A history of James VI’s failed attempt to unite his kingdoms

The 1603 Union was entirely a personal union in the figure of King James VI of Scotland who became James I of England on the death of Queen Elizabeth on March 24, 1603.

I showed last week how James’s entire policies in Scotland were designed to get him on to the English throne, hence, for instance, his muted protests at the execution of his mother Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587.

Above all, he wanted a declaration from Elizabeth that he would be her successor. He never got one. Although Elizabeth encouraged him to believe he would succeed and financially supported him, she never committed her intentions to paper. On the day before she died, the Privy Council gathered around her on her death bed and the question was put to her as to whether James would be her successor.

Having lost the power of speech, she waved her hand and this was taken as the Royal assent. As I have shown, negotiations went on for years behind the scenes, with Elizabeth’s secretary of state Robert Cecil the chief mover on the English side as he and his lordly colleagues desperately wanted a Protestant successor. Now his plan came to fruition with much propaganda about how James was a true heir being descended from Henry VII.

A portrait of James I of England

Moreover, Cecil had assured James that he would succeed, and the English Privy Council – which was almost entirely a creature of Cecil’s – duly complied. So when Elizabeth died, her kinsman Sir Robert (or Robin) Carey famously rode north to inform James he was now King of England.

As proof he could be trusted, Carey took with him a sapphire ring that James would recognise as that of a lady he knew. Cecil was furious with Carey and tried to stop him going, as he had wanted his messengers to tell James but Carey’s speedy ride to Scotland saw him arrive at James’s private chamber in the early hours of March 27.

Muddy and bedraggled, he knelt before James and addressed him as King of England, Scotland, Ireland and France – nobody told the French about this latter designation, funnily enough. Carey would have an interesting career – Cecil dismissed him but James made him responsible for the upbringing of his son Charles, who would make Carey the Earl of Monmouth and a major adviser for the rest of his life.

In London, the Privy Council immediately proclaimed James of Scotland as King of England and by all accounts it seems to have been a genuinely popular decision, not least because any other appointment of an English successor would almost certainly have led to a civil war.

Far rather have a foreigner, an alien, take up the monarchy and then see England tear itself apart. And James really was an alien to the English. We know from historical documents that James, who spoke and wrote several languages including his native Scots, had taught himself to write good English prose. His poetry was not of the same quality, it has to be said, and he retained a Scottish accent all his life which hardly endeared him to the Court.

He was anxious to get to London but there was a problem – his wife, Anne of Denmark. She was pregnant and refused to accompany her husband. It was a portent of trouble to come, as their marriage would become more stormy as the years progressed.

James delayed his departure until after he could address his Scottish people, and did so at St Giles Cathedral on April 3, 1603. As quoted by Professor JD Mackie in his book A History of Scotland, James said: “Think not of me as ane King going frae ane part to another but of ane King lawfully callit going frae ane part of the isle to ane other that sae your comfort be the greater.”

There you have James’s thinking in a sentence. He did not just want the crown of England, he wanted a kingdom united under him. As Mackie suggests: “He arrived in England convinced he could effect a complete union of the two kingdoms by force of personality alone.”

As he made his royal progress south, James handed out honours and knighthoods willy-nilly. Privy Councillors and Members of Parliament alike were anxious to see how their new king would act. In treatises such as Basilikon Doron – effectively a manual of kingship written for his son and then heir Prince Henry – James had given an insight into his mindset, and his philosophy of the divine right of kings was already there for all to see.

James brought several close advisers with him from Scotland, most notably the Earl of Mar, and the king made it clear that from the outset – his Privy Council would have Scottish nobles as well as English lords.

Robert Cecil

It was through Cecil and Mar that James first started on his project to create a united kingdom, and one of his first steps was to propose dual citizenship for the people of Scotland and England, which the Privy Council reluctantly accepted.

There’s surely a lesson here for modern Scotland. If King James VI and I more than 400 years ago could propose a system that allowed the ordinary people of England and Scotland to have equal rights on both sides of the Border, why not have the same rights now after independence? After all, we had all been citizens of the European Union for decades before Brexit, so surely some form of international citizenship could be arranged. I forgot something, however. It would require the consent of the English, and in their current mood, that might not be forthcoming.

James was keen to get going but had not yet been crowned. For several months, James I enjoyed the fruits of his new kingship, with hunting expeditions – though lame of foot he was an excellent rider – and glamorous parties, the richness of the Tudor treasures contrasting strongly with the beggarly finances of the Scottish exchequer.

Anne and their children came south in the early summer after she suffered a miscarriage, and both king and queen were crowned on July 25, 1603. It was a low-key ceremony due to an outbreak of plague in and around London, but there were pageants and entertainments, some of them devised by playwright Ben Jonson.

A major problem for James was that he was tens of thousands of pounds in personal debt by 1603. Those knighthoods I mentioned? They were not free gifts. James’s personal jeweller, George Heriot, seems to have devised the “cash for honours” scheme which James utilised over many years and which the Unionist parties at Westminster still undertake to this day. Heriot, whose legacy founded his eponymous school in Edinburgh, was considerably richer than the king and he never quite let James off with his debts.

THE English court seems generally to have welcomed James but not his fellow Scots, who were thought of as coarse and needy. There was further worry when James issued a decree summoning Parliament in early 1604. Why did he need a Parliament? What great plans did he have? Most importantly, how much would the new king cost the lords and commoners?

James knew he needed the support of Parliament to accomplish his great mission of creating a truly united kingdom and he got his way. He made a famous speech at the first meeting in March, 1604, a manuscript of which has survived: “What God hath Enjoyned [sic] then lett noe Man separate; I am the Husband and all the whole Island is My Lawfull Wife, I am the Head, and it is My Body, I am the Shepheard, and it is my Flock.”

He then went on to assert his headship of the Church of England and the Kirk. This provoked a response some weeks later, known as the Apology of the Commons, which was not an apology at all but an assertion of the rights of Parliament – it was so combustible that while it was openly discussed, it was never actually sent to James for fear he might retaliate and send its authors to the Tower.

Parliament did consent to an inquiry into a possible full union that would combine the two parliaments into one and create James’s much desired united kingdom. Showing his intent, in October 1604 he issued a royal proclamation officially altering his title and naming himself King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, something that did not go down well in England or Scotland and presumably not in France or Ireland either.

James was too good a politician to just keep doing unpopular things, however, and in that first year of his reign he ordered that the ongoing war with Spain should be halted, with the Treaty of London ending 19 years of conflict between the two nations. It was not a treaty calculated to impress the English public, many of whom saw it as a humiliating defeat, but it did gain James and the English aristocracy something they devoutly desired – Spain, and thus the rest of Catholic Europe, finally recognised the Protestant monarchy of England and renounced any attempt to forcibly restore Catholicism as the state religion.

Religion would remain a crucial part of James’s reign in both England and Scotland as we shall see next week.

By the end of 1604, Parliament had appointed 44 commissioners to meet with 31 Scottish commissioners appointed by the Three Estates.

Despite the king’s wishes, the commissioners seem to have spent their time finding ways for the full union not to take place and in truth there was just not the enthusiasm for the project that James possessed, so much so that the only real achievement of the joint commission was to repeal the hated Borders Laws that restricted access to both countries. That was only sensible given that they both now had the same monarch.

Both parliaments also accepted that anyone born after James’s accession to the English throne had a common nationality – the first time that anyone could themselves “British citizens”

though in practice, hardly anyone did and nobody signed themselves as such.

James’s attempts to create a Union Flag met with considerable opposition. It was designed and even flew on royal ships but it was never used on a widespread basis and was quietly dropped.

READ MORE: The Battle of Mons Graupius: A victory for the Romans or for the native Caledonians?

Interestingly, given the events of a century later, it was the English Parliament which was much against the Union at that point, while the Scottish Parliament seems at least to have been willing to progress matters. But was we shall see next week, events conspired against James and his desired union, so that the whole issue was binned in 1605.

The ambassador of Venice wrote to the Doge: “The question of the union will, I am assured, be dropped; for His Majesty is now well aware that nothing can be effected, both sides displaying such obstinacy that an accommodation is impossible, and so His Majesty is resolved to abandon the question for the present, in hope that time may consume the ill-humours.”

Alert readers will have noted the date of 1605. Find out next week how hatred of the Scots almost destroyed the Union of the Crowns.