Parliament of Scotland

“ The ruler of Scotland might be the king; the supreme power might be in the hands of this or that noble or of this or that combination of nobles; or it might belong to the General Assembly of the Church: but rarely [2] indeed was the country governed or guided by the Estates.
The people of Scotland have ever had a wholesome horror of works of supererogation. The Parliament did not meet to rule the country, but it did meet nevertheless, and those who summoned it had a definite purpose in view. ”

“ His aim in Scotland was to introduce a "new monarchy," and he determined to make the existence of Parliament the main weapon in the encounter with his rebellious lords. Accordingly, in the year 1425, we find that all prelates, earls, barons, and freeholders, "since they are holden to give their presence in the king's parliament and general council," are enjoined to appear in person "and not by a procuratour, but if that procuratour allege and prove lawful cause of his absence." ”

“ But it is the first Parliament [94] 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. ”

“ If the production of a legal system forms but a small apologia for a Parliament which existed [xxvi] for several centuries, it nevertheless entitles the Scottish Estates to be reckoned among the forces which have made the nation; and it is legitimate cause of satisfaction that, in spite of all the forces of misgovernment which held sway for so long, the peculiarity of the law of Scotland is its regard for the poor and the weak. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even in the centuries of our separate history which are most fully known, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, we are beset by many of the same problems and by others not less obscure. How far was constitutional development in Scotland affected by the short-lived union under Edward I? How far by the three hundred years of alliance with France? Can we infer any connection between the German Diet and the Scottish Estates, between the Lords of the Articles and the Committee by which Richard II attempted to supersede the English Parliament? ”

“ It did not seem possible that a people could advance worthily, except as England had advanced. This predisposition to find in Scotland an analogy to English parliamentary institutions was encouraged by the occurrence of many words and phrases in the rolls of the Scottish Parliament which seem to the English student quite decisive in favour of a "constitutional" point of view. ”

“ Two days after, the 16th of January, 1647, the parliament of Scotland acceded to the demand of the English parliament that the king should be given up, a promise being obtained that respect should be had to the safety of his person in the defence of the true religion, and the liberties of the two kingdoms, according to the solemn league and covenant. More was demanded by the Scots, namely, that no obstacle should be opposed to the legitimate succession of his children, and no alteration made in the existing government of the kingdom. ”

“ Care for the preservation of the peace, and for administrative reform, is seen in the oath imposed upon officials and in the pains taken to secure the custody of the castles. The Scots parliament was to be retained, and recent precedents also suggested the probability of Scottish representation in the parliament of England. If Scotland were to be ruled by Edward at all, it would have been difficult to devise a wiser scheme for its administration. Yet the Scottish love of independence was not to be bartered away for better government. ”

“ In the debates on these measures, the Scottish parliament exhibited a degree of eloquence which was wholly a novelty, and the memory of which long survived. It was a remarkable crisis, in which a little nation, merely by the moral power which animated it, contrived to inspire fear and respect in one much its superior in numbers and every other material element of strength.
The general sense of danger thus created in England proved sufficient to overcome that mercantile selfishness which had inflicted so much injustice upon Scotland. ”

“ 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 ”

“ For it is agreed that the idea of representation existed in England before the towns were summoned to Parliament, while in Scotland no such idea is traceable, nor are there any writs such as were issued for the English towns. It might even be argued that, in strict theory, there was no representation in Scotland till 1832; that commissioners both from shires and burghs only saved their fellows the trouble of attendance, the right to attend being, not de facto but in ultimate theory, possessed by all who were entitled to vote. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The combination which took place in consequence was so extraordinary, that we may be pardoned if we express our wonder how any minister who witnessed it, can at this hour have the temerity to return to the charge. Party-spirit, always higher and keener in Scotland than elsewhere, was at once forgotten in the common cause. All ranks, from the peer to the peasant, rose up in wrath at the proposed innovation; and from every county, city, town, village, and corporation in the kingdom, indignant remonstrances were forwarded to the foot of the Throne, and to the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. ”

“ The smaller freeholders, influenced by their strong sense of clan and family loyalty, attached themselves to the great barons. They were, as we shall see, never really represented in Parliament till the reign of James VI, and not till religious questions assumed a position of importance did they find any bond of union with the representatives of the burghs. The growth of English parliamentary liberty is largely due to the coalescence of the knights of the shires with the burgesses, and no such alliance was made in Scotland before the reign of Queen Mary. ”

“ With this final Act the Scottish Parliament passed out of existence.
The wisdom of this measure has been abundantly justified by the results—a growth in all that makes for material prosperity, a richer intellectual life, and peace. After centuries of anarchy and misrule and {297} aimless upheavals, Scotland had reached a haven. Her triumph has been a moral and an intellectual triumph, not political. In intellectual splendor her people may challenge the world, and in moral elevation and in righteousness they will find few peers. ”

“ The General Assembly, in fact, from the year 1707 to the Disruption of the Scottish Church in 1843, was, to some extent, a veritable Parliament, in which, though the secular Parliament had been abolished, the united people of Scotland still saw their nationality preserved and represented. All through the year the clergy individually, in the thousand parishes or so into which Scotland was divided, managed their own parochial affairs with the assistance of select laymen called elders ”

“ Do not, as you value the interests of Scotland, permit even the smallest interference with a system which has already obtained the unqualified approval of the state. If you do, rely upon it that one change will be merely the forerunner of another—that the statute-book, in each succeeding session of Parliament, will exhibit new changes and new modifications, until, gradually and by piecemeal, we shall lose all the benefits of those national institutions which you are now ready and pledged to maintain whole and unimpaired. ”

“ Some proposed they should march to Glasgow, some to Hamilton, some to Edinburgh, some to London. Some were for sending a deputation of their number to London to convert Charles II. to a sense of the error of his ways; and others, less charitable, proposed either to call a new successor to the crown, or to declare Scotland a free republic. A free parliament of the nation, and a free assembly of the Kirk, were the objects of the more sensible and moderate of the party. ”

“ The affairs of Scotland being in the state which we have described, it is no wonder that the king’s letter was received with acclamations of applause, and that the parliament opened, not only with approbation of the government, but even with an enthusiastic zeal to signalise their loyalty, as well by a perfect acquiescence to the king’s demands, as by the most fulsome expressions of adulation. ”

“ The Parliament of England had urged the king to an interference with the Darien Scheme, which could not be regarded in Scotland as other than a betrayal. The Scottish Estates had not responded to the Act of Settlement in 1700, and when Queen Anne succeeded, the attitude of the two countries was becoming increasingly threatening. England regarded any advance of Scottish prosperity as a success gained at her own cost. Scotland feared that the country was to be permanently under foreign influence. ”

“ The extreme Presbyterians did not believe in a Union which would leave their Church untrammelled. The views of the Revolution had gone further in Scotland than in England, and a considerable body of active spirits had adopted republican views; to them the establishment of a monarchy backed by the strength of England was distasteful, as rendering any fulfilment of their hopes impossible. And the Edinburgh tradesmen recognized to the full the loss they would sustain by the removal of Parliament to London. The discussion on the various points went on throughout Scotch Parliament. ”

“ No man knew the powers of his time better than did John Knox; and in Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland there are very few references to the Scottish Parliament, and only one of these is more than incidental. In this respect, Knox is a fair specimen of early historians. The only exception is George Buchanan, who tells of many meetings of "the Estates, who possess the supreme power in everything." ”

“ At times, the burgh records are full of instructions to the commissioners sent to Parliament. These refer invariably to administrative detail, never to great political questions. The burgesses were left to fight for their liberties alone and unaided. Scotland did not produce, till after the Reformation, a great middle class of country gentlemen. ”

“ It is not till the year 1326 that we find a complete parliament, containing lords and commons, and this must be kept in mind while we proceed to the consideration of the normal form of the "Estates of Scotland."
In the first place, we have the clergy. Bishops, abbots, and priors possessed, as tenants-in-chief, the same right of attendance in councils as secular freeholders had, and they could more easily make use of their opportunities. At the Reformation, the bishops who became protestants, the lay commendators, and the "tulchan bishops," seem to have kept their seats. ”

“ In Scotland a warm contest arose between the revolutioners and those in the opposition, concerning the existence of the present parliament. The queen had signified her accession to the throne in a letter to her privy-council for Scotland, desiring they would continue to act in that office until she should send a new commission. Meanwhile she authorized them to publish a proclamation ordaining all officers of state, counsellors, and magistrates, to act in all things conformably to the commissions and instructions of his late majesty until new commissions should be prepared. ”

“ Scotland had but little of the constitutional evolution so conspicuous in the history of England. The reason is that while the English kings, with their fiefs and wars in France, had constantly to be asking their parliaments for money, and while Parliament first exacted the redress of grievances, in Scotland the king was expected “to live of his own” on the revenue of crown-lands, rents, feudal aids, fines exacted in Courts of Law, and duties on merchandise. ”