"As contrasted with our treatment of Ireland and our dealings with America, the Scottish Union stands out in the Eighteenth Century as a thing apart, an unwonted and surprising act of wise Imperial initiative. The men who made the Union of 1707 (Marlborough, Godolphin, Somers and Harley for England, Queensberry and Argyle for Scotland) were not selfless patriots—it was not an age productive of such. They were shrewd, worldly men, capable of looking the real facts of a situation in the face. And they studied the interest of their respective countries all the better because, unlike Fletcher of Saltoun, they could do so without too much zeal. They were, moreover, free from the religious and political fanaticisms of the previous century, which had so often stood in the way of agreement by mutual concession."
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Historians from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge alumniUniversity of Cambridge facultyAutobiographers from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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p. viii
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._M._Trevelyan
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G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic.
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