Dictionaries of the Scots Language
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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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SQUADRONE, n. Also -ie, -y, and in Eng. form squadron. A name applied to a group of politicians in the Scottish Parliament formed in 1702 under the Marquis of Tweeddale, which called itself the New Party and posed as an independent body, though in fact pursuing a tortuous vacillating policy between the Jacobite and Government parties, and which finally decided the issue of the Union of 1707. Thereafter in the British Parliament it chiefly opposed the Duke of Argyll's faction on Scottish issues, till finally extinguished by Walpole in 1725. Its full name was Squadrone Volante (see etym. note). Also attrib. and quasi-adj. = bipartisan, fluctuating in one's politics. [skwɑ′drone]Sc. 1702 Atholl MSS. (8 Oct.):
They went to ther election, no wayes afraid of the Squardron volant [sic].Sc. 1706 Jerviswood Corresp. (B.C.) 171:
It's strange, if the Squadrone be so zealous as they appear, that they do not bring addresses to the Parliament from their countries for the Union.Sc. c.1707 Jacobite Relics (Hogg 1819) I. 61:
The Squadronie and Whig Are uppish and look big.Sc. 1715 G. Lockhart Memoirs 138:
The M[arquis] of Tweeddale, and his Party, (who were henceforward always called the Squadrone volante, from their pretending to act by themselves).Sc. 1720 in R. Wodrow Correspondence (1843) II. 538:
I am squadronie in that matter, being sometime on one side and sometime on another.Sc. 1736 A. Carlyle Autobiog. (1860) 40:
By good-luck for the clergy, there was another party distinction among them, viz. that of Argathelian and Squadrone.Sc. 1741 S. C. Misc. (1842) II. 12:
My attachment to the Duke of Argyle and the Earle of Ilay against the squadrony.Sc. 1905 W. L. Mathieson Scot. and the Union 108:
The second of these groups was that which styled itself the New Party. . . It was more generally known as the “Squadrone Volante” — a name which in some quarters had been applied to it as early as 1703.Sc. 1935 W. C. Mackenzie A. Fletcher 237:
They were known as the Squadrone Volante, a name which Fletcher, with his Italian proclivities may have invented. The policy of the Flying Squadron was frankly opportunist, but they nominally stood for the Succession with limitations.Sc. 1964 Sc. Hist. Review XLIII. 93:
To describe the Squadrone as a selfless group who put country before party is simply to quote from the “Jerviswood Correspondence” and to turn purely tactical political moves into consistent principles.