interpretation is the refusal of the Lords of the Articles to
allow the king to aid Louis XI of France in 1473. But the action
of the Estates was simply the action of the chancellor, Evandale,
and his party, who ruled the king with a rod of iron. It is very
likely that there was, especially among the clergy, a strong
general feeling against going to war, and this feeling strengthened
the king's jailers. But the opposition of a small ruling clique
of nobles to the whim of a powerless monarch is scarcely to be
regarded as a great constitutional fact. It must also be remembered
that the few who constituted the Lords of the Articles were
virtually the Estates.
[104] William Elphinstone.
[105] _History of Greater Britain_, p. 352 (Scottish Hist. Soc.
ed.).
[106] Pedro de Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, 25 July 1498
(_Spanish Calendar_, i. no. 210). The context shows that the remark
was incidental, and was induced by an allusion by the ambassador to
the king's behaviour in battle.
[107] _Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen_, pp. 102-5 (New Spalding
Club ed.).
[108] The burgesses and "a parte of the nobilitie" had petitioned
for the act (Laing, _Knox_, i. 100).
[109] In 1558, indeed, before the outbreak of hostilities, the
Lords of the Congregation asked the queen-regent to abrogate the
acts against heresy, and Mary made the pretext of her refusal the
difficulty of obtaining the consent of the prelates (Spottiswood,
_History of the Church of Scotland_, sub anno 1558).
[110] Laing, _Knox_, ii. 87.
[111] For other important points in connection with this
Parliament, cf. _supra_, pp. 24-5.
[112] _Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville_, p. 370
(Wodrow Society). The year is 1596.
[113] _The Book of the Universall Kirk of Scotland_, i. 329, 362,
&c. (Maitland Club).
[114] _Ibid._ i. 59.
[115] _Ibid._ i. 506.
[116] _The Book of the Universall Kirk of Scotland_, passim.
[117] "We farther give over in the hands and power of the devill
the said N., to the destruction of his flesh; straitlie charging
all that professe the Lord Jesus, to whose knowledge this our
sentence sall come, to repute and hold the said N. accursed, and
unworthie of the familiar societie of Christians; declaring unto
all men that suche as hereafter, before his repentance, sall haunt
or familiarlie accompanie him, are partakers of his impietie and
subject to the like condemnation."--Sentence of excommunication in
the _First Book of Discipline_.
[118] Calderwood, _Historie of the Kirk of Scotland_, v. 341-2
(Wodrow Society).
[119] _Ibid_. pp. 396-7.
[120] Cf. _Presbytery Examined: an Essay on the Ecclesiastical
History of Scotland since the Reformation_, by the late Duke of
Argyll; and the various books on Scottish Church history.
[121] The same Parliament asked the council to bring forward its
evidence against Mary. If we knew all that lay behind this motion,
we should probably possess a key to the problems on which so much
ingenuity has been exercised. The statement, frequently quoted,
that the Estates passed a solemn resolution affirming their power
to depose the sovereign rests solely on the authority of Buchanan,
and is directly antagonistic to the language both of the _Acts_
and of the Scottish commissioners' protestations at York and
Westminster, in which Mary is represented as abdicating of her own
free will.
[122] Speech at Whitehall, 31st March, 1607.
[123] "A Perfect Description of the People and Country of
Scotland," printed in the _Abbotsford Miscellany_.
[124] "Answer to the 'Perfect Description'," _Ibid._
[125] Hacket, _Scrinia Reserata_.
[126] Letter of the Estates to the Assembly, 17th July, 1641
(_Acts_, v. 625).
[127] Some Brieffe Memorialls and Passages of Church and State from
1641-49 (_Historical Works of Sir James Balfour_, vol. iii.).
[128] Cf. _Scotland and the Commonwealth_, ed. Firth (Scottish
Hist. Soc.).
[129] _Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals_, iii. 225-26, ed.
Laing.
[130] _The Government of Scotland during the Commonwealth_ (_Acts_,
vol. vi, pt. 2). See also Mr. Firth's volumes _Scotland under the
Commonwealth_ and _Scotland and the Protectorate_ (Scottish History
Society).
[131] Middleton, Appendix, &c., _ut supra_.
[132] _Report on the State and Condition of the Burghs of
Scotland_, 1692 (Miscellany of the Scottish Burgh Record Soc.).
[133] The main heads of James's delinquencies were: (1) erecting
schools and societies of Jesuits, &c.; (2) making papists great
officers of state; (3) enforcing oaths contrary to law; (4)
taxation and the maintenance of a standing army without consent
of Parliament; (5) the employment of military officers as judges;
(6) exorbitant fines; (7) illegal imprisonment; (8) forfeitures
by obsolete laws; (9) subversion of rights of royal burghs; (10)
interference with justice.
[134] In spite of the irritating interferences which provoked the
indignant rhetoric of Fletcher of Saltoun, and these had reference
mainly to peace and war, the maintenance of an army, and places and
pensions.
[135] Party names here for the first time in strictly parliamentary
history. The Resolutioners and Protestors of 1649 were religious
divisions.
[136] Cf. the present writer's Map of the Parliamentary
Representation of Scotland, in Mr. R. L. Poole's _Historical
Atlas_. (No. XXVIII.)
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Typographical errors were corrected without note.
A Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.