This book contains the entire text of the Act of Union of 1707 with comments and commentary by Robbie the Pict. This is the Scottish half of an international treaty between two independent kingdoms. The English half is similar except that they forgot to include Shetland, but that is not the reason why the Government has never published this founding, constitutional declaration for the establishment of Great Britain. In honourable countries, the constitution is referred to in school and provides a script for the unification of the People under a common flag. It is a thing of pride and inspiration. In `The United Kingdom' however, it is a thing of disgrace and embarrassment. The English, like the Romans and the Vikings, had failed to conquer the Scots in open combat and through the Treaty of Union they sought to simply incorporate Scotland by sleight of hand. The resultant pact, made without the consent of the People of Scotland, is nonetheless claimed by the Crown to be the unquestionable basis for its total authority over Scotland. In truth it is an absolute shambles. They know it and can only claim their authority on the basis of claiming established practice, but, in the same way that you end child abuse when you discover it, the People of Scotland are entitled to end their three centuries of civil abuse when they read and understand what their rights are in this deal. That is why you do not see this document in the HMSO catalogue.
Thanks are due to Nick Simpson (Battlefront Press) and to Stella Andersonfor their invaluable help in the production of this booklet - also to Bruce & Ann Hope, Bruce Bard and Linsay Stevenson for other assistances.
Dedicated to Gregor, Rhiann, Kenneth and Zoe - and to all the kids of Scotland - especially those at the Vigil.
First Published by
Scottish Exchequer Press
Pictland 1994
First Edition Limited to 1000 Numbered Copies.
Copyright free - Credit where appropriate.
The Treaty of Union of 1707
The Attempted Murder of the Kingdom of Scotland
"I have often said to myself,
what are the advantages Scotland
reaps from this so called Union,
that can counterbalance the
annihilation if her independance
and her very name."
Robert Burns
A 2000 Year Run-up
Since long before the Union there has been a certain shyness on the part of the English authorities to show their true hand to the Scots, so before their national curriculum succeeds in completely obliterating our national history and the truth of its experiences with England let us try to shed some light on their activities. Before the diversionary counter-accusation of racism is levied, proper respect for ethnic or national groups does not prohibit naming the guilty and demanding that they accept responsibility for their actions, regardless of the group name they employ. At the end of the Second World War no-one called the French `racists' when they sent the Germans home. If through consistent criminal activity a nation gives itself a bad name in one or more fields of action, then that nation brings calumny on its own head. The term `race' is inappropriately elevated for the English people.
The English style should come as no surprise to anyone with even a slight grasp of British history. The freebooting Angli were retained on these islands by a weak British king called Vortigern in 449AD who needed the assistance of mercenaries to repel raids by the Picts and Scots. The Angli were not successful in disciplining the hungry Gaels and instead took the softer option of pressurising their employer. By means of menace and intrigue they compromised Vortigern into allowing boatloads of their pals to come and provide `protection' and thus a squad of pagan thugs from Schleswig-Holstein began a campaign of expansionism by atrocious slaughter which was almost entirely at the expense of the Britons. Even compared with Picts, Scots, Vikings and Romans the English are described as the most hated enemies of the Britons. The Celtic tribes called them "The Smiling Killers".
In the ensuing centuries they forced their way in all directions from their East Coast beach-heads and before the end of the 7th century we find them collecting taxes at the northern limit of old Britannia, Strathclyde and Lothian, and threatening Caledonia itself. When they did attempt to subdue Pictland only a crushing defeat by King Brude at Dunnichen in 685AD prevented the whole of what is now called mainland Britain being called England. They were thus eventually obliged to retreat south of Hadrian's Wall to set up this early German colony but it suffered serious reversals in the shape of Danish conquest, beginning in 865AD and lasting until 1042AD with the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of England under Edward the Confessor. Within 30 years William the Conqueror had arrived and thus the Germans were now under the control of the French and both were claiming to be English. The British meanwhile had been beaten back into Cambria, now called Wales from an Anglo-Saxon word Walsch meaning Gaul, but they were still rejecting the English yoke as late as 1409, in revolts led by Owen Glendower. The Welsh Tudor Dynasty went on to supply Henry VII as King of England but his successor Henry VIII brought Wales into a formal union with England in 1536, in a sense consolidating the conquest by Edward I.
In Caledonia meanwhile, the West-coasters had gained the upper hand in 844AD when Kenneth Mac Alpin, a Scottish King with a Pictish mother murdered the Pictish nobility, whom he had invited to a banquet at Scone, and claimed both kingdoms. It was another 200 years before they dared to call the country Scotia, as they had called Ireland, but the ancient Kingdom of Pictland was moth-balled after around 1200 years, having seen off both the Romans and the English and established the Caledonian foundations on which the ensuant people of Scotland could build this famous nation.
Scotland successfully resisted claims on its throne coming from Norman England during the 12th century but Edward the First's corrupt interference when asked to judge a dispute concerning succession and his seizure of the Scottish throne when his pet puppet Baliol rebelled, plunged the people of Scotland into another round of defensive struggles for their independence. The Scots took up arms under William Wallace and eventually Robert the Bruce, who claimed the throne in 1306. Edward II came north in 1314 to restore English order but was routed at Bannockburn by Bruce. On 6th April, 1320, at Arbroath Abbey, Scotland's Declaration of Independence was made and was sent to the Pope for the record. Amongst such declarations it is probably unique in that it was deemed necessary to name the likely threat to continuing independence. This same passage is unique in another sense in that it declares a minimum number who would be a sufficient quorum to defend the sovereign rights of the People of Scotland, "so long as but 100 of us remain alive we will never yield to the domination of the English".
In 1328 the Treaty of Northampton and Edinburgh was signed by Edward III, granting total recognition of Scotland's status as an independent nation and promising to return things like the Coronation Stone which Edward I had stolen in 1296. The Stone of Destiny was not mentioned in the treaty itself but in a `separate instrument' it was agreed that `the stone on which the Kings of Scots were wont to sit at their coronation, and which had been carried away by Edward I, should be restored to the Scots.' The London mob are said to have risen `in a riotous manner' and prevented the Stone's return and the Act has since mysteriously disappeared from the English parliamentary records. There are some in Scotland who are more interested in the demonstration of English integrity than the actual recovery of the stone, that particular one being, it is claimed, only a tethering stone from the front door of Scone Palace from which the horse-shit was quickly cleaned when it was heard that Edward I was on his way. William Skene's essay on the history of the Stone of Destiny would seem to confirm this likelihood and a geological analysis of the stone has shown it to be Perthshire sandstone (calcareous freestone) and much more suitable for horses. All arguments about the authenticity of the Stone are, in essence, irrelevant. It matters not if the Scottish Kings were being crowned on a bundle of Beanos; their throne was stolen, the thief has been identified, the location of the throne is known, and so therefore are those guilty of reset. There is no statute of limitation regarding common theft in Scotland. We refer the Dean of Westminster to Exodus 20.15. (Note 1).
Scotland had Orkney and Shetland returned in 1472 in compensation for a lapsed dowry payment by Norway, who, one might reasonably say, should not have taken them in the first place. In 1513 James IV embarked on a misguided attempt to invade England, a rare event in the history of the two nations, but was seriously defeated at the Battle of Flodden. While Mary of Guise was regent (1554-60) many of the Scottish nobility were converted to Protestantism, largely due to the work of John Knox and this pervading atmosphere in both religion and politics forced Mary Queen of Scots to abdicate in 1567 in favour of her Protestant son, James VI. He inherited the throne of England in 1603 as James I by virtue of his descent from Margaret Tudor. It must be emphasised at this point that this was only a personal union, a private arrangement which in no way carried the weight or significance of a constitutional unification of two nations. England's Hundred Year War with the French and its running maritime disputes with other Catholic colonists like the Spanish had bred an abnormal level of papist paranoia, entrenching sectarian attitudes which are still dividing these kingdoms at many levels.
The 17th century was very messy for England and the imported line of monarchs brought more than the same hymn sheet. In retrospect Scotland was maybe as well without them since the Stuarts were at the end of their dynastic line and had declined into the state of vainglorious claims such as the divine right of kings and other examples of the `don't you know who I am?' syndrome. This did not go down well with the likes of Cromwell and resulted in the execution of Charles II in 1649. Incidentally, if there was any substance to the English claims that union with Scotland was valid from 1603, then surely killing the King constitutes some kind of breach.
Things began to come to head during the brief reign of James VII (1685-8). Charles had been obliged to sign the Petition of Right in 1628 which sought to move power away from the monarch and toward the parliament. This was entirely alien to Charles who, although probably resisting through arrogant megalomania, was nonetheless from a family schooled in the ancient Celtic traditions of kingship, and to him the parliament should be never more than a political service to the king, who in turn was only the authorised voice of the people - true sovereign democracy. The English parliament's move to arrogate more power to itself resulted in the birth of that most pernicious of political diseases - partyism.
If you make the parliament sovereign then the chappie with the biggest mouth or the most clout is king. He and his associates become a ruling clique and to resist that, for whatever reason, you must produce some form of opposition. As a rule of thumb these objections are couched in ideological principles whose terms give names to the opposing groupings or `parties'. This illusion of democracy is perfect for the real status quo. The divide and rule principle is assisted by the introduction of other considerations, usually religion and class followed by compromise through privilege. Top this with fear of your peers and then, for example, the nouveau-riche Orange labour voter, using a British passport, government assistance in schooling and business and a private parking place, has a serious problem relating to the patriotic struggle. It has to be realised that compromise is cynically calculated in full knowledge of the character and therefore the weaknesses of the victims. At present, for example, the Scottish electorate is trying to decide between voting Labour, which appeals to the natural tendency toward group care in the Celtic mentality but is a London controlled 100% Unionist party, and the Scottish National Party, who although completely unprepared to get real about the prospect, use patriotic blackmail to coerce the voter into their narrow and limited view of independence. Hobson's Choice from people who, when they raise an M.P., allow him or her to go to England and swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen of England! We are thus thoroughly divided and thoroughly ruled and perhaps unwittingly perfecting the process, the press `stirs' the elements of opposition to get a quick story rather than risking its advertising revenue by investigating institutional corruption.
To return to the historical sequence: James VII incurred the resentment of the English parliament by daring to oppose anti-Catholic legislation, acts of institutional sectarianism, and even proceeded to make Catholic appointments. The opposing parties united in horror at this threat to both the new parliamentary power and the rigorous establishment of Protestantism as the English way. A group of Whigs and Tories secretly invited James's son-in-law, William of Orange, and his wife Mary to invade Britain and assert control on their behalf. James fled to France as William arrived and in the following year the English parliament declared William III and Mary II king and queen of England. By this act Scotland was rendered kingless and it unfortunately did not have the savvy to choose one. 1689 was also important in another respect in that the English parliament passed the Bill of Rights, in which they chose the successor to the throne, but it also realised their ambition to switch power away from the monarch and place sovereign authority in the hands of the parliament. Thus England gave birth to the dangerous concept of `parliamentary sovereignty', dangerous because the authority over the parliament which personified the ultimate sovereignty of the people was removed and the way was made clear for the possibility of Westminster despotism.
England also entered the War of the Grand Alliance with France that year and four years after that was over it entered the War of the Spanish Succession which would last until 1714, but of more significance to Scotland were the terms of the Act of Settlement of 1701. Anne, the daughter of James VII, was appointed to come to the throne in 1702, but after her, succession was fixed on the Royal House of Hanover, thus declaring a remnant of the thoroughly protestant German royal family to be the sole and exclusive suppliers of English monarchs, thereby avoiding any risk of contamination by Catholics, or `papists' as they were then known. While types of union with Scotland were being discussed, out of defensive
self-interest, they had no intention of losing the protestant puppet-sovereign parliament power axis which incidentally was remotely controlling Scotland so well. The Scots enjoyed a tradition of amity toward the French and with natural Celtic fraternity had no ill-will toward the Spanish. This was perceived as a strategical threat to the English and they feared an enemy attack, either by using Scotland as a base or in combination with Scottish forces.
In May 1703 the Scottish parliament assembled and busied itself drawing up the Act of Security, a spirited objection to the imposition of Hanoverian succession on Scotland and essentially claiming a parallel right to settle succession in Scotland according to its Royal Line of Descent. Scotland in short was free to choose its own monarch. Royal assent was refused and granted only in 1704 after a second presentation, largely inspired by Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, the man they should have made king. This act of self-assertion was ill-received by the English and in 1705 they passed the infamous Aliens Act which declared that "all natives of the kingdom of Scotland.....shall be reputed as aliens unless the succession to the crown of Scotland be settled on the princess Sophia of Hanover and the heirs of her body being protestants.....that immediate provision be made to prevent the conveying of horse, arms and ammunition, from England into Scotland.....and that all protestant freeholders of the six northern counties of England be permitted to furnish themselves with arms." It also included provisions for economic blockading. These were threats in any man's language and were followed up by instructions from Queen Anne to pay and/or persuade the necessary people in Scotland to secure her will regarding a union.
It is probably wise at this point to define our term. The word `union' in 1700 was held to mean something more like `pact', whereby the associate members, retaining all aspects of their sovereign integrity, agreed to consider the loyalty to the pact to be paramount in any dealings with an alien nation, perhaps a bit like NATO. In this sense there was some sympathy for the idea, more in the sense that the two kingdoms shared the one island and might do better if they co-operated with each other. This was countered by those sceptical of England's true agenda who feared an incorporating union, the indications of which came from the now powerful parliament at Westminster. They saw it ruling over Scotland and its people with only a handful of union sooks and tartan chickens to bluster vain protest, and they could be easily compromised.