Their Parliament here has begun. On the 26th ulto. the Queen, accompanied with all her nobles and above thirty picked ladies, came to the Parliament House, her robes upon her back, and a rich crown upon her head. The Duke [Chatelhérault] next before her with the regal crown, the Earl of Carlyle the sceptre, and the Lord of Murray the sword. She made an oration to her people.... The Lords of the Articles are chosen, and sit daily at the Court, where ordinarily the Queen is present, in debating all matters. Upon Friday next, she comes again to the Parliament House to confirm such Acts as are concluded upon, and to prorogue the Parliament. During the early part of the reign of Charles I, and between the Restoration and the Revolution of 1689, this was the normal procedure. The Parliament met in full only on the first and the last days of its meeting. It was of small value that every liege had free access to the Lords of the Articles, to lay his complaints before them, but even that privilege seems to have been occasionally doubtful.[62] The importance of the Lords of the Articles clearly depended upon the method of their election. It has been supposed that, at first, each Estate elected its own representatives. But the non-appearance of burgesses on the General Committee in 1369 is, perhaps, an indication to the contrary. In 1524, the spiritual lords were chosen by the temporal lords. We know this only from certain protests which were made, and it is not easy to draw any inference from it.[63] Randolph,[64] to whom we owe so much of our information regarding Scottish affairs in the latter half of the sixteenth century, described to Cecil the method in vogue in 1560. His words imply that it was the ordinary custom. "The lords proceeded immediately hereupon to the chusing of the Lords of the Articles. The order is that the lords spiritual chuse the temporal, and the temporal the spiritual, and the burgesses their own." From 1592 to 1609 the selection is said to be made by "the whole Estates"--whether collectively or independently is not stated. In 1606, 1607, and 1609, King James nominated the members who were elected, and in 1612 he devised a very characteristic arrangement which, in part, reverted to the method described by Randolph. There were at this date very few prelates, and they were all his own creatures.[65] The lords temporal, therefore, could not but choose lords spiritual agreeable to the king, and they, in turn, could select from the nobles men as obsequious as themselves. The representatives of the prelates and nobles must select suitable men from the Third Estate. Such was the royal scheme. We hear of it first in 1612.[66] We are fortunate enough to possess an account of the "Ordour and Progres of the Parlement, October 1612," from a manuscript in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Hamilton, the secretary.[67] When the Estates had met, and had listened to a sermon by the archbishop of Glasgow and a speech from the king's