Before 1400 and its
Moot hill emerged as a favoured meeting place of the early colloquia and councils in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Between 1235 and 1286, little can be told with certainty about Parliament's function, but it appears to have had a judicial and political role which was well established by the end of the century. With the death of
Alexander III, Scotland found itself without an adult monarch, and in this situation, Parliament seems to have become more prominent as a means to give added legitimacy to the Council of Guardians who ran the country. By the reign of
John Balliol (1292–96), Parliament was well established, and Balliol attempted to use it as a means to withstand the encroachments of his overlord,
Edward I of England. With his deposition in 1296, Parliament temporarily became less prominent, but it was again held frequently by
King Robert Bruce after 1309. During his reign some of the most important documents made by the King and community of the realm were made in Parliament—for instance the 1309–1310
Declaration of the Clergy. By the reign of David II, the "
three estates" (a phrase that replaced "community of the realm" at this time) in Parliament were certainly able to oppose the King when necessary. Most notably, Parliament repeatedly prevented David from accepting an English succession to the throne. During the reigns of
Robert II and
Robert III, Parliament appears to have been held less often, and royal power in that period also declined, but the institution returned to prominence, and arguably enjoyed its greatest period of power over the Crown after the return of
James I from English captivity in 1424.
15th century , Edinburgh. Usual meeting place of Parliament from 1438 to 1560 By the end of the Middle Ages the Parliament had evolved from the King's Council of Bishops and Earls into a "colloquium" with a political and judicial role. The attendance of knights and freeholders had become important, and
burgh commissioners joined them to form the
Three Estates. It acquired significant powers over particular issues, including consent for taxation, but it also had a strong influence over justice, foreign policy, war, and other legislation, whether political,
ecclesiastical, social or economic. After 1424, Parliament was often willing to defy the King – it was far from being simply a "rubber stamp" of royal decisions. During the 15th century, Parliament was called far more often than, for instance, the
English Parliament – on average over once a year – a fact that both reflected and augmented its influence. It repeatedly opposed
James I's (1424–1437) requests for taxation to pay an English ransom in the 1420s and was openly hostile to
James III (1460–1488) in the 1470s and early 1480s. In 1431, Parliament granted a tax to James I for a campaign in the
Highlands on the condition that it be kept in a locked chest under the keepership of figures deeply out of favour with the King. In 1436, there was even an attempt made to arrest the King "in the name of the three estates". Between October 1479 and March 1482, Parliament was conclusively out of the control of
James III. It refused to forfeit his brother, the
Duke of Albany, despite a royal siege of the Duke's castle, tried to prevent the King leading his army against the English (a powerful indication of the estates' lack of faith in their monarch), and appointed men to the Lords of the Articles and important offices who were shortly to remove the King from power.
James IV (1488–1513) realised that Parliament could often create more problems than it solved, and avoided meetings after 1509. This was a trend seen in other European nations as monarchical power grew stronger – for instance England under
Henry VII, as well as France and Spain.
16th century , common meeting place of Parliament from 1563 to 1639. Like many continental assemblies, the Scottish Parliament was being called less frequently by the early sixteenth century and might have been dispensed with by the crown had it not been for the series of minorities and regencies that dominated from 1513. The crown was also able to call a
Convention of Estates, which was quicker to assemble and could issue laws like parliament, making them invaluable in a crisis, but they could only deal with a specific issue and were more resistant to the giving of taxation rights to the crown. Parliament played a major part in the Reformation crisis of the mid-sixteenth century. It had been used by James V to uphold Catholic orthodoxy and asserted its right to determine the nature of religion in the country, disregarding royal authority in 1560. The 1560 parliament included 100
lairds, who were predominantly Protestant, and who claimed a right to sit in the Parliament under the provision of a failed shire election act of 1428. Their position in the parliament remained uncertain and their presence fluctuated until the 1428 act was revived in 1587 and provision made for the annual election of two commissioners from each shire (except Kinross and Clackmannan, which had one each). The property qualification for voters was for freeholders who held land from the crown of the value of 40s of auld extent. This excluded the growing class of
feuars, who would not gain these rights until 1661. The clerical estate was marginalised in Parliament by the Reformation, with the laymen who had acquired the monasteries sitting as "abbots" and "priors". Catholic clergy were excluded after 1567, but a small number of Protestant bishops continued as the clerical estate. James VI attempted to revive the role of the bishops from about 1600. A further group appeared in the Parliament from the minority of James VI in the 1560s, with members of the Privy Council representing the king's interests, until they were excluded in 1641. James VI continued to manage parliament through the Lords of the Articles, who deliberated legislation before it reached the full parliament. He controlled the committee by filling it with royal officers as non-elected members, but was forced to limit this to eight from 1617. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Parliament began to legislate on more and more matters and there was a marked increase in the amount of legislation it produced. During the reign of James VI, the Lords of the Articles came more under the influence of the crown. By 1612, they sometimes seem to have been appointed by the Crown rather than Parliament, and as a result the independence of parliament was perceived by contemporaries to have been eroded. During the 16th century, the composition of Parliament underwent a number of significant changes and it found itself sharing the stage with new national bodies. The emergence of the
Convention of Royal Burghs as the "parliament" of Scotland's trading towns and the development of the
Kirk's General Assembly after the
Reformation (1560) meant that rival representative assemblies could bring pressure to bear on parliament in specific areas. Following the Reformation, laymen acquired the monasteries and those sitting as "abbots" and "priors" were now, effectively, part of the estate of nobles. The bishops continued to sit in Parliament regardless of whether they conformed to
Protestantism or not. This resulted in pressure from the Kirk to reform ecclesiastical representation in Parliament. Catholic clergy were excluded after 1567 but Protestant bishops continued as the clerical estate until their abolition in 1638 when Parliament became an entirely lay assembly. An act of 1587 granted the lairds of each shire the right to send two commissioners to every parliament. These shire commissioners attended from 1592 onwards, although they shared one vote until 1638 when they secured a vote each. Control of the executive was taken from the Crown, many of the constitutional changes being copied by the English Parliament. However, the Scots were increasingly concerned at their loss of political and economic power since 1603. In an effort to mitigate this, during the 1642–1645
First English Civil War, the Covenanters agreed the 1643
Solemn League and Covenant. One outcome was the creation of the
Committee of Both Kingdoms, a union of English and Scottish parliamentary leaders; opposed by English Royalists and
Oliver Cromwell, it was suspended in 1645. In 1647, the Scots
agreed to restore Charles to the English throne; their failure in the 1648–1649
Second English Civil War led to his
trial and
execution by the English
Rump Parliament and officers of the
New Model Army. Following the execution the Scots accepted
Charles II as king in 1649 but their attempt to put him on the English throne was defeated in the 1649–1651
Anglo-Scots War. As a result, Scotland was incorporated into the
Protectorate (see
Cromwell's Act of Grace and
Tender of Union) and a brief
Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union (1653–1659). An independent Parliament was restored in 1661, sometimes known as the "Drunken Parliament". The term was coined by
John Welsh and he was put in trial for it. The restored body passed the
1661 Rescissory Act, which effectively annulled all Parliamentary legislation since 1633. It generally supported Charles and initially did the same when James succeeded in 1685; when it refused to pass his measures, James suspended it and resorted to rule by decree. The
deposition of James in 1689 ended a century of political dispute by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown. The
Claim of Right which offered the crown to
Mary and her husband
William, placed important limitations on royal power, including the abolition of the Lords of the Articles. It has been argued that unlike its English counterpart, the Scottish parliament never became a true centre of national identity. The
1707 Acts of Union created a combined
Parliament of Great Britain, which sat in Westminster and largely continued English traditions without interruption.
Robert Burns famously claimed Union was brought about by Scots "
bought and sold for English gold" and bribery certainly played a prominent role. However, it was also driven by the same trends the Scots attempted to manage in the 1640s, worsened by the events of the 1690s; this was a time of economic hardship and famine in many parts of Europe, known in Scotland as the
Seven ill years. Combined with the failure of the
Darién scheme in 1698, it allowed
Anne to achieve her great-grandfather's ambition of a unitary state. Parliament was dissolved, 45 Scots being added to the 513 members of the
House of Commons and 16 to the 190 members of the
House of Lords. == Chamber layout ==