Empire: World History - 187. The Birth of Britain

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

With the accession of James I and VI in 1603, Scotland was assimilated into the composite monarchy of the United Kingdom. James, an eccentric, insecure and rambling figure, preoccupied with witches, was himself an alien in his new English court. Even at this stage though, it seems unlikely that the two nations would be legally combined under one parliament. But, with Scottish interests abroad constantly embattled by a lack of resources and the exclusionist attitude of its English neighbours; their flailing economy, and in-fighting, Scottish sovereignty within the composite monarchy began diminishing. As such, many in Scotland began resisting any union of the two nations with increasing desperation, while the English government - under the pro-union Queen Anne - in response redoubled their efforts to see the Scottish parliament subsumed…Was the union of Scotland and England now inevitable, or could a Scottish Referendum in 1706 protect Scottish independence?   In this week’s episode, William and Anita are joined by renowned historian Murray Pittock to discuss the process by which Scotland was brought into Union with England, the condition of the new state, and the long term repercussions of this seminal moment for the future of Great Britain… To fill out the survey: survey.empirepoduk.com To buy William's book: https://coles-books.co.uk/the-golden-road-by-william-dalrymple-signed-edition Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durampal. And can I just say following on from our last episode of the absolutely fascinating yet disastrous, Darien scheme. We're joined by somebody who William Duremberg has been lobbying hard for for quite some time. Is this not true, William? It certainly is. My old friend Murray Pettuck,

who is one of Scotland's greatest historians and specifically one of Scotland's great historians on Scotland and Empire. And one of my favourite books of the last few years is his brilliant Scotland, The Global History, which is a book I would love to have written myself. and we brought him here today to discuss the acts of union, the creation of Great Britain, the country, which we still call our own, however fragile the union may seem at times, and particularly we're keen to ask him how far or not the need and the desire of the Scottish elite to get their hands on the loot of empire, how much of a role did this play and how much did the failure of Darien and the fact that the Scots had failed to launch their own empire, encouraged them to look

for an entry point into the nascent empire then being created by England. So, I mean, in a way, Murray, you join us in the middle of what has been previously a very heated pub conversation, which goes on and on and on over weeks and months, that were it not for this desire for colonial loot, were it not for the disaster of trying to go it alone, the act of union itself may never have happened. So let's just start with that thesis first of all. Pull up your stall to the pub table and tell us what you make of this because we've argued long and hard about this. Murray is pouring himself a pint, I think. Pint of whiskey to get through this. It may not be the pint we're after it. I'm looking by the expression on his face.

Right. Well, let's hear it. So I think undoubtedly there was some support in the Scottish elite for the union, but the vast majority of the public were against. However, there was a situation brought about which forced the hand of the political nation or large part of the political nation. And that does arise from the imperial question. So throughout the 17th century, Scotland had been trying generally via the Crown to get its hands on colonial interests abroad. There was, first of all, the Scots colony in Nova Scotia, though the idea of calling Kate Brett on New Galloway didn't take off, which was set up in the 1620. My family were Nova Scotia Baronets, which is from that time.

Exactly. And so the clerks of Pennycook, too. I mean, Nova Scotia baronets were a feature of the attempted creation by William Alexander Earl of Sterling of an expatriate elite who would help to colonise and fund the new colony. But it was surrendered to the French at the end of the 1620s. Just to say that when I had my DNA done a few years ago. Everyone's brain is gone, oh, really, legal case, Willim?

Was this for fun? You know, when you send it off to Ancestry.com, you send it a little spittle after my kind children gave me a test tube for my Christmas to spit into it. Just wanted to settle that you weren't involved in a murder or something. Okay, as you were, carry on, yes, yes. And when it came back, I had something like 2% Mick Mack,

Nova Scotia Native American blood in it, which presumably came from the Nova Scotia colony? Well, it might have done. So not only are you a challenger of empires, you're also a relic of them, will it? I'm sadly so. That's splendid to know. So the attempts in the 1630s founded with the Portuguese destroying the Guinea Company's ship and seizing its contents.

Then attempts are made in the 1680s in East New Jersey and South Carolina, supported by the future James II and 7th. But all of these came fundamentally to nothing. And Darian was the last big attempt, which was well funded. But the reason all these came to nothing is twofold. The first is that Scotland lacked both the force and the commerce to be able to impose its will on third party nations. And the second is that the English Navigation Act, of which there are four between the 1650s and 70s, effectively tried to reserve colonial trade. to English crews. There were some ways round that, the Scots Fuzzle, they usually do find every way around it possible, but in the end, the exclusion of the Scots from colonial trade and the inability to gain their own coloners were the two things which drove the desire for success at Darien and whose failure led to the union becoming increasingly, not inevitable, but likely. So, I mean, there's so many questions. and we're going to delve into a lot of those dates and more detail in a moment.

But just the exclusion of the Scottish interests, you know, there are people in Scotland at this time who have land, they have power and they have money. They also have ambition. Is the exclusion down to some kind of attitude from the English that actually, you know what, the Scots just aren't good enough to be at the table? There was an exclusionist attitude, absolutely, that this is a composite monarchy, but they're not getting any rights. So there's a tension between Scotland's continuation as an independent state within a composite monarchy. and English desire to exclude them. But there's also the issue that the Scots are seen, and they're seen by some continental powers as well, as a Dutch false flag operation. In other words, they're seen as so close to the Netherlands,

and union with the Netherlands is proposed in 1677, and again in the early 18th century, so that Scotland will become yet another province of the United Provinces. Which you see architecturally all over Scotland today. You see Dutch cables. Yes. And so the Scots were very influential, both in the VOC, which is the Dutch East India Company in the Caribbean and also helped to found or co-founder really the Swedish East India Company in the 1630s. And go on later, of course, to found the French East India Company, Jean-Laud Doloreson.

Exactly. DeLoriston, whose brother died in the Dardin Expedition. Right. Well, that created a lot of laws, subsequent politics and attitudes, we think. I didn't know about the Swedish company. So the Scots create two East India companies in other countries. All right, okay. So there is some legitimate. reason why the English may not think they are loyal enough if they're pursuing their own interests

and maybe slightly cautious about, you know, letting the Scots in and letting him have a slice of the cake. I should explain, Murray, that Anita's from Essex. You need to bear that in mind during this episode. I mean, I am, but I'm not sure how this makes a great dent in the conversation. English, English. Can we go right back to the beginning? And this idea of multi-monarchy in the British Isles, you've used that phrase before a multi-monic. What exactly is that? What are we talking about when we say multi-monarchy? A multi-monarchy, or I guess the term of art is a composite monarchy, is one where there are separate kingdoms under a single monarch. So that was very common, a very common way of arranging

European polities. The Commonwealth of Poland, Lithuania was one of them. In the early 19th century until Belgium divided, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was another. Perhaps the greatest, and the one which was most controversial in various ways, particularly in the 17th century because of the 30 years war, was the Holy Roman Empire, which was in some ways the ultimate composite monarchy. And the thing is that the United Kingdom was formerly a composite monarchy from 1603 to 1707, and actually because of Ireland's separate status also formally after 1801, but also partly in the entirety since 1707, because the union itself reserved to the king's, of Scotland, certain rights pertaining to the crown, and united with the kingdom of England,

certain rights pertaining to Parliament. So a composite monarchy is a multiple monarchy of that kind, and the UK is actually quite a complicated one. But one of the interesting things about the UK is that, because King Charles is king of 15 realms currently, there isn't a full understanding of how composite monarchy looks outside the UK to people who are the subjects of King Charles III. But this is a composite monarchy, whether or not you include Kingdom Scotland as part of that, it's a composite monarchy to this day. Yeah, I mean, some people who just know that King Charles's father was the Duke of Edinburgh will just think that this is a happy, you know, sort of contiguous union, one big happy family.

Can we go back to, I think, one of the most interesting periods where you really do have somebody who feels like demonstrably a Scot on the British throne or English throne even, and that's James I first of England and James the 6th of Scotland? because I think those people who listen overseas and don't know what we've been drilled in at school, because we learnt this at school. No one gets this outside Britain. No. They're like, I don't understand. You know, you sort of happily have one family reigning and suddenly, you know, you go in sort of fish in Scottish waters and put somebody else on the throne.

So can you just talk us through what happened there? Because he is very much a Scot. Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons his reputation in England was frequently introduced in the 17th century because he seemed alien. His manners seemed alien, his speech seemed alien, the fact he stuffed his court with Scots appointees seemed alien, they seemed alien, very much so, a foreigner. We should perhaps explain who he is. Yes, and we should sort of do a little pen portrait because, I mean, you know, he's the son, the only son of Mary Queen of Scots, who herself has a really quite terrible life, which has been covered and covered and covered in movies and dramas over the years. Can't get enough of her.

Yeah, but there are sort of many things, you know, sometimes betrayed of him that, you know, he's slightly, I don't know, did they say misshapen or misformed? And this is all part of the propaganda at the time, that this is not the cleverest man on the planet. And his speech is a bit slurry. His tongue is too big for his mouth. You know, all of that. I remember learning this at school, that he had an oversized tongue. So most of that comes from the Antony O'Ewen's attack on him, which is actually posthumous.

But I don't think there's any reason particularly to think that James did have a notoriously bad speech or an oversized tongue or any of those things. But one of the things was he's very... Just the Scottish accent. He's very guttural, exactly. And a lot of guttural expressions do tend to involve the expulsion of spittle. So being gobbed over is your fate as an English courtier under James the 6th and 1st, because he uses guttrels that you are not familiar with. And you think this guy is tongue too big for his mouth and he just can't keep it in.

Yes. But he's no fool, is he, Murray? He's well-educated, even if he has a slightly kind of weird obsession about witches. Could you talk about all that? He's an extremely well-educated man. He actually writes a work of literary criticism, rules and courtals in the early 1580s. He notoriously attacks tobacco as injurious to health and his polemic against it. Man before his time. Yeah, in 1590s. But he is also personally extremely insecure because the early loss of his mother, the fact he's brought up by competing factions on occasion kidnapped, fears assassination attempts all the time. That's what lies

behind the witches. He's paranoid. And has to watch his auntie murder his mother. Yeah, he's a paranoid man. And of course, he's not a tyrant, but he's paranoid. We should say quickly again that not only I, but Callum, our producer, our North Berwick boys. So we have a vested interest in these particular hags. I'm very much outnumbered in this episode. I know it. It's only one Essex contingent here. That's me. Delears are holding their own though in the corner. So yes, who are the North Berwick witches? The North Berwick witches are a number of women who were tried because James had a bad time at sea.

And it was alleged that they'd put a spell on the boat and that a storm had almost sunk it. And that therefore they were being used as effectively a scapegoat for the king's own feelings of fear and anxiety. and they were also part of a contemporary craze because there were big trials in Aberdeen and elsewhere within a year or two of 1596. And this has its echo in literature, of course, in Macbeth. Macbeth with the Scots witches comes immediately after the North Berwick witches are the talk of London. Absolutely. I mean, Shakespeare was hoping for a little bit of a tip there by bringing in some of the King's favourite topics and also underlining the fact that witches are in favour of us a patient and can't be trusted.

which is very much what James is 6th and First would have thought. Brilliant. Okay, so we live towards south-west London, and there is a story around here where Elizabeth First is taking her last breaths at Richmond Palace. And there is a rider waiting below the window on the green, waiting for her ring to be dropped out of the window. And when she dies and takes her last rattle, it's dropped, it's caught,

and then a rider rides hard to Scotland to tell James he is now king of England. Would that have been something that he would have welcomed, wanted, being aware that it would have been actually a pretty nightmarish job he was walking into? It was what he expected and he was certainly planning for that. He'd brought up for all his life, hasn't he? He's unwilling to move too far away from English foreign policy. He relies on Elizabeth's court for subsidies in the 1580s. They help to stabilise his position, which otherwise is contested by Scottish factions. So yes, this is what he's looking for.

And there's a view. It's a Scottish view you can still find today from some of his courtiers and supporters. They're effectively going to take over England. And Scotland is going to become an important and dominant force, the political leadership of the Anglo-British composite state. But it doesn't happen? It doesn't happen because, as Henry the 7th said, I don't want to get away too far,

but as Henry the 7th said, when his daughter was betrothed to James the 4th of Scotland, and this became a possibility, Some of its courtiers were concerned that Scots might one day exceed to the throne of England, and he simply said, the greater will always draw the lesser. But Murray, how does this play out practically in terms of Scotland and England? You've now got a Scotsman on the throne of both countries, but it doesn't mean that the two countries are one country.

It doesn't mean that Scots can have any access to the English colonies. No, it doesn't, though. This is at an early stage under James. and James, just like James II, tries to ensure that Scots do have access to the overseas colonies to direct imperial intervention. But the first thing he does is his instinct is to centralise. First of all, he talks up the prospect of a fuller union,

probably not quite the way the 17-07 union panned out, but a fuller union between England and Scotland. And that's rejected by England fundamentally. And one of the interesting things is that Magna Carter reappears after a very long absence, getting on for 200 years from English political discourse, as a reason why Scotland can never be united to England, because English common law and the rights of Magna Carta cannot accept the Scottish legal system. And James himself doesn't really understand the limitations on his power, does he, when he arrives in England?

He's trying to exceed his powers in the eyes of Parliament. Well, he is trying to exceed his powers in the eyes of Parliament to an extent, But in the other hand, I think one would say there are a lot of other things operating. There's an increased radicalization of Protestant opinion. And James is not a friend of Presbyterianism in Scotland. He's not a friend of Puritan Anglicanism or anything outside it in England either. And the increasing importance of confessional politics is one of the things which is driving wedges between the monarchy and the constitution throughout Europe.

So in a way, the conflict which eventually breaks in the British Isles and the late 1630s with the Bishop's War in Scotland, which becomes known by many as the English Civil War, is in a way a British front of the 30 years war, because the same things are happening throughout Europe that religion and confession issues are driving constitutions apart. Okay. Now, you've pulled us forward 100 years and I'm glad you have. James is fascinating. But, you know, despite having had a Scottish king on the English throne, Scotland. by 1707 is impoverished. I mean, it is not doing well. Why is it doing so badly? So there are a number of reasons. First of all, fighting each other for half a century tends to cost quite a lot of money. But the English had too. Not for quite so long,

because of course the covenants under Charles II create a great deal of economic disadvantage and unrest. We should just explain who the covenants are for those poor English people who haven't been well-educated in our history, Murray. The Covenanters are those Presbyterians who refuse to be accommodated to the Royalist government of Charles II because they believe that he's betrayed the covenant, which he signed. And the covenant was the reason that Scotland effectively entered the English dimension of the Civil War. So a lot of those big battles, Mastermore, Naisby and so on, but particular Maston Moore, are parted decided by the Scottish Army, the Army of the Covenant.

And the Covenanters don't like to pray inside churches. They pray in the open air, despite the Scottish weather. Yes, they do, but they often pray in the open air because they're not permitted to pray in churches. That happened to Scottish Episcopalians in the next century. But to move on from the confessional basis, Scots have been fighting each other for half a century, more or less. A significant downturn, which is common to the European margins due to climate change, which Scotland have been struggling with for some time. And the large commercial enterprise of Dara, though it didn't ruin Scotland, was a an extra kicker to impoverishment. The country when it's down already.

Yeah. I saw one absolutely astonishing figure and tell me who this sort of chimes with what you know. You're talking about climate change. But crop failure killed as many as 15% of Scotland's population. I mean, that's just a nutty figure. Absolutely. The 1690s had a big famine.

But the other thing I would just mention is that although not yet yoked to English foreign policy, Scottish foreign policy was compromised by the fact that the Crown appointed diplomats. And although the Crown often appointed Scots, he didn't appoint them to represent Scotland, but Great Britain. And so Scotland was losing diplomatic influence. And at the stage where, say, 32% of its overseas trade is with the Netherlands and there's three Anglo-Dutch wars between 1650 and 1680, you can see that there's a perfect storm there, which is going to seriously affect the economy, which is already suffering. Murray, just lay out for us quite

how poor Scotland is. I mean, where is it on the European League table? Is it similar to sort of Scots football today? Or where are we? It depends how you read Scots football. And I think of all the games and stopped in the 85th minute, things would look rather better. True story, by the way.

Anyone who follows football, bitterly true story, that is. So, Scotland is by the late 17th century, turn of the 18th century, better off than Ireland, not nearly as well off as the Netherlands or France, probably somewhere roughly in the Central European kind of orbit. It's probably roughly comparable with Lithuania. It's probably roughly comparable with Norway. It's not as well off as Denmark or Sweden. But significantly behind England, it's a much poorer country.

It's a much poorer country. But very interestingly, I know we're dealing with the 18th century, In the 13th or 14th centuries, it's very clear that the papal taxation rates the diocese of St Andrews, muffled the same as Canterbury. So it has fallen hard and fallen far. Okay, so, I mean, you've got Scotland now economically battered. You've got the promise of power and a seat and a voice at the table has been thwarted. So is there one particular thing that pushes Scotland, or is this like a perfect storm of bad luck, which pushes Scotland to say, you know what, we're not going to do this on our own. So the only way

that we're going to thrive in this new modern world is if we tie ourselves, we marry, if you like, and in the Acts of Union, England, we just do that. The impetus to do that didn't come really from Scotland. I think the failure of Darin is a factor. How much in the end of the Scottish economy is sunk into Darren? There are 3,000 subscribers. I'm not sure about some of the calculations that are brooded about. But if we're just say that in Scotland, the number of subscribers to Darien exceeds the combined number of subscribers in England to the Bank of England and the East India Company, and per capita, of course, that's much worse. You're getting a sense of a huge amount of surplus capital that's been deposited in Darien.

It's a hopeless scheme. It was a great idea if you had a lot more soldiers than Spain and none. And better cannons not made out of shoe leather. You know, things like that would have It wouldn't have been useful. They were quite popular at the time because they were awfully portable. The trouble was they overheated in five seconds and then they collapsed. I mean, it's a fundamental problem, Murray, I'd suggest. When you're firing a cannon, you know. They may overheat when they're fired.

It's true. But never mind. Great Scottish Inventions Part 94. So if I may bring in the dear old Viscount stare. Oh, you better explain who he is, too, to the English. Yes. So he was one of the prominent politicians of Scotland in the 1690s, and a member of a very famous Scottish family. Go on.

Oh, he's doing his preening. Go on, spit it out. It's William Durham-Pool, isn't it? The Durham-Pool is coming into. He's a member of the Durham-Poole family. He's a graduate of the University of Glasgow. We've got a little plaque to his codification of the law of Scotland, but that actually his responsibility or perceived responsibility and indeed failure to stop the subsequent inquire into the massacre at Glencoe is significant because it personally turned William in favour of union that an act he had signed off was under an inquiry of the Scottish Parliament regarded as murder under trust. Murray, again, you better explain Glencoe one of the less glorious moments in our

rumble history. The massacre of Glencoe, some supporters of the McDonald's of Glencoe, who did not swear their allegiance to the new king in preference to the old one, James the Seventh and Second in time, were massacred. Fewer of them were massacred than was intended, but what was worse was that the soldiers, Scottish Army soldiers, were billeted on them for two weeks before they massacred them. And these were Campbells. They were Bradalban.

The Bradalban Campbells sent by a certain Viscount stair. Yes. So this is something which is described formally in Scotland, as murder under trust. Right. It's an accentuated form of treachery and massacre because it happens when hospitality is being offered to the people who are killing you. And we should again just sort of set the picture here.

They billeted themselves on the McDonald's of Glencoe. And after two weeks of eating their porridge and drinking their whiskey. And sharing stories and, you know, conviviality. And sharing stories and all that stuff. The signal was given, I think, at 3 a.m. to rise up and kill their hosts in their beds. is really not a very honourable. Men, women and children.

And your forebear gave the order. Well, that's a controversial point, but he was sadly evolved. Own it. Okay, so, okay. Murray, give a neutral picture. I'm sure that there were many people responsible. And I actually used it as part of a field lecture to the British Army Reserve on the difficulties of reconciling military and political command and control systems.

Murray, I love you all the more for this, letting me off the hook on. that. Yes, okay. So I'll take that as a yes. We should also say the massacre of Glencoe is the model for the red wedding in Game of Thrones, for those who haven't known their Scottshire but do watch Game of Thrones. Right, which makes you a Lanister. But anyway, look, so you said the impetus for Union didn't come from Scotland.

So, I mean, let's sort of slip into Queen Anne's story, because that seems to be quite instructive in this. One of the most central figures of her age. and somebody who passionately believed and wanted union. So we're talking about the dates now, just to remind people where we're at. It's 1702 to 1707 we're talking about. So she's the daughter of James II of England. She's the sister of Mary, who is the wife of William of Orrin.

She just gives you some context, because all of these families around Europe are very, very intertwined. So tell me what part she plays in this notion of union. Anne is important because it's a parent from, very early in her reign that she's going to be the last Stuart heir. And just as supporters of the stewards in England are damped down their support for the exiled King James because there was a steward on the throne, the fact she wasn't going to have an heir would be very important because the 1701 Act of Settlement settled the crown on the electorates of Hanover, the wife of the

electorate of Sophia and her descendants of whom George I inherited in 1714. but the Scottish Parliament was not consulted about the 1701 Act of Settlement. And that was a source of absolute resentment that the separate kingdom had not been consulted at all as to the succession. There are various machinations, but the important thing is that two acts are passed. The Act in Peace and War passed in 1703 and the Act of Security in 1704. The Act in Peace and War reserves to Scotland, effectively the right to have its own foreign policy and the Act of Security reserves to Scotland the right to have its own monarchy.

And it doesn't say that it won't endorse the Hanoverian monarchy, and it does say the monarch should be a Protestant, but the Act of Security was widely seen by Queen Anne and her advisers and government as effectively a challenge to the Hanoverian succession. It is a very interesting thing, again, and it's popular culture that form so many people's notion of history if they haven't read this already. But I mean, you know, when we're talking about Queen Anne, we're talking about Olivia Coleman, the favourite. Queen Anne is often portrayed as somebody who's sort of petty and silly.

And the favourite itself is all about love affairs and the bedchamber politics and things like that. She's never really portrayed as somebody who's political. And what you and others are saying is that she was essentially political and believed in the union and had a political steer that was strong, clear. And had she had children, history would be very different. It would be very different indeed. and as the favourite demonstrated, rabbits are no substitute. So the issue here was that there was immense pressure, which came from Anne's government, in the Alien Act of 1705. And this is the first time union is actually threatened, and it is a threat.

Unless union negotiations start by the end of 1705, Scots will be regarded as aliens in England, their property was subject to confiscation and their imports, and England was 50% roughly of Scottish exports at this stage, imports will be forbidden. So effectively they said, you've got to start negotiating for a union, get on with it or else. So that praise, union or else, is hanging in the air. Let's take a break and find out what happens when that becomes the pervasive argument. So welcome back. So we're now in 1705. and all eyes are on the potential or not of a union of Scotland and England. The Alien Act has been passed in England, which means that if the Scots do not move towards union, they are going to be excluded from owning property or trading with England,

which will be completely disastrous for the Scottish economy and effectively lock it in within its own walls and deeply further impoverish it. Murray, take us forward from this point. What happens at this moment of crisis in Scotland? Effectively, there is no alternative but to appoint commissioners for union. The question is, who does the appointing? And one of the interesting things is that the Scottish political leadership concedes to the queen the right to appoint the commissioners. and that means, rather than the Scottish Parliament appointing its own commissioners, or attempting to,

that means effectively that with the exception of Lockhart of Khan Wath, who is the sole Jacobite union opponent, on the side of the Scottish commissioners, all the other commissioners are appointed effectively, potentially or actually pro-union. Geographically, most of them, lowlanders? Yes, most of them. And some of them, at any rate, strongly associated, with the only continually pro-unionist cadre, which are those who are strongly Protestant

and identify William of Orange and the Orange succession from 1689. So there's a Protestant ideological support for union from a small group of the Scottish elite. Okay, you've got sort of the commissioners appointed and they're all the yes men. Does that make your average, Scott, chafe and be furious? Are they sort of desperate for something to sort of sort of economy. Anyone that knows there burns and has brought up on the nationalist view, that there's

this parcel of rogues who sold Scotland down the river. Is that a widespread view at the time? Yes. Indeed, the idea that we're bought in Seoul for English gold is absolutely contemporary with 1707. Pamplets are written suggesting that Scotland's going to be auctioned for 400,000 pounds, that being the equivalent to cover their share of the national debt under the union terms. So very much, very much the language of the time. There's huge opposition to union. It's very, of course, difficult to judge, though one pamphlet suggests very interesting, a universal suffrage referendum to determine the issue. Do you mean like a referendum? Yes. Wow. Oh, God. Lord. Absolutely. Independence referendum in 1706, because they're confident, of course. Gosh. This is the SMP before the S&P. I mean, I think the striking thing is that they make a particular appeal to women, not only being franchised, but also certain that they're going to vote against Union. So would this be one of the first cries for enfranchising women?

So actually there is evidence, just as a different historical aside, that women were were in franchise to vote in the election for the town clerk of Inveruri and probably other small local Scottish towns in the 16th century. It is, however, one of the earliest known to me where a national franchise, including women, is suggested. That's so fascinating. So look, you've got these commissioners who are selling Scotland in the eyes of many Scots for £4,000. What sort of bracket of society are the commissioners? Are they all aristocrats and? Toffs or are they merchants? Who are they? Well, I want to talk in particular about James Douglas. He figures in many pamphlets and people, James Douglas. I mean, he's a controversial figure. Tell us about him. Well, I mean, Queensbury is a court figure. So he's the Duke of Queensbury. That's why you're calling him Queensbury. Yes, absolutely. And Queensberry House now, very fittingly, is incorporated into the buildings of the Scottish Parliament. More of Queensbury House later, because terrible things happen there on the night of the Act of the Union, which we'll come to later. Allegedly, yes. We'll come to that, but let's just talk about what people felt about James Douglas, the second Duke of Queensbury, because, I mean, there are many who just out and out call him a traitor at the time. Now, what did he do to earn the ire of so many of his countrymen?

He fundamentally is supportive of the measures that lead towards union broadly, but it's difficult with hindsight not to think that a lot of this language of the time is somewhat exaggerated, because Hamilton, who is meant to be the patriot leader, effectively goes AWOL every time he has to step up to the plate. Fletcher of Sultan, what's he up to? Fletcher of Sultan is one of the few who steadfastly and absolutely opposes any prospect of union. And makes in doing so some very interesting points, because he always says government will draw economic activity, and the British Kingdom would be a very different thing if the capital were at York. Which is a true point, yeah.

No, he absolutely understands at the beginning of the 18th century the issues that will arise if there's only one capital and one central political power. Everything will go to London and London will become this megalopolis and Edinburgh will decline and Scotland will decline. Yeah, I mean, so I mean, he's loathed by his own countrymen. In Scotland, people throw eggs and stones at him. But when he comes to London, when he comes to Westminster, he's greeted by cheering crowds. And he personally does all right, doesn't he, through negotiating this?

Douglas and Queensbridge, yes, indeed. I mean, a lot of people do all right out of the Union settlement. We don't have to talk about bribes or anything crude to understand that people do all right when they follow a political narrative which is determined elsewhere, but which will lead to a desired outcome, which will include them. So, of course, he does all right. So what are the goodies being dangled to the Scottish people, a lure to sign up to this? So there isn't very much of a lure. There's more stick than carrot.

There's more stick than carrot. The commissioners, on the whole, do a good job. So they certainly don't surrender every point. In the end, the critical point, which is the corporation of Presbyterian rights and Presbyterian Quayser establishment is conceded to ensure the measure goes through. Which means we still have a Church of Scotland today. Yes, indeed. That's regarded as necessary to be absolutely certain that it goes through.

And the Bank of Scotland, the fact that we still have a Bank of Scotland producing banknotes in Scotland today. Is that signed into law at this point? Well, effectively, yes. Scotland no longer mince coins, but Scottish banking retains its independence and indeed Scottish currency continues to be used as a unit of account. Some of the things that are in the union, since these are provisions of the union, are actually not enacted. So the single weights and measures clause of the union isn't enacted till 1826. And likewise, I think the 1930s is the last time that a Scottish unit of currency is used in formal. A notification. What's that? A Scottish sheriff hands down a fine of Scots Merck. As late as what date?

1930s. Brilliant. Hang on a minute, but also, so the currency is the Merck. I mean, do we know what it look like? We do. We do. I have not seen a Merck. So describe a Merck. If you go to the National Museum of Scotland, you can admire a great pile of them. Who's on a Merck then at this time? Whose face is on a Merck? So Merck is the unit of account, which is 13 shillings and fourpence Scots. The coinage tends to follow the Scots pound. So it's there, though there are marks, I think, no marks minted under Anne. But Anne's head is on the Scottish shilling coinage.

How interesting. I was brought up on the song Coulter's Candy, where you get a Bobie to buy some Coulter's candy. What's a Bobie? So a Borbie named after Master Silly-Borby, who was master of the mint, when the coin was first produced in the early 16th century. is a Scots sixpence and an English heapney. Murray, no one else could answer that question with all that detail. That's fantastic.

So the floating rate was 13 to 13 and a half to one. How could you do that by heart, Murray? That's amazing. And it was 10% in the Scots interest when the formal exchange rate was set. Can I just say, not only does he know all of this, but he's bursting. The man with all of this knowledge, I just think it's neat. Murray's been doing too much administration in the University of Glasgow, not teaching I think it's rather marvelous. So look, we're in a situation then that Scotland can keep its own religion.

Its own religious establishment. But the most important thing is that there is no Scottish Parliament anymore. There's no English Parliament anymore. There's going to be one ring to rule from all the world, as we put it. I know this is the Empire podcast, but the association of the United Kingdom and Great Britain on Ireland with Mordor surely cannot stand. Anyway. I tell you she's messed.

He doesn't know better. So, I mean, does this happen overnight? What happens? Yes, take us through the debates in the British Parliament. And the Parliament building is still there. I can go and see it in Edinburgh. So the old Parliament building, yes, was Parliament House, is effectively where the Faculty of Advocates is now.

In the old Tuddin. Yes. So there are debates on the clauses of the Union. There are votes in the various clauses of the Union. The final vote in favour is 110 to 69. But the lower down the social scale you go, they hire the opposition to union. And big Scottish organisations, governance organisations like the Convention of Royal Boroughs, have opposed union, thousands of individual petitions, I suppose it.

So in other words, even the merchant class are opposing it. Yeah, the merchant opposed it. That's very interesting, because you thought they would suffer most if they were excluded from trade with England and so on. Indeed so. But fundamentally, there is some. much why it's by opposition that even when the butter council of air supports union, it's the only borrower to petition in favour, there are thousand signatures from air which oppose the borough. And this is basically nationalist, people just don't like the English.

Well, they don't like the idea of Scotland being swallowed up. And no, and plenty of them don't like the English either. And so what happens, I don't want to jump too far, but just to say, when James tries to get his throne back in 1689 in Scotland, about 3,000, people rally to support him. When he tries to get it back in 1715, 22,000 rally to support him. And the repeal of the union is explicitly linked to the Stuart cause all the way to Colloden. So the union turbocharges the dynastic claims of the Stuarts in exile. And that's because of the enormous deep-rooted distility to it, particularly as Argyle and other supporters having their correspondence north of the River Tay.

Argyll being the head of the Campbell's. Yes, and the Dukas he becomes of Argyll. Alastair Campbell will be listening into this. Yes, the chief of the name. So, Murray, give us an idea of the final hours, because it's wrangling right up to the line, isn't it? And I mean, the popular version is that bribes are being given very openly. Is that rubbish? No, it's not.

there was usually money about to pass any measure. Was this disproportionate? Were there people who were assured of a happy future if they supported it? Oh, I'm almost certain there was. Absolutely. Yeah. But there were also English Army troops stationed in the north of England and a movement from the Irish garrison into the Scottish plantation in Northern Ireland at the same time, incidentally. So there was the potential threat of military action if armed force was taken to defend Scotland against the Union. I didn't know that. So literally, the English were all set to declare war if this wasn't passed. Military force would almost certainly be used, not necessarily if Parliament had failed to pass it, but if there had been any military response, because there were

already signs of military response in Scotland. And do you have any sensation in Edinburgh, where all the Parliament is meeting and where these debates are taking, these fiery debates are taking place, that those supporters of the Union are in danger, that they are being threatened and booed in the streets and stones and muck are being thrown at them, or the Edinburgh Township as well behaved as they are today? No, there's a great deal of hostility, but it's containable, but it's only just containable. There's a moment of complete national crisis. It is. It is a moment of national crisis. But, you know, there are supporters, and many of these people have their own retinues, of course. So Douglas will be going up and down the Royal Mile with his

soldiers, is what you're saying. Yes, he wouldn't exactly call them soldiers, but on the other hand, they're armed and they're there to support him. He's not kind of popping in for an ice cream in the middle of the debate and finding a lot of people shouting at him in the queue. To some extent, these people are insulated. Their town residences are often in the Canongate, which is the part of Edinburgh, which is reasonably close to the Parliament. It's a very posh bit of Edinburgh, yeah. Yes. So they only have to walk two or three hundred metres to Parliament House in many cases. So, Murray, I've got to take you then to the night of the Union,

that the motion is put up for debate, the hands are raised. What happens? Its clauses are passed by different majorities, some slightly tighter than others, over the piece. It's passed by slightly more than three to two. And I think there's a member of a famous Scottish family. God, not again. What does Durham Paul have to say about this?

One of the Durham Pool quotes is, and there's the end of an old sang. Was that a Durimpole quote? Yeah? I didn't know. I thought it was probably burns. Really? So there are five Durimples on the active union signatures, or six, five or six. And the allies of Queensbury.

Absolutely. So let me tell you a story. Right. I'm so sorry. It was all building up to this. It was all building up to this. So the knight of the Union, the derrimples throw a huge party in the Cannons Gate. And they invite all the Queensbury household to the party.

And not only do they invite the family, they invite the entire household. And the only person in this story, I don't know whether it's true or not, but the story I was brought up with was that the knight of the union, the only person left in the Queensbury mansion at the bottom of the Royal Mile is the spitboy who's turning the roast for the next day and the mad son who's locked up in the tower. And after banging on the door for hours, the mad son escapes. And as a slightly inauspicious beginning for the Union, when the Queensbury household returns very drunk at the end of a very, very long party.

Hang on, getting drunk at Durham Party. Never heard of such a thing. Never heard of such thing. When they come back, they find that the roast isn't on the spit. the spit boy is and the mad son is grilling the spit boy on the far the very night of the activity and this is meant to be the sign of old nick taking his revenge on the on the queensberries what a truly fascinating but also repulsive story is it true is it true mary i'm not sure and if it had been said of a member of the derrimple family i would have certainly said

it was false yes murray can come back on this on this It's a podcast any time you like. We're going to have a 35-part version of your Global Scotland book next month. Absolutely any time. Okay, so, I mean, there is also, you know, the lovely little fact, I think, which is the day that the Union is official and declared, Thanksgiving services are held in England and Ireland, but none in Scotland.

And the bells of St. Giles were told, ring out the tune, why should I be so sad on my wedding day? Yes, that's right. Two story. They did. Yeah, true story. Yeah, true story. Okay, so look, we're coming to the end of our time together. It's just a shame because this has been fun. It's so important to people in the sense don't understand how much this changed the whole trajectory of all our country that's brought together Great Britain, this created, this extraordinary country, which may become undone or not in our lifetime. Yeah.

So, Murray, what happens when the news gets around Scotland? Runners go to the different boroughs, go to the different boroughs, that have voted against it. Is there like funereal silence across Scotland? What happens? Well, there's a good deal of agitation and indeed men in arms in the peripheries. And then in 1708, almost immediately a French support operation is launched after supporters being gleaned in Scotland, at least apparent supports being gleaned in Scotland, for a rising to restore James Stewart, James the 8th and 3rd, as he's called by his supporters and many continental powers to the Scottish throne and to end the Union. And that's frustrated by the Royal Navy. So there is almost immediately a military response from France, and it remains a French

foreign policy priority to divide the new polity of Great Britain throughout the 18th century. And that's largely why France continues to support the Jacobites. And you find many Jacobites making their way to Paris to begin plotting in the streets of Paris? You do indeed, and the majority of Jacobites who went with James into exile in 1688, 9 were English, but the nationality of the Jacobites abroad starts to change by the early 18th century and accelerates away from English exiles who supported the king to Scots and Irish ones. My forebear, who was then, having got through the Act of Union, gets appointed the ambassador to Paris, famously leaves the diplomatic dinners early, gets into disguise, and speaks Scots in the Paris coffee houses,

mixing with the Jacobites and spying on them. Lord. Yes, that's right. So, Murray, we are going to come back to you and we're going to have far more about Global Scotland, the Scots Empire, the Scots in Empire, in future episodes. But before we close this today, do you think that the era of 1707,

the active union is drawing to a close? What's your take on that? So it has closed. What I would say is that for a very long time, Scotland was effectively treated as a unitary part of Great Britain at home, but allowed to be independent, inverted commas, autonomous, overseas. And that Scotland's global reputation is part of the historic compromise of the British Empire, whereby Scots were Scottish overseas, as long as they were politically British at home. And that was a grand bargain. That grand bargain of Scotland's access to global markets as Scotland ended in the 1960s and was already on the skids earlier than that for various reasons. It no longer exists. So, for example, in the 60s, you still got the Kessiks with interest in Hong Kong and all that sort of stuff. Or the Guthrie's

in Malaysia. Of course, you still have Jardin Matheson owning very large parts of Hong Kong. even now. This lovely building with round portals meant to look like a ship, but known apparently by the Chinese is the building of a thousand assholes. I think they didn't agree with China on their domestic policy, but they seduced China's mercantar classes. That's for another day. But what I would say is that as Great Britain withdrew from its empire, fundamentally it started to think of itself as a single country much more than it had done. It had an empire. Because once upon a time to be Scottish and British, Scottish and Canadian, Scottish and New Zealand, these were real dual identities. And now the only one that's left really, though there's some

British Canadians, is Scots and British. So people want to see Britain as a unitary state, and it never actually was. And that has created a lot of tensions in the Union, as has Scotland's exclusion from effectively, the end of empire. And now, of course, there's a European question, but it's a different issue. Just for those who aren't from Britain, the Scots voted overwhelmingly against Brexit and were very disappointed to lose Europe. Yes.

So the easiest thing to say is that Scotland has always been a Scotland and society. It's not an autarkic society. It's always a society which has operated in composite or alliance with other countries and cultures. And this is the first time it's been asked not to and to actually see itself as not fully a country as it was overseas throughout most of the period of the Union. So in that sense, the Union is conceived by the Scots of the 18th century

and indeed some of their English allies in Union like Walpole has disappeared. It doesn't mean the Union's ended, but it means the nature of the Union is fundamentally changed beyond recognition from where it stood at the time we're discussing. It's been an absolutely fascinating hour in your company, Murray. Thank you so much. Murray Pittock, author of the wonderful book, Scotland, the Global History. Thank you so much.

That is all we have time for. Till the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Durham Pool.