Scotland's History of Radical Unionism

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

In many ways, there is a narrative that drives much of the discussion on Scottish political and cultural life, whereby Scotland is seen as the unwilling partner in a union forced upon it by a domineering neighbour. Scotland is regarded as being a historically distinct nation, its people robbed of their destiny by the English. Likewise, Scottish culture is seen as being something lost and subverted by the overwhelming forces of Anglicization which was imposed upon it, their natural Scottishness lost to a an alien Britishness.

While this narrative is what drives modern thought, the reality is quite the contrary. The Scots were pioneers in forging a union between the two kingdoms - in their mind, they were uniting a culturally and religiously united British people into a true nation, having been divided under the yoke of feudal kings. The union was not regarded as a partnership, but the natural unity of a single people - the British. Indeed, far from first forcing the union upon the Scots, the Scots continually went so far as to hold English kings ransom to demand a complete union of the two kingdoms.

The evidence for this which I give below dates to a time when politics, religion and society were in turmoil within the British Isles, and when issues of national identity and such were forced into the open in a way that they never had been before. With the upcoming independence debate in Scotland, they have come somewhat to the fore again. Now, as a Scots-born individual who identifies his nationality solely as 'British', I feel very much exluded from the current debate, where the very word 'independence' for me buys into the previously mentioned false narrative.

I am sick of being told things like "go back to England/Ulster" if you are British, because I will NOT be made a stranger in the land that my forefathers fought to preserve, and for a British state they they, as Scots-born British people, fought to create. The evidence I present to you is little known because history has been hijacked by the Scottish romanticist movement of the 19th Century. So, hopefully people will find it enlightening.

The Solemn League and Covenant, 1643:

The Assembly having recommended unto a Committee appointed by them to join with the Committee of the Honourable Convention of Estates, and the Commissioners of the Honourable Houses of the Parliament of England, for bringing the kingdoms to a more near conjunction and union...

And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is, by the good providence of GOD, granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments; we shall, each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the willful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article.

The Solemn League and Covenant was signed between the Scottish Covenanters and the English Parliamentarians, who had joined together in rebellion against their common king, Charles I. It was signed in the early stages of the English Civil War, in what developed into the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Scots very much had the stronger hand in the negotiations, since Parliament had depended upon them to defeat the Royalist forces in England. Here, you can see the Scots clearly calling for a closer union between Scotland and England, and the first quote is actually from the very opening of the document, indicating that the issue of union was central to it.

The Engagement Between the King and the Scots, 1648:

His Majesty, according to the intention of his father, shall endeavour a complete union of the kingdoms, so as they may be one under His Majesty and his posterity; and, if that cannot be speedily effected, that all liberties, privileges, concerning commerce, traffic, and manufactories peculiar to the subjects of either nation, shall be common to the subjects of both kingdoms without distinction...

The Engagers were one of two factions which had developed within the Covenanting movement by 1648. However, both agreed that they wanted a full union with England. Here, you can see that while the earlier Solemn League and Covenant only called for a stronger union, the Engagers called for an outright union, where Scotland and England would share one parliament, one king, one law, and one national church. This came about because the Scottish Covenanters had come to realise that they shared one cause with their English Parliamentarian brethren, and that an all-Britain settlement would be necessary to bring about a lasting peace and security of political and religious freedoms.

A Covenanter Pamphlet of 1640:

A ground of many hopes, that the two Nations so long, and so far divided before, are in our time straitly joyned, not only by naturall union in one Iland, but also spirituall in one Religion, civill under one Head, morall in the mutall interchange of so many duties of love: And domestical, by marriages and allyances.

With the two major Covenanting documents covered, I'll move onto this pamphlet. It was produced in 1640, just two years after the Covenanting movement began with the National Covenant of 1638. This pamphlet emphasises the fact that the desire of the Scots for union with England was not merely one of political necessity, but was seen as the natural conclusion of their increasingly intertwined histories, when they had come to share the same king, the same religion, the same island, the same political alliances, and the like. Union was not the artificial merger of two separate peoples, but the natural bringing together of a single people with a single culture, and a single destiny.

Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Agyll and leader of the Covenanters:

“lett us hould fast that Union which is soe happily established betwixt us; and lett nothing make us again Two, who are soe many Wayes One; all of one Language, in One Island, all under One King, One in Religion, yea, One in Covenant; so that in Effect we differ in nothing but in Name...”

Argyll was head of the Kirk Party, the rival faction to the Engagers within the Covenanting movement. However, as I noted earlier, he shared their views on union, passionately making the case for why the Scots and the English were really one people - the British. He notes himself that in his time, they "differ in nothing but name". Significantly, Argyll petitioned for the Scottish and English settlers in Ulster to be referred to as 'British' in official documentation, when Scots that had settled in Ulster were used to bolster Covenanting forces. He himself identified as "North British".

Samuel Rutherford, theologian:

"Britaines Israel and Judah, England and Scotland comming together, weeping and asking the way to Zion."

Rutherford was probably the major theological influence behind the Covenanting movement, and his 'Lex Rex' was used to justify their revolt against Charles. The symbolism of Israel and Judah was commonly evoked in comparison to Scotland and England. Just as the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were composed of a single people - the Hebrews, the Scots and the English were regarded as one people living in two kingdoms - although by this stage, under the same king. Their union was regarded as prophetic, as a special covenanted people under God - the greatest example of Protestant, Reformed nation; a sort of New Covenant Israel. This sentiment was equally strong in England, where Thomas Case spoke of "The children of Israel, and the children of Judah: Scotland and England, newly coming out of Babylon, antichristian Babylon, papal tyranny and usurpations, in one degree or other, going and weeping in the days of their solemn humiliations, bewailing their backslidings and rebellions, to seek the Lord their God, to seek pardon and reconciliation, to seek His face and favour, not only in the continuance, but in the more full and sweet influential manifestations of His presence among them; and to that end, asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward; that is, inquiring after the pure way of gospel worship, with full purpose of heart; that when God shall reveal His mind to them, they will conform themselves to His mind according to that blessed prophecy and promise, "He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths." And that they may make all sure, that they may secure God and themselves against all future apostasies and backslidings, calling one upon another, and echoing back one to another: "Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten."

********************************************

So, are has been demonstrated, if you are a modern 'Scot', your forefathers regarded themselves as British, and fought and died to see a full union come about between Scotland and England. The Wars of Independence under Wallace and Bruce were a dynastic feud between noblemen, not a popular, national movement. On the contrary, the Unionist Covenanting movement was a true expression of the popular opinion within Scotland, and came from its grassroots origins to forge tirelessly to see the union realised.

They show our true historical roots - as a British, Protestant nation.

[hellheaven1987]

They show our true historical roots - as a British, Protestant nation.

I thought Church of Scotland is not part of Anglican Church?

[Garbarsardar]

Moved from PM since it's not about a current event. Thanks.

[Henry of Grosmont]

...So, are has been demonstrated, if you are a modern 'Scot', your forefathers regarded themselves as British, and fought and died to see a full union come about between Scotland and England. The Wars of Independence under Wallace and Bruce were a dynastic feud between noblemen, not a popular, national movement. On the contrary, the Unionist Covenanting movement was a true expression of the popular opinion within Scotland, and came from its grassroots origins to forge tirelessly to see the union realised...

Err, no. The Scots thrice denied the union under English princes (Edward I, Edward III and John of Gaunt). Even Bruce, who had very little support to begin with (being a murderer, traitor and despised by many in Scotland), got the majority of country fighting for him in a span of a few years. Norman kings and higher nobility in both kingdoms were quite able to get along. It's the lesser nobles and commons who were for fighting the English. Let's not forget that for quite a long time, Scottish kings were paying homage to the English kings and if Edward I's plan of marrying his son to a Scandinavian princess of Scottish decent (her being a sole heiress to the last king) went through, both nations would be ruled by one monarch. Strange fact that for some time it was held in secret by both, English king and Scottish magnates. But she died on her way and Edward lost his patience... and the rest is history.

So even if what you wrote is true for later centuries, Medieval Scots weren't exactly rooting for a union.

[Cyclops]

A few Covenant leaders might well have worked up a religious fantasy about Israel in Britain for a short period when a Scots King wore the English, Irish and Scottish crowns, but these same men sold their King to be murdered by an extremist military Junta so they can hardly be seen as loyal servants of the Kingdom.

I think any fantasies about Union in mid sebenteenth century would be driven by a desire to expand the faith that grew in Scotland into new pastures.

Henry VIII's strange religious debacle was followed by some quite earnest religious reforms from Mary (back towards the Papacy) Edward VI and Elizabeth, so the soil was well tilled for further religious innovation England. The Presbyterian movement in Scotlans had been succesful (both in conversions and destroying Catholics) so expansion into England and beyond was not beyond their dreams (although in the event English reformers were devastatingly unimpressed with Scots theology).

IMHO the majority of Scots for the majority of Scots hisory have detested England. Thats nothing special, AFAIK the Scoyts fought one another harder than the fought the English. I'm speaking as a person of Irish and some Scots ancestry, and I know how my family fights among themselves.

[Cyclops]

I thought Church of Scotland is not part of Anglican Church?

There's a Kirk which is the chief church of Scotland, but also the Church of Scotland, basically the collaborater's version of the Church of England (cf the Church of Ireland, a very tiny congregation with all the best churches in Ireland).

While broadly speaking the CoE and Presbyterian church are part of the christian movement away from Papl supremacy they followed very different paths.

The Kirk is a tight knit church focussed tightly on Scotland commited to a Calvinist doctrine, and was deeply popular in its birth places (although savagely impoised in other parts of Scotland).

The CoE and episcopalian offshoots was reformed in a series of staggeirng steps, first the ludicrous break of Henry VIII, then the more considered refoms under Edward and Elizabeth, then strong influence from the dynamic presbyterian movement in Scotland and other hearty movements like John Wesley (some of whose followers split from the CoE) and the Oxford movement who looked back (and some of whom defected too) Rome. The doctrine rambles from awkwardly severed Tridentine beliefs, to pragmatic Lutheran episcopalianism, to fervent presbyterian, to ecstatic social justice and dreamy archaisms aimed at reviving imagined primitive chghristianity.

I would say the CoE has a strong political element too as an instrument of rule and control (despite the many earnest and joyful thinkers who have sprung from the tradtion once established), and a more cynical history in many ways than Presbyterianism which sprang AFAIK from a genuine grassroots attempt to counter the corruption of the Great Church and later Catholic church. The CoE began as an attempt to get a son for a poxy fool, and its hard to shake that beginning.

[Copperknickers II]

You've got it the wrong way round. The reason that Nationalists are so fervent in our opposition to the Union, indeed the reason we have been so successful in putting the narrative of 'oppression' out there, is that we have such a massive opposition from within our own nation. Haven't you heard of Rangers football club? Or David Hume? Scottish people in favour of the Union were people like Hume and his predecessors, and all the other members of the English-speaking elite, who thought of themselves as English. They were a tiny minority within Scotland.

And you cannot seriously be accusing others of narrative bias, when what you have effectively done, is take the Covenanters' arguments as gospel truth, meanwhile ignoring the fact that they were only one side of a vicious civil war in which about half the population of the British isles (most notably the Catholics in Ireland and Scotland) were fervently opposed to the Calvinists and Parliamentarians. History is written by the victors, and so it is a sheer accident that the parallel narrative of anti-British royalists, specifically in Ireland and Scotland, happened to be revived in the 19th Century, just when the victors were at their busiest rewriting history in their favour by claiming that the Irish were effectively subhumans and the Gaelic and Scots speaking Scots were degenerate cretins. Fortunately we have the likes of Robert Burns and Walter Scott to remind us that there were plenty of Scots at that time, commoners and elites, who recognised that this side of history was the result of the usurpers who eventually managed to inflict their extremist protestant chauvinism upon us after the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Nobody is claiming for a second that all of the oppression and persecution of Catholics, Gaels, the poor, and the other royalists, was all committed by the English upon the Scottish, but what we are claiming is that it did happen and it cannot be seen by any reasonable person as the majority popular opinion until it managed to overcome its enemies by force, and then tried to legitimise its actions by ridiculous nationalist religious narratives, which is the reason, in summation, that the more extreme forms of the nationalist religion-based narratives exist among nationalists in Scotland and Ireland today: it was a direct response to the British rewriting of history, not the other way around.

This pamphlet emphasises the fact that the desire of the Scots for union with England was not merely one of political necessity, but was seen as the natural conclusion of their increasingly intertwined histories, when they had come to share the same king, the same religion, the same island, the same political alliances, and the like. Union was not the artificial merger of two separate peoples, but the natural bringing together of a single people with a single culture, and a single destiny.

The reason for that was that they were Calvinists, who believed in predestination and the ultimate sovereignty of God. Besides, Scotland and England shared the same island and religion for most of their histories, and many European countries shared a king and political alliances at that time that you wouldn't dream of calling unified nations today: Austria-Hungary, Poland-Lithuania, Spain-Netherlands. It was just a result of political expedience and inter-marriage alliances and conquests in an increasingly volatile and powerful geopolitical area, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the predestined union of kindred nations except in the minds of elite groups who had a lot to gain from such unions.