he denied the words, yet declared he would not redeem his life by turning Papist, 23rd February, 1686. Witnesses were Irvine of Bonshaw, &c. who falling out called one another perjured.' "A fencing-master, condemned to be hanged by criminal court, for uttering words approveing the late rabble. It was proven that he said, if the trades' lads would fall on the town guard, he should secure their captain, Patrick Grame, for his part; and for drinking the confusion of Papists, though at the same time he drank the king's health; yet the chancellor was inexorable, and beat his own son for pleading for him (and this was called to remembrance, when the chancellor was taken and maltreated by Captain Boswell, in Kirkaldie, who took him by sea when making his escape to France, after the usurpation in 1688,) and so he was hanged on the 5th of March, 1686, and died piously. He was dealt with to accuse Queensberry with accession to the rabble, but refused. "There being a band given into Mackenzie's chamber, to one Douglas, to registrat; and he having given up the principall to one Weddell, the granter, and given the pursuer an extract, they were both pillored, and had their luggs nailed to the Trone, 27th March 1685 and Weddell warded till he pay the debt.' : The Chancellor, Theasaurer, and Ross, Archbishop of St. Andrews, come from London to Edinburgh, 8th of April, 1685, having been only eight days by the way; and the council ordered the Shiles wherthrow the chancellor was to pass, to attend him.' 'The late king's statue on horseback was set up in the parliament close, 16th April, 1685. It stood the town of Edinburgh more than £1,000 sterling.' THE HIGHLAND FIRE-CROSS. The fire-cross by order of council is sent through the west of Fife and Kinross, as nearest Stirling, that all betwixt sixteen and sixty might rise and oppose Argyle.' This is a remarkable instance, perhaps the latest of the fire-cross having been sent round by command of government. Patin in his account of Somerset's expedition, thus describes it; And thys is a cross, (as I have hard sum say) of i i brandes ends caried a crosse upon spears point, with proclamation of the time and place when and whether they shall cum, with how much provision of vitail. Some others say it is a crosse, painted all red, and set for certayn days in the fields of that baronie, whereof they will have the people to cum: whearby all between sixty and sixten are peremptorely summoned; that if they come not with their vitayll according at the time and place then appointed, all the land thear is forfated straight to the kynges vse, and the Tariers taken for traitours and rebels.* We find the following entries of Anderson's Pills, and a licensed mountebank. 'Thoma Weir got a signator for selling thereof (Anderson's Pills) and one Thomas Steell gives in a bill against him, as having the only secret thereof: but Weir having given Melfort talents, is preferred. 21st July, 1687. A mountebank having got a licence from the Privy Councill, and of Mr. Fountin, Master of the Revells, and of the Magistrate of Edinburgh, to erect a stage, he built it in Black-fryer-wind. The custome office being there, complained of it to the magistrates, where upon the magistrates took it down; whereupon he cited them to the council, who alleadge that he should have first been examined by the Colledge of Physitianes: yet they offered him the grass mercate, for preventing servants and prentices withdrawing from their service; but he being Popish, the chancellor caused the magistrates to put his stage in the land mercate. also damages. 14th July, 1688.' He craved In the printed decisions* of Lord Fountainhall, occurs the following sly entry concerning this mountebank : 'Reid the mountebank, pursues Scot of Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling-lassie, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and produced a contract whereby he bought her from her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physitians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return, though she was at least a prentice, and so could not run away from her master. Yet some cited Moses' law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against his master's cruelty, thou shalt not deliver him up. The lords reintente assoilzied Harden.' The following account is given of his conversion, and of the importance attached to it by the silly bigotry of Perth, and the other courtiers and statesmen of James II. 'January 17, 1687. Reid the mountebank, is received into the Papist church, and one of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism from the Popish priests, and to turn Christian Papist, which was a great trophy. He was called James after the king, and chancellor, and the Apostle James.' * Vol. I. p. 429. THE COVENANTERS.-OTHER The Notwithstanding the great degree of interest attached to the history of the reformation in Scotland, it is only latterly that much attention has been paid to it, and many who had taken it for granted that the reformers were foolish, and violent, and detestable enthusiasts, have with some astonishment discovered that they displayed in their efforts to introduce the protestant faith an intrepidity, a zeal, and an elevation of principle which we cannot too highly venerate. reformation in this country was, from its infancy, interwoven with political freedom. It was, at its commencement, strenuously opposed by the united energy of the monarch and the church; and it thus becomes necessary to gain the esteem and support of the people in order to counterbalance the resistance which threatened to render its accomplishment impossible. It was, through the prudence of those who conducted it, gradually disseminated; and it at length was so extensively embraced that it completed its triumph by obtaining the sanction of the legislature. Still, however, much ground was left for diversity of sentiment; and various causes united in producing a state of the public mind which gave rise to the most memorable events,-events which powerfully affected our civil condition, and the complexion of the national character. From the connexion which Knox had with Calvin and the other illustrious divines of Geneva, he was led, as soon as the ascendency of the reformation was secured, to give to the ecclesiastical polity which was to be introduced a popular form; his views were carried fully into effect, after his death, by Melvil, who succeeded in overthrowing the modified system of episcopacy which he found existing, and in establishing the presbyterian discipline. To this discipline James VI gave occasionally a cold and reluctant support: but he did not conceal the jealousy with which he regarded it; and although he did not, while he remained in Scotland, directly attempt its subversion, he exerted his influence in making such changes as by restraining the honest and manly independence of some of the most eminent ministers would, he trusted, render it subservient to the views and designs of the court. After he had ascended the throne of England and had been gratified with the obsequiousness of the bishops, who exhibited, to be, sure, in this respect, a very marked, and to him a very delightful contrast, to the rugged plainness of the former ecclesiastics, he determined as the most effectual mode of strengthening the prerogative to introduce episcopacy into his native kingdom. To attain his object, he had recourse to means which alienated the affections of a vast proportion of his subjects, which still more endeared them to the principles to which they had been previously attached, and inspired them with the conviction that it was a duty which it would be impiety to. neglect, to defend even against the sovereign himself, these principles. His unfortunate and infatuated son, when he at length turned his attention to Scotland, resolved to go far beyond what his father had effected and to compel his countrymen to submit to a perfect uniformity of faith and polity with their southern neighbors. The rashness with which he made the attempt, his disregard of the plainest indications of aversion to his measures, the violence of the bishops whom he selected, and the disgust of the nobility excited by his marked partiality to the prelates and his conferring upon them some of the most splendid civil offices, soon formed a generaj |