The Scottish Parliament Before the Union of the Crowns

The conclusions here stated with regard to the Scottish Parliament are, however, not entirely negative. The work of the Estates has left some positive and definite results of mo...

1. The two most important dividing lines in Scottish history between the tenth century and the sixteenth are the reign of David I (1124-1153) and the War of Independence, which...

On a general review of the evidence several points are clear. The device of superseding Parliament by a committee was employed for the first time under a weak king, and precisel...

In the reign of Robert the Bruce, as we find the first advance in membership we meet also the first indications of a growth of power. His parliaments took measures for the secur...

From what we have said of the Assembly, the inference as to the Parliament is clear. It follows that its history between the year of Queen Mary's return and the day when Andrew...

It remains, in this connection, to determine how far the burgess members were elective or representative in the strict sense of the word. In the early references to the presence...

There is a touch of pathos in this final scene. To us, it can appear sad only with the sadness of changefulness. But the faces of contemporaries were turned backwards. The three...

The death of the king made at first but little difference to the conduct of affairs. Bishop Kennedy continued to rule till his death, in 1465. No sooner did the statesman and pa...

[18] The evidence upon which the theory of popular representation is based is as vague as the theory itself. Eadmer (_Hist. Nov._ p. 97, Lond. 1623; cf. also p. 134) tells us of...

The outline of the history of the Scottish Parliament, up to the Union of the Crowns, contained in the present work, is based upon the Essay on the Scottish Parliament, to which...