In the centuries which are thefocus of this book, Scotland was going though a period of profound and oftenviolent change.With the Americas having been recentlydiscovered in 1492, awareness of other continents’ cultures and natural wonderswas fast increasing– though both cultures and wonders were often mistreated bycolonialists and traders. At the same time, the recently invented printing pressallowed ideas and information to spread more quickly over long distances,thereby adding to the atmosphere of national upheaval and disorder.In the sphere of politics, influential andseditious texts challenged the most powerful institutions which had ruledEurope during the preceding centuries – not least among them, the CatholicChurch – and the feudal form of social control, under which a small class ofhereditary aristocrats had ruled over the poor and powerless masses, was beingcalled into question. Politics and religion,especially forms of worship, were closely intertwined in a way that is hard tofully grasp today and in each was to be found the cause for civil strife andappalling violence. As in other countries, Scotland becamegripped by the Protestant Reformation and saw new social groups with newworldviews rise into the ranks of the powerful. This involved not just a clashof ideas and of values, but also frequent episodes of prolonged war and oftenirreconcilable division.
