Chapter 4 FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION

At the Restoration the advisability of continuing the Union was discussed. In England it was maintained that the smaller country must give up its Parliament and its separate system of laws, or that it must, at all events, make the first advance, and say definitely on what terms it would unite. In Scotland it was foreseen that not only would the native Parliament and the native laws be destroyed in the event of a union, but that also, in all probability, the Church would be sacrificed.

But the prosperity which the country was beginning to enjoy might have reconciled many of the people to these changes.[91]

The Restoration was hailed with joy by the nobles, who hoped that they would again have their Parliament and their Privy Council, by means of which their families were aggrandised, and their hereditary jurisdictions and feudal rights, which gave them so much authority over their tenants and retainers. The clergy, smarting under the indignities to which they had lately been subjected, and believing that Charles would keep faith with them and establish Presbytery, welcomed the change, and at once began to pray again for the king. Clarendon, however, was of opinion that the majority of Scotsmen were in favour of the continuance of the Union. He himself was in favour of leaving things as they were. "But the king," he says, "would not build according to Cromwell's models, and had many reasons to continue Scotland within its own limits and bounds, and sole dependence upon himself, rather than unite it to England with so many hazards and dangers as would inevitably have accompanied it, under any government less tyrannical than that of Cromwell."[92]

Lauderdale, whose influence in Scottish affairs was now well-nigh supreme, was strongly in favour of removing all traces of the Commonwealth government. To begin with, he insisted that the fortresses which Cromwell had built should be demolished and their garrisons withdrawn. The time might come, he told the king, when he would be in need of Scottish garrisons in England, and to maintain an English army in Scotland would alienate the affections of the Scottish people. The fortresses were, accordingly, dismantled, and the army of occupation was disbanded. Every trace of the Union soon disappeared. The Estates met in the Parliament House once more; and the judges took their places on the bench of the Court of Session.

On the question of the Church, Lauderdale's advice was not followed. His view was that, instead of aiming at an Union, either civil or religious, between the two countries, the object of the Government should be to disunite them by all possible means, and, at the same time, to keep the people of Scotland in good humour by giving them whatever form of Church government they wanted, in order that they might be willing to serve the king, if necessary, against the Parliament of England. Such was the advice of Lauderdale. Charles himself, though he detested Presbytery, was at first inclined to take it. But, in the end, the intrigues of the Episcopal faction prevailed; and it was resolved to establish an Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Chancellor explained to Lauderdale that it was intended to set up only a modified form of prelacy. "My Lord," he sternly answered, "since you are for bishops and must have them, bishops you shall have, and higher than ever they were in Scotland."

These words came true. If the statesmen of England had asked, By what means shall we most easily irritate and exasperate the Scottish people? how can we alienate them from England? how can we render the royal family unpopular? how can we destroy the trade of Scotland, which is beginning to improve? how can we throw the country, which is settling down, back into anarchy and confusion? how can we most successfully unite against the Church of England the whole body of the Scottish people? how can we produce a profound distrust in all measures which are proposed by the Council in London? by what means, in short, can we best make the people of Scotland disloyal, poverty-stricken, and rebellious?-if these questions had been asked, some evil councillor might have answered them thus: Pass, he might have said, an Act of Parliament which will destroy their commerce; abolish the Union, and thus destroy free trade between them and the English; restore to the owners of the soil the jurisdictions by means of which they tyrannised over their dependants in the past, and by means of which they will be able to tyrannise over them in the future; restore the tenure of lands by military service, and thus you will, in a few years, people every hamlet over a large portion of the country with restless and idle clansmen, whose only business in life is to foment feuds between their masters, and to seek plunder for themselves; above all things, let the king destroy the Presbyterian Church which he swore to establish when he took that solemn vow, on the faith of which the crown of Scotland was placed upon his head; let the great noble whose hands performed the act of coronation, and to whom a Dukedom and a Garter were promised, be accused of treason for a tardy compliance with the usurper, and let the rules of legal procedure be strained in order to procure his condemnation; eject from their livings the clergy whom the people trust; let enormous fines, far in excess of what the country can bear, be inflicted on every class for the offence of nonconformity; punish with death those who listen to the clergy preaching in the fields because you have driven them from the churches. All this, and a great deal more, was done. The years which followed the Restoration were the most miserable in the history of Scotland. The great source of misery was the desperate contest between the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Churches; but the commercial policy of the English Parliament is what chiefly bears on the question of the Union.

Scotland had not suffered from the Navigation Act of 1651, which forbade foreign ships to import goods into England, or to trade with the colonies, or even to visit them without special leave. This statute was passed, in the words of Blackstone, "to punish our rebellious colonies, and to clip the wings of the Dutch." It kept the colonial trade in the hands of England, and increased the value of English shipping. The terms of the Union during the Commonwealth had exempted Scotland from its provisions. But now the Union was at an end, and Scotland was once again a separate kingdom. The Parliament of England proceeded to pass a new and even more stringent Navigation Act, which inflicted a deadly blow upon the trade of Scotland.[93]

Sir George Mackenzie traces the origin of this, and other laws hostile to Scottish commerce, to the fact that Clarendon and other English politicians were piqued by the way in which Lauderdale prided himself on having induced the king to withdraw the army from Scotland against their advice. "This excessive boasting," he says, "that he had prevailed in this over Hyde, Middletoun, and all the English, did somewhat contribute to renew the old discords which had formerly been entertained between the two nations; and occasioned the making of those severe Acts, whereby the Parliament of England debarred the Scots from freedom of trade in their plantations, and from enjoying the benefit of natives in the privilege of shipping."[94]

The new law was so rigorous that no goods nor produce, of any country, could be imported into the colonies except from England or Wales. Irish goods could not go from Ireland, nor Scottish goods from Scotland. Moreover, the most important products of a colony could enter England, or another colony, only on payment of duty. English ships alone were allowed to carry goods to and from the colonies. The sugar, the tobacco, the cotton, in fact all the most useful produce of the colonies, could be shipped to England only, and could not enter an English port except in an English vessel. Nor could goods be imported into England from the continent of Europe except in English ships, or in ships belonging to the country which actually produced them.

This monopoly, under which the colonies could trade with England alone, was a grievance to the colonies. They, however, had at least the privilege of trading with England. But to the colonial trade of Scotland the Navigation Act was ruinous.

Other laws, hostile to the industries of Scotland, were enacted. On some Scottish goods duties were paid equal to, or above, their value. On others a duty was charged very much greater than the duty levied on the same articles when they came from abroad. For instance, the duty on Scottish salt was sixteen times that imposed on foreign salt. Linen imported from Scotland was now so heavily taxed that it hardly paid the producer to bring it into England. In Northumberland and Cumberland heavy customs were levied on horses which came from Scotland; and, on the plea that a great part of the richest pasture land in England would fall in value if the graziers of Scotland were allowed to find a free market in England, Parliament was induced to cripple one of the most important branches of Scottish industry by imposing a fine of two pounds for every head of cattle which crossed the border between the 24th of August and the 20th of December.[95] And there were many other enactments framed for the purpose of excluding Scottish merchants, whose operations were further embarrassed by a law under which all goods sent from Scotland to England must pass through either Berwick or Carlisle.[96]

The commercial freedom which had been enjoyed during the period of the Commonwealth had quickened the commercial instincts of the Scottish people, and had given them some idea of what their country might become if they were permitted to extend their traffic to the colonies, those highly-favoured regions of the earth from which so large a portion of the wealth of England came. The recent Union had been attended by circumstances which were humiliating; but for many of these compensation had been found in the prosperity which the Union had brought along with it. The sudden change which the Restoration had produced was, therefore, bitterly resented; and the Scottish merchants persuaded the Estates to retaliate by passing a Navigation Act for Scotland, similar to the English Act, and by imposing heavy duties on English goods.[97] But retaliation could not put Scotland in the same position as England; and at length, after repeated complaints and demands, an Act was passed under which commissioners from the two countries were to meet and confer on the subject of a commercial treaty.[98]

In January 1668 the commissioners met. The Scotsmen demanded that Scotland should enjoy the privilege of trading to the English colonies which was granted, by the Act of Navigation, to the Irish and to the Welsh, and that they should be allowed to bring in goods as freely as the English, with no other restrictions than those laid on Ireland and Wales. They were willing to give assurances that goods transported from English colonies would be brought to England, except the small quantities which were consumed in Scotland. A number of papers, containing these and other demands, were presented by the Scottish commissioners, and to these the English commissioners returned written answers.

Apparently the conferences were on the point of terminating abruptly within less than a month; for, on the 29th of January, the Scottish commissioners refused to go further until the question of the Navigation Act was settled, and the English refused to act until the whole of the Scottish demands were laid before them. The Scottish commissioners gave in, and presented a document in which their grievances were set forth. The repeal of the Navigation Act was what they chiefly insisted on; but, in addition to this, they complained of the whole of those Acts of Parliament by which free trade between England and Scotland had been abolished, and by which excessive duties had been imposed on Scottish produce. "Thus," they said, "your lordships have now the full scheme of all that is demanded by us in this treaty. But because what we have given in, relating to the Act of Navigation, was the first in time, and is the greatest obstruction of our trade, and indeed without which our trade cannot be carried on, we still insist upon an answer to it in the first place, and then we shall be willing to proceed to treat on all the rest in order."[99]

After a long delay the English commissioners returned their answer. They refused, in peremptory terms, to allow Scotland to trade with the colonies. The colonies, they said, were founded by Englishmen, and Scotsmen had no right to benefit by them. They were prepared, however, to permit Scotsmen to go and settle as merchants in the colonies; but they refused to allow Scottish ships to carry foreign produce into English ports. "The kingdom of Scotland," they said, "being wholly independent, and not subject to the Crown of England, we cannot have reasonable security and satisfaction that the said kingdom will keep up, and tie itself, to the strict observation of the restrictions and limitations set down in the Act of Navigation, with relation to this matter."

They offered, nevertheless, to make some concessions, on condition that those Acts of the Scottish Parliament which imposed a tariff hostile to English trade were repealed. If that were done, Scottish ships might import fish into England free of duty, and also tar, hemp, flax, raisins, and grain of any sort, on payment of the duty levied on aliens. They might also import timber into England for six years; and the reason for this concession was frankly stated to be that since the great fire of London there had been a scarcity of wood for rebuilding the city. They also offered to give Scottish ships the right, for six years only, of exporting goods from England, on payment of the same customs as English ships paid.

These terms were refused by the Scottish commissioners, who objected to the limitation of six years, and declared that the Scots wished to be, as they had been during the Union under Cromwell, in a position to compete, on equal terms, with the merchants of England. But the English commissioners would not yield; and the negotiations terminated without any result.

It was now evident that, so long as the two countries remained separate, there could be no genuine commercial prosperity in Scotland. It was, therefore, natural that the question of Union should be again revived. The project was first suggested by a Scottish peer, whose advice in other matters, if it had been taken, would have saved the Privy Council of Scotland from much of the blood-guiltiness which it incurred during these years. John, second Earl of Tweeddale, had been sworn of the Council at the Restoration, but had frequently raised his voice on behalf of the persecuted Presbyterians; and he had often endeavoured to discover some means by which peace could be restored to Scotland. His proposal now was that the Scottish Parliament should be called together, and invited to consider what steps should be taken to unite the kingdoms. To this Charles readily agreed, for he thought that if the two Parliaments were merged in one, the Lords and Commons who represented Scotland would, as a rule, support the measures of the Court. The Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Keeper Bridgeman were also in favour of this proposal.[100]

It was, indeed, the interest of all whose fortunes were bound up with the fortunes of the Royal Family that Scotland should be conciliated. The recent conferences had shown how strong the feeling of Scotland was on the subject of trade; and no candid-minded Englishman could deny that the grievances complained of by the commissioners from beyond the Tweed were real grievances. It was true that the more powerful nation was master of the field, and could, by obstinately opposing the demands of her weaker neighbour, debar her from the trade in which she was so anxious to obtain a share. But the lessons of the great Civil War had not been altogether forgotten at the Court; and, in the secret conclave of the king's advisers, there always had been, ever since the Restoration, an uneasy feeling that a day might come when the Crown would find itself opposed by the Parliament. At such a crisis much would depend on what was done by Scotland. It was, therefore, of importance to persuade the people of Scotland that, so far as the king's influence went, everything had been done to remove the commercial disabilities of which they so justly complained.

Lauderdale, who at the Restoration had supported the policy of separation, was now eager on the side of Union. No Parliament had met in Scotland since 1663. It would be necessary to summon the Estates together if the Union was to be discussed; and Lauderdale coveted the office of Lord High Commissioner. A Parliament was, therefore, summoned. It met at Edinburgh in October 1669. Lauderdale was Commissioner. A letter from the king was read, in which the Union was recommended to the favourable consideration of the Estates; and his Majesty's servants proposed that an answer should at once be returned, announcing that the Parliament of Scotland was in favour of the Union. Some opposition was offered by Sir George Gordon of Haddo, then member for Aberdeenshire, and afterwards first Earl of Aberdeen, and by Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, who a few years later became Lord Advocate; but, in the end, a letter was despatched in which the Estates approved of the Union, and left it to the king to name commissioners to treat upon the subject. The Parliament of England took the same view; and in September 1670, the commissioners met in London.[101]

Five questions were submitted to them: the preserving entire to both kingdoms of their laws, civil and ecclesiastical; the uniting of the two kingdoms into one monarchy; the reducing of both parliaments to one; the regulation of trade; and the best means of preserving the conditions of the Union.

The subject of trade, the most important of all, was never reached; for, before very long, the treaty broke down on the question of the representation of Scotland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Scottish commissioners proposed that all the members of the Scottish Estates should be members of the Parliament. To this the English commissioners could not agree; and the proceedings came to an abrupt conclusion.

During these negotiations the Scotsmen had not been on very good terms with each other. Lauderdale and Tweeddale quarrelled; and Sir George Mackenzie says that the Lord Chancellor, at dinner one day, abused two of the commissioners, Sir Archibald Primrose, father of the first Earl of Rosebery, and Sir John Nisbet, then Lord Advocate, for walking on foot when they had a handsome allowance for expenses, and called them "damned lawyers." They were heard to express their resentment at this; whereupon Lauderdale, who bore them a grudge as supporters of Tweeddale, told them he would accuse them to the king of trying to frustrate the Union by causing bad feeling among the commissioners. "And thus," says Mackenzie, "in place of uniting the nations, these wise commissioners disunited themselves, and returned to Scotland as men from a rout."

However popular an Union might have been among the Scottish merchants, it would have been most unpopular in England. The English merchants, who had exulted in the failure of the Commission on Trade, were up in arms against the idea of giving to Scotland the privileges which she would have secured by the Union; and the majority of Englishmen still hated and despised the very name of Scotland. This hatred and contempt of the neighbour country, an inheritance from the long years of international warfare, found vent in abusive descriptions of Scotland and the Scottish people, which were circulated all over the island, causing laughter in England and rousing bitter indignation beyond the Tweed. "The country," says one writer, "is full of lakes and loughs, and they are well stocked with islands; so that a map thereof looks like a pillory coat bespattered all over with dirt and rotten eggs, some pieces of the shells floating here and there representing the islands." The towns of Scotland were briefly described as poor and populous, especially Edinburgh, which resembled its inhabitants in "being high and dirty." It was compared to a double comb, an article which Scotsmen did not often use, having one great street, with a number of alleys branching from it, which might be mistaken for common sewers.

As to the Scottish women, "the meaner sort go barefoot and bareheaded, with two black elf-locks on either side their faces; some of them have scarce any clothes at all, some part of their bed-clothes pinned about their shoulders, and their children have nothing else on them but a little blanket. Those women that can purchase plaids need not bestow much upon other clothes, these cover-sluts being sufficient. Those of the best sort, that are very well habited in their modish silks, yet must wear a plaid over all for the credit of their country."

The English language could scarcely furnish language violent enough for the purpose of describing the Scots: "The people are proud, arrogant, vain-glorious boasters, bloody, barbarous, and inhuman butchers. Cozenage and theft are in perfection among them, and they are perfect English-haters. They show their pride in exalting themselves and depressing their neighbours. When the palace at Edinburgh is finished they expect his Majesty will leave his rotten house at Whitehall, and live splendidly among his own countrymen, the Scots, for they say that Englishmen are much beholden to them that we have their king amongst us."[102]

If, in 1670, an Union had been accomplished by the terms of which the people of Scotland had obtained everything which they desired with regard to trade, it would have been an immense blessing to the country. But knowing what we know of the councillors who surrounded the throne, and of the character of the last two princes of the house of Stuart, we may be perfectly certain that an attempt would have been made to unite the Churches. In England, the Scottish Church question was completely misunderstood; nay more, to most Englishmen it was unintelligible. It was known that there were troubles in the North; and it was vaguely supposed that the Government had to cope with false doctrine, heresy, and schism, evils for delivery from which every good Anglican was accustomed to pray. But few imagined that month after month, and year after year, the majority of the Scottish nation was being treated in a manner which the majority of the English nation would not have tolerated for a single week. Even those Englishmen who had the best means of knowing the truth had been totally deceived as to the number and determination of the Presbyterians. At the Restoration, Sharp had told the Government that if Episcopacy was established not more than twenty ministers would refuse to conform. As a matter of fact, more than three hundred gave up their livings. The parish churches were deserted in many places by the people, and meetings were held in private houses. Not only was this declared to be illegal, but mere nonconformity was made a crime; and the madness of the Scottish Privy Council may be seen from the fact that any landowner who failed to attend his parish church was fined a fourth of his rents for the year in which he was convicted; while for the same offence tenants and burgesses were fined a fourth of their personal estates. Forbidden by a law resembling the English Five Mile Act to live within twenty miles of their parishes, within six miles of a cathedral town, or within three miles of a burgh, the ejected ministers took to preaching in the fields. This was punished as sedition; and the law was administered in so cruel and relentless a fashion that, if the whole truth had been known in England, there can be little doubt that indignant remonstrances would have been addressed to the Government; especially when, in 1670, the Scottish Parliament passed an Act by which any person who, without a licence from a bishop or the Privy Council, preached or prayed at a field meeting, was to be put to death,-a savage law which was savagely executed. To the people of England, however, very little of all this was known.

Tweeddale possibly saw, in the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, and in those reforms of the Privy Council which might be expected to follow an incorporating Union, some prospect that a wiser and more moderate system of government might be introduced. But the whole course of Scottish history during the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second shows that nothing less than that sweeping removal of every trace of Prelacy which took place at the Revolution could have restored peace and order to the country. It is, therefore, well that the Union did not take place at a time when the statesmen in both countries, by whom the terms of Union would have been arranged, were pertinaciously bent on establishing a system of Church government which, loved and honoured though it was in England, was hated and despised in Scotland.

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