This book assesses the everyday use of petitions in administrative and judicial settings and contrasts these with more assertive forms of political petitioning addressed to assemblies or rulers. A petition used to be a humble means of asking a favour, but in the early modern period, petitioning became more assertive and participative. This book shows how this contrasted to ordinary petitioning, often to the consternation of authorities. By evaluating petitioning practices in Scotland, England and Denmark, the book traces the boundaries between ordinary and adversarial petitioning and shows how non-elites could become involved in politics through petitioning. Also observed are the responses of authorities to participative petitions, including the suppression or forgetting of unwelcome petitions and consequent struggles to establish petitioning as a right rather than a privilege. Together the chapters in this book indicate the significance of collective petitioning in articulating early modern public opinion and shaping contemporary ideas about opinion at large. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Parliaments, Estates & Representation.

This book assesses the everyday use of petitions in administrative and judicial settings and contrasts these with more assertive forms of political petitioning addressed to assemblies or rulers. A petition used to be a humble means of asking a favour, but in the early modern period, petitioning became more assertive and participative. This book shows how this contrasted to ordinary petitioning, often to the consternation of authorities. By evaluating petitioning practices in Scotland, England and Denmark, the book traces the boundaries between ordinary and adversarial petitioning and shows how non-elites could become involved in politics through petitioning. Also observed are the responses of authorities to participative petitions, including the suppression or forgetting of unwelcome petitions and consequent struggles to establish petitioning as a right rather than a privilege. Together the chapters in this book indicate the significance of collective petitioning in articulating early modern public opinion and shaping contemporary ideas about opinion at large. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Parliaments, Estates & Representation.

The Anglo-Scottish union crisis is used to demonstrate the growing influence of popular opinion in this period. The common perception of the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 as a "political job", stitched up by a corrupt Scottish elite behind closed doors, is robustly challenged in this study, which shows how public debate and the mobilisationof popular opinion shaped the union crisis from beginning to end. It considers how the Country party sought to influence political outcomes by aggressively encouraging the public expression of oppositional opinion in pamphlets, petitions and crowds, from the Darien crisis of 1699-1701 to the parliamentary debates on incorporation in 1706-7. It also examines the government's changing response to these adversarial activities and its growing acceptance of theneed to court Scottish public opinion. This book explores the meaning, legitimacy and power of public opinion in early modern politics and revises our understanding of how an incorporating British union came to be made in 1707. It is a significant contribution to the political, social and cultural history of a period and an event that remains contentious to this day. Dr KARIN BOWIE lectures in History at the University of Glasgow.

The Anglo-Scottish union crisis is used to demonstrate the growing influence of popular opinion in this period. In the early modern period, ordinary subjects began to find a role in national politics through the phenomenon of public opinion: by drawing on entrenched ideological differences, oppositional leaders were able to recruit popularsupport to pressure the government with claimed representations of a national interest. This is particularly well demonstrated in the case of the Anglo-Scottish union crisis of 1699-1707, in which Country party leaders encouragedremarkable levels of participation by non-elite Scots. Though dominant accounts of this crisis portray Scottish opinion as impotent in the face of Court party corruption, this book demonstrates the significance of public opinion in the political process: from the Darien crisis of 1699-1701 to the incorporation debates of 1706-7, the Country party aggressively employed pamphlets, petitions and crowds to influence political outcomes. The government's changing response to these adversarial activities further indicates their rising influence. By revealing the ways in which public opinion in Scotland shaped the union crisis from beginning to end, this book explores the power and limitsof public opinion in the early modern public sphere and revises understanding of the making of the British union. Dr KARIN BOWIE lectures in History at the University of Glasgow.

In early modern Scotland, religious and constitutional tensions created by Protestant reform and regal union stimulated the expression and regulation of opinion at large. Karin Bowie explores the rising prominence and changing dynamics of Scottish opinion politics in this tumultuous period. Assessing protestations, petitions, oaths, and oral and written modes of public communication, she addresses major debates on the fitness of the Habermasian model of the public sphere. This study provides a historicised understanding of early modern public opinion, investigating how the crown and its opponents sought to shape opinion at large; the forms and language in which collective opinions were represented; and the difference this made to political outcomes. Focusing on modes of persuasive communication, it reveals the reworking of traditional vehicles into powerful tools for public resistance, allowing contemporaries to recognise collective opinion outside authorised assemblies and encouraging state efforts to control seemingly dangerous opinions.