Scotland's Turmoil

In the centuries which are the focus of this book, Scotland was going though a period of profound and often violent change. With the Americas having been recently discovered in 1492, awareness of other continents' cultures and natural wonders was fast increasing- though both cultures and wonders were often mistreated by colonialists and traders. At the same time, the recently invented printing press allowed 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 and seditious texts challenged the most powerful institutions which had ruled Europe during the preceding centuries - not least among them, the Catholic Church - and the feudal form of social control, under which a small class of hereditary aristocrats had ruled over the poor and powerless masses, was being called into question. Politics and religion, especially forms of worship, were closely intertwined in a way that is hard to fully grasp today and in each was to be found the cause for civil strife and appalling violence. As in other countries, Scotland became gripped by the Protestant Reformation and saw new social groups with new worldviews rise into the ranks of the powerful. This involved not just a clash of ideas and of values, but also frequent episodes of prolonged war and often irreconcilable division.