Love me sweet,
Never let me go
Elvis Presley
During the debates about Scottish independence, focus has been placed upon the 1707 Act of Union yet the earlier union by the republican Oliver Cromwell is often overlooked. Under the Tender of Union Scotland was declared part of a Commonwealth with England and Ireland. 360 years ago, almost to the month, the first of three Protectorate Parliaments was summoned by the Cromwell on 3rd September 1654.
After the English invasion of 1650, and the defeat of its armies Scotland was placed under English military occupation with General Monck as military governor.The first instinct of the English regime of annexation were dropped in favour of a more moderate constitutional settlement, involving a degree of Scottish involvement. These proposals were set forth by the Rump Parliament in a Declaration of Parliament ‘concerning the settlement of Scotland’ issued in its final form in December 1651 which made clear parliament’s intention, on grounds of ‘freedom’ and ‘security’, that Scotland should be ‘incorporated’ with England into a single ‘Commonwealth’. All crown lands in Scotland were to be appropriated and all Scots who had supported the royalist cause would also lose their lands; thus all those who had been involved in the Scottish-royalist invasion of 1648 of England as well as in the renewed war of 1650-51 would lose their estates. Finally, the Declaration promised peace, protection and the enjoyment of their ‘Liberties and Estates’ to all other Scots, pledging to abolish all feudal duties still attached to the holding of land in Scotland, freeing people from their former ‘dependencies and bondage-service’ and so creating ‘free people’ who held land on ‘easie rents’ and ‘reasonable conditions’ Thus creating a more free and modern system of land-holding in Scotland which curtailed the power of the Scottish aristocracy over the people.
The Declaration became the basis for negotiations over the ensuing two years and from January to April 1652 commissioners sent by the English parliament met elected representatives of the towns and counties of Scotland in Dalkeith, to present and explain the Declaration and to obtain from the Scottish representatives pledges that they would accept those terms. The commissioners secured acceptance from an overwhelming majority of the Scottish representatives and from October 1652 to April 1653 a delegation chosen by elected representatives of Scottish towns and counties, held further discussions in London with the Rump parliament.
The English parliament drew up and debated a Bill for the Union of Scotland, which would also give Scotland the right to send MPs to sit in future in single Anglo-Scottish-Irish parliament. The new Protectorate government’s written constitution, the Instrument of Government, paved the way for union, for it implied and stated that the political and constitutional union was a fact, repeatedly stressed that it was a British not an English constitution, speaking of England, Scotland and Ireland, too, comprising a single Commonwealth, and allocated Scotland a small number of seats in the new, elected, single-chambered parliaments which were to meet from time to time. The ordinance uniting Scotland with England as a single Commonwealth confirmed that Scotland would receive 30 seats in the Protectorate parliaments. It formally abolished both the separate Scottish parliament and monarchy in Scotland and discharged the people from any allegiance to the Stuart line and family.
This political union was to be matched by an economic union, for goods were to travel freely between England and Scotland which would be encompassed within the single, Commonwealth-wide tax system. The ordinance went on to abolish almost all the remaining elements of the feudal tenurial system in Scotland and with it all feudal obligations imposed upon land and land tenure, including ‘servitude’, ‘vassallage’, military service and the separate judicial powers of landowners. The ordinance uniting Scotland with England effectively abolished the judicial powers and ‘private’ courts of Scottish landowners. A general feeling existed even among Scottish people that the English rule of law was more merciful to the Scottish than the Scots had previously been to one another. This was perhaps no more apparent than in the Highlands. The clan system, often viewed through a haze of romanticism, was patriarchal and authoritarian. Through bonds of kinship and mutual obligation, it allowed a large lower class to be controlled and exploited by a small aristocracy. One of the first acts of the new government of union was to offer an amnesty to all vassals and tenants who had followed their clan leaders or lords in opposing the English. The journal, Mercurius Scoticus, advised: ‘Free the poor commoners, and make as little use as can be of either the great men or clergy.’ Many measures proposed by the Declaration of the settlement aimed at containing the social and political leadership of Scotland often favoured the common folk.
The 1653 Royalist Glencairn’s Rising, however, brought the realisation that a policy of simply oppressing and excluding the Scottish landed elite would alienate them, giving them no reason to remain loyal to the English occupiers and instead drive them into the arms of any movement – Scottish, royalist or whatever – which might offer a more palatable alternative. The regime proceeded to woo back the men of property, or at least the lairds. A number of carrots were dangled in front of selected Scottish landowners. If debt and the fear of its consequences drove men into rebellion, then the English regime would offer some help with those debts of the gentry, preventing their great estates from falling prey to creditors,so that the Scottish landed elite might be won over. Several palliative measures were put in place to alleviate the burden of debt on Scottish landed estates. Although they had been stripped of most of its feudal rights and powers, the Scottish landed elite mostly survived, pardoned by the Protectorate regime and with its somewhat precarious material position and landed status actually protected and in some ways underpinned by the English regime.
The other influential group to be affected was the Scottish church. Following negotiations, a settlement with the Scottish church, nicknamed ‘Gillespie’s Charter’, was agreed. Commissioners were set up for various Scottish regions with power to examine the qualifications of prospective ministers and only those judged to be ‘of a holy and unblameable conversation, disposed to live peaceably under the present government, and who for the Grace of God in him, and for his knowledge and utterance is able and fit to preach the Gospel’, were to be appointed and granted stipends. Ministers, now largely barred from politics, spent more time with their flocks and placed an emphasis on preaching. One Presbyterian noted that 'there were more souls converted to Christ in that short period of time than in any season since the Reformation.' (Mackie, Lenman and Parker, A History of Scotland) In the end, the Scottish Presbyterian church endured and although it had been required to compromise. Toleration, of course, did not extend to Episcopalians and Catholics, but if they did not draw attention to themselves they were largely left alone.
Despite the continuing military occupation, the Cromwell’s Protectorate established or re-established elements of more traditional, civilian government and administration in Scotland, which performed at least adequately. and which provided a level of security. A few Scots actively supported the regime while the vast majority simply acquiesced and lived peacefully under it, making the most of any advantages which the new order might bring their way. Concessions were made on both sides and to some extent the Protectorate achieved a fair degree of peace and stability in Scotland.
In 1655 it was claimed that "a man may ride all over Scotland with £100 in his pocket, which he could not have done these five hundred years" (M. Lynch, Scotland: a New History) The good order imposed by a military presence encouraged trade and manufacture. Alexander Burnet, later Archbishop of St. Andrews, commented that, "we always reckoned those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity"
Far from being a genuine democrat and essentially a military dictator, well known for his brutality in Ireland, Cromwell, nevertheless, brought Scotland the unaccustomed experience of general peace.
The union of 1654 proved a false dawn and was lapsed in 1659 with the return of the 'Rump' Parliament, which rescinded all ordinances promulgated during the Protectorate, although Monck was widely petitioned to continue the union. Scotland regained its independent system of law and its kirk. It again had a king, who did not visit the country and who insisted on following the custom of having a dependent Scotland, ruling through the Lords of the Articles by which the crown controlled parliamentary business. The restored Scottish Parliament's composition had been carefully selected with known trouble makers or likely dissenters excluded, thus a pliant instrument for what was to follow. It was called the 'Drunken Parliament'.
'And no wonder it was so,' said Bishop Gilbert Burnet who lived and wrote in those days. 'when the men of affairs were almost always drunk.'
The purpose of this Parliament was to make the King absolute ruler and it voted him an income of £40,000 (just about the entire income of the country.) The Earl of Middleton, was appointed as the King`s Commissioner and took every opportunity to line his own pockets.‘They robbed the nation of its liberties; they checked its social progress; they did what they could to stifle its religious life’ (Alexander Smellie, Men of the Covenant.)
It will always be one of those imponderable questions - would the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence still be be taking place if the republican union had endured? Would those left nationalist republicans in Commonweal be so set on an independence if the earlier Commonwealth had continued? Who knows? Who really cares?!!
Addendum
'Ordinance of Union' issued by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell on April 1654:
'...it is so ordained by his Highness the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, by and with the advice and consent of his Council, that all the people of Scotland, and of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland, and of all the dominions and territories belonging unto Scotland, are and shall be, and are hereby incorporated into, constituted, established, declared and confirmed one Commonwealth with England; and in every Parliament to be held successively for the said Commonwealth, thirty persons shall be called from and serve for Scotland....'
No comments:
Post a Comment