lare
himself hostile to a fundamental part of the constitution of that
Church. If he should become King of Scotland without being fettered by
any pledge on this subject, it might well be apprehended that he would
hesitate about passing an Act which would be regarded with abhorrence
by a large body of his subjects in the south of the island. It was
therefore most desirable that the question should be settled while the
throne was still vacant. In this opinion many politicians concurred, who
had no dislike to rochets and mitres, but who wished that William might
have a quiet and prosperous reign. The Scottish people,--so these men
reasoned,--hated episcopacy. The English loved it. To leave William
any voice in the matter was to put him under the necessity of deeply
wounding the strongest feelings of one of the nations which he governed.
It was therefore plainly for his own interest that the question, which
he could not settle in any manner without incurring a fearful amount of
obloquy, should be settled for him by others who were exposed to no
such danger. He was not yet Sovereign of Scotland. While the interregnum
lasted, the supreme power belonged to the Estates; and for what the
Estates might do the prelatists of his southern kingdom could not hold
him responsible. The elder Dalrymple wrote strongly from London to this
effect, and there can be little doubt that he expressed the sentiments
of his master. William would have sincerely rejoiced if the Scots could
have been reconciled to a modified episcopacy. But, since that could not
be, it was manifestly desirable that they should themselves, while
there was yet no King over them, pronounce the irrevocable doom of the
institution which they abhorred, [305]

The Convention, therefore, with little debate as it should seem,
inserted in the Claim of Right a clause declaring that prelacy was an
insupportable burden to the kingdom, that it had been long odious to the
body of the people, and that it ought to be abolished.

Nothing in the proceedings at Edinburgh astonishes an Englishman more
than the manner in which the Estates dealt with the practice of torture.
In England torture had always been illegal. In the most servile times
the judges had unanimously pronounced it so. Those rulers who had
occasionally resorted to it had, as far as was possible, used it in
secret, had never pretended that they had acted in conformity with
either statute law or common law, and had excused