persistence, principle and patriotism in the

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKHISTHistory0018-2648© 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.XXXOriginal Article

THE MAKING OF THE UNION OF 1707DEREK J. PATRICK and CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY

Persistence, Principle and Patriotism in the Making of the Union of 1707: The Revolution,

Scottish Parliament and the

squadrone volante

DEREK J. PATRICK and CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY

University of Dundee

Abstract

Since the 1960s most historians of the Union of 1707 have considered it a less thanglorious chapter in Scotland’s history. Driven by ambition and greed, Scots politicians,covetous of English wealth and swayed by promises and bribes, bartered their nation’sindependence for personal gain. Those genuinely committed to political union were ina minority. The following article maintains that this interpretation is based on an essen-tially short-term approach to the subject. Concentrating on the worsening relationsbetween Scotland and England in the years immediately preceding the Union gives adistorted impression of what was a more enduring concern. It suggests the Revolutionof 1688–9 had a far greater impact on the politics of union than previously anticipated,with the religious and political freedoms it guaranteed shaping the beliefs of a largenumber of Scots MPs who sat in Parliament 1706–7, almost half of whom had beenmembers of King William’s Convention Parliament with a majority supporting union.Focusing on the

squadrone volante

– one of the two much-maligned Scots unionistparties – the article traces the ideological roots of its key members and illustrates thevarious factors that led them to endorse an incorporating union which offered securityfor presbyterianism and a solution to Scotland’s economic underdevelopment. Notdenying that management and ambition played a significant part in securing the Union,it highlights the fact that amongst the Scottish political elite there was also a degree ofgenuine commitment and principled support.

T

he explanations of historians as to the reasons why the Scottishparliament voted for the Union of 1707 which created the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain have altered significantly over time.

The dominant interpretation from the Victorian era until the 1960s wasthat support for incorporating union amongst the leading Scottish poli-ticians was based on their foresight and recognition of the necessity ofunion. Union in this view was canonized as a crucial stage in British his-tory, a constitutional stepping stone which placed Westminster at thecentre of Britain’s imperial rule; it was preceded by milestone events suchas Magna Carta and the Revolution of 1688 and followed by the Great

DEREK J. PATRICK AND CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY 163

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.

Reform Act of 1832.

1

Thus a leading Scottish historian in 1962 couldcomfortably write of the Union as being ‘grounded in common sense’,and ‘one of the most statesmanlike transactions recorded in our history’.

2

From the 1960s and into the 1970s, Scotland’s politicians of the periodof the Union were subjected to Namierite-inspired scrutiny, and strippedof their former historiographical dignity. Influenced by the stirrings ofnationalist sentiment in Scotland, historians rejected ideas of conver-gence, ideological consensus or the shared revolution culture implicit inthe Whig historiographical tradition. A favoured interpretation now isthat union was a ‘political job’, a settlement which according to ColinKidd was arrived at ‘without reference to ideological imperatives’.

3

Reli-gion as a factor that may have drawn Scots towards union has been ruledout too.

4

For most Scottish politicians, it is argued, confessional attach-ment was simply a convenient cloak to be donned at will and in accordancewith the prevailing political wind.

5

In this view, high-minded politicalvision as motive is replaced by avarice. The Scottish political class, it isalleged, was drawn to union with England by the prospect of personalfinancial gain, places and promotions dangled before them by QueenAnne’s ministers in the final two years of Scottish independence.

6

Incoming to this conclusion much emphasis is placed on the JacobiteGeorge Lockhart of Carnwath’s

Memoirs

, published in 1714. Lockhartrevealed that monies had been remitted from England to Scotland andalleged that these had been ‘employed in bribing Members of Parliament’.

7

In more partisan versions of this analysis, assertions are made that lessthan a handful of Scottish politicians genuinely favoured incorporatingunion; in one account the number is reduced to a single individual, theageing, wily and allegedly opportunistic Sir George Mackenzie, first earlof Cromartie.

8

Underpinning gifts proffered to individuals, allege critics

1

T. Claydon, ‘“British” History in the Post-Revolutionary World 1690–1715’, in

The New BritishHistory: Founding a Modern State 1603–1715

, ed. G. Burgess (1999), p. 118.

2

G. S. Pryde,

Scotland from 1603 to the Present Day

(1962), p. 55.

3

See in particular C. Kidd,

Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creationof an Anglo-British Identity, 1689–c.1830

(Cambridge, 1993), p. 50; W. Ferguson, ‘The Making ofthe Treaty of Union’,

Scottish Historical Review

, xliii (1964), 97–108; P. W. J. Riley,

The Union ofEngland and Scotland: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics of the Eighteenth Century

(Manchester,1978) [hereafter Riley,

Union of England and Scotland

].

4

A notable exception is J. Stephen, ‘The Kirk and the Union, 1706–7: A Reappraisal’,

Records ofthe Scottish Church History Society

, xxxi (2001), 68–96.

5

Ibid., pp. 8–11; M. Pittock,

Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain andIreland, 1685–1789

(Basingstoke, 1997), pp. 9–10, 27–8.

6

A. I. Macinnes, ‘Politically Reactionary Brits? The Promotion of Anglo-Scottish Union, 1603–1707’ [hereafter Macinnes, ‘Politically Reactionary Brits’], in

Kingdoms United? Great Britain andIreland since 1500

, ed. S. J. Connolly (Dublin, 1999), pp. 54–5.

7

G. Lockhart,

Memoirs Concerning the Affairs of Scotland from Queen Anne’s Accession to theThrone to the Commencement of the Union of the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England in May,1707

(1714) [hereafter Lockhart,

Memoirs

], p. 405.

8

P. H. Scott,

Andrew Fletcher and the Treaty of Union

(Edinburgh, 1992) [hereafter Scott,

AndrewFletcher

], p. 164. The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies was established in1695 in an attempt to improve Scotland’s overseas trade by establishing a colony at Darien on theisthmus of Panama. The East India Company was hostile to the scheme and frustrated the Scottish

164 THE MAKING OF THE UNION OF 1707


of the process by which union was secured, was the bribe offered to thenation – or at least to many thousands of Scots who had invested in theCompany of Scotland – of the Equivalent, which, amongst other things,provided compensation for the losses incurred from the expeditions toDarien and paid the salary arrears of a number of state servants.

9

And ifthis were not enough to draw the Scots towards incorporating unionwith England, such carrots could be complemented with the stick of mil-itary force: invasion.

10

Earlier ‘deterministic’ explanations for union have also been dismissedin narratives which emphasize the volatility of the political situation inScotland in the years immediately preceding 1707 and the unpredictabil-ity of the Scottish parliament.

11

Concern about the economy and thedirection it was taking – in becoming increasingly dependent upon theEnglish market – is judged by some to have been of little consequence inthe thinking of Scotsmen who voted for the Union; others reject it alto-gether.

12

The constraints imposed on the Scots by the English NavigationActs in developing legal commerce with the plantations were less import-ant than has been assumed, so this line of argument goes – with evid-ence being adduced that the Scots were creating an overseas empire bystealth.

13

Historians who argue that there was a significant economicimpetus for union are currently in a minority.

Those who maintain that the Scots were bought or forced into unionhave compiled a powerful set of arguments, which have been enormouslyinfluential for the best part of half a century. When they are subjected toclose scrutiny, however, fissures can be found in the foundations upon

company’s attempts to raise capital in England. Consequently, Scots investors subscribed some£400,000 sterling to the project which was viewed as a patriotic solution to Scotland’s economicunderdevelopment. The fact that Darien was a Spanish possession was hardly considered. TheScots colonists were ill-equipped, under-provisioned and found the proposed location of the colonycompletely unsuitable. Faced with Spanish troops and unable to obtain supplies from the Englishcolonies, the Scots were eventually forced to abandon ‘Caledonia’. Its failure had serious conse-quences for the Scottish economy, with the loss of £153,000 sterling of paid-up capital. Thefifteenth article of union which dealt with the ‘Equivalent’ – a sum of just over £398,000 sterling ascompensation to the Scots for undertaking to pay part of the English national debt – stipulatedthat Scots investors would be reimbursed with the repayment of their capital plus interest. This wasa significant concession secured by the Scots union commissioners.

9

B. Lenman,

An Economic History of Modern Scotland, 1660–1976

(1977), pp. 58–9.

10

J. R. Young, ‘The Parliamentary Incorporating Union of 1707: Political Management, Anti-Unionism and Foreign Policy’ [hereafter Young, ‘Parliamentary Incorporating Union’], in

Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspectives

, ed. T. M. Devine and J. R. Young (Edinburgh, 1999)[hereafter Devine and Young,

Eighteenth Century Scotland

], pp. 39–46; P. H. Scott, ‘An EnglishInvasion Would Have Been Worse: Why the Scottish Parliament Accepted the Union’,

ScottishStudies Review

, iv (2003), 9–16.

11

The views of T. C. Smout, in ‘The Road to Union’ [hereafter Smout, ‘Road to Union’], in

Britainafter the Glorious Revolution

, ed. G. Holmes (1969), pp. 176–96, have been described as deterministic;counter-cases include I. B. Cowan, ‘The Inevitability of Union: A Historical Fallacy?’,

Scotia

,v (1991), 1–7; T. M. Devine,

Scotland’s Empire, 1600–1815

(2003), pp. 56–7.

12

Riley,


, p. 281.

13

Scotland and the Americas, c.1650–c.1939: A Documentary Source Book

, ed. A. I. Macinnes,M. A. D. Harper and L. G. Fryer (Edinburgh, 2002) [hereafter Macinnes, Harper and Fryer,

Scotland and the Americas

], pp. 11–12.



which the historiographical status quo is built. This article will proposethat religious adherence was not simply a flag of convenience adopted atwill by devious members of the political class, but instead was a forcethat drove political action. Many accounts of the making of the Unionof 1707 choose as their starting date 1702–3, when Queen Anne’s newparliament was elected, which courtiers found much more difficult tomanage than its predecessor, largely owing to the increased strength ofthe country opposition.

14

But while few historians ignore altogether theimpact of economic and political events of the preceding years, rathertoo little attention has been paid to the place of the ‘Glorious’ Revolu-tion in the making of the Union of 1707. Fortunately, much more isknown now about the Revolution in Scotland than when several of therecent classic studies of the Union were written.

15

The Revolution, it willbe argued – as well as the religious and political circumstances whichbrought it about in Scotland – played crucial parts in forming the ideologyand core beliefs of several key members of the nobility in Scotland, aswell as significant numbers of commissioners (MPs) who sat as membersof the pre-Union Scottish Parliament. It provided some of the personneltoo, men who were instrumental in driving the Articles of Union throughparliament in the winter of 1706–7, whilst others with similar sympathiesvoted for them. Although the country-cavalier opposition alliance playedthe patriotic card when arguing and campaigning against incorporation,there were unionists who could – and did – claim that they too were act-ing in Scotland’s best interests, and that the Union would provide theScots with opportunities that would bolster their flagging economy. Neweconomic policies had begun to be devised and implemented, in the earlypost-Revolution years – inaugurating the era of ‘economic politics’, ofwhich incorporating union can reasonably be interpreted as a part.

16

Limitations of space preclude the possibility of examining this pro-position as it applies to the totality of MPs

17

who voted for Union. Accord-ingly, the present study focuses on the

squadrone volante

, or flying squadron,

14

This is not always a failing on the part of the historian: the publishers of the late P. W. J. Riley’sstudy of the Union,

The Union of England and Scotland: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics of theEighteenth Century

(Manchester, 1978), insisted that the chapters that later became

King Williamand the Scottish Politicians

(Edinburgh, 1979) be removed. We are grateful to Dr Alex Murdoch ofthe University of Edinburgh for this information.

15

In particular, D. J. Patrick, ‘People and Parliament in Scotland, 1689–1702’ (PhD thesis, Universityof St Andrews, 2002) [hereafter Patrick, ‘People and Parliament’]; and idem, ‘UnconventionalProcedure: Scottish Electoral Politics after the Revolution’ [hereafter Patrick, ‘UnconventionalProcedure], in

Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567–1707

, ed. K. M. Brown and A. J. Mann(Edinburgh, 2005) [hereafter Brown and Mann,

Parliament and Politics in Scotland

], pp. 208–44;E. Vallance,

The Glorious Revolution, 1688: Britain’s Fight for Liberty

(2006); T. Harris,

Revolution:The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720

(2006); G. Gardner,

The Scottish Exile Communityin the Netherlands 1660–1690

(East Linton, 2004).

16

R. Saville, ‘Scottish Modernisation prior to the Industrial Revolution’, in Devine and Young,

Eighteenth Century Scotland

, pp. 7–12.

17

Throughout ‘MP’ is used to describe all members of the Scottish parliament, 1706–7 – noblemen,shire and burgh commissioners. ‘Commissioner’ refers to an elected representative of the shires andburghs.



known initially as the ‘new party’, which had broken away from the coun-try opposition following the general election of 1703. It has long beenrecognized that the

squadrone

, which comprised two dozen MPs, perhapstwenty-five, played a crucial part in carrying the Union in the Scottishparliament.

18

In order to steer the Articles of Union through a parlia-ment which comprised over 200 MPs (in theory, 247 members could haveparticipated in 1706–7; old age, infirmity and deliberate abstention accountfor most of the shortfall), the government or court party needed to com-mand over 100 votes on each Article.

19

The court itself could musteraround ninety supporters, the opposition around eighty-seven. The partythat tipped the balance in favour was the

squadrone

. Thus, the criticalvote on whether to approve the first Article of Union on 4 November1706 was carried by a majority of thirty-three (116 votes to eighty-three);had the

squadrone

voted with the opposition the proposal would havebeen defeated by fifteen (107 to ninety-two).

20

Led by John Hay, second marquess of Tweeddale, and John Ker, fifthearl of Roxburghe, but with Patrick Hume, Lord Polwarth and later thefirst earl of Marchmont, John Leslie, ninth earl of Rothes, and his youngerbrother Thomas, sixth earl of Haddington, also playing prominent parts,

18

K. M. Brown,

Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union, 1603–1715

(1992) [hereafterBrown,

Kingdom or Province

?], p. 191; J. S. Shaw,

The Political History of Eighteenth-Century Scot-land

(1999) [hereafter Shaw,

Political History

], p. 18; Young, ‘Parliamentary Incorporating Union’,p. 27. For an overview of the

squadrone volante

see C. A. Whatley,

The Scots and the Union

(Edin-burgh, 2006) [hereafter Whatley,

The Scots and the Union

], ch. 5. See the appendix of this article fora list of the twenty-five

squadrone

members.

19

Riley,


, p. 328; D. Szechi,

George Lockhart of Carnwath, 1689–1727: A Study in Jacobitism

(East Linton, 2002), p. 63.

20

A Selection from the Papers of the Earls of Marchmont. . . . Illustrative of the Events from 1685to 1750

(3 vols., London, 1831) [hereafter

Marchmont Papers

], iii. 329. In a short memorandumdrafted after the Union was concluded, the earl of Marchmont referred to 115 votes cast for thefirst article rather than the 116 votes recorded in parliament, although it is unclear whether heincluded himself in his calculation. He reckoned there were twenty-two

squadrone

members inattendance, all of whom voted for the article. Subsequent analysis suggests that twenty-four mem-bers of the

squadrone

– or individuals closely associated with the

squadrone

– participated in thefirst division, all voting in favour of the article. This level of participation was typical. Twenty ofthe twenty-five

squadrone

members took part in at least twenty-five of the thirty recorded divisions;nine participated in all thirty with twenty-three voting for the ratification of the treaty on 16 Janu-ary 1707. In parliament voting was affected by both absence and abstentions. However, it is debate-able whether this had a significant impact on the passage of the Union. In the first division on4 November 1706, twenty-five MPs who either sat in parliament at least once but never took part inany voting, or who took part in subsequent divisions, failed to register a vote. This does not includeJames Douglas, second duke of Queensberry, the queen’s commissioner, who had no vote. Evenassuming these men were all anti-union, which their voting records clearly indicate was not thecase, the article would have still been carried by a majority of eight votes. Likewise, the Union wasratified by forty-one votes. Using the same criteria to identify MPs who were absent or abstained –there is no way to establish accurately who was in parliament on any given day unless they made aspeech, are mentioned in an account of that day’s business or participated in a vote – some forty-six members who had attended parliament or voted in a former division did not vote on theratification. Of these, twenty-four had cast all or the majority of their votes with Hamilton’s con-federated opposition, five had been in parliament without voting in any division, one MP had splithis votes between the unionist and opposition interests, and sixteen – including the Earl of Stairwho had died some days earlier – were predominantly in the pro-union camp. Overall, absence andabstention made little difference to the ratification of union.



squadrone

MPs have been depicted as political opportunists. The percep-tion is that they came round to union at the last minute, seduced by thepromise that, as nominees of the directors of the Company of Scotland,they would be allowed to disburse that part of the Equivalent designatedfor compensating Scots investors who had lost some £153,000 sterling(1.8 million pounds Scots) in the Company’s failed Darien scheme.21

Roxburghe’s conversion to unionism has been attributed to his ambitionto secure a dukedom.22 With strong cross-border links with the EnglishWhig junto, they certainly had a keen interest in the role they could playat Westminster after the two kingdoms’ legislatures had been united.23

Yet this is only part of the explanation for their support of the Union.The reality is more complicated. Close examination of the political back-grounds and beliefs of certain key adherents of the squadrone revealspreviously disregarded elements of the ideological basis of their backingfor incorporating union, as well as a clearly identifiable patriotic concernfor Scotland’s future. Although it was these elements that held the partytogether – albeit loosely – members’ backgrounds varied, as did the strengthof the influences which brought them into the union camp and, accord-ingly, their degree of commitment. Nevertheless, for the purposes of thepresent analysis this is fortuitous as it provides glimpses of a number ofthe factors that were at work amongst sections of the Scottish politicalclass in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Similarinfluences took other MPs into the pro-Union court party.

Of the 227 MPs who sat as members of the Scottish Estates in 1706–7(the ‘Union’ Parliament), thirty-five, or some 15 per cent, had sat in theConvention of Estates in 1689.24 This had been summoned by William ofOrange in February, with instructions that the burgh franchise was to bewidened to include all Protestant burgesses without exception – a temporaryinnovation introduced as a means of bypassing James VII’s remodellingof the Scots burgh electorate which he hoped to use to pack parliamentwith his nominees.25 There was no change in the shire electorate, andsome elections were fiercely contested, but as in the burghs, by and largeit was candidates who favoured the Revolution who triumphed. A furtherseventy-two men who took part in the Union debates first sat in or were

21 W. Ferguson, Scotland’s Relations with England: A Survey to 1707 (Edinburgh, 1994) [hereafterFerguson, Scotland’s Relations], pp. 244, 247, 257; Scott, Andrew Fletcher, p. 182; Memoirs of theLife of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, ed. J. M. Gray (Edinburgh, 1892) [hereafter Gray, Memoirs ofSir John Clerk], p. 48.22 Ferguson, Scotland’s Relations, p. 233.23 Brown, Kingdom or Province?, p. 191.24 Two hundred and twenty-seven MPs sat in the ‘Union’ Parliament including Sir Archibald Hopeof Rankeillour, a commissioner from Fife, who died and was replaced by his son before votingbegan. This calculation is drawn from a database which includes the names of all members of theScottish Estates from 1689 to 1707. In it are identified at which point during the fifteen sessions ofWilliam’s and Anne’s pre-Union parliaments MPs first sat, as well as their voting behaviour in thethirty divisions of which there is a record during 1706–7, that is when the terms of the Union weredebated and settled.25 Patrick, ‘Unconventional Procedure’, p. 214.



elected to William’s parliament between 1689 and 1702. Twenty-five of thesefirst appeared before the end of 1695. They included some of the firmestsupporters of incorporation in 1706–7 – not only men like Sir John Swin-ton of that ilk, elected as shire commissioner for Berwick in 1690, andWilliam Morison of Prestongrange, but also the squadrone’s GeorgeBaillie of Jerviswood and William Bennet of Grubbet. In total, some 47per cent of the MPs who voted on the Articles of Union entered parliamentbefore the end of the 1702 session. Even more marked is the continuity whichexisted amongst the nobility and the cadre of MPs who were appointed asofficers of state. Of this number – totalling seventy-eight in 1706–7 – twenty,or 26 per cent, had sat in the Convention of Estates; approximately two-thirds of them had entered parliament before the general election of 1703.

The degree of longevity of membership of parliament is significant.Also striking is the voting behaviour of this cohort of MPs over theArticles of Union, as they passed through the Scottish parliament. Ofthe thirty-five MPs who had sat in the Convention, an overwhelmingmajority – two-thirds – voted for the Union. That is, they voted with the courton at least half of the thirty union-related divisions in the winter of1706–7, and in most cases much more positively than this. Of the twentymembers of the nobility and officers of state who had sat in the Convention,an even higher proportion, 75 per cent, voted with the court, and forincorporation. Similar proportions apply when the voting records of thoseMPs who had entered parliament between 1689 and 1702 are examined.In total, of the 107 MPs who had sat in the 1689 Convention or in William’sparliament thereafter, seventy, or 65 per cent, voted for the Union.26

This is not the only evidence for continuity – and even persistence –on the matter of union. Over the period from 1689 to 1706 there werethree occasions when union was taken seriously in Scotland, the first atthe time of the Revolution itself, the second just before William’s deathin 1702, the negotiations of which dragged over into Anne’s reign, and,of course, in 1706–7. For the three sets of negotiations a total of sixty-three individuals were nominated to serve as commissioners fromScotland to treat with their English counterparts (although no meetingever took place in 1689). Notwithstanding the large number of MPs whowere only nominated once, there were three men who were appointedas commissioners in 1689, 1702 and 1706, namely Adam Cockburn ofOrmiston, James Ogilvie, first earl of Seafield, and John Dalrymple,first earl of Stair. William, twelfth lord Ross was a commissioner in 1689and 1706. A total of twelve men were commissioners in both 1702 and1706. Assuming that these individuals were pro-union to some degree atleast, what this data reveals is that there existed in Scotland a group ofpoliticians who appear to have been consistent in their support for unionover a period of years. Although this is hardly a startling finding, it hasnot been observed before. More importantly it puts paid to the suggestion

26 This includes James Douglas, second duke of Queensberry, who as commissioner did not votebut was undoubtedly pro-union.



that less than a handful of Scots favoured union. And the twelve is aminimum: to these can be added a couple more, from the Grant family.Ludovic Grant (d. 1716), representing the shire of Inverness, was nomi-nated as a commissioner in 1689, while his son, Alexander (1673–1719),who also represented the county, was a union commissioner in 1706,suggesting that within certain families, there was a lasting commitmentto union with England, even though in the Grants’ case support for theRevolution had cost the family over £12,000 sterling (144,000 poundsScots) – never repaid – for raising a regiment for William and as a resultof damage done to their estate by Jacobite enemies.27

Seafield is of particular significance in this regard, as he has beenwritten off as a cipher, a time-serving secretary of state prepared to workfor virtually any political master who offered him employment.28 Thereis substance in this description, but it is hard to deny the apparent lon-gevity of his interest in the union project. Dalrymple’s part too is worthemphasizing; indeed it was even more important. Savaged for his role inthe massacre of Glencoe, Dalrymple (he was created earl of Stair in 1703)was a tireless worker for the union cause from 1689, when he had beeninstrumental in removing James VII from the throne of Scotland, andpersuading William to lay down rules for the subsequent election thathampered the Jacobites.29 The squadrone’s earl of Marchmont (then SirPatrick Hume) was another member of the four-member committeeappointed for this purpose, along with Sir James Montgomerie of Skel-morlie and William Hamilton of Whitelaw, leaders of the ‘Presbyterianand discontented party’. With Hume, Dalrymple also had a big hand indrawing up the Scots’ Claim of Right, as well as the list of Scotland’s‘Grievances’ under the later Stuarts; together these documents repre-sented the Scottish Revolution manifesto. According to Lockhart, Dal-rymple was ‘at the Bottom of the Union’, in which cause he was a highlyeffective advocate who during the debates over the Articles in 1706 and1707 robustly defended the court position and dealt incisively with manyof the objections raised by members of the opposition. He had much incommon with Ormiston, ‘a zealous Revolutioner, and bigoted Presbyte-rian’, none equalling him ‘in vindictive persecution of all that he thoughtEnemies to the Establish’d Government of either Church or State’.30

At least three questions arise. How is the apparent coincidencebetween length of service in parliament and support for the Union to beexplained? If, as seems likely, there is a link between support for theRevolution in 1689, loyalty to King William, and the Union of 1707,how can this be substantiated? Third, and as a consequence, could there

27 The Parliaments of Scotland: Burgh and Shire Commissioners, ed. M. D. Young (2 vols., Edin-burgh 1992), i. 296–7; The House of Commons, 1690–1715, ed. E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley andD. W. Hayton (4 vols., Cambridge, 2002 ) [hereafter Cruickshanks, Handley and Hayton, House ofCommons], iv. 73.28 Riley, Union of England and Scotland, pp. 23, 42–3.29 Patrick, ‘People and Parliament’, pp. 62–5.30 Lockhart, Memoirs, pp. 96, 129.



be an ideological basis for the Union that appears to have escaped mosthistorians hitherto, and which needs to be understood in terms of thecontext in which the Glorious Revolution in Scotland happened? Satis-factory answers to these questions would demonstrate that there wassupport for the Union in Scotland, long before the end of 1705 andthrough 1706, when Queensberry, Argyll and the court began to drumup support for the union treaty by using the nefarious means – includingthe alleged orgy of court vote-buying – described earlier.

It would be wholly mistaken to dismiss religion as a factor in deter-mining political behaviour in early modern Scotland. Religion wasone of the ideological foundations of the Revolution in Scotland, evenif historians’ scepticism about its extent makes it impossible to discountaltogether the possibility that in some cases there are grounds forsuspecting that the espousal of presbyterian sympathies may havebeen driven by political self-interest.31 Religion was also a motive for manysupporters of the Union – and equally for those who opposed it, fromthe standpoint both of the more fervent and extreme presbyterians (ofwhom there were many thousands), and of most episcopalians – a termwhich, by and large, meant Jacobites.32 By and large, moderatism layin the future, although it was from the ranks of the less dogmatic pres-byterians that unionists tended to be drawn.33 Confessional differencemattered; adherence to a particular church could, and within livingmemory had, cost lives, and resulted in torture, imprisonment, forfeitureof estates and fortunes, and in some cases internal and even external exile.

Central to the explanation for the Union of 1707 was the behaviour ofkey members of the community of exiled Scots in the Low Countriesduring the 1670s and 1680s, presbyterians who had fled from Scotlandunder the later Stuarts, the so-called ‘Killing Times’. Investigationscarried out by Ginny Gardner have revealed that there may have beenbetween three and four hundred political exiles from Scotland in theNetherlands in the decades preceding the Revolution.34 Whilst there,they met and plotted, sometimes in association with presbyterians stillresident in Scotland, and worked too with William, prince of Orange,in hopes of restoring themselves and their religion back in Scotland.Several of those who served in a military capacity or landed with William’striumphant invasion fleet on England’s south coast, along with many ofthe Scots who flocked to London to greet him, determined never againto endure the suffering they had experienced under what they consideredto be the arbitrary – and penal – rule of the Stuart kings Charles andJames, and their secretaries in Scotland like Lauderdale. Such men (andsometimes their sons) were to become the staunchest supporters of the

31 A. C. Cheyne, Studies in Church History (Edinburgh, 1999) [hereafter Cheyne, Studies in ChurchHistory], pp. 58–60.32 B. Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689–1746 (1980), pp. 223–5.33 Cheyne, Studies in Church History, pp. 48–54.34 G. Gardner, The Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands, 1660–1690 (East Linton, 2004),pp. 9–28, 178–206.



Union. Included in their ranks were the Rev. William Carstares, who washeld in irons in Edinburgh before enduring torture by the use of thumb-screws in 1684; he became William’s chaplain and later principal of Edin-burgh University from which base he was enormously influential in kirkcircles in 1706–7, and beyond the Union. The Rev. William Wishart wasanother divine, who had opposed, with difficulty, the Stuarts from withinScotland; as moderator of the General Assembly of the Church ofScotland in 1706 he played a key role in nudging wary kirk memberstowards acceptance of the Union by persuading them that a separate actwould secure their faith. George, fourth lord and later first earl of Melville,was an émigré; so too was his son David, third earl of Leven, a militaryman and future commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland who had fledto Holland with his father in 1683 over the Rye House Plot, sailed withWilliam and thereafter remained loyal both to the new king and the electressSophia of Hanover (nominated in England as Anne’s successor in 1701).Leven was one of the twelve men who served as union commissioners in1702 and 1706. On the accession of the first Hanoverian king, George, in1714, he was reported to have tearfully recounted to his friends ‘all theevents of the Revolution’, and thanked God that his lifetime’s labourswere now crowned with success, ‘in that he would leave a Protestant kingsitting on the throne of Britain’.35 Similar searing experiences of flightand exile were shared with several individuals who would later join withthe squadrone, including Baillie of Jerviswood and Sir Patrick Hume.

Following William’s invasion at the end of 1688, over one hundredprominent Scots – including thirty-six noblemen – descended on White-hall where they met to discuss the extraordinary events that would havesuch a profound impact on the three kingdoms of England, Ireland andScotland. From the outset, it appears there was considerable Scottishinterest in union with the Scots’ southern neighbour. William of Orangemay have favoured this as a device for better securing the Revolution, buthe made no reference to union in his intentionally vague ‘Declaration’(for Scotland). Likewise, the English were lukewarm. And although inScotland there was little consensus on the issue, if there was enthusiasmfor closer union between the two nations in the winter of 1688–9, it wasfrom Scotland that it came. Indeed, at this time, even ‘the patriot’ andformer exile Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a bitter opponent of incorpora-tion by 1706–7, was advocating a union of parliaments and trade tosettle the differences between the two countries.36 It has been suggestedthat Fletcher was advocating a federal arrangement, but his reference to

35 A. I. Dunlop, William Carstares & the Kirk by Law Established (Edinburgh, 1964), pp. 41–50;J. Warwick, The Moderators of the Church of Scotland From 1690 to 1740 (Edinburgh, 1913), pp. 158–99; The Melvilles, Earls of Meville and the Leslies, Earls of Leven, ed. W. Fraser (3 vols., Edinburgh,1890), i. 195–307.36 Smout, ‘Road to Union’, pp. 183–4. In a letter to an acquaintance in Rotterdam dated 8 Jan.1689, Fletcher wrote: ‘For my own part I think we can never come to any true settlement but byuniting with England in Parliaments and Trade, for as for our worship and particular laws wecertainly can never be united in these’ (ibid.).



a united parliament suggests otherwise.37 In any case, had he favouredthe former, he was out of step with what other Scots were proposing.John Hay, second earl and first marquess of Tweeddale, was behind anaddress from East Lothian that asked William to consider ‘by whatwayes and means these kingdoms of Scotland and England may beunited in a more strict inseparable Union then they have ben as yet’.38

The address promoted incorporating union as the most effectual meansof securing Scotland’s ‘Religion and Liberty’. Subscribed by Tweeddale,representatives of the burghs of Haddington and Dunbar, and most ofthe region’s landed gentry, the union cause was clearly popular in EastLothian. Nevertheless, the failure of this proposal to make any provisionfor presbyterian church government saw it dismissed by some as favour-ing the established episcopalian hierarchy.39 Episcopalians certainly sawa union with Anglican England in 1688–9 as a means of consolidatingtheir position against the presbyterian interest. Alarmed by the prospectof a presbyterian recovery, both George Mackenzie, first viscount Tarbatand Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, in a memorial to William,stressed the impossibility for England of fashioning a union with presby-terian Scotland.40 Yet what is revealing about Tweeddale’s correspond-ence – with his son, Lord Yester, the future squadrone leader – is hisconcern for the security of Protestantism in Britain, and indeed thewhole of Europe, so transcending the ‘local’ (but severe) differences therewere over the form of government of the church in Scotland.41 This focuson the enemy without would continue to inform the attitudes of moremoderate presbyterians in Scotland, and their Whig counterparts inEngland, up to and beyond the Union of 1707.

The framework within which moderate Presbyterians operated was abroad one, and entailed a commitment to the defence of Protestantism inEurope at a time of considerable uncertainty about its future owing tothe strength of the forces of the Counter-Reformation as exemplified byLouis XIV of France and his ambitions for universal monarchy.42 Theaspiration for a Britain united by a single faith was not without prece-dent, and indeed had inspired the Scottish covenanters’ confederal andapocalyptic confessional aims in the 1640s.43 Ironically, by the time of theUnion debates the country’s more extreme or nonconforming presbyterians

37 Scott, Andrew Fletcher, p. 44.38 National Library of Scotland [NLS], Edinburgh, Yester MS 7026/94A, ‘The humble adres of theNoblemen, Gentilmen and Royal Borows, within the Shyre of east Lowthian To his Highnes thePrince of Orange’.39 NLS, Yester MS 7026/95, Tweeddale to lord Yester, Edinburgh, 31 Dec. 1688.40 A MEMORIAL FOR HIS HIGHNESS the Prince of Orange, In Relation to the AFFAIRS OFSCOTLAND (London, 1689), pp. 7–8.41 NLS Yester MS 7026/219, Tweeddale to Lord Yester, Edinburgh, 25 April 1689.42 J. Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689–1727 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 89–93; C. Kidd, ‘ReligiousRealignment between the Restoration and the Union’ [hereafter Kidd, ‘Religious Realignment’], inA Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707, ed. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1995),pp. 146, 167.43 Macinnes, ‘Politically Reactionary Brits’, pp. 46–50.



were hostile to the idea of a closer union with prelatical England; thefear was that, by adhering tightly to the National Covenant (1638) andthe Solemn League and Covenant (1643), presbyterianism would beabsorbed within a pan-Britannic episcopalian church.44 The internationalconcerns of the moderates – Scottish Whigs – underlay their allegianceto King William and his successor Queen Anne – effectively defenders ofthe faith, the security of which was seen ultimately to depend on a Prot-estant Hanoverian successor to the childless Anne. There was also a Britishdimension to their thinking, which again has been underplayed, but whichwas a powerful attraction for Scottish politicians who in public wereagainst Union by 1706. Both James, fourth duke of Hamilton, joint leaderof the country party, and John Hamilton, Lord Belhaven, had expressedtheir commitment to a united Britain in the previous two years, the last-named (at this stage still holding office as a new party minister appointedin 1704) calling for the appointment of union commissioners from bothcountries who ‘dessine the peace of Brittain’, a particularly potent senti-ment as relations between the two countries approached their nadir withthe hanging on Leith sands of the English captain Thomas Green andmembers of his crew.45 There is also evidence to suggest that even in1689, for some individuals, interest in union owed something to thebelief that incorporation would bring economic benefits not only forthemselves but for the nation at large, the prosperity of which within astrong and united Britain would provide an important bulwark againstthe intrusions of France and the Church of Rome.46 It is difficult toseparate economic concerns from those of state, security and religion.

44 Kidd, ‘Religious Realignment’, p. 145.45 National Archives of Scotland [NAS], Edinburgh, Ogilvie of Inverquharity MSS, GD 205/39,Belhaven to lord Godolphin, 2 Jan., 24 Feb. 1705; E. J. Graham, Seawolves: Pirates and the Scots(Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 153–90. The Worcester, an English merchant vessel, was seized by agents ofthe Company of Scotland in August 1704 in retaliation for the seizure of the Annandale – the com-pany’s last trading ship – by English customs officers. Captain Thomas Green and the crew of theEnglish ship were accused of piracy and charged with the murder of the crew of the Company ofScotland vessel, the Speedy Return which had disappeared in the Indian Ocean, a victim of Mada-gascan pirates. Illustrative of the rising level of Anglophobia in Scotland, a consequence of Darien,the English Act of Settlement (1701) and retaliatory Scots Act of Security (1703–4) and EnglishAliens Act (1705), the crew of the Worcester were sentenced to death in March 1705. Queen Anneinterceded on the crew’s behalf but the Scottish privy council was obliged to satisfy the mob whowere not prepared to accept any leniency to the English. Consequently, the innocent Green andtwo of his crew were hanged in front of large crowds gathered on Leith Sands in April. The remain-ing crewmen were released in September.46 NAS, Leven and Melville MSS, GD 26/7/20. The anonymous author of the draft ‘Act of theEstates of Scotland Establishing the Government Thereof’ observed that since ‘our Kings afterthey became Kings of England . . . our money was exhausted and a great part of it spent in appli-cations and addresses to our Kings to the benefite of England who communicat to us no benefiteof trading with them or their plantations more then to any other strange nation So that therby andby the vast expenss of supporting standing armys and their irregular free quarters by forfaultursand excessive fynes . . . the nation is now reduced to extream poverty’. Incorporating union was thepreferred solution. For the security offered by closer union see NAS GD 3/10/3/10; NLS MS 7026/94A; NLS MS 7026 John Hay, second earl and first marquess of Tweeddale’s letters to Lord Yester1688–9; and the Convention of Estates’ letter to the prince of Orange, 23 March 1689.



These concerns helped shape the concurrent address from ‘the Nobilitie,Gentry, Majestrats and Inhabitants of Glasgow with others nou in armesin the West of Scotland’. Studiously avoiding any overt reference to apresbyterianism settlement at such an early stage in proceedings, thesignatories beseeched William to deal with their grievances and to securethe Scots from ‘popery and Arbitrary power’ – the principal cause of the‘evills under which we groan’. In order to achieve this end, they under-took ‘to indeavour an union of these two nations of Great Britain intoone politick body as divine providence hath united us in one island andunder one head’; they were at pains to assure William that ‘the accom-plishment of that Blissed work tending so much to the happiness andsecuritie of both nations. . . . hath been reserved to be non of the leastGlorious trophies of your most illustrious name’.47

What the addresses from East Lothian and Glasgow make clear is thatcloser or incorporating union as a means of securing Protestantism andredressing recent grievances was not without support in Scotland at theRevolution. Indeed, it was members of the Scottish political elite whowere advocating incorporation, a fact borne out by the reply of the Con-vention of Estates to William of Orange’s letter dated 16 March 1689.From the outset the Convention was dominated by the Revolution andpresbyterian interest. Despite a belief that the Scots were reluctant torebel and the Convention was packed with men who had yet to committo either William or King James, vigorous electioneering in the openingmonths of 1689 had produced an overwhelming Revolutioner48 majority,as noted earlier.49 The prince declared that he was encouraged that ‘somany of the nobilitie and gentry when here at London, were so muchInclined to ane unione of both Kingdomes and that they Did look uponit as one of the best means for procureing the hapines of these nationesand setleing a lasting peace amongst them . . . They living in the sameIsland having the same langwage, and the same comone Interest of Reli-gion and Liberty’.50 His letter, however, was silent on the form of union.This was to be left to Scottish Estates, on whose behalf it was replied,‘that as both Kingdomes are united in one head and Soveraigne so they

47 NAS, Eglinton MSS, GD 3/10/3/10, ‘To His Royal Highness, The Prince of Orange, The HumbleAddress of the Nobilitie, Gentry, Majestrats and Inhabitants of Glasgow with others nou in armesin the West of Scotland for [the] Defense of the Protestant Religion, their Liberty and Property, 1688’.48 ‘Revolutioner’ was a contemporary term used by the Jacobite, George Lockhart of Carnwath, todescribe Scots supporters of the Revolution settlement. See ‘Scotland’s Ruine’: Lockhart of Carnwath’sMemoirs of the Union, ed. D. Szechi (Aberdeen, 1995) [hereafter Szechi, ‘Scotland’s Ruine’], p. 8.49 I. B. Cowan, ‘The Reluctant Revolutionaries: Scotland in 1688’, in By Force or By Default? TheRevolution of 1688–1689, ed. E. Cruickshanks (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 65–81; W. Ferguson, Scotland,1689 to the Present (Edinburgh, 1994), p. 2; I. B. Cowan, ‘Church and State Reformed? The Revo-lution of 1688–1689 in Scotland’, in The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essays on the Glorious Revolutionand its World Impact, ed. J. I. Israel (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 164–5; P. Hopkins, Glencoe and the Endof the Highland War (Edinburgh, 1986), p. 127; B. P. Lenman, ‘The Scottish Nobility and the Rev-olution of 1688–1690’, in The Revolutions of 1688, ed. R. Beddard (Oxford, 1991), p. 146. Thealternative view is expressed in Patrick, ‘Unconventional Procedure’, pp. 208–44.50 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, IX (Edinburgh, 1822), p. 9.



may become one Body Politick, one Nation to be represented in oneParliament’.51

Surviving draft legislation adds further support to the contention thatthe notion of union was a live – and prominent – political issue in Scot-land in the early months of 1689, and for some Scots an explicit goal. Anact designed to establish the government of Scotland after the Revolutionmade a strong, unambiguous case for incorporating union. Its premise,contained within the opening lines, was that William and his army hadrestored and preserved ‘our religion, Laues and Liberties Against arbi-trary government, Idolatrie and superstition’, for which the nationoffered its ‘most hearty thanks never to be forgotten’.52 Consistent withthe Convention’s earlier letter to William, the wording of the draft acturged that ‘the body politick of this nation be and is unite with the bodypolitick of England and that wee bee under the same soveraign authorityand in the same comonwealth with them henceforth intituled anddenominat the kingdom of great Brittain, France and Ireland.’ Separateclauses safeguarded Scots law and the Church of Scotland. A furtherclause dealt with Scottish representation at Westminster, with the proposalbeing made that the Scots would have a twentieth part of England’sMPs, less than was obtained in 1707, while another draft act, similar instyle to the Claim of Right, proposed that union ‘be more seriouslyminded’.53 As it happens, neither of these acts appears to have beendiscussed in the Convention, and they were doubtless by-products ofone of the several parliamentary committees – or sub-committees –established by Convention members.54 However, this should not detractfrom their content and the aspirations they represented.

Indeed, so enthusiastic were Convention members for union in 1689 –an affair skilfully managed by Tarbat and Dalrymple – that they nomi-nated twenty-four union commissioners, evidently with a view to theirmeeting with counterparts from England.55 Those selected – after theentire membership had been polled – included representatives of theémigré hierarchy along with leading members of the internal oppositionto James VII’s religious policies. Members included the future earls ofMarchmont and Stair, and the émigré lords Cardross and Melville, andTweeddale. Negotiations never took place however, owing largely to thelack of English enthusiasm. In Scotland, immediate interest in uniondiminished as Jacobites hijacked the proposals in what proved to be afutile attempt to delay the proceedings of the Convention – in the belief

51 Ibid., p. 60.52 NAS, Leven and Melville MSS, GD 26/7/20, Act of the Estates of Scotland Establishing theGovernment Thereof, n.d.53 NAS, Leven and Melville MSS, GD 26/7/202.54 Committees were appointed for a number of reasons – administrative and legislative. The mostimportant chosen by the Convention of Estates were the committees for controverted elections,securing the peace, and settling the government.55 Colin Lindsay, third earl of Balcarres, Memoirs Touching the Revolution in Scotland 1688–1690(Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1841) [hereafter Colin Lindsay, third earl of Balcarres, Memoirs], p. 33.



that lengthy negotiations would buy time for King James and his Frenchallies. The adoption of delaying tactics set a pattern that would re-emergein the parliamentary sessions between 1703 and 1707. Just as there wasan element of continuity in terms of the membership of the union com-missions in 1689 and 1706, so amongst the ranks of the opposition ele-ments of consistency can also be detected: Sir James Foulis of Colinton,commissioner for the shire of Edinburgh, was fined for absenting himselffrom the Convention, forfeited his seat in 1693 (but was re-elected in1704) – and voted solidly against the Union in 1706–7; almost identicalwas the case of Sir James Stewart of Ardmaleish, in Bute, althoughStewart (who became first earl of Bute in 1703) left Edinburgh in 1706before the first votes on the Union were called. Yet on the other, pro-Union side, the Revolution interest or Revolution sentiment and itsrole in the ideological construction of the advocates of the Union wentconsiderably further than a handful of union commissioners.

The importance of the state, security and the Protestant religion observedabove in relation to the Revolution settlement in Scotland was as great in1706–7 as in 1689. They were arguably more important in a period ofwhat had been virtually continuous war with France and her allies (re-opened in 1702), and when Scotland – frequently referred to by contem-poraries on all sides of the political spectrum in the early 1700s as ‘thissinking nation’ – was economically vulnerable and still to recover fromthe devastating blows of wartime maritime losses, famine and the colonyat Darien which had been struck during the 1690s.56 The HanoverianProtestant succession was still unresolved in Scotland, and from St Ger-main James Francis Stuart – the ‘Old Pretender’ – and his energetic supportersposed a real threat to the Revolution settlement.57 Relations betweenScotland and England were in freefall from 1702, although they hadbegun to degenerate into bouts of mutual hostility earlier. With Anne’saccession to the throne in Scotland the presbyterians fell into momentarydisarray – and panic, while the Jacobites recovered their confidence and,with the opposition in parliament, played the patriotic card to great effect.58

It was at this point – the aftermath of the general election of 1703 –that the squadrone made its entry onto the Scottish political stage. Whatwas known initially as the ‘new party’ first emerged as a group distinctfrom the country party opposition led by the duke of Hamilton. Most ofits members had been actively involved in the Company of Scotland inthe 1690s, sometimes as directors, or as substantial subscribers; in thisregard they can fairly be regarded as sincere patriots, having investedconsiderable sums in what was a stupendously ambitious national enterprise.59

56 T. C. Smout, Scottish Trade on the Eve of the Union, 1660–1707 (Edinburgh, 1963), pp. 244–56; C. A.Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707–1830: Beyond Jacobitism, towards Industrialisation (Manchester, 2000),pp. 16–47; E. J. Graham, A Maritime History of Scotland 1650–1790 (East Linton, 2002), pp. 63–97.57 J. S. Gibson, Playing the Scottish Card: The Franco-Jacobite Invasion of 1708 (Edinburgh, 1988),pp. 9–34,58 Lockhart, Memoirs, pp. 49–51, 54–66.59 Shaw, Political History, p. 11.



With the exception of Marchmont and his immediate family, those whohad sat in the previous parliament had been prominent supporters of theopposition and at the forefront of demands for redress for the failure atDarien, often expressed in terms of the 1689 Claim of Right. Althoughthe cluster of MPs who would later form the squadrone remained part ofthe opposition coalition in the contentious first session of Queen Anne’sparliament, divisions had begun to appear amongst those who had previ-ously been Hamilton’s supporters. Following William’s death, and in hopesof furthering the Stuart cause under Anne, episcopalians (and Jacobites)had begun once more to participate actively in electoral politics inScotland. Following the general election of 1703 there was a considera-bly larger cavalier presence in the parliament than there had been inthe immediate post-Revolution years, much to the chagrin of men likethe (squadrone’s) earl of Rothes, who felt usurped by and aggrieved at theJacobite earl of Balcarres’s attempts to place himself at the head of thecountry opposition in Fife.60 The election and consequent redistributionof seats in parliament in 1703 underscored fundamental ideological dif-ferences that persuaded members of the nascent new party to distancethemselves from their former colleagues. Party members were particu-larly active in the campaign to introduce the Act of Security (1703) andto limit the powers of Scotland’s future monarch. Nevertheless, their corecommitment was to the Protestant succession as established at the Revo-lution; accordingly, the rise in Jacobite influence was greatly to the dis-comfiture of the Revolution-supporting, mainly staunch if usually moderatepresbyterian, pro-Hanover countrymen who formed the breakaway group.As is evidenced by the strength of their attachment to the in part patrioti-cally inspired Company of Scotland, they also had an eye to Scotland’seconomic interests, although in this last respect they could claim nomonopoly or even pole position; the court party and its supportersattracted many of the country’s leading economic modernizers, as in thecases of John Clerk of Penicuik, Sir John Swinton, and his fellow formerémigré the third earl of Leven, governor of the Bank of Scotland from1697 until his death in 1728.61 What is important, however, is that from1703, for those who adhered to the new party, the quasi-republican andanti-Hanoverian stances of Andrew Fletcher, the Jacobitism of the earlof Home and George Lockhart of Carnwath, and the apparent oppor-tunism of Hamilton and the old country party men had little attraction,and none offered any obvious solutions to the difficulties Scotland faced.

It takes more than the ‘politics of the closet’ or references to promisesof post-Union financial gain to explain the party’s alleged turnaround in1706–7. Their attitude to the Union – or the attitudes of several of the party’smembers – had begun to gestate many years beforehand. The twenty-five

60 K. M. Brown, ‘Party Politics and Parliament: Scotland’s Last Election and its Aftermath, 1702–3’,in Brown and Mann, Parliament and Politics in Scotland, p. 268; NAS, Hamilton MSS, GD 406/1/5181, John Leslie to duke of Hamilton, 13 Feb. 1703.61 R. Saville, Bank of Scotland: A History, 1695–1995 (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 6–7, 909.



men who can be identified as comprising the squadrone volante consistedof seven noblemen, thirteen shire and five burgh commissioners. Of these,five had sailed across the English Channel with William of Orange in1688 and had been members of the émigré community exiled in the LowCountries. At least another five were present when the Scots elite metat Whitehall following William’s arrival in the capital. One of these,Sir William Anstruther, had been identified as a leading member ofthe aforementioned presbyterian party in 1688.62 In other respects tootheir roots lay deep within the Revolution. Four members had sat in thepresbyterian-dominated Convention of Estates, while a further seven werethe sons or heirs of men who had sat in the Convention. Another ten wereelected or had first entered parliament between 1689 and 1702, that is, duringWilliam’s reign, and formed part of the patriotic opposition of 1700–2. Mostmembers came from the counties of Fife and Kinross, Perthshire, and southtowards and beyond Edinburgh and the border shire of Roxburgh, and ina number of cases were closely linked by either ties of kin or friendship:Tweeddale was Roxburghe’s uncle and Rothes’s father-in-law for example,while John Cockburn of Ormiston was also a cousin of Rothes and Haddington.

Tweeddale’s father had evinced an interest in union as early as 1670, ameasure which had been urged by Charles II.63 He had also been respon-sible for the East Lothian address in 1688, which was presented to Williamby his son. The second marquess was clearly therefore no stranger to theconcept and implications of a British union when negotiations began in 1706.Marchmont was another who had entertained notions of union from afairly early stage, and certainly before the court embarked on its campaignto manage parliament and secure the passage of the Articles of Union.Indeed, Marchmont’s nineteenth-century family historian was convincedthat he was an instigator of union rather than simply a follower. In a letterto the duke of Devonshire dated December 1705, Marchmont expressedsatisfaction ‘that your Grace thinks an entire union the surest way forsecuring the Protestant religion, [and] establishing the monarchy, withthe peace and prosperity of these nations’, and added that, ‘I have beenlong of that opinion’. He was an established unionist, probably since thetime of the Revolution, and certainly by the end of the 1690s when Anglo-Scottish relations began to disintegrate over Darien. Following theabortive union negotiations of 1702–3 he made it his business, workingin collaboration with Whig grandees south of the border (Lords Somersand Wharton in particular), to bring a fresh set of proposals to fruition,which would also secure the Hanoverian succession in Scotland.64

62 Colin Lindsay, third earl of Balcarres, Memoirs, p. 12.63 G. H. MacIntosh, ‘Arise King John: Commissioner Lauderdale and Parliament in the Restora-tion Era’, in Brown and Mann, Parliament and Politics in Scotland, pp. 167–8, 172–7.64 Marchmont Papers, iii. 295; ibid., i, pp. xxxv–xxxvi, xcii; H. Kelsall and K. Helsall, Scottish Life-style 300 Years Ago (Edinburgh, 1986) [hereafter Kelsall, Scottish Lifestyle], p. 188; M. Warrender,Marchmont and the Humes of Polwarth (Edinburgh, 1894) [hereafter Warrender, Marchmont and theHumes of Polwarth], pp. 57–8; Brown, Kingdom or Province?, p. 186.



Marchmont’s attachment to the Protestant cause and devotion to thepresbyterian form of church government was entirely sincere, lifelongbeliefs burned into his consciousness through bitter personal experience.65

His opposition to Lauderdale led to his imprisonment in Edinburgh’stolbooth, on the Bass Rock, and in the castles at Dumbarton and Stir-ling; in 1682 he was one of a number of political dissidents who pro-moted a scheme to emigrate and found a colony of presbyterians, manyof them traders, in Carolina – thereby following a route which manyhundreds of covenanters had taken before them, but under duress, aswhite slaves. Other backers included men who would later push forunion, like the Lord Cardoss and first marquis of Tweeddale, or whosesons would support incorporation, as in the case of the fifth earl of Had-dington.66 Marchmont’s religious convictions had caused him to becharged with complicity in the Rye House Plot in 1683, and havingendured a period as a fugitive which included a month hidden in a light-lessunderground vault of Polwarth church, he sought refuge in Utrecht.67

His subsequent participation in the earl of Argyll’s ill-fated expedition of1685 ended with a sentence of forfeiture, and economic privation forhimself and his dependents during another spell of exile in Hollandwhere he remained until the Revolution. He was returned as a commis-sioner for Berwickshire to the Convention of Estates, in which capacityhe played a leading part in drafting the Claim of Right. He was also oneof the Scots members appointed to negotiate a union with England.Patrick Hume was a loyal Williamite who was created Lord Polwarth byhis king in 1690, and earl of Marchmont in 1697, serving as the king’scommissioner to parliament in 1698, in which capacity he bore much ofthe brunt of the rage directed against William’s government.

It is true that in 1706–7 Marchmont was owed a considerable sum ofmoney in the form of salary arrears from the civil list and apart fromQueensberry was the biggest beneficiary of the notorious £20,000 ster-ling payment distributed to bolster or buy Scots support for union,receiving just over £1,100.68 Whether this mattered much in March-mont’s case is open to question, but seems unlikely. The aged earl wasideologically committed to the Protestant succession and the Revolutionsettlement which the Union would secure against a Jacobite Stuartintruder; worse in Marchmont’s eyes, as well as those like him in his ownparty and amongst his social circle – several of whom were attached tothe court party – was the prospect of a Catholic intruder. Indeed, there

65 Kelsall, Scottish Lifestyle, p. 16.66 Warrender, Marchmont and the Humes of Polwarth, p. 30. Henry Erskine, third lord Cardrosswas named as one of the Scots union commissioners in 1689. John Hay, second earl and first mar-quis of Tweeddale was responsible for the pro-union East Lothian address to William of Orange in1689; his son was the squadrone leader 1706–7. Both the fifth earl of Haddington’s sons, Hadding-ton and Rothes, were leading members of the squadrone.67 Warrender, Marchmont and the Humes of Polwarth, p. 36; Kelsall, Scottish Lifestyle, p. 17;Macinnes, Harper and Fryer, Scotland and the Americas, pp. 71–2.68 Lockhart, Memoirs, p. 414.



are grounds for believing that the depth and longevity of his support forunion was recognized by parliamentary managers: it was Marchmontwho on 1 November 1706 moved that parliament should proceed toconsider the first Article of union, which would unite the kingdoms ‘intoone Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain’.69

Marchmont was an important figure in the squadrone and his parlia-mentary significance has almost certainly been underestimated byhistorians. Few men were able to deliver so many pro-union votes inparliament where he was joined by two of his émigré sons, Sir AlexanderCampbell of Cessnock and Sir Andrew Hume of Kimmerghame, andtwo sons-in-law, James Sandilands, seventh lord Torphichen – an armyofficer – and George Baillie of Jerviswood, a grand total of five votes,one fifth of the squadrone’s membership. For his efforts Marchmontreceived the thanks of Queen Anne in November 1707.70 There wasnothing irresolute, inconsistent or ignoble about his behaviour.71 Incor-porating union promised to secure what the Revolution had re-established,and ensured that for men and women of his ilk – devout Protestants of apresbyterian bent – never again would there be a return to the desperatecircumstances of the 1670s and 1680s, when political and religious libertiesappeared to have been withdrawn.

Similarly if not more intensely felt sentiments can also be detected inJerviswood’s character and background. According to his enemies hewas ‘morose, proud and severe’, the ‘Hardest Headed Man of all hisParty’.72 But even Lockhart conceded that Jerviswood was something ofa patriot, and his daughter was in no doubt about the strength of hisdevotion to the national interest, pointing to the long periods her fatherspent in London prior to the Union, and afterwards as a WestminsterMP.73 Like Marchmont, whose daughter Grisell he married in 1691,Jerviswood had been several years in exile in the Netherlands followingthe execution in December 1684 of his father Robert – a covenanter,much revered by English Whigs – for his alleged part in the Rye HousePlot. His son, still in his teens, had witnessed what must have been thetorment of his ailing father’s execution in Edinburgh.74 He was descendedtoo from Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, one of the architects ofthe National Covenant, who had suffered a similar fate when he washanged in Edinburgh in July 1663. Jerviswood could also claim familyconnections with the celebrated reformer John Knox – thus, he could

69 NAS, Hamilton MSS, GD 406/M9/266, handwritten minute of speeches in parliament, 1706–7,fo. 24.70 Warrender, Marchmont and the Humes of Polwarth, p. 58.71 Since the 1960s most historians who have written on the period have considered unionist politi-cians in this manner. See nn. 3, 5 and 8 for examples.72 Szechi, ‘Scotland’s Ruine’, p. 64.73 Lady Murray of Stanhope, Memoirs of the Lives and Character of the Honourable George Baillieof Jerviswood and of Lady Grisell Baillie (Edinburgh, 1824) [hereafter Stanhope, Memoirs], p. 10.74 G. Gilfillan, Martyrs & Heroes of the Scottish Covenant (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 122–3; A. Smellie,Men of the Covenant (1911), pp. 365–72.



boast a venerable Protestant pedigree, littered with martyrs, which fewcould match. Although regular in his religious devotions, Baillie was nopuritan. In common with many of the Scots émigrés he had limitedmaterial resources, having been stripped of his fortune following theforfeiture of his father’s estate. This was restored shortly after his returnto Scotland at the Revolution, when he secured election as an MP fromBerwick and, latterly, Lanarkshire. Despite his dalliance with the oppo-sition and dislike of the duke of Queensberry, he was a resolute sup-porter of the Hanoverian succession. If Jerviswood was a less enthusiasticadvocate of union than his father-in-law, he was ultimately convincedthat – in his own words – it was ‘our [the Scots’] onlie game’, the bestmeans of blocking the Jacobites.75 Presbyterians like Jerviswood recognizedthe virtues of political pragmatism.

The conventional notion that the members of the squadrone adoptedunion in exchange for an assurance that they would be responsible forthe distribution of the Equivalent fails to recognize that, for some ofthem, conversion to the cause of full-blown unionism followed intensediscussion and deep reflection. Montrose and Roxburghe had no claimon the Equivalent anyway, although both were rewarded with dukedomsin 1707.76 The Revolution settlement, the Protestant succession and pres-byterian sentiment were important determining factors, but there wereother considerations which drew them to the conclusion that union wasthe preferred solution. This can be demonstrated by reference to anothersquadrone adherent, Captain William Bennet of Grubbet. Grubbet waswith the Dutch fleet when it landed at Brixham. Although there is noevidence that he was a political or religious exile, what is clear is thatBennet had left Scotland sometime after graduating from EdinburghUniversity in 1685, and found service in Holland as an officer in theprince of Orange’s pay.77 There is no ambiguity however about where hisconfessional sympathies lay. Grandson of a minister and a firm presbyte-rian, he wrote to his father shortly before his return to Scotland, todescribe how ‘some days [ago]’ he had been ‘in persuit of some papistsand jumping over a wiket’, a task he relished, had strained his horse’sback.78 Bennet therefore was cut from the same cloth as many of hisparty colleagues and shared their interests and concerns for the kirk inScotland and the security of the post-Revolution state, although as withother leading squadrone figures, his presbyterianism was not of the strictmoralizing kind, and could accommodate a full and diverse social life.79

Another matter however was the economy. Bennet’s attitude to this iswell illustrated in a letter to his brother-in-law and another squadrone

75 Correspondence of George Baillie of Jerviswood, 1702–1708, ed. Earl of Minto (Bannatyne Club,1842) [hereafter Correspondence of Jerviswood], p. 145.76 Shaw, Political History, pp. 13, 15.77 Cruickshanks, Handley and Hayton, House of Commons, iii. 175.78 NAS, Ogilvy of Inverquharity MSS, GD 205/31/1/8, Capt. William Bennet to Sir WilliamBennet of Grubbet, London, 5 Jan. [1689].79 Stanhope, Memoirs, pp. 8–9, 11–13; Kelsall, Scottish Lifestyle, pp. 80–106, 181–91.



member, William Nisbet of Dirleton, written in April 1706, as rumoursspread of the terms of the prospective union. Bennet was of the opinionthat:

a fair bargain, with our nighbour nation, [was] the best handle to give uspeace and save us from Anarchy and confusion, We have long gone astrayand been bewildered in a maze of perplexitys and misery, had nothing leftus but to complain, and noe view how to be better at the long run, Asto the generall concern of the nation, what ever desynys and advantagesprivate men might have projected for themselves . . . if we are now to havecompensation for what we have suffer’d from our nighbours in the matterof darien and the like, and the advantages of ther trade and plantations . . .we then see the end of our journy.

He ended by remarking that ‘noe body can doubt, but this will beadvantageous to us, labouring under so many hardships and miserys’,adding – as a good British Whig – that union would also be ‘mostimportant, for the hapinese of our nighbours’.80

The significance of Bennet’s economic thinking, and his references tocompensation for Company of Scotland subscribers, free trade, andaccess to the English plantations, is that these demands had been high onthe Scots agenda during the failed union negotiations of 1702–3. Thatthe English commissioners had been reluctant to concede ground andseemed not to be taking the Scots all that seriously, had led some of theScottish commissioners to abandon the talks and return north early,notably Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes, Archibald Primrose, first earlof Roseberry, and Sir James Falconer of Phesdo. The first two were re-appointed in 1706, their resolve stiffened by the humiliation of 1702. ThatEngland was now prepared to accede to the Scots’ demands partlyexplains why union attracted men like Bennet, another of the squadroneMPs who had been a leading member of the country opposition in 1700,to the extent that he had travelled to London in support of the petitiondemanding that William call a meeting of parliament, and with anotherten of the men who would join the new party, voted in favour of the actto declare Darien a lawful colony. Although Bennet had private reasonsfor going along with Queensberry and Argyll over the Union (he hadbeen appointed muster master in Scotland in 1704), there were compel-ling public motives too. That squadrone members sided with the patrioticopposition from around 1700 and up to and including 1704, yet votedfor the Union in 1706–7, is perfectly consistent: union secured for Scot-land the national objectives that had been sought – unsuccessfully – earlier.

In fact, the economic question loomed large fairly widely amongstsquadrone ranks. Indeed, this had long featured in discussions about unionin Scotland. Contained within the draft legislation for an incorporatingunion in 1689 was the recognition that the existing union of the crowns

80 NAS, Ogilvy of Inverquharity MSS, GD 205/38, Capt. William Bennet to William Nisbet ofDirleton, Marlfield, 13 April 1706.



had been much to Scotland’s economic disadvantage, having reduced thenation to ‘extream poverty’.81 Marchmont had little doubt that unionwould bring prosperity to both nations.82 There is also Roxburghe’s well-known and frequently quoted letter to Jerviswood in which he consid-ered what would persuade MPs to support union, concluding, ‘Tradewith most, Hanover with some, ease and security with others, togetherwith a generall aversion at civill discords, intollerable poverty, and theconstant oppresion of a bad Ministry’.83 Doubts have been cast onwhether Roxburghe’s views were sincerely held, but fresh evidence sug-gests that these are weakly based. What a previously unseen record ofspeeches made in the Union Parliament reveals is that in a riposte inparliament on 2 November 1706, Roxburghe acknowledged the ‘greatmany very fine speeches’ made by members of the opposition. These heargued, however, offered, ‘no remedy . . . for our present ill circumstances’.As with the drafters of the 1689 act for establishing the government ofScotland, Roxburghe lamented the several ‘inconveniences we have beengroaning [under] since the Incomplete union of the tuo Crouns’, observingthat ‘Our Nobility houever contentedly they may live at home, yet cankeep no figure abroad, our Gentlemen entirely decayed, and our Coun-treymen all beggars’. Asking rhetorically how the situation could beimproved, he declared that ‘I knou no way but this union’.84

The rest of the squadrone shared much in common with the individualswhose political backgrounds have already been examined in some detail.The support for Hanover and the Union of James Graham, fourth mar-quess of Montrose, High Admiral of Scotland, mirrored that of his step-father John Bruce of Kinross, and his cousins John, earl of Rothes andThomas Hamilton, sixth earl of Haddington, a man described as being‘entirely abandoned to Whiggish and Commonwealth Principles, and oneof Cockburn of Ormiston’s beloved pupils’.85 Rothes’s great-grandfatherhad also been a stout covenanter.86 Rothes himself would go on to serveas commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotlandfrom 1715 to 1721 and, with his brother Haddington, fought against theJacobites at Sherrifmuir in 1715. John Haldane, a commissioner fromPerthshire with similarly deep covenanting roots (his grandfather hadlost his life at the battle of Dunbar), appears to have been out of Scot-land in the years immediately prior to William’s invasion. He had mis-givings about the oaths introduced in 1689, and as a leading light in the

81 NAS, Leven and Melville MSS, GD 26/7/20, Act of the Estates of Scotland Establishing theGovernment Thereof, n.d.82 Marchmont Papers, iii. 295.83 Correspondence of Jerviswood, p. 138.84 NAS, Hamilton MSS, GD 406/M9/266, handwritten minute of speeches in parliament, 1706–7,fo. 33. For further discussion of the speeches in parliament 1706–7 see Whatley, The Scots and theUnion, ch. 8.85 Rothes was also the son-in-law of John Hay, second marquess of Tweeddale; Lockhart, Memoirs,p. 137.86 The Scots Peerage, vii (Edinburgh, 1910), p. 297.



Company of Scotland, he was an active member of the country opposi-tion until he joined with the squadrone around 1705. But he was essen-tially a Revolution man whose vigorous support for the Union earnedhim the nickname ‘Union Jack’.87 The fathers of two, James Spittal ofLeuchat and John Cockburn of Ormiston, son of Lockhart’s ‘bigotedPresbyterian’ the lord justice clerk, had been prominent figures in theopposition to James VII in 1688. Their number also included two mem-bers of the Council of Trade appointed in 1705, to investigate the ‘Stateand Condition of the Trade and Commerce of this Nation’ – Jerviswoodand Sir Thomas Burnet of Leys.88 Detailed knowledge of the laggardlyScottish economy had a discernible impact on how council members actedin parliament in 1706–7, with most – fifteen out of twenty-one – votingconsistently for union. Haldane of Gleneagles too had long immersedhimself in commercial and manufacturing ventures, and was recognizedfor his expertise on matters relating to the Scottish economy. Thus, JohnClerk of Penicuik was far from being a lonely voice in concluding thathowever desirable an independent Scottish parliament, without the meansof implementing decisions relating to the economy in an era of muscularmercantilism, it was ‘at best a meer shadow and an empty name’.89 Nor,it should be noted, had council members been court appointees, butelected by MPs. In short, the principles which shaped the voting behav-iour of Marchmont, Jerviswood, Bennet, Roxburghe and Tweeddale, acombination of Revolution sentiment and what can reasonably be calledeconomic nationalism, or at the very least patriotic concern for the econ-omy, were as relevant to the remaining members of the squadrone.

Lockhart described the squadrone as a party that ‘never scrupled toserve their own interest, though at their country’s cost’, a view that hasgone largely unchallenged since his Memoirs were first published in1714.90 Yet the Jacobite Lockhart’s deceit was to conflate the interests ofScotland with that of the exiled Stuarts, and to deny that ‘true blue Pres-byterians’ had at least an equally strong claim to represent the interestsof the nation. Lockhart’s is a biased account, fed by his understandabledetestation of the Union and the Hanoverians. There was, however, analternative vision of where Scotland’s future lay. It was as an integralpart of a Protestant state, with the Union securing not only the Protestantsuccession but also the presbyterian kirk as the national church of Scot-land as restored in 1690.91 There is a clear overlap in the membership ofthe Estates over the period 1689 to 1707 and common interests that in theshape of the squadrone drove a direct route from the Revolution tothe Union. Principle and patriotism were not the exclusive properties ofthe anti-unionist opposition.

87 Cruickshanks, Handley and Hayton, House of Commons, iv. 152–3.88 Gray, Memoirs of Sir John Clerk, p. 56.89 History of the Union of Scotland and England by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, ed. D. Duncan(Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 199–200.90 Szechi, ‘Scotland’s Ruine’, p. 134.91 Kidd, ‘Religious Realignment’, pp. 165–7.



None of this is to ignore the part played by management by the ministryin London and senior court party adherents in Edinburgh in bolsteringsupport for the Articles of Union in the Scottish parliament in theautumn and winter of 1706–7. It was a victory made easier by the in-effectiveness of and divisions within the ranks of the opposition. Not to beoverlooked, either, are the personal ambitions and failings of individualMPs, who were by no means innocent of the charge of political chicanery.Nor was the new party as a whole blemish-free in its political mano-euvrings between 1703 and 1706. This is not a reversion to an older, dis-credited version of unionist history, but it is clear that it was Whigs fromboth sides of the border who were driving hardest for a union. By adoptinga longer perspective than is usual and looking back beyond 1702–3, andidentifying the ideological bases of political action and ambition, theclaim can reasonably be made that there was amongst the Scottish politicalelite a degree of principled support for union with England the strengthand significance of which has been previously overlooked.

APPENDIX: SQUADRONE MEMBERS 1706–170792

Names of MPs who sat in the Convention of Estates in 1689 are in italics;those who sat in William’s parliament are in bold.

[A] Nobility

Thomas Hamilton, sixth earl of HaddingtonPatrick Hume, first earl of MarchmontJames Graham, fourth marquess of MontroseJohn Leslie, ninth earl of RothesJohn Ker, fifth earl of RoxburgheJames Sandilands, seventh lord TorphichenJohn Hay, second marquess of Tweeddale

[B] Shire commissioners

Sir William Anstruther of that ilk, Kt [Fife]George Baillie of Jerviswood [Lanark]Capt. William Bennet of Grubbet [Roxburgh]John Bruce of Kinross [Kinross]Sir Thomas Burnet of Leys, 3rd Bt [Kincardine]Sir Alexander Campbell of Cessnock, Kt [Berwick]John Cockburn of Ormiston [Haddington]Robert Dundas of Arniston [Edinburgh]Mungo Graham of Gorthie [Perth]

92 The list of squadrone members was compiled using a variety of sources including Riley, Union ofEngland and Scotland, p. 334; NAS GD 406/M1/208/21; Lockhart, Memoirs; and Correspondenceof Jerviswood.



John Haldane of Gleneagles [Perth]James Haliburton of Pitcur [Forfar]Sir William Ker of Greenhead, 3rd Bt [Roxburgh]William Nisbet of Dirleton [Haddington]

[C] Burgh commissioners

Patrick Bruce of Bunzion [Cupar]Sir John Erskine of Alva, 3rd Bt [Burntisland]Sir Peter Halkett of Pitfirrane, 3rd Bt [Dunfermline]Sir Andrew Hume of Kimmerghame, Kt [Kirkcudbright]James Spittal of Leuchat [Inverkeithing]

persistence, principle and patriotism in the

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