The Treaty of Union, analysis

The Treaty of Union of 1707

The AttemptedMurder of the Kingdom of Scotland

 

 

This bookcontains the entire text of the Act of Union of 1707 with comments andcommentary by Robbie the Pict. This is the Scottish half of an internationaltreaty between two independent kingdoms. The English half is similar exceptthat they forgot to include Shetland, but that is not the reason why theGovernment has never published this founding, constitutional declaration forthe establishment of Great Britain. In honourable countries, theconstitution is referred to in school and provides a script for the unificationof the People under a common flag. It is a thing of pride and inspiration. In‘The United Kingdom’ however, it is a thing of disgrace and embarrassment. TheEnglish, like the Romans and the Vikings, had failed to conquer the Scots inopen combat and through the Treaty of Union they sought to simply incorporate Scotland bysleight of hand. The resultant pact, made without the consent of the People ofScotland, is nonetheless claimed by the Crown to be the unquestionable basisfor its total authority over Scotland.In truth it is an absolute shambles. They know it and can only claim theirauthority on the basis of claiming established practice, but, in the same way thatyou end child abuse when you discover it, the People of Scotland are entitledto end their three centuries of civil abuse when they read and understand whattheir rights are in this deal. That is why you do not see this document in theHMSO catalogue.

 

Thanks are dueto Nick Simpson (Battlefront Press)and to Stella Anderson

for theirinvaluable help in the production of this booklet - also to Bruce & AnnHope,

Bruce Bard andLinsay Stevenson for other assistances.

 

Dedicated to Trinity,Gregor, Rhiann, Kenneth and Zoe -and to all the kids of Scotland- especially those at the Vigil!

 

First Published by

Scottish Exchequer Press

Pictland 1994

First Edition Limited to 1000 Numbered Copies.

 

This version of Attempted Murder may be re-distributedonly on the condition that it is copied 'complete' and unaltered in any way.

 

Copyright free - Credit where appropriate.

 

 

The Treaty of Union of 1707

The AttemptedMurder of the Kingdom of Scotland

 

 

"I haveoften said to myself,

what are theadvantages Scotland

reaps from thisso called Union,

that cancounterbalance the

annihilation ifher independence

and her veryname."

Robert Burns

 

 

A 2000 YearRun-up

 

Since longbefore the Union there has been a certain shyness on the part of the Englishauthorities to show their true hand to the Scots, so before their nationalcurriculum succeeds in completely obliterating our national history and thetruth of its experiences with England let us try to shed some light on theiractivities. Before the diversionary counter-accusation of racism is levied,proper respect for ethnic or national groups does not prohibit naming theguilty and demanding that they accept responsibility for their actions,regardless of the group name they employ. At the end of the second World Warno-one called the French ‘racists’ when they sent the Germans home. If throughconsistent criminal activity a nation gives itself a bad name in one or morefields of action, then that nation brings calumny on its own head. The term‘race’ is inappropriately elevated for the English people.

 

The Englishstyle should come as no surprise to anyone with even a slight grasp of Britishhistory. The freebooting Angli were retained on these islands by a weak Britishking called Vortigern in 449AD who needed the assistance of mercenaries torepel raids by the Picts and Scots. The Angli were not successful indisciplining the hungry Gaels and instead took the softer option ofpressurising their employer. By means of menace and intrigue they compromisedVortigern into allowing boatloads of their pals to come and provide‘protection’ and thus a squad of pagan thugs from Schleswig-Holstein began acampaign of expansionism by atrocious slaughter which was almost entirely atthe expense of the Britons. Even compared with Picts, Scots, Vikings and Romansthe English are described as the most hated enemies of the Britons. The Celtictribes called them "The Smiling Killers".

 

In the ensuingcenturies they forced their way in all directions from their East Coastbeach-heads and before the end of the 7th century we find them collecting taxesat the northern limit of old Britannia, Strathclyde and Lothian, andthreatening Caledonia itself. When they did attempt to subdue Pictland only acrushing defeat by King Brude at Dunnichen in 685AD prevented the whole of whatis now called mainland Britainbeing called England.They were thus eventually obliged to retreat south of Hadrian’s Wall to set upthis early German colony but it suffered serious reversals in the shape ofDanish conquest, beginning in 865AD and lasting until 1042AD with the eventualestablishment of the Kingdom of England under Edwardthe Confessor. Within 30 years William the Conqueror had arrived and thus theGermans were now under the control of the French and both were claiming to beEnglish. The British meanwhile had been beaten back into Cambria, now calledWales from an Anglo-Saxon word Walsch meaning Gaul,but they were still rejecting the English yoke as late as 1409, in revolts ledby Owen Glendower. The Welsh Tudor Dynasty went on to supply Henry VII as Kingof England but his successor Henry VIII brought Wales into a formal union withEngland in 1536, in a sense consolidating the conquest by Edward I.

 

InCaledonia  meanwhile, the West-coastershad gained the upper hand in 844AD when Kenneth Mac Alpin, a Scottish King witha Pictish mother murdered the Pictish nobility, whom he had invited to abanquet at Scone,  and claimed bothkingdoms. It was another 200 years before they dared to call the countryScotia, as they had called Ireland, but the ancient Kingdom of Pictland wasmoth-balled after around 1200 years, having seen off both the Romans and theEnglish and established the Caledonian foundations on which the ensuing peopleof Scotland could build this famous nation.

 

Scotlandsuccessfully resisted claims on its throne coming from Norman England duringthe 12th century but Edward the First’s corrupt interference when asked tojudge a dispute concerning succession and his seizure of the Scottish thronewhen his pet puppet Baliol rebelled, plunged the people of Scotland intoanother round of defensive struggles for their independence. The Scots took uparms under William Wallace and eventually Robert the Bruce, who claimed thethrone in 1306. Edward II came north in 1314 to restore English order but wasrouted at Bannockburnby Bruce. On 6th April, 1320, at Arbroath Abbey, Scotland’sDeclaration of Independence was made and was sent to the Pope for the record.Amongst such declarations it is probably unique in that it was deemed necessaryto name the likely threat to continuing independence. This same passage isunique in another sense in that it declares a minimum number who would be asufficient quorum to defend the sovereign rights of the People of Scotland,"so long as but 100 of us remain alive we will never yield to thedomination of the English".

 

In 1328 theTreaty of Northampton and Edinburgh was signed by Edward III, granting totalrecognition of Scotland’s status as an independent nation and promising toreturn things like the Coronation Stone which Edward I had stolen in 1296. TheStone of Destiny was not mentioned in the treaty itself but in a ‘separateinstrument’ it was agreed that ‘the stone on which the Kings of Scots were wontto sit at their coronation, and which had been carried away by Edward I, shouldbe restored to the Scots.’ The Londonmob are said to have risen ‘in a riotous manner’ and prevented the Stone’sreturn and the Act has since mysteriously disappeared from the Englishparliamentary records. There are some in Scotland who are more interested inthe demonstration of English integrity than the actual recovery of the stone,that particular one being, it is claimed, only a tethering stone from the frontdoor of Scone Palace from which the horse-shit was quickly cleaned when it washeard that Edward I was on his way. William Skene’s essay on the history of theStone of Destiny would seem to confirm this likelihood and a geologicalanalysis of the stone has shown it to be Perthshire sandstone (calcerousfreestone) and much more suitable for horses. All arguments about theauthenticity of the Stone are, in essence, irrelevant. It matters not if theScottish Kings were being crowned on a bundle of Beanos; their throne wasstolen, the thief has been identified, the location of the throne is known, andso therefore are those guilty of reset. There is no statute of limitationregarding common theft in Scotland.We refer the Dean of Westminster to Exodus 20.15. (Note 1).

 

Scotland had Orkney and Shetland returned in 1472 incompensation for a lapsed dowry payment by Norway, who, one might reasonablysay, should not have taken them in the first place. In 1513 James IV embarkedon a misguided attempt to invade England, a rare event in thehistory of the two nations, but was seriously defeated at the Battle ofFlodden. While Mary of Guise was regent (1554-60) many of the Scottish nobilitywere converted to Protestantism, largely due to the work of John Knox and thispervading atmosphere in both religion and politics forced Mary Queen of Scotsto abdicate in 1567 in favour of her Protestant son, James VI. He inherited thethrone of Englandin 1603 as James I by virtue of his descent from Margaret Tudor. It must beemphasised at this point that this was only a personal union, a privatearrangement which in no way carried the weight or significance of aconstitutional unification of two nations. England’s Hundred Year War with theFrench and its running maritime disputes with other Catholic colonists like theSpanish had bred an abnormal level of papist paranoia, entrenching sectarianattitudes which are still dividing these kingdoms at many levels.

 

The 17thcentury was very messy for Englandand the imported line of monarchs brought more than the same hymn sheet. Inretrospect Scotland was maybe as well without them since the Stuarts were atthe end of their dynastic line and had declined into the state of vaingloriousclaims such as the divine right of kings and other examples of the ‘don’t youknow who I am?’ syndrome. This did not go down well with the likes of Cromwelland resulted in the execution of Charles II in 1649. Incidentally, if there wasany substance to the English claims that union with Scotland was valid from 1603, thensurely killing the King constitutes some kind of breach.

 

Things began tocome to head during the brief reign of James VII (1685-8). Charles had beenobliged to sign the Petition of Right in 1628 which sought to move power awayfrom the monarch and toward the parliament. This was entirely alien to Charleswho, although probably resisting through arrogant megalomania, was nonethelessfrom a family schooled in the ancient Celtic traditions of kingship, and to himthe parliament should be never more than a political service to the king, whoin turn was only the authorised voice of the people - true sovereign democracy.The English parliament’s move to arrogate more power to itself resulted in thebirth of that most pernicious of political diseases - partyism.

 

If you make theparliament sovereign then the chappie with the biggest mouth or the most cloutis king. He and his associates become a ruling clique and to resist that, forwhatever reason, you must produce some form of opposition. As a rule of thumbthese objections are couched in ideological principles whose terms give namesto the opposing groupings or ‘parties’. This illusion of democracy is perfectfor the real status quo. The divide and rule principle is assisted by theintroduction of other considerations, usually religion and class followed bycompromise through privilege. Top this with fear of your peers and then, forexample, the nouveau-riche Orange labour voter, using a British passport,government assistance in schooling and business and a private parking place, hasa serious problem relating to the patriotic struggle. It has to be realisedthat compromise is cynically calculated in full knowledge of the character andtherefore the weaknesses of the victims. At present, for example, the Scottishelectorate is trying to decide between voting Labour, which appeals to thenatural tendency toward group care in the Celtic mentality but is a Londoncontrolled 100% Unionist party, and the Scottish National Party, who althoughcompletely unprepared to get real about the prospect, use patriotic blackmailto co-erce the voter into their narrow and limited view of independence.Hobson’s Choice from people who, when they raise an M.P., allow him or her togo to Englandand swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen of England! We are thus thoroughlydivided and thoroughly ruled and perhaps unwittingly perfecting the process,the press ‘stirs’ the elements of opposition to get a quick story rather thanrisking its advertising revenue by investigating institutional corruption.

 

To return tothe historical sequence: James VII incurred the resentment of the Englishparliament by daring to oppose anti-Catholic legislation, acts of institutionalsectarianism, and even proceeded to make Catholic appointments. The opposingparties united in horror at this threat to both the new parliamentary power andthe rigorous establishment of Protestantism as the English way. A group ofWhigs and Tories secretly invited James’s son-in-law, William of Orange, andhis wife Mary to invade Britainand assert control on their behalf. James fled to Franceas William arrived and in the following year the English parliament declaredWilliam III and Mary II king and queen of England. By this act Scotland wasrendered kingless and it unfortunately did not have the savvy to choose one.1689 was also important in another respect in that the English parliamentpassed the Bill of Rights, in which they chose the successor to the throne, butit also realised their ambition to switch power away from the monarch and placesovereign authority in the hands of the parliament. Thus England gave birth to the dangerous concept of‘parliamentary sovereignty’, dangerous because the authority over theparliament which personified the ultimate sovereignty of the people was removedand the way was made clear for the possibility of Westminster despotism.

 

England alsoentered the War of the Grand Alliance with France that year and four yearsafter that was over it entered the War of the Spanish Succession which wouldlast until 1714, but of more significance to Scotland were the terms of the Actof Settlement of 1701. Anne, the daughter of James VII, was appointed to cometo the throne in 1702,  but after her,succession was fixed on the Royal House of Hanover, thus declaring a remnant ofthe thoroughly protestant German royal family to be the sole and exclusivesuppliers of English monarchs, thereby avoiding any risk of contamination byCatholics, or ‘papists’ as they were then known. While types of union with Scotland werebeing discussed, out of defensive self-interest, they had no intention oflosing the protestant puppet-sovereign parliament power axis which incidentallywas remotely controlling Scotlandso well. The Scots enjoyed a tradition of amity toward the French and withnatural Celtic fraternity had no ill-will toward the Spanish. This wasperceived as a strategical threat to the English and they feared an enemyattack, either by using Scotlandas a base or in combination with Scottish forces.

 

In May 1703 theScottish parliament assembled and busied itself drawing up the Act of Security,a spirited objection to the imposition of Hanoverian succession on Scotland andessentially claiming a parallel right to settle succession in Scotlandaccording to its Royal Line of Descent. Scotland in short was free tochoose its own monarch. Royal assent was refused and granted only in 1704 aftera second presentation, largely inspired by Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, the manthey should have made king. This act of self-assertion was ill-received by theEnglish and in 1705 they passed the infamous Aliens Act which declared that"all natives of the kingdom of Scotland.....shall be reputed as aliensunless the succession to the crown of Scotland be settled on the princessSophia of Hanover and the heirs of her body being protestants.....thatimmediate provision be made to prevent the conveying of horse, arms andammunition, from England into Scotland.....and that all protestant freeholdersof the six northern counties of England be permitted to furnish themselves witharms." It also included provisions for economic blockading. These werethreats in any man’s language and were followed up by instructions from QueenAnne to pay and/or persuade the necessary people in Scotland to secure her will regardinga union.

 

It is probablywise at this point to define our term. The word ‘union’ in 1700 was held tomean something more like ‘pact’, whereby the associate members, retaining allaspects of their sovereign integrity, agreed to consider the loyalty to thepact to be paramount in any dealings with an alien nation, perhaps a bit likeNATO. In this sense there was some sympathy for the idea, more in the sensethat the two kingdoms shared the one island and might do better if theyco-operated with each other. This was countered by those sceptical of England’s true agenda who feared anincorporating union, the indications of which came from the now powerfulparliament at Westminster.They saw it ruling over Scotlandand its people with only a handful of union sooks and tartan chickens tobluster vain protest, and they could be easily compromised.

 

Despite all thehumming and hawing the bulldozer relentlessly pursued the butterfly. For themost part the people were largely ignorant of what was really going on, unlessthey lived in Edinburghand kept up with the intrigue. The writer Daniel Defoe was employed by theEnglish as a propagandist and did a model job. When the Scots came up withawkward questions about the true nature of the proposed union it was Defoe whoanswered, loudly and prominently, but Defoe was not an official negotiator oreven accredited in any way so it has always been possible for the Englishparliament to deny his authority, something they did not however do at thetime. A word must be said also about Lord Hamilton. Misgivings have variouslybeen expressed about his conduct around the time of the union but there can beno doubt at all that he deceived and betrayed Scotland and its people. Hepretended to lead resistance to the union but at the crucial moment hecollapsed it like a trader’s tent and announced on the day of the vote that hecould not attend due to a bout of toothache, this from a man who could buy allthe  morphine in Scotland. He later recoveredto enjoy many benefits steered his way by the Londonpowers and retired to his extensive estate in England.

 

The Scottishparliament in those days was structured in three sections called the ThreeEstates, the barons, the clergy and the burgesses. Only these people would bevoting on the Act of Union of 1707. The People of Scotland had no say in thematter and there was certainly no referendum. When it came to the vote thebarons were 80 for and 49 against, the clergy’s vote is not recorded and theburgesses came out 30 for, 19 against with 16 abstentions. The Presbyterianchurch, enjoying such total protection in the terms of the union is thought tohave voted largely in favour, religious ego being put before country, as itstill stands today. It is an interesting piece of karma that of all the socialinstitutions remaining the Churches of Scotland are in the best position togive safe, sensible and trustable leadership to the people at large in thestruggle to realise their right to their independence. At a time when the worldis crying out for a new model of politics with a spiritual and ethical content,what are they waiting for? Perhaps it is the old story of the churchinsinuating itself political importance by posing as a half of might ratherthan imposing on behalf of right.

 

After the Actof Union was passed on the 16th of January 1707 there was one further item ofbusiness, as there was at the end of every session of the Scottish parliamentand that was the Act of Salvo (salvo jure cujuslibet - let whosoever sue theCrown). This was a gesture respectful of the Scottish constitutionalarrangement whereby the People are sovereign and every subject of the kingdommust be respected both as an integral and individual unit of sovereignty, muchlike any part being representative of the whole of a hologram. Every subjectwas thus left with the means of escape, the private right to contract out ifthey felt they had been wronged by the action of the Crown. The Englishparliament, in 1689 having reduced its subjects to citizens behoven to thesovereign court of Westminster gave no such opportunities for redress and stilldoes not, but the parliament in England cannot claim now to have inheritedpowers over the subjects of Scotland that the Scottish Parliament did not have.There is a facility in Scots Law, for example, whereby, if the People choose touniversally and completely reject a piece of legislation, the Court of Sessioncan declare that law to be ‘in desuetude’ or obsolete.

 

The question ofwhether the Scottish parliament dissolved itself or merely suspended itself hasbeen raised recently but it has no dynamic relevance. As a headless chicken ithad no more the right to dissolve itself than it had the right to risk Scottishsovereignty in the way it did, especially as a result of  bribery. Constitutionally, it can be orderedto re-convene as soon as the People find their voice.

 

Here then arethe articles of guarantee in this international treaty between two sovereignnations, articles binding to both parties but patently geared to quenchScottish sceptics. One rarely hears of an English legal initiative to divestthemselves of the burden of the Scots, citing an alleged breach of the 1706 Actof Union with Scotland.If anyone can think of a breach that we could successfully commit pleasecontact the publishers. In the face of loud complaints about the incorporatingnature of the treaty and the threat to the existence of Scotland itselfthese articles were collectively described as inviolable by Defoe. He describedthem as the fundamental constitution of a new entity, Great Britain - rich coming from anation who had spent 750 years trying to exterminate the Britons - and thatthey could thus not be violated without destroying the entity itself. It wouldof course be cynical to suggest that Englandwas disguising its incorporation of Scotland as Great! New! Improved! Britain which was in reality to be controlled byan invisible meta-kingdom based, as ever, in the palace of  Westminster. A guide to the truth mightbe to ask the English if they hold their queen to be Queen of England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or Scots.  

 

Note 1. Readersinterested in pursuing the very interesting tale of the Scottish Stone ofDestiny are invited to consult the 1992 Canongate publication, ‘In search ofthe Stone of Destiny’ by Pat Gerber as well as the Skene essay referred toabove. F. Wallace Connon’s book ‘The Stone of Destiny’ published by Covenant (London) in 1951 is apseudo-academic synopsis of the related traditions and includes some useful referencesbut Connon is such a patronising Anglophile that the book is at points capableof inducing involuntary nausea. A Scottish Exchequer Press publication THECLUDGIE STANE - The Truth behind its Return is due for publication in MAY 97(check the SPM site for details on availability).

 

THE TREATY

Act Ratifying and Approving the

Treaty of Union ofthe Two Kingdoms

of Scotlandand England.

 

The Estates ofParliament considering that Articles of Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland andEngland were agreed on 22nd July, 1706 by the Commissioners nominated on behalfof this Kingdom, under Her Majesties Great Seal of Scotland bearing date the27th of February last past, in pursuance of the fourth Act of the third Sessionof this Parliament and the Commissioners nominated on behalf of the Kingdom ofEngland under Her Majesties Great Seal of England bearing date at Westminsterthe tenth day of April last past in pursuance of an Act of Parliament made inEngland the third year of Her Majesties Reign to treat of and concerning anUnion of the said Kingdoms Which Articles were in all humility presented to HerMajesty upon the twenty third of the said Month of July and were Recommended tothis Parliament by Her Majesties Royal Letter of the date the 31st July, 1706

 

The text of theAct is spelled litteratim, only numerals have been used where it assistsunderstanding....... good luck!

 

And that the said Estates of Parliament have agreed toand approven of the saids Articles of Union with some Additions andExplanations as is contained in the Articles hereafter insert And sicklyke HerMajesty with advice and consent of the Estates of Parliament Resolving toEstablish the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government withinthis Kingdom has past in this Session of Parliament an Act entituled Act forsecureing of the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government whichby the Tenor thereof is appointed to be insert in any Act ratifying the Treatyand expressly declared to be a fundamentall and essentiall Condition of thesaid Treaty or Union in all time coming.

 

Therefore Her Majesty with advice and consent of theEstates of Parliament in fortification of the Approbation of the Articles asabove mentioned And for their further and better Establishment of the same uponfull and mature deliberation upon the forsaids Articles of Union and Act ofParliament Doth Ratifie Approve and Confirm the same with the

Additions and Explanations contained in the saidsArticles in manner and under the provision aftermentioned whereof the Tenorfollows. 

 

Thisintroductory preamble, written as a single sentence, describes thecommissioning of the two Acts of Union, one from each kingdom, by Queen Anne.The English queen had nominated the Scottish commissioners on behalf of theScottish kingdom, thus immediately demonstrating her ignorance of theconstitution of Scottish sovereignty. In a situation where the very sovereigntyof the kingdom was to be lent into contract, the resultant arrangement couldhave no fundamental legitimacy unless the People of Scotland had initiated orauthorised it.

 

Her ignoranceis further displayed by the claim that her authority was  exercised under ‘Her’ Great Seal of Scotland.Such a seal is a symbol of sovereignty and sovereignty is a partly spiritualconcept which is also hard-earned over time and utterly the common property ofthe community. It cannot possibly belong to temporal monarchs or politicalbusiness premises. Only ‘The People’ share the eternal dimension of the conceptand therein lies the spiritual content. The ethical reputation is of moreaccount than the duration; if it was otherwise we would have more respect for Lebanon or Syriathan we do for Denmark or Canada.Sovereignty can never be bought, sold, traded, lost or destroyed by others andcan only be ‘lent’ into contract with the consent of the people who breathe it.Queen Anne, therefore, was well out of order.

 

Significantreference is also made to the ‘Act for secureing of the Protestant Religion andPresbyterian Church Government’, which is brazenly sectarian in that it demandsthat Protestantism is recognised as the established national religion ofScotland and this fact has to be protected for the duration of any treaty orunion. ‘Re ligio’ is Latin for ‘a thing I bind myself to’ - ligature andligament have the same root; it is to be hoped that the art of ethicalstatehood is seen as a less vulgar way of being, rather than hamstringing anation to the sacrificial stake of bigotry. 

 

 

Article 1

I. That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England,shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, beUnited into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN: And that the EnsignsArmorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall think fit, andused in all Flags, Banners, Standards and Ensigns both at Sea and Land.

 

This articlewas breached in grand style with the passing of the Ireland Act on July 2nd,1800. Without consulting the sovereign People of Scotland, the ‘Parliament ofEngland’ as it is called in the official records, (summary of first paragraph),decided to incorporate the Kingdom of Ireland. Thus, at a pen-stroke and beforea hundred years had passed, the name was changed to ‘the UNITED KINGDOM’,a nameless and faceless styling later adopted by the U.S.S.R. It is concededthat the words ‘united kingdom’ were used in the 1707 act, but onlyas an adjectival phrase of reference. The wording of the Ireland Act representsa distinct shift of emphasis from ‘the united kingdom of GREAT BRITAIN’to ‘The UNITED KINGDOM (of Great Britainand Ireland)’.The only thing that is not clear is whether the definite article should be incapitals or not.

 

Thus the veryname of the new arrangement was disposed of and the term ‘British’, which hadnothing to do with the English in the first place, was from then employed as asomewhat amorphous term. It both disguised the English hand at the wheel andacted as a form of pseudo-nostalgic moral blackmail if the home-based colonieswere being niggardly in their enthusiasm for some Westminster wisdom. The truth of this changeis demonstrated by the use of ‘United Kingdom’ on documents such as the Treaty ofRome and anything else of any significance. Currency exchanges should thusidentify their pounds as either ‘EPs’ (not Sterling)or ‘SCPs’ (real Sterling)and if they had to be grouped they should be ‘UKPs’. David Coleman’s biggestballs-up is not realising that no-one has run for Britain since 1800 and the ‘GBR’shirt is a myth. The prevailing plan is to make us all citizens of ‘UKAINE’.

 

The Irish wereadvised to concur with the terms of the Ireland Act ‘to consolidate thestrength, power and resources of the British empire’,something that may well not have been at the top of the Irish political andsocial agenda. On the successful exposure of the 1707 union as illegitimatethere would, of course, be no legal basis for England’sclaim to have a union with Ulster.

 

What is anAnglo-Irish agreement?

 

Why shouldQueen Anne be the only one to decide the design of the new ‘national’ flag?

 

 

Article 2

II. That the Succession to the Monarchy of the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and of the Dominions thereunto belonging after HerMost Sacred Majesty, and in default of Issue of Her Majesty be, remain andcontinue to the Most Excellent Princess Sophia Electoress and Dutchess Dowagerof Hanover, and the Heirs of Her body, being Protestants, upon whom the Crownof England is settled by an Act of Parliament made in England in the twelthyear of the Reign of His late Majesty King William the Third entituled An Actfor the further Limitation of the Crown and better securing the Rights andLiberties of the Subject:

 

And that all Papists and persons marrying Papists,shall be excluded from and forever incapable to inherit possess or enjoy theImperial Crown of Great Britain, and the Dominions thereunto belonging or anypart thereof; And in every such case the Crown and Government shall from timeto time descend to, and be enjoyed by such person being a Protestant as shouldhave inherited and enjoyed the same, in case such Papists or person marrying aPapist was naturally dead, according to the provision for the Descent of theCrown of England, made by another Act of Parliament in England in the firstyear of the Reign of their late Majesties King William and Queen Mary entituledan Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and settling theSuccession of the Crown. 

 

This articlemakes it a condition of the union that the English shall always supply themonarchs from their arrangement with the Protestant House of Hanover, thus England, alongwith the Dutch and their House of Orange, would harbour the remnants of theGerman Royal Family. This is ironic since it was only in 1648 that theGermany-based Holy Roman Empire admitted the Protestants of northern Germany.

 

It is certainlyunambiguous when it reminds us that anyone marrying a ‘papist’ and thinkingthat he or she has a legitimate claim to the throne shall be considered‘naturally dead’. More than the political correctionists are entitled to levelcharges of ‘sectarianism’, but this utter revulsion towards ‘papists’ verges onthe psycho-pathological. Within the terms of projection psychology, it is notsurprising that excesses of political frustration are dealt with under mentalhealth acts. If they hate what you say they lock you away.

 

 

Article 3

III. That the United Kingdom of Great Britain beRepresented by one and the same Parliament, to be stiled the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

This article isnoticeable for what it does not say. There is no gesture of respect for theequal sovereignty of Scotland.In certain matters of state, such as the proposed annexation of Ireland, thereshould have been only one equally-weighted vote per kingdom. Simple arithmetictells us that we have no chance of being self-determining when even with 72representatives returned as pro-independence Members of Parliament we would betold that these votes had to be seen in the context of the United Kingdom as awhole, but even 72 of our brightest tartans will be smothered in a sea of brownWindsor soup.

 

Thisunreasonable English argument is exactly what the Soviets employed against thepreviously independent Baltic States wheneverthey made claims based on that same moral high ground, but a nation whichreturns a majority in favour of self-determination has the absolute right torecover its sovereignty. Denial of this right is a crime in International Law.

 

 

Article 4

IV. That the Subjects of the United Kingdom of GreatBritain shall from and after the Union have full Freedom and Intercourse ofTrade and Navigation to and from any port or place within the said UnitedKingdom and the Dominions and Plantations thereunto belonging. And that therebe a Communication of all other Rights, Privileges and Advantages which do ormay belong to the Subjects of either Kingdom except where it is otherwayesexpressly agreed in these Articles.

 

This article isthe first to refer to the people of either kingdom. It is vitally important forthe People of Scotland to note that the term employed is ‘subject’. This is the‘term of the treaty’ used to denote any individual belonging to the People. ThePeoples’ rights are therefore written in the terms of ‘subjects’. This isemphasised because, should it suit them, the courts of the Crown are not abovecynical literalism. To spare themselves discomfort they will stand behind theletter of the law rather than honour the spirit, especially when they have anopportunity to protect their English pay-mistress. Remember that all ScottishLaw Lords have sworn an oath of allegiance to the Queen of England, as hasanyone with the letters Q.C. after their name.

 

The naturalstatus of the People of Scotland is to be subjects of a democratic sovereignty,that sovereignty residing in the People themselves. ‘King of Scots’ as opposedto ‘King of Scotland’ indicates this but it is also a concept with implicitspiritual content. England,on the other hand, had a civil war in the 17th century, long before this union,as a result of which they made their parliament sovereign. (Bill of Rights1689). This meant that their ‘subjects’ would, in the course of time, all haveto become ‘citizens’, behoven to a parliament as boss. As mere citizens theycould not claim any sovereign rights which might be a threat to theestablishment. The government of the day is not acting out of the goodness ofits heart when it promises Citizens’ Charters for this and that. It is part ofa deliberate conditioning process, irrelevant to the English people but a vitaltactic in avoiding claims by offended Scottish subjects.

 

By the letterof the law, the courts are obliged to recognise the claims of the subjects of Scotland, so their only answer is tore-categorise all the people of Scotlandas citizens, in line with the people of England. If you allow yoursubjecthood of the Kingdom of Scotland to go, youseriously jeopardise your rights. For those who suspect that we have nowentered the realms of paranoid conspiracy theories, this has already beentested in the Appeal Courtin Scotland,(Crown v. Pict - several judgements not recorded). There is clear proof of theprocess of elimination of the term ‘subject’ in the wording of the NationalityActs of 1948, 1964 and 1981. By 1981 the natural status of the People ofScotland has been assaulted to such an extent that the term ‘subject’ has beencompletely eradicated. So much for respecting ethnic minorities, never mind theOther Kingdom.

 

 

Article 5

V. That all ships or vessels belonging to HerMajesties Subjects of Scotland at the time of Ratifying the Treaty of Union ofthe Two Kingdoms in the Parliament of Scotland though forreign built be deemedand pass as ships of the build of Great Britain; the Owner or where there aremore Owners, one or more of the Owners within Twelve Months after the first ofMay next making oath that at the time of Ratifying the Treaty of Union in theParliament of Scotland, the same did in haill or in part belong to him or them,or to some other Subject of Subjects of Scotland, to be particularly named withthe place of their respective abodes, and that the same doth then at the timeof the said Deposition wholly belong to him or them, and that no forreignerdirectly or indirectly hath any share part or interest therein, Which Oathshall be made before the chief Officer or Officers of the Customs in the Portnext to the abode of the said Owner or Owners;

 

And the said Officer or Officers shall be Impowered toadminister the said Oath, And the Oath being so administred shall be attestedby the Officer or Officers who administred the same And being Registred by thesaid Officer or Officers, shall be delivered to the Master of the ship forsecurity of her Navigation and a Duplicate thereof shall be transmitted by thesaid Officer or Officers to the Chief Officer or Officers of the Customs in theport of Edinburgh, to be there Entered in a Register and from thence to be sentto the port of London to be there Entered in the General Register of allTrading ships belonging to Great Britain.

 

This articlerequires that all Scottish ships are to be registered in Londonvia Edinburghand gives an early indication of where the English intend the administrativecentre to be. This gives rise to the question of where the new capital of thenew Great Britain might be,but there seems to have been a presumption of it being London all along. Carlislewould at least have been a gesture. How many people in Edinburgh understandthat, according to the Crown, they have no basis for calling the city acapital, Scotland being no longer a country, and that the prevailing capital ofthe nation is London?

 

There is theusual xenophobia present in the insistence that Scottish ships could not beowned or part-owned by foreigners.

 

 

Article 6

VI. That all parts of the United Kingdom for ever fromand after the Union shall have the same Allowances, Encouragements andDrawbacks, and be under the same Prohibitions, Restrictions and Regulations ofTrade and lyable to the same Customs and Duties on Import and Export. And that theAllowances Encouragements and Drawbacks Prohibitions

 

Restrictions and Regulations of Trade and the Customsand Duties on Import and Export settled in England when the Union commencesshall from and after the Union take place throughout the whole United Kingdom,excepting and reserving the Duties upon Export and Import of such particularCommodities from which any persons the Subjects of either Kingdom are speciallyLiberated and Exempted by their private Rights which after the Union are toremain safe and entire to them in all respects as before the same.

 

And that from and after the Union no Scots Cattlecarried into England shall be lyable to any other Duties either on the publickor private Accounts than these Duties to which the Cattle of England are orshall be lyable within the said Kindgom. And seeing by the Laws of Englandthere are Rewards granted upon the Exportation of certain kinds of Grainwherein Oats grinded or ungrinded are not expressed, that from and after theUnion when Oats shall be sold at 15 shillings Sterling per quarter of theOat-meal exported in the terms of the Law whereby and so long as Rewards aregranted for Exportation of other Grains. And that the Bear of Scotlandhave the same Rewards as Barley.

 

And in respect the Importation of Victual intoScotland from any place beyond Sea would prove a Discouragement to Tillage,Therefore that the Prohibition as now in force by the Law of Scotland againstImportation of Victual from Ireland or any other place beyond Sea into Scotland,do after the Union remain in the same force as now it is until more proper andeffectuall ways be provided by the Parliament of Great Britain for discouragingthe Importation of the said Victual from beyond Sea.

 

This articledeals with the standardisation of trade tariffs.

 

 

Article 7

VII. That all parts of the United Kingdom be for everfrom and after the Union lyable to the same Excises upon all Exciseable Liquorsexcepting only that the 34  GallonsEnglish Barrel of Beer or Ale amounting to 12 Gallons Scots present measuresold in Scotland by the Brewer at 9/6d Sterling excluding all Duties andRetailed including Duties and the Retailer’s profit at 2d the Scots pint oreight part of the Scots Gallon, be not after the Union lyable on account of thepresent Excise upon Exciseable Liquors in England, to any higher Impositionthan 2s Sterling upon the forsaid 34 Gallons English barrel, being 12 gallonsthe present Scots measure And that the Excise settled in England on all otherLiquors when the Union commences take place throughout the whole United

Kingdom.

 

This article isgood news for beer or ale drinkers. It restricts the tax for all time on a pintsold in Scotlandto one farthing. Even with increased production costs and the current retailmark-up this makes for a significantly cheaper pint when the tax is only0.1041666p, or one pence on ten pints. A candidate for most thoroughly breachedarticle.

 

The maxim of‘what they give with one hand they will take away with the other’ held goodwith the application of increased taxation on malt, an essential ingredient ofthe universally popular ale.

 

Plague-watcherswho have monitored the control of Scotland since 1979 in particularwill recognise this offensively cynical form of English arithmetic.

 

 

Article 8

VIII. That from and after the Union all forreign Saltwhich shall be Imported into Scotland shall be charged at the Importation therewith the same Duties as the like Salt is now charged with being Imported intoEngland and to be levied and secured in the same manner.  But in regard the Duties of great quantitiesof forreign Salt Imported may be very heavie on the Merchants Importers; Thattherefor all forreign Salt imported into Scotland shall be Cellared and Lockedup under the custody of the Merchant Importer and the Officers imployed forlevying the Duties upon Salt  And thatthe Merchant may have what quantities thereof his occasion may require notunder a Weigh or fourtie Bushells at a time; Giving security for the duty ofwhat quantity he receives payable in six Months.  But Scotland shall for the space of sevenYears from the said Union be Exempted from paying in Scotland for Salt madethere the Dutie or Excise now payable for Salt made in England:

 

But from the Expiration of the said seven years shallbe subject and lyable to the same Duties for Salt make in Scotland, as shall bethen payable for Salt made in England, to be levied and secured in the samemanner and with proportional Drawbacks and Allowances as in England, with thisexception that Scotland shall after the said seven years remain exempted fromthe Duty of 2s 4d a Bushell on home Salt Imposed by ane Act made in England inthe Ninth and Tenth of King William the Third of England And if the Parliamentof Great Britain shall at or before the expiring of the said seven yearssubstitute any other fund in place of the said 2s 4d of Excise on the bushel ofHome Salt, Scotland shall after the said seven years, bear a proportion of thesaid Fund, and have an Equivalent in the Terms of this Treaty, And that duringthe said seven years there shall be payed in England for all Salt made inScotland and imported from thence into England the same duties upon theImportation as shall be payable for Salt made in England and levied and securedin the same manner as the Duties on forreign Salt are to be levied and securedin England.

 

And that after the said seven years how long the saidDuty of 2s 4d a Bushel upon Salt is continued in England the said 2s 4d aBushel shall be payable for all Salt made in Scotland and imported intoEngland, to be levied and secured in the same manner And that during thecontinuance of the Duty of 2s 4d a Bushel upon Salt made in England no Saltwhatsoever be brought from Scotland to England by Land in any manner under the penaltyof forfeiting the Salt and the Cattle and Carriages made use of in bringing thesame and paying 20s for every Bushel of such Salt, and proportionably for agreater or lesser quantity, for which the Carrier as well as the Owner shall belyable jointly and severally, And the persons bringing or carrying the same, tobe imprisoned by any one Justice of the Peace, by the space of six monthswithout Bail, and until the penalty by payed:

 

And for Establishing an equality Trade That allFleshes exported from Scotland to England and put on Board in Scotland to beExported to parts beyond the Seas and provisions for ships in Scotland and forforreign voyages may be salted with Scots Salt paying the same Dutie for whatSalt is so employed as the like quantity of such Salt pays in England and underthe same penalties forfeitures and provisions for preventing of frauds as arementioned in the Laws of England And that from and after the Union the Laws andActs of Parliament in Scotland for Pineing Curing and Packing of Herrings WhiteFish and Salmond for Exportation with Forreign Salt only without any mixture ofBritish or Irish Salt and for preventing of frauds in Curing and Packing ofFish be continued in force in Scotland subject to such alterations as shall be madeby the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

And that all Fish exported from Scotland to partsbeyond the Seas which shall be Cured with Forreign Salt only and withoutmixture of British or Irish Salt, shall have the same Eases Premiums andDrawbacks as are or shall be allowed to such persons as Export the like Fishfrom England: And that for Encouragement of the Herring Fishing there shall beallowed and payed to the Subjects Inhabitants of Great Britain during thepresent allowances for other Fishes 10s 5d Sterling for every Barrel of WhiteHerrings which shall be exported from Scotland; And that there shall be allowed5s Sterling for every Barrel of Beef of Pork salted with Forreign Salt withoutmixture of British or Irish Salt and Exported for sale from Scotland to partsbeyond Sea alterable by the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

And if any matters of fraud relating to the saidDuties on Salt shall hereafter appear which are not sufficiently providedagainst by this Article the same shall be subject to such further provisions asshall be thought fit by the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

Who says theEnglish are not anal-retentive?

 

 

Article 9

IX. That whenever the sum of £1,997,763 8s 4d (andone) half penny shall be Enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain to beraised in that part of the United Kingdom now called England, on Land and otherthings usually charged in Acts of Parliament there for granting an aid to theCrown by a Land Tax; that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland shallbe charged by the same Act with a further sum of £48,000 free of all Charges,as the Quota of Scotland to such Tax, and so proportionably for any greater orlesser sum raised in England by any Tax on Land and other things usuallycharged, together with the Land And that such Quota for Scotland in the casesaforesaid, be raised and collected in the same manner as the Cess now is inScotland, but subject to such Regulations in the manner of Collecting, as shallbe made by the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

Scotland to get English levels of land tax, worked out to anold ha’penny.

 

 

Articles 10-12

X. That during the continuance of the respectiveDuties on Stampt paper, Vellom and Parchment, by the severall Acts now in forcein England, Scotland shallnot be charged with the same respective Duties.

 

XI. That during the continuance of the Duties payablein England on Windows andLights which determines on 1st August 1710 Scotland shall not be charged withthe same Duties.

 

XII. That during the continuance of the Duties payablein England on Coals, Culm and Cinders, which determines 30th September 1710Scotland shall not be charged therewith for Coals Culm and Cinders consumedthere but shall be charged with the same Duties as in England for all Coals,Culm and Cinders not consumed in Scotland.

 

Scotland does not get the English tax on posh paper.

 

Scotland does not get the English tax on windows and lights,at least until 1710.

 

Scotland does not get the English tax on various carboncombustibles, at least until 1710.

 

From the evidenceof these last three articles we can see the quality of our Scottishcommissioners, fighting tooth and nail to protect our ancient heroic heritage.

 

 

Article 13

XIII. That during the continuance of the Duty payablein England on Malt, which determines 24th June 1707, Scotland shall not be charged withthat Duty.

 

Scotland does not get the English tax on malt, at least until1st June, 1707, thirty days after the treaty takes effect. This surely betraysan ungentlemanly haste to latch on to the taxation potential of Scottish malt,and, as previously mentioned, renders worthless the tax-pegging on ale promisedin Article VII.

 

 

Article 14

XIV. That the Kingdom of Scotland be not Charged withany other Duties laid on by the Parliament of England before the Union exceptthese consented to in this Treaty, in regard it is agreed, That all necessaryProvision shall be made by the Parliament of Scotland for the publick Chargeand Service of that Kingdom for the year 1707: Provided nevertheless That ifthe Parliament of England shall think fit to lay any further Impositions by wayof Customs, or such Excises, with which by virtue of this Treaty, Scotland isto be charged equally with England, in such case Scotland shall be lyable tothe same Customs and Excises, and have an Equivalent to be settled by theParliament of Great Britain;

 

With this further provision That any Malt to be madeand consumed in that part of the United Kingdomnow called Scotlandshall not be charged with any Imposition upon Malt during this present War

 

And seeing it cannot be supposed that the Parliamentof Great Britain will ever lay any sorts of Burthens upon the United Kingdom,but what they shall find necessity at that time for the Preservation and Goodof the whole, and with due regard to the Circumstances and Abilities of everypart of the United Kingdom Therefore it is agreed That there be no furtherExemption insisted upon for any part of the United Kingdom, but that theconsideration of any Exemption beyond that already agreed on in this Treaty,shall be left to the

determination of the Parliament of Great Britain.

 

This articlerelates to financial arrangements for 1707 and suggests that they are made bythe present parliaments for their respective nations, with the proviso that anytax increases which the English parliament may make will have to be matched in Scotland after the union at a rate set by theparliament of Great Britain,in England.

 

After allowingthe exception in the case of malt, at least during the War of the SpanishSuccession, we are suddenly exposed to an explosion of moral high-mindednesswhich exposes intent as far as how Englandintends to regard Scotland.As in Article IX,  the respectfullanguage of courtship, of joint pacts between kingdoms, is gone and thenitty-gritty of the marriage contract reads "that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland". It is bad enough togo from a ‘kingdom’ to a ‘part’, and the use of the word ‘now’ bodes ill forthe ability of Scotland to officially retain its status as a kingdom whosesovereignty has been lent into a treaty of association, supposedly protected byunbreachable articles of guarantee. This wording betrays the intent of totalincorporation and the disrespect for even the name Scotland.

 

We also have aglimpse of the unapproachable haughtiness and have to ask why it cannot besupposed that the parliament of Great Britain will ever lay any sort of burdensupon the United Kingdom without due regard to the circumstances and abilitiesof every part. It is one thing to flaunt an integrity beyond question, but thisis only pretension and hardly a basis on which to found constitutionallegislation which says that there will be no further considerations in thefuture. The falseness of this claim has been proved conclusively by the recentimposition of the ‘poll-tax’, at first only in the Kingdom of Scotland,in defiance of the constitutional circumstances and with total disregard forindividual abilities to pay.

 

 

Article 15

XV. Whereas by the Terms of this Treaty the Subjectsof Scotland for preserving an Equality of Trade throughout the United Kingdom,will be lyable to severall Customs and Excises now payable in England, whichwill be applicable towards payment of the Debts of England, contracted beforethe Union;

 

It is agreed, That Scotland shall have an Equivalentfor what the Subjects thereof shall be so charged towards payment of the saidDebts of England, in all particulars whatsoever, in manner following viz.

 

That before the Union of the said Kingdoms, the sum of£398,085 10s  be granted to Her Majestyby the Parliament of England for the uses aftermentioned, being the Equivalentto be answered to Scotland for such parts of the saids Customs and Excises uponall Exciseable Liquors, with which that Kingdom is to be charged upon theUnion, as will be applicable to the payment of the said Debts of England,according to the proportions which the present Customs in Scotland, being£30,000 per annum : And which the present Excises on Excisable Liquors inScotland, do bear to the Customs in England, computed at £1,341,559 per annum :

 

And which the present Excises on Excisable Liquors inScotland, being £33,500 per annum, do bear to the Excises and Excisable Liquorsin England, computed at £947,602  perannum; Which sum of £398,085 10s, shall be due and payable from the time of theUnion:

And in regard That after the Union Scotland becominglyable to the same Customs and Duties payable on Import and Export, and to thesame  Excises on all Exciseable Liquorsas in England as well as upon  thataccount as upon the account of the Increase of Trade and People (which will bethe happy consequence of the Union)* the said Revenues will much improve beyondthe before mentioned annual values thereof, of which no present Estimate can bemade, Yet nevertheless for the reasons aforesaid there ought to be aproportionable Equivalent answered to Scotland It is agreed That after theUnion there shall be an Accompt kept of the said Duties arising in Scotland, tothe end it may appear, what ought to be answered to Scotland, as an Equivalentfor such proportion of the said encrease as shall be applicable to the paymentof

Debts of England.                      * This phrase is original to the Act!

 

And for the further and more effectuall answering theseverall ends hereafter mentioned It is agreed that from and after the Union,the whole Encrease of the Revenues of Customs, and Duties on Import and Export,and Excise upon Exciseable Liquors in Scotland over and above the annualproduce of the said respective Duties, as above stated, shall go and beapplied, for the term of seven years, to the uses hereafter mentioned; And thatupon the said account, there shall be answered to Scotland annually from theend of seven years after the Union, an Equivalent in proportion to such part ofthe said Increase as shall be applicable to the Debts of England, And generallythat an Equivalent shall be answered to Scotland for such parts of the EnglishDebts as Scotland may hereafter become lyable to pay by reason of the Union,other than such for which appropriations have been made by Parliament inEngland of the Customs, or other duties on Export and Import Excises on allExciseable Liquors, in

respect of which Debts, Equivalents are herein beforeprovided.

 

And as for the uses to which the said sum of £398,08510s to be granted as aforesaid and all other monies, which are to be answeredor allowed to Scotland as said is are to be applied  It is agreed That in the first place out ofthe foresaid sum what consideration shall be found necessary to be had for anyLosses which privat persons may sustain by reducing the Coin of Scotland to theStandard and Value of the Coin of England may be made good In the next placeThat the Capital Stock or fund of the African and Indian Company of Scotlandadvanced together with the interest for the said Capital Stock after the rateof 5% per annum from the respective times of the payment thereof shall bepayed; Upon payment of which Capital Stock and Interest It is agreed The saidCompany be dissolved and cease And also that from the time of passing the Actof Parliament in England for raising the said sum of £398,085 10s the saidCompany shall neither Trade nor Grant Licence to Trade Providing that if thesaid Stock and Interest shall not be payed in twelve months after theCommencement of the Union That then the said Company may from thence forwardTrade or give Licence to Trade until the said hail Capital Stock and Interestshall be payed:

 

And as to the Overplus of the said sum of £398,085 10safter payment of what consideration shall be had for losses in repairing theCoin and paying the said Capital Stock and Interest, and also the hail increaseof the said Revenues of Customs Duties and Excises above the present valuewhich shall arise in Scotland during the said term of seven years together withthe Equivalent which shall become due upon the Improvement thereof in Scotlandafter the said term and also as to all other sums which according to theagreements aforesaid may become payable to Scotland by way of Equivalent forwhat that Kingdom shall hereafter become lyable towards payment of the Debt of England It is agreed That the samebe applied in manner following viz.

 

That all the publick Debts of the Kingdom of Scotlandas shall be adjusted by this present Parliament shall be payed and that £2,000per annum for the space of seven years shall be applied towards Encouraging andPromoting the Manufacture of coarse Wool within these shires which produce theWool And that the first £2,000 Sterling be payed at Martinmass next, and soyearly at Martinmass during the space foresaid and afterwards the same shall bewholly applied towards the Encouraging and Promoting the Fisheries and suchother Manufactures and Improvements in Scotland as may most conduce to thegeneral Good of the United Kingdom.

 

And it is agreed, That Her Majesty by Impowered toappoint Commissioners, who shall be accountable to the Parliament of GreatBritain, for disposing the said sum of £398,085 10s, and all other monies whichshall arise to Scotland, upon the agreements aforesaid to the purposes beforementioned: Which Commissioners shall be Impowered to call for, Receive andDispose of the said monies in manner aforesaid, and to Inspect the books of theseverall Collectors of the said Revenues, and of all other duties from whencean Equivalent may arise; and that the Collectors and Managers of the saidRevenues and Duties be obliged to give to the said Commissioners subscribedauthentick Abbreviats of the Produce of such Revenues and Duties arising intheir respective Districts, and that the said Commissioners shall have theiroffice within the Limits of Scotland, and shall in such Office keep Bookscontaining Accompts of the Amount of the Equivalents, and how the same shall havebeen disposed of from time to time, which may be inspected by any of theSubjects who shall desire samen. 

 

 

This article ison a par with the Soviets’ demand for disturbance, transportation andhouse-building money for withdrawing from occupation of the Baltic States. It is an insistence by Englandthat Scotlandpays an appropriate proportion of English debts. It would be a reasonable topicof consideration for a pair of blue-eyed betrothed but from a politicalpredator it reeks of abuse. The concessions made to stock-holders in theCompany of Scotland is a hypocritical sop to the Scottish investors in TheCompany’s ill-fated Darien Scheme which was presented with the additionalhandicap of having the English institutional investors suddenly pull out forovertly political reasons. The gesture towards accountability referred to inthe last paragraph would be a wonder to behold. It is today extremely difficultto discover just what revenue from Scottish sources is pouring into London. The revenue fromonly tobacco and alcohol consumed in Scotland is approximately £1,200million  per annum. If that sum wasearning interest for a week before being sent to London, at 6.5% it would yield £1.5 million,without touching the capital. That would pay for a few referenda and it issmall wonder the English do not want us handling our own money on its way to London.

 

 

Article 16

XVI.  That fromand after the Union the Coin shall be of the same standard and value,throughout the United Kingdom, as now in England, And a Mint shall be continuedin Scotland under the same Rules as the Mint in England And the presentOfficers of the Mint continued subject to such Regulations and Alterations asHer Majesty Her Heirs or Successors, or the Parliament of Great Britain shallthink fit.

 

This articleprovides the most simple and direct evidence of breach of this treaty. Where isthe Scottish Mint? It is also on the basis of the conditions of this articlethat we lose any say in the design of the coins we have to handle. We will getthistles as Westminster‘thinks fit’.

 

 

Article 17

XVII. That from and after the Union the same Weightsand Measures shall be used throughout the United Kingdom as are now Establishedin England; And Standards of Weights and Measures shall be kept by thoseBurroughs in Scotland, to whom the keeping the Standards of Weights andMeasures now in use there does of speciall Right belong; All which Standardsshall be sent down to such respective Burroughs from the Standards kept in theExchequer at Westminster, subject nevertheless to such Regulations as theParliament of Great Britain shall think fit.

 

Well, a Scotspint was three times the size of an English pint, but it is ironic to see itstated that the standards shall be kept in what was most likely the RoyalBurghs. See Article XXI.

 

 

Article 18

XVIII. That the Laws concerning Regulation of Trade,Customs, and such Excises, to which Scotland is by virtue of this Treaty to beliable, be the same in Scotland, from and after the Union as in England; andthat all other Laws, in use within the Kingdom of Scotland do after the Union,and notwithstanding thereof, remain in the same force as before (except such asare contrary to or inconsistent with this Treaty) but alterable by theParliament of Great Britain, With this difference betwixt the Laws concerningpublick right Policy, and Civil Government, and those which concern privateright and the Laws which concern publick right Policy and Civil Government maybe made the same throughout the whole United Kingdom; but that no alteration bemade in Laws which concern private Right, except for the evident utility of thesubjects within Scotland.

 

This articlestates categorically that ‘Excises’ (taxation) must be levied identically inboth Scotland and England and wastrashed by the Poll-Tax. It would not have mattered if the poll-tax had beenonly one penny and had been introduced in Scotlandonly one day before it was introduced in England, it still constitutes abreach. As it is, the crime endured for a year and has still gone unpunished.The Kingdom of Scotlandwas certainly used for a political experiment but was maybe also being testedfor vital signs by a government in England which has been subsidisingits incompetence by asset-stripping the People’s property in both kingdoms.

 

In keeping withthe Tory philosophy of maximising the taxation market, the subjects of the Kingdom of Scotlandwere even allocated their personal supermarket bar-code, which doubtlesssurvives on a data-base in England.As it happened, the results revealed a wretched aspect of the Scottishcharacter, that of sooking up to authority and then condemning those who stoodtheir ground. Remember that this government has already tried to divide thepeople by telling the payers that an additional percentage was included tocover the non-payers, yet daily we hear of their cretinous catamites dedicatingtheir little lives to a complete recovery of debts outstanding. The Act issufficiently discredited without spending more money chasing what they alreadyhave. History will show who was honourable.

 

The poll-taxbeing such a glaring breach, it was raised as a point of appeal by the PictishFree State, questioning the competency of the Crown to function in any capacitywithin the Kingdom of Scotland, and a pleafor the court to repeal the Act of Union was made. Lord Dunpark, taking theCampbellite line, ruled that they were powerless to do other than obey theedicts of the sovereign parliament of Westminster.When it was pointed out by the appellant that this admitted emasculationconstituted, from the horses’ mouth, the breaching of Article 19, whichprotected the Scottish Justiciary from such a position, and the appellant thusagain called for the repeal of the Act of Union, the denial of the appeal was simplyrepeated. (Crown v. Robertson, (Pict), July 13th, 1988). There was no mentionof this astonishing denial of basic logic in any of the ‘quality’ newspapersand in his opinion Lord Dunpark subtly adjusted the report of the exchanges toclaim that the appellant ‘accepted that this Court must apply the terms of exfacie valid U.K. statutes’, a ridiculous nonsense given the raison d’etre ofthe Pictish Free State. Sometimes, of course, they just do not listen.

 

Severalattempts have been made by the Pictish Free State to defend the ‘private right’of the subject in Scotland, such as the very right to be a Scottish subject andthus a hologramic integer of Scottish sovereignty, but all have beenstonewalled by a Scottish Justiciary thus far proving beyond doubt to behypocrites and traitors to the People of Scotland. Given that we have noconstitutional courts and the expense and complications of prosecuting theCrown in the Court of Session is prohibitive, there is no option but tooriginate challenges through the criminal courts and then defend oneself onconstitutional grounds.

 

This approachhas its drawbacks in that the faint-hearted whose conscience you are prickingtake the opportunity to condemn you as a criminal, their Lordships areuncomfortable anyway about a challenge connectable to them but doubly so if itlooks like a means whereby a ‘criminal’ might get off  or out by the back door. The cynical portionof the press also take the opportunity to ridicule someone who is actuallytrying to do what they pretend to do. It can also split the police according totheir conscience to their country.

 

Overall thepolice and prison staff in Scotlandhave been at least polite if not sympathetic, but one case originating from aroad traffic offence in Aberdeendemonstrated just how difficult things can be made for buddingfreedom-fighters. For the first trial date, the accused was arrested andthreatened on the way into Aberdeenon the previous night. In the morning a police witness was ‘unavailable’ and afurther date was set. On the new date the accused was arrested during thelunch-time break on a warrant connected with the previous eve-of-trial arrest,had his property, including case notes, removed. He was returned to the courthandcuffed to an escort, to continue his own defence. The original policewitness again failed to appear but was replaced by someone completely differentwho, under cross-examination clearly revealed he was a perjurer and one mustask how much the Procurator Fiscal knew about that. The accused, still cuffedfor a location warrant throughout the proceedings, was found guilty and lodgedan appeal. Six days before the appeal was due to be heard, the accused wasarrested in The Inner Hebrides and began a remarkable journey round Scotland, answering warrants in Aberdeen,Edinburgh and Glasgow. At the High Court of Appeal on thefollowing day the accused heard Lord Hope say that all incidental matters werenot for that court; if perjury was suspected, a Bill of Suspension should beentered, but ‘‘the Act of Union has been acted upon by Scottish Courts since1707 and is a valid Act binding this Court’’ (Crown v. Robertson, (Pict), 27thJune, 1990). Until Lady Justice comes, we can but hope. It was found to beimpossible to persuade the Aberdeenlawyer to lodge the Bill of Suspension, but that is not, of course, suggestingfurther perversion by the police or the Procurator Fiscal. If you are scoutingthe horizon for freedom, the moral is ‘Be prepared’.

 

 

Article 19

XIX. That the Court of Session or Colledge of Justice,do after the Union and notwithstanding thereof, remain in all time comingwithin Scotland as it is now constituted by the Laws of that Kingdom, and withthe same Authority and Priviledges as before the Union; subject nevertheless tosuch Regulations for the better Administration of Justice as shall be made bythe Parliament of Great Britain; And that hereafter none shall be named by HerMajesty or Her Royal Successors to be Ordinary Lords of Session but such whohave served in the Colledge of Justice as Advocats or Principal Clerks ofSession for the space of five years, or as Writers to the Signet for the spaceof ten years With this provision That no Writer to the Signet be capable to beadmitted a Lord of the Session unless he undergo a private and publick Tryal onthe Civil Law before the Faculty of Advocats and be found by them qualified forthe said Office two years before he be named to be a Lord of the Session, yetso as the Qualifications made or to be made for capacitating persons to benamed Ordinary Lords of Session may be altered by the Parliament of GreatBritain.

 

And that the Court of Justiciary do also after theUnion, and notwithstanding thereof remain in all time coming within Scotland,as it is now constituted by the Laws of that Kingdom, and with the sameAuthority and Priviledges as before the Union; subject nevertheless to suchRegulations as shall be made by the Parliament of Great Britain, and withoutprejudice of other Rights of Justiciary:

 

And that all Admiralty Jurisdictions be under the LordHigh Admirall or Commissioners for the Admiralty of Great Britain for the timebeing; And that the Court of Admiralty now Established in Scotland becontinued, And that all Reviews, Reductions or Suspensions of the Sentences inMaritime Cases competent to the Jurisdiction of that Court remain the the samemanner after the Union as now in Scotland, until the Parliament of GreatBritain shall make such Regulations and Alterations, as shall be judgedexpedient for the whole United Kingdom, so as there be alwayes continued inScotland a Court of Admiralty such as in England, for determination of allMaritime Cases relating to private Rights in Scotland competent to theJurisdiction of the Admiralty Court; subject nevertheless to such Regulationsand Alterations as shall be thought proper to be made by the Parliament ofGreat Britain; And that the Heritable Rights of Admiralty and Vice-Admiraltiesin Scotland be reserved to the respective Proprietors as Rights of Property,subject nevertheless, as to the manner of Exercising such Heritable Rights tosuch Regualtions and Alterations as shall be thought proper to be made by theParliament of Great Britain;

 

And that all other Courts now in being within theKingdom of Scotland do remain, but subject to Alterations by the Parliament ofGreat Britain; And that all Inferior Courts within the said Limits do remainsubordinate, as they are now to the Supream Courts of Justice within the samein all time coming;

 

And that no Causes in Scotland be cognoscible by theCourts of Chancery, Queens-Bench, Common-Pleas, or any other Court inWestminster-hall; And that the said Courts, or any other of the like natureafter the Union, shall have no power to Cognosce, Review or Alter the Acts orSentences of the Judicatures within Scotland, or stop the Execution of thesame;

 

And that there be a Court of Exchequer in Scotlandafter the Union, for deciding Questions concerning the Revenues of Customs andExcises there, having the same power and authority in such cases, as the Courtof Exchequer has in England And that the said Court of Exchequer in Scotlandhave power of passing Signatures, Gifts Tutories, and in other things as theCourt of Exchequer in Scotland hath; And that the Court of Exchequer that nowis in Scotland do remain, until a New Court of Exchequer be settled by theParliament of Great Britain in Scotland after the Union;

 

And that after the Union the Queens Majesty and HerRoyal Successors, may Continue a Privy Council in Scotland, for preserving ofpublic Peace and Order, until the Parliament of Great Britain shall think fitto alter it or establish any other effectual method for that end. 

 

In a treatywhich contains no obvious provisions or means for redress or complaint thisarticle is extremely important. This is an entrenched article which guaranteesfor ‘all time coming’ the authority, integrity and independence of both theCourt of Session and the Court of Justiciary and thus the People of Scotlandhave every right to look to these courts for protection from England’sexcesses.

 

If there is avalid case to answer, it must be examined in these courts. There is nowhereelse. Sadly their Lordships have so far preferred to honour their oath to theQueen of England and if we respect their claim to be honourable persons we canexpect nothing else from them. They obviously cannot serve two masters and theyhave chosen to deny their umbilical relationship with the sovereignty of theScottish People. Lacking the required integrity and courage, they currentlyhide behind a constitutionally incorrect and morally pathetic ruling by a LordCampbell who in ‘The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway Company v. Wauchope 1842’,(Bell’s Appeal Cases 252, page 279), stated that "All that a court ofjustice can look to is the parliamentary roll; they see that an act has passedboth Houses of Parliament, and that it has received the royal assent, and nocourt of justice can enquire into the manner in which it was introduced intoparliament, what was done privately to its being introduced, or what passed inparliament during the various stages of its progress through both Houses ofParliament. I therefore trust that no such enquiry will hereafter be enteredinto in Scotland,and that due effect will be given to every act of Parliament, both private aswell as public, upon the just construction which appears to arise uponit."

 

Let us notmince our words here, that ruling is an act of treason towards Scottishsovereignty and the People of Scotland. It bows to accommodate Englishparliamentary sovereignty to the hilt, and its successors, whom we can call theCampbellites, have continued to bow with religious zeal. The only exception ofnote has been in the person of the Lord President, Lord Cooper of Culross.  In MacCormick v. Lord Advocate 1953, S.C. 396,the Crown cites Lord Cooper in support of its claims to sovereign rule overScotland, quoting the passage on page 413 which says "This is at leastplain, that there is neither precedent nor authority of any kind for the viewthat the domestic Courts of either Scotland or England have jurisdiction todetermine whether a Governmental act of the type in controversy is or is notconform to the provisions of a Treaty...."   

 

However, muchmore interestingly, Lord Cooper also says on page 411 that "The principleof unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle andhas no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law.... Considering that theUnion legislation extinguished the Parliaments of Scotland and England andreplaced them by a new Parliament, I have difficulty in seeing why it shouldhave been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit allthe peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the ScottishParliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representativeswere admitted to the Parliament of England. This is not what was done."Lord Cooper further states on page 412 "I have not found in the Unionlegislation any provision that the Parliament of Great Britain should be‘absolutely sovereign’ in the sense that Parliament should be free to alter theTreaty at will".

 

Messrs.MacCormick and Hamilton had claimed that Article 1 of the Treaty had beenbreached by the current Elizabeth deeming herselfQueen Elizabeth II, when of course she was the first Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain.Although it would be arithmetically sequential, there was a reluctance to callher Elizabeth the I and II, in the style of James the VI and I, since herScottish rank would then precede the English; Elizabeth the II and I would havebeen clumsy and England had already had an Elizabeth I, so they did the worstpossible thing and gave her the straight English numeration, with no gesture toGreat Britain or Scotland.

 

There are,however, technical difficulties in linking this to a breach of Article I, andthe petitioners were hit with them all, but in the final analysis it was saidby Lord Cooper that "it has not been shown that the Court of Session hasauthority to entertain the issue sought to

beraised", although no indication was given as to who did have theauthority. Would that MacCormick, having run them so close and learned so much,had had a second go at them. Such a ruling, however sophisticatedly deliveredin lacy legal language, is still pathetic and hides behind the letter of thelaw rather than grant the spirit. The question of who actually decided that sheshould be Elizabeth II is still interesting, since, although invisible, theywere powerful enough to have their way.

 

Recently LordBrand was asked during an unrecorded appeal exchange with the Pictish FreeState if he would continue to uphold the Crown position if the act in questionhad abolished Presbyterianism in Scotland or even the Courts of Session andJusticiary. He was stuck for an answer but joined in denying the appeal,although not without hurling abuse about constitutional nonsense wasting thecourt’s time. The Campbellite tradition endures.

 

The dismayingaspect of this is that there is no need for their Lordships to be so protectiveand paranoid. It is perfectly defensible in the face of criticism from theirEnglish peers to reply that they feel that they are party or compromised bytheir judicial oaths and the question would be better examined by anindependent tribunal, outwith and above the British legal system. The EuropeanConvention on Human Rights advocates such constitutional examinations andspeaks strongly of independent tribunals but their Lordships are also selectiveabout how much Europe they want. Despite theirtotal acquiescence to a Westminster-based U.K. which signed up for theEuropean Community and its Law they have been heard pronouncing pompously that‘European Law is not the Law of Scotland’ but fail to accept that neither isEnglish parliamentary law.

 

If the United Kingdom continues to include Scotland and it remains within the EuropeanCommunity perhaps their Lordships will gradually acknowledge the provisions ofEuropean Law which Scots can invoke for their protection where U.K. law isdesigned to fail them.

 

The SimmenthalRuling by the European Court in 1978 (case 106/77 ECR629) says "a nationalcourt which is called upon, within the limits of its jurisdiction, to applyprovisions of Community Law is under a duty to give full effect to theseprovisions, if necessary refusing, of its own motion, to apply any conflictingprovisions of national legislation, even if adopted subsequently, and it is notnecessary for the court to request or await a prior setting aside of such provisionby legislative or other constitutional means", but given the currentlevels of integrity in Scottish courts this is highly unlikely in practice. AnEdinburgh Sheriff, when presented with the Simmenthal precedent in a caseconcerning the right to change one’s nationality to ‘Scottish’, said that hehad much sympathy for the initiative and it may well have merit in law but inpractice the case would be better served by marching a mob up Princes Street. Theembarrassing truth is that he is probably right.

 

Their Lordshipswho whinge that they are powerless to resist Westminster parliamentarylegislation, even if it legally emasculates them, are also invited to considerDefoe’s argument to the union sceptics, published in the Review in November1706, where he said ‘The Union will be a sacred thing out of the Reach ofParliament; ‘twill be superior to it, in its being prior in time; for all priorPower is superior to subsequent, as the Produce is inferior to the thingproducing....Whenever the Parliament of Britain shall therefore infract theUnion, it blows up its own Foundation, and by Consequence destroysitself.’  ‘Infract’ is a little-used verbthese days, but it still means ‘to violate in law’.

 

One wonders ifwe shall hear a whimper from their Lordships should the unchecked impudence ofthe present government in Englanddecide to privatise the Courts.

 

 

Article 20

XX. That all heritable Offices, Superiorities,heritable Jurisdictions, Offices for life, and Jurisdictions for life, bereserved to the Owners thereof, as Rights of Property, in the same manner asthey are now enjoyed by the Laws of Scotland, notwithstanding of this Treaty.

 

This article isa bare-faced ‘don’t worry’ to all the influential and privileged types. Scotland may begetting thoroughly shafted but the upper-selfish class of people will beO.K.  Readers will recognise thearrangement as still standing. We have much more to worry about from thesepeople than from the people of England.

 

 

Article 21

XXI. That the Rights and Privileges of the RoyallBurroughs in Scotland as they now are, Do Remain entire after the Union, andnotwithstanding thereof.

 

The 1974 LocalGovernment Act infracted the terms of this article in a big way. The status andauthority of all Royal Burghs was removed at a pen-stroke in favour of‘regions’ and ‘districts’, concepts in bureaucracy which are totally alien tothe long-established and organically evolved ‘burgh and shire’ system of Scotland. Plansare firmly in place to add insult with the imposition of ‘single-tier’authorities. In ‘Highland Region’, for example, the local government departmentin Inverness can be anything from 50 to 250miles away and require two ferry trips and good few bob in petrol. God help a Highland pensioner or single Mum with a prolongedproblem.

 

The breachingof this article was raised as point of competency against the Crown beingentitled to sue or prosecute anyone in Scotland in Crown v. Pict at Tain District Court in August 1994. The absence ofthe Royal Mint in Scotlandwas indicated as supporting evidence of breach. A local J.P, acting as amagistrate but unqualified in Law, ruled that the English Crown was fullycompetent to prosecute in Scotland and then proceeded to refuse an appealagainst her ruling, despite the fact that the complaint before her was headed‘in the District of Ross and Cromarty’ and the fact that it was not being heardin the Burgh Court was not disputed. One must also assume that she could see awee Mint of her own.

 

 

Article 22

XXII. That by virtue of this Treaty, Of the Peers ofScotland at the time of the Union 16 shall be the number to Sit and Vote in theHouse of Lords, and 45 the number of the Representatives of Scotland in theHouse of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain; And that when Her MajestyHer Heirs or Successors, shall Declare Her or their pleasure for holding thefirst or any subsequent Parliament of Great Britain until the Parliament ofGreat Britain shall make further provision therein, A Writ do issue under theGreat Seal of the United Kingdom, Directed to the Privy Council of Scotland,Commanding them to Cause 16 Peers, who are to sit in the House of Lords to beSummoned to Parliament and 45 Members to be Elected to sit in the House ofCommons of the Parliament of Great Britain according to the Agreement in theTreaty, in such manner as by a subsequent Act of this present Session of theParliament of Scotland shall be settled; Which Act is hereby Declared to be asvalid as if it were a part of and ingrossed in this Treaty:

 

And that the Names of the Persons so Summoned andElected, shall be Returned by the Privy Council of Scotland into the Court from whencethe said Writ did issue. And that if her Majesty, on or before the 1st day ofMay next, on which day the Union is to take place shall Declare under the GreatSeal of England, That it is expedient, that the Lords of Parliament of England,and Commons of the present Parliament of England should be the Members of therespective Houses of the first Parliament of Great Britain for and on the partof England, then the said Lords of Parliament of England, and Commons of thepresent Parliament of England, shall be the members of the respective Houses ofthe first Parliament of Great Britain, for and on the part of England:

 

And Her Majesty may by Her Royal Proclamation underthe Great Seal of Great Britain, appoint the said first Parliament of GreatBritain to Meet at such time and place as Her Majesty shall think fit; whichtime shall not be less than 50 days after the date of such Proclamation; Andthe time and place of the Meeting of such Parliament being so appointed, a Writshall be immediately issued under the Great Seal of Great Britain, directed tothe Privy Council of Scotland, for the summoning the 16 Peers, and for Electingforty five Members, by whom Scotland is to be Represented in the Parliament ofGreat Britain:

 

And the Lords of Parliament of England, and the 16Peers of Scotland, such 16 Peers being Summoned and Returned in the manneragreed by this Treaty; and the Members of the House of Commons of the saidParliament of England and the 45 Members for Scotland, such 45 Members beingElected and Returned in the manner agreed in this Treaty shall assemble andmeet respectively in their respective houses of the Parliament of GreatBritain, at such time and place as shall be so appointed by Her Majesty, andshall be the Two houses of the first Parliament of Great Britain, And thatParliament may Continue for such time only as the present Parliament of Englandmight have Continued, if the Union of the Two Kingdoms had not been made,unless sooner Dissolved by Her Majesty;

 

And that every one of the Lords of Parliament of GreatBritain, and every member of the House of Commons of the Parliament of GreatBritain in the first and all succeeding Parliaments of Great Britain until theParliament of Great Britain shall otherwayes Direct, shall take the respectiveOaths, appointed to be taken in stead of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy,by an Act of Parliament made in England in the first year of the Reign of thelate King William and Queen Mary entituled An Act for the abrogating of theOaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and appointing other Oaths, and MakeSubscribe and audibly Repeat the Declaration mentioned in an Act of Parliamentmade in England in the 30th year of the Reign of King Charles the Secondentituled An Act for the more effectual preserving the Kings Person andGovernment by Disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament, andshall take and subscribe the Oath mentioned in An Act of Parliament made inEngland, in the first year of Her Majesties Reign entituled An Act to Declarethe Alterations in the Oath appointed to be taken by the Act Entituled An Actfor the further security of His Majesties Person, and the Succession of theCrown in the Protestant Line, and for Extinguishing the Hopes of the pretendedPrince of Wales, and all other pretenders and their open and secret Abettors,and for Declaring the Association to be determined, at such time, and in suchmanner as the Members of both Houses of Parliament of England are by the saidrespective Acts, directed to take, make and subscribe the same upon thepenalties and

disabilities in the said respective Acts contained.

 

And it is Declared and Agreed That these words ThisRealm, the Crown of this Realm, and the Queen of this Realm, mentioned in theOaths and Declaration contained in the aforsaid Acts, which were intended tosignify the Crown and Realm of England, shall be understood of the Crown andRealm of Great Britain, And that in that sense, the said Oaths and Declarationbe taken and subscribed by the members of both Houses of the Parliament ofGreat Britain.

 

With apopulation approximately five times that of Scotland it would be understandablefor England to want around 250 representatives in the House of Commons but,while Scottish representation was more than quartered, the English retainedtheir 513 MPs and merely closed up a bit to let a few Scots in the building.Today’s proportions of approximately 10% of MPs for approximately 10% of thepopulation is in one sense more equitable but makes no provision at all forrespecting the democratic will of the Kingdom of Scotland as a whole.

 

Technically,under the English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, every availableScottish vote amounts to nothing if out-voted by the English. At best the Scotscould climb on a moral soap-box and create a stushie, but if the English wereto stand their ground the Scots would be faced with the necessity to break ‘theLaw’. The recent style however has been to act more in the manner of obedientwifies.

 

The penultimateparagraph is at severe pains to ensure that anyone taking the oaths of officeis left in no doubt whatsoever that he is joining an organisation absolutelydedicated to Tim-bashing.

 

On the questionof the oath it is hard to imagine that any M.P. got a distinct sense ofswearing an oath to Great Britain when he was simply told to repeat the oldEnglish oath but where it said ‘this realm, the crown or the queen of thisrealm’ Great Britain was to be understood instead of England. This is asking alot of English MPs and even of Scottish MPs who are pronouncing these wordswhilst standing on the floor of the English parliament, something they still dotoday.

 

 

Article 23

XXIII. That the foresaid 16 Peers of Scotland,mentioned in the last preceding Article, to sit in the House of Lords of theParliament of Great Britain shall have all Priviledges of Parliament which thePeers of England now have, and which They or any Peers of Great Britain shallhave after the Union, and particularly the Right of sitting upon the tryals ofPeers: And in case of the tryal of any Peer in time of Adjournment orProrogation of Parliament, the said 16 Peers shall be summoned in the samemanner, and have the same powers and priviledges at such tryal, as any otherPeers of Great Britain; And that in case any tryals of Peers shall hereafterhappen when there is no Parliament in being, the 16 Peers of Scotland who satein the last preceeding Parliament, shall be summoned in the same manner andhave the same powers and privileges at such tryals as any other Peers of GreatBritain;

 

And that all Peers of Scotland, and their successorsto their Honours and Dignities, shall from and after the Union be Peers ofGreat Britain, and have Rank and Precedency next and immediately after thePeers of the like orders and degrees in England at the time of the Union, andbefore all Peers of Great Britain of the like orders and degrees, who may beCreated after the Union, and shall be tryed as Peers of Great Britain, andshall Enjoy all Privileges of Peers, as fully as the Peers of England do now,or as they, or any other Peers of Great Britain may hereafter Enjoy the sameexcept the Right and Privilege of sitting in the House of Lords and thePrivileges depending thereon, and particularly the Right of sitting upon thetryals of Peers.

 

This articleensures that the squad in the House of Lords gets off with as much as possible,but if any one of them is captured doing anything naughty he can only be triedby his pals and all his pals are guaranteed a seat.

 

 

Article 24

XXIV. That from and after the Union, there be OneGreat Seal for the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which shall be differentfrom the Great Seal now used in either Kingdom; And that the Quartering theArms and the Rank and Precedency of the Lyon King of Arms of the Kingdom ofScotland as may best suit the Union be left to Her Majesty: And that in themean time the Great Seal of England be used as the Great Seal of the UnitedKingdom, and that the Great Seal of the United Kingdom be used for SealingWrits to Elect and Summon the Parliament of Great Britain and for sealing allTreaties with Forreign Princes and States, and all publick Acts Instruments andOrders of State which Concern the whole United Kingdom, and in all othermatters relating to England, as the Great Seal of England is now used, and thata Seal in Scotland after the Union be alwayes kept and made use of in allthings relating to private Rights or Grants, which have usually passed theGreat Seal of Scotland, and which only concern Offices, Grants, Commissions,and private Rights within the Kingdom, And that until such Seal shall beappointed by Her Majesty the present Great Seal of Scotland shall be used forsuch purposes;

 

And that the Privy Seal, Signet, Casset, Signet of theJusticiary Court, Quarter Seal, and Seals of Courts now used in Scotland beContinued, but that the said Seals be altered and adapted to the state of theUnion as Her Majesty shall think fit; And the said Seals, and all of them, andthe Keepers of them, shall be subject to Regulations as the Parliament of GreatBritain shall hereafter make:

 

And that the Crown, Scepter and Sword of State, theRecords of Parliament, and all other Records, Rolls and Registers whatsoever,both publick and private generall and particular, and Warrands thereof Continueto be keeped as they are within that part of the United Kingdom now calledScotland, and that they shall so remain in all time coming notwithstanding ofthe Union.

 

This is anotherdemonstration of England’strue intentions but in a very important area. The Great Seal is the insignia ofstatehood, the letterhead below which the state makes proclamation and the flagof office under which it makes its international contracts and commitments.Firstly, the Court of the Lord Lyon, which even today pretends that it enjoyssome independent authority, is told that future re-designing will be at thepleasure of the English queen, and then, more importantly, Scotland has toaccept that ‘in the mean time’ the English seal will be used to designate theBritish seal.

 

This attitudecontinues today in the form of the £1 coins. The inscription ‘decus ettutamen’, (ornament and defence), appears on both the coin bearing the rose of England and thecoin bearing a form of ‘great seal’. The inscription proper to the Great Sealof Scotland is the Latin ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’ meaning ‘no one injures mewith impunity’, suggesting that there will be an unpleasant reaction if it istried. The equivalent English inscription, betraying their Norman origins, isthe rather pretentious ‘Dieu et mon droit’, meaning ‘God and my right’. Scotscan legitimately read that with question and contempt. Another French phraseappears around the insignia of the queen of England, ‘Honi soit qui mal ypense’, which sounds like a corruption of ‘honte y soit qui mal y pense’meaning something like ‘shame on he who thinks about that with bad intent’ andis more suitable as a rebuke for looking at a royal ankle should it beaccidentally revealed. The corrective tone of a school-mistress is hardly inthe tradition of the great fighting tribes of Britannic history.

 

The floatedplans to sell Edinburgh Castle, deeply insultingas they are in themselves, also raise the problem of where to relocate theScottish Crown jewels. Would they be sold as part of the package to ensure acontinuing parade of nostalgic school-teachers and their charges or would theybe moved to the Tower of London ‘for safety’and to reinforce the insult? Any option begs the basic question of who actuallyowns something as Scottish as Edinburgh Castle and the ScottishCrown. We are faced with a claim to ownership by the English Crown. Are wegoing to accept that?

 

Many, if notall, of the records of the Scottish Regiments have been removed to England. Whileit makes sense to have some form of protective militia in an independentcountry acting both as a civic growth opportunity for the adolescent and adissuader for any threat to our considerable off-shore wealth, be it oil orfish, there would be more sympathy for saving the Gordons or any other ScottishRegiments if they were not so clearly available to the English Crown as toolsof the State. In the public mind, they are the troops that would be sent inshould Scottish political frustration spill onto the streets in sufficientnumbers. It would be interesting to hear from these regiments on this question.Which master would they serve - the Crown or the People of Scotland? If in thefuture they hope to serve the People of Scotland they will have to do betterthan letting the English take their history jotters from them.

 

 

Article 25

XXV.   That allLaws and Statutes in either Kingdom so far as they are contrary to, orinconsistent with the Terms of these Articles, or any of them, shall from andafter the Union cease and become void, and shall be so declared to be by therespective Parliaments of the said Kingdoms.

 

This articlewould be more useful if it made some provision for all future laws and statutesbeing void if they breached the terms

of thesearticles. As it is, it simply acts as an erase button for redundantlegislation.

 

 

The Fall Out

 

Even outwiththe Jacobite faction, the Scottish opposition to the Unionwas almost total. The articles were publicly burned in the streets. Night afternight there were riots in Glasgow and Edinburgh, with cries of ‘All Scotlandstand together, No Union with English Dogs’ and other huzzas in less proper language.Under no stretching of the definition could this be called democratic; it wasan absolute rail-roading of the Scottish people, actively assisted by their own‘high heid yins’. Today’s equivalent, Lang, Rifkind, Stewart et spumae aliae,are even more despicable when they justify their master’s voice by ‘reminding’us in that patronising way that the People of Scotland chose to enter into aunion with England.

 

That is anabsolute lie, and those Unionist politicians who claim it are liars, but itremains the basis on which the ‘Crown’ claims the right to tax us, to legislateover us or to send us to the Falklands, whichwe have no right to in the first place.

 

The onlyScottish Lord really worthy was Lord Belhaven, a name that continues to berespected today. On seeing the proposed articles he had said "I thinkI  see our ancient mother Caledonia, likeCaesar, sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully looking round about,covering herself with her royal garment, attending the fatal blow, and breathingout her last, with a ‘et tu quoque mi fili’. When I consider this treaty as ithath been explained to us, I see the English constitution remaining firm, thesame two houses of parliament, the same taxes, the  same customs, the same excises, the same tradein companies....and all ours subject to either regulation or annihilation; onlywe have the honour to pay their debts". Andrew Fletcher of Saltounconducted himself like a decent patriot should, and the Andrew Fletcher Societythree centuries later still celebrates his stance. Sir George Lockhart ofCarnwath wrote an account which included details of the bribery involved,naming names, called ‘Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland etc.’ This book stillmakes publishers like the Edinburgh University Press too nervous to reprintnearly 300 years later.

 

Strangelyenough, the Parliament of Great Britain got underway without ratifying therespective Acts of Union. It would seem to be a fundamental oversight which,from a constitutional perspective, seriously jeopardises the whole undertaking.The power of a parliament would seem to be based on the ability and authorityto issue ratified, and therefore legally enforceable, legislation. If both theparliaments have ratified their dissolution and therefore invalidation prior toMay 1st, 1707, how can a joint parliament assembled on that date which fails toratify the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707 claim any legitimacy? Bothconstitutional parents are treated as dead, despite Defoe’s assurances that thething created is always less than the creator. It would seem that the Englishattitude of incorporate, neuter and proceed with business as usual extendedeven over the constituting necessities. They are trading without a licencewhich is fine as long as you can keep your customers believing that they aredefeated and have no alternatives, but it might be embarrassing if the Scotsflex their freedom muscle and ask for arbitration in Europe.

 

Regardless, themajority at Westminsterwere not long in upsetting the Scots. The Scottish Mint was closed down and in1709 a rather sinister Treason Act was passed which extended England’s more harsh laws against treason into Scotland. Notonly was this in clear breach of Article 19 but it was used to brutalise andexecute Jacobites, especially around the period of the ’45 Rebellion.

 

It would berecognised by the English at least that the focal point of any power remainingin Scotland would be the Justiciary, the only authority constitutionallyprotected, and the Treason Act may well have been of two-fold nature; it wouldprovide the necessary legislation to neutralise any threat to the Crown comingfrom Scotland, but it would also throw down the gauntlet to the ScottishJusticiary. Sadly, as today, they proved toothless and did little more thanworry it with their gums in private and the English ‘sovereignty of parliament’was able to grow in confidence in Scotland. On every occasion thatthe Pictish Free State has identified a breach of the union and thus theinvalidation of the Crown’s authority in Scotland, their Lordships haverepeated their belief that they are powerless to protest or protect, and wefelt that this point of paralysis had to be more thoroughly examined.

 

On the 5th ofFebruary, 1991, a letter was sent to the Prime Minister, an office for whichthere is incidentally no provision in the treaty, who instructed the ScottishOffice, which should, of course, be called the English Office, to reply on hisbehalf. Major was asked if he recognised Scotland as a sovereign nation, ifhe recognised that the Treaty of Union had articles of guarantee which shouldnot be breached and, should the question of an alleged breach arise, whatavenue of redress would the government recognise. The reply was veryinteresting. A lackey called MacDonald wrote saying ‘‘Constitutionally, Scotland and Englandare constituent parts of the United Kingdom. The Government is totally committedto the maintenance of this Union. Moreover,there is no evidence of significant support in Scotlandfor the break-up of the Union; at the last General Election more than 85% ofthe votes cast in Scotlandwere for parties committed to maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom.In answer to your queries on nationhood and sovereignty, the Governmentbelieves that the present constitutional arrangements provide for full and fairrepresentation for Scotlandand for Scotland’s specialinterests and nationhood - and for that matter England’s also - to be fullyrespected and recognised. You also raise the question of what avenue of redressthe government would recognise in respect of an alleged breach of the Acts(sic) of Union 1707. It is of course a matterfor the courts (sic) to decide whether there has been any breach of the termsof those Acts and whether there is any redress for them.’’ (Please note thatthe final word is the plural.)

 

So there it is,your Lordships, a clue to how to end your ignominy. Instead of stonewallingevery issue with the tired old ‘we are powerless’ line, here is an invitationfrom the senior executive of the parliament you hold to be sovereign over you,not only to say if there has been a breach or not but also to decide what to doabout it. Yes, it plunges you into the political arena but you cannot pretendforever that there is no connection. When this unholy Mother of Parliaments isspewing out legislation for Scotland,law and politics are umbilically linked. When you try to deny this you renderyour dear Justicia much more of a bastard than an ass.  

 

It is sad thatwe have got to the point where we have to condemn an otherwise intelligent andwise Justiciary; it is sad that a significant percentage of Scottish sportsfans are embarrassed by the flaunting of the Union flag in association withScottish teams; it is sad that many cut off BBC TV in disgust as it closes its Scottish channel with ‘God save theQueen’; in short that the imperial aspirations of the English have so dividedthe real British people, but the saddest thing is that we have mostly ourselvesto blame. Caesar immediately noticed that you could set the tribes in Britain againsteach other and thus rule them. To this the English have added the subtleties ofeconomic control with emphasis on job insecurity, enough dole only to maintainfags, booze and TV addiction and the implanting of hopelessness in the young,but for their sake let us find the guts to recover ourselves from the deathprocess. After thousands of years of struggle it is surely not our idea to diebut we are already on the down escalator and only extra effort is going to getus up again. All differences must be put aside, at least until the immediaterescue is complete, for although with our Celtic background we are sure toargue again in the future, for the moment the only criterion is whether we wantto be the People of Scotland or not, and that means fighting for the day whenwe all carry a ‘Kingdom of Scotland’ passport. It can happen as soon as youwant it. 

 

Perhaps we candraw the necessary inspiration and encouragement from the Estonian Declarationof Independence, made in 1918. Addressing Estonia it says ‘‘You stand on thethreshold of a hopeful future in which you shall be free and independent indetermining and directing your destiny. Begin building a home of your own,ruled by law and order so as to be a worthy member within the family ofcivilised nations. Sons and daughters of our homeland, let us unite as one manin the sacred task of building our homeland. The sweat and blood shed by ourancestors for this country demand it, and our future generations impose it uponus as our sacred duty.’’ In August 1991, one million Estonians threw off themight of Russian

dominance, evenalthough half a million peasant stock had been settled there to dull the breed.

                                                                        Letus not await that......

 

Recommended Reading

Buchanan,George, ‘History of Scotland’,Edinburgh 1829

Chalmers,George, ‘Caledonia’ London1807-24, Vols. I-III

Collins, Lawrence, ‘European Community Law in the U.K.’ London1984

Daiches, David,‘Scotland and the Union’, London 1977

De Beer, SirGavin, ‘Genetics and Prehistory’ Cambridge1966

Defoe, Daniel,‘Defoe’s Review’, Ed. A.W. Secord, New York 1965

Donaldson,Gordon, ‘Scottish Historical Documents’, Edinburgh 1974

Fordun,‘Chronicle of the Scottish Nation’, Ed. by W.F.Skene, Edinburgh 1872

Foulis,Sir  James, ‘Enquiry into the OriginalInhabitants of Britain’

                             Proceedings of the Society ofAntiquaries of ScotlandVol. I

Guest, Edwin,‘Origines Celticae’, London1863

Hay ofHayfield, John, ‘Tartan Tapestry’ Glasgow1960 

Henderson,Isabel, ‘The Picts’ London1967

Herodotus, ‘TheHistories’, De Selincourt translation, London1954

Hibbert,Samuel, ‘Description of the Shetland Islands’Lerwick 1891

Hume, SirDavid, ‘Diary of the Proceedings 1700-1707’ Edinburgh 1828

Lockhart,George, of Carnwath, ‘Memoirs Concerning the Affairs of Scotland etc.’                       London 1714

Minutes of theProceedings in Parliament, 1685-1707

Monmouth,Geoffrey of, ‘History of the Kings of Britain’Thorpe transl. London1966

Robertson,Robert H.S., ‘The Cracked Cornucopia’ R.U.I. Pitlochry 1993

Rolleston, T.W.‘Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race’ London1911

Roos, Aarand, ‘Estonia - A Nation Unconquered’ Baltimore 1985

Ritchie, Dr.Anna, ‘Picts’, HMSO 1989

Scott,Archibald B., ‘The Pictish Nation, its People and its Church’ Edinburgh 1918

Scott, Paul H.,‘1707 - The Union of Scotland and England’Edinburgh 1979                                 (Chambers -please reprint this book and promote it this time!)

Skene, WilliamF., ‘Celtic Scotland’ Edinburgh 1876-80 (3Vols.)

Skene, WilliamF., ‘Coronation Stone’ Edinburgh.1867. Hard to find but

            preserved in Proceedings of theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland

Spence, Lewis,‘The Mysteries of Britain’ Philadelphia, rep. by Health Research, Calif.     

Tacitus,Cornelius, ‘The Agricola’, Mattingly-Handford transl. London 1970

Waddell, Prof.L.A., ‘The British Edda’ London1930

Wainwright, F.(Ed.), ‘The Problem of the Picts’ London 1955, Perth 1980

Wilson, Prof.Daniel, ‘Prehistoric Annals of Scotland’London 1863 (2Vols.)

Wylie, Rev. J.A.,‘History of the Scottish Nation’ London1886 (2 Vols.)

Wyntoun, Androwof, ‘Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland’Edinburgh 1872

 

Plus a debt forinspiration to Douglas Young and The Scottish Secretariat who between 1930 and1955 published three editions of the Treaty with commentary. God bless theirwee tartan socks for keeping us mindful. Scotland owes you.

 

Fareweel to a'our Scottish fame,

            Fareweel our ancient glory;

Fareweel evento the Scottish name,

            Sae fam'd in martial story !

Now sark rinso'er the Solway sands,

            And Tweedrins to the ocean,

To mark where England'sprovince stands,

            Such a parcel of rogues in a nation! . .

 

O would, or Ihad seen the day

            That treason thus could sell us,

My auld greyhead had lien in clay,

            Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace !

But pith andpower, till my last hour,

            I'll make this declaration;

We're boughtand sold for English gold.

            Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

 

                                    Robert Burns

 

 

The Pictish Free State

The PictishFree State is a voluntary pressure group dedicated to restoring the right ofthe Sovereign People of Scotland to choose their own destiny. We believe thatin the final analysis this can only be done in Law. We reject all forms ofviolent conduct, physical or mental, but we absolutely reserve the right toconfront English Crown initiatives for the purpose of legitimately defendingour Scottish Sovereign Rights.

 

Help alwayswelcome!

 

 

ROBBIE THE PICTis a founding member of the Pictish Free State, a pressure group dedicated tosecuring the People of Scotland’s freedom of choice through non-violent means,but principally by championing the case in Law. He believes that the People ofScotland are among the wealthiest and wisest in the world and can have Independence again assoon as they want it. When it is all over he wants to play the Blues....  

 

ENCOURAGE  ENCOURAGEMENT

We owe it toour ancestors and to our children.

 
   
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