L'Écosse à l'envers: Scotland's Restoration Pamphleteer Thomas St Serfe

Thomas St Serfe, or Sydserff, is a seventeenth-century translator, playwright, and pamphleteer who has received scant academic attention. The majority of his work was printed in Edinburgh in 1661. This essay proposes that St Serfe wrote as a means of reimagining Scotland for the Restoration. As a devoted royalist, St Serfe was keen to move on from the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and return to what he perceived as the order and harmony that existed before. Whilst his writing directs his reader backwards to an older version of Scotland, he also looks outwards and clearly has ambitions for Scotland to become a global trader. This study of St Serfe focuses mainly on two of his most interesting works. Firstly, the Mercurius Caledonius, one of the first newspapers written for a Scottish audience. Secondly, 'The prince of Tartaria, his Voyage to Cowper in Fife', a parodic, carnivalesque travel narrative which I argue nonetheless makes a sincere attempt to 'map' Scotland for the Restoration.