The union of the parliaments made us English in the eyes of everyone but ourselves, laments Paul Henderson Scott, and not even claiming to be British will help

PREPARATIONS are in hand to mark the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Union of 1707, Jack McConnell confirmed last week. The treaty, which created the Parliament of Great Britain, is much misunderstood; indeed, the idea of "Britain" has a long and complicated history. The first known use of the word - in its Greek alphabet equivalent - was in the work of the geographer Pytheos around 300BC. When the Romans arrived in 43AD they adopted the same term for the land which they conquered and colonised. Here the confusion begins. For a time, that territory might be taken to have included part of what is now the south of Scotland, but the Roman hold on it was brief and precarious.

Throughout most of the Roman occupation, Hadrian's Wall - located a few miles south of the historical border between Scotland and England - marked its northern limit. So from Roman times, "Britain" usually meant the territory which became England and Wales.

During the middle ages, the myth arose that Britain was so-called because it was a kingdom established by Brutus, who was said to be descended from Aeneas of Troy, founder of the Roman republic. This idea first appears in Historia Brittonum , written by a Welsh monk, Nennius, in the ninth century. It was elaborated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (completed around 1135) that the younger son of Brutus, Albanectus, inherited the land which became Scotland. This hugely influential work was warmly embraced by English kings, because it provided a mythical basis for their aspirations to claim sovereignty over Scotland. As William Ferguson said in his 1998 book, The Identity Of The Scottish Nation, "the English believed, and probably still do, that they had a natural right to rule the British isles".

Even if Geoffrey's theory influenced the territorial ambitions of Edward I of England, the idea of Britain did not reappear during the
300 years of war that followed. James VI of Scots revived it when he also succeeded to the English throne in 1603. As a sound classical scholar, he probably had the Romans and not the mediaeval myth in mind.

James had long desired this inheritance of the larger kingdom. England was more welcoming than Scotland to his idea of the divine right of kings. Scotland, disastrously, became more a subordinate province than an independent country. James wanted to rule over one kingdom, to be, as he said, "a Christian king and not a polygamist with two wives".

When such ideas of union found no support in parliament, he went ahead on his own and in October 1604 assumed by royal acclamation the title of King of Great Britain.

Just over a century later the Scottish parliament, in the Acts of Security of 1703 and 1704, proposed to escape from the joint kingdom. This was unacceptable to England which believed that their long series of wars with France made control of Scotland a strategic necessity. They succeeded in persuading a majority in the Scottish parliament to agree to its own abolition. Britain, as the name of the state occupying the whole island, therefore at last corresponded to a political reality.

But for many years most people, especially in England, were reluctant to describe themselves as British. To many Scots, the word "English" seemed preferable . After all, England had relied on the Brutus legend to justify its attempts to annex Scotland, so from the Scottish viewpoint, there was little to choose between the words "British" and "English". The 18th century Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett - although plainly a patriotic Scot - referred to the inhabitants of the country he called "Britain", as "English".

More than a century later, in 1872, another firm Scottish patriot, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote in a letter from Germany that the
landlady of the inn where he was staying had asked if he was an Englishman. When he said, "yes", she enquired further if he was not also a Scotchman. This seems to suggest that the Scots used to regard themselves as English, but of a particular variety of Englishness.

Stevenson was more sensitive about his country's name. Samuel Crockett sent him a letter with the address Edinburgh, NB (meaning North Britain), as was the practice (although I have never heard of anyone using SB). Stevenson replied: "Don't put `NB' on your paper, put Scotland and be done with it ... the name of my native land is not North Britain, whatever may be the name of yours."

So even in Scotland, the word "English" was used to describe all the peoples of this island. In Scotland, this is no longer acceptable, but it is still the usual practice in England, and in other countries whose languages have a word for English, but rarely use one for "British". As David Daiches once wrote : "Britain was called `England' everywhere except in Scotland." Consequently, people in other countries see Scotland as part of England, and the Scots and English as the same people. The Union of the Crowns in 1603 and still more of the parliaments in 1707 virtually meant the disappearance of the Scots from the rest of the world's consciousness. We became, said Hume Brown, "a severed and a withered branch".

During the 19th century - the high watermark of the British empire - the word "British" achieved its greatest prominence. Linda Colley notes that: "The English and the foreign are still all too inclined today to refer to the island of Great Britain as `England'. But at no time have they ever customarily referred to an English empire ... the Empire has always been emphatically British." Presumably, this is a consequence of the important role of Scots in the development of the territories involved. But this really applies only within Britain. Other countries, with no convenient equivalent of the word "British", called even the Empire "English".

Still, within Britain, it was mainly the Empire which was regarded as something British to boast about. Britain the great imperial power; the Empire on which the sun never sets, and whose possessions were marked boldly in red on the maps which hung on schoolroom walls.

The next focus of propaganda for the greatness of Britain was in the two world wars when British courage, endurance and resolution were the constant theme, even if one of the most popular songs in the second world war was There'll Always Be An England. It was after the first of these wars that most Scots began to object to being described as English. Perhaps the emphasis on Britishness during the war made people aware that "British" was the appropriate word for joint concerns. Also, wartime propaganda emphasised the rights of small nations, the sacrifices made to save "poor little Belgium" and so forth. What about Scotland? We know from Hugh MacDiarmid's early letters as a soldier that this thought inspired his determination to arouse Scotland.

The union with Ireland in 1800 added that country, nominally at least, to the British state. This was accomplished by means similar to the union with Scotland. As long as the whole of Ireland was part of the British state, the geographical expression "the British Isles" for the whole group of the two large and many small islands was clear and useful. It was no longer appropriate when Ireland, less the northern counties, became independent. This fact is acknowledged in the state's current official name: "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". It implies that Northern Ireland, while part of the UK, is not part of Great Britain. Geographically, as well as politically and linguistically, "Britons" or "British" are terms which have become confusing and self-contradictory.

Last January, Gordon Brown urged a revival of the idea of Britain and its supposed associations with "tolerance, inclusion, res ponsibility, liberty and fairness". Of course, there is nothing distinctively British about tolerance, fairness and the rest. Perhaps he hopes to make himself more acceptable to English voters by playing down his Scottishness. (Tony Blair, though born and educated in Scotland, has always given the impression that he is thoroughly English.)

Does Scotland have anything to gain from clinging to the idea that we are part of Britain? Or should we look, instead, to the small
independent countries of Europe as the model to follow?

In his essay, Idea Of A Perfect Commonwealth, David Hume wrote: "A small commonwealth is the happiest government in the world within itself." Around the same time, Adam Ferguson in An Essay On The History Of Civil Society, said: "We need not enlarge our communities, in order to enjoy these advantages [of society]. We frequently obtain them in the most remarkable degree, where nations remain independent, and are of small extent."

Hume and Ferguson were right. Scotland is a country of great potential, but independence is the key to release it.

(originally published in the Sunday Herald)