Abstract
A collapse in royal authority would have been fatal to the sense of Scottish identity, for it was the crown, with the church, that had for centuries represented that identity. At times in the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the danger must have seemed real. Yet, though the crown was at times weak, enough remained of its authority to maintain the credibility of the kingdom. At the same time, the period from the 1370s to the early fifteenth century saw a remarkable literary and historical elaboration of the ideology of national identity. From 1424 onwards, there was a revival of the authority of the crown under James I and his successors; and a further elaboration of the national mythology, all reinforcing the sense of national identity which had been articulated during the Wars of Independence.
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Notes and References
The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. J. Stuart and G. Burnett (Edinburgh, 1878) I, pp. 545–93. The only sheriff’s account to survive which was rendered during David’s captivity is printed ibid., pp. 542–4.
Of the 520 acts recorded in Regesta Regum Scottorum, VI, 344 were issued after David’s return in 1357; to this must be added a further 234 recorded only in the Register of the Great Seal. This record only exists in full from the 1360s; earlier rolls are lost though some record of their contents remains, see Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, I, ed. J. M. Thomson (Edinburgh, 1912), appendices 1 and 2.
Bruce Webster, ‘David II and the government of fourteenth-century Scotland’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (5th series), 16 (1966), pp. 120–1.
Duncan , ‘David II and Edward III’, Scottish Historical Reviem, 67 (1988), pp. 113–38.
A. Grant, ‘The Otterburn War from the Scottish point of view’, War and Border Societies in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Goodman and A. Tuck (London & New York, 1992), pp. 40–3.
Stephen Boardman, ‘The man who would be king: the lieutenancy and death of David, duke of Rothesay, 1399–1402’, in People and Power in Scotland, ed. Roger Mason and Norman Macdougall (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 1–27.
The Bruce by John Barbour, ed. W. M. Mackenzie (London, 1909), p. xvii.
Johannis de Fordun Chronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. W. F. Skene (The Historians of Scotland, I, Edinburgh, 1871) , pp. xiv and xlix—li, where there is printed the preface included in two of the MSS of an abbreviated version of Bower’s extension of Fordun’s original work.
See Androw of Wyntoun’s Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, ed. David Laing (3 vols) ( The Historians of Scotland, II, III and IX, Edinburgh, 1872–79). There is a later edition published by the Scottish Text Society (1903–14).
Michael Brown, James I (Edinburgh, 1994), ch. 2.
Michael Brown, ‘That old Serpent and Ancient of Evil Days’, Scottish Historical Review, 71 (1992) , pp. 23–45; and James I, ch. 8.
Christine McGladdery, James II (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 23–4.
The only full text is still the eighteenth-century edition under the title Joannis de Fordun Scotichronicon cum supplementis et continuatione Walteri Boweri, ed. Walter Goodall (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1759). A modern edition, planned in nine volumes, under the general editorship of D. E. R. Watt, is in progress. Seven volumes have appeared, under the title Scotichronicon by Walter Bower (Aberdeen and subsequently Edinburgh, 1987—).
For the whole reign, see Norman Macdougall, James III: A Political Study (Edinburgh, 1982). The conflicts between Mary of Gueldres and Bishop Kennedy, and their respective achieve-ments, are discussed on pp. 51–65.
Vita Nobilissimi Defensoris Scotie Willelmi Wallace Militis, ed. M. P. McDiarmid (Scottish Text Society, 4th series, 1968–9).
Norman Macdougall, James IV (Edinburgh, 1989).
But see A. A. M. Duncan, James I, 1424–1437 (University of Glasgow, Scottish History Department Occasional Papers, 1976), pp. 13–15.
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© 1997 Bruce Webster
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Webster, B. (1997). The National Identity. In: Medieval Scotland. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25402-6_6
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