Neil Davidson (1957-2020) on the Scottish Crowd 1705-1707
Below is the introduction and conclusion to the chapter that the sadly late Neil Davidson wrote on the Scottish Crowd and riots 1705-1707. It appears in the History of Riots collection edited by myself (CSP 2015)
Below is a link to a brief appreciation of Neil’s work and his work with the London Socialist Historians Group:
http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/2020/05/neil-davidson.html
THE SCOTTISH PRE-INDUSTRIAL URBAN CROWD AND THE RIOTS AGAINST
THE TREATY OF UNION, 1705–1707
NEIL DAVIDSON
Introduction
The Scottish riots against the Treaty of Union present a particularly complex mixture of motives on the part of their participants. Ostensibly acting from a simple patriotic imperative to prevent one of the most intensely political transformations imaginable—the dissolution of one state (Scotland) and its absorption into another (Great Britain)—the rioters were also responding to the certainty of increased taxation (an “economic” issue) and the potential threat to the integrity of the Church of Scotland (a “social” and “cultural” issue). Nor was it only the crowd which displayed complex motivations. The figures who inspired or sometimes actually led them adhered to political positions which were often in direct opposition to each other, ranging from Jacobites who rejected the Union with England because they—in effect—supported one with absolutist France, to those who wanted Scotland to become an independent republic, through to those who opposed the terms of the Treaty rather than the Union itself, with several intermediary positions between. This episode therefore provides us with an important example of the possibilities and limitations of the urban riot as a means of effecting political change in the pre-industrial, pre-democratic period.
Conclusion
What conclusions can we draw from this episode? First, although the crowd was unable to prevent the ratification of the Treaty of Union, it did achieve a number of amendments—in effect a form of “reform by riot”—by securing the central role of the Kirk in Scottish society and, although on a much shorter-term basis, the withdrawal of some of the proposed tax increases. Second, the riots were effective because they were aligned with resistance to the treaty in the rural areas where the majority of the population lived, often through a joint adherence to radical Presbyterian beliefs among the leading figures. Third, participants in the demonstrations and riots were politically sophisticated enough to understand that launching a full-scale attempt to overthrow the parliament would lead to military intervention by both France and England, and either the conquest of Scotland and England by the former or the forcible subjugation of Scotland, along Irish lines, by the latter. Fourth, and consequently, there were major structural limitations on the independence and capacity for self-activity of pre-industrial crowds during the transition to capitalism. Ironically, it would be the union which many of the participants opposed which lead to the completion of the transition and the emergence of a unified working class on both sides of the border.
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