READING HISTORY

The Stenton Lecture

News and thoughts on the topic of this year’s lecture

  • Great Britain and Britishness

    By Oliver Finnegan In popular memory, the UK was born in 1707, with both England and Scotland passing their respective Acts of Union creating Great Britain. Union is seen as the recognition of shared nationality by two previously separate peoples… Continue reading

  • 1707 and all that

    By Esther Mijers As a Scottish historian working on the seventeenth-century politician William Carstares, who took part in the Union debates of the early 1700s and who was a staunch proponent, I am probably more attuned to the current debates… Continue reading

  • The Military Mapping of Scotland in the Period of the Jacobite Rebellions

    By Alastair Noble ‘I am going in the dark; for Marechal Wade won’t let me have his map!’ (Quoted in Tabraham, 2007, 25). These words, reported to have been uttered by General Hawley, Commander of Chief of Scotland in 1745, evoke… Continue reading

  • Securing the succession in England

    by Janet Dickenson In the aftermath of the fall of the Earl of Essex in February 1601, James VI of Scotland was left without a clear route to the English throne. He was profoundly distrustful of Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I’s… Continue reading

  • The Origins of the Stenton Lecture

    The Stenton Lecture, an annual lecture by an eminent historian, is hosted by the Department every year in late November. It is a prestigious event and the highlight in the Department’s calendar. But who were the Stentons, and why is this… Continue reading

    The Origins of the Stenton Lecture