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Amidst the flood of unionist literature that followed the accession of James VI to the throne of England, Thomas Craig's De unione regnorum Britanniae stands out as the largest, at around 95,000 words, and the most sophisticated in terms of its argumentation. This article examines Craig's argumentation in detail and shows that he understood British history as a repeating cycle of internecine conflicts between the peoples of Britain followed by invasion and conquest by continental powers. For Craig, the existential threat to Britain was Spain, the dominant Catholic power of the day. While negotiations for an end to the long war between England and Spain were contemporaneous with union negotiations, the De unione can still be seen as a warning about the ongoing dangers of disunity among British Protestants. It is shown that Craig's solution to the lingering historical antagonism between England and Scotland and the unwillingness on either side to compromise their fundamental national identity lay in an idealised version of the feudal-legal relationship as the foundation for the union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dury thought Schlezer "a modest godly and learned young man", and recommended him to the Anglo-Prussian intelligencer in London, Samuel Hartlib ( I c i . 1600-62).[9] This connection to Hartlib, which was initially limited to correspondence on literary matters, would later prove influential to the advancement of Schlezer's diplomatic career. Yet the desire to marry was also conditioned by Schlezer's concerns for his children, "especially my daughter".[35] For by this time Schlezer had been joined in London not only by his two children, but also by his sister, Elisabetha.[36] As Bernhard Erdmansdörffer has documented, Schlezer's diplomatic and personal missions in England came apart at the seams between 1656 and 1658. Keywords: Scotland; 17th century; John Slezer EN Scotland 17th century John Slezer 123 136 14 04/05/22 20220401 NES 220401 In 1669 an entrepreneurial foreigner named John Slezer arrived in Scotland. Schlezer's movements in the Netherlands are also documented in HP 36/1/3a (Schlezer in Amsterdam as recipient of Comeniana in 1637); HP, 37/62a (Johann Moriaen to Hartlib, 5 April 1640), mentioning Schlezer's communication of mathematical papers. [Extracted from the article]

Causing harm to persons or possessions was the stock-in-trade of Scottish witches, and in this sense Duff's maleficent activities are entirely typical, save for the relatively large number of people whom she targets, as well as the frequent lethality of her interventions.[26] Perhaps more intriguing is the accusation that Duff helped the child of William Duff (not necessarily a relation) recover from whooping-cough by having him tie a thread or ribbon around the child's throat. There were for instance more than sixty-five such commission in 1661 and 1662 alone, covering locations from Scatwell to Selkirk, but trial records survive for almost none of them.[14] Of course, some materials related to local proceedings are known, usually in the form of witches' confessions, although in a few cases with attendant trial records as well.[15] Nonetheless, Isobel Duff's trial is still an extremely rare example of surviving proceedings by a local witchcraft commission, and as such it offers invaluable insights into the nuts-and-bolts of prosecution as experienced by the majority of Scotland's accused witches. As we will see shortly, the details of Isobel Duff's case are in line with this comparatively satan-heavy profile.[6] Duff's trial also needs to be understood within the longer-term context of witch-prosecution in Scotland, which had developed along distinctive lines. Keywords: Scotland; Inverness; 17th century; witchcraft EN Scotland Inverness 17th century witchcraft 109 122 14 04/05/22 20220401 NES 220401 The document presented here is the formal proceedings for witchcraft against Isobel Duff, whose trial took place at Inverness on 17 July 1662. [Extracted from the article]

In seventeenth-century Scotland textiles were made in most districts and marketed widely at home and overseas. Woollens and linens, yarn, cloth, bonnets and stockings, with clear regional specialisations, were manufactured, but they were all of low cost and quality. Comparative advantage came from low rural wages. The wide distribution and character of textile production in the seventeenth century proved of great importance for post-Union success. Among imports the variety and social spread of luxury widened and deepened, though demand was restricted to the upper classes and the middling orders in Edinburgh and other large burghs. The seventeenth century, especially the second half, was a time of widening consumption of exotic articles such as tobacco, sugar and coffee among consumables, Asian silks and cottons (and their imitations) as articles of dress, and wall-hangings and pictures as décor. The social anxiety and economic stress this engendered gave rise to sumptuary laws like that of 1681. These had limited impact, though imports remained sensitive to tariffs. The letters of Andrew Russell, a merchant resident in Rotterdam between 1668 and 1697, demonstrate how this trade was carried out in both directions, and how the market responded to governmental attempts at control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the terms of the agreement of 1666 between Browne and a group of Barbadian planters and their associates in Scotland, the foundation was laid for organised joint-stock-based commerce between the English sugar islands and Scotland. He was referred to as "Captain John Browne" and "John Browne, esquire",[6] but since the name is so common in England, Scotland and the colonies, his exact identity remains uncertain. Keywords: Scotland; St Vincent; Barbados; 17th century; Navigation Acts; sugar EN Scotland St Vincent Barbados 17th century Navigation Acts sugar 129 137 9 04/02/21 20210401 NES 210401 The entrepreneur John Browne has been noted by historians as an example of a Scot who participated in transatlantic enterprise prior to Scotland's political union with England in 1707. Along with Browne's patent of 1660 for refining sugar in Scotland came the desire to establish a stable Scottish-Caribbean trade in sugar that was not subject to the restrictions of the English Navigation Acts. [Extracted from the article]

This article uncovers the dynamics of presbyterian conventicling after the Restoration settlement of 1661–2. In contrast to traditional accounts that have tended to foreground the exploits of dissenting clergy and especially itinerant preachers, particular attention is paid to the participation and organisational strategies of lay activists. It is argued that conventicles were formidable not only as sites of alternative worship, but as a well-organised and highly politicised opposition to Restoration governance that was genuinely popular in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1652 Ayr became a garrison town for the Cromwellian army. The English occupation brought challenges for Ayr's kirk session, ranging from the misbehaviour of local residents to the presence of religiously heterodox soldiers. This article surveys social and spiritual responses to the Cromwellian invasion, asking what these responses reveal about the on-going meanings of and commitments to the covenants. It is argued that the occupation brought to the fore both the fragility and flexibility of the community's covenanter identity, which endured long after the covenanting revolution had ostensibly failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article frames the reception of the Solemn League and Covenant within the context of seventeenth-century plantation culture in Ulster. While generally accepted as important in the politics of Ireland, the significance of the Solemn League and Covenant and its meaning to subscribers has been under-appreciated. Moving beyond the broader three-kingdoms meta-narrative, it is argued that the inclusion of Ireland in the Solemn League and Covenant had local roots: a growing network of protestant planters in the north of Ireland who invoked a Scottish-inspired biblical typology as a means of securing their own identity and permanence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the covenants were experienced by those who subscribed them in 1638 and 1643. Building on the recent historiographical focus on the role of ordinary people in the covenanting movement, this article argues that there were a range of standpoints on the ground which resulted in large part from the ambiguous wording of these national oaths. The role of women in the early covenanting years is also examined, with covenant subscriptions and instances of female-led protest highlighted to suggest the emergence of a more assertive and radical form of female activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways women interacted with the Scottish kirk in the decades prior to the National Covenant of 1638, mainly focusing on urban areas especially Edinburgh and environs. The written records, especially those of the kirk session, are skewed toward punishing women who engaged in sin, especially sexual sins such as adultery and fornication. Indeed, these records show that while women's behavior and speech was highly restricted and women were punished more frequently than men for their sexual behavior or for speaking out of turn, there were moments when women had a significant public voice, albeit one that was highly restricted and required male sanctioning. For example, women were often called on to testify before kirk sessions against those who had committed sins, even if the accused sinners were male or social superiors or both. Perhaps the most important moment where women used their male-sanctioned voice to speak out in public came at the Edinburgh Prayer Book Riots of 1637, which was led by women. This article argues that women were given the opportunity to act in public because the church had been characterized by many Scottish male preachers in gendered language - they called the church a "harlot mother" and a "whore" that needed correction. Therefore, the women of the Prayer Book Riot were sanctioned to speak out against a licentious sinner, much in the way women were called on to testify against sinners in front of kirk sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article claims that men and women in mixed marriages often subverted patriarchal norms when attempting to escape ecclesiastical censure in early modern Scotland. Ministers held husbands responsible for ensuring the conformity of their households, and they insisted that Protestant husbands bring their wives into the fold. These husbands then argued that they had no right to compel their wives in matters of conscience. Some even insisted that they had no control over their wives whatsoever. They were willing to appear failing in their patriarchal duties in order to protect their wives from the kirk, which was loath to interfere much further in marital relationships. Married women risked excommunication for their defiance, but local authorities were unable to confiscate any of their assets, which were held in trust by their husbands. Catholic women thus used the patriarchal assumptions of religious authorities as a means of undermining religious conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixteenth-century discourse is filled with criticisms about the ambition of women and the proletariat. This article explores the connection between gender, ambition, authority, reputation, and the language of condemnation at the Jacobean court. It argues that the prevailing rhetoric vilifying female ambition reflects contemporaneous anxieties about female dominance and authority. In turn, male invective, libel, and slander, directed toward politically active elite women, represent men's attempts to re-exert their authority over women perceived to be subverting established hierarchies of power. By tracing the use of invective in letters, court poetry, and moral essays, this paper reveals the ways in which abusive language was used to damage women's reputations in order to establish and maintain male authority over women and other men in the court of James VI/I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]