Scotland Is A Part Of The United Kingdom !

Scotland Is A Part Of The United Kingdom ! ....it really is !

But how did this come to pass ?

First of all, let’s not forget that James 6th of Scotland became James 1st of England.... yes, a Scottish King became king of England which led to the Stewart dynasty ruling for decades. Scotland was a land inhabited by warring families and wracked by political intrigue. However it certainly wasn’t any different than any other kingdom in Europe. It certainly became a whole lot more powerful, with one of its own families in the throne at Westminster.

So, how did Scotland become a part of what we now call the United Kingdom and Great Britain.?

There are probably many different reasons but I’m going to focus on the race for overseas territories, and the fact that even though James came to power in England, the two realms were never properly unified under him.

In 1603, James VI, King of Scots inherited the thrones of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland in the Union of the Crowns, and moved to London. The military was strengthened, allowing the imposition of royal authority on the western Highland clans. The 1609 Statutes of Iona compelled the cultural integration of Hebridean clan leaders. With the exception of a short period, Scotland remained a separate state, but there was considerable conflict between the crown and the Covenanters over the form of church government. The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 saw the overthrow of King James VII of Scotland and II of England by the English Parliament in favour of William III and Mary II.

The Battle of Altimarlach in 1680 was the last significant clan battle fought between highland clans.In common with countries such as France, Norway, Sweden and Finland, Scotland experienced famines during the 1690s. Mortality, reduced childbirths and increased emigration reduced the population of parts of the country about 10–15%.

In 1698, the Company of Scotland attempted a project to secure a trading colony on the Area now known as Panama. Almost every Scottish landowner who had money to spare is said to have invested in the Darien scheme. Its failure and it was a massive failure, bankrupted these landowners, Nevertheless, the nobles' bankruptcy, along with the threat of an English invasion, played a leading role in convincing the Scots elite to back a union with England, and make that request of the English.

On 22 July 1706, the Treaty of Union was agreed between representatives of the Scots Parliament and the Parliament of England. The following year, twin Acts of Union were passed by both parliaments to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain with effect from 1 May 1707 with popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere.

The deposed Jacobite Stuart claimants had remained popular in the Highlands and north-east, particularly amongst non-Presbyterians, including Roman Catholics and Episcopalian Protestants. However, two major Jacobite risings launched in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove the House of Hanover from the British throne. The threat of the Jacobite movement to the United Kingdom and its monarchs effectively ended at the Battle of Culloden, Great Britain's last pitched battle. The threat from Scotland was finally over.

The Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution turned Scotland into an intellectual, commercial and industrial powerhouse – so much so Voltaire said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation." With the demise of Jacobitism and the advent of the Union, thousands of Scots, mainly Lowlanders, took up numerous positions of power in politics, civil service, the army and navy, trade, economics, colonial enterprises and other areas across the nascent British Empire. Historian Neil Davidson notes "after 1746 there was an entirely new level of participation by Scots in political life, particularly outside Scotland." Davidson also states "far from being 'peripheral' to the British economy, Scotland – or more precisely, the Lowlands – lay at its core."

In the Highlands, clan chiefs gradually started to think of themselves more as commercial landlords than leaders of their people. These social and economic changes included the first phase of the Highland Clearances and, ultimately, the demise of clanship. Read that again...... the Highland clan chiefs were largely responsible for the Highland clearances. ... I’ll come back to this in another blog. 

If you’d like information in my small group tour of Scotland and the Highlands send me an email