Excerpt from The History of Scotland The religious element in Scottish History, from the Reformation to the Revolution, is well-nigh everything. It is hard to understand how any man not sympathizing with the religion of Scotland could write her history fairly. But some of our ablest historians have altogether lacked that sympathy; and the consequence is that their descriptions of' our religious struggles cannot be read without indignation. Scotland, to borrow the language of Defoe, has been represented to the world in so many monstrous shapes, and dressed up in so many devils' coats and fools' coats, that her own sons do not know their mother. There is a foolish, sentimental generation, whose only ideas of Scottish History are taken from novels, songs, and ballads. It is impossible to speak the truth about that bloody House which fell at the Revolution, and its minions, without giving offence to such persons. It is equally impossible to speak the truth about the great contendings of our glorious forefathers for their religious freedom, without offending the enemies of our Scottish Presbyterianism. The writer merely begs leave to repeat an anecdote of the greatest of Scottish historians, given by James Melville in his Diaryz - That September, in time of vacance, my uncle Mr. Andrew, Mr. Thomas Buchanan, and I, hearing that Mm George Buchanan was weak, and his History under the press, passed over to Edinburgh to visit him and see the work. We went from him to the printer's work-house, whom we found at the end of the seventeenth book of his Chronicle, at a place which we thought very hard for the time, which might be an occasion of staying the whole work - anent the burial of Davie. Therefore, staying the printer from proceeding, we came to Mr. George. Mr. Thomas, his cousin, shows him of the hardness of that part of his story, that the King would be offended with it, and it might stay all the work. 'tell me, man, ' says he, 'if I have told the truth 'yes, ' says Mr. Thomas, 'sir, I think so.' 'i will hide his feud and all his kin's, then. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.