A New Ministry in Scotland--Scenes in the Parliament House--The
Act of Security becomes Law--England retaliates by passing the
Alien Act.
Before the next session of the Scottish Parliament there had been a
change in the Scottish Ministry. The ‘Scots Plot,’ in connection with
which Queensberry had played such a sorry part, had proved to
Godolphin that a new Commissioner must be appointed; and Queensberry
was discarded in favour of Tweeddale, who formed a Ministry in which
Johnston of Warriston was Lord Register, Cromartie was Secretary of
State, and Seafield Chancellor. He succeeded, moreover, in securing
the support of several members of the Country Party, among whom
Rothes, Roxburghe, Belhaven, and Dundas of Arniston were prominent.
This party took the name of the New Party; and the Government in
London hoped that the Opposition would now be so far weakened that
nothing more would be heard of the Act of Security.
Parliament met in the beginning of July 1704. The Queen’s Speech urged
the necessity of settling the Protestant Succession in Scotland, and,
at the same time, promised that the royal assent would be given to any
proper means of securing the liberties and the independence of
Scotland; but it was soon found that the Estates were as intractable
as ever. Hamilton at once moved ‘that this Parliament will not proceed
to the nomination of a successor to the Crown until we have had a
previous treaty with England in relation to our commerce, and other
concerns with that nation.’
On this subject there were long debates, in which Fletcher, says
Lockhart, ‘did elegantly and pathetically set forth the hardships and
miseries to which we have been exposed since the Union of the two
Crowns of Scotland and England in one and the same Sovereign.’ At last
Hamilton moved that the Act of Security and an Act granting supplies
to the Crown should be tacked together. When this proposal was
discussed, Johnston said that the plan of ‘tacking’ was reasonable in
England where there were two Houses, and where the Commons might be
forced to bring the Lords to reason by sending up a Money Bill along
with some measure which the Upper House would not otherwise pass. Such
a system, he argued, did not suit the Scottish Parliament, which
consisted of only one chamber. It was, moreover, ‘a straitening of the
Queen, who might possibly consent to the one and not to the other.’
‘Now,’ said Fletcher, ‘it appears there must be a bargain, and unless
the Parliament go into the measures laid down in England, nothing must
be done; and he who spoke last has undertaken to obtain these measures
to be performed here. I know,’ he went on, ‘and can make it appear
that the Register has undertaken to persecute the English designs for
promotion to himself.’
On this some of the members called out that Fletcher should be sent to
the bar of the House for using such language.
Fletcher, backed up by Hamilton, then declared that the Queen’s letter
had been written when no Scotsman was with her, and must, therefore,
have been concocted under English influence. Johnston denied this, and
said that the draught of the letter had been sent up from Scotland.
Fletcher still maintained that he was right; and on this Sir James
Halket called out that Saltoun was impertinent. To this Fletcher’s
reply was that any member who used such words of him was a rascal.
‘The House,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘being alarmed at such expressions,
Sir James Erskine moved both should be sent to prison.’ The incident
ended by the Chancellor giving a ‘sharp rebuke’ to both the honourable
members, who were forced to express their regret, and to promise, upon
their word of honour, that they would not take any notice elsewhere of
what had happened.
In the end the House decided that the Act of Security should be read a
first time, and should, along with the Act of Supply, lie on the table
until it was known whether it was to receive the royal assent. It was
soon found that the Scottish Parliament had at last gained the day;
and in the beginning of August the Act of Security received the royal
assent. On this the Estates voted the supplies.
During the rest of the session Fletcher spoke frequently. He was
especially indignant against the House of Lords for an address which
they had presented to the throne on the subject of the Scots Plot; and
he went so far as to move that ‘the House of Peers in England their
address to the Queen to use her endeavours to get the succession of
England settled in Scotland, and inquiring into the plot, so far as it
concerned Scotland and Scotsmen, was an undue intermeddling with our
affairs, and an encroachment upon the sovereignty and independency of
Scotland; and that the behaviour of the House of Commons in these
matters was like good subjects of our Queen, and as neighbourly
friends of this nation.’
The feeling of the Estates may be gathered from the fact that they
refused to approve of the conduct of the Commons, but agreed to
censure the House of Lords. Nothing done by the English Parliament was
right.
Just before the end of the session Fletcher brought in a measure for
the purpose of adding eleven county members to the Parliament, and one
more, in future, for every new peer who might be created. Hamilton, at
the same time, introduced an ‘Act about free voting in Parliament,’
the object of which was to exclude from the House officers in the
army, collectors of customs, and some other persons in the pay of the
Crown.
On the 24th of August, Fletcher moved the second reading of his
measure; and, as soon as he sat down, Hamilton moved the second
reading of his. On this Fletcher said, ‘The member who has just spoken
contradicts himself,’ and explained that Hamilton had been in favour
of the measure for adding to the county members, which he was now
hindering.
Hamilton at once complained of the way in which he had been spoken of,
and offered to go to the bar, ‘If I have said anything amiss.’
‘Such reckoning,’ cried Fletcher, ‘is for another place.’
Hamilton retorted that he did not refuse to give that satisfaction
either. ‘The Chancellor,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘took notice of both
their expressions, and moved, that first Salton should crave my Lord
Commissioner and the House pardon, if without design he had said
anything that gave offence; which, after a long struggle he was
prevailed with to do, if Duke Hamilton would do the like, and which
both did, and promised, on their word of honour, there should be no
more word of what had passed.’
Four days after this incident the session ended. The Act of Security
was now law. Fletcher and his friends were triumphant, and more
hostile to England than ever; while the people of England were not
only indignant, but alarmed by the news that the Scots were buying
arms, and meeting for drill in every parish, under the provisions of
the Act of Security.
The prospect was very dark; but there were some rays of light, the
resignations of Nottingham and Seymour, the most violent members of
the Tory party, making it possible that the claims of Scotland to
equal treatment with England might be acknowledged. But England was
not in a mood to be trifled with. A week after the royal assent had
been given to the Act of Security, the battle of Blenheim was fought.
Marlborough was now at the summit of his power; and the alliance
between him and Godolphin alone saved the latter from falling before
the storm of indignation which greeted him for advising the Queen to
allow the Act to become law. The Government had been successful both
in England and abroad; and the Opposition fixed upon the one
vulnerable point--their Scottish policy. The Act of Security was
printed and circulated throughout the country. The nations, it was
pointed out, were now separated by law; and for this Godolphin was
responsible. Wharton boasted that he had the Lord Treasurer’s head in
a halter, and swore that he would draw it tight. It was believed that
large quantities of arms were arriving in Scotland from the Continent,
and that the people were being drilled for the purpose of fighting
against England. Godolphin himself, a man of few words and great
experience, did not share in the general panic. ‘People,’ he told
Queensberry afterwards at another crisis, ‘who mean to fight, do not
talk so much about it.’ His invariable answer to all the abuse which
was hurled at his head was that there would have been more danger in
refusing the royal assent than in giving it; and he added that the
danger was ‘not without a remedy.’
There can be little doubt that this remedy was the Union. But there
were not many Englishmen who had the long experience or the calmness
of Godolphin. The Scots, it was said, never wanted the will, and now
they have the power, to attack us. France will find the money. They
themselves will find the men, and their long-suppressed hatred against
England will burst forth. Scotland must either be reduced by force of
arms, or the militia must be embodied, and Parliament must petition
the Queen to see that those gentlemen who allowed the Act of Security
to pass may have the honour of defending the borders. By their policy
they have undone the Union, such as it is, which has existed since
the death of Elizabeth, and have separated the countries. On them,
therefore, the danger should fall. Much that was very foolish and very
false was said and written; but even to the coolest heads in England
the peril seemed great, not on account of any immediate danger from
the army in Scotland, but on account of the state of the Succession
question. The situation was that England was now shut up to these
alternatives:--either, on the death of Anne, she must make war on
Scotland, conquer the country, and hold it by force of arms, without
any attempt at constitutional government; or she must allow a separate
King to sit on the Scottish throne; or she must consent to an Union,
and at last submit to give Scotland an equal share in English trade.
Godolphin saw this. So did Somers and Halifax. Everything depended on
the course taken by the English Parliament.
The English Parliament met on the 25th of October 1704; and what
followed is in marked contrast to the irregular proceedings of the
Scottish Estates. The strife of parties was as keen in London as in
Edinburgh. The factions were as violent; but the proceedings at
Westminster were regular and orderly. Speed there was; but everything
was done with that punctilious attention to forms which makes the
resolutions of the English Parliament, by whatever angry passions the
members may be influenced, so doubly weighty, not only because they
are the decisions of the representatives of a great and powerful
nation, but because they are framed, revised, and adopted in such an
orderly method, that to read the journals of the Lords and Commons (a
vast mine of constitutional law, which is too much neglected) gives
the student of our history an impressive idea of strength and
durability.
In the Queen’s Speech Scotland was not mentioned; but a month later
Haversham called the attention of the Lords to the state of that
country. He attacked the Scottish policy of the Government, and said
it proved that the Ministry had not honestly tried to settle the
Succession question. ‘There are,’ he said, ‘two matters of all
troubles--much discontent and great poverty. Whoever will now look
into Scotland will find them both in that kingdom.’ And the character
of this people, so poor and so discontented, made their condition all
the more dangerous to England. The nobles and the gentlemen of
Scotland were as brave as could be found in Europe. The common people
were the same, yet they were all alike poor and discontented. By the
Act of Security they could choose a King for themselves, and they
could arm the whole nation; and who could tell what dangers might not
be in store for England if, on the death of the Queen, with France to
help them, and with a King of their own, they chose to make war. ‘I
shall end,’ he said, ‘with an advice of my Lord Bacon’s. “Let men,”
says he, “beware how they neglect or suffer matter of troubles to be
prepared; for no man can forbid the sparks that may set all on fire.”’
It was resolved that, on the 29th of November, the House should go
into committee ‘to consider of the state of the nation in reference to
Scotland.’
On the appointed day there was a full muster of the peers; the Queen
was present; and Rochester moved that the Act of Security be read. In
this he was supported by the Tories, and by the High Churchmen in
particular; but the Whigs resisted this motion, on the ground that
there was no authentic copy before the House, and the debate
proceeded.
Godolphin, who, it was noticed at the time, did not shrink from the
responsibility of having advised the Queen to give the royal assent,
said that it had been absolutely necessary to allow the Act of
Security to become law. The danger of refusing it would have been
greater than the danger of granting it. He deplored the system of
irritating the Scottish people by constant interference in their
business. Everything, in his opinion, would come right, if they would
only let the Scots alone.
Burnet followed on the same side. Ever, he said, since the Union of
the Crowns Scotland had been mismanaged. What could have been more
reckless than the conduct of England in the reign of Charles I.? At
the Restoration a promise had been given that Scotland would be
governed in accordance with the wishes of the people. This promise had
been broken, and during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. the
Scots had been persecuted and oppressed. At the Revolution religious
persecution ceased; but since then the commercial policy of England
had been enough to provoke them beyond endurance.
This plain speaking was not very palatable to an assembly of
Englishmen, but those Scotsmen who listened to the debate were
delighted. ‘The Whigs,’ Roxburghe wrote to Baillie of Jerviswoode,
‘were modest in their business, but the Tories were mad.’
It was evident that there was a considerable difference of opinion
between the two great parties as to the proper method of dealing with
the Scottish question. Somers and Halifax, Rochester and Nottingham,
alike regarded the Act of Security as dangerous, but they differed as
to the course which England should pursue. Nottingham and his friends
were for condemning the Act by a vote of the House; but the Whigs
resisted this, on the ground that it amounted to a vote of censure on
the Scottish Parliament. Somers, in a few weighty words, moved the
adjournment of the debate. England, he said, must protect herself
against the consequences of the Act of Security; but whatever was
done, must be done calmly and without panic.
On the 6th of December he resumed the debate, when he laid down the
principle that the Parliament of England must prove to the Scottish
people that if they insisted on a complete separation they would be
the greatest losers. He suggested, therefore, that an Act should be
passed so framed as to bring the issue clearly and distinctly before
them; an Act, for instance, imposing certain disabilities on the
Scots, which would only be removed if they settled the Succession as
it had been settled in England. Above all things, he urged the
necessity of adopting none but deliberate and well-considered
measures.
The result of these debates was that on the 14th of March 1705, the
last day of the session, the royal assent was given to the statute
which empowered the Queen to name Commissioners to treat for an Union,
provided that the Scottish Parliament passed a similar measure; but
the statute, at the same time, declared that, after the 25th of
December 1705, natives of Scotland were to be held as aliens until the
Succession was settled in Scotland as it already was in England. This
was the chief clause of this important measure, which was therefore
known as the Alien Act.
The news of what had been done was received with an outburst of
indignation in Scotland; but the Union was now inevitable.