English subsidy of James VI

Queen Elizabeth I of England paid a subsidy to King James VI of Scotland from 1586 to 1602.[1] This enabled her to influence James by delaying or deferring payments to his diplomats in London. Records survive of the yearly amounts, and details of the expenditure in some years.[2] A large proportion of the money was spent on the royal wardrobe of James and Anne of Denmark.[3] Some royal expenses were met by Anne of Denmark's dowry, which was known as the "tocher".[4] The regular incomes of the Scottish crown were feudal rents, customs, and "compositions" charged on grants of land.[5] Accounts for royal incomes and payments survive as the exchequer rolls and lord treasurer's accounts and have been published as historical sources.

John Maitland of Thirlestane and his wife Jean Fleming administered the English subsidy money in 1588-90
  1. ^ Julian Goodare, State and Society in Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 1999), pp. 118-9.
  2. ^ Julian Goodare, 'James VI's English Subsidy', in Julian Goodare & Michael Lynch, The Reign of James VI (Tuckwell, East Linton, 2000), p. 115.
  3. ^ Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 137.
  4. ^ Julian Goodare, 'The Debts of James VI of Scotland', Economic History Review, 62:4 (November 2009), p. 937.
  5. ^ Thomas Thomson, Discours Particulier D'Escosse (Edinburgh, Bannatyne Club, 1824), pp. 3–6.