Andrew Fletcher - The Patriot - (1653 - 1716)
"All of our affairs,
since the union of crowns, have been managed by the advice of English ministers,
and the principal offices of the kingdom filled with such men, as the court of
England knew would be subservient to their designs: by which means they had so
visible an influence upon our whole administration, that we have, from that
time, appeared to the rest of the world more like a conquered province, than a
free independent people."
So said Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a man
of strong republican views, addressing the Scots Parliament in May 1703. He was
of course speaking about the effect of the Union of the Crowns (1603), on the
independence of the Scottish nation.
His pertinent remarks, could equally
be applied today to the Parliamentary Union which took place between Scotland
and England 289 years ago, in 1707.
In the 1990s Scotland is still ruled
by the dictat of an unrepresentative English Tory Government. Scotland's
institutions have been stuffed with political appointees and quislings, serving
the political will of the Scottish Secretary, turning Scotland into an
undemocratic QUANGO state. [Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental
Organisation]
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, born in 1653, had been elected
to the Scottish Estates aged 25 in 1679. He fiercely opposed The Succession Act
on the grounds that James (The Old Pretender) would be just as tyrannical as his
predecessors. As a result of his continued opposition to Government dictat he
was accused of sedition (and acquitted), however not long after he fled to
Holland and lived in exile from 1682 until 1689, only returning when William of
Orange assumed the crown.
Fletcher was a fierce advocate of the continued
Independence of The Scots Parliament, and throughout the proceedings of 1703
through to the eventual Act of Union in 1707, he was outspoken in his
condemnation. He had allies, most notably Lord Belhaven who accused the
Scotland's nobility of selling out....
I see a free and independent
kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for, since the
days of Nimrod, to wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves
without the assistance and counsel of any other.
But above all, I see our
ancient mother Caledonia, like Caesar sitting in the midst of our Senate,
ruefully looking about her, covering herself with her royal garment, attending
the fatal blow, and breathing out her last with a "Et tu quoque mi
fili".
Robert
Burns put it even better....
"We're bought and sold for English
gold, such a parcel o' rogues in a nation"
Today, Andrew Fletcher
and his ideals are remembered through the establishment of The Andrew Fletcher Society
which holds regular lectures and discussions on Scottish concerns.
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