frequently enabled to keep out of view all those topics of discussion which he wished to avoid, and to seize a convenient opportunity for introducing those measures which he was eager to carry. It appears, indeed, that the lords of the articles had not an absolute negative upon the deliberations of parliament, but that the members of that assembly were at liberty, of their own proper motion, to suggest whatever subjects they might think proper. But such a mode of proceeding was a deviation from the usual course of business, uniformly discouraged and reprobated by the king and his ministers, and was not likely to be often proposed, or insisted on, by a set of rude barons, more distinguished for valour in the field, than for address and penetration in the senate.

t

Notwithstanding this expedient however, which bestowed upon the sovereign such a manifest advantage in managing the deliberations of parliament, the super-eminent power of the nobility is every where discernible in the proceedings of that assembly, and in all the departments of government.

It was the practice in England, as I had for

merly occasion to observe, that an act of parliament should proceed upon a petition from the two houses to the sovereign, requesting that some grievance might be redressed, or some branch of the public administration altered. This humble and respectful mode of proceeding never had place in Scotland, where we see the national council holding a very different language. They assume a dictatorial tone ; avow the enactment of laws by their own authority; and even frequently ordain, without ceremony, that the king shall carry their measures into execution.

Thus, in a statute made in the reign of James the First, it is said, "the parliament has deter"mined and ordained, that our lord the king "shall gar (cause to) mend his money, and gar strike it in like weight and fineness to "the money of England

46

*”

In another statute, the parliament ordains, that the king shall command the judges to distribute justice impartially between the poor and the rich, and that he shall rigorously punish those who do otherwise †.

Parl. 1. ch. 25. Black Acts. + Ibid. ch. 49.

In the reign of James the second, the three estates order, that courts shall be held at certain seasons throughout the kingdom; and that the king himself shall be in each town, when the court is held, or near it, where his council thinks fit. The three estates have also concluded, that the king shall ride through the realm when information is received that rebellion, slaughter, or other atrocious crimes, have been committed, and shall cause immediate cognizance thereof to be taken*.

In the reign of James the third, the lords, understanding that there has been great sloth in the execution of the laws relative to bringing in and keeping the bullion, so as to occasion great scarcity thereof, they require, that the king shall put the statutes on that subject sharply in execution, and shall appoint true and able searchers for the time to come†.

The style of the legislature was gradually softened and varied in later times; but the custom of passing statutes in the name of the three estates of parliament is continued occasionally.

* Ja. II. ch. 5. and ch. 6. Black Acts.

† Ja. III. ch. 80.

through the reigns of James the third, of James the fourth, and of James the fifth*.

The course of parliamentary business in England, by which every bill passed through both houses in the form of a petition to the sovereign, produced, of necessity, a negative in the crown; for a petition would have no force unless when granted by the person to whom it was addressed. But in Scotland, where statutes were enacted by the general authority of parliament, there was no foundation for this controuling power of the monarch. As parliament in that country was not divided into two houses, the king does not appear to have constituted a separate branch of the legislature. He seems to have been originally regarded as the president of that assembly, and his voice to have been included in its general determinations. In the early history of the Scottish parliament, we meet with no traces of the interposition of the royal negative upon bills; the style and tenure of those transactions is, at the same time, utterly repugnant to any such idea; and there occur

* See instances of this, Ja. III. ch. 130. ch. 131. ch. 132. Ja. IV. ch. 37. ch. 82. Ja. V. ch. 4. ch. 102.

instances of statutes which are known to have been enacted in direct opposition to the will of the crown. The religious reformation which took place in the reign of Mary, derived its authority from an act of the legislature, to which the assent of the queen, or of her husband, the king of France, was never obtained, but which does not appear, either at that time or afterwards, to have been considered, on that account, as defective*.

The Scottish house of parliament had thus the uncontrouled power of legislation. It exercised also the exclusive privilege of imposing taxes, together with that of directing their application to the particular purpose, and of superintending the expenditure of the money. It was accustomed to determine peace and war; to regulate the forces; to appoint governors of the fortresses in the kingdom; and to make provisions for arming the people, and for training them up to the use of arms.

* See the political publications about the time of the Union.

+ See particularly a discourse on the Union of Scotland and England, published 1702; also an historical account