"I will be of Demosthenes minde": Religion, Polemic, and the Passions in the Writing of Thomas Scott, 1620–1626

In his short but controversial publishing career, the radical Protestant polemicist Thomas Scott (ca. 1580–1626) claimed the right to address King James VI and I directly on foreign policy. Building on recent scholarship in rhetoric, religion, and affect, this article examines how Scott shapes a collective Protestant identity by targeting the passions. In creating this passion-based identity, he aims to counter a Roman Catholic enemy that the state seems incapable of opposing effectively. I consider how Scott fuses the role of the orator and the divinely sanctioned prophet in his pamphlets. My main focus is on Scott's inventive appeals to pathos, to the passions of his readers, in order to persuade them to agree with his political program and to put it into collective action.