Both of these measures were strenuously opposed by Fletcher, who is said to have written a number of private letters to members of the Parliament, imploring them to vote against the Succession Act, on the ground that the Duke was both a Roman Catholic and a tyrant.
The Test Act was, in spite of its vast importance, brought in and passed in the course of a single day; but at least one amendment was moved by Fletcher. ‘Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun,’ says Dalrymple, ‘after long opposing the bill, with all the fire of ancient eloquence, and of his own spirit, made a motion which the Court party could not, in decency, oppose; that the security of the Protestant Religion should be made a part of the Test.’
The new clause was prepared by Sir James Dalrymple, then Lord President of the Court of Session, who so framed it that the ‘Protestant Religion’ was defined as that set forth in the Old Scots Confession of Faith of 1567, which was inconsistent with Episcopacy, and also allowed the lawfulness of resistance. ‘That was a book,’ says Burnet, ‘so worn out of use, that scarce any one in the whole Parliament had ever read it. None of the Bishops had, as appeared afterwards.’ The result was that Fletcher’s amendment, as framed by Dalrymple, became part of the Act, all the Bishops agreeing to it.
Fletcher also resisted the monstrous and unconstitutional clause which compelled the county electors, on pain of forfeiting the franchise, to swear that they would never attempt to ‘bring about,’ as the statute puts it, ‘any change or alteration either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of this Kingdom.’ There was a division on this question. No lists remain to show how the members voted; but the following protest is inscribed on the rolls of Parliament: ‘That part of the Act—If the Test should be put to the Electors of Commissioners for Shires to the Parliament, having been put to the vote by itself, before the voting and passing of the whole Act; and the same being carried in the Affirmative, the Laird of Saltoun and the Laird of Grant, having voted in the negative, desired their dissent might be marked.’
Fletcher had now incurred the implacable enmity of the Duke of York, who, says Mackay, ‘would not forgive his behaviour in that Parliament’; and he was, moreover, soon involved once more in trouble with the Privy Council. The Estates had voted money for the public service; and Fletcher was named as one of the Commissioners of Supply for Haddingtonshire. Part of the Commissioners’ duty was to arrange for the troops which were quartered on the country; and in April 1682 the Lord Advocate accused them before the Privy Council for not meeting with the Sheriff-Depute, to set prices on corn and straw, grass and hay, for the soldiers’ horses; ‘or at least for making a mock act, in setting down prices, but not laying out the localities where the forces may be served with these necessaries.’ In short, the Laird of Saltoun and the Commissioners of Supply did all they could to thwart and annoy the Government.
‘After much trouble and pains,’ in the words of Lord Fountainhall, the gentlemen of East Lothian consented to fix store-houses and magazines in the county; but in a short time Fletcher came to the conclusion that he could no longer remain in Scotland. He accordingly went to London, perhaps to consult Burnet on the situation, and thence made his way to the Continent.
CHAPTER II
The Whig Plot—Comes to England with Monmouth—Shoots Dare—Is found guilty of High Treason and attainted—The Estate of Saltoun forfeited.