A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF His Sacred majesty's DESCENT In a true Line MALE, From KING ETHODIUS THE FIRST, Who began to Reign Anno Christi, 162. Written in a Letter to a Friend, Anno 1681.  Saepè tibi Pater est, saepè legendus avus. 
EDINBURGH, Printed by the Heirs of Andrew Anderson, Printer to His most Sacred MAJESTY, Anno Dom. M.DC.LXXXI.   

The Printer to the Reader.  
I Need not, Courteous Reader, tell you, that this was wrote before the last English Parliament sat, for the Paper doth so much itself: Let it suffice, that I now send it abroad, if not for thy satisfaction, at least I hope for thy diversion: use it candidly, censure it favourably, judge of it charitably, and Farewell.   

ERRATA.  
In the 8 Page, Line 23 read pi●●'d; l. 28. r. B●●in'●; Page 12 l. 10. r. continued; l. 16. r. collaterals; l. 17 close the parenthesis at Nations) P. 13 l. 40. r. Epithetal; p. 14 l. 36. r. Carantius; P. 16 l. 17. r. the granter; p. 21 l. 1. r. ensuring; p. 23. l. 21. r. menacing; l. 83. r. tense; l. 46 r. Keth; p. 24 l. 31. r. Collars; l. 32. r. Nemo in●unt lacesset; l. 50. r. the Fable; p. 31 l. 17. subjoin to the word Tree, corresponding to the Lines on the Dexter, which are misplaced; l. 27. r. Proavus; l. 34. r. Avoque; P. 32 l. 3. r. glorying; l. 5. r. qui; p. 34 in the last Distich, read Po. at the Pentameter.   

Edinburgh, 18 th'. of March, 1681.  
SIR,  
THat Business of Secluding His Royal Highness from the Imperial CROWN of England, is a matter of so high concern to this our British world, yea, and in its example to the larger Continent; And being the repeated desires of the Commons in some successive Parliaments, it may be thought too great a boldness, for any single man on this side Tweed, to concern himself therewith. But under favour, as all the Subjects in the three Kingdoms, will or may, some one way or other, be interessed in the Effects and Sequel of this Affair; so it is hoped, that none can justly blame any, who is a Subject to the Monarch of Great Britain, modestly to endeavour the satisfaction of his Reason, Judgement, and Conscience, in this so great a Resolve; Especially when it was but a hatching, and under deliberation. And though once hastily passed the Vote of the Commons: never yet agreed unto by the Peers, and by His Majestie's Prorogations taken altogether off the File: And now that a new Parliament is within a day or two, to sit at Oxford, which consisting mostly of the same Members, perhaps it may be feared, they will bring with them the same minds, and fall again upon the Succession, though it is to be wished by all good and peaceable men, that they would study so far to comply with His Majestie's Proposals, as not to irritat Him to any further Prorogations or Dissolutions.  
Allow me then freely Sir, to propose to you, my weak thoughts upon this so tender a point, equally important to the quiet of His Majesty's Kingdoms, and the duty of His Subjects, that I may from your better judgement be either fortified in my grounds, or resolved of my doubts and questions. First then, as in all Cases of this nature (for the better avoiding of needless wranglings hereafter) let the Question be fairly stated, which I humbly conceive may be thus: Whether or not a Prince, of a Religion differing from that by the Laws of the Land established (be he Popish, Heretic, or Idolater) may lawfully (conform to the Principles, and Precepts of our Reformed Protestant Profession) by the people or their Representatives in Parliament, whereunto even at last the King should be induced to consent, be (I say) lawfully secluded from His Birthright and Inheritance? where I understand the term Lawfully as consonant to the true Rules of Justice and Equity, and not as an act of a Legislative power only.  
I stick not here then upon that Cob-webed limitation of Birthright, to him only that first openeth the womb; and as little upon that quibbling Distinction of Heirs Presumptive and Apparent, seeing the Law says, Haereditas non tantum ad proximum haeredem, sed ad ulteriores defertur: And if his Highness be not in the Case, the next Heir, why are the Commons so pressing for his Seclusion? And as none, I hope, will deny his Title by Blood, so as little need I to prove, that the Imperial CROWN of England is an Hereditary Crown, which descends to the lawful Successors, by all Laws and Rights of Nature, Nations, and the Land, as their undoubted Birthright and just Inheritance, without exception of, or relation to Sex, Age, Qualification, Limitation or Restriction whatsomever. So you will yield me (I hope) that the next appparent Heir of such an Hereditary Crown, hath at lest Spem Succedendi, which is to him Jus quoddam, as in all other Heritage's.  
So then, this Seclusion being Exhaeredatio, it falls to be considered, what is necessarily required before such a disinheriting can be in my sense Lawful. And I hope you will grant, that Omnis Exhaeredans debet habere Exhaeredatum sua in Potestate. I know there be who would thirl this Theorem to the Patria Potestas only, which yet from the deductions of clear sense and reason, must be equally extensive to all who challenge a just power and right to Disinherit. And I suppose I need not here demur upon that distinction, betwixt a naked and supine Preterition, and an active and formal Exclusion. And so will next come to be considered, How far the apparent Heir of an Hereditary Crown, is under the power of the People or Parliament, in order to the Disinheriting him from the Crown of his Ancestors, due unto him by his right of Blood; for we are not here in Regno constituendo, but in Regno haereditario jamdudum legitime constituto.  
Then I say, that the apparent Heir of such an Hereditary CROWN, cannot be Disinherited by the People or Parliament: because that Power which can Disinherit, can also make and constitute. For, Qui potest haredem praeterire aut exhaeredare, potest etiam haeredem sibi instituere. And should the People, Commons, or Parliament, be but once gratified in this Point, it is to be feared, they might be tempted to assume to themselves other things.  
So that here the Commons cannot Exhaeredare, because that were well nigh to give the People a Power to make and unmake Kings at their pleasure, and so unsensibly unhinge the Hereditary Monarchy, that it would at last lodge the Supremacy in the Populace.  
And though the Commons should in a forward zeal, hastily pass such a Vote, yet the Peers could not agree to it; because at the CORONATION of the KING, in their Oath of Homage and Fealty, they swear to be faithful and true to the Crowned King, and His Heirs Kings of England: yea not only the Peers, but all the Feudataries in the Realm, who hold their Land of the Crown in Capite, are by the nature of their Investitures tied to this Fealty, whether the Oath be formally administered or not: and whereof the first indispensible branch is by the Lawyers worded, quod fidelis Domino suo & Haeredibus ejus erit in perpetuum. How then can any Peer who was present at the CORONATION, or yet any Feudatary, who holds his Estate in Capite of the Crown, by a free and voluntary act of his own, vote the Disinheriting and Secluding of the righteous Heir, and undoubted Successor? For questionless this Fealty, maugre all the Alphabetical niceties of Domino vero meo, etc. stands from the Obligations of Gratitude, beyond all Equivocation, conscientiously binding to the Successors of blood in all the Negative ties, though the duties to the present Superior be stronger in the Positives.  
Neither could His Majesty pass, or give consent to such an act, Because by His Coronation-Oath, He swears to maintain the Subject in His Right, Liberty, and Property. And since his Highness is His Majesty's Subject (though one of His Greatest & Noblest Subjects) and that as an apparent Heir, he hath Spem succedendi, and that the CROWN is an ancient Hereditary Crown: The KING cannot take away His only Brothers Spem succedendi, Because it is by blood, his undoubted right, from the unalterable Law of Nature, ratified by the Law of Nations and secured by the Law of the Land, and nature of the Crown, which is Hereditary, and which fixes it beyond the fears of being altered by either King or Parliament from that Paradoxical State-immortalitie of an Hereditary Monarch. And if an Act of Parliament can alter the Succession, by excluding or passing by the righteous Heir; dare I ask if an Act of Parliament could clip the Commons in their Magna Carta, could but the King and Peers fall upon a packed Rump, or a Marvellous Parliament that could work wonders, though under the Epithet of Indoctum or Insanum.  
Yea, should the King, Peers, and Commons agree, to pass such a Bill in Act, yet would such an act of Seclusion, be but in itself void and null, Because it would be contra jus Coronae that great Law, which virtually and Originally, is a parcel of the Law of the Land, and that part of their Common Law, which hath the precedence of all Laws and Customs of England. And if omnis actus Parliamenti, vel consuetudo Regni; quae se exaltet in Praerogativam Regis, be said to be void in Law, how binding will an Act of Seclusion be, which strikes not only against the Right and Prerogative, but undermines the very Nature and Being of an Hereditary Crown.  
And as for his Highness being of a different Religion, and the great noise raised upon that. First, To differ in persuasions of Religion, while men retain the general name of Christian, does not make up a Crime, Meritorious of Seclusion. Secondly, Religion itself, under whatever notion, is neither essentially constitutive, or indispensibly seclusive of Magistracy, where the Royalty is Supreme, and Hereditary. For, should an apparent Heir be disinherited by a Protestant Parliament, for being a Papist, why not a Prelatic heir by a Presbyeterian Parliament? And why not a Presbyterian by an Independent, an Independent by an Anabaptist, and he by a Quaker, and so on. Is not this not only to found Dominion in Grace, but even Property and heritage, in Grace. For an Hereditary Crown, is by Birthright so far the Successors property & heritage, as that by all laws, he lawfully Succeds to the same Jure sanguinis et haereditario, in right of his Progenitors. And if a Prince may be thus Secluded from his Inheritance, for difference of Religion, why should not the same be extended to all others, who claim any Heritage by right of Blood from their Predecessors? For, ubi eadem ratio, ibi idem jus, and so a Popish Son should not succeed to his Protestant Father's Estate: & sic de caeteris. And it would be seriously considered, what a door this opens to the Papists, for that principle of deposing and disinheriting of Heretical Kings. And I suspect the Doctrinal difference betwixt Secluding and Deposing in this present Case in hand, is but too Metaphysical for sound Christian Politics, and all the Arguments that ever I yet heard, for that way of disinheriting, by an Act of Seclusion, were all but ab incommodo, inconveniencies, jealousies and fears; which I fear can never justify Protestant Subjects, to take away the Birthright from their lawful and Hereditary Prince.  
For, as Magistracy is an Emanation of God's power, as Creator, who is thereby pleased to Govern and preserve the World from Confusion. The difference of Religion does not nullify his Office, as by our Confession of Faith is justly acknowledged: so Inheritance being a Gift of God's bounty and providence from him as Almighty, and as he manifests his Dispensations, or as the Schoolmen phrase it, as he is pleased to act in Regno Naturae; difference in Religion (I say) does not hinder either wicked or Heretical persons or Kings, to inherit their Estates, Civil Powers, Dignities, and Hereditary Crowns, because Religion stands lifted under the Colours of Reguum Gratiae, whose Laws are not destructive to the Laws of Nature and Nations, according to the trit saying jus Gratiae non tollit jus Naturae vel Gentium. So let us not, for the securing of our Kingdoms, from fears of dubious events, presume to confound the diversified (though fixed) methods used, or offer to remove the Landmarks set, by Jehovah Zebaoth, in the managing of his Kingdoms of Nature and grace.  
For I do a little doubt, if too forward a zeal for the preservation of the Protestant Religion, or of any Religion that flows from Christ the Son, as Saviour and Mediator, will justify the taking away from our Prince and Neighbour, that which by the Laws of Nature, Nations and the Land, he hath gotten bestowed upon him, by the bounty, favour, and providence of God the Father, as Creator and Preserver of the Univerese, and the great and eternally loving Benefactor to mankind.  
And will it not be a harsh reflection upon the Protestant Religion, that it cannot be secured, unless its Professors run into the same ways so much by themselves condemned in some of the Papists. For I look upon the disinheriting of the Apparent Heir, as much of kin to their Deposing of Kings not of their own persuasion. And believe me the Birthright and Blood of Princes stand not many steps distant; and we have an ordinary saying, who takes away my livelihood, takes away my life. And if the Birthright of an hereditary Prince, be not his livelihood, sure it is his honour, and the honour of a Prince is the life of a Prince.  
And the Protestant Religion will be driven to a hard pull, if we cannot keep it but by breaking some of the Rules and Precepts of it, and away with that ex duobus malis, etc. where the Election is allowed only in malis Poenae, but can in no Christianity be extended ad mala Peccati. For says not Paul, We should not do evil that good may come of it. And if it be an evil, or injury to take from a man his Birthright, why should that injury be done to His Royal Highness, seeing it is said by Divines that injuriam homini etiam scelestissimo facere, nemo sine peccato potest. And should the people in their Representatives, be but once authorized to Seclude an hereditary Prince from his Royal Office and Dignity, it might be feared, they would itch to do the like, to the function and very foundations of Government itself: a near and recent parallel instance whereof, we have fresher in our memories then it needs to be named.  
And to represent to His Majesty, that there is no securing of the Protestant Religion, except he condescend to the Seclusion of His only Brother, seems first, to be a strnage limitation of the Holy one of Israel; For, what if his Highness should quit his persuasion? or what if His Majesty should Survive? secondly, Does not this look too like a prescribing unto the prudence of other Parliaments: For what if subsequent Parliaments might fall upon smother and calmer Methods for equally securing of Religion as Protestants, and salving of their duty as Subjects, to the equal Satisfaction of the Christian World, and their own Consciences. Thirdly, Shall the positive advice be no other way, and why the advice, and why so positive? Be there not many Members in the Commons House, who are Feudataries of the Crown, and being honoured in their Parliamentary capacities, to give Council to the King in arduis Regni, are they not by their Feudal fealty to advise their Lord Paramount to nothing but what is honestum. For this is one of the six by a Homager required, that when admitted to the consults of his Master, ut quae Domino honesta sunt consulat. Say now then, and say ingenuously, will the expecting World, or after Ages say, that it is honestum for Charles to Seclude and Disinherit James, his only Brother, and in the case of Survivage, the only Son of Charles the Martyr, yea the only Heir Male of the Illustrious Royal Line aftermentioned? or by disinteressed or  persons, will it be judged altogether honestum, for Feudatory Subjects, again and again, to press the advice of Secluding such an Heir, especially in a fortuitous event, which may be, or may not be?  
I need not I hope tell you Sir, that though here I urge some Arguments from the Feudal Law (pressing enough I conceive upon Vassals who are not willing to hazard a Disclamation of their Honours and property) yet you know I look not upon Monarchy (as betwixt Prince and People) to be within the verge of Feudal Contracts, knowing Kingdoms to be extra commercium, holding only of the King of Kings.  
But if ever it should please God, in his All-wise-dispensations, to suffer the Crown to descend to a Popish Successor, I put the Query, Whether it be more consonant for Protestant Christians to submit to the almighty's secret will, and bewail our condition, laying our mouths in the dust, while we examine whether or not the abuse of the Protestant Religion in this Isle, making a mask thereof, and alleging grounds therefrom, for rebelling against the best of Princes, might not in some measure have provoked God to suffer a Popish Successor, (which yet whatever be his private opinions I do not here charge upon his Highness,) seeing the late unnatural Rebellion, drove his pious Father to that necessity, that he was not able to keep nor maintain His Family, or educat His Children as he would. And belike earnest supplications to God (in whose hands are the hearts of Princes, to turn them whethersoever he listeth) under an humble sense thereof, might be more Christian, and consisting with the Principles of the Protestant persuasion, than a wilful Secluding and disinheriting of him. And whatever may fall out in matter of fact, or what people has done in such cases (for I am only here upon the point of right) sure it was a good observe that was given upon Josiah, that God did in him, bless the Jewish nation, with one of the best of their Kings, because they rebelled not against, nor did cast off his wicked Predecessors Amon and Manasseh.  
I know the English have ready at hand, to instance and urge their late Marian Persecution, with the miserable, bloody, and dismal severities thereof, which I can much easier regrate then justify or excuse. Yet might I, in behalf of a misled zeal (ordinary to the weaker sex) be but indulged to represent, that those times and ours will hardly in all things run parallel. I could Suggest, that Hendrie the vl, having departed from the Church of Rome, he quitted the stage of the World, before the Protestant Profession was in his Kingdoms well settled by Law. And his Son Edward the sixth succeeding young, when most of the Nobility, and many of the Nation stood Popishly affected; the matter of Religion came not in his short Reign to be so legally adjusted. So methinks (without offence) I might even out of compassion to a Feminine frailty (still zealous for their own opinions) wink a little at some shadow of extenuation, in favours of Mary, from the then standing and unrepealed Statutes. But now that it hath pleased God, under the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth, and her Protestant Successors, to strengthen that Profession by all just and Legal consolidations. Little I should hope may now be feared of alteration from his Highness (should he even succeed in a Popish persuasion) since his justice is so not our the World over, that (where he is not picpued below the Grandeur of His Birth) he glories to be an example of Obedience to the Laws of the Land, and whose interest certainly it will prove not to disturb them: and who from a tenderness of conscience freely allows his Children to be educat, and his Family exercised in the Protestant Profession, as by the Laws and Church of England established and enjoined. And who, besides his personal Character, and innate moderation stands a little engaged, in favours of His Race and Ancestors, not to forget the Historians observe, that Stuartorum Genus, was Lene & temperatum. Let us then be afraid to refuse the waters of Schiolah, that go softly lest the Lord be tempted, and bring upon us the waters of the River, strong and many, even with the King of Assyria, in all his glory. Nay, rather let us betimes send some of our humours and opinions to be washed at the Pool of Siloam, that so seeing our mistakes, we may study to build and cover the walls thereof, even to to the Stairs that go down to the City of our David, nigh to the King's Garden, than thus foolishly to fancy any solid rejoicing in some popular Rezius or Remalialis sons.  
But suppose the worst, that a jealous and fearful fancy can suggest, I would gladly ask the directors of our consciences, if it be lawful for Subjects in whatever capacity to reject or refuse their Native and undoubted Prince, for fear of Persecution under His Government, seeing God hath gained as much Glory in the perseverance and Martyrdom of His Saints as in any state of the Church Militant whatsomever: And though the days of Persecution be hot, sad, and lamentable trials, yet should Christians hazard upon an act of injustice to avoid them when they lie but supposedly lurking under the remoter skirts of jealousies and fears, which depend upon more uncertain events.  
Their few grounds (Sir) with other reasons too large for a Letter do hitherto sufficiently convince me of the justice of the Peers, in their rejecting the Bill of Seclusion. Not that I desire any ways to reflect upon the Honourable Members of the Commons, who might have gone upon grounds I know not. Their mies reasons and doubts, I only propose for my own satisfaction, Veri investigandi causa, and I hope the Commons will grant, that Parliaments may err, and that zeal some times may prompt even good men to outrun their duty. And it were worth the while seriously to consider, how far a Seclusion of this nature, may be thought to participate of, or dip upon the dangerous Principles of Buchanan, Brutus his Vindiciae, Boucherus, Rutherford's Lex Rex, Nepthali, and the Jus Populi vindicatum.  
And which makes me still the more admire His Majesty's Justice, Piety and Prudence, in His Proposals by His Chancellor, to one of His late Parliaments, is, that granting the Act of Seclusion should pass, what further security can our Protestant Religion be in, by such an Act, then by the Proposals made by the King? Nay, surely in a worse condition, from a Successor irritated by an Act of Exclussion, which for my Reasons aforesaid, is but void in Law, and so explained in all emergent Cases of that nature. For can an Act of Parliament, Secluding JAMES of York from the Crown, because a Papist, be of greater force, then was the Act of Richard the 3. against Henry of Richmount, then attainted of Treason? Not here to speak of the Acts concerning the drumbly succession of Henry the 8. And me fears the renewing the Bill of Seclusion, will by some be thought hardly well to consist in all things, with the Oath of Supremacy: For if the King be the Supreme Judge, in all Causes and over all Persons, and that his Judgement hath been once and again tried, and his sentiments sufficiently known in this matter of Secluding his Brother from the Crown, to provoke His Majesty to give his judgement therein again Superiisdem deductis, may by some I say be thought too like a tacit declining of the King's Supremacy. For what Pedaneous judge will readily alter his sentence upon a Reclamation Super iisdem deductis? and considering the present posture of affairs in Europe, were it not as much for the true interest of the Protestant Religion, that the Parliament should here wave the point of Succession, and fall cordially to consider, and vigorously to comply with His Majesty's Proposals (trusting God with the event of the two Royal Brother's survivage) then by too obstinately stickling upon so near and dear a concern to the King, lose so many fair opportunities of doing much good to Religion, King and Kingdoms.  
And believe me (Sir) I writ not their things as being either Popish or Popishly affected, but sincerely from the Observations I have taken up of Christianity in its primitive Latitude, before it came to be ranked and rended by an Act of Classis. And needs must I confess, that my zeal participats not so much of the Son of Zebedeus fire, but that I can have charity to think there be many who have given up their names to the Church of Rome, that do not yet believe all the Idolatrous fopperies either practised in, or charged upon her, although I can so far regrate the growth and increase of Popery, that for the surer instructing of the Vulgar, I do hearty wish the old and solid way of Catechetical teaching were more constantly plied and revived. For the running of a glass upon a desultatory Text, cannot much confirm them and as little does a Polemical discourse edify an aproned auditory. Hence take the subtle Jesuits (I fear) too great advantage, under their party-colloured Vizorns to inveigle, deceive, and even to Rebellions debauch, the giddy, unstable, and not well grounded Plebeians. I speak not this any way to reflect upon the Reverend Clergy, but if the Fathers of the Church think fit more seriously to recommend to the Incumbents the Cateehetical way, for their evening exercise, it might (perhaps) in this juncto be of good use to establish the Comonality in the sound grounds of true Christianity.  
But to return, let me tell you, His Majesty hath but reason by all just and fair means to defend the Crown, in the true and righteous Heir Male, if he but either memember or consider, that He and His Royal Brother, are by the blessing and Providence of Almighty God, descended of most Royal Blood, in a true Line Male, lawfully from Father to Son (Kings, or Princely Cadets) for beyond fifteen entire Centuries. But, let me not be mistaken, For I am not to say that all His Majesty's Progenitors were in this account Kings, but that they were all by Agnation Cadets and Descendants of the Royal Family, I hope to evince. For as to His descent from King Fergus the first, by some interposition of Daughters, the same is clear, obvious, and beyond contradiction, sufficiently by our Historians and others already established. But here my assertion is repeated, that His Sacred Majesty, and His Royal Brother are lawfully descended from King Ethodius the first, and that by Princes or Princely Descendants in a true Line Male, from Father to Son, as I have already expressed it.  
You know then (Sir) that Ethodius the first of that Name, and twenty fifth King of SCOTLAND, was Sister's Son to King Mogallus, and Succeeded to His Cousin King Conarus, about the year of our Saviour 162. when the two Collegiate Antonin's Philosophus & Verus governed the Roman empire. So shall I mark Ethodius, and his Succession as followeth, giving the letter K. for King, with the figures to show what number the persons so marked stood in, and to avoid repetitions of Father and Son, be pleased to understand that where the same is not so nominated, the person overhead is still Father to him who is placed next immediately below.  
Tritavi 7. Proavus. 46 1 Ethodius the 1. K. 25. 45 2 Ethodius the 2. K. 28. 44 3 Athirco, K. 29. 43 4 Donald the 2, and 3. Son to Athirco. Tritavus 7. 42 5 Fincormachus, K. 35. 41 6 Ethodius or Achadius, second Son to Fincormachus. 40 7 Erthus, who with his Father expulsed by the Romans died uncrowned in Denmark. 39 8 Fergus the 2. K. 40. 38 9 Dongardus, second Son to Fergus the 2. K. 42. Tritavus 6 37 10 Conranus, second Son to Dongardus K. 45. 36 11 Aidanus, K. 49. 35 12 Eugenius the 4. K. 51. 34 13 Donald the 4. second Son to Eugenius the 4. K. 53. 33 14 Dongardus, second Son to Donald the 4. 32 15 Eugenius the 5. K. 56. Tritavus 5. 31 16 Eugenius the 7. K. 59 30 17 Ethsinus, K. 61. 29 18 Achaius, K. 65. 28 19 Alpinus, K. 68 27 20 Kenneth the 2. K. 69. 26 21 Ethus, second Son to Kenneth the 2. K. 72. Tritavus 4 25 22 Dorus, second Son to K. Ethus 24 23 Murdocus, second Son to Dorus. 23 24 Pheachar or Ferquhard, second Son to Murdocus. 22 25 Kenneth. 21 26 Bancho, Thane of Loquhaber 20 27 Fleance. Tritavus 3. 19 28 Walter the 1. who gave to his Posterity the Surname of Stewart. 18 29 Allan the 1. in the Holy Wars with Godfroy Boulogne. 17 30 Walter the 2. Magnus scenescallus Scotiae. 16 31 Alexander the 1. Builder and founder of the Abbacy of Paisley. 15 32 Allan the 2. 14 33 Walter the 3. commonly called of Dundonald. Tritavus 2. 13 34 Robert, Lord Turboultown 2 Sonto Walter of Dundonald 12 35 John Lord Darnly. 11 36 Robert Lord Darnly. 10 37 John Lord Darnly. 9 38 Allan Lord Darnly, Married to the Daughter of Duke Murdoch Oy to the Earl of Lennox. 8 39 John L. Darnly, created Earl of Lennox, 1482. or thereby. Tritavus 1. 7 40 Matthew Earl of Lennox, killed at Flowdon. 6 41 John Earl of Lennox, killed at Linlithgow. 5 42 Matthew Earl of Lennox, Regent to his Oy K. James the 6th. 4 43 Henry Lord Darnly, Duke of Rothesay. 3 44 KING JAMES the 6. K. 108. 2 45 KING CHARLES the 1. K. 109. 1 46 

KING CHARLES the 2. K. 110.  
JAMES, Duke of Albany and York.    
And now you see (Sir) my assertion made good by this Grand Jury of His Majesties forty five Progenitors aforenamed, all of them of the Stem, and Line Royal, lawfully descended. And that I may in this Critical and censorious Age, be as free of mistakes as possible, Suffer me (good Sir) yet once again to repeat what I have formerly insinuat, that I do not here by this Descent-Male intent to obsfuscat, or in the least prejudge or diminish His Sacred Majesty of his contingency of blood and cognation to all, or any of His hundred and nine Crowned Predecessors, in either their straight descendant or Collateral degrees. For that the Crown of Scotland hath contained in one certain Family, from K. Fergus the first (contemporary with the Grecian Monarch Alexander the Great,) is by all our Histories put beyond any dispute. And to suggest any defence against the ignorance of such who may here mistake the figuring of our Kings in the degrees from Father to Son, as if the one immediately succeeded the other, would but impose upon your better knowledge, who does sufficiently understand that the elder Collaterials secluded the Descendants (as was then also customary in other Northern Nations, until King Kenneth the 3. Civilised it to a just succession in the true and immediate Descent.  
But should this (Sir) ever go further than your Closet, I little doubt, but some will be apt to say, magno conatu nugas; and that all men are descended in a Line Male from Adam, which truly a little Rhetoric could persuade me to believe: but that all are come, or yet so come, of Kings and true Royal Cadets will require more Oratory, before I be proselyted a Leveller. Have I not salved His Majesty's Descent from His Crowned Predecessors, even to our King Fergus the 1. and sufficiently obviate what objections can be raised against me there, having here only but singled out the Descent-Male, which as it hath the Preachers blessing, our King even in this branch, being in all its steps still the Son of Nobles, so if the mourning Prophet meant (in that his 35. chap.) any good to Jonadab the son of Rhehab: is it not worth the considering, that God hath been pleased to continue the Lawful Posterity of even our last Heathenish King in a true Line Male to this very day, especially now, when His Majesty is so frequently Addressed to Seclude his only Brother, who equally enjoys the same blessing with himself. But the Men of Shaftsburie, with Gallio, will care for none of those things, it matters the less if His Sacred Majesty should, who might graciously perhaps allow it to add one grain of weight to his fixed royal kindness, for the forty fifth man child, from the Loins of the first Ethodius, without any Female interruption, for beyond fifteen hundred years.  
Yet seeing even in this Branch of His Majesty's Pedigree above represented, I do not in all things agree with the more constant tradition, I beg your leave (Sir) to mark where I differ, entreating you would but patiently hear my reasons, wherein I shall endeavour to be as brief as the clearing of the matter will permit.  
But as I am writing, One tells me, it will be thought arrogant presumption in me to alter the received Opinion, or to controvert with Buchanan, Boes, or Skeen, Good Lord! shall we live in an Age, wherein there is so much noise for the liberty of the Subject, and yet be denied the liberty of reason, or reasoning in the enquiry of truth? I hope there be many good Protestants who will not press me to believe all the legendary tales in Boes; and I am persuaded, there be many Loyal Subjects, who will not advise me to assent to all that Buchanan wrote; and I hope common reason will convince any man, that in Antiquities, which consists in matter of fact, it is safer to pin our faith upon old Charters truly expede by the Granters, and in the times to which they relate, then upon the loser sheets of private Historians, writing but some Centuries after, who belike if they kept the general thread of the story, did not much either examine or notice the particularities or Genealogies of Families; yea, and in some things here controverted, our Antiquaries do not agree with our Historians; and should you, and I, Sir, to gratify their mistaken opinions, Mahomet-like, hang between?  
But to the matter in hand; Boes says, Fincormachus was the Son of Cormachus, and here I place him son to Donald 2. well, we agree however in the main assertion. For if Cormachus was Cousin-german to Crathilinthus, and Brother to Findocus, (for Boes calls him Patruus) Athirco the Grandfather behoved to be the common Stipes, and so is yet salved the descent in a Line Male. But if Cormachus was son of Athirco (which he behoved to be, if he was Patruus to Crathilinthus) why might not Boes have made his Uncle Dorus carry him also away from the cruelty of Natholocus, with his three Brothers Findocus, Carantius and Donaldus? But alace! Boes himself (except in this present case) doth with all our other Historians give Athirco no more sons than the three I have just now named. But the truth is, That our King, who immediately succeeded Crathilinthus, should not have been named Fincormachus, but Cormachus only; And the mistake lay here, that King Cormeick or Cormeig, (for so the old Highlanders term him) had the Epithet of Pheun, which in the Irish, or old Highland Language, signifies fair, (as the Tutor of Mcleane informs me) so that Pheun Cormeich should be no more than Cormachus Pulcher, and not Filius Cormachi. For the Highlanders do not make use of the Syllable Fin, but the Syllable Mack and Vic; when they intent to express Patronymicks; For if Fin be a Patronymick Particle, and hold so, in the Nephew Fincormachus, why not also in the Uncle Findocus? and so if Fin signifies Filius, his father should have been Docus, but he was Athirco; So that such who have first given an account of this King in Latin, perhaps had no great skill in the Irish Tongue. And finding him always called Feun Cormeich, have wrote him Fincormachus. And if it be retorted, that if Fin be but Pheun in Fincormachus, why should it not be also Feun in Findocus? I answer, the Parity holds not in Epithets and Patronymicks, for Fin is but Epithetital in Fincormachus, to the Person Cormeig, which is a full and Christened Name, and there are yet a stock of people who patronymically Surname themselves Mackormeichs, from one Cormeich, the founder of the Family; whereas Fin in Findocus is nothing but a bare syllable of the Christened name Findoch (without any signification in itself) as yet it sounds in the name Finlaw, common and ordinary with us to this day. And I am told, that Cormeich imports in the Irish as much as an Odd son, where the word Odd cannot relate to number; For Athirco having three sons before, if Cormeich was the fourth, than he could not be called an odd son in respect of number, for numerus quaternus est numerus par, non impar, so that Odd must relate to a quality equivalent to the word Strange, which hath here been given him in respect of his Beauty and Fairness, of a Countenance be like more becoming a Woman than is allowed to the austerities of a Virile Complexion, and his Childhood Cormeich hath been confirmed in his riper years, by the Epithet Feun, Cormeich-feun, an odd son for his fairness. And for buchanan's naming him Fincormachus and not Cormachus (who may be supposed understood the Irish Tongue) it imports not; for being but born in the Eastern parts of the Lennox, and bred still in places more easterly, he might not have understood all the Irish Dialects; but suppose he did, he writing a History impute and neat Latin, thought it not worth the noticing, in his designed Theme, to alter in this, the Copies before him; neither should I have meddled with it here, if Boes had not expressly named him Filius Cormachi, whereas Buchanan and Lesly satisfy themselves, that he was Nephew to Findocus, and Cousin-german to Crathilinthus, without naming his Father, who was Donald. For when Dorus fled with his three Nephews, to the Picts, doubtless if his brother Athirco had had a fourth son, Cormachus that pious and kind Uncle, would not have left him to the mercy of the cruel Natholocus. And it will be but needless to suppose, that Fincormachus might have been the son of Carantius, and not of Donald; For first, that is against Boetius' own story. Secondly, It makes nothing against my great assertion, seeing even by yielding, Res but redit eodem, that he is still Grandchild by a son to Athirco, but had he been the son of Carantius, for whom Boes betrays so much kindness (in that his Romantic fable of him) sure Cormachus would never, by that Author, have had the honour to father the son of so noble a Warrior, and King of the Britons, as Boes makes his Carantius to be, amongst whose singular achievements, I wonder why Boes (or rather his two stipendiary Friars, whom he employed in the Collection of his History) forgot this so notable effort of his who having fled as suspected accessary to the murdering of his brother K Findocus, and after traversing most part of the Roman empire, had the good fortune, not only to return to this Isle, and be installed King of the Britons, before the death of his Goodsyre King Ethodius; but also to live after he purged himself of the false aspersion, before his Nephew Crathilinthus, which strange adventure (and I pray you mark it) he accomplished thus. Findocus was murdered in the year of our LORD 263. And if the Caurassius in Eutropius (whom the English name Caransius) be the same person with this our Carnasius, (as Boes is pleased to say he was,) then this Caurassius-Carantius-Carausius, (who rebelled against Caracalla, and succeeded in the British Throne to Bassianus) came to be King of the Britons, Anno 218. when his Grandfather Ethodius the 2. lived till the year 221. And Crathilinthus came not to the Crown, till the year 278. and yet Alectus governed after Carantius, Anno 225. which, when you reconcile to a just Synchronism, I shall the readier believe, that Cormachas was father to Fincormachus, and son to Athirco, even notwithstanding that the Tutor of Mcleane tells me, the Highlanders with him speak always Cormeich, the son of Donald.  
But I hasten to Bancho, for whose Descent, as I offer it here from K. Kenneth the 2. I shall presently be alarumed with gratis dictum, gratis dictum. But soft a little, we are not here upon Apodeictick demonstrations, the case and antiquity thereof calls for no such proofs; 'tis fair we come to credit rational and moral arguments and inducements.  
I shall therefore ingenuously tell you, how I did first come by the Relation. A country man of ours (now deceased) proposed to Charles late Duke of Lennox, to branch a complete Genealogical Tree of the entire Family of the Stuarts, which so relished with that Noble Prince, that he brought with him, the last time he came to Scotland, a Paper, which gives Bancho's Descent, from K. Kenneth the 2. in all things as I have here, and in the Tree aftermentioned, marked: And which Paper, the Duke said, that his Uncle D. James got in the time of the late Troubles, from an ingenious Gentleman, and lover of Antiquities, as handed down to him from some documents, that were carried out of this Kingdom by Edward Langshanks. The Copy I got from a Gentleman, who had it from Duke Charles himself. And this account from the Duke of Lennox Paper, is agreeable in all things to the old Highland Shanchies rhyme they have of the Thane of Lochabers Pedigree, and a Shanchy, Schanchaner, or Scheanchie, (as the Highlanders speak) is a person who hath charge to notice Genealogies, the same with buchanan's Senecio, and such are yet in use with the Lairds of Mcleane, Mclaud, and Mcdonald, and as well K. duncan's esteem and employments, as Macheths' fears of this Banchu, conjoined with the Weird-sisters response, his Inheritance and Title of Lochaber, with his Oy's coming so soon into favour, do abundantly speak him a Cadet of the Royal Family. And probable it is, that that Donald who killed King Daffus at the Castle of Forres, might have been our Bancho's Goodsyres elder Brother; for the Duke's Paper gives Murdocus two Sons, Donald and Pheachar, and the time will well allow it too; for Duffus was brother to Kenneth the third, and Culenus did Reign but four years, and we know with whom Bancho was contemporary; (and that the old Kings spread the wings of the Royal Family, first to Galloway, then to Lochaber) and which Donald being of the blood Royal, might have had (amongst other temptations) his ambition set on edge, by some mock-prophesie from these Witches, with whom he trucked for discovery of the roasting the effigy of Duffus, that he or his, might sometimes enjoy the Crown, which was upon a better account renewed some years after to his Brothers Oy. And there goes an uncontroverted tradition, that Bancho is descended of one K. Kenneth, and which of the two last you pitch upon, is alike tome in the Case controverted. For if you cannot go the length of Kenneth the 2. hold you with Kenneth the 3. for the Grandfather, who was son of K. Malcolm the first, and he son to Donald the sixth, and he to Constantine the 2. who was eldest son to K. Kenneth the 2. and so are we but come where we were, and still in a Line Male. And do you think, I would willingly quit three Kings for three Cadets, if I thought Bancho had been by Ferquhard Grandchild to Kenneth the 3. But he being descended of one of the two last Kenneths, they have misplaced his Father and Goodsyre, making the father, who as by the Duke's Paper, should have been Kenneth to be Ferquhard, and the Goodsyre who should have been Ferquhard, to be Kenneth, whom they made K. Kenneth the 3. For will any think, that if such a martial man as Bancho had been Granchild by Forquhard to K. Kenneth, the 3. but he might in those days (so shortly after Kenneths' alteration of the former confused way of succeeding) have had some dispute for the Crown with the more easy natured K. Duncan, who stood in a degree remoter, and that by the interposition of a Lass too. And I remember that some years ago (before ever I did see the Paper produced by the Duke of Lennox) finding one Baron Mackcorquodale in the City, and hearing that he had an old Charter from one of the K. Kenneths, I went to the Gentleman, who seemed not to deny the having of such a Charter, but said it was at home, and that it should have been given to his Predecessor, from one K. Kenneth, of whom was descended the great Thane of Lochaber, and that his Land was given to his Predecessor, for bringing away the head of a Scots King from the Picts, and that the tradition was by his Progenitors thus handed down unto himself, and that his Estate was never more or less (except in the improvements of industry) and that God had blessed their small family in a constant Line Male to himself, who had then both sons and brethren alive. And as I believe this Deed or Grant, I scarcely dare name it Charter, were it produced to such as can read it, will appear to be the oldest writ of that nature now extant in Scotland; so may it give encouragement to be Loyal to the living Prince, when this Baron Mackconquodales' respect for the dead, hath been from Heaven so signally rewarded. And though the Gentleman I spoke with could not tell me, whether granter was K. Kenneth the 2, or the 3. yet Boes in his tenth Book makes it clear to have been Kenneth the 2. For when the Picts had barbarously cut off the head of K. Alpin, near to Dundie, they affixed it on a Pole, at the principal gate of their chief City, and that some Scots young men, having the Pictish Dialect, and conterfeiting themselves to play the Merchant, went to the City, stole away the Head, and carried it to his son King Kenneth the second, who was then in Argyle, and where (says Boes) they were rewarded by the King with Lands and Estate. And the Baron of Mackcorquodale's Fortune lies (I hear) in Knapdale in Argile Shire; though with credit to the tradition, yet with favour to the Gentleman, I shall hardly think the Charter so old; perhaps a later Charter may have such a Narrative, for I question if formal Charters were with us so old as Kenneth the 2. but the tradition provesall I intent. And Buchanan giving the inducements of Mackbeths' murdering of Bancho, says, that he was homo potens industrius, & Regio jam sanguine imbutus, which sounds no other in plain English, then, That he was a powerful man fitted for action, yea, and moreover of the Family Royal. And so indeed he was, as well by his Descent, as by his Marriage, having taken to wife his Cousin Maud, daughter to Phaelus, who was son to Laeblanus, son to Garethus, eldest son of Dorus, and Grandchild to King Ethus. So that what I have said, will, I hope, (in hoc facto antiquo, wherein there be in all things such an harmonious consonancy) sufficiently astruct Bancho's descent from K. Kenneth the 2. And it is of no weight to allege any thing from the silence of our Historians, who touch little of Genealogies, except in the Crowned heads. Yea, and Buchanan belies them in the general, in that his Regio sanguine jam imbutus; though he be not special in the particular persons and degrees. And the very collecting or extracting of the forementioned Paper, from the documents carried away with Edward Langshanks, cannot but fortify what I have said; For that imperious Victor, designing to deface the very remembrance of a Kingdom here, by his taking away, and destroying what monuments he could have of our Kings and Kingdom, had he not amongst others found Bancho and his Posterity near and considerable Cadets of the Royal Family, I doubt if that Paper had (as I have related it) ever come to the hands of an English Gentleman, and questionless the repeated preferments and high trusts that K. Duncan heaped on Bancho, as well in the intestine Commotions, as in the Wars with the Danes, which happened in that King's time, speaks him loudly to have been his near Kinsman. And beyond all peradventure, Mackbeth's jealousy flowed not so much from Bancho's valour or his bare response only, but as bottomed upon his Cognation of blood, as Buchanan hath well observed in his Igitur veritus ne homo potens, etc. And which is legibly read in Malcolm Canmor's so quickly advancing his Grandchild to places of so great and near concern as Steward of his House and Kingdom, extended by the K. Maiden, to the Magnus Senescallus, and which Relation was also remembered by K. Robert the Bruce, for the Royal Stem residing in Argyle, the first branch spreads to Galloway, the next to Lochaber. And as the Bruce was the first who came to the Crown of the House of Galloway, who so fit a match for his eldest Daughter, as her Cousin, Walter the great Steward from Bancho of Lochaber? and which seems hath not been forgot, even by our later Mary, for no Husband to the Queen Heretrix of Scotland, and Dovager of France, like to her Kinsman Darnly, by the House of Lennox, from Walter of Dundonald. So connatural is it for Princes to be just and true to the righteous Heir, that Queen Elizabeth's last breath could ingeminate none but her Cousin JAMES, none but her Cousin JAMES.  
And now (Sir) little remains but to give my reasons, why I differ from the Common opinion of the first Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, and to prove the Walter and Allan, whom here I insert in the Line, and who are left out in the ordinary accounts of the same.  
The received opinion then gives Walter the son of Fleance, to be the first Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, and I make but Walter the second, (Grandchild by Allan to the first Walter) the first Great Stuart of Scotland. Now I hope we will agree, that Senescallus is homonymous, nor shall I here trouble you with all the various acceptations of the word; allow me but three.  
First, That Senescallus is Dapifer, that he is Oeconomus, and that he is Locum-tenens; which without other proof I know (you are so ingenuous) you will not refuse. Senescallus-Dapifer, for the Family within the walls, Steward of the House; Senescallus-Oeconomus, for the Provisions from abroad (as in the Purveyors of Solomon,) uplifter, and ingatherer of the Rents, which of old consisted most in ipsis corporibus. But when the use of money became more frequent, this Senescallus-Oeconomus came thereafter to be absorbed in the Thesaurer or Chamberlain, as it relates to Quaestura. And yet the payment of the Rents, whether in ipsis corporibus, or in money, being often refused, questioned, and debated, it was more than requisite that this Senescallus should have Jurisdictionem & potestatem quandam, a Civil Jurisdiction and distreinzeable power, and in case of force and resistance, military and coercive; in which case, when this Senescallus was in or about the exercise of his Office, he was said (for the better procuring to him of reverence and obedience) Tenere locum Regis. And as this middle Senescallus, Participating of both extremes, was sometimes termed Dapifer, and sometimes Locum-tenens; So did the Senescallus-locum-tenens, through process of time, creep up in his Military power and capacity to be Ductor Exercituum, Regiarum Copiarum Praefectus, and to be styled Magnus Senescallus, where the Epithet magnus is not prefixed to Senescallus, except the Locum-tenens be Generalissimo, and that, if not hereditary, for life at least, and not upon single emergents. And who among the ancient Romans boasted himself of the Title of Magnus, but Potestate etiam gaudebat Imperatoriâ: yea, Magni alone, to Martial signified Imperatores. So what I have premised, furnishes me with this Distinction, Senescallus Regis, Senescallus Regni, and Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, agreeable to our Customs and Histories. Senescallus Regis, Dapifer, whose Fee is mentioned in the Acts of King Malcolme the second, Senescallus Regni, Walter the first, the Hereditary Oeconomus, who gave to his Posterity the Surname of Stuart. Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, Walter the second, the first hereditary Generalissimo of the Kingdom, and in the King's absence Commander always in chief of his Forces, and the King's Lieutenant, where ever the Royal Standart stood displayed.  
But you will be apt to say, that bare assertions are too weak engines, to shake so rooted a tradition, and allowing of my Distinctions in the general, yet shall I nevertheless gain but few Proselytes, unless I prove that the first Walter was not Magnus Senescallus in the sense that I have given, and that there was a Walter, whom I name the 2. betwixt Alexander and Alan. Seeing then it is easier to disprove an affirmative, then to prove a Negative, I say the first Walter's being Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, is but a mere vulgar tradition from a mistake, in confounding the Grandfather for the Oy, from the names of Walter and Malcolm: for as Walter the Goodsyre was made Senescallus Regni, by K. Malcolm Canmoire, so was Walter the Oy, made Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, by K. Malcolm the Maiden. And the better to excuse the mistake, much of the cause of both their preferments was their being active in suppressing some insurrections in Galloway and the Highlands, most probably occasioned from the King's Officers, demanding, and the Disobeyers undutiful refusing of their Rents and Revenues, due and addebted by them to the Crown. And the first Walter is never named Magnus Senescallus Scotia, by any of our Historians; For Boes calls him but Regni Senescallum, (i. e.) says he, Regiorum proventuum primarium Procuratorent. Buchanan speaks him no other than Stuartum totins Scotiae, adding, Quasi dicas, Oecanomum. John Fordon, in his Scotichronicon writes him, his Son, and his Grandchild, no more but Dapiferi, only Lesly hath these words, summi Senescalli ut loquimur, where ut loquimur explains the summus Senescallus, as commonly used in Leslies' time, and does not tell the true import of it, In the days of Malcolm Canmoir, when our other Historians make him but Senescallus-Oeconomus, and Stuartorum familias Princeps. Yea, and Leslie's own Summus senescallus amounts to no more than Summus Oeconomus. And though the word Scotiae had been added, yet will it with the understanding Reader signify nothing but Regiorum Oeconomorum Supremus, which none denies; and any Grammaticaster can tell the difference betwixt Summus and Magnus.  
So that it is now evident and obvious, that there is a palpable difference betwixt a Steward and a Magnus Senescallus. For does not Stuart, as a Surname from Oeconomus, at one and the same time serve many Persons, and several distant Houses and Families, whereas Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, as a special and particular Office in dignity, rested only in the person Chief of the whole Clan for the time, without any communication to others. And if Walter the first was, as Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, Regiarum Copiarum Ductor ac Praefectus, why was Gilchrist Earl of Angus, Commander in chief to the Forces of Malcolm the Maiden, against the Gallovidians and Highlanders, when Walter the second, the first walter's Oy, was in company with him, and did not so much as lay claim to his right, as did thereafter his Successor John at the Battle of Falkirk, as well against the more redoubted Warrior Wallace, as against the Cumin his elder Colleague in the Regency; But that even because then, the second Walter was only Senescallus Oeconomus, and not Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, which shortly he got therefore for several reasons conferred upon him, partly I suppose for his own valour shown with Earl Gilchrist, partly out of remembrance of his Father, who went to the Holy Wars with Godfrey de Boulogne, and was present with him at the Siege of Antioch; but more especially for a Raggio di Stato, it being thought belike then convenient that, the Summus Oeconomus should be made also Magnus Senescallus, while both were conjoined in the person of a near and Loyal Kinsman. And have I not seen an old Coat of Arms, for the Stuart, Entasselled or cordeleired with Thistles, and as it were some leaves or twigs interwoven, and giving the Motto, Nemo me impune lacessit, where the Supporters held, one of them upon a Standart, the Flag of the Family, and the other bore a St. Andrews Cross. And what more proper Hieroglyphic in Heraldry could be given to the Counting Oeconomus than the Fez Chequie? And what fit for a Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, than the Badge then used by the Kingdom, with the Thistles and Motto; abundantly expressive of his Duty, Courage, and Loyalty, when conjoined with the Crest, which was the head of an Unicorn. And in a Letter from the Nobility of Scotland to the Pope, Anno, 1320. among some thirty eight Seals appending, when I did see it, the Seal of Walter, Son-in-Law to Robert the Bruce, was only a plain Saltier or St. Andrew's Cross (as in my Notes upon that Letter I have observed.) And his Son Robert, the first King of the Stuarts, when he reserved and annexed the Estate and Office of the Great Steward of Scotland, for ever to the Crown, to be enjoyed always by the King's eldest son, the Prince Politicly said, It was too dangerous to make any a Magnus Senescallus, or hereditary General, but the next Heir of the Crown, (although even that King shown more than ordinary kindness for his second son Robert;) yet, for the honour of his Father's House (for he came to the Crown in right of his Mother) did he advance the Badges and Symbols of the Office, to stand external Embellishments to the Coat Royal, dignifying and enlarging the old Crest, by tying his gorged Unicorn, with a chain of Loyal Magnanimity to support the Regal Lion; teaching thereby the Prince and Steward of Scotland, for ever to be faithful and Loyal to the Crown; which may convince such of their foolish ignorance, who from the Chain, in our King's Achievement, would forsooth by a strange Armorial Logic, argue a Vassalage to England. What! Our Unicorn is not chained, nor does he chain his Lion to their Leopards; while in defence of his Quadrupedal Monarch, he bears a Horn, with a Nemo me impune lacessit. Hence, Sir, you may readily conceive I stand a little engaged to crave pardon, why I so formally differ from those who writ the Epigraph Nemo me impune lacesset, in a Circle environing the Image of St. Andrew, when I attribute all to the Magnus Senescallus. Permit me then Sir, to offer my Arguments, and guests at their grounds; and though this be a digression, yet speaking here of His Majesty's Line Male, I hope it will not be to you unpleasant, that this Paper present you my thoughts of the Royal Badges of the Kingdom, with the Principal order of Knighthood, ordinarily thereunto assigned.  
The tale than goes, That Hungus King of the Picts (assisted by Achaius against the Saxon Athelstane) did at Elsanfoord near Haddingtown, upon an Apparition of St. Andrews Cross, obtain a memorable and unexpected Victory, whereupon that Apostle became St. Patron to the Scots and Picts. And in all Battles thereafter, was success under his Banner equally prayed for, expected and promised; And to whose greater honour, did Achaius erect in the City of St. Andrews, an order of the Knights of the Thistle, with the Motto as last aforesaid, Nemo me impune lacesset. And yet there be some who attribute this to a congratulation of the League with Carlemain; as if it should be touchy and uneasy for any to disquiet the Scots, when so assisted by the French.  
As to the truth of the Apparition, I leave it to those who list to believe it. Nor will I here concern myself, whether St. Andrew was Patron to the Picts before the days of Hungus, when Regulus the Grecian Monk first brought some of his Relics to King Hergustus. Far less will I now state the Question, When, or by what methods and devices, the Religious remembrance of, or respectful reverence to, the Names and Virtues of the Saints departed, did first in our Church creep up to a formal adoration, and superstitious Invocation of them. Since I verily believe (if our; Historians abuse us not, 
Spots. 1. B. Boes, 10. B. ) that the storied Vision appeared not to Achaius. For the Scots Auxiliaries went under the conduct of his son Prince Alpine, the Crowned King; judging it below his Royal Dignity, to march in person as an Ally, in the but extrinsic quarrel of his bordering, and oftentimes offensive neighbour. And although the Badge of St. Andrew, be derived to us from the Picts; yet some in their relations thereof, are not so fully clear, in either the cause, occasion, or time, whether before or after the destruction of the Picts. If before, what tempted a Scots King to borrow from a Pictish? could he not have devised of his 〈◊〉 or, should the one brother-in-law, rob from the other, one of the choicest Badges of his Christian devotion, and Princely honour? But if the Scots assumed it after the fatal period of the Pictish Kingdom, sure Achaius lived not to see that exterminating blow. And how peaceable will you make Hungus with his Picts, who suffered a Scots King, not only quietly, but even gloriously, to erect himself Sovereign of an order of Knighthood, in one of the chieft Cities of their own Otholinia (before Kirk-Rule was Christened St. Andrews) and that too in the name and under the Protection of their beloved Tutelary Saint, with the blessing of large promises for Victory to his Votaries, under no less than the menacing Epigraph, of Nemo me impune lacesset: for who would think, that the poor passive Thistle, could ever be so boisterous in the future. But why, contrary to all other Mottoes, so severe a menace in the Future? Did the deceased Brother of St. Peter so soon forget the dictates and example of his living Master, who when he was reviled, stood so far wide of revenge, as never so much as once to revile again; teaching his Disciples to learn of him to be meek and lowly, and not to suffer the Sun to go down upon their wrath. And why from a peaceable and inspired Apostle, such an ensurng word for Victory, success and revenge, as Nemo me impune lacesset, when the infallible Oracle, bids tell a Puissant and Martial Monarch, Let not him that girdeth on his Harness, boast himself, as he that putteth it off. But belike that Ventorious, rather than Victorious Promise, hath been conceived a little scrimp of the common stile, Conjunctly, but not severally; else what a pitiful pickle will they put St. Andrews in, for an Orleans gloss upon his Text, when the Oy of Achaius successively, and utterly, defeated. Druskenus, with his Vicomagian, Horestian, Otholinian, and all his other Picts, where the ears of the good Tutelar Saint, could not but strangely, and more than once and again, at one and the same instant, be miserably grated with the cries of many thousand Scots, Sancte Andrea, ora pro nobis, re-echoed with as many groans from the Picts, Dive Andrea, ora pro nobis. What could be left to the tender hearted Apostle, but to sit dumb, and let the Lord God of Hosts from the justness of the cause, and the valour of the Combatants alone decide the quarrel.  
I know and do grant you, that the valiant Kenneth the second, did not assume, but as well by the Law of Arms, as right of blood justly claimed, and Possessed himself of the Pictish Badge, being equally their lawful Prince, and their fortunate Victor, who because of their undutiful refusing and resisting of his father and himself scorned to quarter their Arms with those of Scotland: yet, for a trophy of his success, and from a respect to the Religious memory of the Apostle Andrew, did Politicly reserve the Badge of his Cross, to be born in his Martial Banner thereafter; whereof Boes says, mansit Pictis (to wit after Hungus victory) & post eos deletos, Scotis exinde hoc institutum in perpetuum. To which Lesly agrees in his Cum hostibus congressurus semper postea gestabat, id quod Scoti omnes in memoriam victoriae a Pictis etiamnum religiosissime observant. That wise King divining perhaps that the English-Saxons (conform to the tradition) once falling under the sign of S. Andrew, would be apt to fear the like thereafter. But that the Scots Kings used it further than in their Banners of War, until their later Centuries, would be proven ere I trust it. For who can, upon any ingenuous acknowledgement say, he any ways ever saw (or from authentic Authors, read) the Effigies of St. Andrew or his Cross (by what ligament or Collar soever) pendulous to the Coat of Scotland, before the Stuart came to the Crown, not to discourse when those more modern methods of Double Supporters, pendant Medals from Chains and Collars of Orders, with Epigraphs, came to be first, from a proud vanity embraced, and thereafter from an ambitious emulation affected, cherished, and entertained amongst the Independent Monarches. Allowing then the Scots after Kenneths' exstinguishing of the Picts, to have born the Cross and Badge of St. Andrew on their Standart Royal or Field-Banner, as in the present Banner Azure of Scotland, embraced by the supporting Unicorn in the Royal Achievement, which Banner was necessarily given and entrusted to the Magnus Senescallus Scotiae, as the King's Lieutenant in his Armies: and which Badge being equally the Ensign of the Kingdom, and Symbol of his Office, he most probably hath (according to the custom of other Officers of that nature) worn about his body on a Medal, in a Ribbon, Richly wrought, with an interwoven Colour of Thistles and Rue, with the emphatic and comprehensive Ditton, Nemo me impune lacessit. Not me, as the word is interpret to a person) the glorious St. Andrew, who am now beyond the concerns or provocations of Mortals Eternally taken up, in the beatific vision of the Trin-une Jehove; But me the Captain General of the Forces of Scotland, and Thesaurer, Chamberlain, Steward and Collector of the Rents and Revenues of the Crown, for the support of the King, and Government.  
And such a Magnus Senescallus, might very justly and nobly, (and conform to the Rules and allowances of Heraldry, very warrantably too) have given such a Callour to a Medal for St. Andrew, with the Nemo me (as I have explained it) impune lacessit. If it be but minded that our first Great- Stewards Grandfathers Grandfather Bancho, when Thane of Lochaber (and Regionum Thani, says one plerisque in locis Stuarti vocantur) was so sorely wounded for discharging his duty in the collecting and inbringing of the King's rents, that Buchanan says of him, in his 7. Book Initium spernendi Imperium natum in Abria, adversus Banchonem ejus Regionis Thanum, hominem acrem, & aequitatis unicum cultorem, cujus in animadveriendo severitatem, cum non perferendam ducerent mali, conspiration adversus cum factâ, bonis direptis, vulneratum ac semivivum expulerunt. Or if the Insurrections and Commotions, raised mostly upon that same account, as well against his Grandfather, before he was made Summus Oeconomus, as against himself, before he came to be Magnus Senescallus, be not wholly, as yet forgot: with which, if you take into consideration buchanan's Character of King Duncan, that he was Vir majore erga suos indulgentiâ quam in Rege opus est. And speaking of the stirs set on foot by Angus of Galloway, in the Reign of Malcolm the Maiden, he continues his Discourse, with Qui plus tamen spei in Regis ignavia quam suis viribus collocaret, might not then, from their grounds; our first Magnus Senescallus, upon his being inaugurat and entered in his Office, cause some Herald proclaim, or intimat in his name as follows.  
Ye the Vassals, Rentallers and Subjects of the Scottish Crown, although some of you, and your Predecessors, have, by Rebellions, refused your deuce, and shaken off your Loyalty, and therein also abused Bancho, my Grandfather, and myself: which yet, with dutiful services to our Prince, we did so far overcome, as these outbreakings tended but to your loss, and to the greater advantage and rising of our Family, as this day you see me by the blessing of God, and the favourable bounty of my Royal Master installed the King's Lieutenant, and the Great Steward of the Kingdom. Therefore I exhort you all to Loyalty and obedience, otherwise I will tell you, be you of whatever degree higher or lower, I have here an Unicorns Horn to push the one, and a Thistle to prick the other, and be assured however, that your Rebellions will but prove to you bitter as Rue in the end, and never offer to presume upon the good nature of my King, to whose honour and interest I will be still so faithful, as you must understand Nemo me impune lacessit. Yea, such fortunate experience have I of the Divine assistance, that blest Bancho, my Grandfather and myself, with success against those obstinate Rebels, when we stood but in lower stations, that being now by my Sovereign, advanced to, and fortified in a higher preferment; I shall not despair, but that under his Royal Banner, and the lucky omen of St. Andrew, be able as Generalissimo of the Kingdom, without any vain ostentation to obtrude to all and whosoever the Enemies of my Lord the King, Nemo me impune lacessit, where, whatever shall be wanting of success in the event, shall not fail to be supplied by my hearty prayers, backed, I hope, with no despicable courage. And therefore do I now, take their Symbols, to be constant and lasting monitors, to me and my successors, as well of our faithfulness and duty to our Master, as towards our fellow-Subjects.  
And which Symbols so chosen by the Great Steward, were thereafter, as I have already said, placed by K. Robert the 2. the exterior Ornaments to the Coat Royal (yea, I suppose those Voluminous extrinsic inbellishments and additaments, now in use in the Achievements of free Princes, will neither here, nor scarcely elsewhere, own so old a date as Achaius, or his Grandchild Kenneth.) And so how handsomely does now the Regal Lion in the Crest Royal, sit with his Sword and Sceptre, a Vindicative Judge in defence of the Crown and Kingdom, when supported and encouraged by his son and successor, examplifying to the People their Duty and Loyalty; advertising them, that whatever troubles they procure or create to his Father or Predecessor, he as Prince and Steward of Scotland, stands there from God an avenging Magistrate at hand, with his Nemo me impune lacessit. What needs then you, Sir, me, or any man, trouble ourselves with the too much Legendary tale of S. Andrews, me, in a meaning Future, when the Great- Steward helps us with better sense, History, and reason, from his own me, in a modester Present and Praeterfect sense. And as I believe, the writing Laccesset, will be found upon a true scrutiny to be but some new fancy. So would I gladly know, when the Epigraph first encircled the Image, which leads me to the Order of Knighthood itself. And which, If I may without offence, I would exceedingly doubt of.  
For what a manck and slender Order will it be, consisting only of a single Sovereign without any Fellows. O! but some are confident enough, to speak of the number of the Companions; yet in all ages down from Achaius they name not so much as one person. You know it is betwixt the more knowing and the Vulgar controverted, whether Edward the third, or his Son the Black Prince instituted the Garter. But here is Achaius instituting an order (and if so, the oldest in Europe of a King's institution; for the Pairrie of Charles the Great was a Society of men for Council and Government, and not an Order of Knighthood for Honour & Chivalry:) and yet not so much, as admitting his eldest son Alpine a Fellow, though he it was, who with Hungus beat Athelstane. And sure Kenneth hath had but little respect for his Grandfather's institution, and been as regardless of his Friends, if he bestowed not a little honour on those to whom he gave so much of fortune, by associating his Barus and Fifus into the Order. And must we be so unmannerly, to say, that K. Duncan hath been but a sorry Goodfellow, who could not quaff it over to Bancho, for that his St. Johnstown collation to the Danes. And doubtless Malcolm Canmoir was peevish, who when he indulged so famous a Girth to Mackduff, yet grudged him, a green Ribbon with a Thistle. Or did not the Hay at Lonkartie, the Kieth at Camstane, with the Stewart who defeated Acho at the Largs deserve it. And questionless Robert the Bruce, but undervalved the service of the good Lord Dowglas, when he but dubbed him a Knight, without vouchsafing him the Collar of St. Andrew. And was the Black Knight of Lorn, who by wedding of a Queen, gave Brothers and Sisters to a King, adopted a Companion of the Order. And was not James the Fourth much more sparing of his favours then his person, who would not by alluring the Nobles into the Society of the Thistle, better encourage and detain them in that his too forward invasion at Floudown. And can you judge but James the 5. himself, would have lent Oliver Sinclare, his Nemo me impune lacesset, were it but to have stated him in competition with the Maxwel at Solvay-Moss: And what Inamorato will say, that Marie should have denied her Darling Darnlie the Communication of the Order (whereof she was equally Sovereign as her Sister Elizabeth of the Garter) when she designed to honour the Duke of Rothsay, with the Nuptial bed of a free born and Independent Queen; yea, would not her learned Son, amongst the rest of his Unions have interchanged some English Noblemen to the Thistle, as he did Scots to the Garter. But when did our Kings quit this so Ancient and honourable an Order? Why do not the Champions of it give the account, as in other Orders we read and find. Sure it was derelinquist in no Century, for want of Martial and deserving men: but belike it went out, because it never came in, and it is but Childish to think, that there cannot be an ancient Crown without a formal Order of Knighthood appendent to it, where the Argument runs stonger on the contrary side. And I am apt to believe, that this very mistake prevails with some, for their so tenacious maintaining of this so alleged antiquitated Order, which looks to me too like a French translation, to be believed a Scots Original. For there's a St. Michael; here a St. Andrew, and an Apparition for both, the one to a Father, Charles, the other to a Son Alpin; both in, or near Battles, near also to Bridges and Rivers, the one against the English, at the Bridge of Orleans in La Beauss upon the Loire; the other against the English too, near a Bridge upon Tine in Lothian: both, for aught I know, in a green Ribbon, but to be sure, with intervoven Colours and lofty Mottoes, Immensi tremor Oceani, which, beyond all peradventure Nemo me impune lacesset: the Seat of the one at St. Michael's Mount in Normandy, from which the French partly had, and fully resolved to turn out the English Normans. The other at the Town of St. Andrews in Otholinia (now Fife) out of which by a strong Divination Achaius foresaw, that his Grandchild, would drive the Picts, only we want a St. Andrew-Herauld, when they had a Mount St. Michael, to attend upon the Order. Is it then any Heretical, disrespective, or disloyal conjecture to conceive that Kenneth the 2. made not other use of the Military Ensign of the Picts, then to repeat the same for his own, as victoriously gained by him in open Battle, ornamented thereafter as I have expressed by the Great Steward, for the Badge of his Charge (as in some comparison, we yet see the Chamberlain wear the Golden Key on a blue Ribbon,) augmenting the Royal achievement, by the direction of Robert the 2. and intended for an Order by James the 5. after his return from France, who having had the Garter from his Uncle the Cockle, from his Father-in-law, and the Fleece from his friend and Ally, the Emperor Blushed: belike, to want an order of his own; which, that it might not derogat from the antiquity of his Kingdom, was it not as easy for him to hire Monks to screw it up to Achaius, as for Edward Langshanks to cause contrive to Fable of Brutus, for clatching up a claim, before the Pope to Scotland. And if this Order was established before the days of K. James the 5. Why cite they not an authentic and creditable Author, who wrote before him, giving some rational account of the same? And why is he our only King, whose shoulders appear surrounded with the Ribbon? Was the Collar of St. Andrew inconsistent with the penitential Girdle of his Father? but what should have impeded his other Predecessors to use it, or if he perfected the Order, who were his Companions? it is not so long since, but some of them might be remembered. And why did his Daughter and Grandchild, lay this his (so much hugged) Order, so soon aside? I shall little doubt, but here you might from the suggestions of some, allege, I have run myself in a gross (if not dangerous) Praemunire. But I writ to one who knows the difference betwixt Badges and Arms. Far be it from me, to rob the Royal Achievement of that its honourable (though extrinsic) Badge of St. Andrew, pendulous to the Collar, which I never see, but it equally minds me of the Destruction of the Picts, gallant Resolution of the Great Steward, and reverential Duty of our Robert the 2. to the memory of His Father's Family. And beyond peradventure, had James the 6. or any of the Charles, looked upon this as the Badge of an Order, they would have worn it, at least when they were in Scotland. And to allege the French and English Writers gives it so, is but to gratify their mistakes, to the prejudice of our true and more martial antiquities; for our Kings never wanted power to confer Knighthood, but as they did it most in Procinctu, to the deserving so did they little value those prescribed Orders, that crept but in upon designs inlater times, the Knights of our Ancient Kings being truly Milites, though of no formal Order, beyond that of merit.  
But me fears, I have provoked your patience to be a little out of Order, to the hazard of losing my solitary Walter and Allane.  
To prove then my Second Walter; I first instance Skeen, in that his Table of the Kings, from Malcolm the second, printed with the Acts of Parliament, (and which I also repeat, for proving him the first Great Steward) where to be sure that we do not mistake the Malcolm, by misfiguring 4. for 3. he adds the word the Maiden, for he Prints expressly, Walter made Great Steward of Scotland, by Malcolm 4. the Maiden. And Skeen being Clerk Register, he hath been doubtless from the Records of the Kingdom sufficiently instructed for his so writing him the first Great Steward. And though he mistook the sending of his son Allan to the Holy Wars, if he means these of Godfrey de Boulogne, yet is he abundantly fortified in his Walter, by Fordon in the 25. chap. of his 8. Book, saying, Walterus filius Allani Dapifer Regis, qui Pasletum fundavit; obiit, Anno 1177. And if Walter the son of Fleance, who was more than twenty years old, ere he came to Scotland to his Cousin Malcolm Canmoir, lived to this time, expressed by Fordon, as he was Senescallus, so should I well allow him to be Magnus for his Age, since upon the most Sober computation that can be, he behoved to exceed an hundred years at least: For himself being twenty before he frequented the Court of his Grandfather in Wales, and which was before he came unmarried to Scotland, what years will you allow to his son at Antioch, 1099. who being the eldest, probably left also a son behind him when he departed the Kingdom. But Oh, this Welter's father is Allan, not Fleance, and but yet Dapiser to Fordon, whose Grandfather then could not have been the first Magnus Senescallus Scotiae. Moreover, this my second Walter is further astructed by a Charter, which I have seen granted by Malcolm 4. confirming the Church of Falkirk, and certain Lands thereunto belonging, to the Abbacy of Haly-rude-house, bearing Date at the Maiden Castle, where the witness, next after the Bishops and Earls, is Waltero filio Allani. And this Charter which must be before the year 1165. and after the year 1153. (for in the one did Malcolm the Maiden succeed, and in the other did he die) does unanswerably make out from their own concessions another Walter than he of Dundonald. For the Father of this Walter is expressly in the Charter named Allan. Will you then say, Walter of Dundonald, who lived till the year 1241, would be insert as a probative witness to a deed of Malcolm the 4. (when the witnesses engrossed in the Charters of our Kings, were, and yet are men of years and offices) seeing they interpose Alexander who builded Pasley, to be his Father: whose father, yet notwithstanding, was even our second Allan, of whom Fordon in the 56 chap. of his 9 Book, says, obiit Walterus filius Allani junioris, Anno Dom. 1241. And justly was he Junior, because Allan the Grandchild to Fleance was Senior. And most truly might Fordon write him Father to Walter of Dundonald, seeing I have seen him in a Charter from King Alexander the 2. to the House of Sutherland, Dated at St. Andrews, 26. of Decemb. the 22. year of his Reign, which answers to the year of Christ, 1234. or 1235. insert a witness next after Patrick Earl of Dumbar, in these words, Waltero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae. And in another Charter yet in my hands, granted by the said King Alexander the 2. at Traquair, the first day of June, in the twenty first year of his Reign; confirming to the Abbacy of Cowper, two Carrucats and a half of Land measured in Feodo de magno Blair in Excambion for the Common Muir of Blair, per easdem divisas says the Charter, per quas Walterus filius Allani Senescallus noster Scotiae, & alii probi homines nostri dictam terram iis ex parte nostra assignaverunt & tradiderunt. Now choose you whether this Walterus filius Allani, engrossed in the bosom of the Charter, in the Nominative Case, be the son of the first or the second Allan. I do not much regard it, though it may be more probable, he was the Son of the first Allan, and my second Walter; because this King's Uncle, who builded the abbacy of Cowper, might have employed his Cousin the Steward, to divide these Lands to the Monks. And that he hath not the office of Justiciary, which is here given to one of the Witnesses, who are William Bishop of Glasgow the Chancellor, Clement Bishop of Dumblain; Patrick Earl of Dumbar, and then follows, as in the Earl of Sutherlands Charter Waltero filio Allani Senescallo justitiario Scotiae. So be the Witness and Person engrossed here, one and the same, or distinct, importeth nothing, seeing Fordon and my three Charters still prove Allan a father of a Walter, and Walter the son of an Allan, and that in distinct times and Generations.  
And thus you see, Sir, how I have cleared my second Walter, and my second Allan, the leaving out of whom, has flowed (I suppose) from a defect in the first concoction, in not exactly observing the Welter's and the alan, which because they could not well clear, they have choosed rather, first to lay these two aside, that they might thereafter be altogether left out. And how strangely does Skeen abuse his first Walter: For if his Allan was with Godfrey of Boulogne, surely he could not be the Son of his own first Walter. For how can it be supposed, that the son of a man contemporary but with Malcolm the Maiden (who came not to the Crown, till the year 1153) could be of vigour and valour, to undertake so long, tedious, and dangerous a Voyage, to go and fight against the Infidels in Jurie-land, Anno 1099. for of what age can you suppose him to have been when he went away, and of what a vigorous constitution behoved his Father to be (if he was the Son of Fleance) who was thought fit to be entrusted with such a Military Charge, as to be made in his Office of Magnus Senescallus, the King's Lieutenant and Captain General of all the Forces in the Kingdom, by Malcolm the Maiden. And the same mistake so pinches another how handsomely to conjoin Alexander the First, with Allan the Frist, that he makes Alexander to have been begotten the very year his father was at the Siege of Antioch, and counts (as if at Cards) a just hundred, and all made; making him with a French Fortaage to die in the year, 1199. Whereas this my second Walter, and second Allan (so clearly proven as aforesaid) salves all these Phoenomena from so many idle contradictions and moral impossibilities. And if any man shall here cavil and say, that I cite Fordon wrong, when I make him allege a Walter was the founder of Paisley when it is known it was Alexander, I answer, that Fordon in the Liberary of Edinburgh will attest me just to him in the Citation. And for Fordons Vindication, know, that my second Walter witnessed as much true piety at home, as did his wandering Father of blind Zeal abroad, when upon his being advanced to the Office of Great Steward of Scotland, he erected (if not primarily founded) Paisley in a Collegiate Church, considerably doting the same, which the Devotion of his Son Alexander extended, and enlarged to an abbacy. And in a Book yet extant in Pasley commonly called the Register (not the Black Book) of Pasley, The first Benefactor next to the Founder of the abbacy, stands enrolled, Allan; which Allan, cannot be thought the first Allan, Grandfather to the Founder, but must be the Second Allan, Son to Alexander, and Father to Walter the third, commonly called of Dundonald.  
As for the other Persons in the Descent, they are all clear by the Histories of the Kingdom, and the Writes of the House of Lennox, fully down to our own Memory and Times.  
And now from the Premises, I suppose I have proven my Position, even His Majesty's Descent, in a true Line Male from Father to Son, (in Princes or true Princely Cadets) from the Loins of the first Ethodius, for fifteen hundred years, and that by as strong Proofs, as the nature of the Subject allows, or in such cases are required: For the Descent of the House of Lennox (of which was His Majesty's great Grandfather, on the Father side) is uncontroverted from Walter of Dundonald, as Walter of Dundonald is known (whatever be the persons) from Bancho; and to men that are not prejudicated, and who are free to allow Kings to be Gentlemen, I need to say no more than what is , for Bancho from K. Ethus, and our Historians are my Vouchers for Ethus from Ethodius; and when any Genealogy of equal Antiquity shall be better Documented (saving still such as are in the Sacred page) then let not this be believed: But I fancy, some will rashly and with confidence enough, say, what will I do with Queen Mary? Nay, may even her soul praise God, and her bones rest in peace with those of Marjory Bruce, the Daughter of Allan of Galloway, David of Huntingtoun, and K. Malcolm the second. I have not been so idle, as to aver, that in this Descent Male, all his Majesty's Progenitors were Kings, satisfying myself, that they were either Kings or true Princely, and undoubted Cadets from the Stock Royal. Although I have honoured myself, to deduce in the Tree aftermentioned, all the Kings from Marjory Bruce to Queen Mary, parallel to those of the House of Lennox, that it may appear, it may be more justly said of His Majesty, then of the Roman — Deus est in utroque Parent.  
But when I designed a Letter, lo it swells to a Book. And trust me, the Singularities in His Majesty's Line, might challange a Volume; in its Antiquity (whether you view His Scotish, British, or Irish Extract) preferable to any now extant in the Universe, unless they go higher than Fergus, Cassibilane, or Gathelus, a Line singularly blest, to show to the World the first two Christian Kings, with the first Christian Emperor: Fortunate even in its losses; for when the strait Line was broke off, to make way to Collaterals, even such lopped Branches Ornamented the Stock with better names then those of Sons and Daughters. Witness that Great Light, Levir Maure, or the British Lucius, with our first Donald and Constantine the Great, a Briton by his Mother Helena, Daughter to King Coilus. To which we may add the Gallantry of Arthur, which listed him one of the nine Worthies of the World: The Devotion of Cadwallader, with the Chastity of our Maiden King. And (to take in both Sexes) their Virgin Queen, a Line, which next to that of Judah's, stands the liveliest Commentary I know, upon solomon's, Per me Reges regnant; a Line, whose Crowns from Gathelus down, are all but acquests in the right of Succession, by the common road of Justice and Equity. For whether Gathelus entered into Possessionem vacuam, or compacted with the Natives, when he first came to Ireland, Quis rem tam veterem pro certo affirmet? But sure his authority was from Heaven. For what Fanatic can have a forehead to refuse, that the Spirit of God assisted the Penman of, 
nI faLLat fatuM sCotI qVoCVnque LoCatVM  
InVenIent LapIDeM regnare tenentVr IbIDeM.   
Where the four Ms, the two D's, three Cs, four Ls, six visible V's, with the seven I's, by a strange numerical Prophecy, holds to the Year of the World, 5537. in which was born K. James the sixth, who found the fatal Chair at Westminster before him. Fergus was called in by his Kinsmen the Scots, and by them of their own consent, lawfully constitute their King. Kenneth the Second did but recover the Possession of the Pictish Kingdom, due to him in right of his Grandmother Ferguisiana, Sister to Hungus King of the Picts, after the death of her Nephews Dorstolorgus and Ethanus: from which Crown, Kenneth and his Father Alpin, were debarred by Usurpers of the people's Election. So that Kenneths attaining the Crown of the Picts, was not a Conquest, but a severe example of God's just indignation against Rebels, in secluding the righteous Heir from his Inheritance, the Picts after that, never regaining the face or name of a People, Nation, or Kingdom. And the Monarchy of England was no gift of Queen Elizabeth's to King James, because a Protestant; but his due Inheritance from K. Henry the seventh, by his eldest Daughter, neither were the Queen's words, James of Scots the Protestant, but James of Scots my Cousin. It is true, happy was the Conjunction in that blessed Peacemaker, whom Heaven it seems had preordain d to be Vnionum Vnio, a Pearl of price amongst the other Gems. But woe be to Princes, if Religion, nay rather the Forms, Modes, Sects, conceited Opinions, nicknamed Principles, and parties of assumed Designations, from either the dismembered parts, hems, or Fringes thereof (which in their dregs of Time, are atomed beyond Arithmetic) come once to be the only Standart of their Sceptres. But blessed be God, Crowns of the Lords anointing do not so easily totter; consider that strange Eteostick for His Majesty's Birth; eCCe VeL angLorVM aC haCtenVs VLLVs oVat. 1630.  
As strangely answered by the Minted, Hactenus Anglorum Nullus, which equally befooled the Devils, Nullus in his vir puer alecto, etc. And Olivers more hellish Nollus, most strangely suffering an Eclipse and direful Synalaepha, more sadly Historical then Grammatically Prosodiacal, before the English can scan the Ovat of the Restauration.  
And if it were lawful for the Subjects of Charles to vote their King by pole, would not the Scots do injustice to themselves, should they prefer any to one lawfully descended from their own First Fergus, when they have here Lochaber imped in the House of Galloway, by the last Great Steward, and Marjory Bruce; And this from David of Huntingtoun, Engraft in the Stock by King David the First; that by Bancho, and his Progenitors from K. Ethus. And if there be yet any of the Pictish Blood remaining, would they refuse a Prince from the Loins of their own King Hungus-Father; or if there be beyond Tweed, who delight in variety (and sickly Stomach's, nauseat a constant Diet) let them here pick and choose, which of the Roses smelleth sweetest, since our James the fifth, by his Mother, can furnish them with either. Will they have the Normans, from France, or from Flanders; before, or after the Conquest; Then our James the first gives the one by a Daughter of Somerset, from John of Ghaunt, Son to Edward the third; and our Kenneth the third, by the Daughter of William Longespee, does (without a stain) supply them with the other: Would they have the outlawed Edward restored; our Malcolme Canmoir in his St. Margaret, hath done it to their hand. Wish they the Danes, our James the fourth by his Mother may please them. Which of the Heptarchies desire they? Egbert the Great can direct them. And what Welshman will refuse the Offspring of Cadwallader, be he North or South, Hursell will be pleased when Hur hears, it is by the Wife of Fleance, but the Progeny of Griffith ap Lewelin ap Sitsylth, Prince of Guinedh, and the Lady Angharad, Daughter to Meredith ap Owen, Prince of Deheubarth. And both the Grandfathers from Roderick Mawre (without a doubt) descended of Cadwallader. Or what will they have? the Native Britons; Whether from the Greater Britain, or the Lesser Bretagne? And whether before, or after Lucius Legacy to the Romans? even to the Ancestors of the Founder of their beloved Trino hantin-Caerlud. Cadwallader then from Constantine, the Son of Aldroenus King of Armorica in France does for me sufficiently the one, and their own Geoffrie of Monmouth spares me the labour to do for them the other. Or if yet any wild Irish, dare offer to disown the juster and nobler Sceptre of Gathelus, Simon Breck, and Ferquard the Father of our Fergus, it will be easy to Harp them a spring upon the harsher Title of Conquest. Yea, is not our Sacred Sovereign a King, who by his Predecessors, through the Mother of the third English Edward from the fourth Philip of France, hath (as the nearest Heir) by the Law of Nations and Nature, a fairer pretence to the Lilies, than could in justice the Posterior and more unequitable Salic constitution, give either to the House of Valois or Bourbon.  
Yes, a Line Sir, wherein the Prince Regnant for the time, may with greater justice than any Potentate under the great beaming Luminary, without compliment, name his Vassals his Cousins. For let the Baronages of his Treeple Crowned Kingdoms be but impartially surveyed; And if they be of any standing, the greatest Nobility they can glory in, will be found soon or sine, derived to them, by some blood-rillet or other, from this very same Royal Fountain. So that the Peerage (not to say how dim those Stars hang in the Firmament of the State, during the least Eclipse of the Monarchical Sun, as was by a total, both lately and sadly experimented) So that the Peerage, I say of Britain and Ireland, are not faithful to their own honour, if they do not here (even without Oaths of Allegiance) acknowledge they own their Native Prince all Homage and Loyalty, since most of them leave to say, that they are Flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone.  
And yet I know not how it comes to pass, that this very Line seems to have equally entailed upon it the Fate and Blessing of Joseph. For the Archers have shot at it; yea, verily the Archers have shot, and grieved it sorely, yea, hated it too; but blessed be the God of Jacob, its Bow yet abideth in its strength; And by the hands of the Almighty, hath it become a fruitful Bough, whose Branches have run over the Crystal Walls of Albion. Is it not then the duty, as well as honour, of all in this British World, to pray that there may never want one from this Stock, 
— Dum Saecula Mundus  
Volvet, qui Patrij Scepiri moderamen habebit.    

AND now, Sir, I have wearied You; but because Finis would contradict the Verse, Let me tell you, I have caused deliveat a Genealogical Tree of this His Majesty's Descent from Ethodius, (though at first indeed intended only from Achaius) which, you, Sir, or any, may, upon a small expense, have either in Tallyduce, or Illuminat from George Porteou, or Mr. John Shambothy. And because you know, & amant alterna Camaenae, suffer me to close with a few fancies I wrote for the handsome adorning of the Tree; Where, should you meet with a critical Word, or bold Construction, any crytical Phrase, or antic Line, you will easily, I hope, excuse it to the antiquity of times, personated speakers, and straitness of the Composure. And seeing, such is your perfect knowledge in the minutest and darkest Passages of our Histories, any Explanation would but look like him, who painting an Elephant, was sure to note down the Word, lest the Creature should have been mistaken for a Pig. Some of the Lines, if Communicate, may, belike, chance to rouse and awaken the memories of such as Read our Histories; and to such as care not for them, any Exposition it but needless; to the more knowing Nauseous, and to the Ignorant Superfluous  they are made to the meanest Capacity Intelligible in that account, on the sinister side of the Tree, where, if any desire to have it, they may find, corresponding to the lines on the Dexter.  

Ethodius lying at the root, thus divining, and to the second Fergus whispering.  
Post Ferquardiaden Regem, Rex ordine Quintus  
Quinqueis enumerans, facta notandacano.  
Ah Druids, Druids! veniet modo Purior Ara,  
Auguror, et Scotis singula fausta dabit.  
Ponè Mares novies quinos, ter quinaque Saecla,  
Haeres Maternum Mas Diadema tenet.  
Ut Pravus Patriis Corbredus primus in oris,  
Romulidas aquilas senserit rapacidas:  
Sic Atnepotis Nepos Nidum  
Ce●ner hol●la●●●um.   

Fergus the second, martially attended with his Gills, both More and Beg, and to Achius relating.  
Cimbria me genuit; Romano Milite duro,  
Expulsis Patriâ, Patre & Evoque meo.  
Sic Gothicis armis vici victricibus, ipsam  
Invictam Romam: Spolia Rara ferens  
Per varios Casus repetens Patriamque Laremque;  
Aufondies per Me sanguine tinxit humum.  
Majorum Solium conscendens Marte secundo:  
Pristina regna, mea condo, reformo mattu.  
Albion at terni Gnatus pronepotis adauget,  
Artibus innocuis, nobiliore modo.   

Achaius sitting in his Robes and glorifying.  
Firmavi Regnum, munivi Insignia Franco  
Foedere, qu Scotis Gallia fida cluat:  
Conjuge sed Pictâ, Prolem foelicius auxi;  
Quâ mea Posteritas Pictica Sceptra geret.   

Answered by Fergusiana.  
Pictica Progeny, Soror Hungi, Sponsa & Achaii,  
Do dotem Scotis, Pictica Regna tuis.   

The Ghost of Alpin telling,  
Dum peto Materno Pictorum sanguine Regnum,  
Alecti, Allecto me truce caede tulit.  
At Patris, & Patriae Kennet●●s Filius ultor;  
In Pictos, Scotos concitat arte nova:  
Participemque facit nostri vel nominis umbram  
Vindictae, manes sic relevando meos.   

Kenneth the second informing.  
Regna negata Patri, foelici Marte subegi,  
Sanguine justa mihi, Sceptra cruore tuli:  
Fatalem & Lapidem Breccus quem portat Ierna●●  
Quem Ferquardiades transtulit Argu●●tam;  
Carmine Fatidico caelatum, sede decorum,  
(Hinc progressurum) colloco jure Sconae.   

Bancho rejoicing.  
Quae mihi Vatidicae cecinerunt Fata Sorores,  
Implebunt natis tempora longa meis.   

Mathildis assuring.  
Scottorum ducens genus alto è sanguine Regum,  
Responsi dicar firmior arrha tui.   

The wife of Fleance encouraging.  
— Me pignore cred●●,  
Pignoribus Sceptrum terra Britanna dabit.   

The Heretrix of Bute pledging.  
Ut mihi does, sic arrha tibi sit parvulâ Bota,  
Quod Regnum natis insula tota manet.   

The daughter of the Bruce foretasting.  
— Reddet mea laeta Propago,  
Vaticinata rata—   

Robert the 2. apprehending.  
Reddita primus Ego, Banchom Gracula vera  
Experior, Soboli caetera vota manent.   

The confidence of K James 1. his Queen.  
Edita Sceptiferis Anglis, confido datures  
Saxonidas, stirpi Sceptra aliquando meae.   

Budding in the nosegay of K. James. 4. his Consort.  
En tibi jungo Rosas, Pronepos Diademata jungot.   

Queen Mary's Ingadgement.  
Foemina quantum vis ego sum, mihi Mascula virtus;  
Atque in Regina Regius est animus.  
Nec dubitent sexum, Mavortia pectora Sceti;  
Regia cum Proles, ecce maritus adest:  
Dic quis enim melius Scotorum Sceptra gubernet,  
Quàm qui de Scotis Regibus ortus erat?   

Discharged by the Lord Darnly.  
Quis thalamum nollet, dederit qui far   

The Spea of the Heir of Cruxtoun, Wife to Robert of Torbourtoun.  
A Cruse designor, j' etant & praedia nomen;  
Praesagit soboli crux mea fausta meae.   

Enlarged by the Oy of the Earl of Lennox, Wife to Allan Lord Darnly, who gives a Saltyre betwixt four Roses.  
Crux mea juncta Rosis, Divinat prospera natis;  
Queis manet addenda & Crux, aliaeque Rosa:  
Quas cum ●●ta dabunt (ni spes mev●d●● fefellit)  
Tanc mea juncta Rosis, Crux ●●ia Regna ●cot.   

Somewhat further cleared by the Wife of E. Matthew, killed at Flowdoun.  
En Comitis dicor Conjux, & Regia Neptis;  
Regia cui Neptis, Pronurus alma venit:  
Abnurus ipsa venit, Regina, & Filia Regis;  
Quot titulis à me Quartus adauctus erit?   

More nearly and closely illustrated by the Wife of the Earl Regent.  
Stat Rosa per Matrem, redolens in utroque parent,  
Quae conjuncta tuis, sex dabit inde Rosas:  
Inque Rosa terna, quae sexta est quae quoque prima  
Sub cruse duplari, pax tria Regna beet.   

All authorized by the Confession of K. James the sixth.  
— de me, praesagia Vates.  
Quot cecinere olim.—   

Secured by the good fortune of His Majesty.  
Sacra Jovi Quercus, Quercusque cacumina Carlo  
Sacra manent, Arbour servit utrique Deo.   

Fortified by the Duke of Albany.  
Solus Ego, nullâ qui interveniente puellâ  
Proximus a latere existo—   

Supported by the Prince of Orange.  
— Ego perque puellas  
Proximus a Socero—   

Strengthened by the Queen of Spain.  
Altar Auus Justus, Martyr laudatur & alter,  
Catholica ex meritis dicar an esse Patrum?   

Propped by the Gloss of the Palatine.  
Imperij Dapifer Romani, duco Stuartam;  
Quip Senescalli munus utrique favet.   

Verdant in the hopes of Lady Ann.  
Po. Regia Virgo, rubens; pro Me, Tu fare Poeta  
Ni fallat votum, Regiae Mater oris.   

mostly thus recapitulate by Achaius to the King.  
Carole de nobis per tot prognate Nepotes,  
Qui regis imperio Regna Britanna tuo.  
Quae tritavi quarti profert, Abavique Atavique,  
Antiquus Genius, paucula ment tene.  
En ego post decies senos, Rex ordine quintus,  
Transmissa a Proavis, Scotica Sceptra ferens:  
In solio Sobolem, stabilivi foedere duplo;  
Contulit hoc Francus, contulit illud Hymen.  
Teutonico Carlo, pepegi quae foedera, Scotis,  
(Dum tantum Scoti) continuata manent.  
Perque faces Thalami, confirmat Sceptra Nepoti,  
Tum Themis, & Mavors, Pictica jure pari.  
Pectore quam laeto, Suscepit verba Sororum  
Lochabrius Bancho, de Trinepote Nepos.  
Cambria quam Scoto bene nupsit, Nesta Fleancho,  
Consignans Soboli Sceptra Britanna meae,  
Ille Senescallus, Bruseâ de Matre Robertus,  
Promissum toties en Diadema capit.  
Ecce Caledonio Tribulo, mage Gallica vilent  
Lilia; Saxonicae quae minus apta Rosae.  
Darnlaeo Agnato, nubens Cognata Maria;  
Fortius en firmat Regna Britanna suis.  
Aspice quàm placidè contendunt Sceptra Beato  
Reddere pacifico, Martia Regna tria.  
Hinc gratus recolens, mi Carl second, Secunda  
Numina, quae solio Te imposuere tuo.  
Forsitan & dices, sunt Numina fausta Stuartae  
Stirpi; quin potius dicito, fausta Meae.  
Nam meus est Dorus, Garethus, Bancho, Mathildis:  
Et mea dicetur tota Stuarta Domus.  
Quid, Mea dicetur? dicetur & ipsa Gatheli  
Progenies: a quo ducimus omne genus.  
Utpote Fergusius Scotorum, natus jerno  
Ferquardo, Nobis sanguinis autor erat,  
Cui fuit in Proavis Gentis pater; ille Gathelus,  
Celtiber, Hesperio littore ductor ovans.  
Regibus his Atavis nulli tu Carle Secundus:  
Quot Fasces Generi Fata dedere tuo.  
Sceptraque sic Sceptris, cumulavit Conditor Orbis,  
Coelitus ut dicas, haec data Regna tibi.   
FINIS.