In England the Union, if not unpopular, was regarded with indifference. In the Protector’s “House of Lords” there were three Scotsmen, Lord Casselis, Sir William Lockhart, and Johnston of Warriston, the last of whom seems to have wearied the House with long and frequent speeches. In the House of Commons the members from Scotland gave no trouble, and are said, indeed, never to have opened their lips. The commercial advantages, however, which Scotland had secured by the Union caused great jealousy among the English merchants; and on the English side of the border the establishment of free trade between the countries was viewed with disfavour. But, on the whole, the broad current of English life flowed on, undisturbed by the existence of the Union.
CHAPTER IV
FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION
At the Restoration the advisability of continuing the Union was discussed. In England it was maintained that the smaller country must give up its Parliament and its separate system of laws, or that it must, at all events, make the first advance, and say definitely on what terms it would unite. In Scotland it was foreseen that not only would the native Parliament and the native laws be destroyed in the event of a union, but that also, in all probability, the Church would be sacrificed. But the prosperity which the country was beginning to enjoy might have reconciled many of the people to these changes.[91]
The Restoration was hailed with joy by the nobles, who hoped that they would again have their Parliament and their Privy Council, by means of which their families were aggrandised, and their hereditary jurisdictions and feudal rights, which gave them so much authority over their tenants and retainers. The clergy, smarting under the indignities to which they had lately been subjected, and believing that Charles would keep faith with them and establish Presbytery, welcomed the change, and at once began to pray again for the king. Clarendon, however, was of opinion that the majority of Scotsmen were in favour of the continuance of the Union. He himself was in favour of leaving things as they were. “But the king,” he says, “would not build according to Cromwell’s models, and had many reasons to continue Scotland within its own limits and bounds, and sole dependence upon himself, rather than unite it to England with so many hazards and dangers as would inevitably have accompanied it, under any government less tyrannical than that of Cromwell.”[92]
Lauderdale, whose influence in Scottish affairs was now well-nigh supreme, was strongly in favour of removing all traces of the Commonwealth government. To begin with, he insisted that the fortresses which Cromwell had built should be demolished and their garrisons withdrawn. The time might come, he told the king, when he would be in need of Scottish garrisons in England, and to maintain an English army in Scotland would alienate the affections of the Scottish people. The fortresses were, accordingly, dismantled, and the army of occupation was disbanded. Every trace of the Union soon disappeared. The Estates met in the Parliament House once more; and the judges took their places on the bench of the Court of Session.
On the question of the Church, Lauderdale’s advice was not followed. His view was that, instead of aiming at an Union, either civil or religious, between the two countries, the object of the Government should be to disunite them by all possible means, and, at the same time, to keep the people of Scotland in good humour by giving them whatever form of Church government they wanted, in order that they might be willing to serve the king, if necessary, against the Parliament of England. Such was the advice of Lauderdale. Charles himself, though he detested Presbytery, was at first inclined to take it. But, in the end, the intrigues of the Episcopal faction prevailed; and it was resolved to establish an Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Chancellor explained to Lauderdale that it was intended to set up only a modified form of prelacy. “My Lord,” he sternly answered, “since you are for bishops and must have them, bishops you shall have, and higher than ever they were in Scotland.”
These words came true. If the statesmen of England had asked, By what means shall we most easily irritate and exasperate the Scottish people? how can we alienate them from England? how can we render the royal family unpopular? how can we destroy the trade of Scotland, which is beginning to improve? how can we throw the country, which is settling down, back into anarchy and confusion? how can we most successfully unite against the Church of England the whole body of the Scottish people? how can we produce a profound distrust in all measures which are proposed by the Council in London? by what means, in short, can we best make the people of Scotland disloyal, poverty-stricken, and rebellious?—if these questions had been asked, some evil councillor might have answered them thus: Pass, he might have said, an Act of Parliament which will destroy their commerce; abolish the Union, and thus destroy free trade between them and the English; restore to the owners of the soil the jurisdictions by means of which they tyrannised over their dependants in the past, and by means of which they will be able to tyrannise over them in the future; restore the tenure of lands by military service, and thus you will, in a few years, people every hamlet over a large portion of the country with restless and idle clansmen, whose only business in life is to foment feuds between their masters, and to seek plunder for themselves; above all things, let the king destroy the Presbyterian Church which he swore to establish when he took that solemn vow, on the faith of which the crown of Scotland was placed upon his head; let the great noble whose hands performed the act of coronation, and to whom a Dukedom and a Garter were promised, be accused of treason for a tardy compliance with the usurper, and let the rules of legal procedure be strained in order to procure his condemnation; eject from their livings the clergy whom the people trust; let enormous fines, far in excess of what the country can bear, be inflicted on every class for the offence of nonconformity; punish with death those who listen to the clergy preaching in the fields because you have driven them from the churches. All this, and a great deal more, was done. The years which followed the Restoration were the most miserable in the history of Scotland. The great source of misery was the desperate contest between the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Churches; but the commercial policy of the English Parliament is what chiefly bears on the question of the Union.