Bribery and mixed motives on road to a United Kingdom

HIS long, flowing locks blowing in the breeze, the nobleman cast a glance back as he stepped towards his carriage. The crowd on the Royal Mile were gathered in huge numbers, eager to catch sight of him.

And the Duke of Hamilton was happy to oblige, revelling in the cheers which followed his progress down the Royal Mile.

Moments later another nobleman emerged. However, the public's reaction to him couldn't have been more different. As the Duke of Queensberry was recognised, stones began to pelt down on him. His carriage was then forced to run a gauntlet through the crush down the Royal Mile to his home, Queensberry House, now part of the Scottish Parliament complex.

Edinburgh in the early 18th century was said to be in an almost constant state of riot, its subjects, almost all without a vote, keen to express their views in the only way they could.

Their hero was the Duke of Hamilton, leader of the pro-independence party. The villain of the day was Queensberry, at the forefront of the push for union with England. Three hundred years ago tomorrow he succeeded and the Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence.

The idea of a union stretched back over a century to when England and Scotland had begun to share a monarch. By the end of the 17th century, England, fearing the Scots would chose a different heir to their throne, began to press for a full union between the nations.

But there appeared little enthusiasm north of the Border - English bribery, fear of English invasion and aristocratic self-interest have all been put forward as reasons why, in the end, Scotland's leaders agreed to the Union.

There were two parties in that final parliament. The largest was the pro-independence members, led by Hamilton.

Edinburgh historian Michael Fry, author of The Union: England, Scotland and the Treaty of 1707, explains: "The Duke of Hamilton was the main leader of the opposition and held the position by reason of his status."

He was suspected of being a Jacobite - a supporter of the deposed and exiled Catholic line of Stuart kings - but he also managed to rally support among the Presbyterians, who were worried a union with England would see their religion banned.

"He could command the two different factions," says Fry. "But he was a disastrous leader of the opposition, in that he simply could not make up his mind himself."

The general population, however, were unaware of his failings and happily cheered his every appearance. As the Earl of Mar describes in a letter in 1706: "The Duke of Hamilton went to the Duke of Athole's which is in the Land Market, the wholle mob & rable followed him, he was in his Chair with the Glasses down and was huzza'd all the way . . ."

Queensberry led the court party - but he wasn't the only pro-union member to experience the displeasure of the crowd. This is also from Mar's letter: "When we were coming to the vote, it was whispered to us that there was rable at the doors & were pressing to be in & had knocked down some of the Guards . . . we found the Parliament Close full of mob . . . My Lord Montrose chanced to be coming up the Street in his Coach, the mob commanded the Coach to stop, but the Coachman drove on, some of the mob call'd to Montrose if he was against the Union, God bless him, but if for it God damn him."

Inside the parliament the mood was hardly less pro-independence, at least initially. In 1703, the Scots passed the Act of Security. This declared that Scotland would choose a different monarch to England unless the English granted the Scots freedom of trade.

The following year, England retaliated with the Alien Act. City historian Paul Scott, author of The Union of 1707: How and Why, explains: "This stated that unless Scotland accepted the same heir to the throne, all Scots would be treated as aliens, incapable of inheriting property, and all Scottish imports would be banned."

This would be a blow to both the nobles who owned land in England, and the merchants, half of whose markets were in England.

The Act gave the Scots another option, of agreeing to appoint commissioners to begin talks on union. Scott says: "Union at this time was a fairly vague term. It didn't necessarily mean the taking over of one country by another."

And the Scots didn't have to agree to union - just to talks. In September that's what they did. But it was now that the Duke of Hamilton did his most extraordinary volte-face. Late in the evening, when most of the pro-independence party had left, he proposed that the commissioners should be appointed by the Queen, rather than the Scottish Parliament. The great pro-independence leader handed the pro-union faction a huge victory.

But the Scottish commissioners were no still pushover.

Fry says: "England was a much more powerful nation but that didn't mean the Scots were just hapless victims. The English wanted enough consent to make the thing work."

In the end 25 articles were agreed upon. They included securing the succession of the Hanover line in Scotland and merging the two parliaments. But they also safeguarded the Church of Scotland and Scotland's separate education and legal systems.

Fry says: "All the values we think of as being particularly Scottish were kept, that's what stopped us becoming Scotland-shire."

For Scott, the deal was a lousy one because Scotland lost out by taking on part of the liability for England's war debts, her customs system and exchanging Scots pounds for pounds Sterling.

The two historians have differing views on why the treaty was voted through. Scott believes bribes - there was £20,000 sent to be distributed by Queensberry - and more subtle methods of financial inducement, such as promises of pensions and posts, were key.

He says: "You have to admire the English. The bribery was very skilfully done. They succeeded in making a rape look like a respectable marriage. But it's possible that the threat of invasion was more influential."

Fry, however, has his doubts. "The Scots never had any money. These claims of bribery are not something I am terribly impressed with. The Scottish state owed a lot of people a lot of money. In 1706 all these arrears were advanced. If it had come out it would have caused the whole union project to grind to a halt but in the end few people got any money they weren't owed."

As for Hamilton's U-turn, Fry believes it was the thwarting of his own hopes for the crown of Scotland which led to his ambiguous behaviour. This mixture of motives was common. "You might say most of them were at least as much out for themselves as they were for the country. It was very difficult to keep together a coalition," says Fry.

Whatever the reason, on January 16 the treaty was voted through. The English Parliament also agreed to it and the Scots parliament was dissolved at the end of April.The act became law on May 1. There were celebrations in England, but the reaction was much more muted north of the Border. The bells of St Giles' did, however, ring out. They played Why Should I Be Sad On My Wedding Day?

Thanks to the National Archives of Scotland for the use of the Earl of Mar document

THE CHANGING

PATTERN OF LIFE AFTER UNITY
ON May 1,

1707, a new creation called Great Britain was born, when the Act of Union between Scotland and England came into force. For the vast majority of the Scots public, however, life would have continued as normal.

"I don't think most people would have noticed," says historian Michael Fry. "There were no big changes which came in on day one."

But changes would have eventually started to filter through. Part of the agreement was that the English customs and excise system would be adopted in Scotland. As this was more efficient than the Scots system, merchants would soon have felt the pinch. The Scots pound was also replaced by pounds sterling.

The union also meant English markets were opened up for the Scots, but it would be several decades before traders really geared up to take advantage of this.

And it would be the following century before Scots really came into their own as part of Britain, when the British Empire was at its height.

The Union also laid down in law the dispossession of the Jacobite Stuart line, by then led by the deposed king James VII's son, James, the Old Pretender.

That would lead to several Jacobite uprisings over the course of the next 40 years.