Scottish Political Thought in the 16th and 17th Сenturies: Discourse of Royal Authority and Relations with England

The article is devoted to the analysis of perceptions of royal power and relationships between England and Scotland in Scottish political theology of the 16th-17th centuries. This insular philosophical trend represented within the framework of this study by the works of J. Ireland, J. Major, J. Buchanan and S. Rutherford grew out of Medieval historical writing, mainly from the works by John Duns Scotus, John of Fordun and Walter Bower. However, later theologians were influenced to some extent by the ideals of European humanism, with the result that the concept of strong inherited central authority articulated in the Middle Ages by John of Fordun and Walter Bower began to erode in favor of ideas about the responsibility of the monarch to his subjects, the limitation of his power by law, and the right of the people to overthrow a tyrant. At the same time, traits of an honorable king, which were of a Christian origin, remained virtually unchanged, which allows us to trace a certain continuity between the ideas of medieval chroniclers and theologians of the Modern Era. In the 16th and the 17th centuries the opinion of thinkers on how relationships between Scotland and England should look like changed considerably more: instead of cautious hostility and distrust, the perception of the benefits of the political union gradually became more influent.