Aristocracy, anglicization and the court, 1603-38

This article seeks to analyse the extent to which the Scottish aristocracy was anglicized in the years between the union of the crowns and the national covenant. The question is one which has a bearing upon the origins of the Scottish revolution in 1637–8, and on the wider issues of elite integration in multi-state monarchies in the early modem period. Topics discussed are aristocratic education, exposure to a new court culture, office holding in England, the effects on income and expenditure of English patronage and lifestyles, changes in the honours system, and new patterns in births, marriages and deaths. The conclusions are firstly that the Scottish presence at court was such that it does not make sense to talk of an English court after 1603. Secondly, there was very little anglidzation of the Scottish aristocracy outside a handful of court families, and even these retained a strong sense of national consciousness.