Abstract:
This thesis concentrates on the competition between, and the reconciliation of, rival nationalisms during an extensive debate over the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707. In 1603 James VI of Scotland acquired an English kingdom. For the next century, the kingdoms of Scotland and England were governed by the same monarch, but their political institutions of crown and parliament remained distinct. During the 1690s, for a variety of reasons, Scotland had become increasingly unhappy about her relationship with England and with her own monarch while he was also King of England. In 17O4, this discontent culminated in legislation passed by the Scottish crown-in-parliament which threatened to break the regal union by leaving open the possibility of Scotland settling the Scottish crown on a different monarch from the one chosen by the English. It was the spectre of future disunity and war raised by this action which persuaded the two kingdoms to renegotiate their relationship. In May 1707, during the reign of Anne, they merged their separate crowns and parliaments into one United Kingdom of Great Britain. The creation of the United Kingdom was the solution to a political crisis in the relations between two kingdoms which were already nation-states. The Union and the crises which led up to it created a vast pamphlet literature, much of it focused on the past, present and future relationship between the two nations. One fruitful way to understand the creation of the United Kingdom is as an episode in political thought which was capable of both provoking and reconciling nationalist discourses. The thesis is in four sections: the first section describes the political events and processes that culminated in union, the second examines the way in which Scottish nationalism developed in the course of the union debate, and the third discusses the way in which English nationalism manifested itself in response to Scotland's national self-assertion. The fourth and final section examines the ideas of those English and Scottish writers who attempted to overcome competing nationalisms within Britain by persuading the contending parties to become "Britons".