An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) Part 7

"Baal is in the Church." "Darest thou sing ma.s.s in my lug."

The Privy Council was negligent in punis.h.i.+ng the rioters, and it soon became evident that they had public opinion behind them. Alexander Henderson, who ministered to a Fifes.h.i.+re congregation in the old Norman church of Leuchars, and whom the king was to meet in other circ.u.mstances, issued a respectful and moderate protest, in which he did not deal with the particular points at issue, but a.s.serted the ecclesiastical independence of Scotland. Riots continued to disturb Edinburgh, and Charles was impotent to suppress them. He refused Henderson's "Supplication"; its supporters drew up a second pet.i.tion boldly asking that the bishops should be tried as the real authors of the disturbances, and, in November, 1637, they chose a body of commissioners to represent them. These commissioners, and some sub-committees of them, are known in Scottish history as The Tables, the name being applied to several different bodies. Charles replied to the second pet.i.tion in wrathful terms, and it was decided to revive the National Covenant of 1581, to renounce popery. It had been drawn up under fear of a popish plot, and was itself an expansion of the Covenant of 1557. To it was now added a declaration suited to immediate necessities. On the 1st and 2nd March, 1638, it was signed by vast mult.i.tudes in the churchyard of Greyfriars, in Edinburgh, and it continued to be signed, sometimes under pressure, throughout the land.

Hamilton, Charles's agent in Scotland, was quite unable to meet the situation. In the end Charles had to agree to the meeting of a General a.s.sembly in Glasgow, in November, 1638. Hamilton, the High Commissioner, attempted to obtain the ejection of laymen and to create a division among his opponents. When he failed in this, he dissolved the a.s.sembly in the king's name. At the instance of Henderson, supported by Argyll, the a.s.sembly refused to acknowledge itself dissolved, and proceeded to abolish Episcopacy and re-establish the Presbyterian form of Church government.

The king, on his part, began to concert measures with his Privy Council for the subjugation of Scotland. The "Committee on Scotch affairs" of the English Privy Council was obviously unconst.i.tutional, but matters were fast drifting towards civil war, and it was no time to consider const.i.tutional niceties. It is much more important that the committee was divided and useless. Wentworth, writing from Ireland, advised the king to maintain a firm att.i.tude, but not to provoke an outbreak of war at so inconvenient a moment. Charles again attempted a compromise. He offered to withdraw Laud's unlucky service-book, the new canons, and even the Articles of Perth, and to limit the power of the bishops; and he asked the people to sign the Covenant of 1580-81, on which the new Covenant was based, but which, of course, contained no reference to immediate difficulties. But it was too late; the sentiment of religious independence had become united to the old feeling of national independence, and war was inevitable. The Scots were fortunate in their leaders. In the end of 1638 there returned to Scotland from Germany, Alexander Leslie, the great soldier who had fought for Protestantism under Gustavus Adolphus. In February, 1639, he took command of the army of the Covenant, which had been largely reinforced by veterans from the Thirty Years' War. A more attractive personality than Leslie's was that of the young Earl of Montrose, who had attached himself with enthusiasm to the national cause, and had attempted to convert the people of Aberdeen to covenanting principles. Charles, on his part, a.s.serted that his throne was in danger, and that the Scottish preparations const.i.tuted a menace to the kingdom of England, and so attempted to rouse enthusiasm for himself.

While the king was preparing to reinforce the loyalist Marquis of Huntly at Aberdeen, the news came that the garrisons of Edinburgh and Dunbarton had surrendered to the insurgents (March, 1639), who, a few days later, seized the regalia at Dalkeith. On March 30th Aberdeen fell into the hands of Montrose and Leslie, and Huntly was soon practically a prisoner. Charles had by this time reached York, and it was now evident that he had entirely miscalculated the strength of the enemy. He had hoped to subdue Scotland through Hamilton and Huntly; he now saw that, if Scotland was to be conquered at all, it must be through an English army. The first blood in the Civil War was shed near Turriff, in Aberdeens.h.i.+re (May 14th, 1639), where some of Huntly's supporters gained a slight success, after which the city of Aberdeen fell into their hands for some ten days, when it was reoccupied by the Covenanters. Meanwhile Charles and Leslie had been facing each other near Berwick; the former unwilling to risk his raw levies against Leslie's trained soldiers, while the Covenanters were not desirous of entering into a war in which they might find the whole strength of England ultimately arrayed against them. On the 18th June the two parties entered into the Pacification of Berwick, in accordance with which both armies were to be disbanded, and Charles promised to allow a free General a.s.sembly and a free Parliament to govern Scotland. While the pacification was being signed at Berwick, a battle was in progress at Aberdeen, where, on June 18th-19th, Montrose gained a victory, at the Bridge of Dee, over the Earl of Aboyne, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly. For the third time, Montrose spared the city of Aberdeen, and Scotland settled down to a brief period of peace.

It was clear that the pacification was only a truce, for no exact terms had been agreed upon, and both sides thoroughly distrusted each other.

Disputes immediately arose about the const.i.tution of Parliament and the a.s.sembly. Charles refused to rescind the acts const.i.tuting Episcopacy legal, and it is clear that he never intended to keep his promise to the Scots, who, on their part, were too suspicious of his good faith to carry out their part of the agreement. In the end a.s.sembly and Parliament alike abolished Episcopacy, and Parliament pa.s.sed several acts to ensure its own supremacy. Charles refused to a.s.sent to these Acts, and prorogued Parliament from November, 1639, to June, 1640. The result of the king's evident disinclination to implement the Treaty of Berwick, was an interesting attempt to undo the work of the preceding century by a reversion to the old policy of a French alliance. It was, of course, impossible thus to turn back, and Richelieu met the Scottish offers with a decisive rebuff, while the fact of these treasonable negotiations became known to Charles, and embittered the already bitter controversy. A new attempt at negotiation failed, and in June, 1640, the second Bishops' War began. As usual the north suffered, especially from the fierceness of the Earl of Argyll, who disliked the more moderate policy advocated by Montrose. The king's English difficulties were increasing, and the Scots had now many sympathizers among Englishmen, who looked upon them as fighting for the same cause of Protestantism and const.i.tutional government.

In August the Scots invaded England for the first time since the minority of Mary Stuart, and, on August 28th, they defeated a portion of the king's army at Newburn, a ford near Newcastle. The town was immediately occupied, and from Newcastle the invaders advanced to the Tees and seized Durham. Charles was forced, a second time, to give way.

In October he agreed that the Scottish army of occupation should be paid until the English Parliament, which he was about to summon, might make a final arrangement. By Parliament alone could the Scots be paid, and thus, by a strange irony of fate, the occupation of the northern counties by a Scottish army was, for the time, the best guarantee of English liberties. There were, however, points on which the Scottish army and the English Parliament found it difficult to agree, and it was not till August, 1641, that the Scots recrossed the Tweed. Charles, who hoped to enlist the sympathy of the Scots in his struggle with the English Parliament, paid a second visit to Edinburgh, where he gave his a.s.sent to the abolition of Episcopacy, and to the repeal of the Acts which had given rise to the dispute. But it became evident that the Parliament, and not the king, was to bear rule in Scotland. The king's stay in Edinburgh was marked by what is known as "The Incident", a mysterious plot to capture Argyll and Hamilton, who was now the ally of Argyll. It was supposed that the king was cognizant of the plan; he had to defend himself from the accusation, and was declared guiltless in the matter. At the time of the Incident, Argyll fled, but soon returned, and Charles had to yield to him in all things. Parliament, under Argyll, appointed all officials. Argyll himself was made a marquis, and Leslie became Earl of Leven. There was a general amnesty, and among those who obtained their liberty was the Earl of Montrose, who had been imprisoned in May for making terms with the king. In November, 1641, Charles left Scotland for London, to face the English Parliament. He can scarcely have hoped for Scottish aid, and when, a few months later, he was on the verge of hostilities and made a request for a.s.sistance, it was twice refused.

With the general course of the Great Rebellion we are not here concerned. It is important for our purpose to notice that it affected Scotland in two ways. The course of events converted, on the one hand, the Episcopalian party into a Royalist party, and placed at its head the Covenanter, Montrose. On the other hand, the National Covenant was transformed into the Solemn League and Covenant, which had for its aim the establishment of Presbytery in England as well as in Scotland. This "will o' the wisp" of covenanted uniformity led the Scottish Church into somewhat strange places. As early as January, 1643, Montrose had offered to strike a blow for the king in Scotland, but Charles would not take the responsibility of beginning the strife. In August negotiations began for the extension of the covenant to England. The Solemn League and Covenant, which provided for the abolition of Episcopacy in England, was adopted by the Convention of Estates at Edinburgh on August 17th, and in the following month it pa.s.sed both Houses of Parliament in England, and was taken both by the House of Commons and by the a.s.sembly of Divines at Westminster. Its only ultimate results were the subst.i.tution in Scotland of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory for Public Wors.h.i.+p, in place of the older Scottish doc.u.ments, and the approximation of Scottish Presbytery to English Puritanism, involving a distinct departure from the ideals of the Scottish Reformation, and the introduction into Scotland of a form of Sabbatarianism which has come to be regarded as distinctively Scottish, but which owes its origin, historically, to English Nonconformity.[89] Its immediate effects were the short-lived predominance of Presbytery in England, and the crossing of the Tweed, in January, 1644, by a Scottish army in the pay of the English Parliament. The part taken by the Scottish army in the war was not unimportant. In April they aided Fairfax in the siege of York; in July they took an honourable share in the battle of Marston Moor; they were responsible for the Uxbridge proposals which provided for peace on the basis of a Presbyterian settlement. In June, 1645, they advanced southwards to Mansfield, and, after the surrender of Carlisle, on June 28th, and its occupation by a Scottish garrison, Leven proceeded to Alcester and thereafter laid siege to Hereford, an attempt which events in Scotland forced him to abandon. Finally, in May, 1646, the king surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark, which had been invested by Leven since the preceding November.

While the Scottish army was thus aiding the Parliamentary cause, the Earl of Montrose had created an important diversion on the king's side in Scotland itself. In April, 1644, he occupied Dumfries and made an unsuccessful attempt on the Scottish Lowlands. In May Charles conferred on him a marquisate, and in August he prepared to renew the struggle. To his old foes, the Gordons, he first looked for a.s.sistance, but was finally compelled to raise his forces in the Highlands, and to obtain Irish aid. On September 1st he gained his first victory at Tippermuir, near Perth, on which he had marched with his Highland host. From Perth he marched on Aberdeen, gaining some reinforcements from the northern gentry, and in particular from the Earl of Airlie. Once again Montrose fought a battle which delivered the city of Aberdeen into his power (September 13th), but now he was unwilling or unable to protect the captured town, which was cruelly ravaged. From Aberdeen Montrose proceeded by Rothiemurchus to Blair Athole, but suddenly turned backwards to Aberdeens.h.i.+re, where he defended Fyvie Castle, slipped past Argyll, and again reached Blair Athole. The enemies of Argyll crowded to his banner, but his army was still small when, in December, 1644, he made his descent upon Argyll, and reached the castle of Inverary. From Inverary he went northwards, ravaging as he went, till he found, at Loch Ness, that there was an army of 5000 men under the Earl of Seaforth prepared to resist his advance, while Argyll was behind him at Inverlochy. Although Argyll's army considerably outnumbered his own, Montrose turned southwards and made a rapid dash at Argyll's forces as they lay at Inverlochy, and won a complete victory, the news of which dispersed Seaforth's men and enabled Montrose to invite Charles to a country which lay at his mercy. At Elgin he was joined by the heir of the Marquis of Huntly, his forces increased, and the excommunication which the Church immediately published against him seemed of but little importance. On April 4th he seized Dundee, and on May 9th won a fresh victory at Auldearn, which was followed, in rapid succession, by a victory at Alford in July, and in August by the "crowning mercy" of Kilsyth, which made him master of the situation, and forced Leven to raise the siege of Hereford. From Kilsyth he marched to Glasgow, where both the Highlanders and the Gordons began to desert him. From England, Leven sent David Leslie to meet Montrose as he marched by the Lothians into the border counties. On September 13th, 1645, just one year after his victory at Aberdeen, Montrose was completely defeated at Philiphaugh. He escaped, but his power was broken, and he was unable henceforth to take any important share in the war.

When Charles surrendered himself to the Scots, in May, 1646, his friends in Scotland were helpless, and he had to meet the Presbyterian leaders without any hope beyond that of being able to take advantage of the differences of opinion between Presbyterians and Independents, which were fast a.s.suming critical importance. The king held at Newcastle a conference with Alexander Henderson, which led to no definite result. In the end the Scots offered to adopt the king's cause if he would accept Presbyterianism. This he declined to do, and his refusal left the Scots no choice except keeping him a prisoner or surrendering him to his English subjects. They owed him no grat.i.tude, and, while it might be chivalrous, it could scarcely be expedient to retain his person. While he was unwilling to accede to their conditions they were powerless to give him any help. He was therefore handed over to the commissioners of the English Parliament, and the Scots, on the 30th January, 1647, returned home, having been paid, as the price of the king's surrender, the money promised them by the English Parliament when they entered into the struggle in 1644.

In the end of 1647 the Scots again entered into the long series of negotiations with the king. When Charles was a prisoner at Newport, and while he was arranging terms with the English, he entered into a secret agreement with commissioners from Scotland. The "Engagement", as it was called, embodied the conditions which Charles had refused at Newcastle--the recognition of Presbytery in Scotland and its establishment in England for three years, the king being allowed toleration for his own form of wors.h.i.+p. The Engagement was by no means unanimously carried in the Scottish Parliament, and its results were disastrous to Charles himself. It caused the English Parliament to pa.s.s the vote of No Addresses, and the second civil war, which it helped to provoke, had a share in bringing about his death. The Duke of Hamilton led a small army into England, where in August 17th, 1648, it was totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston. Meanwhile the Hamilton party had lost power in Scotland, and when Cromwell entered Scotland, Argyll, who had opposed the Engagement, willingly agreed to his conditions, and accepted the aid of three English regiments. In the events of the next six months Scotland had no part nor lot. The responsibility for the king's death rests on the English Government alone.

The news of the execution of the king was at once followed by the fall of Argyll and his party. The Scots had no sympathy with English republicanism, and they were alarmed by the growth of Independency in England. On February 5th Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the Scots declared themselves ready to defend his cause by blood, if only he would take the Covenant. This the young king refused to do while he had hopes of success in Ireland.

Meanwhile three of his most loyal friends perished on the scaffold. The English, who held the Duke of Hamilton as a prisoner, put him to death on March 9th, 1649, and on the 22nd day of the same month the Marquis of Huntly was beheaded at Edinburgh. On April 27th, Montrose, who had collected a small army and taken the field in the northern Highlands, was defeated at Carbisdale and taken prisoner. On the 25th May he was hanged in Edinburgh, and with his death the story is deprived of its hero.

The pressure of misfortune finally drove Charles to accept the Scottish offers. Even while Montrose was fighting his last battle, his young master was negotiating with the Covenanters. Conferences were held at Breda in the spring of 1650, and Charles landed at the mouth of the river Spey on the 3rd July, having taken the Covenant. In the middle of the same month Cromwell crossed the Tweed at the head of an English army. The Scots, under Leven and David Leslie, took up a position near Edinburgh, and, after a month's fruitless skirmis.h.i.+ng, Cromwell had to retire to Dunbar, whither Leslie followed him. By a clever manoeuvre, Leslie intercepted Cromwell's retreat on Berwick, while he also seized Doon Hill, an eminence commanding Dunbar. The Parliamentary Committee, under whose authority Leslie was acting, forced him to make an attack to prevent Cromwell's force from escaping by sea. The details of the battle have been disputed, and the most convincing account is that given by Mr.

Firth in his "Cromwell". When Leslie left the Doon Hill his left became shut in between the hill and "the steep ravine of the Brock burn", while his centre had not sufficient room to move. Cromwell, therefore, after a feint on the left, concentrated his forces against Leslie's right, and shattered it. The rout was complete, and Leslie had to retreat to Stirling, while the Lowlands fell into Cromwell's hands. Cromwell was conciliatory, and a considerable proportion of Presbyterians took up an att.i.tude hostile to the king's claims. The supporters of Charles were known as Resolutioners, or Engagers, and his opponents as Protesters or Remonstrants. The consequence was that the old Royalists and Episcopalians began to rejoin Charles. Before the battle of Dunbar (September 2nd) Charles had been really a prisoner in the hands of the Covenanters, who had ruled him with a rod of iron. As the stricter Presbyterians withdrew, and their places were filled by the "Malignants"

whom they had excluded from the king's service, the personal importance of Charles increased. On January 1st, 1651, he was crowned at Scone, and in the following summer he took up a position near Stirling, with Leslie as commander of his army. Cromwell outmanoeuvred Leslie and seized Perth, and the royal forces retaliated by the invasion of England, which ended in the defeat of Worcester on September 3rd, 1651, exactly one year after Dunbar. The king escaped and fled to France.

Scotland was now unable to resist Monk, whom Cromwell had left behind him when he went southwards to defeat Charles at Worcester. On the 14th August he captured Stirling, and on the 28th the Committee of Estates was seized at Alyth and carried off to London. There was no further attempt at opposition, and all Scotland, for the first time since the reign of Edward I, was in military occupation by English troops. The property of the leading supporters of Charles II was confiscated. In 1653 the General a.s.sembly was reduced to pleading that "we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with anything civil"; but their unwonted humility was of no avail to save them. An earlier victim than the a.s.sembly was the Scottish Parliament. It was decided in 1652 that Scotland should be incorporated with England, and from February of that year till the Restoration, the kingdom of Scotland ceased to exist. The "Instrument" of Government of 1653 gave Scotland thirty members in the British Parliament. Twenty were allotted to the s.h.i.+res--one to each of the larger s.h.i.+res and one to each of nine groups of less important s.h.i.+res. There were also eight groups of burghs, each group electing one member, and two members were returned by the city of Edinburgh. Between 1653 and 1655 Scotland was governed by parliamentary commissioners, and, from 1655 onwards, by a special council. The Court of Session was abolished, and its place taken by a Commission of Justice.[90] The actual union dates from 1654, when it was ratified by the Supreme Council of the Commonwealth of England, but Scotland was under English rule from the battle of Worcester. The wise policy of allowing freedom of trade, like the improvement in the administration of justice, failed to reconcile the Scots to the union, and, to the end, it required a military force to maintain the new government.

As Scotland had no share in the execution of Charles I, so it had none in the restoration of his son. The "Committee of Estates", which met after the 29th of May, was not lacking in loyalty. All traces of the union were swept away, and the pressure of the new Navigation Act was severely felt in contrast to the freedom of trade that had been the great boon of the Commonwealth. But worse evils were in store. The "Covenanted monarch" was determined to restore Episcopacy in Scotland, and for this purpose he employed as a tool the notorious James Sharpe, who had been sent up to London to plead the cause of Presbytery with Monk. Sharpe returned to Scotland in the spring of 1661 as Archbishop of St. Andrews. Parliament met by royal authority and pa.s.sed a General Act Rescissory, which rendered void all acts pa.s.sed since 1638. The episcopal form of church government was immediately established. The Privy Council received enlarged powers, and was again completely subservient to the king. The execution of Argyll atoned for the death of Montrose, in the eyes of Royalists, and two notable ecclesiastical politicians, Johnston of Warriston and James Guthrie, were also put to death. An Indemnity Act was pa.s.sed, but many men found that the king's pardon had its price. On October 1st, 1662, an act was pa.s.sed ordering recusant ministers to leave their parishes, and the council improved on the English Five Mile Act, by ordering that no recusant minister should, on pain of treason, reside within twenty miles of his parish, within six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral town, or within three miles of any royal burgh. A Court of High Commission, which had been established by James VI in 1610, was again entrusted with all religious cases. The effect of these harsh measures was to rouse the insurrections which are the most notable feature of the reign. In 1666 the Covenanters were defeated at the battle of Pentland, or Rullion Green, and those who were suspected of a share in the rising were subjected to examination under torture, which now became one of the normal features of Charles's brutal government. Prisoners were hanged or sent as slaves to the plantations.

In 1669, an Indulgence was pa.s.sed, permitting Presbyterian services under certain conditions, but in 1670, Parliament pa.s.sed a Conventicle Act, making it a capital crime to "preach, expound scripture, or pray", at any unlicensed meeting. On May 5th, 1679, Sharpe was a.s.sa.s.sinated near St. Andrews. The murderers escaped, and some of them joined the Covenanters of the west. The Government had determined to put a stop to the meetings of conventicles, and had chosen for this purpose John Graham of Claverhouse. On the 11th June, Claverhouse was defeated at Drumclog, but eleven days later he routed the Covenanting army at Bothwell Bridge, and took over a thousand prisoners. Only seven were executed, but the others were imprisoned in Greyfriars' churchyard, and a large number of them were sold as plantation slaves. A small rising at Aird's Moss in Ayrs.h.i.+re, in 1680, was easily suppressed. In 1681 the Scottish Parliament prescribed as a test the disavowal of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644, and it declared that any attempt to alter the succession involved the subjects "in perjury and rebellion". In connection with the Test Act, an opportunity was found for convicting the Earl of Argyll[91] of treason.

His property was confiscated, but he himself was allowed to escape. The last years of the reign, under the administration of the Duke of York, were marked by exceptional cruelty in connection with the religious persecutions. The expeditions of Claverhouse, the case of the Wigtown martyrs, and the horrible cruelties of the torture-room have given to these years the t.i.tle of "the Killing time".

The Scottish Parliament welcomed King James VII with fulsome adulation.

But the new king was scarcely seated on the throne before a rebellion broke out. The Earl of Argyll adopted the cause of Monmouth, landed in his own country, and marched into Lanarks.h.i.+re. His attempt was an entire failure: n.o.body joined his standard, and he himself, failing to make good his retreat, was captured and executed without a new trial. The Parliament again enforced the Test Act, and renewed the Conventicle Act, making it a capital offence even to be present at a conventicle. The persecutions continued with renewed vigour. James failed in persuading even the obsequious Parliament to give protection to the Roman Catholics. He attempted to obtain the same end by a Declaration of Indulgence, of which the Covenanters might be unable to avail themselves, but in its final form, issued in May, 1688, it included them. The conjunction of popery and absolute prerogative thoroughly alarmed the Scots, and the news of the English Revolution was received with general satisfaction. The effect of the long struggle had been to weaken the country in many ways. Thousands of her bravest sons had died on the scaffold or on the battle-field or in the dungeons of Dunnottar, or had been exiled to the plantations. Trade and commerce had declined.

The records of the burghs show us how harbours were empty and houses ruinous, where, a century earlier, there had been a thriving trade.

Scotland in 1688 was in every way, unless in moral discipline, poorer than she had been while England was still the "auld enemy".

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 89: Sabbath observance had been introduced from England six centuries earlier. Cf. p. 14.]

[Footnote 90: Justices of the peace were appointed throughout the country, and heritable jurisdictions were abolished.]

[Footnote 91: The son of the Marquis who was executed in 1661. The earldom, but not the marquisate, had been restored in 1663.]

CHAPTER XI

THE UNION OF THE PARLIAMENTS

1689-1707

On April 4th, 1689, a Convention of the Estates of Scotland met to consider the new situation which had been created by the course of events in England. They had no difficulty in determining their course of action, nor any scruples about deposing James, who was declared to have forfeited his right to the crown. A list was drawn up of the king's misdeeds. They included "erecting schools and societies of Jesuits, making papists officers of state", taxation and the maintenance of a standing army without consent of Parliament, illegal imprisonments, fines, and forfeitures, and interference with the charters of burghs.

The crown was then offered to William and Mary, but upon certain strictly defined conditions. All the acts of the late king which were included in the list of his offences must be recognized as illegal: no Roman Catholic might be King or Queen of Scotland; and the new sovereigns must agree to the re-establishment of Presbytery as the national religion. It was obvious that the nation was not unanimous.

"To the Lords of Convention, 'twas Claverhouse spoke, Ere the King's crown go down there are crowns to be broke."

The opponents of the revolution settlement consisted mainly of the old Royalist and Episcopalian party, the representatives of those who had followed Montrose to victory, and the supporters of the Restoration Government. As the Great Rebellion had made Royalists of the Scottish Episcopalians, so the Revolution could not but convert them into Jacobites. Their leader was James Graham of Claverhouse, who retreated from Edinburgh to the north to prepare for a campaign against the new government. The discontent was not confined to the Episcopalian party.

Such Roman Catholics as there were in Scotland at the time were prepared to take up arms for a Stuart king who was a devout adherent of their religion. Moreover, the Presbyterians themselves were not united. A party which was to grow in strength, and which now included a considerable number of extreme Presbyterians, still longed, in spite of their experience of Charles II, for a covenanted king, and looked with great distrust upon William and Mary. The triumphant party of moderate Presbyterians, who probably represented most faithfully the feeling of the nation, acted throughout with considerable wisdom. The acceptance of the crown converted the Convention into a Parliament, and the Estates set themselves to obtain, in the first place, their own freedom from the tyranny of the committee known as the "Lords of the Articles", through which James VI and his successors had kept the Parliament in subjection. William was unwilling to lose entirely this method of controlling his new subjects, but he had to give way. The Parliament rescinded the Act of Charles II a.s.serting his majesty's supremacy "over all persons and in all causes ecclesiastical" as "inconsistent with the establishment of Church government now desired", but, in the military crisis which threatened them, they proceeded no further than to bring in an Act abolis.h.i.+ng Prelacy and all superiority of office in the Church of Scotland.

While William's first Parliament was debating, his enemies were entering upon a struggle which was destined to be brief. Edinburgh Castle held out for King James till June 14th, 1689, when its captain, the Duke of Gordon, capitulated. Graham of Claverhouse, now Viscount Dundee, had collected an army of Highlanders, against whom William sent General Mackay, a Scotsman who had served in Holland. Mackay followed Dundee through the Highlands to Elgin and on to Inverness, and finally, after many wanderings, the two armies met in the pa.s.s of Killiecrankie. Dundee and his Highlanders were victorious, but Dundee himself was killed in the battle, and his death proved a fatal blow to the Jacobite cause.

After some delay Mackay was able to attain the object for which the battle had been fought--the possession of Blair Athole Castle. The military resistance soon came to an end.

The ecclesiastical settlement followed the suppression of the rebellion. The deprivation of nonjuring clergymen had been proceeding since the establishment of the new Government, and in 1690 an act was pa.s.sed restoring to their parishes the Presbyterian clergy who had been ejected under Charles II. A small temporary provision was made for their successors, who were now, in turn, expelled. On the 26th May, 1690, the Parliament adopted the Confession of Faith, although it refused to be committed to the Covenant. The Presbyterian form of Church government was established; but King William succeeded in maintaining some check on the General a.s.sembly, and toleration was granted to such Episcopalian dissenters as were willing to take the oath of allegiance. On the other hand, acceptance of the Confession of Faith was made a test for professors in the universities. The changes were carried out with little disturbance to the peace, there was no blood spilt, and except for some rough usage of Episcopalians in the west (known as the "rabbling of the curates"), there was nothing in the way of outrage or insult. The credit of the settlement belongs to William Carstares, afterwards Princ.i.p.al of the University of Edinburgh, whose tact and wisdom overcame many difficulties.

The personal union of Scotland and England had created no special difficulties while both countries were under the rule of an absolute monarch. The policy of both was alike, because it was guided by one supreme ruler. But the accession of a const.i.tutional king, with a parliamentary t.i.tle, at once created many problems difficult of solution, and made a more complete union absolutely necessary. The Union of 1707 was thus the natural consequence of the Revolution of 1689, although, at the time of the Revolution, scrupulous care was taken, alike by the new king and by his English Parliament, to recognize the existence of Scotland as a separate kingdom. The Scottish Parliament, which regarded itself as the ruler of the country, found itself hampered and restricted by William's action. It was allowed no voice on questions of foreign policy, and its conduct of home affairs met with not infrequent interference, which roused the indignation of Scottish politicians, and especially of the section which followed Fletcher of Saltoun. Several causes combined to add to the unpopularity which William had acquired through the occasional friction with the Parliament. Scotland had ceased to have any interest in the war, and its prolongation const.i.tuted a standing grievance, of which the partisans of the Stuarts were not slow to avail themselves.

There were two events, in particular, which roused widespread resentment in Scotland. These were the Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe, and the failure of the scheme for colonizing the Isthmus of Darien. The story of Glencoe has been often told. The 31st December, 1691, had been appointed as the latest day on which the government would receive the submission of the Highland chiefs. MacDonald of Glencoe delayed till the last moment, and then proceeded to Fort-William, where a fortress had just been erected, to take the oath in the presence of its commander, who had no power to receive it. From Fort-William he had to go to Inverary, to take the oath before the sheriff of Argyll, and he did so on the 6th January, 1692.

The six days' delay placed him and his clan in the power of men who were unlikely to show any mercy to the name of MacDonald. Acting under instructions from King William, the nature of which has been matter of dispute, Campbell of Glenlyon, acting with the knowledge of Breadalbane and Sir John Dalrymple of Stair, the Secretary of State, and as their tool, entered the pa.s.s of Glencoe on the 1st February, 1692. The MacDonalds, trusting in the a.s.surances which had been given by the Government, seem to have suspected no evil from this armed visit of their traditional enemies, the Campbells, and received them with hospitality. While they were living peaceably, all possible retreat was being cut off from the unfortunate MacDonalds by the closing of the pa.s.ses, and on the 13th effect was given to the dastardly scheme. It failed, however, to achieve its full object--the extirpation of the clan. Many escaped to the hills; but the chief himself and over thirty others were murdered in cold blood. The news of the ma.s.sacre roused a fierce flame of indignation, not only in the Highlands, but throughout the Lowlands as well, and the Jacobites did not fail to make use of it.

A commission was appointed to enquire into the circ.u.mstances, and it severely censured Dalrymple, and charged Breadalbane with treason, while many blamed, possibly unjustly, the king himself.

The other grievance was of a different nature. About 1695, William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, suggested the formation of a Scottish company to trade to Africa and the Indies. It was originally known as the African Company, but it was destined to be popularly remembered by the name of its most notable failure--the Darien Company.

It received very full powers from the Scottish Parliament, powers of military colonization as well as trading privileges. These powers aroused great jealousy and indignation in England, and the House of Commons decided that, as the company had its headquarters in London, the directors were guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. There followed a failure of the English capital on which the promoters had reckoned, but shares to the value of 400,000 (on which 219,094 was paid up) were subscribed in Scotland. At first the company was a prosperous trading concern, but its only attempt at colonization involved it in ruin.

Paterson wished his fellow-countrymen to found a colony in the Isthmus of Panama, and to attract thither the whole trade of North and South America. The ports of the colony were to be open to s.h.i.+ps of all nations. In the end of 1698 twelve hundred Scots landed on the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Darien, without organization and without the restraint of responsibility to any government. They soon had difficulties with their Spanish neighbours, and the English colonists at New York, Barbadoes, and Jamaica were warned to render them no a.s.sistance. Disease and famine completed the tale of misery, and the first colonists deserted their posts. Their successors, who arrived to find empty huts, surrounded by lonely Scottish graves, were soon in worse plight, and they were driven out by a band of Spaniards. The unfortunate company lingered on for some time, but merely as traders. The Scots blamed the king's ill-will for their failure, and he became more than ever unpopular in Scotland. The moral of the whole story was that only through the corporate union of the two countries could trade jealousies and the danger of rival schemes of colonization be avoided.

In the reign of Charles II the Scots, who felt keenly the loss of the freedom of trade which they had enjoyed under Cromwell, had themselves broached the question of union, and William had brought it forward at the beginning of his reign. It was, however, reserved for his successor to see it carried. In March, 1702, the king died. The death of "William II", as his t.i.tle ran in the kingdom of Scotland, was received with a feeling amounting almost to satisfaction. The first English Parliament of Queen Anne agreed to the appointment of commissioners to discuss terms of union, and the Estates of Scotland chose representatives to meet them. But the English refused to give freedom of trade, and so the negotiations broke down. In reply, the Scottish Parliament removed the restrictions on the import of wines from France, with which country England was now at war. In the summer of 1703 the Scots pa.s.sed an Act of Security, which invested the Parliament with the power of the crown in case of the queen's dying without heirs, and entrusted to it the choice of a Protestant sovereign "from the royal line". It refused to such king or queen, if also sovereign of England, the power of declaring war or making peace without the consent of Parliament, and it enacted that the union of the crowns should determine after the queen's death unless Scotland was admitted to equal trade and navigation privileges with England. Further, the act provided for the compulsory training of every Scotsman to bear arms, in order that the country might, if necessary, defend its independence by the sword. The queen's consent to the Act of Security was refused, and the bitterness of the national feeling was accentuated by the suspicion of a Jacobite plot. Parliament had been adjourned on 16th September, 1703. When it met in 1704 it again pa.s.sed the Act of Security, and an important section began to argue that the royal a.s.sent was merely a usual form, and not an indispensable authentication of an act. For some time, it seemed as if the two countries were on the brink of war. But, as the union of the crowns had been rendered possible by the self-restraint of a nation who could accept their hereditary enemy as their hereditary sovereign, so now Queen Anne's advisers resolved, with patient wisdom, to secure, at all hazards, the union of the kingdoms.

It was not an easy task, even in England, for there could be no union without complete freedom of trade, and many Englishmen were most unwilling to yield on this point. In Scotland the difficulties to be overcome were much greater. The whole nation, irrespective of politics and religion, felt bitterly the indignity of surrendering the independent existence for which Scotland had fought for four hundred years. It could not but be difficult to reconcile an ancient and high-spirited people to incorporation with a larger and more powerful neighbour, and the whole population mourned the approaching loss of their Parliament and their autonomy. Almost every section had special reasons for opposing the measure. For the Jacobites an Act of Union meant that Scotland was irretrievably committed to the Hanoverian succession, and whatever force the Jacobites might be able to raise after the queen's death must take action in the shape of a rebellion against the _de facto_ government. It deprived them of all hope of seizing the reins of power, and of using the machinery of government in Scotland for the good of their cause--a _coup d'etat_ of which the Act of Security gave considerable chance. On this very account the triumphant Presbyterians were anxious to carry the union scheme, and the correspondence of the Electress Sophia proves that the negotiations for union were looked upon at Hanover as solely an important factor in the succession controversy. But the recently re-established Presbyterian Church of Scotland regarded with great anxiety a union with an Episcopalian country, and hesitated to place their dearly won freedom at the mercy of a Parliament the large majority of whom were Episcopalians.

The more extreme Presbyterians, and especially the Cameronians of the west, were bitterly opposed to the project. They protested against becoming subject to a Parliament in whose deliberations the English bishops had an important voice, and against accepting a king who had been educated as a Lutheran, and they clamoured for covenanted uniformity and a covenanted monarch. By a curious irony of fate, the Scottish Episcopalians were forced by their Jacobite leanings to act with the extreme Presbyterians, and to oppose the scheme of amalgamation with an Episcopalian country. The legal interest was strongly against a proposal that might reduce the importance of Scots law and of Scottish lawyers, while the populace of Edinburgh were furious at the suggestion of a union, whose result must be to remove at once one of the glories of their city and a valuable source of income. There was still another body of opponents. The reign of William had been remarkable for the rise of political parties. The two main factions were known as Williamites and Cavaliers, and in addition to these there had grown up a Patriot or Country party. It was brought into existence by the enthusiasm of Fletcher of Saltoun, and it was based upon an antiquarian revival which may be compared with the mediaeval attempts to revive the Republic of Rome. The aim of the patriots was to maintain the independence of Scotland, and they attempted to show that the Scottish crown had never been under feudal obligations to England, and that the Scottish Parliament had always possessed sovereign rights, and could govern independently of the will of the monarch. They were neither Jacobites nor Hanoverians; but they held that if the foreign domination, of which they had complained under William, were to continue, it mattered little whether it emanated from St. Germains or from the Court of St. James's, and they had combined with the Jacobites to pa.s.s the Act of Security.

Such was the complicated situation with which the English Government had to deal. Their first step was to advise Queen Anne to a.s.sent to the Act of Security, and so to conserve the dignity and _amour propre_ of the Scottish Parliament. Commissioners were then appointed to negotiate for a union. No attempt was made to conciliate the Jacobites, for no attempt could have met with any kind of success. Nor did the commissioners make any effort to satisfy the more extreme Presbyterians, who sullenly refused to acknowledge the union when it became an accomplished fact, and who remained to hamper the Government when the Jacobite troubles commenced. An a.s.surance that there would be no interference with the Church of Scotland as by law established, and a guarantee that the universities would be maintained in their _status quo_, satisfied the moderate Presbyterians, and removed their scruples. Unlike James VI and Cromwell, the advisers of Queen Anne declared their intention of preserving the independent Scots law and the independent Scottish courts of justice, and these guarantees weakened the arguments of the Patriot party. But above all the English proposals won the support of the ever-increasing commercial interest in Scotland by conceding freedom of trade in a complete form. They agreed that "all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain be under the same regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions, and liable to equal impositions and duties for export and import". The adjustment of financial obligations was admitted to involve some injustice to Scotland, and an "equivalent" was allowed, to compensate for the responsibility now accruing to Scotland in connection with the English National Debt. It remained to adjust the representation of Scotland in the united Parliament. It was at first proposed to allow only thirty-eight members, but the number was finally raised to forty-five. Thirty of these represented the s.h.i.+res. Each s.h.i.+re was to elect one representative, except the three groups of Bute and Caithness, Clackmannan and Kinross, and Nairn and Cromarty. In each group the election was made alternately by the two counties. Thus Bute, Clackmannan, and Nairn each sent a member in 1708, and Caithness, Kinross, and Cromarty in 1710. The device is sufficiently unusual to deserve mention. The burghs were divided into fifteen groups, each of which was given one member. In this form, after considerable difficulty, the act was carried both in Scotland and in England. It was a union much less extensive than that which had been planned by James VI or that which had been in actual force under Cromwell. The existence of a separate Church, governed differently from the English Establishment, and the maintenance of a separate legal code and a separate judicature have helped to preserve some of the national characteristics of the Scots. Not for many years did the union become popular in Scotland, and not for many years did the two nations become really united. It might, in fact, be said that the force of steam has accomplished what law has failed to do, and that the real incorporation of Scotland with England dates from the introduction of railways.

APPENDIX A

REFERENCES TO THE HIGHLANDERS IN MEDIaeVAL LITERATURE

~I. AELRED (12th Century)~

_Account of the Battle of the Standard_