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The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or Core and Colonies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Jenny Wormald
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Extract

It is merely idle and frivolous, to conceive that any unperfect Union is desired, or can be granted: It is no more unperfect, as now it is projected, than a Child, that is born without a Beard. It is already a perfect Union in me, the Head … It is now perfect in my Title and Descent, though it be not accomplisht and full Union; for that Time hath all the Lineaments and Parts of a Body, yet is it but an Embrio, and no Child; and shall be born in his due Time; when it is born, though it then be a perfect Child, yet it is no Man; it must gather Strength and Perfection by Time; Even so is it in this case of Union. The Union is perfect in me; that is, it is a Union in my Blood and Title; yet but in embrione perfect. Upon the late Queen's Death, the Child was first brought to light; but to make it a perfect Man, to bring it to an accomplisht Union, it must have Time and Means; and if it be not at the first, blame not me; blame Time; blame the Order of Nature.

Type
Multiple Kingdoms and Provinces
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 2 , December 1992 , pp. 175 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1992

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References

1 Commons' Journal, I, 367.

2 Calendar of State Papers Venetian 1603–7, 484, 485. The issue of residence in Scotland continued; on 30 May 1607, Giustinian reported that the Scots were still insisting that the king should spend more time in Scotland, but that they were not likely to be gratified: ibid., 501.

3 Lee, M. jr, ‘James VI and the Revival of Episcopacy in Scotland, 1596–1600’, Church History 43 (1974), 53–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Calderwood, David, The History of the Kirk of Scotland (8 vols., Wodrow Society, Edinburgh 1842–1849), V, 443–535Google Scholar; Nichols, John, The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, His Royal Consort, Family and Court (4 vols., London, 1828), II, 126–31Google Scholar

4 Ambassades de Monsieur de la Boderie en Angleterre (5 vols., Paris, 1750), II, 101Google Scholar; C.S.P. Venetian 1603–7, 509. Molin's lengthy analysis of the state of England and its monarchy and government, from which this assertion comes, is conflicting; he also refers to James's laziness and preference for hunting rather than governing. But on the basis of some very dubious parliamentary history, he is in no doubt about the king's power.

5 C.S.P. Venetian 1603–7, 485; Stuart Royal Proclamations, eds. Larkin, J. F. and Hughes, P. L. (Oxford, 1973), I, 94–5 and 135–6Google Scholar; Galloway, Bruce, The Union of England and Scotland 1603–1608 (Edinburgh, 1986), 82–4 and plate at 88Google Scholar.

6 P.R.O., S.P. 14/1/3, ‘A Discourse of the Descent of the K's Mty from the Saxons’; Sharpe, K., Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631; History and Politics in Early Modem England (Oxford, 1979), 114–5Google Scholar. For James's, speeches, The Political Works of James I, ed. McIlwain, C.H. (reprint, New York, 1965), 271–3 and 290–305Google Scholar.

7 Henry E. Huntington Library, Bridgwater and Ellesmere MSS, EL 1210, ff. 4r–v; P.R.O., S.P. 14/1/18, f. 38r.

8 Francis Bacon to Ellesmere, EL 126; the text of the letter but not the endorsement, is printed in The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, J. (7 vols., London 1861–1874), III, 249–52Google Scholar. For Ellesmere's letter to the king, EL 162 f. 1r.

9 EL 160, f. 1r. Fenton at least recognised the limitations of his literacy; in a letter to John earl of Mar on 4 October 1616, in which he acknowledged a letter from Mar's son lord Erskine, he pointed out that ‘if I culd reid his letter he shuld have an answer. I thank God one of the name wrets noe better then my selfe’: H.M.C. Mar and Kellie Supplement, 69. Such disarming frankness, however, can hardly have consoled those who had to struggle with his own handwriting.

10 For admirable discussion of this case, see Galloway, B., Union 148–57Google Scholar.

11 C.S.P Venetian 1603–7, 485; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, eds. Thomson, T. and Innes, C. (12 vols., Edinburgh, 1814–1875), II, 507 and 515–6Google Scholar. The English were well aware of this legislation of 1558; it was included in the list of hostile laws whose repeal was another contentious issue: EL 1865, f. 1r.

12 EL 1215, Notes on Calvin's Case, f. 3v; also EL 1868, f. 3v.

13 Ellesmere's speech is printed in Knafla, L. A., Law and Politics in Jacobean England: The Tracts of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere (Cambridge, 1977), 202–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also ibid., 66–8.

14 The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, J. (7 vols., London 1858–1861) VII, 665–6Google Scholar; James, VI, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, in The Minor Prose Works of King James VI and I, eds. Craigie, J. and Law, A. (Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1982), 70Google Scholar; P.R.O. SP 14/34/10, f. 24.

15 Jenny Wormald, ‘James VI and I, Basilikon Doron and The Trew Law of Free Monarchies: the Scottish context and the English translation’, J. P. Sommerville, ‘James I and the divine right of kings: English politics and continental theory’, and Paul Christianson, ‘Royal and Parliamentary Voices on the Ancient Constitution, c. 1604–1621’ in The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. Peck, Linda Levy (Cambridge, 1991), 36–54, 55–70 and 71–95Google Scholar.

16 EL 1215, f. 2r.

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18 Correspondence of King James VI of Scotland with Sir Robert Cecil and Others in England, ed. Bruce, J. (Camden Society, London, 1861), 56Google Scholar.

19 EL 451, ff. 1r, 1v; 473 f. 1r, 1v; 455 f. 1r, 2r; 458 f. 2r. 451 were the notes for 1604, 473 and 458 for 1605, and 455 possibly for 1604, or for 1607.

20 EL 1215, f. 3v.

21 Galloway, , Union, 157Google Scholar. Wheeler, H., ‘Calvin's Case (1608) and the McIlwain-Schuyler Debate’, American Historical Review LXI (1956), 587–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also discussed the relevance of the case to Ireland, and went on from there to argue for its appeal to the American colonists of the eighteenth century.

22 Russell, Conrad, ‘The British Problem and the English Civil War’, History 72 (1987), 395–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar, The British Background to the Irish Rebellion of 1641’, Historical Research 61 (1988), 166–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Causes of Die English Civil War (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar and The Fall of the British Monarchies, 1637–1642 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar, passim. Clark, Aidan, ‘Ireland and the General Crisis’ Past and Present 48 (1970), 79–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘The History of Poynings’ Law', , Irish Historical Studies 18 (1972), 207–22Google Scholar, and chapters IX and X in A New History of Ireland, eds. Moody, T. W., Masters, F.X. and Byrne, F.J., (Oxford, 1976), III, 243–69Google Scholar. Perceval-Maxwell, M., ‘Ireland and Scotland, 1638–1648’ in The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context, ed. Morrill, J. S., (Edinburgh, 1990), 193–211Google Scholar and ‘Ireland and the Monarchy in the Early Stuart Multiple Kingdom’, Historical Journal 34 (1991), 279–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the church, see Morrill, , introduction to The Scottish National Covenant, 7–11Google Scholar.

23 The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, eds. Burton, J. H. and others (Edinburgh, 1877– ), VII, 536Google Scholar. This letter, written in August 1607, was still reiterating the appeals put forward by the Scots in the spring, that the king would divide his time equally between his two kingdoms. The letter and the Act anent the Union passed by the 1607 parliament show a profound unease, very different from the confident pride of the earlier act of 1604, which asserted ‘That as the present Age is Ravisched in Admiration with sa fortunat begynning sua the Posteritie may rejoice in the fruitioun of sic ane effectuall unioun of twa sa famous and Ancient kingdomes Miracoulouslie accompleisched in the blude and persone of sa Rare ane Monarchic’: A.P.S. IV, 366–71 (1607); 263–4 (1604).

24 Craig, De Unione Regnorum Britanniae, Major, John, A History of Greater Britain, ed. and trans, by Constable, A. and Mackay, A. J. G. (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, 1892)Google Scholar.

25 Williamson, A. H., ‘Scotland, Antichrist and the Invention of Britain’ in New Perspectives on the Politics and Culture of Early Modern Scotland, eds. Dwyer, J., Mason, R. A. and Murdoch, A., (Edinburgh, 1982), 39Google Scholar. Galloway, , Union, 48–51Google Scholar. Knafla, , Law and Politics, 87Google Scholar, suggests that Ellesmere regarded union with Scotland ‘in the same light as the previous union with Wales.’ Understandably, this was an attitude not made clear to King James.

26 Proceedings in Parliament, 1610, ed. Foster, Elizabeth Read (2 vols., New Haven, 1966), II, 109Google Scholar. A less polemical example of the English belief that a king of Scotland needed instruction in his new and greater role is the advisory letter written by Sir Edmund Ashfield on a wide range of subjects, from the common lawyers to foreign policy, before James's accession: B. L. Cotton MS Julius F VI, ff. 139r–141r.

27 For example, Francis Osborne, Traditional Memoyres of the Raigne of King James the First, and Anthony Weldon, A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland, in The Secret History of the Court of James I, ed. Scott, Walter (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1811), I, 1–298, and II, 75–89Google Scholar. Even an author more favourable to the king was highly critical of the disorderly and beggarly covetousness of his Scottish subjects: Goodman, Godfrey, The Court of King James, ed. Brewer, J. S. (London, 1839)Google Scholar.

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29 Davies, Norman, God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols., New York, 1982), I, 115–55, 322–3, 413–20, 433–7Google Scholar.

30 John Robertson, ‘Union, State and Empire: the European Context of British Union in 1707’, to be published in A National State at War, ed. L. Stone, (forthcoming). I am extremely grateful to Dr Robertson for allowing me to cite his important paper before publication, and for discussions from which I have learned much.

31 SirWilson, Thomas, The State of England (1600), ed. Fisher, F.J. (Camden Miscellany 16: Camden Society, 3rd ser., LII, 1936), 1Google Scholar. The accession medal is illustrated in Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. Peck, plate 1 at 178. SPi4/1/3, f. 9r–v; Parry, , Golden Age Restor'd, 7Google Scholar.

32 EL 2628, f. 2v.

33 Recently Mark Greengrass has pointed out that while, by the eighteenth century, it is possible to see what he calls ‘a kind of political Darwinism’ at work, in which the weaker went to the wall, the approach which concentrates exclusively on state-building from the centre misses the crucial dimension of awareness of the caution with which rulers dealt with deeply ingrained regional identities and differences; and this is surely a very fruitful revision: Conquest and Coalescence: The Shaping of the State in Early Modem Europe, ed. Greengrass, , (1991), introduction, especially 4–7Google Scholar. Britain can be seen as an extreme case of regional identities, which has until now survived even incautious rulers.

34 This is due to the seminal work of Conrad Russell and John Morrill; see references in n. 21 above.

35 On the Scots, Stevenson, D., The Scottish Revolution: The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot, 1973)Google Scholar; Lee, M. Jr, The Road to Revolution: Scotland under Charles I, 1625–1637 (Illinois, 1985)Google Scholar. To these can now be added the ground-breaking book by Macinnes, A. I., Charles I and the Covenanting Movement (Edinburgh, 1991)Google Scholar, and Donald, P. H., An Uncounselled King: Charles I and the Scottish Troubles, 1687–1641 (Cambridge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 A.P.S. VI, pt. i, 150–1; Stevenson, David, ‘The Early Covenanters and the Federal Union of Britain’ in Scotland and England, 1286–1815, ed. Mason, R.A. (Edinburgh, 1987), 163–81Google Scholar.

37 Ferguson, W., Scotland's Relations with England: a Survey to 1707 (Edinburgh, 1977), 152–7Google Scholar. The comment, on p. 152, is exaggerated; Lee, M. Jr, The Cabal (Illinois, 1965), 43–69Google Scholar, has a very lucid account of this episode, and shows quite clearly the economic strains which lay behind it, a point which Ferguson in fact recognises. It was, however, an extremely limited affair, pushed hard by the dominant Scottish politician, Lauderdale, but a matter of indifference to everyone else, including, it appears, Charles II. For an admirable survey of all the plans put forward for union in the seventeenth century, Levack, B. P., The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603–1707 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

38 Ferguson, , Scotland's Relations, 219Google Scholar.