Scotland’s unfinished business

Old parliament’s final, incomplete entry discovered

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AN UNFINISHED document from the 18th century that reveals insights into Scotland’s parliamentary past has been discovered, academics said yesterday.

The historical record shows the final, incomplete entry from the parliamentary register of 1706, before the Act of Union the following year.

It forms part of the St Andrews University Records of the Parliaments of Scotland website.

The record ends in mid-sentence, reading: “And sicklike another clause in these terms: that . . .”

Project manager Gillian MacIntosh said: “The parliamentary register contains the laws and acts of parliament and other relevant proceedings properly authenticated by officials. It was written up by scribes after each session had finished.

“It may be that after the parliamentary union of 1707 the scribes were no longer being paid and they simply put their pens down.

“However, they could also have been called away for other business – and the task of completing the record of Scotland’s final pre-Union parliament was overlooked.”

The document was found as academics compiled material for the website www.rps.ac.uk

It contains a digital database of the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament from its first surviving act of 1235 to its dissolution by the Act of Union of 1707.

The website was launched at the Scottish Parliament.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I want to congratulate everyone involved in this landmark project to make publicly available, in an accessible form, some of the most important documents in Scotland’s history.

“Anyone with an interest will now be able to read for themselves about the goings-on in Scotland’s original national parliament over nearly 500 years.”