Scottish Parliament

“ The mere existence of parliamentary institutions, whatever be their condition at any given time, is in itself a menace to any government not founded on the will of the people. They represent what physicists call "potential energy." It is, moreover, impossible for such institutions not to affect, in some way, [7] the life of the people, and to influence the civilization of the country. There were various times when the Scottish Parliament gave an earnest of what power lay underneath its acquiescence. ”

“ The conclusions here stated with regard to the Scottish Parliament are, however, not entirely negative. The work of the Estates has left some positive and definite results of more than incidental character. The long series of administrative enactments, dealing mainly with police methods and with trade, helped the rise and growth of the Scottish burghs, and, even outside the burghs, they added something to the forces that made for peace and good order. There are occasional measures which found a lasting influence upon the character of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Scarcely less important than the membership of a parliamentary body is the method of its deliberation. In this respect the Scottish Parliament was widely different from that which sat at Westminster. The three Estates met in one chamber. In the centre was the seat occupied by the sovereign, when he was present in person; in later times, by his commissioner. On the left hand sat the noblemen and barons; on the right, the prelates and the representatives of burghs. The Estates voted together. ”

“ As English constitutional liberty advanced, phrases borrowed from the English Commons find a place in the Scottish records, but they possess no real significance, and they render more difficult the task of interpreting the Acts. It is only now and again that we can speak with certainty of the membership of Parliament, or of the proportion of burgesses to barons and ecclesiastics. The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland give as little assistance to the historian as it is possible for such documents to yield.
Our information certainly becomes less meagre as time goes on. ”

“ While shots were being exchanged, and men on both sides were falling, the Scottish Parliament reassembled on June 2. Its proceedings could not fail to breathe a similar tone of hostility. It met without the presence of the King or of his commissioner; as men observed with astonishment ‘without sword, sceptre, and crown.’ In place of the commissioner the Parliament established a president of its own, elected from among its members. The session lasted only eight days; but it was said that for six centuries there had been no Parliament more remarkable and more thoroughgoing. ”

“ We possess no writs summoning a Parliament, no report of a debate in the Scottish Estates. The constitution of a valid Parliament, the procedure necessary for prorogation and dissolution, the rights of the burgess members, were never definitely decided. The "three Estates" was a technical term having a different meaning at different times, and the word Parliament was applied to bodies so diverse as the great Council which negotiated the ransom of King David II and the nobles who entered into a hasty consultation with James IV at Twiselhaugh. ”

“ 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 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 [104] 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. ”

“ Under the personal rule of James I we have the best instance in Scottish history of government in accordance with what would now be called the theory of the Scottish constitution. But it was not "constitutional government" in our modern derived sense of the word. The Parliament was not intended to be the ruling body. King James was a masterful man, and he aimed at using the Parliament as the best means of creating a powerful monarchy, not at giving it a power to rival his own. ”

“ An incorporating Union, which would abolish the Scottish Parliament, would make Scotland poorer than ever, because Scotsmen would spend more money than ever in England. Members of Parliament would go to London and live there. No Scotsman who wanted public employment would ever set foot in Scotland. Every man who made a fortune in England would buy land there. The trade of Scotland would be nothing more than an inconsiderable retail business in an impoverished country. ”

“ Scottish genius is being liberated from its Genevan prison-house. But the centralization of British arts and affairs in London is still restricting it in ways that can only be redressed by that re-orientation of facilities which would follow the re-establishment of an independent Scottish Parliament, or, in the event of a return to the system of Provinces, a federation of assemblies. The movement cannot manifest its full stature and move freely, save within that framework of a Scotland become once again a nation in every sense of the term for which it has been designed. ”

“ But between 1437 and 1513 it is not easy to discover any single token of definite constitutional development, either in the direction of absolute government or in that of popular liberty. Not only does Scotland fail to produce a constitutional movement like that which characterizes the history of England; she does not develop any kind of constitution at all. No absolute monarch, no oligarchical council, no democratic parliament occupies the stage of her history for any length of time, nor does she know any free cities or any independent duchies. ”

“ What value can we ascribe to the Parliament as an element in the life of the nation?
[13]
I.—Origin, Membership, and Method 1. The two most important dividing lines in Scottish history between the tenth century and the sixteenth are the reign of David I (1124-1153) and the War of Independence, which forms a distinct period not less in constitutional than in political history. Before the reign of David I, the Scottish kings had a council of seven mormaers or earls ”

“ 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. ”

“ The infamy of this bargain had such an influence on the Scottish parliament, that they once voted that the king should be protected, and his liberty insisted on. But the general assembly interposed, and pronounced that, as he had refused to take the covenant, which was pressed on him, it became not the godly to concern themselves about his fortunes. After this declaration, it behoved the parliament to retract their vote. ”

“ The English proposal was that, in the united Parliament, England should be represented by four hundred members, Scotland by thirty, and Ireland by thirty. The number of commoners in the Scottish Parliament had been one hundred and twenty; and the deputies wished sixty Scottish members to have seats in the House of Commons. The English Government, however, refused to admit more than thirty. This was agreed to; and the Union Bill was about to pass, when, on the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell put an end to the Long Parliament. ”

“ 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 the Estates still felt injured and angry about the late differences with England, and passed an Act of Security, which made express conditions that the same person should not succeed to the throne of both kingdoms, unless, during Queen Anne's reign, measures had been taken for securing the honour and independence of the Scottish nation against English influence. The right of declaring war against England at any time was to remain with the Scottish Parliament. ”

“ As a Parliament is honourablest and highest judgement in the land—if it be well used—so is it the injustest judgement seat that may be being abused to men's particulars; irrevocable decreets against particular parties being given therein, under colour of generall lawes, and oft-times the Estates not knowing themselves whom they hurt.
The credit of the wise legislation which marked the last six years of the life of James II belongs to the king and the Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews. Parliament was merely a good tool in wise hands. ”

“ A Scottish Parliament, which met at St. Andrews in July 1585, authorised the king and his Council to enter upon a league, more strict and firm than any previous league, between England and Scotland, which, the Estates said, were naturally allies, and were alike exposed to the assaults of the common enemy. [37] In the following year commissioners for both kingdoms met, and signed the League. It was agreed that the sovereigns of England and Scotland should [48] defend the Protestant religion against all comers. There was to be an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the countries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”