Serious Crime in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland

Allan Kennedy is Lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Dundee. Previous books include Governing Gaeldom: The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1660-1688 (Brill, 2014), Serious Crime in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland (EUP, 2025) and Early Modern Scotland: Themes in Focus (Routledge, 2026).

• List of IllustrationsAbbreviations and ConventionsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Crime in Early Modern ScotlandPart I. Crime in Context1. Conceptualising Crime2. The Matrix of Control3. Patterns of Prosecution and PunishmentPart II. The Experience of Crime4. Becoming Criminal5. Performing Crime6. Responses and ConsequencesConclusion: The Meaning of Crime in Late-Seventeenth Century ScotlandBibliographyIndex

This books offers the first substantial intervention in the history of crime in seventeenth-century Scotland. It provides an important account of how Scots conceptualised, prosecuted, and punished criminal behaviour. It is a must read for historians of Scottish social, economic and criminal life.