A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland deals with the making, shaping, and development of the Scottish Reformation. 28 authors offer new analyses of various features of a religious revolution and select personalities in evolving theological, cultural, and political contexts.

A Companion to Scottish Literature offers fresh readings of major authors and periods of Scottish literary production from the first millennium to the present. Bringing together contributions by many of the world’s leading experts in the field, this comprehensive resource provides the historical background of Scottish literature, highlights new critical approaches, and explores wider cultural and institutional contexts. Dealing with texts in the languages of Scots, English, and Gaelic, the Companion offers modern perspectives on the historical milieux, thematic contexts and canonical writers of Scottish literature. Original essays apply the most up-to-date critical and scholarly analyses to a uniquely wide range of topics, such as Gaelic literature, national and diasporic writing, children’s literature, Scottish drama and theatre, gender and sexuality, and women’s writing. Critical readings examine William Dunbar, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, amongst others. With full references and guidance for further reading, as well as numerous links to online resources, A Companion to Scottish Literature is essential reading for advanced students and scholars of Scottish literature, as well as academic and non-academic readers with an interest in the subject.

During the Scottish Revolution (1637-1651), royalists and Covenanters appealed to Scottish law, custom and traditional views on kingship to debate the limits of King Charles I's authority. But they also engaged with the political ideas of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant and Catholic intellectuals beyond the British Isles. This book explores the under-examined European context for Scottish political thought by analysing how royalists and Covenanters adapted Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic political ideas to their own debates about church and state. In doing so, it argues that Scots advanced languages of political legitimacy to help solve a crisis about the doctrines, ceremonies and polity of their national church. It therefore reinserts the importance of ecclesiology to the development of early modern political theory.

The ‘humble petition’ was ubiquitous in early modern society and featured prominently in crucial moments such as the outbreak of the civil wars and in everyday local negotiations about taxation, welfare and litigation. People at all levels of society – from noblemen to paupers – used petitions to make their voices heard and these are valuable sources for mapping the structures of authority and agency that framed early modern society. The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain offers a holistic study of this crucial topic in early modern British history. The contributors survey a vast range of sources, showing the myriad ways people petitioned the authorities from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. They cross the jurisdictional, sub-disciplinary and chronological boundaries that have otherwise constrained the current scholarly literature on petitioning and popular political engagement. Teasing out broad conclusions from innumerable smaller interventions in public life, they not only address the aims, attitudes and strategies of those involved, but also assesses the significance of the processes they used. This volume makes it possible to rethink the power of petitioning and to re-evaluate broad trends regarding political culture, institutional change and state formation.

By drawing upon recent scholarship, original manuscript materials, and previously unpublished sources, this new biography presents an analytical narrative of King James VI & I’s life from his birth in 1566 to his accession to the throne of England and Ireland in 1603. The only son of Mary Stuart and heir (apparent but not uncontested) to Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland was, from the moment of his birth, a focal point of countervailing hopes and fears for the confessional and dynastic future of the kingdoms of the British Isles. This study examines material from across the UK and beyond, as well as the newly deciphered letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, to reveal James as a highly capable, resourceful, deeply provocative and ruthless political actor. Analysis of James’s own writings is integrated within the narrative, providing fresh insights into the king’s inventive tactical engagement in the politics of publicity. Through a chronological approach, the events of his life are linked to wider issues associated with the early modern court, government, religion, and political and ideological conflict. James VI, Britannic Prince is of interest to all scholars of Scottish and British history in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

The first volume of The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism explores the period 1530-1640, from Henry VIII's break with Rome to the outbreak of the civil wars in Britain and Ireland. It analyses the efforts to create Catholic communities after the officially implemented change in religion, as well as the start of initiatives that would set the course of British and Irish Catholicism, including the beginning of the missionary enterprise and the formation of a network of exile religious institutions such as colleges and convents. This work explores every aspect of life for Catholics in both islands as they came to grips with the constant changes in religious policies that characterised this 110-year period. Accordingly, there are chapters on music, on literature in the vernaculars, on violence and martyrdom, and on the specifics of the female experience. Anxiety and the challenges of living in religiously mixed societies gave rise to new forms of creativity in religious life which made the Catholic experience much more than either plain continuity or endless endurance. Antipopery, or the extent to which Catholics became a symbolic antitype for Protestants, became in many respects a kind of philosophy about which political life in England, Scotland, and colonised Ireland began to revolve. At the same time the legal frameworks across both Britain and Ireland which sought to restrict, fine, or exclude Catholics from public life are given close attention throughout, as they were the daily exigencies which shaped identity just as much as devotions, liturgy, and directives emanating from the Catholic Reformation then ongoing in continental Europe.

The first volume of The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism explores the period 1530-1640, from Henry VIII's break with Rome to the outbreak of the civil wars in Britain and Ireland. It analyses the efforts to create Catholic communities after the officially implemented change in religion, as well as the start of initiatives that would set the course of British and Irish Catholicism, including the beginning of the missionary enterprise and the formation of a network of exile religious institutions such as colleges and convents. This work explores every aspect of life for Catholics in both islands as they came to grips with the constant changes in religious policies that characterised this 110-year period. Accordingly, there are chapters on music, on literature in the vernaculars, on violence and martyrdom, and on the specifics of the female experience. Anxiety and the challenges of living in religiously mixed societies gave rise to new forms of creativity in religious life which made the Catholic experience much more than either plain continuity or endless endurance. Antipopery, or the extent to which Catholics became a symbolic antitype for Protestants, became in many respects a kind of philosophy about which political life in England, Scotland, and colonised Ireland began to revolve. At the same time the legal frameworks across both Britain and Ireland which sought to restrict, fine, or exclude Catholics from public life are given close attention throughout, as they were the daily exigencies which shaped identity just as much as devotions, liturgy, and directives emanating from the Catholic Reformation then ongoing in continental Europe.

In this established textbook, Wallace provides a succinct overview of the European Reformation, interweaving the influential events of the religious reformation with the transformations of political institutions, socio-economic structures, gender relations and cultural values throughout Europe. Examining the European Reformation as a long-term process, he reconnects the classic 16th century religious struggles with the political and religious pressures confronting late medieval Christianity, and argues that the resolutions proposed by reformers such as Luther were not fully realised for most Christians until the early 18th century. This new edition features a brand new chapter on the Reformation from a global perspective, updated historiography, a new chronology, and updated material throughout, including on the interrelationship between religion and politics after 1648.The Long European Reformation provides an even-handed and detailed account of this complex topic, providing a clear overview that is perfect for undergraduate and postgraduate students of history and religious studies. New to this Edition: - New chapter on the Reformation in global perspective - Incorporates new perspectives and current debates on Luther and the place of the Reformation within Western history, including consideration of how people lived with their religious differences - Expanded conclusion with references to the 500th anniversary and religious continuities