evidence of the original constitution of the Presbyterian Church, and of its practical administration under the guidance of those able and distinguished men by whose exertions and influence its reformation had been achieved. To their well-known importance in that view, have been mainly owing the perils and injuries to which these records have been exposed.

During the first twenty years after the Reformation, the prevailing current of opinion in favour of the Presbyterian polity had been little disturbed, and the Registers of the Church appear to have remained in the custody of the proper officer; but in the course of the subsequent struggles for the re-establishment of Episcopacy, they acquired a sinistrous interest, and by some disorderly means had passed into other hands, from which they were ultimately rescued with no little difficulty. Although ignorant as yet of the injuries they had sustained, and even uncertain into whose hands they had fallen, the leaders of the Church became anxious to recover the possession of these records, and to replace them under the care of their own officers. Accordingly, in the General Assembly held in May 1586, two of the members were "directit "to the Kings Majestie to solicite the redelyverance of the same, [and] returnit his Hienes answer, That they sould be delyverit "to the Clerk ilk day during the Assemblie, but at evin they

"of the same, in recompense of his labouris bigane and to cum, ije ti." In 1574, Mr James Ritchie was elected his successor, and sworn into the office with great solemnity. On his decease in 1596, Mr Thomas Nicolson, advocate, (and Commissary of Aberdeen,) was, by a plurality of votes, chosen, sworn, and admitted; and, with some temporary interruptions, retained the office till 1618, when, on his "dimission," Mr James Sandilands was received in his place. In 1638, Mr Archibald Johnston, (afterwards better known as Lord Wariston,) was elected Clerk by the General Assembly held at Glasgow; and to him succeeded Mr Andrew Ker, who survived the Restoration in 1660.

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"sould be in the hands of the Lord Privie Seale quhill the end "of the said Assemblie; betwixt and quhilk day his Majestie "wald be present himselfe." This strange reserve in permitting (P. 647.) to the Church the custody and use of her own Records, was apparently intended to elude the detection of the frauds practised by those into whose hands they had fallen; while, at the same time, it well harmonized with the favourite views of the King in asserting a civil supremacy over the ecclesiastical establishments of the country. In the Assembly held in June 1587, "the King's Commissioners having offered their concurrence in recovering the Registers, if it might be known in whose hands they were; and the Moderator having desyrit the brether that could give any light in this matter "to manifest the same," it was ascertained that they were then in (P. 686.) the possession of Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St Andrews: and the royal authority having been obtained in aid of that of the Church, to compel their production, it would appear that in the first instance they had been given up to the Lord Secretary; and after much hesitation and cavil, there was "at length presentit to the sight of the kirk fyve volumnes of thair Actis, quherof a great part being mankit, and, after the sight thereof, being redelyverit, the haill brether ordainit ane heavie regrate to "be made to his Majestie in article, lamenting the away taking and mutilating of the saids Bookes, and to crave that the 66 same may be restored, and also that the saids Bookes may be delyverit in the Kirks hands, to remane with them as their awne Register, namelie in respect of the answer returnit from my Lord Secretar, that his Majesties will was, that the Kirk sould "have inspection thereof as they had adoe presently, and to give "them up againe."

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The restoration of the mutilated parts of the Registers, was unhappily no longer possible; but the story of this disgraceful

(P. 697.)

proceeding seems to have been first disclosed, in the year 1591, in the humiliating confessions elicited from Archbishop Adamson by the Provincial Synod of Fife. He there ventures to assume to himself the credit of having saved the Acts of the General Assembly from the flames, to which they were destined by the Earl of Arran; but confesses, that "upon a certain day in Falkland, before they were delivered to the Kings Majestie, the Bishop of N. ac"companied with Mr Henry Hamiltoune, rent out some leafes, and destroyed sic things as made aganis our estate, and that not "without my awne speciall allowance.”*

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There seems to be no doubt, that prior to the date of these disclosures, the Registers of the Church had been replaced in the hands of the Clerk of the Church, nor does it appear that any further attempts were then made to disturb their legitimate custody. But hazards of another kind were awaiting them. On the overthrow of the Presbyterian polity in the year 1606, its muniments were no longer regarded as of dangerous importance; and for more than thirty years they appear to have been neglected and lost sight of by the Church. The period however was fast approaching

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* Row's History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 123. Edin. 1842, 8vo. In the Latin edition or version of this Palinodia, the passage relative to the Books of the Kirk is thus given: -"Quod ad illud quod quæritis, quis casus obtigerit Commentariis Synodi Generalis, "ita res se habet. Integros servavi in reditum nobilium et ministrorum ex Anglia: "quod si non fecissem, Comiti Araniæ in animo erat curare ut conjicirentur in ignem. "Falcolandiæ quodam die, priusquam traditi sunt Regiæ Majestati, Episcopus N. una cum M. Henrico Hammiltonio discerpsit quædam folia, et ea quæ adversus ordinem "nostrum ulli usui esse possent, idque me approbante."-A. Melvini Musæ, et P. Adamsoni Vita et Palinodia,-p. 51. 1620, 4to. It has been supposed that the person here alluded to was David Cuningham, who had been preferred to the Bishoprick of Aberdeen in the year 1577. The extent of the mischief thus practised has not been exactly ascertained, but the indications of this rough process of castration will be found in the following work, at pages 417, 424, 461, 465, 474.

when a due sense of their importance was to revive; and very serious alarms for their safety had begun to prevail, when, to the surprise of all, the greater part of them was brought to light in the General Assembly held at Glasgow in the year 1638. Of that unexpected and joyous event, the contemporary historians of the Presbyterian Church have been anxious to preserve the minute and interesting details. * It may here suffice to state, that by the suc

cessful exertions of Mr Archibald Johnston, who had been then chosen Clerk of the Church, and who was destined to act a still more prominent part in after life, the greater part of the Registers prior to 1590 had been traced and found in the hands of private individuals, officially connected with Mr Thomas Nicolson, the last regular Clerk, in whose possession they had been left after his “dimission" in 1618. Those only of subsequent date had been received by his successor Mr James Sandilands, whose son, an unsuccessful candidate for the clerkship, surrendered them to the Assembly.

On the part of the Royal Commissioner, there was shown an evident disinclination to recognise the authenticity of these records; but to put an end to all doubts on that head, the books were subjected to a minute and careful scrutiny, by a Committee of distinguished members; whose elaborate report, proving them to be "true, famous and authentick registers of the Kirk," was ultimately approved by an unanimous decision of the Assembly.

Of these more ancient records there were in all five volumes; four of which were found to contain the original record of the Assembly's Proceedings from 1560 to 1590; with the exception of that from March 1572 to March 1573, and of that from July 1580 to October 1583. The former of these was recovered and pro

* See Appendix, No. I.

(App. p. XXIII.)

(App. p.xxvII.) duced to the next General Assembly held in 1639; of the other no trace appears ever to have been found. * That loss however was supplied by a fifth, what is described as the "greatest volume,” and which proved to be a well-authenticated "duplicate" of the entire series of proceedings prior to the year 1590.

From the state of safe custody to which they were thus once more restored, the records of the Church were doomed to be again withdrawn, at the disastrous period of the English invasion in 1650. After several transfers from place to place, it was thought advisable to seek a shelter for them in the fortress of the Bass: in April 1651 a requisition was sent to the keeper, "that the Bass might be made

secure for the Registers, as it had been in a former day of calamity;" and as a further precaution against the accidents of war, it was "agreed that the great volume, being a duplicate of some of the rest," should be sent to the castle of Dunottar, to which the Regalia of the (App. p. xxIx.) Kingdom had been carried. But neither the Regalia, nor "the great volume," were very long considered as in a place of safety; and on the authority of a letter from certain members of the Commission of the Church assembled at Aberdeen, on the first of September 1651, the Register in question was delivered to the Earl of Balcarras, who had been the High Commissioner to the General Assembly held at St Andrews in the preceding month of July.† The more important portion deposited in the fortress of the Bass, fell soon afterwards into the hands of the English invaders, and was removed from

* From the proceedings in the Assembly 1638, given in the Appendix, it appears that these missing volumes were supposed to be in the hands of Archbishop Spottiswood, who is stated by Lord Rothes to have obtained from the king a warrant to demand them from Nicolson, the former clerk, and from whom the later volumes after 1590 were obtained by Sandilands. It is highly probable that the Archbishop had desired to have the use of these Records in the composition of his Ecclesiastical History. + See Dr M'Crie's Memoirs of Veitch, &c. p. 524.