as plain that the two kingdoms could not live together on
the existing terms. Union there must be, or conquest, as under Cromwell;
yet an English war of conquest was impossible, because it was impossible
for Scotland to resist. Never would the country renew, as in the old
days, the alliance of France, for a French alliance meant the acceptance
by Scotland of a Catholic king.

England, on her side, if Union came, was accepting a partner with very
poor material resources. As regards agriculture, for example, vast
regions were untilled, or tilled only in the straths and fertile spots by
the hardy clansmen, who could not raise oats enough for their own
subsistence, and periodically endured famines. In "the ill years" of
William, years of untoward weather, distress had been extreme. In the
fertile Lowlands that old grievance, insecurity of tenure, and the
raising of rents in proportion to improvements made by the tenants, had
baffled agriculture. Enclosures were necessary for the protection of the
crops, but even if tenants or landlords had the energy or capital to make
enclosures, the neighbours destroyed them under cloud of night. The old
labour-services were still extorted; the tenant's time and strength were
not his own. Land was exhausted by absence of fallows and lack of
manure. The country was undrained, lochs and morasses covered what is
now fertile land, and hillsides now in pasture were under the plough. The
once prosperous linen trade had suffered from the war of tariffs.

The life of the burghs, political and municipal and trading, was little
advanced on the mediaeval model. The independent Scot steadily resisted
instruction from foreign and English craftsmen in most of the mechanical
arts. Laws for the encouragement of trades were passed and bore little
fruit. Companies were founded and were ruined by English tariffs and
English competition. The most energetic of the population went abroad,
here they prospered in commerce and in military service, while an
enormous class of beggars lived on the hospitality of their neighbours at
home. In such conditions of inequality it was plain that, if there was
to be a Union, the adjustment of proportions of taxation and of
representation in Parliament would require very delicate handling, while
the differences of Church Government were certain to cause jealousies and
opposition.

CHAPTER XXIX. PRELIMINARIES TO THE UNION.

The Scottish Parliament wa