Introduction.doc

INTRODUCTION For the first half of the seventeenth century ‘Great Britain’ and Denmark-Norway were bound together through a series of military and mercantile alliances. This book sets out to examine the relations between the royal houses, political institutions and military élites of these two North Sea allies in the period following the union of the British Crowns in 1603. This cannot be done without a glance back to the older alliance between Scotland and Denmark-Norway which resulted from the marriage of James VI of Scotland to Princess Anna in 1589, sister of Christian IV of Denmark-Norway. L. Laursen, and C. S. Christiansen eds, Danmark-Norges Traktater 1523-1750, med dertil hørende aktstykker (11 vols., Copenhagen, 1907-1949), IV, 14. ‘Ægteskabstraktat mellem kong Jacob VI af Skottland og kong Frederik II's datter princesse Anna, 20 August 1589’. In addressing the process by which that association evolved to encompass England and Ireland after 1603, arguments have been raised which challenge the assumption that the only important historical axis for the British Isles thereafter formed itself in a line linking England, France and Spain. This argument builds on previous works such as J. H. Burton, The Scot Abroad (2 vols, Edinburgh and London, 1864); T. A. Fischer, The Scots in Germany (Edinburgh, 1902); T. A. Fischer, The Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia (Edinburgh, 1903); T. A. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden (Edinburgh, 1907); A. F. Steuart, Scottish Influences in Russian History, from the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 19th century (Glasgow, 1913); P. Dukes, A history of Europe 1648-1948: the Arrival, the Rise, the Fall (London, 1985); T. Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in Europe, 1598-1700 (London, 1990). Scotland’s economic and historical links lay in a different direction to those of England, towards the North Sea and Baltic countries. Once James VI assumed the English throne in 1603, a new era for dawned in the foreign policy of the British Isles which centred on his existing Scottish alliance with Denmark-Norway. An appraisal of the relations between ‘Great Britain’ and Denmark-Norway would not be complete without considering the complexities the multiple monarchy brought to the three Stuart kingdoms and the ‘British state’ which the House of Stuart tried to create. From the outset of his reign, Christian IV of Denmark-Norway ruled over a multiple monarchy that included the two main kingdoms, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and a variety of Atlantic possessions. The Copenhagen led monarchy had not faced any significant challenges since Sweden broke free of the Kalmar Union between 1521-1523. Christian IV ruled over a relatively stable polity seldom threatened from within. The situation in the British Isles was not so straightforward. The fledgling Stuart-British entity received various degrees of support from different sections of the communities within Scotland, England and Ireland. Understanding how the British polity was perceived at home and abroad is crucial for the simple reason that, after 1604, no treaty or alliance was made between the House of Oldenburg and Scotland, England or Ireland before the mid-1640s. All international treaties were made with Great Britain and Ireland through the agents of the House of Stuart. For an early example see Anon., Articles concluded at Paris the XXIIIJ of February 1605 stylo Angliæ (London, 1606). What makes this situation more complex is that after 1603 there was no specific treaty made between the King James and Christian IV to deal with the new Stuart kingdoms of England and Ireland. An updated alliance was not made until 1621, and then it was between the kings of Great Britain and Denmark-Norway rather than between the countries. Danmark-Norges Traktater, III, 380-411. ‘Alliance og Handelstraktat mellem Danmark-Norge og Storbritannien, 29 April 1621’ In the interim period, business proceeded between the two monarchs based on the existing Scottish alliance of 1589. English and Irish relations with Denmark-Norway were simply subsumed under a treaty pertaining to the Scottish royal house. The Scottish-Danish Royal Family in England A major problem in the study of British relations with Denmark-Norway after 1603 occurs through a failure to recognise the significance of Scotland and Scotsmen within the overall British administration and agenda of James VI & I. The issues discussed in this section were first published in S. Murdoch, 'The House of Stuart and the Scottish Professional Soldier 1618-1640: A Conflict of Nationality and Identities', in B. Taithe and T. Thornton eds, War: Identities in Conflict 1300-2000 (Gloucestershire, 1998), 38-43. When James moved to England, many Scottish nobles also travelled to London with him, and many received prominent positions in the new Stuart kingdom. An example of Scots dominating the Stuart Court in England is revealed in the unsuccessful experiment to integrate some Englishmen into James's Bedchamber in 1603 which lasted only a year. After that the Bedchamber remained an exclusively Scottish enclave until 1615, when George Villiers was admitted. Such a strong Scottish presence prompted Sir John Holes in 1610 to write that the Scots stood ‘like mountains between the beams of his grace and us’, and indeed some 158 Scots found places in his government and household during his English reign. Quoted in Wormald, 'James VI, James I and the Identity of Britain', in B. Bradshaw and J. Morrill eds, The British Problem, c.1534-1707; State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (London, 1996), 158. For references to the Bedchamber see 157 and 164. Conrad Russell has recently commented on another significant Scottish influence in James's post-1603 government. He noted that the proverbial ‘stroke of the pen’ only worked because the Scottish Privy Council and the Scottish members of the Bedchamber had carefully prepared the piece of paper on which the said mark was to be placed. C. Russell, 'Composite monarchies in early modern Europe: the British and Irish example', in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer eds, Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History (London, 1995), 138-140. In reviewing his reign, Jenny Wormald claims that James ensured that Scotland essentially remained Scottish, but ‘England - or, more specifically, the English capital and the English Court as well as, to an extent, the English government - had been made Anglo-Scottish’. Wormald, 'James VI, James I and the Identity of Britain', 165. Scottish influences on James's administration remained strong after 1603, and not just for Scotland, but also in his political relationship with England which in turn had an impact on British relations with Denmark-Norway. But the strongest link for the House of Stuart’s relations with Christian IV remained the marriage of Anna to James in 1589. Queen Anna added a Danish element and compounded the Scottish influence at the Stuart Court, even after it moved to England. When she arrived in Scotland in 1589, Anna quickly became Scotticised and learned the court language, Scots. DRA, TKUA Skotland A II 4; 25 May, 1595. Johannes Seringius to the Rigsråd; ‘nunc tam scotici loquitur, quam aliqua princeps faemina in hoc regno nata’. She also added a direct link to the continental mainland and her presence facilitated much cross-fertilisation of cultural and political ideas. Thomas Riis has argued that the heyday of contact between Scottish and Danish men of learning followed in the years immediately after she became the Scottish Queen. 0 T. Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot ... Scottish-Danish Relations c.1450-1707 (2 vols., Odense, 1988), I, 125. Anna brought her Scottish and Danish companions with her to England in 1604. The Dane, Anna Kroas, remained the queen’s personal attendant between 1589 and 1619, and other Danish attendants such as her doctor, her chaplain and the official Danish resident remained in her household throughout her life. 1 DNB, I, 440. Wilhelm Below, Danish agent in Britain 1606-1626. Her Scottish companions included Lady Jean Drummond - Anna’s First Lady between 1603 and 1617, and the Countess of Nottingham, Lady Margaret Stuart, daughter of the second Earl of Moray and lady of the Drawing Chamber. The Scots at Anna’s court were not confined to her Court ladies. Her chief maid was one Barbara Abercrombie; her chief gentleman usher was John Stewart; her ‘master cook’ was John Ferris while one of her favourite employees was Malcolm Groat, her ‘musician for Scotch music’. 2 Anna’s attendants at her death are noted in CSPD, 1619-23, 30. See also L. Barroll, 'The Court of the First Stuart Queen', in L. L. Peck ed, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court. (Cambridge, 1991), 199; CSPV, XV, 1613-1616, 5-6; M. Lee Jr, 'James VI’s Government of Scotland after 1603', in Scottish Historical Review, LV, I, no.159, April (1976), 47. Anna never gave up her Scottish attendants or lost the love for Scotland that she had developed in her early years. She even told the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Foscarini, that Scotland ‘seemed to her like her native land’. 3 CSPV, XIII, 1613-1616, 36-7. Antonio Foscarini, 2 September 1613. This seems to be in direct conflict with the claim made by David Stevenson that once out of Scotland, Anna never wished to think of the country again; however, what possible motive could Foscarini have for making up such a remark? See D. Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding. The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh, 1997), 75. The Scottish-Danish dimension of the House of Stuart in England was also strong and maintained by the royal children. Historians have proffered many contrasting views over the personal identity of Charles I which are wide-ranging, simplistic and usually unsatisfactory. Charles is most often regarded simply as an Englishman, Kevin Sharpe advancing the claim that he was ‘the first adult Englishman to succeed to the throne since Henry VIII’. 4 K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (London, 1992), 196. John Morrill suggests that to the Scots Charles was ‘an authoritarian, unfeeling, foreign king’. 5 J. Morrill, 'The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context', in J. Morrill ed, The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context (Edinburgh, 1990), 22. The Scottish view is usually that Charles was either ‘thoroughly anglicised’ 6 A. I. Macinnes, Charles I and the making of the Covenanting movement 1625-1641 (Edinburgh, 1991), 1. Professor Macinnes has subsequently recanted on this point and now accepts that ‘British’ is a far better description for Charles than English. or ‘wholly English’. 7 J. Wormald, 'James VI and I: Two Kings or One?', in History, vol. 68, no 223 (1985), 209. Keith Brown is one of the few to challenge that view and directly call Charles I a Scot. 8 K. M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union 1603-1715 (London, 1992), 99. Perhaps a more interesting evaluation is given by Sir Charles Petrie who argued that Charles was ‘half Englishman and half Scot, [and] it was an irony of fate that made the king an Englishman at Holyrood, and a Scot at Westminster’. 9 C. Petrie, The Letters, Speeches and Proclamations of King Charles I (London, 1935), ix. Gerald Howat adds another hybrid dimension during his discussion of the marriage of the Elector Frederick of the Palatinate to Elizabeth Stuart, Charles's sister. He footnotes her description as an ‘English addition to European Calvinism’ with the incidental comment that ‘in fact, Elizabeth was half-Scottish and half-Danish’. 0 G. M. D. Howat, Stuart and Cromwellian Foreign policy (London, 1974), 18. Fischer also mentions the national identity of the Princess Elizabeth; ‘Was not the queen of the unfortunate King of Bohemia, on whose account the war arose, a Scottish Princess, Elizabeth, born in the old castle of Falkirk and educated in West Lothian among her own people?’, Fischer, Scots in Sweden, 88. The consistent conclusion here would be to transfer the same description to her brother Charles. But Charles is referred to in the same book as an Englishman and English king where ‘king of England’ would have been more accurate and appropriate. On the whole the assessments of Charles's identity are made in spite of either his country of birth or his parentage and upbringing and usually miss out his Danish pedigree all together. Charles continued to receive a Scottish education even in England. The prince had several Scottish tutors including William Alexander, first Earl of Stirling, and Thomas Murray. In his Bedchamber, Charles employed seven Scots grooms but only one Englishman. 1 C. Carlton, Charles I, the personal monarch (London, 1983), 26 and 37; G. E. Aylmer, The King’s Servants: The Civil Service of Charles I, 1625-1642. (London, 1974), 317. Being surrounded by these Scots may have prompted the request from Prince Charles to his father in 1617 ‘to let me see the country where I was born and the customs of it’. 2 Carlton, Charles I, 17. James unfortunately refused and Charles was left with a limited insight into the workings of Scottish government and the traditional relationship between the King of Scots and his subjects. 3 D. Stevenson, 'The English devil of keeping state: elite manners and the downfall of Charles I in Scotland', in R. Mason and N. Macdougall eds, People and Power in Scotland: Essays in Honour of T C Smout (Edinburgh, 1992). Despite this, Charles continued to foster his Scottish friendships and developed close associations which affected the way he thought about Scotland and his relationship to that kingdom. In 1618, a contemporary foreign source wrote that ‘having been born in Scotland and his attendants being mostly Scots, he is naturally more inclined to that nation, a matter which is very distasteful to the English’. 4 CSPV, XV, 1617-1619, 393. Antonio Foscarini’s ‘Relation of England’, 19 December 1618. The Scottish element of Charles's character filtered through in his letters, proclamations and actions. His Scottish identity was expressed in his use of the Scots language and in his repeated identification with the Scottish nation even when in conflict with them. 5 Examples of Charles's Scots writings can be found in several places, especially the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, second series, passim. Non-governmental examples can be found in The Miscellany of The Spalding Club, vol 1 (Aberdeen, 1841), 233. Charles I to The Lords of Session, 16 May 1634, and vol 2 (Aberdeen, 1842), 11. Charles I to Robert Gordon of Straloch, 8 October 1641. For an example of Charles's identification with the Scottish nation from a hostile source see J. F. Larkin ed, Stuart Royal Proclamations volume II: royal proclamations of king Charles I, 1625-1646 (Oxford, 1983), 662-667. Charles I from Whitehall, 27 February 1639, A proclamation and declaration to inform our loving subjects of our kingdom of England of the seditious practices of some in Scotland, seeking to overthrow our regal power under false pretences of religion. ‘We take God and the world to witness, we hold our self forced and constrained to arm, not onely to reclaim them, and to sett our kingly authority right again in that our ancient and native kingdom, but also for the safety of this kingdom [...] Again they say, that some of power in the hierarchie of England have been the cause of our taking arms to invade our native kingdome, and of medling their religion’. It is also worth reiterating that it was during the reign of Charles I that the highest number of Scots held places on the English Council and not during the reign of the more overtly Scottish James. 6 Wormald, 'James VI, James I and the Identity of Britain', 159. In August 1604, Charles left Scotland for London where he continued to foster a close relationship with his Danish mother, staying at her residence for protracted periods of up to several months throughout her life. One contemporary observer, Antonio Foscarini, certainly believed that Anna felt more attached to Charles than she had ever been to her other children and reported as much to the Venetian senate. 7 CSPV, XV, 1617-1619, 393. Antonio Foscarini’s ‘Relation of England’, 19 December 1618. There is ongoing debate about the relationship between Charles and his mother. Charles Carlton suggests that Charles was Anna’s favourite child only because she disliked her other children more than him. See Carlton, Charles I, 7; E. C. Williams, Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI of Scotland, James I of England (London, 1970); P. Gregg, King Charles I (London, 1981) and F. M. G. Higham, Charles I (London, 1932) all provide more sympathetic accounts of the Queen’s nature and her relationship to Charles. Anna taught her children a sense of pride in their ancestry and in doing so must have made them very aware of their Scottish and Danish heritage. 8 Williams, Anne of Denmark, 104. In addition, Charles met his Danish uncles, Duke Ulrik and King Christian IV, on several occasions. 9 The first being on Christian IV's visit to Britain in 1606 recorded in H. R., The most Royall and Hounarable entertainment of the famous and renowned King, Christian the Fourth, King of Denmarke & C. who with a fleet of gallant ships, arrived on Thursday the 16. Day of July 1606 in Tylbery Hope neere Gravesend (Hall Gate, 1606). Anna’s children's awareness of their Danish heritage was revealed in a letter by Princess Elizabeth regarding support for her family in their war with the Holy Roman Empire; ‘The king of Sweden offers as much as can be desired; I woulde my uncle woulde doe soe too; but he is more backwards than so neere a kinsman should be’. Elizabeth Stuart to Sir Thomas Roe quoted in Miss Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart (2 vols., London, 1825), II, 224. See also DNB, I, 437-439. Gregg, King Charles I, 21, 24 and 41. Charles's Danish cousin, Prince Ulrik, also stayed with him incognito in 1630 and Crown Prince Christian (V) likewise allegedly visited him in April 1639. 0 CSPV, XXII, 1629-1632, 435-436. Giovanni Soranzo, 8 November, 1630; CSPV, XXIV, 1636-1639, 544-545. Giovanni Giustinian, 3 June 1639. Charles was also frequently surrounded by Danes from his uncle’s Court and maintained a regular correspondence with his Danish family throughout his life. In addition to Scandinavian influences from Denmark-Norway, Charles spent time in Spain and married the French princess, Henrietta-Maria. European influences on Charles were therefore extremely powerful. Indeed, Keith Brown argues that many of the presumed ‘Anglicisations’ of James and Charles's reigns were in fact European influences arriving in Scotland via the Stuart Court. 1 K. M. Brown, 'Courtiers and Cavaliers: Service, Anglicisation and loyalty among the royalist nobility', in J. Morrill ed, The National Covenant in its British Context 1638-1651 (Edinburgh, 1990), 156. From the age of 4 until the age of 11, Charles was put in the care of Sir Robert and Lady Carey and must also have absorbed from them a perspective on English life impossible to gain from either of his parents. Understanding all the formative elements in the personal identity of Charles Stuart is vital to the interpretation of his later behaviour. Charles's mother was the sister of the reigning Danish monarch, making him Christian IV’s nephew by blood. As the following pages reveal, that relationship was made much of by both Charles I and Christian IV. There has been a consistent failure by historians to adequately determine the identity of King Charles. This is quite remarkable given that such an investigation could go along way in explaining the attitude and actions of the king. Barry Coward, for example, points out that early seventeenth-century England was as remote from the Stuart Court as was Scotland. He has argued that it ‘witnessed the development of a Court culture under the patronage of Charles I, which most articulate English people found alien and abhorrent, and which is inextricably interwoven into the process by which the Crown in the 1630s became politically isolated from the majority of its subjects’. 2 B. Coward, The Stuart Age: A History of England, 1603-1714 (London, 1980), 2. Allan Macinnes has highlighted James's error in denying the Prince’s request to visit Scotland when he tells us that Charles ‘had no appreciation of the ready familiarity between Scottish monarchs and their leading subjects prior to 1603. Charles's concern […] entailed the deliberate distancing of the king from his subjects and, simultaneously, compounded his remoteness from Scotland’. 3 Macinnes, Charles I, 2. Historians from Scotland and England seem to agree that Charles and most of his subjects were not harmonised in their perceptions of each other. The usual Scottish answer is to blame this on the Anglicisation of the king, while many Englishmen accept the same point of ‘distance’, but cannot seem to understand why. Charles Stuart was born neither English nor British, and unless he is to be considered a Scot for the duration of his life, his identity must have, after crossing the Tweed in 1604, evolved into something else. To refer to Charles as a Scottish, Anglo-Scottish or a Scottish-Danish king would be as inaccurate as to call him an English king. Given his upbringing, Charles was in fact the first ‘British’ king of Scotland and England. If both nations found Charles an ‘alien’ king it might be because, for most of his life, that is what he was. He was, however, not alien for being ‘an Englishman at Holyrood and a Scot at Westminster’, but for being king of Great Britain in both. British Political History The failure to appreciate the continued Scottish and Danish elements of the House of Stuart has been one factor in impairing our understanding of relations between Britain and Denmark-Norway. Another factor has been the lack of appreciation of the nature of Scottish political and diplomatic history after 1603. Many studies of British history confuse or integrate Scottish politics and international relations with those of England - or ignore them altogether. This is particularly true of the role of the Scottish Parliament which met on occasions when Charles I exercised his ‘personal rule’ in England. Such meetings of the Scottish Estates could either be with royal permission, as in 1633, or without it such as in 1639 (albeit under the names of The Tables) and 1640 as a fully fledged gathering of the Scottish Estates ‘in defiance of royal prorogation’. 4 Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe, 78; Macinnes, Charles I, 86-89 and 186-189. While the independent actions of the Scottish Parliament are all too often overlooked, a further complication arises because many historians have mistaken prominent Scottish individuals in Denmark-Norway, and indeed elsewhere in Europe, for Englishmen. 5 In one example, J. V. Polisensky wrote that in the year 1600, Prague ‘was full of foreigners, and from England alone there were present at one time three groups of secret agents: one the “official” envoys of Cecil, another the “Essexmen” and a third the Scots from the court of James VI’. See J. V. Polisensky, The Thirty Years’ War (London, 1971), 16. The reasons for this are numerous but one of the most obvious is that many, if not most, printed sources on the subject are often inaccurately translated or indexed, so that where an original document might read ‘Great Britain’ a modern translation often reads ‘England’. The error is applied to the populations of the three Stuart kingdoms, hence Scotsmen become known as English agents, soldiers or diplomats and are therefore presumed to be working for the benefit of England rather than Scotland or indeed greater ‘Britain’. 6 Examples from Danish sources include KCFB, passim. The index of volume 1 describes Robert Anstruther as an ‘Engelsk Gesandt’ yet the text refers to him as a British envoy e.g. footnote 85-87. In the same volume, the very first letter is directed to James VI of Scotland in 1589, yet indexed under ‘Jacob I af England’. A. G. Hasso and E. Kroman, Danish Department of Foreign Affairs until 1770. translated by M. Møller (Copenhagen, 1973), section A II, 7 provides an adequate example of equally erroneous indexing: The ‘Letters from various English Government and Court officials’ 1588-1670 include the important Scots; James King, Lord Eythin and Kerrey (1627), Francis Gordon (1635), Sir George Hay, 1st Earl of Kinnoull (1632), The Lennox Family (1613-24) and Robert Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale (1615-44). This is perhaps best exemplified in the study of English Baltic trade by J. K. Fedorowicz. He noted that 'all three of the agents known to be active in Poland from 1606 to 1642 were Scotsmen, serving the Stuart dynasty more than the English government'. 7 J. K. Fedorowicz, England's Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge, 1980), 17. After making this important point, Fedorowicz returns to the routine notion of a singularly 'English' policy set by King James and specifically singles out two important Scots, Sir Robert Anstruther and Patrick Gordon, as mediators of the 'English' government. 8 Fedorowicz, England's Baltic Trade, 150-151. See also G. M. Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives 1509-1688 (London, 1990), 10-11 and M. P. Jansson, P. Buskovitch and N. Rogozhin eds, England and the North: the Russian embassy of 1613-1614 (Philadelphia, 1994), passim. By so doing he fails to recognise the significance of dynastic diplomacy or the pan-British agenda set by the House of Stuart to which these Scottish diplomats wholeheartedly subscribed. This combination of erroneous labelling and an abundance of Anglocentric historiography has resulted in a belief that there was little or no diplomatic or political relationship between Scotland and other countries. 9 For an argument against Anglocentric history see Murdoch, The House of Stuart and The Scottish Professional Soldier, 38-43. David Stevenson finishes his book on the marriage of James VI and Anna of Denmark with the conclusion that after 1603 ‘the heyday of personal contacts between Scottish and Danish élites was over’ since Scotland no longer had a royal court. 0 Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding, 76. The Danish historian, Thomas Riis, has stated that after 1603 ‘the political relations between the two countries have not been studied, because in most respects British foreign politics furthered the interests of the larger country, viz. England’. 1 Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, I, 8; See also D. Stevenson, The Covenanters: The National Covenant and Scotland (Edinburgh, 1988), 11-16. These statements demonstrate that there is scope for widening the investigation into the post-1603 political relations between Britain and Denmark-Norway - if only to find out if furthering England’s interests was really the intention of the many Scottish diplomats and other individuals operating overseas. Foreign relations were not, in fact, conducted in England’s interests, but in the interests of the House of Stuart, and frequently by Scottish ambassadors such as Sir Robert Anstruther, Sir James Spens, Ludovick Stuart 2nd Duke of Lennox and James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. 2 DNB, XII, 265-267; DNB, XIX, 107-108; S. Murdoch, 'Robert Anstruther, A Stuart Diplomat in Norlan Europe', in Cairn, no. 1, March (1997). Scottish domestic and foreign policy frequently differed from its English counterparts in the seventeenth century, which had a direct impact on the relations between the two kingdoms and continental powers. In one particular major area of disagreement during the reign of James VI & I - the marriage arrangements of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine, Frederick V - the political interests of Scotland challenged those of England. In April 1611, the French ambassador urged the marriage of Elizabeth to Frederick and in doing so he apparently backed Scottish preferences over English ones. Marc’ Antonio Correr noted as much when he wrote to Venice that ‘in this he [the French ambassador] is supported by the Scottish Nation [...] all the same he knows quite well that the desire of the Queen and of the English Nation is against him’. 3 CSPV, XII, 1610-1613, 133-4. Marc’ Antonio Correr, 14 April 1611. The Scots were also backed by intervention from Christian IV who sent Jonas Carisius as early as 1611 to support the match. 4 KCFB, I, 67, Christian IV to Earl of Salisbury, 24 October 1611, and footnote. With French and Danish diplomatic pressure being applied, the Scottish interest eventually won over English desires and the Scottish princess married her German prince in 1613. 5 James's concern at the growing links between France and Spain which led him to believe that such a marriage was necessary can be found in G. P. V. Akrigg ed, Letters of King James VI (London, 1984), 323-325. James VI and I to Sir Thomas Edmondes, 27 August 1612. To counterbalance this Protestant marriage King James sought a Catholic bride for Prince Charles. Initially James considered a marriage of Princess Christina of France to his son. This was dropped in favour of a Spanish match not least because Christina had been the intended bride of the late Prince Henry. 6 Sir Thomas Edmondes prevented James from making a diplomatic blunder by suppressing his instructions since he believed them insensitive so soon after the death of the Prince. James soon after concurred and thanked Edmondes for his discretion. See Akrigg, The Letters of King James, 328-330. James VI and I to Sir Thomas Edmondes. James, thereafter, pursued a Spanish bride for Charles, but after years of frustration attention focused on another French princess, Henrietta-Maria. The Earl of Warwick believed that the English Parliament would never consent to marriage ‘without due consideration for the English [Anglican] religion’ and that further, should Elizabeth Stuart move from Holland to London, James would flee to Scotland and Elizabeth ‘would be left mistress in England’. 7 CSPV, XVIII, 1623-1625, 57. Valerio Antelmi, Venetian Secretary in Florence, 8 July 1623. Alvise Valaresso also heard rumours from the Scotsman, James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, that a French marriage would split the Scots and English, implying Scottish support for the project, or at least for the wishes of their king. 8 CSPV, XVIII, 1623-1625, 414. Alvise Valaresso, 16 August 1624. The French marriage went ahead, and for the second time in James's reign the foreign policy favoured by the Scots won over that of the English, and in both these cases that policy proved crucial to developments across Europe. 9 As Conrad Russell said of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth in particular, ‘it had political consequences which could not be foreseen at the time’. See C. Russell, The Crisis of Parliaments: English History 1509-1660 (Oxford, 1982), 281 and 297-298; E. Thomson ed, The Chamberlain Letters: A selection of letters of John Chamberlain concerning life in England from 1597-1626 (Toronto, 1966), 299-318. When the perceived pro-English policies of Charles I were seen to threaten the integrity of the Scottish nation in 1638, the resulting turmoil eventually led to direct conflict between the two countries. It is a mistake to believe that during that period the two nations pursued similar foreign policies. Rather, both attempted to use their various relationships with other nations to win support for their particular cause, and Scotland proved extremely successful at this. One need only look to the debate in the Swedish Riksråd discussing the support to be given to the Scottish Covenanters rather than the English Parliament or ‘British’ government for evidence of this. 0 SRP, VII, 1637-9, 252-343. June-October 1638. SRP, VIII, 1640-1641, 93-245. July-August 1640. I express my thanks to Dr Alexia Grosjean for these references. She discusses them in far greater detail in A. Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish State; Diplomacy, Military Service and Ennoblement 1611-1660’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1998), 159-173. Other distinctly Scottish orientated support from foreign countries came from Russia towards the end of the seventeenth century. See S. Murdoch, 'Soldier, Sailor, Jacobite Spy; Russo-Jacobite relations 1688-1750', in Slavonica, no. 3, 1, Spring (1997). The formation of the Stuart-British State Despite occasional differences between the agendas of Scotland and England, there were attempts to unite the Stuart kingdoms into a single political entity. James VI & I was determined to use his personal dynastic union of the three kingdoms to push for a more complete political union. Political and peaceful union had already been advocated in the sixteenth century by several Scots, including the historian John Major and the Highland cleric, John Elder. 1 John Major, Historia Majoris Britanniae tam Angliae quam Scotiae (Paris, 1521); John Elder, 'A proposal for Uniting Scotland with England, addressed to Henry VIII', in the Bannetyne Miscellany, I (Edinburgh, 1827); R. A. Mason, Kingship and the Commonweal: Political Thought in Renaissance and Reformation Scotland (East Lothian, 1998), 243-269; Indeed, the concept of a Scottish-British identity found expression in a poem celebrating the birth of Prince Henry in 1594 under the title Principis Scoti-Britannorvm Natalia (Edinburgh, 1594). Yet it was King James who, for the first time, took up the concept of ‘Great Britain’ with any serious prospect of realising it. In April 1604, the English House of Commons received a proposal from James that England and Scotland should henceforth be known as Great Britain, and he proclaimed himself ‘James by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France and Ireland’. 2 J. R. Tanner ed, Constitutional Documents of the reign of James I (Cambridge, 1930), 34. Proclamation of Union, 20 October 1604; See also Akrigg, Letters of King James, 224. He claimed to have chosen the name 'Britain' since it was ancient, already appeared in maps and charts, and was used by previous kings of England though ‘having not had so just and great cause as we have’. 3 Tanner, Constitutional Documents, 34. The Scottish Parliament accepted and adopted the name of Great Britain in its proceedings with the king, albeit reluctantly. At its first meeting after the king’s proclamation, James's new title was in place and no objection was raised to its use during the parliamentary session. 4 APS, IV, 1593-1625. The Scottish Parliament opened on 7th June 1605 as ‘Parliamentum excellenissimi principis Jacobi dei gratia Magne Britannie regis’ 276. This title was used thereafter when referring to the king or queen, though the Scottish Parliament specifically used the titles of the kingdoms in the course of its business. See for instance the ‘Act anent the King’s Prerogative’, 9 July 1606, 281. However, ‘King of Great Britain’ is not necessarily how James was perceived by many of his subjects. His English Parliament rejected the new title, possibly seeing it as a grossly Scottish concept or else simply because they felt it endangered the very integrity of England. Certainly English merchants abroad ignored the new title and continued to describe James as king of England, even when addressing him after the directive to use his British title had been given. 5 See R. M. Meldrum ed, Transactions and facsimiles of the original Latin Letters of King James I of England (VI of Scotland), to his Royal Brother in Law, King Christian IV of Denmark (1977), 33. A petition from the English merchants trading in Stade directed to ‘the High and Mightie Prince James by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.’ included in a letter from James VI to Christian IV, 20 October, 1604. 30-35. It cannot be denied that the 1603 succession of the Scottish House of Stuart was a bitter pill for many Englishmen to swallow. It clearly led to a lingering resentment that lasted into the Cromwellian period. This is vouched for by the attack the institution sustained from Cromwellian propagandists who challenged the whole Stuart succession when they wrote: Observe this also, viz. That forty years were the English under the government of two Scottish kings, even just as many yeares as the Children of Israel did wander in the Wildernesse [...] The difference betwixt them is this, that wee having cast off their king, it is their designe to settle hime upon us againe, by force, they proclaimed him king of Great Brittaine, etc. But wee have more reason to breake this succession, made up of tyranny, cruelty and oppression [...] our late Tyrant king CHARLES [...] by vertue whereof his father K.James, by the unhappy policie of some Courtiers, did obtaine the crowne, who was then attended with a heavy curse, and terrible plague, into England, if it were no more but the weake and unjust title of the usurping pretenders, the English Nation have sufficient cause to cast off this accursed Monarchie. 6 J. L. Philalethes, Old Sayings and Predictions Verified and fulfilled, touching the young king of Scotland and his gued subjects (London, 1651). Reprinted in F. Maclean, A Concise History of Scotland (London, 1983), 132. This clearly shows the opinion of many Englishmen that King James, Charles I and even Charles II retained a Scottish identity nearly fifty years after the House of Stuart had arrived in England. Jenny Wormald argues that James pressed the idea of ‘Great Britain’ as a device to deflect his English subjects’ attention away from that fact. Even today, some English historians ignore where the House of Stuart came from, or in any case trivialise it. Conrad Russell for one argues that as far as the English were concerned, if James ‘chose to be king of Scots in his spare time, that was nothing to do with them’. 7 Russell, 'Composite monarchies in early modern Europe', 146. The alternative way of looking at this of course is that the Scots could go along with the concept of Great Britain so long as that actually meant that Scotland, through the Scottish Royal House, gained in prestige. If this meant that they had to call their Scottish king ‘British’, then so be it. Conrad Russell is not alone in his Anglocentric stance. John Morrill has written that ‘Wales and Scotland were being institutionally and constitutionally Briticised’ and discusses why the Irish were not assimilated to the British state in the same way as the Welsh and Scots. 8 Morrill, 'The British Problem', 3. On 17, Morrill continues that ‘Whatever many Scots and Welsh might wish for their future, they cannot escape a past in which their ancestors in the period in and after that covered by this book were Scots and Britons or Welsh and Britons’. Of course what he neglects to add is ‘English and Britons’. But Morrill, like Russell it seems, has missed the fundamental point. During his reign, James took on possessions in the Americas, claimed Greenland and Spitzbergen from his brother-in-law the king of Denmark-Norway, and even considered the annexation of northern Russia for a time. 9 For James's claims to Greenland and Spitzbergen from his brother in law see DRA, TKUA England A I, 2. James VI & I to Christian IV, 9 October 1621; Meldrum, The Letters of King James, 222-3; CSPV, XV, 1617-1619, 179. Piero Contarini, 21 March 1618. The proposal for the annexation of Russia is discussed in I. Lubimenko, ‘A Project for the acquisition of Russia by James I’ in English Historical Review, XXIX (1914), 246-256; PRO SP91/2, ff.196-199 quoted in S. Konovalov ed, 'Thomas Chamberlayne's Description of Russia, 1631', in Oxford Slavonic Papers, 5 (1954), 107 and 112-116; E. Thomson ed, The Chamberlain Letters. A selection of letters of John Chamberlain concerning life in England from 1597-1626, 209. Letter from John Chamberlain, 29 April 1613; Fedorowicz, England's Baltic Trade, 10; Jansson, et al, eds, England and the North, 64-68. When James VI left Scotland for England, it was not to assimilate Scotland into England under the guise of Britain, it was to assimilate England into his personal portfolio. As Scotland had been for centuries, England, Wales and Ireland were to be institutionally and constitutionally Stuartised. 0 B. Ó Buachalla, 'Na Stíubhartaigh agus an t-aos léinn: cing Séamas', in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 83, c, no.4 (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1983) and B. Ó Buachalla, 'James our true king: the ideology of Irish royalism in the seventeenth century', in D. G. Boyce et al, Political thought in Ireland since the seventeenth century (London, 1993). Dr Eamonn Ó Ciardha kindly brought these references to my attention. See also N. Canny, 'The attempted Anglicisation of Ireland in the seventeenth century: an examplar of British history', in R. G. Asch ed, Three Nations - a common history? England, Scotland, Ireland and British History, c.1600-1920 (Bochum, 1993); R. M. Armstrong, 'Protestant Ireland and the English Parliament 1641-1647' (unpublished PhD thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 1995). More than that, the process initially brought peace and prosperity to all the Stuart kingdoms. This at least was how continental observers saw the Stuart take-over. In 1635 Vincenzo Gussoni wrote of Britain that: The whole island abounds in ports and rivers; the climate is healthy, the country rather hilly than flat, well populated with a people anciently barbarous and fierce, who lived more in the woods than in well ordered and constructed cities. After eight changes of rulers it has now, by recent and final change, become a happy and most flourishing monarchy under the House of Stuart, of Scottish origin. [...] James the native king of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth as the nearest of kin, and thus saw his poor little kingdom enriched and aggrandised by the united vassalage of the three kingdoms. 1 CSPV, XXIII, 1632-1636, 361-370. Relation of England of Vicenzo Gussoni, 13 April 1635. From 1604 onwards, the Stuart monarchs continued to refer to themselves as kings of Great Britain and Ireland even after their hopes for political union had been dashed. But throughout the Union debates, the Scots backed the British experiment. The Marquis of Huntly’s address to James as ‘his most excellent, most michtie and imperiall Majesty, king of Greit Britain, France and Yrland’ in 1607 encapsulates well the Scottish hopes for next stage of the British project after the Union of Crowns. 2 Abbotsford Club, Letters and State Papers during the reign of king James the sixth chiefly from the manuscript collections of Sir James Balfour of Demlyn (Edinburgh, 1837), 99-100 and 122-123. Even after the collapse of the Union project in 1608 it was left to Scotsmen to continue to promote 'Great Britain' at home and abroad, regardless of the attitude of the English Parliament. This they managed quite successfully throughout the reign of King James although the change in title could often confuse James’s European neighbours. For example, in a German broadsheet from 1621, King James is portrayed as king of Great Britain, France, Scotland and Ireland. J. R. Paas, The German Political Broadsheet 1600-1700 (Wiesbaden, 1991), III, 73. The confusion was passed on Charles I who was also portrayed as king of Great Britain, France, Scotland and Ireland. See ibid., IV, 213. This tells us that, in some circles, Great Britain was understood to mean England. In other words, Britain was not seen to be a composite monarchy, but it was simply assumed that England had changed her name to Britain while Scotland remained a separate entity. In 1627, Gustav II Adolf of Sweden requested that he be allowed to levy troops in England, Scotland, Ireland and Great Britain suggesting he was not entirely sure what Great Britain meant. SRA, Anglica I/IV, f.44. Gustav II Adolf to James Spens, 21/31/March 1627. However, it was not just the British title that caused confusion. In one Russian document from 1617, James is referred to as King of England, Scotland, France, Hibernia and Ireland. Not only does this show the Tsar or his advisors believed Hibernia and Ireland to be two separate places, but also that in Russia the British message had simply not been pressed home accurately by the English diplomats there. S. Konovalov, ‘Seven Russian Royal Letters (1613-23)’ in Oxford Slavonic Papers, 7 (1957), 23. Tsar Mikhail to King James, August 1617. I would like to thank Carol Mackillop for translating the Russian for me. Amongst all this diplomatic confusion, most Englishmen had little choice but to tolerate the change of title of the monarch as the king insisted that all his diplomats and allies use his British title. Yet even on the very day of King James’s death in 1625, certain Englishmen saw a chance to reinstate the name of England. Thomas, Earl of Kellie noted that within half an hour of the king’s death: Morton and Rosborowche, went to the Prince and dispatched a letter. The subject did not dislyke me, but not to acquent us with it was not weill done; but if I had not bein at the Counsell at the very instant, the proclamatione had past in sutche termes that theye had pitt in Ingland before Scotland. But I remembered them our leat Master had done sume thing upone that subject for the Unione in calling it Great Britain, whitche all the consell and nobillmen yieldet too freelye, nather was I earnest in desyring it, but tould them that if theye did soe we would do the lyke in Scotland; whereupon it was resolved it shuld be Great Brytane. And withall if I had not direktlye gone to my Lord of Morton thaye had send you worde to have pitt Scotland first, and not Great Britane, whitche wold have mated all when it had bein knowen heir. 6 H. Patton ed, HMC Supplementary Report on The Manuscripts of the Earl of Mar and Kellie (London, 1930), 226. Despite this attempt by Kellie to save the idea of ‘Great Britain’ at the start of the reign of Charles I, the notion of a single polity lost favour in Scotland soon after. In 1630, the Scottish Privy Council commanded Sir John Scott, the Director of the Chancellery, to avoid the usage in treaties after the Stuart Court had advocated a common fisheries project which overrode the rights, privileges and vested interests of the Scottish landed and commercial classes in Scotland. 7 Macinnes, Charles I, 108-113. Scott believed the term ‘Great Britain’ misrepresented Scotland and England which he argued were ‘twa free and distinct estates and kingdomes and sould be differenced by thair particular names and not confoundit under the name of Great Britane’. 8 RPCS, second series, IV, 56-57. Several other contemporary Scottish sources describe Charles Stuart’s realms without mention of ‘Britain’. In one such case he is described as ‘oighre nan tri rioghachdan’ See the poem ‘An Cobhernandori’ (1648). Allan Macinnes discusses this poem in detail in his article 'The First Scottish Tories?', in The Scottish Historical Review, LXVII, no. 138 (1988), 56-66. See also C. O Baoill ed, Gair nan Clarsach: The Harper’s Cry, An Anthology of Seventeenth Century Gaelic Poetry. Translated by M. Bateman (Edinburgh, 1994), 116-120. Charles's various wars are described by Niall MacMhuirich in ‘The Book of Clanranald’, as ‘cogagh sa na tri Rioghachtuibh’ see J. Kennedy and A. MacBain eds, Reliquae Celticae (2 vols., Inverness, 1894), II, 176. The Council continued that: The Lords of the Secreit Counsell recommends to the commissioners anent the treatie of associatioun for a common fishing with England to represent to our soverane Lord the predudice whiche this kingdome susteanes by suppressing the name of Scotland in all the infeftments, patents writts and records thairofe passing under his Majesteis name and confounding the same under the name of Great Britane, altho there be no unioun as yitt with England nor the style of Great Britane receaved there, bot all the public writts and records of that kingdome ar past his Majesties name as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland; and thairfoir humblie to intreate his Majestie to give warrand to his Majesteis Counsell that all infeftments, patents, letters and writts passing herafter under his Majesteis name be conceaved under the name and style of Scotland, England, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, and that the style of Great Britane be forborne. 9 RPCS, second series, IV, 56-57. This instruction from the Scottish Privy Council is symptomatic of a general distancing by Scottish institutions from Stuart politics which would eventually lead to the Bishops’ Wars and the temporary demise of the Stuart-British political state. Agents of the British State The various debates over seventeenth-century ‘Britain’ and ‘Britishness’ are lengthy and as yet unresolved. 0 C. Russell, 'The British Problem and the English Civil War', in History, 72, no.236, October (1987); Morrill ed, The National Covenant; Asch ed, Three Nations - a common history?; Grant and Stringer eds, Uniting the Kingdom?; Bradshaw and Morrill, The British Problem; C. Russell, The Fall of the British Monarchies 1637-1642 (Oxford, 1991). John Morrill has argued that ‘the British Isles existed as a geographical term; but there was no term for, and no concept of, a single polity, entity, state incorporating the islands of Britain and Ireland’. 1 Morrill, 'The British Problem', 5. For the majority of the subjects of the intended British state, that may well have been the case. Yet, despite the lack of recognition for the new title and the failure of ‘union’ plans, mutual citizenship for James's Scottish and English subjects born after he gained the English throne was eventually agreed in 1608. 2 Tanner, Constitutional Documents, 24. The judges in this debate concluded that a king with multiple kingdoms could only have one ‘ligeance’ and that anyone born within the king’s ‘ligeance’ was his natural-born subject, and no alien in the others. It follows then that, by English law, this judgement must also have made ‘post-nati’ Irishmen simultaneously citizens of both Scotland and England. So long as the citizens of these nations remained within the British Isles, there was little confusion about their national identity. However, once outwith the British Isles a Scottish, Irish or English diplomat or agent found that he represented none of these nations but the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland and the short-hand term for the polity was often Britain. The establishment of a single polity had important political implications in foreign relations. The Englishman Joseph Averie, Stuart chargé d’affaires in Hamburg, noted that the diplomatic treaties that existed between Denmark-Norway and the Stuart kingdoms were ‘agreements between kings’ and not between national legislative bodies. 3 PRO SP 75/16, f.25. Averie to Roe, 1/11 March 1641. This view received support from Edinburgh when Field Marshal Alexander Leslie tried to broker a confederation between Great Britain and Sweden through his old friend Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna in Stockholm. Leslie saw the federation in terms of one between Charles I and Queen Christina, ‘sanciri possit artissimum foedus inter Regem nostrum et Reginam Sveciae’ and thus the confederation, through the person of Charles I, would encompass all his realms and subjects. 4 RAOSB, II, 9, 486-488. Alexander Leslie to Axel Oxenstierna, 4 October 1641. In diplomatic terms, Charles embodied the polity of Great Britain and Ireland, albeit that ratification of such a confederation would require the assent of the Scottish Estates and the English Parliament. Perhaps because Scotsmen, Englishmen and Irishmen worked for the same employer abroad, the concept of a single ‘British state’ did emerge among many members of the expatriate community, especially among Scotsmen. Lieutenant-General James King stated this most explicitly in 1641 when he wrote that ‘Briteannia ist mein patria, darin ich geborn sey’, revealing that he had a distinct concept of and attachment to a single British political entity. 5 RAOSB, IX, 958-961. James King to Axel Oxenstierna, 9/19 July 1641. Other Scots made reference to the single state of Great Britain. Sir Robert Anstruther came from Fife in Scotland and also had a strong connection to England through his marriage to a daughter of Sir Robert Swift. Perhaps because of his familial ties, he found no problem in serving the combined Stuart nations as a single polity in his diplomacy. He certainly demonstrated this attitude when he wrote in April 1630 to the Englishman, Lord Dorchester, on the matters ‘betwixt our state [Great Britain] and this king [Christian IV]’. 6 PRO SP 75/11, f.70. Anstruther to Dorchester, 24 April 1630. A very positive reference to Anstruther and his relationship to Swift can be found in John Taylor's The Pennyless Pilgramage (1618), printed in full in P. Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978 reprint), 129. This is a clear example of a Scotsman writing to an Englishman about the single political entity to which Anstruther believed they both belonged. In military parlance as well we find the belief in a unitary political entity. In Henry Brereton's description of the Swedish army in Russia, from 1610 to 1614, we find reference to 'the memorable occurrences of our owne National forces, English and Scottes, under the Pay of the now King of Swethland'. 7 H. Brereton, Newes of the present Miseries of Rushia: Occassioned By the late Warres in that Countrrey […] together with the memorable occurrences of our owne National forces, English, and Scottes, under the Pay of the now King of Swethland (London, 1614). Robert Baillie, subsequently Principal of Glasgow University, must also have believed in some form of entity strong enough to field a unified fighting force. When talking about the restoration of the Palatinate in the 1640s, he noted ‘that if the Swedds and confederats can keep the fields till the nixt Spring, it is lyke the British Army may appear in Germany for some better purpose than hitherto’. 8 D. Lang ed, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, Principle of the University of Glasgow MDCXXXVII-MDCLXII (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1841), I, 357. 15 July 1641. Englishmen employed in Stuart business abroad routinely found themselves working for Scotland or the Scottish interest. On one occasion this saw Joseph Averie acting on behalf of a Scottish privateer, Captain Robertson, via an envoy of the Scottish Privy Council, Mr Colville, on the orders of the English Secretary of State. 9 PRO SP 75/16, ff.233 and 235. Averie to Coke, 2/12 and 31 December 1634. To an astute businessman like Averie this would not have seemed a paradox. He could liken Scotland and England to subsidiaries of a single overarching institution, the House of Stuart - his own employer. Confirmation of Averie’s belief in a single polity can be found in his description of the Swedish campaign in Germany. In a letter detailing the success and exploits of Lieutenant General Patrick Ruthven, a Scotsman, Averie lamented ‘how poore a recompentce those of our nation are like to receive for their true and faithful service to the Crowne of Sweden’. 0 PRO SP 75/16, f.270. Averie to Coke, 12/22 November 1635; PRO SP 75/16, f.303. Averie to Coke, 12/22 March 1636. Knowing General King as he did, when Averie said our nation he can only have meant the ‘British nation’ in an early example of the plural identity common in the United Kingdom today. Loyalty or association with the House of Stuart aside, certain diplomatic situations sometimes led Stuart agents to work beyond the remit of their ‘British’ employment. The reason was simply that in many areas the agendas of the House of Stuart and Great Britain were not always the same. Sir John Coke, the English Secretary of State, provided evidence for this when he observed that Christian IV would use his credit and power to help restore Charles Louis, Prince Palatine, because of ‘the ancient interest betwixt these two Houses’. 1 PRO SP 75/13, f.88. Coke to Anstruther, 25 September 1633. The politics surrounding the German electorate of the Palatine were not directly a Scottish, English or Irish issue, but Charles Louis was Charles Stuart’s nephew (and great nephew of Christian IV). The English Secretary of State clearly acknowledged that this was a fundamental issue for the House of Stuart. That fact in itself did not make the Palatinate a British concern. However, it did draw the component nations of the multiple Stuart monarchy into the wider circle of European politics through the person of the constitutional head of state, the Stuart king. Non-Regal Relations Having established the strong Scottish, and indeed Danish, credentials of the House of Stuart, there are still further complicating factors to be addressed before proceeding with this study of Stuart-Oldenburg relations. While Denmark-Norway consistently prosecuted her foreign policy via the agents of the House of Oldenburg, the same cannot be said of Scotland, England, Ireland or Great Britain. Between 1603 and 1661, the House of Oldenburg agreed a series of treaties with the House of Stuart (1621, 1625, 1639, 1640 and 1661). 2 Danmark-Norges Traktater, IV, 14, 380 and 638; V, 119 and 217. However, during the same time period they also held official diplomatic negotiations with the representatives of institutions directly opposed to, and/or in open arms against, the House of Stuart. During the Bishops Wars (1639-1640) between the Scottish Covenanters and Charles I, the Scottish Estates received ambassadors from Christian IV and sent their own ambassador to Copenhagen. 3 PRO SP 81/46, f.51. Christian IV to Roe, 18/28 January 1639; CSPV, XXIV, 1636-1639, 512. 25. Giovanni Giustinian, 25 March 1639; DRA, TKUA Scotland A I, 4. f.79a. Scottish Estates to Christian IV, 24/14 April 1640; DRA, TKUA Scotland A I, 4. f.79b. Christian IV to the Scottish Estates, 10 November 1640. From 1643 to 1646, the Parliaments of Scotland and England formed a pan-British council, the Committee for Both Kingdoms, which met to discuss domestic and foreign concerns which affected both Scotland and England. 4 This committee called itself Concilii Amborum Magnae Britanniae, a clear example of confederation in a British context. See DRA, TKUA A I, England. Charles I to Christian IV, 30 June 1645. See also the letters from the Committee to Sweden contained in SRA, Anglica 521, May 1645 to May 1647. However, as the council representing the two legislatures met, the constitutional British head of state, Charles I, sent his own ambassadors to Denmark-Norway to try to win support against the British parliaments. Nonetheless, Christian IV concluded a personal treaty with the English Parliament in 1645 despite his alliance with the House of Stuart. 5 DRA, TKUA England II 15, f.49b. A printed version in English can be found in M. Sellars ed, The Acts and Ordinances of the Eastland Company (London, 1906), 159-165. Frederik III also conducted negotiations with the English Parliament between 1649 and 1653 and concluded a confederation with the English Protector, Oliver Cromwell, in 1654 after he assumed power from the English Parliament. 6 Danmark-Norges Traktater, V, 134. 15 September 1654. That was despite the attempt of Charles II to invoke 'the ancient amity and alliance between your Majesty's [Frederick III] dominions and the Crown of Great Britain' in 1649. 7 HMC, Report on the Pepys Manuscripts preserved at Magdalene College, Cambridge (London, 1911), 249-251. Charles II to Frederik III, February 1649. On the departure from politics of Richard Cromwell, the English Parliament once more entered negotiations until the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 who, in turn, re-negotiated his own confederation with Denmark-Norway on behalf of the Stuart kingdoms. Given the above perspective, it becomes clear why it is impossible to talk in the usual simplistic terms of Scottish-Danish, Anglo-Danish, or even British-Danish relations after 1603. Instead, this book seeks to address all the main contesting political interests within the British Isles wherever they impacted on the relationship between the various Stuart and Oldenburg kingdoms within that period of history. How successful it is in doing so will be for others to decide. PAGE 14 Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart 1603-1660 PAGE 15 Introduction