'We speak for the ready': images of Scots in political prints, 1707-1832

The role played by anti-Scottishness in English political culture has been briefly explored by historians, who have focused overwhelmingly on the hostile response to the earl of Bute in the 1760s. This article puts that episode into a longer perspective by looking at the ways in which political prints represented Scots across the long eighteenth century. By examining the antecedents of the Bute episode and the subsequent history of a politicised anti-Scottishness it aims, first, to suggest how political prints can be used to explore the interaction between politics and both popular and elite culture and, secondly, to demonstrate that foregrounding the issue of anti-Scottishness in English political culture can help to nuance our understanding of English and British patriotisms in the long eighteenth century.