As contemporary Europeans puzzle over the complexities of constitutional treaties to determine the future shape of their Union, some have been inclined to express a longing for clean, crisp texts. Whatever else it might have been, the 1707 Treaty of Union between England and Scotland was not that. Here was a document that addressed momentous issues and amassed detailed prescriptions, which delved into details for the regulation of the salt trade while it mandated the merger of parliaments, even of nations, as “one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain.” The very form of Christopher A. Whatley's book, written with the assistance of Derek J. Patrick, seems apposite, for here is a multilayered interpretation of the making of a composite text and its passage into constitutional fact. One of a clutch of substantial works emerging around the 300th anniversary of the Union, the present work is based on formidable research, while engaging extensively and carefully with modern treatments of the subject. It provides a detailed, yet fresh, treatment of events in 1706–7 but adds depth and breadth, examining political and economic developments in Scotland over the previous two decades and branching out to address such themes as “popular opinion” or the European context for Scottish developments. The sheer scope of the work, and the resulting detail, can, at times, obscure the central arguments being advanced; the interaction between the levels of explanation is not always clear, and the uninitiated may occasionally stumble over the identity and aspirations of some of the key players or groups discussed. Threads sometimes disappear, only to be picked up later. But if rereading is sometimes required, the effort is repaid, for the arguments made here are important ones, coherent, cogent, and alert to the complications of the political game.

Where some treatments of the politics of the Union insist almost exclusively on the explanatory force of short-term partisan political maneuvers or on the manipulative significance of the spoils of politics, Whatley argues not that these should be discounted but that they need to be folded into consideration of a “longer game” with larger political objectives at stake. He does not scruple to identify “shared ideologies—or at least political principles” among the “embryonic parties” of Scottish politics, alongside “common interests” (29, 35). Thus, the Union of 1707 is taken to be rooted in the practice of politics since the Revolution of 1688–89, and a central role is given to self-proclaimed champions of the “Revolution interest” among “old party” supporters of successive ministries across the 1690s and 1700s and the “new party” (or Squadrone volante [flying squadron]) whose votes decisively tipped the balance toward the treaty within the Scottish parliament in 1707. Beyond mere self-promotion, at least some such figures, he reckons, proved consistent in pursuit of such political objectives as the Protestant succession to the throne, the security of the settlement of 1688–89, or the economic welfare of Scotland. By 1707 some of them were prepared to accept that these goals were best secured through an incorporating Union.

This argument for continuity and consistency of political purpose involves a reassessment of other aspects of the making of the Union. There is a valuable description and interpretation of economic conditions in Scotland, not only in the agonizing, famine-struck decade of the 1690s but on into the new century in which “structural weaknesses” continued to dog the nation's economy and, indeed, the Scottish state itself, which was sometimes willing, but ultimately unable, to challenge the nation's fate in an increasingly competitive world. Debt, depression, and unfavorable trade balances persisted, and, Whatley insists, economic matters proved among the “more significant reasons” why the Union was carried (185). Revisiting the case advanced in his earlier publications, he does not suggest that Scottish sovereignty was simply bartered for free trade with England and its colonies as a sole hope for recovery. Rather, a “communication of trade” was a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the Union, a concession, on the English side, needed to start negotiations that were more than mere window dressing. Instead, additional, and valuable, benefits were secured for the Scots in the talks, supplemented by further “Explanations” added to the treaty as it progressed through the Edinburgh parliament. Together such measures are seen to have contributed to lessening hostility toward the treaty and to addressing some of the concerns of those who sought sectoral economic protection or some amelioration of the tax burdens that the new, British, state would necessarily impose. Salt and malt mattered.

So did religion. Attachment to the “Protestant interest,” not only in Scotland but internationally, is seen to draw support toward the Union, at least among political insiders. The more particular concerns of Presbyterianism, restored to establishment status in Scotland in 1690 and possibly at risk from a closer union with Anglican England, tugged in another direction and found wider expression outside the parliament house in pamphlets and petitions. There is some useful, if brief, discussion of this wider debate, and its importance is urged, but with legislation put in place to secure the Church of Scotland, popular opposition seems condemned merely to prop up the spirits of flagging Country Party MPs or to incline parliamentary managers to seek toward some tinkering with the terms of the Union. The concerns of “Revolutioners” only make sense if Jacobitism is taken seriously, and it is accorded significance, if not much sympathy, here. The Jacobites are also seen to be playing a long game, one that did not end in 1707. For all the consideration with which the often-maligned makers of the Union are handled, Whatley hardly gives a rosy picture of conditions in Scotland as part of the new Great Britain. As state demands grew, disorder spread, the church faced challenges from Westminster, and the economy failed to match expectations, “Scots of all political shades were at the ends of its tethers” within a few years (339). Frustration with the Union, rather than desire from dynastic change, is considered to have “reinvigorated” (325) Jacobitism in the 1710s. Yet, the other side of the coin is presented as the persistence of a commitment to the Protestant cause and the Revolution, a commitment that was certainly not centered on the new Union but that could incorporate incorporation.

Christopher Whatley has produced an important book. It fully merits the too-often-conceded epithet of “scholarly,” not as a synonym for the merely recondite but because this book blends its research findings into an intelligent grappling with complex, connected, and consequential events. It will challenge and in some cases doubtless provoke, but anyone wishing to understand the Union of 1707, in its fullness and its effects, must wrestle with the arguments developed here and can hope to enjoy a richly wrought account.