Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/425

 qualifying themselves in terms of the recent act of parliament, that is by subscribing the confession of faith and acknowledging presbyterian church government.

From references in Johnstone of Warriston's letters to Carstares (Carstares State Papers, p. 159 et seq.), it would appear that already in 1693 the enemies of Stair were meditating an attack on him for his share in the massacre of Glencoe. Probably the chief cause of the delay in bringing forward the accusation was the difficulty in disassociating his conduct from that of the king. At length, in order to anticipate the intended action of the parliament, it was announced at its meeting in May 1695 that a royal commission had been issued in April to examine into the slaughter of the men of Glencoe. Their report was subscribed on 20 June, and was immediately forwarded to the king. After considering the report the parliament also voted an address to the king to the effect that Stair in giving directions for the massacre had exceeded his instructions and requesting that such orders should be given about him for the vindication of the government as might seem fit. In the midst of the discussions a defence of Stair, entitled ‘Information for the Master of Stair,’ &c. (printed in Papers illustrative of the Highlands, pp. 120–131), was published by his brother, Sir Hugh Dalrymple, which the estates declared to be false and calumnious, but to which it was deemed advisable to publish a reply by Sir James Stewart, lord advocate, under the title ‘Answers to the Information of the Master of Stair’ (ib. pp. 131–42). That enmity against Stair, rather than horror at the outrage committed against an obscure band of mountain robbers, was the motive which chiefly prompted the action of the estates, may be taken for granted. Indeed, the extreme mildness of the terms of their request as regards Stair indicates that all that they really desired was his removal from office; while a special show of indignation against the subordinate agents of the massacre was manifested, seemingly in order the better to demonstrate the absence of animus against the chief offender. The conclusions of the commission that Stair exceeded the intentions of William is adopted by Macaulay, who supposes that if the king really read the ‘instructions’ to ‘extirpate that set of thieves’ before signing them, he interpreted them in a sense ‘perfectly innocent.’ It may be admitted that Stair did not inform the king of the exact character of his arrangements for ‘extirpating’ the clan, but his letters sufficiently prove that it never entered into his mind that there was anything heinous in what he was contemplating, and the supposition that he wilfully concealed his purpose from the king cannot therefore be entertained. In any case, William, after all the facts of the case were fully explained, never expressed a syllable of disapproval of the conduct of his minister. He ‘contented himself,’ not with ‘dismissing the master from office,’ as Macaulay following Burnet states, but with doing nothing, for Stair voluntarily resigned. On the death of his father in November of the same year he became Viscount Stair, and although, with the king's assent, he refrained meanwhile from taking his seat as a peer of parliament, he received at the close of the year a remission freeing him from all the consequences of his participation in the slaughter of Glencoe, on the ground that he had ‘no knowledge of nor accession to the method of that execution,’ which was condemned merely as ‘contrary to the laws of humanity and hospitality, being done by those soldiers who for some days before had been quartered amongst them and entertained by them.’ ‘Any excess of zeal as going beyond his instructions,’ it was added, is ‘remitted;’ but the question as to whether any excess of zeal was really chargeable against him was avoided, the impression conveyed by the words being, however, that it was not chargeable, and that if it were it was of no consequence (ib. p. 143). Indeed, the extirpation of the whole clan by wholesale massacre is by implication justified, all that is condemned being the attempt to accomplish this through accepting the clan's hospitality.

Notwithstanding the remission, a proposal of Stair to take his seat in parliament in 1698 awoke such ‘a humour among the members,’ that he desisted from carrying out his intention till February 1700. On the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 he was sworn a privy councillor, and on 8 April 1703 was created Earl of Stair. Although he held no office under Queen Anne, he enjoyed the special confidence of Godolphin, and continued to be the chief adviser of the government on Scottish affairs. Holding aloof from the political factions by which Scotland was distracted, he was able to take an unprejudiced and comprehensive view of the political situation as affecting the general welfare of both countries. The statement of Lockhart that he ‘taught and encouraged England arbitrarily and avowedly to rule over Scots affairs, invade her freedom, and ruin her trade’ (Papers, i. 88), is as nearly as possible the opposite of truth, for Scotland had been much less interfered with under William and Anne than under the Stuarts, and in regard to the Darien expedition the action of England was not only justifiable but wise. That Stair was, how-