ABSTRACT
Cosmo Innes's reputation as a record scholar rested in large part on his labours with Scotland's parliamentary records. Efforts to publish the surviving records of Scotland's parliaments dated from as early as 1800. In an intellectual context which looked primarily to England for constitutional legitimacy, the publication of a vastly expensive and time-consuming multi-volume edition of Scottish parliamentary material appears incongruous. The commitment to the project shown by Thomson, Innes and their political paymaster juxtaposes against a broader view of the Scottish parliament as an embarrassing failure. They argued that, as a result of the gradual refinement of law and the motor of constitutional development, it was the English parliament that had successfully supplied liberty to Britain as a whole. Furthermore, by examining the Scottish parliament as a font of statute law rather than as a representative body, its positive contribution to modern Scottish law and thereby Scottish national character could be played up.
