The Scottish Parliament: An Historical Introduction

Keith M. Brown, Alastair J. Mann and Roland J. Tanner

Regal Union, Multiple Monarchy and the War of the Three Kingdoms, 1603-1660

If James VI had had his way Scotland’s distinct parliamentary history would have ended in the years immediately after 1603. The king’s vision of union was far deeper than the dynastic accident that resulted in the Stewarts ruling over the separate kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland. He aimed at something much more ambitious, imagining a British people ruled by a British emperor. One crucial step on the road to that ambition was the union of the English and Scottish parliaments, a project James set in motion almost immediately, placing it before his two parliaments in 1604. What he encountered was outright hostility in England where the house of commons would consider only a ‘perfect union’ in which the Scottish parliament was folded into Westminster. Although the king’s stubbornness ensured that union remained on the agenda until 1608, English opposition killed off the project right at the start, helping to sour James’s relations with his Westminster parliament. The king forgot the problems he had previously encountered with his Scottish estates and instead lectured the English parliament on its virtues. James VI and I also came to believe his own rhetoric because he no longer saw at first hand the difficulties encountered by his councillors in delivering crown policy in Scotland. In fact, on the issue of union the Scottish parliament was equally unenthusiastic, even if it avoided direct opposition and preferred to allow English MPs to take the lead in wrecking James’s project. Interestingly, in contrast to the king’s propaganda about the manageable nature of the Scottish parliament, one of the chief English objections to union was the perceived weakness of the royal prerogative in Scotland. This was based on the widespread and mistaken belief that royal assent was not required for legislation to be enacted by parliament.[57]3257. B. Galloway, The Union of England and Scotland 1603-1608 (Edinburgh, 1986); J. Wormald, ‘The union of 1603’, in R.A. Mason (ed.), Scots and Britons. Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 24-5; B. Levack, The Formation of the British State. England, Scotland and the Union 1603-1707 (Oxford, 1987), p. 57.

Even without parliamentary union, James VI’s accession to the English throne had a significant impact on the crown’s relations with the Scottish estates that, after 1603, met less often, although more frequently than either of the king’s other parliaments in London and Dublin. The 1617 parliament was the only occasion when the absentee king attended, although James VI continued to be the guiding spirit behind all seven meetings of parliament and nine conventions of the estates that took place before his death in 1625. Paradoxically it was the physical absence of the king from the country and his removal from a forum in which he could be criticised in person that led to his greater power over parliament, although subsequent monarchs found absence merely encouraged attacks on crown ministers. In addition, the enhanced power of the crown was directly related to the massive increase in royal patronage under James VI, and the parliaments of 1604, 1606, 1607, 1609, 1612, 1617 and 1621 saw a steady improvement in royal management. By the 1606 parliament, enhanced crown patronage had already led to a noticeable improvement in the king’s grip over the estates.[58]3258. M. Lee, Government by Pen. Scotland under James VI and I (Urbana, 1980); K.M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union 1603-1715 (Basingstoke, 1992), pp. 86-99.

Yet management of parliament remained a challenge for royal officers. The king’s absenteeism created a new procedural dilemma since, prior to 1603, the king attended in person, addressing the estates, managing affairs, debating in the lords of the articles, and granting royal assent to acts. The solution was the office of king’s commissioner, an individual appointed for the duration of a parliament to represent the crown and to perform the role of the crown’s parliamentary manager, thus usurping the presiding role of the chancellor. For the parliament such a ‘viceroy’ was a mixed blessing: on the one hand he was no substitute for the king or queen, but on the other he provided a target of complaint who had behind him a monarch once removed and who could act as an occasional court of appeal. Crown management was also facilitated by shifts in the composition of parliament. Having almost disappeared as a meaningful estate, the restored episcopate of thirteen archbishops and bishops (fourteen after the creation of the bishopric of Edinburgh in 1633) was entirely dependent on the crown. The rapid expansion of the noble estate meant that there were some new peers who were at least temporarily grateful to the king, but royal interference in burgh council elections and the influence of the court in shire elections was modest. Nevertheless, even cautious intervention helped to shape a chamber more predisposed towards the king’s interests. Further support for the king was provided by the more formal recognition of the role in parliament of the seven or eight officers of state and from among the larger body of over thirty privy councillors.[59]3259. The number of appointed officers of state varied, but in 1617 king and parliament agreed to limit their number to eight in both voting and numerical strength on committees. See Terry, Scottish Parliament, pp. 4-9. The number of privy councillors also varied during the seventeenth century. The factional divisions among councillors is hugely unexplored.

The key to the crown’s success in driving the agenda in early seventeenth-century parliaments lay in royal manipulation of the lords of the articles, a highly efficient clearing house for proposed legislation and ratifications that prevented the clogging up of business. Throughout the later sixteenth century, and even in the early seventeenth century, parliamentary acts were subject to a series of deliberative processes. These included consideration by the separate estates meeting independently and careful scrutiny by the relatively large and reasonably representative lords of the articles, membership of which was not controlled by the king. By the time of the 1612 parliament, increasingly successful management procedures were taking effect, but the crown still had to withdraw controversial legislation and negotiate down its taxation demands in order to secure parliament’s ratification of the restoration of episcopacy and a significant grant of taxation. The resolution of differences suggests an underlying trust between James VI and parliament, nevertheless the conclusion drawn by the king and his advisers was that in future even greater care would have to be taken in managing the composition of the lords of the articles. This conflict possibly represents a stage in a longer-term constitutional clash between king and parliament that emerged in the disagreements over taxation in 1599 and 1600, and that grew more pronounced in the parliaments of 1609, 1612, 1617 and 1621.[60]3260. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’; V.T. Wells, ‘Constitutional conflict after the union of the crowns: contention and continuity in the parliaments of 1612 and 1621’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 82-101.

In spite of these difficulties, James VI did not develop an aversion to parliament, indeed it was not in the interest of rulers to lose the momentum in parliamentary management by having too infrequent meetings. Compared to the politically unstable later sixteenth century, the estates sat less often, but meetings were held at regular intervals, their timing determined largely by the crown’s need for new taxes. Furthermore, the king placed great emphasis on enhancing the dignity of the occasion, instituting more refined ritual, prescribing elaborate dress codes for the riding of the 1606 parliament, and taking a firm line over unjustified absence of members in 1617.[61]3261. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, first series, eds J.H. Burton and D. Masson (14 vols. Edinburgh, 1877-98), vii, pp. 57-8, 488-9 and 208-9; RPC, first series viii, pp. 233-4. For a summary see Terry, Scottish Parliament, pp. 97-100; RPS, 1609/4/27; and on ritual generally see A.J. Mann, ‘The Scottish parliaments: the role of ritual and procession in the pre 1707 parliament and echoes in the new parliament of 1999’ in E. Crewe and M. Müller (eds), Rituals in Parliament. Political, Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Europe and the United States (Frankfurt, 2006), pp. 135-58.

But James VI’s determination to ensure that crown business was conducted effectively did see a progressive thwarting of opportunities for open deliberation and constructive debate, alongside ever tighter control over the proceedings of the lords of the articles. By 1621 ruthless crown management succeeded in forcing through parliament an unpopular liturgical policy along with a heavy taxation. On this occasion nothing was left to chance in the election of the lords of the articles, but even with a huge investment in management by crown ministers, the five articles of Perth faced determined opposition within the committee and in the full house where between forty-eight and fifty-one members voted against the crown.[62]3262. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’, pp. 37-8, 40-4; J. Goodare, ‘The Scottish parliament of 1621’, Historical Journal, xxxviii (1995), pp. 29-51. Yet this confrontation needs to be placed in perspective. James VI’s astute management gave him the political initiative over the estates, and while there was a legacy of frustration and irritation over aspects of royal policy, it would be unhelpful to overlook the extent to which king and parliament co-operated in pursuing a broad legislative agenda.

Charles I continued his father’s programme of enhancing parliament’s status as a royal court by having a new and costly Parliament House built in Edinburgh.[63]3263. A. Mackechnie, ‘Housing Scotland’s parliament, 1603-1707’, in C. Jones and S. Kelsey (eds), Housing Parliament. Dublin, Edinburgh and Westminster (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 99-130. Unfortunately, his grand, Renaissance construction was not finished until 1639 by which time parliament was in the hands of the covenanters who set about dismantling royal authority. Yet initially there was little indication of the revolutionary events that would overthrow Charles I’s authority in the meetings of the estates, there being satisfactory deals on taxation at the conventions of 1625, 1630 and at the parliament of 1633. On the other hand, the unease that surfaced in 1621 did not dissipate entirely, and there was opposition to royal demands at the 1625 convention. Furthermore, the parliament of 1633, the first full parliament for twelve years, took place against a background of rising anger at the revocation which threatened the security of noble rights to their estates, the teind commission, the tax burden, the growing influence of bishops, an unpopular liturgical policy, and the narrowing of counsel at court.[64]3264. Brown, Kingdom or Province?, pp. 99-111; M. Lee, The Road to Revolution. Scotland under Charles I 1625-1637 (Urbana, 1985); A.I. Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement 1625-1641 (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 1-154.

To date, evidence for the crown dabbling in electoral politics has been slight, but it is now possible to demonstrate the unprecedented and systematic attempts to establish electoral control in preparation for the parliament of 1633. Furthermore, the continuity of parliamentary membership from 1621 to the 1640s supports the argument for the emergence of an opposition party, or at least oppositional ideas, formed by the men who objected to royal policies in 1612, 1621, 1633 and who later dismantled royal authority in parliament between 1639 and 1641. Arguably, the 1633 parliament represented a high point of crown control exercised through the lords of the articles, but the formal success enjoyed by the king masked a fundamental evaporation of trust. The 1633 parliament also acted as a point of contact for disparate dissenters for, in spite of all Charles I’s efforts to silence dissent, he failed to prevent the spread of critical opinion of his government. In fact, parliament was crucial in the formulation of an active dissenting party in the nation, and as a manifestation of broader discontent in all sectors of society.[65]3265. Rait, Parliament of Scotland, pp. 62, 304-5, 408-9; Goodare, ‘Admission of lairds’, p. 1122; J.R. Young, ‘Charles I and the 1633 parliament’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 101-37; J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and the covenanting heritage of constitutional reform’, in A.I. Macinnes and J. Ohlmeyer (eds), The Stuart Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century (Dublin, 2002), pp. 226-50; J. Scally, ‘Constitutional revolution, party and faction in the Scottish parliaments of Charles I’, in C. Jones (ed.), The Scots and Parliament (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 55-9; Lee, Road to Revolution, pp. 131-3; Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, pp. 86-9.

In cutting off all means of legitimate debate and petitioning, Charles I pushed his critics towards a public protest against the liturgy in 1637, while his subsequent intransigence towards the series of protests led to the establishment of a revolutionary parliamentary government that was only overthrown by English conquest in 1651.[66]3266. See Brown, Kingdom or Province?, pp. 112-36; D. Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution 1637-44. The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot, 1973); D. Stevenson, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Scotland 1644-1651 (London, 1977); Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, pp. 183-213; A.I. Macinnes, ‘The Scottish constitution, 1638-51: the rise and fall of oligarchic centralism’, in J. Morrill (ed.), The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context 1638-51 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 106-33; P. Donald, An Uncounselled King. Charles I and the Scottish Troubles 1637-1641 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 206-17, 237-9, 276-8, 310-12. Although Charles I lost his grip on Scotland before parliament sat in the autumn of 1639, the crown’s failure to retain control of the lords of the articles in that session proved crucial in breaking free of royal dominance. However, it was the 1640 session of parliament, assembled without the king’s assent, that carried out a constitutional revolution. The clerical estate had been abolished by the general assembly in 1639 and bishops did not appear at the parliament that sat a few months later, but it was the 1640 parliament that passed an act to this effect. Officers of state were also prevented from sitting in parliament ex officio. The committee of the lords of the articles became optional and did not meet again after 1640 until after the Restoration of the monarchy. That same session of parliament passed a triennial act requiring that parliament meet at least once every three years, and agreed that each shire commissioner vote individually instead of through shared voting for each shire, thus doubling the size of the shire vote. Foreigners were forbidden from sitting in parliament, removing a recent abuse by which Englishmen with Scottish peerages might provide the crown with proxy votes. The 1640 parliament also instituted the committee of estates to govern in the intervals between parliamentary sessions. At the 1641 session the king was present to confirm this new constitution and to concede that parliament would advise him on the appointment of officers of state, privy councillors and judges of the court of session. What Charles I was forced to sign up to in the 1641 settlement was limited monarchy and a form of parliamentary government in which a complex system of session and interval committees was established. The committee of estates that sat from June 1640 until 1651 effectively usurped the place of the privy council in the daily conduct of government and oversaw, for example, the regular business of foreign policy and the conduct of warfare. It was primarily on these committees that the numerical strength of the shire and burgh commissioners was deployed increasingly to overawe more conservative members of the higher nobility. Parliament now met regularly and more often: three sessions in the parliament of 1639-41, two sessions in the 1643-4 convention of estates, six sessions in the parliament of 1644-7, and eight sessions in the parliament of 1648-51.[67]3267. Young, Scottish Parliament; Young, ‘Scottish parliament and the covenanting revolution’; J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and the war of the three kingdoms, 1639-1651’, PER, 21 (2001), pp. 103-23; J.R. Young, ‘Scottish covenanting radicalism, the commission of the kirk and the establishment of the parliamentary regime of 1648-1649’, in RSCHS, xxv (1995), pp. 342-75; Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 166-76, 192-7, 227-41; D. Stevenson (ed.), The Government of Scotland under the Covenanters 1637-1651 (SHS, fourth series 18, Edinburgh, 1982).

However, the extent to which the covenanters were engaged in creating a new kind of parliament is problematic, and arguably the thrust of the agenda to reform parliament was a reaction against Charles I’s subversion of parliamentary liberty. Instead of seeing the covenanters’ reforms as wholly innovative, many of the measures were designed to rejuvenate the representative and deliberative nature of parliament. Meanwhile, political leadership continued to be located with those magnates who were pre-eminent in what remained an intensely hierarchic society, although the groupings of factions based on customary notions of kinship, lordship and geography were increasingly identified by religious beliefs and constitutional principles that gave vent to behaviour that hints at the origin of party and of open adversarial politics within the house. Ultimately it was those divisions that led to the downfall of the covenanter form of parliamentary government.[68]3268. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’, pp. 23-4; J.J. Scally, ‘The rise and fall of the Covenanter parliaments, 1639-51’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 138-62; Scally, ‘Constitutional revolution, party and faction’.

The English conquest of Scotland and the capture of the committee of estates in 1651 was followed by a constitutional experiment in which the kingdom was united with England. Unlike Edward I’s conquest of the late thirteenth century, when a separate Scottish parliament was maintained, though with some derogation of its powers as a supreme court, Oliver Cromwell did away with an assembly that in 1648 had waged war on England in support of the imprisoned Charles I, and in 1649 had invited further warfare by proclaiming Charles II king of Great Britain. Instead, the Scots were offered representation at Westminster in a parliament shorn of any dissenting members. Unsurprisingly, those Scots who were permitted to take up these thirty seats had to satisfy the regime of their loyalty. It was a short-lived and failed experiment, like much that emanated from the commonwealth and protectorate parliaments, and none of those who sat in Westminster ever held seats in the restored Scottish parliament.[69]3269. F. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland 1651-1660 (Edinburgh, 1979); P.J. Pinckney, ‘The Scottish representation in the Cromwellian parliament of 1656’, SHR, xlvi (1967), pp. 95-114; J.A. Casada, ‘The Scottish representation in Richard Cromwell’s parliament’, SHR, li (1972), pp. 124-47; D.L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments 1603-1689 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 136-46.

Part 8 - Restoration, Revolution and Union, 1660-1707 >

Footnotes:

57. B. Galloway, The Union of England and Scotland 1603-1608 (Edinburgh, 1986); J. Wormald, ‘The union of 1603’, in R.A. Mason (ed.), Scots and Britons. Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 24-5; B. Levack, The Formation of the British State. England, Scotland and the Union 1603-1707 (Oxford, 1987), p. 57.

58. M. Lee, Government by Pen. Scotland under James VI and I (Urbana, 1980); K.M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union 1603-1715 (Basingstoke, 1992), pp. 86-99.

59. The number of appointed officers of state varied, but in 1617 king and parliament agreed to limit their number to eight in both voting and numerical strength on committees. See Terry, Scottish Parliament, pp. 4-9. The number of privy councillors also varied during the seventeenth century. The factional divisions among councillors is hugely unexplored.

60. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’; V.T. Wells, ‘Constitutional conflict after the union of the crowns: contention and continuity in the parliaments of 1612 and 1621’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 82-101.

61. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, first series, eds J.H. Burton and D. Masson (14 vols. Edinburgh, 1877-98), vii, pp. 57-8, 488-9 and 208-9; RPC, first series viii, pp. 233-4. For a summary see Terry, Scottish Parliament, pp. 97-100; RPS, 1609/4/27; and on ritual generally see A.J. Mann, ‘The Scottish parliaments: the role of ritual and procession in the pre 1707 parliament and echoes in the new parliament of 1999’ in E. Crewe and M. Müller (eds), Rituals in Parliament. Political, Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Europe and the United States (Frankfurt, 2006), pp. 135-58.

62. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’, pp. 37-8, 40-4; J. Goodare, ‘The Scottish parliament of 1621’, Historical Journal, xxxviii (1995), pp. 29-51.

63. A. Mackechnie, ‘Housing Scotland’s parliament, 1603-1707’, in C. Jones and S. Kelsey (eds), Housing Parliament. Dublin, Edinburgh and Westminster (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 99-130.

64. Brown, Kingdom or Province?, pp. 99-111; M. Lee, The Road to Revolution. Scotland under Charles I 1625-1637 (Urbana, 1985); A.I. Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement 1625-1641 (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 1-154.

65. Rait, Parliament of Scotland, pp. 62, 304-5, 408-9; Goodare, ‘Admission of lairds’, p. 1122; J.R. Young, ‘Charles I and the 1633 parliament’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 101-37; J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and the covenanting heritage of constitutional reform’, in A.I. Macinnes and J. Ohlmeyer (eds), The Stuart Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century (Dublin, 2002), pp. 226-50; J. Scally, ‘Constitutional revolution, party and faction in the Scottish parliaments of Charles I’, in C. Jones (ed.), The Scots and Parliament (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 55-9; Lee, Road to Revolution, pp. 131-3; Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, pp. 86-9.

66. See Brown, Kingdom or Province?, pp. 112-36; D. Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution 1637-44. The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot, 1973); D. Stevenson, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Scotland 1644-1651 (London, 1977); Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, pp. 183-213; A.I. Macinnes, ‘The Scottish constitution, 1638-51: the rise and fall of oligarchic centralism’, in J. Morrill (ed.), The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context 1638-51 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 106-33; P. Donald, An Uncounselled King. Charles I and the Scottish Troubles 1637-1641 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 206-17, 237-9, 276-8, 310-12.

67. Young, Scottish Parliament; Young, ‘Scottish parliament and the covenanting revolution’; J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and the war of the three kingdoms, 1639-1651’, PER, 21 (2001), pp. 103-23; J.R. Young, ‘Scottish covenanting radicalism, the commission of the kirk and the establishment of the parliamentary regime of 1648-1649’, in RSCHS, xxv (1995), pp. 342-75; Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, pp. 166-76, 192-7, 227-41; D. Stevenson (ed.), The Government of Scotland under the Covenanters 1637-1651 (SHS, fourth series 18, Edinburgh, 1982).

68. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’, pp. 23-4; J.J. Scally, ‘The rise and fall of the Covenanter parliaments, 1639-51’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 138-62; Scally, ‘Constitutional revolution, party and faction’.

69. F. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland 1651-1660 (Edinburgh, 1979); P.J. Pinckney, ‘The Scottish representation in the Cromwellian parliament of 1656’, SHR, xlvi (1967), pp. 95-114; J.A. Casada, ‘The Scottish representation in Richard Cromwell’s parliament’, SHR, li (1972), pp. 124-47; D.L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments 1603-1689 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 136-46.