The Scottish Parliament

The
Scottish Parliament
before
The Union of the Crowns

BY
ROBERT S. RAIT
FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD

LONDON
BLACKIE & SON, Limited, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
GLASGOW AND DUBLIN
1901

PREFATORY NOTE

The outline of the history of the Scottish Parliament, up to the Union of the Crowns, contained in the present work, is based upon the Essay on the Scottish Parliament, to which was adjudged, in 1899, the Stanhope Prize in the University of Oxford. A large portion of it has appeared in the English Historical Review for April and July 1900, and to the Editors of that periodical thanks are due for their courteous permission to reprint. Although the main theme closes with the Union of the Crowns in 1603, it has been thought desirable to include a brief sketch of the history of the Estates up to the Union of the Kingdoms in 1707; but the section dealing with the seventeenth century makes no attempt to do more than provide a very brief outline of general tendencies.

The writer wishes to make acknowledgments of helpful criticism, received in the later stages of the preparation of this book, from Professor Lodge of Edinburgh, and from Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Fellow and Tutor of New College. To Mr. Fisher, his former teacher (not of History alone), who continues to the colleague the same unfailing sympathy and kindness which he bestowed upon the pupil, the author gladly takes this opportunity of expressing his especial gratitude, together with the hope that a debt so pleasant may be allowed to increase through many years to come.

R. S. R.

New College, Oxford,
January, 1901.

INTRODUCTION

The History of Institutions scarcely requires to-day, the eloquent defence with which the Bishop of Oxford prefaced his great book, almost thirty years ago. His own work has proved more than sufficient defence for his field of labour, and universal assent would now be given to his claim that "nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is." Within the last few years, Professor Maitland has shown us the importance of much in the past that was generally regarded as trivial and incidental. He has illumined, with the torch of history, the dungeons of learning which have been generally supposed to form the abode of the antiquary, and, apart from the brilliant results he has personally attained, the present generation of investigators owes to him a clearer conception of the relation that should exist between more purely antiquarian pursuits and wider historical studies.

It is true that the institutions which have provided a theme for Bishop Stubbs and Professor Maitland, have in part survived from the seventh century to the twentieth, and that they still form the basis of the constitutional life of a great people. For a period of a thousand years, historical inquirers have been attempting to discover their origin, and, within the last two centuries, distinguished thinkers and writers have, from time to time, attempted to leave to posterity a worthy record of their history. They have served as models for continents the very existence of which was unknown for centuries after English institutions had assumed a definite shape, and they have proved capable of a development so important that they have become the centre of an empire more than one hundred times the size of the country in which they originated.

Nothing of this description can be written of the history of Scottish institutions. They have, in large measure, disappeared, and it is not always easy to trace any influence in modern life which may fairly be attributed to the fact that they once existed. The constitutional history of Scotland is partially unrecorded and is, in any formal way, wholly unwritten. Of the constitution of the kingdom, as it was when the sixth James took his seat on the throne of Elizabeth, only one portion has survived to our own day. It is a large portion, for it