What about britishness?

[Hirta]

Originally posted by ANDY-J2

England weren't the sole cause of Scotland's problems during the Darien affair however it should be remembered that the English were forbidden from helping the Scots by order of a monarch who supposedly had an obligation to be impartial in his dealings with both Scotland and England.This fiasco exposed the fact that it was not practical to have a regal union without formal political union.It was not possible to have two parliaments each with their own seperate agendas trying to gain the favour of the monarch and the phenomenon of the "three kingdoms" was responsible for the wars and civil and religious strife which characterised the seventeenth century.For the social elite of the period bribery and underhandedness were a feature of everyday life and given that England was very much wealthier than Scotland it is not perhaps surprising that William had a tendency to support England's interests over Scotland's.I think William was chiefly concerned with his personal wealth and his antipathy towards the Darien venture was motivated by financial concerns which outweighed any sense of obligation he may have felt towards his Scottish subjects.Complete political union therefore was the only feasible option if long term peace and stability was to be achieved within the United Kingdom. [/b]

I think that to be king of two rival nations there must have been conflicts of interests at some points, and this affair is an example of that.

Originally posted by Hirta
I think that to be king of two rival nations there must have been conflicts of interests at some points, and this affair is an example of that.

Which is precisely what I was saying about King William, so you either misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented me with all that stuff about "the English" being behind it all. While England and Scotland were rivals, I would have expected an upstanding, sporting, nation like England to have provided humanitarian help to starving Scots colonists, and to have engaged in mutually beneficial trade with them. The fact that they did neither of these things can be attributed to the edict of their King, who happened to also be the King of Scots at the time.

William's support of Spain (a traditional enemy of England) against his own Scots subjects speaks volumes.