The Scottish Parliament: An Historical Introduction

1. Parliament and the Medieval Constitution
2. War with England and the Bruce Dynasty, 1306-1371
3. The Late Medieval Stewart Monarchy, 1371-1496
4. Decline and Revival, 1496-1560
5. The Early Modern Parliament
6. The Reformation, 1560-1603
7. Regal Union, Multiple Monarchy and the War of the Three Kingdoms, 1603-1660
8. Restoration, Revolution and Union, 1660-1707

Restoration, Revolution and Union, 1660-1707

Restoration Scotland (1660-89) has traditionally been characterised as an era of authoritarian and often brutal government, deep religious divisions, and economic depression with only the hint of cultural renaissance in the 1680s.[70]3270. Brown, Kingdom or Province?, pp. 143-69; Jackson, Restoration Scotland. When parliament did reassemble in 1661 it was dominated by nobles determined to restore their power, believing that the best means to achieve this ambition was a strong monarchy supported by a submissive church and a co-operative parliament. Everything the covenanters had achieved was swept away by an assembly in which less than half the members had any experience of previous parliaments. The imposition of an oath of allegiance, the restoration of the lords of the articles, the assertion of the king’s right to choose his ministers and councillors, to summon, prorogue and dismiss parliament at will, and to make war and peace signalled a return to the pre-1639 constitutional arrangements with all the potential for tight management this implied. The act rescissory of 1661 explicitly annulled the legislation of 1640-8 and in effect the legislation of all parliaments since 1633; the restoration of the episcopate in 1662 provided the crown with a useful block vote, and the estates also handed Charles II a generous taxation for life along with a small standing army.[71]3271. Young, Scottish Parliament, pp. 304-23; R. Lee, ‘Retreat from revolution: the Scottish parliament and the restored monarchy’, in Young (ed.), Celtic Dimensions, pp. 185-204; Macintosh, Parliament, pp. 1-56.

Understandably, perhaps, historians have been unkind to the parliaments of the Restoration monarchy, seeing them as little more than assemblies summoned to do the king’s will. Arguably the significance of parliament within the ambience of Scotland’s conservative and royalist political culture was essential in legitimising the king’s authority, but such a view emphasises parliament’s relative weakness and lack of visibility, for example, drawing attention to its failure to become a regular feature of the constitutional landscape.[72]32 72. Lee, ‘Retreat from revolution’, p.186 and pp. 200-1; Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and national identity’,pp. 118-22; D.L. Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles 1603-1707: The Double Crown (Oxford, 1998), pp. 210-13; Jackson, Restoration Scotland, pp. 84-5 and in general pp. 21-5, 73-103. Yet parliament met relatively often. There were three sessions of parliament in 1661-3, a convention of estates in 1665 and 1667, a new parliament that sat with four sessions in the years 1669-70 and 1672-4, a convention of estates in 1678 (the last to be summoned by the crown), a third parliament in 1681, and James VII’s only parliament in two sessions in 1685 and 1686, amounting to fourteen of the twenty-eight years between 1661 and 1688. A meeting of the estates every two years was not unreasonable, comparing favourably with much of parliament’s previous history, although on average sessions now lasted for around eight weeks, producing a growing volume of public and private legislation. A closer examination of the frequency of meetings reveals that from 1675 the estates met only four times in fourteen years in contrast to ten meetings in the fourteen years between 1661 and 1674.[73]3273. MacIntosh, Parliament; MacIntosh, ‘Arise King John: commissioner Lauderdale and parliament in the Restoration era’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 163-83.

What is more surprising about parliament in this era is that after the initial flourish of royalist enthusiasm at the Restoration, and in spite of the fact that many of the constitutional gains achieved by the estates in the 1640s were surrendered by parliament in 1661, Scottish political culture never lost a parliamentary dimension.Of course, there was no guarantee that parliament would be revived, or that it would be anything more than an instrument of royal administration. Yet historians generally have overstated the Restoration monarchy’s control in parliament, even if research has progressively pushed back the origins of dissent from 1679 to 1673 and now to 1669. By then a full parliament had not met for six years, the government’s popularity had been damaged by a range of policies, and the question of Anglo-Scottish union was again on the agenda, having been roundly rejected at the Restoration. From the first day it was clear that Commissioner Lauderdale intended to proceed in an authoritarian manner but would not have an easy time. Much of the opposition was directed at the commissioner and his colleagues by rival nobles, but in addition there were indications that members were straining to express constitutional objections to the crown’s stranglehold over parliamentary business. Members of the 1669 parliament contested the crown’s control of the selection of the committee of the articles and the commission to negotiate union, forced the crown to redraft the militia act, and bitterly opposed the act for excise and customs.[74]3274. Donaldson, James V to James VII, pp. 286, 377-8; J.R. Jones, ‘The Scottish constitutional opposition in 1679’, SHR, xxxvii (1958), pp. 37-41; J. Patrick, ‘The origins of opposition to Lauderdale in the Scottish parliament of 1673’, SHR, liii (1974), pp. 1-21; MacIntosh, Parliament, pp. 75-104.

Consequently, Lauderdale took steps to manage more tightly the subsequent sessions of 1670 and 1672, although this did not prevent further expressions of opposition in 1673-4 and 1678 and the emergence of what contemporaries recognised as a ‘party’ led by William Douglas, third duke of Hamilton. Even allowing for factional rivalries between individual nobles, this nascent country party aspired to an alternative political vision for parliament from Lauderdale’s view that the estates should merely ratify decisions made by the crown’s ministers. Here was a parliamentary ideology that feared a return to 1633, and that would mature in the revolution of 1689, in the ambitions of the Club, that opposition grouping of jacobites, episcopalians and rogue presbyterians, and in the country party’s drive for limitations on royal power in the later 1690s and early 1700s. Furthermore, the extent to which this parliamentary opposition had connections with the ongoing extra-parliamentary resistance by presbyterian covenanters requires further exploration.[75]3275. MacIntosh, Parliament, pp. 105-78; MacIntosh, ‘Arise King John’.

But for some contemporaries benign absolutism was preferable to noble dictatorship and the political anarchy of the 1640s and 1650s, hence Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, author of Jus Regium, Or the Just and Solid Foundation of the Monarchy of Scotland (1684), saw the king as a bulwark against parliamentary dictatorship.[76]3276. Jackson, Restoration Scotland, pp. 73-103; Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, Jus Regium, Or the Just and Solid Foundation of the Monarchy of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1684), pp. 4, 8-9 and 41-2; A.J. Mann, ‘Parliaments, princes and presses: voices of tradition and protest in early modern Scotland’ in U. Böker and J.A. Hibbard (eds), Sites of Discourse: Public and Private Spheres – Legal Culture (Amsterdam, 2002), pp. 79-91. Aside from the increasingly extreme activities of militant covenanters, such was the support for the monarchy in Scotland that the English Exclusion Crisis (the attempt to block a Catholic succession to the English crown) made little impact, and the Catholic James, duke of York, found refuge in Scotland where he held court and presided successfully over parliament in 1681. As king, James VII took a detailed interest in the parliaments of 1685 and 1686, and he knew that the key to controlling parliament lay in the composition of the lords of the articles. Unsurprisingly, that committee was restored in 1661 (although it was 1663 before the 1621 rules for election to it were revived), but in spite of Lauderdale’s efforts to establish control the deliberative mechanisms of the committee ensured behind-the-scenes checks and balances did exist. Thus even James VII experienced difficulty in exercising control over the lords of the articles along with what had become by the 1680s a large and complex body of inter-connected sub-committees. On major constitutional issues like the introduction of the test act in 1681, or the attempt to pass a toleration act in 1686, the opposition was organised and determined, while the management practices that had served Lauderdale relatively well in the 1660s and 1670s, in which he relied on a small group of trusted individuals, no longer worked. Parliament’s complex structure and the widespread absorption of country ideas linked to presbyterian religion ensured that James VII’s brand of royalist authoritarianism faced a resolute challenge from what looks like an emergent whig party, a party with its roots in the opposition politics and parliamentary tactics of the 1670s.[77]3277. MacIntosh, Parliament, pp. 179-211; Mann, ‘James VII, king of the articles’; Mann, ‘Inglorious revolution’, pp. 121-30; Donaldson, James V to James VII, pp. 284-6.

The revolution of 1688-9 destroyed much that the Restoration monarchy had tried to achieve. Recent analysis of the elections to the convention of the estates in 1689 and of the composition of the resulting Convention Parliament indicate an intense struggle between parties with opposing religious loyalties and political ideas. However, it was the commitment and organisation of the presbyterian revolutionaries, both in contesting the elections and in ruthlessly deploying their majority in the convention, that determined its outcome. A key to this success was the effect on the electorate of ignoring the test act and the strictly illegal device of widening the franchise in the royal burghs to include all Protestant burgesses instead of only the burgh council. It is also highly likely that intimidation depressed the support for James VII, and the revolution party proved more adept at electioneering strategies than the now deposed king or his supporters. In reaching out to a broader constituency, politicians were increasingly promoting themselves as representatives of the people and even engaging in a dialogue with the populace. A further tool in ensuring that parliament would back revolution was the committee for controverted elections, a regular feature since 1669 but a committee now packed with presbyterian sympathisers who used their numerical advantage to ensure the success of the revolution party in disputed elections. The convention of the estates that gathered in the spring of 1689 forfeited James VII, and negotiated an implicit recognition by the crown that the monarch’s office was conditional on contractual obligations spelled out in the Claim of Right and the Articles of Grievance. The convention evolved into a parliament that, in the course of 1689-90, freed the estates from royal control, the principal achievement being William II’s agreement to abolish the lords of the articles in return for supply in the 1690 session. Furthermore, no bishops took up their seats at the convention, and the erastian and episcopal church was replaced by a presbyterian church with a general assembly that succeeded in achieving separation from the state. Nevertheless, the constitutional settlement that emerged in parliament during the 1689 and 1690 sessions was less radical than that arrived at in 1641 as William and Mary retained important prerogative powers, the most politically significant being the right to summon, prorogue and dissolve parliament. Hence William II was able to continue the same parliament throughout his reign.[78]3278. D.J. Patrick, ‘Unconventional procedure: Scottish electoral politics after the revolution’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 208-44; Patrick, ‘People and parliament’; but also see P.W.J. Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians (Edinburgh, 1979).

The post-revolution debates exposed differences between a country tradition that held the initiative until the demise of the Club after the 1690 session, and a court faction prepared to co-operate with a range of ministers in order to monopolise power and patronage. Parliament was able to use as leverage the crown’s need for supply to fight an expensive foreign war, but this tool had limited usefulness given that parliament was filled with men who had no choice other than to support a war against the exiled monarch’s principal supporter. Once the revolution men became entrenched in office and garlanded with honours they delivered most of what the crown demanded. There was no need to risk holding an election that might weaken the presbyterian dominance, offer hope to the jacobites, and return a parliament that, from the king’s point of view, was less manageable. Nevertheless, in its short life the Club successfully pressed for the abolition of the committee of the articles in 1690, defeating the ‘managerial’ arguments used by King William and his ministers. However, while controlling the Scottish estates now required greater sensitivity, the absence of electoral politics provided court managers with the stability they needed to create working majorities from the demise of the Club in 1690 until the failure of inclusive government from 1698 and the collapse of the company of Scotland 1699-1700 following its failed attempt to establish a trading colony at Darien in Panama, inspired a revival of party conflict.[79]3279. Patrick, ‘People and parliament in Scotland’, pp. 195-241; J. Halliday, ‘The Club and the revolution in Scotland, 1689-90’, SHR, xxxxv (1966), pp. 143-59; Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians, passim; Mann, ‘Inglorious revolution’, pp. 121-30.

Of course, no-one can know how long the Convention Parliament would have sat had William II lived beyond 1702, but his death opened up a heated controversy on parliament’s legitimacy after thirteen years without elections. It also increased the pressure from those in the country party tradition who wanted to introduce further reform. Analysis of the 1702 election and its aftermath illuminates the extent to which it was contested by emergent political parties, and how that rivalry was translated into the first session of the new parliament. Unlike in 1689, the 1702 election was not held against the peculiar circumstances of military invasion, the collapse of a discredited government and political and religious revolution. But nor was it certain that jacobites and revolution men, episcopalians and presbyterians, would avoid coming to blows, especially with the onset of war with France. In fact, the election was bloodless and all parties accepted the results, protests being restricted to appeals to parliament on largely technical grounds, while the significant level of local engagement with parliamentary electoral politics confirms the picture of a robust and vibrant popular political culture. The final result of the elections produced a parliament whose ideological centre was still essentially pro-revolution and presbyterian making a Hanoverian and unionist coalition more likely given effective political management.[80]3280. K.M. Brown, ‘Party politics and parliament: Scotland’s last election and its aftermath’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 245-86; P.W.J. Riley, ‘The Scottish parliament of 1703’, SHR, xxxxvii (1968), pp. 129-50.

Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union had been periodically considered since the union of the crowns. The revolution of 1688-9 unleashed pent-up frustrations throughout Britain and Ireland that found expression in the heightened parliamentary politics of the era, creating a range of difficult problems for crown ministers who had to balance the conflicting demands of the different kingdoms while finding adequate supply and holding on to the remaining royal prerogatives. Furthermore, the public sphere within which parliamentary politics were conducted widened considerably following the revolution. The parliamentarians of the 1700s were required to pay far more attention to public opinion outside the chamber than had ever been the case in previous periods of parliament’s history. In 1702-3, Queen Anne and her ministers in England and Scotland again turned to the issue of union in the context of the dangerous uncertainty surrounding the succession and war with France. However, even though English and Scottish commissioners met in January and February 1703, mutual distrust, the lack of enthusiasm among the dominant English tories, Scots resentment at the Darien fiasco as well as the post-election parliamentary arithmetic, combined to make progress impossible. It was not until the autumn of 1706 that the court regained control of parliament, ensuring the passage of the act of union. Parliament’s decision to unite with England has commonly been explained in terms of self-interest, corruption and English bullying. However, while there is evidence of all of these factors at play, it is clear that there was a determined unionist coalition of interests within parliament motivated by a desire to secure the revolution, the Protestant religion and the future economic prosperity of Scotland.[81]3281. J. Goodare, ‘Scotland’s parliament in its British context 1603-1707’, in H.T. Dickinson and M. Lynch (eds), The Challenge to Westminster. Sovereignty, Devolution and Independence (East Linton, 2000), pp. 22-32; K. Bowie, Scottish Public Opinion and the Anglo-Scottish Union, 1699-1707 (Woodbridge, 2007); C.A. Whatley with D.J. Patrick, The Scots and the Union (Edinburgh, 2006); J.R. Young, ‘The parliamentary incorporating union of 1707: political management, anti-unionism and foreign policy’, in T.M. Devine and J.R. Young (eds), Eighteenth-Century Scotland. New Perspectives (East Linton, 1999), pp. 24-52; J. Robertson, ‘An elusive sovereignty: the course of the union debate in Scotland 1698-1707’, in Robertson (ed.),Union for Empire, pp. 198-227. For a different perspective see P.W.J. Riley, ‘The union of 1707 as an episode in English politics’, EHR, lxxiv (1969), pp. 498-527; P.W.J. Riley, The Union of England and Scotland. A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester, 1978);W. Ferguson, ‘The making of the treaty of union in 1707’, SHR, xxxxiii (1964), pp. 89-110; W. Ferguson, Scotland’s Relations with England: a Survey to 1707 (Edinburgh, 1977), pp. 166-277.

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