It is not to be doubted, but the Parliament of England would give a kind reception to the articles of the Union as passed in Scotland, when they were laid before that House, as was evident from the quick dispatch in approving of and ratifying the same; and so the Union commenced on the first of May 1707, a day never to be forgot by Scotland; a day in which the Scots were stripped of what their predecessors had gallantly maintained for many hundred years, I mean the independency and soveraignty of the kingdom, both which the Earl of Seafield so little valued, that when he, as Chancellor, signed the engrossed exemplification of the Act of Union, he returned it to the clerk, in the face of Parliament, with this dispising and contemning remark, "Now there's ane end of ane old song."