Protestantism, Revolution and Scottish Political Thought: The European Context, 1637-1651

by Karie Schultz

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474493116
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Series:	Scottish Religious Cultures
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Karie Schultz is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of St Andrews where she is working on a project about early modern British and Irish student migration. She completed her PhD at Queen’s UniversityBelfast in 2020, followed by a Rome Postdoctoral Fellowship at the British School at Rome. She has research interests in the intellectual history of early modern Britain and Europe, focusing specifically on connections between political thought and theology. She has also published widely on Scottish intellectual history, university education and the Catholic mission.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Godly Commonwealth in Early Modern Protestant Thought
2. Adiaphora and Ecclesiastical Reform
3. Royalist Political Thought
4. Church Government and the Commonwealth
5. Covenanter Political Thought
6. The Evolution of Resistance Theory

Conclusion

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

a well-sourced, informative read on the different ecclesiological and political perspectives underlying the Scottish Revolution.

The North American Anglican - James Clark

Seventeenth-century Scotland has often been dismissed as an intellectual backwater, but Karie Schultz’s scintillating book documents the sophistication and cosmopolitanism of its political thinkers. Encompassing Covenanters and royalists, and exploring Calvinist engagement with Catholic theorists, Schultz provides a more subtle account of the ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ dimensions of Reformed politics. This book deserves a wide readership among scholars of the British Revolutions, Protestant political thought, and early modern intellectual history.

John Coffey

Seventeenth-century Scotland has often been dismissed as an intellectual backwater, but Karie Schultz’s scintillating book documents the sophistication and cosmopolitanism of its political thinkers. Encompassing Covenanters and royalists, and exploring Calvinist engagement with Catholic theorists, Schultz provides a more subtle account of the ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ dimensions of Reformed politics. This book deserves a wide readership among scholars of the British Revolutions, Protestant political thought, and early modern intellectual history.

University of Leicester John Coffey