knew the artifices of the Government too well to be misled by them.
Another member pointed to the throne, and declared that the men who sat round it were endeavouring to destroy the privileges of Parliament, and filch away its liberty. ‘The House,’ says Lockhart, ‘was crowded with a vast number of people; nothing for two hours could be heard but voices of members and others (it being dark and candles lighted) requiring “liberty and no subsidy.”’ The excitement of the members increased; the clamour of spectators behind the bar grew louder; and at last the voice of young Roxburghe was heard, above the din, shouting, ‘What we desire is reasonable, and if we cannot obtain it by Parliamentary means, we shall demand it, upon the steps of the throne, with our swords in our hands.’
Upon this the Chancellor rose, and announced that the Government yielded, and that the overtures for liberty would be discussed upon the following day.
That night at Holyrood Queensberry and the Ministers discussed the situation. The town was in an uproar. For several nights the troops had been under arms; and it had come to the ears of some members of the Estates that their commander had been so foolish as to threaten, in his cups, that ‘ways would be found to make the Parliament calm enough.’ The members were incensed against the Government and against England; and if they were allowed to discuss the favourite ‘overtures for liberty,’ there was no saying what might happen. As to the Supplies, the small sum of money which was obtained from Scotland was not worth fighting for; and when the Council separated, Queensberry had almost made up his mind to prorogue the Parliament at once.
Early next morning Fletcher and his friends had a meeting at which they prepared a measure which they intended to introduce. It provided that there should be an election every year, at which no officer of the army, or of the customs or excise, could be elected; that Parliament should meet at least once in every two years, and that each sitting should be adjourned on the motion of a member, and not by the Commissioner. They agreed that if the royal assent was given to this Act, they would vote the Supplies.