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Not surprisingly, James was more concerned with English matters of state than Scottish. As an absentee monarch, he developed a system of what was known a ‘government by the pen’. As he put it in a speech to the English Parliament in 1607,
Here I sit and govern it [Scotland] with my pen, I write and it is done, and by the Clerk of the Council I govern Scotland now, what others could not do by the sword.
But while English affairs took up most of his time, James did not completely ignore his native land. Indeed, James set himself a number of objectives as absentee monarch, all of which were designed to increase his power north of the border:
Bring about an end to the lawlessness in the Border and Highland regions of Scotland and quell rebellion in Ireland.
Find a way of settling differences with the Kirk.
Make Great Britain a reality.
The third objective proved trickier than the other two.
Law and order
James had a pretty low opinion of the Scots, particularly of the Highlanders, as he makes clear in
Basilikon Doron:
[Those] dwelleth in our mainland, that are barbarous for the most part, and yet mixed with some show of civility; the other, dwelleth in the Isles, and are utterly barbarous, without any show of civility.
Indeed, although his tutor George Buchanan was a native Gaelic speaker, it was the fashion at his court in Scotland to ridicule Gaelic culture and the Irish legends of the kings of Scotland.
He used his newfound wealth and power to crush the lawless spirits in the Scottish Highlands. Feuding, cattle stealing and extortion were all part and parcel of everyday life in the north. In fact, the word
blackmail
derives from the protection rackets used by the Highland clans to coerce Lowland farmers into providing black meal in return for a guarantee not to steal animals from them.
To extend his authority in the region, James made an example of the MacGregor clan, who held lands from Argyll to Perthshire and were well-known thieves. In 1602, they stole 300 heads of cattle, 100 horses and 400 sheep from the Colquhoun clan. The following year, they slaughtered 200 of the Colquhouns in a battle. James had the MacGregors hunted down like dogs.
But James realised that he could not achieve a stable society in the Highlands and Islands through force alone. So, in 1609, he ordered Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles, to hold a meeting with some of the main clan chiefs. The outcome of the deliberations was known as the Statutes of Iona. Under the terms of the agreement, Highland chiefs were to dispense with ‘Irish ma
This policy was extended to Ireland. James believed that colonising Ulster would quell the rebellion that had been engulfing the province for nine years and win over the ‘rude and barbarous Irish’ to ‘civility’ and Protestantism. Catholic landowners found their lands confiscated and Protestant settlers from England, Scotland and Wales replaced them. This was the begi
The Scottish Borders, or the ‘middle shires’ as the king preferred, notorious for
reiving
(robbing), were also to be pacified. In 1605, a commission comprising five Englishmen and five Scotsmen was set up to police the Border areas. On the Scottish side, Sir William Cranston had a force of 25 mounted police, who were remarkably successful in bringing law and order to the region. More than 140 Border reivers were hanged in the first year of operations.
Kirk and king and nation
James considered himself a Protestant but he had no time for the militants within the Scottish Church. (He once remarked to a delegation of Presbyterians, ‘I give not a turd for your preaching’!) What he wanted was a more manageable Church like that in England of which he was the head. So, his plan was to Anglicise the Scottish Church. This was a double whammy – not only would he have a less Bolshie set of clerics to deal with, but by uniting the Churches of the two nations, James would lay the platform for further integration, eventually leading to a united Great Britain: one king, one kingdom.
By 1610, James had increased the number of bishops in Scotland to 11 and set up what was known as the Courts of High Commission to enforce ecclesiastical law on the English model. The arrangement worked rather well – the Church in Scotland could be at one and the same time Presbyterian and Episcopalian (bishops).
Most Scots were happy with the situation, but James went a bit too far for their tastes when, on his only visit to the country in 1617, he a
Communion to be received kneeling
Observance of Holy Days like Christmas and Easter
Confirmations to be carried out by bishops and not ministers
Communion to be allowed in private for the sick and infirm
Baptism to be allowed in private
The first article smacked of popery to many Scots because the practice had been to receive communion sitting around a table in imitation of the Last Supper. The General Assembly that met in Perth in 1618 at first rejected them, but they were bullied by the king into accepting them (although many ministers refused to implement them). This got the king very angry, and the General Assembly didn’t meet again for another 20 years. The Scottish Parliament was also reluctant to ratify the Articles; it took three years of persuasion before the Parliament did so, in 1621.
James may have seen a united Church as a major step on the road to complete union between Scotland and England, but he was not prepared to send an army north (unlike his successor, Charles I) to enforce the Articles. At the end of the day, James was a pragmatic ruler who realised that persuasion was more effective than force in bringing about changes. But he didn’t live long enough to achieve his goal. He died on 27 March 1625 during a violent attack of dysentery. He had been a reigning monarch for around 50 years, but what kind of monarch?
Unusually for a monarch then or since, James was an intellectual who spoke several languages and was responsible for the development of the idea of the divine right of kings to rule. He was also a consensual ruler who tried to integrate all shades of opinion. Of course, he had his favourites, like George Villiers (later Earl of Somerset) and Robert Carr (later Duke of Buckingham), but he made sure they never dominated decision-making. Indeed, when faced with opposition, James worked to find a compromise rather than resort to brute force.
But even though he preferred peace to war, that did not stop James from using the sword when dealing with those he considered responsible for lawlessness in the Borders and the Highlands. The fading out of blood feuds in Scotland can also be put down largely to the actions of the king. Like most monarchs, he was vain and his ma