Chancellor of Scotland, "are kept
from amusement, frameing conceits of government and religion, such as
our giddy people frame to themselves, and make themselves the scorn and
reproach of mankind, for all are now foes under the name of English,
and we are said to be so changeable and foolish, that nothing from our
parts seems strange. Beheading, dethroning, and banishing of kings,
being but children's play with us."[178]

But all the promise of this plan was defeated, as it is generally and
confidently asserted, by the character of Lord Lovat. A general distrust
prevailed, of his motives and of his authority, even in that very
country where he had once led on his clansmen to crimes for which they
had paid dearly in the humiliation and devastation of their clan. He was
indeed, prevented from lingering near the home of his youth, from the
decrees which had been issued against him, and the risk of discovery.
Disappointed in his efforts, unable to raise even fifty men of his own
clan, and resolved upon gaining influence and favour in some quarter or
another, he determined upon betraying the whole scheme, which has since
obtained in history the name of the Scottish Plot, to the Duke of
Queensbury.

It was on pretext of obtaining a passport for France, that Lord Lovat
now sought an interview with the Duke in London. He there discovered to
that able and influential minister, then Secretary of State for
Scotland, the entire details of the meditated insurrection, together
with the names of the principal Scottish nobility concerned in the
conspiracy. The Duke, it appears, perfectly appreciated the character
of his informant. He seems to have reflected, that from such materials
as those which composed the desperate and hardened character of Lovat,
the best instruments of party may be selected. He consented, it is
generally believed,--although historians differ greatly according to
their particular bias, as to the fact,--to furnish Lovat with a
passport, and to employ him as a spy in the French Court, in order to
prosecute his discoveries still farther.

When Lovat was afterwards charged with this act of treachery, he
declared, that he had told the Duke of Queensbury little more than what
had escaped through the folly or malice of the Jacobites; but
acknowledged that a mutual compact had passed between him and the Duke
of Queensbury.[179]

Somerville, in his history of the reign of Queen Anne, remarks, that it
is doubtful whe