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PREFACE
It is the object of these volumes to follow the
course of Scottish history from the time when Scotland was divided from its
southern neighbour by well-defined lines of demarcation, alike in religion,
in politics, in tradition, and in social habit — when, indeed, the points of
contact were but few and unimportant— down to the period when the Scottish
nation, while preserving some valuable and durable national characteristics,
became, as regards all its main interests and in the main current of its
history, absorbed in one stream with that southern neighbour, with whom it
has now formed a partnership so close as to share a common life, and, in the
eyes of Europe, to be almost identical. The history of Scotland down to the
Jacobite rising of 1745 has been treated very fully in previous works. But
in those works the first half of the eighteenth century has been dealt with
chiefly as the concluding chapter of her national history—not as it affected
the period which was to follow. It has therefore been found necessary in
these volumes to recapitulate shortly the leading events of that half
century, as opening the new chapter in Scottish history which began with the
Revolution and the Act of Union—episodes, indeed, complementary to one
another. From that point Scotland began to shape a new phase in her national
life.
As the plan of the present work is to give a chronological narrative of the
leading historical events down to the middle of the nineteenth century, it
has been necessary to include in it an account of the rising of 1745. But as
that dramatic and romantic episode has formed the subject of many detailed
narratives, and as the personal history of many of the chief actors has been
fully told, the present account of it has been confined to the main events,
which alone may be held to come within the history of the nation as a whole.
From 1745 onwards the history of Scotland has hitherto been treated for the
most part only as subsidiary to the history of the Empire, and as forming a
subordinate chapter in the history of England. Besides this we have, as
illustrating Scottish life, a large and most interesting series of memoirs,
of accounts of social traits, of pictures of manners, and of contemporary
reminiscences. The history of the great ecclesiastical struggle, which
culminated in 1843, has been treated as an episode apart, and not as a phase
of national history, with its origin in the past and with its permanent
influence on national character. The object of these volumes is to give a
chronological narrative of all the principal incidents —political,
ecclesiastical, and legislative, as well as literary, social, and commercial
— which form the history of Scotland throughout a very momentous century, in
the course of which the character of her permanent' contribution to the
common life of the Empire was chiefly shaped.
H. C.
January 1901.
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Volume 2 |
