JACOBEAN UNION ] t .SCOTI'ISKK J i. I I’': • SC'K’P’.Tir !*)$% 5d?,. Vi< v ) e- >1 SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY FOURTH SERIES VOLUME 21 The Jacobean Union Six tracts of 1604 The Jacobean Union Six tracts of 1604 edited by Bruce R. Galloway, ph.d. and Brian P. Levack, ph.d. ★ ★ EDINBURGH printed for the Scottish History Society by CLARK CONSTABLE, EDINBURGH AND LONDON 1985 Scottish History Society 1985 ISBN o 906245 06 o Printed in Great Britain n*' B o* ■: 1' '' 1 '>K 0^ PREFACE While doing research on separate projects concerning Anglo- Scottish union, Bruce Galloway and I discovered a number of manuscript treatises regarding the efforts of King James VI and I to strengthen the regal union of 1603. Recognising the richness of this material, which historians have rarely used, we decided to collaborate on an edition of six of these treatises. We completed our work before Dr Galloway’s untimely death in 1984. For permission to publish and consult the various manuscripts used in the edited texts, acknowledgement is made to: The British Library; The Trustees of the National Library of Scotland; The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cam- bridge; The Curators of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; The Treasurer and Masters of the Bench of Lincoln’s Inn; and the Public Record Office. For generous financial support at differ- ent stages of my work on this project I wish to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin. I also wish to express my gratitude to Revd Albert J. Loomie, SJ, for helping me to solve a number of problems connected with Sir Henry Savile’s treatise, and to Dr Thomas I. Rae for his encouragement, advice and editorial assistance in preparing this volume. BRIAN P. LEVACK University of Texas at Austin May, 1985 A generous contribution from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland towards the cost of producing this volume is gratefully acknowledged by the Council of the Society CONTENTS Preface v Introduction ix Of the Union of Britayne I by Robert Pont A treatise about the Union of England and Scotland 39 A treatise of the happie and blissed Unioun 75 byjohn Russell A breif consideracion of the Unyon of twoe kingedomes 142 byjohn Doddridge Of the Union 160 by Sir Henry Spelman Historical! Collections 184 by Sir Henry Savile Appendix: Tracts and treatises on the Union, 1603-1605 241 Index 251 INTRODUCTION the regal union of England and Scotland, often referred to as the Union of the Crowns, took place in March 1603, when James Vi of Scotland acceded to the English throne. Although this union constituted a dramatic dynastic achievement, attrib- uted by many to divine intervention, the long-term prospects of this conjunction appeared highly questionable. The two kingdoms over which James now ruled exhibited similarities in religion, language and manners, but they formed two distinct nations which had in the past regarded each other as enemies. Formal peace and a common Protestant bond had brought about an improvement in Anglo-Scottish relations in the late sixteenth century, but a host of differences still prevailed between the two countries. In order to strengthen the regal union James set out to reduce these differences, with the ultimate goal of creating a united British nation. This was patently a project of great scope and importance, thrilling to some and daunting to more. As a result, a large number of tracts were written on ‘the union’ in both countries. A few have already appeared in modern print, notably the two discourses of Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Thomas Craig’s De Unione Britanniae Tractatus.1 Many more remain available only in their manu- script or pamphlet originals. The main purpose of this volume is to expand the amount of readily accessible material by printing six of the more important treatises: those by Robert Pont, John Russell and an anonymous author from Scotland and by John Doddridge, Sir Henry Spelman and Sir Henry Savile from England. Before examining each of these tracts, however, it is 1 The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding, iii (London, 1868), 89-99, 217-47; Sir Thomas Craig, De Unione Regnorum Britanniae Tractatus, ed. C. S. Terry (Scottish History Society, 1909) THE JACOBEAN UNION necessary to discuss the political developments that inspired them and the terms of the broader literary debate to which they contributed. THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND i. Before the Parliaments of 1604 The history of the union project during James’s first year as king of England has received a considerable amount of historical attention.2 Most accounts of this early phase of the project stress the eagerness of James to abandon Scotland, his vainglory as a motive force behind the union project, his precipitate speed in pressing his design against the plain wishes of England and the cautious advice of counsellors such as Cecil, and his excessive favour to the Scots. The last theme has provided the foundation for the argument that the Scots supported the union because it tended to their particular advantage. In general these accounts present a false picture of the union project. Nevertheless, each of the themes they emphasise con- tains an element of truth. James did complete his arrangements in Edinburgh very quickly and hurry south. The assumption of many historians that the king was overwhelmed by his good fortune and that this explains his sudden departure and the rash of honours he bestowed in both countries is, however, question- able. James’s speed is surely the natural reaction of a new king distant from his capital and anxious to secure his crown. Political insecurity can also be used to justify the knighthoods and honours bestowed en route, all new monarchs were ex- pected to show ‘liberality’, while James in particular needed to build up very quickly a party of greater and lesser men bound to him by favour. The second allegation, of vainglory, is un- answerable. James received many panegyrics praising himself and the union as examples of divine providence. He encouraged such sentiments, as we shall see, even inserting passages sug- gestive of a personal mission and a link with God into his 2 See esp. D. H. Willson, King James VI and I (London, 1956) and ‘King James I and Anglo-Scottish Unity’, in Conjlkt in Stuart England, ed. W. A. Aiken and B. D. Henning (London, i960), 43-55 INTRODUCTION xi speeches on the union. It is however impossible to tell how far these suggestions influenced royal thinking, and how much they constituted mere propaganda to further the project itself. The general interpretation of the project included here makes more of other elements also to be found in James’s writings and speeches: the resolute rejection of ideas of .‘Empire’, the de- termination to have the project implemented by Parliament, and above all the continual emphasis on the need for a union in the hearts and minds of the two peoples. This suggests a much more likely motive for the project; namely, a desire to establish firmly the hold of the Stuarts over two traditionally hostile nations, by eliminating the hostility. The desire for a ‘union in hearts and minds’ explains the king’s great concern with propa- ganda, his desire to create an outward show of union through unification of the royal style, the seals, and the flags, and his emphasis on the need for the union to proceed gradually, by the will of the two peoples. It is here that the conventional interpretation of the project is most inadequate. There is in fact very little evidence suggesting a headlong rush by James towards union in 1603. Bacon’s fam- ous remark, that he ‘hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and nations, faster perhaps than policy will conveniently bear’ is inconclusive.3 Besides coming very early in the reign, the remark could have referred to a mixture of nationalities at court, rather than to progress on union itself. What is most notable about 1603 is, after all, the absence of substantive action on the project. James restricted his activities to those few areas where he could use his prerogative powers without prejudicing discussion by either parliament. Thus, he set out to establish peace, order and brotherhood among his two peoples, to reconcile their commercial and economic systems, to settle the government of Scotland from London, and to establish a mixture of English and Scots at court. James was active and insistent in the first of these areas. In the proclamation of Scotland announcing his accession to the English throne, James ordered Scots to acknowledge English- men ‘as thair deirest bretherein and freindis, and the inhabitantis 3 Spedding, Letters of Bacon, iii, 77 xii THE JACOBEAN UNION of baith his realmes to obliterat and remove out of thair myndis all and quhatsumever quarrellis... with ane universall unanimi- tie of hartis’ — a theme repeated in his later ‘Proclamation for the Uniting of England and Scotland’, issued in May.4 One area where such pious sentiments were made action was the Borders. The suppression of dissident Border clans, notably the Grahams, and the rundown of the large but now superfluous garrison at Berwick reflected partly a desire to keep order and cut expenditure. Such actions also, however, reflected James’s insistence that English and Scots here be one people, enshrined symbolically under the name of the ‘middle Shires’. His policy was ‘utterlie to extinguishe as well the name as substance of the bordouris, I mean the difference between thaime and other pairts of the kingdome.