What did it mean to be a Covenanter?

A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland deals with the making, shaping, and development of the Scottish Reformation. 28 authors offer new analyses of various features of a religious revolution and select personalities in evolving theological, cultural, and political contexts.

Examines the union of England and Scotland by weaving the navy into a political narrative of events between the regal union in 1603 and the parliamentary union in 1707.This book examines the union of England and Scotland by weaving the navy into a political narrative of events between the regal union in 1603 and the parliamentary union in 1707. For most of the century the Scottish crown had no separate naval force which made the Stuart monarchs' navy, seen by them as a personal not a state force, unusual in being an institution which had a relationship with both kingdoms. This did not necessarily make the navy a shared organisation, as it continued to be financed from and based in England and was predominantly English. Nevertheless, the navy is an unusually good prism through which the nature of the regal union can be interrogated as English commanded ships interacted with Scottish authorities, and as Scots looked to the navy for protection from foreign invaders, such as the Dutch in the Forth in 1667, and for Scottish merchant ships trading with the Baltic and elsewhere. These interactions were often harmonious, but there were also many instances of tensions, particularly in the 1690s. The book illustrates both the ambiguous relationship between England and Scotland in the seventeenth century and also the navy's under-appreciated role in creating the political union of Britain.r Scottish merchant ships trading with the Baltic and elsewhere. These interactions were often harmonious, but there were also many instances of tensions, particularly in the 1690s. The book illustrates both the ambiguous relationship between England and Scotland in the seventeenth century and also the navy's under-appreciated role in creating the political union of Britain.r Scottish merchant ships trading with the Baltic and elsewhere. These interactions were often harmonious, but there were also many instances of tensions, particularly in the 1690s. The book illustrates both the ambiguous relationship between England and Scotland in the seventeenth century and also the navy's under-appreciated role in creating the political union of Britain.r Scottish merchant ships trading with the Baltic and elsewhere. These interactions were often harmonious, but there were also many instances of tensions, particularly in the 1690s. The book illustrates both the ambiguous relationship between England and Scotland in the seventeenth century and also the navy's under-appreciated role in creating the political union of Britain.

Social and religious historians have conducted much research on Scottish colonial migrations to Ulster; however, there remains historical debate as to whether the Irish Sea in the seventeenth century was an intervening obstacle or a transportation artery. Vann presents a geographical perspective on the topic, showing that most population flows involving southwest Scotland during the first half of the seventeenth century were directed across the Irish Sea via centuries-old sea routes that had allowed for the formation of evolving cultural areas. As political or religious motivational factors presented themselves in the last half of that century, Vann holds, the established social and familial links stretched along those sea routes facilitated chain migration that led to the birth of a Protestant Ulster-Scots community. Vann also shows how this community constituted itself along religious and institutional rubrics of dissent from the Church of England, Church of Scotland, and Church of Ireland.

An assessment of the importance of oaths, and the taking of, and the idea of national covenants during a turbulent time in English history. This book studies the oaths and covenants taken during the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, a time of great religious and political upheaval, assessing their effect and importance. From the reign of Mary I to the Exclusion crisis, Protestant writers argued that England was a nation in covenant with God and urged that the country should renew its contract with the Lord through taking solemn oaths. In so doing, they radically modified understandings of monarchy, political allegiance and the royal succession. During the civil war, the tendering of oaths of allegiance, the Protestation of 1641 and the Vow and Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 (all describedas embodiments of England's national covenant) also extended the boundaries of the political nation. The poor and illiterate, women as well as men, all subscribed to these tests of loyalty, which were presented as social contracts between the Parliament and the people. The Solemn League and Covenant in particular continued to provoke political controversy after 1649 and even into the 1690s many English Presbyterians still viewed themselves as bound by itsterms; the author argues that these covenants had a significant, and until now unrecognised, influence on 'politics-out-of-doors' in the eighteenth century. EDWARD VALLANCE is Lecturer in Early Modern British History, University of Liverpool.

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. In this volume, 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.

This is the first study of the interaction between warfare and national religious practice during the British Civil Wars. Using hundreds of neglected local documents, this work explores the manner in which civil conflict, invasion and military occupation affected religious practice. As Churches elsewhere in Britain and Ireland were dismantled and the country was invaded by a foreign English army, mid-seventeenth-century Scotland provides an important, yet neglected, point of entry in exploring the intersection between early modern warfare and religious practice. The book establishes a fresh way of looking at the conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century. No other study has explored how soldiers were quartered or marched in close proximity to parish worship, how their presence affected worship patterns and how the very idea of conflict in the mid-seventeenth century impacted upon the day-to-day lives of worshippers. Using the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 as its starting point, this perspective emphasises flexibility in religious practice and the dialogue between local communities, religious leaders and troops as a critical element in the experience of war.

This volume ranges widely across the social, religious and political history of revolution in seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland, from contemporary responses to the outbreak of war to the critique of the post-regicidal regimes; from royalist counsels to Lilburne's politics; and across the three Stuart kingdoms. However, all the essays engage with a central issue - the ways in which individuals experienced the crises of mid seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland and what that tells us about the nature of the Revolution as a whole. Responding in particular to three influential lines of interpretation - local, religious and British - the contributors, all leading specialists in the field, demonstrate that to comprehend the causes, trajectory and consequences of the Revolution we must understand it as a human and dynamic experience, as a process. This volume reveals how an understanding of these personal experiences can provide the basis on which to build up larger frameworks of interpretation.

This book explores the emergence of the nationally diverging paths taken by England and Germany in relation to the legal concept of self-defence. It explores how various theories of legitimate resistance to authority were developed and how they came to influence one another. In particular it is argued that German theories played a much greater role than has hitherto been acknowledged in influencing English concepts of 'natural rights' as discussed by such men as Parker and Locke.