everyone concluded that it was a party scuffle, and, the two
parties being so equal in power, the most serious consequences
were anticipated. The agitation was so prevailing that every party
in town, great and small, was broken up; and the lord-
commissioner thought proper to go to the Council Chamber
himself, even at that late hour, accompanied by the sheriffs of
Edinburgh and Linlithgow, with sundry noblemen besides, in
order to learn something of the origin of the affray.

For a long time the court was completely puzzled. Every
gentleman brought in exclaimed against the treatment he had
received, in most bitter terms, blaming a mob set on him and his
friends by the adverse party, and matters looked extremely ill
until at length they began to perceive that they were examining
gentlemen of both parties, and that they had been doing so from
the beginning, almost alternately, so equally had the prisoners
been taken from both parties. Finally, it turned out that a few
gentlemen, two-thirds of whom were strenuous Whigs
themselves, had joined in mauling the whole Whig population of
Edinburgh. The investigation disclosed nothing the effect of
which was not ludicrous; and the Duke of Queensberry, whose
aim was at that time to conciliate the two factions, tried all that he
could to turn the whole fracas into a joke--an unlucky frolic,
where no ill was meant on either side, and which yet had been
productive of a great deal.

The greater part of the people went home satisfied; but not so
the Rev. Robert Wringhim. He did all that he could to inflame
both judges and populace against the young Cavaliers, especially
against the young Laird of Dalcastle, whom he represented as an