The most important General Election in Scottish history remembered

A reader asked me what I considered to be the most important General Election in Scottish history, and I immediately thought of 1945 and Labour’s win that led to the transformation of the UK as a whole, and then I thought of 1997 and Labour’s landslide victory that brought us devolution.

The SNP’s dramatic rise over the two elections of 1974 – they won 30% of the Scottish vote in October that year – and the extraordinary achievement of the party winning 56 out of 59 seats in 2015 were also hugely crucial, but it was a much more ancient General Election that I alighted on as truly transformational and thus massively important.

In 1702, King William II of Scotland (III of England, below) died and Queen Anne came to the thrones of Scotland and England. Though a change of monarch did not always mean fresh elections, it suited Anne to have elections in both England and Scotland – her basic premise being that she wanted to rule over a United Kingdom that guaranteed Protestant succession to her throne.

(Image: Archive)

She and her predecessor both wanted the Union, and indeed had ordered the political leaders of both England and Scotland to start negotiating – which they did in secrecy.

Anne had no surviving children and though physically still able to give birth at the age of 37, she had suffered 17 miscarriages and stillbirths and the hoped-for heir, Prince William, had died in 1700 aged 11.

In England, the Act of Settlement of 1701 made it law that no Roman Catholic could be in the line of succession which had the effect of making Princess Sophia of Hanover the heir to Anne’s thrones.

READ MORE: The ancient Scottish town which paid for family’s royal drama

The Scottish Parliament was not consulted and outrage erupted in Scotland at the thought of having the foreign princess imposed as the monarch.

In the English parliament, years of disputes between the Tories and Whigs began again after the 1702 General Election in England split Parliament in two. Yet all eyes were turned to Scotland – what would the General Election in this country produce?

The previous election in Scotland had been in 1689 and one result of that was the three estates of the Scottish parliament no longer included the clergy and consisted of the nobles, the shires and burghs all represented by commissioners.

In those days, elections were held not on a single day but often over a period of weeks. Only landowners or their representatives could be members of the Parliament, who were never known officially or otherwise as MPs. In short, there was no such things as parliamentary democracy as we would understand it, instead there was a constant battle between various groupings very much representing their own interests.

In the early summer of 1702, the biggest issue facing Queen Anne was to get “supply” – money and soldiers – for the prosecution of the War of the Spanish Succession in which her kingdoms were part of the Grand Alliance against France and Spain. At the same time, war was taking place in North America where English colonists fought French and Spanish forces – which became known as Queen Anne’s War. Scottish support was needed and it was promised to the Queen by her chief Scottish supporter the Duke of Queensberry.

READ MORE: How this revered Scot etched his name in Canadian history

Prior to the 1702 election, the Duke of Queensberry as Lord High Commissioner led the controlling group in the Parliament in Edinburgh – very much a Presbyterian government with little tolerance of Episcopalians and none at all of Catholics.

There were no formal political parties in those days, but Queensberry’s grouping was known as the Court Party and controlled the government of Scotland. The opposition had become known as the Country Party with a smaller group known as the Cavaliers who represented the Scottish Episcopalian faction.

Some of the latter group were Jacobites, supporting the claim to the thrones of the Old Pretender, as he became known, though James Francis Edward Stuart, son of King James VII and II, was barely into his teens.

We even know where these Cavaliers/Jacobites met – Patrick Steel’s famous tavern in Edinburgh was the scene of their almost daily meetings during parliamentary sessions.

Some horror stories of the 1702 campaigns have been handed down to us, but evidence of wholesale manipulation, cheating and intimidation of electors and officials is not thick on the ground. These abuses undoubtedly took place, but the truth is that the electorates across the country were not going to change their views much.

The Court Party did lose members, and the Cavaliers gained some, but it was all a bit of a guddle, really. Queensberry set about trying to form a minority government, negotiating with the Cavaliers to keep the Country Party out, but things got even more messy.

But don’t take my word for it – here is the Westminster Parliament’s own online description of what happened next: “The new Scottish Parliament assembled in Edinburgh on May 6, 1703 and quickly proved a fractious and unpredictable body.

“The Duke of Queensberry, as Lord High Commissioner – the Queen’s personal representative to the Parliament of Scotland – led the Court (government) Party, a minority administration, which struggled to steer a course between the opposition parties, the Cavalier (Episcopalian) and Country parties.

“Queensberry’s priority was to get Scotland to help fund the war with France. But the Scots were angry about English arrogance and obstruction during the recent Union negotiations, especially over the vital issues of trade and the ill-fated Darien enterprise, and these increasingly stormy arguments dominated the proceedings.

“There were repeated digressions from the all-important measures that were necessary to provide funds to fight France.

“Leading members of the opposition put forward legislation to preserve the Kirk, trade and the gains of the 1688 Revolution in Scotland.

“On July 16, the Earl of Roxburghe caused uproar when he proposed adding a distinctly anti-English clause to the Act of Security.

“It specified that the Queen’s successor in Scotland would not be the same person as that in England, unless Scotland was guaranteed the independence of its Crown, the freedom and power of its Parliament, and the liberty of its religion and trade from outside intrusion.”

Next week I’ll show how those elected in 1702 became the Parcel of Rogues.