[1702/6/46]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
A letter from her majesty to the parliament read and ordered to be printed, whereof the tenor follows:
Signed above thus: Anne Regina
My lords and gentlemen,
Being informed that at your first meeting, by virtue and warrant of the seventeenth act of the sixth session of this current parliament and of our proclamation of adjournment agreeable thereto, several members of parliament, after prayers said and declining to wait the reading of our commission granted to James [Douglas], duke of Queensberry representing our royal person in this meeting of parliament, did presume to declare openly that they did not conceive themselves warranted to meet and act in this present session of parliament, and therefore dissented from anything that should be done or acted therein, and thereupon did take instruments and withdrew and removed from their attendance; we have thought fit to signify to you our just resentment of this irregular and unusual proceeding and our resolution to own and maintain this present session of parliament and the dignity and authority of the same and of our high commissioner thereto against all opposers. And this we thought fit to declare for your better encouragement that you may proceed vigorously in your work for the defence of the true Protestant religion, the maintaining of the succession to the crown, and for the preserving and securing of the peace and safety of the kingdom. And so we bid you heartily farewell. Given at our court at St James's, 17 June 1702 and of our reign the first year.
By her majesty's command, signed thus: Robert Pringle.
Directed thus: to the noblemen and to the barons commissioners for shires and to the commissioners for burghs assembled in parliament in our ancient kingdom of Scotland.