This study examines issues of religion, culture, and national identity in early modern Britain, with the focus being upon one specific Highland clan, MacDonell of Glengarry. The author proposes that it is Catholicism and the Catholic mission of the years 1650-1750 that provide the essential element in understanding the history of the clan during the early modern period.
Conventional accounts of the Scottish Highlands tend to assume that they remained detached from the mainstream of British affairs until well into the eighteenth century. In Governing Gaeldom, Allan Kennedy challenges this perception through detailed analysis of the relationship between the Highlands and the Scottish state during the reigns of Charles II and James VII & II. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, Kennedy traces the political, social, ecclesiastical and economic linkages between centre and periphery, demonstrating that the Highlands were much more tightly integrated than hitherto assumed. At the same time, he reconstructs the development of Highland policy, placing it within its proper context of the absolutist pretensions of the late-Stuart monarchy. The result is a thorough reinterpretation which offers fresh insights into the process of state-formation in early-modern Britain. The volume has been awarded the Frank Watson Book Prize for 2015. For more details see: https://www.uoguelph.ca/scottish/frank_watson This title is shortlisted for the Saltire Society 2014 History Book of the Year Award. For more details see: http://www.saltiresociety.org.uk/awards/literature/literary-awards/scottish-history-book-of-the-year/2014-history-book-shortlist/
What use is it to be given authority over men and lands if others do not know about it? Furthermore, what use is that authority if those who know about it do not respect it or recognise its jurisdiction? And what strategies and 'language' -written and spoken, visual and auditory, material, cultural and political - did those in authority throughout the medieval and early modern era use to project and make known their power? These questions have been crucial since regulations for governance entered society and are found at the core of this volume. In order to address these issues from an historical perspective, this collection of essays considers representations of authority made by a cross-section of society within the British Isles. Arranged in thematic sections, the 14 essays in the collection bridge the divide between medieval and early modern to build up understanding of the developments and continuities that can be followed across the centuries in question. Whether crown or noble, government or church, burgh or merchant; all desired power and influence, but their means of representing authority were very different. These essays encompass a myriad of methods demonstrating power and disseminating the image of authority, including: material culture, art, literature, architecture and landscapes, saintly cults, speeches and propaganda, martial posturing and strategic alliances, music, liturgy and ceremonial display. Thus, this interdisciplinary collection illuminates the variable forms in which authority was presented by key individuals and institutions in Scotland and the British Isles. By placing these within the context of the European powers with whom they interacted, this volume also underlines the unique relationships developed between the people and those who exercised authority over them.
