"[70]
But these jealous fellows were not to have it all their own way. In the
autumn of the same year Claverhouse was summoned to London with
Balcarres to be heard on a complaint he had in his turn to make against
Queensberry. Early in the spring he had been peremptorily ordered to
discharge a bond he had given to the Treasury for fines due from
delinquents in Galloway. He answered that his brother (then
Deputy-Sheriff of that shire) was collecting the fines, and requested
more time for payment. On being told that he might take five or six
days, he replied that, considering the difficulty of collection and the
distances to be travelled, they might as well give him none. "Then,"
answered Queensberry, "you shall have none."[71] Claverhouse had many
times applied for leave to be heard in his own defence; but Murray had
hitherto persuaded the King to answer that no audience could be granted
to him until he had made his peace with the Treasurer and been restored
to his seat at the Council. But the name of Queensberry was not now the
power it had been at Whitehall. It is difficult to believe that he was
much more concerned with religion than Lauderdale; but he was, at any
rate by profession, a staunch Protestant, and there were those among
his colleagues ready to take every advantage of this passport to James's
disfavour.
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