Challenging traditional assumptions of general late-medieval decline, Alexander Grant demonstrates how the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a crucially important period of change and growth for Scotland. Under Robert Bruce and his successors, Scotland maintained its independence from England and developed its sense of nationhood, with a profound effect upon domestic and foreign affairs. Dr Grant argues that this led to the evolution of a distinctive Scottish government, nobility, Church and economy, and puts Scottish history into the international context of the Hundred Years War, the plague and pre-Reformation Christianity.
Part 1 Wars of Independence: Bruce, Balliol and England; "Auld Inemie" and "Auld Alliance". Part 2 The People of Scotland: economy and society; church and religion; the nobility. Part 3 Government and politics: the machinery of government; kings and magnates; Highlands and Lowlands.