Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/285

 9 th S. II. OCT. 1, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

277

political party which is in power at the time. As representing royalty, the Lord High Com- missioner during the sitting of the Assembly has his abode in Holy rood Palace, where he dispenses a lavish hospitality (far exceeding in cost his allowance of 2,0001.) to the mem- bers of Assembly and many others. He opens the Assembly with much military and processional display. In the Assembly he is seated on a throne, behind and above the Moderator's chair. He does not in any way control the proceedings, and, with the excep- tion of a short address at the opening and close of the Assembly, takes* no part in them. When the ten free days during which the Assembly by statute sits have expired, the Moderator first dissolves it, and appoints the day on which it is to convene next year, in the name of the Divine Head of the Church. The Lord High Commissioner follows, dis- solving the Assembly in the name of the sovereign, and appointing as date of next meeting the day fixed by the Moderator. In security of the liberty of the Church, it was provided by Act of Parliament, 1582, con- firmed in 1690, that if neither the sovereign nor his or her Commissioner was present, the Assembly should itself have power, on dis- solving, to appoint the time when it should again convene.

The first Commissioner to the General Assembly made his appearance in the forty- first Assembly, which convened in 1580, in the reign of James VI. In the strained relations between Church and State at that time, there was sometimes, on the part of his Majesty's representatives, and at his bidding, an inter- ference with the procedure of the Assembly which would not now be tolerated. Since 1690 the appearance of the Lord High Com- missioner has always been hailed as a symbol of royal favour and protection to the Church. In token of these, he is the bearer of a letter from the sovereign, the usual tenor of which may be learnt from the opening sentences of the letter addressed to the Assembly of last year :

" Victoria R. Right Reverend and Well-beloved. We greet you well. Once again We give Our cor- dial approbation of the Meeting of your Venerable Asaemloly, and joyfully avail Ourselves of the oppor- tunity wnich it affords Us of once more assuring you of the affectionate regard in which We hold the Church of Scotland, and of Our resolution to main- tain it in all its Rights and Privileges."

R. M. SPENCE, D.D. Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

The following interesting paragraph is taken from the Monimail Parish Magazine for June :

"To many of the parishioners the present General Assembly is invested with an additional interest, seeing that the Earl of Leven and Melville is the Lord High Commissioner. It is from our parish that the title is derived, with the ancestral estate and the mansion-house of Melville, which contains, among other well-known famous pictures, the celebrated one of the first Earl of Leven, that ' little crooked soldier,' with grey glancing eyes, who vali- antly won his spurs as Field-Marshal of the forces of Gustavus Adolphus, the champion of Protestant- ism on the Continent, and was recalled home by the Covenanters in their hour of need to lead them on to battle and to victory. The seventh Earl of Leven and Melville was Lord High Commissioner from 1741 till 1753, and his son was appointed by his Majesty George III. as Commissioner from 1783 till 1801. No other family among the peers of the realm has held the Commissionership for so long a period. It is pleasing to record that the present Earl is discharging, as was expected, his varied duties at Holyrood Palace, and in the General Assembly, and in the city, with much tact and dignity, and the Countess of Leven is being esteemed for her courtesy and grace towards all she comes in contact with."

From this it would appear that an Earl of Leven and Melville has been Lord High Commissioner (including the present year) on thirty-three different occasions.

ROBERT F. GARDINER. 64, Abbotsford Place, Glasgow.

According to Dod's 'Peerage' for 1898, the present Lord Leven and Melville was ap- pointed Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1897. Alexander, Earl of Leven and Mel- ville, held this office from 1741 to 1753, and David, Earl of Leven and Melville, from 1783 to 1801. The Commissioner is the Queen's representative at the meetings of the General Assembly. On its opening "he addresses a speech from the throne." He also " dissolves the Assembly on the conclusion of the pro- ceedings, and appoints the time for its next meeting." (See Murray's ' Official Handbook of Church and State,' 1852, pp. 396-7.) It may be added that the Commissioner receives a fresh commission every year.

G. F. R. B.

THE CHURCH(?) AT SILCHESTER (9 th S. ii. 101, 158). The late Thomas Wright, criticizing the attempted explanation by Lysons of the ap- pearance of the Christian monogram in the pagan pavement at Frampton, to which MR. H. J. MOULE has referred ('The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,' p. 356), wrote :

" It must be agreed that a Christian of this period was not likely to be so tolerant of heathenism as to alace a Christian emblem among pictures and even nscriptions relating to that profane mythology on which he was taught to look with horror, and which ic could not for a moment understand."

At first sight this may seem to be very