ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the events and publications that marked the bicentenary of the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 and assesses the extent to which Roland Quinault's framework is applicable in the Scottish context. It analyses the way in which the anniversary was marked and focuses on the political, scholarly and religious culture of late Victorian and Edwardian Scotland. The chapter focuses on the scholarly engagement with the bicentenary. It also examines public events and discusses the political and religious themes. The Fraser Chair in Edinburgh was joined in 1911 by a Chair in Scottish History and Literature at the University of Glasgow, which had also seen an appointment to a Chair of History in the 1890s. The historian William Law Mathieson, argues in his article that the 'independence' of Scotland prior to the Union was illusory, internal poverty and political corruption allied with external diplomatic weakness meant that there was little option but to seek and accept Union with England.
