Letters: Westminster took 162 years to repeal 1705 Alien Act

I am doing the research on The Union of England and Scotland Act (“the 1705 Act”) otherwise known as the “Alien Act 1705” that provided that Scottish nationals in England were to be treated as aliens (foreign nationals), and estates held by Scots as alien property. It also included an embargo on the imports of Scottish products (such as linen, cattle and coal) into England and English colonies and Scots losing the privileges of Englishmen under English Law – thus endangering rights to any property they held in England.

The act contained a provision that it would be repealed if the Scots entered into negotiations regarding a proposed union of the parliaments of Scotland and England. Commissioners were then in fact appointed to negotiate treaty terms and this led to the Acts of Union in 1707 uniting the two countries as the Kingdom of Great Britain (as Linda has correctly stated, the Act of Union with United Kingdom and Ireland took place in 1800).

While carrying out my research into both the 1705 Act and the 1707 Act I was reliably informed by history teachers and academics that when the Act of Union 1707 was signed, the Alien Act 1705 was automatically repealed. On face value this appears to be the case. But on further research this appears not to be the fact.

I have information from The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) that proves the 1705 Act was not repealed when the 1707 Act was signed. I quote verbatim from the letter I received from SPICe: “the 1705 Act is no longer in force, as it was repealed by The Statute Law Revision Act 1867”. Statute Law Revision Acts tidy up the statute book, repealing enactments “which may be regarded as spent, or have ceased to be in force otherwise than by express and specific repeal, or have, by lapse of time and change of circumstances, become unnecessary, should be expressly and specifically repealed”. So it appears that it took the Westminster Parliament 162 years to repeal an Act that they promised the Scottish people would be automatically would repealed in 1707.

So this was the first of many violations of the 1707 Act that the Westminster Parliament has carried out since 1707.

It might be the right juncture to find out the history of the 1705 Act. At Westminster on November 29 1704, Lord Godolphin – the Lord High Treasurer – explained to the House of Lords why Queen Anne had approved the Scottish Act of Security, which preserved the Kirk, trade and the gains of the 1688 Revolution in Scotland. He had said that Act contained some undesirable elements, but it was essential that any Scottish threat to England’s safety should be neutralised. The Tories wanted to censure Godolphin for allowing the Act to pass, but the Whigs said that would antagonise the Scots even more by implying that their legislature was inferior to the English. It would be better, they said, to bring union upon the Scots through economic pressure. Over the next few days Godolphin was in deep negotiations with the dominant group of Whigs – known as the Junto Whigs – in the English House of Lords, the first step towards the conclusive negotiations of 1706. When the Lords resumed their deliberations in Scotland on December 6, two bills were proposed with his support.

One offered fresh negotiations for a full incorporating union, with a single parliament and unified free trade area. The other, an alien bill, threatened that unless Scotland agreed to negotiation terms for union and accepted the Hanoverian succession by December 25 1705, there would be a ban on the import of all Scottish staple products into England. Both bills became law early in 1705.

Gordon Bryce

Greenock