Immediately after the king's accession, a parliament had been summoned at Edinburgh; and all affairs were there conducted by the duke of Queensberry the commissioner, and the earl of Perth chancellor.

The former had resolved to make an entire surrender of the liberties of his country; but was determined still to adhere to its religion: the latter entertained no scruple of paying court even by the sacrifice of both.

But no courtier, even the most prostitute, could go further than the parliament itself towards a resignation of their liberties.

In a vote, which they called an offer of duty, after adopting the fabulous history of a hundred and eleven Scottish monarchs, they acknowledged, that all these princes, by the primary and fundamental law of the state, had been vested with a solid and absolute authority.

They declared their abhorrence of all principles and positions derogatory to the king's sacred, supreme, sovereign, absolute power, of which none, they said, whether single persons or collective bodies, can participate, but in dependence on him, and by commission from him.