THE UNION OF THE CROWNS
A few years before the Union of the Crowns, James, in the _Basilikon
Doron_, that quaint little volume of “Instructions to his dearest sonne,
Henry the Prince,” had alluded to the dangers which were caused by the
divided state of the island. “As for the Borders,” he wrote, “because I
know, if ye enjoy not this whole Isle, according to God’s right and your
lineal descent, ye will never get leave to brooke this North and
barrenest part thereof; no, not your own head whereon the crown should
stand! I need not in that case trouble you with them; for then they will
be the middest part of the Isle, and so as easily ruled as any part
thereof.” Hitherto a royal marriage had been the favourite plan for
removing these dangers; but after this we enter upon a series of
attempts to bring about an Union of a more complete and definite
character. James came to the throne of England with his mind full of the
subject. The people of Scotland anticipated the removal of the Court to
London with dismay. But to the king it opened up a dazzling prospect of
power and splendour; and he lost no time in proposing the Union, and
pressing it, in season and out of season, with a persistency which
brings out, in a remarkable manner, the strong individuality of his
character.
For some time before the death of Elizabeth, James had been doing his
best to gain the goodwill of the English people; and as soon as he
received the official announcement of his accession he directed his
Privy Council to proclaim the news, not only in order that the fact that
he was now King of England as well as Scotland should become known, but
in the hope, as the proclamation expressed it, that there might be
kindled in the hearts of all Scotsmen “ane loveing and kyndlie
dispositioun towardis all his Majestie’s subjectis inhabitantis of
England.”[42] Nor did he fail to impress this sentiment on the people.
On the last Sunday which he spent in Scotland he went to the Church of
Saint Giles, where, when the sermon was ended, he made a speech to the
congregation. It was regarded as a farewell, and was received with “such
a mourning and lamentation of all sorts, as cannot well be
expressed.”[43]
“There is no difference,” he said, to cheer his weeping subjects,
“betwixt London and Edinburgh; yea, not so much as betwixt Inverness or
Aberdeen and Edinburgh, for all our marches be dry, and there are
ferries between them. But my course must be betwixt both, to establish
peace, and religion, and wealth betwixt the countries.”
The departure of James meant a great deal to Scotland. When the day
came, and the cannon were booming from the old castle of Edinburgh, the
citizens assembled in multitudes to gaze at the brilliant company of
courtiers who were to accompany their king upon his journey to the
south; but the spectacle was one which excited many fears and few hopes.
The Union of the Crowns was making great changes. The Court was leaving.
The queen remained behind with the young Princes and the Princess
Elizabeth; but it was known that they were soon to follow, and that,
henceforth, they would live in England. Their old Scottish home, the
ancient palace of Holyrood, was being dismantled already; and soon
nothing would remain in the royal apartments, but some stray pieces of
furniture, and a few yards of faded tapestry. It was true that to
Scotland there was still left that independence which had been so hardly
won. The Parliament remained in the same position as before; but a new
official was spoken of, a Royal Commissioner, who was, in future, to
represent the sovereign at the meetings of the Estates. The separate
Scottish Executive, too, was to be continued, in the shape of the Privy
Council; but it was to be divided into two parts, the one to sit in
England, and the other in Scotland; and it was evident that, in future,
the real centre of influence in Scottish affairs would be London.
To some of the Scottish people the future seemed very bright. During the
reign of Elizabeth, there were seldom so many as a hundred Scotsmen in
London at any one time. But now politicians like the future Earl of
Haddington, at that time Lord Advocate Hamilton, saw that in the wide
field which lay before them, greater things could be done than within
the narrow bounds of Scotland. George Heriot, who followed the king to
England, doubtless knew that he could hold his own, and add to his
wealth, among the merchant princes of London. Gay young men, like Lord
Dalgarno in _The Fortunes of Nigel_, looked forward to the amusements
and dissipation of London, and to the chance of filling their empty
pockets by marriages with English heiresses. And among the humbler
members of the royal retinue there were not a few adventurers who were
glad to visit England, and share the spoil with their betters. So great,
indeed, was the rush of Scotsmen to England, that soon after the
accession a proclamation was issued that no Scotsman was to cross the
Tweed, or sail for England, without a passport from the Privy
Council.[44] But those who remained behind, and especially the tradesmen
of Edinburgh, who had supplied the Court, saw no chance of gain, but
rather much risk of loss, in the change which was taking place.
In England, though James himself was received with demonstrations of
loyalty, his Scottish followers were regarded with mingled contempt and
hatred. Scotland, it was said, was a land where the nobles were beggars,
and the merchants were pedlars. The coarsest satire was poured forth
against the barren and unknown territory from whence the new king had
come. Indeed it is difficult for us, in the nineteenth century, to
realise the scornful way in which Englishmen spoke of Scotland, though
we may form some idea of the language which was used from the specimens
which have been preserved of what was actually printed, circulated, and
probably believed at that time. “The air,” thus runs one of those
productions, “might be made wholesome, but for the stinking people that
inhabit it. The ground might be made wholesome, had they wit to manure
it. Their beasts be generally small, women excepted, of which sort there
are no greater in the world.... As for fruits, for their grandam Eve’s
sake they never planted any, and for other trees, had Christ been
betrayed in this country, as doubtless he should have been, had he come
as a stranger amongst them, Judas had sooner found the grace of
repentance than one tree to hang himself on.... The Scriptures, they
say, speak of elders and deacons, but not a word of deans and bishops.
Their discourse is full of detraction, their sermons nothing but
railings, and their conclusion, heresy or treason.... They christen
without the cross, marry without a ring, receive the Sacrament without
reverence, die without repentence, and bury without divine service.”[45]
And even among those Englishmen who knew that the popular ideas of
Scotland were erroneous, there was a profound feeling of jealousy lest
James should fill too many of the places about the Court with his
countrymen. It was suspected that if he got his own way, almost every
Scotsman in London would soon be clad in velvet and satin, and wearing a
costly beaver instead of a blue bonnet; and James took great pains, for
a long time after his accession, to assure the English courtiers that he
had no intention of promoting Scotsmen over the heads of Englishmen. “I
was ever rooted,” he wrote to Lord Cranbourne, “in that firm resolution
never to have placed Scottishmen in any such room, till, first, time had
begun to wear away that opinion of different nations; and, secondly,
that this jealous apprehension of the Union had worn away; and,
thirdly, that Scotsmen had been brought up here at the foot of
Gamaliel.”
Before James had been many days in England he issued a proclamation, in
which it was announced that there was to be a complete Union of the
Kingdoms. “In the meane tyme,” he said, “till the said Union be
established, his Majestie doth hereby repute, hold, and esteeme, and
commandes all His Highnesse subjects to hold and esteeme, both the Two
Realmes as presently united, and as one Realme and Kingdome, and the
subjects of both as one People, Brethern, and Members of one Bodye.”[46]
The personal peculiarities of James, which amounted to eccentricities,
his firm belief in the maxims of his own _Basilikon Doron_ and his
complete abhorrence of the doctrines which Buchanan, in the old days,
had tried to teach him, are prominent features of the controversy
concerning the Union. The tenacity with which he clung to his conception
of the royal prerogative is nowhere more apparent than in his speeches
and proclamations, and in everything he did for the purpose of
forwarding his favourite scheme. When the Parliament of England was
found to be less subservient than he had expected, he pointed to
Scotland as an example. “This I must say for Scotland,” he exclaimed,
“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.” These were not altogether idle
words; but it would have been wiser to refrain from boasting of a
supremacy such as the proudest of the Tudors had never ventured to
claim.
In the formidable contest against the national prejudices of Englishmen,
on which he was about to enter, James secured a powerful ally. Bacon had
been one of those who received the honour of knighthood on the day of
the coronation; and he lost no time in taking the king’s side on the
question of the Union, which he supported with the subtilty of a
scholiast, and with the broad views of a statesman and philosopher. To
the debates in Parliament, to the Council Board of the Commission on
Union, to the famous discussion, in the Exchequer Chamber, on the
question of the post-nati, he brought all the resources of his mind, and
threw himself into the struggle with an enthusiasm which could not
possibly have been feigned. He played the part, though without success,
which was afterwards played by Somers in the reign of Anne; and he
seems, from the very first, to have perceived with the eye of genius
exactly how far it was safe to go in the direction of abolishing
international distinctions.
His first contribution to the cause of the Union was to impress upon the
king the exact state of the case, and what were the various points which
would have to be decided. The kingdoms were, he showed, already united
in religion and in language. No sea rolled between them. The same king
reigned over both. But, nevertheless, there were separate Parliaments,
separate Councils of State, and separate offices of the Crown. There was
one peerage for England, and another for Scotland. There were two very
different systems of law, and each country had its own peculiar code of
legal procedure. All these various institutions, and, in addition, a
mass of minor details of greater or less importance, would have to be
considered in adjusting the terms of Union.[47]
On the knotty question of whether there should be an uniformity of laws,
Bacon, from the outset, in opposition to the opinion of the judges and
of the majority of English lawyers, maintained that, while the public
law of the United Kingdoms should be assimilated, the private law of
each country should be left untouched; a conclusion which was arrived at
a century later, when the Union was actually accomplished. “For,” he
said, “that which concerneth private interest of _meum_ and _tuum_, in
my opinion, it is not at this time to be meddled with. Men love to hold
their own as they have held, and the difference of this law carrieth no
mark of separation.”[48]
But before a single step could be taken, the two Parliaments had to be
consulted. James shrewdly calculated that if the Parliament of England
could be gained, the Scottish Estates would readily agree to his
wishes. He accordingly wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, in
January 1604, informing them that the English Parliament was to meet in
March, when the project of an Union would be discussed, and telling them
to call the Scottish Parliament together about the end of April; and he
gave express commands that no subject except the Union was to be
considered. If the Estates agreed, as he assumed they would, to the
desirability of an Union, they were to appoint commissioners to meet
with commissioners who would, by that time, have been appointed by the
Parliament of England.[49]
The English Parliament met on the 19th of March. The speech in which
James recommended the Union was long, and had evidently been prepared
with great pains. What God had joined, he urged, no man should put
asunder. “I am the husband,” he said, “and the whole island is my lawful
wife. I am the shepherd, and it is my flock. I hope, therefore, no man
will be so unreasonable as to think that I, that am a Christian king
under the gospel, should be a polygamist and husband of two wives.”
Apart from some grotesque illustrations such as this, the speech was
well worthy of the occasion. But the king’s proposals were not cordially
received; and it was only under considerable pressure that, at a
conference of both Houses, a Commission was appointed. At the head of
the Commission was Lord Chancellor Ellesmere; and among the members were
Robert Lord Cecil and Sir Francis Bacon. They were empowered to consult
with commissioners to be appointed by the Parliament of Scotland
concerning an Union of the Kingdoms, and such other matters as, upon
mature deliberation, should appear necessary for the honour of his
Majesty and the common good of both realms.
The Scottish Parliament, which had been summoned to meet in April in
order that it might approve of the Union and appoint commissioners, was
prorogued from time to time, and did not meet for business until the
beginning of July, when the Estates assembled at Perth.
James had directed the Scottish ministers to make the Union the only
subject of deliberation, and had also promised that the expenses
incurred by the commissioners from Scotland would be defrayed out of his
own purse. The Estates, however, had no sympathy with the policy of the
king. The nobles grumbled among themselves, and would fain have
resisted. But the royal orders were peremptory; and thirty-two
commissioners were appointed to “confer, treat, and consulte upon a
perfyte Unioun of the realmes of Scotland and England.”[50] The first
name on the Commission was that of John, Earl of Montrose, Lord
Chancellor of Scotland; and among his colleagues were a number of
distinguished men. Alexander Seton, then known as Lord Fyvie, was
afterwards the first Earl of Dunfermline. James Elphinstone, Secretary
of State, had recently been raised to the peerage as Lord Balmerino, a
title associated, in Scottish history, with a long series of family
misfortunes, which culminated in the execution of his descendant, the
last lord, after the Rebellion of 1745. Sir Thomas Hamilton, whom James
nicknamed “Tam o’ the Cowgate,” was then Lord Advocate, and, after
holding almost every great office of State in Scotland, became Earl of
Haddington in the reign of Charles the First. Another place in the
Commission was occupied by Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton, author of the
_Jus Feudale_, whose Latin history of the Union, which has never been
published, is preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.
Some of the terms which occur in the Act appointing these commissioners
are such as to suggest the idea that James himself had been the
draughtsman. The Estates, in language not usually to be found in the
statute-book, declare that the Act is passed in order that “as the
present age is ravished in admiration with an so fortunate beginning, so
that the posterity may rejoice in the fruition of such an effectual
Union of two so famous and ancient Kingdoms, miraculously accomplished
in the blood and person of so rare a monarch.”
But the Estates, while ready to lavish praise on the king, were
determined that the Union was not to interfere with the independence of
Scotland. It was noticed that while the English Act for the Union
contained a clause declaring that his Majesty had no intention of
altering the fundamental laws and customs of England, nothing had been
said as to preserving the laws and customs of Scotland. This was
regarded as suspicious; and there was inserted in the Scottish Act a
provision that the commissioners were to take care that nothing was done
which was inconsistent with the ancient rights and liberties of
Scotland.[51]
There was also passed, at the same time, a statute which provided that
the Commissioners on Union should have no power to treat “in any manner
of way that may be hurtful or prejudicial to the religion presently
professed in Scotland.”[52]
The commissioners, who had thus been appointed by the Parliaments, were
summoned to meet in the Painted Chamber at Westminster in October.[53]
But James, too impatient to await the result of their deliberations, and
resolved to carry matters with a high hand, issued a long and wordy
proclamation, in which he stated that he thought fit to abolish the
names of England and Scotland, and to assume, “by the force of our royal
prerogative,” the title of King of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland.[54] This title was to be used in all public documents. The
Borders were in future to be known as the Middle Shires. A flag was to
be prepared bearing the Cross of Saint George and the Cross of Saint
Andrew. New coins, with such mottoes as “Quæ Deus conjunxit nemo
separet,” and “Henricus rosas Jacobus regna,” were to be struck at the
Mint in honour of the Union.
This proclamation was most unpopular in both England and Scotland. The
judges were of opinion that the adoption of the title of King of Great
Britain would invalidate all legal processes.[55] The king soon found
that he had gone too far; and, after a time, he consented to wait until
his wishes could be accomplished with the sanction of Parliament.
On the 20th of October, the Commissioners on Union met at Westminster.
“A grave and orderly assembly,” is the account which Bacon gives of
them. On the English side the lead was taken by Bacon and Cecil; while
of the Scottish commissioners, Sir Thomas Hamilton and Lord Fyvie seem
to have been the most prominent. It was soon evident that the Scottish
peers were afraid that the Union would diminish their own power, and
indifferent to the commercial advantages which it would confer upon
their country. The commoners from Scotland also had their doubts about
the Union. They entirely failed to appreciate the benefits of the
colonial trade which it would open up; and they seem to have resented,
to an extent which blinded their judgments, the removal of the Court to
London.
The English commissioners also put obstacles in the way of an
agreement. Against the advice of Bacon, but with the support of the
judges, they insisted on an uniform system of laws for the two
countries; a proposal to which the representatives of Scotland would not
listen.[56] They also maintained that it was unreasonable that Scotsmen
should be made capable of holding offices under the Crown in England;
and on this point there was a keen argument.
After a series of discussions, which lasted for about five weeks, Bacon
and Sir Thomas Hamilton were instructed to embody the findings of the
commissioners, in the form of a Treaty of Union, for the approval of the
Parliaments. “It is curious now,” says Professor Masson, “to imagine the
great English philosopher and ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’ thus seated together,
for perhaps two or three evenings, over the document which was to
descend to posterity as the draft Treaty of Union between England and
Scotland, and to speculate how shrewdly ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’ must have
looked after the substance of the document, while he may have deferred
to Bacon’s superior expertness in strictly English idiom and
wording.”[57]
The Articles of Union, as finally settled, stood thus. All hostile laws,
and, in particular, the Border laws, were to be repealed. The name of
the Borders was to be abolished. There was to be complete freedom of
trade between England and Scotland; and as regarded foreign commerce
both countries were to stand on the same footing. On the difficult point
of naturalisation, the commissioners recommended that an Act should be
passed to declare that all subjects of both countries born since the
death of Elizabeth, that is to say the “post-nati,” were, by common law,
entitled to the privileges of subjects in both countries. The
“ante-nati,” or subjects born before the death of the late queen, were
to enjoy the same privileges, not at common law, but under an Act of
Parliament passed on their behalf. But the ante-nati were not to be
capable of holding offices under the Crown or sitting in Parliament,
except in the country of their birth. In short, the post-nati were to be
fully naturalised; but the ante-nati were not to have a share in the
government or the legislature.
This question of naturalisation, with the distinction drawn between the
post-nati and the ante-nati, is, in our day, only one of faint
antiquarian interest; but it was then a question of practical everyday
importance. The law officers of the Crown had given an opinion that the
post-nati of Scotland were not aliens in England, but that the
ante-nati were; and this had led the Union Commissioners to suggest that
both should be placed on the same footing, with the exception, which has
just been mentioned, that the ante-nati should be declared incapable of
holding office. At this point James raised an objection. He protested
that he had no desire to give offices of State except to the natives of
the country in which the office was to be exercised. He agreed to the
proposal of the commissioners; but, at the same time, he insisted that
the clause dealing with the question of naturalisation should be so
worded as to recognise a right on the part of the sovereign to grant
letters of denization. This, of course, was a palpable evasion of the
proposed finding, and would leave him free to do as he pleased.
Nevertheless, the commissioners recommended that, in the Articles of
Union, the prerogative of the Crown as to appointing to offices in
either kingdom, and as to granting letters of denization, should be
specially reserved.
The Articles of Union were signed and sealed by the commissioners on the
6th of December, and at once presented to the king. James was in high
spirits. He thanked the commissioners warmly for their services, and
especially for their conduct in reserving his prerogative of appointing
to offices in either kingdom. “Among other pleasant speeches,” says
Bacon, “he showed unto them the laird of Lawreston,[58] a Scotchman, who
was the tallest and greatest man that was to be seen, and said, ‘Well,
now we are all one, yet none of you will say, but here is one Scotchman
greater than any Englishman’; which was an ambiguous speech, but it was
thought he meant it of himself.”
The Governments in both countries began to make arrangements for the
approaching Union. A warrant was issued for destroying the Great and
Privy Seals of Scotland; and new seals were made with the arms of
England, Scotland, and Ireland quartered on them.[59] Agents were sent
to France to investigate the privileges held by Englishmen and Scotsmen
as to the French trade, and arrange for the future. An order was issued
which illustrates the position of affairs between the countries.
Scotsmen were constantly going abroad to serve in the foreign armies.
They were in the habit of passing through England, and, on their way,
they often were guilty of disorderly conduct, such as robbing on the
highways, and committing other outrages, which raised a bad feeling
against their country. It was therefore ordered that, in future, all
Scotsmen going abroad were to embark from Scotland, instead of passing
through England.[60]
A long time, however, was to pass before the subject of the Union was
discussed by the Parliaments. The English Parliament had been summoned
for the 5th of November 1605, when the articles were to have been
debated. But the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot threw everything else
into the shade; and though the Treaty of Union was presented, nothing
more was done.
At last, when the Parliament of England met in November 1606, it was
understood that the session was to be chiefly devoted to the Scottish
question. The Articles of Union were known; and there was a storm of
opposition from the merchants of London. Objections were raised to the
admission of Scotsmen as members of English trading companies. There was
also a strong dislike to allowing free trade between England and
Scotland. The Scots, it was said, would come and go as they pleased, and
fulfil or break their bargains just as it suited them. The English
traders, moreover, wished a heavy duty to be imposed on cloth entering
Scotland, because Scotland had, for a long time, been favoured in the
custom duties which she paid in France; and this, along with other
privileges she enjoyed in that country, might enable her to monopolise
the trade in cloth with France. It was soon found that the dislike to
the Union extended to every class throughout the country. There was a
general fear that every district, and every calling, would be overrun
with needy Scotsmen. The Articles of Union, it was said, would open to
Scotsmen not only trade, but the Church, the universities, and the
highest offices of State. They would fill, it was predicted, the best
stalls in every cathedral in England; Latin would be taught at Oxford
and Cambridge by the countrymen of Buchanan, whose scholarship not even
English jealousy could venture to deny; and the tireless energy of
ambitious Scottish politicians would secure the most lucrative places in
the Government.
In Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons, these complaints
were echoed. Sir Christopher Piggott, one of the members for
Buckinghamshire, rose one day, and, speaking with his hat on, launched
into a torrent of abuse against the idea of an Union with the Scots,
who, he shouted, were murderers, thieves, and rogues who had not
suffered more than two of their kings to die peaceably in their beds
during the last two hundred years. The Commons, either from sympathy or
in surprise, received this tirade in silence. But James, when he heard
of it, was indignant; and Piggott was expelled from the House and
committed to the Tower.[61]
In this spirit the debates, which began in February 1607, were conducted
by the opponents of the Union. The first question which came up was the
question of naturalisation. The speech of the member who opened the case
against the proposals of the Union Commissioners consisted of an attack
on Scotland and the Scots; and his chief argument against the Union was
that if a man owned two pastures, the one fertile and the other barren,
he would not, if he was a wise man, pull down the hedge, and allow the
lean and hungry cattle to rush in and devour the rich pasture.
Bacon led on the other side. The grand idea of an orderly and
well-balanced Union of the two kingdoms had fascinated his imagination.
In moderate language, and in his most lucid manner, he answered his
opponents, and expounded his own reasons for advising the Parliament of
England to naturalise the Scottish nation. There were, he said, three
objections to doing so. In the first place, it was thought that if the
Scots were no longer aliens, they would settle in England in such
numbers that the country would be over-populated. But, he answered, four
years had passed since the Union of the Crowns, which was “the greatest
spring-tide for the confluence and entrance of that nation”; and during
these four years the only Scotsmen who had come to live in England were
those immediately connected with the Court. Again, England, he declared,
was not yet fully peopled. London was overcrowded; but the rest of the
country showed signs of a want of inhabitants, in the shape of swamps
and waste places. The Commons themselves might bear in mind “how many of
us serve here in this place for desolate and decayed boroughs.” And,
besides, what was the worst effect which could follow too great an
increase of the population? Nothing more than some honourable war for
the enlargement of our borders.
The second objection to naturalising the Scots was that the laws of
England and Scotland were different, that the Articles of Union left
them different, and that it was unreasonable to admit the Scots to the
privileges of English citizens without making them adopt the laws of
England. But, he argued, naturalisation must come first. The inhabitants
of Ireland, of the Isle of Man, and of Jersey and Guernsey, had the
benefits of naturalisation; but the laws of England were not yet in
force among them. An union of laws might be brought about both in these
places and in Scotland, but only in course of time.
The third objection was that there was so much inequality between
England and Scotland that the Union would not be fair to England. This
inequality, Bacon declared, consisted only in gold and silver, the
external goods of fortune. “In their capacities and undertakings,” he
said, “they are a people ingenious, in labour industrious, in courage
valiant, in body hard, active, and comely.” If Scotland was, after all,
to gain by the Union, then England might find that it was more blessed
to give than to receive.
Having thus answered the objections to naturalisation, he next
maintained that if naturalisation did not follow the Union of the
Kingdoms under the same Crown, danger would be the result. History, he
argued, teaches us that whenever kingdoms have been united by the link
of the Crown alone, if that union has not been fortified by something
more, and most of all by naturalisation, separation takes place. The
Romans and the Latins were united; but the Latins were not made citizens
of Rome. War was the result. Sparta was ruined by attempting to maintain
a league with States whose peoples she jealously regarded as aliens. The
history of Aragon and Castile, of Florence and Pisa, taught us the same
lesson. And on the other hand, we find that where States have been
united, and that union strengthened by the bond of naturalisation, they
never separate again.
He ended his speech by saying that, in future times, England, “having
Scotland united and Ireland reduced,” would be one of the greatest
monarchies in the world.[62]
But this appeal was unheeded by the House; and though Coke brought all
his great authority as a common lawyer to the same side as Bacon, the
members would not be convinced. James on two occasions expostulated with
them. He said he was willing, if it would help on the Union, to live one
year in Scotland and another in England, or to live at York, or on the
Borders. But the Commons were intractable, although the Lords were ready
to agree to the Union, and to the naturalisation of the Scots.
Something, however, was accomplished. The questions of trade and of
naturalisation were left unsettled; but an Act was passed which gave
effect to the first part of the Treaty of Union, by repealing a number
of statutes hostile to Scotland (such as those which forbade the leasing
of lands to Scotsmen, and the exporting of arms or horses to Scotland),
on condition that the Scottish Parliament, when it met, was to repeal
the Scottish Acts, of a similar nature, which were hostile to
England.[63]
With this small concession James had to be contented; and at the
beginning of July he dismissed the Parliament, but not without a
farewell warning that the Union was, in the long-run, inevitable. “These
two kingdoms,” he said, “are so conjoined that, if we should sleep in
our beds, the Union should be, though we would not. He that doth not
love a Scotsman as his brother, or the Scotsman that loves not an
Englishman as his brother, he is traitor to God and the king.”
The Scottish Parliament met in the first week of August. The Scots were,
on the whole, rather proud to think that their king had gone to rule
over England. Yet the old wrongs could not easily be forgotten, and it
is probable that the Estates were very nearly as much against the Union
as the House of Commons was. The Privy Council had, some months before,
given the king a hint of this;[64] and a trivial circumstance may be
mentioned to show how jealous the Scots were of England. A pattern of
the new flag which James had ordered to be prepared for the United
Kingdom, had been sent from England; and great offence had been taken
when it was found that the Cross of Saint Andrew was covered, and, it
was said, hidden by the Cross of St. George. Scottish seamen, the king
was told, could not be induced to receive the flag.[65]
There can be little doubt that most Scotsmen sympathised with the
national feeling which this trifling incident disclosed. But the private
opinion of a member of the Scottish Parliament was one thing, and his
public conduct was another. The Estates were submissive to the royal
will. The Articles of Union were agreed to; and all the laws hostile to
England were repealed.[66]
Thus, so far as it lay within the power of the Scottish Parliament, the
king had got what he wanted. All that remained was for the English
Parliament to be equally complaisant; and the kingdoms would have been
united in 1607 instead of a century later. But it was not to be. In
neither country was there any genuine desire for union. The free
traditions of the House of Commons enabled the members to say what they
thought; and the subject, gradually dropping out of sight, was not again
seriously debated during the reign of James. The antiquary may still
inspect a brown and shrivelled parchment which is preserved in the
Register House at Edinburgh, all that remains of the Treaty of 1607. The
time had not yet come when the Parliaments of the two nations were to
see that it was impossible for the resources of Scotland to be developed
while she remained separate from England, and that it was equally
impossible for England to attain a position of permanent security so
long as Scotland remained poor and discontented, debarred, by commercial
restrictions, from the advantages of trade with the colonies and with
England, and with no outlet for that splendid energy of her people
which, after the Union, changed the Lothians from a desert to a garden,
made Edinburgh famous throughout Europe as a school of letters, and
founded on the banks of the Clyde one of the great commercial cities of
the world.
The question of naturalisation, which could not be left undecided, was
settled by the judges in a test case in the law courts. The action
related to a tenement in Shoreditch, and the point at issue was whether
the plaintiff, a child born in Scotland since the Union of the Crowns,
was an alien, and, therefore, not entitled to bring an action for real
property in England. Bacon was the leading counsel for the plaintiff;
and the most important opinion was delivered by Lord Chancellor
Ellesmere. The Court, by a majority, found for the plaintiff, holding
that all the post-nati, or persons born in Scotland since the Union of
the Crowns, were naturalised and entitled to all the rights of
Englishmen in England. The ante-nati, those born in Scotland before the
accession of James, still remained in the position of aliens.[67]
The effects of the removal of the Court to London were apparent in
Scotland for many years to come. The houses of the nobles and the gentry
were neglected. Gardens and pleasure-grounds, which had begun to appear
in some places, were allowed to run to waste. The inns, poor at all
times, fell into ruins. Merchants found their business at a standstill;
and the shipping trade languished. What made all this peculiarly galling
to the Scottish people was that England, though not occupying under the
Stuarts the lofty position which she had occupied under the Tudors, was,
year after year, enlarging her bounds and adding to the sources of her
wealth. On the southern side of the Borders, the industries of Yorkshire
were showing signs of what they were to become. The East India Company,
now firmly established, was extending its operations. Far across the
seas Nova Scotia was colonised by Scotsmen whom poverty had driven from
their homes; and the plantations of Virginia became a rich addition to
the resources of the English Crown. And besides suffering from the evils
of poverty, Scotland was harassed almost from the day on which James
ascended the throne of England by those ecclesiastical disputes which
plunged the country into so much misery during the seventeenth century.
The king had been compelled, by the force of public opinion in England,
to abandon the Union. But with the object to which he devoted the rest
of his life even those Englishmen who doubted the wisdom of his policy
were inclined to sympathise. The Scottish Reformation, unlike that of
England, had been the work of the aristocracy, in opposition to the
Crown. It had, at the same time, been a deeply religious movement; and
these two forces, working together, had developed, as the distinguishing
features of the Reformed Church of Scotland, a denial of the royal
supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, and the assertion of the spiritual
independence of the Church. Sir James Mackintosh has said that the
peculiar theories of Berkeley were a touch-stone of metaphysical
sagacity, meaning, apparently, by this phrase, that those who were
without it could not understand the meaning or the tendency of those
theories. In like manner, spiritual independence is the touch-stone of a
capacity for understanding the history of the Scottish Church. The words
“spiritual independence” expressed for Scotsmen what was, on the one
hand, a part of their constitutional law, set forth in the statutes of
the realm, and on the other hand, an article of faith, received by the
people as an essential part of their religion, involving the principle
of loyalty to the great founder of the Christian faith, as the only head
of the Church. They believed--and for this belief thousands laid down
their lives--that there were two authorities, the one civil and the
other spiritual. Both were based upon a divine sanction; and each was to
be obeyed within its own sphere. The civil magistrate was to bear rule
and to be obeyed in civil affairs; but if he attempted to interfere with
the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, he was to be resisted to the
death. This principle of spiritual independence, which, neither at the
Union of the Crowns, nor at the Union of the Kingdoms, nor during that
memorable crisis which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, rent
asunder the Church of Scotland, Englishmen were able to understand, was
taught in the first Confession of Faith drawn up by the Scottish
Reformers, and laid before the Estates in 1560.[68] After some years,
when the long controversy between the king and the Church had begun, the
two jurisdictions, civil and ecclesiastical, were still more carefully
defined.[69]
Principles such as these were intolerable to James. By the law of
England the king was head of the Church; and it was, therefore, his
policy to introduce an uniformity of ecclesiastical government over the
whole island. For more than twenty years before the Union of the Crowns
he had been engaged in fighting the Scottish clergy. Sometimes he won,
and sometimes he was defeated. The great point at issue was whether the
Scottish Church was to be Presbyterian or Episcopal; for he had found
that if the Presbyterian system was allowed to exist, the royal
supremacy would never be acknowledged in Scotland. Accordingly he came
to the throne of England with a firm resolution that he would use his
new position so as to secure the establishment of Episcopacy in the
north; and, though he artfully concealed it, we may be sure that one of
his chief reasons for proposing the Union was that he believed it would
be followed by the accomplishment of this object. Henceforth the policy
of extending the Anglican system to Scotland became the hereditary
policy of the Stuarts. Three years after the Union of the Crowns, the
boldest leaders of the clergy having been driven into exile, the
Scottish Parliament acknowledged the royal supremacy over all persons
and all causes. It was not long before Episcopacy was established; and
James had the gratification of seeing a few of his new bishops humbly
consenting to receive consecration from the hands of English prelates,
and returning to Scotland to confer upon their brethren the virtues of
the apostolical succession. But the system which was thus set up had no
hold upon the people. It would be impossible to point out in the
catalogue of Scottish bishops the names of a dozen men who were either
popular, or famous for learning, or eminent on account of their public
services. The history of Christendom contains no story so humiliating as
the story of Prelacy in Scotland during the seventeenth century.
The real meaning of the struggle between the Scottish people and the
English Government which followed the Union of the Crowns cannot be
understood unless we remember that, for most of those who suffered, the
question at issue was a question of conscience. It is easy to find upon
the surface of these events the materials from which to construct an
explanation of a different kind. Envy at the sight of so much power in
the hands of the priesthood, and the love, so strong in the Scottish
character, of freedom from control, might influence some. But no one who
looks below the surface, or reads the history of that period with an
impartial mind, can fail to perceive that what brought the people of
Scotland into a position of such stern antagonism to the English system
of Church government, and, still more, what kept them there, was the
fact that to accept Episcopacy was to give up spiritual independence, to
admit the royal supremacy, and to abandon the principle of a divine
head of the Church. It was for that principle that men and women died
during the period between the Restoration and the Revolution, and not
merely in defence of one form of Church government against another. And
in the meantime, during the first half of the seventeenth century, it
was the obstinate and persistent tyranny of James, and the infatuation
of Charles the First and his advisers, which roused that memorable
outburst of national resentment which scattered their policy to the
winds. An uniformity in Church government and in ritual was the end
aimed at by Charles and Laud. That end was, indeed, so far accomplished;
but not by them. Having resolved to extend the Anglican system
permanently to Scotland, they lived just long enough to see the Scottish
system on the point of being extended to England, and the two kingdoms
suddenly bound together by that solemn league which, conceived, though
it may have been, in a spirit of intolerance, was nevertheless, for more
than two generations, the watchword of the Whigs of Scotland, who
afterwards, through the years of darkness and tempest, held high the
blue banner of the Covenants, the rallying-point of Scottish freedom.
During a few years the Presbyterian Church was established, and the
ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland were administered in accordance with
the long-cherished aspirations of the native clergy. But the alliance
between the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament and Church
did not long survive the execution of Charles. Their ideas had always
been different. “The English were for a civil league, we for a religious
covenant,” Baillie had written six years before. The Scottish Parliament
protested against the execution. The Scottish Church was willing to
receive Charles the Second, if he would declare himself a Presbyterian
and sign the Covenants. “If his Majesty,” Baillie writes, “may be moved
to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to
sacrifice their lives for his service.” Charles consented. He subscribed
the Covenants, and bound himself, by an oath, to maintain the
Presbyterian Church. But the royal cause was hopeless. Cromwell’s
victory at Dunbar was a crushing blow; and the battle of Worcester left
Scotland at the mercy of the English army.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 553.
[43] Spotswood, 476.
[44] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 602.
[45] Satire against Scotland, 1617; _Abbotsford Miscellany_, i. 297.
[46] _Fœdera_, xvi. 506.
[47] A brief discourse of the Happy Union of the Kingdoms of England and
Scotland, dedicated in private to His Majesty, 1603; Certain Articles or
Considerations touching the Union, collected and dispersed for His
Majesty’s better service.
[48] A Preparation towards the Union of the Laws of England and
Scotland.
[49] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vi. 596.
[50] Act. Parl. Scot. iv. 263, 11th July 1604.
[51] Act. Parl. Scot. iv. 264.
[52] Act in favour of the liberties of the Kirk, 11th July 1604, Act.
Parl. Scot. iv. 264. Balmerino, in sending to Cecil an account of the
proceedings of the Estates regarding the Union, expresses the hope that
the Scottish people will prove equally tractable (_Calendar of State
Papers, Domestic_, 1603-1610, p. 132).
[53] _Fœdera_, xvi. 600.
[54] Proclamatio pro Unione Regnorum Angliæ et Scotiæ, 20th October 1604
(_Fœdera_, xvi. 603).
[55] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1603-1610, p. 103.
[56] “Amongst these commissioners there grew a question, whether there
could be made an Union of the Kingdoms by raising a new Kingdome of
Great Britaine, before there was an Union of the Lawes. Which question,
by the King’s commandment, was referred to all the Judges of England in
Trinity Terme, Anno 2 Jac., who unanimously resolved (I being then
Attorney General and present), that Anglia had lawes, and Scotia had
lawes, but this new erected Kingdome of Britannia should have no law.
And, therefore, where all the judiciall proceedings in England are
secundum legem et consuetudinem Angliæ, it could not be altered secundum
legem et consuetudinem Britanniæ, untill there was an Union of the lawes
of both Kingdomes; which could not be done but by Authority of
Parliament in either Kingdome” (Coke’s _Institutes_, part iv. cap. 75).
On one point connected with the legal system of Scotland, James
displayed greater foresight than even the Whigs of 1707. “The greatest
hinderance,” he says in the _Basilikon Doron_, “to the execution of our
lawes in this countrie, are these heritable Sheifdomes and Regalities,
which being in the hands of the great men, doe wracke the whole
countrey.” And then he recommends his son to look forward to a time when
he might be able to abolish them, and introduce the English system;
“Preassing with time, to draw it to the lawdable custome of England;
which ye may the easilier doe, being King of both, as I hope in God ye
shall.” The Heritable Jurisdictions, a curse to Scotland, were not
abolished until after the second Jacobite Rebellion.
[57] Introduction to the Treasury Edition of the _Register of the Privy
Council of Scotland_, edited by Professor Masson, vol. vii. p. xxxii.
[58] Sir Alexander Straton of Lauriston.
[59] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, vii. 54, 464.
[60] _Ibid._ 130.
[61] Commons Journals, 13th February 1607.
[62] A speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, in the Honourable House
of Commons, Quinto Jacobi, concerning the Article of the General
Naturalization of the Scottish Nation.
[63] Act for the utter abolition of all memory of hostility, and the
dependents thereof, between England and Scotland, 4 Jac. i. cap. i.
[64] “Thair be amang us not a few of the best sorte who ar als aliene
from it as ony of the lower House, and hes moir just causis to be
discontented with so easie obliterating of begane wrongis.” (The Privy
Council to the King, 3rd March 1607, _Register_, vii. 513.)
[65] _Register of Privy Council_, vii. 498.
[66] Act anent the Unioun of Scotland and England. Act. Parl. Scot. iv.
366.
[67] _Calvin_ v. _Smith_, the case of the Post-nati, or of the Union of
the Realm of Scotland with England; Trin. 6 James I. A.D. 1608, State
Trials, ii. 559; The argument of Sir Francis Bacon, in the case of the
Post-nati of Scotland, in the Exchequer Chamber, before the Lord
Chancellor, and all the Judges of England, Nov. 1608.
[68] Thus the eleventh article of this Confession, which treats of the
Ascension, contains these remarkable words: “The remembrance of quhilk
day, and of the Judgement to be executed in the same, is not onelie to
us ane brydle whereby our carnal lustes are refrained, bot alswa sik
inestimable comfort, that nether may the threatning of wordly Princes,
nether zit the feare of temporal death and present danger, move us to
renounce and forsake that blessed societie, quhilk we the members have
with our head and onelie Mediator Christ Jesus, whom we confesse and
avow to be the Messias promised, the onelie head of his Kirk, our just
Laugiver, our onelie hie Priest, Advocate and Mediator. In quhilk
honoures and offices, gif Man or Angel presume to intrude themself, we
utterlie detest and abhorre them, as blasphemous to our Soveraine and
supreme Governour Christ Jesus.” The twenty-fifth article is entitled,
“Of the Civil Magistrate”; and these two articles, when read together,
contain the germ of the Scottish idea of an Established Church. This
Confession was ratified by the Estates in 1567, Act. Parl. Scot.
[69] “This power ecclesiasticall flowis immediatlie frome God, and the
Mediator Chryst Jesus, and is spirituall, not having ane temporall heid
on eirth, bot onlie Chryst, the onlie spirituall King and Gouernour of
his Kirk;” “It is ane title falslie usurpit be Antichrist, to call
himself heid of the Kirk, and aucht not to be attributit to angell or to
mane, of what estait soeuir he be, saiffing to Chryst, the Heid and
onelie Monarche in this Kirk;” “As the ministeris and vtheris of the
ecclesiasticall estait, ar subiect to the magistrat ciuillie, swa aucht
the persone of the magistrat be subiect to the Kirk spirituallie, and in
ecclesiasticall gouernment. And the exercise of bayth thais
jurisdictionis can not stande in ane persone ordinarlie” (Headis and
Conclusionis of the Policie of the Kirk, cap. i.). This statement of
principles, usually called the “Second Book of Discipline,” was
promulgated by the Church of Scotland in 1578.