Scottish commissioners

“ The French ambassador more than once spoke on the subject with the Scottish commissioners Maitland and Loudon, and urged them to abate the hardness of the terms offered by them to the King. They required unconditionally only one concession, his acceptance of the Presbyterian system: there are necessities in politics which no negotiation can master. Since the union with England had been formed for the express purpose of thoroughly destroying Episcopacy in that country, the Scottish commissioners could not recede on that point. ”

“ These bills were sent by commissioners to Carisbrook, but the Scottish commissioners, who dreaded the acceptance of these bills, as rendering the English parliament independent of the league and covenant, hastened there, too, with a modified treaty of their own. Charles, thus encouraged, refused the four bills; the commissioners kissed hands and returned, and Charles signed the proposals of the Scots, which guaranteed the independence of their own religion, on condition of finding an army of forty thousand men for the restoration of the king. ”

“ He acted at the same time as secretary to the Scottish education department and to the science and art department, then combining duties which since his period of office have been discharged by separate officials. The work he performed in these capacities was appreciated by statesmen of all political parties. In 1884 he became a charity commissioner under the London Parochial Charities Act. In 1885 he acted as vice-chairman of the boundary commissioners under the Redistribution of Seats Act, and in the same year he became the first under-secretary for Scotland. ”

“ Many towns were without magistrates. The Church was torn by internal dissensions. When proclamation was made, at the market-cross of Edinburgh, that Scotland was to be united, in one Commonwealth, with England, the announcement was received in gloomy silence. But there was an under-current of feeling in favour of the Union, of which the commissioners were doubtless aware. Delegates from the counties and burghs were summoned to meet at Dalkeith, to consider the Tender of Union which the commissioners were empowered to offer on behalf of the Parliament of England ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many of the Agitators, finding that there was still a Presbyterian majority in Parliament, talked of using force once more and of purging the Houses of all the members who had sat in them whilst the legitimate Speakers were absent. In the meanwhile the king grew more hostile to Cromwell every day, and entered secretly into a fresh negotiation with the Scottish commissioners who formed part of the Committee of both Kingdoms, asking them for the help of a Scottish army. ”

“ The King, believing himself in every sense free, invited the Scottish Commissioners over to dinner at the inn, from the Bishop’s Palace, where they had their quarters; and in what is now the Coffee Room, the negotiations took place that ended in the King’s yielding to the Scots. It would, in any case, have so ended, for the Commissioners came by invitation, as guests to dinner, but were so [Pg 176] astonished at finding the King so tamely coming within their grasp that they had not the remotest idea of letting him go again, and would, if needs were, have forcibly detained him. ”

“ The rift began early, for on 20 Nov. 1643 the Scottish commissioners found the assembly in ‘sharp debate’ on a proposition, by ten or eleven independents, that every congregation should have its ‘doctor’ as well as its ‘pastor.’ This was compromised by agreeing that ‘where two ministers can be had,’ their functions should be thus distinguished. The thoroughgoing independents were four, Goodwin, Nye, William Bridge [q. v.] ”

“ It was ill constituted: it was little considered; and it had never imposed any serious restraint on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house. The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it had been approved by the Lords of Articles, a committee which was really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, though the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the ordinance for carrying the new plan into execution was in progress through the Commons, the ministers generally determined not to act under its provisions. The citizens of London, who petitioned against it, were indeed silenced by a vote [a] that they had violated the privileges of the house; but the Scottish commissioners came to their aid with a demand that religion should be regulated to the satisfaction of the church; and the assembly of divines ventured to remonstrate, that they could not in conscience submit to an imperfect and anti-scriptural form of ecclesiastical government. ”

“ Our great hope on earth, the City of London, has played nipshot [i.e. miss-fire or burnt priming] : they are speaking of dissolving the Assembly." [Footnote: Ibid. II. 362.] —To understand this wail of Baillie's we have again to turn to the Journals of the Commons.
Having passed the all-conclusive Ordinance for Presbytery, the two Houses had resolved to stand on their dignity, and resent the attempted dictation of the City, the Sion College conclave, the Assembly, and the Scottish Commissioners. ”

“ The Scots had now got all that they wanted from their King, although many of them must have doubted his sincerity, and feared a future revocation should that ever be in his power. This fear, coupled with a fellow-feeling for the Puritans, and gratitude for the seasonable assistance of the English in 1560, accounts for the readiness of the compliance with the proposal of the Commissioners of the Long Parliament who arrived in Edinburgh in August 1643. ”

“ The same day that his Majesty’s answer was laid before the English Parliament, a paper was given in to the House of Peers by the Scottish Commissioners, declaring that the Scotch were “willing forthwith to surrender the garisons possessed by them in this Kingdom, [England,] (which they did keep for no other end but the safety and security of their forces,) and without delay to recall their army; reasonable satisfaction being given for their pains, hazards, charges, and sufferings ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Marquis of Tweeddale, lord high chancellor of Scotland, and the other commissioners now appointed, accordingly entered upon the inquiry, and, after examining witnesses and documents, drew up a report and transmitted it to his majesty. The commissioners appear to have executed their task, on the whole, with great fairness, although they put the very best construction on William’s orders, and threw the whole blame of the massacre upon Secretary Dalrymple. ”

“ There had been commissioners in Barwicke, chosen by the queene and king of Scottes, for the better quieting of our borders. By their industry they found a great number of malefactors guilty, both in England and Scotland; and they tooke order, that the officers of Scotland should deliver such offenders, as were found guilty in their jurisdictions, to the opposite officers in England, to be detained prisoners, till they had made satisfaction for the goods they had taken out of England. ”

“ Item, the king, with consent of his whole council general, has statute and ordained that the small barons and free tenandry need not to come to parliament nor general councils, so that of every shiredome there be sent chosen at the head court of the shiredome, two or more wise men after the largeness of the shiredome, except the shiredomes of Clackmannan and Kinross, of the which one be sent of ilk ane of them, the which shall be called commissioners of the shire. ”

“ Of this number, four ministers and two elders were commissioners from Scotland. The Scottish delegation of divines were men mighty in the Scriptures and powerful in debate. Their influence in making Scripture truths lucid, and thereby directing the Assembly to right conclusions, was deeply felt and cordially acknowledged. They declined to sit as regular members of the Assembly, content with the humbler position of consultative members. They would not by incorporation become responsible, personally or representatively, for the deliverances of an Assembly selected and erected by parliament. ”

“ If the royal commissioners would oppose a strong resistance to this inroad, they must needs ratify a provisional concession of the demands brought forward. The King, who had meanwhile reached Flanders, which the French had entered from two sides, could not possibly yield to the Scottish movement—whether he wished to carry on the war or make a truce: nothing therefore remained to him but to confirm the concessions made by his councillors. ”

“ Stewart. On that of the Parliament appeared the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh, Lord Wenman, Sir Henry Vane the younger, Denzil Holles, Pierpont, St. John, Whitelock, Crew, and Prideaux. The Scottish Commissioners were the Earl of Loudon, the Marquis of Argyll, the Lords Maitland and Balmerino, Sir Archibald Johnston, Sir Charles Erskine, Sir John Smith, Dundas, Kennedy, Robert Barclay, and Alexander Henderson. John Thurloe, afterwards Oliver Cromwell's secretary, and the friend of Milton, was secretary for the English Parliament, assisted by [38] Mr. ”

“ But now that the proposal for a change has been made, and made on the part of Ministers, the people of Scotland will be strangely wanting in duty to themselves, and in fidelity to their country, if they do not insist upon a fair measure of justice. And they must do it early. Upon the arrangement made with regard to the English boroughs, depends our sole chance of increased Scottish representation. If we wait until the English bill has passed into a law, we need not hope to extort from the ministry the concession of a single member. ”

“ No wonder if the desire of the Scottish nation to have a separate and independent secretary of state, altogether unconnected with the legal profession, is finding an audible voice at the council-boards of the larger cities and towns. Of late years it has been made a subject of general and just complaint, that the public business of Scotland is postponed to everything else, huddled over with indecent haste at untimeous hours, and often entirely frustrated for the want of a parliamentary quorum. ”

“ In 1706, in the beginning of the session of Parliament, the Earl of Mar presented the draught of an Act for appointing Commissioners, to treat of an Union of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England. Thus was he the instrument of first presenting to the Scotch that measure so revolting to their prejudices, so singularly distasteful to a proud and independent people. ”

“ We can recognise no principle in the system by which a Scottish bill is entrusted to the judgment of a committee consisting of strangers, who are utterly ignorant of locality, vested interest, popular feeling, and every other point which ought to influence the consideration of such a matter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Three days before his departure the Parliament of Scotland had, after a recess of about two years, met again at Edinburgh. Hamilton, who had, in the preceding session, sate on the throne and held the sceptre, was dead; and it was necessary to find a new Lord High Commissioner. The person selected was John Hay, Marquess of Tweedale, Chancellor of the Realm, a man grown old in business, well informed, prudent, humane, blameless in private life, and, on the whole, as respectable as any Scottish lord who had been long and deeply concerned in the politics of those troubled times. ”

“ The greatest and most lasting effect of the Scottish Parliament is, however, the judicial system of the country. Alone among European countries, Scotland still possesses a judicature which is the direct descendant of a Committee of the Estates. The College of Justice, which, in its present form, was established in the year 1540, ultimately derives its powers from the Scottish Parliament, which, in 1370, first appointed a small committee to deal with its judicial work. ”