Contesting Chivalry: James II and the control of chivalric culture in the 1450s

This article focuses on the reign of James II of Scotland (1437–1460) and argues that the Scottish king deliberately attempted to gain a monopoly over chivalry as part of his assertion of royal power. In seeking to integrate the historiographies of state-building and chivalric culture in fifteenth-century Scotland, what is offered here is an account of the principal strategies employed by James II to establish royal authority throughout Scotland, and an assessment of the various means in which chivalry was being patronised and promoted by the Scottish nobility and the political challenge inherent in this activity. James's response to this challenge is examined through a series of incidents in the 1450s and, in this manner, seeks to rethink the role of chivalry in late medieval Scotland. Far from being a peripheral cultural practice, this article argues that it should be seen as an integral part of James II's state-building agenda.     

Englishmen,Scots and Marchers: National and Local Identities in Thomas Gray's Scalacronica

Abstract

The abortive Wakefield Plot of March 1541 against Henry VIII was followed by a massive — and armed — royal progress to the North that summer. Historians have, however, tended to see the progress as being more concerned with a projected meeting between Henry and James V of Scotland at York. This article re-examines both the Wakefield Plot and the progress. It argues the Plot did indeed present great danger to Henry VIII. It was well planned, involved unprecedented inter-class collaboration, and envisaged a bloody conflict to overthrow the 'tyrant' Henry. It also envisaged aid from the Scots, with whom the conspirators may have had links. The Plot is set in the context of serious discontent about taxation in early 1541, and severe local economic problems in Yorkshire. The progress bound the northern elites to the King through a succession of choreographed supplications from the northern gentry and yeomen. Despite serious fears that the progress might meet trouble in the North, it succeeded in pacifying the region. Meanwhile, the possibility of a meeting with James at York emerged only during the progress, and James's failure to appear was of little importance in the slide to war between England and Scotland in 1542.     

More than a storm in a teacup: the defence and security implications of Scottish independence

In September 2014 the people of Scotland will vote on whether to become an independent nation, with the defence and security of Scotland proving to be one of the more vociferous areas of debate. This article argues that defence and security implications of this referendum are far more fundamental than either the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ campaigns have admitted. It makes four points. First, it suggests that the Scottish government's plans for defence and security in NATO and the EU are at odds with its proposed armed forces and that Scotland may well find itself having to make far greater commitments to defence to assure its allies. Second, it argues that a vote for independence will represent a game‐changing event for the remainder of the United Kingdom's defence and security, which will have significant consequences for the United Kingdom's partners and allies in NATO, the European Union and elsewhere. Third, the article contends that even a vote against independence will have a long‐term impact, in that the ‘West Lothian question’ and Scottish support for nuclear disarmament influence the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Finally, the article highlights how this issue has revealed weaknesses in the think‐tank and academic communities, particularly in Scotland. The independence vote does, therefore, represent ‘more than a storm in a tea cup’ and thus there needs to be far greater engagement with these issues within the United Kingdom and elsewhere.     

John Wesley's Conflict with James Hervey and Its Effects in Scotland

The assumption among historians is that Wesley's ministry in Scotland had largely failed because of his conflicting theological views. But upon a more thorough investigation, his problems stemmed from an earlier debate with the Anglican clergyman James Hervey, which was continued by the Scottish minister John Erskine. In his published response to Hervey, Wesley inadvertently included offensive comments about certain Reformed doctrines which Erskine exploited in order to highlight the discrepancies between Wesleyan Methodism and Scottish Presbyterianism. Erskine's insinuation in 1765 that Wesley intentionally concealed his beliefs in order to gain ascendancy in Scotland resulted in the immediate suppression of Methodist growth.     

The beginnings of royal pardon in Scotland

The well attested (and comprehensively studied) animus that informed English attitudes towards the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has tended to obscure important developments in the legal landscape of contemporary Scotland. This article argues that soon after 1200, the king of Scots deliberately abandoned as barbaric, obnoxious and unbecoming a Christian prince the practice of mutilating high-status political enemies and ritually defiling their bodily remains. The transformation reflected influences from England and Europe in general, but the argument here is that ultimately the change reflected the maturation of the Scottish ideas about Christian kingship, royal justice and royal mercy.     

Restorationist Counter‐Enlightenment: Thomas M'Crie on the Concept of Civil Liberty

Enlightenment notions for Counter‐Enlightenment purposes have not to date been used to provide a comprehensive context for Scottish religious history‐writing in the age of Counter‐Revolution and Restoration. The Evangelical historian and divine Thomas M'Crie's studies on Scottish Reformation history, Life of John Knox and Life of Andrew Melville, published in 1811 and 1819 respectively, exhibit an abundance of historiographical material for research. M'Crie was among the most renowned writers of his own time, but his historical works have been briefly passed over in recent secondary sources. The main purpose of this study is to rescue M'Crie's historical works on the Scottish Reformation past from near oblivion. This article argues that M'Crie produced an apology for the Scottish Reformation, adopting an aggressive style that attacked Scottish Enlightenment historians and thinkers such as William Robertson and David Hume, especially in the matter of their treatment of John Knox and Andrew Melville. M'Crie tried to restore his chosen past in order to influence the religious and political affairs of Scotland. In M'Crie's Counter‐Enlightenment historiography, the concept of civil liberty and Presbyterianism become interchangeable in a Restorationist religio‐political discourse. That is why M'Crie's enthusiasm for the Scottish Reformation constitutes the most representative example of the Presbyterian interpretation, which held its own against Enlightenment influence.     

Republicans,Unionists and Jacobites: The 1st Marquess of Tweeddale and the Restoration of the British Parliament

Although John Hay, 1st marquess of Tweeddale, contributed significantly to both the ruthless overthrow of Charles I, and the establishment of the first British parliament in the 1650s, most of his political career was concerned with attempting to re-establish this parliament after it was dissolved at the restoration of Charles II. His first attempt ended in defeat at the hands of the king and the duke of Lauderdale in 1670, but following the overthrow of James VII and II in 1688, Tweeddale tried to persuade the prince of Orange to unite Scotland and England. The prince, however, showed much more interest in securing the crown of Scotland than uniting the two kingdoms. Tweeddale, as lord high commissioner to the Scottish parliament in 1695, responded by passing legislation designed to provoke the English parliament into accepting union. He was also engaged in a jacobite intrigue to restore King James. Tweeddale intended that the restored monarch would be little more than a puppet, who could be used to legitimise what was effectively a republican regime in all but name. By this means the restored parliament would avoid the unpopularity which brought down the first British parliament in 1660. Tweeddale's scheme came to nought, but the technique he employed to manipulate the English parliament, and exploit the jacobite threat, contributed to the restoration of the British parliament ten years after his death.     

The rise of the Indo-Pacific: understanding ideational change and continuity in India's foreign policy

In 2011, the concept of the Indo-Pacific began to appear in India's foreign policy discourse. This article argues that rather than signalling a dramatic shift in India's foreign policy, however, the way in which the Indo-Pacific has been interpreted by the Indian leadership suggests significant continuity as well as change, which is contrary to the goals of the concept's most fervent proponents in India. The article seeks to develop a framework for understanding ideational change and continuity in foreign policy by theorising the interplay between ideas, political and economic flux, and social expectations related to effective and legitimate state-building. It is argued that the Indo-Pacific concept has instigated a new emphasis on regional architecture-building to manage the ongoing regionalisation in the area between the Indian and Pacific Oceans as a result of heightened trade flows and production and investment linkages. Yet, the Indo-Pacific concept, like the new policy ideas on regional engagement that preceded it—the Look East policy and the ‘extended neighbourhood’—has been articulated in ways that are also compatible with long-standing ideas—such as non-alignment—about what constitutes appropriate international behaviour. This reflects the nature of the broader state project that has emerged since 1990, which, while encompassing a new focus on economic growth and competitiveness as being essential to effective state-building, continues to prioritise older ideas about what constitutes effective and legitimate state-building.     

Review Article: The Lights that Failed - and Those Never Lit

The unresolved question of who would succeed Queen Elizabeth I in the last years of the sixteenth century had repercussions beyond the British Isles. For the papacy, the contested succession seemed to provide a possibility of returning England to the Roman Catholic Church. This article places the English succession crisis in an international context, analysing the interests of princes in Spain, France, Flanders, and on the Italian peninsula from the perspective of papal diplomacy. Studying Pope Clement VIII's efforts to balance these princely interests, this article examines the options discussed in Rome, which ranged from converting James VI of Scotland - if he became King of England - to installing a Catholic candidate from the European mainland. It argues that Pope Clement VIII was not duped into passivity by James VI/I's vague promises of conversion and demonstrates that the Pope pursued a flexible policy which considered the succession in England within a much wider context: the retention of the Catholic religion in Europe.     

The Reception of ‘That Bigoted Silly Fellow’ James Beattie's Essay on Truth in Britain 1770–1830

This article examines the Scottish philosopher James Beattie's (1735–1803) controversial work of moral philosophy An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), noted for its pugnacious attack on the sceptical philosophy of David Hume. Usually treated only as an ephemeral success in the early 1770s, the Essay actually had two distinct periods of enormous popularity that account for its contemporary significance in the period between 1770 and 1830. The prominence of the Essay is demonstrated by its widespread positive reception, evinced in both published and private responses, in both England and Scotland, by the high estimation in which it was held within pedagogical circles as an anti-sceptical philosophical primer, and by its continual use as a textbook in both university and dissenting academy logic and moral philosophy classes. In these senses, Beattie's Essay was arguably the most significant work of the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy.     

Hegel on the World-historical

The article considers the development and the diversity of the understandings of the Norman Conquest in Jacobean England. In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended the throne of England, and one of his first policies to unify the two kingdoms culminated in failure in face of English opposition. Modern historians have demonstrated that at the heart of this quick collapse lay a constitutional struggle—the English fear of the loss of their sovereignty. Taking this as the vantage point, the article examines a number of historical publications composed by English lawyers in the following decade. The Jacobean period witnessed a significant proliferation of historical literature, and modern historians have stressed that English common lawyers staunchly adhered to a belief in the ancient constitution, a belief in the antiquity of English law that was counter to royal policies. The article demonstrates how the Union debate, despite its eventual collapse, produced unparalleled interest in the meaning of conquest in the 1610s. It also considers the works of civil lawyers in comparison. By comparing the differing accounts of the Norman Conquest, the article ultimately demonstrates the contested nature of James's kingship in England.     

The Origins of the Castle in England the Institute's Research Project 1

This paper, based mainly on hitherto unpublished material, describes the building-activities of the Duke of Lauderdale in the years following his second marriage to the Countess of Dysart. During this period the Duke's three northern houses, comprising Thirlestane Castle, Lethington, and Brunstane, were extensively remodelled under the direction of the Scottish Surveyor-General, Sir William Bruce. Bruce also played a part in the alterations and additions carried out at the Lauderdales' principal English seat, Ham House, the main responsibility in this case, however, being undertaken by the gentleman-architect William Samwell. The Scottish houses were fitted out and decorated by a team of Anglo-Dutch craftsmen recruited chiefly in London, while another Dutchman, John Slezer, was employed as surveyor and draughtsman both in Scotland and at Ham.     

Writers and politics in West Germany

This article argues that Archibald Campbell's Necessity of Revelation (1739) can be viewed as the first application of the ‘science of human nature’, a characteristic branch of the Scottish Enlightenment, to the study of religious belief. Adopting Baconian and Newtonian methodological principles, Campbell set hypotheses, collected historical data, and inferred conclusions about the capabilities of human nature to come to fundamental religious ideas without the aid of revelation. He did so not only to reject the ‘deist’ position on the powers of unassisted human reason, associated with Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), but also to refute Campbell's conservative critics within the Church of Scotland who had earlier tried him for heresy. Campbell's example is that of a university professor using the experimental study of religion to defeat both radical freethinking and Calvinist orthodoxy. His work is another instance of the complicated relationship between science and religion within eighteenth-century Scotland.     

Henry VII’s Letter to Carlisle in 1498: His Concerns about Retaining in a Border Fortress

Henry VII’s reign has been the subject of increased study in recent years, in particular his relationship with the nobility and his determination to ensure the loyalty of his subjects. Henry VII was adept at utilising the numerous methods at his disposal in order to keep his crown. This article makes a contribution to this broader understanding of Henry VII’s reign by focusing on one document, a letter to the city of Carlisle dated 15 February 1498, which ordered that the statutes relating to retaining and the distribution of liveries should be upheld. While the letter has been noted by previous historians, it has not been the subject of a detailed examination. This article explains the significance of the document for understanding the reign of Henry VII, his attitude towards retaining and the relationship between royal and urban governments in the late fifteenth century. This particular letter includes two novel features not found in other letters to towns about retaining. First, there is an explicit reference to the possibility of a Scottish invasion. Second, the city’s government were all required to swear oaths of fealty to Henry VII. Although the letter confirms the general picture that Henry VII was keen to remind his subjects of their duties and obligations to the Crown and that he built on and adapted Yorkist innovations, it highlights his specific concern in early 1498, in the aftermath of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy, that James IV of Scotland might still invade.     

Scottish national identities among inter-war migrants in North America and Australasia

Interpretations of Scottish identities have for too long been immersed in an inward-looking or domestic perspective. Where constructions of migrant identities exist they too have been influenced by developments about identity within Scotland, specifically a focus on Highlandism, by a disproportionate concentration on the Scots in Canada, and by exclusion of the twentieth-century migrant experience. This article examines the personal testimonies of Scots in several destinations and argues that they manifested a striking range of external and internal manifestations of their national identities. Unlike Irish migrants, however, whose cultural institutions served a dual purpose, allowing their identities to be proclaimed and engaging in active pursuit of political objectives, the major construction of Scottishness was internalised. Furthermore, visible expressions of Scottish identities did not generate disapproval from the public at large that the assertion of Irish identities occasionally excited. Despite its relative invisibility this sense of being Scottish was powerful and dynamic and shows a Scottish world coexisting within a British one.     

Marriage,Sex, and the Church of Scotland: Exploring Non‐Conformity Amongst the Lower Orders

The history of marriage amongst the Scottish lower orders in the eighteenth century has largely been a story of sexual discipline by the Kirk (Church of Scotland). As much of this history has been produced through kirk session records — the arm of the church that monitored sexual morality and marital conformity — this is often construed as a story of contest between the church and a resistant lower orders, trying to negotiate alternative forms of family life. Using kirk session and secular court records and popular literature, this article explores how religious belief shaped sexual and marital behaviour, particularly non‐conformity, during this period. It examines the Kirk's interpretation of chastity and marriage, how these ideas filtered into popular culture and were used by the lower orders to negotiate their own sexual and marital behaviour and relationship to the Church. It argues that the Kirk's varying attitude to marital and sexual non‐conformity meant that marital non‐conformity was less significant than sexual sin in the popular and religious imagination.     

“The Gudeman of Ballangeich”: rambles in the afterlife of James V

This article concerns a corpus of legends in which James V of Scotland disguised himself as the “Gudeman of Ballangeich” in order to enjoy amorous adventures. The traditions may or may not be contemporary, and equally there is no certainty about whether they reflect actual behaviour (although kings in general, including the Stuart kings, have been known to disguise themselves for a variety of reasons, including pleasure). However, in later centuries, allusions to the “Gudeman of Ballangeich” were used by Scots to refer surreptitiously to a Scots king, by Jacobites to refer to a Stuart king, and members of The Beggar's Benison, an eighteenth‐century libertine club, used tales of James V to evoke memories of a better, pre‐Union, pre‐Calvinist Scotland of cultural creativity and sexual liberty. The legends of James V helped maintain the positive, popular image of this monarch as the “poor man's king” in the face of less kind judgements from contemporary elites and subsequent generations of historians.     

Papal pronouncements on legitimate lordship and the formulation of nationhood in early fourteenth-century Scottish writings

Early fourteenth-century Scotland produced some of the period's clearest expressions of nationhood, most famously with the so-called Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Despite the letter's fame, its conceptual language and that of related Scottish texts has not hitherto been entirely recognised. The present article demonstrates that these writings are closely informed by contemporary legal ideas concerning lawful jurisdiction and just war. Their use of legal ideas can be shown to have been inspired by the concerns and outlook of the papacy, particularly with regard to its temporal lordship in Italy. It is this inspiration that can explain the clarity and force with which the Scottish texts of these decades present the kingdom as specifically Scottish and the nation as a political force, for which they have since become renowned.     

Not Quite an Insider—A Scottish Perspective on a Future Coronation

Abstract

Post devolution, Scotland is ‘a bit different’, but how does that relate to a coronation? A Scottish sense of exclusion from the English establishment's assumptions of UK dominance might be a way into developing forms that are more widely inclusive. In this article, two distinctively Scottish models—of sovereignty and of being a national church—are offered as bases for exploring the shape of a coronation that tries to express who we all are. The theological understanding of sovereignty which was a key contribution from the churches to the debate on devolution sees the sovereignty of God entrusted to the community of the realm, and entrusted by that community to whatever institutions they deem appropriate; this might be a starting point for planning a coronation. The self-understanding of the Church of Scotland as a national church cherishing its independence from state control and with less ‘stake’ in the monarchy might prompt a different church-state relationship to be expressed in a coronation.     

EDWIN SANDYS,ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 1577–88, ‘STIFF-NECKED,WILFUL AND OBSTINATE’: CONFLICT IN THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH

Abstract

This article examines the events that, as legend has it, resulted in the foundation of Balliol College (c. 1263) by John (I) Balliol (d. 1268). The Balliol family had long been at odds with successive bishops of Durham over certain lands in Sadberge, the homage of which the bishops believed they were owed. John (I) began his struggle just after his inheritance in 1229 and the dispute reached its height in 1255–60, at which time an intense argument broke out. Other factors, including his actions whilst serving as one of Henry III's English representatives in the Scottish government (1251–55), led to Balliol's ultimate submission to Bishop Kirkham (d. 1260) at Durham Cathedral in 1260 and the foundation of Balliol College at Kirkham's instance. The theory remains, as one historian argues, that Balliol's penance was to give the long delayed homage to the bishop for these lands and not to establish Balliol College. However, there are no surviving records of homage and other possibilities remain, including perhaps that the penance called for Balliol's youngest son, John (II), the future King of Scotland, to be educated at a Durham school.