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James IV is the best-known of all the late medieval Scottish rulers. Widely praised by his contemporaries, he combined the qualities of successful medieval monarch with a wide interest in the arts and sciences, while remaining acutely conscious of the need to enhance the prestige of his dynasty throughout Europe. This excellent study examines all aspects of James IV's sovereignty, explains his popularity and his highly successful kingship and assesses reasons for the disastrous end to the reign when the king and a large population of the Scottish nobility were eliminated in a single afternoon in 1513 at Flodden. This book represents Scottish historical research at its very best. It is meticulously researched and sensitively written.
James III is the most enigmatic of the Stewart kings of Scotland. Variously characterised as artistic, peace-loving, morbidly suspicious, treacherous, pious, lecherous and lazy, King James was much criticised by contemporaries and later chroniclers for his failure to do his job in the manner expected of him, and particularly for his reliance on low-born favourites to the exclusion of his 'natural' counsellors, the nobility. Specific complaints included debasement of the coinage, royal hoarding of money, failure to staunch feuds and to enforce criminal justice. Yet James III has also been seen as a major patron of the arts, as Scotland's first Renaissance king, and as the architect of an intelligent and forward-looking foreign policy. In this new study, the author explores all these areas and seeks to explain why King James was challenged by a huge rebellion in 1482, which he narrowly survived, and why he succumbed to a further rising in 1488, which placed his eldest son on the throne as James IV.
The 'Auld Alliance' originated as an offensive and defensive treaty made by John, King of Scots, and Philip IV of France, directed against Edward I of England, in 1295-6. Remarkably, this original treaty of Paris/Dunfermline was frequently renewed throughout the course of the next two-and-a-half centuries, becoming latterly a cornerstone of Scottish foreign policy. Combining narrative and analysis, this book covers the uncertain beginnings of the Alliance, moving on to the major military commitment of the Scots to the French side in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) with England, the subsequent settlement of Scots in France in the fifteenth century, the close naval and military links between James IV and Louis XII of France in the early sixteenth century, and the climax and end of the Alliance following the marriage of Francis II of France to Mary, Queen of Scots (1558).
James V suffered the fate of many a son of a famous father in being somewhat overshadowed not only by his father James IV but also by his internationally renowned daughter Mary Queen of Scots. But no-one would deny the importance of his reign, embracing as it did the establishment of the Court of Session, the birthpangs of religious dissent, and the growth of royal power to such a remarkable extent that this king could leave his kingdom for nine months in 1536-7 without fear of rebellion. Jamie Cameron concentrates on James V's style of government and relations with his nobility, and challenges the widely held view of a vindictive and irrational king, motivated largely by greed, who antagonised most of his leading magnates and met his just deserts when they refused to support him in 1542. This book offers a different view, and presents us with a rounded picture of a king whose approach to government, in spite of some personal defects, closely resembles that of his supposedly more popular father; and, like James IV himself, retained impressive magnate support to the end of his reign.
This book, based on a fresh understanding of Scottish governmental records rooted in extensive archival research, offers the first study of these important institutions in a period of revived royal authority. The regime which emerges from these records is one which understood the power of consultation, adroitly using a range of groups from full parliaments to conventions of specialists and experts selected to deal with the matter in hand. Policies were crafted through not one single meeting but several types of gathering, ranging from small groups when secrecy was of the essence or complex details required to be hammered out, to elaborate large gatherings when the regime employed a performat...
The renowned historian Jenny Wormald was a ground-breaking expert on early modern Scottish history, especially Stewart kingship, noble power and wider society. She was most controversial in her book-length critique of Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately, Jenny never got round to producing a similar monograph on a monarch she was infinitely more fond of, King James VI and I, before her untimely death in 2015. In the absence of such a book, this volume brings together all the major essays by Jenny on James. She wrote on almost every aspect and every major event of James' reign, from the famous Gunpowder Plot, the Plantation of Ulster, the Gowrie Conspiracy, to the witchcraft panics, as well as James' extensive writings. She wrote extensively on James' Scottish rule, but she was also keenly interested in James as the first king of all of Britain, and many of her essays unpick the issues surrounding the Union of the Crowns and James' rule over all three of his kingdoms. This book is an invaluable resource for any scholar on this crucial time in the history of the British Isles.
George Buchanan (1506-82) was one of the most distinguished humanists of the Northern European Renaissance. Hailed by his contemporaries as the greatest Latin poet of his age, he is chiefly remembered today as a radical political theorist whose Dialogus, first published in Edinburgh in 1579, justified the deposition of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1567 on the basis of a theory of popular sovereignty, which vested in the people the right to resist, depose and kill tyrannical monarchs. Immensely influential in radical circles both in Britain and on the Continent, it made a notable contribution to the debates over the nature and location of sovereignty which would finally bear fruit in the writings of John Locke. This critical edition and translation of the Dialogus makes available for the first time a modern scholarly version of one of the key texts in the history of early modern British political thought.
First extended treatment of the city of St Andrews during the middle ages. St Andrews was of tremendous significance in medieval Scotland. Its importance remains readily apparent in the buildings which cluster the rocky promontory jutting out into the North Sea: the towers and walls of cathedral, castleand university provide reminders of the status and wealth of the city in the Middle Ages. As a centre of earthly and spiritual government, as the place of veneration for Scotland's patron saint and as an ancient seat of learning, St Andrews was the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland. This volume provides the first full study of this special and multi-faceted centre throughout its golden age. T...
This book is the first volume to scrutinise in detail the history of the Highlands and Islands incorporating the most up-to-date research. It examines the evolution of the idea of 'Celtic Scotland', tracing the historiography of the Gaidhealtachd through the Caledonians, the Picts and the first medieval writings in the area. It investigates such areas as Galloway as well as surveying politics, culture and the church in the context of the great medieval lordships such as those of the Isles, Argyll, Moray and Ross and demonstrates how the histories of such provinces were integrated into that of Scotland at large.
James VI and Noble Power in Scotland explores how Scotland was governed in the late sixteenth century by examining the dynamic between King James and his nobles from the end of his formal minority in 1578 until his accession to the English throne in 1603. The collection assesses James’ relationship with his nobility, detailing how he interacted with them, and how they fought, co-operated with and understood each other. It includes case studies from across Scotland from the Highlands to the Borders and burghs, and on major individual events such as the famous Gowrie conspiracy. Themes such as the nature of government in Scotland and religion as a shaper of policy and faction are addressed, ...