In Byways of Scottish History

by Louis A. Barbé

JAMES VI AS STATESMAN AND POET

I.—AS STATESMAN

Those who accept the traditional estimate of James VI's character may deem it little short of preposterous to connect his name with the idea of statesmanship. To them he appears as a garrulous pedant and a coarse buffoon, whose rickety walk was the outward sign of a feeble, vacillating temper; as a would-be autocrat who, whilst constantly obtruding his despotic theories on his subjects, lacked the strength of mind and the energy to put them into practice; and, to express it briefly and bluntly in the words of Macaulay, as "a drivelling idiot" and "a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be".[244] But there is another portrait that may be drawn of him. Materials for it will be found not in the rhetorical descriptions of writers whose aim was literary effect or political denunciation, but in those absolutely trustworthy, if most prosaic and unimaginative documents, the Acts of the Privy Council. And it was Professor Masson, the editor of those records, who asserted that it is impossible for anyone duly acquainted with them "to think of James as other than a man of a very remarkable measure of political ability and inventiveness, with a tenacity and pertinacity of purpose that could show itself in a savage glitter of the eye whenever he was offended or thwarted, and in a merciless rigour in hunting down and crushing his ascertained opponents".[245] It is worth going to the same sources of information for the purpose of determining to what extent this view is justified.

In any attempt at a survey of the administration of James VI it is important to remember that, although he became nominal sovereign at an early age, it was not until he had reached his thirtieth year that he got the reins of government fully into his own hands. That occurred towards the close of 1595, at the death of Lord Maitland of Thirlstane, after a Chancellorship and Premiership of over eight years. It was then that on being asked how he intended to fill up the vacant office, James replied that he was resolved no more to use great men as Chancellors in his affairs, but only such as he could correct and were hangable.[246]

The peculiar idea of kingship or sovereign authority which the enfranchised monarch thus expressed, and which he took every opportunity of repeating in both his speeches and his writings, is the more noteworthy that it was opposed to the principles which must have been inculcated upon him in his early years. For it must be remembered that his tutor, Buchanan, was a politician as well as a scholar, and that it was he who wrote the famous treatise, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, that vigorous exposition of liberal and constitutional monarchy which justifies the description of its author as "the first Whig". It is certainly not to him that James's training in autocracy is to be attributed, but rather to Thirlstane. That statesman, it is true, ruled the Court and the country for years with a fixity of purpose and a firmness of hand that bore down opposition, and did not allow the King himself any opportunity of asserting his independence. At the same time, however, he did not fail to urge upon him the necessity for dealing energetically with the abuses which had arisen owing to the turbulent insolence and the intolerable oppression of the arrogant nobility. James had not been deaf to advice so conformable with his character and disposition. He had taken it so thoroughly to heart that, although he could not shake himself free from his Minister's despotism, it had become irksome and galling to him. When Maitland lay on his deathbed his Sovereign refused repeated requests to visit him, and it was even said that he had whispered in a courtier's ear that "it would be a small matter if the Chancellor were hanged".[247] The years that intervened between Maitland's death and James's departure from Scotland at length gave the King his opportunity, and not only did he at once show his determination of becoming master within his own kingdom, but he also succeeded in actually carrying it out to a very noteworthy degree. And of the qualifications that enabled him to do so none was more conspicuously displayed than his ability to extract power to shape things according to his mind from the very incidents that the opposition to his royal will and pleasure evoked. An instance of this was afforded by his energetic conduct when the Edinburgh riot of December, 1596, originating in a demonstration in favour of the rights of Presbytery, as championed by Mr. David Black, of St. Andrews, gave him a chance of striking at the antagonists to his notion of supremacy. And the same inflexibility of purpose and dexterous management of circumstances appeared, four years later, in the use which he made of the Gowrie tragedy as an instrument for the subjection of the Scottish clergy. The monarch who could turn such occurrences as those to political profit had some right to boast of his "kingcraft". We may not approve of the system which he followed of marking out individual opponents and of striking them down with a strong and merciless hand, but we must admit that it proved effectual, and acknowledge that the man whose conduct of the bitter struggle it characterized cannot be contemptuously dismissed as "a nervous, drivelling idiot".

One of the special points with regard to which James has a claim to recognition is the zeal with which he undertook and consistently performed the task of checking the lawlessness and rebellion that had been rampant in Scotland during his minority. The Royal Declaration in which he announced his intention of bestowing his "haill travellis, moyane, and diligens" on the work of reform was not allowed to remain a dead letter. Page after page of the records testify to the resoluteness with which he enforced the laws which had for their object the restoration of order throughout the kingdom, and which were directed more particularly against two classes of offenders—the "horners" and the members of families at hereditary feud. Horners, as they were called in Scotland, were all persons who stood out in denounced disobedience to the decrees of any law court, for any kind of offence from simple debt to murder and treason. At one time the country was full of such. Mere proclamations against them having proved of little avail, James at length had recourse to a measure which proved more effectual. He established a flying police, consisting of a body of forty well-equipped horsemen, "to be in reddiness at all occasiounis to hunt, follow and perseu all and quhatsumevir rebellis within this countrie, without respect of persones, quhither thair rebellioun be for civill or criminall caussis, and to tak thair houssis and uplift thair eschaitis as thai salbe directit and commandit".[248] The beneficial result of these stringent disciplinary measures was soonest and most distinctly apparent in the Borders, or, as James desired them to be called after his accession to the English throne, "the Midland Shires of Britain", which, within the space of four or five years, were so thoroughly subdued that they ceased to be a sanctuary for rough-riding reivers, and entered upon that more peaceful era of their existence which has now lasted for three hundred years.

In an Act "anent deidly feidis", evidently emanating from James himself, the Council reminded the lieges that "The Kingis most gratious Majestie, ever since his first cuming to yeiris of perfectioun", had displayed "ain maist ernest and ardent zaill and desyer to have removit frome amange his subjectis of the cuntrey of Scotland all sic custumis, faschiounnis, and behaviouris as did in ony weyis smell of barbarity and sevegnes", and had been unremitting in his endeavours to suppress the "barbarous and detestable consuetud of deidly feids".[249] Nothing could be better founded than the claim thus put forward on the King's behalf, for one of the most commendable features in his administration is to be found in the perseverance with which he strove to put an end to this characteristically Scottish form of disorder by means both of preventive and punitive legislation. He did not succeed in wholly rooting out the "weid of deidly feid", but there is abundant evidence to prove that, thanks to vigilant care and vigorous action, he was able to check its baneful growth.

In taking the measure of James VI as a statesman, it is important not to overlook the method which he adopted to carry on the government of Scotland as an absentee king. It is assuredly no sign of weakness or incapacity that the nearest approach to that absolutism that he had set up as his ideal was made by him after his departure to take possession of the crown left him by Elizabeth. What he achieved in this respect was once set forth by him in a speech to his refractory English Parliament. "This I must say for Scotland, and may truly vaunt it: here I sit and govern it with my pen; I write and it is done; and by a Clerk of the Council I govern Scotland now—which others could not do by the sword."[250] That such was literally the case, that he kept himself fully acquainted with everything that went on in his northern kingdom, and that the measures adopted by his Ministers for its control and management were nothing but the embodiment of his Royal will, is established beyond dispute by the letters which he periodically sent to Edinburgh from his palace in the capital or one of his hunting seats in the shires.

Even the most hostile of James VI's critics give him credit for having endeavoured to promote one excellent measure—the union of England and Scotland. To what negotiations the scheme gave rise, how it was discussed in both Parliaments, what eloquent testimony Sir Francis Bacon bore to the statesmanlike character of the King's views and intentions, and in what circumstances the projected treaty broke down under the weight of English prejudice and jealousy—those are the details of a story which cannot be told now. It must suffice to recall that, if James had had his way, history would have been anticipated by a whole century.