The decades following the death of James V in 1542 saw a revival of the authority of parliament, with the estates reasserting themselves as a principal fount of political legitimacy for fundamental changes in religion, and for successive regimes. This article closely examines how a convention in December 1583 and parliament in May/August 1584 were instrumental in delegitimising the Ruthven regime, overturning the revolutionary politics of the previous quarter century, and briefly establishing what James VI described as a free monarchy. Despite the short-lived duration of an authoritarian government, this analysis reveals how the young James VI and his close advisors reasserted royal authority, and the crucial role of the privy council, convention, and parliament in that process. Recent historiography has tended to see James VI, at least until 1603, as open to consultation and debate in working with the Scottish parliament. This benign interpretation contrasts with the negative reputation he quickly acquired with his English parliament, and the increasingly authoritarian tactics he deployed in Scotland after 1603. Instead, the evidence of the 1584 parliament indicates that, when given the opportunity, James VI chose to allow his servants to bully and frighten the estates into submission. In reestablishing his authority in the months immediately after escaping the Ruthven regime in July 1583, the king, his councillors, and their rivals all acted cautiously and hesitantly while the outcome of the political standoff hung on a knife edge. The December 1583 convention dramatically changed the political landscape, depriving the Ruthven faction of legitimacy, while their failed rebellion in April 1584 unleashed violence, oppression, and an opportunistic power grab by the king and his councillors that ushered in a form of authoritarian monarchy resembling what James VI had so far only imagined. This article underlines the fundamental role of parliament in conferring political legitimacy, questions the young king’s agency, far-sightedness, and innate reasonableness, while arguing that this brief, authoritarian episode was more a product of pragmatism and contingency than ideology.
