kill'd King Daffus at the Castle of Forres might have been our Bancho's Goodsyres elder Brother for the Dukes Paper gives Murdocus two Sons Donald and Pheachar and the time will well allow it too for Duffus was brother to Kenneth the third and Culenus did Raign but four years and we know with whom Bancho was contemporary and that the old Kings spread the wings of the Royal Family first to Galloway then to Lochaber and which Donald being of the blood Royal might have had amongst other temptations his ambition set on edge by some mock-prophesie from these Witches with whom he truckt for discovery of the roasting the effigie of Duffus that he or his might sometimes enjoy the Crown which was upon a better account renewed some years after to his Brothers Oy And there goes an uncontroverted tradition that Bancho is descended of one K. Kenneth and which of the two last you pitch upon is alike tome in the Case controverted For if you cannot go the length of Kenneth the 2. hold you with Kenneth the 3. for the Grand-father who was son of K. Malcolm the first and he son to Donald the sixth and he to Constantine the 2. who was eldest son to K. Kenneth the 2. and so are we but come where we were and still in a Line Male. And do you think I would willingly quit three Kings for three Cadets if I thought Bancho had been by Ferquhard Grandchild to Kenneth the 3. But he being descended of one of the two last Kenneths they have misplaced his Father and Goodsyre making the father who as by the Dukes Paper should have been Kenneth to be Ferquhard and the Goodsyre who should have been Ferquhard to be Kenneth whom they made K. Kenneth the 3. For will any think that if such a martial man as Bancho had been Gran-child by Forquhard to K. Kenneth the 3. but he might in those dayes so shortly after Kenneths alteration of the former confused way of succeeding have had some dispute for the Crown with the more easy natur'd K. Duncan who stood in a degree remoter and that by the interposition of a Lasse too And I remember that some years ago before ever I did see the Paper produced by the Duke of Lennox finding one Baron Mackcorquodale in the City and hearing that he had an old Charter from one of the K. Kenneths I went to the Gentleman who seemed not to deny the having of such a Charter but said it was at home and that it should have been given to his Predecessor from one K. Kenneth of whom was descended the great Thane of Lochaber and that his Land was given to his Predecessor for bringing away the head of a Scots King from the Picts and that the tradition was by his Progenitors thus handed down unto himself and that his Estate was never more or lesse except in the improvements of industry and that God had blessed their small family in a constant Line Male to himself who had then both sons and brethren alive And as I believe this Deed or Grant I scarcely dare name it Charter were it produced to such as can read it will appear to be the oldest writ of that nature now extant in Scotland so may it give encouragement to be Loyal to the living Prince when this Baron Mackconquodales respect for the dead hath been from Heaven so signally rewarded And tho the Gentleman I spoke with could not tell me whether granter was K. Kenneth the 2 or the 3. yet Boes in his tenth Book makes it clear to have been Kenneth the 2. For when the Picts had barbarously cut off the head of K. Alpin near to Dundie they affixt it on a Pole at the principal gate of their chief City and that some Scots young men having the Pictish Dialect and conterfeiting themselves to play the Merchant went to the City stole away the Head and carried it to his son King Kenneth the second who was then in Argyle and where sayes Boes they were rewarded by the King with Lands and Estate And the Baron of Mackcorquodale's Fortune lyes I hear in Knapdale in Argile Shire tho with credit to the tradition yet with favour to the Gentleman I shall hardly think the Charter so old perhaps a later Charter may have such a Narrative for I question if formal Charters were with us so old as Kenneth the 2. but the tradition provesall I intend And Buchanan giving the inducements of Mackbeths murdering of Bancho sayes that he was homo potens industrius Regio jam sanguine imbutus which sounds no other in plain English then That he was a powerful man fitted for action yea and moreover of the Family Royal. And so indeed he was as well by his Descent as by his Marriage having taken to wife his Cousin Maud daughter to Phaelus who was son to Laeblanus son to Garethus eldest son of Dorus and Grand-child to King Ethus So that what I have said will I hope in hoc facto antiquo wherein there be in all things such an harmonius consonancy sufficiently astruct Bancho's descent from K. Kenneth the 2. And it is of no weight to alledge any thing from the silence of our Historians who touch little of Genealogies except in the Crowned heads Yea and Buchanan belies them in the general in that his Regio sanguine jam imbutus though he be not special in the particular persons and degrees And the very collecting or extracting of the forementioned Paper from the documents carryed away with Edward Langshanks cannot but fortifie what I have said For that imperious Victor designing to deface the very remembrance of a Kingdom here by his taking away and destroying what monuments he could have of our Kings and Kingdom had he not amongst others found Bancho and his Posterity near and considerable Cadets of the Royal Family I doubt if that Paper had as I have related it ever come to the hands of an English Gentleman and questionless the repeated preferments and high trusts that K. Duncan heaped on Bancho as well in the intestine Commotions as in the Wars with the Danes which happened in that Kings time speaks him lowdly to have been his near Kinsman And beyond all peradventure Mackbeth's jealousy flowed not so much from Bancho's valour or his bare response only but as bottom'd upon his Cognation of blood as Buchanan hath well observed in his Igitur veritus ne homo potens c. And which is legibly read in Malcolm Canmor's so quickly advancing his Grand-child to places of so great and near concern as Steward of his House and Kingdom extended by the K. Maiden to the Magnus Senescallus and which Relation was also remembred by K. Robert the Bruce for the Royal Stem residing in Argyle the first branch spreads to Galloway the next to Lochaber And as the Bruce was the first who came to the Crown of the House of Galloway who so fit a match for his eldest Daughter as
lawful for Subjects in whatever capacity to reject or refuse their Native and undoubted Prince for fear of Persecution under His Government seing God hath gained as much Glory in the perseverance and Martyrdom of His Saints as in any state of the Church Militant whatsomever And though the dayes of Persecution be hot sad and lamentable trials yet should Christians hazard upon an act of injustice to avoid them when they lie but supposedly lurking under the remoter skirts of jealousies and feares which depend upon more uncertain events Thir few grounds Sir with other reasons too large for a Letter do hitherto sufficiently convince me of the justice of the Peers in their rejecting the Bill of Seclusion Not that I desire any wayes to reflect upon the Honourable Members of the Commons who might have gone upon grounds I know not Thir my reasons and doubts I only propose for my own satisfaction Veri investigandi causa and I hope the Commons will grant that Parliaments may erre and that zeal some times may prompt even good men to outrun their duty And it were worth the while seriously to consider how far a Seclusion of this nature may be thought to participate of or dip upon the dangerous Principles of Buchanan Brutus his Vindiciae Boucherus Rutherford's Lex Rex Nepthali and the Jus Populi vindicatum And which makes me still the more admire His Majesties Justice Piety and Prudence in His Proposals by His Chancellor to one of His late Parliaments is that granting the Act of Seclusion should passe what further security can our Protestant Religion be in by such an Act then by the Proposals made by the King Nay surely in a worse condition from a Successour irritated by an Act of Exclussion which for my Reasons aforesaid is but void in Law and so explained in all emergent Cases of that nature For can an Act of Parliament Secluding JAMES of York from the Crown because a Papist be of greater force then was the Act of Richard the 3. against Henry of Richmount then attainted of Treason Not here to speak of the Acts concerning the drumbly successon of Henry the 8. And me fears the renewing the Bill of Seclusion will by some be thought hardly well to consist in all things with the Oath of Supremacie For if the King be the Supreame Judge in all Causes and over all Persons and that his Judgement hath been once and again tryed and his sentiments sufficiently known in this matter of Secluding his Brother from the Crown to provoke His Majesty to give his judgment therein again Superiisdem deductis may by some I say be thought too like a tacit declining of the Kings Supremacy For what Pedaneous judge will readily alter his sentence upon a Reclamation Super iisdem deductis and considering the present posture of affairs in Europe were it not as much for the true interest of the Protestant Religion that the Parliament should here wave the point of Succession and fall cordially to consider and vigorously to comply with His Majesties Proposals trusting God with the event of the two Royal Brothers survivage then by too obstinately stickling upon so near and dear a concern to the King lose so many fair opportunities of doing much good to Religion King and Kingdoms And believe me Sir I write not thir things as being either Popish or Popishly affected but sincerely from the Observations I have taken up of Christianity in its primitive Latitude before it came to be ranked and rended by an Act of Classis And needs must I confess that my zeal participats not so much of the Son of Zebedeus fire but that I can have charity to think there be many who have given up their names to the Church of Rome that do not yet believe all the Idolatrous fopperies either practised in or charged upon her although I can so far regrate the growth and increase of Popery that for the surer instructing of the Vulgar I do heartily wish the old and solid way of Catechetical teaching were more constantly plyed and revived For the running of a glass upon a desultatory Text cannot much confirm them and as little does a Polemical discourse edifie an apron'd auditory Hence take the subtile Jesuits I fear too great advantage under their party-colloured Vizorns to inveigle deceive and even to Rebellions debauch the giddy unstable and not well grounded Plebeians I speak not this any way to reflect upon the Reverend Clergy but if the Fathers of the Church think fit more seriously to recommend to the Incumbents the Cateehetical way for their evening exercise it might perhaps in this juncto be of good use to establish the Comonality in the sound grounds of true Christianity But to return let me tell you His Majestie hath but reason by all just and fair means to defend the Crown in the true and righteous Heir Male if he but either memember or consider that He and His Royal Brother are by the blessing and Providence of Almighty God descended of most Royal Blood in a true Line Male lawfully from Father to Son Kings or Princely Cadets for beyond fifteen entire Centuries But let me not be mistaken For I am not to say that all His Majesties Progenitors were in this account Kings but that they were all by Agnation Cadets and Descendants of the Royal Family I hope to evince For as to His descent from King Fergus the first by some interposition of Daughters the same is clear obvious and beyond contradiction sufficiently by our Historians and others already established But here my assertion is repeated that His Sacred Majesty and His Royal Brother are lawfully descended from King Ethodius the first and that by Princes or Princely Descendants in a true Line Male from Father to Son as I have already expressed it You know then Sir that Ethodius the first of that Name and twenty fifth King of SCOTLAND was Sisters Son to King Mogallus and Succeeded to His Cousin King Conarus about the year of our Saviour 162. when the two Collegiat Antonin's Philosophus Verus govern'd the Roman Impire So shall I mark Ethodius and his Succession as followeth giving the letter K. for King with the figures to show what number the persons so marked stood in and to avoid repetitions of Father and Son be pleased to understand that where the same is not so nominated the person over-head is still Father to him who is placed next immediately below Tritavi 7. Proavus 46 1 Ethodius the 1. K. 25. 45 2 Ethodius the 2. K. 28. 44 3 Athirco K. 29. 43 4 Donald the 2 and 3. Son to Athirco Tritavus 7. 42 5 Fincormachus K. 35. 41 6 Ethodius or Achadius second Son to Fincormachus 40 7 Erthus who with his Father expulsed by the Romans died uncrowned in Denmark 39 8 Fergus the 2. K. 40. 38 9 Dongardus second Son to Fergus the 2. K. 42. Tritavus 6 37 10 Conranus second Son to Dongardus K. 45. 36 11
Aidanus K. 49. 35 12 Eugenius the 4. K. 51. 34 13 Donald the 4. second Son to Eugenius the 4. K. 53. 33 14 Dongardus second Son to Donald the 4. 32 15 Eugenius the 5. K. 56. Tritavus 5. 31 16 Eugenius the 7. K. 59. 30 17 Ethsinus K. 61. 29 18 Achaius K. 65. 28 19 Alpinus K. 68. 27 20 Kenneth the 2. K. 69. 26 21 Ethus second Son to Kenneth the 2. K. 72. Tritavus 4 25 22 Dorus second Son to K. Ethus 24 23 Murdocus second Son to Dorus. 23 24 Pheachar or Ferquhard second Son to Murdocus 22 25 Kenneth 21 26 Bancho Thane of Loquhaber 20 27 Fleance Tritavus 3. 19 28 Walter the 1. who gave to his Posterity the Sirname of Stewart 18 29 Allan the 1. in the Holy Wars with Godfroy Bulloigne 17 30 Walter the 2. Magnus scenescallus Scotiae 16 31 Alexander the 1. Builder and founder of the Abbacy of Paisley 15 32 Allan the 2. 14 33 Walter the 3. commonly called of Dundonald Tritavus 2. 13 34 Robert Lord Turboultown 2 Sonto Walter of Dundonald 12 35 John Lord Darnly 11 36 Robert Lord Darnly 10 37 John Lord Darnly 9 38 Allan Lord Darnly Married to the Daughter of Duke Murdoch Oy to the Earl of Lennox 8 39 John L. Darnly created Earl of Lennox 1482. or thereby Tritavus 1. 7 40 Matthew Earl of Lennox killed at Flowdon 6 41 John Earl of Lennox killed at Linlithgow 5 42 Matthew Earl of Lennox Regent to his Oy K. James the 6th 4 43 Henry Lord Darnly Duke of Rothesay 3 44 KING JAMES the 6. K. 108. 2 45 KING CHARLES the 1. K. 109. 1 46 KING CHARLES the 2. K. 110. JAMES Duke of Albany and York And now you see Sir my assertion made good by this Grand Jurie of His Majesties fourty five Progenitors aforenamed all of them of the Stem and Line Royal lawfully descended And that I may in this Criticall and censorious Age be as free of mistakes as possible Suffer me good Sir yet once again to repeat what I have formerly insinuat that I do not here by this Descent-Male intend to obsfuscat or in the least prejudge or diminish His Sacred Majesty of his contingency of blood and cognation to all or any of His hundred and nine Crowned Predecessors in either their streight descendant or Collateral degrees For that the Crown of Scotland hath contained in one certain Family from K. Fergus the first contemporary with the Grecian Monarch Alexander the Great is by all our Histories put beyond any dispute And to suggest any defence against the ignorance of such who may here mistake the figuring of our Kings in the degrees from Father to Son as if the one immediatly succeeded the other would but impose upon your better knowledge who does sufficiently understand that the elder Collaterials secluded the Descendants as was then also customary in other Northern Nations untill King Kenneth the 3. Civiliz'd it to a just succession in the true and immediat Descent But should this Sir ever go further then your Closet I little doubt but some will be apt to say magno conatu nugas and that all men are descended in a Line Male from Adam which truly a little Rhetorick could perswade me to believe but that all are come or yet so come of Kings and true Royal Cadets will require more Oratory before I be proselyted a Leveller Have I not salv'd His Majesties Descent from His Crowned Predecessors even to our King Fergus the 1. and sufficiently obviat what objections can be rais'd against me there having here only but singled out the Descent-Male which as it hath the Preachers blessing our King even in this branch being in all its steps still the Son of Nobles so if the mourning Prophet meant in that his 35. chap. any good to Jonadab the son of Rhehab is it not worth the considering that God hath been pleased to continue the Lawful Posterity of even our last Heathenish King in a true Line Male to this very day especially now when His Majesty is so frequently Addressed to Seclude his only Brother who equally enjoys the same blessing with himself But the Men of Shaftsburie with Gallio will care for none of those things it matters the less if His Sacred Majesty should who might graciously perhaps allow it to add one grain of weight to his fixed royal kindness for the fourty fifth man child from the Loyns of the first Ethodius without any Female interruption for beyond fifteen hundred years Yet seing even in this Branch of His Majesties Pedegree above represented I do not in all things agree with the more constant tradition I beg your leave Sir to mark where I differ intreating you would but patiently hear my reasons wherein I shall endeavour to be as brief as the clearing of the matter will permit But as I am writing One tells me it will be thought arrogant presumption in me to alter the received Opinion or to controvert with Buchanan Boes or Skeen Good Lord shall we live in an Age wherein there is so much noise for the liberty of the Subject and yet be denyed the liberty of reason or reasoning in the enquiry of truth I hope there be many good Protestants who will not presse me to believe all the legendary tales in Boes and I am perswaded there be many Loyal Subjects who will not advise me to assent to all that Buchanan wrote and I hope common reason will convince any man that in Antiquities which consists in matter of fact it is safer to pin our faith upon old Charters truly expede by the Granters and in the times to which they relate then upon the looser sheets of private Historians writing but some Centuries after who belike if they kept the general threed of the story did not much either examine or notice the particularities or Genealogies of Families yea and in some things here controverted our Antiquaries do not agree with our Historians and should you and I Sir to gratifie their mistaken opinions Mahomet-like hang between But to the matter in hand Boes sayes Fincormachus was the Son of Cormachus and here I place him son to Donald 2. well we agree however in the main assertion For if Cormachus was Cousin-german to Crathilinthus and Brother to Findocus for Boes calls him Patruus Athirco the Grandfather behooved to be the common Stipes and so is yet salved the descent in a Line Male But if Cormachus was son of Athirco which he behoved to be if he was Patruus to Crathilinthus why might not Boes have made his Uncle Dorus carry him also away from the cruelty of Natholocus with his three Brothers Findocus Carantius and Donaldus But alace Boes himself except in this present case doth with all our other Historians give Athirco no moe sons then the three I have just now named But the truth is That our King who immediatly succeeded Crathilinthus should not have been named Fincormachus but Cormachus only
And the mistake lay here that King Cormeick or Cormeig for so the old Highlanders term him had the Epithet of Pheun which in the Irish or old Highland Language signifies fair as the Tutor of Mcleane informs me so that Pheun Cormeich should be no more then Cormachus Pulcher and not Filius Cormachi For the Highlanders do not make use of the Syllable Fin but the Syllable Mack and Vic when they intend to express Patronymicks For if Fin be a Patronymick Particle and hold so in the Nephew Fincormachus why not also in the Uncle Findocus and so if Fin signifies Filius his father should have been Docus but he was Athirco So that such who have first given an account of this King in Latine perhaps had no great skill in the Irish Tongue And finding him alwayes called Feun Cormeich have wrote him Fincormachus And if it be retorted that if Fin be but Pheun in Fincormachus why should it not be also Feun in Findocus I answer the Parity holds not in Epithets and Patronymicks for Fin is but Epithetital in Fincormachus to the Person Cormeig which is a full and Christned Name and there are yet a stock of people who patronymically Surname themselves Mackormeichs from one Cormeich the founder of the Family whereas Fin in Findocus is nothing but a bare syllable of the Christned name Findoch without any signification in it self as yet it sounds in the name Finlaw common and ordinary with us to this day And I am told that Cormeich imports in the Irish as much as an Odd son where the word Odd cannot relate to number For Athirco having three sons before if Cormeich was the fourth then he could not be called an odd son in respect of number for numerus quaternus est numerus par non impar so that Odd must relate to a quality equivalent to the word Strange which hath here been given him in respect of his Beauty and Fairness of a Countenance be like more becoming a Woman than is allowed to the austerities of a Virile Complexion and his Childhood Cormeich hath been confirmed in his riper years by the Epithet Feun Cormeich-feun an odd son for his fairness And for Buchanans naming him Fincormachus and not Cormachus who may be supposed understood the Irish Tongue it imports not for being but born in the Eastern parts of the Lennox and bred still in places more easterly he might not have understood all the Irish Dialects but suppose he did he writing a History impute and neat Latine thought it not worth the noticing in his designed Theme to alter in this the Copies before him neither should I have meddled with it here if Boes had not expresly named him Filius Cormachi whereas Buchanan and Lesly satisfie themselves that he was Nephew to Findocus and Cousin-german to Crathilinthus without naming his Father who was Donald For when Dorus fled with his three Nephews to the Picts doubtless if his brother Athirco had had a fourth son Cormachus that pious and kind Uncle would not have left him to the mercy of the cruel Natholocus And it will be but needless to suppose that Fincormachus might have been the son of Carantius and not of Donald For first that is against Boetius's own story Secondly It makes nothing against my great assertion seing even by yielding Res but redit eodem that he is still Grand-child by a son to Athirco but had he been the son of Carantius for whom Boes bewrayes so much kindness in that his Romantick fable of him sure Cormachus would never by that Author have had the honour to father the son of so noble a Warriour and King of the Britons as Boes makes his Carantius to be amongst whose singular atchievements I wonder why Boes or rather his two stipendiary Friers whom he imployed in the Collection of his History forgot this so notable effort of his who having fled as suspected accessory to the murthering of his brother K Findocus and after traversing most part of the Roman Impire had the good fortune not only to return to this Isle and be install'd King of the Britons before the death of his Goodsyre King Ethodius but also to live after he purg'd himself of the false aspersion before his Nephew Crathilinthus which strange adventure and I pray you mark it he accomplished thus Findocus was murthered in the year of our LORD 263. And if the Caurassius in Eutropius whom the English name Caransius be the same person with this our Carnasius as Boes is pleased to say he was then this Caurassius-Carantius-Carausius who rebelled against Caracalla and succeeded in the British Throne to Bassianus came to be King of the Britons Anno 218. when his Grand-father Ethodius the 2. lived till the year 221. And Crathilinthus came not to the Crown till the year 278. and yet Alectus governed after Carantius Anno 225. which when you reconcile to a just Synchronism I shall the readier believe that Cormachas was father to Fincormachus and son to Athirco even notwithstanding that the Tutor of Mcleane tells me the Highlanders with him speak always Cormeich the son of Donald But I hasten to Bancho for whose Descent as I offer it here from K. Kenneth the 2. I shall presently be allarum'd with gratis dictum gratis dictum But soft a little we are not here upon Apodeictick demonstrations the case and antiquity thereof calls for no such proofs 't is fair we come to credit rational and moral arguments and inducements I shall therefore ingenuously tell you how I did first come by the Relation A country man of ours now deceased proposed to Charles late Duke of Lennox to branch a compleat Genealogical Tree of the entire Family of the Stuarts which so relished with that Noble Prince that he brought with him the last time he came to Scotland a Paper which gives Bancho's Descent from K. Kenneth the 2. in all things as I have here and in the Tree aftermentioned marked And which Paper the Duke said that his Uncle D. James got in the time of the late Troubles from an ingenious Gentleman and lover of Antiquities as handed down to him from some documents that were carried out of this Kingdom by Edward Langshanks The Copy I got from a Gentleman who had it from Duke Charles himself And this account from the Duke of Lennox Paper is agreeable in all things to the old Highland Shanchies rhime they have of the Thane of Lochabers Pedegree and a Shanchy Schanchaner or Scheanchie as the Highlanders speak is a person who hath charge to notice Genealogies the same with Buchanans Senecio and such are yet in use with the Lairds of Mcleane Mclaud and Mcdonald and as well K. Duncans esteem and imployments as Macheths fears of this Banchu conjoyned with the Weird-sisters response his Inheritance and Title of Lochaber with his Oy's coming so soon into favour do abundantly speak him a Cadet of the Royal Family And probable it is that that Donald who
the nature of their Investitures tyed to this Fealty whether the Oath be formally administred or not and whereof the first indispensible branch is by the Lawyers worded quod fidelis Domino suo Haeredibus ejus erit in perpetuum How then can any Peer who was present at the CORONATION or yet any Feudatary who holds his Estate in Capite of the Crown by a free and voluntary act of his own vote the Disinheriting and Secluding of the righteous Heir and undoubted Successor For questionless this Fealty maugre all the Alphabetical niceties of Domino vero meo c. stands from the Obligations of Gratitude beyond all Equivocation conscientiously binding to the Successors of blood in all the Negative tyes though the duties to the present Superior be stronger in the Positives Neither could His Majesty passe or give consent to such an act Because by His Coronation-Oath He swears to maintain the Subject in His Right Liberty and Property And since his Highness is His Majesties Subject though one of His Greatest Noblest Subjects and that as an apparent Heir he hath Spem succedendi and that the CROWN is an ancient Hereditary Crown The KING cannot take away His only Brothers Spem succedendi Because it is by blood his undoubted right from the unalterable Law of Nature ratified by the Law of Nations and secured by the Law of the Land and nature of the Crown which is Hereditary and which fixes it beyond the fears of being altered by either King or Parliament from that Paradoxical State-immortalitie of an Hereditary Monarch And if an Act of Parliament can alter the Succession by excluding or passing by the righteous Heir dare I ask if an Act of Parliament could clip the Commons in their Magna Carta could but the King and Peers fall upon a packed Rump or a Marvellous Parliament that could work wonders though under the Epithet of Indoctum or Insanum Yea should the King Peers and Commons agree to passe such a Bill in Act yet would such an act of Seclusion be but in it self void and null Because it would be contra jus Coronae that great Law which virtually and Originally is a parcel of the Law of the Land and that part of their Common Law which hath the precedence of all Laws and Customs of England And if omnis actus Parliamenti vel consuetudo Regni quae se exaltet in Praerogativam Regis be said to be void in Law how binding will an Act of Seclusion be which strikes not only against the Right and Prerogative but undermines the very Nature and Beeing of an Hereditary Crown And as for his Highness being of a different Religion and the great noise rais'd upon that First To differ in perswasions of Religion while men retain the general name of Christian does not make up a Crime Meritorious of Seclusion Secondly Religion it self under whatever notion is neither essentially constitutive or indispensibly seclusive of Magistracy where the Royalty is Supreame and Hereditary For should an apparent Heir be disinherited by a Protestant Parliament for being a Papist why not a Prelatick heir by a Presbyeterian Parliament And why not a Presbyterian by an Independant an Independant by an Anabaptist and he by a Quaker and so on Is not this not only to found Dominion in Grace but even Property and heritage in Grace For an Hereditary Crown is by Birth-right so far the Successors property heritage as that by all laws he lawfully Succeds to the same Jure sanguinis et haereditario in right of his Progenitors And if a Prince may be thus Secluded from his Inheritance for difference of Religion why should not the same be extended to all others who claim any Heritage by right of Blood from their Predecessors For ubi eadem ratio ibi idem jus and so a Popish Son should not succeed to his Protestant Fathers Estate sic de caeteris And it would be seriously considered what a door this opens to the Papists for that principle of deposing and disinheriting of Heretical Kings And I suspect the Doctrinal difference betwixt Secluding and Deposing in this present Case in hand is but too Metaphysical for sound Christian Politicks and all the Arguments that ever I yet heard for that way of disinheriting by an Act of Seclusion were all but ab incommodo inconveniencies jealousies and fears which I fear can never justifie Protestant Subjects to take away the Birth-right from their lawful and Hereditary Prince For as Magistracy is an Emanation of Gods power as Creator who is thereby pleased to Govern and preserve the World from Confusion The difference of Religion does not nullifie his Office as by our Confession of Faith is justly acknowledged so Inheritance being a Gift of Gods bounty and providence from him as Almighty and as he manifests his Dispensations or as the Schoolmen phrase it as he is pleased to act in Regno Naturae difference in Religion I say does not hinder either wicked or Heretical persons or Kings to inherit their Estates Civil Powers Dignities and Hereditary Crowns because Religion stands lifted under the Collours of Reguum Gratiae whose Laws are not destructive to the Laws of Nature and Nations according to the trit saying jus Gratiae non tollit jus Naturae vel Gentium So let us not for the securing of our Kingdoms from fears of dubious events presume to confound the diversified though fixed methods used or offer to remove the Land-marks set by Jehovah Zebaoth in the managing of his Kingdoms of Nature and grace For I do a little doubt if too forward a zeal for the preservation of the Protestant Religion or of any Religion that flows from Christ the Son as Saviour and Mediator will justifie the taking away from our Prince and Neighbour that which by the Laws of Nature Nations and the Land he hath gotten bestowed upon him by the bounty favour and providence of God the Father as Creator and Preserver of the Univerese and the great and eternally loving Benefactor to mankind And will it not be a harsh reflection upon the Protestant Religion that it cannot be secured unless its Professors run into the same ways so much by themselves condemned in some of the Papists For I look upon the disinheriting of the Apparent Heir as much of kin to their Deposing of Kings not of their own perswasion And believe me the Birthright and Blood of Princes stand not many steps distant and we have an ordinary saying who takes away my livelyhood takes away my life And if the Birthright of an hereditary Prince be not his livelyhood sure it is his honour and the honour of a Prince is the life of a Prince And the Protestant Religion will be driven to a hard pull if we cannot keep it but by breaking some of the Rules and Precepts of it and away with that ex duobus malis c. where the Election is allowed only in malis Poenae but can in no Christianity be
extended ad mala Peccati For says not Paul We should not do evil that good may come of it And if it be an evil or injury to take from a man his Birthright why should that injury be done to His Royal Highness seing it is said by Divines that injuriam homini etiam scelestissimo facere nemo sine peccato potest And should the people in their Representatives be but once authorized to Seclude an hereditary Prince from his Royal Office and Dignity it might be feared they would itch to do the like to the function and very foundations of Government it self a near and recent parallel instance whereof we have fresher in our memories then it needs to be named And to represent to His Majesty that there is no securing of the Protestant Religion except he condescend to the Seclusion of His only Brother seems first to be a strnage limitation of the Holy one of Israel For what if his Highness should quit his perswasion or what if His Majesty should Survive secondly Does not this look too like a prescribing unto the prudence of other Parliaments For what if subsequent Parliaments might fall upon smoother and calmer Methods for equally securing of Religion as Protestants and salving of their duty as Subjects to the equal Satisfaction of the Christian World and their own Consciences Thirdly Shall the positive advice be no other way and why the advice and why so positive Be there not many Members in the Commons House who are Feudataries of the Crown and being honoured in their Parliamentary capacities to give Council to the King in arduis Regni are they not by their Feudal fealty to advise their Lord Paramount to nothing but what is honestum For this is one of the six by a Homager required that when admitted to the consults of his Master ut quae Domino honesta sunt consulat Say now then and say ingenuously will the expecting World or after Ages say that it is honestum for Charles to Seclude and Disinherit James his only Brother and in the case of Survivage the only Son of Charles the Martyr yea the only Heir Male of the Illustrious Royal Line aftermentioned or by disinteressed or unbyassed persons will it be judg'd altogether honestum for Feudatory Subjects again and again to press the advice of Secluding such an Heir especially in a fortuitous event which may be or may not be I need not I hope tell you Sir that though here I urge some Arguments from the Feudal Law pressing enough I conceive upon Vassals who are not willing to hazard a Disclamation of their Honours and property yet you know I look not upon Monarchy as betwixt Prince and People to be within the verge of Feudal Contracts knowing Kingdoms to be extra commercium holding only of the King of Kings But if ever it should please God in his All-wise-dispensations to suffer the Crown to descend to a Popish Successor I put the Query Whether it be more consonant for Protestant Christians to submit to the Almightie's secret will and bewail our condition laying our mouths in the dust while we examine whether or not the abuse of the Protestant Religion in this Isle making a mask thereof and alledging grounds therefrom for rebelling against the best of Princes might not in some measure have provoked God to suffer a Popish Successor which yet whatever be his private opinions I do not here charge upon his Highness seing the late unnatural Rebellion drove his pious Father to that necessity that he was not able to keep nor maintain His Family or educat His Children as he would And belyke earnest supplications to God in whose hands are the hearts of Princes to turn them whethersoever he listeth under an humble sence thereof might be more Christian and consisting with the Principles of the Protestant perswasion then a wilful Secluding and disinheriting of him And whatever may fall out in matter of fact or what people has done in such cases for I am only here upon the point of right sure it was a good observe that was given upon Josiah that God did in him blesse the Jewish nation with one of the best of their Kings because they rebelled not against nor did cast off his wicked Predecessors Amon and Manasseh I know the English have ready at hand to instance and urge their late Marian Persecution with the miserable bloody and dismal severities thereof which I can much easier regrate then justifie or excuse Yet might I in behalf of a misled zeale ordinary to the weaker sex be but indulged to represent that those times and ours will hardly in all things run parallel I could Suggest that Hendrie the eigth having departed from the Church of Rome he quitted the stage of the World before the Protestant Profession was in his Kingdoms well settled by Law And his Son Edward the sixth succeeding young when most of the Nobility and many of the Nation stood Popishly affected the matter of Religion came not in his short Reign to be so legally adjusted So methinks without offence I might even out of compassion to a Foeminine frailty still zealous for their own opinions wink a little at some shadow of extenuation in favours of Mary from the then standing and unrepealed Statutes But now that it hath pleased God under the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her Protestant Successors to strengthen that Profession by all just and Legal consolidations Little I should hope may now be feared of alteration from his Highness should he even succeed in a Popish perswasion since his justice is so not our the World over that where he is not picpu'd below the Grandeur of His Birth he glories to be an example of Obedience to the Laws of the Land and whose interest certainly it will prove not to disturbe them and who from a tenderness of conscience freely allows his Children to be educat and his Family exercised in the Protestant Profession as by the Laws and Church of England established and injoyned And who besides his personal Character and innate moderation stands a little ingaged in favours of His Race and Ancestors not to forget the Historians observe that Stuartorum Genus was Lene temperatum Let us then be afraid to refuse the watters of Schiolah that go softlie least the Lord be tempted and bring upon us the waters of the River strong and many even with the King of Assyria in all his glory Nay rather let us betimes send some of our humors and opinions to be washt at the Pool of Siloam that so seing our mistakes we may studie to build and cover the walls thereof even to to the Stairs that go down to the Citie of our David nigh to the Kings Garden then thus foolishlie to fancie any solid rejoicing in some popular Rezius or Remalialis sones But suppose the worst that a jealous and fearful fancy can suggest I would gladly ask the directors of our consciences if it be
di Stato it being thought belike then convenient that the Summus Oeconomus should be made also Magnus Senescallus while both were conjoyned in the person of a near and Loyal Kinsman And have I not seen an old Coat of Arms for the Stuart Entasselled or cordeleired with Thistles and as it were some leaves or twigs interwoven and giving the Motto Nemo me impune lacessit where the Supporters held one of them upon a Standart the Flag of the Family and the other bore a St. Andrews Cross And what more proper Hierogliphick in Herauldry could be given to the Counting Oeconomus then the Fesse Chequie And what fitter for a Magnus Senescallus Scotiae then the Badge then used by the Kingdom with the Thistles and Motto abundantly expressive of his Duty Courage and Loyalty when conjoyned with the Crest which was the head of an Unicorn And in a Letter from the Nobility of Scotland to the Pope Anno 1320. among some thirty eight Seales appending when I did see it the Seale of Walter Son-in-Law to Robert the Bruce was only a plain Saltier or St. Andrew's Cross as in my Notes upon that Letter I have observed And his Son Robert the first King of the Stuarts when he reserved and annexed the Estate and Office of the Great Steward of Scotland for ever to the Crown to be enjoyed alwayes by the Kings eldest son the Prince Politickly said It was too dangerous to make anie a Magnus Senescallus or hereditarie General but the next Heir of the Crown although even that King shewed more then ordinary kindness for his second son Robert yet for the honour of his Fathers House for he came to the Crown in right of his Mother did he advance the Badges and Symboles of the Office to stand external Imbellishments to the Coat Royal dignifying and inlarging the old Crest by tying his gorged Vnicorn with a chain of Loyal Magnanimity to suport the Regal Lyon teaching thereby the Prince and Steward of Scotland for ever to be faithful and Loyal to the Crown which may convince such of their foolish ignorance who from the Chain in our Kings Atchievement would forsooth by a strange Armorial Logick argue a Vassalage to England What! Our Vnicorn is not chained nor does he chain his Lyon to their Leopards while in defence of his Quadrupedal Monarch he bears a Horn with a Nemo me impune lacessit Hence Sir you may readily conceive I stand a little ingadged to crave pardon why I so formally differ from those who write the Epigraph Nemo me impune lacesset in a Circle environing the Image of St. Andrew when I attribute all to the Magnus Senescallus Permit me then Sir to offer my Arguments and guess at their grounds and though this be a digression yet speaking here of His Majesties Line Male I hope it will not be to you unpleasant that this Paper present you my thoughts of the Royal Badges of the Kingdom with the Principal order of Knighthood ordinarily thereunto assigned The tale then goes That Hungus King of the Picts assisted by Achaius against the Saxon Athelstane did at Elsanfoord neare Haddingtown upon an Apparition of St. Andrews Cross obtain a memorable and unexpected Victory whereupon that Apostle became St. Patron to the Scots and Picts And in all Battels thereafter was success under his Banner equally pray'd for expected and promised And to whose greater honour did Achaius erect in the City of St. Andrews an order of the Knights of the Thistle with the Motto as last aforesaid Nemo me impune lacesset And yet there be some who attribute this to a congratulation of the League with Carlemain as if it should be touchie and uneasy for any to disquiet the Scots when so assisted by the French As to the truth of the Apparition I leave it to those who list to believe it Nor will I here concern my self whether St. Andrew was Patron to the Picts before the days of Hungus when Regulus the Grecian Monk first brought some of his Reliques to King Hergustus Far lesse will I now state the Question When or by what methods and devices the Religious remembrance of or respectful reverence to the Names and Virtues of the Saints departed did first in our Church creep up to a formal adoration and superstitious Invocation of them Since I verily believe if our Historians abuse us not Spots 1. B. Boes 10. B. that the storied Vision appeared not to Achaius For the Scots Auxiliaries went under the conduct of his son Prince Alpine the Crowned King judging it below his Royal Dignity to march in person as an Allie in the but extrinsick quarrel of his bordering and oftentimes offensive neighbour And although the Badge of St. Andrew be derived to us from the Picts yet some in their relations thereof are not so fully clear in either the cause occasion or time whether before or after the destruction of the Picts If before what tempted a Scots King to borrow from a Pictish could he not have devised of his 〈◊〉 or should the one brother-in-law rob from the other one of the choicest Badges of his Christian devotion and Princely honour But if the Scots assumed it after the fatal period of the Pictish Kingdom sure Achaius lived not to see that exterminating blow And how peaceable will you make Hungus with his Picts who suffered a Scots King not only quietly but even gloriously to erect himself Sovereign of an order of Knighthood in one of the chieft Cities of their own Otholinia before Kirk-Rule was Christned St. Andrews and that too in the name and under the Protection of their beloved Tutelary Saint with the blessing of large promises for Victory to his Votaries under no less then the menacing Epigraph of Nemo me impune lacesset for who would think that the poor passive Thistle could ever be so boistrous in the future But why contrary to all other Mottoes so severe a menace in the Future Did the deceased Brother of St. Peter so soon forget the dictates and example of his living Master who when he was reviled stood so far wide of revenge as never so much as once to revile again teaching his Disciples to learn of him to be meek and lowly and not to suffer the Sun to go down upon their wrath And why from a peaceable and inspired Apostle such an ensurng word for Victory successe and revenge as Nemo me impune lacesset when the infallible Oracle bids tell a Puissant and Martial Monarch Let not him that girdeth on his Harnesse boast himself as he that putteth it off But belike that Ventorious rather then Victorious Promise hath been conceived a little scrimp of the common stile Conjunctly but not severally else what a pitiful pickle will they put St. Andrews in for an Orleans gloss upon his Text when the Oy of Achaius successively and utterly defeated Druskenus with his Vicomagian Horestian Otholinian and all his other Picts where the ears
Steward were thereafter as I have already said placed by K. Robert the 2. the exterior Ornaments to the Coat Royal yea I suppose those Voluminous extrinsick inbellishments and additaments now in use in the Atchievements of free Princes will neither here nor scarcely elsewhere own so old a date as Achaius or his Grand-child Kenneth And so how handsomely does now the Regal Lyon in the Crest Royal sit with his Sword and Scepter a Vindicative Judge in defence of the Crown and Kingdom when supported and incouraged by his son and successor examplifying to the People their Duty and Loyalty advertising them that whatever troubles they procure or creat to his Father or Predecessor he as Prince and Steward of Scotland stands there from God an avenging Magistrat at hand with his Nemo me impune lacessit What needs then you Sir me or any man trouble our selves with the too much Legendary tale of S. Andrews me in a meaning Future when the Great Steward helps us with better sense History and reason from his own me in a modester Present and Praeterfect sense And as I believe the writing Laccesset will be found upon a true scrutinie to be but some new fancy So would I gladly know when the Epigraph first incircled the Image which leads me to the Order of Knighthood it self And which If I may without offence I would exceedingly doubt of For what a manck and slender Order will it be consisting only of a single Sovereign without any Fellows O! but some are confident enough to speak of the number of the Companions yet in all ages down from Achaius they name not so much as one person You know it is betwixt the more knowing and the Vulgar controverted whether Edward the third or his Son the Black Prince instituted the Garter But here is Achaius instituting an order and if so the oldest in Europe of a Kings institution for the Pairrie of Charles the Great was a Society of men for Council and Government and not an Order of Knighthood for Honour Chevalry and yet not so much as admitting his eldest son Alpine a Fellow though he it was who with Hungus beat Athelstane And sure Kenneth hath had but little respect for his Grand-fathers institution and been as regardless of his Friends if he bestowed not a little honour on those to whom he gave so much of fortune by associating his Barus and Fifus into the Order And must we be so unmannerly to say that K. Duncan hath been but a sorry Good-fellow who could not quaffe it over to Bancho for that his St. Johnstown collation to the Danes And doubtless Malcolm Canmoir was peevish who when he indulg'd so famous a Girth to Mackduff yet grudg'd him a green Ribband with a Thistle Or did not the Hay at Lonkartie the Kieth at Camstane with the Stewart who defeated Acho at the Largs deserve it And questionless Robert the Bruce but undervalued the service of the good Lord Dowglas when he but dub'd him a Knight without vouchsafing him the Collar of St. Andrew And was the Black Knight of Lorn who by wedding of a Queen gave Brothers and Sisters to a King adopted a Companion of the Order And was not James the Fourth much more sparing of his favours then his person who would not by alluring the Nobles into the Society of the Thistle better incourage and detain them in that his too forward invasion at Floudown And can you judge but James the 5. himself would have lent Oliver Sinclare his Nemo me impune lacesset were it but to have stated him in competition with the Maxwel at Solvay-Moss And what Inamorato will say that Marie should have denyed her Darling Darnlie the Communication of the Order whereof she was equally Sovereign as her Sister Elizabeth of the Garter when she designed to honour the Duke of Rothsay with the Nuptial bed of a free born and Independant Queen yea would not her learned Son amongst the rest of his Unions have interchanged some English Noblemen to the Thistle as he did Scots to the Garter But when did our Kings quit this so Antient and honourable an Order Why do not the Champions of it give the account as in other Orders we read and find Sure it was derelinquist in no Century for want of Martial and deserving men but belike it went out because it never came in and it is but Childish to think that there cannot be an antient Crown without a formal Order of Knighthood appendant to it where the Argument runs stonger on the contrary side And I am apt to believe that this very mistake prevails with some for their so tenacious maintaining of this so alleadged antiquitated Order which looks to me too like a French translation to be believ'd a Scots Original For there 's a St. Michael here a St. Andrew and an Apparition for both the one to a Father Charles the other to a Son Alpin both in or near Battels near also to Bridges and Rivers the one against the English at the Bridge of Orleans in La Beauss upon the Loyre the other against the English too near a Bridge upon Tine in Lothian both for ought I know in a green Ribband but to be sure with intervoven Collours and lofty Mottoes Immensi tremor Oceani which beyond all peradventure Nemo me impune lacesset the Seat of the one at St. Michaels Mount in Normandy from which the French partly had and fully resolved to turn out the English Normans The other at the Town of St. Andrews in Otholinia now Fife out of which by a strong Divination Achaius foresaw that his Grandchild would drive the Picts only we want a St. Andrew-Herauld when they had a Mount St. Michael to attend upon the Order Is it then any Heretical disrespective or disloyal conjecture to conceive that Kenneth the 2. made no other use of the Military Ensign of the Picts then to repeat the same for his own as victoriously gained by him in open Battel ornamented thereafter as I have expressed by the Great Steward for the Badge of his Charge as in some comparison we yet see the Chamberlain wear the Golden Key on a blew Ribband augmenting the Royal atchievement by the direction of Robert the 2. and intended for an Order by James the 5. after his return from France who having had the Garter from his Uncle the Cockle from his Father-in-law and the Fleece from his friend and Allie the Emperour Blusht belike to want an order of his own which that it might not derogat from the antiquity of his Kingdom was it not as easy for him to hire Monks to skrew it up to Achaius as for Edward Langshanks to cause contrive to Fable of Brutus for clatching up a claime before the Pope to Scotland And if this Order was established before the days of K. James the 5. Why cite they not an authentick and creditable Author who wrote before him giving some rational account of the same And
why is he our only King whose shoulders appear surrounded with the Ribband Was the Collar of St. Andrew inconsistent with the penitential Girdle of his Father but what should have impeded his other Predecessors to use it or if he perfected the Order who were his Companions it is not so long since but some of them might be remembred And why did his Daughter and Grand-child lay this his so much hugged Order so soon aside I shall little doubt but here you might from the suggestions of some alledge I have run my self in a gross if not dangerous Praemunire But I write to one who knows the difference betwixt Badges and Arms. Far be it from me to rob the Royal Atchievement of that its honourable tho extrinsick Badge of St. Andrew pendulous to the Collar which I never see but it equally minds me of the Destruction of the Picts gallant Resolution of the Great Steward and reverential Duty of our Robert the 2. to the memory of His Fathers Family And beyond peradventure had James the 6. or any of the Charles's lookt upon this as the Badge of an Order they would have worn it at least when they were in Scotland And to alledge the French and English Writers gives it so is but to gratifie their mistakes to the prejudice of our true and more martial antiquities for our Kings never wanted power to confer Knighthood but as they did it most in Procinctu to the deserving so did they little value those prescribed Orders that creept but in upon designs inlater times the Knights of our Antient Kings being truly Milites tho of no formal Order beyond that of merit But me fears I have provoked your patience to be a little out of Order to the hazard of losing my solitary Walter and Allane To prove then my Second Walter I first instance Skeen in that his Table of the Kings from Malcolm the second printed with the Acts of Parliament and which I also repeat for proving him the first Great Steward where to be sure that we do not mistake the Malcolm by misfiguring 4. for 3. he adds the word the Maiden for he Prints expresly Walter made Great Steward of Scotland by Malcolm 4. the Maiden And Skeen being Clerk Register he hath been doubtless from the Records of the Kingdom sufficiently instructed for his so writing him the first Great Steward And though he mistook the sending of his son Allan to the Holy Wars if he means these of Godfrey de Bulloigne yet is he abundantly fortified in his Walter by Fordon in the 25. chap. of his 8. Book saying Walterus filius Allani Dapifer Regis qui Pasletum fundavit obiit Anno 1177. And if Walter the son of Fleance who was more then twenty years old ere he came to Scotland to his Cousin Malcolm Canmoir lived to this time expressed by Fordon as he was Senescallus so should I well allow him to be Magnus for his Age since upon the most Sober computation that can be he behooved to exceed an hundred years at least For himself being twenty before he frequented the Court of his Grand-father in Wales and which was before he came unmarried to Scotland what years will you allow to his son at Antioch 1099. who being the eldest probably left also a son behind him when he departed the Kingdom But Oh this Walters father is Allan not Fleance and but yet Dapiser to Fordon whose Grand-father then could not have been the first Magnus Senescallus Scotiae Moreover this my second Walter is further astructed by a Charter which I have seen granted by Malcolm 4. confirming the Church of Falkirk and certain Lands thereunto belonging to the Abbacy of Haly-rude-house bearing Date at the Maiden Castle where the witness next after the Bishops and Earles is Waltero filio Allani And this Charter which must be before the year 1165. and after the year 1153. for in the one did Malcolm the Maiden succeed and in the other did he die does unanswerably make out from their own concessions another Walter then he of Dundonald For the Father of this Walter is expresly in the Charter named Allan Will you then say Walter of Dundonald who lived till the year 1241 would be insert as a probative witness to a deed of Malcolm the 4. when the witnesses ingros'd in the Charters of our Kings were and yet are men of years and offices seing they interpose Alexander who builded Pasley to be his Father whose father yet notwithstanding was even our second Allan of whom Fordon in the 56 chap. of his 9. Book sayes obiit Walterus filius Allani junioris Anno Dom. 1241. And justly was he Junior because Allan the Grand-child to Fleance was Senior And most truly might Fordon write him Father to Walter of Dundonald seing I have seen him in a Charter from King Alexander the 2. to the House of Sutherland Dated at St. Andrews 26. of Decemb. the 22. year of his Reign which answers to the year of Christ 1234. or 1235. insert a witness next after Patrick Earle of Dumbar in these words Waltero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae And in another Charter yet in my hands granted by the said King Alexander the 2. at Traquair the first day of June in the twenty first year of his Reign confirming to the Abbacy of Cowper two Carrucats and a half of Land measured in Feodo de magno Blair in Excambion for the Common Muir of Blair per easdem divisas sayes the Charter per quas Walterus filius Allani Senescallus noster Scotiae alii probi homines nostri dictam terram iis ex parte nostra assignaverunt tradiderunt Now choose you whether this Walterus filius Allani ingrossed in the bosom of the Charter in the Nominative Case be the son of the first or the second Allan I do not much reguard it though it may be more probable he was the Son of the first Allan and my second Walter because this Kings Uncle who builded the Abbacie of Cowper might have employed his Cousin the Steward to divide these Lands to the Monks And that he hath not the office of Justitiary which is here given to one of the Witnesses who are William Bishop of Glasgow the Chancellor Clement Bishop of Dumblain Patrick Earl of Dumbar and then follows as in the Earl of Sutherlands Charter VValtero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae So be the Witness and Person ingrost here one and the same or distinct importeth nothing seing Fordon and my three Charters still prove Allan a father of a Walter and Walter the son of an Allan and that in distinct times and Generations And thus you see Sir how I have cleared my second Walter and my second Allan the leaving out of whom has flow'd I suppose from a defect in the first concoction in not exactly observing the Walters and the Allans which because they could not well clear they have choosed rather first to
lay these two aside that they might thereafter be altogether left out And how strangely does Skeen abuse his first Walter For if his Allan was with Godfrey of Bulloigne surely he could not be the Son of his own first Walter For how can it be supposed that the son of a man contemporary but with Malcolm the Maiden who came not to the Crown till the year 1153 could be of vigour and valour to undertake so long tedious and dangerous a Voyage to go and fight against the Infidels in Jurie-land Anno 1099. for of what age can you suppose him to have been when he went away and of what a vigorous constitution behooved his Father to be if he was the Son of Fleance who was thought fit to be intrusted with such a Military Charge as to be made in his Office of Magnus Senescallus the Kings Lieutenant and Captain General of all the Forces in the Kingdom by Malcolm the Maiden And the same mistake so pinches another how handsomely to conjoyn Alexander the First with Allan the Frist that he makes Alexander to have been begotten the very year his father was at the Siedge of Antioch and counts as if at Cards a just hundred and all made making him with a French Fortaage to die in the year 1199. Whereas this my second Walter and second Allan so clearly proven as aforesaid salves all these Phoenomena from so many idle contradictions and moral impossibilities And if any man shall here cavil and say that I cite Fordon wrong when I make him alledge a Walter was the founder of Paisley when it is known it was Alexander I answer that Fordon in the Liberary of Edinburgh will attest me just to him in the Citation And for Fordons Vindication know that my second Walter witnessed as much true piety at home as did his wandering Father of blind Zeal abroad when upon his being advanced to the Office of Great Steward of Scotland he erected if not primarily founded Paisley in a Collegiat Church considerably doting the same which the Devotion of his Son Alexander extended and inlarged to an Abbacie And in a Book yet extant in Pasley commonly called the Register not the Black Book of Pasley The first Benefactor next to the Founder of the Abbacie stands inrolled Allan which Allan cannot be thought the first Allan Grand-Father to the Founder but must be the Second Allan Son to Alexander and Father to Walter the third commonly called of Dundonald As for the other Persons in the Descent they are all clear by the Histories of the Kingdom and the Writes of the House of Lennox fully down to our own Memory and Times And now from the Premisses I suppose I have proven my Position even His Majesties Descent in a true Line Male from Father to Son in Princes or true Princely Cadets from the Loines of the first Ethodius for fifteen hundred years and that by as strong Proofs as the nature of the Subject allows or in such cases are required For the Descent of the House of Lennox of which was His Majesties great Grand-Father on the Father side is uncontroverted from Walter of Dundonald as Walter of Dundonald is known whatever be the persons from Bancho and to men that are not prejudicat and who are free to allow Kings to be Gentlemen I need to say no more then what is before-mentioned for Bancho from K. Ethus and our Historians are my Vouchers for Ethus from Ethodius and when any Genealogy of equal Antiquity shall be better Documented saving still such as are in the Sacred page then let not this be believed But I fancy some will rashly and with confidence enough say what will I do with Queen Mary Nay may even her soul praise God and her bones rest in peace with those of Marjory Bruce the Daughter of Allan of Galloway David of Huntingtoun and K. Malcolm the second I have not been so idle as to aver that in this Descent Male all his Majesties Progenitors were Kings satisfying my self that they were either Kings or true Princely and undoubted Cadets from the Stock Royal. Although I have honoured my self to deduce in the Tree aftermentioned all the Kings from Marjory Bruce to Queen Mary parallel to those of the House of Lennox that it may appear it may be more justly said of His Majesty then of the Roman Deus est in utroque Parente But when I designed a Letter loe it swells to a Book And trust me the Singularities in His Majesties Line might challange a Volume in its Antiquity whether you view His Scotish British or Irish Extract preferable to any now extant in the Vniverse unless they go higher then Fergus Cassibilane or Gathelus a Line singularly blest to show to the World the first two Christian Kings with the first Christian Emperour Fortunat even in its losses for when the straight Line was broke off to make way to Collaterals even such lopped Branches Ornamented the Stock with better names then those of Sons and Daughters Witness that Great Light Levir Maure or the British Lucius with our first Donald and Constantine the Great a Briton by his Mother Helena Daughter to King Coilus To which we may add the Gallantry of Arthur which listed him one of the nine Worthies of the World The Devotion of Cadwallader with the Chastity of our Maiden King And to take in both Sexes their Virgin Queen a Line which next to that of Judah's stands the liveliest Commentary I know upon Solomons Per me Reges regnant a Line whose Crowns from Gathelus down are all but acquests in the right of Succession by the common road of Justice and Equity For whether Gathelus entred into Possessionem vacuam or compacted with the Natives when he first came to Ireland Quis rem tam veterem pro certo affirmet But sure his authority was from Heaven For what Fanatick can have a forehead to refuse that the Spirit of God assisted the Penman of nI faLLat fatuM sCotI qVoCVnque LoCatVM InVenIent LapIDeM regnare tenentVr IbIDeM Where the four M's the two D's three C's four L's six visible V's with the seven I's by a strange numerical Prophesie holds to the Year of the World 5537. in which was born K. James the sixth who found the fatal Chair at Westminster before him Fergus was called in by his Kinsmen the Scots and by them of their own consent lawfully constitute their King Kenneth the Second did but recover the Possession of the Pictish Kingdom due to him in right of his Grand-mother Ferguisiana Sister to Hungus King of the Picts after the death of her Nephews Dorstolorgus and Ethanus from which Crown Kenneth and his Father Alpin were debarred by Usurpers of the peoples Election So that Kenneths attaining the Crown of the Picts was not a Conquest but a severe example of Gods just indignation against Rebells in secluding the righteous Heir from his Inheritance the Picts after that never regaining the face or name
of a People Nation or Kingdom And the Monarchy of England was no gift of Queen Elizabeths to King James because a Protestant but his due Inheritance from K. Henry the seventh by his eldest Daughter neither were the Queens words James of Scots the Protestant but James of Scots my Cousin It is true happy was the Conjunction in that blessed Peace-maker whom Heaven it seems had preordain d to be Vnionum Vnio a Pearl of price amongst the other Gems But woe be to Princes if Religion nay rather the Forms Modes Sects conceited Opinions nicknamed Principles and parties of assumed Designations from either the dismembred parts hems or Fringes thereof which in thir dregs of Time are atomed beyond Arithmetick come once to be the only Standart of their Scepters But blessed be God Crowns of the Lords anointing do not so easily totter consider that strange Eteostick for His Majesties Birth eCCe VeL angLorVM aC haCtenVs VLLVs oVat 1630. As strangely answered by the Minted Hactenus Anglorum Nullus which equally befool'd the Devils Nullus in his vir puer alecto c. And Olivers more hellish Nollus most strangely suffering an Ecclipse and direful Synalaepha more sadly Historical then Grammatically Prosodiacal before the English can scan the Ovat of the Restauration And if it were lawful for the Subjects of Charles to vote their King by pole would not the Scots do injustice to themselves should they prefer any to one lawfully descended from their own First Fergus when they have here Lochaber imped in the House of Galloway by the last Great Steward and Marjory Bruce And this from David of Huntingtoun Ingraft in the Stock by King David the First that by Bancho and his Progenitors from K. Ethus And if there be yet any of the Pictish Blood remaining would they refuse a Prince from the Loins of their own King Hungus-Father or if there be beyond Tweed who delight in variety and sickly Stomach 's nauseat a constant Diet let them here pick and choose which of the Roses smelleth sweetest since our James the fifth by his Mother can furnish them with either Will they have the Normans from France or from Flanders before or after the Conquest Then our James the first gives the one by a Daughter of Somerset from John of Ghaunt Son to Edward the third and our Kenneth the third by the Daughter of William Longespee does without a stain supply them with the other Would they have the outlaw'd Edward restored our Malcolme Canmoir in his St. Margaret hath done it to their hand Wish they the Danes our James the fourth by his Mother may please them Which of the Heptarchies desire they Egbert the Great can direct them And what Welshman will refuse the Ofspring of Cadwallader be he North or South Hursell will be pleased when Hur hears it is by the Wife of Fleance but the Progeny of Griffith ap Lewelin ap Sitsylth Prince of Guinedh and the Lady Angharad Daughter to Meredith ap Owen Prince of Deheubarth And both the Grand-fathers from Roderick Mawre without a doubt descended of Cadwallader Or what will they have the Native Britons Whether from the Greater Britain or the Lesser Bretagne And whether before or after Lucius Legacy to the Romans even to the Ancestors of the Founder of their beloved Trino hantin-Caerlud Cadwallader then from Constantine the Son of Aldroenus King of Armorica in France does for me sufficiently the one and their own Geoffrie of Monmouth spares me the labour to do for them the other Or if yet any wild Irish dare offer to disown the juster and nobler Scepter of Gathelus Simon Breck and Ferquard the Father of our Fergus it will be easie to Harp them a spring upon the harsher Title of Conquest Yea is not our Sacred Soveraign a King who by his Predecessors through the Mother of the third English Edward from the fourth Philip of France hath as the nearest Heir by the Law of Nations and Nature a fairer pretence to the Lillies then could in justice the Posterior and more unequitable Salique constitution give either to the House of Valois or Bourbon Yes a Line Sir wherein the Prince Regnant for the time may with greater justice then any Potentate under the great beaming Luminary without complement name his Vassalls his Cousins For let the Baronages of his Treeple Crowned Kingdoms be but impartially surveyed And if they be of any standing the greatest Nobility they can glory in will be found soon or sine derived to them by some blood-rillet or other from this very same Royal Fountain So that the Peerage not to say how dim those Stars hang in the Firmament of the State during the least Ecclipse of the Monarchical Sun as was by a total both lately and sadly experimented So that the Peerage I say of Britain and Ireland are not faithful to their own honour if they do not here even without Oaths of Allegiance acknowledge they owe their Native Prince all Homage and Loyalty since most of them leave to say that they are Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone And yet I know not how it comes to pass that this very Line seems to have equally intail'd upon it the Fate and Blessing of Joseph For the Archers have shot at it yea verily the Archers have shot and grieved it sorely yea hated it too but blessed be the God of Jacob its Bow yet abideth in its strength And by the hands of the Almighty hath it become a fruitful Bough whose Branches have run over the Christal Walls of Albion Is it not then the duty as well as honour of all in this British World to pray that there may never want one from this Stock Dum Saecula Mundus Volvet qui Patrij Scepiri moderamen habebit AND now Sir I have wearied You but because Finis would contradict the Verse Let me tell you I have caused deliueat a Genealogical Tree of this His Majesties Descent from Ethodius though at first indeed intended only from Achaius which you Sir or any may upon a small expence have either in Tallyduce or Illuminat from George Porteou or Mr. John Shambothy And because you know amant alterna Camaenae suffer me to close with a few fancies I wrote for the handsome adorning of the Tree Where should you meet with a critical Word or bold Construction any crytical Phrase or antick Line you will easily I hope excuse it to the antiquity of times personated speakers and straitness of the Composure And seing such is your perfect knowledge in the minutest and darkest Passages of our Histories any Explanation would but look like him who painting an Elephant was sure to note down the Word lest the Creature should have been mistaken for a Pig Some of the Lines if Communicat may belike chance to rouse and awaken the memories of such as Read our Histories and to such as care not for them any Exposition it but needless to the more knowing