For staunch unionists looking to shore up a wider historical narrative about the benefits of the 1707 Act which saw England and Scotland enter a political union for the first time, the Scottish Enlightenment is their proof that Unionism overwhelmingly benefited the Scottish people. Following unification, some of the greatest writers and thinkers flourished in a newly invigorated intellectual landscape, many of them able to rise up the ranks as previous prominent figures in law and politics moved to London to take up new opportunities.

Just some of the figures we come to associate with the Scottish Enlightenment include the influential economist Adam Smith, author of the Wealth of Nations, the writer James Boswell, who penned a ground-breaking biography of his friend, Dr Samuel Johnson, and the chemist Charles Macintosh, who invented waterproof material. But it would be wrong to suggest that this was a movement which began immediately following 1707. In fact, the Scottish Enlightenment has longer roots which stretch right back into the 17th century.

1603: Clash of Crowns
In 1603, James VI, already King of Scots, inherited the English crown of Queen Elizabeth I through his great-grandmother Margaret Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII and daughter of King Henry VII, as well as the territory of Ireland. Immediately James began trying to unite two of his kingdoms with one parliament and one flag. But he faced significant opposition. England and Scotland were two very different countries with very different cultures, having been at war with each other intermittently. There was also a commonly held suspicion in England that Scotland was economically, and therefore culturally, backwards – just as there was a belief that Ireland was lawless and ungovernable – and that unification might lead to Scotland draining all of England’s wealth and resources.

It also did not help that James’s ideas of kingship were very different from the somewhat compromising agenda of Elizabeth I. His tract The True Law of Free Monarchies set out his views that monarchs were ordained by God and should rule in what we might now think of as an autocratic way. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and James’s reaction also heightened this tension because it revealed to James, in the most dramatic fashion, that not everyone was happy to accept his rule in England, while also giving him an excuse to clamp down on many of the civil liberties that had been enjoyed during the Elizabethan era.

Perhaps in a bid to bridge this cultural gap, but also no doubt because of his extravagant taste, James’s successor Charles I championed and patronised the arts. He began the Royal Collection, bringing together some of the world’s finest paintings and artists such as Hans Holbein and Mantegna, while commissioning the likes of Van Dyck and Rubens. Indeed, it was Rubens who designed the staggering ceiling of the Banqueting Hall at the Palace of Whitehall which depicts James I as a deity ascending to heaven.

But Scotland was still being largely neglected. James I and Charles I now occupied by their larger, English thrones barely bothered even visiting their former homeland. The post- Civil War years did change this as Scotland came out in support of Charles Stuart, the Prince of Wales, resisting Cromwell’s army and even getting as far as crowning him King of Scots and Scone. After he was properly restored in 1660 as Charles II, his younger brother and heir James, duke of York and Albany, was made Royal Commissioner for Scotland, stationed at Hollywood Palace. It was James who first patronised the idea of rebuilding Edinburgh, to create a so called new town. A ‘grant of encouragement’ was put in place but, before it could get any further, James was called to the throne as James II (VII of Scotland), only to lose his crowns in a bloodless revolution three years later.

The Union and the economy
With the departure of James II/VII and the continued agitation of his male descendants and their supporters, the Jacobites, as well as the disastrous failure of the Darien Scheme to establish a Scottish colony overseas, it was felt that a Union with England was necessary to put the two kingdoms on an even keel and to prevent the further slide to economic disaster or perhaps even war. Indeed, Keith M Brown, Alastair J Mann et al argue that ‘The revolution of 1688-9 destroyed much that the Restoration monarchy had tried to achieve.’ As well as the economic divides between England and Scotland there was, they argue, ‘an intense struggle between [Scottish] parties with opposing religious loyalties and political ideas.’ Indeed, in order to quell all of these tensions, after years of negotiations, the two sides finally agreed and, in 1707, the Parliament of Scotland was adjourned indefinitely.

With the departure of parliamentarians and some other influential figures, a new kind of literati began to meet in Edinburgh’s old town and in Glasgow too, discussing ideas in what might be described as an interdisciplinary approach, with writers, poets, artists, economists and philosophers all sharing ideas. One of the advantages Scotland had over its southern neighbour was in its universities. While England had just Oxford and Cambridge and lacked an institution even in its own capital, Scotland, a much smaller country in terms of population, boasted Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow and two initially rival institutions in Aberdeen, King’s College and Marischal College, which later joined to become the University of Aberdeen.

Although there were many great individuals who thrived in the early part of the 18th century, such as William Adam, an architect who designed many of Scotland’s country homes, many consider the Enlightenment only really got going in the second half of the 18th century.

A New Town for a new nation
In 1767 work finally began on the project James II had championed as duke of York and Albany. The notoriously tall and densely packed streets of the old Edinburgh, which were also home to poverty-stricken slums, were to be cast aside for a brand-new town that would take nearly 100 years to complete. Seen not just as the epitome of Georgian architecture, encompassing Roman, Greek and Renaissance styles, but also a remarkable feat in town planning, the new Edinburgh was carefully planned and became a model for cities to come. Designed by 26-year-old James Craig, who won a competition, the New Town was constructed outside the old town in a rectangular grid system. Unlike the old town, the new one had a mix of open squares and public gardens, making it spacious and light, encouraging social interaction and, of course, the meeting of some of the greatest minds in Europe.

The wealth of two nations
Perhaps the most influential figure in the Scottish Enlightenment was the economist and philosopher Adam Smith (c1723–1790). Born in Kirkcaldy to a customs officer and private secretary to the 3rd Earl of Loudoun and Margaret Douglas, the daughter of a Scottish landowner, Smith is most famous for his seminal work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Its premise was simple: an investigation into how a country obtained its wealth. Why were some countries better off than others? A potent question, inextricably linked to the Anglo-Scottish politics of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Its scope and vision, however, has been matched, perhaps only by the work of Karl Marx. The work was mentioned in Parliament numerous times and influenced generations of politicians including British Prime Minister Lord North and the founding fathers of America. But its attraction is its simplicity as well as its complexity. Smith famously states in the book that ‘Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production’, a neat way of summing up his ideas about the necessity of the free market.

Boswell and Johnson
Another figure closely aligned with the Enlightenment is the biographer and diarist James Boswell (1740–1795), born in Edinburgh. He was taught privately at home, after becoming unhappy at school. After attending Edinburgh University and travelling to Europe, he headed to London where he met the famous essayist Dr Samuel Johnson, as well as a host of other influential figures including the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds. As well as studying at Edinburgh, he also spent some time at the University of Glasgow, where he attended the lectures of Adam Smith.

It was Johnson, however, whom would become Boswell’s life work. Boswell had been eager to meet Johnson after hearing of his reputation, not just as a scholar, but also his social skills and intellect. They were aquatinted for the first time in 1763. As Gordon Turnball argues ‘Johnson warmed to the charm of Boswell’s openly sincere admiration and earnest wish for guidance, and Boswell found a formidable stability and wisdom in one who, unlike his father, remained capaciously tolerant of human waywardness and frailty, despite a tone of moral asperity.’ It was Johnson who encouraged Boswell to keep a diary. Their remarkable friendship lasted until Johnson’s death in 1784, following which Boswell began writing his Life of Johnson, which is considered by many to be the first biography. A bestseller, the work is regarded as cementing Johnson’s reputation as a towering literary figure in British history.

The Industrial Revolution
As the 19th century began, it was clear that cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, which had benefited greatly from the Scottish Enlightenment, were well prepared, economically, for perhaps an even greater period of social change. In many ways, perhaps it can be argued the Scottish Enlightenment sowed the seeds and was the precursor to the Industrial Revolution which would help Britain to become the most powerful empire in the world by 1900.