Electronic copies of History and Politics conference papers and proceedings. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/721 2026-10-03T15:54:30Z 2026-10-03T15:54:30Z Mann, Alastair http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37310 2025-08-02T00:24:11Z 2022-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Government, Representation and the Privy Council in Pre-modern Scotland Author(s): Mann, Alastair Abstract: In 2020 the universities of Stirling and Dundee in Scotland were the recipients of a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant to study the Scottish Privy Council in the period 1689 to 1708. The project aims to explore the records of this period with a view to creating a wide range of published outputs in social, economic, and political spheres and also to transcribe and display in an online platform the main records of the Council for use by historians and the general public in an important initiative in digital humanities. This article will review the significance of the Scottish Privy Council as an executive authority, consider certain unique and universal qualities within a wider European context, and also outline the main aims of the project, which is due to conclude, in spite of the simultaneous international pandemic, in 2024.

2022-12-01T00:00:00Z Mann, Alastair http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37309 2025-08-02T00:23:51Z 2023-09-25T00:00:00Z

Title: Revolution and Censorship: The policies of the Scottish Parliament and Privy council before and after 1689 Author(s): Mann, Alastair Abstract: The Privy Council was the main vehicle for censorship in premodern Scotland, but always in a context set by the Scottish Parliament, which itself was driven by the political circumstances of the day. Once the revolution of 1689 took place against James II and VII and ushered in the new regime under William of Orange simultaneous pressures to be more liberal and suppress the printed word that supported the old regime left censors with something of a dilemma. Matters of church, state and the government criticism became the cause of much debate and interpretation as in the 1690s party politics developed more fully while at the same time some old ideas about undesirable works surprisingly retained a good deal of traction. This paper will explore the nature of government action over censorship either side of the revolution and assess causes and consequences as well as continuity and change by contemporary censors.

2023-09-25T00:00:00Z Mann, Alastair http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37265 2025-08-02T00:02:23Z 2022-09-21T00:00:00Z

Title: 'A whimper not a bang': killing-off the Privy Council of Scotland Author(s): Mann, Alastair Abstract: The pre-modern Scottish Privy Council based in Edinburgh (the Scottish executive) was abolished in 1708, a victim of politics in Scotland and with the concurrence of some originally reluctant English ministers. The Scottish Parliament argued for the retention of this institution during the negotiations over the Treaty of Union which when enacted in 1707 saw the Scottish Parliament folded into that of England to create the new parliament of Great Britain. For some fears over national security in Scotland and Jacobite invasion, the movement to reinstate the exiled Catholic Stuart kings, seemed logical motivations to embrace more direct rule from London. Desires to ensure that territorial security would also bring confessional security and protect the Protestant succession merely confirmed the long-term difficulties as the post-revolution administrations of William and Queen Anne sought to consolidate the revolution of 1688-90. It was necessary but challenging to win the peace as well as the war. However, the motivations for those Scots who supported abolition, over what was after all the most important mechanism of day-to-day government in Scotland, had its foundations in emergent parliamentary party politics before and after 1707. This paper will trace attitudes to authority and influence in executive government as it clashed with representatives seeking to curtail executive power.

2022-09-21T00:00:00Z Mann, Alastair http://hdl.handle.net/1893/37184 2025-07-02T00:03:54Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: James VII in Biography and Autobiography: The First and Forgotten Jacobite Author(s): Mann, Alastair Abstract: First paragraph: King James VII of Scotland. He is of course the father of Jacobitism, the origin of the label – James, Latin Jacobus and so Jacobitism. Even though I wrote and taught about Jacobitims long before my biography of James was published almost a decade ago James VII, Duke and King of Scots, 1633-1701 (John Donald, 2014), I’m essentially a Restoration historian, contrasting James more with his brother Charles than with his son and grandson. Biography is a problem and there is always the fear of becoming the person you write about. There is a considerable amount of negative history written about James – failure, cowardice, delusion, stupidity etc. F.C. Turner published a good, source-rich biography of James in 1948 in which he judged his easy-to-read handwriting a sign of low IQ. God help them, my former students must have thought me a genius as they struggled to read my comments on their essays. I for one delight in James’s hand being easy on the eye.

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z