[10] I have taken my account of the ministerial crisis in Scotland, and of the events which took place there before the session of 1705, chiefly from the _Godolphin Correspondence_ in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 28,055, and from a memorial dated 21st Sept. 1705, among Add. MSS. 28,085 (fol. 225). This memorial seems to be Argyll’s account of the session written for the use of Godolphin. An article in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. 362 (Oct. 1892), contains further information, and may be compared with ‘A Brief View of the late Scots Ministry, _Somers State Tracts_, xii. 617, and a pamphlet entitled _Vulpone; or, Remarks on some Proceedings in Scotland relating to the Succession and the Union_. Printed 1707. The result of the recent changes in the Ministry, and of the intrigues which have just been described, was that the various political parties in Scotland now took the shape which they retained until the Parliament of Scotland was abolished. There were the supporters of the Government, known as the Old or Court Party, or simply as the Whigs. There was the regular Opposition, consisting partly of Jacobites or Tories, and partly of Fletcher’s followers, the Old Country Party, who were determined to oppose the Union and the Succession also unless they could obtain good terms for Scotland. In the third place there was the Squadrone Volante, the party formed by the discarded Ministers out of what had been called the New Party when Tweeddale was in office. They declined to commit themselves; but it would be a great injustice to assert that the Squadrone acted, in any way, the part of dissatisfied placemen. They were certainly reserved in their attitude towards the Ministry, but they never behaved in a factious or discreditable manner. ‘They were in great credit,’ says Burnet, ‘because they had no visible bias on their minds.’