ing this shall be your and their
warrant. Witness Ourself at our Palace at Westminster the ---- day
---- 1658." This does not seem to have sufficed for his Highness; for
on Tuesday, May 4, the Council returned to the subject and prepared
another draft, beginning, "Forasmuch as We, taking into consideration
the sad condition of our People in Scotland living in the Highlands,
for want of the Preaching of the Gospel and Schools of Learning for
training up of youth in Learning and Civility, whereby the
inhabitants of those places in their lives and whole demeanour are
little different from the most savage heathens," and ending with
instructions that L1200 a year, or double the sum formerly proposed,
should be set apart out of still recoverable rents and revenues of
alienated Chaplaincies, Deaneries, &c. of the old Popish and
Episcopal Church of Scotland, and applied to the purposes of
preaching and education in the Highlands. The sum, in the Scotland of
that time, might go as far as L7000 or L8000 a year now, though in
England it would have been worth only about L4200 of present value.
Spent on an effective Gaelic mission of travelling pastors, and on a
few well-planted schools, it might have accomplished a good
deal.[2]--Since the beginning of the Protectorate there had been
some care in finding new funds for the Scottish Universities as well
as for the English. Principal Gillespie of Glasgow had procured a
grant for the University of that city (Vol. IV. p. 565), and
something had been done for University-reform in Aberdeen.
Accordingly, that Edinburgh might not complain, it was now agreed, at
a meeting of Council, July 15, 1658, his Highness himself present; to
issue an order beginning, "Know ye that We, taking into our
consideration the condition of the University of Edinburgh, and that
(being but of late foundation, viz. since the Reformation of Religion
in Scotland) the rents thereof are exceedingly small," and concluding
by putting L200 a year at the disposal of the Town Council of
Edinburgh, "being the founders and undoubted patrons of the said
University," to be applied for University purposes with the advice
and consent of the Masters and Regents. The gift, it appears, had
been promised to Principal Leighton, when he had been in London, some
time before, on one of his yearly journeys for his own bookish
purposes, and certainly neither as Resolutioner nor Protester. "Mr.
Leighton does nought to count of, but looks a