page_title: Government in early modern Scotland
section_title: Law
hierarchical_section_title: Government in early modern Scotland / Law
caption_attribution_description: English: The Great Window, comprising 8,000 pieces of stained glass covering an area of 390 square feet, was installed in Parliament Hall in 1868. It depicts the founding of the College of Justice in 1532 and shows King James V presenting the Charter of Institution and Confirmation granted by Pope Clement VII to the first Lord President. On the right of James sits his mother Queen Margaret, widow of King James IV. The glass was designed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach and executed by Maximilian Ainmiller of Munich.
context_page_description: Government in early modern Scotland included all forms of administration, from the crown, through national institutions, to systems of local government and the law, between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. It roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Monarchs of this period were the Stuarts: James IV, James V, Mary Queen of Scots, James VI, Charles I, Charles II, James VII, William III and Mary II, Anne, and the Hanoverians: George I and George II.
  The crown remained the most important element of government throughout the period and, despite the many royal minorities, it saw many of the aspects of aggrandisement associated with "new monarchy" elsewhere in Europe. Theories of limited monarchy and resistance were articulated by Scots, particularly George Buchanan, in the sixteenth century, but James VI advanced the theory of the divine right of kings, and these debates were restated in subsequent reigns and crises.
context_section_description: In the late Middle Ages, justice in Scotland was a mixture of the royal and local, which was often unsystematic with overlapping jurisdictions, undertaken by clerical lawyers, laymen, amateurs and local leaders. Under James IV the legal functions of the council were rationalised, with a royal Court of Session meeting daily in Edinburgh to deal with civil cases. In 1514 the office of justice-general was created for the earl of Argyll (and held by his family until 1628). The study of law was popular in Scotland from the Middle Ages and many students travelled to Continental Europe to study canon law and civil law. In 1532 the Royal College of Justice was founded, leading to the training and professionalisation of an emerging group of career lawyers. The Court of Session placed increasing emphasis on its independence from influence, including from the king, and superior jurisdiction over local justice. Its judges were increasingly able to control entry to their own ranks. In 1605 the professionalisation of the bench led to entry requirements in Latin, law and a property qualification of £2,000, designed to limit the danger of bribery, helping to create an exclusive, wealthy, powerful and professional caste, who also now dominated government posts in a way that the clergy had done in the Middle Ages. In 1672 the High Court of Justiciary was founded from the College of Justice as a supreme court of appeal. The Act of Union in 1707 largely persevered the distinct Scottish legal system and its courts, separate from English jurisdiction. The major reform to Scottish law came as a result of the Heritable Jurisdictions Act 1747, which was part of the government reaction to the Jacobite rising of 1745 and which limited the powers of burgh courts, abolished hereditary offices and made the barony and regality courts obsolete, strengthening the reach of the central judicial courts.
  
  This period also saw widespread attempts to codify and comment on the Scottish legal system. The first substantive account of Scottish law was the Practicks of Bishop John Sinclair (d. 1566), senator of the College of Justice. This was followed by James Balfour's (c. 1525–83) Practicks, who with Sir John Skene of Curriehill (c. 1543–1617), was a major figure in the move to codification. Skene produced an edition of the Acts of Parliament and a legal dictionary, De Verborum Significatione and edited Regiam Maisestatem, a history of the Scottish law, which attributed much of its creation to David I. Thomas Craig of Riccarton (c. 1538–1608) produced two large works, Jus Feudale, which examined feudal law, and De Unione Regnorum Britanniae, which explored the possibilities of unifying the English and Scottish legal systems. Often seen as the beginning of modern Scottish legal study is James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount of Stair's (1619–95) The Institutions of the Law of Scotland (1681).
caption: Institution of the Court of Session by James V in 1532, from the Great Window in Parliament Hall, Edinburgh
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