Abstract
AbstractIn the 19th and 20th centuries, scholarship on the Scottish parliament was heavily informed by a narrative of ‘failure’, directed at explaining why its members voted it out of existence in 1707. Part of the problem was the tendency to see any deviation from the practices of the Westminster parliament as weakness. By reappraising parliament in terms of its utility to those who comprised its membership, notably the titled peerage and the monarch, historians have revealed its adaptability and inventiveness, especially in times of crisis. This essay considers how fresh approaches both to what constituted the parliamentary record and what can – and cannot – be found within it have exerted a transformative influence on our understanding of parliament's evolving role in Scottish political life. Although the Reformation crisis of 1560 and the accession of the ruling house of Stewart to the English throne in 1603 effected profound changes on parliamentary culture, this essay emphasises how parliament sustained its legitimacy and relevance, in part, by drawing on past practices and ideas. Historians have become more attentive in recent years to the means by which social groupings ordinarily excluded from formal parliamentary activity were nonetheless able to engage with, and influence, its proceedings. Gaps remain in our knowledge, however. Some periods have been more intensively studied than others, while certain aspects of parliamentary culture are understudied. The writing of Scottish parliamentary history will continue to offer rich possibilities in future.
Highlights
By the Records of Parliament it appeared, that your Lordships, before the Union of the Crowns, had a commanding Share in all the Rights of Sovereignty
Historians have become more attentive in recent years to the means by which social groupings ordinarily excluded from formal parliamentary activity were able to engage with, and influence, its proceedings
There is very little mention of ‘debates’ in the parliamentary record until the Covenanter era and, even it is often unclear whether it was the separate meetings of the estates, or a discussion in the chamber, to which reference was being made
Summary
By the Records of Parliament it appeared, that your Lordships, before the Union of the Crowns, had a commanding Share in all the Rights of Sovereignty. Contemporary accounts by the likes of Ridpath took a different approach, by comparing the Scottish parliament of their own epoch against its earlier self, but their broad conclusions served to reinforce scholarly narratives of ‘decline’ This framework informed the research methodologies of scholars examining both the late medieval and early modern parliaments, albeit there were period-specific differences. William Ferguson, writing in the 1970s, acknowledged that the early 18th-century Scottish parliament was no ‘mere provincial assembly’, but saw in most of its members little evidence of an ideological commitment to the institution as the representative of the people. Parliament by this interpretation was an arena in which a faction-ridden nobility gave expression to its own political and economic interests.. How did people find out about parliament’s activities and in what ways did they seek to engage with them – if at all? Was it, as hinted at by one of the pioneering recent scholars on the pre-1707 parliament, ‘remote from ordinary people’s everyday experience’?9
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