KAREN BOWIE

There was considerable popular resistance to the Union of 1707, but it could have been much more effective if Jacobites and Protestants had put aside their disagreements.

Only a few Scots were enthusiastic enough to petition in support of the Treaty of Union, while more were ready to acquiesce for fear of something worse. Some expected that rejection would lead the English to renew the 1705 Aliens Act, with its threat of economic sanctions. War between England and Scotland had been mooted in pamphlets and remained in the air in 1706-7. Support for the treaty also turned on fears of civil disorder within Scotland.

A perilous state of mayhem seemed imminent as riots broke out in Edinburgh and Glasgow in late 1706 and rumours spread of an armed march on parliament. Concern over bloody unrest and a possible Jacobite coup underpinned clerical support for a letter issued by the Commission of the General Assembly asking clergy to help calm the people. At the same time, the movement of royal troops to the English border served to emphasise England's martial power.

If ratification relied on a combination of feared consequences and anticipated gains, it also rested on the opposition's failure to destabilise the 1706-7 parliamentary session in Edinburgh. Anti-Unionists succeeded in organising remarkable levels of popular petitioning and crowd protests against the treaty, accompanied by publication of large numbers of anti-Union pamphlets. There were 80 petitions from shires, burghs and parishes, plus riots in Edinburgh and Glasgow and demonstrations elsewhere. But it proved impossible to launch sufficiently aggressive action against parliament as fundamental differences within the anti-Union camp eroded unity.

Presbyterian and Jacobite anti-Unionists shared a sense of patriotism to the Scottish kingdom and could agree on certain arguments, such as those against higher customs and excise taxes in economic union or the paucity of Scotland's representation in the new British Parliament, but they could not concur on alternatives to the treaty. Ideological incompatibility played a major role in reducing the effectiveness of popular resistance. Jacobite Episcopalians and covenanting Presbyterians protested the loss of the Scottish kingdom, but disagreed on the kind of kingdom they hoped to save.

For hardline Presbyterians the treaty offended their covenanting principles by erasing the Scottish kingdom and replacing the Scottish Parliament with a British assembly in which English bishops would sit. Anglicans would have a clear majority. While moderates highlighted the problem of Catholic France, covenanting Presbyterians saw not just France but England and its Anglican Tories as an immediate threat to the Presbyterian Church. They expected the Tories to disestablish their church, or at least give toleration to Scottish Episcopalians in union. Toleration in turn was expected to encourage Jacobitism.

Many Presbyterians protested against the treaty during the 1706-7 session. Most of the 80 addresses delivered to the Scottish Parliament from ordinary people in the shires, burghs, parishes and presbyteries contained an explicitly Presbyterian message.

While incorporationists felt able to solve the problem of the Protestant succession by joining with England in a British union, anti-incorporationists did not. Distrust of England also appeared in economic matters, with widespread complaints on the imposition of higher English customs and excise rates and the likely domination of British trade by the English through their control of parliamentary regulation.

Presbyterians and Jacobites tried to make common cause for the ancient Scottish kingdom. Both groups could support anti-English expressions such as that found in a 1706 broadside warning the Scots not to let go of their sovereignty lest they "all be slaves". Anti-Unionists of any stripe could join in riots in which government figures were targeted, or in demonstrations in which the Articles of Union were burned. A march of the trades in Glasgow in early November brought together artisans with a simple anti-incorporation message, the men having papers pinned to their hats saying: "No incorporating union". These protests produced remarkable levels of popular engagement in political affairs and brought significant pressure to bear on the government in Edinburgh.

Difficulties arose when national leaders attempted to organise Presbyterian-Jacobite action requiring agreement on more than just the rejection of incorporation. Between November 1706 and January 1707, three successive attempts to disrupt parliament failed. Focusing on elite politics, historians have blamed this on the Duke of Hamilton and his vacillating leadership of the Country Party (which represented the parliamentary opposition). It seems clear that Hamilton chose to limit his support to avoid being blamed by the Queen and her ministers for the failure of the treaty. Hamilton's behaviour, however, does not fully explain the collapse of these plans. Discord and distrust also hampered the opposition.

In November 1706, several Jacobite members of parliament supported an attempt to provoke covenanting Presbyterians in the south-west to march in arms to Edinburgh. At the last minute, Hamilton wrote letters calling off the rising. In the end, only a small group of Glaswegians, led by a Jacobite, marched to Hamilton's estate in late November, expecting to meet many thousands more. This little band was sent packing by the staunchly Presbyterian Duchess of Hamilton.

With the collapse of the rising, anti-Union leaders called their followers to Edinburgh in the hope of intimidating parliament with crowds of petitioners and a mass address to the Queen. As hundreds arrived in mid-December, action was stalled by disagreements among the organisers over whether their address should call for the settlement of the succession instead of incorporation. The Jacobites resisted. The government dispersed the crowds by securing an act of parliament against unauthorised gatherings of freeholders.

A final attempt to undermine the authority of the nearly-ratified treaty collapsed in early January 1707 as Hamilton refused to lead a planned exodus of anti-Unionists from parliament. With a mass exit of members likely to weaken the authority of the treaty, he chose to opt out of the protest. The other leader of the opposition, the Duke of Atholl, failed to step into the breach after objecting to the Hanoverian terms of the protest. Parliament continued undisturbed and completed the ratification of the treaty by mid-January.