The attitudes of the Long Parliament towards the Scots, 1640-1643

Abstract

According to Professor Trevor-Roper, John Pym was in the habit of calling on the Scots to aid the Long Parliament’s cause and of dismissing them when he had done with their services. Whatever the truth of this claim, most of the historians of the Great Rebellion have followed the example of Trevor-Roper’s John Pym, and have peremptorily summoned and dismissed the Scots as it suited the requirements of their narrative* For this, however, historians of the great contest between King and Parliament ought not to be blamed. After all, the object of their scholarship is the working out of that conflict, and the drama of the events depends very much upon the close combat between King and ’Country’. The Scots are but one ingredient in a complex of rival forces; and at times the significance of the Scots to the narrative is greater than at others. To the history of the Great Rebellion, particularly during its early years, the Scots are but a shade of colour employed to develop the grand canvas upon which the general historian works. The treatment of the Scots in these early stages of the rebellion is episodic. It is a treatment which, though suiting the purposes of general history, is not necessarily appropriate to understanding the import of this single factor in the melee of the early 1640's. Such is the task of an history thesis: to highlight the issues half-forgotten in the writing of great historical narratives. There has yet to be described the Scottish factor in these tumultuous events.