National Opinion and the Press in Scotland before the Union of 1707

Abstract

Vigorous extra-parliamentary public debate over the question of union helped to ensure that Scotland brought into the Union of 1707 a sense of itself as a nation with national opinions. Though the parliamentary electorate remained small, a meaningful number of Scots engaged in public political debate on the question of union. Petitions from shires, burghs and parishes spoke for local communities and pamphleteers presented Scottish voices through archetypal figures such as a ‘country farmer’. This allowed opponents to declare that incorporating union was inconsistent with ‘the publickly expressed mind of the nation’. After the Union, extra-parliamentary national opinion continued to be expressed and sustained by the Scottish press and petitions, contributing to the maintenance of Scottish national identity within the United Kingdom.