Jacobean debate on the Union
Legislation was produced, north and south of the border by costive parliamentary debate from 1604 to 1607, but it was limited in scope, mainly removing hostile laws.
While jurists and religious figures supported a deeper union, the envisaged process stalled, and incompatibilities of the English and Scottish societies became more apparent.
This dynastic union did not take place, despite The Rough Wooing; but it produced a pro-union literature, notably in works written by the Scots John Elder and James Henrisoun, and the Englishmen William Patten and Protector Somerset.
[2][3] The idea was revived in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England, with the project of her marriage to James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran, heir presumptive to the Scottish crown.
[7] A full commercial and customs union was seen as against English interests; and Savile mentioned that Scotland would retain trading advantages with France.
They consisted of various groups: the "court party" in politics, for whom Francis Bacon was the leading spokesman, with allied courtiers; publicists; jurists; and interpreters of prophetic and apocalyptic writings.
[14] John Thornborough, bishop of Bristol, published A Discourse plainly proving the evident Utility and urgent Necessity of the desired happy Union of England and Scotland (1604);[15] the House of Commons believed the work reflected badly on their proceedings, and reprimanded him.
[18] The English civilian John Cowell wrote Institutiones juris Anglicani (1605), on the perceived obstacle to full union, the common law.
He particularly detested the "Description of Britain" of William Harrison, prefaced to the Holinshed's Chronicles, which made a claim of English lordship, and slurred the ancient Scots.
[22] Scottish lawyer John Russell (c.1550–1612) wrote and circulated a long manuscript work Treatise of the Happie and Blissed Unioun.
[23][24] The union of the crowns fed into a tradition of prophetic interpretation of political events, both secular (going back to the Prophetiae Merlini) and biblical.
[26] Union was defended in particular by John Lewis of Llynwene, in a multi-book The History of Great Britain, not published until the 18th century when Hugh Thomas edited it from a manuscript, but circulated with the King's approval; it drew on Richard White of Basingstoke as well as traditional sources.
The use of "Great Britain" as a title of the kingdom as united by James was considered to reference Brutus of Troy, of the Anglo-Welsh traditional foundation myth.
Thomas Brightman began a process of decoupling "imperial" and "apocalyptic" themes of the end times, in the Anglican context where Foxe had linked them strongly.
[41] Particularly the target of parliamentary tactics by Sandys, the bill to ratify the proposed treaty was bogged down for over two years, and in mid-1607 the Parliament of England passed only a much mutilated form (4 Jas.
[40] It included Alexander Livingstone, 1st Earl of Linlithgow, and a group from it was at court (Whitehall Palace in the London area) from October to December that year.
[46] A notably disingenuous tactic of Sandys, to argue that only a "perfect" union should be accepted, was decisive in this session by its blocking of incremental progress.
[53] The long descriptive poem Poly-Olbion by Michael Drayton was belated in terms of its contribution to the union debate, but is now seen as engaging in British and Saxon history at a local level.
[55] Sir William Maurice proposed in the Commons in 1604, and again in 1606, that James should adopt the title "Emperor of Great Britain", an unpopular idea.
