Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Introduction: Interrogating Men and Masculinities in Scottish History
- Part I Models
- 1 ‘Be Wise in Thy Governing’: Managing Emotion and Controlling Masculinity in Early Modern Scottish Poetry
- 2 Reformed Masculinity: Ministers, Fathers and Male Heads of Households, 1560–1660
- 3 The Importance and Impossibility of Manhood: Polite and Libertine Masculinities in the Urban Eighteenth Century
- 4 The Taming of Highland Masculinity: Interpersonal Violence and Shifting Codes of Manhood, c. 1760–1840
- Part II Representations
- Part III Lived Experiences
- Index
2 - Reformed Masculinity: Ministers, Fathers and Male Heads of Households, 1560–1660
from Part I - Models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Introduction: Interrogating Men and Masculinities in Scottish History
- Part I Models
- 1 ‘Be Wise in Thy Governing’: Managing Emotion and Controlling Masculinity in Early Modern Scottish Poetry
- 2 Reformed Masculinity: Ministers, Fathers and Male Heads of Households, 1560–1660
- 3 The Importance and Impossibility of Manhood: Polite and Libertine Masculinities in the Urban Eighteenth Century
- 4 The Taming of Highland Masculinity: Interpersonal Violence and Shifting Codes of Manhood, c. 1760–1840
- Part II Representations
- Part III Lived Experiences
- Index
Summary
I cannot use my Paternal Authority to better purpose, then in adjuring you and straightly charging and requiring you, to be constant and zealous in the Religion now left established in this Kingdome.
ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 1ST MARQUESS of Argyll, wrote these words to his children as he awaited execution for treason in 1661. The position of the powerful Clan Campbell was threatened due to Argyll's political failings during Cromwell's occupation of Scotland, beginning in 1651 and lasting until the 1660 Restoration. His thirty-two-year-old son, Archibald, was the family's hope for sociopolitical salvation. In his advice on how to resurrect the family's legacy, the marquess began with religion, ‘[t]his being your greatest concernment the director of all your actions’. He went on to argue that devoutness, zeal, and piety in the practice of religion were critical in being respected as a man, ‘remember this, that he that is not truly religious, will hardly be esteemed’, and indeed if one is hypocritical in their faith, this will be poorly reflected in ‘your greatness and honour’. For his son to earn his way back into the ranks of noble society and salvage the future of Clan Campbell, the marquess believed that piety would lead the way, offering him the metaphor, ‘like the Diamond out-shines the lustre of all other Jewels. A religious heart and a clear conscience will make you truly conspicuous’. The Marquess of Argyll penned these words just over one hundred years after the Reformation Parliament met and adopted the Scots Confession of Faith. During the intervening years, being a strong, powerful, and successful man became inextricably linked to being a devout reformed Christian.
As this collection attests, Scottish masculinity has meant many different things in different contexts, and it has been a powerful force in shaping the culture and institutions of the country. Within the early modern context there were a plurality of gender experiences and expectations for men. Scholars of early modern British masculinity have largely focused on how manhood both shaped, and was shaped by, the social, economic, and political order.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nine Centuries of ManManhood and Masculinity in Scottish History, pp. 39 - 57Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017