The chief aim of the cavaliers was to obstruct the settlement of the succession, and with that view they pressed the project of limitations, to which they knew the court would never assent. A motion being made to grant the first reading to an act of commission for a treaty with England, the duke of Hamilton insisted on the limitations, and a vote being stated in these terms, “Proceed to consider the act for a treaty of limitation,” the latter was carried in favour of the cavaliers. On the twenty-second day of August an act for this purpose was approved; and next day an act for a triennial parliament, which the courtiers were enabled to defeat. They likewise passed an act, ordaining, that the Scottish ambassadors representing Scotland should be present when the sovereign might have occasion to treat with foreign princes and states, and be accountable to the parliament of Scotland. Fletcher of Saltoun, presented a scheme of limitations that savoured strongly of republican principles. He afterwards enlarged upon every article, endeavouring to prove that they were absolutely necessary to prevent the consequences of English influence; to enable the nation to defend its rights and liberties; to deter ministers of state from giving bad advice to their sovereign; to preserve the courts of judicature from corruption, and screen the people from tyranny and oppression. The earl of Stair having argued against these limitations, Fletcher replied, “It is no wonder he opposed the scheme; for, had such an act subsisted, his lordship would have been hanged for the bad counsel he had given to king James; for the concern he had in the massacre of Glencoe; and for his conduct since the revolution.” The next subject on which the parliament deliberated was the conspiracy. A motion being made that the house might know what answer the queen had returned to their address in the last session, the chancellor delivered to the clerk register the papers relating to the plot, that they might be perused by the members: but these being copies, and the evidences remaining at London, no further progress was made in the affair. Yet the duke of Athol, in a distinct narrative of the pretended conspiracy, boldly accused the duke of Queensberry of having endeavoured to mislead the queen by false accusations against her good subjects. When the act for a treaty of union fell under consideration, a draft for that purpose, presented by the earl of Mar, was compared with the English act, importing, that the queen should name and appoint not only the commissioners for England, but likewise for Scotland.
Fletcher did not fail to inveigh against the imperious conduct of the English parliament in this affair. He exhorted the house to resent such treatment, and offered the draft of an address to her majesty on the subject, but this the house rejected. Duke Hamilton proposed that a clause might be added to the act, importing, that the union should nowise derogate from any fundamental laws, ancient privileges, offices, rights, liberties, and dignities of the Scottish nation. This occasioned a long debate; and a question being put, was carried in the negative. Another clause was proposed, that the Scottish commissioners should not begin to treat until the English parliament should have rescinded their clause enacting that the subjects of Scotland should be adjudged and taken as aliens after the twenty-fifth day of December. The courtiers, considering the temper of the house, would not venture to oppose this motion directly, but proposed that the clause should be formed into a separate act, and the expedient was approved. Though the Duke of Athol entered a vigorous protest, to which the greater part of the cavaliers and all the squadrone adhered, comprehending four-and-twenty peers, seven-and-thirty barons, and eighteen boroughs, the act for the treaty of union was, after much altercation, finished, empowering commissioners to meet and treat of an union; but restraining them from treating of any alterations of the church government as by law established. Whilst this important subject was under consideration, the duke of Hamilton, to the amazement of his whole party, moved that the nomination of the commissioners should be left to the queen. Fourteen or fifteen of the cavaliers ran out of the house in a transport of indignation, exclaiming that they were deserted and basely betrayed by the duke of Hamilton. A very hot debate ensued, in the course of which the duke was severely handled by those whom he had hitherto conducted: but at length the question being put whether the nomination should be left to the queen or to the parliament, the duke’s motion was approved by a very small majority. He afterwards excused himself for his defection, by saying he saw it was in vain to contend, and that since the court had acquired a great majority, he thought he might be allowed to pay that compliment to his sovereign. He was desirous of being in the commission, and the duke of Argyle promised he should be nominated. The queen refusing to honour him with that mark of distinction, Argyle would not suffer himself to be named, and threatened to oppose the union, but means were found to appease his resentment. Two drafts of an address being presented by the earl of Sutherland and Fletcher of Saltoun, beseeching her majesty to use her endeavours with the parliament of England to rescind that part of their act which declared the subjects of Scotland aliens; and an overture of a bill being offered, ordaining that the Scottish commissioners should not enter upon the treaty of union until that clause should be repealed; the courtiers moved that the parliament should proceed by way of order to their commissioners, and by address to her majesty. After some debate, the house assenting to this proposal, the order and address was drawn up and approved. The great and weighty affair of the treaty being at length happily transacted, though not without a protest by Athol and his adherents, the parliament granted a supply of fifty thousand pounds, and the house was adjourned to the twentieth day of December; then the queen declaring the earl of Mar secretary of state in the room of the marquis of Annandale, who was appointed lord president of the council.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENT AND CONVOCATION IN IRELAND.
In Ireland, the parliament met at Dublin on the fifth day of March, and voted one hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the support of the necessary branches of the establishment. A dispute arose between the commons and the lower house of convocation, relating to the tithes of hemp and flax, ascertained in a clause of a bill for the better improvement of the hempen and flaxen manufactures of the kingdom. The lower house of convocation presented a memorial against this clause as prejudicial to the rights and properties of the clergy. The commons voted the person who brought it in guilty of a breach of privilege, and ordered him to be taken into custody. Then they resolved that the convocation were guilty of a contempt and breach of the privilege of that house. The convocation presuming to justify their memorials, the commons voted that all matters relating to it should be razed out of the journals and books of convocation. The duke of Ormond, dreading the consequences of such heats, adjourned the parliament to the first day of May, when the houses meeting again, came to some resolutions that reflected obliquely on the eon-vocation as enemies to her majesty’s government and the protestant succession. The clergy, in order to acquit themselves of all suspicion, resolved in their turn that the church and nation had been happily delivered from popery and tyranny by king William at the revolution: that the continuance of these blessings were due, under God, to the auspicious reign and happy government of her majesty queen Anne: that the future security and preservation of the church and nation depended wholly, under God, on the succession of the crown as settled by law in the protestant line: that if any clergyman should by word or writing declare anything in opposition to these resolutions, they should look upon him as a sower of divisions among the protestants, and an enemy to the constitution. They levelled another resolution against the presbyterians, importing, that to teach or to preach against the doctrine, government, rites, or ceremonies of the church, or to maintain schools or seminaries for the education of youth, in principles contrary to those of the established church, was a contempt of the ecclesiastical laws of the kingdom; of pernicious consequence; and served only to continue and widen the unhappy schisms and divisions in the nation. In June the parliament was prorogued to the same month of the following year: then the duke of Ormond embarked for England, leaving the administration in the hands of sir Richard Cox, lord chancellor, and lord Cutts, the commander-in-chief of the queen’s forces, who were appointed lords-justices during the duke’s absence.
CAMPAIGN ON THE MOSELLE.
During these transactions in Great Britain and Ireland, the allies had not been remiss in their preparations for the ensuing campaign. The duke of Marlborough had fixed upon the Moselle for the scene of action; and magazines of all sorts were formed at Triers. On the thirteenth day of March the duke embarked for Holland, where he prevailed upon the states-general to contribute their troops for the execution of his project. Having concerted with the deputies of the states and the Dutch generals the necessary measures for opening the campaign, he set out for Maestricht in order to assemble his army. On the fifth day of May the emperor Leopold died at Vienna, and was succeeded on the imperial throne by his eldest son Joseph, king of the Romans, a prince who resembled his father in meekness of disposition, narrowness of intellect, and bigotry to the Romish religion. On the fifteenth of June the English troops passed the Maese, and continued their march towards the Moselle, under the command of general Churchill; and the duke set out for Cruetznach, to confer with prince Louis of Baden, who excused himself on pretence of being much indisposed. Marlborough visited him at Castadt, where in a conference they resolved that a sufficient number of German troops should be left for the security of the lines of Lauterburg and Stolhoffen, under the command of general Thungen, and that prince Louis of Baden should march with a large detachment towards the Saar, to act in concert with the duke of Marlborough. The confederate army passed the Moselle and the Saar in the beginning of June, and encamped at Elft in sight of the enemy, who retired with great precipitation, and intrenched themselves in the neighbourhood of Coningsmarcheren. The duke’s design was to besiege Saar-Louis; but prince Louis failed in the performance of his engagement: he feigned himself sick, and repaired to the bath at Schlangenbacle, leaving the small number of imperial troops he conducted as far as Cruetznach, under the command of the count de Frize. He was suspected of treachery; but probably acted from envy of the duke’s military reputation.*
* The duke of Marlborough finding himself obliged to retreat, sent a note with a trumpeter to Villars, containing an apology for decamping:—“Do me the justice, said he, to believe that my retreat is entirely owing to the failure of the prince of Baden; but that my esteem for you is still greater than my resentment of his conduct.”