Union of the Crowns
[4] In August 1503, James IV of Scotland married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, and the spirit of the new age was celebrated by the poet William Dunbar in The Thrissil and the Rois.
The marriage brought Scotland's Stuarts into England's Tudor line of succession, despite the improbability of a Scottish prince acceding the English throne at the time.
By the middle of Henry's reign, the problems of the royal succession, which seemed so unimportant in 1503, acquired ever larger dimensions, when the question of Tudor fertility or the lack thereof entered directly into the political arena.
[8] From 1601, in the last years of Elizabeth I's life, certain English politicians, notably her chief minister, Sir Robert Cecil,[9] maintained a secret correspondence with James to prepare in advance for a smooth succession.
[10] The approach proved effective: "I trust that you will not doubt", Elizabeth wrote to James, "but that your last letters are so acceptably taken as my thanks cannot be lacking for the same, but yield them you in grateful sort".
[16] In June, James gave Tobias Matthew, Bishop of Durham, orders to travel north from London to meet Anne of Denmark, who was bringing Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth to Windsor Castle.
But James's honeymoon was of very short duration, and his initial political actions were to do much to create the rather negative tone, which was to turn a successful Scottish king into a disappointing English one.
In his first speech to his southern assembly on 19 March 1604 James gave a clear statement of the royal manifesto: What God hath conjoined let no man separate.
In 1589, the Spanish Armada shipwreck survivor Francisco de Cuellar sought refuge in Scotland, as he had heard the Scottish king "protected all the Spaniards who reached his kingdom, clothed them, and gave them passages to Spain".
As god hes heichlie advanceit your Majestie lett Scotland qhilk is ȝour auldest impyir be partakeris of ȝour blissings.Those fears were echoed by the Scottish Parliament, whose members were telling the King that they were "confident" that his plans for an incorporating union would not prejudice the ancient laws and liberties of Scotland; for any such hurt would mean that "it culd no more be a frie monarchie".
[citation needed] The Union Commission made some limited progress, on discrete issues such as hostile border laws, trade and citizenship.
Fears were openly expressed in the Westminster Parliament that English jobs would be threatened by all the poor people of the realm of Scotland, who will "draw near to the Sonn, and flocking hither in such Multitudes, that death and dearth is very probable to ensue".
The ayre might be wholesome, but for the stincking people that inhabit yt ... Their beasts be generallie small (women excepted) of which sort there are no greater in the world.
In enthusing over the good life to be had in the Colony of Virginia, it is observed:[citation needed] And then you shal live freely there, without Sergeants, or Courtiers, or Lawyers, or Intelligencers – onely a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are disperst over the face of the whole earth.
And for my part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there, for wee are all one Countrymen now, yee know; and wee shoulde finde ten times more comfort of them there, then wee do here.Anti-English satires proliferated, and in 1609, the king had an act passed that promised the direst penalties against the writers of "pasquillis, libellis, rymis, cockalanis, comedies and sicklyk occasiones whereby they slander and maligne and revile the estait and countrey of England..."[citation needed] In October 1605 Nicolò Molin, the Venetian ambassador in London, noted that "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".
