Douglas and the Act of Union
 
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| Can you help build a record of how the Douglas family
were involved in establishing the Union with England, or sought to
prevent it? This is what we know so far:
- Archibald Douglas, Earl of Forfar voted for the Union of Crowns
in 1707, having allegedly received £100 in payment from the English.
- Baron Alexander Douglas of Eagleshaw also voted for the Union,
but received no payment, as did the Earl of Mortoun (sic).
- Barons Archibald Douglas of Cavers and William Douglas of
Dornock voted against the Union,
- James Douglas, 11th Earl of Morton
was a member of the Privy Council of Queen Anne, and was one
of the commissioners for the Union.
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If you can contribute, then we
would be very grateful. What might have been...
read Michael Fry's thoughts >>>
The Acts of Union were two Acts of
Parliament passed in 1707 (taking effect on 1 May) by the Parliament of
England and the Parliament of Scotland. The acts were the implementation
of the Treaty of Union negotiated between the two kingdoms. The effect of
the Acts was twofold:
* to create a new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the
name had been used on occasion since 1603 when speaking of the Kingdoms of
England and Scotland together, which had shared a monarch from that date
but retained sovereign parliaments. Wales was also part of Great Britain
since it had been absorbed by England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542.
* to dissolve both parliaments and replace them with a new Parliament
of Great Britain (known as the Union of the Parliaments). The new
parliament was to be based in the former home of the English Parliament.
Walter Thomas Monnington's 1925 painting called Parliamentary Union of
England and Scotland 1707 hangs in the Palace of Westminster, depicting
the official presentation of the law that formed the Kingdom of Great
Britain. Enlarge Walter Thomas Monnington's 1925 painting called
Parliamentary Union of England and Scotland 1707 hangs in the Palace of
Westminster, depicting the official presentation of the law that formed
the Kingdom of Great Britain. While there had been three attempts in 1606,
1667 and 1689 to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, these were
the first Acts that had the will of both political establishments behind
them, albeit for rather different reasons.
In the English case, the
purpose was to establish the Royal succession along Protestant lines in
the same manner as provided for by the English Act of Settlement 1701,
rather than that of the Scottish Act of Security. The two countries had
shared a king for much of the previous century. The English were now
concerned that an independent Scotland with a different king, even if he
were a Protestant, might make alliances against England. In the Scottish
case, the purpose was partly to use English subsidies [citation needed] to
recover from the financial problems caused by the failure of the Darién
scheme and partly to remove English trade sanctions put in place through
the Alien Act to force the Scottish Parliament into compliance with the
Act of Settlement. The treaty consisted of 25 articles, 15 of which were
economic in character.
In Scotland, each article was voted on separately
and several clauses in articles were delegated to specialised
subcommittees. Article 1 of the treaty was based on the political
principle of an incorporating union and this was secured by a majority of
115 votes to 83 on 4 November 1706. In order to minimise the opposition of
the Church of Scotland, an act was also passed to secure the Presbyterian
establishment of the Church, after which the Church stopped its open
opposition, although hostility remained at lower levels of the clergy. The
treaty as a whole was finally ratified on 16 January 1707 by a majority of
110 votes to 67.
The ultimate securing of the treaty in the Scottish
Parliament can be attributed more to the weakness and lack of cohesion
between the various opposition groups in the House as opposed to the
strength of pro-incorporationists [citation needed]. The combined votes of
the Court party with a majority of the Squadrone Volante were sufficient
to ensure the final passage of the treaty through the House. Many members
had invested heavily in the Darién Scheme and they believed that they
would receive compensation for their losses; Article 14, the Equivalent
granted GBP398,085 10s to Scotland to offset future liability towards the
English national debt. In essence, it was also used a means of
compensation for investors in Darién. Financial persuasion were also
prevalent. £20,000 (£240,000 Scots) was despatched to Scotland for
distribution by the Earl of Glasgow.
James Douglas, 2nd Duke of
Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament, received £12,325,
the majority of the funding. The Acts of Union were far from universally
popular in Scotland, particularly amongst the general population. Many
petitions were sent to the Scottish Parliament against union, and there
were massive protests in Edinburgh and several other Scottish towns on the
day it was passed [citation needed], as threats of widespread civil unrest
resulted in the imposition of martial law by the Parliament. Sir George
Lockhart of Carnwath, a Jacobite and the only member of the Scottish
negotiating team who was not pro-incorporation, noted that `The whole
nation appears against the Union'. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, an ardent
pro-unionist and Union negotiator, observed that the treaty was `contrary
to the inclinations of at least three-fourths of the Kingdom'.
Daniel
Defoe's first reports were of vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations
against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind," he later
reported "for every Scot in favour there is 99 against". Public opinion
against the Treaty as it passed through the Scottish Parliament was voiced
through petitions from Scottish localities. Anti-union petitions were
received from shires, burghs, presbyteries and parishes.
The Convention of
Royal Burghs also petitioned against the Union and not one petition in
favour of an incorporating union was received by Parliament. The two Acts
incorporated provisions for Scotland to send representative peers from the
Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House of Lords. It guaranteed that the
Church of Scotland would remain the established church in Scotland, that
the Court of Session would "remain in all time coming within Scotland",
and that Scots law would "remain in the same force as before". Other
provisions included the restatement of the Act of Settlement 1701 and the
ban on Catholics from taking the throne. It also created a customs union
and monetary union.
Scotland kept its independence with respect to its
legal (Article 19), religious and education systems. The Act provided that
any "laws and statutes" that were "contrary to or inconsistent with the
terms" of the Act would "cease and become void."
See also:
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