Ayrshire > Volume 2

152 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
had undertaken at the desire of Parliament, and for
which a subvention had been granted. He was elected
a representative Peer for Scotland to attend the first
Parliament of Great Britain, February 13, 1707, and was
re-elected at the General Election that was held in the
following year. From 1707 to 1710 inclusive he acted
as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly.
In 1707 he found the Assembly, as he tells Lord Mar,
" all in a good disposition to serve the Queen and her
interest not only against the Pretender but also against
all her enemies." Mr. Carstairs had been " verry
unanimously " chosen Moderator, " so your Lordship
may judge they were all in a good temper and
disposition," and they framed " a most loyal address."
How much the Earl's tact and gift of conciliation
was appreciated by James, Earl of Seafield, the late
Lord Chancellor of Scotland, is evident from a letter
written by him to Lord Glasgow, May 6, 1708 — " I am
very glade that your Lordship has so happily succeeded
in the Assembly, and that you have so good hopes of
our elections ; it is necessary that j^ou continue to use
your endeavours both for yourself and for us." The
Assembly must have been in session when the marriage
of the Earl's eldest son, John, Lord Boyle, took place.
A few months later he applied to the Secretary of State
to have his son appointed a member of the Privy Council,
although he was not yet of age. Lord Mar tactfully
evaded the request : — " It can be easilie done in a leitle
tim, when he is fully of age, and then ther can be nothing
said against it." Spelling was obviously not a strong
point with Lord Mar, who might well have apologised
for his defective orthography, as Lady Haddington did
in a letter written at Tiningham, August 19, 1702, in
which she begged Lord Glasgow to excuse it, " since it
is one of the enfimities my sex is subject to." It can
hardly be said, however, that Mar was backward in this
respect, beyond the standard of the times. Scotland
was then just beginning to escape from the period when,
in spelling, every man was a law unto himself.