The Scots and the Union

'Bought and sold for English gold' and bowing to barely-veiled threats of English invasion, the Scottish politicians who abandoned independence and voted instead for a union with England in 1707 have fared badly at the hands of Scottish historians.

Over the past half century many have argued that political principle and patriotism were the preserves of opposition MPs. They were the true defenders of the nation's interest who rose against the pro-Union traitors. Indeed, in this view, the Union of 1707 had only token support among the Scots and remains for many today a constitutional arrangement lacking in any legitimacy. So it is that 300 years on there is an identifiable nervousness about the Union of 1707 in some quarters of Scotland.

With history and politics clashing in 2007 as the Scottish Parliament elections coincide with the tri-centenary of Union, this debate will burn even brighter than usual. Gordon Brown's recent speech on Britishness and his personal ambitions, the West Lothian question in a post-devolution UK and Jack McConnell's fight against a resurgent SNP - all make the contribution of Dundee academic Professor Christopher Whatley FRSE timely in the extreme.

In his book, The Scots and the Union, he argues that the popular conception of the Union of 1707 as a betrayal of Scotland's interests, as something about which Scots - even today - should feel uncomfortable or ashamed about, is deeply mistaken.

Here, Professor Whatley presents some insight into the reasons for the Union of 1707 and explains why pro-unionists had every right to consider themselves as Scottish patriots.

The Union brought with it new coins, imperial weights and measures, higher and deeply unpopular taxes and an army of customs and excise officers to collect them, as well as cultural and political challenges for the Scots. For many, the struggle for acceptance of the Union ran on long after 1707 and there remains a widely held belief that those Scottish politicians who steered the Scots towards incorporation had a long pedigree of unionism. But was this the case? Or did those politicians really have Scotland's best interests at heart?

Before 1707 the Scottish state was virtually bankrupt and unable to support the ambitions of Scots who wished to emulate their more successful counterparts not only south of the border but also on mainland Europe. Through the 1960s and into the early 1700s the Scottish Parliament had adopted a series of fresh measures designed to improve the situation, but most - including the establishment of the remarkable Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies - had failed.

There is evidence that those who had investigated Scotland's economic problems at the time also supported the Union as it gave the Scots legal access to what had been England's colonial suppliers and markets in the Caribbean and North America.

The men who negotiated the Union of 1707, some of whom had been unhappy with England's attitudes to Scotland during earlier negotiations in 1702-3, were determined that their demands should be met, and in most respects they were. Particularly welcome was compensation for the Scots' massive financial losses in the Company of Scotland.

Economic concerns are only part of the story. A critical stepping stone in the making of the Union in 1707 was the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Linked to this was the profound sense of loyalty a number of Scots felt towards King William, formerly the Prince of Orange, and his successor, Queen Anne, both of whom pressed strongly for a union that would unite their subjects on the British mainland.

Often overlooked in what can be overly parochial studies of the Union is the context in which it took place. Dynastic and religious struggles were dividing the people of Europe at the end of the seventeenth century and the start of the eighteenth. England's position was by no means secure, nor was that of Scotland. For many of those Scots who had back the Revolution, the enemy - and real threat - was Louis XIV's France, as well as the Catholic Church of the Counter Reformation.

The staunchest unionists in the Scottish Parliament in 1706-7 were men, or descendents of men, who had been exiled, mainly to the Low Countries, under the Stuarts. They had suffered imprisonment, in some cases torture and the loss of their estates as a result of their resistance to the religious policies of Charles II and his brother James VII, and in defence of what they saw as the removal of political liberties. 'Protestant memory' and a determination never again to return to the so-called 'Killing Times' made many men, and their wives and families, look to the Union for salvation.

Thus for men like the Dukes of Queensbury and Argyll, incorporating union was the best means of securing the Revolution settlement. Their deeply principled stance was based on their attachment to Protestantism and recognition that the Scots in the lowlands and the English spoke the same language and inhabited the same island.

There was in some minds a strong consciousness of British-ness, in many cases acquired in military service on the battlefields of Europe in the later seventeenth century and during the war of the Spanish Succession, which broke out in 1702.

It is also important to note that in the early years of the eighteenth century, Scotland was a nation divided. To suggest, as some writers have, that the Union was a measure imposed by England on reluctant Scots is a gross over-simplification.

In 1701 England had agreed that Queen Anne should be succeeded by a protestant of the House of Hanover. The Scottish Parliament had been less keen. Accordingly, the Jacobites - whose aim was to restore the Stuarts to the Scottish throne - used every means at their disposal to delay and block a union or any treaty that would settle succession on the House of Hanover. Cleverly, they managed to link their dynastic interest with that of Scottish independence and opposition to incorporating union. So successful was this ploy that it still registers as an element of Scottish identity today.

Other divisions also existed within Scottish society, not least those within Presbyterianism. Moderates and political pragmatists tended to favour union. In parts of the country, fundamentalists, thirled to the Solemn League and Covenant, wanted no truck with the prelatical English. Often the claim is made that the Scots were overwhelmingly opposed to the Union, and thousands signed petitions against it, believing sincerely in the sanctity and longevity of Scottish nationhood and the desirability of maintaining an independent Scottish Parliament. However, much of the evidence suggests that the widespread existence of what we would now called 'don't knows', who appealed to God to guide them.

The idea that popular opinion played no part in shaping the terms of the treaty of the Union is deeply erroneous.

A rigorous examination and years of exhaustive research have made clear to me that historians critical of the manner in which the Union was achieved, and who question its legitimacy, have made serious mistakes in interpreting the available evidence.

In doing so, they have managed to besmirch unwarrantedly the reputations of an earlier generation of Scottish politicians.

The Scots and the Union is published by Edinburgh University Press and will be on sale from 19 October.

Professor Christopher A Whatley FRSE is a Professor of History and Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Arts and Social Sciences.