The ‘Scottish Moment’, 1638–45

In the spring of 1644, Hugh Mowatt, a Swede of Scottish extraction, was despatched as the Swedish kingdom’s senior envoy to both Scotland and England. Like most diplomats from Scandinavia since the Bishops’ Wars between England and Scotland of 1639–40, Mowatt chose to visit Scotland initially before moving south to England. This was not simply a demonstration of solidarity with his compatriots. It was also a clear recognition that the Covenanting movement had a position of leadership in shaping the political agenda throughout England and Ireland — and Scotland as well. In seeking to create a defensive and offensive alliance for Sweden against Denmark-Norway, Mowatt was concerned first to obtain Covenanting backing and then, through the auspices of their Scottish Commissioners in London, to secure the assent of both Scotland and England through the Committee of Both Kingdoms — the Anglo-Scottish executive that had been established after the Covenanters had come to the aid of the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War.1 The international importance of Scottish participation on this emphatically British Committee is an understated feature of the historiography of the ‘Wars for the Three Kingdoms’. Yet it was a feature immediately recognized by other diplomats.