Succession To The Throne : Some Thoughts On The Subject by Alfred N.Muggins : Part 2 : Particularly Involving Scotland

Elizabeth finally cracked the Succession problem by giving England to a Scottish King when she died in 1603, who was in the lineage. This also solved the problem of disputes between England and Scotland, as the Scots could no longer complain that they were not ‘top dog’ in the relationship, although unfortunately that did not stop a lot of Scots from continuing to complain over the following 400 years.

Part 2 : Particularly Involving Scotland

       A lot of these Scottish complaints were because the Scottish Stuarts kept losing the throne again and again! Charles I upset the English Parliament and had the throne taken off him by force for a period (in which he did admittedly lose his head) – but the throne was given back to Charles Stuart II a few years later. But then his little brother James II then lost it again, by stupidly deciding to become overtly Catholic again (If he had stayed as a closet Catholic he might just have held onto it)!

     Even then Mary Stuart, the daughter of James II, was married to William of Orange, so the throne was not entirely taken off the Scottish Stuarts, (as long as they were Anglican Protestant). They still didn’t do a good job of keeping the throne because Mary Stuart died quite soon in 1694, finally allowing the throne to go fully to her foreign Dutch husband William, but then (Guess what?) he too died in 1699! It seemed that the Stuarts and even their husbands just could not keep the throne for long. They were a bit like a football team who just could not keep possession of the ball! Was this the curse of the English throne?

     So then the throne was given back to yet another member of the Scottish Stuarts, James II’s younger daughter, and sister of Mary, who was also still an Anglican Protestant, which was all the English Establishment required of them. The new monarch was Queen Anne who embarked upon a lengthy attempt to get more heirs for the Stuarts to rule England and Scotland with. Unfortunately she tried very hard, but of 17 pregnancies none survived her to inherit the throne when she died in 1714. Her only living son had died at 11, and two daughters died very young!

     And surprise! surprise! The Scottish Stuarts lost the throne again, unless the English Parliament had allowed the Catholic Stuarts or Jacobites back into power?

     Anyway, whichever way you look at it Scotland lost control of England again, and the United Throne was handed to a German Royal Family called the Hannoverians of Hannover.

     The Scots had just not been very good at hanging on to the throne, but they had achieved the Union of the Parliaments and the Kingdoms, so had earned the right to be a full part of the British Imperial Superpower which arose out of all this combination and economic and industrial development.

     Unfortunately some of the Scots are still complaining about this 400 years later, as they are voting in large numbers for the Scottish Nationalists who say they want to leave the British Parliamentary Union and learn to swim alone in the choppy international waters of the world. They voted in 2014, but most of them did not dare to take to the seas alone! We still don’t know what they will decide to do next time they get the chance. Will they stay or will they go, or should I say ‘should’?

    Probably they will go around and around, like the nationalists, often named after fish, threatening to leave, but never quite plucking up the courage!