Debating Britain in 17th Century Scotland

What is it about?

This article deploys the concept of multiple monarchy as a means of reassessing the constitutional relationship between Scotland and England from the union of the crowns in 1603 to the union of parliaments in 1707. It argues that the Scots belief in their kingdom’s historic independence, symbolised by the Stuart dynasty itself, led them to conceive of the union with England as one of equals, but that such parity of status and esteem was rendered increasingly unsustainable by inequalities of population and resources that became more marked as the century progressed. The difficulty of holding together a multiple monarchy of unequal equals was further exacerbated by the promotion of competing religious truth claims that led to the implosion of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and constitutional revolutions that saw sovereignty shifted decisively, albeit temporarily, from the crown to the Scottish and English parliaments. While the Restoration monarchy reversed the religious and political revolutions of the 1640s and 1650s, it deepened rather than resolved the constitutional anomalies inherent in their asymmetric multiple monarchy. The Revolution of 1689-90 brought these anomalies once again to the fore, while also embedding the concept of the sovereignty of the crown-in-parliament in British constitutional law. It is argued here, however, that while 1690 did mark the creation of a limited monarchy, it effectively vested sovereignty in the crown and two parliaments, not one, and that these parliaments represented increasingly divergent interests. The parliamentary union of 1707 resolved the conflict by creating a unitary British state built on an illusion of parity of status and esteem. It also marked the end of the Stuarts’ multiple monarchy, if not of the Scots’ abiding belief that any union with England must be understood as an equal partnership.

Featured Image