Seventeenth-century Scotland an astonishingly traumatised place of political and religious strife.
As the negotiations were taking place in 1706/7 for Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union the Scottish Parliament required re-assurances on the fate of the honours of Scotland and the records of parliament: a clause was inserted in the twenty-fourth article of the Treaty of Union declaring that they must be securely locked away and not allowed to leave Scotland. 27 Robert I, James IV, James VI, Buchanan and Mackenzie may have had varying interpretations of the location of sovereignty in the Scottish constitution but they all understood the significance of those symbols of the crown-in-parliament. The ancient constitution would not be swayed by the views of commentators, even kings.