CHAPTER XXXII.

WILLIAM AND MARY.

(1689-1694.)

1. The Revolution and the Toleration Act.-Soon after James was gone, a Parliament met. After much discussion it declared that James had given up the Crown by governing badly and by leaving England. It then offered the throne which had thus become vacant to William and Mary. They were to be joint sovereigns. Mary's head was to appear on the coins, and to be named in all public announcements together with that of her husband, but as long as they both lived William alone was to govern. If either of them died the other was to continue to reign, and when they were both dead, unless they left children, the Crown was go to Mary's sister, the Princess Anne. All this was settled by Parliament, and Parliament was able to do very much as it thought right. The king and queen were on the throne because Parliament had put them there, and not because they were born to it. If Parliament declared against them they would hardly be able to keep themselves there. One of the first consequences of the change was the passing of the Toleration Act. The Dissenters at last got permission by law to worship in their own chapels. The Catholics did not get permission to do the same. People were afraid of them and angry with them, as they had

been with the Dissenters after the Restoration. They were therefore determined to keep them down. Yet it was not long before they found out that there were not enough of them to be afraid of, and so after a time the Catholics got toleration as well as the Dissenters, and were allowed to worship in their

own way, though it was a very long time before they were allowed to hold offices.

2. The War in Scotland. William knew that he would have to fight for his Crown. He was himself at the head of a number of States on the Continent which were at war with the king of France, and Lewis XIV. was sure to do all that he could do to overthrow him in England. In Scotland the greater part of the people took William's side. Lord Dundee,

a brave soldier, who was one of James's supporters, went into the Highlands, and got together an army of Highlanders, who were very fond of fighting, and who, being very poor in their wild mountains, were glad of an excuse to plunder the Lowlands. Dundee drew up his Highlanders at the top of a steep ascent through the pass of Killiecrankie, near Blair Athol. William's troops came panting up the hill in a hot summer day. When they drew near the top the Highlanders rushed down, slashing them with their broadswords. The soldiers turned and fled with the Highlanders after them. Dundee was shot before the flight began, and the Highlanders went back to their homes to carry off their plunder. Soon afterwards William's officers placed soldiers in forts near the places where the Highlanders were likely to come out, and gave presents to the chiefs, so that there was no more war in Scotland for a long time.

except one.

3. The Massacre of Glencoe.-The Highland chiefs were required to swear that they would live peaceably in the future. They had to take the oath by certain day. When that day came, all had sworn That one was Mac Ian of Glencoe, a rocky and desolate valley in the Western Highlands. Mac Ian was an old man, the He had intended to take the it would be a very grand thing to take it as late as possible, after all the great chiefs had sworn. Unluckily for him, he went to swear at a place where there was no one appointed to receive his oath. He at once went on to another place, where he took the

chief of a small clan. oath, but he thought

oath in a proper manner, but by the time he arrived the appointed day was past. Unfortunately for Mac Ian, the Master of Stair, who governed Scotland for William, was delighted to find an excuse

for punishing him. He knew that Highlanders were always ready to fight, and to rob, and that Mac Ian's clan was rather more ready to carry cattle from the Lowlands than other Highlanders.

off

He determined to make an example of them. He got permission from William to extirpate that set of thieves.' He proceeded to do his cruel work in a particularly cruel and treacherous manner. He sent soldiers to Glencoe. These soldiers came under pretence of being friendly with the inhabitants. They lived amongst them, ate at their tables, laughed and played at cards with them. Early one morning, whilst it was yet dark, the soldiers surrounded the huts of those with whom they had made merry the evening before, dragged them out of their beds and murdered them, or shot them down as they attempted to fly. Many, indeed, contrived to escape; but it was bitter winter weather, and not a few of those who escaped died of cold and hunger amongst the snows in which they sought shelter. It is not likely that the Massacre of Glencoe will ever be forgotten in Scotland.

4. The Siege of Londonderry.-The war in Ireland lasted longer than that in Scotland. Though there were many persons there of English descent, the mass of the people were Irish by birth and Catholic by religion. They had been treated badly by Cromwell, and after the Restoration they were not much better treated by Charles II. When James II. had tried to make changes in England, he hoped to get help from the Irish. He had sent over a governor who got together an army of Irish Catholics. The Irish, for once, had everything their own way. They chased out the English Protestants from their homes and robbed them and ill-treated them as they had done in 1641. The English had only a few towns