taking up arms against the King, or those commissionate by him.’ In other words, the militia of Scotland, where a majority of the people were opposed to the Church established by law, were to swear that they would maintain the principles of passive obedience and non-resistance. And this oath was to be taken, ‘not in the ordinary way that such military oaths used to be executed, by drawing up the troop or company together in a body, but that every soldier, one after another, shall by himself swear the same.’

Of the ‘New Model,’ as, borrowing the phraseology of the Commonwealth, the Ministers called the troops, two hundred foot and forty-six horse were quartered upon Haddingtonshire; and this led Fletcher into collision with the Government. At the end of July 1680, along with Sinclair of Stevenston and Murray of Blackbarrony, he was accused, before the Privy Council, of seditiously obstructing the King’s Service, ‘in putting the Act of the Privy Council to execution for levying the five thousand five hundred men out of the militia.’ It was expected that the accused, who, says Lord Fountainhall, stated ‘difficulties and scruples,’ would be fined and imprisoned, but they escaped with a rebuke. In January of the following year Lord Yester, Fletcher, and ten other gentlemen of Haddingtonshire, presented a petition to the Privy Council, ‘complaining of the standing forces, ther quartering upon them.’ This petition was extremely resented, because it spoke of the quartering of soldiers on the country, in time of peace, as contrary to law, and seemed to reflect upon the Government.

At the general election of 1681 there was a double return from Haddingtonshire. The Lairds of Saltoun and Ormiston were returned by those freeholders who opposed the Government, and Hepburn of Humbie and Wedderburn of Gosford by the Ministerial party. It is said that when the matter came before the committee on disputed elections, Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh, who was chairman, proposed that ‘for the sake of serving the King,’ some votes which had been given in favour of Fletcher should not be counted. But this dishonest advice was not taken; the case was fairly tried, and Fletcher and Cockburn were declared to have been duly elected.

The Duke of York was Commissioner in this Parliament, which met on the 28th of July 1681. The two great measures of the session were the ‘Act acknowledging and asserting the Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of Scotland,’ which was passed for the purpose of securing the succession of the Duke of York, and the famous ‘Act anent Religion and the Test.’

Both of these measures were strenuously opposed by Fletcher, who is said to have written a number of private letters to members of the Parliament, imploring them to vote against the Succession Act, on the ground that the Duke was both a Roman Catholic and a tyrant.

The Test Act was, in spite of its vast importance, brought in and passed in the course of a single day; but at least one amendment was moved by Fletcher. ‘Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun,’ says Dalrymple, ‘after long opposing the bill, with all the fire of ancient eloquence, and of his own spirit, made a motion which the Court party could not, in decency, oppose; that the security of the Protestant Religion should be made a part of the Test.’

The new clause was prepared by Sir James Dalrymple, then Lord President of the Court of Session, who so framed it that the ‘Protestant Religion’ was defined as that set forth in the Old Scots Confession of Faith of 1567, which was inconsistent with Episcopacy, and also allowed the lawfulness of resistance. ‘That was a book,’ says Burnet, ‘so worn out of use, that scarce any one in the whole Parliament had ever read it. None of the Bishops had, as appeared afterwards.’ The result was that Fletcher’s amendment, as framed by Dalrymple, became part of the Act, all the Bishops agreeing to it.

Fletcher also resisted the monstrous and unconstitutional clause which compelled the county electors, on pain of forfeiting the franchise, to swear that they would never attempt to ‘bring about,’ as the statute puts it, ‘any change or alteration either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of this Kingdom.’ There was a division on this question. No lists remain to show how the members voted; but the following protest is inscribed on the rolls of Parliament: ‘That part of the Act—If the Test should be put to the Electors of Commissioners for Shires to the Parliament, having been put to the vote by itself, before the voting and passing of the whole Act; and the same being carried in the Affirmative, the Laird of Saltoun and the Laird of Grant, having voted in the negative, desired their dissent might be marked.’

Fletcher had now incurred the implacable enmity of the Duke of York, who, says Mackay, ‘would not forgive his behaviour in that Parliament’; and he was, moreover, soon involved once more in trouble with the Privy Council. The Estates had voted money for the public service; and Fletcher was named as one of the Commissioners of Supply for Haddingtonshire. Part of the Commissioners’ duty was to arrange for the troops which were quartered on the country; and in April 1682 the Lord Advocate accused them before the Privy Council for not meeting with the Sheriff-Depute, to set prices on corn and straw, grass and hay, for the soldiers’ horses; ‘or at least for making a mock act, in setting down prices, but not laying out the localities where the forces may be served with these necessaries.’ In short, the Laird of Saltoun and the Commissioners of Supply did all they could to thwart and annoy the Government.

‘After much trouble and pains,’ in the words of Lord Fountainhall, the gentlemen of East Lothian consented to fix store-houses and magazines in the county; but in a short time Fletcher came to the conclusion that he could no longer remain in Scotland. He accordingly went to London, perhaps to consult Burnet on the situation, and thence made his way to the Continent.

CHAPTER II

The Whig Plot—Comes to England with Monmouth—Shoots Dare—Is found guilty of High Treason and attainted—The Estate of Saltoun forfeited.

Fletcher’s movements cannot be accurately traced for some time after he left Scotland. Argyll wrote to him, on several occasions, for the purpose of enlisting his services against the Government; but he did not answer the letters. At last, however, when he was at Brussels, he heard that the English Ministers had privately requested the Marquis de Grand to have him apprehended. This seems to have irritated him; for he went to London and joined the circle of Whigs who were then engaged in preparing to resist the succession of the Duke of York. As is well known, before the plot was matured Shaftesbury fled to Holland, where he died, and the management of this dangerous business was left in the hands of a council of six—Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Howard, Hampden, and Algernon Sidney.

According to Lord Buchan, Fletcher and Baillie of Jerviswoode were the only two Scotsmen who were admitted into the secrets of the six; but what part Fletcher took in the Whig Plot, which, it need scarcely be said, must be distinguished from the Rye-House Plot, of which Fletcher probably knew nothing, it is impossible to say. Baillie of Jerviswoode was offered his life, on condition that he would give evidence against his friends, and against Fletcher in particular; but he answered, in the often quoted words,