ABSTRACT
This is the kind of union we are seeking. About how necessary it is we have spoken already in the first part of this treatise. And I insist that when I hear or speak ofunion, I have had nothing else in mind than a union ofkingdoms and peoples. I mean that from two kingdoms and two peoples there should finally come into being one kingdom and one people. Nor have lever dreamed of anything else. And I have set no limits to the union, nor did I believe that there was any need to do so. Nor did I fear anything less than that there might be devised some other fonn of union for us.3 Such is the received opinion of all who have written about this union:4 in his Majesty's speech to Parliament,S
2 Hume' s reference to "comedies" ahnost certainly targets George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston's Eastward Ho, which was produced in late 1604 and prompted govenunent action in early 1605 while Hume was in London. Bruce Galloway has argued tlmt the arrest ofthe three playwrights provides an indication of Anglo-Scottish tension at this moment. 11Ie anti-Scottish sentiments in tlIe drama were fairly mild, certainly when compared with other contemporaneous statements. See Union, pp. 79-80. King James had objected to English literature on a number of occasions, perhaps most notably with regard to Spenser' sFaerie Queene (12 November 1596). See J. Bain et al. (eds.), Calendar 0/ State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary Queen o/Scots (Edinburgh, 1898-1969), 12 :288,291. Subsequently, on 15 April 1598, George Nicolson, an English agent in Edinburgh, wrote Burleigh: "It is regraited to me in quiet sorte, that the comediens ofLondon shoulde in their play, scome the king and the people ofthis lande, and wished that it may be amended and staied; lest the worst sort getting understandinge thereof should stirr the king and country to anger thereat. A matter which beinge tlms honestly and quietly delivered unto me by Mr Amott sometyrne Provost of this towne and a very substantiuous honest man, I have thought mete to conunend to your lordship's good consideration, for present stay of such courses" (possibly in reference to Jonson's [sie 0/ Dogs; PRO: SP 52/62/20). Hume was cIearly concemed about caricatures of Scots in English drama, but, significantly, he does not condernn theater itself. Hume liked the two unionist tracts written in 1604 by JolUllllOmborough, bi shop ofBristol, the latter ofwhich favorably quoted Terence'sAdelphoe (l1le Brothers).
