Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from Reformation to Revolution.

By KEITH M. BROWN (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U.P., 2000; pp. 369. 50 [pounds sterling]).

NOBLE Society in Scotland sets out to challenge the traditional view of the early modern Scottish nobility as violent, backward and reactionary: an unflattering image to which the author acknowledges his earlier work contributed. Together with a forthcoming volume about noble power and its relations with monarchy and the state, it aims to redress the balance `a little' and present a completely rounded view of a self-conscious Renaissance nobility. Over twenty years in gestation and based on an impressive range of sources, this book traces the experiences of the Scottish nobility from the cradle to the grave -- and beyond. In so doing it presents a picture of a self-confident caste that was far more comfortable in the wider European context than its more conservative English counterpart. This bears out Jenny Wormald's …