Scotland: history 1603 to 1746

For the history of Scotland before 1603, see Scotland: history to 1058, Scotland: history 1058 to 1513 (see also medieval England and Scotland), and Scotland: history 1513 to 1603.

After the accession of James VI and I to the English throne, the history of Scotland became increasingly linked with that of England. The Scots played a significant role in the English Civil War. They were at war with the English government during the Commonwealth and after the Glorious Revolution. The Act of Union might be seen as the inevitable result of defeat by England, which the Jacobite rebellions failed to reverse.

James VI and I In 1603 James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England as James I, but his proposal for an actual political union of the two countries was rejected by both nations. However, from this point subjects born in Scotland were held to be naturalized English subjects.

James continued trying to crush the political power of the church in Scotland. His Scottish bishops up to this point were in his eyes merely Presbyterian moderators. Now he sent for three of them and had them consecrated by English bishops, and they in their turn consecrated the remaining Scottish bishops. He set up courts of commission, and in 1618 he forced the famous Five Articles upon the Scottish church. The articles were hated by the Scots, and they could not be enforced. They would have forced upon the Scots those very things that they had avoided in their own church: kneeling at communion, observation of Christmas and Easter, and confirmation. In 1623 the English liturgy (prayers used in common worship) was introduced into St Andrews, but by this time even James's advisers realized that matters were being pressed too swiftly.

Charles I and the National Covenant In 1625 James I died. Charles I succeeded him as king of Scotland and England, and pressed the episcopacy question (government of the church by bishops) even further than James. The nobility had held aloof from the quarrels of James and the Kirk, since they benefited from the lands that they had seized from the church - seizures that James had recognized. Charles reunited Kirk and nobility by his policy, and so prepared the way for united action during the later Bishops' Wars (1639-40).

In 1633 Charles held a parliament in Edinburgh, and in 1637 he attempted to introduce Archbishop Laud's Anglican liturgy. At St Giles's Church in Edinburgh a riot broke out, traditionally believed to have been sparked off by one Jenny Geddes, who threw her stool at the bishop using the hated liturgy. (There is, however, no historical evidence for her action.) The church and the nobility petitioned against the liturgy, and finally the National Covenant (see Covenanters) was signed in February 1638, by which the signatories swore to uphold their own forms of worship. In November 1638 a General Assembly, unsanctioned by Charles, quickly abolished all the work of James VI against the church. The Scots rose up in arms, and the Bishops' Wars followed (1639-40).

The Civil War period The Bishops' Wars forced events in England itself rapidly to a head. The king, faced with the possibility of armed opposition in Scotland, was obliged to call a parliament, and when this failed he called another. The resulting Long Parliament (1640) was the beginning of the end for Charles. Following the outbreak of hostilities between Parliament and the king in 1642 (see Civil War, English) the former demanded help from the Scots.

In 1643 the Solemn League and Covenant was signed, by which the Scots offered the English Parliament military aid in return for the establishment of Presbyterianism in England. The Scots fought at Marston Moor (1644), and although the Marquess of Montrose later fought strenuously for the king, he was finally defeated at Philiphaugh (1645). The king surrendered to the Scots at Newark, and was finally handed over to the English on receipt of arrears of pay, amounting to £200,000.

The Commonwealth period Disillusionment with the English Parliamentarians subsequently set in, and in 1648 the Scots marched into England to rescue the king, but were defeated by Oliver Cromwell at Preston. The execution of the king in 1649 was regarded with horror by nearly all the Scots, and Charles II was recognized as king. Charles was approached and asked to sign the Covenants. Before doing so, however, he tried to rouse the Highlands to revolt under Montrose, who was captured and hanged at the Grassmarket, Edinburgh (1650). In the meantime Charles had signed the Covenants.

Cromwell invaded Scotland, won the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650, captured Edinburgh, and controlled all of southern Scotland. In August 1651 he marched south and finally defeated Charles II at Worcester on the anniversary of Dunbar.

During the Commonwealth period Scotland and England were joined, and were administered as one country. To the extreme Puritans, Presbyterianism was as hateful as Episcopalianism, and so the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland were dismissed and did not meet during the period of the Protectorate (1653-59). Nevertheless, Scotland prospered under the rule of Cromwell, the country became far more orderly, and justice was enforced.

Charles II and the restoration of episcopacy Despite the benefits of Cromwell's rule, the restoration of Charles II in 1660 was hailed with delight by the Scots. They believed that their former loyalty would be acknowledged by the king, whom they had been the first to recognize, and for whom they had fought. But Scotland was doomed to disappointment. A series of quarrels broke out among the nobility of Scotland for the restoration of lands lost during the Commonwealth period.

Episcopacy was restored to Scotland, and numerous ministers refusing to recognize it lost their livings. However, as yet the change went no farther than an alteration in church government; no liturgy was introduced, and the Presbyterian Shorter Catechism was still taught. Sharp, who had been the leader of the moderate Presbyterians, now went over to the side of the king and became archbishop of St Andrews. Charles's church policy finally aroused the Covenanters to armed resistance, which was easily overcome, but which could quite easily have been prevented.

The resurgence of the Covenanters The Earl of Middleton, who ruled Scotland for the king, seemed determined to crush all possible opposition. Very shortly after this John Maitland (later Duke of Lauderdale) became commissioner for Scotland (1667-79). He attempted a policy of semi-toleration, by which certain Presbyterian ministers were allowed licences to preach. But this roused great resentment among the sterner sects, who followed their banished ministers to the moors and hills and worshipped there. These ‘conventicles’ were forbidden; but the murder of Archbishop Sharp and the defeat of the royal forces under John Graham of Claverhouse at Drumclog (1679) proved that the forces in Scotland were too small to repress the Covenanters. Reinforcements under the Duke of Monmouth were dispatched to Scotland, and three weeks after Drumclog the Covenanters were defeated at Bothwell Bridge. In 1681 Charles II's brother, the Catholic James, Duke of York, was appointed royal commissioner in Scotland. The years that followed have gone down in the history of the Presbyterians as the ‘killing time’, and many Covenanters fought and died for their ideals.

In 1685 James became king as James VII of Scotland and James II of England. James tried to exercise his power by dispensing with the laws in Scotland as he had in England, but finally lost power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Glorious Revolution, 1688 For most Presbyterian Scots, the accession of William III was welcome, and the fall of James II was marked by mob attacks on Catholics and Episcopalian ministers in Scotland. The Scottish throne was offered by the Scottish Convention to the Protestant William of Orange and his wife, Mary II, daughter of James II. They accepted, but only when the clause ‘to root out all heretics’ had been abandoned. The couple then ruled jointly as William III and Mary II.

However, the Highlanders, many of whom were Catholic, viewed the Glorious Revolution as a disaster. In March 1689 John Graham of Claverhouse roused the Highlands to rebellion in support of James, whose followers became known as Jacobites (from Jacobus, the Latin for James). On 27 July 1689 Claverhouse won the Battle of Killiecrankie, but died in the moment of victory. The remaining Jacobite forces in Scotland were routed at the Battle of Dunkeld in August, and the Jacobite revolt in Scotland was for the time being over.

In 1690 the Church of Scotland was re-established on its Presbyterian basis, and since then the first oath that sovereigns take on their accession is one promising to safeguard the liberties of the Scottish church. In 1692 occurred the infamous massacre of Glencoe, when the MacDonalds, previously loyal to James II, fell prey to the hatred of the Protestant Campbells at the instigation of the English.

The Act of Union William III himself had advocated a political union between England and Scotland, but he died before the scheme was even debated. The problem became one of considerable importance during the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14). Since all of Anne's children had died, the succession had to be speedily settled. The Scottish Parliament had refused to accept the Hanoverian succession, and was threatening to choose its own king - it seemed to English politicians that the only way to assure the security of England was union with the northern kingdom. At the same time, the Scottish nobles had become increasingly anglicized over the last century, since most had lived at the English court to be near the king.

In May 1707 the Act of Union, however, was passed by both the Scottish and English Parliaments, and received the royal assent. It declared that the Scottish Parliament was to be abolished, but that Scotland was to have 45 members and 16 elected peers in the Parliament at Westminster. In addition the church and laws of Scotland were safeguarded, and the trade privileges declared to be the same for both countries. The Scots also got a huge injection of money to pay off debts acquired in the disastrous attempt to colonize Darien in central America. In Scotland the union was, for over 40 years, extremely unpopular; but although the Scots did not benefit fully from it for a considerable time, it was of real advantage to the Scots of a later period. The Scots gained freedom to trade overseas without the burden of the Navigation Acts, and they gained considerably from trade with England.

The Jacobite rebellions The Act of Settlement of 1701 had excluded the Catholic descendants of James II from the throne in favour of the Protestant house of Hanover. The Hanoverian claim to the succession came through Sophia, electress of Hanover, who was the granddaughter of James VI. Following the deaths of Queen Anne and Sophia in 1714, her son ascended the British throne as George I. The following year James Edward Stuart, son of James II, and known as the Old Pretender, landed in Scotland to head the rebellion known as the Fifteen. However, this was a failure from the start, and James withdrew through lack of support.

The Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, led another Jacobite rebellion in 1745 (known as the Forty-Five), rallying the Highland clans to his standard. Although outwardly more successful than its predecessor - the Jacobite army penetrated as far south as Derby - it was nevertheless doomed to failure.

Following the final defeat of the Jacobites at Culloden (1746), harsh measures were taken in the Highlands to end the power of the clans and to destroy Gaelic culture. Such policies were generally supported by the Lowland Scots, many of whom had supported the Hanoverians, and who had long mistrusted the unruly Highlanders.

For subsequent events in Scottish history, see Scotland: history from 1746.