Parliament is so unusual that it has led to Father Innes's conjecture that he wrote his "History" in the interests of a republican theory of government.[13] Although Innes had all the prejudices of a Jacobite who lived before Culloden, his scholarship was undoubted, and his accusation is striking testimony to the small place held by Parliament in the pages of Buchanan's predecessors and contemporaries.

An obvious parallel may be drawn between the Scottish Parliament, as we have described it, and the English Parliament under the Houses of York and Tudor. Historians of English constitutional history have frequently pointed out that these sovereigns were, by their use of Parliament, establishing, not their own power, but that of the institution which they regarded as a passive instrument in their hands; that Edward IV and Henry VIII were preparing difficulties for James I and Charles I. The force of this argument, as applied to Scotland, is greatly lessened by the fact that the rulers of Scotland did not regard as essential the consent even of a subservient body of Estates. Parliamentary ratification was, at best, a convenient method of declaring and recording what had been done. But it was no obstacle to an act of the executive that it had not been thus sanctioned. This want of the continuous and normal employment of parliamentary procedure combined with political causes to prevent the appearance of the effect produced in England.

The view that we have stated can, of course, be pressed too far. 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, 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. There were occasions when the rise of a constitutional opposition was even probable; and there are places of which we can definitely say that here or there occurred an event in constitutional progress. But an investigation in the light of political history will, we think, go to establish the general truth of the theory we have adopted. It might be objected, a priori, that such a theory does not afford sufficient reason for the continuous existence of the Estates. But in the troubled story of mediæval Scotland we find, readily enough, the explanation at once of the continuous existence of Parliament and of the place that it occupied. It was a strictly feudal society, but it lacked the redeeming features of feudal government. Feudalism as a system of land tenure was complete, and it still remains the basis of Scots law. As a system of government founded upon land tenure, Scottish feudalism was, from one point of view, equally efficient, while, in another aspect, it could scarcely be said to exist. The Scottish baron was also the Scottish chief, and to the power of the oath of allegiance was added the mighty influence of clan loyalty. But outside this feudal hierarchy stood the king. Every land-owner in Scotland held from him, and none regarded him as deserving of more than tolerance. The royal domains were not large enough to enable the Crown to cope with the resources of the greater nobles. The king's best policy was to ally himself with one faction to destroy another, as James II overthrew the great house of Douglas. We cannot speak of any definite coalescence of the nobles against the king. The jealousy of noble house to noble house was always greater than their common dislike of the Crown. So far were they from being able to unite, that a comparatively insignificant family like the Crichtons or the Livingstones were now and again able to place themselves at the head of affairs.

The frequent occurrence of royal minorities was at once a cause and a consequence of this condition of matters. The reigns of the first five kings of the name of James cover, nominally, a period of one hundred and thirty-six years. For fifty-seven years during that time the sovereign was a minor, and two of the five kings met their death at the hands of rebellious subjects. One of them—James III—can scarcely be said to have ruled at all. The weakness of the Crown is the formula of the explanation of which we are in search. That weakness was a consequence, largely, of the action of Edward I of England. The Bruce was occupied with guarding against the enemy, and could not offend the nobles, whose desertion would have been fatal to the cause of Scotland. The War of Independence was the source of the bitter hatred which separated Scotland from England from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth, and disputes with England were directly responsible for the premature death of the second, the fourth, and the fifth James, and for the exile of James I—that is to say, for four out of the six minorities between 1406 and 1560.

It is obvious that, in such circumstances, each of the ever-changing factions who strove for political importance had an object in availing themselves of the advantage of parliamentary and legal sanction. The delegation of work to committees made it certain that the party in power could absolutely rely on having its own way, and the form of law was desirable as legalizing their present action, and as forming some kind of defence, should misfortune overtake them. Similarly the king, when he chanced to be powerful, found in his parliament a most useful instrument for carrying out his wishes. It was, for ruling faction and for powerful king alike, the best method of registering and declaring the will or the policy of the rulers of Scotland for the time being. A parliament, and just this kind of parliament, was always wanted by the government.

An alliance between the Crown, the Church, and the burgesses was, in the circumstances, out of the question. It was rendered so, in the first place, by the constant recurrence of minorities. Any such alliance was impossible between 1437 and 1450; between 1460 and 1488; between 1513 and 1530. Moreover, the bishoprics were often private appanages of noble families,[14] and the burgesses were not desirous, so far as we can judge, of taking any part in political life. 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 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. It was in the General Assembly of the Church that they learned the lesson of combination.

As we have already indicated, the most valuable work of the Parliament is its