Protestantism, Revolution and Scottish Political Thought - (Scottish Religious Cultures: Historical Perspectives) by Karie Schultz

About the Book

The first comparative analysis of royalist and Covenanter political thought within a cross-confessional European context

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

a valuable contribution to the scholarship of religious and political ideas in early modern Scotland--James Morrison, Union Theological College Belfast "Studies in Puritanism and Piety"

a well-sourced, informative read on the different ecclesiological and political perspectives underlying the Scottish Revolution.--James Clark "The North American Anglican"

provides an in-depth, nuanced examination of a part of early modern European intellectual history and lays the groundwork for better understanding how, only a century later, the Scottish Enlightenment could bloom--J. J. Butt, Emeritus, James Madison University "CHOICE"

It is a testament to the author that one is left wondering why no one has done this sort of analysis before. It takes a unique skill set to be able to offer an analysis of such a wide range of pan-European scholarship and to then understand how it related to the constitutional crises that gripped Britain and Ireland in this period.--Chris R. Langley, The Open University "Scottish Church History"

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, University of Leicester