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193 Chapter  Scotland International Politics, International Press Arthur Williamson Had Cain been Scot, God would have chang’d his Doom, Not forc’d him wander but confin’d him home. —John Cleveland, “The Rebell Scot” (1643) In 1594 andrew Melville composed a Latin pastoral celebrating the birth of King James’s son and heir, Prince Henry. Melville was no ordinary figure, but Scotland’s leading court poet, its leading minister, and, as rector of the University of St. Andrews, its leading educator. The poem, Principis ScotiBritannorum Natalia, was also far from ordinary. The Natalia envisioned James and Henry succeeding to the English Crown, creating a united Britain, and, now empowered with “Scoto-Britannic champions,” turning the tide in the great struggle against Spain. At the head of the Protestant communities, the new Britain would overthrow the Habsburg global empire and its papal ally. Thereby would arise a new era of justice and righteousness—one that did nothing less than work the historical redemption. The poem would be printed at Edinburgh with the king’s express approval. But something else happened, and in a way it too was extraordinary. Melville ’s colleague at St. Andrews, the distinguished jurist William Welwood, immediately arranged to have the poem also printed at The Hague and from I am most grateful to Paulina Kewes, Waldemar Kowalski, Allan Macinnes, Steve Murdoch, Jason Peacey, David Scott, as well as to Suzanne Tatian and her colleagues at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, for their help and insight. . Paul J. McGinnis and Arthur H. Williamson, George Buchanan: The Political Poetry (Edinburgh : printed for the Scottish History Society by Lothian Print, 1995), 276–81. For a discussion of this poem, see the introduction. Also see The British Union: A Critical Edition and Translation of David Hume of Godscroft’s “De Unione Insulae Britannicae,” ed. and trans. Paul J. McGinnis and Arthur H. Williamson (Aldershot, Hants., and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 11–3. 194 Arthur Williamson there distributed to the world, including England. Scotland’s vision emanated not from the realm itself but from the Netherlands. Scotland’s emphatically European horizon was actually immersed within Europe. The same was true of Scottish learning and language, matters closely associated then with the realm’s religious and political aspirations. Even Scottish pedagogy spoke to an international audience. Andrew Simson’s state-promoted Latinae Grammatices Rudimenta appeared in Edinburgh as well as Antwerp in 1580. Just as official and semi-official publications were printed outside Scotland, so too were more controversial works, such as George Buchanan’s De Jure Regni apud Scotos: Dialogus (Edinburgh, 1579; London in the following year; and again in 1581). John Johnston, another colleague at St. Andrews, would send his poetry directly to the Continent: his “Iambi Sacri” would see publication at Leiden and, apparently, also at Saumur. His Inscriptiones Historicae Regnum Scotorum appeared only at Amsterdam. Giants at both ends of the Scottish Renaissance such as Hector Boece and David Hume of Godscroft often went to the Continent to publish their most serious writings. The late medieval scholastic John Mair published an enormous amount of work, but not a single volume within Scotland. With the partial exception of Mair, none of these authors was an exile when he produced his work. Much of the time neither government repression nor censorship had caused them and so many like them to send their works overseas. Rather, we have here a pattern that typifies much Scottish writing throughout most of the early modern period. Why then did Scots look abroad? Why did this highly literate people develop only a limited national press? Modern scholars have long noted that Scotland was a small country and that its market for books was correspondingly restricted. When Robert Boyd at Saumur received half the press run . A. I. Cameron, ed., Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547–1603, Preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and Elsewhere in England (Edinburgh : H. M. General Register House, 1936), 11:430–1. The poem did create a diplomatic flap, for it made Britain a Scottish project and effectively sidelined Elizabeth. . The experience of Scots genuinely in exile confirms this pattern. In 1584, Scottish Presbyterian exiles in England sought to have their declaration printed secretly in London and, significantly, also at Antwerp (where it would appear under the name “incerto authore et typographo”). A secret press in Scotland seems never to have...

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