1. Presbyterian Unionism and Fear of the Highlands
In 1706-07, some moderate Presbyterians supported the Union because they greatly feared the Jacobites and the return of a Catholic Stuart monarch. By contrast, many Presbyterians in Scotland opposed the Union because they feared that an English majority in a new British Parliament would vote to turn the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk into an episcopalian church, as in England. But moderate Presbyterians feared the Jacobites more, and sought Protestant security in a closer union with England.
When the dissolution of the 1707 Union became a stated aim of the Jacobites in their 1715 and 1745 risings, even hardline Scottish Presbyterians began to accept the Union as a bulwark against a Jacobite restoration. The Jacobite movement was perceived inaccurately as a Highland phenomenon, even though the Jacobite forces in the 1715 and 1745 risings included many Lowlanders. This led Lowland Presbyterians advocate Unionism to protect Scotland from the Jacobites and the Highlanders.
Primary source: Stewart of Pardovan’s ‘Short Account’
A recently published primary source provides direct evidence of this kind of thinking about the Union and the Highlands after the Jacobite rising of 1715-16. Walter Stewart of Pardovan wrote a personal memoir of the making of the Union, ‘A Short Account of the Proceedings of the Last Session of the Scots Parliament’. This was meant to be published as a pamphlet, but it seems not to have been printed. A manuscript copy resides in the National Library of Scotland. A transcription is printed in Addresses against Incorporating Union (2018).
Stewart of Pardovan was the proprietor of an estate near the royal burgh of Linlithgow between Edinburgh and Stirling. He served as provost of Linlithgow in 1689-90, 1695-97 and 1702-04 and acted as the parliamentary commissioner for the burgh from 1700 to 1707. He was a deeply committed Presbyterian who strongly opposed Anne’s proposals for closer union in 1702 and 1706-07 because he feared that a British Parliament with an Anglican majority would not maintain Scotland’s church in its Presbyterian form. However, after the 1715-16 Jacobite rising, he became reconciled to the Union.
Stewart of Pardovan concluded his ‘Short Account’ by stating (Addresses, p. 333):
‘Now albeit I have shown all along, no great kindness for this Treaty, Yet I must own, I cannot be for a Dissolution of it, Right or wrong’.
He went on to provide an anti-aristocratic analysis of Scotland’s pre-Union constitution. He suggested that before the Union the Crown and its Court party held too much power through Scotland’s noblemen (p. 333):
‘Our Lords were poor, and generally Men of no staunch Principles and who depended entirely upon the Court in their expectations and fortunes. They generally had the heritable jurisdictions of the Shires and Regalities, in their Families, and great part of the nation were their Vassals, by which the most part were drawn into a Dependence upon them; so that they were really the means, through which the Country was chain’d to the Court.’
He feared that the unmaking of the Union would return Scotland to this bad state. He hoped that prayer to God would allow Scotland to fix its broken constitution, or at least reconcile itself to the Union (p. 333):
‘The best thing I know now to be done is this: That we would call upon Almighty God, for a Spirit of Repentance and Reformation on all ranks; and that we would pray for the Recovery of the Body-Politick, as we do for a wicked sick Creature, not absolutely for his Recovery, But for a sanctified and Bless’d Restoration to health.’
He proposed that the Highlands be colonised with independent farmers, replacing what he saw as a dangerous system of powerful noble families and dependent men (p. 334):
‘I acknowledge there has been by the late Rebellion in Scotland, a Number of Noble but very ill Families, who had the Malice and misfortune to join in it; by which that Body [the Scottish body politic], will indeed be purg’d of Several very noxious Members, to the present Constitution in Church and State. And if the Government would be pleas’d to plant a new Colony in those parts, of a Number of small, honest free holders (that would indeed dispose and prepare us for a happy dissolution) [and] The Highlands & Islands would in a short time, turn populous and Industrious.’
Stewart of Pardovan here indicated a possible route to the unmaking of the Union. Colonisation of the Highlands and Islands by smaller landowners would reduce aristocratic power in the Highlands and make it safe for Scotland to become independent again. His plan for internal colonisation included the cultural assimilation of Gaelic tenants under their new landlords (p. 334):
‘Always providing the Language and Habit of the Inhabitants of those parts, those Ancient badges of Barbarity, be in the first place extirpated, by promoting of Christian Knowledge, in the English language among them.’
This view reflected the work of the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, founded in 1709. This missionary society used charitable donations to establish parish schools in the Highlands to encourage assimilation to the English language and Presbyterian culture through the education of children.
The idea of internal colonisation of Gaelic regions was not new. James VI had attempted to colonise the island of Lewis with the ‘Fife Adventurers’ and after the 1603 Union of Crowns, he settled Scottish Presbyterian landowners in Ulster. In this era, Lowland elites saw Gaelic culture as backwards and barbarous and many believed that the Highland region needed to be reformed through colonisation and education. The 1715-16 Jacobite rising, stimulated in part by anti-Unionism, convinced Whigs like Stewart of Pardovan that the Highlands and Islands needed to be brought to heel before Scotland could consider leaving the Union.
Last updated: 20 Aug 2021
Teaching the Treaty of the Union 