The secret plot to end Scottish independence

Summary

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HistoryExtra Podcast: "The Secret Plot to End Scottish Independence"

Date: May 14, 2026
Host: Isabel King
Guest: Dr. Mark Morawski (Fellow and Lecturer in English, University of Melbourne; author of A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe’s Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Isabel King guides a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes espionage and political maneuvering that helped bring about the 1707 Union of England and Scotland. Her guest, Dr. Mark Morawski, explores how Daniel Defoe, famed author and government agent, was crucial to the process, and how intelligence work and propaganda played an essential, though often hidden, role in undermining Scottish opposition to union.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Historical Context of Union (02:48–07:40)

• The Path to the 1707 Union:
  Relations between England and Scotland were long and complicated, dating back to the regnal union under James VI/I in 1603. Attempts at parliamentary union faltered repeatedly until the early 18th century.

  "The period that I'm really looking at is that final treaty, the treaty that comes about in 1706… that's the period in which Daniel Defoe has his sort of main impact on the progress of union." — Mark Morawski (03:01)

• Economic Disparities & Tensions:
  Scottish ambitions for economic development were continually frustrated by English dominance—Scotland’s population was much smaller, and its access to imperial benefits restricted by English policy and law. Tensions were exacerbated by longstanding Scottish ties to France, England’s rival.

• Religious and Dynastic Conflict:
  The Glorious Revolution (1688) brought distinct constitutional crises in England and Scotland, especially concerning succession and sovereignty.

  "It might sound like, you know, a little bit squabbling over small differences, but it's quite crucial." — Mark Morawski on the different English and Scottish views of James II’s removal (05:35)

• The Darien Scheme Failure:
  Scotland’s disastrous attempt at establishing a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, driven by William Paterson’s Company of Scotland, resulted in heavy loss of life and capital, deepening economic crises and fostering resentment.

  "It was a colossal failure... an unbelievable loss of people and capital. And it's this promise of economic development… that just crumbled." — Mark Morawski (08:11)

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Political Players and Shifting Alliances (10:16–12:58)

• Main Parliamentary Factions:

  • Court Party (pro-Union, associated with English government; led by Duke of Queensberry)
  • Country Party (main opposition, led by the complex Duke of Hamilton)
  • Cavaliers (largely Jacobite, pro-Stuart restoration)
  • Smaller blocs like the New Party and Squadrone Volante, who shifted alliances strategically.

• Shifting Loyalties:
  Individuals sometimes switched sides, especially when political fortunes changed—most notably, the Duke of Atholl’s dramatic move to the opposition after being implicated in a plot.

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Daniel Defoe: From Satirist to Government Agent (12:58–16:45)

• Defoe’s Pre-Spy Reputation:
  Once a polemic business failure and dissenter, Defoe’s biting satire, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, led to his prosecution, public punishment in the pillory, and eventual imprisonment.

  "He, Daniel Defoe, a dissenter... there's a warrant against him for seditious libel... he survives the pillory, but… is remanded back to Newgate Prison, which is a hellish place..." — Mark Morawski (13:13)

• Recruitment as an Agent:
  While in prison and facing debts, Defoe sought patronage, ultimately drawing the attention of Robert Harley, Secretary of State, who gained Defoe’s services as a propagandist and intelligence operative.

  "Harley secretly orchestrates Defoe's releasing, the payment of his sureties and his eventual pardon by the Queen, and from that point on, Defoe is Harley's agent to do with, as Harley directs." — Mark Morawski (19:25)

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Espionage and the Road to Union (21:45–25:43)

• Defoe’s Early Assignments:
  Before heading to Scotland, Defoe built intelligence and propaganda networks across England, cultivating contacts and distributing pro-government materials.

• Acts of Security and Alien Act:
  The Scottish Parliament’s refusal to accept English-imposed succession led to increasingly confrontational legislation on both sides.

  "The Scottish Parliament… managed to pass the Act of Security in 1704, which gives them the right to choose their own successor to Queen Anne..." — Mark Morawski (23:34)

  In response, England’s Alien Act (1705) threatened to make Scots aliens in England, increasing pressure for union negotiations.

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Intelligence Networks and the Undermining of Scottish Independence (25:30–27:31)

• Defoe’s Role in Scotland:
  Defoe monitored the Scottish Parliament, infiltrated committees, and targeted both opposition and public resistance—especially focusing on religious and economic anxieties.

  "He monitors the parliament, but he also insinuates himself into parliamentary subcommittees... He also deputes agents to the west, who are actually quite successful at denuding that resistance and preventing it from joining up with… the Jacobites of the Highlands..." — Mark Morawski (25:43)

• Broader Espionage Strategy:
  Harley’s network worked across Europe and Scotland to stymie Jacobite efforts and disorganize opposition—a mixture of surveillance, persuasion, and targeted sabotage.

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The Acts of Union: Provisions and Reactions (27:31–30:48)

• Key Provisions:
  The union dissolved Scotland’s Parliament, allotted Scottish MPs and peers to Westminster, ensured the Protestant succession, maintained Scottish law and church independence, and made payments to offset English taxes—some seen as compensation, others as bribes.

• Public Backlash:
  Union was deeply unpopular among the Scottish populace. Defoe himself reported muted and resentful public sentiment, despite later attempts to romanticize the event.

  "The treaty itself was deeply unpopular... the city was emptied out... the fact of Union allowed the opposition to it to consolidate." — Mark Morawski (28:55)

  Post-union, opposition solidified; Jacobite attempts to overturn the union followed quickly in 1708 and 1715.

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The Fate of Defoe’s Spy Network & His Legacy (30:48–35:06)

• Aftermath for Spies:
  As Harley’s political fortunes waned, the centralized intelligence structure collapsed. Many of its agents, including Defoe, were left adrift, while others struggled without support or funding.

  "Without Harley there, the sort of node of coordination fizzles out... That whole network, which could have done so much more... fizzles out without funds, without a centralized point of control." — Mark Morawski (31:01)

• Defoe’s Historical Legacy:
  Defoe exaggerated his own impact to secure recognition, but his efforts did alter the political landscape and neutralize some opposition. He also authored the first history of the Union (1709), using his research as a cover for espionage and later as a critical historical account.

  "A lot of the battle over something like the Union is the battle of who gets to claim how it was established and how it therefore works. And I think he played a very important role in that." — Mark Morawski (32:47)

• Could the Anti-Union Forces Have Succeeded?
  The union was neither wholly inevitable nor solely the product of bribery or political manipulation. Espionage helped tip the scales, but the outcome remained highly contingent.

  "There are enough moments where everything could have collapsed that I think careful management was needed... Would it have been successful without the spies? Maybe, but that doesn't diminish the fact that they helped make it happen." — Mark Morawski (35:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "He was a bad but very well known poet at this stage. A Hymn to the Pillory, which sort of calls for calm and... it looks like it was fairly successful. He survives the pillory..." — Mark Morawski on Defoe’s resilience (15:13)
• "I don’t think it was a fait accompli or anything." — Mark Morawski, on the union's contingency (27:31)
• "Defoe was not the world’s most discreet spy and lacked a bit of promotion. He then becomes an important novelist…" — Mark Morawski (34:00)

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Important Timestamps

• 1603–1707 regnal/parliamentary context: 03:01–05:27
• Religious/dynastic disputes: 05:35–07:40
• Darien Scheme & economic failure: 08:11–10:16
• Scottish parliamentary factions & shifting alliances: 10:27–12:58
• Defoe’s background, satire, and recruitment: 13:13–19:25
• Acts of Security, Alien Act: 23:34–25:30
• Espionage in the service of union: 25:43–27:31
• Union’s passing and provisions: 27:40–28:51
• Public reaction and aftermath: 28:55–30:48
• Winding down of spy networks and Defoe's legacy: 31:01–35:06
• Was Union inevitable? 35:11

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Conclusion

Dr. Mark Morawski and Isabel King illuminate not just the political machinations behind the 1707 Union, but the shadowy world of spies, misinformation, and proto-propaganda—showing how figures like Daniel Defoe played a contested but significant role. The union was forged less as a predestined step, and more as a fraught, fragile settlement shaped by shifting alliances, economic crises, and the clandestine work of individuals on the margins of official history.

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Transcript

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How did the union of England and Scotland come to fruition? And what did famous writer Daniel Defoe have to do with it? In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Mark Marowski joins Isabel King to explore how complicated the process of union was and the ways in which espionage played a key role in ending Scottish independence.

[Isabel King]

Hello Mark, thank you for joining me today. To kick us off, please can you set the scene for those who might not be as familiar with this time period, what is the historical context leading up to the debate over union that your book centres around?

[Mark Morawski]

Thanks, Isabel, and thanks for having me. Look, it's a long history. The Anglo Scottish relations go way back and I don't cover all of that. But the basic background to what I'm talking about probably begins in 1603, when James VI of Scotland becomes James I of something that resembles Great Britain. So England and Scotland have what is, to all intents and purposes, a regnal union. And Scotland maintains its Parliament, England maintains its Parliament. There's certain aspects that are governed separately, but they share a monarch and foreign policy is conducted through London. James wanted to have a combined parliament. It didn't really work. Under his reign, there were various attempts to unite England and Scotland, sort of more parliamentary union after that. Cromwell does it by just abolishing the Scottish Parliament. And there'd been attempts in the sort of early 18th century, in 1702, 1703, but they came to nothing. So the period that I'm really looking at is that final treaty, the treaty that comes about in 1706 and how it is then sent north to Scotland to be ratified by the Scottish Parliament. And that's the period I'm most interested in, because that's the period in which the sort of protagonist of my book, Daniel Defoe, has his sort of main impact on the progress of union. It also helps that that's the time that union is affected and comes into being after the 1707 Act.

[Isabel King]

What state were Anglo Scottish relations in at this time?

[Mark Morawski]

Not great. I mean, what happens with the regnal union is that what happens with a lot of these kind of geopolitical compacts, the dominant power dominates. And so Scots in this period were not getting the kind of access to the English empire or trade that they really wanted. And as a result, Scotland was really not as economically developed as England was. It's also much smaller. Our best figures are in 1700 there's about a million people in Scotland, probably 5 million or more in England at this time. So they kind of get swamped out and don't have the kind of agency in the world that they want because of this shared monarch. There's also two different national churches that there's tension between, and there's a lot of political economic struggles. It's not outright warfare as it has been in previous centuries, largely thanks to the shared monarch, but it's a very tense relationship. Not helped either by the fact that Scotland has these long standing alliances. With France, which in this period is England's greatest international foe.

[Isabel King]

And you mentioned there that they share a monarch, but there are disagreements over the succession of the monarch. How does that play into these relations?

[Mark Morawski]

So, in 1688, we have what in Whig history is called the Glorious Revolution. Your listeners will probably know, but William and Mary replaced James ii, the Catholic James ii. And the problem that arises is that the justification for this replacement is different in England than it is in Scotland. So in England, they have this sort of political fiction of abdication, but in Scotland, because the Parliament there has to sort of sanction it a bit later, they say he forefalted the Crown. So it might sound like, you know, a little bit squabbling over small differences, but it's quite crucial. So that forefalting, because they've declared that the balance of sovereignty shifts even more to the Scottish Parliament than it does to the English Parliament. But there's also more resistance to William and Mary in Scotland than there is in England. There's the first Jacobite uprising in the 1690s. So Jacobite, from the Latin Jacob is for James, are those who followed the original Stuart line. And that becomes a sort of a mainstay of Scottish nationalism and a sort of a hope for a different kind of rule. So those who yearn for this absolutist Stuart rule support the now exiled King and his descendants, and they have a really big constituency of support in Scotland. So England wants to ratify a Protestant succession. In 1701, the English Parliament passes the act of Settlement, which passes the throne onto the Electress of Hanover, Sophia, and her descendants, who become the Georgians. But she's 58th in line to the throne. If you just do the little bit of political dynastic mapping. And so the English Parliament ratify this without consulting the Scottish Parliament. And so the Scottish Parliament really take umbrage to the fact that a successor has been chosen from, essentially Germany, from Hanover, without their consent. So it's not just that they're sharing a monarch, a new monarch is essentially being chosen for them. And so they take various attempts to call back what they see as their sovereign right over this. The dynastic succession is one of the main issues that comes up in the

[Isabel King]

progression to Union now, listeners, if you want to explore what might have happened if James II hadn't been deposed in 1688, you can find our counterfactual history on the History Extra website, which will be linked below. Mark, you mentioned there that this religious turmoil was central to these difficult relations. But there is also the political and economic impacts that are affecting Scotland. And one of those was the failure of the Darien scheme. Could you tell us what that was and why it failed?

[Mark Morawski]

Right. So, as I was talking about before, Scotland really wants the engines of economic development. And in this period, a lot of that was an extractive empire, or at least a trading post in what they called the New World. The English Navigation Acts really restricted Scottish participation in empire. But there was still a company of Scotland Trading that was established in the 1690s by William Paterson, who becomes one of the spies that I write about in this book, and they establish or try to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama on the idea that this is a key point of intersection between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. And the aim of the colony is to act as a sort of trading post to give Scotland a kind of foothold in the New World, to give them a base of trade, to really drive economic development at home, as empires tended to do. And it was a joint stock company, so they got a lot of investors across Scotland, a lot of Scottish institutions, a lot of the magnate families, a lot of the royal burghers, the cities invested in this company. Couple of problems. Spain really laid claim to this territory already. It wasn't continually occupied, but Spain had close outposts in Cartagena and all around the isthmus. So they had a major foe there, William iii, who was king at the time, still doesn't want to risk his sort of diplomacy with the Spanish. And so he withdraws support. He never really supported this sort of form behind his back. And so the. The English essentially withdraw support. And with that, it's sort of the death knell of the colony. That, plus tropical diseases, plus bad planning, ill supplies. It's an absolute wasteland of death. In Panama itself, on the sea voyages there and back, there were two sort of main expeditions that went. And it was a colossal failure. It was an unbelievable loss of people and capital. And it's this promise of economic development that Scotland held with this putative empire just crumbled. And they were arguably in a worse place economically than before.

[Isabel King]

Various political parties or factions were involved in the process leading up to union. Could you just break down the main political players for us and what their beliefs were and why they mattered?

[Mark Morawski]

So in the Scottish Parliament, we've got to think of these, like you said, as more. They're not political parties in the sense that we have modern political parties. They're much looser affiliations, but they do form voting blocks, which is why they're important. The sort of. The main groupings at this point were the Court Party, led on and off, but mostly by the Duke of Queensberry. They were associated with government. They were essentially government. They were closely allied to the English Ministry, and they were the main drivers of the Union project. The main opposition were the Country Party, led at various stages by the ineffective, rakish and rather interesting but troubled character of the Duke of Hamilton. And they are the main opposition to Union. We also have the Cavaliers, who are mostly Jacobites. They mostly want a Stuart restoration, the return of James and his offspring, so that they can have a Stuart monarchy with all that means for clan patronage, all that means for sort of indefeasible hereditary right. And those are the main groupings. We have smaller groupings that split off, that at various stages call themselves the New Party and the Squadrone Volante. And they form this sort of independent voting bloc that eventually sides with the Court and the Unionists. But those are the main groupings. The difficulty I had, sort of writing this book, more as a literary historian than a historian of Scottish politics, is trying to figure out who's changing and who's moving and how their affiliations are changing. But those are the basic groupings in the overarching ratification debate that happens.

[Isabel King]

You just said there. It's difficult to understand all the different affiliations and the changes. Was that a common thing? Do people change sides a lot or was it largely kept as is?

[Mark Morawski]

That's such an interesting question, and I don't really have huge data on it, but people do shift in and out. The main issue we have in this period is the Duke of Athol, who was associated with the Court but is implicated in a plot unfairly. And so he switches quite abruptly to the Cavaliers and tries to become one of the key opposition leaders. And that's a major shift that has political implications and military implications because of the support he has in the Highlands, where there's such a wealth of military force and power. So there are shifts like that. I'd say that there are key people who switch at, important times. Athol, the Earl of Marr. But I don't know if there's a promiscuous shifting of alliances. I don't think so. I think the blocs look fairly stable just looking at their voting patterns.

[Isabel King]

Now, into this complicated political arena enters Daniel Defoe. We'll discuss him in more detail as a government agent. So soon. But what social, political relevance did he have before becoming a government agent?

[Mark Morawski]

So he was a businessman, a merchant and a writer. A terrible businessman. He imported civet cats at one stage because their glands were useful in the perfume industry. That failed. He ran an unsuccessful brick and roof tile factory that went out of business just before the Great Storm necessitated so much repairs in London and Bristol. So not a great businessman, more an economic thinker than he was an economic doer. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but he was also a writer, a polemicist, and in terms of his politics, he was Whiggish. He believed in the Revolution and the Revolution settlement, that was the sort of bedrock of his politics, but crucially, was also a dissenter. So somebody whose religion fell outside the bounds of the Anglican Church. He was a Presbyterian, which is, not coincidentally, dominant religion in Scotland. So he's a writer. And during the sort of early 1700s, there's quite a lot of debate about comprehension and the Anglican Church settlement and who can be part of it, and the political role dissenters might play, or the sort of potential rebellion against the sort of Anglican state mechanism. And he gets quite agitated by the strident rhetoric of what we call the High Church, those who, like the Anglicanism, you know, is very much fixed quite close to Catholicism in some ways, but who have no compromise with dissenters, really. And so he writes the satire called the Shortest Way with the Dissenters, in which he sort of apes the voice of a High Church preacher. And he basically calls for the extirpation of dissenters from England, unfortunately, publishes it anonymously. But when it's revealed that he was the writer, he, Daniel Defoe, a dissenter, there's a warrant against him for seditious libel. He goes into hiding. He's eventually arrested and sentenced to stand in the pillory three times. And the pillory is quite a horrific punishment. You're held up there in these stocks with your neck, your arms. The crowd below really are the sort of meters out of justice. And they can throw stones. There's accounts of death, there's accounts of people breaking bones, but he manages to circulate a poem beforehand. He was a bad but very well known poet at this stage. A Hymn to the Pillory, which sort of calls for calm and calls for the pillory not to have the social degradation on him as it has on others. And it looks like it was fairly successful. He survives the pillory, but he has to find funds to pay his sureties. And so he's essentially remanded back to Newgate Prison, which is a hellish place, and there he sort of waits and suffers

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[Isabel King]

After his time on the pillory, he was recruited as an agent for the government who recruited him after his arrest, and what value did they see in him?

[Mark Morawski]

So Robert Harley, who was speaker of the House of commons, and by 1704, when he starts doing the recruiting, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, which in this period includes Scotland, he, from a couple of years back, had been trying to persuade his senior colleagues, the Earl of Godolphin and Duke of Marlborough, the treasurer and the General, that they should really be on the lookout for writers who could state facts right, who could essentially act as government propagandists. Defoe, while he was in prison, starts writing letters to all the people he thinks could help him. He writes one to William Patterson, who we talked about as the Darien projector and the sort of architect of the Darien scheme, knowing, I think, that Patterson was in touch with Harley, that Patterson had been sending sort of minor bits of intelligence to Harley and to Godolphin as a way to try and bring back favor. And in this letter, he asks Patterson to sort of recommend him to ha le on the proviso that he will then write nicely about Harley and the Godolphin ministry. Patterson sits on this letter for a while. He keeps it for a month. You know, he doesn't really act fast. It's quite a dangerous thing to have a letter from a fugitive. He does pass it on to Harley. Harley sees this. It sort of fits with his broader plans to establish this propaganda, this wing, this army of propagandists. But again, he sits on it for a while, letting Defoe stew in Newgate, I think, so that he would then be more politically sort of malleable, more dependent and more needy. Harley secretly orchestrates Defoe's releasing, the payment of his sureties and his eventual pardoned by the Queen and from that point on, Defoe is Harley's agent to do with, as Harley directs.

[Isabel King]

Was this an unusual occurrence or is there evidence of this happening elsewhere with other people?

[Mark Morawski]

Yeah, it happens. It happens a fair bit often because there's defectors from Europe who are then imprisoned, who then become more what we think of as double agents. As far as I know, this is the only time Harley gets a writer in this way. Often he just recruits writers because they write well. But it's a kind of unique confluence of circumstance when a writer has written so persuasively, persuaded many people into this hoax, ends up in prison as a result. Harley needs a writer. It's sort of. It all falls into place. Harley was quite adept at recruiting spies and agents and writers as he saw fit. And this just. This kind of fell into his lap.

[Isabel King]

And what was Defoe tasked with doing in Scotland?

[Mark Morawski]

Well, he wasn't sent to Scotland straight away. In fact, he really wanted to be sent to overseas. He still had huge debts, he had creditors, his business ventures. He'd already been in prison for debt by this stage once, so he wanted a posting overseas. That's the plum job for the spy. He doesn't get it. The first year and a bit nearly two years that he works for Harley, he's sent to the eastern counties and then he's sent on a bigger tour all around England, I think as far north as Leeds, as far south as Plymouth. And basically what he's doing on these tours is he's forming a kind of political demography. He's both in the lead up to the 1705 election and afterwards as a post mortem, he's seeing which constituencies voted and how, who the power brokers were, what the electoral mechanics were. At the same time, he's sort of establishing his own network of informants and distribution agents. So he has from them, up to the minute intelligence of what's happening in all these far flung places across the country. But he also has a ready network of people who will then disseminate the writing that he sends to them. So he has essentially, for the first little bit before he sent to Scotland, he's building up a propaganda informational intelligence network in England. Things in Scotland are going south. It looks like there might be an actual splitting of the two countries because of the sort of act of security that the Scottish Parliament passes and enact. And so Harley starts sending agents north. The first one, William Gregg, not so successful. Paterson's there. But it's at this stage that he really. He and Godolphin come together and think, okay, we'll send Defoe north to make sure that the treaty that has been agreed upon gets ratified by Scotland.

[Isabel King]

You mentioned there the act of Security and the Alien Act. Could you tell us more about what these were and their impacts in response to?

[Mark Morawski]

We were talking about England choosing their own successor. Electress of Hanover and her issue, the Scottish Parliament, are very much upset by this, and they managed to pass the act of security in 1704, which gives them the right to choose their own successor to Queen Anne, who has no offspring. They also pass another act, the Act, An End Peace and War, which gives them their own capacity to enter into war or declare peace, and a Wine act, which allows them to trade with France, which was banned during global conflict with France by England. So basically, what the Scottish Parliament is doing across 1704 is trying to claw back some sovereignty. Their own capacity to choose a monarch related to their interpretation of 1688, their own capacity to declare peace and war, so they're not embroiled in all of England's conflicts and their own capacity to trade. And so these three Acts work together to sort of really set up an intolerable impasse with England, who need for their own security to ensure the Hanoverian succession with Scotland. They don't want Scotland breaking off, you know, being close to France, and they don't want it as a sort of back door to invasion of the British Isles, which it becomes. So they were right to be worried. So, in response, the English Parliament passes the alien act of 1705, which essentially denaturalizes, or not even denaturalises. It makes Scottish subjects aliens to the English Crown, which has huge legal implications, goes against English common law, but it sort of removes them from English subjecthood. But the Alien act also has a provision to appoint new Union Commissioners, which is what happens. So, you know, there's this whole back and forth of repeal and negotiation, and what eventually happens is they appoint Union Commissioners from Scotland and England who meet in London and finally, after much negotiation, agree upon a treaty which is then set north. Soon after, Defoe follows.

[Isabel King]

Within this kind of political turmoil, how was the intelligence that Defoe and his network gathered used to go against the Union and undermine the Scottish independence movement?

[Mark Morawski]

Yeah, that's so interesting. And that really is the crux of the book. So when Harley sends Defoe north, he wants him to monitor the Parliament, ensure the ratification is going, and persuade those who he thinks are persuadable towards Union. I mean, Harley is a very lax spymaster in a lot of ways he lets his agents in the field do what they think they need to do, often without sufficient financial support or instructions. So Defoe's remit really expands. He monitors the Parliament, but he also insinuates himself into parliamentary subcommittees that were dealing with religion and economics, the two main impediments to Union. He also deputes agents to the west, where there's sort of Covenant radical Presbyterian resistance. And he sends agents west, who are actually quite successful at denuding that resistance and preventing it from joining up with sort of the Jacobites of the Highlands, which was something the English really feared. The network is far bigger than Defoe. That's just Defoe's remit. Haaly also has agents on the Continent, an exiled court in Saint Germain in France, monitoring and sort of undermining attempts of the Jacobites to get a foothold during the Union negotiations and potentially invade, which they do in 1708. Spoiler alert. And again in 1715. And at the same time, Defoe is also writing propaganda that's targeted to the key debates. So it's a sort of. It's a really intricate picture of like, written persuasion, spoken persuasion, sabotage of independence movements, but also trying to apprehend the global threat. And that all comes under Hawley's purview. So it's quite a lot to ensure that the Union passes. And I think there's reasons why it hadn't passed. Nothing had passed before, so there's significant factors to deal with. I don't think it was a fait accompli or anything.

[Isabel King]

So there was a very long back and forth process to get to the Acts of Union, but when did they actually pass and what were the main stipulations outlined in them?

[Mark Morawski]

So they passed and had come into effect in early 1707. The main stipulations were they ensured the Hanoverian succession. They eliminated the Scottish Parliament and determined the number of members who would sit in the House of Commons in England in a new United Commons, and also the sort of the number of representative peers who had joined the Lords. They proposed an equivalent, which Defoe and Paterson were both deeply involved in, which was a lump sum payment to be distributed, which was to essentially offset what was going to happen with Scotland's assumption of England's tax burden. So it sort of offset that, but it was also used as compensation for Darien and some say as targeted bribery. The Acts also specified the independence and security of the Scottish Church and sort of the independence within reason of the legal system. So they basically sewed together Two countries and determined sort of taxation as well. They sewed together two countries parliamentarily, economically, and really made what is called a cooperative union rather than two federal states. It's when one state is essentially subsumed into a greater state, which becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

[Isabel King]

And what kind of reactions were there when this finally passed?

[Mark Morawski]

So the reason Defoe was in Scotland was that the treaty itself was deeply unpopular. There's widespread popular backlash, which is why they send somebody like Defoe to help keep the public under wraps just long enough for the parliamentarians and the extra parliamentary committees to sort everything out and ensure ratification. But the reaction, you know, it wasn't great. Defoe talks about on the day of when the Union passes the Scottish Parliament, and that the cannons from Edinburgh Castle sort of ring out and he can almost hear in them saying, union, union. I mean, yeah, it's a moment of sort of really bad writing. And I say this as a huge Defoe fan, obviously, but it wasn't like that at all. It was very muted. The city was emptied out. But what Union did was the fact of Union allowed the opposition to it to consolidate in a way that they never did during the Union debates, because there was infighting, because Defoe and others spurred this infighting with their sabotage work, because they opposed the Union for too many contradictory reasons. You know, it's very difficult to get Jacobites and Catholics to unite with radical Presbyterians on the other side. But what Union does is now it's on the ground, it's actually happened. And so opposition builds. It also doesn't help that in the years after, the new United Parliament were very high handed in their treatment of Scotland. So, yeah, rebellion mounts. There's a massive reaction in 1708, there's a Jacobite invasion. There's another, more successful one in 1715, both put down, but it's a very unsteady Union. It's not this memorial set in stone kind of political compact. It is much more negotiable. And I think that is because so much of the persuasion was on mutual benefit. And when one side or both sides perceive that that mutual benefit no longer exists, then I think there's trouble.

[Isabel King]

So Defoe's spy network obviously still had a lot of work to do in the immediate aftermath of the passing of the Acts of Union. But what happened to them longer term, once that had passed, did they still have work to do or did they fizzle out?

[Mark Morawski]

It's more a case of fizzling out. They still had immense work to do. There were still people Doing important work within that, especially in Europe. John Goulvey, one of Halley's key Jacobite double agents, still has quite a lot of work to do. The problem is, Halley falls from power in 1708, comes back with the sort of accession of George I, is tried for treason and ends up in the Tower of London. So without Harley there, the sort of node of coordination fizzles out. Defoe ends up working for Godolphin for a bit and for other later Secretaries of State, but he never does the same kind of work as he did for Haley. That whole network, which could have done so much more, that network of distribution across England, kind of fizzles out without funds, without a centralized point of control, without attention, really. These things need maintenance. And because of the political turmoil in England and within Harley's own career, it just never gets there. So the spies aren't properly brought in from the cold and they suffer the neglects and the depredations to themselves and to their families because the pay isn't there. They have no connection to their. Where they actually want to live. Some were Scottish, but, you know, many wanted to come back to England. There's a historian in the 20th century who says Defoe is the founder of MI5 for all this work. And I don't think so, because so much of intelligence gathering in this period was attached to the particular Secretary of State. And with the sort of change, especially changes across the political divide, the Whig Tory divide, the networks don't always transplant very easily. And so, yeah, I think that really undermines their long term efficacy and success.

[Isabel King]

In the book, you suggest that Defoe exaggerated his own contributions to the intelligence network around the Union. Why do you think this is and what is his legacy now?

[Mark Morawski]

I think exaggeration happens, if I can speculate, because they aren't given their dues. And one of Harley's agents talks about the fact that those underneath the principals, who are really the focus of my book, what we would think of as political operatives and spies, they aren't really credited. It's those above them that are credited with these big, monumental historical actions. Whereas what I'm trying to do with the book is say, well, actually, so much of the work happens at that level below which is where Defoe sits. He's insecure about having written for the government. He wants to show that he's done good work, but that he also hasn't compromised his principles. And he often, he writes his letters in a way that knowing that Harley preserves these things, he wants history to take Note of this. So that's kind of why he exaggerates things. I think his legacy is important in a number of ways. I think he did actually have an effect. I think he exaggerated it. And I think the countervailing tendency of some historians is to underplay it. But new research by Karen Bowie and others has shown how popular the opposition movement was. And I think we need to pay attention to certain things that happened, preventing them from. From gaining full steam, the opposition. I mean, Defoe manages to neutralize some of the opposition within the Kirk, or at least prevent Kirk, Church of Scotland ministers from taking a more active role in opposing the Union. So I think he did have an effect there. He also wrote the first history of the Union, which he used when he was a spy as a cover story. He's like, I'm going to write the history of the Union. And because of that, he got access to all these sort of parliamentary negotiations and internal minutes and material that he used as espionage sources. But then he used later to write the first history of the Union, which historians still use in cite. So a lot of the battle over something like the Union is the battle of who gets to claim how it was established and how it therefore works. And I think he played a very important role in that. Publishing in 1709, two years after it was in effect. Defoe was a very fast writer, so he sets the historiography of the Union in an important way. And I think that's crucial to his legacy. I think he was not the world's most discreet spy and lacked a bit of promotion. He then becomes, you know, somewhat of an important novelist. But that happens towards the end of his life.

[Isabel King]

Do you think anti Union forces could have been successful, or do you think the Union was inevitable?

[Mark Morawski]

I don't think it's as inevitable as it has been presented as sort of a glorious triumphal, fait accompli. Nor do I think it was something of a completely political job. Parcel of rogues in a nation bribed by the £20,000 that Queensberry had to distribute. It's somewhere between that and it's really hard to do the counterfactual. But there are enough moments where everything could have collapsed that I think careful management was needed. By the same token, Haley and others dropped the ball in many ways as well. So there was going to be something at one stage, Defoe says it's going to be Union or Civil war. That might be overstating it. This is me being the careful historian, but I think, would it have been successful without the spies. Maybe, but that doesn't diminish the fact that they helped make it happen.

[Home Depot and History Extra Narrator]

That was Mark Morawski speaking to Isabel King. Mark is a fellow and lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne. His new book, which shares more details about Anglo Scottish politics and the road to union, is A Spy Amongst Us, Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence.

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