The heritors, by the advice of some of the lords in their interest, gave in a declinature of Lord Lauderdale, on the ground of the illegality of his sitting in the Inner House after ten o’clock; whereupon, next morning, the Lord President came into the court in a great rage, demanding that all those concerned in the declinature should be punished as criminals. The leading decliner, Mr Ferguson of Cairoch, escaped from town on horseback, an hour before the macer came to summon him. The counsel, John Menzies of Cammo, and the agent, remained to do what they could to still the storm. According to the naïve terms of the report, ‘the speat [flood] was so high against the parish and them all the time, that they behoved to employ all their friends, and solicit a very particular lord that morning before they went to the house; and my Lord President was so high upon’t, that when Cammo told him that my Lord Lauderdale, contrair to the act of parliament, sat after ten o’clock, his lordship unmannerly said to Cammo, as good a gentleman as himself, that it was a damned lie.’ Menzies, though a very eminent counsel, and the agent, found all their efforts end in an order for their going to jail, while a suitable punishment should be deliberated upon. After some discussion, a slight calm ensued, and they were liberated on condition of coming to the bar as malefactors, and there begging the Earl of Lauderdale’s pardon. The parish report states that no remedy could be obtained, for ‘the misery at that time was that the lords were in effect absolute, for they did as they pleased, and when any took courage to protest for remeid of law to the Scots parliament, they seldom or never got any redress there, all the lords being still present, by which the parliament [Sidenote: 1704.] was so overawed that not ane decreit among a hundred was reduced.’[349] It is strange to reflect, that among these judges were Lord Fountainhall and Lord Arniston, with several other men who had resisted tyrannous proceedings of the old government, to their own great suffering and loss. Wodrow promises of Halcraig, that, for his conduct regarding the test in 1684, his memory would be ‘savoury.’ The same author, speaking of the set in 1726 as dying out, says he wishes their places may be as well filled. ‘King William,’ he says, ‘brought in a good many substantial, honest country gentlemen, well affected to the government and church, and many of them really religious, though there might be some greater lawyers than some of them have been and are. But, _being men of integrity and weight, they have acted a fair and honest part these thirty years_, and keep the bench in great respect. May their successors be equally diligent and conscientious!’[350] Of course, by fairness and honesty, Wodrow chiefly meant soundness in revolution politics, and steadfast adherence to the established church.