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

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Parliament and the Medieval Constitution

The history of European parliaments is often thought to begin with the cortes of Castile-Leon in 1188, that being arguably the first recorded instance of an assembly that fits the commonly held definition of what constitutes a parliament. Of course, long before that date, assemblies of some sort or another met to give counsel to rulers, to debate political issues, to conduct diplomacy, to plan military campaigns and to offer judgement in matters of justice. The exact point at which these early assemblies were transformed into parliaments remains debatable, and the difference between an early parliament and the earlier royal assemblies will often have been slight. By the mid-thirteenth century, however, parliamentary institutions were beginning to develop in many European kingdoms. In the later sixteenth century the constitutional lawyer, Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton, speculated that Scotland’s parliamentary development was relatively late compared to other countries, and that ‘we did not follow the example of more powerful states’.[1]321. T. Craig, Jus Feudale (London, 1934), trans. J.A. Clyde, i, pp. 88-90. In fact, parliament in Scotland developed broadly at the same time and it followed much the same pattern, combining existing Scottish legal and procedural traditions with the imitation of other kingdoms, above all England, but probably also France.

The sources for parliament’s early history are not good, many records probably being an unfortunate casualty of Edward I’s attempted conquest. For this reason reconstructing how and when Scotland’s parliament came into being will probably remain a matter of debate. It is known that the word colloquium, which in England appears to be synonymous with the word ‘parliament’ in Henry III’s reign, was used occasionally in Scottish government documents from 1235. Yet almost nothing can be discerned about these assemblies, especially about what differentiated them from earlier meetings.[2]322. The word colloquium is used in official documents in 1235, 1248, 1256, 1258, 1264, 1265 and 1285. A.A.M. Duncan, ‘The early parliaments of Scotland’, SHR, xiv (1966), p. 36 and n.; A.A.B. McQueen, ‘The origins and development of the Scottish parliament, 1249-1329’, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of St Andrews), pp. 18-19;RPS, 1235/1 to 1293/8/2. Between 1235 and 1286, therefore, parliament exists for historians in a kind of limbo – we can see that the term is used (in the early colloquium form), but can tell almost nothing about what was meant by that term. What set the early colloquia apart from previous assemblies of the king and his subjects has been lost, although there could have been a clear distinction, and the primary purpose of those early assemblies is unknown – whether they were political, judicial or legislative. There are no criteria that can be used for parliament’s emergence other than the moment that contemporary Scots began to refer to their assemblies in official sources by either the word parliamentum or colloquium. The debate about the earliest known Scottish parliament, therefore, becomes very simple – it was the Kirkliston colloquium held in 1235. Whether this was the first assembly to be referred to as such, or whether it differed in any significant way from the royal councils and assemblies that had occurred before will almost certainly never be known.[3]32 3. RPS, 1235/1-1290/3/1; Duncan, ‘Early parliaments’, pp. 36-8; McQueen, ‘Scottish parliament’, pp. 5-7; A.A.M. Duncan, Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 571-2, p. 610; M. Brown, The Wars of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2004), p. 33.

Perhaps the most common explanation of parliamentary evolution in medieval kingdoms is that they developed from the king’s great council as the realm’s leading nobles acquired a self-conscious realisation of their ability to influence and to audit rulers. These new assemblies often acquired a judicial function and the ability to agree legislation, giving expression to the view that laws could not be made without the consent of subjects. They also became politically prominent because of clashes between the king and his subjects over the issue of taxation, often required for war. This is a pattern that suggests clear parallels to the historian of Scotland’s parliament, and while the records are too poor to make any confident judgement about the primary role of parliament before the death of Alexander III in 1286, the community or estates did exercise a strong influence over taxation and legislation at an early date. However, notions of collective authority were not explicitly set out until the parliamentary oaths of 1445.[4]324. Duncan, ‘Early parliaments’, pp. 36-7; R. Tanner, The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament. Politics and the Three Estates, 1424-1488 (East Linton, 2001), pp. 112-13.

While our knowledge of assemblies and parliaments in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is scarce, it is possible to make some observations. For one thing, the Scots produced their own body of laws that is likely to have been arrived at by kings together with their councils and the judicial administration, in other words bodies sharing many of the functions seen in later periods as characteristic of parliaments. It is also worth remembering that parliament was not the only form of representative assembly, for example the provincial council of the Scottish church fulfilled such a function.[5]325. W. D. H. Sellar, ‘The common law of Scotland and the common law of England’, in R. R. Davies (ed.), The British Isles, 1100-1500: Comparisons, Contrasts and Connections (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 82-99; H. L. MacQueen, ‘Scots law under Alexander III’, in N. H. Reid (ed.), Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III, 1249-1286 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 74-102; G. W. S. Barrow, ‘The Scottish justiciar in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Juridical Review, xvi (1971), pp. 97-148; D.E.R. Watt, ‘The provincial council of the Scottish church 1215-1472’, in A. Grant and K.J. Stringer (eds), Medieval Scotland. Crown, Lordship and Community (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 140-55. It is likely that the opportunity provided by an assembly of powerful men for such purposes might have enabled discussion upon a broader range of issues than the king intended.

Analysis of the few early parliamentary records demonstrates that the definitive phase in the parliament becoming prominent – or at least the word ‘parliament’ being used with any regularity – was not associated with justice, or the presentation of grievances against the king, or taxation, but with the unique circumstances arising after the death of Alexander III in 1286. In the absence of an adult monarch, and with the lack of any clear succession following the death of the Maid of Norway in 1290, the Scots were forced to innovate. This they did by the mechanism of guardianship and by adopting large assemblies, or parliaments, to perform an advisory and overseeing role, associating these bodies with the idea of the authority vested in the ‘community of the realm’. The word parliamentum replaced colloquium after 1290 as the term to refer to certain assemblies of significance, but intriguingly was not employed with any regularity among Scots. Instead it seems to have been adopted out of necessity when negotiating with England over the future status of Scotland. This arose both when discussing the union of the Scottish and English crowns anticipated by the treaty of Birgham in 1290 at which time the Scots argued for the continued existence of an independent Scottish ‘parliament’ before an institution with that name was firmly established.[6]326. RPS, 1290/3/1 to 1293/2/1; Duncan, ‘Early parliaments’, p. 38; McQueen, ‘Scottish parliament’, pp. 74-6; Brown, Wars of Scotland, p. 170. The momentum to involve parliament in government was maintained after John Balliol was chosen as king in 1292. The new king tried to use parliament to establish his authority over the kingdom, while parliament also played a role in seeking to reunite the divided community and in counteracting Edward I’s increasingly encroaching demands. The repeated crises after the death of Alexander III and the unique circumstances of John Balliol’s reign forced the innovation that brought the term ‘parliament’ into common usage, made the institution prominent, and created a situation where the powers implied by terms such as ‘parliament’ and ‘community of the realm’ reflected, at least partially, a genuine role for collective authority in the government of the kingdom.[7]327. A.A.B. McQueen, ‘Parliament, the guardians and John Balliol, 1284-1296’, in K.M. Brown and R.J. Tanner (eds), The History of the Scottish Parliament Volume 1. Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560 (Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 123-44; McQueen, ‘Scottish parliament’, pp. 65-80.

From its origins, parliament had a well established judicial role as a final court of appeal and complaint, it began to invite town representatives in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries primarily for reasons of taxation, and it continued to see a relaxed distinction between parliament and other great assemblies termed variously full councils, general councils and great councils.[8]328. R.J. Tanner, ‘Cowing the community? Coercion and falsification in Robert Bruce’s parliaments, 1309-1318’, in Brown and Tanner (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560, pp. 50-73; M. Penman, ‘Parliament lost – parliament regained? The three estates in the reign of David II, 1329-1371’ in Brown and Tanner (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560, pp. 74-101; Tanner, Parliament, pp. 30-1. Furthermore, the political role of parliament was substantial, having ‘fundamental’ powers over taxation, legislation or in its role as a court of appeal and complaint (on occasion against the monarch and his officials). Parliament, therefore, represented a challenge to kings, and unsurprisingly the political role of the community of the realm was curbed temporarily by Robert I in the early fourteenth century. Only his death in 1329 without an adult heir denied the crown the opportunity to build on this success. In addition, the renewal of war against Edward III, David II’s minority and later imprisonment in England, the extinction of the Bruce dynasty and its succession by two weak Stewart kings all ensured that parliament retained a powerful voice throughout the remainder of the fourteenth century.[9]329. Tanner, ‘Cowing the community?’; Penman, ‘Parliament lost – parliament regained?’; S. Boardman, ‘Coronations, kings and guardians: politics, parliaments and general councils, 1371-1406’, in Brown and Tanner (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560, pp. 102-22. However, parallel institutions – ‘full councils’ and ‘general councils’ – continued to be held and occasionally occupied a more prominent role than parliaments, especially during the reigns of Robert II and Robert III.[10]3210. M. D. Young, The Parliaments of Scotland: Burgh and Shire Commissioners (Edinburgh, 1993), ii, app. 1, pp. 748-9; Tanner, Parliament, pp. 30-1.

Scotland’s unicameral (single chamber) assembly was dominated by the nobility, especially as there was no significant distinction between the titled peerage and the lesser nobility, or barons, even after the development of the parliamentary peerage in the mid-fifteenth century. Yet the absence of an independent lower house, and the fact that the lesser nobility identified more strongly with the great magnates than with the relatively unimportant burgesses, had no effect on parliament’s power to influence royal policy. The history of parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries confirms the view that there was no need for a prominent ‘commons’ element for a medieval parliament to be able to exert influence in political affairs. The Scottish parliament, therefore, resembled the English house of lords with a largely silent and semi-developed ‘commons’ element tacked on.[11]3211. A. Grant, Independence and Nationhood. Scotland 1306-1469 (London 1984), pp. 166-70; Tanner, Parliament, pp. 30-7, 267-9; J. Goodare, ‘The estates in the Scottish Parliament, 1286-1707’, in C. Jones (ed.) The Scots and Parliament (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 11-32.

The 1445 oaths, by which the young James II swore not to ‘eike nor mynisshe’ the statutes of the realm and ‘nathing to wyrke na use tuoching the comon profitt of the realme bot [without] consent of the three estaitts’, were made at a comparatively late point in parliament’s history. Nevertheless, parliament acquired a realisation of its political and constitutional importance (at least in maintaining Scotland’s legal and political independence) as early as the treaty of Birgham in 1290. Scotland’s parliament was already more constitutionally advanced than many European assemblies, and it played a prominent and ‘quasi-executive’ role in the government of the kingdom under the guardians, and continued to do so after 1292 because of John Balliol’s reliance on it as a means of reforming the kingdom, pressurising potentially troublesome subjects such as the Bruces, and holding off the encroachments of Edward I.[12]32Tanner, Parliament, p. 113; McQueen, ‘Parliament, the guardians and John Balliol, 1284-1296’, pp. 29-49; RPS, 1293/2/1-A1294/2/1.

Part 2 - War with England and the Bruce Dynasty, 1306-1371 >

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