Douglas book > Angus memoirs

394 WILLIAM DOUGLAS, TENTH EARL OF ANGUS.
it had been agreed between him and the Presbytery of Mearns that if he
came to the kirk it should be lawful to him to protest openly, as he did,
that his attendance at the preachings was not to profess the religion now
publicly authorised by Act of Parliament, nor to give obedience to the
same at their commands, nor yet to do anything that might slander his
own religion, nor prejudge the sentence of the Catholic Apostolic Kirk, of
which he professed himself a member, but only to understand and know by
their preaching, as formerly by their disputation and conference, what ground
and reasons they had for the foresaid established religion, and thereafter to
impugn the same in his further disputation and conference with the ministers. 1
In May, at an Assembly held in Dundee, the ministers reported a successful
issue of their labours, that the Earl now acknowledged the Kirk of Scotland
to be the true kirk, was ready to join himself to it, and participate in the
word and sacraments, to swear and subscribe the Confession of Faith, to
satisfy for his apostasy in his own parish kirk, acknowledged that he was
justly excommunicated, and, having dismissed from his company all Jesuits
and excommunicated persons, was willing to entertain a minister of the gospel
in his own house, and provide stipends for his kirks. The Assembly accord-
ingly gave directions for his absolution, and a relaxation from civil outlawry
took place with much ceremony and rejoicing at Edinburgh in August, after
the Earl had come under caution in £20,000 to forego the company of strangers
and papists, keep the king's peace, and be amenable to justice, and, in further
security, place his eldest son with "William, Earl of Morton, " for his better
education in the trew religioun, virtew, and maneris." 2 It only remained to
1 Notarial Instrument in Douglas Charter- June. A fast was held on Saturday, 25th
chest. June, when the three earls made up all
2 Calderwood, v. pp. 036-640, 655 ; Regis- deadly quarrels, giving and receiving forgive-
ter of the Privy Council, vol. v. p. 745. The ness. Next day, in the Old Kirk, they sub-
ceremonial of absolution of the three earls scribed the Confession of Faith before sermon,
took place at Aberdeen towards the end of and immediately after the sermon, which