that part of the country now called
Scotland." These phrases from Clause 9 of the Treaty show that its
drafters actually intended to destroy even the memory of such names as
"England" and "Scotland". To describe yourself as a
"Unionist" and a "Scotsman" is therefore impossible,
since the first term implies the abolition of the second.
While Scotland became North Britain, England never
became South Britain.
The Treaty was essentially a suicide pact. According
to English law the sole survivor of such a pact is guilty of murder.
"We’re bought and sold for English gold such a
parcel of rogues in a nation" according to a popular song to which
Burns gave renewed currency.
This is true but unjust. A good proportion of Scots
refused to be bribed. Moreover, men like Sir John Hume, Lord of the
Treasury: the Earl of Marchmont with his pension of £400 a year; Lord
Lauderdale with a post in the Mint of £600; Lord Torphichen, the Earl
of Glencairn and others risked severe losses by refusing to support the
Treaty.
The Scottish Parliament had a much higher standard of
morality than that of Walpole into which it later so unhappily merged.
Nor did it have such an unscrupulous manager of puppets as Dundas was to
become.
There have been a good number of UKs. There was one
of England and France which ended in 1801 when the British monarch
renounced the title King of France. (The French had started to
guillotine their monarchs.) There was the UK of Britain and North
America, dissolved by the Colonials 200 years ago.
Then there was the UK of Britain and Ireland,
dissolved in 1916, the signatories being thereafter shot for treason to
George V. It was reaffirmed in 1949, when the signatories received a
telegram of congratulations and good wishes from George VI.
They have all one thing in common: they came to an
end.
At the beginning of this century there were three
United Kingdoms in Europe - this one,
Norway and Sweden (dissolved in 1905) and Austria and Hungary (dissolved
in 1918). These four countries, now separated, are now on better terms
than during their association and on much better terms than are the
English and Scots today. (S.I.June 1976)
The Queen’s Coat of Arms still bears the so-called
Irish Harp, despite the Republic. It ought to show 26 of the 32 strings
broken, the other six being out of tune.
One writer in "Peace News" has pointed out
that the Union of 1707 put an end to centuries of war between England
and Scotland and used this fact in his plea for a politically united
Europe. It is true that the raids which ruined Scotland for centuries
ceased - apart from Cumberland’s
repression of the Highlands. We then enjoyed the Pax Britannica which
rneant we fought the French, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Germans, the
Japanese, the Chinese, the Americans, the Russians, the Africans, the
Maoris, the Indians, the Italians, the Austrians —
and here I must stop because the SI is not an eight-page paper.
(The SI was then, January 1971, a four page weekly -
Ed.)
The Tories and Labourites are determined to maintain
"the unity of the United Kingdom". Why were the Kingdoms
united? Henry VIII contracted syphilis so that his children were barren
and had no heirs.
