the High Court of Justiciary in 1671, his active duties as a Justiciar ceased; and from that period, he merely remained as a stipendiary and privy councillor of the king.

The LORD HIGH ADMIRAL was an officer, who, like the same person in England, or like the board of Commissioners of the Admiralty, was entrusted with the administration of all affairs connected with the navy and the seas.

After this officer, there was a privy councillor who at one time enjoyed some very odious powers, entitled the LORD CHAMBERLAIN. Originally it was the duty of this person (or persons, for there were sometimes several chamberlains,) to collect the revenue; but when that became the prerogative of the Treasurer of the Exchequer, there devolved upon him the exercise of a certain supervisionary authority over inferior judicatories. This consisted in perambulating the country at stated seasons, and holding courts of review, at which the judgments of the burgh magistrates could be reversed upon complaints of injustice. These courts were designated Chamberlain Äires. He also regulated the prices of provisions, and workmen's wages; and if we are to believe historians, in the exercise of these duties, his decrees were too often of a very oppressive character. His salary was only £ 200 a-year; but he derived a large contingent revenue from fines, fees of escheated property, customs, and other matters. This office was abolished, we believe, ten or eleven years previous to the Union, when the chamberlain's judicial authority was conferred upon the Court of Session, and his other powers were either abrogated altogether, or conveyed over to the convention of the magistrates of royal burghs.

The LORD HIGH STEWARD, who was next in official dignity, was judge over all the other officers of the king's household, and his judgment was summary and final in every thing relative to their quarrels, etiquette, or service. In the 13th century this office was held

heritably by a family, who, in virtue of their occupa tion, assumed the surname of Stewart; and it is remarkable, that, though thus originally servants of the crown, they at last became, by alliance, its possessors.

The next office of state was the LORD HIGH CONSTABLE, or commander-in-chief of the Scottish army while in the field. He was the keeper of the king's sword, which was delivered to him naked. By virtue, also, of this emblem of authority, he was the conservator of the peace within a limited district of several leagues around the residence of the king; but this authority was latterly limited to the period of the sitting of parliament. On his approach, therefore, in the retinue of the king, the local authorities ceased to act, except under his warrant or dispensation.

Superior in rank, in a certain sense, to the above officer, was the EARL or KNIGHT MARISHALL, to whom there was deputed the command of the horse and artillery. His duty also extended to the procuring of camp-equipage and quarters for his majesty and the troops. He possessed a baton of office, which, we understand, is still preserved.

Of

The last, though not the least powerful officer of the crown, was the LORD ADVOCATE, of whom we shall afterwards have occasion to make mention. He was the Attorney-General of Scotland, and in all civil and criminal cases acted for the king's interest. such state officers, exclusive of the supernumerary members, so far as it can now be ascertained, was composed the Privy Council of Scotland. Towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, when all the branches of the administration became unsettled, it underwent some alterations, and the Lord Justice Clerk was likewise, in virtue of his office, created a Privy Councillor. Latterly, the authority of the members merged in a great measure into the hands of the most factious and ambitious of the body; and, previous to the Union, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Justice General, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Ad

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COMMISSIONER TO THE FARLIAMENT.

vocate, and the Lord Justice Clerk, possessed nearly the whole powers of government. *

Connected with the royal establishment of Scotland, there were moreover many officers, who, without taking an active share in the administration, supported the dignity of the crown, and assisted the state machine in its movements. Of this description were the Judges of the Supreme Courts, the Lord Lyon, the officers of the Mint, Deans, Chaplains, keepers of palaces and forts, and other servants of similar rank, which it would be profitless to particularize.

When Scotland came to be left without the presence of monarchy, there was appointed by the king, a person to act as his commissioner or representative in the Scottish parliament, a duty which was little better than ministerial, for he only acted under the directions of the English cabinet. It appears, nevertheless, from historians, that this personage frequently entered deeply into the management of state affairs; and if we have to draw our conclusions from the actions done through his instrumentality, we have to look upon him as having been almost an acknowledged viceroy, or lord-lieutenant in the country. There was bestowed upon him much of the adulation lavished on princes ; and he received, on all occasions, the most assiduous attention from the inferior persons about the government. Frequently this office of commissioner was exceedingly ill filled. During the reign of Charles the Second, the commissioner (Middleton) was often unable to keep his seat on the throne in the Parliament House, by reason of drunkenness; a thing in which he was not by any means singular, for at this epoch the most open debauchery prevailed among almost all those

*The Privy Council sat in a room adjacent to the Parliament House, on the south side of the square, and next door to the old Royal Exchange. The latter was burnt down in 1824, but the ancient door-way, with the words "Royal Exchange" engraved in relief on the lintel, remained standing in ruins five years, and is now in the course of being removed, to make way for the splendid modern erections.

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT.

9

pertaining to the court. The commissioner was allowed a salary of L. 50 Sterling per diem, upon which sum it was understood he should keep an open table for the hangers-on of the government. Lauderdale felt this sum so inadequate to support the expenses of the office, that he petitioned to have it reduced to L. 10, free of the burthen of feeding all comers; which was granted.

We have now to describe the Parliament of Scotland, both as regarding its component parts, and its judicial authority.

This assemblage of representatives is always mentioned in history under the title of "the Estates," from the circumstance, that it was composed of persons belonging to all the various ranks of society or estates in the kingdom. It remains, to this day, a disputed point between writers, what was in reality the precise number of these estates, each reasoning, according to his political bias, whether the king in person, or the nobility, formed the first estate. But this is now a matter of extreme indifference; and, for the sake of perspicuity, we may mention, that the king occupied that station which is now conceded to the sovereign of Great Britain. He formed, in this manner, the first estate; and, except in the time of the civil war, when the members of the house chose to act without regal authority, it required his assent to render the deeds of the other estates valid. The second estate consisted of the nobility, who in general amounted to the number of one hundred and fifty or sixty. The third was composed of the twelve bishops, and other spiritual lords; but these, at the abolition of the apostolic church, and the institution of a parity in the clerical office, were expelled, and in their stead were introduced a certain number of what were in these times called "the lesser Barons," or persons who would now receive the name of lairds, or gentlemen of landed property. The fourth was formed of two knights or commissioners from each of the

10

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT.

thirty-three counties, and a representative from each of the sixty-six royal burghs. With regard, however, to this latter, the number of commissioners from the counties was increased by an addition of twentysix members after the revolution, in order to counterbalance the creation of peers by king William. Altogether, including the officers of state, who had each a seat in virtue of their office, the number of members composing the Scottish estates, amounted to three hundred, or at particular times, three hundred and thirty

persons.

Previous to the seventeenth century, it does not appear that there was any settled place in the country for the convocation of the estates. They were called by the king to attend him at different parts of the kingdom, where their advice and assent were considered necessary. Thus the Scottish parliament has been held at Musselburgh, Linlithgow, Stirling, Perth, and many other places. Finally, when the city of Edinburgh became the chief place of residence of the court, it commenced to hold its regular sittings in a magnificent antique building in the heart of the city, now much modernized and impaired in appearance, and appropriated to the use of the supreme law courts.

The

anecdote of James VI. while a boy, having noticed a broken part in the roof of the house in which the estates had assembled, and remarking that he observed “a hole in the parliament," would lead us to imagine that that august body was not at times nice in the choice of a place of meeting. This idea may be said to be corroborated by a curious passage in Balfour's Annales of parliamentary proceedings at Perth, in these words: "Dec. 4. 1650. This euning, candells being lighted in the housse, a great stock oule muttit on the top of the croune, which, with the sword and sceptre, lay on a table ouer against the throne."

It is now almost impossible to say distinctly how this large body of representatives of the nation were chosen. Judging from hints thrown out in history, it would seem that, with regard to the county and