rniXIAH AOT) MAEY.

271

turn of fortune, and had paid servile court to the Prince of ciiap.

A XIII.

Orange, hut had been coldly received, and had now, from mere ie89 ; -mortification, come back to the party which he had deserted.*Neither of the rival noblemen had chosen to stake the dignitiesand lands of his house on the issue of the contention betweenthe rival Kings. The eldest son of Hamilton had declared forJames, and the eldest son of Athol for William, so that, in anyevent, both coronets and both estates were safe.

But in Scotland the fashionable notions touching politicalmorality were lax; and the aristocratical sentiment was strong.

The Whigs were therefore willing to forget that Hamilton hadlately sate in the council of James. The Jacobites were equallywilling to forget that Athol had lately fawned on William. Inpolitical inconsistency those two great lords were far indeedfrom standing by themselves; but in dignity and power theyhad scarcely an equal in the assembly. Their descent waseminently illustrious: their influence was immense: one of themcould raise the Western Lowlands: the other could bring intothe field an army of northern mountaineers. Hound these chiefstherefore the hostile factions gathered.

The votes were counted; and it appeared that Hamilton had namiiion

± i elected

a majority of forty. The consequence was that about twenty of prcsi-the defeated party instantly passed over to the victors.** At denl 'Westminster such a defection would have been thought strange;but it seems to have caused little surprise at Edinburgh. It isa remarkable circumstance that the same country should haveproduced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of bothextremes of human nature. No class of men mentioned inhistory has ever adhered to a principle with more inflexiblepertinacity than was found among the Scotch Puritans. Fine* Balcarras’s narrative exhibits both Hamilton and Athol in a mostunfavourable light. See also the Life of James, ii. 838, 339.

** Act. Pari. Scot., March 14.168§; Balcarras’s Memoirs; History of thelate Revolution in Scotland; Life of James, ii. 842.