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CHAPTER ONE
Taxation and Anglicisation, 1424–1428
1424 has long been seen as a new beginning in a Scottish parliamentary context. In that year James I returned from a captivity in England that had lasted eighteen years, dating from his capture while trying to travel to safety in France in 1406. The first Parliament after his release in May 1424 – indeed the first full Parliament since at least 1406 – marked the point when the institution suddenly became much more central to the political life of Scotland after a period when Parliaments had seldom sat and the less formal institution, General Council, had predominated, although it also sometimes sat only intermittently. This new beginning in 1424 was clearly understood by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scots. The majority of manuscript collections of acts over the next two centuries begin their records of Parliaments in 1424, as does the first attempt at a printed version of all the acts of the Scottish Parliament, published in 1566. The reason for this change derived from James I’s intention to use Parliament and General Council in a much more rigorous way – a relationship with the institution not seen since at least the reign of David II. This new predominance for Parliament introduced by James I in 1424 was to last until 1496, and would be typified throughout that period by meetings held at least annually, large legislative programmes, relatively frequent requests for taxation, and a consequently high level of political conflict and controversy between Crown and Estates.
The Battle for Taxation? 1424–1427
The first Parliament of James I’s active reign was unusual in many ways. Beginning on 26 May 1424, five days after the king’s coronation, it was the first full Parliament to meet since 1406. We know of a large attendance, and the extant acts reflect the atmosphere of a new beginning for both the Stewart monarchy and the institution of Parliament in a way that reflects later Parliaments in 1455 and 1469. James I met with a far more favourable response from Parliament than in later years; the result of genuine enthusiasm for a rejuvenated monarchy in partnership with the Estates after the many years in which guardians had governed Scotland, first on behalf of the ‘incapacitated’ Robert III, and later while James was incarcerated in England.
The attendance was large. Although before the official parliamentary register becomes extant in 1466, and particularly in James I’s reign, attendance lists (known as sederunt lists) are scarce and fragmentary, it is often possible to build up attendance lists from other sources. According to Bower, twenty-six barons had been knighted at Scone on 21 May 1424, and there is every reason to believe they would have attended Parliament too. Other documents made near the time of the meetings confirm that nearly all the major secular and ecclesiastical magnates of the realm were still present at Perth in the days after Parliament ended.
At this stage, it is unsurprising to find that most of the figures present would have been supportive of the king. Although figures such as Murdoch, duke of Albany, and Henry Wardlaw, bishop of St Andrews, would come into conflict with the king in the near or more distant future, there is no reason to believe they would have been antagonistic towards the Crown at this first meeting. Yet the list of people chosen to audit James I’s taxation, raised to begin the repayments of the £40,000 ransom owed to England, does show a degree of independence in the Estates’ selection that was to be typical of later years. Taken together, this rare list of people chosen to administer the tax is an intriguing mixture of royal servants and powerful magnates. Career bureaucrats, often with experience in finance, such as William Lauder, bishop of Glasgow, John, abbot of Balmerino, and Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, rubbed shoulders with more independent men, such as Walter, earl of Atholl and James Douglas of Balvenie, the latter known for embezzling royal funds under the Albany governorship. Close royal allies worked alongside more obscure local lairds such as Sir Patrick Dunbar of Biel, but the overall impression is of a committee largely made up of men soon to rise in royal service.
The other figures almost certain to have been present seem to reflect a similar picture of men whom the king would broadly have been happy to see in attendance. William Douglas, earl of Angus (possibly knighted at the coronation), and William Sinclair, earl of Orkney, were both figures who would be close to the king in subsequent years, Angus pursuing his rivalry with the earls of Douglas, and Orkney following in something of a family tradition of service to James I. Both would be on the assize to forfeit the Albany Stewarts in May 1425, and Angus would be the custodian of the duchess of Albany. Sir Herbert Maxwell of Caerlaverock continued the strong Douglas presence. Thomas Somerville of Carnwath and Adam Hepburn of Hailes would both be favoured by the king during the 1420s. Clearly a reasonable cross section of the Three Estates had assembled in Perth, most hoping to benefit from the largesse of the newly crowned king, with a strong Black Douglas contingent, presumably in the (unrecorded) company of Archibald Douglas, earl of Wigtown. What is perhaps most important, however, is the apparent isolation of the duke of Albany among the Estates. Of his political allies, only Bishop Stephenson of Dunblane was selected to take part in administering the tax, nor are his allies obvious amongst those knighted at the coronation or at Perth. This was perhaps unsurprising in the wake of the arrest on 13 May at Edinburgh of Murdoch’s son, Walter Stewart of Lennox; nevertheless Murdoch was as yet still nominally in favour with the king, and had even supported and encouraged the arrest of his son. Instead Murdoch, as he sat in Parliament, must have noticed that he was surrounded by figures with ambitions at his expense.
The twenty-nine statutes that survive for this Parliament reflect the make-up of the known sederunt?and make it one of the largest legislative Parliaments of the century. Together they amount to a formidable assertion of power by the king over the realm, demanding the obedience of all the lieges of whatever ‘estate, degre or conditioun he be’. As yet the Estates seem to have been happy to pledge this obedience. Dr. Michael Brown has argued that three acts in particular amounted to ‘a revocation of royal rights’. Perhaps most important of these three was an act that ‘all the gret and smal custumys and buroumaillis of the realme byde and remane with the king’. The granting out of the royal customs revenues had been extremely widespread under the early Stewarts, to the detriment of the royal finances. If James wanted to establish a wealthy and prestigious monarchy, then the customs were of central importance. Yet by reclaiming the customs he risked antagonising some powerful figures. The Exchequer rolls for the years before James Fs return provide ample evidence of the use and abuse of the customs by the duke of Albany, the earls of Douglas and Mar, James Douglas of Balvenie and William Borthwick. Except for Douglas and Mar, all are known to have been at Parliament, and it is probable that Mar was also present. Indeed, Douglas had been so instrumental in James’s release that he may have expected a less prompt and forceful return to the letter of the law. Fortunately for James, the earls of Douglas and Buchan (who as chamberlain had overseen much of the embezzling) were in France from March 1424, but the presence of his son and heir with Douglas of Balvenie must have meant that this act was not passed without certain reservations. By stating clearly that this source of revenue was no longer available for the legal or illegal enrichment of the lieges, the king, albeit with consent of ‘the hail Parliament’, was acting to the detriment of some of his most powerful magnates. Moreover the act was one of the most successful of this Parliament; by May 1425 the gross customs receipts had risen from £2,779 8s. 2d. to £4,400 4s. 9d.
As with the customs, so with Crown lands. James asked that all the sheriffs make an enquiry to their bailies about what ‘landis, possessionis, or annuell rentis’ pertained to the king or his ancestors since the reign of David II, and to whom they belonged at present. The act concluded that, ‘gif it likis the king’, he would summon all his tenants to prove their rights by charters and evidence. Finally, another act ordered that officers and ministers of the law be appointed, and those officers who currently held posts but were ineffective in putting them into action were to be removed. Together these acts indicated the king’s intention to reassert the Crown’s rights over its traditional sources of revenue and power. There were many among the Estates who would be threatened by this action, most obviously the Albany Stewarts, whose territory had often been built up by ‘dubious methods’. In subsequent months, particularly after the death of the earl of Buchan in France, ...
