Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

cclx WILLIAM, FIRST MAUQUIS OF xVXNAMXVLE, 1C72-1721.
burgh of their respective shires on the 29th of that month, and charged
tlieni to discover, if possible, the persons implicated. The commissioners,
justices of the peace, and others of Dumfriesshire met at Dumfries on the
day appointed, and, as already related, the Earl of Annandale was prcses of
tlie meeting. Tiie report of tlieir proceedings, whicli his lordship furnished
to the lord chancellor, bears that Prancis Irving, William Macmillau, and
George Campbell, three indulged ministers who had been called to the
meeting, petitioned to be relieved from attending, on the plea that it was
inconsistent with their sacred office to sit as judges in a civil court. The
earl enclosed their pietitiou with his letter to the cbaucelloi", and left it to
the judgment of the Tprivj council. Tlie meeting resolved themselves into a
committee of twenty, being five for each of the four presbyteries within the
shire. These met separately willi the heritors within their respective
presbyteries, conferred on the matter referred to them, and declared they did
not know of any one who was present " at that late rebellious assassiuatioue,"
nor of any field conventicle recently kept within their bounds, and they
judged the people peaceable.^
This same year of 1GS8, King James made tlie Earl of Annandale a privy
councillor although he was only then twenty-four years of age. Later in
the year he received a commission on 18th October ICSS from King James-
the Seventh to be captain of a troop of horse in the regiment under the
command of Major-General John Graham of Claverhouse.^ Before Annan-
dale could have assumed his place as captain, William, Prince of Orange,
lauded at Torbay on 5th Xoveniber ICSS, and the devolution became an
acconiplislied fact.
1 The letter of tbe earl and the [-etition of (History, fol. edition, vol. ii. j). G29.) The
the ministers are printed in vulume ii. of this letter and jiclitiou now referred to supply
work, p)>. 41-14. Wodrow states t!i.->t mik-ss such an account so far as Dumfriesshire is
iu the case of the shire of Renfrew, he had concerned.
Dot seen any account of the procedure in
this case adopted in any of the other shires. - Charters of this work, p. 91).