medieval-atlas/events-from-about-850-to-1460/151

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The 1707 Union: support and opposition The treaty of union of 1707 was the product of diplomatic brinkmanship, military intimidation and political manipulation on the part of an English ministry intent on an incorporating parliamentary union and of economic defeatism, financial chicanery and political ineptitude on the part of Scottish politicians intent on personal advantage from the loss of national independence. By 1702, Anglo-Scottish relations were crystallizing into constitutional crisis which made the continuance of the regal union no longer a viable political option. The thirteen-year rule ofWilliam of Orange had witnessed the blatant sacrificing of Scottish trade on the altar of English foreign policy. The death of the last surviving child of Anna, the new queen, and the recognition of the lacobite pretender as lames VIII and III by Louis XIV of France, meant there was a real danger that the current continental imbroglio, the war of the Spanish succession, would spill over into the war of the British succession. In the event, Anglo-Scottish hostilities were restricted to a legislative war. The English parliament having passed the act of settlement in 1701, unilaterally vesting the succession on the house of Hanover, the Scottish estates retaliated with a tripartite package in 1703. The act of security and the wine act upheld respectively the independent right of the Scottish estates to fix the succession and authorise trade with France; the act meant peace and asserted the estates' right to assume an independent foreign policy on the death of Queen Anne. The Scottish bluff was called in 1705 when the English parliament passed the alien act which threatened to treat Scots as foreigners unless the Hanoverian succession was accepted unequivocally by the estates. At the same time, the Scottish estates were invited to resume the discussions for a closer union which had been an early casualty of the ·Iegislative war. Economic and social factors played an important part in persuading Scottish politicians, in particular the aristocratic factions which dominated parliamentary politics, to treat for union. There was undoubtedly an aura of economic defeatism in the country at large occasioned by the swallowing up of Scottish venture capital in the Darien fiasco and compounded by five years of intensive dearth and famine that ended in 1700. More immediately, the alien act had posed a direct challenge to the rent-rolls of the aristocracy which depended heavily on open access to English markets for such commodities as coal, linen and, a~ove all, livestock. That I in 7 Scottish nobles had English wives at the resumption of negotiations, testifies not only the their steady assimilation into the British ruling class, but also to their growing dependence on the English marriage market to build up disposable income. Notwithstanding these factors, the accomplishment of union within two years must be attributed primarily to political considerations. The English ministry guiding the queen had a clearly defined objective -an incorporating parliamentary union to shut permanently the Scottish back-door to military invasion by a foreign power. The English treasury was prepared to advance £20,000 sterling (£240,000 Scots) to influence voting in the Scottish estates. For their part, the Scottish estates, though initially not inclined to accept a parliamentary union, were unable to sustain a common front in support of alternative options which ranged from complete separation to federalism. Moreover, politicians across the political spectrum were becoming conditioned to seek the support and c1ientage of the English ministry in their competitive drive for office. The Court party, which had favoured shoring up the regal union until its leader, the duke of Queensberry, was threatened with loss of backing by the English ministry, espoused parliamentary union in a salvage operation to retain office. Opposed to the Court was the Country, not so much a party as a confederation. At the one extreme was a rump ofconstitutional reformers, the only principled opponents of parliamentary union, who were intent on freeing Scotland from the shackles of aristocratic privilege as of the English ministry. At the other extreme were the lacobites, the one political grouping prepared to condone the military option, but weakened by the defection of episcopalians who placed the prospect of toleration before the restoration of the house of Stuart. The dominant grouping within the Country was the old party frustrated placemen and the disappointed investors in Darien, led by a quixotic vacillator, the duke of Hamilton, whose indecisiveness occasioned this defection of aristocratic associates, the formation of the new party -known as the "flying Squadron' or the "Squadrone Volante" for their desperate pursuit of office -and, most crucially, the choice of commissioners to treat for an incorporating union being left to the queen not the estates. As a result, the twenty-four articles of the treaty of union presented for the approval of the Scottish estates on 3 October 1706, were not so much the fruits of diplomatic negotiations as the dictates of the English ministry. To underline the seriousness of their intent, the English ministry had moved troops to Berwick and northern Ireland to be held within striking distance of Edinburgh and the west of Scotland, the main areas of anticipated opposition to the union. From the crucial vote on the first article of union on 4 November, which revealed a majority of 33 in favour of a united kingdom of Great Britain, the Country confederation mounted a continuous barrage of protests and amendments to negate, alter and delay the passage of the remaining articles. Addresses against the union were also forthcoming from around half the shires (18) and about a third (21) of the royal burghs. Nonetheless, despite the general assembly of the Kirk expressing its reservations and the convention of royal burghs its outright opposition, the treaty was ratified on 16 January 1707, when the majority in favour was augmented to 41. In only two shires did the parliamentary commissioners respond positively to the addresses and vote solidly against the ratification. The burgh commissioners were no more responsive: eight continued to vote in favour of the union though one did abstain on the ratification. While these addresses were undoubtedly instigated and concerted by the parliamentary opposition, the Court party was unable to mobilize any addresses in favour of the union. Instead, its influence was applied, particularly in the Highlands and south-west, to suppress the endeavours of gentry and burgesses to petition against the union. Although the addresses led no significant shift in the voting pattern against ratification, their presentation enabled the Country confederation to claim that the treaty of union lacked public support, a claim given further plausibility by popular protests against the union and recalcitrant magistrates in the burghs of Glasgow,· Dumfries and Edinburgh and more convincingly, by sixty-two exceptional and unsolicited addresses from presbyteries (3), towns (9) and parishes (50), the latter usually in clusters. These addresses against the union came predominantly from west-central and southwestern Scotland, where local communities drew consciously on covenanting traditions of supplicating in support of religious and civil liberties. The extreme Cameronians in the south-west went so far as to submit their own eclectic band against the union. The leavening of petitions from around the firth of Forth, from communities involved in the burgeoning coal and salt industry, were also inspired, perhaps, by the union's threatened eradication of differential trading tariffs. The voting pattern for the first article and the final ratification is noteworthy not just for the demonstrable lack of response from the estates to public opinion as expressed through addresses and popular protests, but for the increase in abstentions and absentees, from 25 members at the vote on the first article to 46 on the ratification. In effect, the union was ratified by default rather than by an absolute majority. No more than 6 members actually switched sides at a net loss of 2 votes to the Country confederation yet, only 15 members abstained or were absent on both occasions. Thus, the increase in abstentions and absences masks considerable volatility in voting among the estates. The net loss to the Court party from such volatility was 8 votes as against 12 votes for the Country confederation. Equally, the Court vote was appreciably more resolute. 102 members voted for both the first article and the ratification; whereas only 59 members voted against both. The relative solidity of the Court party and the greater volatility in voting exhibited by adherents of the Country confederation cannot be dissociated from the politics of influence, or, less politely, bribery. The court, with the backing of the English ministry, was undoubtedly able to use the spoils of office to shore up its own voting and retain the commitment of aristocratic defectors, including the new party. The principal fund of influence was the advance of £20,000 sterling from the English treasury ostensibly to pay arrears of pensions and allowances from the civil list. Only 26 members of the estates eligible to vote actually received part payments of arrears. In only I instance did a recipient actually switch sides, though 2 opponents of the first article did abstain at the ratification of the treaty. More pertinently, 9 recipients had no apparent claim to arrears and another 6 were not required to 151

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