The Government of Scotland 1560-1625

The Government of Scotland 1560-1625 PDF

Author: Julian Goodare

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2004-10-14

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0191553972

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In The Government of Scotland 1560-1625 Goodare shows how Scotland was governed during the transition from Europe's decentralized medieval realms to modern sovereign states. The expanding institutions of government - crown, parliament, privy council, local courts - are detailed, but the book is structured around an analysis of governmental processes. A new framework is offered for understanding the concept of 'centre and localities': centralization happened in the localities. Various interest groups participated in government and influenced its decisions. The nobility, in particular, exercised influence at every level. There was also English influence, both before and after the union of crowns in 1603. It is argued that the crown's continuing involvement after 1603 shows the common idea of 'absentee monarchy' to be misconceived. Goodare also pays particular attention to the harsh impact of government in the Highlands - where the chiefs were not full members of 'Scottish' political society - and on the common people - who were also excluded from normal political participation.

The Scottish People 1490-1625

The Scottish People 1490-1625 PDF

Author: MAUREEN M MEIKLE

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 1291518002

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The Scottish People, 1490-1625 is one of the most comprehensive texts ever written on Scottish History. All geographical areas of Scotland are covered from the Borders, through the Lowlands to the Gàidhealtachd and the Northern Isles. The chapters look at society and the economy, Women and the family, International relations: war, peace and diplomacy, Law and order: the local administration of justice in the localities, Court and country: the politics of government, The Reformation: preludes, persistence and impact, Culture in Renaissance Scotland: education, entertainment, the arts and sciences, and Renaissance architecture: the rebuilding of Scotland. In many past general histories there was a relentless focus upon the elite, religion and politics. These are key features of any medieval and early modern history books, but The Scottish People looks at less explored areas of early-modern Scottish History such as women, how the law operated, the lives of everyday folk, architecture, popular belief and culture.

Humanism and Calvinism

Humanism and Calvinism PDF

Author: Dr Steven J Reid

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-07-28

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1409482022

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Across early-modern Europe the confessional struggles of the Reformation touched virtually every aspect of civic life; and nowhere was this more apparent than in the universities, the seedbed of political and ecclesiastical society. Focussing on events in Scotland, this book reveals how established universities found themselves at the centre of a struggle by competing forces trying to promote their own political, religious or educational beliefs, and under competition from new institutions. It surveys the transformation of Scotland's medieval and Catholic university system into a greatly-expanded Protestant one in the decades following the Scottish Reformation of 1560. Simultaneously the study assesses the contribution of the continentally-educated religious reformer Andrew Melville to this process in the context of broader European social and cultural developments - including growing lay interest in education (as a result of renaissance humanism), and the involvement of royal and civic government as well as the new Protestant Kirk in university expansion and reform. Through systematic use of largely neglected manuscript sources, the book offers fresh perspectives on both Andrew Melville and the development of Scottish higher education post-1560. As well as providing a detailed picture of events in Scotland, it contributes to our growing understanding of the role played by higher education in shaping society across Europe.

The Burghs and Parliament in Scotland, c. 1550–1651

The Burghs and Parliament in Scotland, c. 1550–1651 PDF

Author: Alan R. MacDonald

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-16

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1317039696

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Existing studies of early modern Scotland tend to focus on the crown, the nobility and the church. Yet, from the sixteenth century, a unique national representative assembly of the towns, the Convention of Burghs, provides an insight into the activities of another key group in society. Meeting at least once a year, the Convention consisted of representatives from every parliamentary burgh, and was responsible for apportioning taxation, settling disputes between members, regulating weights and measures, negotiating with the crown on issues of concern to the merchant community. The Convention's role in relation to parliament was particularly significant, for it regulated urban representation, admitted new burghs to parliament, and co-ordinated and oversaw the conduct of the burgess estate in parliament. In this, the first full-length study of the burghs and parliament in Scotland, the influence of this institution is fully analysed over a one hundred year period. Drawing extensively on local and national sources, this book sheds new light upon the way in which parliament acted as a point of contact, a place where legislative business was done, relationships formed and status affirmed. The interactions between centre and localities, and between urban and rural elites are prominent themes, as is Edinburgh's position as the leading burgh and the host of parliament. The study builds upon existing scholarship to place Scotland within the wider British and European context and argues that the Scottish parliament was a distinctive and effective institution which was responsive to the needs of the burghs both collectively and individually.

The Reign of James VI

The Reign of James VI PDF

Author: Julian Goodare

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2000-01-11

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1788854179

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The reign of James VI (1567–1625) remains one of the most enigmatic in Scottish history. There are long periods within it that resemble black holes in our knowledge. This study is a concerted attempt by a group of ten scholars of the reign, drawn from three different disciplines, to shed light on its politics and government, viewed through various perspectives. These include the royal court, which is analysed through its literature, architecture and ceremony; noble factionalism; relations with England; a revised model of tensions between church and state; and the relationship between the government and the Highlands, the Borders and the south west, a future region of opposition to Charles I. This study also analyses James as a literary author, correspondent, husband and 'universal king'. The book offers alternatives to accepted views of the reign, dismissing both Melvillianism and 'laissez faire monarchy' as useful tools. It sees the centre of politics as the interaction between an expanded and increasingly expensive royal court and a phenomenal growth of the state, based on a huge increase in legislation and the business of the Privy Council.

Rethinking the Scottish Revolution

Rethinking the Scottish Revolution PDF

Author: Laura A. M. Stewart

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-11-08

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 0192563785

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The English revolution is one of the most intensely-debated events in history; parallel events in Scotland have never attracted the same degree of interest. Rethinking the Scottish Revolution argues for a new interpretation of the seventeenth-century Scottish revolution that goes beyond questions about its radicalism, and reconsiders its place within an overarching 'British' narrative. Laura Stewart analyses how interactions between print and manuscript polemic, crowds, and political performances enabled protestors against a Prayer Book to destroy Charles I's Scottish government. Particular attention is given to the way in which debate in Scotland was affected by the emergence of London as a major publishing centre. The subscription of the 1638 National Covenant occurred within this context and further politicized subordinate social groups that included women. Unlike in England, however, public debate was contained. A remodelled constitution revivified the institutions of civil and ecclesiastical governance, enabling Covenanted Scotland to pursue interventionist policies in Ireland and England - albeit at terrible cost to the Scottish people. War transformed the nature of state power in Scotland, but this achievement was contentious and fragile. A key weakness lay in the separation of ecclesiastical and civil authority, which justified for some a strictly conditional understanding of obedience to temporal authority. Rethinking the Scottish Revolution explores challenges to legitimacy of the Covenanted constitution, but qualifies the idea that Scotland was set on a course to destruction as a result. Covenanted government was overthrown by the new model army in 1651, but its ideals persisted. In Scotland as well as England, the language of liberty, true religion, and the public interest had justified resistance to Charles I. The Scottish revolution embedded a distinctive and durable political culture that ultimately proved resistant to assimilation into the nascent British state.

James I (Penguin Monarchs)

James I (Penguin Monarchs) PDF

Author: Thomas Cogswell

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2017-12-07

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0141980427

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James's reign marked one of the very rare major breaks in England's monarchy. Already James VI of Scotland and a highly experienced ruler who had established his authority over the Scottish Kirk, he marched south on Elizabeth I's death to become James I of England and Ireland, uniting the British Isles for the first time and founding the Stuart dynasty which would, with several lurches, reign for over a century. Indeed his descendant still occupies the throne. A complex, curious man and great survivor, James drastically changed court life in London and presided over such major projects as the Authorized Version of the Bible and the establishment of English settlements in Virginia, Massachusetts, Gujarat and the Caribbean. Although he failed to unite England and Scotland, he insisted that ambassadors acknowledge him as King of Great Britain and that vessels from both countries display a version of the current Union Flag. He was often accused of being too informal and insufficiently regal - but when his son, Charles I, decided to redress these criticisms in his own reign he was destroyed. How much of the roots of this disaster were to be found in James's reign is one of the many problems dramatized in Thomas Cogswell's brilliant and highly entertaining new book.

Scottish Parliament under Charles II, 1660-1685

Scottish Parliament under Charles II, 1660-1685 PDF

Author: Gillian MacIntosh

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2007-03-17

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0748630538

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On 14 May 1660, Charles II, restored to the throne of his father, was proclaimed king of Great Britain and Ireland at the market-cross of Edinburgh, bringing to an end over twenty years of internal upheaval. At the subsequent meeting of the Scottish parliament in January 1661, the ascendant royalist administration sought to abolish all constitutional innovations introduced during the revolutionary period in an attempt to secure the royal prerogative and prevent a repeat of rebellion from below. This book traces the background to the restoration of the monarchy in Scotland, explains why the Scottish political elite were so willing to relinquish power back to the king and assesses the impact of the restrictive Restoration constitutional settlement on subsequent parliamentary sessions in the reign of Charles II. It provides for the first time a detailed account of Charles II's Scottish parliament - who attended and why, what they did and parliament's role under an increasingly authoritarian crown. Tracing the path from the widespread popular royalism that marked the beginning of Charles II's reign to the increasing violence and resistance which the attempted reassertion of the royal prerogative provoked, each session of parliament is set within the political and historical context of the time in which it sat, to provide a fresh perspective on a previously neglected area of Scottish history.

State and Society in Early Modern Scotland

State and Society in Early Modern Scotland PDF

Author: Julian Goodare

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1999-09-23

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0191542881

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This is the first full scholarly study of state formation and the exercise of state power in Scotland. It sets the Scottish state in a British and European context, revealing that Scotland — like larger and better-known states — developed a more integrated governmental system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study provides an invaluable new contribution to the history of Scotland. Julian Goodare shows how the magnates ceased to exercise autonomous local power, and instead managed the new administrative structure through client networks. The state no longer drew its main revenues from land, but developed new taxes; its fighting forces were modernized and detached from landed power. With the Reformation, powerful church institutions were created, and were gradually integrated into the state. The states territorial integrity increased, giving it a closer and more troubled relationship with the Highlands. Scotland remained a sovereign state even after the union of crowns in 1603, but it was finally absorbed by England in 1707, and Dr Goodare examines the long-term context of this development.

The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution

The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution PDF

Author: Michael J. Braddick

Publisher: Oxford Handbooks

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 019969589X

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A Handbook exploring how the events of the English Revolution grew out of, and resonated, in the politics and interactions of the each of the Three Kingdoms - England, Scotland, and Ireland - and demonstrating the long-term impacts of the crisis on the kingdoms themselves, as well as in a broader European context.