WILLIAM AND MAEY.

285

the resolution which pronounced that Janies had forfeited his chap.

A XIII

right to the allegiance of his subjects. When it was moved that j-j y-the Crown of Scotland should he settled as the Crown of Eng-land had been settled, Athol .and Queensberry reappeared inthe hall. They had doubted, they said, whether they couldjustifiably declare the throne vacant. But, since it had beendeclared vacant, they felt no doubt that William and Mary werethe persons who ought to fill it.

The Convention then went forth in procession to the High William

r D and Mary

Street. Several great nobles, attended by the Lord Provost of proclaim-the capital and by the heralds, ascended the octagon tower fromwhich rose the city cross surmounted by the unicorn of Scot-land.* Hamilton read the vote of the Convention; and a Kingat Arms proclaimed the new Sovereigns with sound of trumpet.

On the same day the Estates issued an order that the parochialclergy should, on pain of deprivation, publish from their pulpitsthe proclamation which had just been read at the city cross, andshould pray for King William and Queen Mary.

Still the interregnum was not at an end. Though the new j“Sovereigns had been proclaimed, they had not yet been put intopossession of the royal authority by a formal tender and a formalacceptance. At Edinburgh, as at Westminster, it was thoughtnecessary that the instrument which settled the governmentshould clearly define and solemnly assert those privileges ofthe people which the Stuarts had illegally infringed. A Claimof Right was therefore drawn up by the Twenty Four, andadopted by the Convention. To this Claim, which purportedto be merely declaratory of the law as it stood, was added asupplementary paper containing a list of grievances which couldbe remedied only by new laws. One most important articlewhich we should naturally expect to find at the head of such a copacy.

* Every reader will remember the malediction which Sir Walter Scott,in the Fifth Canto of Marmion, pronounced on the dunces who removedthis interesting monument*