In early modern Scotland, religious and constitutional tensions created by Protestant reform and regal union stimulated the expression and regulation of opinion at large. Karin Bowie explores the rising prominence and changing dynamics of Scottish opinion politics in this tumultuous period. Assessing protestations, petitions, oaths, and oral and written modes of public communication, she addresses major debates on the fitness of the Habermasian model of the public sphere. This study provides a historicised understanding of early modern public opinion, investigating how the crown and its opponents sought to shape opinion at large; the forms and language in which collective opinions were represented; and the difference this made to political outcomes. Focusing on modes of persuasive communication, it reveals the reworking of traditional vehicles into powerful tools for public resistance, allowing contemporaries to recognise collective opinion outside authorised assemblies and encouraging state efforts to control seemingly dangerous opinions.
Author(s): Karin Bowie
Series: Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 320
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1 Protestations
1.1 Protestation Practices
1.2 Protestations, 1560-1621
1.3 Covenanting Protestations and the Protesters, 1637-1659
1.4 Protestation and Testimony, 1660-1687
1.5 Conclusions
Chapter 2 Petitions
2.1 Petitioning Practices
2.2 Jacobean Petitioning
2.3 Petitioning under Charles I, 1625-1636
2.4 Petitions and Counter-Petitions under the Covenanters and Cromwell, 1637-1659
2.5 Constraints on Petitioning, 1660-1687
2.6 Conclusions
Chapter 3 Oaths
3.1 Subscriptional Bands before the National Covenant
3.2 The Covenanters and Cromwellian Conquest, 1637-1652
3.3 After the Covenants: Oaths from Cromwell to the Revolution
3.4 Conclusions
Chapter 4 Public Communications
4.1 Bruits, Broadsides and Books, 1560-1636
4.2 The Satisfaction of the Subjects, 1637-1659
4.3 Persuasive Publications after the Restoration, 1660-1687
4.4 Conclusions
Chapter 5 The Inclinations of the People
5.1 The Making of the Inclinations Clause
5.2 The Meaning of the Inclinations Clause
5.3 The Contestation of the Inclinations Clause
5.4 Conclusions
Chapter 6 The Sense of the Nation
6.1 The Sense of the Nation, 1689-1701
6.2 The Sense of the Nation, 1702-1707
6.3 Conclusions
Conclusions
Bibliography
Manuscript Primary Sources
National Library of Scotland
National Records of Scotland
Printed Primary Sources
Edited and Collected Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Reference Websites
Books, Chapters and Articles
Unpublished Theses and Papers
Index
