Barry Robertson - Royalists at War in Scotland and Ireland, 1638–1650

BARRY ROBERTSON
University of Aberdeen, UK

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 2014 Barry Robertson

Barry Robertson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Robertson, Barry.

Royalists at war in Scotland and Ireland, 1638-1650 / by Barry Robertson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-5747-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Great Britain--History--Civil War, 1642-1649. 2. Royalists--Scotland--History--17th century. 3. Royalists--Ireland--History--17th century. 4. Great Britain--History--Puritan Revolution, 1642-1660. I. Title.

DA415.R5554 2013

942.0624--dc23

2013007764

ISBN: 978-1-4094-5747-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-3156-0709-2 (ebk)

The bulk of the research for this book (as well as large sections of the writing of it) was conducted during a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for funding this fellowship; without it the book would simply not have got off the ground. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, who mentored the project, and who has been an active supporter of my academic endeavours for many years.

Many thanks also to the staff at the following repositories: Aberdeen University Special Collections; British Library, London; Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections, Trinity College, Dublin; Drum Castle Archives; Lambeth Palace Library, London; National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh; National Library of Ireland, Dublin; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Scottish Catholic Archives, Edinburgh; The National Archives, London; West Sussex Record Office, Chichester.

A number of other individuals provided me with help and encouragement during the course of this project. Particular thanks to Professor Allan Macinnes for his constant support. Many thanks also to Dr Robert Armstrong for his very helpful comments on early drafts of some sections of the book, and to Dr Elaine Murphy for kindly checking some of my transcriptions of material in the British Library. Thanks also to Professor Thomas Bartlett, Dr John Cronin, Professor David Dickson, Dr David Ditchburn, Dr David Finnegan, Dr Cathy Hayes, Dr Daniel MacCannell, Dr Jason McElligott, Professor James McGuire, Dr Iain MacInnes, Dr Annaleigh Margey, Professor John Morrill, Professor Steve Murdoch, Dr Michel Siochr, Dr Scott Spurlock, and Dr David Worthington.

I would also like to acknowledge the continuing support of my family, particularly my mother, Anne Robertson. Thanks too to my in-laws: Herman and Marieke Frankot, Michiel Frankot and Heleen Meijer. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Edda Frankot for all her love and support, not to mention all the practical help she has given me in relation to this book.

Dates throughout this book are given according to the Old Style (Julian) Calendar, which was used in contemporary Britain and Ireland. The New Year is taken to begin on 1 January according to Scottish usage, not 25 March as was the case in England. It has been assumed that British and Irish persons writing from Catholic Europe and the Low Countries dated their correspondence according to the New Style (Gregorian) Calendar, which was ten days ahead of the Julian Calendar.

BL British Library

HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission

NAS National Archives of Scotland

NLS National Library of Scotland

TNA The National Archives

WSRO West Sussex Record Office

Any student new to the history of the British and Irish Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century will invariably find themselves presented with a vast array of studies concentrating on a variety of topics relating to political, social and military aspects of the period. Some of these aspects, it has to be said, remain much more widely studied than others. Traditionally, royalism has very much fallen into the less widely studied category. Whereas a vast number of works have been written over the years examining the covenanting movement in Scotland, the Catholic Confederation in Ireland, or the Parliamentarians in England, royalism has rarely attracted the same kind of attention. Scholars of English royalism have offered up a number of reasons for this. One major telling factor appears to have been the fact that the men and women who supported the king left relatively little in the way of diaries, journals and administrative records whereas much remains from the pens of their parliamentary counterparts. Royalist pamphlets were somewhat thicker on the ground, but again, this output was far outstripped by pro-Parliament printed propaganda. As such it has simply been the case that historians of the Civil Wars in England have tended to gravitate to where the bulk of the surviving evidence lies.

In part also, there may simply have been a tendency on the part of historians in England, Scotland and Ireland to examine the movements that come closest to being national in viewpoint and whose leading figures sought to assert this in dynamic fashion whether they were Parliamentarians, Covenanters or Confederates. All three movements sought to advance individual versions of what might be termed governmental nationalism as well as confessional nationalism and to assert this within a wider three-kingdoms context. By its very nature royalism could never seek to compete on those terms. Primarily, royalism was a creed which drew the support of those who valued loyalty to the king and his policies over and above individual national agendas within England, Scotland and Ireland. This ultimately left its adherents facing life as a minority in each country, particularly so in Scotland and Ireland. Historians of royalism in the three kingdoms have duly been left in the same position.