Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 10, 2011

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655 – September 1716) was a Scottish writer, politician, soldier and patriot. He was a Commissioner of the old Parliament of Scotland and is remembered as the leading opponent of the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England and an advocate of the Darién scheme, he also introduced agricultural improvements to Scotland. Andrew Fletcher was the son and heir of Sir Robert Fletcher (1625–1664), and was born at Saltoun in Haddingtonshire. Educated by Gilbert Burnet, the future Bishop of Salisbury, who was then minister at Saltoun, he completed his education in mainland Europe.

Fletcher was elected, as the Commissioner for Haddingtonshire, to the Scottish Parliament in 1678. At this time, Charles II's representative in Scotland was John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale. The Duke had taxation powers in Scotland, and maintained a standing army there in the name of the King. Fletcher bitterly opposed the Duke, whose actions only strengthened Fletcher's distrust of the royal government in Scotland, as well as all hereditary power. In 1681, Fletcher was re-elected to the Scottish Parliament as member for Haddingtonshire. The year before, Lauderdale had been replaced by the Duke of Albany. At this time, Fletcher was a member of the opposition Country Party in the Scottish Parliament, where he resolutely opposed any arbitrary actions on the part of the Church or state.