Sept. 5. Bonwicke to Blechyenden.
I do really take those laws which have been made since king William's coming to the crown to be good laws.... King James has lost thus much by losing possession: he has lost the assistance of his people, for it would be treason and illegal to fight against king William, who has now the law on his side.
Sept. 8. Blechynden to Bonwicke.
The defence of the society being the sole ground (and measure too) of our obedience and fidelity to our chief governor, it is plain that it is due to him, and to him only, that can and does defend society.... If you will rightly weigh the matter, it is not only a little temporal concern that pleads for your taking oaths. For (pardon my plain dealing) you are chargeable with disobedience to the powers that be, with depriving your country (for which we are all in a great measure made) of the good you may do in your present station, or in the ministry; and with the making or strengthening a party against the public establishment, to the great prejudice of church and state; besides the injury to yourself and family, which an honest man ought not to prejudice but upon very good grounds. All this, I say, you are chargeable with, if the taking the oaths be not manifestly sinful. For the danger or fear of its being so is not sufficient to justify the neglect of any duty, and an opposition to a public establishment and the benefits of it. Reason will prefer the good of the community before that of a single man, especially of one already very false to his trust.... It is not plain that I am sworn to king James; the oath in an equitable interpretation not reaching the present case; nor has king James any reason to insist on it as the present circumstances are; nor ought you to oblige me by my oath to hurt my neighbours, or my country, how rigorous soever I might be otherwise to myself. There is a great deal of difference between a private oath relating to my own concerns of which I am master; and a public, which was made for the good of the public, and therefore ought in no wise to be strained to the prejudice of the same.... The affection that men are bred up with towards the memory of king Charles the first, and the abhorrence of the parliament of 1641, does extremely prejudice men for kings and against parliament; but both extremes are to be carefully shunned.
[27] Coke and Hales were amongst the most eminent of Stuart lawyers.
PACIFICATION OF THE HIGHLANDS (1692).
Source.—Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1691-92:
[Pp. 101, 102.]
Jan. 16, 1692.—Instructions, signed by the King, for Sir Thomas Levingston:—
We allow you to receive the submissions of Glengarry, or those with him, upon their taking the oath of allegiance and delivering up the house of Invergarry; to be safe, as to their lives, but as to their estates they must depend upon our mercy.