Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/244

590 received a slight wound about the groin, pierced Arran's thigh, and broke his own sword. The earl had now in turn an opportunity to display his generosity, and sparing the life which was at his mercy, the two young noblemen parted good friends.

Arran enjoyed the favour of Charles II. who made him one of the knights of his bed-chamber, and sent him envoy extraordinary to the court of France, to offer congratulations on the birth of Philip, duke of Anjou, afterwards king of Spain. Whilst upon this embassy, he was one day hunting with the king, and taking offence at some part of the conduct of an ecclesiastical dignitary, who also rode in the company, he disregarded equally the profession of his opponent and the royal presence, and pulling the reverend gentleman from his horse, and grasping his sword, he was prevented from exacting a bloody vengeance only by the interposition of his majesty. The particulars of this affair are not related with that distinctness which would enable us to decide who was in the wrong ; but the earl's contemporaries, provided they saw a display of spirit, did not often stop to inquire \vhether it were borne out by prudence; and accordingly, a writer of the time tells us his lordship came off upon this occasion, in the opinion of the world, "with high commendations of his courage and audacity."

When James II. ascended the throne, the earl of Arran suffered no diminution of court favour. Indeed he seems to have earned it by readily yielding to James's designs. He was one of the privy council who in 1687, signed the letter of the Scottish government, concurring with the proclamation to repeal the laws made against papists. In reward of his acquiescence, he was installed a knight of the thistle, when that order, which, according to the king's party, was instituted about the year of our Lord 809, by Achaius, king of Scots, and never disused till the intestine troubles, which happened in the reign of Mary, was "restored to its full lustre, glory, and magnificence." The writers, whose politics were different, maintain that, however honourable this badge might be, it was never worn as such before. Burnet says it was "set up in Scotland in imitation of the order of the garter in England;" and lord Dartmouth adds, that "all the pretence for antiquity is some old pictures of kings of Scotland, with medals of St Andrew hung in gold chains about their necks." Whether old or new, it was conferred as a mark of James's esteem, and in farther proof of his confidence he entrusted the earl of Arran with the command of a regiment of horse, when the new levies took place on the descent of the duke of Mon- mouth. At a period of greater disaster to James's fortunes, when lord Churchill, afterwards the great Marlborough, went over to the prince of Orange, the duke of Berwick was advanced to the station he had'occupied as colonel of the 3d troop of horse guards, and in the room of his grace, Arran was made colonel of Oxford's regiment. From the course which events took, however, the earl had no opportunity of signalizing his bravery in the cause of his master; but he carried his fidelity as far as any man in the kingdom, having been one of the four lords who accompanied James to Gravesend, when the fallen monarch repaired thither on his way into foreign exile. Returning to London, Arran complied with the general example, and waited on the prince of Orange; being one of the last that came, he offered an excuse which partook more of the bluntness of the soldier than of political or courtlike dexterity: "If the king had not withdrawn out of the country," he said, "he should not have come at all." The next day the prince intimated to him that he had bestowed his regiment upon its old colonel, the earl of Oxford.

Nor was Arran solicitous to appease by subsequent compliance the displeasure incurred in his first interview with the prince. On the 7th January, William