A New Ministry in Scotland—Scenes in the Parliament House—The Act of Security becomes Law—England retaliates by passing the Alien Act.

Before the next session of the Scottish Parliament there had been a change in the Scottish Ministry. The ‘Scots Plot,’ in connection with which Queensberry had played such a sorry part, had proved to Godolphin that a new Commissioner must be appointed; and Queensberry was discarded in favour of Tweeddale, who formed a Ministry in which Johnston of Warriston was Lord Register, Cromartie was Secretary of State, and Seafield Chancellor. He succeeded, moreover, in securing the support of several members of the Country Party, among whom Rothes, Roxburghe, Belhaven, and Dundas of Arniston were prominent. This party took the name of the New Party; and the Government in London hoped that the Opposition would now be so far weakened that nothing more would be heard of the Act of Security.

Parliament met in the beginning of July 1704. The Queen’s Speech urged the necessity of settling the Protestant Succession in Scotland, and, at the same time, promised that the royal assent would be given to any proper means of securing the liberties and the independence of Scotland; but it was soon found that the Estates were as intractable as ever. Hamilton at once moved ‘that this Parliament will not proceed to the nomination of a successor to the Crown until we have had a previous treaty with England in relation to our commerce, and other concerns with that nation.’

On this subject there were long debates, in which Fletcher, says Lockhart, ‘did elegantly and pathetically set forth the hardships and miseries to which we have been exposed since the Union of the two Crowns of Scotland and England in one and the same Sovereign.’ At last Hamilton moved that the Act of Security and an Act granting supplies to the Crown should be tacked together. When this proposal was discussed, Johnston said that the plan of ‘tacking’ was reasonable in England where there were two Houses, and where the Commons might be forced to bring the Lords to reason by sending up a Money Bill along with some measure which the Upper House would not otherwise pass. Such a system, he argued, did not suit the Scottish Parliament, which consisted of only one chamber. It was, moreover, ‘a straitening of the Queen, who might possibly consent to the one and not to the other.’

‘Now,’ said Fletcher, ‘it appears there must be a bargain, and unless the Parliament go into the measures laid down in England, nothing must be done; and he who spoke last has undertaken to obtain these measures to be performed here. I know,’ he went on, ‘and can make it appear that the Register has undertaken to persecute the English designs for promotion to himself.’

On this some of the members called out that Fletcher should be sent to the bar of the House for using such language.

Fletcher, backed up by Hamilton, then declared that the Queen’s letter had been written when no Scotsman was with her, and must, therefore, have been concocted under English influence. Johnston denied this, and said that the draught of the letter had been sent up from Scotland.

Fletcher still maintained that he was right; and on this Sir James Halket called out that Saltoun was impertinent. To this Fletcher’s reply was that any member who used such words of him was a rascal.

‘The House,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘being alarmed at such expressions, Sir James Erskine moved both should be sent to prison.’ The incident ended by the Chancellor giving a ‘sharp rebuke’ to both the honourable members, who were forced to express their regret, and to promise, upon their word of honour, that they would not take any notice elsewhere of what had happened.

In the end the House decided that the Act of Security should be read a first time, and should, along with the Act of Supply, lie on the table until it was known whether it was to receive the royal assent. It was soon found that the Scottish Parliament had at last gained the day; and in the beginning of August the Act of Security received the royal assent. On this the Estates voted the supplies.

During the rest of the session Fletcher spoke frequently. He was especially indignant against the House of Lords for an address which they had presented to the throne on the subject of the Scots Plot; and he went so far as to move that ‘the House of Peers in England their address to the Queen to use her endeavours to get the succession of England settled in Scotland, and inquiring into the plot, so far as it concerned Scotland and Scotsmen, was an undue intermeddling with our affairs, and an encroachment upon the sovereignty and independency of Scotland; and that the behaviour of the House of Commons in these matters was like good subjects of our Queen, and as neighbourly friends of this nation.’

The feeling of the Estates may be gathered from the fact that they refused to approve of the conduct of the Commons, but agreed to censure the House of Lords. Nothing done by the English Parliament was right.

Just before the end of the session Fletcher brought in a measure for the purpose of adding eleven county members to the Parliament, and one more, in future, for every new peer who might be created. Hamilton, at the same time, introduced an ‘Act about free voting in Parliament,’ the object of which was to exclude from the House officers in the army, collectors of customs, and some other persons in the pay of the Crown.

On the 24th of August, Fletcher moved the second reading of his measure; and, as soon as he sat down, Hamilton moved the second reading of his. On this Fletcher said, ‘The member who has just spoken contradicts himself,’ and explained that Hamilton had been in favour of the measure for adding to the county members, which he was now hindering.

Hamilton at once complained of the way in which he had been spoken of, and offered to go to the bar, ‘If I have said anything amiss.’

‘Such reckoning,’ cried Fletcher, ‘is for another place.’

Hamilton retorted that he did not refuse to give that satisfaction either. ‘The Chancellor,’ says Sir David Hume, ‘took notice of both their expressions, and moved, that first Salton should crave my Lord Commissioner and the House pardon, if without design he had said anything that gave offence; which, after a long struggle he was prevailed with to do, if Duke Hamilton would do the like, and which both did, and promised, on their word of honour, there should be no more word of what had passed.’

Four days after this incident the session ended. The Act of Security was now law. Fletcher and his friends were triumphant, and more hostile to England than ever; while the people of England were not only indignant, but alarmed by the news that the Scots were buying arms, and meeting for drill in every parish, under the provisions of the Act of Security.

The prospect was very dark; but there were some rays of light, the resignations of Nottingham and Seymour, the most violent members of the Tory party, making it possible that the claims of Scotland to equal treatment with England might be acknowledged. But England was not in a mood to be trifled with. A week after the royal assent had been given to the Act of Security, the battle of Blenheim was fought. Marlborough was now at the summit of his power; and the alliance between him and Godolphin alone saved the latter from falling before the storm of indignation which greeted him for advising the Queen to allow the Act to become law. The Government had been successful both in England and abroad; and the Opposition fixed upon the one vulnerable point—their Scottish policy. The Act of Security was printed and circulated throughout the country. The nations, it was pointed out, were now separated by law; and for this Godolphin was responsible. Wharton boasted that he had the Lord Treasurer’s head in a halter, and swore that he would draw it tight. It was believed that large quantities of arms were arriving in Scotland from the Continent, and that the people were being drilled for the purpose of fighting against England. Godolphin himself, a man of few words and great experience, did not share in the general panic. ‘People,’ he told Queensberry afterwards at another crisis, ‘who mean to fight, do not talk so much about it.’ His invariable answer to all the abuse which was hurled at his head was that there would have been more danger in refusing the royal assent than in giving it; and he added that the danger was ‘not without a remedy.’

There can be little doubt that this remedy was the Union. But there were not many Englishmen who had the long experience or the calmness of Godolphin. The Scots, it was said, never wanted the will, and now they have the power, to attack us. France will find the money. They themselves will find the men, and their long-suppressed hatred against England will burst forth. Scotland must either be reduced by force of arms, or the militia must be embodied, and Parliament must petition the Queen to see that those gentlemen who allowed the Act of Security to pass may have the honour of defending the borders. By their policy they have undone the Union, such as it is, which has existed since the death of Elizabeth, and have separated the countries. On them, therefore, the danger should fall. Much that was very foolish and very false was said and written; but even to the coolest heads in England the peril seemed great, not on account of any immediate danger from the army in Scotland, but on account of the state of the Succession question. The situation was that England was now shut up to these alternatives:—either, on the death of Anne, she must make war on Scotland, conquer the country, and hold it by force of arms, without any attempt at constitutional government; or she must allow a separate King to sit on the Scottish throne; or she must consent to an Union, and at last submit to give Scotland an equal share in English trade. Godolphin saw this. So did Somers and Halifax. Everything depended on the course taken by the English Parliament.

The English Parliament met on the 25th of October 1704; and what followed is in marked contrast to the irregular proceedings of the Scottish Estates. The strife of parties was as keen in London as in Edinburgh. The factions were as violent; but the proceedings at Westminster were regular and orderly. Speed there was; but everything was done with that punctilious attention to forms which makes the resolutions of the English Parliament, by whatever angry passions the members may be influenced, so doubly weighty, not only because they are the decisions of the representatives of a great and powerful nation, but because they are framed, revised, and adopted in such an orderly method, that to read the journals of the Lords and Commons (a vast mine of constitutional law, which is too much neglected) gives the student of our history an impressive idea of strength and durability.

In the Queen’s Speech Scotland was not mentioned; but a month later Haversham called the attention of the Lords to the state of that country. He attacked the Scottish policy of the Government, and said it proved that the Ministry had not honestly tried to settle the Succession question. ‘There are,’ he said, ‘two matters of all troubles—much discontent and great poverty. Whoever will now look into Scotland will find them both in that kingdom.’ And the character of this people, so poor and so discontented, made their condition all the more dangerous to England. The nobles and the gentlemen of Scotland were as brave as could be found in Europe. The common people were the same, yet they were all alike poor and discontented. By the Act of Security they could choose a King for themselves, and they could arm the whole nation; and who could tell what dangers might not be in store for England if, on the death of the Queen, with France to help them, and with a King of their own, they chose to make war. ‘I shall end,’ he said, ‘with an advice of my Lord Bacon’s. “Let men,” says he, “beware how they neglect or suffer matter of troubles to be prepared; for no man can forbid the sparks that may set all on fire.”’ It was resolved that, on the 29th of November, the House should go into committee ‘to consider of the state of the nation in reference to Scotland.’

On the appointed day there was a full muster of the peers; the Queen was present; and Rochester moved that the Act of Security be read. In this he was supported by the Tories, and by the High Churchmen in particular; but the Whigs resisted this motion, on the ground that there was no authentic copy before the House, and the debate proceeded.

Godolphin, who, it was noticed at the time, did not shrink from the responsibility of having advised the Queen to give the royal assent, said that it had been absolutely necessary to allow the Act of Security to become law. The danger of refusing it would have been greater than the danger of granting it. He deplored the system of irritating the Scottish people by constant interference in their business. Everything, in his opinion, would come right, if they would only let the Scots alone.

Burnet followed on the same side. Ever, he said, since the Union of the Crowns Scotland had been mismanaged. What could have been more reckless than the conduct of England in the reign of Charles I.? At the Restoration a promise had been given that Scotland would be governed in accordance with the wishes of the people. This promise had been broken, and during the reigns of Charlesii. and Jamesii. the Scots had been persecuted and oppressed. At the Revolution religious persecution ceased; but since then the commercial policy of England had been enough to provoke them beyond endurance.

This plain speaking was not very palatable to an assembly of Englishmen, but those Scotsmen who listened to the debate were delighted. ‘The Whigs,’ Roxburghe wrote to Baillie of Jerviswoode, ‘were modest in their business, but the Tories were mad.’

It was evident that there was a considerable difference of opinion between the two great parties as to the proper method of dealing with the Scottish question. Somers and Halifax, Rochester and Nottingham, alike regarded the Act of Security as dangerous, but they differed as to the course which England should pursue. Nottingham and his friends were for condemning the Act by a vote of the House; but the Whigs resisted this, on the ground that it amounted to a vote of censure on the Scottish Parliament. Somers, in a few weighty words, moved the adjournment of the debate. England, he said, must protect herself against the consequences of the Act of Security; but whatever was done, must be done calmly and without panic.

On the 6th of December he resumed the debate, when he laid down the principle that the Parliament of England must prove to the Scottish people that if they insisted on a complete separation they would be the greatest losers. He suggested, therefore, that an Act should be passed so framed as to bring the issue clearly and distinctly before them; an Act, for instance, imposing certain disabilities on the Scots, which would only be removed if they settled the Succession as it had been settled in England. Above all things, he urged the necessity of adopting none but deliberate and well-considered measures.

The result of these debates was that on the 14th of March 1705, the last day of the session, the royal assent was given to the statute which empowered the Queen to name Commissioners to treat for an Union, provided that the Scottish Parliament passed a similar measure; but the statute, at the same time, declared that, after the 25th of December 1705, natives of Scotland were to be held as aliens until the Succession was settled in Scotland as it already was in England. This was the chief clause of this important measure, which was therefore known as the Alien Act.

The news of what had been done was received with an outburst of indignation in Scotland; but the Union was now inevitable.