Fed on a diet of Braveheart tosh, it's perhaps little wonder many in Scotland think the Act of Union was just an English conquest. The truth is somewhat different...
The Act of Union and the birth of Britain
WORKERS, NOV 2007 ISSUE
The 1707 Union between England and Scotland was made in a period of state building and wars between rival empires when England was at war with France.
After the 1688 revolution had deposed James II of England (James VII of Scotland) many members of the Scottish parliament searched for a union to secure the revolutionary settlement. In 1688-89, the Scottish Convention ratified the revolution, listing the offences committed by James. They resolved that he had violated "the fundamental constitution of this kingdom and altered it from a legal limited monarchy to an arbitrary despotic power". Building on this, the Scottish parliament of 1706-7 progressed towards the Act of Union.
Economic arguments
The economic arguments for union were strong. Before the Union, manufacturing was weak, agriculture backward and trade scanty, all stifled by the mercantilist system. As Scottish MP William Seton said, "This nation being poor, and without force to protect its commerce, cannot reap great advantage by it, till it partake of the trade and protection of some powerful neighbour nation, that can communicate both these ... By this Union, we will have access to all the advantages in commerce the English enjoy."
Commissioners from England and Scotland negotiated for months. The English commissioners conceded the Scots' request that in return for agreeing to a single British parliament and to the Hanoverian succession, they should have "full freedom and intercourse of Trade and Navigation within the ... United Kingdom and Plantations thereunto belonging". By insisting that the Union should work to Scotland's advantage, the Scottish parliament provided Scots with unprecedented opportunities for personal and national achievement.
The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh: support for separatism is falling in Scotland. Curbing religion
There were other good reasons for Union. Many Scottish presbyterians urged their countrymen to support the Union to save England and Scotland from the joint threat of Catholic France and the deposed Stuarts. Englishmen and Scots united against 'Popish Bigotry and French Tyranny'.
In 1706, King Louis XIV of France sent funds "to bribe our Parliament ... as to hinder the two nations from being united". An English MP warned that without Union, "You will always find a Popish Pretender intriguing amongst you ... Embarrassing your Affairs ... Jumbling you into Confusion [to] open a door to his own designes upon you."
States, but not churches
The Union was a revolutionary novelty because it was a Union of states without being a union of churches. The Act of Security for the Kirk established the Church of Scotland as independent of the sovereignty of the British parliament, winning Presbyterian support for the Union. The Union forbade the Church of England to establish Anglicanism in Scotland, as Charles I had tried. Equally, it forbade presbyterians to establish Presbyterianism in England, as the Solemn League and Covenant had tried. Britain became a single state, with two established churches, but in effect no dominant church. The union meant an end to wars of religion in Britain.
The Union also guaranteed the independence of Scottish law and education. It was no one-sided dictation, no simple incorporation. The vigour of the Scots' existing traditions and institutions ensured that they shaped the Union too.
There is no basis for the simplistic and insulting view that "the Scots were bought and sold for English gold". The Union was a genuine choice, albeit from a position of weakness (as Seton pointed out), but brilliantly negotiated. Rather than a product of English expansionism, it was based on mutual benefit.
The Scottish parliament discussed the Act of Union clause by clause from 12 October 1706 to 16 January 1707. In England, by contrast, the Act was rammed through a Commons committee in a single sitting. It came into force on 1 May 1707.
France tried, too late, to undo the Union. In 1708, the Royal Navy foiled a French invasion force of 6,000 troops, accompanied by the pretender James Stuart.
Separatism again
Now, 300 years later, some raise again the cry of "blame the English" for Scotland's ills. It is harder, but more accurate, to blame capitalism. The Scottish Executive wrongly calls itself a 'Government'. There can be two churches in one state, but not two governments. Its recent White Paper "Choosing Scotland's Future" included a question and ballot paper for a referendum on Scottish "independence". But a referendum in Scotland alone on the break-up of Britain is to assume the point at issue, and would not meet the needs of democracy. Democracy demands that all British citizens, being equal before the law and equally entitled to a vote, should be asked whether they want to break up Britain, by changing the nature, form and size of the nation to which we belong.
Even in such an undemocratic setup as the White Paper proposes, the separatists look increasingly unlikely to win: support for separatism fell from 51 per cent in January to 31 per cent in August. More people in Scotland are realising the phoney nature of so-called "independence".
The Scottish National Party's goal is not "independence for Scotland" but "independence within the EU". That is, not independence, but dependence on the EU, Scotland as a province of the EU state.
A proposed formal change to the independent state of Britain by transferring power to a separate Scotland is just as certainly grounds for a referendum across all of Britain as the proposed formal change by transferring power to the EU.
These represent a two-pronged attack on our greatest historical legacy: an independent, united Britain.