these ‘hereditary or proprietary jurisdictions,’ which conferred the right, or, I would rather say, the power, of putting people to death, see Burton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 425, vol. ii. p. 402. The technical term for so monstrous a privilege, was the right ‘of pit and gallows.’ Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 94; and Mackenzie's Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal, pp. 70, 100, 187, 210. This meant, that men were to be hung, and women to be drowned. See also Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 224; Fountainhall's Notes of Scottish Affairs, p. 139; Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 346; Lettice's Scotland, p. 271; Sinclair's Scotland, vol. i. p. 417, vol. iv. p. 478, vol. vi. pp. 195, 258, vol. viii. pp. 129, 348, vol. xiii. p. 563, vol. xiv. p. 34, vol. xvii. pp. 442, 600, vol. xviii. p. 473.
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Laing (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 345) says, that in 1706, ‘the commons in the Scottish parliament were 160; the peers 145.’ Of these peers, the Treaty of Union declared that ‘sixteen shall be the number to sit and vote in the House of Lords.’ De Foe's History of the Union between England and Scotland, London, 1786, 4to, pp. 205, 538. The English House of Lords consisted of 179 members. See The Lockhart Papers, London, 1817, 4to, vol. i. pp. 343, 547. It was impossible to mistake the result of this sweeping measure, by which, as was said at the time, ‘Scotland was to retrench her nobility.’ De Foe's History of the Union, p. 495. Compare p. 471: ‘The nobility being thereby, as it were, degraded of their characters.’ In 1710, a Scotchman writes in his journal: ‘It was one of the melancholyest sights to any that have any sense of our antient Nobility, to see them going throu for votes, and making partys, and giving their votes to others who once had their oun vote; and I suspect many of them reu the bargain they made, in giving their oun pouer away.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 308.
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The Scotch, consequently, became so eager to do away with this source of mirth, that even as late as the year 1761, when the notorious lecturer, Sheridan, visited Edinburgh, ‘such was the rage for speaking with an English accent, that more than three hundred gentlemen, among whom were the most eminent in the country for rank and learning, attended him.’ Ritchie's Life of Hume, London, 1807, p. 94. It was, however, during about twenty years immediately after the Union, that the Scotch members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, were most jeered at in London, and were treated with marked disrespect, socially and politically. Not only were they mocked and lampooned, but they were also made tools of. In September 1711, Wodrow writes (Analecta, vol. i. p. 348, 4to, 1842): ‘In the beginning of this (month), I hear a generall dissatisfaction our Nobility, that wer at last Parliament, have at their treatment at London. They complean they are only made use of as tools among the English, and cast by when their party designes are over.’ The next year (1712), the Scotch members of the House of Commons met together, and expressed their ‘high resentment of the uncivil, haughty treatment they mett with from the English.’ The Lockhart Papers, London, 1817, 4to, vol. i. p. 417. See, further, Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 27. ‘Without descending to rudeness, the polished contemporaries of Wharton and St. John could madden the sensitive and haughty Scots by light shafts of raillery, about their pronunciation or knowledge of parliamentary etiquette.’ Some curious observations upon the way in which the Scotch pronounced English, late in the seventeenth century, will be found in Morer's Short Account of Scotland, London, 1702, pp. 13, 14. The author of this book was chaplain to a Scotch regiment.
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Among many illustrations with which contemporary memoirs abound, the following is by no means the worst. Burnet, as a Scotchman, thinks proper to say that those of his countrymen who were sent to parliament, ‘were persons of such distinction, that they very well deserved’ the respect and esteem with which they were treated. To which, Lord Dartmouth adds: ‘and were very importunate to have their deserts rewarded. A Scotch earl pressed Lord Godolphin extremely for a place. He said there was none vacant. The other said, his lordship could soon make one so, if he pleased. Lord Godolphin asked him, if he expected to have any body killed to make room? He said, No; but Lord Dartmouth commonly voted against the court, and every body wondered that he had not been turned out before now. Lord Godolphin told him, he hoped his lordship did not expect that he should be the person to propose it; and advised him never to mention it any more, for fear the queen should come to hear of it; for if she did, his lordship would run great risk never to have a place as long as she lived. But he could not forbear telling every where, how ill the lord treasurer had used him.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. v. p. 349, Oxford, 1823. Compare the account, in 1710, in Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 293. ‘Argyle is both picked (i. e. piqued) at Marlburrou, and his brother Yla, for refusing him a regiment; and Godolphin should have said to the queen that my Lord Yla was not to be trusted with a regiment! The Earl of Marr was one of the greatest cronnies Godolphine had, till the matter of his pension, after the Secretary office was taken from him, came about. Godolphine caused draw it during pleasure; Marr expected it during life, which the Treasurer would not yield to, and therefore they brake.’ The history of the time is full of these wretched squabbles, which show what the Scotch nobles were made of. Indeed, their rapacity was so shameless, that, in 1711, several of them refused to perform their legislative duties in London, unless they received some offices which they expected. ‘About the midle of this moneth, I hear ther was a meeting of severall of our Scots Peers, at the Viscount of Kilsyth's, where they concerted not to goe up to this parliament till peremptorly writ for; and (also) some assurance be given of the places they were made to hope for last session and have missed.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 365. In 1712, the same Scotchman writes (Analecta, vol. ii. p. 8): ‘Our Scots Peers' secession from the House of Peers makes much noise; but they doe not hold by it. They sometimes come and sometimes goe, and they render themselves base in the eyes of the English.’ See also a letter ‘concerning the Scots Peerage,’ in Somers' Tracts, vol. xii. p. 607, edit. Scott, London, 1814, 4to.
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A Scotch writer, twenty years after the Union, says: ‘Most of our gentlemen and people of quality, who have the best estates in our country, live for the most part at London.’ Reasons for improving the Fisheries and Linen Manufacture of Scotland, London, 1727, p. 22. I do not know who wrote this curious little treatise; but the author was evidently a native of Scotland. See p. 25. I have, however, still earlier evidence to adduce. A letter from Wodrow, dated 9th of August 1725, complains of ‘the general sending our youth of quality to England:’ and a letter to him, in 1716, describes the Anglicizing process going on among the Scotch aristocracy, only nine years after the Union. ‘Most of our Lords and others here do so much depend on the English for their posts, and seeking somewhat or other, that their mouths are almost quite stopped; and really most of them go into the English way in all things.’ Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 196, vol. iii. p. 224. The Earl of Mar lost popularity in Scotland, on account of the court he paid to Lord Godolphin; for, he ‘appears to have passed much more time in intrigues in London than among the gardens of Alloa.’ Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. i. p. 36. Even Earl Ilay, in his anxiety to advance himself at the English court, ‘used to regret his being a Scots peer, and to wish earnestly he was a commoner.’ Letters of Lord Grange, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. p. 39, Aberdeen, 4to, 1846.
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Indeed, their expectation ran so high, as to induce a hope, not only that those Commissioners of the Union who were Scotch peers should be made English ones, but that ‘the whole nobility of Scotland might in time be admitted.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 346. Compare The Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 298, 343: ‘the Scots Peerage, many of whom had been bubled with the hopes of being themselves created British Peers.’ Also The Gordon Letters, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. pp. 227, 228.
