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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The Late Medieval Stewart Monarchy, 1371-1496

The prominent role of assemblies of estates in removing both Robert II and Robert III from an active role in government, and then regulating the office of the guardian, might suggest a leap towards some form of limited ‘constitutional’ monarchy, but there is no evidence of an ideological conflict between the crown and estates. The guardianships of Robert II’s and Robert III’s reigns were justified as measures to restore the acceptable level of royal power and military leadership, not to limit that power on behalf of the estates. The on-going military threat presented by England since 1296 meant that forceful political and military leadership was the ideal craved by late fourteenth-century Scots. It is ironic, therefore, that in seeking to provide that strong executive authority in the form of guardians appointed by general councils, the political community was edging towards a more conciliar view of sovereign power.[18]32 18. S. Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings. Robert II and Robert III 1371-1406 (East Linton, 1996); Boardman, ‘Coronations, kings and guardians’.

What is less clear is how representational the late fourteenth-century parliaments and general councils had become. Parliaments decreased in number, but general councils, which had the same membership and almost identical powers, continued to be held frequently. The available sources decrease dramatically, probably because of the accident of survival, and this should not be confused with evidence for a decline in the ability of the three estates to influence the monarchy or its governors.[19]3219. The relatively good records for David II’s parliaments are heavily reliant on the survival of Liber Niger (NAS, PA5/4). If this single volume had not survived historians might now argue for parliamentary decline after 1329. Despite poor record survival, Robert II, III and the Albany Stewarts held at least 40 parliaments, ‘full councils’ and general councils in the fifty-three years between 1371 and 1424 (RPS, A1371/1-1423/8/1). It is certainly the case that, due to the absence of elected shire commissioners, who were created in 1587, late medieval Scotland did not experience any form of electoral politics, and it might be argued that the involvement of local communities in parliamentary business was minimal. Likewise, the tiny amount of surviving evidence suggests that elected burgh commissioners to parliament were generally chosen by the restricted elite found on the burgh council, while ‘popular’ election of the council itself was outlawed in 1469.[20]3220. A. R. MacDonald, ‘The burghs and parliament, c.1300-1707’, in K. M. Brown and A. R. MacDonald (eds.) The History of the Scottish Parliament III: A Thematic History (Edinburgh, forthcoming). The 1469 act outlawing council elections nevertheless suggests that hitherto local council elections had been overly boisterous, RPS, 1469/19. Yet the lack of shire commissioners brought its own benefits in terms of the independence of the estates. Theoretically any tenant-in-chief was permitted to attend, providing the potential for a far wider and less crown-controlled attendance than a system of shire representatives. Lesser barons were released from undergoing an ‘election’ likely to be dominated by the local magnate, although it has been argued that James I’s abortive attempt to introduce shire commissioners in 1428 amounted to an attempt to introduce a mechanism for crown control, not locality involvement.[21]3221RRS, v, no. 563; RPS, 1426/11; Tanner, Parliament, pp. 30-4; A. A. M. Duncan, James I, King of Scots, 1424-1437, 2nd edition (Glasgow, 1984), pp. 12-13. Nevertheless, while the records of who attended parliament are fragmentary before 1467, much can still be teased out about the relationships between centre and locality, about the breadth of counsel parliament represented, and the inter-connected webs of patronage that provided parliament with its political dynamics.

Between 1424 and 1496 parliament played a much more prominent role in political affairs, exerting sustained and substantial influence over the Stewart monarchs. This power was based on the reduced military threat from England and the decentralised nature of the Scottish kingdom. No king could force his subjects to pay a tax, or enforce a law, or go to war, without the genuine consent of a cross-section of society (and especially the leading lay and ecclesiastical magnates). Yet ironically it was the increasing demands of the crown after 1424 that enabled this more intensive parliamentary role to arise. James I’s vigorous style of kingship demanded frequent parliaments, particularly when seeking taxation, which in turn allowed the estates to modify these policies, or on occasion to block them entirely. In this context it is right to be cautious about an overly constitutional perception of parliament’s place in political life. Of course, James I also summoned parliaments and issued statutes as a means to reinforce his power and status, and parliament was a key royal tool in the elimination of the Albany Stewarts (the family that held the regency during James I’s imprisonment in England), as it was in the destruction of the Black Douglases under James II. That James I and James II were sometimes obstructed in the implementation of other policies should not obscure the value of parliament to a succession of kings seeking to remove individual noble threats to their authority. Fifteenth-century parliaments were intimately bound up with attempts to increase ‘public authority’ at the expense of the private power of families such as the Black Douglases. The parliament of 1455 appeared to mark a victory for the crown that, in theory, left assemblies of the three estates as the only remaining legitimate means by which communal political action against the government could be expressed. James I and James II, therefore, had demonstrated that parliament could be used as a tool to enhance monarchical authority, but at the price of increasing intervention by the estates in royal affairs.[22]32 22. Tanner, Parliament, passim, summarised pp. 264-78; M. Brown, ‘Public authority and factional conflict: crown, parliament and polity, 1424-1455’, in Brown and Tanner (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560, pp. 123-44; M. Brown, James I (East Linton, 1994), pp. 139-40; C. McGladdery, James II (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 93-6.

For much of the fifteenth century, parliament was a double-edged sword for crown and estates alike, while dynastic crises and royal minorities continued to enhance parliamentary authority, benefiting the nobility especially. During the minority of James II (1437-49) and the minority of James III (1460-9) parliaments and general councils could be the tool of whichever faction currently claimed to be the government. Equally importantly, however, parliament was effective in curbing the excesses of governors, lieutenants and monarchs who either demanded too much from their subjects (as with James I’s taxation schemes), or who lacked the good sense to realise their plans were unrealistic (as with James III’s continental plans to assert his claims to Brittany). It offered a means of extracting concessions from the monarch aimed at the common interests of king and estates alike, such as the 1455 Act of Annexation. The 1445 oaths reflected the perception among many members of the three estates of the de jure authority over the crown that was invested in them when assembled in parliament, and a more pragmatic wish to avoid the repeated clashes between the king and estates that characterised James I’s reign. The very extent of parliamentary influence over the crown envisaged by these oaths might have been responsible for provoking a royal reaction in a rival theory of an overriding imperial authority adopted by James III and his successors, first expressed in a parliamentary setting in 1469.[23]3223. Tanner, ‘Outside the acts’, pp. 69-70; R. A. Mason, Kingship and the Commonweal: Political Thought in Renaissance and Reformation Scotland (East Linton, 1998), pp. 104-38; R. A. Mason, ‘This realm of Scotland is an empire? Imperial ideas and iconography in early Renaissance Scotland’, in B. E. Crawford (ed.), Church, Chronicle and Learning in Medieval and Early Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 73-92.

For most of the fifteenth century, however, the powers of the crown and the estates in parliament existed in a state of dynamic equilibrium, with the interests of each usually seen as mutually beneficial, but with a clear and recognised ability for both elements to influence the other. The overall effect, however, was that the practical ability of assemblies of the three estates to influence the crown was more intensively exercised in the fifteenth century than ever before, and that this de facto power was recognised by 1445 as a de jure right. The three estates also saw no contradiction in attempts to augment royal power taking place alongside declarations of a high degree of authority that they believed to be vested in parliament. This is best illustrated by the acts of the January 1450 parliament. The three estates both forfeited the Livingston family, thus increasing James II’s power, and declared that rebellion against the king was only treasonable if done without the consent of the estates. During the reign of James III parliament met frequently, often in the context of bitter factional disputes and against a background of discontent with royal policies that led the estates to test the limits both of the king’s power and parliament’s right to restrain that power.[24]3224. RPS, 1450/1/13 ; Tanner, Parliament, pp. 169-263; N. Macdougall, James III. A Political Study (Edinburgh, 1982). Scots wanted their kings to be strong, but also believed they had the right to act as a check on that authority, even to the extent of declaring rebellion to be lawful, and they stopped well short of providing the king with the frightening degree of coercive authority available to rulers elsewhere.

Part 4 - Decline and Revival, 1496-1560 >

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