and preside amongst you, and take care of the affairs of the Church in my capital of Scotland, and diocese thereof, until I be able to determine myself in the choice of a person duly qualified and agreeable to my people, to be settled in a post of such consequence."[1] In another letter the Prince recommends Gillan for consecration: and in another he says: "When there shall be any vacancies in the College of Bishops, or when you shall think proper that others be added to your number, you give into my Trustees a list of such persons as you may think every way qualified for discharging the office of a Bishop in the Church, which my Trustees are to send to me, with their opinion upon it, that thereby I may be the better enabled to give the proper and necessary directions in that respect. And further, it is my will and pleasure, that no Bishop amongst you shall be appointed to have the care and inspection of any particular district, without my previous authority, and that when you think an appointment necessary, that you give me your opinion in writing to my Trustees, to be transmitted to me as above."[2]
Apart from the divisions amongst the Bishops and Clergy, the Nonjuring Church of Scotland was in a flourishing condition for several years previous to the
- ↑ Lockhart, ii. 289.
- ↑ Lockhart, ii. 310, 311. In a little time the Bishops were appointed by the Clergy and Bishops without consulting the Pretender. Thus in 1790, Skinner remarks that the charge of being recommended by the Pretender applied only to the Bishops of a distant period, and not to the present, who had no connexion with him relative to the obtaining or exercising their Episcopal functions. The practice of applying to the exiled family prevailed only during a few years. Skinner's Annals of Scottish Episcopacy, pp. 191, 192.
