esting, as his forefathers had done, against
any Scottish Earl being called before him in the Roll. He became a
frequent, but indifferent speaker in Parliament; but his continual
activity, and the address which he soon acquired as the fruit of
experience, together with the position which he held, as one generally
understood to be well affected to the new order of things, yet of
sufficient importance to be gained over to the other side, soon made him
an object for party spirit to assail.

During the reign of William, the Earl of Mar continued constant to the
side to which he had declared himself to belong. His pecuniary
embarrassments, acting upon a restless, ambitious temper, rendered it
difficult to a man weak in principle to retain independence of
character: and it must be avowed, that there are few temptations to
depart from the road of integrity more urgent than the desire to raise
an ancient name to its original splendour. No encumbrances are so
likely to drag their victim away from integrity as those by which rank
is clogged with poverty.

In April, 1697, Lord Mar was chosen a privy councillor; and shortly
afterwards invested with the Order of the Thistle; and the command of a
company of foot bestowed upon him. On the death of William his fortune
was rather improved than deteriorated, although he continued to attach
himself to the Revolution Party, who, it was generally understood, were
very far from being acceptable to the Queen. "At her accession,"
declares a Jacobite writer, "the Presbyterians looked upon themselves as
undone; despair appeared in their countenances, which were more upon the
melancholic and dejected than usual." The management of Scottish affairs
was, nevertheless, entirely in the hands of the advocates of the
Revolution; and one of their greatest supporters, the Duke of
Queensbury, was appointed High Commissioner of the Scottish Parliament,
notwithstanding the representations of some of the most powerful
nobility in Scotland.

To the party of this celebrated politician the Earl of Mar attached
himself, with a tenacity for which those who recollected the hereditary
politics of the Erskine family, could find no motives but self-interest.
James, Duke of Queensbury, was, it is true, the son of one of the most
active partisans of the Stuart family, to whom the house of Queensbury
owed both its ducal rank and princely fortune. Possessed of good
abilities, but devoid of application, and with the di