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Scotland's Conservative North in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

G. Donaldson
G. Donaldson
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

Some illustrations of the existence of a conservative north are at once apparent on even the most superficial examination of Scottish history in the seventeenth century. No historian has failed to notice, for instance, the fact that the strongest opposition to the National Covenant was concentrated in and around Aberdeen. It was in Aberdeen that the ‘doctors’, or theological professors of the university, denounced the Covenant and challenged its spokesmen to a debate in July 1638, and it was in Aberdeenshire that the Marquis of Huntly remained an unrepentant royalist during the years of the Covenanters' ascendancy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 16 , December 1966 , pp. 65 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1966

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References

page 65 note 1 The figures for the various synods are given by Mathieson, W. L., Politics and Religion in Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), ii, p. 193.Google Scholar Calculations by others have produced almost identical results. The number of parishes, and consequently of ministers, was approximately the same north of the Tay and south of the Tay.

page 66 note 1 Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, History of Scotland, i (Scottish Text Society, 1899), p. 204.

page 66 note 2 Hector Boece, History of Scotland, with continuation by Ferrerius (Paris, 1574), pp. 399–400.

page 68 note 1 Wodrow Soc. Miscellany, i (Edinburgh, 1844), p. 54.

page 68 note 2 The principal evidence is to be found in Registrum Secreti Sigilli, vols. ii and iii (Edinburgh, 1921, 1936), especially vol. ii, Nos. 1302, 1583, 2420, 2648, 2704, 2733, 2742, 2858, 2923, 2946, 2952, 2962, 2975, 2987–8, 3033, 3612, and vol. iii, Nos. 395, 612, 820. Supplementary evidence comes from David Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, i (Wodrow Soc, 1842), pp. 83–143 passim, and other sources.

page 68 note 3 Extracts from Council Register of Aberdeen, i (Spalding Club, 1844), pp. 110–11.

page 69 note 1 Ibid., 322.

page 69 note 2 Knox, John, History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. Dickinson, W. C. (Edinburgh, 1949), i, pp. 314–15.Google Scholar

page 69 note 3 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, i (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 537.

page 69 note 4 Fergusson, James, The White Hind (London, 1963), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 Knox, op. cit., ii, pp. 324–25.

page 70 note 2 Wodrow Soc. Miscellany, i, 432, 436.

page 70 note 3 Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, ii (Bannatyne Club, 1840), pp. 762–67.

page 71 note 1 Ibid., iii (1845), pp. 974–79.

page 71 note 2 Calderwood, op. cit., vii, pp. 104–7; Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, iii, pp. 1085–91.

page 72 note 1 Calderwood, op. cit., vii, pp. 498–501; Calderwood's evidence is reproduced in Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, xii (Edinburgh, 1895), 558–59/2.

page 72 note 2 In 1755, when the population of the country was just over 1¼ millions, the county figures were: Angus, 69,000, Kincardine, 23,000, Aberdeen, 116,000, Banff, 38,000, Moray, 31,000, Nairn, 6,000. It is true that Aberdeen and Banff were partly highland, but this can be offset by the lowland parts of Perthshire (total 120,000), Inverness-shire (60,000), Ross (48,000) and Caithness (22,000)—as well, indeed, as the whole of Orkney (23,000) and Shetland (15,000).

page 72 note 3 Calderwood, op. cit., vii, p. 97.

page 73 note 1 J. Melville, Autobiography and Diary (Wodrow Soc, 1842), p. 291.

page 73 note 2 Reid, J. M., Kirk and Nation (London, 1960), p. 54.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 Wodrow Soc. Misc., loc. cit.

page 73 note 4 Knox, op. cit., i, p. 61.

page 73 note 5 Donaldson, G., The Scottish Reformation (Cambridge, 1960), p. 50.Google Scholar

page 73 note 6 Knox, op. cit., i, p. 126.

page 73 note 7 Ibid., p. 48.

page 73 note 8 William Lithgow, Totall discourse of the rare adventures (London, 1632), p. 495.

page 74 note 1 Robert Baillie, Letters and Journals, iii (Bannatyne Club, 1842), p. 299.

page 75 note 1 Lauderdale Papers, ii (Camden Soc, 1885), p. 200 n.

page 75 note 2 Baillie, op. cit., iii, p. 35.

page 76 note 1 Calderwood, op. cit., iii, p. 158.

page 76 note 2 Spalding Soc. Misc. (Aberdeen, 1849), pp. 69–72; H.M.C. Report, v, p. 636; Wodrow Soc. Misc., i, p. 436.

page 78 note 1 Knox, op. cit., i, pp. 8–9.

page 78 note 2 Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1964), p. 36.Google Scholar

page 78 note 3 This subject has been examined by Mr M. H. Merriman in his David Berry Prize Essay on ‘Scottish Collaborators with England during the Anglo-Scottish War, 1543–1550’.

page 78 note 4 A. G. Dickens, op. cit., p. 201.

page 78 note 5 Ibid., p. 231, cf. 286.