constitutional feeling led, as so often before, to the assumption
of a much more advanced position than that of the English
Parliament. Nothing is more characteristic of the slowly broadening
growth of English parliamentary claims than the delicate adjustment
of conflicting theories by the Convention. In Scotland no such nice
adjustment was possible. The proceedings are marked rather by a
rude logic. The Estates enumerated the misdeeds of the unfortunate
monarch in language distinguished from that of the Claim of Rights
only by its strength.[133] The details are not important for
our purpose. There is no appeal to precedent, nor any nicety of
phrasing. James, having been guilty of this catalogue of crimes,
had "forfaulted the right to the Crown, and the throne is become
vacant." The underlying theory is sufficiently clear, but it was
based on the logic of events. It was probably an effect of the
English connections that the Estates went further than usual,
and laid down two general principles. All the acts that they had
enumerated were illegal. No papist might be king or queen of
Scotland. With these conditions, and one other limitation, they
proceeded to offer the crown to William and Mary and to entail
it, in default of their heirs, upon the Princess Anne. That other
clause expressed a claim which, for the people of Scotland,
included civil liberties, and had been throughout the troubles
synonymous with freedom. The Estates declared that "Prelacy is a
great and insupportable grievance to the nation." A "Covenanted
King" it was impossible to hope for, nor is there evidence that
they desired to repeat the experiment. But the new sovereigns
must understand the situation. When the acceptance of William
and Mary converted, without any further change, the Convention
into a Parliament, the Estates set themselves to solving the
religious problem. They rescinded the act of Charles II asserting
"his majestie's supremacy over all persons and in all causes
ecclesiastical" as "inconsistent with the establishment of Church
government now desired." They restored the presbyterian clergy to
their churches and manses. They approved the Westminster Confession
of Faith--the sole product of those efforts towards a covenanted
uniformity which had led the Church into somewhat devious
paths--and they established Church government "by Kirk Sessions,
Presbyteries, Provincial Synods, and General Assemblies." The more
rigid presbyterians were disappointed. It was not so emphatic
a settlement as they desired. Independent as the Establishment
was, it seemed Erastian to men whose only associations with the
functions of government had been connected with Grierson of Lagg
and Bloody Mackenzie. King William insisted upon the extension of
a toleration to Episcopalian Dissenters in Scotland which, as the
Church more than once complained, was lacking in the treatment of
Presbyterian Dissenters in England. The Revolution Settlement,
therefore, was not accepted by the whole of the popular party,
and the Jacobites were reinforced by ousted episcopalians on the
one hand, and presbyterian malcontents on the other. But the
compromise of 1690 satisfied the majority of the nation. The credit
of the arrangement belongs neither to the Parliament nor to the
king, but to the wise statesman who presided over the University
of Edinburgh. The English Revolution of 1689 was in its origin
religious, but it early assumed the aspect of a purely civil
movement. The Revolution in Scotland suggests to-day only the
Church Settlement, and the course it took was decided by William
Carstares.
The Parliament of 1690 proceeded to assert its own freedom of
action. Henceforward till the Treaty of Union took effect, we have
parliamentary independence in Scotland,[134] as far as purely
internal affairs were concerned. After William's death we find
still wider claims. The events of William's reign had not been
such as to draw the nations nearer each other, or to reconcile
the Parliament to the limitation of its sphere of influence to
internal administration. King William had been responsible for the
Massacre of Glencoe; he had forced Scotland to expend large sums
upon a war in which, after the battle of Killiecrankie, she took
no interest. The Parliament of England had urged the king to an
interference with the Darien Scheme, which could not be regarded
in Scotland as other than a betrayal. The Scottish Estates had
not responded to the Act of Settlement in 1700, and when Queen
Anne succeeded, the attitude of the two countries was becoming
increasingly threatening. England regarded any advance of Scottish
prosperity as a success gained at her own cost. Scotland feared
that the country was to be permanently under foreign influence.
The rapid growth of a constitutional feeling since 1690 aided
the circumstances of the time in the production of parliamentary
parties, a unique event in Scottish history. The meeting of Estates
in 1703 contained Williamites, Patriots, and Cavaliers.[135] The
first of these supported the government of King William and his
successor as, at all events, the least of the many possible evils.
The Cavaliers clamoured for the return of the exiled House. The
Patriot or "Country" party, headed by Hamilton, Tweeddale, and
Fletcher of Saltoun, argued that, if foreign domination were to
continue, it made but little difference whether it emanated from
St. Germains or from the Court of St. James's. A combination of
Cavaliers and Patriots passed the Act of Security. This famous act
named no successor to Queen Anne. It invested the Parliament with
the power of the Crown, in case of the queen's dying without heirs,
and entrusted to it the choice of a Protestant sovereign "from the
Royal line." It refused to such king or queen, if also sovereign of
England, the power of peace and war, without consent of Parliament.
It enacted, further, that the union of the crowns should determine,
unless Scotland was admitted to equal trade and navigation
privileges with England. Nor was there lacking the intention to
make good the threat. The same act provided for the compulsory
training of every Scotsman to bear arms. The Scottish Parliament
debated each clause with vigour. The Estates recognized that now,
if scarcely ever before, momentous issues hung upon their decision,
and the walls of the Parliament House re-echoed with the unwonted
excitement of party cries. The royal commissioner declined to give
the queen's assent. The Parliament refused to grant supplies,
and the meeting broke up amid confused shouts of "Liberty before
Subsidy." The bitterness of the struggle was accentuated by a silly
dispute about the Jacobite Plot, and the temper of the two nations
was strained to the utmost.
The union of the crowns had been rendered possible only by the
self-restraint which permitted the people of England to accept
a Scotsman as the king. A similar spirit of self-restraint now
actuated Queen Anne's advisers. The queen assented to the Act of
Security, and the Scots began to train for a war that was not to
be fought by the sword. The English ministers proposed a union
of the kingdoms. Fortunately, they recognized that Scotland was
in earnest, and expressed their willingness to yield somewhat
on the main point--freedom of trade. Into the long and dreary
negotiations which preceded the union we need not enter. Amid
jealousy, faction, and evils still more sordid, the treaty of union
was concluded. The agreement secured to Scotland the maintenance
of her law, and the continued existence of her universities, and it
guaranteed that there would be no interference with the Church as
by law established. On the other hand, the kingdom surrendered her
national existence, and was forced to be content with a miserably
inadequate representation in the English Parliament. It is little
wonder that the people in general, and especially the populace of
Edinburgh, regarded the treaty with horror and looked upon its
supporters as traitors. Amid riot and uproar, and with howls of
execration sounding in their ears, the Estates of Scotland met for
the last time on 25th March, 1707, under the presidency of the
lord chancellor, the Earl of Seafield. Among some of the senators
themselves there was an uneasy feeling that they had sold their
country for trade privileges which the givers would strain every
nerve to render worthless. Others were more callous. "There's the
end o' an auld sang," laughed the Chancellor, as the Honours of
Scotland were carried out of the Parliament House for the last time.
There is a touch of pathos in this final scene. To us, it can
appear sad only with the sadness of changefulness. But the faces
of contemporaries were turned backwards. The three Estates had
survived many revolutions. It was true that their history did not
represent the best of the nation's life; but with that best it had
ever been more or less closely associated. In recent years the
Parliament had come to mean national existence. It had entered into
a new sphere, and assumed new functions. A career of usefulness
seemed to lie before it. In spite of its age, its end was, in
this sense, premature. The conditions, too, were ignominious. The
accumulated hatred of four hundred years had attached itself to the
names of Darien and Glencoe. England had yielded much less than a
free and independent nation had a right to ask, and Scotland could
not demand more, because the men whom she trusted had failed her.
No doubt the Chancellor was right. It was "the end o' an auld
sang." But, after all, the Estates had received "the wages of
going on, and still to be." It did not appear so at the first. The
Parliament of Great Britain broke more than one pledge solemnly
made at the union. The highest boon that King James or Prince
Charles could promise to Scotland was the repeal of the union. The
Scottish representatives had little weight in the councils of the
Empire. Even the faithful Argyll was thwarted, and his service
lightly esteemed. The best blood of the country was spilt on
foreign battlefields and in alien quarrels. The genius of a Keith
served only to lead to victory the troops of Frederick the Great,
and to guide the steps of Russia towards Constantinople. Among the
exiles, there were others, less fortunate, who found no scope for
their talents, and no friends in the land of the stranger. But, as
time passed, the tragic element faded out of the story, and, with
the rapid growth of prosperity, the influence of Scotland on the
destinies of the nation became more apparent. The land of Kennedy
and Elphinstone, of Lethington and Carstares, could not fail to
produce wise and prudent statesmen, who might find, on a wider
stage, the renown that had been denied to those who went before
them. The music of the "auld sang" resounded again, although the
walls that re-echoed it were those of Westminster. The Imperial
Parliament meets close to the ancient Abbey, the guardian of the
Stone of Fate, which the first Edward carried in triumph from
Scotland, and on which, for nigh three hundred years, descendant
after descendant of his enemy has sat. As the old prophecy has not
been rendered void by the transference of its subject from Scone
to London, so the promise that gave meaning to the last years of
the Scottish Parliament has not failed of fulfilment. _Nec tamen
consumebatur._
APPENDIX
REPRESENTATION IN THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT[136]
Although we know that burgesses were present at the Cambuskenneth
Parliament, we possess no information as to what towns they
represented. The first list of burghs in the Acts of Parliament
refers to the Council held in 1357 to arrange about the ransom of
King David II, and it includes the following towns:--Aberdeen,
Crail, Cupar, Dumbarton, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Haddington,
Inverkeithing, Lanark, Linlithgow, Montrose, Perth, Peebles,
Rutherglen, Stirling, and St. Andrews. From 1367, we have,
occasionally, records of the election of burgesses to the Committee
of the Articles, and these give us our only information regarding
representation. (Cf. pp. 26-33.) We subjoin the first known date
of the representation of any burgh at a regular meeting of the
Estates in Parliament assembled. It must, of course, be understood
that this list does not, in any way, pretend to completeness;
the material is incomplete, and, in most cases when burghs are
mentioned, up to the sixteenth century, it is only in connection
with the Lords of the Articles.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY:--Aberdeen, Dundee, Montrose, Linlithgow,
Perth, Edinburgh, Haddington (1367).
FIFTEENTH CENTURY:--Inverness (1439); Stirling (1449); St.
Andrews, Cupar (1456); Lanark (1467); Peebles (1468); Elgin,
Banff, Ayr, Irvine, Dumfries, Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, Selkirk,
Jedburgh, Dunbar (1469); Forfar, Crail, Kinghorn, Inverkeithing,
Dumbarton (1471); Brechin, Rutherglen, Renfrew, North Berwick
(1478); Rothesay (1484); Forres (1488).
SIXTEENTH CENTURY:--Glasgow (1560); Tain, Nairn, Lauder (1567);
Kintore, Pittenweem (1579); Kirkcaldy (1585); Burntisland (1586);
Dingwall (1587); Cullen, Culross, E. and W. Anstruther (1593);
Dysart (1594).
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY:--Inverurie, Bervie, Kilrenny, Lochmaben,
Annan (1612); Sanquhar (1621); Dunfermline, New Galloway (1628);
Dornoch, Arbroath, Queensferry, Whithorn (1639); Fortrose,
Inverary (1660); Kirkwall (1667); Stranraer (1685); Campbeltown
(1689); Wick (1690).
In addition to these, Berwick-on-Tweed was represented between 1469
and 1481, Cromarty from 1660-72, and Findhorn in 1648.
Representation of the shires does not begin till 1593; but between
that date and 1617, we find nearly all the counties represented.
Argyleshire, however, does not appear till 1628, Sutherland not
till 1633, and Kinross not till 1681.
It gradually became usual for each burgh to send two members; but,
in 1619, the Convention of Royal Burghs reduced the number to one,
except in the case of Edinburgh. Under the Protectorate, Scotland
was represented by twenty members for the shires and ten for the
burghs, which, with the exception of Edinburgh, were divided into
nine groups, each returning one member. Edinburgh, alone, returned
two representatives. At the union of the Parliaments in 1707,
Scotland received forty-five members. The burghs, except Edinburgh,
were divided into fourteen groups, returning one member each,
and one member was allotted to Edinburgh. It is to be remembered
that only Royal Burghs had any representation in Scotland up to
1832, except in so far as burghs of barony were represented by the
county members, along with the other freeholders of the country.
When the town of Cromarty ceased to be a Royal Burgh, in 1672,
it was excised from the parliamentary records. Of the remaining
thirty members, each shire, except six, returned a member each.
These six were divided into three groups, Bute and Caithness,
Clackmannan and Kinross, and Nairn and Cromarty. The two shires
which each group contained were given the right to return a member
to alternate parliaments, _e.g._ Bute, Clackmannan, and Nairn in
1708, and Caithness, Kinross, and Cromarty in 1710.
From these facts, various interesting conclusions can be drawn. The
meagre nature of the evidence prevents our making any inferences of
a constitutional nature; but the rise of the small burghs on the
East coast in the end of the fifteenth century, throws considerable
light upon the economic history of Scotland. It is also suggestive
that the burgh of Inverary was not represented till 1660, and
Argyleshire not till 1628. But such matters as these belong rather
to the domain of political history, and do not fall within our
province.
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