Before Robertson’s fine book, there has been little published on the nature and trajectory of Irish or Scottish royalism as part of the general crisis of the three kingdoms in the seventeenth century. Perhaps this should be not all that surprising, given that historians (and up until recently Irish and Scottish historiography has largely followed this trend) do tend to be drawn towards revolutionary movements and change, rather than those who seek to support the status quo. In the past, English historiography has been less interested in royalism and royalists, but there has been stronger interest in recent decades by Ronald Hutton, P. R. Newman, and J. L. Malcolm. Since the 1990s, the field has been greatly developed by D. L. Smith, Jason McElligott, David Scott, and Anthony Milton, amongst others, taking in many different aspects of royalism. This is not to say there have been no studies of Irish figures –Jane Ohlmeyer on Antrim, John Cronin and Mark Williams on groups of royalists abroad, Aoife Duignan on Clanrickard, Robert Armstrong on Protestant Ireland, and many authors on Ormond, to name but a few. However, few have concentrated on the nature of royalism in the fashion that Robertson does. A similar lack of attention has been shown to royalists in Scotland, where the covenanting movement has tended to grab the interest of historians more than Scottish royalism.

In a war where many claimed to be fighting for the king, the author uses a reasonable, two-part identifier: the individuals must self-identify as royalist at the time and they must have been accepted as such by other royalists too. So although the motto on the Irish Confederate seal was ‘Pro Deo, Rege, et Patria, Hiberni Unanimes’, the Confederates were generally not accepted as royalists by others and have not been included as a focus for this study. Indeed, Robertson correctly points out that neat categorisation or identification of royalists based on the English model is not always possible or appropriate. There is of course also a fluidity at the time, and those who may not fit the description at one point in the period, may well find themselves fighting for the king at another. The author also takes care to differentiate between royalist and monarchist.

The book breaks down into seven substantial chapters – two specifically on Irish royalism, three specifically on Scottish royalism, and two shared concentrating on the identification of what might be a royalist or monarchist position in both kingdoms, and the sometimes fluid nature of these identities as the wars progress. As stand-alone chapters, they are all strong, but the final chapter describing ‘Scottish and Irish royalism in eclipse’ is the strongest. The title of the book fails to point out that, although the lower orders feature occasionally, this is largely a history of noble royalism. Recent trends in England in pursuit of popular royalism or indeed popular politics generally have not been followed. Not that this is necessarily a problem. Whilst there is an argument to be made that the upper gentry of Scottish and Irish society made a substantial contribution in the wars and should not be ignored, Robertson’s concentration on the aristocracy (mirroring Ohlmeyer’s and Adamson’s) allows a more in-depth study and it does reap dividends. Because of this, certain figures feature quite prominently. In Scotland, James Graham, marquis of Montrose and James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton naturally feature heavily across several chapters and for Ireland Ormond, Antrim, and Clanrickard are very much to the fore.

Whilst Robertson does not err in any considerable manner when discussing the Irish elements of his book and his outlook is quite agreeable, he is clearly not as comfortable as when working on the Scottish chapters. He is mostly reliant on the now established authorities of the last three or four decades and their work largely guides him. Perhaps most pertinent in this regard is that his bibliography does not include any manuscript resources from the island of Ireland, surprisingly so when the author spent a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Dublin and had material that would have been of great interest close to hand.

Nevertheless, for its unique approach to this most important period in Scottish and Irish history, its generally insightful analysis, and lucid prose, this book is a much needed and most welcome addition to the shelves of any historian of early modern Ireland.