The Duke of York was Commissioner in this Parliament, which met on the 28th of July 1681. The two great measures of the session were the ‘Act acknowledging and asserting the Right of Succession to the Imperial Crown of Scotland,’ which was passed for the purpose of securing the succession of the Duke of York, and the famous ‘Act anent Religion and the Test.’ Both of these measures were strenuously opposed by Fletcher, who is said to have written a number of private letters to members of the Parliament, imploring them to vote against the Succession Act, on the ground that the Duke was both a Roman Catholic and a tyrant. The Test Act was, in spite of its vast importance, brought in and passed in the course of a single day; but at least one amendment was moved by Fletcher. ‘Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun,’ says Dalrymple, ‘after long opposing the bill, with all the fire of ancient eloquence, and of his own spirit, made a motion which the Court party could not, in decency, oppose; that the security of the Protestant Religion should be made a part of the Test.’ The new clause was prepared by Sir James Dalrymple, then Lord President of the Court of Session, who so framed it that the ‘Protestant Religion’ was defined as that set forth in the Old Scots Confession of Faith of 1567, which was inconsistent with Episcopacy, and also allowed the lawfulness of resistance. ‘That was a book,’ says Burnet, ‘so worn out of use, that scarce any one in the whole Parliament had ever read it. None of the Bishops had, as appeared afterwards.’ The result was that Fletcher’s amendment, as framed by Dalrymple, became part of the Act, all the Bishops agreeing to it. Fletcher also resisted the monstrous and unconstitutional clause which compelled the county electors, on pain of forfeiting the franchise, to swear that they would never attempt to ‘bring about,’ as the statute puts it, ‘any change or alteration either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of this Kingdom.’ There was a division on this question. No lists remain to show how the members voted; but the following protest is inscribed on the rolls of Parliament: ‘That part of the Act--If the Test should be put to the Electors of Commissioners for Shires to the Parliament, having been put to the vote by itself, before the voting and passing of the whole Act; and the same being carried in the Affirmative, the Laird of Saltoun and the Laird of Grant, having voted in the negative, desired their dissent might be marked.’