His great aim, then and ever after, was to reduce the royal authority to a shadow, and to place all real power in the hands of Parliament. ‘He is,’ said Mackay in the paper which he drew up for the use of the Princess Sophia, ‘a zealous assertor of the liberties of the people, and so jealous of the growing power of all Princes, in whom he thinks ambition to be natural, that he is not for intrusting the best of them with a power which they can make use of against the people. As he believes all Princes made by, and for the good of, the people, he is for giving them no power but that of doing good.’ The Club did not long survive; but apart from some of the questionable and factious purposes for which it had been formed, it was mainly responsible for that salutary reform by which the institution known as the ‘Lords of the Articles’ was abolished. Though Fletcher was not a member of the Convention, we are soon to enter on that period of his career when he was one of the foremost members of the Scottish Parliament; and the proceedings of that body, of which an account must be given, will be unintelligible unless certain facts connected with its history and character are understood. The Scottish Parliament was originally divided into the three Estates of the Bishops, the Barons, and the Boroughs. The Estate of the Barons included the peers, or greater barons, and the county members, or lesser barons. The ‘Boroughs’ meant the representatives of the royal boroughs of Scotland. The three Estates sat in one chamber, there being no Upper and Lower House as in England. At the Revolution, when Episcopacy was abolished, the bishops lost their seats. The peers then became the first Estate, the county members (known as the ‘barons’) the second Estate, and the borough members the third Estate. The peers numbered sixty-four in 1606, soon after the Union of the Crowns; but by 1707 they had increased to one hundred and fifty-three. The number of commoners who sat in the Estates was never more than one hundred and fifty-six. Thus in the Scottish Parliament the feudal aristocracy was almost supreme. The franchise was then genuine, without the fictitious votes which were afterwards created on all sides; but the county members were really nominated, in many constituencies, by the peers. This, coupled with the fact that there was only one chamber, made the subjection of the Commons complete. The Commons, at the date of the Revolution, consisted of sixty-four county and sixty-six borough members. The county franchise was in the hands of the freeholders, who were few in number. The borough franchise was in the hands of the magistrates, who were self-elected. There was thus scarcely a trace of popular representation. Moreover, the officers of state had seats and votes without having to undergo any form of election, a custom which was often complained of.