, Atholl had deserted the Court party and voted with the
majority. He had a great Highland following, he might throw it on the
Jacobite side, and the infamous intriguer, Simon Frazer (the Lord Lovat
of 1745), came over from France and betrayed to Queensberry a real or a
feigned intrigue of Atholl with France and with the Ministers of James
VIII., called "The Pretender."

Atholl was the enemy of Frazer, a canting, astute, and unscrupulous
ruffian. Queensberry conceived that in a letter given to him by Lovat he
had irrefutable evidence against Atholl as a conspirator, and he allowed
Lovat to return to France, where he was promptly imprisoned as a traitor.
Atholl convinced Anne of his own innocence, and Queensberry fell under
ridicule and suspicion, lost his office of Commissioner, and was
superseded by Tweeddale. In England the whole complex affair of Lovat's
revelations was known as "The Scottish Plot"; Hamilton was involved, or
feared he might be involved, and therefore favoured the new proposals of
the Courtiers and English party for placing limits on the prerogative of
Anne's successor, whoever he might be.

In the Estates (July 1704), after months passed in constitutional
chicanery, the last year's Act of Security was passed and touched with
the sceptre; and the House voted Supply for six months. But owing to a
fierce dispute on private business--namely, the raising of the question,
"Who were the persons accused in England of being engaged in the
'Scottish Plot'?"--no hint of listening to proposals for Union was
uttered. Who could propose, as Commissioners to arrange Union, men who
were involved--or in England had been accused of being involved--in the
plot? Scotland had not yet consented that whoever succeeded Anne in
England should also succeed in Scotland. They retained a means of
putting pressure on England, the threat of having a separate king; they
had made and were making military preparations (drill once a-month!), and
England took up the gauntlet. The menacing attitude of Scotland was
debated on with much heat in the English Upper House (November 29), and a
Bill passed by the Commons declared the retaliatory measures which
England was ready to adopt.

It was at once proved that England could put a much harder pinch on
Scotland than Scotland could inflict on England. Scottish drovers were
no longer to sell cattle south of the Border, Scottish ships trading with
France were to be seized, Scottish co