Love and friendship between lower order Scottish men: Or what the history of emotions has brought to early modern gender history

Abstract

In 1700, Andrew and William Monroe and Hugh Gordon were prosecuted for the murder of Alexander McKenzie near to Alness in Scotland. The motive given by the court was a family argument over property-William was married to McKenzie’s daughter. The course of evidence highlighted a series of disputes that led to physical fights between the various parties: McKenzie’s friend, John Ross, had called Andrew a ‘Bugar and sone of a whore’ to which Andrew, an ensign in Colonel Row’s regiment, ‘in honour … was obliged to resent’, and so to fight. Their friends separated them and they were ‘made to drink friends together’. When riding away, John Ross did ‘drink to him’ and ‘imbraceing and kissing him said that all that fell out should never discord him and the said Andrew’.2 The peace did not last however and McKenzie was killed in a subsequent brawl.