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Comptroller of Scotland

The Comptroller of Scotland was a post in the pre-Union government of Scotland.[1]

The Treasurer and Comptroller had originated in 1425 when the Chamberlain's financial functions were transferred to them.[2]

From 1466 the Comptroller had sole responsibility for financing the royal household to which certain revenues (the property) were appropriated, with the Treasurer being responsible for the remaining revenue (the casualty) and other expenditure. Accounts were audited by and approved by the court of the exchequer. In the 1470s the court of the exchequer met at Falkland Palace yearly to finalise the accounts of the jointure lands of Mary of Guelders.[3]

By the 1530s the exchequer usually met in Edinburgh to audit and produce the accounts. Rooms were hired in the Blackfriars for the sessions. County sheriffs and other officials brought their reckonings to the exchequer.[4] The accounts of the comptrollers were mostly in written in Latin, and were published as the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland.

The role of the Comptroller in Scotland was outlined in a French text of 1559, the Discours Particulier D'Escosse. He was receiver general of the royal estates or property, the crown lands. He would appoint receivers for the rents of regions. The Comptroller was the general collector of customs and levies for trade in ports and burghs. He could arrest and sell the goods of anyone who defaulted their due payments, or imprison them as debtors, or proclaim them "at horn", technically rebels to the crown and no longer credit-worthy. The Treasurer's income was based "casualties" rather than the feudal rent and duties collected by the Comptroller. Casualties included money paid to the crown when properties were transferred.[5]

James VI attended the Exchequer in person in Edinburgh on 13 February 1595, which pleased courtiers who wished to see him manage his estate. According to Roger Aston, he criticised inefficient exchequer officers who failed to maximise his revenues, forcing him to raise loans or tax his subjects.[6]

The offices of Lord High Treasurer, Comptroller, Collector-General and Treasurer of the New Augmentation were held by the same person from 1610 onwards, but their separate titles survived the effective merging of their functions in 1635. From 1667 to 1682 the Treasury was in commission, and again from 1686 to 1708, when the separate Scottish Treasury was abolished. From 1690 the Crown nominated one person to sit in Parliament as Treasurer.

Comptrollers of Scotland

[7]

References

  1. ^ MacDonald, Alan (2007). The Burghs and Parliament in Scotland, C. 1550-1651. Ashgate Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 9780754653288.
  2. ^ Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, vol. 1, (1877), xiv.
  3. ^ Athol Murray, 'The Procedure of the Scottish Exchequer in the Early Sixteenth Century', Scottish Historical Review, 40:130 part 2 (October 1961), p. 93.
  4. ^ Athol Murray, 'Exchequer, Council and Session, 1513-1542', Janet Hadley Williams, Stewart Style (East Linton: Tuckwell, 1996), p. 97.
  5. ^ Thomas Thomson, Discours Particulier D'Escosse (Edinburgh, Bannatyne Club, 1824), pp. 3–6.
  6. ^ Annie Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 535 no. 470.
  7. ^ Haydn's Book of Dignities, page 404
  8. ^ M. Livingstone, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, 1488-1529, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 76 no. 532.
  9. ^ Keith Brown, Noble Power in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2011), p. 182: Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 404-5 no. 2470.
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