PRELACY ABOLISHED IN SCOTLAND.

On the seventeenth day of June, duke Hamilton opened the Scottish parliament, after the convention had assumed this name, in consequence of an act passed by his majesty’s direction; but the members in general were extremely chagrined when they found the commissioners so much restricted in the affair of the lords of the articles, which they considered as their chief grievance. 008 [See note D, at the end of this Vol.] The king permitted that the estates should choose the lords by their own suffrages, and that they should be at liberty to reconsider any subject which the said lords might reject. He afterwards indulged the three estates with the choice of eleven delegates each, for this committee, to be elected monthly, or oftener if they should think fit: but even these concessions proved unsatisfactory while the institution itself remained. Their discontents were not even appeased by the passing of an act abolishing prelacy. Indeed their resentment was inflamed by another consideration, namely, that of the king’s having given seats in the council to some individuals attached to the hierarchy. They manifested their sentiments on this subject by bringing in a bill excluding from any public trust, place, or employment under their majesties, all such as had been concerned in the encroachments of the late reign, or had discovered disaffection to the late happy change, or in any way retarded or obstructed the designs of the convention. This measure was prosecuted with great warmth; and the bill passed through all the forms of the house, but proved ineffectual for want of the royal assent.