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Since the 1960s most historians of the Union of 1707 have considered it a less than glorious chapter in Scotland's history. Driven by ambition and greed, Scots politicians, covetous of English wealth and swayed by promises and bribes, bartered their nation's independence for personal gain. Those genuinely committed to political union were in a minority. The following article maintains that this interpretation is based on an essentially short-term approach to the subject. Concentrating on the worsening relations between Scotland and England in the years immediately preceding the Union gives a distorted impression of what was a more enduring concern. It suggests the Revolution of 1688-9 had a far greater impact on the politics of union than previously anticipated, with the religious and political freedoms it guaranteed shaping the beliefs of a large number of Scots MPs who sat in Parliament 1706 -7, almost half of whom had been members of King William's Convention Parliament with a majority supporting union. Focusing on the squadrone volante -one of the two much-maligned Scots unionist parties -the article traces the ideological roots of its key members and illustrates the various factors that led them to endorse an incorporating union which offered security for presbyterianism and a solution to Scotland's economic underdevelopment. Not denying that management and ambition played a significant part in securing the Union, it highlights the fact that amongst the Scottish political elite there was also a degree of genuine commitment and principled support.

This article responds to and is designed as a counterweight to recent work on political history in early-modern Scotland in which Jacobitism has been persuasively portrayed as a strongly supported movement over time rather than an episodic cause. Building upon recent research on the Union of 1707 which demonstrated the degree of principled and consistent support there was for closer union with England within a British polity, the paper seeks to show that there was a clearly identifiable ideological basis to anti-Jacobitism in Scotland. The term, however, is best understood as the Revolution or, even better, the Whig interest, not least as the principles upon which anti-Jacobitism were based predated the Revolution of 1688-9 and the emergence of Jacobitism. The Revolution, it is argued, had many more supporters, and from a wider geographical area, than has generally been assumed in accounts which focus largely on the south west of Scotland. Support took various forms, ranging from prayer through public campaigning to the taking up of arms. It is also clear that support for Whig principles was not only longstanding but also grew over the period examined. What is underlined is that Scotland was a deeply fissured nation, the principal divide owing much but not everything to religion and differing perspectives on the nature of monarchical authority and the role of parliament. 4 P. K. Monod, M. G. H.

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