in place of Mackenzie, who was dismissed from office for refusing to relax the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. The Master only held office as Lord Advocate for a year, when he was "degraded to be Justice Clerk" the king and his advisers finding him not a fit tool for their purpose. Stair remained in Holland till the following year, when he returned under (from the Protestant viewpoint) happier auspices in the suite of William of Orange. William, who had made his acquaintance through Fagel, Grand Pensionary of the States of Holland, was ever afterwards the firm friend of Stair and his family. The Master was made Lord Advocate, and, on the murder of Lockhart of Carnwath in the following year, Stair was again placed at the head of the Court of Session. An unscrupulous opposition, headed by Montgomery of Skelmorlie who coveted the office of Secretary for Scotland, and Lord Ross, who aimed at the presidency of the court, sprang up in the Scottish parliament, and an anonymous pamphleteer, perhaps Montgomery himself or Ferguson the Plotter, attacked Stair in a pamphlet entitled The Late Proceedings of the Parliament of Scotland Stated and Vindicated. He defended himself by publishing an Apology, which, in the opinion of impartial judges, was a complete vindication. Shortly after its issue he was created Viscount Stair (1690). He had now reached the summit of his prosperity, and the few years which remained of his old age were saddened by private and public cares. In 1692 he lost his wife, the faithful partner of his good and evil fortune for nearly fifty years. The massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe (13 February 1692), which has marked his son, the Master of Stair, with a stain which his great services to the state cannot efface—for he was undoubtedly the principal adviser of William in that treacherous and cruel deed, as a signal way of repressing rebellion in the Highlands—was used as an opportunity by his adversaries of renewing their attack on the old president. His own share in the crime was remote. It was alleged that he had as a privy councillor declined to receive Glencoe's oath of allegiance, though tendered, on the technical ground that it was given after the day fixed, but even this was not clearly proved. But some share of the odium which attached to his son was naturally reflected on him.