The lord commissioner, alarmed at this scene of tumult and confusion, adjourned the house till the eighth day of October; a step which, added to the other unpopular measures of the court, incensed the opposition to a violent degree. They drew up a remonstrance to the king, complaining of this adjournment while the nation was yet unsettled, recapitulating the several instances in which they had expressed their zeal and affection for his majesty; explaining their reasons for dissenting from the ministry in some articles; beseeching him to consider what they had represented, to give his royal assent to the acts of parliament which they had prepared, and take measures for redressing all the other grievances of the nation. This address was presented to the king at Hampton-court. William was so touched with the reproaches it implied, as if he had not fulfilled the conditions on which he accepted the crown of Scotland, that he, in his own vindication, published his instructions to the commissioner; and by these it appeared that the duke might have proceeded to greater lengths in obliging his countrymen. Before the adjournment, however, the parliament had granted the revenue for life; and raised money for maintaining a body of forces, as well as for supporting the incidental expense of the government for some months; yet part of the troops in that kingdom were supplied and subsisted by the administration of England. In consequence of these disputes in the Scottish parliament, their church was left without any settled form of government; for, though the hierarchy was abolished, the presbyterian discipline was not yet established, and ecclesiastical affairs were occasionally regulated by the privy-council, deriving its authority from that very act of supremacy, which, according to the claim of rights, ought to have been repealed. |