Title: The Early History of the Scottish Union Question - Bi-Centenary Edition
Author: Omond, George W. T. (George William Thomson), 1846-1929
Language: English
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_The Early History of the Scottish Union Question_



SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION.


“With considerable literary skill he has compressed into a brief compass
a most readable and impartial account of the efforts which from the time
of Edward I. went on to weld the two countries into one.”--_Edinburgh
Evening News._

“Mr. Omond tells his story brightly and with full
knowledge.”--_Manchester Guardian._

“A genuine contribution to British history.”--_Dumfries Courier._

“There is much to interest and inform in this volume.”--_Liverpool
Mercury._

“The conciseness of the sketch, instead of detracting from the worth of
the work, rather enables the author to give a more vivid description of
the course and progress of events.”--_Dundee Advertiser._

“Mr. Omond has laid students of British history under a debt of
gratitude to him for his work on the Scottish Union question.”--_Leeds
Mercury._

“Mr. Omond is at home in the struggles which led up to the act of Union
in 1707.”--_British Weekly._

“His book, modest and unpretentious as it is, is a careful contribution
to the study of one of the most important features of the history of the
two kingdoms, since 1707 united as Great Britain.”--_Liverpool Daily
Post._

“A handy summary of the history of such international relations, written
with an orderly method and much clearness and good sense.”--_The
Academy._

“A handy, well-written volume.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._

“A very interesting, as well as very instructive book.”--_Literary
World._


[Illustration: JOHN HAMILTON, LORD BELHAVEN.]



    _The Early History
    of the
    Scottish Union Question_

    _By
    G. W. T. Omond_

    _Author of
    “Fletcher of Saltoun” in the “Famous Scots” Series_

    _Bi-Centenary Edition_

    _Edinburgh & London
    Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier
    1906_



    _Now Complete in 42 Volumes_

    _The Famous Scots Series_

    _Post 8vo, Art Canvas, 1s. 6d. net; and with gilt top and uncut
    edges, price 2s. net_


    THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON.
    ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.
    HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK.
    JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES.
    ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN.
    THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE.
    RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS.
    SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON.
    THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE.
    JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK.
    TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.
    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND.
    THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.
    NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD.
    SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY.
    KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ.
    ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART.
    JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE.
    MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN.
    DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD.
    WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.
    SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON.
    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK.
    THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER.
    POLLOK AND AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON.
    ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON.
    ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORISON.
    JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. HALDANE.
    KING ROBERT THE BRUCE. By A. F. MURISON.
    JAMES HOGG. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.
    THOMAS CAMPBELL. By J. CUTHBERT HADDEN.
    GEORGE BUCHANAN. By ROBERT WALLACE. Completed by
            J. CAMPBELL SMITH.
    SIR DAVID WILKIE, AND THE SCOTS SCHOOL OF PAINTERS. By
            EDWARD PINNINGTON.
    THE ERSKINES, EBENEZER AND RALPH. By A. R. MACEWEN.
    THOMAS GUTHRIE. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.
    DAVID LIVINGSTONE. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN.
    THE ACADEMIC GREGORIES. By AGNES GRAINGER-STEWART.
    JOHNSTON OF WARRISTON. By WILLIAM MORISON.
    HENRY DRUMMOND. By JAMES Y. SIMPSON.
    PRINCIPAL CAIRNS. By JOHN CAIRNS.
    VISCOUNT DUNDEE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ.
    JAMES WATT. By ANDREW CARNEGIE.



_Preface_


The history of the final union of England and Scotland, which took place
on the 1st of May 1707, commences with the accession of Queen Anne; and
with regard to that event, the best sources of information, apart from
original letters, diaries, and other contemporary documents, are Daniel
Defoe’s _History of the Union_, published in 1709, Dr. Hill Burton’s
_History of Scotland_, Mr. John Bruce’s _Report on the Events and
Circumstances which produced the Union_, published, for the use of
Government, in 1799, and Dr. James Mackinnon’s _Union of England and
Scotland_, published in 1896. In this volume I have endeavoured to
describe the _earlier_ attempts to unite the kingdoms. These commence,
practically, in the reign of Edward I. of England, and continue, taking
sometimes one form and sometimes another, down to the reign of William
III.

While giving an account of the various negotiations for union, and of
the union which was actually accomplished during the Commonwealth, I
have tried to depict the state of feeling between the two countries on
various points, and particularly in regard to the Church question, which
bulks more largely than any other in the international history of
England and Scotland.

It is a story, sometimes of mutual confidence and common aspirations, as
at the Reformation and the Revolution, but more frequently of
jealousies, recriminations, and misunderstandings, most of which are now
happily removed.

My authorities are sufficiently indicated in the footnotes.

                                                         G. W. T. O.



_Contents_


    CHAP.                                                        PAGE

      I. INTERNATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE UNION OF THE CROWNS      9

     II. THE UNION OF THE CROWNS                                   52

    III. THE UNION DURING THE COMMONWEALTH                         96

     IV. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION                   122

      V. THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT                                147



_The Early History of the Scottish Union Question_



CHAPTER I

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE UNION OF THE CROWNS


The races which inhabited the northern parts of England and the southern
parts of Scotland were descended from a common stock, and spoke a common
language. But for centuries the problem of uniting them baffled the
best-laid plans of kings and statesmen; and neither force, nor policy,
nor treaties of marriage between the royal families, seemed capable of
destroying the inveterate rancour which the peoples felt towards each
other. The petition in response to which the papal sanction was given to
the intended marriage of Prince Edward to the Maid of Norway, pointed
out the wisdom of removing, or at least mitigating, the enmity of the
two nations; and it was the avowed policy of Edward the First to
combine the marriage of his son to the young Queen of Scotland with a
peaceful union of the kingdoms. The clergy, the nobles, and the people
of Scotland agreed to the proposed alliance, and were willing that their
queen should be educated at the English Court. The marriage-contract was
prepared; and the prospects of a lasting peace were bright, when the
death of the young princess on her journey from Norway suddenly changed
the whole course of events.

The competition for the Scottish Crown; the arbitration of Edward; his
claim to the title of Lord Superior; the invasion of Scotland; the
occupation of Scottish strongholds, and of large portions of Scottish
territory, by English garrisons; the homage paid to the English king by
the competitors for the Crown; the spectacle of Englishmen filling many
great offices of State;--all tended to exasperate the Scottish nation.
But Edward never seems to have doubted that he would succeed no matter
at what a cost of blood and treasure in joining the kingdoms. Indeed, it
appears that from the summer of 1291, when the competitors for the
Crown granted him possession of Scotland until his decision should be
made known, he regarded the two countries as practically one. Scotland
is described, in public documents, as “notre ditte terre d’Escose”; and
it was expressly declared that, as England and Scotland were now united,
the king’s writ should run in both realms alike.[1]

During the inglorious reign of Baliol, and throughout the period of
anarchy and turmoil which followed its termination, Edward never lost
sight of his favourite policy of an union, which, though brought about
by conquest, and imposed by force of arms upon the people of Scotland,
would, nevertheless, in course of time, secure for him and his
successors the sovereignty of an undivided kingdom from the English
Channel to the Pentland Firth. In pursuance of his policy he resolved
to hold a Parliament in which Scotland should be represented, and by
which regulations should be framed for the future government of that
country. To this Parliament, which met at Westminster in September 1305,
ten representatives of Scotland were summoned.[2] All of them attended
except Patrick Earl of March; but his place was filled, at the king’s
command, by Sir John Monteith, the betrayer of Wallace, whose execution
had taken place less than a month before.

With the Scotsmen twenty-two English members were conjoined; and to the
Council thus formed there was administered one of the elaborate oaths
which were then supposed to be peculiarly solemn and binding. They were
sworn on our Lord’s Body, the Holy Relics, and the Holy Evangels, to
give good and lawful advice for maintaining the peace of the king’s
dominions, especially in Scotland, and loyally to reveal any hindrances
they knew to good government in Scotland, and how these might be
overcome.

It is difficult to believe that the commissioners from Scotland were
free agents in this Parliament. But it suited the purposes of Edward
that the ordinance which was now to be framed for the future government
of Scotland should be promulgated as the result of deliberations in
which the people of Scotland had a voice. It was for this reason that
the Scotsmen had been summoned to Westminster; but the ordinance left
all real power in the hands of Edward. Sir John de Bretaigne, the king’s
nephew, became Warden of Scotland, with a Chancellor and Controller
under him.[3] Eight justiciars were appointed. Six of them were to
administer law in the lowlands; and the dangerous duty of executing
justice “beyond the mountains” was entrusted to Sir Reynaud le Chien and
Sir John de Vaux of Northumberland. Sheriffs were appointed, most of
whom were Scotsmen; but the castles were left in the hands of English
commanders. The laws of King David of Scotland were to be read at public
meetings in various places, and such of these laws as appeared unjust
were to be amended.[4]

About this time Edward writes to the Sheriff of York, giving orders that
nobles, prelates, and other people of Scotland journeying to and from
England, were, in future, to be courteously treated, and that anyone who
used threats or bad language to them, or who refused to sell them food,
was to be punished. Similar orders regarding the treatment of Scotsmen
in England were sent to the Sheriffs of London, and many of the English
counties. Edward perhaps thought that by this semblance of an union,
founded on conquest and set forth on parchment, his long-cherished
schemes were at last accomplished. But his plans had hardly been
completed, when he found himself confronted by that combination of the
Scottish people which, during the reign of his son, triumphed under the
leadership of Robert Bruce, and finally secured the complete
independence of Scotland on the field of Bannockburn.

The marriage of the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh, to
James the Fourth of Scotland, stanched for a time--but only for a
time--the torrent of blood which was shed in the wars which raged, one
after another, for nearly two hundred years after the death of Bruce.
Another period of warfare followed, during which the disasters of
Flodden Field and Solway Moss left Scotland apparently at the mercy of
England. But when Henry the Eighth attempted to reconcile and unite the
nations by a treaty of marriage between the Prince of Wales and Mary,
the youthful Queen of Scots, the Scottish Estates, while agreeing to his
proposal, declared that, after the marriage, Scotland was to remain a
separate and independent kingdom; and it was soon found that to
propitiate the Scottish nation was a task beyond even the long
experience and the profound diplomatic ability of Sadler. Sadler argued
that England had a young prince, and Scotland had a young princess, and
that if they were betrothed, “these two realms being knit and conjoined
in one, the subjects of the same, which have always been infested with
the wars, might live together in wealth and perpetual peace.” “I pray
you,” said a Scottish statesman in reply, “give me leave to ask you a
question: If your lad were a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you
then be so earnest in this matter? Could you be content that our lad
should marry your lass, and so be King of England?” And when Sadler
answered that he would, the Scotsman shook his head. “I cannot believe,”
he said, “that your nation could agree to have a Scot to be King of
England. And likewise I assure you that our nation, being a stout
nation, will never agree to have an Englishman to be King of Scotland.
And though the whole nobility of the realm would consent to it, yet our
common people, and the stones in the street, would rise and rebel
against it.”

Then, to enforce the treaty of marriage, came the invasion of Scotland,
when Edinburgh was burned to the ground, when the port of Leith and the
picturesque castles of Roslyn and Craigmillar were in flames, when the
abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh were laid in ruins, and when the villages
and farms of the lowlands were devastated by the English soldiery. But
the violence of Henry was in vain; and during his reign the Scottish
people hated England as they had never hated her before.[5]

The project of uniting the kingdoms by a royal marriage was not
abandoned on the death of Henry; and in the first year of Edward the
Sixth, the battle of Pinkie, the last great battle between England and
Scotland, was fought. But the Protector Somerset soon found that the
Scots, though defeated, were as determined as ever to resist the English
connection, and that the Scottish Parliament had at last resolved that
their young queen should be betrothed to the Dauphin, and sent forthwith
to France, to be educated at the French Court. This resolution, so
fateful to Mary Stuart, then a child of only six, altered the views and
policy of Somerset. In the name of the English Council he issued a
remarkable proclamation, in which he proposed that the Crowns should be
united, and that the kingdoms should become one. “We invite you,” it was
said, “to amity and equality, because, as we inhabit in the same island,
there is no people so like one another in manners, customs, and
language.” There was to be freedom and equality of trade between England
and Scotland. The subjects of both kingdoms were to be allowed to
intermarry. If the Scots wished it, the name of England would be
abolished, and “the indifferent old name of Britains” taken again. “If
we two,” the proclamation declared, “being made one by amity, be most
able to defend us against all nations; and, having the sea for the wall,
mutual love for garrison, and God for defence, should make so noble and
well-agreeing a monarchy, that neither in peace we may be ashamed, nor
in war afraid of any worldly or foreign power; why should not you be as
desirous of the same, and have as much cause to rejoice at it as we?”[6]
But these overtures were too late; the Queen of Scots was sent to
France: and when, two years later, peace was proclaimed, Scotland
remained unconquered and independent.

The treaty of peace declared that the boundaries of the two countries
were to be the same as they had been before the outbreak of war between
Henry the Eighth and James the Fifth of Scotland. An attempt was made to
deal with that portion of waste land upon the western borders which had
been, for so long, a harbour of refuge for the outlaws of both kingdoms,
and which was known as the Debateable Ground.[7] It was to be divided by
march stones; and ditches and enclosures were to be made for the purpose
of hindering the flight of marauders. The English were to relinquish all
lands and houses which they had seized; and those fishings on the river
Tweed which the Scots had possessed before the war were to be given back
to them.[8]

Never in the history of this island, except afterwards during the reign
of Anne, was the Scottish question so troublesome to England as during
the second half of the sixteenth century. The immense additions which,
of late years, have been made to our sources of information have not
changed, to any great extent, the aspect of the long familiar picture,
nor caused us to relinquish the old opinions regarding the characters
and motives of those who held in their hands the tangled threads of
international policy during the fifty years which preceded the Union of
the Crowns. To use the Scots for the purpose of weakening England had
long been the policy of France; and when war between Spain and France
broke out in 1555, and an English army was to be sent to the assistance
of Spain, the French Court hoped that an army from Scotland would march
across the Tweed. Mary of Guise assembled the Scottish nobles, and
proposed that they should seize the opportunity of taking vengeance for
all the wrongs which their country had suffered since the fatal day of
Flodden. But the proposals of the Queen Regent were not received with
favour. She had been so foolish as to confer several important offices
of State on Frenchmen; and these appointments had given great offence.
During the late war the Scots had resented the manner in which their
allies had behaved on several occasions, and had seen them depart with
feelings of intense relief.[9] Moreover, the spread of the Protestant
opinions in Scotland had naturally led many of the people to suspect the
motives of a Catholic power. The Queen Regent, indeed, succeeded in
bringing England and Scotland to the verge of another contest; but, in
the long-run, the Scots refused to encounter the risks of war for the
purpose of assisting the ambition of France.

The marriage of Mary and the Dauphin involved the renewal of friendly
intercourse with France; but the terms on which the Scottish Parliament
agreed to this alliance provided for the complete independence of
Scotland.[10] The crown matrimonial of Scotland was conferred upon the
Dauphin; but the oath of fidelity which the Scottish ambassadors took to
the heir of France, as King of Scotland, was framed so as to exclude
any allegiance beyond that which the subjects of Scotland had hitherto
acknowledged as due to their native princes.[11]

It had never been possible for England, under any circumstances, to be
indifferent to the affairs of Scotland; and the relations of the two
kingdoms were now more complicated than ever. But it was not until after
the death of Mary of England that the results of the French marriage
became fully visible. “War with France; the French king bestriding the
realm, having one foot in Calais and the other in Scotland; steadfast
enemies, but no steadfast friends.”[12] Thus stood England at the close
of the year 1558. The Dauphin and Mary proclaimed themselves King and
Queen of England as well as Scotland; and the arms of England were
quartered with the arms of France and Scotland on their plate and
household furniture. This was an open assertion of the illegitimacy of
Elizabeth and a challenge to England. But, in the meantime, peace was
preserved. The Treaty of Cambray, which terminated the struggle between
France and Spain, and to which England and Scotland were parties, left
the claims of Elizabeth and Mary untouched; and, on the ground that “the
plenipotentiaries for Scotland have not sufficient knowledge of the
state of affairs depending between the Crowns of England and Scotland,”
it was decided that English and Scottish commissioners should afterwards
meet and decide on “certain articles respecting the peace and concord of
the two kingdoms.”[13]

These commissioners met; and the result was the treaty of
Upsetlington.[14] A fresh attempt was made to frame rules for curbing
the lawless spirit of the Borderers; and it was also agreed that the
limits of the two kingdoms should be the same as they had been before
the accession of Elizabeth, that the town of Berwick should not be
molested by the Scots, that the English garrisons should not trouble
their neighbours on the other side of the boundary line, and that great
caution should be observed in granting passports to the subjects of
either kingdom.[15]

Meanwhile the Protestant opinions had been steadily gaining ground in
Scotland. The Congregation, as the reformers were called, and their
leaders, known as the Lords of the Congregation, had hitherto been on
good terms with Mary of Guise. Without their assistance the Dauphin
would not have obtained the title of King of Scotland; and she had,
therefore, not interfered with the progress of the new beliefs. But soon
after the Treaty of Cambray, Monsieur de Bettancourt arrived in
Edinburgh, charged with a message from Henry of France. The New Learning
was to be suppressed on the continent of Europe and in England; and the
Queen Regent was expected to join France, Spain, and the Holy Father at
Rome, in the league which they had formed for that purpose. Scotland was
the stepping-stone to England. If the ascendency of France and the
Catholic Faith was once secured in that country, the heretic Elizabeth
would be driven from the throne which she had usurped. Therefore the
Regent must no longer remain inactive. Against her will, so far as we
can judge, Mary of Guise entered on the disastrous contest. A
proclamation was issued, commanding all men to go to mass, to use the
confessional, and to conform, in all respects, to the Church of Rome.
The Lords of the Congregation remonstrated; but the Regent refused to
give way.[16] At this crisis Knox returned to Scotland from Geneva. A
week after his arrival he preached at Perth; and after his sermon the
religious houses of the Black and Grey Friars, and the Carthusian
Monastery, were laid in ruins. From Perth the excitement spread over all
the country. The Protestants flew to arms in numbers. The Regent
mustered her forces, and it was evident that a desperate struggle was at
hand.

At first the Lords of the Congregation carried everything before them.
But they knew that, before long, the Regent would have an army of
well-trained French soldiers under her command; and it was vain to
suppose that religious fervour could prevail against military
discipline. Help must be found in some quarter; and a correspondence was
opened with the Court of England. James, third Earl of Arran, was, after
his father, the Duke of Chatelherault, heir-presumptive to the throne of
Scotland.[17] A marriage between him and Elizabeth might, it was
suggested, settle the Scottish question. A majority of the Scots were
Protestant; and in the turmoil of the civil war which had now begun,
Mary of Scotland might, with the help of England, be dethroned by her
own subjects, against whom she had allowed a foreign army to be sent. If
Arran and Elizabeth were married, the Crowns of England and Scotland
would then be united; and thus the schemes of France would be
frustrated. There can be little doubt that all this was understood
between the Congregation and their friends in England, though it was not
openly expressed. Cecil encouraged the idea, probably with the assent of
Elizabeth; and the Lords of the Congregation implored her to come to the
rescue, and carry out that union of the realms for which so many wise
men had long laboured in vain.[18]

The death of Henry the Second did not change the policy of France.
Scotland was to be subdued; and then Elizabeth could be dealt with. The
councils of England were divided; but Cecil was in favour of sending
help to Scotland. “The best worldly felicity,” he said, “that Scotland
can have is either to continue in a perpetual peace with the kingdom of
England, or to be made one monarchy with England, as they both make but
one isle divided from the rest of the world.” But this was impossible if
the French were allowed to govern Scotland; for they would use Scotland
for their own purposes, and “make a footstool thereof to look over
England as they may.” As no heir had been born to the Queen of Scots,
and as she was absent from her kingdom, the nobles and commons of
Scotland ought, under the guidance of the Hamiltons, who were the next
heirs to the Crown, to free the land of idolatry by such a Reformation
as had already taken place in England; and, “before the French grew too
strong and insolent,” a number of abuses which threatened to ruin the
country should be remedied. If the Queen did not agree to these reforms,
then she must be held to have forfeited the Crown.[19]

As to the question, which was really the practical one, of whether
England should join Scotland in resisting the French, the voice of Cecil
gave no uncertain sound. Every country had, he said, like every man, the
right and duty of self-defence, not only against present danger, but
also against danger which might be foreseen. No greater danger could be
foreseen than the occupation of Scotland by France, the implacable
enemy of England. Therefore “England both may and ought to aid Scotland
to keep out the French.”[20]

Such was the advice of Cecil, set forth in a paper written apparently on
the 5th of August. Three days later Sadler was on his way to Berwick,
armed with full powers to negotiate secretly “for the union of the
realms,” and furnished with a sum of money for the use of the
Congregation. Arran, who had escaped from France and come to England,
followed him. A long time was wasted in correspondence between Berwick
and London; and at last Chatelherault and the Lords of the
Congregation, weary of the long delay, marched to Edinburgh at the head
of their followers. The Queen Regent took shelter behind the walls of
Leith. An instrument suspending her from the Regency was proclaimed at
the town-cross of Edinburgh; and a letter was sent to her demanding that
she and the French troops should retire from Leith. But, instead of
doing so, she attacked the forces of the Congregation. They were
compelled to leave Edinburgh; and it thus became evident that, as the
Regent could already cope with the Congregation, Scotland would be at
the mercy of the French army, which might arrive at any moment.

At this point, when the fate of Scotland was trembling in the balance,
Maitland of Lethington was sent to London to make a final appeal to the
English Council. A paper has been preserved which expresses, with all
the acuteness of that adroit politician, the views of Maitland on the
relations of England and Scotland. The old cause of enmity, he says,
between England and Scotland, and of the friendship between France and
Scotland, was the claim of feudal superiority which the princes of
England had set up. To resist that claim, and to save their country from
conquest, the Scots formed alliances with France. From the first, many
in Scotland doubted the wisdom of these alliances; and now the eyes of
all were opened. They saw the inordinate ambition of France, and wished
to form a league with England.[21] The fear of conquest made the Scots
hate England and love France. Now the case is changed; “Shall we not
hate them and favour you?” If we have been so faithful to France, from
whom we have received so little, can you not trust us to be faithful to
you, who of all nations are most able to bestow benefits upon us?

But it may be said that as soon as the present quarrel is ended, we
shall once more make friends with France. Peace is, indeed, the end of
war; but England may rest assured that we in Scotland know our own
interests too well to make such a mistake. Where could we look for help
against France, at any future time, if we played false with you?[22]
Besides, it is the interest of England to unite with us. France is not
making all these warlike preparations merely for an expedition to
Scotland. All Europe knows that an invasion of England is intended. Have
you forgotten Calais? You are blind if you do not see that they are
acting as cunningly as they acted then. Beware lest you find yourselves
saying, when it is all too late, “If we had only known.”[23] Do not let
this opportunity escape you. If you once allow the French to become
masters of Scotland, is there a man whose judgment is so much at fault
as not to show him that France, having once conceived the image of so
great a conquest as that of England, will endeavour to accomplish it?

Nor must you believe those who call us rebels. We maintain the queen’s
right. We study to preserve the liberty of her realm at the hazard of
our lives. If, during the absence and minority of our sovereign, we
tamely allow strangers to plant themselves in our strongholds, to seize
the reins of government, and alter our laws at their pleasure, may she
not hereafter call us to account, and may not the people esteem the
nobles of Scotland unworthy of the place of councillors? All we desire
is to defend the freedom of our country and the independence of the
Crown.[24]

Finally, do not lightly reject the friendship of Scotland. England is
separated from every other nation by the sea; and if she unites with
Scotland, her defences will be complete. Study the advice which
Demosthenes gave to the Athenians, and you will learn what a wise man
should do when his neighbour’s house is on fire.[25]

It was to press these views upon the statesmen of England that Maitland
had been sent to London; and he was empowered to make an offer which
shows that the Lords of the Congregation were in deadly earnest. Let
everything, they said, which is past and gone be forgotten--Edward the
First and Wallace, Bruce and Bannockburn, Flodden and Pinkie, all the
long roll of victories and defeats on one side or another; let the words
England and Scotland be obliterated; and let the two nations become one
under the name of Great Britain, with Elizabeth as ruler of the United
Kingdoms. It is impossible to say what would have followed if the
English Council had entertained this proposal. But it implied war with
France, not only on the Scottish border, but at every vulnerable point
upon the coast of England. Even on the question of sending troops to
Scotland, Elizabeth hesitated for a long time. But at last Cecil
persuaded her to make up her mind. A fleet, under the command of Winter,
sailed for the Firth of Forth; and an army of eight thousand men, under
the command of Lord Grey, Warden of the Eastern Marches, was mustered at
Berwick.

Then, after all these months of irresolution, the effect of a firm
policy was seen. The French ambassador at London apologised for the
conduct of Mary and the Dauphin in assuming the arms of England, and
threw the blame upon the late king; and an offer was made to restore
Calais if England would refrain from interfering in Scotland. But to
this offer Elizabeth is said to have returned the haughty answer that
“she did not value that fisher town so much as to hazard for it the
state of Britain.”[26]

And now, for the first time, English soldiers were to enter Scotland as
friends. But before the decisive movement was made, Norfolk, Lieutenant
of the North of England, went to Berwick and made a convention with the
Lords of the Congregation. Scotland was put under the protection of
Elizabeth during the subsistence of the marriage of the Queen of Scots
and the King of France. For the preservation of the liberties of
Scotland, and to expel the French, an English army was to cross the
border.[27] England became bound never to permit Scotland to be
conquered, or united to France, otherwise than it already was by the
marriage of Mary and Francis. Scotland became bound to send an army of
four thousand men to assist England, if, at any time, she was invaded
by France. Argyll, as Lord Justice of Scotland, was, if required by the
Queen of England, to act with the Lord Lieutenant in reducing the north
of Ireland to obedience. England was to receive hostages for the due
performance of these stipulations on the part of Scotland.[28]

The Treaty of Berwick was signed on the 27th of February; but so
unwilling was Elizabeth to take the final step that nearly a month had
passed away before the troops were allowed to advance. At the end of the
month the greater portion of the army crossed the Tweed.[29] They were
well received by the country people; and on the 4th of April the English
and Scottish leaders held a council of war at Pinkie House. In the
operations of the next three months everything centred round the siege
of Leith. In spite of the gallantry of the French, the garrison was
reduced to desperate straits. The French fleet, with reinforcements on
board, was scattered by a storm. The Queen Regent died during the night
of the 10th of June 1560; and four days later the preliminary articles
of a treaty were signed at Berwick.[30]

Peace was finally concluded at Edinburgh on the 6th of July. Mary and
the Dauphin were to give up using the arms or the royal title of
England. The fortifications of Leith were to be demolished. All the
French soldiers, except one hundred and twenty men, were to leave
Scotland at once. The affairs of Scotland were to be administered
entirely by Scotsmen; and the executive government was, during the
absence of Mary, to consist of twelve persons, of whom the queen was to
choose seven from a list of names drawn up by the Estates. On the
question of religion, it was agreed that when the Scottish Parliament
next met, a deputation should be sent to France to lay the wishes of the
country before the queen.[31]

These events not only proved that England was strong enough to set the
arms of France at defiance, and to reject the councils of Spain, but
they established, for all time to come, a close and real connection
between England and Scotland. In the hour of danger the best men in
Scotland had turned to England for help. Cecil, and those who thought
with him, had persuaded Elizabeth to disregard all interference and the
remonstrances of foreign Courts. She had done so with reluctance. Slowly
and through many a tortuous path she had sent help to Scotland; but, in
the end, the deliverance was complete. The war and the treaty of July
1560 destroyed the French influence in the northern portion of the
island, taught the Scots that it was only by an Union with Protestant
England instead of Catholic France that their liberties could be
maintained, and opened the way for the Scottish Reformation. For the
Lords of the Congregation were now supreme; and before the end of
August, without waiting for the queen’s consent, the Estates had met and
passed the statute by which they disowned the authority of the Pope.[32]

But although so much had been done, the marriage of Elizabeth and Arran
was as far off as ever. In their policy of binding the nations together
by a closer tie, Cecil in England and Maitland in Scotland had a great
mass of public opinion to support them, especially on the Protestant
side.[33] The Scottish Estates were so eager for the Union of the Crowns
that they would not listen to Maitland, who, though strongly in favour
of the marriage, foresaw difficulties which could be only overcome by
waiting; and it was resolved that commissioners should at once be sent
to lay the wishes of the Estates before Elizabeth.[34]

If Mary of Scotland died without issue, Arran was, after his father, the
next heir to the Crown; but it can scarcely be doubted that the Lords of
the Congregation did not contemplate waiting for the extinction of the
Stuart line. Mary had not been in Scotland since her childhood. She was
Queen of France; and, in all probability, she would remain in France for
the rest of her life. So long as Mary of Guise was Regent, so long as
Frenchmen governed Scotland, so long as Scotland, like France, adhered
to the Catholic Faith, the power of the house of Stuart was hardly, if
at all, impaired by the absence of the queen. But now all this was at an
end. Mary of Guise was dead. An English army had expelled the soldiers
of France. The government of Scotland was in the hands of Scotsmen. The
Scottish nation was no longer Catholic. To celebrate the mass was an
offence against the law; and the Scottish clergy were using the
Prayer-book of Edward the Sixth. Thus it was a mere form of words to
call Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland as well as of France. Of real power
she no longer possessed a vestige; and it is easy to see that in the
first bloom of the Scottish Reformation, with Knox in full vigour, and
with the whole country in revolt against the Romish priesthood, the
marriage of Arran would very likely have been followed by the triumph of
the Protestant Hamiltons over the Catholic Stuarts, and the union of
the two nations, with one crown, and probably with one form of Church
government.

Perhaps in the history of great events we too seldom remember that kings
and queens are, after all, merely men and women. Here was a crisis at
which the Protestants of England and Scotland were unanimous in wishing
the Defender of their Faith to enter upon a contract, by means of which
she would accomplish what had been one of the great ends of English
policy from the days of Edward the First to those of Henry the Eighth.
But that contract was one which concerned her as a woman rather than as
a queen; and she knew that the ceremony which might put the Crown of
Scotland within reach of the Queen of England would, while uniting the
kingdoms, separate Elizabeth Tudor from Robert Dudley. The Protestants
of England knew this, and dread of the Dudley marriage, as well as their
anxiety to cement the alliance with Scotland, made them support the
pretensions of Arran.

But suddenly, before Elizabeth had made up her mind, the death of
Francis the Second saved her from the necessity of giving a definite
answer to the Scottish commissioners. This event, by which the Crowns of
France and Scotland were once more separated, opened a new scene in the
drama of international politics, and enabled her to escape from the
dilemma in which she found herself. She thanked the Scottish Estates for
the goodwill which they had displayed towards her; and she assured them
that she regarded the offer of marriage as a token of their wish “to
knit both theis kingdomes presently in Amytye, and hereafter to remaine
in a perpetual Amytye.” But in the meantime, though she had a high
opinion of the Lord Arran, she was not disposed to take a husband, and
she thought that the friendship of the nations could be maintained
without a marriage. With this unsatisfactory answer the commissioners
were obliged to be content.[35]

Then came the return of Mary to Scotland, her stubborn refusal to ratify
that clause of the Treaty of Edinburgh by which she was to give up
using the title of Queen of England, her quarrels with the reformers,
and the long series of misfortunes and misdeeds which ended only with
the tragedy of Fotheringay.

The failure of the marriage negotiations was taken as an insult by the
Scots; and doubtless this accounts, to some extent, for the cordial way
in which Mary, in spite of her adherence to the Church of Rome, was
welcomed on her return from France. The project of uniting the kingdoms
by a royal marriage was not again renewed in so definite a form; but
during the numerous intrigues spread over so many years, the purpose of
which was to find a husband for the Queen of Scots, the effect which her
marriage would have upon the relations of England and Scotland was never
lost sight of. If the suitor for her hand was a Protestant, he was
favoured by those who desired to see peace between the two nations; if
he was a Catholic, by those who desired a renewal of the French
alliance, or at least a rupture with England.[36] Protestant or
Catholic? that was the great question for England and Scotland then, as
for the rest of Europe. Everything turned upon that. During Mary’s short
sojourn at Holyrood, and during the long years of her captivity in
England, everything--conspiracies against Elizabeth; the rise and fall
of Regents in Scotland; the civil wars with all their treachery and
bloodshed; the assassinations; the beheadings--every episode and every
scheme, however disguised, was a part of the contest between the old
faith and the new.

During these years of trouble the Protestants of the two countries drew
gradually together; and in the year 1586 the kingdoms entered into a
compact which lasted until the death of Elizabeth and the accession of
James to the throne of England.

The Duke of Guise asked James of Scotland to join the Holy League. But
to this invitation he returned no answer; and Sir Edward Wotton, who was
sent as ambassador to the Court of Holyrood, found that James was ready
to form an alliance with Elizabeth and Henry of Navarre in defence of
the Protestant religion. A Scottish Parliament, which met at St. Andrews
in July 1585, authorised the king and his Council to enter upon a
league, more strict and firm than any previous league, between England
and Scotland, which, the Estates said, were naturally allies, and were
alike exposed to the assaults of the common enemy.[37] In the following
year commissioners for both kingdoms met, and signed the League. It was
agreed that the sovereigns of England and Scotland should defend the
Protestant religion against all comers. There was to be an alliance,
offensive and defensive, between the countries. If England was invaded
at a point at a distance from Scotland, an army of seven thousand
Scotsmen was to march to assist her. If Scotland was invaded at any
place distant from England, twelve thousand Englishmen were to help her.
If the invasion took place near the Borders, James was to send as many
troops as he could muster to the spot. If any trouble arose in Ireland,
none of the inhabitants of Scotland were to be permitted to go thither.
Neither kingdom was to shelter rebels fleeing across the Border. All
former treaties of friendship between the countries were to remain in
force; and James bound himself to see, when he reached the age of
twenty-five, that these terms were ratified by the Scottish
Parliament.[38]

Nothing was said about Mary of Scotland during these negotiations. She
was entirely ignored; and it is impossible to say how far this may have
helped to remove any scruples which she might have felt about the
objects of the Babington Conspiracy.[39] Her execution, however,
endangered the new alliance when it had existed for only nine months.
The Scottish clergy had, indeed, with scarcely an exception, refused to
pray for her; and if she had been tried and sentenced by the Privy
Council of Scotland or by the Scottish Parliament, the Catholic laity
alone would have attempted to save her. But the manner of her trial and
condemnation was regarded as a national affront; and when the Estates
met in July 1587 the peers offered to give their lives and fortunes to
avenge the fate of the Scottish queen, who, after eighteen years of
captivity in England, had perished at the hands of Englishmen. During
the autumn and winter the Borders were in a state of dangerous
excitement. An invasion from Scotland was expected. Preparations were
made for raising ten thousand men to repel it; and there appears to
have been some idea of rebuilding the old Roman wall.[40]

The indignation expressed by James at the treatment which his mother had
received was doubtless not altogether feigned. But the great aim of his
life now was to secure his own succession to the throne of England; and
Walsingham adroitly availed himself of this circumstance for the purpose
of preventing war. Sir John Maitland, a younger brother of Maitland of
Lethington, was the Scottish Secretary, and to him Walsingham wrote a
letter, which he knew would be read by James, and in which, with
consummate art, he proved that if the youthful King of Scots wished to
reach the object of his ambition, he must maintain his friendship with
England.[41]

The resentment of James died speedily away. On various occasions, during
the remainder of Elizabeth’s reign, the relations of the two countries
were strained, and there was bad blood between the sovereigns. But there
was no open rupture; and at last the house of Stuart entered peaceably,
and without opposition, on the rich heritage of the English Crown.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “De Regnis Angliæ et Scotiæ conjunctis. Quia Regna Angliæ et Scotiæ,
ratione Superioris Dominii, quod in eodem Regno optinemus benedicto
altissimo, sunt conjuncta, Mandatum est Justiciariis de Banco, quod
Brevia Regis, coram eis porrecta vel retornata, de data dierum et
locorum, infra idem Regnum Scotiæ, mentionem facientia, de cætero
admittant; exceptiones, si quas, de hujusmodi datis et locis, proponi
contigerit coram eis, nullatenus allocantes, Teste Rege apud Berewicum
super Twedam, 3 die Julii.” (_Fœdera_, ii. 533.)

[2] These were the Bishops of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, the Abbots of
Cupar and Melrose, the Earls of Buchan and March, Sir John de Mowbray,
Sir Robert de Kethe, Sir Adam de Gurdon, and Sir John de Inchmartyn.

[3] The name, so hated in Scotland, of “Mons. Joh. de Meneteth” appears
as one of the Council appointed to assist John de Bretaigne.

[4] Ordonnance faite par Edouard Roi d’Angleterre sur le Gouvernement de
la terre d’Escosse, Act. Parl. Scot. i. 119; Sir Francis Palgrave’s
_Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland_, 292, 295;
_Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland_, ii. 457.

[5] Mr. Patrick Fraser Tytler very justly remarks how absurd was the
idea “that a free country was to be compelled into a pacific matrimonial
alliance, amid the groans of its dying citizens and the flames of its
seaports” (_History of Scotland_, vi. 42). See also, on the Scottish
policy of Henry VIII., the instructions given to the army in Scotland in
April 1544 (vol. v. p. 473, and the _Hamilton Papers_, vol. ii. p. 325).
They were to “burn Edinburgh town, and to rase and deface it when you
have sacked it”; and all over the country “man, woman, and child” were
to be put to the sword “without exception.”

[6] Holinshed, iii. 998.

[7] “Terra variabilis communi utriusque gentis vocabulo dicta The
Debateable Ground.”

[8] _Fœdera_, xv. 265.

[9] “Notwithstanding the ancient alliance of France and Scotland, and
the long intercourse of good offices between the two nations, an
aversion for the French took its rise, at this time, among the Scots;
the effects whereof were deeply felt, and operated powerfully through
the subsequent period” (Robertson, i. 110).

[10] The Queen of Scots was to “aggre and obleis hir self and hir
successouris, that scho, hir Airis and Successouris, sall observe and
keip the Fredomes, Liberteis, and Privelegeis of this Realme, and Lawis
of the samyn, sicklike and in the samyn maner as hes bene keipit and
observit in all Kingis Tymes of Scotland of before” (Keith, App. 14;
Act. Parl. Scot. ii. 504).

[11] “Le servir, obeyr et honnorer, durant et constant ledit mariage,
ensemble l’hoir issu et procréé d’iceluy mariage auquel adviendra le
Royaume d’Escosse, tout ainsy comme nous et nos Predecesseurs aut
loyauement servy et honnore les nobles progeniteurs et antecesseurs de
la ditte Dame Reyne d’Escosse nostre Souveraine” (Keith, App. 20). On
the occasion of the marriage, Henry of France issued letters of
naturalisation conferring all the privileges of French citizenship on
Scotsmen living in his dominions; and the Scottish Parliament returned
the compliment by passing an Act which naturalised Frenchmen in
Scotland. (Act. Parl. Scot. ii. 507, 515.)

[12] Address to the Council, in Mr. Froude’s _History of England_, vol.
vi. p. 111 (ed. 1870).

[13] The plenipotentiaries for Scotland at Cambray were the Cardinal of
Lorraine; the Duke of Montmorency; Jacques d’Albon, Marshal of France;
Morvillier, Bishop of Orleans; and Claude de l’Aubespine, Secretary of
State.

[14] “A pleasant country village on the north side of the river Tweed,
within the borders of Scotland, five miles west from Berwick” (Keith,
108).

[15] “This treaty was finished and drawn up at the Church of Our Lady of
Upsalinton the 31st of May (1559), and duplicates thereof were delivered
and exchanged in the Parish Church of Norham, just opposite, on the
English side of the Tweed, that same day” (_Ibid._).

[16] They told her, “That, by her tolerance, their religion had taken
such a root, and the number of the Protestants so increased, that it was
a vain hope to believe that they could be put from their religion,
seeing they were resolved as soon to part with their lives as to recant”
(_Sir James Melvil’s Memoirs_, p. 25).

[17] His father, the second Earl of Arran, and first Duke of
Chatelherault, was, it will be remembered, Regent of Scotland from the
death of James the Fifth, in 1542, until 1554, when he was succeeded by
Mary of Guise. He was a Lord of the Congregation.

[18] Mr. Froude’s _History of England_, vol. vi. pp. 236, 237: “You,”
said an emissary of the Congregation at Paris to Sir Nicholas
Throgmorton, “have a queen, and we our prince the Earl of Arran,
marriageable both, and chief upholders of God’s religion. This may be
the means to unite England and Scotland together, and there is no
foundation nor league durable nor available but in God’s cause.”

[19] “If the Queen shall be unwilling to this, as it is likely she will,
in respect of the greedy and tyrannous Affliction of France; then is it
apparent that Almighty God is pleased to transfer from her the Rule of
the Kingdom for the weal of it; and in this time great Circumspection is
to be used, to avoid the deceits and trumperies of the French. And then
may the Realm of Scotland consider, being once made free, what means may
be devised through God’s goodness to accord the two Realms, to endure
for time to come at the Pleasure of Almighty God, in whose Hands the
Hearts of all Princes be” (Memorial of Certain Points meet for the
Restoring of the Realm of Scotland to the Ancient Weale, written by my
Lord Treasurer, with his own Hand, 5 August 1559, Cotton MSS., Keith,
App. 23).

[20] A Short Discussion of the Weighty Matter of Scotland, August 1559.
Cotton MSS., Keith, App. 24.

[21] “But now hes God’s providence sa altered the case, zea, changed it
to the plat contrary, that now hes the Frensche taken zour place, and
we, off very jugement, becum disyrous to have zow in theyr rowme. Our
eyes are opened, we espy how uncareful they have been of our weile at
all tymes, how they made ws ever to serve theyr turne, drew ws in maist
dangerous weys for theyr commodite, and, nevertheless, wad not styck,
ofttymes, against the natowr of the ligue, to contrak peace, leaving ws
in weyr. We see that their support, off late zeres, wes not grantit for
any affection they bare to ws, for pytie they had of our estate, for
recompense of the lyke friendship schawin to theym in tyme of theyr
afflictiones, but for ambition, and insatiable cupidite to reygne, and
to mak Scotland ane accessory to the Crown of France.”

[22] “I wald ze should not esteme ws sa barayne of jugement, that we
cannot forese our awne perril; nor sa foolische, that we will not study
by all gude means to entertayne that thing may be our safetye; quhilk
consistes all in the relaying of zour friendships.”

[23] “Tak hede ze say not hereafter, ‘Had I wist’; ane uncomely sentence
to procede off a wyse man’s mouth.”

[24] “We seke nathing but that Scotland may remane, as of before, a fre
realme, rewlit by hir hyenes and hir ministeres borne men of the sam;
and that the succession of the Crowne may remane with the lawful blode.”

[25] Letter of Maitland of Lethington, “from the original in his own
hand” (Cotton MSS., Roberston, App. No. II.).

[26] Spotswood, 146. It is needless to say that though Elizabeth may
have used these words, she was bent on recovering Calais.

[27] “A Convenient Ayd of Men of Warre, on Horse and Foot, to joyne with
the power of the Scottishmen, with Artailzie Munition, and all others
Instrumentis of Warre mete for the Purpose, as weall by Sea as by Land.”

[28] Conventiones Scotorum contra Reginam Unionem Franciæ et Scotiæ
designantem, et pro defensione contra Francos (_Fœdera_, xv. 569).
Maitland of Lethington, in the letter in favour of an alliance between
England and Scotland, from which quotations have just been given,
proposes that Scotland should help to maintain order in Ireland. “The
realme of Ireland,” he says, “being of natour a gode and fertill
countrey, by reason of the continewalld unquietnes and lak of policy, ze
knaw to be rather a burthen to zow then great advantage; and giff it
were peaceable may be very commodious. For pacification quhayroff, it is
not unknown to zow quhat service we ar abill to do.”

[29] They numbered between seven and eight thousand men. The expedition
seems to have cost about £230,000 (_Calendar of State Papers, Foreign_,
1560, Preface, p. ix.).

[30] Keith, 131.

[31] _Fœdera_, xv. 593; Keith, 137.

[32] Act. Parl. Scot. ii. 534. The following memorandum, endorsed “the
manner how the Scottis be divided, 1560,” was recently found among the
MSS. at Longleat, and is now printed in the _Hamilton Papers_, vol. ii.
p. 748. “The names of all the noblemen temporall and spirituall of the
congregacion of Scotlande:--The Duke of Chateaurialt; the Erle of Arren
his sonne; the Lord James priour of St. Andros; the Erle of Arguile; the
Erle of Glencarne; the Erle of Rothos; the Erle of Sutherland; the Erle
of Mountithe; the Lorde Riven; the Lorde Boide; the Lorde Offoltrie; the
Master of Lindsoye; the Master of Maxwell. The lordes and noblemen
newters:--The Erle of Huntleye; the Erle of Catnes; the Erle of Athell;
the Erle Marshall; the Erle of Morton and Angus; the Erle of Arrell; the
Erle of Casiles; the Erle of Eglenton; the Erle of Mountroes; the Lord
Erskin; the Lord Dromond; the Lord Hume; the Lorde Rose; the Lorde
Krighton; the Lord Liveston; the Lord Somervall. Dowptfull to whether
parte they will incline. The lordes of the Quene’s partye:--The Erle of
Bodwell; the Lorde Seton; the Lorde Fleminge; the Lord Semple; the
Bishopp of St. Andros; the Priour of Collingham; the Abbot of Holly
Roode Howse; with all the bisshoppes and spiritualtye of the realme. The
Shires as they be dewided on the one parte and thother:--The Marshe,
Tividale, Annerdale, Lowden, Sterlingeshire, Galawaye, Caricke, Guile,
Cunningham, Cliddesdale; all these and the people therein are newters,
onles a certaine of every shire wich kepe themselfes close. Fife, Angus,
Arguile, Straterne, and the Mernes; most parte Protestantes. The northe
land hath promised to take parte, but not yet assured; in whose handes
standeth litell helpe, wich side so ever they fall into.” In Mr. Fraser
Tytler’s _History of Scotland_, vol. ix. p. 425, a paper is printed
entitled “The Present State of the Nobility in Scotland, 1st July 1592.”
It gives a list of the Scottish peers with a note of whether they were
Protestant or Catholic, and is well worth comparing with the list in the
_Hamilton Papers_. In the original, Mr. Tytler says, the names of the
Catholics are marked in Burleigh’s own handwriting.

[33] Mr. Froude quotes a letter from Jewel to Peter Martyr:--“It is of
the greatest moment that England and Scotland be united; and I trust
only those may not hinder it who wish well neither to them nor to us”
(_History of England_, vol. vi. p. 406).

[34] Act. Parl. Scot. ii. 605.

[35] The Queene’s Majestie’s Answere, declared to Her Counsell,
concerninge the Requests of the Lords of Scotlande (Keith, 156).

[36] This, however, does not altogether apply to the Darnley marriage.
Darnley, as grandson of Margaret Tudor, was not only cousin to the Queen
of Scots, but first prince of the blood in England; and Mary’s great
object in espousing him was to improve her chance of succeeding to the
Crown of England, to which she was already heir-presumptive. But in
Scotland the marriage of the queen to a Catholic could not be viewed
with indifference; and the General Assembly of the Church proceeded to
declare that the laws against papacy applied to the royal family as well
as to the subjects: “That the Papisticall and blasphemous masse, with
all Papistrie and idolatrie of Paip’s jurisdictione, be universallie
suppressed and abolished throughout the haill realme, not only in the
subjects, but also in the Q. Majestie’s awn persone” (_The Booke of the
Universall Kirk of Scotland_, p. 28).

[37] “Naturallie jonit be blude and habitatioun, of ane relligioun and
thairby alike subiect to the malice of the commoun enemy, be quhais
Vnioun na les suretie may be expectit to baith thair esteattis then
dangear be thair divisioun” (_Band anent the Trew Religioun_, 31st July
1585; Act. Parl. Scot. iii. 423).

[38] Tractatus Fœderis et Arctioris Amititiæ, 5th July 1586 (_Fœdera_,
xv. 803).

[39] Mr. Tytler’s view is that one of the chief objects of Elizabeth and
the English ministers in entering into the League was to make it easier
to deal with the Queen of Scots. “Two months before,” he says, “her
indefatigable minister, Walsingham, had detected that famous conspiracy
known by the name of ‘Babington’s Plot,’ in which Mary was implicated,
and for which she afterwards suffered. It had been resolved by
Leicester, Burghley, and Walsingham, and probably by the queen herself,
that this should be the last plot of the Scottish queen and the Roman
Catholic faction; that the time had come when sufferance was criminal
and weak; that the life of the unfortunate, but still active and
formidable, captive was inconsistent with Elizabeth’s safety and the
liberty of the realm. Hence the importance attached to this League,
which bound the two kingdoms together, in a treaty offensive and
defensive, for the protection of the Protestant faith, and separated the
young king from his mother” (_History of Scotland_, viii. 288).

[40] _Calendar of Border Papers_, i. 289, 300.

[41] This letter, which is very long, will be found in Spotswood, p.
359. “Because,” the bishop says, “the Letter contained the very true
reasons that in end moved his Majesty to forbear violence and take a
more calm course, I thought meet to set it down word by word, as it
standeth in the original.”



CHAPTER II

THE UNION OF THE CROWNS


A few years before the Union of the Crowns, James, in the _Basilikon
Doron_, that quaint little volume of “Instructions to his dearest sonne,
Henry the Prince,” had alluded to the dangers which were caused by the
divided state of the island. “As for the Borders,” he wrote, “because I
know, if ye enjoy not this whole Isle, according to God’s right and your
lineal descent, ye will never get leave to brooke this North and
barrenest part thereof; no, not your own head whereon the crown should
stand! I need not in that case trouble you with them; for then they will
be the middest part of the Isle, and so as easily ruled as any part
thereof.” Hitherto a royal marriage had been the favourite plan for
removing these dangers; but after this we enter upon a series of
attempts to bring about an Union of a more complete and definite
character. James came to the throne of England with his mind full of the
subject. The people of Scotland anticipated the removal of the Court to
London with dismay. But to the king it opened up a dazzling prospect of
power and splendour; and he lost no time in proposing the Union, and
pressing it, in season and out of season, with a persistency which
brings out, in a remarkable manner, the strong individuality of his
character.

For some time before the death of Elizabeth, James had been doing his
best to gain the goodwill of the English people; and as soon as he
received the official announcement of his accession he directed his
Privy Council to proclaim the news, not only in order that the fact that
he was now King of England as well as Scotland should become known, but
in the hope, as the proclamation expressed it, that there might be
kindled in the hearts of all Scotsmen “ane loveing and kyndlie
dispositioun towardis all his Majestie’s subjectis inhabitantis of
England.”[42] Nor did he fail to impress this sentiment on the people.
On the last Sunday which he spent in Scotland he went to the Church of
Saint Giles, where, when the sermon was ended, he made a speech to the
congregation. It was regarded as a farewell, and was received with “such
a mourning and lamentation of all sorts, as cannot well be
expressed.”[43]

“There is no difference,” he said, to cheer his weeping subjects,
“betwixt London and Edinburgh; yea, not so much as betwixt Inverness or
Aberdeen and Edinburgh, for all our marches be dry, and there are
ferries between them. But my course must be betwixt both, to establish
peace, and religion, and wealth betwixt the countries.”

The departure of James meant a great deal to Scotland. When the day
came, and the cannon were booming from the old castle of Edinburgh, the
citizens assembled in multitudes to gaze at the brilliant company of
courtiers who were to accompany their king upon his journey to the
south; but the spectacle was one which excited many fears and few hopes.
The Union of the Crowns was making great changes. The Court was leaving.
The queen remained behind with the young Princes and the Princess
Elizabeth; but it was known that they were soon to follow, and that,
henceforth, they would live in England. Their old Scottish home, the
ancient palace of Holyrood, was being dismantled already; and soon
nothing would remain in the royal apartments, but some stray pieces of
furniture, and a few yards of faded tapestry. It was true that to
Scotland there was still left that independence which had been so hardly
won. The Parliament remained in the same position as before; but a new
official was spoken of, a Royal Commissioner, who was, in future, to
represent the sovereign at the meetings of the Estates. The separate
Scottish Executive, too, was to be continued, in the shape of the Privy
Council; but it was to be divided into two parts, the one to sit in
England, and the other in Scotland; and it was evident that, in future,
the real centre of influence in Scottish affairs would be London.

To some of the Scottish people the future seemed very bright. During the
reign of Elizabeth, there were seldom so many as a hundred Scotsmen in
London at any one time. But now politicians like the future Earl of
Haddington, at that time Lord Advocate Hamilton, saw that in the wide
field which lay before them, greater things could be done than within
the narrow bounds of Scotland. George Heriot, who followed the king to
England, doubtless knew that he could hold his own, and add to his
wealth, among the merchant princes of London. Gay young men, like Lord
Dalgarno in _The Fortunes of Nigel_, looked forward to the amusements
and dissipation of London, and to the chance of filling their empty
pockets by marriages with English heiresses. And among the humbler
members of the royal retinue there were not a few adventurers who were
glad to visit England, and share the spoil with their betters. So great,
indeed, was the rush of Scotsmen to England, that soon after the
accession a proclamation was issued that no Scotsman was to cross the
Tweed, or sail for England, without a passport from the Privy
Council.[44] But those who remained behind, and especially the tradesmen
of Edinburgh, who had supplied the Court, saw no chance of gain, but
rather much risk of loss, in the change which was taking place.

In England, though James himself was received with demonstrations of
loyalty, his Scottish followers were regarded with mingled contempt and
hatred. Scotland, it was said, was a land where the nobles were beggars,
and the merchants were pedlars. The coarsest satire was poured forth
against the barren and unknown territory from whence the new king had
come. Indeed it is difficult for us, in the nineteenth century, to
realise the scornful way in which Englishmen spoke of Scotland, though
we may form some idea of the language which was used from the specimens
which have been preserved of what was actually printed, circulated, and
probably believed at that time. “The air,” thus runs one of those
productions, “might be made wholesome, but for the stinking people that
inhabit it. The ground might be made wholesome, had they wit to manure
it. Their beasts be generally small, women excepted, of which sort there
are no greater in the world.... As for fruits, for their grandam Eve’s
sake they never planted any, and for other trees, had Christ been
betrayed in this country, as doubtless he should have been, had he come
as a stranger amongst them, Judas had sooner found the grace of
repentance than one tree to hang himself on.... The Scriptures, they
say, speak of elders and deacons, but not a word of deans and bishops.
Their discourse is full of detraction, their sermons nothing but
railings, and their conclusion, heresy or treason.... They christen
without the cross, marry without a ring, receive the Sacrament without
reverence, die without repentence, and bury without divine service.”[45]

And even among those Englishmen who knew that the popular ideas of
Scotland were erroneous, there was a profound feeling of jealousy lest
James should fill too many of the places about the Court with his
countrymen. It was suspected that if he got his own way, almost every
Scotsman in London would soon be clad in velvet and satin, and wearing a
costly beaver instead of a blue bonnet; and James took great pains, for
a long time after his accession, to assure the English courtiers that he
had no intention of promoting Scotsmen over the heads of Englishmen. “I
was ever rooted,” he wrote to Lord Cranbourne, “in that firm resolution
never to have placed Scottishmen in any such room, till, first, time had
begun to wear away that opinion of different nations; and, secondly,
that this jealous apprehension of the Union had worn away; and,
thirdly, that Scotsmen had been brought up here at the foot of
Gamaliel.”

Before James had been many days in England he issued a proclamation, in
which it was announced that there was to be a complete Union of the
Kingdoms. “In the meane tyme,” he said, “till the said Union be
established, his Majestie doth hereby repute, hold, and esteeme, and
commandes all His Highnesse subjects to hold and esteeme, both the Two
Realmes as presently united, and as one Realme and Kingdome, and the
subjects of both as one People, Brethern, and Members of one Bodye.”[46]

The personal peculiarities of James, which amounted to eccentricities,
his firm belief in the maxims of his own _Basilikon Doron_ and his
complete abhorrence of the doctrines which Buchanan, in the old days,
had tried to teach him, are prominent features of the controversy
concerning the Union. The tenacity with which he clung to his conception
of the royal prerogative is nowhere more apparent than in his speeches
and proclamations, and in everything he did for the purpose of
forwarding his favourite scheme. When the Parliament of England was
found to be less subservient than he had expected, he pointed to
Scotland as an example. “This I must say for Scotland,” he exclaimed,
“and may truly vaunt it; here I sit and govern it with my pen. I write,
and it is done; and by a clerk of the council I govern Scotland now,
which others could not do by the sword.” These were not altogether idle
words; but it would have been wiser to refrain from boasting of a
supremacy such as the proudest of the Tudors had never ventured to
claim.

In the formidable contest against the national prejudices of Englishmen,
on which he was about to enter, James secured a powerful ally. Bacon had
been one of those who received the honour of knighthood on the day of
the coronation; and he lost no time in taking the king’s side on the
question of the Union, which he supported with the subtilty of a
scholiast, and with the broad views of a statesman and philosopher. To
the debates in Parliament, to the Council Board of the Commission on
Union, to the famous discussion, in the Exchequer Chamber, on the
question of the post-nati, he brought all the resources of his mind, and
threw himself into the struggle with an enthusiasm which could not
possibly have been feigned. He played the part, though without success,
which was afterwards played by Somers in the reign of Anne; and he
seems, from the very first, to have perceived with the eye of genius
exactly how far it was safe to go in the direction of abolishing
international distinctions.

His first contribution to the cause of the Union was to impress upon the
king the exact state of the case, and what were the various points which
would have to be decided. The kingdoms were, he showed, already united
in religion and in language. No sea rolled between them. The same king
reigned over both. But, nevertheless, there were separate Parliaments,
separate Councils of State, and separate offices of the Crown. There was
one peerage for England, and another for Scotland. There were two very
different systems of law, and each country had its own peculiar code of
legal procedure. All these various institutions, and, in addition, a
mass of minor details of greater or less importance, would have to be
considered in adjusting the terms of Union.[47]

On the knotty question of whether there should be an uniformity of laws,
Bacon, from the outset, in opposition to the opinion of the judges and
of the majority of English lawyers, maintained that, while the public
law of the United Kingdoms should be assimilated, the private law of
each country should be left untouched; a conclusion which was arrived at
a century later, when the Union was actually accomplished. “For,” he
said, “that which concerneth private interest of _meum_ and _tuum_, in
my opinion, it is not at this time to be meddled with. Men love to hold
their own as they have held, and the difference of this law carrieth no
mark of separation.”[48]

But before a single step could be taken, the two Parliaments had to be
consulted. James shrewdly calculated that if the Parliament of England
could be gained, the Scottish Estates would readily agree to his
wishes. He accordingly wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, in
January 1604, informing them that the English Parliament was to meet in
March, when the project of an Union would be discussed, and telling them
to call the Scottish Parliament together about the end of April; and he
gave express commands that no subject except the Union was to be
considered. If the Estates agreed, as he assumed they would, to the
desirability of an Union, they were to appoint commissioners to meet
with commissioners who would, by that time, have been appointed by the
Parliament of England.[49]

The English Parliament met on the 19th of March. The speech in which
James recommended the Union was long, and had evidently been prepared
with great pains. What God had joined, he urged, no man should put
asunder. “I am the husband,” he said, “and the whole island is my lawful
wife. I am the shepherd, and it is my flock. I hope, therefore, no man
will be so unreasonable as to think that I, that am a Christian king
under the gospel, should be a polygamist and husband of two wives.”
Apart from some grotesque illustrations such as this, the speech was
well worthy of the occasion. But the king’s proposals were not cordially
received; and it was only under considerable pressure that, at a
conference of both Houses, a Commission was appointed. At the head of
the Commission was Lord Chancellor Ellesmere; and among the members were
Robert Lord Cecil and Sir Francis Bacon. They were empowered to consult
with commissioners to be appointed by the Parliament of Scotland
concerning an Union of the Kingdoms, and such other matters as, upon
mature deliberation, should appear necessary for the honour of his
Majesty and the common good of both realms.

The Scottish Parliament, which had been summoned to meet in April in
order that it might approve of the Union and appoint commissioners, was
prorogued from time to time, and did not meet for business until the
beginning of July, when the Estates assembled at Perth.

James had directed the Scottish ministers to make the Union the only
subject of deliberation, and had also promised that the expenses
incurred by the commissioners from Scotland would be defrayed out of his
own purse. The Estates, however, had no sympathy with the policy of the
king. The nobles grumbled among themselves, and would fain have
resisted. But the royal orders were peremptory; and thirty-two
commissioners were appointed to “confer, treat, and consulte upon a
perfyte Unioun of the realmes of Scotland and England.”[50] The first
name on the Commission was that of John, Earl of Montrose, Lord
Chancellor of Scotland; and among his colleagues were a number of
distinguished men. Alexander Seton, then known as Lord Fyvie, was
afterwards the first Earl of Dunfermline. James Elphinstone, Secretary
of State, had recently been raised to the peerage as Lord Balmerino, a
title associated, in Scottish history, with a long series of family
misfortunes, which culminated in the execution of his descendant, the
last lord, after the Rebellion of 1745. Sir Thomas Hamilton, whom James
nicknamed “Tam o’ the Cowgate,” was then Lord Advocate, and, after
holding almost every great office of State in Scotland, became Earl of
Haddington in the reign of Charles the First. Another place in the
Commission was occupied by Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton, author of the
_Jus Feudale_, whose Latin history of the Union, which has never been
published, is preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.

Some of the terms which occur in the Act appointing these commissioners
are such as to suggest the idea that James himself had been the
draughtsman. The Estates, in language not usually to be found in the
statute-book, declare that the Act is passed in order that “as the
present age is ravished in admiration with an so fortunate beginning, so
that the posterity may rejoice in the fruition of such an effectual
Union of two so famous and ancient Kingdoms, miraculously accomplished
in the blood and person of so rare a monarch.”

But the Estates, while ready to lavish praise on the king, were
determined that the Union was not to interfere with the independence of
Scotland. It was noticed that while the English Act for the Union
contained a clause declaring that his Majesty had no intention of
altering the fundamental laws and customs of England, nothing had been
said as to preserving the laws and customs of Scotland. This was
regarded as suspicious; and there was inserted in the Scottish Act a
provision that the commissioners were to take care that nothing was done
which was inconsistent with the ancient rights and liberties of
Scotland.[51]

There was also passed, at the same time, a statute which provided that
the Commissioners on Union should have no power to treat “in any manner
of way that may be hurtful or prejudicial to the religion presently
professed in Scotland.”[52]

The commissioners, who had thus been appointed by the Parliaments, were
summoned to meet in the Painted Chamber at Westminster in October.[53]
But James, too impatient to await the result of their deliberations, and
resolved to carry matters with a high hand, issued a long and wordy
proclamation, in which he stated that he thought fit to abolish the
names of England and Scotland, and to assume, “by the force of our royal
prerogative,” the title of King of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland.[54] This title was to be used in all public documents. The
Borders were in future to be known as the Middle Shires. A flag was to
be prepared bearing the Cross of Saint George and the Cross of Saint
Andrew. New coins, with such mottoes as “Quæ Deus conjunxit nemo
separet,” and “Henricus rosas Jacobus regna,” were to be struck at the
Mint in honour of the Union.

This proclamation was most unpopular in both England and Scotland. The
judges were of opinion that the adoption of the title of King of Great
Britain would invalidate all legal processes.[55] The king soon found
that he had gone too far; and, after a time, he consented to wait until
his wishes could be accomplished with the sanction of Parliament.

On the 20th of October, the Commissioners on Union met at Westminster.
“A grave and orderly assembly,” is the account which Bacon gives of
them. On the English side the lead was taken by Bacon and Cecil; while
of the Scottish commissioners, Sir Thomas Hamilton and Lord Fyvie seem
to have been the most prominent. It was soon evident that the Scottish
peers were afraid that the Union would diminish their own power, and
indifferent to the commercial advantages which it would confer upon
their country. The commoners from Scotland also had their doubts about
the Union. They entirely failed to appreciate the benefits of the
colonial trade which it would open up; and they seem to have resented,
to an extent which blinded their judgments, the removal of the Court to
London.

The English commissioners also put obstacles in the way of an
agreement. Against the advice of Bacon, but with the support of the
judges, they insisted on an uniform system of laws for the two
countries; a proposal to which the representatives of Scotland would not
listen.[56] They also maintained that it was unreasonable that Scotsmen
should be made capable of holding offices under the Crown in England;
and on this point there was a keen argument.

After a series of discussions, which lasted for about five weeks, Bacon
and Sir Thomas Hamilton were instructed to embody the findings of the
commissioners, in the form of a Treaty of Union, for the approval of the
Parliaments. “It is curious now,” says Professor Masson, “to imagine the
great English philosopher and ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’ thus seated together,
for perhaps two or three evenings, over the document which was to
descend to posterity as the draft Treaty of Union between England and
Scotland, and to speculate how shrewdly ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’ must have
looked after the substance of the document, while he may have deferred
to Bacon’s superior expertness in strictly English idiom and
wording.”[57]

The Articles of Union, as finally settled, stood thus. All hostile laws,
and, in particular, the Border laws, were to be repealed. The name of
the Borders was to be abolished. There was to be complete freedom of
trade between England and Scotland; and as regarded foreign commerce
both countries were to stand on the same footing. On the difficult point
of naturalisation, the commissioners recommended that an Act should be
passed to declare that all subjects of both countries born since the
death of Elizabeth, that is to say the “post-nati,” were, by common law,
entitled to the privileges of subjects in both countries. The
“ante-nati,” or subjects born before the death of the late queen, were
to enjoy the same privileges, not at common law, but under an Act of
Parliament passed on their behalf. But the ante-nati were not to be
capable of holding offices under the Crown or sitting in Parliament,
except in the country of their birth. In short, the post-nati were to be
fully naturalised; but the ante-nati were not to have a share in the
government or the legislature.

This question of naturalisation, with the distinction drawn between the
post-nati and the ante-nati, is, in our day, only one of faint
antiquarian interest; but it was then a question of practical everyday
importance. The law officers of the Crown had given an opinion that the
post-nati of Scotland were not aliens in England, but that the
ante-nati were; and this had led the Union Commissioners to suggest that
both should be placed on the same footing, with the exception, which has
just been mentioned, that the ante-nati should be declared incapable of
holding office. At this point James raised an objection. He protested
that he had no desire to give offices of State except to the natives of
the country in which the office was to be exercised. He agreed to the
proposal of the commissioners; but, at the same time, he insisted that
the clause dealing with the question of naturalisation should be so
worded as to recognise a right on the part of the sovereign to grant
letters of denization. This, of course, was a palpable evasion of the
proposed finding, and would leave him free to do as he pleased.
Nevertheless, the commissioners recommended that, in the Articles of
Union, the prerogative of the Crown as to appointing to offices in
either kingdom, and as to granting letters of denization, should be
specially reserved.

The Articles of Union were signed and sealed by the commissioners on the
6th of December, and at once presented to the king. James was in high
spirits. He thanked the commissioners warmly for their services, and
especially for their conduct in reserving his prerogative of appointing
to offices in either kingdom. “Among other pleasant speeches,” says
Bacon, “he showed unto them the laird of Lawreston,[58] a Scotchman, who
was the tallest and greatest man that was to be seen, and said, ‘Well,
now we are all one, yet none of you will say, but here is one Scotchman
greater than any Englishman’; which was an ambiguous speech, but it was
thought he meant it of himself.”

The Governments in both countries began to make arrangements for the
approaching Union. A warrant was issued for destroying the Great and
Privy Seals of Scotland; and new seals were made with the arms of
England, Scotland, and Ireland quartered on them.[59] Agents were sent
to France to investigate the privileges held by Englishmen and Scotsmen
as to the French trade, and arrange for the future. An order was issued
which illustrates the position of affairs between the countries.
Scotsmen were constantly going abroad to serve in the foreign armies.
They were in the habit of passing through England, and, on their way,
they often were guilty of disorderly conduct, such as robbing on the
highways, and committing other outrages, which raised a bad feeling
against their country. It was therefore ordered that, in future, all
Scotsmen going abroad were to embark from Scotland, instead of passing
through England.[60]

A long time, however, was to pass before the subject of the Union was
discussed by the Parliaments. The English Parliament had been summoned
for the 5th of November 1605, when the articles were to have been
debated. But the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot threw everything else
into the shade; and though the Treaty of Union was presented, nothing
more was done.

At last, when the Parliament of England met in November 1606, it was
understood that the session was to be chiefly devoted to the Scottish
question. The Articles of Union were known; and there was a storm of
opposition from the merchants of London. Objections were raised to the
admission of Scotsmen as members of English trading companies. There was
also a strong dislike to allowing free trade between England and
Scotland. The Scots, it was said, would come and go as they pleased, and
fulfil or break their bargains just as it suited them. The English
traders, moreover, wished a heavy duty to be imposed on cloth entering
Scotland, because Scotland had, for a long time, been favoured in the
custom duties which she paid in France; and this, along with other
privileges she enjoyed in that country, might enable her to monopolise
the trade in cloth with France. It was soon found that the dislike to
the Union extended to every class throughout the country. There was a
general fear that every district, and every calling, would be overrun
with needy Scotsmen. The Articles of Union, it was said, would open to
Scotsmen not only trade, but the Church, the universities, and the
highest offices of State. They would fill, it was predicted, the best
stalls in every cathedral in England; Latin would be taught at Oxford
and Cambridge by the countrymen of Buchanan, whose scholarship not even
English jealousy could venture to deny; and the tireless energy of
ambitious Scottish politicians would secure the most lucrative places in
the Government.

In Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons, these complaints
were echoed. Sir Christopher Piggott, one of the members for
Buckinghamshire, rose one day, and, speaking with his hat on, launched
into a torrent of abuse against the idea of an Union with the Scots,
who, he shouted, were murderers, thieves, and rogues who had not
suffered more than two of their kings to die peaceably in their beds
during the last two hundred years. The Commons, either from sympathy or
in surprise, received this tirade in silence. But James, when he heard
of it, was indignant; and Piggott was expelled from the House and
committed to the Tower.[61]

In this spirit the debates, which began in February 1607, were conducted
by the opponents of the Union. The first question which came up was the
question of naturalisation. The speech of the member who opened the case
against the proposals of the Union Commissioners consisted of an attack
on Scotland and the Scots; and his chief argument against the Union was
that if a man owned two pastures, the one fertile and the other barren,
he would not, if he was a wise man, pull down the hedge, and allow the
lean and hungry cattle to rush in and devour the rich pasture.

Bacon led on the other side. The grand idea of an orderly and
well-balanced Union of the two kingdoms had fascinated his imagination.
In moderate language, and in his most lucid manner, he answered his
opponents, and expounded his own reasons for advising the Parliament of
England to naturalise the Scottish nation. There were, he said, three
objections to doing so. In the first place, it was thought that if the
Scots were no longer aliens, they would settle in England in such
numbers that the country would be over-populated. But, he answered, four
years had passed since the Union of the Crowns, which was “the greatest
spring-tide for the confluence and entrance of that nation”; and during
these four years the only Scotsmen who had come to live in England were
those immediately connected with the Court. Again, England, he declared,
was not yet fully peopled. London was overcrowded; but the rest of the
country showed signs of a want of inhabitants, in the shape of swamps
and waste places. The Commons themselves might bear in mind “how many of
us serve here in this place for desolate and decayed boroughs.” And,
besides, what was the worst effect which could follow too great an
increase of the population? Nothing more than some honourable war for
the enlargement of our borders.

The second objection to naturalising the Scots was that the laws of
England and Scotland were different, that the Articles of Union left
them different, and that it was unreasonable to admit the Scots to the
privileges of English citizens without making them adopt the laws of
England. But, he argued, naturalisation must come first. The inhabitants
of Ireland, of the Isle of Man, and of Jersey and Guernsey, had the
benefits of naturalisation; but the laws of England were not yet in
force among them. An union of laws might be brought about both in these
places and in Scotland, but only in course of time.

The third objection was that there was so much inequality between
England and Scotland that the Union would not be fair to England. This
inequality, Bacon declared, consisted only in gold and silver, the
external goods of fortune. “In their capacities and undertakings,” he
said, “they are a people ingenious, in labour industrious, in courage
valiant, in body hard, active, and comely.” If Scotland was, after all,
to gain by the Union, then England might find that it was more blessed
to give than to receive.

Having thus answered the objections to naturalisation, he next
maintained that if naturalisation did not follow the Union of the
Kingdoms under the same Crown, danger would be the result. History, he
argued, teaches us that whenever kingdoms have been united by the link
of the Crown alone, if that union has not been fortified by something
more, and most of all by naturalisation, separation takes place. The
Romans and the Latins were united; but the Latins were not made citizens
of Rome. War was the result. Sparta was ruined by attempting to maintain
a league with States whose peoples she jealously regarded as aliens. The
history of Aragon and Castile, of Florence and Pisa, taught us the same
lesson. And on the other hand, we find that where States have been
united, and that union strengthened by the bond of naturalisation, they
never separate again.

He ended his speech by saying that, in future times, England, “having
Scotland united and Ireland reduced,” would be one of the greatest
monarchies in the world.[62]

But this appeal was unheeded by the House; and though Coke brought all
his great authority as a common lawyer to the same side as Bacon, the
members would not be convinced. James on two occasions expostulated with
them. He said he was willing, if it would help on the Union, to live one
year in Scotland and another in England, or to live at York, or on the
Borders. But the Commons were intractable, although the Lords were ready
to agree to the Union, and to the naturalisation of the Scots.

Something, however, was accomplished. The questions of trade and of
naturalisation were left unsettled; but an Act was passed which gave
effect to the first part of the Treaty of Union, by repealing a number
of statutes hostile to Scotland (such as those which forbade the leasing
of lands to Scotsmen, and the exporting of arms or horses to Scotland),
on condition that the Scottish Parliament, when it met, was to repeal
the Scottish Acts, of a similar nature, which were hostile to
England.[63]

With this small concession James had to be contented; and at the
beginning of July he dismissed the Parliament, but not without a
farewell warning that the Union was, in the long-run, inevitable. “These
two kingdoms,” he said, “are so conjoined that, if we should sleep in
our beds, the Union should be, though we would not. He that doth not
love a Scotsman as his brother, or the Scotsman that loves not an
Englishman as his brother, he is traitor to God and the king.”

The Scottish Parliament met in the first week of August. The Scots were,
on the whole, rather proud to think that their king had gone to rule
over England. Yet the old wrongs could not easily be forgotten, and it
is probable that the Estates were very nearly as much against the Union
as the House of Commons was. The Privy Council had, some months before,
given the king a hint of this;[64] and a trivial circumstance may be
mentioned to show how jealous the Scots were of England. A pattern of
the new flag which James had ordered to be prepared for the United
Kingdom, had been sent from England; and great offence had been taken
when it was found that the Cross of Saint Andrew was covered, and, it
was said, hidden by the Cross of St. George. Scottish seamen, the king
was told, could not be induced to receive the flag.[65]

There can be little doubt that most Scotsmen sympathised with the
national feeling which this trifling incident disclosed. But the private
opinion of a member of the Scottish Parliament was one thing, and his
public conduct was another. The Estates were submissive to the royal
will. The Articles of Union were agreed to; and all the laws hostile to
England were repealed.[66]

Thus, so far as it lay within the power of the Scottish Parliament, the
king had got what he wanted. All that remained was for the English
Parliament to be equally complaisant; and the kingdoms would have been
united in 1607 instead of a century later. But it was not to be. In
neither country was there any genuine desire for union. The free
traditions of the House of Commons enabled the members to say what they
thought; and the subject, gradually dropping out of sight, was not again
seriously debated during the reign of James. The antiquary may still
inspect a brown and shrivelled parchment which is preserved in the
Register House at Edinburgh, all that remains of the Treaty of 1607. The
time had not yet come when the Parliaments of the two nations were to
see that it was impossible for the resources of Scotland to be developed
while she remained separate from England, and that it was equally
impossible for England to attain a position of permanent security so
long as Scotland remained poor and discontented, debarred, by commercial
restrictions, from the advantages of trade with the colonies and with
England, and with no outlet for that splendid energy of her people
which, after the Union, changed the Lothians from a desert to a garden,
made Edinburgh famous throughout Europe as a school of letters, and
founded on the banks of the Clyde one of the great commercial cities of
the world.

The question of naturalisation, which could not be left undecided, was
settled by the judges in a test case in the law courts. The action
related to a tenement in Shoreditch, and the point at issue was whether
the plaintiff, a child born in Scotland since the Union of the Crowns,
was an alien, and, therefore, not entitled to bring an action for real
property in England. Bacon was the leading counsel for the plaintiff;
and the most important opinion was delivered by Lord Chancellor
Ellesmere. The Court, by a majority, found for the plaintiff, holding
that all the post-nati, or persons born in Scotland since the Union of
the Crowns, were naturalised and entitled to all the rights of
Englishmen in England. The ante-nati, those born in Scotland before the
accession of James, still remained in the position of aliens.[67]

The effects of the removal of the Court to London were apparent in
Scotland for many years to come. The houses of the nobles and the gentry
were neglected. Gardens and pleasure-grounds, which had begun to appear
in some places, were allowed to run to waste. The inns, poor at all
times, fell into ruins. Merchants found their business at a standstill;
and the shipping trade languished. What made all this peculiarly galling
to the Scottish people was that England, though not occupying under the
Stuarts the lofty position which she had occupied under the Tudors, was,
year after year, enlarging her bounds and adding to the sources of her
wealth. On the southern side of the Borders, the industries of Yorkshire
were showing signs of what they were to become. The East India Company,
now firmly established, was extending its operations. Far across the
seas Nova Scotia was colonised by Scotsmen whom poverty had driven from
their homes; and the plantations of Virginia became a rich addition to
the resources of the English Crown. And besides suffering from the evils
of poverty, Scotland was harassed almost from the day on which James
ascended the throne of England by those ecclesiastical disputes which
plunged the country into so much misery during the seventeenth century.

The king had been compelled, by the force of public opinion in England,
to abandon the Union. But with the object to which he devoted the rest
of his life even those Englishmen who doubted the wisdom of his policy
were inclined to sympathise. The Scottish Reformation, unlike that of
England, had been the work of the aristocracy, in opposition to the
Crown. It had, at the same time, been a deeply religious movement; and
these two forces, working together, had developed, as the distinguishing
features of the Reformed Church of Scotland, a denial of the royal
supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, and the assertion of the spiritual
independence of the Church. Sir James Mackintosh has said that the
peculiar theories of Berkeley were a touch-stone of metaphysical
sagacity, meaning, apparently, by this phrase, that those who were
without it could not understand the meaning or the tendency of those
theories. In like manner, spiritual independence is the touch-stone of a
capacity for understanding the history of the Scottish Church. The words
“spiritual independence” expressed for Scotsmen what was, on the one
hand, a part of their constitutional law, set forth in the statutes of
the realm, and on the other hand, an article of faith, received by the
people as an essential part of their religion, involving the principle
of loyalty to the great founder of the Christian faith, as the only head
of the Church. They believed--and for this belief thousands laid down
their lives--that there were two authorities, the one civil and the
other spiritual. Both were based upon a divine sanction; and each was to
be obeyed within its own sphere. The civil magistrate was to bear rule
and to be obeyed in civil affairs; but if he attempted to interfere with
the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, he was to be resisted to the
death. This principle of spiritual independence, which, neither at the
Union of the Crowns, nor at the Union of the Kingdoms, nor during that
memorable crisis which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, rent
asunder the Church of Scotland, Englishmen were able to understand, was
taught in the first Confession of Faith drawn up by the Scottish
Reformers, and laid before the Estates in 1560.[68] After some years,
when the long controversy between the king and the Church had begun, the
two jurisdictions, civil and ecclesiastical, were still more carefully
defined.[69]

Principles such as these were intolerable to James. By the law of
England the king was head of the Church; and it was, therefore, his
policy to introduce an uniformity of ecclesiastical government over the
whole island. For more than twenty years before the Union of the Crowns
he had been engaged in fighting the Scottish clergy. Sometimes he won,
and sometimes he was defeated. The great point at issue was whether the
Scottish Church was to be Presbyterian or Episcopal; for he had found
that if the Presbyterian system was allowed to exist, the royal
supremacy would never be acknowledged in Scotland. Accordingly he came
to the throne of England with a firm resolution that he would use his
new position so as to secure the establishment of Episcopacy in the
north; and, though he artfully concealed it, we may be sure that one of
his chief reasons for proposing the Union was that he believed it would
be followed by the accomplishment of this object. Henceforth the policy
of extending the Anglican system to Scotland became the hereditary
policy of the Stuarts. Three years after the Union of the Crowns, the
boldest leaders of the clergy having been driven into exile, the
Scottish Parliament acknowledged the royal supremacy over all persons
and all causes. It was not long before Episcopacy was established; and
James had the gratification of seeing a few of his new bishops humbly
consenting to receive consecration from the hands of English prelates,
and returning to Scotland to confer upon their brethren the virtues of
the apostolical succession. But the system which was thus set up had no
hold upon the people. It would be impossible to point out in the
catalogue of Scottish bishops the names of a dozen men who were either
popular, or famous for learning, or eminent on account of their public
services. The history of Christendom contains no story so humiliating as
the story of Prelacy in Scotland during the seventeenth century.

The real meaning of the struggle between the Scottish people and the
English Government which followed the Union of the Crowns cannot be
understood unless we remember that, for most of those who suffered, the
question at issue was a question of conscience. It is easy to find upon
the surface of these events the materials from which to construct an
explanation of a different kind. Envy at the sight of so much power in
the hands of the priesthood, and the love, so strong in the Scottish
character, of freedom from control, might influence some. But no one who
looks below the surface, or reads the history of that period with an
impartial mind, can fail to perceive that what brought the people of
Scotland into a position of such stern antagonism to the English system
of Church government, and, still more, what kept them there, was the
fact that to accept Episcopacy was to give up spiritual independence, to
admit the royal supremacy, and to abandon the principle of a divine
head of the Church. It was for that principle that men and women died
during the period between the Restoration and the Revolution, and not
merely in defence of one form of Church government against another. And
in the meantime, during the first half of the seventeenth century, it
was the obstinate and persistent tyranny of James, and the infatuation
of Charles the First and his advisers, which roused that memorable
outburst of national resentment which scattered their policy to the
winds. An uniformity in Church government and in ritual was the end
aimed at by Charles and Laud. That end was, indeed, so far accomplished;
but not by them. Having resolved to extend the Anglican system
permanently to Scotland, they lived just long enough to see the Scottish
system on the point of being extended to England, and the two kingdoms
suddenly bound together by that solemn league which, conceived, though
it may have been, in a spirit of intolerance, was nevertheless, for more
than two generations, the watchword of the Whigs of Scotland, who
afterwards, through the years of darkness and tempest, held high the
blue banner of the Covenants, the rallying-point of Scottish freedom.

During a few years the Presbyterian Church was established, and the
ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland were administered in accordance with
the long-cherished aspirations of the native clergy. But the alliance
between the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament and Church
did not long survive the execution of Charles. Their ideas had always
been different. “The English were for a civil league, we for a religious
covenant,” Baillie had written six years before. The Scottish Parliament
protested against the execution. The Scottish Church was willing to
receive Charles the Second, if he would declare himself a Presbyterian
and sign the Covenants. “If his Majesty,” Baillie writes, “may be moved
to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to
sacrifice their lives for his service.” Charles consented. He subscribed
the Covenants, and bound himself, by an oath, to maintain the
Presbyterian Church. But the royal cause was hopeless. Cromwell’s
victory at Dunbar was a crushing blow; and the battle of Worcester left
Scotland at the mercy of the English army.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 553.

[43] Spotswood, 476.

[44] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 602.

[45] Satire against Scotland, 1617; _Abbotsford Miscellany_, i. 297.

[46] _Fœdera_, xvi. 506.

[47] A brief discourse of the Happy Union of the Kingdoms of England and
Scotland, dedicated in private to His Majesty, 1603; Certain Articles or
Considerations touching the Union, collected and dispersed for His
Majesty’s better service.

[48] A Preparation towards the Union of the Laws of England and
Scotland.

[49] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 596.

[50] Act. Parl. Scot. iv. 263, 11th July 1604.

[51] Act. Parl. Scot. iv. 264.

[52] Act in favour of the liberties of the Kirk, 11th July 1604, Act.
Parl. Scot. iv. 264. Balmerino, in sending to Cecil an account of the
proceedings of the Estates regarding the Union, expresses the hope that
the Scottish people will prove equally tractable (_Calendar of State
Papers, Domestic_, 1603-1610, p. 132).

[53] _Fœdera_, xvi. 600.

[54] Proclamatio pro Unione Regnorum Angliæ et Scotiæ, 20th October 1604
(_Fœdera_, xvi. 603).

[55] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1603-1610, p. 103.

[56] “Amongst these commissioners there grew a question, whether there
could be made an Union of the Kingdoms by raising a new Kingdome of
Great Britaine, before there was an Union of the Lawes. Which question,
by the King’s commandment, was referred to all the Judges of England in
Trinity Terme, Anno 2 Jac., who unanimously resolved (I being then
Attorney General and present), that Anglia had lawes, and Scotia had
lawes, but this new erected Kingdome of Britannia should have no law.
And, therefore, where all the judiciall proceedings in England are
secundum legem et consuetudinem Angliæ, it could not be altered secundum
legem et consuetudinem Britanniæ, untill there was an Union of the lawes
of both Kingdomes; which could not be done but by Authority of
Parliament in either Kingdome” (Coke’s _Institutes_, part iv. cap. 75).
On one point connected with the legal system of Scotland, James
displayed greater foresight than even the Whigs of 1707. “The greatest
hinderance,” he says in the _Basilikon Doron_, “to the execution of our
lawes in this countrie, are these heritable Sheifdomes and Regalities,
which being in the hands of the great men, doe wracke the whole
countrey.” And then he recommends his son to look forward to a time when
he might be able to abolish them, and introduce the English system;
“Preassing with time, to draw it to the lawdable custome of England;
which ye may the easilier doe, being King of both, as I hope in God ye
shall.” The Heritable Jurisdictions, a curse to Scotland, were not
abolished until after the second Jacobite Rebellion.

[57] Introduction to the Treasury Edition of the _Register of the Privy
Council of Scotland_, edited by Professor Masson, vol. vii. p. xxxii.

[58] Sir Alexander Straton of Lauriston.

[59] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vii. 54, 464.

[60] _Ibid._ 130.

[61] Commons Journals, 13th February 1607.

[62] A speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, in the Honourable House
of Commons, Quinto Jacobi, concerning the Article of the General
Naturalization of the Scottish Nation.

[63] Act for the utter abolition of all memory of hostility, and the
dependents thereof, between England and Scotland, 4 Jac. i. cap. i.

[64] “Thair be amang us not a few of the best sorte who ar als aliene
from it as ony of the lower House, and hes moir just causis to be
discontented with so easie obliterating of begane wrongis.” (The Privy
Council to the King, 3rd March 1607, _Register_, vii. 513.)

[65] _Register of Privy Council_, vii. 498.

[66] Act anent the Unioun of Scotland and England. Act. Parl. Scot. iv.
366.

[67] _Calvin_ v. _Smith_, the case of the Post-nati, or of the Union of
the Realm of Scotland with England; Trin. 6 James I. A.D. 1608, State
Trials, ii. 559; The argument of Sir Francis Bacon, in the case of the
Post-nati of Scotland, in the Exchequer Chamber, before the Lord
Chancellor, and all the Judges of England, Nov. 1608.

[68] Thus the eleventh article of this Confession, which treats of the
Ascension, contains these remarkable words: “The remembrance of quhilk
day, and of the Judgement to be executed in the same, is not onelie to
us ane brydle whereby our carnal lustes are refrained, bot alswa sik
inestimable comfort, that nether may the threatning of wordly Princes,
nether zit the feare of temporal death and present danger, move us to
renounce and forsake that blessed societie, quhilk we the members have
with our head and onelie Mediator Christ Jesus, whom we confesse and
avow to be the Messias promised, the onelie head of his Kirk, our just
Laugiver, our onelie hie Priest, Advocate and Mediator. In quhilk
honoures and offices, gif Man or Angel presume to intrude themself, we
utterlie detest and abhorre them, as blasphemous to our Soveraine and
supreme Governour Christ Jesus.” The twenty-fifth article is entitled,
“Of the Civil Magistrate”; and these two articles, when read together,
contain the germ of the Scottish idea of an Established Church. This
Confession was ratified by the Estates in 1567, Act. Parl. Scot.

[69] “This power ecclesiasticall flowis immediatlie frome God, and the
Mediator Chryst Jesus, and is spirituall, not having ane temporall heid
on eirth, bot onlie Chryst, the onlie spirituall King and Gouernour of
his Kirk;” “It is ane title falslie usurpit be Antichrist, to call
himself heid of the Kirk, and aucht not to be attributit to angell or to
mane, of what estait soeuir he be, saiffing to Chryst, the Heid and
onelie Monarche in this Kirk;” “As the ministeris and vtheris of the
ecclesiasticall estait, ar subiect to the magistrat ciuillie, swa aucht
the persone of the magistrat be subiect to the Kirk spirituallie, and in
ecclesiasticall gouernment. And the exercise of bayth thais
jurisdictionis can not stande in ane persone ordinarlie” (Headis and
Conclusionis of the Policie of the Kirk, cap. i.). This statement of
principles, usually called the “Second Book of Discipline,” was
promulgated by the Church of Scotland in 1578.



CHAPTER III

THE UNION DURING THE COMMONWEALTH


When the battle of Worcester was fought exactly a year had passed since
the battle of Dunbar. The events of that year were not such as to
reconcile Scotland to the Union which was now proposed by the Government
of England. All trade between the two countries had been forbidden.
Edinburgh had been taken, the royal palace of Holyrood, turned into
barracks, had been set on fire through the carelessness of the soldiers,
and almost totally destroyed. The churches had been desecrated, their
pulpits and seats torn down and used as firewood. The edifice which
George Heriot had directed his executors to raise for the benefit of the
poor of Edinburgh was seized, while still in the builder’s hands, and
turned into a military hospital. The castle had been surrendered into
the hands of the invader. In the Parliament House, English troopers
prayed and preached. The garrison of Stirling Castle had capitulated;
the public records of the kingdom had been removed to the Tower of
London; and the whole country south of the Forth and Clyde was subdued.
Dundee held out to the last; but just two days before the battle of
Worcester the town was stormed by Monk.

The slaughter at Dundee, and the news brought home by those who had
escaped from the field of Worcester, extinguished all hopes of further
resistance. In the Highlands alone there remained some faint show of
adherence to the cause of the Stuarts, which afterwards found an outlet
in the rising under Glencairn; and the Marquis of Argyll strove, for a
time, to stem the tide which was overwhelming Scotland. But, to all
intents and purposes, the country was now thoroughly subdued.

Eight commissioners, among whom were young Sir Harry Vane, Lambert, and
Monk, were appointed to arrange an Union. They found everything in
confusion. The last meeting of the Scottish Parliament had taken place
on the 6th of June. The Court of Session had not sat since February
1650. Many towns were without magistrates. The Church was torn by
internal dissensions. When proclamation was made, at the market-cross of
Edinburgh, that Scotland was to be united, in one Commonwealth, with
England, the announcement was received in gloomy silence. But there was
an under-current of feeling in favour of the Union, of which the
commissioners were doubtless aware. Delegates from the counties and
burghs were summoned to meet at Dalkeith, to consider the Tender of
Union which the commissioners were empowered to offer on behalf of the
Parliament of England; and the result was that, of thirty-one counties,
twenty-eight, and of fifty-eight burghs, forty-four assented to the
Union.[70] Their assent must in some degree be ascribed to motives of
prudence; for it was known that those counties and burghs which failed
to send delegates favourable to union would be disfranchised; but it was
from Glasgow alone, which, more than any other place in Scotland, was
ultimately to benefit from the Union with England, that any formal and
serious objection came. By some a scheme was suggested, which Fletcher
of Saltoun would have warmly supported in 1707, for declining an
incorporating Union and making Scotland a republic in friendly alliance
with England. But the proposers of this scheme, one of whom was the
noted Covenanter, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, ultimately
agreed to the Union.

The chief opponents of the new arrangement were the clergy. It was on
the 23rd of February 1652 that the delegates assembled at Dalkeith; and
on the following day Baillie writes: “All the ministers of Edinburgh
prays still for the king, and preaches very freely and zealously against
the way of the English; this they are very angry at, and threatens to
remeed it.” But the ministers were divided against each other. Some
resisted the Union because they were Royalists, some because they could
not tolerate the idea of uniting with a country in which the
Independents and other “Sectaries” had so much power, and others because
they thought that the result of the Union would be that the Church would
become subordinate to the State. But their resistance was of no avail;
and they could only lament the defection of so many of the laity. “Good
Sir John Seaton,” Baillie writes in reference to the Conference at
Dalkeith, “was the first that subscribed his free and willing acceptance
of the incorporation for East Louthian. The two Swintons followed for
the Merse, Stobs for Tiviotdale, Dundas for West Louthian, William
Thomson and Fairbairne, I think, have done the like for Edinburgh, and
its like almost all burghs and shyres will, under their hand, renounce
their Covenant; Glasgow and the West purposes to refuse, for which we
are like deeply to suffer; but the will of the Lord be done.”[71]

The result of the meeting of delegates was reported to Parliament; and
the Council of State was instructed to prepare a Bill for the union of
the two countries. Deputies were sent from Scotland to Westminster to
adjust the details of the measure, and, in particular, to fix the number
of members who were to represent Scotland in the Parliament of the
United Commonwealth. A series of conferences were held between these
deputies and a Committee of Parliament, at which the demands of Scotland
were discussed. There was great difficulty in settling the question of
representation.[72] The English proposal was that, in the united
Parliament, England should be represented by four hundred members,
Scotland by thirty, and Ireland by thirty. The number of commoners in
the Scottish Parliament had been one hundred and twenty; and the
deputies wished sixty Scottish members to have seats in the House of
Commons. The English Government, however, refused to admit more than
thirty. This was agreed to; and the Union Bill was about to pass, when,
on the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell put an end to the Long Parliament.

In the Little Parliament, Barebones’ Parliament, Scotland was
represented by five members, and some progress was made in the matter of
the Union. It was resolved that there should be complete free trade
between England and Scotland. The Government ordered all money raised in
Scotland to be spent in Scotland for local purposes;[73] and that on the
passing of the Union Bill, an enactment, which had come into force three
years before, under which all Scotsmen were banished from England,
should be repealed.[74] But the further progress of the Union Bill came
to an end when Parliament was dissolved, and the control of all affairs
passed into the hands of Cromwell as “Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” a title which assumed that the
Union had already taken place.

In the following spring an ordinance was framed for completing the
Union. It set forth that the people of Scotland, having been invited to
unite with England, had, through their deputies, accepted the
invitation; that Scotland was, therefore, to be now incorporated and
declared one Commonwealth with England; and that, in every Parliament
which was held for the Commonwealth, thirty members were to serve for
Scotland. To secure the more effectual preservation of the Union, and
the freedom of the country, the people of Scotland were relieved from
all allegiance to the Stuarts. The title of King of Scotland was
abolished. The right of the Estates to assemble in Parliament was
annulled. It was ordained that, “as a badge of this Union,” the arms of
Scotland should form a part of the arms of the Commonwealth; and that
all seals of office, and the seals of the corporations in Scotland,
should henceforth bear the arms of the Commonwealth. All taxes were to
be levied proportionably from the whole people of the Commonwealth.
Vassalage was abolished, and lands were to be held by deed or charter
for rent. The whole system of hereditary jurisdictions, by which there
had been transmitted from father to son, in many families of the
landowners, the power of holding courts and inflicting punishments, even
that of death, was swept away. An immense boon was conferred on Scotland
by the establishment of complete free trade between the countries, and
by the declaration that in all matters relating to commerce England and
Scotland were thenceforth equal.[75]

This ordinance was proclaimed at Edinburgh on the 4th of May 1654. The
town-cross, at which the ceremony took place, was surrounded by troops
under the command of Monk. An immense crowd of the townsfolk assembled
to witness the proceedings. The Lord Provost and the Magistrates, clad
in their scarlet robes, were in attendance. Henry Whalley, Judge
Advocate to the English army, read the proclamation; and at the
conclusion of the ceremony, Monk and his friends were entertained at a
sumptuous banquet in the Parliament House, where the Magistrates stood
and served them. Later in the evening there was a display of fireworks
at the town-cross.

The Union having been thus proclaimed, the Council of State at Whitehall
proceeded to arrange the distribution of seats in Scotland.[76] Of the
thirty seats, twenty were allotted to the counties, and ten to the
burghs. The more populous counties each returned a member. The rest were
divided into groups. Of the burghs, Edinburgh alone returned two
members; but all the other towns were grouped into districts.

When the Protector’s first Parliament met, in July 1654, twenty-one
members from Scotland attended. Of these, both the members for
Edinburgh, and several others, were Englishmen; and while the Union
lasted, the members from Scotland were either quiet and peaceful
Scotsmen, ready to support the Protector’s measures, or English
officials.[77]

The Council in Scotland managed the elections there. The full number of
thirty members was returned to the Parliament of 1656; but many of them
were Englishmen. Argyll opposed the Council, and endeavoured to secure
the return of Scotsmen only, but in vain. He failed to obtain a seat
himself until Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1658, when thirteen
county and eight burgh members seem to have attended. Argyll then
represented Aberdeenshire in the House of Commons; but the members for
Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Linlithgow, Stirlingshire, Clackmannan,
Dumbartonshire, Argyllshire, Bute, and Midlothian were all Englishmen;
and a majority of the burgh members came from Westminster or the Inns of
Court.[78]

The executive government in Scotland, during the Union, was vested in a
Council of State, to whom elaborate instructions were issued by the
Protector. They were to inquire into the best means for preserving the
Union; to promote the cause of religion, taking care that the clergy
were regularly paid, and that all schools had able and pious teachers;
to encourage learning and reform the universities; to remove from the
corporations disaffected or ill-behaved magistrates, and replace them by
suitable persons; to see that equal justice was administered to all men,
and to promote the Union by assimilating the procedure in the courts of
Scotland to that of the courts of England; to investigate the state of
the revenue, and see that the Exchequer was not defrauded; to study
economy in the public service; to encourage the fishing industry, the
manufactures, and the commerce of Scotland.

The Council consisted of nine members, of whom only two, Lockhart and
Swinton, were Scotsmen. Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, third son of the
Earl of Cork, was President, with a salary of two thousand pounds a
year; and the great Scottish offices of State, most of which were
retained, were generally filled by Englishmen. Lord Broghill appears to
have been popular. “He has gained,” Baillie writes, “more on the
affections of the people than all the English that ever were among
us.”[79]

An army of English soldiers, nearly as numerous as that which occupied
Ireland, was spread over Scotland. Forts were built at Leith, Glasgow,
Ayr, and Inverness; and the castle of Inverlochy was repaired and filled
by a garrison which overawed the Western Highlands. The strictest
discipline was maintained. “I remember,” Burnet says, “three regiments
coming to Aberdeen. There was an order and discipline, and a face of
gravity and piety among them, that amazed all people.” Burnet attributes
the flourishing state of Scotland during the Union to the money spent by
the army; so does Fletcher of Saltoun. And it must have had a
considerable effect on the financial state of the country, as the pay of
the troops amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds yearly, an
immense sum for the Scotland of those days.

In the judicial system sweeping changes were introduced. The exercise of
jurisdiction in Scotland was prohibited, except under the authority of
the Parliament of England. The powers of the Court of Session, the
supreme tribunal of the country, were handed over to a bench of
Commissioners for the Administration of Justice to the People of
Scotland. These judges were seven in number, four Englishmen and three
Scotsmen. At first the Scottish Bar joined the clergy in opposing the
Union, and refused to plead; but by the autumn of 1656 most of the
advocates had returned to business.

The manner in which the “English judges,” as the Commissioners were
called, performed their duties seems to have given great satisfaction.
The Court of Session had been so tyrannical and corrupt that the
fairness and purity of the new Court astonished the country. “Justice,”
we are told, “was wont to be free and open for none but great men, but
now it flows equally for all.” Circuit courts were held throughout the
country; and, while crime was firmly punished, the extreme severity of
the Scottish criminal system was avoided. Prosecutions for witchcraft
were still frequent, but the English judges received the evidence with
suspicion; and on one occasion no less than sixty persons, whom the
superstition of their own countrymen would have condemned to the flames,
were acquitted.

The merchants of Scotland were, by the terms of the Union, admitted to
all the trading privileges which Englishmen enjoyed. Goods of every
description passed duty-free from England to Scotland and from Scotland
to England; and there was no restriction on the foreign and colonial
trade of Scotland. But these advantages were not fully appreciated; for
Scottish commerce was still in its infancy. The Glasgow of to-day, with
its miles of wharves and warehouses, its forest of masts, its
shipbuilding yards, its crowded streets and handsome squares, had no
existence. The merchants of the small town upon the Clyde traded with
Ireland, in open boats, for meal, oats, and butter. They shipped coal,
herrings, and woollen goods to France in exchange for paper and prunes.
They sent to Norway for timber, and to Barbadoes for sugar. But the
river Clyde was then so shallow that their ships could not come nearer
to the town than a spot fourteen miles distant, where they were
unloaded, and the cargoes carried up the river on rafts or in small
boats.

The English were astonished at the poverty of Scotland. The whole
revenue from Customs and Excise was under fifty thousand pounds a
year.[80] A monthly assessment of seventy thousand pounds was levied in
the towns and counties of England, while Scotland was assessed at only
six thousand pounds. The yearly expenditure in Scotland exceeded the
revenue; and the balance was paid out of the English treasury.
Nevertheless the time of the Union during the Commonwealth was regarded
as a time of prosperity. The trade of Glasgow began to flourish. Leith,
then the chief port in Scotland, Dundee, and Aberdeen made considerable
progress in wealth; and there can be little doubt that if the commercial
policy of Cromwell had not been reversed at the Restoration, the
merchants of Scotland would have made, during the second half of the
seventeenth century, that remarkable advance towards opulence and
importance which they made after the Union of 1707.

When, fifty years later, the Union was finally accomplished, one of the
most difficult questions which the statesmen of the two countries had to
discuss was the question of the Church. But the ordinance of April 1654
contains no reference to that question. The Council for Scotland was
instructed, in general terms, to promote the cause of religion, and to
see that the clergy were paid regularly; but no formal settlement was
attempted. Though the stipends of the Scottish clergy were small, their
social position was far higher than that of the English clergy. They
associated, on terms of equality, with the first families of the laity,
and so great was their influence that, if they had been united among
themselves, they might have held their own against the Independents who
came to Scotland with Cromwell. But they were powerless, because they
were divided, split up into two parties, and engaged in a dispute which
was conducted with a warmth unusual even in the quarrels of Churchmen.

This dispute had its origin in the Engagement for the relief of Charles
the First. The Scottish Parliament of 1649 had passed an Act which
declared all those who approved of the Engagement incapable of holding
any public office.[81] This statute, known as the Act of Classes, had
incapacitated a number of persons from serving in the army. After the
battle of Dunbar, the General Assembly passed resolutions in favour of
readmitting to the public service, particularly in military employments,
those who had been proscribed; and Parliament, taking the same view as
the majority of the clergy, repealed the Act of Classes. Against this
the defeated minority of the clergy protested. Two parties were formed,
the one known as Resolutioners, and the other as Protesters; and the
contest passed from the ranks of the clergy to the ranks of the people.
Which party had the larger following among the people it is difficult to
say; but, apparently, while the Resolutioners formed a majority of the
clergy, the Protesters were more popular, especially in the
south-western counties, afterwards the stronghold of the Covenanters
during the period which followed the Restoration.

The Church of Scotland was rent in twain, and there were two factions in
almost every parish. The induction of a minister was seldom accomplished
without opposition; and on many occasions disgraceful scenes took place
in the churches, riots, stone-throwing, and even bloodshed. The
differences between the parties extended from the original cause of
quarrel to questions of rites and ceremonies, always a fruitful source
of bad feeling. The country was flooded with controversial pamphlets, in
which the disputants attacked each other in the most acrimonious terms.
One of the Protesters, indeed, a young divine named Binning, published a
book on _Christian Love_, in the hope, apparently, of preparing the way
for a reconciliation, but his advances were rejected with scorn.

Some members of the Council of State proposed that means should be taken
to re-unite these factions; but Vane advised a very different course.
Let them fight it out, he said, in the inferior courts of their Church.
By this means their attention will be diverted from secular matters,
with which they are too fond of interfering, and confined to their own
private squabbles. At the same time, if we forbid the General Assembly
to meet, they will be powerless for either good or evil. This policy was
carried into effect. The Assembly met at Edinburgh, and the members
were about to proceed to business, when an officer entered, and asked by
what authority they had met. Was it by the authority of the Parliament
of England, or of the commander of the English forces, or of the English
judges in Scotland? The ministers answered that the Assembly was an
ecclesiastical court, deriving its authority from God and established by
the law of the land. The officer said that he had orders to dissolve the
meeting, and ordered those present to follow him, or he would drag them
by force out of the room.

Uttering protests against this violence, the members rose and followed
him. A guard of soldiers surrounded them, and led them along the
streets, “all the people gazing and mourning, as at the saddest
spectacle they had ever seen.” Presently a halt was called. The names of
the ministers were taken down; and they were told that all future
meetings were forbidden. On the following morning, by sound of trumpet,
they were commanded to leave the town, on pain of instant imprisonment
if they disobeyed.[82]

In this summary fashion the supreme court of the Church of Scotland was
dissolved; and while the Union lasted the English army was supreme in
Church affairs. The clergy were forbidden to pray for the king, and
ordered to pray for the Protector. This order was at once obeyed by the
Protesters; but the Resolutioners did not submit until they were
informed that their stipends would be withdrawn, when they came to the
conclusion that as the king could not protect them nor pay them they
need no longer pray for him. Excommunication lost its terrors when the
secular arm could no longer be invoked to give civil effect to the
sentence of a Church court. The stool of repentance, which stood in
every church, and on which sinners had to sit and listen to a public
rebuke, was derided by the rough troopers, who either broke it to
pieces, or sat on it themselves, to show their contempt for a kind of
discipline which was akin to penance in the Church of Rome. The English
soldiers did not admire either the Church or the religious character of
the Scots. “A Kirk whose religion is formality, and whose government is
tyranny, a generation of very hypocrites and vipers whom no oaths or
covenants can bind, no courtesies or civilities oblige,” was their
verdict.[83] Magnificent and fruitful of results as the Covenanting
movement was, there can be no doubt that side by side with the genuine
religious devotion of some there was to be found the deep hypocrisy of
others. Cromwell saw this at once, and complained that where he had
expected to find “a conscientious people,” he had found one “given to
the most impudent lying and frequent swearing, as is incredible to be
believed.”[84]

The persecuting principles of the Scottish clergy, too, alienated the
Independent ministers who accompanied the army. Even so good a man as
Samuel Rutherford argued against toleration with almost as much bigotry
as Edwards had displayed in the Gangræna; and Baillie lamented that “the
hand of power is not heavy on any for matters of religion.”[85]
Principles such as these were, of course, hateful to the Independents,
with whom liberty of conscience was an article of faith; and the fact
that such principles were held by the Scottish clergy was one of the
chief reasons why, during the Commonwealth, the Scottish Church was
powerless.

Among the duties intrusted to the Council of State for Scotland were the
encouragement of learning and the reform of the universities.
Commissioners visited the universities, and changes were made.
Resolutioners were turned out, and Protesters put in their places.
Leighton, afterwards Bishop of Dunblane, became Principal of Edinburgh
University. At Glasgow, Patrick Gillespie was appointed against the
remonstrances of Baillie and his party; but even Baillie afterwards
admitted that the appointment was a wise one. “The matters of our
college,” he writes, “this year were peaceable; our gallant building
going on vigorously; above twenty-six thousand pounds are already spent
upon it; Mr. Patrick Gillespie, with a very great care, industrie, and
dexterity, managing it as good as alone.” A grant of two hundred pounds
a year was made to the Universities both of Edinburgh and of Glasgow;
and before his death the Protector had taken the first steps towards
founding a College of Physicians for Scotland.

In 1659 it was resolved to put the Union, the terms of which rested only
on the ordinance promulgated by Oliver Cromwell five years before, on a
more constitutional footing; and for that purpose two Bills “for
perfecting the Union between England and Scotland” were brought into
Parliament.[86] But neither of these Bills became an Act of Parliament;
and at the Restoration, the Union came to an end.

As to the general effect of this Union on the state of Scotland we have
conflicting accounts; but the weight of evidence goes to show that it
was a time, not only of quiet, which has never been denied, but also of
prosperity. Baillie tells a dismal tale. The peers were in exile or
reduced to poverty; the people were burdened by heavy taxation, and
suffering from want of money and want of trade. But Baillie was a
Resolutioner; and the Protesters were favoured by the Government.
Therefore, for Baillie, the times were out of joint, and he exclaims,
“What shall we do for a testimony against the English?” Yet he is forced
to admit that food was cheap and plentiful; and he gives an account of
the state of Glasgow, where he lived, from which it appears that the
town was highly prosperous. The magistrates were rapidly paying off the
public debt, and spending money on public works.[87]

To the historian Kirkton, who was on the other side, everything seemed
bright. It was a period of “deep tranquillity.” Every parish had a
minister; every village had a school; almost every family had a Bible.
The voice of singing and of prayer was heard in every house. From the
taverns alone came the sound of lamentation; for the happiness and
sobriety of the people were such that the trade in strong drink was
ruined.[88]

Burnet agrees with Kirkton. “We always reckon,” he says, “those eight
years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity.” Defoe took
special pains to make himself acquainted with the affairs of Scotland,
and the information which he received was to the same effect. “Scotland
flourished, justice had its uninterrupted course, trade increased, money
plentifully flowed in.”[89] Cromwell himself, in 1658, gave a favourable
account of the state of things, on which Carlyle’s comment is, “Scotland
is prospering; has fair play and ready-money;--prospering though
sulky.”[90]

In England the Union, if not unpopular, was regarded with indifference.
In the Protector’s “House of Lords” there were three Scotsmen, Lord
Casselis, Sir William Lockhart, and Johnston of Warriston, the last of
whom seems to have wearied the House with long and frequent speeches. In
the House of Commons the members from Scotland gave no trouble, and are
said, indeed, never to have opened their lips. The commercial
advantages, however, which Scotland had secured by the Union caused
great jealousy among the English merchants; and on the English side of
the border the establishment of free trade between the countries was
viewed with disfavour. But, on the whole, the broad current of English
life flowed on, undisturbed by the existence of the Union.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Act. Parl. Scot. VI. ii. 771.

[71] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 174.

[72] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1651-52, p. 485.

[73] _Calendar_, 1653-54, p. 12.

[74] _Calendar_, 1653-54, p. 258.

[75] Order of Council, Whitehall, 12th April 1654.

[76] Order of Council, 27th June 1654.

[77] Baillie’s _Letters and Journals_, iii. 289, 318, 357; Thurloe,
_State Papers_, v. 366.

[78] Act. Parl. Scot. VII. ii. 784.

[79] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 315.

[80] Report by Thomas Tucker upon the revenue of Excise and Customs in
Scotland, 1656, in the _Scottish Burgh Society’s Miscellany_.

[81] Act of Classes for purging the Judicatories and other Places of
Public Trust. Act. Parl. Scot. VI. ii. 143.

[82] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 225.

[83] Orme’s _Life of Owen_, p. 128; Whitelocke, July 1650.

[84] Letter to the Council of State, 25th September 1650.

[85] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 291.

[86] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1659-1660, p. 35; Act. Parl.
Scot. VI. ii. 587.

[87] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 249, 288, 357, 360, 387.

[88] Kirkton’s _True and Secret History of the Church of Scotland_
(edited from the original MS. by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 1817), pp.
64, 65. In Law’s _Memorialls_ (edited from the MS. by Mr. Sharpe in
1818) there is a passage which, if it is to be relied on, shows that
during this period the course of religion had been advanced by the
policy of preventing the clergy interfering so constantly in politics.
“It is not to be forgotten,” Law says, “that, from the year 1652 to the
year 1660, there was great good done by the preaching of the gospell in
the West of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or
thirty yeirs before; a great many being brought in to Christ Jesus by a
saving work of conversion, which was occasioned through ministers
preaching nothing all that tyme but the gospell, and had left off to
preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrances,
which was much in use before, from the year 1638 till that time 52,
which occasioned a great number of hypocrytes in the Church, who, out of
hope of preferment, honour, riches, and worldly credit, took on the form
of godliness, but wanted the power of it.”

[89] _History of the Union_, section ii. p. 10, first edition, published
in 1709. Defoe’s _History of the Union_ was reprinted in 1712 and 1786,
and again in 1787 “with an introduction, in which the consequences and
probability of a like union with Ireland are considered.”

[90] January 1658, Carlyle’s _Cromwell_, Speech XVII.



CHAPTER IV

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION


At the Restoration the advisability of continuing the Union was
discussed. In England it was maintained that the smaller country must
give up its Parliament and its separate system of laws, or that it must,
at all events, make the first advance, and say definitely on what terms
it would unite. In Scotland it was foreseen that not only would the
native Parliament and the native laws be destroyed in the event of a
union, but that also, in all probability, the Church would be
sacrificed. But the prosperity which the country was beginning to enjoy
might have reconciled many of the people to these changes.[91]

The Restoration was hailed with joy by the nobles, who hoped that they
would again have their Parliament and their Privy Council, by means of
which their families were aggrandised, and their hereditary
jurisdictions and feudal rights, which gave them so much authority over
their tenants and retainers. The clergy, smarting under the indignities
to which they had lately been subjected, and believing that Charles
would keep faith with them and establish Presbytery, welcomed the
change, and at once began to pray again for the king. Clarendon,
however, was of opinion that the majority of Scotsmen were in favour of
the continuance of the Union. He himself was in favour of leaving things
as they were. “But the king,” he says, “would not build according to
Cromwell’s models, and had many reasons to continue Scotland within its
own limits and bounds, and sole dependence upon himself, rather than
unite it to England with so many hazards and dangers as would inevitably
have accompanied it, under any government less tyrannical than that of
Cromwell.”[92]

Lauderdale, whose influence in Scottish affairs was now well-nigh
supreme, was strongly in favour of removing all traces of the
Commonwealth government. To begin with, he insisted that the fortresses
which Cromwell had built should be demolished and their garrisons
withdrawn. The time might come, he told the king, when he would be in
need of Scottish garrisons in England, and to maintain an English army
in Scotland would alienate the affections of the Scottish people. The
fortresses were, accordingly, dismantled, and the army of occupation was
disbanded. Every trace of the Union soon disappeared. The Estates met
in the Parliament House once more; and the judges took their places on
the bench of the Court of Session.

On the question of the Church, Lauderdale’s advice was not followed. His
view was that, instead of aiming at an Union, either civil or religious,
between the two countries, the object of the Government should be to
disunite them by all possible means, and, at the same time, to keep the
people of Scotland in good humour by giving them whatever form of Church
government they wanted, in order that they might be willing to serve the
king, if necessary, against the Parliament of England. Such was the
advice of Lauderdale. Charles himself, though he detested Presbytery,
was at first inclined to take it. But, in the end, the intrigues of the
Episcopal faction prevailed; and it was resolved to establish an
Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Chancellor explained to Lauderdale
that it was intended to set up only a modified form of prelacy. “My
Lord,” he sternly answered, “since you are for bishops and must have
them, bishops you shall have, and higher than ever they were in
Scotland.”

These words came true. If the statesmen of England had asked, By what
means shall we most easily irritate and exasperate the Scottish people?
how can we alienate them from England? how can we render the royal
family unpopular? how can we destroy the trade of Scotland, which is
beginning to improve? how can we throw the country, which is settling
down, back into anarchy and confusion? how can we most successfully
unite against the Church of England the whole body of the Scottish
people? how can we produce a profound distrust in all measures which are
proposed by the Council in London? by what means, in short, can we best
make the people of Scotland disloyal, poverty-stricken, and
rebellious?--if these questions had been asked, some evil councillor
might have answered them thus: Pass, he might have said, an Act of
Parliament which will destroy their commerce; abolish the Union, and
thus destroy free trade between them and the English; restore to the
owners of the soil the jurisdictions by means of which they tyrannised
over their dependants in the past, and by means of which they will be
able to tyrannise over them in the future; restore the tenure of lands
by military service, and thus you will, in a few years, people every
hamlet over a large portion of the country with restless and idle
clansmen, whose only business in life is to foment feuds between their
masters, and to seek plunder for themselves; above all things, let the
king destroy the Presbyterian Church which he swore to establish when he
took that solemn vow, on the faith of which the crown of Scotland was
placed upon his head; let the great noble whose hands performed the act
of coronation, and to whom a Dukedom and a Garter were promised, be
accused of treason for a tardy compliance with the usurper, and let the
rules of legal procedure be strained in order to procure his
condemnation; eject from their livings the clergy whom the people trust;
let enormous fines, far in excess of what the country can bear, be
inflicted on every class for the offence of nonconformity; punish with
death those who listen to the clergy preaching in the fields because you
have driven them from the churches. All this, and a great deal more, was
done. The years which followed the Restoration were the most miserable
in the history of Scotland. The great source of misery was the desperate
contest between the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Churches; but the
commercial policy of the English Parliament is what chiefly bears on the
question of the Union.

Scotland had not suffered from the Navigation Act of 1651, which forbade
foreign ships to import goods into England, or to trade with the
colonies, or even to visit them without special leave. This statute was
passed, in the words of Blackstone, “to punish our rebellious colonies,
and to clip the wings of the Dutch.” It kept the colonial trade in the
hands of England, and increased the value of English shipping. The terms
of the Union during the Commonwealth had exempted Scotland from its
provisions. But now the Union was at an end, and Scotland was once again
a separate kingdom. The Parliament of England proceeded to pass a new
and even more stringent Navigation Act, which inflicted a deadly blow
upon the trade of Scotland.[93]

Sir George Mackenzie traces the origin of this, and other laws hostile
to Scottish commerce, to the fact that Clarendon and other English
politicians were piqued by the way in which Lauderdale prided himself on
having induced the king to withdraw the army from Scotland against their
advice. “This excessive boasting,” he says, “that he had prevailed in
this over Hyde, Middletoun, and all the English, did somewhat contribute
to renew the old discords which had formerly been entertained between
the two nations; and occasioned the making of those severe Acts, whereby
the Parliament of England debarred the Scots from freedom of trade in
their plantations, and from enjoying the benefit of natives in the
privilege of shipping.”[94]

The new law was so rigorous that no goods nor produce, of any country,
could be imported into the colonies except from England or Wales. Irish
goods could not go from Ireland, nor Scottish goods from Scotland.
Moreover, the most important products of a colony could enter England,
or another colony, only on payment of duty. English ships alone were
allowed to carry goods to and from the colonies. The sugar, the tobacco,
the cotton, in fact all the most useful produce of the colonies, could
be shipped to England only, and could not enter an English port except
in an English vessel. Nor could goods be imported into England from the
continent of Europe except in English ships, or in ships belonging to
the country which actually produced them.

This monopoly, under which the colonies could trade with England alone,
was a grievance to the colonies. They, however, had at least the
privilege of trading with England. But to the colonial trade of Scotland
the Navigation Act was ruinous.

Other laws, hostile to the industries of Scotland, were enacted. On some
Scottish goods duties were paid equal to, or above, their value. On
others a duty was charged very much greater than the duty levied on the
same articles when they came from abroad. For instance, the duty on
Scottish salt was sixteen times that imposed on foreign salt. Linen
imported from Scotland was now so heavily taxed that it hardly paid the
producer to bring it into England. In Northumberland and Cumberland
heavy customs were levied on horses which came from Scotland; and, on
the plea that a great part of the richest pasture land in England would
fall in value if the graziers of Scotland were allowed to find a free
market in England, Parliament was induced to cripple one of the most
important branches of Scottish industry by imposing a fine of two pounds
for every head of cattle which crossed the border between the 24th of
August and the 20th of December.[95] And there were many other
enactments framed for the purpose of excluding Scottish merchants, whose
operations were further embarrassed by a law under which all goods sent
from Scotland to England must pass through either Berwick or
Carlisle.[96]

The commercial freedom which had been enjoyed during the period of the
Commonwealth had quickened the commercial instincts of the Scottish
people, and had given them some idea of what their country might become
if they were permitted to extend their traffic to the colonies, those
highly-favoured regions of the earth from which so large a portion of
the wealth of England came. The recent Union had been attended by
circumstances which were humiliating; but for many of these compensation
had been found in the prosperity which the Union had brought along with
it. The sudden change which the Restoration had produced was, therefore,
bitterly resented; and the Scottish merchants persuaded the Estates to
retaliate by passing a Navigation Act for Scotland, similar to the
English Act, and by imposing heavy duties on English goods.[97] But
retaliation could not put Scotland in the same position as England; and
at length, after repeated complaints and demands, an Act was passed
under which commissioners from the two countries were to meet and confer
on the subject of a commercial treaty.[98]

In January 1668 the commissioners met. The Scotsmen demanded that
Scotland should enjoy the privilege of trading to the English colonies
which was granted, by the Act of Navigation, to the Irish and to the
Welsh, and that they should be allowed to bring in goods as freely as
the English, with no other restrictions than those laid on Ireland and
Wales. They were willing to give assurances that goods transported from
English colonies would be brought to England, except the small
quantities which were consumed in Scotland. A number of papers,
containing these and other demands, were presented by the Scottish
commissioners, and to these the English commissioners returned written
answers.

Apparently the conferences were on the point of terminating abruptly
within less than a month; for, on the 29th of January, the Scottish
commissioners refused to go further until the question of the Navigation
Act was settled, and the English refused to act until the whole of the
Scottish demands were laid before them. The Scottish commissioners gave
in, and presented a document in which their grievances were set forth.
The repeal of the Navigation Act was what they chiefly insisted on; but,
in addition to this, they complained of the whole of those Acts of
Parliament by which free trade between England and Scotland had been
abolished, and by which excessive duties had been imposed on Scottish
produce. “Thus,” they said, “your lordships have now the full scheme of
all that is demanded by us in this treaty. But because what we have
given in, relating to the Act of Navigation, was the first in time, and
is the greatest obstruction of our trade, and indeed without which our
trade cannot be carried on, we still insist upon an answer to it in the
first place, and then we shall be willing to proceed to treat on all the
rest in order.”[99]

After a long delay the English commissioners returned their answer. They
refused, in peremptory terms, to allow Scotland to trade with the
colonies. The colonies, they said, were founded by Englishmen, and
Scotsmen had no right to benefit by them. They were prepared, however,
to permit Scotsmen to go and settle as merchants in the colonies; but
they refused to allow Scottish ships to carry foreign produce into
English ports. “The kingdom of Scotland,” they said, “being wholly
independent, and not subject to the Crown of England, we cannot have
reasonable security and satisfaction that the said kingdom will keep up,
and tie itself, to the strict observation of the restrictions and
limitations set down in the Act of Navigation, with relation to this
matter.”

They offered, nevertheless, to make some concessions, on condition that
those Acts of the Scottish Parliament which imposed a tariff hostile to
English trade were repealed. If that were done, Scottish ships might
import fish into England free of duty, and also tar, hemp, flax,
raisins, and grain of any sort, on payment of the duty levied on aliens.
They might also import timber into England for six years; and the reason
for this concession was frankly stated to be that since the great fire
of London there had been a scarcity of wood for rebuilding the city.
They also offered to give Scottish ships the right, for six years only,
of exporting goods from England, on payment of the same customs as
English ships paid.

These terms were refused by the Scottish commissioners, who objected to
the limitation of six years, and declared that the Scots wished to be,
as they had been during the Union under Cromwell, in a position to
compete, on equal terms, with the merchants of England. But the English
commissioners would not yield; and the negotiations terminated without
any result.

It was now evident that, so long as the two countries remained separate,
there could be no genuine commercial prosperity in Scotland. It was,
therefore, natural that the question of Union should be again revived.
The project was first suggested by a Scottish peer, whose advice in
other matters, if it had been taken, would have saved the Privy Council
of Scotland from much of the blood-guiltiness which it incurred during
these years. John, second Earl of Tweeddale, had been sworn of the
Council at the Restoration, but had frequently raised his voice on
behalf of the persecuted Presbyterians; and he had often endeavoured to
discover some means by which peace could be restored to Scotland. His
proposal now was that the Scottish Parliament should be called together,
and invited to consider what steps should be taken to unite the
kingdoms. To this Charles readily agreed, for he thought that if the two
Parliaments were merged in one, the Lords and Commons who represented
Scotland would, as a rule, support the measures of the Court. The Duke
of Buckingham and the Lord Keeper Bridgeman were also in favour of this
proposal.[100]

It was, indeed, the interest of all whose fortunes were bound up with
the fortunes of the Royal Family that Scotland should be conciliated.
The recent conferences had shown how strong the feeling of Scotland was
on the subject of trade; and no candid-minded Englishman could deny that
the grievances complained of by the commissioners from beyond the Tweed
were real grievances. It was true that the more powerful nation was
master of the field, and could, by obstinately opposing the demands of
her weaker neighbour, debar her from the trade in which she was so
anxious to obtain a share. But the lessons of the great Civil War had
not been altogether forgotten at the Court; and, in the secret conclave
of the king’s advisers, there always had been, ever since the
Restoration, an uneasy feeling that a day might come when the Crown
would find itself opposed by the Parliament. At such a crisis much would
depend on what was done by Scotland. It was, therefore, of importance to
persuade the people of Scotland that, so far as the king’s influence
went, everything had been done to remove the commercial disabilities of
which they so justly complained.

Lauderdale, who at the Restoration had supported the policy of
separation, was now eager on the side of Union. No Parliament had met in
Scotland since 1663. It would be necessary to summon the Estates
together if the Union was to be discussed; and Lauderdale coveted the
office of Lord High Commissioner. A Parliament was, therefore, summoned.
It met at Edinburgh in October 1669. Lauderdale was Commissioner. A
letter from the king was read, in which the Union was recommended to the
favourable consideration of the Estates; and his Majesty’s servants
proposed that an answer should at once be returned, announcing that the
Parliament of Scotland was in favour of the Union. Some opposition was
offered by Sir George Gordon of Haddo, then member for Aberdeenshire,
and afterwards first Earl of Aberdeen, and by Sir George Mackenzie of
Rosehaugh, who a few years later became Lord Advocate; but, in the end,
a letter was despatched in which the Estates approved of the Union, and
left it to the king to name commissioners to treat upon the subject.
The Parliament of England took the same view; and in September 1670, the
commissioners met in London.[101]

Five questions were submitted to them: the preserving entire to both
kingdoms of their laws, civil and ecclesiastical; the uniting of the two
kingdoms into one monarchy; the reducing of both parliaments to one; the
regulation of trade; and the best means of preserving the conditions of
the Union.

The subject of trade, the most important of all, was never reached; for,
before very long, the treaty broke down on the question of the
representation of Scotland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The
Scottish commissioners proposed that all the members of the Scottish
Estates should be members of the Parliament. To this the English
commissioners could not agree; and the proceedings came to an abrupt
conclusion.

During these negotiations the Scotsmen had not been on very good terms
with each other. Lauderdale and Tweeddale quarrelled; and Sir George
Mackenzie says that the Lord Chancellor, at dinner one day, abused two
of the commissioners, Sir Archibald Primrose, father of the first Earl
of Rosebery, and Sir John Nisbet, then Lord Advocate, for walking on
foot when they had a handsome allowance for expenses, and called them
“damned lawyers.” They were heard to express their resentment at this;
whereupon Lauderdale, who bore them a grudge as supporters of Tweeddale,
told them he would accuse them to the king of trying to frustrate the
Union by causing bad feeling among the commissioners. “And thus,” says
Mackenzie, “in place of uniting the nations, these wise commissioners
disunited themselves, and returned to Scotland as men from a rout.”

However popular an Union might have been among the Scottish merchants,
it would have been most unpopular in England. The English merchants, who
had exulted in the failure of the Commission on Trade, were up in arms
against the idea of giving to Scotland the privileges which she would
have secured by the Union; and the majority of Englishmen still hated
and despised the very name of Scotland. This hatred and contempt of the
neighbour country, an inheritance from the long years of international
warfare, found vent in abusive descriptions of Scotland and the Scottish
people, which were circulated all over the island, causing laughter in
England and rousing bitter indignation beyond the Tweed. “The country,”
says one writer, “is full of lakes and loughs, and they are well stocked
with islands; so that a map thereof looks like a pillory coat
bespattered all over with dirt and rotten eggs, some pieces of the
shells floating here and there representing the islands.” The towns of
Scotland were briefly described as poor and populous, especially
Edinburgh, which resembled its inhabitants in “being high and dirty.” It
was compared to a double comb, an article which Scotsmen did not often
use, having one great street, with a number of alleys branching from it,
which might be mistaken for common sewers.

As to the Scottish women, “the meaner sort go barefoot and bareheaded,
with two black elf-locks on either side their faces; some of them have
scarce any clothes at all, some part of their bed-clothes pinned about
their shoulders, and their children have nothing else on them but a
little blanket. Those women that can purchase plaids need not bestow
much upon other clothes, these cover-sluts being sufficient. Those of
the best sort, that are very well habited in their modish silks, yet
must wear a plaid over all for the credit of their country.”

The English language could scarcely furnish language violent enough for
the purpose of describing the Scots: “The people are proud, arrogant,
vain-glorious boasters, bloody, barbarous, and inhuman butchers.
Cozenage and theft are in perfection among them, and they are perfect
English-haters. They show their pride in exalting themselves and
depressing their neighbours. When the palace at Edinburgh is finished
they expect his Majesty will leave his rotten house at Whitehall, and
live splendidly among his own countrymen, the Scots, for they say that
Englishmen are much beholden to them that we have their king amongst
us.”[102]

If, in 1670, an Union had been accomplished by the terms of which the
people of Scotland had obtained everything which they desired with
regard to trade, it would have been an immense blessing to the country.
But knowing what we know of the councillors who surrounded the throne,
and of the character of the last two princes of the house of Stuart, we
may be perfectly certain that an attempt would have been made to unite
the Churches. In England, the Scottish Church question was completely
misunderstood; nay more, to most Englishmen it was unintelligible. It
was known that there were troubles in the North; and it was vaguely
supposed that the Government had to cope with false doctrine, heresy,
and schism, evils for delivery from which every good Anglican was
accustomed to pray. But few imagined that month after month, and year
after year, the majority of the Scottish nation was being treated in a
manner which the majority of the English nation would not have tolerated
for a single week. Even those Englishmen who had the best means of
knowing the truth had been totally deceived as to the number and
determination of the Presbyterians. At the Restoration, Sharp had told
the Government that if Episcopacy was established not more than twenty
ministers would refuse to conform. As a matter of fact, more than three
hundred gave up their livings. The parish churches were deserted in many
places by the people, and meetings were held in private houses. Not only
was this declared to be illegal, but mere nonconformity was made a
crime; and the madness of the Scottish Privy Council may be seen from
the fact that any landowner who failed to attend his parish church was
fined a fourth of his rents for the year in which he was convicted;
while for the same offence tenants and burgesses were fined a fourth of
their personal estates. Forbidden by a law resembling the English Five
Mile Act to live within twenty miles of their parishes, within six miles
of a cathedral town, or within three miles of a burgh, the ejected
ministers took to preaching in the fields. This was punished as
sedition; and the law was administered in so cruel and relentless a
fashion that, if the whole truth had been known in England, there can be
little doubt that indignant remonstrances would have been addressed to
the Government; especially when, in 1670, the Scottish Parliament passed
an Act by which any person who, without a licence from a bishop or the
Privy Council, preached or prayed at a field meeting, was to be put to
death,--a savage law which was savagely executed. To the people of
England, however, very little of all this was known.

Tweeddale possibly saw, in the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, and
in those reforms of the Privy Council which might be expected to follow
an incorporating Union, some prospect that a wiser and more moderate
system of government might be introduced. But the whole course of
Scottish history during the reigns of Charles the Second and James the
Second shows that nothing less than that sweeping removal of every trace
of Prelacy which took place at the Revolution could have restored peace
and order to the country. It is, therefore, well that the Union did not
take place at a time when the statesmen in both countries, by whom the
terms of Union would have been arranged, were pertinaciously bent on
establishing a system of Church government which, loved and honoured
though it was in England, was hated and despised in Scotland.

FOOTNOTES:

[91] A Discourse upon the Union of England and Scotland, addressed to
King Charles II., March 19th, in the year 1664.

[92] Account of his own Life, part ii. p. 50.

[93] Act for the encouraging and increasing of Shipping and Navigation,
12 Car. II. cap. 18.

[94] _Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland_, p. 25.

[95] 15 Car. II. cap. 7.

[96] 14 Car. II. cap. 11.

[97] Scots Acts, 1661, cap. 44; 1663, cap. 13.

[98] 19 and 20 Car. II. cap. 5, Act for settling Freedom and Intercourse
of Trade between England and Scotland.

[99] _The grievances of Scotland in relation to their trade with
England, sent up to the Council_, 3 Feb. 1668. See also a paper given in
by the Scots Commissioners for adjusting the differences of trade
between the two kingdoms, Jan. 21, 1667 (1668), printed in Defoe, App.
No. xiii., and in the “Report on the events and circumstances which
produced the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland” (App. No.
xxxi.). This report, which was prepared for the private use of the
Government, at the request of the Duke of Portland, in 1799, when the
Union with Ireland was being discussed, contains most of the papers
which passed between the Commissioners on Trade in 1668. The _Calendar
of State Papers, Domestic_, 1667-1668, published in 1893, throws some
light on these transactions. It appears that the coal merchants of
Newcastle and the North of England had a grievance in the inequality of
the export duties levied on coal in the two countries. English coal paid
eight shillings, and Scottish coal only twenty pence. The result was
said to be that the customs from coal had fallen in that part of the
country, from £20,000 a year to £4000, and that English merchants were
suffering from the importation into Scotland, in exchange for coal, of
foreign goods which the Scots used to obtain from England. (Memorial of
24th Feb. 1668. _Calendar_, p. 247.)

[100] Burnet, i. 513. Lord Dartmouth, in a note on this passage, states
that William the Third told Lord Jersey that it was a standing maxim in
the Stuart family, “Whatever advances they pretended to make towards
it,” never to allow a union. Their reason, he said, was that it could
not take place without admitting Scotsmen to both Houses of Parliament,
who must depend for a living on the Crown. He further asserts that King
William said he hoped it would never take place during his reign, for
“he had not the good fortune to know what would satisfy a Scotsman.”

[101] Defoe, p. 21; Mackenzie’s _Memoirs_, p. 197.

[102] “_A modern account of Scotland, being an exact description of the
country, and a true character of the people and their manners. Written
from thence by an English gentleman._” Printed in the year 1670
(_Harleian Miscellany_, vi. 135). “_Scotland characterized: In a letter
written to a young gentleman, to dissuade him from an intended journey
thither_” (_Harleian Miscellany_, vii. 377). “_The False Brother, or A
New Map of Scotland, drawn by an English Pencil, London, 1651._”



CHAPTER V

THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT


After the failure of the treaty of 1670, eighteen years, eventful in the
history of both kingdoms, passed; and at the Revolution the question of
the Union was again discussed.

In the letter which William addressed to the Scottish Estates in March
1689, he said that he was glad to find that many peers and gentlemen of
Scotland, whom he had consulted in London, were “so much inclined to a
union of both kingdoms, that they did look upon it as one of the best
means for procuring the happiness of these nations, and settling of a
lasting peace among them.” He himself was of the same opinion, and was
resolved to do everything in his power to bring it about.

Among the members of the Estates there was a strong party in favour of
delaying the settlement of the Crown until the Union had been
accomplished, on the ground that terms favourable to Scotland would be
more easily obtained when the affairs of England were in a critical and
unsettled condition. Among those who took this view was Sir John
Dalrymple, who afterwards, as first Earl of Stair, was to play a
prominent part in the final settlement of the question. The fact,
however, that this view was supported by some astute members of the
Jacobite party, who saw in it a means of causing delay, induced a
majority of the Estates to resolve that the settlement of the Crown
should come first.

William had instructed Melville, and his other representatives in
Scotland, that nothing was to interfere with the settlement of the
Government. That was to be their first concern. If the Estates were in
earnest for the Union, care was to be taken that it was not made an
excuse for delay. If the Union was insisted on, then an attempt must be
made to obtain from the Estates an offer of terms such as the English
Parliament was likely to accept at once, without entering upon a treaty.
He indicated his own view to be that the laws and customs of Scotland
should be preserved intact, while questions relating to the public
safety, and also the proportion of Scottish members in the united
Parliament, should be referred to himself.[103]

Although William thus anticipated a discussion on the Union, he was
determined that nothing should prevent or delay the immediate settlement
of the Government. The resolution of the Estates was, therefore, in
accordance with his wishes. But as soon as the memorable declaration
that James had forfeited his right to the Crown had been adopted, along
with the offer of the vacant throne to William and Mary, the Estates
lost no time in taking up the question of Union; and an Act was passed
appointing commissioners “to meet with such persons as shall be nominate
commissioners by the Parliament of England, and to treat concerning the
Union of the two kingdoms.” This Act became law on the 23rd of April,
and on the following day a letter to the king was approved, in which the
Estates informed his Majesty that certain of their number would wait
upon him with the offer of the Crown, and would present to him a Claim
of Rights, and a list of grievances for which they asked redress. At the
same time they expressed the hope that the Union would be speedily
accomplished, “that as both kingdoms are united in one head and
sovereign, so they may become one body politic, one nation, to be
represented in one Parliament.”

The Scottish Estates had proposed the Union. But at Westminster nothing
could be done to further their wishes. William alluded to the question
in his speech from the throne in March 1690. “I must,” he said,
“recommend, also, to your consideration a Union with Scotland. I do not
mean that it should now be entered upon; but they having proposed this
to me, some time since, and the Parliament there having nominated
commissioners for that purpose, I should be glad that commissioners
might also be nominated here, to treat with them, and so see if such
terms could be agreed on, as might be for the benefit of both nations,
so as to be presented to you in some future session.”[104] Nothing more,
however, was heard of the Union at that time. It was evident that the
affairs of both kingdoms were in such a state that it was hopeless to
press forward so delicate a piece of business. In England, important
questions which could not be delayed awaited decision; and in Parliament
party feeling was running high, not only between the Tories and the
Whigs, but also between the Lords and the Commons. In Scotland, the
factions which contended for the mastery would only have found in the
Union another question about which to wrangle. The keen eyes of William
had perceived the necessity of the Union, but the time had not yet
come.

Although the project of an Union was abandoned, the statutes relating to
the Church passed by the Scottish Parliament at this time, constituting
what is known as the Revolution Settlement, had a most important bearing
on the final accomplishment of the Union. Prelacy was abolished, and
Presbytery was re-established. Most of the ministers who had been
ejected at the Restoration were now dead, but sixty veterans still
survived, and they were restored to their livings. The Act which
asserted the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical causes was repealed. The
Westminster Confession of Faith was declared to be the national creed.
The Law of Patronage was reformed by an Act which gave the Protestant
landowners in counties, and the town councils in burghs, power to buy
the patronage of livings, for a small sum; and the right of choosing the
minister was handed over to the landowners and the elders, against whose
choice the congregation might appeal to the Presbytery.[105]

The statutes which introduced these reforms were accepted by an
overwhelming majority of the Scottish people. In 1707 they were embodied
in the Act of Union; and it is certain that if, while the terms of the
great international contract were being arranged, any serious attempt
had been made to alter them, the Union would never have been
accomplished.

It is, indeed, hardly possible to overestimate the importance of the
Church question during the Union controversy. It is certain that if the
Church of the majority had not been established in Scotland at the
Revolution, another civil war would have been the result. The
Presbyterian clergy were Whigs, almost to a man, and their influence in
the country was enormous. The views held by the extreme branch of the
Church did not affect, to any great extent, the course of events in
Scotland. These were the men who, under their various designations of
Cameronians, or Hill men, or Society men, still clung tenaciously to the
old Covenanting ideas in their most uncompromising form. They could
hardly bring themselves to submit to the existing Government. The old
formula of a “Covenanted King” of the Stuart dynasty was still full of
meaning to them; and long afterwards, during the reign of Anne, the
Jacobites tried to make use of them for the purpose of defeating the
Union. They were, however, Whigs, and would never, under any
circumstances, have acquiesced in the overthrow of the Presbyterian
system. The great danger to the cause of the Union and the Hanoverian
succession lay in the sentiments of the Episcopalians. Every Episcopal
clergyman in Scotland, with scarcely an exception, was a Tory and a
Jacobite. On the eve of the Revolution, when the bishops of England were
opposing, with dignified firmness, the arbitrary pretensions of the
king, the Scottish bishops had addressed him in terms of the most
servile eulogy. They assured him that they regarded a steadfast
allegiance to the throne as an essential part of their religion. They
declared that the line of Stuart was the greatest glory of Scotland.
They spoke of James himself as the darling of heaven, and described the
amazement and horror with which they had heard the rumours of an
invasion from Holland.[106] It is not wonderful that the Presbyterians,
when they obtained the ascendency, should have excluded from power the
authors of this address. Nor is it wonderful that, in those parts of
the country where the persecutors had been at work, the peasantry should
have subjected the obnoxious clergymen to every species of indignity.
For more than a quarter of a century their oppressors had appealed to
the law to justify their misdeeds, and it was natural that, when the
hour of deliverance came, the oppressed should take the law into their
own hands. Locked out of their churches and expelled from their houses,
with their gowns torn from their backs, the Episcopal clergy in Scotland
learned how precarious is the situation of a priesthood which is
protected by the law, but has no place in the affections of the people.

The Church affairs of Scotland were not settled in accordance with the
desires of William. It was no secret that he wished to secure complete
toleration for all dissenters. He was anxious to avoid all measures
which could interfere with the projected Union of the Kingdoms; and it
is probable that his hope was that some plan might be devised for
establishing the same system of Church government throughout the whole
island. When he received from the Government in Scotland the draft of
the Act which it was proposed to pass for the establishment of
Presbytery, he made a number of amendments which had a double purpose;
to remove expressions which might raise doubts in England with regard to
the Union, and to conciliate the Episcopalians in Scotland. For
instance, it was stated in the draft that the Reformation in Scotland
had been the work of Presbyters “without Prelacy.” This statement he
deleted. In the draft, Presbytery was described as “the only government
of Christ’s Church in this kingdom.” William was of opinion that a
better expression would be “the government of the Church in this kingdom
established by law.” The rest of his suggestions were of a similar
character. Everything in the shape of an assertion that Presbytery was a
better system than Episcopacy was carefully avoided, and the only reason
given for establishing the former was, that it was more in accordance
with the wishes of the Scottish people. At the same time he explained
that it was his desire “that those who do not own and yield submission
to the present Church government in Scotland shall have the like
indulgence that the Presbyterians have in England.”

The Act was submitted to the Estates, and became law on the 7th of June
1690. It declared Presbytery to be “the only government of Christ’s
Church within this kingdom”; it condoned the action of the peasantry in
expelling the Episcopal clergy by force; and it placed the government of
the Church in the hands of the sixty ministers who had been replaced in
the livings from which they had been ejected at the Restoration. Yet the
Government acted on tolerant principles. All Episcopal clergymen who
took the oaths were left in peaceable possession of their churches,
without being called on to submit to the Presbyterian Church courts; and
some even of those who refused to take the oaths, and who prayed
publicly for the late king and his family, continued to enjoy their
livings without molestation.[107] After a few years, when it was seen
that the Jacobites were quite irreconcilable, an Act was passed which
provided that no one could hold a benefice without taking the oath of
allegiance, signing the assurance, which was a declaration that William
and Mary were the only lawful sovereigns of the realm, signing the
Westminster Confession of Faith, and submitting to the Presbyterian
system of Church government. Yet so lenient was the spirit of the Whigs
that, instead of vigorously enforcing this law, they superseded it, to a
great extent, by another and milder Act, under which taking the oaths to
Government became the only qualification required from any Episcopal
preacher in Scotland.

At the Revolution, and in consequence of the position in which the
Episcopal clergy found themselves, it became the fixed policy of the
Jacobites to call the attention of Englishmen to what was going on in
the North; and during the reign of William there issued from the press a
series of pamphlets, the purpose of which was to create a feeling
against the Presbyterians so strong that, if a favourable opportunity
should occur, the Scottish Establishment might be attacked and
overthrown. The first to take the field were “two persons of quality.”
Sir George Mackenzie, the late Lord Advocate, and Lord Tarbat,
afterwards the first Earl of Cromartie, went to London at the crisis of
the Revolution, and published a pamphlet, the purpose of which was to
persuade the Prince of Orange that the principles of the Presbyterians
were not only inconsistent with monarchy, but even destructive of all
human society.[108] This production did not attract much notice; but a
great effect was produced by a more elaborate piece of work, to which
Mackenzie devoted the last months of his life. This was a vindication of
the system of government pursued in Scotland during the reign of Charles
the Second.[109] It was, in a measure, a vindication of his own life,
for few of the rulers of Scotland had taken a more important part in the
questionable transactions of that reign. When his public career was
ended by the Revolution, he had retired to Oxford, where Whigs and
Tories alike were amused and instructed by his conversation, in which
he did not fail to present the worst features of Presbytery.[110] The
_Vindication_, the greater part of which was probably written at Oxford,
was a serious attempt to show that the Executive Government in Scotland
had not been guilty of oppression and cruelty, that no one had suffered
on account of his religion, that the Presbyterians were merely rebels,
and that the laws which had been made against them were not only
necessary, but had never been harshly administered. He did not live to
publish this pamphlet himself, but after his death it was printed by Dr.
Alexander Monro, who had lately been deprived of the place of Principal
of the University of Edinburgh. Coming from the pen of a well-known
member of the late Government, who had, for a number of years, been the
first law officer of the Crown in the country about which he was
writing, the _Vindication_ had great weight in England.

Monro also published a tract of his own, defending himself against
charges made by the commissioners who had been appointed to visit the
Scottish universities, and “purge” them of all professors who would not
swear allegiance to William and Mary.[111] The effect of this work, and
others upon the same subject, was to raise a feeling of contempt for the
state of learning in Scotland, and to cause Englishmen to believe that,
under the Presbyterian system, literature and science were doomed. Other
pamphlets were published giving an account of the proceedings in the
General Assembly and in the Parliament connected with the establishment
of the Church.[112] These, certainly, contain materials of great
historical value; but they do not even pretend to be impartial, and were
written to excite sympathy with the ejected Episcopal ministers and
dislike to their successors.

The author of one of these pamphlets, the Rev. John Sage, wrote also an
elaborate treatise on the history and nature of Presbytery, in which he
maintained that the article in the Claim of Rights which declared that
Prelacy was a grievance, and contrary to the inclinations of the
Scottish people, was utterly without foundation.[113] The Presbyterians,
he asserted, had, in pursuance of a carefully-arranged plan, encouraged
the rabble to eject the Episcopal ministers, and had managed, during the
confusion of the times, to secure a majority in the Estates, which did
not represent the wishes of the country. It was obvious that if this
could be proved to the satisfaction of the Whigs of England, they would,
in any treaty of Union, consider seriously whether the religious
Establishment of Scotland should not be brought into conformity with
that of England. If a majority of the people desired Presbytery, the
Whigs, on principle, were bound to support Presbytery. But if neither
the mob nor the Parliament represented the wishes of the people; if the
real desire of the nation could only be discovered by private
consultations with the Tory and Jacobite laity, or gathered from the
writings of the Episcopal clergy; if the majority of the Parliament
represented the minority of the nation, then it was the duty of the
Whigs to support Episcopacy.

But the pamphlets which were most widely read in England were those
which held up the Presbyterians to execration as persecutors, and to
ridicule as fanatics. Monro and his friends took great pains to collect
accounts of the hardships which the Episcopal clergy had suffered at the
hands of the mob, and published them for the purpose of influencing
public opinion in England.[114] The clergy were described as “a company
of resolute Christians that dare lay down their lives for the truth of
those doctrines which they have formerly taught.” In point of fact, none
of them were called upon to lay down their lives. One of the worst cases
of “rabbling,” which the Episcopalians described as a “tragedy,” took
place at Kirkpatrick in Annandale. On Easter day a party of men and
women went to the clergyman’s house in the morning, knocked him down,
and then threw him into “a nasty puddle.” His wife, who ran out of the
house, was also thrown down. “Then their noble Captain at this
honourable expedition gave the word of command to his female janizaries,
which was _Strip the Curate_ (for they think this a most disgraceful
appellation, and therefore they apply it to all Episcopal ministers).
The order was no sooner given, than these Amazons prepared to put it in
execution, for throwing away their plaids (_i.e._ loose upper garments)
each of them drew from her girdle a great sharp-pointed dagger,
prepared, it seems, for a thorough reformation. The good minister lying
panting and prostrate on the ground, had first his night-gown torn and
cut off him, his close coat, waistcoat, and britches ript open with
their knives, nay, their modesty could not so far prevail against their
zeal, as to spare his shirt and drawers, but all were cut in pieces and
sacrificed to a broken Covenant. The forementioned Captain gave the
finishing stroke himself with a great Reforming Club, the blow was
designed for the minister’s head or breast, but he naturally throwing
up his hands to save those vital parts, occasioned it to fall upon his
shin-bones, which he had drawn up to cover his Nakedness; the blow was
such as greatly bruised his legs, and made them swell extraordinarily
after; however the Captain thinking they were broke, and finding it
uneasie for himself and his companions to stand longer in a great storm
of wind and snow which happened to fall out that morning, he drew off
his company, and left the Semi-Martyr, who afterwards, by the assistance
of his servants, crawled home to his bed, and but a little after, the
whole herd of his persecutors broke in again upon him, and told him:
they had treated him so because he prayed for the Tyrant York (so these
people ordinarily called King _James_, tho’ he was too kind to them),
and because he had presumed to preach and visit the parishioners as if
he had been their minister, which they had formerly forbidden him to do;
they required him also to be gone from their Covenanted Lands, under
pain of death, before that day Sevennight, and never again to meddle
with the ministry.”[115]

Such stories--and this is only one of many which were printed and
circulated--could not fail to produce anger and alarm in England; and
the conduct of the Presbyterian ministers was, at the same time,
represented in the most unfavourable light. Not one of them, it was
said, had ever been heard to condemn these outrages from the pulpit. On
the contrary, sermons had been preached in which the mob had been
applauded for their zeal. In the cathedral church of Saint Giles at
Edinburgh the congregation had been told that “such shakings as these
were the shakings of God, and without such shakings his Church was not
in use to be settled.”

But the sayings and the character of the ministers of the Church of
Scotland were assailed in the most effective way by those writers who
relied upon ridicule rather than serious invective. Londoners who
remembered laughing over Hudibras in the heyday of the Restoration must
have found the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence very poor reading. But it
was admirably suited for the purpose of persuading Englishmen that the
sermons and prayers of the Scottish ministers were nonsensical
rhapsodies, and that, in many cases, both the preachers and their
hearers were hypocrites who led the most immoral lives. That part of the
work which attacked the private characters of the Presbyterian ministers
was met by a series of accusations of the same kind against the
Episcopalians; and it is difficult to say whether the attack or the
defence is more discreditable. Both are probably, on the whole, equally
mendacious.[116] But the most telling part of the work consisted of
selections from grotesque sermons and prayers. “Sirs,” one minister is
reported to have said in his first sermon, “I am coming home to be your
shepherd, and you must be my sheep, and the Bible will be my tar-bottle,
for I will mark you with it; (and laying his hand on the clerk or
precentor’s head) he saith, ‘Andrew, you shall be my dog.’ ‘The sorrow a
bit of your dog will I be,’ said Andrew. ‘O Andrew, I speak mystically,’
said the preacher. ‘Yea, but you speak mischievously,’ said Andrew.”
Another minister, preaching on the first chapter of the Book of Job, is
represented as saying, “Sirs, I will tell you this story very plainly.
The Devil comes to God one day. God said, ‘What now, Deel, thou foul
thief, whither are you going?’ ‘I am going up and down now, Lord, you
have put me away from you now, I must even do for myself now.’ ‘Well,
well, Deel (says God) all the world kens that it is your fault; but do
not you know that I have an honest servant they call Job? Is not he an
honest man, Deel?’ ‘Sorrow to his thank,’ says the Deel; ‘you make his
cup stand full even, you make his pot play well, but give him a cuff,
I’ll hazard he’ll be as ill as I am called.’ ‘Go, Deel,’ says God, ‘I’ll
yoke his honesty with you. Fell his cows, worry his sheep, do all the
mischief ye can, but for the very soul of you, touch not a hair of his
tail.’”

The specimens of prayers are equally absurd. “O Lord,” one divine says,
“thou’rt like a mousie peeping out at the hole of a wall, for thou sees
us, but we see not thee.” Another prayed as follows: “Good Lord, what
have ye been doing all this time? What good have ye done to your poor
Kirk in Scotland?... O, how often have we put our shoulders to Christ’s
cause, when his own back was at the wall; to be free with you, Lord, we
have done many things for thee that never entered in thy noddle, and yet
we are content that thou take all the glory; is not that fair and kind?”

The small quarto from which these extracts are taken was only one,
though it was the most popular, of a series of similar lampoons. The
most offensive of these, a comedy written without the wit, but with all
the licentiousness of Wycherley, was not printed for many years; but it
may now be read by anyone who wishes fully to understand into what
depths of malice and profanity some men were driven by the party spirit
of those days.[117]

The public opinion of England on the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland
was, to a great extent, formed by these publications. They increased the
hostility with which the High Church party regarded the establishment of
Presbytery. The accounts of the outrages committed on the ejected clergy
caused a widespread feeling of sympathy with them among all classes of
Englishmen; and the effect which they produced was not only evident
during the discussions on the Union, but afterwards led Parliament to
pass measures which were most unpopular in Scotland, which endangered
the stability of the Union before it had lasted more than a few years,
and which have been the occasion of endless troubles, misunderstandings,
and secessions among the Presbyterians.

The Church question, however, was settled for a time; and the people of
Scotland, whose whole energies had for so long been absorbed in the
struggle against religious tyranny, were now ready to advance on the
path of secular progress. But the commercial policy of England remained
unaltered. The least hint that the Navigation Act ought to be repealed
raised an outcry among the merchants of London. The proposals for an
Union, made by the Estates, had not been listened to. Therefore
Scotland, it appeared, must submit to remain poor, while England became
wealthier and wealthier.

But now the self-reliant spirit of the Scottish people rose. If they
could not share in the trade of England, they would establish a trade of
their own. If they were not to be the partners of England, they would be
her rivals. There can be no doubt that the schemes of the Scottish
Company Trading to Africa and the Indies, on which the hopes of the
country were placed, were rash and visionary. Scotland, it is true, was
an independent country, with a Parliament of its own, with its own
church, laws, coinage, and taxation, united to England by nothing except
the Crown; and the powers which the Scottish Parliament gave to the
Company brought this fact prominently into view, for the Company was to
have the right of arming ships of war, building cities, making harbours
and fortresses, waging war, and concluding alliances. But these very
powers, which impressed on Scotsmen the fact that their country was
independent, could not fail to rouse the alarm of Englishmen, and
particularly of English traders. The royal assent had, indeed, been
given to the statute by which the Company was created.[118] But the
merchants of England were so alarmed, so jealous, so persuaded that
their own trade was endangered, that we cannot be surprised that
William, whose position depended entirely on the goodwill of England,
acted as he did; especially when, at a time when he was deeply involved
in continental politics, the Company, by sending the expedition to
Darien, so seriously imperilled his relations with Spain.

The sum of money which was actually lost by Scotland seems small in our
day. The amount appears to have been about two hundred and twenty
thousand pounds; but the Scotland of the seventeenth century was far
less able to bear the loss of this sum, than the France of the
nineteenth century was to bear the loss of all the millions which she,
like her ancient ally, threw away upon the shores of the Gulf of Darien.
And rich as England was, in comparison with Scotland, her condition at
this time was not so prosperous as to make her liberal in dealing with
other nations. War had brought increased taxation; and our enormous
national debt, then beginning to accumulate, was a source of constant
alarm. In the country districts farmers were suffering from a long
period of agricultural depression, and rents were seldom paid in full.
In the towns work was scarce, and the price of bread was rising. The
carrying trade languished in spite of the monopoly which English
shipping enjoyed under the Navigation Act, and the resistance to
granting Scotland what she chiefly demanded, a share in the colonial
trade, was increased by complaints which reached this country from
across the seas. The Scottish shipowners, it was said, were landing
goods in America, and underselling the English merchants; and to such an
extent was this done, that Government was called upon to send out
men-of-war to stop this illegal traffic.

And so once more England and Scotland were at variance. The Lords and
the Commons forgot their quarrels, and combined to address the king
against the Scottish Company. William’s reply was that he would
endeavour to find some means of escape from the difficulty which had
arisen. That no such difficulty could have arisen if there had not been
two Parliaments was perfectly clear. The statute under which the
Scottish colonists sailed to Darien had received the royal assent, in
the Parliament House at Edinburgh, at a time when the king was on the
Continent. It was possible that other measures of equal importance to
England might become law in the same way; and the subject of the Union
again begins to appear in the correspondence of the day.

“You may remember,” Marchmont writes, “your Lordship was speaking a
little to me about an Union of the two Kingdoms. I have thought much
upon it, and I am of opinion that the generations to come of Scotsmen
will bless them and their posterity, who can have a good hand in
it.”[119] Two months later he addresses another correspondent on the
same subject. “I am confident,” he says, giving his view of Scottish
opinion at this time, “if such a thing came to be treated in terms any
ways tolerable, it would find a ready concurrence of the far greater
part of people of all ranks of this nation.”[120] In January 1700,
Vernon, writing to Lord Shrewsbury, says: “My Lord Privy Seal[121] can
no sooner hear the word Union named, but he runs blindfold into it, and
said all he could think of, for pressing it. My Lord Halifax opposed it;
and said they should run any risk rather than be bullied by the Scots’
menaces.”[122]

The contempt for Scotland which Halifax had expressed was common. In
another letter Vernon describes how Sir Edward Seymour, in his place in
Parliament, said that the Union reminded him of the story about a
countryman who was asked to marry a poor wife, and gave as a reason for
refusing, “that if he married a beggar, he should have a louse for a
portion.” Vernon adds, “this the Scotch have heard, and are very angry
at it.”[123]

The king lost no time in declaring his own opinion. In a speech to the
Lords he reminded them of the Union, which he had recommended soon
after his accession, and again pressed it upon the consideration of
Parliament, as the only means by which a constant succession of quarrels
between the two countries could be avoided.[124] The Lords at once took
his advice, and passed a Bill for appointing commissioners to treat upon
the subject of the Union, which they sent to the Commons with the
statement that it was a Bill of great consequence.

At this time there was a great feeling of jealousy between the two
Houses of Parliament, and the Commons, resenting the action of the Upper
House in calling special attention to this Bill, seized the opportunity
of picking a quarrel, and appointed a Committee to report whether there
were any precedents for specially recommending Bills. The Committee
reported that there were several precedents. Bills had been sent with
such recommendations, both from the Lords to the Commons, and from the
Commons to the Lords. Nevertheless the Commons rejected the Union Bill
upon the second reading.[125]

During the summer of 1700 Scotland was in a state of dangerous
excitement. “The Scotch look,” Vernon writes, “as if they were ready for
any mischief, and that nothing will please them but setting up for
themselves.” For the last five years the crops had failed. Thousands had
perished from famine. Thousands more had been driven to emigrate. The
treasury was exhausted. On the balance of trade there was an annual
loss. The Bank of Scotland, established in 1695, found that the whole
business of the country could be conducted on a capital of thirty
thousand pounds; and so limited was the trade, that neither Glasgow,
Dundee, nor Aberdeen could support a branch of the bank.[126] So
frightful was the state of things that Fletcher of Saltoun, whose whole
mind and soul were given up to an intense love for Scotland, thought
that no foundation could be laid for better times except by reducing a
great part of the population to slavery.

The Estates had not met for two years. An address calling upon the king
to assemble a new Parliament was sent up to London; and it was openly
said, that if he refused, a national convention would meet, and meet
moreover at Perth, where the members would have “Athol and a part of the
Highlands at their backs.” The staunch Whigs of the Lowlands laughed in
public at the idea of a rebellion; but they were well aware that society
in Scotland was deeply tainted with that Jacobite feeling which
afterwards gave so much trouble. It appears, from a letter written by
Melville to Carstares, that attempts had been made to tamper even with
persons who were known and avowed Whigs. The Duke of Hamilton, “upon his
lady’s birthday,” was entertaining a party of his friends, among whom
were Queensberry, Argyll, and Leven. After dinner he began to speak in a
very confidential manner to Leven, telling him “that he loved him,” that
he would do all he could to save him, and that he “would obtain a pardon
for him.” Leven asked him what he meant, saying that he had done nothing
to require a pardon from King William, and as for King James, he would
not accept one from him. Hamilton saw he had gone too far, and explained
away what he had said. “It is true,” says Melville, “the duke was very
drunk; but _post vinum veritas_.”[127]

It was plain that the Estates must meet; for not only was the national
outcry too loud to be ignored, but, the treasury being empty, supplies
must be voted, or the Government could no longer be carried on. But the
misery and discontent was so universal, that William could not face a
general election. The majority of the old Revolution Parliament,
however, were still sound Whigs; and it was resolved to summon it once
more. The Government did not rely solely on the help of their own
supporters, but made a carefully-planned assault on the votes of the
Opposition members. The officers of State themselves undertook the
business. Each agreed to canvass a certain number of members. Sometimes
they set the parish ministers to work; and in other cases the good
offices of a member’s wife were secured. And there is no doubt that
besides mere solicitation and appeals to interested motives, there was
direct bribery. The result of these transactions was that when the
Parliament met, in October 1700, the Government had a majority.[128]

[Illustration: JAMES DOUGLAS, 4TH DUKE OF HAMILTON.]

Queensberry, who was Lord High Commissioner, had been instructed to ask
for supplies for eight months, but to take less if they were refused. If
the supplies were voted, he was authorised to give the royal assent to a
subsidy in aid of any branch of Scottish trade which was consistent with
the treaty obligations of the Crown; but if the Parliament wished to
vote money for the African and Indian Company, it must be applied only
to making good the losses which had been sustained at Darien. If an Act
was passed confirming the privileges of the Darien colony, the royal
assent was to be at once refused.[129]

The Opposition, led by Hamilton, desired to pass an Act asserting the
right of Scotland to the settlement at Darien, which was the favourite
scheme of the country, and which the Estates had lately been told from
the pulpit was “that great, laudable, and glorious design and
undertaking of the nation, for the advancement of foreign trade, which
if it be altogether crushed, Scotland is never like to enjoy such a fair
opportunity again, for promoting her outward wealth and welfare.”[130]
The Government, on the other hand, moved an address to the king praying
him to vindicate the honour of Scotland, and to extend his protection to
the Company.

There was a long and fierce debate. Some of those on whom the ministers
had relied followed Hamilton, and others declined to vote. But the
Government had a majority of twenty-four; and the session ended quietly
on the 1st of February 1701.

In Scotland the losses at Darien had brought to a climax the
long-standing feud on the subject of commerce. The discontent and
annoyance which had been growing ever since the Navigation Act was
passed, had now developed into a most violent exasperation against
England and every thing that was English. Yet the temperament of the
Scottish people was such that these feelings did not lead them into
plots against the English Government. They seem to have felt at once
that the greater the obstacles which the jealousy of their neighbour
might put in their way, the greater was the need for energy and
self-help on their own part. Instead of sinking into apathy and
indolence, or allowing their hatred of England to drive them into
violence, they became more active than ever in forming plans for
bringing solid material prosperity to their country. The air was full of
projects; and soon these projects took a definite shape. All Scotland
was to became one great trading company. The subscribers to the African
Company were to be repaid in full. A sum of money greater than that
which had been lost was to be raised within two years. In spite of
English opposition, colonies were to be founded by Scotsmen. At home
manufactories were to be established all over the country. The fisheries
of Scotland were to be pursued “to greater profit in all the markets of
Europe than any other fishing company in Christendom can do.” Employment
was to be found for the poor, “so that in two years time there shall
not be one beggar seen in all the kingdom.”

It was in the midst of this patriotic ferment that Hamilton, Tweeddale,
Rothes, Roxburghe, and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun formed that
independent or national party which, calling itself the Country Party,
was destined, during the next few years, to pursue a course which
ultimately forced England into uniting with Scotland. This party had its
origin in the assertion of the right of Scotland to free trade at home
and abroad; and the keynote of its policy was that Scotland should
refuse to settle the succession to the Scottish Crown until her
grievances were redressed. But with the death of William and the
accession of Anne, Scottish politics entered upon a new phase; and here
the early history of the Union question naturally ends.

[Illustration: ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN.]

In the first year of Queen Anne, commissioners were appointed to treat
for an Union. They met at Westminster in October 1702, and agreed
that the two countries should become one monarchy, with one
Parliament, and a system of internal free trade. The English consented,
though reluctantly, to allow the Scots to trade with the colonies; but
on the subject of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the
Indies no agreement was found to be possible. The English commissioners
maintained that the privileges of the Scottish Company interfered with
the interests of the East India Company: “Two companies existing
together in the same kingdom, and carrying on the same traffic, are
destructive to trade.” To this the Scottish commissioners replied by a
claim for compensation, if the Scottish Company, whose losses in the
Darien expedition had been so disastrous, was abolished. “If,” they
said, “the existing of companies for carrying on the same traffic, do
appear to your Lordships destructive of trade; it is not expected that
your Lordships will insist, that, therefore, the privileges of the
_Scots_ Company should be abandoned, without offering at the same time
to purchase their right at the public expense.” This brought matters to
a deadlock; the commissioners separated; and the negotiations were
ultimately abandoned.

Defoe describes these proceedings as a “Sham Treaty,” and, in his
opinion, religion was the real, though secret, difficulty. “The
jealousies,” he says, “on both sides about Church affairs, in respect to
the Union, were ground of such difficulties as no Body could surmount,
and lay as a Secret Mine, with which that Party who designed to keep the
nation divided, were sure to blow it up at last, and therefore knew that
all they did till that Point was discust signified nothing, and that
whenever they pleased to put an end to it, they had an immediate
opportunity.”

But even if the commissioners had come to terms on the questions of the
Scottish Trading Company and of the Church, there can be no doubt that
the Scottish Estates would not have ratified the treaty; for, as the
proceedings of the first Parliament of Queen Anne proved, Scotland was
now so exasperated against England that nearly five years of turmoil and
danger were to pass away before the statesmen of the two countries,
brought face to face with something more than the possibility of civil
war, at last succeeded in carrying the Union of 1707, in the terms of
which, apart from the loss of the right of complete self-government
through their own Parliament, the advantages lay, upon the whole, with
the Scottish people.

                              THE END.


FOOTNOTES:

[103] Leven and Melville Papers (Bannatyne Club), 7th March 1689.

[104] Lords Journals, 21st March 1690.

[105] Act concerning Patronages, 19th July 1690.

[106] Address of the Scottish Bishops to James II., 3rd Nov. 1688.

[107] It would appear from a memorandum among the Rawlinson MSS. in the
Bodleian Library that several English bishops, some of the Scottish
peers, and some members of the Scottish Whig party, had held a private
conference and agreed that the Jacobite clergy should be unmolested. The
English bishops represented the case of the Scottish Episcopal clergy to
William about the same time. But it was doubtless felt that any attempt
to pass an Act of Toleration through the Scottish Parliament would fail.
(Rawlinson MSS. c. 985.)

[108] _A Memorial for his Highness the Prince of Orange_, by two persons
of quality. London, 1689.

[109] _A Vindication of the Government in Scotland during the reign of
King Charles II._, by Sir George Mackenzie, late Lord Advocate there.
London, 1691.

[110] Evelyn’s _Diary_, 7th March 1690.

[111] _Presbyterian Inquisition: as it was lately practised against the
Professors of the College of Edinburgh, August and September 1690._
London, 1691.

[112] _An Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General
Assembly_, London, 1691; _An Account of the late Establishment of
Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland_, London, 1693.

[113] _The Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, examined and disproved_,
London, 1695.

[114] _An Account of the Present Persecution of the Church in Scotland,
in several Letters_, London, 1690; _The Case of the Present Afflicted
Clergy in Scotland_, By a Lover of the Church and his Country, London,
1690.

[115] _Case of the Afflicted Clergy_, Second Collection of Papers, p.
60.

[116] _The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence; or The Foolishness of their
Teaching discovered_, London, 1692; _An Answer to the Scotch
Presbyterian Eloquence_, 1693; _Some remarks upon a late pamphlet
entitled “Answer to the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence,”_ London, 1694. A
second edition of _The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence_ was published in
1694, a third in 1719, and there have been other editions since.

[117] _The Assembly, or Scotch Reformation; a Comedy._ Done from the
original manuscript, written in the year 1690, by Archibald Pitcairn,
M.D. Edinburgh, 1817.

[118] Act for a Company Trading to Africa and the Indies, 26th June
1695.

[119] Marchmont to Seafield, 7th October 1699, _Marchmont Papers_, iii.
178.

[120] To Pringle, 23rd December 1699, _Marchmont Papers_, iii. 199.

[121] John, first Viscount Lonsdale.

[122] 11th January 1700, _Vernon Letters_, ii. 404.

[123] _Vernon Letters_, ii. 408.

[124] Lords Journals, 12th February 1700.

[125] Commons Journals, 5th March 1700.

[126] Somerville, p. 151; Chalmers’ _Caledonia_, i. 868.

[127] _Carstares State Papers_, p. 579.

[128] See the Duke of Queensberry’s letter to Mr. Carstares of 9th
September, and other letters among the _Carstares Papers_ during the
summer and autumn of 1700.

[129] Private Instructions to the Duke of Queensberry, Hampton Court,
25th April 1700; Add. MSS., British Museum, 24, 064, f. 18. The Estates
met in May, but were adjourned until October.

[130] A Sermon preached before his Grace James Duke of Queensberry, His
Majesty’s High Commissioner, and the Honourable Estates of Parliament,
in the Parliament House, the 1st December 1700. Edinburgh, 1701.



_Index_


    _Abbotsford Club Miscellany_, Satire against Scotland in, 58.

    _Aberdeen_, progress of, during the Commonwealth, 110;
      cannot support a branch of the Bank of Scotland, 177.

    _Aberdeen_, first Earl of, 139.

    _Albon_, Jacques d’, Marshal of France, 24.

    _Annandale_, rabbling in, 163.

    _Anne_, Queen, accession of, 183.

    _Aragon_, 81.

    _Argyll_, Lord Justice of Scotland, 37;
      Earl of, a Lord of the Council, 40;
      Marquis of, opposes Cromwell, 97;
      endeavours to secure return of Scotsmen to Parliament, 1656,
          105;
      represents Aberdeenshire in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, 105;
      Duke of, 178.

    _Argyllshire_, representation of, in 1658, 105.

    _Arran_, James, third Earl of, marriage to Elizabeth proposed, 27,
          40, 41;
      leaves France, 30;
      Elizabeth declines to marry, 44;
      a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Assembly_, The, a Comedy, 169.

    _Assembly_, General, dissolved during the Commonwealth, 114.

    _Athole_, Duke of, remains neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Aubespine_, Claude de l’, Secretary of State, 24.

    _Ayr_, fort built at, 107.


    _Babington Conspiracy_, 49.

    _Bacon_, supports the Union, 60, 61, 62;
      on the Union Commission, 64;
      opposes assimilation of laws of England and Scotland, 70;
      his description of the Union Commissioners of 1604, 69;
      assists Sir Thomas Hamilton to adjust the Treaty, 71;
      his speech for the Union, 78-81;
      his argument for the post-nati, 86.

    _Baillie_, Rev. Robert, deplores the Union, 99, 100;
      account of Scotland during the Commonwealth, 119;
      his intolerance, 117;
      account of Lord Broghill, 107.

    _Baliol_, reign of, 11.

    _Band Anent the Trew Religioun_, 1585, 47.

    _Bank of Scotland_, 176.

    _Bannockburn_, 15.

    _Barbadoes_, trade with Glasgow, 109.

    _Barebones’ Parliament_, representation of Scotland in, 101.

    _Basilikon Doron_, 52, 59.

    _Berkeley_, Bishop, 88.

    _Berwick_, not to be molested by Scots, 24;
      Sir Ralph Sadler at, 30;
      Convention at, 36, 37;
      Treaty of, 37;
      goods from Scotland must pass through, 131.

    _Bettancourt_, Monsieur de, 25.

    _Binning_, Rev. Hugh, 113.

    _Blackstone_, cited, 127.

    _Bothwell_, Earl of, doubtful at Reformation, 40.

    _Boyd_, Lord, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Boyle_, Roger (Lord Broghill), President of the Scottish Council,
          106, 107.

    _Bretaigne_, Sir John de, Warden of Scotland, 13.

    _Bridgeman_, Lord Keeper, 137.

    _Broghill_, Lord, 106, 107.

    _Bruce_, Robert, 15, 35.

    _Buchan_, Earl of, at Parliament of Westminster, 12.

    _Buchanan_, George, 60.

    _Buckingham_, Duke of, 137.

    _Burnet_, Bishop, account of Cromwell’s soldiers at Aberdeen, 107;
      of state of Scotland during the Commonwealth, 107, 120.

    _Bute_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, 105.


    _Caithness_, Earl of, is neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Calais_, 36.

    _Calvin_ v. _Smith_ (case of the post-nati), 86.

    _Cambray_, Treaty of, 23, 24.

    _Cameronians_, 153.

    _Carlisle_, goods from Scotland must pass through, 131.

    _Carlyle_, Thomas, cited, 121.

    _Carstares_, Principal, 177, 178, 179.

    _Carthusians_, Monastery of, at Perth, 26.

    _Cassillis_, Earl of, in Cromwell’s House of Lords, 121.

    _Cassillis_, Lord, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Castile_, 81.

    _Cecil_, encourages marriage of Elizabeth and Arran, 27;
      in favour of sending troops to Scotland, 28, 29, 30;
      persuades Elizabeth to send an army to Scotland, 35.

    _Charles I._, Scottish policy of, 93;
      engagement for the relief of, 112.

    _Charles II._, signs the Covenants, 94, 95;
      favourable to Union at first, 125.

    _Chatelherault_, Duke of, 27, 30.

    _Chien_, Sir Reynaud de, 13.

    _Christian Love_, treatise on, by Rev. Hugh Binning, 113.

    _Clackmannan_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s
          Parliament, 105.

    _Clarendon_, Earl of, opposes Lauderdale, 128;
      in favour of Union, 123.

    _Clyde_, during the Commonwealth, 109, 110.

    _Coke_, Sir Edward, cited, 70;
      in favour of Union, 81.

    _Collingham_, Prior of, 40.

    _Confession of Faith_, of 1560, 89, 90;
      Westminster, 151, 152, 157.

    _Congregation_, Lords of the, 25, 26.

    _Cork_, Earl of, 106.

    _Country Party_, rise of, in Scotland, 182.

    _Craig_, Sir Thomas, 66.

    _Craigmillar_, Castle burned, 17.

    _Cranbourne_, Lord, 59.

    _Crichton_, Lord, is neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Cromwell_, Oliver, victorious at Dunbar and Worcester, 95, 96;
      dissolves the Long Parliament, 101;
      becomes Lord Protector, 102;
      meeting of his first Parliament, 104;
      his opinion of the Scots, 116, 121;
      intends to found a College of Physicians for Scotland, 118;
      his House of Lords, 121;
      the Union under, 135, _et seq._;
      his forts in Scotland demolished after the Restoration, 124.

    _Cromwell_, Richard, representatives of Scotland in his
          Parliament, 105.

    _Cumberland_, duties on horses coming from Scotland, 130.

    _Cupar_, Abbot of, at Parliament of Westminster, 12.


    _Dalkeith_, delegates discuss Union at, during the Commonwealth,
          98, 99, 100.

    _Dalrymple_, Sir John (first Earl of Stair), 148.

    _Darien_, 172, 173, 180, 181.

    _Darnley_, 46.

    _Dartmouth_, Lord, cited, 137.

    _Dauphin_, marriage to Mary of Scotland, 21, 22;
      proclaims himself and Mary, King and Queen of Scotland, 23;
      gives up using Arms of England, 38.

    _David_, King of Scotland, 14.

    _Debateable Ground_, The, 19.

    _Defoe_, Daniel, 120, 133, 184.

    _Drummond_, Lord, is neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Dryburgh_, Abbey destroyed, 17.

    _Dudley_ (Earl of Leicester), 43.

    _Dumbartonshire_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s
          Parliament, 105.

    _Dunbar_, battle of, 95, 96, 112.

    _Dundas_, of Dundas, 100.

    _Dundee_, progress of, during the Commonwealth, 110;
      storming of, 97;
      no bank at, 177.

    _Dunfermline_, Earl of, 65, 66.

    _Dunkeld_, Bishop of, at Parliament of Westminster, 12.

    _Dutch_, Navigation Act directed against, 127.


    _East India Company_, 87, 183.

    _Edinburgh_, burned by the English, 16, 17;
      Treaty of, 38, 39;
      taken by Cromwell, 96;
      Union proclaimed at, 98, 103;
      grant to University of, 118;
      Monro, Principal of University of, 160.

    _Edward I._, 10, 11, 12, 14, 35.

    _Edward VI._, 17.

    _Edward_, Prince, 10.

    _Edwards_, Thomas, author of the _Gangræna_, 117.

    _Ellesmere_, Lord Chancellor, 64, 86.

    _Elizabeth_, Queen, agrees to send troops to Scotland, 35;
      marriage to Arran proposed, 40, 41, 44;
      to Dudley, 44.

    _Elizabeth_, Princess of Scotland, 55.

    _Elphinstone_, James (Lord Balmerino), 66.

    _England_, attempted Union to Scotland in the reign of Edward I.,
          11;
      treatment of Scotsmen in, 14;
      Scottish hatred to, 17;
      Crown of, claimed by Mary and the Dauphin, 23;
      James VI. of Scotland well received in, 57;
      conduct of Scotsmen passing through, 75;
      Bacon on the future greatness of, 81;
      Reformation in, 87, 88;
      revenue of, during the Commonwealth, 110;
      Bills for uniting with Scotland in 1659, 118, 121;
      Scottish Church question misunderstood in, 144;
      alarm in, produced by writings of Scottish Episcopalians, 165,
          _et seq._;
      relations with Scotland in the reign of William III., 173,
          _et seq._

    _Errol_, Earl of, 40.

    _Evelyn_, John, Diary cited, 159.


    _False Brother_, The, 143.

    _Five Mile Act_, 145.

    _Fleming_, Lord, doubtful at the Reformation, 40.

    _Fletcher_, of Saltoun, 99, 107, 177, 182.

    _Flodden_, battle of, 15, 35.

    _Florence_, 81.

    _France_, relations with Scotland, 20, 21, 23, 28, 29;
      trade with Glasgow, 109.

    _Francis II._, death of, 44.

    _Fotheringay_, 45.

    _Froude_, Mr., cited, 23, 28, 41.

    _Fyvie_, Lord, 65.


    _Gillespie_, Patrick, 117, 118.

    _Glasgow_, opposition to Union during the Commonwealth, 98, 100,
          119;
      fort built at, 107;
      trade of, 109, 110, 177;
      University of, 118.

    _Glencairn_, fifth Earl of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40;
      ninth Earl of, rising under in the Highlands, 97.

    _Gordon_, Sir George, of Haddo, 139.

    _Grey_, Lord, Warden of the East Marches, 35.

    _Guise_, Duke of, 47.

    _Guise_, Mary of, 20, _et seq._

    _Gunpowder Plot_, 75.

    _Gurdon_, Sir Adam de, at the Parliament of Westminster, 12.


    _Haddington_, Earl of, _see_ Hamilton.

    _Halifax_, Lord, 174.

    _Hamilton_, Duke of, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182.

    _Hamilton_, Sir Thomas (first Earl of Haddington), 56;
      on Union Commission, 66, 71.

    _Hamilton Papers_, 40.

    _Harleian Miscellany_, 143.

    _Henry VII._, 15.

    _Henry VIII._, Scottish policy of, 17;
      proposes marriage of Prince of Wales and Mary of Scotland, 15.

    _Henry_, Prince (son of James VI. of Scotland), 52.

    _Henry_, of France, naturalises Scotsmen in France, 22;
      sends M. de Bettancourt to Edinburgh, 25;
      death of, 28.

    _Henry_, of Navarre, 47.

    _Heriot_, George, 56, 96.

    _Hill Men_, 153.

    _Holyrood_, Mary of Scotland at, 46;
      dismantled, 55;
      turned into barracks, 96;
      Abbot of, doubtful at the Reformation, 40.

    _Hume_, Lord, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Huntly_, Earl of, neutral at the Reformation, 40.


    _Inchmartyn_, Sir John de, at the Parliament of Westminster, 12.

    _Inverlochy_, Castle of, repaired, 107.

    _Inverness_, fort built at, 107.

    _Inverness-shire_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s
          Parliament, 105.

    _Ireland_, trade with Glasgow, 109;
      Lord Justice of Scotland to assist Lord Lieutenant of, 37.


    _James IV._ of Scotland, 15.

    _James VI._ of Scotland, asked to join the Holy League, 47;
      agrees to send troops into England, 48;
      conduct at death of his mother, 50, 51;
      leaves Scotland, 53, _et seq._;
      how received in England, 57;
      announces the Union of England and Scotland, 59;
      summons a Parliament in Scotland to discuss the Union, 63;
      recommends the Union to the English Parliament, 63, 64;
      remonstrances with the English Parliament, 81, 82;
      insists on his right to issue letters of denization, 73;
      thanks the Union Commissioners, 74;
      his _Basilikon Doron_, 52;
      his opinions as to the Heritable Jurisdiction, 70, 71;
      his dislike to the Presbyterian Church, 90, 91.

    _James II._ of England, addressed by Scottish Bishops, 154.

    _Jersey_, Lord, 137.

    _Jewel_, letter to Peter Martyr, quoted, 41.

    _Johnston_, Sir Archibald, of Warriston, 99, 121.


    _Kethe_, Sir Robert de, at the Parliament of Westminster, 12.

    _Kirkpatrick_, rabbling at, 163.

    _Kirkton_, Rev. James, 119, 120.

    _Knox_, John, comes to Scotland from Geneva, 26.


    _Lambert_, 97.

    _Laud_, Archbishop, 93.

    _Lauderdale_, Duke of, against continuing the Union after the
          Restoration, 123, 124;
      his advice as to the Church of Scotland not followed, 124, 125;
      changes his views as to the Union, 138;
      quarrels with Tweeddale, 140.

    _Lauriston_, Sir Alexander Straton of, 74.

    _Law_, Rev. Robert, his Memorialls, 120.

    _Leighton_, Bishop, 117.

    _Leith_, burned, 16, 17;
      Mary of Guise and French troops in, 30, 31;
      siege of, 38;
      fort at, 107;
      progress of, 110.

    _Leven_, Lord, 178.

    _Lindsay_, Master of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Linlithgow_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament,
          105.

    _Livingstone_, Lord, remains neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Lockhart_, Sir William, on the Scottish Council during the
          Commonwealth, 106;
      in Cromwell’s House of Lords, 121.

    _London_, Scotsmen in, during reign of Elizabeth, 55, 56;
      scarcity of wood in, 135;
      Union Commission at, in 1670, 139;
      in 1702, 183.

    _Longleat_, MSS. at, 40.

    _Lonsdale_, Viscount, 174.

    _Lorraine_, Cardinal of, at the Treaty of Cambray, 24.


    _Mackintosh_, Sir James, 88.

    _Mackenzie_, Sir George, of Rosehaugh, 128, 139, 140, 158, 159.

    _Maid of Norway_, 10.

    _Maitland_, Sir John, 50.

    _Maitland_, William, of Lethington, advocates the Union of England
          and Scotland, 31-34.

    _March_, Patrick, Earl of, 12.

    _Marchmont_, Earl of, 174.

    _Margaret_, Princess, 15, 46.

    _Marshall_, Earl, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Martyr_, Peter, letter to, from Jewel, quoted, 41.

    _Mary_, of Guise (Queen Regent), assembles the Scottish Nobles in
          1555, 20, 21;
      asked by Henry of France to suppress the Reformation in
          Scotland, 25, 26;
      takes shelter in Leith, 30;
      her death, 38.

    _Mary_, Queen of England, effects of her death, 22, 23.

    _Mary_, Queen of Scots, betrothed to the Dauphin, 17;
      sent to France, 19;
      effects of her marriage on the relations of France and Scotland,
          21;
      assumes the title of Queen of England, 23;
      to give up using this title, 38;
      death of Francis II., 44;
      returns to Scotland, 45;
      her execution, 49.

    _Mary_, Queen of England (wife of William III.), 149.

    _Masson_, Professor, cited, 71.

    _Maxwell_, Master of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Melrose_, Abbey, destroyed by the English, 17.

    _Melrose_, Abbot, at the Parliament of Westminster, 12.

    _Melville_, George, first Earl of, 148, 177, 178.

    _Middleton_, John, first Earl of, 128.

    _Midlothian_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament,
          105.

    _Monk_, General, 97, 104.

    _Monro_, Dr. Alexander, 160, 162.

    _Monteith_, Earl of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Monteith_, Sir John, 12, 13.

    _Montmorency_, Duke of, at the Treaty of Cambray, 24.

    _Montrose_, John, Earl of, on Commission for Union, 65.

    _Montrose_, William, Earl of, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Morton_, Earl of, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Morvillier_, Bishop of Orleans, 24.

    _Moubray_, Sir John de, 12.


    _Navigation Act (English)_, 127-129, 132, 133, 170, 172.

    _Navigation Act (Scottish)_, 131.

    _Newcastle_, 133.

    _Nisbet_, Sir John, Lord Advocate, 140.

    _Norfolk_, Lieutenant of the North of England, 36.

    _Norham_, 24.

    _Northumberland_, duty on horses entering, 130.

    _Norway_, trade with Glasgow, 109.

    _Nova Scotia_, 87.


    _Ochiltree_, Lord, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Oxford_, Sir George Mackenzie at, 159.


    _Parliament of England_, Address of James I. to, 60;
      meeting of, in 1604, 63;
      in 1605, 75;
      in 1606, 76;
      debate on Scottish question, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82;
      will not agree to the Union in 1607, 84;
      representation of Scotland in, during the Commonwealth, 100,
          101;
      the Long Parliament dissolved, 101;
      representation of Scotland in Barebones’ Parliament, 101;
      thirty members to serve for Scotland in, 102;
      Protector’s first Parliament, 104;
      Scottish members in 1656, 105;
      Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, 105;
      jurisdiction in Scotland forbidden except under authority of,
          108;
      Bills for Union brought into, in 1659, 118;
      Lauderdale’s fear of, 124;
      commercial policy of English Parliament, 127;
      passes a Navigation Act, 128;
      Address of William III. to, 150;
      state of feeling in, 151;
      Address against Scottish Trading Company, 173;
      Scotland attacked in Parliament, 175;
      jealousy between Lords and Commons, 175, 176.

    _Parliament of Scotland_, resolves to betroth Mary to the Dauphin,
          17;
      terms on which their marriage agreed to, 21;
      deputation from, to be sent to France, 39;
      disowns the authority of the Pope, 40;
      in favour of the Union of the Crowns, 41;
      meets at St. Andrews, in 1585, 47;
      meeting of, in 1587, 49;
      position of, after the Union of the Crowns, 55;
      summoned to meet in April 1604, 63;
      meets at Perth in July 1604, 65;
      appoints Commission on Union, 65, 66;
      resolves that Union not to interfere with independence of
          Scotland, 67;
      meets in August 1607, 83;
      agrees to articles of Union, 84;
      acknowledges the royal supremacy over all persons and causes,
          91;
      protests against execution of Charles I., 94;
      does not sit during the Commonwealth, 97;
      meets again after the Restoration, 124;
      passes a Navigation Act for Scotland, 131;
      meets in Edinburgh in 1669, 138;
      Address of William III. to, in 1689, 147;
      appoints a Commission on Union, 149, 150;
      passes Acts relating to the Church, 151, 156;
      passes the Act for a Company Trading to Africa and the Indies,
          171, 172, 173;
      meets in October 1700, 179, 180, 181;
      first Parliament of Queen Anne, 185.

    _Parliament_, at Westminster, in 1305, 12.

    _Patronage_, Law of, 152.

    _Perth_, John Knox at, 26.

    _Perthshire_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament,
          105.

    _Piggott_, Sir Christopher, 77.

    _Pinkie_, Battle of, 17, 35.

    _Pinkie House_, Council at, in 1560, 38.

    _Pisa_, 81.

    _Pitcairn_, Archibald, M.D., 169.

    _Portland_, Duke of, 133.

    _Presbyterian Eloquence_, displayed, 166.

    _Presbyterian Inquisition_, 160.

    _Primrose_, Sir Archibald, 140.


    _Queensberry_, James, second Duke of, 178, 179, 180.


    _Rawlinson_ MSS., 157.

    _Reformation_, 40, 87, 88.

    _Riven_ (Ruthven), a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Rosebery_, first Earl of, 140.

    _Rosehaugh_, Sir George Mackenzie of, 139.

    _Roslyn_, burned by the English, 17.

    _Ross_, Lord, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Rothes_, Andrew, fourth Earl of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Rothes_, John, seventh Earl of, 182.

    _Roxburghe_, John, Duke of, 182.

    _Rutherford_, Samuel, 117.


    _Sadler_, Sir Ralph, 15, 16, 30.

    _Sage_, Rev. John, 161.

    _St. Andrews_, Parliament at, 47;
      Bishop of, at the Parliament of Westminster, 12;
      Prior of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40;
      Bishop of, doubtful at the Reformation, 40.

    _St. Giles_, Church of, 54, 165.

    _Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence_, The, 166.

    _Scotland_, invasion of, by Edward I., 10, 11;
      representatives of, in Parliament at Westminster, 1305, 12, 13;
      John de Bretaigne, Warden of, 13;
      independence of, secured at Bannockburn, 15;
      after Flodden and Solway Moss, 15, 16, 17;
      last battle between Scotland and England, 17;
      state of, in the sixteenth century, 20;
      the French policy towards, 25, 26, 28;
      Scottish policy of Cecil, 28, 29, 30;
      Maitland of Lethington on the relations of England and Scotland,
          31, _et seq._;
      English army enters, 36;
      Crowns of France and Scotland separated, 44;
      Mary returns to, 45;
      league of 1585, between England and Scotland, 47;
      James VI. leaves, 54, 55, 56, 57;
      abuse of, by English writers, 57, 77, 116, 141, 142, 143, 175;
      Union proposed in 1603, 63, _et seq._;
      state of, during the Commonwealth, 96-121;
      establishment of Episcopacy in, after the Restoration, 125;
      effect of the Navigation Act on, 127, _et seq._;
      policy of the Stuarts as to Union with, 137;
      Crown of, offered to William and Mary, 149;
      Union with, recommended by William, 150;
      attacks upon the Church of, 162, _et seq._;
      attempts to improve the trade of, 170;
      dangerous state of, in 1700, 176, 185.

    _Scottish Burgh Society_, 110.

    _Scottish Company Trading to Africa and the Indies_, 170, 183,
          184.

    _Seaton_, Sir John, 100.

    _Second Book of Discipline_, 90.

    _Semple_, Lord, 40.

    _Seton_, Alexander (Lord Fyvie), 65.

    _Seton_, Lord, 40.

    _Seymour_, Sir Edward, 175.

    _Sharp_, Archbishop, 144.

    _Sharpe_, Charles Kirkpatrick, 120.

    _Shrewsbury_, Lord, 174.

    _Society Men_, 153.

    _Solway Moss_, battle of, 15.

    _Somerset_, Protector, in Scotland, 18.

    _Somerville_, Lord, neutral at the Reformation, 40.

    _Sparta_, 81.

    _Stair_, John, first Earl of, 148.

    _Stobs_, Elliot of, 100.

    _Straton_, Sir Alexander, 74.

    _Stirling_, Castle surrendered, 97.

    _Stirlingshire_, representation of, in Richard Cromwell’s
          Parliament, 105.

    _Sutherland_, Earl of, a Lord of the Congregation, 40.

    _Swinton_, of Swinton, 100, 106.


    _Tarbat_, Lord (first Earl of Cromartie), 158.

    _Throgmorton_, Sir Nicholas, 28.

    _Treaty_, of Cambray, 23;
      of Upsetlington, 24;
      of Berwick, 36, 37;
      of Edinburgh, 38;
      of 1586, 47;
      of Union in 1607, 71, _et seq._;
      Commercial Treaty of 1668, 132-136;
      of Union in 1670, 139, 140;
      of Union in 1702, 183.

    _Tucker_, Thomas, report on the revenue of Scotland, 110.

    _Tudor_, Princess Margaret, 46.

    _Tweed_, English army crosses, in 1560, 38.

    _Tweeddale_, John, Earl and first Marquis of, 136, 140, 145;
      John, second Marquis, 182.

    _Tytler_, Patrick Fraser, 17, 40, 49.


    _Union_, of the Crowns, 54, _et seq._;
      of the Kingdoms, proposed by Edward I., 10, _et seq._;
      by Somerset, 18;
      by Maitland of Lethington, 31, _et seq._;
      by James VI., 68, _et seq._;
      during the Commonwealth, 96, _et seq._;
      abolished at the Restoration, 123, 124;
      proposed in 1670, 139;
      at the Revolution, 147, _et seq._;
      in 1702, 183.

    _Upsetlington_, Treaty of, 24.


    _Vane_, Sir Henry (younger), 97, 113, 114.

    _Vaux_, Sir John de, 13.

    _Vernon_, Mr. Secretary, 174, 175, 176.

    _Virginia_, colonised, 87.


    _Wallace_, William, 12, 35.

    _Walsingham_, 49, 50.

    _Warriston_, Sir Archibald Johnston of, 99.

    _Westminster_, Parliament at, in 1305, 12;
      Union Commissioners at, in 1604-1607, 68, 69;
      deputies sent to, from Scotland, 100;
      Union Commissioners at, in 1702, 183, 184.

    _Westminster Confession of Faith_, 151, 152, 157.

    _Whalley_, Henry, 104.

    _Whigs_, lenient spirit of, 157.

    _Whitehall_, 143.

    _William III._ of England, his account of the Stuart policy as to
          Union, 137;
      letter to the Estates in 1689, 147;
      urges settlement of government in Scotland, 149;
      recommends the Union, 150, 151;
      his Church policy in Scotland, 155, 156;
      conduct as to Darien, 171-173;
      proposes the Union in 1700, 175;
      his death, 183.

    _Winter_, Admiral, 35.

    _Worcester_, battle of, 95, 96.

    _Wotton_, Sir Edward, Ambassador at Holyrood, 47.

    _Wycherley_, 169.


       *       *       *       *       *


Transcriber’s Notes

Missing periods, closing quotation marks and closing parentheses have
been supplied where obviously required. All other original errors and
inconsistencies have been retained, except as follows:

  Page 30:    least changed to last
              (and at last Chatelherault)
  Footnote 7: Debeateable changed to Debateable
              (vocabulo dicta The Debateable Ground.”)
  Page 188:   Castille changed to Castile
              (_Castile_, 81.)
  Page 190:   Andrew changed to Adam
              (_Gurdon_, Sir Adam de, at the Parliament)
  Page 190:   Johnstone changed to Johnston
              (_Johnston_, Sir Archibald, of Warriston, 99, 121.)
  Page 191:   Macintosh changed to Mackintosh
              (_Mackintosh_, Sir James, 88.)
  Page 192:   Added page reference for entry
              (summoned to meet in April 1604, 63;)
  Page 192:   Added page reference for entry
              (meets at Perth in July 1604, 65;)





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