Royalists at War in Scotland and Ireland, 1638–1650 by Barry Robertson (review)

Scholarship on the civil wars in the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland continues to unearth new insights into the contemporary weave of loyalty, politics, and religion. In this book, Barry Robertson turns his attention from purely Scottish interests to comparisons between Scotland and Ireland, focusing particularly on those nobles who supported, at various times and for varying motives, the Stuarts. His approach is to examine the topic chronologically through chapters on Scotland and Ireland in turn, with the contrasts and connections between them not always explicitly drawn. What he does, though, is to bring out the myriad variety in the actions and motives of the nobility in Scotland and Ireland, as well as their dilemmas when faced with Convenanters, parliamentary forces, and rebellious Catholics nominally supportive of the King. What emerges is that although the broad political objectives of royalists had much in common—support for both the idea of the monarchy and Charles I—there were many differences between and within the Scottish and Irish responses to royalism and loyalty to the King.

Robertson is on sure ground when he discusses the Scottish situation and highlights the different motivations and actions of Scottish lords as they attempted to control political responses to challenges in the Bishops Wars and beyond. While Robertson may be more familiar with the Scottish material, he has approached the Irish situation with enthusiasm and his narrative of the complex problems facing the Protestant Royalist Earl of Ormond and the Catholic Earl of Antrim, whose loyalty wavered, amply illustrates the difficulties faced by Charles and his supporters in plans both to subdue Ireland and use its resources in the battle for his kingdom.

Robertson’s main argument is that in both Ireland and Scotland, as in England, there was a spectrum of political views and actions, which can be characterised as royalism, ranging from those who were willing to follow the Stuart kings to the end, at the cost of life, family, and fortune, to those who, while supporting the principle of the monarchy, were happy to work out ways to accommodate themselves in the new political landscape.

Overall, this is a solid work of scholarship that is to be applauded for approaching the difficult task of assessing the highly complex and subtle political situations in both Scotland and Ireland. Comparative work of this kind can only deepen our understanding of the turbulent seventeenth century.