The Parliament of 1690 proceeded to assert its own freedom of action. Henceforward till the Treaty of Union took effect, we have parliamentary independence in Scotland,[134] as far as purely internal affairs were concerned. After William's death we find still wider claims. The events of William's reign had not been such as to draw the nations nearer each other, or to reconcile the Parliament to the limitation of its sphere of influence to internal administration. King William had been responsible for the Massacre of Glencoe; he had forced Scotland to expend large sums upon a war in which, after the battle of Killiecrankie, she took no interest. The Parliament of England had urged the king to an interference with the Darien Scheme, which could not be regarded in Scotland as other than a betrayal. The Scottish Estates had not responded to the Act of Settlement in 1700, and when Queen Anne succeeded, the attitude of the two countries was becoming increasingly threatening. England regarded any advance of Scottish prosperity as a success gained at her own cost. Scotland feared that the country was to be permanently under foreign influence. The rapid growth of a constitutional feeling since 1690 aided the circumstances of the time in the production of parliamentary parties, a unique event in Scottish history. The meeting of Estates in 1703 contained Williamites, Patriots, and Cavaliers.[135] The first of these supported the government of King William and his successor as, at all events, the least of the many possible evils. The Cavaliers clamoured for the return of the exiled House. The Patriot or "Country" party, headed by Hamilton, Tweeddale, and Fletcher of Saltoun, argued that, if foreign domination were to continue, it made but little difference whether it emanated from St. Germains or from the Court of St. James's. A combination of Cavaliers and Patriots passed the Act of Security. This famous act named no successor to Queen Anne. It invested the Parliament with the power of the Crown, in case of the queen's dying without heirs, and entrusted to it the choice of a Protestant sovereign "from the Royal line." It refused to such king or queen, if also sovereign of England, the power of peace and war, without consent of Parliament. It enacted, further, that the union of the crowns should determine, unless Scotland was admitted to equal trade and navigation privileges with England. Nor was there lacking the intention to make good the threat. The same act provided for the compulsory training of every Scotsman to bear arms. The Scottish Parliament debated each clause with vigour. The Estates recognized that now, if scarcely ever before, momentous issues hung upon their decision, and the walls of the Parliament House re-echoed with the unwonted excitement of party cries. The royal commissioner declined to give the queen's assent. The Parliament refused to grant supplies, and the meeting broke up amid confused shouts of "Liberty before