The Scottish Parliament Before the Union of the Crowns

by Robert S. Rait

As to the levying of taxes, I will limit my opinion to this expression: that in no wise should the power be granted to kings save in cases of clear necessity. Further it belongs not to the king nor to his privy council to declare the emergence of any sudden necessity but only to the three estates.... I am aware that Aristotle in his second book of the Politics says wisely that laws are not to be changed; yet, in the judgment of the wise, they may be modified in accordance with the demands of equity.

Major remarks on the difficulty of collecting taxes in Scotland and on the folly of the kings in alienating confiscated estates, "since there is no regular taxation of the people." His remedy is, as we have seen, the regulation of taxation by Parliament. He was a scholar and a traveller, and it matters not how he came to think as he did; but it is clear that he advocated a change.

Nor did James regard the Estates as possessing "powers of peace and war." Pedro de Ayala[106] tells us of a conversation which he held with the king which gives us the royal views: "He said to me that his subjects serve him with their persons and goods, in just and unjust quarrels, exactly as he likes, and that therefore he does not think it right to begin any warlike undertaking without being himself the first in danger." Boece, in his biography of Elphinstone,[107] tells us of councils which preceded Flodden: but they are meetings of the king's private advisers. It is instructive to note that one parliament was held with reference to the English war. About a fortnight before the battle, what is termed "Parliament" was held at Twiselhaugh. It was composed of "all his lords being there for the time in his host," and it secured that the heirs of all who were slain should be exempted by the king from certain feudal dues. The exemption can only have been the king's own act. It is an additional testimony to the purpose for which the Scots Parliament normally existed—to ratify what somebody else had done. If there are vestiges of constitutional claims at the opening of the reign, there are none at the end of it. But though the Parliament had not been free, neither had it been idle. It was a time of unusual prosperity and of great expansion of trade. The pages of the statute-books are full of useful acts, especially for the encouragement of shipping, in which the king was greatly interested.

While the "lilt of dule and woe" which followed the disaster at Flodden was still filling the land, the country was again plunged into the misery of feudal quarrels. The ambition of the lords, and the caprices of the queen-mother—a true sister of Henry VIII—fill up the minority of the king. Parliament met only to ratify appointments which it had no power to question, and to deal with official business. It is possible that the Estates chose the Duke of Albany as regent. But it is almost certain that the impulse must have come from some of the leading nobles or prelates; and when we recollect that the "Estates" meant the Lords of the Articles, it is scarcely necessary to discuss the matter as presenting even the remotest possibility of a parliamentary choice. James V was nominally declared of full age in 1524. But he was then only thirteen years of age, and the "erection of the king" was merely a pretext for the transference of the power from Albany to Queen Margaret, the Parliament of course approving, when it was told to do so. Until the king became personally responsible for the government, there was little done in Parliament. If we except a slight activity in 1526 (mainly relating to such incidental matters as the capture of ships and the furnishing of the royal residences), there is scarcely anything to record till we reach the year 1535. Parliament met; but its business was purely of an official nature. All that we know of the Parliament of May, 1527, for example, is that it issued two continuations of summons, one "reduction" of a process of forfeiture, eleven ratifications of charters, and received four protestations. A single official, appointed for the purpose, could have done all the work.

James V is known in history as the "Commons' King." We are therefore prepared to find during the five years of his personal government a considerable amount of social legislation of the ordinary type, dealing often with trivial details, which show that the burgesses were in co-operation with the king. But of parliamentary interference there is not a trace. The hostilities with the "auld enemy," a mischance in which broke the king's heart, seem not to have been referred to the Estates in any way. The reign of James V was contemporaneous with the English Reformation, and before the king died the new doctrines had gained considerable strength in Scotland. But James himself, after his alliance with the House of Guise, had become more rigidly orthodox, and his last Parliament passed acts enjoining obedience to the Pope, the worship of the Virgin Mary, and prohibiting any convention to discuss Scripture. The royal influence was supreme.

The stories of the minorities of James II, James III, and James V read almost like repetitions of each other. The names and dates vary; the essential facts are the same. The minority of Queen Mary is widely different. The difficulties no longer arise from petty squabbles and contemptible personal intrigues. There is a deeper significance in every movement. It is a conflict, not of men, but of principles. On the one hand was the ancient French alliance, associated with the ancient faith. On the other hand stood the possibility of new relations with England and the acceptance of the Reformed doctrines. At first the revolutionary party held the power. The Scottish nobles had observed the English king's dealings with the lands of the Church. In Scotland there was no masterful Tudor to enrich himself. We find accordingly the acceptance of the marriage proposals of Henry VIII, and, significantly enough, among the domestic legislation of the time is an act making it lawful "to haif the haly write, baith the new testament and the auld in the vulgar toung in Englis or Scottis of ane gude and trew translation."[108] The "English wooing," which passed into a proverb in Scotland, did not merely put an end to the suggestion of a marriage between Queen Mary and Edward VI; it altered the situation in Scotland, and deprived the reforming section of their hopes of success, by forcing the nation into a French alliance. In 1545, Parliament, always obedient, inveighed against "heretiks and thair dampnable opinionis incontrar the fayth and lawis of halykirk." But it was not till the regency was transferred from the Earl of Arran (now Duke of Chatelhérault) to the queen-dowager (in 1554) that the success of the conservative section in the realm was complete. "Thus," wrote Knox, in reference to the event, "did light and darkness stryve within the realm of Scotland; the darkness ever befoir the world suppressing the light." The reservation, "befoir the world," is significant. Knox knew that every year since the death of James V had added converts, ever increasing in number, to the new faith. But all the time Parliament became more and more rigidly orthodox.

The struggle between the two parties found an issue in open warfare. The Protestants formed themselves into "the Congregation of the Lord." But they did not look upon Parliament[109] as the proper field for their contest with "the Synagogue of Satan." The insurgents and their English allies gained no success on the field; but the death of Mary of Guise and the absence of her daughter in France procured for them the results of victory. Scotland was definitely in the hands of the Protestant nobles.

Parliament met in 1560, and abolished the Roman Catholic faith within the realm. But, as we know from Knox's History, Parliament merely ratified what was otherwise settled. Behind it were the nobles and the Protestant clergy. The ministers petitioned the Estates to establish the Protestant faith. They were told[110] "to draw in playne and severall heidis, the summe of that Doctrine, quhilk they wald menteyne, and wald desyre that present Parliament to establische, as hailsome, trew, and onlie necessarie to be beleivit and resaivit." Within four days Knox and his colleagues presented the very comprehensive Confession of Faith which continued for nearly a century to be one of the Standards of the Church. It

was redd, everie article by itself ... and the vottis of everie man war requyred accordinglie. Of the Temporall Estate onlie voted in the contrair, the Earl of Atholl, the Lordis Somervaill and Borthwik; and yit for thair disassenting thei produced ne better reassone, but "We will beleve as oure fatheris beleved."

Acts were passed against the mass, and against papal supremacy.[111] But the whole of the desire of the ministers was not accorded. The First Book of Discipline did not receive parliamentary sanction, because it contradicted the views of the nobles as to the disposal of Church property.