Recent scholarship on the Scottish troubles, or ‘Scottish Revolution’ as it is often called, has tended to concentrate on those who became Covenanters, with only sidelong glances at the king whose ways of government they challenged. This book differs in making its sidelong glances from the opposite perspective and attempting to explore Charles I's response to the troubles. Given the sequence of troubles met by Charles in three kingdoms, it is clearly desirable to be alert to a British story, which at the same time is a daunting prospect. Although the great narrative historian S. R. Gardiner attempted as much and was followed by C. V. Wedgwood, time and space in my first researches necessarily limited what was to be said concerning England and Ireland. In expectation now of the Earl Russell's major study of the 1637–42 period, it has seemed prudent to confine remarks on English and Irish history still to a minimum. Nevertheless the importance of Charles's handling of the Scottish troubles extended far beyond Scotland, and any assessment of the high politics of the reign must seriously engage with this fact.

In itself the narrative here provides a particularly well-documented account of Charles and his counsel, a subject which partly on account of Charles's liking for privacy historians have little dealt with beyond passing remarks. Professor Hibbard's account of the reality of the popish plot which animated so many contemporaries has informed us of the extent to which Catholics and Catholic sympathisers surrounded the king and sought to influence him.