Exile and Return from the Far North of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution

• Published in: Etudes écossaises no. 13; pp. 19 - 39
• Main Author: Brochard, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: UGA Éditions/Université Grenoble Alpes 30.09.2010
• ISSN: 1240-1439; 1969-6337
• DOI: 10.4000/etudesecossaises.215

The exile and return of individuals from the far north of Scotland from 1560 to 1640 can be viewed within the perspective of a “civilizing process” and its dual core of social discipline from above and social regulation from below. Indeed, the Government promoted “exile” as a way to channel clan militarism. It intended to relocate the potential offered by private armies into the public sphere—i.e. as an official, governmental institution—and regulate it. The rationale behind this exile policy points towards its own “civilizing” agenda. In that sense, the clan military force and network survived by its transposition into an official body, equally military in its nature. The experiences of returning soldiers proved just as multifarious as their reasons for joining the army and as a result remoulded both individuals and communities in a process of social regulation. The military co-optation allowed the elite, this middling sort (at the State level), both in exile and on their return to Britain to position itself for the promotion of their own interests and that of the clan. A parallel phenomenon was at work in the exile and return of primarily, but not solely, members of the clan elite not only to other Scottish towns outside their native environment but also to Europe for educational motives. It (re)shaped, mutatis mutandis and in a more pronounced way, their native culture into a pre-existent hybrid society in their integration into a Lowland and British genteel model. The response of the northern Highlanders, as homo peregrinator, to the push and pull factors of exile and return was to adapt and utilize the opportunities forced onto or presented to them by the State or which arose from Rinascimento culture. They used their various kinship ties and other networks to the full for a constant re-alignment according to their respective interests. Social transformations came from below too perhaps most visibly and profoundly at the cultural level. To some extent, what the Crown tried with difficulties to impose in the so-called “civilizing” of the far north was somewhat accomplished almost imperceptibly by cultural influences. It helped redefine and re-assess the perception of an immovable and immutable society immersed in clan warfare. The result is a picture less of a retrograde, stultified, and monolithic society, though with some elements of this remaining, but more of a slowly moving and diverse one engaged in and selectively responding to a pre-existing but amplified early-modern bicultural process. In fine, this remained an ongoing process best studied over the longue duréeand with significant variations both in terms of geography and, within communities, within clans and families themselves.