Scotland

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1

Mary, Queen of Scots

James’s daughter Mary, still a child, was sent abroad to be raised at the French court in 1548, and her mother, Mary of Guise, assumed the regency in 1554. The regent’s policies, which seemed designed to transform Scotland into a colony of France, provoked the spread of anti-French sentiment in the kingdom. The return to Scotland, in 1559, of John Knox, a Protestant leader who had been exiled, added to the political ferment and gave impetus to the Reformation. The general hostility to Mary of Guise was deepened by the marriage, in April 1558, of her daughter to the Dauphin of France. In 1559, following the queen mother’s denunciation of Protestants as heretics, Knox and his followers resorted to open rebellion. Elizabeth I of England began at once to provide the insurgents with financial and military aid. Mary of Guise died in June 1560. In that same year, the Scottish Protestant leaders, assembled in a special parliament, abolished the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and adopted a Calvinistic Confession of Faith.

In August 1561 Queen Mary returned to Scotland; her husband, Francis II, had died in December 1560, just 17 months after becoming king of France. A loyal Roman Catholic and the heir presumptive to the English crown, Mary became the central figure of the Counter Reformation in Scotland and, later, in England. The final contest between Scottish Protestantism and Roman Catholicism was marked by conspiracy, murder, rebellion, and civil war. In 1567, after Mary’s army was defeated in battle, she was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, James VI, born in 1566 of her union with Lord Darnley. Imprisoned in Scotland, Mary escaped in May 1568, but failed to regain her throne. She then fled to England, only to become the captive of Queen Elizabeth. See Mary, Queen of Scots. See also Babington, Anthony; Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of; Darnley, Henry Stewart, Lord; Walsingham, Sir Francis.

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2

James VI

Until 1578 Scotland was ruled by successive regents, all staunchly Protestant and pro-English, and later by factions capable of dominating the young king. By 1586, however, James VI had control of his government and had concluded a military alliance with Elizabeth. He subsequently refused to intercede on behalf of his mother, who was executed in England in 1587. In religion, he tried to steer a middle course, allowing a Presbyterian form of church government at the local level, but appointing bishops who represented royal authority over the church as a whole. He was a capable administrator and made the power of the monarchy dominant in Scotland. On the death of Elizabeth, in March 1603, James VI inherited the crown of England as James I.

I

Scotland in the 17th Century

James lived on until 1625, and Scotland remained largely tranquil under his rule. Relations with England grew closer, but the two kingdoms remained distinct, each with its own government. Under James’s son, Charles I (reigned 1625-1649), high taxes, and especially royal attempts to impose Anglican forms of worship, led to conflicts known as the Bishops’ Wars (1639-1640). These in turn helped to spark the great English Revolution, which ended in Charles’s execution. During the revolution, many Scots supported Parliament against the king in return for a promise that Presbyterianism would be established in both realms. This promise was not kept, and after Charles’s execution, England’s Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, defeated Scottish uprisings on behalf of the royal heir, Charles II. Cromwell also temporarily imposed a single government on England and Scotland. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Scotland was again separated from England. Charles reintroduced a limited form of episcopacy in the northern kingdom, and several abortive Presbyterian rebellions occurred during his reign. Scotland played no part in the overthrow of Charles’s successor, James VII (James II of England) in 1688, but the Scottish Parliament immediately recognized the new king, William III, as William II of Scotland. William abolished the Scottish episcopate in 1690. This made him popular among the Lowland Scots, but in the Highlands support for the exiled King James remained strong. See Jacobites.

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J

Scotland in the United Kingdom

In 1707 the Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence, and Scotland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain with guarantees of its own legal system and church polity. Thereafter, Scottish representatives sat in the British Parliament at Westminster. The union, like the Revolution of 1688, was opposed by many of the Highland Scots, who rose in support of James VII’s son in the Jacobite rebellions of 1708, 1715, and 1745 to 1746. Following the defeat of the 1745 Rebellion, the government forced the breakup of the clan system in the Highlands.

At the same time, Edinburgh, home of the “Scottish Enlightenment,” was becoming one of the most important cultural centers of 18th-century Europe. Among the outstanding Scottish thinkers of the time were the economist Adam Smith and the philosopher David Hume. Literary figures included Tobias Smollett, James Boswell, Robert Burns, and, somewhat later, Sir Walter Scott.

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Economic Development

In time, the union resulted in economic benefits for Scotland. Scottish ports, especially those on the Clyde, began to import tobacco from the American colonies. American tobacco, traded abroad by Scottish merchants, stimulated shipbuilding and banking, and helped transform the growing city of Glasgow into one of Europe’s leading commercial centers. At the same time a number of Scottish industries developed to meet the colonists’ demand for manufactured goods, including linen manufacturing.

The British monopoly on the tobacco trade ended with the American Revolution (1775-1783), but Scottish industrial growth continued. By the late 18th century, spinning and weaving cotton had emerged as a major industry in Scotland; the industry flourished until the American Civil War (1861-1865) cut off the supplies of raw cotton. However, by that time Scotland had developed heavy industries based on its coal and iron resources. The invention of the blast furnace for smelting iron in the early 19th century revolutionized the Scottish iron industry, and Scotland became a center for engineering, shipbuilding, and locomotive construction. In the late 19th century steel production largely replaced iron production. Throughout the 19th century Scotland’s textile, steel, and shipbuilding industries made major contributions to Britain’s commercial greatness, and while Scottish statesmen and administrators helped govern the British Empire, Scottish soldiers helped defend it.

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