Stuart and his son of any claim to the crown, since by act of Parliament no Roman Catholic could sit on the throne of England—or, by extension, on the throne of an England-Scotland merger.
So, improbably enough, within five years of the Darien debacle, union had become the hot new political issue in both England and Scotland. The Scottish Parliament even agreed in principle to formation of a commission to discuss and negotiate a possible treaty. Everyone understood that the current relationship between the two kingdoms was no longer working, and that a new one was needed. The key question was what kind.
CHAPTER TWO
A Trap of Their Own Making
I
In the autumn of 1707, all eyes turned to Edinburgh. There Scotland’s Parliament would assemble on October 3 to vote on a treaty of union between England and Scotland. Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was also a sometime government propagandist and spy for Queen Anne’s minister Lord Harley. He had come to Scotland to watch events and report back to his masters. He found the atmosphere tense, to say the least. As Defoe wandered through the dark, narrow streets and wynds (or alleys) of Edinburgh, all the talk was about “slavery to the English, running away with the Crown, taking away the Nation, and the like.” It was fortunate, Defoe figured, that London had not published the terms of the draft treaty before now. If the Scottish negotiators had then tried to return to Scotland, he said, “there was not many of them would dared to have gone home, without a guard to protect them.”
The treaty had been negotiated and signed that previous spring in London by two teams of commissioners, one for Scotland, the other for England. Negotiated might not be the best word. Scotland’s Parliament had authorized a slate of treaty commissioners in 1705, but played no part in choosing them. In fact, both teams, English and Scottish, had been handpicked by the Crown. They had all been chosen for their willingness to endorse what was called “an incorporating union,” a merger that fully absorbed Scotland into the kingdom of England. That was what Queen Anne and her English advisers wanted, and it was what the Scottish commissioners were expected to provide. “You see that what we are to treat of is not in our choice,” wrote one of them to a friend. Perhaps for that reason, despite the document’s twenty-eight separate clauses and momentous significance, negotiations had taken only eighteen days. Now it only required ratification by the Scottish Parliament to become law. But no one supposed that was going to be easy.
The terms were indeed drastic, especially for Scots who had hoped that union would mean a federation of the two kingdoms. As one supporter explained, this would have allowed two “Distinct, Free and Independent Kingdoms [to] unite their separate interests into one common interest, for the mutual benefit of both.” Instead, the treaty created a single new entity, Great Britain, governed by a single monarch and by a single British Parliament. The fine print, though, showed that the new government would be far more English than Scottish. The seat of government would be in London, nearly four hundred miles to the south. The Scottish Privy Council would lose all its power, while England’s would now assume direct control over everything that affected both nations, including taxes, custom and excise duties, and military and foreign affairs.
The treaty did leave some concessions to Scottish pride. Scotland’s separate legal system and courts would remain, as would the independence of her towns or burghs. Even more important, Scottish merchants would now have access to England’s overseas markets, from America and the Caribbean to Africa and India. But nothing was said about the independence of the Kirk, or the powers of its General Assembly, under the new arrangement. This uncertainty disturbed every self-respecting Presbyterian, and seriously weakened
So, improbably enough, within five years of the Darien debacle, union had become the hot new political issue in both England and Scotland. The Scottish Parliament even agreed in principle to formation of a commission to discuss and negotiate a possible treaty. Everyone understood that the current relationship between the two kingdoms was no longer working, and that a new one was needed. The key question was what kind.
CHAPTER TWO
A Trap of Their Own Making
I
In the autumn of 1707, all eyes turned to Edinburgh. There Scotland’s Parliament would assemble on October 3 to vote on a treaty of union between England and Scotland. Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was also a sometime government propagandist and spy for Queen Anne’s minister Lord Harley. He had come to Scotland to watch events and report back to his masters. He found the atmosphere tense, to say the least. As Defoe wandered through the dark, narrow streets and wynds (or alleys) of Edinburgh, all the talk was about “slavery to the English, running away with the Crown, taking away the Nation, and the like.” It was fortunate, Defoe figured, that London had not published the terms of the draft treaty before now. If the Scottish negotiators had then tried to return to Scotland, he said, “there was not many of them would dared to have gone home, without a guard to protect them.”
The treaty had been negotiated and signed that previous spring in London by two teams of commissioners, one for Scotland, the other for England. Negotiated might not be the best word. Scotland’s Parliament had authorized a slate of treaty commissioners in 1705, but played no part in choosing them. In fact, both teams, English and Scottish, had been handpicked by the Crown. They had all been chosen for their willingness to endorse what was called “an incorporating union,” a merger that fully absorbed Scotland into the kingdom of England. That was what Queen Anne and her English advisers wanted, and it was what the Scottish commissioners were expected to provide. “You see that what we are to treat of is not in our choice,” wrote one of them to a friend. Perhaps for that reason, despite the document’s twenty-eight separate clauses and momentous significance, negotiations had taken only eighteen days. Now it only required ratification by the Scottish Parliament to become law. But no one supposed that was going to be easy.
The terms were indeed drastic, especially for Scots who had hoped that union would mean a federation of the two kingdoms. As one supporter explained, this would have allowed two “Distinct, Free and Independent Kingdoms [to] unite their separate interests into one common interest, for the mutual benefit of both.” Instead, the treaty created a single new entity, Great Britain, governed by a single monarch and by a single British Parliament. The fine print, though, showed that the new government would be far more English than Scottish. The seat of government would be in London, nearly four hundred miles to the south. The Scottish Privy Council would lose all its power, while England’s would now assume direct control over everything that affected both nations, including taxes, custom and excise duties, and military and foreign affairs.
The treaty did leave some concessions to Scottish pride. Scotland’s separate legal system and courts would remain, as would the independence of her towns or burghs. Even more important, Scottish merchants would now have access to England’s overseas markets, from America and the Caribbean to Africa and India. But nothing was said about the independence of the Kirk, or the powers of its General Assembly, under the new arrangement. This uncertainty disturbed every self-respecting Presbyterian, and seriously weakened
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