Nathan MacLennan
“They have hazarded lives and fortunes to serve his majesty”: Royalist ideology and identity in Cromwellian Scotland 1649-1661
Supervisors
Professor Karin Bowie (University of Glasgow), Dr. Andrew Lind, (UHI Institute for Northern Studies), Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich (University of Glasgow)
Research Abstract
This project investigates an underexplored time period in Scottish history. During the 1650s, Scotland was conquered by the armies of Oliver Cromwell and incorporated into the Commonwealth regime. It examines Scottish politics during this turbulent era focusing particularly on the Scottish Royalist movement and resistance to the Cromwellian regime. Through an analysis of archival materials left by both occupying authorities and by Royalists themselves, this investigation will seek to understand the ways that Scots contested, but also adapted to, life under military rule. The project will also pay particular attention to Gaelic language sources, including vernacular poetry and oral traditions, in recognition of the crucial role Scottish Gaels played in resistance to Cromwellian rule. It is intended that the findings of the project will make a linguistically and culturally inclusive contribution to Scottish historiography, which has had a longstanding problem of marginalising Gaelic language perspectives within accounts of Scotland’s past.
In the longer term it is hoped that the findings of this research will enhance our understanding of the emergence of a culture of loyalism to the Stuart dynasty in Scotland which found its most prominent expression in the Jacobite movement. This will be achieved by providing a bridge between recent scholarly developments on the civil wars of the 1640s and the extensive body of Jacobite scholarship. The project will ask to what extent the experience of conquest in the 1650s led Scottish royalism to develop the patriotic and confessional allegiances that would become influential in the Jacobite era.
Biography
Nathan MacLennan is a SGSAH-funded doctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow and at the Institute for Northern studies, UHI. Before commencing doctoral studies, he achieved an M.A. in History and Politics at the University of Glasgow and an MSc in History at the same institution. In addition to his research, he is a Graduate Teaching Assistant for pre-honour courses with the History department at Glasgow and is a member of a research network of doctoral students focusing on seventeenth century Scotland which he co-founded with colleagues from different institutions across the country.
Contact
2324111M@student.gla.ac.uk or EX12NM@uhi.ac.uk