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the necessity of deeply wounding the strongest feelings of one chap.of the nations which he governed. It was therefore plainly for j 68i) ‘-his own interest that the question, which he could not settle inany manner without incurring a fearful amount of obloquy,should be settled for him by others who were exposed to nosuch danger. He was not yet Sovereign of Scotland. Whilethe interregnum lasted, the supreme power belonged to theEstates; and for what the Estates might do the prelatistsof his southern kingdom could not hold him responsible.

The elder Dalrymple wrote strongly from London to thiseffect; and there can be little doubt that he expressedthe sentiments of his master. William would have sincerelyrejoiced if the Scots could have been reconciled to amodified episcopacy. But, since that could not be, it wasmanifestly desirable that they should themselves, while therewas yet no King over them, pronounce the irrevocable doom ofthe institution which they abhorred.*

The Convention, therefore, with little debate as it shouldseem, inserted in the Claim of Right a clause declaring thatprelacy was an insupportable burden to the kingdom, that ithad been long odious to the body of the people, and that itought to be abolished.

Nothing in the proceedings at Edinburgh astonishes an Toriure.Englishman more than the manner in which the Estates dealtwith the practice of torture. In England torture had alwaysbeen illegal. In the most servile times the judges had unani-mously pronounced it so. Those rulers who had occasionallyresorted to it had, as far as -was possible, used it in secret, hadnever pretended that they had acted in conformity with eitherstatute law or common law, and had excused themselves by

* “It will be neither secuir nor kynd to the King to expect it be (by)

Act of Parliament after the setlement, which wUl lay it at his door.” —Dalrymple to Melville, 5 April, 1G89; Levon and Melville Papers.

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