the Ministry of the late Duke Lauderdale what Mischiefs a Person in his Post about the King may be instrumental in bringing upon the Kingdom of Scotland For tho he was endowed with too much Wit and Courage to be either hector'd or wheedl'd to be any Man's Tool and Property yet through lack of Probity on the one hand and excess of Ambition on the other he was easily prevail'd upon to become an Instrument of ruining and enslaving his Country What may Scotland then dread if a Person should be honoured with the Character and Trust of Secretary for that Kingdom in whom all the Qualifications for so considerable a Station were the sighing decently the entertaining one with a grave Nod or if you please a Grimace instead of a sold Reason the making those whom he judgeth Court-Favourites his unerring Oracles and learning the Customs Rights and Laws of his Nation from them that never did nor were obliged to know them the recommending those to be Privy-Councellors to the King who withstood his being so the favouring those in obtaining the Office of prosecuting Nocents who stand accused for endeavouring to subborn Witnesses for destroying the Innocent and as an Addition to all those Accomplishments should be so swallowed up in the immoderate Love of the World that instead of having his Thoughts exercised about the Service Grandeur and Safety of his Master should be wholly imploy'd how to ingross the considerable Places of the Kingdom for inriching his Family Into what Inconveniences may the best Prince be easily drawn if his Secretary be unable to advise him what he may legally do and what he may not With what Facility is a weak and easy Person in that Post misled by an English Minister of State who has a mind to be revenged upon Scotland for rejecting Episcopacy How may a Crafty and Treacherous Courtier that hath a purpose to play an after-game for the late King influence a Scots Secretary unskilled in the Politicks to imbroil his present Majesty with his People in Scotland and all for this that the Abdicated Monarch may have a new Throw for his Crowns again Suppose but one Person in Office about the King for the Affairs of Scotland and him to be extreamly timerous What fatal Councils under the fear of the Whip may he be prevail'd upon to suggest and give Hence it is evident what Disadvantages those of that Nation lie under of having both their Persons and Actions misrepresented and their Rights and Liberties undermined and invaded and that as well by reason of the King 's residing constantly at so great a distance from them as because of his having no more Counsellors usually about him in reference to their Affairs than who as a French King was pleased to express it may all ride upon one Horse Now as it was the Oppression and Slavery under which we had been brought that rendred His Majesties Undertaking in coming into these Kingdoms with an armed Force in order to redeem them both honourable and just So it was the hope of being delivered by him from Misery and Bondage that encouraged us first to invite and then to co-operate with him in the Prosecution and Accomplishment of his glorious Design It was the Invasions upon our Laws that we complained of and from which we desired and endeavoured to be relieved nor had we any Quarrel with the late King's Counsellors save as they were Advisers unto and Instruments of overthrowing them So that if what the Parliament of Scotland desires to have redressed be not something wherein their Laws have been invaded and their Rights violated they are to blame for insisting upon it as a Claim of Right and should rather crave it as an Act of Grace if they find the want of it prejudicial to the Nation But if what is required do either appear to have been wrested from the Nation or that through their not obtaining it they will be upon all occasions obnoxious to be oppressed and inthralled we may then assure our selves that His Majesty is too just as well as good to deny them For as His Majesty doth generously acknowledg in his Declaration emitted at the Hague for the restoring of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom of Scotland That they who are concerned in the Laws Liberties and Customs established by Lawful Authority in a Nation are indispensibly bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the said Laws Liberties and Customs so he doth in the same Declaration sacredly promise that upon being prosper'd in what he was then undertaking he will not only free that Kingdom from all hazard of Popery and Arbitrary Power for the future and deliver it from what at that time did expose it to both but settle it by Parliament upon such a solid Basis as to its Religious and Civil Concers as should most effectually redress all the Grievances under which it had groaned And therefore as we are not to imagine that a Parliament which in the whole course of its Proceedings hath testified so much Love Loyalty and Zeal for His Majesty both in advancing Him unto and maintaining Him in the Throne will abridg and lessen any of the just and legal Prerogatives of His Crown or challenge any Priviledg Right or Immunity which their Ancestors have not been possessed of under the best and most Glorious as well as Ancient Reigns so it were unpardonable to think that a Prince of so much Wisdom Goodness Honour Justice and Truch as His Majesty is known to be should either insist upon the detaining from His People what some of his Predecessors have by Fraud and Violence ravished from them or should so far depart from His Princely and Sacred Word as to frustrate the Expectations of His Leiges of having those Grievances redressed which His Parliament have condescended upon as necessary to be remedied But as His Majesties delaying to gratify the desires of His People is not the effect of Choice and Inclination but the result of a Force put upon him through the sinistrous Representations given him of their Demands both as illegal and as incroachments upon the Royal Authority So we do not wonder that the same Person should misreport the Actions of a Parliament and insinuate into his Master unjust and false glosses of their Votes who hath had both the Impudence and Treachery to endeavour to Possess the King with Disloyal Characters of his most dutiful best and useful Subjects And seeing his Capacity both as a Lawyer and His Majesties Advocate hath not served to instruct him of the danger nor to restrain him from Leasing-making which is Treason by the Law of Scotland it is to be hop'd that the Persons whom he hath criminally slandered will have the courage to Impeach him and that the Parliament will have the Justice to condemn him to the Punishment that the Law adjudgeth him unto Nor can it be matter of Astonishment to any to find a Person imposing upon His Majesty in reference to the Laws
Therefore we complain not of His Majesty for the delaying the Satisfaction that his People waited for but we complain of those ill Men who told him That to part with the Lords of the Articles was to throw away the brightest Jewel of his Crown Whereas it appears from what hath been said that there is nothing desired whereby His Majesty's Legal Prerogative can be diminished and lessened but that all which is humbly craved is the redeeming his Parliament and People from an ignominious and burthensom Yoke and their being reliev'd from the Invasion and Usurpations made upon their Laws and Customs by the Craft and Violence of some of their Monarchs Nay the very contending for the continuing the Officers of State as Supernumerary in their Committees without the being Elected unto them by the Estates in Parliament in both an Aspersion upon the Wisdom of the Parliament as if they knew not how to pay the respect and deference due to those Officers till compell'd unto it and a Reflection upon their Loyalty as if no Persons could be tender or regardful of His Majesties Interest among the Committees of Parliament unless received into the King's immediate Service and brought under the Influence of Honours and Emoluments But whosoever suggests this unto the King must be one that is accustomed to draw other Mens Pictures by his own Original and who by acting in all things himself as a Mercenary strives to represent the rest of Mankind as equally Base and Villanous Nor can that Advice insinuated into His Majesty of having the Officers of State Supernumerary in the Committees of Parliament be supported by any reason but what borders upon Treason which is the King 's having and being obliged to pursue a separate interest from that of his People and as nothing would more Universally lose His Majesty the Hearts of his People than the being wrought into a belief of it so whatsoever is likely to tempt them into such a persuasion is at all times but especially at this to be industriously avoided by the King. The only thing remaining wherein His Majesty's Parliament of Scotland seems to be misunderstood by him is their Vote concerning the Nomination of the ordinary Lords of the Session and the Election of the President For that which they propose both as required by and agreeable unto their Laws and as necessary in order to the equal Administration of Justice is That the ordinary Lords being in a total Vacation nominated by the King they are to be Tryed and Admitted or Rejected by Parliament and that in a particular Vacation being likewise nominated by the King they are to be Tryed and Admitted or Rejected by the other Lords of Session and that in both cases the President be chosen by the Lords of Session themselves Now this being the great Matter wherein His Parliament is represented unto him as endeavouring to encroach upon and subvert His Royal Prerogative and it being the particular in reference unto which he hath been prevailed upon to exert an Authority to that height and degree that there seems no room left for any expedient but that either the Parliament must depart from their Vote or that His Majesty would be pleas'd to part with those who through abusing his Goodness have misled him into an exercise of Royal Power which the Laws cannot justifie It will be absolutely needful that the Reader in order to his being inabled to form a Right and impartial Judgment of this perplexed and intangled Affair should be first made acquainted with the Vote it self as well as afterwards be informed of what is to be said in the Vindication of it The Words therefore of the Vote are as followeth The King and Queen's Majesties considering That by the Laws of the Kingdom when the place of an Ordinary Lord of the Session doth Vacate it is to be supplied by the King's Nomination of a fit and qualified Person for the said Office and presenting him to the rest of the Lords to be tryed and admitted or rejected by them And that there is now a total Vacancy of the Lords of the Session by the happy change through the Blessing of God now brought about so that there can be no such Tryal by the Lords and that when such total Vacancies have fallen out the Lords were either nominated by King and Parliament jointly or if they were nominated by the King the nomination was approved and the Lords so nominated were admitted by the Parliament Therefore Their Majesties do Declare That they will nominate fit and qualified Persons to the said Offices and present them to the Parliament to be tried and admitted or rejected by them Like as Their Majesties with the advice and consent of the Estates in Parliament Statute and Ordain that in all time hereafter when any such total Vacancy shall occur the nomination of the Lords of the Session shall be by the King or Queen for the time being and in case of their minority by their Regent they nominating fit and qualifiad Persons to the said Offices and presenting them to the Parliament to be tryed and admitted or rejected in manner aforesaid Like as Their Majesties with the advice and consent aforesaid ratify and approve the 93 d Act of the Sixth Parliament of King James the Sixth anent the admission of the Ordinary Lords of Session and Reformation of certain Abuses therein And the 132 d Act of the Twelfth Parliament of King James the Sixth anent the Jurisdiction Presentation Qualities and Age of the Lords of the Session in the whole Heads Clauses and Articles thereof and particularly the Clause contained in the said two Acts Declaring that in all times thereafter when any place should be vacant in the Session that His Majesty should nominate and present thereunto a Man fearing God of good Literature Practick Judgment and Vnderstanding in the Laws of good Fame having sâ—fficient Living of his own worth Twenty Chalders of Victual of yearly Rent and who can make good expedition and dispatch in matters touching the Lieges of the Realm and likewise that Clause contained in the 93 d Act of the Sixth Parliament of King James the Sixth Declaring that the President of the College of Justice shall be elected by the whole Senate thereof being a Man of the Conditions and Qualities above-written for chusing and electing of whom the King's Majesty and Estates dispence with that first part of the Institution of the College of Justice anent the Election of the President Declaring that in case of the absence of the Chancellor and President for the time it shall be lawful for the Lords to chuse and elect any one of their own number whom they think qualified and worthiest who shall be called Vice-President for using of the said Office ay and while the Return of the said Chancellor and President Like as Their Majesties with advice and consent aforesaid Statute and Ordain that the whole Qualifications abovementioned be duly observed in the admission of
to His MAJESTY at Hampton-Court the 15 th day of October 1689. TO THE KING'S Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Representation of the Lords and Commissioners of Shires and Burroughs of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND Under subscribers and Members of this Current Parliament now Adjourned till the Eight of October next NOthing save the great and general Surprize of this long distressed and at present unsettled Kingdom upon the late Adjournment of Your most Loyal Parliament for so long a time and in so critical a season with the deep Concern of Your Royal Interest therein could possibly have induced us to this so necessary a Petition But the visible Consternation and Discouragement of thousands of Your good Subjects delayed in the Relief and Comfort which at this time they assuredly expected with the Advantages that We apprehend Your Majesties Enemies both within and without the Kingdom may think to reap by such an Interruption being our only Motives We cannot We dare not be silent And therefore to prevent these evil Consequences We in the first place most solemnly Protest and Declare in the Presence of God and Men Our constant and inviolable Fidelity and Adherence to Your Majesties Royal Title Right and Interest so frankly and chearfully recognosced by Us in this Current Parliament wishing and praying for nothing more under the Sun than Your long and prosperous Reign as that wherein the Security of all our Lives and Liberties and also of our Holy Religion more dear to Us than both is infallibly included It was the Perswasion we had of the Justice as well as the Necessity of Your Majesty's Heroic Undertaking for the Delivery of these Kingdoms with the Conviction of the Divine Confirmation that appeared in its Glorious Success that moved most if not all of Us to endeavour and concur most heartily in the late Meeting of Estates for the Advancement and Establishment of Your Majesty upon the Throne when some discovered their Disaffection and were too open Retarders and Obstructers of that good Design And it is from the same true Affection and Zeal that we do now most heartily make the above-mentioned Protestation to obviate all the Misconstructions Your Enemies may make in this Juncture Nor are we less assured of Your Majesties most sincere and gracious Intentions to perform for us to the utmost all that the Estates of the Kingdom have either demanded or represented as necessary and expedient for securing the Protestant Religion restoring their Laws and Liberties and redressing of their Grievances according to Your Majesties Declaration for this Kingdom Neither can it be imagined that so wise and just a King as Your Majesty will ever be perswaded that so Loyal a Parliament as this can be induced either to wish or design any Prejudice to or Diminution of Your true Interest and Prerogative but such as have slavishly served and flattered Arbitrary Power and Tyranny will be always studying for their own sinister Ends to state a separate Interest betwixt King and People a Practice which we are confident Your Majesty abhors But that we may clear our selves upon this present occasion to Your Majesty's full satisfaction and refuting of all Misrepresentations we can incur on any hand we shall briefly rehearse to Your Majesty the Votes pass'd in this present Parliament to which the Royal assent is not given with such short Reflections as we hope may tend to the better Vindication of all concern'd The First Act upon which the Vote of Parliament has pass'd is That declaring the Priviledge of the Estates of Parliament to Nominate and Appoint Committees as they shall think fit and excluding therefrom the Officers of State unless they be chosen And omitting what the Parliament hath already represented to Your Majesty as reasons of their Vote it is humbly conceived that this Act is exactly framed to the extent of that Grievance which together with the rest is desired in the Instrument of Government to be redressed unto us in Parliament The Second was an Act Abrogating the Act of Parliament 1669 asserting the Kings Supremacy over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and this Act is so exactly conform to the Second Article of the abovementioned Grievances and the foresaid Act of Supremacy in it self is so dangerous to the Protestant Religion as well as inconsistent with the Establishment of any Church-Government that we doubt not Your Majesty will ever approve all that voted to it The Third is an Act anent Persons not to employed in publick Trusts and all the Ruins and Distresses of this Kingdom have so certainly flowed from the Persons therein noted especially such as by their contriving of and concurring in the Dispensing Power have thereby eminently indangered our Religion and overturned all the Fences of our Liberties and Properties which we have good Ground to believe the Parliament would have extended but to few Persons And your Majesty in Your Declaration hath so justly charged the same upon evil and wicked Counsellors the only Persons pointed at in this Act that we are perswaded that You will find it absolutely necessary for attaining all the Ends of Your Majesty's glorious Undertaking for our Relief The Fourth is an Act concerning the Nomination of the ordinary Lords of Session and the Election of the President To wit that in a total Vacation they be tryed and admitted or rejected by Parliament and in a particular Vacation they be tryed and admitted or rejected by the other Lords And that the President be chosen by the Lords themselves conform to our old Practique and express Statute And this Act is so agreeable to Practique Laws and Acts of Parliament and so necessair for the true and equal Administration of Justice the great security of all Kingdoms that Your Majesty will unquestionably approve it The Fifth and last is an Act Ordaining the Presbyterian Ministers yet alive who were thrust out since the First of January 1661 for not Conforming to Prelacy and not complying with the Courses of the Time to be restored And this Act is in it self so just and so consequential from the Claim of Right and agreeable to Your Majesties Declaration that less in common Equity could not be done And here Your Majesty may be pleased to consider That tho' Prelacy be now by Law abolished yet these few Ministers not exceeding Sixty tho' restored as they are not for want of the Royal Assent to the foresaid Act would be all the Presbyterian Ministers legally established and provided for in Scotland It is not unknown to Your Majesty what have been the sad Confusions and Disorders of this distressed Country under Prelacy and for want of its ancient Presbyterian Government and now the whole West and many other Parts of Scotland are at present desolate and destitute having only Ministers called by the People upon the late Liberty without any Benefice or Living or convenient Place to Preach in It is also certain that there are many Hundreds of forefaulted and sined Persons who are yet waiting to be restored and refounded according to the Claim of Right and Your Majesties Gracious Instructions thereanent It is true the last Thing proposed by Your Majesties Commissioner in Parliament was a Supply of Money for Maintenance of the Forces so necessary for our present Defence and We should have proven our selves ungrateful to Your Majesty and false to our own Interest and Security if We had absolutely refused it But there being a sufficient and certain Fund to maintain all the Forces and support all other incident Charges of the Government for some Months all that we demanded was That some things visibly necessair for Satisfaction of the Country and the better enabling and disposing them to pay the said Supply might be first expeded We are confident that the Vote of Parliament which was only for a short Delay will not give Your Majesty the least ground of Offence And now having presumed to lay these Things before Your Majesty with all humble Submission purely out of Duty for preventing the evil Constructions of Your Majesties Enemies and for our own just Vindication We most humbly beseech Your Sacred Majesty Graciously to Consider what is here represented and in Prosecution of Your Majesties Acceptance of the Claim of Right and Your Declaration emitted for this Kingdom to take such Courses as You in Your Royal Wisdom shall think fit for Passing the foresaid Acts of Parliament and Redressing all our other Grievances And We Your Majesties most humble Petitioners and faithful Subjects shall as in Duty bound every Pray for Your long and prosperous Reign over Us. FINIS
Subjection For among several things which they covenanted as well as provided for the redressing of when in the Name both of themselves and of the whole People of Scotland whom they represented they yielded up and conveyed over the Crown of that Kingdom to William and Mary This was the first Grievance that they mentioned and made it a matter of Bargain and Compact as well as of Petition and Desire to be eased from it The words that were proposed and read to Their Majesties in the Banqueting-House upon that Solemn Occasion of presenting Them with the Instrument of Government are as followeth The Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland do represent That the Committee of Parliament called the Articles is a great Grievance to the Nation and that there ought to be no Committees of Parliament but such as are freely chosen by the Estates to prepare Motions and Overtures that are first made in the House What ill Men must they now be that durst advise a Prince of that Honour Veracity and inviolable Faith as His Majesty is universally known and acknowledged to be to delay or clog the satisfying of His People in the foregoing particular Seeing the meer procrastinating and adjourning the giving them contentment in it hath a visible and natural tendency if possible to the weakning their Faith and Confidence both in his Truth and Goodness It would appear that some have a mind to make their Master seem faithless to justify their being truly such themselves· Or else they have a design to vindicate King James's breach of all Stipulations and Promises by persuading King William to do the same Or which is extreme likely they would by His present Majesty's departure from that seeming Compact upon which he received the Crown reflect folly and injustice upon the Parliaments Deposing the Late King for his violating the Original Contract But that we may discourse intelligibly of that Committee called the Articles it will be needful to give some brief account both of what it originally was and what by degrees it grew up or rather degenerated into till it became at last an insupportable Grievance to the Nation and rendred Parliaments either wholly useless or mere Instruments for pursuing and executing the King 's Will. Now by what appeareth either from our History Records or Statute-Books there was no such thing anciently as a Committee or Lords of Articles but every thing was as well originally moved as debated and concluded in full Parliament For the first mention we meet with in our Records of Lords of the Articles is in the Year 1466. Under the Reign of King James the Third Where we find that upon the Convention of the Estates of Parliament they not only chose so many from among themselves to be Judges in Civil and Criminal Causes who are styled Domini ad querelas there being then no Judicial Court save what the Parliament constituted from time to time out of their own Body But that they also elected three Persons for the Clergy three for the Barons and three for the Burgesses to consider of and prepare matters fit and needful for the House to bring into debate and to come to Votes and Resolutions about By which it seems that this Committee of the Articles had no auspicious beginning having its rise under one of the worst of all our Kings and who came to the most unhappy and unfortunate end However there appears no such thing here as that the Officers of State were to be supernumerary to those chosen by the Parliament or that the King either by himself or by one representing him chose any of them but it is evident from the Record that they were wholly and entirely elected by the States themselves in Parliament assembled And though the being an Officer of State was never esteemed a ground disabling and incapacitating a Person from being a Member of the Committee of Articles yet upon a perusal of the Records I do not find that any Officers of State made a part of the Lords of the Articles until the year 1567. and their being then of that number was not ratione Officii but by reason of the Parliament's having elected them into that Station For whosoever consults the Records of Parliament of the years 1467. 1475. 1524. 1526. 1528. 1537. 1542. 1543. will find that the Officers of State were so far from being supernumerary in the Committees of the Articles that they were not so much as elected into that Trust nor had any room or place allowed them there though it appears by the Records of all those Parliaments that there were Members chosen by and out of the respective Estates sometimes in larger and sometimes in lesser numbers to make up and constitute such Committees Yea I cannot but add That our not meeting with any mention of the Lords of Articles of the Parliaments Assembled and held 1469. 1471. 1474. 1481. 1483. 1488. 1489. 1491. 1493. 1505. 1515. 1522. 1535. 1540. 1546. 1551. is an undoubted Evidence that the having Committees of the Articles was not a thing of indispensible necessity or to which Parliaments were legally obliged but that it was a matter of Arbitrary Pleasure and that they were chosen or omitted as the House thought to be most useful and convenient for the management and dispatch of their Affairs And though it cannot be denied but that after the year 1567. some of the Officers of State were now and then thought worthy by reason of their moral and intellectual abilities to be chosen among others for Lords of the Articles as in the Parliaments held in the years 1581. and 1593. yet it is most evident that they were not elected into that Committee by virtue and reason of their Offices much less sat there as supernumerary to those chosen by the Estates forasmuch as in other Parliaments particularly in those held in the years 1587. 1592. and 1594. there is no intelligence report or remembrance of them in the Registers and Lists of those of whom the forementioned Committees were made up and constituted And that which puts it beyond all possibility of being controuled save either by ignorant or by impudent and self-condemned Men that no Officers of State had right anciently to be of the Committee of Articles unless previously chosen by the Estates of Parliament is the 37. Act of Parl. 11. of James the Sixth Where Provision being made by Law about the number whereof that Committee should be constituted It is without the least mention or suggestion of those Officers of State enacted and ordained that the number of the Lords of Articles be equal in each Estate and that the ' fewest number of every Estate be Six and the greatest number Ten. Yea so far were those styled Lords of Articles from having originally the sole power of preparing matters and of bringing in Motions and Overtures to be considered and debated in Parliament exclusive of other Members of the House who were not of that Committee that both at
first and for a long tract of time afterwards they were not so much as a Committee of Articles of and to that Parliament by which they were chosen and of which they were Sitting and actual Members but were only so in reference to the next Parliament that should succeed against whose meeting they were to prepare such things as they should judge to be most fit and expedient to be then taken into consideration but still with a right as well as with a liberty reserved to that future Parliament not only to receive or reject what should be thus maturated and offered unto them but to admit whatsoever Overtures they pleased that should be made unto any of the Members of their own House It was the Ancient Custom and Practice of Scotland that the Sitting Parliament antecedently to its Dissolution and Separating elected so many from among themselves who were in the interval betwixt that and the next Parliament to make inquiry into the necessities of the Lieges and into the State of the Kingdom and accordingly to draw up and prepare such Overtures as should carry that relief and remedy in them which might give a redress unto Grievances be a meanâ— of preserving the Nation in safety and of promoting the prosperity of the Subjects Now from this harmless beginning of the Committee of Articles it hath through the Usurpation of our Kings especially after their Succession to the Crown of England and the remove of their Royal Abode thither and through the officiousness of publick Ministers to the Prince and treachery to their Countrey grown up at last to that exorbitancy that it is not only become burthensome but intolerable For by reason of the Parliaments coming at last to commit the inspection into all Affairs and preparing all remedies unto Grievances into a few hands and those to be unchangeable during a whole Session Our Late Monarchs obtained such a handle whereby they might incroach upon the Jurisdiction of Parliaments and the Liberties of the People that they soon improv'd it to the eluding of all the good that the Kingdom was to expect from Parliaments and to the making those who were designed to be the means of our safety become the Instruments of our Ruin. For the accomplishment whereof and the more effectual rendring the Lords of Articles Vassals unto the Monarch's Will and Tools for executing his Pleasure they first prevailed to have the Officers of State admitted into that Committee as Supernumeraries and that without being Nominated and Elected by the Estates in Parliament they should have a right to sit there Ratione Officii by vertue of the Imployments they held in the Government For King James the Sixth being by the adulation of the English Bishops brought intirely over to their Interest as well as to their Opinions about Church Discipline and Worship and having a mind in requital to the Church of Scotland for all the kindness they had expressed to him both in his Infancy and riper years to obtrude upon them the English Ceremonies he did in order to the more easie effectuating of it flatter cajole and bribe as well as huff and awe the Parliament Anno 1621. to allow the Officers of State to Sit as Supernumeraries without being chosen in the Committee of Articles And thus he forced those Innovations commonly known by the Name of the Five Articles of Perth upon the poor Church of Scotland having by those Supernumerary Officers not only so moulded the Committee of Articles as to pass and present them but thereby laid the Foundation of their being ordained and enacted in the House And to make the Lords of Articles yet more grievous and intollerable King Charles the First whose invasions upon the Rights and Liberties of his People proved Fatal both to him and them overthrew the Ancient Method of their Elections and brought the choice of them into such a Channel as could issue in no less than Tyranny in the Soveraign and Slavery in the Subjects For whereas by Law and Custom the Lords were to choose the Lords and the Barons to choose the Barons c Charles the First did in his Parliament held Anno 1633. when he was in the heigth of his Greatness change and innovate this Method and having divested the whole respective Estates of choosing severally their respective Commissioners he assumed a Power to himself with a right of consigning it over to his Commissioner in Parliament for chusing Eight Bishops consigning to the said Eight Bishops a Power of chusing Eight Noblemen and restraining to the said Eight Noblemen together with the aforesaid Eight Bishops a Power of choosing Eight Barons and Eight Burgesses and that these in conjunction with the Officers of State as Supernumeraries should be the whole and sole Lords of Articles exclusive of all others Finally to render that Committee yet more insupportable the sole Right as well as Liberty of bringing in Motions of making overtures for redressing Wrongs and of proposing means and expedients either for the relief or the safety and benefit of the Subject is intirely restrained unto and lodged wholly in this Committee Neither is it by our late Practice lawful for any Member or Members that are not of that packt Club and Society to make the least proposal or motion either for the repealing of an ill Law or for the enacting of a good So that I would now hope that the meer representing of this Committee of Articles as it is now transformed and degenerated from what it formerly was is enough to justify the Vote of the present Parliament about the having that grievance redressed and to vindicate them from the Obloquie they have lain under for insisting upon having Parliaments loosened from those Fetters For where is the Liberty of Speech and Voting essential to a Legislative Body if Parliaments must be thus muzled How-is a Kingdom eluded out of all the good that they expect from any Parliament if their Representatives may neither lay open their Sores nor offer Plaisters in order to their Cure How miserably would things have proceeded in the late Meeting of Estates if nothing was to have been before them but what a Committee where Eight Scotch Bishops were to have the Electing of Eight Noblemen and they together the chusing of the rest with King James's Officers of State Supernumerary that should have prepared Overtures for that Great and Illustrious Assembly I dare say That the being bound up to such a Method would have more effectually secured the Throne to King James than all the Swords of his Partizans Nor can Parliaments be designed for any thing under such a Constitution of a constant Committee with the Officers of State Supernumerary but to enlarge the Prerogative of the Crown and to levy Money from the People But Blessed be God His Majesty wants not Inclination to deliver his People from this and from all other Grievances but only wants Persons about him to set them in that Light that he may discern them
Kings of Scotland to have the sole choice of the Lords of Session Which can import no more save that they have the sole nomination of them but not the tryal of their qualifications seeing all along since both in that Reign and in the next that ensued the examination and acceptance or refusal of those that were recommended by the two last Kings upon emergent Vacancies to be Lords of the College of Justice were always certified to the Actual and Sitting Lords of Session to be by them tryed and admitted or rejected as they should see cause Thirdly What the Gentlemen who make this Exception would give the Crown with one hand they take away with the other For while they would Preclude the Parliament from taking notice of the qualifications of those who upon a total vacancy are nominated by the King under a pretence that the sole choice of the Lords of Session is by the forementioned Statute Declared to be an Inherent Priviledge of the Crown They at the same time seek to skreen and vindicate themselves from the Violation of the other Laws that prescribe the method of trying and approving those who are nominated now by His Majesty for Lords of the College of Justice by alledging that S N and M are both in a capacity through having been formerly Judges and are commissionated to try and approve them Fourthly All that some apprehend to be contained in the 11 Act Parl. 1. Charles the Second is wholly Narratory and no part of it Statutory at least so far as our concernment lies in it and as we are therein referred unto other Acts for the knowledge of what is Statuted and Ordained So upon our application unto and consulting of Act 2. Parl. 1. Charles 2. all we find there enacted is That it is an inherent Privilege of the Crown and an undoubted part of the Royal Prerogative of the King to have the sole Choice and Appointment of the Officers of State and Privy Counsellors but that he hath only the Nomination of the Lords of Session as in former times preceding the year 1637. and what that was we have already shewed and do find it to be so far from interfering with or derogating from what the Parliament doth now insist upon and demand that it both warrants and justifieth it I may fifthly subjoyn That upon supposition that the Act 11. Par. 1 Charles the Second were Statutory which it no ways is yet there is a later Act pass'd in the said first Parliament of King Charles the Second though unprinted yet upon Record in our Registers of Parliament and which was purposely made for the Regulation of the College of Justice and about the admission of the Lords of Session as the very title and rubrick bears wherein all that we find Enacted is That the King instead of having the sole choice of the Lords of Session shall only have the Nomination of them as the Crown stood possessed of it in times before the year 1637. and that their admission in all times to come shall be according to the Laws and Acts which were in being before the year which we have already mentioned So that fancy what they will beyond this granted unto the King by Act 11. yet it is all withdrawn and reassumed from him by this later Act of April the 5 th All that now remains to be further added on this Subject so far as concerns the controversial part is to inquire whether the King hath at all times the sole Power and Right of chusing and appointing the President of the Session And we presume with all humility to say that by the Laws of the Kingdom and according to ancient Practice and Custom he hath it not nor can he legally lay claim unto it seeing by Act 93. Parl. 6. James 6. Anno 1579. It is Statuted and Ordained That the President of the College of Justice shall be always chosen by the whole Senators of the said College Which Statute is confirmed by Act 134. Parl. 12. James 6. wherein it is expresly declared That the King with advice of the Estates doth ratifie and approve all the Acts made either by his Majesties Predecessors or by his Highness himself before upon the Institution of the College of Justice and the Reformation of the abuses thereof Nor can it be denyed but the appointing that the President should be chosen by the whole Senators was designed as the Reformation of an Abuse in the College of Justice which either had not been provided against and obviated in the first Institution of the Session or which had crept in afterwards And as this was the Law about the Election of the President so the Practice was always conformable thereunto until that my Lord S came to be constituted President by King Charles the Second and was illegally obtruded upon the Lords of Session without the being either chosen or approved by them For from the time of the making the Act until then there was not one that had ever sate President but who had been chosen by the Lords of the College of Justice except Sir John G who upon being nominated and recommended by the King in the Case of the total Vacancy Anno 1661. was approved and confirmed by the Estates in Parliament But for the Lord P the Lord U the Lord C Sir Robert S and the Lord D who were all that had been Presidents from 1579. until 1661. they were every one of them chosen and admitted by the Lords of Session Nor is it unworthy of Remark that the Lords of Session upon every Election they made of a President declared that they did it in conformity unto and in pursuance of the Act of Parliament And as King Charles's departing from the Law in this particular was one of the first steps towards Arbitrary Power so it was both in order to farther Incroachments upon our Laws and Rights and prepared the way for most of the Tyranny that he exercised afterwards And as S assuming the Office of President upon the illegal choice of the aforementioned King was both an Affronting and Betraying of the known Laws of the Kingdom so his whole Behaviour in that Station was of one piece and complexion with his entring upon it being a continued Series of Oppression and Treachery to his Country For besides that all his Verdicts between Subject and Subject were more ambiguous than the Delphick Oracles and the occasion of the Commencement of innumerable Suits in place of the determining of any he was the principal Minister of all L 's Arbitrariness and of King Charles's Usurpations Nor was there a Rapine or Murder committed in the Kingdom under the countenance of Royal Authority but what he was either the Author of the Assister in or ready to justifie And from his having been a Military Commander for asserting and vindicating the Laws Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom against the little pretended Invasions of Charles I. he came to overthrow and trample upon them all