Alasdair Raffe

1707, 2007, AND THE UNIONIST TURN IN SCOTTISH HISTORY

This article reviews the latest research on the making of the Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union of 1707 and unionism in modern Scotland. Stimulated by the tercentenary of the union, but running counter to the popular mood at the time of that anniversary, many of the recent publications exhibit a novel and sympathetic interest in principled support for union. Using Christopher Whatleys The Scots and the union (2006) and Colin Kidds Union and unionisms (2008) as starting points, the article shows how the new histories differ from earlier work, while also identifying the interdisciplinary roots of the ‘unionist turn’ in Scottish history.

James VII's Multiconfessional Experiment and the Scottish Revolution of 1688–1690

Recently, historians have contended that the Scottish revolution of 1688–90 was at least as radical as the simultaneous revolution in England. This article makes a complementary claim: that James VII and IIs policy of tolerating almost all Christian worship, which was introduced first in Scotland, had a greater impact in the northern kingdom than has previously been recognized. Using hitherto unexamined local church court papers, the article argues that Jamess indulgences of 1687 initiated a ‘multiconfessional experiment’, a period of largely unfettered competition between religious groups that lasted until the overthrow of the king in the revolution. Not only Scotlands small Catholic and Quaker communities, but also a large body of presbyterian dissenters, benefited from this multiconfessionalism. The revival of presbyterianism ultimately allowed for the re-establishment of presbyterian government in 1690. Though there was peaceful coexistence between rival religious groups in 1687–8, the outbreak of religious violence at the revolution suggests that most Scots remained intolerant of cultural difference. The wider importance of Jamess experiment was to reveal how difficult it was for an established Church accustomed to uniformity to perform vital social functions – including poor relief and moral discipline – in conditions of religious pluralism.

Propaganda, Religious Controversy and the Williamite Revolution in Scotland

Abstract This article argues that religious controversy—particularly presbyterian allegations of ‘persecution’ by episcopalian governments—contributed a critique of Restoration politics that was used to justify the Williamite revolution in Scotland. The article distinguishes between ‘official’ propaganda sanctioned by the Prince of Orange and ‘unofficial’ propaganda written independently of his authority by his supporters. The historiography of propaganda in the English revolution shows that ‘official’ propaganda—in particular Williams Declaration of Reasons—was explicable within the context provided by ‘unofficial’ propaganda, notably the anti-Catholic writings of Gilbert Burnet. Williams separate Scottish declaration was contextualised by presbyterian arguments from Restoration religious controversy. The article shows the uses to which a distinct vocabulary of ‘persecution’ was put by Dissenting presbyterians in the 1680s, and the presbyterian church of Scotland and its episcopalian adversaries from 1690.

ARCHIBALD PITCAIRNE AND SCOTTISH HETERODOXY, c. 1688–1713 *

This article argues that the Edinburgh physician Archibald Pitcairne made a significant and original contribution to European religious heterodoxy around 1700. Though Pitcairne has been studied by historians of medicine and scholars of literary culture, his heterodox writings have not been analysed in any detail. This is partly because of their publication in Latin, their relative rarity, and their considerable obscurity. The article provides a full examination of two works by Pitcairne: his Solutio problematis de historicis; seu, inventoribus (‘Solution of the problem concerning historians or inventors’) (1688); and the Epistola Archimedis ad Regem Gelonem (‘Letter of Archimedes to King Gelo’) (1706). As well as untangling their bibliographical and textual difficulties, the article places these tracts in the context of Pitcairnes medical, mathematical, and religious interests. A range of readers deplored the sceptical implications of the pamphlets, but others, particularly in free-thinking circles in the Netherlands, admired Pitcairnes work. And yet Pitcairne himself was no atheist. He doubted a priori proofs of Gods existence, but had been convinced by a version of the argument from ‘design’. The article concludes by relating Pitcairnes complex religious attitudes to his background in late seventeenth-century Scotland.