PARLIAMENT and SOCIETY in SCOTLAND, 1560-1603 VOLUME 2 Presented for the Degree of University of Edinburgh

PARLIAMENT AND SOCIETY IN SCOTLAND, 1560-1603 Julian Mark Goodare VOLUME 2 Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Edinburgh 1989 I CONTENTS page VOLUME 1 Acknowledgements ii Declaration iii Abstract 17 1. Introduction: parliament and the political system 1 2. Parliament and the law 65 3. Parliament and the executive 107 4. Fiscal policy 156 5. Parliamentary taxation 212 VOLUME 2 6. Economic policy 281 7. Social control 346 8. Social policy: the poor law 405 9. Conclusions: parliament and society 445 Appendices: A. Records of parliaments and conventions, 1560-1603 473 B. Justice ayres 503 C. Parliamentary commissions 504 D. Direct taxes imposed, 1560-1603 509 B. Precedence and ceremonial: parliaments public image 518 Conventions and abbreviations 526 Bibliography 531 281 Chapter 6 ECONOMIC POLICY In Lindsay's 'Satyre of the thrie estaitis', Folly expressed the contemporary legislator's view of merchants, reproving the insatiabill serchant sen tvhol Quhenfind hei send thss abundance Ar nacht content with sufficiance, Bot saillis into the storey blastis, In cony terribill great toreent, Against the acts of Parliasent. Sus tynis their gear, and sue an drounde: Pith this sic serchants could be crounde, And he presented the merchants with a 'Folie Hatt'. ' He was referring to the 1535 act against winter sailing, which probably became a dead letter soon after; -2 at any rate, the convention of royal burghs ignored it when reissuing a companion act on voyages to the Netherlands in 1574. `-1 Few such statutes could be fully enforced, but the reality of the sixteenth century was that the market existed to be regulated. Noreover, while the ideal was still 'sufficiance', there can have been little cultural approval for capitalist profit-maximization through the market, despite Lindsay's reluctant admiration for the merchants' self- confident enterprise. ' 1, Lindsay, 'Thris estaitis', 395, 2. APS, it, 348, c. 33, 3. RCRB,i, 32-33, 4, Cf. 6, Marshalt, Prosbyterries Calrinisr the oaalopaent , and profits; and of capitalism in Scotland, IMO-1707 (Oxford, 1980), 16-17 and passis, (co,wil c policy 282 Parliament viewed the economy, not through the eyes of merchants, but through those of consumers. Only occasional traces can be found of an attitude favouring production or exports, and even then consumers were not neglected: a law of 1575 licensed exports of salt so that 'bayth the cuntre mycht be servit of salt upoun ressonabill pryces and that the pan maisteris could not be hinderit of sic coamoditie as God mycht send of thair lauchfull lauboris'. 3 More typical was the approach of a 1581 statute, 'ffor the stancheing of derth of victuallis and setting ordoure and price on all stuf', in which only the interests of consumers were recognized .2 Basilican daran complained that merchants 'transport from us thinges necessarie, bringing backe whiles unnecessarie and whiles nothings: they bye for us the worste wares, and sell them at the dearest prices'. Artisans came in for similar strictures .3 What linked merchants, crafts and industry with consumers, of course, was the market. The theme of this chapter will be intervention in the market by government. But market exchange itself (whether using money, or other economic units in a barter system) operated only within isolated enclaves of the economy; outside these, intervention could not take economic forms. Kuch agricultural produce, the backbone of the economy, was directly consumed by the producers, and much of the rest was transferred to lords through a tribute relationship. Indeed, all rent was in a sense tribute: it was not payment for an economic I, mss,111,93-94. 2, mss,tu, aas,c, 28, 3. Jam VI, 8 uiiirilr dorm, i, 88-91,92-93, Economicpolicy 283 return, for landlords provided no input to peasant farming beyond the occasional set of roof-timbers; ' but often, particularly in the Highlands, these obligations were not even expressed in economic units. Rents in Sleat were variable: the island `payis but the auld deutets, that is, of victuall, buttir, cheis, wyne, aill, and aquavitie, samekle as thair maister may be able to spend being ane nicht (albeit he were 600 men in companie) on ilk merk land'; while in Islay, as well as fixed rents, 'ilk merk land man sustein daylie and yeirlie ane gentleman in meit and claith, quhilk dais na labour, but is haldin as ane of thair maisters household men'. 2 The resources thus appropriated by lords were then redistributed through gifts and feasting rather than being marketed .3 Even within the market economy, there was such that government found it difficult or impossible to achieve. What, in fact, did it hope to do? It did not have an integrated or systematic set of aims or methods, whether these are labelled 'mercantilism' or anything eise., What has been called mercantilism was merely a willingness to use state power to make rules for the market system. These rules may sometimes have had over-riding purposes such as achieving a favourable trade balance, but more usually, then as now, government had to weigh t, A. Fenton, C+wntry life irr Scotland (Edinburgh, 1987), 19, 2. Skene, Celtic Scotlarw, iii, 432,438, 3, R.A. Dodghon, 'Vast Highland chiefdoss, 1500-1746t a study in redistributive exchange', Ecomay and society in Scotland and Ireland, MM- IMY, eds. R. Mitchison S P, Roebuck(Edinburgh, 1988), 4, Cf. D.C. Colesan (ad, ), Revisions in rerrant}fisr (London, 1969); V.E. Minchinton (ed. ), XarcJIrt}lise: system or eApedienrr? (Lexington, Mass., 1969). fcomair policy 284 up the pros and cons of various desirable aims which sometimes had to be prioritized and which occasionally came into fundamental conflict. Not all government intervention in the market even had economic aims at all. xost market intervention focused on the ruling class as consumers. It was imperative for them to secure regular supplies of a wide variety of commodities * particularly all those imported luxuries that made life pleasant. None of these 4mft obtainable directly from the peasants' surplus; all had to come fron the market. A heavily consumer- oriented policy, though largely in the interests of the dominant consumers, might have subsidiary attractions for other classes; for instance, peasants as consumers of salt, artisans as consumers of industrial raw materials, or urban workers as consumers of grain, might hope to benefit. As weil as being the most prominent consumers, the ruling class were also rulers, and in that capacity they had to maintain social order. This might necessitate concessions to other classes with different interests in the market. In this period, with the expansion of central government, priority was given to promotion of institutional levers under central control, such as the attempt in the late 1580s to create a powerful admiral's court to usurp the commercial jurisdiction of deans of guild. ' There were even aims beyond the direct assertion of political authority; some parliamentary enactments, as we shall see, were vehicles for affirming the public moral order that was an i, Chapter 3. Ecomaic policy 285 essential component of economic behaviour. Sumptuary laws, for instance, embodied ideals of social status and harmony, affirming parliament's belief in the social order as a benign, divinely-appointed hierarchy. Descending from this lofty moral plane, the crown needed cash. This had to be siphoned off from the market economy, without killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. The fiscal component of economic policy should never be forgotten; it made the government's interventions in the market system even less systematic than they might have been. ' What was the market? The level of technological development in the sixteenth-century economy meant that it was a series of interlocking monopolies. Communications in particular added so hugely to costs that local producers often had little to fear from distant rivals. Free competition could not have been a reality, even if it had had cultural recognition. Only in the largest towns, and in a few basic commodities, were there enough sellers to prevent them being able to exercise an element of monopoly power. Monopoly possibly tended, then as now, to restrict production and raise prices; but in an age when there were so many other constraints on production, this was less important. What mattered to contemporaries were the moral failings of the sellers, and the harm these did to buyers who could not go elsewhere. Thus Deceit bade farewell to the merchants of the 'Thrie 1. Chapter A. (tu ft policy 286 estaitis': I leirit Vowaerchants cony ane vyle, Upalandsvyfis for to begyle, Uponam sarkit-day: And gar then trov your stuffs was guile, When it was rottin, be the Rude, And sweir it was nocht sway. He went on to boast of prompting them to lie about the cost of their merchandise, mix new wine with old, adulterate other goods, give short measures, and take usury. ' In practice Deceit had a routine part in this at most; the 'wyfis' knew as well as Lindsay or better what went on, but were unable to escape from the local merchants' monopoly by taking their custom elsewhere. One reason to regulate the market was to restrain the unfettered exercise of monopoly power i2 inflexible production methods, the vagaries of climate, and transport that was limited and costly, meant that any commodity could be suddenly in short supply, its price soaring ruinously with scarcely any prospect that this would draw new supplies into the market. This was dearth - the unforeseeable, uncontrollable price rise that stalked the nightmares of early modern rulers. Another reason to regulate the market was to minimize the social disruption that resulted from shortages .3 1. Lindsay,'Thrie estsftis', 363, 2.

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