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THE 
 
 LEGISLATIVE UNION 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 
 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 
 
 TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
THE 
 LEGISLATIVE UNION 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND & SCOTLAND 
 
 THE FORD LECTURES 
 DELIVERED IN HILARY TERM, 1914 
 
 By p. HUME BROWN, M.A., LL.D. 
 
 FRASER PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT (SCOTTISH) HISTORY AND PALAEOGRAPHY IN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 
 HISTORIOGRAPHER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1914 
 
 G..V. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A NATURAL reason for my choice of the Legislative 
 Union of England and Scotland as the subject of 
 the Ford Lectures was its common interest for both 
 countries. At the present epoch, moreover, the Union 
 of 1707 may be said to have a direct and special 
 interest The problem which the statesmen of the 
 reign of Queen Anne had to solve has close analogies 
 with the problem which has confronted their successors 
 in recent years. I did not consider it within my scope 
 to suggest these analogies, which, indeed, cannot be 
 missed in any presentment of the circumstances in 
 which the union of the English and Scottish Parlia- 
 ments was effected. Neither has it been my object to 
 draw any specific lessons for the present from the 
 past. Identical problems do not recur in human 
 history, and each age has to find the solution of its 
 own. If the study of the past, however, does not 
 afford direct guidance for the present, it may have its 
 own influence on the temper and attitude of mind with 
 which existing problems are approached. 
 
 Another consideration influenced me in the choice of 
 a subject. Within the last few years the publication 
 of contemporary documents, hitherto unused, has 
 thrown fresh light on the characters and actions of the 
 leading Scottish statesmen of the time, as well as on 
 
vi Preface 
 
 the general conduct of affairs. Most important of 
 these are the Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, 
 pubUshed by the Historical MSS. Commission in 
 1904. Mar was Secretary of State for Scotland from 
 1705 till the accession of George I, and his voluminous 
 correspondence is the most vivid and continuous record 
 of affairs relating to Scotland which we possess for the 
 period they cover. The Seafield Correspondence from 
 168 J to ijoS, edited for the Scottish History Society 
 by Mr. James Grant (191 2), is mainly concerned with 
 family matters, but it also contains letters which throw 
 new light on certain public events, as, for example, 
 on the invasion of 1708 in the interest of the elder 
 Pretender. Of special value is the correspondence of 
 John, second Duke of Argyle, which appears in the 
 first volume of Intimate Society Letters of the Eigh- 
 teenth Century, edited by the Duke of Argyll (19 10). 
 Argyle presided over the Scottish Parliament as Royal 
 Commissioner in 1705, and his letters written from 
 Edinburgh to Godolphin supply additional information 
 regarding the state of parties at the time and his own 
 relations to the English Ministry and his Scottish 
 colleagues. 
 
 Besides these recently published materials I have 
 made much use of unprinted documents in the British 
 Museum and in the Record Office, London. Among 
 these I may specially note the letters of John, Duke 
 of Atholl, who held the office of Lord Privy Seal ; of 
 James Johnstone, Lord Clerk-Register; and of William, 
 Marquis of Annandale, President of the Privy Council 
 and Secretary of State for Scotland, most of which 
 
Preface vii 
 
 appear in the appendices. Even more important is 
 the correspondence of James, Earl of Seafield, Lord 
 High Chancellor of Scotland, which extends over the 
 whole period, but is of special value for the session in 
 which the Treaty of Union was carried in the Scottish 
 Parliament. Seafield's letters are too numerous to 
 be printed in an appendix, but the Scottish History 
 Society has arranged for their publication in one of 
 its volumes. 
 
 I should perhaps add that in a few statements of 
 fact I have repeated what I have written elsewhere, 
 as there seemed no necessity for expressing them 
 otherwise. 
 
 I have to acknowledge my great obligation to 
 Mr. R. K. Hannay, M.A., Curator of Historical 
 Manuscripts, General Register House, Edinburgh, for 
 his kindness in reading my proofs. 
 
Contents 
 
 Act of Succession rejected 
 Defeat of the Government 
 Act of Security sanctioned 
 
 PAGE 
 
 70 
 
 73 
 74 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 SUCCESSION OR UNION? 
 
 Crisis created by the Act of Security 
 
 Alarm in England .... 
 
 The English Parliament and the Act of Security 
 
 Alien Act passed by the English Parliament 
 
 Affair of Captain Green 
 
 Riot in Edinburgh 
 
 Execution of Green 
 
 Re-assembling of Scottish Parliament 
 
 The New Party .... 
 
 The New Ministry 
 
 John, Duke of Argyle, Royal Commissioner 
 
 New Party dismissed . 
 
 Union or Succession ? . 
 
 Parties in Parliament . 
 
 The ' Squadrone Volante ' 
 
 The Duke of Queensberry 
 
 Hostile attitude of the Scots to England 
 
 Succession or Union ? . 
 
 Act for appointing Commissioners of Union 
 
 75 
 76 
 76 
 
 79 
 81 
 
 85 
 86 
 86 
 88 
 88 
 89 
 92 
 93 
 95 
 95 
 96 
 
 97 
 98 
 
 99 
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 THE TREATY OF UNION 
 
 Alien Act repealed ..... 
 
 The Squadrone and the Government 
 
 The Marquis of Annandale and the Duke of Argyle 
 
 Choice of Commissioners of Union . 
 
 Meeting of the Commissioners 
 
 102 
 103 
 
 '05 
 107 
 109 
 
Contents 
 
 XI 
 
 Work of the Commission 
 
 Incidents at its close . 
 
 Public opinion on the proposed Treaty 
 
 Meeting of Scottish Parliament 
 
 Queensberry's instructions 
 
 Lord Belhaven .... 
 
 Signs of national discontent . 
 
 Tumults in Edinburgh and Glasgow 
 
 Menace of civil war 
 
 Objections against the Treaty 
 
 Parties in the House . 
 
 The Church and the Treaty . 
 
 Abortive attempt to wreck the Treaty 
 
 Passing of the Act of Union . 
 
 Did bribery carry the Union ? 
 
 Treaty in the English Parliament 
 
 VMW. 
 IIO 
 
 I r2 
 113 
 lis 
 116 
 117 
 ii« 
 119 
 I 20 
 ir I 
 122 
 123 
 124 
 
 12s 
 I 26 
 
 128 
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 THREATENED UNDOING OF THE UNION 
 
 Contrasted reception of the Treaty in England and Scotland . 130 
 Hopes entertained of the Union . . -'Si 
 
 English Customs officials in Scotland . -133 
 
 Hostility to them . . . . .134 
 
 The Equivalent . . . . . . . • '35 
 
 Ingenious scheme of English and Scottish traders . .136 
 
 Acts relative to Scottish trade . . . . -139 
 
 The Malt Tax 141 
 
 Scotland's trade with France . . . -142 
 
 The Scottish Church and the Union . . . .144 
 
 The Act of Toleration . . . . . .145 
 
 Act restoring lay patronage . . . . ■ '47 
 
 Jurors and non-Jurors ....... 148 
 
 Invasion of 1708 . . . . . 149 
 
 Attempt to dissolve the Union . . .150 
 
 Discontent with the Union ...... 153 
 
 Subsequent effects of the Union . . . , -154 
 
xii Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Appendix I. Letters of the Duke of Atholl to Godolph in . 157 
 
 Appendix II. Letters of James Johnstone, Lord Clerk 
 
 Register of Scotland, to Godolphin . . . •174 
 
 Appendix III. Letters of William Johnstone, first Marquis 
 of Annandale, President of the Privy Council and Secre- 
 tary of State in Scotland, to Godolphin . . 185 
 
 Appendix IV. Letter from the Earl of Glasgow to the Earl 
 
 of Oxford ........ 200 
 
 Appendix V. Letter of Earl of Mar to Messrs. Wisheart, 
 
 Carstares, and Mitchell, ministers .... 202 
 
 INDEX 204 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 THE POLITICAL STATE OF SCOTLAND AT THE 
 ACCESSION OF ANNE 
 
 I 
 
 In his dedication to his History of the Union of 
 Great Britain De Foe characterized that event as 
 ' the greatest and nicest concern ' of his age, and the 
 course of European history since his day has justified 
 his opinion. For England the union of her Parhament 
 with that of Scotland ranks with the Norman Conquest 
 as a determining fact in her history. If the Norman 
 Conquest made England, the union of the two Parlia- 
 ments made Great Britain, for the union of the Crowns 
 created no bond either of hearts or of interests. In 
 the history of Scotland the only event of like im- 
 portance was her acquisition of Lothian in 1018, by 
 which she extended her bounds from the river Forth 
 to the river Tweed, and thus became the kingdom 
 which the world knows. And not only for England 
 and Scotland, but for the nations of the Continent the 
 Union of 1707 was an event of the first importance, 
 and the English statesmen who were most directly 
 concerned in effecting it were fully aware of the fact. 
 ' But we are now in so critical a position ..." wrote 
 Godolphin to the Scottish Lord Chancellor Seafield, 
 ' that all Europe must in some measure be affected by 
 the good or ill ending of the Parliament of Scotland \' 
 
 ' Seafield Papers, Hist. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report, App., 
 Part III, p. 199. 
 
 1688 B 
 
2 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 Had the Union not taken place when it did, the course 
 of European history must have been materially different 
 from what it has actually been. ' That England ', 
 writes my colleague, Professor Lodge, ' emerged 
 victorious in the long duel which fills the eighteenth 
 century, was due to many causes ; but not the least of 
 these causes was the fact that England had been 
 merged in Great Britain.' 
 
 Be it said that the period of his national history of 
 which the Union is the central event is one that 
 a Scotsman must regard with mingled feelings, among 
 which pride is not predominant. For an Englishman, 
 the same period is among the most glorious in his 
 annals. Alike in the arts of war and peace England 
 then shone pre-eminent, and the names and char- 
 acters of the men who illustrated them are among 
 the most familiar to English-speaking peoples. But 
 to speak of glory in connexion with Scotland in the 
 reign of Queen Anne would be mockery. What names 
 has she to put over against those of Marlborough, of 
 Somers, of Swift, of Addison, of Sir Christopher Wren ? 
 Her constellation did not rise till half a century later. 
 There were indeed Scottish statesmen of the time who 
 by their gifts and accomplishments would have taken 
 a foremost place in any deliberative assembly, but even 
 to their own countrymen the)/^ are dim and ill-defined 
 figures, barely existent in the national memory. Even 
 for educated Scots, when not specially interested in 
 history, the one definite fact is, that the reign of 
 Anne saw the end of a Scottish Parliament, and, 
 though they may consider it, on the whole, a beneficent 
 event, they have a vague idea that it was not a very 
 creditable transaction. Of the men who were mainly 
 
Character of the Period 3 
 
 responsible for carrying out the transaction they have 
 a misty conception that they were a somewhat question- 
 able set. They have probably heard of Fletcher of 
 Saltoun as the almost solitary incorruptible Scot of 
 his time, and as the credited author of the saying that 
 ballads are more potent things than laws ; of Lord 
 Belhaven as the Scottish Demosthenes who harrowed 
 the feelings of his countrymen by his picture of the 
 woes that must inevitably follow the loss of their 
 national Council. The Duke of Argyle they probably 
 know better as the good providence of Jeanie Deans 
 than as one of the chief instruments in effecting 
 the Union, and the Duke of Hamilton is probably 
 known to them, not as one of its chief opposers, but 
 as the great gentleman whose tragic end balked the 
 ambition of Beatrix Esmond. 
 
 How are we to explain this ignorance on the part of 
 Scotsmen generally of one of the most fateful periods in 
 their national history ? One reason naturally suggests 
 itself No shaping mind of a contemporary produced 
 such a picture of his time as would permanently stamp 
 its characters and its events on the mind of posterity. 
 Speaking of the Memoirs of St. Simon, Sainte-Beuve 
 remarks that they have made comparatively obscure 
 every period of French history before and after that 
 which they treat. Such a chance happened in the 
 case of one age in the history of Scotland — the mid- 
 period of the sixteenth century. In John Knox's 
 History of the Reformation in Scotland we have the 
 presentment of the chief events and actors of his time 
 by one who had in eminent degree the powers which 
 Emerson ascribes to Carlyle — ' the devouring eyes and 
 the portraying hand '. Momentous as were the events 
 
4 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 of that period, had Knox not written his book, our 
 image of them would be many degrees paler than it is. 
 For the succeeding periods we have not another Knox, 
 but we have at least a measure of compensation. In 
 the voluminous histories of Calderwood and Spottis- 
 woode — the one setting forth the Presbyterian, the 
 other the Episcopalian conceptions of the relations of 
 Church and State — we have a detailed narrative of 
 events which at least presents a coherent sequence. 
 So for the reigns of Charles II and James VII, 
 Wodrow's Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, largely 
 made up as it is of original documents, puts us in 
 closest touch with the period it covers. No such 
 valuable compilation exists for the reign of William III, 
 and in the national memory of that reign only two 
 events persist — the tragedy of Glencoe, and the 
 disaster of Darien. In the case of Anne's reign we 
 are somewhat better off. In the copious Memoirs of 
 the Jacobite Lockhart we have the record by a con- 
 temporary of the principal events of the time, written 
 by one who was in the thick of what he narrates, and 
 who, moreover, was both a keen observer and a caustic 
 writer. But Lockhart's Memoirs, valuable though it 
 is as a chronicle of the time, does not rank among the 
 books that give an extrinsic interest to the subjects 
 which they treat. 
 
 That the reign of Anne, therefore, is a comparatively 
 obscure period of Scottish history is partly due to the 
 fact that no great contemporary writer has made it 
 live for us. But it has to be added that the story of 
 the reign is not for Scotsmen an attractive one in itself. 
 It is a period when human nature certainly does not 
 appear at its best. This is not to say that its principal 
 
Obscurity of the Period 5 
 
 actors were naturally more depraved than men of other 
 times and countries. But the conditions, public and 
 private, under which they played their parts, were of 
 a nature peculiarly fitted to try civic virtue.^ What these 
 conditions were we shall see as we proceed. Here it 
 is sufficient to remark that a people does not gladly 
 turn its eyes to a period when its representative men, 
 whether from their own natural failings or as the result 
 of temporary circumstances, compromise the national 
 character in the eyes of the world. So it is, perhaps, 
 that by a kind of unconscious instinct Scotsmen have 
 averted their gaze from a reign so momentous in their 
 country's destinies, and abounding, moreover, in men 
 of striking gifts and individuality. 
 
 It was indeed a period which, by reason of the 
 interests at stake, necessarily evoked the elemental 
 passions of human nature. The questions that had to 
 be settled concerned the very being of the State, and 
 division of opinion regarding them involved concealed 
 or open war. Open war did not come, but more than 
 once in the course of the reign it was only accidental 
 circumstances that averted it. But, If actual war did 
 not arise, the words and actions of many of the leading 
 persons of the time were those of men who regarded 
 their adversaries not as political opponents but as 
 
 ' The poverty of Scottish pubhc men was one occasion of tempta- 
 tion. A journey to London, and a six months' residence there, was 
 reckoned to cost £600, and it is stated that only one Scottish peer 
 could meet the expense out of his own pocket. The Earl of Rose- 
 bery, a keen Unionist, accepted his appointment as one of the 
 Commissioners for the Treaty unwillingly, on the ground that 
 ' considering the scarcity of money in this country, it is not very 
 convenient for me '. 
 
6 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 enemies of the State against whom all weapons were 
 permissible. 
 
 II 
 
 There is one governing fact of the period which 
 must ever be in our minds as we follow the course 
 of its events. It was a sense of the insecurity of 
 the existing rdgime. In a certain measure this same 
 sense of insecurity existed in England, but in Scot- 
 land it was an urgent preoccupation of the nation 
 throughout the whole of Anne's reign. ' I am sorry,' 
 wrote Viscount Dundee to a correspondent in the 
 opening months of William's reign, ' I am sorry your 
 Lordship should be so far abused as to think that 
 there is any shadow of appearance of stability in this 
 new structure of government these men have framed 
 to themselves.' ^ The opinion so confidently expressed 
 by Dundee was continuously present to the minds of 
 Scottish statesmen during William's reign, but in the 
 reign of his successor new conditions pressed it home 
 with intensified urgency. While William reigned, it 
 was known that Anne, a representative of the exiled 
 house, would succeed him. But, as Anne would have 
 no direct heir, who was to come after her ? All parties 
 remembered that the Stewarts had once before been 
 driven from their inheritance, and that both Scotland 
 and England found that they could not do without 
 them ; and they were recalled. In view of the irre- 
 concileable divisions of the existing parties, was it not 
 a probability that it might be found necessary to revert 
 to them again ? 
 
 And actual events of the reign were such as to 
 
 ' Letters of John Graham of Claverhouse (Ban. Club), p. 70. 
 
Insecurity of the existing Regime 7 
 
 deepen this national sense of the instability of the 
 existing government. On the accession of Anne, the 
 first thoughts of the Scottish Privy Council, as we 
 shall see, were turned to the need of guarding against 
 rebellion and foreign invasion. In 1708 there was an 
 actual attempt at invasion in concert with the disaf- 
 fected elements in the country, and every year, both 
 before and after 1 708, a similar attempt was regarded 
 as a probability. And if the imminent threat of 
 another revolution kept the nation in suspense and 
 disquiet, the hopes and fears of it were ever-present 
 motives in the action of public men. As their conduct 
 is revealed in the correspondence of many of them, we 
 see the shiftiness and indecision of men who meant to 
 find their feet in any contingency. 
 
 Another cause of the wavering or tortuous action of 
 public men was their uncertainty regarding the relative 
 strength of the opposing parties in the country. No 
 sure means existed of ascertaining how the nation 
 would be divided in the event of revolt and invasion. 
 General elections afforded no sure data, since the 
 government of the day had always effectual means of 
 influencing their results in its own favour.^ It was, 
 therefore, only on the vague assertions of interested 
 persons that English Ministers could depend for in- 
 formation regarding the general feeling of the country. 
 Hence, in the correspondence of the time we find the 
 most contradictory statements regarding the relative 
 numbers of those who were for and those who were 
 against the Revolution settlement. On this uncertain 
 
 ' For an illustration of the methods by which elections were con- 
 ducted in Scotland see the letter of a candidate to the Earl of 
 Seafield in the Seafield Correspondence (Scot. Hist. Soc), p. 441. 
 
8 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 information public men spoke and acted. The Duke 
 of Hamilton and others, for example, both in their 
 public and private utterances confidently predicted 
 that the immediate and inevitable result of the Union 
 would be civil war. But this uncertainty of the ground 
 on which they stood had the natural effect of aggra- 
 vating men's passions and prompting them to devious 
 courses. Ignorant of the strength or weakness of 
 their opponents, the leaders of the different parties 
 at one time sought to better their position by com- 
 promise ; at another to crush their enemies by extreme 
 measures. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The conflicting aims of the different parties which 
 distracted the country will sufficiently appear in the 
 lectures that are to follow, but it is desirable that we 
 should have before us their respective positions at the 
 beginning of Anne's reign. It was by the force of 
 Presbyterianism that the Revolution of 1689 had been 
 effected in Scotland, and, but for its support, neither 
 William nor Anne could have maintained their rule 
 over that country. But even under William the 
 Presbyterians had not been wholly contented subjects. 
 Under him, indeed, Presbyterianism had been estab- 
 lished as the national religion, but his toleration of 
 Episcopacy they could not understand, and for two 
 reasons : Episcopacy had not the sanction of Scripture, 
 and Episcopalians, as being reduced to the condition of 
 dissenters, were necessarily disloyal subjects. It was 
 with increased disquiet, however, that they regarded 
 the accession of Anne : ' sad things seem to be 
 
Insecurity of the existing Regime g 
 
 threatened,' ^ wrote one of them in his Diary at the 
 time. They were well aware of Anne's passionate 
 attachment to the Church of England, and they knew 
 from experience what pressure could be brought to 
 bear on the Ministers who represented her in Scotland. 
 Moreover, it was a deep-rooted suspicion of the 
 Presbyterians that a Stewart must necessarily be 
 a Papist at heart. Queen Mary had refused to adopt 
 Protestantism when it was established as the religion 
 of the country, and, though James VI and his two 
 successors were nominally Protestants, they were all 
 three in turn suspected of leanings towards Rome as 
 the natural ally of rulers. In James VII they had 
 seen all their suspicions iustified : in openly avowing 
 himself a Roman Catholic he had only logically carried 
 out the uniform ecclesiastical policy of his immediate 
 predecessors. His daughter Anne had refused to 
 adopt the religion of her father, and might be sincerely 
 attached to the Church of England, but from the 
 beginning, in the eyes of Presbyterians, the Church of 
 England was only a halfway house to Rome. It was 
 in a permanent state of alternating hope and fear, 
 therefore, that the Presbyterian body regarded the 
 course of events throughout the whole of Anne's 
 reign. They could not disabuse themselves of the 
 conviction that it must be Anne's natural desire to 
 restore Episcopacy in Scotland as a Church polity 
 more in accordance with her conception of the royal 
 prerogative than Presbyterianism, and they had the 
 impression, shared by others besides themselves, that 
 she was favourably disposed to the succession of her 
 
 ' TurnbulPs Diary. — Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 
 vol. i, p. 432. 
 
 ir.BS C 
 
lo Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 brother James — a known Roman Catholic. For these 
 various reasons the successive Ministries in Scotland 
 found the Presbyterians a difficult body to conciliate. 
 They were the mainstay of the new order established 
 by the Revolution, but, as they could not get all they 
 wanted, at more than one critical juncture their course 
 of action was the occasion of serious alarm to those 
 responsible for the conduct of affairs. Be it said, how- 
 ever, that there was one consideration that effectually 
 kept their opposition within bounds : the onlj^ alterna- 
 tive for the Revolution settlement was a Roman 
 Catholic king, and, in every probability, a Catholic 
 State. 
 
 It is the main body of the Presbyterians that has 
 just been before us, but there was a section of them 
 who took up a more hostile attitude to the Govern- 
 ment, and who were a serious element of opposition to 
 be reckoned with. These were the men known as 
 Cameronians (a designation, it should be said, some- 
 what loosely used in the documents of the time), who 
 derived their name from Richard Cameron, the earliest 
 of their most prominent leaders. They had taken 
 shape as a definite body in the reign of Charles II, 
 when, in their famous manifesto known as the ' San- 
 quhar Declaration', they had formally disowned Charles 
 as their king on the ground of ' his perfidy and breach 
 of covenant to God and his Kirk '. By this act they 
 had dissociated themselves from the main body of 
 their communion, whom they considered to have 
 paltered with their consciences and to have been false 
 to the principles of their common Presbyterianism. 
 They joyfully hailed the Revolution as the promise of 
 deliverance and of a reign in which a Covenanted king 
 
The Presbyterians 1 1 
 
 would rule over a Covenanted people. In their con- 
 fident zeal they even formed a regiment to do battle 
 against the fallen tyrant, and at Dunkeld, under the 
 leadership of the gallant Colonel Clelland, they in- 
 flicted a defeat on a body of Highlanders which was 
 more decisive for the course of events than the more 
 famous battle of Killiecrankie. But William's reign 
 had not well begun before they discovered how 
 wofully they had deluded themselves. William, 
 though he came from a country where Calvinism pre- 
 vailed, no more than Charles and James was prepared 
 to subscribe the Covenants, and, wakened to disillusion, 
 they consistently refused to acknowledge either William 
 or Anne as their lawful sovereign. Their own numbers 
 would not have made them a very formidable body, 
 but throughout the reign, as we shall see, they were by 
 a strange contingency the objects of a vague terror to 
 every successive Ministry. 
 
 Another irreconcilable body with whose hostility the 
 Government had to reckon was the Episcopal clergy. 
 In England the great majority of national churchmen 
 had welcomed the Revolution, secure in the popular 
 support that would leave William no choice but to 
 continue the existing establishment. In Scotland the 
 Episcopal Church had no such popular support behind 
 it, and, from the very conditions under which William 
 became King of Scotland, it seemed that he must 
 become the necessary instrument of its doom. So far 
 as circumstances would permit, William did his best to 
 conciliate the Episcopalian section of his subjects, but 
 no terms he was able to offer could make up for what 
 they had lost, and to the end they regarded him as 
 an unwelcome usurper who had sacrificed them to the 
 
12 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 exigencies of his position. His successor Anne they 
 were bound to regard with more favour as being 
 a Stewart and stanchly devoted to the Church of 
 England. In the beginning of her reign they even 
 entertained some hope that, with her known reHgious 
 sympathies, supported too by English statesmen and 
 the whole strength of the Church of England, she 
 might find herself in a position that would enable her 
 to undo the work of William and restore them as the 
 national Church. The opening years of Anne's reign 
 were sufficient to undeceive them. Anne exerted all 
 her influence to better their condition, but from her 
 English and Scottish advisers alike she knew that any 
 attempt to upset the existing arrangement in Scotland 
 would be to imperil her rule in that country. To the 
 government of Anne, therefore, they were as hostile 
 as to that of William, and they were not careful to 
 conceal their feelings. On the occasion of the attempt 
 of 1 708 to win Scotland for the exiled Prince they 
 openly expressed their hopes that the attempt might 
 succeed, though that Prince was as firm a Catholic as 
 his father. 
 
 The mention of the name Catholic reminds us of. 
 another element in the country which was regarded 
 with a vague dread and concentrated hate, alike by 
 the mass of the people and by the majority of the 
 Scottish statesmen of the time. In England, as we 
 know, these feelings were not absent, and they had 
 been potent national motives at more than one period 
 of her history. But for special reasons they were in 
 intenser degree an obsession of the Scottish people. 
 The creed adopted by Scotland at the Reformation 
 went further in its divergence from the teaching of 
 
Episcopalians and Roman Catholics 13 
 
 Rome than that of any other form of Protestantism. 
 It was, moreover, only after a life-and-death struggle 
 that the new Church had succeeded in establishing 
 itself as the Church of the nation, and it had ever 
 since been haunted by the dread of a renewal of the 
 battle. The terror of Rome was the predominating 
 motive in the revolt against Charles I, and in the 
 evoking of the two Covenants. And this panic fear 
 was not confined to the Presbyterians : the Episco- 
 palians were equally haunted by it. During the 
 Episcopalian ascendancy in the reign of Charles II, 
 penal laws against Catholics were enforced with as 
 great severity as at any period since the Reformation. 
 When James VII proposed to abolish these penal 
 laws, the clergy of the diocese of Aberdeen, the most 
 intensely Episcopalian part of the kingdom, laid 
 a protest before their bishop against the iniquity of 
 the proceeding. Even the Revolution did not allay 
 the fear of the common enemy. During the reigns of 
 William and Anne, no matter more frequently en- 
 gaged the attention of the Scottish Privy Council than 
 the necessity of extirpating the dangerous brood who 
 were believed to be sleeplessly engaged in the attempt 
 to undermine the existing Church and State. The 
 conditions that obtained under Anne were such as 
 to make the presence of Catholics in the country 
 more dreaded than at any previous period. Among the 
 impelling forces by which the Union of 1707 was 
 eventually effected, the dread of Rome, so far as 
 Scotland was concerned, was not the least potent. 
 The Presbyterians shrank from the Union as likely 
 to result in the restoration of Episcopacy : but, as 
 their sagest leader, Carstares, warned them, there was 
 
14 Scotlmid at the Accession of Anne 
 
 a more dread possibility if the Union did not take 
 place ; they might find themselves one day at the 
 mercy of a Roman Catholic king. 
 
 IV 
 
 More or less closely associated with these three 
 religious denominations were three political parties 
 who made use of them as their own interests dictated. 
 These three parties were respectively known as the 
 Court Party, the Country Party, and the Jacobites or 
 Tories. The leaders of the Court Party were the 
 successive Ministries appointed by the sovereign for 
 the conduct of public affairs in Scotland. The duties 
 of the Ministers were to manage the business of the 
 Privy Council, and to carry out such measures in 
 Parliament as the advisers of the sovereign approved. 
 The appointment of the chief Officers of State had 
 been a matter of standing controversy between the 
 later Stewart kings and their Parliaments. Before 
 the reign of James VI, they had been appointed by the 
 sovereign with the advice of his Parliament, but 
 James VI assumed the power of appointing them by 
 his own fiat. In 164 1 the Covenanting Parliament 
 had extorted from Charles I the concession that 
 thenceforth all Officers of State, Privy Councillors, 
 and Judges should be chosen by the sovereign 'with 
 the advice and approbation of the Estates'. At the 
 Restoration, Charles II reverted to the practice of his 
 father and grandfather, and appointed privy coun- 
 cillors and judges on his own responsibility. This 
 example was followed by James VII, and, what is 
 remarkable, it was also followed by William and Anne. 
 
Political Parties 15 
 
 We see, then, how the designation ' Court Party ' 
 arose. The Privy Counc , which, besides the chief 
 Ministers, included about fifty of the most influential 
 men in the country, and the Judges of the Court of 
 Session, with other legal officials, were all the nominees 
 of the Crown and bound to do its bidding at the risk 
 of losing their places. And, further, the Ministers of 
 State bore gifts in their hands : they had it in their 
 power to bestow pensions, to appoint to lucrative posts, 
 and generally to distribute the sunshine of the Court. 
 Thus the Court Party came to be regarded as the 
 mere creatures of English Ministers, who dismissed 
 them at their pleasure, and by the Country Party and 
 the Jacobites alike they were suspected and opposed 
 as the betrayers of their country. 
 
 In opposition to the Court Party, the Country 
 Party put themselves forward as the champions of the 
 national interests. Their contention was that, under 
 the successive kings since the Union of the Crowns, 
 the interests of Scotland had been systematically 
 sacrificed to the interests of England. At the Revo- 
 lution they saw the opportunity of righting the wrong, 
 and, as the most effectual means to this end, they 
 directed their efforts to the curtailing of the pre- 
 rogative and enlarging the privileges of the Scottish 
 Parliament. The disastrous enterprise of Darien, the 
 failure of which the nation at large attributed to 
 England, had the natural result of swelling their ranks 
 and intensifying their patriotism. They became, in- 
 deed, what may be called the national party, though 
 their main support came from the Presbyterians, who 
 saw in their policy of freeing the Scottish Parliament 
 from English control the most likely means of pre- 
 
1 6 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 serving their Church. With this formidable party, 
 till the Union of 1707, the Ministers had to deal in 
 carrying through the measures with which they had 
 been entrusted by the Crown. The third political 
 party, the Jacobites — composed of Catholics and 
 Protestants — were few in numbers compared with the 
 Country Party, but the state of opinion, both inside 
 the Parliament and out of it, gave them an influence 
 out of proportion to their numbers. Their aim was 
 simply to discredit the government in the eyes of the 
 country and create such a general discontent that the 
 nation must at length realize that the Revolution had 
 been a disaster, and that the only hope for the future 
 was the return of the exiled Stewart. These aims 
 divided them by a gulf from the Country Party, who 
 had no desire to undo the work of the Revolution, 
 which at least had brought a measure of liberty 
 unknown under Charles II and James VII. But the 
 two parties had one common object — to embarrass 
 the Ministers by all the means in their power — and, in 
 point of fact, it was their alliance that, contrary to 
 their desires and intentions, was the direct occasion of 
 the Treaty of Union. 
 
 V 
 
 Such were the main divisions of opinion in politics 
 and religion which continued to exist even after the 
 Union, and which, indeed, did not cease to exist till 
 the failure of the Jacobite Rising of 1 745. But besides 
 these divisions of parties there was a cleavage in the 
 kingdom itself which the statesmen of the time were 
 never allowed to forget. In the case of political 
 parties it is the Lowland country that we have mainly 
 
The Highlands 17 
 
 in view. But there was another part of the country 
 where Httle interest was taken in political divisions, 
 but where the general tendency of events was followed 
 with the closest interest. It was that Highland terri- 
 tory which, from the time that Scotland had become 
 a united kingdom, had been a perennial source of 
 trouble to her kings. In the reign of James VI 
 a systematic and drastic policy had reduced these 
 ' peccant parts ', as they are described in the Acts of 
 the Scottish Parliament, to comparative peace and 
 order. Under Charles I there was a steady relapse 
 into lawlessness, which was vigorously checked under 
 the Commonwealth and Protectorate. During the 
 reign of Charles II their condition was what it had 
 been in the Middle Ages. It was the duty of his 
 Scottish Privy Council to enforce the law throughout 
 the length and breadth of the kingdom, but, so far as 
 the Highlands were concerned, it was impotent to 
 make the king's writ run. The Highlands were in 
 this condition at the Revolution, and events in the 
 reign of William were not such as to improve it. 
 Hitherto they had shown no special affection for the 
 Stewarts, for their rising under Montrose was due to 
 other motives ; and in every reign they had more or 
 less successfully defied their authority. Then came 
 the rising of certain of the clans under Dundee, and 
 henceforward the Highlands became the seed-plot of 
 Jacobite hopes. Throughout the reign of Anne all 
 who were for the Protestant succession knew that the 
 Highlands were a standing menace to their policy. 
 They were the most warlike section of the people, 
 and, in the event of civil war, which was imminent on 
 at least one occasion during the reign, they would in 
 
 1688 D 
 
1 8 Scotland at the Accession of Anne 
 
 all probability decide the issue in favour of the Stewart. 
 Be it said that the government never had it in its 
 power to assert its authority with the strong hand over 
 the unruly territory. There were garrisons, indeed, 
 in different parts of the country, and there were troops 
 specially set apart for suppressing local revolt, but 
 they were totally inadequate to overawe the clans in 
 the event of a common rising. The most effectual 
 means of holding them in check was, in truth, found to 
 be a systematic pensioning of the chiefs — a policy 
 that was followed throughout the reign. 
 
 A few words remain to be said on a point which is 
 all-important for the understanding of Scotland's atti- 
 tude towards England in the years immediately pre- 
 ceding the Union. Since the Union of the Crowns 
 there had been a steadily growing conviction that the 
 successive kings had treated Scotland as a mere 
 appendage of their greater kingdom. In a notable 
 sentence, written shortly after he received the English 
 Crown, James VI describes his relations to the kingdom 
 he had left. ' This I must say for Scotland,' he wrote, 
 ' 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.' The policy of James was that 
 of all the successors of his house. The Privy Council, 
 composed of their nominees, was made the instrument 
 of their will, and the Parliament, in the words of 
 a loyalist historian of the time, became their ' baron 
 court '. Thus no class in the country had the means 
 of influencing policy either in its own interests or 
 in the interests of the nation. Bereft of political 
 liberty, the nation received no compensation in more 
 
Grievances of Scotland 19 
 
 favourable conditions of trade and commerce. The 
 Navigation Act and the Act for the Encouragement 
 of Trade, passed by the English Parliament in 1660 
 and 1663, permanently cut off the Scots from the 
 principal sources of the world's wealth. Moreover, 
 England's wars with Holland and France ruined their 
 trade with their best customers. Nor was trade with 
 England improved by the Union of the Crowns ; on 
 the contrary, the two countries came to be engaged in 
 a war of tariffs in which the poorer of necessity came 
 off worse. The feelings of resentment, roused by all 
 these grievances, were not confined to one class or 
 party ; and it was with a jealous and embittered people 
 that English statesmen had to deal in their endeavours 
 to establish happier relations between the two king- 
 doms. 
 
 Such, in broad outline, was the political condition of 
 Scotland at the accession of Anne, but even from the 
 general statements that have been made it is evident 
 that the reign would be fraught with the gravest 
 possibilities. It was the opinion of all Scottish parties 
 that the existing relations with England could not 
 continue, and that the problem as to how the two 
 countries should finally adjust their common interests 
 must sooner or later have to be faced. It was a 
 problem which, in the case of Scotland, was bound 
 to evoke passions that might well threaten to rend her 
 in twain. And, as was already said, there would be 
 one factor in the new situation which would pro- 
 foundly differentiate the reign of Anne from that of 
 her predecessor. Under William both England and 
 Scotland recognized Anne as his successor. But who 
 was to succeed Anne remained to her death a dis- 
 
20 Scotland at the Accession of 
 
 lurbing question for both peoples. Would both agree 
 to accept a common sovereign ? In Scotland would 
 Jacobite or Whig prove the stronger ? By this un- 
 certainty of eventualities the reign of Anne possesses 
 something of the character of a drama — the final issue 
 of which is awaited with anxious expectancy. And, if 
 we choose to regard the reign in this light, we may 
 apportionate it into three acts. The first act will 
 cover the opening three years of the reign, which 
 ended in the passing of the Act of Security — the 
 immediate occasion of the Treaty of Union ; the 
 second, the two following years, during which the 
 statesmen of both countries succeeded in carrying it 
 into effect ; and the third, the seven remaining years, 
 during which it seemed that in the natural course of 
 things the Union would have to be undone. Under 
 these three divisions I propose to treat the events of 
 the reign. 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 PROSPECTS OF UNION 
 
 I 
 
 On March ii, 1702, the Privy Council of Scotland 
 sat in its usual place of meeting in Holyrood House. 
 The sederunt must have been a gloomy one, as on 
 the margin of his Minutes the Clerk of the Council 
 has written these words — ' extraordinary sad Council '} 
 The occasion of the Council's sadness was a letter from 
 the Duke of Queensberry intimating ' the dangerous 
 state of his Majesties life '. The prime function of the 
 Privy Council was the maintenance of the public 
 peace, and the orders it issued on Queensberry's com- 
 munication sufficiently explain the grounds of its 
 disquiet. During the closing years of William's reign, 
 the country had been in a state of wild excitement, 
 mainly occasioned by the disastrous result of the 
 attempt to found a trading colony on the isthmus of 
 Darien. In the Parliament, which had sat under 
 Queensberry as Commissioner representing the king, 
 there had been an unprecedented display of national 
 feeling that was ominous for the future. ' God help 
 us,' wrote one in June 1700, 'we are ripening for 
 destruction.' ^ 
 
 ' Minutes of Privy Council Register in the General Register 
 House, Edinburgh (unpublished). 
 ^ W. Carstares, State Papers, ed. M'Cormick, Edin. 1774, p. 527. 
 
2 2 Prospects of Union 
 
 It was in view of this menacing state of the nation 
 that the Council, as the custodian of the existing order, 
 took the necessary steps to uphold it. Two regiments 
 on the point of embarking for Holland were ordered 
 to remain at home, and the commanders of the castles 
 of Dumbarton and Stirling were instructed to see that 
 these strongholds were in a state of efficient defence 
 against attack. As the parts of the country where 
 trouble was most likely to arise, special attention was 
 given to the Highlands. The officer in command at 
 Fort William, which had been constructed at the 
 beginning of the late reign with the express object 
 of overawing the West Highland country, was ordered 
 to call in his subordinates, and to put the place ' in the 
 best condition'. Since the reign of Charles W. there 
 had been two standing independent Highland com- 
 panies expressly raised for the suppression of disorder, 
 and the commanders of these companies were now 
 ordered to hold themselves in readiness for active 
 service. 
 
 On the day following, in expectation of further news 
 regarding the king's condition, the Council held an ex- 
 traordinary meeting, and during its afternoon sederunt 
 an express messenger arrived with the news that the 
 king had died four days previously. The messenger 
 brought two other communications — one from the 
 queen and the other from the Earl of Seafield, the 
 Secretary of State for Scotland. The letter of Anne 
 bore that all persons in public trust were meanwhile to 
 retain their posts, and that of Seafield stated that the 
 new sovereign had taken the coronation oath in the 
 presence of ten Scottish Privy Councillors. 
 
 Its authority now sanctioned, the Council, in a sue- 
 
Frivy Council of Scotland 23 
 
 cession of meetings, proceeded to issue such orders as 
 were most urgently demanded by the condition of the 
 country. As the measures it took bring home to us 
 the permanent preoccupations of the government 
 throughout the entire reign, it is necessary that we 
 should have the most important of these measures 
 before us. There were two main concerns that exer- 
 cised the Council till its abolition in 1708, the year 
 after the Union of the Parliaments of the two kingdoms, 
 and which continued to exercise the government till 
 the close of the reign. The one concern was the 
 possibility of internal revolt in concert with foreign 
 invasion ; the other was the sinister presence of the 
 emissaries of Rome, who in Highlands and Lowlands 
 were unceasingly at work in the attempt to undermine 
 the existing Church and State. Although the new 
 sovereign had now been formally acknowledged by both 
 kingdoms, it was still considered necessary to guard 
 against a possible rising. The whole store of powder 
 manufactured at a powder-mill near Edinburgh was 
 appropriated by the government. The magistrates of 
 every burgh in the country were ordered to seize all the 
 powder within their respective bounds and to retain it 
 till they received further orders. The two regiments 
 which had been prohibited from embarking for Holland 
 were still aboard the vessels which were to transport 
 them, and the commander of the vessels was imprisoned 
 till all the men were landed. Finally, measures were 
 taken to ensure the efficiency of the two Highland 
 companies, and a special commission was appointed to 
 report on the growth of Popery throughout the High- 
 lands and Western Islands.^ These measures taken 
 ^ Minutes of the Privy Council. 
 
24 Prospects of Union 
 
 by the Council will sufficiently indicate the conditions 
 under which the reign of Anne began in Scotland, and 
 they were conditions that continued to its close. 
 
 At this point, so far as the leading events of the 
 reign are concerned, our interest in the Privy Council 
 ceases. There had been a time, indeed, when it was 
 the most important body in the country, the centre of 
 interest in the national life. In the reigns of the later 
 Stewarts it was the formidable instrument that gave 
 effect to the fiats of the successive sovereigns. While 
 the Parliament was reduced to a mere ' baron court ', 
 as the loyalist historian called it, and was summoned 
 only at long intervals, the Council permanently sat, 
 and, with the king's will behind it, laid down the law 
 for ' all estates, persons, and causes whatsoever '. At 
 the Revolution all this was changed. The Council 
 continued to exist, and, as under the Stewarts, was 
 composed of the king's nominees, but under the new 
 constitution it was not in his power merely to indicate 
 his pleasure to the Council with the certainty that it 
 would be carried out with unquestioning submission. 
 Consequently, throughout the reign of William we 
 hear little of the Council, and are, indeed, hardly re- 
 minded of its existence. And so it was throughout the 
 reign of his successor. Individual members of it, as 
 holding government office, were among the leading 
 actors of the time, but, as a corporate body, it may be 
 ignored. So far as its relation to the current of events 
 is concerned, we have only to note that, as charged 
 with the maintenance of the public order, it had 
 occasionally to exercise its powers in restraining the 
 Edinburgh mob when it broke beyond bounds. 
 
The Scottish Parliament 25 
 
 II 
 
 It was another body to which the eyes of the nation 
 were now turned — to the Parliament which was no 
 longer the ' baron court ' it had been under Charles 1 1 
 and his brother. As a consequence of the Revolution, 
 the Scottish Parliament assumed new characteristics, 
 and, as has often been pointed out, it began to emulate 
 the ways and methods of the Parliament of England. 
 Notably, in the second year of William's reign, it 
 succeeded in gaining an advantage after which it had 
 long striven : it obtained his consent to the abolition 
 of the Committee known as the Lords of the Articles. 
 Under the later Stewarts the grievance against these 
 Lords had been that, as the creatures of the Court, and 
 with the powers at their disposal, they were virtually 
 the dictators of the Estates. With the abolition of the 
 Committee of the Articles, the Parliament acquired the 
 power of free debate on every Bill before the House. 
 Yet, as was keenly felt, it was still far from being 
 a legislative body with powers to give effect to the 
 national will. The Commissioner who presided over 
 its meetings was appointed by the Crown, and he came 
 down from London with definite commands regarding 
 the measures to which he was to give or refuse the 
 royal sanction. By his side were the other Ministers 
 of State, who held their offices on the condition that 
 they gave their support to the Commissioner in carry- 
 ing out his instructions. Thus, so far as practical 
 legislation was concerned. Parliament was still an in- 
 effectual body. But, as was convincingly shown during 
 the last years of William, it had weapons in its hands 
 
 168S E 
 
26 Prospects of Union 
 
 which it could use with effect. It could obstruct the 
 royal measures by endless debate ; and by delaying 
 supply it could, on occasion, so embarrass the govern- 
 ment as to extract its own terms. Such as it was, 
 therefore, the Scottish Parliament was now, what it 
 had never been previous to the Revolution, a real force 
 in the State, and sovereign and people alike recognized 
 the fact. Till the close of its last session, which ended 
 with the Treaty of Union, the doings of the Parhament 
 were the all-absorbing interest of the country, as it was 
 realized that the destinies of the nation were in its 
 hands. 
 
 To the meeting of the Parliament, therefore, all 
 parties looked forward with anxious expectancy as 
 likely to be decisive of their fortunes in the new reign. 
 And there were special reasons to anticipate that its 
 meeting would be signalized by a testing trial of 
 strength which would definitely determine into what 
 hands the future administration of the country was to 
 fall. The Parliament that was about to meet was the 
 Convention which, at the Revolution, had offered the 
 Crown to William and Mary. On the accession of the 
 new sovereigns the Convention had been erected into 
 a Parliament which, to the growing dissatisfaction of 
 the country, had continued to sit to the close of 
 William's reign. The grievance was that it no longer 
 represented the opinion of the country, and that it was 
 contrary to the constitution that so long a period should 
 elapse without a general election. This would be one 
 ground of contention when it met at the beginning of 
 the new reign. But a more serious question arose 
 before its actual meeting. By an Act of the late reign 
 (1696), similar to one passed by the Parliament of 
 
The Duke of Hamilton 2 7 
 
 England, it had been settled that the existing Parlia- 
 ment should meet twenty days after the king's death, 
 should not sit for longer than six months, and that its 
 powers should be restricted to measures for the con- 
 servation of Church and State. 
 
 The Parliament did not meet within the prescribed 
 twenty days, and the fact gave to its discontented 
 members an opportunity which was not to be let slip. 
 If it were now an illegal body, a new election was a 
 necessity. This was the point that was now pressed 
 home by the leaders of the various parties who were 
 at one in their determination to force an appeal to the 
 country. The leader of these parties for the time was 
 one who by his rank, his influence, and his gifts was the 
 most notable figure among the Scottish statesmen of 
 the reign — James, fourth Duke of Hamilton. He was 
 a prince of the blood, and, failing direct heirs to the 
 House of Stewart, he had the nearest claim to the 
 Crown. Since the beginning of the reign of Mary 
 Stewart every one of his ancestors had been suspected 
 of playing his own game with a view to the throne, and 
 the same suspicion attached to himself. So dubious 
 had been his past career and so dubious was it to be 
 in the future, that his friends and his enemies were 
 equally at a loss to understand the motives of his 
 conduct. He had been chosen President of the Con- 
 vention that offered the Crown to William, and William 
 had made him Royal Commissioner when the Conven- 
 tion was turned into a Parliament. He was twice 
 imprisoned in the Tower on the suspicion of plotting 
 for the restoration of the exiled king, yet he had con- 
 sented to receive honours and titles from William's 
 hands. It was he who, in the last years of William, 
 
28 Prospects of Union 
 
 had led the opposition in Parliament, and, even by the 
 admission of his enemies, had shown many of the most 
 effective gifts of an opposition leader. He is described 
 by a contemporary as of ' middle stature, well-made, of 
 a black, coarse complexion, a brisk look '; ^ and an 
 English visitor to Edinburgh who heard him in the 
 House speaks of his ' usual haughty and bantering 
 air '.^ To his effectiveness in debate there is consenting 
 testimony ; though not eloquent, says Lockhart, ' he 
 had so nervous, majestick, and pathetick a method of 
 speaking, and applying what he spoke, that it was 
 always valued and regarded '.•■* Along with these gifts, 
 however, he had grave defects which unfitted him to be 
 the trusted leader of a party. According to Lockhart, 
 who was not disposed to say the worst of him, ' his 
 greatest failing lay in his being too selfish and revenge- 
 ful, which he carried along with him in all his designs 
 . . .' An attractive figure he certainly is not, whether 
 judged by his words or his deeds, yet when Lockhart, 
 summing up his character, concludes that he was ' a 
 great and extraordinary man ', he expressed the opinion 
 of his friends and enemies alike. As the documents 
 of the time show, what the Duke of Hamilton would 
 say or do was the subject of anxious concern to men 
 of all shades of opinion. 
 
 The day prescribed for the meeting of Parliament 
 having passed, Hamilton and others of the political 
 leaders proceeded to London to present their case to the 
 queen and her English Ministers. The English Parlia- 
 
 ' Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky, Esq., Lond., 1733 
 
 pp. 176-8. 
 
 '^ A Journey to Edenborough, pp 11 1-2. 
 
 ' TTie Lockhart Papers, Lond., 181 7, vol. i, p. 55. 
 
Meeting of Scottish Parliament 29 
 
 ment had been summoned three days after William's 
 death ; that the Scottish Parliament had not been 
 summoned with a similar promptness seemed to indi- 
 cate hesitations on the part of Anne's advisers. In 
 point of fact, they had consulted the Scottish Council, 
 which had given the opinion that there was no necessity 
 that the Parliament should meet before the expiry of 
 the twenty days.* When Hamilton and his friends 
 arrived in London, therefore, they were given to under- 
 stand not only that the Parliament would meet in due 
 course, but that it would meet as a legal assembly, and 
 that the Ministry which had been in power under 
 William would remain virtually the same. Only one 
 course was now left open to them : they would do their 
 best in the House itself to make business impossible. 
 
 The Parliament met at length on June 9, and, as 
 a pledge to the country that there was to be no imme- 
 diate change in policy, the Duke of Queensberry was 
 continued in the office of Royal Commissioner which 
 he had held under William. After the Duke of 
 Hamilton Queensberry is the most outstanding of the 
 Scottish political leaders of the time. As in the case 
 of Hamilton, his complex character made him some- 
 thing of a mystery to his contemporaries, though no 
 two men could present a greater contrast. Hamilton 
 was violent, headstrong, overbearing ; Queensberry 
 was all suavity and plausibility, though behind his 
 soft demeanour he concealed a tenacity of purpose 
 which was to be signally shown in the career that still 
 lay before him. ' His Grace ', says one who knew him 
 well, ' was a compleat courtier, and partly by art, and 
 partly by nature, he had brought himself into a habite 
 ' Hume of Crossrig, Diary, Ban. Club, 1827, pp. 80-1. 
 
30 Prospects of Union 
 
 of saying very oblidging things to everybody. I knew 
 his character, and therefore was not much elated by 
 his promises. However, I found afterwards that there 
 was nothing he had promised to do for me but what 
 he made good.'^ He was now in his fiftieth year, 
 experienced in public business, and the most prominent 
 representative in Scotland of Revolution principles. 
 He had been the first Scotsman, says the Jacobite 
 Lockhart, ' that deserted over to the Prince of Orange, 
 and from thence acquired the epithet (amongst honest 
 men) of " Proto-rebel".'^ Be it added that Queensberry 
 and Hamilton were already bitter enemies, not only 
 by reason of political differences, but of personal and 
 family rivalry.'' 
 
 The question naturally suggests itself : Why did the 
 Tory advisers who surrounded Anne at the beginning 
 of her reign consent to the continuance of a Scottish 
 Parliament in which the majority was Whig, and 
 a Ministry which was exclusively Whig ? The truth 
 is that they had no sure information regarding the 
 state of public opinion in Scotland. It was the habit 
 of the English Ministers who had charge of Scottish 
 affairs to hold secret communications with the repre- 
 sentatives of all parties, and the advice they received 
 was so conflicting that they found it impossible to 
 follow out a settled policy. What might be the result 
 
 ' Sir John Clerk, Memoirs, Scot. Hist. Soc, 1892, p. 44. 
 
 ^ Memoirs, i, p. 44. 
 
 '' The second Earl of Stair wrote as follows to the Earl of Mar on 
 Queensberry's death ; ' I am touched to the quick for losing our very 
 good friend the Duke of Queensberry, who was the best natured, 
 friendly man I ever knew. He had some very great qualities and 
 many very good ones ; his defects hurt only himself — Duke of 
 J'or//a?id's MSS., Hist, MSS. Com., vol. v, p. 43. 
 
Nature of the Scottish Parliament 31 
 
 of a general election at the moment was uncertain, 
 and meantime they had to face a practical difficulty. 
 The Scottish treasury was empty, and money was 
 needed to pay the troops which the state of feeling in 
 the country made indispensable. With a reasonable 
 amount of confidence they could reckon on the existing 
 Parliament and Ministry finding supply ; but they could 
 have no such confidence in the case of a new Par- 
 liament. For the time, therefore, they thought it 
 advisable to leave things as they had stood at the 
 death of William. 
 
 In order to follow the proceedings of the Parliament 
 now about to meet it is desirable that we should have 
 some idea of its place of meeting, and of its character 
 as a legislative assembly, so essentially different from 
 that of the Parliament of England. From the be- 
 ginning the three Scottish Estates, like those in France, 
 had sat in one chamber. In earlier times they had 
 met indifferently in any of the more important burghs, 
 though from the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 Edinburgh was their usual place of assembly. Till 
 1 64 1 they had no chamber specially set apart for them 
 even in Edinburgh, but in 163 1 Charles I informed 
 the magistrates that, if they did not construct a fitting 
 place for their accommodation, they would cease to 
 meet in the capital. Under this threat the magistrates 
 carried out the building of an edifice which should 
 include accommodation both for the Law Courts and 
 for the Parliament. It was in the noble hall then 
 constructed — the same now industriously trodden by 
 advocates awaiting the call of anxious litigants ^ — that 
 
 ' The hall has undergone certain structural changes since the 
 Parliament met in it. 
 
32 Prospects of Union 
 
 the Parliament of Scotland now held its deliberations. 
 On the south side of the Hall was the Commissioner's 
 throne, where he sat in silence through the prolonged 
 debates, with the silken purse containing his com- 
 mission on the cushion before him. Beneath him sat 
 the Lord Chancellor, the President of the House ; on 
 his right the Lord Treasurer, and on his left the chief 
 Secretary of State. At one end of the long table 
 that occupied the body of the Hall, and on which were 
 disposed the Crown, Sceptre, and Sword (the ' Honours-' 
 of Scotland), was the Lord Justice-Clerk ; at the other, 
 the Lord Marischal. To the right and left of the 
 Commissioner the benches rose in tiers, on which the 
 members were arranged in accordance with their rank. 
 On the uppermost seats to the right were the dukes, 
 marquesses, and earls, and under them the repre- 
 sentatives of the shires ; and on those to the left, the 
 viscounts and barons, and beneath them the repre- 
 sentatives of the burghs. At the opposite end of the 
 Hall, facing the throne, but outside the area, was the 
 pulpit from which sermons were occasionally delivered 
 during the course of the session ; and behind the 
 pulpit was a partition, beyond which strangers were 
 not permitted to enter while the House was sitting. 
 At the opening of each day's business prayers were 
 said ; then the rolls were called, and the Chancellor 
 announced the question demanding the attention of 
 the House. Members might speak only once to the 
 matter in hand, and only when they were expressly 
 called upon by the Chancellor. When a vote was 
 taken, each member was asked if he approved or 
 disapproved of the motion before the House. Such 
 were the regulations for the conduct of business, but 
 
me :icomsn fariiament 33 
 
 in the excited debates of the post-revolution Parlia- 
 ments, they were constantly set at naught by the more 
 impetuous members of all parties ; and in the long 
 evening sittings, when the Hall was dimly lit by the 
 sporadic candles, there were frequent scenes of uproar 
 and violence in which all restraint and decorum were 
 thrown to the winds. 
 
 Till the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
 number of members who sat in Parliament was under 
 two hundred ; in the Parliament that carried the Treaty 
 of Union it amounted to two hundred and thirty-two, 
 the largest number on record. As the clergy had been 
 excluded at the Revolution, the membership consisted 
 of three classes — the nobles, the Commissioners for the 
 Shires, and the Commissioners for the Burghs. The 
 nobles sat in virtue of their holding their lands direct 
 from the Crown ; in the case of the other two classes 
 there was a form of election. At the period with 
 which we are dealing, the privilege of electing Com- 
 missioners for the Shires was restricted to Crown vassals, 
 not nobles, who held lands of the value of 40^. Each 
 of the Royal Burghs, in number sixty-six, had a right 
 to one representative ; Edinburgh alone returned two. 
 The electing bodies were the town councils of the 
 burghs, and for the whole country did not exceed 
 2,000. We see, therefore, how inadequately the two 
 elected Estates represented national opinion. And 
 the smallness of the electorate had its natural results. 
 The freeholders who elected the Commissioners for 
 the Shires, being so few in number, were easily acces- 
 sible to the blandishments of the existing government, 
 and by the bestowal of pensions and offices they 
 could be induced to return acceptable representatives. 
 
 1888 F 
 
34 Prospects of Union 
 
 And the case was worse with the town councils that 
 elected the Commissioners for the Burghs. By an 
 arrangement copied from France in the fifteenth 
 century the retiring town council elected its suc- 
 cessor, so that it was virtually a stereotyped body, 
 at all times practically under the control of the Privy 
 Council as representing the sovereign from whom the 
 royal burghs held their privileges. Thus, in the case 
 both of the Commissioners for the Shires and the Com- 
 missioners for the Burghs, we have no certain assurance 
 that they represented the opinions of the majority of 
 the people. In the session of the Parliament with 
 which we are now concerned the representatives of 
 the Three Estates were approximately equal in 
 numbers ; there were thirty-five nobles, thirty-eight 
 Commissioners of the Shires, and forty-three Com- 
 missioners of the Burghs. But these numbers by no 
 means represent the relative influence of each Estate 
 in the House. For evident reasons the nobles domi- 
 nated the assembly to an extent out of all proportion 
 to their relative numbers. At a time when feudal 
 feeling was still powerful, their rank and possessions 
 gave them an ascendancy over both the minor barons 
 and the burghers which was also due to the great part 
 they had played in the past history of the country. 
 But for the nobility the Reformation could not have 
 been effected ; it was they who made possible the 
 great revolt against Charles I ; it was they who were 
 mainly instrumental in restoring Charles II in Scotland; 
 and it was owing to them more than to the other two 
 Estates that the Treaty of Union was eventually 
 carried. Be it added that the chief offices of state 
 were in their hands ; that, as a body, they were in 
 
z:}etmiiiiun uj members 35 
 
 closer touch with the higher powers in London ; and 
 that there were among them at this time men with 
 notable gifts for public business and for Parliamentary 
 debate. 
 
 The session opened with a dramatic incident for 
 which the House was no doubt fully prepared. On 
 prayers being said, the Duke of Hamilton rose and 
 craved to be heard, when the Earl of Marchmont, the 
 Lord Chancellor, reminded him that the House was 
 not yet constituted. Hamilton replied that the right 
 of that^ assembly to constitute itself a legal Parliament 
 was precisely the point to which he wished to speak, 
 and he proceeded to read a paper containing the 
 protest of himself and his supporters. It briefly stated 
 the grounds on which the protest was made : by the 
 constitution of the kingdom, when a Parliament met at 
 the sovereign's decease, its sole business was to secure 
 the Protestant religion and to maintain the succession 
 in accordance with the Claim of Right. Both of these 
 ends were satisfied by the accession of the new sove- 
 reign, and, therefore, there was no legal warrant for 
 the existence of the present assembly. Thereupon 
 Hamilton, without handing in the paper, in Scottish 
 phrase, ' took instruments ', that is, legal attestation to 
 his action, and walked out of the House at the head of 
 fifty-seven members.^ The public had apparently been 
 prepared for the event, as a cheering crowd received 
 the seceders, who marched in a body to a tavern in the 
 neighbourhood, where they dined together, in Lock- 
 hart's words, ' to knit the public by the ties of private 
 union'. ^ 
 
 ' The number of the seceders is variously given. 
 
 '^ Lockhart, Memoirs, i. 45 ; Acts of Pari, of Scot, xi, App., p. i ; 
 Hume of Crossrig, Diary, p. 83. 
 
36 Prospects of Union 
 
 Though Hamilton and his alHes had retired from 
 the House, they had not therefore given up the contest. 
 They were still convinced that in her heart the queen 
 could not regard with favour an assembly so entirely 
 Whig and Presbyterian as the existing Scottish Parlia- 
 ment, and they knew that certain of her English 
 advisers, like the Secretary of State, the Earl of 
 Nottingham, were desirous of a new election. An un- 
 published correspondence of Hamilton informs us of 
 the means employed by himself and his supporters to 
 effect their end, and is further interesting as showing 
 the extent to which Scottish affairs were dependent on 
 England. An address, subscribed by Hamilton and 
 others, was put in the hands of Lord Blantyre and 
 a Mr. Keith, who were instructed to present it to the 
 queen in her drawing-room. No one was to have 
 a sight of the address till the queen herself had read 
 it. Meanwhile Hamilton entered into communication 
 with Anne's all-powerful favourite. Lady Marlborough, 
 with the object of enlisting her support. Whether 
 Lady Marlborough, who was a keen Whig, approached 
 Anne on the subject or not, the correspondence does 
 not inform us. Anne, at all events, to the surprise 
 and chagrin of Hamilton, peremptorily refused to re- 
 ceive the address, and the proceedings of the Parlia- 
 ment, now in session, are a sufficient explanation of her 
 refusal.^ By the date when she rejected the address 
 she had every reason to believe that the measures 
 entrusted to her Commissioner Queensberry would 
 receive the sanction of the House. 
 
 ' State Papers {Scotland), Series II, vol. i, nos. 12, 13, 14, 15, 
 Record Office. 
 
Ihe t acuity of Advocates 37 
 
 Connected with Hamilton's protest is an incident so 
 nationally characteristic that it can hardly be passed 
 over. The Faculty of Advocates was one of the most 
 important public bodies in the country, representing, as 
 it did, the law of the kingdom, and claiming to have 
 received the royal sanction so far back as 1532, the 
 date of the foundation of the College of Justice. The 
 advocates, one hundred and forty-five in number, were 
 all men of high social position, the sons of nobles orlairds, 
 and were thus both personally and professionally per- 
 sons of influence. As a body, they were keenly Tory 
 in their sympathies. To the indignation of the sitting 
 Whig Parliament it came to its knowledge that the Dean 
 of the Faculty had drafted an address to the queen in 
 support of the seceding members, and that the address 
 had been signed by a number of the advocates. The 
 Dean and his professional brethren were promptly 
 summoned to the bar of the House to give an explana- 
 tion of their conduct. Seventy declared that they had 
 had no hand in the business, but twenty ' young men 
 of no note' refused to answer the questions put to 
 them. The House was unanimous that the advocates 
 in drafting such an address had gone beyond their 
 powers as a corporation, but it was divided as to the 
 degree of their guilt. Some held that they had been 
 guilty of a ' misdemeanour ', others that their conduct 
 was ' unwarrantable ', and others still that the address 
 was 'a high insult against the Queen and Parliament'. 
 Eventually the offenders were handed over to the 
 Privy Council as the special body appointed to deal 
 with crimes against the State. The sager heads in 
 the House, however, were of opinion that it would 
 have been more prudent to take no notice of the 
 
38 Prospects oj Union 
 
 address which, as in the case of that of the seceders, 
 the queen would have refused to receive. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After the secession of Hamilton and his followers 
 the remaining members were, according to Lockhart, 
 ' all one man's bairns ', and they proceeded to act as 
 a legally constituted Parliament. They passed an act 
 recognizing her Majesty's authority, and another which 
 declared the present assembly of Parliament to be a 
 lawful meeting. On the third day of the session there 
 occurred a scene which deserves a passing notice, not 
 only as revealing the temper of the House itself, but 
 as indicative of the popular feeling which had to be 
 reckoned with in all the dealings of the English 
 Ministers with Scotland. It was this popular feeling, 
 as we shall see, that was to prove the greatest obstacle 
 to the Treaty of Union, as indeed it marked the 
 deepest cleavage between the past and the present of 
 the two countries. There had just been read an act 
 for securing the true Protestant religion and Presby- 
 terian government, when the Commissioner for the 
 burgh of Sanquhar, Sir Alexander Bruce of Broom- 
 hall, rose to address the House. A distinction, he said, 
 had to be made between the Protestant religion and 
 Presbyterian Church government, for it might easily 
 be proved that Presbyterianism as now established 
 was essentially inconsistent with monarchy. Instantly 
 there was a cry from all parts of the House : ' To the 
 Bar, to the Bar.' Two speakers suggested that, though 
 Bruce deserved censure, he should be allowed either 
 to explain himself or ask pardon of the House, but the 
 
i^roceeatngs of farliament 39 
 
 cry was again raised : ' To the Bar.' Proceeding to 
 the Bar, Bruce pleaded that he had meant to say only 
 that he conceived Presbyterianism to be inconsistent with 
 monarchy. The explanation was considered unsatis- 
 factory, and he was ordered to leave the House, when 
 it was put to the vote whether he should be expelled 
 from the House or not. Without a dissentient voice 
 his expulsion was voted, and the order was issued for 
 a new Commissioner for Sanquhar. But even this 
 punishment was regarded as inadequate for the 
 enormity of his offence, and the Privy Council, as the 
 guardian of the peace, was instructed to deal with him. 
 Summoned to its bar, he failed to appear, when, as was 
 the law in such a case, he was ' put to the horn ', and 
 his speech ordered to be burned at the Town Cross of 
 Edinburgh by the common hangman.^ The whole 
 incident proves that, so far as Presbyterianism was 
 concerned, the ' Rump ', as the mutilated assembly was 
 contemptuously designated, were all ' one man's bairns'. 
 That they were not of one mind on all questions, 
 however, was emphatically shown before the session 
 closed. The question on which differences arose was 
 one that deeply concerned the future relations of the 
 two peoples. Immediately after Anne's accession the 
 English Parliament had passed an act making it 
 obligatory for all persons holding office to abjure her 
 brother, the Pretender. A similar act for Scotland 
 was passionately desired by the extreme Presbyterians, 
 for whom the possibility of a Roman Catholic successor 
 to the throne was a nightmare. The Commissioner 
 Queensberry, as well as others of his colleagues, was 
 
 ' Hume of Crossrig, Diary, pp. 88-9 ; Minutes of the Privy 
 Council, July 28, Nov. 17, 1702. 
 
40 Prospects oj union 
 
 in favour of passing such an act, and is even said to 
 have received instructions to give it the royal assent.^ 
 The wariest of politicians, however, he was convinced 
 that to propose such a measure would arouse passions 
 which it would be prudent to let slumber. Not so 
 circumspect, or more confident of the result, was his 
 colleague, the Earl of Marchmont, the Lord Chancellor 
 and President of the House. Marchmont, better known 
 to his countrymen as Sir Patrick Hume, was, till the 
 passing of the Treaty of Union, among the most 
 prominent of the Scottish political leaders. None of 
 them certainly had had a more eventful career. Under 
 Charles H he had been imprisoned for his opposition 
 to the policy of Lauderdale. He was charged with 
 being accessory to the Rye-house Plot, and it is one of 
 the best known stories in Scottish history how he lay 
 concealed in the vault of Polwarth Church for a month 
 and was kept alive by provisions secretly carried to 
 him by his daughter. Escaping to Holland, he identi- 
 fied himself with the Prince of Orange, whose accession 
 to the throne opened up to him a distinguished political 
 career. Appointed Chancellor by William in 1696, he 
 had been continued in the office by Anne. He is de- 
 scribed as ' a fine gentleman ', ' handsome and lovely ', 
 and much addicted to long speeches, even in private. 
 As his career had shown, he was a Whig of the Whigs 
 and a devotee of Presbytery. 
 
 It was to Queensberry's surprise and against his 
 will that Marchmont introduced his bill for abjuring 
 the Prince of Wales. Marchmont's reasons for insisting 
 upon it were mainly two : it was necessary for securing 
 the Revolution settlement, and it would exclude all 
 
 ' Carstares, State Papers, pp. 71-4. 
 
froceMings of Parliament 41 
 
 Jacobites and Papists from the next Parliament. On 
 the first reading of the bill it was at once apparent 
 how hopelessly the House was divided on the question : 
 fifty-seven voted for a second reading, and fifty-three 
 against it. As the result of the vote, party passions 
 were let loose, and there was talk of the return of the 
 members who had seceded to support the opponents 
 of the bill. But in the interval Queensberry decided 
 on his course of action ; on the day fixed for the second 
 ^reading (June 30), he rose and quietly told the House 
 that it was prorogued till the i8th of August following. 
 In his suavest tones he referred to the dissensions that 
 had arisen. ' I must regret,' he said, ' that, when I was 
 expecting we should have parted in the same happy 
 manner, a proposal, which I had some ground to think 
 was laid aside, was offered to my surprise as well as 
 that of her Majesty's other Ministers, which occasioned 
 some debate and difference in the House.' ^ 
 
 Lockhart expresses his surprise that in an assembly 
 comprised almost exclusively of Whig Presbyterians 
 an act abjuring the Pretender should not have been 
 passed without difficulty. But another contemporary 
 gives the sufficient reason. There were two classes of 
 Presbyterians among the members. There were those 
 whose sole concern was the maintenance of the Presby- 
 terian establishment ; and there were those who, while 
 preferring Presbytery as a form of Church government, 
 held it of greater moment to free their country from 
 its dependence on England.^ The reasons which 
 
 ^ lb., pp. 714-7 ; Marchmont Papers, Lond., 1831, iii. 242-52 ; 
 Acts Pari. Scot,, xi. 28. 
 
 " Memorial by Lord Tarbat, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 29587, 
 f. 151. 
 
 1688 G 
 
42 Prospects of Union 
 
 induced these political Presbyterians to oppose the 
 exclusion of the Pretender, therefore, are easily under- 
 stood. By leaving the succession unsettled, England 
 was made uneasy, and in her own interests might be 
 forced to make concessions to her weaker neighbour. 
 In the words of one who wrote at the time, the passing 
 of Marchmont's bill 'would carry us so far into the 
 measures of England about the succession that they 
 would become careless and indifferent about the 
 union.' ^ 
 
 The refusal of the Scottish Estates to pass an Act 
 of Abjuration was a defiance to England ; by the 
 passing of another act with their full concurrence they 
 held out the olive branch. It had been a dying re- 
 quest of William III that, in the interest of both 
 kingdoms, an incorporating union should be con- 
 summated at the earliest possible date ; had he lived, 
 it was his intention to press the great question at 
 the next meeting of the English Parliament. As was 
 proved by her subsequent conduct, Anne was herself 
 personally convinced of the desirability of union ; and 
 it was a proof of her conviction that her first act with 
 reference to Scotland was to recommend it. In accor- 
 dance with a suggestion made in her first speech to 
 the English Parliament, a bill was passed ordaining 
 that Commissioners of Union should be chosen from 
 both countries, and it was a prime charge to Queens- 
 berry that he should secure a similar act from the 
 Parliament of Scotland. From a body composed, as 
 it was, almost exclusively of Whigs Queensberry had 
 no difficulty in obtaining the required measure. By 
 the terms of this act the queen was empowered to 
 ' Carstares, State Papers, p. 715. 
 
Adjournment of Parliament 43 
 
 appoint Commissioners from both kingdoms, but it 
 was expressly stipulated that the acceptance of their 
 conclusions should be ' wholly reserved ' for the Parlia- 
 ments of the two kingdoms. Moreover, in a collective 
 letter to Anne, intimating the passing of the act, 
 she was given to understand that her Parliament in 
 Scotland had sanctioned the appointment of Com- 
 missioners only on the condition that the Church, as 
 established at the Revolution, should remain un- 
 touched. 
 
 Parliament prorogued, Queensberry hastened to 
 London to give an account of his stewardship. On 
 the whole he had discharged it successfully. He had 
 at least contrived to secure the passing of two acts 
 to which the queen and her English Ministers attached 
 special importance. He had obtained sufficient supplies 
 to support the Forces in Scotland for the next two 
 years, and by securing the appointment of Com- 
 missioners of Union he had opened a way which might 
 lead to happier relations between the two kingdoms. 
 Yet no one knew better than himself what difficulties 
 would have to be overcome before the consummation. 
 The secession of Hamilton and his following, the strife 
 that had arisen over the proposal to abjure the Pre- 
 tender, were ominous indications of future party 
 conflicts of which no one could foresee the result. All 
 men now saw what fateful issues lay before the country 
 in the reign that had opened, and they fully realized 
 that a repetition of the Douglas Wars, when Scotland 
 was desolated by internecine strife, was a frightful 
 possibility. 
 
 A word in conclusion may be said regarding the 
 proceedings of the Commission for Union. On the 
 
44 Prospects of Union 
 
 loth of November, 1702, the Commissioners, twenty- 
 three for England and twenty-one for Scotland, met 
 in the Cockpit at Whitehall, then the Privy Council 
 chamber. The history of their proceedings proves 
 that on the part of England, at least, there was no 
 great eagerness for a successful issue. To the annoy- 
 ance of the Scots the English Commissioners gave 
 but irregular attendance, on eight occasions even 
 failing to make a quorum. It was of good omen, 
 however, that on two all-important points both bodies 
 were unanimous — that there should be a common 
 legislature and that, in accordance with the Act of 
 Settlement, the succession should descend on the 
 Electress Sophia and her heirs. But it was when 
 questions of trade and taxation came to be considered 
 that what were supposed to be the conflicting interests 
 of the two countries became clearly apparent. As 
 these difficulties had again to be faced at a later day, 
 they need not now detain us. What this abortive 
 Commission proved was that in neither country was 
 opinion sufficiently matured to exercise a compelling 
 force on its representatives. In the case of both 
 countries the experience of the next few years was 
 needed to supply the momentum requisite to over- 
 come difficulties which now appeared insuperable. 
 When the Commission rose on February 3, 1703, it 
 was on the understanding that it should resume its 
 meetings in the following October ; that it never 
 again met is a sufficient proof of its futility. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE ACT OF SECURITY 
 
 I 
 
 The Commissioner Queensberry, as we saw, after 
 adjourning the Estates on the last day of June, 1702, 
 at once proceeded to London. As it happened, England 
 was now on the eve of a decisive change in the relative 
 positions of her two political parties. On July 2, two 
 days after the adjournment of the Scottish Estates, the 
 Whig Parliament of William, which had continued to 
 sit under Anne, was dissolved ; and a general election 
 followed, with the result that Tories were returned in 
 the proportion of two to one. The ascendancy of the 
 Tories in the new English Parliament necessarily in- 
 fluenced the policy of English Ministers towards Scot- 
 land, and this influence is clearly visible in Scottish 
 affairs till another election three years later reversed 
 the relative positions of the two parties. An un- 
 published letter of Speaker Harley to the Lord 
 Treasurer Godolphin, dated August 9, already indi- 
 cates a new departure in the administration of Scottish 
 business.^ The letter, it may be said, is interesting for 
 other reasons. It shows Harley already manifesting 
 that concern for eventualities in Scotland which con- 
 tinued to the close of the reign, and it indicates the 
 tactics persistently followed by English Ministers in 
 
 ' Letters of Robert Harley, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28055, f- 3- 
 
46 The Act of Security 
 
 their dealings with the leaders of the various Scottish 
 parties. 
 
 From Harley's letter we learn that Queensberry, 
 while in London, had strongly expressed his opinion 
 against the immediate election of a new Scottish Parlia- 
 ment. There was no urgent necessity for summoning 
 it, Queensberry urged, as the late Parliament had voted 
 supplies sufficient for the maintenance of the Forces 
 till 1704. It was impossible to predict what would be 
 the result of a general election at that time, and it was 
 desirable that they should proceed cautiously. In the 
 following November the constitution required that 
 there should be an election of Commissioners of the 
 Shires, though not for the burghs. If the result of 
 that election should be encouraging, a general election 
 might then be risked ; if not, the election could be 
 postponed till 1 704, by which date the nation might be 
 in a calmer state of mind. 
 
 The two English Ministers specially concerned with 
 Scotland were Godolphin and the Secretary of State, 
 the Earl of Nottingham. By the advice of both 
 Oueensberry's suggestion was rejected ; the existing 
 Parliament was dissolved, and the election of a new 
 one fixed for the close of the year. This decision, be 
 it said, may mark a turning-point in the history of both 
 kingdoms. The Parliament that was actually elected 
 was the last national assembly which Scotland was to 
 elect, and it was the Parliament that was to pass the 
 Treaty of Union. Had Oueensberry's advice been 
 followed, it is not improbable that so different a body 
 might have been returned that other lights might have 
 guided it and the Treaty have had far different fortunes. 
 In 1704, the date which Queensberry proposed for the 
 
A new Parliament 47 
 
 new election, other questions distracted the country, 
 and the nation might have seen possibilities in the 
 future which it did not see in 1702 and 1703. 
 
 The decision of the English Ministers for an im- 
 mediate election was not well received by Queensberry 
 and the majority that had supported him in the late 
 Parliament. In the same letter of Harley we are told 
 how the news was received by the different Scottish 
 parties. There was to be a new Parliament, it was 
 said, not because the nation desired it, but because 
 such was the wish of the Earl of Nottingham. On the 
 other hand, some raised the cry that it was out of 
 deference to the Duke of Hamilton and the other 
 seceders that the English Tories had consented to an 
 immediate election. But the party most dismayed by 
 the news was that section of the Presbyterian Whigs 
 who put the Kirk before every other consideration, 
 and, as we shall see, they had some grounds for their 
 disquiet. 
 
 There were cogent reasons for the ferment into 
 which the nation was thrown by the prospect of a 
 general election. Under William there had been five 
 general elections in England, whereas in Scotland the 
 Convention that had been returned at the Revolution 
 sat through the whole reign. It was after a space of 
 fourteen years, therefore, that the nation had to choose 
 a new body of representatives, so that the novelty of 
 the occasion was in itself exciting. But there were 
 grave reasons why this particular election should move 
 the nation deeply. The Parliament elected would 
 have to deal with issues which involved the very 
 existence of the State. At the death of Anne was 
 Scotland to have the same successor as England ? 
 
48 The Act of Security 
 
 Was there or was there not to be a Treaty of Union 
 between the two kingdoms ? These questions the 
 new Parliament would have to settle, and on the settle- 
 ment effected the future of the nation must depend. 
 And for many there was an even more anxious con- 
 sideration. How would the Presbyterian form of 
 Church government established at the Revolution fare 
 at the hands of the new assembly?^ A bill just 
 passed by a great majority in the House of Commons 
 was not fitted to allay the fears of these persons. It 
 was the bill against Occasional Conformity, the 
 object of which was to disqualify Dissenters from 
 holding any public office. But, in the eyes of those 
 who were responsible for that bill, all members of the 
 Church of Scotland were dissenters. Would an English 
 Tory Ministry not consider it at once a duty and its 
 wisest policy to put Episcopacy in place of Presbytery 
 as more consonant with the royal prerogative ? It was 
 with this possibility before them that the Presbyterian 
 party put forth all their efforts to secure a safe 
 majority in the new Parliament, and they had a power- 
 ful engine at their command. Throughout the country 
 the pulpit was the potent agency to stir the people to 
 action, and now, as at a later stage, the clergy were 
 the efficient agents in promoting the interests of the 
 party on whose support they depended for the pre- 
 servation of their Church. 
 
 It is in connexion with the return of the new Parlia- 
 ment that another Scottish statesman of the reign 
 comes decisively before us. This was James, Earl of 
 
 * On January 29, 1703, the Earl of Mar wrote to his brother: 
 ' Presbytery is to be ruined.' This was, at least, the dread of the 
 national clergy. 
 
The Earl of Seafield 49 
 
 Seafield, who had been appointed joint-Secretary of 
 State with Queensberry at the accession of Anne — an 
 office which he had held during the last six years of 
 William's reign. It was Seafield's distinction to be 
 equally detested by the Jacobites and the Country or 
 Patriotic Party. For the Jacobites he was a perjured 
 traitor to their cause, and, at the same time, its most 
 formidable enemy. He had given staunch support to 
 James VII while he was yet king, and at the Revolu- 
 tion he had been one of five members of the Conven- 
 tion who entered their dissent against the act that 
 declared James to have forfeited the crown. Subse- 
 quently he took the oaths to William and Mary, and 
 served them as faithfully as he had served James. It 
 will be seen, therefore, why the Jacobites regarded 
 him with mingled hate and scorn. And in the eyes of 
 the Country Party he was equally a traitor. In his 
 official capacity under William he had dared to dis- 
 countenance the Darien Scheme, with the result that 
 for the mass of his countrymen he became the byword 
 for a renegade Scot. So he was judged by his con- 
 temporaries whose aims he had thwarted. As it hap- 
 pens, however, we have ample materials from his own 
 hand for forming an independent opinion of him, since 
 his correspondence that has been preserved is more 
 voluminous than that of any other Scottish politician of 
 the time.^ The impression we receive from his corre- 
 spondence is that, unlike many of his contemporaries, 
 
 ^ His published correspondence will be found in the Seafield 
 Papers, Hist. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report, App. Part HI, and in 
 the Seafield Correspondence, Scot. Hist. Sec, vol. iii, second series. 
 There is also a large collection of Seafield's letters in the Brit. Mus. 
 Add. MSS. 28055, of which use is here made. 
 
 1888 H 
 
50 The Act of Security 
 
 he had no political theories and that he belonged to 
 the race of politicians who, in Dryden's words, ' neither 
 love nor hate.' With such a mind and temper it seemed 
 to him the best wisdom to support the powers that were, 
 and to make himself an indispensable public servant. 
 His constant refrain in his letters to English Ministers 
 is that he considers it his sole business to give effect 
 to their policy in the way that seems best to him. And 
 Anne and her Ministers were convinced that they 
 could not have a more efficient instrument. His friends 
 and foes alike bear testimony to his tact and his 
 capacity. ' He was finely accomplished,' says Lockhart, 
 for whom he was the embodiment of every evil political 
 principle ; ' a learned lawyer, a just judge : courteous 
 and good-natured ; ' ^ and another contemporary de- 
 scribes him as 'very beautiful in his person, with a 
 graceful behaviour, a smiling countenance, and a soft 
 tongue. . . .'^ 
 
 It was this useful servant who was sent down by 
 Anne and her Ministers to influence the elections in 
 favour of their policy. The nature of the influence 
 at his command has already been suggested. Some 
 were threatened with the queen's displeasure ; to some 
 were given pensions ; to others, offices ; to others still, 
 promises of future rewards on condition of acceptable 
 service. But with all his efforts Seafield failed to 
 secure such a majority as would avert dangerous 
 opposition to the measures of the Court. When on 
 May 6, 1703, the new Parliament met, it was found to 
 be somewhat differently composed from its predecessor. 
 In that Parliament there had been two main parties : 
 
 ' Lockhart, Memoirs, i. 52. ' Macky, Memoirs, p. 182. 
 
Parties in the new Parliament 51 
 
 the party that generally supported the measures of the 
 government, and the Country Party, led by Hamilton, 
 which generally opposed them. In the new Parliament 
 there appeared a third party variously designated the 
 Episcopal, the Cavalier, or the Jacobite party. As it 
 was out of the conflict of these three parties that the 
 union of the two kingdoms eventually resulted, it is 
 desirable that we should have before us the respective 
 objects for which they contended. The strictly Minis- 
 terial party, in each successive session, was committed 
 to the support of such measures as were dictated by 
 the English Ministers who chanced to be in power. 
 To the last hour of the new Parliament's existence this 
 party was in a minority, and it was only with the 
 support of one or other of the opposing sections of 
 the House that It was enabled to give effect to the 
 royal instructions. The second party, the Presby- 
 terians — described as ' the most numerous and the 
 most eager party' in the House — were passionately 
 bent on two objects — the maintenance of the Revolu- 
 tion Settlement as securing the Protestant religion, and 
 the permanence of Presbytery as the established form 
 of Church government. In the session about to begin 
 it was fully realized by the Ministry that without the 
 support of the Presbyterians no government measures 
 had a chance of being carried. Finally, there was the 
 Jacobite party, which, like the Presbyterians, had two 
 ends that inspired all their action — the restoration of 
 the exiled Stewart, and, as a consequence, the re- 
 establishment of Episcopacy.^ As a small minority 
 in the House, the Jacobites could play only one game ; 
 
 ' Some of the Jacobites were Roman Catholics. 
 
52 The Act of Security 
 
 by fomenting discontent in the other two parties they 
 could embarrass successive Ministries, discredit them 
 in the eyes of the country, and so prepare the way for 
 a counter-revolution. 
 
 Three parties with such conflicting aims made 
 a sufficiently unhappy family, but they are far from 
 representing all the cross-currents that distracted 
 the legislators. There were minor divisions which 
 frequently baffled all calculations regarding the fate 
 of a measure. There were little cliques attached to this 
 or that prominent personage, either from personal 
 interest or from clan or family feeling, who were ready 
 to vote as he might bid them. And the main parties 
 were not always of one mind regarding the measures 
 before the House. We find even the Ministers of 
 State not infrequently in collision, and doing their best 
 to checkmate each other, and it is curious to read in 
 their reports to the authorities in London their mutual 
 recriminations with the object of shifting the blame 
 from their own shoulders. Nor did the Presbyterians 
 always look in one way ; for, as we have seen, one 
 section of them put the Church before the State, and 
 the other the State before the Church. As for the 
 Jacobite party, It was Lockhart's bitter complaint that 
 its divisions rendered it impotent, and that it could put 
 no trust in the steadiness and consistency of its leaders. 
 
 The history of a Parliament thus composed could 
 hardly fail to be a history of perpetual bickerings, of 
 abortive bills, of compromises on the part of the 
 government, of stolen victories, of discreditable party 
 tactics. And such a history in great measure it is, yet 
 through all the dust of controversy we see the great 
 issues that were at stake and the conflict of opinions 
 
Parties in the new Parliament 53 
 
 gradually focussing in the one supreme event. The 
 Parliament that now met was to sit during three sessions, 
 divisible into two periods by the main concerns that 
 occupied it. In the first two years the central debate 
 between the Ministry and the Opposition turned on 
 the Act of Security which, passed by the House in its 
 first session, received the royal sanction at the close of 
 the second. By this measure Scotland threw down the 
 gauntlet to England, and England's response was so 
 effective that it changed the relations between the two 
 kingdoms. As the result of England's action, the 
 Scottish Estates were driven to accept the less of two 
 evils — the overture of union in preference to the ruin 
 of national trade. During its last session, therefore, 
 the absorbing business of the Scottish Parliament 
 was the effectuating of the Treaty of Union in its 
 successive stages. In what remains of the present 
 lecture, I shall deal with the first of the two periods — 
 that, namely, in which the Act of Security was the 
 main issue, and in dealing with it I shall refer to other 
 matters only so far as they illustrate the history of 
 that act. 
 
 II 
 
 We have first to note that the Ministry chosen in 
 connexion with the new Parliament was differently 
 composed from its predecessor. As was to be ex- 
 pected from the political sympathies of Nottingham 
 and Godolphin, whose hands were now strengthened 
 by the Tory majority in the House of Commons, the 
 change consisted in the removal of certain of the more 
 ardent Whigs, whose places were given to men whom 
 
54 The Act of Security 
 
 it was thought desirable to conciliate. That zealous 
 Presbyterian, the Earl of Marchmont, was deprived of 
 the Chancellorship, which was assigned to Seafield as 
 likely to prove a safer President of a turbulent 
 assembly. The Secretaryship, which Seafield had 
 held in the previous year, was given to the Earl of 
 Cromartie, who in communications to Godolphin had 
 assured him that the only means of salvation for Scot- 
 land was an unmixed Tory Ministry.^ Queensberry 
 was continued in the office of Royal Commissioner as 
 likely to be most acceptable to all parties, and it was 
 Seafield's charge to keep watch over him. But the 
 most notable new member of the Ministry was one 
 who throughout the whole reign was an object of 
 suspicion to the English statesmen interested in 
 Scottish affairs. This was the Marquis of Atholl, 
 who, though he had taken a firm stand for the Revo- 
 lution and had held office under William, was regarded 
 by the Jacobites as secretly a friend of the exiled 
 family. It was against Queensberry's will that he 
 was given office — that of Lord Privy Seal, but Seafield 
 had recommended him and for excellent reasons. 
 Atholl, it is to be noted, was one of the great 
 magnates of the Highlands, and might prove the 
 most useful of friends or the most dangerous of 
 enemies. But what specially influenced Seafield in 
 recommending him for office was the fact that his 
 authority would go far to win Jacobite support for the 
 measures of the government. Atholl was a hot-headed 
 
 ^ Sir George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbet, was made Secretary on 
 Nov. 21, 1702, and Earl of Cromartie on Jan. i, 1703. His com- 
 munications to Godolphin on the state of parties are in the Brit. 
 Mus. Add. MSS. 29587. 
 
The Marquis of Atholl 55 
 
 Highlander, and his speeches in the House, we are 
 told, were often choked with passion, but Queensberry, 
 whom he detested, had the means of holding him in 
 check. He had petitioned the queen for a dukedom, 
 and he had been given to hope that he would receive 
 the honour, though not till the close of the session, 
 and from his own letters to Godolphin we can see how 
 Queensberry played with him.^ We have now before 
 us the four men — Queensberry, Seafield, Hamilton, 
 and the Marquis of Atholl (soon to be Duke of Atholl) ^ 
 — who from the beginning to the end of the reign 
 were to be most influential in directing the course of 
 events. There were others who at particular moments 
 played conspicuous parts, but during the reign as 
 a whole these four claim the first place. Of the four 
 it was the Chancellor Seafield who was the central 
 figure throughout the session. It was known that 
 he was deepest in the counsels of Nottingham and 
 Godolphin, and that it was by his advice that the 
 new Scottish Ministry had been formed. His great 
 stroke, on which he plumed himself, had been the 
 securing of Atholl, by whose influence he hoped to 
 win the Jacobite support for the government interest. 
 After Seafield, Atholl came next in importance, as on 
 his action votes frequently depended. On the whole 
 
 ' Seafield writes as follows to Godolphin regarding his dealings 
 with Atholl : ' I do believe that if it had not been that I have 
 pleased him [Atholl] and taken measures with him and the Cavalier 
 party, they had been prevailed on to join with the opposers, and so 
 there had been no possibility of carrying her Majesty's affairs.' — 
 Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f- 48. 
 
 ^ Atholl's patent for the Dukedom had passed the seals, but 
 Queensberry did not put it in his hands till the following October, 
 after the close of the session. — Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f- 64. 
 
56 The Act of Security 
 
 he fulfilled Seafield's expectation, though he often 
 took a way of his own and even incurred the dis- 
 pleasure of the queen by his differences with his 
 colleagues. The Duke of Hamilton, though he made 
 himself prominent in altercation and debate, had not 
 the large following he had led in the preceding Parlia- 
 ment — the Country Party strictly so called being now 
 reduced to the number of fifteen. ' Seafield ', Harley 
 wrote to Godolphin, ' seems in his distribution of 
 parties to leave none to Duke Hamilton.' ^ Queens- 
 berry, though he represented the sovereign, held only 
 a second place to Seafield, who was known to be 
 in closer touch with the Court, and, moreover, he was 
 comparatively impotent in a Ministry in which Atholl 
 and others of his party were in constant collusion 
 with Seafield. 
 
 There was no such sensational event in the session as 
 the withdrawal of Hamilton and his party, but passions 
 rose even higher, and there were scenes when the 
 House became a mere shouting mob ; ' we were 
 often ', records one of its members, ' we were often 
 in the form of a Polish diet with our swords in our 
 hands, or at least our hands at our swords'. 'In all 
 this struggle', he adds, and the comment might be 
 applied to other representative assemblies, ' in all this 
 struggle there was no great good done, so that I am 
 persuaded we had spent our time at home more to 
 the benefit of the nation.' ^ So he wrote as a sup- 
 porter of the Court Party, and the English managers 
 in London cordially shared his opinion. And, in point 
 
 ' Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f. 5. 
 ^ Hume of Crossrig, Diary, p. 49. 
 
Government Measures 57 
 
 of fact, the animating spirit of the Estates as a body, 
 from the beginning to the close of the session, was 
 hostility to England and antipathy to any form of 
 union. 
 
 So far as the Court was concerned, there were two 
 main objects for which the Estates had been summoned. 
 The one was to have the late Parliament legalized ; 
 the other, to obtain supply. The legalizing of the 
 late Parliament was of prime necessity for Anne, 
 since it was by the sanction of that assembly that she 
 was sovereign of Scotland. This measure Queens- 
 berry had no difficulty in carrying, as no party except 
 the extreme Jacobites had any interest in opposing it. 
 It was very different in the case of supply, the power 
 to grant or refuse which afforded the only means at 
 the command of the Estates for making terms with 
 the government. All the members who desired the 
 maintenance of the Revolution Settlement, and they 
 were the majority, were aware that in the interests of 
 that settlement supply was urgently necessary. In 
 the previous year England had declared war with 
 France, and it was among the probable chances of 
 that war that France would strike at England through 
 Scotland — England's ' back-door ', as it was significantly 
 described. As at a later period both nations were 
 made to learn, a French invasion of Scotland in 
 concert with the Jacobites at home might seriously 
 imperil the existing rdgime. Nevertheless, so em- 
 bittered was the general feeling of the House at the 
 managers in England, that, as we shall see, Queens- 
 berry, with all his arts, did not succeed in extracting 
 a penny for the maintenance of the troops necessary 
 for the country's defence. 
 
58 The Ad of Security 
 
 The measures actually passed by the House showed 
 the same hostile attitude to the government. In 
 an act for the ' securing of the true Protestant 
 religion and Presbyterian government ' was implied 
 a distinct monition to the queen herself, whose Episco- 
 palian sympathies had betrayed her into an indiscreet 
 action. She had addressed a letter to the Privy 
 Council expressly urging toleration to Episcopalians, 
 and the purport of her letter had become publicly 
 known. The result was a riot in Edinburgh on such 
 a scale that the magistrates were unable to suppress it, 
 and the example of Edinburgh was followed by the 
 mob of Glasgow. In the House itself it was clamoured 
 that the objectionable letter should be read, and, though 
 the Ministers urged that this would be an insult to the 
 queen, they found themselves forced to yield the 
 point. Expressly against the wish of the queen, also, 
 there was passed another act which boded ill for the 
 future relations of the two kingdoms. Since the 
 Union of the Crowns the successive sovereigns had 
 never consulted the Scottish Estates in their declara- 
 tions of war, yet they had exacted from Scotland her 
 proportional quota of men and money. In view of the 
 great war in which England was now engaged, this 
 was assuredly a grievance which the least sensitive 
 of patriots might resent. It was with justifiable 
 patriotism, therefore, that an act was carried or- 
 daining that no successor of the reigning sovereign 
 should declare a war involving Scotland without con- 
 sulting her representatives.^ In the same spirit of 
 defiance was passed another act which, be it noted, 
 
 ' Acts of Pari, of Scol., xi, p. 107. 
 
Hostility to England 59 
 
 had the support of both Jacobites and Whigs. By 
 England's war with France her trade with that country 
 had been interrupted, but this was no reason, it was 
 urged, that Scotland should be a sufferer for her sake. 
 By a measure, known as the Wine Act, therefore, it 
 was made legal to import all foreign wines and liquors 
 from all countries — France included.^ 
 
 The conflicting interests of the two kingdoms were 
 signally illustrated in the case of a question that vitally 
 concerned the future of both. By the Act of Settle- 
 ment of 1 701 the English Parliament had devolved 
 the Crown on the Electress Sophia and her descendants, 
 but to this arrangement the Scottish Estates had never 
 given their sanction. It was of the first importance, 
 therefore, that this sanction should be obtained : 
 'anybody may judge', Godolphin wrote to Atholl, 
 'that neither that nor this Kingdom can be very 
 secure when they are not under the same succession, 
 and in this both reason and experience seem to agree.' ^ 
 What is remarkable is that, with the exception of such 
 members of the House as were tied to the Court, all 
 parties were equally resolute against following the 
 example of England : ' in anything against the English 
 succession ', Seafield told Godolphin, ' our opposit 
 pairtie are strongest.' ^ We can understand how the 
 Jacobites should oppose as a death-stroke to their 
 hopes an arrangement that would definitely debar the 
 
 ' Ads of Pari, of Scot., xi, p. 112. It was against Anne's will 
 that these two acts were sanctioned, but Queensberry had repre- 
 sented to her that, if her sanction were refused, there would be no 
 hope of supply. 
 
 ^ Athok Papers, Hist. MSS. Com., Report XII, App. Ill, p. 6r. 
 
 ' Seafield Letters, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f- S^- 
 
6o The Act of Security 
 
 succession of the Pretender, but what is singular is 
 that, with the exception of a few ultra-Presbyterians, 
 it was equally abhorrent to the Whigs. One of the 
 most violent scenes in a tumultuous session occurred 
 when the Earl of Marchmont proposed a measure in 
 favour of the Hanoverian succession. That the Whigs 
 took this line seems explicable only by the fact that 
 antagonism to England at all points seemed to them 
 for the moment the true national policy. 
 
 We come to the portentous birth of the session — the 
 Act of Security which, meant as a defiance to England, 
 was by the irony of circumstance to be the immediate 
 occasion of the Treaty of Union. It was brought 
 forth amid throes which might be truly described as 
 revolutionary. As it finally emerged, it was the out- 
 come of a conflict of opinion which raged throughout 
 the greater part of the session, and it is to be regarded 
 as the deliberate expression of the attitude towards 
 England of the great majority of the House. There 
 was a numerous section in the House, indeed, to whom 
 it seemed a weak and ineffective measure which 
 afforded no guarantee that Scotland would be any 
 better off in her relations to her tyrannical ally. The 
 leader of this minority was one of the notable figures 
 of the period, and of all his contemporaries he is the 
 best known to his countrymen of to-day. This was 
 Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, whose chequered career 
 sufficiently avouches his energetic character. He had 
 begun his public life by a bold arraignment of the 
 policy of Lauderdale, was accessory to the Rye-house 
 Plot, joined Monmouth's expedition, during which he 
 pistolled a bully who insulted him, fought against the 
 Turks, and eventually returned to his native country 
 
Fletcher of Saltoun 6 1 
 
 as a supporter of William. But William's rule in 
 Scotland by no means satisfied him, and he became 
 one of the most prominent members of the Country 
 Party in its opposition to the Court. A persistent 
 speaker in the House, the burden of his oratory was 
 that, since the union of the Crowns, Scotland had been 
 a mere satrapy of England and that all the miseries 
 from which she was suffering were due to that fact. 
 He had none of the qualities of a political leader, and 
 did not aspire to be one, but his sincerity and dis- 
 interestedness were recognized by all parties, and he 
 seldom spoke without setting the House aflame. By 
 more moderate men he was regarded as a visionary, 
 an Ishmael, who was out of his place and time. His 
 head was so teeming with schemes of government, so 
 it was said of him, that he would have been the first 
 man to be hanged if they had been realized, as he 
 would have been the first to suggest their alteration. 
 And his outer was in accord with his inner man ; as 
 he is described by a contemporary, he was ' a low thin 
 man, brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour 
 look '. 
 
 The contention of Fletcher and those who supported 
 him was that only by limiting the prerogative of the 
 sovereign was there any hope that the country would 
 be preserved from the malign influence of England. 
 To accomplish this object, therefore, he brought 
 forward a list of no fewer than twelve ' limitations ' or 
 restrictions on the royal authority which should be 
 embodied in the Act of Security, and which should 
 take effect on the accession of a new sovereign.^ The 
 
 ' The most important of the ' limitations ' proposed by Fletcher 
 were as follow : that there shall be annual elections ; that the king 
 
62 The Act of Security 
 
 outcome of these limitations would have been that the 
 monarchy must have been transformed into a republic, 
 and for once all the Ministers were of one mind in 
 their opposition to Fletcher's proposals. It was the 
 crucial issue of the session, and the Court followed the 
 protracted contest with undisguised anxiety. It was 
 now that Godolphin wrote the words to which reference 
 has already been made. ' But we are now in so criticall a 
 conjuncture with respect to other nations, that all Europe 
 must in some measure bee affected by the good or ill 
 ending of the Parliament of Scotland.' ^ It was in con- 
 nexion with Fletcher's proposal to embody his limita- 
 tions in the Act of Security that Atholl did a notable 
 service to the government : it was only by the aid of 
 the Jacobites who followed his lead that the limitations 
 were eventually excluded.^ And the fact that they 
 were excluded is a determining circumstance in the 
 relations of the two kingdoms. It was only out of 
 dire necessity that in the end the royal sanction was 
 given to the act, but if the limitations, which would 
 virtually have made Scotland an independent republic, 
 had formed part of it, Anne and her advisers could in 
 no circumstances have yielded their consent to its 
 becoming law. What, in that event, would have been 
 the result on the relations of the two kingdoms it is 
 impossible to say, but in any case the history of the 
 
 shall sanction all laws passed by the Estates ; that without the con- 
 sent of Parliament the king shall not have the power of making 
 peace and war ; and that, if any king shall infringe these conditions, 
 he shall be declared by the Estates to have forfeited the Crown. 
 
 ' Seafield Papers, Hist. MSS. Com., Report Xn', App. Part III, 
 p. 199. 
 
 •" Add. M.SS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f. 44. 
 
The Act of Security 63 
 
 Union, if union would actually have taken place, would 
 have been different from what it was. 
 
 Even in its final form the act was sufficiently 
 unpalatable to Anne and her Ministers. By its terms 
 the Estates, twenty days after the death of the reigning 
 sovereign without issue, were to name a successor who 
 should be at once a Protestant and a descendant of 
 the house of Stewart. Whoever this successor might 
 be, he or she must not be the person designated by 
 the Parliament of England except under conditions 
 that secured to Scotland complete freedom of govern- 
 ment, of religion, and of trade. And another clause 
 in the act showed that it was meant as no idle threat : 
 landholders and burghs were required to provide all 
 able-bodied men with arms and to hold a monthly levy 
 for exercise and discipline.^ Neither Anne nor her 
 Ministers were prepared to sanction a measure, the 
 effect of which must be the eventual severance of the 
 crowns, but they were placed in an embarrassing 
 dilemma. They were given to understand by all the 
 queen's servants in Scotland that they must choose 
 between two evils : they must either sanction the 
 objectionable bill, or forfeit the supplies necessary to 
 maintain a military force adequate to defend Scotland 
 from internal revolt and foreign invasion. Despite the 
 advice of the Scottish Ministers, they chose to dispense 
 with supply. So ended the first session of the new 
 Parliament, and in the opinion of all observers its 
 proceedings in its future meetings were as little likely 
 to make for peace and amity between the two nations." 
 
 ' Ads of Pari, of Scot., xi, pp. 69, 74. 
 
 ^ An interesting account of the proceedings of this session is given 
 in the letters of the Duke of Atholl. See App. I. 
 
64 The Act of Security 
 
 III 
 
 What, with this prospect before them, would be the 
 poHcy of Anne's English advisers ? In another session 
 of the same Parliament supply would in all probability 
 be refused if the Act of Security did not receive the 
 royal sanction. But it was no longer possible, as it had 
 been in the reign of Charles II, to let years elapse 
 between the meetings of the Estates. Had this policy 
 been tried, all parties would have combined and pro- 
 tested, sword in hand, that Scotland must go her own 
 way. Moreover, supply was indispensable if Anne 
 were to retain Scotland as part of her dominion, since 
 the country would never consent to its defensive forces 
 being maintained by English money. Anne and her 
 Ministers, therefore, realized that before a year elapsed 
 they must face another session of the intractable 
 assembly. 
 
 In the interval there happened one of those sensa- 
 tional incidents which so abundantly diversify the course 
 of Scottish history. It is the incident which was known 
 in England as the Scots Plot, but in Scotland as the 
 Queensberry Plot, from the chief person associated 
 with it. We are now concerned with the Plot only so 
 far as it affected the relations of the two kingdoms. 
 The prime mover in the business was one who bears 
 an evil name in the national annals. He was Simon 
 Lovat, afterwards the Lord Eraser of Lovat, who was 
 executed for his share in the Rising of 1745. He had 
 been attainted and exiled for a scandalous deed, and 
 had gone to France, where he wormed himself into the 
 
The Queensberry Plot 65 
 
 councils of the exiled House. Returning to Scotland 
 as their accredited agent, so he alleged, he communi- 
 cated to Queensberry the secrets of the mission with 
 which he had been charged. There was a plot, he told, 
 in which the Duke of Atholl was the principal agent, 
 and the object of it was to effect a rising in the High- 
 lands in favour of the Pretender. And not only Atholl 
 was implicated, but many of the Scottish nobility, and 
 among them Hamilton, Seafield, and the Secretary of 
 State, the Earl of Cromartie. Queensberry knew the 
 character of Lovat, and suspected his tale from the 
 first. Nevertheless, it placed him in an awkward 
 dilemma. Everybody knew that there were traffickings 
 between the Court at St. Germains and many of the 
 most prominent men in Scotland, and there was pro- 
 bably some foundation for Lovat's story. But without 
 better evidence than Lovat's it was a risky proceeding 
 to incriminate statesmen who were known to be his 
 personal enemies. On the other hand, the existing 
 defences of the country were so inadequate that a 
 foreign invasion in concert with an internal revolt 
 would be a serious peril. As the result of an Act of 
 Indemnity, passed in the spring of 1703, many Jaco- 
 bites had returned from exile, and some of them were 
 known to be emissaries of the Pretender. For the 
 protection of the whole of the sea-coast there were 
 only three frigates, insufficiently manned and equipped. 
 As for the army, we have a description of it from the 
 hand of Lieutenant-General George Ramsay, Com- 
 mander of the forces in Scotland. It consisted nomi- 
 nally of 3,000 men, of whom 120 formed the garrison 
 of the Castle of Edinburgh, 400 that of Stirling, and 
 40 that of Dumbarton. Besides these garrisons, there 
 
 1688 K 
 
66 The Act of Security 
 
 were three ^ companies for the defence of the High- 
 lands, but on them, in Ramsay's opinion, no depend- 
 ence could be placed in the event of a rising. More- 
 over, certain of the officers of highest rank in the 
 army had by their votes in Parliament shown that 
 they were no friends of the existing government. ^ 
 
 In these circumstances it was a public duty that 
 Queensberry, as the royal representative in Scotland, 
 should communicate what he had heard to the sovereign. 
 Whatever may have been his motive, he took this 
 step, and he received a reply from the English 
 Secretary of State, the Earl of Nottingham, to the 
 effect that the queen was pleased with his action and 
 instructing him to make further use of Lovat for the 
 discovery of what truth might be in his allegations. 
 It is at this point that the affair became a matter of 
 importance in the relations of the two countries. At 
 the instance of the English Ministers the question of 
 the Plot was laid before the Parliament, and the House 
 of Lords, mainly consisting of Whigs, appointed a 
 special committee to examine the correspondence 
 produced by Eraser. After an inquiry lasting several 
 months the committee gave in its report, which was 
 adopted by the House. According to that report there 
 had been a dangerous conspiracy with the object of 
 bringing in the pretended Prince of Wales, and nothing 
 had given more encouragement to the conspiracy than 
 the fact that the crown of Scotland had not, like that 
 of England, been settled in favour of the Princess 
 
 ' A third company had been added since the beginning of Anne's 
 reign. 
 
 ■^ Letters of Lieutenant-General Ramsay, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 
 28055, f. 98. 
 
The Queensherry Plot 67 
 
 Sophia and her heirs. The queen, therefore, the re- 
 port urged, should be advised to adopt such methods 
 as seemed most effective to settle the Scottish suc- 
 cession at the earhest date. This report, sanctioned 
 by the Lords, was to be a dominating fact in influencing 
 the proceedings of the Scottish Estates in their ap- 
 proaching session. It was resented by all the members 
 except those who, either from principle or personal 
 interest, took their orders from the Court. That the 
 Lords should have meddled with an affair in which 
 Scotland was mainly concerned, was regarded as a 
 national insult, aggravated by the fact that the English 
 Ministers persistently refused to send down the in- 
 criminating documents for examination by the Scottish 
 Parliament. But the head and front of the Lords' 
 offence was that they presumed to dictate to Scotland 
 the policy she must follow. It will be seen, therefore, 
 that the Plot was an untoward incident which might 
 well have had even more serious consequences than it 
 actually involved. 
 
 The immediate and inevitable result of the Plot 
 was a confusion of parties in which former divisions 
 were for the time forgotten. Lovat's communica- 
 tions had incriminated members both of the Jacobite 
 and Country parties, who were thus bound by a 
 common interest to self-defence against Queensberry 
 and his following. With this object, therefore, their 
 leaders held common councils, the results of which 
 were to appear in the approaching session of the 
 Estates. It is Lockhart who gives the fullest account 
 of them, and his narrative is on the whole corroborated 
 by such contemporary documents as we possess. The 
 first proceeding was an arrangement made by the 
 
68 The Act of Security 
 
 Jacobites with Atholl, Seafield, and Cromartie, all of 
 whom still held office, but who had also been pointed 
 at as accessory to the Plot. In the interests of the 
 Jacobites they were to proceed to London and there do 
 their utmost to checkmate Queensberry. It was Marl- 
 borough and Godolphin who now took the chief interest 
 in Scottish affairs, and Lockhart bitingly comments on 
 the servility of the opposing Scottish parties to these 
 two Ministers, who treated them, he says, 'with no 
 more civility than one gentleman pays another's valet- 
 de-chambre '. 
 
 While the three representatives of the Jacobites 
 were thus dancing attendance on the Court, Hamilton, 
 who was also charged with being in the Plot, took 
 further measures to baffle his enemy, Queensberry. 
 He convened a meeting of the Jacobites and the 
 Country Party in Edinburgh, which agreed to send up 
 three other representatives to London to further their 
 interests. The three who were chosen were all 
 members of the Country Party, as known Jacobites 
 were not likely to be acceptable at Court. They were 
 the Earls of Roxburgh and Rothes and George Baillie 
 of Jerviswoode, all of whom were to play notable parts 
 in the future. Their instructions were to represent to 
 her majesty that the Plot had been vamped up with 
 the sole object of ruining certain of her good subjects 
 in Scotland, and that it was necessary that the Estates 
 should meet at the earliest date to right the wrongf and 
 to pass measures in the interest of the country. To 
 the indignation of the Jacobites all three were gained 
 over by Godolphin, who had already decided on a 
 measure which he meant to have laid before the 
 Scottish Parliament. 
 
Results of the Plot 69 
 
 As things now stood between the two countries, the 
 measure which was in Godolphin's mind was of vital 
 importance for both. By the Claim of Right passed by 
 the Scottish Convention at the Revolution, the Scottish 
 crown had been settled on the heirs of Mary and 
 Anne, and, failing heirs to both, on the heirs of William. 
 In this settlement there was no distinct provision 
 for the succession of the House of Hanover, and it 
 was Godolphin's object to procure an act from the 
 Scottish Estates which should leave no dubiety on 
 the point. Rothes, Roxburgh, and Baillie agreed to 
 take office in a Ministry which should endeavour 
 to pass such an act, but on one condition. We have 
 seen that in the late session of the Estates, Fletcher 
 and the Country Party had passionately urged certain 
 restrictions on the royal prerogative which should take 
 effect on the death of Anne. Unless the demand were 
 at least partially met, Rothes and his friends knew 
 that it would be impossible to carry an Act of Suc- 
 cession. The condition they attached to their accepting 
 office, therefore, was the confirmation of an act which 
 had been passed by the Covenanting Parliament of 
 1 64 1 and sanctioned by Charles I. By the terms 
 of that act, all Officers of State, Privy Councillors, 
 and Judges were to be chosen by the king, but ' with 
 the advice and approbation ' of the Estates. On the 
 same terms Godolphin secured the support of two 
 other important persons to his measure — the Marquis 
 of Tweeddale, a prominent member of the Country 
 Party, and James Johnstone, a staunch Revolutionist, 
 who had been Secretary of State under William, and 
 was the special bugbear of the Jacobites. In gaining 
 the support of Rothes and his friends, Godolphin 
 
70 The Act of Security 
 
 obtained another advantage, for by their influence 
 a section was detached from the Country Party which, 
 under the name of the New Party, could be reckoned 
 upon to vote for government measures. But this 
 advantage was more than counterbalanced by another 
 party arrangement which throws a strange light on 
 the time. The Jacobites bargained with their enemy 
 Queensberry that they would not raise the question of 
 the Plot in the coming session if he and his following 
 would join hands with them in opposing the proposed 
 Act of Succession. 
 
 When, on July 6, 1704, the Estates again sat, 
 Anne and her English Ministers were in the full 
 assurance that their main object in summoning them — 
 the passing of an act settling the crown on the 
 Electress Sophia and her heirs — would be carried by 
 an ample majority. Every precaution had been taken 
 to ensure this result. The Ministry of the previous 
 year had been radically changed. Queensberry, as 
 objectionable to the majority of the House on account 
 of the Plot, was deprived of the office of Royal 
 Commissioner, which was given to the Marquis of 
 Tweeddale, the leader of the New Party. Atholl 
 retained the office of Lord Privy Seal, and Johnstone, 
 who had been Godolphin's chief adviser during the 
 preceding months, was made Lord Clerk Register. 
 The accommodating Seafield was continued in the 
 office of Chancellor. Titles were freely given to 
 persons who might prove useful, and promises of 
 good things were held out to others on condition 
 of acceptable service.^ 
 
 ' Instructions to Seafield, Hist. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report, 
 App. Part III, pp. 194-5. 
 
Proceedings of the Estates 71 
 
 The session had not well begun before the Ministers 
 discovered that they had gravely miscalculated their 
 chances. They found themselves face to face with 
 an assemblage whose hostility to the proposed Act of 
 Succession displayed itself with increasing intensity as 
 the session proceeded. Arrayed against them were 
 all the three dukes — Queensberry, Atholl, Hamilton, 
 — and the ardent Fletcher. Queensberry did not 
 appear in the House, but through his intermediaries 
 he influenced the Revolution Whigs against a measure 
 which on their own principles they should have 
 welcomed. Atholl, though he held office, proved 
 a thorn in the side of his colleagues. He knew 
 when he took office that the passing of the Act 
 of Succession was the chief business with which the 
 Ministry was entrusted, yet he did his best to thwart 
 them at every turn. In the case of Hamilton there 
 were personal reasons why he should dislike the 
 measure.^ As has already been said, his ancestors in 
 every successive reign since that of Mary had been 
 suspected of aiming at the crown. But to none of 
 them had the chances of realizing their ambition been 
 more favourable than they were to their living repre- 
 sentative. In the event of Scotland breaking away 
 from England, which the relations of the two countries 
 seemed to make every day more probable, she would 
 almost be shut up to the choice of him as her king. 
 
 ' Hamilton's ambiguous action is perhaps best explained on the 
 supposition that he was aiming at the Crown. In this view, also, his 
 associations with the Jacobites would be explained, as he would 
 naturally desire to attach them to his interest. He was constantly 
 in straits for money, and his action was further checked by his fear of 
 losing his estates in England. 
 
72 The Act of Security 
 
 He was of royal blood, a Protestant, and, as the leader 
 of the Country Party, which represented the national 
 aspirations, the most generally popular of all the 
 political leaders of the day. Perfectly disinterested, 
 on the other hand, was the opposition of Fletcher. His 
 one panacea for all the ills from which his country was 
 suffering was a government which should give effect 
 to the nation's will — whether monarchy or republic was 
 indifferent to him. Against an opposition concen- 
 trated in these four men, the Ministry found itself help- 
 less, and in their reports to the managers in London 
 they made frank confession of their impotence. 
 
 In a series of unprinted letters to Godolphin, John- 
 stone, the Clerk Register, to whom, as we have seen, 
 the charge of the queen's measure had been entrusted, 
 vividly describes the painful experiences of himself and 
 his colleagues. Two days after the session had begun, 
 he writes that matters were in a very bad way and 
 that there was a general and growing aversion to 
 the queen's measure. Later, he wrote that he had 
 nothing but government defeats to report, and that 
 it was a prevalent conviction that at heart the queen 
 herself did not wish the measure to pass.^ And not 
 only in the House, but in the world outside of it, 
 general sympathy was with the Opposition. Hamilton 
 was attended by cheering crowds on his way from the 
 Parliament House to Holyrood, while it was at the risk 
 of his life that Johnstone walked the streets, and stones 
 were thrown through his wife's window.^ 
 
 ' By other authorities of the time the queen's dislike to settling 
 the succession is frequently mentioned. 
 
 "^ Letters of J. Johnstone, Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, Add. 
 MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, ff. 90, 103, 107, 114, 118, 126, 128. 
 
Defeat of the Government 73 
 
 As the result of the session, the government found 
 itself thwarted at all points. Its great measure — the 
 settling of the crown in favour of Hanover — which it 
 had confidently hoped to pass, never had a chance of 
 passing. The main reason urged against it was that, 
 though it might be in the interests of England, it would 
 do no good to Scotland. It gave, for example, no 
 guarantee that in the matter of trade Scotland would 
 be better treated by England. Therefore Hamilton 
 contended that a treaty which would give equality of 
 commercial privileges to both countries should precede 
 an act for settling the succession. Hamilton's motion 
 for such a treaty killed the government measure, but 
 it did not pass into a formal act. There was a pro- 
 posal, indeed, to appoint commissioners to negotiate 
 a treaty, but the proposal did not take definite shape — 
 to the regret of Lockhart, as at that moment the 
 Jacobites might have secured a larger representation 
 on the commission than they eventually did at a later 
 period. 
 
 The defeat of the one measure which the Ministry 
 had been specially chosen to carry was a rude blow for 
 Godolphin, but a more staggering one followed. Supply 
 was an imperative necessity if the government of 
 the country was to be carried on. But when supply 
 was asked, the Ministers were told that they would 
 have it only on one condition — the queen must give 
 the sanction she had refused in the previous year to 
 the Act of Security. Strangely enough, the Com- 
 missioner had received no instructions as to how he 
 should act in the event of this alternative arising. 
 Before he could give his reply, therefore, he had to com- 
 municate with London, and with one voice he and his 
 
 1688 L 
 
74 The Act of Security 
 
 colleagues urged Godolphin to give way. By advising 
 the queen to refuse her sanction Godolphin ran the 
 risk of raising a rebellion in Scotland ; by advising her 
 to grant it, he was hazarding his position as an English 
 Minister. He chose the latter alternative ; the Com- 
 missioner was empowered to touch the momentous 
 act with the sceptre (the symbol of the royal sanction) ^; 
 and supply was granted for six months. Not content 
 with the expression of the national will implied in the 
 Act of Security, on the last day of the session the 
 Estates took another emphatic step. They voted an 
 address to the queen in which she was plainly told 
 that the intermeddling of the House of Lords in the 
 affairs of Scotland was an insult to the nation.^ 
 
 With the passing of the Act of Security, the first 
 stage in the history of the Union Parliament ends. 
 By that act, as was fully understood, the two nations 
 were ' divided by law ', and, as a clause in the same 
 act bore that Scotland was prepared to support 
 her protest by arms, he would have been a sanguine 
 observer who would have predicted that in the course 
 of little more than two years the unequally-yoked 
 kingdoms would find a basis for a union in which their 
 reciprocal interests would form the permanent bond. 
 How this union came to be effected by the assembly 
 which apparently had done its utmost to prevent it, 
 will be the subject of the two following lectures. 
 
 ' In the act, as it was sanctioned, the clause relating to a com- 
 mercial treaty with England was omitted. 
 
 '^ Acts of Pari, of Scot., xi, p. 204. See App. II for an account of 
 the proceedings of the session by Johnstone in his letters to 
 Godolphin. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 SUCCESSION OR UNION? 
 I 
 
 It was pointed out in the last lecture how the Act 
 of Security, now that it had received the sanction of 
 the crown, fundamentally changed the relations of the 
 two kingdoms. I n his History of the Union De Foe 
 clearly defined the new situation. The act, he says, 
 had made two things plain : (i) that Scotland was 
 resolved to have the bestowal of her crown in her 
 own hands, and (2) that only on certain conditions 
 would she give it to the successor of Anne chosen by 
 England. This ultimatum, De Foe adds, 'effectually 
 settled and declared the independency of Scotland, and 
 put her into a posture fit to be treated with, either by 
 England or by any other nation ' ?- It was, in truth, 
 the menace of the second alternative — the possibility 
 of Scotland one day becoming an independent and 
 hostile kingdom — which convinced English statesmen 
 that Scotland could no longer be treated as a mere 
 dependency. For the first time since the Union of the 
 Crowns, that is, for a full century, the English Parlia- 
 ment seriously addressed itself to find a settlement 
 which would unite the two nations by a bond of 
 common interests and common aims. 
 
 In England the time was not opportune for the calm 
 discussion of healing measures. The House of Com- 
 mons was still that Tory assembly which had been 
 
 ' History of the Union (1709), Part I, pp. 52-3. 
 
76 Succession or Union ? 
 
 returned in the first year of the reign, but it was now 
 about to meet in its last session, and, in view of an 
 approaching general election, party passions were at 
 their height. In the conflict of faction the affairs of 
 Scotland were to play an important part. It was 
 Godolphin who was responsible for the pass to which 
 things had come in that country, and at this moment 
 he was the object of a concentrated attack by the 
 Tories for his dallying with the Whigs. And in their 
 attack on Godolphin for his Scottish policy the Tory 
 leaders had the support of English public opinion 
 behind them. The wildest rumours regarding the in- 
 tentions of the Scots came to be current in the country. 
 They had bought 30,000 stand of arms in Holland ; 
 they had laid in a store of 10,000 barrels of powder; 
 they were arming 60,000 men, and France would, of 
 course, be at their back.^ An untoward coincidence 
 increased the difficulties of Godolphin's position. A few 
 days after the royal sanction had been given to the 
 Act of Security, came the news of Marlborough's 
 victory at Blenheim, and, in view of this national 
 triumph, Godolphin's yielding to the clamour of a 
 turbulent people appeared to be a weak and con- 
 temptible surrender. 
 
 It was in this state of English public opinion with re- 
 gard to Scottish affairs that Parliament met on Novem- 
 ber 29, 1 704. It was the House of Lords that first took 
 up the business of Scotland. The Tory leaders who con- 
 ducted the attack on Godolphin's Scottish policy were 
 Lord Haversham and the Earls of Nottingham and 
 Rochester ; the leaders on the other side were Lords 
 Somers, Halifax, and Wharton. The queen herself, 
 ' De Foe, History of the Union, p. 54. 
 
Proceedings in the House of Lords 77 
 
 doubtless to give her countenance to Godolphin, was 
 present during this and other debates, sitting on a 
 bench near the fire on account of the cold. Haversham 
 opened the debate in a speech, the heads of which have 
 been preserved. The state of affairs in Scotland, he 
 said, was such as to demand the serious consideration 
 of the House, and that state of affairs was the result of 
 an ill-judged policy. A ' motley Ministry ' had been 
 set up in that country, which had completely failed to 
 carry an act settling the succession — the passing of 
 which was the special object for which it had been 
 chosen. Moreover, it had failed to prevent the passing 
 of the Act of Security, which was virtually an Act of 
 Exclusion, and which ordained the Scottish nation to 
 put itself under arms. ' There are two matters of all 
 troubles ', he continued, ' much discontent, and great 
 poverty; and whoever will now look into Scotland 
 will find them both in that kingdom. It is certain 
 the nobility and gentry of Scotland are as learned and 
 as brave as any nation in Europe can boast of; and 
 these are generally discontented. And as to the 
 common people, they are very numerous and very 
 stout, but very poor. And who is the man that can 
 answer what such a multitude so armed, so disciplined, 
 with such leaders, may do, especially since opportuni- 
 ties do so much alter men from themselves ? And 
 there will never be wanting all the promises and all 
 the assistance that France can give '.^ 
 
 The object of the Tory leaders was to have the 
 Act of Security condemned by the House, and with 
 this object they moved that the act should be read. 
 
 ' Rapin, History of England, continued by Tindal, vol. xxi, 
 pp. 109-11. 
 
78 Succession or Union ? 
 
 On the ground of inexpediency the motion was opposed 
 by Somers, Wharton, and Godolphin. Godolphin ad- 
 mitted that the state of things in Scotland was not 
 what he would have wished, and that the Act of 
 Security had 'an untowardly aspect'. In the circum- 
 stances however, he said, there would have been more 
 immediate danger in refusing than in granting the 
 royal sanction to the act, and, moreover, he signifi- 
 cantly added, he thought there was a remedy. What 
 that remedy was to be was indicated in a motion by 
 Somers which doubtless had been concerted in con- 
 junction with Godolphin. Somers's motion was that 
 the House should proceed by way of a bill, the terms 
 of which would convince the Scots that, if they chose 
 to set up an independent kingdom, they would them- 
 selves be the greatest sufferers ; and with the object 
 of preparing such a bill he proposed that the House 
 should go into a grand committee.^ 
 
 Somers's motion was made on December 6, and on 
 the nth the Earl of Sunderland submitted the heads 
 of a bill approved by the grand committee, which 
 eventually took shape as an act and received the 
 sanction of the House. But besides passing this act, 
 the Lords took another step which showed their 
 serious disquiet at the attitude of Scotland. In a body 
 they presented an address to the queen in which they 
 earnestly urged her to make provision for the safety 
 of the kingdom pending the operation of the act they 
 were engaged in preparing. Newcastle should be put 
 in a condition of defence ; the port of Tynemouth 
 
 ' Letters of Mr. Vernon to the Duke of Shrewsbury, ist and 8th 
 Dec, 1704, printed in App. to Somerville's Hist, of Great Britain 
 during the reign of Queen Anne (1798), pp. 616-19. 
 
The Alien Act 79 
 
 should be secured ; the fortifications of Berwick, 
 CarUsle, and Hull strengthened ; regular troops should 
 be posted in the North of England and Ireland, and 
 the militia of the northern counties should be made 
 ready for service.^ 
 
 Meantime the House of Commons had also been 
 busy with the affairs of Scotland, though it addressed 
 itself to them in a cooler temper than the Lords. 
 While the House of Lords was mainly Whig, the 
 Commons were mainly Tory, and they were not 
 specially zealous for a Scottish Act of Succession 
 which would settle the crown on the House of 
 Hanover. Public opinion, however, demanded that 
 something should be done to show the Scots that they 
 would have most to lose in the event of their breaking 
 away from England. A bill similar in effect to that 
 of the Lords was therefore introduced, but while it was 
 still under discussion the bill of the Lords was sent 
 down to the Commons. To the Lords' bill a novel 
 objection was taken ; among its clauses was one which 
 threatened money-penalties, and which the Commons, 
 therefore, regarded as an infringement of their privilege 
 as guardians of the national purse. Rejecting the 
 Lords' bill on this ground, they sent their own to the 
 Upper House, where, on February 14, 1705, it was 
 passed without a single amendment. 
 
 The act was a rousing reminder to the Scots that 
 two could play at the game in which they were en- 
 gaged. The title of the act is itself a significant 
 commentary on the situation that had arisen between 
 the two kingdoms. It was entitled, ' An Act for the 
 effectual securing the Kingdom of England from the 
 ' Journals of tM House of Lords, xvii. 596, 607. 
 
8o Succession or Union ? " 
 
 apparent dangers that may arise from several acts 
 lately passed in the Parliament of Scotland.' Yet the 
 first and principal clause of the act was conceived in 
 no hostile spirit. It enacted that the queen should 
 nominate commissioners for England with powers to 
 treat with commissioners authorized by the Parliament 
 of Scotland regarding such a union of the two king- 
 doms as would tend to the ' common good ' of both. 
 It was an addendum to the third clause that brought 
 the Scots face to face with the situation which had 
 been created by their Act of Security. Should no 
 treaty be effected by December 25, 1 705, the addendum 
 declared that after that date these consequences should 
 follow : all Scotsmen, except such as were settled in 
 England, would be treated as aliens ; no horses, 
 arms, or ammunition would be supplied to Scotland 
 from England ; and Scottish cattle, linen, and coals 
 would be excluded both from England and Ireland.^ 
 
 The threat of an alternative between union and loss 
 of trade was a sobering reality for every Scotsman 
 who had his country's well-being at heart. Coals, 
 linen, and cattle were her chief exports, and three- 
 fourths of the trade in these commodities was done 
 with England. Scottish statesmen of all parties fully 
 realized the gravity of the situation. It was with 
 anxious vigilance that those of them who were in 
 London followed the proceedings of the Parliament 
 in connexion with the Alien Act, as it came to be 
 called. ' Some talk here of discharging our cattle 
 being brought in ; if that's done, we are ruined.' So 
 wrote the Earl of Roxburgh on the first rumour of 
 the Parliament's intentions. A week later he writes : 
 ' Statutes at Large, iv. 78-9. 
 
The Alien Act 8i 
 
 ' Pray let me have certain information whether we can 
 export our cattle and linen elsewhere or not to our 
 advantage ; for we cannot subsist without exporting 
 our product. ..." At a further stage of the Parlia- 
 ment's action he writes in a mood still more grave. 
 ' What will become of our affairs between the House 
 of Lords and the House of Commons is very uncertain, 
 but I am throughly convinc'd that, if we do not go 
 into the Succession or an Union very soon, conquest 
 will certainly be upon the first peace.' ^ 
 
 n 
 
 In the letter of Roxburgh last quoted there is 
 a passage which ominously marks another occasion 
 of misunderstanding between the two nations, already, 
 as it might seem, on the point of drawing the sword. 
 ' The East India ship ', he wrote, ' makes a great noise 
 here. ... It is a great misfortune, and, indeed, 
 our misfortunes are many.' Roxburgh might have 
 used a stronger expression, for the affair of the East 
 India ship threatened more than mere misfortune : 
 it threatened an international calamity. Under less 
 mutual provocation nations have many times gone to 
 war, and that war was not the issue of the exasperation 
 of the two peoples is signal proof of the constraining 
 forces that made for their union. With the minuter 
 details of the affair we are not now concerned, as it is 
 only in its larger import that we are interested. Its 
 immediate results were the same as in the case of the 
 Queensberry Plot : it was a main cause of a change 
 
 ^ Correspondence of George Baillie, Ban. Club, 1842, pp. 13, 19, 28. 
 
 1688 M 
 
82 Succession or Union? 
 
 in the Scottish Ministry, and it raised to frenzy the 
 jealous antagonism of Englishman and Scot. And it 
 emphasizes another fact which had an important 
 bearing on the prospects of a Treaty of Union. What 
 the story of the whole affair appeared to indicate was 
 that, if a violent crisis arose, a Scottish Ministry could 
 not resist public opinion. Such a crisis came at a later 
 day, when a Treaty of Union was actually under con- 
 sideration ; and it was the hope and the endeavour of 
 the statesmen who opposed it to defeat it by appeal to 
 the populace. In connexion with the India ship we 
 shall see that the commands of the queen were dis- 
 regarded by the Privy Council of Scotland out of sheer 
 terror of the mob. 
 
 The story of the ship is briefly as follows. A Scot- 
 tish vessel, named the Annanda/e, was seized in the 
 Thames by the English East India Company on the 
 ground of some breach of its privileges. The Annan- 
 dale belonged to the Scottish African Company whose 
 Darien enterprise English merchants had done much 
 to ruin, and this repeated proof of their jealousy of 
 Scottish trading interests was keenly resented by the 
 nation at large. By what was regarded as a special 
 intervention of Providence, in August, 1704, an English 
 ship, the Worcester, mistakenly supposed to belong to 
 the offending East India Company, put into the roads 
 of Leith, in the Firth of Forth. Without legal 
 authority, the Secretary of the African Company, at 
 the head of an armed party, boarded the vessel and 
 made prisoners of the crew. Providence further inter- 
 vened, for in their cups certain of the crew spoke 
 mysteriously of deeds of piracy they had done on the 
 high seas. As it chanced, there was a Scottish craft. 
 
Affair of the Worcester 83 
 
 the Speedy Return, regarding the fate of which there 
 had been long uncertainty, and suspicion arose that it 
 had been one of the victims of the Worcester. ' There 
 are sometimes,' is De Foe's reflection on the pro- 
 ceedings that followed, ' there are sometimes such 
 crises, such junctures in matters, when all things shall 
 concur to possess, not a man, but even a nation with 
 a belief of what at another time they would not believe 
 even upon the same evidence.'^ As a concession to 
 popular clamour, the Privy Council ordered that the 
 Captain (whose name was Green) and all his crew 
 should be put on their trial, though the Lord Chan- 
 cellor Seafield was of opinion that the trial was illegal, 
 as no ship was specified as the victim of the accused. 
 It is to be noted (and the point is important in view of 
 future developments) that it was mainly the members 
 of the New Party in the Council who insisted on the 
 trial. On the 14th of March, 1705, seven months after 
 the seizure of the vessel, the Court of Admiralty sat in 
 judgement on the accused, and after a week's examina- 
 tion found them all guilty except one. Be it said 
 that it was not only the mob who were convinced of 
 the guilt of Green and his crew ; responsible statesmen 
 were of opinion that the evidence against them was 
 conclusive. Baillie of Jerviswoode, the most influential 
 leader of the New Party, wrote to the Secretary of 
 State Johnstone, that 'the murder, as well as piracy, is 
 made clear to conviction, and that it was our ship and 
 men that were so treated ' ^ ; and the Earls of Leven and 
 Annandale expressed the same opinion to Seafield. 
 It was on the condemnation of Green and his men 
 
 ' De Foe, <?/. a'f., p. 47. ^ Baillie, op. a'i., p. 65. 
 
84 Succession or Union ? 
 
 that the tension between the two nations reached its 
 height. FeeHng in England ran as high as in Scotland. 
 No Scotsman dared show his face in the streets of 
 London ; as things were going, Johnstone wrote to 
 Seafield, it was enough to ' make an unborn child 
 cry '. ^ The universal opinion in England was that the 
 condemned men were innocent, and, though in the 
 state of public opinion in Scotland the consequences 
 might be serious, the queen was advised to intervene. 
 By the sentence of the Admiralty, the condemned men 
 were to be executed in batches at intervals of a week. 
 April 4 was the day fixed for the execution of Green 
 and four of his crew. Before the day came, there 
 arrived a letter from the Duke of Argyle, now Royal 
 Commissioner, expressing the queen's pleasure that 
 the men should be reprieved. Unfortunately, in con- 
 nexion with this letter there was a double inadvertence. 
 It came from the Royal Commissioner, whereas it 
 should have come direct from the queen, and it was 
 addressed to the Chancellor Seafield, whereas it ought 
 to have been addressed to the Privy Council as a body. 
 The difficulty occasioned was this. Had the letter 
 come directly from the queen to the Council, its 
 members would have had a pretext for granting 
 a reprieve to the five condemned men which would 
 exonerate them in the eyes of the public. As it was, 
 they could put forward no such pretext, and accordingly, 
 instead of granting a reprieve, they sent a petition to 
 the queen, craving that a reprieve should not be 
 granted.^ A few days later came a direct communi- 
 cation from the queen ordering a reprieve, and the 
 
 ' Seafield Correspondence, Scot. Hist. Soc, p. 401. 
 
 " Seafield Letters, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f- 35°- 
 
Affair of the Worcester 85 
 
 execution of the five men was postponed from the 4th 
 to the nth of April. 
 
 That nth of April is one of the memorable days in 
 the history of the Scottish capital, and its story is fully 
 told in an unpublished letter of Seafield to Godolphin. 
 On the morning of that day Seafield received a flying 
 packet from Godolphin containing a letter from the 
 queen and a bundle of documents proving the innocence 
 of Green and his crew. In expectation of the packet, 
 he had the night before requested all the Councillors 
 in town, ten or eleven in all, to meet at his house at 
 eight the next morning. When the Councillors ap- 
 peared at the appointed hour, they reported that there 
 were signs of an impending tumult. The streets were 
 swarming with an excited mob, and crowds were 
 flocking in from the surrounding country. All that 
 could be done was to dispatch messages to the magis- 
 trates and the Commander of the Forces to warn them 
 to be on their guard. The contents of the packet 
 were then read, but it was resolved that no decision on 
 them could be taken by so small a body of Councillors, 
 who, moreover, were themselves divided in opinion. 
 In point of fact, since the question of reprieve had 
 arisen, not a single Minister had attended the meetings 
 of Council — the reason being that they must either 
 offend the queen or endanger their popularity. It was 
 resolved, however, that to give a greater semblance of 
 authority to their proceedings they should go in a body 
 to the Council Chamber at Holyrood. As they made 
 their way down the High Street and the Canongate, 
 they were attended by excited crowds, shouting 
 'Justice, Justice! No Reprieve!' Arrived at the 
 Council Chamber, after some discussion they con- 
 
86 Succession or Union? 
 
 eluded that, unless some victims were given up, it 
 would be impossible to maintain the public peace. As 
 supposed to be the most guilty, Captain Green and 
 two others were selected for sacrifice that very day — 
 the rest of the crew being reprieved till the 19th, and 
 eventually let off, though not till the following October. 
 On his way home in his coach, Seafield had an oppor- 
 tunity of realizing the state of public feeling. By the 
 crowd in the vicinity of Holyrood, who had learned 
 that three victims were to be given up to them, he was 
 received with cheers. Further on his progress, how- 
 ever, where the Council's decision had not reached the 
 mob, he had a different reception. His coach was 
 stopped and beset by a crowd who demanded to know 
 what had been done with ' these murderers '. On a 
 volley of stones being thrown from a distance, he 
 stepped from his coach, and the crowd, impressed by 
 his unconcerned demeanour, opened a passage for him 
 to a friend's house which was conveniently near. The 
 day's proceedings closed with the execution of Green 
 and his two companions on the Links of Leith amid 
 the jeers of the exulting populace ; and it is on record 
 that they met their fate like brave men, declaring their 
 innocence to the last.^ 
 
 Ill 
 
 On June 28, 1705, the Scottish Parliament met in 
 its third and penultimate session. It was the same 
 Parliament, but the Ministry was different and the 
 distribution of parties was different. The events of 
 
 ' lb., f. 154. They were hanged at Leith because the crime with 
 which they were charged was committed at sea. 
 
Meeting of Estates 87 
 
 the past year had intensified rather than diminished 
 their divisions. It might have been expected that, in 
 view of the attitude of England as announced in the 
 Alien Act, all parties except the ultra- Jacobites would 
 unite in a common policy in the interest of their 
 country. So we may think after the event. But in 
 the existing circumstances it was possible for honest 
 men and good patriots to differ as to what the best 
 policy for their country was. There were two diffi- 
 culties that had to be faced. What was the best 
 arrangement to be made with England in the perma- 
 nent interest of Scotland, and what was the arrange- 
 ment that would most probably commend itself to the 
 Estates ? On both of these questions there was 
 honest difference of opinion, and, considering the issues 
 at stake, it was inevitable that the best and the worst 
 passions should have their full course. In the volumi- 
 nous correspondence of the leaders of the different 
 parties we find something to reprobate, but also much 
 that is to the credit of human nature. We have place- 
 hunting and wire-pulling, private interests over-riding 
 public; but in none of the leaders do we miss an 
 anxious concern for the national wellbeing. They 
 mutually revile each other according to the wont of 
 rival politicians. Johnstone calls Seafield ' the greatest 
 villain in the world ' ; yet we cannot read Seafield's 
 correspondence without seeing that he also gives both 
 his heart and mind to the best counsel for his country. 
 
 But to follow the proceedings of the session — the 
 session in which the first step was taken towards the 
 complete union of the two kingdoms — we must have 
 before us both the character of the new Ministry and 
 the state of parties as they now stood. To understand 
 
88 Succession or Union ? 
 
 the readjustments that had taken place, we have to go 
 back to the close of the preceding session in August, 
 1704. During that session the Marquis of Tweeddale 
 had represented the queen as Royal Commissioner. 
 With the support of a small following, designated the 
 New Party, which he had detached from the old 
 Country Party, he had undertaken to carry an Act of 
 Succession settling the crown on the House of Han- 
 over. He had signally failed to accomplish his under- 
 taking, and it might have been expected that his failure 
 would at once discredit himself and his party in the 
 eyes of the queen and her English advisers. So far 
 was this from being the case, however, that at the 
 close of the session the Scottish administration was 
 virtually put in the hands of the New Party. Tweed- 
 dale was made Chancellor, Seafield and Roxburgh 
 the two Secretaries of State, Baillie of Jerviswoode 
 Treasurer-depute ; and other leaders of the same party 
 were put in the different offices of state. According 
 to Lockhart, the favour thus shown to the New Party 
 was due to the fact that Godolphin regarded them as 
 the staunchest supporters of his own pet scheme for 
 solving the difficulties between the two kingdoms — the 
 settlement of the Scottish crown on Hanover. 
 
 But before the New Party had been long in power 
 it was brought home to Godolphin that as an in- 
 strument to effect his ends it was impossible. Their 
 conduct of affairs, indeed, had been such as to alienate 
 all parties in Scotland, and at the same time to embroil 
 them with England. It was they who were mainly 
 responsible for all the trouble that had arisen over the 
 affair of Captain Green and his crew. As they saw 
 the ground slipping from beneatli their feet, they made 
 
John, Duke of Argyle 89 
 
 desperate endeavours to come to terms with the leaders 
 of the Revolution Whigs, and their cipher correspon- 
 dence, which has been preserved, is the most dis- 
 creditable of the period.^ By the beginning of 1705 
 they began to see that their game was played out. 
 On January 9, Johnstone wrote to Baillie of Jervis- 
 woode : ' Marlborough, you know, will be gone, and 
 Godolphin does all, who, I fear, will abandon you for 
 the Whigs for his own ease, or accept of any offers of 
 undertakers the Whigs will recommend, though no 
 doubt the inclination is for Tweeddale.' 
 
 Within two months Johnstone's fears for his party 
 were realized. Godolphin was forced to throw him- 
 self, however loth, on the Revolution Whigs — the one 
 party, as the whole course of the reign proved, on 
 which the stability of the existing regime depended. 
 In the beginning of April it became known that another 
 Royal Commissioner was to take the place of Tweed- 
 dale, the appointment of whom must involve a trans- 
 formation of the Ministry. He was John, second Duke 
 of Argyle, a youth in his twenty-fifth year. But, in 
 spite of his youth, there were cogent reasons for 
 Godolphin's selection of him for the most prominent 
 position that could be held by a Scotsman. He was 
 the representative of a family canonized in Presbyterian 
 memories. Two of his ancestors had been executed 
 for their opposition to two Stewart kings, and he was 
 himself identified with Presbyterian interests. If any 
 one, therefore, was likely to rally the Whigs to the 
 Government measures, it was he. And he had other 
 family advantages which, just at this period, might 
 count for much. All through the spring and summer 
 ' Baillie, Correspondence, p. 34. 
 
 1688 N 
 
90 Succession or Union ? 
 
 of 1705 there were rumours of a Highland rising in 
 concert with a French invasion, and Argyle was a 
 Highland chief who could put 6,000 men in the field, 
 that is to say, twice as numerous a body as all the 
 regular forces in the country. But besides these family 
 recommendations, he had gifts and graces of his own 
 which, in the estimation of his contemporaries, made 
 him a notable personality. Noble and distinguished in 
 manner and appearance, he possessed talents for both 
 peace and war. His beguiling charm as a speaker is 
 described by the most critical of judges. Lord Chester- 
 field. ' The late Duke of Argyle,' Chesterfield says, 
 ' though the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing 
 speaker I ever heard in my life. He charmed, he 
 warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience, not by his 
 matter certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. 
 A most genteel figure, a graceful, noble air, an har- 
 monious voice, an elegancy of style and a strength of 
 emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting, 
 persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever saw.' For 
 military command, also, he had natural aptitudes, as 
 his subsequent career was to show. Under Marl- 
 borough, and as an independent commander, he so 
 greatly distinguished himself that he was accounted 
 the third of British generals. Yet with all his gifts he 
 was not fitted to lead a political party. To his honour 
 and probity, indeed, Lockhart bears high testimony : 
 ' his word [was] so sacred that one might assuredly 
 depend upon it.' But his temper was imperious and 
 violent, and, as both Chesterfield and Lockhart have 
 noted, he was lacking in the more solid qualities of 
 a statesman. It was his characteristic threat that he 
 would run through the body any satirist who made 
 
John, Duke of Argyle 91 
 
 free with his name that elicited the well-known couplet 
 of Pope — 
 
 Argyle, the State's whole thunder born to wield, 
 And shake alike the senate and the field. 
 
 In Argyle it will be seen that Anne and her minister 
 Godolphin had another personage to deal with than 
 the suave Queensberry and the vacillating Tweeddale. 
 The story of his acceptance of the Commissionership 
 is told in his correspondence recently published, 
 and what emerges from the correspondence is that 
 he would accept office only on his own terms. 
 There were two questions that had to be settled 
 before the Estates met. Was the New Party to 
 be cashiered or not ? This was the first question. 
 The second was, what measures should be submitted 
 to the Estates as most likely to establish better rela- 
 tions between the two nations ? What is singular is, 
 that neither of these two all-important questions was 
 determined before Argyle's going to Scotland. He 
 had given it clearly to be understood that he would 
 accept office only on condition that the New Party 
 should be dismissed, but Godolphin refused to commit 
 himself. And we can understand his perplexity. As 
 has already been said, it was his policy to keep in touch 
 with the leaders of all parties, and advices which he 
 now received led him to hesitate as to the prudence of 
 following Argyle's counsel. Above all, he was assured 
 by Seafield that only a union of the old and the new 
 parties could ensure the passing of royal measures in 
 the approaching session. We see Godolphin's dilemma. 
 He could not afford to throw over Argyle, and yet he 
 doubted the wisdom of Argyle's policy. The final 
 
92 Succession or Union? 
 
 arrangement was that, on Argyle's arrival in Scotland, 
 the queen would intimate her decision.^ 
 
 Argyle came down to Scotland in the first week of 
 April, and on May 6 he wrote to Godolphin that he 
 had taken counsel with all her Majesty's servants whom 
 he could trust, and found them unanimous that the 
 New Party must go and that the Government must be 
 ' all of a piece ', if her Majesty's measures were to be 
 carried. Even yet Godolphin was unable to make up 
 his mind, and Argyle wrote to the queen offering his 
 resignation. The meeting of the Estates was at hand, 
 and some decision was imperative. In the last week 
 of May Argyle was told that his terms were accepted 
 and that he was at liberty to form such a Ministry as 
 he thought desirable. The dismissal of the New Party 
 immediately followed, and their places were filled by 
 a Ministry almost exclusively Whig.^ The Earls of 
 Loudoun and Annandale were made Secretaries, the 
 Earl of Glasgow Treasurer-Depute, Queensberry Lord 
 Privy Seal, and Seafield retained his office of Chan- 
 cellor. Of all these men Seafield alone was not an 
 undiluted Whig, and he had been retained as a useful 
 intermediary between the various parties. 
 
 The Ministry thus formed, the next question was 
 what measure was most likely to be approved by the 
 majority of the House. On this question there was no 
 
 ' Intimate Society Letters of the Eighteenth Century, edited by the 
 Duke of Argyll, Lond., 1910, pp. 15-17. 
 
 " From Argyle's letters we learn that he had a personal ambition 
 that may have had some influence on his conduct. He was desirous 
 of an English peerage, which Anne promised him and subsequently 
 granted. Seafield states that it was the promise of the peerage that 
 determined him to accept the Commissionership. — Seafield Letters, 
 Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f- 196. 
 
Dismissal of New Party 93 
 
 such unanimity as in the case of the formation of the 
 Ministry, and the conflicting opinions are a remarkable 
 commentary on the cross-currents that intersected all 
 parties. There were but two measures, Argyle told 
 Godolphin, that were in the option of her Majesty : 
 the one was the settlement of the succession, the other 
 a treaty. Of the two, the first was the more desirable ; 
 the second the more likely to pass. This was Argyle's 
 opinion, but it was not shared by the majority of his 
 colleagues. At a meeting expressly called to settle 
 the point, six Ministers were in favour of a treaty, 
 and two in favour of the succession. In this dilemma 
 there was only one course open. Two drafts of a 
 royal letter were prepared, in one of which the Union 
 was put first, and in the other the Succession — the 
 responsibility of the choice being left with the queen 
 and her advisers. When the authorized royal letter 
 at length came, it was found that the precedence had 
 been given to the succession. By this decision the 
 continuity of the royal policy was at least maintained, 
 as the passing of a Succession Act had been the chief 
 charge to Tweeddale as Commissioner in the preceding 
 session. Warned by the miscarriage of the succession 
 in the previous year, however, the royal letter sug- 
 gested an alternative : if it was found that an Act of 
 Succession could not be carried, the attempt should be 
 made to pass an act for a Treaty of Union. 
 
 IV 
 
 Before the session began Argyle informed Godolphin 
 that he did not hold himself responsible for the success 
 of her Majesty's measures, and that it was only with 
 
94 Succession or Union? 
 
 this proviso that he retained his office. Godolphin 
 had delayed so long before consenting to dismiss the 
 New Party that he must abide by the consequences.^ 
 Argyle had good reasons for his uncertainty, as a 
 glance at the parties in the House, as they were 
 now arrayed, will show. And be it said that they 
 now assumed the form which they were to retain 
 till the House abolished itself as a legislative body. 
 There was the permanent Court Party on which 
 the Ministers could generally depend for supporting 
 their measures, but which, as they knew, did not con- 
 stitute a majority in the House. ' I am sure we have 
 not a majority to carry everything,' ^ Seafield wrote to 
 Godolphin, and it was in view of this fact that he had 
 recommended the retention of the New Party. More- 
 over, the Ministers themselves were not all of one 
 mind. To the indignation of Argyle, the Marquis of 
 Annandale, one of the two Secretaries of State,^ insisted 
 on taking a way of his own, and refused to support the 
 most important measure of the session, with the result 
 that he was eventually dismissed from office.* In these 
 circumstances the only hope for the government was 
 to win such supporters from the other parties as might 
 be of wavering convictions or were open to Court 
 influence. And Argyle, like previous Commissioners, 
 had been supplied with the means of persuasion. He 
 was empowered to grant six knighthoods and four 
 Green Ribbons to such persons as he thought deserving 
 
 ' Intimate Society Letters, pp. i8, 19. 
 ' Seafield Letters, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f. 246. 
 ■' The arrangement between the two Secretaries was that they 
 should act in alternate months. 
 
 * See App. III. Letters of Annandale. 
 
Parties in the Estates 95 
 
 of these honours, and to be as liberal with pensions as 
 funds would allow. The second party was that of the 
 Jacobites, who, as in previous sessions, embarrassed 
 the government by all the tactics their ingenuity could 
 devise. Their leader was the Duke of Hamilton, who, 
 however, according to Lockhart, showed ' less zeal and 
 forwardness ' than in former sessions,^ and who, as we 
 shall see, was to astonish his followers by one of those 
 unexpected actions which puzzled his contemporaries. 
 The third section in the House was that New Party 
 whose leaders had been removed from the Ministry 
 before the session began. It now, however, begins to 
 be more commonly designated by another name. In 
 view of the policy it followed of attaching itself now 
 to one party and now to another, it was called the 
 ' Squadrone Volante ' ^ — a designation possibly sug- 
 gested by Fletcher, who was a student of Italian. Its 
 most prominent member calls for a passing notice, 
 since, as already said, he had still a great part to play 
 in the future. He was John, fifth Earl of Roxburgh, 
 and was now only about twenty-five years of age. By 
 his contemporaries of all shades of opinion he was 
 regarded as a paragon of graces and accomplishments. 
 Lockhart, in whose eyes he was ' the very bane and 
 cut-throat of his country ', says of him that he was 
 perhaps ' the best-accomplished young man of quality 
 in Europe, and had so charming a way of expressing 
 his thoughts that he pleased even those against whom 
 he spoke '. Both in the present session and in the 
 momentous one that was to follow, the Squadrone, 
 
 ^ Lockhart, Memoirs, p. 115. 
 
 ^ The designation had been applied at an earlier date, but its use 
 now becomes more common in the documents of the time. 
 
96 Succession or Union ? 
 
 which now could reckon sixteen ^ votes and counted 
 two other nobles among its leaders — the Marquis of 
 Tweeddale, the late Commissioner, and the Marquis 
 of Montrose — frequently swayed the balance between 
 the regular opposition and the government. 
 
 But the man on whom the Ministry had most to 
 depend for the success of its measures was the Duke 
 of Queensberry, who had been under a cloud as the 
 result of the Plot associated with his name. As we 
 have seen, he had played a mischievous part in the 
 previous session by allying himself with the Jacobites 
 against the government. Since then, however, he 
 had changed his tactics and, in close association with 
 Argyle, was now working in the interests of his former 
 friends, the Revolution Whigs. He did not appear 
 at the beginning of the session, on account of the 
 state of his health, he himself gave out ; according to 
 Lockhart, for fear of the question of the Plot being 
 raised. His coming was anxiously awaited both by 
 Argyle and Seafield — and for good reasons, since 
 during his absence his following systematically voted 
 against the government. When he did appear, his 
 adroitness and his influence with his party decisively 
 turned the scale in favour of the Ministry and enabled 
 them to carry the all-important measure of the session.^ 
 It was for these services that in the following^ session 
 he was chosen Commissioner, as of all his countrymen 
 most likely to carry the Treaty of Union to a successful 
 conclusion. 
 
 ' Authorities differ as to the number ; possibly because it varied. 
 
 "^ ' The Duke of Queensberry was mighty diligent in this measure 
 and did effectually prevail with many of his friends.' — Seafield to 
 Godolphin, Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 28055, f. 265. 
 
Duke of Queensherry 97 
 
 Be it remembered that, when the session began, the 
 menace of the AHen Act was hanging over the country. 
 The House met at the close of June, and on the 25th 
 of the following December the act would come into 
 operation. From that ■ date England would treat 
 Scotsmen as aliens, and the most lucrative Scotch 
 commodities would be prohibited from passing the 
 Border. There can be no doubt that the disastrous 
 consequences that would follow the act were a present 
 consideration in the minds of the members of all 
 parties, yet the opposition showed itself as little con- 
 ciliatory to England as in the previous two sessions. 
 ' In short,' wrote Godolphin to Seafield, ' it looks to me 
 as if that nation desired to bring things to extremity, 
 in which I am not sure they are very well advised.' ^ 
 It would be unjust, however, to charge the whole body 
 of the opposition with mere blind prejudice or irre- 
 sponsible hostility to England. There were issues at 
 stake which involved both principles and convictions 
 regarding which there was room for the most diverse 
 opinions. We have seen the general ground on which 
 the successive Ministries had been so persistently 
 opposed — the fixed suspicion that they were unduly 
 influenced by English Ministers in English interests ; 
 and that there were good reasons for the suspicion the 
 documents of the time leave us in no doubt. On the 
 two royal measures that were to be laid before the 
 House — that for settling the succession and that for 
 nominating Commissioners to treat of Union — the 
 shrewdest observers might well disagree regarding 
 their possible results for the country. For the Presby- 
 terian Whigs the settlement of the succession on the 
 ' Hist. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report^ App , Part III, p. 207. 
 
gS Succession or Union ? 
 
 House of Hanover would be the seal and assurance 
 that Protestantism would be permanently safeguarded. 
 Jacobites, like Lockhart, on the other hand, regarded 
 such a settlement as the death-knell of their hopes, 
 while others, like Fletcher, saw in it no security for 
 better treatment from England than in the past. So 
 also with regard to a Treaty of Union. Men like 
 Argyle and Seafield and Queensberry were convinced 
 that only by means of a Treaty could the conjmon 
 interests of the two kingdoms be satisfactorily adjusted ; 
 while others, like Hamilton and Atholl, were equally 
 convinced that, in view of the relative resources of 
 the negotiating parties, a Treaty would involve the 
 surrender of independent national existence. 
 
 The session had not well begun before the Ministers 
 found that the measure to which the royal letter had 
 given precedence — the settling of the succession — 
 had as little chance of passing as in the previous year. 
 The other string to their bow was the measure for 
 appointing Commissioners of Union, and to the carry- 
 ing of this measure all their energies were given during 
 the remainder of the session. It was an 'uphill fight 
 from the beginning, as the opposition made play with 
 every means of obstruction at their disposal. The 
 person who had the distinction of introducing the bill 
 was John, Earl of Mar, whose subsequent career as 
 the equivocal hero of the Rising of the 'Fifteen was to 
 be a singular commentary on his present action. The 
 bill was introduced on July 20, but it was not till the last 
 week of August that it came up for serious consideration. 
 The line taken by the opposition was that it would be 
 ignominious to offer to treat with a nation which had 
 outraged Scottish feeling by the Alien Act. If an 
 
Commissioners for Union Act 99 
 
 offer to treat were made, it should be on the one con- 
 dition that that act should first be rescinded by the 
 Parliament of England. To have a clause to that 
 effect inserted in the bill, therefore, was the opposition's 
 strenuous endeavour. The insertion of such a clause, 
 they anticipated, would effectually ruin the prospects 
 of a treaty, as the English Parliament would naturally 
 resent a demand, the granting of which would be an 
 offence to the English people. It was the adroit 
 Oueensberry who rescued the Ministers from their 
 difficulty. He proposed and carried a resolution to 
 the effect that, instead of adding the conditional clause 
 to the bill, the House should direct a special Address 
 to the queen in which she should be told of its 
 resentment against the high-handed action of her 
 English Parliament. 
 
 An all-important question still remained to be settled. 
 Who was to appoint the Commissioners whose business 
 it would be to negotiate a Treaty ? In his private 
 instructions Argyle had received stringent orders to 
 secure their nomination by the queen. There was 
 a final and bitter contest on a point on which, in truth, 
 depended the prospect of successful negotiation. Com- 
 missioners appointed by the queen, it was contended, 
 would be persons certain to be unduly under English 
 influence. The Government found an unexpected 
 ally. At a late hour, after a prolonged sitting of the 
 House, the Duke of Hamilton rose, addressed the 
 Chancellor, and moved that the nomination of the 
 Commissioners should be left to the queen. It was 
 the most dramatic incident of the session. As Lock- 
 hart describes the scene, the Jacobites were thunder- 
 struck by the duke's action ; and ' about twelve or 
 
loo Succession or Union? 
 
 fifteen of them ran out of the House in rage and 
 despair'. By this ill-advised action, he adds, the 
 Government found its opportunity, and Hamilton's 
 motion was carried by a majority of eight.^ 
 
 ' From this day ', is Lockhart's comment, ' we date 
 the commencement of Scotland's ruin,' — words which 
 in his language meant that union was now inevitable. 
 But this was an opinion based on later events, and 
 was so far from being general at the time when the 
 act for union was passed, that he was nearer the truth 
 when he says elsewhere that neither at that time nor 
 much later was there a man in Britain who expected 
 it.^ In point of fact, many members of the House 
 who voted for the act had no sincere desire for union. 
 In the intention of some it was a tactical stroke which 
 further postponed the passing of an Act of Succession. 
 Others supported it because it seemed ' a remote thing ', 
 which in the end must prove abortive. As events were 
 to prove, hostility to union was not confined to the 
 Estates : it was shared by the great majority of the 
 Scottish people. Nor in England did the prospect of 
 union appear more promising ; in the opinion of both 
 nations, is the remark of Bishop Burnet, union was 
 ' a chimaera of the English Ministry ',^ and he expressed 
 the conviction of some of the shrewdest of his con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 ^ Lockhart, Memoirs, i, pp. 132-3 : Hume of Crossrig says that the 
 majority was ' about 40 '. — Op. elf., p. 171 : In a letter to Godolphin 
 Seafield suggests an explanation of Hamilton's action : he was 
 desirous of a place in the goys.rirm.ent.— Seafield Letters, f. 196. 
 
 '' Lockhart, op. clt., i. 133, 140. 
 
 ^ Burnet, History of his Own lime, Oxford, 1823, v. 221. 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 THE TREATY OF UNION 
 
 I 
 
 The act appointing Scots Commissioners to treat of 
 union received the royal sanction on September 28th, 
 1 705. Both nations now saw that they were face to 
 face with a crisis in their destinies. In Scotland it 
 was the general conviction that, if the negotiations 
 miscarried, the result must be civil war. In words 
 already quoted, the Earl of Roxburgh expressed this 
 conviction : ' I am throughly convinc'd that, if we do 
 not go into the Succession or an Union very soon, 
 conquest will certainly be upon the first peace.' From 
 the close of the parliamentary session of 1705, there- 
 fore, the all-absorbing concern of Scottish statesmen 
 and the Scottish nation was the probable success or 
 failure of the impending negotiations. 
 
 There was a possibility, indeed, that negotiations 
 might never take place. In their Address to the Queen, 
 the Estates had given her to understand that, unless 
 the Alien Act were previously repealed, the Scottish 
 Commissioners would engage in no negotiation for 
 a treaty. It was the hope of the majority who insisted 
 on this condition that the English Parliament would 
 refuse to rescind its act, and thus foreclose all 
 negotiations. But it seemed that events were working 
 in favour of a mutual understanding between the two 
 
I02 The Treaty of Union 
 
 peoples. By an auspicious coincidence, only about 
 a month after the Scottish Estates rose, a new English 
 Parliament met (October 25). It was a predominantly 
 Whig Parliament, and union was essentially a Whig 
 policy, since only by union could the Revolution 
 Settlement be permanently safeguarded. From the 
 beginning, therefore, the attitude of both Houses to 
 Scottish affairs was eminently conciliatory. The queen 
 in her speech earnestly recommended union in the best 
 interests of both kingdoms ; and Lords and Commons, 
 Whigs and Tories consenting, unanimously agreed to 
 repeal the objectionable act — the clause excluding 
 Scots commodities from England as well as the Alien 
 clause. This was of good omen for the spirit in which 
 negotiations would be undertaken, and as such it was 
 regarded by the Scottish Ministry. ' The English 
 frankness in this affair,' wrote the Earl of Mar, now 
 one of the Secretaries of State, ' by doing more than 
 we ourselves proposed, I think should make people in 
 Scotland in good humour.'^ Still more emphatic in 
 his appreciation of what the English concession im- 
 ported was another Scottish statesman of weightier 
 metal than Mar, the Earl of Stair. ' I am well con- 
 vinced ', Stair wrote, ' the English have done very 
 handsomely and obligingly in repealing all the clauses 
 of their act which were either injurious or grievous to 
 us ; and, though there were no more success to be 
 hoped for from the same treaty, yet that same was 
 well worth all the struggle we had to obtain it.' ^ 
 
 ' Carstares State Papers, p. 739. 
 
 - J. M. Graham, Stair Annals (1875), '• -'° 
 
Alien Act repealed 103 
 
 II 
 
 The course now cleared for negotiations, Scottish 
 statesmen of all shades of opinion had to face the 
 prospect of a treaty, whether they liked it or not. 
 There are two streams of correspondence that reveal 
 the respective attitudes of the leaders of the different 
 parties. We have the correspondence of those not in 
 the government, notably that of the Squadrone Volante ; 
 and that of the government officials, specially of 
 Seafield and Mar — the one Lord Chancellor, the other, 
 as has been said, one of the two Secretaries of State. 
 
 The inter-communications of the leaders of the 
 Squadrone are contained in the Correspondence of 
 George Baillie of Jerviswoode. Baillie has already been 
 named as a prominent member of his party, but, in 
 view of the part he was to play, he calls for more 
 special mention. According to Lockhart, he was ' by 
 far the most significant man of all his party, to whom 
 he was a kind of dictator ', and the deference paid to 
 him by his various correspondents bears out Lock- 
 hart's statement. He had identified himself with the 
 Revolution from the first, and was in favour of the 
 Hanoverian succession, the settlement of which he 
 considered preferable to union. When union came 
 to hold the field, however, he gave it his hesitating 
 support as the only means of averting civil war. 
 Though 'of a profound sohd judgment', he did not 
 possess the oratorical gifts and graces of the other 
 Squadrone leader, the Earl of Roxburgh, who was, 
 therefore, more conspicuous in the public eye. 
 
 The correspondence of the leaders of the Squadrone 
 
I04 The Treaty of Union 
 
 — Baillie, Roxburgh, and Johnstone — is not pleasant 
 reading. It is the revelation of the machinations of 
 a party bent on maintaining its separate existence and 
 taking advantage of every turn in the development of 
 events. On the whole, they were disposed to favour 
 union, though all their followers were not similarly 
 minded. ' If they design to settle this countrey upon 
 a good foot, it's well,' Baillie writes, 'we must be 
 partakers of the glorie and advantage, seeing they 
 cannot succeed without us '. ' After all,' he writes on 
 another occasion, ' considering the temper of this people, 
 how unfit to govern themselves ... I must be con- 
 vinced that union is our onlie game.' Roxburgh was 
 equally clear in the same conviction : ' the more I think 
 of union ', he says, ' the more I like it, seeing no 
 security anywhere else ', but, he significantly adds, he 
 will take care to keep his mind to himself.^ The 
 explanation of Roxburgh's reticence appears in a letter 
 of Baillie. ' To oppose good things, or to set up our 
 enemies, are equally hard. One of them will be our 
 case : but what remedie ? ' The Squadrone, it will be 
 seen, was playing a waiting game, and they played it 
 so well that till the opening of the session of the 
 Parliament that was to decide the fate of the treaty, 
 no one knew on what side their vote would be cast, 
 though the general impression was that it would not 
 be cast for union.^ As in the end was proved, they did 
 give their support to the treaty, and they claimed that 
 only by their support could it have been passed, seeing 
 they held the balance of the House in their hands.* 
 
 ■ Baillie, Correspondence^ "p^, 134, 141, 145. 
 " Lockhait, Memoirs, i. 159. 
 " But see below, p. 122. 
 
The Squadrone 105 
 
 With their own convictions, indeed, they could not 
 have acted otherwise, if Roxburgh spoke the mind of 
 his party when he said that, if the Union failed, the 
 Pretender must come in.^ 
 
 We turn to the correspondence of the government 
 officials during the same period and find them pre- 
 occupied with two main concerns. The one was to 
 gain supporters for the treaty ; the other to ensure 
 such a body of Commissioners as would give it the 
 best chance of success. The two men whose influence 
 they were most anxious to secure were the Marquis of 
 Annandale and the Duke of Argyle. We have heard 
 of Argyle's quarrel with Annandale, whose dismissal 
 from the Secretaryship as an impossible colleague he 
 persistently demanded. He was actually dismissed, 
 but the government felt that they could not afford to 
 lose him, and he was offered the post of Lord Privy 
 Seal which he had previously held. Though the queen 
 herself made a special appeal to him, however, Annan- 
 dale refused the offer, and even made overtures to the 
 Squadrone, which were coldly received. To the end 
 he was an obdurate enemy of the Treaty of Union in 
 all its stages, yet Lockhart's charge that his opposition 
 was due to his removal from office is probably unjust. 
 From his correspondence it appears that before his 
 dismissal he had the fixed conviction that the settle- 
 ment of the succession was a preferable measure to 
 a treaty.^ 
 
 Argyle, the Ministers knew, was indispensable to the 
 success of the treaty, yet at one moment it seemed as 
 if they were to lose him. As Commissioner during 
 
 ' Baillie, Correspondence, p. 138. 
 ' See Appendix III. 
 
io6 The Treaty of Union 
 
 the late session, indeed, he had used all his influence 
 to carry the act for the appointment of Commissioners 
 for union. In the spring of 1706, however, he had 
 gone to the Low Countries to win military laurels 
 under Marlborough, and it was while he was in this 
 service that the difficulty with him arose. Argyle 
 always had a due sense of his own importance, and 
 was not disposed to give his services for naught. 
 While Commissioner, he had let it be known that he 
 must have an English peerage. Now he intimated 
 that he must have the commission of a major-general, 
 but Marlborough, who had no love for him, was 
 reluctant. It was while he was nursing his chagrin 
 that he received a letter from Godolphin urging him 
 to return and give his support to the Union. This is 
 how he comments to Mar on Godolphin's communica- 
 tion, and the passage is so characteristic that it deserves 
 to be quoted. ' My Lord, it is surprising to me that 
 my Lord Treasurer [Godolphin] , who is a man of sense, 
 should think of sending me up and down like a foot- 
 man from one country to another without ever offering 
 me any reward. There is indeed a certain service due 
 from every subject to his prince, and that I shall pay 
 the Queen as faithfully as anybody can do ; but if her 
 Ministers think it for her service to employ me any 
 further, I do think the proposal should be attended 
 with the offer of a reward. . . . My Lord, when I have 
 justice done me here and am told what to expect for 
 going to Scotland, I shall be ready to obey my Lord 
 Treasurer's commands.' ^ Marlborough, who was as 
 convinced as Godolphin of the necessity of union, saw 
 
 ' Papers of the Earl of Mar and Ke//it\ Hist. MSS. Com. (1904), 
 p. 270. 
 
Choice of Commissioners 107 
 
 fit to strike the bargain ; Argyle received his com- 
 mission as major-general, and returned to Scotland in 
 time to give his support to the articles of the treaty 
 when under consideration of the Estates. As Mar 
 afterwards avouched that the passing of the treaty was 
 due to Argyle above all others, the commission was 
 well bestowed.^ 
 
 The other concern of the Scottish Ministers was the 
 choice of the Commissioners to be entrusted with the 
 negotiation of the treaty. On their choice must 
 absolutely depend any prospects of its success. There 
 were two opinions regarding the principles on which 
 they should be selected. Some, like the aged Earl of 
 Marchmont, held that the main body of them should 
 be ' sound and well inclined ' to union, but that those 
 opposed to union should be represented by their most 
 influential leaders, who would thus have the opportunity 
 of raising objections to the Treaty before it reached 
 the Estates.^ Others were of opinion that the only 
 method of ensuring success was to select the Com- 
 missioners exclusively from known supporters of the 
 government.^ The ultimate decision lay with one 
 man — the Duke of Queensberry. By his services in 
 the late session Queensberry had made himself the 
 most important person in the country. It was mainly 
 owing to his adroitness and his personal influence that 
 the act for appointing a Commission had been carried 
 in the teeth of all opposition, and he was already 
 marked as the one man who was most likely to ensure 
 the success of the Treaty. In coming to his decision 
 
 ' Mar contradicts himself on this point. 
 ^ Marchmont Papers, iii, pp. 288, 293, 299. 
 ' Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 242. 
 
io8 The Treaty of Union 
 
 he had the counsel of one who bears a sinister name 
 in the memories of his countrymen — John, first Earl 
 of Stair, the prime agent in the proceedings that 
 resulted in the Massacre of Glencoe. Stair had taken 
 a prominent part in Parliamentary debate since the 
 beginning of the reign, but it was in the final session 
 and in connexion with the Union that he was to give 
 full display of his remarkable powers. According to 
 De Foe, he was ' the man of greatest counsel in the 
 kingdom ' ; according to Lockhart, ' there was none in 
 the Parliament capable to take up the cudgels with 
 him '. Stair was himself convinced of the necessity of 
 an incorporating union, but he deprecated overhaste in 
 pressing it. The wiser policy, he thought, was to 
 settle matters of trade first, then the succession, and 
 union would follow in due course.^ 
 
 In concert with Stair and other government leaders, 
 Queensberry, in the beginning of December, drew up 
 a memorial in which were set forth the principles on 
 which the Commissioners were to be chosen. This 
 memorial, together with a suggested list, was forwarded 
 to Mar, who was instructed to submit it to the queen.^ 
 How far this original list was modified we do not know, 
 as it was after consultations between Queensberry and 
 Godolphin that the nominations were finally made on 
 February 27, 1706.^ One fact reveals the principles 
 on which the nominations were made : of the thirty- 
 one Commissioners only three voted against the Treaty 
 of Union when it came before the Estates. All the 
 
 ' Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 243. 
 
 ' lb., p. 240. Argyle is not mentioned as being present. 
 ' Queensberry appears to have insisted, under the threat of 
 resignation, that the list should not be much altered. 
 
Commissioners appointed 109 
 
 Ministers, except one, were nominees, and the three 
 Estates — the nobles, smaller barons, and burghers — 
 were all represented. The leaders of the Squadrone, 
 who had been in doubt if they should accept nomina- 
 tion if it were offered, were left out. Argyle, who was 
 offended at the omission of Hamilton, to whom he had 
 come under a pledge, declined to act. On the other 
 hand, the Jacobite Lockhart accepted nomination, 
 salving his political conscience by the consideration 
 that he would have the opportunity of seeing the 
 enemy's hands. About a fortnight later (April 10) the 
 English Commission was nominated^ — a less delicate 
 matter. It consisted mainly of Whig Lords, the two 
 Archbishops, and legal officials. The two most influen- 
 tial men on their respective sides were the Lord Chan- 
 cellor Seafield and Lord Somers, the latter of whom 
 was the inspiring and guiding spirit throughout the 
 negotiations. 
 
 The two Commissions met on April 16, 1706, in 
 the Cockpit at Whitehall. Discreetly chosen as they 
 had been, there was a fair probability that their negotia- 
 tions would be attended with success. Moreover, the 
 points that would come up for discussion were known 
 beforehand, and had frequently been the subject of 
 consideration. Yet every precaution was taken to 
 preclude the possibility of friction from the collision of 
 tempers. Four preliminary articles determined the 
 manner in which business was to be conducted : every 
 proposal coming from either Commission and every 
 conclusion adopted was to be reduced to writing ; no 
 finding was to be held obligatory till all the articles 
 assumed their final form ; a Committee from each was 
 to revise the minutes, subject to the approval of both 
 
no The Treaty of Union 
 
 Commissions ; and, finally, all the proceedings were to 
 be kept secret during the time of the negotiations.^ 
 An unwritten rule, the prudence of which we can 
 understand, is another illustration of the serious spirit 
 in which the two Commissions regarded their task : 
 throughout the whole of their proceedings there was 
 no interchange of hospitality. ' None of the English 
 during the Treaty had one of the Scots so much as to 
 dine or drink a glass of wine with him.'^ 
 
 At the second meeting of the Commissions the 
 foundations of a Treaty of Union were solidly laid. 
 At that meeting Cowper, the Lord Keeper, on behalf 
 of the English Commissioners, submitted these three 
 proposals : that the two kingdoms should be united 
 under the name of Great Britain ; that the United 
 Kingdom should be represented by one Parliament ; 
 and that the succession to the crown should devolve 
 on the House of Hanover in accordance with the 
 English Act of Settlement. The Scots Commissioners 
 were fully prepared for these proposals. More than 
 a month before the negotiations began, Mar had written 
 as follows : ' they [the English] tell us plainly they 
 will give us no terms that are considerable for going 
 into their succession, if any, without going into an 
 entire union ; and, if we insist upon that, they will 
 never meet with us ; for many think all the notions 
 about federal unions and forms a mere jest and 
 chimaera. I write this freely to you, though it is not 
 fit this should be known in Scotland for fear of dis- 
 couraging people and making them despair of the 
 treaty. You see that what we are to treat of is not 
 
 ' Alls of Pari, of Scot., xi, App. p. 165. 
 "^ Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 271. 
 
Meeting of Commisstoners 
 
 I II 
 
 in our choice, and that we see the inconveniences of 
 treating on incorporating union only.' ^ This letter of 
 Mar throws an interesting Hght on the situation. 
 England was bent on an incorporating union, while 
 Scotland (and we know the fact from other testimony 
 besides that of Mar) was as strongly in favour of 
 federation. We know also that, like Mar, the majority 
 of the Scots Commissioners would have preferred a 
 federal union, not on the ground of its being the best 
 arrangement, but because it was more likely to receive 
 the sanction of the Estates. Notable, also, is the fact 
 that, before the negotiations began, an incorporating 
 union was understood by the Scots to be an imperative 
 condition of a treaty. Seafield, indeed, submitted three 
 counter-proposals to those of Cowper, which substituted 
 federation ^ for incorporation, but this was a mere form, 
 and was probably intended to suggest that he and his 
 fellow-Commissioners had agreed to incorporation only 
 under compulsion. As it was, the head and front of 
 their offending in the eyes of the mass of their country- 
 men was their consenting to incorporation, which was 
 stigmatized as a betrayal of their country. It was this 
 reproach that the opponents of union employed most 
 successfully in inflaming the passions of the mob, and 
 treaters traitors became a byword of the day. 
 
 As the controversial points that arose in the sub- 
 sequent negotiations will afterwards come up for 
 consideration, it is unnecessary to note them at this 
 point. Safeguarded for Scotland by the Treaty, as it 
 came from the hands of the Commissioners, were her 
 
 ' Carstares State Papers, pp. 743-4. 
 
 2 The model of a federal union in the minds of those who advo- 
 cated it was that of the Low Countries. 
 
1 1 2 The Treaty of Union 
 
 law and Courts of Law, the feudal jurisdictions of the 
 barons, and the privileges of the royal burghs. Reli- 
 gion was excluded from the scope of the Commission, 
 but was subsequently to receive special consideration 
 when the articles of the treaty came to be discussed 
 in the Scottish Parliament. After sitting for nine 
 weeks the Commission rose on the 23rd of July, and 
 the conclusion of its labours was signalized by for- 
 malities befitting the importance of the occasion. The 
 garrulous Mar has described them for us. ' You cannot 
 imagine', he wrote to his brother, 'how agreeable it 
 was to everybody here our concluding the treaty and 
 delivering of it to the Queen, which was done very 
 solemnly. She summoned us to meet at the Council 
 Chamber at St. James. We walked through the rooms 
 from that to the room Her Majesty was in to receive 
 us, where were all the ladies and the Court and the 
 foreign ambassadors. One of us and one of the 
 English walked together, and so on ; we on the left 
 hand as we walked, but we were on the Queen's right 
 hand. The Keeper and our Chancellor made a speech 
 when they delivered the books . . . .' ^ With reference 
 to the speeches of Seafield and Cowper, another Scots 
 Commissioner who was present on the occasion has some 
 remarks which a Scot may be pardoned for quoting. 
 Lord Seafield's speech, he says, ' excelled the other so 
 far that it was spoken without hesitation, whereas that 
 of the Lord Keeper was miserably mangled in the 
 delivery, and at last he was forced to draw it out of 
 his pocket and read it. However, as he was a very 
 eloquent man and a great lawyer, he was so conscious 
 of his own merit that he never changed colour at his 
 
 ' Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 271. 
 
Close of the Commission 1 1 3 
 
 accident, but first stopped a little, and then read his 
 paper with great composure of mind, while all the 
 audience was in the utmost pain for him '} 
 
 III 
 
 The terms of a Treaty of Union being now settled, 
 it remained to be seen how they would be received by 
 the Parliaments of the two kingdoms. It was arranged 
 that they should be first submitted to the Parliament 
 of Scotland, as they were likely to meet with most 
 opposition in that body. It was with no assured con- 
 fidence that the Scottish Ministers looked forward to 
 the result of its deliberations. In the three previous 
 sessions the government could not command a majority 
 of the House, and it would only be by adroit manage- 
 ment of the conflicting elements in the opposition that 
 success could be secured. Moreover, in view of the 
 momentous question that was to be settled, there 
 would be a factor at work which had to be seriously 
 reckoned with. In the case of Captain Green we have 
 seen how public opinion had concussed the Ministry of 
 the day into foolish and criminal action. Since the 
 independent existence of the kingdom was now at 
 stake, would not public opinion assert itself with such 
 vehemence as to paralyse the deliberations of the 
 Estates ? Before the session beg-an, the government 
 fully understood that the great majority of those who 
 had control of public opinion were opposed to an in- 
 corporating union. By far the most influential persons 
 in directing the opinion of the country at large were 
 
 ' Afemoirs of t/ie Life of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Scot. Hist. 
 Soc. (1892), pp. 62-3. 
 
1 1 4 The Treaty of Union 
 
 the national clergy, who, as a body, dreaded an incor- 
 porating union as inevitably involving the ruin of the 
 Presbyterian settlement. In the treatment of dissent 
 in England they saw what they might expect from 
 a single Parliament sitting in London, the great 
 majority of whose members were Episcopalians, who 
 would naturally desire to see their own form of church- 
 government established in Scotland. So soon as the 
 purport of the treaty was known, therefore, the pulpits 
 throughout the country rang with denunciations of its 
 authors, and engagements were entered into by the 
 ministers, elders, deacons, and parishioners to resist it 
 to the utmost of their power.^ Fortunately, as we 
 shall see, there were wiser heads among the national 
 clergy who were able to make such terms with the 
 government as to ensure the permanent safety of their 
 Church. 
 
 There were other guides of public opinion who for 
 different reasons were equally opposed to union. The 
 Episcopalian clergy, who had numerous congregations 
 in certain parts of the country, dreaded it for a reason 
 precisely opposite to that for which the Presbyterians 
 dreaded it : their fear was that it would permanently 
 establish Presbyterianism as the national form of 
 church-government. More formidable than the op- 
 position of the Episcopalians was that of another 
 religious body of which something has already been 
 said.^ These were the Cameronians, who had dis- 
 sociated themselves from the main body of the 
 Presbyterians for their sinful compliance with the 
 government of Charles II. Since the Revolution they 
 
 ' Portland MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., vol. viii, p. 247. 
 ^ See above, p. 10. 
 
Public feeling regarding the Treaty 115 
 
 had been without ministers, but there were leaders 
 among them who could direct their councils. In the 
 eyes of the Cameronians, union with England was an 
 impious compact with a nation blind to the first prin- 
 ciples of the Christian religion. So irreconcilable was 
 their attitude that the government had grounds to 
 fear that they would join hands with the Jacobites in 
 resisting by open force the passing of the treaty. 
 Finally, there were influential persons in all parts of 
 the country who for various reasons were hostile to 
 union, and who systematically set themselves to inflame 
 national sentiment with the deliberate purpose of pro- 
 voking civil war. Such, for example, was the Duchess 
 of Hamilton, who industriously used all her influence 
 to rouse her neighbourhood to open rebellion. What 
 came of the action of all these hostile forces we shall 
 presently see. With what uncertainty the government 
 regarded the prospect of the treaty appears from these 
 words of Mar addressed to Godolphin on the eve of 
 the meeting of the Estates. ' Upon the whole affair,' 
 Mar wrote, ' until the Parliament once meet and so the 
 members be all come here, it is hard to make such 
 a conjecture that your Lordship can rely on.' ^ 
 
 IV 
 
 The last Scottish Parliament met in its last session 
 on October 3rd, 1706. For the third time since the 
 beginning of the reign the Duke of Queensberry 
 represented the queen, as by the unanimous opinion 
 of those who favoured a Treaty of Union he was the 
 one man who had any chance of piloting it successfully 
 ^ Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 278. 
 
1 1 6 The Treaty of Union 
 
 in the face of the opposition it was likely to meet. 
 As in the case of previous Royal Commissioners, he 
 received certain private instructions beyond which he 
 was not to go. His prime business was to do his 
 utmost to carry the twenty-five Articles of the treaty 
 with as little alteration as possible ; if any alterations 
 were found necessary, they were to be submitted to the 
 queen. If he found that the majority of the House were 
 opposed to an incorporating union, the Parliament 
 was to be adjourned. Proposals for a federal union, 
 or for settling the succession with limitations, were to 
 be rejected. The settlement of the Church was to be 
 left to the House on the condition that nothing in the 
 settlement should prevent the Parliament of Great 
 Britain from granting such toleration to Dissenters in 
 Scotland as was granted to Dissenters in England.' 
 From these instructions it will appear to what extent 
 Scotland managed her own affairs previous to the 
 Union. In one pointed sentence Johnstone put her 
 position before Marlborough, who entirely agreed with 
 him. ' As for the giving up the legislative,' he said, ' he 
 (Marlborough) knew we had none to give up, for the 
 true state of the matter was, whether Scotland should 
 continue subject to an English Ministry without [the 
 privilege] of trade or to be subject to an English 
 Parliament with [the privilege] of trade.' ^ 
 
 The leading spokesmen in the new session were the 
 same as in the preceding ones. The champions of the 
 Ministry were the Lord Chancellor Seafield and the 
 Earl of Stair; Hamilton, Atholl, and Annandale headed 
 
 ' Warrant Books of Scotland, Record Office, London, vol. xxii, 
 nos. 32, 33, 36. 
 
 "^ Baillie, Correspondence, pp. 176-7. 
 
opening of the Session 1 1 7 
 
 the Opposition ; and the Earls of Marchmont and 
 Roxburgh led the Squadrone. Lockhart and Fletcher, 
 both from their different points of view in desperation 
 at the prospect of their country's ruin, were as indefatig- 
 able as ever in their endeavours to thwart the govern- 
 ment. Two other members of the House, who have 
 not hitherto been noticed, also call for mention. The 
 name of one of them. Lord Belhaven, is writ large in 
 the history of the dying months of the Scottish Parlia- 
 ment. He is described as a ' rough, fat, black, noisy 
 man, more like a butcher than a lord ',* but, like almost 
 every other Scots noble of the time, he was widely 
 read and accomplished. There was no bitterer opponent 
 of union than Belhaven,^ and his melodramatic rhetoric, 
 which occasionally moved the laughter of the House, 
 was well calculated to inflame national sentiment out 
 of doors. A passage in one of his published speeches 
 (for he was careful to publish them) is familiar to the 
 reader of Scottish history. ' I think I see our ancient 
 mother Caledonia, like Caesar, sitting in the midst of 
 our senate, ruefully looking round about her, covering 
 herself with her royal garment, and breathing out her 
 last with an Et hi, -mi filil And the reply of the Earl 
 of Marchmont is equally well known : ' Behold he 
 dreamed, but lo ! when he awoke, he found it was 
 a dream.' Very different in his style of oratory was 
 Seton of Pitmedden, one of the ablest supporters of 
 
 ^ Macky, Memoirs, p. 236. 
 
 ^ Belhaven's opposition to the Union may not uncharitably be 
 explained by his being turned out of office. In a letter addressed to 
 Seafield (February 24, 1705) we find him asking for 'a new mark of 
 her [Majesty's] favour ', which was not granted. — Seafield Corre- 
 spondence (Scot. Hist. Soc), p. 385. 
 
ii8 The Treaty of Union 
 
 union. Measured, compact, and logical, his contribu- 
 tions to debate were at once full of matter and inspired 
 by a grave sense of the national issues at stake.^ 
 Whether, indeed, we look to one side or the other in 
 the great controversy, we cannot but be struck by the 
 fact that there has seldom met in any national crisis 
 a body of men more capable, by talent, by accomplish- 
 ment, by experience, of grasping the import of the 
 momentous question they had to determine. 
 
 A dominating fact of the situation was that through- 
 out the greater part of the session the Ministers were 
 in an enemy's camp. Before the session began the 
 country had been in a state of comparative indifference,^ 
 and, if the mass of the people had been left to them- 
 selves, in this state they would probably have remained. 
 The Parliament had hardly met, however, before there 
 were ominous signs of a change in the public mind. 
 The causes of this change have already been indicated. 
 In many parts of the country, but especially in the 
 western shires, the ministers raised the cry of the 
 Church in danger, and directly incited their parishioners 
 to armed rising in its defence. In town and country 
 agents of the Opposition appealed to national sentiment 
 and to material interests. Union, they declaimed, 
 meant the loss of national independence and enslave- 
 ment to England, heavier taxes, and trade at the 
 mercy of English merchants who would only go shares 
 as far as pleased themselves. One result of these 
 propaganda was a stream of addresses to the Parlia- 
 ment from all parts of the country — and all to one 
 purport — the iniquity of an incorporating union. 
 
 ' Seton, like some other members of the House, read his speeches. 
 " Defoe notes this fact. 
 
opposition to the Treaty 119 
 
 The Ministers made light of the addresses. They 
 were only fit to make kites of, Argyle said. But the 
 general opposition to the Union took a more serious 
 form. In Edinburgh, always noted for the insubordina- 
 tion of its populace, it was at the risk of their lives 
 that the Ministers went to and fro between Holyrood 
 and the Parliament House, and, to the concern of the 
 queen, they were even threatened with assassination. 
 One serious riot made it necessary to quarter troops 
 in the town — an unprecedented occurrence in its history, 
 and it was under their guard that the Ministers made 
 their daily procession. ' I am not very timorous ', Mar 
 wrote on November 19, ' and yet I tell you that every 
 day here we are in hazard of our lives.' These mani- 
 festations of aversion to union were not confined to 
 Edinburgh. In various parts of the country there 
 were menacing symptoms that rebellion might break 
 out at any moment. In Glasgow, now a town with 
 a population of about 15,000, there was a riot on 
 a scale unprecedented in its history. It was occasioned 
 by the refusal of the magistrates to sign an address 
 against the Union, and by the inflammatory exhorta- 
 tions of the clergy. The mob made themselves 
 masters of the town, and a band of them, headed by 
 one Finlay, marched to Hamilton in the expectation of 
 being joined by other bodies ; but their courage gave 
 way on the news of the approach of the royal troops. 
 Of graver menace was a projected plan of action which, 
 if it had been carried out, would inevitably have resulted 
 in civil war. As was originally conceived, the High- 
 land followers of the Duke of Atholl were to join 
 a body of Cameronians, 7,000 strong, march on Edin- 
 burgh, ' raise the Parliament ', and cut short the pro- 
 
I20 The Treaty of Union 
 
 ceedings of the legislators. According to Lockhart, 
 the plan miscarried only because the heart of the 
 Duke of Hamilton, one of its promoters, failed him at 
 the last moment. What further disquieted the Ministers 
 was the fact, perfectly well known to them, that Jaco- 
 bite emissaries were busy at work in the interests of 
 the exiled House. ' In short,' wrote Johnstone to 
 Baillie, 'there are two parties, one at St. Germains, 
 and another at Edinburgh, that have a regular settled 
 correspondence ; ' ^ and in December it was rumoured 
 that the Pretender was actually in the Highlands and 
 attended by 200 officers.^ Moreover, in the event of 
 a rising, the royal forces in Scotland at the command 
 of the Ministry were wholly inadequate to deal with it. 
 Such troops as were at their disposal were necessary 
 for the defence of the capital, and on the loyalty of 
 these they could not securely depend. It was at their 
 earnest insistence, therefore, that, as an imperative 
 precaution, English forces were stationed near the 
 Border and in the north of Ireland, and that a con- 
 tingent from the army in the Low Countries should be 
 in readiness to embark for Scotland should its services 
 be required. 'God knows', was Hamilton's remark 
 on these precautions, ' God knows if that looks like an 
 agreeable union.' ^ It was with well-founded alarm, 
 therefore, that Baillie, a month after the session began, 
 wrote these words to Johnstone, and others expressed 
 themselves to the same purport. ' In short,' Baillie 
 wrote, ' I 'm afraid this nation will run into blood, 
 
 ' Baillie, Correspondence, p. 177. 
 '' lb., p. 174. 
 
 " Portland MSS.,Yi:\^1. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report, App. Ill, 
 p. 268. 
 
Menace of Civil War 121 
 
 whether the Union or Succession be settled.' ^ That 
 civil war did not break out, we are assured by more 
 than one authority, was due to one fortuitous circum- 
 stance : the severity of the weather and the condition 
 of the roads made locomotion practically impossible. 
 
 It was under these conditions that the Ministry had 
 to obtain the sanction of the House to the twenty-five 
 articles of the treaty. The aim of the Opposition 
 was evident from the first days of the session ; it was 
 by all the means at their command to force adjourn- 
 ment by persistent and systematic obstruction, an art 
 in which they had become adepts from long practice. 
 Curiously enough, the chief alternative to union which 
 they proposed was the settlement of the succession — 
 the measure they had so decisively rejected in the 
 session of 1 704. The objections urged against a Treaty 
 of Union were mainly these : it was contrary to the 
 Claim of Right — the settlement adopted by Scotland 
 at the Revolution; the existing Parliament had received 
 no mandate to deal with a measure which would over- 
 throw the constitution, and it was, therefore, a simple 
 necessity that the constituencies should be consulted 
 and a new House returned; finally, it was in the 
 highest degree imprudent to press a measure to which 
 the country had unmistakably declared itself averse. 
 
 As the result proved, a majority of the members 
 were in favour of the principle of union, but two 
 months of the session had gone before the Ministry 
 had full assurance of ultimate success. The mani- 
 festations of public hostility to the treaty alarmed 
 many members who were prepared to support the 
 government, and they were, therefore, disposed to 
 
 ' Baillie, Correspondence, p. i68. 
 less R 
 
122 The Treaty of Union 
 
 make alterations in certain of the articles by way of 
 concession to the popular clamour. But, as we have 
 seen, an express charge laid on Queensberry had been 
 that, if alterations were necessary, they should be such 
 as would not be unacceptable to the English Parlia- 
 ment. Fortunately the Ministers were assisted in 
 their efforts by the condition of the main ranks of 
 the Opposition. Its two rival leaders, the Dukes of 
 Hamilton and Atholl, were jealous of each other's in- 
 fluence and acted on no common councils. Regarding 
 the measure of support afforded by the Squadrone con- 
 temporary authorities differ. According to Marchmont, 
 who was one of their leaders, they numbered thirty- 
 four in all, and the government could not have carried 
 the treaty without them ^ ; according to the Earls of 
 Mar and Leven, both members of the government, 
 they counted only fifteen or sixteen, and their opposi- 
 tion would not have altered the result.^ On their own 
 principles the Squadrone were bound to support union, 
 but they supported it always with an eye to the 
 interests of their own party. The Squadrone, wrote 
 Baillie of Jerviswoode, their most influential leader, 
 ' has a hard game to act, and possibly the less they act 
 the better.' ^ 
 
 The progress of the treaty through the House may 
 be briefly narrated. The Articles were first read and 
 debated in succession, but without being put to the 
 vote. The real struggle began on the ist of November, 
 about a month after the session began. It was then 
 
 ' Marchmont Papers, iii. 328-30. 
 
 ■' J\far and Kcllie Papers, p. 371 ; Society Letters, etc. (ed. Duke 
 of Argyll), p. S3. 
 
 " Baillie, Correspondence, p. 161. 
 
Parties opposed to the Treaty 123 
 
 resolved that the successive articles should be voted 
 upon, though on the understanding that they should not 
 receive the sanction of the House till they had all been 
 approved. Three days later the first article, which 
 enacted the union of the two kingdoms, was passed by 
 a majority of thirty-three, and it was in the debate 
 upon this article that Belhaven drew his woful picture 
 of an enslaved Caledonia. On the 5th and i8th of 
 November, the second and third articles, the one 
 devolving the succession on the House of Hanover, 
 and the other enacting that there should be one Parlia- 
 ment for the two kingdoms, were passed by similai 
 majorities. Before the passing of these two articles, 
 however, there intervened an act which the Ministry 
 deemed indispensable to the ultimate success of the 
 treaty. Of all the opponents of union, as we have 
 seen, the Church was the most formidable. ' One 
 thing I must say for the Kirk,' Mar wrote to Godolphin, 
 ' that, if the Union fail, it is owing to them.' ^ The con- 
 tention of the national clergy was that the Presbyterian 
 settlement made after the Revolution would not be 
 safe under a British Parliament, the overwhelming 
 majority in which would" be Episcopalians. It was to 
 allay this fear that there was passed an Act of Security, 
 which declared that the Church as it now existed was 
 ' to continue without any alteration to the people of 
 this land in all succeeding generations '. 
 
 The saner of the clergy thus conciliated, the hopes 
 of the government rose, but the battle over most 
 of the remaining articles was long and arduous. Of 
 one day's debate (and there were many such) Mar 
 wrote: 'It grew at last so late and everybody faint 
 ' Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 315. 
 
124 The Treaty of Union 
 
 with hunger, for most of us had eaten none that day, 
 that a great many grew weary.' ^ By the opening of 
 the new year (1707) the Ministers began to congratulate 
 themselves that they were now 'in sight of land'. But 
 there was still a rock ahead from which the treaty was 
 narrowly to escape destruction. Of all the articles of 
 the treaty the twenty-second, which limited the number 
 of Scottish representatives in the United Parliament to 
 sixty-one, was the most obnoxious. On the initiation 
 of Hamilton a dramatic stroke was arranged in con- 
 nexion with this article. The arrangement was that, 
 as an alternative to the treaty, Hamilton was to move 
 the settlement of the succession on the House of 
 Hanover. As it was known that the Ministers would 
 refuse to consider the alternative, it was agreed that 
 Hamilton should read a protest on the part of the 
 Opposition, who would then in a body leave the House 
 ' not to return again '. The appointed day came, but 
 Hamilton absented himself, and he was found at home 
 suffering from toothache. At the urgent instance of 
 his friends he at length appeared, but to the dismay 
 of the Opposition he refused to table the protest. The 
 opportunity was lost, and the treaty was saved from 
 what might have proved a disastrous blow. Associated 
 with the passing of the same twenty-second article was 
 a tragic event. On the day on which it was carried 
 there had been a long and obstinate debate in which 
 the Earl of Stair played his usual prominent part on 
 behalf of the government. The strain, coming at the 
 close of the prolonged and anxious session, proved too 
 much for his strength, and he died in the course of the 
 
 ' Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 309. 
 
Passing of Act of Union 125 
 
 following night. He has a place among the con- 
 spicuous figures of the national history, but posterity 
 has adjudged that the pedestal on which he stands is 
 a ' bad eminence '. 
 
 Eight days after the death of Stair, on January i6th, 
 the Commissioner touched the act for Union with the 
 royal sceptre, and, as inviolably bound up with it, the 
 act for the security of the Church. There still remained 
 to be settled a few difficult matters which prolonged 
 the session till the 25th of March. By the fifteenth 
 article of the treaty, as it left the hands of the Com- 
 missioners, a sum known as the Equivalent was granted 
 to Scotland as a compensation for becoming a partner 
 in England's debts and for the various losses she had 
 sustained from English trading companies. By those 
 opposed to union, the Equivalent was regarded as 
 a base bribe to the nation. But, the treaty now passed, 
 it devolved on the House to allocate it to the best of 
 its wisdom. Two other points demanded settlement, 
 and, in the case of both, the personal interests of the 
 party leaders occasioned the most violent controversies 
 of the session. The first point raised the question — 
 how were the representative members of the first 
 United Parliament to be elected ? Finally, it was 
 resolved, in accordance with the example of the 
 English Parliament now engaged on the treaty, that 
 the representatives should be chosen from the existing 
 House. Still more violent passions were evoked on 
 the second point — the election of peers to sit in the 
 House of Lords. Out of 154 Scottish peers, who were 
 to be the favoured sixteen — the number fixed by 
 the treaty } In the case of the first sixteen, it was 
 decided that the Commissioner should nominate them. 
 
126 The Treaty of Union 
 
 but that in the future they should be elected by the 
 peers themselves. 
 
 The Ministry had accomplished their task, and few 
 Ministries have carried a great measure in the face of 
 such difficulties. But neither at the time nor for many 
 a day to come did their labours earn the gratitude of 
 the mass of their countrymen. On the contrary, they 
 were denounced as hirelings who had sold their country 
 for English pay. That the charge of venality should 
 be brought against them in an age when venality was 
 found in all high places was a matter of course, and 
 the Jacobite Lockhart specifically made the charge. 
 That pensions and offices were frequently given as 
 inducements to support the measures of the govern- 
 ment we have more than once had occasion to note.^ 
 It should also be noted, however, that there is equally 
 frequent mention of arrears of salaries to Ministers 
 long after they had demitted office. In truth, with 
 the correspondence of the time before us it is difficult 
 to escape the conclusion that the men who were chiefly 
 responsible for carrying the Treaty — Queensberry, 
 Seafield, Argyle, Mar, Roxburgh, Baillie, and the rest 
 — were sincerely convinced that union was the only 
 possible solution of the relations between the two 
 kingdoms, though its immediate results led certain of 
 them subsequently to believe that they had been mis- 
 taken. As a sober and deliberate judgement on their 
 proceedings from first to last, the words of Lord Somers, 
 himself above all others responsible for the Treaty 
 of Union, must be received as weighty testimony. On 
 the passing of the act by the Scottish Parliament the 
 Earl of Marchmont sent him a communication in which 
 ' See Appendix IV. 
 
Did bribery carry the Union? 127 
 
 he belauded the services of his own party, the Squad- 
 rone, and Somers replied as follows : ' I can never 
 enough commend the firmness and good temper which 
 the friends of the Union in Scotland have shown from 
 the first time that affair was brought before Parliament. 
 ... It is not possible there should be so great a mistake 
 in England as to think an affair of so difficult a nature, 
 and opposed so violently by various interests as the 
 Union was in Scotland, could have been brought to 
 a conclusion without a great concurrence of well- 
 disposed, wise, and dexterous persons, and, therefore, 
 it would be unjust to ascribe the merit of it to a few. 
 . . . When we consider the wonderful difficulties of 
 bringing such a Avork to pass, we cannot without 
 astonishment see it brought so far toward a conclusion, 
 and yet, if a man reflects on the many disadvantages 
 and dangers both kingdoms lay under while they 
 continued two, it cannot but seem strange they could 
 rest so long in a divided state.' ^ 
 
 A few words in conclusion regarding the fate of the 
 treaty in the English Parliament. Its history there 
 confirms what we know from other evidence — that the 
 Union was more acceptable to England than to Scot- 
 land. Neither in the House of Lords nor in the House 
 of Commons did the measure meet with serious opposi- 
 tion, though individual members of both Houses 
 prophesied that it would prove unworkable in practice 
 and result in bitterer estrangement between the two 
 nations. Only one addition of importance was made 
 to the treaty ; at the instance of the Spiritual Peers, 
 an act similar to that which guaranteed the security 
 
 1 Portland MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., Fourteenth Report, App., 
 Part III, pp. 158-9. 
 
128 The Treaty of Union 
 
 of the Church of Scotland was added for the safe- 
 guarding of the Church of England. Introduced in 
 the beginning of February, about a fortnight after it 
 had been ratified by the Scottish Estates, the treaty 
 was rapidly passed by large majorities in both Houses, 
 and on March 6 it received the royal assent. The 
 different spirit in which the two Parliaments had done 
 their work was to receive emphatic comment in the 
 years that immediately followed. 
 
LECTURE VI 
 
 THREATENED UNDOING OF THE UNION 
 
 On the ist of May, 1 707, the day when the Treaty of 
 Union came into force, a correspondent of the Earl of 
 Mar in Edinburgh wrote as follows : ' There is nothing 
 so much taken notice of here to-day as the solemnity in 
 the south part of Britain and the want of it here. ' ^ The 
 words are a significant commentary on the different 
 feelings with which the two nations respectively 
 regarded the Union. To England it brought a sense 
 of relief from a dread which had haunted her people 
 from the beginning of the reign. It was the general 
 opinion in England that the Scots were of necessity 
 Jacobite in their sympathies — an opinion to which the 
 unwillingness of the Scottish Parliament to declare 
 for the House of Hanover seemed to give emphatic 
 support. It was Scotland that had given the Stewarts 
 to England, and it was natural that she should be 
 bound to them by ties of pride and affection. It had 
 been an abiding fear of the English people and of 
 English statesmen, therefore, that some day or other 
 a Scottish army, backed by the power of France, would 
 cross the Border in the interest of the exiled House. 
 Twice before, in the reign of Charles I, the Scots had 
 intervened in English affairs with grave consequences, 
 
 ' Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, p. 389. 
 
 1688 S 
 
r 30 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 and they might play the same game again. By the 
 Treaty of Union, however, Scotland had given its 
 formal sanction to the Hanoverian succession, and 
 thus the menace of her future possible action seemed 
 to be effectually averted. Unmistakable indications 
 showed that England felt a sense of deliverance when 
 the Treaty was an accomplished fact. While the royal 
 assent was being given to it, the guns were fired from 
 the Tower ; and the proclamation enjoining a national 
 thanksgiving was joyfully observed by the nation. The 
 two Scotsmen who had been the principal agents in 
 effectuating the Treaty were received with royal 
 honours in their progress south to London. The 
 Commissioner Queensberry was f^ted in every town 
 through which he passed, and the nobility and gentry 
 flocked to pay him their respects. As he approached 
 London, ' the whole city turn'd out to meet him '} 
 The Chancellor Seafield was the object of similar 
 enthusiasm. When ten miles from London, he was 
 met by 500 horse and forty coaches, and from the 
 entrance of the city to his lodging he was followed 
 by huzzaing crowds,^ 
 
 Far different was the manner in which the con- 
 summation of the Treaty was received in Edinburgh 
 and in Scotland at large. In many parishes the ist of 
 May was observed as a day of fasting and humiliation. 
 Portents, also, seemed to signify that Scotland's day 
 was over. On the north shores of the Firth of Forth 
 thirty-one whales, from fifteen to twenty-six feet long, 
 were found dead, 'which was very much talkt of as 
 
 ' Sir John Clerk, Memoirs, p. 67. Clerk accompanied Queensberry 
 on his progress. 
 
 '^ Seafield Correspondence (Scot. Hist. Soc), pp. 431-2. 
 
National feeling regarding the Union 131 
 
 ominous ! ' ^ Also of sinister omen was the circum- 
 stance that the first tune pealed by the bells of the 
 church of St. Giles on the fateful morning was : ' Why- 
 should I be sad on my wedding-day ? ' ^ 
 
 It was with these contrasted visions of the future 
 that the two nations regarded the bond that now united 
 them. What the statesmen who were responsible for 
 the knitting of the bond professed to anticipate from 
 it, we already know. It was the hope of the English 
 statesmen who had worked for it that Scotland would 
 cease to be what she had been in the past years of the 
 reign — a permanent menace to England's security. A 
 sense of their common interests would gradually unite 
 the two peoples in common aims ; under the influence 
 of increasing prosperity Jacobitism would die a natural 
 death ; and Scotland would no longer be a * back-door ' 
 for England's enemies. On their part, the Scottish 
 statesmen who had advocated union looked for two 
 direct results from it : it would avert the possibility of 
 war between the two kingdoms, and place Scotland in 
 a position more favourable for the development of her 
 resources. So far as Scotland was concerned, all these 
 anticipations depended on three contingencies. Would 
 there be such a manifest increase in the trade and 
 commerce of the country as to convince the nation 
 that the Union had been in its best interests ? The 
 great majority of the ministers of the National Church 
 had been opposed to union, and they were the most 
 influential body of men in the country. Would they in 
 time become reconciled to the compact, or, irrecon- 
 
 ' Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie,'^. T,%f). A printed account 
 of these whales was sent to Mar. 
 ^ lb. 
 
132 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 cilable : would they use their influence to break it ? 
 Finally, what part would national sentiment play under 
 the new conditions ? The nation generally had shown 
 itself hostile to the surrender of its independence. 
 Would this hostility grow more intense when the nation 
 was face to face with the subordinate position which 
 necessarily resulted from the extinction of its repre- 
 sentative assembly ? Let us consider in succession 
 these three contingencies as they were resolved in the 
 remaining years of the reign of Anne. And first as to 
 the hope entertained of increased prosperity in trade 
 and commerce. The details that follow are somewhat 
 tedious, but it is necessary to have them before us if 
 we are to understand the dangers that threatened the 
 Union. 
 
 I 
 
 It seemed as if a perverse fate attended the first 
 commercial relations of the united kingdoms, and the 
 unhappy start was to have abiding evil consequences. 
 It gave the Scots a bad taste of the Union from the 
 outset, and more than half a century was to pass 
 before they began to have a perception that it might 
 prove a good thing in the end. One misunder- 
 standing followed another, and the conviction became 
 general that England was systematically sacrificing 
 Scotland's interests to her own. 
 
 The first cause of friction was perhaps inevitable. 
 By one of the articles of the Union the duties from 
 the Customs and Excise in both countries were to be 
 equalized, and it was arranged that they should be 
 levied in the same manner. In Scotland the arrange- 
 
Effects of the Union in Scotland 133 
 
 ment had hitherto been to lease both Customs and 
 Excise to tacksmen, while in England they were 
 gathered in by government officials. In the circum- 
 stances it had been decided that the English method 
 should be followed in both countries, but this raised 
 a difficulty. In Scotland the English method was not 
 understood, and it was therefore necessary to provide 
 officials from England. To improvise a band of 
 qualified officials, however, was not an easy matter, 
 and, in point of fact, those actually sent down were by 
 all accounts a sorry set. They were ' the very scum 
 and canalia' of their nation, says Lockhart, and he 
 tells a story to the effect that England was suddenly 
 relieved of its highwaymen, as they had all gone to 
 Scotland to find places.^ The arrangement was that, 
 during the first three months that succeeded the ist of 
 May, the new method of collecting the dues should be 
 applied only in the case of Edinburgh and its precincts. 
 Throughout these three months the quartering of the 
 stranger officials in the different parts of the country 
 went on, but under difficulties. Their coming was 
 universally regarded with dismay and indignation. 
 'Not only are our merchants much alarmed', wrote 
 the Earl of Glasgow to Mar, ' but our people are in an 
 unaccountable ferment. ' ^ In Glasgow and elsewhere 
 troops had to be sent for the protection of the ob- 
 jectionable officials, whose lives were in daily peril in 
 the different districts where they were settled. So 
 dangerous was their position, indeed, that before the 
 three months expired the government was alarmed 
 lest volunteers for the service should not be forth- 
 
 ^ Lockhart, Memoirs, pp. 223-4. 
 
 ^ Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, p. 394. 
 
1 34 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 coming.' In Edinburgh there were nightly mobs that 
 set law at defiance. Meanwhile, along the whole sea- 
 board smuggling was proceeding on a scale that meant 
 ruin for the revenue. Between the ist of May and 
 the beginning of July, into Glasgow alone nearly 800 
 tons of brandy were successfully smuggled. It was 
 the beginning of an illicit trade which was condoned 
 if not approved by the majority of the nation. Smug- 
 gling became in fact a national business, and to inform 
 against a smuggler was to risk both person and repute. 
 The sympathies of the people in the incident of the 
 Porteous Mob as late as 1736 are a striking com- 
 mentary on the light in which smuggling was generally 
 regarded in the country. But the fact to be borne in 
 mind in connexion with the immigration of the English 
 officials is that, as much as any other cause, it created 
 a fixed antipathy to the Union in Scotland at large. 
 To the present day, the designations ' tide-waiter ' and 
 ' exciseman ' are bywords of contempt in Scotland. 
 
 Another untoward circumstance that further pre- 
 judiced the Scots against the Union had its ludicrous 
 as well as its serious side. As we saw, by an article 
 in the Treaty of Union a sum known as the Equivalent 
 was assigned to Scotland as a compensation for her 
 past losses and her future obligations. As finally ar- 
 ranged, more than half of the total sum (.^398,085 \os^ 
 was to be allocated to the African Company to recoup 
 their losses entailed by the failure of the Darien 
 scheme ; part was to go for losses in connexion with 
 the change of the coinage, part to the payment of 
 national debts, and part to the expenses of the two 
 Commissions for Union, while ;^2,ooo was to be 
 ' Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, p. 412, 
 
Effects of the Union in Scotland 135 
 
 granted annually during seven years for the encourage- 
 ment of the manufacture of wool. By the opponents 
 of the Union the Equivalent was denounced as a base 
 bribe for the sacriiice of the national independence. 
 Nevertheless, the Union accomplished, it was eagerly 
 looked for even by many who had been loudest in their 
 reprobation. Knowing the state of public opinion in 
 Scotland, the Lord Treasurer Godolphin should have 
 seen to it that the money was promptly paid. But, 
 as in the case of the Customs and Excise, it appeared 
 that no provision had been made for expediting the 
 business. No date was fixed for payment, and no 
 commissioners were appointed for its conveyance and 
 distribution. The ist of May came, weeks passed, and 
 no Equivalent appeared. ' The Equivalent is so much 
 despaired of here ', wrote one from Edinburgh, ' that 
 among the vulgar the greatest part believe it is gone 
 to Spain, and some believe that the bridge of Berwick 
 is fallen with the weight of it, and all is lost '.^ At 
 length, on August 5, three months after the Union 
 came in force, conveyed in twelve waggons, and 
 guarded by 120 Scottish dragoons, the precious burden 
 reached Edinburgh, where, in spite of doubled guards, 
 a riotous mob vented its spleen by stoning the convoy. 
 Bitter was the outcry, however, when it was known 
 that only about a fourth of the allocated sum had been 
 paid in bullion — the remainder being in Exchequer 
 bills.^ Deposited for safety in the Castle, the Equiva- 
 lent, though it was a welcome boon in the interests of 
 the country, long remained a cause of heart-burning 
 contention. The four Scots who were appointed to 
 
 ' Papers of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, p. 397. 
 
 '^ The bills were shortly afterwards cashed in London. 
 
1 36 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 distribute it did not see eye to eye, and the distribution 
 was tediously delayed. For the Ministers in London, 
 also, it was a permanent source of anxiety, as it was 
 their dread that some day it might be secured by 
 the Jacobites, who would turn it to excellent account. 
 Thus by ill management or, as it was expressed at the 
 time, by ' unforeseen accidents ', what was intended as 
 a propitiation to an incensed people served only to 
 intensify the general irritation. 
 
 Simultaneously with the trouble that arose in con- 
 nexion with the Customs and the Equivalent, there 
 was another cause of friction which, in De Foe's words, 
 ' opened afresh the mouths ' of the enemies of the 
 Union. The result of the whole affair was that it 
 gave occasion to a mutual suspicion between English 
 and Scottish traders which could only be allayed after 
 a long lapse of time. In this case, also, the misunder- 
 standing was due to a lack of foresight on the part of 
 the statesmen of both countries. A brief account of 
 what took place will show how easily the mischief 
 might have been averted. On the conclusion of the 
 Treaty of Union an ingenious idea occurred to nume- 
 rous traders both in England and Scotland. Nearly 
 four months had to elapse before the Treaty came into 
 force, and in the interval a profitable stroke of business 
 might be done. The duties on imported goods were 
 lower in Scotland than in England. Taking common 
 counsel, therefore, these English and Scottish traders 
 purchased large quantities of goods, especially wine 
 and brandy, on the Continent, and landed them in 
 Scotland, where the tacksmen, in view of the unusual 
 quantities that passed through their hands, abated the 
 usual dues. The meaning of this proceeding was that, 
 
Effects of the Union on Scottish trade 137 
 
 as on the ist of May the two countries would be 
 commercially one, the imported commodities could 
 be landed in England without the payment of further 
 impost. But the more honest dealers in England got 
 wind of the march being stolen upon them, and made 
 an indignant appeal to the House of Commons, which 
 was still only an English representative body. The 
 House responded to the appeal and passed a bill which 
 denounced the proceeding as ' a notorious fraud ', and 
 ruinous to her Majesty's revenue. More circumspect, 
 however, the House of Lords rejected the bill on the 
 ground that the English Parliament was not compe- 
 tent to interpret the Articles of Union to which the 
 Scottish Parliament had been a party.^ Meanwhile 
 the news of the Commons' action had reached Scotland, 
 and thrown the whole trading community into a ferment. 
 The Convention of Royal Burghs, the body charged 
 with the commercial interests of the country, was peti- 
 tioned to address a protest to the queen, and the 
 Ministers of State, specially Seafield and Mar, were 
 bitterly denounced for neglecting their country's good. 
 Undeterred, however, by the action of the House of 
 Commons, the Scottish traders, after securing the 
 necessary certificates from the Commissioners of 
 Customs in Scotland, dispatched forty ships, laden 
 with wine and brandy, to London. On the ships 
 appearing in the Thames they were promptly seized 
 
 ^ This decision of the House of Lords illustrates the point of 
 Professor Dicey's observation : ' Though the fact is often overlooked, 
 the Parliaments both of England and Scotland did, at the time of 
 the Union, each transfer sovereign power to a new sovereign body, 
 namely, the ParHament of Great Britain.' — The Law of the Constitu- 
 tion, pp. 66-7, note (ed. 1908). 
 
 1688 T 
 
138 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 by the officials of the Customs. Thus it seemed that 
 the hopes of gain from their ingenious scheme were 
 foreclosed to the enterprising Scots. Hotly supported 
 by the mass of their countrymen, however, they brought 
 their complaint before the Secretary Mar, who sub- 
 mitted it to the queen and Council. The Treasurer 
 Godolphin found himself in a strait place, as whatever 
 decision the Council took, one or the other country 
 must be exasperated. As a temporary arrangement, 
 he suggested one of two alternatives : the Scots traders 
 should either give bail for the arrested goods, or allow 
 them to be deposited in cellars, of which both they 
 and the Customs officials should have the keys. To 
 neither of the alternatives would the Scots agree, and 
 their pertinacity was eventually rewarded. When the 
 first British Parliament met in the autumn, it decreed 
 that the embargo should be taken off the arrested 
 goods. But the mischief had been done, for it was 
 borne in upon the traders in Scotland that they could 
 not look for fair play from their rivals in England, who 
 could bring so much greater influence to bear on the 
 British Parliament. 
 
 These successive misunderstandings were not 
 alleviated by a series of acts ostensibly in the com- 
 mercial interests of both countries. As economic 
 principles were then understood, it was inevitable that 
 these interests should occasionally conflict. The most 
 lucrative industries were not the same in bodi coun- 
 tries; the legislators, therefore, had to face two difficulties. 
 An act that might favour an industry in England might 
 not favour it in Scotland, and a tax on a certain com- 
 modity might be just in the one country and unjust in the 
 other. 'Commercial jealousy', says Sir John Seeley, 
 
Effects of the Union on Scottish trade 1 39 
 
 ' was in that age the dominant feeling of the English 
 mind,' ^ and to this jealousy he ascribes the failure of 
 England to effect a satisfactory settlement with Ireland. 
 To Scotland, indeed, she had granted equality both in 
 home and foreign trade, but it was natural that this 
 dominant feeling should display itself in her relations 
 with her new partner. Be it said that the Scottish 
 representatives, both in the House of Commons and 
 the House of Lords, did little to serve the interests of 
 their country. The same divisions among them existed 
 after as before the Union. The Court Party continued 
 as subservient as ever to the government of the day ; 
 the Squadrone made it their persistent endeavour to 
 thwart them ; and the Jacobites lost no opportunity of 
 fomenting misunderstandings and discrediting the 
 Union. In view of the discordant opinions of her 
 representatives, English Ministers might well be puzzled 
 to know Avhat was the true mind of Scotland on any 
 national question that might arise. 
 
 In 1 71 1 was passed a series of measures affecting 
 Scottish trade which the nation regarded as contrary 
 to its interests and even involving a breach of both the 
 letter and the spirit of the Treaty of Union. I n the case 
 of an act relative to the manufacture of linen we have 
 an illustration how the commercial interests of the two 
 countries appeared to conflict. By this act a duty 
 was imposed on the export of linen for a period of 
 thirty-two years. But linen was for Scotland what 
 wool was for England — its staple commodity of export; 
 and the tax, therefore, would fall more heavily on the 
 poorer country. When the Scottish members naturally 
 protested against the measure, an English member 
 ' The Growth of British Policy, ii, pp. 339, 367. 
 
140 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 expressed what was the general feeling of his country- 
 men. Scotland, he said, was now subject to England, 
 and must be governed by English laws.^ In connexion 
 with the same manufacture, the Scots made a loud 
 complaint against another bill. For a space of five 
 years linen exported from Ireland to the American 
 Colonies had been free of duty, and the bill proposed 
 that the exemption should be continued for six years 
 longer. Against this proposal, so disadvantageous 
 to their country some Scottish members vehemently 
 protested, and the bill was accordingly dropped for 
 a time, though at a later date it was passed into law. 
 Quite in keeping with the economical notions of the 
 age was the rejection of another bill specially intended 
 to develop a branch of Scottish industry. In the 
 Highlands of Scotland there was abundance of natural 
 timber, and it was the object of the bill to make it 
 legal to import it into England for building ships for 
 the navy. The importation of Scottish timber, how- 
 ever, would have injured the English traders who 
 imported timber from America, and the House of 
 Commons would not have the bill. Even more bitter 
 feeling was roused in Scotland by what was considered 
 a grievous neglect on the part of the central govern- 
 ment. Prohibition of victual of all kinds from Ireland 
 had been a standing policy of Scotland for over half 
 a century,^ and Parliament and Privy Council had 
 done their utmost to enforce the law. Since the Union, 
 however, Irish victual had been surreptitiously im- 
 ported in such quantities that an address, signed by 
 the most influential men in the country, was sent to 
 
 ' Lockhart, Memoirs, i. 330. 
 
 "^ The same prohibition existed in England. 
 
Ads relative to Scottish trade 141 
 
 the queen to represent the culpable neglect of the 
 authorities.^ 
 
 But it was a measure passed in 171 3, the year before 
 the close of the reign, that convinced the Scottish 
 people that the Union was an unequal yoke. The 
 national drink of the country was ale, and, previous to 
 the Union, it had been the anxious consideration of 
 the legislature that it should be sold at a low price. 
 So long as the people could have their ale cheap, the 
 government knew there was little danger of general 
 discontent. By the act in question, known as the 
 Malt Tax, an equal duty was to be raised on malt in 
 all three countries. But the barley raised in Scotland 
 was greatly inferior to that of England ; and to impose 
 an equal tax on malt in the case of both countries was 
 a manifest injustice. For once the Scottish members 
 of both Houses united in opposing the measure, and 
 the English Ministers were warned by Scotsmen of 
 all shades of opinion that its passing might have 
 serious consequences. Passed the measure was, how- 
 ever, with the support of English Whigs and Tories 
 alike, and the immediate result, as we shall see, was an 
 attempt to undo the Union. 
 
 Dissatisfied with what had been done for them in 
 the way of legislation, Scottish traders had still other 
 grounds of complaint. Among the benefits expected 
 from the Union was the protection of trading vessels 
 from the privateers who then swarmed in the adjoining 
 seas. From the earliest times the foreign trade of the 
 country had been grievously crippled through the want 
 of a sufficient naval force to protect vessels from the 
 attacks of pirates. The arrangement in the past had 
 ' Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), v, pp. 8i, 96. 
 
142 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 been that the foreign staple port with which most 
 business was done should twice in the year send two 
 armed ships as a convoy for trading-vessels leaving 
 Scottish ports. The staple port at this time was 
 Campvere in Holland, but the authorities there had 
 failed to send the necessary convoys, with the result 
 that many Scottish vessels fell into the hands of 
 privateers. And not only in crossing the German 
 Ocean, but even in sailing from one harbour to another 
 on the Scottish coast, so many craft were seized that 
 a voyage was a veritable running of the gauntlet. 
 And what aggravated the grievance was that the 
 cause of the mischief was England's war with France, 
 in which Scotland had little interest, for it was French 
 privateers who were on the watch for prey. It was 
 with well-grounded reason, therefore, that the Con- 
 vention of Royal Burghs addressed letters to Prince 
 George of Denmark and Godolphin, complaining of 
 the neglect of the government and petitioning that 
 the Scottish coasts should have their share of protec- 
 tion as well as the coasts of England. ^ 
 
 In another way Scotland had suffered from England's 
 prolonged war with France. Before the Union of the 
 Crowns, on the occasion of the marriage of Queen 
 Mary to Francis II, Frenchmen and Scots had become 
 naturalized citizens of their respective countries, and, 
 as a consequence, Scotsmen resident in France were 
 free of the droit d'aubaine, and Scottish vessels paid 
 no dues in French ports. These privileges Scotland 
 enjoyed till 1663, when the relations of England to 
 France occasioned their withdrawal. She still retained 
 certain trading privileges with France, however, but 
 
 ' Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs, iii, pp. 45, 46, 47. 
 
Scotland and its foreign trade 143 
 
 on the outbreak of the war of the Grand Alliance in 
 1702 these privileges were also withheld. France had 
 always been one of Scotland's best customers for fish 
 and wool, two of her most lucrative commodities. It 
 was only the Royal Burghs that had the privilege of 
 foreign trade in the case of more valuable wares, and 
 the embargo on these wares on the part of France was 
 a serious drawback to their prosperity. In 1710, when 
 the Tory government of Harley and Bolingbroke was 
 making overtures of peace to the French, the Convention 
 of the Royal Burghs took occasion to represent to the 
 queen the pressing need of more favourable commercial 
 relations with France for her northern kingdom. 
 Again, when in 1712 the Duke of Hamilton was 
 appointed to negotiate the preliminaries to the Treaty 
 of Utrecht, the Convention addressed to him an urgent 
 appeal to the same purport^, but the Treaty of Utrecht 
 was not concluded till the spring of 171 3, the year 
 before Anne's death. Thus throughout her reign 
 Scotland paid the penalty of a war which the majority 
 of her people regarded with indifference and even with 
 disapproval. 
 
 II 
 
 The dissatisfaction of the trading community in 
 Scotland was occasioned partly by the neglect of the 
 government and partly by the application of mistaken 
 economical principles. In the case of the Church, on 
 the other hand, there appeared to be a deliberate 
 policy to destroy its constitution and to break up its 
 
 ' Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs, iii, p. 499 ; iv, p. 83. 
 
1 44 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 communion. To set up Episcopacy in place of Pres- 
 bytery seemed, even in tlie eyes of the saner leaders of 
 the existing establishment, to be the ultimate aim of 
 Anne and her English advisers. The suspicion could 
 not but be strengthened by their knowledge of Anne's 
 passionate attachment to the English Church, and of 
 the fact that her immediate ancestors had detested 
 Presbytery as incompatible with the royal prerogative. 
 It was a risky policy to pursue if the Union was to 
 remain intact. But for the wiser heads in the Scottish 
 Church, and notably but for Carstares, the proba- 
 bility is that the Union would not have taken place. 
 The great majority of the ministers had been against it, 
 and, with the power they exercised over their congre- 
 gations, they might have forced on a general rising 
 which would have resulted in civil war. If the Union 
 was to be maintained, therefore, it would seem to have 
 been the policy of the government to conciliate the 
 Church by all the means in its power. 
 
 The Union had not existed for a year, however, 
 before the Church had reason to be disquieted for its 
 future security. It was the abolition of the Scottish 
 Privy Council in 1708 that first raised a feeling of 
 uneasiness, for, as Carstares saw, they were now with- 
 out an intermediate body between them and the 
 government in London.^ A ruder shock came in 
 the following year, 1 709. An Episcopalian clergyman, 
 named Greenshields, openly read the English Liturgy 
 in a congregation of his own communion in Edinburgh. 
 The very name Liturgy was of sinister suggestion to 
 
 ' Carstares State Papers, pp. 770-1 ; Seafield Correspondence 
 (Scot. Hist. Soc), pp. 436-7. 
 
The Church and the Union 145 
 
 the great majority of the Scottish people. It was the 
 attempt of Charles I to introduce a liturgy that had 
 roused the nation against him, and during the ascen- 
 dancy of Episcopacy in the reigns of Charles II and 
 James VII it was considered imprudent to repeat the ex- 
 periment. Only two years before, the General Assembly 
 had passed an act specially intended to prevent the 
 use of a liturgy in churches, either Presbyterian or 
 Episcopal, and in so doing reckoned on the support of 
 the state.^ Prohibited in succession by the Presby- 
 tery of Edinburgh, by the Town Council, and by the 
 Court of Session, Greenshields took a step that struck 
 the Church with dismay. He appealed to the House 
 of Lords, and that judicial body gave decision in his 
 favour. To the Church it now appeared that the Act 
 of Security which had been attached to the Treaty of 
 Union as an inviolable safeguard of its constitution 
 was a futile guarantee, and it soon had further reason 
 for its apprehension. 
 
 In 1 71 2 were passed two acts which convinced the 
 Church as a body that the results of the Union were 
 to justify all their fears. The one was an Act of 
 Toleration that granted complete freedom of worship 
 to Episcopalians in Scotland. Abstractly considered, 
 the act was admirable, but less admirable were the 
 motives that prompted it. Toleration, as we know, 
 was equally obnoxious to the main body of Presby- 
 terians and Episcopalians, both in England and Scot- 
 land, and was approved only by the Church that 
 happened to need it.^ It was from no enlightened 
 
 ^ The majority of the Scottish Episcopalians themselves dis- 
 approved of Greenshields's proceeding. 
 
 ^ A preacher before the General Assembly which met in May, 
 
1 46 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 views of liberty of thought that the Tory government 
 of the day decreed that toleration was to prevail in 
 Scotland. It was the same government that had passed 
 the Occasional Conformity Act, which deprived English 
 Dissenters of the rights of citizenship, and the Schism 
 Act, which disabled them from maintaining schools for 
 the education of their own children. If we are to 
 credit the Jacobite Lockhart, it was he who prevailed 
 on the Ministry to give its support to the bill, and he 
 frankly states his object in promoting it : it was, in his 
 own words, to convince the Presbyterian clergy ' that 
 the establishment of their Kirk would in time be over- 
 turned, as it was obvious that the security thereof was 
 not so thoroughly established by the Union as they 
 imagined.' ^ Another clause in the same act at once 
 struck at a fundamental principle of the Scottish 
 Church, and acted as a dividing sword between her 
 adherents. By this clause Presbyterian and Episco- 
 palian alike were commanded to pray for the queen, 
 and to take the oath of allegiance and abjuration — the 
 latter, as defined by the Act of Settlement, implying 
 that the sovereign should be an Episcopalian. Thus, 
 in the opinion of her clergy, was the Church's spiritual 
 independence assailed from another side, since a com- 
 pulsory oath was a constraining of conscience against 
 which she had done battle since she had come into 
 existence. As time was to prove, the Abjuration 
 Oath, by dividing her adherents into those who were 
 
 1712, declared that 'liberty of conscience was not nor could be 
 a blessing to any people or person.' — Wodrow, Correspondence 
 (Wodrow Society), i. 281. 
 ' Lockhart, Memoirs, i. 418. 
 
The Church and the Union 147 
 
 willing and those who were unwilling to take it, was 
 seriously to imperil her unity.^ 
 
 The Toleration Act was immediately followed by 
 another act which was to have a portentous history. 
 In 1690 lay patronage had been abolished in accordance 
 with the will of the Church as it had been established 
 at the Revolution. In its dislike to lay patronage the 
 Church was still of one mind, but, to the grave alarm 
 of her most moderate leaders, an act restoring lay 
 patronage was placed on the statute-book. Again, as 
 men like Carstares knew, it was no desire for the 
 welfare of the Church that prompted the legislators.^ 
 Their aim was purely political. Chosen by lay patrons, 
 ministers would lose much of their influence among 
 their parishioners, as no longer being in a position of 
 complete independence. But the express object of 
 those who passed the act was the same as in the case 
 of the Act of Toleration: it would further prejudice 
 the Church against the Union as affording no security 
 for its conservation. No one at the time dreamt what 
 momentous issues the Patronage Act was to entail in 
 the future history of the Scottish nation — issues among 
 which it is only necessary to recall the disruption 
 of the National Church in 1843, ^.nd the startling 
 decision of the House of Lords in 1900. 
 
 Even more disquieting to Presbyterians than the 
 
 1 See App. V. 
 
 '^ Wodrow was well aware of the fact. ' But it 's plain enough ', 
 he writes, ' that both it [the Patronage Bill] and the Toleration Bill 
 come from the October Club [composed of Tories] with a design to 
 thwart the Church of Scotland, and to stir up confusions and 
 disgusts at the Government, and pave the way for the Pretender.' — 
 Analeda, iii, p. 33. 
 
148 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 Toleration and Patronage Acts was an unaccountable 
 proceeding of the Privy Council. For many years the 
 privilege of printing the Bible had been held by a 
 family of the name of Anderson resident in Edinburgh. 
 For reasons which are not recorded, the Council de- 
 prived the Andersons of their privilege, and granted it 
 to persons who are described as ' one Papist, one non- 
 juror, and a whole society of men declared enemies to 
 the Church of Scotland and the Revolution '. Naturally 
 this action was generally regarded as an unmistakable 
 indication that the ruin of the existing Church was 
 immediately intended, and so menacing became the 
 attitude of the ministers that De Foe, then residing 
 in Edinburgh, thought it right to warn Oxford regard- 
 ing the dangerous policy he was following.'' 
 
 Thus, as the reign of Anne drew to its close, the 
 Church, the most influential body in the nation, was as 
 keenly dissatisfied with the results of the Union as the 
 trading community. The Abjuration Oath, imposed by 
 the British Parliament, had split it into two sections, 
 Jurors and Non-jurors, apparently irreconcilable, and 
 all the omens seemed to forebode that as a national 
 institution it was doomed.^ 
 
 Ill 
 
 Among other results of the Union it was anticipated 
 that the chances of foreign invasion and rebellion 
 
 ^ Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vol. 5, pp. 57-8, 87-8. 
 
 '^ Writing to the Earl of Oxford on April 11, 17 13, De Foe says — 
 ' The non-jurant behave with rage and want of charity to ihtjurant, 
 and are backed by the people, who, especially in the West, treat the 
 last with insolent contempt and scarcely keep the peace with them . . .' 
 lit., p. 277. 
 
Invasion of ijo8 149 
 
 would be at least diminished. This anticipation, as 
 we have seen, was a leading motive in inducing England 
 to press for the Treaty. Within a year after the 
 Treaty had been concluded befell what had been 
 dreaded in both countries since the beginning of the 
 reign. In the spring of 1708 a fleet, dispatched by 
 the French King and with the Pretender on board, 
 appeared off the Scottish coast. A Scotsman, resident 
 in London at the time, describes the panic occasioned 
 by the news of the attempt, and also gives an explana- 
 tion of its grounds : ' the consternation ', he says, ' was 
 very great, and the reason of it was, the great men 
 were jealous of one another, for nobody imagined that 
 the Pretender would venture over merely for the 
 encouragement he had in Scotland.' The invasion 
 was effectually frustrated, but, in view of all the cir- 
 cumstances that attended it, we must endorse the 
 words of Burnet, that the issue was ' one of those 
 happy providences for which we have much to answer '. 
 But for a timely succession of storms the invader 
 would have effected a landing in the Firth of Forth 
 before the English fleet under Admiral Byng could 
 have come up with him. By all accounts, Edinburgh 
 would have offered little resistance, as the state of 
 opinion in the town was such that no one was sure of 
 his neighbour. In the whole of Scotland there were 
 only 1,500 troops, ill-paid, ill-equipped, and probably 
 disaffected. The enemy would have been joined by 
 many of the Highlanders, and the episode of 1745 
 would have been anticipated ; if, indeed, the result 
 might not have been more serious, seeing that the 
 Jacobites in both countries were at once more numerous 
 and more disposed to take risks than at the later day. 
 
1 50 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 The invasion of 1708 had shown that the Union 
 had not made Scotland less dangerous to the existing 
 regime, and the years that followed were to emphasize 
 the fact. To whatever class or section of the nation 
 we look, the impression we receive is the same — ^that 
 there was a deepening conviction that the Union had 
 been a national misfortune, and that some other more 
 satisfactory arrangement between the two countries 
 must be found. In the summer of 171 3 the attempt 
 was actually made to put an end to a relation which to 
 English and Scottish statesmen alike appeared to have 
 become intolerable. The Malt Tax imposed in that 
 year had convinced the commons of Scotland that 
 under the Union prosperity was impossible, but it was 
 from another class that the proposal to abolish it was 
 to come. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that, in the passing of the 
 Treaty of Union, the nobility as an order were more 
 at one than any other class in the community. While 
 the representatives of the shires and burghs had been 
 nearly equally divided, a clear majority of the nobles 
 steadily voted for the Treaty. But there was one 
 article in the Treaty to which, as an order, they could 
 not but object : only sixteen of them were permitted 
 to sit in the House of Lords — an arrangement which 
 placed them in an inferior position to the peers of 
 England. The experience of the sixteen in the Lords* 
 assembly was not such as to reconcile them to their 
 position. In 1709 the Duke of Oueensberry, on his 
 being created Duke of Dover, was allowed to take his 
 seat in the House as a peer of Great Britain. The 
 concession in the case of Queensberry had been due 
 to the fact that he was a subservient instrument of the 
 
Discontent with the Union 151 
 
 Whig government of the day. It was otherwise when, 
 
 in 1 71 1, the Duke of Hamilton claimed the same 
 
 privilege on being made Duke of Brandon. English 
 
 Whig and Tory peers combined to oppose the claim, 
 
 and on grounds which we can understand : a Scottish 
 
 peer thus privileged would have had a double vote ; he 
 
 would have had his vote in the House of Lords and 
 
 his vote in the election of the sixteen. Moreover, any 
 
 government, if it chose, might, by making Scottish 
 
 peers peers of Great Britain, have the House of Lords 
 
 at its will.^ . The recently-published papers of the Earl 
 
 of Mar show the seriousness of the incident as bearing 
 
 on the integrity of the Union. ' If that affair of the 
 
 peerage go against us,' Mar wrote to the Treasurer 
 
 Oxford, ' I dread the consequence it will infallibly 
 
 have. The Union depends upon it, and on the Union, 
 
 with submission, depends the peace of the Queen's 
 
 reign '.^ ' We are in a harder state than you imagine,' 
 
 he wrote some months later to another correspondent, 
 
 ' though both parties be weary of the Union, they will 
 
 upon no terms that I can see quit with the Union in 
 
 a legal way.' In the following year the attempt was 
 
 actually made to end the Union in 'a legal way'.'' The 
 
 man who had done as much as any other to promote 
 
 the Union — the Earl of Seafield, now Earl of Findlater 
 
 — moved in the House of Lords for permission to 
 
 introduce a bill for its dissolution. ' There is nothing 
 
 ^ In a letter to his brother. Mar wrote : ' they [the Enghsh Lords] 
 have such an apprehension of the acquisition of strength the Crown 
 gets by us, and as it were in opposition to both their parties, that 
 they will ever treat us as enemies, Whig and Tory being alike afraid 
 of the power of the Crown.' — Mar and Kellie Papers, p. 495. 
 
 ' lb., 490. ' lb., 494. 
 
152 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 so like a Whig as a Tory, and nothing so like a Tory 
 as a Whig — a cat out of a hole and a cat in a hole ' ^ 
 is Mar's sardonic comment on the two great political 
 parties of the time, and the sarcasm was illustrated by 
 the vote on Findlater's motion. By a majority of four, 
 mainly composed of Tories, the Union was saved from 
 peril by those who had been its most bitter opponents. 
 
 The year following the attempt to dissolve the Union 
 saw the close of Anne's reign. Had it been prolonged 
 for a few years, the probability is that a grave situation 
 would have arisen in Scotland. As we have seen, 
 there was no class or party in the country which was 
 not convinced that the Union had been a national 
 disaster. The clergy of the Established Church 
 clamoured for its dissolution : the Cameronians held 
 it in abomination ; and the Jacobites were set on the 
 restoration of the exiled House. What aggravated 
 the situation was the supine fashion in which the affairs 
 of the country were administered : ' here ', wrote the 
 Earl of KinnouU to Oxford, ' we have no Government 
 at all ; every one does as he pleases.' ^ In Edinburgh 
 the Jacobites were in such force that they intimidated 
 the magistrates, and openly gave out, as they had 
 excellent reasons for doing, that the Queen's Ministers 
 were on their side." The Highland clans were kept in 
 submission only by liberal pensions to their chiefs, 
 
 ' lb., p. 495. Elsewhere, Mar says : ' I 'm not surprised to see 
 some of the Whigs act the part they do in it, for being disappointed 
 of their design in making of the Union, and so being weary of it, 
 they want to make us so weary that so they may get free from it. 
 But for these Tories who join with them in this, all I can say of them 
 is, O when will they be wise ! ' — lb., p. 496. 
 
 '' Portland MSS., v. 256. 
 
 " lb., p. 76. 
 
Discontent with the Union 153 
 
 though it was generally suspected that the pensions 
 were given with another object — to secure their support 
 for the Pretender in the event of Anne's death. To 
 that event all parties looked forward with an intensity 
 of hope and fear to which the records of the time bear 
 speaking testimony. How by the misunderstandings of 
 Oxford and Bolingbroke the return of the Stewart was 
 averted is familiar matter of English history. It was 
 the remark of a great Whig statesman of last century 
 that the accession of the House of Hanover was ' the 
 greatest miracle in our history',^ and so at the time it 
 seems to have been regarded in Scotland. ' This 
 strange turn of affairs we are at present under ', wrote 
 the historian Wodrow a few weeks after George I had 
 ascended the throne, ' is so immediate an appearance 
 of Providence as I have seen nothing like it but the 
 happy Revolution.'^ 
 
 In the same context Wodrow expresses the fear that 
 the country ' was not ripe for such a deliverance ', and 
 the history of Scotland during the next quarter of 
 a century was to justify his fear. Continued unrest in 
 Church and State, the slow advance of national pros- 
 perity, were still attributed to the unequal yoke imposed 
 by the Union. Not till the latter half of the century 
 did manifest proofs show that the bond had not 
 shackled the spirit of the nation. Then began a 
 development of the country's natural resources un- 
 exampled in her previous history ; and then also, for 
 the first time, she took an assured place in the intellec- 
 tual commonwealth of Europe. 'It is an admirable 
 result of the human spirit,' wrote Voltaire of that 
 
 ' Lord Morley, Life of Walpole (Lond., 1890), p. 40. 
 ^ Correspondence, i. 563. 
 
154 Threatened Undoing of the Union 
 
 period of the national history, ' that at the present time 
 it is from Scotland we receive rules of taste in all the 
 arts — from the epic poem to gardening.' The words 
 were written in irony, but the actual contributions made 
 by Scotsmen during the period to which Voltaire refers 
 went beyond what his sarcasm implies. In literature, 
 in speculative philosophy, in the physical sciences, they 
 gave to the world a series of works which, in their 
 respective spheres, mark new departures in man's 
 thoughts regarding his own destiny and regarding his 
 relations to the actual world. 
 
 In conclusion, we may ask a pregnant question : 
 had Scotland rejected the Union, had she, as some of 
 her best minds thought was her wisest course, chosen 
 a ruler of her own and set up a kingdom independent 
 of England, how is it likely that she would have 
 fared ? The king she must have chosen must have 
 been either a Protestant who was not a Stewart, or 
 a Stewart and, therefore, a Catholic. In either event, 
 the issue would, in all probability, have been disastrous 
 to her. The numerous body of Catholics in the country 
 would never have been satisfied with a king who was 
 not of the ancient royal House. There would have 
 been Jacobite attempts more formidable than the '15 
 and the '45. Supported by their numerous contingent 
 in the Lowlands, and with the Highlands at their back, 
 the Jacobites would in all likelihood have succeeded in 
 overthrowing the existing government and have placed 
 a Stewart on the throne. As the inevitable consequence, 
 the vanquished party would have appealed to England, 
 which in its own interests would have responded to the 
 appeal. The Stewart would in his turn have been 
 ejected, but the intervention of England would 
 
Desirability of the Union 155 
 
 eventually have been resented by all Scottish parties, 
 and the old story would have been renewed of inter- 
 national jealousy between the two kingdoms, to the 
 serious detriment of both. 
 
 Such, we have every reason to conjecture, would have 
 been the course of events had a king been chosen who 
 was not a Stewart. The issues would not have been 
 less disastrous had a Stewart been chosen. Equally 
 in affairs of state and religion he would have followed 
 the traditional policy of his family. Again, as in the 
 previous century, there would have been a Protestant- 
 Whig revolt, and in this event, also, England would 
 have been called in by the insurgent party to settle 
 accounts with their adversaries. 
 
 Whether, therefore, we look at the internal condition 
 of Scotland at the period of the Union or at the circum- 
 stances that then obtained in Europe at large, the 
 conclusion seems forced upon us that the Union was 
 both necessary and desirable if she was to win her due 
 share of the world's prosperity and to keep pace with 
 the development of other nations. And not less 
 necessary and desirable was the Union in the interests 
 of England. Not with the same giant strength could 
 she have done battle for commercial supremacy, had 
 Scotland been her enemy and the convenient instru- 
 ment of enemies still more formidable. 
 
APPENDIXES 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 Letters of John Murray, and Marquess, afterwards 
 Duke of AthoU, to Godolphin. 
 
 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28055. 
 fol. 25.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Tusday night last the Comisioner desiered the officers of 
 staite, President of y° Councill and Lords of Treasury, L'^ 
 Stairs, & President of the session to come to him to considder 
 what was to be done y° next day in Pari™'. His Grace ^ told 
 first his owne opinion that the next day he designed to move 
 the giving a supply for maintanance of the forces, that he 
 believed if it were longer delayed there would more difficultys 
 arise, that he had assurances it would then carry ; in short, all 
 then present were of y^ same opinion except myselfe who 
 gave these reasons : that a competent supply would be granted 
 in which the majority of all the parties would concur^ &, 
 therefore, the right timing of it was the principall thing ; that 
 I thought it was the same thing to y" Queen to have the 
 supply that day or five or six days after ; that, if it was first 
 
 ' Duke of Queensberry. 
 
158 Appendix I 
 
 pressed, it woud give a jealousie that no good Laws were 
 designed, but that y" Par" woud be adjourned soone after, & 
 that I thought it was better for the Queen that her servants 
 shoud first offer and bring in any good Laws she had impowred 
 her Comisioner to grant ; that this woud be so satisfactory to 
 the Par"- that they woud concur unanimously in the supply 
 when ever it was proposed, or apoint a certaine day for it. 
 But being singly of this opinion I left y® management of the 
 debaite next day to the advisors, which was Wednesday, but 
 just before the Comissioner went to the House, the Pre: of 
 Councill & D: Argile came to him and told him they found 
 severals, particularly the Burrows, would have in an act 
 ratifying the Convention of Estates, y** forfieture of K. Ja:, 
 that Convention being turned to a Par" ratifying Presb: 
 Goverment & aproving the legality of the last Par" and that 
 they both were ready to goe into this act. This was the first 
 turn & begining of all the diflSculties we are brought into & 
 was the more surprising that the Pre: of Councill was so 
 forward the night before to push y** Comisioner to begin with 
 the supply. The caryers on of this are the same that carryed 
 on the abjuration, & the designe is also the same, to witt, to 
 scar or exclude as many as possible by representing those that 
 goe not into that act as not fitt to be assumed into y® Queens 
 service, &, if that faill, I am told there are other acts yet more 
 strict & y° abjuration also to be brought in to divide the Par" 
 & the nation. The House having mett Wednesday y® 36, the 
 Comisioner proposed in a short speach to begin with y^ 
 supply, w"'' soone apeared woud not doe. The first thing 
 opposed to it was to proceed to end the Elections, & at last 
 M' Fletcher of Salton offered a resolve to the House, viz : 
 that before all other business whatsomever they shoud pass all 
 acts for security of Religion, Liberty, and traide, w"" was 
 understood both as to the Limitations of the succesour & 
 during the Queens reigne. This was oposed all that coud be, 
 &, after spending 7 or 8 howers in debaite or raither wrangling, 
 the Comisioner & the rest of y" Queens servants yealded to 
 proceed upon any particoular acts for Religion, Liberty, & 
 
Appendix I 159 
 
 traide, but then, the opposet partys finding their strength, 
 nothing woud satisfie but the resolve. At length, about nine 
 at night, y° Comisioner adjurned y® Pari' without coming to 
 any resolution or vote that day. On fryday the a8, before the 
 Pari' mett, the Comisioner and ofificers of state desiered y' I 
 might give in an act for the meeting of the Estaits after y° 
 Queens death. This was thought very fitt, both because 
 there were other draughts of that nature ready to be given in 
 with clauses w"'' might be hard for the Queen to pass, such as 
 declairing a successour y' shoud not be King of England & 
 also because it seemed absolutely nessessary to have an act 
 more cleare then y° act of the Pari' (96), w* y'' L^p knows did 
 occasion so much debaite. I send y^' L'^p inclosed the first 
 draught. It was hastily done & coud not be gott ready till 
 just y" Pai-^' was meeting. It's like there may be alterations or 
 additions made to it in the house. The Comissioner says he 
 thinks it reasonable it shoud pass and woud endevour to get 
 an instruction for it. After I proposed this act we insisted 
 that we might proceed on that and other particular Laws 
 without being tyed up by the resolve. I said that, this being 
 both my own opinion & now agreed to by all y** Queens 
 servants, and in the very terms of y® resolve proposed, I hoped 
 they woud be satisfied to accept of this 8z; other good Laws 
 without binding up the Queen & Par" by a resolve w"*" woud 
 be time anough to enter into whenever any of us proposed the 
 supply. But the ferment and jealousie was grown to such 
 a height that what woud have been very acceptable at first 
 coud not then be heard, & it was plainly said, both that day 
 & at y' first days debait, that y" Comissioner had in a former 
 Pari' made promieses to continue the Par" after the supply 
 was granted, but y' he did cutt them short, &, tho the Comis- 
 sioner did answer this, yet it gave no satisfaction. 
 
 And now, since I have as nearly & truly as I can naratted 
 the matter of fact, the Queen may be pleased to judge if it 
 may not be fitt this session be as short as can be, w"*" I wish 
 may be happyly ended, which I shall contrebutte to all I can. 
 I shall be glad to hear particularly from y'' L'^p what the 
 
i6o Appendix I 
 
 Queen thinks proper for her service at this juncture, w'"' shall 
 be obeyed by 
 
 V L'^'" most faithfull 
 and most humble servant 
 Atholl. 
 
 Holyrood house 
 May 30/1703. 
 
 [Postscript] 
 
 My Lord 
 I had almost forgott to tell y"^ G"" that, in the wedensdayes 
 debaitt, one of the members, speaking of the unfittnes to be 
 governed by an English Councill, did name the L"^ Treasurer. 
 I must doe the Justice to the Comissioner, Chancelor, 
 D. Hamilton, as wel as my self, to acquaint y"^ G"^ that we all 
 took the gentleman up very sharp. I said that, having the 
 honour to know your G'^' particularly, I was sure he coud not 
 have instanced one in all England that was more friendly to 
 our nation, or had juster sentiments of the united interest 
 of both Kingdoms, so that, instead of a reflexion, there was an 
 oppurtunity given to let all the Pari' heare a just character 
 of y'- G' 
 
 fol. 39.] 
 
 Holyrood house 
 June 10/1703 
 My Lord 
 My last to y"" G"^ of the 30*'' went by a flying packett . 
 
 I have & shall doe all I can to wave the limitations for the 
 successor since they may be better done by the meeting of the 
 Estaites when they declaire one. 
 
 Since my last to y^' G'' we have gone every day to greater 
 & greater heates, Thursday last, when an act for tolleration 
 was moved, the E. of Leven & E. of Marchmont, late 
 Chancelor, did insist with a great deale of heate & indiscre- 
 
Appendix I i6i 
 
 tion that the Queens letter to the Council concerning those of 
 the Episcopal perswasion shoud be produced, which the 
 Queens servants opposed as being absolutly unnecessary, & 
 that it was known it was in the terms of Law. The Justice 
 Clerk happning to say that calling for the letter in that 
 manner was attacquing the Queen, those Lords & some others 
 insisted that he shoud go to the bar, but thought fitt to let 
 theire motion fall. At last it was yeilded the letter shoud be 
 brought to the house, but, when it was reade, there was none 
 coud say any thing to it. 
 
 On Monday last the act which I gave y' G"^ an accompt of 
 before, w"'' was brought in by D. of Argile, was againe reade, 
 the copie of w'*" is inclosed. The first part of the act con- 
 cerning the meeting of the Estaites having been turned into 
 a Pari* I agreed to, as did all others who spoke to it, but the 
 3* part as it was worded I thought woud prove of so dangerous 
 consequence not only to those that served the Queen & the 
 Government but also to all the other subjects, that nether 
 the one or the other coud live in security, & therefore \, with 
 several others, proposed that the last clause might be worded 
 as the first is ; viz. that it shoud be high treason to quarrel or 
 impugne the dignity or Authority of the claime of Right, but 
 not to have it high treason to speak or writte against any of 
 the articles of itt, which might prove so ensnaring that ether 
 an illdesigning ministry or a party in a Pari* might forfeitte 
 any subject in the Kingdom of life & fortune. I said that, for 
 my part, I had observed the claime of Right exactly, both 
 when in the government & out of itt, & that I knew none coud 
 attacque me on that or any other accompt, & at least I shoud 
 be as cairful for the future, but I thought nothing coud be of 
 wors consequence then to make an act which woud put all her 
 Ma*'°' subjects in constant feares, &, my Lord, the incon- 
 veniences are so many Sz: so obvious that I need not repeate 
 what I or any other said on this subject. Y' G' will easily 
 make a judgement by comparing the claime of right with the 
 act inclosed. In short, my Lord, if the act pass, the Q. & her 
 servants may be said to committ treason against the claime of 
 
1 62 Appendix I 
 
 Right or treason against the people, which is now the new 
 language, & if the people goe to arms on pretence of the 
 claime of Right, to oppose them will be called treason, so that 
 the difficulties [that] may ensue are not to be exprest. 
 
 The duty & affection I have for the Queen, & the manner 
 of her bringing me into her service has made me writte so 
 freely on this subject, that her Ma"" may take what method 
 she thinks fitt to prevent the dangers [that] may follow if the 
 act shoud pass, & therefore I know your G' will lay this before 
 her Ma*", that her pleasure may be signified here as soon as 
 possible. We are longing much for a good conclusion soon to 
 this session of Par", especially since the season makes it more 
 agreable to be in the Country. 
 
 If it has been used as an argument for the act that it was 
 voted by a great plurality, that cannot be properly said, 
 because the first vote concerning it was ' proceed ' or ' delay ' 
 to the next meeting. It carried 'proceed' but by ai votes, 
 after w"*" many members left the house, thinking, when so 
 reasonable a desire as one days delay was not granted, it was 
 not necessar to insist further, & I must observe that it was 
 carried on so fast that the claime of Right was not so much as 
 reade in the house. I am, my Lord, V G" 
 
 most faithfull & most humble servant 
 Atholl. 
 
 fol- il^ 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Since y"" G'^ sayes the Queen does not incline to part with 
 the prerogatives of the crown, tho they shoud not take place 
 till after her decease, I shall not insist on them, & doe what 
 I can that others may not, for I find her Ma*'*^ inclinations 
 does determine me fully, especially since I find by y"^ G' she 
 continues her good opinion of me. 
 
 I hope the Queens servants will hereafter concur in what 
 relaites to her Ma"". If I shal happen to differ, the Queen is 
 
Appendix I 163 
 
 Judge, & I am sure it shal be on a full perswassion that its 
 most for her service. As I differed concerning the last part of 
 the act given in by D. of Argile as I writt in my last 
 particularly my own sentiments, which perhaps I relaite too 
 fully, but it is to prevent any mistake may afterwards be 
 alledged as to my cariadge w""" my letters will cleare. The 
 Queens other servants that concurred in my opinion as to that 
 act were the Chancelor, V. Tarbat, & Lord Justice Gierke. 
 The last & I voted against the clause. V. Tarbat, I think, was 
 non liquet. The Chancelor as being president, y"^ G'" knows, 
 does not vote, but spoke indeed very well & very fully against 
 it. Yesterday we had nothing before us but Elections. 
 L" General Ramsayes was one which is not yett ended. It 
 consists of several points, some of which are well founded, 
 others not, & therefore I voted against him in one. Monday 
 next is apointed for private bussines. 
 
 I am. 
 
 My Lord, &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 
 Holyrood hous, June ia/1703. 
 
 I forgott to acquaint y"^ G"^ that I gave in an act last week 
 against imposing New Oaths, w°^ I find are still designed by 
 a party to keep themselves in & exclude as many as they can. 
 Since I had the use of my reason, I have alwayes [been] 
 against them. They debauch consciences, brings judgements 
 on a nation, & are of no real advantage to a government. 
 
 fol. 37.] 
 
 Holyrood house, 
 
 June 19, 1703. 
 My Lord, 
 
 I writt to your G' last post that my patent was sent up, 
 which indeed I gave the Commissioner at his own desire, who 
 promised to send it by the last post, but since his &' has 
 failed to me once, I doe not know but he may againe, & there- 
 fore I have sent another copie to M' Nairne, being confident 
 that the Queen, who was so good & just to her promise as to 
 
1 64 Appendix I 
 
 signe it before, will doe it againe & send her orders that it 
 may pass before any others as I writt to y"" Gr' in my last, for 
 now the Comissioner owns he has another patent for a 
 Duke to the Mar. of Douglas w'^'' he designes shoud be first 
 passed, because he is come of his family, w"'' indeed was 
 a very good reason why D. Queensberry ought not to have 
 been made a Duke before the heads of his family. But I hope 
 the Queen will not think it reasonable to prefer D: Queens: 
 freind & relation to her own servant & one who has the great 
 honour to be one of her own family, especially since I cautioned 
 the Queen when I askt this honour that it was like others 
 might pretend to the same title, & that was the only reason if 
 she thought fitt that I desiered it might be done when I spoke 
 to her Ma"® whoes answer was that I having spoke first, mine 
 shoud be passed first, but belived it might be more convenient 
 for her service to delay it until the Par" was over, which 
 I immediatly & readily acquiesced to, and said that I knew 
 that was as sure as if it were then done, so, as I did then, 
 I doe still depend wholy on the Queen, expecting her Ma''*' 
 orders for passing my patent first & humbly begs pardon for 
 this trouble w"'' y' G' sees I am forced to. This day we have 
 been againe on the elections. The Pari' is adjourned to 
 tuesday Sz: then I hope we shal goe to publick bussines, w"^ is 
 more then time considdering we have satt 7 weeks. I am 
 afraide our factions will not decrease, but on the conterar. I 
 intend to writte particularly to y' C soon by a sure occasion, 
 who am. My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 
 ATHOLL. 
 
 The Mar: of Douglas is but a child of 8 or 9 years old. 
 
 fol- 39] 
 
 Holy rood house, 
 
 June a6, 1703. 
 My Lord, 
 
 My son TuUibardine is bearer of this, who I have 
 allowed to goe to the Camp comanded by D. Marlborough, to 
 
Appendix I 165 
 
 whom I have writt that his G"^ will be pleased to concern him- 
 self in him & to renew the proposal I made a good time agoe 
 for my son. Lady Mary Churchil being so young, I hope 
 Duke & Dutches of Marlborough are not engadged, & I must 
 own that the greatest motive I have in this is that theire other 
 daughters prove so good wives, & that I know they have good 
 example & vertuous education, besides I think myself oblidged 
 to persue the designes of most kind parents, who had a par- 
 ticular respect & kindnes for D. & Dut: of Marlborough. Y' 
 G' was the first that I acquainted with my inclinations in this 
 matter & I beg leave to intreate y' assistance as y® person I 
 alwayes rely on in my greatest concerns. I have writt so long 
 a letter to E. Nottingam, w'^'' I doubt not he will comunicat to 
 y' G', that I shall not begin to enter on Par" affaires in this 
 but tell y' G' that I cannot but be more and more of the 
 opinion that the passing of the act relating to the claim of 
 Right in the terms it is voted may prove extreamly incon- 
 venient to the Queen, &, tho it be true that it may be in- 
 convenient not to pass it after it is voted, yett I am convinced 
 the other will be greater. The worst is that there may be 
 Addresses to desire the Queen to pass itt. But I am sure 
 there will be many more Addresses to thank her Ma*''* if she 
 does not. And as for any noise may be made in Eng: about it, 
 it must satisfie all reasonable people that there can be no 
 absolute necessity for this act, otherwayes why have not the 
 party that has now caryed it desired it in all the late Reigne. 
 And in the next session of Pari* I doubt not but the act will 
 be voted in the terms I formerly writt, for none disagrees to 
 the first part, nor will to the second if it be expressed that it 
 shal be treason to quarrel the Authority of the claime of Right. 
 This is in answer to the last of the 19 I have the honour to 
 receave from y"^ G"^^ in w"*" you seem to think the inconveniency 
 of not passing itt will be great, & that there may be another 
 opportunity of remidying, but we have a Scots proverb I often 
 find true, that its better holding then drawing. 
 
 My son will give y' G"^ an accompt of what has passed 
 publickly in Par" & how the Com: has used me in relation to 
 
1 66 Appendix I 
 
 the patent. I heare he sent up a flying packett about it, 
 monday last, without acquainting me, tho I have the honour 
 to be an officer of Staite, & lodged very neare him. 
 
 I am, My Lord, 
 &c. 
 Atholl. 
 
 fol. 44.] 
 
 Holyrood house, 
 
 July 10. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have just heard of a flying packett to be dispatched, 
 & therfore can only acknowledge the honour of y'' G" of 
 June 37 in answer to the first I had writt about the patent, as 
 to w'^'' I shall say nothing now untill I heare againe, but that 
 it seems y' G"^ had mistaken me as if I had pressed it might 
 pass before the Par" shoud rise, w"'' I did not designe. And 
 as to the precedency, when the Queen is minded that none 
 was in competition when I spoke nor long after, I am ready to 
 receave her determination, which shal alwayes be satisfactory 
 to me. 
 
 I doubt not but the Comissioner & others have given y' G'' 
 an accompt of the late proceedings in Pari*. We have all con- 
 curred, I meane the Queens servants, to keepe the limitations 
 out of the act of security, which we have done with a great 
 deale of difficulty, & in which I am sure I have done all I coud 
 both by my self & friends that are of the Cavalier party without 
 whoes assistance they had certainly been votted before this time, 
 particularly the act lodging the power of declaring Peace & War 
 in the Par" after her Ma*'^^ decease w"'out aires. As this 
 appeares most necessar, so it is the first is pressed, but none 
 can answer but others will be insisted on. But at least it may 
 be reckoned that this will carry, & by yesterdayes resolve it 
 is to come in immediatly after the rest of the elections are 
 finished & which are to follow the act for security &, when the 
 time for bringing in this act of Peace & War was reasoned 
 
Appendix I 167 
 
 yesterday, the Queens servants & Comissioners freinds did 
 first yeild that it shoud be considered this session of Par" & 
 particularly the Lord Stairs, because, I suppose, he saw it coud 
 not be shunned, & afterwards the L'' Register did yeild it 
 shoud be considered before the suply, after which there was 
 no room for reasoning or voting, for it was thought no great 
 difference since it was to come in before the suply whither it 
 was just after the elections or some dayes longer, since the 
 Queen can now be acquainted & her Ma"^' resolutions known 
 before it can be brought in. And this was the reason I did 
 not votte, thinking itt unfitt to predetermine ourselves by 
 a resolve in the middle of an act, especially [as] after it was 
 yeilded there was no probability of retriving. This I have 
 acquainted y' G"^ off, because I have alwayes found, since the 
 minut that the Queen named me to her service without my 
 aplying my self to her ministers here, it has been some of 
 theire endeavour to misrepresent me on every occasion, as par- 
 ticularly I heare by alledging that my freinds goe on way & 
 I another, tho I doe act for the Queens service. This is hard 
 to impute other persons actions to me, for tho some of my 
 freinds doe not concur with' me, w°^ I am sure I cannot help, 
 yett it is certaine, if I had not had influence on severals, things 
 had broke out into greater extreams then they have done, & 
 particularly the Par" had been in the greatest heate that ever 
 it was known in if I had not concurred with the Chancelor to 
 bring the Comissioner out of the difficulty he was in by refusing 
 to accept of the Lord Belhavens & S"" Alex: Ogilvies sub- 
 mission, & which I heare also was misrepresented, but it was 
 easie to judge that nothing coud irritate a Par" more then 
 keeping not theire members, w"* was not possible to be done 
 without theire own consent, &, tho those two persons crimes 
 were not justifiable, yett the punishment of giving them an 
 indictment on high treason appeared too great for the offence. 
 Butt at last the Comissioner thought it fitt to accept of a sub- 
 mission w* was done in as humble a manner as possible, but 
 I beg pardon for having insisted on these things especially 
 since I am convinced that I serve a mistres [who] will not 
 
1 68 Appendix I 
 
 misconstruct her servants without examining what they can 
 say for them selves. I shal conclude this with repeating that 
 the factions & humours are so great that I heartily wish this 
 Par" came soon to a good conclusion, &, if the Queen do not 
 resolve to give the assent to any limitations, it is best prevent- 
 ing the votes. 
 
 I am, My Lord, 
 &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 My son writt to me he had waitted on y'' G' and delivered 
 my letter. I shall long to have the Dut: of Marl: & y' G" 
 answers. Y' letters come safe under the Chancelors covers. 
 
 fol. 54.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 We have been expecting an answer to the last flying 
 packett to kno her Ma*'^^ pleasure as to the passing the act of 
 security, as to w''^ I writt fully to y'^ G'' then, therfore shall not 
 ad much to itt, but that you may immagine since there was so 
 much zeale & heate in the Par" to gett this act, it will be 
 a very great disapointment if it shoud not be. Itt may make 
 the ministry here have no interrest ether to carry the suply in 
 this Par", or perhaps in any other. But, on the other hand, 
 if the Queen does consent to it, this session, I doubt not, will 
 conclude immediatly by giving suplies for the army. But 
 without the act be passed or assurances that it will, we find 
 they will not enter on the suplies, but I am afraid will enter 
 on new acts that will be more & more uneasie. Therfore 
 I am sure itt is the Queens interrest to put a conclusion as 
 soon as possible ether by allowing the act to be passed or, if 
 her Ma*'* is perswaded it may prejudice her affaires more 
 elswhere then advance them here, then still it is fitt her pleasure 
 be known as soon as possible that we may be adjourned. 
 
 Since the act was voted, we have gone on pritty easily as 
 I formerly writt was promised us, except as to the entering 
 into the last branch of our resolve, w"** is trade, which we did 
 
Appendix I 169 
 
 what we coud to enter into, both to bring the Par" the sooner 
 to a conclusion, & to prevent several very unreasonable acts 
 were proposed under the 2* branch of the resolve, w"*" was 
 liberty. I hope the Comissioner has done me the justice to 
 acquaint y' G' I have been assisting in this & without w°'' the 
 Par" had broke up abruptly. I heard there was a flying 
 packet came w**" a letter from y' G^^^ a few dayes before the 
 Queen went to the Bath. The Comissioner did not acquaint 
 me nor, I belive, the Chancelor or L* Tarbat w**" the contents of 
 it ; wherfore, if I have writt anything that is not agreable to 
 the Queens directions by that express, itt is for want of 
 knowing itt. I am. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 
 Holyrood house, Sept: i, 1703. 
 
 fol. 58.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 The Par" was adjourned thursday last, w""" I belive will be 
 no surprise, considering how long it has satt, & what strugles 
 & difficulties we have mett with, w""", since it was evident were 
 daily increasing instead of decreasing, the Chancelor, V. Tarbat, 
 & I, as I writt in my last, did give our opinion to the Comissioner 
 that we thought it better to adjourn then to continue longer 
 & involve the Queen in new difficulties by giving the negative, 
 but the Comissioner resolved to try againe if the suplies coud 
 be granted. Accordingly, on wedensday they were proposed, 
 but very unreasonable limitations, which were first given in by 
 M"" Fletcher of Salton & afterwards proposed by the Mar: of 
 Montrose, were againe insisted on & opposed to the suplies, 
 but, before it was voted w"'' we shoud proceed to, the Mar: of 
 Montrose past from the staite of the vote they had first given 
 in & proposed they might proceed to liberty, w"'' we saw was 
 but a more plausible & general term & woud include the 
 
 1688 Z 
 
170 Appendix I 
 
 limitations, &, if that had been once voted, we had been of new 
 engadged, wherfore the Comissioner durst not venture to put 
 that to the votte, but desiered I might propose a delay untill 
 he shoud coasidder what method was next to be taken. 
 Accordingly I proposed to delay the question till next meeting, 
 w"'' was acquiesced to, & next morning the Comissioner came 
 to my chamber, I having fallen ill that night, & told me he 
 found it was impracticable to insist on suplies at this time & 
 therfore resolved to adjourn the Par", as accordingly he did. 
 I shall ad no more now since I shall more fully by an express 
 w""" is to goe soon. 
 
 I am, My Lord, 
 &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 Holyrood house, Sept. 18, 1703. 
 
 fol. 60.] 
 
 Holyrood house Sept: 31, 1703. 
 My Lord, 
 
 My last to y"' G' was designed to have gone by a flying 
 packett, but I heare some of the Comissioners servants gave it 
 to the Lord Ross who was to ride post, but I suppose will not 
 reach London so soon as the flying packett. Its probable 
 that, now that the Par" is up, there will be misrepresentations 
 made, for, since the undertakers coud not make good what was 
 promised, the blame must be laied off themselves on som others. 
 But, that y'' G"" may know the true matter of fact, the 
 Chancelor, V. Tarbat, now E. of Cromarty, & I have sent the 
 bearer M' Ogilby of Boine to inform y' G"^ of what has passed 
 both in Par" & at our meetings. He represents one of our 
 shires in the North, & has gone alongst w"* the Queens 
 servants in every thing relaited to her Ma'*° the whole Par" & 
 with whoes cariadge the Comissioner as well as we are fully 
 satisfied, for, tho some of the Cavalier party, of w"'' this 
 gentleman is one, did somtimes differ from us, yett this 
 gentleman did never differ from the Court in one Votte wherin 
 
Appendix I iTi 
 
 the Queen was concerned, & was besides very assistant to us 
 in keeping others of that party in theire duty, & who I did 
 countenance & encouradge on these accompts, that they shoued 
 theire forwardnes in serving the Queen, first by promising not 
 to quarell the legality of the last Par". In the next place, 
 they joined in Recognising the Queens title & Authority, and, 
 in the 3* place, gave in the act for the suply very early in the 
 Par". What occasioned many of them to differ with us after- 
 wards I shal not mention, but they say that the Comissioner 
 did not keep his promises to them, & encouradged thoes that 
 brought in acts to be uneasie to them & forced them to joine 
 with the Country party. I shall now say that I have also done 
 all I coud to make both them and the Country party easie, 
 notwithstanding the Queen has not given the assent to the act 
 of security, & in this have succeeded better then coud be 
 imagined, for not only the members of Par" but others show 
 a great inclination to be easie in hopes the Queen will in time 
 ether be satisfied to pass that act as it is or, if she cannot, that 
 her Ma''^ will take such measures as will make both her and 
 the Nation easie. 
 
 My Lord, I must beg leave to acquaint y' G'' that I am 
 much surprised to heare from the Comissioner that he had 
 received orders to delay giving me up my patent. I cannot 
 but think it must be a mistake, considering what the Queen 
 said to me when she was pleased to grant me that honour, & 
 also what the Dutches of Marlborough & y' G' has since writt 
 to me about it that it was to be given me immediatly after the 
 Par". The Comissioner has indeed showed me a postcript of 
 one of y' G"" letters in w"'' y' G' writtes that the patents of 
 honour may be taken back when he returns to London, but 
 I am perswaded y' G' did not intend that shoud relaite to my 
 patent. The Comissioner tells me he expects a flying packett 
 every day with orders to give it up, but, if there be none, I 
 hope y"" G' will see that there be justice done me in that 
 matter w*, especially now after it is publickly known, woud 
 be putting a particular afront on me. 
 
 I shall ad no more but tell y' G'' that the Chancelor 
 
172 Appendix I 
 
 acquainted me that he had writt that it was proper the Queen 
 shoud send for me to advise what measures were to be taken 
 in Scotts affaires. I assure y"^ [Grace] I knew nothing of this 
 untill after he had writt, & my particular circumstances in 
 having been so litle at home, & now, after my fathers death, 
 will make another London journy most inconvenient to me. 
 But, if it be thought I can contribute to put her Ma*'°° affaires 
 on a good foot, I shall rather cross both my own inclinations, 
 & suffer the loss to my private affaires then decline to serve 
 the Queen if she thinks it necessar. 
 
 I am My Lord 
 &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Since writing the inclosed I have the honour of y"' G'' 
 of the 17"' in w"*" y'' G" acquaints me that the Queen had 
 ordered y"" G"' to tell me that her Ma*'° was very well pleased 
 with my service in opposing the Adress for her Assent to the 
 act of security. It is a great satisfaction that her Ma''® 
 incouradges her servants when they doe there duty, and on 
 this occasion I shall also tell y'^ G'' that I have hindered an 
 Adres was designed after the Par"' rising, but I shal ad no 
 more particulars, since y' G"" writtes in your last that the 
 Queen expects the Chancelor & I to attend her Ma*'* after the 
 Par" rises. This with what y'' G'' writt to the Chancelor in 
 a former letter, together with the Queens instructions to the 
 Comissioner, has determined the Chancelor & me to waitte on 
 the Queen as soon as we can, however uneasie it may be in my 
 circumstances. 
 
 fol. 64.] 
 
 Belford, Oct: 3, 1703. 
 My Lord, 
 
 The Chancelor & I are come this far on our journy to 
 attend the Queen, whoes affaires in Scott: we have jointly 
 
Appendix I i73 
 
 endeavored to setle & have left them more quiett then coud 
 have been expected considering the heates & animosities were 
 in the late Par^*. The D: of Queensberry thought fitt at last 
 to deliver me up the patent the Queen was pleased to grant me. 
 I find my self so much oblidged to her Ma"° for her goodnes 
 in that honour she has done me that I am impatient to assure 
 her Ma**° that I have a most grateful sense of it, by w"*" she has 
 engadged me and my family to be still more & more dutiful to 
 her. This is all I shall ad since I hope, if please God, to wait 
 on y' C about the middle of the month at London & to 
 assure y'' G"" that I shall alwayes continue, 
 
 My Lord, &c. 
 
 Atholl. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 Letters of James Johnstone, Lord Clerk Register of 
 Scotland, to Godolphin. 
 
 Brit. Museum Add. MSS. 28055. 
 fol. 84.] 
 
 [Edinburgh,] 18 June, 1704. 
 My Lord, 
 
 The bearer is M' Wedderburne. Its necessary that 
 the adjournment be to the sixt as the Commissioner desires, 
 for one days session of part, without the burrows would looke 
 strange, and their meeting is fixed by act of part. 
 
 Its fit the two orders about M' Wedderburne and S' D. Nairn 
 be dispatched that my L* Cromarty may be gone ; and the order 
 of adjournment must be sent by a flyeing packett this night. 
 As to the convoy, my L* Tweddale would make a strange 
 figure without his Equipage, and the Scotch frigate may be at 
 Orkney, and it will look odd to refuse him a convoy for half 
 a days saylling, that is, from Newcastle to the Basse, whereas 
 former Com"' used to have convoys & often yaughts too, even 
 from the Thames. We can send an order to Newcastle by 
 land for the ships of war incase they be gone. Its fit I know 
 when your Lop comes to town. 
 
 I am, 
 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 fol. 90.] 
 
 Edinburgh, July y® 8, 1704. 
 My Lord, 
 
 I wrong'd my eyes with posting, which oblidges me to 
 use another hand, and, indeed, my owne is so bad that I hope 
 your Lordshipp will very readily forgive my not useing it. 
 I was of opinion at London, as you may remember, that 
 
Appendix II 175 
 
 matters here were in a very bad state, but I did not think it 
 half so bad as I have found it. I have met with amongst the 
 gennerality as it were a crye against the Queens measures and 
 with a diffidence and dispondancy amongst those few that 
 were for them. The D. of Q — rys Actings in his last month 
 have given the country party, as we speak, a jealoussy not to 
 be removed but with time, and have made the honest men 
 amongst them dispair of reformation. Then there is, as it 
 were, a conspiracy of all sides to believe that the Queen is not 
 for the succession, which, indeed, is the received doctrin. I 
 may add to your Lordshipp, who loves to know the trueth, 
 that the prevailing growing spirit here is averst to the succes- 
 sion, and many of those that would be for it at another time 
 call the indeavouring of it now a servill complyance with the 
 hous of lords. But, my Lord, notwithstanding these difficulties, 
 I have, ever since I came, mentained to all those I have mett 
 with that the Queens measures would carry in parliament if 
 we took time anough to make them be understood, and did 
 not begin with the plot. For near ten days I was in a manner 
 alone of this opinion, but now a great many are of it, and 
 without doubt the business in hand is capable of a manage- 
 ment that will make it succeed even without the two Dukes, 
 whom I do not at all reckon apon, but I owne that the 
 management is very nice, and that, if we, the Queens servants, 
 hit apon it, we may impute the success to those kind stars that 
 it seems at present superintend her Maj*'''' affairs everywhere. 
 Your Lordshipp will alow me here to wish the Dutchess of 
 Marlborough joy. That which I apprehend most in our 
 business is the parliaments insisting on reparation to the 
 Affrican Company for their losses in Caledonia. All the 
 Burrows, and, I think, the majority of the other members are 
 concerned in this. Their losses are great, but less will sattisfie. 
 It seems fit that the Commissioner know something of her 
 Maj*'^^ mind in this matter. 
 
 I am, 
 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
176 Appendix II 
 
 fol. 103.] 
 
 Ed', 19 July, 1704. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Had I any thing but defeats to write of, I would have 
 presumed to write to her Ma*'', and I am apprehensive that 
 your Lqp will rather think that I write too much to you. 
 One thing I must ad to the Memoriall, that here M' Secretary 
 Harleys name has been made use of, justly or unjustly I know 
 not, as if he had let out hopes of mighty things to be got by 
 a Treaty which has done much hurt. I know he has prejudices 
 to me and he dissembles them not, but sure those cannot 
 dispose him to wrong such a national concern as this. I 
 wished him joye upon his preferment and offered to informe 
 him of Scotch businesse (and desired his assistance), for I know 
 he is abused by litle people ; upon which he said he would be 
 with me the next day, but, I adding that he must bring me 
 a message from your Lop without which I could not open my 
 self to him, he nither came nor could I ever find him tho 
 I sought him 'often. If he has any better scheme to setle this 
 nation than what is proposed, I shall be glad to know it and to 
 joine in it. I am ashamed to write to the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, tho I need her Tokai wine mightily. 
 
 I wish your Lop much joy of the garter and am, with all 
 respect, 
 
 Your L5ps 
 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 The plot is moved for to have a fling at the house of Lords 
 and at My td Levin because he acts sincerely on the succession, 
 but the new party will defend him in opposition to Athol. 
 
 fol. 107.] 
 
 Ed'', 22 July, 1704. 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have the honour of yours & have seen yours to the 
 Com"" & Chan"', and it is enough that the managers are con- 
 
Appendix II 177 
 
 vinced (which I have always assured them of) that the Queea 
 will steadily prosecute the measures laid down. There is noe 
 doubt of the Event, but I humblie beg that the Queen may be 
 prevailed with to yield to expedients for a temper [?] betwixt 
 what, on the one hand, we deserve, and which may be fit to be 
 done by her Ma*^ as She is stated in England, and what, on 
 the other hand, is fit to be done for the good of this nation 
 and bringing them to their witts again. Sure, if her Ma*^ 
 knew of remedys sufficient to recover her subjects in Bedlam, 
 she would not upon consideration forreigne to them omit the 
 applying of those remidys. All will end well with tyme and 
 wisdome & her Ma*''' starrs. Resentments should fall upon 
 persons ; they deserve them, but it is hard if they appear in 
 measures that will make the innocent herd suffer, for this 
 nation is at present fuell ready to take flame if fire must be 
 put to it. France will doe it, but I hope it is in her Matys 
 power, as noe doubt it is in her heart, to prevent that. 
 
 My Lord, I never thought it possible to compasse the 
 succession or any settlement here but by the union of the new 
 party and the Revolutioners, which union now cannot faill, 
 but the way to come at it was not by shewing favour to the 
 D. of Q''', for he has made use of this to perswade people here 
 that he was to be in power again, provided they made the 
 present measures faill. His personal interest is nothing, but 
 this expectation, on the one hand, made many of his side 
 opposers and, on the other hand, threw back many of the new 
 party to the Cavaliers ; besides the strenth of his friendships 
 lay amongst men who suffered him to make use of their 
 names, but who own that he knew they were agst the succes- 
 sion. Nay, its plain now that he has been all along in 
 a formed design agst it, tho his Interest of security money will 
 not be got and so gentle methods will not be practicable, 
 without which, considering the present temper and disposition, 
 all will goe to confusion or violence, whereas, if money be 
 given and the pail end calmly and during a recess, the nation 
 have pledges or, at least, a prospect of a good government. 
 Morally speaking, matters must come right the next session. 
 
 1888 A a 
 
178 Appendix II 
 
 There were great heats in part yesterday, my silence having 
 been niisconstrued, as if I was so guilty of I know not what 
 that I durst not speake. I own that I took a large share in the 
 heats that happened and I beleive I have put an end to them 
 as to my self. But reflexions went so far betwixt one S' ]' 
 Halkett and M' ffletcher that the part made them both give 
 their parole of honour to carry the matter noe further. The 
 
 heatts were the more violent that they were amongst friends 
 
 for the old party, except My L"* Argyle, only lookt on. The 
 Marquess of Montrosse and his friends joined with the new 
 partye not only in Voting, for he himself spoke several tymes, 
 which did much good. He and they are positive that, if the 
 act of security be past, it will not be in the power of the 3 
 Dukes (for so we speak) to spoill matters in another session. 
 
 I am, 
 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 /^/. 114.] 
 
 36 July, 1704, Ed'. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 The Queen will have full information of what past 
 yesterday by a Memorial sent by the Com'. That which I 
 have to ad is that, tho in the Theory it be verry reasonable to 
 think that the passing of an act of security will render the 
 nation secure and consequently lesse concerned to have a 
 nomination, yet, when we come to particulars, this does not 
 hold, for we know many whom the passing the act of security 
 will gain to be for a nomination, but we cannot find those men 
 whom the passing of that act will render either averse to it or 
 unconcerned for it. The high Cavaliers will never be for 
 a nomination nor indeed are concerned, whatever they pretend, 
 whether the act of security pass or not, and therefore fell upon 
 the invention of a treatie. Well meaning men that keep still 
 united to them own that they are willing to leave them when- 
 ever they are convinced by things such as the act of security 
 or other concessions that the Court of Engl: is willing to 
 
Appendix II lyg 
 
 gratifye this nation without forcing the succession upon them, 
 which, they say, they are willing to come in to whenever they 
 can doe it with honour, and that it comes before them without 
 an air of compulsion. 
 
 The Revolutioners will be for the succession, whether the 
 act of security be past or not. The new party will dwindle 
 to nothing in case it be not past, and I doubt much if any of 
 them in that case will accept of any employments, for, if they 
 doe accept, they know that they will lose themselves in the 
 opinion of the nation, for its impossible to perswade people 
 here that the Courts reason for not passing that act is that 
 they apprehend the passing of it will hinder the nomination, 
 for such is the present disposition here that they will needs 
 conclude from the not passing of that act that the Court is 
 willing the army be disbanded and that matters run to con- 
 fusion, trusting to their own strenth for remedys. This may 
 seeme incredible at a distance, but its evident matter of fact 
 here. 
 
 Your Lop will forgive me now if I write too much to you 
 & such long and uncorrect memorialls, which often I have not 
 tyme to read over, for we are in a strange condition here. 
 
 I am, 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 fol. 1 1 8.] 
 
 27 July, 1704. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 In the condition we are in its hard for any man to have 
 his thoughts about him. I have this day had occasion to be 
 put in mind of what I forgot yesternight to write upon — the 
 subject of the act of security. Those of the old party, at least 
 many of them (tho not those of the best sense amongst them), 
 are not, I now find, for the passing of that act, because they 
 apprehend that the passing of it will beget a good understand- 
 ing betwixt her Ma'^ and this nation, which they conclude will 
 
i8o Appendix II 
 
 end in enquyryies that they are not proof for. But, not to 
 insist that this is a false reasoning, for fresh resentments will 
 be stronger then the humour of enquirys, their great objection 
 to the act of security is that it will be noe security, because by 
 a clause in it the Government being in effect dissolved in the 
 case of her Ma*y death, the convention will be a Mobb or 
 a polish dyet, which no man will come to but he that trusts to 
 his sabre. Now, this is true and solid and unanswerable were 
 this nation to depend upon an act of security ; but her Ma*y 
 and all her good subjects, being of a mind that they are not to 
 depend upon it but to proceed to a nomination, it is obvious 
 that her Ma*^ cannot doe better then to connive at this clause, 
 for thus all men, when they are cool, will be convinced that the 
 act of security is indeed noe security at all, and so, notwith- 
 standing of it, will see the necessity of a nomination. 
 
 I am, 
 &c. 
 
 fol. 136.] 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 Edinburgh, August 3*, 
 1704. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have the honour of yours about the act of Exclusion, 
 which I my self was so much for at my first coming hither 
 that I engaged to the D. of Argile and my Lord Annandale 
 to be for it, and it's like, had we been early with it, it had done 
 good and answered the obvious reasons for it. But now we 
 cannot carry it, nor come near to carry it. The Jacobites will 
 be all against it, and the well meaning men too that join with 
 them, because, say they, it will spoill the Treaty, it being 
 a yeilding of the half of the subject of it. Then, say the 
 Limitation men, if an Exclusion be past, we shall never have 
 Limitations ; for the Nation will have an act of Security, and 
 an act of Security with an act of Exclusion will indeed render 
 the nation so secure that we shall have no Nomination in her 
 Maj'" lifetime, & consequently no Limitations but confusion 
 
Appendix II i8i 
 
 and violence. Besides it's a notion received here by the 
 imprudence of the Emissaries of Hannover that that Court is 
 agt Limitations, and, therfore, say the Limitation men, 
 Hannover and all their dependants, incase of an act of 
 Exclusion, will rather take their chance of a Nomination 
 without Limitations upon her Maj*' death than have it in her 
 lifetime with Limitations. Add to all this that, supposing the 
 Duke of Queensbery & his freinds put all their strenth to carry 
 this act of Exclusion, as I have ground to beleive they will, to 
 recover themselves with the country here, yet this would 
 signifie very litle, for a great part of his strenth is downright 
 Jacobite, and will never be for an Exclusion. Nay, men of 
 the greatest interest and best quality amongst them own that 
 he has not used them as gentlemen if ever he pretended to the 
 Queen that they would be for the Succession, for he knew the 
 contrary. 
 
 The Earle of Marchmont moved for an act of Exclusion 
 twice and was scarcely seconded, but his design was not to 
 push it but to fright the Jacobits into a Cess, and which he did 
 by concert. But he allowes me to writ that he thinks it the 
 most inadvisable step that can be made to push it at present. 
 The Advocat, too, who was mightily for it, owns that it will 
 not carry, but thinks that the pushing of it will make a great 
 discovery to the Queen. But why a discovery to the Queen 
 of that which is no secret to her and the discovery of which 
 would only serve to give a disreputation to the state of her 
 Maj** affairs here ? Besides, tho it would appear a true dis- 
 covery in England and elswhere, it would be indeed a false 
 discovery ; for it would make no discrimination betwixt 
 Jacobit and no Jacobit, nor any breach at all betwixt the 
 Jacobites and others that joine with them. The Advocat has 
 now been with me and yeilds ; but he is for passing the act 
 impowering and naming Commissioners to Treat, hoping that 
 good men may be gott named both amongst the Lords & 
 Burroughs, or that the Nomination may be gott left to the 
 Queen, neither of which I beleive ; for he ownes they design 
 to frustrate the Treaty. However, the time and place no 
 
I»2 
 
 Appendix II 
 
 doubt must be left to the Queen ; fifor, if they persist that the 
 Borders be the place, all is a Jest. I apprehend they'le be for 
 naming the Commissioners by the whole parliament, and not 
 by the three Estates severally, as is usuall. In that case 
 they'le carry all the Commissioners because of the Superiority 
 they have amongst the Burrous, and if so, considering matters 
 only as they stand here, I know no reason to retract what 
 I wrot formerly. But, that matter being subject to other 
 views at London, no doubt the Commissioner will receive her 
 Maj'^ orders about it. As to what yo' Lop writes of the con- 
 sequences of the distance, had her Maj"° been here, matters had 
 gone according to her pleasure. Nay, had her Ma*'' been at 
 York, they had gone quite otherwise than they have done. 
 Nay, till the morning of the day in w* the Resolvs past, we 
 were as sure of 96 as we could be and ther were but 300 
 present. The hopes of success by a Treaty turned mens 
 heads on the suddain, and the heads of the opposition, who 
 at first called a Treaty damnation (D: Hamilton's own word), 
 finding they would have no Majority without it, called it 
 Salvation in the parliament, if I mistake not. I hope I have 
 your Lops permission to use another hand. 
 
 I am, 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 fol. 128.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I reckon the session now over whenever her Ma'^ 
 pleases, and I beg leave to write of my self. I told My Ld 
 Marlborough that I would rather goe and attacke the lines 
 with him then doe what I have done, and yet I knew not the 
 half of my work. However, it seems I knew as much as ought 
 to have made me wiser then to have taken the load of this 
 bussiness upon me by coming singly into a post at this tyme. 
 My only temptation was that it seemed not fair to have 
 brought the Com' into the fire and to leave him there alone, as 
 I must have done since others declined posts ; but, now, others 
 
Appendix II 183 
 
 will take posts and my being here so long as the ferment 
 against me lasts can be of noe use. Then, tho I my self can 
 dispyse what I meet with, I would at least see my wife safe at 
 London, for here she cannot sleep sound, having had stones 
 threwn through the windows into her bed chamber big enough 
 to kill her, and without me she will not goe, being constantly 
 alarmed by the whispers of officious friends. I owe, too, at 
 London more money then my post (tho a good one) will pay 
 this year. I have yet one reason more. I would undeceive 
 your Lop as to certain mistakes you are in with respect to this 
 nation and which I contributed to, being in them my self. I 
 have, too, letters from London that I have spoilled all with my 
 heat and cannot stand my ground, but I have directly nor 
 indirectly expressed noe heat here, if not once in part ags' 
 M' ffletsher for his impertinencys, and in my letters to your 
 Lop against men not for their past but present behaviour. 
 But I reckon plain dealing acceptable to your Lop ; and noe 
 man here has done so much to unite people as I, as will appear. 
 However, as I am far from declining the honour of her Ma*^" 
 service ; so, if any presents himself that will serve her Ma'^ 
 more faithfully, I am ready to make way, and to put in my 
 claime for a post, where my charge will be under Lock and 
 Key. 
 
 To trouble your Lop noe more, I humbly beg that you will 
 interpose with the Queen not for an order for me to come to 
 London (her Ma'^ has done enough for me already), but for 
 Leave to come to it, which was the old frugal stile, and I shall 
 be at a point with the Com' & Chan'^ as to any thoughts 
 I have that concern the settlement of the Government before 
 I leave this place. I may ad that you will be rid of my 
 letters. 
 
 I am, 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 Ed' 6 Aug. 1704. 
 
184 Appendix II 
 
 fol. 188.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 You will forgive my concern for my friends, which is 
 not whether they be in or out, but that they act upon this 
 occasion so as to reconcile what they owe to the Queen and 
 what they owe to themselves. If the present state of her 
 Ma"'' affairs require their being out, still it will be noe 
 disservice to her Ma*^ to reserve them for another state, for 
 there will be more then one. Now, if this be the case and that 
 their laying down will not be considerred undutifull, I beleive 
 upon the least Intimation they will doe it. They have great 
 reguards to your Lop and will retain them thro out, but I own 
 they have none for those, either here or there, whom they take 
 to be their Governors at present. If your Lop can put but 
 a hundreth part of the confidence in me that they doe, I shall 
 write to them, either as from you or from my self only, and 
 I hope this matter will in due tyme have consequences that 
 will shew it was good service done. 
 
 I am, 
 
 &c. 
 
 J. JOHNSTOUN. 
 
 Saterday, 5 May, 1705. 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 Letters of William Johnstone, ist Marquis of Annan- 
 dale, President of the Privy Council and Secretary 
 of State in Scotland, to Godolphin. 
 
 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28055. 
 fol. 156.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have presumed this night to give her Majestie ana 
 account of the parting thiss day off the Generall Assemblie.^ 
 In the whole progresse off these Proceedings there appeared 
 the greatest dutie and affection to hir Majesties person and 
 Interest, and there debaitts and affaires were managed with all 
 due Regaird and respect to Her Majesties Authorittie and 
 Government. They received from me the dissolution off this 
 Assemblie and the Appointment off the next in her Majesties 
 name and by hir Authorittie with all becomming Respect and 
 submission, tho there were endeavors used (by some here who 
 designe neither peace in Churche nor state) that itt should be 
 otherwayes. I shall nott trouble your Lop: now by being 
 particuUar. I hope to have a more convenient oppurtunittie 
 for this heerafter. 
 
 I kno nott how to tutche thiss unluckie affaire off the 
 English shipps Crew, for the Character I have carried has 
 keeped me from annie Intermedling in that matter, butt I must 
 say, had all hir Majesties Servants acted that Vigorous and 
 dutifull part that became them, the Insolencies and Irregu- 
 laritties, spiritt and ferment off the People, had never come to 
 annie highth, butt the appearance that was made in- the first 
 Instance against Her Majesties Commands transmitted by her 
 Commissioner and the absenting off some off her Cheiffe 
 
 ' Annandale was Royal Commissioner to the General Assembly. 
 
 1688 B b 
 
1 86 Appendix III 
 
 Officers off State gave Life to this shameful! business, whiche 
 ought to be detested and abhorred when itt is considered what 
 appearances and Insults the Mobb were guiltie off upon this 
 occasion such as has never been practised in my tyme nor for 
 the age before in this nation. 
 
 I acknoledge the honor off your Lops which I had some few 
 dayes agoe. I wishe to receive your Commands and directions 
 in what may concerne her Majesties Interest and Service here, 
 for no man will more unbyassdlie and Impartiallie prosecute 
 them, and I never shall minde either partie or Interest when 
 Her Majesties measures and affairs call for my Assistance. 
 Iff this is nott the rule, whiche I have too much reason to 
 apprehend will nott be with mannie off Her Majesties servants, 
 the success next session off Parliament will nott answere. I 
 beg your Lop Pardon for this tedious trouble and that you 
 will beleive me with the greatest sincerittie, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude houss, the la"" off Apr. [1705]. 
 
 fol. 170.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Since My Ld Commissioner [Duke of Argyle] came to 
 thiss Kingdom he has verrie fullie disscoursed some off Her 
 Majestis servants annent the present Circumstances off her 
 affairs and Government, and, I dare say, withoutt resentment 
 or prejudice wee have honestlie given our opinnion, and what 
 wee think is absolutelie necessare att thiss tyme for the true 
 Interest off her Majesties Government and Authorittie, and 
 successe off Her Majesties measures next session off Parliament. 
 I have formerlie given itt of my oppinnion to your Los that itt 
 was necessare the government were off a peece and unitte. 
 I must now say, unless itt be soe, wee can have noe probabilittie 
 off successe next session off Parliament, for the behaviour and 
 
Appendix III 187 
 
 appearance off her Majesties servants who were last employed 
 has been soe gross and undutifull in thiss unluckie bussiness 
 off the English ships Crew, bothe towards her Majestic and 
 her Commissioner, that I can with no reason think they will 
 give annie manner off concurrence or assistance next session off 
 Parliament. I have no privat nor particullar veue off my 
 oune. Itt is my conviction and duettie to her Majestic and 
 her service and my zeall for a good understanding betwixt 
 these two nations that forces thiss freedome, and I doe assure 
 your Los : that all my appeai'ances and actings shall ever be 
 suittable to this, for I think itt is our greatt and Important 
 Concerne att thiss tyme. I shall nott truble your Los : with 
 particullars, since My Ld Commissioner will give you ane 
 account of the unanimous opinnion off her Majesties 
 servants whom his Grace was pleased to Call and advise 
 with upon thiss occasion. I may say itt is given as the 
 onlie probable way to sett matters right heare, and to obtain 
 successe in her Majesties affairs, and I hope itt will be soe 
 received by Her Majestic. I shall never presume to give 
 advice butt with the greatest fidelittie and zeall for Her 
 Majesties honour and Interest, and soe, as I hope, your Los : 
 will beleive that I am with the greatest sincerittie. 
 
 My Lord, 
 &c. 
 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude Houss, the 36"' Apr. [1705]. 
 
 fol. 210] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I kno these frequent adresses are uneasie, butt the 
 present juncture and necessittie off the Queens affaires, I hope, 
 will plead my excuse. The Queen, as I understand, will have 
 laid befor her by thiss Expresse a new measure, which is that 
 wee should forbeare pressing the settlement off the succession, 
 and onlie thiss session off Parliament endeavor a previous 
 
1 88 Appendix III 
 
 treatie for the benefite off our Commerce and trade with 
 England. Thiss was the measure the opposing partie and the 
 enemmies off the succession took last parliament to defeatt itt, 
 and itt will appeare surprizing eneugh iff the Queens servants 
 and those who were soe much against itt last session shall be 
 obliged to goe in to itt thiss. I am affrayed itt will look soe 
 like dropping the succession heare for good and all that wee 
 shall never be able again with annie countenance to take itt up. 
 The great argument for thiss measure that I have beared is 
 that those whom wee are to bring to our assistance will not 
 goe in to the succession and therfor wee must take them where 
 they will goe. Butt, since I am perfitelie sattisfied that most of 
 those who will goe in to the treatie onlie doe itt because they 
 kno itt setts the succession att a distance, and will in the event 
 ruine all hopes off Establishing itt heare, I must beg leave to 
 say that I can by no meanes give thiss advice, for I think itt 
 can neither consist with the Queens honour. Interest, nor 
 Securittie, and I am fullie persuaded the saiftie and peace off 
 these nations depend upon a constant and vigorous pushing 
 the succession upon all occasiones, for I doubt nothing butt 
 that the Queen may order her affaires soe as what possablie 
 may nott be done in one session off Parliament will be done in 
 ane other, and, when thiss nation does see that thiss is what 
 the Queen and her servants heare will have done, I shall nott 
 much question butt that in a little tyme itt may cast the 
 ballance upon the right side, and I am more and more con- 
 firmed off your Los : opinnion that whom itt may please or 
 displease the rule ought to be to bring in a Majorittie to the 
 Queens measure, and thiss I am convinced can onlie obtain 
 successe att Last. Butt to suitt a measure to the Inclinations 
 off some people heare is, I must say, regairding men more 
 then endeavoring to doe what I understand the Queen soe 
 much desires to be done. I am affrayed to be troublesome 
 and shall nott insist. I have presumed to enclose by way of 
 Memoriall for your Information some short reasons which may 
 be more obvious that way then by way off letter. My Lord, 
 I hope you will favorablie construct my concerne att thiss 
 
Appendix III 189 
 
 tyme, since I think the Queens service and Interest soe much 
 att stake, for I doe solemnlie declaire I have no vewe butt to 
 serve the Queen faithfullie in Conjunction with annie bodie 
 that will doe soe, for I am nott, nor will ever be, off annie 
 partie furder then the Queens honor and service and the 
 securittie off her Government directs me. Therfor I doe, with 
 greatt submission to her Majesties Judgement and to the 
 duettie I shall alwayes most faithfullie pay her, send my poor 
 thoghts on thiss occasion to your Los : to be laid before her 
 Majesty that in all my apearances in her sei^vice I may exoner 
 my selfe and be determined by her Commands and pleasure. 
 I beg. My Lord, your Los : will use me with freedome, for no 
 man desires more to be directed by you and with greater 
 sincerittie to owne himselfe att all tymes, 
 
 My Lord, 
 &c. 
 
 Annandale. 
 The first of June [1705]. 
 
 Some obvious Reasons why the Succession is to be pressed 
 
 next Sessions of Pari: and not a Treaty. 
 
 i"/ Itt is to be observed A Treaty is nott agreable to that 
 zeall and concerne her Majesty hathe hitherto shouen for 
 settleing the succession, bothe by her Letter to the Last 
 session off Parliament and the Commissioners speeche to 
 that Effect. 
 
 ay A Treaty will finde the same difficulties and oposition to 
 the naming off Commissioners that the sucession itt selfe 
 will. 
 
 30/ The Conclusions off a Treaty, beeng to be reveued and 
 canvassed by both Parliaments, will finde ass few frinds to 
 aprove off them as the succession will att present finde for 
 settling off it, becaus these Conclusions must pass in 
 a Scots Parliament preciselie as England aproves them 
 et e Contra, whiche seemes to have vast difficulties. 
 
 40/ Itt is off greatter advantage to Insist upon the succession, 
 becaus, tho itt should misscarry att thiss tyme, yett 
 
I go Appendix III 
 
 a Treaty may be taken up after, wheras, iff a Treaty miss- 
 carry, I am affrayed there will be no place for the English 
 succession. 
 
 50/ The Act of securittie provides that the English successor 
 shall be for ever excluded unless the Limitations be 
 settled in a Scotts Parliament in the Queens Reigne, 
 (whiche I pray God may be Long and Glorious), butt 
 a Treaty, requiring necessarlie a tract off Long tyme, and 
 whiche may be Industriouslie made Longer, leaves the 
 nation too much exposed to the provision off that Law 
 and to the affoording a handle for the Enemmies off the 
 Protestant succession to debarr the English successor for 
 ever even by the Expresse wordes off that Law. 
 
 6"/ A Treaty beeng the delay whiche was contrived last yeare 
 for putting off the settling the succession by the then 
 Ministry, the takeing itt up now seemes rather to be to 
 fitt a measure for the Ministry then to fitt a Ministry for 
 the Queens Measure, becaus nothing off her Majesties 
 service is promoted by thiss change. 
 
 70/ The Treaty looks too like the sense off a speeche made by 
 a Minister of State last Parliament that itt may be her 
 Majesties revealed will to have the succession settled, 
 butt her secrett will itt should nott be acomplished, whiche 
 might be to expose her Majesties naturall Candor and 
 honor to the worst off People who durst venture to give 
 itt such a turne. 
 
 June I [1705]. 
 
 fol. 240.] 
 
 S"! off July [1705] 
 May itt Please your Majestie, 
 
 I am ashamed to give your Majestie annie truble 
 aboutt what may be off less concerne when wee have now 
 affairs off the greatest consequence ammongst us, butt what 
 I presume to lay befor you is what I humblie conceive to be 
 the right off the office I have the honor to serve you in, and 
 
Appendix III 191 
 
 wheroff the President off your Councill has been in possession 
 ever since the Revolution, as I doe evince by the Memoriall 
 I presume to transmitt to your Majestic by his Grace My 
 Lord Commissioner. I pretend to nothing butt to maintain 
 the authorittie and respect that is due to your President off 
 your Councill and to use that and all the Interest I have in 
 the world faithfullie in your Majesties service. 
 
 I hope your Majestie will pardon me that I am forced to 
 say, never was there more occasion for zeal and vigor in your 
 service then now, for the opposers are bold and obstinatt. 
 Yett I am verrie hopefull that in a little tyme, by the faithfull 
 conduct and prudent zeal off My Lord Commissioner and the 
 assistance off your servants heare, who concurr with him and 
 will support him in your service, thiss session off Parliament 
 shall be brought by a considerable pluralittie to a happy issue 
 and all your affairs and publick business off thiss nation shal 
 be finished to the sattisfaction off your Majestie and all your 
 good subjects. By what I presume to lay befor your Majestie 
 I design onlie to maintain the respect that is due to your 
 President off your Councill. Were itt a personall Interest off 
 my oune, I should nott have presumed to have given your 
 Majestie annie truble, butt, itt beeng the concerne off the 
 Character, Your Majestie will graciouslie endulge me your 
 pardon for laying itt befor you, for, as my life and fortune and 
 all I have in the world shall ever be zealoussie and faithfullie 
 employed in your service, soe I doe most dutifullie subject my 
 selfe in thiss as in evrie other thing to your Majesties commands 
 and shall ever, with the greattest duettie and sincerittie, give 
 prooffs that I am. 
 
 May itt please your Majestie, 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 fol. 243.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I presume by thiss truble to aske the favor off your Loss : 
 that youl allow the secrettarie deputt for Scottland to reade 
 
192 Appendix III 
 
 a Memoriall to you relaitting to a peece off respect that has 
 been in use to be payed to the President off the Councill heare 
 and whiche is now disputed by My Lord Chancellor [Earl of 
 Seafield]. I shall nott truble your Los : to repeatt or say annie 
 thing off itt heare. The Memoriall is full and I hope will 
 sattisfie your Los itt is true matter off fact which will nott be 
 contraverted by annie. I oune I am ashamed to give your 
 Los : thiss truble since itt was my misfortune to faile off many 
 occasions I sought for when att London to have had the honor 
 off discoursing with your Los : the Queens affairs and hir 
 publick business in thiss nation. I shall onlie say now, My 
 Lord, none shall serve hir Majestic with greatter zeall and 
 fidelittie then I shall doe and there never was more occasion 
 for itt, for never was such projects and parties formed against 
 hir Majestic government and Monarchic as now seeme to be, 
 for there is a verrie obstinatt and avoued appearance and 
 opposition to all hir business and to the peacable Issue off 
 thiss session off Parliament. Yett I am verrie hopefull in 
 a little tyme the loyle Conduct and faithfull Management off 
 my Lord Commissioner [Argyle] shall overcome all difficulties 
 and bring thiss Parliament to such a Conclusion as will be 
 sattisfieng to hir Majestic and all hir good subjects. 
 
 The Memoriall I send hir Majestic is what concerns the 
 office I have the honor to carrie and nott my selfe personallie, 
 else I could nott have presumed to have trubled your Los : 
 with itt. I shall beg your favor and assistance, and, iff your 
 Los : can forgive thiss truble and allow me, when hir Majestic 
 may be concerned, to renew itt, I shall use itt as one who 
 considers your Los : off the most faithfull of hir servants ; and 
 shall ever continue. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude hous, the 3* off July [1705]. 
 
Appendix III i93 
 
 fol. 350.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I am verrie loathe to truble your Los : unless I thinke 
 I have something worthe while. Yesterdays proceedings, 
 I think, determines the greatt affaire with us for thiss session 
 off Parliament. D: Hamilton did propose the enclosed resolve, 
 and backed itt with a Long speeche. He was seconded by the 
 D: of Atholl and mannie such. I was the first spoke in 
 oposition to itt as beeng a negative upon the succession and 
 contradictorie to the Measure proposed by the Queen. I 
 pressed much the inconvenience off Resolves, and the restraint 
 they were upon the Liberty and freedome off the proceedings 
 off Pari:, and was seconded by mannie. I thoght by thiss to 
 have baffled thiss business, and that itt was the fairest ground 
 to bring a Majorittie, since upon the sixth wee had by a Vott 
 preferred treating by overtures to Resolves, butt wee were 
 outt voted after itt came to the Vott, ' approve or nott ' the 
 resolve, by fortie three. I shall nott truble your Los: att 
 present by beeng more particullar how the Vott and reasoning 
 went then to tell you that itt is the same resolve that was last 
 yeare oposed to those who then managed business for the 
 Queen, and that even they were ass much against itt now as 
 they were then, and I must say, iff others who are now 
 employed had performed there part, wee had throwen outt 
 thiss resolve, and consequentlie might have promised our 
 selves success in the settlement off the Succession whiche 
 I have ever understood to be her Majesties Measure. I hope 
 there will be supplies gott for the forces, and I see little more 
 to be done that will be for the Queens service or Interest thiss 
 session, for our business will be most now to keep them from 
 makeing entrenchments or invasions upon the Croun and 
 prerogative, whiche I am affrayed may bee too much designed 
 by those who may move the act for encreasing the representa- 
 tion off members for counties and some other proposalls off the 
 same natture. Iff such a treatie as may not be prejudiciall to 
 the settlement off the succession can be obtained, and the 
 nomination gott, soe as may be for the Queens honor and 
 
 I6SS Q c 
 
194 Appendix III 
 
 interest, I shall be verrie glad to see itt, and shall assist with 
 my endeavers that itt may be ass much to the Queens minde 
 as possible, for, now that wee are putt by hopes ofif settling the 
 succession thiss session off Pari:, wee must make the best off 
 itt. I cannot be particullar with your Los : how thiss has 
 misscaried att thiss distance. I must reserve itt to meetting ; 
 then I hope your Los : will allow me to be plain. I onlie now 
 tell you that the D. off Queens, frinds, my Ld Cromarties, my 
 Ld. Stairsis, and my Ld. Registers frinds and mannie off the 
 servants turning to the treatie has intyrlie defeated the setle- 
 ment off the succession at thiss tyme. I humblie beg your 
 Los : pardon for thiss truble and that I may kno from you the 
 Queens minde and Commands upon thiss occasion, whiche 
 shall ever be my rule in business. 
 
 I shall onlie add that the shorter our session off Parliament 
 be now itt will be the more for the Queen and thiss nations 
 Interest in my poor opinnion, butt all thiss with the greatest 
 submission and regaird to her Majesties good will and 
 pleasure, and I am ever with the greatest faithfuUness, 
 
 My Lord, 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude houss, the 8"" off July [1705]. 
 
 The Marquesse off Lothian, married to the Commissioners 
 Aunt, Voted for the resolve, and the Marquiss off Montrose 
 declaired himself for the succession on Limitations and Voted 
 against itt. 
 
 fol- ^S1^, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have nott trubled your Los : since I came to thiss 
 Kingdom, nott doubting you have full accounts off all matters 
 from other hands. I promised the Queen, and I told your 
 Los att parting I wold doe my duetie in hir service and 
 advance hir Majesties measures and Interest in thiss session off 
 Parliament and upon all other occasions in thiss nation with 
 
Appendix III i95 
 
 my outtmost power and capacittie. Thiss I have done upon 
 thiss emergent, and have a full and firme adherence off all my 
 Frinds in hir service. Were itt necessare, I might call even 
 my enemmies themselves to wittness my appearance upon thiss 
 occasion and that bothe my Frinds and I have acted our parts. 
 I pretend to no meritt, for I have done no more then my dutie, 
 beeng perfetelie convinced and sattisfied that thiss nation can 
 never be happie, nor our Religious and Civill Interests secure 
 untill the same succession with England be the settled 
 succession heare. What I doe is upon principle and Inclina- 
 tion, and therfor no man shall outtdoe me in zeall and vigor in 
 hir Majesties service, for to serve hir and support hir 
 Authorittie and Government is our solid securittie, and 
 chearfullie to comply with all hir demands and proposalls is 
 to sett our selves upon the best foott and foundation. Had 
 all hir Majesties servants thoght soe att thiss tyme and acted 
 accordinglie and the frinds off those who have been off laitt 
 laid asside from hir Government had nott joined the opposing 
 partie, the successe had been to hir desire. I doe nott 
 presume to truble your Los : with particuUars, since I suppose 
 you will have them from others. I shall ever continue in my 
 dutie to serve hir Majestic, and, iff I erre, itt shall be by nott 
 knoing hir will and Commands, for I must take nottice to your 
 Los : that I am nott treated by my Lord Commissioner with 
 that confidence and trust in the publick concernes that my 
 forwardness in hir Majesties service and the share I have off 
 the Government entitles me to. I doe tresspass and I humblie 
 beg pardon. Yett I must take leave to give your Los : all joye 
 off the honors the Queen has conferred upon you. I shall 
 allwayes think they can never be with the same justice and 
 Meritt bestoued upon annie other. I beg your Los : will 
 favorablie receive thiss truble and beleive me to be with the 
 greatest sincerittie, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude houss, the 18*'' off July [1705]. 
 
196 Appendix III 
 
 fol. 359.] 
 
 Theai off July [1705]. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I hope your Los : will forgive me that I give you truble 
 upon evrie thing that I think is off concerne and consequence 
 to the Queens service and interest. I heare there is a signature 
 passed hir Majesties hand in favors off the Lords off session 
 for fifteen hundrethe pounds yearlie outt off a fund belonging 
 to the toun off Edr. The duettie off my office oblidges me to 
 lett your Los : kno that itt is most Illegall, and, withoutt the 
 toun off Edr. consent, can never pass heare, and I doe assure 
 your Los : the Magistrats and Communittie off the toune will 
 never consent to itt. I have tryed and used my best endeavors 
 with them in thiss matter butt to no purpose. Suche a signa- 
 ture att thiss tyme wold occasion more heatt and truble in the 
 Parliament then I can expresse, and I doe assure your Los : 
 wee need nothing to raise the ferment ammongst us. 
 
 I have att the desire off all the Magistrats and Communittie 
 sent to Sir David Nairne a Memoriall against thiss signatture 
 to be laid befor her Majesty, whiche was advised with her 
 advocatt heare. I have alsoe sent the act off Parliament in 
 there favors, whiche will sattisfie evrie bodie that thiss Im- 
 position can be applyed to no other use butt for the payment 
 off the debts off the toun off Edr. withoutt there consent, and 
 besides the Illegallittie off thiss I must say, my Lord, nothing 
 could be more unseasonable then to dissoblidge, nay, I feare 
 I may say, to loose the toun off Edr. who have the greatt 
 leading and influence upon one off the Estaits off Parliament, 
 the Royall Burroughs, and soe unadvertentlie has thiss 
 signature been sent that the Provist off Edr. was never spoke 
 to in the matter, soe that, My Lord, I must say, to pass such 
 a signature in thiss way and maner might be off verie bad 
 consequence to the Queens service heare, for upon all occasions 
 the Magistrats and Communittie off the toun off Edr. are 
 most usefull and assistant to the Government in the Queens 
 service. My Lord, I have no other vewe in thiss matter butt 
 the Queens Interest and service, and I am convinced, had itt 
 
Appendix III ^97 
 
 been duelie considered, such a signature had never been 
 offered. I onlie beg upon the Queens account that annie 
 thing off thiss kinde may be stopt untill she heare her servants 
 upon itt, for bothe her justice and interest is concerned to 
 a greatt degree in thiss matter. My Lord, you will forgive 
 me that I use freedome when I think the Queens service and 
 interest concerned, for that shall ever be my principall vewe in 
 all the affaires off thiss nation, and I shall ever desire that your 
 Los will beleive that I am with greatt sincerittie. 
 
 My Lord, 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 fol. 288.] 
 
 The 26^^ off August [1705]. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I have with others off her Majesties servants, att my 
 Lord Commissioners desire, signed ane opinnion to her 
 Majestic for giving the Royall assent to ane Act for en- 
 curaging the fisherie, and to ane act for a Commission off 
 trade. The first will Impaire the revenue, butt how farr itt 
 may goe tyme will onlie shoe, for noe bodie can certainlie 
 determine thatt att present. The other seemes to be Callcul- 
 latte for derogating from Authorittie, and takeing the ordinarie 
 pouers and business outt off the Queen and the Governments 
 hands, for itt is a noveltie and never formerlie practised by Act 
 off Parliament heare. I opposed bothe with all my arte in 
 Parliament and voted against bothe, soe that I onlie give my 
 opinnion with all submission for passing them upon the 
 supposittion that wee cannot have the lesse and treatie, or the 
 less by itt selfe, withoutt they have the Royal Assent. I cannot, 
 indeed, My Lord, be positive att present whither even upon 
 passing these Votts wee shall have the treatie such as the 
 Queen will pass, and the lesse or either off them, butt sure 
 I am, iff wee have nott, itt will nott be thoght the Queens 
 interest to pass annie off thes Vots into Laws. I have used 
 
198 Appendix III 
 
 my outtmost endeavors to advance the treatie in such a Manner 
 as may be agreable to her Majestie, butt I am affrayed eneugh 
 itt may be Clogged soe as itt will nott answere, for wee were 
 forced to part last parliament day withoutt beeng able to 
 procure a first reading, for the opposing partie insist with great 
 vigor and warmthe to have itt burthened with the repeating 
 the prohibittorie Clauses in the English Act befor the 
 Commencement off annie treatie. Her Majestie and, I hope, 
 your Los : will believe that I shall continue to doe my part that 
 thiss Affaire and all others in this session off Parliament may 
 be concluded to her sattisfaction and for securing a good 
 understanding betwixt the two nations, which I am affrayed 
 is other wayes designed by mannie ammongst us att present. 
 
 I wishe wee had the supplies, but wee are now fixed that, 
 untill the treatie and trade relaiting therto be concluded, the 
 Act off supplie is nott to have a second reading. I am verie 
 sensible itt should be off the worst consequence to the Queens 
 interest and the Quiett and peace off thiss nation should the 
 Parliament part withoutt giving supplies, which was the onlie 
 mottive to me for signing the opinnion to her Majestie. Butt 
 off two evills wee must allwayes choose the least, and I am 
 heartillie sorrie that the Queen should be putt to suche 
 a straitt, and I wishe, even when itt is granted, itt may doe the 
 business. Iff wee have nott the Assistance off those who were 
 last employed, itt will nott doe, for wee have carried nothing 
 that has been favorable yett butt by there help and con- 
 currence. I wishe a happie and a speedie issue to thiss 
 Parliament. I shall make itt my greatt concerne that itt be 
 ass much for the Queens honor and interest as can be. Soe 
 soon as itt is over, I hope the Queen will allow me to Attend 
 her as itt is my duettie and as my post and office calls me to, 
 and that I may pay my respects to your Los with the 
 sincerittie off. 
 
 My Lord, your Los : most 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
Appendix III i99 
 
 fol. 398.] 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Wee have yesterday in Parliament Voted a plain Act off 
 treatie, and att the same tyme declairedthat the treatie shall nott 
 commence untill the Clause in the Englishe Act declairing us 
 Aliens shall be repealed. The struggle was to keep thiss outt 
 off the Act, whiche wee carried onlie by three Votts, having 
 bothe the Dukes off Hamilton, AthoU, and all there partie 
 with all those who were last employed in oposition to us. 
 I am sorrie wee have thiss Clogg. I used my endeavors 
 against itt. I wishe with all my heart wee had trusted to 
 a plain Act off Treatie. Had the partie who were last 
 employed acted the part they did (as I wrote to your Los :) in 
 some former Votts, whiche wee carried, wee should have been 
 able to have dropt thiss Clause Intyrlie. The houss have nott 
 yett agreed whither thiss shall be by Adress, Instruction, or 
 seperatt Act. Thiss will be part off next dayes work, and, as 
 I can judge, will be either by Adress or Instruction to the 
 Commissioners, who are left to be named by her Majestie. 
 I hope in two or three dayes wee may have the necessarie 
 suplies for the Forces, and then I must think that itt may be 
 assweell for the interest off the Queens service as for the good 
 off thiss nation that thiss session were ass soon att ane end as 
 her Majestie pleases. I am with greatt truthe, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 &c. 
 Annandale. 
 
 Holyrude houss, the a'^ off Sept. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 Portland MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., vol. v, p. 114. 
 
 In the following letter from the Earl of Glasgow to the 
 Earl of Oxford we have an explicit statement regarding the 
 money sent from England to Scotland in connexion with the 
 Union Parliament : 
 
 ' 171 1, November 2a, Edinburgh. — I received a letter from 
 the Commissioner for the public accounts desiring me to 
 exhibit to them a true account of what public money was lent 
 by the Treasuiy of England to the Treasury of Scotland from 
 the month of May 1706 to the month of May 1707. Now 
 there was no money lent by the Treasury of England to the 
 Treasury of Scotland, & not the least vestige of it to be seen 
 in the Treasury of Scotland, for if it had been known that 
 there had been a farthing sent from England to Scotland it 
 would have totally disappointed the carrying on of the Union. 
 But, in respect that the fund for maintaining the Civil List was 
 entirely exhausted by the charge of former Parliaments, her 
 Majesty was pleased to order the Earl of Godolphin to remit 
 twenty thousand pounds sterling to the Duke of Queensberry, 
 Commissioner to the Union Parliament, to defray his charge as 
 Commissioner & to pay some part of the arrears of her Majesty's 
 Ministers that were resting preceding the Union Parliament & 
 to pay some part to those that had Letters of Pension from 
 her Majesty. Accordingly the Earl of Godolphin put twenty 
 thousand pounds sterling in the hands of Sir David Nairn, 
 Secretary Deputy, who remitted the said money to me who 
 was ordered by the Duke of Queensberry to keep the account 
 of the same & to disburse it by his Grace's order. This is the 
 true matter of fact, & I being enjoined to carry on this matter 
 with the greatest secrecy & privacy, for if ever it had been in 
 
Appendix IV 201 
 
 le least discovered during the " haill " session of the Union 
 arliament, the Union had certainly broken, & I had been 
 fallibly "De Witted", I have judged myself in duty bound to 
 3ur Lordship to lay the account of the expending of that twenty 
 lousand pounds before you, & if you shall think it proper for 
 le to exhibit the same before the Commissioners for the 
 ublic accounts your Lordship will be pleased to let me have 
 our commands, which I shall punctually obey ; for the Com- 
 lissioners desire a particular account from me upon the 3o"' 
 f December next . . .' 
 
 Dd 
 
APPENDIX V 
 
 Letter of Earl of Mar to Messrs. Wisheart, Carstares, 
 and Mitchell, ministers. 
 
 State Papers, Scotland, Letter Books, vol. i, p. 37, No. 24. 
 
 Whitehall, March 27"' 17 14. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I had the favour of a letter from you yesterday without 
 a date, putting me in mind of the Assembly which is appointed 
 to meet the 6* of May. I have the good fortune to be known 
 to some of you long, and I hope non of you will doubt of my 
 doing all I am capable of in the station the Queen has been 
 pleased to put me for her sei-vice, and for the good & quiet of 
 my Countrey, which I know you all three have a very great 
 concern for. 
 
 The Queen has been ever so indulgent & favourable to the 
 Church of Scotland that all its members have very good 
 reason to be sensible of it, and, as long as they behave sutable 
 to the favours her Mat'^ has showen, I am perswaded she will 
 continue you her protection and her care of its concerns. 
 
 But allow me, at the same time, to tell you that the 
 accounts we have from Scotland of the behaviour of some of 
 your Brethren for some time past in stiring up jealousies in 
 the Peoples minds, as if their liberty's and rights. Religious and 
 Civil, were in danger under her Mat'°^ Administration, and 
 encourageing them to buy up arms, and put themselves in 
 a posture of defence looks very odd from Ministers of the 
 Gospel who have had so great proofs of the Queens favour and 
 whose duty it is to preach peace and obedience to her. 
 
 I would fain hope that there is not so much ground for these 
 accounts as some people wou'd have us here believe. And 
 what may be in it I perswade myself that it is contrar to your 
 
Appendix V 203 
 
 advice and opinion, but haveing tliis opportunity I could not 
 but take notice of it, which I assure you is well meant towards 
 you. 
 
 The Queen is the great Blessing of these Kingdoms ; God 
 preserve her long to us, and may all her subjects be sensible of 
 the blessings wee enjoy under her Administration. Where 
 have we any safety if she be disturbed ? 
 
 I shall take care to put the Queen in mind of the approach 
 of the Assembly, and make no doubt but her Ma*'" will send 
 one to represent her there who will be agreeable to you and 
 will be with you soon. 
 
 I shall alwayes be glad of an opportunity of showing you 
 how much I am, 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Your most humble Servant, 
 Mar. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abjuration Oath, its effects, 146, 148. 
 Act for Encouragement of Trade, 
 
 19- 
 
 Act of Indemnity, 65. 
 
 Act of Peace and War, 58. 
 
 Act of Security, 20, 53 ; passed by 
 Scottish Parliament, 60-4; Queen 
 refuses to sanction it, 63 ; sanc- 
 tioned by the Queen, 73-4 ; its 
 effects on the relations of the two 
 kingdoms, 74-5 ; condemned by 
 Tories in House of Lords, 77. 
 
 Act of Security for safeguarding 
 Church of Scotland, 123. 
 
 Act of Toleration, its unpopularity 
 in Scotland, 145-6. 
 
 Act restoring lay patronage, 147. 
 
 Advocates, Faculty of, their address 
 to the Queen, 37-8. 
 
 African Company, 82. 
 
 Alien Act repealed by English Par- 
 liament, loi. 
 
 Andersons, family of, their mono- 
 poly of printing the Bible, 148. 
 
 Annandale, William, first Marquis 
 of, Secretary of State, 92 ; his 
 quarrel with Duke of Argyle, 94 ; 
 refuses office of Lord Privy Seal, 
 105 ; opposed to Union, ib. 
 
 Annandale, the, Scottish vessel 
 seized by East India Company, 
 82. 
 
 Anne, Queen, her attitude to Pres- 
 byterianism, 9 ; favourable to 
 Episcopalianism, 12; her letter 
 to Privy Council urging toleration 
 to Scottish Episcopalians, 58. 
 
 Argyle, John, second Duke of, ap- 
 pointed Royal Commissioner, 89; 
 his character, 89-91 ; his rela- 
 tions to the Court, 91-3 ; con- 
 sents to appear in Parliament to 
 support the Union, 106-7 ; his 
 letter to Earl of Mar, ib. ; refuses 
 to act on Commission for Union, 
 109. 
 
 Articles of Treaty of Union, their 
 passage through Parliament, 
 122-7, 
 
 AthoU, John, Marquis, afterwards 
 Duke, of AthoU, made Lord Privy 
 Seal, 54; his character, 55; 56, 
 57, 59 ; his service to the Gov- 
 ernment, 62 ; accused of being 
 party to the Scots Plot, 65 ; a 
 thorn in the side of his col- 
 leagues, 71 ; his Highlanders 
 rumoured to be joining Cameron- 
 ians against Union, 1 19-120 ; his 
 jealousy of Duke of Hamilton, 
 122. 
 
 B 
 
 Baillie, George, of Jerviswoode, a 
 leader of the Country Party, 68 ; 
 83 ; made Treasurer-depute, 88 ; 
 his character, 103 ; quoted, 104 ; 
 his fears for civil war if Treaty 
 of Union is pressed, 120-1. 
 
 Belhaven, Lord, his opposition to 
 Union, 117 ; his speeches, ib. 
 
 Blantyre, Lord, takes an address 
 to the Queen, 36. 
 
 Blenheim, battle of, 76. 
 
 Bruce, Sir Alexander, of Broom- 
 hall, expelled from Parliament, 
 
 38-9. 
 Burnet, Bishop, quoted, 100, 149. 
 Byng, AdmiraJ, 149. 
 
 Calderwood, David, church his- 
 torian, 4. 
 
 Cameron, Richard, leader of the 
 Cameronians, lo. 
 
 Cameronians, the part they played 
 at the Revolution, lo-ll ; op- 
 posed to the Union, 1 14-15 ; ru- 
 moured to be joining Highlanders 
 against Treaty of Union, 119. 
 
 Campvere, staple port of Scotland, 
 142. 
 
 Canongate, the, 85. 
 
Index 
 
 205 
 
 Carstares, William, leader of the 
 
 Presbyterians, 13, 144. 
 Catholics, Roman, their position in 
 
 Scotland, 12-13. 
 Charles II, 14- 
 Chesterfield, Lord, his estimate of 
 
 the Duke of Argyle, 90. 
 Church of England safeguarded 
 
 by the Treaty of Union, 128. 
 Church of Scotland, its dread of the 
 
 results of the Union, 143-8. 
 Claimof Right, 35, 69, 121. 
 Clelland, Colonel, his defeat of the 
 
 Highlanders, 11. 
 Clergy, national, their opposition 
 
 to the Union, 113-14- 
 Commission of Union, meets at 
 
 Whitehall, 109 ; its proceedings, 
 
 109-12. 
 Commissioners for the Burghs, how 
 
 elected, 33. 
 Commissioners for the Shires, how 
 
 elected, 33. 
 Commissioners of Union, act for 
 
 appointing, passed, 99-100 ; 
 
 choice of, 107-9; Scottish, 108- 
 
 9; English, 109. 
 Convention of Royal Burghs, 137, 
 
 142. 
 Country Party, 15-16, 51; reduced 
 
 in numbers, 56 ; 68. 
 Court of Admiralty tries Captain 
 
 Green, 83. 
 Court of St. Germains, 65. 
 Court Party, 14-15. 94- 
 Cowper, William, Lord Keeper, 
 
 acts on the Commission of Union, 
 
 IIO-II. 
 
 Cromartie, Earl of, 65. 
 Custom-house officials, English, 
 their unpopularity in Scotland, 
 
 133- 
 Customs, levying of, after the 
 Union, 132-4. 
 
 D 
 Darien scheme, 15. 
 De Foe, Daniel, quoted, I, 75, 83, 
 
 136. 
 Dicey, Professor, quoted, 137, note. 
 Dryden, quoted, 50. 
 Dumbarton Castle, 22, 65. 
 Dundee, Viscount, quoted, 6. 
 
 East India ship. See Worcester, 81. 
 Edinburgh, Castle of, 65. 
 Edinburgh, riot in, 58; populace 
 of, opposed to Union, 119; I33i 
 
 134- 
 Election, Parliamentary, in 1703, 
 
 47-8. 
 
 Elections, as they were conducted 
 in Scotland, 7 and note. 
 
 Episcopalians, Scottish, their posi- 
 tion after the Revolution, 11-12 ; 
 opposed to the Union, 1 14. 
 
 Equivalent, the, 125, I34-S- 
 
 Excise, collecting of, after the 
 Union, 132. 
 
 F 
 
 Fletcher, John, of Saltoun, 3 ; his 
 character and career, 60-1 ; pro- 
 poses his 'limitations', 61-2; 
 69, 72 ; his opposition to Treaty 
 of Union, 117. 
 
 France, Scotland's trade with, 
 142-3. 
 
 G 
 
 General Assembly condemns the 
 use of a liturgy, 145. 
 
 Glasgow, 119, 133-4- 
 
 Glasgow, Earl of, made Treasurer- 
 depute, 92 ; quoted, 133. 
 
 Godolphin, Sidney, Lord Treasurer 
 of England, I, 46, S3> 59, 68, 
 73-4, 76, 89, 93-4, 97, 138- 
 
 Green, Captain, tried for piracy, 
 83-5 ; his execution, 86. 
 
 Greenshields, Episcopalian clergy- 
 man, his attempt to introduce a 
 Hturgy, 144-5. 
 
 H 
 Hamilton, James, fourth Duke of, 3 ; 
 his character and career, 27-8, 
 35, 36 ; probably aiming at the 
 Crown, 7 1 and note ; moves for 
 a commercial treaty with Eng- 
 land, 73 ; 95 ; moves that Com- 
 missioners of Union be appointed 
 by the Queen, 99 ; 120 ; his 
 jealousy of the Duke of AthoU, 
 122 ; his dramatic stroke for de- 
 ' feating the Treaty of Union, 124 ; 
 fails at the last moment, ib. ; 
 
206 
 
 Index 
 
 143 ; created Duke of Brandon, 
 
 151. 
 Hamilton, Duchess of, her efforts 
 
 to prevent the Union, 115. 
 Hanoverian Succession, 69, 73. 
 Harley, Robert, afterwards Earl of 
 
 Oxford, 45, 46. 
 Haversham, Lord, his attack on 
 
 Godolphin, 76-7. 
 Highland clans, their chiefs bribed 
 
 by the Government, 152-3. 
 Highland Companies, 23. 
 Highlands of Scotland, their past 
 
 history and condition at the ac- 
 cession of Anne, 17-18. 
 High Street, of Edinburgh, 85. 
 Holyrood House, 85. 
 House of Commons, passes Alien 
 
 Act, 79-80. 
 House of Lords, its action with 
 
 regard to the Scots Plot, 66-7 ; 
 
 and the Act of Security, 76-9 ; 
 
 137. 
 
 I 
 
 Invasion of 1708, 149. 
 Ireland, prohibition of victual from, 
 140. 
 
 J 
 
 Jacobite party, 16, 51-2. 
 
 Jacobite Rising of 1745, 16. 
 
 James VI and I, 9, 14, 18. 
 
 James VII and II, 9, 13. 
 
 Johnstone, James, Secretary of 
 State, a leader of the Squadrone, 
 69 ; appointed Lord Clerk Reg- 
 ister, 70 ; his letters to Go- 
 dolphin, 72; 84, 116. 
 
 Jurors and Non-jurors, 148, and 
 note. 
 
 K 
 
 Keith, Mr., takes address of pro- 
 testors to the Queen, 36. 
 
 Kinnoull, Earl of, quoted on state 
 of administration in Scotland, 
 152. 
 
 Knox, John, his History of the 
 Reformation in Scotland, 3. 
 
 Leith, Links of, 86. 
 ' Limitations,' proposed by Fletcher 
 of Saltoun, 61, and note. 
 
 Linen, staple commodity of export 
 
 from Scotland, 139-40. 
 Lockhart, George, of Camwath, his 
 
 Memoirs, 4 ; quoted, 28, 35, 50, 
 
 99-100; 126, 146. 
 Lords of the Articles, 25. 
 Loudoun, Earl of, made Secretary 
 
 of State, 92. 
 Lovat, Simon, and the Scots Plot, 
 
 64. 
 
 M 
 
 Malt Tax, its unpopularity in Scot- 
 land, 141. 
 
 Mar, John, Earl of, moves for the 
 appointment of Commissioners 
 of Union, 98 ; quoted, 102 ; on 
 the negotiations for Union, no- 
 il ; his account of proceedings 
 at the close of Commission for 
 Union, 112 ; expresses fear of 
 assassination, 119; on the oppo- 
 sition of the Church to the Union, 
 123; on privileges of Scottish 
 peers, 151, and note. 
 
 Marchmont, Patrick, first Earl of. 
 Lord Chancellor, 35 ; his char- 
 acter and career, 40 ; introduces 
 a bill for abjuring the Prince of 
 Wales, 40-1 ; 54, 60, 107, 126, 
 127. 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 68. 
 
 Marlborough, Lady, corresponds 
 with the Duke of Hamilton, 36. 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 9. 
 
 N 
 
 Navigation Act, 19. 
 
 New Party, detached from the 
 Country Party, 70 ; 88 ; question 
 of its dismissal, 91 ; dismissed, 
 92 ; 94. See Squadrone. 
 
 Nobility, Scottish, their influence 
 in Parliament, 34-5. 
 
 Nottingham, Earl of, English Sec- 
 retary of State, 36, 46, 53, 66, 76. 
 
 O 
 
 Occasional Conformity Act, 48, 
 
 146. 
 Officers of State in Scotland, method 
 
 of appointing them, 14. 
 
Index 
 
 207 
 
 Parliament of Scotland, its powers 
 in the reign of Anne, 25-6; 
 question of legality of sitting 
 Parliament, 26 ; its place of 
 meeting, 31-2 ; how its business 
 was conducted, 32 ; how elected, 
 33-4; meeting of, in May 1703, 
 50-1 ; meets in its penultimate 
 session, 86 ; meets in its last 
 session, 115. See Election, 
 Rump. 
 
 Peers, Scottish, method of their 
 election settled, 125-6; privileges 
 of, 1 50-1. 
 
 Porteous Mob, 134. 
 
 Presbyterian party, 51. 
 
 Presbyterianism in Scotland, the 
 part it played at the Revolution, 
 8-10. 
 
 Presbyterians, two classes of, 41-2. 
 
 Pretender, the elder, 66, 68 ; ru- 
 moured to be in the Highlands, 
 120. 
 
 Privy Council of Scotland, the part 
 it played in the government, 14- 
 15 ; its action on the death of 
 William III, 21-4; its impotence 
 in reign of Anne, 24 ; 83. 
 
 Q 
 
 Queensberry, James, second Duke 
 of, 2 ; his character and career, 
 29-30 ; speech on adjourning 
 Parliament in 1702, 41 ; 46 ; 
 appointed Royal Commissioner, 
 54 ; and the Scots Plot, 65, 68 ; 
 deprived of office of Royal Com- 
 missioner, 70 ; made Lord Privy 
 Seal, 92 ; 96-7 ; moves an ad- 
 dress to the Queen against House 
 of Lords, 99; chooses Commis- 
 sioners of Union, 107-8 ; his in- 
 structions for carrying Treaty of 
 Union, 116; 130; created Duke 
 of Dover, 150. 
 
 R 
 
 Ramsay, George, Commander of 
 
 the Forces in Scotland, 65. 
 Revolution Settlement, 57. 
 Rochester, Earl of, 76. 
 
 Rosebery, Earl of, 5, note. 
 
 Rothes, Earl of, member of the 
 Country Party, 69. 
 
 Roxburgh, John, Earl of, a leader 
 of the Country Party, 68 ; 80-1 ; 
 made Secretary of State, 88; his 
 character, 95 ; 104-5. 
 
 ' Rump,' the, name given to Parlia- 
 ment of 1702 after secession of 
 some of its members, 39. 
 
 St. Giles, church of, 131. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 3. 
 
 ' Sanquhar Declaration,' 10. 
 
 Schism Act, 146. 
 
 Scotland, its grievances after the 
 Union of the Crowns, 18-19. 
 
 Scots Plot, otherwise called the 
 Queensberry Plot, 64-8. 
 
 Seafield, James, first Earl of, after- 
 wards Earl of Findlater, 22 ; his 
 character and career, 48-9; made 
 Lord Chancellor, 54 ; 59 ; con- 
 tinued in office of Lord Chan- 
 cellor, 70 ; 83 ; and the trial of 
 Captain Green, 85-6 ; made Sec- 
 retary of State, 88 ; reappointed 
 Chancellor, 92; 130; moves for 
 repeal of Union, 15 1-2. 
 
 Seeley, Sir John, quoted, 138. 
 
 Seton of Pitmedden, his speeches 
 in favour of Treaty of Union, 
 1 1 7-1 8. 
 
 Smuggling, 134. 
 
 Somers, Lord, and the Act of Se- 
 curity, 76-8 ; 109, 127. 
 
 Sophia, Electress, 44, 59, 66-7. 
 
 Speedy Return, the, Scottish vessel, 
 83- 
 
 Spottiswoode, Archbishop, 4. 
 
 ' Squadrone Volante,' 95-6 ; cor- 
 respondence of its leaders, 103-4; 
 its numbers, 122; its action with 
 regard to Treaty of Union, 122 ; 
 139. See New Party. 
 
 Stair, John, first Earl of, 102 ; his 
 character and gifts, 108 ; advises 
 Queensberry in choice of Com- 
 missioners of Union, 108 ; his 
 death, 124-5. 
 
 Stirling, Castle of, 22. 
 
 Sunderland, Earl of, 78. 
 
208 
 
 Index 
 
 Timber in the Highlands, 140. 
 Trade, Scottish : with England, 
 
 threatened by the AHen Act, 
 
 80-1 ; see Act, Campvere, France, 
 
 Linen. 
 Treaty of Union, passed by the 
 
 English Parliament, 127-8; its 
 
 different reception in England 
 
 and Scotland, 130-1. 
 Treaty of Utrecht, 143. 
 TurnbuH's Diary, quoted, 8-9. 
 Tweeddale, John, second Marquis 
 
 of, a leader of the Country Party, 
 
 69; Lord High Commissioner, 
 70 ; Lord Chancellor, 88. 
 
 V 
 Voltaire, quoted, 153-4. 
 
 W 
 Wharton, Lord, 76. 
 Wine Act, 59. 
 
 Wodrow, Robert, his Sufferings of 
 the Kirk of Scotland, 4 ; quoted, 
 
 153- 
 Worcester, the, English vessel, 
 seized by the Scots, 82-3. 
 
 Oxford : Horace Hart M.A. Printer to the University