‘I have learned not to be curious in aliena republica’. These words, which could never have been written by William Laud, whose interests crossed several national frontiers, did, however, come from the pen of an archbishop of Canterbury. Scripted by John Whitgift, this statement came soon after his promotion to the primacy by Elizabeth I in 1583. It followed an unsuccessful mission to London by Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St Andrews, aimed at greater Anglo-Scottish collaboration to curb the growth of Presbyterianism. Whitgift's comment is also a fruitful starting point for this opening chapter, the purpose of which is to consider the origins of Laud's intervention in Scotland, in the context of his archiepiscopal predecessors and his own career trajectory. The analysis will be divided into two parts. The first part will explore the ‘Scottish agency’ of John Whitgift, Richard Bancroft and George Abbot, Laud's antecedents in office, to show that he was not the first archbishop of Canterbury to take an interest in Scottish ecclesiastical affairs. This section will also consider the early stages of Laud's own involvement in Scotland, when he participated in the Jacobean royal visit of 1617. The second part of the chapter will analyse the impact on Laud's career of Charles I's accession to the throne in 1625. The overall argument is that Laud's interest in the Scottish church was not unique per se, but that his active intervention differed from that of his predecessors in two key ways: first, because it predated his promotion to the primacy; and secondly, because Charles I's approach to kingship and counsel provided conditions favourable to the extension of Laud's remit into the north.

The Scottish Church and the English Archbishops, c.1583–1625

The Scottish Reformation was very different from its English counterpart and the individual trajectories of each of the two churches along the path to reformation had implications for the episcopate in both kingdoms. In England, ecclesiastical reform had been spearheaded by Henry VIII and transacted by parliamentary statute in 1533–34. Thus, the structure of archbishops, bishops and dioceses was retained and the monarch assumed the role of supreme governor through the 1534 Act of Supremacy. As a result, papal authority over the church was replaced with royal authority.