[121] The same Parliament asked the council to bring forward its evidence against Mary. If we knew all that lay behind this motion, we should probably possess a key to the problems on which so much ingenuity has been exercised. The statement, frequently quoted, that the Estates passed a solemn resolution affirming their power to depose the sovereign rests solely on the authority of Buchanan, and is directly antagonistic to the language both of the _Acts_ and of the Scottish commissioners' protestations at York and Westminster, in which Mary is represented as abdicating of her own free will. [122] Speech at Whitehall, 31st March, 1607. [123] "A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland," printed in the _Abbotsford Miscellany_. [124] "Answer to the 'Perfect Description'," _Ibid._ [125] Hacket, _Scrinia Reserata_. [126] Letter of the Estates to the Assembly, 17th July, 1641 (_Acts_, v. 625). [127] Some Brieffe Memorialls and Passages of Church and State from 1641-49 (_Historical Works of Sir James Balfour_, vol. iii.). [128] Cf. _Scotland and the Commonwealth_, ed. Firth (Scottish Hist. Soc.). [129] _Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals_, iii. 225-26, ed. Laing. [130] _The Government of Scotland during the Commonwealth_ (_Acts_, vol. vi, pt. 2). See also Mr. Firth's volumes _Scotland under the Commonwealth_ and _Scotland and the Protectorate_ (Scottish History Society). [131] Middleton, Appendix, &c., _ut supra_. [132] _Report on the State and Condition of the Burghs of Scotland_, 1692 (Miscellany of the Scottish Burgh Record Soc.). [133] The main heads of James's delinquencies were: (1) erecting schools and societies of Jesuits, &c.; (2) making papists great officers of state; (3) enforcing oaths contrary to law; (4) taxation and the maintenance of a standing army without consent of Parliament; (5) the employment of military officers as judges; (6) exorbitant fines; (7) illegal imprisonment; (8) forfeitures by obsolete laws; (9) subversion of rights of royal burghs; (10) interference with justice. [134] In spite of the irritating interferences which provoked the indignant rhetoric of Fletcher of Saltoun, and these had reference mainly to peace and war, the maintenance of an army, and places and pensions. [135] Party names here for the first time in strictly parliamentary history. The Resolutioners and Protestors of 1649 were religious divisions. [136] Cf. the present writer's Map of the Parliamentary Representation of Scotland, in Mr. R. L. Poole's _Historical Atlas_. (No. XXVIII.) * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Typographical errors were corrected without note. A Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.