Free How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

an unsigned letter addressed to Carstares preserved in his private papers. It read simply, “The union could never have had the consent of the Scottish Parliament if you had not acted the worthy part you did.”
    Now the Earl of Mar, writing to Harley in London, was more confident than ever that the treaty would pass. But he believed that the opposition would still try “some foolish extravagant thing” to postpone the final day.
    That “foolish extravagant thing” came on October 23. A mob stormed the house of Patrick Johnson, Lord Provost (or mayor) of Edinburgh and a treaty commissioner. The municipal guard had to be called out, and they arrested six rioters. The rest roamed the streets unchecked, smashing windows and threatening passersby. By nine o’clock they had intimidated any and all law-enforcement authorities and marauded at will. Queensberry sent a party of soldiers from Holyrood to the Netherbow Port to keep at least one gate out of the city open.
    The next day three regiments of royal troops marched in at Queensberry’s orders. Edinburgh was placed under martial law, and the city streets again became clear. But from this point on, no supporter of union dared go outside without armed bodyguards. Queensberry himself took the precaution of leaving Parliament House every day in a closed carriage at full gallop, while the crowd flung curses and excrement at the scrambling vehicle.
    On November 7 the unrest spread to Glasgow, whose Provost fled to Edinburgh to escape the enraged throng. Anti-union protesters tried to stir many of the same emotions as the National Covenant had done seventy years earlier. On November 20 an armed mob marched into Dumfries, burned a copy of the treaty, and tacked up a crudely written proclamation that said ratification of union would be “contrary to our fundamental liberties and privileges . . . as men and christians.”
    But this was 1707, not 1637. And day by day, ratification of the treaty went ahead as planned.
    On November 4 the first article, providing that England and Scotland “for ever after be united in one kingdom by the name of Great Britain,” was presented to the assembled Parliament (unlike the English division into Lords and Commons, all the members of the Scottish Parliament met as a single body). The most emotional outburst from the opposition came not from Andrew Fletcher, but from another diehard member of the opposition, Lord Belhaven. In a long, almost hysterical speech, he compared the proposed treaty to an act of murder, with Scotland’s ancient mythic mother, Caledonia, expiring under the dagger blows of her treacherous sons, as her dying breath paraphrased Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “And you too, my children!”
    Belhaven saw a powerful and prosperous England, its navy “the terror of Europe,” devouring a defenseless Scotland. “We are an obscure, poor people, though formerly of better account, removed to a remote corner of the world, without name and without alliance. . . . Now we are slaves forever.” Then he employed a different classical allusion: “Hannibal, My Lord, is at our gates; Hannibal is at our gates; Hannibal is come the length of this table, he is at the foot of the throne: he will demolish this throne if we take not notice; he would seize upon this regalia,” Belhaven bellowed, pointing to the Crown and Sceptre of State, “and whip us out of this house never to return.”
    Then he turned to the other members. “We want neither men nor sufficiency of all manner of things to make a nation happy,” he cried, and then in a mighty wail, “Good God, what is this! An entire surrender.” Overcome with emotion, Belhaven broke off his speech, pleading that he was unable to finish.
    The house sat, stunned. Then another figure, leaner and much older, rose to speak. It was Lord Chancellor Polwarth, newly honored by the Queen with the earldom of Marchmont, the same man who had cast the final vote sentencing Thomas Aikenhead to death