Civility, order and the highlands in Cromwellian Britain

Abstract

Above all, the republican regime that governed first England, and then the entirety of the British Isles in the 1650s viewed itself as ‘godly’. This was a concept with deep roots in English puritanism, and it conditioned the domestic aims and policies of the Cromwellian state. We know that the Commonwealth made some effort to export ‘godliness’ to Scotland, but little has so far been done to trace the implications of this agenda for the most traditionally ‘ungodly’ part of Scotland – the Highlands. This article traces how the notion of ‘godliness’ influenced Cromwellian attitudes towards Highland Scotland, as well as exploring the ways in which government policy tried to affect religious and behavioural reformation among Highlanders. In so doing, the article seeks to shed light upon the nature of the English regime in Scotland, while also offering an under-appreciated insight into the mental realm of the Commonwealth state more broadly.