Scottish Mercenaries in the Thirty Years War: Identities, Professionalism and Attitudes towards Paid Military Service on the Base of Memories of Robert Monro and James Turner

Scottish mercenaries were an important part of Thirty Years’ War. This group had their specific features which stand out them from another paid men community. The main aim of the study is analysis and comparison of the motives for their participation in the war, demonstration of mercenary identities (professional, national, confessional) based on memoirs of two mercenaries Robert Monro and James Turner. The hypothesis is that both of them in the process of creation their memories guided by their professional experience more than personal motives. Scottish mercenary traditions and participation and the role of Scots in the the Thirty Years' War should be analyzed. The relevance of this study is in characterization of Scottish mercenary, his motives for participation in military service and his identities as Scot, as professional, as Protestant will be shown in the process of comparative analysis of two person’s memoirs. In the process of research there were defined main motives which stimulated a huge amount of Scots participate in Thirty Year’s War. Such motives as religion, militarization of Scottish society and possibility to improve their financial position were dominant for mercenaries. Also most part of them understood their activity in religion (protestant) context. Such perception show one of the mercenary identities – professional identity and specific attitude to their labor. Among the other identities most important were ethnical and confessional ones. Ethnical identity provides the idea of high degree of loyalty to the Scots and their brigades. Confessional identity demonstrates an important role and ubiquitous penetration of religion in mercenary life. Religion had a high impact to mercenaries ideology which was also reflected in memoirs of Robert Monroe and James Turner.