■38 HISrORr of the SOCIETr. 



Account pf „ fp^y anecdotes refpedine them, as introdudlory to the account 



Lord Piefident r o ■ 1 1 



Dund«. Qf jjis life^ on whom I mean more particularly to enlarge. 



Sir James Dundas of Arnifton, eldeft fon of Sir James 

 DUNDAS, Governor of Berwick, by Mary, the daughter of 

 George Home of Wedderburn, had the honour of knighthood 

 conferred on him by Charles I. In the earlier part of his 

 life, and in the courfe of a very liberal education, he had 

 fpent a confiderable time abroad, and vifited the politeft of the 

 foreign Courts. On his return to his native country, he was 

 chofen Reprefentative of the county of Edinburgh in the Scot- 

 tilh Parliament ; and, in the moft difficult of times, when pu- 

 blic virtue was put to the feverefl: trials, uniformly maintained 

 the chara(5\er of a fteady and fincere patriot. He difapproved, 

 as did many of the bed friends of their King and Country, of 

 thofe violent meafures by which Charles, mifguided by Laud, 

 endeavoured to force this kingdom to fubmit to the Epifcopal 

 hierarchy. The ecclefiaftical and the civil liberties of the king- 

 dom were juftly regarded as moft intimately conneifled with 

 each other. The Church of Scotland, in all periods of its hi- 

 ftory, whatever had been its form of government and difci- 

 phne, had uniformly rejeded the idea of dependence on the 

 Metropolitan fees of England * ; and at this time, even thofe 

 among the Scots who approved of the Epifcopal forms, could 

 not brook that rules of difcipllne fhould be prefcribed to them 

 by Englifli ecclefiaftics. They were juftly indignant at thofe 

 meafures which they confidered as a tyrannical endeavour to 

 bring the National Church, hitherto independent, under a 

 difhonourable fubjedlion to that of England ; and they regarded 

 the attempt to introduce an Englifh liturgy, as preparatory to 

 the introdudion of Englifh laws. This was the idea which 

 prevailed with many virtuous men to fign the National Covenant, 



which, 



» The conteft for the indepenclency of the National Church of Scptland, had beguc 

 as early as the reign of Alexander I. 



