Chapter 2 THE UNION OF THE CROWNS

A few years before the Union of the Crowns, James, in the Basilikon Doron, that quaint little volume of "Instructions to his dearest sonne, Henry the Prince," had alluded to the dangers which were caused by the divided state of the island.

"As for the Borders," he wrote, "because I know, if ye enjoy not this whole Isle, according to God's right and your lineal descent, ye will never get leave to brooke this North and barrenest part thereof; no, not your own head whereon the crown should stand! I need not in that case trouble you with them; for then they will be the middest part of the Isle, and so as easily ruled as any part thereof." Hitherto a royal marriage had been the favourite plan for removing these dangers; but after this we enter upon a series of attempts to bring about an Union of a more complete and definite character. James came to the throne of England with his mind full of the subject. The people of Scotland anticipated the removal of the Court to London with dismay. But to the king it opened up a dazzling prospect of power and splendour; and he lost no time in proposing the Union, and pressing it, in season and out of season, with a persistency which brings out, in a remarkable manner, the strong individuality of his character.

For some time before the death of Elizabeth, James had been doing his best to gain the goodwill of the English people; and as soon as he received the official announcement of his accession he directed his Privy Council to proclaim the news, not only in order that the fact that he was now King of England as well as Scotland should become known, but in the hope, as the proclamation expressed it, that there might be kindled in the hearts of all Scotsmen "ane loveing and kyndlie dispositioun towardis all his Majestie's subjectis inhabitantis of England."[42] Nor did he fail to impress this sentiment on the people. On the last Sunday which he spent in Scotland he went to the Church of Saint Giles, where, when the sermon was ended, he made a speech to the congregation. It was regarded as a farewell, and was received with "such a mourning and lamentation of all sorts, as cannot well be expressed."[43]

"There is no difference," he said, to cheer his weeping subjects, "betwixt London and Edinburgh; yea, not so much as betwixt Inverness or Aberdeen and Edinburgh, for all our marches be dry, and there are ferries between them. But my course must be betwixt both, to establish peace, and religion, and wealth betwixt the countries."

The departure of James meant a great deal to Scotland. When the day came, and the cannon were booming from the old castle of Edinburgh, the citizens assembled in multitudes to gaze at the brilliant company of courtiers who were to accompany their king upon his journey to the south; but the spectacle was one which excited many fears and few hopes. The Union of the Crowns was making great changes. The Court was leaving. The queen remained behind with the young Princes and the Princess Elizabeth; but it was known that they were soon to follow, and that, henceforth, they would live in England. Their old Scottish home, the ancient palace of Holyrood, was being dismantled already; and soon nothing would remain in the royal apartments, but some stray pieces of furniture, and a few yards of faded tapestry. It was true that to Scotland there was still left that independence which had been so hardly won. The Parliament remained in the same position as before; but a new official was spoken of, a Royal Commissioner, who was, in future, to represent the sovereign at the meetings of the Estates. The separate Scottish Executive, too, was to be continued, in the shape of the Privy Council; but it was to be divided into two parts, the one to sit in England, and the other in Scotland; and it was evident that, in future, the real centre of influence in Scottish affairs would be London.

To some of the Scottish people the future seemed very bright. During the reign of Elizabeth, there were seldom so many as a hundred Scotsmen in London at any one time. But now politicians like the future Earl of Haddington, at that time Lord Advocate Hamilton, saw that in the wide field which lay before them, greater things could be done than within the narrow bounds of Scotland. George Heriot, who followed the king to England, doubtless knew that he could hold his own, and add to his wealth, among the merchant princes of London. Gay young men, like Lord Dalgarno in The Fortunes of Nigel, looked forward to the amusements and dissipation of London, and to the chance of filling their empty pockets by marriages with English heiresses. And among the humbler members of the royal retinue there were not a few adventurers who were glad to visit England, and share the spoil with their betters. So great, indeed, was the rush of Scotsmen to England, that soon after the accession a proclamation was issued that no Scotsman was to cross the Tweed, or sail for England, without a passport from the Privy Council.[44] But those who remained behind, and especially the tradesmen of Edinburgh, who had supplied the Court, saw no chance of gain, but rather much risk of loss, in the change which was taking place.

In England, though James himself was received with demonstrations of loyalty, his Scottish followers were regarded with mingled contempt and hatred. Scotland, it was said, was a land where the nobles were beggars, and the merchants were pedlars. The coarsest satire was poured forth against the barren and unknown territory from whence the new king had come. Indeed it is difficult for us, in the nineteenth century, to realise the scornful way in which Englishmen spoke of Scotland, though we may form some idea of the language which was used from the specimens which have been preserved of what was actually printed, circulated, and probably believed at that time. "The air," thus runs one of those productions, "might be made wholesome, but for the stinking people that inhabit it. The ground might be made wholesome, had they wit to manure it. Their beasts be generally small, women excepted, of which sort there are no greater in the world.... As for fruits, for their grandam Eve's sake they never planted any, and for other trees, had Christ been betrayed in this country, as doubtless he should have been, had he come as a stranger amongst them, Judas had sooner found the grace of repentance than one tree to hang himself on.... The Scriptures, they say, speak of elders and deacons, but not a word of deans and bishops. Their discourse is full of detraction, their sermons nothing but railings, and their conclusion, heresy or treason.... They christen without the cross, marry without a ring, receive the Sacrament without reverence, die without repentence, and bury without divine service."[45]

And even among those Englishmen who knew that the popular ideas of Scotland were erroneous, there was a profound feeling of jealousy lest James should fill too many of the places about the Court with his countrymen. It was suspected that if he got his own way, almost every Scotsman in London would soon be clad in velvet and satin, and wearing a costly beaver instead of a blue bonnet; and James took great pains, for a long time after his accession, to assure the English courtiers that he had no intention of promoting Scotsmen over the heads of Englishmen. "I was ever rooted," he wrote to Lord Cranbourne, "in that firm resolution never to have placed Scottishmen in any such room, till, first, time had begun to wear away that opinion of different nations; and, secondly, that this jealous apprehension of the Union had worn away; and, thirdly, that Scotsmen had been brought up here at the foot of Gamaliel."

Before James had been many days in England he issued a proclamation, in which it was announced that there was to be a complete Union of the Kingdoms. "In the meane tyme," he said, "till the said Union be established, his Majestie doth hereby repute, hold, and esteeme, and commandes all His Highnesse subjects to hold and esteeme, both the Two Realmes as presently united, and as one Realme and Kingdome, and the subjects of both as one People, Brethern, and Members of one Bodye."[46]

The personal peculiarities of James, which amounted to eccentricities, his firm belief in the maxims of his own Basilikon Doron and his complete abhorrence of the doctrines which Buchanan, in the old days, had tried to teach him, are prominent features of the controversy concerning the Union. The tenacity with which he clung to his conception of the royal prerogative is nowhere more apparent than in his speeches and proclamations, and in everything he did for the purpose of forwarding his favourite scheme. When the Parliament of England was found to be less subservient than he had expected, he pointed to Scotland as an example. "This I must say for Scotland," he exclaimed, "and may truly vaunt it; here I sit and govern it with my pen. I write, and it is done; and by a clerk of the council I govern Scotland now, which others could not do by the sword." These were not altogether idle words; but it would have been wiser to refrain from boasting of a supremacy such as the proudest of the Tudors had never ventured to claim.

In the formidable contest against the national prejudices of Englishmen, on which he was about to enter, James secured a powerful ally. Bacon had been one of those who received the honour of knighthood on the day of the coronation; and he lost no time in taking the king's side on the question of the Union, which he supported with the subtilty of a scholiast, and with the broad views of a statesman and philosopher. To the debates in Parliament, to the Council Board of the Commission on Union, to the famous discussion, in the Exchequer Chamber, on the question of the post-nati, he brought all the resources of his mind, and threw himself into the struggle with an enthusiasm which could not possibly have been feigned. He played the part, though without success, which was afterwards played by Somers in the reign of Anne; and he seems, from the very first, to have perceived with the eye of genius exactly how far it was safe to go in the direction of abolishing international distinctions.

His first contribution to the cause of the Union was to impress upon the king the exact state of the case, and what were the various points which would have to be decided. The kingdoms were, he showed, already united in religion and in language. No sea rolled between them. The same king reigned over both. But, nevertheless, there were separate Parliaments, separate Councils of State, and separate offices of the Crown. There was one peerage for England, and another for Scotland. There were two very different systems of law, and each country had its own peculiar code of legal procedure. All these various institutions, and, in addition, a mass of minor details of greater or less importance, would have to be considered in adjusting the terms of Union.[47]

On the knotty question of whether there should be an uniformity of laws, Bacon, from the outset, in opposition to the opinion of the judges and of the majority of English lawyers, maintained that, while the public law of the United Kingdoms should be assimilated, the private law of each country should be left untouched; a conclusion which was arrived at a century later, when the Union was actually accomplished. "For," he said, "that which concerneth private interest of meum and tuum, in my opinion, it is not at this time to be meddled with. Men love to hold their own as they have held, and the difference of this law carrieth no mark of separation."[48]

But before a single step could be taken, the two Parliaments had to be consulted. James shrewdly calculated that if the Parliament of England could be gained, the Scottish Estates would readily agree to his wishes. He accordingly wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, in January 1604, informing them that the English Parliament was to meet in March, when the project of an Union would be discussed, and telling them to call the Scottish Parliament together about the end of April; and he gave express commands that no subject except the Union was to be considered. If the Estates agreed, as he assumed they would, to the desirability of an Union, they were to appoint commissioners to meet with commissioners who would, by that time, have been appointed by the Parliament of England.[49]

The English Parliament met on the 19th of March. The speech in which James recommended the Union was long, and had evidently been prepared with great pains. What God had joined, he urged, no man should put asunder. "I am the husband," he said, "and the whole island is my lawful wife. I am the shepherd, and it is my flock. I hope, therefore, no man will be so unreasonable as to think that I, that am a Christian king under the gospel, should be a polygamist and husband of two wives." Apart from some grotesque illustrations such as this, the speech was well worthy of the occasion. But the king's proposals were not cordially received; and it was only under considerable pressure that, at a conference of both Houses, a Commission was appointed. At the head of the Commission was Lord Chancellor Ellesmere; and among the members were Robert Lord Cecil and Sir Francis Bacon. They were empowered to consult with commissioners to be appointed by the Parliament of Scotland concerning an Union of the Kingdoms, and such other matters as, upon mature deliberation, should appear necessary for the honour of his Majesty and the common good of both realms.

The Scottish Parliament, which had been summoned to meet in April in order that it might approve of the Union and appoint commissioners, was prorogued from time to time, and did not meet for business until the beginning of July, when the Estates assembled at Perth.

James had directed the Scottish ministers to make the Union the only subject of deliberation, and had also promised that the expenses incurred by the commissioners from Scotland would be defrayed out of his own purse. The Estates, however, had no sympathy with the policy of the king. The nobles grumbled among themselves, and would fain have resisted. But the royal orders were peremptory; and thirty-two commissioners were appointed to "confer, treat, and consulte upon a perfyte Unioun of the realmes of Scotland and England."[50] The first name on the Commission was that of John, Earl of Montrose, Lord Chancellor of Scotland; and among his colleagues were a number of distinguished men. Alexander Seton, then known as Lord Fyvie, was afterwards the first Earl of Dunfermline. James Elphinstone, Secretary of State, had recently been raised to the peerage as Lord Balmerino, a title associated, in Scottish history, with a long series of family misfortunes, which culminated in the execution of his descendant, the last lord, after the Rebellion of 1745. Sir Thomas Hamilton, whom James nicknamed "Tam o' the Cowgate," was then Lord Advocate, and, after holding almost every great office of State in Scotland, became Earl of Haddington in the reign of Charles the First. Another place in the Commission was occupied by Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton, author of the Jus Feudale, whose Latin history of the Union, which has never been published, is preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.

Some of the terms which occur in the Act appointing these commissioners are such as to suggest the idea that James himself had been the draughtsman. The Estates, in language not usually to be found in the statute-book, declare that the Act is passed in order that "as the present age is ravished in admiration with an so fortunate beginning, so that the posterity may rejoice in the fruition of such an effectual Union of two so famous and ancient Kingdoms, miraculously accomplished in the blood and person of so rare a monarch."

But the Estates, while ready to lavish praise on the king, were determined that the Union was not to interfere with the independence of Scotland. It was noticed that while the English Act for the Union contained a clause declaring that his Majesty had no intention of altering the fundamental laws and customs of England, nothing had been said as to preserving the laws and customs of Scotland. This was regarded as suspicious; and there was inserted in the Scottish Act a provision that the commissioners were to take care that nothing was done which was inconsistent with the ancient rights and liberties of Scotland.[51]

There was also passed, at the same time, a statute which provided that the Commissioners on Union should have no power to treat "in any manner of way that may be hurtful or prejudicial to the religion presently professed in Scotland."[52]

The commissioners, who had thus been appointed by the Parliaments, were summoned to meet in the Painted Chamber at Westminster in October.[53] But James, too impatient to await the result of their deliberations, and resolved to carry matters with a high hand, issued a long and wordy proclamation, in which he stated that he thought fit to abolish the names of England and Scotland, and to assume, "by the force of our royal prerogative," the title of King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.[54] This title was to be used in all public documents. The Borders were in future to be known as the Middle Shires. A flag was to be prepared bearing the Cross of Saint George and the Cross of Saint Andrew. New coins, with such mottoes as "Qu? Deus conjunxit nemo separet," and "Henricus rosas Jacobus regna," were to be struck at the Mint in honour of the Union.

This proclamation was most unpopular in both England and Scotland. The judges were of opinion that the adoption of the title of King of Great Britain would invalidate all legal processes.[55] The king soon found that he had gone too far; and, after a time, he consented to wait until his wishes could be accomplished with the sanction of Parliament.

On the 20th of October, the Commissioners on Union met at Westminster. "A grave and orderly assembly," is the account which Bacon gives of them. On the English side the lead was taken by Bacon and Cecil; while of the Scottish commissioners, Sir Thomas Hamilton and Lord Fyvie seem to have been the most prominent. It was soon evident that the Scottish peers were afraid that the Union would diminish their own power, and indifferent to the commercial advantages which it would confer upon their country. The commoners from Scotland also had their doubts about the Union. They entirely failed to appreciate the benefits of the colonial trade which it would open up; and they seem to have resented, to an extent which blinded their judgments, the removal of the Court to London.

The English commissioners also put obstacles in the way of an agreement. Against the advice of Bacon, but with the support of the judges, they insisted on an uniform system of laws for the two countries; a proposal to which the representatives of Scotland would not listen.[56] They also maintained that it was unreasonable that Scotsmen should be made capable of holding offices under the Crown in England; and on this point there was a keen argument.

After a series of discussions, which lasted for about five weeks, Bacon and Sir Thomas Hamilton were instructed to embody the findings of the commissioners, in the form of a Treaty of Union, for the approval of the Parliaments. "It is curious now," says Professor Masson, "to imagine the great English philosopher and 'Tam o' the Cowgate' thus seated together, for perhaps two or three evenings, over the document which was to descend to posterity as the draft Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, and to speculate how shrewdly 'Tam o' the Cowgate' must have looked after the substance of the document, while he may have deferred to Bacon's superior expertness in strictly English idiom and wording."[57]

The Articles of Union, as finally settled, stood thus. All hostile laws, and, in particular, the Border laws, were to be repealed. The name of the Borders was to be abolished. There was to be complete freedom of trade between England and Scotland; and as regarded foreign commerce both countries were to stand on the same footing. On the difficult point of naturalisation, the commissioners recommended that an Act should be passed to declare that all subjects of both countries born since the death of Elizabeth, that is to say the "post-nati," were, by common law, entitled to the privileges of subjects in both countries. The "ante-nati," or subjects born before the death of the late queen, were to enjoy the same privileges, not at common law, but under an Act of Parliament passed on their behalf. But the ante-nati were not to be capable of holding offices under the Crown or sitting in Parliament, except in the country of their birth. In short, the post-nati were to be fully naturalised; but the ante-nati were not to have a share in the government or the legislature.

This question of naturalisation, with the distinction drawn between the post-nati and the ante-nati, is, in our day, only one of faint antiquarian interest; but it was then a question of practical everyday importance. The law officers of the Crown had given an opinion that the post-nati of Scotland were not aliens in England, but that the ante-nati were; and this had led the Union Commissioners to suggest that both should be placed on the same footing, with the exception, which has just been mentioned, that the ante-nati should be declared incapable of holding office. At this point James raised an objection. He protested that he had no desire to give offices of State except to the natives of the country in which the office was to be exercised. He agreed to the proposal of the commissioners; but, at the same time, he insisted that the clause dealing with the question of naturalisation should be so worded as to recognise a right on the part of the sovereign to grant letters of denization. This, of course, was a palpable evasion of the proposed finding, and would leave him free to do as he pleased. Nevertheless, the commissioners recommended that, in the Articles of Union, the prerogative of the Crown as to appointing to offices in either kingdom, and as to granting letters of denization, should be specially reserved.

The Articles of Union were signed and sealed by the commissioners on the 6th of December, and at once presented to the king. James was in high spirits. He thanked the commissioners warmly for their services, and especially for their conduct in reserving his prerogative of appointing to offices in either kingdom. "Among other pleasant speeches," says Bacon, "he showed unto them the laird of Lawreston,[58] a Scotchman, who was the tallest and greatest man that was to be seen, and said, 'Well, now we are all one, yet none of you will say, but here is one Scotchman greater than any Englishman'; which was an ambiguous speech, but it was thought he meant it of himself."

The Governments in both countries began to make arrangements for the approaching Union. A warrant was issued for destroying the Great and Privy Seals of Scotland; and new seals were made with the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland quartered on them.[59] Agents were sent to France to investigate the privileges held by Englishmen and Scotsmen as to the French trade, and arrange for the future. An order was issued which illustrates the position of affairs between the countries. Scotsmen were constantly going abroad to serve in the foreign armies. They were in the habit of passing through England, and, on their way, they often were guilty of disorderly conduct, such as robbing on the highways, and committing other outrages, which raised a bad feeling against their country. It was therefore ordered that, in future, all Scotsmen going abroad were to embark from Scotland, instead of passing through England.[60]

A long time, however, was to pass before the subject of the Union was discussed by the Parliaments. The English Parliament had been summoned for the 5th of November 1605, when the articles were to have been debated. But the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot threw everything else into the shade; and though the Treaty of Union was presented, nothing more was done.

At last, when the Parliament of England met in November 1606, it was understood that the session was to be chiefly devoted to the Scottish question. The Articles of Union were known; and there was a storm of opposition from the merchants of London. Objections were raised to the admission of Scotsmen as members of English trading companies. There was also a strong dislike to allowing free trade between England and Scotland. The Scots, it was said, would come and go as they pleased, and fulfil or break their bargains just as it suited them. The English traders, moreover, wished a heavy duty to be imposed on cloth entering Scotland, because Scotland had, for a long time, been favoured in the custom duties which she paid in France; and this, along with other privileges she enjoyed in that country, might enable her to monopolise the trade in cloth with France. It was soon found that the dislike to the Union extended to every class throughout the country. There was a general fear that every district, and every calling, would be overrun with needy Scotsmen. The Articles of Union, it was said, would open to Scotsmen not only trade, but the Church, the universities, and the highest offices of State. They would fill, it was predicted, the best stalls in every cathedral in England; Latin would be taught at Oxford and Cambridge by the countrymen of Buchanan, whose scholarship not even English jealousy could venture to deny; and the tireless energy of ambitious Scottish politicians would secure the most lucrative places in the Government.

In Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons, these complaints were echoed. Sir Christopher Piggott, one of the members for Buckinghamshire, rose one day, and, speaking with his hat on, launched into a torrent of abuse against the idea of an Union with the Scots, who, he shouted, were murderers, thieves, and rogues who had not suffered more than two of their kings to die peaceably in their beds during the last two hundred years. The Commons, either from sympathy or in surprise, received this tirade in silence. But James, when he heard of it, was indignant; and Piggott was expelled from the House and committed to the Tower.[61]

In this spirit the debates, which began in February 1607, were conducted by the opponents of the Union. The first question which came up was the question of naturalisation. The speech of the member who opened the case against the proposals of the Union Commissioners consisted of an attack on Scotland and the Scots; and his chief argument against the Union was that if a man owned two pastures, the one fertile and the other barren, he would not, if he was a wise man, pull down the hedge, and allow the lean and hungry cattle to rush in and devour the rich pasture.

Bacon led on the other side. The grand idea of an orderly and well-balanced Union of the two kingdoms had fascinated his imagination. In moderate language, and in his most lucid manner, he answered his opponents, and expounded his own reasons for advising the Parliament of England to naturalise the Scottish nation. There were, he said, three objections to doing so. In the first place, it was thought that if the Scots were no longer aliens, they would settle in England in such numbers that the country would be over-populated. But, he answered, four years had passed since the Union of the Crowns, which was "the greatest spring-tide for the confluence and entrance of that nation"; and during these four years the only Scotsmen who had come to live in England were those immediately connected with the Court. Again, England, he declared, was not yet fully peopled. London was overcrowded; but the rest of the country showed signs of a want of inhabitants, in the shape of swamps and waste places. The Commons themselves might bear in mind "how many of us serve here in this place for desolate and decayed boroughs." And, besides, what was the worst effect which could follow too great an increase of the population? Nothing more than some honourable war for the enlargement of our borders.

The second objection to naturalising the Scots was that the laws of England and Scotland were different, that the Articles of Union left them different, and that it was unreasonable to admit the Scots to the privileges of English citizens without making them adopt the laws of England. But, he argued, naturalisation must come first. The inhabitants of Ireland, of the Isle of Man, and of Jersey and Guernsey, had the benefits of naturalisation; but the laws of England were not yet in force among them. An union of laws might be brought about both in these places and in Scotland, but only in course of time.

The third objection was that there was so much inequality between England and Scotland that the Union would not be fair to England. This inequality, Bacon declared, consisted only in gold and silver, the external goods of fortune. "In their capacities and undertakings," he said, "they are a people ingenious, in labour industrious, in courage valiant, in body hard, active, and comely." If Scotland was, after all, to gain by the Union, then England might find that it was more blessed to give than to receive.

Having thus answered the objections to naturalisation, he next maintained that if naturalisation did not follow the Union of the Kingdoms under the same Crown, danger would be the result. History, he argued, teaches us that whenever kingdoms have been united by the link of the Crown alone, if that union has not been fortified by something more, and most of all by naturalisation, separation takes place. The Romans and the Latins were united; but the Latins were not made citizens of Rome. War was the result. Sparta was ruined by attempting to maintain a league with States whose peoples she jealously regarded as aliens. The history of Aragon and Castile, of Florence and Pisa, taught us the same lesson. And on the other hand, we find that where States have been united, and that union strengthened by the bond of naturalisation, they never separate again.

He ended his speech by saying that, in future times, England, "having Scotland united and Ireland reduced," would be one of the greatest monarchies in the world.[62]

But this appeal was unheeded by the House; and though Coke brought all his great authority as a common lawyer to the same side as Bacon, the members would not be convinced. James on two occasions expostulated with them. He said he was willing, if it would help on the Union, to live one year in Scotland and another in England, or to live at York, or on the Borders. But the Commons were intractable, although the Lords were ready to agree to the Union, and to the naturalisation of the Scots.

Something, however, was accomplished. The questions of trade and of naturalisation were left unsettled; but an Act was passed which gave effect to the first part of the Treaty of Union, by repealing a number of statutes hostile to Scotland (such as those which forbade the leasing of lands to Scotsmen, and the exporting of arms or horses to Scotland), on condition that the Scottish Parliament, when it met, was to repeal the Scottish Acts, of a similar nature, which were hostile to England.[63]

With this small concession James had to be contented; and at the beginning of July he dismissed the Parliament, but not without a farewell warning that the Union was, in the long-run, inevitable. "These two kingdoms," he said, "are so conjoined that, if we should sleep in our beds, the Union should be, though we would not. He that doth not love a Scotsman as his brother, or the Scotsman that loves not an Englishman as his brother, he is traitor to God and the king."

The Scottish Parliament met in the first week of August. The Scots were, on the whole, rather proud to think that their king had gone to rule over England. Yet the old wrongs could not easily be forgotten, and it is probable that the Estates were very nearly as much against the Union as the House of Commons was. The Privy Council had, some months before, given the king a hint of this;[64] and a trivial circumstance may be mentioned to show how jealous the Scots were of England. A pattern of the new flag which James had ordered to be prepared for the United Kingdom, had been sent from England; and great offence had been taken when it was found that the Cross of Saint Andrew was covered, and, it was said, hidden by the Cross of St. George. Scottish seamen, the king was told, could not be induced to receive the flag.[65]

There can be little doubt that most Scotsmen sympathised with the national feeling which this trifling incident disclosed. But the private opinion of a member of the Scottish Parliament was one thing, and his public conduct was another. The Estates were submissive to the royal will. The Articles of Union were agreed to; and all the laws hostile to England were repealed.[66]

Thus, so far as it lay within the power of the Scottish Parliament, the king had got what he wanted. All that remained was for the English Parliament to be equally complaisant; and the kingdoms would have been united in 1607 instead of a century later. But it was not to be. In neither country was there any genuine desire for union. The free traditions of the House of Commons enabled the members to say what they thought; and the subject, gradually dropping out of sight, was not again seriously debated during the reign of James. The antiquary may still inspect a brown and shrivelled parchment which is preserved in the Register House at Edinburgh, all that remains of the Treaty of 1607. The time had not yet come when the Parliaments of the two nations were to see that it was impossible for the resources of Scotland to be developed while she remained separate from England, and that it was equally impossible for England to attain a position of permanent security so long as Scotland remained poor and discontented, debarred, by commercial restrictions, from the advantages of trade with the colonies and with England, and with no outlet for that splendid energy of her people which, after the Union, changed the Lothians from a desert to a garden, made Edinburgh famous throughout Europe as a school of letters, and founded on the banks of the Clyde one of the great commercial cities of the world.

The question of naturalisation, which could not be left undecided, was settled by the judges in a test case in the law courts. The action related to a tenement in Shoreditch, and the point at issue was whether the plaintiff, a child born in Scotland since the Union of the Crowns, was an alien, and, therefore, not entitled to bring an action for real property in England. Bacon was the leading counsel for the plaintiff; and the most important opinion was delivered by Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. The Court, by a majority, found for the plaintiff, holding that all the post-nati, or persons born in Scotland since the Union of the Crowns, were naturalised and entitled to all the rights of Englishmen in England. The ante-nati, those born in Scotland before the accession of James, still remained in the position of aliens.[67]

The effects of the removal of the Court to London were apparent in Scotland for many years to come. The houses of the nobles and the gentry were neglected. Gardens and pleasure-grounds, which had begun to appear in some places, were allowed to run to waste. The inns, poor at all times, fell into ruins. Merchants found their business at a standstill; and the shipping trade languished. What made all this peculiarly galling to the Scottish people was that England, though not occupying under the Stuarts the lofty position which she had occupied under the Tudors, was, year after year, enlarging her bounds and adding to the sources of her wealth. On the southern side of the Borders, the industries of Yorkshire were showing signs of what they were to become. The East India Company, now firmly established, was extending its operations. Far across the seas Nova Scotia was colonised by Scotsmen whom poverty had driven from their homes; and the plantations of Virginia became a rich addition to the resources of the English Crown. And besides suffering from the evils of poverty, Scotland was harassed almost from the day on which James ascended the throne of England by those ecclesiastical disputes which plunged the country into so much misery during the seventeenth century.

The king had been compelled, by the force of public opinion in England, to abandon the Union. But with the object to which he devoted the rest of his life even those Englishmen who doubted the wisdom of his policy were inclined to sympathise. The Scottish Reformation, unlike that of England, had been the work of the aristocracy, in opposition to the Crown. It had, at the same time, been a deeply religious movement; and these two forces, working together, had developed, as the distinguishing features of the Reformed Church of Scotland, a denial of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, and the assertion of the spiritual independence of the Church. Sir James Mackintosh has said that the peculiar theories of Berkeley were a touch-stone of metaphysical sagacity, meaning, apparently, by this phrase, that those who were without it could not understand the meaning or the tendency of those theories. In like manner, spiritual independence is the touch-stone of a capacity for understanding the history of the Scottish Church. The words "spiritual independence" expressed for Scotsmen what was, on the one hand, a part of their constitutional law, set forth in the statutes of the realm, and on the other hand, an article of faith, received by the people as an essential part of their religion, involving the principle of loyalty to the great founder of the Christian faith, as the only head of the Church. They believed-and for this belief thousands laid down their lives-that there were two authorities, the one civil and the other spiritual. Both were based upon a divine sanction; and each was to be obeyed within its own sphere. The civil magistrate was to bear rule and to be obeyed in civil affairs; but if he attempted to interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, he was to be resisted to the death. This principle of spiritual independence, which, neither at the Union of the Crowns, nor at the Union of the Kingdoms, nor during that memorable crisis which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, rent asunder the Church of Scotland, Englishmen were able to understand, was taught in the first Confession of Faith drawn up by the Scottish Reformers, and laid before the Estates in 1560.[68] After some years, when the long controversy between the king and the Church had begun, the two jurisdictions, civil and ecclesiastical, were still more carefully defined.[69]

Principles such as these were intolerable to James. By the law of England the king was head of the Church; and it was, therefore, his policy to introduce an uniformity of ecclesiastical government over the whole island. For more than twenty years before the Union of the Crowns he had been engaged in fighting the Scottish clergy. Sometimes he won, and sometimes he was defeated. The great point at issue was whether the Scottish Church was to be Presbyterian or Episcopal; for he had found that if the Presbyterian system was allowed to exist, the royal supremacy would never be acknowledged in Scotland. Accordingly he came to the throne of England with a firm resolution that he would use his new position so as to secure the establishment of Episcopacy in the north; and, though he artfully concealed it, we may be sure that one of his chief reasons for proposing the Union was that he believed it would be followed by the accomplishment of this object. Henceforth the policy of extending the Anglican system to Scotland became the hereditary policy of the Stuarts. Three years after the Union of the Crowns, the boldest leaders of the clergy having been driven into exile, the Scottish Parliament acknowledged the royal supremacy over all persons and all causes. It was not long before Episcopacy was established; and James had the gratification of seeing a few of his new bishops humbly consenting to receive consecration from the hands of English prelates, and returning to Scotland to confer upon their brethren the virtues of the apostolical succession. But the system which was thus set up had no hold upon the people. It would be impossible to point out in the catalogue of Scottish bishops the names of a dozen men who were either popular, or famous for learning, or eminent on account of their public services. The history of Christendom contains no story so humiliating as the story of Prelacy in Scotland during the seventeenth century.

The real meaning of the struggle between the Scottish people and the English Government which followed the Union of the Crowns cannot be understood unless we remember that, for most of those who suffered, the question at issue was a question of conscience. It is easy to find upon the surface of these events the materials from which to construct an explanation of a different kind. Envy at the sight of so much power in the hands of the priesthood, and the love, so strong in the Scottish character, of freedom from control, might influence some. But no one who looks below the surface, or reads the history of that period with an impartial mind, can fail to perceive that what brought the people of Scotland into a position of such stern antagonism to the English system of Church government, and, still more, what kept them there, was the fact that to accept Episcopacy was to give up spiritual independence, to admit the royal supremacy, and to abandon the principle of a divine head of the Church. It was for that principle that men and women died during the period between the Restoration and the Revolution, and not merely in defence of one form of Church government against another. And in the meantime, during the first half of the seventeenth century, it was the obstinate and persistent tyranny of James, and the infatuation of Charles the First and his advisers, which roused that memorable outburst of national resentment which scattered their policy to the winds. An uniformity in Church government and in ritual was the end aimed at by Charles and Laud. That end was, indeed, so far accomplished; but not by them. Having resolved to extend the Anglican system permanently to Scotland, they lived just long enough to see the Scottish system on the point of being extended to England, and the two kingdoms suddenly bound together by that solemn league which, conceived, though it may have been, in a spirit of intolerance, was nevertheless, for more than two generations, the watchword of the Whigs of Scotland, who afterwards, through the years of darkness and tempest, held high the blue banner of the Covenants, the rallying-point of Scottish freedom.

During a few years the Presbyterian Church was established, and the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland were administered in accordance with the long-cherished aspirations of the native clergy. But the alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament and Church did not long survive the execution of Charles. Their ideas had always been different. "The English were for a civil league, we for a religious covenant," Baillie had written six years before. The Scottish Parliament protested against the execution. The Scottish Church was willing to receive Charles the Second, if he would declare himself a Presbyterian and sign the Covenants. "If his Majesty," Baillie writes, "may be moved to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to sacrifice their lives for his service." Charles consented. He subscribed the Covenants, and bound himself, by an oath, to maintain the Presbyterian Church. But the royal cause was hopeless. Cromwell's victory at Dunbar was a crushing blow; and the battle of Worcester left Scotland at the mercy of the English army.

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