Scotland 1688-1715: Glencoe to Union
Scotland After 1688
Scotland’s response to the Glorious Revolution was divided. Most Scots accepted the replacement of James VII (James II of England) with William and Mary, but Jacobite Highlanders loyal to the Stuarts mounted an immediate uprising. At the Battle of Killiecrankie (July 1689), Jacobite forces under “Bonnie Dundee” (John Graham of Claverhouse) routed a Williamite army, though Dundee was killed in the moment of victory. Without his leadership the rising collapsed, and Scotland settled — uneasily — into the new Protestant constitutional order.
The Massacre of Glencoe, 1692
The most infamous event of William’s reign in Scotland was the Massacre of Glencoe on 13 February 1692. William III had ordered all Highland clan chiefs to swear an oath of loyalty to him by 1 January 1692. Alasdair Maclain, chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, arrived a few days late to swear the oath. Government officials used this technicality as a pretext. A company of Campbell soldiers were billeted with the MacDonalds for two weeks, enjoying traditional Highland hospitality, before receiving orders to kill all MacDonalds under 70. Between 38 and 78 people were killed; many more died of exposure fleeing into winter snowfields.
Glencoe was significant not for its death toll alone, but for the violation of Highland laws of hospitality — soldiers killed their hosts. The orders were traced back to the Master of Stair (Secretary for Scotland) and arguably to William III himself. A parliamentary inquiry condemned it as “murder under trust”, though no one faced prosecution.
The Darien Scheme, 1698–1700
Scotland’s most catastrophic independent venture was the Darien Scheme, devised by William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England. A Scottish joint-stock company raised around £400,000 — estimated at a quarter of Scotland’s liquid capital — to establish a colony at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama. It aimed to control trade between the Atlantic and Pacific. William III, under pressure from English merchants who feared Scottish competition, refused to provide English navy support and warned English and Dutch colonies not to aid the Scots. The venture failed catastrophically: disease, Spanish attack and lack of supplies killed thousands of settlers. By 1700 the colony was abandoned. The financial devastation left Scotland economically desperate and its Parliament deeply resentful of England.
The Darien disaster left Scotland economically weakened and politically angry. It demonstrated that Scotland could not pursue independent trade or colonial expansion while England blocked it. At the same time, England needed Scotland’s border security, especially with France as a constant enemy. These pressures — Scottish economic need and English strategic interest — drove both parliaments toward union. Commissioners negotiated a treaty in 1706; after fierce debate and alleged bribery of Scottish MPs, it was ratified as the Act of Union in 1707.
The Act of Union, 1707
The Act of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707. Scotland’s Parliament was abolished; Scottish MPs and peers joined Westminster. Scotland retained its own legal system, Church of Scotland, and educational institutions. Scotland gained access to English colonial trade — a crucial economic benefit after Darien. The Union was deeply unpopular with ordinary Scots: the writer Daniel Defoe, working as an English spy in Edinburgh before the vote, reported widespread hostility on the streets. Robert Burns later wrote of Scotland being “bought and sold for English gold.” Whether the Union was freely negotiated or imposed through bribery and financial necessity is still debated by Scottish historians.
Under the Act of Union (1707): Scotland kept its Kirk (Church of Scotland), separate legal system, and universities. It gained access to English colonial trade, financial stability, and representation at Westminster. Scotland lost its independent Parliament.
Union did not end Jacobite sentiment. In 1715, the Earl of Mar raised a Jacobite army in Scotland, nominally supporting James Francis Edward Stuart (“the Old Pretender”). “The Fifteen” was poorly led: the indecisive Battle of Sheriffmuir (November 1715) left both sides claiming partial victory. James arrived late and the rising fizzled out. Its failure demonstrated that Hanoverian rule was established enough to withstand an armed challenge, but Jacobite loyalty persisted in the Highlands until the final defeat at Culloden in 1746.