The Early History of the Scottish Union Question / Bi-Centenary Edition

by George W. T. Omond

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.