[FROM KÖNIGSMARCK TO SOPHIA DOROTHEA]
[Hanover, _latter part of 1693_] _6 o’clock_.
I cannot go away from here without thanking you for having rescued
me from such a difficulty. Surely I was a lost man without
yesterday evening’s conversation. I go away as happy as a man can
do who leaves behind what he adores; but what consoles me is that
I am well assured of your friendship, and that my absence does me
no harm; my soul is so at ease that I am quite a different man
from what I was before. I beg of you, no _tête-à-têtes_—not with
anybody, in particular with M. R.[255] I shall know everything,
for I have good friends here whom you do not in the least suspect.
Adieu, _Bella dea_, think of me as much as I think of you. I kiss
your knees a thousand times, and am eternally your slave.
-----
Footnote 255:
I cannot guess at ‘M. R.’ Prince Maximilian’s second name was
William.
-----
APPENDIX C
NOTE ON THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN SCOTLAND, AS IT AFFECTED THE
HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION
The Church of Scotland was, in the main, well affected to the Union
and the consequences which it entailed as regards the Succession.
But the friends of the House of Hanover had to guard against two
distinct sources of weakness within the Establishment itself.
(I) Episcopacy in Scotland had never been more than a compromise,
even in the districts where it had not been violently opposed. The
best instance of this is Aberdeenshire, where protests against the
government of Charles II are late in date and are confined to verbal
expressions of sympathy with the persecuted Presbyterians. But the
_Records of the Exercise_ [Presbytery] _of Alford_ (New Spalding
Club, 1897), dealing with the period 1662-1688, show clearly enough
that the episcopal function was ordination, and that the government
and, in many respects, the public worship of the Church was
Presbyterian. The effect of this was that, at the Revolution,
Episcopal clergymen were permitted to remain in their parishes on
condition of their taking the oath to William and Mary, although
they were forbidden to take part in Presbyteries, Synods, or
Assemblies. The tendency was for such men to conform to Presbytery,
but they formed a distinct ‘left wing.’ They were most numerous in
the north-east, and they were well represented in the Universities.
Both the Universities of Aberdeen, for example, were Jacobite in
sympathy. The result was that many ministers shared in, and urged
their people to join, the ’15. They were deposed in 1716, and the
Universities were ‘purged’ by the Commission of 1717.
(2) A section of the more robust Presbyterians in the Church
sympathised with their brethren who had declined to accept the
Revolution Settlement, and their feeling was accentuated by a gross
breach of faith on the part of the British Parliament—the passing of
the Patronage Act of 1712, which disturbed the Church for more than
a century and a half. So strong was this tendency that, as late as
1745, the Provincial Synod of Moray considered it necessary to
inform George II that ‘with pleasure we reflect that very few of the
people who hold communion with us have joined those enemies of your
Majesty’s crown and government.’ (Allardyce, _Jacobite Papers_.)
Episcopalian Jacobitism within the Church practically disappears in
1716, and the clergy, as represented in ecclesiastical and academic
records, were devotedly loyal to George I and II, from that date.
Outside the Church we have a body who were not Dissenters in the
English sense, for they approved of the constitution of the Church,
but objected to the establishment of Episcopacy in England, and the
toleration of Dissenters in Scotland. They were the men who had
suffered most in the ‘killing time,’ and their only associations
with the functions of government were connected with Grierson of
Lagg and Bloody Mackenzie. They considered it possible that James
Stewart might be turned from the error of his ways, and take the
Covenant as Charles II had done. Their attitude, in fact, was
precisely similar to that of their predecessors, who had crowned
Charles II after fighting against Charles I. They declined to
acknowledge the Revolution Settlement and the Union. They spoke of
Queen Anne as ‘that wicked Jezabel the pretended Queen,’ and ‘the
late woman.’ But even when they had little hope of the Pretender’s
conversion, they protested against ‘the Prince of Hanover, who hath
been bred and brought up in the Luthren religion, which is not only
different from but even in many things contrar unto that purity in
doctrine, reformation, and religion we in these nations had attained
unto.’ (_Protestation against the Union._)
The Episcopalians, the largest section of Protestant Dissenters,
were, almost without exception, High Tories. They had suffered for
refusing the oath to William and Mary, and had undergone some
trifling inconveniences as the defeated and unpopular party. The
rising of 1715 was, therefore, very largely supported by
Episcopalians, who found themselves ranged along with extreme
Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. The religious aspect of the ’15
and the ’45 has never been satisfactorily examined. Mr. Blaikie
said, not long since, that the ‘45 was much more Presbyterian than
is commonly imagined. I hope he will work out the subject.