Roslin Kerr

This project provides the first integrated study of early modern Scottish thinking on public consent and its relation to the sovereignty of the people. The myth of a Scottish constitutional tradition based on the will of the people persists in political discourse, distorting informed public engagement. A new history of popular consent in Scotland is needed to assess the extent to which the people’s consent was considered necessary for constitutional change. Increased calls for consent arose as Scotland navigated the 1603 regal union, highlighting the need to reassess the role of public engagement in the political transformations of this period. Using the thematic lens of consent and focusing on specific episodes or case studies of constitutional moments of crisis, I hope to shed light on how ideas of popular sovereignty were utilised and how they changed over the course of the long seventeenth century.