This is a special issue on Scotland. We are pleased that through serendipity we gathered an excellent collection of articles on Scotland and hope that this will encourage future submissions. All of the articles went through the normal submission and review process.
We first present a section of three articles on early modern Scotland that address the vexed and important three kingdoms debate. The great contentions of this era around the legitimacy of sovereignty were often sparked by conflict within and with Scotland. As Scotland became politically integrated into the United Kingdom from the ascension of James I to the Act of Union, the question of cultural and economic integration became urgent. These articles also address the question of the character of the empire—was it to be Britannic, federal, Protestant? Were there alternatives to the seemingly inexorable expansion of the United Kingdom and its empire?
In her fascinating article “The Statutes of Iona: The Archipelagic Context,” Alison Cathcart explores an attempt by James I in 1609 to pacify the Scots by “civilizing” what were perceived as barbaric Gaelic Highlands customs. Cathcart takes a “three kingdoms” approach to this issue by placing the statutes in the context of James I's efforts to deal with the Irish as well. James I had envisioned “planting” more tractable Lowlands Scots amid rebellious subjects in both Ireland and the Highlands. Eventually, the Highlands were not planted. Instead, James's officials imposed the Statutes of Iona to assimilate the Highland chiefs into British society and reduce the burden their military adventures placed on ordinary people. The clan chiefs had to appear in court in Scotland; they were encouraged to educate their sons in the Lowlands and to engage in commercial land practices. The Statutes of Iona were therefore part of the larger project of extending dominion over the Celtic fringe.
In his valuable survey article “The Anglo-Scottish Treaty of Union, 1707 in 2007: Defending the Revolution, Defeating the Jacobites,” Bob Harris assesses important recent works on the Act of Union between England and Scotland. Until recently, historians had assumed that English politicians manipulated Scottish politicians into signing the Act of Union and that the latter acquiesced out of their own self-interest. However, more recently historians have argued that more substantial debates about politics and the economy shaped the union. The Scottish elite feared the Jacobite threat more than English domination, and they saw the union in the context of European power politics. Historians debate whether the Scottish economy was in the doldrums and needed rescuing by integration into the British economy or whether it had the potential to thrive with other alliances. As Harris points out, Scottish contemporaries believed the union was necessary for economic survival. Antiunion sentiment was quite fierce, but guarantees for the Presbyterian kirk played a role in assuaging fears of ministers, who could therefore soften public sentiment. Harris's essay thus traces a shift from a Namierite explanation to a more social, cultural, religious, and economic context for the union.
The story of the union continues in Jeffrey Stephen's “Scottish Nationalism and Stuart Unionism: The Edinburgh Council, 1745.” The Jacobite Prince Charles acted against the advice of a majority of his Scottish council of war when he decided to invade England after conquering Edinburgh. A few months later, the council returned to Scotland after the invasion, although the prince wanted to fight on. Historians of Jacobitism have often blamed the council for this seeming pusillanimity. But Stephen lucidly explains that they had different goals than the prince, and perhaps more realistic ones. The prince wanted to reclaim the throne of Britain and keep the union together to be sovereign of this wide domain. The council was more interested in independence for Scotland and undoing the union; several members declared that they had no interest in imposing a king on England. This article successfully reclaims Jacobitism from the misty legends of Bonnie Prince Charlie and places it in the wider frame of debates over unionism.
The second half of this issue focuses on twentieth-century Scotland. In her vivid article “‘By Scottish hands, with Scottish money, on Scottish soil’: The Scottish National War Memorial and National Identity,” Jenny MacLeod uses the war memorial to assert that the equation of imperial military service and Scottish unionist identity still held in the early twentieth century. However, changes were happening. The Duke of Atholl's leadership on the memorial commission indicates continuing aristocratic influence, but the fact that most of the money came from industrialists and the Scottish population in general indicates a potential changing of the guard. The memorial did not garner much support or participation from Scottish trade unions and the left, and few Catholics were invited to participate in planning. But incredible numbers of the Scottish population and the diaspora contributed with small sums that added up to large numbers, and the war memorial was received enthusiastically. MacLeod refutes the notion of some historians that the memorial and other interwar cultural phenomena indicate increasing support for dominion status and away from union toward a more independent Scottish nation. Rather, the success of the memorial demonstrates the continued power of Scottish unionism.
We also feature two complementary articles comparing Scotland and Ireland in the late twentieth century. In his well-researched article “Joining Europe: Ireland, Scotland, and the Celtic Response to European Integration, 1961–1975,” Andrew Devenney insightfully explores why Irish public opinion supported joining the European Economic Community (EEC) while many Scots opposed it. In Ireland, premier Seán Lemass persuaded his people that the EEC would help his country move away from isolationism and economic decline toward a new prosperity. By focusing on the continent, Ireland would be able to wean itself away from dependence on Britain. But in Scotland, economic decline in the 1970s led to a different conclusion. If Britain joined the EEC, asserted the Scottish Nationalist Party, Scottish sovereignty would be undermined. Only an aggressive campaign persuaded Scots, by a narrow margin, to accept the EEC in 1974.
Graham Walker also sheds light on the Northern Ireland and Scottish connection in his article “Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Devolution, 1945–1979.” He demonstrates that Northern Ireland's Stormont parliament functioned for some as an ideal and for others as a cautionary warning for Scottish devolution. In the earlier period, advocates argued that Scotland could emulate Stormont as a governing structure without harming the British state. But after the troubles broke out in the 1970s and Stormont failed in 1974, this argument became less plausible, to say the least. Some Scottish politicians warned that if they were not given self-government, violence might erupt as in Northern Ireland. Conversely, as Parliament contemplated Scottish devolution, officials and politicians in Northern Ireland insisted that they deserved devolution too. Like Devenney, Walker demonstrates that an approach comparing Scotland and Ireland gives great insight into the political and economic conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s.
