formed a most important service in behalf of freedom and humanity; and he might reasonably anticipate the gratitude, if not of the entire kingdom, at least of the party whom he had been the means of rescuing from oppression and raising to power. True it is, however, that to this very party he was indebted for the curtailment of his power as a sovereign, and for several encroachments on his personal comforts.

William, though he figures as a Whig monarch, and a Republican Stadtholder, seems to have entertained as high a notion of the royal prerogative as either Queen Elizabeth or Charles the First; and though neither desirous of exacting the personal deference so gratifying to the female representative of the Tudors, nor inclined to encroach on public liberty like the misguided Charles, still he was naturally unwilling to be denied the deference due to him as a sovereign Prince; and still more unwilling,-by being deprived of immunities and privileges which had belonged of right to his predecessors,-to be regarded as a puppet in the hands of a party, or the mere ornamental part of the machinery of a State.

His reign, however, comprehends a melancholy catalogue of disgusts and disappointments; nor could William fail to be aware, that the independent freedom of manner, with which he was frequently addressed by the English nobility,

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would not have been obtruded upon him, had he been their legitimate sovereign, instead of the successful assertor of their rights. Among other instances of the imperiousness, with which it was occasionally his lot to meet, may be mention. ed the following:-He was once closeted with Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, when, in the course of their conversation, the Earl thought proper to urge him to adopt a line of conduct to which William was extremely averse. At length, Rochester exclaimed with indecent warmth, "Princes must not only hear good advice, but must take it." He was no sooner gone, than William, who seems to have been sensibly affected by this insolent speech, proceeded to pace the apartment several times, muttering frequently between his teeth the words, "must-must." At length, turning to Lord Jersey, he said, "If I had ordered him to be thrown out of the window, he must have gone; I do not see how he could have hindered it."

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The picture which Burnet draws of the state of the King's mind, immediately after his accession to the throne, is not without its interest or its moral. That," he says, "which gave the most melancholy prospect, was the ill state of the King's health, whose stay so long at St. James's without exercise or hunting, which was so much used by him that it was become necessary, had brought him under such a weakness that it was

likely to have very ill effects; and the face he forced himself to set upon it, that it might not appear too much, made an impression upon his temper. He was apt to be peevish: it put him under a necessity of being much in his closet, and of being silent and reserved; which, agreeing so well with his natural disposition, made him go off from what all his friends had advised, and he had promised them he would set about,-of being more visible, open, and communicative. The nation had been so much accustomed to this during the two former reigns, that many studied to persuade him, it would be necessary for his affairs to change his way, that he might be more accessible and freer in his discourse. He seemed resolved on it, but he said his ill health made it impossible for him to execute it; and so he went on in his former way, or rather he grew more retired, and was not easily come at, nor spoke to. And in a few days after he was set on the throne, he went to Hampton Court; and from that palace he came into town only on council days; so that the face of the Court, and the rendezvous usual in the public rooms, was now quite broken : this gave an early and general disgust.”

In addition to other causes of annoyance to which William was exposed, may be mentioned the circumstance of the number of traitors by whom he knew himself to be surrounded, and the difficulty of knowing where to repose con

fidence. Lord Dartmouth observes, in one of his notes to Bishop Burnet's History :-"The Earl of Portland once in discourse with the King, (I had it from one that was present,) said the English were the strangest people he had ever met with; for by their own accounts of one another, there was never an honest nor an able man in the three kingdoms; and he really believed it wa true. The King told him he was very much mistaken, for there were as wise and honest men amongst them, as were in any part of the world, (and fetched a great sigh,)—' but, he added, they are not my friends."" King William's sentiments, with regard to the Scottish portion of his subjects, may be inferred from a witty remark that he made to the Duke of Hamilton. That nobleman,— with the kindly feeling of nationality which is the characteristic of his countrymen,- -was once lauding Scotland to the skies, when William cut him short in his harangue :-" My Lord," he said, "I only wish the country was a hundred thousand miles off, and that you were the king of it."

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CHAPTER VI.

Character and habits of the Scottish Highlanders.-Lord Dundee's opposition to William.-Sketch of his character.— Anecdote of Lord Dundee.-Battle of Killicrankie, and death of Dundee.-Epitaph on him by Dr. Pitcairn.-Flight of the survivors of his army to France, and their subsequent sufferings. Their daring in battle. They are ultimately disbanded.-Unsettled state of the Highlands.-Lord Breadalbane's proposal to distribute money among the disturbed districts. Accepted at first by the English Government, but afterwards declined, at the instigation of his Lordship's enemies. Circumstances that led to the massacre of Glencoe.-Details of that massacre. Treachery of Captain Campbell of Glenlyon.- Extract from Sir Walter Scott's poems.-Anecdotes connected with the massacre.-Horror excited by it throughout the kingdom.-William's explanation of the affair.-Letters addressed to him by Lord Tarbet on the subject of the state of the Highlands, discovered after his death. Probability that William was utterly ignorant of the extent to which it was proposed to carry on the massacre.

THE circumstances connected with the dreadful massacre of Glencoe are fraught with an interest of at once so romantic and so painful a nature, and the concurrence of William in that dark and detestable tragedy has fixed so indelible a blot upon his character, that it would be impossible to pass over such an event in silence. At the period