English subsidy of James VI participant James VI and I
A gift with consequences
The sum of money was an annual gift from Elizabeth I of England to James VI of Scotland which remained contingent on him pursuing pro-English policies in Scotland, such as the suppression of pro-Catholic northern Earls of Huntly and Erroll. The situation gave Elizabeth extra leverage in border matters, including the Kinmont Willie affair in 1596, and in Scottish policy towards Ireland.In May 1580, the English ambassador Robert Bowes had reported discussions amongst Scottish supporters of English policy, that Elizabeth's money in Scotland would be "best bestowed on the King only", so binding his nobility to the queen, and that "little matter of importance might be done without her highness' privity". This was thought better than giving pensions to individual Scottish nobles or a particular courtier. The subsidy scheme was the realisation of these suggestions.Elizabeth signalled her disapproval of Scottish policies by keeping James' diplomats and agents waiting in London in the hope of payments and by sending sums amounting to less than James' expectations. One year, James wrote to Elizabeth of the "endless detaining" of his agent Robert Jousie on an errand "turned from one honorable annuity to a voluntary uncertainty with long begging". James more than once reminded Elizabeth and William Cecil of a Latin proverb in favour of prompt payment, bis dat qui cito dat – he that gives quickly gives twice.A formal amount or agreement was never concluded, though £4,000 Sterling, suggested by Elizabeth in March 1586, has sometimes been regarded as the usual figure. The payment was part of the arrangements which led to the Union of the Crowns along with the secret correspondence of James VI. The historian Julian Goodare proposes the word "Subsidy" can better represent the relationship implied by the payments than the loaded historical terms used, "pension", "gratuity", or "annuity". As a gift, the money implied a relationship for which James VI should be grateful. James' English courtier Thomas Fowler wrote that England sent him "a poor pension to make your majesty [James VI] their pensioner to your more disgrace and shame to all princes that knows it".Fowler also wrote that James VI gave "to every one that asks what they desire, even to vain youths and proud fools the very lands of his crown ... Yea, what he gets from England, if it were a million, they would get it from him, so careless is he of any wealth if he may enjoy his pleasure in hunting". James VI gave money away with apparent freedom, but Julian Goodare notes such patronage and largesse was a necessary feature of early modern courts.Fowler was an executor of the English estates of James VI's grandmother, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. Later Archbishop John Spottiswoode would write the subsidy money was compensation for these estates in England. However Julian Goodare finds no evidence for this, and Elizabeth never made a legal declaration or "instrument" regarding continual payment of the subsidy. Francis Walsingham tried to influence Elizabeth to pay the pension by asking a diplomat in Scotland to amplify requests for the money.