Cosmo Innes and the Sources of Scottish History C
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Marsden, Richard (2011) Cosmo Innes and the sources of Scottish History c. 1825-1875. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2747/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] 1 CCOOSSMMOO IINNNNEESS AANNDD TTHHEE SSOOUURRCCEESS OOFF SSCCOOTTTTIISSHH HHIISSTTOORRYY CC.. 11882255--11887755 A PhD thesis by Richard Marsden, BA (Hons), MA, FCIEA, FHEA For the Department of History (Scottish), University of Glasgow @ Richard Marsden 2011 2 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Abbreviations 5 1. Recent Scholarship 10 2. Innes and his Milieu 28 3. Antiquarianism, Old and New 48 4. The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland 65 5. Burgh Sources 96 6. Ecclesiastical Manuscripts 117 7. University Records 163 8. Family History 185 9. The National Manuscripts of Scotland 207 10. Images of the Past 230 11. Conclusion 265 Appendix 1: Innes‘s Source Editions 280 Appendix 2: Innes‘s Illustrations, Photographs and Facsimiles 282 Appendix 3: Innes‘s Contributions to the Periodical Press 297 Appendix 4: The Readership of Innes‘s Editions 303 Bibliography of Cosmo Innes 307 General Bibliography 312 3 Abstract This thesis examines how primary sources were used to build conceptualisations of the Scottish past during the nineteenth century. To achieve this it focuses on the work of the record scholar and legal antiquary Cosmo Innes (1798-1874). Innes was a prolific editor of source material relating to parliament, the burghs, the medieval church, family history and the universities. He was also an authority on Scotland‘s legal history, an architectural antiquary, a practising lawyer, a university professor and one of Scotland‘s earliest photographers. Through an investigation of these activities, this thesis explores the ways in which Scots perceived their own history during the period of what Marinell Ash calls the ‗strange death of Scottish history‘. What differentiates this study from previous investigations is its emphasis on the presentation and associated interpretation of primary sources, as opposed to institutional frameworks or secondary narratives. Innes put particular types of source to specific uses in an attempt to rehabilitate the tarnished reputation of Scottish history. However, he was not a radical operating on the intellectual fringes, but a respected mainstream figure who worked within the traditions of Enlightenment and the boundaries of Romanticism. He relied upon an institutional interpretation of history which placed abbeys, bishoprics, burghs, universities, families and the apparatus of law and government within broader narratives of national progress. Yet he also used both documentary and architectural sources as the basis for an imagistic and imaginative evocation of the textures of the past. Whilst Innes‘s work illustrates how conflicted Scottish historiography was in the period, it also shows how a prominent antiquary sought to heal those historiographical wounds. The thesis will demonstrate that many of his attempts met ultimately with failure, particularly those which tried to imbue the Scottish past with an ideological validity derived from Whiggism and Enlightenment. However, it will also argue that Scottish historical Romanticism, to which Innes was an important contributor, provided the basis for a broad consensus about the value of Scottish history in the later decades of the century. The significance of this romantic consensus has been neglected by recent scholarship, and the study therefore sheds new light on the ‗strange death‘ that occurred in the 1840s and 1850s. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my PhD supervisors, Colin Kidd and Dauvit Broun, for their support and also of their understanding of the challenges inherent to a part-time, distance-supervised PhD undertaken by a partially-sighted student. Thanks also to Bill Aird for putting me on the track during my undergraduate and Master‘s degrees at Cardiff University. I would also like to thank Glasgow University‘s Department of History and Faculty of Arts, plus the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland, for supporting me with grants for various research and conference trips. Similarly, thanks are due to the Vale of Glamorgan Local Education Authority for their support of my studies through the Disabled Student Allowance. Thanks also to Cardiff University, the Open University and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff for giving me the opportunity to apply my research through teaching. In addition, I am grateful to the trustees of the National Library of Scotland for permission to reproduce some of Cosmo Innes‘s photographs. In the course of researching this thesis I have used both published and unpublished material from Glasgow University Library, Edinburgh University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland, the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, the libraries of Aberdeen University, Elgin Museum Archives, Dundee City Archives, the British Library in London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Cardiff University Library, Swansea University Library and Bristol University Library. The staff at all of these libraries and archives have been extremely helpful. On a personal note, thank you to Dr Dave Wyatt, Chris Dennis, Adrian Gill, Gideon Brough, Dr Ben Earl, Dr Rob Jones, Jan Huyton and Alex Phillips for encouraging me through the PhD process, and to my parents for supporting my interest in history from a young age. Finally, thank you to my wonderful and long-suffering wife Joy for putting up with me and my research for so very long. 5 Abbreviations Aberdeen Fasti Fasti Aberdonenses. Selections from the Records of the University and King’s College of Aberdeen, 1494-1854 [Spalding Club 26], ed. C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1854) Aberdeen Registrum Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis: Ecclesie Cathedralis Aberdonensis Regesta que Extant in Unum Collecta [Spalding Club 13 & 14 & Maitland Club 63], ed. C. Innes, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1845) Ancient Burgh Laws Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland I; 1124- 1424 [Scottish Burgh Records Society 1], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1868) APS Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland 1124-1707, ed. T. Thomson & C. Innes, 13 vols. (Edinburgh, 1814-1875) Arbroath Liber Liber S. Thome de Aberbrothoc: Registrum Abbacie de Aberbrothoc; [Bannatyne Club 86], ed. C. Innes & P. Chalmers, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1848-1856) Ash, Strange Death M. Ash, The Strange Death of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1980) Barbour, Brus J. Barbour, The Brus by John Barbour, from a Collation of the Cambridge and Edinburgh Manuscripts [Spalding Club 28], ed. C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1856) BQR British Quarterly Review Brechin Registrum Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis: cui Accedunt Cartae Quamplurimae Originales [Bannatyne Club 102], ed. P. Chalmers, J. Chalmers & C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1856) Burton, Memoir K. Burton, Memoir of Cosmo Innes (Edinburgh, 1874) Caithness Records Two Ancient Records of the Bishopric of Caithness; from the Charterroom at Dunrobin [Bannatyne Club], ed. C. Innes, (Edinburgh, 1848) Cawdor Book The Book of the Thanes of Cawdor: a Series of Papers Selected from the Charter Room at Cawdor, 1236-1742 [Spalding Club 30], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1859) Dunfermline Registrum Registrum de Dunfermelyn: liber Cartarum Abbatie Benedictine S.S. Trinitatis et B. Margarete Regine de Dunfermelyn [Bannatyne Club 74], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1842) 6 ECC Edinburgh Calotype Club ECCA Edinburgh Calotype Club Album, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, c. 1848) Familie of Innes D. Forbes, An Account of the Familie of Innes, Compiled by Duncan Forbes of Culloden, 1698 [Spalding Club 34], C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1864) Family of Rose H. Rose, A Genealogical Deduction of the Family of Rose of Kilravock [Spalding Club 18], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1848) Fry, ‗Whig Interpretation‘ M. Fry, ‗The Whig interpretation of Scottish history‘, The Manufacture of Scottish History, ed. I. Donnachie & C. Whatley (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 72-89. Glasgow Registrum Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis: Munimenta Ecclesie Metropolitane Glasguensis a Sede Restaurata Seculo Ineunte XII ad Reformatam Religionem [Bannatyne Club 75 & Maitland Club 61], ed. C. Innes, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1843) Glasgow University Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis. Records of the Muniments University of Glasgow from its foundation till 1727 [Maitland Club 72], ed. C. Innes, 4 vols. (Glasgow, 1854) Gordon, Descriptio J. Gordon, Aberdoniae Utriusque Descriptio. A Description of Both Touns of Aberdeen [Spalding Club 5], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1842) Halyburton’s Ledger Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, Conservator of the Privileges of the Scotch Nation in the Netherlands, 1492-1503, together with the Book of Customs and Valuation of Merchandises in Scotland, 1612, ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1867) Holyrood Liber Liber Cartarum Sancte Crucis: Munimenta Ecclesie Sancte Crucis de Edwinesbur; [Bannatyne Club 70], ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh, 1840) Inchaffray Liber Liber Insule Missarum: Abbacie Canonicorum Regularium