Scottish Presbyterians and the Act of Union 1707.
Bradley, James E.
doi: 10.1017/S0009640708001820
Scottish Presbyterians and the Act of Union 1707. By Jeffrey
Stephen. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. vii + 279 pp.
$80.00 cloth.
In the wake of the Revolution and the accession of William Ill, the
Scottish Convention of Estates abolished episcopacy on July 22, 1689,
and within less than a year most ejected Presbyterian ministers were
restored to their former parishes, thereby setting the stage for one of
the more anomalous arrangements of church and state in Europe: with the
Act of Union in 1707, two national churches with radically different
polities agreed to coexist under the single Parliament of Great Britain in Whitehall. In this important book, Jeffrey Stephen offers the first
full-length study of the precise relation of the Presbyterian Church to
the Act of Union and the events surrounding it. The book presents a
detailed, and at times hourly, account of the debates within the
Presbyterian Church over the terms of the union and examines both the
highest judicatories of the church and the popular religious response in
the presbyteries and shires. Stephen utilizes all the pertinent
manuscript sources, especially unpublished correspondence, and he offers
a fresh and compelling interpretation of the pamphlet literature and
church records. The bibliographic breadth and the judicious analysis
make this book the definitive study of the topic.
The opening chapters set forth the debate over an incorporating
union at the highest levels of government and church courts (chapters
1-3). After the Revolution Settlement, Presbyterians sought to nurture a
common, national presbyterian identity and build a reformed church that
would shape and unify moral life. The Presbyterian Church looked to the
Scottish Parliament for support in areas such as the security of
Presbyterian polity, national fasts, and education; suppression of
popery; discipline for profaneness; and supplying vacant churches. The
ideal had much in common with parallel developments in England outlined
by Tony Claydon in his study William III and the Godly Revolution (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). As the possibility for an
incorporating union with England emerged, naturally the church was
profoundly concerned about how its interests could be adequately served
by an English parliament.
The specific interests of the church were, if possible, even more
complex than issues of national sovereignty and parliamentary
representation. Much of the real work leading up to the union was
conducted by a commission that in turn was under the General Assembly of
the national church, and the commission delegated significant work to a
series of committees. The commission and committees, composed of
ministers and ruling elders, debated key issues involving the security
of the Presbyterian Church in relation to the union. These matters
centered on a cluster of concerns, for example, the coronation oath of
the sovereign (swearing to maintain the rights of the English church,
but not those of the Church of Scotland) and the abjuration oath of
ministers. Of particular concern was the question of the succession to
the crown: many Presbyterians believed that a union would serve as the
main bulwark of security against a Jacobite attempt to restore a
Catholic prince. In other words, Scotland's ongoing independence
seemed to leave it vulnerable to the Stuart claimant (a vulnerability
that was proved in the event, even with the union). Other critical
issues included the implications of the English Test and Corporation
acts for Scotsmen, and the threat of the English bishops in the House of
Lords relative to the Scottish Church and its interests. Stephen's
handling of these and related issues illumines in fresh ways the complex
and subtle differences between the Anglican acceptance of bishops in
positions of civil authority and the Presbyterian denial of civil
authority and office holding for clergy and shows how incredibly
difficult it was to craft a policy that would guarantee security for the
church.
Throughout its deliberations, both the commission and its
committees assumed a studied neutrality on the question of the union
itself, even as they sought to secure the interests of the church. The
work of the commission and its strategic political detachment finally
persuaded the government to concede the Act of Security, an act that
functioned successfully to stanch the worries of the church and at the
same time reconcile the parties within it. But the commission continued
its work after the act was passed and lobbied Parliament both directly
and by means of burgh and shire representatives in the presbyteries. In
a judicious and balanced summary, Stephen gently dissents from previous
interpretations that pictured the commission's work as divided
between pro-union and anti-union factions. He concludes as well that the
contribution of William Carstares, an eminent Edinburgh minister, was
not as pivotal in moderating the work of the commission as was
heretofore thought.
The second half of the book turns to popular forms of church
expression over the union and to the debate over possible alternatives
to incorporation union (chapters 4-7). Stephen provides a fresh
evaluation of the real strength of popular opposition that took the form
of some eighty-eight addresses to Parliament, but he concludes that
sentiment against the union was less than has been thought, and it was
small relative to the entire population. Moreover, both the addresses of
the presbyteries and those of the parishes do not represent the voice of
a church in opposition to the union but rather the voice of opposition
within the church. An area analysis of the geographic distribution of
the addresses shows that opposition was largely confined to the
presbyteries of Lanark and Hamilton. Fully 95 percent of all
presbyteries chose not to express opposition to the union through
addressing.
Stephen also studied the mob activity and rioting that protested
the union--crowds that were leaderless, for the most part, and random,
but involving several hundred people at Edinburgh and Glasgow in the
fall of 1706. Such popular outbursts were actually quite rare, involved
relatively few people, and were never encouraged by the church.
Preaching against the union was not widespread, and again, an area
analysis shows that even in the west where opposition to union was the
strongest, ministers gave considerable support to union. The small
minority of ministers who did preach against the union were restrained
in their rhetoric. The cumulative evidence that Stephen assembles
corrects Daniel Defoe's frequently expressed view that there was a
connection between the violence, the protests, and the Presbyterian
pulpit. The book examines the ideas favoring a federal alternative to an
incorporating union, particularly those of the Cameronians, but these
views never attracted much support. Stephen also handily disproves any
notion of a Cameronian-Jacobite alliance. In no Presbyterian group, of
whatever radical stripe, was there any discernible connection between
opposition to union and sympathy for Jacobitism.
Stephen concludes that the church was indeed secured and served
well by the union, even though some of its deepest fears were eventually
realized; within just a few years, Presbyterians had to endure the
reintroduction of church patronage and the toleration of Episcopalians.
The book examines virtually all of the evidence that bears on the
question of union and provides a sober and convincing estimate of public
opinion, both for and against the union. The church was not the center
of opposition to union, and neither was it even indirectly the source of
anti-union feeling. In the 1707 General Assembly that met after the
union was secured, the subject of union with England was barely even
mentioned, and when it was, the tone was characterized by good will,
ministerial harmony, and reflections on all the advantages that the
union would bring to the church.
James E. Bradley
Fuller Seminary
