The whole noble order was disfranchised; to be noble was equivalent to being shut out from public office.
The priori and other officers were drawn by lot from among the Guelphs over thirty years old who were declared fit for public office by a special board of 98 citizens (1329).
The sympathies of the people, and even, it is said, of the clergy, throughout Scotland, were so unmistakably on the side of the rioters that the original stringency of the bill introduced into parliament for the punishment of the city of Edinburgh had to be reduced to the levying of a fine of 2000 for Porteous's widow, and the disqualification of the provost for holding any public office.
In the House of Lords, however, Monk's testimony and intercession were effectual, and Lenthall was only declared incapable of holding for the future any public office.
With him in France were his grandsons, William Temple Franklin, William Franklin's natural son, who acted as private secretary to his grandfather, and Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769-1798), Sarah's son, whom he sent to Geneva to be educated, for whom he later asked public office of Washington, and who became editor of the Aurora, one of the leading journals in the Republican attacks on Washington.
