The Scottish State and the Experience of Government, c. 1560-1707: Essays in Honour of Julian Goodare

(Hardback)

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This volume examines the development of Scotland's institutions of government in the early modern period, and considers how local and central authorities affected the lives of the Scottish people. In the book's first part, contributors provide up-to-date studies of initiatives to reform, define and reimagine the Scottish state. The essays discuss changes in the privy council, parliament and administration, and assess political and constitutional ideas. The book's second part explores how Scots experienced government. Contributors consider the material culture of state power and the actions of local courts and officials. Essays reconstruct the perspectives of criminals and religious dissenters, as well as participants in debt litigation and slander suits. Several chapters attend to the role of governing bodies in the Scottish witch-hunts. The essays respond to major themes in the work of Julian Goodare, who retired as Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh in 2021.

Author Bio

Martha McGill is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. Her publications include Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland (2018) and The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland (2020), co-edited with Julian Goodare. She has also published various articles and chapters on early modern supernatural beliefs. Alasdair Raffe is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on religion, politics and ideas in early modern Scotland, in particular the emergence of religious, intellectual and political pluralism in the 17th and 18th centuries. He is the author of The Culture of Controversy: Religious Arguments in Scotland, 1660-1714 (Boydell, 2012) and Scotland in Revolution, 1685-1690 (EUP, 2018).