IMAGINE that Boris Johnson had not bothered to come north of the Border during the week but had sent seven fellow Cabinet ministers and the commander of the Army who all went straight to the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh and announced that following the conquest of Scotland, the country would now become part of England, all of this done with not one word of consultation with the Scottish Parliament.

Unthinkable? Unimaginable? Impossible? Well, that is exactly what happened in this week of 1652 when Oliver Cromwell dispatched eight commissioners to Scotland to proclaim the Tender of Union that would scrap the Scottish Parliament and incorporate Scotland into the “Commonwealth” of England.

There are several commonly held myths about Scottish history. One is that we were never conquered – Agricola of the Romans, Edward I of England and Oliver Cromwell would disagree – and that the Union with England was achieved solely by the parcel of rogues. But that current Union dating from 1707 is the second such Union, and the first was achieved by the conquest of Scotland.

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It was on February 4, 1652, that the eight commissioners made their proclamation in Edinburgh. In alphabetical order they were Richard Deane, George Fenwick, John Lambert, George Monck, Richard Salwey, Oliver St John, Robert Tichborne and Sir Henry Vane. Though some had started out as Royalists in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, all had ended up as supporters of Oliver Cromwell and Parliament, and some had voted for the execution of King Charles I – put to death by the English Parliament in 1649, despite being the King of Scots.

Cromwell and his allies declared that England was now a Commonwealth, in effect a Republic, and there was no doubt as to who was in charge.

It was that judicial murder of King Charles which really upset the Scots. Cromwell had anticipated this but he was still taken aback when the Scottish Parliament recognised the dead king’s son as Charles II, King of all Britain, on May 1, 1650.

Being Covenanters almost to a man, the Scottish leadership had sought and received assurances from Charles II that their form of Presbyterianism would be the new state religion, and he consented to this in the Treaty of Breda. Charles II came to Scotland on June 23, 1650, and the scene was set for a confrontation that would prove disastrous.

It was the Covenanters who caused that disaster. After Thomas Fairfax, lord commander of the New Model Army, resigned rather than fight his former allies, Oliver Cromwell marched north as commander of the army. The Scots had an experienced general, David Leslie, in charge, but the Covenanters insisted on purging the Scottish Army of some of its best officers and around 4000 soldiers who were not Covenanters. The New Model Army was also bereft of many men – their supply lines had been over-extended and many troops were very sick.

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So when the two sides met at Dunbar on September 3, 1650, both generals had depleted forces and though the Battle of Dunbar is often characterised correctly as an English rout of the Scots, in fact it was a close-run thing for most of the action. It took many months, but Cromwell’s army under General George Monck had most of Scotland under English control by the following September, with the massacre of one fifth of Dundee’s population the worst excess.

Meanwhile, in a desperate last-ditch attempt to reverse his fortunes, Charles and Leslie marched what remained of the army to Worcester where the New Model Army destroyed the Royalist forces on September 3, 1651.

Cromwell had been so confident of crushing Charles and the Scots that on March 18 he had overseen the introduction of the so-called Tender of Union, though its actual name was the Declaration of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, concerning the Settlement of Scotland. It stated: “That an Act be brought in, for incorporating Scotland into one Commonwealth with England.”

The Tender was passed by the English Parliament on October 28, 1651, and on February 4, 1652, General Monck and his seven commissioners proclaimed the Union, and Scotland was told it was part of England’s Commonwealth.

It is here that the disputes and wrangling within the English Parliament came to Scotland’s aid. The Rump and Barebones Parliaments, as they are known, failed to pass the Tender into law. Instead on April 12, 1654, the Ordinance for uniting Scotland into one Commonwealth with England was issued by Cromwell as Lord Protector.

Cromwell also brought in his Act of Grace, forgiving Scots for their part in the War of the Three Kingdoms, and though there was a brief rising of Royalists in the Highlands, all resistance ended with the overwhelming defeat of the Royalists at the Battle of Dalnaspidal on July 19, 1654.

On June 26, 1657, the Second Protectorate Parliament passed the first Act of Union and for the next three years Scotland was part of England with 30 members in Westminster.

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Cromwell died on September 3, 1658, and his son Richard was not up to the leader’s job, so General Monck marched south to London from Coldstream and brought about the Restoration of the Monarchy. All Acts of both the English and Scottish Parliaments since 1633 were abolished by Charles II, and Scotland was free again.

Except that rather a lot of lordly people rather enjoyed the peace and prosperity brought about by that first Union, and that may have influenced their view when the Crcurrent Union was proposed less than 50 years later.