James Henrisoun (died before 1570) was a Scottish merchant of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and writer in favour of Anglo-Scottish union.

Life

Successful in business, Henrisoun traded with

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, and encountered the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

there. A Protestant convert in Catholic Scotland, he went to the

Earl of Hertford Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...

during the 1544 English campaign in Scotland, the

Burning of Edinburgh The Burning of Edinburgh in 1544 by an English sea-borne army was the first major action of the war of the Rough Wooing. A Scottish army observed the landing on 3 May 1544 but did not engage with the English force. The Provost of Edinburgh wa ...

. He was taken back to London, and placed on a government pension.

Works

From 1547, by which time the young

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...

was on the English throne and Hertford had become Protector Somerset, Henrisoun produced pro-union pamphlets. His major work was ''An exhortacion to the Scottes to conforme them selfes to the honorable, expedient, and godly union betwene the twoo realmes of Englande and Scotlande'' (1547).

Views

Henrisoun used the term "

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

", which may have been a neologism for the

Scots language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly ...

. His ''Godly and Golden Booke'' (1548) argued strongly that England and Scotland should become a single Protestant nation. He wished to abandon the terms "Scots" and "Englishmen", appealing to an underlying ethnicity of blood that was largely British. In dealing with the

myth of origins An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have stor ...

of the Scots, Henrisoun attacked

Hector Boece Hector Boece (; also spelled Boyce or Boise; 1465–1536), known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and the first Principal of King's College in Aberdeen, a predecessor of the University of Abe ...

, and his credulity in the matter of the Gathelus myth. He managed the dating of the arrival of

Gaels The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic langu ...

in what is now Scotland with fair accuracy. At this period the mythological setting was significant.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henrisoun, James Scottish merchants 16th-century Scottish writers 16th-century male writers