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‘You may take my head from my shoulders, but not my heart from my soveraigne’: Understanding Scottish Royalist Allegiance During the British Civil Wars, 1639–1651

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Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400-1688

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Abstract

This chapter explores what it meant to be a Royalist in Scotland during the British Civil Wars (1639–51). In recent years, there has been a focus within the historiography upon Covenanting identity. In contrast, Scottish royalism has received very little scholarly consideration. In response to this, the following chapter examines a range of Royalist sources and accounts to determine why thousands of Scots pledged their loyalty to Charles I and Charles II. It is argued that Scottish royalism encompassed a diverse range of ideologies and motivations. Despite the heterogeneous nature of this group, there were three fundamental areas of common ground which enabled this faction to attract support from across the political spectrum. These were: the deep-rooted belief that good subjects owed loyalty to the king; the conviction that the Covenanters were acting illegally; and fears that the actions of the Covenanters were destabilising society, threatening disastrous consequences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    G. Gordon, The Marquesse of Huntley His Reply To Certaine Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Ministers, Covenanters of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1640).

  2. 2.

    ‘The National Covenant’ (1638), in Scottish Historical Documents, ed. G. Donaldson (Castle Douglas, 1997), pp. 194–201.

  3. 3.

    Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen, 1625–1642, ed. J. Stuart (Edinburgh, 1871), pp. 223–5.

  4. 4.

    M. Brock, ‘Plague, Covenants, and Confession: The Strange Case of Ayr, 1647–8’, The Scottish Historical Review 97 (2018), 128–51; C. R. Langley, Worship, Civil War and Community, 1638–1660 (London, 2016); J. MacDougall, ‘Covenants and Covenanters in Scotland 1638–1679’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2017); L. Stewart, Rethinking the Scottish Revolution: Covenanted Scotland, 1637–1651 (Oxford, 2016).

  5. 5.

    MacDougall, ‘Covenants and Covenanters’, p. 200.

  6. 6.

    C. Jackson, Restoration Scotland, 1660–1690: Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas (Woodbridge, 2003); B. Robertson, Royalists at War in Scotland and Ireland, 1638–1650 (Farnham, 2014).

  7. 7.

    The Solemn League and Covenant (1643) was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the English Parliamentarians which saw Covenanting forces intervene in the First English Civil War (1642–46) against the king’s forces. See: ‘The Solemn League and Covenant’ (1643), in The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660, ed. S. R. Gardiner (Oxford, 1927), pp. 267–71.

  8. 8.

    D. Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–1644 (Edinburgh, 2003), pp. 207, 263–4.

  9. 9.

    J. Scally, ‘Constitutional Revolution, Party and faction in the Scottish Parliaments of Charles I’, Parliamentary History 15 (1996), pp. 68–71; J. Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and National Identity from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of Parliaments, 1603–1707’, in Image and Identity: The Making and re-making of Scotland through the Ages, ed. D. Broun, R. J. Findlay and M. Lynch (Edinburgh, 1998), p. 122.

  10. 10.

    Robertson, Royalists at War, p. 21.

  11. 11.

    P. H. Hardacre, The Royalists during the Puritan Revolution (Dordrecht, 1956), pp. 3–6.

  12. 12.

    J. W. Daly, ‘Could Charles I be Trusted? The Royalist Cause, 1642–1646’, Journal of British Studies 6 (1966), 23–44.

  13. 13.

    J. G. Marston, ‘Gentry Honor and Royalism in Early Stuart England’, Journal of British Studies 11 (1973), 21–43.

  14. 14.

    G. Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution: An Introduction to English Political Thought, 1603–1642 (Pennsylvania, 1993); J. W. Daly, ‘John Bramhall and the Theoretical Problems of Royalist Moderation’, Journal of British Studies 13 (1971), 26–44; B. Donagan, ‘Varieties of Royalism’, in Royalists and Royalism during the English Civil Wars, ed. J. McElligott and D. Smith (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 66–88; D. Scott, ‘Rethinking Royalist Politics, 1642–49’, in The English Civil War: Conflict and Contexts, 1640–49, ed. J. Adamson (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 36–60. The exception to this trend is the work of J.P. Sommerville, who has continued to argue for the prevalence of absolutist doctrine within English royalism. See: J. P. Sommerville, Royalists & Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London, 1999).

  15. 15.

    D. Smith, Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement, c. 1640–1649 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 321–2.

  16. 16.

    J. De Groot, Royalist Identities (London, 2001), p. xv.

  17. 17.

    E. Cowan, ‘The Solemn League and Covenant’, in Scotland and England, 1286–1815, ed. R. A. Mason (Edinburgh, 1987), p. 197; J. Morrill, ‘The English Revolution in British and Irish Context’, in The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution, ed. M. Braddick (Oxford, 2015), p. 568.

  18. 18.

    Cowan, ‘The Solemn League and Covenant’, p. 197.

  19. 19.

    M. Ó Siochrú, Confederate Ireland, 1642–1649: A Constitutional and Political Analysis (Dublin, 2008); Robertson, Royalists at War, pp. 99–123.

  20. 20.

    ‘The Engagement’ (1647), in Constitutional Documents, ed. Gardiner, pp. 347–52.

  21. 21.

    G. Burnet, The Memoirs of the Lives and Actions of James and William, Dukes of Hamilton and Castle-Herald (Oxford, 1852), pp. 70–1.

  22. 22.

    ‘Lorne to Hamilton’ (1638): National Records of Scotland [NRS], GD 406/1/454.

  23. 23.

    ‘The King’s Covenant’ (1638): National Library of Scotland [NLS], MS 34.5.15.

  24. 24.

    ‘The Cumbernauld Bond’ (1640): NRS, GD 220/3/183.

  25. 25.

    ‘The Kilcumin Band’ (1645), Memorials of Montrose and his Times, volume 2, ed. M. Napier (Edinburgh, 1848), pp. 172–3.

  26. 26.

    E. Cowan, Montrose: For Covenant and King (London, 1977), pp. 180–1.

  27. 27.

    ‘The Engagement’ (1647), in Constitutional Documents, ed. Gardiner, pp. 347–52.

  28. 28.

    E. Furgol, ‘Urry, Sir John’, in ODNB, available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com (accessed 28 November 2018).

  29. 29.

    B. Donagan, ‘The Web of Honour: Soldiers, Christians, and Gentlemen in the English Civil War’, The Historical Journal 44 (2001), pp. 388–9.

  30. 30.

    ‘Tullibardine to Lady Grant’ (1638), in The Chiefs of Grant, ed. W. Fraser, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1883), ii, p. 64.

  31. 31.

    J. Nicholl, A Diary of Public Transactions and Other Occurrences, Chiefly in Scotland: From January 1650 to June 1667 (Edinburgh, 1836), pp. 7–8.

  32. 32.

    Extracts from Burgh of Aberdeen, ed. Stuart, pp. 128–30.

  33. 33.

    A Large Declaration Concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1639), p. 6.

  34. 34.

    R. Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, 1637–1662, ed. D. Laing, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1841), i, pp. 89, 162–3.

  35. 35.

    NRS, CH 2/271/1, pp. 107–10.

  36. 36.

    NRS, CH 2/224/1, p. 253.

  37. 37.

    ‘Wilkie to Balcanquhall’ (1639), in The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, ed. Laing, i, pp. 483–4.

  38. 38.

    NRS, CH 2/242/3, pp. 303–4.

  39. 39.

    NLS, Wodrow Folio XXXI, no. 2, pp. 7–24.

  40. 40.

    NRS, PA 7/23/2/34.

  41. 41.

    NRS, GD 248/46/4, no. 8.

  42. 42.

    T. F. Henderson and E. Furgol, ‘Mackenzie, George, second earl of Seaforth’, in ODNB, available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com (accessed 28 November 2018).

  43. 43.

    H. Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, 8 vols. (Edinburgh, 1920).

  44. 44.

    I. Lom, Orain Iain Luim – Songs of John MacDonald, Bard of Keppoch, ed. A. M. MacKenzie (Edinburgh, 1964), pp. 20–5.

  45. 45.

    The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, ed. Laing, i, p. 74.

  46. 46.

    For a discussion of the prominence of anti-Campbell mentality, see: A. Lind, ‘A Gaelic Civil War? – Iain Lom and the Civil War in the Highlands and Islands’, Venture Faire 22 (2017), pp. 3–7.

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  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Andrew Lind

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  1. Department of History, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Matthew Ward

  2. Department of History, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Matthew Hefferan

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Lind, A. (2020). ‘You may take my head from my shoulders, but not my heart from my soveraigne’: Understanding Scottish Royalist Allegiance During the British Civil Wars, 1639–1651. In: Ward, M., Hefferan, M. (eds) Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400-1688. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37767-0_11

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