From customary to constitutional right: The right to petition in Scotland before the 1707 Act of Union

Bowie, K. (2020) From customary to constitutional right: The right to petition in Scotland before the 1707 Act of Union. In: Bowie, K. and Munck, T. (eds.) Early Modern Political Petitioning and Public Engagement in Scotland, Britain and Scandinavia, c.1550-1795. Routledge, pp. 9-22. ISBN 9780367630003

Abstract

The confirmation of a constitutional, rather than customary, right to petition the monarch in Scotland and England in 1689 has been recognised as an important precedent for modern constitutions, but the underlying forces impelling this historical transition have been less well recognised. The assertion of a constitutional right to petition the Scottish crown appeared after of decades of conflict over increasingly bold forms of collective political petitioning to crown and parliament. These innovations involved ordinary people in organised political protest, stimulating Scotland’s monarchs to block what they considered seditious and tumultuous activity. Standing laws against lese-majesté and unauthorised meetings were deployed to restrict petitioning, despite claims by Scottish dissidents for a customary liberty and natural right to petition. Within the composite British monarchy formed in 1603, England experienced similar but not identical conflicts over participative petitioning, leading both realms to demand in 1689 a right to supplicate the crown without fear of prosecution. Though Scotland’s monarchs still sought to discourage and evade unwelcome petitions, this new right allowed assertive political petitioning to crown and parliament to re-emerge in Scotland, contributing to the formation of British political culture after the Union of 1707.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Additional Information: Book originally published in Dec 2018 as a special issue of the journal Parliaments, Estates and Representation 38(3).
• Keywords: Petitioning, Early Modern Scotland, Scottish Parliament.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bowie, Professor Karin
• Authors: Bowie, K.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9780367630003
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © 2021 International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions/commission internationale pour l'histoire des Assemblées d'États
• First Published: First published in Parliaments, Estates and Representation 38(3): 279-292. Reprinted in Early Modern Political Petitioning and Public Engagement in Scotland, Britain and Scandinavia, c.1550-1795: 9-22
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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