SCOTLAND (HISTORY) 



241 



had l>een checked by the sovereign, joined the 

 popular party. The opponents of the crown bound 

 themselves together, first by the National Cove- 

 nant, and afterwards, in alliance with the English 

 Puritans, by the Solemn League and Covenant. 

 Their efforts were completely successful, but their 

 success led to the utter overthrow of the monarchy 

 by Cromwell. See MONTROSE. 



The restoration of Charles II. was welcomed by 

 all classes, wearied as they were of a foreign and 

 military rule, but especially by the nobles and 

 gentry, who had learned by bitter experience that 

 the h'umiliation of the sovereign was necessarily 

 followed by the degradation of their order. Had 

 the government of Charles II. and James VII. l>een 

 reasonably just and moderate it could hardly have 

 failed in securing general support ; but it was more 

 oppressive and corrupt than any which Scotland 

 hail experienced since the regencies in the minority 

 of James VI. The natural result was the revolu- 

 tion which seated William and Mary on the throne : 

 the Jacobite victory of Killiecrankie was more 

 than neutralised by the fall of Dundee. 



Tim parliament of Scotland, which met for the 

 last time in 1706, was originally oiiiii|K>sed, like the 

 English parliament, of three classes the ecclesi- 

 astics (consisting of bishops, abbots, and priors), 

 the barons, anil the burgesses. The spiritual 

 lords during the establishment of Episcopacy 

 after the Reformation were compose*! of bishops 

 only. When Presbyterianism was established 

 at the time of the Covenant, and when it was 

 formally ratified by law at the Revolution, the 

 ecclesiastical estate ceased to have any place in 

 parliament. The barons, or immediate vassals of 

 the crown, at lirst sat in their own right, whether 

 holding peerages or not: but afterwards the peers 

 alone sat, the others sending their representatives. 

 The burgesses were the representatives of the 

 burghs. AH the three estates sat to the very last 

 in one house, the sovereign presiding in person, or 

 through a commissioner named by him. 



Hardly had the majority of the nation been 

 successful in the Revolution settlement when many 

 of them began to repent of what thev had done, 

 and Jacobitisin became more popular than royalist 

 principles had ever been when the House of 

 Stewart was on the throne. The discontent was 

 greatly increased by the fears entertained of 

 English influence. Ancient jealousies had been 

 revived and intensified by the collapse of the 

 Darien Scheme (q.v.). The state of matters grew 

 o threatening after the accession of Queen Anne 

 that the ruling English statesmen became satisfied 

 that nothing short of an incorporating union be- 

 tween the two kingdoms could avert the danger of 

 n disputed succession to the throne and of a civil 

 war. Supported by some of the ablest and most 

 influential persons in Scotland, they were successful 

 in carrying through their design, though it was 

 opposed by a majority of the Scottish people, under 

 iii'h leaders as Fletcher (q.v.). The Act of Union 

 was formally ratified by the parliament of Scotland 

 on the 16th of January 1707. It subsequently 

 received the royal assent, and came into operation 

 on the 1st of Slay of the same year. The union 

 continued to IK- unpopular in Scotland for many 

 years, an ui>|H>pularity increased by the corrupt 

 means freely used to carry it through. Suspicions 

 were cherished that the national life would pass 

 away with the national separateness, and that the 

 independence of the Scottish church and the dis- 

 tinctness of the national system of jurisprudence 

 would inevitably suffer. There were agitations and 

 petitions for the repeal of the union and the restora- 

 tion of the national parliament. But the discontent 

 gradually died down ; not that the malcontents were 

 ilenre.| by argument but by the logic of facts. The 

 432 



association with the larger and wealthier kingdom of 

 the south opened a vastly wider field to the enter- 

 prise for which in all departments of life the ' praefer- 

 vidum ingenium Scotorum ' had already been noted ; 

 and the rapid growth of prosperity by the extension 

 of old and the establishment of new industries 

 helped to bring about a sense of well-being and 

 content. The peaceful acquiescence of the great 

 majority of the nation in the union was brought 

 out at the time of the Jacobite rel>ellions of 1715 

 and 1745 (see JACOBITES) ; thePorteous Mob (q.v.) 

 was a temporary ebullition of a discontent only 

 partly political. It became patent to all that the 

 consequences of the union were beneficial to both 

 countries ; yet Scotland and England are in many 

 ir-pects two countries still, and a Scot abroad, 

 asked if he is an Englishman, will seldom give an 

 affirmative answer. 



Scotland and Scotsmen have taken a prominent 

 part in the public affairs and intellectnallife of the 

 United Kingdom, in its warfare and colonial ex- 



J>ansion ; the literature of Scotland blossomed 

 uxuriantly (see below) after the union ; Reid and 

 Dugald Stew.art founded a school of philosophy 

 (see SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY), as Jeffrey and Cock- 

 burn did a school of criticism ; and in the 18th 

 century the 'Modern Athens' was more conspicu- 

 ously a centre of literary and intellectual culture 

 than at any former period. A long series of 

 scientific worthies connects the days of Napier of 

 Merchiston with those of Lord Kelvin (Sir\\ ill him 

 Thomson ) and Professor Tait including in mathe- 

 matics, physics, and chemistry the Gregories, 

 Sinison, Black, Brewster, J. D. Fortes, Clerk- 

 Maxwell, and Macquorn Rankine ; in engineering 

 and steam navigation, Watt, Rennie, Telford, 

 Symington, Henry Bell, Fairbairn, and the Steven- 

 sons ; in geology, almost all the greatest British 

 names Button, Playfair, Hall, Murchison, and 

 Lyell ; in zoology, Edward Forties and Wyville 

 Tliomson ; Drown the great botanist ; and in 

 medicine and surgery, the dynasties of Gregories, 

 Ciillens, Monros, Hunters, and Bells, Simpson, 

 Liston, and Syme. Paterson and Law, founders 

 of the Bank of England and the Bank of France, 

 were Scotsmen. hrskine and Campbell sat on the 

 woolsack of England, Sir Alexander Cockburn was 

 Lord Chief-justice. Of painters, Jameson, Allan, 

 Nasmyth, Thomson, Raeburn, Wilkie, Dyce, 

 David Scott, Phillip, and MacCulloch may be 

 named, with the brothers Adam, architects. 

 Amongst soldiers have been Marshal Keith, 

 Marshal Stair, Abercromby, Moore, Heathfield, 

 Lynedoch, and Lord Clyde ; amongst sailors, Cam- 

 perdown and Dnndonald ; and there have never 

 failed Scottish travellers and explorers from the 

 days of Bruce ' the Abyssinian ' to those of Living 

 stone and Joseph Thomson. 



The ' Scot abroad ' was always a familiar pheno- 

 menon equally in French universities and in French, 

 Austrian, Swedish, and Russian armies; and Scots- 

 men have not since then become a race of stay-at- 

 homes. From a paper in the Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine, for 1885 it appears that, apart from the 

 incalculable numbers of persons of Scottish descent 

 in the south, there were then in England and 

 Wales upwards of 253,000 persons o? Scottish 

 birth. Sir Charles Dilke has said (in Greater 

 Britain), ' In British settlements from Canada to 

 Ceylon, from Diinedin to Bombay, for every 

 Englishman you meet who has worked himself up 

 to wealth from small Iwginnings without external 

 aid, you find ten Scotsmen." Yet the comparative 

 numbers of Scotsmen in the colonies are not so great 

 as this statement suggests ; in the various Aus- 

 tralian colonies they vary from a fifth to a seventh 

 of the total number of colonists bom in the United 

 Kingdom ; in New Zealand about one-third ; in 



