=41. Union of the Crowns.=--When Elizabeth died, James was the nearest heir to the throne of England by right of descent from _Margaret_, elder daughter of _Henry the Seventh_. But her right had been passed over by _Henry the Eighth_, who had in the will, which he was empowered by Parliament to make, settled the succession on the heirs of his younger sister, _Mary_. As it was politically convenient to the English Privy Council that James should succeed Elizabeth on her death, they sent off post haste to summon him to come and take the crown. His questionable right was made good by the voice of the people in his first Parliament. He entered London May 6, 1603. Hitherto he had had less money and less power than almost any other prince in Europe; he now became suddenly one of the richest and most powerful among them. This union of the crowns made the third break in the history of Scotland. The gallant struggle for freedom which had drawn forth all the energies of the nation during the past three centuries was now over. It was now to be united to the powerful neighbour that had so long threatened its independence. The representative of the ancient royal Celtic line, which the national reverence for hereditary royalty had upheld unbroken through the strain of seven long minorities, now became king of the larger and richer kingdom of _England_, which had been ruled by one foreign dynasty after another ever since the Norman Conquest. =42. State of the Nation.=--In Scotland the feudal system was still unshaken. To it the great barons owed their power, and the _Reformation_, which in England had strengthened the crown, had in Scotland only thrown more wealth and more power into the hands of the nobles. Hitherto the people had been only dependents of the great feudal barons, whose burthens they bore in return for their protection. Still they could not have been very badly off, for in Scotland there were no peasant wars, as in _France_ and _England_. It was the _Reformation_ which first brought them out as a separate body in the state. Their condition was now much worse than it had formerly been. The crown brought its increased power to bear upon the nobles, who in their turn, slaves and flatterers at the foreign Court and tyrants at home, used their feudal rights for the oppression of the people, who could hope for no redress from their absent King.