When the gist of all this became known in Scotland there was the predictable fury. The nation seethed, with rioting in the streets of cities and towns, arson on the estates of pro-union lords, the commissioners burnt in effigy. Stair, who as expected had taken the lead in the so-called negotiations, was hated above all, and being named the Curse of Scotland. Discreetly the said commissioners either remained in England meantime or came home secretly and lay very low.
The Scots Parliament was called for 3rd October, to debate the treaty provisions, but no elections were to be held. Meanwhile, Andrew and others like-minded sought to orchestrate the tempest of anger and protest into something which could be controlled and harnessed as a powerful force to influence even a corrupt, bribed and non-representative assembly - no easy task.
He had most success, not unnaturally, with his country gentry, the shires electorate, getting promises from over five hundred of them to rally in Edinburgh, with their retainers, to express their opinions in no uncertain fashion. At meetings with leading churchmen, he stressed the point that while the English Episcopal bishops had twenty-two seats as Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords - more than the total of Scots peers permitted - Church of Scotland ministers had no representation, putting their Presbyterian system in obvious danger. So, in addition to the pulpit condemnations, the General Assembly agreed to present a vehement overture to Parliament against the terms of the proposed treaty. This, of course, was not enough for the Cameronians and their sympathisers in South-West Scotland, who were already digging out their hidden arms, drilling and parading. These, to the number of some eight thousand, actually took over the town of Dumfries, the 'capital' of that region, burnt a mock-up of the treaty at the burgh cross, and prepared to march north. Efforts to tone down the wilder excesses of the man Cunninghame of Aiket were partly successful; but the situation was complicated by the appearance on the scene of a rival leader called Ker of Kersland, about whom nobody seemed to know much but who appeared to be sowing dissention. Ker, spelt with one V was the family name of the Earl of Roxburghe - the Marquis of Lothian's branch of the clan used two; and there were doubts as to whether this new man was in fact an agent provocateur sent down by the Squadrone to disrupt any concerted action. Andrew, for one, did not know whether to welcome this intervention or otherwise. In the north, Atholl was said to be mobilising his Murrays and the other clans, largely Jacobite inevitably; and though Andrew had little influence there, he did keep in touch through Rob Roy MacGregor who, because of his cattle-dealing activities, came and went in the Lowlands more or less at will. The town and burgh protests were being organised into a most impressive series of proclamations, score upon score of them, all bearing signatures running into thousands, and all to be presented by innumerable delegations to Parliament. It was significant that of all these, only one was in favour of union, from the burgh of Ayr, where Stair had much influence - and even there a counter-manifesto, with many more signatures, was drawn up to accompany it. And so on.
All this was reasonably heartening for Andrew, Belhaven and their colleagues. But gradually a curious doubt began to form at the back of Andrew's mind. It was the MacGregor, on one of his clandestine visits to Saltoun, who was instrumental in bringing that doubt from the back to the front of his host's mind, only a few days before Parliament was due to sit.
"My lord Duke does not like this of Hamilton, whatever," he said. "He does not. It is not the right place, at all."
"Place . . . ? You do not refer to Duke Hamilton, then?"
"Och, well - that too, yes. But it is this of the town of Hamilton that does be troubling my own duke. The South-landers from Dumfries and Galloway, these Covenanters — they are after having the Duke of Atholl and his Highlandmen to be joining them there, at Hamilton, to march on Edinburgh. And my duke is not much liking the notion, see you. Stirling it was to be, just - to be holding Stirling and the Forth crossing."
"Save us - Hamilton! I knew nothing of this. The two forces to join at Hamilton? I do not wonder that Atholl does not like it. This could provoke outright war. Excuse for the English army on the Border to march."
"Yes, then. Holding Stirling is one thing. To march south into Lanarkshire and join these wild men at Hamilton is another, whatever."
It interested Andrew to hear this Highland fightingman, cateran and cattle-lifter refer to the Cameronians as wild men. "But why choose Hamilton?" he wondered. "The Duke's own town and palace. They would hardly march there without the Duke's agreement."
"That is what my duke says. Forby, he has heard tell, as have I, that Duke Hamilton is for making a national address to the Queen, declaring that almost all Scotland is averse to this union and that, according to our laws, it is as good as high treason to consider an entire union. And that if the Queen's Scots ministers insist on bringing to Parliament, he himself will lead all against out of the House, whatever. Which Duke Atholl says is a foolishness."
"I say so also. I knew of the address - indeed I suggested it to, well to another. But not this of walking out. The ministers would just pass the treaty without us. Folly, indeed!" It clicked in Andrew's mind, then, that more than one of his shires gentry had proposed that Hamilton was the man to head up their united demonstration to Parliament; and that leading churchmen had named the Duke also, to present their overture. Was there just too much of Duke James in all this? It was understandable, of course. He was the premier peer of Scotland, allied to the royal house, and had been strong against union. But after that let-down at the last Parliament, Andrew was not disposed to trust him - not so much as to dishonesty but in his judgment and consistency.
"We shall have to watch Hamilton," he said. "And I think that Atholl is wise to wait at Stirling. Or his men, at least - for we shall need him here."
***
The 3rd of October dawned cold and grey, with a thin drizzle of rain off the North Sea, to put a frown on even Edinburgh's fair face. But the weather no wise daunted the crowds and the streets were thronged from an early hour - indeed many had been out all night, for the city was bursting at the seams, accommodation all but unprocurable, with thousands flocked in, deputations, petitioners, demonstrators and the retainers of all the lords and gentry. The taverns were doing a roaring trade. And the capital was as full of rumours as it was of excited folk -the Jacobites were coming, the Cameronians were marching, the English had invaded across Tweed, Glasgow town was on fire and its Provost hanged, there had been a battle at Stirling, the country was sold for English gold, and so on.
In this heady climate, so at odds with the weather, the members of the Estates had to make their way up to Parliament Hall, no easy matter anyway through the packed, narrow streets and wynds. Unfortunately there was no way in general of identifying the pro-union from the anti-union commissioners, or even who was a commissioner and who was not. To be on the safe side, the crowds more or less assumed that every well-dressed man whom they did not recognise was one of the hated unionists - or else perhaps a Jacobite in disguise. So even the most rugged opponents of union had to run the gauntlet, were mobbed and hooted and spat upon. Those who had discreetly surrounded themselves with bodyguards of retainers were, in fact, particularly picked upon, as obviously guilt-stricken, no doubt, and paid for, and had to make their way up the High Street in one long battle. Those lordly ones who could rise to coaches, thinking that they were safe therein, were quickly disillusioned, many of the vehicles' windows smashed, outriders unhorsed and some of the noble occupants dragged out and assaulted. Andrew himself, thanks to his campaign of public appearances, escaped all this, being quickly recognised and applauded. Even so, progress was difficult.
When he and Belhaven eventually reached Parliament Hall, breathless and dishevelled, it was to find the place besieged, indeed doors locked to keep the crowds at bay - and keeping out the commissioners likewise, to be sure. Although they tried the rear entrances, by narrow wynds up from the Cowgate, these too were impassible. It was not until, with much clatter and trumpet-blasts, th
e Lord High Commissioner's great coach arrived from Holyrood with an escort of two troops of Horse Guards, swords drawn and swiping flat-bladed, that the waiting and alarmed legislators were able to enter their building - and even this arrival, ironically enough, had apparently only been possible by Queensberry's coach and escort keeping close behind the Duke of Hamilton who, coming from his suite in the same palace, was carried up Canongate and High Street shoulder-high by relays of stalwart citizens, to cheers and acclaim, the darling of the populace, a strange thing by any standards, with Hamilton himself as mystified and embarrassed as any.
Once within and the doors locked again, it was evident that no business-like procedure was likely to be possible for some time. For one thing, quite a large proportion of the members had not been able to get there, including many of the ministerial team. And everyone was in a state of excitement, agitation and resentment. The first day of any new session was apt to be much taken up with ceremonial anyway, and this no one was in any mood for. Eventually it was decided that, since the crowds outside were growing ever more vociferous and the door-banging worse, probably the best thing to do, to try to appease the populace, was to announce that the innumerable deputations out there amongst the clamouring throng should be allowed in to present their petitions, overtures and protests, the Horse Guards to seek to keep the unauthorised out.
So, after much noisy delay and false starts, this was put in process, beginning with the General Assembly of the Kirk's overture. No lengthy speeches were permitted and even the reading out of the petitions was curtailed. Soon nobody was listening. It seemed that the Kirk, and indeed some of the burghs, expected the Duke of Hamilton to present their protests for them - and were disappointed, for that nobleman curtly refused and went to hide himself in an anteroom. Just how it had come about that Hamilton had become, as it were, the focus of the nation's hopes and fears, was hard to understand; but clearly it was so, and he proved to be something of a broken reed.
This petition presenting went on and on, Andrew's public campaigning proving all too successful. The lengthy process did help to diffuse the tense situation outside but that was about all it did, for inside little attention was being paid to all the announcements and eloquence save by the parliamentary clerks and a few activists like Andrew himself. Indeed when, during one deputation's egress and another's ingress, somebody plaintively demanded what they were to do with all these petitions piling up, the Duke of Argyll suggested that they make kites of them.
So much for the voice of the people.
Andrew had deliberately planned his country-electorate demonstration for the second day, recognising that the first would be fairly fully occupied with formal business. But he had scarcely foreseen that nothing at all would get done on the opening day, other than the receiving of these petitions. But that was the situation. After hours of deputation-visits, controlled with difficulty, the crowds outside grew bored and began to disperse. And recognising a relative quiet, and the opportunity presented to make a reasonably safe departure, Seafield and Queensberry announced adjournment till the morrow, and all were glad enough to call it a day.
But, of course, the excitement and its causes were not removed nor exhausted, only transferred to the houses, taverns and streets of the city, for commissioners and populace alike, and by no means lessened by being damped down throughout the day by inaction. Edinburgh passed a wild night. Indeed, since only a small proportion of the crowds had been able to besiege Parliament Hall, the rest appeared to have gone on the rampage elsewhere. The houses of known pro-union figures, including that of the hitherto popular ex-Lord Provost Johnston, had been broken into and sacked. Windows were smashed, effigies hanged and burned and marchers through the town chanted "No union!"
But there was word of more serious upheavals than these. The town was buzzing with stories that the Cameronians were on the way north in their thousands, in arms. Some put them already at Hamilton town only thirty-seven miles away, where they were said to be only awaiting the Duke thereof to put himself at their head and to descend upon the capital, to show the unionists what Scottish independence meant. There were tales of large numbers of Highlanders congregated at Stirling, with dire prophesies as to what they were liable to do; but since the Duke of Atholl had been in Parliament Hall that day, behaving normally, Andrew for one discounted any dramatics from that quarter.
Next day the streets were as crowded and noisy as ever. Some of the High Commissioner Queensberry's personal following had been set upon overnight and maltreated. Argyll, Mar, Loudoun and even Montrose, of the Squadrone, complained of being attacked and insulted at their lodgings. The Earl of Erroll, High Constable of the Realm, had been brought in to keep order, at least around Parliament Hall, but declared that he could not trust the militiamen allotted to him. In this spirit the great debate began.
Andrew scored an early victory by demanding, and winning, the House's support that the Articles of the union treaty be debated one by one, each to be voted upon separately. This should at least prevent any pushing through of the measure by a catch-vote. The ministry, evidently recognising that it might be touch-and-go, decided to give in on small details in the hope of getting the main provisions swallowed. They accepted part of the Kirk's overture, that the Coronation Oath should bind the monarch to maintain the Presbyterian form of Church government. They agreed to recommend the reduction of the Salt Tax, for Scotland - a sore point in a country which manufactured salt in large quantities and one of whose greatest exports was salted-fish. They conceded that the English Malt Tax imposition should be delayed. And cunningly they let it be known that numerous vacancies in profitable office, especially of judges of the Court of Session and of sheriffs, would not be filled until Parliament concluded - and that Queensberry had been given a blank commission to fill them. Also that there was an extra £15,500 sterling available from London for 'arrears of pension'.
By these means the first Article put to the vote was passed by a majority of thirty-two, most of the Squadrone members voting with the government. Had they voted otherwise, the union would have been lost.
Grimly Andrew recognised that now it was time to apply outside pressure.
He discovered, however, that a serious hitch had developed. The five hundred or so county electors, who had come to Edinburgh, during these two days had decided that, in view of the reception accorded to all the other petitioners the previous day, it would be better not to present their protest to Parliament as such but directly to the High Commissioner, from whom they hoped to get agreement to see them, as representing the Queen. Andrew saw some point in this. But in order to obtain Queensberry's attention they had decided that only an approach on the highest level was likely to be successful, by someone that duke could scarcely refuse. So they had elected to ask the Duke of Hamilton, premier peer, to act their spokesman. And Hamilton had agreed - and then later sent word that his agreement depended upon the electoral group's acceptance of the succession to the crown of the Electress Sophia and her son George. This bombshell, so utterly unexpected from one who himself had been named as a possible royal successor, had quite shattered the country gentry, of whom many were Jacobite sympathisers and almost all against the Hanoverian succession. There had been an angry and unruly meeting, whilst the Estates had been sitting, and the five hundred had split up into factions, Jacobite, Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, yeas and noes. Quite a large proportion had thereupon marched out and gone home.
Appalled, Andrew sought to gather what he could of those remaining in the city for a petition-presenting on the morrow. In the process, that evening, he discovered that this was not Hamilton's only contribution to the day. He had apparently sent off urgent messengers to Hamilton town countermanding the Cameronians assembly there and ordering all connected therewith to return home - allegedly because he had heard that their marching was to be used as an excuse by the English army at Berwick to invade.
That night the mood in Edinburgh was noticeably changed. There was
an element of despair evident now in the city, even though there was a wilder note in the demonstrations and disorders. Hamilton was no longer cheered in the streets. Windows in his wing of the palace were smashed.
Next day Queensberry, no doubt well informed, refused to accept Andrew's request to receive his gentry. Only a modest deputation was permitted to make one more brief presentation of protest-note before Parliament itself - a grievously disappointing expression of all their hopes.
Depressed, Andrew and Belhaven sought desperately for some remedy to counter the creeping, thickening miasma of defeat.
Delay at least they could achieve. In the days following, they and their friends took up most of the Estates' debating time by eloquence and tactical devices. Johnnie especially distinguished himself by speaking literally for hours, with of course interruptions, on an expanding theme that saw their ancient Mother Caledonia, like Caesar, sitting amongst them all and beholding ruefully how she was betrayed, covering herself with her royal garment before breaking out at last with 'Et tu, mi fili!’ This drew tears from some and laughter from others; but Andrew saw that this theatrical representation could be used with effect on many and could be applied daily to almost all the clauses debated; master of parliamentary tactics as he was, he saw to it that it was so.
So they managed to postpone the voting.
The delay they used to endeavour to muster and revitalise the demoralised county-electorate gentry who, properly handled, might still be a potent force. But Andrew found it hard going, the aura of failure, corruption and treachery widespread and spreading. He also found that the Duke of Hamilton had been busy again. He had informed some of his supporters amongst the gentry - and there were not a few Hamiltons therein - that union was now inevitable and that they must concentrate on trying to make it a federal and not an incorporating one. He believed that they could achieve this by trading their agreement to the Hanoverian succession. It was the only way, he was convinced. If they would back him in this, he would carry the anti-union vote in the House, and the Squadrone too, sufficiently to give them a majority.
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