A United Crown and the first Union Jack

We return to Sharon's 10th great-grandfather and his place in English history. The last time I dealt with him, we saw that he had been elected a knight of the shire, which made him a sir and a member of Parliament. 

His biography in The History of Parliament concentrates on his career in that body, as you would expect, and presents few other details of his life. Though his mother was a convicted Catholic, his father was Protestant and urged his son to align with this side of the family. 

 The History gives a listing of the various committees Sir John served on during his terms. His first appointment made him part of the group in the House of Commons that laid out its findings in a dispute over a parliamentary election in Buckinghamshire. Apparently, King James had issued a proclamation before the election stating that only men of good character and livelihood could be elected. But the electors chose a man named Francis Goodwin, an outlaw. A court overturned that election on the basis of the king's proclamation and determined another man should have the office. 

The House of Commons begged to differ, saying that Goodwin was in fact not an outlaw and that they were the ones who determined is someone was lawfully elected. James, of course, took issue with their position but would later back down, affirming that the Commons, not the courts, should be the arbiter of who won election. The case was the culmination of a series of such disputes, and after this the right of the Commons to determine the validity of a parliamentary election was not disputed. 

Some of this sounds vaguely familiar somehow.

Sir John also held committee assignments that dealt with legislation about the wool trade, natural enough because the region he represented, Gloucestershire, was involved in the textile industry. One mention caught my eye: transportation of undressed wool. I've no idea what the issue was because, after spending too much time trying to chase it down,, I found mention of the act in Parliament's records, but the only detail it gave was that the act had been repealed. 

A couple of other assignments snagged my attention. One was as part of a committee that would work with the House of Lords to bring about union with Scotland, the other was a committee that would confer with the Lords on something called The Great Contract. We'll look at the first this time and the second in a subsequent post. 

Prior to the 17th century Scotland and England were independent nations, though the two fought a number of battles for control of Scotland. At the time Elizabeth I died, James ruled in Scotland as James VI. She died without children, and James was her closest relative, so he took the throne. Because the nations had the same monarch, this was known as a union of the crowns.

But James wanted one, unified nation. Shortly after assuming the English throne, he issued a proclamation to unite the two realms and called himself the King of Great Britain. He called on the Parliaments of the two nations to meet and work out the details.

This proved impossible. Pretty much from the beginning pro- and anti-unionists in both nations began squabbling, arguing their positions in pamphlets, essays, poems -- whatever written means they had at hand. The Scots believed they'd become the forgotten people of the new realm, and the English thought that those foreigners -- remember the nations had separate cultures and languages at the time -- would threaten and dilute English identity. Kind of like if someone proposed that Mexico and the U.S. become one nation.

Two attempts were made to bring about this union, one during the first session of Parliament in 1604, the other in 1607. The sides could not come to agreement, and the effort was abandoned. The English Parliament acknowledged a Union of Crowns but no more. The two did formally unite 100 years later. 

In the middle of all the wrangling, James ordered a British flag to be created. It would combine the flag of St. George, then the flag of England, which contained a red cross on a white field, and the flag of St. Andrew, Scotland's flag, which showed a white cross lying on its side on a blue field. It was the first Union Jack

We'll take a side trip to explain the flag and its later iteration we're all familiar with.

Image: The first Union Jack