THE UNION DURING THE COMMONWEALTH
When the battle of Worcester was fought exactly a year had passed since
the battle of Dunbar. The events of that year were not such as to
reconcile Scotland to the Union which was now proposed by the Government
of England. All trade between the two countries had been forbidden.
Edinburgh had been taken, the royal palace of Holyrood, turned into
barracks, had been set on fire through the carelessness of the soldiers,
and almost totally destroyed. The churches had been desecrated, their
pulpits and seats torn down and used as firewood. The edifice which
George Heriot had directed his executors to raise for the benefit of the
poor of Edinburgh was seized, while still in the builder’s hands, and
turned into a military hospital. The castle had been surrendered into
the hands of the invader. In the Parliament House, English troopers
prayed and preached. The garrison of Stirling Castle had capitulated;
the public records of the kingdom had been removed to the Tower of
London; and the whole country south of the Forth and Clyde was subdued.
Dundee held out to the last; but just two days before the battle of
Worcester the town was stormed by Monk.
The slaughter at Dundee, and the news brought home by those who had
escaped from the field of Worcester, extinguished all hopes of further
resistance. In the Highlands alone there remained some faint show of
adherence to the cause of the Stuarts, which afterwards found an outlet
in the rising under Glencairn; and the Marquis of Argyll strove, for a
time, to stem the tide which was overwhelming Scotland. But, to all
intents and purposes, the country was now thoroughly subdued.
Eight commissioners, among whom were young Sir Harry Vane, Lambert, and
Monk, were appointed to arrange an Union. They found everything in
confusion. The last meeting of the Scottish Parliament had taken place
on the 6th of June. The Court of Session had not sat since February
1650. Many towns were without magistrates. The Church was torn by
internal dissensions. When proclamation was made, at the market-cross of
Edinburgh, that Scotland was to be united, in one Commonwealth, with
England, the announcement was received in gloomy silence. But there was
an under-current of feeling in favour of the Union, of which the
commissioners were doubtless aware. Delegates from the counties and
burghs were summoned to meet at Dalkeith, to consider the Tender of
Union which the commissioners were empowered to offer on behalf of the
Parliament of England; and the result was that, of thirty-one counties,
twenty-eight, and of fifty-eight burghs, forty-four assented to the
Union.[70] Their assent must in some degree be ascribed to motives of
prudence; for it was known that those counties and burghs which failed
to send delegates favourable to union would be disfranchised; but it was
from Glasgow alone, which, more than any other place in Scotland, was
ultimately to benefit from the Union with England, that any formal and
serious objection came. By some a scheme was suggested, which Fletcher
of Saltoun would have warmly supported in 1707, for declining an
incorporating Union and making Scotland a republic in friendly alliance
with England. But the proposers of this scheme, one of whom was the
noted Covenanter, Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, ultimately
agreed to the Union.
The chief opponents of the new arrangement were the clergy. It was on
the 23rd of February 1652 that the delegates assembled at Dalkeith; and
on the following day Baillie writes: “All the ministers of Edinburgh
prays still for the king, and preaches very freely and zealously against
the way of the English; this they are very angry at, and threatens to
remeed it.” But the ministers were divided against each other. Some
resisted the Union because they were Royalists, some because they could
not tolerate the idea of uniting with a country in which the
Independents and other “Sectaries” had so much power, and others because
they thought that the result of the Union would be that the Church would
become subordinate to the State. But their resistance was of no avail;
and they could only lament the defection of so many of the laity. “Good
Sir John Seaton,” Baillie writes in reference to the Conference at
Dalkeith, “was the first that subscribed his free and willing acceptance
of the incorporation for East Louthian. The two Swintons followed for
the Merse, Stobs for Tiviotdale, Dundas for West Louthian, William
Thomson and Fairbairne, I think, have done the like for Edinburgh, and
its like almost all burghs and shyres will, under their hand, renounce
their Covenant; Glasgow and the West purposes to refuse, for which we
are like deeply to suffer; but the will of the Lord be done.”[71]
The result of the meeting of delegates was reported to Parliament; and
the Council of State was instructed to prepare a Bill for the union of
the two countries. Deputies were sent from Scotland to Westminster to
adjust the details of the measure, and, in particular, to fix the number
of members who were to represent Scotland in the Parliament of the
United Commonwealth. A series of conferences were held between these
deputies and a Committee of Parliament, at which the demands of Scotland
were discussed. There was great difficulty in settling the question of
representation.[72] The English proposal was that, in the united
Parliament, England should be represented by four hundred members,
Scotland by thirty, and Ireland by thirty. The number of commoners in
the Scottish Parliament had been one hundred and twenty; and the
deputies wished sixty Scottish members to have seats in the House of
Commons. The English Government, however, refused to admit more than
thirty. This was agreed to; and the Union Bill was about to pass, when,
on the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell put an end to the Long Parliament.
In the Little Parliament, Barebones’ Parliament, Scotland was
represented by five members, and some progress was made in the matter of
the Union. It was resolved that there should be complete free trade
between England and Scotland. The Government ordered all money raised in
Scotland to be spent in Scotland for local purposes;[73] and that on the
passing of the Union Bill, an enactment, which had come into force three
years before, under which all Scotsmen were banished from England,
should be repealed.[74] But the further progress of the Union Bill came
to an end when Parliament was dissolved, and the control of all affairs
passed into the hands of Cromwell as “Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” a title which assumed that the
Union had already taken place.
In the following spring an ordinance was framed for completing the
Union. It set forth that the people of Scotland, having been invited to
unite with England, had, through their deputies, accepted the
invitation; that Scotland was, therefore, to be now incorporated and
declared one Commonwealth with England; and that, in every Parliament
which was held for the Commonwealth, thirty members were to serve for
Scotland. To secure the more effectual preservation of the Union, and
the freedom of the country, the people of Scotland were relieved from
all allegiance to the Stuarts. The title of King of Scotland was
abolished. The right of the Estates to assemble in Parliament was
annulled. It was ordained that, “as a badge of this Union,” the arms of
Scotland should form a part of the arms of the Commonwealth; and that
all seals of office, and the seals of the corporations in Scotland,
should henceforth bear the arms of the Commonwealth. All taxes were to
be levied proportionably from the whole people of the Commonwealth.
Vassalage was abolished, and lands were to be held by deed or charter
for rent. The whole system of hereditary jurisdictions, by which there
had been transmitted from father to son, in many families of the
landowners, the power of holding courts and inflicting punishments, even
that of death, was swept away. An immense boon was conferred on Scotland
by the establishment of complete free trade between the countries, and
by the declaration that in all matters relating to commerce England and
Scotland were thenceforth equal.[75]
This ordinance was proclaimed at Edinburgh on the 4th of May 1654. The
town-cross, at which the ceremony took place, was surrounded by troops
under the command of Monk. An immense crowd of the townsfolk assembled
to witness the proceedings. The Lord Provost and the Magistrates, clad
in their scarlet robes, were in attendance. Henry Whalley, Judge
Advocate to the English army, read the proclamation; and at the
conclusion of the ceremony, Monk and his friends were entertained at a
sumptuous banquet in the Parliament House, where the Magistrates stood
and served them. Later in the evening there was a display of fireworks
at the town-cross.
The Union having been thus proclaimed, the Council of State at Whitehall
proceeded to arrange the distribution of seats in Scotland.[76] Of the
thirty seats, twenty were allotted to the counties, and ten to the
burghs. The more populous counties each returned a member. The rest were
divided into groups. Of the burghs, Edinburgh alone returned two
members; but all the other towns were grouped into districts.
When the Protector’s first Parliament met, in July 1654, twenty-one
members from Scotland attended. Of these, both the members for
Edinburgh, and several others, were Englishmen; and while the Union
lasted, the members from Scotland were either quiet and peaceful
Scotsmen, ready to support the Protector’s measures, or English
officials.[77]
The Council in Scotland managed the elections there. The full number of
thirty members was returned to the Parliament of 1656; but many of them
were Englishmen. Argyll opposed the Council, and endeavoured to secure
the return of Scotsmen only, but in vain. He failed to obtain a seat
himself until Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1658, when thirteen
county and eight burgh members seem to have attended. Argyll then
represented Aberdeenshire in the House of Commons; but the members for
Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Linlithgow, Stirlingshire, Clackmannan,
Dumbartonshire, Argyllshire, Bute, and Midlothian were all Englishmen;
and a majority of the burgh members came from Westminster or the Inns of
Court.[78]
The executive government in Scotland, during the Union, was vested in a
Council of State, to whom elaborate instructions were issued by the
Protector. They were to inquire into the best means for preserving the
Union; to promote the cause of religion, taking care that the clergy
were regularly paid, and that all schools had able and pious teachers;
to encourage learning and reform the universities; to remove from the
corporations disaffected or ill-behaved magistrates, and replace them by
suitable persons; to see that equal justice was administered to all men,
and to promote the Union by assimilating the procedure in the courts of
Scotland to that of the courts of England; to investigate the state of
the revenue, and see that the Exchequer was not defrauded; to study
economy in the public service; to encourage the fishing industry, the
manufactures, and the commerce of Scotland.
The Council consisted of nine members, of whom only two, Lockhart and
Swinton, were Scotsmen. Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, third son of the
Earl of Cork, was President, with a salary of two thousand pounds a
year; and the great Scottish offices of State, most of which were
retained, were generally filled by Englishmen. Lord Broghill appears to
have been popular. “He has gained,” Baillie writes, “more on the
affections of the people than all the English that ever were among
us.”[79]
An army of English soldiers, nearly as numerous as that which occupied
Ireland, was spread over Scotland. Forts were built at Leith, Glasgow,
Ayr, and Inverness; and the castle of Inverlochy was repaired and filled
by a garrison which overawed the Western Highlands. The strictest
discipline was maintained. “I remember,” Burnet says, “three regiments
coming to Aberdeen. There was an order and discipline, and a face of
gravity and piety among them, that amazed all people.” Burnet attributes
the flourishing state of Scotland during the Union to the money spent by
the army; so does Fletcher of Saltoun. And it must have had a
considerable effect on the financial state of the country, as the pay of
the troops amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds yearly, an
immense sum for the Scotland of those days.
In the judicial system sweeping changes were introduced. The exercise of
jurisdiction in Scotland was prohibited, except under the authority of
the Parliament of England. The powers of the Court of Session, the
supreme tribunal of the country, were handed over to a bench of
Commissioners for the Administration of Justice to the People of
Scotland. These judges were seven in number, four Englishmen and three
Scotsmen. At first the Scottish Bar joined the clergy in opposing the
Union, and refused to plead; but by the autumn of 1656 most of the
advocates had returned to business.
The manner in which the “English judges,” as the Commissioners were
called, performed their duties seems to have given great satisfaction.
The Court of Session had been so tyrannical and corrupt that the
fairness and purity of the new Court astonished the country. “Justice,”
we are told, “was wont to be free and open for none but great men, but
now it flows equally for all.” Circuit courts were held throughout the
country; and, while crime was firmly punished, the extreme severity of
the Scottish criminal system was avoided. Prosecutions for witchcraft
were still frequent, but the English judges received the evidence with
suspicion; and on one occasion no less than sixty persons, whom the
superstition of their own countrymen would have condemned to the flames,
were acquitted.
The merchants of Scotland were, by the terms of the Union, admitted to
all the trading privileges which Englishmen enjoyed. Goods of every
description passed duty-free from England to Scotland and from Scotland
to England; and there was no restriction on the foreign and colonial
trade of Scotland. But these advantages were not fully appreciated; for
Scottish commerce was still in its infancy. The Glasgow of to-day, with
its miles of wharves and warehouses, its forest of masts, its
shipbuilding yards, its crowded streets and handsome squares, had no
existence. The merchants of the small town upon the Clyde traded with
Ireland, in open boats, for meal, oats, and butter. They shipped coal,
herrings, and woollen goods to France in exchange for paper and prunes.
They sent to Norway for timber, and to Barbadoes for sugar. But the
river Clyde was then so shallow that their ships could not come nearer
to the town than a spot fourteen miles distant, where they were
unloaded, and the cargoes carried up the river on rafts or in small
boats.
The English were astonished at the poverty of Scotland. The whole
revenue from Customs and Excise was under fifty thousand pounds a
year.[80] A monthly assessment of seventy thousand pounds was levied in
the towns and counties of England, while Scotland was assessed at only
six thousand pounds. The yearly expenditure in Scotland exceeded the
revenue; and the balance was paid out of the English treasury.
Nevertheless the time of the Union during the Commonwealth was regarded
as a time of prosperity. The trade of Glasgow began to flourish. Leith,
then the chief port in Scotland, Dundee, and Aberdeen made considerable
progress in wealth; and there can be little doubt that if the commercial
policy of Cromwell had not been reversed at the Restoration, the
merchants of Scotland would have made, during the second half of the
seventeenth century, that remarkable advance towards opulence and
importance which they made after the Union of 1707.
When, fifty years later, the Union was finally accomplished, one of the
most difficult questions which the statesmen of the two countries had to
discuss was the question of the Church. But the ordinance of April 1654
contains no reference to that question. The Council for Scotland was
instructed, in general terms, to promote the cause of religion, and to
see that the clergy were paid regularly; but no formal settlement was
attempted. Though the stipends of the Scottish clergy were small, their
social position was far higher than that of the English clergy. They
associated, on terms of equality, with the first families of the laity,
and so great was their influence that, if they had been united among
themselves, they might have held their own against the Independents who
came to Scotland with Cromwell. But they were powerless, because they
were divided, split up into two parties, and engaged in a dispute which
was conducted with a warmth unusual even in the quarrels of Churchmen.
This dispute had its origin in the Engagement for the relief of Charles
the First. The Scottish Parliament of 1649 had passed an Act which
declared all those who approved of the Engagement incapable of holding
any public office.[81] This statute, known as the Act of Classes, had
incapacitated a number of persons from serving in the army. After the
battle of Dunbar, the General Assembly passed resolutions in favour of
readmitting to the public service, particularly in military employments,
those who had been proscribed; and Parliament, taking the same view as
the majority of the clergy, repealed the Act of Classes. Against this
the defeated minority of the clergy protested. Two parties were formed,
the one known as Resolutioners, and the other as Protesters; and the
contest passed from the ranks of the clergy to the ranks of the people.
Which party had the larger following among the people it is difficult to
say; but, apparently, while the Resolutioners formed a majority of the
clergy, the Protesters were more popular, especially in the
south-western counties, afterwards the stronghold of the Covenanters
during the period which followed the Restoration.
The Church of Scotland was rent in twain, and there were two factions in
almost every parish. The induction of a minister was seldom accomplished
without opposition; and on many occasions disgraceful scenes took place
in the churches, riots, stone-throwing, and even bloodshed. The
differences between the parties extended from the original cause of
quarrel to questions of rites and ceremonies, always a fruitful source
of bad feeling. The country was flooded with controversial pamphlets, in
which the disputants attacked each other in the most acrimonious terms.
One of the Protesters, indeed, a young divine named Binning, published a
book on _Christian Love_, in the hope, apparently, of preparing the way
for a reconciliation, but his advances were rejected with scorn.
Some members of the Council of State proposed that means should be taken
to re-unite these factions; but Vane advised a very different course.
Let them fight it out, he said, in the inferior courts of their Church.
By this means their attention will be diverted from secular matters,
with which they are too fond of interfering, and confined to their own
private squabbles. At the same time, if we forbid the General Assembly
to meet, they will be powerless for either good or evil. This policy was
carried into effect. The Assembly met at Edinburgh, and the members
were about to proceed to business, when an officer entered, and asked by
what authority they had met. Was it by the authority of the Parliament
of England, or of the commander of the English forces, or of the English
judges in Scotland? The ministers answered that the Assembly was an
ecclesiastical court, deriving its authority from God and established by
the law of the land. The officer said that he had orders to dissolve the
meeting, and ordered those present to follow him, or he would drag them
by force out of the room.
Uttering protests against this violence, the members rose and followed
him. A guard of soldiers surrounded them, and led them along the
streets, “all the people gazing and mourning, as at the saddest
spectacle they had ever seen.” Presently a halt was called. The names of
the ministers were taken down; and they were told that all future
meetings were forbidden. On the following morning, by sound of trumpet,
they were commanded to leave the town, on pain of instant imprisonment
if they disobeyed.[82]
In this summary fashion the supreme court of the Church of Scotland was
dissolved; and while the Union lasted the English army was supreme in
Church affairs. The clergy were forbidden to pray for the king, and
ordered to pray for the Protector. This order was at once obeyed by the
Protesters; but the Resolutioners did not submit until they were
informed that their stipends would be withdrawn, when they came to the
conclusion that as the king could not protect them nor pay them they
need no longer pray for him. Excommunication lost its terrors when the
secular arm could no longer be invoked to give civil effect to the
sentence of a Church court. The stool of repentance, which stood in
every church, and on which sinners had to sit and listen to a public
rebuke, was derided by the rough troopers, who either broke it to
pieces, or sat on it themselves, to show their contempt for a kind of
discipline which was akin to penance in the Church of Rome. The English
soldiers did not admire either the Church or the religious character of
the Scots. “A Kirk whose religion is formality, and whose government is
tyranny, a generation of very hypocrites and vipers whom no oaths or
covenants can bind, no courtesies or civilities oblige,” was their
verdict.[83] Magnificent and fruitful of results as the Covenanting
movement was, there can be no doubt that side by side with the genuine
religious devotion of some there was to be found the deep hypocrisy of
others. Cromwell saw this at once, and complained that where he had
expected to find “a conscientious people,” he had found one “given to
the most impudent lying and frequent swearing, as is incredible to be
believed.”[84]
The persecuting principles of the Scottish clergy, too, alienated the
Independent ministers who accompanied the army. Even so good a man as
Samuel Rutherford argued against toleration with almost as much bigotry
as Edwards had displayed in the Gangræna; and Baillie lamented that “the
hand of power is not heavy on any for matters of religion.”[85]
Principles such as these were, of course, hateful to the Independents,
with whom liberty of conscience was an article of faith; and the fact
that such principles were held by the Scottish clergy was one of the
chief reasons why, during the Commonwealth, the Scottish Church was
powerless.
Among the duties intrusted to the Council of State for Scotland were the
encouragement of learning and the reform of the universities.
Commissioners visited the universities, and changes were made.
Resolutioners were turned out, and Protesters put in their places.
Leighton, afterwards Bishop of Dunblane, became Principal of Edinburgh
University. At Glasgow, Patrick Gillespie was appointed against the
remonstrances of Baillie and his party; but even Baillie afterwards
admitted that the appointment was a wise one. “The matters of our
college,” he writes, “this year were peaceable; our gallant building
going on vigorously; above twenty-six thousand pounds are already spent
upon it; Mr. Patrick Gillespie, with a very great care, industrie, and
dexterity, managing it as good as alone.” A grant of two hundred pounds
a year was made to the Universities both of Edinburgh and of Glasgow;
and before his death the Protector had taken the first steps towards
founding a College of Physicians for Scotland.
In 1659 it was resolved to put the Union, the terms of which rested only
on the ordinance promulgated by Oliver Cromwell five years before, on a
more constitutional footing; and for that purpose two Bills “for
perfecting the Union between England and Scotland” were brought into
Parliament.[86] But neither of these Bills became an Act of Parliament;
and at the Restoration, the Union came to an end.
As to the general effect of this Union on the state of Scotland we have
conflicting accounts; but the weight of evidence goes to show that it
was a time, not only of quiet, which has never been denied, but also of
prosperity. Baillie tells a dismal tale. The peers were in exile or
reduced to poverty; the people were burdened by heavy taxation, and
suffering from want of money and want of trade. But Baillie was a
Resolutioner; and the Protesters were favoured by the Government.
Therefore, for Baillie, the times were out of joint, and he exclaims,
“What shall we do for a testimony against the English?” Yet he is forced
to admit that food was cheap and plentiful; and he gives an account of
the state of Glasgow, where he lived, from which it appears that the
town was highly prosperous. The magistrates were rapidly paying off the
public debt, and spending money on public works.[87]
To the historian Kirkton, who was on the other side, everything seemed
bright. It was a period of “deep tranquillity.” Every parish had a
minister; every village had a school; almost every family had a Bible.
The voice of singing and of prayer was heard in every house. From the
taverns alone came the sound of lamentation; for the happiness and
sobriety of the people were such that the trade in strong drink was
ruined.[88]
Burnet agrees with Kirkton. “We always reckon,” he says, “those eight
years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity.” Defoe took
special pains to make himself acquainted with the affairs of Scotland,
and the information which he received was to the same effect. “Scotland
flourished, justice had its uninterrupted course, trade increased, money
plentifully flowed in.”[89] Cromwell himself, in 1658, gave a favourable
account of the state of things, on which Carlyle’s comment is, “Scotland
is prospering; has fair play and ready-money;--prospering though
sulky.”[90]
In England the Union, if not unpopular, was regarded with indifference.
In the Protector’s “House of Lords” there were three Scotsmen, Lord
Casselis, Sir William Lockhart, and Johnston of Warriston, the last of
whom seems to have wearied the House with long and frequent speeches. In
the House of Commons the members from Scotland gave no trouble, and are
said, indeed, never to have opened their lips. The commercial
advantages, however, which Scotland had secured by the Union caused
great jealousy among the English merchants; and on the English side of
the border the establishment of free trade between the countries was
viewed with disfavour. But, on the whole, the broad current of English
life flowed on, undisturbed by the existence of the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] Act. Parl. Scot. VI. ii. 771.
[71] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 174.
[72] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1651-52, p. 485.
[73] _Calendar_, 1653-54, p. 12.
[74] _Calendar_, 1653-54, p. 258.
[75] Order of Council, Whitehall, 12th April 1654.
[76] Order of Council, 27th June 1654.
[77] Baillie’s _Letters and Journals_, iii. 289, 318, 357; Thurloe,
_State Papers_, v. 366.
[78] Act. Parl. Scot. VII. ii. 784.
[79] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 315.
[80] Report by Thomas Tucker upon the revenue of Excise and Customs in
Scotland, 1656, in the _Scottish Burgh Society’s Miscellany_.
[81] Act of Classes for purging the Judicatories and other Places of
Public Trust. Act. Parl. Scot. VI. ii. 143.
[82] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 225.
[83] Orme’s _Life of Owen_, p. 128; Whitelocke, July 1650.
[84] Letter to the Council of State, 25th September 1650.
[85] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 291.
[86] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1659-1660, p. 35; Act. Parl.
Scot. VI. ii. 587.
[87] _Letters and Journals_, iii. 249, 288, 357, 360, 387.
[88] Kirkton’s _True and Secret History of the Church of Scotland_
(edited from the original MS. by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 1817), pp.
64, 65. In Law’s _Memorialls_ (edited from the MS. by Mr. Sharpe in
1818) there is a passage which, if it is to be relied on, shows that
during this period the course of religion had been advanced by the
policy of preventing the clergy interfering so constantly in politics.
“It is not to be forgotten,” Law says, “that, from the year 1652 to the
year 1660, there was great good done by the preaching of the gospell in
the West of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or
thirty yeirs before; a great many being brought in to Christ Jesus by a
saving work of conversion, which was occasioned through ministers
preaching nothing all that tyme but the gospell, and had left off to
preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrances,
which was much in use before, from the year 1638 till that time 52,
which occasioned a great number of hypocrytes in the Church, who, out of
hope of preferment, honour, riches, and worldly credit, took on the form
of godliness, but wanted the power of it.”
[89] _History of the Union_, section ii. p. 10, first edition, published
in 1709. Defoe’s _History of the Union_ was reprinted in 1712 and 1786,
and again in 1787 “with an introduction, in which the consequences and
probability of a like union with Ireland are considered.”
[90] January 1658, Carlyle’s _Cromwell_, Speech XVII.