Loyalty, as the late Judith Shklar noted, is a “deeply affective and not primarily rational” value. (“Obligation, Loyalty and Exile,” in Political Thought and Political Thinkers, ed. S. Hoffman [1998], 38–55, at 41). Edited by Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan, Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400 –1688, addresses the emotional, physical, and material aspects of loyalty and its legal context. Ranging widely in time and space, from late medieval England to late seventeenth-century Virginia, the contributions to this volume demonstrate that the concept of loyalty was highly contested in this period and often used to discriminate and exclude.

The volume begins with Emma Levitt's examination of how Edward IV used the tiltyard to forge bonds of loyalty with the Yorkist elite. Levitt demonstrates how this enabled this usurper king to make use of his personal attributes, his impressive stature and handsome appearance, as an effective substitute for a strong lineal claim to the throne. Levitt reveals the way that Edward used the masculine space of the tournament to forge effective homo-social bonds with England's political elite. Callum Watson's analysis of Blind Harry's “The Wallace” raises interesting parallels with other poetic forms such as panegyric in which expressions of loyalty are combined with advice to princes. In the case of “The Wallace,” the Bruce of the poem is a character who initially falls short of the requirements of good kingship but then redeems himself, providing, Watson suggests, a potential proxy for James III. Valerie Shutte closes this section with an exploration of book dedications to Henry VIII as vehicles for different forms of loyalty. In the first two decades of the king's reign, dedications were mainly expressions of personal loyalty to the king in hope of patronage. From the 1530s onward, two new forms of loyalty emerged: loyalty to the crown and confessional loyalty. Shutte notes that expressions of loyalty in relation to the church could also be used to urge further reform, indicating that expressions of loyalty could be used to lobby or influence authority, a theme returned by other contributors.

Michael A. Heimos's contribution, which opens the section on loyalty in the late Tudor and early Stuart periods, gives an overview of loyalty and the common law across the period covered by the volume. While focused on legal test cases such as Calvin's Case (1608), Heimos stresses the importance of contexts outside English common law, notably the importance of natural law and Biblical injunctions. It was, Francis Bacon said, well known that, although loyalty to the prince was established in law, it was “the work of the law of nature” (141). Janet Dickinson focuses directly on the emotional aspects of loyalty, examining the importance of ideas of personal and familial service and courtly love in expressions of loyalty to Elizabeth I. Dickinson stress the important role that the language of courtly love played in forging loyal bonds, especially during the last decade of Elizabeth's reign. The queen herself was even willing to play along at times with these approaches (styling herself “Mistress kitchenmaid” in correspondence with Lord Mountjoy [160]). This language was so pervasive as not to be confined to favorites like Mountjoy but also extended to those such as William Cecil who had earned their position primarily through their administrative capabilities. Jamie Giantousos offers a valuable examination of the complexities of the key biblical injunction to obedience, Romans 13. The verse was a commonplace of homilies on the subject, but it was problematic in that Paul's direction to obey the powers that be had been made under the rule of a tyrant, Nero. For John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prynne, the classical example provided support for a theory of resistance that protested loyalty to the monarch but preached resistance to his devilish ministers. Yet Giantousos argues that the use of this classical allusion extended to criticism of the king even before the outbreak of the civil war. Prynne's Histriomastix (1632) focused on Nero's frivolous and immoral life that had led the Romans to ultimately rebel and overthrow him: a clear suggestion, therefore, that Charles's actions might also lead to disorder and perhaps even the king's own deposition.

The final section begins with an essay by Andrew Lind, which approaches the question of Scottish Royalist loyalty through addressing the neglected Royalist counterparts of the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant, from the “King's Covenant” to the Engagement of 1647. Lind notes that these bonds emphasized the importance of honor and duty in dictating that subjects should fight for the king, demonstrating that loyalty for Scottish Royalists was certainly an emotive issue Edward Legon returns to the theme of disloyalty, convincingly arguing that the coronation of Charles II represented an “inflection point” (247) in the alienation of a large number of the king's subject from his regime. The coronation triggered anxieties about the rolling back of indemnity and concerns about public immorality among those previously supportive of the Restoration. The collection concludes with James Harris's discussion of loyalty in Restoration Cornwall and South-West Wales. Harris demonstrates how through loyal addresses local Tories manufactured a regionally defined loyalty to the Crown, grounded in the recent history of the Southwest and its support for the Royalist cause during the civil war. The Tories’ loyalty to the Stuart monarchy was not unconditional, however, and their religious conservatism ensured that James's appeals for support for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act fell on stony ground.

Collectively, the contributors have made a significant contribution to understanding of loyalty in the early modern period. In drawing our attention to loyalty's potential to divide as much as unite, they bear historical witness to Shklar's observation that one “thing ties all these notions [of loyalty] together: They all invite conflict; trouble is their middle name” (43).