34

IXISTOEY OF ENGLAND.

CIIAP.

XXI.

J 695.

Sessionof theScottishParlia-ment,

deceased Queen. Fenwick, if his own assertion is to betrusted, was williug to join in an insurrection, but recoiledfrom the thought of assassination, and showed so much of whatwas in his mind as sufficed to make him an object of suspicionto his less scrupulous associates. He kept their secret, however,as strictly as if he had wished them success.

It should seem that, at first, a natural feeling restrainedthe conspirators from calling their design by the proper name.Even in their private consultations they did not as yet talkof killing the Prince of Orange. They would try to seize himand to carry him alive into France. If there were any resistancethey might be forced to use their swords and pistols, and no-body could be answerable for what a thrust or a shot might do.In the spring of 1695, the scheme of assassination, thus thinlyveiled, was communicated to James, and his sanction wasearnestly requested. Put week followed week; and no answerarrived from him. He doubtless remained silent in the hopethat his adherents would, after a short delay, venture to act ontheir own responsibility, and that he might thus have the ad-vantage without the scandal of their crime. They seem indeedto have so understood him. He had not, they said, authorisedthe attempt: but he had not prohibited it; and, apprised as hewas of then' plan, the absence of prohibition was a sufficientwarrant. They therefore determined to strike: but before theycould make the necessary arrangements William set out forFlanders; and the plot against his life was necessarily sus-pended till his return.

It was on the twelfth of May that the King left Kensingtonfor Gravesend, where he proposed to embark for the Continent.Three days before his departure the Parliament of Scotland had,after a recess of about two years, met again at Edinburgh.Hamilton, who had, in the preceding session, sate on thethrone and held the sceptre, was dead; and it was necessary to