THE USE OF LOCKHART’S MEMOIRS (1714) IN THE WRITINGS OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WHIG HISTORIANS OF THE ANGLO-SCOTTISH UNION (1707)

Eighteenth-century Whig historians of the Union (1707) reacted to Lockhart’s Tory-Jacobite Memoirs in different ways. While John Oldmixon (1672-1742) incorporated passages from them into his account of the Union for the sake of confuting them, Abel Boyer (1667-1729) and Nicholas Tindal (1687-1774) endorsed them to a large degree, borrowing from them extensively. Then, several historians writing in the mid- to late eighteenth century such as Thomas Somerville (1740-1830) or Malcolm Laing (1762-1818) approached them with an open mind, but also some critical distance, revealing an evolution in British historiography towards a more scholarly approach to historical sources. Except for Oldmixon’s accounts, all those historians’ expositions of the Union were to some extent impacted by Lockhart’s Memoirs. Far from using the latter only as a storehouse of information on the Union, they were all in some measure influenced by Lockhart’s vision of that event and, as a result, ideologically hybrid


Introduction
No historian of the Anglo-Scottish Union (1707) writing after 1714 could afford to overlook George Lockhart of Carwarth's Memoirs endorsed them with few or no reservations. Instead, my purpose is to investigate how eighteenth-century Whig historians used those Memoirs and in what ways their accounts of the Union were influenced by them.
I shall show that those Whig historians exploited Lockhart's Tory-Jacobite Memoirs in very different ways. Thus, John Oldmixon (1672/3-1742) incorporated passages from them into his accounts of the Union for the sake of confuting them. On the other hand, Abel Boyer (1667Boyer ( -1729 and Nicholas Tindal (1687-1774) endorsed Lockhart's Memoirs to a large degree, borrowing from them extensively, sometimes quoting from them, sometimes unashamedly plagiarising them. Finally, several historians writing in the mid-to late eighteenth century such as William Guthrie (1708-1770), Thomas Somerville (1740-1830), Robert Heron (1764-1807), Ebenezer Marshal (d.1813), or Malcolm Laing (1762-1818) used them with an open mind, but also some critical distance and caution. 4 The authors I have included in my analysis may not quite conform to our definition of what a historian is and might, to some extent, be described as polemicists; but they all saw themselves as historians. I have discarded from my corpus authors who defined themselves exclusively as journalists or controversialists. Besides, I have only considered works in which Lockhart's Memoirs were extensively quoted and discussed. 5 As I go along, it will appear that these different uses of Lockhart's Memoirs reflect an evolution in British historiography towards a more scholarly approach to historical sources and a move away from compilations to explanatory narratives. Concerning the historiography of the Union proper, I shall first show that by mounting an onslaught on Lockhart's Memoirs, Oldmixon harnessed a polemical kind of history in the service of a purely Whig interpretation of the Union from which all Tory elements were purged. Then, I shall argue that by deferentially incorporating many passages from Lockhart's magnum opus into their own accounts of the Union, Abel Boyer and Nicholas Tindal concocted ideologically hybrid versions of that transaction. Finally, I shall contend that by adopting an open and unprejudiced attitude to Lockhart's Memoirs, the mid-to late eighteenth-century Whig historians of the Union worked out critical unionist, proto-academic, semi-hybrid interpretations of that measure. Their achievements were encouraged by a general change in attitudes towards the Union. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Scots came to accept it "as part of the barely noticed but enduring backdrop of British politics." 6 Banal unionism prevailed. 7 As a result, historians were able to take a more relaxed view of the Union.

John Oldmixon's Onslaught on Lockhart's Memoirs : A Polemical Kind of History in the Service of a Purely Whig
History of the Union of Scotland and England (1993). Admittedly, Clerk declared in his "Memorandums" that he had composed that work to undeceive those who believed that the Union had been "brought about by corruption and compulsion," as claimed by Lockhart

Interpretation of the Union
The English historian and polemicist John Oldmixon provided detailed accounts of the Union in Memoirs of North-Britain (1715) and The History of England, During the Reigns of King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, King George I (1735). 8 If he incorporated into those works many passages from Lockhart's Memoirs, it was primarily for the sake of confuting them. He accused their author of misrepresenting facts 9 and committing "a Thousand Errors, both of Will and Judgment." 10 The Memoirs were so spoilt by mistakes that "no use [could] be made of them for Information." 11 Among other things, Lockhart got several of his dates wrong and superstitiously made "wonderful Remarks on the Act of Union as so many [providential] Judgments attending it." 12 The Union, Oldmixon argued, was not a punishment inflicted by God on the Scots, as Lockhart credulously believed. It was essentially a human affair. Lockhart was also incorrect about the immediate causes of the Union. It was not the product of the English Court's intrigues to secure Sydney Godolphin's position as Lord Treasurer and prevent his being called to account by the Tories for advising Queen Anne to give her assent to the Scottish Act of Security (1704), 13 as claimed by the Jacobite memorialist, but the effect of the English ministers' sincere efforts to settle the Protestant succession in Scotland on the same basis as in England, since, as was well known, the Scots would not adopt it unless it was incorporated into an act of union with England. 14 8 John Oldmixon, Memoirs of North-Britain (London, 1715); J. Besides, Oldmixon rejected Lockhart's view that the negotiations which gave rise to the Treaty of Union were a masquerade and that the Scottish Commissioners were in collusion with their English counterparts : "The Memoir-Writer represents the whole Progress of the Treaty as a Combination between the English and Scotch Commissioners; and yet cou'd any Thing be carry'd on with more Solemnity, more Order, and more Impartiality?" 15 The members of the Scottish Commission did their best to defend their country's interests. Lockhart's accusation that they "betray'd the Liberty of their Country, in agreeing to an incorporating Union" was "groundless." 16 Indeed, the laws securing Scottish liberties were preserved by the Union and, as a result of that transaction, Scotland was less dependent on England than formerly. 17 Besides, contrary to Lockhart's claims, the financial and fiscal arrangements of the Treaty of Union were generous to the Scots and greatly benefited them. 18 The Equivalent-the sum of £400,000 negotiated by the Scottish Commissioners in return for taking on a share of the English national debt 19 -was a real gift to them, although by no means a bribe, as suggested by Lockhart. 20 The Jacobite memorialist was just as wrong when it came to discussing the number of representatives granted to the Scots by Article XXII of the Treaty of Union. He complained that it was too small, "Sixteen Lords, and Forty-five Commoners, not being an equal Proportion to that of England." 21 But the Commissioners settled on the right number. On the basis of its taxable value, Scotland would have had too few representatives, while on that of its population, it would have had too many. Therefore, quite appropriately, the two criteria were combined-some extra weight being given to the first one, which was the more suitable of the two. 22 15 Oldmixon, Memoirs, 176. 16  Oldmixon also blamed Lockhart for exaggerating the popular opposition to the Union and painting it in favourable colours. The Scots were not hostile to the Union initially. If some of them eventually stood up against it, it was only because they were manipulated by the Jacobites, who misrepresented the contents of the Treaty to them. 23 Unlike Lockhart, Oldmixon failed to see any virtue in the behaviour of the anti-unionist petitioners, who were not to be compared with the illustrious Kentish petitioners-who were sent to prison in 1701 for protesting against the House of Commons' refusal to allow the creation of a standing army : "The Gentlemen of Kent [were sent] to Goal for Petitioning in a much more mannerly and submissive way than the Scotch Burghs address'd their Parliament, for which the Author of the Memoirs so highly extolls their Courage and Wisdom." 24 Neither did Oldmixon share Lockhart's sympathy for the anti-unionist rioters: those in Edinburgh only consisted of "Mob and Boys," 25 while those in Glasgow were no better than plunderers. 26 The two historians' views of the role and performances of anti-unionist Scottish MPs were just as far apart. Unlike Lockhart, Oldmixon had no kind words to spare for the Duke of Hamilton, the leader of the opposition, in whom he saw a rebel, who relied more on the power of arms than on the strength of reasoning. 27 On the other hand, Oldmixon kept praising Scottish unionist MPs. He sharply contested Lockhart's accusation that they were bribed into passing the Act of Union. The sum of £20,000 which was sent to Scotland by the English Treasury, as the Commission of Accountsof which Lockhart was a member 28 -found out in 1711, was only a loan, which was payed back to England. 29 Whether it be in his Memoirs of North-Britain or his History of England, Oldmixon conceived his account of the Union as a running 23  commentary on Lockhart's exposition of that transaction in his Memoirs Concerning Scotland. The Whig historian disagreed with the Jacobite memorialist on practically all points and expressed his dissent rather unceremoniously. He went as far as to resort to some ad hominem attacks against the "Jacobite libeller," 30 that "Vile Author," whom he accused of failing to keep his word and being treasonable. 31 This imparted a markedly polemical tone to Oldmixon's account of the Union. The historiographical debate he held with Lockhart on this transaction read more like a dispute than a scholarly exchange, which was not unusual in the early eighteenth century, when history books sometimes looked like vitriolic pamphlets. Oldmixon's highly critical attitude to Lockhart's treatment of the Union can easily be explained if one bears in mind that Oldmixon was an extremely committed Whig. Most Whig authors were in favour of the Union since it ratified the Protestant succession to which they were deeply attached. But Oldmixon was an exceptionally dedicated Whig writer, which made his support of the Union and his condemnation of its opponents all the more vigorous. His devoted Whiggism led him to contest unambiguously Lockhart's Tory Jacobite interpretation of the Union not only on political, but also on historiographical grounds.
When he described the Union as the effect of the English ministers' sincere efforts to settle the Protestant succession in Scotland, Oldmixon subscribed to the Whig historians' belief that historical agents were moved by principles and ideals. This belief also underpinned his statement that the Scottish Commissioners acted an honest, artless part in the union negotiations, that they were not in collusion with their English counterparts. On the other hand, Lockhart's view that the Union was the product of the English Court's intrigues to secure Sydney Godolphin's position as Lord Treasurer and that the negotiations which gave rise to the Treaty of Union were a masquerade clearly fell within the category of Tory history. 32 It was this kind of history that Oldmixon denounced when 30 Oldmixon, Memoirs, "Preface," iv. 31 Ibid., 208-210. 32 For tory history, see A. J. P. Taylor, "Tory History," in Essays in English History (1950; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), 17-22; Marks Knights, "The Tory Interpretation of History in the Rage of he percipiently observed that "the Memoir Writer [tended] to resolve all the Proceedings in Scotland, for the Support of their Religion and Liberty into the Intrigues of ambitious, designing Men, for their own Advancement or Interest." 33 This was history as Sir Lewis Namier and his disciples were to conceive it, insofar as they claimed that "men involved in political action engage in it solely out of a desire to acquire and exercise power" and that "political agents invoke political ideas and principles simply in order to disguise their personal ambition and to dignify their quest for domination." 34 Oldmixon had no patience with that proto-Namierite kind of history. This was one of the reasons why he fought so hard to discredit Lockhart's account of the Union. The Whig compilers Abel Boyer and Nicholas Tindal were much more accommodating when it came to dealing with the Jacobite memorialist's exposition of that transaction.

Abel Boyer's and Nicholas Tindal's Deference to Lockhart's Memoirs : Compiling as a Way of Concocting Ideologically Hybrid Interpretations of the Union
In his History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Digested into Annals.
Year the Fifth (1707), Abel Boyer, a Huguenot who became a naturalized English subject in 1705, wrote an account of the Union that was thoroughly Whig, 35  incidentally acknowledged his debt to the Scottish memorialist: "In relation to the Affairs of Scotland, I must own my self singularly obliged to Mr Lockhart's Memoirs, which, bating some passionate Reflections, the natural Result of Party-Prejudice, are universally allowed to be excellent, in their Kind." 37 However, in the rest of his work, he did not always recognize his borrowings from Lockhart with the same care. Sometimes he did, sometimes he did not; sometimes he quoted from Lockhart's Memoirs, sometimes he plagiarized them offhandedly. Plagiarism was the option that the English Whig compiler Nicholas Tindal chose most of the time. In The History of England (vol. 3, 1744), 38 he borrowed extensive passages from Lockhart's Memoirs to draft his account of the Union without duly acknowledging it-even though his main source was Gilbert Burnet's History of my own Time (vol. 2, 1734). On occasion, he plagiarized Lockhart's Memoirs directly, but most of the time, he did so indirectly, being content to plagiarize extracts from Boyer's History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, which were themselves plagiarisms from Lockhart's Memoirs.
In The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, Boyer, unlike Oldmixon, did not reject Lockhart's view that the Union was, to a large extent, a maneuver orchestrated by Godolphin to divert people's attention from the fact that he had advised the Queen to give her assent to the Scottish Act of Security-which was construed as a threat to the Union of the Crowns (1603). 39 Neither did Boyer absolutely certify that this view was correct. He referred to it as a set of "Reflections and Conjectures," which he opposed to "Matters of Fact." 40 His position was apparently a non-committal one, as he shied away from totally endorsing Lockhart's version of the origins of the Union. But his long-occasionally inaccurate-italicized quotation from Lockhart's account certainly had more visibility than his short caveat. Tindal also borrowed this passage on the causes of 37 Ibid., "Preface," iv. 38  the Union, 41 which was indeed one of the few which he acknowledged to be derived from Lockhart's Memoirs-even though he somehow downgraded it by consigning it to a note, a place to which he avowedly assigned material whose veracity was not firmly established: "In all affairs of importance, as well where the Authors agree as where they differ, those accounts that appear the best and most impartial are inserted in the History, and the others thrown into the Notes." 42 Unlike Oldmixon as well, Boyer incorporated into The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne Lockhart's argument that the Union was not inevitable: the history of the relations between England and Scotland could have taken another course. In 1705, if the Jacobites, instead of wasting time on minor subjects, had managed to place the issue of the Union Treaty on the agenda of the Scottish Parliament early in the session, when the Duke of Queensberry's friends still sided with them, they might have been able to nip this project in the bud. 43 Boyer did not quite know what "Stress may be laid on this conjecture," 44 but he found it pertinent enough to be integrated into his exposition of the Union. While Boyer duly quoted the relevant passage from Lockhart's Memoirseven though he brought a few minor changes to it-Tindal, who also assimilated it into his own account, 45 did not even bother to mention his source-which seemed to be Boyer's History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne rather than Lockhart's Memoirs-thus qualifying for outright plagiarism.
Boyer also departed from Oldmixon by incorporating into The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne passages from the Memoirs in which Lockhart presented the popular opposition to the Union as representative of the spirit of the Scottish nation as a whole and showed sympathy for its various manifestations. The Scots, he pointed out, were initially well disposed to it insofar as the government gave a reassuring description of its contents, but they changed their mind when they discovered that the Treaty provided for an incorporating union and the suppression of the Scottish Parliament. 46 Among other means, the Scots expressed their disapprobation of that transaction by sending addresses against it to the Edinburgh Parliament. Following Lockhart almost verbatim, Boyer stressed the vastness as well as the representativeness of the anti-unionist address movement: Besides a multitude of Addresses from most of the Shires, Stewarties, Boroughs, Towns and Parishes of the Kingdom, which were a pregnant Indication of the Nations's Aversion to the Union in general, there were some others more particularly remarkable, such as one from the Commissioners of the Royal Boroughs, in Relation to Trade . . . and another from the Council General of the Company trading to the East and West Indies, in relation to their Concerns. 47 The popular hostility to the Union also vented itself in various disorders. In The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, Boyer reproduced, often word for word, much of what Lockhart wrotewith some obvious satisfaction-on the tumults that broke out in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, and, more generally, the South-West of Scotland, which seemed on the brink of insurrection: By this Time, the common People were so enraged, that they threatned to come up, in a Body, to Edinburgh, to dissolve the Parliament. publickly burnt the Articles of Union. 48 The above passages from Lockhart's Memoirs on the popular opposition to the Union which Boyer incorporated into The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne at times sat rather oddly with other passages of that work on the same subject which Boyer borrowed from his own Whig Annals, which expressed somewhat critical views of the anti-unionist popular manifestations. This was particularly true of some of his comments on the address movement, which, at some point, he endeavoured to minimize and present as unrepresentative of the Scottish nation as a whole: It is remarkable, That of Thirty Four Shires of Scotland, only Thirteen addressed, and of all these, the better and more substantial Part, of the Gentlemen, refus'd to join with the rest, that of Sixty Six Burrows, only Seventeen sent up Addresses, and most of these not absolutely against the Union, but only for Rectification of the Articles, That of Sixty Eight Presbyteries, Three only, viz. Those of Hamilton, Lanerk, and Dumblain, and of Nine Hundred Thirty Eight Kirks, and Parishes, only Sixty address'd against an Union, by the visible Influence of the great Men that thwarted it in the Senate-House. 49 Thus, the inclusion of some extracts from Lockhart's Tory Jacobite anti-unionist Memoirs into Boyer's supposedly Whig unionist History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne occasionally led to some inconsistencies. Inconsistencies were also to be found in Boyer's portrayal of the main protagonists of the Union debate. Most of his sketches were borrowed from Lockhart's Memoirs. They were very colourful and true to life, since Lockhart knew the men he portrayed well. They were also sharply contrasted. While his portraits of Country, anti-unionist political men verged on the 48  with this Caution, that [Lockhart] was a great Stickler for, and therefore partial to the Jacobite, which he calls the Loyal Party." 56 But he added that they had been "drawn, with great Applause," 57 which was a way of advertising them. Yet, some of them contradicted remarks Boyer made about the political men represented in those sketches in other passages from The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne which he borrowed from his own Whig unionist Annals. Indeed, in those other passages, Boyer was able to praise unionist leaders. For instance, he pointed out that Queensberry was "a Person of good Parts, easy Address, and Affability," 58 who "surmounted all the Difficulties he met in his Way" and was duly rewarded by Queen Anne for "his great Services" to the unionist cause. 59 Similarly, Boyer was glad to report that "the Lord Roxburgh shew'd the same Zeal, and made his pregnant Parts shine, throughout the whole Session of this Parliament, which contributed very much to the happy Conclusion of it." 60 Besides, he denied that Stair was detested by all Scots, stressing that he was "generally lamented by all the Well affected to the Revolution, and Protestant Succession, for both which he shew'd a distinguish'd Zeal, on all Occasions." 61 Thus, it was no easy matter for the readers of Boyer's History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne to know who the architects of the Union really were; whether they were the abominable, venal and immoral politicians portrayed in the sketches reproduced from Lockhart's Memoirs or the valuable and honourable servants of the State described in the remarks borrowed from Boyer's Whig Annals. Boyer's position on the role of bribery in the passing of the Treaty of Union in The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne seemed-to a certain extent at least-to bear out the first hypothesis.
While in his Annals, Boyer, like Daniel Defoe, totally overlooked the issue of bribery, in The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, he thoroughly endorsed Lockhart's view that it played a major part in the success of the Union. Money from the English Treasury was distributed to Scottish MPs by the Earl of Glasgow to influence their votes. That the money was sent to pay arrears due to those MPs did not mean that corruption was not intended. The time when the operation took place and the secrecy with which it was conducted made it clear that it was an act of bribery. 62 The view that corruption played a part in the achievement of union also found its way into Tindal's History of England. 63 But Tindal failed to reproduce the passage in which Boyer, following Lockhart, rejected the unionists' argument that paying arrears was not bribery, which ensured that his indictment of corruption was more subdued. Besides, Tindal consigned his observations on the role of bribery in the success of the Union to a note, showing that he did not wish to bring the subject into quite as much prominence as Boyer did.
In spite of some slight divergences in their handling of Lockhart's Memoirs, Boyer and Tindal generally endorsed them in The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne and The History of England respectively-albeit on occasion with some caveats. In this, they radically differed from Oldmixon, who could not find anything positive to say about them and used them as a target for his sarcasms. While Oldmixon quoted passages from Lockhart's Memoirs only to confute them, Boyer and Tindal usually did so to express their approval of them. In fact, they often failed to cite them properly, being content, in many cases, to plagiarize them. This was particularly true of Tindal, who was even less inclined to indicate his sources than Boyer. Indeed, historical plagiarism was quite widespread in Britain in the first half of the eighteenth century. 64 Its position differed from that of literary plagiarism, which was relentlessly tracked down and gave rise to public accusations, such as those levelled at Richard Bentley or Alexander Pope. 65  effort was made to disclose or denounce the plagiarism of historical works insofar as they did not seem worth it in view of the low status they enjoyed at the time and their inability to qualify as works of art whose originality would have to be vindicated. Historical plagiarism was still tolerated, although it was increasingly felt that some sort of acknowledgement was due to the historians whose works were plagiarised, as Boyer testified: "I know 'tis impossible either to compile, or write History, without borrowing from others. But then, in such a Case, the Borrower can do no less, than to pay an Acknowledgement to the Lender." 66 Besides, by borrowing extracts from Lockhart's Memoirs, Boyer and Tindal-unlike Oldmixon-incorporated some Tory historiographical elements into their accounts of the Union. As a result, their portrayals of that transaction in The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne and The History of England respectively lacked ideological coherence and read more like politically hybrid expositions than strictly Whig ones. In the case of Boyer's History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, that want of ideological coherence was compounded by some factual inconsistencies concerning, among other things, the importance of the address movement and the personality of the main Scottish political leaders.
Oldmixon blamed Boyer for integrating so many passages from Lockhart's Tory-Jacobite Memoirs into his History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne, but he put his fellow Whig's decision down to a lack of discernment rather than to a conversion to Lockhart's views: "Boyer in his Reign of Queen Anne, has been so stupid as to take his Memoirs, and even his Characters for Scottish History . . . but [it] is full of Lies, which that most excellent Historographer was not sensible of, otherwise he would not have made so much use of the Book, the Man's Heart being in this Case better than his Head." 67 Be that as it may, what is certain is that Oldmixon was a much more committed Whig than Boyer and that he was more conversant with the niceties of Whig ideology than the latter. But Boyer was certainly less dogmatic, less partisan, and more open-minded. He and Tindal were the first historians who incorporated passages from Lockhart's Memoirs into their works-even the English High Tory historian 66 Boyer, History, "The Preface," iv. 67 Oldmixon, History, 304.
Thomas Salmon had kept clear of them, probably for fear of being accused of Jacobitism. By doing so, they increased the visibility of those Memoirs and may have contributed to their partial legitimization and de-demonization. At any rate, in the second half of the eighteenth century, Lockhart's Memoirs no longer seemed to suffer from the opprobrium to which they had been subjected formerly and were routinely used by historians of the Union, albeit with more critical distance than by Boyer and Tindal. Although the latter broke some fresh ground by incorporating many elements from Lockhart's Memoirs into their accounts of the Union, they were only compilers and, as such, they belonged to an outdated historiographical tradition. In the second half of the eighteenth century, compilations gave way to "continuous narratives that were based upon rationalistic and critical methods of scholarship." 68

The Mid-to Late Eighteenth-Century Whig Historians' Unprejudiced Attitude to Lockhart's Memoirs: Working Out Critical Unionist, Proto-Academic, Semi-Hybrid Interpretations of the Union
Between 1750 and 1800, most of the Whig unionist historians that dealt with the Union at some length, including the Scottish authors William Guthrie, Thomas Somerville, Robert Heron, Ebenezer Marshal, and Malcolm Laing, were largely indebted to Lockhart's Memoirs-although they did not plagiarize them as Boyer and Tindal had done. They recognized that Lockhart was quite conversant with the political situation of Scotland at the time of the Union and that his Memoirs constituted a valuable, if at times biased, source of historical knowledge. William Guthrie observed with satisfaction that "Mr Lockhart . . . certainly had very good opportunities of information," 69 while Malcolm Laing noted approvingly that, contrary to several "late historians," Lockhart was "still careful to discriminate the Jacobites from the country party." 70 Most of those historians used Lockhart's Memoirs to build their accounts of the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament related to the Treaty of Union. It was on those Memoirs that Thomas Somerville avowedly based his version of the coup de théâtre which, at the end of the 1705 session, saw the Duke of Hamilton propose to entrust the nomination of the Scottish Union Commissioners to Queen Anne: that is to say, to her English ministers. 71 Malcolm Laing and Robert Heron also used Lockhart's Memoirs to construct their accounts of that dramatic episode, even though they resorted to other sources as well. word-for-word plagiarism.
Along with Somerville, Laing and Heron also used Lockhart's Memoirs, usually in combination with some other sources, to assemble their accounts of popular manifestations of hostility to the Union. They resorted to those Memoirs to evoke the state of Scottish public opinion, the anti-unionist address movement, the various disorders that broke out in Scotland, especially in the South-West, the implication of some influential people in the tumults, and the plans for insurrection, including the prospect of an alliance between Cameronians and Jacobites to prevent the ratification of the Treaty of Union. Thus, like Lockhart-but without using his words-Somerville noted that "by the multitude, or great body of the people, the idea of an union was held in abhorrence." 75 Similarly, according to Heron, "every successive day appeared to combine the loudly lifted voices of the whole nation, with new force and unanimity, against a measure which they regarded as about to put an end to their national existence for ever." He also mentioned addresses "of which the language was vehement and furious," "tumults and menaced insurrections," and "rumours of the march of armed multitudes to interrupt [parliamentary] proceedings." 76 Laing was likewise indebted to Lockhart's Memoirs-together with Nathaniel Hooke's Secret History of Colonel Hooke's Negotiations in Scotland in Favour of the Pretender ; in 1707 (1760)-when he reported that "in the western counties the Cameronians and peasants . . . held frequent nocturnal meetings . . . . The Presbyterians were about to take arms with the Jacobites, and, if we may believe their authors, to declare for their king." 77 Besides, Laing relied on Lockhart's Memoirs to draw his own sketches of the main Scottish political leaders-although, unlike Boyer, he did not plagiarize them. This applied to his description of Hamilton-which was, incidentally, also indebted to John Clerk of Penicuik's annotations to his manuscript copy of Lockhart's Memoirs-78 as well as to his depiction of Andrew Fletcher, of whom he wrote that "his spirit was proverbially brave as the sword 75  he wore," an expression which he avowedly borrowed from Lockhart and John Macky, who had, so it seemed, coined it independently and unbeknown to each other. 79 More importantly, all the Whig unionist historians of the Union who wrote in the second half of the eighteenth century agreed with Lockhart that bribery had played a role in the success of the Unioneven though they used softer words than the Jacobite memorialist's to discuss it. Although a fervent unionist, the moderate Presbyterian minister Ebenezer Marshal conceded that Godolphin, the English Lord of the Treasury, "remitted a sum of money to Scotland, to be employed in confirming the friends of the ministry, and in softening the asperity of their opponents." 80 Similarly, Somerville admitted that "the services of the friends to this important measure [the Union] were stimulated, and the opposition of its adversaries restrained, by liberal douceurs paid out of the English treasury." 81 Heron, for his part, reproduced the list of the beneficiaries of the controversial £20,000 which had first been published in the Appendix to Lockhart's Memoirs. 82 In his view, the fact that the money they received was used to pay arrears due to them did not mean that corruption was not involved. 83 Laing made the same point: "It is not whether the arrears were due, but whether they would have been advanced unless to purchase votes . . . arrears never paid till then, to create influence, are not the less bribes that they were justly due." 84 However, Laing and his fellow mid-to late eighteenth-century Whig historians did not follow Lockhart all the way through and maintained a critical distance towards his Memoirs. They sometimes openly differed from him, as did Guthrie, who noted that "Mr Lockhart of Carnwath [presumed] a great deal upon his own 79  authority" 85 and was not "fortunate in his account of the Duke of Queensberry's conduct." 86 Besides, they occasionally had some quibbles with Lockhart's account of anti-unionist popular protests. Such was the case of Somerville, who, on the strength of John Clerk of Penicuik's annotations to his copy of the Memoirs, noted that Lockhart's treatment of the plans for insurrection was incomplete: "Lockhart mentions the fact of the duke of Queensberry's having engaged some of the Cameronian clergy to act as spies for the court . . . but was himself ignorant of the treachery of major Cunningham . . . who also was in concert with the duke of Queensberry, and put himself at the head of the Cameronians in the west." 87 Moreover, those historians sometimes expressed disagreements with Lockhart's sketches of the protagonists of the Union debate, as did Guthrie about Lockhart's portrait of Andrew Fletcher: "Mr. Lockhart thinks, that even Fletcher of Salton would have turned Jacobite upon this occasion [the so-called Scots Plot (1704)], but we must attribute this credulity to the unhappy characteristic of his party, which was to believe that every man of whose virtue and understanding they had a good opinion [of], was, in his heart, a Jacobite." 88 Finally, the Whig historians of the second half of the eighteenth century did not usually bring the issue of corruption into as great a prominence as Lockhart and were on the whole less radical in their denunciations. Thus, Guthrie argued that Queensberry had no choice but to bribe MPs if the Treaty of Union was to be adopted, which was a way of condoning his act of corruption: "The duke of Queensberry, the commissioner, found himself under a kind of necessity to oil the wheels of his administration, by applying to the earl of Godolphin, lord high treasurer of England, for twenty thousand pounds sterling, to be discretionally distributed among the friends of the government." 89 Somerville was also inclined to leniency. Although he agreed with Lockhart that bribery played a 85 Guthrie, A General History of Scotland, 349-350. 86  part in the success of the Union, he was willing to concede some extenuating circumstances to those involved in that deed of corruption: The public money was not given for the purpose of influence, to such extent, as represented by the authors above cited [the Commissioners of Accounts] . . . 1st, As the sum of twenty thousand pounds was borrowed by the ministers in Scotland from the English treasury, under the pretext of discharging the arrears of official salaries, and of pensions, so a part of it was actually disbursed for that purpose . . . 2dly, The persons, who were active in promoting the union, incurred considerable expense . . . 3dly, The pecuniary opposition which the union encountered from foreign states imposed upon the ministers a necessity for employing the counteracting influence of the same expedient. 90 Thus, whereas Oldmixon disagreed with Lockhart on all points and, conversely, Boyer and Tindal never contradicted him, the midto late eighteenth-century Whig historians of the Union usually adopted a middle way between those two extremes. They looked upon Lockhart's Memoirs as a precious, often reliable, source of information on that transaction, but they were also able to express dissent from that work in a dispassionate way. They left polemics, on the one hand, and plagiarism, on the other, to adopt a moderately critical attitude. Their writings on the Union were on the whole more balanced than those of their predecessors. They were also more thorough and meticulous. This was especially true of Somerville's and Laing's proto-academic writings, which relied on a wide range of sources and used them with precision and rigour, as their copious footnotes testified.
Although Whig elements predictably predominated in those Whig unionist historians' accounts of the Union, some Tory items derived from Lockhart's Memoirs found their way into them as well, which introduced a dose of ideological hybridity into them-even though it was obviously less pronounced than in Boyer's and Tindal's expositions of that transaction, in which Tory elements were more numerous and more closely integrated. Among those Tory items, the one that had the most significant impact on the Whig unionist accounts of the Union published in the second half of the eighteenth century was undoubtedly the bribery of Scottish MPs. Those Whig unionist accounts praised the Union as a good measure, with a host of beneficent effects, but they admitted that it was achieved by devious means, a fact which had been overlooked by Defoe and Clerk of Penicuik and had been contested by Oldmixon.

Conclusion
Eighteenth-century Whig unionist historians of the Union used Lockhart's Memoirs in three main ways. First, Oldmixon incorporated many extracts from them into his accounts of that transaction for the sake of rebutting them. I have shown that he harnessed a polemical kind of history in the service of a purely Whig interpretation of the Union freed of all Tory elements. Oldmixon was writing at a time when English historiography was "bound up with the political parties." 91 It was also a period in which the future of the Union was still uncertain, which conferred a special intensity and polemical edge to the historiographical debates sparked by that event.
Then, Abel Boyer and Nicholas Tindal endorsed Lockhart's Memoirs to a large degree, borrowing from them extensively, sometimes quoting from them, sometimes unabashedly plagiarizing them. I have demonstrated that by deferentially incorporating many passages from Lockhart's magnum opus into their own accounts of the Union, those Whig historians manufactured ideologically hybrid versions of that transaction. Boyer and Tindal were the first historians who incorporated passages from Lockhart's Memoirs into their works. By doing so, they increased the visibility of those Memoirs and may have contributed to their partial legitimization and de-demonization. In this, they broke fresh ground, although their compilations belonged to an obsolescent historiographical tradition.
Finally, as "banal unionism" prevailed in Scotland, several midto late eighteenth century Whig historians of the Union such as William Guthrie, Thomas Somerville, Robert Heron, Ebenezer Marshal, or Malcolm Laing used Lockhart's Memoirs in a more dispassionate way. I have contended that by adopting an open and unprejudiced attitude to Lockhart's Memoirs, they worked out critical unionist, proto-academic, semi-hybrid interpretations of that transaction. Their writings on the Union were on the whole more balanced than those of their predecessors. They were also more thorough and meticulous. This was especially true of Somerville's and Laing's proto-academic writings, which relied on a wide range of sources and used them with precision and rigour, as evidenced by their copious footnotes. Their works reflected a general historiographical shift from compilations to continuous, explanatory narratives. 92 Although Whig elements predictably predominated in those Whig unionist historians' accounts of the Union, some Tory items derived from Lockhart's Memoirs found their way into them as well. As Okie pointed out, "historical writing gradually freed itself from the trammels of party politics." 93 Thus, although the English Whig unionist interpretation of the Union first elaborated by Daniel Defoe finally prevailed in eighteenth-century Britain, Lockhart's Scottish Tory-Jacobite antiunionist version of that transaction was discussed by all eighteenthcentury Whig historians of the Union after 1714, whether they approved of it or not. I have shown that except for Oldmixon's accounts, all those historians' expositions of the Union were to some extent impacted by Lockhart's Memoirs. Far from using the latter only as a storehouse of information on the Union, they were all in some measure influenced by Lockhart's vision of that event and, as a result, ideologically hybrid. Later on, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Whig historians were far less inclined to accept hybridity and endeavoured to silence Lockhart's voice. James Mackinnon blamed him for being partisan and complained that he 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid.