ill
their Acts should have been touched with the sceptre. The Lord High
Commissioner was at length so much provoked by their perverseness that,
after long temporising, he refused to touch even Acts which were in
themselves unobjectionable, and to which his instructions empowered
him to consent. This state of things would have ended in some great
convulsion, if the King of Scotland had not been also King of a much
greater and more opulent kingdom. Charles the First had never found any
parliament at Westminster more unmanageable than William, during this
session, found the parliament at Edinburgh. But it was not in the power
of the parliament at Edinburgh to put on William such a pressure as the
parliament at Westminster had put on Charles. A refusal of supplies at
Westminster was a serious thing, and left the Sovereign no choice except
to yield, or to raise money by unconstitutional means, But a refusal of
supplies at Edinburgh reduced him to no such dilemma. The largest sum
that he could hope to receive from Scotland in a year was less than
what he received from England every fortnight. He had therefore only
to entrench himself within the limits of his undoubted prerogative,
and there to remain on the defensive, till some favourable conjuncture
should arrive, [353]

While these things were passing in the Parliament House, the civil war
in the Highlands, having been during a few weeks suspended, broke forth
again more violently than before. Since the splendour of the House of
Argyle had been eclipsed, no Gaelic chief could vie in power with the
Marquess of Athol. The district from which he took his title, and of
which he might almost be called the sovereign, was in extent larger than
an ordinary county, and was more fertile, more diligently cultivated,
and more thickly peopled than the greater part of the Highlands. The men
who followed his banner were supposed to be not less numerous than all
the Macdonalds and Macleans united, and were, in strength and courage,
inferior to no tribe in the mountains. But the clan had been made
insignificant by the insignificance of the chief. The Marquess was the
falsest, the most fickle, the most pusillanimous, of mankind. Already,
in the short space of six months, he had been several times a Jacobite,
and several times a Williamite. Both Jacobites and Williamites regarded
him with contempt and distrust, which respect for his immense power
prevented them from fully expressing. After re