The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638-1689
Title Details

264 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

Series: Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History

Series Vol. Number: 37

Imprint: Boydell Press

The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638-1689

Edited by Chris R. Langley

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Author
  • Reviews
What did it mean to be a Covenanter?

From its first subscription in 1638, the National Covenant was an aspect of life that communities across Scotland encountered on a daily basis. However, how contemporaries understood its significance remains unclear. This edited collection assesses how people interacted with the National Covenant's infamously ambiguous text, the political and religious changes that it provoked, and the legacy that it left behind. This volume contains eleven chapters divided between three themes that reveal the complex processes behind Covenanting: the act of swearing and subscribing the Covenants; the process of self fashioning and identity formation, and, finally, the various acts of remembering and memorialising the history of the National Covenant. The collection reveals different narratives of what it meant to be a Covenanter rather than one, uniform, and unchanging idea.
The National Covenant forced contortions in Scottish identities, memories, and attitudes and remained susceptible to changes in the political context. Its impact was dependent upon individual circumstances. The volume's chapters contend that domestic understanding of the National Covenant was far more nuanced, and the conversations very different, from those occurring in a wider British or Irish context. Those who we now call 'Covenanters' were guided by very different expectations and understandings of what the Covenant represented. The rules that governed this interplay were based on local circumstances and long-standing pressures that could be fuelled by short-term expediency. Above all, the nature of Covenanting was volatile.
Chapters in this volume are based on extensive archival research of local material that provide a view into the complex, and often highly personalised, ways people understood the act or memory of Covenanting. The chapters explore the religious, political, and social responses to the National Covenant through its creation in 1638, the Cromwellian invasion of 1650 and the Restoration of monarchy in 1660.
Introduction: Making and Remaking the Covenanters - Chris R. Langley
Corporate Conversion Ceremonies: The Presentation and Reception of The National Covenant - Nathan C. J. Hood
Glasgow and the National Covenant in 1638: Revolution, Royalism, and Civic Reform - Paul Goatman
Glasgow and the National Covenant in 1638: Revolution, Royalism, and Civic Reform - Andrew Lind
United Opposition? The Aberdeen Doctors and the National Covenant - Russell Newton
Allegiance, Confession, and Covenanting Identities, 1638-51 - Jamie McDougall
Reading John Knox in the Scottish Revolution, 1638-50 - Chris R. Langley
A Godly Possession? Margaret Mitchelson and the Performance of Covenanted Identity - Louise Yeoman
Royalism, Resistance, and the Scottish Clergy, c.1638-41 - Andrew Lind
The Engagement, the Universities, and the Fracturing of the Covenanter Movement, 1647-51 - Salvatore Cipriano
Remembering the Revolution: Memory, Identity, and Ideology in Restoration Scotland - Neil McIntyre
The Legacy of the Covenants and the Shaping of the Restoration State - Allan Kennedy
Who were the 'Later Covenanters'? - Alasdair Raffe
Bibliography

CHRIS R. LANGLEY is Reader in Early Modern History at Newman University, Birmingham.

"[this] is an invaluable contribution to Scottish historiography and will be essential reading for all who wish to study Scotland the seventeenth century, the Scottish reformation, or the Scottish context of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms." SCOTTISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
"A remarkably comprehensive survey of the state of current scholarship on a fast-growing field of study by eleven new and seasoned scholars of early modern Scotland [and a] wonderfully cohesive collection." JOURNAL OF THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE
"[An] amazingly in-depth study" JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
"Wide-ranging and well-focused" JOURNAL OF SCOTTISH HISTORICAL STUDIES
"This much-needed volume ultimately overturns and reconsiders long-standing stereotypes about Covenanted Scotland by demonstrating the highly fractious and contested (rather than cohesive) nature of the movement. . . . [E]ssential reading for scholars looking for new, cutting-edge approaches to religious and political diversity in early modern Scotland." STUDIA CELTICA FENNICA
"Insightful and thought provoking." HISTORY
"The National Covenant in Scotland effectively rebukes previous scholarship that treated Scotland as a sidebar when discussing one of the most significant events in the kingdom's own early modern history. [...] Langley and his contributors have paved the way for future scholars to continue to unearth the uniquely Scottish experiences of the seventeenth century." Elizabeth Tapscott, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies and Renaissance Quarterly
"The size of the book allows the development of particular themes in a way that a more structural history of 'social gospel' tendencies would not." David Thompson, Modern Believing

Hardcover

9781783275304

June 2020

Buy

$115.00 / £80.00

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Ebook (EPUB)

9781800100084

June 2020

Buy

$29.95 / £24.99

Ebook (EPDF)

9781787448308

June 2020

Buy

$29.95 / £24.99

Title Details

264 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

Series: Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History

Series Vol. Number: 37

Imprint: Boydell Press