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Chapter 12
The Unmaking of a Nation (1690–1750)
In This Chapter
Making it through the ‘Ill Years’
Understanding the Union of the Parliaments
Looking at the Jacobite revolts
Forging a new national identity for Scotland
Delivering the Scottish vote for the government
During this period, Scotland’s political leaders voluntarily gave away its sovereignty and became part of a new country called Great Britain. Historians continue to debate the reasons behind the decision of the Scottish Parliament to vote itself out of existence in 1707. But whether it was for the money or for something nobler, the fact is that the Scottish national identity, which had been built around opposition to English imperialism, had to recast itself – the Scots had to learn to become North Britons.
The Union was not popular with everyone. Many Scots, especially in the Highlands, still owed allegiance to the Stewart Dynasty, and in a number of revolts, they attempted to reverse the settlement arrived at in 1707. Through these struggles, Scotland was cemented into the Union politically, militarily and economically.
The ‘Ill Years’
The 1690s proved to be a decade of disaster for Scotland. They began with the Glencoe Massacre. The middle years also witnessed famine on a massive scale, and the end of the decade brought with it the debacle of Darien. Not for nothing were the 1690s referred to as the ‘Ill Years’.
The Glencoe Massacre
Following the defeat of the first Jacobite rising in 1689 (see Chapter 11), the Highland chiefs were called to swear allegiance to King William I’s government. Due to technical issues co
Dalrymple wrote to the king:
Glencoe hath not taken the oath at which I rejoice… . It will be a proper vindication of the public justice to extirpate that sept of thieves… . It must be done quietly, otherwise they will make shift for both men and cattle… . Let it be secret and sudden.
King William I signed a document on 1 January 1692 ordering the massacre of the MacIains of Glencoe, an affiliated clan of the MacDonalds. The man chosen to lead the massacre was Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a member of the sworn clan enemies of the MacDonalds, the Campbells, although most of his men were not. Campbell was acting not for his clan but for the king, and his orders came from the lord advocate, Dalrymple of Stair. Although the government ordered the attack by putting a Campbell in charge, the massacre was framed to look like a clan feud.
The orders were to:
fall upon the rebels … and put to sword all under seventy… . You are to secure all the avenues, that no man escape… . This by the King’s special command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cut off root and branch.
Like the best-laid plans, this one didn’t go very well. The armed reinforcement didn’t arrive on time; the attack took place two hours before it should have. Only 40 of 150 MacDonald clan members were killed; the rest escaped. The chief of the MacDonald clan was shot in the back as he got out of bed; his wife was stripped naked and her rings were pried from her fingers by soldiers’ teeth. In addition, their homes were burned and their cattle driven off.
The massacre caused a national outrage. It was no worse than the massacre on the Isle of Eigg two years earlier, carried out mainly against women and children, in which rape figured highly. But Glencoe was different because it was seen as a case of ‘murder under trust’, which was a heinous crime in Scotland, carrying the same penalty as treason. For almost two weeks the soldiers and clansmen had lived together – eating, drinking, gambling and playing shinty. Then the soldiers had attempted to slaughter the clansmen!
A parliamentary inquiry was set up, but the only one involved who took the high jump was Dalrymple, who was forced to resign in 1695. To sweeten the pill of dismissal, he was given an earldom in 1703.
The Glencoe Massacre backfired on the government because it increased support among the clans for the Stewart cause and strengthened the hand of the Scottish government against English interference.
Widespread famine
From 1695 to 1699, Scotland suffered a series of bad harvests that led to the deaths of thousands of Scots from starvation and disease. The Scottish population fell by around 15 per cent – in some parishes, that number was as high as 50 per cent!
Poverty was endemic, and the old system of poor relief could not cope with the numbers looking for help. The extent of the problem can be appreciated from two contemporary accounts. Patrick Walker, an itinerant pedlar, wrote that in the Highlands,
Meal became so scarce … and many could not get it… . I have seen … women clapping their hands, and tearing the clothes off their heads, crying ‘How shall we go home and see our children die in hunger?’ … deaths and burials were so many and common, that the living were wearied in the burying of the dead.
A Lowlander wrote,
Some die by the wayside, some drop down in the streets, the poor sucking babs are starving for want of milk, which the empty breasts of their mothers ca
The attitude of the authorities was callous, to say the least. One university professor advised the hungry on which herbs were edible and suggested they eat cats. Ministers recommended fast days for the starving!
Those who could escape it got out. Fifty thousand Scots left for Ulster in the 1690s. Poland was also home to thousands of Scottish merchants, pedlars and soldiers. The loss to England has never been worked out, but during the 17th century something like a quarter of a million Scots left to look for a better future. This only made matters worse for the economy – the drain on population had a negative impact on growth.
The famine added to Scottish economic worries. When a solution to colonise was proposed as a way out, the Scots almost bit the hand of the proposer. But it ended in disaster.
The Darien Scheme
The
Darien Scheme
was an attempt to establish a Scottish trading colony on the Isthmus of Darien, now Panama. It’s evidence of people’s endless capacity for self-delusion, as long as the sales pitch is right.
The project was the brainchild of William Paterson, a financier from Dumfries-shire, based in London, who had spent some time in the West Indies and had been tinkering with the idea of establishing a colony since 1684. The establishment of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in 1695 gave Paterson his chance to turn his dream into reality. The company’s aim was to raise finance from both English and Scottish merchants, but opposition in the English Parliament quashed any hope of investment from that area. The Scots had to go it alone. They raised £400,000 in a couple of weeks (roughly equivalent to £42million today).
The proposal seemed, on the surface, to be absolutely brilliant. The new colony, New Caledonia, on the Isthmus of Darien, would link the Caribbean with the Pacific, which would cut out the hazardous journey around Cape Horn and establish itself as a great port linking the trade from the two oceans. Money made would enrich an impoverished Scotland.
The theory was good, but in practice the adventure was doomed to failure. Here’s why:
The Scots were burrowing into Spain’s Latin American Empire, so the Spanish weren’t too pleased to see them.
In fact, a Spanish naval blockade of New Caledonia in 1700 finished off the Scottish colony. In the game of empires, sea power was everything; the Spanish had a large navy, whereas the Scots had only two frigates. So, Spain won.
The English weren’t too helpful.
King William was cosying up to Spain in an attempt to stop Louis XIV inheriting the Spanish Empire on the death of Charles II. The Scots were getting in the way and had to be put in their place in spite of the fact that William was also the king of Scotland, a place he never visited. So, the English merchants were ordered not to provide the colony with supplies. The Scots weren’t too happy with William!
The settlers were inexperienced and the climate was pretty tough; plus, disease was rife.
There were two expeditions. The first, in November 1698, left the port of Leith with 1,200 people; only 1 in 4 survived. Propaganda put out by the company suggested it was all going well and that encouraged a second expedition, in November 1699, of about another 1,000 people. But it was all a disaster and, in the end, only a few hundred of the 2,500 settlers survived the experience; most died from disease.
The Spanish forced a surrender of the settlers after only eight months.
The consequences of failure were profound:
Economically, the scheme’s failure was a massive blow to the country; something like a quarter of the liquid capital of Scotland was tied up in it. Investors included the great and the good, like the leading courtier the duke of Queensberry, down to merchants and financiers. Paterson himself lost a large sum of money.
Constitutionally, there were questions raised regarding the Union of the Crowns (see Chapter 10). How could a monarch of both Scotland and England favour one over the other? Many people were furious over William’s role in the collapse of Darien.
The English were held responsible. Anti-Englishness grew in the immediate aftermath. The
A
a ship hired by the Company of Scotland to trade with the Spice Islands, was seized by the East India Company because its mission contravened the company’s monopoly in that part of the world. Fury broke out in Scotland, which led to the deaths of three i
In July 1704, an English ship, the
Worcester,
was declared an East India Company-owned vessel. In revenge for the
A
its cargo was impounded and its crew farcically charged with piracy for having earlier sunk a Company of Scotland ship, the
Speedy Return.
The master of the
Worcester,
21-year-old Thomas Green, and two crew members were hanged in Edinburgh on 11 April 1705 in spite of Queen A
Relations between the two countries could not have been bitterer at this point. Yet surprisingly, within two years of the hangings, Scotland and England would do something unique: form an incorporating union.
The Union Debate