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mSIOKY OF ENGLAND.

citap. known to him. Dundee had served under him on the Con-■ ]689 ' tinent*; and the first wife of Balearras had been a lady ofthe House of Orange, and had worn, on her wedding day,a superb pair of emerald earrings, the gift of her cousin thePrince. **

The Scottish Whigs, then assembled in great numbers at"Westminster, earnestly pressed William to proscribe by namefour or five men who had, during the evil times, borne a con-spicuous part in the proceedings of the Privy Council at Edin-burgh. Dundee and Balearras were particularly mentioned.But the Prince had determined that, as far as his powerextended, all the past should he covered with a generalamnesty, and absolutely refused to make any declaration whichcould drive to despair even the most guilty of • his uncle’sservants.

* About the early relation between William andDundce, some Jacobite,many years after they were both dead, invented a story which by succes-sive embellishments was at last improved into a romance which it seemsstrange that even a child should believe to be true. The last edition runsthus. William's horse was killed under him at Scneff, and his life was inimminent danger. Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highnessagain. William promised to reward this service with promotion; but brokehis word and gave to another the commission which Graham had been ledto expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successfulcompetitor and gave him a box on the ear. The punishment for striking inthe palace was the loss of the offending right hand; but this punishmentthe Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted. “You,” he said, “saved mylife; I spare your.right hand: and now we are quits.”

Those who, down to our own time, have repeated this nonsense seemto have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth “for punishmentof murder and malicious bloodshed within the King's Court” (Stat. 33lien. VIII. c. 2.) was law in Guelders; and, secondly, that, in 1674,William was a King, and his house a King’s Court. They were also notaware that he did not purchase Loo till long after Dundee had left theNetherlands. See Harris’s Description of Loo, 1699.

This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the slightesttrace in the voluminous Jacobite literature of William’s reign, seems tohave originated about a quarter of a century after Dundee’s death, and tohave attained its full absurdity in another quarter of a century.

** Memoirs of the Lindsays.