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The Treaty (or Act) of Union 1707 As most people will be aware the treaty of union is approaching its 300 th anniversary. This piece of writing intends to weigh up the pros and cons of the union and let people decide for themselves whether it was a good or bad thing for Scotland as a nation. This was not a treaty of affection; it was not a pact between two countries because they had mutual respect for each other. It was brought into place to give control to the larger country of the two members. To fully understand the coming together of the two nations, we must look into the history that lead to this period. So where would we begin? Firstly it is the intention to bring to the fore the main players in the frame, and why they were so desperate to unite two countries under the one flag and parliament. |
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The story really starts when James the VI of Scotland and Ist of England, took over the joint monarchy in 1603. From the Union of the Crowns, England and Scotland had one monarch but two Parliaments. While this worked most of the time, there were occasions when the two institutions parted company - such as when England Executed King Charles I (to the distress of many in Scotland) and became a republic, while at the same time Scotland's governing body resolved to appoint King Charles II as their monarch. From the perspective of the leaders in London , such a situation had to be avoided in the future and the removal of the Scottish Parliament was seen as a way of achieving this. James was born in Edinburgh castle in June 1566 to Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley and ascended to the throne as James the VI of Scotland when he was just one-year old following his mother's exile to France. When James matured as king, he managed to cultivate good relations with England despite Queen Elizabeth's execution of his mother in 1587. James VI also became James I of England following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. James, styled himself King of Great Britain. . To James now holding court in London , the English Parliament was by far the more important of the two houses. He assured the English, �the greater would always attract the lesser', and that Scotland would eventually Anglicise. In a manner James was behind the creation of the first Union flag. |
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When King James VI of Scotland ascended to the English throne, thereby becoming James I of England, the national flags of England and Scotland on land continued to be, respectively, the red St George's cross and the white St Andrew's cross. Confusion arose, however, as to what flag would be appropriate at sea . On 12 April 1606 a proclamation was issued: "All our subjects in this our isle and kingdom of Great Britain and the members thereof, shall bear in their main top the red cross commonly called St George's Cross and the white cross commonly called St. Andrew's Cross joined together according to a form made by our heralds and sent to our Admiral to be published to our said subjects." |
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Although the Irish cross was added at a later date. It was even suggested then that there could be more than one flag. When in Scotland their flag could have been to the fore and in England vice versa. |  |
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James was a very learned man and wrote many articles in his time. He is noted for A Counterblast to Tobacco , which he wrote around 1604. In this pamphlet he describes the habit of smoking as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." The Scottish Executive with their no smoking policy would have welcomed him in this modern age. It was well known that James was obsessed with the art of witchcraft and wrote a book � Daemonologie' it was published in 1597, and condemned the practice in its entirety. James was a very dogmatic in his opinions and liked to always be in the right. His reign was often caught up in various religious disputes, but his attempts to douse the flames often fanned them. Anti-Catholic paranoia in Britain reached fever pitch with the 1605 Gunpowder Plot when Guy Fawkes was apprehended trying to blow up parliament. At the same time Protestants such as the Puritans demanded more toleration for their religious practices. James refused but did authorise the first government-endorsed English translation of the bible in 1611, later called the King James Bible . He was heavily involved but did not write what remains the best-selling book in the whole world James was always trying to give his country new outlets and it was him that established many overseas communities. Another of his ideas was to fill Northern Ireland with protestant from the mainland. This has of course led to the present day troubles in Ulster . James also formally established the colony of Virginia in what was to become the US . King James was passionate about the arts and encouraged them greatly during his reign and was a patron of English playwright William Shakespeare, whose theatre company became known as the King's Men in his honour. Here is James VI family MARRIED: August 20, 1589 (by proxy) November 23, 1589 (in person) WIFE: Anne ( Oldenburg ) of Denmark , second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway ; Birth October 14, 1574 in Skanderborg, Castle; Death March 4, 1619 at Hampton Court Palace ; Burial, Westminster Abbey, London , England CHILDREN: "� Henry Frederick STUART, Prince of Wales "� STUART, Child "� Elizabeth STUART, "The Winter Queen", Queen of Bohemia "� Margaret STUART "� Charles I STUART, King of Britain "� Robert Bruce STUART, Duke of Kintyre "� Son "� Mary STUART "� Sophia STUART James VI died in the year 1625 after a period of senility, and was succeeded by his son Charles the First. Born in Fife, Scotland on 19 November 1600, Charles was created Duke of Albany at his baptism (December 1600) and Duke of York in 1605. He was brought up by Lord and Lady Fyvie until the age of four, then moved to England where he was placed in the household of Sir Robert and Lady Carey. His education was overseen by Thomas Murray, a Scottish Presbyterian who later became Provost of Eton. Charles was a serious student who excelled at languages, rhetoric and divinity. |
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Charles was devoted to his elder brother Prince Henry, but Henry died when Charles was 12 years old. Charles and his sister Elizabeth mourned Henry together, which created a bond between them that affected English foreign policy after Elizabeth married the Elector of the Palatinate. Henry's death made Charles heir to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles matured becoming a good horseman and huntsmanand developing sophisticated tastes in the arts as well as earnestly appling himself to his religious devotions. Created Prince of Wales in 1616, he was instructed by King James in every aspect of ruling a kingdom. With a profound belief that Kings were appointed by God to rule by Divine Right, Charles succeeded as the second Stuart King of England in 1625. Charles came to the throne amid pressure from English Protestants for intervention against Spain and the Catholic powers in the religious wars raging in Europe (the Thirty Years War, 1618-48). He allowed England's foreign policy to be directed by the unpopular Duke of Buckingham, who launched a series of disastrous military expeditions against Spain and France with the aim of indirectly assisting the Palatinate. |
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Charles dissolved his first two parliaments when they attempted to impeach Buckingham, but he was forced to call a third because he needed funds to pursue his warlike policies.
In 1628, Charles' opponents formulated the Petition of Rights, an important document setting out the rights and liberties which favoured the common man as a defence against the King's arbitrary use of his powers. Charles grudgingly accepted the Petition in the hope that Parliament would grant him subsidies, but in practice he ignored its provisions. Buckingham was assassinated in 1628, This was the cue for Parliament to confront Charles' and his religious policies. Charles reacted extremely badly to this criticisim and subsequently dismissed his third Parliament in 1629. He imprisoned many of the leading protagonists. Charles then stated that as he could not trust a parliament he would rule alone without one. The eleven-year period of the King's Personal Rule was also described as the "Eleven Year Tyranny ". At first Charles appeared to be coping well without a parliament , however during the turmoil of the Civil Wars, many people looked back upon it as a golden age of peace and prosperity. In 1630, Charles had negotiated with other two countries, Spain and France. Things were looking good for the economy with trade and commerce prospering well and by the year 1635, Charles finances were stable. This enabled him to commission great works of art by Rubens and Van Dyck, and also to build up the Royal Navy for England's defence. But without Parliament to grant legal taxes, Charles was obliged to raise income by obscure and highly unpopular means including forced loans, the sale of commercial monopolies and, most notoriously of all, Ship Money . Along with Charles' were controversial religious policies, these measures alienated many natural supporters of the Crown, including powerful noblemen. When Charles, Prince of Wales, married the French Catholic princess Henrietta Maria in 1625, it required a special dispensation from the Pope because it was the first time that a Catholic princess had married a Protestant prince. Politically, it was a move towards an alliance between France and England against Spain. The King created a bone of contention amongst English Protestants, particularly when she refused to be crowned by a Protestant bishop or even to attend her husband's coronation as King Charles I in February 1626. Henrietta was allowed to practise her religion openly and freely and this was abhorant to the protestant courtiers. In some quarters, Henrietta Maria's influence over the King and the royal children was regarded as part of an international Papist conspiracy against the Protestant faith and was even suspected of inciting the Irish Uprising . An Uprising which was a long-term result of the "Plantation" policy of Tudor and Stuart monarchs under which Ireland was colonised by Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. Land speculators displaced the native Gaelic Irish; the rights of the Anglo-Norman "Old English" aristocracy that had existed in Ireland since medieval times were also threatened. Ireland was predominantly Roman Catholic, so the plantations brought religious conflict as well as territorial disputes. |
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Although Charles himself was a very devout religious person, his policies were deeply divisive and turned Puritans like Pymand Cromwell against him. Charles in collaboration with Archbishop Laud, who's learning and advice he admired , insisted upon religious conformity in congrgations from beyond England to , Scotland and Ireland, even in the American colonies . This went disastrously wrong when the Anglican liturgy and Laudian Prayer Books were forced upon the Scottish Kirk in 1637, resulting in the creation of the Scottish National Covenant, an aggreement which was signed by Scots anxious to preserve their national and religious identity . In February 1638, a ceremony took place in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh to undertake the signing. Copies of the Covenant were distributed throughout Scotland for signing. |
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The Covenant called for the immediate withdrawal of the new prayer book and firm rejection of episcopacy in favour of presbyterianism, although it emphasised Scotland's loyalty to the King. The Covenant also declared that any moves towards Catholicism would not be tolerated. The Covenanters called an Assembly at Glasgow in November 1638 which the King's Commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, declared to be illegal. Despite Hamilton's attempts to dissolve it, the Assembly continued to sit in defiance of the King, moving to Edinburgh in 1639. King Charles began forming an army to march against Scotland. The Scots responded by appointing the veteran Alexander Leslie to organise the Army of the Covenant.
The clash between the King and the Covenanters resulted in the Bishops' Wars,1639 and 1640 . T he strength of feeling against the King's policies in Church and State resulted in the fourth Parliament [The Short Parliament ] being called in the year of 1640 , brought about by the crisis of the Bishops' Wars against Scotland. In order to finance war against the Scots, Charles was obliged to recall Parliament, bringing his eleven-year personal rule to an end. The Short Parliament was dissolved only three weeks after it had first assembled. Vehement opposition from the Short Parliament of April 1640 and its successor the Long Paliament, rather than attack the King himself, however, Parliament impeached and condemned to death his principal ministers Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford , with Charles doing little to help them.In November 1641, news of the Irish uprising reached London, provoking a crisis over whether King or Parliament should control the army that was needed to quell the rebellion. Against a background of riots and civil unrest, the King and Royal Family were driven from London in January 1642 Charles made a fatal mistake at this point by trying to remove and imprison who he considered to be the five main opponents in his parliament.. In the early and mid part of the year 1642, both Charles and his Parliament appealed for the support of the nation, he done everything in his power to gain control of the armed forces. A violent and volatile nation realised that a major confrontation had became inevitable. On the 22 August 1642, King Charles moved to Nottingham and raised his standard at the castle. This was Charles declaring a call-to-arms and the beginning of the First Civil War . Ironically, the navy that Charles had built on the proceeds of Ship Money declared for Parliament. Having lost London to the Parliamentarians, Charles set up his court and military headquarters at Oxford. Charles was a courageous man, although he lacked military experience, he developed strategic skills as the war went on. Under his personal command he outwitted and defeated Sir William Waller in the campaign that led up to the battle of Cropredy Bridge . He then pursued and defeated the Earl of Essex at Lostwithiel in the summer of 1644. His worst problem at that time were the petty jealousies and in-fighting among his senior officers, this was made even worse by Charles attitude to the whole sittuation and he always seemed to be unsure how to resolve these issues. Lord Digby who was himself conducting a personal vendetta against Prince Rupert , had a great say in any decisions that the king made. When the King attempted to bring government troops over from Ireland, Parliament mounted a successful propaganda campaign, raising fears of a Catholic conspiracy which greatly damaged the Royalist cause. In 1643, during the First Civil War, the objectives of the Scottish Covenant were incorporated into the Solemn League and Covenant which secured a military alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters against the Royalists. The combination of Parliament's alliance with the Scottish Covenanters and the formation of the professionally-run New Model Army brought about the defeat of the Royalists and the Kings cause in the year of 1645-6 , bringing to an end the First Civil War. Following his defeat, Charles fled from Oxford in April 1646 and surrendered to the Scottish army rather than to Parliament. Charles attempted to turn the tables by negotiating an alliance with the Covenanters against Parliament. The negotiation was hampered by his refusal to take the Covenant personally. Because of this, many prominent Scottish leaders opposed the alliance (known as the engagement). He attempted to exploit divisions between the Parliamentarians and their allies, continually involving himself in plots and intrigues with the exiled Henrietta Maria in the vain hope of gaining military help from Ireland and France. Charles failed to recognise the damage done to his cause by his association with foreigners and Catholics. The Scots handed him over to Parliament for money in January1647. The New Model Army � which was itself in disagreement with the Presbyterian faction in Parliament � secured the King in April 1647. C harles was held at Hampton Court Palace, where he continued to play off the Army, Parliament and Scots against one another. He hoped that the Monarchy would be seen as a beacon of stability amongst the political turmoil, but his obstructiveness and duplicity in negotiations alienated Cromwell and others who had been anxious to reach a settlement. In November 1647, Charles was worried about his safety and managed to escaped from Hampton Court aided by a few loyal supporters. He approached the Governor of the Isle of Whight Colonel Hammond for protection, Charles had the intention of taking a ship from there to France. Torn between loyalty to the King and his duty to Parliament, Hammond confined King Charles. Refusing to compromise over a settlement with the Army or with Parliament, Charles turned to the Scots. Under the Terms of the Engagement signed in December 1647, Charles promised to impose the Covenant in England in exchange for a Scottish army to fight against Parliament. The Marquis of Argyll and other leading Scottish Presbyterians opposed the Engagement because Charles refused to take the Covenant personally, but Argyll's rival the Duke of Hamilton put himself at the head of the Engager Army and prepared to invade England. The Scottish invasion and simultaneous Royalist uprisings in England and Wales resulted in the short but bitterly-fought Second Civil War , culminating in Cromwell's victory over the Scots at the battle of Preston in August 1648. Charles was in deep trouble because his officers had lost faith in him. It was now their belief that god was on the side of the Parliamentarian cause. Tired of his deceptions and intrigues, the Army denounced King Charles as the "Man of Blood". Presbyterian sympathisers and many moderates, were thrown out of Parliament in December 1648, what was left was a small core group of MPs totally dependent on the Army for their survival. In January 1649 the core of MPs appointed a High Court of Justice and Charles was charged with high treason against the people of England. On 20 January, the King's trial opened He refused to answer the charges, saying that he did not recognise the authority of the High Court. On the 27 January 1649 he was found guilty and sentenced to death. The King was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall on 30 January. The King's execution shocked the whole of Europe. Parliament were terrified of Public disorder if Charles was intered at Westminster Abbey he was buried on 9 th of February at Windsor. Charles' personal dignity during his trial and execution had won him much sympathy. His death created a cult of martyrdom around him, which was encouraged by the publication of a book of his supposed meditations during his final months, Eikon Basilike . The ideal of Charles the Martyr helped to sustain the Royalist cause throughout the Commonwealth and Protectorate years. After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, it was sanctified in the Anglican Church. To this day, wreaths of remembrance are laid on the anniversary of King Charles' death at his statue, which faces down Whitehall to the site of his beheading The man who became Charles the second was Prince of Wales at the time of the English civil war, Charles was sent in 16454 to the West of England with his council, which included Edward Hyde (later 1st Earl of Clarendon ) and Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton . In 1646, Charles was forced to escape to France , where he stayed with his mother and was tutored by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes . In 1649, Charles vainly attempted to save his father's life by presenting to Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, thereby granting whatever terms might be requested. In 1649, after his father's execution Charles was proclaimed king in Scotland and in parts of Ireland and England after accepting the terms of the Scottish Covenanters and he came to Scotland in the year 1650 after agreeing to enforce Presbyterianism in England as well as Scotland . In Scotland Charles was for some time king in title only. It took two years of negotiation with the Presbyterians before he was finally crowned King of Scots in Scone on 1 st January 1651. However, his reign there was short lived as he was soon driven out by the republican armies, led by Oliver Cromwell. In 1651 he marched into England but was defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the battle of Worcester . Charles then escaped to France , where he lived in relative poverty. The Anglo-French negotiations of 1654 forced Charles into Germany , but he moved to the Spanish Netherlands after he had concluded (1656) a treaty with Spain . His coronation in England would not be until after Cromwell's death and the monarchy's restoration in May 1660. In 1660 Gen. George Monck engineered Charles's Restoration to the throne, and the King returned to England . Charles had promised a general amnesty in his conciliatory Declaration of Breda [ A manifesto issued in April 1660 by Charles while in exile in which he outlined his initial terms for the Restoration of the monarchy]. and he and Lord Clarendon, who became first minister, acted immediately to secure passage of the Act of Indemnity pardoning all except the regicides . The lands of the Crown and the established Church were automatically restored, but lands of Royalists and other dissenters confiscated and sold during the civil war and interregnum were left for private negotiation or litigation. , Charles also favoured religious toleration (largely because of his own leanings toward Roman Catholicism), but the strongly Anglican Cavalier Parliament, which first convened in 1661, passed the series of statutes known as the Clarendon Code , which was designed to strike at religious nonconformity. The King attempted unsuccessfully to suspend these statutes by the declaration of indulgence of 1662, which he was forced (1663) to withdraw. In the year of 1664, Charles's government endorsed the foreign policy of the Commonwealth Act; this act was a major issue in the starting of another Dutch War, wars in which both nations competed to gain maritime trade and colonial expansion . In 1665 the plague came to London and claimed many lives, this was followed by the great fire of London in 1666. Lord Clarendon fell from power in 1667, the year the war ended, to be replaced by the Cabal ministry In the year 1668 Charles took England into a Triple Alliance with Holland and Sweden , but in the year 1670 he secretly vied for the support of Louis XIV of France , Treaty of Dover was born from this subterfuge. This treaty was designed to free the king from dependence on Parliament, Charles was to adopt Roman Catholicism, convert his subjects, and wage war against the Dutch, for which Louis was to advance him a large subsidy and 6,000 men. In 1672 the third Dutch War began. Many suspected it to be a cloak for the introduction of arbitrary government and Roman Catholicism. In the year 1672, Charles was forced to rescind his second declaration of indulgence toward dissenters, to approve 1673 the Test Act , and in 1674 was forced to sign peace with the Dutch. Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby , became chief minister on the disintegration of the Cabal and inaugurated a foreign policy friendly to Holland . Charles, unable to secure money from an increasingly hostile Parliament, signed a series of secret agreements with Louis XIV, by which he received large French subsidies in return for a pro-French policy, although he feigned sympathy with the anti-French movement at home. His alliance with Louis, however, was broken (1677) by the marriage of his niece Mary to his nephew (and Louis's archenemy) William of Orange (later William III). Anti-Catholic feeling in England exploded (1678) in the affair of the Popish Plot, in which Charles did not intervene until his wife, Catherine of Braganza , was accused. However, the affair was made use of by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury , who led a movement to exclude Charles's brother, the Catholic Duke of York (later James II ), from succession to the throne, promoting instead the claim of Charles's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth In 1681 the King dissolved Parliament to block passage of Shaftesbury's Exclusion Act. Charles ruled as an absolute monarch, without a Parliament. His personal popularity increased after the exclusion crisis and particularly after the unsuccessful Rye House Plot , 1683 a plot to assassinate King Charles and his brother James Duke of York heir to the throne. He took steps to root out the supporters of exclusion (now known as the Whigs) from positions of power, coercing municipal governments into obedience by the threat that he would rescind the city charters. Charles died a Roman Catholic February 6 th 1685 and was succeeded by his brother James. He had no legitimate offspring but many children by his various mistresses, who included Lucy Walter , Barbara Villiers (duchess of Cleveland ), Louise K�roualle (duchess of Portsmouth ) and Nell Gwyn . The prospect of a Catholic monarch filled Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh Protestants with dread. The bloody persecutions of Mary, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and the attempted invasion of the Armada were kept fresh in people's minds by an active Protestant press, and Catholicism was popularly associated with tyranny and terror. Moreover, the actions of Louis XIV of France (who revoked his Protestant subjects' freedom of worship in 1685) associated Catholicism with a system of absolutism in which all authority was vested in the person of the King, and Parliament was relegated to the sidelines. James VII/II could not have picked a worse time to come to the throne. There was no such thing as a moderate Catholic monarch- all were inclined towards tyranny and despotism. To many Protestants, The people of the country awaited the decision of their king. There were other things that caused fear and here is another one of them. In what became known as � The Scotch Plot'. William of Orange who was to become King William III of Great Britain . James VII knew he would have to fight William in an attempt to save his Monarchy. In September 1688, while James was still king, apprentice boys in Londonderry closed the city's gates to deny admission to a Catholic regiment under Lord Antrim. In April 1689, the city refused to surrender to James's army, and survived the hardships of a three-month siege before relief came by sea. The Protestants of Enniskillen defended their walled city with equal vigour, and won a number of victories over Catholic troops. Eventually, James withdrew from the northern province . The final battle took place in Ireland at the famous � Battle of the Boyne ' on the Ist of July 1690. The battle of the Boyne was the decisive encounter in a war that was primarily about James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, but is widely remembered as a crucial moment in the struggle between Irish Protestant and Catholic factions. However, recent analyses have played down the religious aspect of the conflict. In fact, both armies were religiously mixed; William of Orange's own elite force � the Dutch Blue Guards� had the papal banner with them on that day, many of them being Dutch Catholics. They were part of the League of Augsburg, a cross-Christian alliance designed to stop a French conquest of Europe, supported by the VaticanThe war in Ireland was also the beginning of a long-running, but ultimately unsuccessful campaign by James's Jacobite supporters to restore the Stuarts to the British thrones. While most Jacobites in Ireland were indeed Catholics, many English and Scottish Jacobites were Protestants and were motivated by loyalty to the principle of monarchy (considering James to have been illegally deposed in a coup) or to the Stuart dynasty in particular, rather than to religion. A handful of British Jacobites fought with James at the Boyne. In addition, some of the French regiments fighting with the Jacobites were composed of German Protestants. Therefore, the battle was not a religiously motivated one, but part of a complicated political, dynastic and strategic conflict.For the Irish however, the war was a sectarian and ethnic conflict, in many ways a rerun of the confederate wars of 50 years earlier. For the Jacobites, the war was fought for Irish sovereignty, religious toleration for Catholicism and land ownership. The Catholic upper classes had lost almost all their lands after Cromwells conquest. ( the battle is commemorated now on the 12 th of July due to the change in the �Gregorian Calendar') It was not the end of the Williamite campaign, and the King had returned to England before the Dutch general Ginkel's victory at Aughrim and the formal Irish surrender after the siege of Limerick in 1691. The Treaty of Limerick was not ungenerous to the defeated Catholics, but they were soon to suffer from penal laws designed to reinforce Protestant ascendancy throughout Irish life. James retired to France where he lived at the Chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye. He continued to be recognised as king by Louis XIV of France until the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697; on June 8, 1697 , James published a protest against this treaty. James died September 16, 1701 , at the Chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye when his son (James Francis Edward) succeeded him in all his British rights. His body was laid (in a coffin, but not buried) in the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris . His brain was sent to the Scots College in Paris , his heart to the Convent of the Visitandine Nuns at Chaillot and his bowels divided between the English Church of St. Omer and the parish church of St. Germain-en-Laye. James' body remained in the Church of the English Benedictines, waiting translation to Westminster Abbey, until the French Revolution when it were desecrated by the mob and lost. King William III began his reign with his wife Mary. By all accounts he was a very shrewd and devious man. The thing he needed and wanted, were the parliaments of Scotland and England united as one. Using his own cunning methods this was accomplished a few short years after his death . For now, although Scotland and England shared a monarch, they were still largely politically and economically independent. William Paterson, a Scot born in Tinwald in Dumfriesshire in 1658 conceived the idea of a scheme while living briefly in the Bahamas, his plan was to create a colony on the isthmus of Panama, faciliating trade with the Far East. The scheme was intended to secure a wider market for Scottish traders as, under the English Navigation Acts, Scotland was deemed a foreign country, incapable of participating in the trading privileges of England. Interest in the scheme was so universal that during only a few years an extensive Darien literature came into existence. Paterson returned to Europe, and attempted to convince the English government under James II to undertake the Dari�n scheme. When they refused, he tried again to persuade the governments of the Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic to establish a colony in Panama, but failed in both cases. William Patterson made his first fortune through international trade, travelling extensively throughout the America's and West Indies. Another major claim to fame was that he was the driving force in the establishment of the Bank of England, The Bank of England was founded in 1694 to act as the Government's banker and debt-manager. When it was established all Goldsmiths were made illegal. The Goldsmiths had supplied a service that let people keep their gold safe using their vaults. This had an immediate effect on the customers. Many of them had reserves of gold that could not be kept on their person or in their homes; their only alternative was to use the newly founded bank. The bank became the first in the world to use �reserve-banking' techniques. Here is a small explanation of the concept They must have cash on hand sufficient to redeem a smallish fraction of As you can see it was basicly a licence to print money. The bank grew quickly into a huge financial institution. Paterson returned to Scotland , (the land of his birth) with the intention of making his second fortune utilising the scheme of massive proportion. Paterson planned to create a link between east and west, which could command the trade of the two great oceans of the world, the Pacific and Atlantic . In the year of 1693, He helped to set up the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in Edinburgh to establish an entire port on the Isthmus of Darien (the narrow neck of land separating North and South America now known as Panama ). Paterson claimed that the company would prosper through foreign trade and promoted Darien as a remote spot where Scots could settle. Paterson 's original idea for this grand expedition may have been formed when talking to the famous William Dampier (1652-1715), British explorer and sea captain, who was one of the most highly, regarded mapmakers and navigators of all time. Dampier was born in Somersetshire , England and went to sea by age 16. Between 1675 and 1678 he became involved with buccaneers along the Spanish Main in Central America . These adventures, told in his own books, are corroborated in the writings of two of Dampier's shipmates, Basil Ringrose (whose journal was included in Esquemeling's Buccaneers of America , printed in 1685); and the surgeon Lionel Wafer, whose own account was published in 1699. Dampier's most unusual associate, however, was probably Alexander Selkirk, a member of the crew of the 1703 voyage who was marooned by his own wish on Juan Fernandez Island . Selkirk's story was retold by Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe (1719), he was eventually rescued by Dampier on his last voyage. Dampier convinced Paterson that a new colony would do well in that area of the world. Some have said: 'The Darien venture was the most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in the 17th century�The Scots were the first to realise the strategic importance of the area..." Whilst others claimed: "They were plain daft to try�. It was disaster. They never had a chance."� I will leave it up to the individual reader to decide which of these two statements are true. The original directors who set up the new �Company of Scotland' were Scottish and English in equal numbers, with the risk investment capital being shared half from the English and Dutch, and the other half from the Scots. However under pressure from the East India Company , afraid of loosing their trade monopoly, the English Parliament withdrew its support for the scheme at the last minute, forcing the English and Dutch to withdraw and leaving the Scots as sole investors. There were very few Scots that had the minimum �5 stake who did not buy into this �chance of a lifetime' the money raised was approximately �500,000 - about half of the national capital available. Thousands more volunteered to travel on board the five ships that had been chartered to carry the pioneers to their new home where Scots could settle, including famine driven Highlanders and soldiers discharged following the Glencoe Massacre. The ships sailed from Leith harbour on 12 July 1698 with 1,200 people onboard. Paterson was among them and his wife, who sadly for him died on the voyage. The journey itself had turned in to a trip of nightmarish proportions and there were many deaths and illness among the travellers. They finally arrived at the hellhole now known as Darien , on 30 October 1698 . Many of the adventurous people were quarrelling as power struggles arose among the elected councillors. Once they had landed and established a campsite they renamed the land Caledonia , and called the capital New Edinburgh. The first task was to dig graves for the dead pioneers. The situation grew even more frantic because of a lack of food and attacks from hostile Spaniards. The indigenous people of Darien took pity on the Scots, bringing them gifts of fruit and fish. Seven months after arriving, 400 Scots were dead. The rest were emaciated and yellow with fever. They decided to abandon the scheme. English ships had been told by William III to offer no aid to the people of Darien , was this all part of a greater plot? � In those days before the telephone or radio communication, six more ships set sail from Leith in November 1699 loaded with further 1,300 hopeful pioneers, They obviously were unaware of the horrors awaiting them, or the fate of their fellow Scots who were in the spearhead of the scheme. News had not reached Scotland and a third fleet of five ships left Leith shortly after. � Out of sixteen ships that had originally sailed for the mosquito infected islands only one returned. Only a handful survived the return journey. Scotland had paid the ultimate penalty for their chance at a new life. More than 2,000 Scots died in total on this ill-fated scheme.. A knock on effect was the total loss of the �500,000 in investment, and the Scottish economy was almost bankrupted. It has been argued that the Darien Scheme crippled the country's economy to such an extent that it triggered the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and led to the 1707 Union with England . A mere coincidence, or had the English withdrawal from the scheme been deliberately engineered to ensure its failure? You can decide for yourself. So what happened next? Uniting the kingdoms of Scotland and England had been proposed for a hundred years before it actually happened in 1707.� From the day when James VI of Scotland and I of England had been crowned it was expected that the parliaments would eventually unite. Suspicion and mistrust between the two countries had prevented the union throughout the 17th century.� The Scots feared that they would simply become another region of England , being swallowed up as had happened to Wales some four hundred years earlier.� For England the fear that the Scots may take sides with France and rekindle the 'Auld Alliance' was decisive.� England relied heavily on Scottish soldiers and to have them turn and join ranks with the French would have been disastrous. When the Darien Scheme collapsed and with Scotland in financial chaos, William III played his hand and bribed the Scottish MPs, Lords and Ladies with cash incentives. If they would vote to unite the parliaments, then the king would give them some of their lost money back. Many of the Scottish gentry jumped at this chance to recoup their losses. In the words of Robert Burns, they (the Scottish MP's) were "bought and sold for English gold". 1. � Neither side was completely happy with the Union that many historians view as "judicious bribery." The Scottish people, in particular, had to balance the loss of their ancient independence against the need to open themselves up to a wider world and greater opportunities than their own country could provide. The English gained needed security, for no longer could European powers use Scotland as a base for an attack on its southern neighbour. Scotland kept its legal system and the Presbyterian Kirk, but gave up its Parliament in exchange for 45 seats in the House of Commons and 16 seats in the House of Lords. The act proclaimed that there would be "one United Kingdom by the name of Great Britain " with one Protestant ruler, one legislature and one system of free trade. When Anne died in 1714, George I, a Lutheran, became King of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Settlement. So it is now make your mind up time. Has the union been good to Scotland or has the larger partner of the union benefited most from the uneven partnership. Only you can decide. Over the next few months, and up until the election in May 2007 Crann Tara intend to set out the Pros and cons for Unity or Independence . We are a non-political organisation and only wish to convey the facts to people who can then make up their own mind. More will follow in two weeks time. Meantime here is the preface to the Act of Union. |
The Treaty (or Act) of Union , 1707The preface of the Act of UnionACT RATIFYING AND APPROVING TREATY OF THE TWO KINGDOMS OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND . January 16, 1707 . |
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The Estates of Parliament considering that articles of Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England were agreed on the 22nd of July 1706 years, by the commissioners nominated on behalf of this kingdom, under Her Majesty's Great Seal of Scotland, bearing date the 27th of February last past, in pursuance of the fourth Act of the third Session of this Parliament, and the commissioners nominated on behalf of the kingdom of England, under Her Majesty's Great Seal of England, bearing date at Westminster the 10th day of April last past, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament made in England the third year of Her Majesty's reign, to treat of and concerning a union of the said kingdoms; which articles were, in all humility, presented to Her Majesty upon the 23rd of the said month of July, and were recommended to this Parliament by Her Majesty's royal letter of the date the 31st day of July, 1706; and that the said Estates of Parliament have agreed to, and approven of the said Articles of Union, with some additions.I� That the two kingdoms of Scotland and England shall, upon the Ist day of May next ensuing the date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain, and that the ensigns armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall appoint, and the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George be conjoined in such manner as Her Majesty shall think fit, and used in all flags, banners, standards and ensigns, both at sea and land.II� That the succession to the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and of the dominions thereunto belonging, after Her Most Sacred Majesty, and in default of issue of Her Majesty, be, remain, and continue to the most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electoress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants, upon whom the crown of England Is settled by an Act of Parliament made in England in the twelfth year of the reign of His late Majesty King William III., entltuled, "An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject :" And that all Papists, and persons marrying Papists, shall be excluded from, and for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Imperial Crown of Great Britain, and the dominions thereunto belonging or any part thereof, and in every such case the Crown and Government shall, from time to time, descend to, and be enjoyed by such person, being a Protestant� III� That the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament, to be styled the Parliament of Great Britain.IV� That all the subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall, from and after the Union, have full freedom and intercourse of trade and navigation, to and from any port or place within the said United Kingdom, and the dominions and plantations thereunto belonging, and that there be a communication of all other rights, privileges, and advantages which do or may belong to the subjects of either kingdom, except where it is otherwise expressly agreed in these articles.V . That all ships or vessels belonging to her Majesty's subjects of Scotland, at the time of ratifying the Treaty of Union of the two kingdoms in the Parliament of Scotland, though foreign built, be deemed and pass as ships of the build of Great Britain. The owner, or, where there are more owners, one or more of the owners, within twelve months after the 1st of May next, making oath that at the time of ratifying the Treaty of Union in the Parliament of Scotland, the same did, in whole or in part, belong to him or them, or to some other subject or subjects of Scotland, to be particularly named, with the place of their respective abodes, and that the same doth then, at the time of the said deposition, wholly belong to him or them, and that no foreigner, directly or indirectly, hath any share, part, or interest therein; which oath shall be made before the chief officer or officers of the customs, in the port next to the abode of the said owner or owners; and the�VI� That all parts of the United Kingdom forever,from and after the Union, shall have the same allowances, encouragements, and drawbacks, and be under the same prohibitions, restrictions, and regulations of trade, and liable to the same customs and duties on import and export; and that the allowances, encouragements, and drawbacks. Prohibitions, restrictions, and regulations of trade, and the customs and duties on import and export settled in England, when the Union commences, shall, from and after the Union, take place throughout the whole United Kingdom excepting and reserving the duties upon export and import of such particular commodities from which any persons, the subjects of either kingdom, are specially liberated and exempted by their private rights, which after the Union are to remain safe and entire to them, in all respects, as before the same; and that, from and after the Union, no Scots cattle carried into England shall be liable to;�VII� That all parts of the United Kingdom be forever from and after the Union, liable to the same excises upon all excisable liquors, excepting only that the thirty four gallons English barrel of beer or ale, amounting to twelve gallons Scots, present measure, sold in Scotland by the brewer at 9s. 6d. Sterling, excluding all duties, and retailed, including duties and the retailer's profit, at 2d. the Scots pint, or eighth part of the Scots gallon, be not, after the Union, liable, on account of the present excise upon excisable liquors in England, to any higher imposition than 2s sterling upon the aforesaid thirty-four gallons English barrel, being twelve gallons the present Scots measure, and that the excise settled in England on all other liquors, when the Union commences, take place throughout the whole United Kingdom.VIII� That, from and after the Union, all foreign salt which shall be imported into Scotland shall be charged, at the importation there, with the same duties as the like salt is now charged with, being imported into England, and to be levied and secured in the same manner. But in regard the duties of great quantities of foreign salt imported may be very heavy on the merchants importers, That therefore all foreign salt imported into Scotland shall be cellared and locked up under the custody of the merchant importer and the officers employed for levying the duties upon salt; and that the merchant may have what quantities thereof his occasion may require, not under a weigh of forty bushels at a time, giving security for the duty of what quantity he receives, payable in six months; but Scotland shall, for the space of seven years from the said Union, be exempted from paying in Scotland for salt made there the duty or excise now payable for salt made in England;�IX� That whenever the sum of � 1,997,763 8s. 4?d. shall be enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain, to be raised in that part of the United Kingdom now called England, on land and other things usually charged in Acts of Parliament there for granting an aid to the Crown by a land tax, that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland shall be charged by the same Act with a further sum of � 48,000 free of all charges, as the quota of Scotland to such tax, and so proportionally for any greater or lesser sum raised in England by any tax on land, and other things usually charged, together with the land; and that such quota for Scotland, in the cases aforesaid, be raised and collected in the same manner as the cess now is in Scotland but subject to such regulations in the manner of collecting as shall be made by the Parliament of Great Britain.
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