This volume aims to fill a historical gap in the recent coverage of musical life in Scotland. The seventeenth century in Scotland, as in Europe, was one of religious controversy and civil strife. The period has thus been neglected by music historians in comparison with the centuries before and after it. But despite loss of royal patronage after 1603 Scots still made their impact as composers and preservers of their musical language. It was in this century that a distinctive Scots melodic idiom crystallised