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.
While, then, the Parliament of 1560 was in some sense the creature
of the Assembly, and though its resolutions were conditioned by
the wishes of the nobility, it occupies a very important position
in Scottish constitutional history. We do not lay much stress on
its opposition to the sovereigns. That, in itself, was neither
novel nor remarkable in any way. It was obedient to the powers of
the day. But it is the first Parliament where the burgesses and
the smaller barons attended and voted in accordance with their own
feeling. They were Protestants and they were in complete agreement
with those who were guiding the meeting of Estates. It is also
the first Parliament which had the consciousness of power. They
and their leaders were making a great national change. The people
were beginning to learn what possibilities they possessed. The
Parliament of 1560 was the first step towards a constitutional
theory for Scotland.
This meeting of the Estates has still another aspect. It was
significant that an assembly of ecclesiastics drew up the acts
by which the Parliament became famous, for we have here the
first appearance in constitutional history of a greater than the
Parliament. Into the General Assembly of the Church there soon
drifted those principles and aspirations that might have given life
to the Estates. We shall have occasion to notice the part taken by
the Assembly in the coming struggles; but it may be well here to
indicate its claims. These claims were not formulated in 1560. They
were of gradual growth. We find them implicit in the writings of
Knox; but they were first definitely advanced by a man of no less
intellect than the rugged reformer--Andrew Melville, the antagonist
of James VI. Melville, in his frequent interviews with the king,
"talkit all his mynd in his awin manner, roundly, soundly, fully,
freely, and fervently." But he never stated his view in more
explicit terms than on the memorable day when, after calling King
James "God's sillie vassal," he addressed him thus:
And thairfor, Sir, as divers tymes befor, sa now again, I mon tell
yow, thair is twa Kings and twa Kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is
Chryst Jesus the King, and his Kingdom the Kirk, whase subject
King James the Saxt is: and of whase Kingdom nocht a King, nor a
lord, nor a heid, bot a member.[112]
Knox, in his interviews with James's mother, had taken lower
ground. But Melville was not using idle words. There was no power
in the land that could cope with the Church. From 1567 the Assembly
met some days before the opening of Parliament, and prepared
Church business, which was generally the principal item on the
parliamentary list of _agenda_.[113] As early as 1565 it sent Queen
Mary an overture against "the papisticall and blasphemous masse
... not only in the subjects, but also in the Queen's Majestie's
awin person," and Mary's reply was couched in sufficiently
humble terms.[114] Two years later it issued instructions to
the Parliament about the ratification of the Acts of 1560, the
question of the Darnley murder, and the treatment of the young
prince.[115] It claimed the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction in all
questions of morality, religion, education, and marriage.[116]
It imprisoned offenders, and it informed magistrates how they
were to act and threatened them with the censure of the Kirk. Its
sentence of the Greater Excommunication involved the cessation
of human intercourse[117] and the forfeiture of legal rights.
The presbyterian system of Church government, with its careful
distribution of authority, was able to make such a sentence a
terrible reality. Not only the General Assembly, but the Synod or
the Presbytery or the Kirk Session, was a court of justice. The
records which have been published show with what vigour their power
was used. Men of position and influence quailed before those stern
judges. The old Church had often been powerful, under a strong
bishop. But the secular forces gained strength while a see was
vacant, and sometimes secured the appointment of a lay figure. A
Presbytery never died: its members might change, but it continued
its work, calmly and relentlessly, "grinding exceeding small."
Nor was the power of the Church confined to criminal jurisdiction.
Two instances will serve to show the extent of its influence. In
1594, King James asked the presbytery of Edinburgh to "procure
the leveing of six hundreth footmen, and four hundreth horsemen"
to suppress a rebellion; and the presbytery complied with his
request.[118] At the meeting of the General Assembly in March,
1596, King James was present. "He urged a contribution of the
whole realme, not to be lifted presentlie, but when need sould
require," and, to gain the sympathetic consideration of the
Assembly, he promised that "his chamber doors sould be made patent
to the meanest minister of Scotland, there sould not be anie meane
gentleman in Scotland more subject to the good order and discipline
of the Kirk than he would be."[119] It would be easy to multiply
examples.
It was no case of ecclesiastical tyranny. The leaders of the Church
might well apply to themselves the promise, "a willing people in
the day of thy power." Modern democrats have denounced the Assembly
as the oppressors of a priest-ridden populace. But the Assembly
had made possible the existence of a public opinion in Scotland,
and the public opinion of Scotland was with the Assembly. It is
true that the documents to which assent was required appear to
us crowded with metaphysical subtleties, to some of which no
man who valued his freedom of thought could subscribe; but it
must be remembered that these cast-iron theories registered the
results to which that generation had attained. Moreover, it was
in the Church courts, first of all, that Scotsmen learned the
value and the power of debate. The Church did for Scotland what
the Parliament accomplished for England. The Assembly was not a
meeting of ecclesiastics alone. The strength of the Church lay in
the presence of lay members in her courts,[120] to which there came
earls, lords, and barons, and commissioners from provinces and
universities. Each member, be he lord or peasant, the minister of
St. Giles, or a Glasgow baillie, had equal right to speak, and no
man's vote counted for more than that of his neighbour. The history
of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution is the history
of the General Assembly. The motto which it shared with other
reformed churches is the story of the seventeenth century. _Nec
tamen consumebatur._ Yet the flames burned fiercely enough.
From what we have said of the Assembly, the inference as to the
Parliament is clear. It follows that its history between the
year of Queen Mary's return and the day when Andrew Melville
addressed King James in the words we have quoted is one rather
of retrogression than of progress; nor did it, at any subsequent
period, overawe the General Assembly. Further than this point we
cannot go in any detail. The history of Scotland between 1567 and
1707 is so intricate, and has been so thoroughly expounded, that
only a brief concluding sketch is necessary in a thesis of the
present nature, however essential to a constitutional history of
Scotland. In 1560 it was, to some extent, a free parliament, as
Knox said, and it could claim to represent popular opinion. During
the reign of Mary, as we have already seen, it relapsed into its
old position of ratifying the acts of the privy council. Nor was
the Parliament which met in December, 1567, while the hapless
queen was spending at Lochleven her first year of captivity, in
much better case. The country was divided between "king's men"
and "queen's men." The Estates did what Murray and Morton wished
to be done. There is one provision which, though in conformity
with Murray's views, does not bear the impress of his hand. It
reminds us that the author of the _First Blaste against the
Monstrous Regiment of Women_ was present as an assessor in the
Parliament when we read: "Als it is thocht expedient that in na
tymes cuming ony wemen sal be admittit to the publict autoritie of
the realme or functioun in publict government within the same."
It was not a deliberate attempt to alter the succession: it was
merely an additional illustration of bad feeling towards the
captive queen.[121] Until the "Black Acts" there is little in the
proceedings of the Parliament which calls for remark. The meetings
were largely occupied with the usual sentences of forfeiture.
Sometimes the queen's party held rival parliaments, and on such
occasions everybody in Scotland of any importance was declared a
traitor by one side or the other. A considerable amount of valuable
work was done. Murray, whatever his personal character, was a
statesman, and he left the impression of "a still strong man" upon
those who survived him. His policy and that of his successors was
guided by their dependence upon Elizabeth and by their associations
with the Assembly. Parliament was largely occupied with the
settlement of the Church, but it found time to regulate matters
of police and trade. The influence of the Assembly continued to
be paramount till 1584, when, for the first time, King James was
able to assert his personality. The "Black Acts" of that year
included a declaration of the king's royal power over all subjects,
the supremity of Parliament, the illegality of conventions or
assemblies not sanctioned by the king, and the subjection of
ministers of the Church to the civil courts. No weight whatever
can be given to the phrase "supremity of Parliament." It meant only
that the king knew that he could use the Parliament as he liked,
while the Assembly was as yet beyond his control. We do not intend
to enter into the complicated story of the conflict between the
king and the Church. But from 1584 the Parliament was generally
at the disposal of the king. Still more is this the case after
the year 1603. The Parliament became the mere shadow of the royal
power. It declared in 1606--the year after the defiance of the king
by the Aberdeen assembly--"our soverane monarche, absolute prince,
Judge, and governor over all persones, Estaittis, and causis, baith
spirituall and temporall, within his said realme." Only twelve
years had elapsed since Andrew Melville's speech. The union with
England meant that the king had power to coerce Scotland. The same
obsequious Parliament outraged the national sentiment by the first
establishment of episcopacy, although the assembly was still so
strong that the bishops protested that there was no design to alter
the discipline of the Kirk, "and submitted themselves in all time
comeing to the judgement of the General Assemblie." Parliament was
governed by the Lords of the Articles, and they were the creatures
of the king. James did not exaggerate when he said:[122] "Here I
sit and governe it [Scotland] with my pen, I write and it is done,
and by a Clearke of the Councell I governe Scotland now, which
others could not do by the sword." The satirist who accompanied
King James on his visit to Scotland in 1617 gave vent to a merited
sneer at the three Estates. "Their parliaments," he wrote,
"hold but three days; their statutes are but three lines."[123]
The anonymous apologist who replied made no effort to meet the
accusation. It might have been King James himself that wrote: "For
the brevitie of your parliaments ye are beholden to your wisdom,
for the brevitie of your statutes to your justice."[124]
The conduct of affairs in Scotland remained, at first, unchanged
by the death of James VI. The few parliaments of the reign are
occupied with taxation, ratification, and other formal business.
James had been statesman enough to fear the influence of Laud in
Scotland.[125] Charles allowed a meddling ecclesiastic to stretch
too far the allegiance of his people to their ancient House.
The Parliament of 1628-30 is of no importance in the history of
Scotland. It was poorly attended, and its deliberations were a
foregone conclusion. The Parliament of 1639 was crowded, and it
began its work with a protest against the method of electing
the Lords of the Articles. The protest was feeble enough to be
the first faint symptom of a revolution; but the revolution had
already taken place. The people were led as before, not by the
Parliament, but by the Assembly. The Glasgow Assembly of 1638,
which continued to meet in spite of its "dissolution" by the
king's commissioner, was the means by which a fatal blow was
given to the first _régime_ of episcopacy and absolute monarchy.
It rendered possible the revolutionary Parliament of 1640. We
have already noticed the more important of its proceedings. It
continued to look for support to the Assembly. It grounded its
resolution against the presence of prelates in Parliament on the
Act of Assembly abolishing episcopacy. In 1641 it beseeched the
assembly to sit in Edinburgh instead of in St. Andrews, sending
"some of everie estait to represent" its sense of "the great
necessitie at this tyme of the concurring advyse of both the
Assemblie and Parliament," and promising "to sett down ane solid
course for the beiring of the chairges of the Commissioners to
your yeirlie Generall Assemblies."[126] From 1641 to 1650 Scotland
was ruled by the Scottish Parliament, in conjunction with the
Assembly. The Estates undertook the management of the war, carried
out the negotiations with the English Parliament, and with the
king, and were at the same time able to give due attention to
the minutest local details. Like the Reformation Parliament of
1560, the Covenant Parliament of 1640 marks a distinct stage in
Scottish constitutional history. After we make all allowance for
the revolutionary nature of the time, and for its dependence on
the Assembly, it remains true that it grew to occupy a position
different from that of any of its predecessors. It had learned much
from England. Not for the first time, but more emphatically than
ever before, do we find the Estates adopting the language of the
English parliamentary opposition. On the other hand, the Scottish
Parliament was in some ways in advance of its English sister. When
Charles I paid his second visit to Scotland, in 1641, he found
himself a puppet in the hands of his erstwhile obedient Estates. As
we have seen, the Lords of the Articles became open committees of
Parliament, and they were jealously watched by their colleagues.
Parliament claimed the appointment of the privy council, and all
the officers of state.[127] The reader will note with surprise the
large amount of space occupied by the proceedings of Parliament
during these years. Much is merely the record of judicial acts, and
much was done by Parliament that we should regard as pertaining to
the executive. For our present purpose it is unnecessary to descend
to particulars. Our main contention is that the supersession of
the royal power was rendered the more easy and the less significant
because of the official character of the normal parliamentary
procedure. The Estates, having the power to defy the king, could
point to their own history as good warrant for their use of it.
The sovereign had never dared to prorogue them against their will,
they argued. Charles knew that they spoke the truth, and he could
but accept the position. If the record of the Estates was one
long submission, it did not contain a defeat, and it was capable
of two interpretations. So, after the death of the king, the men
who had just executed Huntly sent to offer terms to Charles II.
It is significant that there were four representatives of the
Estates, and three of the Assembly. The power was still conjoint,
although Parliament during these years of struggle had learned to
act. When the young king came to Scotland he found himself little
more than a prisoner in the hands of the grim, staunch fearless
men who surrounded him. He was forced to sign the most humiliating
confessions of the sins of his family, and he abjured "Prelacy and
all errors, schism, and profaneness." Cromwell's victory changed
the aspect of affairs,[128] and ended, for the time, the history
of the Parliament of Scotland. The short-lived "union" did not
take effect till 1654, but from the date of the battle of Dunbar
both Assembly and Estates had to acknowledge their master. In
1653 the General Assembly was reduced to plead "that we were ane
Ecclesticall synod, ane spirituall court of Jesus Christ, which
medled not with anything civile."[129] But the Assembly ceased to
meet: and the Government of Scotland was neither ecclesiastical nor
civil, but martial. The Parliament agreed to the union: once again
because it was ordered so to do.
The story of the Cromwellian parliaments is no part of our subject.
Scottish counties and burghs were represented, and an elaborate
scheme was prepared to adjust the proper proportions--a scheme
which afterwards was the model for further developments.[130]
Two acts were passed by the united Parliament which affected the
current of Scottish history--the establishment of free trade with
England and the abolition of feudality.
The Commonwealth passed away, and Scotland had once more its
Covenanted King. The irony of fate used the Committee of Estates,
the body which Charles I had known as an enemy, to deliver the
country to an absolute monarchy. The Committee of Estates was
followed, when the king's commissioner arrived, by the meeting of
the Restoration Parliament. The main difficulty was the religious
one. Parliament was reduced to the position it had occupied
before 1638. In 1661 it passed an act which rescinded all its
own statutes since 1640. It humbly confessed the king's right to
choose all officers of state, and members of the privy council;
it acknowledged his right to call and prorogue Parliament; it
re-established the tyranny of the Lords of the Articles. It
recalled bishops to Parliament, and proscribed the national
religion. Even when the English Parliament had recovered from its
emotional loyalty, and begun to resume its old attitude to the
king, the Scottish Estates remained absolutely at his disposal.
When, later still, the succession was disputed in England, an act
was passed in Scotland to declare that it could not be altered
"without involving the subjects in perjury and rebellion."
When Charles II died, Parliament addressed James VII in terms
ludicrously obsequious. "The death of that our excellent monarch is
lamented by us to all the degrees of grief that are consistent with
our great joy for the succession of your sacred majesty." Between
1660 and 1689 the Scottish Parliament was once more the merest
instrument for official sanction. A contemporary has left us his
impressions of the time. He tells us that the methods of the Lords
of the Articles were not quite so secret as they used to be.
Of late times matters have been at full length and freely debated
in Parliament. They sit all in one House, and every one answers
distinctly to his name and gives his vote, which is in these
terms, _I approve_ or _not_; only those who are not satisfied
one way or another, say _Non liquet_, which is a great ease to
those who are conscientious, and a common refuge to the cunning
Politicians; the major vote carries it. No dissents or protests
are allowed in public acts, but are accounted treasonable.[131]
The arm of the Government was all-powerful, and they had not even
to guard against opposition. A caricature of the General Assembly
was maintained to give a further ecclesiastical ratification to the
king's acts, "But," adds our informant,
as the calling of this synod is wholly in the Crown, so there is
little need of it, since the King's Supremacy is so large, that He
needs not there concurrence, to adde their Authority to anything
that He shall think fit to doe about Church affairs.
It may be at first matter of surprise that Scotland should so
completely have succumbed. All that the popular party could do
was to suffer. Only on rare occasions could they take the field.
Suffering or fighting, they never yielded. But the dearth of
constitutional life is not inexplicable. Had the Restoration
occurred ten years earlier, it would have been otherwise. The
Commonwealth had blotted out the recollection of the years which
preceded it, and prepared the way for the years that followed it.
Bishop Burnet's remark, that the root of the trouble lay in the
king's "entering in without condition," was true, at all events,
for the historian's own country. Moreover, we must not forget
the condition of the country. The long-continued struggle had
brought desolation where before the union of the crowns we can
trace prosperity. In Glasgow, in 1692, "near fyve hundredth houses
[were] standing waste." The harbour of Ayr was ruinous. The High
Street of Dumfries contained scarcely a habitable house.[132] Trade
and commerce had declined. The short interval of freedom of trade
had but served to intensify the pressure of the Navigation Act.
Scotsmen boasted of their "conquest" of England in 1603. England
had but given their kings the power to oppress them.