Second Hand Scots in Habsburg Service, 1618–1648

A specialist scholarly study of the Scottish diaspora within the power networks of the Habsburg world during the Thirty Years’ War era. David Worthington traces the careers, patronage links, and political utility of Scottish expatriates who moved through the major centres of Habsburg authority — notably Madrid, Brussels, and the wider Habsburg patrimonial lands — showing how mobile military and courtly communities shaped policy, warfare, and diplomacy.

Structured for serious research use, the volume includes supporting reference material (chronology, abbreviations, glossaries) and a detailed narrative split across the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg spheres. This is an excellent acquisition for historians of early modern Europe, the Thirty Years’ War, and Scottish communities abroad, and a particularly strong fit for readers interested in military entrepreneurship, dynastic politics, and transnational service networks in the seventeenth century.