The house of lords having received intimation of this conspiracy, resolved, that a committee should be appointed to examine into the particulars; and ordered that sir John Maclean should be next day brought to their house.
The queen, who was far from being pleased with this instance of their officious interposition, gave them to understand by message, that she thought it would be inconvenient to change the method of examination already begun; and that she would in a short time inform the house of the whole affair.

On the seventeenth day of December the queen went to the house of peers, and having passed the bill for the land-tax, made a speech to both houses, in which she declared that she had unquestionable information of ill practices and designs carried on by the emissaries of France in Scotland.

The lords persisting in their resolution to bring the inquiry into their own house, chose their select committee by ballot; and, in an address, thanked her majesty for the information she had been pleased to communicate.
{ANNE, 1701--1714} A REMONSTRANCE PRESENTED TO THE QUEEN.
The commons, taking it for granted that the queen was disobliged at these proceedings of the upper house--which indeed implied an insult upon her ministry, if not upon herself--presented an address, declaring themselves surprised to find that when persons suspected of treasonable practices were taken into custody by her majesty's messengers in order to be examined, the lords, in violation to the known laws of the land, had wrested them out of her hands, and arrogated the examination solely to themselves; so that a due inquiry into the evil practices and designs against her majesty's person and government, might in a great measure be obstructed.

They earnestly desired that she would suffer no diminution of the prerogative; and they assured her they would, to the utmost of their power, support her in the exercise of it at home, as well as in asserting it against all invasions whatsoever.

The queen thanked them for their concern and assurances; and was not ill pleased at the nature of the address, though the charge against the peers was not strictly true; for there were many instances of their having assumed such a right of inquiry.