Protestant Reformation in Europe and Englandâs ally, Holland, the first capitalist state that was struggling to achieve independence from Spain. It is hard to shrug off the anti-Catholic sectarianism that has blighted modern Scotland, but if one can, this can be seen as an attempt by the old feudal order to strangle a new society, struggling into life, and Mary was quite conscious of what she was involved in.
Maryâs infant son, James VI, took the throne and was fought over by rival sections of the nobility, who abducted and tried to murder him. On reaching adulthood he used conciliation and coercion to exert a degree of control through a strong Privy Council and overcame the strict Calvinists to create bishops in the Church of Scotland, as agents of royal power. 3
In the meantime, parts of Scotland remained relatively free of royal rule. In the north-east the earls of Huntly remained Catholic, and in 1594 defied Jamesâs order to renounce their religion or quit Scotland. The Earl of Argyll was ordered to raise an army to assert royal power, and mobilised 8,000 of his clansmen and their allies. In Glenlivet they met with Huntly and Errolâs smaller force of 2,000, but their cavalry and artillery were able to rout Argyllâs clansmen. 4
Jamesâs continued attempts to disarm and demilitarise the Highland clans had limited success, but he still had to rely on powerful magnates such as the Campbells to maintain some kind of order. Nevertheless, a number of clans became Calvinist at the diktat oftheir chief: the Campbells, Frasers, Grants, Munros and Rosses would generally support the government over the next century and a half. Not only were the Highlands physically divorced from the Lowlands, but now they were also divided along religious lines.
The dispossession of Church lands following the Reformation benefitted the nobility, not the peasantry. Nevertheless, Calvinism had its attractions for the lower orders, being based on regional presbyteries, made up of delegates, and with the election of local ministers. In response, nobles used their power to attempt to dominate much of these proceedings. The Kirk held itself as being above the power of a king and thus represented a challenge, never far from the surface, to royal rule.
The absence of peasant rebellions is something that contrasts Scotland with other Western European countries during the period. It can be explained by the very struggle to survive, the dominance of the nobility and the lairds, and the frequency of war and feuding. The historian Victor Kiernan argues, regarding the power of Calvinism, that âIt may not be surprising if some strata of the peasantry learned to hold fast to a dogmatic creed as a substitute for the inherited patch of soil that peasants in other countries clung to.â 5
Scotland differed from the development of feudal society in Western Europe during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike in France, Spain and Austria it had no royal standing army nor a numerous and capable state bureaucracy. Here the chaos characterising this period meant royal control remained limited while the nobility retained and increased its power.
By the seventeenth century the peasantry seldom owned the land they worked. Crops were sparse and rents could be as high as a third of what was grown, with payments in kind or service on top. At some point leases, it seems, grew longer, offering the peasantry more security. Smallholdings and small estates were, however, more numerous in the south-west, which was farther from royal control and in close contact with Ireland. This was the one area that would produce a rural rebellion later on.
During the Thirty Yearsâ War, Protestantism was pitted against the old, Catholic order. In Scotland, identification with the Kirk andanti-Catholicism meant a popular national consciousness emerged. But it also meant that because Scotland was too weak, and faced an internal,
Maryâs infant son, James VI, took the throne and was fought over by rival sections of the nobility, who abducted and tried to murder him. On reaching adulthood he used conciliation and coercion to exert a degree of control through a strong Privy Council and overcame the strict Calvinists to create bishops in the Church of Scotland, as agents of royal power. 3
In the meantime, parts of Scotland remained relatively free of royal rule. In the north-east the earls of Huntly remained Catholic, and in 1594 defied Jamesâs order to renounce their religion or quit Scotland. The Earl of Argyll was ordered to raise an army to assert royal power, and mobilised 8,000 of his clansmen and their allies. In Glenlivet they met with Huntly and Errolâs smaller force of 2,000, but their cavalry and artillery were able to rout Argyllâs clansmen. 4
Jamesâs continued attempts to disarm and demilitarise the Highland clans had limited success, but he still had to rely on powerful magnates such as the Campbells to maintain some kind of order. Nevertheless, a number of clans became Calvinist at the diktat oftheir chief: the Campbells, Frasers, Grants, Munros and Rosses would generally support the government over the next century and a half. Not only were the Highlands physically divorced from the Lowlands, but now they were also divided along religious lines.
The dispossession of Church lands following the Reformation benefitted the nobility, not the peasantry. Nevertheless, Calvinism had its attractions for the lower orders, being based on regional presbyteries, made up of delegates, and with the election of local ministers. In response, nobles used their power to attempt to dominate much of these proceedings. The Kirk held itself as being above the power of a king and thus represented a challenge, never far from the surface, to royal rule.
The absence of peasant rebellions is something that contrasts Scotland with other Western European countries during the period. It can be explained by the very struggle to survive, the dominance of the nobility and the lairds, and the frequency of war and feuding. The historian Victor Kiernan argues, regarding the power of Calvinism, that âIt may not be surprising if some strata of the peasantry learned to hold fast to a dogmatic creed as a substitute for the inherited patch of soil that peasants in other countries clung to.â 5
Scotland differed from the development of feudal society in Western Europe during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike in France, Spain and Austria it had no royal standing army nor a numerous and capable state bureaucracy. Here the chaos characterising this period meant royal control remained limited while the nobility retained and increased its power.
By the seventeenth century the peasantry seldom owned the land they worked. Crops were sparse and rents could be as high as a third of what was grown, with payments in kind or service on top. At some point leases, it seems, grew longer, offering the peasantry more security. Smallholdings and small estates were, however, more numerous in the south-west, which was farther from royal control and in close contact with Ireland. This was the one area that would produce a rural rebellion later on.
During the Thirty Yearsâ War, Protestantism was pitted against the old, Catholic order. In Scotland, identification with the Kirk andanti-Catholicism meant a popular national consciousness emerged. But it also meant that because Scotland was too weak, and faced an internal,
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