Fletcher’s Birth and Education—Travels Abroad—A Member of the Scottish Parliament—Goes to the Continent.

Andrew Fletcher, eldest son of Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, in the county of Haddington, and of Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Bruce of Clackmannan, was born in the year 1653. He was educated either at home or in the parish school of Saltoun until 1665. On the thirteenth of January in that year his father died, having, on his deathbed, intrusted the charge of educating his son to Burnet, the future Bishop of Salisbury, who had just been presented to the living of Saltoun, of which Sir Robert was the patron. Burnet’s first published work was, A Discourse on the Memory of that rare and truly virtuous person, Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, written by a gentleman of his acquaintance. This volume, which the author calls, ‘The rude essay of an unpolished hand,’ contains almost nothing about either Sir Robert or his son; and, in fact, Burnet does little more than use his patron as a peg on which to hang a string of platitudes. But from the moment Burnet became minister of Saltoun, Andrew Fletcher lived in an atmosphere of learning. There was a library belonging to the Church of Saltoun, founded by one of the parish ministers, and added to by Burnet and the Fletcher family; and among this collection of books we may fancy Burnet and his pupil spending many hours. There were two catalogues, one of them written by Sir Robert Fletcher; and in August 1666 we find the ‘Laird of Saltoun,’ then thirteen years of age, visiting the library, comparing the books with the catalogues, and gravely reporting to the Presbytery of Haddington that Burnet was taking proper care of the books.

These books were chiefly theological, but among them were The Acts of the Second Parliament of King Charles, from which Burnet might teach the boy many useful lessons, and the ‘Book of the Martyrs, 3 vol. in folio, gifted by my Lady Saltoun.’ For the support of this library Burnet left a sum of money; and it is still known in the district as ‘Bishop Burnet’s Library.’ The books are preserved in a room in the manse of Saltoun under the charge of the parish minister, and prominent among them are a fine folio edition of Burnet’s own works, and a black-letter copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

Of Fletcher’s earliest days little is recorded, except that he was, from infancy, of a fiery but generous nature. According to family tradition Burnet imbued his pupil ‘with erudition and the principles of free government’; and perhaps it is not mere fancy which leads us to picture the keen, eager, excitable boy reading the Book of Martyrs, and listening to Burnet, who describes his system of education in the account which he gives of the manner in which he taught the Duke of Gloucester in after years. ‘I took,’ he says, ‘to my own province, the reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the Principles of Religion and the Rules of Virtue, and the giving him a view of History, Geography, Politics, and Government.’ History, politics, and the theory of government—these were, all through his life, Andrew Fletcher’s favourite studies; and we cannot doubt that Burnet not only drilled him thoroughly in Greek and Latin, as he certainly did, but also fostered that taste for letters from which not even the turmoil of politics could ever wean him.

Fletcher also owed much to the influence of his mother; and to this he himself, in his later years, bore testimony. ‘One day,’ it is recorded in the private family history, ‘after Andrew Fletcher had entertained his company with a concert of music, and they were walking about in the hall at Saltoun, a gentleman fixed his eye on the picture of Katherine Bruce, where the elegant pencil of Sir Peter Lely had blended the softness and grace that form the pleasing ornaments of the sex. “That is my mother,” says Andrew; “and if there is anything in my education and acquirements during the early part of my life, I owe them entirely to that woman.”’

Burnet remained at Saltoun until November 1669, when he was appointed Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. It is, however, possible that Fletcher was sent to the University of Edinburgh before that date, as the name of an Andrew Fletcher occurs in the University Register for the year 1668. This may not have been young Fletcher of Saltoun; but in any case we would suppose, from the acquirements which he afterwards displayed, that he had received a University education, though this is not to be gathered from Lord Buchan, who says: ‘When he had completed his course of elementary studies in Scotland, under the care of his excellent preceptor, he was sent to travel on the Continent.’ But as Fletcher was only fifteen when Burnet left Saltoun, it seems more probable that he was sent to the University of Edinburgh for a year or two before starting on the ‘Grand Tour.’

Of his travels nothing appears to be known; but he doubtless followed the route usually taken, through France, Germany, and Italy, by young Scotsmen of family, who, it need scarcely be said, were almost always sent to finish their education by visiting foreign countries. Fletcher knew French, but with regard to Italian Lord Buchan mentions a curious fact. ‘He had,’ says Lord Buchan, ‘acquired the grammatical knowledge of the Italian so perfectly as to compose and publish a treatise in that language; yet he could not speak it, as he found when having an interview with Prince Eugene of Savoy, and being addressed in that language by the Prince, he could not utter a syllable to be understood.’

Having returned to Scotland, he was, in June 1678, sent as one of the members for Haddingtonshire to the Convention of Estates which met that summer. His colleague was Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, a fine gentleman of the old school, but one of the most virulent Presbyterians even of that day. It is to be observed that the rolls of parliament have the name of ‘James Fletcher of Saltoun.’ It appears, from the Official Return of Members (published in 1878) that the original commissions for Haddingtonshire have been lost; but there is no doubt whatever that the rolls are wrong, and the name ‘James’ appears by a mistake instead of ‘Andrew.’

This Convention of Estates, in which Lauderdale was Lord High Commissioner, sat from the 26th of June to the 11th of July. It was summoned for the purpose of voting money to maintain the troops who were to be employed in suppressing the conventicles or field meetings of the Presbyterians; and a supply of thirty thousand pounds a year, for five years, was granted. The Opposition, led by Hamilton, could muster only thirty-nine votes, while the supporters of the Government numbered one hundred, including, of course, all the Bishops. Among the thirty-nine was Fletcher, who thus, from the outset of his public life, took his stand against the arbitrary system on which Scotland was governed until the Revolution.

During this short session an incident took place which was very characteristic of Fletcher. The Estates had ordered that none but members were to be admitted to the Parliament House. Fletcher’s brother Henry, however, had managed to slip in. He was discovered, fined, and sent to the Tolbooth. So next day Andrew Fletcher ‘pitched on little William Tolemache as no member,’ as Lord Fountainhall puts it. On this Lauderdale was forced to declare that he was one of his servants, whom he was entitled to bring into the House. This is the first instance of that hot, pertinacious spirit which Fletcher so often displayed on the floor of the Parliament House; nor, trifling as the incident was, must it be forgotten that it required some courage to face Lauderdale, whose easygoing, plausible manner concealed a most vindictive spirit.

The Government had now resolved to rule Scotland by the sword; and their policy was to turn the militia, as far as possible, into a standing army. The Scottish Privy Council was ordered to draw five thousand foot and five hundred horse from the militia, and quarter them at the expense of the heritors in all the counties; and instructions were given that, in addition to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, the soldiers should be called upon to swear ‘to maintain the present Government in Church and State, as it is now established by law, and to oppose the damnable principle of 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.