The fin de siècle was a time of change in nationalism, culture, art, science and religion. Nations and groups grew into defining themselves through movements such as Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. Some groups sought to define themselves through reviving aspects of their old cultures as inspiration. For instance, Finland found inspiration in the Kalavala and William Morris inspired Arts and Crafts through England’s Middle Ages. Scotland had many pasts to choose from for inspiration. Patrick Geddes found inspiration in its Celtic past. Geddes is best known for his work as a town planner and sociologist, but has been under-valued for his work as the leader of the 1890s cultural movement in Edinburgh, the Celtic Renascence. In an effort to revive the flagging Old Town, Geddes created a community in Ramsay Garden on the Castle Esplanade. Ramsay Garden became home to Summer Meetings, University Hall functions, and the Old Edinburgh School of Art, and out of all this emerged The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal. The Evergreen served as a mouthpiece for the Celtic Renascence, a way for them to communicate the life of Ramsay Garden to those outside it. It was a journal which included art, literature and science, brought to the reader on a seasonal basis. Geddes’s view of Celticism was inclusive, he sought to include all peoples of Celtic nations (a view not all agreed with). But his Celtic Renascence was more than just a small art movement, it was part of his larger work to improve city life, to get people to broaden their perspectives and to generalise rather than specialise. Geddes used the Celtic Renascence, like any of his other projects, as a tool for positive and lasting change.

Household inventories record objects that can be compared with surviving artefacts contributing to the study of material culture and social history. However, this thesis shows how heterogeneous inventories found in early modern Scottish sources resist quantification and aggregation. Instead, qualitative use of inventory evidence is advocated. Inventories can contribute information on the locations of activities in the home. These activities may be preferred to the object as evidence of historical change and as units of international comparison. Furnishing a house was cultural activity, and a construction of culture. In this study, objects are regarded as participants in cultural activities, strategies, and the construction of values. Sixteenth-century inventories are often impersonal and tend to show similarities in content, encouraging mechanistic interpretations of domestic life. The seventeenth century saw a proliferation of household equipment and furnishing for elites throughout Europe due to changes in production and consumerism. Some of this new furnishing was bought in London, some in France. While national difference was apparently maintained in architecture, new furnishings may have effaced distinctions within elite rooms. Scottish and English culture was merged by aristocratic intermarriage. This new culture is seen in the inventories of Mary, dowager Countess of Home. She maintained houses in England and Scotland. Some of her furnishings represented the style of an inner circle at court. Her inventories are also significant because they detailed equipment for a range of activities. She personally prepared medicines and sweetmeats, and had a number of scientific instruments. Pursuits reconstructed from the detail of later inventories can illuminate other domestic situations where clues are more subtle or absent. The level of autonomy Lady Home and her daughters exercised over their homes is a reminder of the agency exercised by women over furnishings, gardens, architecture, and estate policy.

The thesis examines individual Scottish soldiers and Scottish regiments abroad in the second half of the seventeenth century, with particular focus on Scottish military service in France and the Netherlands, c.1660-92. The study contends that privately contracted units, of the sort common in the period of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), evolved into regular standing regiments by the end of the seventeenth century. This process is visible in the altered conditions experienced by professional Scottish officers and ordinary soldiers who served abroad in this period. This study proposes that Britain's foreign policy was primarily affected by that of her two most potent neighbours: France and the Netherlands profoundly affected the attitude of the Stuart monarchs towards their subjects fighting abroad. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The purpose of this study is to point to significant historical elements of James IV that appear to be characteristic of the plays of the late sixteenth century. One major characteristic of the plays of this period is the interest shown in historical events, current and. past. Other characteristics such as the use of allegory and didacticism appear in the plays of the period and are commented upon in this study. Standards of composition of this period that are relevant to James IV receive consideration also.

The regions of James II, III, and IV in the second half of the fifteenth century in Scotland saw a distinctive flowering of advice to princes literature. This is the first account of its kind to examine in detail the sources, arguments, and extent of political comment of each individual work. In particular it employs both literary and historical sources to reveal the largely unrecognized impact of continental, especially French, political thought, on a number of writers. The study opens with a consideration of the poem De Regimine Principum, a politically very forthright advice work, influential for a century or so after its composition. Chapter 2 deals with the writings of Sir Gilbert Hay, whose work shows clear influences from the continent, particularly in the Buik of King Alexander, which is also seen to have interesting links with De Regimine Principum. Chapter 3 discusses the romance Lancelot of the Laik, a poem less precise in its allusions, but clearly indicative of a number of recurrent preoccupations in Scottish advisory literature in the areas of justice and kingly minorities. The two following chapters examine The Talis of the Fyve Bestes, which gives a markedly nationalistic evocation of good kingship, and The Buke of the Chess, where Scottish advice to princes is seen at its least politically aware. In Chapter 6 advice appears in yet another genre, the devotional poem The Contemplacioun of Synnaris, where the wider associations of `kingship' with the nosce te ipsum tradition are apparent. Chapters 7 and 8 concern The Thre Prestis of Peblis and John Ireland's Meroure of Wyssdome, possibly produced around the same time, but presenting their advice in very different manners: the Thre Prestis adroitly worked and entertaining, the Meroure, highly theological and drawing strongly on continental writers, notably the sermons of Jean Gerson. In conclusion it is shown that through this context we can best appreciate the purpose and formidable execution of Robert Henryson's advice to princes fable lq The Lion and the Mouse.

This thesis is a study of the role of Scots and Scottish society in the politics of the Westminster Parliament and the British Union-state during the later Georgian period. Specifically, it analyses the lobbying activity of certain Scottish interests at Parliament and the central agencies of the British state in London during the period c.1760-c.1830. In doing so, this thesis is concerned with the developing efficacy of Scottish lobbies, as well as the extent to which they represented identifiably Scottish interests at Westminster and within the British Union-state over the course of this period. It aims to expand our understanding of how important elements within Scottish society gradually came to play an active role in the British political centre and argues that Scottish lobbying changed over this period from a position of nurturing and defending a separately constructed Scottish 'national' interest to becoming part of an integrated set of interests operating within a broader and more comprehensive British framework. This change was brought about by the need to represent Scottish interests more effectively within the British Union-state, particularly as the politics of Westminster became more important to certain parts of Scottish society from the 1780s onwards during the early industrial revolution. This process was, at times, uneven, and there was often tension between ongoing convergence and persistent distinction. Nevertheless, Scottish interests became more closely integrated within the British political system over the course of this period through their lobbying activities at the Westminster Parliament and of ministers in Whitehall. They increasingly operated more effectively as part of the British political and legislative process, and did so in ways which no longer presented them as separate or different in what was becoming a more authentically 'British' political culture.

John Bellenden's Chronicles of Scotland (1531-r. 1537) is a humanist Scots translation of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historia (1527). As the first full-scale printed national history in the vernacular, the Chronicles assumed a pivotal role in sixteenth-century Scottish literary culture. Despite its contemporary importance,however, relatively little critical attention has been paid to Bellenden's work itself, primarily due to the misconception that it is a neutral translation of the Scotorum Historia. However, as Bellenden successively revised his text in several stages with stylistical, ideological and material alterations, the Chronicles needs to be evaluated as an individual literary work. The <en>Chronicles reveals much about translation practice, cultural attitudes and book history in early modern Scotland. This thesis situates John Bellenden as a leading vernacular humanist whose concern to heighten the quality of vernacular Scots gave major impetus to the vernacular tradition in Scottish historiography. Chapter 1 shows how Bellenden's overall translation policy is indebted to humanist literary precepts and shows how its embodiment evolves through the course of his revision work. The following three chapters, which deal with Books 1, 12 and 16 of the Chronicles respectively, demonstrate the changing nature of Bellenden's translation and revision practice. A comparative analysis of the first manuscript version, three intermediary manuscript versions and the final printed version exhibits how Bellenden's attitude towards the Chronicles is affected by his ultimate respect for humanistic quality, and his consideration of his patrons and his audience. Chapter 5 examines the contemporary reception of the Chronicles. The conclusion seeks to reevaluate the congruity of the Chronicles with the contemporary cultural milieu and its influence on subsequent historiography and literature within and outwith early modern Scotland.

This inter-disciplinary thesis addresses the long term continuity and change found in representations of Scottish royal authority through state ceremonial bridging the gap between medieval and early modern across four centuries. Royal ceremony in Scotland has received very haphazard research to date, with few attempts to draw comparisons that explore how these crucial moments for the representation of royal authority developed over the course of a number of centuries. Three key royal ceremonies – inaugurations/coronations, funerals and weddings (with consort coronations) – form the core of this study of the Scottish monarchy from c.1214 to c.1603, and were chosen due to their integral position in the reign of each monarch. The issues of succession and security of hereditary monarchy dictate that the ceremonies of death and accession are inescapably intertwined, and funerals and coronations have been studied in unison together for other European comparators. However, the frequency of minor accessions, early and violent deaths, absentee kingship and political upheaval in Scotland across the time period determined from an early stage that weddings – often the first occasion for Scottish monarchs to project their personal adult authority and the point at which Scotland had the widest European audience for their display – were essential to forming a rounded view of developments. By offering a detailed analysis of these ceremonial developments across time, this study will provide the framework from which further research into royal ceremony and its place as essential platform for the dissemination of royal power can be undertaken. The thesis focuses upon key questions to illuminate the developments of these ceremonies as both reflectors of a distinct Scottish royal identity and representative of their integration within a broader European language of ceremony. How did these ceremonies reflect the ideals of Scottish kingship? How were they shaped to function within the parameters of Scottish governance and traditions? How was the Scottish crown influenced by other monarchies and the papacy? How did it hope to be perceived by the wider European community and how was royal power exercised over its subjects in this transitional period of Scottish history? The focus upon Scotland’s visual forays on the international stage and varied relations with European actors has required a continual comparison with other European countries across this time period, with particular attention being paid to England, France, Ireland and the Low Countries. Within the context of a highly public and interactive era of display and posturing by great leaders across Europe, crucial points this thesis engages with include: what made the Scottish ceremonies unique? And how can this further our understanding of that which lay beneath such representations of royal authority?

This thesis examines and re-evaluates the political career and reputation of James Stewart, Earl of Moray, who acted as Regent of Scotland for the young King James VI from 1567-1570, after the deposition of Mary, Queen of Scots. Drawing upon a rich and varied body of evidence located in both the English and Scottish archives of state papers, together with contemporary propaganda, memoirs and histories, this work constructs a much needed political narrative of the period, investigating the often highly complex politics which lay behind the outbreak and the initial stages of the Marian Civil War. It questions Maurice Lee's image of Moray as the 'gude regent', an image which was first present in Buchanan's History, and which depicts Moray as a highly successful regent, and an altruistic Protestant reformer. Dispelling Lee's view of Moray as a 'reluctant regent', it shows instead that the Earl was determined to gain, and then maintain, his position of power. It incorporates a discussion of the constitutionality of the actual regency itself, together with the theories of election which were drawn up to justify both it and the deposition of a monarch. In addition, the thesis sheds light upon the dynamics of Scottish political alignment during the period, emphasising the great fluidity which was to be found, and showing how issues of internal government, and attitudes towards England, affected men's allegiances as much as, if not more than, the ostensible issue of monarchy itself. This study also builds upon recent work by Tudor historians such as John Guy and Stephen Alford, and sets Moray's regency within an Anglo-Scottish context, demonstrating the importance of the interconnections between events in England, such as the Norfolk plot, and Scottish politics. It investigates the English attitudes towards Mary, and towards the two rival parties within Scotland, taking into account the sometimes conflicting objectives of Elizabeth I and her leading ministers, such as William Cecil, yet showing how they consistently sought to gain dominance over Scotland. Moray's regency was cut short by his assassination, and this thesis concludes by considering both his murder and its aftermath. It explores how his death impacted upon the political situation, together with the way in which his reputation was shaped in the immediate period after his death. Finally, it investigates the opportunity that both Moray's assassination and the Northern Rising of late 1569 had given England to intervene in Scottish affairs, and further pursue policies to that country's own advantage.

This thesis discusses twentieth century children's fantasy fiction. The writers whose creative output is dealt with include Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Pat O'Shea, Peter Dickinson, T.H.White, Lloyd Alexander and, to a lesser extent, C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien. These authors have been chosen because their books, whilst being of a broadly similar nature, nevertheless have a sufficient diversity to illustrate well many different important aspects of children's fantasy. Chapter I examines the sources of modern fantasy, presents the attitudes of different authors towards borrowing from traditional sources and their reasons for doing so, and looks at the changing interpretation of myths. Chapter II talks about the presentation of the primary and secondary worlds and the ways in which they interact. It also discusses the characters' attitudes towards magic. Chapter III looks at the presentation of magic, examines the traditional fairy-tale conventions and their implementation in modern fantasies, and discusses the concepts of evil, time, and the laws governing fantasy worlds. Chapter IV deals with the methods of narration and the figure of the narrator. It presents briefly the prevailing plot patterns, discusses the use of different kinds of language, and the ideas of pan-determinism and prophecy. The concluding chapter considers the main subjects and aims of children's fantasy, the reasons why the genre is so popular, and its successes and failures.