Scottish Song, 1500–1700

Abstract

There has recently come to light a rich heritage of music that was composed and cherished in Scotland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—from the first dawn of the Renaissance under James IV down two hundred years to the Union of the Parliaments under the last Stuart monarch Queen Anne. And here may I, speaking as a Scot, remind you briefly of the state of affairs that obtained north of the border during these two centuries. While the Englishman's view is a historical continuity from the reign of Henry VIII through the age of Elizabeth to James I, the Scot's picture is somewhat different: the Renaissance did not touch Scotland until the reign of James IV, who died in 1513. James was connected with the royal house of England, for he married Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, in 1504. Indeed it was this link that finally brought about the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland almost exactly one hundred years later. James V twice brought a French queen to Scotland (in 1537 and in 1538) and his daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, spent thirteen years at the French court—the last of them as Queen of France—before returning to Scotland in 1561. The Reformation arrived late in Scotland (in 1560) and its effects on music there were more profound and far-reaching than elsewhere. Whereas in England composers remained very much as free as they were before, in Scotland the Reformers called the very existence of music into question. Mary's son James VI left Scotland with his court in 1603 to become James I of England. Disunity ensued in his homeland with religious strife and civil war and throughout the seventeenth century civilisation languished. Finally, in 1707, in an effort by our two countries to achieve further unity and prosperity in this island, Scotland lost her nationhood and her parliament. This is a sketch of the background against which the early music of Scotland was composed.