James’s Religious Experiment

This chapter analyses responses to James VII’s Scottish indulgences of 1687, which granted freedom of worship to the great majority of the population. The king’s initiative was a radical break from earlier royal policies – pursued with vigour until the mid-1680s – which used penal laws to enforce religious uniformity. The chapter begins by summarising the previous policy of uniformity, and the terms of the indulgences. Its main focus is then on the responses of the religious groups that gained freedom – Catholics, Quakers and mainstream presbyterians – as well as the attitudes towards the indulgences of the Cameronians, a small group of presbyterian extremists excluded from toleration.