Subsidy." The bitterness of the struggle was accentuated by a silly dispute about the Jacobite Plot, and the temper of the two nations was strained to the utmost. The union of the crowns had been rendered possible only by the self-restraint which permitted the people of England to accept a Scotsman as the king. A similar spirit of self-restraint now actuated Queen Anne's advisers. The queen assented to the Act of Security, and the Scots began to train for a war that was not to be fought by the sword. The English ministers proposed a union of the kingdoms. Fortunately, they recognized that Scotland was in earnest, and expressed their willingness to yield somewhat on the main point--freedom of trade. Into the long and dreary negotiations which preceded the union we need not enter. Amid jealousy, faction, and evils still more sordid, the treaty of union was concluded. The agreement secured to Scotland the maintenance of her law, and the continued existence of her universities, and it guaranteed that there would be no interference with the Church as by law established. On the other hand, the kingdom surrendered her national existence, and was forced to be content with a miserably inadequate representation in the English Parliament. It is little wonder that the people in general, and especially the populace of Edinburgh, regarded the treaty with horror and looked upon its supporters as traitors. Amid riot and uproar, and with howls of execration sounding in their ears, the Estates of Scotland met for the last time on 25th March, 1707, under the presidency of the lord chancellor, the Earl of Seafield. Among some of the senators themselves there was an uneasy feeling that they had sold their country for trade privileges which the givers would strain every nerve to render worthless. Others were more callous. "There's the end o' an auld sang," laughed the Chancellor, as the Honours of Scotland were carried out of the Parliament House for the last time. There is a touch of pathos in this final scene. To us, it can appear sad only with the sadness of changefulness. But the faces of contemporaries were turned backwards. The three Estates had survived many revolutions. It was true that their history did not represent the best of the nation's life; but with that best it had ever been more or less closely associated. In recent years the Parliament had come to mean national existence. It had entered into a new sphere, and assumed new functions. A career of usefulness seemed to lie before it. In spite of its age, its end was, in this sense, premature. The conditions, too, were ignominious. The accumulated hatred of four hundred years had attached itself to the names of Darien and Glencoe. England had yielded much less than a free and independent nation had a right to ask, and Scotland could not demand more, because the men whom she trusted had failed her.