The Scottish Parliament: An Historical Introduction

1. Parliament and the Medieval Constitution
2. War with England and the Bruce Dynasty, 1306-1371
3. The Late Medieval Stewart Monarchy, 1371-1496
4. Decline and Revival, 1496-1560
5. The Early Modern Parliament
6. The Reformation, 1560-1603
7. Regal Union, Multiple Monarchy and the War of the Three Kingdoms, 1603-1660
8. Restoration, Revolution and Union, 1660-1707

The Early Modern Parliament

In large part early modern Scotland was no different from any other European kingdom in the period in that assertive monarchies placed increasing demands on representative assemblies to fund the growing costs of war, expand patronage networks and underscore royal prestige and courtly life.[30]3230. J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament in the seventeenth century: European perspectives’, in A.I. Macinnes, T. Riis and G.G. Pederson (eds), Ships, Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and the Baltic States c. 1350-c. 1700 (East Linton, 2000), pp. 139-72. While the frequency of parliamentary meetings, or the length of sessions, is certainly not an indicator of an assembly’s significance, that frequency does offer some insight into the relationship between crown and parliament during the early modern period. Between 1560 and 1603 there were twenty-two parliaments and about eighty conventions, of which perhaps half were of the estates and half of the nobility, some unfortunately with no surviving official records. In the period from 1603 to 1689 there were seventeen parliaments and about fifteen conventions of the estates.[31]3231. Precise figures are difficult especially in relation to conventions, see Young, Commissioners, ii, pp. 753-56; J. Goodare, ‘The Scottish parliament and its early modern ‘rivals’, Parliaments Estates and Representation, [PER] 24 (2004), pp. 147-72. These raw figures do not tell the whole story. Parliament did not sit at all in the years 1664, 1668, 1675-7, 1679-80 and 1687-8, but in the 1640s and again after 1689 parliament sat annually, Furthermore, the parliaments of the 1640s sat in longer sessions than any sixteenth-century parliament, while between 1660 and 1707 the estates met on average for forty days per year. In effect, the small, short and intermittent parliaments of the later sixteenth century, that depended on the king’s will, were transformed into large, multi-layered and long-lasting assemblies much more conscious of their own authority.

An unusual feature of the meetings of the estates, especially in the sixteenth century, was the convention of estates that could be summoned by the king without the long period of forty days’ notice required for a full parliament and usually only to agree taxations. However, these assemblies met less frequently in the early seventeenth century as they became more formal and largely addressed the issue of taxation. From 1643 conventions were called by general summons rather than selectively and so more closely resembled a full parliament in membership if not in the range of matters considered. However, although the restored monarchy did resort to the use of conventions on three occasions, that in 1678 was the last to be held, the 1689 convention of the estates being unusual and quickly transformed into a parliament. The disappearance of these ‘para-parliaments’, where the very absence of a committee of the articles suggests they were generally more amenable to crown control, represented a recognition of parliament’s pre-eminence in all matters relating to the estates, and in particular in the granting of taxation.

The estates continued to sit as a unicameral body and there is some debate over the effect this arrangement had on the capacity of parliaments to be representative and of the implications for the management of business. A unique feature of parliament was the committee of the lords of the articles through which proposed legislation was vetted and drafted. This committee was essential to ensuring crown control of parliamentary business, but more recent research suggests that it was at best an imperfect tool for the delivery of the court agenda.[32]3232. Tanner, ‘Lords of the articles’; A.R. MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes in the Scottish parliament before 1639: multi-cameralism and the lords of the articles’, SHR, lxxxi (2002), pp. 23-51; A. J. Mann, ‘Inglorious revolution: administrative muddle and constitutional change in the Scottish parliament of William and Mary’ in Parliamentary History, 22  (2003), pp. 121-44. For an older view, R.S. Rait, The Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow, 1924), pp. 7-9, 59-60, and 349-93 and R. S. Rait, ‘Parliamentary representation in Scotland: V. The lords of the articles’, SHR, xiii (1915), pp. 68-83. The system of additional committees and parliamentary commissions in the pre-1639 parliaments was relatively simple, but between 1639 and 1651 the covenanters developed a much more sophisticated series of committees to cope with the huge demands placed upon parliament as it sought to govern the country in time of war. After the Restoration, parliamentary committees for controverted elections were regularly established from 1669, while conventions of the estates created committees for supply (taxation) that reported to the estates as a whole. Small parliamentary committees to consider such questions as ratifications, or processes against rebels were also a feature. Following the 1689 revolution, the disappearance of the lords of the articles was counterbalanced by the creation of important standing committees for trade, controverted elections and for the security of the kingdom, while new committees were established for agreeing the address to the king and to revise the minutes of parliament. However, after 1702 matters tended to be considered in plain (or full) parliament as members were suspicious that the crown was packing committees with placemen. Extra parliamentary commissions, with powers to deliberate between sessions, were also a feature of the post-1690 period, such as commissions for the visitation of schools and universities (1690-1702), for the communication of trade (1698-1701), and of course the commissions for union of 1702-3 and 1706.[33]3233. Rait, Parliaments, pp.385-92; C.S. Terry, The Scottish Parliament: its Constitution and Procedure (Glasgow, 1905), pp.121-4. For sub-committees of the lords of the articles see the appendices to A.J. Mann, ‘‘James VII, king of the articles’. Political management and parliamentary failure’, in Brown and Mann (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1567-1707, pp. 184-207.

In terms of its composition, the most significant difference between the early modern and medieval parliaments was the reduced importance of the first or clerical estate. The failure to seize the opportunity to reform fundamentally the first estate in 1560 has been interpreted as a lost opportunity to reinvigorate parliament, a point that carries more weight than the view that the new general assembly was a rival to parliament.[34]3234. Rait, Parliaments, pp. 49-50. Before 1560 the first estate was represented by two archbishops, eleven bishops and some twenty-seven heads of religious houses. However, most heads of religious houses were commendators, who were in minor orders and often members of noble families. This process of secularisation continued apace after 1560 until in 1606 when ‘lay’ commendators became hereditary ‘lords of erection’ ensuring that the king would not be able to pack parliament with appointed ‘abbots’. In effect, a majority of church representation in parliament, formerly in the gift of the crown, was handed over to the landed nobility.

Furthermore, because of the insistence by the mainstream within the new general assembly of the Church of Scotland on a separation of church and state and on a presbyterian church polity, the bishops had only a tenuous relationship with the church. The bishoprics ceased to be filled by men with de facto ecclesiastical roles, and instead were granted to a combination of noble clients, royal servants and some compliant Protestant clergy. Meanwhile, the general assembly evolved from its origins in 1560 as a powerful lobby with an independent voice. However, from 1605 James VI began to exert greater crown management that culminated in the assembly not meeting for twenty years after 1618. The presence of lay elders in the general assembly meant that it was not a wholly clerical body, but it should be considered alongside parliament when discussing the question of representative assemblies. In the later sixteenth century attitudes in the kirk and at the royal court towards church representation were relatively fluid, the more important issue for the clergy being how its representatives would be selected. From 1597 James VI’s determination to exert greater control over the church hardened, and in 1606 parliament passed an act formally restoring the estate of bishops, although it was another six years before the bishops reacquired the full range of their former ecclesiastical authority.[35]3235. Goodare, ‘The Scottish parliament and its early modern ‘rivals’, pp. 6-12; A.R. MacDonald, ‘Ecclesiastical representation in parliament in post-Reformation Scotland: the two kingdoms theory in practice’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50, (1999), pp. 38-61; G. Donaldson, Scotland. James V to James VII (Edinburgh, 1965), pp. 276-7; D.G. Mullan, Episcopacy in Scotland. The History of an Idea 1560-1638 (Edinburgh, 1986). However, the role of the clerical estate remained controversial, especially as they became associated with an unpopular royal liturgical policy and with Charles I’s authoritarian government. Bishops were removed from parliament in 1640, they returned in 1662 as servants of the Restoration monarchy, and the clerical estate was finally abolished in 1690.

The other significant change in composition concerns the lesser barons or lairds. Although parliamentary attendance was generally good before 1496, it occasionally decreased to low levels during the royal majorities of the early sixteenth century, reflecting the lack of controversial business that came before the estates. As in the fifteenth century, dynastic succession and taxation remained likely to arouse the interest of the estates after 1496, and both these issues were high on the political agenda in mid-sixteenth-century Scotland. Hence the high attendance of lairds, or barons, in 1556 in response to concerns about proposed taxation. In this context it is more difficult to see the large numbers of lesser barons attending the 1560 parliament as reflective of the rise of the ‘middling sort’ or of a historically crucial shift of power away from the magnates. The attendance of ninety-nine lesser barons, or lairds, at the Reformation parliament, although recorded on a greater scale than in earlier sources, is indicative of a return to a fifteenth-century norm rather than proof of a radical shift in early modern society.[36]3236. Tanner, Parliament, p. 199; Tanner, ‘Political role of the three estates’, table 1, pp. 244-5; Ritchie, ‘Marie de Guise and the three estates’, pp. 195-6; J. Goodare, State and Society in Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 1999), pp. 40-1; Goodare, ‘The estates in the Scottish parliament’, pp. 11-32; K.M. Brown, ‘The Reformation parliament’, in Brown and Tanner (eds), Parliament and Politics in Scotland, 1235-1560, pp. 203-32.

After 1560 the lesser nobility continued to attend parliament irregularly, being present in at least eleven of the eighteen or so conventions of the estates between 1567-86 as well as, at the very least, three of the twelve full parliaments in the same period. Indeed, proposals to place this attendance on a more sure footing were discussed at the parliaments of December 1567, 1571 and 1585. No decision was taken, probably because this was an issue of sufficient importance to await the king’s majority in 1587. In return for a tax of £40,000 from the barons, the disused 1428 legislation that excused all barons from attending on condition that they elected shire representatives, was dusted down and adapted. Each shire was allocated two commissioners (although the small shires of Clackmannan and Kinross had only one each) to be annually elected from the resident barons of the shire in readiness for a parliament should one be summoned. However, each shire had only one vote, requiring the two commissioners to resolve any differences, although they appear to have been invested with plena potestas, allowing them to vote without having to consult their electorates. The franchise was granted to tenants-in-chief who held their land in ward and blench from the crown, and who met a relatively high property qualification of forty shilling freehold land (valued in old extent) held of the king. At least six barons were required to sign the electoral commission of their chosen representative. Liferenters, sub-tenants and feuars were excluded.[37]3237. W. Ferguson, ‘The electoral system in the Scottish counties before 1832’, Stair Society Miscellany II (ed.), D. Sellar (Edinburgh, 1984), pp. 261-94 at pp. 263-5; RPS, 1587/7/143.

In fact, the lesser barons were slow to take up their seats, and the earliest election for which evidence survives is 31 January 1596 when John Leslie of Balquhain and Sir Alexander Fraser of Fraserburgh were elected for Aberdeenshire. In fact, a full attendance by all shires was not attained until 1681. However, in the constitutional arrangements put in place by the covenanting regime in 1640, the removal of the clerical estate was compensated for by allowing each shire commissioner a separate vote, a doubling of the shire vote that was continued after the Restoration. In the parliaments of 1661 and 1681 there were further refinements to the property qualifications that extended the franchise, undermining its feudal nature. Finally, in 1690 shire representation was increased when some larger shires were permitted three or four commissioners depending on their size, and from 1693 to 1707 the maximum shire representation stood at ninety-two commissioners. By the early eighteenth century, therefore, the shire electorate had grown significantly, while the number of elected shire commissioners in parliament had risen.[38]3238. Records of the Sheriff Court of Aberdeenshire (New Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1904), i, pp. 372-3; Rait, Parliament, pp. 211-13; Ferguson, ‘Electoral system’, pp. 267-71; Donaldson, James V to James VII, pp. 278-80; Terry, Scottish Parliament, pp.19-46.

Therefore what might be regarded as a fourth estate of untitled landlords, with a right to be represented on the lords of the articles, was emerging. It seems likely that the presence of the lairds was due to the king’s need to broaden consent for taxes, and perhaps to widen the geographic network of links between the crown and the localities.[39]3239. For various interpretations see Rait, Parliaments, pp. 203-10; M. Lee, John Maitland of Thirlestane and the Foundation of Stewart Despotism in Scotland (Princeton, 1959), pp. 146-151; Wormald, Court, Kirk and Community, p. 157; J. Goodare, ‘Estates in the Scottish parliament’, pp. 17-20; J. Goodare, ‘The admission of lairds to the Scottish parliament’, in EHR, cxvi (2001), pp. 1103-33, and Goodare, ‘Scottish politics’, p. 38. James VI himself was emphatic about the place of lairds in Scottish society, insisting in Basilikon Doron that ‘the small Barrones are but an inferiour part of the Nobilitie and of their estate’, although he later conceded that within parliament they had come to form a distinct estate of their own.[40]3240. J.P. Sommerville (ed.), King James VI and I Political Writings (Cambridge, 1994), p. 29. However, during the 1640s revolution, warfare and faction altered the composition of parliament and its committees such that lairds and burgh commissioners had a numerical majority, raising the possibility that something like a Scottish commons was emerging.[41]3241. J.R. Young, The Scottish Parliament 1639-1661: A Political and Constitutional Analysis (Edinburgh, 1996); J.R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and the covenanting revolution: the emergence of a Scottish commons’, in J.R. Young (ed.), Celtic Dimensions of the British Civil Wars (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 164-81. However, see K.M. Brown, ‘Parliament, crown and nobility in late medieval and early modern Scotland, c. 1250-1707’, in L. Casella (ed.), Rappresentanze e Territori. Parlamento Friulano e Istituzioni Rappresentative Territoriali nell’Europa Moderna (Udine, 2003), pp. 119-39. The Restoration reversed that trend and the hereditary peerage continued to constitute the most important estate, expanding in numbers from fifty-one in the 1560s to 143 peers in 1707.

The early seventeenth century saw some enhancement of the political influence of the royal burghs as the financiers of the crown and then the covenanting cause. It is unclear if the expansion in the number of royal burghs from forty-six in 1560 to fifty-eight in 1640 and sixty-seven by 1700 (each burgh was represented by one commissioner except Edinburgh which had two commissioners) was driven by a royal policy to increase the representation of an estate it could more easily manage. However, it was the royal burghs that drove the development of a multicameral approach to policy-making in parliament. Uniquely, the burghs had a corporate existence outside parliament, and their commissioners met at least annually, often three times per year, in the convention of royal burghs that determined collective burgh agendas for forthcoming meetings of the estates. Because of their weakness in the face of the ranks of landed nobles, the burghs realised that a unified front in pursuing their own interests in parliament was crucial. Hence during the sitting of parliament burgh commissioners continued to act collectively, and the convention of royal burghs, which provided an efficient and effective means of co-ordinating burgh opinion and lobbying for the collective interests of the royal burghs, often met during parliamentary sessions.  In 1600 that assembly agreed that when the king summoned a convention of the estates those burghs not selected to send a commissioner should ensure that commissioners were on hand to advise colleagues expected to speak on their behalf. Three years later, the burghs petitioned unsuccessfully that all parliamentary acts be approved by each estate in turn in an effort to prevent their interests being disregarded by an assembly so dominated by the landed nobility.[42]3242. Rait, Parliaments, pp. 251-6; MacDonald, ‘Deliberative processes’, pp. 29-35; A.R. MacDonald, ‘‘Tedious to rehers’? Parliament and locality in Scotland c. 1500-1651: the burghs of north-east Fife’, PER, 20 (2000), pp. 31-58; A.R. MacDonald, The Burghs and Parliament in Scotland, c. 1550-1651 (Aldershot, 2007).

Unsurprisingly, given their distaste for Charles I’s trade, taxation and religious policies, the burghs, particularly Edinburgh, were to the fore in supporting the covenanting revolution both outside and within parliament where their commissioners played a significant role in committees and in helping to shape the more radical policies of the later 1640s.[43]3243. D. Stevenson, ‘The burghs and the Scottish revolution’, in M. Lynch (ed.), The Early Modern Town in Scotland (London, 1987), pp. 167-91; A.I. Macinnes, ‘Covenanting revolution and municipal enterprise’, in J. Wormald (ed.), Scotland Revisited (London, 1991), pp. 97-106; MacDonald, Burghs and Parliament; L.A.M. Stewart, Urban Politics and the British Civil Wars (Leiden, 2007), passim; Young, Scottish Parliament. Unfortunately, the high cost of revolution and war impacted heavily on Scotland’s towns, and after the Restoration the burghs lapsed back into a more passive role in parliament, lobbying for their own sectional interests as royal burghs jealous of their privileges, but avoiding political controversy. The 1689 revolution marked a return to greater political engagement, but economic uncertainty ensured that the main role burgh commissioners played in parliament was in lobbying for compensation as a consequence of the collapse of the company of Scotland, or against the act of union on the grounds that it would hurt the protected manufacturing sector. Furthermore, after 1689 the more regular parliaments, longer sessions, and more fulsome debates mitigated against regular parallel meetings of parliament and the convention of royal burghs, although this did happen in 1690 and 1695.[44]3244. T.C. Smout, ‘The Glasgow merchant community in the seventeenth century’, SHR, xxxxvii (1968), pp. 53-70; T.M. Devine, ‘The Scottish merchant community, 1680-1740’, in R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (eds), The Origins and Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 26-41. The modest role in parliament by burgh commissioners post-Restoration is analysed in G.H. MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament under Charles II 1660-1685 (Edinburgh, 2007), and D.J. Patrick, ‘People and parliament in Scotland 1689-1702’, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, St Andrews University, 2002).

As well as becoming a larger and less easily manageable body, parliament had been transformed into a wholly secular assembly dominated numerically and politically by noble landlords who by the 1700s nominally held seventy per cent of seats. An attendance of around sixty would have been average for the later sixteenth century, but in the unlikely event of a full turn-out, in 1563 there would have been fifty-three clerics, fifty-one peers, forty-four burgh commissioners and an indeterminate number of barons.[45]]3245. J. Goodare, ‘The Scottish political community and the parliament of 1563’, Albion, 35 (2003), p. 375. The combination of new peerage creations, royal burgh erections, and franchise reforms from the later sixteenth century incrementally grew the size of parliament to a chamber of potentially over 300 members by 1707.[46]3246.The theoretical maximum in 1707 being perhaps 143 hereditary peers plus sixty-seven burgh commissioners and ninety-two shire commissioners (302), with the addition of those few officers of state who were not peers. However, attendance had always been below the nominal figure, and from 1603 to 1660 parliamentary membership exceeded 150 on only six occasions and never rose above 183. During one meeting of the 1641 session less than thirty members attended, though at subsequent meetings of the same session numbers rose to over 150. After the Restoration attendance only twice exceeded 190 until 1703-6 when it averaged 226.

A constant difficulty facing historians of Scotland’s parliament has been the nature of the sources. However, one of the advantages of the early modern period is the existence of regular parliamentary registers that survive largely uninterrupted from 1567 to 1707 and are located in the National Archives of Scotland. The printed volumes of acts fill some gaps between 1560 and 1603, and in spite of some missing sederunts in the early seventeenth century, after 1603 the registers are comprehensive. Unfortunately the nineteenth-century edition of parliament’s acts has not inspired intensive research, and it is only now that historians are returning to the manuscript record and uncovering a range of previously unused supplementary official parliamentary material. Much new or freshly considered evidence is now being utilised; for example, a diary of parliamentary proceedings kept in 1648 by the first duke of Hamilton, a range of minutes of parliament and of the lords of the articles, and an analysis of electoral politics from numerous shire and burgh commissions.[47]3247. J. Goodare, ‘The Scottish parliamentary records’, Historical Research, 72 (1999), pp. 244-67; J.R. Young, ‘Seventeenth-century Scottish parliamentary rolls and political factionalism: the experience of the covenanting movement’, Parliamentary History, 16 (1997), pp. 148-70. No doubt new discoveries will continue to enhance our knowledge of the early modern parliament and its proceedings.

Part 6 - The Reformation, 1560-1603 >

© 2007-2024 University of St Andrews. Images of documents appear courtesy of the National Records of Scotland.