est and Declaration
of Right.[116]

The demands of the General Assembly amount to a reversal by Law of the
recent decisions of the Court of Session and of the House of Lords,
and to a repeal of the Act of Queen Anne, which establishes the Right
of Patronage in respect to Livings in the Church of Scotland.

That Act by no means gives any such absolute right of appointment
to the Crown or other patrons of Livings, as exists in England. It
enables those legally entitled to the patronage to present a clergyman
to the Living, but the Church Courts have the power, on valid
objections being made and duly sustained by the parishioners, to set
aside the presentation of the patron, and to require from him a new
nomination.

The Church, however, requires the absolute repeal of the Act of Anne.

An answer to the demands of the Church will now become requisite.

Sir James Graham has been in communication with the law advisers of
your Majesty in Scotland upon the legal questions involved in this
matter, and will shortly send for your Majesty's consideration the
draft of a proposed answer to the General Assembly.[117]

[Footnote 116: The famous Auchterarder case had decided that,
notwithstanding the vetoing by the congregation of the nominee
of the patron, the Presbytery must take him on trial if
qualified by life, learning, and doctrine,--in other words,
that the Act of Anne, subjecting the power of the Presbytery
to the control of the law courts, was not superseded by the
Veto Act, a declaration made by the General Assembly. In the
Strathbogie case, a minister had been nominated to Marnock,
and 261 out of 300 heads of families had objected to him. The
General Assembly having directed the Presbytery to reject him,
the civil court held that he must be taken on trial. Seven
members of the Presbytery obeyed the civil power, and the
General Assembly, on the motion of Dr Chalmers, deposed them
and declared their parishes vacant.]

[Footnote 117: Sir James Graham's letter is printed in the
Annual Register for 1843. A petition in answer was drawn by
the Assembly and presented to Parliament by Mr Fox Maule.
After the debate on it in the Commons, preparations were
made throughout Scotland for the secession of the
non-intrusionists, as they were called, which event took
place on 18th May 1843, when about 500 Ministers, headed by
Chalmers, seceded