WILLIAM AND MARY.

189

had said. Before they retired they fixed a day for their nextmeeting.* It was indeed a very distant day; and when itcame neither minister nor elder attended: for even the boldestmembers shrank from a complete rupture with the civil power.But, though there was not open war between the Church andthe Government, they were estranged from each other, jealousof each other, and afraid of each other. No progress had beenmade towards a reconciliation when the Estates met; and whichside the Estates would take might well be doubted.

But the proceedings of this strange Parliament, in almosteveryone of its sessions,'falsified all the predictions of politi-cians. It had once been the most unmanageable of senates.It was now the most obsequious. Yet the old men had againmet in the old hall. There were all the most noisy agitators ofthe club, with the exception of Montgomery, who was dyingof want and of a'broken heart in ,a garret far from his nativeland. There was the canting Boss and the perfidious Annan-dale. There was Sir Patrick Hume, lately created a peer, andhenceforth to be called Lord.Polwarth, but still as eloquent aswhen his interminable declamations and dissertations ruinedthe expedition of Argyle. But the w'hole spirit of the assemblyhad undergone a change. The members listened with profoundrespect to the royal letter, and returned an answer in reverentialand affectionate language. An extraordinary aid of a hundredand fourteen thousand pounds sterling was granted to theCrown. Severe laws were enacted against the Jacobites. Thelegislation on ecclesiastical matters was as Erastian as Williamhimself could have desired. An Act was passed requiring allministers of the Established Church to swear fealty to their

* Register of the Actings or Proceedings of the General Assembly ofthe Church of Scotland, held at Edinburgh, Jan. 15. 1(592, collected andextracted from the Records [by the Clerk thereof. This interesting recordwas printed for the first time in 1852.

CHAP.

XIX.

ttiya.