Book Review Comparison

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Review Author(s): K. Bowie Review by: K. Bowie Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 124, No. 507 (Apr., 2009), pp. 431-434Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20485603Accessed: 29-10-2015 11:06 UTC

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BOOK REVIEWS 431

of Muslim 'infidels' and Habsburg acquisition ofTransylvania are seen to provide Jesuits with the opportunity to move into a land with a troubling 'reputation for heresy' and to win its population over to 'the True Faith' (p. 6). In I69I the Transylvanian diet offered loyalty to Leopold on the basis of his acceptance of the legal rights of the principality's Evangelical, Reformed, anti-Trinitarian and Catholic churches. However, Transylvanian Catholicism thereafter benefited from strong state support. One strand of this policy was the promotion of a Uniate church. In I692 Leopold declared that those who left the Orthodox church and united with Rome would be granted all the rights given to Latin Catholics. Shore examines the prominent role played by Jesuits in the subsequent direction of this Uniate church but is rather unimpressed by its relative lack of progress among Transylvania's Romanian-speakers. He also notes the lack of any substantial efforts by Jesuits in Cluj directly to 'reach out to a largely illiterate Eastern Rite population', instead concentrating on conversion efforts to the Hungarian-speaking Calvinist community (p. 82). Shore then describes the financial support provided by the Habsburg authorities to develop a Jesuit academy in Cluj, the Jesuit take-over and alteration of church buildings, and use of drama and other means to gain converts. He notes the growing numbers of pupils attending the Cluj academy, the apparent popularity of Jesuit plays, and the erection of a Mary column outside the Jesuit church which 'affirmed the triumph of Catholic theology over Protestant and Unitarian beliefs' (p. I23). However, in the end Shore concedes that the results of the Jesuit presence in Transylvania were surprisingly modest. In 1714 there were only around 30,000 Catholics in Transylvania, and at 'the peak of the Jesuits' strength' in I754 they could only muster 84 annual converts, even according to their own report (p. I58). While some interesting details are provided about Jesuit interactions with potential converts, the surviving sources of the Society treated here do not seem particularly helpful in reflecting on these limited achievements.

The structure of this book is a little uncertain in the latter chapters: some recent work on the Uniate church has been neglected, there are mistakes in given names, and a reliance in places on some rather odd secondary literature. Some of the claims made for Jesuit achievements in the region are certainly over-stated. One suggestion, although admittedly not central to Shore's concerns, is that a Jesuit was the first to translate 'large portions of the Bible into Hungarian' in I626 (p. 63). This overlooks printed Hungarian translations of parts of the Bible from the 1530S and three editions of a complete Bible translation in circulation by I6I2. The I626 Jesuit translator indeed specifically warned his readers against using these existing 'Calvinist Bibles'.

G. MURDOCK doi:Io.1093/ehr/cepo7I Trinity College, Dublin

Anglo-Scottish Relations from I603 to I900, ed. T.C. Smout (Oxford: Oxford U.P., for the British Academy, 2005; pp. 281. ?40);

The Scots and the Union, by Christopher A. Whatley (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U.P., 2006; pp. xv + 424. ?25).

These two books represent the fruits of the fresh angles pursued in recent decades in the history of Britain and the 1707 Anglo-Scottish Union. With

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contributions by leading scholars, they illuminate the contexts, causes and consequences of the 1707 Union, from the I603 union of crowns to the nineteenth century. The authors highlight key issues in Anglo-Scottish relations over time, exploring moments of connection and mutual influence as well as conflict. Throughout, a sense of the British union as a negotiable entity, rather than a fixed or inevitable end, emerges from both volumes.

In recognition of the 400th year of the union of crowns, the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh sponsored in 2003 a series of events from which Professor Chris Smout has gathered papers for the present collection.' The first six essays in the collection together comprise a primer on the British problems of the seventeenth century. These complement Professor Chris Whatley's important study of the making of the Union of 1707, The Scots and the Union, which focuses on the period from the Revolution of I688-9 to 1707. To mark the 300th anniversary of the Union, Whatley and his research assistant Derek Patrick have integrated findings from new sources as well as a vigorous historiography to provide a well-rounded and detailed study. After digesting this, the reader can turn back to the British Academy volume to explore English and Scottish reactions to closer union during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Connections and conflict feature in the British Academy collection as Jenny

Wormald, Keith Brown, John Morrill, Clare Jackson and John Ford analyse the nature of union following the accession of James VI to the English throne in I603. Wormald begins with a lively essay on James and the limits of British union. Though the conjunction of Scotland and England under one crown had been anticipated by James and others, the conflicting priorities of the English, the Scots and their monarch soon created tension in the 'brave new world' of British union. Wormald stresses the degree to which the Scots and the English still saw each other as historic adversaries in I603, though Brown is

more optimistic about the extent to which the Protestant amity established in 1560 had begun to soften traditional enmities. Brown points to the successful pacification of the borders, while Ford discusses the development of a pragmatic British approach to the law of the sea. Morrill's essay notes the degree to which the monarchical union was accepted by the Scots and the English by its fourth decade, but points to the struggles of the two nations over the terms of union during the Civil War. Both Morrill and Wormald's essays indicate how circumstances after I603, and particularly after I638, encouraged the Scots to push for confederative union, while the English preferred assimilative union or no union at all.

If the union of crowns led to competition between the kingdoms, it also enabled dissidents to make common cause across the Anglo-Scottish border in opposition to a shared monarch. Morrill explores these dynamics for the civil war period, while Jackson shows how the Restoration crown began to use the nature of the composite kingdom to its own advantage by sending suspected dissidents to Scotland, where judicial torture could be used against them. This tactic, however, created new tensions in the multiple British monarchy, inciting fear of the monarch's tyrannous powers and contributing to the Revolution against James VII and II.

I. A further set of papers has been edited by William L. Miller and published as Anglo-Scottish relations from I900 to devolution and beyond, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. I28, (Oxford, 2005).

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Significantly, Whatley's book on the I707 Union takes the Revolution of i688 as its starting point. While his essay in the British Academy volume deepens familiar arguments for the desirability of a union of trade, his book constructs a broader thesis, emphasising the religious politics of the Union as well as the economic. This is a refreshing development, given the polarisation of some Union histories between economic and political perspectives. With the religious politics of the Revolution in the frame, the making of the Union becomes a story of negotiation and compromise to secure a Protestant crown and Presbyterian church as well as free trade for Scotland. With meticulous detail and strong documentary evidence, Whatley traces

the development of support in Scotland for a closer union with England from the Revolution onwards. He stresses that this support relied as much on a desire to secure the Presbyterian Revolution settlement against an Episcopalian Jacobite threat as a wish to provide new economic opportunities to Scottish merchants and producers. Whatley sets this nascent unionism against the explosion of opposition seen in 1706-7 to the treaty of incorporation and shows how the government managed to secure a parliamentary majority for the treaty in the face of violent public objections. His analysis is notable for its rehabilitation of the reputation of the squadrone volante, the group of Whig parliamentarians who provided the critical swing vote in favour of the treaty.

While acknowledging that secret payments and promises of office were made from London to members of the Scottish Parliament, including the squadrone,

Whatley builds a convincing picture of a parliament moved by principle as well as pecuniary instincts. Whatley's analysis also supports the impression of the union as a negotiated outcome. Though initial arguments from Scotland for a confederal union proved to be politically impracticable, widespread outrage provoked by the treaty of incorporation did lead to its modification. The final treaty accommodated at least some fears for the security of the Presbyterian church and key branches of trade, with concessions being hammered out as petitions rained down on Parliament and riots erupted in Edinburgh and other towns. Anglo-Scottish relations after 1707 are considered in the remaining essays in

the British Academy volume. These highlight the continuing evolution of the British union under changing circumstances. While Colin Kidd emphasises the solid unionism of moderate Enlightenment Scots, he points to the desire of many Scottish thinkers to improve the union. Although they considered the 1707 treaty to have been necessary, they also saw it as flawed (in part by the concessions made to Scotland's nobles which were needed to secure agreement at the time). To bring Scottish civil liberties in line with those of England, further reforms, of Scottish feudalisms in particular, were urged. Despite the rhetoric of liberty and justice, however, the winning of these modifications relied as much on a pragmatic need to limit the powers of Scotland's Jacobite nobles. Tom Devine shows how the threat of Jacobitism also opened doors in the East India Company to Scottish officers, professionals and merchants, creating a growing patronage network that tied the Scottish gentry into the English empire. Through an increasingly British empire, younger sons of lairds secured posts and badly-needed income, though many never survived to enjoy the fruits of their labours. While some Enlightenment Scots praised the civil liberties of the English

and sought imperial posts, others made British connections with more radical EHR, cxxiv. 507 (April 2009)


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ends in mind. Like the dissidents of the seventeenth century, the radicals of the later eighteenth century also made common cause across the border, aided by improving transport and communication links. Bob Harris traces the interaction between leaders and groups in Scotland and England, showing how they sought to correspond and co-ordinate their activities through personal networks, newspapers and pamphlets.

By the early nineteenth century, growing cultural connections between Scotland and England allowed Thomas Carlyle to become a literary luminary in London, as Rosemary Ashton shows. Rejecting the narrowness of provincial middle-class Edinburgh, Carlyle and his wife decamped for the cultural capital of London to provide cutting commentary on the 'condition of England', by which he meant Britain. In the realm of party politics, lain Hutchison confirms an increasing Britishness in the nineteenth century with, for example, the frequent election of Scots to English seats and vice versa. Yet, as Britishness expanded and became conflated to a degree with

Englishness, Scotland retained a sense of national distinctiveness. Like the union itself, though, Scotland's image shifted over time. Paul Langford explores how English perceptions of the Scots changed in response to the threats presented to England by the Scots. In the theatre, stock Scottish figures were transformed from Sauny the Scot, a barbarian of the late seventeenth century, to Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, a Scot on the make who first appeared on stage a century later. As Scots multiplied in elite circles south of the border, English preferences for assimilative union manifested themselves in a disdain for vulgar Scottish accents. By the early nineteenth century, however, Langford sees an emerging acceptance of the Scots as thrifty provincial cousins. Hutchison's closing essay hints at the forces that would disrupt this brief moment of equilibrium as he outlines grounds for the eventual rise of Scottish nationalism in the twentieth century. Together these two books provide a broad context for understanding the

British union and a deep exploration of how and why incorporation happened in 1707. As in any collection of essays, the British Academy volume has some gaps; for example, a chapter on Jacobitism on both sides of the border would have complemented Kidd's analysis of eighteenth-century Whig unionism. Nevertheless, the volume will prove useful to students as a guide to key issues over time, with footnotes supplying references for further reading. In turn,

Whatley's book provides a comprehensive analysis of the making of the 1707 union, though its length may prove a challenge to some readers. While moments of Anglo-Scottish union have inspired these books, their

analyses illuminate the often disruptive nature of the British union. When a dynastic accident led to the union of crowns, inherent differences between the Scottish and English kingdoms made this a difficult polity for any king to govern. Even when a shared interest in the Revolution of I688-9 impelled many in the Scottish Parliament to support incorporation in 1707, incompatibility in other areas, especially religion, made this a tenuous and conditional union. As Smout observes in his introduction, there was 'nothing natural or inevitable' in the idea of Anglo-Scottish union; but these books show how union in one form or another has endured for four centuries through a process of negotiation and accommodation.

K. BOWIE

doi:Io.1093/ehr/cepoI6 University of Glasgow

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Article Contentsp. 431p. 432p. 433p. 434

Issue Table of ContentsThe English Historical Review, Vol. 124, No. 507 (Apr., 2009) pp. 257-512Front MatterThe Exequies of Edward III and the Royal Funeral Ceremony in Late Medieval England [pp. 257-282]Hephaestion and Alexander: Lord Hervey, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the Royal Favourite in England in the 1730s [pp. 283-312]The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936-39 [pp. 313-354]Review-ArticleChurch Properties and the Propertied Church: Donors, the Clergy and the Church in Medieval Western Europe from the Fourth Century to the Twelfth [pp. 355-374]

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