Acts of Union 1707 Totally Explained

The Acts of Union were a pair of Parliamentary Acts passed in 1706 and 1707 by, respectively, the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland (previously separate states, with separate legislatures but with the same monarch) into a single Kingdom of Great Britain.
   The two countries had shared a monarch for about 100 years (since the Union of the Crowns in 1603). There had been three attempts in 1606, 1667, and 1689 to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, but it wasn't until the early 18th century that the idea had the will of both political establishments behind them, albeit for rather different reasons.
   First, a Treaty of Union was negotiated between the two countries. This led to the drawing up of the Bills (the name for an Act of Parliament before it receives royal assent) which became the 1706/1707 Acts.
   The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707. On this date, the Scots Parliament and the English Parliament merged to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the former home of the English Parliament (the parliaments of England and Scotland were dissolved). Hence, the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments.
   There was an attempt to rename Scotland and England as North and South Britain. This was generally short lived, particularly in "South Britain" - although the name "North Britain" lingered for a while in some institutions. It wasn't until 1991 that the last remnant of this was assigned to history, when the North British Hotel at Edinburgh's Waverley Station was renamed.

Background

Previous Attempts at Union

The first attempt to unite England and Scotland was by King James VI and I. On his accession to the English throne in 1603 King James announced his intention to unite his two realms so that he wouldn't be "guilty of bigamy". The Scottish and English parliaments established a commission to negotiate a union but ultimately abandoned the attempt.
   Later in the seventeenth century the Estates of Scotland petitioned a number of times for a union but were rejected by England.
   The Solemn League and Covenant sought a forced union of the Church of England into the Church of Scotland, and although the covenant referred repeatedly to union between the three kingdoms, a political union wasn't spelled out. In the aftermath of the Civil War, in which the Covenantors had fought for the King, Oliver Cromwell conquered Scotland and by force created the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, a brief union which was dissolved by the restoration of King Charles II. Scottish members expelled from Parliament petitioned unsuccessfully for a continuance of the union.
   At the Glorious Revolution in 1689, the records of the Scottish Parliament show much discussion of possible union. Nothing was done. Thereafter relations between the English and the Scots deteriorated, largely perhaps through the English stranglehold on Scottish trade and ultimately because of the failure of the Darien Scheme and the popular perception in Scotland that the scheme's failure was the fault of the English.

The English Perspective

The English purpose was to ensure that Scotland wouldn't choose a different monarch from England. The two countries had shared a king for much of the previous century, but the English were concerned that an independent Scotland with a different king, even if he were a Protestant, might make alliances against England. Specifically, England wished to ensure a Protestant Royal Succession. Until the Union of Parliaments, the Scots could choose their monarch in line with the Scottish Act of Security 1704, and it was quite possible for them to choose a Catholic monarch. The English succession was provided for by the English Act of Settlement 1701, which ensured that the King of England would be Protestant.

The Scottish Perspective

In Scotland, it was claimed that union would enable Scotland to recover from the financial disaster wrought by the Darien scheme through English assistance and the lifting of measures put in place through the Alien Act to force the Scottish Parliament into compliance with the Act of Settlement.
   The ultimate securing of the treaty in the unicameral Scottish Parliament is sometimes attributed to the weakness and lack of cohesion between the various opposition groups in the House, rather than to the strength of pro-incorporationists. The combined votes of the Court party with a majority of the Squadrone Volante were sufficient to ensure the final passage of the treaty through the House.
   Personal financial interests were also involved. Many Commissioners had invested heavily in the Darien Scheme and they believed that they'd receive compensation for their losses; Article 14, the Equivalent granted £398,085 10s sterling to Scotland to offset future liability towards the English national debt. In essence, it was also used as a means of compensation for investors in the Darien Scheme.
   Even more direct bribery was said to be a factor. £20,000 (£240,000 Scots) was dispatched to Scotland for distribution by the Earl of Glasgow. James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament, received £12,325, the majority of the funding. (Other studies suggest that all of this money was propely accounted for as compensation for loss of office, pensions and so forth not outwith the usual run of government. It is perhaps a debate that will never be set to rest.) Robert Burns referred to this:
� We were bought and sold for English Gold,

   Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation. Some of the money was used to hire spies, such as Daniel Defoe; his first reports were of vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind," he reported, "for every Scot in favour there's 99 against". Years later John Clerk of Penicuik, originally a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that, � (Defoe) was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces.

Defoe recalls that he was hired by Robert Harley.
   The Treaty wasn't universally popular in Scotland. Many petitions were sent to the Scottish Parliament against Union, and there were massive protests in Edinburgh and several other Scottish burghs on the day it was passed, as threats of widespread civil unrest resulted in the imposition of martial law by the Parliament. Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath, a Jacobite and the only member of the Scottish negotiating team who wasn't pro-incorporation, noted that `The whole nation appears against the Union'. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, an ardent pro-unionist and Union negotiator, observed that the treaty was `contrary to the inclinations of at least three-fourths of the Kingdom'.
   Public opinion against the Treaty as it passed through the Scottish Parliament was voiced through petitions from Scottish localities. Anti-union petitions were received from shires, burghs, presbyteries and parishes. The Convention of Royal Burghs also petitioned against the Union and not one petition in favour of an incorporating union was received by Parliament. On the day the treaty was signed, the carilloner in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, rang the bells in the tune Why should I be so sad on my wedding day?

Provisions of the Acts

The treaty consisted of 25 articles, 15 of which were economic in nature. In Scotland, each article was voted on separately and several clauses in articles were delegated to specialised subcommittees. Article 1 of the treaty was based on the political principle of an incorporating union and this was secured by a majority of 116 votes to 83 on 4 November 1706. In order to minimise the opposition of the Church of Scotland, an Act was also passed to secure the Presbyterian establishment of the Church, after which the Church stopped its open opposition, although hostility remained at lower levels of the clergy. The treaty as a whole was finally ratified on 16 January 1707 by a majority of 110 votes to 69.
   The two Acts incorporated provisions for Scotland to send representative peers from the Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House of Lords. It guaranteed that the Church of Scotland would remain the established church in Scotland, that the Court of Session would "remain in all time coming within Scotland", and that Scots law would "remain in the same force as before". Other provisions included the restatement of the Act of Settlement 1701 and the ban on Roman Catholics from taking the throne. It also created a customs union and monetary union.
   The Act provided that any "laws and statutes" that were "contrary to or inconsistent with the terms" of the Act would "cease and become void."
   Soon after the Union, the Act 6 Anne c.11 (later infelicitously named "The Union with Scotland (Amendment) Act 1707") united the English and Scottish Privy Councils and decentralised Scottish administration by appointing justices of the peace in each shire to carry out administration. In effect it took the day to day government of Scotland out of the hands of politicians and into those of the College of Justice.

Criticisms

The English and Scottish parliaments had evolved along different lines, so contradictions and teething troubles in the merged parliament were frequent. For example, the English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty in all aspects of national life didn't exist in Scotland, and the Scottish Parliament was unicameral, not bicameral. Most of the pre-Union traditions of Westminster continued, while those of Scotland were forgotten or ignored.
Defoe drew upon his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which he'd predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary", and that the hostility towards his party was, "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against". Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a vehement critic of the Union, said in An Account of a Conversation, that Scotland suffered "...the miserable and languishing condition of all places that depend upon a remote seat of government."
However by the time Samuel Johnson and James Boswell made their tour in 1773, recorded in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Johnson noted that Scotland was: “a nation of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth encreasing”, and Glasgow in particular had become one of the greatest cities of Britain.

A new Scottish Parliament

In 1999, after almost three centuries, a Scottish Parliament was opened after a referendum in Scotland. The new parliament doesn't have the same powers as the old parliament: the Scottish Parliament may not legislate in certain areas (most importantly in defence and constitutional matters). Scotland remains a constituent member country of the United Kingdom and the Parliament may not pass laws to change this, even though the Scottish Parliament is now led by the Scottish Nationalist Party (without an absolute majority).

300th anniversary

A commemorative two-pound coin was issued to mark the 300th anniversary of the Union, which occurred 2 days before the Scottish Parliament general election on 3 May 2007.
The Scottish Executive have announced plans for a year-long commemoration including an education project led by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, an exhibition of Union-related objects and documents at the National Museums of Scotland and an exhibition of portraits of people associated with the Union at the National Galleries of Scotland.

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