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During the era of the American Civil War, James McMaster (1820–1886), the editor of the New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, advanced the view that the Lincoln administration was a "Puritan" military dictatorship, seeking to impose "Yankee" (New England) policies at the expense of Southerners, Catholics, and the U.S. Constitution. McMaster saw Puritan repression in direct attacks on Catholic freedoms such as the silencing of bishops, the conscription of Catholics to fight a perceived unjust war, and the suppression of Catholic political dissenters. McMaster's criticism of the North, which was initially mixed with criticism of the Confederacy, was at first moderate (by the standards of the time). As the war progressed, though, McMaster's attitude grew more radical as he developed Confederate sympathies, fervent racism, and sympathy with mob violence. Causes of this radicalization include McMaster's pre-war experience with Know-Nothings and other enemies of Catholicism, the death of his Unionist political hero Stephen Douglas, his family background amid sectarian Protestant quarrels, and most significantly, McMaster's friendship with Confederate fellow-prisoners during his imprisonment by the Lincoln administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the Prayer Book rebellion, Charles I decided to march against Scotland with an English army mainly composed of county levies. As the county militias rested only on the royal prerogative, conscripted soldiers of their trained bands were permitted to provide substitutes. An unexplored bundle of military papers in the Bodleian Library documents the circumstances of the recruitment during the First Scots' War for a part of Lincolnshire. The deputy lieutenants' investigation into the recruitment shows a variety of ways in which conscripts effected their exemption from military service. They are evidence that the vast majority of soldiers declined to join the expeditionary force and paid significant bribes to the recruiting officers to avoid conscription. This suggests that the substantial men who normally served in the trained bands of their county dodged war service at all costs, and casts doubt on the popularity of Charles I's decision in Lincolnshire - and possibly the entire country - to go to war. It also raises the question whether men who complained about the financial burden of Ship Money, but were willing to spend a fortune to be exempted from being drafted, objected to this levy on political and not financial grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the letter written by poet James Hogg to landowner colonel Hay of Drumelzier in Scotland on July 12, 1828, which has been acquired by the University of Stirling Library in Stirling, Scotland . Topics include Hogg asking permission to shoot over his land during the autumn sporting season, his interest in the muniments of his family for information about covenanters, and the letter suggesting that Hogg's knowledge of traditional lore was supported by antiquarian pursuits.