ABSTRACT
Political geographers have long recognised the complicated power relationships behind the projection of authority in contested spaces, especially within disputed territories where 'countless processes of domination and resistance which are always implicated in, and mutually constitutive of, one another'. The military occupation of Glasgow by the forces of Oliver Cromwell between 1650 and 1653 provides an insight into the complexities of transitional power within a local context and the variety of competing representations of authority from new and established groups, individuals and institutions, which were determined by a combination of long held traditions and beliefs, changing circumstances, practical actions and a respect for local governance in the face of outside or 'alien' pressures. The incorporation of the City of Glasgow with its interconnected Convenanting networks into the political structures of the English Republic was a highly complicated affair which was left incomplete by competing representations of authority.
