Researchers have published historic Scottish government records online for the first time after a four-year long project.
Historians from the University of Stirling and the University of Dundee collaborated on the Scottish Privy Council Project, undertaking the major task of transcribing and editing surviving records of the Scottish Privy Council between 1692 and 1708 and publishing them on a new website.
The online database introduces for the first time, in easily accessible form, a record of the Scottish government from the late 17th Century to early 18th century, making it readily available to researchers, scholars and the general public.
Dr Alastair Mann, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Stirling and Principal Investigator for the project, said: “The Scottish Privy Council was one of the most important institutional branches of Scottish government in the early modern period, focusing on the period from the Revolution of 1689 to the Union of 1707.
READ MORE:
Thousands of mugshots of inmates at Barlinnie in Victorian times released
New online records reveal fate of vanished Flannan lighthouse crew and more
“This record is the nearest we have to ‘cabinet papers’ of the time and provides key insights into executive government during a dynamic period of revolution, Jacobitism, famine, economic struggle and parliamentary Union with England.”
Launched in 2020, the Scottish Privy Council Project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Researchers, with the help of PhD students, studied, edited and translated more than three million words contained in the historic records.
Dr Alan MacDonald, Senior Lecturer at the University of Dundee, said: “Privy Council records were edited and published in a series of printed volumes – nearly 50 in total – covering the period 1545 to 1691. Given the importance of the Privy Council in early modern Scotland, these volumes quickly became central to Scottish historical scholarship, sustaining countless books, articles, and doctoral theses with the breadth and richness of material they contained.
“However, the withdrawal of public funding in the 1970s meant that the final tranche of Privy Council records, covering the years up to the Council’s abolition in 1708, has always remained unpublished.
“While most of the Privy Council’s registers were written in something very close to the English of the period, they presented some linguistic difficulties, especially around the use of specifically Scots terms, chaotic punctuation, and a wholly unstandardised approach to spelling”.
Dr Mann added “It is our hope that this website and its records are a foundation for research into government and policy in a dramatic period of flux and transition in the economic, political and social life of the people of Scotland.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here