Abstract
dc:description.abstractThis dissertation explores the interaction between religious coexistence and Scottish military experience from 1690 to 1763, using the British army as a microcosm to assess whether the eighteenth century was an ‘Age of Reason’ or an ‘Age of Faiths’. Addressing a historiographical gap, it explores how religious dynamics within the army and civil-military relations shaped the experiences of Scottish military men and contributed to broader politico-religious changes across Britain, Europe, and the trans-Atlantic world. Chapter One re-evaluates national narratives, challenging the notion that anti-Catholic warfare fostered Protestant unity in Britain. Instead, it reveals how religious rhetoric surrounding war deepened divisions within Scottish Presbyterianism, particularly between the Moderate and Popular Parties in the Church of Scotland. Chapter Two investigates the shifting relationship between the Kirk and the army, tracing a marked decline in the Kirk’s authority over army chaplaincy and discipline after the Toleration and Patronage Acts (1712). Despite this reduced influence, the Kirk adapted by collaborating with military authorities, particularly under the Moderate Party, to continue providing religious services for soldiers. Chapter Three reverses this lens to examine the army’s role in enforcing religious policy and policing Dissent. By uncovering the military responses to perceived Catholic threats in the Highlands and Presbyterian-driven riots in the Lowlands, it argues that the army became an instrument for promoting tolerance rather than enforcing conformity in Scottish localities. Chapters Four and Five turn to the individual experiences of Scottish military men. Chapter Four focuses on officers, many of whom embraced Moderate Enlightenment ideals, including inter-confessional civility, while Chapter Five highlights the rise of Evangelicalism among rank-and-file soldiers, who resisted more Moderate interpretations of Christianity within the army and wider society. These chapters demonstrate how religious pluralism permeated the army, shaping military men’s diverse identities, motivations, and actions. The dissertation concludes that eighteenth-century Scottish soldiers operated in a pluralistic military environment that both reflected and catalysed wider politico-religious transformations. Rather than embodying an ‘Age of Reason’, their experiences reveal that religious diversity and conflict continued to shape military and societal developments during this period.
Degree
thesis:*- Name dc:type.qualificationname
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
- Doctoral
- Grantor dc:publisher.institution
- University of Cambridge
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2024
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Wei, Xiang
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Thompson, Andrew
Subjects
dc:subject × 6Rights
dc:rightsIdentifiers
dc:identifier.*- DOI dc:identifier.doi
- https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117696
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/383180