Scotland votes itself out of existence
On 16 January 1707, the Scottish Parliament voted 110 to 69 to ratify the Treaty of Union with England, effectively dissolving itself. It was one of the most consequential votes in Scottish history, and one of the most controversial. The Parliament that had sat in Edinburgh since the Middle Ages would not meet again for 292 years.
The reasons for the Union were complex. Scotland was nearly bankrupt after the catastrophic failure of the Darien Scheme — an attempt to establish a Scottish trading colony in Panama that had consumed perhaps a quarter of the nation's liquid capital. England offered financial compensation (the "Equivalent") and access to its colonial trading networks. Many Scottish nobles, heavily invested in Darien, stood to recover their losses. Critics then and now have argued the vote was bought.
Robert Burns captured the popular fury a century later: "We're bought and sold for English gold — such a parcel of rogues in a nation." Anti-Union riots broke out in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Duke of Queensberry, who managed the Union through Parliament, needed a military escort to leave Edinburgh. Daniel Defoe, working as an English spy in Edinburgh, reported that the Scottish people were overwhelmingly opposed.
The Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain with a single Parliament at Westminster. Scotland retained its own legal system, its established church, and its education system. Scottish representation at Westminster was initially modest — 45 MPs and 16 Lords. The economic benefits took decades to materialise, but by the late 18th century, Scotland was beginning to prosper within the union. The question of whether Scotland was better or worse off would never stop being asked.